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Steve Witkoff is expected to meet the Russian president on Friday, Axios reports

A meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, could happen on Friday, Axios reported on Wednesday, citing an unnamed US official.

Earlier, Moscow confirmed that Witkoff would travel to Russia later this week.

Witkoff has visited Russia three times in recent months for multiple rounds of talks with senior Russian officials, including Putin, as part of peace efforts undertaken by Washington and Moscow to end the Ukraine conflict.

As part of a potential peace deal, Washington reportedly proposes to recognize Russia’s jurisdiction over Crimea and acknowledge Moscow’s control over four other former Ukrainian regions that voted to join Russia. The plan is also said to include the scheduled lifting of some sanctions against Russia and a denial to Ukraine's request to join NATO. 

On Tuesday, Vladimir Zelensky rejected any discussion of recognizing Crimea as Russian, prompting Trump to warn on Wednesday that Zelensky risked losing his entire country if he continued to undermine the talks.

READ MORE: Trump accuses Zelensky of harming peace talks

Witkoff, together with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, skipped a high-level meeting on Ukraine in London on Wednesday, following Zelensky's rebuttal of a key pillar in the US peace proposal.

The UK Foreign Office later confirmed to AFP that a meeting of foreign ministers from countries backing Kiev had been indefinitely postponed, adding that “official level talks” will continue but behind closed doors.

At 7:35 on Easter Monday, 21 April 2025, the soul of Jorge Mario separated from his mortal body to present itself for Divine Judgement. Only on the day of the Universal Judgement will we know what sentence Pope Francis has been given by the Supreme Tribunal at which each of us must one day present […]

The post The death of Pope Francis (2013–2025): end of an era? appeared first on Voice of the Family.

“If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater.” Since last Sunday, we have been celebrating the Resurrection of our Lord from the dead. On Low Sunday, we can think about another resurrection — one that’s still to come, and of which Christ’s Resurrection is the guarantee — I mean, our […]

The post The general resurrection: sermon on Low Sunday appeared first on Voice of the Family.

The recent series of talks between Washington and Moscow has helped clarify the Kremlin’s position, the US secretary of state has said

Washington has gained a much better understanding of Russia’s position on the Ukraine conflict, now that it has engaged with Moscow after three years of diplomatic refusal, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said.

Rubio made the remarks on Wednesday in an interview with The Free Press, saying the US has been seeking to grasp what the Russian position is.

“We have a better understanding of that now because we’ve actually spoken to them after three years of not speaking to them,” he stated.

Ties between Moscow and Washington all but collapsed following the 2022 escalation of the Ukraine conflict under then-President Joe Biden. Since returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump has distanced himself from Biden-era policies, pushing for a rapid resolution to the conflict and a reset in bilateral relations. The two sides have held several rounds of high-level talks in recent months.

Voicing hope for a peace deal, Rubio emphasized there’s “no military end” to the ongoing hostilities.

“We have to be frank. Russia’s not just going to roll over Ukraine and take the whole country. And Ukraine’s not going to push them all the way back to where they were before 2014,” he stated.

“We’ve done our best,” Rubio told the outlet. “This is not our war. We didn’t start this war. We’re trying to help everybody end it,” he said, expressing hope to “bring the two sides closer.” 

Rubio was expected at a high-level Ukraine meeting in London on Wednesday with UK, US, French, German and Ukrainian diplomats. However, later Rubio and Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff decided to skip the event. The UK Foreign Office later confirmed to AFP that the foreign ministers meeting had been indefinitely postponed, adding that “official level talks” will continue but behind closed doors.

As part of a reported “final offer” to end the Ukraine conflict, Washington had planned to present a proposal in London recognizing Crimea as Russian “de jure” and acknowledging Moscow’s control over the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions. The plan was also said to include the lifting of some sanctions against Russia and opposing NATO membership for Ukraine.

On Tuesday, Vladimir Zelensky rejected any discussion of recognizing Crimea as Russian. Trump warned on Wednesday that Zelensky risked losing the entire country if he continued to stall talks.

Moscow has maintained that the status of Crimea – which joined Russia in 2014 following a referendum held after the Western-backed coup in Kiev – and the four other former Ukrainian regions that voted to join Russia in 2022, is not up for negotiation. Russian officials also insist that any peace agreement must address the “root causes” of the conflict. President Vladimir Putin has also said that a viable ceasefire would require Western nations to stop arms deliveries to Ukraine.

