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Friday, February 20, 2026

ICE now says immigrant detainee died after 'spontaneous use of force'

February 20, 2026
ICE now says immigrant detainee died after 'spontaneous use of force'

Immigration and Customs Enforcement now says "use of force" was a factor in the death of an immigrant detainee.

Scripps News

Geraldo Lunas Campos died in January at the Camp East Montana for-profit detention center in El Paso, Texas.

The Department of Homeland Security said he died after attempting suicide, but a Scripps News investigation revealed Lunas Campos was in handcuffs moments before his death.

RELATED STORY |Photos and 911 calls deepen mystery of immigrant's sudden death in ICE custody

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A county autopsy said the death was a result of homicide.

Now, a new document quietly posted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement says Lunas Campos died "after a spontaneous use of force" to prevent him from harming himself.

The statement does not elaborate on who exerted force against Lunas Campos. Scripps News has reached out to officials for more details.

The Camp East Montana detention center is the largest for-profit immigration lockup in the country and relies on the use of private security guards.

RELATED STORY |27-year-old man from Guatemala dies in ICE custody, DHS says

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World leaders react as Supreme Court ruling strikes down Trump tariffs

February 20, 2026
World leaders react as Supreme Court ruling strikes down Trump tariffs

Some key world trade partners and national leaders embraced theSupreme Court's rulingon Feb. 20 thatPresident Donald Trumphas no authority to enforce sweeping globaltariffs.

USA TODAY

The high court's decision to strike down the president's signature economic policy was met with hopes that it would help lower costs globally, and also in the United States.

Trump said he was "deeply disappointed" with the high court's ruling. In response, the president said he would immediately impose 10% temporary tariffs to replace the emergency tariffs the court overturned.

Meanwhile, Dominic LeBlanc, Canada's top official in charge of U.S.-Canada trade matters, said ina lengthy Feb. 20 post on Xthat the Supreme Court's ruling "reinforces Canada's position that the IEEPA tariffs imposed by the United States are unjustified."

"Although Canada has concluded the best trade agreement with the United States among all its trading partners, we recognize that there is still much to be done to support Canadian businesses and workers who continue to be affected by the tariffs imposed under Section 232 on the steel, aluminum, and automotive sectors," LeBlanc said.

As a result of the ruling, the federal government would have to refund about $175 billion in tariffs that were collected without congressional authorization, according to a Feb. 20 projection bythe Penn Wharton Budget Modelat the University of Pennsylvania.

The Supreme Court ruled that Trump wasn't authorized to impose tariffs underIEEPA, the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The emergency tariffs account for about half of what the government collects in tariffs.

"Unless replaced by another source, future tariff revenue collections will fall by half," the Penn Wharton Budget Model said.

The Penn Wharton report said that Customs and Border Patrol provides publictrade statistics, which are updated semi-regularly. The Penn report said CBP reported that it collected approximately $133.5 billion in tariffs under the IEEPA authority, according to its last update on Dec. 14.

Trump tariffs ruling live updates:Watch President Trump, others address Supreme Court setback

Canadian trade official supportsSCOTUSruling on tariffs

LeBlanc'spost on Xcomes two days after he'sreportedlyscheduled to meet with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Washington, "in the coming weeks" after a scheduled Canadian trade mission to Mexico.

LeBlanc's announcement also came after a phone call he had with Greer after the U.S. trade czar publicly mentioned potential barriers to bilateral trade talks, including issues regarding Canadian imports of American wine and spirits.

LeBlanc added in hisFeb. 20 X postthat Canada would still work to support businesses facing tariffs under other statutes that remain in place.

"As relations between Canada and the United States undergo a period of transformation and we approach the first joint review of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, we are working to create growth and opportunities on both sides of the border, while strengthening our collaboration with reliable trading partners and allies around the world," LeBlanc said.

The U.S. Supreme Court as seen on a rainy Feb. 20, 2026, in Washington, DC. The Supreme Court struck down the legality of President Donald Trump's tariffs in a 6-3 ruling.

EU monitoring Trump, still wants low tariffs

The European Union said ina pair of postson X it is closely watching the Trump administration's next moves after the Supreme Court decided to strike down the president's tariffs.

