You can tell by the aircraft's color as well…it matches the altitude track as well.
Hundreds of USAID Contractors Put on Leave, Axed Amid US Freeze on Global Aid
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/aid-usaid-state-department/2025/01/29/id/1197059/
Hundreds of internal contractors working for the U.S. Agency for International Development are being put on unpaid leave and some are being terminated after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a sweeping freeze on U.S. foreign aid worldwide.
The furloughs come even as U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued overnight an additional waiver for "life-saving humanitarian assistance" while Washington undertakes the 90-day review Trump initiated just hours after he came into office on Jan. 20.
Despite the waiver, health and humanitarian groups around the world on Wednesday were still uncertain if and how they could resume work and whether their programs were covered by the exception.
The administration says it is conducting the review to ensure the tens of billions of dollars worth of U.S. foreign assistance worldwide is aligned with Trump's "America First" foreign policy and not a waste of taxpayer money.
The United States is by far the largest donor of aid globally. In fiscal year 2023, it disbursed $72 billion of assistance worldwide on everything from women's health in conflict zones to access to clean water, HIV/AIDS treatments, energy security and anti-corruption work.
The State Department said on Wednesday that the pause in assistance stopped the provision of "condoms and other contraceptive services in Gaza," clean energy programs for women in Fiji and family planning throughout Latin America, among other programs.
It did not explain under which aid programs exactly the funding was provided but said that so far over $1 billion in spending "not aligned with an America First agenda has been prevented."
German Parliament Passes Merz's Immigration Plan
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/germany-immigration-friedrich-merz/2025/01/29/id/1197081/
The German Bundestag passed opposition leader Friedrich Merz's symbolic five-point migration motion on Wednesday, which promised a dramatic tightening of the country's migration and asylum laws.
Merz, who leads the Christian Democratic Union party and currently leads in the polls to become the next chancellor, said he would collect votes from all parties to push his five-point migration plan through parliament despite Chancellor Olaf Scholz's strong opposition.
Support of the plan from the far-right Alternative for Germany has rattled social democrats in the country even though Merz insisted he did not seek AfD’s support adding that the policy wasn't wrong just because the "wrong people back it."
"Thinking about how the AfD fraction will cheer and their happy faces makes me feel uncomfortable," Merz told fellow lawmakers. The motion calls for permanent border controls, the rejection of asylum seekers, and the detention of foreigners who have been issued an order to leave the country.
The measures are nonbinding, but Merz could now push for a decision on the law's passage through parliament as early as this week.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has waded into Germany politics with the controversial support of the AfD telling a crowd virtually at a campaign event that "frankly too much of a focus on past guilt and we need to move beyond that. Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their parents, their great-grandparents."
Immigration has become a central election issue in Germany following a knife attack a week ago in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg by a rejected asylum-seeker, which left a man and a 2-year-old boy dead. That attack was preceded by knife attacks in Mannheim and in Solingen last year in which the suspects were immigrants from Afghanistan and Syria.
"How many more children have to become victims of such acts of violence before you also believe there is a threat to public safety and order?" Merz asked.
Chancellor Scholz, the social democrat whose coalition government folded last year, scolded Merz for his motion. "Since the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany over 75 years ago, there has always been a clear consensus among all democrats in our parliaments: We do not make common cause with the far right."
Germany’s national election are scheduled for Feb. 23.
Dems Hold 'Emergency' Meeting, Vow 'Street Fight' on Trump Actions
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/democrats-strategy-meeting/2025/01/29/id/1197087/
House Democrats came out of an "emergency" meeting held over Zoom on Wednesday, speaking on their strategies to combat President Donald Trump's agenda through lawsuits, legislation, and messaging, The Hill reported.
"House Democrats are now fully engaged," said Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif. "The bell has rung. I think we see this for the constitutional test that it is, and we're going to be aggressively pushing back."
Huffman said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., "described it as a legal fight, a legislative fight, and a street fight. And I couldn't put it better."
The meeting was prompted by Trump's move — since rescinded — to freeze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans. Democrats argued the freeze, even if short-lived, disrupted crucial programs nationwide.
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., said the freeze was "a profound stumble."
