By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER

WASHINGTON (AP) — Michael Romano spent more than 17 years at the Justice Department, eventually becoming a supervisor on the team that would prosecute more than 1,500 people charged in the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The moment he watched the largest investigation in department history get wiped away with the stroke of a pen — on President Donald Trump’s first day back in the White House — Romano knew he had to leave.

“I knew on January 20th, when the pardons were announced, that I needed to find my way out,” Romano said in an interview with The Associated Press weeks after his resignation from the Justice Department. “It would be untenable for me to stay, given the pardons and given the false narratives that were being spread about January 6.”

Now, Romano says he fears Trump’s decision to pardon even the most violent rioters — whom his own vice president once said “obviously” shouldn’t be pardoned — could embolden right-wing extremists and encourage future political violence.

“The way that the pardons have been received by the January 6th defendants and by other right-wing extremists, as I understand it, is to recognize that if you support the president and if you commit violence in support of the president, that he might insulate you from the consequences, that he might protect you from the criminal justice system,” Romano said. “And so that might encourage people to commit these sort of acts.”

Romano is among dozens of Justice Department lawyers who have resigned, been pushed out or fired in the weeks since Trump’s new leadership has taken over and begun making sweeping changes to align the law enforcement agency with the priorities of the Republican president whom the department once prosecuted.

Trump’s return to the White House has ushered in a dizzying change for many in the Justice Department, but perhaps few have felt it more than the lawyers who spent years working on the largest-scale serious attack on the Capitol since the war of 1812.

As a deputy chief of the now-disbanded Capitol Siege Section that prosecuted the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, Romano had a close-up view of the evidence, including harrowing videos and court testimony detailing the violence that unfolded when the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol as lawmakers met to certify former President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.

Romano joined the Justice Department in 2007 straight out of law school, and was working in the section in Washington that handles public corruption cases on Jan. 6, 2021. He recalled watching the riot unfold on television, and quickly deciding he wanted to help with the prosecution of what he described as a “crime of historic proportions.”

Trump’s pardons cemented the president’s yearslong campaign to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6 attack.

While vying to return to the White House, Trump repeatedly downplayed the violence that left more than 100 police officers injured, and lauded the rioters as patriots and hostages whom he contended were unfairly persecuted by the Justice Department for their political beliefs. Only two Capitol riot defendants were acquitted of all charges, which Trump supporters cited as evidence that Washington juries can’t be fair and impartial. Some Jan. 6 defendants are now considering running for office.

The scope of Trump’s clemency hours after the inauguration came as a surprise to many, considering the president had suggested in the weeks prior that instead of blanket pardons, he would look at the Jan. 6 defendants on a case-by-case basis. Trump’s proclamation described the prosecution as “a grave national injustice” and declared that the pardons would begin “a process of national reconciliation.”

Trump’s pardons led to the release from prison of the leaders of far-right extremist groups convicted of orchestrating violent plots to stop the peaceful transfer of power as well as rioters convicted of brutal attacks on police — many of whose crimes were captured on camera and broadcast on live TV. Trump has defended his pardons, saying the sentences handed down for actions that day were “ridiculous and excessive” and that “these are people who actually love our country.”

Romano said the notion that the Jan. 6 defendants were not treated fairly by in the justice system or not given the due process they were entitled is “simply not true.” In many cases, he said prosecutors had overwhelming evidence because the defendants “filmed themselves proudly committing crimes.”

“They had the full protection of rights guaranteed to them by the American justice system and the Constitution,” Romano said. “It was my experience when dealing with these cases and seeing the way that the rioters and some of their attorneys behaved in court, that their take was that they should be treated like heroes and not prosecuted at all.”

Despite the pardons, Romano said he still believes that the Capitol Siege Section’s work was important because it left behind a “historical record” of what happened on Jan. 6 that cannot be changed.

“In light of the efforts to whitewash the history of that day, in light of the efforts for people to lie about that day for their own benefit, which is what’s happening, it’s important that people really understand the truth about what happened on January 6th,” he said.

Today is Saturday, April 26, the 116th day of 2025. There are 249 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On April 26, 1986, in the worst nuclear disaster in history, an explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine caused radioactive fallout to begin spewing into the atmosphere. Dozens of people were killed in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, while the long-term death toll from radiation poisoning is believed to number in the thousands.

Also on this date:

In 1607, English colonists went ashore at present-day Cape Henry, Virginia, on an expedition to establish the first permanent English settlement in the Western Hemisphere.

In 1865, John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, was surrounded by federal troops near Port Royal, Virginia, and killed.

In 1913, Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old worker at a Georgia pencil factory, was strangled; Leo Frank, the factory superintendent, was convicted of her murder and sentenced to death. (Frank’s death sentence was commuted, but he was lynched by an antisemitic mob in 1915.)

In 1964, the African nations of Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form what is now known as Tanzania.

In 1977, the legendary nightclub Studio 54 had its opening night in New York.

In 1994, voting began in South Africa’s first all-race elections, which resulted in victory for the African National Congress and the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president.

In 2000, Vermont Gov. Howard Dean signed the nation’s first bill allowing same-sex couples to form civil unions.

In 2012, former Liberian President Charles Taylor became the first head of state since World War II to be convicted by an international war crimes court as he was found guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, and the use of child soldiers. (Taylor was sentenced to 50 years in prison.)

In 2018, comedian Bill Cosby was convicted of drugging and molesting Temple University employee Andrea Constand at Cosby’s suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004. (Cosby was later sentenced to three to 10 years in prison, but Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out the conviction and released him from prison in June 2021, ruling that the prosecutor in the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby.)

Today’s Birthdays:

• Actor-comedian Carol Burnett is 92.
• Composer-producer Giorgio Moroder is 85.
• Olympic swimming gold medalist Donna de Varona is 78.
• Actor Giancarlo Esposito is 67.
• Actor Joan Chen is 64.
• Actor Jet Li is 62.
• Actor-comedian Kevin James is 60.
• Former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey is 59.
• Actor Marianne Jean-Baptiste is 58.
• First lady Melania Trump is 55.
• Singer Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins (TLC) is 55.
• Country musician Jay DeMarcus (Rascal Flatts) is 54.
• Actor Tom Welling is 48.
• Actor Pablo Schreiber is 47.
• Actor Jordana Brewster is 45.
• Actor Channing Tatum is 45.
• New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge is 33.

Today is Monday, April 21, the 111th day of 2025. There are 254 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On April 21, 2016, Prince, one of the most inventive and influential musicians of modern times, was found dead at his home in suburban Minneapolis from an accidental fentanyl overdose; he was 57.

Also on this date:

In 1836, an army of Texans, led by Sam Houston, defeated the Mexican Army, led by Antonio López de Santa Anna, in the Battle of San Jacinto, the final battle of the Texas Revolution.

In 1910, author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, died in Redding, Connecticut, at age 74.

In 1918, German Air Force pilot Manfred von Richthofen, nicknamed “The Red Baron,” was killed at age 25 after being shot during a World War I air battle over Vaux-sur-Somme, France.

In 1930, fire broke out inside the overcrowded Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, killing 322 inmates in the deadliest prison disaster in U.S. history.

