Політика

BEIJING/TAIPEI — China on Monday urged the United States to “correct its mistakes” after the U.S. State Department removed previous wording on its website about not supporting Taiwan independence, which it said was part of a routine update.

The fact sheet on Taiwan, updated last week, retains Washington’s opposition to unilateral change from either Taiwan or from China, which claims the democratically governed island as its own.

But as well as dropping the phrase “we do not support Taiwan independence,” the page added a reference to Taiwan’s cooperation with a Pentagon technology and semiconductor development project and says the U.S. will support Taiwan’s membership in international organizations “where applicable.”

Beijing regularly denounces any international recognition of Taiwan or contact between Taiwanese and foreign officials, viewing it as encouraging Taiwan’s separate status from China.

The update to the website came roughly three weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump was sworn in to his second term in the White House.

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said the revisions for Taiwan on the U.S. State Department’s website were a big step backwards and “sends a seriously wrong message to Taiwan independence separatist forces.”

“This is yet another example of the United States’ stubborn adherence to the erroneous policy of ‘using Taiwan to suppress China’. We urge the United States side to immediately rectify its mistakes,” Guo said.

The United States, like most countries, has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan but is its strongest international backer, bound by law to provide the island with the means to defend itself.

“As is routine, the fact sheet was updated to inform the general public about our unofficial relationship with Taiwan,” a State Department spokesperson said in an email sent late Sunday Taiwan time responding to questions on the updated website wording.

“The United States remains committed to its one China policy,” the spokesperson said, referring to Washington officially taking no position on Taiwan’s sovereignty and only acknowledging China’s position on the subject.

“The United States is committed to preserving peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” the spokesperson said.

“We oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side. We support cross-Strait dialog, and we expect cross-Strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means, free from coercion, in a manner acceptable to people on both sides of the Strait.”

On Sunday, Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung expressed his appreciation for what he called the “support and positive stance on U.S.-Taiwan relations.”

Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying that only the island’s people can decide their future.

Taiwan says it is already an independent country called the Republic of China, its official name. The Republican government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists, who set up the People’s Republic of China.
…

NEW YORK — Paul Simon and Sabrina Carpenter opened the 50th anniversary special celebrating “Saturday Night Live” with a duet of his song “Homeward Bound.”

The 83-year-old Simon has been a constant on “SNL” since its earliest episodes in 1975 and performed on the first show after the 9/11 attack. He was joined by the 25-year-old pop sensation of the moment, Carpenter.

“I sang this song with George Harrison on ‘Saturday Night Live’ in 1976,” Simon said.

“I was not born then,” Carpenter said, getting a laugh. “And neither were my parents,” she added, getting a bigger laugh.

Fifty seasons of “Saturday Night Live” sketches, songs and special guests are being celebrated for the special’s landmark anniversary in a Sunday night special.

The pop culture juggernaut has launched the careers of generations of comedians, from Bill Murray to Eddie Murphy and Tina Fey to Kristen Wiig.

Many of those stars were on hand for “SNL50: The Anniversary Celebration,” airing live from New York, of course.

“I grew up with the show, you know, and I was born in 1971, and it’s lived with me my whole life,” Amy Poehler, who was a cast member from 2001 to 2008,” said on Sunday ahead of the show’s start. “We have a show to do in just under two hours, and being back is an amazing privilege.”

The three-hour extravaganza comes after months of celebrations of “Saturday Night Live,” which premiered Oct. 11, 1975, with an original cast that included John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Gilda Radner.

“After the original cast, we were just going, Those guys just did it all for us,” Adam Sandler, a cast member from 1990-1995, said before the show. “They crushed it. We watched them at home. They made their movies. We worshiped their movies. And that’s all. What we wanted to do is just kind of continue that sort of stuff.”

It’s become appointment television over the years as the show has skewered presidents, politics and pop culture and been a platform for the biggest musical stars of the moment. As streaming has altered television viewing, “SNL” sketches, host monologues and short comedy films remain popular on social media and routinely rack up millions of views on YouTube.

While NBC has revealed some of the stars expected to appear, many of the special’s moments, cameos and music performances remain a surprise.

On Sunday, NBC announced more guest appearances including Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Leslie Jones, Billy Crystal, Cher, Mike Myers and Alec Baldwin, who holds the title of the person who’s hosted “SNL” the most times.

 
…

President Donald Trump’s administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in its bid to fire the head of an independent U.S. agency that protects government whistleblowers, bringing its first legal battle involving Trump’s actions to the nation’s highest judicial body since he took office in January.

