touts

Oct. 31 (UPI) — The White House is taking heat for construction and remodeling projects initiated by President Donald Trump as it opens up for tours again, and the president was touting the work being done in social media posts Friday.

Trump showed off images of the Lincoln Bedroom’s newly remodeled bathroom, which was lined from floor to ceiling with what he said was “black and white polished Statuary marble.”

He claimed the bathroom was “very appropriate for the time of Abraham Lincoln and, in fact, could be the marble that was originally there!” Trump made seven Truth Social posts about the bathroom renovations with multiple photos.

The bathroom has gold fixtures and a large chandelier.

Critics were quick to point out that while people are losing health insurance and food benefits, Trump was busy remodeling.

“Donald Trump actually cares more about his toilet than he does about fixing your healthcare,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on X.

“Millions of people are being kicked off of food assistance and millions can’t afford health care anymore. But don’t worry everyone! Trump got a new bathroom,” commentator Harry Sisson said on X. “So tone deaf, out of touch, and disgusting.”

Visitors might get a glimpse soon as first lady Melania Trump announced Friday that tours will reopen at the White House on Dec. 2, “with an updated route offering guests the opportunity to experience the history and beauty of the People’s House,” a press release said.

“The decorations in each room will be thoughtfully designed and curated under the direction of first lady Melania Trump,” the release said. “Visitors will have the opportunity to enjoy the beloved annual tradition that transforms the White House into a festive reflection of the spirit, warmth, faith and hope of the holiday season.”

Trump’s critics are also making life difficult for construction companies that have government contracts to work on the new ballroom where the East Wing once stood.

Many of the contractors have taken down their websites, saying the sites are undergoing maintenance as people make posts and send e-mails shaming them for their work, the New York Daily News reported.

“How dare you destroy the people’s house!!!! You are a traitor and should be driven out of business. … You suck!” said one review left on a company’s Yelp page Thursday.

“Backstabbers who hate America and worship the AntiChrist. Took money from Trump and did work without a valid permit. These people are scum,” another said.

Demolition began on the East Wing to build the $300 million ballroom Oct. 20, sparking anger because of the speed of the demolition and lack of proper permits and notice.

Trump also announced on Truth Social Friday that he had inspected construction on the Kennedy Center. Earlier, The Washington Post reported that ticket sales for the center had dropped appreciably since Trump took over the performing arts venue and purged its board.

“It is really looking good!” he wrote. “The exterior columns, which were in serious danger of corrosion if something weren’t done, are completed, and look magnificent in White Enamel — Like a different place!

“Marble is being done, stages are being renovated, new seats, new chairs and new fabrics will soon be installed, and magnificent high-end carpeting throughout the building,” Trump wrote.

Russian and Ukrainian forces are interlocked in desperate battles for control of Ukraine’s eastern towns of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad, which Moscow considers a gateway to the remaining unoccupied areas of the Donetsk region.

On Sunday, Valery Gerasimov, Russian chief of staff,  told President Vladimir Putin his 2nd and 51st Combined Arms Armies were “advancing along converging axes” and “have completed the encirclement of the enemy” in Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad.

He claimed some 5,500 Ukrainian troops were surrounded, including elite airborne and marine units.

Russian military reporters contradicted these claims, with one named “Military Informant” telling 621,000 Telegram subscribers, “There is simply no encirclement” as the two claws of Gerasimov’s attempted pincer movement were still “several kilometres” apart.

On Thursday, Oleksandr Syrskii, the Ukrainian commander-in-chief, also denied Gerasimov’s claim.

“The statements of Russian propaganda about the alleged ‘blocking’ of the defence forces of Ukraine in Pokrovsk, as well as in Kupiansk, do not correspond to reality,” Syrskii said.

The Russian reporter also thought it “extremely unlikely” that thousands of Ukrainian troops were trapped.

“If earlier urban battles were a classic meat grinder ‘head-to-head’ with battles for each house,” he said, now they are “conducted by small groups of infantry with the support of many drones”.

Geolocated footage showed that isolated Russian groups had entered western and central Pokrovsk on October 23, but they did not appear to control areas within the city, rather to stake out positions and await reinforcements.

Ukraine’s General Staff said the situation around Pokrovsk “remains difficult”, and estimated that some 200 Russian troops had infiltrated the town, but said defending units were conducting sabotage operations that prevented Russian units from gaining a permanent foothold.

The front around Pokrovsk also remained dynamic.

Ukrainian military observer Konstantyn Mashovets reported that Kyiv’s troops were able to ambush Russian rear positions in the village of Sukhetsky, northeast of Pokrovsk, demonstrating the porousness of the front line.

“[Russian] small infantry groups in some places began to collide with Ukrainian corresponding groups quite often and suddenly, even before their deployment or when moving to strengthen and replenish their assault groups directly,” said Mashovets.

“Due to the abundance of drones in the air, which make the movement of any large concentrations of infantry extremely dangerous, the positions of both sides remain mixed,” said Kremlin-aligned Russian military news outlet Rybar. “This leads to the absence of a single front line and prevents the determination of the exact boundaries of the control zones.”

Mashovets estimated that the Russian 2nd Combined Arms Army, which he described as the “main impact force”, had received reinforcements of between 6,000 and 10,500 troops from other areas of the front ahead of the latest assault, which began in mid-October.

“Special attention is focused on Pokrovsk and the neighbouring areas. That is where the occupier has concentrated its largest assault forces,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a Monday evening address. “It is Pokrovsk that is their main objective.”

Ukraine strikes Russian energy hubs

Zelenskyy has often said his objective is to return the war to Russian soil. Ukraine’s long-range drones and cruise missiles were performing that task during the past week.