"We take note of the ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court and are analysing it carefully," European Commission Deputy Chief Spokesperson Olof Gill said. "We remain in close contact with the U.S. Administration as we seek clarity on the steps they intend to take in response to this ruling," Gill said.

In a second post, Gill added, "Businesses on both sides of the Atlantic depend on stability and predictability in the trading relationship. We therefore continue to advocate for low tariffs and to work towards reducing them."

Separately, Bernd Lange, the chair of the EU parliament's international trade committee,wrote on Xthat the Supreme Court ruling was a "positive signal for the rule of law."

"Judges have shown that even (a) US president does not operate in a legal vacuum," Lange said.

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He also wrote that "the era of unlimited, arbitrary tariffs" may soon "be coming to an end."

Lange said the European Union's parliament "must now carefully evaluate" the ruling and its consequences. He said the EU will hold an emergency meeting Feb. 23 regarding the trade deal Trump made with them last year "in order to assess possible implications."

The EU parliament has spent several months fully implementing the terms of the trade deal that would have lowered tariffs for U.S. and European businesses.

However, what the global leaders are publicly saying and doing privately may be two different matters, as Trump still wants to impose tariffs,Rob Lalka, a business professor at Tulane University, told USA TODAY.

"Although the Supreme Court is the law of the land, many of these tariffs are tied to other trade regulations and could be tied to other future actions taken by the White House and the administration," Lalka said. "It's important not to react to the final word, because I don't think it will be."

Lalka said world leaders and trade partners should breathe too much of a sigh of relief.

"Prices aren't going to go back to what they were before this, and the diplomatic relations aren't going become automatically restored overnight like a wild dream we woke up from," Lalka said. "America's reliability as a trade partner in terms of clarity and consistency won't be the same because nobody knows what tomorrow may bring."

US Chamber of Commerce hails Supreme Court decision

Despite possible murkiness, theU.S. Chamber of Commercesaw the Supreme Court's ruling as "welcome news for businesses and consumers."

"We encourage the administration to use this opportunity to reset overall tariff policy in a manner that will lead to greater economic growth, larger wage gains for workers, and lower costs for families," Neil Bradley, the chamber's chief policy officer, said in a statement. "Swift refunds of the impermissible tariffs will be meaningful for the more than 200,000 small business importers in this country and will help support stronger economic growth this year."

Bradley said the chamber has been working with small and midsize businesses nationwide that have seen significant cost increases and supply chain disruptions as a result of the tariffs. The group filed anamicus briefin the case on behalf of small businesses suing the Trump administration.

"We encourage the administration to use this opportunity to reset overall tariff policy in a manner that will lead to greater economic growth, larger wage gains for workers, and lower costs for families," Bradley said.

Gavin Newsom and Rand Paul poke Trump

CaliforniaGov. Gavin Newsom, a Trump nemesis and possible 2028 presidential candidate,reposted a post on Xfrom his press office's account, criticizing the president, and raised a probing question maybe on the minds of millions of Americans after the Supreme Court's tariff ruling.

"CALLED IT! Trump's tariffs were ILLEGAL from day one," the post said. "An unconstitutional tax — and now it's dead. WHEN IS TRUMP GOING TO REFUND EVERY DAY AMERICAN PEOPLE THE $1,700 HE ILLEGALLY TAXED THEM?"

Newsom, whospoke defiantly of Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland,last month, later said ina separate X poston Feb. 20 that it is "Time to pay the piper, Donald."

"Your tariffs were nothing more than an illegal cash grab that drove up prices, hurt working families, and wrecked longstanding global alliances," Newsom said. "Every dollar your administration unlawfully took needs to be immediately refunded — with interest."

Meanwhile, RepublicanSen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who occasionally pokes at the Trump adminstration, also said ina post on Xthat "the Supreme Court struck down using emergency powers to enact taxes."

"This ruling will also prevent a future President such as AOC from using emergency powers to enact socialism," Paul said.

In anotherX post, Paul said that the Supreme Court makes plain what should have been obvious. "The power to impose tariffs is 'very clearly a branch of the power to tax.'"

