Author: potus

Here are the key developments on the 1,086th day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.Here is the situation on Friday, February 14: Fighting Russia’s Defence Ministry announced that its forces have captured Ukraine’s Vodyane Druhe settlement in the Donetsk region. Moscow claimed it launched a coordinated overnight attack on Ukraine’s military airfields, ports and workshops for drone production, as well as fuel and lubricant storage sites. Ukraine launched a huge wave of drones as well as missiles, Russia said, with 202 unmanned aerial vehicles shot down, along with three French-made Hammer guided bombs and United States-made HIMARS rockets. Ukraine’s Security…

Two of Silicon Valley’s most prominent tech titans, Elon Musk and his former protégé Sam Altman, are in the middle of a very public feud over the future of OpenAI, the company behind the groundbreaking ChatGPT. Musk – the world’s richest man and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX – has filed multiple lawsuits over the past year to stop Altman from restructuring OpenAI from a hybridised nonprofit into a for-profit company. Earlier this week, Musk raised the stakes by offering to buy the nonprofit for $97.4bn to preserve the original mission of the AI research lab – ensuring that “artificial…

New Hampshire’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which was signed into law in July, as well as Trump’s executive order, “excludes, singles out, and discriminates against transgender students and insinuates that they are not deserving of the same educational opportunities as all other students,” Klementowicz said in a statement.During Trump’s first term, the Education Department released federal guidelines on how to implement Title IX, particularly on the issue of sexual misconduct in schools. The rules gave students accused of misconduct added protections, including the presumption that they are innocent throughout the disciplinary process and the right to be provided all…

The judge’s temporary restraining order is a setback for Trump’s efforts to roll back transgender rights and services.A United States federal judge has temporarily blocked an executive order from President Donald Trump that curtailed access to gender transition care for people younger than 19. Thursday’s ruling by District Judge Brendan Hurson stems from a lawsuit brought by the families of transgender teenagers and watchdog groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). In his decision, Hurson said that the executive order, which refers to gender-affirming healthcare as “chemical and surgical mutilation of children”, seems to “deny that this population…

Hours after President Trump paved the way for upending the United States’ trade relationship with India with broad “reciprocal” tariffs, he and Prime Minister Narendra Modi presented a united front during a news conference on Thursday at the White House.Mr. Modi became the latest head of state to seek to placate an increasingly power-flexing Mr. Trump by trying to accommodate his demands — even as Mr. Trump’s promised tariffs hung over the White House meeting. Mr. Modi heaped praise on Mr. Trump, using his motto “Make America Great Again” in English, despite mostly speaking through a translator, and applying the…

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday became the fourth world leader to visit Donald Trump in the White House since the start of his second term as United States president. Trump and Modi’s relationship has been dubbed a “bromance” in some media outlets – and that affinity continued to simmer strongly during their latest meeting. The two leaders heaped praise on one another, while publicly sidestepping more prickly points of discussion. Chief among them was the question of Trump’s newly announced “reciprocal tariffs”, in which he proposes to answer foreign import taxes on US goods with rates equal to…

NEW DELHI (AP) — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the U.S. President Donald Trump spoke about easing tariffs, resolving trade issues and shoring up defense ties in a meeting at the White House on Thursday.Even though Trump threatened to impose tariffs, the two leaders said they’d talk about trade, signaling that New Delhi and Washington could offer each other concessions.Trump called Modi a “much better negotiator than me,” while Modi played on Trump’s “MAGA,” or “Make America Great Again,” catchphrase, saying he he was determined to “Make India Great Again.”Here are some key takeaways from the meeting: Concerns over…

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan President Lai Ching-te said Friday he would communicate more with the U.S. over President Donald Trump’s concerns over the chip industry and invest more in the U.S, hours after Trump ordered reciprocal tariffs on trade partners.Trump said on Thursday that Taiwan had taken away the U.S. chip business and said that he wanted it back in the country. Taiwan’s TSMC is the world’s largest chipmaker and produces chips for companies including Apple, Intel and Nvidia.In a news briefing after holding a meeting of the National Security Council at the presidential office, Lai said that he…

US president says Washington’s existing nuclear arsenal could destroy the world ‘100 times over’.United States President Donald Trump has proposed talks with China and Russia to discuss reducing all three countries’ nuclear stockpiles and slashing their defence budgets in half. Speaking to reporters at the White House on Thursday, Trump said he hoped to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin “when things calm down”. “When we straighten it all out, then I want one of the first meetings I have [to be] with President Xi of China, President Putin of Russia. And I want to say,…

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration began a mass firing of federal workers Thursday. Office of Personnel Management officials met with agency leaders and advised them to dismiss probationary employees, according to a person familiar with the matter.Hundreds of thousands of people could be affected, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management, although the exact number of people who will be terminated was not immediately clear. Follow live politics coverage here.Employees who have probationary status have typically been with the federal government for only one or two years — before all their civil service protections have kicked in.…