Trump administration

Subterms

    More stories

    • 175 Shares140 Views

      in US Politics

      Top 10 US billionaires’ collective wealth grew by $698bn in past year – report

      by

      The collective wealth of the top 10 US billionaires has soared by $698bn in the past year, according to a new report from Oxfam America published on Monday on the growing wealth divide.The report warns that Trump administration policies risk driving US inequality to new heights, but points out that both Republican and Democratic administrations have exacerbated the US’s growing wealth gap.Using Federal Reserve data from 1989 to 2022, researchers also calculated that the top 1% of households gained 101 times more wealth than the median household during that time span and 987 times the wealth of a household at the bottom 20th percentile of income. This translated to a gain of $8.35m per household for the top 1% of households, compared with $83,000 for the average household during that 33-year period.Meanwhile, over 40% of the US population, including nearly 50% of children, are considered low-income, with family earnings that are less than 200% of the national poverty line.When pitting the US against 38 other higher-income countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the US has the highest rate of relative poverty, second-highest rate of child poverty and infant mortality, and the second-lowest life expectancy rate.“Inequality is a policy choice,” said Rebecca Riddell, senior policy lead for economic justice at Oxfam America. “These comparisons show us that we can make very different choices when it comes to poverty and inequality in our society.”The report outlines the way that systems in the US, including the tax code, social safety nets, and worker’s rights and protections, have been slowly dismantled, allowing concentrated wealth to turn into concentrated power.Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill”, passed by Congress in May, has been one of the “single largest transfers of wealth upwards in decades”, according to the report, by cutting tax for the wealthy and corporations.But over the last few decades, Republicans have not acted alone.“Policymakers have been choosing inequality, and those choices have had bipartisan support,” Riddell said. “Policy reforms over the last 40 years, from cuts to taxes and the social safety net, to labor issues and beyond, really had the backing of both parties.”Policy recommendations outlined in the report fall into four categories: rebalancing power through campaign finance reform and antitrust policy; using the tax system to reduce inequality through taxes on the wealthy and corporations; strengthening the social safety net; and protecting unions.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThese solutions can be tricky to carry out politically because of long-term stigmatization, particularly of social safety nets and taxation. The report refers to the concept of the “welfare queen” popularized during Ronald Reagan’s presidency in the 1980s, while taxation has always been seen as repressive for all rather than as a tool for addressing inequality.“What’s really needed is a different kind of politics,” Riddell said. “One that’s focused on delivering for ordinary people by really rapidly reducing inequality. There are sensible, proven reforms that could go a long way to reversing the really troubling trends we see.”The report features interviews with community leaders who are actively working to reduce inequality, even as progress has seemingly stalled on the national stage. In one interview in the report, union representatives for United Workers Maryland said the current moment seems ripe with opportunity because many Americans are starting to see how the current set-up isn’t working for them, but only for the people at the very top.“I think it’s brilliant that they see this as an opportunity,” Riddell said. “I love thinking about this moment as an opportunity to look around us and realize our broader power.” More

    • 188 Shares157 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump says Maduro’s days are numbered but ‘doubts’ US will go to war with Venezuela

