A resolution drafted by the United States and another drafted by Ukraine and backed by the European Union calling for an end to the war in Ukraine are set for votes Monday at the United Nations.

The U.N. General Assembly is expected to vote on the Ukrainian resolution, followed by the U.S. resolution. The U.N. Security Council is expected to hold its own vote on the U.S. resolution later in the day.

The U.S. calls for “a swift end to the conflict and further urges a lasting peace between Ukraine and the Russian Federation.”

The U.S.-drafted measure does not mention Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began three years ago Monday.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that the resolution would “affirm that this conflict is awful, that the U.N. can help end it, and that peace is possible.”

“This is our opportunity to build real momentum toward peace,” Rubio said in a statement.

The more extensive Ukrainian resolution says the Russian invasion “has persisted for three years and continues to have devastating and long-lasting consequences not only for Ukraine, but also for other regions and global stability.”

It calls for “a de-escalation, an early cessation of hostilities and a peaceful resolution of the war against Ukraine” and highlights the need for the war to end this year.

The Ukrainian draft says earlier resolutions adopted by the General Assembly need to be fully implemented, including those calling for Russia to fully withdraw from Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders.

General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, but they do carry the moral weight of the international community.

At the Security Council, a resolution needs the support of at least nine of the 15 members, with none of the permanent members—Britain, China, France, Russia, or United States—using their veto power. The U.S. measure is expected to have enough support Monday.

The votes come as French President Emmanuel Macron visits the United States for talks with President Donald Trump that are expected to include the war in Ukraine.

Macron said last week that he planned to tell Trump the U.S. leader “cannot be weak” in the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is due to visit Washington later this week for similar talks, and like Macron has emphasized the need for Ukraine’s sovereignty to be at the center of any peace effort.

A group of leaders including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Antonio Costa, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited Kyiv on Monday in a show of support for Ukraine.

“We are in Kyiv today, because Ukraine is Europe,” von der Leyen said on X. “In this fight for survival, it is not only the destiny of Ukraine that is at stake. It’s Europe’s destiny.”

Fighting continued Monday with Russia saying it shot down 23 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 16 over the Oryol region.

Ryazan Governor Pavel Malkov said falling debris from a downed Ukrainian drone caused a fire at an industrial enterprise.

Ukraine’s military said Monday it shot down 113 of the 185 drones that Russia used in overnight attacks.

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said in a post on social media Sunday that Dan Bongino, a conservative talk show host, will be deputy director of the FBI.

Bongino will join Kash Patel, who was recently confirmed by the Senate as director of the FBI. Trump said Bongino was named to the role by Patel. The position does not require Senate confirmation.

“Great news for Law Enforcement and American Justice!” Trump posted on his social media network, Truth Social, calling Bongino “a man of incredible love and passion for our Country.”

Bongino was previously a New York City police officer, and a member of the U.S. Secret Service. He most recently had been known as a conservative radio host and podcaster.

Trump said in his post that Bongino is “prepared to give up” his program as he steps into the new role. “The Dan Bongino Show” was most recently the 56th-ranked podcast in the United States, according to Spotify.
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Washington — The Trump administration said Sunday that it was placing all but a fraction of staffers at the U.S. Agency for International Development on leave worldwide and eliminating 2,000 U.S.-based staff positions.

The move was the latest and one of the biggest steps yet toward what President Donald Trump and cost-cutting ally Elon Musk say is their goal of gutting the six-decade-old aid and development agency in a broader campaign to slash the size of the federal government.

The move comes after a federal judge on Friday allowed the administration to move forward with its plan to pull thousands of USAID staffers off the job in the United States and around the world. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols rejected pleas in a lawsuit from employees to keep temporarily blocking the government’s plan.

“As of 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, February 23, 2025, all USAID direct hire personnel, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and/or specially designated programs, will be placed on administrative leave globally,” according to the notices sent to USAID workers that were viewed by The Associated Press.

At the same time, the agency said it was beginning a reduction in force that would eliminate 2,000 U.S.-based staffers. That means many of the Washington-based staffers who are being placed on leave would soon have their positions eliminated.

The Trump appointee running USAID, deputy administrator Pete Marocco, has indicated he plans to keep about 600 mostly U.S.-based staffers on the job in the meantime, in part to arrange travel for USAID staffers and families abroad.

USAID and the State Department did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

The move escalates a monthlong push to dismantle the agency, which has included closing its headquarters in Washington and shutting down thousands of aid and development programs worldwide following an effort to freeze all foreign assistance. Trump and Musk contend that USAID’s work is wasteful and furthers a liberal agenda.

Lawsuits by government workers’ unions, USAID contractors and others say the administration lacks the constitutional authority to eliminate an independent agency or congressionally funded programs without lawmakers’ approval.

The Trump administration efforts upend decades of U.S. policy that aid and development work overseas serves national security by stabilizing regions and economies and building alliances, a critical tool of U.S. “soft power” for winning influence abroad.

The notices of firings and leaves come on top of hundreds of USAID contractors receiving no-name form letters of termination in the past week, according to copies that AP viewed.

The blanket nature of the notification letters to USAID contractors, excluding the names or positions of those receiving them, could make it difficult for the dismissed workers to get unemployment benefits, workers noted.

A different judge in a second lawsuit tied to USAID has temporarily blocked the foreign funding freeze and said this past week that the administration had kept withholding the aid despite his court order and must at least temporarily restore the funding to programs worldwide.
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Rome, Italy — An American Airlines flight from New York to New Delhi, India, landed safely in Rome on Sunday afternoon after it was diverted due to a security concern , which later proved to be “non-credible,” the airline said. 

