Air traffic control

Wednesday

Peter Watson

The no-fly zone over Mar-a-Lago annoys locals

Whether President Trump really has solved six, seven or even eight wars, one conflict he can’t do anything about, for now at least, is the one in his hometown, Palm Beach, where he is partly responsible for tempers that are beginning to fray. This is all down not so much to Trump himself but to the Secret Service. Following their embarrassing failure to stop the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024, when Thomas Matthew Crooks managed to nick the President’s right ear with a bullet, the Secret Service has doubled down on security and established a one-nautical-mile flight-free exclusion zone around Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s mansion to the south of Palm Beach.

mar-a-lago

Friday

Ben Domenech

Media partisans weaponize plane crash tragedy

For the past several years, the air traffic I see out the windows of my office has been constant — a regularly occurring string of flights headed north up the Potomac toward Ronald Reagan International Airport, and others headed south after taking off. Yesterday morning was the first time I can remember seeing the skies utterly clear of traffic, as the ferry boats that normally take tourists and visitors from port to port along the river were instead repurposed as salvage vehicles for divers seeking out the remains of the passengers lost in the crash of American Eagle Flight 5342 and soldiers flying the Army Black Hawk it collided with a mere 400 feet above the water.