The United States saw double the number of fatal plane crashes under President Joe Biden’s first four weeks in office compared to the same time period under President Donald Trump’s second administration, federal data reviewed by Fox News Digital shows. 

There were 10 fatal plane crashes in the United States between Jan. 20, 2021, and Feb. 18, 2021, according to the National Transportation Safety Board’s Case Analysis and Reporting Online, or CAROL, which has recorded aviation accidents since 1962. There were four fatal plane crashes recorded during the same time period under the second Trump administration — from inauguration day to Feb. 18 — the data shows. 

A fifth fatal plane crash unfolded in Georgia on Saturday evening, which has not yet been added to the database but is included in Fox Digital’s final tally of five fatal plane crashes in the U.S. since Jan. 20. 

Though the second Trump administration has seen fewer plane crashes than the first month of the Biden administration, the Washington, D.C., crash in January provided greater national visibility to concern over aviation crashes as it was the deadliest in U.S. history since November 2001, when an American Airlines flight crashed into a residential area of New York City, killing 260 people on board and five on the ground. 

A total of 67 people were killed in January when an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger plane collided near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. 

Fox News Digital found that during the Biden administration’s approximate first month in office, there were U.S.-based fatal plane crashes in Janesville, Wisconsin; St. Thomas, Caribbean Sea; Tehachapi, California; Galt, Missouri; Belvidere, Tennessee; Chitina, Alaska; Hackberry, Louisiana; Port Angeles, Washington; Boynton Beach, Florida; Rio Rancho, New Mexico. A total of 18 individuals died in the 10 crashes. 

The five fatal plane crashes in the first month of the Trump administration occurred in Nome, Alaska; Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; Charlottesville, Virginia; and Covington, Georgia. A total of 96 people died in the plane crashes. 

When comparing the two Trump administrations, Fox News Digital found there were 11 recorded fatal plane crashes between Jan. 20, 2017, to Feb. 18, 2017. 

Fox News Digital also found that the Biden administration saw seven serious — not fatal — plane crashes between Jan. 20, 2021, and Feb. 18, 2021, compared to six serious plane crashes under the same time period for the Trump administration, according to the CAROL database. 

As for crashes that resulted in ‘minor’ injuries for passengers, the CAROL database recorded seven under the Biden administration’s first month and two under the second Trump administration’s first month, Fox Digital found. 

Another plane crash unfolded on Monday in Canada, when a Delta Air Lines CRJ-900 jet originating from Minnesota crashed at Toronto Pearson International Airport. None of the 80 passengers or crew were killed, but at least 18 were treated for injuries after the plane crashed, caught on fire and flipped upside down.  

The Toronto crash unfolded as news mounted that the Trump administration is in the midst of firing a bevy of federal employees across various agencies as part of his administration’s effort to cut government spending fat and weed out corruption and mismanagement, including terminating Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees who have been hired in the past year, according to a union representing the employees. 

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Transportation told Fox News Digital Monday that the agency continues to hire air traffic controllers and those focused on air safety. 

‘The FAA continues to hire and onboard air traffic controllers and safety professionals, including mechanics and others who support them,’ the spokesperson told Fox News Digital. ‘The agency has retained employees who perform safety critical functions.’ 

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy added on X that his predecessor, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, had ‘failed for four years to address the air traffic controller shortage and upgrade our outdated, World War II-era air traffic control system.’

‘Here’s the truth: the FAA alone has a staggering 45,000 employees,’ he said. ‘Less than 400 were let go, and they were all probationary, meaning they had been hired less than a year ago. Zero air traffic controllers and critical safety personnel were let go.’ 

The crash, however, has opened the floodgates of criticism from Democrats and liberal media outlets who have laid blame for the crash at Trump’s feet. 

‘I’m thankful that everyone in the flight incident in Toronto that took off from Minneapolis is safe, but we keep seeing these incidents day after day,’ Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer posted to X after the Monday crash. ‘Meanwhile, Trump’s doing massive layoffs at the FAA—including safety specialists—and making our skies less and less safe. Democrats are fighting to protect the flying public.’ 

The Trump administration’s pause of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funding may leave the door open for China to spread its influence, and Beijing is not wasting time trying to fill in the gaps.

