Суспільство

Через нічну атаку БПЛА постраждали люди в Одесі, Запоріжжі та Кривому Розі
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WASHINGTON — New FBI Director Kash Patel is expected to be named the acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a Justice Department official said Saturday.

Patel could be sworn in next week, the official said, putting Patel in charge of two of the Justice Department’s largest agencies in an unusual arrangement that raises questions about the future of the bureau that has long drawn the ire of conservatives.

The Justice Department official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the move before it’s announced publicly. White House officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday evening.

Patel was sworn in Friday as FBI director after winning Senate approval despite Democrats’ concerns about the steadfast Trump ally’s plans to radically overhaul the FBI.

ATF is a separate agency with about 5,500 employees and is responsible for enforcing the nation’s laws around firearms, explosives and arson. Among other things, it’s in charge of licensing federal firearms dealers, tracing guns used in crimes and analyzing intelligence in shooting investigations.

The move was first reported Saturday by ABC News.

The news comes days after Attorney General Pam Bondi fired the ATF’s top lawyer. Bondi said in a Fox News interview Friday that she fired chief counsel Pamela Hicks because the agency was “targeting gun owners.” Hicks, who spent more than 20 years as a Justice Department lawyer, said in a social media post that being ATF chief counsel was the “highest honor” of her career.

Conservatives have long railed against ATF over its role in regulating firearms and have suggested shuttering the agency. Under the Biden administration, the ATF advanced new regulations aimed at cracking down on ghost guns and requiring thousands more firearms dealers to run background checks on buyers at gun shows or other places outside brick-and-mortar stores.

In an executive order earlier this month, President Donald Trump directed the attorney general to review all actions taken by the Biden administration around firearms “to assess any ongoing infringements of the Second Amendment rights of our citizens.”

Gun safety groups have raised alarm about putting Patel in charge of the FBI, with gun control group Brady calling him a “known gun rights extremist.” Gun Owners of America, a gun rights group, called his confirmation as FBI director “a major victory for gun owners and constitutional rights advocates nationwide.”

The last confirmed ATF director was Steve Dettelbach, a former federal prosecutor, who led the agency from July 2022 until last month. He was the first confirmed director since 2015 as both Republican and Democratic administrations failed to get nominees through the politically fraught process.
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ISLAMABAD — Pakistan has warned that thousands of Afghan nationals awaiting relocation and resettlement in the United States will be deported to Afghanistan if their cases are rejected or not processed on time.

Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar issued the warning during a television interview aired Saturday, noting that the U.S. has promised to relocate the Afghan community in question from Pakistan “tentatively around September this year.” His office in Islamabad released the interview excerpts.

“If any refugee who was undertaken to be taken by another country after due process —no matter the timeline — if it doesn’t happen and the country refuses, then for us, that will be an illegal immigrant in Pakistan, and we might be forced to send such refugee back to [their] original country, which is Afghanistan,” Dar told Turkey’s TRT national broadcaster.

However, the chief Pakistani diplomat expressed Islamabad’s willingness to resolve the issue with Washington, stating that his government is “examining the situation and will negotiate [accordingly].”

Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump halted refugee applications and travel plans until further notice to ensure that refugee entry into the United States aligns with its national interests.

The decision has stranded around 45,000 Afghans prepared to fly out of Afghanistan and at least 15,000 qualified refugees currently in Pakistan, according to #AfghanEvac, a coalition that assists Afghans with their relocation and resettlement in the U.S.

These individuals were part of Afghan families who fled their country following the Taliban insurgents’ retaking of power in 2021, primarily seeking refuge from potential retribution because of their affiliations with the U.S. and NATO forces during their nearly two-decade-long presence in Afghanistan.

While about 80,000 of these Afghans have since been relocated from Pakistan, officials in Islamabad assert that around 40,000 remain in a state of limbo including around 15,000 in Pakistan destined for the United States.

Since launching a crackdown on undocumented foreign migrants in September 2023, Pakistan has forcibly repatriated more than 825,000 undocumented Afghan refugees to their home country, according to the United Nations.

The government has recently intensified its crackdown, targeting both documented and undocumented Afghan refugees.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered authorities last month to remove all Afghans from Islamabad and the adjoining city of Rawalpindi by Feb. 28 before arranging for deporting them to Afghanistan along with others subsequently. The targeted population encompasses over 2.5 million Afghans nationwide, comprising lawful refugees, documented economic migrants, and those without legal authorization to remain in Pakistan.