American Airlines said Flight 292 “was inspected by law enforcement” after landing at Leonardo da Vinci International Airport and “cleared to re-depart.” 

It didn’t clarify the cause of the security concern, but added an inspection was required by protocol before the flight could land in New Delhi. 

“The flight will stay in Rome overnight to allow for required crew rest before continuing to Delhi as soon as possible tomorrow,” the airline said. 

An Associated Press reporter filmed two fighter jets flying over the airport shortly before the unscheduled landing. Fire trucks were visible on the landing strip on one side of the plane after it landed. 

The airport continued to operate normally, a spokesman with Rome’s airport said.
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Moscow — The Kremlin on Sunday hailed dialogue between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin — two “extraordinary” presidents — as “promising,” and vowed it would “never” give up territory seized in eastern Ukraine.

Trump broke with Western policy earlier this month by phoning Putin to discuss how to end the Ukraine conflict — a call hailed by Moscow as ending three years of isolation for the Kremlin leader since he launched his full-scale offensive in February 2022.

Top Russian and U.S. officials then met in Saudi Arabia last week to discuss a “restoration” of ties and start a discussion on a possible Ukraine ceasefire — all without the involvement of Kyiv or Europe.

“This is a dialogue between two extraordinary presidents,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state TV on Sunday.

“That’s promising,” he added.

“It is important that nothing prevents us from realizing the political will of the two heads of state.”

Trump’s overtures to Moscow have triggered alarm in Kyiv and across Europe.

But it is unclear whether his moves will be able to bring Moscow and Kyiv closer to a truce.

Peskov on Sunday ruled out any territorial concessions as part of a settlement.

“The people decided to join Russia a long time ago,” he said, referring to Moscow-staged votes in eastern Ukraine held amid the offensive that were slammed as bogus by Kyiv, the West and international monitors.

“No one will ever sell off these territories. That’s the most important thing.”

‘God willed it’

Putin said God and fate had entrusted him and his army with “the mission” to defend Russia.

“Fate willed it so, God willed it so, if I may say so. A mission as difficult as it is honorable — defending Russia — has been placed on our and your shoulders together,” he told servicemen who have fought in Ukraine.

Russia was on Sunday marking Defender of the Fatherland Day — a holiday hailing soldiers and veterans — a day before the three-year anniversary of the start of its full-scale offensive.

“Today, at the risk of their lives and with courage, they are resolutely defending their homeland, national interests and Russia’s future,” Putin said in a video released by the Kremlin.

Moscow’s army had overnight launched a record 267 attack drones at Ukraine, Kyiv’s air force said.

Among them, 138 were intercepted by air defense and 119 were “lost.”

Ukraine did not say what happened to the remaining 10 but a separate armed forces statement on Telegram said several regions, Kyiv included, had been “hit.”

AFP journalists in the Ukrainian capital heard air defense systems in operation throughout the night.

‘Inappropriate remarks’

Amid his outreach to Moscow, Trump has also verbally attacked Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy falsely claiming Kyiv started the war and that Zelensky was hugely unpopular at home.

The bitter war of words has threatened to undermine Western support for Kyiv at a critical juncture in the conflict.

Zelenskyy on Sunday called for the Western coalition that has been helping Kyiv fend off the Russian offensive for the last three years to hold strong.

“We must do our best to achieve a lasting and just peace for Ukraine. This is possible with the unity of all partners: we need the strength of the whole of Europe, the strength of America, the strength of all those who want lasting peace,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram.

Moscow has reveled in the spat between Trump and Zelensky.

“Zelenskyy makes inappropriate remarks addressed to the head of state. He does it repeatedly,” Peskov said Sunday.

“No president would tolerate that kind of treatment. So his [Trump’s] reaction is completely quite understandable.”

Scrambling to respond to Trump’s dramatic policy reversal, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will travel to Washington next week to make the case for supporting Ukraine.
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WASHINGTON — New FBI Director Kash Patel is expected to be named the acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a Justice Department official said Saturday.

Patel could be sworn in next week, the official said, putting Patel in charge of two of the Justice Department’s largest agencies in an unusual arrangement that raises questions about the future of the bureau that has long drawn the ire of conservatives.

The Justice Department official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the move before it’s announced publicly. White House officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday evening.

Patel was sworn in Friday as FBI director after winning Senate approval despite Democrats’ concerns about the steadfast Trump ally’s plans to radically overhaul the FBI.

ATF is a separate agency with about 5,500 employees and is responsible for enforcing the nation’s laws around firearms, explosives and arson. Among other things, it’s in charge of licensing federal firearms dealers, tracing guns used in crimes and analyzing intelligence in shooting investigations.

The move was first reported Saturday by ABC News.

The news comes days after Attorney General Pam Bondi fired the ATF’s top lawyer. Bondi said in a Fox News interview Friday that she fired chief counsel Pamela Hicks because the agency was “targeting gun owners.” Hicks, who spent more than 20 years as a Justice Department lawyer, said in a social media post that being ATF chief counsel was the “highest honor” of her career.

Conservatives have long railed against ATF over its role in regulating firearms and have suggested shuttering the agency. Under the Biden administration, the ATF advanced new regulations aimed at cracking down on ghost guns and requiring thousands more firearms dealers to run background checks on buyers at gun shows or other places outside brick-and-mortar stores.

In an executive order earlier this month, President Donald Trump directed the attorney general to review all actions taken by the Biden administration around firearms “to assess any ongoing infringements of the Second Amendment rights of our citizens.”

Gun safety groups have raised alarm about putting Patel in charge of the FBI, with gun control group Brady calling him a “known gun rights extremist.” Gun Owners of America, a gun rights group, called his confirmation as FBI director “a major victory for gun owners and constitutional rights advocates nationwide.”

