Політика

Внаслідок атаки на Криворізький район у вечері постраждали двоє людей, на Нікопольщині – один поранений
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Також у Вінницькій області троє студентів коледжу були затримані після підпалу регіонального відділення Укрпошти та релейної шафи
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Його звинуватили в передачі Україні дані про виліт «авіаційного комплексу радіолокаційного дозору та наведення» в січні 2024 року
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17 листопада війська РФ завдали масованого удару по території України
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Washington — U.S. President Joe Biden announced Sunday he pardoned his son Hunter, who was facing sentencing this month in two federal cases.

Biden had previously pledged not to take such action, but in a statement Sunday he said the move was in response to what he called selective and unfair prosecution.

“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden said.

Hunter Biden was convicted of three felonies in June for a 2018 gun purchase.  Prosecutors said he falsely claimed on a federal form to not be illegally using or addicted to drugs.

He also pled guilty in a case where he was accused of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes.

The president’s action Sunday pardoned Hunter Biden in both cases, as well as any offense he “has committed or may have committed or taken part” between January 1, 2014 to January 1, 2024.

“I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction – mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport,” Hunter Biden said in a statement.

President Biden said in his statement that he hopes “Americans will understand why a father and a president would come to this decision.”

“For my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth. They’ll be fair-minded. Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further,” Biden said.

President-elect Donald Trump criticized the move, calling it “such an abuse and miscarriage of justice.”

Trump, in the late stages of his first term in office, pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner. Other Trump pardons included his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, former campaign manager Paul Manafort, former chief strategist Steve Bannon and campaign aide George Papadopoulos.

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters
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Уночі внаслідок удару російського дрона постраждав багатоквартирний будинок
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Тернопільська обласна військова адміністрація повідомила про одного загиблого
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ROSEMONT, Ill. — The Big Ten Conference announced it fined Michigan and Ohio State $100,000 each for violating the conference’s sportsmanship policy for the on-field melee at the end of the Wolverines’ win in Columbus on Saturday.

“Not only did the actions of both teams violate fundamental elements of sportsmanship such as respect and civility, the nature of the incident also jeopardized the safety of participants and bystanders,” the Big Ten said in a statement Sunday.

A fight broke out at midfield after the Wolverines’ 13-10 victory when Michigan players attempted to plant their flag on the OSU logo and were confronted by the Buckeyes.

Police used pepper spray to break up the players, who threw punches and shoves. One officer suffered a head injury when he was “knocked down and trampled while trying to separate players fighting,” a police union official said. The officer was taken to a hospital and has since been released.

After the Ohio State players confronted their rivals at midfield, defensive end Jack Sawyer grabbed the top of the Wolverines’ flag and ripped it off the pole as the brawl moved toward the Michigan bench.

“We respect the Big Ten Conference’s decision in this matter,” Ohio State said in a statement. “What happened post-game yesterday was unfortunate. Good sportsmanship is always important in everything we do at Ohio State. Moving forward, we will continue to examine and address our post-game protocols to ensure our student-athletes, coaches, visiting teams and staff safely exit the field.”

Ohio State police said in a statement that “multiple officers representing Ohio and Michigan deployed pepper spray.” Michigan players could be seen rubbing their eyes after exposure to the chemical irritant.

Michigan coach Sherrone Moore said after the game both teams could have handled the situation differently.

“So much emotions on both sides,” he said. “Rivalry games get heated, especially this one. It’s the biggest one in the country, so we got to handle that better.”

A Michigan athletic department spokesman said Sunday night the football program would have no comment beyond the team’s remarks Saturday.

The scuffle was one of many that broke out Saturday in rivalry games across the country.
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Washington — President Joe Biden on Sunday had the AIDS Memorial Quilt spread on the White House South Lawn for the first time in observance of World AIDS Day.

Gathered with the president and his wife, Jill, were survivors, family members and advocates to memorialize the lives lost to the epidemic. The president emphasized the federal government’s support for the 1.2 million people in the United States living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which can lead to AIDS.

“This movement is fully woven into the fabric and history of America,” Biden said. “For all the lives lost, for all those that are still alive, look at what you’ve already done to change the hearts and minds, to save lives across the country and around the world. That’s the power of this movement.”