USA TODAY's Bart Jansen contributed

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Canada, Europe react to Supreme Court ruling on Trump tariffs

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All truckers and bus drivers will be required to take commercial driver's license tests in English

February 20, 2026
All truckers and bus drivers will be required to take commercial driver's license tests in English

All truckers and bus drivers will have to take their commercial driver's license tests in English as the Trump administration expands its aggressive campaign to improve safety in the industry and get unqualified drivers off the road.

Associated Press

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the latest effort Friday to ensure that drivers understand English well enough to read road signs and communicate with law enforcement officers. Florida already started administering its tests in English.

Currently, many states allow drivers to take their license tests in other languages even though they are required to demonstrate English proficiency. California offered tests in 20 other languages. And Duffy said that a number of states have hired other companies to administer commercial driver's licenses tests, and those companies aren't enforcing the standards that drivers are supposed to meet.

"And the third party tester is participating in the scam because they are not adequately testing the people who went through a sham school," Duffy said.

He said every American wants drivers who get behind the wheel of a big rig to be well-qualified to handle those vehicles. But Duffy said that for too long the problems in the trucking industry were "allowed to rot and no one's paying attention to it for decades."

"Once you start to pay attention, you see that all these bad things have been happening. And the consequence of that is that Americans get hurt," Duffy said. "When we get on the road, we should expect that we should be safe. And that those who drive those 80,000-pound big rigs, that they are well-trained, they're well-qualified, and they're going to be safe."

The campaign will also now expand to prevent fraudulent trucking companies from getting into the business while continuing to go after questionable schools and ensure states are complying with all the regulations for handing out commercial licenses.

Earlier this week, the Transportation Departmentsaid 557 driving schools should closebecause they failed to meet basic safety standards. And the department has been aggressively going after states that handed out commercial driver's licenses to immigrants who shouldn't have qualified for them ever since a fatal crash in August.

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A truck driver who Duffy says wasn't authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash in Floridathat killed three people. Other fatal crashes since then, including one in Indiana that killed four earlier this month, have only heightened concerns.

Duffy said that the registration system and requirements for trucking companies will be strengthened while Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration inspectors conduct more spot checks of trucks and commercial driver's license schools.

Currently, companies only have to pay a few hundred dollars and show proof of insurance to get registered to operate, and then they might not be audited until a year or more later.

That has made it easy for fraudulent companies that are known in the industry as chameleon carriers to register multiple times under different names and then simply switch names and registration numbers to avoid any consequences after crashes or other violations.

Officials are also trying to make sure that the electronic logging devices drivers use are accurate, and that states are following all the regulations to ensure drivers are qualified to get commercial licenses.

After that Indiana crash, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration knocked the company that employed the driver out of service and pulled the DOT numbers assigned to two other companies that were linked to AJ Partners. Tutash Express and Sam Express in the Chicago area were also disqualified, and the Aydana driving school that the trucker involved in the crash attended lost its certification.

Immigration authorities arrested that driver because they said the 30-year-old from Kyrgyzstan entered the country illegally. Authorities say he pulled out and tried to go around a truck that had slowed in front of him, and his truck slammed into an oncoming van.

In December, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration took action todecertify up to 7,500 of the 16,000 schoolsnationwide, but that includedmany defunct operations.

Duffy said the companies involved in that Indiana crash were all registered at the same apartment. In other cases, there might be hundreds of these chameleon companies registered at a single address.

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Thursday, February 19, 2026

US economic growth likely slowed to a still-brisk pace in fourth quarter

February 19, 2026
US economic growth likely slowed to a still-brisk pace in fourth quarter

WASHINGTON, Feb 20 (Reuters) - U.S. economic growth likely slowed to a still-solid pace in the fourth quarter because of disruptions from last year's government shutdown and a moderation in consumer spending, though tax cuts and investment inartificial intelligencewere expected to drive activity this year.

Reuters

The anticipated slowdown in gross domestic product would follow back-to-back quarters of ‌robust growth. The Commerce Department will publish on Friday its advance estimate of fourth-quarter GDP, which was delayed by the record 43-day government shutdown.