The last confirmed ATF director was Steve Dettelbach, a former federal prosecutor, who led the agency from July 2022 until last month. He was the first confirmed director since 2015 as both Republican and Democratic administrations failed to get nominees through the politically fraught process.
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WASHINGTON — As the Trump administration begins to engage with Central Asia, Uzbekistan has expressed eagerness to expand its strategic partnership, highlighting what it calls its “enhanced” political dialogue on bilateral and regional issues and security cooperation, including its “solid connection” with the Mississippi National Guard.   

The U.S. recently got back its seven Black Hawk helicopters from Uzbekistan that Afghan military pilots had flown there in 2021 while fleeing the Taliban.  

This transfer and other bilateral exchanges within the last month have underscored Tashkent’s role as Washington’s key partner in Central Asia, according to U.S. officials. However, analysts see the military relationship as largely transactional and shaped by geopolitical complexities and regional tensions. 

Talk between diplomats  

In a phone conversation on February 21 with Uzbek Foreign Minister Bakhtiyor Saidov, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated U.S. support for the country’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity, according to State Department’s spokesperson Tammy Bruce.  

They discussed a joint effort through the C5+1 diplomatic platform, launched nearly a decade ago between Washington and five Central Asian republics. The Trump administration is interested in using this platform to support “a more peaceful and prosperous Central Asia.” 

Saidov described his talk with Rubio as “candid and productive,” aiming to expand the “strategic partnership between our nations in all spheres without an exception. Building strong bridges between business communities, increasing trade volume in both directions, ensuring prosperous development in Central Asia.”  

Cooperation with Pentagon, ties with Mississippi 

Uzbek Ambassador Furqat Sidikov says his country’s forces “have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Mississippi National Guard in the best ways,” citing joint exercises and Pentagon-sponsored professional exchanges. 

“We are a reliable partner of the United States in the region,” Sidikov said at a January 31 embassy reception, pointing to defense reforms and improvements in the Uzbek military’s equipment.

Mississippi National Guard Adjutant General Major General Bobby Ginn emphasized at the event that since 2012, the partnership has facilitated more than 170 engagements between U.S. and Uzbek soldiers, strengthening disaster response and readiness. 

“Uzbekistan’s commitment to regional stability and contributions to counterterrorism efforts and border security” demonstrate the power of its armed forced, Ginn said. 

Davis Florick, the Pentagon’s acting principal director for Eurasia, also attending the reception, thanked Tashkent for “storing” U.S. aircraft and diligently working with the U.S. toward the mutually beneficial solution. He confirmed that the seven Black Hawks were part of a fleet from Afghanistan that, according to multiple sources, included 24 helicopters, among them Mi-17s and UH-60s, and 22 fixed-wing aircraft, most of which were transferred to Uzbekistan last year.  

Another high-level Pentagon official, Rear Admiral Erin Osborne, speaking at the same gathering, praised Uzbekistan as a “critical ally” that offered its airspace and an air base during the initial years of the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan. The republic was also part of Pentagon’s Northern Distribution Network, delivering nonmilitary goods to the international coalition fighting in the neighboring country.

Osborne said that mutual trust and understanding were reflected in “capacity-building initiatives and the sharing of intelligence to counter common threats.” 

The U.S., she added, is committed to working with Uzbekistan “to ensure its stability and sovereignty, as well as the stability and sovereignty of the entire Central Asian region.” 

The Taliban and the Afghanistan factor 

Even though the transfer of the Black Hawks back to the U.S. was disclosed at the embassy event, Uzbek officials have been tight-lipped about this collaboration to avoid any tension with the Taliban, which has condemned the handovers as an infringement on Afghanistan’s sovereignty. The Taliban’s Defense Ministry issued a statement denouncing the transfer as “unacceptable” and demanding the return of the aircraft. 

Eighteen U.S. aircraft also ended up in Tajikistan in 2021, but Washington and Dushanbe have yet to settle the matter. 

During a visit to the region in June 2022, U.S. Central Command commander General Michael Kurilla said the aircraft would not be returned to Afghanistan “because they do not belong to the Taliban … Our hope is to be able to hand over some or all of the aircraft to the Tajik government.” 

Washington analysts view Uzbekistan as the most active U.S. military partner in the region, comparing it with the activities other republics in Central Asia have with their state partners, specifically Kazakhstan with Arizona, Tajikistan with Virginia, and Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan with Montana. 

Still, they characterize Tashkent-Washington security relationship as more transactional than strategic. 

“The Uzbeks want training and equipment. What do we want from them? A reliable partner in the region,” a former U.S. official with deep experience in Central Asia told VOA. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity for professional reasons.

The U.S. has trained Uzbek pilots to operate and maintain the transferred aircraft, but continued congressional funding — amounting to several million dollars — is crucial for sustained cooperation. 

“There will be questions from Congress, of course,” the former official said. “The primary justification so far has been that these assets would help counter extremists from Afghanistan.” 

Meanwhile, experts in Tashkent support Uzbekistan’s cautious approach to the Taliban. As officials have said, Uzbekistan will engage with whoever governs Afghanistan. While it does not officially recognize the Taliban, the administration of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has forged stable diplomatic relations with Kabul, holds significant investment and business agreements with the country, and provides humanitarian aid to the Afghan people. Last summer, Uzbekistan opened a free economic zone in the city of Termez on the border with Afghanistan, inviting neighbors to foster entrepreneurial cooperation.  

U.S. interests and Central Asian security 

The U.S. maintains military cooperation agreements with each Central Asian republic, with plans reviewed annually and subject to funding approval. 