There were 124 sections of the quilt on the lawn to commemorate people who died due to AIDS-related illnesses. Conceived in 1985, the quilt made its first public appearance in 1987. There was also a red ribbon, a symbol of support and awareness for those with HIV and AIDS, draped across the South Portico of the White House.

There are 40 million people around the world with HIV, according to the White House.

Introducing Biden was Jeanne White-Ginder, whose son, Ryan White, contracted AIDS through a tainted blood transfusion at the age of 13 and died in 1990 at the age of 18. She said her son’s experience taught America that “we needed to fight AIDS and not the people who have it.”

The Ryan White CARE Act became law in 1990, and White-Grinder recalled being at the U.S. Capitol to speak for the measure and met Biden when he was a senator from Delaware.

The president also saluted Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert until leaving the government in 2022, Fauci was in attendance at the event as he worked to treat AIDS, though he’s known by much of the country for his efforts to address the coronavirus pandemic that made him a target of criticism by many Republican lawmakers.

The Biden administration has sought to make investments to stop the epidemic, and the stigmas attached to people with HIV. Among other steps, it has worked to expand access to PrEP, or the pre-exposure prophylaxis, which at-risk populations use to prevent HIV infections.
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Donald Trump’s nomination of Kash Patel, a loyalist of the U.S. president-elect, to be director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has added to the list of Trump’s unconventional appointments to top-level jobs in his nascent administration.

Trump named Patel, 44, to lead the country’s top criminal investigative agency on late Saturday, saying he “is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending justice, and protecting the American people.”

Patel held three defense, intelligence and national security posts in the first Trump administration but has endeared himself to the incoming chief executive by vowing to clean out the “deep state” at the FBI. He also said he would launch a campaign of retribution against Trump’s adversaries, including FBI agents who have investigated the once-and-future president, journalists and others. 

During his first term, Trump suggested naming Patel as the deputy FBI director, but then-Attorney General William Barr, now a Trump critic, said the appointment would only occur “over my dead body.” 

Patel has vowed to close the FBI headquarters in Washington and dispatch many of its agents across the country to fight crime, not launch more intelligence-gathering operations.

Trump’s first hurdle in installing Patel as the FBI director is that there already is an FBI director, Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump and whose 10-year term extends to 2027.  

Trump would have to fire Wray or Wray would have to resign before Patel could take over. FBI directors are appointed to decade-long terms by design, so that their tenures and investigative directives are not subject to the political whims of the moment. But Trump already fired one FBI director, James Comey, in 2017, before naming Wray. 

Trump says the FBI is “badly broken” and has “lost the confidence of America.” 

Patel faces a Senate confirmation hearing and is likely to face tough questioning about how he would run the agency and oversee its more than 10,000 criminal investigative agents and another 25,000 staff members.  

Patel’s appointment comes on top of other unconventional Trump appointments: vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to oversee the health and human services department, talk show host Pete Hegseth, a decorated military officer with scant managerial experience, to be the Pentagon chief, and Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic-congresswoman-turned-staunch-Trump-defender, as director of national intelligence. 

Trump’s first nominee to be attorney general, former Congressman Matt Gaetz, dropped out after eight days as he faced widespread scrutiny of his alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use; charges Gaetz has denied.   

Some Republican senators praised Patel’s appointment. Republicans will hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate next year, meaning Patel could lose the support of three senators and still be confirmed, with Vice President-elect JD Vance casting the decisive tie-breaking vote if needed. 

Senator Bill Hagerty, a Tennessee Republican, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Patel “represents the type of change that we need to see in the FBI. … The entire agency needs to be cleaned out.” 

“There are serious problems at the FBI,” Hagerty said. “The American public knows it. They expect to see sweeping change, and Kash Patel’s just the type of person to do it.”  

Another Republican senator, Ted Cruz of Texas, said Patel was a “very strong nominee” and he thought Patel would be confirmed. 

“All of the weeping and gnashing of teeth, all the people pulling their hair out, are exactly the people who are dismayed about having a real reformer come into the FBI,” Cruz told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” 

A third Republican, Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota, said, “Every president wants people that are loyal to themselves.” But he called Wray “a very good man,” adding, “I don’t have any complaints about the way that he’s done his job right now.” 

