Author: PolitCens

PANAMA CITY, PANAMA — Panama has received the first U.S. flight carrying deportees from other nations as the Trump administration takes Panama up on its offer to act as a stopover for expelled migrants, the Central American nation’s president said Thursday. 

“Yesterday a flight from the United States Air Force arrived with 119 people from diverse nationalities of the world,” President Jose Raul Mulino said Thursday in his weekly press briefing. He said there were migrants from China, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other countries, aboard. 

The president said it was the first of three planned flights that were expected to total about 360 people. “It’s not something massive,” he said. 

The migrants were expected to be moved to a shelter in Panama’s Darien region before being returned to their countries, Mulino said. 

Asked later Thursday why Panama was acting as a stopover for these deportations, Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Ruiz Hernandez said that it was something the U.S. government had requested. He also said the U.S. government was paying for the repatriations through U.N. immigration agencies. 

The migrants who arrived Wednesday had been detained after crossing the U.S. border and did not have criminal records, he said. 

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Mulino in Panama. While U.S. President Donald Trump’s demands to retake control of the Panama Canal dominated the visit, Mulino also discussed Panama’s efforts to slow migration through the Darien Gap and he offered Panama as a bridge to send U.S. deportees back to their countries. 

Rubio secured agreements on the trip with Guatemala and El Salvador as well, to accept migrants from other nations in what was seen as the laying groundwork for expanding U.S. capacity to speedily deport migrants. 

Migration through the Darien Gap connecting Panama and Colombia was down about 90% in January compared to the same month a year earlier. 

Since Mulino entered office last year, Panama has made dozens of deportation flights, most funded by the U.S. government. 

Ruiz said Thursday that Panama “has been completely willing to participate and cooperate in this request they have made of us.” 
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NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Eric Adams says he will allow federal immigration officials to operate at the city’s Rikers Island jail following a meeting Thursday with President Donald Trump’s border czar.

Adams said he will issue an executive order reestablishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement presence at the complex — one of the nation’s largest and most notorious lockups — as had been the case under prior administrations.

The Democrat said ICE agents would be focused on assisting the corrections department’s intelligence bureau in criminal investigations, particularly those focused on violent criminals and gangs.

“As I have always said, immigrants have been crucial in building our city and will continue to be key to our future success, but we must fix our long-broken immigration system,” Adams said in a statement. “That is why I have been clear that I want to work with the new federal administration, not war with them, to find common ground and make better the lives of New Yorkers.”

Opponents dismissed the move as a “needless concession” and “legally dubious.”

“ICE’s presence on Rikers serves no legitimate purpose and opens the door to unlawful collusion between local law enforcement and federal immigration officials in violation of our city’s well-established sanctuary protections,” Zach Ahmad, senior policy counsel at the New York Civil Liberties Union, said.

Trump’s border czar, Thomas Homan, argued that having an ICE presence at local jails is crucial to removing violent criminals who have entered the country illegally.

“For the naysayers, the city council who wants nothing to do with ICE, they need to understand: If we arrest the bad guy at Rikers Island, then the alien’s safe, the officer’s safe, the community’s safe,” he said in an interview with NewsMax after the meeting.

Troubled relationship

Homan met with Adams at a federal office building in Manhattan as the Republican administration pushes for more help detaining and deporting people accused of crimes.

ICE has long had a contentious relationship with New York, which has rules and laws limiting police cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

Immigration officials, for example, aren’t able to request that city jails hold people wanted for civil immigration law violations past when they would ordinarily be released from custody, under city policy.

New York City also has passed measures that curtail ICE’s access to public schools and other city properties.

Adams, who faces a Democratic primary in June, has said he favors loosening these so-called sanctuary policies, but he doesn’t have the broad power to do so as mayor.

Adams said he talked with Homan about ways to embed more New York police detectives into federal task forces focused on violent gangs and criminal activity, as well as allowing ICE agents to participate in regular meetings with law enforcement agencies in the city.

“We walked away with some real tangible things we can do together, and I’m looking forward to aligning with him and other federal partners to remove dangerous people from our streets,” he said in a radio show interview after the meeting.

Mayor under pressure

The Democrat is under unique pressure to cooperate with the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

On Monday, the U.S. Justice Department ordered federal prosecutors in Manhattan to dismiss corruption charges against Adams so he could focus on assisting the president’s immigration agenda.

As of Thursday, the criminal charges remained in place. If the case is ultimately dropped, the Justice Department says it will conduct a review after the November mayoral election to assess whether it should be reinstated.

Immigration advocates worry Adams might feel pressure from the Trump administration to disregard or rescind some of the city’s sanctuary protections, which come from a patchwork of state and city laws and mayoral executive orders, some stretching back decades.

Adams has already ordered city officials to lawfully cooperate with Trump’s agenda around immigration and other issues, though the administration’s instructions have sparked confusion among some city workers and contractors.

