Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy was asked to leave the White House. Here are five takeaways from the jaw-dropping argument.  |
- After his Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump exploded into a shouting match in front of cameras, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy was asked to leave the White House. Here are five takeaways from the jaw-dropping argument.
- Watch: the 10-minute Oval Office clash here.
- The IRS this week warned about a range of tax-related scams targeting taxpayers, businesses, and tax preparers ahead of the April 15 tax filing deadline.
- President Trump is planning an executive order to make English the official language of the United States.
- After the news: A simple act of defiance turned him into a legend the world-over. Meet "the cellist of Sarajevo."
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President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on Feb. 28, 2025. (Saul Loeb/Getty Images) |
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy left the White House on Friday after his meeting with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance devolved into a heated argument. The two countries arranged the meeting as an opportunity for the Ukrainian leader to meet with Trump and finalize a partnership agreement for the United States to gain access to Ukraine's wealth of natural resources. Trump has sought to negotiate a quick end to the ongoing Russia–Ukraine war. He has also positioned the deal for access to Ukraine's natural resources as a way to recoup some of the funds the United States has already contributed to Ukraine's war effort. Even before the meeting, Trump and Zelenskyy had clashed over the objectives of the natural resources deal and Trump's broader efforts to help negotiate a peaceful settlement to the war. Last week, Trump referred to Zelenskyy as a dictator, while Zelenskyy criticized Trump's efforts to engage Moscow in peace talks. Here are five takeaways from the shouting match: |
- Before the meeting imploded, Zelenskyy kept pushing for more arms and security guarantees. Trump pushed to finalize the minerals deal before entertaining further discussions about security guarantees for Ukraine. The friction kept coming up as the two leaders took questions from the press.
- Zelenskyy appeared to refuse a ceasefire on Trump's terms and contradicted Trump's position that Ukraine would have to make concessions to reach a peace deal.
- The meeting exploded into a 10-minute shouting match after Zelenskyy singled out Vice President JD Vance and questioned the Trump administration's diplomatic strategy. Zelenskyy pointed out that Russia has broken several ceasefire deals since 2014 and asked Vance, "What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about?" Vance and Trump went on to castigate Zelenskyy for not being respectful to the United States or expressing gratitude.
- Trump and Vance went on to say that Zelenskyy has no leverage in the current negotiations. "You don't have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards," Trump said, amid interruptions from Zelenskyy. "I'm not playing cards. I'm very serious," the Ukrainian leader interjected.
- Trump, for the first time in a public setting, threatened to pull U.S. support for Ukraine if Zelenskyy doesn't make a deal and cautioned about the dire repercussions. (More)
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DEEP DIVE: Our national security correspondent, Andrew Thornebrooke, traces the Russia–Ukraine conflict over the course of 11 years. Here are the pivotal events that shaped the war. |
The federal government fired hundreds of federal employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA, a science-based federal agency within the Commerce Department, is responsible for providing weather, water, and climate forecasts and warnings for the United States. It also develops and operates weather satellites and protects marine life. "Only about 5 percent of the NOAA staff was let go, and an extensive process was conducted to ensure that mission-critical functions to fulfill the NOAA's statutory responsibilities weren't compromised," a White House official told The Epoch Times. It is not yet clear exactly how many workers have been impacted by the cuts. Before the job cuts, NOAA had about 12,000 staffers worldwide, including 6,773 scientists and engineers, according to the agency's website. President Donald Trump on Feb. 18 ordered the heads of agencies to "promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force." In recent weeks, thousands of federal workers across several agencies have been terminated. They include employees from the departments of Agriculture, Energy, the Interior, and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institutes of Health. (More) More Politics |
- FBI Director Kash Patel vowed for full transparency amid criticism of the law enforcement bureau's handling of the release of records on infamous child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
- President Trump has come out in favor of funding the government at current levels ahead of a March 14 deadline.
- The president has tapped Virginia's former U.S. Senate candidate Hung Cao to serve as the U.S. Navy's second-ranking official.
- Democrats in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are seeking to include language in government spending bills that would prevent the Trump administration from withholding any allocated funds.