The report is expected to highlight a ‌jobless economic expansion as well as a "K-shaped" economy, where upper-income households are doing well while lower-income consumers are struggling amid high inflation from import tariffs and stalling wage growth. Those conditions have created what economists and President Donald Trump's opponents call an affordability ​crisis.

"We'll end the year still on a solid note in terms of growth, but it doesn't really translate to feel as good as it looks on paper to most Americans," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at consulting firm KPMG.

GDP LIKELY INCREASED 3.0%: SURVEY

GDP probably increased at a 3.0% annualized rate last quarter after accelerating at a 4.4% pace in the July-September quarter, a Reuters survey of economists predicted. The survey was, however, completed before data on Thursday showing the trade deficit widening to a five-month high in December.

The second straight monthly deterioration in the trade deficit led the Atlanta Federal Reserve to cut its GDP estimate to a 3.0% ‌rate from a 3.6% pace.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the government ⁠shutdown would subtract 1.5 percentage points from fourth-quarter GDP through fewer services provided by federal workers, lower federal spending on goods and services and a temporary reduction in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.

The CBO estimated most of the decline in GDP would eventually be recovered, though between $7 billion and $14 billion would not. Economists estimated ⁠the economy grew 2.2% in 2025 after expanding 2.8% in 2024. Only 181,000 jobs were added last year, the fewest outside the pandemic since the 2009 Great Recession, and down from 1.459 million in 2024.

"You have a confluence of shocks affecting the U.S. economy," said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon. "You have on the one hand the drag from higher prices, tariffs, trade restrictions and reduced immigration, but also the boost from AI investment and the continued ​strong ​momentum in terms of stock prices supporting ongoing spending by the more affluent consumers."

GROWTH IN CONSUMER SPENDING LIKELY SLOWED

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Growth ​in consumer spending is expected to have slowed from the third quarter's brisk ‌3.5% pace. Economists say spending has largely been driven by higher-income households and has been at the expense of saving as inflation eroded buying power.

"Getting richer is one thing, but most households rely on incomes to pay bills, and real disposable income pretty much stalled in the quarter," said Sal Guatieri, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.

Consumer spending could get a tailwind from what economists anticipate will be larger tax refunds this year because of tax cuts. A solid pace of business investment is expected, mostly related to AI. The jump in imports in December was partly driven by capital goods, mostly computer accessories and telecommunications equipment amid a data center construction boom to power AI.

That should offset any drag on GDP growth from trade.

Economists estimated AI, including data centers, semiconductors, software and research and development, accounted for ‌a third of GDP growth in the first three quarters of 2025, blunting the hit from tariffs and reduced immigration.

"It's ​a significant contribution from a sector that traditionally has represented a small share of the economy," said EY-Parthenon's Daco. "It's also ​been a key source of volatility in the trade data, because a lot of what we ​are building here and creating is imported."

Economists estimated that trade made little or no contribution to GDP after helping to boost growth for two straight quarters. Inventories ‌were another wild card, having subtracted from GDP for two consecutive quarters.

Residential investment ​is forecast to have contracted for the fourth quarter ​in a row as builders and prospective homebuyers struggled with higher borrowing costs.

The stale report will probably have no impact on monetary policy. But Federal Reserve officials are likely to keep an eye on December's Personal Consumption Expenditures inflation data, due to be released at the same time as the GDP report.

Economists polled by Reuters forecast PCE inflation, excluding the volatile food and ​energy components, rising 0.3%. Core PCE inflation rose 0.2% in November from ‌the previous month. Core PCE inflation was projected to have increased 2.9% year-on-year after rising 2.8% in November. The U.S. central bank has a 2% inflation target.

"The year-on-year growth ​rate of the core has shown essentially no progress since mid-2024," said Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP. "Many Fed officials anticipate at least some improvement in the coming ​months, but they will want to see that show up in the actual numbers."

(Editing by Rod Nickel)

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Russian-run areas of Ukraine face water, heat and housing woes

February 19, 2026
Russian-run areas of Ukraine face water, heat and housing woes

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Nearly four years into itsfull-scale invasion,Russia controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory. Many of the estimated 3 million to 5 million people who remain in regions under Moscow's control face housing, water, power, heat and health care woes.

