Category Archives: Trump administration

Son of CIA deputy director was killed while fighting for Russia, report says

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Michael Alexander Gloss, 21, who died on 4 April 2024, was the son of top-ranking US spy Juliane Gallina

An American man identified as the son of a deputy director of the CIA was killed in eastern Ukraine in 2024 while fighting under contract for the Russian military, according to an investigation by independent Russian media.

Michael Alexander Gloss, 21, died on 4 April 2024 in “Eastern Europe”, according to an obituary published by his family. He was the son of Juliane Gallina, who was appointed the deputy director for digital innovation at the Central Intelligence Agency in February 2024.

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A carve-up in gift wrapping: Trump’s peace plan puts the sacrifice on Ukraine

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Redolent of old great power thinking, Trump’s Crimea giveaway could usher a return to international lawlessness

“Crimea will stay with Russia,” Donald Trump told Time magazine in a largely sympathetic profile on Friday. And with that statement, the US president made clear that he wanted to carve up another country, Ukraine, and so legitimise the forcible seizure of land made by Moscow 11 years ago.

From reading the transcript of the interview, Trump’s thinking is hardly coherent. Crimea, he says, wouldn’t have been seized if he had been president in 2014, but “it was handed to them by Barack Hussein Obama” and now Crimea has “been with them [Russia] for a long time” – so it is time to accept the seizure.

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Democratic lawmakers call for release of Tufts student from Ice detention

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Jim McGovern and Ayanna Pressley exhort authorities to free Rümeysa Öztürk, calling her treatment ‘repression’

A group of high-profile Democratic lawmakers has called on the Donald Trump administration to immediately release the Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk, praised her “unwavering spirit” and warned that the White House is engaging in “repression”.

In a New York Times essay published on Friday morning, the US senator Ed Markey and representatives Jim McGovern and Ayanna Pressley, who all represent Massachusetts, where Tufts is based, shared more details from their visit to Öztürk this week at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention center in Louisiana, where she has been held since her arrest last month.

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Trump envoy meets Putin hours after Moscow killing of Russian general

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Russian official calls talks with Steve Witkoff ‘quite useful’ as investigation launched into suspected Ukrainian bombing

Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff has met Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin for high-stakes peace talks, hours after a senior Russian military official was killed in a car explosion near Moscow.

Trump has played up Witkoff’s visit – his fourth to Russia in recent months – claiming a deal on ending the war in Ukraine was within reach. “The next few days are going to be very important. Meetings are taking place right now,” Trump told reporters on Thursday. “I think we’re going to make a deal … I think we’re getting very close.”

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US consumer sentiment sees largest drop since 1990 after Trump tariff chaos

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Experts warn of slowing economy after score based on Americans’ financial outlooks fell by 32% since January

US consumer sentiment plummeted in April after Donald Trump’s trade war threw the global economy into chaos, according to a new report.

The index of consumer sentiment, a score based on a monthly survey asking Americans about their financial outlooks, fell by 32% since January – the largest drop since the 1990 recession, according to the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.

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California’s economy surpasses Japan’s as it becomes fourth largest in world

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State’s nominal GDP reaches $4.1tn, edging out Japan’s $4.02tn, ranking it behind the US, China and Germany

California’s economy has surpassed Japan’s, making the Golden state the fourth largest economy in the world, Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Thursday.

The state’s nominal GDP reached $4.1tn, according to data from the International Monetary Fund and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, edging out Japan’s $4.02tn nominal GDP. California now ranks behind the US at $29.18tn, China at $18.74tn and Germany at $4.65tn.

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Trump administration kills landmark pollution settlement in majority-Black county

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Decision will affect mostly low-income Alabama residents as DoJ dismisses agreement over untreated sewage as DEI

The Trump administration has killed a landmark civil rights settlement requiring Alabama to address raw sewage pollution in majority-Black, residential areas south-west of Montgomery, dismissing it as an “illegal” diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) agreement.

The decision could condemn low-income people in Lowndes county, about 40 miles south-west of Montgomery, to indefinitely continue living with no or failing sanitation infrastructure.

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Autistic people and experts voice alarm at RFK’s ‘terrible’ approach to condition

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Health secretary is planning wide-ranging monitoring of autistic people’s health record and cuts to disability services

Autism experts and autistic people are pushing back on Robert F Kennedy’s “terrible” approach to autism as the health secretary plans more expansive monitoring of autistic people’s health records and proposes cuts to disability services.

A huge study on autism proposed by Kennedy will draw upon private medical records from federal and commercial databases, and a new health registry will track autistic Americans, CBS News reported on Monday.

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‘Vladimir, stop!’ Trump in rare rebuke to Putin as Kyiv attack toll rises to 12

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Intervention comes as US president makes renewed push to end war, reportedly on terms favourable to Moscow

Donald Trump has issued a rare rebuke to Moscow for an air attack that killed 12 people in Kyiv, telling the Russian president in a social media post: “Vladimir, STOP!”

The US president’s remarks come as he makes a renewed push to end the Ukraine war, reportedly on terms favourable to Russia that include recognition of Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, something the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has said he cannot accept.

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Trump accuses Zelenskyy of jeopardising imminent peace deal

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US president attacks Ukrainian counterpart, complaining Kyiv is unwilling to cede Crimea to Russia

Donald Trump has accused Volodymyr Zelenskyy of jeopardising what he claimed was an imminent peace deal to end the war in Ukraine, as he gave the clearest hint yet that the US would be willing to formally recognise Russia’s seizure of Crimea as part of any agreement.