In 1975, with Communist forces closing in, South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu resigned after nearly 10 years in office, fleeing the country five days later.

In 1980, Rosie Ruiz was the first woman to cross the finish line at the Boston Marathon, but was later exposed as having cheated by entering the racecourse less than 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) before the finish line. (Canadian Jacqueline Gareau was named the actual winner of the women’s race.)

In 2015, an Egyptian criminal court sentenced ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi to 20 years in prison over the killing of protesters in 2012. (Morsi collapsed and died during trial on espionage charges in June 2019.)

Today’s Birthdays:

• Actor-comedian-filmmaker Elaine May is 93.
• Author-activist Sister Helen Prejean is 86.
• Singer Iggy Pop is 78.
• Actor Patti LuPone is 76.
• Actor Tony Danza is 74.
• Actor Andie MacDowell is 67.
• Musician Robert Smith (The Cure) is 66.
• Actor Rob Riggle is 55.
• Actor James McAvoy is 46.
• Former NFL quarterback Tony Romo is 45.
• Actor Gugu Mbatha-Raw is 42.

By Natalie Skowlund, KFF Health News

SILVERTHORNE, Colo. — When Adolfo Román García-Ramírez walks home in the evening from his shift at a grocery store in this central Colorado mountain town, sometimes he thinks back on his childhood in Nicaragua. Adults, he recollects, would scare the kids with tales of the “Mona Bruja,” or “Monkey Witch.” Step too far into the dark, they told him, and you might just get snatched up by the giant monstrous monkey who lives in the shadows.

Now, when García-Ramírez looks over his shoulder, it’s not monster monkeys he is afraid of. It’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

“There’s this constant fear that you’ll be walking down the street and a vehicle rolls up,” García-Ramírez, 57, said in Spanish. “They tell you, ‘We’re from ICE; you’re arrested,’ or, ‘Show me your papers.’”

Silverthorne, a commuter town between the ski meccas of Breckenridge and Vail, has been García-Ramírez’s home for the past two years. He works as a cashier at the grocery and shares a two-bedroom apartment with four roommates.

The town of nearly 5,000 has proved a welcome haven for the political exile, who was released from prison in 2023 after Nicaragua’s authoritarian government brokered a deal with the U.S. government to transfer more than 200 political prisoners to the U.S. The exiles were offered temporary residency in the U.S. under a Biden administration humanitarian parole program.

García-Ramírez’s two-year humanitarian parole expired in February, just a few weeks after President Donald Trump issued an executive order to end the program that had permitted temporary legal residency in the U.S. for hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, putting him at risk of deportation. García-Ramírez was stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship when he came to the U.S. Just over a year ago, he applied for political asylum. He is still waiting for an interview.

“I can’t safely say I’m calm, or I’m OK, right now,” García-Ramírez said. “You feel unsafe, but you also feel incapable of doing anything to make it better.”

Vail and Breckenridge are world famous for their ski slopes, which attract millions of people a year. But life for the tourism labor force that serves Colorado’s mountain resorts is less glamorous. Residents of Colorado’s mountain towns experience high rates of suicide and substance use disorders, fueled in part by seasonal fluctuations in income that can cause stress for many in the local workforce.

The Latino communities who make up significant proportions of year-round populations in Colorado’s mountain towns are particularly vulnerable. A recent poll found more than 4 in 5 Latino respondents in the Western Slope region, home to many of the state’s rural ski resort communities, expressed “extremely or very serious” concern about substance use. That’s significantly higher than in rural eastern Colorado’s Morgan County, which also has a sizable Latino population, and in Denver and Colorado Springs.

Statewide, concerns about mental health have surged among Latinos in recent years, rising from fewer than half calling it an extremely or very serious problem in 2020 to more than three-quarters in 2023. Health care workers, researchers, and community members all say factors such as language differences, cultural stigma, and socioeconomic barriers may exacerbate mental health issues and limit the ability to access care.

“You’re not getting regular medical care. You’re working long hours, which probably means that you can’t take care of your own health,” said Asad Asad, a Stanford University assistant professor of sociology. “All of these factors compound the stresses that we all might experience in daily life.”

Add sky-high costs of living and an inadequate supply of mental health facilities across Colorado’s rural tourist destinations, and the problem becomes acute.

Now, the Trump administration’s threats of immigration raids and imminent deportation of anyone without legal U.S. residency have caused stress levels to soar. In communities around Vail, advocates estimate, a vast majority of Latino residents do not have legal status. Communities near Vail and Breckenridge have not experienced immigration raids, but in neighboring Routt County, home to Steamboat Springs, at least three people with criminal records have been detained by ICE, according to news reports. Social media posts falsely claiming local ICE sightings have further fueled concerns.

Yirka Díaz Platt, a bilingual social worker in Silverthorne originally from Peru, said a pervasive fear of deportation has caused many Latino workers and residents to retreat into the shadows. People have begun to cancel in-person meetings and avoid applying for government services that require submitting personal data, according to local health workers and advocates. In early February, some locals didn’t show up to work as part of a nationwide “day without immigrants” strike. Employers wonder whether they will lose valuable employees to deportation.

Some immigrants have stopped driving out of fear they will be pulled over by police. Paige Baker-Braxton, director of outpatient behavioral health at the Vail Health system, said she has seen a decline in visits from Spanish-speaking patients over the last few months.

“They’re really trying to keep to themselves. They are not really socializing much. If you go to the grocery stores, you don’t see much of our community out there anymore,” Platt said. “There’s that fear of, ‘No, I’m not trusting anyone right now.’”

Juana Amaya is no stranger to digging in her heels to survive. Amaya immigrated to the Vail area from Honduras in 1983 as a single mother of a 3-year-old and a 6-month-old. She has spent more than 40 years working as a house cleaner in luxury condos and homes around Vail, sometimes working up to 16 hours a day. With barely enough time to finish work and care for a family at home, she said, it is often hard for Latinos in her community to admit when the stress has become too much.

“We don’t like to talk about how we’re feeling,” she said in Spanish, “so we don’t realize that we’re dealing with a mental health problem.”

The current political climate has only made things worse.

“It’s had a big impact,” she said. “There are people who have small children and wonder what they’ll do if they’re in school and they are taken away somewhere, but the children stay. What do you do?”

Asad has studied the mental health impacts of deportation rhetoric on Latino communities. He co-authored a study, published last year in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that found escalated deportation rhetoric may cause heightened levels of psychological distress in Latino noncitizens and even in Latino citizens.

Asad found that both groups may experience increased stress levels, and research has borne out the negative consequences of a parent’s lack of documentation on the health and educational attainment of their children.

“The inequalities or the hardships we impose on their parents today are the hardships or inequalities their children inherit tomorrow,” Asad said.

Despite heightened levels of fear and anxiety, Latinos living and working near Vail still find ways to support one another and seek help. Support groups in Summit County, home to Breckenridge and less than an hour’s drive from Vail, have offered mental health workshops for new immigrants and Latina women. Building Hope Summit County and Olivia’s Fund in Eagle County, home to Vail, help those without insurance pay for a set number of therapy sessions.

Vail Health plans to open a regional inpatient psychiatric facility in May, and the Mobile Intercultural Resource Alliance provides wraparound services, including behavioral health resources, directly to communities near Vail.