Sharif’s directive stipulates March 31 as the deadline for the United States and other countries to process the cases of Afghans awaiting resettlements, thereby preventing their deportation.  
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LONDON/PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will travel to Washington next week amid alarm in Europe over U.S. President Donald Trump’s hardening stance toward Ukraine and overtures to Moscow on the three-year conflict.

The leaders of Europe’s two nuclear powers, who will be traveling separately, are expected to try to persuade Trump not to rush into a ceasefire deal with Vladimir Putin at any cost, keep Europe involved and discuss military guarantees to Ukraine.

Macron, who is trying to capitalize on a relationship with Trump built during their first presidential terms, has said agreeing to a bad deal that would amount to a capitulation of Ukraine would signal weakness to the United States’ foes, including China and Iran.

“I will tell him: deep down you cannot be weak in the face of President (Putin). It’s not you, it’s not what you’re made of and it’s not in your interests,” he said in an hourlong question and answer session on social media ahead of Monday’s visit to the White House.

The visits come amid a rift between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom Trump described as a “dictator.” That has alarmed Kyiv’s European allies, already reeling from a more aggressive U.S. posture on trade, diplomacy and even domestic European politics.

Philip Golub, a professor in international relations at the American University in Paris, said Trump’s rapid-fire moves in his first weeks in office, as well as the rhetoric from other U.S. officials, had been a major shock for the Europeans.

“They could not have expected that somehow within the United States would emerge this ultra-nationalist coalition of forces that would actually challenge Europe’s voice in world affairs in such a stark and strong way,” he told Reuters.

He said Macron believed he had a “historic role to play” in going to Washington to ensure Europe can weigh in on the ultimate negotiations on Ukraine. “Whether he can actually achieve something, however, in this visit is an entirely different matter,” he added.

Starmer, who has also warned the end of the war cannot be a “temporary pause before Putin attacks again,” will be in Washington on Thursday.

Speaking on a Fox News podcast on Friday, Trump said Macron and Starmer had not “done anything” to end the war. “No meetings with Russia!” he said, although he described Macron as “a friend of mine” and Starmer as “a very nice guy.”

However, the two countries are keen to show Trump they are ready to take on a bigger burden for European security.

Britain and France are firming up ideas with allies for military guarantees for Ukraine and their two leaders will seek to persuade Trump to provide U.S. assurances in any post ceasefire deal, Western officials said.

Their respective militaries began initial planning last summer for the post-war scenario, but the discussions accelerated in November after Trump secured the U.S. presidency, a French military official and two diplomats said.

They have also been supported in putting together an array of options by countries like Denmark and the Baltic states as Europeans discuss what they would be ready to do should there be an accord and peacekeepers required, officials said.

While both Britain and France have ruled out sending troops to Ukraine immediately, the plans, still in concept stage, center around providing air, maritime, land and cyber support that would aim to deter Russia from launching any future attacks, Western officials said.

Air and sea assets could be based in Poland or Romania, restoring safe international air space and ensuring the Black Sea remained safe for international shipping, the official said.

Part of the British and French talks center around the possibility of sending European peacekeepers. While U.S. boots on the ground may not be necessary, deterrence in the form of U.S. medium-range missiles and ultimately nuclear weapons will remain crucial.

The options being discussed would center not on providing troops for the frontline or the 2,000-kilometer border which would remain secured by Ukrainian forces, but further to the West, three European diplomats and the military official said.

Those troops could be tasked with protecting key Ukrainian infrastructure such as ports or nuclear facilities to reassure the Ukrainian population. However, Russia has made it clear it would oppose a European presence in Ukraine.

A French military official said there was little sense in talking numbers at this stage because it would depend on what was finally agreed, what international mandate was given and whether non-European troops would also be involved.

“It’s not about the numbers of troops in Ukraine. It’s the ability to mobilize and the ability to arrange everything into a package of interoperability units,” the French official said.

A Western official said that even 30,000 troops could be on the “high side.” 
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На Лиманському напрямку відбулося 12 сутичок протягом дня, триває одна з них
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«Ці елементи нафтоперекачувальної інфраструктури задіяні у забезпеченні окупаційної армії РФ»
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«Загинув 53-річний чоловік, а 56-річний отримав поранення», повідомив Філашкін
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday urged billionaire Elon Musk to be more aggressive in his efforts to shrink the federal government despite the uproar over layoffs and deep spending cuts.

