The ACTUAL NEWS: Tuesday, February 25th 2025 Recap
"Today in History" and the Latest National and Global News
TODAY IN HISTORY
1570: As pope, Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I of England from the Roman Catholic Church.
1870: American clergyman, educator, and politician Hiram Rhodes Revels was sworn in to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first African American to serve in the U.S. Congress.
1913: The Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which permitted a federal income tax, went into effect.
1948: The communists seized control of the government of Czechoslovakia.
1956: The Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union came to a close after First Secretary Nikita S. Khrushchev delivered a secret speech denouncing the late Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
1964: American boxer Muhammad Ali, known at the time as Cassius Clay, became the world heavyweight champion by knocking out Sonny Liston in seven rounds.
1986: Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos, under pressure from the United States, fled his country for Hawaii after a fraudulent electoral victory over Corazon Aquino, who replaced him as president.
1990: In Nicaragua, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro of the U.S.-financed National Opposition Union achieved an upset victory over the incumbent president, Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista National Liberation Front.
QUICK ACTUAL NEWS
NATIONAL
The House narrowly passed a Republican budget resolution that called for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and a $2 trillion reduction in federal spending over a decade, marking a first step in advancing major elements of President Trump’s domestic agenda.
A federal judge in Washington on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to pay foreign aid funds to contractors and grant recipients by 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday night, saying there was no sign that it had taken any steps to comply with his earlier order that the administration's freeze on the funds be lifted.
A rift emerged in the White House over Elon Musk’s demand that federal workers justify their jobs: Personnel officials told workers that the order was voluntary, while President Trump called it “genius” and said anyone who did not comply would be punished.
The U.S. Supreme Court threw out Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip's conviction for a 1997 murder-for-hire plot and granted him a new trial, concluding on Tuesday that prosecutors violated their constitutional duty to correct false testimony by their star witness.
Lawyers for President Donald Trump's administration have denied that the White House intends to dismantle the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, apparently contradicting statements the president himself made to reporters earlier this month.
The F.D.A. rehired dozens of specialized employees it fired last week.
At a hearing over Musk’s DOGE effort, a federal judge in Washington expressed skepticism that the operation was constitutional.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, Trump’s pick to lead Medicare and Medicaid, has financial ties to medical companies that could overlap with the job.
Speaker Mike Johnson is delaying the confirmation of Representative Elise Stefanik as U.N. ambassador because he can’t afford to lose her vote in the House.
Protesters hung an upside-down American flag on El Capitan, the towering rock formation at Yosemite, in response to Trump’s layoffs at the National Park Service.
Elon Musk's SpaceX is looking to deploy Starlink satellite internet terminals to speed up the information technology networks that support the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's national airspace system, Bloomberg News reported on Monday.
The Trump administration has put a halt on free legal help to unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in the United States, prompting pleas to reinstate that assistance. It then reinstated it.
President Donald Trump’s administration said on Sunday it was placing all personnel at the foreign assistance agency USAID, except leaders and critical staff, on paid administrative leave and eliminating 1,600 positions in the United States.
The Space Force has established a cross-functional “technical integrated planning team” dedicated to evaluating space-based capabilities that can contribute to President Donald Trump’s vision for a next-generation homeland missile defense system, according to a senior Space Force official.
The Supreme Court rejected a case on Feb. 24 that challenged the Feres doctrine, a 1950s judicial ruling that prevents active-duty service members from suing the government for wrongful injury or death. With the court's announcement that it would not hear the case, however, Justice Clarence Thomas issued a strong 14-page dissent, calling the 75-year-old rule of law “indefensible ... and senseless as a matter of policy.”
President Donald Trump opened yet another front on Tuesday in his assault on global trade norms, ordering a probe into potential new tariffs on copper imports to rebuild U.S. production of a metal critical to electric vehicles, military hardware, the power grid, and many consumer goods.
A U.S. judge on Tuesday sided for now with President Donald Trump's media company in a dispute over whether a top Brazilian judge illegally censored right-wing voices on social media in the United States.
A leading attorney for Elon Musk and embattled New York Mayor Eric Adams now has a standard billing rate of $3,000 an hour, placing him on the top shelf among even the priciest of Manhattan lawyers.