The Justice Department asked the court to immediately lift a federal judge’s Feb. 12 order that temporarily blocked Trump’s removal of Hampton Dellinger as the head of the Office of Special Counsel while litigation continues in the dispute, according to a copy of the filing reviewed by Reuters. The case has not yet been docketed by the court.

The federal judge’s action blocking the termination is an “unprecedented assault on the separation of powers,” Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris said in the filing.

“This court should not allow lower courts to seize executive power by dictating to the President how long he must continue employing an agency head against his will,” Harris wrote.

Appointed by former President Joe Biden, Dellinger’s five-year term was set to expire in 2029. He sued after receiving an email on Feb. 7 informing him that Trump had fired him from the watchdog role, “effective immediately.”

Dellinger’s lawsuit said Trump exceeded his power in purporting to fire him, given that federal law permits removal only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

The Special Counsel’s “ability to protect the civil service and investigate alleged misconduct is needed now more than ever,” Dellinger’s lawsuit said. “Over the preceding three weeks, an unprecedented number of federal employees with civil service protections have been terminated without cause.”

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington, D.C. issued a temporary restraining order on Feb. 12, restoring Dellinger to his position pending a further, preliminary order.

Jackson said Dellinger was likely to prevail in the suit given that the effort to fire him without identifying any cause “plainly contravenes” the Special Counsel’s job protections under federal law.

“This language expresses Congress’s clear intent to ensure the independence of the Special Counsel and insulate his work from being buffeted by the winds of political change,” Jackson wrote in the order.

The District of Columbia U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the administration’s appeal in a 2-1 decision on Saturday, saying it was premature, given that Jackson’s order was only temporary.

The Special Counsel Office allows whistleblowers to make disclosures about alleged misconduct within federal agencies and investigates complaints of retaliation. It also enforces a U.S. law known as the Hatch Act that limits political participation by federal employees.

The move to fire Dellinger was the latest by the Trump administration to expel officials who investigate wrongdoing within the federal government. Trump last month fired 17 inspectors general who serve as independent watchdogs within their agencies, without providing a reason.
…

Top U.S. officials headed Sunday to Saudi Arabia for talks with Russian diplomats in the coming days on ending Moscow’s three-year war on Ukraine, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio downplayed prospects for an immediate breakthrough.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin agreed during an hour-long call last week to the immediate start of peace negotiations, but Rubio told CBS’s “Face the Nation” in an interview aired Sunday, “A process towards peace is not a one- meeting thing.”

“We’ll see in the coming days and weeks if Vladimir Putin is interested in negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine in a way that is sustainable and fair,” Rubio said.

Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, and U.S. national security adviser Mike Waltz said they were headed to Riyadh for the talks, while a Ukrainian minister says that an official delegation has arrived there in preparation for a possible visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The shape of the talks remained uncertain.

Rubio said he wasn’t even sure who Moscow was sending. “Nothing’s been finalized yet,” he said, adding that the hope was for an opening for a broad conversation that “would include Ukraine and would involve the end of the war.”

Trump’s call with Putin blindsided NATO allies as well as Kyiv, with Zelenskyy later saying that there should be “no decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine.”

Whatever occurs this week in Saudi Arabia, Rubio said that once “real negotiations” begin, then Ukraine “will have to be involved.”

In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired Sunday, Zelenskyy said, “I will never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine. Never. The war in Ukraine is against us, and it is our human losses.”

Zelenskyy said he told Trump in a call they had last week that Putin is only pretending to want peace.

“I said that he is a liar. And [Trump] said, ‘I think my feeling is that he’s ready for these negotiations.’ And I said to him, ‘No, he’s a liar. He doesn’t want any peace.’”

The United States has been Ukraine’s biggest arms supplier during the conflict, but Trump has wavered on continued support and declined during a political debate last year to say that he wants Ukraine to win.

Zelenskyy said that without continued U.S. military support, “Probably it will be very, very, very difficult” to defeat Russia. “And of course, in all the difficult situations, you have a chance. But we will have low chance — low chance to survive without support of the United States.”

Russia now controls about 20% of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory, including the Crimean Peninsula it unilaterally annexed in 2014 and the eastern portion of Ukraine pro-Moscow separatists captured after that and since the full-scale February 2022 Russian invasion.
…

Norfolk, Virginia — Like the other Founding Fathers, George Washington was uneasy about the idea of publicly celebrating his life. He was the first leader of a new republic, not a king.

And yet the United States will once again commemorate its first president Monday, 293 years after he was born.

