Суспільство

U.S. envoy Keith Kellogg met in Kyiv Thursday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but there was no immediate word on whether they had eased U.S.-Ukrainian relations after U.S. President Donald Trump and Zelenskyy traded barbs this week over Russia’s three-year war against Ukraine.

Kellogg said upon arriving in the Ukrainian capital that he was there to listen to Zelenskyy’s views after officials in Kyiv voiced their anger at being excluded this week when the top U.S. and Russian diplomats met in Saudi Arabia to lay the groundwork for talks to end the fighting.

After Kellogg met with Zelenskyy, the two men were expected to hold a news conference, but the Ukrainian side said the Americans asked that it be called off, and it was.

Trump and Zelenskyy assailed each other this week. The U.S. president, echoing Russian attacks, called Zelenskyy a “dictator without elections,” while Zelenskyy accused Trump of living in a Russian-influenced “disinformation space” when the U.S. leader indicated that Ukraine started the war. It was Moscow that invaded its neighbor three years ago next week.

Ukraine fears that Trump is moving to settle the war on terms more favorable to Moscow. Russia currently controls about a fifth of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance told a gathering of conservative activists outside Washington on Thursday that Trump “wants the killing to stop” in Ukraine and that “peace is in the interest of the American people.”

He said after the U.S.-Russian talks in Riyadh, “We’re on the cusp of peace.” Vance did not mention Ukraine’s role in settling the conflict, although U.S. officials have said Kyiv and Moscow will both be involved in the settlement and have to make concessions to achieve peace.

European leaders have responded to Trump’s recent remarks about Ukraine by pledging to step up spending on defense, and some are considering a U.S.-backed European peacekeeping force for the country if the fighting ends. The Kremlin says the plan is a major cause for concern, but Zelenskyy and NATO have welcomed it.

“It is vital that … Russia will never again try to take one more square kilometer of Ukrainian land,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said, adding that a peace pact would have to entail robust security guarantees for Ukraine.

“While there is much that still needs to be decided, there is no question that Europe has a vital role to play in securing peace in Ukraine,” he told reporters in Bratislava.

In a string of comments on his Truth Social platform this week, Trump accused Zelenskyy of refusing to hold elections in Ukraine, which had been scheduled for April 2024 but were delayed after Russia invaded in 2022.

Trump disparaged Zelenskyy as “a modestly successful comedian” and said, “The only thing he was good at was playing [former U.S. President Joe] Biden ‘like a fiddle'” for more U.S. military assistance.”

“I love Ukraine,” Trump said, “but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died — And so it continues.”

Earlier, Trump had scoffed at Zelenskyy’s complaint about not being invited to the Tuesday talks in Riyadh headed by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

“Today I heard, ‘Well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years,” Trump said of Ukraine’s leaders.
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SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA — U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order aimed at ending federal benefits for people in the country illegally, the White House said Wednesday, his latest in a blizzard of moves to crack down on immigration.

The White House said the order seeks to end “all taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal aliens,” but it was not clear which benefits will be targeted. People in the country illegally generally do not qualify except for emergency medical care. Children are entitled to a free K-12 public education regardless of immigration status under a 1982 Supreme Court ruling.

The order notes that a 1996 welfare overhaul denies most public benefits to people in the country illegally but says that law has been gradually undermined. “Over the last 4 years, in particular, the prior administration repeatedly undercut the goals of that law, resulting in the improper expenditure of significant taxpayer resources.”

Trump’s words appear directed at former President Joe Biden’s extensive use of parole authority to allow people in the country temporarily, including more than 900,000 through an online appointment app called CBP One used at border crossings with Mexico and more than 500,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who flew to the United States at their own expense with a financial sponsor. Trump immediately ended both programs.

Biden also granted parole to nearly 300,000 people from Ukraine and Afghanistan.

People granted parole for at least a year are considered “qualified noncitizens,” making them eligible for some income-based benefits, but only after five years. They include Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides coverage to children in families that earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid, according to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Some states have shortened the five-year wait.

Trump’s order appears to have other targets, some already subjects of earlier edicts and Justice Department lawsuits. It directs all departments and agencies to identify federal benefit spending that is inconsistent with the 1996 welfare law. It also seeks to ensure that state and local governments are not using federal funds for policies that support “sanctuary” policies or encourage illegal immigration.

Trump signed 10 executive orders on immigration on his first day in office. They included ending automatic citizenship for people born in the United States and asylum at the southern border. The birthright citizenship order has been temporarily halted in court.
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Російські загарбники 10 разів атакували на Новопавлівському напрямку, поблизу Костянтинополя, Роздольного, Новоочеретуватого та Привільного
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«Задокументовано, як Пєвцов неодноразово поширював антиукраїнські наративи під час масових заходів за участі Путіна»
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SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — North Korean state media on Thursday criticized the United States for a nuclear submarine deal with Australia under the AUKUS partnership signed in 2021, calling it a “threat to regional peace.”