Associated Press A woman gets drinking water distributed by authorities in the city of Donetsk in the Russian-controlled part of eastern Ukraine, on Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo) Civilians gather to receive drinking water distributed by the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry in Mariupol on May 27, 2022, after the seaside city in eastern Ukraine fell to Moscow's troops. (AP Photo, File) Oleksii Vnukov, right, his wife, Inna Vnukova, center left, and their children Evhen, left, and Alisa, pose during an interview with The Associated Press in their apartment in Tallinn, Estonia, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026. (AP Photo) Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Center for Civil Liberties, poses in her office in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits) A view inside Mariupol's Drama Theater on Monday, April 4, 2022, after the landmark was heavily damaged during fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces that led to Moscow's takeover of the seaside city. (AP Photo, File)

Russia Ukraine War Occupation

EvenPresident Vladimir Putinhas acknowledged "many truly pressing, urgent problems" in the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, which were illegally annexed by Moscow months after the all-out war began on Feb. 24, 2022.

Russian citizenship,language and culture is forced upon residents, including in school lesson plans and textbooks.

Some residents live in fear of being accused of sympathizing with Kyiv,according to Ukrainianswho have left. Many have been imprisoned, beaten and killed, according to human rights activists.

Russia established a "vast network ofsecret and official detention centerswhere tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians" are held indefinitely without charge, said Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Center for Civil Liberties.

Russian officials have refused to comment on past allegations by U.N. human rights officials that it tortures civilians and prisoners of war.

One family's plight

Inna Vnukova spent the first days of the Russian occupation in the Luhansk region hiding in a damp basement with her family. Outside in her village of Kudriashivka, soldiers bullied residents, set up checkpoints and looted homes. There was constant shelling.

"Everyone was very scared and afraid to go outside," Vnukova told The Associated Press in Estonia, where she now lives. The troops sought out officials and civil servants like her and her husband, Oleksii Vnukov.

In mid-March 2022, she and her 16-year-old son, Zhenya, fled the village with her brother's family, even though it meant leaving her husband behind temporarily. They risked a trip by car to nearby Starobilsk, waving a white sheet amid mortar fire.

Oleksii Vnukov, a court security officer, stayed for nearly two weeks. Russian soldiers twice threatened to kill him before he escaped.

"The people there aren't living, they're just surviving," he said of the 150 people — including the couple's parents — who still live in the village that once was home to 800.

Vnukova and her husband have a new life in Estonia, where she works in a printing house and he is an electrician. Their son is now 20, and they have a 1-year-old daughter, Alisa.

Life in shattered Mariupol

Russian forcesbesieged Mariupolfor weeks before the port city fell in May 2022. The bombing of theDonetsk Academic Regional Drama Theateron March 16 of that year killed nearly 600 people in and around the building, an AP investigation found — the war's single deadliest known attack against civilians.

Most of the population of about a half-million fled but many hid in basements, said a former actor who huddled for months with his parents.

The former actor, now in Estonia, spoke on condition of anonymity to not endanger his 76-year-old parents, still in Mariupol. They took Russian citizenship to get medical care and a one-time payment equivalent to $1,300 per person as compensation for their destroyed home, he said.

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Housing remains a problem even though the population is about half of what it was before the war. New apartments are sold to Russian newcomers — not those who lost their homes, according to complaints sent by video to Putin.

Not everyone opposesthe Russian takeover.The former actor says half of the members of his old troupe support the Kremlin. Still, he said his parents asked him not to send postcards in Ukrainian because "it could be dangerous."

Crumbling infrastructure

Years of war and neglect have saddled many cities with crumbling municipal services.

In Alchevsk, a city in the Luhansk region, over half the homes are without heat in this bitterly cold winter. Five warming stations have been set up.

In the Donetsk region, water trucks fill barrels outside apartment blocks — but they freeze solid in winter, said a resident who spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared repercussions. "There's constant squabbling over water," she said.

Moscow encourages Russians to move to the occupied regions, offering various benefits. Teachers, doctors and cultural workers are promised salary supplements if they live there for five years.