      by

      Donald Trump has sent mixed signals about potential US intervention in Venezuela, playing down concerns of imminent war against the South American nation but saying its leader Nicolás Maduro’s days were numbered.The president’s remarks, made during a CBS interview released on Sunday, come as the US amasses military units in the Caribbean and has conducted multiple strikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels, killing dozens.Asked during the 60 Minutes program if the US was going to war against Venezuela, Trump said: “I doubt it. I don’t think so.” However, when asked if Maduro’s days as president were numbered, he replied: “I would say yeah. I think so, yeah.”Maduro, who faces indictment on drug charges in the US, has accused Washington of using drug trafficking as a pretext for “imposing regime change” in Caracas to seize Venezuelan oil.More than 15 US strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific have killed at least 65 people in recent weeks, with the latest taking place on Saturday, prompting criticism from governments in the region.Washington has yet to make public any evidence that its targets were smuggling narcotics or posed a threat to the US.In the same interview, Trump alleged countries including Russia and China had conducted underground nuclear tests unknown to the public, and that the US would test “like other countries do”.“Russia’s testing, and China’s testing, but they don’t talk about it,” he told 60 Minutes.“I don’t want to be the only country that doesn’t test,” he said, adding North Korea and Pakistan to the list of nations allegedly testing their arsenals.Confusion has surrounded Trump’s order that the US begin testing, particularly if he meant conducting the country’s first nuclear explosion since 1992.Trump first made his surprise announcement in a social media post on Thursday, minutes before entering a summit with the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, in South Korea, saying he had “instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis”.The announcement came after Russia said it had tested a new nuclear-powered cruise missile, the Burevestnik, and a nuclear-powered and nuclear-capable underwater drone.Asked directly if he planned for the US to detonate a nuclear weapon for the first time in more than three decades, Trump told CBS: “I’m saying that we’re going to test nuclear weapons like other countries do, yes.”No country other than North Korea is known to have conducted a nuclear detonation for decades. Russia and China have not carried out such tests since 1990 and 1996, respectively.Pressed on the topic, Trump said: “They test way underground where people don’t know exactly what’s happening with the test. You feel a little bit of a vibration.”However, Trump’s energy secretary, Chris Wright, on Sunday downplayed any possible tests by the US, telling Fox News on Sunday: “I think the tests we’re talking about right now are system tests. These are not nuclear explosions.”The US has been a signatory since 1996 to the comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty, which bans all atomic test explosions, whether for military or civilian purposes.Other topics addressed in the interview included:

      Trump said he “won’t be extorted” by Democrats to reopen the government, making clear that he has no plans to negotiate as the government shutdown will soon enter its sixth week.

      Asked to clarify whether he would try to run for a third term, which is barred by the constitution, Trump said: “I don’t even think about it,”

      Trump said immigration enforcement officials hadn’t gone far enough in deporting people who were in the country without legal authorisation.
      With Agence France-Presse More

    • 213 Shares87 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: Republicans insist Trump is ‘desperate’ to resolve shutdown as Snap payments end

      by

      Republicans are insisting that Donald Trump is “desperate” to end the government shutdown, which has now entered its 33rd day.The comments by the Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, come as the US president delays food assistance funding for millions of low-income Americans but steams ahead with construction of his $300m gilded White House ballroom.Johnson presented Trump as a man angry and desperate to break the impasse so as to ease mounting pain for ordinary Americans. “He’s just desperate for the government to open, he’s tried everything he can,” Johnson said, adding that Trump was a “big-hearted president, he wants everybody to get their services”.Yet Trump continues to exert an iron grip on the shutdown, resisting political and even federal court pressure to ease the burden on vulnerable Americans while protesting that he has no power to end the impasse.Here are the day’s key Trump administration stories at a glance.Johnson claims ‘big-hearted’ Trump wants to reopen US governmentHouse speaker Mike Johnson’s claims that Donald Trump is desperate to reopen the US government come two days after the president hosted a lavish, Great Gatsby-themed soiree at Mar-a-Lago.Two federal court judges ruled on Friday that the Trump administration must use $5bn in contingency funds to keep paying food assistance Snap benefits for up to 42 million low-income Americans. The payments stopped on Saturday under the shutdown, posing the risk of hunger for millions of people.Read the full storyFBI fires top official amid Patel’s outrage at reports of agency jet useA top FBI official with 27 years standing has reportedly been fired by the bureau after its director, Kash Patel, became enraged by press stories revealing he had used a government jet to travel to see his girlfriend sing the national anthem at a wrestling match.Steven Palmer, who had worked at the bureau since 1998, was fired as head of the FBI’s critical incident response group, which is responsible for handling major security threats as well as overseeing the agency’s fleet of jets. He was the third head of the unit to be dismissed since Patel became FBI director in February.Read the full storyThree killed in US military strike on alleged drug vessel in CaribbeanThe US military has carried out another lethal strike on alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea, US defense secretary Pete Hegseth said.He said on Saturday the vessel was operated by a US-designated terrorist organization but did not name which group was targeted. Three people were killed in the strike, he said.It is at least the 15th such strike carried out by the US military in the Caribbean or eastern Pacific since early September.Read the full storyICE spoils celebrations in ChicagoImmigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Chicago mean that celebrations of Halloween, All Saints Day on 1 November and Día de los Muertos have been muted in the neighborhoods of Pilsen and Little Village.“Clearly it’s because of ICE,” said resident Cecilia Romero. Referring to how JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, had unsuccessfully requested that the Trump administration pause immigration enforcement operations for the Halloween weekend that began Friday, Romero added: “I think people are just scared. It’s just kind of sad that kids are not allowed to have fun on a day where they should be [kids].”Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      California voters appear poised to approve a redistricting measure placed on the ballot in August by Democrats and the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, who have cast it as a chance to check Trump’s power.