Back in Silverthorne, García-Ramírez, the Nicaraguan exile, takes things one day at a time.

“If they deport me from here, I’d go directly to Nicaragua,” said García-Ramírez, who said he had received a verbal death threat from authorities in his native country. “Honestly, I don’t think I would last even a day.”

In the meantime, he continues to make the routine trek home from his cashier job, sometimes navigating slick snow and dark streets past 9 p.m. When nightmarish thoughts about his own fate in America surface, García-Ramírez focuses on the ground beneath his feet.

“Come rain, shine, or snow,” he said, “I walk.”

This article was published with the support of the Journalism & Women Symposium (JAWS ) Health Journalism Fellowship, assisted by grants from The Commonwealth Fund.

---

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Today is Saturday, April 19, the 109th day of 2025. There are 256 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On April 19,1995, Timothy McVeigh, seeking to strike at the government he blamed for the Branch Davidian deaths two years earlier, destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. (McVeigh was convicted of federal murder charges and executed in 2001.)

Also on this date:

In 1775, the American Revolutionary War began with the Battles of Lexington and Concord—the start of an eight-year armed conflict between American colonists and the British Army.

In 1897, the first Boston Marathon was held. Winner John J. McDermott ran the course in 2 hours, 55 minutes and 10 seconds.

In 1943, during World War II, tens of thousands of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto began a valiant but ultimately futile uprising against Nazi forces.

In 1977, the Supreme Court, in Ingraham v. Wright, ruled 5-4 that even severe spanking of schoolchildren by faculty members did not violate the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment.

In 1989, 47 sailors were killed when a gun turret exploded aboard the USS Iowa during training exercises in the Caribbean.

In 1993, the 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, ended as the Davidians set fire to their compound following an FBI tear gas attack. Seventy-five people, including 25 children and sect leader David Koresh, were killed.

In 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany was elected pope in the first conclave of the new millennium; he took the name Benedict XVI.

In 2013, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-HAHR’ tsahr-NEYE’-ehv), a 19-year-old college student wanted in the Boston Marathon bombings, was taken into custody after a manhunt that had left the city virtually paralyzed. His older brother and alleged accomplice, 26-year-old Tamerlan (TAM’-ehr-luhn), was killed earlier in a furious attempt to escape police.

In 2015, Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man, died a week after suffering a spinal cord injury in the back of a Baltimore police van while he was handcuffed and shackled. (Six police officers were charged. Three were acquitted and the city’s top prosecutor eventually dropped the three remaining cases.)

Today’s Birthdays:

• Singer-songwriter Roberto Carlos is 84.
• Actor Tim Curry is 79.
• Motorsports Hall of Famer Al Unser Jr. is 63.
• Actor Ashley Judd is 57.
• Latin pop singer Luis Miguel is 55.
• Actor James Franco is 47.
• Actor Kate Hudson is 46.
• Actor Hayden Christensen is 44.
• Football Hall of Famer Troy Polamalu is 44.
• Actor-comedian Ali Wong is 43.
• Baseball Hall of Famer Joe Mauer is 42.
• Former WNBA star Candace Parker is 39.
• Former tennis player Maria Sharapova is 38.
• Actor Simu Liu is 36.

By TARA COPP

WASHINGTON (AP) — With the Trump administration expected to reverse a controversial 2023 decision on the permanent location of U.S. Space Command, a review by the Defense Department inspector general could not determine why Colorado was chosen over Alabama.

The inspector general’s report, issued Friday, said this was in part due to a lack of access to senior defense officials during the Biden administration, when the review began.

The location of U.S. Space Command has significant implications for the local economy, given the fast growth in national defense spending in space-based communications and defenses.

In 2021, the Air Force identified Army Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, as the preferred location for the new U.S. Space Command due to cost and other factors. But a temporary headquarters had already been established in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and after multiple delays President Joe Biden announced it as the permanent headquarters.

Alabama’s Republican congressional delegation accused the Biden administration of politicizing the decision. But Colorado, which has Republican and Democratic lawmakers, is home to many other Air Force and U.S. Space Force facilities.

As recently as last week, Rep. Mike Rogers House, an Alabama Republican who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, told a panel at Auburn University he expects the decision to be reversed by the White House before the end of April.

The location of Space Command would be one of many decisions that have swung back and forth between Biden and President Donald Trump. For instance, Biden stopped the construction of the border wall that began during Trump’s first term, only to have Trump now vow to complete it. And Trump is again seeking to ban transgender troops from serving in the military, after Biden removed Trump’s first-term limitations.

The controversy over the basing decision began seven days before Trump’s first term expired, when his Air Force secretary announced Alabama would be home to Space Command, pending an environmental review.

That review was completed about six months into Biden’s term and found no significant impact with hosting the command in Alabama. But the new administration did not act on the decision.

Instead, a year later, the Biden White House said it was keeping the headquarters in Colorado Springs, citing the time that would be lost relocating staff and the headquarters to Huntsville.

The report said interviews has been requested with Biden’s Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to understand why Huntsville was not named, but the Biden White House would only allow the interviews if administration lawyers were present. The inspector general rejected that condition, saying it could affect its unfettered access to information.

Today is Wednesday, April 9, the 99th day of 2025. There are 266 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On April 9, 1865, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia after four years of Civil War in the United States.

Also on this date:

In 1939, Marian Anderson performed a concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., after the Black singer was denied the use of Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

In 1940, during World War II, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway.

In 1942, during World War II, some 75,000 Philippine and American soldiers surrendered to Japanese troops, ending the Battle of Bataan in the Philippines. The prisoners of war were subsequently forced to march 65 miles (105 kilometers) to POW camps in what is now known as the Bataan Death March; thousands died or were killed en route.

In 1959, NASA introduced the “Mercury Seven,” its first seven astronauts: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald “Deke” Slayton.

In 1968, funerals, private and public, were held for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Ebenezer Baptist Church and Morehouse College in Atlanta, five days after the civil rights leader was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

In 2003, Baghdad fell to American troops during the Iraq War after six days of fighting.

In 2005, Britain’s Prince Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles, who took the title Duchess of Cornwall.

In 2018, federal agents raided the office of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, seizing records on matters including a $130,000 payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Satirist-musician Tom Lehrer is 97.
• Actor Michael Learned is 86.
• Drummer Steve Gadd is 80.
• Actor Dennis Quaid is 71.
• Fashion designer Marc Jacobs is 62.
• Model-actor Paulina Porizkova is 60.
• Actor Cynthia Nixon is 59.
• Actor Keshia Knight Pulliam is 46.
• Actor Jay Baruchel is 43.
• Actor Leighton Meester is 39.
• Singer-songwriter Jazmine Sullivan is 38.
• Actor Kristen Stewart is 35.
• Actor Elle Fanning is 27.
• Rapper Lil Nas X is 26.
• Actor Isaac Hempstead Wright is 26.
• Singer Jackie Evancho (ee-VAYN’-koh) is 24.

Today is Tuesday, April 1, the 91st day of 2025. There are 274 days left in the year. This is April Fool’s Day.