Adams confirmed later that he also discussed with Homan restoring more than $80 million meant to defray the city’s costs for sheltering homeless migrants that the Federal Emergency Management Agency unexpectedly clawed back Wednesday.

“I’m not happy about losing $80 million, and we had a conversation on that,” he said during a local television interview.

The Adams administration has leased several hotels and vacant buildings and repurposed them as migrant shelters as the city has tried to house an estimated 230,000 people who have arrived from the U.S. southern border in recent years.

Adams reflects on challenges

In a local radio interview after the meeting, Adams also reflected on the week’s turn of events with a mix of relief and defiance.

“I did nothing wrong. No American should endure what I had to endure,” he said on WABC, referring to the “humiliation and embarrassment” of the monthslong federal corruption probe.

As he gears up for a bruising primary fight, Adams said he wants New Yorkers to see his resiliency.

“We’ve all gone through some hard times,” he said. “No matter what you’re going through, have faith in yourself, faith in God, faith in your family, faith in your country, and you will navigate through it.”
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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials expect most of the agency’s roughly 5,200 probationary employees to be fired Friday under the Trump administration’s move to get rid of nearly all probationary employees, according to an audio recording of a National Institutes of Health department meeting.

In that meeting, an NIH office director told employees that some probationary staff with specialized skills might be spared. Probationary staff being terminated would receive an email Friday afternoon, according to audio shared with The Associated Press.

Among those being cut are nearly 1,300 probationary employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — roughly one-tenth of the agency’s workforce.

The Atlanta-based agency’s leadership was notified of the decision Friday morning. The verbal notice came from HHS officials in a meeting with CDC leaders, according to a federal official who was at the meeting. The official was not authorized to discuss it and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Some portion of the affected employees are supposed to receive four weeks paid administrative leave, according to the federal official and the recording.

HHS officials did not answer questions about the specifics of the layoffs. In an emailed statement, Andrew Nixon, the department’s director of communications, wrote: “HHS is following the Administration’s guidance and taking action to support the President’s broader efforts to restructure and streamline the federal government. This is to ensure that HHS better serves the American people at the highest and most efficient standard.”

HHS employs more than 80,000 people and runs 13 supporting agencies. Besides the CDC, they include the NIH and the Food and Drug Administration. The department also provides health coverage for nearly half the country through Medicare and Medicaid.

Its staff includes scientists, researchers, doctors and other officials. It oversees research of vaccines, diseases and cures. It regulates the medications found in medicine cabinets and inspects the foods that end up in cupboards.

With a $9.2 billion core budget, the CDC is charged with protecting Americans from outbreaks and other public health threats. Before the cuts, the agency had about 13,000 employees, including more than 2,000 staffers working in other countries.

Historically CDC has been seen as a global leader on disease control and a reliable source of health information, boasting some of the top experts in the world. The staff is heavy with scientists — 60% have master’s degrees or doctorates.

Those being fired included all first-year officers — about 50 in total — in the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, according to two agency employees who communicated with some of the affected staffers. The two spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

The EIS, as it is known, was established in 1951 to recruit young doctors and researchers to join the agency for two-year stints as disease investigators. The laid-off first-year officers represent a little less than half the service’s current staff.

EIS officers often are sent to different states and countries to become primary investigators of outbreaks and emerging health dangers. Many EIS graduates have gone on to leadership jobs at the CDC and at other public health organizations.

It’s not only new employees who are subject to probation. Probationary periods also are applied to veteran staffers who, for example, were recently promoted to a new job in management.

The layoffs are part of a broad effort by President Donald Trump and billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk to reduce the number of workers across the entire federal government. The job cuts also came one day after Robert F. Kennedy was sworn in to oversee HHS.

Dr. Joshua Barocas, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, said many of the probationary-status CDC employees are filling vital roles.

“It’s essentially assuming that they are not in a job that is crucial for the success of keeping everyone safe — just because they’ve been there for less than a year or less than six months,” said Barocas, speaking Friday morning during an Infectious Diseases Society of America call with reporters.

In a Thursday interview on Fox News, Kennedy was asked if half the HHS staff would be losing their jobs.

“I don’t know anything about 50% of people being cut,” Kennedy said. “I would be surprised if there were 50% cuts.”

He added: “If you’ve been involved in good science, you have nothing to worry about. If you care about public health, you have nothing to worry about. If you’re in there working for the pharmaceutical industry, I’d say you should move out and work for the pharmaceutical industry.”
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The tragic deaths of Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov in a plane crash late last month in Washington have shone a spotlight on the role of Russian- or Soviet-born coaches in the world of competitive figure skating. Their influence has shaped a generation of American skaters, raising the question: Why have these coaches been so successful in the U.S.? Maxim Adams has the story. Video editor: Serge Sokolov, Anna Rice  
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Vice President JD Vance warned European allies attending the security conference in Munich, Germany, against “the threat from within,” arguing that European governments are exercising extreme censorship and have failed to adequately get a handle on “out-of-control migration.”  

