Tag: Region US

The Defense Department said Friday that it’s cutting 5,400 probationary workers starting next week and will put a hiring freeze in place. It comes after staffers from the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, were at the Pentagon earlier in the week and received lists of such employees, U.S. officials said. They said those lists did not include uniformed military personnel, who are exempt. Probationary employees are generally those on the job for less than a year and who have yet…

Gal Haimovich, 49, of Israel, was sentenced today to 24 months in prison and three years of supervised release for conspiracy to illegally ship aircraft parts and avionics from U.S. manufacturers and suppliers to Russia, including for the benefit of sanctioned Russian airline companies. In addition, Haimovich paid the full forfeiture amount of $2,024,435.44 at today’s sentencing. As part of his plea agreement, Haimovich admitted that his scheme involved deceiving U.S. companies about the true destination of the goods at…

U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance met the leader of a German far-right party during a visit to Munich on Friday, nine days before a German election and after lecturing European leaders about the state of democracy. Vance met with Alice Weidel, the co-leader and candidate for chancellor of the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party, his office said. Mainstream German parties say they won’t work with the party, a stance often referred to as a “firewall.” Polls put Alternative for Germany, or AfD, in second place going into…

President Donald Trump this week falsely blamed Ukraine for starting the war that has cost tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives, causing outrage and alarm in a country that has spent nearly three years fighting back a much larger Russian military. Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “ a dictator without elections” and claimed his support among voters was near rock-bottom. Zelenskyy said Wednesday that the disinformation is coming from Russia, and some of what Trump has said does echo Russia’s own narrative of the conflict….

The relationship between the United States and Ukraine, which has helped Kyiv fend off the Russian invasion for the past three years, appeared on the verge of collapse Wednesday as the presidents of the two countries publicly traded insults. The furor has the potential to leave Ukraine – which is already losing ground along the front line – without the support of its biggest ally, as U.S. President Donald Trump called Ukraine’s future existence into question. The relationship between Mr….

YAPP USA Automotive Systems Inc., a corporation with its principal place of business in Michigan, has agreed to pay $14,208,496 to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by submitting false claims to obtain a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan for which it was not eligible. Congress created the PPP in March 2020 to provide emergency financial assistance to Americans suffering from the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the PPP, eligible businesses could receive forgivable loans…

About half the middle managers at Ford Motor will not get stock bonuses this year in what is seen internally as CEO Jim Farley’s latest attempt to cut the automaker’s bloated costs, according to six people familiar with the matter. The stock awards are usually paid in March, but senior managers have been told to select which half of their middle management staff will receive them, four of the sources said. Ford said the change was meant to incentivize an…

Note: View the settlement agreement here. Health Net Federal Services Inc. (HNFS) of Rancho Cordova, California and its corporate parent, St. Louis-based Centene Corporation, have agreed to pay $11,253,400 to resolve claims that HNFS falsely certified compliance with cybersecurity requirements in a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to administer the Defense Health Agency’s (DHA) TRICARE health benefits program for servicemembers and their families. In 2016, Centene acquired all of the issued and outstanding shares of Health Net…

On Sunday, Mumbai Police arrested Dharmesh Paun, private developer from Kandivali, in connection with the New India Cooperative Bank scam (NICB). According to the police, Paun allegedly received illicit funds from the bank’s General Manager and Account Head, Hitesh Mehta, who was also arrested Saturday. The scam was uncovered during an audit at the bank’s headquarters in Prabhadevi last Wednesday, when RBI officials discovered funds missing from the vault. Mehta, who has been with the bank since 1988, reportedly confessed…

Video: Trump’s tariff policies are straining US-Canada relations. After imposing and then suspending tariffs, Canadian leaders are reassessing their ties with the US. Some are now looking to the European Union as a potential alternative. Major publications, including The Toronto Star and The Economist, are openly questioning whether Canada could align more closely with Europe. European politicians are also weighing in. Could this mark a significant shift in global alliances?

The US vice-president, JD Vance, has launched a brutal ideological assault on Europe, accusing its leaders of suppressing free speech, failing to halt illegal migration and running in fear from voters’ true beliefs. In a chastising speech on Friday that openly questioned whether current European values warranted defence by the US, he painted a picture of European politics infected by media censorship, cancelled elections and political correctness. Arguing that the true threat to Europe stemmed not from external actors such…

Veterans Affairs leaders dismissed more than 1,000 employees Thursday night as part of a White House purge of government workers still in their probationary periods, an effort designed to dramatically reduce the size of the federal workforce. In a statement, VA Secretary Doug Collins said the elimination of the posts will save roughly $98 million annually, funds that can be redirected into veterans’ care and benefits. “We thank these employees for their service to VA,” he said. “This was a…

Three senior U.S. Justice Department officials, including Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, resigned on Thursday rather than comply with an order to dismiss corruption charges against New York City’s mayor, according to an internal Justice Department memo seen by Reuters and people familiar with the matter. The departures mark a sign of resistance from career Justice Department officials to U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to overhaul the agency to end what he calls its weaponization against political opponents. Critics say Trump’s changes threaten to subject…

The Pentagon will deploy roughly 1,500 more active-duty soldiers to the southern border to support President Donald Trump’s expanding crackdown on immigration, a U.S. official said Friday. That would eventually bring the total to about 3,600 active-duty troops at the border. The order has been approved, the official said, to send a logistics brigade from the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Liberty in North Carolina. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the deployment has not yet been publicly…

Video: House Democrats attempted to enter a Department of Education building on Friday in protest of proposed actions from President Trump but were blocked.

Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMC) has agreed to pay $29.74 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations of defective pricing on contracts for F-35 military aircraft. This payment is in addition to $11.3 million that LMC previously paid to the Department of Defense (DOD) for the same undisclosed cost and pricing data on some of the same contracts. LMC, headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, is one of the world’s largest defense contractors. According to court documents, between 2013 and 2015, LMC inflated…