The last time Nassar al-Hammouni talked to his son, Ayman, it was by telephone and the 12-year-old was overflowing with plans for the coming weekend, and for the rest of his life. He had joined a local football team and planned to register at a karate club that weekend. When he grew up, he told Nassar, he was going to become a doctor, or better still an engineer to help his father in the construction job that took him away from their home in Hebron every week.

None of that – the football, the karate or his imagined future career – will happen now. Last Friday, two days after the call to his father, Ayman was killed, shot by Israeli fire, video footage seen by the Guardian suggests.

The killing of children on the West Bank is no longer out of the ordinary, particularly since the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stepped up operations in the occupied territory after the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023 and the beginning of the Gaza war. The intensity has increased since the January ceasefire in the strip.

So far this year about two children a week have been killed, slightly over the average rate for 2024 when 93 children were killed. Human rights workers fear the numbers may continue to increase as the IDF brings Gaza techniques to the West Bank, ejecting tens of thousands of people from their homes, flattening districts and loosening further the “rules of engagement” covering when a soldier is permitted to open fire.

They are calling it “Gazafication” and it is becoming the new normal. But what sets Ayman al-Hammouni’s case apart is the clarity of the evidence, illustrated by footage from two security cameras, that tells the story of the child’s last moments.

Ayman and his 10-year-old brother, Aysar, had gone with their mother, Anwar, to visit their grandfather and their uncles who lived in another part of Hebron, Jabal Jawhar. The trip across town took an hour in Hebron’s grinding traffic and involved crossing from Palestinian-controlled Hebron to an area run by the IDF, part of the complex patchwork of territorial division imposed on the West Bank.

Jabal Jawhar is not far from the Tomb of the Patriarchs, where Abraham and his biblical family are supposedly buried, a site sacred to Muslims, Jews and Christians. On Friday nights before Jewish settlers come to pray there, the IDF has been conducting aggressive patrols in the surrounding Palestinian districts. The army, increasingly staffed and led by Israelis from the national religious right, is widely perceived on the West Bank to be acting as the armed wing of the settler movement.

At about 6.30pm, Ayman had just run an errand to his grandfather’s flat and returned to his uncle Tariq’s house when there was a commotion on the main road, 60 metres away down a sloping paved alleyway.

A shot was heard and people began to run, and a young man from the neighbourhood whose uncle lived next door drove up the alley in a white car, its windscreen pierced by a bullet. He parked outside Tariq’s house and got out, examining a wound where a fragment of glass had nicked his shoulder.

The scene was recorded by two security cameras, one at the corner of Tariq’s courtyard pointing down the alley, and the other perched outside the top-floor flat of Ayman’s grandfather, Mohammad Bader al-Ajlouni, looking over the cars in front of Tariq’s house and across the alley, at 90 degrees to the other camera angle.

Both sets of footage show Ayman and two of his cousins coming out of Tariq’s house along with another of his uncles, Nadeem al-Ajlouni, who gives the injured man a tissue for the cut in his shoulder. Ayman looks on, a slight figure leaning on the back of the white car, a brown bag slung around his shoulder.

Then there is more commotion from the alleyway and another shot, sending the small knot of people scurrying for cover, including Ayman and his cousins. Ayman runs inside the gate of Tariq’s house and out of view of the cameras, and then another shot rings out from down the alleyway. This was the bullet that is believed to have hit Ayman. The footage does not prove beyond question who fired it, but it does make clear it came from the direction of Israeli soldiers who were advancing on the house and who arrived at the scene seconds later.

In the confusion, it seems to take a few seconds before Ayman is noticed. It was Nadeem, his young uncle, who saw him first. “He was lying on the steps of the house, just inside the gate. I went to pick him up but I could tell he was already gone,” Nadeem said.

Then the cameras show another surge of panic and the silhouettes of three soldiers advancing up the alley, guns pointed, one with a bright torch shining along the barrel. The injured neighbour, Ayman’s cousin, and his little brother Aysar, who by now had come down from his grandfather’s flat, all scramble away between the parked cars. Nadeem runs out of Tariq’s front gate carrying Ayman but drops his jacket and then Ayman in his desperation to get away.

The boy’s body is left lying on the ground between a car and Tariq’s garden wall as the soldiers reach the house. They look around for a few seconds and then spot the body, and at that point they turn around and calmly walk away, the screams of Ayman’s mother at their backs after she stumbles on the body of her son.

Nadeem scoops Ayman’s limp body up once more and he and Tariq head off down the alley in the footsteps of the retreating soldiers, in the direction of a nearby hospital.

It was already too late. The family have yet to receive the medical report but an advocacy group, Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP), drawing on its contacts in the Hebron hospital where Ayman was taken, said the bullet entered his back and lodged in his lungs.

Nassar and Nadeem also said Ayman was shot in the back, while Mohammad, the grandfather, said the wound was to the upper abdomen.

Nassar got the call in Ramallah, where he works in a construction and a security job for the Palestinian Authority. First a relative told him Ayman had been shot, but Nassar demanded the truth and by the time he was on the road he already knew his son was dead.

A friend drove him through the night, navigating the army checkpoints along the way. At one spot north of Bethlehem, known as the “container checkpoint”, Nassar was told to get out of the car with a gun pointed at him.

The bereaved father said that on hearing of what had happened in Hebron, an Arabic-speaking soldier began to taunt him, claiming to have been the one who shot Ayman, telling Nassar: “Convince me that I shot him for nothing.

“We hope that you will follow your son,” he recalled the soldier adding.

The IDF did not respond to questions about Ayman’s death. In some previous cases, under media pressure an investigation is announced, although it rarely results in substantive action. In 2019 a soldier was sentenced to one month of community service for shooting dead a 14-year-old boy in Gaza. But even such trivial accountability is vanishingly rare.

An Israeli human rights group, Yesh Din, has calculated the probability of an Israeli soldier facing prosecution for killing Palestinians to be just 0.4% – one prosecution in 219 fatalities brought to the military’s attention.

On Wednesday, Aysar went back to school for the first time since the shooting, but he could not face seeing his older brother’s classroom across the corridor from his own. Nassar asked the teacher if he could be moved.

