Новини

Washington — Thousands of people braved freezing temperatures to come to the U.S. Capitol to pay their respects to former President Jimmy Carter, who lay in state Wednesday in the heart of American democracy ahead of his pomp-filled state funeral.

Mourners, who included numerous elected officials and Vice President Kamala Harris, highlighted the achievements and the humanity of the100-year-old, who died last month.

David Smith, a professor at the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University, said that the former president obviously impacted his career. He told VOA that he came to the Capitol to honor the man but also to honor Carter’s causes.

“He had such an impact on so many people,” he said. “His work on advancing minorities, appointments of women to the judiciary, protecting our environment, advocating for human rights – all those things are very important things to me.”

The former president’s flag-draped coffin arrived in the Capitol rotunda Tuesday, ahead of Thursday’s national funeral.

In that soaring space – where only about 50 Americans have been recognized with this distinct honor since 1852 – Senate Majority Leader Jon Thune, in a service late Tuesday, described Carter as: “Navy veteran, peanut farmer, governor of Georgia. And president of the United States. Sunday school teacher. Nobel Prize winner. Advocate for peace and human rights. And first and foremost, a faithful servant of his creator and his fellow man.”

And Vice President Harris – who a day earlier, in this building, certified the victory of the next president – extolled Carter’s policy.

“He was the first president of the United States to have a comprehensive energy policy, including providing some of the first federal support for clean energy,” she said Tuesday. “He also passed over a dozen major pieces of legislation regarding environmental protection. And more than doubled the size of America’s national parks.”

Carter, who served as the 39th president, died December 29 at the age of 100 after nearly two years in hospice care in the state of Georgia. Since then, his final journey has taken his remains over the skinny roads of his humble hometown of Plains; down the boulevards of Atlanta, the state capital, and through the skies to snowy Washington, for his state funeral.

At the U.S. Capitol, lawmakers told VOA what the 39th president meant to them.

Congresswoman Alma Adams, a North Carolina Democrat, said Carter was “a real moral person.”

“He taught Sunday school – I did, too!” she said, smiling. “But I think (it’s) the fact that he cared about all people. He was a people’s president.”

South Carolina Republican Representative Ralph Norman told VOA that while he did not align with Carter politically, “President Carter was a good man. President Carter was a man who served his country. He loved America. I didn’t agree with all of his policies, but you couldn’t (dis)agree with his patriotism, you couldn’t disagree. He just loved his country.”

President Joe Biden will deliver the eulogy for his fellow Democrat on Thursday.

“We may never see his like again, you know we can all do well to try to be a little more like Jimmy Carter,” Biden said in late December after receiving news of Carter’s death.

Analysts say the two men have a few things in common.

“There’s an obvious similarity; that is, that Carter turned out to be a one-term president, and Biden turned out to be a one-term president,” Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told VOA on Zoom. “And that’s never a reflection of the right combination of politics and policy. In both cases, I would say that the two presidents put the policy ahead of the politics. And they paid the price for that.”

Thursday’s funeral will bring together President Biden and former presidents, including Biden’s predecessor and successor, Donald Trump. When asked what Carter and the next and previous president have in common, Galston paused.

“I don’t even know how to begin to answer that question,” he said finally. “The two are polar opposites in every respect that I can think of, except one. And that is, they both attained the presidency as outsiders.”

And now, here lies this outsider, decades after his presidency ended, inside his nation’s most venerated space.

Paris Huang, Mykhailo Komadovsky and Kim Lewis contributed to this report.
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U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday approved a federal emergency declaration for California’s wildfires that will release money and resources to battle the blazes. The president warned that area’s recovery will take time. 

The Los Angeles County Fire Department faced four life-threatening wildfires that have killed at least two people, burned more than 1,000 buildings, and forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate. 

“The L.A. County Fire Department was prepared for one or two major brush fires, but not four, especially given these sustained winds and low humidities,” L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony C. Marrone said Wednesday. 

He said more than 2,000 hectares have burned and the fire is continuing to spread.  

“We have no percentage of containment,” Marrone said. 

Officials have warned residents to pay attention to evacuation orders and leave when directed. 

Two thousand National Guard members have been deployed to help local firefighters. 

In the Pacific Palisades, the fire jumped from one house to the next, pushed by hurricane-force winds. In the same area, firefighters said hydrants had run dry. 

