Author: PolitCens

PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA — Some white South Africans showed support for President Donald Trump on Saturday and gathered at the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria to claim they are victims of racism by their own government.

Hundreds of protesters held placards that read “Thank God for President Trump” and displayed other messages criticizing what they see as racist laws instituted by the South African government that discriminate against the white minority.

Many were from the Afrikaner community that Trump focused on in an executive order a week ago that cut aid and assistance to the Black-led South African government. In the order, Trump said South Africa’s Afrikaners, who are descendants of mainly Dutch colonial settlers, were being targeted by a new law that allows the government to expropriate private land. 

The South African government has denied its new law is tied to race and says Trump’s claims over the country and the law have been full of misinformation and distortions. 

Trump said land was being expropriated from Afrikaners — which the order referred to as “racially disfavored landowners” — when no land has been taken under the law. Trump also announced a plan to offer Afrikaners refugee status in the U.S. They are only one part of South Africa’s white minority. 

In a speech to Parliament this week, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the forced removal of any people from their land will never be allowed in South Africa again after millions of Blacks were dispossessed of property under the apartheid system of white minority rule and hundreds of years of colonialism before that. 

“The people of this country know the pain of forced removals,” Ramaphosa said. He said the land law does not allow any arbitrary taking of land and only refers to land that can be redistributed for the public good. 

The Trump administration’s criticism and punishment of South Africa has elevated a long-standing dilemma in the country over moves to address the wrongs of centuries of white minority rule that oppressed the Black majority. 

According to the government, the land law aims to fairly address the inequality that the majority of farmland in South Africa is owned by whites, even though they make up just 7% of the country’s population. 

White protesters on Saturday held banners referencing the expropriation law but also other affirmative action policies put in place by the government since the end of apartheid in 1994 to advance opportunities for Blacks. Those laws, known as Black Economic Empowerment, have been a source of frustration for some white people.

Influential Trump adviser Elon Musk — who was raised in South Africa — has also criticized South Africa’s government and claimed it is anti-white for years, although some have questioned his motivations. He has recently failed to get a license for his Starlink satellite internet service in South Africa because it doesn’t meet the country’s affirmative action criteria.

While race has long framed South African politics, the country has been largely successful in reconciling its racially diverse people in the years after apartheid. The current government is made up of a coalition of 10 Black-led and white-led political parties that are working together. 
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MUNICH — The United States, Japan and South Korea renewed their “resolute” pledge to seek the “complete denuclearization” of North Korea, according to a joint statement from the three allies released Saturday.

The statement came after new U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio held his first meetings with South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul and Japan’s top diplomat Takeshi Iwaya on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.

“The Secretary and Foreign Ministers reaffirmed their resolute commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in accordance with the United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs),” it said.

“They expressed their serious concerns over and the need to address together the DPRK’s nuclear and missile programs, malicious cyber activities including cryptocurrency thefts, and increasing military cooperation with Russia,” it added.

The three sent a “strong warning” that they “will not tolerate any provocations or threats to their homelands,” and vowed to maintain and strengthen international sanctions against Pyongyang.

They also said they were committed to “the immediate resolution of the issues of abductees, detainees, and unrepatriated prisoners of war as well as the issue of separated families.”

Largely cut off from the world diplomatically and economically, and under a bevy of sanctions, North Korea with its ongoing nuclear weapons program has been a major thorn in the side of the United States for years.

President Donald Trump, who had a rare series of meetings with Kim Jong Un during his first term in office, has said he will reach out again to the North Korean leader, calling Kim a “smart guy.”

Despite Trump’s diplomatic overtures, North Korea said in January that its nuclear program would continue “indefinitely.”

Pyongyang also said earlier this month it would not tolerate any “provocation” by the United States after Rubio called it a “rogue state” in a radio interview.

It has also slammed a visit by a U.S. nuclear submarine to a naval base in South Korea this month as a “hostile military act.”

A summit between Trump and Kim in Hanoi collapsed in 2019 over talks on sanctions relief and what Pyongyang would be willing to give up in return. 
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SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA — The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has fired 20 immigration judges without explanation, a union official said Saturday amid sweeping moves to shrink the size of the federal government. 

On Friday, 13 judges who had yet to be sworn in and five assistant chief immigration judges were dismissed without notice, said Matthew Biggs, president of the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers, which represents federal workers. Two other judges were fired under similar circumstances in the last week. 

It was unclear if they would be replaced. The U.S. Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which runs the courts and oversees its roughly 700 judges, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday. 