The Ukrainian leader’s refusal to discuss territorial concessions is prolonging the conflict, the US president has said

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky could lose the entirety of his country if he continues stalling talks with Russia, US President Donald Trump warned in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday.

Zelensky had publicly announced that Kiev will not even discuss officially recognizing the Crimean Peninsula as Russian, a key tenet of a Washington-backed peace proposal which it was to present at a meeting with officials the country's European backers on Wednesday. Following the rebuttal the top members of the US delegation withdrew from the planned talks, leading to the meeting being “downgraded” at the last minute. 

“This statement is very harmful to the Peace Negotiations with Russia in that Crimea was lost years ago,” Trump wrote, accusing the Ukrainian leader of prolonging the conflict.

READ MORE: White House accuses Zelensky of megaphone diplomacy

Crimea’s predominantly ethnic-Russian population voted to join Russia in a referendum in 2014, following a Western-backed armed coup in Kiev. Trump took to his Truth Social platform on Wednesday, declaring

The situation for Ukraine is dire – He can have Peace or, he can fight for another three years before losing the whole Country.

Trump reiterated that Zelensky has a weak bargaining position in the negotiations. “We are very close to a Deal, but the man with ‘no cards to play’ should now, finally, GET IT DONE,” he wrote.

The US has been pushing for a  resolution to the conflict, while at the same time trying to secure a minerals extraction deal with Ukraine to recoup some of the billions of dollars spent on arming the country. However, Trump and his administration have been growing impatient with the pace of the negotiations on both fronts, signaling that they may abandon the efforts.

If the US determines that “not enough movement is happening, we may need to move on to other priorities,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview with the Free Press published on Tuesday.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated in response that a peace deal with Ukraine is unlikely to be concluded in an expedited manner due to the complexities of the negotiations. Moscow has said it has always been ready to engage in peace talks, provided they ensure a permanent solution that addresses the root causes of the conflict – while any temporary ceasefire would be used by Ukraine’s Western backers to rearm the country’s military.

A group of retired officers, including over two dozen generals, has urged Parliament to debate troop presence and lethal aid for Kiev

A group of high-ranking French veterans has called for increased oversight of the country’s military involvement in Ukraine.

In a letter sent to the heads of both houses of Parliament, the former officers urged lawmakers to hold a formal debate on weapons supplies and the continued presence of French troops bolstering Kiev’s war efforts.

The letter, titled the ‘Citizen Resolution’, was published earlier this week on Place d’Armes, a platform for current and former service members to express views on national policy. It included a public call for citizens to sign the resolution in support.

The authors argued that France’s military involvement in Ukraine without a parliamentary mandate, and arms deliveries without public debate, violate the French Constitution and Criminal Code. They claimed that no clear communication has been made to Parliament about the possible presence of French troops in Ukraine since 2022, despite the legal obligation to inform lawmakers of any “military intervention.”

The letter has urged the parliament to publish “all information” about troop presence in the Journal Officiel, the country’s official gazette, and to “organize a debate with a vote on the continuation of this intervention” within 15 days of receiving the letter.

The document also noted that the French-Ukrainian security pact signed last year – which included €3 billion in aid and multi-year military support – has not been ratified by Parliament, despite the Constitution requiring such ratification for treaties having major financial implications for the state.

“The lack of regular parliamentary ratification raises the question of the legality of the supply of weapons from the French army reserves to Ukraine for use against Russia, with which our country is not at war,” the letter states.

The letter also highlighted President Emmanuel Macron’s recent remarks about potentially deploying troops to Ukraine and sharing nuclear capabilities with European partners. The authors argued that such decisions require parliamentary debate to ensure legitimacy.

Commenting on the letter, the head of the Place d’Armes association, Jean-Pierre Fabre-Bernadac, told Sud Radio it reflects heightened public concern about the country’s involvement in Ukraine.

“Is it a fable? Is there a reality of French troops on Ukrainian soil? This will be clarified by the National Assembly and the Senate,” he said. “The army is at the service of the nation. It is not at the service of a man or a regime.” He noted that his association did not write the text but that it was instead prepared by military professionals, including 26 former army generals.