Despite intelligence-sharing efforts, there is no U.S.-Uzbekistan overflight agreement. Tashkent does not allow its territory to be used for strikes on neighboring soil, even against terrorist targets. 

“The Trump administration may question this,” said the former U.S. official. “It complicates the case for cooperation with Uzbekistan because they’re centrally located, yet we must fly around them. It’s hard to justify what we’re getting in return.” 

For years, the U.S. has also supported regional border security initiatives. 

“That’s the big program,” the former U.S. official said, but added: “How many terrorists have we stopped? How many have been disrupted, killed, or captured? Do we have those hard numbers? We are still in the nascent stages of setting up the program.” 
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday urged billionaire Elon Musk to be more aggressive in his efforts to shrink the federal government despite the uproar over layoffs and deep spending cuts.

“Elon is doing a great job, but I would like to see him get more aggressive,” Trump posted all in uppercase letters on his Truth Social platform. “Remember, we have a country to save, but ultimately, to make greater than ever before. MAGA!”

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE — an entity created by Trump — has swept across federal government agencies, firing tens of thousands of federal government workers, from scientists to park rangers, mostly those on probation.
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WASHINGTON — This week, thousands of conservative politicians, activists and influencers convened outside Washington for the Conservative Political Action Conference, the premier annual gathering of the American right.

The four-day event, hosted by the American Conservative Union since 1974, features U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, among other high-profile speakers from around the world.

Dubbed the “Woodstock for conservatives,” CPAC was once the go-to event for conservative Republicans and presidential hopefuls, with its presidential straw poll serving as a barometer of grassroots support. However, Trump’s political rise in recent years has transformed it into a platform for populism.

Driven by the rise of populist movements globally, the conference has ventured overseas in the past decade. It launched its first international conference in Japan in 2017, expanded to Australia, Brazil and South Korea in 2019, then added Hungary, Mexico and Israel in 2022. Argentina joined the fold last year following the election of populist President Javier Milei.

The international conferences, CPAC says, serve to “unite conservatives from all over the world, strengthen the movement, and challenge globalism.” They are also used for public outreach, recruitment and mobilization, according to a recent paper on CPAC by Grant A. Silverman, a research assistant at George Washington University in Washington.

CPAC’s growing international outreach mirrors a recent surge in far-right populism worldwide. Last year’s foreign speakers included Presidents Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and Javier Milei of Argentina, as well as Prime Minister Victor Orbán of Hungary.

Here’s a look at some of the foreign speakers for this year’s CPAC and what they’re saying:

Javier Milei, Argentine president

Milei, wielding a chain saw, electrified the CPAC crowd Thursday when he shared the stage with billionaire Elon Musk and presented Musk, Trump’s cost-cutting czar, with his signature campaign prop.

“This is the chain saw of bureaucracy,” Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, shouted, waving the tool.

As head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk, who made his first CPAC appearance, is spearheading the Trump administration’s massive governmentwide cost-cutting efforts.

This marks Milei’s third CPAC appearance. The self-styled “anarcho-capitalist” campaigned in 2023 on shrinking Argentina’s government, often brandishing a chain saw at rallies.

At last year’s Washington conference, he vowed to eliminate unnecessary government agencies, declaring, “We will not surrender until we make Argentina great again!”

Speaking at CPAC Argentina in December, Milei declared that the “new winds of freedom are sweeping through the world” and called on allies to fight against “lefties.”

“We must stand together, establishing channels of cooperation throughout the world,” he told the crowd.

Jair Bolsonaro, former president of Brazil

Brazil’s former right-wing president is a CPAC regular. After Bolsonaro lost a reelection bid in 2022, his supporters stormed federal government buildings in an alleged attempt to seize power. Banned from seeking office until 2030, Bolsonaro faces charges of plotting a coup.

His son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, organizes CPAC Brazil. At last year’s conference in Balneario Camboriu, the elder Bolsonaro joined Milei and other right-wing politicians from Latin America to hail conservatism’s global rise and expressed hope for Trump’s return to office.

For his part, Milei used the platform to denounce socialism, saying it restricts liberties and breeds corruption.

Robert Fico, prime minister of Slovakia

Robert Fico makes his CPAC debut this year. Though he leads a left-wing populist party, he has drawn controversy for his attacks on journalists, immigrants and LGBTQ+ people.

In October, he called journalists “bloody bastards” and threatened new media restrictions. An opponent of same-sex marriage, he has called adoption by gay couples a “perversion.”

During the Ukraine conflict, Fico has opposed European sanctions on Moscow and echoed Moscow’s messaging, drawing comparisons to Hungary’s pro-Kremlin prime minister.

In May, he survived an assassination attempt by a gunman opposed to his stance against military assistance to Ukraine.

Mateusz Morawiecki, former Polish prime minister

After speaking at CPAC Hungary last year, Morawiecki makes his first U.S. appearance this year. He served as prime minister from 2017 to 2023 and is now a leading figure in the opposition Law and Justice Party.

Despite his party’s strong support for Ukraine, Morawiecki maintains close ties with Hungary’s Orban and Spain’s Santiago Abascal, leader of the conservative Vox political party. Abascal is an invited speaker at CPAC.

Immigration is a unifying issue for Europe’s right-wing populists. At last year’s Hungary conference, Morawiecki called Orban his friend and credited his tough response to Europe’s 2015 migration crisis with preventing “chaos” in Europe.

Liz Truss, former British prime minister

The former Conservative Party leader and prime minister made her second CPAC appearance in a row Wednesday. Calling Britain a “failed state” ruled by a socialist government, she called for a Trump-style MAGA movement to save it.

“We want a Trump revolution in Britain,” she said to applause, praising Trump’s second presidency as “the golden age of America.”