Immigration courts are backlogged with more than 3.7 million cases, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Applicants can wait years for their asylum case to be decided. There is support across the political spectrum for more judges and support staff, though the first Trump administration also pressured some judges to decide cases more quickly. 

The Trump administration earlier replaced five top court officials, including Mary Cheng, the agency’s acting director. Sirce Owen, the current leader and previously an appellate immigration judge, has issued a slew of new instructions, many reversing policies of the Biden administration. 

Last month, the Justice Department halted financial support for nongovernmental organizations to provide information and guidance to people facing deportation but restored funding after a coalition of nonprofit groups filed a federal lawsuit. 

The firings touch on two top Trump priorities: mass deportations and shrinking the size of the federal government. On Thursday, it ordered agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees who had not yet gained civil service protection, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of workers. Probationary workers generally have less than a year on the job. 
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SIERRA MADRE, CALIFORNIA — Much of the Eastern United States braced for a renewed round of harsh, soggy weather Saturday, with thunderstorms and melting snow combining to pound the Ohio and Tennessee valleys. The lower Mississippi valley was facing the threat of strong tornadoes. 

Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia and Arkansas were under flood warnings, and residents were warned by the National Weather Service to stay off roads. Parts of western Kentucky could face up to eight inches of rain. 

“This may be a major, potentially historic, flash flood event,” the NWS said. 

Heavy snow, meanwhile, was expected to blanket much of New England and then transition to sleet, making travel nearly impossible, the NWS said. 

In northern New York, heavy mixed precipitation is expected throughout the weekend. Weather forecasters said residents should expect snow, sleet and ice accumulations of six to 13 inches and wind gusts as high as 72 kilometers per hour (45 miles per hour) late Saturday and Sunday. 

“Power outages and tree damage are likely due to the ice and strong winds. Travel could be very difficult to nearly impossible, the NWS said. 

California struggles with mudslides 

In Southern California on Friday, a mountain community near the Eaton Fire burn scar dug out of roads submerged in sludge after the strongest storm of the year swept through the area, unleashing debris flows and muddy messes in several neighborhoods recently torched by wildfires. 

Dry weather returned to the region but the risk of rock and mudslides on wildfire-scarred hillsides continued Friday since dangerous slides can strike even after rain stops, particularly in scorched areas where vegetation that helps keep soil anchored has burned away. 

Water, debris and boulders rushed down the mountain in the city of Sierra Madre on Thursday night, trapping at least one car in the mud and damaging several home garages with mud and debris. Bulldozers on Friday were cleaning up the mud-covered streets in the city of 10,000 people. 

Sierra Madre officials issued evacuation orders for areas affected by the Eaton Fire, warning that fire, police and public works personnel would not enter areas experiencing active mud and debris flows and anyone who remained in a home under evacuation orders would need to shelter in place until areas are deemed safe for city personnel to enter. Residents of the city also had to evacuate during the Eaton Fire, which destroyed 15 homes in the community. 

In Pacific Palisades on Friday, some residents washed their mud-covered driveways and bulldozers worked to clear mud-coated roads not far from where, just weeks ago, officials moved abandoned cars after people fleeing last month’s wildfires got stuck in traffic and fled on foot. 

Southern California reported 2.5 to 7 centimeters (1 to 3 inches) of rain in coastal areas and valleys and 7.6 to 15.2 centimeters (3 to 6 inches) across the coastal slopes Thursday, said Mike Wofford, a meteorologist with the weather service. 

The precipitation was badly needed, as much of Southern California remains in extreme or severe drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. In neighboring Nevada, the weather service said it recorded a measurable amount of rain in Las Vegas, ending a streak of 214 days without precipitation. 

A storm in the Sierra Nevada mountains dumped 1.8 meters (6 feet) of snow over 36 hours. Two ski patrol staff from Mammoth Mountain were caught in an avalanche during avalanche mitigation work Friday morning, the resort said in a Facebook post. One was extracted and was responsive, while the other was taken to a hospital with serious injuries. 

More winter weather descending

Meteorologists warn that the U.S. is about to get its 10th and coldest polar vortex stretching event this season. Weather forces in the Arctic are combining to push the chilly air that usually stays near the North Pole into the U.S. and Europe. The latest projected cold outbreak should first hit the northern Rockies and northern Plains on Saturday and then stick around all next week. 

In Denver, Colorado, where temperatures are expected to dip as low as minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) over the weekend, the city has extended its cold weather shelters for those living on the streets. The Denver Coliseum — an arena with some 10,000 seats — will be opened Saturday for additional space, while a free bus will loop between the shelters across the city. 
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BANGUI, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC — Human rights advocates and politicians in Central African Republic claim soldiers who disappeared after being detained last month were kidnapped by mercenaries backed by Russia. The Kremlin has in recent years deepened ties with the gold- and diamond-rich country’s military and government.

