MOSCOW: The Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday that its forces had carried out 35 strikes in the last week against Ukrainian energy facilities, defense factories, railway infrastructure, air defenses, and ammunition stocks.
It said in a statement that the strikes, which spanned April 20-27, were “in response to attempts by the Kyiv regime to damage Russian energy and industrial facilities.”
Ukraine has systematically targeted Russian oil refineries and other facilities in drone attacks in recent weeks, ignoring US requests not to do so.
Ukrainian officials said Russian missiles had pounded power facilities in central and western Ukraine on Saturday, increasing pressure on the ailing energy system as the country faces a shortage of air defenses despite a breakthrough in US military aid.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its campaign of strikes had been conducted using sea- and air-launched long-range precision weapons, including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles and drones.
It said it had also targeted and hit Ukrainian troop formations as well as what it described as foreign mercenaries.
Russia says it struck Ukrainian energy plants in response to Kyiv targeting its own energy sector
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Russia says it struck Ukrainian energy plants in response to Kyiv targeting its own energy sector
- The strikes were “in response to attempts by the Kyiv regime to damage Russian energy and industrial facilities“
- Ukraine has systematically targeted Russian oil refineries and other facilities in drone attacks in recent weeks
Moody’s strips US government of top credit rating, citing Washington’s failure to rein in debt
- Moody’s is the last of the three major rating agencies to lower the federal government’s credit
- Standard & Poor’s downgraded federal debt in 2011 and Fitch Ratings followed in 2023
WASHINGTON: Moody’s Ratings stripped the US government of its top credit rating Friday, citing successive governments’ failure to stop a rising tide of debt.
Moody’s lowered the rating from a gold-standard Aaa to Aa1 but said the United States “retains exceptional credit strengths such as the size, resilience and dynamism of its economy and the role of the US dollar as global reserve currency.”
Moody’s is the last of the three major rating agencies to lower the federal government’s credit. Standard & Poor’s downgraded federal debt in 2011 and Fitch Ratings followed in 2023.
In a statement, Moody’s said: “We expect federal deficits to widen, reaching nearly 9 percent of (the US economy) by 2035, up from 6.4 percent in 2024, driven mainly by increased interest payments on debt, rising entitlement spending, and relatively low revenue generation.”
Extending President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, a priority of the Republican-controlled Congress, Moody’s said, would add $4 trillion over the next decade to the federal primary deficit (which does not include interest payments).
A gridlocked political system has been unable to tackle America’s huge deficits. Republicans reject tax increases, and Democrats are reluctant to cut spending.
On Friday, House Republicans failed to push a big package of tax breaks and spending cuts through the Budget Committee. A small group of hard-right Republican lawmakers, insisting on steeper cuts to Medicaid and President Joe Biden’s green energy tax breaks, joined all Democrats in opposing it.
US Supreme Court rejects Trump’s bid to resume quick deportations under 18th-century law
- High court action latest in string of judicial setbacks for Trump administration’s effort to speed deportations of people from the US illegally
- “The Supreme court won’t allow us to get criminals out of our country!” Trump reacts on his Truth Social platform
WASHINGTON: The Supreme Court on Friday barred the Trump administration from quickly resuming deportations of Venezuelans under an 18th-century wartime law enacted when the nation was just a few years old.
Over two dissenting votes, the justices acted on an emergency appeal from lawyers for Venezuelan men who have been accused of being gang members, a designation that the administration says makes them eligible for rapid removal from the United States under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
The court indefinitely extended the prohibition on deportations from a north Texas detention facility under the alien enemies law. The case will now go back to the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which declined to intervene in April.
President Donald Trump quickly voiced his displeasure. “THE SUPREME COURT WON’T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!” he posted on his Truth Social platform.
The high court action is the latest in a string of judicial setbacks for the Trump administration’s effort to speed deportations of people in the country illegally. The president and his supporters have complained about having to provide due process for people they contend didn’t follow US immigration laws.
The court had already called a temporary halt to the deportations, in a middle-of-the-night order issued last month. Officials seemed “poised to carry out removals imminently,” the court noted Friday.
Several cases related to the old deportation law are in courts
The case is among several making their way through the courts over Trump’s proclamation in March calling the Tren de Aragua gang a foreign terrorist organization and invoking the 1798 law to deport people.
The high court case centers on the opportunity people must have to contest their removal from the United States — without determining whether Trump’s invocation of the law was appropriate.