      As the US president builds his palace, Americans are going hungry, writes David Smith.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 1 November. More

    • 175 Shares116 Views

      in US Politics

      FBI fires top official amid Kash Patel’s outrage over reports of agency jet use

      by

      A top FBI official with 27 years standing has reportedly been fired by the bureau after its director, Kash Patel, became enraged by press stories revealing he had used a government jet to travel to see his girlfriend sing the national anthem at a wrestling match.Steven Palmer, who had worked at the bureau since 1998, was fired as head of the FBI’s critical incident response group which is responsible for handling major security threats as well as overseeing the agency’s fleet of jets. He was the third head of the unit to be dismissed since Patel became the second Trump administration’s FBI director in February.Bloomberg Law, which broke the story, said that three unnamed sources had expressed astonishment at the sacking given that Patel’s flight schedules were fully public and trackable on websites. A day after her performance, Patel himself had reposted photos showing him together with his girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins, on his X account.According to Bloomberg, Patel had become furious over stories published after the event about his use of the FBI jet to go on the date with Wilkins. Soon after, Palmer had been told he could resign instantly or be fired.The dismissal was made official on Friday.Flight logs publicly trackable on Flight Aware for Patel’s plane, N708JH, show that the jet landed at an airport near Penn State on 25 October. That evening Wilkins performed at a Real American Freestyle wrestling event, and the flight logs show Patel’s FBI plane later flying to Nashville.Records for the movements of the jet N708JH were blocked on Flight Aware as of Sunday. A search for the government jet generates a message saying that it is “not available for public tracking per request from the owner/operator”.On Sunday, Patel posted a lengthy statement on his X account in which he said he refused to be “distracted by baseless rumors or the noise from uninformed internet anarchists and the fake news”. He said it was a “disgrace” to go after “people doing great work, my personal life, or those around me”, reserving his harshest words for what he called the “disgustingly baseless attacks against Alexis – a true patriot and the woman I’m proud to call my partner in life”.He also fueled further speculation by attacking “our supposed allies” whom he lambasted for “staying silent”, though he did not name names. “Your silence is louder than the clickbait haters,” he said.In an earlier statement his spokesperson, Ben Williamson, pointed out that the FBI director is required under government rules to pay some reimbursement for his private jet travel and claimed Patel had “significantly limited” personal trips compared with his predecessors Chris Wray and James Comey. “He’s allowed to take personal time on occasion to see family, friends or his longtime girlfriend,” the spokesman said.As the Daily Beast has noted, Patel was highly critical of Wray’s use of government jets for personal use when Wray was director of the bureau. In 2023, Patel scathingly dubbed Wray “#GovernmentGangster” and accused him of “jetting off on out (sic) tax payer dollars while dodging accountability for the implosion of the FBI on his watch”.Palmer’s dismissal makes him the third head of the FBI critical incident response group to be ditched under Patel. Wes Wheeler was fired in March, and Brian Driscoll in August.Driscoll is now suing the Trump administration for unfair dismissal claiming he was targeted for showing lack of loyalty to the president.Patel’s travel on a government jet for a date night was first spotted by Kyle Seraphin, a former FBI agent who has become a thorn in the side of the Trump administration. His podcast is caustically critical of the current leadership of the FBI.“We’re in the middle of government shutdown … and this guy is jetting off to hang out with his girlfriend in Nashville on our dime?” Seraphin said in a recent podcast.The government shutdown to which Seraphin alluded had entered its 32nd day.In a separate unflattering development for him, Patel is facing heat from a defense lawyer in Michigan who is objecting to the FBI director’s allegations Friday that five young men had been arrested as they planned a Halloween terror attack. The lawyer, Amir Makled, who represents one of the five individuals, said that having reviewed the case he was convinced no such terror event had been in the pipeline.Makled told Associated Press that the FBI director’s claims were “hysteria and fearmongering”. The five men were aged 16 to 20 – and were US citizens and gamers.“I don’t believe that there’s anything illegal about any of the activity they were doing,” he said. More