Today in history:

On April 1, 1945, American forces launched the amphibious invasion of Okinawa during World War II. (U.S. forces succeeded in capturing the Japanese island on June 22 after a battle in which more than 240,000 died, including as many as 150,000 Okinawan civilians.)

Also on this date:

In 1924, Adolf Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. (Hitler would serve just nine months of the sentence, during which time he completed the first volume of “Mein Kampf.”)

In 1946, a magnitude 8.6 earthquake centered near Alaska’s Aleutian Islands triggered a tsunami that pounded the Hawaiian Islands with waves up to 55 feet (17 meters) tall, killing 159.

In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon signed a measure banning cigarette advertising on radio and television beginning in January 1971.

In 1976, Apple Computer was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne.

In 1984, singer Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his father after Gaye intervened in an argument between his parents at their home.

In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage.

In 2003, American troops raided a hospital in Nasiriyah (nah-sih-REE’-uh), Iraq, and rescued Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who had been held prisoner since her unit was ambushed on March 23.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Actor Ali MacGraw is 86.
• Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is 75.
• Actor Annette O’Toole is 73.
• Filmmaker Barry Sonnenfeld is 72.
• Singer Susan Boyle is 64.
• Hockey Hall of Famer Scott Stevens is 61.
• Rapper-actor Method Man is 54.
• Political commentator Rachel Maddow is 52.
• Actor David Oyelowo is 49.
• Comedian-actor Taran Killam is 43.
• Actor Asa Butterfield is 28.

Today is Wednesday, March 26, the 85th day of 2025. There are 280 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On March 26, 2018, a toxicology report obtained by The Associated Press revealed that the late pop superstar Prince had levels of fentanyl in his body that multiple experts described as “exceedingly high.”

Also on this date:

In 1812, an earthquake devastated Caracas, Venezuela, causing as many as 30,000 deaths. (The U.S. Congress later approved $50,000 in food aid to be sent to Venezuela — the first example of American disaster assistance abroad.)

In 1917, the Seattle Metropolitans became the first American ice hockey team to win the Stanley Cup, defeating the Montreal Canadiens 9-1 to win the championship series, three games to one.

In 1979, a peace treaty was signed by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and witnessed by President Jimmy Carter at the White House.

In 1992, a judge in Indianapolis sentenced former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson to six years in prison on rape charges. (Tyson would ultimately serve less than three years of the sentence.)

In 1997, the bodies of 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate religious cult who took their own lives were found inside a rented mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, California.

In 2013, Italy’s top criminal court overturned the acquittal of American Amanda Knox in the grisly murder of British roommate Meredith Kercher and ordered Knox to stand trial again. (Although convicted in absentia, Knox was exonerated by the Italian Supreme Court in 2015.)

In 2021, Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, saying the cable news giant falsely claimed that the voting company rigged the 2020 election. (Fox would eventually agree to pay Dominion $787.5 million in one of the largest defamation settlements in U.S. history.)

In 2024, Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed after being struck by a container ship, killing six maintenance workers on the bridge. (Maryland officials have announced plans to replace the bridge by late 2028.)

Today’s Birthdays:

• Basketball Hall of Famer Wayne Embry is 88.
• Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is 85.
• Author Erica Jong is 83.
• Journalist Bob Woodward is 82.
• Singer Diana Ross is 81.
• Rock singer Steven Tyler (Aerosmith) is 77.
• Actor-comedian Vicki Lawrence is 76.
• Actor-comedian Martin Short is 75.
• Country singer Ronnie McDowell is 75.
• Country singer Charly McClain is 69.
• TV personality Leeza Gibbons is 68.
• Football Hall of Famer Marcus Allen is 65.
• Actor Jennifer Grey is 65.
• Basketball Hall of Famer John Stockton is 63.
• Actor Michael Imperioli is 59.
• Country singer Kenny Chesney is 57.
• Actor Leslie Mann is 53.
• Google co-founder Larry Page is 52.
• Rapper Juvenile is 50.
• Actor Keira Knightley is 40.
• Actor-comedian Ramy Youssef is 34.

By The Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of passengers faced flight cancellations at Europe’s busiest travel hub after a fire knocked out power to London’s Heathrow Airport, forcing it to close for the day.

At least 1,350 flights to and from Heathrow were affected, including several from U.S. cities that were canceled, flight tracking service FlightRadar 24 said.

Here’s the latest:

___

United Airlines offers travel waiver to Heathrow customers

United Airlines says that it is offering a travel waiver to its customers while Heathrow is closed so that they can switch to eligible flights to Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris or Edinburgh. The airline said that all flights scheduled to arrive at Heathrow on Friday are canceled due to the closure.

Eurostar adding trains to help travelers

Eurostar says it is adding two additional trains between London and Paris to accommodate passengers stranded by Heathrow’s shutdown.

The high-speed train that goes beneath the English Channel said it was increasing capacity by 882 passengers per train on Friday.

Heathrow says it doesn’t know when power will be restored

Heathrow Airport says it doesn’t know when power will be restored and expects disruption to last for days after an electrical substation fire nearby.

The airport said in a statement it does not have “clarity on when power may be reliably restored.”

What is known about the fire that brought London’s Heathrow Airport to a standstill

It said it expects “significant disruption over the coming days and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens.”

Heathrow earlier said the airport is not expected to reopen until Saturday.

Analysts say Heathrow closure raises worrying questions

While the cause of the fire that shut down Heathrow Airport is still unclear, analysts say the incident raises concerns about the U.K.’s ability to withstand attacks or natural disasters that damage critical infrastructure such as communications and power networks.

It’s particularly worrisome given recent comments by Britain’s security services that Russia is conducting a reckless campaign of sabotage across Europe, said Alan Mendoza, the executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think tank focused on security and democracy in Europe.

“The U.K.’s critical national infrastructure is not sufficiently hardened for anywhere near the level it would need to be at to give us confidence this won’t happen again,” Mendoza said.

“I mean, if one fire can shut down Heathrow’s primary systems and then apparently the backup systems as well, it tells you something’s badly wrong with our system of management of such disasters,” he added.

European airline shares fall on main indexes

The Heathrow disruption weighed on shares of European airlines, which posted declines that outpaced the fall in broader main stock indexes on Friday.

Shares of International Airlines Group, which owns British Airways, were down 1.4% after falling as much as 3% in early trading. Shares of Lufthansa, which operates Germany’s biggest carrier as well as Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and others, fell 1.3%. Air France-KLM, which operates the main carriers in France the Netherlands, slid 1.3%.

German leisure and tourism company TUI, which owns five airlines including one that serves the British market, slid 1.8%. Other European airlines that don’t operate at Heathrow were also dragged down by the negative sentiment. Wizz Air shares declined 1.4%, easyJet was down 0.7% and Ryanair dipped 0.8.

UK prime minister calls for rigorous investigation into fire

The British government says “clearly there are questions to answer” about how a single fire could shut down Europe’s busiest airport.

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer said there must be a rigorous investigation to make sure “this scale of disruption does not happen again.”

Tom Wells said the most pressing task is to extinguish the fire, which is still burning on Friday. He said that “at the moment the priority is to deal with the incident in hand.”

He said “it’s very premature” to speculate on the cause of the blaze.