Ukraine struck the Ryazan oil refinery for the fifth time this year on October 23, setting ablaze a crude oil distillation unit. Russia’s Defence Ministry said 139 Ukrainian drones had been shot down overnight.

Leningrad’s regional governor said “several” Ukrainian drones had been shot down without causing damage or casualties on Saturday.

Ukraine struck a fuel and lubricants container in Simferopol on Wednesday, Crimean occupation Governor Sergey Aksyonov said.

Putin boasts of weapons ‘nobody else in the world has’

Russian officials who have been supportive of US President Donald Trump’s efforts to negotiate a peace directly with Putin changed their tone after Trump cancelled a summit with Putin and imposed sanctions on Russian oil majors Lukoil and Rosneft last week.

“The US is our adversary, and its verbose ‘peacemaker’ is now firmly on the warpath against Russia,” said Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia’s National Security Council, saying Trump was now “completely aligned with mad Europe”.

Over cakes and tea with Russian war veterans on Monday, Putin announced the successful test launch of a new nuclear-powered torpedo with the ability to create radioactive tidal waves targeting coastal regions.

The Poseidon reportedly has a range of 10,000km (6,200 miles) and travels at 185km/h (115mph). As with previous unveilings of Russian weapons, Putin said, “There’s nothing like it in the world, its rivals are unlikely to appear anytime soon, and there are no existing interception methods”.

Duma Defence Committee Chairman Andrey Kartapolov said the Poseidon was“capable of disabling entire states”.

Three days earlier, Putin had announced the successful test of a new nuclear-capable cruise missile, the Burevestnik, which is also nuclear-powered.

“It is a unique ware which nobody else in the world has,” Putin said.

Russia followed a similar political intimidation tactic in November 2024, when it launched the Oreshnik, a hypersonic, intermediate-range ballistic, nuclear-capable missile, to hit a Ukrainian factory in Dnipro. On Tuesday, Putin said he would deploy the Oreshnik in Belarus by December.

Russia also tested the Sarmat, a new intercontinental ballistic missile that Putin said is not yet operational, in the Sea of Japan. None of the tests were independently verified, and it was unclear whether any of the new weapons were battle-ready or whether they could be produced at scale.

On October 22, Moscow conducted a routine strategic forces exercise, sending Tupolev-22M3 long-range bombers over the Baltic Sea, framing it as a reaction to Western aggression.

Trump said on Monday that Putin should instead focus on ending the war.

“I don’t think it’s an appropriate thing for Putin to be saying,” said the US president. “You ought to get the war ended; the war that should have taken one week is now in … its fourth year, that’s what you ought to do instead of testing missiles.”

Both countries’ negotiating teams will start ‘immediately’ to address US tariffs and sanctions, says Brazil’s President Lula.

United States President Donald Trump and Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva have held what Brazil described as a constructive meeting on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Kuala Lumpur, raising hope for improved relations after stinging US tariffs.

Lula said the Sunday meeting with Trump – who is an ally of his political rival, embattled former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro – was “great” and added that their countries’ negotiating teams would get to work “immediately” to tackle tariffs and other issues.

“We agreed that our teams will meet immediately to advance the search for solutions to the tariffs and sanctions against Brazilian authorities,” Lula said in a message on X following the meeting.

Trump had linked the July tariff move – which brought duties on most Brazilian goods entering the US to 50 percent from 10 percent – to what he called a “witch hunt” against Bolsonaro, far-right leader who has been sentenced to 27 years in prison for attempting a coup after losing the 2022 presidential election.

Bolsonaro’s supporters rioted in the political centre of the country’s capital, evoking a riot by Trump’s supporters in Washington, DC on January 6, two years earlier.

The US government has also sanctioned numerous Brazilian officials, including Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw the trial that led to Bolsonaro’s conviction.

Ahead of the meeting on Sunday, though, Trump said he could reach some agreements with Lula and expected the two countries to enjoy strong ties despite his concerns about Bolsonaro’s fate.

“I think we should be able to make some pretty good deals for both countries,” Trump said.

Lula previously described the US tariff hike as a “mistake”, citing a $410bn US trade surplus with Brazil over 15 years.

‘Conclude negotiations in weeks’

Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira said that negotiations would start immediately and that Brazil had requested a pause in tariffs while talks proceed, though it was unclear whether the US had agreed.

“We hope to conclude bilateral negotiations that address each of the sectors of the current American [tariffs on] Brazil in the near future, in a few weeks,” Vieira said.

He added that Lula also offered to help mediate between the US and Venezuela, where Washington has deployed its largest warship and threatened ground strikes targeting alleged drug cartels, operations Caracas has denounced as “fabricated” pretexts for war.

Bolsonaro was not mentioned during the Trump-Lula meeting, said Marcio Rosa, the executive secretary for Brazil’s Foreign Ministry.

Higher US tariffs on Brazilian goods have begun reshaping the global beef trade, pushing up prices in the US and encouraging triangulation via third countries such as Mexico, while Brazilian exports to China continue to boom.

It was a major talking point in the final months of Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign: If re-elected, the Republican leader pledged to make in vitro fertilisation (IVF) free for those seeking to get pregnant.

“Under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment,” Trump told NBC News last year, adding that his plans would cover “all Americans that get it, all Americans that need it”.

“We’re going to be paying for that treatment. Or we’re going to be mandating that the insurance company pay.”

While that campaign promise remains unrealised, the Trump administration took a step on Thursday to make the procedure more accessible.

Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump announced a collaboration with the company EMD Serono, a subsidiary of the pharmaceutical giant Merck, to offer lower-priced fertility drugs on his upcoming prescription marketplace, TrumpRx.