Celestin Bakoyo and Elie Ngouengue — two soldiers who led a Wagner Group-aligned militia fighting rebels in the country’s southeast — were reportedly detained on January 24 at a police station in the country’s capital.

Ernest Mizedio, a politician from the region, told The Associated Press that the two soldiers were among a group arrested earlier by Russian mercenaries tasked with training militia members and incorporating them into the army.

“We searched without success for where they took them,” he said, noting that supporters had inquired with both law enforcement and Russian security contractors about their whereabouts. “They said they had nothing to offer us and knew nothing of their situation.”

Mizedio, a member of one of Central African Republic’s opposition parties, said there had been marches and protests decrying the arrests in the country’s southeast.

Neither Wagner nor the military responded to AP’s requests for comment on the disappearance. However, a police officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said mercenaries were gradually vying for position and replacing officers on the ground in conflict zones.

Before going missing, the two had come to the capital to open new bank accounts to access their earnings after being integrated into the army. The backlash against their disappearance comes as Russia expands its military and economic presence throughout Africa, using mercenaries to quell rebellion and fight extremists.

Joseph Bindoumi, president of Central African Republic’s League for Human Rights, denounced the disappearances, called them kidnappings and said even if the soldiers were accused of crimes, their whereabouts should be known.

“We have the right to know if standard procedures are being followed. We have the right to see people to ensure their well-being and to ensure their parents, advocates and lawyers can visit them,” he said.

Central African Republic was one of the first places the mercenaries became active. Amid years of conflict between government forces and predominantly Muslim rebels, citizens and officials credited the Russian mercenaries with fighting back armed groups who tried to overtake Bangui in 2021.

Yet they’ve been dogged by reports of recklessly disregarding human rights and civilian welfare. A 2023 investigation from the U.S.-based watchdog group The Sentry found that mercenaries train the army on torture tactics and as part of the fight against armed groups opposed to the government had carried out killings, torture and rape.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s attention-grabbing overseas debut may have irritated some key Republicans and alienated allies in Europe, where his statements on Ukraine and NATO went down like a lead balloon.

But his forceful comments gained him a nod from one key listener: U.S. President Donald Trump.

And Hegseth — who on Saturday wraps up a weeklong trip to Belgium, Germany and Poland — delivered a message at the heart of Trump’s “America First” agenda.

Speaking at the NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, Hegseth said that a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders was unrealistic, and that the Trump administration does not see NATO membership for Kyiv as part of a solution to the war triggered by Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Trump broadly backed Hegseth’s remarks on Thursday on NATO membership, saying, “I think probably that’s true,” because, he said, Putin would not allow Ukraine to join the military alliance.

“I thought his comments were good yesterday, and they’re probably good today,” Trump said.

Senator Roger Wicker, the Republican who leads the Pentagon’s main oversight committee in the Senate, had championed Hegseth’s nomination throughout a bruising confirmation review in which Democrats united against the nominee and three Republicans joined them, as questions were raised about Hegseth’s qualifications, temperament and views about women in combat.

Asked whether he spent a lot of political capital getting Hegseth, a military veteran and former Fox News personality, confirmed, Wicker said: “I surely did, yes.”

Republican Congressman Mike Turner said issues like the future of NATO membership for Ukraine should not be taken off the table.

“We don’t need members of the Cabinet, President Trump’s Cabinet, to be defining those in the public,” Turner said Friday on CNN.

Republican Congressman Don Bacon responded to Hegseth’s comments by saying that there should be moral clarity on who started the war.

“There are consequences of rewarding the invader even if its leader foolishly led over 700,000 of its citizens to slaughter,” Bacon said on social media platform X.

Uncle Sam or Uncle Sucker?

Trump has played down any tensions. On Friday, he said he had not seen Wicker’s comments but would reach out to him and Hegseth.

“Roger’s a very good friend of mine, and Pete is obviously, he’s been doing a great job,” Trump said.

Hegseth, in what some analysts saw as walking back his remarks, clarified on Thursday that Trump was the one who would ultimately decide what was on or off the table in the Ukraine talks.

Calling Trump the world’s best negotiator, Hegseth said it would not be appropriate for him to “declare what President Trump will do or won’t do, what will be in or what will be out.”

He also delivered a message that resonates with Trump and his “America First” agenda: Europe has been taking advantage of the United States.