A former USAID official, who spoke with Fox News Digital under the condition of anonymity, said that whereas the U.S. stepped down, China has ‘immediately’ stepped in.

‘We’ve just seen news reporting coming out of Nepal, Cambodia, Papua New Guinea, documenting directly that where USAID programs have ended that the People’s Republic of China has told these governments that it will step in and become the partner for these governments to continue that work,’ a former USAID official told Fox News Digital.

China has already stepped up its funding to Cambodia’s largest demining organization, the Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC), in the absence of U.S. funds, according to Reuters. As it seeks increased influence, Beijing pledged $4.4 million to CMAC, more than double the $2 million it received from the U.S. last year, the outlet added.

Additionally, China is also watching the funding freeze’s impact on Nepal, the Annapurna Express reports. While China is already sending funds to Nepal, it is reportedly increasing its financial support in various areas.

The former USAID official emphasized that ‘by removing these [USAID] programs it adds one more reason for many of these partners to now not see the United States as a partner who shares their priorities of investing in the people of their countries.’

While there are several populations around the globe feeling the impact of the Trump administration’s funding freeze, the situation is particularly treacherous for women.

During President Donald Trump’s first term in office, his daughter, Ivanka, played a key role in launching the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative (W-GDP). At the time, the White House said the program was aimed at advancing women’s economic empowerment.

Lilian Achom, who is based in Uganda, participated in USAID W-GDP Fund programming and was present when Trump launched the W-GDP. Now, she fears that women grappling with HIV/AIDS, many of whom are widows trying to raise children.

When speaking to Fox News Digital, Achom said Trump needs to ‘think about the underprivileged deep down in northern Uganda. The underprivileged, the children, the women who are currently suffering.’

Achom recalled meeting Ivanka Trump and spoke highly of the president’s daughter, saying that she was ‘inspired’ by her.

‘I saw in her someone who was really, really interested in women’s empowerment, economic development and digital inclusion for women around the world,’ Achom said of Ivanka.

The former USAID official who spoke with Fox News Digital said that the funding freeze is ‘impacting potentially every aspect of the lives of women and girls who were benefiting from USAID programs.’ The official added that while China is already trying to fill certain voids left by the U.S., it’s unclear whether they will fund programs focused on women.

The White House has accused USAID of funding ‘the ridiculous — and, in many cases, malicious — pet projects of entrenched bureaucrats.’

Among the areas of ‘waste and abuse’ highlighted by the White House are $2.5 million for electric vehicles for Vietnam, $1.5 million to ‘advance diversity, equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities,’ and $6 million to fund tourism in Egypt.

The State Department did not respond to a Fox News request for comment.

A key Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee is reportedly on the fence about one of President Donald Trump’s Defense nominees over his stance on a nuclear Iran – a potential roadblock to his confirmation given the GOP’s slim Senate majority. 

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., is reportedly hesitant about the nomination of former Defense official Elbridge Colby to serve as the under secretary of defense for policy, a key Defense post that remains unmanned amid the ongoing confirmation process.

‘Senator Cotton is focused on ensuring all defense nominees commit to supporting President Trump’s position that Iran must not have a nuclear weapon, and Cotton will be addressing this in meetings and hearings with the nominees,’ a source familiar with the matter told Fox News Digital as they await Colby’s paperwork to proceed with the nomination process.

Colby has previously suggested that the U.S. living with a nuclear Iran is more plausible than countering the country’s nuclear assets, a position that reportedly is causing concern from the key Senator whose support could determine his confirmation.

Cotton’s potential opposition to the Trump nominee sparked debate among prominent MAGA figures on social media.

‘Why the opposition to Bridge? What does he think Bridge will do?’ Elon Musk wrote in a post on X of reports that Cotton was not on board with the nomination.

‘The effort to undermine President Trump continues in the US Senate @SenTomCotton is working behind the scenes to stop Trump’s pick, Elbridge Colby, from getting confirmed at DOD,’ Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, said on X. ‘Colby is one of the most important pieces to stop the Bush/Cheney cabal at DOD. Why is Tom Cotton doing this?’

‘Is Tom Cotton’s resistance to Bridge Colby more about IRI than anything else? As in maybe Cotton’s blocking Colby ain’t that principled. . .’ American Majority CEO Ned Ryun posted on X.

‘Cotton has other problems that he doesn’t want exposed. He’ll support Colby,’ former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn claimed on X.