“ EMD Serono, the largest fertility drug manufacturer in the world, has agreed to provide massive discounts to all fertility drugs they sell in the United States, including the most popular drug of all, the IVF drug Gonal-F,” Trump told reporters.

Expanding TrumpRx project

The announcement marks the third major pharmaceutical company to agree to provide discounted products on TrumpRx, a direct-to-consumer website slated to launch in 2026.

Trump had threatened drug companies in September with a 100-percent tariff on their products unless they started to build manufacturing facilities in the US.

But that tariff was postponed after the pharmaceutical manufacturer Pfizer announced a deal with TrumpRx on September 30, a day before the tax hike was slated to hit. AstraZeneca, another power player in the industry, followed suit last week.

In Thursday’s news conference, Trump once again credited his tariff threats with bringing the companies to heel.

“They’ll bring a significant portion of their drug manufacturing back to the United States,” Trump said of EMD Serono. “That’s for a lot of reasons, but primarily because of the election result, November 5th, and maybe most importantly because of the tariffs.”

In addition to the forthcoming discounts from EMD Serono, Trump indicated he would encourage insurance companies to expand coverage for IVF treatments.

In the US, laws vary by state as to whether health insurance must cover fertility treatments like IVF. Trump touted the guidance as a breakthrough in making reproductive healthcare more accessible and affordable.

“Effective immediately, for the first time ever, we will make it legal for companies to offer supplemental insurance plans specifically for fertility,” Trump said.

“ Americans will be able to opt in, do specialised coverage, just as they get vision and dental insurance.”

Those plans typically come at an extra fee, on top of regular health insurance rates. That raises questions about how effective the new insurance guidance will be.

More than 26 million Americans – roughly 8 percent of the population – are uninsured, according to US census data. Even more lack access to supplemental policies for dental and vision care.

The American Dental Association, an industry professional group, estimates more than 22 percent of US adults lacked dental insurance as of 2021.

Trump seemed to acknowledge gaps in coverage during his remarks, but he maintained that the new government guidance would offer some adults a pathway to parenthood.

“They’re going to get fertility insurance for the first time,” he continued. “So I don’t know.  I don’t know how well these things are covered.”

A campaign-trail controversy

The Republican leader also credited a 2024 court decision with propelling him to focus on IVF treatments.

IVF involves removing eggs from a patient’s ovaries and fertilising them in a laboratory environment. These eggs are then inserted into the patient’s uterus or frozen for future use.

The use of such treatments is on the rise in the US: In 2023, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine found that 95,860 babies were born as the result of an IVF procedure.

But in February the following year, a ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court prompted fears about whether IVF would remain widely available.

In a novel decision, the court – located in a strongly conservative state – ruled that embryos created through IVF could be considered children under state law, thereby making the destruction of such embryos potentially a criminal act.

The decision sent shockwaves throughout the IVF industry, with clinics in Alabama temporarily suspending services. Discarding embryos is standard practice in IVF: Generally, more eggs are collected than will ultimately be used, and not all fertilised eggs will be suitable to start a pregnancy.

Within weeks, the Alabama state legislature stepped in to shield IVF providers from prosecution. But the ruling created lingering concerns that IVF could be targeted by anti-abortion rights advocates.

On Thursday, Trump revisited that controversy, which happened in the midst of his re-election bid. He called the court’s ruling a “bad decision” and credited it with helping to make him aware of IVF.

“I wasn’t that familiar with it,” Trump said. “Now I think I’ve sort of become the father.”

Senator Katie Britt, who represents the state of Alabama, echoed that evaluation, praising Trump for taking steps to protect IVF.

Thursday was not the first time Trump has gestured at lowering costs for the fertility procedure. In February, he also issued a presidential order calling on his administration to start “protecting IVF access and aggressively reducing out-of-pocket and health plan costs”.

“ Mr President, this is the most pro-IVF thing that any president in the history of the United States of America has done,” Britt told Trump on Thursday. “You are the reason why the Republican Party is now the party of parents.”

Addressing the US birthrate

Trump, who previously called himself the “fertilisation president”  during a Women’s History Month event, also framed the new measures as progress towards increasing the US birthrate.

In April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that fertility remained at a historic low, rising slightly in 2024 to 1.6 births per woman.

Those numbers have fuelled a push within the Republican Party to ignite a new baby boom, with right-wing figures like tech billionaire Elon Musk going so far as to call the low birthrate “the biggest danger civilization faces by far”.

At Thursday’s meeting, top figures in the Trump administration echoed those concerns, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.

“We are below replacement right now,” he said, referencing the number of births needed to outpace deaths in the US. “That is a national security threat to our country.”

Mehmet Oz, who serves under Kennedy as the administrator for Medicaid services, took a more positive approach, framing the new IVF guidance as the beginning of a reversal of that downward trend.

“There are going to be a lot of Trump babies,” Oz quipped. “I think that’s probably a good thing. But it turns out the fundamental creative force in society is about making babies.”

But it remains to be seen if insurance companies and employers will follow through with Trump’s guidance to offer supplemental fertility benefits for adults seeking to get pregnant.

Most Americans receive health insurance as part of their workplace benefits. Senator Britt argued the guidelines would put employers “in the driver’s seat”, allowing them to shape the benefits they offer to their workers.

“Employers are going to be able to decide how to cover the root causes of infertility, things like obesity and metabolic health, and other things that are impacting infertility,” she said. “We want employers to be the ones that can make those decisions, not the government.”

But for Democrats, the guidance fell far short of what Trump promised on the campaign trail.

“Donald Trump lied when he pledged to make IVF available to every family for FREE,” Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts posted afterwards on social media. “It’s insulting – a broken promise.”

