22 Mar, 2025 15:39

Trump envoy names ‘largest issue’ in Ukraine conflict

The former Ukrainian territories want to stay with Russia, Steve Witkoff has said

The status of theformer Ukrainian territoriesthat have joined Russia following referendums is key to resolving the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, told American journalist Tucker Carlson in an interview released on Friday.

Witkoff, who has also been actively involved in the US efforts to resolve the Ukraine conflict, described the issue as “an elephant in the room”that “no one wants to talk about.”

“They’re Russian-speaking. There have been referendums where theoverwhelming majorityof the people have indicated thatthey want to be under [the] Russian rule,” Witkoff told Carlson during the hour-and-a-half-long interview, adding that Moscow also exercises effective control over the territories.

Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, as well as the two Donbass republics, officially joined Russia in autumn 2022 following a series of referendums.

Kiev has never recognized the votesand continues to claim sovereignty over the territories, as well as over Crimea, which joined Russia back in 2014. The Ukrainian military still controls parts of Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, including the regional capitals of the latter two.

According to Witkoff,the issue now is whether the world will acknowledge these territories as Russianandwhether Kiev will agree to drop its claims to them. “There are constitutional issues within Ukraine as to what they can concede to with regard to giving up territory,” the envoy said, addingthat it could also be particularly difficult for Ukraine’sVladimir Zelensky as it could jeopardize his political career.

“Can Zelensky survive politically if he acknowledges this? This is the central issue in the conflict,” Witkoff said. The envoy still maintained that the US had “very, very positive conversation” on the issue with both sides.

The interview with Witkoff came out shortly after he held face-to-face talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of diplomatic efforts aimed at mediating an end to the conflict. After the talks, he suggested that a complete ceasefire between Kiev and Moscow could be reached within “a couple of weeks.”

https://www.rt.com/news/614636-trump-envoy-largest-issue-ukraine/

21 Mar, 2025 21:44

Two dead in Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian border region – governor

The strikes in Belgorod Region have also left seven people injured, Vyacheslav Gladkov has said

Two people have been killed in a series of Ukrainian drone attacks on the Russian border region of Belgorod, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram on Friday.Around a dozen settlements in the region were attacked, according to the governor’s data.

One attack killed a civilian and severely injured another in a village located around 18km from Russia’s border with Ukraine, Gladkov said. Two attacks against other settlements left one civilian injured in each, he added.

Closer to the evening, a Ukrainian UAV struck a vehicle, killing a staff member of a local security company, according to the governor. Four of his colleagues who were nearby at the moment of the attack also sustained injuries and were hospitalized, Gladkov said.

Aroundhalf a dozenother Ukrainian drone strikes on Friday resulted in property damage. According to data provided by the local authorities,the strikes targeted civilian infrastructure, private houses, commercial structures, and vehicles.

Belgorod Region has suffered from regular attacks launched by Ukraine amid the conflict between the two nations. In May 2024, Russia launched an incursion into neighboring Kharkov Region, which it said was meant to make it more difficult for Kiev to attack nearby Belgorod Region with short-range weapons. Nevertheless, Ukrainian forces have regularly launched drone strikes against the region.

Earlier this week,the Ukrainian military also launched cross-border attackson Belgorod Region, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

The ministry linked the operation,which involved 200 soldiersand 29 pieces of military hardware, including five tanks, to a phone call between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, which took place on Tuesday.

All the attacks were repelled, with the invading force losing up to 60 servicemen and at least one tank, the Russian military said.

The latest Ukrainian attacks come amid negotiations for a partial ceasefire aimed at suspending long-range strikes on energy infrastructure by both sides. The measure, which is advocated by Trump, seeks to facilitate peace talks and establish a comprehensive truce.

https://www.rt.com/russia/614610-ukrainian-drone-attacks-russian-dead/

22 Mar, 2025 17:15

Moscow issues warning to Kiev

Russia could respond if Ukraine continues its attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has warned

Moscow reserves the right to retaliate in kind if Ukraine continues to strike Russian energy infrastructure in violation of the recently agreed partial ceasefire, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has warned.

On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin held phone talks with his US counterpart, Donald Trump, and agreed to a US-mediated partial ceasefire. As part of it, Moscow said it would halt strikes on Ukrainian energy sites if Kiev does the same. Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky also agreed to the terms.

Despite this, Kiev struck an oil depot in Russia’s Krasnodar Region the day after the agreement and blew up a gas metering station in Sudzha on Friday.