US flight operations normal as Delta issues waiver for Heathrow passengers

Flight operations remained normal in the United States on Friday despite the Heathrow fire, according to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

Delta Airlines has issued a travel waiver through Sunday for customers who need to rebook their flights due to the Heathrow fire, a spokesperson said in a statement.

The company canceled 10 flights scheduled to depart from Heathrow on Friday.

No indication of foul play in London blaze, police say

Police say there is so far no indication of foul play in blaze that shut Heathrow but counterterror detectives leading the investigation into its cause.

The Metropolitan Police force says that is because of the location of the electrical substation fire and its impact on critical national infrastructure.

The force says counterterrorism command has “specialist resources and capabilities” that can help find the cause quickly.

Starmer thanks emergency services tackling blaze

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says he is receiving regular updates on the fire that has shut down Heathrow Airport, as he thanked the emergency services tacking the blaze.

Starmer posted on X: “I know the situation in Heathrow is causing distress and disruption, especially for those traveling or without power in their homes. I’m receiving regular updates and I’m in close contact with partners on the ground. Thanks to our emergency workers for keeping people safe.”

Heathrow closure recalls Icelandic volcano disruption

The Heathrow closure is drawing comparisons to the 2010 Icelandic volcano eruption that closed much of European airspace for five days out of fears volcanic ash could damage jet engines.

The eruption of the volcano Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH’-lah-yer-kuhl), after two centuries of silence, spewed an ash cloud that closed Europe’s airspace and grounded millions of travelers. Iceland was briefly infamous as the country that stopped the world.

Read more about Iceland’s tourism boom in the aftermath of the 2010 eruption.

Scandinavian Airlines cancels 12 round-trip London flights

Scandinavian Airlines has canceled all 12 of its flights to and from London Heathrow on Friday.

“We are closely monitoring the situation and remain in continuous dialogue with Heathrow. Naturally, we hope for a swift resolution,” the company said in a statement.

Known as SAS, it’s considered the national airline of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

Hopes dashed for family seeking to travel home to Texas

At Heathrow’s Terminal 5, a family of five traveling to Dallas had shown up in the hopes their flight home — still listed as delayed — would take off.

But when Andrea Sri brought her brother, sister-in-law and their three children to the airport, they were told by police that there would be no flight.

“It was a waste of time. Very confusing,” said Sri, who lives in London. “We tried to get in touch with British Airways, but they don’t open their telephone line until 8 a.m.”

Other London-area airports could reroute stranded travelers

Heathrow is one of the world’s biggest airports, but there are five others in the wider London area as well.

Travelers might be able to rebook through the remaining five airports — City, Gatwick, Luton, Stansted and Southend — in the aftermath of Heathrow’s closure.

However, they aren’t all easy to reach from Heathrow. While City is in inner London, and buses link Heathrow with Gatwick, the others are further out. Southend is about a 78-mile drive from Heathrow, around the congested M25 orbital highway and then out to the eastern coast of England.

Witnesses describe fireball and loud explosion from substation blaze

LONDON — Residents in west London have described hearing a large explosion, followed by a fireball and clouds of smoke, when a blaze ripped through an electrical substation near Heathrow Airport.

Matthew Muirhead, who was working a night shift, said that at about 11:30 p.m. Thursday he saw smoke rising over trees, then “a bright flash of white and all the lights in town went out.”

Delivery driver Adeel Anwar said the heat and billowing smoke from the blaze were “absolutely apocalyptic.” He told Sky News that as he drove past the substation “I just felt the heat … I tried to just get out of the area as quick as possible.”

Firefighters brought the blaze under control after seven hours and were still working to douse the flames on Friday. No injuries were reported.

Electricity supplier National Grid said power was restored to 62,000 customers by Friday morning, with 4,900 still without electricity.

Air India suspends Heathrow flights, with one turning around in midair

NEW DELHI — All Air India flights to Heathrow were suspended until Friday midnight, the carrier said in a statement, adding that it will “update about resumption of operations as soon as we have more information.”

The airline also said one of its flights had to return midair to Mumbai and another was diverted to Frankfurt. The company didn’t specify how many flights were affected in total.

Some passengers at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport said they had been informed of cancellations, while others said they were still waiting for the airline to provide them with alternate flights.

“As soon I went inside to get my boarding pass, they (airline staff) told us that the flight has been canceled and there is no flight for next two, three days,” passenger Vikas Swarup said.

Emma Fulton, who was in India’s Jaipur city for a wedding, said she received a text message en route to the airport.

“We had a text message about 20 mins before we arrived here, but we were already on the road,” she said.

9 flights through Dubai canceled after Heathrow closure

DUBAI — Eight outbound flights from Dubai International Airport to Heathrow, and one inbound from London to Dubai, were canceled Friday, according to Dubai Airports.

Travelers were told to contact their airlines for rebooking options.

What should travelers do?

Any travelers impacted by the Heathrow closure should contact their airline.

If a phone call doesn’t go through, travelers can also try contacting the airline on social media. Several airlines were responding to passengers’ posts on social platform X on Friday. A representative for British Airways, for example, was telling customers on X to send a direct message to the airline’s account so they could assist in rebooking.

For customers who are seeking a refund or other compensation, a European Union regulation known as EU261 could apply. Because the United Kingdom is no longer part of the EU, however, not every flight will be covered under EU261. The regulation covers flights within the EU, as well as flights departing from the EU to a non-EU country.

London flights from Barcelona and Madrid canceled

Spanish airport operator Aena said on Friday morning that 20 flights to and from Madrid and Barcelona had been canceled due to the Heathrow power outage. A total of 54 flights headed to or departing from Spanish airports were affected.

In a post on X, the state-controlled commercial airport operator advised travelers to contact airlines for more information about disrupted flights.

‘An incredibly long day’ for travelers

GLASGOW — Lawrence Hayes was three-quarters of the way to London from John F. Kennedy International in New York when Virgin Atlantic announced they were being diverted to Glasgow.

“It was a red-eye flight and I’d already had a full day, so I don’t even know how long I’ve been up for,” Hayes told the BBC as he was getting off the plane in Scotland. “Luckily I managed to get hold of my wife and she’s kindly booked me a train ticket to get back to Euston (railway station in London), but it’s going to be an incredibly long day.”

Ryanair adds ‘rescue flights’ between Dublin and London Stansted

DUBLIN — Ryanair has added eight “rescue flights” between Dublin and Stansted, another London airport, on Friday and Saturday to help travelers impacted by the fire at Heathrow, the budget airline announced.

Ryanair does not operate at Heathrow.

Four of the flights will occur Friday afternoon, and the remaining on Saturday morning.

Lufthansa Group cancels flights to and from Heathrow

BERLIN — All flights by Lufthansa Group to and from Heathrow were canceled on Friday.

The company didn’t specify how many flights were affected in total, but said in an emailed statement that “passengers affected by the flight cancellations have been rebooked on other flights and informed about it.”

Lufthansa Group includes Germany’s biggest airline, Lufthansa, as well as Austrian Airlines, Swiss, Brussels Airlines and others.

No evidence that substation fire was suspicious, UK officials say

LONDON — British officials working to determine the cause of an electrical substation fire that shut Heathrow Airport have not yet found evidence it’s suspicious.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband says “it’s too early to say” what caused the huge blaze, but there’s “no suggestion” of foul play.

