Trump Pauses All Military Aid to Ukraine

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Trump Pauses All Military Aid to Ukraine

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) President Trump has paused all military aid to Ukraine, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing a senior Pentagon official.

The pause applies to all US military equipment bound for Ukraine that’s not currently in the country, including weapons that are in transit on aircraft and ships or waiting in Poland to be delivered.

The Pentagon official said the US was pausing all military to Ukraine until the country’s leadership demonstrates a good faith commitment to peace.

The move comes a few days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky clashed with President Trump and Vice President JD Vance in the Oval Office, an argument that started after Zelensky questioned the administration’s push for diplomacy with Russia.

News of the pause comes after reports said the Trump administration was holding a meeting on Monday afternoon on the possibility of pausing military aid to Ukraine. Before the meeting, the US had already frozen weapons sales to Ukraine under the State Department’s Foreign Military Financing program, which only accounted for a small portion of the US weapons supply to Ukraine.

While the Trump administration hasn’t approved any new military aid for Ukraine, President Biden signed off on a massive number of arms packages during his final months in office that would take years to deliver.

The aid approved by Biden came in two forms: the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which ships weapons straight from US military stockpiles, and the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), which allows the Pentagon to purchase arms for Ukraine.

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.

 

Casey Anthony for 2028? Anti-Trump Left Welcomes Their Newest Star

Luis Cornelio
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Casey Anthony for 2028? Anti-Trump Left Welcomes Their Newest Star

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) It’s no surprise that the Democratic Party attracts some of the worst figures in America—but their newest ally pushes the boundaries even further.

Casey Anthony, the mother who was acquitted in the death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee, has reintroduced herself as a so-called legal advocate for women and the LGBTQ community, just weeks after President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20.

Anthony made the shocking announcement Saturday in a TikTok video that quickly went viral across social media. Tellingly, a friend acknowledged to the New York Post that Anthony’s newfound activism is driven by her disdain for Trump.

Anthony is “appalled” by the Trump administration and wants to “give a voice” to others, the friend stated.

“She wants to fight Trump,” the friend added. “She figures she can either be angry, or she can be a Trump hating advocate for others. She’ll use her influence to resist.”

Anthony echoed these sentiments in her video, calling herself a “researcher” and claiming she has been in the legal field for more than a decade.

@caseyanthony_substack

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“This is my first of probably many recordings on a series I am starting,” she warned. “I have been in the legal field since 2011, and in this capacity, I feel that it’s necessary if I’m going to continue to operate appropriately as a legal advocate that I start to advocate for myself and also advocate for my daughter.”

Confirming her identity to those in doubt, Anthony said, “For those of you who don’t know, my name is Casey Anthony. My daughter is Caylee Anthony. My parents are George and Cindy Anthony. This is not about them. This is not in response to anything that they have said or done. The whole point of this is for me to begin to reintroduce myself.”

Without naming Trump, the acquitted mother claimed her friends and family have been “targeted and attacked recently.”

“As a proponent for the LGBTQ community, for our legal community, women’s rights, I feel that it’s important that I use this platform that was thrust upon me and now look at as a blessing as opposed to the curse that it has been since 2008,” Anthony explained.

Her remarks come nearly 14 years after a jury acquitted her of first-degree murder in Caylee’s death. The child’s skeletal remains were found on Dec. 11, 2008, months after the child’s grandmother, Cindy, reported her missing.

Caylee’s death was ruled a “homicide by undetermined means” by medical examiners, but no one was ever convicted for her murder.

Prosecutors claimed Anthony killed Caylee to free herself from the constraints of motherhood, but the jury disagreed and convicted her only of making false statements to police.

Trump Slams Zelenskyy for Saying End of Ukraine War Is ‘Very, Very Far Away’

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Trump Slams Zelenskyy for Saying End of Ukraine War Is ‘Very, Very Far Away’

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) President Trump on Monday slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for saying the end of the Ukraine war is “very, very far away” as the two leaders remain at odds after their argument in the Oval Office.

“This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be Peace as long as he has America’s backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelenskyy, stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the US – Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia. What are they thinking?” the president added.

Trump was responding to a report from The Associated Press that quoted Zelenskyy saying a deal with Russia to end the war is still “very, very far away.” Zelenskyy also insisted that he believes “that Ukraine has a strong enough partnership with the United States of America” to ensure aid keeps flowing.

