On GPS: What to expect from Trump's Gulf region trip
Fareed discusses President Donald Trump's upcoming visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates with Amos Hochstein, former Middle East envoy in the Biden administration, and veteran foreign correspondent Kim Ghattas.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
Transportation chief seeks to weaken fuel economy standards, calls Biden-era rule 'illegal'
DETROIT — Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a rule Friday that Biden-era fuel economy standards for gas-powered cars and trucks are illegal and moved to reverse them, paving the way for a likely reset of rules. Combined with Senate language in the pending budget bill to eliminate penalties for exceeding standards regulating how far vehicles must travel on a gallon of fuel, automakers moving forward could come under less pressure from regulators to reduce their pollution. Ultimately, the nation's use of electric vehicles could be slowed.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
AG faces criticism for call to remove Afghan refugees from Oklahoma
Attorney General Gentner Drummond, pictured Feb. 28, 2024, on Thursday called for Afghan refugees in Oklahoma to be removed. (Photo by Janelle Stecklein/Oklahoma Voice) OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma's attorney general said Thursday he 'demands' the removal of Afghan refugees who were resettled in the state in 2021 with Gov. Kevin Stitt's support. Gentner Drummond, who is also a Republican candidate for governor, said the thousands of Afghan refugees were not properly vetted in 2021 and pose a threat to public safety. His statement followed a travel ban from President Donald Trump on 12 countries, including Afghanistan. Stitt and the organizations who helped resettle around 1,800 refugees from Afghanistan in Oklahoma pushed back. They said Drummond's statement was inaccurate and creates unnecessary fear about the Afghan population in the state. The Republican governor said in a statement Friday that the Biden administration had failed to secure a safe exit from Afghanistan, costing American lives and left Afghani citizens in danger. 'They aided our troops in some of the most dangerous combat situations,' Stitt said. 'It is unconscionable that anyone would suggest that we should have left them at the mercy of the Taliban. Individuals using their official platform to campaign for a higher office are using prejudice and fear tactics to sow discord. If the attorney general can identify laws being broken, he should use his existing authority to prosecute criminal activity. Oklahomans see through the political rhetoric.' Drummond rebuffed Stitt's statement. He said Friday his top focus as attorney general is to ensure 'law and order,' adding that it was a public safety issue. 'We greatly value the Afghan friends and allies who assisted US forces, but federal investigations have clearly borne out that vetting was woefully insufficient,' Drummond said. Drummond on Thursday referenced two acts of violence involving Afghan refugees, including one threat to Election Day in Oklahoma City. Tax dollars are being used to pay for resettlement efforts and 'foreign nationals' who are not properly vetted pose a threat, he said in his statement. 'Adding insult to injury, Gov. Stitt illegally directed millions of our tax dollars to pay for resettlement expenses,' Drummond said Thursday. 'Now that President Trump has acted in the best interests of the United States by fully restricting Afghan nationals, I am demanding that Gov. Stitt reject the approval he gave to the Biden Administration so all Afghan refugees can be removed from Oklahoma.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX But leaders of community organizations who helped with resettlement efforts said Drummond's statement is inaccurate and sows unnecessary fear about a vulnerable population. Patrick Raglow, executive director at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, said it's 'ludicrous' to say this population is a threat for having not been vetted. 'His beef is not with the Afghan arrivals so much as it is with the governor, and this just happens to be the shape of the rock he's throwing at the governor,' he said. 'That's my personal opinion, but the statement itself is most unfortunate and factually flawed. It creates a little bit of hostility and animus in our community for those who are here, who fled violence and were not brought here to import violence.' Raglow said in 2021, Catholic Charities was approached by Stitt to aid in the resettlement efforts after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. Catholic Charities has been involved in refugee resettlement for decades. He hopes that people draw a distinction between refugees and asylum seekers and immigrants. 'Every refugee is an immigrant. 99% of immigrants are not refugees,' Raglow said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Veronica Laizure, executive director of CAIR Oklahoma, said refugees undergo some of the more strict security screenings. She said she's disappointed in Drummond's words. CAIR Oklahoma is a nonprofit advocacy group working to 'enhance the understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.' 'We are pretty dismayed and disappointed that (Attorney General) Drummond feels it's appropriate to hold an entire population accountable for the actions of a very, very small minority, and that he's willing to generalize and paint all of our Afghan neighbors with the same brush,' she said. 'We live in Oklahoma, which is a state that's very familiar, painfully familiar, with the impact of domestic terrorism, and yet we don't assume that everyone who looks like Timothy McVeigh holds his same views or would commit the same actions that he did.' Afghan refugees who came to the U.S. were individuals, or family members, who worked with the U.S. military at high risk to themselves, resulting in violence and death, Laizure said. Islamophobia is at a high level right now, Laizure said, which puts this community on edge. She said she encourages people to reach out to people and organizations who have real experience before 'operating based on stereotypes and prejudice.'