    • 175 Shares170 Views

      in US Politics

      Pall of ICE spoils weekend celebrations in Chicago: ‘I think people are just scared’

      by

      For 40-year-old Cecilia Romero, the days before and after Halloween are not just any other holiday. It’s the time of year when she can take her kids trick-or-treating in the neighborhood she’s from – and a connection to her own past when she would go celebrate as a little girl.She remembers years of streets brimming with families and children, with street vendors selling food and cempasúchil, the marigolds that loved ones place on altars for Day of the Dead – or Día de los Muertos – from 1 to 2 November.But this year, things are much, much different – because of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids that have been happening in and around Chicago since early September.“Clearly, it’s because of ICE,” Romero said. Referring to how JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, had unsuccessfully requested that the Trump administration pause immigration enforcement operations for the Halloween weekend which began Friday, she added: “I think people are just scared. It’s just kind of sad that kids are not allowed to have fun on a day where they should be [kids].”In the Chicago neighborhoods of Pilsen and Little Village, Halloween, All Saints Day on 1 November, and Día de los Muertos collectively play an important part in bringing the community together to celebrate, mourn and pray as a whole. This year, amid ICE enforcement and raids, the celebrations were a lot more muted. At any point throughout years past, the corridors of 18th Street in Pilsen and 26th Street in Little Village would be packed with people. Those same corridors were much more empty for hours at a time when the Halloween weekend began Friday on this occasion.Prior to Pritzker’s plea to let families celebrate Halloween, federal agents released pepper spray on 25 October in Old Irving Park in an incident that led to the cancellation of a Halloween parade. On Friday, ICE operations in Evanston got out of control, according to neighbors, close to Chute middle school. Federal agents used pepper spray and arrested three US citizens, according to NBC 5 Chicago, on allegations of “violence against law enforcement”.Marco DeSantiago, 49, grew up on Chicago’s South Side, but has been taking his kids to Pilsen for the Halloween festivities for the last 12 years. And he said the changed tone for the revelry this time was striking.“I guess the big difference this year is you could just feel [the] sadness,” DeSantiago said. “It’s a somberness, we feel personally, I could just see [it] in people’s faces. It’s not a joyous occasion.“You’re kind of doing it to keep it going for the kids but everybody, I think, is feeling pretty sad and upset.”He said that in years past more businesses and people had their doors open to trick-or-treaters – more street vendors were on the street, and the vibe was happier and more celebratory.Instead, it felt more like a solemn occasion, he said, adding: “It’s definitely a different feeling.”View image in fullscreenAt nearby soccer fields owned by the Catholic church and school St Procopius, an annual Día de los Muertos celebration featured the usual elaborately decorated altars with photos of deceased loved ones. The tributes had their favorite snacks and items they owned – rosaries or bags, or even Pond’s face cream, and the iconic orange marigolds, in some cases substituted for a plastic alternative, along with votive candles, decorated skulls, as well as many depictions of the Virgin Mary.Yet a lower attendance than usual was obvious to those who went.“It would be packed from the afternoon till the end, like there will be people coming in and out and so you can definitely see a change or a shift – but I don’t think that has to do with the [lack of] motivation or the love for the holiday,” said Isabel Hernández, 27, who was sitting next to an intricate altar for her grandmother, Lorenza Hernández. “I think it’s more so part of the fear right now of … what’s going on in the city, in the country.”Hernández feels particularly sad for people who might be mourning a recent loss – but, due to the ICE raids, might not feel comfortable or safe enough to be able to celebrate with others or partake in the traditions.“I don’t think the grieving is going to ever just go away, but I think you just have to heal with time … or be able to control it some more,” she said. “I can’t even imagine, for those that just recently lost someone … what they’re experiencing seeing people celebrating and then not being able to celebrate with others. I think that’s really hard.”Hernández’s mom, Cecilia, said that it was important for her and her loved ones to keep going with their traditional celebrations despite the pervading sadness.“One of the questions was like, ‘Should we have this event take place?’” Cecilia, 52, said. “For me personally, I was like, ‘Yes, let’s have it,’ because we don’t want what’s happening out there with ICE [to] take that away from us.”For Romero, she just wants to continue celebrating like she used to. “Hopefully, ICE will leave,” she said. “We don’t want them here. We don’t need them here. You know, our city – and I think our country – has been doing fairly well without them coming in.” More