“We recognize the significance of the Government’s national security interests as well as the necessity that such interests be pursued in a manner consistent with the Constitution,” the justices said in an unsigned opinion.
At least three federal judges have said Trump was improperly using the AEA to speed deportations of people the administration says are Venezuelan gang members. On Tuesday, a judge in Pennsylvania signed off on the use of the law.
The legal process for this issue is a patchwork one
The court-by-court approach to deportations under the AEA flows from another Supreme Court order that took a case away from a judge in Washington, D.C., and ruled detainees seeking to challenge their deportations must do so where they are held.
In April, the justices said that people must be given “reasonable time” to file a challenge. On Friday, the court said 24 hours is not enough time but has not otherwise spelled out how long it meant. The administration has said 12 hours would be sufficient. US District Judge Stephanie Haines ordered immigration officials to give people 21 days in her opinion, in which she otherwise said deportations could legally take place under the AEA.
The Supreme Court on Friday also made clear that it was not blocking other ways the government may deport people.
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, with Alito complaining that his colleagues had departed from their usual practices and seemingly decided issues without an appeals court weighing in. “But if it has done so, today’s order is doubly extraordinary,” Alito wrote.
In a separate opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said he agreed with the majority but would have preferred the nation’s highest court to jump in now definitively, rather than return the case to an appeals court. “The circumstances,” Kavanaugh wrote, “call for a prompt and final resolution.”
World’s biggest poultry exporter Brazil confirms bird flu outbreak
- Brazil exports make up 35 percent of global chicken trade
SAO PAULO: Brazil, the world’s largest poultry exporter, confirmed its first outbreak of bird flu on a commercial farm on Friday, triggering a ban on shipments to China and raising the prospect of restrictions from other trade partners.
Brazil exported $10 billion of chicken meat in 2024, accounting for about 35 percent of global trade. Much of that came from meat processors BRF and JBS, which ship to some 150 countries.
China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the UAE, are among the main destinations for Brazil’s chicken exports.
Brazil’s Agriculture Minister Carlos Favaro said on Friday China had banned poulty imports from the country for 60 days, but that Brazilian chicken in transit to other countries would not face problems.
Chinese customs did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment outside business hours.
The outbreak occurred in the city of Montenegro in Brazil’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul, the Agriculture Ministry said. The state accounts for 15 percent of Brazilian poultry production and exports, national pork and poultry group ABPA said in July 2024.
BRF had five processing plants operating in the state as of May 2024. JBS has also invested in chicken processing plants in Rio Grande do Sul under its Seara brand.
The veterinary officials have begun isolating the area of the outbreak in Montenegro and culling the remaining birds, in line with protocol, the state agricultural secretariat said.
“A complementary investigation will be carried out within an initial radius of 10 km (6 miles) from the area where the outbreak occurred, and into possible links with other properties,” the secretariat said.
The ministry also said it was acting to contain and eradicate the outbreak, officially notifying the World Organization for Animal Health, Brazil’s trade partners and other interested parties.
“All necessary measures to control the situation were quickly adopted, and the situation is under control and being monitored by government agencies,” industry group ABPA said in a statement.
Asked for a company response, JBS deferred to ABPA.
Miguel Gularte, CEO of BRF, told a call with analysts he was confident Brazilian health protocols were robust and “this episode” would be quickly overcome.
Since 2022, bird flu has swept through the US poultry industry, killing around 170 million chickens, turkeys and other birds, severely affecting production of meat and eggs.
Bird flu has also infected nearly 70 people in the US, with one death, since 2024. Most of those infections have been among farmworkers exposed to infected poultry or cows.
The further spread of the disease raises the risk that bird flu could become more transmissible to humans.
Brazil, which exported more than 5 million metric tons of chicken products last year, first confirmed outbreaks of the highly pathogenic avian flu among wild birds in May 2023 in at least seven states.
The disease is not transmitted through the consumption of poultry meat or eggs, the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement.
“The Brazilian and world population can rest assured about the safety of inspected products, and there are no restrictions on their consumption,” the ministry said.
UK faith leaders urge PM to tone down migration rhetoric
- Downing Street has strongly rejected the claims but the religious leaders asked him to “reconsider the language the government uses“
- The 25 signatories instead called for a “more compassionate narrative”
LONDON: UK religious leaders on Friday called on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to tone down his language about migration, after comparisons were made to an inflammatory speech in the 1960s.
