https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-ukraine-european-officials-hold-talks-geneva-trumps-plan-end-war-2025-11-23/

GENEVA, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Ukrainian, U.S. and European officials met in Geneva on Sunday to discuss a draft U.S. plan to end the war in Ukraine, after Kyiv and its allies voiced alarm over what they saw as major concessions to Russia and pressed for changes.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has championed the 28-point plan, said on Sunday that Ukraine had not been grateful for American efforts over the war, prompting Ukrainian officials to stress their gratitude to the U.S. president for his support.

European officials joined the U.S. and Ukrainian delegations for talks late on Sunday after crafting a modified version of the U.S. plan for Ukraine that pushes back on proposed limits to Kyiv's armed forces and mooted territorial concessions.

The European plan proposes that Ukraine be granted a larger military than under the U.S. plan and that talks on land swaps should start from the front line rather than a pre-determined view of which areas should be considered Russian.

On Friday, Trump said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had until Thursday to approve the plan, which calls on Ukraine to cede territory, accept limits on its military and renounce ambitions to join NATO.

For many Ukrainians, including soldiers fighting on the front lines, such terms would amount to capitulation after nearly four years of fighting in Europe's deadliest conflict since World War Two. On Saturday, Trump said the current proposal for ending the war is not his final offer.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/22/supreme-court-texas-congressional-map

> Supreme court blocks order that found Texas congressional map was probably racially biased

The US supreme court on Friday temporarily blocked a lower court ruling that found Texas’s 2026 congressional redistricting plan pushed by Donald Trump probably discriminated on the basis of race.

The order, signed by Justice Samuel Alito, will remain in place at least for the next few days while the court considers whether to allow the new map, which is favorable to Republicans, to be used in the midterm elections.

The court’s conservative majority has blocked similar lower court rulings because they have come too close to elections.

The order came about an hour after the state called on the supreme court to intervene to avoid confusion as congressional primary elections approach in March. The justices have blocked past lower-court rulings in congressional redistricting cases, most recently in Alabama and Louisiana, that came several months before elections.

The order was signed by Alito because he is the justice who handles emergency appeals from Texas.

Texas redrew its congressional map in the summer as part of Trump’s efforts to preserve a slim Republican majority in the House in next year’s elections, touching off a nationwide redistricting battle. The new redistricting map was engineered to give Republicans five additional House seats, but a panel of federal judges in El Paso ruled 2-1 on Tuesday that the civil rights groups that challenged the map on behalf of Black and Hispanic voters were likely to win their case.

If that ruling eventually holds, Texas could be forced to hold elections next year using the map drawn by the GOP-controlled legislature in 2021 based on the 2020 census.

MAGA mayhem triggered by President Donald Trump's rage again against Marjorie Taylor Greene, as MAGA supporters exclaimed that Trump rescinded support for Marjorie but made a fresh endorsement for Ramaswamy -- as MAGA equations are changing.

Greene objected to Trump's H-1B stand and said America does not need foreign workers. Greene said she would introduce a bill to stop H-1B visa program completely though Trump believes America needs certain foreign talent.

The H-1B row amid MAGA was triggered last year during Christmas when Vivek Ramaswamy called out American culture and said American education system does not produce enough STEM workers needed for American tech companies and hence companies have to rely on H-1B. Ramaswamy was cornered, he exited from DOGE and chose Ohio politics for his future.

A viral post has claimed that Vivek's ethnicity is not the problem, but the fact that he's "culturally Indian' makes him an outsider in MAGA. Some posts claimed that Vivek should have converted and changed his name if he took the Ohio election seriously.

"Vivek has insane ideas of what America should look like, as if EVERY AMERICAN needs to be a hyper-productive AP-Calculus HS Robotics Champion and Computer Engineering major--and if that's not what America is, America is a failure. No nation has ever been exclusively that, no population has ever consisted entirely of top 5% engineering performers--BY DEFINITION," the viral post said slamming India's average IQ.

