Politics - viralpique.com

Education Department layoffs hit offices that oversee special education and civil rights enforcement

0 CommentsPolitics

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new round of layoffs at the Education Department is depleting an agency that was hit hard in the Trump administration’s previous mass firings, threatening new disruption to the nation’s students and schools in areas from special education to civil rights enforcement and after-school programs. The Trump administration started laying off 466 Education Department staffers on Friday amid mass firings across the government meant to pressure Democratic lawmakers over the federal shutdown. The layoffs would cut the agency’s workforce by nearly a fifth and leave it reduced by more than half itssize when President Donald Trump took…

WATCH: Trump meets with Egypt’s el-Sisi ahead of summit on Gaza ceasefire

0 CommentsPolitics

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — President Donald Trump arrived in Egypt on Monday for a global summit on Gaza’s future as he tries to advance peace in the Middle East after visiting Israel to celebrate a U.S.-brokered ceasefire with Hamas. The whirlwind trip, which included a speech at the Knesset in Jerusalem earlier in the day, comes at a fragile moment of hope for ending two years of war between Israel and Hamas. “Everybody said it’s not possible to do. And it’s going to happen. And it is happening before your very eyes,” Trump said alongside Egyptian President Abdel…

WATCH: Trump celebrates hostage release, calls for Netanyahu pardon in speech to Israeli parliament

0 CommentsPolitics

JERUSALEM (AP) — President Donald Trump told Israeli lawmakers on Monday that their country had no more to achieve on the battlefield and must work toward peace in the Middle East after two years of war against Hamas and skirmishes with Hezbollah and Iran. LIVE UPDATES: Hamas frees living hostages, Israel releases prisoners as Trump visits Middle East Although the U.S.-brokered truce between Israel and Hamas remains fragile, Trump is determined to seize an opportunity to chase an elusive regional harmony. “Generations from now, this will be remembered as the moment that everything began to change,” he declared to the…

WATCH: Trump departs for Middle East as ceasefire agreement holds in Gaza

0 CommentsPolitics

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump set off for Israel and Egypt on Sunday to celebrate the U.S.-brokered ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas and urge Middle East allies to seize the opportunity to build a durable peace in the volatile region. It’s a fragile moment with Israel and Hamas only in the early stages of implementing the first phase of the Trump agreement designed to bring a permanent end to the war sparked by the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas-led militants. Trump thinks there is a narrow window to reshape the Mideast and reset…

On 12th day of shutdown, Vance warns new ‘painful’ cuts ahead

0 CommentsPolitics

Vice President JD Vance on Sunday said there will be deeper cuts to the federal workforce the longer the government shutdown goes on, adding to the uncertainty facing hundreds of thousands who are already furloughed without pay amid the stubborn stalemate in Congress. Vance warned that as the federal shutdown entered its 12th day, the new cuts would be “painful,” even as he said the Trump administration worked to ensure that the military is paid this week and some services would be preserved for low-income Americans, including food assistance. Still, hundreds of thousands of government workers have been furloughed in…

Trump says he may send Ukraine long-range Tomahawk missiles if Russia continues conflict

0 CommentsPolitics

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (AP) — President Donald Trump on Sunday warned Russia that he may send Ukraine long-range Tomahawk missiles if Moscow doesn’t settle its war there soon — suggesting that he could be ready to increase the pressure on Vladimir Putin’s government using a key weapons system. “I might say, ’Look: if this war is not going to get settled, I’m going to send them Tomahawks,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew to Israel. “The Tomahawk is an incredible weapon, very offensive weapon. And honestly, Russia does not need that.” Trump said, “I might…

Russia targets Ukraine’s power grid as Moscow expresses ‘extreme concern’ over long-range U.S. weapons

0 CommentsPolitics

Russia attacked Ukraine’s power grid overnight, part of an ongoing campaign to cripple Ukrainian energy infrastructure before winter, and expressed “extreme concern” over the U.S. potentially providing Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. Kyiv regional Gov. Mykola Kalashnyk said two employees of Ukraine’s largest private energy company DTEK were wounded in Russian strikes on a substation. Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said that infrastructure was also targeted in the regions of Donetsk, Odesa and Chernihiv. “Russia continues its aerial terror against our cities and communities, intensifying strikes on our energy infrastructure,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X, noting that Russia had launched…

China refuses to give in to Trump’s tariff threat

0 CommentsPolitics

BEIJING (AP) — China signaled Sunday that it would not back down in the face of a 100% tariff threat from President Donald Trump, urging the U.S. to resolve differences through negotiations instead of threats. U.S. Vice President JD Vance defended Trump’s position and seemed to warn China not to be aggressive in its response. “China’s stance is consistent,” the Commerce Ministry said in a statement posted online. “We do not want a tariff war but we are not afraid of one.” It was China’s first official comment on Trump’s threat to jack up the tax on imports from China…

WATCH: 8 children displaced by war are reunited with their families through talks with Putin, Melania Trump says

0 CommentsPolitics

WASHINGTON (AP) — Melania Trump announced Friday that eight children displaced by the Russia-Ukraine war have been reunited with their families following ongoing talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Watch the announcement in our video player above. Melania Trump in August wrote a letter to Putin and had her husband hand-deliver it during his meeting with the Russian president in Alaska. READ MORE: Putin praises Trump’s peace efforts, despite failure to win Nobel prize Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in Russia taking Ukrainian children out of their country so that they can be raised as Russian. The first lady,…

‘RIFs have begun.’ Vought announces start of mass firings during government shutdown

0 CommentsPolitics

A spokesperson for the budget office said the reductions are “substantial” but did not offer more immediate details. WATCH: ‘Do your damn job,’ federal worker union leaders tell Congress mired in shutdown The Education Department is among the agencies hit by new layoffs, a department spokesperson said Friday without providing more details. The department had about 4,100 employees when Trump took office in January, but its workforce was nearly halved amid mass layoffs in the Republican administration’s first months. At the start of the shutdown, it had about 2,500 employees. Federal health workers were also being fired Friday, though a…