Hegseth spoke about Europe’s reliance on costly U.S. military deployments for its defense. Trump has criticized Europe over what he sees as its unfair tariffs against American goods.

The United States and European Union have the world’s largest commercial relationship, trading $1.55 trillion of goods and services in 2023.

Speaking to reporters at NATO headquarters, Hegseth said: “Make no mistake: President Trump will not allow anyone to turn Uncle Sam into ‘Uncle Sucker.'”

In Trump’s first term, NATO was seen as a red line for his Pentagon chiefs. Jim Mattis, his first defense secretary, resigned in part because of Trump’s skepticism toward NATO.

America’s European allies were critical of Hegseth.

“I think that was clumsy. I think that was a mistake,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said, also criticizing Trump.

European foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas went further. “It is appeasement. It has never worked,” she said.
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NEW YORK — By the time Cher sang “If I Could Turn Back Time,” it seemed as if time had indeed been turned back and every single “Saturday Night Live” musical guest of 50 years had magically found their way to Radio City Music Hall.

Of course, it was only a smattering. But “SNL50: The Homecoming Concert” boasted an epic lineup. It was an evening of memorable solo performances and often fascinating, one-time-only collaborations.

The concert, hosted by Jimmy Fallon, was only one element of what has become an enormous celebration of the show’s 50 years in existence, leading up to Sunday’s “SNL50: The Anniversary Special,” live from Studio 8H.

But Friday night was all about music.

Return of the 1990s

If a decade can win the night, let’s hear it for the 1990s. A classic performance from that decade was most likely to get the Radio City audience on its feet, singing along and pulling out their phones to record.

The Backstreet Boys proved irresistible when they broke into “I Want it That Way.” Snoop Dogg may have sung “Gin and Juice,” but he was trailed by enough smoke to give nearby audience members a contact high.

Wearing a gigantic coat befitting a winter night, Lauryn Hill commanded the stage with Wyclef Jean, and the crowd melted at the first notes of “Killing Me Softly.”

Some comics can do music

Naturally, some former “SNL” cast members reprised old characters, with varying levels of success.

The Culps, the stuffy music teachers played by Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer, hit harder and funnier than they ever did on the show. Their attempts at being current were hilarious and they even worked in a few verses of “Not Like Us,” with a plea for harmony between Kendrick Lamar and Drake.

Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell’s “Lazy Sunday” was welcome, but too short. Lady Gaga was a good sport, replacing Justin Timberlake to sing about a Christmas gift whose title can’t be repeated here. But Bill Murray’s lounge singer “foursome” routine with Gasteyer, Maya Rudolph and Cecily Strong fell a bit flat.

They love Michaels

“SNL” creator Lorne Michaels didn’t perform, but he was referred to all night long.

“I love you, Lorne Michaels,” declared Miley Cyrus, dedicating her hit song “Flowers” to the show’s founder.

Raitt, finishing “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” thanked Michaels for having her on the show so many times.

“Let’s give it up for Lorne,” said former cast member Adam Sandler, introducing a collaboration between Post Malone and Nirvana. “We love you buddy.”

And Marcus Mumford, lead singer of the British folk band Mumford & Sons, said he was there to represent Michaels’ admirers from across the pond.

Creative collaborations

The night featured fascinating collaborations that brought together musicians of all kinds.

Cyrus teamed with Brittany Howard to sing Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”

Arcade Fire joined with David Byrne, St. Vincent and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to perform David Bowie’s “Heroes.” Byrne later also collaborated with Robyn, in matching khaki suits, for “Dancing on My Own” and “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody).”

And for Raitt’s second song, she sat down with Chris Martin, the Coldplay frontman becoming her pianist for “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”

In another collab of sorts, the B-52s were joined on “Love Shack” by former and current SNL cast members Fred Armisen, Bowen Yang and Sarah Sherman, singing the “bang bang” lyrics.

Lady Gaga collaborated with herself, singing both parts of “Shallow” and bringing down the house.

Most valuable player

Questlove is more associated with the “Tonight” show, but he is proving to be the MVP of these “Saturday Night Live” anniversary festivities.

Not only did the drummer produce the splendid documentary on the “SNL” musical legacy, but he effortlessly kept the beat with The Roots, his legendary hip-hop group and “Tonight” show house band, as they covered every style imaginable, from Snoop to Eddie Vedder to Brandi Carlile. Byrne bowed in appreciation.

A second Nirvana reunion

For the second time in as many weeks, the surviving members of Nirvana reunited.

Rather than the quartet of women who fronted the band for the Fire Aid concert, Malone took Kurt Cobain’s place Friday.