Blaming Britain’s decline on unelected bureaucrats, she urged the dismantlement of the “deep state,” a favorite theme among conference attendees.

“We want Elon and his nerd army of muskrats examining the British deep state,” Truss said.

Truss served just 49 days as prime minister and lost her Parliament seat last year. 
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A total of 177 Venezuelan migrants were deported by the United States from the Guantanamo naval base, where they were detained, in another sign of cooperation between these historically feuding countries.

Click here for the full story in Spanish. 
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LOS ANGELES — Six weeks after the most destructive wildfire in city history, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass ousted the city’s fire chief Friday amid a public rift over preparations for a potential fire and finger-pointing between the chief and City Hall over responsibility for the devastation.

Bass said in a statement that she is removing Chief Kristin Crowley immediately.

“Bringing new leadership to the Fire Department is what our city needs,” Bass said in a statement.

“We know that 1,000 firefighters that could have been on duty on the morning the fires broke out were instead sent home on Chief Crowley’s watch,” Bass disclosed. She added that the chief refused a request to prepare an “after-action report” on the fires, which she called a necessary step in the investigation.

The Palisades Fire began during heavy winds Jan. 7, destroying or damaging nearly 8,000 homes, businesses and other structures and killing at least 12 people in the Los Angeles neighborhood.

Another wind-whipped fire started the same day in suburban Altadena, a community to the east, killing at least 17 people and destroying or damaging more than 10,000 homes and other buildings.

Bass has been facing criticism for being in Africa as part of a presidential delegation on the day the fires started, even though weather reports had warned of dangerous fire conditions in the days before she left.

In televised interviews this week, Bass acknowledged she made a mistake by leaving the city. But she inferred she wasn’t aware of the looming danger when she flew around the globe to attend the inauguration of Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama. She faulted Crowley for failing to alert her to the potentially explosive fire conditions.

Crowley has publicly criticized the city for budget cuts that she said made it harder for firefighters to do their jobs.

Crowley was named fire chief in 2022 by Bass’ predecessor at a time when the department was in turmoil over allegations of rampant harassment, hazing and discrimination. She worked for the city fire department for more than 25 years and held nearly every role, including fire marshal, engineer and battalion chief.
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A tearful executive at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service told staffers on Thursday that about 6,000 employees would be fired, a person familiar with the matter said, in a move that would eliminate roughly 6% of the agency’s workforce in the midst of the busy tax-filing season.

The cuts are part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping downsizing effort that has targeted bank regulators, forest workers, rocket scientists and tens of thousands of other government employees. The effort is being led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, Trump’s biggest campaign donor.

Musk was on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, when Argentine President Javier Milei, known for wielding a chain saw to illustrate his drastic policies slashing government spending, handed him one.

“This is the chain saw for bureaucracy,” said Musk, holding the power tool aloft as a stage prop to symbolize the drastic slashing of government jobs.

Labor unions have sued to try to stop the mass firings, under which tens of thousands of federal workers have been told they no longer have a job, but a federal judge in Washington on Thursday ruled that they can continue for now.

Christy Armstrong, IRS director of talent acquisition, teared up as she told employees on a phone call that about 6,000 of their colleagues would be laid off and encouraged them to support each other, a worker who was on the call said.

“She was pretty emotional,” the worker said.

The layoffs are expected to total 6,700, according to a person familiar with the matter, and largely target workers at the agency hired as part of an expansion under Democratic President Joe Biden, who had sought to expand enforcement efforts on wealthy taxpayers. Republicans have opposed the expansion, arguing that it would lead to harassment of ordinary Americans.

The tax agency now employs roughly 100,000 people, compared with 80,000 before Biden took office in 2021.

Independent budget analysts had estimated that the staff expansion under Biden would work to boost government revenue and help narrow trillion-dollar budget deficits.

“This will ensure that the IRS is not going after the wealthy and is only an agency that’s really focused on the low income,” said University of Pittsburgh tax law professor, Philip Hackney, a former IRS lawyer. “It’s a travesty.”

Those fired include revenue agents, customer-service workers, specialists who hear appeals of tax disputes, and IT workers, and impact employees across all 50 states, sources said. The IRS did not respond to a request for comment.

The IRS has taken a more careful approach to downsizing than other agencies, given that it is in the middle of the tax-filing season. The agency expects to process more than 140 million individual returns by the April 15 filing deadline and will retain several thousand workers deemed critical for that task, one source said.

The Trump administration’s federal layoffs have focused on workers across the government who are new to their positions and have fewer protections than longer-tenured employees.

Meanwhile, the Trump White House is also preparing to dissolve the leadership of the U.S. Postal Service and absorb the independent agency into the Commerce Department, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.

Waiting for dismissal email

At the IRS’s Kansas City office, probationary workers found all functions had been disabled on their computers except email, which would deliver their dismissal notices, said Shannon Ellis, a local union leader.

“What the American people really need to understand is that the funds that are collected through the Internal Revenue Service, they fund so many programs that we use every day in our society,” Ellis told Reuters.

The White House has not said how many of the nation’s 2.3 million civil-service workers it wants to fire and has given no numbers on the mass layoffs. Roughly 75,000 took a buyout offer last week.

The campaign has delighted Republicans for culling a federal workforce they view as bloated, corrupt and insufficiently loyal to Trump, while also taking aim at government agencies that regulate big business — including those that oversee Musk’s companies SpaceX, Tesla and Neuralink.

The small unit within the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that regulates the kind of autonomous cars that Musk says are the future of Tesla is losing nearly half of its staff, the Post reported on Thursday.