The Ukrainian armyalso deliberately targeted “residential buildings and social institutions,”Zakharova said in a press statement on Saturday

“Kiev is once again demonstrating its complete inability to negotiate, as well as its lack of desire to achieve peace,” the spokeswoman said. “As in 2022, they have once again turned to provocations aimed at disrupting the negotiation process.”

Moscow is free to retaliate if this continues, she warned.

We clearly warn youthat if the Kiev regime continues this destructive course, theRussian side reserves the right to retaliate, including symmetrically.

Kiev struck an oil facility operated by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) in southern Russia overnight on Tuesday, immediately after the US-brokered ceasefire was agreed on, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Wednesday. The CPC’s international shareholders include US giants Chevron and Exxon Mobil.

Early Friday, Ukrainian forces destroyed a gas metering station in Sudzha as they were retreating from Russia’s Kursk Region.

Moscow has condemned both attacks as violations of Ukraine’s ceasefire responsibilities, and accused Kiev of attempting to derail US peace efforts.

According to the Kremlin, Putin brought up Kiev’s history of sabotaging peace processes in his phone call with Trump on Tuesday. The Russian leader stressed thatUkraine has “repeatedly sabotaged and violated the agreements reached,” the Kremlin press service said earlier this week.

https://www.rt.com/russia/614638-moscow-issues-warning-kiev/

These are the judges going toe to toe against Trump's agenda 1/4

'It's very clear that there are judicial activists throughout our judicial branch'

March 18, 2025 5:00am EDT

President Donald Trump has signed more than 80 executive orders since returning to the White House in January — prompting more than 100 lawsuits against his administration.

While Democratic lawmakers have accused the Trump administration of launching a "constitutional crisis" within the U.S. as a result of these orders,the White House has claimed that "low-level" judges have issued unconstitutional injunctions barring Trump from implementing his agendaand that it will appeal adverse rulings.

"You cannot have a low-level district court judge filing an injunction to usurp the executive authority of the President of the United States," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Friday. "That is completely absurd. … It’s very clear that there are judicial activists throughout our judicial branch who are trying to block this president’s executive authority."

Here are some of the judges, appointed under the Obama and Biden administrations, who’ve pushed back against Trump’s orders:

James Boasberg

Boasberg has served as the chief judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia since March 2023, and was first appointed as a judge to the District Court in March 2011 under the Obama administration.

Boasberg issued several key rulings on various casesduring Trump’s first administration. For example, heblocked Arkansas, Kentucky and New Hampshire from implementing work requirement waivers for Medicaid recipients, after the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services unveiled a policy permitting states to enforce the waivers for Medicaid recipients.

Ultimately, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a ruling in February 2020 upholding Boasberg’s previous decision in the Kentucky and Arkansas case. In the ruling, the appeals court said that former Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar "failed to analyze whether the demonstrations would promote the primary objective of Medicaid — to furnish medical assistance."

The Supreme Court then dismissed all pending cases related to the Medicaid work requirements in April 2022.

On Saturday, Boasberg issued an order halting the Trump administration from deporting migrants under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which permits deportation of natives and citizens of an enemy nation without a hearing.

However, the flight continued to drop off the migrants in El Salvador, and Leavitt said Sunday the order had "no lawful basis" since Boasberg issued it after the flight’s departure from U.S. airspace.

Boasberg graduated from Yale College in 1985 and Yale Law School in 1990.He also served a seven-year term from 2014 to 2021 on the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which handles surveillance requests for foreign intelligence gathering. (Deeply engaged in Russia Hoax)

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/judges-going-toe-toe-against-trumps-agenda

>>22806141

2/4

Leo Sorokin

Sorokin, an Obama appointee, joined the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts in 2014,after previously serving as magistrate judgeon the same court.

=Sorokin spearheaded a delayed-sentencing program in Massachusetts known as the Repair, Invest, Succeed, Emerge, or RISE, program. The program offers some criminal offenders a yearlong delay== in sentencing for some criminal offenders who qualify for pretrial release as they undergo an intensive supervision program.

"I’m thrilled with how the restorative justice part of RISE has gone, so we’re expanding," Sorokin said at an event at Columbia Law School in 2020."I think it’s lawful. I think it’s correct. I think it’s what we ought to be doing."(bizarre “I think it’s lawful”, so he doesn’t know so he’s starting a constitutional crisis!)

Sorokin said his motivation to launch the RISE program stemmed from a conversation he had with a man convicted of bank robbery who explained he wanted to apologize to the bank teller and to his sisters for committing the crime.