Their version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was fierce, a reminder of why the song packed such a wallop when it was first heard.
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TAIPEI, TAIWAN — There is no need for one country to control the semiconductor industry, which is complex and needs a division of labor, Taiwan’s top technology official said on Saturday after U.S. President Donald Trump criticized the island’s chip dominance.

Trump repeated claims on Thursday that Taiwan had taken the industry and he wanted it back in the United States, saying he aimed to restore U.S. chip manufacturing.

Wu Cheng-wen, head of Taiwan’s National Science and Technology Council, did not name Trump in a Facebook post but referred to Taiwan President Lai Ching-te’s comments on Friday that the island would be a reliable partner in the democratic supply chain of the global semiconductor industry.

Wu wrote that Taiwan has in recent years often been asked how its semiconductor industry had become an internationally acclaimed benchmark.

“How did we achieve this? Obviously, we did not gain this for no reason from other countries,” he said, recounting how the government developed the sector from the 1970s, including helping found TSMC, now the world’s largest contract chipmaker, in 1987.

“This shows that Taiwan has invested half a century of hard work to achieve today’s success, and it certainly wasn’t something taken easily from other countries.”

Each country has its own specialty for chips, from Japan making chemicals and equipment to the United States, which is “second to none” on the design and application of innovative systems, Wu said.

“The semiconductor industry is highly complex and requires precise specialization and division of labor. Given that each country has its own unique industrial strengths, there is no need for a single nation to fully control or monopolize all technologies globally.”

Taiwan is willing to be used as a base to assist “friendly democratic countries” in playing their appropriate roles in the semiconductor supply chain, Wu said.
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NEW YORK — The U.S. Justice Department asked a court Friday to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, with a top official from Washington intervening after federal prosecutors in Manhattan rebuffed his demands to drop the case and some quit in protest.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, the department’s second-in-command, and lawyers from the public integrity section and criminal division filed paperwork asking to end the case. They contend that it was marred by appearances of impropriety and that letting it continue would interfere with the mayor’s reelection bid.

A judge must still approve the request.

The filing came hours after Bove convened a call with the prosecutors in the Justice Department’s public integrity section — which handles corruption cases — and gave them an hour to pick two people to sign onto the motion to dismiss, saying those who did so could be promoted, according to a person familiar with the matter.

After prosecutors got off the call with Bove, the consensus among the group was that they would all resign. But a veteran prosecutor stepped up out of concern for the jobs of the younger people in the unit, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the private meeting.

The three-page dismissal motion bore Bove’s signature and the names of Edward Sullivan, the public integrity section’s senior litigation counsel, and Antoinette Bacon, a supervisory official in the department’s criminal division. No one from the federal prosecutor’s office in Manhattan, which brought the Adams case, signed the document.

The move came five days into a showdown between Justice Department leadership in Washington and its Manhattan office, which has long prided itself on its independence as it has taken on Wall Street malfeasance, political corruption and international terrorism. At least seven prosecutors in Manhattan and Washington quit rather than carry out Bove’s directive to halt the case, including interim Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon and the acting chief of the public integrity section in Washington.

The Justice Department said in its motion to Judge Dale E. Ho that it was seeking to dismiss Adams’ charges with the option of refiling them later. Ho had yet to act on the request as of Friday evening.

“I imagine the judge is going to want to explore what his role is under the rules,” said Joshua Naftalis, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor who is not involved in Adams’ case. “I would expect the court to either ask the parties to come in person to court or to file papers, or both.”

Bove said earlier this week that U.S. President Donald Trump’s permanent, appointed Manhattan U.S. attorney, who has yet to be confirmed by the Senate, can decide whether to refile the charges after the November election.

Adams faces a Democratic primary in June, with several challengers lined up. His trial had been on track to be held in the spring. Bove said that continuing the prosecution would interfere with Adams’ ability to govern, posing “unacceptable threats to public safety, national security, and related federal immigration initiatives and policies,” the dismissal motion said.

Among other things, it said, the case caused Adams to be denied access to sensitive information necessary to help protect the city.

Adams pleaded not guilty in September to charges he accepted more than $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and lavish travel perks from foreign nationals looking to buy his influence while he was Brooklyn borough president campaigning to be mayor. Although critical in the past, Adams has bonded at times with Trump recently and visited him at his Florida golf club last month.

The president has criticized the case against Adams and said he was open to giving the mayor, who was a registered Republican in the 1990s, a pardon.

Bove sent a memo Monday directing Sassoon, a Republican, to drop the case. He argued the mayor was needed in Trump’s immigration crackdown and echoed Adams’ claims that the case was retaliation for his criticism of Biden administration immigration policies.