Ayman was a premature baby and was in a hospital incubator for more than a month, Nassar recalled. But being a child is not much of a protection on the West Bank.

“It is about rage and revenge,” Nassar said. “They don’t care if it’s a child, or a woman, or an old person. No one’s safe any more.”

The latest round of talks on the second phase of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has yet to make any progress and it was unclear whether they would resume on Saturday, a senior Hamas official has said.

The ceasefire took effect on 19 January after more than 15 months of war following Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, the deadliest in the country’s history.

During the initial six-week phase of the ceasefire, Gaza militants freed 25 living hostages and returned the bodies of eight others to Israel, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

A second phase of the fragile truce was supposed to secure the release of dozens of hostages still in Gaza and pave the way for a more permanent end to the war.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had sent a delegation to Cairo, and Egypt, which is mediating, said “intensive talks” on the second phase had begun, with delegations from Israel and Egypt’s fellow mediators Qatar and the US.

But by early on Saturday, there was no sign of consensus and a Hamas source accused Israel of delaying the second phase.

“The second phase of the ceasefire agreement is supposed to begin tomorrow morning, Sunday … but the occupation is still procrastinating and continuing to violate the agreement,” the source told Agence-France Presse.

A Palestinian source close to the talks told AFP that, despite the absence of a Hamas delegation in Cairo, discussions were under way to find a way through the impasse.

Max Rodenbeck, of the International Crisis Group thinktank, said the second phase could not be expected to start immediately. “But I think the ceasefire probably won’t collapse also,” he added.

The preferred Israeli scenario is to free more hostages under an extension of the first phase, rather than a second phase, the defence minister, Israel Katz, said. Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s attack, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Hamas, for its part, has pushed hard for phase two to begin, after it suffered staggering losses in the devastating war.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said on Friday that the Israel-Hamas ceasefire “must hold”.

“The coming days are critical. The parties must spare no effort to avoid a breakdown of this deal,” Guterres said in New York.

The truce enabled more aid to flow into the Gaza Strip, where more than 69% of buildings were damaged or destroyed, almost the entire population was displaced, and widespread hunger occurred because of the war, according to the UN.

In Gaza and throughout much of the Muslim world, Saturday also marked the first day of the month of Ramadan, during which the faithful observe a dawn-to-dusk fast.

Among the rubble of Gaza’s war-wrecked neighbourhoods, traditional Ramadan lanterns hung and people performed nightly prayers on the eve of the holy month.

“Ramadan has come this year, and we are on the streets with no shelter, no work, no money, nothing,” said Ali Rajih, a resident of the hard-hit Jabaliya camp in north Gaza. “My eight children and I are homeless, we’re living on the streets of Jabaliya camp, with nothing but God’s mercy.”

The Gaza war began with Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

The Israeli retaliation has killed more than 48,000 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the UN has deemed reliable.

Although the truce has in effect held, there have been a number of Israeli strikes, including on Friday when the military said it targeted two “suspects” approaching troops in southern Gaza. A hospital in Khan Younis said it had received the body of one person killed in a strike.

In return for the release of the captives held in Gaza, Israel released nearly 1,800 Palestinian prisoners from its jails. Gaza militants also released five Thai hostages outside the truce deal’s terms.

The latest round of talks on the second phase of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has yet to make any progress and it was unclear whether they would resume on Saturday, a senior Hamas official has said.

The ceasefire took effect on 19 January after more than 15 months of war following Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, the deadliest in the country’s history.

During the initial six-week phase of the ceasefire, Gaza militants freed 25 living hostages and returned the bodies of eight others to Israel, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

A second phase of the fragile truce was supposed to secure the release of dozens of hostages still in Gaza and pave the way for a more permanent end to the war.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had sent a delegation to Cairo, and Egypt, which is mediating, said “intensive talks” on the second phase had begun, with delegations from Israel and Egypt’s fellow mediators Qatar and the US.

But by early on Saturday, there was no sign of consensus and a Hamas source accused Israel of delaying the second phase.

“The second phase of the ceasefire agreement is supposed to begin tomorrow morning, Sunday … but the occupation is still procrastinating and continuing to violate the agreement,” the source told Agence-France Presse.

A Palestinian source close to the talks told AFP that, despite the absence of a Hamas delegation in Cairo, discussions were under way to find a way through the impasse.

Max Rodenbeck, of the International Crisis Group thinktank, said the second phase could not be expected to start immediately. “But I think the ceasefire probably won’t collapse also,” he added.

The preferred Israeli scenario is to free more hostages under an extension of the first phase, rather than a second phase, the defence minister, Israel Katz, said. Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s attack, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Hamas, for its part, has pushed hard for phase two to begin, after it suffered staggering losses in the devastating war.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said on Friday that the Israel-Hamas ceasefire “must hold”.

“The coming days are critical. The parties must spare no effort to avoid a breakdown of this deal,” Guterres said in New York.

The truce enabled more aid to flow into the Gaza Strip, where more than 69% of buildings were damaged or destroyed, almost the entire population was displaced, and widespread hunger occurred because of the war, according to the UN.

In Gaza and throughout much of the Muslim world, Saturday also marked the first day of the month of Ramadan, during which the faithful observe a dawn-to-dusk fast.

Among the rubble of Gaza’s war-wrecked neighbourhoods, traditional Ramadan lanterns hung and people performed nightly prayers on the eve of the holy month.

“Ramadan has come this year, and we are on the streets with no shelter, no work, no money, nothing,” said Ali Rajih, a resident of the hard-hit Jabaliya camp in north Gaza. “My eight children and I are homeless, we’re living on the streets of Jabaliya camp, with nothing but God’s mercy.”

The Gaza war began with Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

The Israeli retaliation has killed more than 48,000 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the UN has deemed reliable.

Although the truce has in effect held, there have been a number of Israeli strikes, including on Friday when the military said it targeted two “suspects” approaching troops in southern Gaza. A hospital in Khan Younis said it had received the body of one person killed in a strike.

In return for the release of the captives held in Gaza, Israel released nearly 1,800 Palestinian prisoners from its jails. Gaza militants also released five Thai hostages outside the truce deal’s terms.

Two days after initially downplaying the outbreak as “not unusual,” the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, on Friday said he recognizes the serious impact of the ongoing measles epidemic in Texas – in which a child died recently – and said the government is providing resources, including protective vaccines.