Democrats are almost certain to oppose the nomination. 

Senator Chris Murphy told NBC, “Patel’s only qualification is that he agrees with Donald Trump that the Department of Justice should punish, lock up and intimidate Donald Trump’s political opponents.” 

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press.
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Los Angeles has approved a so-called sanctuary city ordinance. It’s a response to President-elect Donald Trump’s promise of mass deportations when he assumes the presidency in January. The ordinance won’t stop federal officials from deporting undocumented immigrants, but it reinforces the city’s vow to protect its immigrant population. Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Vazgen Varzhabetian  
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The United States is not considering returning to Ukraine the nuclear weapons it gave up after the Soviet Union collapsed, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday.

Sullivan made his remarks when questioned about a New York Times article last month that said some unidentified Western officials had suggested U.S. President Joe Biden could give Ukraine the arms before he leaves office.

“That is not under consideration, no. What we are doing is surging various conventional capacities to Ukraine so that they can effectively defend themselves and take the fight to the Russians, not [giving them] nuclear capability,” he told ABC.

Last week, Russia said the idea was “absolute insanity” and that preventing such a scenario was one of the reasons why Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.

Kyiv inherited nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union after its 1991 collapse but gave them up under a 1994 agreement, the Budapest Memorandum, in return for security assurances from Russia, the United States and Britain.
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U.S. egg prices are rising once more as a lingering outbreak of bird flu coincides with the high demand of the holiday baking season.

But prices are still far from the recent peak they reached almost two years ago. And the American Egg Board, a trade group, says egg shortages at grocery stores have been isolated and temporary so far.

“Those are being rapidly corrected, sometimes within a day,” said Emily Metz, the Egg Board’s president and chief executive officer.

The average price for a dozen eggs in U.S. cities was $3.37 in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was down slightly from September, and down significantly from January 2023, when the average price soared to $4.82. But it was up 63% from October 2023, when a dozen eggs cost an average of $2.07.

Sometimes, supermarkets may be to blame for price spikes. During testimony in August in the Federal Trade Commission’s case seeking to block Kroger’s merger with Albertsons, Kroger’s senior director for pricing acknowledged that the company has raised the cost of milk and eggs beyond the levels of inflation.

But there are other factors behind the price increases. Metz said the egg industry sees its highest demand in November and December, for example.

“You can’t have your holiday baking, your pumpkin pie, your stuffing, without eggs,” she said.

Avian influenza is another big reason for the higher prices. The current bird flu outbreak that began in February 2022 has led to the slaughter of more than 111 million birds, mostly egg-laying chickens. Anytime the virus is found, every bird on a farm is killed to limit the spread of the disease.

More than 6 million birds have been slaughtered just this month because of bird flu. They were a relatively small part of the total U.S. egg-laying flock of 377 million chickens. Still, the flock is down about 3% over the past year, contributing to a 4% drop in egg production, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The latest wave of bird flu is scrambling supplies of cage-free eggs because California has been among the hardest hit states. California, Nevada, Washington and Oregon all require eggs sold in their states to be cage-free.

“We’re having to move eggs from other areas of the country that are producing cage-free to cover that low supply in those states, because those states only allow for cage-free eggs to be sold,” Metz said.

Cage-free requirements are set to go into effect in Arizona, Colorado and Michigan next year and in Rhode Island and Utah in 2030.

Demand for such specialty eggs may also be contributing to avian flu, which is spread through the droppings of wild birds as they migrate past farms. Allowing chickens to roam more freely puts them at greater risk, said Chad Hart, a professor and agricultural economist at Iowa State University.

“It’s really hard to control that interaction between domesticated birds and wild birds,” Hart said. “Some of those vectors have been opened up because we’re asking the egg industry to produce in ways that we didn’t ask them to before.”

Metz said climate change and extreme weather are also blowing some wild birds off course.

“We have birds that have been displaced by hurricanes, by wildfires, and those birds are now circulating in areas that they otherwise might not circulate or at times of the year that they otherwise may not be circulating,” she said. “And those are all new variables that our farmers are having to deal with.”