The heads of the Senate and National Assembly have not yet publicly responded to the letter, while the mainstream French media has largely been quiet about its existence. However, the document has been signed by over 14,000 people since its release.

Despite numerous reports of Western troops in Ukraine, Kiev’s backers have avoided confirming any official deployments. Russia has repeatedly opposed the presence of Western forces under any pretext in the combat zone, warning that such a move would be treated as direct involvement in the conflict.

Above: the State of Puebla, Mexico. Shoulders draped with chains, heads crowned with thorns, flesh punctured with cacti, ankles bound with fetters. Barefoot penitents stood, waiting to begin the annual Good Friday tradition: Procession of the Chained. Under the hot sun, the small group of men – performing acts of faith and acts of gratitude – slowly, with difficulty…

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Gaza is suffering the most intense bombing, per capita, of anywhere on earth, ever.

Over 100,000 tons of bombs have been dropped on Gaza, an area slightly smaller than the City of Detroit, Michigan, resulting in the recorded deaths of at least 60,000 Gazans and injuries to hundreds of thousands.¹

It is impossible to overstate the effects of the abominable bombing war on Gazans, their lives, their families, their health, and their communities.

What has escaped attention up until now is the undeniable environmental and health effects of the bombing of Gazans on Israelis, as well as on citizens of neighboring states, and the potential harm to U.S. military personnel in the region.

A study of explosion physics based on declassified Department of Defense data, as well as blast temperature data and consequent emissions; a review of wind patterns, together with publicly available data of health effects from 9/11, as well as data gathered from U.S. veterans of the Persian Gulf War, yield a shocking conclusion.

Israel, in executing the unprecedented bombing attack on Gaza, is, in effect, bombing itself, with grave consequences for the public health of its people.² What is being visited upon Gaza does not stay in Gaza.

The sustained bombing of Gaza pulverizes stone, heavy metals, and the human body. The vaporizing of human beings under extreme heat and pressure combines with dust, water vapor, and metallic particles the size of microns, all blasted upwards, aerosolized, wind-driven across borders, into Israel and surrounding countries.³

The unlimited bombing of Gaza has created an unparalleled ecological and biomedical feedback loop. Israel exhales death in Gaza and inhales the Gaza it has vaporized.

Israel, in bombing neighboring Gaza, is breathing in its own fallout, along with the vaporized remains of its declared enemies. The external consequences of violence becomes internalized. The substance of the oppressed communes with the oppressor.

On a clinical level, breathing in bioaerosols can compromise human immune systems.⁴ Breathing in ultrafine particles from non-biological war dust can cross the blood-brain barrier and contribute to neurodegenerative disease.⁵

Israel and the Palestinians share a common atmosphere. They inhale the same war dust, from bomb materials, carbon soot, and the fine particle remains of vaporized Gazans.

Human cremation occurs at temperatures between 1,400°F and 1,800°F.⁶ The blast temperatures of the bombs identified as being dropped on Gaza—MK-84 bombs: 4,496°F; GBU-39s: 4,892°F; BLU-109s: 3,632°F—far exceed this range.⁷ In comparison, blast furnaces used to melt steel operate at 2,500°F to 2,800°F.⁸

People at the epicenter of such bombings in Gaza are instantly turned into dust. This is a factor confounding the determination of exactly how many people have perished in Gaza since October 2023. How can an accurate body count be achieved if bodies have been turned to smoke and ash?

Let’s look at 9/11. The total confirmed dead: 2,753. Almost 40% of the victims were never identified, as their bodies were fragmented or vaporized, reduced to dust.⁹

When a bomb hits its target—for example, a tent city—the high-temperature explosion can vaporize a person so thoroughly that microscopic particles of DNA and loose molecules are suspended in air, mingling with dust and smoke as bioaerosols.¹⁰

These biologicals—DNA and fat in human tissue—turn to carbon, black dust, and smoke. The minerals of bones and teeth, skeletal dust, go airborne. Fragments of cells can float in the air, bubbles holding fat, bone, and broken DNA strands travel with the wind and are breathed in dozens of miles from the blast site.¹¹

It is not only the superheat that destroys the human body. The explosive force of a bomb, in terms of pounds per square inch (psi), can produce vaporization at the blast site, an impact equivalent to a plane plunging into the earth at high speed.¹²

As 100,000 tons of bombs have been dropped in Gaza, the matter destroyed takes a different form, as toxic pollutants carried aloft in gas, dust, vapor, and particulates.