“Ending the measles outbreak is a top priority for me and my extraordinary team,” Kennedy – an avowed anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist who for years has sown doubts about the safety and efficacy of vaccines – said in a post on X.

Kennedy said his federal Department of Health and Human Services would send Texas 2,000 doses of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine – typically meant to be given to children in a series of two shots at 12 to 15 months old as well as between the ages of four and six years old – through its immunization program.

Earlier, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) upheld the role of vaccines in offering protection against measles after an unvaccinated child died from an infection this week. The death, reported on Wednesday, was the first US fatality from the highly contagious disease in a decade. Government data shows a growing outbreak with more than 140 cases reported in Texas since late January.

The child’s death and the hospitalization of nearly 20 other patients in Texas have put Kennedy’s vaccine views to the test.

Kennedy founded the Children’s Health Defense anti-vaccine group. However, he has claimed he is not “anti-vaccine” and has said he would not prevent Americans from getting vaccinated.

A total of 164 measles cases were reported as of 27 February across Alaska, California, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York City, Rhode Island and Texas, information from the CDC showed. About 95% of those infected were unvaccinated people, including children whose parents did not follow CDC recommendations to get them immunized with safe, effective vaccines providing protection against measles as well as other easily preventable diseases. Another 3% were from people who received only one of the two required shots for immunity, CDC data showed on Friday.

These cases were reported in nine jurisdictions, including Kentucky, marking a near 80% jump from 93 cases reported a week ago.

Also on Friday, Kennedy’s health and human services department announced plans to eliminate public participation in many of the agency’s policy decisions – a proposal that explicitly flouts a promise of “radical transparency” that he previously made to Congress while lawmakers considered confirming his appointment to the cabinet of Donald Trump’s second presidential administration.

The health and human services department has allowed such public comment on a range of agency actions for decades. It would mark a noted shift in the rulemaking process at the agency, which directs $3tn in healthcare spending and oversees the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and programs such as Medicare and Medicaid – which insure more than 140 million people.

Reuters contributed reporting

Twenty-five years ago, the US eliminated the measles virus. Measles is extremely contagious, and sporadic cases and outbreaks are expected.

But as of 28 February, 146 people in Texas – the majority of whom are unvaccinated children – have contracted measles. Twenty have been hospitalized, according to the Texas department of state health services. One “school-aged child” who was not vaccinated died this week, according to a 26 February statement – the first measles death in the US since 2015.

Nine other cases have been reported in a neighboring county in New Mexico, say state health officials.

“This is a significantly sized outbreak,” says Dr Adam Ratner, a pediatric infectious disease physician in New York City and author of the book Booster Shots: The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children’s Health. The CDC defines an outbreak as three or more related cases; last year, a total of 285 cases were reported across 31 states and Washington DC.

Here’s everything to know about measles as the virus spreads.

What is the recent history of measles in the US?

The last major US measles outbreak occurred in 2019, when nearly 1,300 people caught the virus. According to the CDC, this almost cost the US its elimination status. (Measles is considered eliminated when it hasn’t spread in a region for 12 or more consecutive months.)

Dr Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, says the latest case numbers are “still the tip of the iceberg” and are on track to reach or surpass those of past outbreaks.

That’s largely due to declines in vaccination rates in the US and worldwide that have contributed to a fourfold rise in measles outbreaks from 2023 to 2024 alone. “I think we’re still on that trajectory,” Hotez says. “I would imagine 2025 is going to be a pretty rough year for measles.”

What is measles, and who normally gets it?

Measles is a respiratory virus that mostly affects children, but can also affect adults who were never infected or vaccinated against it, says Robert Bednarczyck, an epidemiologist and associate professor of global health at Emory University in Georgia.

Measles is often lumped together with mumps and rubella because there’s one vaccine, known as MMR, that protects against all three diseases. But they’re each caused by different respiratory viruses.

How does measles spread?

The measles virus lives in the nose and throat mucus of infected people. When they cough, sneeze or breathe, viral particles slingshot into the air, where they can linger for up to two hours. “You don’t even have to have direct or close contact with an infected individual” to get sick, says Hotez. This is why measles is one of the most contagious viruses we know of.

According to the CDC, if one person has measles, up to 90% of people who are not immune and breathe the contaminated air or touch an infected surface will get sick. Unlike other respiratory bugs, it is not seasonal.

A person infected with measles is contagious for about eight days, including the four days before a rash appears, and the four days after. This is problematic, says Ratner, because it means you can spread the virus without knowing it.

How do I know if I have measles and what are the symptoms?

You may not know you have measles right away because symptoms typically emerge one to two weeks after exposure. Around that time, you might develop a cough, runny nose, red and watery eyes, and high fever, according to the CDC. At this point you might assume you have the flu, but in another two to three days you may find tiny white spots inside your mouth, Bednarczyck says, which “is a clear giveaway” for measles.

Three to five days in, you might develop the classic rash: red patches on the face that dot the hairline, then spread to the neck, trunk, arms, legs and feet, says the CDC. The darker your skin, the more likely you’ll see small raised bumps in the same areas without discoloration. Although it looks painful, a measles rash usually isn’t itchy.

Overall, you might feel sick for about a week, says the World Health Organization, and the rash could take five to six days to fade away. If you suspect that you or your child has measles, call the doctor’s office or hospital before you arrive, says Ratner, so they can reduce your exposure to others in the waiting room.

Do most people recover from measles?

Most people who catch measles recover with no lingering consequences, say experts. But complications can affect a relatively large number of people who get the virus; some are very serious.

Ear infections, for example, occur in about one out of every 10 children with measles, according to the CDC. As many as one in 20 will get pneumonia, which is the most common cause of measles-related death in young kids. About one in every 1,000 children will develop brain swelling called encephalitis, which can cause deafness, convulsions or intellectual disability. Data show that about one to three of every 1,000 kids with measles will die from these complications.

A fatal central nervous system disease called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis can happen to very few people about seven to 10 years after they recover from measles; the risk is higher for those who get measles before age two.

