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The Trump administration is expected to unveil its grandest plan yet to rebuild supply chains of critical minerals needed for everything from jet engines to smartphones, likely through purchase agreements with partners on top of creating a $12 billion U.S. strategic reserve to help counter China's dominance. Vice President JD Vance is set to deliver a keynote address Wednesday at a meeting that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is hosting with officials from several dozen European, Asian and African nations. The US is expected to sign deals on supply chain logistics, though details have not yet been revealed. Rubio met Tuesday with foreign ministers from South Korea and India to discuss critical minerals mining and processing. The meeting and expected agreements will come just two days after President Donald Trump announced "Project Vault," or a stockpile of critical minerals to be funded with a $10 billion loan from the U.S. Export and Import Bank and nearly $1.67 billion in private ..
President Donald Trump says history is on his side. He wants to build a towering arch near the Lincoln Memorial and argues that the nation's capital first clamored for such a monument two centuries ago - even going so far as to erect four eagle statues as part of the project before being derailed by the attack on Fort Sumter. "It was interrupted by a thing called the Civil War, and so it never got built," Trump said aboard Air Force One as he flew to Florida last weekend. "Then, they almost built something in 1902, but it never happened." Trump's history is off - the eagles he references are actually part of a bridge connecting Virginia and Washington that was built decades after the Civil War. The closest Washington came to an arch was a wood and plaster construction built in 1919 to mark the end of World War I - and even that was always meant to be temporary. "For 200 years they've wanted to build an arc," Trump said, meaning an arch. "They have 57 cities throughout the world tha
New York and New Jersey sued the Trump administration on Tuesday for freezing USD 16 billion in federal funding for a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River between the two states, seeking a quick ruling because construction that has been underway could be forced to shut down as early as Friday. The administration put a hold on the funding in September, citing the government shutdown. The White House budget director, Russ Vought, said on the social platform X at the time that officials believed the spending was based on unconstitutional diversity, equity and inclusion principles, and the US Department of Transportation said it was reviewing any "unconstitutional practices." The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan by New York Attorney General Letitia James and New Jersey Acting Attorney General Jennifer Davenport, asks a judge to declare the funding suspension unlawful and order payments to resume immediately so construction can continue without interruption. "Allowing this
President Donald Trump signed a roughly USD 1.2 trillion government funding bill on Tuesday that ends the partial federal shutdown that began over the weekend and sets the stage for an intense debate in Congress over Homeland Security funding. The president moved quickly to sign the bill after the House approved it with a 217-214 vote. "This bill is a great victory for the American people," Trump said. The vote on Tuesday wrapped up congressional work on 11 annual appropriations bills that fund government agencies and programmes through September 30. Trump has said he will sign the bill when it reaches his desk, ending the partial government shutdown that began on Saturday. Passage of the legislation marked the end point for one funding fight, but the start of another. That is because the package only funds the Department of Homeland Security for two weeks, through February 13, at the behest of Democrats who are demanding more restrictions on immigration enforcement after the shoot
President Donald Trump implored the House on Monday to end the partial government shutdown, but neither Republicans nor Democrats appeared ready to quickly approve the federal funding package he brokered with the Senate without first debating their own demands over immigration enforcement operations. Democrats are refusing to provide the votes House Speaker Mike Johnson needs to push the package forward as they try to rein in the Trump administration's deportation operations after the shooting deaths of two Americans in Minneapolis. That's forcing Johnson to rely on his slim GOP majority, which has its own complaints about the package, to fall in line behind Trump's deal with Senate Democrats. Voting could begin as soon as Tuesday, which would be day four of the partial shutdown. The Pentagon, Homeland Security and other agencies saw their funding lapse Saturday. And while many operations at those departments are deemed essential, and still functioning, some workers may go without pa