A federal judge on Tuesday said Meta Platforms must face a lawsuit claiming that the Facebook and Instagram parent prefers to hire foreign workers because it can pay them less than American workers.
Apple shareholders voted to keep the tech giant's diversity, equity, and inclusion policies on Tuesday, a win for management which had opposed efforts by a conservative group to scrap the program.
Blackwater founder Erik Prince has offered to privatize mass deportations for the White House. His proposal includes using “processing camps,” a fleet of 100 planes, and an “army” of private citizens to find and remove undocumented immigrants. The offer carries a price tag of $25 billion.
GLOBAL
Finance ministers and central bankers from the G20 top economies are gathering in South Africa on Wednesday and Thursday for a meeting marred by the absence or curtailed attendance of key members and disputes over the main issues of climate, debt, and inequality.
Italy is claiming 12.5 million euros ($13 million) from Elon Musk's social network X following a tax probe running parallel to one into Meta, four sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. This is the latest move in a potential test case for the tech sector in Europe.
The United States has expanded a visa restriction policy to target Cuban officials believed to be tied to a labor program that sends Cuban workers overseas, particularly healthcare workers, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday.
South Korean parliamentary lawyers seeking President Yoon Suk Yeol's removal over his short-lived imposition of martial law compared him to a dictator in final arguments during his impeachment trial on Tuesday.
South Korea's Industry Minister Ahn Duk-geun will travel to Washington D.C. from Wednesday through Friday to press again for an exemption from U.S. steel tariffs and discuss ways to boost cooperation in energy and shipbuilding, his ministry said.
Germany's outgoing parliament could still greenlight a new special fund to boost defense spending, but reforming strict limits on state borrowing will be deferred to the new one, a senior ally of election winner Friedrich Merz said on Tuesday.
The Kremlin, asked about an assertion by U.S. President Donald Trump that Russia was open to European peacekeepers being deployed in Ukraine, referred reporters to an earlier statement that such a move would be unacceptable to Moscow.
France may consider deploying nuclear-armed aircraft in Germany if the U.S. withdraws its forces from the region, as reported by The Telegraph. This move would send a strong message to Putin. Additionally, some diplomats in Berlin believe it could pressure UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to take similar actions, demonstrating his dedication to European security.
The estimated cost to rebuild Ukraine's economy after Russia's invasion has risen to $524 billion, nearly three times its expected 2024 economic output, according to findings from the World Bank, United Nations, European Commission, and the Ukrainian government.
The U.S. and Ukraine have agreed on the terms of a draft minerals deal central to Kyiv's push to win Washington's support as President Donald Trump seeks to rapidly end the war with Russia, two sources with knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday.
The EU offered Ukraine its own minerals deal on Monday, per Politico. "21 of the 30 critical materials that Europe needs can be supplied by Ukraine in a mutually beneficial partnership. The added value that Europe offers is that we will never demand a deal that is not mutually beneficial."
“I couldn’t abandon my brothers”: Some of Ukraine’s wounded soldiers, including amputees, are returning to the front.
Dozens of countries rallied behind Ukraine at a meeting at the United Nations in Geneva on Tuesday, a day after the U.N. Security Council adopted a U.S.-drafted resolution that takes a "neutral stance on the conflict".
Friedrich Merz is likely to promote the idea of a new defense alliance to replace NATO, which would be the biggest geopolitical shift in recent decades. In this case, France and the United Kingdom, two nuclear powers capable of guaranteeing the continent's security, will take the lead.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday they welcomed U.S. President Donald Trump's leadership in working towards a durable peace in Ukraine. A spokesperson for Starmer's office said both leaders spoke over the phone earlier on Tuesday and reiterated that Ukraine must be at the heart of any peace negotiations over the war with Russia, and that Europe was ready to play its part.
Trump administration’s sudden freeze on foreign aid could not have produced a more striking win – for China. By cutting off funds for the National Endowment for Democracy, the U.S. government has severely curtailed work by civil society groups such as Mr. Li’s China Labor Watch (CLW). The New York-based nongovernmental organization has investigated violations of workers’ rights in China for 25 years.