But reports have said President Trump is considering cutting off all aid to Ukraine, including weapons supplies, after the Oval Office meeting, where Zelenskyy questioned the Trump administration’s push for diplomacy with Russia. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also said that the US-Ukraine economic deal was no longer on the table after Zelenskyy chose to “blow it up.”

After Zelensky was kicked out of the White House, he was embraced by European leaders, including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is pushing for a deal that involves a major European troop deployment to Ukraine, an idea Russia has repeatedly rejected. But Starmer’s plan also calls for US security guarantees backed by US air power in Europe.

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.

 

Computer Chip Giant TSMC to Spend $100B to Expand Manufacturing in U.S.

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Computer Chip Giant TSMC to Spend $100B to Expand Manufacturing in U.S.

(Headline USA) Chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. plans to invest $100 billion in the United States, President Donald Trump said Monday, on top of $65 billion in investments the company had previously announced.

TSMC, the world’s biggest semiconductor manufacturer, produces chips for companies including Apple, Intel and Nvidia. The company had already begun constructing three plants in Arizona after the Biden administration offered billions in subsidies. Its first factory in Arizona has started mass production of its 4-nanometer chips.

Trump, who appeared with TSMC’s chief executive officer C. C. Wei at the White House, called it a “tremendous move” and “a matter of economic security.”

“Semiconductors are the backbone of the 21st century economy. And really, without the semiconductors, there is no economy,” the president said. “Powering everything from AI to automobiles to advanced manufacturing, we must be able to build the chips and semiconductors that we need right here in American factories with Americans skill and American labor.”

Wei said the investment will be for three more chip manufacturing plants, along with two packaging facilities, in Arizona.

The $165 billion investment “is going to create thousands of high-paying jobs,” Wei said.

Former President Joe Biden in 2022 signed a sweeping $280 billion law, the CHIPS and Science Act, to try to reinvigorate chip manufacturing in the U.S., especially after the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the pandemic, chip factories, especially those overseas making the majority of processors, shut down. It had a ripple effect that led to wider problems, such as automobile factory assembly lines shutting down and fueled inflation.

Trump has criticized the law and taken a different approach, instead threatening to impose high tariffs on imported chips to bring chip manufacturing back to the U.S.

Trump also has said companies like TSMC do not need federal tax incentives.

When asked if the new investment could minimize impact on the U.S. should China either isolate or seize Taiwan, Trump said he couldn’t say “minimize” because “that would be a catastrophic event obviously.”

Taiwan is an island that broke away from mainland China in 1949 following a civil war. Beijing claims sovereignty over the island and has ratcheted up military and diplomatic pressure on its leaders.

“It will at least give us a position where we have, in this very, very important business, we would have a very big part of it in the United States,” Trump said of the chip manufacturing.

He did not say if the investment would provide security for the self-governed island that Beijing considers to be part of Chinese territory.

Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, the island’s de-facto embassy in the United States, said investments by Taiwanese businesses in the U.S. have exceeded 40% of the island’s total foreign investments and that the Taiwanese government is “glad” to see Taiwanese businesses to expand investments in the U.S. and to deep cooperation on supply chain between the two sides.

“It also brings the economic and trade relations closer,” the office said.

Trump has hosted multiple business leaders at the White House since he took office in January to tout a series of investments that aim to demonstrate his leadership is a boon for the U.S. economy. He’s also pointed to the tariff threats as prodding the investments.

“It’s the incentive we’ve created. Or the negative incentive,” Trump said.

In January, he appeared with the heads of OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank at the White House as they announced plans for a new partnership to invest up to $500 billion for infrastructure tied to artificial intelligence. He also announced in January a $20 billion investment by DAMAC Properties in the United Arab Emirates to build data centers tied to AI.

Last week, after Apple CEO Tim Cook met with Trump at the White House, the company announced plans to invest more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years, including plans for a new server factory in Texas. Trump said after their meeting that Cook promised him Apple’s manufacturing would shift from Mexico to the U.S.

“I don’t have time to do all of these announcements,” Trump joked Monday as he listed some of the other investments.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the planned announcement Monday.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Treasury Ends Enforcement of Business Ownership Database

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Treasury Ends Enforcement of Business Ownership Database

(Headline USA) The U.S. Treasury Department announced it will not enforce a constitutionally dubious law started under Biden’s administration that would require companies to submit their private ownership information to a central database.

In a Sunday evening announcement, Treasury said in a news release that it will not impose penalties now or in the future if companies fail to register for the agency’s beneficial ownership information database.

Despite efforts by small businesses to undue the rule in the courts, it remains in effect.