Unvaccinated people, children younger than age five, adults over age 20, people with weakened immune systems, and pregnant people face the greatest risks of measles complications, says the CDC. Even so, it’s important to remember that anyone, regardless of their health, can get seriously ill and die from measles, says Ratner – especially considering there are no treatments for the virus. Some hospitalized people may receive vitamin A, which may reduce their risks of bad outcomes, says Ratner, but it’s not a cure.

How do you prevent measles?

Because measles is airborne, face masks can help protect against infection, experts say. But vaccination is by far the best way. Before the US measles vaccination program began in 1963, about 3 to 4 million people caught the virus, 48,000 were hospitalized, 1,000 developed encephalitis, and 400 to 500 died each year in the US, according to CDC data.

There are two doses. The first, which children get aged 12 to 15 months, is about 93% effective, and the second, which kids get between ages four and six, is about 97% effective. That means roughly three out of every 100 people who are fully vaccinated still get measles after exposure to the virus, says the CDC.

Still, the vaccine can lower the odds of severe disease and the likelihood of spreading it to others, says Ratner, including those who can’t get vaccinated because they’re too young or have weakened immune systems. And research suggests that the virus diminishes the antibodies you’ve acquired for other germs, says Bednarczyck, leaving you vulnerable to all sorts of infections, especially if you aren’t vaccinated.

The measles shot is safe, according to decades of research. One infamous 1998 study of 12 children suggested a link between MMR and autism; it was later retracted for “scientific fraud”. Several papers have since proved that association wrong.

If you are exposed to measles and have not been vaccinated or have only received one dose, you can receive a measles vaccine within 72 hours of exposure, says Ratner, which could prevent infection or reduce the chances you get really sick. Kids too young for vaccination and people considered high-risk for severe disease could receive an antibody treatment called immunoglobulin within six days of exposure via IV or a shot in their arm.

Infection and vaccination against measles are both thought to offer lifelong immunity – that is, you can’t get measles twice. But if you’re unvaccinated and have been infected, says Ratner, you should roll up your sleeve anyway to protect against mumps and rubella.

MMR contains a weakened version of the measles virus, which causes a harmless infection that helps people develop immunity. So some people shouldn’t get the vaccine, says the CDC, including those who are pregnant, have a weakened immune system due to disease or treatment, or have a parent or sibling with a history of immune system problems.

Should I be concerned about measles in the US?

If you’ve been vaccinated, you are well protected against the virus. But overall, the CDC says measles is a concern for the US. Fewer children worldwide are getting their measles shots, fueled in part by Covid-related anti-vaccine rhetoric. This means infections could become more common as unvaccinated travelers spread the virus. “Our control of measles is really a testament to the vaccine and our ability to use it,” says Bednarczyck, “but we’re potentially sitting right on the edge of where we might start seeing more widespread outbreaks.”

From the 2019-20 to 2023-24 school year, vaccinations among US kindergartners dropped from 95% to just below 93%. It’s a concerning trend, says Ratner, because we need at least 95% vaccination coverage to achieve herd immunity, which is when enough people are immune to measles to prevent significant spread. Within individual states, rates can be even lower; Idaho, for example, has a 80% vaccination rate.

A US judge on Saturday declared president Donald Trump’s firing of the head of a federal watchdog agency illegal in an early test of the scope of presidential power likely to be decided at the US supreme court.

US district judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington had previously ruled that Hampton Dellinger, head of the Office of Special Counsel who is responsible for protecting whistleblowers, could remain in his post pending a ruling.

Jackson said in her ruling on Saturday that upholding Trump’s ability to fire Dellinger would give him “a constitutional license to bully officials in the executive branch into doing his will”.

The justice department filed a notice late on Saturday saying it was appealing against Berman’s ruling to the US court of appeals for the district of Columbia.

Dellinger, who was appointed by Democratic president Joe Biden and approved by the Senate to a five-year term last year, said in an email to Reuters he was “grateful to see the court confirm the importance and legality of the job protections Congress afforded my position”.

He added his “efforts to protect federal employees generally, and whistleblowers in particular, from unlawful treatment will continue”.

Lawyers for the Trump administration have argued that the order keeping Dellinger in place is an encroachment on Trump’s authority over officials serving in his administration.

Jackson, who was named to the bench by president Barack Obama, rejected the contention that the statute is unconstitutional, saying the special counsel’s job is to review unethical or unlawful practices directed at federal civil servants and help whistleblowers act without suffering reprisals.

“It would be ironic, to say the least, and inimical to the ends furthered by the statute if the special counsel himself could be chilled in his work by fear of arbitrary or partisan removal,” Jackson wrote.

The Trump administration previously urged the US supreme court, which has already delayed a ruling in the case, to get involved earlier this week.

Trump has sought to rein in the independence of federal agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission and a ruling in Dellinger’s case could help determine the extent of his authority to do so.

Jackson said her ruling was “extremely narrow” and did not diminish Trump’s powers. “This is the only single-headed agency left for the courts to consider, and it is unlike any of them,” she wrote.

The acting solicitor general, Sarah Harris, said earlier that Dellinger’s continued work as special counsel was harming the Trump administration, pointing to Dellinger’s role on Tuesday in halting the firing of six probationary government workers the administration had sought to dismiss.

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order designating English as the official language of the United States.

The order on Saturday allows government agencies and organisations that receive federal funding to choose whether to continue to offer documents and services in languages other than English.

It rescinds a mandate from former president Bill Clinton that required the government and organisations that received federal funding to provide language assistance to non-English speakers.

“Establishing English as the official language will not only streamline communication but also reinforce shared national values, and create a more cohesive and efficient society,” according to the order.

“In welcoming new Americans, a policy of encouraging the learning and adoption of our national language will make the United States a shared home and empower new citizens to achieve the American dream,” the order also states. “Speaking English not only opens doors economically, but it helps newcomers engage in their communities, participate in national traditions, and give back to our society.”

More than 30 states have already passed laws designating English as their official language, according to US English, a group that advocates for making English the country’s official language.

For decades, lawmakers in Congress have introduced legislation to designate English as the official language of the US, but those efforts have not succeeded.

Within hours of Trump’s inauguration last month, the new administration took down the Spanish-language version of the official White House website.

Hispanic advocacy groups and others expressed confusion and frustration at the change. The White House said at the time it was committed to bringing the Spanish-language version of the website back online. As of Saturday, it was still not restored.