London’s Metropolitan Police say the fire brigade is leading the investigation, suggesting it’s not thought to be criminal.

Flights from Tokyo diverted or turned around

TOKYO — The closure of Heathrow forced two Japanese flights that had already departed to return to Tokyo and a third to change its destination, airline officials said.

Japan Airlines said one of its two Heathrow-bound flights Friday returned to Tokyo’s Haneda international airport, and another one diverted to the Finnish capital, Helsinki. A third flight out of Tokyo, operated by All Nippon Airways, another major Japanese carrier, also returned to Haneda.

Airline officials advised passengers to check the latest flight information for Saturday.

Birdsong replaces aircraft noise for Heathrow neighbors

The noise from Europe’s busiest airport is a constant bugbear for those who live nearby, but has temporarily fallen silent.

“Basically living near Heathrow is noisy. There are planes every 90 seconds or so, plus the constant hum of traffic, but you get used to it, to the point of no longer noticing,” said James Henderson, who has lived next to Heathrow for over 20 years.

“Today is different. You can hear the birds singing.”

Qantas diverts Heathrow flights to Paris

Australian airline Qantas diverted its Singapore-London and Perth-London flights to Paris on Friday and then bused the travelers to London, a spokesperson said.

Customers will be contacted directly if their flight is impacted.

Aviation expert compares impact to 9/11 or Icelandic volcano

LONDON — Aviation consultant John Strickland says it will take several days for global airline travel to recover from a daylong closure of Heathrow Airport.

He said: “We’re talking about several days’ worth of disruption to get the planes recovered and start using them again to move planned and disrupted passengers.”

Strickland compared the disruption to “a contained version of 9/11 or, to an extent, the Icelandic volcanic eruption” that shut European airspace in 2010.

“I remembered seeing on those occasions – particularly more so on 9/11 – it happened so quick and then U.S. airspace was closed, they were turning back aircraft and holding planes. That’s the parallel I would make.

“Heathrow being such a busy airport and full, there’s no kind of wriggle room for getting out of these kind of things.”

Heathrow closure has widespread impact on air travel

The closure of Heathrow rippled through global aviation. The long-haul carrier Emirates in Dubai, which has London as one of its top destinations, canceled six round-trip flights to Heathrow on Friday alone.

Etihad in neighboring Abu Dhabi canceled two round-trip flights, while one flight diverted to Frankfurt, Germany. Qatar Airways said at least seven scheduled flights were “impacted,” with its staff working with passengers.

Blaze that shut down Heathrow is unprecedented, UK government minister says

A British government minister says a “catastrophic” fire knocked out a backup generator as well as the electrical substation that supplies power to Heathrow Airport.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband told the BBC that the blaze is “unprecedented.”

He said it’s too early to know the cause but that lessons will have to be learned about “protection and the resilience that is in place for major institutions like Heathrow.”

Flights from Hong Kong rerouted to Amsterdam, airline says

Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways rerouted two overnight flights to Amsterdam and canceled at least two daytime flights to Heathrow, according to the flight status page on its website.

Fire that closed Heathrow is now under control but not out

The London Fire Brigade says the electrical substation blaze closed Heathrow Airport is under control.

The fire caused a widespread power outage, affecting thousands of homes, local businesses, and disrupting thousands of flights.

LFB Assistant Commissioner Pat Goulbourne says the fire was under control just after 8 a.m.

“This was a very visible and significant incident, and our firefighters worked tirelessly in challenging conditions to bring the fire under control as swiftly as possible,” he said. “Thanks to their efforts and a coordinated multi-agency response, we successfully contained the fire and prevented further spread.”

Heathrow is one of the world’s busiest airports

Heathrow is one of the world’s busiest airports for international travel. It had its busiest January on record earlier this year, with more than 6.3 million passengers, up more than 5% for the same period last year. January also was the 11th month in a row it averaged over 200,000 passengers a day, with the airport citing trans-Atlantic travel as a key contributor.

Heathrow normally opens for flights at 6 a.m. due to nighttime flying restrictions. It said the closure would last until 11:59 p.m. Friday.

The U.K. government earlier this year approved building a third runway at the airport to boost the economy and connectivity to the world.

Flights turn around as airport closes

Seven United Airlines flights returned to their origin or diverted to other airports and its flights Friday to Heathrow were canceled, the airline said.

The FlightAware website showed more cancellations including two from John F. Kennedy International in New York, a Delta Airlines flight and an American Airlines flight.

Other jets were diverted to Gatwick Airport outside London, Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and Ireland’s Shannon Airport, tracking services showed.

National Rail canceled all trains to and from the airport.

Fire cuts off power to Heathrow and thousands of homes

Flames soared into the sky when a transformer at an electrical substation caught fire in west London late Thursday night. The fire continued to smolder after daybreak.

Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks said in a post on X the power outage affected more than 16,300 homes. About 150 people were evacuated.The cause of the fire is yet to be determined.

By JILL LAWLESS The Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — A fire that closed London’s Heathrow Airport has sparked one of the most serious disruptions to air travel in years.

More than 1,300 flights were canceled and hundreds of thousands of journeys were disrupted following the blaze at an electrical substation, whose cause is under investigation.

Here is a look at some past incidents:

July 2024: Faulty software causes chaos

A faulty software update sent to millions of Microsoft customers by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused technological havoc worldwide. Airlines lost access to their booking systems, thousands of flights were canceled and tens of thousands were delayed, leading to long lines at airports in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America.

August 2023: UK air traffic control problems

A glitch at Britain’s National Air Traffic Services in August 2023 meant flight plans had to be processed manually, rather than automatically. Hundreds of flights were delayed or canceled at the height of the summer holidays. The NATS system had already suffered several software-related failures in the years after it opened in 2002.

March 2020: COVID-19 pandemic

As a new coronavirus spread around the globe in early 2020, the world’s airports shut down. Many governments closed national borders and imposed travel restrictions. By April, the number of flights around the world had fallen by 80%. When air travel resumed, it was with masks, mandatory coronavirus tests and other measures that made flying more onerous and expensive. It wasn’t until 2024 that global passenger numbers reached 2019 levels again.

December 2018: Gatwick drone sightings

More than 140,000 travelers were stranded or delayed after dozens of drone sightings shut down London Gatwick, south of the U.K. capital and Britain’s second-busiest airport, for parts of three consecutive days before Christmas. A monthslong police investigation failed to identify the culprits or determine how many of the sightings were real.

May 2017: British Airways IT glitch

A computer failure at a British Airways data center forced the airline to cancel all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick on a holiday weekend. The airline blamed a power-supply issue for the incident which affected some 75,000 travelers.

August 2016: Delta outage

Delta Air Lines planes around the world were grounded when an electrical component failed and led to a shutdown of the transformer that provides power to the carrier’s data center. Delta said that it canceled more than 2,000 flights and lost $100 million in revenue as a result of the outage.

April 2010: Iceland’s volcano

People around the world learned how to pronounce the name of Iceland’s tongue-twisting Eyjafjallajökull volcano (ay-yah-FYAH-lah-yer-kuhl) after it roared to life, sending plumes of ash and dust into the atmosphere. Airspace over northern Europe was shut for several days and airlines canceled flights between Europe and North America because of concerns the ash could damage jet engines. More than 100,000 flights were canceled, stranding millions of passengers, at an estimated cost of $3 billion.