China rejects U.S. President Trump's proposal to mutually cut military defense budgets by 50%.
Russian President Putin recently said this proposal from Trump is a "good idea."
The Republican and Democratic leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives' select committee on China warned on Tuesday that Beijing may try to exert leverage with Elon Musk in a bid to win more favorable U.S. policies, and Washington must counter any such effort.
The Trump administration is planning to toughen semiconductor restrictions on China, continuing and expanding the Biden administration's efforts to limit Beijing's technological prowess, Bloomberg News reported on Monday. U.S. officials recently met with their Japanese and Dutch counterparts about restricting Tokyo Electron and ASML engineers from maintaining semiconductor gear in China, the report said.
The U.S. plan of coercing other countries into going after China's semiconductor industry will backfire, China's foreign ministry said on Tuesday. Such actions by the United States will hinder the development of the global semiconductor industry, said Lin Jian, a foreign ministry spokesperson, in a regular press briefing, when asked about the White House's plan to toughen semiconductor restrictions on China.
Vietnam's goods exports to the United States accounted for 30% of its gross domestic product last year, the highest share among U.S. top trade partners, a Reuters review of public data shows, making the country highly vulnerable to reciprocal tariffs.
Hong Kong is expected to focus on steps to curb spending in its annual budget on Wednesday, as it seeks to tackle a fiscal deficit likely to have widened to double the city's target amid rising global economic uncertainty and a weak property market.
Taiwan appears to be moving toward adding a supersonic anti-ship cruise missile to its F-CK-1C/D Indigenous Defense Fighters (IDF). The current timeline for the introduction of the air-launched version of the homegrown HF-3 missile is unclear, but when fully integrated, it will provide the Republic of China Air Force (ROCAF) with a powerful new capability to better counter China’s growing naval might.
A U.S. Coast Guard cutter crossing the Tasman Sea as part of maritime security cooperation with Australia and New Zealand knew Chinese naval ships were in the area but had no interaction with them, its commanding officer said on Tuesday.
Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers has met with his U.S. counterpart Scott Bessent on Tuesday in Washington, with Canberra seeking an exemption on 25% tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum announced by President Donald Trump last month.
The cease-fire between Hamas and Israel expires on Sunday. The two sides are yet to begin negotiations for an extension.
Israel is intensifying its operations in the West Bank. It says it’s combating rising militancy in the area; Palestinians say they fear being permanently displaced.
A Hamas official expressed reservations about the Oct. 7 attacks, telling The Times that he would not have supported the plan if he knew the devastation it would bring to Gaza.
Thousands of tons of solid waste have piled up in the streets of Gaza. The war has crippled the enclave’s ability to dispose of garbage and sewage, Reuters reports.
Syria's interim president said on Tuesday his country had a "historic opportunity" to rebuild, addressing a national dialogue summit billed by Syria's Islamist rulers as a key milestone after decades of Assad-family rule.
Syria condemned on Tuesday Israel's incursion into its territories and called for Israel to withdraw, according to the closing statement of a national dialogue summit organized by Syria's new Islamist rulers to outline the country's political roadmap.
Ten weeks after a Sunni Islamist group took over Syria, the country’s rich religious diversity is on display at nearly every turn. In the northern area of Homs, the distinctive call to prayer rings out from 35 mosques belonging to the minority, Shiite-affiliated Alawite sect. Last week, Jewish Syrians returned to their Damascus neighborhood and held public prayers in a synagogue for the first time in decades.
Israeli warplanes hit a town south of Syria's capital as well as the southern province of Daraa late on Tuesday, residents, security sources, and local broadcaster Syria TV said. Israeli planes struck the town of Kisweh approximately 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Damascus. The security source said a military site was targeted, without providing further details.