"By freezing grants, loans and contracts, you have brought a lot of activity all across America — in red states and blue states — to a screeching halt," he said. "This filters down to the most granular level of our communities, and that's where this pain and hurt is going to be felt."
With Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress, Democrats acknowledged their legislative power is limited. However, they pointed to the GOP's slim House majority and internal divisions as an opening to wield influence as well as play to voter outrage.
"Our votes are going to be needed at a whole bunch of key moments, starting just weeks from now," Huffman said.
"So we're going to leverage those moments, we're going to leverage the appropriations process, and we're going to use whatever bully pulpits we have to awaken the American people to what's going on here."
White House: Trump's Funding Freeze Remains 'in Full Force'
https://www.newsmax.com/us/trump-administration-omb/2025/01/29/id/1197019/
A White House spokesperson Wednesday said the federal funding freeze announced earlier this week by President Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget remains in effect despite media reports it had been rescinded.
"This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze. It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo. Why? To end any confusion created by the court's injunction. The President's EO's [executive orders] on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented," Leavitt posted on X.
Earlier, various news outlets reported the funding freeze had been rescinded.
A White House official announced the decision to pull back a proposed spending freeze that threatened to disrupt hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to U.S. programs, Reuters reported.
The decision was announced in a copy of a new memo, obtained by The Washington Post, after the administration's move earlier this week to stop spending resulted in a backlash.
Acting OMB acting Director Matthew J. Vaeth used the memo to tell federal agencies that the department's memorandum M-25-13 "is rescinded," the Post reported.
In a memo Monday, Vaeth said funding for federal grants and loans would be put on hold while the Trump administration reviews them to ensure the recipients are aligned with Trump’s priorities, including executive orders he signed last week ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
OMB oversees the federal budget.
The first major domestic policy reversal of the Republican president's new term came after one federal judge in Washington, D.C., had temporarily blocked the freeze and before another judge in Rhode Island was set to hear a separate legal challenge. The proposal had thrown the federal government into chaos and disrupted payments to medical and child-care providers.
U.S. District Judge John McConnell in Providence, Rhode Island, said before the reported withdrawal of OMB's spending freeze memo, he was inclined to issue a temporary restraining order given the lack of clarity/potential for harm, according to a post on X by Kyle Cheney, chief legal affairs reporter for Politico. McConnell now believes there might need to be case-by-case legal actions as funding is blocked.
In a follow-up post, Cheney wrote the Democrat-led states that sued to stop the funding pause still want a temporary restraining order because of the White House statement's that the spending freeze is still in effect. He added McConnell said he will grant the restraining order, saying the withdrawal of the "hugely ambiguous" OMB order is only a distinction without a difference "based on comments by the president's press secretary."
Well this place is fucked for the day.
CRASH-CRASH-CRASH
All we're going to hear all fucking day.
Gonna go play slots.
Ohhhh, forgot that was today!
Zeldin Confirmed as EPA Head as Trump Vows Climate-Rule Cuts
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/trump-cabinet-zeldin-epa-climate-change/2025/01/29/id/1197055/
The Republican-controlled Senate on Wednesday confirmed Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, a key role to help President Donald Trump fulfill his pledge to roll back major environmental regulations.
The vote was 56-42 in Zeldin's favor.
Zeldin, a former Republican congressman from New York, is a longtime Trump ally and served on Trump’s defense team during his first impeachment. He voted against certifying Trump’s 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.
Zeldin, 44, said during his confirmation hearing that he has a moral responsibility to be a good steward of the environment and pledged to support career staff who have dedicated themselves to the agency's mission to protect human health and the environment.
Zeldin repeatedly declined to commit to specific policies, however, promising instead not to prejudge outcomes. When asked by Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska whether he would roll back programs that promote electric cars — a program Trump has repeatedly criticized — Zeldin stayed vague but acknowledged he has heard Republican complaints.
Trump led efforts to dismantle more than 100 environmental protections during his first term and has promised to do so again, targeting what he labels an electric vehicle “mandate” and “green new scam” approved by Democrats.
Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, has vowed to overturn former President Joe Biden’s biggest climate accomplishments, including tailpipe regulations for vehicles and slashed pollution from power plants fired by coal and natural gas. Trump has already moved to oust career staff at EPA and other agencies, remove scientific advisers and close an office that helps minority communities that disproportionately struggle with polluted air and water.
Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island called Zeldin the wrong man for the job.
“We need an EPA administrator who will take climate change seriously, treat the science honestly and stand up where necessary to the political pressure that will be coming from the White House, where we have a president who actually thinks (climate change) is a hoax, and from the huge fossil fuel forces that propelled him into office with enormous amounts of political money and who now think they own the place," Whitehouse said in a Senate speech.
Trump is “under the thumb of the fossil fuel industry,” Whitehouse said, adding that the EPA administrator “has to be truthful and factual and support and defend our environment and our safety from climate change.''
Trump Executive Order Seeks End to K-12 'Indoctrination'
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/donald-trump-executive-orders-education/2025/01/29/id/1197048/
President Donald Trump signed three executive orders Wednesday that build upon his campaign promises of fundamental changes to the U.S. education system.
The executive orders, the latest in a flurry of presidential actions Trump has taken since Inauguration Day, focus on ending "indoctrination" in K-12 schools, launching investigations into antisemitic campus protests, and enacting a federal school choice initiative.
An executive order on "Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling" would prohibit federal funding for schools that include "gender ideology and critical race theory in the classroom." The attorney general will be asked to work with state and local legal officials to "file actions against teachers and school officials who sexually exploit minors or practice medicine without a license through 'social transition' practices."
Education Secretary nominee Linda McMahon and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will be ordered to provide the president with a strategy to "end indoctrination" in elementary and high schools within 90 days of the order's signing.
The order also will reinstate the 1776 Commission that Trump created during his first term to promote patriotic education and counter lessons that divide Americans on race and slavery.
Another executive order is a result from the rise in antisemitic incidents on college campuses following Iranian-backed Hamas' terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel's military response.
The Department of Justice and attorney general will be ordered to take "immediate action" to prosecute antisemitic crimes such as vandalism and intimidation, as well as investigate "anti-Jewish racism in leftist, anti-American colleges and universities." The order also focuses on revoking and deporting student visas for those deemed sympathetic to Hamas.
The White House also is directing all federal agencies within 60 days of the order to review and report any criminal and civil authorities they have that can be used to address antisemitism.
The executive order on school choice will direct the Department of Education to issue guidance on how states can support K-12 scholarship programs with federal funding formulas. It will further direct the agency to prioritize school choice in department discretionary grant programs that are now the subject of a spending review.
The order also would require the Department of Health and Human Services to issue guidance on how states can use block grant funds for children and families to support "educational alternatives, including private and faith-based educational options and nonprofits," according to the White House summaries of Trump's orders.
South America’s presidents gather in Brazil for first regional summit in 9 years
https://apnews.com/article/lula-brazil-unasur-regional-summit-9e256c212b32efd438b9313753025bdb
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BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — South America’s leaders will gather in Brazil’s capital on Tuesday as part of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s attempt to reinvigorate regional integration efforts that have previously floundered amid the continent’s political swings and polarization.
Analysts say Lula senses an opportunity for integration because of the political affinities of the region’s current governments and appears to want to test leaders’ willingness to cooperate through a revived Union of South American Nations, or Unasur.
Lula said at a news conference Monday that the leaders should discuss cooperation in energy and crime-fighting, and suggested he might consider floating the idea of a regional currency to challenge the U.S dollar. But he said nothing would be decided during the meeting.
“The main idea is that we need to form a bloc to work together,” Lula said.
First established 15 years ago in Brazil’s capital during the second presidential term of Lula, a former trade unionist, the regional bloc sought to integrate the 12 South American nations culturally, socially, politically and economically.
Unasur’s promotor was late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, who saw it as means to counteract U.S. influence in the region and the group had a reputation among some as having a leftist bent.
But a subsequent swing to the right on the continent saw the group fracture. The last meeting with all Unasur’s members took place in 2014. After 2017, disagreements over Unasur’s leadership and the participation of Venezuela’s authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro led seven countries to withdraw, including Brazil in 2019 under Lula’s predecessor, the far-right Jair Bolsonaro.