“The threat that I worry the most about vis a vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor,” he said Friday. “What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.” 

Vance denounced Romania, a NATO ally, for its recent cancellation of presidential election results over evidence of Russian disinformation. “If your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with,” he said. “I’d ask my European friends to have some perspective.” 

He also appeared to voice support for right-wing parties that have been banned from joining governments in Europe, saying, “Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There’s no room for firewalls.” 

Vance said of all the pressing challenges facing Europe and the U.S. “there is nothing more pressing than migration.”  

He blamed the “series of conscious decisions made by politicians all over the continent and others across the world,” and he highlighted the Thursday attack in Munich where an Afghan national drove a car into a crowd, injuring at least 30 people. 

The remarks came as a surprise to the audience of leaders and top officials who were expecting Vance to focus on Ukraine and Russia. The vice president only made a passing remark on the issue.  

The Trump administration is “very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine,” Vance said. “And we also believe that it’s important in the coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defense.”  

Following Vance’s speech, Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius rejected Vance’s characterization of European policies.  

“If I understand him correctly, he is comparing conditions in parts of Europe with those in authoritarian regions … that is not acceptable.” 

Vance’s remarks are “an effort to flip the script,” on Europe’s concerns about American democracy, said Kristine Berzina, managing director of GMF Geostrategy North. 

“There was shockingly no mention of NATO, no discussion of Ukraine. Instead, it was the presentation of a right-wing vision of democracy days before the German election,” she told VOA. 

Vance and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio are set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday, on the sidelines of the conference. 

De-isolating Russia 

President Donald Trump spoke this week with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin about ending the war in Ukraine, which will mark its three-year anniversary on Feb. 24.

Trump said he and the Russian president have “agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately” to end the war. 

Speaking to reporters Thursday at the White House, Trump called Kyiv’s NATO membership bid “impractical” and its desire to win back Russian-occupied territories “illusionary.” 

His comments mirror remarks made by his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth who said Wednesday at NATO headquarters that it was unrealistic for Ukraine to join NATO — something Zelenskyy argues is central to protecting Ukraine in the long-term, but that Putin has long opposed. Hegseth also called Ukraine’s desire to regain territory that it lost to Russia an “unrealistic objective.”   

Additionally, Trump said it was a mistake to kick Moscow out of the Group of Seven of industrialized democracies, then known as the G8, following Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014.  

“I’d love to have them back,” Trump said, adding that he and Putin “agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s nations” and added that they would “probably” meet in Saudi Arabia in the near future. 

Russian politicians have welcomed the shift from former President Joe Biden’s policies that aimed to isolate Moscow.  

“I am sure that in Kyiv, Brussels, Paris and London they are now reading Trump’s lengthy statement on his conversation with Putin with horror and cannot believe their eyes,” Senior lawmaker Alexei Pushkov wrote on his messaging app Friday. 

European leaders have said they worry Washington is conceding key agenda items to Putin that would jeopardize Kyiv’s standing toward a potential settlement of the conflict.

“A failed Ukraine would weaken Europe, but it would also weaken the United States,” warned European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who spoke before Vance in Munich. 

Speaking to reporters upon his arrival in Munich, Zelenskyy said his priority is to speak with U.S. and European officials before engaging with the Russians. Moscow has said it is not sending a delegation to the conference.  

“I will be very clear. First, I see the order of meetings and decisions is the United States, Europe then Russia. We’re not against everything but we are supporting this,” Zelenskyy said.  

Ukraine said that at the Munich meeting, its delegation will present its position on ending the war and explain its vision for achieving a lasting peace. Zelenskyy said that if Trump could bring him and Putin to the negotiating table, he would offer to swap Ukrainian-occupied territory in Russia for Russian-held land in Ukraine. 

America first  

The Munich Security Report released ahead of the conference noted that this year’s gathering takes place in the context of an international order that appears to be in flux under Trump’s “America First” foreign policy.  

“Donald Trump’s presidential victory has buried the U.S. post-Cold War foreign policy consensus that a grand strategy of liberal internationalism would best serve U.S. interests,” said the report.  

It is unclear what the Trump administration’s ultimate strategy is to end the war — a promise the president campaigned on. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Friday ahead of his Munich speech, Vance said Moscow could face more sanctions and even “military tools” if it refuses to agree a deal ensuring Ukraine’s long-term independence. 

Gaza and the fragile ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas also are likely to be a focus in Munich. Trump recently said that Palestinians should leave Gaza, and the U.S. will take over the enclave — a proposition that several governments have condemned. 

The conference will also host sessions on the conflicts in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as climate change, energy security and artificial intelligence during the busy three-day conference. 

Henry Ridgwell, Nike Ching and Liam Scott contributed to this report.
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TAIPEI — Taiwan President Lai Ching-te pledged on Friday to talk with the United States about President Donald Trump’s concerns over the chip industry and to increase U.S. investment and buy more from the country, while also spending more on defense.