The White House did not immediately respond to a message about whether that would happen.

Trump shut down the Spanish version of the website during his first term. It was restored when president Joe Biden was inaugurated in 2021.

The disastrous meeting between US president Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday has catalysed a series of pro-Ukraine protests across the US.

Protesters took to the streets in New York, Los Angeles and Boston, with hundreds gathering to express support for Ukraine and Zelenskyy.

Hundreds of protesters also gathered in Waitsfield, Vermont, on Saturday to oppose vice-president JD Vance’s visit to the state for a ski trip with his family.

The demonstration had been planned earlier in the week by the Mad River Valley chapter of Indivisible, a grassroots group, but additional protesters said they were motivated to join after watching Vance and Trump’s combative Oval Office meeting.

Singer Angie Stone, known for her hit Wish I Didn’t Miss You, has died at the age of 63.

A representative for the singer confirmed to Variety that Stone was killed in a car crash in Montgomery, Alabama. She had reportedly been on her way home from a show and was the only person who died in the crash.

Her daughter Diamond Stone wrote online: “My mommy is gone.”

Stone has been a founding member of groundbreaking female hip-hop trio the Sequence in the late 70s at the age of 16. They scored a hit with Funk You Up, a song that was later sampled by Dr Dre for his single Keep Their Heads Ringin and Bruno Mars in Uptown Funk.

“I think that being the first female rap group to actually come out and have an authentic original rap record is an accomplishment that no one else has been able to top,” she said in 2023.

After the group disbanded in the mid-80s, Stone worked as a vocalist for Vertical Hold and then Devox before she later provided songwriting credits to D’Angelo for his first two studio albums. She was also a backing vocalist for the singer on tour before providing vocals for Lenny Kravitz on his album 5 in 1998.

In 1999, Stone released her first solo album, Black Diamond, which contained the hits No More Rain (In This Cloud) and Life Story. She went on to record the theme to the hit sitcom Girlfriends in 2000 and released her second album, Mahogany Soul, the following year.

That album featured the hit Wish I Didn’t Miss You, which became her biggest international success.

Her third album, Stone Love, featured the song I Wanna Thank Ya with Snoop Dogg, which became a big hit in Europe. The video also featured a young Idris Elba.

Stone went on to record a further seven albums, the most recent of which was 2023’s Love Language, which featured Musiq Soulchild and Stone’s son Swayvo Twain.

She was nominated for three Grammys in her career and also wrote songs for Erykah Badu and Raphael Saadiq. “There is a deep sad feeling that as a songwriter – something such a gift – you never get acknowledged for it,” she said in 2011. “People think that’s how I eat because I make records but I make far more money as songwriter than from being a singer.”

Stone also worked as an actor, with roles in big screen comedies like The Hot Chick and The Fighting Temptations and on stage in Chicago playing Big Mama Morton.

Singer Angie Stone, known for her hit Wish I Didn’t Miss You, has died at the age of 63.

A representative for the singer confirmed to Variety that Stone was killed in a car crash in Montgomery, Alabama. She had reportedly been on her way home from a show and was the only person who died in the crash.

Her daughter Diamond Stone wrote online: “My mommy is gone.”

Stone has been a founding member of groundbreaking female hip-hop trio the Sequence in the late 70s at the age of 16. They scored a hit with Funk You Up, a song that was later sampled by Dr Dre for his single Keep Their Heads Ringin and Bruno Mars in Uptown Funk.

“I think that being the first female rap group to actually come out and have an authentic original rap record is an accomplishment that no one else has been able to top,” she said in 2023.

After the group disbanded in the mid-80s, Stone worked as a vocalist for Vertical Hold and then Devox before she later provided songwriting credits to D’Angelo for his first two studio albums. She was also a backing vocalist for the singer on tour before providing vocals for Lenny Kravitz on his album 5 in 1998.

In 1999, Stone released her first solo album, Black Diamond, which contained the hits No More Rain (In This Cloud) and Life Story. She went on to record the theme to the hit sitcom Girlfriends in 2000 and released her second album, Mahogany Soul, the following year.

That album featured the hit Wish I Didn’t Miss You, which became her biggest international success.

Her third album, Stone Love, featured the song I Wanna Thank Ya with Snoop Dogg, which became a big hit in Europe. The video also featured a young Idris Elba.

Stone went on to record a further seven albums, the most recent of which was 2023’s Love Language, which featured Musiq Soulchild and Stone’s son Swayvo Twain.

She was nominated for three Grammys in her career and also wrote songs for Erykah Badu and Raphael Saadiq. “There is a deep sad feeling that as a songwriter – something such a gift – you never get acknowledged for it,” she said in 2011. “People think that’s how I eat because I make records but I make far more money as songwriter than from being a singer.”

Stone also worked as an actor, with roles in big screen comedies like The Hot Chick and The Fighting Temptations and on stage in Chicago playing Big Mama Morton.

Pope Francis remains in stable condition a day after a respiratory crisis, and has spent long periods off the noninvasive ventilation he initially needed, in a sign that his lung function was improving as he battles double pneumonia.

Francis had no further episodes of bronchial spasms, the Vatican said in its late update on Saturday. He had no fever and no signs of new infection, was feeding himself and continued his respiratory physiotherapy, the Vatican said.

The 88-year-old pope had a good response in his blood gas levels even during the “long periods” he was off the ventilator mask and only using high-flow supplemental oxygen. But his prognosis remained guarded, meaning he was not out of danger.

“The Holy Father is always vigilant” and aware of what was going on around him, the statement said, adding that he received the Eucharist and spent time in prayer.

The comparatively positive update came after Francis suffered a setback on Friday in his two-week battle against pneumonia.

Francis had a coughing fit in which he also inhaled vomit. Doctors aspirated the vomit and placed Francis on noninvasive mechanical ventilation, a mask that pumps oxygen into his lungs. Doctors said episode resulted in a “sudden worsening of the respiratory picture”.

The pope remained conscious and alert at all times and cooperated with the manoeuvres to help him recover.

The fact that Francis on Saturday was able to use just high-flow oxygen for long periods, without any significant effect on the levels of oxygen in his blood, was a sign his respiratory function was improving.