    • 163 Shares143 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump policies spur economic anxiety in US Republican heartland: ‘Tariffs are affecting everything’

      by

      For decades, a line of storefronts in Jeffersonville, Ohio, a town of 1,200 people 40 minutes south-west of Columbus, lay empty.But now locals are hard at work renovating the downtown and paving streets in anticipation of a potential economic boom fueled by a huge new electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant.Two miles south of Jeffersonville, Korean and Japanese companies LG Energy Solution and Honda are in the midst of sinking $3.5bn into a facility that is expected to begin production in the coming months.Hundreds of people have been employed in the construction of the plant, and more than 525 people have been hired to work in engineering and other manufacturing roles at the facility. In total, about 2,200 people are expected to be employed on a site that, until several years ago, was open farmland.But some locals are concerned.A host of Trump administration policies – tariff measures and the end of clean vehicle tax credits worth thousands of dollars to car buyers – are causing multinational manufacturing companies to consider pausing hundreds of millions of dollars in future investments, a move that would hit small, majority-Republican towns such as Jeffersonville especially hard.Moreover, a raid by ICE immigration officers on a Hyundai-LG battery plant in Ellabell, a small town in south-east Georgia in September that saw more than 300 South Korean workers detained and sent home has sent shock waves through places like Jeffersonville and the C-suites of international companies alike.View image in fullscreen“The construction process has been slowing down. My fear is that the whole thing is going to stop, and we’re left with just unfinished concrete out there,” says Amy Wright, a Fayette county resident, of the under-construction battery plant.“What’s more, a lot of the people hired to do the construction of the plant are not locals. They are from out-of-state; I’ve met them at the gym.”While in last year’s presidential election, 77% of voters in Fayette county backed Trump, recent polls suggest his popularity in rural America has taken a nosedive.One poll suggests that his approval rating among rural Americans has slipped from 59% in August to 47% in October. Others chart his net approval rating in states he won in last year’s presidential election – Ohio, Michigan and Indiana – in negative territory by as much as 18.9 points.Wright says her son, who works for a local company that supplies Honda with parts, recently received notice that a prior promise of overtime work was being rescinded. She says she believes Honda is reeling in spending due to US government policies.“Tariffs are affecting everything,” says Wright.What’s happening in Jeffersonville is being mirrored across the midwest.In Kentucky, Michigan and elsewhere, global giants Toyota and Stellantis have spent billions of dollars in small communities, much of which came in the form of clean energy tax breaks from the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.Toyota’s biggest production facility on the planet is in a small Kentucky town called Georgetown, where the company employs more than 10,000 people and has invested $11bn in the local economy since the late 1980s. These workers churn out nearly half a million vehicles and hundreds of thousands of engines every year.However, in August Toyota warned that it faced a $9.5bn financial hit to it and its suppliers due to tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, the largest estimate of any automotive manufacturer. In July, Kentucky’s governor, Andy Beshear, said Trump’s tariffs were undermining investments in the state such as Toyota’s, calling them “chaos”.View image in fullscreenSixty-three per cent of voters in Georgetown’s Scott county backed Trump in last year’s presidential election.Last April, Stellantis laid off 900 workers at locations across the midwest due to Trump’s tariffs.In Indiana, one of the largest employers in the state, the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche is reportedly considering pulling out of $50bn worth of investment in the coming years if Trump follows through on his executive order to target companies that don’t reduce drug prices.