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McConnell announces he won’t seek reelection

WASHINGTON (NYT) — Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and longest-serving Senate leader who played a pivotal role in obstructing major Democratic agenda items and stacking the federal courts with conservatives, said Thursday that he would not seek another term in 2026.

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In a speech on the Senate floor that fell on his 83rd birthday, McConnell made official what had been widely expected since he announced last year that he would step down as Republican leader.

McConnell established himself as a master tactician in the Senate during 18 years as minority and majority leader, making shrewd use of the chamber’s rules to thwart his opponents and empower his allies, including President Donald Trump. He blocked former President Barack Obama from filling a Supreme Court seat at the end of his tenure and then led a Republican effort to install deeply conservative jurists on the bench under the first Trump administration, culminating in the confirmation of three Supreme Court justices.

Delta offers $30,000 to passengers of Toronto plane crash

(NYT) — Delta Air Lines said on Wednesday that it was offering $30,000 to each passenger who was aboard the flight from Minneapolis that crashed and flipped upside down this week while trying to land in Toronto.

All 80 people — 76 passengers and four crew members — who were on Delta Flight 4819 survived after the jet made a rough landing and rolled over, ending belly-up with its right wing sheared off at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Monday.

Of the 21 passengers who were taken to hospitals, all but one had been released by Wednesday morning, Delta said. None of the passengers had life-threatening injuries.

US flies Venezuelan migrants from Guantanamo to Honduras

(Reuters) — The U.S. government flew 177 Venezuelan migrants from Guantanamo Bay to Honduras on Thursday, from where they are set to be transferred on to Venezuela, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a post on X.

Earlier on Thursday, the Honduran government said some 170 Venezuelan migrants were set to arrive in the Central American nation from the United States, before being transported “immediately” back to Venezuela.

Lawyers representing at least half a dozen of the deportees said that they learned about the deportations on Thursday afternoon.

Anti-Asian online hate in US saw ‘alarming surge’ after election,

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Anti-Asian online hate in the U.S. has seen an “alarming surge” since the 2024 U.S. elections won by Donald Trump, data released by Stop AAPI Hate showed, citing what the nonprofit group called the U.S. president’s anti-immigration agenda and an intense debate surrounding H-1B visas.

“Since Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, there has been an alarming surge in anti-Asian hate online — including slurs and threats of violence,” the nonprofit group, which documents discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the U.S., said on Thursday.