BRUSSELS: Armed Belgian police, with French support, were hunting one or more fleeing gunmen who wounded three officers during a raid on Tuesday in Brussels linked to the investigation of November’s militant attacks in Paris, officials said.
A southern section of the city was sealed off by police, Reuters journalists at the scene said. Police told residents to stay indoors and two schools close to the scene of the shootings were in lockdown, residents said.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said French police units were also taking part in the raid in the Belgian capital, where investigators believe much of the planning and preparation for the Nov. 13 Daesh attacks were carried out by young French and Belgians, some of whom fought in Syria.
“This operation is connected to the Paris attacks,” a spokesman for Belgium’s federal prosecutor told Reuters.
The area around the raid, near the main north-south railway linking Paris and Amsterdam and an Audi car factory, in the suburb of Forest, was sealed off. A helicopter flew overhead and police commandos were deployed.
A spokeswoman for the local police service in southern Brussels said two officers were lightly wounded in an initial incident and a third was also slightly hurt later.
Belgian security forces have still been actively hunting suspects and associates of Brussels-based militants involved in the attacks in Paris in which 130 people were killed. Some of the attackers came from Brussels.
One of the prime suspects, 26-year-old Brussels-based Frenchman Salah Abdeslam, is still on the run.
He left Paris shortly after his brother blew himself up in the attacks. Belgian authorities are holding 10 people who have arrested in the months since the attacks.
The Belgian capital, home of the European Union as well as Western military alliance NATO, was locked down for days after the Paris on fears of a major incident there. Brussels has maintained a high state of security alert since then, with military patrols a regular sight.
Brussels police hunt fleeing gunman in Paris probe
Brussels police hunt fleeing gunman in Paris probe
On Trump’s orders, thousands of JFK assassination documents newly public
- The archives’ Kennedy assassination collection has more than six million pages of records, the vast majority of which had been declassified and made public before Trump’s order
WASHINGTON: Thousands of pages of digital documents related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy are now available for historians, conspiracy theorists and the merely curious, following orders from US President Donald Trump.
The president, shortly after taking office for his second term in January, signed an executive order directing national intelligence and other officials to quickly come up with a plan “for the full and complete release of all John F. Kennedy assassination records.”
The archives’ Kennedy assassination collection has more than six million pages of records, the vast majority of which had been declassified and made public before Trump’s order. Trump told reporters on Monday that 80,000 pages would be released on Tuesday. Justice Department lawyers got orders Monday evening to review the records for release. The digital documents did not start appearing until 7 p.m. (2300 GMT) Tuesday on a National Archives web page. As of 10:30 p.m. Tuesday (0230 GMT Wednesday), the National Archives had published 2,182 PDFs totaling 63,400 pages.
The archives did not immediately respond on Wednesday to a request for comment on whether more documents would soon be released in response to a January order from Trump.
Kennedy’s murder has been attributed to a sole gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald. The Justice Department and other federal government bodies have reaffirmed that conclusion in the intervening decades. But polls show many Americans still believe his death was a result of a conspiracy.
“There will be people who will be looking at the records and seeing if there is any hint of any confirmation about their theory,” Larry Schnapf, an environmental lawyer who has researched the assassination and pushed the government to make public what it knows about what led up to the shooting in Dallas on a November afternoon six decades ago, said on Wednesday.
Schnapf, who stayed up until 4 a.m. poring over the documents, said that what he found as he went through them was less illuminating about Kennedy’s assassination than about US spy operations.
“It’s all about our government’s covert activities leading up to the assassination,” he said.
Department of Defense documents from 1963 that were among those released Tuesday covered the Cold War of the early 1960s and the US involvement in Latin America, trying to thwart Castro’s support of communists in other countries. One document released from January 1962 reveals details of a top-secret project called “Operation Mongoose,” or simply “the Cuban Project,” which was a CIA-led campaign of covert operations and sabotage against Cuba, authorized by Kennedy in 1961, aimed at removing the Castro regime.
Trump promised on the campaign trail to provide more transparency about Kennedy’s death. Upon taking office, he also ordered aides to present a plan for the release of records relating to the assassinations in 1968 of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.
Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said he advocates for transparency in Washington and noted previous administrations, including the Biden administration, have also released Kennedy assassination documents. But he added that even with the thousands of new documents, the public will still not know everything, as much evidence may have been destroyed throughout the decades.
The National Archives did not immediately respond to queries on Wednesday about whether plans for releasing documents on Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr had been developed or when such documents would be released.
Zelensky says discussed with Trump US idea of owning occupied nuclear plant
- The power station, Europe’s largest, was captured by Russian forces early in their invasion launched in February 2022 and since has been a flashpoint of concerns over a possible nuclear incident
KYIV, Ukraine: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday said that he and US counterpart Donald Trump had discussed possible US ownership of the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.
His comments to reporters came after Trump told Zelensky on Wednesday that the United States could own and run Ukraine’s nuclear power plants as part of his latest bid to secure a ceasefire in Russia’s invasion.
“We talked only about one power plant, which is under Russian occupation,” Zelensky, who was on an official visit to Finland, said during an online briefing, referring to the plant in Zaporizhzhia.
The power station, Europe’s largest, was captured by Russian forces early in their invasion launched in February 2022 and since has been a flashpoint of concerns over a possible nuclear incident.
Zelensky said that it could take more than two years for the plant to be made operational again, and that its generation capacity was needed by both Ukrainians and Europe.
“Do we need it? For people, yes, and for Europe, too. To join the European electronic network — absolutely. We can do all this,” he said.
Since taking office in January, Trump has sought a speedy resolution to the more than three years of brutal fighting between Russia’s invading force and the Ukrainians.
Zelensky last week backed a US-led proposal for a complete and unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine, but the Kremlin refused and instead proposed a halt on strikes on energy infrastructure.
The Ukrainian leader told reporters from Finland that Putin was unlikely to agree to any ceasefire as long as Ukraine’s troops were still fighting for control of Russia’s Kursk region, where Kyiv launched an audacious but struggling offensive last year.
“He does not want a ceasefire while our troops are on the territory of the Kursk region,” Zelensky said.
Russian forces have been making steady gains in the Kursk region for weeks, thwarting what Kyiv hoped would be a bargaining chip in talks with Moscow.
The Trump administration’s speedy engagement with Russian officials, a sharp departure from the previous administration’s approach, has raised fears in Ukraine that it could be forced to make unpopular concessions, like ceding territory to Russia.
But Zelensky told reporters that Trump had not mounted any pressure on Kyiv to capitulate to the Kremlin demands.
“I want to be frank, very frank. Today I did not feel any pressure from Trump, there was none. And this is a fact. You know that I am an open person. If it was, I would have told you frankly,” he said.
His comments come just weeks after a shocking standoff between the two leaders in the White House which ended in the Ukrainian delegation, including Zelensky, leaving ahead of schedule.
During the briefing with reporters, Zelensky said that he spoke with Emmanuel Macron on a daily basis, after the French leader called him unexpectedly during the press conference.
“Yes, I have just spoken to President Macron, to Emmanuel,” Zelensky said after receiving a telephone call during the briefing. “We often talk a lot. Once a day. After our conversation, I will call him back.”
Zelensky also announced that he would visit France next week, without elaborating.
The Ukrainian leader has urged his Western allies to step up aid even in the event of a ceasefire, and announced on Wednesday that his country had recently received “several” more F-16 fighter jets.
“I’m not going to tell you how many,” Zelensky told reporters, without saying which country delivered them. Ukraine received its first deliveries of the US-made aircraft last year.
Trump to order a plan to shut down the US Education Department
- The Trump administration has already been gutting the agency through layoffs and program cuts
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order Thursday calling for the shutdown of the US Education Department, according to a White House official, advancing a campaign promise to eliminate an agency that’s been a longtime target of conservatives.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity before an announcement.
Trump has derided the Department of Education as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology. However, finalizing its dismantling is likely impossible without an act of Congress, which created the department in 1979.
A White House fact sheet said the order would direct Secretary Linda McMahon “to take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure (of) the Department of Education and return education authority to the States, while continuing to ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”
The Trump administration has already been gutting the agency through layoffs and program cuts. Its workforce is being slashed in half and there have been deep cuts to the Office for Civil Rights and the Institute of Education Sciences, which gathers data on the nation’s academic progress.