“No [manufacturer] wanted to alienate customers, but those days are past. So, the bulk of tariff price increases will hit in the coming months. This matters, because factory employment is a major share of rural counties in the midwest – about 30% in Indiana, and similar in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin,” says Michael Hicks, an economist and professor at Ball State University in Indiana.“These things will clearly have a political effect, but my hunch is not fully for several months. Overlaying all this is the risk of a significant [economic] downturn, where tariffs combine with a financial bubble that would surely hit rural – red – communities very hard.”Still, others believe that the tariffs will benefit small American towns in the long run.“Toyota is doing fine and I don’t see [tariffs] as being a big hurt for us here in Georgetown,” says Robert Linder, co-owner of the Porch restaurant that’s situated a mile north of the huge facility, and who worked at the plant for 29 years.In April, Toyota suggested it might move more vehicle production to Georgetown to beat the tariffs, though that move could be years in the making. Sales of Toyota brands in the US have been growing this year, with the company thus far eating the cost of tariffs rather than passing it on to consumers.“They just announced a $10bn investment in the United States for more Toyota plants. If Toyota was worried about [tariffs] they wouldn’t be expanding,” says Linder. Recent reports, however, suggest the $10bn figure referred to previously announced investments.However, large multinationals have a track record of announcing major projects only for reality to play out in a very different way.In Wisconsin, the Taiwanese tech company Foxconn claimed it would spend $10bn on a facility outside the town of Mount Pleasant. Instead, local taxpayers today find themselves on the hook for $1.2bn spent on highways, attorneys and other infrastructure for a facility that has never transpired.In Arizona, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), backed directly by Trump, has been plagued with lawsuits related to safety and other issues, and missed project deadlines following promises to become a major employer of local talent.Despite Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine, recently claiming there was no need to worry about the future of the LG-Honda battery plant, on 28 October, Honda announced it was reducing production at plants across Ohio due to a semiconductor chip shortage.While more than two dozen jobs are available at the Jeffersonville site, according to the LG-Honda plant’s hiring website, it’s a far cry from the more than 2,000 positions cited by officials previously.For Amy Wright, policies coming out of the White House are having a clear effect on residents of rural Ohio. As an organizer of four local No Kings protests against Trump’s policies she’s noticed a change in the people who are coming to the rallies.“We’ve had more and more people who have voted for [Trump] show up and say: ‘This is not good, this is not what we voted for,’” she says. More

    • 163 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Three killed in US military strike on alleged drug vessel in the Caribbean

