KFAV

The Vatican announced Tuesday that Pope Francis has developed bilateral pneumonia. The updated diagnosis means that pneumonia is in both of his lungs; the 88-year-old pontiff was admitted to hospital for a respiratory tract infection on Feb. 14 after two weeks of what Francis repeatedly referred to as bronchitis.

On Feb. 17, a Vatican press release said that test results revealed a “polymicrobial infection” and that due to the “complex” clinical situation, he would require further hospitalization.  The updated Vatican statement released at 7:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday evening (Feb. 18) revealed that “laboratory tests and chest X-rays continue to reveal a complex medical picture. The chest CT scan that the Holy Father underwent this afternoon … demonstrated the onset of bilateral pneumonia that required further pharmacological therapy.” The statement noted that the 88-year-old pontiff is in good spirits, and that he received the Eucharist earlier in the day.

Officials have confirmed that at least 18 people were injured Monday after a Delta Air Lines plane overturned upon landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport. There were no fatalities. Toronto Pearson CEO Deborah Flint said that of those injured, none were in critical condition. As of Tuesday morning, 19 of those hospitalized had been released, according to Delta Airlines.

The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that Delta Air Lines Flight 4819, which was operated by Endeavor Air and was arriving from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, crashed on landing in Toronto around 2:15 p.m. Delta said that Endeavor is a “wholly owned subsidiary of Delta Air Lines headquartered in Minneapolis.” Eighty people were on the plane, a CRJ-900, the FAA said – 76 passengers and four crew members were on board.

New video footage shared on Tuesday captures the moment Delta Flight 4819 caught fire and rolled over upon landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport Monday afternoon. The shows the plane reach the ground, erupt in flames, bounce on the runway and then overturn. (per ABC News.). John Nelson, who recorded the video, is heard saying: “We just landed. Our plane crashed. It’s upside down,” as he walked away from the plane. He said that “most people appear to be OK” and that passengers were getting off of the plane. The aircraft came to a stop upside-down on the snow covered Toronto runway.

Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in a statement: “Our most pressing priority remains taking care of all customers and Endeavor crew members who were involved. We’ll do everything we can to support them and their families in the days ahead, and I know the hearts, thoughts and prayers of the entire Delta community are with them. We are grateful for all the first responders and medical teams who have been caring for them.”

Another passenger aboard the Delta flight, Pete Koukov, recalled how within seconds of the wheels touching down, his body was turned fully sideways and he and other passengers were left dangling by their seat belts. Koukov said on the “TODAY” show Tuesday morning: “I didn’t really notice anything wrong until the moment we hit the ground. The wheels touched down … I was in the window seat on the lookers left side, and then all of a sudden, I just remember being fully sideways. I was looking down and just seeing like sparks and flames and whatever was grinding against the ground. It happened pretty dang quick and we were just upside down, hanging from our seat belts Obviously we ended up upside down, and everyone was wearing their seat belts as they should have been, including myself .. I remember just hanging there and me and the lady next to me, we got out pretty quick. We were kind of able to just like, unclip, like you would, and then just kind of lower ourselves to be on the ground, which was the roof, I guess. We did it really quickly, like, within stopping we both immediately kind of got our bearings, unclipped, got down.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is leading the investigation. Investigators from the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are assisting.

Editorial credit: Elena Berd / Shutterstock.com

The Trump administration fired hundreds of employees with the Federal Aviation Administration over the weekend. The FAA has about 50,000 employees and is the largest division of the Department of Transportation. The firings come after President Trump tapped Elon Musk to lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency – DOGE — an advisory commission that is targeting U.S. government agencies for massive layoffs.

According to the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS) union, “several hundred” workers received termination notices on Friday. The firings at the FAA do not include air traffic controllers but they may include engineers and technicians; instead, the terminated FAA employees were probationary workers hired or promoted within the past year like other workers let go in other federal agencies. USA Today reported the number in the FAA was about 400.

The union representing the employees called the firings a “hastily made decision” that would increase the workload of a workforce already stretched thin. David Spero, the national president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, AFL-CIO, said in a statement: “This decision did not consider the staffing needs of the FAA, which is already challenged by understaffing. Staffing decisions should be based on an individual agency’s mission-critical needs. To do otherwise is dangerous when it comes to public safety. And it is especially unconscionable in the aftermath of three deadly aircraft accidents in the past month.”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted on X that Elon Musk’s DOGE team members “will be visiting the Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Virginia to get a firsthand look at the current system, learn what air traffic controllers like and dislike about their current tools and envision how we can make a new, better, modern and safer system.”  Duffy later said on X that he “talked to the DOGE [‘department of government efficiency’] team” and “they are going to plug in to help upgrade our aviation system”.  Musk later reposted Duffy’s remarks, saying his department will “aim to make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system”.

The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating the cause of a Jan. 29 collision near Washington, D.C., that killed everyone aboard a commercial American Airlines flight and an Army Helicopter. In all, 67 people died, making it the deadliest U.S. air crash in nearly 25 years. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg posted on social media Monday that “the flying public needs answers. How many FAA personnel were just fired? What positions? And why?”

Editorial credit: Chad Robertson Media / Shutterstock.com

Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday in the hopes of undergoing negotiations over wars in Ukraine and Gaza, without any participation from European leaders or Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Rubio was expected to meet with Kremlin officials in Riyadh to discuss the Russia-Ukraine war and its future, joined by Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz and U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s lead spokesman Dmitry Peskov said its Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, presidential aide Yuri Ushakov and Kirill Dmitriev, who leads Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, will be part of Moscow’s team.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr, who is currently in the neighboring United Arab Emirates on a scheduled trip to boost humanitarian support for Ukraine, had previously stated that his country will not consider a peace deal where it was not included in the negotiations. Zelenskyy told NBC News that he would “never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine,” adding there is not “any leader in the world who can really make a deal with Putin without us about us.”

Meanwhile, European leaders held an emergency meeting in Paris on Monday after the Trump administration said they would be excluded from talks with Russia to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine. The leaders of Germany, the U.K., Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark and the European Union met at Paris’ Elysee Palace for the talks on the continent’s security quandary. NATO secretary general Mark Rutte also attended.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said in a statement that the gathering of several key European leaders aimed to address “the situation in Ukraine and security issues in Europe” by “bringing together all the partners interested in peace and security” in the region.

Editorial credit: Daniel Hernandez-Salazar / Shutterstock.com