Trump Administration

Trump admin offers mixed messages on limits to Ukraine's Starshield access

Recent efforts to throttle Ukraine's access to satellite systems have created a blame game of sorts among Trump administration officials and their allies, who have offered mixed messages about what led to the sudden restrictions on Kyiv's ability to intercept Russian strikes. The limitations placed on Starshield -- SpaceX's military-grade version of the Starlink satellite internet service and the backbone of Ukraine's drone operations and communication -- last week alarmed the country's military and government officials, with commanders reporting lost drones and disrupted missions. After days of handwringing, President Donald Trump asserted on Thursday that the service is again running at full speed. The episode and subsequent lack of accountability have sent shock waves through Russia hawks and Ukraine's allies on Capitol Hill. Questions have percolated since last week about who ordered the interruptions to the Elon Musk-made satellite internet system that Ukraine has relied on for

US proposes rule to crack down on high-tech investments in China, others

The US Treasury Department proposed a rule on Thursday to crack down on American high-tech investments such as supercomputing and artificial intelligence in China, Russia, North Korea and other "countries of concern". The US government has been working for years to deny China and other adversaries investments that could help them boost their military power. That programme began in 2023 when then-President Joe Biden signed an executive order putting restrictions on outbound US investments in sectors such as semiconductors, quantum computing and artificial intelligence going into China. Treasury later established the Outbound Investment Security Programme. In December 2025, Congress passed a law that codified and expanded the programme to target more technologies and more foreign countries, including Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Russia. The inclusion of Russia in the proposed rule has come days after President Donald Trump waived sanctions on Russia following a diesel deal with Presid

Rubio meets Adani, Tata Sons chiefs ahead of Reliance Jamnagar visit

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani and Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran in Mumbai on Wednesday morning before heading to Jamnagar in Gujarat to visit Reliance Industries' giant oil-refining complex, the world's largest single-site refinery, along with Vantara and giga factories being developed by the conglomerate. Rubio, who arrived in Mumbai on Tuesday afternoon, first met Adani, followed by a meeting with Chandrasekaran, sources said. Neither side released details of the meetings. Adani heads one of India's largest conglomerates, with interests spanning ports, airports, energy, logistics and infrastructure. The group has also been expanding its renewable-energy and manufacturing businesses, sectors that are central to India's ambitions to strengthen domestic supply chains and attract global investment. Chandrasekaran, who leads Tata Sons, the Tata Group's holding company, oversees a sprawling business empire with interests in automobiles, .

US State Secy Marco Rubio arrives in Jamnagar to visit Reliance refinery

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Gujarat's Jamnagar city on Wednesday to visit the oil refinery complex owned by Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd, a day after he described India as a crude oil refining "superpower". Rubio is on a three-day visit to India to advance bilateral ties in energy, trade and investment, defence and critical technologies, besides exchanging views on the West Asia crisis. During his visit, Rubio is scheduled to tour the Jamnagar refinery complex, which assumes significance in the context of his remarks on India's oil refining capabilities and his call for processing more Venezuelan crude in the country. According to the RIL website, its Jamnagar refinery is the "largest and most complex single-site refinery in the world with 1.4 million barrels per day (MMBPD) crude processing capacity and a complexity index of 21.1 - the highest in the world". It states that "the refinery has processed over 216 different grades of crude oil produced in

Ukraine would not exist without support from US, says Marco Rubio

Rubio made the remarks while responding to questions about report that said Musk ordered a recent slowdown of Starlink satellite system that helps Ukraine to fend off deadly Russian aerial assaults

Democrats sue Trump, US Justice Dept over effort to purge state voter rolls

The suit seeks a court order finding that admin's 'demands and threats' related to the purported lists of non-citizen voters violate separation of powers and trample right of states to oversee polls

Pete Hegseth meets Benjamin Netanyahu in unannounced visit to Israel

Hegseth said ‌in a social media post ​that he had visited ​US service members in the Central Command area of responsibility, which covers ​the West Asia, northeast Africa and parts of Asia

Vance faces voter backlash over Iran war, immigration and high costs

Vice President JD Vance faced tough questions from voters about the Trump administration's policies on data centres, high costs, immigration and his own rhetoric in a town hall on CBS News that aired Saturday night. The string of sharp queries, some from voters who said they had supported him and President Donald Trump, previewed the rocky path he may face trying to answer for the administration's record if he runs for president himself in 2028. Vance, who said during the town hall there's "of course" a chance he doesn't run for president, faced an especially pointed question about "a failure of leadership" posted by the widow of one of six US soldiers killed by an Iranian drone strike in Kuwait, which occurred the day after Trump started the war with Iran. "This literally is the first time I've heard of this," Vance said in response. As he went on, he said, "This job is an amazing honor, but you live in a bit of a bubble and sometimes information doesn't filter up." Questions abo

US proposes unfreezing Russian assets to revive Ukraine peace talks: Report

European delegates, however, rebuffed the proposal, which was pitched by US special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner

Massive oil, gas and mineral exploration to begin in Greenland: Trump

However, Trump did not share details about the ‌exploration plans in Greenland

Judge extends order blocking Trump from barring reporters in White House

A federal judge extended an order blocking the Trump administration from banning reporters for three news outlets from the White House, as the extraordinary case pitting the president against the media makes its way through the legal system. US District Judge Timothy Kelly on Tuesday ruled that CNN, MS NOW and Politico are likely to succeed on their constitutional free speech and due process claims. "Still," he added, "no one should interpret the Court's decision to suggest that President Trump's concerns about accuracy and fairness in the media's reporting are unfounded, or that the government is powerless when its true aim is to protect national security when classified information is unlawfully disclosed." Kelly, who was nominated to the bench by Republican President Donald Trump, previously ordered the White House to restore the reporters' "hard pass" press credentials while he weighed their claims. With that temporary order due to expire on Tuesday, the judge issued a prelimin

