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Secretary of Defense pete hegseth facing intense demands from Congress The release of full video of an attack on an alleged drug boat that killed two survivors has prompted Democrats and legal experts to say it could constitute a war crime or murder. Hegseth provided a classified briefing for congressional leaders Tuesday with the Secretary of State marco rubio and CIA director John Ratcliffe In the Capitol. He said he was still considering whether to release the video.
The situation has awakened the Republican-controlled Congress to its oversight role after months of frustration over leaks of information from the Pentagon. Meanwhile, the US military on Tuesday flew a pair of fighter jets over the Gulf of Venezuela as the Trump administration stepped up pressure on President Nicolas Maduro.
Trump’s speech on tackling inflation turns to complaints about immigrants: The president was on the street in Pennsylvania on Tuesday donald trump Tried to focus his attention on tackling inflation, yet the issue that had damaged his popularity could not attract his full attention. Yet he strayed during his remarks, asking why the U.S. couldn’t take in more immigrants from Scandinavia and using expletives to describe countries like Haiti and Somalia.
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Trump’s peace deals are in danger as fighting increases on Congo and Cambodia-Thailand border
Less than a week after Congo and Rwanda signed an agreement in Trump’s presence in Washington that aimed to halt fighting in eastern Congo, and less than two months after he saw Cambodia and Thailand sign a ceasefire agreement in Malaysia to end their border conflict, fighting has escalated in both places.
The developments have caused international concern, resulting in urgent calls to stop the renewed violence.
US military flies 2 fighter planes over Venezuelan Gulf as investigation progresses
Public flight tracking websites showed a pair of US Navy F/A-18 fighter planes flying over the water over the bay for more than 30 minutes. A US defense official called it a “routine training flight”. Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations, the officials could not say whether the jets were armed, and said they had stopped in international airspace.
The US military has built its largest presence in the region in decades and launched a series of deadly attacks on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. President Donald Trump says land strikes are coming soon, without saying where.
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Trump’s crackdown on immigration is impacting child care workers
Shortly after Trump took office in January, the staff at Centronia Bilingual Preschool began practicing what to do if Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers came to the door.
In October, the school canceled its beloved Hispanic Heritage Month parade. ICE had begun detaining staff members, all of whom have legal status, and school officials were concerned about attracting more unwanted attention.
All this happened before ICE officers arrested a teacher inside a Spanish immersion preschool in Chicago in October. The incident left immigrants working in child care feeling fearful and unsafe, as well as the families who depend on them.
Trump’s push for the largest mass deportation in history has had an outsized impact on the child care sector, which is heavily dependent on immigrants and already strained by a labor shortage. Immigrant child care workers and preschool teachers, most of whom are working and living in the U.S. legally, say they are worried about potential encounters with ICE officers. Some have left the field, and others have been forced out due to changes in immigration policy.
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Trump once denied using this slur about Haiti and African countries. Now he brags about it
Trump admitted on Tuesday what he had previously denied: He used the term “waste country” to disparage Haiti and African countries during a 2018 meeting with lawmakers. Now he is boasting about the remarks that sparked global outrage during his first term.
At the time, Trump had denied making the offending statement during a closed-door meeting, but on Tuesday, he showed little hesitation when repeating it again during a rally in Pennsylvania. He denigrated Somalia as “dirty, dirty, disgusting, crime-ridden.”
Trump was claiming he had “announced a permanent halt to Third World migration, including Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia and many other countries,” when someone in the crowd shouted the 2018 comment.
This prompted him to recall the 2018 incident. His statement matched the description given by people briefed on the Oval Office meeting at the time. The day after that news broke, Trump posted on Twitter that “that was not the language I used” and claimed that he “never said anything derogatory about Haitians.”
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