Helicopters will be permanently restricted from flying near Washington, D.C.’s airport on the same route where a passenger jet and an Army helicopter collided in midair, killing 67 people, the Federal Aviation Administration said Friday.

The move comes just days after federal investigators looking into the cause of the crash recommended a ban on some helicopter flights, saying a string of near misses in recent years showed that the current setup “poses an intolerable risk.”

The FAA, which manages the nation’s airspace and oversees aviation safety, has come under criticism after the National Transportation Safety Board said there had been an alarming number of near misses in recent year in the congested skies around Ronald Reagan National Airport.

The closure of the helicopter route near the airport makes permanent the restrictions put in place after Jan. 29 midair collision. The FAA order will allow a few exceptions for helicopter use, including presidential flights along with law enforcement and lifesaving missions.

The FAA also said it is studying cities with airports where there are a high number of different types of aircraft sharing the same space, including eight metro areas with busy helicopter routes: Boston, New York, Baltimore-Washington, Detroit, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and Los Angeles.

Warning issued for Medusa virus

The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are warning against a dangerous ransomware scheme.

In an advisory posted earlier this week, government officials warned that a ransomware-as-a-service software called Medusa, which has launched ransomware attacks since 2021, has recently affected hundreds of people. Medusa uses phishing campaigns as its main method for stealing victims’ credentials, according to CISA.

To protect against the ransomware, officials recommended patching operating systems, software and firmware, in addition to using multifactor authentication for all services such as email and VPNs. Experts also recommended using long passwords, and warned against frequently recurring password changes because they can weaken security.

Medusa developers and affiliates — called “Medusa actors” — use a double extortion model, where they “encrypt victim data and threaten to publicly release exfiltrated data if a ransom is not paid,” the advisory said. Medusa operates a data-leak site that shows victims alongside countdowns to the release of information.

Footage verifies Burkina Faso massacre

Video footage circulating on social networks of a recent civilian massacre in Burkina Faso appears to implicate government-allied militia, Human Rights Watch said, calling on authorities to investigate and prosecute all those responsible.

According to testimonies collected by the watchdog, security forces and allied militias carried out large-scale operations in the Solenzo countryside on Monday and Tuesday, and targeted displaced Fulani in apparent retaliatory attacks against the community, which the government has long accused of supporting Muslim militants.

The Burkina Faso government denied the accusations, saying in a statement it “condemned the propagation, on social media, of images inducing hate and community violence, and fake information aimed at undermining social cohesion” in the country.

Myanmar airstrike kills 27 residents

An airstrike by Myanmar’s military on a central village under the control of resistance forces has killed at least 27 civilians and injured 30 others, an opposition group and Myanmar’s online media said Saturday.

The attack occurred Friday at 3 p.m. in Let Pan Hla village in Singu township, about 40 miles north of Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, a spokesperson for the Mandalay People’s Defense Force said.

The military did not comment on Saturday.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, 2021, triggering widespread popular opposition. After peaceful demonstrations were put down with lethal force, many opponents of military rule took up arms, and large parts of the country are now embroiled in conflict.

Hungary’s Orban cracks down on ‘global army’

Hungary’s populist prime minister Saturday vowed to rid his country of those he claims work for the interests of foreign powers, saying in a conspiracy theory-laden speech that his right-wing government will eliminate a global “shadow army” that serves the European Union and a “liberal American empire.”

Meanwhile, tens of thousands gathered in central Budapest in a show of strength against the long-serving prime minister, and in support of a new political force that aims to bring an end to Orbán’s rule and his economic system in elections next year.

The dueling demonstrations, which coincided with a national holiday commemorating Hungary’s 1848 revolution against the Habsburg Empire, came as the Central European country struggles with an inflation and cost of living crisis that have helped fuel growing dissatisfaction with Orbán and his autocratic style of governance.

