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Russia on Wednesday accused the US of prolonging the “war in Ukraine” by stepping up weapons deliveries to Kyiv forward of Donald Trump’s return to the White Home, studies Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Each Moscow and Kyiv are jockeying to safe an higher hand on the battlefield earlier than Trump assumes workplace in January 2025.
The Republican has repeatedly criticised US help for Ukraine and claimed he might safe a ceasefire inside hours – feedback which have triggered fears in Kyiv and Europe about Ukraine’s potential to resist the Russian assaults with out US help.
Moscow has considerably escalated its aerial marketing campaign this week, launching a number of lethal missile strikes and focusing on Ukraine’s power grid. Ukraine in the meantime has fired long-range US-supplied Atacms missiles at Russian territory for the primary time for the reason that White Home authorised such strikes, drawing scorn and guarantees of retribution in Moscow, studies AFP.
“If you look at the trends of the outgoing US administration, they are fully committed to continuing the war in Ukraine and are doing everything they can to do so,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov informed reporters.
In keeping with AFP, Peskov was responding to the US saying it might quickly present Ukraine with antipersonnel landmines.
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Home ethics committee to vote on publication of Matt Gaetz report
Joan E Greve
The Home ethics committee is anticipated to fulfill on Wednesday to vote on releasing a report analyzing allegations of sexual misconduct towards former Republican consultant Matt Gaetz, Donald Trump’s nominee to guide the US justice division.
The panel has beforehand mentioned it was investigating claims that Gaetz “may have engaged in sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift”.
Matt Gaetz on the Republican nationwide conference in Milwaukee. {Photograph}: Evan Vucci/AP
The justice division launched its personal inquiry into accusations that Gaetz engaged in a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old lady, however the division closed its investigation final yr with out submitting charges. Gaetz has persistently denied the allegations.
Two ladies testified to congressional investigators that Gaetz paid them for {sex} and that he was seen having {sex} with the 17-year-old, a lawyer for the ladies has mentioned.
Because the ethics committee is evenly {split} between the 2 events, it might take just one Republican siding with each Democrat on the panel to have the report launched. However distinguished Republicans, together with Home speaker Mike Johnson, have cautioned towards releasing the report on Gaetz, who resigned his seat instantly after Trump introduced his nomination as lawyer basic.
“I think that would be a Pandora’s box,” Johnson informed CNN on Sunday. “I don’t think we want the House ethics committee using all of its vast resources and powers to go after private citizens, and that’s what Matt Gaetz is now.”
However different Republicans, together with Senator Markwayne Mullin, have instructed the report must be a minimum of made obtainable to the senators who will vote on confirming Gaetz’s nomination.
“I believe the Senate should have access to that,” Mullin informed NBC Information on Sunday. “Now, should it be released to the public or not? I guess that will be part of the negotiations. But that should be definitely part of our decision-making.”
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Abené Clayton
Donald Trump has chosen Mehmet Oz, finest recognized for starring in his eponymous daytime talkshow for greater than a decade and leaning closely into Trumpism throughout his failed 2022 run for a Pennsylvania Senate seat, to guide the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Providers (CMS). The cardiothoracic surgeon, who confronted immense backlash from the medical and scientific communities for pushing misinformation on the top of the Covid-19 pandemic, will oversee the company that operates on a $2.6tn annual funds and supplies healthcare to greater than 100 million individuals.
“I am honored to be nominated by [Donald Trump] to lead CMS,” Oz posted on X on Tuesday. “I look forward to serving my country to Make America Healthy Again under the leadership of HHS Secretary [Robert F Kennedy Jr].”
Mehmet Oz, left, pictured with Donald Trump in 2022 {Photograph}: Gene J Puskar/AP
Within the announcement of Oz’s choice, Trump mentioned that Oz will “make America healthy again” and described him as “an eminent Physician, Heart Surgeon, Inventor, and World-Class Communicator, who has been at the forefront of healthy living for decades”.
Oz has been on US tv screens for almost 20 years, first showing on the Oprah Winfrey present in 2004. In that point, he’s talked to his viewers about dropping pounds with fad diets and what it takes to have wholesome poops and, towards the tip of his run, touting hydroxychloroquine as a possible treatment for Covid-19.
You possibly can see the complete explainer on what to know in regards to the New York College professor and surgeon turned tv present host, and now Trump appointee, at this hyperlink:
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Up to date at 11.42 GMT
In case you missed it, right here is our information article on Donald Trump selecting the previous WWE government, Linda McMahon, for schooling secretary:
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Right here’s some extra from the Related Press’s schooling author, Annie Ma, on a few of the Division of Schooling’s key capabilities, and the way Donald Trump has mentioned he may method them:
Pupil loans and monetary support
The schooling division manages roughly $1.5tn in pupil mortgage debt for greater than 40 million debtors. It additionally oversees the Pell grant, which supplies support to college students beneath a sure revenue threshold, and administers the Free Utility for Federal Pupil Support (FAFSA), which universities use to allocate monetary support.