“Elon is doing a great job, but I would like to see him get more aggressive,” Trump posted all in uppercase letters on his Truth Social platform. “Remember, we have a country to save, but ultimately, to make greater than ever before. MAGA!”

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE — an entity created by Trump — has swept across federal government agencies, firing tens of thousands of federal government workers, from scientists to park rangers, mostly those on probation.
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«На Покровському напрямку з початку доби окупанти здійснили 23 спроби потіснити наших захисників із займаних позицій»
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Preparations are underway for a face-to-face meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Russia’s deputy foreign minister said Saturday, marking a dramatic shift away from Western isolation of Moscow over its war in Ukraine.

Speaking to Russian state media, Sergei Ryabkov said a possible Putin-Trump summit could involve broad talks on global issues, not just the war in Ukraine.

“The question is about starting to move toward normalizing relations between our countries, finding ways to resolve the most acute and potentially very, very dangerous situations, of which there are many, Ukraine among them,” he said.

But he said that efforts to organize such a meeting are at an early stage, and that making it happen will require “the most intensive preparatory work.”

Ryabkov said that U.S. and Russian envoys could meet “within the next two weeks” to pave the way for further talks between senior officials.

Russian and U.S. representatives on Tuesday agreed to start working toward ending the war in Ukraine and improving their diplomatic and economic ties, according to the two countries’ top diplomats, at a high-level meeting in Saudi Arabia that marked an extraordinary about-face in U.S. foreign policy under Trump.

After the meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the AP that the two sides agreed broadly to pursue three goals: to restore staffing at their respective embassies in Washington and Moscow; to create a high-level team to support Ukraine peace talks; and to explore closer relations and economic cooperation.

He stressed, however, that the talks — which were attended by his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, and other senior Russian and U.S. officials — marked the beginning of a conversation, and that more work needs to be done. Lavrov, for his part, hailed the meeting as “very useful.”

No Ukrainian officials were present at the meeting, which came as the beleaguered country is slowly but steadily losing ground against more-numerous Russian troops, three years after Moscow launched an all-out invasion of its smaller neighbor.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country would not accept any outcome from the talks since Kyiv didn’t take part, and he postponed his own trip to Saudi Arabia scheduled for last Wednesday. European allies also have expressed concerns they are being sidelined.
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WASHINGTON — This week, thousands of conservative politicians, activists and influencers convened outside Washington for the Conservative Political Action Conference, the premier annual gathering of the American right.

The four-day event, hosted by the American Conservative Union since 1974, features U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, among other high-profile speakers from around the world.

Dubbed the “Woodstock for conservatives,” CPAC was once the go-to event for conservative Republicans and presidential hopefuls, with its presidential straw poll serving as a barometer of grassroots support. However, Trump’s political rise in recent years has transformed it into a platform for populism.

Driven by the rise of populist movements globally, the conference has ventured overseas in the past decade. It launched its first international conference in Japan in 2017, expanded to Australia, Brazil and South Korea in 2019, then added Hungary, Mexico and Israel in 2022. Argentina joined the fold last year following the election of populist President Javier Milei.

The international conferences, CPAC says, serve to “unite conservatives from all over the world, strengthen the movement, and challenge globalism.” They are also used for public outreach, recruitment and mobilization, according to a recent paper on CPAC by Grant A. Silverman, a research assistant at George Washington University in Washington.

CPAC’s growing international outreach mirrors a recent surge in far-right populism worldwide. Last year’s foreign speakers included Presidents Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and Javier Milei of Argentina, as well as Prime Minister Victor Orbán of Hungary.

Here’s a look at some of the foreign speakers for this year’s CPAC and what they’re saying:

Javier Milei, Argentine president

Milei, wielding a chain saw, electrified the CPAC crowd Thursday when he shared the stage with billionaire Elon Musk and presented Musk, Trump’s cost-cutting czar, with his signature campaign prop.

“This is the chain saw of bureaucracy,” Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, shouted, waving the tool.

As head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk, who made his first CPAC appearance, is spearheading the Trump administration’s massive governmentwide cost-cutting efforts.

This marks Milei’s third CPAC appearance. The self-styled “anarcho-capitalist” campaigned in 2023 on shrinking Argentina’s government, often brandishing a chain saw at rallies.