On Sunday, President Donald Trump on his Truth Social media site praised the suspension of enforcement of the rule and said the database is “outrageous and invasive.”

“This Biden rule has been an absolute disaster for Small Businesses Nationwide,” he said. “The economic menace of BOI reporting will soon be no more.”

In September 2022, the Treasury Department started rulemaking to create a database that would contain personal information on the owners of at least 32 million U.S. businesses.

The rule required most American businesses with fewer than 20 employees to register their business owners with the government as of Jan. 1, 2024.

The rule and its legislative authority—the Corporate Transparency Act, an anti-money laundering statue passed in 2021—have been mired in litigation. In 2022, a small business lobbying group sued to block the Treasury Department’s requirement that tens of millions of small businesses register with the government. On Feb. 27, Treasury’s Financial Crimes and Enforcement Network said it would not take enforcement actions against companies that do not file beneficial ownership data with the agency.

Business leaders cite privacy and security concerns about the database and say it is duplicative to other government agencies that maintain corporate databases.

“This is a victory for common sense,” said U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent on Sunday. “Today’s action is part of President Trump’s bold agenda to unleash American prosperity by reining in burdensome regulations, in particular for small businesses that are the backbone of the American economy.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Chuck Todd Blasts Biden over the ‘Mythology’ He Is a Family Man

Maire Clayton
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Chuck Todd Blasts Biden over the ‘Mythology’ He Is a Family Man

(Maire Clayton, Headline USA) Former Meet the Press host Chuck Todd ripped into former President Joe Biden on a recent episode of Steve Schmidt podcast “The Warning.”

“You know that Joe Biden never should have been there in the first place,” Todd told Schmidt with regard to his presidency.

Todd proceeded to recall when he read the transcript of Hunter Biden’s trial and was appalled with the former president.

“I completely got so angry at Joe Biden,” Todd said. “And when I realized that not one, not two, but three Biden children, and I count Beau’s widow, were all dealing with drug problems in 2018, and Joe Biden and Jill Biden said now’s a perfect time to run for president because who cares about our family.”

“There’s this mythology about Joe Biden,” Todd said before stopping himself and calling it all “bulls**t.”

Biden has often tried to portray himself as being a family man, as he would commute back and forth throughout his political career. However, it took Joe Biden four years to acknowledge his seventh grandchild, Navy Roberts, and received blowback for ignoring the granddaughter for years.

Todd said Biden’s commute can be looked at in a different light.

“This man supposedly cared so much about his family that he commuted every day. Guess what, this man cared so much about his political career that he commuted every day,” Todd noted.

The journalist continued and said “instead what [Biden] really was, was a craven political animal that was desperate” to become president.

Todd noted how Biden ran numerous times for the presidency since he was eligible to run. He first tried to run in 1988. He later tried again in 2008, but ended up becoming former President Barack Obama’s vice president for two terms.

Ex-Homeland Security PPP Fraudster Sentenced to 15 Months in Prison

Ken Silva
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Ex-Homeland Security PPP Fraudster Sentenced to 15 Months in Prison

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) A former DC Homeland Security and U.S. Department of Agriculture was sentenced to 15 months in prison on Friday for perpetrating an $880,000 fraud on the COVID-era Paycheck Protection Program.

The defendant, Wendy Nicole Villatoro, 40, formerly of Washington, D.C., pleaded for leniency leading up to Friday’s sentencing—asking a judge for house arrest.

“Wendy suffered chronic parental neglect throughout her childhood. Even though her basic material needs were met, to put it simply—she was not parented,” her sentencing memorandum said last Tuesday.

The Justice Department, for its part, sought a 27-month sentence for Villatoro.

“What makes this crime particularly egregious is not only the nature of the offense, but the position the defendant held within society,” prosecutors said in a sentencing memo filed last Thursday.

“The defendant was a D.C. public official who was appointed by the D.C. Mayor in 2021 to be a commissioner on the Homeland Security Commission. This Commission was established in 2006 to evaluate the city’s security and to make it safer for its citizens,” they said.

“Given that the defendant worked in the public sector for over 10 years, she must, at some point, believed in the government’s fundamental mission—to serve the public. Yet, somewhere along the way, she decided to defraud her employer out of nearly $850,000, despite making $117,962 annually.”

The court docket does not explain the presiding judge’s reasons for the 15-month sentence. The judge also ordered Villatoro to repay the $844,415.24 she stole, along with another $100 for a “special assessment.” Also on Friday, the DOJ submitted a list of items Villatoro purchased with her ill-gotten gains, including a number of accessories from high-end brands such as Gucci, Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton.