Hart said the egg industry is trying to rebuild the flock, but that also can limit supplies, since farmers have to hold back some eggs to hatch into new chickens.

Still, there is some good news on U.S. poultry farms. The price of chicken feed — which represents 70% of a farmer’s costs — has fallen significantly after doubling between 2020 and 2022, Hart said. 
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NORTH WILDWOOD, NEW JERSEY — A decade-long conflict over the condition of a New Jersey resort town’s beaches, involving tens of millions of dollars in litigation and fines, could come to an end soon.  

Patrick Rosenello, the mayor of North Wildwood, says his town has reached an agreement with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to drop claims on both sides and move forward with measures to widen beaches in the community, popular with tourists from the Philadelphia area.  

The agreement, which is up for a vote Tuesday by North Wildwood’s council, would resolve all outstanding disputes between the parties, the Republican mayor said. The tentative timing of the replenishment is sometime in 2025, he said.  

The agreement includes canceling the $12 million New Jersey has fined North Wildwood for unauthorized beach repairs that the state says could actually worsen erosion. It also calls for the city to drop a lawsuit against the state seeking reimbursement for the $30 million it has spent trucking in sand for emergency repairs to eroded sections of its beach over the past decade.   

“We agreed that we will concentrate on protecting our beaches instead of suing each other,” Rosenello said Wednesday.  

At the root of the dispute is the fact that North Wildwood is virtually the only Jersey Shore community that has yet to receive a full beach replenishment project from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Officials say difficulty in getting easements from affected property owners has contributed to the delay.  

Erosion had become so bad in parts of North Wildwood that protective sand dunes were obliterated, leaving homes and businesses vulnerable to flooding and wave damage in the event of a major storm, At one point in January, Rosenello posed for photos on the beach with what was left of a dune barely reaching his knees.  

The state Department of Transportation did an interim replenishment project last summer after Democratic Governor Phil Murphy called the erosion in North Wildwood “shocking.” Rosenello said that work has held up well in the ensuing months.  

The environmental department declined to comment on the proposed agreement. Rosenello predicted it will be approved by the council and signed and sent to the state Tuesday.  

In addition to ending the litigation, North Wildwood will contribute $1 million to the eventual cost of the federal beach replenishment project once it arrives in the city, and will pay $700,000 into a state water pollution control fund, the mayor said.  

The agreement also lays out a clear regulatory path for North Wildwood to obtain the environmental permits it needs to carry out other shore protection work including extension of a sea wall.  

On several occasions, North Wildwood carried out emergency repairs, including construction of an earlier bulkhead without approval from the state. Shawn LaTourette, New Jersey’s environment protection commissioner, warned the town in 2023 that unauthorized work could have more serious consequences if it continues, including potential loss of future shore protection funding.
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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has held multiple phone conversations with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban since winning the November 5 presidential election, according to sources who spoke to RFE/RL’s Hungarian Service.

Hungarian government sources said Trump has sought Orban’s opinion on ending the Ukraine war, which has continued to drag on since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.

On the campaign trail, Trump criticized the billions of dollars that the United States has poured into Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion.

He has also said he could end the war within 24 hours of retaking the White House, a statement that some have interpreted as meaning that Ukraine would have to surrender territory that Russia now occupies.

Orban, who has maintained friendly ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump, has been critical of EU aid for Ukraine and has obstructed the bloc’s sanctions regime against Moscow.

Preparations reportedly are under way for Orban to take a second crack at a peace mission in December to bookend Hungary’s rotating EU presidency after his first attempt in July when Budapest’s tenure started.

In a move criticized by several EU leaders, Orban traveled to Moscow to meet Putin in July after a trip to Kyiv with a mystery ceasefire proposal for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He then traveled to China and finally the United States to meet Trump, who was then on the presidential campaign trail.

Details of a potential peace mission in December are not clear, but sources suggested to RFE/RL’s Hungarian Service that it may involve delivering Trump’s messages to Zelenskyy, Putin, and Chinese President Xi Jinping. 
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WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump said on Saturday he wanted former National Security official and loyalist Kash Patel to lead the FBI, signaling an intent to replace the bureau’s current director, Christopher Wray. 