Saudi Arabia's Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman discussed on Monday with U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in Washington D.C. ways to bolster defense cooperation and regional and international developments, the kingdom's minister said on Tuesday in a post on social media website X.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Iran's top leaders aligned positions on issues around Iran's nuclear program at talks in Tehran on Tuesday, Russia's Foreign Ministry said. Lavrov discussed a wide range of bilateral and regional issues with both President Masoud Pezeshkian and his Iranian counterpart Seyed Abbas Araghchi, a ministry statement said. "Positions were aligned on the situation around the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on the Iranian Nuclear Program," it said. Russia is a signatory of the 2015 JCPOA deal alongside the U.S., China, France, Britain, and Germany. The deal lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear activities. Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said last week that Iran continued to enrich uranium well beyond the needs for commercial nuclear use despite U.N. pressure to stop it.
A massive power outage across Chile plunged the country's capital Santiago into darkness on Tuesday and knocked out electricity to major copper mines in the country's north, buffeting global metal markets.
Eastern and Southern African countries are looking into the possibility of deploying troops to secure areas of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo now under M23 rebel control, according to a document seen by Reuters on Tuesday.
Support for Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has dipped sharply and now trails his disapproval rating, a CNT/MDA poll showed on Tuesday, the latest in a series of surveys pointing to views of the leftist leader turning negative.
CARTOON OF THE DAY
POSTS OF THE DAY
VIDEO QUICK NEWS
Look at the “seating arrangements” during the G7 meeting which DJT and Macron have jointly joined virtually
As Daily Express writes, “the French president clearly looked uncomfortable, and such a reception is unlikely to align with his vision of France's status on the global stage.”
Q: Who is the administrator of DOGE?
Leavitt: I’m not going to reveal the name of that person from this podium.
Trump is launching a TRUMP GOLDEN CARD - pay $5M into “US sovereign fund to get a green card”; other programs (lottery, investor programs) are seen as “low price” and will be eliminated
DJT: By selling 1M Trump Golden Cards we will get $5T!
Russian oligarchs are welcome to purchase the TRUMP GOLDEN CARD (aka green card for $5M)
WATCH THIS: Ukraine, Russia, US - all in one simple cartoon.
The 4th visit of Canadian PM Trudeau to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion
Sanders: I don’t want to hear any Republicans talk about “freedom” unless they have the guts to call out Trump for the lies that he is telling about Putin and Ukraine. It was Russia that started the war, not Ukraine. Putin is the dictator, not Zelenskyy.
Greene: Those are not real jobs producing federal revenue. Federal employees do not deserve their jobs. Federal employees do not deserve their paycheck.
Carney: Who's the worst person to stand up to Donald Trump? Pierre Poilievre. He worships the man.
The Taiwanese coast guard boarded the Chinese-owned vessel "Hong Tai" after it was caught destroying an undersea telecommunications cable between Taiwan and its Kinmen island near China.
The crew, which is all Chinese, was detained and taken to Taiwan.
ICYMI
Pope Francis, who is in critical condition in the hospital battling double pneumonia, rested well throughout the night, the Vatican said on Tuesday. The 88-year-old pope was admitted to Rome's Gemelli hospital on February 14.
Lester Holt announced that he was leaving NBC’s nightly news show. Jen Psaki, who was White House press secretary under Joe Biden, is getting a prime-time show on MSNBC.
NASA announced that an asteroid that previously had a small chance of hitting Earth no longer poses a risk.
TODAY'S QUOTES
Bolton: That vote in the UN today was a clear marker. We are we are on the path out of NATO. Trump has already done enormous damage to the NATO alliance. Almost every time he talks about Ukraine, he does more. But that vote with all of our allies on one side supporting Ukraine and condemning Russia's unprovoked aggression against Ukraine, with us on the side of Russia and North Korea and and countries like that, that shows the NATO alliance is badly split already. At this point you take too many more steps like that, the actual withdrawal is just a formality.
Russian UN envoy Nebenzya addressing the General Assembly at the UN HQ: The world found itself on the brink of World War III because of the anti-Russian Ukraine project.
Trump: We've actually going to Ft Knox to see if the gold is there. Because maybe somebody stole the gold. Tons of gold.
TODAY'S (COVER) PHOTOS
The White House said in a statement that the bruise on the back of President Donald Trump’s right hand is from “shaking hands all day, every day.”
“President Trump is a man of the people,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told NBC News. “His commitment is unwavering, and he proves that every single day.”
That's all from me for now. Thank you for reading.
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