The meaning of Presidents Day has changed dramatically, from being mostly unremarkable and filled with work for Washington in the 1700s to the bonanza of consumerism it has become today. For some historians, the holiday has lost all discernible meaning.

Historian Alexis Coe, author of “You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington,” has said she thinks about Presidents Day in much the same way as the towering monument in D.C. bearing his name.

“It’s supposed to be about Washington, but can you really point to anything that looks or sounds like him?” she remarked in an interview with The Associated Press in 2024. “Jefferson and Lincoln are presented as people with limbs and noses and words associated with their memorials. And he’s just a giant, granite point. He has been sanded down to have absolutely no identifiable features.”

Here is a look at how things have evolved:

Washington’s birthdays were celebrated, sometimes

Washington was born Feb. 22, 1732, on Popes Creek Plantation near the Potomac River in Virginia.

Technically, though, he was born Feb. 11 under the ancient Julian calendar, which was still in use for the first 20 years of his life. The Gregorian calendar, intended to more accurately mark the solar year, was adopted in 1752, adding 11 days.

Either way, Washington paid little attention to his birthday, according to Mountvernon.org, the website of the organization that manages his estate. Surviving records make no mention of observances at Mount Vernon, while his diary shows he was often hard at work.

“If he had it his way, he would be at home with his family,” Coe said. “Maybe some beloved nieces and nephews (and friend) Marquis de Lafayette would be ideal. And Martha’s recipe for an indulgent cake. But that’s about it.”

Washington’s birthday was celebrated by his peers in government when he was president, mostly.

Congress voted during his first two terms to take a short commemorative break each year, with one exception, his last birthday in office, Coe said. By then, Washington was less popular, partisanship was rampant, and many members of his original Cabinet were gone, including Thomas Jefferson.

“One way to show their disdain for his Federalist policies was to keep working through his birthday,” Coe said.

The Library of Congress does note a French military officer, the Comte de Rochambeau, threw a ball celebrating Washington’s 50th birthday in 1782.

After his death, a market for memorabilia is born

Washington was very aware of his inaugural role as president and its distinction from the British crown. He didn’t want to be honored like a king, Seth Bruggeman, a history professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, told the AP last year.

Still, he said, a market for Washington memorabilia sprang up almost immediately after his death in 1799 at age 67, with people snapping up pottery and reproductions of etchings portraying him as a divine figure going off into heaven.

“Even in that early moment, Americans kind of conflated consumerism with patriotic memory,” said Bruggeman, whose books include “Here, George Washington Was Born: Memory, Material Culture, and the Public History of a National Monument.”

Making it official with parades and festivals

It wasn’t until 1832, the centennial of his birth, that Congress established a committee to arrange national “parades, orations and festivals,” according to the Congressional Research Service.

Only in 1879 was his birthday formally made into a legal holiday for federal employees in the District of Columbia.

The official designation for the holiday is Washington’s Birthday, although it has come to be known informally as Presidents Day. Arguments have been made to honor President Lincoln as well because his birth date falls nearby, on Feb. 12.

A small number of states, including Illinois, observe Lincoln’s birthday as a public holiday, according to the Library of Congress. And some commemorate both Lincoln and Washington on Presidents Day.

But on the federal level, the day is still officially Washington’s Birthday.

A shift to consumerism

By the late 1960s, Washington’s Birthday was one of nine federal holidays that fell on specific dates on different days of the week, according to a 2004 article in the National Archives’ Prologue magazine.

Congress voted to move some of those to Mondays, following concerns that were in part about absenteeism among government workers when a holiday fell midweek. But lawmakers also noted clear benefits to the economy, including boosts in retail sales and travel on three-day weekends.

The Uniform Monday Holiday Act took effect in 1971, moving Presidents Day to the third Monday in February. Sales campaigns soared, historian C. L. Arbelbide wrote in Prologue.

Bruggeman said Washington and the other Founding Fathers “would have been deeply worried” by how the holiday became taken over by commercial and private interests.

“They were very nervous about corporations,” Bruggeman said. “It wasn’t that they forbade them. But they saw corporations as like little republics that potentially threatened the power of The Republic.”

Coe, who is also a fellow at the Washington think tank New America, said by now the day is devoid of recognizable traditions.

“There’s no moment of reflection,” Coe said. Given today’s widespread cynicism toward the office, she added, that sort of reflection “would probably be a good idea.”
…

“Captain America: Brave New World” infused some blockbuster cash into the North American box office, bringing in $88.5 million in ticket sales over the weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday. The Walt Disney Co. release is by far the biggest opener of 2025 and the company predicts it will hit $100 million domestically and $192.4 globally by the end of Monday’s Presidents’ Day holiday.