The northeastern city of Sievierodonetsk, once home to 140,000 people, suffered significant damage and now has only 45,000 mostly elderly or disabled residents. Only one ambulance crew serves the city, and Russian medical workers rotate in to staff its hospital, said a 67-year-old former engineer who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

"I know how difficult it is now for the residents of the liberated cities and towns. There are many truly pressing, urgent problems," Putin said in September. He cited the need for reliable water supplies and access to health care, and said he has launched a "large-scale socioeconomic development program" for the regions.

Living in fear

Stanislav Shkuta, 25, fromNova Kakhovka in the Kherson region,said he narrowly escaped arrest several times before reaching Ukrainian-controlled territory in 2023. He recalled being on a bus that was stopped by Russian soldiers, and "men and women were asked to strip to the waist to see if they had Ukrainian tattoos."

Shkuta, now in Estonia, said he "turned white with fear, wondering if I'd cleared everything on my phone."

Friends who stayed in Nova Kakhovka say life has worsened, with suspected Ukrainian sympathizers stopped on the street or in surprise door-to-door inspections, he added.

Mykhailo Savva of the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine said "Russian special services continue to identify disloyal Ukrainians, extract confessions, and continue to detain people," with residents facing document checks and mass searches.

Human rights groups say Russia used "filtration camps" early in the war to identify potentially disloyal individuals, as well as anyone who worked for the government, helped the Ukrainian army or had relatives in the military, along with journalists, teachers, scientists and politicians.

About 16,000 civilians have been detained illegally, but that number could be much higher because many are held incommunicado, said Ukrainian Human Rights Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets.

Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed.

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NASA report recalls dysfunction, heated emotions during Boeing's botched Starliner flight

February 19, 2026
NASA report recalls dysfunction, heated emotions during Boeing's botched Starliner flight

By Joey Roulette

Reuters

WASHINGTON, Feb 19 (Reuters) - NASA on Thursday released a sweeping report on Boeing's botched Starliner mission that kept two astronauts stuck on the International Space Station for nine months, detailing communication breakdowns and "unprofessional behavior" as the agency and its longtime contractor struggled to agree on how to safely return the crew to Earth.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman ripped into Boeing and ‌agency leadership for their handling of the Starliner mission during a news conference timed with the release of a 300-page report detailing technical and oversight failures behind the spacecraft's first crewed mission, ‌which concluded last year.

"Starliner has design and engineering deficiencies that must be corrected, but the most troubling failure revealed by this investigation is not hardware," Isaacman wrote in a letter to NASA employees, which he posted in full on X.

"It is decision making and leadership that, ​if left unchecked, could create a culture incompatible with human spaceflight," he added, echoing findings in the report's "cultural and organizational" section.

Starliner's technical failures kept NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on the ISS for nine months in a high-stakes test mission initially planned to last roughly a week.

On Earth, according to the report, Boeing and NASA officials sparred in tense meetings on how best to bring the crew home, with "unprofessional behavior" and yelling matches that countered the agency's norms of healthy technical debate and crisis management.

The report, completed in November and citing interviews with unnamed NASA officials, said "numerous interviewees mentioned defensive, unhealthy, contentious meetings during technical disagreements early in the mission."

"There was yelling in meetings. It was ‌emotionally charged and unproductive," one official reported. "It was probably the ugliest environment that ⁠I've been in," another said.

"There wasn't a clear path for conflict resolution between the teams. That led to a lot of frayed relationships and emotions," said another.

Boeing said in a statement that it was "grateful to NASA for its thorough investigation and the opportunity to contribute to it." The company, it added, has made progress on fixing Starliner's technical ⁠issues and has made organizational changes.

"WE FAILED THEM"

Wilmore and Williams, both veteran test pilots and astronauts, launched as Starliner's first test crew in June 2024. Five of the spacecraft's maneuvering thrusters failed roughly 24 hours into flight as it was approaching the ISS for an autonomous docking, prompting the crew to manually intervene.

