Democrats have a new face in charge, with Ken Martin elected chair of the Democratic National Committee on Saturday. After years as a Minnesota mainstay and leader of the state's major Democratic wing, Martin will head a party in flux after a 2024 defeat as it works to drum up a unified strategy to combat President Donald Trump's agenda. 

Amid the crowded race for DNC chair, Martin was always considered a front-runner. This was due to his helping keep Minnesota a Democratic stronghold over the last eight years, even as Republicans made major gains throughout the Midwest in the 2016 and 2024 elections.  

His beginnings
Minneapolis native Martin, 51, began working in politics in high school. He's the "son of a single mother and the first child in his family, he has said, to earn a college degree," said The New York Times. After college, Martin interned for former Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) before joining the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and working his way up the ranks. He was elected chair of the DFL in 2011. 

DNC leadership
Martin was elected DNC chair by earning 246 of the 428 votes cast — "100 votes above the second-place finisher, Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler," said NBC News. But while the party is working to coalesce around a new message, the "race hinged more on the candidates' organizing and fundraising resumes than on their postures regarding the ideological soul of the party."

In vying for the job, Martin argued that "many people don't think Democrats represent the party taking on the priorities of Americans," said The Hill. One thing he will be "charged with overseeing is the 2028 Democratic presidential early primary calendar as leaders across the states have started to weigh in on who should be in the early lineup."

He has also "promised a 'big tent' approach and drew endorsements from both left-leaning and more moderate officials," said the Times. Democrats "have one fight. The fight's not in here. The fight's out there," Martin said in his victory speech. The "fight is for our values. The fight is for working people. The fight right now is against Donald Trump and the billionaires who bought this country." Democrats "must rebuild."

Last Wednesday's crash of American Eagle Flight 5342, which killed 67 people after colliding with a military helicopter over Washington, D.C.'s Potomac River, broke a nearly 16-year streak during which the U.S. had no deadly commercial plane crashes. But the country has a long history of plane accidents, resulting in many fatalities. (This list does not include the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which were a deliberate act of violence.)

American Airlines Flight 191
American Airlines Flight 191 departed Chicago on May 25, 1979. Moments after takeoff, the "left engine and strut assembly separated from the wing and traveled over the wing," said the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The plane crashed several miles from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, and a "total of 273 people died," said Encyclopedia Britannica. Not counting the Sept. 11 attacks, this makes Flight 191 the deadliest airline accident in U.S. history.

American Airlines Flight 587
American Airlines Flight 587 was on its way out of New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport on Nov. 12, 2001, when it "crashed into a residential area of Belle Harbor, New York, shortly after takeoff, " said the FAA. All 260 on board died, as well as five people on the ground. The crash occurred just about a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, leading many in New York to initially suspect that it was another terrorist incident. 

Air Florida Flight 90
The recent American Eagle crash conjured up memories of Air Florida Flight 90, another deadly accident involving the Potomac River. As the flight was leaving Washington, D.C., out of Reagan National Airport on Jan. 13, 1982, it crashed "into the 14th Street Bridge in downtown Washington, D.C., and plunged into the icy waters of the Potomac," said ABC News. In all, "70 of the passengers and four of the five crew members aboard the Boeing 737" were killed, said USA Today, in what remains one of Washington's worst aircraft accidents. But "five others escaped the broken fuselage of the sinking and waterlogged plane in a dramatic rescue that played out on live television."