Trump spoke critically about Taiwan on Thursday, saying he aimed to restore U.S. manufacturing of semiconductor chips and repeating claims about Taiwan having taken away the industry he wanted back in the United States.

Speaking to reporters after holding a meeting of the National Security Council at the presidential office, Lai said that the global semiconductor supply chain is an ecosystem in which the division of work among various countries is important.

“We of course are aware of President Trump’s concerns,” Lai said.

“Taiwan’s government will communicate and discuss with the semiconductor industry and come up with good strategies. Then we will come up with good proposals and engage in further discussions with the United States,” he added.

Democratic countries including the United States should come together to build a global alliance for AI chips and a “democratic supply chain” for advanced chips, Lai said.

“While admittedly we have the advantage in semiconductors, we also see it as Taiwan’s responsibility to contribute to the prosperity of the international community.”

Taiwan is home to the world’s largest contract chipmaker, TSMC, a major supplier to companies including Apple and Nvidia, and a crucial part of the developing AI industry.

TSMC is investing $65 billion in new factories in the U.S. state of Arizona, a project begun in 2020 under Trump’s first administration.

TSMC’s Taipei-listed shares closed down 2.8% on Friday, underperforming the broader market, which ended off 1.1%.

A senior Taiwan security official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity in order to speak more freely, said if TSMC judged it was feasible to increase its U.S. investment, Taiwan’s government would help in talks with the United States.

TSMC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The official added that communications between Taiwan and U.S. economic, security and defense officials at present was “quite good” and “strong support from the United States can be felt”.

US support

The United States, like most countries, has no formal diplomatic ties with Chinese-claimed Taiwan, but is the democratically governed island’s most important international backer and arms supplier.

Trump cheered Taiwan last week after a joint U.S.-Japan statement following Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s visit to Washington called for “maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” and voiced support for “Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations.”

But Taiwan also runs a large trade surplus with the United States, which surged 83% last year, with the island’s exports to the U.S. hitting a record $111.4 billion, driven by demand for high-tech products such as semiconductors.

Lai said that the United States is Taiwan’s largest foreign investment destination, and that Taiwan is the United States’ most reliable trade partner.

Trump has also previously criticized Taiwan, which faces a growing military threat from China, for not spending enough on defense, a criticism he has made of many U.S. allies.

“Taiwan must demonstrate our determination to defend ourselves,” Lai said, adding his government is working to propose a special budget this year to boost defense spending from 2.5% of its GDP to 3%.

His government is involved in a standoff with parliament, where opposition parties hold a majority, over cuts to the budget, including defense spending.

“Certainly, more and more friends and allies have expressed concern to us, worried whether Taiwan’s determination for its self-defense has weakened,” Lai said.

 
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US President Donald Trump on Thursday made a range of energy and defense agreements with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his first visit to the White House in Trump’s second term. But the gains were offset by Trump’s threat to impose reciprocal tariffs on trading partners, something India sought to avoid. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House.
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The Trump administration is moving quickly with its mass deportation plans by sending some migrants to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and rapidly deporting others. VOA’s immigration reporter Aline Barros brings us this story.
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President Donald Trump’s immigration policy has mainly been focused on migrants trying to cross into the US at its border with Mexico, some having made the perilous trek from as far as South America. Out in the western Pacific Ocean, some Chinese are taking an equally dangerous route into the US VOA’s Yu Yao and Jiu Dao have their story, narrated by Elizabeth Lee.
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BALTIMORE — A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s recent executive order aimed at restricting gender-affirming health care for transgender people under age 19.

The judge’s ruling came after a lawsuit was filed earlier this month on behalf of families with transgender or nonbinary children who allege their health care has been compromised by the president’s order. A national group for family of LGBTQ+ people and a doctors organization are also plaintiffs in the court challenge, one of many lawsuits opposing one of the many executive orders Trump has issued.

Judge Brendan Hurson, who was nominated by former President Joe Biden, granted the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order following a hearing in federal court in Baltimore. The ruling, in effect for 14 days, essentially puts Trump’s directive on hold while the case proceeds. The restraining order could also be extended.

Shortly after taking office, Trump signed an executive order directing federally run insurance programs to exclude coverage for gender-affirming care. That includes Medicaid, which covers such services in some states, and TRICARE for military families. Trump’s order also called on the Department of Justice to vigorously pursue litigation and legislation to oppose the practice.

The lawsuit includes several accounts from families of appointments being canceled as medical institutions react to the new directive.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs argue Trump’s executive order is “unlawful and unconstitutional” because it seeks to withhold federal funds previously authorized by Congress and because it violates anti-discrimination laws while infringing on the rights of parents.

Like legal challenges to state bans on gender-affirming care, the lawsuit also alleges the policy is discriminatory because it allows federal funds to cover the same treatments when they’re not used for gender transition.