“We had a tremendous demand on our system in the Palisades, Janisse Quiñones, chief executive and chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said Wednesday. “We pushed the system to the extreme.”

The call for water was “four times the normal demand … for 15 hours straight,” she added. 

Later Wednesday, support aircraft that had been grounded by the strong winds were airborne again, dropping water and fire retardant on the fire. 

More than 400,000 homes and businesses are without power across Los Angeles, according to poweroutage.us. 

Washington is supporting California’s firefighting efforts with four U.S. Forest Service large air tankers and an additional tanker in on route. The federal government has also helped the firefighting efforts with 10 helicopters. Meanwhile, dozens of the Forest Service fire engines are ready to be deployed.   

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press. 
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ISLAMABAD — Taliban leaders in Afghanistan on Wednesday denied President-elect Donald Trump’s assertions that they have received billions of dollars in U.S. financial aid since regaining control of the country. 

Hamdullah Fitrat, the deputy Taliban spokesperson, responded to Trump’s claims by asserting that the Kabul administration neither anticipates nor seeks any assistance from the United States. 

“In reality, the United States has not provided a single penny to the Islamic Emirate,” Fitrat stated, referring to Afghanistan’s official name under Taliban rule. “Instead, it has confiscated and frozen billions of dollars that rightfully belong to the people of Afghanistan.”  

The Taliban’s sharp response followed Trump’s news conference in Florida on Tuesday, when he was asked to comment on the alleged monthly payments of millions of dollars by the Biden administration to the de facto Afghan rulers. 

“It’s not even believable. Billions of dollars, not millions — billions. We pay billions of dollars to essentially the Taliban Afghanistan,” Trump stated. “This can’t be allowed to happen.” 

Fitrat claimed that the U.S. funds in question were primarily utilized for the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and the relocation and resettlement of their Afghan allies. 

“A portion of this money may have also been used under the pretext of ‘humanitarian aid’ by international organizations. … [The] U.S. directed all this money to Afghanistan, primarily for its own interests, and now exploits it as propaganda against the Islamic Emirate,” the Taliban spokesperson alleged. 

The controversy surrounding provision of financial aid to the Taliban intensified following a Jan. 2 letter by Congressman Tim Burchett to President-elect Trump, which expressed concern over foreign aid being directed to the de facto Afghan authorities. 

“These cash shipments are auctioned off, and after that, they are nearly impossible to track. This is how the Taliban is being funded and plans to fund terrorism around the world,” warned Burchett. “The United States of America should not fund its enemies abroad.” 

He cited U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken as having confirmed that non-governmental organizations in Afghanistan had paid nearly $10 million in foreign aid to the Taliban in taxes. 

The Taliban swept back to power in August 2021, prompting Washington and the West at large to suspend development aid to the country and effectively isolate the Afghan banking sector, freezing billions of dollars of central bank assets in the United States. 

The flow of humanitarian assistance, however, has primarily remained intact under the United Nations’ supervision. 

The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) refutes allegations that some of the funds it receives for humanitarian operations are being diverted to the Taliban. 

UNAMA has maintained that it transports cash into the country for the use of U.N. agencies and “approved and vetted” humanitarian partners to assist millions of Afghans needing support. 

The mission has emphasized that all cash is deposited in designated U.N. accounts in a private bank before being distributed directly to the United Nations and other entities. It has also clarified that none of the cash brought into the country is deposited in the Central Bank of Afghanistan or provided to de facto Taliban authorities by the U.N.
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The European Union on Wednesday dismissed U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s refusal to rule out a military attack to take control of Denmark’s autonomous territory of Greenland as “wild hypothetical stuff,” while confirming that EU states would be compelled to defend the island if Trump invaded it.

Trump, set to be inaugurated for a second, nonconsecutive term in the White House on Jan. 20, refused at a news conference Tuesday to rule out military action to take control of the mineral-rich Arctic island and earlier had vowed to slap high tariffs on Denmark if it refused to cede control.

The Brussels-based 27-nation bloc, long a U.S. ally, however, attempted to avoid being drawn into a verbal sparring match with Trump, saying it was “looking forward” to working with the incoming administration.

