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The House of Representatives on Saturday passed a more than $60 billion bill to provide military and economic aid to Ukraine.A solid majority of Republicans voted against the bill, which passed by a 311-112 margin. 101 Republicans voted for it, and one Republican, Rep. Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania, voted "present."The Ukraine aid bill came to the floor after months of delay and despite staunch opposition from the hard right, including a threat from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to call a vote to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson if he allowed such a vote.Under Johnson's unconventional plan, the Ukraine bill will...

Republican hardliners are growing angry at House Speaker Mike Johnson’s complex plan to advance billions of dollars in foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as another GOP congressman indicated support for ousting Johnson from his speakership over his handling of the issue.GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky told Republican colleagues behind closed doors Tuesday morning that he’s going to cosponsor the motion to vacate Johnson from his position, according to GOP members in the room. A source added that Massie warned the speaker he should resign.The comments highlight a significant escalation of the far right’s threat to Johnson’s leadership...

The possibility of Ukraine's army collapsing cannot be ruled out, an unnamed US official told Bloomberg.The report said, citing talks with multiple officials, that Ukraine's position on the battlefield is at its most fragile moment since Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022Ukraine's war effort has been weakened in recent months by a severe shortage of ammunition, dipping morale among Ukrainian soldiers, and the impasse in Congress over US aid to Ukraine, Bloomberg reported.One major risk is a collapse of Ukraine's line of defense, which would allow Russia to make a major advance, Bloomberg said, citing an official speaking anonymously.In...

Secretary of State Antony Blinken reaffirmed the U.S. commitment for Ukraine to eventually join NATO but held back commitments ahead of the alliance’s annual summit, which will take place in Washington in July.“Ukraine will become a member of NATO. Our purpose at the summit is to help build a bridge to that membership,” Blinken told reporters Thursday in Brussels.NATO allies agreed at the 2023 summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, that Ukraine can join NATO when certain conditions are met, but sparked criticism from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Baltic allies for failing to set concrete goals and a timeline for Kyiv...

Ukraine's long-awaited F-16s are an example of weapons systems that are "no longer relevant" once they end up in Kyiv's hands, a senior Ukrainian officer told Politico.Russia has already learned how to counter F-16s in a way that would minimize their battlefield potential, said the unnamed officer, who, per Politico, worked under former Ukraine armed forces head Valery Zaluzhny.In an article published on Wednesday, Politico's opinion editor Jamie Dettmer wrote that the outlet spoke to several top officers under the condition of anonymity.One of Dettmer's sources was this officer, who lamented about the F-16s and said they were arriving too...

The US must be aware of and avoid Russian disinformation operations at all costs if it wants to maintain its Western values and help Ukraine win the war, conflict analysts argue."Basic facts are in question daily as the Kremlin floods the Western debate with its narratives," analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said in a March 27 report.The analysts said that "the notion that the war is unwinnable because of Russia's dominance is a Russian information operation, which gives us a glimpse of the Kremlin's real strategy and only real hope of success."For years, Russia has...

<p>The U.S. and other Western countries are considering transferring to NATO a U.S.-led multinational group that coordinates the shipment of weapons to Ukraine, one of several new proposals that could help maintain the flow of arms to Kyiv under a second Donald Trump presidency.</p>

Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has a plan for getting new military assistance for Ukraine approved by Congress - and for keeping his tenuous hold on power.With Democrats wary and a Republican right flank eyeing open rebellion, however, Mr Johnson may find that even the best-laid plans could quickly unravel.The Louisiana congressman told Fox News he would push the House - which has the narrowest of Republican majorities - to structure new Ukraine support in the form of loans.To help cover the costs he suggested authorising the US government to seize and sell Russian assets frozen since the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The video shared by former President Donald Trump features horror movie music and footage of migrants purportedly entering the U.S. from countries including Cameroon, Afghanistan and China. Shots of men with tattoos and videos of violent crime are set against close-ups of people waving and wrapping themselves in American flags.“They’re coming by the thousands,” Trump says in the video, posted on his social media site. “We will secure our borders. And we will restore sovereignty.”In his speeches and online posts, Trump has ramped up anti-immigrant rhetoric as he seeks the White House a third time, casting migrants...

(Reuters) - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview published on Friday that if Ukraine does not get promised U.S. military aid blocked by disputes in Congress, its forces will have to retreat "in small steps"."If there is no U.S. support, it means that we have no air defence, no Patriot missiles, no jammers for electronic warfare, no 155-milimetre artillery rounds," Zelenskiy told the Washington Post."It means we will go back, retreat, step by step, in small steps," he said. "We are trying to find some way not to retreat."Shortages of munitions, he said, meant "you have to do with...