September 2001: 9/11

U.S. airspace was closed to commercial flights on Sept. 11, 2011 after hijackers crashed planes into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. Thousands of planes were grounded and flights in the air heading for the U.S. were diverted to Canada and Mexico. Flights began to resume two days later, but air travel was forever altered, with passengers facing more rigorous security, more intrusive scrutiny and longer lines.

Hundreds of thousands of passengers face flight cancellations as Heathrow closes

By DANICA KIRKA The Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — Flights to and from London’s Heathrow Airport were canceled Friday after a fire at a nearby substation knocked out power to Europe’s busiest airport, disrupting travel plans for hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

Here’s a look at what’s happening and its impact on air travel.

What happened?

A fire at an electrical substation in west London, about 2 miles (3 kilometers) from the airport, knocked out power to Heathrow Airport just before midnight on Thursday.

The “significant power outage” forced officials to shut the airport until 11:59 p.m. on Friday “to maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues.”

The London Fire Brigade said 10 fire engines and 70 firefighters responded to a fire at the substation that was reported at 11:23 p.m. on Thursday. The fire has been contained but firefighters will remain at the scene throughout Friday, the fire brigade said.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the “catastrophic” fire appeared to have knocked out a backup generator as well as the electrical substation that supplies power to Heathrow Airport.

National Grid, which maintains energy infrastructure in Britain, said the fire damaged equipment at the substation and crews are working to restore power supplies as quickly as possible. Power had been restored to 62,000 customers by 6 a.m. local time, but 4,900 were still without electricity.

What caused the fire?

The cause is still under investigation, and officials said there was “no suggestion” of foul play.

But the Metropolitan Police said counterterror detectives were leading the investigation into its cause because of the fire’s impact on critical national infrastructure.

“We don’t know the cause of this fire. It’s obviously an unprecedented event,” Miliband said, adding that the fire and subsequent shutdown of Heathrow raises questions about the resilience of the country’s key infrastructure.

How was Heathrow affected?

The disruption disrupted travel plans of the roughly 200,000 people who were expected to travel through Heathrow on Friday. Heathrow advised passengers not to travel to the airport and to contact their airlines to rebook flights.

With all take offs and landings canceled, the first impact was on dozens of long-haul flights from North America and Asia that were in the air when the airport was shutdown. Some were forced to turn around, while others were diverted to airports around the U.K. and Europe.

Heathrow-bound aircraft have landed at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam; Shannon Airport in western Ireland; Glasgow, Scotland; Manchester, England; Charles de Gaulle in Paris; Lyon, France; and Frankfurt, Germany, among others.

The impact on short-haul flights was delayed until Friday morning because flight operations at Heathrow are severely limited between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. every day to minimize overnight noise in surrounding communities. Even so, thousands of people will be unable to travel to and from airports around Europe and the U.K. on Friday.

Some 4,000 tons of cargo have also been stranded by the closure, according to Anita Mendiratta, an aviation consultant.

How long will the disruptions last?

Even if the airport reopens on Saturday, the disruptions are expected to last for days as airlines move stranded aircraft and flight crews back into position and work to accommodate passengers whose flights were canceled.

Mendiratta estimated that it would take two to four days to clear all the backlogs.

“This is an extreme situation where the entire aviation ecosystem is impacted,” Mendiratta said.

“There will be two things that will be happening as a priority number one shall we say. First is airport operations and understanding, from an electrical system point of view, what has been impacted, if anything,” she added. “Did anything short out, for instance? What needs to be reactivated? And then how do you literally turn the airport back on again? Passenger and cargo.

“On top of that, there’s the issue of actually managing the human component of it. You have passengers that are impacted, crew are impacted and operations — so being able to re-mobilize everything.”

How big is Heathrow?

Heathrow was Europe’s busiest airport last year, with 83.6 million passengers traveling through the airport. Its closure will have far-reaching impacts because it is a major hub for connecting flights to cities throughout Britain and around the world, as well as for travel to London.

Does London have other airports?

Yes. Five other air hubs in southeastern England identify themselves as London airports, but they are much smaller than Heathrow. Gatwick, Britain’s second-biggest airport, handled 43.2 million passengers last year. It is in the town of Crawley, 28 miles south of London.

Today is Thursday, March 20, the 79th day of 2025. There are 286 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On March 20, 1995, in Tokyo, packages containing the deadly chemical sarin were opened on five separate subway trains in a domestic terror attack by members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, causing 14 deaths and injuring more than 1,000.

Also on this date:

In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte returned to Paris after escaping his exile on Elba, beginning his “Hundred Days” rule.

In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s influential novel about slavery, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” was first published in book form after being serialized in the abolitionist newspaper The National Era; it would become the best-selling novel of the 19th century.

In 1854, the Republican Party of the United States was founded by opponents of slavery at a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin.

In 1976, kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was convicted of armed robbery for her part in a San Francisco bank holdup carried out by the Symbionese Liberation Army. (Hearst was sentenced to seven years in prison; she was released after serving 22 months and was pardoned in 2001 by President Bill Clinton.)

In 1987, azidothymidine (AZT) became the first medication approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat HIV/AIDS.

In 1996, a jury in Los Angeles convicted Erik and Lyle Menendez of first-degree murder in the shotgun slayings of their wealthy parents. (They were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.)

In 2014, President Barack Obama ordered economic sanctions against nearly two dozen members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and a major bank that provided them support, raising the stakes in an East-West showdown over Ukraine.

In 2018, in a phone call to Vladimir Putin, President Donald Trump offered congratulations on Putin’s re-election victory; a senior official said Trump had been warned in briefing materials that he should not congratulate Putin.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Actor Hal Linden is 94.
• Basketball Hall of Fame coach Pat Riley is 80.
• Hockey Hall of Famer Bobby Orr is 77.
• Guitarist Jimmie Vaughan is 74.
• Film director Spike Lee is 68.
• Actor Holly Hunter is 67.
• Model-entrepreneur Kathy Ireland is 62.
• Actor David Thewlis is 62.
• Actor Michael Rapaport is 55.
• MMA commentator and former champion Daniel Cormier is 46.
• Actor-singer Christy Carlson Romano is 41.
• Tennis player Sloane Stephens is 32.

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and LINDSAY WHITEHURST

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is resisting a federal judge’s demand for more information about flights that took deportees to to El Salvador, arguing on Wednesday that the court should end its “continued intrusions” into the authority of the executive branch.

It’s the latest development in a showdown between the Trump administration and the judge who temporarily blocked deportations under an 18th century wartime declaration. President Donald Trump has called for the judge’s impeachment as the Republican escalates his conflict with a judiciary after a series of court setbacks over his executive actions.

U.S. District Judge Jeb Boasberg, who was nominated to the federal bench by Democratic President Barack Obama, had ordered the Trump administration to answer several questions under seal, where the information would not be publicly exposed. There were questions about the planes’ takeoff and landing times, and the number of people deported under Trump’s proclamation.