A commentary carried by KCNA said Washington should be wary of consequences for what it said were nuclear alliances, naming AUKUS and the trilateral cooperation with South Korea and Japan.

Australia just made its first $500 million payment to the U.S. under the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal.

Under AUKUS, Australia will pay the United States $3 billion to boost the capacity of the U.S. submarine industry, and Washington will sell several Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines to Australia in the early 2030s.

The KCNA commentary also argued the U.S. sees North Korea as an obstacle to its establishment of hegemony in the region and said nuclear states will not sit idly by, referring to itself.

North Korea has been criticizing the trilateral military cooperation between South Korea, Japan and the U.S. and has called the relationship “the Asian version of NATO.”

South Korea’s defense ministry on Thursday said that a joint air drill was held with the U.S. with at least one B-1B strategic bomber taking part.

The drill was to show extended deterrent capabilities by the United States in response to threats from North Korea’s nuclear and missile program, the ministry said in a statement.
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ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE/ WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he expected Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit the United States, without giving a timeline for his trip.

Trump made the remarks to reporters on Air Force One and said “it’s possible” for the U.S. and China to have a new trade deal. A conversation or interaction between Xi and Trump is seen as crucial to a potential easing or delay of trade tariffs.

“We’ll have, ultimately, President Xi, we will have everybody coming (to the U.S.),” Trump said, while also speaking about other leaders potentially visiting the United States.

Xi last travelled to the U.S. in November 2023, in his fifth visit to the country as Chinese president, for a summit with then U.S. President Joe Biden, resulting in agreements to resume military-to-military communications and curb fentanyl production.

Trump and Xi had spoken just before Trump took office on January 20 and discussed issues including TikTok, trade and Taiwan.

Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he was talking to China about TikTok as the United States seeks to broker a sale of the popular app owned by Chinese parent firm ByteDance.

Trump said last week he had spoken to Xi since taking office as well, but did not offer details on the topics of that conversation. China’s foreign ministry did not directly comment on Trump’s remarks that day and instead referred reporters to their “scheduled” call before Trump took office.

Washington and Beijing have had tense relations for years over differences ranging from trade and tariffs and cybersecurity, and TikTok, Taiwan, Hong Kong, human rights and the origins of COVID-19.

Trump also again told reporters he could make a deal with Russia over the war in Ukraine.

“We can make a deal with Russia to stop the killing,” Trump said, adding he thought the Russians wanted to see the war end.

“I think they have the cards a little bit because they’ve taken a lot of territory, so they have the cards,” Trump said. 
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PANAMA CITY — A group of migrants deported from the U.S. to Panama last week were moved on Tuesday night from a hotel in the capital to the Darien jungle region in the south of the country, a lawyer representing a migrant family told Reuters on Wednesday.

Susana Sabalza, a Panamanian migration lawyer, said the family she represents was transferred to Meteti, a town in the Darien, along with other deported migrants.

La Estrella de Panama, a local daily, reported on Wednesday that 170 of the 299 migrants who had been in the hotel were moved to the Darien.

Panama’s government did not respond to a request for comment.

The 299 migrants have been staying at a hotel in Panama City under the protection of local authorities and with the financial support of the United States through the U.N.-related International Organization for Migration and the U.N. refugee agency, according to the Panamanian government.

The migrants include people from Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, according to Panama’s president, Jose Raul Mulino, who has agreed with the U.S. to receive non-Panamanian deportees.

The deportation of non-Panamanian migrants to Panama is part of the Trump administration’s attempt to ramp up deportations of migrants living in the U.S. illegally.

One of the challenges to Trump’s plan is that some migrants come from countries that refuse to accept U.S. deportation flights, due to strained diplomatic relations or other reasons. The arrangement with Panama allows the U.S. to deport these nationalities and makes it Panama’s responsibility to organize their onward repatriation.

The process has been criticized by human rights groups that worry migrants could be mistreated and also fear for their safety if they are ultimately returned to violent or war-torn countries of origin, such as Afghanistan.

Sabalza said she had not been able to see her clients while they were held at the hotel in Panama City and said she is seeking permission to visit them at their new location. She declined to identify their nationality, but said they were a Muslim family who “could be decapitated” if they returned home.

Sabalza said the family would be requesting asylum in Panama or “any country that will receive them other than their own.”

Mulino said previously the migrants would be moved to a shelter in the Darien region, which includes the dense and lawless jungle separating Central America from South America that has in recent years become a corridor for hundreds of thousands of migrants aiming to reach the United States.

Panama’s security minister said on Tuesday that more than half of the migrants deported from the United States in recent days had accepted voluntary repatriations to their home countries.