US cuts refugees' deadline to contest status termination, raising fears

The Trump administration is cutting the time refugees have to contest the termination of their status, a move critics say could put tens of thousands of people who fled persecution and wars in their home countries on a path to deportation. The new policy, which goes into effect Wednesday, reduces from 30 to 10 the number of days refugees have to challenge the revocation of their status. It is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to restrict and transform a program that has served for decades as a pathway for refugees. The goal of the new policy, according to the document, is to "mitigate potential risks" associated with people who were admitted as refugees but were not eligible for refugee status. The policy does not say exactly how many people could be affected, but it specifically refers to refugees admitted during President Joe Biden's administration, when it says there was an "alarming erosion of the integrity" of the refugee program. Refugee advocates dispute th

US Senators question legality of Trump's deal to allow Russian oil imports

A bipartisan group of US Senators have questioned the legality of President Donald Trump's decision to allow diesel imports from Russia, contending that it ran counter to a law banning such trade till Moscow ends the war in Ukraine. On Friday, after a phone call with Putin, Trump announced that he had struck a deal with Russia to immediately supply 300,000 tons of diesel to the US and the global marketplace. "Congress explicitly banned Russian energy imports in 2022 to prevent American dollars from financing Putin's brutal war against Ukraine," US Senators Jeanne Shaheen, Richard Blumenthal, Ron Wyden (all Democrats), Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis, and John Curtis (all Republicans), said in a statement here on Sunday. "President Trump's decision to allow Russian diesel imports to the US runs directly counter to that law," the Senators said. Trump's decision to allow imports of Russian oil to the US and global markets came weeks after the US Congress overwhelmingly pass

Judge orders Trump admin to cancel taxpayer-funded promotional TV ads

President Donald Trump must cancel any remaining television commercials paid for with millions of dollars in taxpayer money to promote his political message, a federal judge ordered on Sunday night, even as the administration said the ad campaign was coming to an end. US District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon in New York sided with a coalition that challenged the ads, including the nonpartisan watchdog Common Cause, who challenged the ads as an illegal misuse of funds. She told the administration to cancel any remaining ads, including any set to air Sunday night, in granting a temporary restraining order.

DOJ probes whether White House TV pool coverage halt violated antitrust law

The US Department of Justice is investigating whether the decision of the White House television press pool to halt coverage of President Donald Trump last month violated antitrust law, an agency spokesperson said Saturday. Emily Covington, a spokesperson for the department, said group boycotts among business competitors might violate US law. "The Antitrust Division is simply investigating to determine whether these news organizations have violated the antitrust laws," she said. The announcement came after the television pool of five broadcasters last month ceased presidential coverage after the administration barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House. Messages were sent late Saturday to the five outlets seeking comment: ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX and NBC. The White House press pool, which is a rotating cast of news outlets that covers the president, has become a proxy for the wider fight over whether the president, or anyone, can control the content of news reports - a type of

Mamdani accuses ICE of impunity after agent shoots man in New York

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said a five-year-old child was inside the man's vehicle when federal agents opened fire in the Bronx

Harvard, MIT face visa probes amid Trump admin's crackdown on global talent

The sweeping fraud probe is focused on J-1 visas, which at universities are often held by international PhD candidates and visiting scholars

Trump honours Microsoft's CEO after Vance drops H-1B visa hammer on company

President Donald Trump celebrated tech billionaires such as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Thursday, only to get upstaged hours earlier when Vice President JD Vance announced that Microsoft was being suspended from a programme that allows companies to apply for green cards for skilled foreign workers with H-1B visas. The crackdown on Microsoft came under Vance's purview as the head of a fraud task force, but the targeting revealed the tension between the companies powering US economic growth and the administration's efforts to reduce immigration that it says has come at the expense of American workers. "Our message to Microsoft is: You're a great American company, but you've got to hire great American workers," Vance told a news conference. He said the company had abused the visa system. "You cannot lay off American workers and then replace them with foreign indentured servants." Vance said Microsoft last year fired 6,000 US workers but also obtained 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,00

80% of H-1B filings were for existing employees, not new hires: Microsoft

Microsoft has said 80 per cent of the 6000 H1-B visa applications it had submitted last fiscal year were to extend or change the status of existing employees and not to hire new people. The statement came on Thursday hours after Vice President J D Vance suspended Microsoft from a programme to apply for green cards for foreign workers, accusing it of abusing the system. "We believe in the strength and talent of the American workforce. That is why the vast majority of Microsoft employees in the US are Americans. We look forward to providing the administration with additional information," Microsoft said. "For example, of the approximately 6,000 H-1B visa applications we submitted in the last fiscal year, 80 per cent were to extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees. These were not to hire new people," it said. The remaining filings for new employees were for individuals already legally in the United States who decided to come work for us, and they equal only one per

Trump honours Elon Musk with National Medal of Science at White House

Trump, before presenting the award, described Musk as 'an industrial titan, a brilliant engineer, and one of the greatest technology founders to ever live'