Sorokin blocked the Trump administration from implementing an executive order to ban birthright citizenshipin February — joining other judges from Maryland and Washington state in issuing nationwide injunctions against the ban. The Trump administration requested the Supreme Court step in Friday and allow it to execute the order, and the Supreme Court requested responses from challengers by April

Amir Ali

Ali, a Biden appointee, is one of the newest judges to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, joining the court in December 2024.Ali also helped launch the MacArthur Justice Center’s Washington, D.C., branch in 2017, a nonprofit law firm that specializes in criminal justice reform and civil rights issues.

Ali, who eventually led the firm as the executive director, argued and won two cases before the Supreme Court on behalf of the MacArthur Justice Center.

Ali’s ties to the firm came under scrutiny during his confirmation hearing in February 2024 before the Senate, where lawmakers asked him about remarks his MacArthur Justice Center colleague, Cliff Johnson, made in 2020 asserting that defunding the police paves the way for a "movement toward making police departments obsolete."

However, Ali told lawmakers that he didn’t espouse those views, nor did the MacArthur Justice Center.

"Let me be very clear about this," Ali said. "I have never advocated for taking away police funding. I would not take that position, and the MacArthur Justice Center has not taken that position."

OnMarch 11, Ali issued a ruling that determined the Trump administration likely exceeded its constitutional authority when it sought to halt payments the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development(USAID) owed to contractors amounting to $2 billion in funding Congress had approved.

Ali has also taught classes on civil, criminal and appellate litigation at schools, including Harvard Law School and the Georgetown University Law Center.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/judges-going-toe-toe-against-trumps-agenda

>>22806147

3/4

Beryl Howell

Howell, an Obama appointee, joined the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in 2010. She previously served as staff and as general counsel of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 1993 to 2003.

Howell ruled against the Trump administration March 6, and wrote in her ruling that Trump did not have the authority to fire members of the National Labor Relations Board at will. The Trump administration dismissed National Labor Relations Board chair Gwynne Wilcox in January, prompting Wilcox to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration for violating the National Labor Relations Act, which states negligence and misconduct are the only causes to fire a member of the board.

"A president who touts an image of himself as a ‘king’ or a ‘dictator,’ perhaps as his vision of effective leadership, fundamentally misapprehends the role under Article II of the U.S. Constitution," Howell wrote in the ruling — a reference to a White House social media post in February depicting Trump wearing a crown with the caption "Long Live the King."

Howell also ordered that Wilcox be reinstated to her position.

Howell attended Columbia University School of Law, and served as the deputy chief of the narcotics section and an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York from 1987 until 1993.

Her work at the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York earned her the Attorney General’s Director’s Award for Superior Performance and other commendations for her work focusing on international narcotics, money laundering and public corruption cases.

She’s also worked as a professor of legal ethicsat American University’s Washington College of Law.

Ana Reyes

Reyes, a Biden appointee, joined the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in February 2023 following acareer as a litigation attorney with Williams & Connolly LLP focusing on international litigation, representing foreign governments, foreign government officials and multinational companies.

Previous pro bono work also includesrepresenting refugees for groupslike the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and Human Rights First. She also received the Hispanic National Bar Foundation’s "Judicial Leadership Award" in 2023.

Reyes is overseeing acase that LGBTQ legal rights advocacy group GLAD Law and the National Center for Lesbian Rightsfiled in February against the Trump administration for its executive order barring transgender individuals from serving in the military.

The groups are seeking a preliminary injunction pausing the ban while litigation is pending, andReyes is expected to issue a final decision on the preliminary injunction by March 25.

Reyes attended Harvard Law School, and has co-taught classes at Yale Law School and Georgetown University Law Center on trial practice and advocacy in international arbitration.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/judges-going-toe-toe-against-trumps-agenda

>>22806153

Loren AliKhan

AliKhan, a Biden appointee, joined the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in December 2023, after previously serving as an associate judge for the D.C. Court of Appeals.

AliKhan ruled against the Trump administration in February, indefinitely blocking the Trump administration from freezing federal grants and loans. The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit a group of nonprofit organizations filed in January after the Trump administration’s Office of Management announced a pause in loans and grants. Although the administration rescinded the memo, the White House clarified that the order still remained to freeze funds.

"In the simplest terms, the freeze was ill-conceived from the beginning," AliKhan wrote in a ruling in February. "Defendants either wanted to pause up to $3 trillion in federal spending practically overnight, or they expected each federal agency to review every single one of its grants, loans, and funds for compliance in less than twenty-four hours. The breadth of that command is almost unfathomable. Either way, defendants’ actions were irrational, imprudent and precipitated a nationwide crisis."

