Relations between the United States and Ukraine curdled over the course of a meeting of some 50 minutes in the Oval Office, during which President Trump discussed a deal that would require Ukraine to invest in mineral extraction infrastructure and stands to give the United States access to revenue thereof; became impatient with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s “hatred” for Putin, desire for security guarantees against Russian aggression, and supposedly insufficient gratitude for American military aid; bellowed at Zelensky in front of a gaggle of hand-selected members of the press; and finally remarked of the meeting that it was “going to be great television.”1 2 3 4 5 6 Zelensky took his leave of the White House early, without reaching a peace agreement, and White House officials tucked into a lunch of rosemary roasted chicken and crème brûlée that had been prepared for Trump’s affronted Ukrainian visitors.7 8 An administration official told the press that aid to Ukraine, including already authorized Biden-era shipments of ammunition, may imminently be canceled, and the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, ordered a pause on the Pentagon’s cyber offensive against Russia.9 10 “This largely aligns with our vision,” a spokesperson from the Kremlin announced with regard to the United States’ new foreign-policy aims.11 “Stop gossiping about what the U.S. might or might not do,” snapped NATO secretary general Mark Rutte at international media correspondents as European leaders gathered in London for an emergency summit to discuss their role in brokering a Russia–Ukraine peace deal and aiding the defense of the continent’s eastern flank, agreeing to increase defense spending. British prime minister Keir Starmer promised to supply Kyiv with 5,000 supersonic lightweight multirole air missiles of Irish origin, and French president Emmanuel Macron implied that other European nations might consider amassing their own nuclear weapons.12 13 14 15 16 A Russian drone struck an apartment building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, a Russian oil refinery caught fire amid a Ukrainian drone attack, and shares in German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall soared.17 18 19
The U.S. State Department, bypassing Congress, announced that it would be sending more than 35,000 2,000-pound bombs and 4,000 warheads to the Israel Defense Forces, and the Israeli government began blocking aid trucks from entering Gaza.20 21 The social-media influencer Andrew Tate, a self-identified misogynist who is under investigation for orchestrating a transnational sex-trafficking syndicate, entered the United States after a three-year detention in Romania that reports claim was lifted after pressure from the Trump Administration, and disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo, who sexually harassed at least eleven women per an investigation by the New York Attorney General, entered the New York mayoral race.22 23 24 25 26 Federal judges ruled that the Trump Administration had acted unlawfully when it ordered the dismissal of some 16,000 probationary federal workers and that it had to reinstate the illegally fired “federal watchdog” Hampton Dellinger, head of the Office of Special Counsel, whose responsibilities include protecting government whistleblowers reporting on the gross waste of government funds.27 28 The number of ongoing lawsuits in federal court challenging actions taken by the second Trump Administration reached 100.29 “America is going down,” said a retired official from China’s People’s Liberation Army, which conducted “live-fire” nautical drills in Taiwanese waters.30 31 32
Citigroup, which was responsible for a financial crash that wiped out $322 billion from the European stock market in 2022 after an employee added an errant zero to a trade, disclosed to the U.S. Federal Reserve that it had mistakenly credited a customer’s account $81 trillion instead of $280.33 34 A Republican lawmaker introduced a bill to print a $250 bill with Donald Trump’s face on it, and lawmakers in the West Virginia House of Delegates introduced a bill to recognize the Holy Bible as “the utmost authority for human moral behavior.”35 36 A painting bearing the words “thou shalt not steal” was stolen from an English church.37 Anora, a film about a Brighton Beach sex worker who was offered $10,000 to annul her own marriage to a Russian oligarch’s son, swept the Oscars, and an Indian man successfully won $320 in damages from the country’s largest movie theater after claiming that the number of prescreening ads had caused him “mental agony” and made him miss appointments.38 39 “I was probably tired and overwhelmed,” pro-Russian Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic explained after accidentally voting for a pro-Ukrainian United Nations resolution.40 “Everybody is looking at their phones,” observed a Hawaii man upon his release from prison, where he had spent 30 years for a crime he had not committed.41 —Maya Perry
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