Across Indian Country, mass firings at colleges open up age-old wounds
Late this week, the supporters of Haskell Indian Nations University won a partial victory. Fourteen of 37 staff members are to be reinstated by Monday, including instructors, the dean of students and Adam Strom, the women's basketball coach who stayed on without pay to lead his team to a conference championship.
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San Francisco Chronicle
10 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
NATO defense chiefs hold virtual meeting on Ukraine security guarantees
NATO defense chiefs were due to hold a virtual meeting Wednesday, a senior alliance official said, as countries pushing for an end to Russia's war on Ukraine devise possible future security guarantees for Kyiv that could help forge a peace agreement. Italian Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chair of NATO's Military Committee, said that 32 defense chiefs from across the alliance would hold a video conference as a U.S.-led diplomatic push seeks to end the fighting. U.S. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, NATO's supreme allied commander Europe, will take part in the talks, Dragone said on social platform X. U.S. President Donald Trump met last Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska and on Monday hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and prominent European leaders at the White House. Neither meeting delivered concrete progress. Trump is trying to steer Putin and Zelenskyy toward a settlement more than three years after Russia invaded its neighbor, but there are major obstacles. They include Ukraine's demands for Western-backed military assurances to ensure Russia won't mount another invasion in coming years. 'We need strong security guarantees to ensure a truly secure and lasting peace,' Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post Wednesday after Russian missile and drone strikes hit six regions of Ukraine overnight. Kyiv's European allies are looking to set up a force that could backstop any peace agreement, and a coalition of 30 countries, including European nations, Japan and Australia, have signed up to support the initiative. Military chiefs are figuring out how that security force might work. The role that the U.S. might play in is unclear. Trump on Tuesday ruled out sending U.S. troops to help defend Ukraine against Russia. Attacks on civilian areas in Sumy and Odesa overnight into Wednesday injured 15 people, including a family with three small children, Ukrainian authorities said. Zelenskyy said the strikes 'only confirm the need for pressure on Moscow, the need to introduce new sanctions and tariffs until diplomacy works to its full potential.'
Newsweek
10 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Nikki Haley: Trump Needs To Rebuild U.S.-India Relationship
In July 1982, President Ronald Reagan welcomed Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to a state dinner at the White House. Toasting the friendship between our "two proud, free peoples," he said: "although our countries may travel separate paths from time to time, our destination remains the same." Four decades later, the U.S.-India relationship is at a troubling inflection point. To achieve the Trump administration's foreign policy goals—outcompeting China and achieving peace through strength—few objectives are more critical than getting U.S.-India relations back on track. The last few weeks have seen an explosive series of events. The Trump administration has threatened India with 25 percent tariffs for purchasing Russian oil, on top of the 25 percent President Donald Trump already slapped on Indian goods. These developments followed months of rising tension, including over the U.S. role in India-Pakistan ceasefire negotiations. Trump is right to target India's massive Russian oil purchases, which are helping to fund Vladimir Putin's brutal war against Ukraine. India has also traditionally been among the most protectionist economies in the world, with an average tariff rate more than five times the U.S. average in 2023. But India must be treated like the prized free and democratic partner that it is—not an adversary like China, which has thus far avoided sanctions for its Russian oil purchases, despite being one of Moscow's largest customers. If that disparity does not demand a closer look at U.S.-India relations, the realities of hard power should. Scuttling 25 years of momentum with the only country that can serve as a counterweight to Chinese dominance in Asia would be a strategic disaster. WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 22: Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley announced that she would vote for former President Donald Trump during an event at the Hudson Institute on May 22, 2024 in Washington, DC. WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 22: Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley announced that she would vote for former President Donald Trump during an event at the Hudson Institute on May 22, 2024 in Washington, the short term, India is essential in helping the United States move its critical supply chains away from China. While the Trump administration works to bring manufacturing back to our shores, India stands alone in its potential to manufacture at China-like scale for products that can't be quickly or efficiently produced here, like textiles, inexpensive phones, and solar panels. When it comes to defense, India's expanding military ties with the United States, Israel, and other American allies make it a crucial asset to the free world's security, and a rapidly growing market for U.S. defense equipment and cooperation. India's growing clout and security involvement in the Middle East could prove essential in helping to stabilize the region as America seeks to send fewer troops and dollars there. And India's location at the center of China's vital trade and energy flows could complicate Beijing's options in the case of a major conflict. In the longer term, India's significance is even more profound. Home to more than a sixth of humanity, India surpassed China as the world's most populous country in 2023, with a young workforce that contrasts with China's aging one. It is the world's fastest-growing major economy—soon to eclipse Japan as the world's fourth largest. India's rise represents the most significant geopolitical event since China's, and is among the greatest obstacles to China's goal of reshaping the global order. Simply put, China's ambitions will have to shrink as India's power grows. Yet, unlike Communist-controlled China, the rise of a democratic India does not threaten the free world. Partnership between the U.S. and India to counter China should be a no-brainer. India and China are unfriendly neighbors that have conflicting economic interests and ongoing territorial disputes, including a lethal skirmish over contested borders as recently as 2020. It would serve America's interests to help India stand up to its increasingly aggressive northern neighbor, both economically and militarily. And it would be a massive—and preventable—mistake to balloon a trade spat between the United States and India into an enduring rupture. If that were to happen, the Chinese Communist Party would be quick to play India and the United States against one another. For its part, India must take Trump's point over Russian oil seriously, and work with the White House to find a solution. As for the United States, the most urgent priority should be to reverse the downward spiral, which will require direct talks between President Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The sooner the better. The administration should focus on mending the rift with India and giving the relationship more high-level attention and resources—approaching what the U.S. devotes to China or Israel. Decades of friendship and good will between the world's two largest democracies provide a solid basis to move past the current turbulence. Navigating challenging issues like trade disagreements and Russian oil imports demand hard dialogue, but difficult conversations are often the sign of a deepening partnership. The United States should not lose sight of what matters most: our shared goals. To face China, the United States must have a friend in India. Nikki Haley, the Walter P. Stern Chair at the Hudson Institute, was US ambassador to the United Nations and governor of South Carolina. Bill Drexel is a fellow at the Hudson Institute. The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
Yahoo
11 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Guns or weed? Trump administration says you can't use both.