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team has also canceled contracts worth about $8.5 billion involving foreign aid, diversity training and other initiatives opposed by Trump. Both men have set a goal of cutting at least $1 trillion from the $6.7 trillion federal budget, though Trump has said he will not touch popular benefits programs that make up roughly one-third of that total.

Democratic critics have said Trump is exceeding his constitutional authority and hacking away at popular and critical government programs at the expense of legions of middle-class families.

Most Americans worry the cost-cutting could hurt government services, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Thursday.

Some agencies have struggled to comply with the rapid-fire directives Trump has issued since taking office a month ago. Workers who oversee U.S. nuclear weapons were fired and then recalled, while medicines and food exports have been stranded in warehouses by Trump’s freeze on foreign aid.
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Vice President JD Vance sketched his conservative view of foreign affairs Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, accompanied by foreign politicians who say they support President Donald Trump’s agenda. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington.
Camera: Anthony LaBruto
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The fallout from U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments criticizing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy continued Thursday, with Trump doubling down on his claim Zelenskyy is a dictator because he has not held elections since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has reaction from around the world.
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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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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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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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A new media campaign by the U.S. government to warn migrants about the consequences of entering the country illegally has sparked intense debate. 

While some consider it a necessary measure to strengthen security and law enforcement, others criticize it for fueling fear and linking irregular immigration with criminality. 

Click here for the full story in Spanish. 
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new york — President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday ordered a halt to New York City’s congestion pricing system, which thins traffic and funds mass transit by imposing high tolls on drivers entering some parts of Manhattan. 

Launched Jan. 5, the city’s system uses license plate readers to impose a $9 toll on most vehicles entering Manhattan neighborhoods south of Central Park. In its early days, transit officials say the toll has brought modest but measurable traffic reductions. 

In a statement, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy announced the federal government has rescinded its approval of the program, calling it “slap in the face to working class Americans and small business owners.” 

Duffy said his agency will work with the state on an “orderly termination of the tolls.” 

Trump, whose namesake Trump Tower penthouse and other properties are within the congestion zone, had vowed to kill the plan as soon as he took office. He previously characterized it as a massive, regressive tax, saying “it will be virtually impossible for New York City to come back as long as the congestion tax is in effect.” 

Similar tolling programs intended to force people onto public transit by making driving cost-prohibitive have long existed in other global cities, including London, Stockholm, Milan and Singapore, but the system had never before been tried in the U.S. 

The Trump administration order kicked off a wave of criticism from congestion pricing supporters in New York City. 

“By blocking this successful policy, Trump will be directly responsible for more traffic, more crashes, more polluted air, slower buses and less funding for our transit system,” said state Senator Andrew Gounardes, a city Democrat. 

New York planned to use the toll revenue to issue bonds that would fund billions of dollars in improvements and repairs for the city’s creaky and cash-strapped transit system, which carries 4 million riders daily. 

The tolling system has been divisive. Transit advocates and environmentalists have heralded it as an innovative step to reduce air pollution from vehicle exhaust, make streets safer for pedestrians and bikers, while speeding up traffic for vehicles that truly need to be on the road, like delivery trucks and police cars. 

But the high tolls are hated by many New Yorkers who own cars, particularly those who live in the suburbs or parts of the city not well-served by the subway system. 

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat, had fought the tolls in court and wrote a letter Trump on Inauguration Day imploring him to kill the program. 

New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, also had misgivings. Last June, she abruptly halted the tolling system’s planned launch, citing concerns about its impact on the local economy. The Democrat then revived the toll in November following Trump’s election, but reduced the toll for passenger vehicles from $15 to $9. Since then, she has lauded it as a win for the city and has discussed the issue multiple times with the president. 

A spokesperson for Hochul did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. 

New York lawmakers approved the tolling plan in 2019, but it was stalled for years awaiting a required federal environmental review during Trump’s first term before President Joe Biden’s administration approved it. 

As in other cities, the New York congestion fee varies depending on the time and the size of the vehicle. Trucks and other large automobiles pay a higher rate, and the fee goes drops to $2.25 for most cars during the quieter overnight hours. 

The toll survived several lawsuits trying to halt it before its launch, including from the state of New Jersey, unionized teachers in New York City, a trucking industry group and local elected leaders in the Hudson River Valley, Long Island and northern New Jersey.
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy for Ukraine and Russia said Wednesday the United States understands the needs for security guarantees for Ukraine, as he visited the country for talks with Ukrainian officials.

Gen. Keith Kellogg told reporters in Kyiv that he was in Ukraine “to listen,” hear the concerns of Ukrainian leaders and return to the United States to consult President Trump.

Kellogg said the United States wants the war in Ukraine to end, saying that would be good for the region and the world.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters ahead of an expected meeting with Kellogg that while U.S. officials have said there will be no U.S. troops deployed as part of any potential post-war peacekeeping mission, there are still other ways it can help, such as providing air defense systems.

“You don’t want boots on the ground, you don’t want NATO,” Zelenskyy said. “Okay, can we have Patriots? Enough Patriots?”

The discussions in Kyiv come amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts focused on Russia’s war in Ukraine, including French President Emmanuel Macron hosting European leaders Wednesday for a second round of talks about the conflict and European support for Ukraine.

Kellogg also met earlier this week with European leaders, and on Tuesday U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Saudi Arabia.

Rubio said both Ukraine and Russia would have to make concessions to achieve peace.

“The goal is to bring an end to this conflict in a way that’s fair, enduring, sustainable and acceptable to all parties involved,” Rubio told reporters. No Ukrainian or European officials were at the table for the talks.

Zelenskyy objected to being excluded from the meeting, a position that drew criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump.

“Today I heard, ‘Well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years,” Trump said of Ukraine’s leaders. “You should have never started it.”