As for Trump’s refusal to rule out military action to take over Greenland, a European Commission spokesperson said, “We are talking about fairly wild hypothetical stuff about an administration that hasn’t come in yet.”

Another spokesperson added that the sovereignty of states had to be respected “as a matter of principle.”

Asked if Greenland was covered by a mutual defense clause binding EU members to assist each other in case of attack, commission spokesperson Paula Pinho said that was the case.

“But we are indeed speaking of something extremely theoretical on which we will not want to elaborate,” she said.

Greenland is a mineral-rich autonomous territory of EU member Denmark and an associated territory of the EU.

Trump has long publicly hypothesized about taking over Greenland, saying Tuesday, “We need Greenland for national security purposes,” arguing that Denmark should give it up to “protect the free world.”

Aside from minerals on the island, it is a strategic Arctic shipping portal, especially as ice floes melt at the top of the world as the planet warms.

Trump earlier in the day wrote on social media that the potential American takeover of Greenland “is a deal that must happen” and uploaded photos of his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who was visiting Greenland.

“MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN,” Trump added.

Panama and Canada

At his news conference, Trump also refused to rule out military action to secure control of the Panama Canal and use economic force against neighboring Canada to gain the upper hand in trade deals or merge the two countries.

“Canada and the United States, that would really be something,” Trump said. “You get rid of that artificially drawn line, and you take a look at what that looks like, and it would also be much better for national security.”

Trump posited the possibility that Canada should be the 51st U.S. state, a proposition that outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau immediately rejected.

“There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States,” Trudeau said.

Germany and France

Aside from the EU’s rejection of Trump eyeing a Greenland takeover, EU members Germany and France individually also rebuffed the suggestion by the incoming U.S. leader.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed surprise at Trump’s comments, saying European partners agreed that the inviolability of borders was a fundamental principle of international law.

“This principle applies and is a foundation of our peaceful order,” Scholz told reporters.

“In my discussions with our European partners, a certain lack of understanding has emerged with regard to recent statements from the USA,” Scholz said in an unusually blunt statement called on short notice.

“The principle of inviolability of borders applies to every country, regardless of whether it is to the east or west of us,” said Scholz, adding that Russia had violated that principle with its nearly three-year invasion of Ukraine.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told France Inter radio, “There is no question of the EU letting other nations in the world, whoever they may be … attack its sovereign borders. We are a strong continent. We need to strengthen ourselves more.”

Barrot said he did not believe the U.S. would invade the vast Arctic island that has been part of Denmark for more than 600 years.

But he added, “We have entered an era that is seeing the return of the law of the strongest. Should we be intimidated? Should we be overcome with worry? Evidently, no,” he said.

“We need to wake up and reinforce ourselves militarily in competition in a world where the law of the strongest prevails.”

Barrot said he believes the United States is “inherently not imperialistic” and said he “did not believe” that it is changing.
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Суд обрав йому запобіжний захід у вигляді тримання під вартою з можливістю виходу під заставу, додає бюро
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За даними штабу, російські сили використовували цю будівлю для координації атак проти ЗСУ та цивільного населення, зокрема, жителів Курахового
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Sanaa — The U.S. military said Wednesday its forces hit weapons storage facilities used by Yemen’s Houthi rebels to attack American warships and commercial vessels. 

The operation involved “multiple precision strikes,” US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement, adding “there were no injuries or damage to US personnel or equipment,” 

The statement did not specify the location of the storage facilities. 

“The strikes are part of CENTCOM’s effort to degrade Iranian-backed (Houthi) attempts to threaten regional partners and military and merchant vessels in the region,” it said. 

The Houthis’ Al-Masirah TV said there were five raids in the northwestern Amran province and two in Sanaa province, where the capital Sanaa is located. 

The Houthis seized Sanaa in 2014 from Yemen’s internationally recognized government and control much of the war-torn country’s most populated areas. 

For more than a year they have been firing missiles and drones at Israel and at ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, in what they say is a show of solidarity with Palestinians during the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. 

The Houthis’ attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden have destabilized a vital shipping lane, prompting strikes by the United States and sometimes Britain that began in January 2024. 