Labour leader Starmer this week announced tougher new policies to tackle high levels of migration, in an attempt to stem a growing loss of support to the hard right.
In a speech, he said the UK risked becoming “an island of strangers,” prompting comparisons to similar phrasing in the late politician Enoch Powell’s so-called “rivers of blood” speech about the dangers of uncontrolled immigration in 1968.
Downing Street has strongly rejected the claims but the religious leaders, including Church of England bishops, senior Muslim and Jewish clerics, asked him to “reconsider the language the government uses.”
“Our concern is that the current narrative, which presents only one side of the debate, will only drive public anxiety and entrench polarization,” they wrote.
“When you refer to the ‘incalculable’ damage done by uncontrolled migration, you are in danger of harming migrant members of our communities and strengthening those who would divide us,” they added.
Former human rights lawyer Starmer’s hardening tone has shocked some of his parliamentary colleagues and a YouGov poll published Friday indicated that half of Labour voters now have a negative opinion of him.
The 25 signatories instead called for a “more compassionate narrative,” pointing out that many migrants had become “part of our national story and fabric.”
“Our country would be so much poorer without them,” they added.
Starmer’s plans include restrictions on recruiting from abroad for the social care sector, doubling the length of time before migrants can qualify for settlement and new powers to deport foreign criminals.
The religious leaders said people who had come to the UK legitimately under rules set by previous governments, working and paying tax.
“Framing this as somehow unfair only feeds the politics of grievance and division,” they added.
The letter was sent to Starmer after his speech on Monday, The Guardian newspaper reported.
It quoted a Downing Street spokesperson as saying: “We are clear that migrants make a massive contribution to the UK, and would never denigrate that.
“Britain is an inclusive and tolerant country, but the public expect that people who come here should be expected to learn the language and integrate.”
NYU denies diploma to student who criticized Israel in commencement speech
- Logan Rozos used his address to condemn US support for Israel's 'genocide' in Gaza
- Speech was loudly cheered and drew a standing ovation from some graduating students
NEW YORK: New York University said it would deny a diploma to a student who used a graduation speech to condemn Israel’s attacks on Palestinians and what he described as US “complicity in this genocide.”
Logan Rozos’s speech Wednesday for graduating students of NYU’s Gallatin School sparked waves of condemnation from pro-Israel groups, who demanded the university take aggressive disciplinary action against him.
In a statement, NYU spokesperson John Beckman apologized for the speech and accused the student of misusing his platform “to express his personal and one-sided political views.”
“He lied about the speech he was going to deliver and violated the commitment he made to comply with our rules,” Beckman added. “The University is withholding his diploma while we pursue disciplinary actions.”
Universities across the country have faced tremendous pressure to crack down on pro-Palestinian speech or risk funding cuts from President Donald Trump’s administration, which has equated criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
But NYU, which is attended by Trump’s son, Barron, has largely avoided the president’s ire so far.
Rozos, an actor and member of the Gallatin Theater Troupe, was selected by fellow students to give the liberal art program’s address. He said he felt a moral and political obligation to speak to the audience about what he called the atrocities in Palestine.
“The genocide currently occurring is supported politically and militarily by the United States, is paid for by our tax dollars and has been livestreamed to our phones for the past 18 months,” he said.
The speech drew loud cheers from the crowd, along with a standing ovation from some graduating students.
But as video of the speech spread online, it was roundly denounced by pro-Israel groups, who accused NYU of creating an unsafe environment for Jewish students.
“No student — especially Jewish students — should have to sit through politicized rhetoric that promotes harmful lies about Israel during such a personal milestone,” the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement.
The group #EndJewHatred suggested the speech — which did not mention Jewish people — would meet the university’s newly-expanded definition of antisemitism, which includes certain criticism of Israel.
An emailed inquiry to Rozos was not returned.
As pro-Palestinian rallies roiled campuses across the country last spring, the 2024 commencement season was was marked by tensions and cancelations, and strict limits on what students could say.
With billions of dollars of funding at risk from the Trump administration, the stakes for universities are even higher this year, some faculty said.
“They are bending over backward to crack down on speech that runs counter to what the current administration in Washington espouses,” said Andrew Ross, a professor of social and cultural analysis at NYU.
“Myself and many of my colleagues are frankly appalled at the decision that’s being made to deny a student speaker his diploma,” Ross added. “This is a very good example of an administration falling down on the job.”