President Donald Trump is suing the IRS and Treasury Department for $10 billion, as he accuses the federal agencies of a failure to prevent a leak of the president's tax information to news outlets. The suit, filed in a Florida federal court on Thursday, was also brought by Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and the Trump organization as plaintiffs. In 2024, former IRS contractor Charles Edward Littlejohn of Washington, D.C. - who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, a defense and national security tech firm - was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to leaking tax information about Trump and others to news outlets. Littlejohn gave data to The New York Times and ProPublica between 2018 and 2020 in leaks that appeared to be "unparalleled in the IRS's history," prosecutors said. Trump's suit states that Littlejohn's disclosures to the news organizations "caused reputational and financial harm to Plaintiffs and adversely impacted President Trump's support among voters in the 2
India came out on "top" in the trade deal with the European Union and is going to have a heyday with this, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in the first reaction from the Trump administration on the free trade agreement. Greer was responding to a question on the trade agreement, billed as the "mother of all deals", sealed between India and the EU on Tuesday. "I've looked at some of the details of the deal so far. I think India comes out on top on this, frankly. They get more market access into Europe," Greer said in an interview with Fox Business on Tuesday. "It sounds like they (India) have some additional immigration rights. I don't know for sure, but President (Ursula) von der Leyen of the EU has talked about mobility for Indian workers into Europe. So I think on net, India is going to have a heyday with this. They have low-cost labour," Greeer added. He said that it looks like the EU is doubling down on globalisation when the US is trying to "fix some of the problems
The administration of US President Donald Trump has cancelled solar projects in Puerto Rico worth millions of dollars, as the island struggles with chronic power outages and a crumbling electric grid. The projects were aimed at helping 30,000 low-income families in rural areas across the US territory as part of a now-fading transition toward renewable energy. In an email obtained by The Associated Press, the US Energy Department said that a push under Puerto Rico's former governor for a 100 per cent renewable future threatened the reliability of its energy system. "The Puerto Rico grid cannot afford to run on more distributed solar power," the message states. "The rapid, widespread deployment of rooftop solar has created fluctuations in Puerto Rico's grid, leading to unacceptable instability and fragility." Javier Rua Jovet, public policy director for Puerto Rico's Solar and Energy Storage Association, disputed that statement in a phone interview Thursday. He said that some 200,00
The Trump administration announced Thursday that human fetal tissue derived from abortions can no longer be used in research funded by the National Institutes of Health. The policy, long urged by anti-abortion groups, expands restrictions issued during President Donald Trump's first term. The government has funded research involving fetal tissue for decades, under both Republican and Democratic administrations. The tissue, which otherwise would be thrown away, has been critical for certain research, including ways to fight HIV and cancer. Opponents of fetal tissue use say there are now alternatives, although many scientists say there aren't always adequate substitutes. In a statement Thursday, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya acknowledged the agency "has long maintained policies governing the responsible and limited use of human fetal tissue in biomedical research." Its use has declined since 2019. The USD 47 billion agency counted just 77 projects funded in 2024 that included fetal .
French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said that European pressure forced US President Donald Trump to back down from his threats to take control of Greenland, as EU leaders gathered to chart a new course in transatlantic relations. "Europe can make itself be respected, and that's a very good thing," Macron told reporters, as he arrived in Brussels for an emergency summit. "When we use the tools that we have at our disposal we get respect and that's what happened this week." On the eve of the EU meeting, Trump dramatically backed away from his insistence on "acquiring" Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark. For the first time, he said that he would not use force to seize the island. Trump also dropped his threat of slapping tariffs on European nations that support Denmark. The EU's tools included a nonaggressive deployment of a few dozen troops to Greenland on a reconnaissance mission to prepare for future exercises and to send Trump a message that Europe is taking
The Trump administration is expanding its ban on US foreign aid for groups supporting abortion services to include assistance going to international and domestic organisations and agencies that promote gender identity as well as diversity, equity and inclusion programmes. An administration official said Thursday that the State Department would release final rules that expand the scope of the "Mexico City" policy that has already severely reduced assistance to international organizations that provide abortion-related care. The policy was first established under President Ronald Reagan but rescinded by subsequent Democratic administrations. The new rules, first reported by Fox News, would halt foreign assistance from going toward not only groups that provide abortion as a method of family planning but also those that advocate "gender ideology" and DEI, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the rules' publication in the Federal Register on Friday. The