Oct. 9 (UPI) — St. Louis-based Liberty Vote has acquired Dominion Voting Systems, among the nation’s largest election technology companies and one that was wrongly accused of election rigging.

Liberty is the nation’s largest provider of electronic poll information technology and was founded by former Republican elections director Scott Leinendecker. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. In a statement Thursday, Liberty said the company would be 100% American owned, and that “as of today, Dominion is gone.”

“Liberty Vote signals a new chapter for American elections — one where trust is built from the ground up,” Leinendecker said. “Liberty Vote is committed to delivering election technology that prioritizes paper-based transparency, security, and simplicity so that voters can be assured that every ballot is filled-in accurately and fairly counted.”

Liberty’s stated goals align closely with those of the Trump administration’s efforts to restore paper ballot counting, require voter identification at the polls, restrict mail-in voting and restore trust in American elections.

Dominion was at the center of controversy and, ultimately, a series of lawsuits following during and after the 2020 presidential election, especially in states such as Georgia, where Joe Biden narrowly won the vote. Its election technology was used by millions of Americans in 27 states in last year’s elections. John Poulos, Dominion’s founder and CEO, confirmed the sale.

Liberty said facilitating third-party auditing of its election systems is among the company’s other priorities. Conservative election watchers have consistently called for such audits, most notably following the 2020 election in Arizona as a way to combat voter fraud.

Independent studies have shown that the practice is extraordinarily rare, and that a majority of states already conduct internal post-election audits.

“This announcement raises a lot of questions, questions that I’m sure a lot of states with current Dominion contracts are going to want answers to,” said David Becker, who oversees the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, and an election expert.

Liberty Vote, together with KNOWiNK, also founded by Leinendecker, will have voting systems in 40 states, a Liberty Vote official said.

WASHINGTON — FBI Director Kash Patel touted his leadership of the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency at a congressional hearing likely to be dominated by questions about the investigation into Charlie Kirk’s killing and the recent firings of senior FBI officials who have accused Patel of illegal political retribution.

The appearance Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee represents the first oversight hearing of Patel’s young but tumultuous tenure and provides a high-stakes platform for him to try to reassure skeptical Democrats that he is the right person for the job at a time of internal upheaval and mounting concerns about political violence inside the United States.

Patel rattled off a series of what he said were accomplishments of his first months on the job, including his efforts to fight violent crime and protect children. Nodding to criticism from Democrats, he closed his remarks by saying: “If you want to criticize my 16 years of service, please bring it on.”

Patel returned to the committee for the first time since his confirmation hearing in January, when he asserted that he would not pursue retribution as director. He’ll face questions Tuesday about whether he did exactly that when the FBI last month fired five agents and senior officials in a purge that current and former officials say weakened morale and contributed to unease inside the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency.

Three of those officials sued last week in a federal complaint that says Patel knew the firings were likely illegal but carried them out anyway to protect his job. One of the officials helped oversee investigations into the Jan. 6 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, and another clashed with Justice Department leadership while serving as acting director in the early days of President Donald Trump’s administration. The FBI has declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Republican lawmakers, who make up the majority in the committee, are expected to show solidarity for Patel, a close ally of Trump, and are likely to praise the director for his focus on violent crime and illegal immigration.

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the committee’s Republican chairman, signaled his support for Patel at the outset of the hearing, praising the director for having “begun the important work of returning the FBI to its law enforcement mission.”

“It’s well understood that your predecessor left you an FBI infected with politics,” Grassley stated.

The panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, described Patel as “arguably the most partisan FBI director ever.”

“Director Patel has already inflicted untold damage on the FBI, putting our national security and public safety at risk,” Durbin said.

Republicans are also likely to try to elicit from Patel fresh details about the investigation into Kirk’s assassination at a Utah college campus last week, which authorities have said was carried out by a 22-year-old man who had grown more political in recent years and had ascribed to a “leftist ideology.”

Patel drew scrutiny when, hours after Kirk’s killing, he posted on social media that “the subject” was in custody even though the shooting suspect remained on the loose and was not arrested until he turned himself in late the following night.

Patel has not explained that post but has pointed to his decision to authorize the release of photographs of the suspect, Tyler Robinson, while he was on the run as a key development that helped facilitate an arrest. A Fox News Channel journalist reported Saturday that Trump had told her that Patel and the FBI have “done a great job.”

Robinson is due to make his first court appearance in Utah. It’s unclear whether he has an attorney, and his family has declined to comment.

Another line of questioning for Patel may involve Democratic concerns that he is politicizing the FBI through politically charged investigations, including into longstanding Trump grievances. Agents and prosecutors, for instance, have been seeking interviews and information as they reexamine aspects of the years-old FBI investigation into potential coordination between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Patel has repeatedly said his predecessors at the FBI and Justice Department who investigated and prosecuted Trump were the ones who weaponized the institutions.

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.

Two days after solidifying control of his family’s empire, Fox Corp. Chief Executive Lachlan Murdoch touted the strength and newfound stability of their media business.

Murdoch spoke briefly Wednesday at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference, a fireside chat cut short because of Murdoch’s late arrival in San Francisco thanks to a weather delay. Instead of speaking for about 40 minutes, Murdoch appeared for just about 10 minutes.

The session followed this week’s $3.3-billion settlement of the Murdochs’ bitter succession feud, which handed Lachlan the keys to the kingdom. Rupert Murdoch’s trust will be replaced with new ones that benefit his six children. In the coming weeks, the family’s controlling News Corp. and Fox shares will pass from Rupert to Lachlan, sealing the scion’s status as one of the world’s most influential moguls.