The judge has questioned whether the Trump administration ignored his court order on Saturday to turn around planes with deportees headed for the Central American country, which had has agreed to house them in a notorious prison.

In court papers filed hours before the deadline to respond Wednesday, the Justice Department said the judge’s questions are “grave encroachments on core aspects of absolute and unreviewable Executive Branch authority relating to national security, foreign relations and foreign policy.” The department said it was considering invoking the “state secrets privilege” to allow the government to withhold some of the information sought by the court.

“The underlying premise of these orders … is that the Judicial Branch is superior to the Executive Branch, particularly on non-legal matters involving foreign affairs and national security. The Government disagrees,” Justice Department lawyers wrote. “The two branches are co-equal, and the Court’s continued intrusions into the prerogatives of the Executive Branch, especially on a non-legal and factually irrelevant matter, should end.”

Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which has only been used three times before in U.S. history, all during congressionally declared wars. and claimed there was an invasion by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

Boasberg ordered the administration not to deport, through that 1798 law, anyone in its custody.

Told there were planes in the air headed to El Salvador, Boasberg said Saturday evening that he and the government needed to move fast. “You shall inform your clients of this immediately, and that any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States,” Boasberg told the government’s lawyer.

Hours later, El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said the deportees had arrived in his country. “Oopsie…too late” he said in a social media post, above an article referencing Boasberg’s order.

The administration contends that a judge lacks the authority to tell the president whether he can determine the country is being invaded under the act, or how to defend it.

Boasberg’s new order for answers came after the administration provided limited information in response to a sharp questioning from the judge at a Monday hearing.

The administration said in a filing Tuesday that two planes took off before Boasberg’s order went into effect, and a third plane that took off after the ruling came down did not include anyone deported under the law. The administration declined, however, to provide estimates about the number of people subject to the proclamation.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters during a Monday briefing that about 261 people were deported, including 137 under the law.

Today is Tuesday, March 18, the 77th day of 2025. There are 288 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On March 18, 1990, two thieves posing as police officers subdued security guards at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum of Art in Boston and stole 13 works of art valued at over $500 million in the biggest art heist in history.

Also on this date:

In 1922, Mohandas K. Gandhi was sentenced in India to six years’ imprisonment for civil disobedience. (He was released after serving two years.)

In 1925, nearly 700 people died when the Tri-State Tornado struck southeastern Missouri, southern Illinois and southwestern Indiana; it remains the deadliest single tornado in U.S. history.

In 1937, in America’s worst school disaster, nearly 300 people — most of them children — were killed in a natural gas explosion at the New London Consolidated School in Rusk County, Texas.

In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order authorizing the War Relocation Authority, which forced Japanese-Americans into internment camps during World War II.

In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Gideon v. Wainwright, ruled unanimously that state courts were required to provide legal counsel to criminal defendants who could not afford to hire an attorney on their own.

In 1965, the first spacewalk took place as Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov went outside his Voskhod 2 capsule, secured by a tether.

In 2018, a self-driving Uber SUV struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona, in the first death involving a fully autonomous test vehicle.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Composer John Kander is 98.
• Actor Brad Dourif is 75.
• Jazz musician Bill Frisell is 74.
• Filmmaker Luc Besson is 66.
• TV personality Mike Rowe is 63.
• Singer-actor Vanessa L. Williams is 62.
• Olympic speed skating gold medalist Bonnie Blair is 61.
• Rapper-actor Queen Latifah is 55.
• Actor-comedian Dane Cook is 53.
• Singer Adam Levine (Maroon 5) is 46.
• Actor Lily Collins is 36.

Today is Sunday, March 16, the 75th day of 2025. There are 290 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War, U.S. Army soldiers hunting for Viet Cong fighters and sympathizers killed as many as 500 unarmed villagers in two hamlets of Son My village, in what became known as the My Lai massacre.

Also on this date:

In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson signed a measure authorizing the establishment of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.

In 1935, Adolf Hitler broke the military terms set by the Treaty of Versailles by ordering the rearming of Germany and resuming military conscription.

In 1968, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy of New York announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.

In 1972, in a nationally broadcast address, President Richard Nixon called for a moratorium on court-ordered school busing to achieve racial desegregation.

In 1984, William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, was kidnapped by Hezbollah militants; he would be tortured by his captors and killed in 1985.

In 1985, Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson was kidnapped in Beirut by Hezbollah militants; he would spend nearly seven years in captivity before being freed in December 1991.

In 1994, figure skater Tonya Harding pleaded guilty in Portland, Oregon, to conspiracy to hinder prosecution for covering up an attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan, avoiding jail but drawing a $100,000 fine and three years of probation.

In 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to take the seat of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who had died the previous month. Republicans who controlled the Senate would stick to their pledge to leave the seat empty until after the presidential election; they confirmed Trump nominee Neil Gorsuch in April 2017.

In 2020, global stocks plunged amid coronavirus concerns, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 2,997 points (12.9%), the largest point drop and second-largest single-day percentage decline in history.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Business executive Sanford Weill is 92.
• Actor Erik Estrada is 76.
• Football Hall of Famer Joe DeLamielleure is 74.
• Actor Isabelle Huppert is 72.
• Rock musician Nancy Wilson (Heart) is 71.
• Golf Hall of Famer Hollis Stacy is 71.
• Football Hall of Famer Ozzie Newsome is 69.
• Rapper-actor Flavor Flav is 66.
• Folk musician Patty Griffin is 61.
• Actor Lauren Graham is 58.
• Actor Judah Friedlander is 56.
• Actor Alan Tudyk is 54.
• Actor Alexandra Daddario is 39.
• R&B singer Jhené Aiko is 37.
• Rock musician Wolfgang Van Halen is 34.
• NBA center Joel Embiid is 31.
• MLB first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is 26.

The Long Island brush fires that startled communities across Suffolk County over the weekend were likely caused by a person attempting to cook s’mores in their backyard, officials said Monday.

One person was using cardboard while attempting to make s’mores in the backyard of a Center Moriches home, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina said Monday.

The person struggled to create a flame for the toasted marshmallow dessert due to the winds but accidentally set their backyard on fire, Catalina said at a press conference. Firefighters doused the flames at the home by around 10:30 a.m.

However, embers from the initial blaze were blown southeast by strong winds out of the northwest, sparking the fires that eventually sent smoke soaring into the sky, Catalina said. The first 911 calls about the larger brush fires came in just before 1 p.m.

“All of those fires are in a direct line with the strong northwest wind that was blowing that day,” Catalina said. “We feel very, very strongly that this is an accidental fire.”

A massive response from local firefighters kept the brush fires south of Sunrise Highway, part of which was closed on Saturday as crews battled the flames.

By Monday morning, all visible flames had been extinguished and smoke-eaters were taking preventative measures to stop new fires from sparking. Conditions on Long Island are expected to remain dry throughout the week.

“This was a fire that could’ve been far more serious than it was,” Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine said.

 

Two firefighters were injured battling the flames but released from the hospital by Sunday afternoon. Two commercial buildings were damaged, but no residential structures were harmed.

Gov. Hochul instituted a burn ban for New York City and Long Island on Sunday, one week earlier than usual. Romaine had his own blunt advice at Monday’s press conference: “Don’t cook s’mores.”