"Indeed, his OWN CULTURE, India, has an AVERAGE IQ of 76. Mentally retarded is 75. So it's fair to say that ON AVERAGE Indians are retard adjacent. India itself is not a nation full of engineers, and that's before we even consider the 20% who even in 2025 habitually sh** on the ground every day," the post read.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/vivek-ramaswamy-is-culturally-indian-maga-debates-why-they-hate-trump-backed-ohio-guv-candidate/articleshow/125355294.cms

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-grizzly-bear-attack-schoolchildren-teachers-bella-coola/

Educators used bear spray, bear bangers and anything they could to fend off a grizzly bear that attacked their Grade 4 and 5 students on a field trip into the woods on B.C.’s central coast.

Four people – one adult and three children – were badly mauled Thursday in the coastal community of Bella Coola and were airlifted to hospital in Vancouver, with two in critical condition, BC Emergency Health Services said. Seven others were treated for mild injuries and nine students from the Acwsalcta School unscathed, authorities said.

As the tightknit Nuxalk First Nation grappled with the brutal attack on students of their private school, the provincial Conservation Officer Service was warning everyone to stay indoors Friday. Eight officers were dispatched to investigate and to set traps. The officers collected physical evidence so they can try to match it to any animals they catch.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/20/insurance-premiums-employer-increase-affordability-00660176

Rising Obamacare premiums are a political problem for Republicans. Rising premiums for workers who get health insurance from their employers could be an even bigger one.

Republicans in Congress are focused on finding a way to counteract an expected 26 percent rise in premiums for people who buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act, without extending government subsidies that make insurance more affordable.

What the GOP isn’t talking about: Nearly seven times as many Americans get health insurance through an employer as those who buy it individually. Those 165 million people are expected to see their premiums spike by up to 7 percent.

“That’s going to absolutely put pressure on whoever’s [in power],” said Katherine Hempstead, senior policy adviser at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a health care-focused philanthropy.

Voters have started making it clear that affordability of basic necessities — including health care — will be a defining issue in determining who holds the balance of power in Congress after next year’s midterm elections. That means the GOP may need to look beyond fixing Affordable Care Act subsidies to maintain control of the House and Senate.

Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers and candidates say they plan to make affordability their top issue in next year’s midterm elections, but it remains to be seen whether they’ll include the plight of workers with employer-provided insurance in their push.

People with group coverage are expected to see an average 6 to 7 percent premium increase this month as they re-enroll in coverage that will start in January.

That comes as their employers are expecting the largest jump in health costs in 15 years in 2026, at 6.7 percent, more than double the rate of inflation and the typical pay raise workers are getting.

Top Democrat, Californias Chief of Staff, Dana Williamson and Secretary of the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency Alex Podesta are federally indicted for corruption of public office and embezzling covid relief funds
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/14/how-californias-ultimate-power-broker-went-down-00653137
How California’s ultimate power broker went down
Gavin Newsom's former chief of staff scaled the heights of California politics with a take-no-prisoners style. This week, it came crashing down.


Soon after Dana Williamson re-entered the inner echelons of California’s Democratic power structure in early 2023 — taking over as Gavin Newsom’s chief of staff — she was discussing directing a senior attorney to resolve a state discrimination lawsuit against a former corporate client, according to an indictment unsealed this week.

And when a whistleblower began seeking public records about the Newsom administration’s involvement in that case, Williamson derided the request to her close associate and alleged co-conspirator Alexis Podesta.

“Fuck her,” Podesta said, according to a transcription of the secretly recorded June 2024 conversation included in the indictment against Williamson. “They don’t really know who they are messing with.”

“They really don’t,” Williamson replied. “It’s bad for them.”

Few people in California politics have accumulated as much influence — or as many detractors — as Williamson did while serving multiple governors and cementing herself as a sought-after counselor to campaigns and interest groups in Sacramento. She built a reputation as a ruthlessly effective and at times caustic operator with a penchant for dealmaking and an expertise in wielding power, earning both fear and respect in Sacramento.

https://apnews.com/article/cdc-autism-vaccines-7b1890f626dd5921fafd00fdd1e6425a

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website has been changed to contradict the longtime scientific conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism, spurring outrage among a number of public health and autism experts.