The department sends billions of dollars a year to schools and oversees $1.6 trillion in federal student loans.
Currently, much of the agency’s work revolves around managing money — both its extensive student loan portfolio and a range of aid programs for colleges and school districts, from school meals to support for homeless students. The agency also plays a significant role in overseeing civil rights enforcement.
Federal funding makes up a relatively small portion of public school budgets — roughly 14 percent. The money often supports supplemental programs for vulnerable students, such as the McKinney-Vento program for homeless students or Title I for low-income schools.
Colleges and universities are more reliant on money from Washington, through research grants along with federal financial aid that helps students pay their tuition.
Republicans have talked about closing the Education Department for decades, saying it wastes taxpayer money and inserts the federal government into decisions that should fall to states and schools. The idea has gained popularity recently as conservative parents’ groups demand more authority over their children’s schooling.
In his platform, Trump promised to close the department “and send it back to the states, where it belongs.” Trump has cast the department as a hotbed of “radicals, zealots and Marxists” who overextend their reach through guidance and regulation.
Yet even some of Trump’s allies have questioned his power to close the agency without action from Congress, and there are doubts about its political popularity. The House considered an amendment to close the agency in 2023, but 60 Republicans joined Democrats in opposing it.
During Trump’s first term, former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos sought to dramatically reduce the agency’s budget and asked Congress to bundle all K-12 funding into block grants that give states more flexibility in how they spend federal money. It was rejected, with pushback from some Republicans.
Judge is ‘offended’ at DOGE’s tactics but does not pause its takeover of the US Institute of Peace
- The institute and many of its board members sued the Trump administration Tuesday, seeking to prevent their removal and to prevent DOGE from taking over its operations
A federal judge allowed Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to remain in control of the US Institute of Peace, an independent nonprofit created by Congress, but expressed concern about their conduct.
US District Judge Beryl Howell said Wednesday she was offended by DOGE staff’s use of threats and law enforcement to gain access to the USIP headquarters and to remove the institute’s president, George Moose, from the building on Monday.
But she declined to immediately restore the former board members, who filed the lawsuit late on Tuesday, to their positions. Howell also declined to bar DOGE staff from USIP’s headquarters, which they gained access to on Monday in part with the help of the police.
Trump last month in an executive order targeted USIP and three other agencies for closure in an effort to deliver on campaign promises to shrink the size of the federal government.
The institute and many of its board members sued the Trump administration Tuesday, seeking to prevent their removal and to prevent DOGE from taking over its operations.
USIP is a think tank, which seeks to prevent and resolve conflicts. It was created and funded by Congress in 1984. Board members are nominated by the president and must be confirmed by the Senate.
The suit is the latest challenge to the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle US foreign assistance agencies, reduce the size of the federal government and exert control over entities created by Congress.
Among the board members who filed suit is former US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan, who was nominated to the ambassadorial role in Trump’s first term and continued to serve as ambassador under President Joe Biden and then was picked by Biden for the board.
The lawsuit accuses the White House of illegal firings by email and said the remaining board members — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Defense University President Peter Garvin — also ousted Moose, a former ambassador and career diplomat at the State Department.
In his place, the three appointed Kenneth Jackson, an administrator with the US Agency for International Development, according to the lawsuit.
In response, government lawyers raised questions about who controlled the institute and whether the nonprofit could sue the administration. It also referenced other recent court rulings about how much power the president has to remove the leaders of independent agencies.
DOGE staff tried multiple times to access the building Monday before successfully getting in, partly with police assistance.
The institute’s staff had first called the police around 3 p.m. Monday to report trespassing, according to the lawsuit. But the Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement that the institute’s acting president — seemingly a reference to Jackson — told them around 4 p.m. that he was being refused access to the building and there were “unauthorized individuals” inside.
“Eventually, all the unauthorized individuals inside of the building complied with the acting USIP President’s request and left the building without further incident,” police said.
The lawsuit says the institute’s lawyer told DOGE representatives multiple times that the executive branch has no authority over the nonprofit.
A White House spokesperson, Anna Kelly, said, “Rogue bureaucrats will not be allowed to hold agencies hostage. The Trump administration will enforce the President’s executive authority and ensure his agencies remain accountable to the American people.”