The 54-year-old executive already was overseeing Fox News, the Fox broadcast network and the free video service Tubi as CEO of Fox since 2019. As chairman of News Corp., Lachlan Murdoch is perched atop the publishing firm that includes the Wall Street Journal, New York Post, the Times of London, HarperCollins publishing house and newspapers in his family’s native Australia. Now his inheritance and legal standing is etched through 2050.

“It’s great news for investors,” Murdoch said of the family settlement. “It gives us a clarity about our strategy going forward — and shows that our strategy will be consistent.”

The settlement was reached after months of negotiations among representatives of Rupert Murdoch’s children. Three of his offspring — Prudence MacLeod, Elisabeth Murdoch and James Murdoch — had tried to block the elder Murdoch’s plan to consolidate Lachlan’s power — sending the dispute to a Nevada probate court.

Prudence, Elisabeth and James agreed to surrender their shares and abandon any future involvement in the companies in exchange for $1.1 billion apiece.

Analysts said they don’t expect major changes at Fox, particularly at Fox News, which will continue its conservative drumbeat and support of President Trump.

“We expect the strategy will likely stay the course,” Robert Fishman, a MoffettNathanson research analyst, wrote in a report. “Fox’s emphasis on its differentiated linear assets — namely sports and Fox News — should continue while at the same time balance a streaming push with its recently-launched Fox One and rapidly growing Tubi.”

During the Goldman Sachs conference, Murdoch sounded an upbeat note about last month’s launch of its latest streaming service, Fox One, which delivers news and sports to consumers.

“I don’t want to read too much into our success and our data of the last few weeks but suffice to say its take-up [rate] has exceeded our expectations,” Murdoch said.

Fox One will be part of a streaming bundle with ESPN next month. “We think it’ll be … the essential sports bundle for sports fans in America,” Murdoch said.

Murdoch has been running Fox since 2019 after Rupert Murdoch sold the bulk of the company’s entertainment assets to the Walt Disney Co., in a $71-billion deal which provided Murdoch’s children with a payout of about $2 billion each. At the time, Rupert Murdoch wanted to simplify his company and pave the succession path for Lachlan.

Murdoch noted that resolving the family control issue carried other side benefits, including smoothing the application process for state gaming licenses for the online sports wagering business, FanDuel. Fox has options to take a minority stake in that enterprise.

Rupert Murdoch sought to cement Lachlan’s control as a way to preserve the conservative leanings of his media empire after he is gone.

The 94-year-old patriarch has long viewed Lachlan as his natural heir, in part because his oldest son is the most ideologically in sync with him.

Rupert had become increasingly troubled by the more liberal attitudes of three of his older children, particularly James, who has been outspoken in his disdain of Fox News.

Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch at the 2018 Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho.

(Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Fox shares have fallen about 8% since Monday when the settlement was announced, after the company said the Murdochs planned to price the shares they would sell at $54.25. Shares were trading at $52 on Wednesday.

The Los Angeles Police Department on Tuesday released a report touting a decline in shootings by officers in 2024, even as officials acknowledged this year’s numbers show the trend reversing with a major uptick in incidents of deadly force.

LAPD officers opened fire on 29 people last year, compared with 34 in 2023 — a sign, the report’s authors maintained, that the department’s efforts to curb serious uses of force are having an effect.

Already in 2025, however, LAPD officers have surpassed the total number of shootings recorded last year, with police opening fire at least 31 times in less than nine months.

Teresa Sánchez-Gordon, who on Tuesday was announced as the Police Commission’s new president, said she was struck by the fact that during encounters with people exhibiting signs of mental illness last year, officers sometimes shot instead of first deploying weapons meant to incapacitate.

“Why can we not increase that … use of that less-lethal means?” asked Sánchez-Gordon.

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell told the commission that the use of Tasers and launchers that shoot hard foam projectiles was “foremost on everybody’s minds.”

But oftentimes, he said, encounters with people in crisis unfold so quickly and unpredictably that officers are left with little time to consider other tools. He noted that the vast majority of shootings stem from 911 calls, rather than “proactive policing,” which he said underscores “the reactive nature of these events.”

The timing of Tuesday’s report seemed incongruous amid mounting public anger over a recent rise in police shootings, including a continued pattern of officers killing people who appear to be in the midst of some behavioral crisis.

The report also noted a rising number of shootings last year in which officers mistakenly believe someone is armed, an increasingly common scenario that has also been cause for recent concern.

In July, LAPD officers fatally shot a man sitting inside a utility van on the city’s Eastside after, they said, he ignored repeated commands to drop what turned out to be a toy Airsoft gun, which resembled a real rifle. The dead man’s fiancee said he had dealt with mental health issues in the past.

In recent weeks, the commission has pushed McDonnell to do more to curb the number of shootings.

Last year, the Southeast, North Hollywood and Harbor patrol areas saw the biggest jumps in the number of police shootings, while 77th Street, Foothill, Rampart and Newton divisions recorded the biggest decreases.

The shootings cut across racial lines. Roughly 55% of those shot by officers were Latino, with Black and white people each accounting for around 21% of the incidents, with the remaining 3% involving Asians.

More than half of the officers who fired their weapons were Latino, which is roughly in line with the department’s racial makeup. A quarter of the officers were white, with Asian officers responsible for 11% of the shootings.

From 2023 to 2024, the number of officers injured in shootings rose from eight to 11, according to the report.

The rise in police shootings has been a regular point of contention for the police critics and social justice advocates who show up to speak at the commission’s weekly meetings.

On Tuesday, Melina Abdullah, a prominent civil rights leader who has long been critical of the department’s history of excessive force against communities of color, accused the commission of failing to take seriously its role as police shootings continue to rise.

“I don’t know how this oversight body is not overseeing and demanding something different,” she said.