Some hospitals immediately paused gender-affirming care, including prescriptions for puberty blockers and hormone therapy, while they assess how the order affects them.

Trump’s approach on the issue represents an abrupt change from the Biden administration, which sought to explicitly extend civil rights protections to transgender people. Trump has used strong language in opposing gender-affirming care, asserting falsely that “medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex.”

Major medical groups such as the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics support access to gender-affirming care.

Young people who persistently identify as a gender that differs from their sex assigned at birth are first evaluated by a team of professionals. Some may try a social transition, involving changing a hairstyle or pronouns. Some may later also receive puberty blockers or hormones. Surgery is extremely rare for minors.
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NEW YORK — The top federal prosecutor in Manhattan resigned Thursday after refusing a Justice Department order to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Two senior Justice Department officials also quit after the department leadership in Washington moved to seize control of the case.

Danielle Sassoon, a Republican serving as interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced her resignation in an email to her staff. The move was confirmed by a spokesperson for the office. Adams’ case has yet to be dropped.

After Sassoon declined to dismiss the case, the department’s public integrity section in Washington was asked to take over, according to a person familiar with the matter. Two senior officials who oversee the unit, including the acting chief, resigned in response, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

The exits came days after a high-ranking Justice Department official directed federal prosecutors in New York to end the case against Adams, a Democrat who was accused of accepting illegal campaign contributions and bribes of free or discounted travel from people who wanted to buy his influence. He has pleaded not guilty.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said in a memo Monday that the case should be dismissed so Adams could aid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and campaign for reelection free from facing criminal charges. The primary is four months away and Adams has multiple challengers.

Bove had directed that be done as soon as “practicable,” but there have been no public statements or actions by the prosecution team. On Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi said she would “look into” why the case had yet to be dismissed. As of Thursday afternoon, the charges remained in place.

In the email to her staff, Sassoon did not give a reason for her resignation. In the note, the contents of which were obtained by The Associated Press, she said she had just submitted her resignation to Bondi.

“As I told her, it has been my greatest honor to represent the United States and to pursue justice as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York,” Sassoon wrote.

The Justice Department did not ask Sassoon to resign, according to a department official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The department declined public comment on Sassoon’s exit. A message seeking comment was left for Adams’ attorney, Alex Spiro. A spokesperson for the mayor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The government’s decision to end the Adams case because of political considerations, rather than the strength or weakness of the evidence, alarmed some career prosecutors who said it was a departure from long-standing norms.

The directive from Bove, a former Trump personal lawyer, was all the more remarkable because Bove had been a longtime prosecutor and supervisor in the Southern District and because department leaders are historically reluctant to intervene in cases where charges have been brought — particularly in an office as prestigious as that U.S. attorney’s office.

Bove’s memo also steered clear of any legal basis for the dismissal despite decades of department tradition dictating that charging decisions are to be guided by facts, evidence and the law.

Sassoon, a former clerk for the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, was not the prosecutor who brought the case against Adams last year. That was then-U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, who stepped down after Trump’s election victory in November.

Sassoon had only been tapped to serve as acting U.S. attorney on January 21, the day after Trump took office.

Her role was intended to be temporary. Trump in November nominated Jay Clayton, the former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, to the post, an appointment that must be confirmed by the Senate. That has not happened yet.

The Southern District of New York is among the largest and most prominent prosecutor’s offices in the U.S., with a long track record of tackling Wall Street malfeasance, political corruption and international terrorism.

It has a tradition of independence from Washington, something that has earned it the nickname “the sovereign district.”

During Trump’s first term, the office prosecuted both the president’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and his strategic adviser, Steve Bannon, in separate cases. Cohen pleaded guilty to tax evasion and campaign finance charges. Trump ended the federal fraud case against Bannon by pardoning him, though nearly identical charges were then brought by state prosecutors.

This is the second Justice Department tussle in five years between Washington and New York officials to result in a dramatic leadership turnover.

In 2020, William Barr, who served as one of Trump’s attorneys general during his first term pushed out Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, in a surprise nighttime announcement. Berman initially refused to resign his position, creating a brief standoff with Barr, but did so after an assurance that his investigations into allies of Trump would not be disturbed.

Sassoon joined the U.S. attorney’s office in 2016. In 2023 she helped lead the fraud prosecution of Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. More recently, she had served as the office’s co-chief of criminal appeals.

Adams was indicted in September on charges that while he worked as Brooklyn borough president, he accepted over $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and lavish travel perks such as expensive flight upgrades, luxury hotel stays and even a trip to a bathhouse.

The indictment said a Turkish official who helped facilitate the trips then leaned on Adams for favors, including asking him to lobby the Fire Department to let a newly constructed, 36-story diplomatic building open in time for a planned visit by Turkey’s president.

Prosecutors said they had proof that Adams personally directed political aides to solicit foreign donations and disguise them to help the campaign qualify for a city program that provides a generous, publicly funded match for small dollar donations. Under federal law, foreign nationals are banned from contributing to U.S. election campaigns.