Most Houthi missiles and drones launched towards Israel have been intercepted, but a missile wounded 16 people in Tel Aviv in December, according to Israel’s military and emergency services. 
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«Є великий страх, що ти просто потрапиш під обстріл, який хаотичний. Немає такого місця у місті, яке б не прострілювалося артилерією чи FPV-дронами»
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Російські війська вранці атакували Наддніпрянське і Берислав
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LOS ANGELES — A fast-moving wildfire broke out Tuesday in the inland foothills northeast of Los Angeles hours after another blaze tore through the city’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood along the coast, destroying many homes and prompting evacuation orders for tens of thousands.

The Eaton fire in Altadena started near a nature preserve just before 6:30 p.m. local time. The flames spread so rapidly that staff at a senior care center had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot where they waited in their bedclothes for ambulances and other vehicles to take them to safety.

To the west, the Pacific Palisades fire that started Tuesday morning burned out of control into the night.

The Los Angeles Fire Department put out a plea for off-duty firefighters to help fight the flames that were being pushed by winds topping 97 kph in some places and creating chaotic scenes as residents fled.

It was too windy for firefighting aircraft to fly, hampering the fight.

The Pacific Palisades fire swept through a Los Angeles hillside dotted with celebrity residences Tuesday, burning homes and prompting evacuation orders. In the frantic haste to get to safety, roadways were clogged and scores of people abandoned their vehicles and fled on foot, some toting suitcases.

The traffic jam on Palisades Drive prevented emergency vehicles from getting through and a bulldozer was brought in to push the abandoned cars to the side and create a path, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was in Southern California to attend the naming of a national monument by President Joe Biden, made a detour to the canyon to see “firsthand the impact of these swirling winds and the embers,” and he said he found “not a few — many structures already destroyed.”

Officials did not give an exact number of structures damaged or destroyed in the Pacific Palisades wildfire, but they said about 30,000 residents were under evacuation orders and more than 13,000 structures were under threat.

And the worst could be yet to come. The blaze began here late morning local time, shortly after the start of a Santa Ana windstorm that the National Weather service warned could be “life threatening” and the strongest to hit Southern California in more than a decade. The exact cause of the fire was unknown and no injuries had been reported, officials said.

Only about 40 kilometers northeast, in Altadena, the Eaton fire was burning.

The winds were expected to increase overnight and continue for days, producing isolated gusts that could top 160 kph in mountains and foothills — including in areas that haven’t seen substantial rain in months.

“By no stretch of the imagination are we out of the woods,” Newsom warned residents, noting high winds were expected to continue all night. He declared a state of emergency on Tuesday.

As of Tuesday evening, 28,300 households were without power due to the strong winds, according to the mayor’s office. About 15,000 utility customers in Southern California had their power shut off to reduce the risk of equipment sparking a blaze. A half a million customers total were at risk of losing power preemptively.

The Pacific Palisades fire quickly consumed about 11.6 square kilometers of land in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in western Los Angeles, sending up a dramatic plume of smoke visible across the city. Residents in Venice Beach, some 10 kilometers away, reported seeing the flames. It was one of several blazes across the area.

Sections of Interstate 10 and the scenic Pacific Coast Highway were closed to all non-essential traffic to aid in evacuation efforts. But other roads were blocked. Some residents jumped out of their vehicles to get out of danger and waited to be picked up.

Resident Kelsey Trainor said the only road in and out of her neighborhood was completely blocked. Ash fell all around them while fires burned on both sides of the road.

“We looked across and the fire had jumped from one side of the road to the other side of the road,” Trainor said. “People were getting out of the cars with their dogs and babies and bags, they were crying and screaming. The road was just blocked, like full-on blocked, for an hour.”

An Associated Press video journalist saw a roof and chimney of one home in flames and another residence where the walls were burning. The Pacific Palisades neighborhood, which borders Malibu about 32 kilometers west of downtown LA, includes hillside streets of tightly packed homes along winding roads nestled against the Santa Monica Mountains and stretches down to beaches along the Pacific Ocean.

An AP photographer saw multi-million dollar mansions on fire as helicopters overhead dropped water loads. Roads were clogged in both directions as evacuees fled down toward the Pacific Coast Highway while others begged for rides back up to their homes to rescue pets. Two of the homes on fire were inside exclusive gated communities.

Long-time Palisades resident Will Adams said he immediately went to pick his two kids up from St. Matthews Parish School when he heard the fire was nearby. Meanwhile, he said embers flew into his wife’s car as she tried to evacuate.