On Wednesday morning the hotel in Panama City where the migrants had been held appeared quiet, according to a Reuters witness.

On Tuesday some migrants had been seen holding hands and looking out a window of the hotel to get the attention of reporters outside.

Migrants in the hotel were not allowed to leave, according to media reports.

On Wednesday, Panama’s migration service said in a statement that a Chinese national, Zheng Lijuan, had escaped from the hotel. It asked that she return and accused unspecified people outside the hotel of aiding her escape.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans will push ahead on Thursday with a measure to kickstart President Donald Trump’s agenda on immigration, energy and defense, Majority Leader John Thune said on Wednesday, after Trump called on them to drop the plan in favor of a sweeping resolution prepared by House Republicans.

Trump came down firmly in favor of the House of Representatives’ plan for one sweeping bill that would also include trillions of dollars in tax cuts. House Republicans fear that the Senate’s “skinny” plan could diminish their chances of extending Trump’s tax cuts later in their own chamber, where the party holds a narrow and fractious 218-215 majority.

“We need both Chambers to pass the House Budget to ‘kickstart’ the Reconciliation process, and move all of our priorities to the concept of, ‘ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL’,” the president wrote on social media on Wednesday morning.

After a lunch meeting with Vice President JD Vance and his own Senate Republicans, Thune told reporters that he would still go ahead with the smaller bill.

“In the end, we’ll be able to, whether it’s one bill or two bills, to get all the things that the president’s outlined — his objectives — across the finish line,” said Thune, adding that he expected the Senate to vote on its own blueprint on Thursday.

Some Republicans said they were confused about the plan to proceed after Trump’s message.

“It seems a little strange to me,” Senator Josh Hawley said.

“If the president supports it and … I have some assurance of that, I’ll support it,” the Missouri Republican added. “But it just seems a little bizarre to me. I can’t quite figure out what we’re doing.”

Meanwhile, Democrats promised a long, drawn-out fight.

“Senate Democrats will expose Republicans’ reconciliation budget bill exactly for what it is: a sinister front for clearing the way to cut taxes for Donald Trump’s billionaire buddies,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said.

The Senate measure, a $340 billion fiscal 2025 budget resolution, would boost spending by $85 billion a year for four years to fund tighter border security, Trump’s deportation of immigrants in the country illegally, energy deregulation and an increase in military spending. Republicans say the plan would offset the higher spending with funding cuts in other areas.

The House budget resolution includes those same priorities along with $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, while seeking to cover the cost through $2 trillion in spending cuts and accelerated economic growth based mainly on the tax and energy policy changes it would usher in.

‘FULL agenda’

Both chambers of Congress need to pass the same budget resolution to unlock the parliamentary tool that would enable Republicans to enact Trump’s legislative agenda in a way that circumvents Democratic opposition and the Senate filibuster.

Republican lawmakers in recent weeks have backed away from concerns that extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts could add to the nation’s fast-growing $36 trillion in debt. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that Trump’s full tax cut agenda could cost more than $5 trillion over the next decade.

House Republicans welcomed Trump’s intervention as they try to forge unity for a floor vote on their own budget blueprint expected next week.

“@realDonaldTrump is right! House Republicans are working to deliver President Trump’s FULL agenda – not just a small part of it. Let’s get it done, @HouseGOP!” tweeted House Speaker Mike Johnson, Thune’s Republican counterpart.

The difference between the House and Senate strategies comes down to Trump’s proposed tax cuts.

House Republicans fear the two-step Senate approach could lead to a stalled standalone tax cut bill if lawmakers cannot agree on offsetting cuts in spending. Senate Republicans worry that the rush for all-encompassing legislation may not provide enough time to adequately handle the intricacies of the tax component.

Senate Republicans began moving forward with their own budget resolution last week in response to what they described as a plea for border and immigration funding from Trump “border czar” Tom Homan and White House budget director Russ Vought. 
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«Ворог змінює викраденим дітям персональні дані та громадянство, щоб унеможливити їхнє повернення в рідні домівки»
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Олег Діденко зауважив, що поштове чи електронне голосування дуже піддаються дискредитації
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While the U.S. is holding off on imposing 25% tariffs on Canada, a new poll shows Canadians are angered by U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat of tariffs against Canada and his comments about making their nation the 51st U.S. state.  

Observers believe that once the U.S. tariffs are implemented, it will hit the Canadian economy hard and may also allow China to reap the benefits. However, some Chinese American entrepreneurs in Canada say the U.S.-Canada tariff war has limited impact on their business. 

Click here for the full story in Mandarin.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has identified over 600 energy and other infrastructure projects that could be fast-tracked under President Donald Trump’s National Energy Emergency declaration, according to data posted on its website. 