Vice President JD Vance expressed support for the Trump nominee, writing that ‘Bridge has consistently been correct about the big foreign policy debates of the last 20 years.’

‘He was critical of the Iraq War, which made him unemployable in the 2000s era conservative movement. He built a relationship with CNAS when it was one of the few institutions that would even hire a foreign policy realist,’ Vance said. 

Colby, who worked in the Pentagon during Trump’s first term, has also received endorsements from other members of the Senate.

‘.@ElbridgeColby is a fighter who will execute President Trump’s mandate to end decades of DC foreign policy failures and stop forever wars abroad—The reason the establishment fears him is because he’s 100% aligned with Trump’s agenda,’ Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, wrote on X. ‘Senate Republicans should confirm him ASAP!’ 

Colby’s Senate confirmation hearing remains unscheduled as the chamber works to confirm more of Trump’s cabinet nominees.

Fox News Digital reached out to Colby for comment.

The U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals put a final end to former President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan on Tuesday.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey originally sued the Biden administration over its $500 million effort to wipe away student loans, known as the SAVE plan. The court’s Tuesday ruling found that Biden’s secretary of education had ‘gone well beyond this authority by designing a plan where loans are largely forgiven rather than repaid.’

Bailey noted in a statement that the ruling has no active impact beyond blocking future presidents from attempting Biden’s maneuver.

‘Though Joe Biden is out of office, this precedent is imperative to ensuring a President cannot force working Americans to foot the bill for someone else’s Ivy League debt,’ Bailey said in a statement.

The Supreme Court of the United States denied the Biden administration’s request to lift a block on the SAVE plan last year. A federal appeals court in Missouri had earlier blocked the entire SAVE program from being enforced while litigation over the merits continues in the lower courts. The Department of Justice, which is part of the Biden administration, most recently asked the high court for emergency relief.

The Biden administration argued the court went too far when it issued a nationwide injunction, which effectively put a temporary freeze on the SAVE plan.

‘Our Administration will continue to aggressively defend the SAVE Plan – which has helped over 8 million borrowers access lower monthly payments, including 4.5 million borrowers who have had a zero dollar payment each month,’ a White House spokesperson told Fox News Digital at the time. ‘And, we won’t stop fighting against Republican elected officials’ efforts to raise costs on millions of their own constituents’ student loan payments.’

Biden introduced SAVE after the Supreme Court struck down his initial student loan forgiveness plan. The White House said that the SAVE plan could lower borrowers’ monthly payments to zero dollars, reduce monthly costs in half and save those who make payments at least $1,000 yearly. Additionally, borrowers with an original balance of $12,000 or less will receive forgiveness of any remaining balance after making 10 years of payments.

Fox News’ Greg Wehner contributed to this report.

Read the full 8th Circuit ruling here:

Vice President JD Vance is no stranger to the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference, better known by its acronym CPAC.

But on Thursday, at the opening session at National Harbor, Maryland, just outside the nation’s capital, Vance will address CPAC for the first time since his inauguration last month as vice president of the United States.

Vance has been a regular at the conference in recent years, dating back to his successful 2022 campaign for the Senate in Ohio. And last October, as he crisscrossed the national campaign trail as Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate, Vance also spoke at a CPAC-hosted townhall in battleground Arizona.

CPAC, which dates back to 1974, is the nation’s oldest and largest annual gathering of conservative leaders and activists. In the years since Trump first won the White House in 2016, it has been dominated by legions of MAGA loyalists and America First disciples who hold immense sway over the GOP.

The vice president is expected to use his address to highlight and promote the avalanche of activity – both domestically and overseas – by the Trump-Vance administration during its first month in office.

Vance, who served two years in the Senate before being elected vice president, has been considered a key player in helping the GOP-controlled chamber confirm Trump’s Cabinet nominees at a brisk pace.

And Vance made major headlines earlier this month at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, when he used his first major speech as vice president to deliver a blistering address directed at Europe’s political class.

Trump’s naming last summer of Vance – a former venture capitalist and the author of the bestselling memoir, ‘Hillbilly Elegy,’ before running for elective office – as his running was seen as a sign that the now 40-year-old politician was the heir apparent to Trump and his movement.