Patel, who during Trump’s first term advised both the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defense, has previously called for stripping the FBI of its intelligence-gathering role and purging its ranks of any employee who refuses to support Trump’s agenda. 

“The biggest problem the FBI has had, has come out of its intel shops. I’d break that component out of it. I’d shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state,” Patel said in a September interview on the conservative “Shawn Ryan Show.”

“And I’d take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Go be cops. You’re cops. Go be cops.” 

With the nomination of Patel, Trump, a Republican, seems to be preparing to oust Wray, a Republican first appointed by Trump. Wray’s 10-year term at the FBI does not expire until 2027. 

Asked about Patel’s nomination, which will need Senate confirmation, an FBI spokesperson said on Saturday: “Every day, the men and women of the FBI continue to work to protect Americans from a growing array of threats. Director Wray’s focus remains on the men and women of the FBI, the people we do the work with, and the people we do the work for.” 

FBI directors by law are appointed to 10-year terms as a means of insulating the bureau from politics. 

Wray, whom Trump tapped after firing James Comey in 2017 for investigating his 2016 campaign, has been a frequent target of Trump supporters’ ire. 

During Wray’s tenure, the FBI carried out a court-approved search at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate to look for classified documents. He also has faced criticism for his oversight role of a directive by Attorney General Merrick Garland aimed at working to protect local school boards from violent threats and harassment. 

Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the two federal prosecutions against Trump for his role in subverting the 2020 election and retaining classified documents, asked on November 25 the judges overseeing those cases to dismiss them before Trump takes office on January 20, citing a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president. 

Wray had previously signaled no intention of stepping down early and was busy planning events well into his 2025 calendar, according to a person familiar with the matter.  

Patel, 44, previously worked as a federal public defender and a federal prosecutor. 

He was instrumental in working to lead House Republicans’ probe into the FBI’s 2016 investigation into contacts between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia during his time as an aide to former House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes. 

Later, during Trump’s first impeachment trial, ex-National Security Council official Fiona Hill told House investigators she was concerned Patel was secretly serving as a back channel between Trump and Ukraine without authorization. 

Patel denied those allegations. 

After Trump left office in January 2021, Patel was one of several people Trump designated as a representative for access to his presidential records. He was one of the few former Trump administration officials who claimed, without evidence, that Trump had declassified all of the records in question. 

He was later subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury in connection with the probe. 

Also Saturday, Trump named Chad Chronister, the sheriff of Hillsborough County, Florida, as his choice for administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency. In that role, Chronister would work closely with Trump’s choice for attorney general, Pam Bondi. 

Bondi is from the Tampa area that Chronister serves.  

“As DEA Administrator, Chad will work with our great Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to secure the Border, stop the flow of Fentanyl, and other Illegal Drugs, across the Southern Border, and SAVE LIVES,” Trump wrote on his social-media platform Truth Social. 

Trump also named real estate mogul Charles Kushner to serve as U.S. ambassador to France. Kushner is the father of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. 

“He (Charles Kushner) is a tremendous business leader, philanthropist, & dealmaker, who will be a strong advocate representing our Country & its interests,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social announcing the pick. 
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WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA — President-elect Donald Trump threatened 100% tariffs Saturday against a bloc of nine nations if they act to undermine the U.S. dollar. 

His threat was directed at countries in the so-called BRICS alliance, which consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. 

Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia have applied to become members of the alliance, and several other countries have expressed interest in joining. 

While the U.S. dollar is by far the most-used currency in global business and has survived past challenges to its preeminence, members of the alliance and other developing nations say they are fed up with America’s dominance of the global financial system. 

Trump, in a Truth Social post, said, “We require a commitment from these Countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. Economy.” 

At a summit of BRICS nations in October, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the U.S. of “weaponizing” the dollar and described it as a “big mistake.” 

“It’s not us who refuse to use the dollar,” Putin said at the time. “But if they don’t let us work, what can we do? We are forced to search for alternatives.” 

Russia has specifically pushed for the creation of a new payment system that would offer an alternative to the global bank messaging network, SWIFT, and allow Moscow to dodge Western sanctions and trade with partners. 

Trump said there is “no chance” BRICS will replace the U.S. dollar in global trade and any country that tries to make that happen “should wave goodbye to America.” 
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