Russia began the war with its February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Zelenskyy added Wednesday that while he has “great respect” for Trump, the American leader is living in a Russian-made “disinformation space.”

Zelenskyy postponed a trip to Saudi Arabia that had been scheduled for this week, suggesting that he wanted to avoid his visit being linked to the U.S.-Russia negotiations.

The United States and Russia agreed to “appoint respective high-level teams to begin working on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said in a statement. Bruce characterized the meeting as “an important step forward” toward peace.

Rubio said Ukraine and European nations would have to be involved in talks on ending the war. He said that if the war is halted, the United States would have “extraordinary opportunities … to partner” with Russia on trade and other global issues.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said she and other European foreign ministers spoke to Rubio after the U.S.-Russia meeting, and she expressed support for a Ukraine-led resolution.

“Russia will try to divide us. Let’s not walk into their traps,” Kallas said on X. “By working together with the US, we can achieve a just and lasting peace — on Ukraine’s terms.”

Russia now controls about one-fifth of Ukraine’s internationally recognized 2014 territory, including the Crimean Peninsula that it unilaterally annexed in 2014, a large portion of eastern Ukraine that pro-Russian separatists captured in subsequent fighting, and land Russia has taken over since the 2022 invasion.

As the invasion started, Moscow hoped for a quick takeover of all of Ukraine. But with stiff Ukrainian resistance, the war instead evolved into a grinding ground conflict and daily aerial bombardments by each side.

Zelenskyy has long demanded that his country’s 2014 boundaries be restored, but U.S. officials have said that is unrealistic, as is Kyiv’s long-sought goal of joining NATO.

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Washington — The Senate confirmed wealthy financier Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary Tuesday, putting in place a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump’s hardline trade policies.

At the Commerce Department, Lutnick, who was CEO at the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald, will oversee 50,000 employees who do everything from collecting economic statistics to running the census to issuing weather reports. But he’s likely to spend a lot of time — along with Jamieson Greer, Trump’s nominee to be the top U.S. trade negotiator — managing the president’s aggressive plans to impose import taxes on U.S. trading partners, including allies and adversaries alike.

The Senate vote to confirm Lutnick was 51-45.

Trump views the tariffs as a versatile economic tool. They can raise money to finance his tax cuts elsewhere, protect U.S. industries and pressure other countries into making concessions on such issues as their own trade barriers, immigration and drug trafficking. Mainstream economists mostly view tariffs as counterproductive: They are paid by import companies in the United States, which try to pass along the higher costs to consumers and can thereby add to inflationary pressures throughout the economy.

At his confirmation hearing last month, Lutnick dismissed as “nonsense” the idea that tariffs contribute to inflation. He expressed support for deploying across-the-board tariffs “country by country” to strong-arm other countries into lowering barriers to American exports.

Trump last week announced plans for “reciprocal” tariffs — raising U.S. import tax rates to match the higher taxes that other countries impose on goods from the U.S. The move would shatter the rules that have governed world trade for decades. Since the 1960s, tariff rates have mostly emerged from negotiations between dozens of countries. Trump is commandeering the process.

The president has also imposed 10% tariffs on Chinese imports and effectively raised U.S. taxes on foreign steel and aluminum. He has threatened — and delayed until March 4 — 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico.

Lutnick was CEO at Cantor Fitzgerald when its offices were hit in the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center. The firm lost two-thirds of its employees — 658 people — that day, including Lutnick’s brother. Howard Lutnick led the firm’s recovery and is a member of the Board of Directors of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

Lutnick has promised to sell off his business holdings. They’re complicated. His financial disclosure statement showed that he had positions in more than 800 businesses and other private organizations.
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Louis DeJoy, the head of the U.S. Postal Service, intends to step down, the federal agency said Tuesday, after a nearly five-year tenure marked by the coronavirus pandemic, surges in mail-in election ballots and efforts to stem losses through cost and service cuts.

In a Monday letter, Postmaster General DeJoy asked the Postal Service Board of Governors to begin looking for his successor.

“As you know, I have worked tirelessly to lead the 640,000 men and women of the Postal Service in accomplishing an extraordinary transformation,” he wrote. “We have served the American people through an unprecedented pandemic and through a period of high inflation and sensationalized politics.”

DeJoy took the helm of the Postal Service in the summer of 2020 during President Donald Trump’s first term. He was a Republican donor who owned a logistics business before taking office and was the first postmaster general in nearly two decades who was not a career postal employee.

DeJoy developed a 10-year plan to modernize operations and stem losses. He previously said that postal customers should get used to “uncomfortable” rate hikes as the Postal Service seeks to stabilize its finances and become more self-sufficient.

The plan calls for making the mail delivery system more efficient and less costly by consolidating mail processing centers. Critics, including members of Congress from several states, have said the first consolidations slowed service and that further consolidations could particularly hurt rural mail delivery.

DeJoy has disputed that and told a U.S. House subcommittee during a contentious September hearing that the Postal Service had embarked on long-overdue investments in facilities and making other changes to create “a Postal Service for the future” that delivered mail more quickly.

DeJoy also oversaw the Postal Service during two presidential elections that saw spikes in mail-in ballots.

Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, a federal judge limited one of the Postal Service’s cost-cutting practices after finding it contributed to delays in mail delivery.

DeJoy had restricted overtime payments for postal workers and stopped the agency’s longtime practice of allowing late and extra truck deliveries in the summer of 2020. The moves reduced costs but meant some mail was left to be delivered the following day.