Specifically, toxic quantities of cadmium, nickel, lead, mercury, and arsenic are released into the air, together with dioxins, furans, PCBs, (polychlorinated biphenyls); PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) and VOCs (volatile organic compounds).¹³

One calculation indicates that 100,000 tons of bombs, exploded in a densely populated area of Gaza, can generate between 800,000 to 1.2 million tons of pollution.¹⁴

Add to this the dust of Gazans’ human remains and you have extreme airborne consequences carried by the wind, directly into Israel, particularly the central and northern regions, and far beyond.

There are relevant comparisons for the health effects of a tremendous explosion in an urban area. A month after 9/11, people in Manhattan began to develop chronic coughs.

A longitudinal study of members of the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) revealed that after six months, firemen began to suffer from chronic bronchitis; others saw the onset of pulmonary fibrosis.¹⁵

Two years after 9/11, a higher incidence of thyroid, prostate, breast, and other cancers arose among those exposed to 9/11 contaminants. Early-onset neurodegenerative, Alzheimer’s-type symptoms presented after five years or longer.¹⁶

Based on epidemiological data from studies of those near the people and buildings destroyed on 9/11, certain health effects can be anticipated in Israel.

The people of Sderot, Netivot, Be’er Sheva—all within a short distance of Gaza—are at high risk of long-term health effects of the bombing. Ashkelon and Tel Aviv have been exposed to environmental consequences, as has northern Israel and even Jordan.

While Israel’s Ministry of Environmental Protection operates air-monitoring stations at sites proximate to Gaza, it would be instructive, given the intensity of the bombing, to see if the effects of war-related pollution are being fully disclosed to the Israeli public.¹⁷

Given the unprecedented levels of bombing in Gaza, the types of bombs used, their explosive power, the extent of physical destruction, the extraordinary number of casualties, the creation of large plumes of black smoke containing the genetic material of burned and vaporized Gazans, the people of Israel—on the other side of the Gaza boundary—will likely experience increased levels of respiratory illness, asthma-like and other pulmonary diseases, and a sharp increase in cancer as a direct result of being exposed to toxic airborne substances present at a microscopic level.¹⁸

Added to this direct hazard is the ongoing recirculation of wind across the vast hellscape to which Gaza has been reduced. That, too, will sweep up and redistribute the contaminants from the over 50 million tons of debris from the land of Gaza to the land of Israel.

At this point, the calamity which has befallen Gaza as a result of incessant bombing will visit, in various forms and degrees of harm, southern and central Israel, western Jordan, the northeast Sinai Peninsula, northern Egypt (Delta and Cairo), Lebanon, Cyprus, southwestern Syria, northwestern Saudi Arabia, southeastern Turkey, Crete, Greece, Sicily, and Malta. Additionally, sea spray can carry aerosolized particles clear across the Mediterranean Sea.¹⁹

The United States has a substantial number of Naval forces in the eastern Mediterranean, including two aircraft carriers, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the USS Gerald R. Ford, as well as numerous other assault ships.²⁰

U.S. military installations are present at Incirlik, Turkey, Naples, Italy, Cyprus, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. All face “war dust” pollution hazards as a result of the bombing of Gaza.²¹

I know well the adverse health consequences suffered by US servicemen and women who served in the Persian Gulf War, 1990–1991.

Veterans of that war came to my congressional office complaining of constant pain, neurological, musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal and respiratory symptoms, all of which were ignored or covered up by the Department of Defense.

As a Member of Congress, over the objections of the Department of Defense, I took up the cause of veterans who suffered what came to be known as Gulf War Illness, a multi-symptom condition still affecting, to this very day, nearly 245,000 veterans of the Persian Gulf War.²²

Bernie Sanders and I worked together in Congress to obtain funding for research into GWI, which is now a medically recognized, war-related condition.²³

When you see the measurable, catastrophic effect which war environments can have on those who serve, and the measurable catastrophic effect of those proximate to the 9/11 attacks, and the indefensible obliteration bombing of Gaza and its people, you may come to an understanding of the wholly fallacious notion of the containment of war and why I assert Israel is bombing itself.