Trump praised Vance in a recent interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier on ‘Special Report’ for ‘doing a fantastic job,’

But asked by Baier if he viewed Vance as his successor and the Republican nominee in 2028, the term-limited Trump said, ‘No, but he’s very capable.’

‘It’s too early. We’re just starting,’ Trump added.

Questions about 2028 may be hanging over Vance at CPAC, which has long held a closely watched GOP presidential nomination straw poll.

Vance, in an interview earlier this month with FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo on ‘Sunday Morning Futures,’ was asked about the next White House race.

‘We’ll see what happens come 2028, but the way I think about this is the best thing for my future is actually the best thing for the American people, which is that we do a really good job over the next three and a half years,’ the vice president said.

Vance noted that ‘we’ll cross that political bridge when we come to it. I’m not thinking about running for president. I’m thinking about doing a good job for the American people and I think the best way to do that is to make sure that President Trump is a success.’

The Department of Defense has received a list of DOGE officials tasked with cutting 8% from next year’s budget. ‘We welcome DOGE to the Pentagon,’ said Secretary Pete Hegseth. ‘And I hope to welcome Elon to the Pentagon very soon.’ 

The Pentagon employs 3.7 million personnel with a budget exceeding $850 billion, but it has never passed an audit.

Tara Murphy Dougherty, CEO of Govini, a defense software company, worked for three Defense secretaries going back to Robert Gates. She says the biggest savings will be found in overhauling the decades-old weapons acquisition process, which still uses manual spreadsheets and fax machines.

‘I would put a big red bull’s eye on the process by which we manage weapons systems and military platforms,’ Murphy Dougherty said in an interview with Fox News. ‘The defense acquisition process is massively broken…. It’s too slow. I mean, the United States is issuing missile purchases through fax machines. It’s using spreadsheet sheets and data calls in order to get nuclear capable platforms off of production lines.’

As a result, fifth-generation stealth fighter jets, the F-35, can’t get out of depot because they’re missing parts and the defense industrial base in the U.S. doesn’t produce what they need. The next generation intercontinental ballistic missile, a key part of the nuclear triad, is $35 billion over budget. And the cost of the B-21 nuclear bomber is rising and behind schedule. 

‘A lot of the weapons systems and the ships, jets, tanks and other capabilities that the department relies on for the military have such complex supply chains that the Department of Defense doesn’t actually know where all of those parts are coming from. And because they’re using spreadsheets to manage the programs overall means they have no ability to see if there are foreign suppliers or in some cases, Chinese suppliers of critical components like microelectronics in our military systems. This is the kind of thing that Elon Musk, DOGE, and the Trump administration are saying, this is no longer acceptable, and that’s what they’re going to root out,’ Murphy Dougherty said.

To get ahead of the DOGE team, the Navy is considering cutting its fleet of frigates, while the Army is looking for savings by eliminating outdated drones and surplus vehicles. 

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., says it is about time.

‘I, for one, as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, welcome, DOGE coming in to the Pentagon and helping us cut red tape, make the acquisition process more efficient and spend our dollars better,’ Wicker said in an interview with Fox’s Maria Bartiromo.

But not everyone is happy that DOGE is coming to the Pentagon, where there are many classified systems and a lot of secret information that U.S. adversaries would like to gain access to.

‘We’ve already seen that this DOGE, I call it the Department of Government inefficiencies, is causing a reign of terror chaos across the federal government,’ Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Va., told CNN. ‘Just this week, they released classified information about a U.S. intelligence agency. They have access to the American people’s personal information, bank accounts and things like that that they’re frankly not entitled to. And so I have a major, major concern about them going into the Department of Defense and sitting around with, you know, the internal systems there and U.S. national security.’

Concern that the DOGE team will move too fast at the expense of national security materialized after it purged 2,000 federal workers from the Department of Energy, including 350, many of whom oversaw the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Many of these federal workers were working at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, reassembling nuclear warheads, one of the most sensitive jobs that requires the highest level of security clearance.

The administration did an about-face last week and quickly tried to locate and rehire the Department of Energy employees overseeing the nukes. 

At the Department of Veterans Affairs, the agency announced the dismissal of over 1,000 employees, following DOGE guidance. Veterans Affairs employees joined Democratic lawmakers outside the D.C. headquarters to protest DOGE’s actions at the VA last week.