The recent report found that officers fired nearly twice as many bullets last year as they did in 2020. On average, LAPD officers fired more than 10 rounds per shooting.

In addition to the decline in police shootings last year, the department’s report revealed that so-called non-categorical uses of force — LAPD speak for the deployment of a Taser or beanbag shotgun or incidents that result in serious but non-life-threatening injuries — dipped slightly to 1,451 from 1,503.

The decline came amid a drop in both crime and the number of people who came into contact with the LAPD in 2024.

There was also a significant decline in shootings of people with knives, swords and other edged weapons. Preventing those types of confrontations from turning deadly has been a point of emphasis by the department and the commission in recent years. In February, LAPD officers faced criticism after they shot and killed a transgender woman holding a knife at a Pacoima motel room after she called 911 to report that she had been kidnapped.

Much like with most crime statistics, experts caution against reading too much into year-over-year fluctuations. But department statistics show that despite the recent uptick, police shootings are still down considerable from their highs in the early 1990s and make up only a small fraction of all public encounters every year.

Published on
28/08/2025 – 7:45 GMT+2

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The EU should speed negotiation of a tariff-rate quota (TRQ) system with the US to avoid existing exorbitant tariffs of 50% on steel and aluminium, the director general of the European Steel Association, EUROFER, has told Euronews adding that such a deal could also help with cooperation on Chinese overcapacities in the sector.

Such TRQ systems enable specific quantities of steel and aluminium to be imported at a lower or zero tariff rate, with any additional amount subject to a much higher tariff rate.

“Tariff-rate quotas are the only opening we have with the US,” Axel Eggert told Euronews, adding: “They are not perfect, but at least we still can export to the US, whereas now it’s completely different.”

The tariff-rate quota system for steel and aluminium was introduced under the Biden administration to replace the 25% tariffs on steel and 10% on aluminium imposed by the first Trump administration. It allowed up to 3.3 million tons of EU steel and 384,000 tons of aluminium into the US tariff-free, with the tariffs applying to any further amounts. However, since his return to office, US President Donald Trump has imposed 25% tariffs on steel and aluminium, which were raised to 50% in June and extended on 19 August to some 400 steel derivatives.

After weeks of tariff disputes targeting all EU industrial products—not just steel and aluminium—the US and the EU reached an agreement setting tariffs on EU goods at 15%, with the notable exception of steel and aluminium.

However, the joint statement does state that the parties “intend to consider the possibility to cooperate on ring-fencing their respective domestic markets from overcapacity, while ensuring secure supply chains between each other, including through tariff-rate quota solutions.”

“We would have hoped that there was a clear obligation for the US to keep the tariff-rate quota which we had before,” Eggert said. “That was our objective and that was also the Commission’s objective, but the Commission simply didn’t get it.”

EUROFER’s boss also said that the US and EU can make common cause in fighting Chinese overcapacities in the steel sector.

According to OECD figures, there was a global overcapacity of steel of 600 million tons last year, and by next year there should be overcapacities of 720 million tonnes.

“China is subsidising its steel industry,” Eggert said, pointing out that the Asian giant has an excess capacity of more than 500 million tons.

When Trump imposed 25% tariffs on global steel and aluminium in March, it was swallowed by cheap Chinese products, he added, which explains why the US tariffs were then raised to 50%.

The issue of overcapacity was an integral part of the negotiations in recent months between the US and the EU, with the Commission pushing for cooperation between the two sides.

“If you have the two biggest markets in the world, the US and the EU, then you have such market power that you don’t let in any steam from companies which produce overcapacity,” Eggert predicts. “Then of course they have to reduce the overcapacities.”

In 2021, the Biden administration and the EU Commission started negotiating an agreement — the Global Arrangement on Sustainable Steel and Aluminium (GASSA) — to fight overcapacities and promote lower-carbon production in the steel and aluminium sectors. But the negotiation was interrupted after Trump returned to power.

“There is a possibility [to bring it back], because the US administration has worked this out in great detail already,” Eggert said, pointing out that one sticking point which remained was the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which imposes a fee on some polluting goods imported into the EU, which the US opposes.

When Angelenos face a situation that requires calling 911 — such as encountering a person in the throes of a mental health crisis — the first responders are usually firefighters or armed police officers.

But a new report suggests a third option holds promise for the future.

For the past year, Los Angeles has been testing a program that dispatches specially trained civilians who don’t carry guns in response to certain calls for help. The report released earlier this month by the city said the early results are encouraging.

“When deployed to non-violent, non-urgent calls for service, unarmed crisis responders have been shown to minimize the potential for escalation and address critical mental health emergencies in a manner that prioritizes compassion and safety,” the report said.

The use of so-called “unarmed crisis responders,” the report found, not only offers specialized care to people who need help — it also allows “LAPD more time to focus on traditional law enforcement efforts.”

The ongoing pilot program has teams of licensed clinicians, social workers, community workers and therapists who work in pairs, responding to calls around the clock, seven days a week. Over its first year, the program handled more than 6,700 calls, largely to conduct welfare checks and respond to reports of public intoxication and indecent exposure.

While the program’s workload of roughly 40 calls a day is still a fraction of what the LAPD handles, the report says it has already saved police nearly 7,000 hours of patrol time by freeing them up for other tasks. With the city’s police force struggling to fill its ranks, officials say such programs could have a larger role in the future.

The report does not touch on what impact, if any, the teams have had on low-level crimes in the areas they cover, but the hope is that it will ultimately make the city safer.

The outreach workers conduct follow-up visits after certain calls and offer specialized services to people who are willing to accept them, including mental health treatment and drug rehabilitation programs.