The pope, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has lung disease and was admitted to Gemelli after a bout of bronchitis worsened and turned into pneumonia in both lungs.

The Vatican said the episode was different from the prolonged respiratory crisis on 22 February that was said to have caused Francis discomfort. Doctors not involved in Francis’s care said it was particularly alarming given his existing lung disease and fragility.

Types of noninvasive ventilation include a BiPAP machine, which helps people breathe by pushing air into their lungs. Doctors will often try such a machine for a while to see if the patient’s blood gas levels improve so they can go back to using oxygen alone. Friday’s statement said Francis showed a “good response” to the gas exchange using the mechanical ventilation.

Doctors did not resume referring to Francis being in “critical condition”, which has been absent from their statements for four days now. But they said he was not out of danger, given the complexity of his case.

The Vatican is marking its “holy year” that is drawing pilgrims to Rome from all over. They are walking through the “holy door” at St Peter’s Basilica and also making pilgrimages to the hilltop Umbrian town of Assisi, to pray at the home of Francis’s namesake, Saint Francis.

“Every day we’re praying for the pope,” said the Rev Jacinto Bento, a priest visiting Assisi on Saturday with a group of 30 jubilee pilgrims from the Azores Islands. “We’re very sad for his situation.”

Talks aimed at maintaining the ceasefire in Gaza hit an impasse in Cairo on Saturday over whether the truce should advance to a second phase.

A Hamas official said the multilateral negotiations in the Egyptian capital had made no progress on Friday, and there was no evidence the talks had resumed on Saturday, the last day of the ceasefire’s first six-week phase.

In the early hours of Sunday, Israel said it would adopt the proposal by US president Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza for the Ramadan and Passover periods, the prime minister’s office said.

Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem said on Saturday the group rejected Israel’s “formulation” of extending the first phase of the ceasefire in Gaza, but did not explicitly mention Witkoff’s plan.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel would immediately conduct negotiations on Witkoff’s plan, which would see half of the hostages held in Gaza – both alive and dead – released, if Hamas agreed to it.

Hamas has not been directly participating in the talks in Cairo, but it has been coordinating with Qatari and Egyptian officials who are at the negotiating table with US and Israeli delegations. The negotiators left Cairo on Friday night, and there was no sign of them reconvening late on Saturday.

Israeli negotiators came to Cairo with a proposal to extend the first phase by another six weeks, but Hamas said it rejected that “formulation”.

While the first phase chiefly involved the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails, an increase in aid deliveries and a retreat of Israeli troops from some positions, the second phase requires a complete Israeli withdrawal and a more enduring cessation of hostilities.

The withdrawal would first involve a pullback from the Philadelphi corridor along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had called control of the buffer zone a strategic necessity but agreed in January to complete the withdrawal from Philadelphi by the 50th day of the ceasefire agreement, 9 March.

Such a retreat could however trigger the collapse of his rightwing coalition which would in turn force new elections, in which Netanyahu’s political future would be uncertain.

Israeli political analysts have suggested that Netanyahu agreed to the ceasefire under pressure from Donald Trump, confident that the agreement would never reach a second phase. Trump’s Middle East special envoy, Steve Witkoff, has however insisted that a second phase of the ceasefire deal should be implemented, to ensure the release of the remaining 59 hostages, only 25 of whom are thought to be still alive. Most Israelis also want the government to make a priority of freeing the hostages, but that position is opposed by the Israeli far right, without whom the coalition could not stay in power. The rightist parties argue Israel’s priority should be the destruction of Hamas.

In the truce agreement in January there is provision for the ceasefire to hold even if the first phase ends without agreement on a second, as long as good faith negotiations are continuing. Earlier last week, Witkoff said he would return to the region on Sunday if the talks went well. It was unclear on Saturday whether he still intended to make the trip.

There remains no agreement on who should run Gaza once an enduring end to the war can be agreed. Trump caused consternation and bewilderment early in February with the shock suggestion that the US should “own” Gaza, which would be somehow emptied of its more than two million Palestinian inhabitants to make way for a “Riviera on the Mediterranean”.

The declaration has not been followed up by Washington with any detail on how it might be brought into effect. On Wednesday, Israeli military officers presented UN officials with a plan by which Israel would tighten its control over the administration of aid supplies to Gaza, through logistical hubs in areas under military control.

The states of the Arab League are due to meet on Tuesday to discuss an Egyptian-designed alternative plan involving a phased three- to five-year reconstruction plan, beginning with the creation of temporary camps for Gazans to live while their home districts are rebuilt.

One of the key issues in contention in the “day-after” plans for Gaza, is who should be in control. Europe and the previous US administration backed an administration by a “revitalised” Palestinian Authority (PA), which currently runs part of the West Bank. But Netanyahu has insisted the PA should have no part in the governance of Gaza, and the body has little credibility among Palestinians.

“The Palestinian Authority is neither willing nor able to govern Gaza in the near future. Israeli occupation is neither possible nor desirable, and a constant state of chaos is both a security threat to Israel and an ongoing humanitarian disaster for Gaza,” Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, argued in a column in the Haaretz newspaper.

He suggested Cairo be given the job.

“Egypt will take responsibility for the management of the Gaza Strip for eight years, which could be extended to 15 years,” Lapid wrote. “Gaza would be under temporary Egyptian control. During this period, Gaza would be rebuilt and the long-term conditions for independent government would be created.”

A Royal Australian Navy ship is bound for the Coral Sea after a Lithuanian man attempting to row across the Pacific Ocean from San Diego to Brisbane got into trouble.

Aurimas Mockus activated his emergency beacon on Friday night about 740km east of Mackay, Queensland, and 90km west of Tropical Cyclone Alfred.

He is travelling solo on the rowing boat from the Californian city to Brisbane and was battling winds up to 100km/h and heavy seas up to seven metres, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa) said. Mockus departed the US in mid-October 2024.

On Sunday afternoon, an Amsa spokesperson said the agency had communicated with Mockus through an interpreter via its Challenger rescue plane. Mockus reported he had no major injuries.

The Cairns-based Challenger jet didn’t spot his vessel on Saturday but managed to make contact with Mockus then too. He said he was tired.