“She vacated her car and left it running,” Adams said. She and many other residents walked down toward the ocean until it was safe.

Adams said he had never witnessed anything like this in the 56 years he’s lived there. He watched as the sky turned brown and then black as homes started burning. He could hear loud popping and bangs “like small explosions,” which he said he believes were the transformers exploding.

“It is crazy, it’s everywhere, in all the nooks and crannies of the Palisades. One home’s safe, the other one’s up in flames,” Adams said.

Actor James Woods posted footage of flames burning through bushes and past palm trees on a hill near his home. The towering orange flames billowed among the landscaped yards between the homes.

“Standing in my driveway, getting ready to evacuate,” Woods said in the short video on X.

Actor Steve Guttenberg, who lives in the Pacific Palisades, urged people who abandoned their cars to leave their keys behind so they could be moved to make way for fire trucks.

“This is not a parking lot,” Guttenberg told KTLA. “I have friends up there and they can’t evacuate. … I’m walking up there as far as I can moving cars.”

The erratic weather caused Biden to cancel plans to travel to inland Riverside County, where he was to announce the establishment of two new national monuments in the state. He remained in Los Angeles, where smoke was visible from his hotel, and was briefed on the wildfires. The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved a grant to help reimburse California for the firefighting cost.

Biden said in a statement that he and his team are communicating with state and local officials and he has offered “any federal assistance that is needed to help suppress the terrible Pacific Palisades fire.”

Some trees and vegetation on the grounds of the Getty Villa were burned by late Tuesday, but staff and the museum collection remain safe, Getty President Katherine Fleming said in a statement. The museum located on the eastern end of the Pacific Palisades is a separate campus of the world-famous Getty Museum that focuses on the art and culture of ancient Greece and Rome. The fire also burned Palisades Charter High School classrooms.

Film studios canceled two movie premieres due to the fire and windy weather, and the Los Angeles Unified School District said it temporarily relocated students from three campuses in the Pacific Palisades area.

Recent dry winds, including the notorious Santa Anas, have contributed to warmer-than-average temperatures in Southern California, where there’s been very little rain so far this season. Southern California hasn’t seen more than 0.25 centimeters of rain since early May.
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За цими даними, найпопулярніші проєкти редакції – Крим.Реалії, Схеми, Донбас.Реалії і ТиЯк? Інформації мовника довіряють 92 відсотки аудиторії
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President-elect Donald Trump did not rule out using military or economic coercion to gain control of the Panama Canal and Greenland during a wide-ranging news conference in Florida on Tuesday. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports his remarks came hours after his son made a surprise trip to Greenland.
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CARACAS, VENEZUELA — Two U.S. citizens have been arrested in Venezuela, part of a group of seven whom President Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday branded as “mercenaries” in the latest roundup ahead of the embattled leader’s expected inauguration to a new term later this week.

Maduro said the detained U.S. citizens were “very high level” but did not provide further details or evidence of the arrests.

“Just today we’ve captured seven foreign mercenaries, including two important mercenaries from the United States,” said Maduro, who is set to take office for a third term on Friday following last July’s contested election that the opposition says it won in a landslide.

Maduro said the group of detainees includes two Colombians who he said were captured in unspecified parts of Venezuela, as well as three others who came from the war in Ukraine.

Neither the U.S. Department of State nor Colombia’s Foreign Ministry responded immediately to requests for comment.

Venezuelan rights groups have warned of a revolving door of prisoners, with fresh detentions coming in even as older prisoners are released, including arrests of foreign nationals.

In late 2023, Venezuela’s government released dozens of prisoners including 10 Americans after months of negotiations between Caracas and Washington, while the U.S. released a close ally of Maduro, Colombian businessman Alex Saab.

In remarks delivered from the Miraflores presidential palace, Maduro on Tuesday claimed that his government’s security forces have captured what he called 125 foreign mercenaries from 25 different countries who he said had entered the South American nation “to practice terrorism against the Venezuelan people.”

The remarks come as opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez is touring the region in a bid to grow his international support. Gonzalez has been declared president-elect by several governments, including the United States.

On Monday, outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden said Gonzalez was the “true winner” of the July 28 vote.

While the government-aligned electoral authority and Venezuela’s top court have decreed that Maduro won the election, the government has not released ballot-box level results to back up the claim.