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Linda McMahon says Harvard and Columbia making ‘progress' to meet Trump's demands to stop antisemitism
Trump's Education Secretary, Linda McMahon, praised the administration for pushing Harvard and Columbia University to make 'progress' on tackling campus antisemitism. "I have seen progress. And you know why I think we're seeing progress? Because we are putting these measures in place, and we're saying we're putting teeth behind what we're looking at," McMahon told NBC News. 'They talk a lot about it, but I think we really started to see a lot of their actions once we were taking action," McMahon added. The comments come as the administration continues its unprecedented campaign to force changes at both universities, on allegations that they didn't do enough to combat campus antisemitism during contentious protests surrounding the Israel-Hamas war. In April, the administration froze more than $2.2 billion in federal funding to Harvard after it refused to comply with a series of sweeping on-campus changes the administration demanded, prompting the university to sue. The Trump administration also imperiled $400 million to Columbia in March, though the New York university has taken a different tack than its Massachusetts peer in the Ivy League, largely agreeing to administration demands to restore the funds. Both schools were making concerted efforts to address antisemitism on campus before Trump took office. Columbia created an antisemitism task force in 2023, while Harvard followed suit in 2024, and the schools have worked to reform student training practices, disciplinary policies, and protest rules prior to Trump's crackdown on the universities beginning. Harvard also settled a major antisemitism suit from students and adopted a new campus definition of antisemitism in January, right as Trump took office. However, once the administration was underway, the universities have taken sharply divergent approaches, though neither has spared the Ivy League universities from scrutiny from the administration. In April, the administration demanded that Harvard institute unprecedented changes, including ending all diversity policies, cooperating with federal law enforcement, and subjecting itself to a 'viewpoint diversity' audit, among other reforms. The university declined, and soon after the administration froze the $2.2 billion in grants and contracts, prompting Harvard to sue. Since then, the administration has continued to ratchet up pressure on Harvard, attempting to strip its ability to enroll international students and threatening to revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status. In March, Columbia largely acceded to the administration's requests, instituting changes like empowering a new campus police force to arrest students, committing to hiring faculty with greater 'intellectual diversity,' partially banning face masks at protests, and restructuring Middle East-focused university departments. Nonetheless, on Wednesday, the Department of Education claimed that Columbia was 'in violation of federal antidiscrimination laws and therefore fails to meet the standards for accreditation.' Harvard President Alan Garber has accused the administration of trying to unconstitutionally interfere with the university's affairs and choosing punishments that have little to do with tackling antisemitism. 'The sanctions that the government chose to impose against us — having to do with cutting off federal support at Harvard — those are not sanctions that will particularly aid us in the fight against antisemitism,' Garber told alumni in April. The administration has at times struggled to explain its own education policies. During a hearing in the House on Wednesday, McMahon appeared unable to answer questions about whether teaching students about the Tulsa race massacre or the fact that Joe Biden won the 2020 election would amount to 'illegal DEI,' a practice the administration says should bar schools from receiving federal funds. When asked about whether the administration's push to force universities to hire more ideologically diverse staff meant Harvard had to hire people like Holocaust deniers, McMahon responded and said, 'I believe that there should be diversity of viewpoints relative to teachings and opinions on campuses.' Officials have also spoken openly about their desire to police student opinion and political activity. 'It's very important that we are making sure that the students who are coming in and being on these campuses aren't activists, that they're not causing these activities,' McMahon added in her NBC News interview. This spring, the administration briefly revoked, then reinstated, legal status for thousands of internationals on student visas in the U.S.