The Unarmed Model of Crisis Response, as the program is known, is one of two that city officials are operating. The other, called the CIRCLE program, operates out of the mayor’s office with its own call center and dedicated service areas.

Although some skeptics questioned whether unarmed civilians would too often be overmatched by the subjects they encounter, the recent report found that fewer than 4.1% of calls end up requiring police backup. Those cases typically involved individuals who insisted on having an officer present or who turned out to have weapons, the report said.

The findings come as advocates brace for billions in federal spending expected to be slashed from social safety net programs by the Trump administration. The looming cuts have renewed questions about how L.A.’s program and similar ones across the country will scale up and have more impact.

More than half of the calls that the unarmed responders handle involve some type of disturbance, with reports of a prowler or trespasser as the next most common category. On average, the teams take about 28 minutes to respond to a call, and once there they spend about 25 minutes on scene, according to the city’s recent report.

In one case, an unarmed responder team was dispatched to an apartment where a woman identified in the report as “Liz” had been behaving erratically. The team arrived to find her unit’s door open. The woman invited them inside and they saw evidence suggesting she may have overdosed while her gas stove was left on. After turning off the burners and opening windows to ventilate the apartment, the team contacted firefighters and stayed with the woman until they arrived. They eventually convinced her to go to a hospital to get checked out.

The civilian teams won’t go to calls that involve weapons or violence or a need for urgent medical attention. They also do not handle situations where minors are present or when there are three or more people involved in an incident.

Police department officials have said repeatedly that, despite increased crisis intervention training and new “less-lethal” weapons designed to incapacitate rather than kill, officers are not always equipped to handle mental health calls.

LAPD leaders have said in the past that they support the program, while cautioning that any call has the potential to quickly spiral into violence.

The program, run by the office of the city administrator, was initially rolled out to three police divisions spread across the city — Devonshire, Wilshire and Southeast — but has since expanded to three others: West L.A., Olympic and West Valley.

The unarmed responder program launched in March 2024 amid continued public frustration with the city’s handling of the intertwined issues of homelessness, substance abuse and mental health. Much of the criticism was leveled at the LAPD following a string of shootings and other use-of-force incidents that involved individuals experiencing crises.

So far in 2025, LAPD officers have shot 27 people. At least a third of those incidents involved someone who was experiencing a behavioral crisis, according to a Times analysis of incident reports and interviews with families of the people shot.

Efforts to ease the reliance on armed police for emergency responses have been around for years, with several new programs springing up since 2020, spurred by a nationwide movement to redirect law enforcement funding following the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. Researchers have tracked more than 100 such programs across the U.S.

Despite showing promise, some city-run initiatives in Los Angeles have struggled to grow. Many similar programs across the country continue to face challenges around how to scale up.

The Los Angeles Fire Department ended its use of psychiatric mobile response teams in vans to calls around the city after officials said it didn’t actually free up first responders or hospital emergency rooms. Another plan to have unarmed Transportation Department workers conduct traffic stops — instead of police — has been dragging on for months.

Even so, proponents of the other ongoing programs are expressing cautious optimism.

“This data proves that care-first approaches work — they keep people safe, cost less, and prevent the expensive liabilities that drain our budget year after year,” City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said in a statement.

Hernandez, who represents neighborhoods on the city’s Eastside and co-chairs a council committee on unarmed responses, added, “I’m proud we’re showing that Los Angeles can expand our public safety ecosystem and save lives, save money, and invest in care instead of harm.”

Godfrey Plata, deputy director of the nonprofit group LA Forward, which has advocated for unarmed alternatives to police, said his organization was pleased with the growth of the program and the City Council’s willingness to increase its funding “even in a budget deficit year.”

With the World Cup and the Olympics on the horizon, the city must continue to explore ways to protect both locals and the large number of tourists expected to arrive for those events, Plata said.

“This is a cost-saving measure in addition to a life-saving measure,” Plata said. “It would be really great to have a system built out by then to be able to absorb the shock of our emergency management systems.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has reiterated that there should be no peace talks to end the Russia-Ukraine war now in its fourth year without representation from his country, and also said Russia should face sanctions if it does not agree to an immediate ceasefire, following a virtual meeting between him, United States President Donald Trump and European leaders.

Zelenskyy delivered the message after the call on Wednesday, two days ahead of a summit between Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska, which comes as part of Washington’s so far failed attempts to end the war in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Trump promised to hold trilateral talks with both Ukraine and Russia, if Friday’s summit “goes OK”.

“I would like to do it immediately,” he said. “We’ll have a quick second meeting between President Putin and President Zelenskyy and myself if they’d like to have me there.”

The US president also vowed that Moscow would face “severe consequences” if Putin did not agree to end its war.

In a joint statement, leaders of the UK, France and Germany said that Russia should face tougher sanctions if it fails to agree to a ceasefire on Friday.

Kyiv must also be given “robust and credible security guarantees” and have no limitations placed on its armed forces or on its cooperation with other countries, they added.

“The Coalition of the Willing is ready to play an active role, including through plans by those willing to deploy a reassurance force once hostilities have ceased.”

The rapid developments came after Trump met virtually with Zelenskyy and other European leaders including France’s Emmanuel Macron and the United Kingdom’s Keir Starmer on Wednesday.

Arranged in a bid for Europe to try and influence Trump’s meeting with Putin on Friday, this second call took place after talks earlier in the day between Zelenskyy, European leaders and the heads of NATO and the European Union.

Thanking German Chancellor Friedrich Merz for hosting the meetings, Zelenskyy said on X that Ukraine and Europe were “cooperating constructively with the United States”.

“I hope that today we have come closer to ending the war and building a guaranteed peaceful future,” he concluded.