The Biden administration has made cancellation of pupil loans a signature effort of the division’s work. Since Joe Biden’s preliminary try and cancel pupil loans was overturned by the supreme court docket, the administration has forgiven over $175bn for greater than 4.8 million debtors by way of a spread of adjustments to packages it administers, akin to Public Service Mortgage Forgiveness.
The mortgage forgiveness efforts have confronted Republican pushback, together with litigation from a number of GOP-led states.
Trump has criticized Biden’s efforts to cancel debt as unlawful and unfair, calling it a “total catastrophe” that “taunted young people.” Trump’s plan for pupil debt is unsure: He has not put out detailed plans.
Civil rights enforcement
By way of its Workplace for Civil Rights, the schooling division conducts investigations and points steering on how civil rights legal guidelines must be utilized, akin to for LGBTQ+ college students and college students of colour. The workplace additionally oversees a big information assortment challenge that tracks disparities in assets, course entry and self-discipline for college students of various racial and socioeconomic teams.
Trump has instructed a unique interpretation of the workplace’s civil rights position. In his marketing campaign platform, he mentioned he would pursue civil rights circumstances to “stop schools from discriminating on the basis of race.” He has described variety and fairness insurance policies in schooling as “explicit unlawful discrimination” and mentioned faculties that use them pays fines and have their endowments taxed.
Trump additionally has pledged to exclude transgender college students from Title IX protections, which have an effect on faculty insurance policies on college students’ use of pronouns, loos and locker rooms. Initially handed in 1972, Title IX was first used as a ladies’s rights regulation. This yr, Biden’s administration mentioned the regulation forbids discrimination primarily based on gender id and sexual orientation, however Trump can undo that.
Faculty accreditation
Whereas the schooling division doesn’t instantly accredit faculties and universities, it oversees the system by reviewing all federally acknowledged accrediting companies. Establishments of upper schooling should be accredited to achieve entry to federal cash for pupil monetary support.
Accreditation got here beneath scrutiny from conservatives in 2022, when the Southern Affiliation of Schools and Faculties questioned political interference at Florida public faculties and universities. Trump has mentioned he would hearth “radical left accreditors” and take purposes for brand spanking new accreditors that may uphold requirements together with “defending the American tradition” and eradicating “Marxist” variety directors.
Though the schooling secretary has the authority to terminate its relationship with particular person accrediting companies, it’s an arduous course of that has not often been pursued. Beneath president Barack Obama, the division took steps to cancel accreditors for a now defunct for-profit faculty chain, however the Trump administration blocked the transfer. The group, the Accrediting Council for Unbiased Schools and Faculties, was terminated by the Biden administration in 2022.
Cash for faculties
A lot of the schooling division’s cash for Ok-12 faculties goes by way of massive federal packages, akin to Title I for low-income faculties and the People with Disabilities Schooling Act. These packages help providers for college students with disabilities, decrease class sizes with extra instructing positions, and pay for social employees and different non-teaching roles in faculties.
Throughout his marketing campaign, Trump referred to as for shifting these capabilities to the states. He has not supplied particulars on how the company’s core capabilities of sending federal cash to native districts and faculties could be dealt with.
The Heritage Basis’s Mission 2025, a sweeping proposal outlining a far-right imaginative and prescient for the nation that overlaps in areas with Trump’s marketing campaign, affords a blueprint. It suggests sending oversight of packages for youths with disabilities and low-income youngsters first to the Division of Well being and Human Providers, earlier than finally phasing out the funding and changing it to no-strings-attached grants to states.
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Up to date at 11.20 GMT
Trump has referred to as for dismantling the schooling division: This is what that may imply
All through his marketing campaign, president-elect Donald Trump heaped scorn on the federal Division of Schooling, describing it as being infiltrated by “radicals, zealots and Marxists.”
He has picked Linda McMahon, a former wrestling government, to guide the division. However like many conservative politicians earlier than him, Trump has referred to as for dismantling the division altogether – a cumbersome job that seemingly would require motion from Congress.
The Related Press has this quick explainer on what that may imply:
The company’s major position is monetary. Yearly, it distributes billions in federal cash to schools and faculties and manages the federal pupil mortgage portfolio. Closing the division would imply redistributing every of these duties to a different company. The schooling division additionally performs an essential regulatory position in providers for college students, starting from these with disabilities to low-income and homeless children.
Certainly, federal schooling cash is central to Trump’s plans for faculties and faculties. Trump has vowed to chop off federal cash for faculties and faculties that push “critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content” and to reward states and faculties that finish instructor tenure and enact common faculty selection packages.