The opposition, however, has published thousands of scanned copies of voting machine receipts its observers gathered days after the vote, accounting for over 80% of votes cast and showing a lopsided Gonzalez victory.
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WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday held an omnibus press conference at his Florida estate, where he explained his stances on key foreign policy issues as he prepares to take office in two weeks.  

He forcefully called for the release of hostages seized in Israel more than a year ago by the militant group Hamas, saying six times that “all hell will break loose” otherwise.    

Hamas, which the United States considers a terrorist organization, dug in on its top demand in ongoing negotiations that Israel ends its assault and withdraw from Gaza. At a news conference in Algiers, Hamas official Osama Hamdan blamed Israel for stymieing a deal.  

When asked to respond to Trump’s comments, Hamdan replied, “I think the U.S. president must make more disciplined and diplomatic statements.” 

The Palestinian group’s stunning terror attack on civilians in Israel sparked a brutal conflict that has since inflamed the region and killed tens of thousands of civilians.    

Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, had moments before joined the president-elect at the podium to brief reporters on his recent high-level talks in the region, saying his team is “on the verge” of a deal and that he would travel back in coming days.    

“I don’t want to hurt your negotiation,” Trump told Witkoff, “but if they’re not back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East, and it will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone.”    

On Ukraine, he expressed interest in meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and repeated his vow to get the conflict in Ukraine “straightened out.” Trump has not explained how he would do this.    

When asked about a key demand in Ukraine’s peace plan — that it be allowed to join NATO — Trump said, “My view is that it was always understood” that Ukraine would not be admitted to the security alliance.    

He repeated his tariff threats against Canada and Mexico, his line that Canada should be a U.S. state, and he floated a name change, saying: “We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.”    

Thessalia Merivaki, an associate teaching professor at Georgetown University, said Trump often uses bluster as a strategy.    

“So, Trump has a record of just floating controversial ideas and positions to attract attention and generate interest and media coverage,” she said.    

Foreign policy  

Trump has not said how the U.S. will acquire control of Greenland, the large North American island that is an autonomous territory of Denmark. On Tuesday, he repeated his stance that “we need them for economic security.”  

When asked directly if he would commit to not use military or economic coercion to back his increasingly voluble desire for control of Greenland and also the Panama Canal, Trump replied, “I can’t assure you on either of those two.”    

Trump has accused Panama of violating the treaty under which the U.S. ceded control of the famous canal more than four decades ago under former President Jimmy Carter.  

“Giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a very big mistake,” Trump said. “Giving that away was a horrible thing, and I believe that’s why Jimmy Carter lost the election.”    

Trump added that he liked Carter “as a man.” He is expected to attend Carter’s national funeral Thursday in Washington. President Joe Biden will deliver the eulogy.  

First day and beyond  

Trump also said he would be “making major pardons” on his first day in office, when asked about his previous vow to issue clemency to some of the more than 1,500 people charged with crimes in connection to the riot on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.    

He also repeated past commitments to loosen what he called the “quagmire” of U.S. environmental regulations and smooth the path for billionaire investors.  

He described his re-election victory as a “landslide” for winning the Electoral College and the popular vote, although official results show he did not win the majority of the ballots, as third-party candidates shaved off votes. He promised to have future election results counted earlier on election night.  

He repeated his vow to “drill, baby, drill” on his first day in office by reversing Biden’s recent orders seeking to protect against offshore drilling.    

He accused Biden of botching foreign policy, saying, “Now, I’m going into a world that’s burning.”

Trump will assume office on January 20.  

VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this story from Washington. Some information for this story came from Reuters.
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Washington — A U.S. judge temporarily blocked Special Counsel Jack Smith from releasing a report on his investigations into President-elect Donald Trump for his mishandling of classified documents and attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, a court order showed on Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who presided over the now-dismissed case accusing Trump of illegally holding onto classified documents, directed the Justice Department not to release the report until a federal appeals court rules on a request from Trump’s two former co-defendants in the case.

Lawyers for the co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, who were charged with obstructing the documents investigation, moved late Monday to block release of the report.

Nauta and De Oliveira argued the report would improperly interfere in their case, which remains ongoing.

Smith led both the classified documents case against Trump and a second prosecution accusing Trump of attempting to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election. Both cases have since been dropped.