Instead of complying, Sassoon resigned Thursday, along with five high-ranking Justice Department officials in Washington. A day earlier, she sent a letter to Trump’s new attorney general, Pam Bondi, asking her to meet and reconsider the directive to drop the case.

Sassoon suggested in her letter that Ho “appears likely to conduct a searching inquiry” as to why the case should be dismissed. She noted that in at least one instance, a judge has rejected such a request as contrary to the public interest.

“A rigorous inquiry here would be consistent with precedent and practice in this and other districts,” she wrote.

Seven former Manhattan U.S. attorneys, including James Comey, Geoffrey S. Berman and Mary Jo White, issued a statement lauding Sassoon’s “commitment to integrity and the rule of law.”

On Friday, Hagan Scotten, an assistant U.S. attorney in Manhattan who worked for Sassoon and had a leading role in Adams’ case, became the seventh prosecutor to resign — and blasted Bove in the process. Scotten wrote in a resignation letter to Bove that it would take a “fool” or a “coward” to meet his demand to drop the charges, “But it was never going to be me.” He told Bove he was “entirely in agreement” with Sassoon’s decision.

Scotten and other Adams case prosecutors were suspended with pay on Thursday by Bove, who launched a probe of the prosecutors that he said would determine whether they kept their jobs.

Scotten is an Army veteran who earned two Bronze medals serving in Iraq as a Special Forces troop commander. He graduated from Harvard Law School at the top of his class in 2010 and clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts.

In her letter to Bondi, Sassoon accused Adams’ lawyers of offering what amounted to a “quid pro quo” — his help on immigration in exchange for dropping the case — when they met with Justice Department officials in Washington last month. Adams’ lawyer Alex Spiro said Thursday that the allegation of a quid pro quo was a “total lie.”

“We were asked if the case had any bearing on national security and immigration enforcement and we truthfully answered it did,” Spiro said in an email to reporters.

On Friday, Adams added: “I never offered — nor did anyone offer on my behalf — any trade of my authority as your mayor for an end to my case. Never.”

Scotten seconded Sassoon’s objections in his letter, writing: “No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.”

The prosecutor, who appeared in court for various hearings in the case, said he was following “a tradition in public service of resigning in a last-ditch effort to head off a serious mistake.” He said he could see how a president such as Trump, with a background in business and politics, “might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal.” But he said any prosecutor “would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way.”
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washington — U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order this week pausing almost all enforcement of a decades-old U.S. anti-bribery law.

The law, known as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, makes it illegal for both U.S. firms and foreign companies with a U.S. connection to bribe foreign officials.

Transparency advocates have credited the U.S. Justice Department’s vigorous enforcement of the law over the past two decades with curbing foreign corruption. Critics, including business leaders, however, have long complained that the law puts U.S. companies at a disadvantage in international markets where certain business practices are common.

Trump, a longtime critic of the FCPA, voiced those concerns during the Oval Office signing ceremony on Monday.

“It sounds good on paper, but in practicality it’s a disaster,” Trump said. “It means that if an American goes to a foreign country and starts doing business there legally, legitimately or otherwise, it’s almost a guaranteed investigation, indictment, and nobody wants to do business with the Americans because of it.”

Here is a breakdown of the law and the implications of the executive order for foreign bribery and U.S. business.

What is the FCPA?

The FCPA is a U.S. law that prohibits companies from providing cash payments or valuable gifts to foreign officials for business advantages. While the law exempts certain “facilitation payments,” it prohibits the use of third parties to make bribes.

The FCPA was enacted in 1977 following post-Watergate investigations that revealed widespread foreign bribery by U.S.-based multinational corporations. Congress, concerned about the impact on U.S. foreign policy and international standing, responded by criminalizing such practices, imposing prison terms and substantial penalties on violators.

Though initially focused on American companies, the law’s jurisdiction has expanded substantially. It now extends to any foreign business or individual with connections to the U.S. This broad reach enables prosecutors to pursue cases against foreign firms — for example, a Dutch company with a subsidiary based in Ohio accused of paying off Chinese officials through another subsidiary in Thailand.

The law has had a significant impact on the development of anti-corruption laws around the world. In 1997, the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development used the FCPA as a model for its Anti-Bribery Convention, which now has 46 member countries.

While enforcement of FCPA was negligible in the decades following its enactment, the early 2000s marked a significant shift. The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, the two agencies responsible for enforcing FCPA’s provisions, ramped up enforcement, driven in part by emerging business scandals and new congressional requirements for corporate governance and financial reporting.

How has the law been used in recent years?