The bombing of Gaza has created a human health crisis which cannot be ignored any longer.

There must be an immediate cease-fire on humanitarian and ecological bases.

• The UN must urgently address the collapse of the Palestinian public health system, including the implications of the war for respiratory diseases and cancers among survivors.
• The UN must lead a Transboundary Environmental and Human Health Assessment of the Immediate and Long-Term Implications of War Dust, which will include transboundary assessments of the toxic environmental effects of the war.
• Monitoring stations must be set up. The people of the world have a right to know what is in the air they breathe.

International humanitarian and environmental law must, at last, be enforced.

UN representatives must determine a path forward.

Israel and the United States must consider the far-reaching consequences of the decision to attack and bomb the people of another country.

The tortured mindset which licenses the extinction of Gazans is now a spectre haunting the entire world, with its ghoulish designs on Iran. I will explore that approaching cataclysm in a future column.

Human rights and compassion are not considerations in bombing Gazans. Perhaps enlightened self-preservation can be introduced as a means to stop the bombing, once and for all.

The war against Gazans must end, and perhaps through the suffering of Gazans, and understanding the regional and global health impact of bombing, we may understand why it is time to call an end to all wars.

Reprinted with permission from The Kucinich Report.
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Amidst the horrific US abuse of foreigners through the use of tariffs and police-state enforcement of immigration controls, it’s easy to forget that the US government abuses foreigners in other ways, such as sanctions, embargoes, invasions, occupations, wars of aggression, torture, indefinite detention, and state-sponsored assassinations.

Perhaps the longest-lasting, continuous example of this foreigner-abuse syndrome is the US government’s horrific abuse of the Cuban people, which has gone on for more than 60 years. Given that there is no good reason for abusing the Cuban people — and there never has been one — this would be a good place to begin breaking with the longstanding, ongoing US policy of abusing foreigners.

It’s worth pointing out that Cuba has never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so. Ever since the Cuban revolution in 1959, the US government has always been the aggressor against Cuba, not the other way around.

For more than 60 years, the US government has imposed and enforced a cruel and brutal economic embargo against Cuba. The embargo is designed to inflict maximum economic harm on the Cuban people with the intent of impoverishing them and even killing them through starvation.

The aim of this embargo is one that has been standard for many decades within the US Empire: regime change. Ever since the Cuban revolution, US officials have been obsessed with ousting the communist regime that controls Cuba and replacing it with a pro-US dictatorial regime — that is, one that will be a loyal, obedient servant of the US Empire, much like the current dictatorial regime in El Salvador. The idea has always been that to avoid death by starvation, the Cuban people can rise up and violently revolt against their regime.

The embargo strategy is much like the thinking that undergirds terrorism. Terrorists kill innocent people as a way to pressure a regime into changing its political system or behavior. That’s what the US embargo against Cuba does also.

But it’s worth mentioning that the US embargo is not the only way that the US Empire has inflicted abuse on Cubans. During the early 1960s, the Empire also engaged in real acts of terrorism against commercial facilities inside Cuba.

That’s not all. US officials, in partnership with the Mafia, also engaged in secret state-sponsored assassination attempts against Cuba’s first president, Fidel Castro. US officials maintained that such assassination attempts were morally justified because Castro was a communist. However, it is difficult to understand how that would morally justify murdering someone. It’s also worth noting that the US Constitution makes it illegal for US officials to murder anyone, including foreigners.

Needless to say, the US embargo against Cuba has never worked. For one thing, many Cubans hate the US government. Moreover, many of Cubans who hate Cuba’s communist and socialist systems hate the thought of being under the control of the US government even more. For another thing, there is a strict system of gun control in Cuba, which means that the Cuban people lack the means to violently overthrow their government. Thus, all that the US embargo has accomplished for the past six and a half decades is extreme economic suffering among the Cuban people.