As recently as Jan. 6, prosecutors had indicated their investigation remained active, writing in court papers that they continued to “uncover additional criminal conduct by Adams.”

Bove said in his memo that Justice Department officials in Washington hadn’t evaluated the evidence in the case before deciding it should be dropped — at least until after the mayoral election in November.

Federal agents also had been investigating other senior Adams aides. It was unclear what would happen to that side of the probe.
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WASHINGTON — The aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman was involved in a collision at sea with a merchant vessel near Port Said, Egypt, the Navy said Thursday.

The collision occurred late Wednesday while both ships were moving. It did not result in flooding or injuries aboard the carrier, and there was no damage to the ship’s propulsion systems, the Navy said in a statement.

None of the crew on the merchant ship, the Besiktas-M, were injured either, according to a defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details that had not yet been made public.

The Truman, which is based in Norfolk, Virginia, deployed in September to the Mediterranean and the Middle East. It had just completed a port call in Souda Bay, Greece.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that his country would not accept any agreement on its fate decided bilaterally by Russia and the United States on how to end Moscow’s three-year war on Ukraine without Kyiv’s involvement.

“We, as an independent country, simply will not be able to accept any agreements without us,” Zelenskyy told reporters as he visited a nuclear plant on his way to the Munich Security Conference, where he plans to meet Friday with U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

U.S. President Donald Trump spoke Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and they agreed that negotiations to end the war should start immediately, with Trump suggesting the two of them might soon hold a summit in Saudi Arabia. Trump later talked with Zelenskyy and informed him of his discussions with Putin.

On Thursday, Zelenskyy said, “Today it’s important that everything does not go according to Putin’s plan, in which he wants to do everything to make his negotiations bilateral” with the U.S.

Still, on Wednesday, Zelenskyy said after talking with Trump, “We discussed many nuances, diplomatic, military, economic, and President Trump informed me of what Putin told him. We believe that America’s power is enough to, together with us, together with all partners, pressure Russia and Putin toward peace.”

Zelenskyy said he talked with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Thursday, telling him that “no negotiations with Putin can begin without a united position from Ukraine, Europe, and the U.S. I emphasized that Ukraine must negotiate from a position of strength, with strong and reliable security guarantees, and that NATO membership would be the most cost-effective for partners.”

“Another key guarantee is serious investment in Ukraine’s defense industry. I also warned world leaders against trusting Putin’s claims of readiness to end the war,” Zelenskyy said.

Trump said, in all caps on his Truth Social media platform on Thursday, “Great talks with Russia and Ukraine yesterday. Good possibility of ending that horrible, very bloody war!!!”

Trump’s phone call with Putin came after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told other NATO defense chiefs that Ukraine’s goal of restoring its 2014 borders was unrealistic and that the U.S. does not foresee Ukraine joining NATO, the West’s key military alliance, as part of a negotiated settlement of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Moscow’s forces now hold about 20% of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimean Peninsula it unilaterally annexed in 2014.

Zelenskyy said it was important for the United States and Ukraine to draw up a plan to end the war before talking to the Russian side. Ukraine has said it is working on a Zelenskyy-Trump meeting, but nothing firm has been announced.

Zelenskyy said he did not discuss the possibility of NATO membership during his phone call with Trump, although he said he knew that the United States was against the idea. NATO’s 32-nation bloc says it is committed to eventual Ukraine NATO membership but not while the Russia-Ukraine war rages.

Russian officials and state-backed media appeared triumphant after Wednesday’s call between Trump and Putin that lasted more than an hour.

“To us, the position of the current [U.S.] administration is much more appealing,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday.

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chair of Russia’s National Security Council, said in an online statement, “The presidents of Russia and the U.S. have talked at last. This is very important in and of itself.”

Trump in the past has declined to say he wants Ukraine to win the war against Russia. On Wednesday, after talking with Putin and Zelenskyy, he said, “I’m backing Ukraine, but I do want security for our money,” with U.S. officials suggesting recently that Ukraine agree to supply the U.S. with rare earth minerals for manufacture of technology products in exchange for continued military support.
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Seoul — As a high school junior in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, Daneel Kutsenko never gave much thought to China.

Last month, though, as the U.S. government prepared to ban TikTok – citing national security concerns about its Chinese ownership – Kutsenko downloaded RedNote, another Chinese video-sharing app, which he felt gave him a new perspective on China.

“It just seems like people who live their life and have fun,” Kutsenko told VOA of RedNote, which reportedly attracted hundreds of thousands of U.S. users in the leadup to the now-paused TikTok ban.

Kutsenko’s move is part of a larger trend. Even as U.S. policymakers grow louder in their warnings about Chinese-owned apps, they have become a central part of American life.

TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, boasts 170 million U.S. users. China’s AI chatbot DeepSeek surged to the top of Apple’s App Store rankings, including those in the United States, for several days after its release last month.