According to the DOJ, Villatoro worked for the Department of Agriculture at the time she committed the massive fraud.

Before that, she was a D.C. Homeland Security Commissioner. According to a LinkedIn account with her name, she was a “senior expert publicly confirmed as Commissioner by the District of Columbia City Council to provide recommendations to the Mayor on improvements in security preparedness.”

She also said she’s a Doctoral Candidate in cybersecurity.

“I am a disruptor with expertise in sustainability, strategy, program management, logistics, homeland security, disaster management, and technology,” her LinkedIn bio states.

Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.

Trump Signs Order Designating English as the Official Language of the US

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Trump Signs Order Designating English as the Official Language of the US

(Headline USA) President Donald Trump signed on Saturday an executive order designating English as the official language of the United States.

The order allows government agencies and organizations that receive federal funding to choose whether to continue to offer documents and services in language other than English.

It rescinds a mandate from former President Bill Clinton that required the government and organizations that received federal funding to provide language assistance to non-English speakers.

“Establishing English as the official language will not only streamline communication but also reinforce shared national values, and create a more cohesive and efficient society,” according to the order.

“In welcoming new Americans, a policy of encouraging the learning and adoption of our national language will make the United States a shared home and empower new citizens to achieve the American dream,” the order also states. “Speaking English not only opens doors economically, but it helps newcomers engage in their communities, participate in national traditions, and give back to our society.”

More than 30 states have already passed laws designating English as their official language, according to U.S. English, a group that advocates for making English the official language in the United States.

For decades, lawmakers in Congress have introduced legislation to designate English as the official language of the U.S., but those efforts have not succeeded.

Within hours of Trump’s inauguration last month, the new administration took down the Spanish language version of the official White House website.

Hispanic advocacy groups and others expressed confusion and frustration at the change. The White House said at the time it was committed to bringing the Spanish language version of the website back online. As of Saturday, it was still not restored.

The White House did not immediately respond to a message about whether that would happen.

Trump shut down the Spanish version of the website during his first term. It was restored when President Joe Biden was inaugurated in 2021.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

SCOOP: FBI Informant Made $665,638.63 Posing as Terrorist

Ken Silva
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SCOOP: FBI Informant Made $665,638.63 Posing as Terrorist

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Newly unsealed court records reveal that a confidential informant made $665,638.63 over roughly the last eight years working for the FBI—with one of his recent assignments being to pose as an Iraqi terrorist.

“[Confidential Human Source 1] has been working with the FBI since approximately 2014. CHS1 has no prior arrests/convictions or negative reporting. CHS1 is working with the FBI based on patriotism as well as monetary benefits,” the FBI disclosed in an Oct. 2022 criminal complaint that was just unsealed last Thursday.

“CHS1 has done extensive work for the FBI beyond this case, and the CHS1’s total compensation for work performed and the reimbursement of expenses over the past approximately 8 years is in excess of $665,638.63.”

Last Thursday’s bombshell disclosure came in the case of former Navy sailor Xuanyu Harry Pang, 38, a naturalized citizen from China who was residing in North Chicago. Pang pled guilty last November to conspiring to and attempting to willfully harm the national defense of the United States—and his guilty plea was just ordered unsealed last Thursday.

The details of Pang’s case are wild.

According to the Justice Department, Pang, who enlisted in the Navy in February 2022, was an associate of an unnamed individual in Colombia. Pang and the Colombian were allegedly conspiring to attack the U.S. to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani, a general of the IRGC Quds Force who was killed by the Trump administration in 2020

Court records don’t explain Pang or the Colombian’s interest in avenging Soleimani, but they do say that the Colombian has links to the National Liberation Army, a Marxist-Leninist guerilla organization formed in 1964.

While their motivations are unclear, Pang and the Colombian’s conspiracy allegedly included a plot to smuggle radioactive polonium into the country, according to the FBI. The Colombian allegedly told Pang in 2022 that the polonium would “detonate” in a major U.S. city within a year—something that obviously never happened.

The FBI purportedly discovered the above-mentioned conspiracy when agent executed a search warrant on Pang’s online activity in April 2022, two months after he enlisted in the Navy. Court records don’t indicate why the FBI sought the warrant in the first place.

After executing the search on Pang, an FBI undercover employee posing as an Iraqi Shia militant group commander contacted the Colombian in July 2022. The unnamed Colombia allegedly agreed to help the covert FBI employee and his purported associates with their operation to conduct the attack in the U.S. Pang was looped in on the plot, and he agreed to help, too, according to the FBI.