Proponents of the embargo do their best to avoid personal responsibility for this intentional infliction of suffering on innocent people by focusing exclusively on the harm caused by Cuba’s socialist system. What they avoid confronting is that the US government’s embargo is the other side of an economic vise that, in combination with Cuba’s socialist system, succeeds in squeezing the lifeblood out of the Cuban people. What these embargo proponents also fail to confront is that while Cuban socialism inflicts harm on the Cuban people, it’s misguided harm. The harm inflicted by the embargo is fully intentional and deliberate.

Finally, it’s worth noting that the embargo against Cuba has contributed to the destruction of fundamental rights of the American people, such as economic liberty, liberty of contract, freedom of travel, and freedom of association. In a genuinely free society, people have the right to travel wherever they want, spend their money anyway they want, sell whatever they want to whomever they want, and associate with whomever they want. Yet, if an American sells things to Cubans, buys things from Cubans, or travels to Cuba and spends money there, he is immediately arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated by US officials upon returning to his own country. He is also condemned as a “bad person” by US officials for exercising fundamental rights.

Inflicting abuse on foreigners does not make a country great. It actually does the opposite. It produces a weak, frightened, contemptible country. A great country treats everyone, including foreigners, with decency and respect. A great way for America to start becoming great again would be by lifting the decades-old cruel, brutal, and unjustifiable US embargo against the Cuban people.

Reprinted with permission from Future of Freedom Foundation.

There Will Be No Ukrainian Peace Deal

Paul Craig Roberts

There cannot be a peace deal when President Trump only proposes that Russia keep Crimea, which Russia did not take in war but in an unanimous vote of the population in Crimea to be reunited with Russia from which Crimea had been torn.

Trump has not included in the deal Russian Donbas, which also voted to be returned to Russia or the other Russian areas that Russian forces have liberated and have been reincorporated into Russia.

In other words, so far, other than Crimea, President Trump has offered President Putin none of the former Russian territory that is now again part of Russia herself.  Is the implication that Putin must hand back to Ukraine the territory from which Russian soldiers have driven out Ukrainian soldiers?  So Putin’s 3+ years of war was all for nothing?

Zelensky himself, treated by Trump as Ukraine’s leader despite the fact that Zelensky’s term has expired and he is no longer legally or constitutionally the president of Ukraine, states that he will not even discuss recognizing Crimea as Russian territory:  Crimea “is our territory, the territory of the people of Ukraine. We have nothing to talk about on this topic.”  https://www.rt.com/russia/616120-ukraine-crimea-recognition-zelensky/ 

To understand how absurd Zelensky is, consider that Crimea is the home since the 1700s of the base of Russia’s Black Sea Navy, Russia’s access to the Mediterranean. 

As Zelensky appears to have a veto, even Trump’s partial concession to Russia has no chance.  

Trump threatens that he will walk away from the negotiations.  That w0uld be a good thing if he takes American weapons and money when he goes.  

Zelensky would be left to deal with Putin, perhaps an easy task as Putin and Lavrov continue to bleat for negotiations, neglecting their responsibility to win a war that has gone on for far too long drawing in the US and Europe.  It seems Zelensky is relying on Britain and France to send their troops to continue the fight against Russia. The French president is talking about extending France’s nuclear umbrella to include Ukraine.

Putin and Lavrov seem to prefer a negotiated deal to a military victory.  Would the Kremlin accept a deal that requires Russia to give up battlefield successes won at a large cost in Russian life, the life of young men lost and gone and unavailable to create needed Russian population?  Is it Putin’s hope for a Great Power Agreement that has prolonged the conflict?

A great power agreement happens only among great powers, but President Putin has convinced the West that Russia is irresolute, averse to using force, and only wants a negotiated settlement to the conflict with Ukraine, for which Putin will pay almost any price, no matter the humiliation.

Russia’s inability to bring a war with Ukraine to a victorious conclusion after more than three years of fighting negates any recognition of Russia as a great power as far as the West is concerned.  Even Britain and France feel confident to fight Russia. Several of the NATO countries are saying that they are preparing for war with Russia.  The Baltic states are even interdicting Russian shipping.

Putin’s conduct of the war has convinced the West that he is irresolute and averse to fighting.  The choice facing Putin is:  Surrender or win a victory and impose the peace.

The president previously described the American propaganda arm as biased and an unnecessary burden on taxpayers

A US federal judge has issued an injunction against the decision by the administration of President Donald Trump to cut funding for Voice of America (VOA), ordering the government to restore resources to the state-funded propaganda outlet.