An aircraft was sent from Royal Australian Air Force Base Edinburgh near Adelaide and another was to be dispatched on Sunday to maintain communications.

HMAS Choules, a 16,000-tonne navy landing ship, was en route from Brisbane to the Coral Sea to assist. Amsa said the ship was expected to reach Mockus by Monday morning.

Images taken by a Royal Australian Air Force aircraft showed the tiny vessel rolling on massive waves in the Coral Sea.

On Thursday, Mockus said that rowing was “out of the question – I need to survive”.

By that evening, he told his team that he was in “God’s hands” and that the coming days were “crucial”.

“Last night was utterly sleepless, but with immense effort I successfully navigated around the Chesterfield Islands’ reefs. From here on it’s in God’s hands. The most important thing is to endure the next few days – they will be crucial,” he said.

“Right now, I’m being carried at a very high speed, but not yet in the direction I need. I’m drifting a bit too far west – toward the approaching typhoon [cyclone].

“I hope the north wind will allow me to escape the typhoon (pushing me downward) as the drift is already massive – I don’t need to row. There are 500 nautical miles left if I manage to row directly toward Brisbane. But that’s hard to say because the typhoon is waiting ahead.

“There’s no sun out in the ocean, so I must conserve my battery power as much as possible – I’ve already reached a critical limit. I’ve shut down everything I can, leaving only the ability to communicate with my shore team. I just spoke with them, and they had nothing reassuring to say – I must endure this wind.”

Mockus’s team had not provided a further update by Sunday afternoon.

Amsa said on Sunday afternoon that weather conditions had eased slightly, “however, the area is still within the influence of Tropical Cyclone Alfred with winds up to 100km/h and 5-7 metre seas”.

The cyclone was about 510km east of Rockhampton on Sunday morning.

The category two cyclone was forecast to move south, roughly parallel to the coastline, on Sunday before weakening slightly and moving to the south-east on Monday.

It was then expected to slow and turn west from Tuesday, travelling back towards the southern Queensland coast.

The Bureau of Meteorology said strong to gale-force winds could impact K’gari – also known as Fraser Island – on Sunday.

If Mockus makes it to Queensland, he would be the first person to row across the Pacific on this particular route, he has said. If he reached Australia in less than 22 days from Sunday he would set a new Guinness record.

A small group of people have crossed the Pacific single-handed, including the Britons Peter Bird in 1983 and John Beeden in 2015, and the Australian Michelle Lee in 2023.

Also in 2023, 24-year-old Tom Robinson attempted the feat but was rescued by a cruise ship after his boat capsized. In 2020, the Paralympic rowing star Angela Madsen died while attempting a solo journey from California to Hawaii.

A Royal Australian Navy ship is bound for the Coral Sea after a Lithuanian man attempting to row across the Pacific Ocean from San Diego to Brisbane got into trouble.

Aurimas Mockus activated his emergency beacon on Friday night about 740km east of Mackay, Queensland, and 90km west of Tropical Cyclone Alfred.

He is travelling solo on the rowing boat from the Californian city to Brisbane and was battling winds up to 100km/h and heavy seas up to seven metres, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa) said. Mockus departed the US in mid-October 2024.

On Sunday afternoon, an Amsa spokesperson said the agency had communicated with Mockus through an interpreter via its Challenger rescue plane. Mockus reported he had no major injuries.

The Cairns-based Challenger jet didn’t spot his vessel on Saturday but managed to make contact with Mockus then too. He said he was tired.

An aircraft was sent from Royal Australian Air Force Base Edinburgh near Adelaide and another was to be dispatched on Sunday to maintain communications.

HMAS Choules, a 16,000-tonne navy landing ship, was en route from Brisbane to the Coral Sea to assist. Amsa said the ship was expected to reach Mockus by Monday morning.

Images taken by a Royal Australian Air Force aircraft showed the tiny vessel rolling on massive waves in the Coral Sea.

On Thursday, Mockus said that rowing was “out of the question – I need to survive”.

By that evening, he told his team that he was in “God’s hands” and that the coming days were “crucial”.

“Last night was utterly sleepless, but with immense effort I successfully navigated around the Chesterfield Islands’ reefs. From here on it’s in God’s hands. The most important thing is to endure the next few days – they will be crucial,” he said.

“Right now, I’m being carried at a very high speed, but not yet in the direction I need. I’m drifting a bit too far west – toward the approaching typhoon [cyclone].

“I hope the north wind will allow me to escape the typhoon (pushing me downward) as the drift is already massive – I don’t need to row. There are 500 nautical miles left if I manage to row directly toward Brisbane. But that’s hard to say because the typhoon is waiting ahead.

“There’s no sun out in the ocean, so I must conserve my battery power as much as possible – I’ve already reached a critical limit. I’ve shut down everything I can, leaving only the ability to communicate with my shore team. I just spoke with them, and they had nothing reassuring to say – I must endure this wind.”

Mockus’s team had not provided a further update by Sunday afternoon.

Amsa said on Sunday afternoon that weather conditions had eased slightly, “however, the area is still within the influence of Tropical Cyclone Alfred with winds up to 100km/h and 5-7 metre seas”.

The cyclone was about 510km east of Rockhampton on Sunday morning.

The category two cyclone was forecast to move south, roughly parallel to the coastline, on Sunday before weakening slightly and moving to the south-east on Monday.

It was then expected to slow and turn west from Tuesday, travelling back towards the southern Queensland coast.

The Bureau of Meteorology said strong to gale-force winds could impact K’gari – also known as Fraser Island – on Sunday.

If Mockus makes it to Queensland, he would be the first person to row across the Pacific on this particular route, he has said. If he reached Australia in less than 22 days from Sunday he would set a new Guinness record.

A small group of people have crossed the Pacific single-handed, including the Britons Peter Bird in 1983 and John Beeden in 2015, and the Australian Michelle Lee in 2023.

Also in 2023, 24-year-old Tom Robinson attempted the feat but was rescued by a cruise ship after his boat capsized. In 2020, the Paralympic rowing star Angela Madsen died while attempting a solo journey from California to Hawaii.

David Johansen, the swaggering, peacocking frontman with glam rock band New York Dolls, has died aged 75.