That’s when the FBI informant came into the picture. According to court records, the FBI informant met in person with Pang at least three times, posing as an operative of the Iran-backed Iraqi paramilitary group, Kata’ib Hizballah. Their first meeting was in September 2022.

Pang and continued to talk to the phony Iraqi operative over the next few weeks. The criminal complaint against Pang shows that the FBI informant was pushing him into a plot to attack military bases—but that Pang was reluctant.

One purported conversation went as follows:

CHS1: So, you mentioned some military places. Is it closer from here?

PANG: Not that close.

CHS1: No?

PANG: Two hours.

CHS1: [Unintelligible]

PANG: Those places, impossible.

CHS1: Really?

PANG: Because the military places have this heavily…heavily guarded…

CHS1: Yeah.

PANG: …heavily guarded. And you have only two people coming? You can’t …won’t be able to get through a gate.

CHS1: Yeah. You’re right.

PANG: So…

CHS1: Do you think you can do some search of these places just in case?

PANG: I’ll look it up.

Eventually, Pang did send surveillance footage of a Navy base, according to the FBI. Pang also allegedly showed the FBI informant footage of inside the base during an in-person meeting in October 2022.

“PANG initiated the meeting with CHS1 to discuss more details about the plot to attack the Naval Station Great Lakes and was also aware of the risks of sending photos of the inside of the military base,” the DOJ’s October 2022 criminal complaint stated. “Although aware of these risks, according to CHS1 and the recording, PANG showed photos of what appeared to be areas inside of the U.S. Navy base to CHS1 during their in-person meeting.”

After that Oct. 15, 2022, meeting, the FBI informant paid Pang $3,000 in cash. The informant then asked about acquiring military uniforms to get operatives onto the Navy base to facilitate an attack. Later that month, Pang provided the informant with the uniforms, according to the FBI. Pang also allegedly provided the informant with a cell phone that could be used as a test for a detonator.

The FBI obtained an arrest warrant for Pang the next day on Oct. 16, 2022. For the next two-plus years, the case remained under seal.

At one point, Pang filed an unsuccessful motion to dismiss the charges. The contents of that motion are still unavailable to the public, as are the vast majority of documents from the case.

Pang is set to be sentenced on May 27. He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

The DOJ’s case is the latest allegation that Iran conspired to attack the U.S. Last year, the DOJ announced two cases involving a purported plot to assassinate Donald Trump.

To date, the U.S. government has produced no hard evidence of an Iranian plot against Trump. A Pakistani man with ties to Iran was arrested last July for trying to hire an FBI informant as a “hitman,” and another Iranian told the FBI last year that his government was trying to kill Trump—but those cases appear highly dubious, and certainly didn’t pose any real threat to the President.

Additionally, in 2022 the FBI announced an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate former national security advisor John Bolton—another case involving someone trying to hire an FBI informant as a hitman.

Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.

Tim Walz Says He Might Run for President in 2028

Maire Clayton
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Tim Walz Says He Might Run for President in 2028

(Maire Clayton, Headline USA) Minnesota Governor Tim Walz did not rule out the possibility of running for the presidency in 2028 while speaking with The New Yorker on its radio show.

“Look I never had an ambition to be president or vice president,” he began. “I was honored to be asked.”

Walz continued that if he felt like it were possible he would do it.

“If I feel like I can serve, I will. And if nationally, people are, like, ‘Dude, we tried you, and look how that worked out,’ I’m good with that,” the Democrat governor said.

“If I think I could offer something . . . I would certainly consider that,” he continued. “I’m also, though, not arrogant enough to believe there’s a lot of people that can do this.”

Social media users could not contain their laughter over the idea of Walz running for the presidency.

“That is going to be entertaining,” one X user wrote. “The meme material will be overwhelming.”

Journalist Miranda Devine said Walz might as well attempt to run.

“Haha! Talk about delusional. Go for it, Tim. Eyes on the prize!” she wrote.

Others poked fun at Walz over potential slogans.

“His campaign slogan will be *make boys have tampons again*,” one wrote, referencing how the governor previously signed a law which forced public schools to provided menstrual products to all students in 4th through 12th grades.

Since former Vice President Kamala Harris’s disastrous campaign, Walz told The New Yorker the two have only spoke “a couple times.” He noted that both are busy with their current jobs.

“Well, maybe she doesn’t want to talk to me after we got this thing done,” Walz added. “No, I think it’s just there’ll be a time and a place. But we left good, and my family misses her.”

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