Russia has used a new type of “glide bomb” to strike civilian targets in the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine believes.The bomb, a heavy “dumb” munition adapted to behave like a cruise missile, killed at least one and injured 19 as it hit apartment blocks in the country’s second largest city. It is the latest evidence of Russia’s changing tactical approach.“This is something between a guided aerial bomb which they [the Russians] have used recently, and a missile. It’s a flying bomb so to say,” Volodymyr Tymoshko, the regional police chief, said after surveying the damage.Russia has been dropping Soviet-era bombs...

MOSCOW/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Russian investigators said on Thursday they had found proof that gunmen who killed more than 140 people at a concert last week were linked to "Ukrainian nationalists", an assertion immediately dismissed by the United States as baseless propaganda.Russia has said from the outset that it believes Ukraine was linked to the attack, even though Kyiv has denied it and the militant group Islamic State has claimed responsibility.In a statement, Russia's Investigative Committee said for the first time that it had uncovered proof of a Ukrainian connection. While it described the nature of the alleged evidence, it did not...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president on Tuesday praised Mexican revolutionary Francisco “Pancho” Villa for his 1916 attack on Columbus, New Mexico, a raid that killed 18 Americans, mostly civilians.President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called the attack “daring” and said “we should thank” Villa for it.“We should thank Villa for, among other things, the daring feat of having attacked Columbus, New Mexico, to prevent what he considered acts of treason,” López Obrador said.Mexico has long honored Villa in government textbooks and monuments, but that was for his domestic role in the 1910-17 Revolution that ousted dictator Porfirio Diaz. The Columbus...

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told Republican senators Wednesday to expect the House to send them legislation to help Ukraine, but cautioned that what comes out of the House will look substantially different than the $95 billion foreign aid package the Senate passed last month.Johnson tried to reassure frustrated GOP senators who asked him about funding for Ukraine during a question-and-answer session at the annual Senate Republican retreat, which was held at the Library of Congress.Johnson told senators that the House will send a Ukraine aid package to the Senate but floated the idea of making it a loan or lend-lease...

American military personnel may have been killed in a Russian strike on a United States-supplied Patriot air defense system supplied to Ukraine, according to a Moscow-aligned lawmaker in comments reported by Kremlin-backed media.When asked for a response to the claims, a spokesperson for the Pentagon told Newsweek, "I can confirm no U.S. injuries because we have no US service members in the fight."

Sen. Katie Britt's, R-Ala., official Republican response to President Joe Biden's State of the Union address Thursday night turned heads — but not for any of the right reasons.The freshman senator's high-profile rebuttal was stern in its focus on immigration and the state of the economy — two key sticking points against the president — but had a bizarre delivery, according to The Daily Beast. Its dramatic cadence and beige-toned kitchen backdrop left political operatives and observers unsure of what to make of it.Britt's performance was so unnerving that some Republicans watched "with a grimace," the Daily Beast reports. A...

Nikki Haley has suspended her bid for the 2024 Republican nomination after losing 14 out of 15 Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses to former President Donald Trump."I wanted Americans to have their voices heard," the former South Carolina governor said Wednesday morning in Charleston. "I have done that. I have no regrets. And though I will no longer be a candidate, I will not stop using my voice for the things I believe in."

The New York Times is facing a sustained wave of backlash.The Gray Lady has for several weeks been in the crosshairs of a vocal set of critics and readers who believe that Donald Trump poses a grave threat to American democracy and that the influential news organization isn’t adequately conveying those stakes to the public.Criticism of The Times is nothing new, but as it appears with each passing day that Trump has a real shot of recapturing the White House, the expressions of disapproval have become particularly pronounced.In the view of its critics, The Times has been far too distracted...

After a multi-day blizzard dropped 6 to 11 feet of snow across the Sierra Nevada, California’s snowpack has surged to above normal for the first time this year.State data updated Monday morning shows the snowpack at 104% of normal for this time of year. It’s a stunning change from just two months ago, when the state snowpack stood at a paltry 25% of normal on Jan. 2.The snowpack was highest relative to historical averages in the Northern Sierra, where it stood at 111% of normal. Last weekend’s storm buried Lake Tahoe to the point of closing ski resorts. The Northern...

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) reacted with me-against-the-world hype to reports that fellow bigwigs ganged up on him in a meeting with President Joe Biden.(Watch the video below.)Fox News host Sean Hannity asked Johnson Wednesday if articles were accurate that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) pressed him hard on issues that included funding forUkraine’s flagging war effort.“Well, their reports are pretty accurate. They said that I was on an island by myself, and it was me versus everyone else in the room,” Johnson said, referring to a...