The thruster issues were among four primary technical flaws Starliner experienced during the mission that set off months of debate and ground tests as "Butch and Suni" stayed on the ISS. They ​returned ​to Earth last year on a SpaceX craft after NASA opted to return Starliner to Earth empty.

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"They have so much grace, ​and they're so competent, the two of them. And we failed them. The agency ‌failed them," NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya told reporters.

Williams, now 60, retired from NASA in December, logging 608 days in space across three missions in her 27-year NASA career. Wilmore, now 63, retired in August after spending 25 years at the agency, clocking 464 days in space across three missions.

The report also describes a "fragile partnership dynamic" between NASA and Boeing, in which agency officials' concerns that Boeing could drop out of NASA's Commercial Crew Program influenced officials' decision-making on critical mission issues.

"This reluctance to challenge Boeing's interpretations and failure to act on engineering concerns has contributed to risk acceptance and a fragile partnership dynamic."

NASA retroactively classified the Starliner mission as a "Type A" mishap, the agency's most severe category of mission failure, triggered by factors such as damage to a spacecraft exceeding $2 million or a crew member's death or permanent disability.

Boeing has spent tens of millions of dollars on efforts to ‌fix Starliner following the mission,. The company has taken roughly $2 billion in charges so far on the program since 2016.

But NASA ​last year reduced the contract's total value to $3.7 billion and cut the number of planned Starliner flights from six to four, as ​Boeing's engineering struggles inch closer to 2030, the planned retirement of the ISS.

RARE LEVEL OF DISCLOSURE FROM ​NASA'S COMMERCIAL CREW PROGRAM

NASA's decision to release a redacted version of its investigative findings was praised by former NASA officials and astronauts and marked a rare move for an ‌agency office that has often sought to portray its collaboration with Boeing's Starliner unit ​as positive and constructive.

"It isn't easy, but if previous Admins ​had done same, safety & public trust would be higher," Lori Garver, former Deputy NASA Administrator and a key architect of the agency's commercial-focused contracting model, said of Isaacman's decision to release the report.

NASA's Commercial Crew Program seeded development of Boeing's Starliner and SpaceX's Dragon capsule. The agency has made an imperative of having two U.S. vehicles for transporting its astronauts to the ISS in case one encounters issues.

The ​Dragon capsule has flown over 13 crews for NASA since 2020 with no ‌mission failures, helping position Elon Musk's SpaceX as the U.S. space program's most prominent contractor.

Isaacman, a former customer of SpaceX's Dragon program who spent millions of dollars commanding two private missions ​in orbit, has long been critical of Boeing and other giant government contractors involved in delayed and over-budget programs, a view that has been shared by the Pentagon. Isaacman's ties with ​Musk concerned lawmakers during his confirmation hearings.

(Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, David Gregorio and Diane Craft)

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2026 MLS season betting preview: Lionel Messi's Inter Miami are favorites to repeat

February 19, 2026
2026 MLS season betting preview: Lionel Messi's Inter Miami are favorites to repeat

The 31st Major League Soccer season will begin this weekend, andthere are more storylines than everheading into another exciting campaign.

Yahoo Sports

Lionel Messi helped Inter Miami win the club's first MLS title in 2025, recording two assists in Inter Miami's 3-1 MLS Cup win over the Vancouver Whitecaps. Inter Miami opens the season as the +400 betting favorite atBetMGMsportsbooks, just ahead of Los Angeles FC at +600.

LAFC has plenty of appeal as well, adding former Tottenham star Son Heung-min in the middle of last season. The franchise won its first — and only — MLS Cup back in 2022. LAFC opens its season Saturday in Los Angeles against Messi and the defending champs. LAFC is a +110 favorite on the three-way line, with Inter Miami at +210 and a draw at +270.

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San Diego FC and the Vancouver Whitecaps — 2025 MLS Cup runner-ups — have the next-best odds at +900, followed by the Philadelphia Union and FC Cincinnati at 14-1.

Sporting Kansas City and original MLS franchise DC United have the longest odds of any team to win this year's title at 80-1.

It's a unique season for MLS as well, with the 2026 World Cup taking place in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The league will take a break from May 25 to July 16, in the middle of the season, to accommodate players participating on their international teams.

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