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Tulsi Gabbard, a former U.S. representative with little intelligence experience, was confirmed as the top U.S. spy on Wednesday, as Republicans lined up behind a nominee once seen as among President Donald Trump‘s most controversial picks. The Senate voted 52 to 48, mostly along party lines, to confirm Gabbard to the position overseeing the 18-agency intelligence community and acting as Trump’s top adviser on intelligence issues. The only Republican to vote against Gabbard was Senator Mitch McConnell, the party’s former leader in the chamber. No Democrats or independents voted in favor of the nominee. The vote was another victory for Trump as he pushes to secure quick Senate approval for all of his nominees for administration positions. The Senate’s Republican majority leader, John Thune, held a procedural vote on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who also faced fierce opposition to his nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services, immediately after the Gabbard confirmation vote. Gabbard, a 43-year-old former Democrat, had faced bipartisan questions about past statements seen as supporting U.S. adversaries, and lack of experience that would have prepared her to manage a $100 billion budget. Gabbard neither worked at a spy agency nor served on an intelligence committee during her four House of Representatives terms. She will now oversee an agency created by Congress in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to coordinate the country’s sprawling intelligence apparatus, one of the most important national security positions in U.S. government. “The selection of a DNI is a very big deal,” said Emily Harding, director of the Intelligence, National Security and Technology Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, noting the DNI’s broad access to classified material and role as the president’s main intelligence adviser. Russia, Syria, Snowden Trump’s announcement of Gabbard in November sent shockwaves through the national security establishment, adding to concerns that intelligence-gathering would be politicized, and weakened, during a second Trump administration. Skeptics questioned Gabbard’s past statements seen as sympathetic toward Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and defense of the government of former Syria leader Bashar al-Assad, whom she visited in Syria in 2017 while he was under U.S. sanction. At her hearing, Gabbard faced particularly pointed questioning from senators from both parties about her past defense of former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked thousands of highly classified documents and then sought asylum in Russia. Some were noticeably frustrated at her refusal to call Snowden a traitor. Republicans who expressed concerns faced an intense political pressure campaign, from Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk, who threatened to support primary opponents of any Republican who obstructed nominees. Senator Todd Young, an intelligence committee member who did not immediately back Gabbard, issued a statement supporting her before the panel’s party-line 9-8 vote to recommend the nominee to the full Senate. A former Marine Corps intelligence officer criticized by Musk before he endorsed Gabbard, Young said Gabbard had reassured him that she would support intelligence professionals and provide unbiased information. Gabbard’s supporters also praised her pledges to pare back the DNI’s office, at a time when Trump’s administration is slashing and even seeking to close government agencies. Past DNI nominees have been intelligence veterans confirmed with broad bipartisan support. Daniel Coats, a former ambassador and Republican senator who served on the intelligence committee, was confirmed by 85-12 in 2017, as Trump began his first term. The DNI under former President Joe Biden, Avril Haines, had held a series of major national security positions, including deputy director of the CIA. She was confirmed by 84-10. Harding said Gabbard will need to reassure allies that they can trust Washington as Trump pursues an aggressive foreign policy, and be cautious about making cuts amid myriad global challenges. “The person that is going to be doing it needs to be someone that he (Trump) trusts and somebody that he’ll listen to,” Harding said. Gabbard left the Democratic Party in 2022 to become an independent. She backed Trump and joined the Republican Party in 2024. Patricia Zengerle, Reuters
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A new bill introduced in Congress last month aims to require proof of citizenship to register to votewhich could make an already-complicated registration process harder for millions of Americans. On January 3, Republican representative Chip Roy reintroduced the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act to Congress to ensure that our elections and our sovereignty cannot be hijacked and influenced by foreign nationals who have no business voting in this country. The SAVE Act would require voters to present physical documentary proof of citizenship to register or reregister to vote. This means passports, birth certificates, or special drivers licenses that include proof of citizenshipeither REAL ID or an Enhanced Driver License that includes an American flag to show its holders citizenship. But by introducing additional barriers to vote, this legislation could incidentally disenfranchise millions of young voters, voters of color and married women, according to an analysis published by the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice. Why do people oppose the SAVE Act? After the 2016 election, President Trump stoked fears about noncitizen voting by falsely claiming that 3 million-to-5 million noncitizens voted in the election, but instances of this occurring are vanishingly rare, according to the Brennan Center. Noncitizen voting is already illegal in all 50 states. While the new requirements could ultimately bar noncitizen registrationwhich experts say only happens to an infinitesimal degreethey could also complicate or even block registration for millions of Americans who may not possess the required documents. Last year, the Brennan Center found that 21 million Americans dont have proof of citizenship readily available. The Enhanced Driver Licenseswhich show proof of citizenship on the cardare only available in five states. And almost half of Americans dont even own a passport. Younger voters and voters of color are less likely to have access to these required documents than others, according to the Brennan Centers analysis. The nonprofit also wrote that the SAVE Act would functionally eliminate mail-in voting registration because it requires voters to produce documentation in person to an election official. This bill may also disproportionately block married women from voting: As many as 69 million married women dont possess a birth certificate that matches their legal name, according to the Center for American Progress. The bill passed the House once in July, and with its reintroduction, it will likely see the floor again soon. But to be passed into law, the bill would need to overcome a potential Senate filibusterwhich would require unlikely support from seven Democrats.