Last month he had announced he was living with cancer, and recently suffered a broken back. “David Johansen passed away peacefully at home, holding the hands of his wife Mara Hennessey and daughter Leah, in the sunlight surrounded by music and flowers,” reads a statement on a website created to raise funds for his medical care.

Strikingly handsome, he and his bandmates offset the macho rock star image by wearing women’s clothing and makeup, bringing a vaudevillian energy to their brutish music. As well as being straightforwardly thrilling, it proved to be hugely influential, pointing the way from glam to the punk music that was beginning to brew in New York City. They never broke the Top 100 of either the US or UK charts, but critics have deemed songs such as Personality Crisis – sung by Johansen with a throaty, lung-busting howl – some of the greatest rock of the 1970s.

Johansen was born and raised in Staten Island, and fronted local band the Vagabond Missionaries before he joined the nascent New York Dolls in 1971, and became the heart of an irreverent scene centred around Manhattan’s Mercer Art Center. They were signed to Mercury Records, who released their 1973 debut and the follow-up Too Much Too Soon the following year. The latter title felt prescient: the often debauched band broke up in 1975, with Johansen fronting a version that continued until 1976.

Johansen began a solo career, releasing his self-titled debut album in 1978, and released three more before taking on a new pseudonym: Buster Poindexter. This was as theatrical as his New York Dolls days but pointed in a very different direction, performing classic R&B, blues and pop as a tuxedoed crooner. He had a hit with his cover of Arrow’s holiday anthem Hot Hot Hot, and his self-titled 1987 debut took him to the US Top 40 for the first time. Three more Poindexter albums followed over the next decade.

In 2004, Morrissey induced the New York Dolls – Johansen, along with bandmates Sylvain Sylvain and Arthur Kane – to reform for the Meltdown festival he was curating. Kane died weeks later, but Johansen and Sylvain kept the band going, releasing three more studio albums and touring until 2011.

Johansen had an acting career, including opposite Bill Murray as the Ghost of Christmas Past in 1988’s Scrooged. He also worked as a radio host and was a painter. Among his admirers was Martin Scorsese, who co-directed the 2023 documentary Personality Crisis: One Night Only, centred on Johansen.

Johansen had been living with cancer for some time, with his stepdaughter Leah Hennessy explaining on his fundraising site in February: “David has been in intensive treatment for stage 4 cancer for most of the past decade. Five years ago at the beginning of the pandemic we discovered that David’s cancer had progressed and he had a brain tumor … To make matters worse, the day after Thanksgiving David fell down the stairs and broke his back in two places. ​After a week in the hospital and a successful surgery David has been bedridden and incapacitated.”

He is survived by Hennessey as well as his wife Mara, who he married in 2013. She was his third wife, after marriages to Cyrinda Foxe from 1977 to 1978 and Kate Simon from 1983 to 2011.

More than a thousand people have been evacuated as Japan battles its largest wildfire in more than three decades.

The flames are estimated to have spread over about 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres) in the forest of Ofunato in the northern region of Iwate since a fire broke out on Wednesday, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.

“We’re still examining the size of the affected area, but it is the biggest since the 1992 wildfire [in Kushiro, Hokkaido],” an agency spokeperson said.

That fire burned 1,030 hectares, the previous record. About 1,700 firefighters were being mobilised from across the country, the agency said.

Aerial footage from the public broadcaster NHK showed white smoke billowing up and covering an entire mountain.

Local police found the body of one person who had been burned, while more than 1,000 nearby residents have been evacuated and more than 80 buildings had been damaged as of Friday, according to the Ofunato authorities.

The cause of the blaze remained unknown.

Two other fires were also burning on Saturday, one in Yamanashi and another elsewhere in Iwate.

There were about 1,300 wildfires across Japan in 2023, concentrated in the February to April period when the air dries out and winds pick up. The number of wildfires has declined since the peak in the 1970s, according to government data.

Ofunato has had only 2.5mm (0.1 inches) of rain in February – far below the previous record low for February of 4.4mm in 1967.

Last year was Japan’s hottest since records began, mirroring other countries as ever-rising greenhouse gas emissions fuel the climate crisis.

A FedEx cargo airplane caught on fire after striking a bird shortly after the plane’s departure from Newark, New Jersey, on Saturday morning, according to officials.

There were no injuries reported onboard, and the plane made an emergency return to Newark Liberty international airport.

The Boeing 767 in question hit the bird during takeoff, damaging an engine.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement that the aircraft, which was headed to Indianapolis, returned to the airport at about 8am eastern time.

A spokesperson told the Associated Press that air traffic was briefly halted as a precaution, but operations resumed a short while later.

About 10 minutes after takeoff, the FedEx plane’s right engine burst into flames, according to data from FlightAware. Bystanders captured the incident from multiple angles, in one instance shouting in shock and swearing as the plane returned to the runway.

“Dude, did you see that?!” one man exclaimed in a video showing the flaming aircraft descending. “Something exploded!”

Another video, filmed from inside a car in New Jersey, shows the plane ablaze as it loses altitude.

Saturday’s emergency return followed a string of recent aviation crashes that have spiked public concern. On 30 January, an American Airlines plane collided with an US army helicopter over the Potomac River in Washington DC, killing all 67 people onboard both aircraft.

The Washington collision was the deadliest US aviation disaster since 2009, when a Colgan Air plane crashed near Buffalo, New York, killing all 49 people onboard and one person on the ground.

Two days after the crash in Washington, seven people were killed after a medical transport plane collided into a north-east Philadelphia neighborhood. Meanwhile, a plane carrying 80 people crashed at Toronto Pearson airport in mid-February, flipping upside down and leaving at least 18 people injured.

Amid rising concerns, Google searches for “is flying safe” have surged. A recent AP-Norc poll, released in February, found that 64% of Americans consider air travel very or somewhat safe, down from 71% last year.

Donald Trump’s second presidential administration escalated tensions further by beginning to fire hundreds of employees at the Federal Aviation Administration in mid-February, including some who maintain critical air traffic control infrastructure.

Still, data indicates that 2025 has been a relatively safe year for air travel – at least in terms of total accidents. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, January and February typically see about 20 fatal aviation accidents each month, most of which usually involve small airplanes that operate in a less regulated space.