CNN: Rubio had been expected to take part in the discussions with Ukrainian, UK and European officials, but State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said Tuesday that he would no longer attend due to “logistical issues.” MORE
AP: Secretary of State Marco Rubio unveiled a massive overhaul of the State Department on Tuesday, with plans to reduce staff in the U.S. by 15% while closing and consolidating more than 100 bureaus worldwide as part MORE
Hundreds of marches, pickets and cleanup events are taking place across the US in the run-up to Earth Day on Tuesday, as environmental and climate ‘groups step up resistance to the Trump administration’s authoritarianism and its MORE
MSNBC: “This year’s White House Easter Egg Roll event will feature activities “courtesy” of a number of corporate sponsors, including several tech companies that made financial contributions to President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee.” “These include a MORE
“It is not our war. We didn’t start it,”[Secretary of State Marco] Rubio said, adding that if a deal were not possible – with both sides still far apart – the US president was “probably MORE
TGIF, News Viewers. . . Welcome to our Friday Free Chat. This has been another terrible week in the news. You know it’s terrible on earth when stories about space pop up— this week was MORE
BBC reports: A Cambridge team studying the atmosphere of a planet called K2-18b has detected signs of molecules which on Earth are only produced by simple organisms. This is the second, and more promising, time MORE
Reuters reports a group of Silicon Valley Billionaires have plans to build a utopia called Freedom City; “a libertarian-minded municipality characterized by minimal corporate regulation and a focus on accelerating emerging technologies like AI and mini nuclear MORE
“Rümeysa Öztürk says she’s experienced difficulty getting care and had her hijab ripped off without permission” ”A Tufts University doctoral student from Turkey is demanding her release after she was detained by immigration officials near her Massachusetts MORE
Good Morning and Happy Friday News Viewers, welcome to Friday’s Free Chat, all the chat that’s fit to pontificate about (smile)……. I think it’s best to focus what’s NOT in a state of chaos at MORE
CNN REPORTS : At 3:17 p.m. a helicopter crashed in the Hudson River, New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. When first responders arrived, police pulled four people out of the water and FDNY MORE
”Secretary [Kristi] Noem has made it clear that anyone who thinks they can come to America and hide behind the First Amendment to advocate for anti-Semitic violence and terrorism — think again. You are not MORE
UPDATE: Death toll has increased to 218 as this rescue mission becomes a recovery mission. Mexico and Israel have sent help. Hope is dimming in the search for survivors in the rubble. The incident happened MORE
”America is now divided between two opposing forces: woke revolutionaries and those who believe in the ideals of the American revolution.” From Project 2025 In late March, reports the New Yorker, Trump issued another of MORE
Political appointees are baking cookies, and they have to be warm, mind you, for Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. In addition, staff is told to make lunch for “Doug the Diva”and he reportedly uses taxpayer money MORE
Happy Friday News Viewers, it’s all tariffs in the toons today, and that’s no surprise, because when has such a big presidential deal made so little sense? And when has such a big deal affected MORE
A Senate committee on Tuesday signed off on a bill that would abolish the Arkansas State Library and its board, mandate minimum hours for libraries already struggling to stay open, and again seek to restrict minors’ access MORE
“We are the federal law. You better do it because you’re not going to get federal funding,” the president told Gov. Janet Mills (D). After a February Governors meeting during which Maine’s Governor Janet Mills disagreed with MORE
Neville Chamberlain, September, 1938, returns to Britain from Munich and talks with “Herr Hitler”. “Like many in Britain who had lived through World War One, Chamberlain was determined to avert another war. His policy of MORE
The student co-wrote an op-ed in a student newspaper one year ago stating, “Credible accusations against Israel include accounts of deliberate starvation and indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians and plausible genocide.” (CNN) This is a MORE
Happy Friday News Viewers on a rainy gray day; to paraphrase the Bard, “the sun for sorrow will not show its head. . . “. . . . Sorrow for the sad state we find MORE
According to ABC, a Tufts University graduate student, here legally on an F-1 visa, was surrounded by masked individuals who later identified themselves as “police”, was taken away in an unmarked vehicle, allegedly for making MORE
Earlier this month, a Department of Agriculture employee who works remotely was given a list of possible locations for their upcoming mandatory return to office. One location was described as a “storage unit.” NPR: “Federal MORE
“What’s interesting is that the people who are showing up are not paid protesters, but the people who are not showing up are paid politicians,” Raskin said, referencing the GOP accusation that the town halls MORE
Outgoing Greenlandic Prime Minister Mute Egede described the plan as aggressive, and said the duo had not been invited for meetings. Meanwhile, the island’s likely next leader accused the US of showing a lack of MORE