That dissatisfaction has coalesced around Péter Magyar and his upstart Tisza party, which polls show are neck and neck or even several points ahead of Orbán’s Fidesz party with around a year to go before elections.

Outage leaves millions without power in Cuba

Millions of people in Cuba remained without power Saturday after a failure of the nation’s electric grid left the island in the dark the previous night.

The massive blackout is the fourth in the last six months as a severe economic crisis plagues the Caribbean country. The Ministry of Energy and Mines, in a statement on social media, attributed the latest outage to a failure at a substation in the suburbs of Havana, the capital.

Internet and telephone service were intermittent about Saturday evening after power went out around 8 p.m. local time Friday.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said on his X account that authorities are “working intensely to restore stability” to the power system.

Lázaro Guerra, director of electricity at the ministry, said on national television that power was already being generated to support vital services such as hospitals.

$50M awarded to man burned by Starbucks tea

A delivery driver has won $50 million in a lawsuit after being seriously burned when a Starbucks drink spilled in his lap at a California drive-through, court records show.

A Los Angeles County jury found Friday for Michael Garcia, who underwent skin grafts and other procedures on his genitals after a venti-sized tea drink spilled instants after he collected it on Feb. 8, 2020. He has suffered permanent and life-changing disfigurement, according to his attorneys.

Garcia’s negligence lawsuit blamed his injuries on Starbucks, saying that an employee didn’t wedge the scalding-hot tea firmly enough into a takeout tray.

Starbucks said it sympathized with Garcia but planned to appeal.

Italians rally to support EU membership

Tens of thousands of Italians joined a pro-Europe rally in Rome’s city center Saturday, waving blue European Union flags in a sign of support and unity as a European push for rearmament divides the country.

The initiative, supported by most of the center-left opposition parties, despite their different positions, was launched by Italian journalist Michele Serra at the end of February, with an editorial in the Italian daily La Repubblica titled: “Let’s say something European.”

The initiative was born in response to U.S. President Donald Trump ’s destabilizing policies, which created an unprecedented rift between Europe and the U.S., strained over the war in Ukraine and an ongoing tariff battle.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni has reluctantly backed an EU plan to rearm Europe over concerns that the proposal by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen might weigh on Italy’s giant debt, diverting much-needed funds to weapons spending.

Man gets 8 years for Warhol theft role

A Pennsylvania man who was part of a group that stole paintings by Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock among other valuables was sentenced to eight years in federal prison after pleading guilty to theft of major artwork.

Thomas Trotta, 49, of Dunmore, is the fourth person sentenced as part of the investigation into thefts that took place over more than two decades at 20 museums, stores and institutions. World Series rings that once belonged to baseball great Yogi Berra were among the stolen items.

Trotta was directed to pay $2.8 million in restitution as part of his sentencing Thursday. He had already been jailed.

His lawyer, Joe D’Andrea, said Friday that Trotta was “the main burglar, he was the one that went into the institutions and burglarized them.”

Court allows nitrogen gas killing in Louisiana

Louisiana’s first execution using nitrogen gas is set to move forward as planned next week after a federal appeals court on Friday vacated a preliminary injunction granted by a lower judge.

With a March 18 date hastily nearing, attorneys for Jessie Hoffman Jr. told The Associated Press that they plan on immediately taking the legal matter to the U.S. Supreme Court in the hopes of halting the execution.

State officials, including Attorney General Liz Murrill, applauded the appeals court’s decision saying Louisiana is long overdue in delivering justice promised to the families of victims.

Hoffman’s attorney, Cecelia Kappel, denounced the decision, saying the “new execution method is likely to cause Jessie to suffer psychological terror and a torturous death.”

Under the state’s new procedure, Hoffman will be strapped to a gurney and forced to breathe pure nitrogen gas through a full-face respirator mask. The protocol is nearly identical to that of Alabama, the first state to use nitrogen hypoxia as a method of execution and has carried out four such executions.

— From news services