“Unasur’s greatest problem is that it was built in a moment when there were leftist leaders, and it shattered when right-wing leaders came along,” said Oliver Stuenkel, an international relations professor at Getúlio Vargas Foundation, a university and think tank in Sao Paulo. “It is easy to talk about its comeback now, but they need to think of ways to make this second attempt last.”
Tuesday’s meeting in Brasilia will bring together 11 South American presidents and the leader of the Council of Ministers of Peru, whose president, Dina Boluarte, faces charges and cannot leave the country. The meeting has been officially promoted as an encounter for South American heads of state, as Brazil does not wish to impose Unasur’s revival.
Lula on Monday underlined that this week’s meeting was just about getting together to build cohesion and discuss ideas. “Tomorrow’s meeting doesn’t decide anything,” he said.
He said that he has a “dream” to have a regional currency “so that we can do business without depending on the dollar, because the dollar belongs to the United States and it can do whatever it wants with it.”
The challenge, analysts say, will be having a bloc that can survive the region’s political shifts and instability.
While the majority of South America’s current presidents are leftist or centrist, there’s no guarantee the situation will remain that way. This was underscored in May by the success of right-wingers in Chile in a vote to select commission members to write a new constitution. That success came on the heels of voters’ rejection of a leftist-influenced draft to replace the Chile’s dictatorship-era charter. A similar swing toward the right is possible in Argentina, given that incumbent President Alberto Fernández will not seek reelection this year amid rampant inflation.
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Venezuela’s Maduro arrived Monday for the Brasilia gathering, providing the opportunity for the first official bilateral meeting between Lula and the Venezuelan leader.
Under Bolsonaro, Brazil prohibited Maduro and many members of his government from entering the country, and it recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the legitimate president of Venezuela.
At a joint news conference between Lula and Maduro later Monday, said it is a “historic moment” for both countries.
“After 8 years, president Maduro returns to visit Brazil and we get back the right to do our foreign affairs policy with the seriousness we always had, especially with countries which share borders with Brazil,” Lula said.
Maduro pointed out both leaders reestablished “an open and permanent dialogue between Brazil and Venezuela’s governments”. He also said that “union and diversity” should rule over “extremist and intolerant ideologies” which have tried to isolate Venezuela from the rest of the world.
Both leaders said they were interested in boosting trade between their countries.
“No matter if both governments agree with each other, Venezuela is a neighbor and can’t be ignored or have diplomatic ties broken, as we have practical issues that need to be solved,” said Carolina Silva Pedroso, an international relations professor at Sao Paulo’s Federal University.
Pedroso said Brazil could be a mediator in Venezuela’s political crisis, and it wants to reduce the number of immigrants crossing the border into Brazil, more than 400,000 since 2018.
But the group must overcome its legacy and struggles.
Unasur “couldn’t lead important projects in cooperation in diverse areas after some governments were electorally defeated,” said Pedroso. “And it did not establish a direct connection with the populations in its countries.”
The political instability in many South American countries will make it hard for leaders to move initiatives forward, analysts said.
Stuenkel said Brazil will want to guarantee that all the presidents meeting have some sort of diplomatic relationship, “but this will crash when a new president comes in.”
“Countries in the region need to think how they will react when Argentina breaks, or if any bilateral crisis evolves, such as Colombia and Peru’s conflict in the border,” he said.
Peru’s image has been damaged by criticism of Boluarte after her office violently repressed antigovernment protests following the ouster of her predecessor, Pedro Castillo.
Colombia, now governed by a leftist, has been critical of Boluarte’s government and both countries have cut diplomatic relations. They also hold a century-long dispute along their shared border over territory and responsibilities to halt drug trafficking.
Ecuador faces political instability which grew stronger in May, when president Guillermo Lasso dissolved parliament after facing an impeachment inquiry. New general elections are scheduled for later this year.
“A Unasur without 12 countries would not solve the region’s issues,” said Gisela Padovan, secretary for Latin America and Caribbean at Brazil’s Foreign Affairs Ministry. “And we need something permanent that does not depend on particular governments.”
LOOK HERE, NOT THERE!