Trump and European leaders called their joint meeting a success, with the US president describing it as a “very good call”.

“I would rate it a 10. Very friendly,” he said, speaking during a press conference at the Kennedy Center.

Trump noted that he would be calling Zelenskyy and European leaders immediately following his meeting with Putin.

At a press conference with Merz, Zelenskyy expressed his hope that the Trump-Putin summit would focus on an “immediate ceasefire”.

“Sanctions must be in place and must be strengthened if Russia does not agree to a ceasefire,” he added.

As the Russian army continues to make sizable territorial gains in the east Ukrainian province of Donetsk, Zelenskyy told the US president and his European colleagues that Putin was “bluffing” about pursuing peace.

His choice of words, a term commonly used in reference to poker, evoked Trump telling Zelenskyy, “you don’t have the cards” in the infamously hostile news conference at the White House on February 28th.

“He is trying to apply pressure before the meeting in Alaska along all parts of the Ukrainian front,” Zelenskyy suggested. “Russia is trying to show that it can occupy all of Ukraine.”

After the Trump call, Merz, who described the meeting as “exceptionally constructive”, stressed that Ukraine is willing to negotiate, but noted that “legal recognition of Russian occupation is not up for debate”.

“The principle that borders cannot be changed by force must continue to apply,” Merz said.

“Negotiations must include robust security guarantees for Kyiv,” he added. “The Ukrainian armed forces must be able and remain able to effectively defend the sovereignty of their country. They must also be able to count on Western aid in the long term.”

After the online meeting, France’s Macron said Trump would be seeking a ceasefire in Ukraine during his meeting with Putin on Friday.

The US president would also seek a trilateral meeting with Putin and Zelenskyy in the future, the French president noted.

The Trump-Putin summit in Alaska has been a cause for anxiety in Kyiv and Europe more widely, after Trump declared that both Ukraine and Russia would have to swap land if a truce is to be reached.

Speaking from the UK on Wednesday, JD Vance, the US vice-president, seemed to try to allay fears in Europe.

“I just talked to him [Trump] right before I came on the stage, and he said very simply that we are going to make it our mission as an administration to bring peace to Europe once again,” Vance said.

Reporting from Berlin, Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen said there was “some optimism” in Europe that Trump had agreed to Wednesday’s meeting.

However, Vaessen noted that European leaders were still “concerned that everything changes as soon as President Trump is in that room with President Putin, who they know is a very keen, a very sharp negotiator”.

Elsewhere, the Russian Foreign Ministry sought to downplay the relevance of Europe’s last-minute diplomatic efforts with Trump, branding them “practically insignificant”.

On the battlefield, Russia has claimed to have captured the villages of Suvorovo and Nikanorovka as its gains in Donetsk continue, with the Ukrainian authorities issuing evacuation orders for around a dozen settlements.

The Kremlin’s forces achieved their largest 24-hour advance in more than a year on Tuesday, according to data from the US-based Institute for the Study of War.

Praise follows conflict of interest concerns after Trump launches his own coin and hosts a dinner for his investors.

United States Vice President JD Vance has urged the domestic cryptocurrency industry to remain involved in US politics, highlighting the close ties of President Donald Trump’s administration to a deep-pocketed industry.

Speaking at a Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Wednesday, Vance urged cryptocurrency executives and enthusiasts to keep pressure on the US Congress to pass pro-crypto legislation supported by the White House

“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to unleash innovation and use it to improve the lives of countless American citizens,” Vance said in his address. “But if we fail to create regulatory clarity now, we risk chasing this $3 trillion industry offshore in search of a friendly jurisdiction.”

Vance made the speech after Trump promised to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet” when he addressed the same Bitcoin conference in Nashville, Tennessee, last year in the middle of the presidential campaign. The crypto industry, which felt unfairly attacked by former President Joe Biden’s administration, spent heavily to help Trump and pro-cryptocurrency lawmakers win election.

Vance praised how quickly the crypto industry was able to organise and influence US politics during last year’s elections, giving special credit to Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the billionaire founders of the crypto exchange Gemini.

“You chose to speak up, and you chose to get involved, and I believe you changed the direct trajectory of our country because of it,” Vance told the crowd gathered at the Venetian Hotel.

Vance hailed cryptocurrencies as a hedge that can help conservative populists protect themselves against what he called bad politicians, overly aggressive regulators and unethical elites. He predicted continued assimilation of the digital currencies into the financial mainstream and said it was strategically important for the US to be a world leader in the industry, noting that the Chinese government is hostile to crypto.

As president, Trump has established a Bitcoin reserve for the federal government and pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, a black market website that was key to the early growth of Bitcoin.

Trump has also put outspoken crypto backers in his administration, which has undone or paused several enforcement actions taken against large cryptocurrency companies

Several other Trump officials are speakers at the Bitcoin conference, as are his sons Don Jr and Eric.

Conflict of interest

The president and his family’s use of cryptocurrencies as a platform to make money has drawn criticism from Democrats and even crypto enthusiasts as corrupt and unseemly.

The Trump family holds about a 60 percent stake in a crypto project called World Liberty Financial, which recently launched its own stablecoin, a fast-growing form of cryptocurrency whose value is often tied to the US dollar. This month, the US Senate advanced legislation that would create a federal framework to regulate stablecoins, a bill that Vance said the Trump administration wants passed into law quickly.

Trump’s media company announced on Tuesday that it was raising $2.5bn to buy Bitcoin, the world’s oldest and most popular cryptocurrency.

The president and first lady Melania Trump have also launched their own meme coins. Last week, Donald Trump rewarded investors in his coin. About 220 of the biggest investors in the $TRUMP were invited to Trump’s luxury golf club in northern Virginia.