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More than a decade ago, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished without a trace, sparking one of aviation’s most baffling mysteries.Despite years of multinational searches, investigators still do not know exactly what happened to the plane or its 239 passengers and crew.On Wednesday, Malaysia’s government said American marine robotics company Ocean Infinity would resume a seabed hunt for the missing plane on Dec. 30, reigniting hopes that the plane might finally be found.A massive search in the southern Indian Ocean, where the jet is believed to have gone down, turned up almost nothing. Apart from a few small fragments that washed ashore, no bodies or large wreckage have ever been recovered.Here’s what we know about the deadly aviation tragedy. ‘Good night, Malaysian Three Seven Zero’ The Boeing 777 disappeared from air-traffic radar 39 minutes after departing Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 8, 2014.The pilot’s last radio call to Kuala Lumpur “Good night, Malaysian Three Seven Zero” was the final communication before the plane crossed into Vietnamese airspace and failed to check in with controllers there.Minutes later, the plane’s transponder, which broadcasts its location, shut down. Military radar showed the jet turn back over the Andaman Sea, and satellite data suggested it continued flying for hours, possibly until fuel exhaustion, before crashing into a remote section of the southern Indian Ocean.Theories about what happened range from hijacking to cabin depressurization or power failure. There was no distress call, ransom demand, evidence of technical failure or severe weather.Malaysian investigators in 2018 cleared the passengers and crew but did not rule out “unlawful interference.” Authorities have said someone deliberately severed communications and diverted the plane. Passengers came from many countries MH370 carried 227 passengers, including five young children, and 12 crew members. Most passengers were Chinese, but there were also citizens from the United States, Indonesia, France, Russia and elsewhere.Among those aboard were two young Iranians traveling on stolen passports, a group of Chinese calligraphy artists, 20 employees of U.S. tech firm Freescale Semiconductor, a stunt double for actor Jet Li and several families with young children. Many families lost multiple members. Largest underwater search in history Search operations began in the South China Sea between Malaysia and Vietnam, then expanded to the Andaman Sea and the southern Indian Ocean.Australia, Malaysia and China coordinated the largest underwater search in history, covering roughly 120,000 square kilometers (46,000 square miles) of seabed off western Australia. Aircraft, vessels equipped with sonar and robotic submarines scoured the ocean for signs of the plane.Signals thought to be from the plane’s black box turned out to be from other sources, and no wreckage was found. The first confirmed debris was a flaperon discovered on Réunion Island in July 2015, with additional fragments later found along the east coast of Africa. The search was suspended in January 2017.In 2018, U.S. marine robotics company Ocean Infinity resumed the hunt under a “no find, no fee” agreement, focusing on areas identified through debris drift studies, but it ended without success. The challenge of locating remains One reason why such an extensive search failed to turn up clues is that no one knows exactly where to look. The Indian Ocean is the world’s third largest, and the search was conducted in a difficult area, where searchers encountered bad weather and average depths of around 4 kilometers (2.5 miles).It’s not common for planes to disappear in the deep sea, but when they do remains can be very hard to locate. Over the past 50 years, dozens of planes have vanished, according to the Aviation Safety Network. US company resumes search Malaysia’s government gave the green light in March for another “no-find, no-fee” contract with Ocean Infinity to resume the seabed search operation at a new 15,000-square-kilometer (5,800-square-mile) site in the ocean. Ocean Infinity will be paid $70 million only if wreckage is discovered.However, the search was suspended in April due to bad weather. The government said Wednesday that Ocean Infinity will resume search intermittently from Dec. 30 for a total of 55 days, in targeted areas believed to have the highest likelihood of finding the missing aircraft.It is unclear if the company has new evidence of the plane’s location. It has said it would utilize new technology and has worked with many experts to analyze data and narrow the search area to the most likely site.
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Until recently, when you looked at a house for sale on Zillow, you could see property-specific scores for the risk of flooding, wildfires, wind from storms and hurricanes, extreme heat, and air quality. The numbers came from First Street, a nonprofit that uses peer-reviewed methodologies to calculate “climate risk.” But Zillow recently removed those scores after pressure from CRMLS, one of the large real-estate listing services that supplies its data. The reality is these models have been around for over five years, says Matthew Eby, CEO of First Street, which also provides its data to sites like Realtor.com and Redfin. (Zillow started displaying the information in 2024, but Realtor.com incorporated First Street’s “Flood Scores” in 2020.) And what’s happened is the markets gotten very tight. And now they’re looking for ways to try and make it easier to sell homes at the expense of homebuyers. The California Regional MLS, like others across the country, controls the database that feeds real estate listings to sites like Zillow. The organization said in a statement to the New York Times that it was suspicious after seeing predictions of high flood risk in areas that hadnt flooded in the past. When Fast Company asked for an example of a location, they pointed to a neighborhood in Huntington Beachbut that area actually just flooded last week. In a statement, First Street said that it stands behind the accuracy of its scores. “Our models are built on transparent, peer-reviewed science and are continuously validated against real-world outcomes. In the CRMLS coverage area, during the Los Angeles wildfires, our maps identified over 90% of the homes that ultimately burned as being at severe or extreme riskour highest risk ratingand 100% as having some level of risk, significantly outperforming CalFire’s official state hazard maps. So when claims are made that our models are inaccurate, we ask for evidence. To date, all the empirical validation shows our science is working as designed and providing better risk insight than the tools the industry has relied on historically.” Zillow’s trust in the data has not changed, and that data is important to consumers: In one survey, it saw that more than 80% of buyers considered the data when shopping for a house. But the company said in a statement that it updated its climate risk product experience to adhere to varying MLS requirements. Its not clear exactly what happened: In response to questions for this story, CRMLS now says it only asked Zillow to remove “predictive numbers” and flood map layers on listings, while Zillow says the MLS board voted to