DeJoy said in his letter that he was committed to being “as helpful as possible in facilitating a transition.”
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Johannesburg  — South Africa will host a meeting of foreign ministers from the G20 group of major economies later this week, but the chief diplomat for the world’s largest economy, the U.S., is skipping it.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on X earlier this month that he would not attend the meeting, taking place Thursday and Friday in Johannesburg, because he objected to the meeting’s agenda, which he described as anti-American.

He said South Africa was “using G20 to promote ‘solidarity, equality, & sustainability.’ In other words: DEI and climate change. My job is to advance America’s national interests, not waste taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism.”

DEI is short for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and in President Donald Trump’s first week in the White House, he signed an executive order to end DEI policies and hiring practices in the federal workforce.

“I think the whole topic of the G20 gathering is one that I don’t think we should be focused on, talking about global inclusion, equity, and these sorts of things,” Rubio later told the press.

He continued by saying the forum should be focused on issues “like terrorism and energy security and the real threats to the national security of multiple countries.”

The G20 is a group of the world’s 19 major individual economies as well as the EU and African Union. This year marks the first time an African country is in the rotating presidency position of the G20.

While Rubio will not attend, the South African government has confirmed the U.S. will still have a presence at the meeting, likely at a lower level.

South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation responded to Rubio in a statement saying: “Our G20 Presidency, is not confined to just climate change but also equitable treatment for nations of the Global South, ensuring an equal global system for all.”

Ronald Lamola, minister of international relations and cooperation, told local TV that the meeting’s agenda had been adopted by all members of the G20 and carries on the themes from previous summits, such as the one in Brazil last year.

Deteriorating relations

Even before the announcement that Rubio would not be taking part in the foreign ministers’ meeting, there had been a swift deterioration in U.S.-South Africa relations under the new administration in Washington.

President Trump accused South Africa’s government of engaging in land grabs and mistreating white minority Afrikaners. He cut U.S. financial assistance to the country.

While the South African government did pass a controversial land reform law earlier this year, no land has been seized. The white minority is still one of the country’s most privileged communities and owns the majority of private farmland.

Response from other G20 members

Several other nations were quick to affirm their attendance at the meeting after Rubio said he will not attend.

Those included EU members Germany, Italy and France, whose ambassadors to South Africa posted a joint video on X saying they were “united in diversity” and shared the South African government’s democratic values.

Russia also confirmed Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will attend.

“The priorities stated by the South African presidency are designed to encourage economic growth, reduce inequality and imbalances, and ensure equitable access to financing for countries in the Global South.,” said Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.

China likewise confirmed its commitment to the meeting, with ambassador to South Africa Wu Peng meeting foreign minister Lamola just after Rubio’s announcement and posting on X: “I also expressed China’s readiness to support South Africa’s G20 Presidency.”

Last week, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun, said in a press briefing,

“China stands ready to work with all parties to make this meeting a productive one, and send a strong message of supporting multilateralism, strengthening solidarity and cooperation, and jointly responding to global challenges,” he said.

Analysts weigh in

Political analysts said Rubio’s absence could provide space for countries hostile to the U.S. to advance their agendas.

“Will we see the increase of countries like Russia and China pushing their lines, their issues, their perspectives in the absence of the US? That’s entirely possible,” Steven Gruzd, from the South African Institute of International Affairs, told VOA.

Brooks Spector, a retired U.S. diplomat, said Rubio’s boycott of the meeting was “a serious misstep.”

“You get to make your points at a meeting, boycotting it simply means your voice is not heard,” he said. “Calling the meeting “anti-American” is a misunderstanding of the nature of bilateral, international and multi-lateral discussions.”

However, he said he expected Trump would likely still attend the major G20 summit in South Africa in November. In December, the U.S. will take on the presidency of the G20.
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Washington — The Social Security Administration’s acting commissioner has stepped down from her role at the agency over Department of Government Efficiency requests to access Social Security recipient information, according to two people familiar with the official’s departure who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Acting Commissioner Michelle King’s departure from the agency over the weekend — after more than 30 years of service — was initiated after King refused to provide DOGE staffers at the SSA with access to sensitive information, the people said Monday.

The White House has replaced her as acting commissioner with Leland Dudek, who currently works at the SSA, the people said.

White House spokesperson Harrison Fields released a statement Monday night saying: “President Trump has nominated the highly qualified and talented Frank Bisignano to lead the Social Security Administration, and we expect him to be swiftly confirmed in the coming weeks. In the meantime, the agency will be led by a career Social Security anti-fraud expert as the acting commissioner.”

Fields added, “President Trump is committed to appointing the best and most qualified individuals who are dedicated to working on behalf of the American people, not to appease the bureaucracy that has failed them for far too long.”

King’s exit from the administration is one of several departures of high-ranking officials concerned about DOGE staffers’ potential unlawful access to private taxpayer information.

DOGE has accessed Treasury payment systems and is attempting to access Internal Revenue Service databases.

Since Republican President Donald Trump has retaken the White House, his billionaire adviser Elon Musk has rapidly burrowed deep into federal agencies while avoiding public scrutiny of his work through the DOGE group.

Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, an advocacy group for the preservation of Social Security benefits, said of DOGE’s efforts that “there is no way to overstate how serious a breach this is. And my understanding is that it has already occurred.”

“The information collected and securely held by the Social Security Administration is highly sensitive,” she said. “SSA has data on everyone who has a Social Security number, which is virtually all Americans, everyone who has Medicare, and every low-income American who has applied for Social Security’s means-tested companion program, Supplemental Security Income.”

“If there is an evil intent to punish perceived enemies, someone could erase your earnings record, making it impossible to collect the Social Security and Medicare benefits you have earned.”

The future of Social Security has become a top political issue and was a major point of contention in the 2024 election. About 72.5 million people, including retirees, disabled people and children, receive Social Security benefits.
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