In recent years, U.S. foreign bribery law enforcement has been robust, with the Justice Department and the SEC opening nearly 174 investigations between 2018 and 2021. Last year, the Justice Department alone filed 17 enforcement actions under the law.

Latin America has emerged as a particular hot spot for U.S. investigators in recent years.

In 2016, two Brazilian companies agreed to pay a combined $3.5 billion after pleading guilty in a sprawling international foreign bribery case. U.S. authorities investigated the case in part because the illicit payments were made through U.S. bank accounts. 

In 2020, Airbus SE, the European aircraft maker, agreed to pay nearly $4 billion to resolve foreign bribery charges brought in the U.S., Britain and France. Airbus admitted using intermediaries to bribe government officials and airline executives to win lucrative contracts in China and other countries. 

In January 2024, SAP SE, a German software company with offices in the U.S., agreed to pay $220 million to resolve investigations into bribery payments to South African and Indonesia officials.

In December, AAR Corp., an Illinois-based aviation services company, agreed to pay more than $55 million to resolve investigations into bribery payments to government officials in Nepal and South Africa.

Several cases have involved India. In November, prosecutors charged three former employees of a Canadian institutional investor in connection with a bribery scheme involving Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and two other executives.

Why is Trump pausing FCPA enforcement?

Trump, a real estate tycoon-turned-president, has been a vocal critic of the law since well before his first term. In 2012, he called it a “horrible” and “ridiculous” statute that impeded U.S. companies’ ability to do business abroad.

Despite his criticism, FCPA enforcement actually surged during his first term in office, with 2000 marking a record-breaking year, according to the Morrison Foerster law firm.

The executive order frames the pause in enforcement as part of the president’s broader agenda to “advance American economic and national security by eliminating excessive barriers to American commerce abroad.”

The order says the FCPA’s scope has been “stretched beyond proper bounds and abused in a manner that harms the interests of the United States.” A White House fact sheet on the order released Monday says the “overenforcement” of the law harms U.S. companies and “infringes on the President’s Article II authority to conduct foreign affairs.”

This concern about aggressive enforcement isn’t new, said Mike Koehler, a law professor and leading authority on the FCPA, who noted that both Republicans and Democrats have raised similar issues over the past two decades.

“There has been a focus on the quantity of enforcement actions compared to the quality of those enforcement actions,” Koehler told VOA. “Enforcement has in many cases has gone so far off the rails that this law is being enforced in ways that do put companies at a competitive disadvantage.”

Transparency advocates, however, warn that suspending enforcement could deal a significant blow to global anti-bribery efforts.

“This pause will work to the advantage of unscrupulous business actors around the world who until now feared U.S. criminal pursuits,” Transparency International said in a statement calling on other OECD Anti-Bribery Convention members to increase their enforcement following the U.S. shift in policy.

What are the implications for investigating foreign bribery?

The executive order imposes a six-month freeze on foreign bribery investigations by the Justice Department. Almost all FCPA cases will be suspended while Attorney General Pam Bondi conducts a review and revises enforcement guidelines. The executive order gives Bondi discretion to extend the pause for an additional six months.

Bondi, however, has directed federal prosecutors to prioritize FCPA cases involving cartels and transnational criminal organizations.

And corporate lawyers were quick to caution clients that the executive order doesn’t give them free rein.

“Bribery is still illegal,” attorneys at the Arnold & Porter law firm wrote in an analysis of the executive order. “The FCPA remains on the books; Congress has not repealed it. And many other state, federal and foreign laws still prohibit bribery.”
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DAYTONA BEACH, FLORIDA — Flying a few hundred feet above the streets and shores of Daytona Beach, the Goodyear Blimp draws a crowd.  

Onlookers stare and point. Drivers pull over for better looks, snapping pictures, recording videos and trying to line up the perfect selfie.  

For some, it’s nostalgic. For others, it’s a glimpse at a larger-than-life advertising icon. 

At 100 years old, the blimp is an ageless star in the sky. And the 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 on Sunday — roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its latest and greatest anniversary tour.  

Even though remote camera technologies — drones, mostly — are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. 

At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile super speedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.  

“It’s great to show the pack racing,” Fox Sports director Artie Kempner said, adding that he expected to use aerial shots from the blimp about 50 times during Sunday’s race. 

 The Goodyear Blimp has been a regular at major sporting events since flying above the 1955 Rose Bowl. A few years later, it became a service vehicle for television coverage while simultaneously functioning as a highly visible advertising platform.  

