Biden signs foreign aid bill providing crucial military assistance to Ukraine
CNN
President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed into law an aid package providing crucial military assistance to Ukraine, capping months of negotiations and debate.
President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed into law an aid package providing crucial military assistance to Ukraine, capping months of negotiations and debate. The aid package, passed by the Senate late Tuesday evening and worth $95 billion in total, includes nearly $61 billion in aid to Ukraine, $26 billion for Israel and $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific. The package also includes a bill that could eventually lead to the banning of TikTok in the United States - giving Chinese parent company ByteDance roughly nine months to sell it or else it will be banned from app stores in the United States. Wearing a US-Ukrainian flag pin and speaking from the White House after signing the bill on Wednesday, Biden said it was a “good day for America, a good day for Ukraine and a good day for world peace.” The aid package, Biden said, is “going to make America safer. It’s going to make the world safer. And it continues America’s leadership in the world.” The signing of the aid package was the culmination of months of tense negotiations, personal lobbying from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a split in the House Republican conference that continues to threaten the leadership position of House Speaker Mike Johnson. Hardline House conservatives opposed further US funding to Kyiv and threatened to oust Johnson over his handling of the negotiations. Conservatives in Congress have opposed additional assistance for what they view as an unwinnable war. Biden had spent months lobbying Johnson to move forward with aid to Ukraine, enlisting top administration officials and CIA Director Bill Burns to lay out the stakes for Ukraine - and ultimately democracy in Europe and across the world - if Russia continued to make inroads in its military campaign there.
Four days after Donald Trump’s inauguration, Elon Musk’s top lieutenants at the Treasury Department asked its acting secretary, a career civil servant, to immediately shut off all USAID payments using the department’s own ultra-sensitive payment processing system.
CNN’s 5 Things AM brings you the news you need to know every morning
Security for the Super Bowl in New Orleans will feature more boots on the ground, more tech and more intelligence – spearheaded by a federal official who grew up 40 miles from where kickoff will take place.
The Trump administration’s rapid moves to dismantle the US Agency for International Development have left thousands of workers scrambling to figure out what comes next and scores of those posted in dangerous hotspots around the world afraid for their safety.
President Donald Trump’s bid to remake the federal government is already affecting some vulnerable populations in the United States, according to nonprofits and health care providers who are grappling with delays in federal funding, new rules and changed guidance.
President Trump is seeking to end birthright citizenship in the United States. What is it, which other countries apply the policy and who would be affected by the order?
Panama denied a claim made by the State Department on Wednesday that the Central American nation had agreed to no longer charge fees for US government ships to transit the country’s famous canal.
The one-time Georgia prosecutor accused of using her office to impede the investigation into Ahmaud Arbery’s killers is set to stand trial more than four years after the Black 26-year-old’s death fueled nationwide protests over racial injustice.
Eligible federal workers must decide by 11:59 pm ET on Thursday whether to take the Trump administration’s deferred resignation offer, which will allow them to leave their jobs but be paid through the end of September.
Two Treasury Department employees affiliated with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency will keep limited access to the highly sensitive payment system within the agency, following emergency court proceedings Wednesday that arose out of privacy concerns about DOGE’s access to the system.
The CIA has sent the White House an unclassified email listing all new hires that have been with the agency for two years or less in an effort to comply with an executive order to downsize the federal workforce, according to three sources familiar with the matter – a deeply unorthodox move that could potentially expose the identities of those officers to foreign government hackers.
After nearly three weeks in the minority, Democrats have finally settled on a target to rally against: Elon Musk.
The Office of Personnel Management’s chief financial officer, who manages more than $1 trillion in funds, was pushed out this week, two sources with knowledge of the situation told CNN.