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The IRS this week warned about a range of tax-related scams targeting taxpayers, businesses, and tax preparers ahead of the April 15 tax filing deadline. The IRS highlighted several categories of common scams that it continues to detect and alerted taxpayers that they should take extra caution against them. The tax revenue agency said that it has seen a number of email and text message scams, respectively known as phishing or smishing, arriving in the form of unsolicited messages that are intended to dupe the victim into handing over sensitive information, financial information, passwords, and other data that can lead to identity theft. Some emails sent by scammers can claim to come from the IRS itself, including threats that the victim engaged in tax fraud. Similar claims sent via SMS text messaging include language such as, "Your account has now been put on hold," "Unusual Activity Report," or will have "solutions," according to the IRS. "As a reminder, never click on any unsolicited communication claiming to be from the IRS as it may surreptitiously load malware. This may also be a way for malicious hackers to load ransomware that keeps the legitimate user from accessing their system and files," the agency warned. (More) More U.S. News |
- Carbon monoxide poisoning has been ruled out as a cause of death for Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, at their Santa Fe home, as preliminary autopsy results fail to provide definitive answers.
- Iowa on Friday became the first state in the nation to remove gender identity protections from its civil rights code.
- The U.S. Department of Education launched an online portal for parents, students, and teachers to report discriminatory practices carried out under the banner of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
- The Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles resumed automatic voter registrations on Feb. 27, saying it had strengthened the system to prevent the registration of noncitizens. About 1,600 people without proof of citizenship were registered to vote before the system was paused.
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Chinese cyberattacks on American interests surged by 150 percent in 2024, according to a new report. The assessment by CrowdStrike, an American cybersecurity giant known for investigating high-profile cyber intrusions, notes that these incursions depart from traditional malware intrusions in favor of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered deceptions. The AI-driven tactics are behind a 300 percent increase in attacks on U.S. financial, media, and industrial sectors. The "CrowdStrike report, released on Feb. 27, refers to generative AI as the "new best friend" of malicious cyber entities, as it is being leveraged to create fictitious profiles, generate emails, and conduct social engineering, where it is "becoming more convincing." "China's cyber espionage reached new levels of maturity, with adversaries maintaining a higher operational tempo," the report says. (More) More World News: |
- Israel and the Hamas terrorist group have resumed Cairo cease-fire negotiations, with the existing truce set to expire this weekend, according to Egyptian officials.
- Pope Francis suffered a sudden respiratory deterioration on Friday due to an isolated bronchospasm, the Vatican announced.
- The quirky ringer of Skype will no longer echo later this year as Microsoft announced this week it is retiring the two-decade-old video calling and communication platform.
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✍️ Opinion: How Hobbies Can Save Us from Over-Specialization by Peter Jacobsen 🍿 Documentary: New Space Adventures: Mars explores the planet with discoveries from past, present, and future missions. (Watch with $1 subscription) 🎵 Music: Strauss Jr. - Emperor Waltz (Listen)
📷 Photo of the Day: Riot police officers take cover from molotov cocktails thrown by demonstrators as clashes break out during a rally as part of a general strike called by unions to mark the second anniversary of the country's worst rail tragedy that left 57 dead on February 28, 2023, in front of the Greek parliament in Athens on Feb. 28, 2025. 👇
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Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images |
On June 8, 1992, during the Bosnian war, cellist Vedran Smailovic plays in front of a flower wreath commemorating the people killed some days before on this Sarajevo street. (Georges Gobet /Getty Images) |
It was May 28, 1992, the early days of the Bosnian War. Into the dust and debris of Vase Miskina Street in Sarajevo strode a strange figure, carrying an instrument case and impervious to the distant rumble of explosive shells battering the city. He wore a tuxedo, as though he was on stage at a posh concert hall instead of walking through a warzone where the only backdrops were the husks of bombed-out buildings. The musician stopped in the middle of the hollowed-out marketplace, set up a plastic folding chair, and took his cello from its case. He seemed to be plucked from another world, a saner time, and dropped into the nightmare of the siege of Sarajevo like a falling star. The musician's disheveled hair and sagging mustache stirred in the breeze as he placed the instrument between his knees. Surrounded by broken stone and twisted metal, his eyes deepened, and he began to play Albinoni's Adagio in G minor. The mournful moaning of the cello rose from the almost empty square, spiraling skyward like a prayer, its sweet strains discernible even underneath growls of explosives or the snaps of sniper fire. In the cellist's music, something lived on—something the people of Sarajevo had thought was lost. The little, crumbling street became a fragmentary haven of humanity amid ruin and carnage. With his music, the cellist, Vedran Smailovic, honored the dead, not because he knew them, but because they were his fellow human beings. He repeated this performance every day for 22 days, in honor of the 22 innocent victims killed by a mortar shell that exploded there the day before, on May 27. This simple act of defiance turned him into a legend the world-over: "the cellist of Sarajevo." (More) |
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