Trump, who dismissed the federal probe and the two other criminal investigations he faced as a politically motivated attempt to block him from returning to power, said he welcomed the news.

“It was a fake case against a political opponent,” Trump told reporters at his Florida resort on Tuesday. “If they’re not allowed to issue the report, that’s the way it should be … that’s great news.”

A spokesperson for Smith’s office declined to comment on the order.

Justice Department regulations require Smith, who plans to wrap up his probe before Trump returns to office on Jan. 20, to submit a final report to Attorney General Merrick Garland. Garland has previously pledged to make public all reports from special counsels during his tenure.

Prosecutors said in a court filing earlier on Tuesday that Garland, who appointed Smith, had not yet decided how to handle the portion of the report that relates to the classified documents case.  

Cannon, a Trump appointee, dismissed the case against Trump and his two co-defendants in July 2024 after ruling that Smith was improperly appointed. Prosecutors are appealing the ruling as it pertains to Nauta and De Oliveira.
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Крім того, дітям з окупованих районів України пропонують продовжувати навчання в Росії, повідомляє Центр національного спротиву
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NEW YORK — President-elect Donald Trump tried again Tuesday to delay this week’s sentencing in his hush money case, asking a New York appeals court to intervene as he fights to avoid the finality of his conviction before he returns to the White House. 

Trump turned to the Appellate Division of the state’s trial court a day after the trial judge, Judge Juan M. Merchan, rebuffed his bid to indefinitely postpone sentencing and ordered it to go ahead as scheduled on Friday. 

Trump is seeking an emergency order that would spare him from being sentenced while he appeals Merchan’s decision last week to uphold the historic verdict. Oral arguments were expected before a single judge later Tuesday, with a decision likely soon thereafter. 

A quick decision is necessary “to prevent ongoing violations” of Trump’s constitutional rights “and a threatened disruption” of the presidential transition process, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche wrote in a filing with the Appellate Division. 

Trump, less than two weeks from his inauguration, is poised to be the first president to take office convicted of crimes. If his sentencing doesn’t happen before his second term starts Jan. 20, presidential immunity could put it on hold until he leaves office. 

Merchan has signaled that he is not likely to punish Trump for his conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and will accommodate the transition by allowing him to appear at sentencing by video, rather than in person at a Manhattan courthouse. 

Still, the Republican and his lawyers contend that his sentencing should not go forward because the conviction and indictment should be dismissed. They have previously suggested taking the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Merchan last Friday denied Trump’s request to throw out his conviction and dismiss the case because of his impending return to the White House, ruling that Trump’s current status as president-elect does not afford him the same immunity from criminal proceedings as a sitting president. 

Merchan wrote that the interests of justice would only be served by “bringing finality to this matter” through sentencing. He said giving Trump what’s known as an unconditional discharge — closing the case without jail time, a fine or probation — “appears to be the most viable solution.” 

In his filing Tuesday, Blanche argued that Merchan’s interpretation of presidential immunity was wrong and that it should extend to a president-elect during “the complex, sensitive process of presidential transition.” 

“It is unconstitutional to conduct a criminal sentencing of the president-elect during a presidential transition, and doing so threatens to disrupt that transition and undermine the incoming president’s ability to effectively wield the executive power of the United States,” Blanche wrote. 

Trump’s lawyers are also challenging the judge’s prior decision rejecting Trump’s argument that the case should be thrown out because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last July that gave presidents broad immunity from prosecution. 

Manhattan prosecutors have pushed for sentencing to proceed as scheduled, “given the strong public interest in prompt prosecution and the finality of criminal proceedings.” 

Trump was convicted last May on charges involving an alleged scheme to hide a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in the last weeks of Trump’s 2016 campaign to keep her from publicizing claims she’d had sex with him years earlier. He says that her story is false and that he did nothing wrong. 

The case centered on how Trump accounted for reimbursing his then-personal lawyer Michael Cohen, who had made the payment to Daniels. The conviction carried the possibility of punishment ranging from a fine or probation to up to four years in prison. 

Trump’s sentencing initially was set for last July 11, then postponed twice at the defense’s request. After Trump’s Nov. 5 election, Merchan delayed the sentencing again so the defense and prosecution could weigh in on the future of the case.
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