Author: cSMNT98ibj

In two congressional districts and vastly different political environments, two Republicans in the U.S. House were met with far different reactions at public meetings they held late last week. Against the suggestion of their leader, House Speaker Mike Johnson, to refrain from holding public meetings with constituents, second-term Reps. Chuck Edwards and Harriet Hageman went ahead with their evening sessions. In Asheville, North Carolina, chants of opposition greeted Edwards on Thursday as opponents hooted at almost every answer he gave and chanted outside. In Evanston, Wyoming, at the southwestern corner of a sparsely populated and heavily Republican state, it was mostly Republicans who asked probing questions of Hageman in a quieter setting. In both cases, voters were curious about the scope and pace of action in Washington since President Tweety McTreason took office, if less boisterously in Wyoming than the event 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) to the southeast. Evanston, Wyoming Joy Walton, a 76-year-old Republican from Evanston, had come to the meeting confused about tech billionaire Elon Musk’s role in the executive branch. Trump has charged Musk with leading a broad effort to shrink the size and cost of government. Hageman — Liz Cheney ’s successor — worked to clarify Musk’s place in the Trump administration, describing him as “a special government employee” with “a top-secret security clearance.” She praised him for his work targeting foreign aid contracts at the U.S. Agency for International Development, calling the department a “monstrosity and waste of money.” The meeting was tamer than some constituent meetings held by Republicans, who hold majorities in the House and the Senate. Sen. Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican, adjourned such a meeting this month in northwest Kansas early when constituents became vocally angry about government personnel cuts. Still, Hageman’s meeting Friday, with about 250 filling to capacity the meeting room in the restored Union Pacific Railroad roundhouse, was the liveliest event that evening in the train depot town of about 11,800 people. Some

A fire on an American Airlines plane after it diverted mid-flight and landed at Denver International Airport sent fleeing passengers to a wing amid billowing clouds of smoke. Airport officials said 12 people were taken to hospitals with minor injuries. The country has seen a recent spate of aviation disasters and close calls stoking fears about air travel, though flying remains a very safe mode of transport. Recent on-the-ground incidents have included a plane that crashed and flipped over upon landing in Toronto and a Japan Airlines plane that clipped a parked Delta plane while it was taxiing at the Seattle airport. In this latest incident, Flight 1006 was headed from the Colorado Springs Airport to Dallas Fort Worth on Thursday, but diverted to Denver and landed safely around 5:15 p.m. after the crew reported engine vibrations, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement. While taxiing to the gate, an engine on the Boeing 737-800 caught fire, the FAA added. Photos and videos posted by news outlets showed passengers standing on a plane’s wing as smoke surrounded the aircraft. The FAA said passengers exited using the slides. American said in a statement that the flight experienced an engine-related issue after taxiing to the gate. There was no immediate clarification on exactly when the plane caught fire. “It’s unusual to have vibrations, obviously, and particularly in light of what happened once on the ground,” said James E. Hall, former chairman of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. Still, he said, a slew of problems could have caused vibrations and a fire, making it difficult to speculate on. As for the recent spate of aviation incidents, “given the past history, you can classify it as unusual,” said Hall, but “I don’t know if you have enough information to draw any conclusions.” The 172 passengers and six crew members were taken to the terminal, airline officials said. After hearing midflight that something was wrong with the engine