Among the projects on the list were Enbridge’s Line 5 oil pipeline under Lake Michigan, several natural gas power plants, and liquefied natural gas export terminals proposed by Cheniere and Venture Global. 

The Army Corps posted the list, without sending a public notice, last week, marking the projects as eligible for emergency permitting treatment. 

Trump had ordered the Army Corps to issue permits enabling the filling of wetlands and dredging or building in waterways as part of the “National Energy Emergency” he declared in a day-one executive order. 

The Army Corps was not immediately available for comment. 

The fast-tracking of these projects could trigger legal fights over many of the permits that will be issued, with environmental groups warning they are flouting federal laws. 

“This end-run around the normal environmental review process is not only harmful for our waters but is illegal under the Corps’ own emergency permitting regulations,” said David Bookbinder, director of Law and Policy at The Environmental Integrity Project.

Courts may be unwilling to weigh in on the president’s criteria for what constitutes a national energy emergency but will more likely weigh how individual projects adhere to the language of the executive order, he said. 

Companies with projects awaiting key permits applauded the move to “streamline” the review process. 

“Line 5 is critical energy infrastructure,” said Enbridge spokesperson Gina Sutherland, saying the company has been awaiting a permit for building a Great Lakes Tunnel under Lake Michigan for nearly five years. 

“We are very encouraged to see this action to expedite review for responsible critical mineral development projects,” said Jon Cherry, CEO of Perpetua Resources, which is developing a U.S. antimony and gold mine in Idaho with financial support from the Pentagon and U.S. Export-Import Bank. 

The Biden administration had issued the mine a permit, but it still needs a wetlands permit, which Cherry said he expects to receive by July. 

The Army Corps has in the past issued emergency designations to skip over environmental reviews in cases in which the project addressed poses a threat to human life. 

Environmental and watchdog groups say that most of the projects marked as emergencies on the list do not meet the Army Corps’ definition of an emergency. They also question the Trump administration’s justification for declaring a national energy emergency.  

“It is laughable to see Line 5 on this list,” said Debbie Chizewer, managing attorney for the Midwestern office of Earthjustice, which represents the Bay Mills Indian Community in opposition of the project. “It’s a pipeline that carries crude oil from Canada to Canada and will not increase U.S. capacity or respond to Trump’s declared energy emergency.” 

Other projects do not relate to energy production, including a home-building project built on land owned by oil giant Chevron in California, as well as an aerial electrical distribution line to private waterfront residences in Alabama. 

There are at least five dozen solar energy projects on the list. Solar and wind energy were excluded from the definition of energy in Trump’s energy emergency order. 

West Virginia has the largest number of projects on the list at 141. There are 60 in Pennsylvania, 57 in Texas, 42 in Florida, and 41 in Ohio, according to the Environmental Integrity Project, which is tracking the permits. 

Officials at Venture Global and Cheniere were not immediately available to comment.
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Російські війська протягом середи атакували три населених пункт на Харківщині. Унаслідок обстрілів загинула одна людина, ще четверо були поранені, повідомила Харківська обласна прокуратура. 

За даними слідства, 19 лютого близько 15:30 збройні сили РФ вдарили КАБами по приватному житловому сектору у Купʼянську. З-під завалів будинку рятувальники деблокували тіло 59-річного чоловіка. У місті пошкоджено понад 10 приватних домоволодінь, господарчі приміщення.

У селі Вільхуватка Купʼянського району зафіксовано влучання росіського FPV-дрона.Були поранені двоє чоловіків віком 65 та 55 років. Пошкоджено приватні домоволодіння, кажуть у прокуратурі.

Крім того, у селищі Купʼянськ-Вузловий внаслідок обстрілу РФ загорівся будинок. Зазнали поранень двоє мирних мешканців. У важкому стані обох потерпілих госпіталізували до лікарні. Також про цю атаку повідомив голова ОВА Олег Синєгубов.

Російські військові регулярно з різних видів озброєння – ударними БПЛА, ракетами, КАБами, РСЗВ – атакують українські регіони.

Керівництво Росії заперечує, що російська армія під час повномасштабної війни завдає цілеспрямованих ударів по цивільній інфраструктурі міст і сіл України, убиваючи цивільне населення і руйнуючи лікарні, школи, дитячі садочки, об’єкти енергетики та водозабезпечення.

Українська влада і міжнародні організації кваліфікують ці удари як воєнні злочини Російської Федерації і наголошують, що вони носять цілеспрямований характер.

 
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Inflation in the United States increased in January as prices of food, gasoline and housing, among others, continued to rise. VOA correspondent Veronica Balderas Iglesias talked to economists about what the Trump administration can do to bring prices down.
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«Троє 17-річних хлопців втекли після того, як їм вручили повістки до армії РФ», розповіла директорка Bring Kids Back UA
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