It’s been at every Daytona 500 since 1962. During that streak, blimps have undergone wholesale changes and improved dramatically: steering technology, safety innovations, high-definition cameras, gyro-stabilized aerial views and much quieter rides thanks to relocated engines and propellers.  

Nowadays, riding on the blimp isn’t much different than traveling on a small plane.  

The 12-seater comes with reclining seats, tray tables, seatbelts, a safety briefing and a bathroom with amazing views. A few windows serve as the only air conditioning onboard. The blimp offers a smooth ride even at top speed, creeping along at 73 mph — well below the cars pushing 200 mph on the track. 

“It’s an iconic symbol for our nation, a floating piece of Americana,” blimp pilot Jensen Kervern said. “There’s nothing like it in the world.”

The blimp has covered more than 2,500 events and taken more than 500,000 passengers for rides, according to Goodyear.  

Former President Ronald Reagan might be the most famous passenger, and rapper Ice Cube raised the blimp’s street cred when he included a line about it in his 1992 song titled “It Was A Good Day.”  

But not just anyone can climb aboard.  

Rides are invitation only, even though phones at blimp headquarters — the three U.S.-based airships are housed in California, Florida and Ohio — ring off the hook with people inquiring about buying a ride.  

As part of the blimp’s 100-year anniversary celebration, however, Goodyear is giving three U.S. residents a chance to join the exclusive club and win a ride.  

The sweepstakes will provide each winner a certificate for two to fly on the blimp. The prize also includes $3,000 for travel expenses to one of Goodyear’s airship hangars. It would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, no doubt. The blimp flies low enough to spot pods of dolphins or flotillas of sea turtles in the Atlantic Ocean.  

The view over Daytona International Speedway is equally stunning, with the ability to see every inch of the famed track while watching (and hearing) race cars turning laps. 

Already in 2025, the Goodyear fleet has flown over the Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl, the Pro Bowl and Pebble Beach. Its upcoming schedule includes the Academy Awards, Coachella and WrestleMania.  

But will the blimp survive another 100 years? Drone imagery and resolution continue to improve along with maneuverability, stability and flight longevity. And where drones can be flown by one person, the Goodyear Blimp crew at Daytona tops 20 staffers.  

But given the blimp’s longevity, adaptability and celebrity, no one should bet against it sticking around for generations to come.

“Despite changes in technology and our environment, people still get so excited to see the blimp,” Kervern said. “It’s just an iconic symbol for our nation.” 
…

After days of heavy rain, the strongest storm of the year brought dangerous debris flows and rock- and mudslides across Southern California on Friday, including in several areas that last month were ablaze with devastating fires.

Some areas in the region received as much as 12 centimeters of rain this week, the National Weather Service said.

“There are plenty of reports of debris flow,” meteorologist Scott Kleebauer of the weather service said Friday.

The scorched earth left behind by the fires is now particularly vulnerable to the water-fueled rock- and mudslides, as the vegetation that once anchored the soil was burned away.

While this week’s rain is beginning to ease, that does not mean the slides will stop. The drenched soil can continue to move even after the rain subsides.

Parts of the iconic Pacific Coast Highway were shut down Thursday because of flooding and mudslides.

In Pacific Palisades, a highway intersection was under a meter of sludge.

Photographs posted on social media showed parked cars in Pacific Palisades covered in mud up to their windows. Bulldozers have been assigned to the area to clean up the muck.

In one harrowing experience Thursday, a member of the Los Angeles Fire Department was driving along the Pacific Coast Highway when a debris flow swept his vehicle into the ocean. Erik Scott, a spokesperson for the fire department, said the driver was able to get out of his vehicle and reportedly suffered only minor injuries.

In Sierra Madre, a city of 10,000 that was the site of last month’s Eaton Fire, a boulder-strewn mudslide damaged several homes.

“It happened very quickly but it was very loud, and you could even hear the ground or feel the ground shaking,” Bull Duvall, who has lived in Sierra Madre for 28 years, told The Associated Press. City officials issued an evacuation order warning residents that emergency responders would not enter locations with active mud and debris flows.

The National Weather Service confirmed Friday that a weak tornado hit a mobile home community Thursday in Oxnard, California. There were no reports of deaths or injuries at Country Club Mobile Estates, but property damage included ripped roofs and downed power lines.

The rain was badly needed in the region, much of which is still suffering from drought.

In nearby Nevada, Las Vegas was glad to see rain Thursday, after enduring more than 200 days without precipitation. A National Weather Service Las Vegas post said, “Las Vegas has officially measured 0.01 inch of rainfall this morning, effectively ending our dry streak of 214 days without measurable rain.”
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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.” 
…

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.”
…

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.”
…

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  
…

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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