- Wednesday April 23rd, 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
My son has narrated the last book I wrote.Please consider listening to it and encouraging others to do so too.(Click HERE)
World & Nation
Trump: Will Have Fair Trade Deal With China
President Donald Trump repeated his Tuesday Oval Office
comment on seeking a free and fair trade deal with China, as roiled
markets are hoping for a settling of a tariffs and trade war that has
caused markets to sink to Biden administration levels.
The Trump administration would look at lowering tariffs on imported
Chinese goods pending talks with Beijing, a source familiar with the
matter told Reuters on Wednesday, adding any action would not be made
unilaterally.
The source's comments followed The Wall Street Journal report the White
House is considering cutting its tariffs on Chinese imports in a bid to
de-escalate tensions. China tariffs could come down from their current
level of 145% to between 50% and 65%, the paper said, citing a White
House official.
Cornell University yanks anti-Israel performer Kehlani from end-of-year concert after wave of backlash
Cornell University on Wednesday canned Jew-bashing
entertainer Kehlani’s upcoming campus performance after facing
overwhelming backlash over the decision to host the anti-Israel
musician.
President Michael Kotlikoff said he’d rescinded the Grammy
Award-nominated R&B artist’s invitation to perform next month at
the university’s “Slope Day” end-of-year celebration — just days after
the school initially defended the move.
“Unfortunately, although it was not the intention, the selection of
Kehlani as this year’s headliner has injected division and discord into
Slope Day,” he wrote in a letter to students and staff.
“In the days since Kehlani was announced, I have heard grave concerns
from our community that many are angry, hurt, and confused that Slope
Day would feature a performer who has espoused antisemitic, anti-Israel
sentiments in performances, videos, and on social media.”
Dick Durbin is retiring from the Senate
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat and his party’s
top leader on the Judiciary Committee, announced Wednesday that he
won't seek a sixth term in 2026.
“I know in my heart it’s time to pass the torch,” the veteran senator said in a social media post Wednesday.
Durbin, who is 80, confirmed what many Democrats have expected for
months — that the veteran senator would step aside after three decades
in office.
His departure comes at a perilous moment for the judicial system as the
Trump administration repeatedly tests the limits of executive power and
challenges the authority of the courts.
Trump gives Zelensky dire warning on Russia-Ukraine war: Accept peace or risk ‘losing the whole country’
President Trump issued a stark warning to Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday, saying Kyiv’s leader was in
a “dire” situation and “can have Peace or, he can fight for another
three years before losing the whole Country.”
Trump, 78, was responding to Zelensky telling reporters Tuesday that
“Ukraine will not legally recognize the [Russian] occupation of Crimea”
— a key part of a US-proposed peace plan under discussion in London
Wednesday.
Trump and Zelensky’s relationship has been heated as the two spar over the Ukraine war.
“This statement is very harmful to the Peace Negotiations with Russia
in that Crimea was lost years ago under the auspices of President
Barack Hussein Obama, and is not even a point of discussion,” Trump
seethed on Truth Social. “Nobody is asking Zelenskyy to recognize
Crimea as Russian Territory but, if he wants Crimea, why didn’t they
fight for it eleven years ago when it was handed over to Russia without
a shot being fired?”
Here’s what Russia and Ukraine get in Trump’s ‘final offer’ peace deal
With US officials in London Wednesday for what could be a last round of
negotiations to try to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the pressure
is on for Moscow and Kyiv to agree to the Trump administration’s “final
offer” peace plan.
While Kyiv has been consistently open to President Trump’s call for a
full cease-fire, Russia has continually rejected the American peace
proposals.
The latest pitch, as described by one senior administration official,
offers Russia several “carrots” to entice it to come to the table while
asking Ukraine to make several major concessions.
Tom Homan vows action as California set to release illegal immigrant who killed two teens
Homan tells ‘America’s Newsroom’ that he plans to works with Secretary Noem on the case
Outrage is growing after the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation announced it will release an undocumented immigrant
convicted of killing two American teenagers, more than six years before
his original sentence was set to end.
Trump border czar Tom Homan says he’s stepping in.
"I will work with [Homeland Security] Secretary Noem on this case, and
I guarantee you, if they don’t honor the detainer, we’ll have ICE
agents outside that facility to take custody of this individual and
deport him," Homan said Wednesday on "America’s Newsroom."
Oscar Eduardo Ortega-Anguiano was driving drunk at high speed in 2021
when he crashed into a car carrying 19-year-olds Anya Varfolomeev and
Nicholay Osokin. Both teens were killed in the fiery wreck.
Ortega-Anguiano was later convicted of two counts of gross vehicular
manslaughter while intoxicated and sentenced to 10 years in prison in
2022.