Federal funding makes up a comparatively small portion of public faculty budgets – roughly 14%. Schools and universities are extra reliant on it, by way of analysis grants together with federal monetary support that helps college students pay their tuition.
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Nationwide Schooling Affiliation says nominating McMahon as schooling secretary reveals Trump ‘couldn’t care much less about our college students’ futures’
The president of the Nationwide Schooling Affiliation (NEA) mentioned that the president-elect’s resolution to call Linda McMahon as his choose for schooling secretary in his upcoming administration, reveals “that he could not care less about our students’ futures”.
In an announcement launched on Tuesday after Donald Trump’s announcement, Becky Pringle criticised the naming of McMahon, the billionaire co-founder of World Wrestling Leisure (WWE), and referred to as on the Senate to reject “Trump’s unqualified nominee”. She warned that “McMahon’s only mission is to eliminate the Department of Education and take away taxpayer dollars from public schools”.
Pringle wrote:
Each pupil – irrespective of the place they dwell, how a lot their household earns, or the colour of their pores and skin – deserves the chance, assets, and help they should develop into their full brilliance. In each group throughout this nation dad and mom and educators are companions on this effort.
By deciding on Linda McMahon, Donald Trump is exhibiting that he couldn’t care much less about our college students’ futures. Slightly than working to strengthen public faculties, broaden studying alternatives for college students, and help educators, McMahon’s solely mission is to eradicate the Division of Schooling and take away taxpayer {dollars} from public faculties, the place 90% of scholars – and 95% of scholars with disabilities – study, and provides them to unaccountable and discriminatory non-public faculties.
Throughout his first time period, Donald Trump appointed Betsy DeVos to undermine and finally privatize public faculties by way of vouchers. Now, he and Linda McMahon are again at it with their excessive Mission 2025 proposal to eradicate the Division of Schooling, steal assets for our most susceptible college students, improve class sizes, reduce job coaching packages, make larger schooling dearer and out of attain for center class households, take away particular schooling providers for disabled college students, and put pupil civil rights protections in danger.
She added:
Dad and mom and educators will stand collectively to help college students and reject the dangerous, outlandish, and insulting insurance policies being pushed by the Trump administration. They may make their voices heard, simply as they did by resoundingly defeating vouchers in states like Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska.
The Division of schooling performs such a vital position within the success of each pupil on this nation.
The Senate should arise for our college students and reject Donald Trump’s unqualified nominee, Linda McMahon. Our college students and our nation deserve so a lot better than Betsy DeVos 2.0.”
In an announcement on Tuesday, Trump extolled the “incredible” job McMahon has been doing as transition workforce co-chair and mentioned:
As Secretary of Schooling, Linda will struggle tirelessly to broaden ‘Choice’ to each State in America, and empower dad and mom to make the perfect Schooling selections for his or her households. … We’ll ship Schooling BACK TO THE STATES, and Linda will spearhead that effort.”
Extra on this story in a second, however first, listed here are another key developments
Trump has chosen Mehmet Oz, finest recognized for starring in his eponymous daytime talkshow for greater than a decade and leaning closely into Trumpism throughout his failed 2022 run for a Pennsylvania Senate seat, to guide the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Providers (CMS). The cardiothoracic surgeon, who confronted immense backlash from the medical and scientific communities for pushing misinformation on the top of the Covid-19 pandemic, will oversee the company that operates on a $2.6tn annual funds and supplies healthcare to greater than 100 million individuals.
Trump is protecting his controversial adviser Kash Patel within the operating to be the subsequent FBI director, in response to two individuals aware of the matter, because the transition workforce performed interviews for the position on Monday evening on the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago membership. The existence of the interviews, made public in a since-deleted publish by the vice president-elect JD Vance, underscored the intent to fireplace the present FBI director, Christopher Wray, years earlier than his present time period is up.
Russia on Wednesday accused the US of prolonging the “war in Ukraine” by stepping up weapons deliveries to Kyiv forward of Trump’s return to the White Home. Each Moscow and Kyiv are jockeying to safe an higher hand on the battlefield forward of Trump assuming workplace in January 2025.
Ladies’s well being advocates in Africa are frightened that Trump will once more invoke the so-called world gag rule, a coverage that cuts off US authorities funding for teams that provide abortion-related providers. The gag rule has been imposed by all Republican presidents since 1984. In 2017, Trump expanded it, slicing international NGOs off not solely from household planning cash, however from broader US world well being help masking malaria and tuberculosis prevention, water and sanitation, and the distribution of well being info.
Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, says Australia is ‘ready’ for a second Trump presidency. In a speech to the Sydney Worldwide Technique Discussion board by way of video hyperlink, Rudd mentioned: “The team here at the embassy and the government of Australia are ready to work closely with the new Trump administration to continue to realise the benefits of what is a very strong economic and security partnership.”
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Up to date at 10.58 GMT