It’s Marvel’s first major release since “Deadpool & Wolverine” broke records last summer and re-energized a Marvel fanbase that some worried was weakening after the poor showing for “The Marvels.”

Playing in 4,105 locations in the U.S. and Canada, “Brave New World” is also a major transition for the “Captain America” brand: Anointing Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson as the new Cap, officially taking over from Chris Evans, who played the character for almost a decade. Harrison Ford co-stars as the U.S. president who transforms into the Red Hulk.

But “Brave New World,” directed by Julius Onah, had a bit of a handicap going into the weekend: Poor reviews, though superhero movies can soar without the stamp of approval from critics. The film is currently sitting at 51% “rotten” on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s not the worst in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — “Eternals” has a 47% rating and “Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania” has a 46% — but the latest film is on the very low end of the spectrum.

In his review for The Associated Press, Mark Kennedy wrote that it is, “a highly processed, empty calorie, regret-later candy of a movie.”

Audiences were more generous in their opinions. The “verified audience score” from Rotten Tomatoes was 80% and its CinemaScore was a B-. Exit polls showed that men made up 63% of the opening weekend audience.

The bar for biggest opening of the year wasn’t terribly high: “Dog Man” held the title for two weeks with its $36 million launch.

And “Brave New World’s” showing is the middle range for an MCU film. Not accounting for inflation, it sits between “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Thor: The Dark World.”

It also cost significantly less than many of the big budget Marvel movies, with a reported production price tag of $180 million, excluding the millions spent on marketing and promotion.

After only one Marvel movie in 2024, “Brave New World” is the first of three major theatrical releases set for 2025. It is to be followed by “Thunderbolts(asterisk)” in May and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” in July.

“The superhero genre has taken a hit over the past few years, but audiences still have a huge interest in seeing them on the big screen,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore.

Second place at this week’s box office went to “Paddington in Peru,” the third installment in the beloved franchise, which finally opened in North America this weekend. Released by Sony, it earned an estimated $13 million and should hit $16 million by Monday. The StudioCanal film opened in the United Kingdom in early November 2024 and went into the weekend with $104 million from its international run.

Dougal Wilson took over directing duties for Paul King for this film, which also recast Emily Mortimer as Mrs. Brown, originally played by Sally Hawkins. The other main cast, including Ben Whishaw as Paddinton’s voice, remained intact.

Sony and Screen Gems’ slasher “Heart Eyes” landed in third place with $10 million, up 20% from its opening last weekend. Fourth place went to “Dog Man” with $9.7 million.

The Chinese blockbuster “Ne Zha 2″ rounded out the top five. It opened on 660 screens in North America and made $7.2 million. Overall, the box office is up 20% from last year.

This weekend also saw the release of a new “Bridget Jones” movie, subtitled “Mad About the Boy,” which went straight to Universal’s streaming service Peacock, forgoing theaters in the U.S. In the U.K. and Ireland, it made an estimated $14.9 million, outgrossing “Captain America: Brave New World.” Universal Pictures International reported $32.3 million in grosses from all 70 territories.

The final domestic figures will be released Tuesday. Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

1. “Captain America: Brave New World,” $88.5 million.

2. “Paddington in Peru,” $13 million.

3. “Heart Eyes,” $10 million.

4. “Dog Man,” $9.7 million.

5. “Ne Zha 2,” $7.2 million.

6. “Love Hurts,” $4.4 million.

7. “Mufasa: The Lion King,” $4.2 million.

8. “One of Them Days,” $3 million.

9. “Companion,” $1.9 million.

10. “Becoming Led Zeppelin,” $1.8 million.
    …

U.S. President Donald Trump’s “border czar” said Sunday he is “not happy” with the number of undocumented migrants being arrested by immigration agents and deported to their home countries. 

Tom Homan told CNN’s “State of the Union” show that 14,000 migrants had been arrested since Trump was inaugurated January 20, but said, “We’ve got to do a lot more.” 

Many of those arrested have been flown back to their native lands or sent to the prison on the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, while some have been released to live in the United States pending court proceedings. 

The U.S. estimates that 11 million undocumented migrants are living in the U.S., with Trump pledging during his 2024 run for the presidency to find and deport “millions” of them. Officials say that the first arrests have targeted migrants convicted of crimes in the U.S. but that anyone living in the country without proper immigration documentation could be targeted. 