WASHINGTON – The Trump administration's aggressive defense of gun rights has at least one exception. The government's lawyers want the Supreme Court to make clear that regular pot smokers – and other drug users − shouldn't be allowed to own firearms. An appeals court has said a federal law making it a crime for drug users to have a gun can't be used against someone based solely on their past drug use. Limiting the law to blocking the use of guns while a person is high effectively guts the statute that reduces gun violence, the Justice Department told the Supreme Court. They're asking the justices to overturn the appeals court's decision. Trump's Justice Department has sided with gun owners in other cases The department's defense of the law is particularly notable as the Trump administration has sided with gun rights advocates in other cases – including one in which they declined to appeal a lower court's ruling against a federal law setting 21 as the minimum age to own a handgun. More: Trump DOJ wants Supreme Court to bring down hammer on gun rules But on the issue of drug use, the government is appealing four cases to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to focus on one involving a dual citizen of the United States and Pakistan who was charged with unlawfully owning a Glock pistol because he regularly smoked marijuana. The FBI had been monitoring Ali Danial Hemani because of his alleged connection to Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which the government has designated a global terrorist group, according to filings. The government also alleges Hemani used and sold promethazine, an antihistamine used to treat allergies and motion sickness that can boost an opioid high, and used cocaine, although he was prosecuted based on his marijuana use. Hemani's attorneys said the government is trying to 'inflame and disparage' Hemani's character and the only facts that matter are that he was not high when the FBI found the Glock 19 in his Texas home. Hemani was charged with violating the federal law that prohibits the possession of firearms by a person who 'is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance.' More: Supreme Court sides with Biden and upholds regulations of ghost guns to make them traceable Appeals court ruled past drug use not enough to stop gun ownership The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that the law can't be applied to Hamani under the Supreme Court's landmark 2022 decision that gun prohibitions must be grounded in history that is "consistent with our tradition of gun regulation." While history and tradition support 'some limits on a presently intoxicated person's right to carry a weapon,' the appeals court said, 'they do not support disarming a sober person based solely on past substance usage.' The Justice Department said the appeals court got it wrong. Laws that existed at the time the country was founded restricted the rights of habitual drinkers, even when they were sober, they argued. 'And for about as long as legislatures have regulated drugs, they have prohibited the possession of arms by drug users and addicts – not just by persons under the influence of drugs,' they wrote. Law used in hundreds of prosecutions, including Hunter Biden's Since the federal government created its background-check system for firearms in 1998, the federal restriction on drug users has stopped more gun sales than any requirement other than the ban on felons and fugitives owning weapons, according to the filing. And it's used in hundreds of prosecutions each year, they said. (Hunter Biden, who was later pardoned by his father during President Joe Biden's final weeks in office, was convicted in 2024 of violating the law by purchasing a gun despite having a known drug addiction.) Hunter Biden trial recap Joe Biden's son guilty on all charges in historic gun case Hemani's lawyers argue that the government's interpretation of the law makes no sense when an estimated 19% of Americans have used marijuana and about 32% own a firearm. That means millions of Americans are violating the law that could put them behind bars for up to 15 years, they said in a filing. The appeals court, Hemani's lawyers said, correctly applied the Supreme Court's past decisions and 'common sense' to rule that 'history and tradition only supports a ban on carrying firearms while intoxicated.' In addition to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, two other appeals courts have issued rulings that restrict use of the federal ban: both courts ruled there should be individualized assessments of defendants' drug use to determine if their rights could be restricted. Trump administration touts program to restore gun rights The Justice Department argues that 'marginal' cases are better addressed on a case-by-case basis, through a federal program the Trump administration restarted that lets individuals petition to have their gun rights restored. The administration's championship of that program makes it less surprising that the Justice Department is vigorously defending the ban on drug users having guns, said Andrew Willinger, executive director of the Duke Center for Firearms Law, a research center. In addition, the administration has shown a broad desire to crack down on illegal drug use. 'In some sense, when those two areas are colliding – gun rights and anti-drug policies – it looks like anti-drug policies are going to win out,' he said. More: Supreme Court rules Mexico can't sue US gunmakers over cartel violence Willinger said there's a relatively strong chance the Supreme Court will get involved, which the justices tend to do when a lower court strikes down or restricts the application of a federal criminal law – especially if the government asks them to intervene. But the high court could also wait to see how other appeals courts handle similar cases and how well the Justice Department's program for restoring gun rights addresses these concerns, he said. The court could announce whether it will take up the issue this fall. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Guns or weed? Federal government says you can't use both. Solve the daily Crossword