Another major shift has come in online shopping, where Americans are flocking to digital Chinese marketplaces such as Temu and Shein in search of ultra-low prices on clothes, home goods, and other items.

According to a 2024 survey by Omnisend, an e-commerce marketing company, 70% of Americans shopped on Chinese platforms during the past year, with 20% doing so at least once a week.

Multifaceted threat

U.S. officials warn that Chinese apps pose a broad range of threats – whether to national security, privacy, human rights, or the economy.

TikTok has been the biggest target. Members of Congress attempting to ban the app cited concerns that China’s government could use TikTok as an intelligence-gathering tool or manipulate its algorithms to push narratives favorable to Beijing.

Meanwhile, Chinese commerce apps face scrutiny for their rock-bottom prices, which raise concerns about ethical sourcing and potential links to forced labor, Sari Arho Havrén, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based research organization, said in an email conversation with VOA.

“It raises questions of how sustainably these products are made,” Havrén, who focuses on China’s foreign policy and great power competition, said. Moreover, he said, “the pricing simply kills local manufacturers and businesses.”

Many U.S. policymakers also warn Chinese apps pose greater privacy risks, since Chinese law requires companies to share data with the government on request.

‘Curiosity and defiance’

Still, a growing number of Americans appear unfazed. Many young people in particular seem to shrug off the privacy concerns, arguing that their personal data is already widely exposed.

“They could get all the data they want. And anyway, I’m 16 – what are they going to find? Oh my gosh, he goes to school? There’s not much,” Kutsenko said.

Ivy Yang, an expert on U.S.-China digital interaction, told VOA many young Americans also find it unlikely that they would ever be caught up in a Chinese national security investigation.

“What they’re chasing is a dopamine peak. They’re not thinking about whether or not the dance videos or the cat tax pictures they swipe on RedNote are going to be a national security threat,” Yang, who founded the New York-based consulting company Wavelet Strategy, said.

Yang said the TikTok ban backlash and surge in RedNote downloads may reflect a shift in how young Americans see China – not just as a geopolitical rival, but as a source of apps they use in daily life.

She also attributes their skepticism to a broader cultural mindset – one shaped by a mix of curiosity, defiance, and a growing distrust of institutions, including conventional media.

Jeremy Goldkorn, a longtime analyst of U.S.-China digital trends and an editorial fellow at the online magazine ChinaFile, said growing disillusionment with America’s political turmoil and economic uncertainty has intensified these shifts.

“It makes it much more difficult for, particularly, young people to get worked up about what China’s doing when they feel so horrified about their own country,” Goldkorn said during a recent episode of the Sinica podcast, which focuses on current affairs in China.

Polling reflects this divide. A 2024 Pew survey found 81% of Americans view China unfavorably, but younger adults are less critical – only 27% of those under 30 have strongly negative views, compared to 61% of those 65 and older.

Digital barrier

While Chinese apps are expanding in the United States, in many ways the digital divide remains as impenetrable as ever.

China blocks nearly all major Western platforms and tightly controls its own apps, while the U.S. weighs new restrictions on Chinese tech.

Though President Donald Trump paused the TikTok ban, his administration has signaled broader efforts to curb China’s tech influence.

Trump officials have hinted they could take steps to regulate DeepSeek, the Chinese digital chatbot.

The Trump administration also recently signaled it intends to close a trade loophole that lets Chinese retailers bypass import duties and customs checks.

Broader challenges

Even as Washington debates how to handle the rise of Chinese apps, some analysts say the conversation risks obscuring the deeper issue of the broader role of social media itself.

Rogier Creemers, a specialist in digital governance at Leiden University, told VOA that while Chinese apps may raise valid concerns for Western countries, they are just one part of a larger, unaddressed problem.

“There’s a whole range of social ills that emerge from these social media that I think are far more important than anything the Chinese Communist Party could do,” he said, pointing to issues like digital addiction, declining attention spans, and the way social media amplifies misinformation and political unseriousness.

“And that would apply whether these apps are Chinese-owned or American-owned or Tajikistani-owned, as far as I’m concerned,” he added.

The United States, Creemer said, has taken a more hands-off approach to regulating online platforms, in part due to strong free speech protections and pushback by the tech industry.

Apps or influence?

For millions of Americans, the bigger debates about China and digital influence barely register when they open TikTok.

Kutsenko said neither he nor his friends have strong opinions about U.S.-China tensions. They just wanted an alternative to TikTok – one that felt fun, familiar, and easy to use.

It’s a sign that while policymakers see Chinese apps as part of a growing tech rivalry, for many Americans they’re just another way to scroll, shop, and stay entertained, no matter where they come from.
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LONDON — Hundreds of world leaders and delegates are set to attend the Munich Security Conference in Germany this weekend, with conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo high on the agenda, alongside simmering tensions in the Indo-Pacific region.

It’s the first major global summit for the new administration in Washington under President Donald Trump and comes amid speculation that his America First agenda could presage significant changes in U.S. foreign policy.