The CDC “vaccine safety” webpage was updated Wednesday, saying “the statement ‘Vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim.”

The change is the latest move by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to revisit — and foster uncertainty about — long-held scientific consensus about the safety of vaccines and other pharmaceutical products.

It was immediately decried by scientists and advocates who have long been focused on finding the causes of autism.

“We are appalled to find that the content on the CDC webpage ‘Autism and Vaccines’ has been changed and distorted, and is now filled with anti-vaccine rhetoric and outright lies about vaccines and autism,” the Autism Science Foundation said in a statement Thursday.

Widespread scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concluded there is no link between vaccines and autism. “The conclusion is clear and unambiguous,” said Dr. Susan Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, in a statement Thursday.

“We call on the CDC to stop wasting government resources to amplify false claims that sow doubt in one of the best tools we have to keep children healthy and thriving: routine immunizations,” she said.

The CDC has, until now, echoed the absence of a link in promoting Food and Drug Administration-licensed vaccines.

But anti-vaccines activists — including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who this year became secretary of Health and Human Services — have long claimed there is one.

It’s unclear if anyone at CDC was actually involved in the change, or whether it was done by Kennedy’s HHS, which oversees the CDC.

Many at CDC were surprised.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5617595-trump-lashes-out-media-presidency/

President Trump in recent days has lashed out at a familiar foe during a low point in his presidency: the press.

Trump has escalated his swipes at the media as he faces mounting pressure from a weakening economy, setbacks from November’s elections when Democrats won big across the country, and his reversal on the Jeffrey Epstein files, which have all contributed to mounting infighting within the GOP.

Much of his ire has focused on ABC.

On Thursday, in a Truth Social post, he demanded late-night host Jimmy Kimmel be pulled off air. A day earlier, he also said the television network’s license should be taken away and “we have a great commissioner, the chairman, who should look at that,” referring to Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr.

Trump offered those remarks in response to a question by ABC News White House reporter Mary Bruce, who had asked the president questions about his decision to host Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in light of the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Bruce also asked the president about the Epstein files, which led Trump to call her a “terrible person and a terrible reporter.”

It wasn’t the only time in recent days that Trump directed his anger toward women in the White House press corps. Earlier in the month, when a Bloomberg reporter attempted to ask the president an Epstein-related question, Trump, his finger in the air, fired back: “Quiet. Quiet Piggy.”

President Donald Trump's administration is not taking high prices seriously enough, according to one conservative commentator.

In a Monday night post to his official X account, Erick Erickson — the founder of conservative website Redstate — lamented to his 260,000-plus followers that the administration wasn't inspiring confidence among Americans that they were committed to lowering prices. While Erickson was once a "Never Trumper," he ultimately endorsed Trump's 2020 and 2024 bids for the presidency.

"This White House needs a new message about the economy because the message sounds like the Biden White House's message, denying reality," Erickson wrote. "I bought a 12oz bag of Community Coffee at the grocery store Sunday for $14.99. It was $11.99 at Kroger. And that's just one of many items."

Erickson emphasized his point by posting a clip of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller defending the administration's economic record on far-right network Newsmax. Miller's comments were spliced together with clips of Biden administration Council of Economic Advisors chairman Jared Bernstein insisting that prices for consumer goods under former President Joe Biden were under control.

"The Democrat media lies for a living. They're professional liars," Miller said in the clip. "... Under President Trump, in the last few months, we've seen the first significant reduction in prices and the cost of living since the last time President Trump was in office."

Erickson's argument is based on sound data: According to Federal Reserve data, the consumer price index for groceries is higher than it's ever been. The AAA gas price index shows that a gallon of gas is in excess of $3 per gallon on average. And while Trump specifically ran on lowering the price of eggs, egg prices climbed significantly during the first few months of his second term.

https://www.alternet.org/white-house-high-prices/

Larry Summers, former president of Harvard and renowned sexist, is the latest to be linked to Epstein. Discuss.

https://globalnews.ca/news/11530884/larry-summers-steps-back-jeffrey-epstein-emails/