demand they block all of the data. Its also not clear what would have happened if Zillow hadnt made any changes, though in theory, the MLS could have stopped giving the site access to its listings. Images of Zillows climate risk tools from a 2024 press release [Image: Zillow] Zillow still links to First Street’s website in each listing, so homebuyers can access the information, but it’s less easy to find. The site also still includes a map that consumers can use to view overall neighborhood risk, if they take the extra step to click on checkboxes for flooding, fire, or other hazards. But the main scores are gone. Obviously, seeing that a particular house has a high flood risk or fire risk can hurt sales. Nevertheless, after First Street first launched, the National Association of Realtors put out guidance saying that the information was usefuland that since realtors aren’t experts in things like flood risk, they shouldn’t try to tell buyers themselves that a particular house is safe, even if it hasn’t flooded in the past. First Street’s flood data goes further than that of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which uses outdated flood maps. It also incorporates more climate predictions, along with the risk of flooding from heavy rainfall and surface runoff, not just flooding from rivers or the coast. And it includes predictions of small amounts of flooding (for example, whether an inch of water is likely to reach the property). Buyers can dig deeper to figure out how much that amount of flooding might affect a particular house. It’s not surprising that some high risk scores have upset home sellers who haven’t experienced flooding or other problems in the past. But as the climate changes, past experiences don’t guarantee what a property will be like for the next 30 years. Take the example of North Carolina, where some residents hadn’t ever experienced flooding until Hurricane Helene dumped unprecedented rainfall on their neighborhoods. Redfin, another site that uses the data, plans to continue providing it, though sellers have the option to ask for it to be removed from a particular home if they believe it’s inaccurate. (First Street also allows homeowners to ask for their data to be revised if there’s a problem, and then reviews the accuracy.) “Redfin will continue to provide the best-possible estimates of the risks of fires, floods, and storms,” Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather said in a statement. “Homebuyers want to know, because losing a home in a catastrophe is heartbreaking, and insuring against these risks is getting more and more expensive.” Realtor.com is working with CRMLS and data providers to look into the issues raised by the MLS over the scores. “We aim to balance transparency about the evolving environmental risks to what is often a familys biggest investment, with an understanding that the available data can sometimes be limited,” the company said in a statement. “For this reason we always encourage consumers to consult a local real estate professional for guidance or to learn more. When issues are raised, we work with our data partners to review them and make updates when appropriate.” If more real estate sites take down the scores, it’s likely that some buyers won’t see the information at all. First Street says that while it’s good that Zillow still includes a link to its site, the mpact is real. “Whenever you add friction into something, it just is used less,” Eby says. “And so not having that information at the tip of your fingers is definitely going to have an impact on the millions of people that go to Zillow every day to see it.”
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E-Commerce
The Trump administration says it may withhold Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits from recipients in 22 states and Washington, D.C starting as early as next week, unless the states in question provide information on those receiving the assistance to the federal government. The states have argued that the information being requested is private, and that handing it over would be a violation of privacy laws.On Tuesday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins addressed the issue at a Cabinet meeting. Rollins said that cooperation from all 50 states is necessary in order to root out this fraud and to protect the American taxpayer,” doubling down on previous statements alleging that SNAP benefits are going to people who should not be receiving them, or the deceased. “We’ve arrested more than 120 people with SNAP fraud,” Rollins said in a recent News Nation interview. A USDA spokesperson said, per Newsweek, “USDA established a SNAP integrity team to analyze not only data provided by states, but to scrub all available information to end indiscriminate welfare fraud. 28 States and Guam joined us in this fight; but states like California, New York, and Minnesota, among 19 other blue States, keep fighting us.” While fraud in the program has been a frequent talking point from the USDA, there isn’t a lot of research to back the claim that SNAP fraud is widespread. According to a U.S. Congressional Research Service report from April 2025, “SNAP fraud is rare, according to available data and reports, but there is no single data point that reflects all the forms of fraud in SNAP.” Last week, officials in the 22 states that are pushing back over the issue, and Washington, D.C., sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The suit alleges that the USDA is arbitrarily excluding many lawful permanent residents from receiving SNAP benefits by misinterpreting new eligibility provisions set forth by the Trump administration’s “Big, Beautiful Bill”. The legislation expanded work requirements to include those ages 55 to 64, homeless people, and more. According to the suit, the legislation is being used to prevent individuals who once held the status of refugees, individuals granted asylum, or parolees from gaining eligibility for SNAP once they become citizens. Prior to Rollins’ latest statement, SNAP has already been under siege in recent months with the government shutdown quickly impacting the program. On Nov. 3, the Trump administration said that it would pay just 50% of recipients normal SNAP allotments for the month, leaving millions of Americans wondering how they would make ends meet. Rollins also recently stated that all 42 million SNAP recipients would have to reapply in order to maintain their benefits, in an assertion that some leaders have pushed back on. Last month, Senators Amy Klobuchar and Ben Ray Luján addressed Rollins and the USDA in a letter advocating against the organizations efforts to force SNAP recipients to reapply for assistance, calling it “more red tape” that will limit families’ ability to receive aid. “This reapplication requirement comes after repeated efforts to deny Americans in need of essential nutrition assistance, the Senators wrote in the letter.It continued, In addition to unprecedented cuts to SNAP enacted earlier this summer, decisions to disrupt food assistance during the shutdown have created additional uncertainty. We are therefore troubled that the Administration could choose, at this moment, to add additional red tape that creates duplicative and unnecessary barriers to accessing nutrition assistance for families.
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