VOA and its sister service, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, have long functioned as foreign-language broadcasting arms of the United States government. The outlets were originally created during the Cold War to spread pro-Western propaganda in the Soviet bloc, with RFE/RL initially being financed by the CIA. Recently, both outlets have depended on grants from the US Congress.

Earlier this year, Trump ordered funding to be slashed for the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the federal body that oversees VOA and RFE/RL. The move forced the outlets to put their employees on unpaid leave. The decision has been framed by the Trump administration as part of a broader effort to dismantle bureaucratic influence networks and shift toward soft power efforts in line with “America First” principles.

On Tuesday, Judge Royce Lamberth of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Trump’s efforts to dismantle VOA were unlawful. The justice, appointed to the bench in 1987 by then-President Ronald Reagan, expressed concern over the abrupt defunding of the outlet, citing potential long-term harm to its employees and consumers.

In his ruling, Lamberth ordered the USAGM to restore funding to VOA and other outlets under its umbrella and barred the agency from blocking their operation. He further stated that Trump’s slashing of USAGM funding was done “without regard to the harm inflicted on employees, contractors, journalists, and media consumers around the world.”

Lamberth noted that his order does not apply to RFE/RL as he had previously already issued a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump administration from defunding the outlet.

Trump has described Voice of America as outdated, biased and an “unnecessary” burden on American taxpayers, saying it no longer serves the strategic interests of the country. His administration has sought to overhaul or eliminate many institutions associated with Cold War-era influence in favor of direct bilateral messaging.

In 2017, Russia’s Justice Ministry designated both VOA and RFE/RL as “foreign agents” and required the outlets to label their content accordingly. In early 2024, RFE/RL was further classified as an “undesirable organization,” effectively banning its operations in Russia and exposing affiliated individuals to legal consequences.

Following the US funding cuts, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in March that the decision was an internal matter but noted that “these outlets are not popular or in demand in Russia.”

Pope Francis lying in state within his coffin at St. Peter’s:

Pope Benedict XVI lying in state in St. Peter’s Basilica:

The video below showss the splendid cope that Cardinal Farrall wore for this procession as well as the deacons. The procession is very beautiful.

The video also shows how few faithful are in the piazza.

I prefer the tradition way to display a pope’s body for viewing. It appear’s that Pope Francis’ body is crammed into the coffin and the coffin appears to be bigger than most Italian coffins. 

Analysts have linked Tesla steep losses to its CEO’s role as a US government efficiency czar

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has announced he will scale back his efforts to cut government spending at the controversial US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and refocus on his businesses. Tesla suffered a massive 71% drop in profits and a 9% decline in revenue for the first quarter of 2025.

Musk clarified though that he has no intention of stepping away from his work with DOGE altogether.

During a conference call with analysts on Tuesday, Musk stated that with the “major work of establishing the Department of Government Efficiency” now complete, he plans to dedicate more time to Tesla and expects to spend only “a day or two per week on government matters.”

The EV manufacturer, based in Austin, Texas, reported a net profit of $409 million for the first quarter of 2025, a steep decline from $1.41 billion in the same period a year earlier - the largest year-on-year drop in the company’s history. Tesla’s revenue also fell from $21.3 billion to $19.3 billion between January and March.

Analysts have largely attributed the steepest sales decline in Tesla’s history to Musk’s role with DOGE. The tech billionaire has become an increasingly polarizing figure due to his close ties to US President Donald Trump and his work as the head of the unofficial agency tasked with slashing government spending.

Since January, dozens of Tesla-linked locations across the US and internationally have been hit by protests. Musk has suggested the campaign could be a coordinated effort bankrolled by major Democratic donors, including George Soros.

Musk claimed during the call, without providing evidence, that the protests were orchestrated by “those who were receiving the wasteful and fraudulent dollars,” saying that violent attacks against Tesla are “paid for.”

“I think the right thing to do is fight the waste and fraud and try to get the country back on the right track,” he said. “If the ship of America goes down, Tesla will go with it.”

Musk’s role as a special government employee is set to conclude by late May, after which the billionaire is expected to return to his private ventures. DOGE, created under Trump’s executive order, will remain active until at least 2026.