To the top Democrats on the foreign affairs committees in Congress, New York Rep. Gregory Meeks and New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the “hostile takeover” of the institute was one more sign that Trump and Musk want “to recklessly dismantle historic US institutions piece by piece.”
The leaders of two of the other agencies listed in Trump’s February executive order — the Inter-American Foundation, which invests in businesses in Latin American and the Caribbean, and the US African Development Foundation — also have sued the administration to undo or pause the removal of most of their staff and cancelation of most of their contracts.
A federal judge ruled last week that it would be legal to remove most contracts and staff from the US-Africa agency, which invested millions of dollars in African small businesses.
But the judge also ordered the government to prepare DOGE staff to explain what steps they were taking to maintain the agency at “the minimum presence and function required by law.”
EU proposes joint defense push amid Russia fears and US worries
- Kallas said Russia’s economy was in “full war mode,” with 40 percent of its federal budget going to the military
- “Regardless of the ongoing negotiations for peace in Ukraine, this is a long-term investment in a long-term plan of aggression”
BRUSSELS: Europe should further boost military spending, pool resources on joint defense projects and buy more European arms, according to an EU blueprint unveiled on Wednesday, driven by fears of Russia and doubts about the future of US protection.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive body, presented the proposals in a White Paper on defense, which aims to ensure Europe has a “strong and sufficient” defense posture by 2030.
“The international order is undergoing changes of a magnitude not seen since 1945. This is a pivotal moment for European security,” European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters in Brussels.
Kallas said Russia’s economy was in “full war mode,” with 40 percent of its federal budget going to the military.
“Regardless of the ongoing negotiations for peace in Ukraine, this is a long-term investment in a long-term plan of aggression,” she declared.
Some proposed measures aim to boost the EU’s arms industry, meaning any role for companies from major weapons producers outside the bloc such as the United States, Britain and Turkiye would be substantially limited.
EU countries have already begun boosting their own defenses in response to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. They ramped up defense spending by more than 30 percent between 2021 and 2024.
But their efforts have acquired more urgency from US President Donald Trump’s rapprochement with Russia and US warnings that European security can no longer be Washington’s primary focus.
“450 million European Union citizens should not have to depend on 340 million Americans to defend ourselves against 140 million Russians, who cannot defeat 38 million Ukrainians,” European Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius said.
“We really can do better. It’s time for us to take responsibility for the defense of Europe.”
CAPABILITY GAPS
The paper urges Europe to fill “capability gaps” in areas such as air and missile defense, artillery, ammunition and missiles, drones, military transport, artificial intelligence, cyber warfare and infrastructure protection.
The paper – a draft of which was leaked last week — proposes EU countries swiftly pool resources to fill the gaps, including through Defense Projects of Common European Interest, defined by governments and benefiting from EU financial incentives.
Moscow has condemned the EU’s rearmament push as an incitement to war based on an “invented story” of a Russian threat. Such words have not reassured European leaders, as Russia made similar statements before the invasion of Ukraine.
The EU paper includes proposals outlined earlier this month to boost countries’ defense spending.
Those include a plan for the Commission to borrow 150 billion euros ($163.35 billion) for loans to EU governments to spend on defense projects and easing EU rules on public finances, which the Commission says could mobilize a further 650 billion euros.
Defense policy has traditionally been the domain of national governments and the NATO security alliance that brings together North America and Europe.
But the EU has become increasingly involved in defense in recent years and the White Paper suggests a fundamental shift to a more pan-European approach.
Many EU governments say they are in favor. But how it would work is likely to be the subject of fierce debate — over who should have the power to decide on joint projects, who should run them and how they should be funded.
The proposals in the paper would require the approval of the bloc’s national governments and — in some cases — the European Parliament to become law.
In the paper, the European Commission suggests it could act as a “central purchasing body” on behalf of EU members. But some EU capitals have already signalled resistance, wanting to keep such decisions in the hands of national governments.
The paper says the Commission will also work on building a true EU-wide market for defense equipment, simplifying and harmonizing rules.
Such measures are intended to reduce the fragmentation of Europe’s defense industry, in which many manufacturers produce different weapons systems for different governments.
For example, Europe has 19 different main battle tanks, compared to just one in the United States and 17 types of torpedoes compared to just two in the US, according to an analysis by McKinsey.