The US president claimed a deal to end the war – largely negotiated between Washington and Moscow – was close, while the vice-president, JD Vance, said the agreement would include a proposal to freeze the conflict roughly along the current frontlines.

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Families of detainees in El Salvador and Venezuela decry Bukele’s prisoner swap offer

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Salvadorian president denounced as ‘tyrannical’ as he floats trading 252 prisoners with fellow authoritarian regime

The families of prisoners being held by the authoritarian governments of El Salvador and Venezuela have condemned President Nayib Bukele’s offer to swap 252 Venezuelan detainees sent to his jails by the Trump administration for the same number of political prisoners incarcerated by Nicolás Maduro’s regime.

Nelson Suárez, whose brother was among the Venezuelan immigrants sent from the US to a notorious maximum-security jail in El Salvador last month, said he was desperate for the release of his brother, from whom he has heard nothing in five weeks.

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‘National disgrace’: US lawmakers decry student detentions on visit to Ice jails

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Delegation visits jails where Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk are being held and denounce ‘authoritarian’ Trump

Congressional lawmakers denounced the treatment of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, the students being detained by US immigration authorities for their pro-Palestinian activism, as a “national disgrace” during a visit to the two facilities in Louisiana where each are being held.

“We stand firm with them in support of free speech,” the Louisiana congressman Troy Carter, who led the delegation, said during a press conference after the visits on Tuesday. “They are frightened, they’re concerned, they want to go home.”

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Elon Musk to pull back in Doge role starting May amid 71% dip in Tesla profits

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CEO to pare back White House work to one to two days weekly as analysts say role has caused branding crisis

The Tesla chief executive, Elon Musk, said he will start pulling back from his role at the so-called “department of government efficiency” starting in May. Musk’s remarks came as the company reported a massive dip in both profits and revenues in the first quarter of 2025 amid backlash against his role in the White House.

On an investor call, Musk said the work necessary to get the government’s “financial house in order is mostly done”.

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FDA suspends milk quality-control testing program after Trump layoffs

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Effective Monday, the agency suspends its proficiency testing program for grade ‘A’ raw milk and finished products

The Food and Drug Administration is suspending a quality-control program for testing fluid milk and other dairy products due to reduced capacity in its food safety and nutrition division, according to an internal email seen by Reuters.

The suspension is another disruption to the nation’s food-safety programs after the termination and departure of 20,000 employees of the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the FDA, as part of Donald Trump’s effort to shrink the federal workforce.

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RFK Jr’s autism study collecting Americans’ private medical records

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The National Institutes of Health claims it is fulfilling RFK’s promise to find cause of autism by September

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is collecting the private medical records of many Americans from several different federal and commercial databases to give to researchers for US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s new autism study.

With this information being included in the database, the NIH is also reportedly crafting a new registry to track those with autism, per CBS News.

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Marco Rubio announces sweeping reorganisation of US state department

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Secretary of state says overhaul of department will close a number of overseas missions and reduce staff

The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has proposed a sweeping reorganisation of the US state department as part of what he called an effort to reform it amid criticism from the Trump White House over the execution of US diplomacy.

If approved, the reorganisation would cut more than 700 positions and eliminate 132 of 734 offices, according to state department officials. But those officials also stressed that the plan, which was suddenly announced on Tuesday, remained a proposal and would not lead to immediate layoffs or cuts.

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Kristi Noem says purse – and $3,000 in cash – stolen from DC restaurant

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Passport, driver’s license and keys also reportedly taken but not clear if theft was random or if Trump ally was targeted

A purse belonging to Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, that contained $3,000 in cash, her passport, driver’s license and her apartment keys was stolen while she ate dinner at a restaurant in downtown Washington on Sunday night.

The secretary revealed the theft to reporters at the White House Easter egg roll on Monday. Noem said the incident remained unresolved.

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Trump says Hegseth is ‘doing a great job’ despite reports of second Signal chat

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US president dismisses criticism of defense secretary sharing information on strikes in Yemen to his family

Donald Trump offered public support for defense secretary Pete Hegseth a day after it emerged that Hegseth had shared information about US strikes in Yemen last month in a second Signal group chat that included family, his personal lawyer and several top Pentagon aides.

“He’s doing a great job. Ask the Houthis how he’s doing,” Trump said dismissively, referring to the rebel group in Yemen targeted by those missile strikes, on the sidelines of the White House Easter egg roll event on Monday.

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Boeing investors brace for fallout from Trump tariffs

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Jets intended for Chinese airline returned to US, raising fears for planemaker as results near

Investors in Boeing are braced to learn the full impact of Donald Trump’s trade war, amid fears the US planemaker could be hit harder than first expected after jets intended for a Chinese airline were returned to the US.

A Boeing 737 Max 8 plane intended for use by a Chinese airline returned to the US on Monday from Boeing’s China finishing centre, according to flight data cited by Reuters. It followed the arrival in the US on Sunday of another 737 Max painted in the livery of China’s Xiamen Airlines at Boeing’s US production hub in Seattle.

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El Salvador’s president proposes swapping US-deported Venezuelans with Maduro’s ‘political prisoners’

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Venezuela’s chief prosecutor hits back at ‘cynical’ offer by ‘neofascist’ Salvadoran leader and demands rights for Venezuelan prisoners

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has proposed sending 252 Venezuelans deported from the US and imprisoned in his country to Venezuela, in exchange for “political prisoners” held by Venezuela.

On Sunday, Bukele asked that the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, hand over 252 “of the political prisoners you are holding” under his proposed deal.

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