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E-Commerce
From the moment Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier for the first time in 1947, zipping from New York to Paris in less than three hours became every travelers dream. It’s a dream that shattered as soon as everyone realized supersonic flight was really annoying for people on the ground. Thats why NASA and Lockheed Martin created the X-59 Quesst, which was designed with an aerodynamic profile that would reduce the eardrum-breaking boom to a dull thump. NASA’s upcoming test flight was supposed to be the first silent supersonic flight in historythen January 28 happened. That’s when the startup company Boom Supersonic flew a supersonic flight over the Mojave Desert, in California, using a radically different approach that was theorized decades ago but only now has been possible thanks to new engines and computers. [Photo: Boom Supersonic] The company announced the milestone February 10. The testing of its Boomless Cruise technologyrecorded with a sophisticated microphone array by NASAshowed that its XB-1 demonstrator aircraft broke the sound barrier three times without generating a sonic boom that reached the ground. This is the first time a plane has achieved this. On our first flight, we expected to break the sound barrier without a sonic boomthat was our prediction, Blake Scholl, founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic, tells me. We broke the sound barrier three times: on the first flight, no boom; and on the second flight, three more times. Our forecast was no sonic boom, and that’s exactly what we had. Rather than redesigning the physical airframe of the airplane to redirect air and reduce the supersonic shock volumelike the X-59the company bet on taking advantage of using a physical phenomenon called Mach cutoff, using powerful computers and software to carefully change the airplane’s speed and altitude depending on the weather around it. [Photo: Boom Supersonic] Mach cutoff is a phenomenon where a sonic boom, instead of traveling directly to the ground, bends upwards and dissipates into the atmosphere. There is a boom that comes off the airplane, but it makes a kind of U-turn in the sky, Scholl explains. And as long as the boom is coming off the airplane at the right angle and its high enough, you can think of it as the bottom of the U never touches the ground. And as long as the bottom of the U never touches the ground, there’s no audible boom. This phenomenon occurs because the sonic boom refracts upward due to temperature and wind gradients affecting the local speed of sound, just as how a pen appears to bend when passing through a glass of water because the difference in the density of water and air affects how light propagates. The NASA X-59 [Image: Lockheed Martin] Unlike the X-59s low-boom approach, Boomless Cruise aims to entirely eliminate the boom at ground level. The X-59 is designed to manage the shockwaves through its airframe design, aiming for a gentle thump. The way the engine is placed, and the fact that theres no cockpit breaking the flow of air, its Pinocchio nose reduces the sonic boom. Scholl says the approach works, but there’s still a boom. With Boomless Cruise, there literally is none. During its first supersonic flight, XB-1 reached a top speed of Mach 1.12, demonstrating that the theory works. The data collected during XB-1’s supersonic runs allowed Boom to validate their sonic boom models and refine the algorithms that predict the operation within Mach cutoff. The successful flight test validated that this works. [Photo: Boom Supersonic] What were doing is well-known physics thats been around for a long time, Scholl says. The key to making it a reality now lies in advanced engine technology and sophisticated computing capabilities, which were unavailable in the past. The Concorde could have done it, but its engines werent powerful enough and they required afterburning to reach supersonic speed. The kind of computing power thats needed to do what the XB-1 did during its two flight tests also didnt exist. So, fast-forward 50 years, computers, weve got great weather data, and weve got engines that are powerful enough to fly supersonic without afterburners. [Photo: Boom Supersonic] The future of supersonic flight After validating Boomless Cruise technology, the company is planning to build its supersonic airliner. It will utilize the Symphony engine, which is specifically designed for enhanced transonic performance, to enable Boomless Cruise for commercial flights. Symphony’s enhanced transonic thrust will allow its commercial airliner, called Overture, to surpass the sound barrier at altitudes exceeding 30,000 feet. This altitude is sufficient for Mach cutoff physics to function. According to Boom Supersonic, Overture will use the company’s secret sauce: an advanced autopilot system that continuously optimizes speed for the Boomless Cruise based on real-time atmospheric conditions. This is what allows it to avoid the sonic boom. This dynamic adjustment is essential because weather conditions, particularly temperature and wind, significantly affect the speed of sound and the behavior of the sonic boom. [Photo: Boom Supersonic] If all goes as well with the demonstrator, the only major hurdle will not be technical but legal. Just as NASA is trying to do with its Quesst program, the company will need to convince lawmakers to allow for supersonic flight from coast to coast, over the continental United States. Hes convinced it will happen. It’s a very simple regulatory change. We should have a noise limit, not a speed limit, he tells me. Boom Supersonic also notes on its site that Overture is not designed as a low-boom aircraft, and [they] do not expect to certify it for unrestricted supersonic flight over land. This means that, over sea, the airplane’s speed will be unrestricted, reaching Mach 1.7. There will be no speed limit because the sonic boom doesn’t matter over the ocean, and flying from Paris to New York will be twice as fast, taking only about 3.5 hours versus the current 7 hours. Over land, however, the future aircraft’s speed will be restricted to Mach 1.3 to avoid the booms, Scholl says: Sometimes, as low as 1.05 and sometimes as high as 1.3. Usually, itll be between 1.1 [and] 1.2. That’s 50% faster than current commercial planes, which will get you from New York to Los Angeles in around three hours rather than six. Whatever happens with regulations, with this successful display, Boom Supersonic has demonstrated that it can be done. We will need to wait and see if it reaches the point in which we will enjoy quiet, affordable, and sustainable supersonic travel. And perhaps restart the era in commercial aviation that the Concorde brought to the world.
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