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Засуджена організовувала зходи «з вимогами надання особливого статусу Галичині та її від’єднання в окрему автономію»
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«Залишилося тління в одному осередку, над ліквідацією якого працюють рятувальники», заявила Водолага
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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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Судді частково задовольнили клопотання обвинуваченого – Зінченку дозволили телефонувати батькові
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Під ударом була промислова зона та приватний сектор, зруйновані будинки, горів автомобіль
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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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Речник міністерства розповів, що добровольці зможуть позачергово проходити ВЛК
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«Осколками було уражено автомобіль, всередині якого перебувала жінка. Вона отримала уламкове поранення стегна»
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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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