Latest Headlines

by Ramon SAHMKOW

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 79, has been on a whirlwind campaign of interviews and public appearances in recent weeks to shore up dwindling support, but the numbers keep getting worse.

Lawyers supporting Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte filed the first legal challenge against her impeachment at the Supreme Court on Tuesday, saying it had been unconstitutionally rushed through without proper oversight.

Duterte, onetime ally of President Ferdinand Marcos, is facing a Senate trial on charges of "violation of the constitution, betrayal of public trust, graft and corruption and other high crimes".

Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta has said it will lay an undersea cable stretching across five continents to carry data, including for developing artificial intelligence.

The cable will run for more than 50,000 kilometres (31,000 miles) between the US, South Africa, India, Brazil and "other regions", Meta wrote in a blog on Friday.

by Jam STA ROSA

The Philippine Coast Guard condemned "dangerous" maneuvers by a Chinese Navy helicopter on Tuesday that it said flew within three meters (10 feet) of a surveillance flight carrying a group of journalists over the contested Scarborough Shoal.

Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) hit back late Monday at President Donald Trump's "border czar" who has threatened to investigate her for impeding law enforcement — and dubbed her the "dumbest congresswoman ever elected to Congress."

Tom Homan joined Newsmax on Monday night to discuss Ocasio-Cortez's recent live webinar on Valentine's Day advising undocumented immigrants in her district about their rights when encountering Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The webinar, titled "Know Your Rights With ICE," gave migrants information on how to respond if ICE agents show up at their homes or workplaces, advising them not to open their doors without seeing a proper warrant and recommending they document interactions with ICE through video recording or note-taking.

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow tore into the Trump administration over recent reports that his team fired — then "un-fired" — workers who oversee the country's nuclear programs.

Maddow told viewers late Monday the National Nuclear Security Administration maintains, refurbishes and oversees the safety of the nation's thousands of nuclear weapons. The agency develops nuclear propulsion systems for submarines and helps ensure "terrorists don't get their hands on a nuclear weapon," noted Maddow, as well as preventing nuclear tech isn't "stolen and sold on the black market."

President Donald Trump's stated reasons for firing thousands of federal employees are dubious and likely to spur legal challenges, The Washington Post reported on Monday, calling the effort a "messy rush."

So far, the president has mostly targeted "probationary" employees, who have only been with their respective agencies for a short time and thus don't have the full range of civil service protections. Trump has separately sought to classify a broad range of workers under "Schedule F," which would remove their protections altogether.

An adviser to President Donald Trump with a "pugnacious personality" — and who was recently released from prison — is causing "consternation" on Capitol Hill, even among Republicans.

That's according to new reporting in the Wall Street Journal, which found that in the absence of two key Trump nominees — U.S. Trade Representative nominee Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Lutnick, both of whom have yet to be confirmed — a "singular figure has risen as a leader of the trade agenda: Peter Navarro."

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) has an eyebrow-raising theory about the real reason some lawmakers are skeptical of tech billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency task force, which has controversially pushed layoffs of thousands of civil servants and seized control of vital government systems containing sensitive taxpayer information.

Burchett, a far-right Trump devotee who recently compared Musk and his gang of young software engineers infiltrating government systems to the American soldiers who liberated Europe from the Nazis, pushed forward this new theory in an interview on Fox Business on Monday.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams wants the public to know he's not going anywhere despite the mounting calls for him to resign — and he said it in such a way that triggered a fresh wave of outrage.

According to the New York Daily News, Adams, while speaking at a re-election campaign event at Rehoboth Cathedral in Brooklyn, told his supporters, “I was listening to some of Dr. King’s teachings, and he talked about the book ‘Mein Kampf.’ He said if you repeat a lie long enough, loud enough people will believe it is true, and that’s what you’re seeing right now. This is a modern-day ‘Mein Kampf.'”

By Alejandro Serrano, The Texas Tribune

"Gov. Abbott orders TEA probe of Houston school for calling a student by chosen name and pronouns" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

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A measles outbreak in Texas prompted the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board to issue an urgent plea to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and the nation's new secretary of Health and Human Services.

As of Monday, 48 cases of measles have been confirmed in Texas, doubling in a matter of days. Gaines County appears to be the epicenter with 42 cases, and all cases have been reported in unvaccinated people or those with unknown vaccination status.

Some of the latest employees on the chopping block at tech billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency task force are Food and Drug Administration staff who oversee regulation of one of Musk's companies, Reuters reported Monday evening.

Layoffs at the FDA, according to Rachael Levy and Marisa Taylor, include "about 20 people in the FDA’s office of neurological and physical medicine devices, several of whom worked on Neuralink, according to the two sources, who asked not to be identified because of fear of professional repercussions. That division includes reviewers overseeing clinical-trial applications by Neuralink and other companies making so-called brain-computer interface devices, the sources said."