      by

      The US military has carried out another lethal strike on alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea, US defense secretary Pete Hegseth said.Hegseth said on Saturday the vessel was operated by a US-designated terrorist organization but did not name which group was targeted. He said three people were killed in the strike.It’s at least the 15th such strike carried out by the US military in the Caribbean or eastern Pacific since early September.In a posting on X, Hegseth said the vessel “was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics.”The US military has now killed at least 64 people in the strikes.Trump has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States. He has asserted the US is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, relying on the same legal authority used by the Bush administration when it declared a war on terrorism after the 11 September 2001 attacks.US lawmakers have been repeatedly rebuffed by the White House in their demand that the administration release more information about the legal justification for the strikes as well as greater details about which cartels have been targeted and the individuals killed.Hegseth said in the posting that “narco-terrorists are bringing drugs to our shores to poison Americans at home” and the Defense Department “will treat them EXACTLY how we treated Al-Qaeda.”Senate Democrats renewed their request for more information about the strikes in a letter on Friday to secretary of state Marco Rubio, director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Hegseth.“We also request that you provide all legal opinions related to these strikes and a list of the groups or other entities the President has deemed targetable,” the senators wrote.Among those signing the letter were senate minority leader Chuck Schumer as well as senators Jack Reed, Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Warner, Chris Coons, Patty Murray and Brian Schatz.The letter says that thus far the administration “has selectively shared what has at times been contradictory information” with some members, “while excluding others”.Earlier Friday, the Republican chair and ranking Democrat on the senate armed services committee released a pair of letters sent to Hegseth written in late September and early October requesting the department’s legal rationale for the strikes and the list of drug cartels that the Trump administration has designated as terrorist organizations in its justification for the use of military force. More

    • 200 Shares89 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: president threatens military action in Nigeria over alleged killings of Christians

      by

      In describing his foreign policy agenda, Donald Trump has proclaimed an “America First” policy.But on Saturday the US president threatened to launch attacks in Nigeria in response to alleged violence against Christians, saying he had instructed his newly named department of war to “prepare for possible action”.“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump posted on social media.The warning of possible military action came after Nigeria’s president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, earlier on Saturday pushed back on Trump announcing the day before that he was designating the west African country “a country of particular concern” for allegedly failing to rein in the persecution of Christians.Here are the key storiesTrump threatens to go into Nigeria ‘guns-a-blazing’ over attacks on ChristiansDonald Trump on Saturday said he had ordered the Pentagon to begin planning for potential military action in Nigeria as he stepped up his criticism that the government was failing to rein in the persecution of Christians in the west African country.“I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action,” he wrote on social media. “If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!”Read the full storyJD Vance repeats comments he wants wife Usha to convert to ChristianityJD Vance is doubling down on comments he made about wanting his wife, Usha Vance, who is Hindu, to convert to Christianity – remarks that drew political backlash from some quarters.At an event with Turning Point USA at the University of Mississippi to honor the conservative group’s slain founder Charlie Kirk, an audience member questioned the US vice-president about how he sees the links between American patriotism and Christianity.Read the full storyTrump’s immigration raids continue through Halloween in Chicago and Los AngelesDonald Trump’s immigration crackdown continued on Halloween night as federal agents were seen in Chicago and Los Angeles on the holiday, according to multiple reports.In Chicago, where the president has unleashed military troops to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as agents carry out arrests and push back against protesters, several people were arrested on Friday. ICE agents descended on the city and its suburbs as part of their operations, and protesters were also detained during clashes with law enforcement.Read the full storyObama criticizes Trump and Republican policy in stump speech for Abigail SpanbergerBarack Obama headlined a rally Saturday in Virginia to try to secure a victory for the state’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate, who leads in polls days before the election.Obama moved between criticizing Donald Trump and Republican policy and rhetoric – with a bit of humor – while also explaining how Abigail Spanberger could help counter what Democrats see as the country’s downward trajectory.Read the full storyFlights delayed across US amid air traffic controller shortages as shutdown drags onNearly 50% of the 30 busiest US airports faced shortages of air traffic controllers, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Friday, leading to flight delays nationwide as a federal government shutdown hit its 31st day.The absence of controllers on Friday is by far the most widespread since the shutdown began, with one of the worst-hit regions being New York, where 80% of air traffic controllers were out, the agency said.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      As Barack Obama stumps for other Democrats, the party gets to see what it lost, writes David Smith in this politics sketch about the former president.

      Trump policies loom large over New Jersey’s unpredictable governor’s race, writes Anna Betts in New Jersey.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 31 October, 2025. More