At last year’s Washington conference, he vowed to eliminate unnecessary government agencies, declaring, “We will not surrender until we make Argentina great again!”

Speaking at CPAC Argentina in December, Milei declared that the “new winds of freedom are sweeping through the world” and called on allies to fight against “lefties.”

“We must stand together, establishing channels of cooperation throughout the world,” he told the crowd.

Jair Bolsonaro, former president of Brazil

Brazil’s former right-wing president is a CPAC regular. After Bolsonaro lost a reelection bid in 2022, his supporters stormed federal government buildings in an alleged attempt to seize power. Banned from seeking office until 2030, Bolsonaro faces charges of plotting a coup.

His son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, organizes CPAC Brazil. At last year’s conference in Balneario Camboriu, the elder Bolsonaro joined Milei and other right-wing politicians from Latin America to hail conservatism’s global rise and expressed hope for Trump’s return to office.

For his part, Milei used the platform to denounce socialism, saying it restricts liberties and breeds corruption.

Robert Fico, prime minister of Slovakia

Robert Fico makes his CPAC debut this year. Though he leads a left-wing populist party, he has drawn controversy for his attacks on journalists, immigrants and LGBTQ+ people.

In October, he called journalists “bloody bastards” and threatened new media restrictions. An opponent of same-sex marriage, he has called adoption by gay couples a “perversion.”

During the Ukraine conflict, Fico has opposed European sanctions on Moscow and echoed Moscow’s messaging, drawing comparisons to Hungary’s pro-Kremlin prime minister.

In May, he survived an assassination attempt by a gunman opposed to his stance against military assistance to Ukraine.

Mateusz Morawiecki, former Polish prime minister

After speaking at CPAC Hungary last year, Morawiecki makes his first U.S. appearance this year. He served as prime minister from 2017 to 2023 and is now a leading figure in the opposition Law and Justice Party.

Despite his party’s strong support for Ukraine, Morawiecki maintains close ties with Hungary’s Orban and Spain’s Santiago Abascal, leader of the conservative Vox political party. Abascal is an invited speaker at CPAC.

Immigration is a unifying issue for Europe’s right-wing populists. At last year’s Hungary conference, Morawiecki called Orban his friend and credited his tough response to Europe’s 2015 migration crisis with preventing “chaos” in Europe.

Liz Truss, former British prime minister

The former Conservative Party leader and prime minister made her second CPAC appearance in a row Wednesday. Calling Britain a “failed state” ruled by a socialist government, she called for a Trump-style MAGA movement to save it.

“We want a Trump revolution in Britain,” she said to applause, praising Trump’s second presidency as “the golden age of America.”

Blaming Britain’s decline on unelected bureaucrats, she urged the dismantlement of the “deep state,” a favorite theme among conference attendees.

“We want Elon and his nerd army of muskrats examining the British deep state,” Truss said.

Truss served just 49 days as prime minister and lost her Parliament seat last year. 
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A total of 177 Venezuelan migrants were deported by the United States from the Guantanamo naval base, where they were detained, in another sign of cooperation between these historically feuding countries.

Click here for the full story in Spanish. 
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Congressman Riley Moore recently wrote an op-ed urging the administration to ban all student visas for Chinese nationals to prevent the CCP from using U.S. academic institutions as platforms for espionage. Experts told VOA Mandarin that due to the number of espionage cases Chinese students in the U.S. involved in, it might be more helpful to close the CCP-sponsored Chinese students and scholars’ associations on U.S. campuses.

Click here for the full story in Mandarin.  
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Politicians, media personalities and conservative activists gathered outside Washington on Friday for the second day of a conference featuring a range of political allies of President Donald Trump.

Speakers at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) heralded the Trump administration’s first month in office, with dozens of executive orders that have proposed sweeping changes to a wide range of government policies and positions on international issues.

Mike Waltz, the president’s national security adviser, told the CPAC audience Friday that the Trump administration’s efforts to end the Ukraine war are certain to include U.S. investments in Ukraine’s mineral assets as part of a plan to recoup some funding for Ukraine’s defense.

Earlier this week, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected a proposal that would grant American companies 50% ownership of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, but Waltz on Friday said the Ukrainian leader “is going to sign” a revised U.S. offer.

Waltz also said the Trump administration plans to “unleash holy hell” on drug cartels. On Wednesday, the State Department designated several Mexican drug cartels as terrorist groups.