Homan said the number being deported is “a lot higher” than under the former administration of President Joe Biden, but added, “We’ve got to get the targeting and production up. It’s hard work.” 

The Trump administration has tapped law enforcement personnel from several U.S. agencies to augment those at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which normally controls migration issues. 

In the first days of the Trump administration, there were hundreds of migrant arrests daily and there still are, but just not as many. 

The Department of Homeland Security reported about 800 arrests a day in late January, topping out at 1,179 on Jan. 26. The figure was fewer than 600 a day in the first two weeks of February. 

The Trump administration had set a goal of 1,200 to 1,500 arrests a day.
…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

While race has long framed South African politics, the country has been largely successful in reconciling its racially diverse people in the years after apartheid. The current government is made up of a coalition of 10 Black-led and white-led political parties that are working together. 
…

MUNICH — The United States, Japan and South Korea renewed their “resolute” pledge to seek the “complete denuclearization” of North Korea, according to a joint statement from the three allies released Saturday.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A summit between Trump and Kim in Hanoi collapsed in 2019 over talks on sanctions relief and what Pyongyang would be willing to give up in return. 
…

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA — The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has fired 20 immigration judges without explanation, a union official said Saturday amid sweeping moves to shrink the size of the federal government. 

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

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

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

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

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

The firings touch on two top Trump priorities: mass deportations and shrinking the size of the federal government. On Thursday, it ordered agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees who had not yet gained civil service protection, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of workers. Probationary workers generally have less than a year on the job. 
…

SIERRA MADRE, CALIFORNIA — Much of the Eastern United States braced for a renewed round of harsh, soggy weather Saturday, with thunderstorms and melting snow combining to pound the Ohio and Tennessee valleys. The lower Mississippi valley was facing the threat of strong tornadoes. 

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

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

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

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

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

California struggles with mudslides 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More winter weather descending

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

In Denver, Colorado, where temperatures are expected to dip as low as minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) over the weekend, the city has extended its cold weather shelters for those living on the streets. The Denver Coliseum — an arena with some 10,000 seats — will be opened Saturday for additional space, while a free bus will loop between the shelters across the city. 
…

BANGUI, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC — Human rights advocates and politicians in Central African Republic claim soldiers who disappeared after being detained last month were kidnapped by mercenaries backed by Russia. The Kremlin has in recent years deepened ties with the gold- and diamond-rich country’s military and government.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yet they’ve been dogged by reports of recklessly disregarding human rights and civilian welfare. A 2023 investigation from the U.S.-based watchdog group The Sentry found that mercenaries train the army on torture tactics and as part of the fight against armed groups opposed to the government had carried out killings, torture and rape.
…

WASHINGTON — U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s attention-grabbing overseas debut may have irritated some key Republicans and alienated allies in Europe, where his statements on Ukraine and NATO went down like a lead balloon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Uncle Sam or Uncle Sucker?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

America’s European allies were critical of Hegseth.

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

European foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas went further. “It is appeasement. It has never worked,” she said.
…

NEW YORK — By the time Cher sang “If I Could Turn Back Time,” it seemed as if time had indeed been turned back and every single “Saturday Night Live” musical guest of 50 years had magically found their way to Radio City Music Hall.

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

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

But Friday night was all about music.

Return of the 1990s

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

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

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

Some comics can do music

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

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

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

They love Michaels

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

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

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

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

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

Creative collaborations

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

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

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

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

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

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

Most valuable player

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

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

A second Nirvana reunion

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

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

Their version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was fierce, a reminder of why the song packed such a wallop when it was first heard.
…

«На Покровському напрямку російські загарбники здійснили 47 спроб потіснити наших захисників із займаних позицій»
…

TAIPEI, TAIWAN — There is no need for one country to control the semiconductor industry, which is complex and needs a division of labor, Taiwan’s top technology official said on Saturday after U.S. President Donald Trump criticized the island’s chip dominance.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Taiwan is willing to be used as a base to assist “friendly democratic countries” in playing their appropriate roles in the semiconductor supply chain, Wu said.
…

NEW YORK — The U.S. Justice Department asked a court Friday to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, with a top official from Washington intervening after federal prosecutors in Manhattan rebuffed his demands to drop the case and some quit in protest.

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

A judge must still approve the request.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The prosecutor, who appeared in court for various hearings in the case, said he was following “a tradition in public service of resigning in a last-ditch effort to head off a serious mistake.” He said he could see how a president such as Trump, with a background in business and politics, “might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal.” But he said any prosecutor “would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way.”
…