- Tuesday April 22nd, 2025
- "It Is Not A Question of Who Is Right Or Wrong But What Is Right Or Wrong That Counts."
- --Geoff Metcalf
- Providing an on line Triage of the news since 1998
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World & Nation
Rubio Announces Major State Dept Reorganization
The Trump
administration is reorganizing the State Department to eliminate
offices it considers redundant and cut some programs it says do not
align with U.S. interests, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday.
"This approach
will empower the Department from the ground up, from the bureaus to the
embassies," Rubio said in a statement, describing the moves as part of
President Donald Trump's "America First" agenda.
"Region-specific
functions will be consolidated to increase functionality, redundant
offices will be removed, and non-statutory programs that are misaligned
with America’s core national interests will cease to exist," Rubio said.
Trump’s education boss reveals greedy truth behind Biden’s student loan forgiveness: ‘They have profited massively’
President Trump’s education boss Linda McMahon has defended the
administration’s decision to resume student loan debt collections —
insisting that greedy colleges have “profited massively” from Biden-era
forgiveness measures.
The Department of Education announced Monday it would start recouping
federal student repayments again from May 5 from the roughly 5.3
million borrowers who are currently in default on their loans.
In a fiery Wall Street Journal op-ed addressing the move, the education
secretary blamed the Biden administration and universities for making
“empty promises to students while pocketing their loan dollars.”
Vatican releases images of Pope Francis in open coffin for Confirmation of the Death of the Pontiff ceremony
The Vatican has released images of Pope Francis being laid out in an
open coffin ahead of the special historic ceremony officially declaring
his death.
Francis died Monday after suffering a stroke that led to irreversible
heart failure following a weeks-long hospitalization with pneumonia. He
was 88.
The pontiff’s body was placed in a simple, wooden, zinc-lined coffin
late Monday, with Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Vatican camerlengo — the
“chamberlain” who essentially acts as head of the Vatican between the
end of a papacy and the start of the next — reading the official
Confirmation of the Death of the Pontiff aloud in an intimate ceremony.
A red ribbon and wax seal was also placed on the door of the papal
apartment in the Apostolic Palace, as well as the Chapel of Santa
Marta, where he had lived.
7 Ways Pope Francis Radically Changed Catholicism
US Military to Detain Migrants at N.M. Border
U.S. Northern Command announced on Monday that the military had been
authorized to "temporarily" detain and search for illegal migrants
along a designated area of the southern border, referred to as the New
Mexico National Defense Area (NMNDA).
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump issued a memo authorizing
the military to conduct operations on "federal lands along the southern
border."
Elizabeth Warren squirms when pressed about defending Biden's mental fitness in podcast interview
Warren previously claimed Biden was mentally sharp and 'knows what he's talking about'
Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren struggled to defend her
past praise of President Joe Biden’s "sharp" mind in a new interview,
equivocating that she believed it at the time.
Warren appeared on the "Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso" podcast on Sunday
where the left-leaning host asked whether she regretted saying Biden
"had a sharpness to him" up until he dropped out of the 2024
presidential election.
"I said what I believed to be true," Warren said.
"You think he was as sharp as you?" Fragoso pushed back.
Warren gave a long pause where she appeared to hold back a laugh at the question.
Trump Wins Another Supreme Court Ruling
An appeals court recently ruled that two federal agency board members,
Merit Systems Protection Board member Cathy Harris and National Labor
Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox, will be reinstated after being
fired by President Donald Trump.
However, the Supreme Court intervened and allowed the Trump
administration to remove the two board members. Both women have
challenged their dismissals in lawsuits, claiming violations of federal
law. The appeals court’s 7-4 decision initially reversed an earlier
ruling by a three-judge panel that allowed their firings.
Dems fume over 'due process' for Abrego Garcia despite long history of party bucking the legal principle
'I don’t want to see him impeached, I want to see him in prison,' then-House Speaker Pelosi reportedly said about Trump
Theres no question that Abrego Garcia had due process repeatedly, GOP lawmaker says
Democrats are facing pushback as they continue to call for due process
for illegal immigrant and suspected MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego Garcia
after years of seemingly ignoring due process for their political
rivals.
During the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election and the first
Trump term, many Democrats called for President Donald Trump to be put
in jail despite only facing allegations of impropriety at the time.
"He needs to be imprisoned & placed in solitary confinement,"
Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters said in October 2019. "But for now,
impeachment is the imperative."
"I don’t want to see him impeached, I want to see him in prison,"
then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly told fellow Democrats in
2019, according to Politico.
New Ceasefire Proposal Presented to Hamas in Cairo Talks
Qatari and Egyptian mediators have presented a new ceasefire framework
to Hamas, including a multi-year truce, the release of all Israeli
hostages in exchange for Palestinian security prisoners and a full
Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, according to a report on Monday.
The plan, reported by the BBC, which cited a senior Palestinian source
familiar with the negotiations, is said to include a truce lasting five
to seven years and the establishment of a new governing authority in
Gaza, potentially replacing Hamas. The terrorist organization, which
has controlled the coastal enclave since its violent takeover in 2007,
has signaled willingness to transfer authority to another Palestinian
body approved on a "national and regional level," according to the BBC.
Navy veteran suing Associated Press over Afghanistan story says 'smuggling' language implied criminal conduct
"Smuggling" could be the new "black market" in Bay County, Florida, if
U.S. Navy veteran Zachary Young’s defamation lawsuit against the
Associated Press goes to trial.
Young, who successfully sued CNN for defamation earlier this year,
alleged that CNN smeared him by implying he illegally profited when
helping people flee Afghanistan on the "black market" during the Biden
administration's military withdrawal from the country in 2021.
Throughout the CNN trial, Young’s legal team pointed out the term
"black market" is typically used to describe illegal behavior.
Pope Francis’ death puts major choice before his church
Catholics, along with much of the rest of the world, are in mourning this week over the death of Pope Francis.
He was indeed a deservedly beloved figure — one who cared deeply about
the human condition, no matter what anyone might think about the course
he prescribed.
And now the Roman Catholic Church finds itself on the threshold of a
momentous decision about the future direction of the faith. We wish it
luck.
Trump needs to make a trade deal FAST to calm the markets and prove his tariffs are working
President Trump can prove his hefty, across-the-board tariffs are
working — and calm the markets — by beginning to secure trade deals
with nations soon. He’d best hop to it.
Indeed, the clock is ticking: On Monday, the markets headed down
steeply again, as fears of recession and inflation continue to loom.
Clearly, the tariffs are driving the turmoil — not just on Wall Street
but throughout the economy.
Meanwhile, China is becoming increasingly aggressive. Its latest
threat: It’ll retaliate against countries that work with Trump to limit
or scrap tariffs on goods they ship to America.
The risk is that Trump’s trade war with China can morph into a full-fledged cold war.