Virginia town backs away from dissolving police department after citizen uproar
Purcellville, Virginia, town council initially proposed disbanding police force to save $3.2 million
Amid backlash from residents, leaders in a Virginia town voted Tuesday
to keep Purcellville's police force a week after they tried to
eliminate it to save more than $3 million, according to reports.
The town of Purcellville, located in Loudoun County, Virginia, has
found itself around $50 million in the red following the construction
of a major wastewater treatment facility, and the council sought to
tighten the town’s budget by disbanding the local police department and
relying on the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office for law enforcement.
The initial decision to dismantle the police department led to recall
petitions to remove several council members and Vice Mayor Ben Nett
from office. Council members who proposed eradicating the force said
they wanted to do so to reduce water bills for the town’s 9,000
residents.
Young Americans sour on congressional Democrats, new poll finds
President Trump's approval ratings stand at 31% in new Harvard poll of younger Americans
Fewer than one in three young Americans approve of the job President
Donald Trump and Congress are doing, according to a new national poll
from the Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics.
But while the approval ratings for Trump and congressional Republicans
have mostly stayed consistent since the start of the president's first
administration eight years ago, the 50th Harvard Youth Poll indicates
that approval ratings for Democrats in Congress among Americans aged
18-29 have nosedived.
According to Harvard's annual spring survey, which was conducted March
14-25 and released on Wednesday, the approval rating for congressional
Democrats stands at 23%, down from 42% in the spring of 2017 at the
start of Trump's first term.
US Court of International Trade sides with Trump in tariff case
The ruling is a much-needed legal victory for Trump
President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday
that the overall tariff level imposed on China, currently 145 percent,
will come down significantly but "won’t be zero."
In a win for the Trump administration, the U.S. Court of International
Trade rejected a request from a group of small businesses to
immediately halt President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs from taking
force.
Judges on the three-member panel for the U.S. Court of International
Trade (CIT) ruled that the plaintiffs failed to show a likelihood that
they would suffer "immediate and irreparable harm" as a result of the
tariffs – the standard courts require to grant a temporary restraining
order.
The decision from the U.S. trade court leaves in place Trump's sweeping
tariff plan while plaintiffs' broader request for injunctive relief
continues to play out in court.
As Pope Francis Lies in State, Catholics Gather in Rome to Say Goodbye
Maria Pia Caruso traveled to Rome from her hometown in northern Italy
after she learned Pope Francis had died at age 88, to say a final
goodbye to a pontiff she believes brought important changes to the
global Catholic Church.
Caruso entered St. Peter's Square with her husband at 7 a.m., to make
sure they had a seat to watch the solemn procession bringing the Pope's
body to St. Peter's Basilica, where it will lie in state for three days.
Palestinian President Calls on Hamas to Hand Over Arms to His Authority
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a televised speech on
Wednesday, called on the Hamas militant group to cede its
responsibility over the Gaza Strip, hand over its arms to the
Palestinian Authority and turn itself into a political party.
Can President Trump fix Harvard?
Universities have a long way to go to return to their mission
Public trust in our universities is lower than it’s ever been, with 32
percent of Americans having "very little to no confidence" in higher
education. That’s up from 20 percent before October 7, 2023, when the
higher-ed crisis was thrust into the national discourse by virulent
pro-Hamas protests and encampments. It’s amazing that the heart of
antisemitism in America lies on campus, among the most educated and
so-called progressive people in the country.
As Bill Ackman put it in a revelatory essay the day Harvard president
Claudine Gay resigned, antisemitism is the "canary in the coal mine," a
warning about larger issues. It’s a leading indicator of underlying
pathologies, which here means everything from cancel culture to
ideological indoctrination, intellectual corruption to moral decay.
We’ve seen a subversion of the core mission of universities to seek
truth and knowledge, and of classical-liberal values like free speech,
due process, and equality under the law. It’s been a shift from
education to activism.
Trump vs Powell: An ugly fight we don’t need
We know there’s an easy solution: put a computer in charge of the Fed
President Donald Trump wants to fire Jerome Powell, chair of the Board
of Governors of the Federal Reserve. No word yet on what Powell thinks
about Trump’s job performance, but Powell says he doesn’t intend to
quit before the end of his term next year. If Trump does try to fire
him, he’ll see Trump in court.
It’s a mess. It’s like being a little kid in a big crazy family
watching the grown-ups have a nasty, screaming fight in front of the
neighbors. It’s embarrassing. But it’s more than that. This big crazy
family needs the neighbors – which includes everyone in the world who
participates in our financial system – more than ever.
There’s probably not much we can do about the fight. The grown-ups
clearly don’t care much about us kids – if they did, they’d quit
fighting and figure all this out. But it might be helpful to understand
what the fight is about and how it could be easily resolved.