Journalist-turned-politician Kari Lake, whom Trump said in December he would like to see lead Voice of America, spoke about what she sees as the president’s wins in his first month in office, and her views on legacy media.

“Watching what President Trump has accomplished and done in one month is so incredible,” Lake said, referring to actions by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency and the State Department to search for corruption and curtail spending, including by ending foreign aid funding.

A former TV journalist in Arizona for nearly 30 years, Lake spoke of how she quit journalism because of what she felt was disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’re still surrounded by too many fake journalists out there,” Lake said, adding that she believes the “purpose of the mainstream media is no longer to inform us, it’s to manipulate us.”

She criticized Associated Press reporting on government officials and independent bodies who validated the results of the 2020 election, saying, “They still pretend the 2020 election was the most secure election in all of history.”

Lake also said that she is honored that Trump named her to lead VOA, and said she will focus the news agency on producing “accurate and honest reporting.”

“VOA has been telling America’s story to the world for 83 years this Monday. Sometimes the coverage has been incredible and sometimes it’s been pitiful,” Lake said. “We are fighting an information war, and there’s no better weapon than the truth, and I believe VOA could be that weapon.”

Among those who have called for the network to be cut is Musk.

“We won’t become Trump TV,” she said, “but it sure as hell will not be ‘TDS TV.’ You can find all the Trump Derangement Syndrome that you want over on CNN, MSNBC, PBS, ’60 Minutes,’ The Washington Post and The New York Times.”

Trump is expected to address the CPAC gathering on Saturday.
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Київська обласна військова адміністрація повідомила про роботу протиповітряної оборони по цілях у регіоні
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Унаслідок атаки горить складське приміщення
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The measles outbreak in rural West Texas has grown to 90 cases across seven counties, the state health department posted online Friday, and 16 people are hospitalized. 

In neighboring eastern New Mexico, the measles case count is up to nine, though state public health officials said Thursday there’s still no evidence this outbreak is connected to the one in Texas. 

The West Texas cases are concentrated in eight counties in West Texas.  

Texas state health department data shows that most of the cases are among people younger than 18. Twenty-six cases are in kids younger than 4 and 51 are in kids 5-17 years old. Ten adults have measles, and three cases are pending an age determination. The Ector County Health Department told the Odessa American its case was in a child too young to be vaccinated. 

State health officials have said this outbreak is Texas’ largest in nearly 30 years. Health department spokeswoman Lara Anton said last week that cases have been concentrated in a “close-knit, undervaccinated” Mennonite community — especially among families who attend small private religious schools or are homeschooled. 

In New Mexico, all of the cases are in Lea County, which borders Gaines County in Texas. The state health department has said people may have been exposed at a grocery store, an elementary school, a church, hospital and a pharmacy in Hobbs, New Mexico. 

Measles is a highly contagious respiratory virus that can survive in the air for up to two hours. Up to 9 out of 10 people who are susceptible will get the virus if exposed, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Most kids will recover from the measles if they get it, but infection can lead to dangerous complications like pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and death. 

The vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella is safe and highly effective in preventing measles infection and severe cases of the disease. 

The first shot is recommended for children between 12 and 15 months old and the second between 4 and 6 years old. The vaccine series is required for kids before entering kindergarten in public schools nationwide. 

Before the vaccine was introduced in 1963, the U.S. saw some 3 million to 4 million cases per year. Now, it’s usually fewer than 200 in a normal year. 

There is no link between the vaccine and autism, despite a now-discredited study and health disinformation. 

In communities with high vaccination rates — above 95% — diseases like measles have a harder time spreading through communities. This is called “herd immunity.” 

But childhood vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the pandemic and more parents are claiming religious or personal conscience waivers to exempt their kids from required shots. 

The U.S. saw a rise in measles cases in 2024, including an outbreak in Chicago that sickened more than 60.  

Gaines County has one of the highest rates in Texas of school-aged children who opt out of at least one required vaccine, with nearly 14% of K-12 children in the 2023-24 school year. Health officials say that number is likely higher because it doesn’t include many children who are homeschooled and whose data would not be reported. 

Health workers are hosting regular vaccination clinics and screening efforts in Texas, as well as working with schools to educate people about the importance of vaccination and offering shots. 

New Mexico health officials are also hosting several vaccination clinics in Hobbs next week. 
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