Ali Khan attended Georgetown University Law Center, and supported O’Melveny & Myers, LLP’s Supreme Court and Appellate Practice Clinic at Harvard Law School, as well as the legal writing program at Yale Law School.

She received the National Association of Attorneys General’s "Senior Staff of the Year" award in 2020.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/judges-going-toe-toe-against-trumps-agenda

22 Mar, 2025 18:50

Serbia facing ‘color revolution’ – deputy PM

Those behind the protests in the Balkan country are seeking to engineer a Maidan-style coup, according to Aleksandar Vulin

Serbia is confronting the threat of a “color revolution,” Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin has said. He accused Western security services of orchestrating unrest to instigate an overthrow of the government similar to Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan coup.

Student-led demonstrations against alleged corruption and government negligence have been ongoing in Serbia for months. The protests, sparked by the deadly collapse of a concrete canopy at the railway station in the city of Novy Sad in November 2024, culminated in a massive rally in Belgrade on March 15, which was followed by clashes between dozens of protesters and the police.

“A color revolution is taking place in Belgrade,”Vulin said on Saturday, during a meeting in Moscow with the secretary of the Russian National Security Council, Sergey Shoigu.“Western security services are behind the color revolution as they want to put a new government in power,” he said, adding that the Serbian authorities “would not allow it.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has previously accused foreign actors of fueling unrest in order to destabilize the country, claiming that opposition forceswere collaborating with Western, Croatian, and Albanian intelligence agenciesto overthrow his government.

According to Vulin,the West seeks to “destroy Serbia.” He also said he believes the pressure exerted against his nation is linked to Belgrade’s position on relations with Russia.Serbia has not joined the Western sanctions against Moscow over the Ukraine conflict and “never will,”according to the deputy prime minister.

The forces behind the unrest could instigate further “radicalization” of the protests “soon,”Vulin warned. “Those who organized [the March 15 rally] would like to see a ‘Maidan’ and are working on making that happen,” he told Shoigu. The 2013-2014 Maidan protests in Kiev led to the ousting of Ukraine’s democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovich, and ultimately paved the way for the current conflict.

Shoigu, a former Russian defense minister, expressed concern over the developments in Serbia.Russia “cherishes” its relations with Belgrade, he said, adding that the two countries maintain an “open dialogue” and particularly cooperate in the field of countering “color revolutions.”

Vulin thanked the Russian security services for their intelligence sharing operations. “They know the danger Serbia is facing. We have very good communication and I am very grateful for that,”he said.Shoigu, in turn, said that Belgrade can “always rely on Russia’s aid in any issues.”

(The EU talks about sovereignty all the time but won’t allow a state to have their own sovereignty.)

https://www.rt.com/news/614640-serbia-face-color-revolution/

22 Mar, 2025 12:07

Boxing legend George Foreman dies at 76

Foreman won the world heavyweight championship twice during his decades-long career

Legendary boxer and two-time world heavyweight champion George Foreman has passed away at the age of 76, his family said on Saturday in a post on Instagram. Known as ‘Big George’ in the ring, the American athlete built a long, remarkable career in the sport.

Foreman’s career started with amateur boxing after moving from Texas to California. He retired in 1997 with a career record of 76 wins, 68 by knockouts, and only five losses.

“With profound sorrow, we announce the passing of our beloved George Edward Foreman Sr, who peacefully departed on March 21, 2025, surrounded by loved ones,” the family said.

Foreman won the heavyweight gold medal at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City at the age of 19. Five years later, he won his first world heavyweight championship. He did it again in 1994 when he was 45, making him the oldest heavyweight champion ever.

One of Foreman’s most famous fights was against Muhammad Ali in 1974, which he lost in an eighth-round knockout, and was chronicled in the Oscar-winning documentary ‘When We Were Kings’. After he lost to Ali, the boxing legend fought five more times before he retired to begin a career as an ordained minister in his native Texas. However, he returned to boxing in 1987 at the age of 38.

In 1994, he launched the George Foreman Grill, which went on to sell more than 100 million units worldwide. He sold the commercial rights to the grill for $138 million in 1999.

His final fight took place in November 1997, a majority decision loss to Shannon Briggs. In 2002, Foreman was named one of the 25 greatest fighters of the past 80 years by The Ring magazine, which also ranked him as the ninth-greatest puncher of all time. He was an HBO ringside analyst for 12 years, ending in 2004.

https://www.rt.com/news/614622-boxer-george-foreman-dies/