US delegation

The U.S. delegation includes Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“We are very happy that we will have a strong representation of both the administration of the new American government there, as well as representation from Congress,” said conference chairman Christoph Heusgen.

“And so, the American point of view will also be presented on stage, as will the European point of view, and that of other regions. And then, and that is what Munich stands for, there will be a dialogue, a discussion about the many issues at hand,” Heusgen told Reuters.

Vance is scheduled to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Munich.

Ukraine’s war against Russia’s full-scale invasion is about to enter its fourth year. Zelenskyy said this week he shared a “common vision” with the Trump administration.

“Of course, there may be different opinions, but a common vision of the main things — of how to stop [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and how to give guarantees of security to Ukraine and Ukrainians,” Zelenskyy told reporters on Monday.

‘Unrealistic’

However, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that American troops would not be deployed to Ukraine following any ceasefire deal with Russia and ruled out NATO membership for Kyiv. He also described Ukraine’s hopes to return to its pre-2014 borders with Russia as unrealistic.

“European allies must lead from the front,” Hegseth told reporters in Brussels following a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.

President Trump has made clear he wants a quick end to the war but it’s not clear how that might be achieved. Trump announced Wednesday he and Putin agreed in a phone call to “immediately” begin negotiations with Ukraine to bring an end to the nearly three-year-conflict.

NATO allies

Nevertheless, U.S. allies sense a change in tone from the president since his inauguration last month, said Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform, a London-based research group.

“Though Trump has said a lot of things to worry a lot of people on tariffs, on trade, on Gaza and so on, he hasn’t yet said anything particularly crazy from a European point of view about Ukraine or NATO. He hasn’t repeated his threat to pull out of NATO. He said the Europeans should spend more [on defense] but most of us agree with him on that. He hasn’t said he’s going to cut off all aid for Ukraine,” Grant told VOA.

“One of the issues that will come up in Munich is to what extent the Europeans should help to keep the peace if there is a ceasefire in Ukraine. And certainly, President [Emmanuel] Macron of France, and to some degree the British, and possibly Friedrich Merz who may well be the next German chancellor, are all in favor of sending troops to keep the peace in Ukraine, if there’s a peace to be kept,” Grant added.

Ukrainian hopes

On the streets of Kyiv, some Ukrainians expressed hope that the Munich conference will strengthen Ukrainian ties with the Trump administration.

“We hope that this personal meeting between President Zelenskyy and Vice President Vance will give an opportunity to convey the real situation of what is happening today in the Russian-Ukrainian war,” sociologist Asked Ashurbekov told The Associated Press.

Ukrainian journalist Borden Semeniuk was less optimistic.

“The country has been living in expectation for three years, and because of this, belief in this expectation has decreased. … I would like to see some relief from the situation. But it is impossible to live in the hope that it will 100 percent happen at this meeting,” Semeniuk told AP.

Russia and Iran have not been invited to Munich. Last year, the conference organizers said their governments had not shown a serious interest in negotiations.

China

The official report of the Munich Security Conference cites the “multipolarization of the international order” — a theme welcomed by China, which is sending a large delegation to the summit.

“The report shows that the international community’s acceptance of a multipolar world is on the rise. … China has always called for an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization,” Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told reporters in Beijing on Tuesday.

Earlier this week, the U.S Navy sailed two warships through the Taiwan Strait, prompting an angry response from Beijing.

China has ramped up military activity around Taiwan in recent months. China considers Taiwan a breakaway province that someday will be reunified with the mainland, while Taipei considers the island a sovereign state.

Secretary of State Rubio is due to hold a trilateral meeting with allies Japan and South Korea while in Munich.

Gaza

Conflict in the Middle East will also top the agenda at the Munich conference, amid fears that the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is at risk.

President Trump’s repeated suggestion that Palestinians should leave Gaza will overshadow the conference, said analyst Charles Grant.

“I don’t see it happening because you can’t just eliminate 2 million people and put them nowhere at all,” Grant said.

“But I think most European governments are hoping that Trump will just push this for a while, and he’ll get bored of it and talk about something else – and hope he will kind of move on and forget it. But so long as he does talk about it, it’s very disruptive and creates a lot of ill-feeling between European and many other governments, and the U.S.,” Grant told VOA.

The conference will also host sessions on the conflicts in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Climate change, energy security and artificial intelligence also feature on a packed agenda across the three-day conference.
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Hundreds of world leaders and delegates are set to attend the Munich Security Conference this weekend — with conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and simmering tensions in the Indo-Pacific, on the agenda. As Henry Ridgwell reports, all eyes will be on the approach of the U.S. delegation under the new administration of President Donald Trump.
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U.S. Democratic lawmakers said Wednesday the Trump administration’s freeze of U.S. foreign assistance might permanently damage America’s security and standing abroad. Republicans counter that the review of U.S. Agency for International Development programs is necessary to combat waste and fraud. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.
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