--:-- Tracy Mumford: From the New York Times, it's the headlines. Today's Wednesday, February 19th.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The Trump administration is going all in on building closer ties with Russia, upending decades of American foreign policy. Yesterday, top U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, met for four hours with Russia's foreign minister as they began peace talks around the war in Ukraine. It was the first face-to-face meeting between Russia and the U.S. since Russia's invasion in 2022.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Rubio said that ending the war would open up, quote, extraordinary business and political opportunities for the U.S. and Russia, signaling that the administration is ready to look past Russia's brazen land grab and its killing of thousands of civilians. Ukraine said it was not invited to the peace talks at all.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: After the meeting, we have a message for Ukrainians who, after three years of fighting, might feel betrayed or disappointed at not having a seat at these initial talks in Saudi Arabia?
--:-- Jonathan Swan: I hear that they're upset about not having a seat. Well, they've had a seat for three years and a long time before that. This could have been settled very easily. Just a half-baked negotiator could have settled this years ago.
--:-- Jonathan Swan: President Trump attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. I mean, I hate to say it, but he's down at 4% approval rating. And we're a country who's been blown to smithereens.
--:-- Jonathan Swan: Trump incorrectly said that he had a 4% approval rating and even seemed to suggest that Zelensky was the one who was responsible for the Russian invasion. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. We already knew that Trump felt more warmly toward the Russian president Vladimir Putin than he did toward Zelensky.
--:-- Jonathan Swan: But it was illuminating to be there at Mar-a-Lago at this moment, as his team is negotiating, to see him effectively blame Zelensky for the invasion of his country. The contempt was stark. Trump didn't say a bad word about Putin. And all of his criticisms seem directed towards Zelensky.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: President Trump's pivot on Putin has raised concerns even among members of his own party. Republican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi urged caution in an interview on CNN.
--:-- Roger Wicker: You think that Putin can be trusted in these negotiations? No. Putin is a war criminal and should be in jail for the rest of his life, if not executed.
--:-- [Sound of papers being shuffled]
--:-- Roger Wicker: I've just finished signing some executive orders, and if we could start with that, Will, you might want to come up here.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: At Mar-a-Lago yesterday, President Trump also signed a new order expanding his power over independent government agencies. The agencies range from the Securities and Exchange Commission to the National Labor Relations Board. They regulate everything from Wall Street to Internet access to unionizing.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: They're agencies that Congress established. They're designed to be independent, and they're structured so their day-to-day activities are not under the direct control of the president. These agencies do not get to become a fourth branch of government issuing rules and edicts all by themselves, and that's what they've been doing.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: When Trump was on the campaign trail, he vowed to change that. I will require that they submit any regulations they're considering for White House review. And his new order follows through. It requires the agencies to submit their policies to the White House in advance.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And since the administration can block and cut off funding for initiatives that conflict with the president's priorities. Ending the agency independence has been a longtime goal of the conservative legal movement which sees this as a way to reduce government regulation and rules on corporations.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Three more quick updates from Washington. On the energy front, the Trump administration is moving to fast-track fossil fuel projects. The Army Corps of Engineers has created a new class of emergency permits to speed up the approval of projects like pipelines, mines, and power plants.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It's part of President Trump's demand to increase oil, gas, and coal production. The move could limit environmental reviews of the projects and cut out the chance for the public to weigh in.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: At the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. laid out his agenda in his first address to staffers. He vowed to investigate the causes of chronic disease, said he would scrutinize childhood vaccines, and prioritize other topics that he said had been considered taboo by mainstream science.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Saying, quote, nothing is going to be off limits.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And across the federal government, the Trump administration continues to carry out mass firings. At least 3,000 employees from the U.S. Forest and National Park Services lost their jobs this past week.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That includes rangers who maintain trails, clean facilities, and conduct search and rescue missions. Some rangers told The Times that the job cuts could make parks and forests less safe for the public.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And more firings are planned at multiple other departments, including the Pentagon. Today on The Daily, federal workers on how the cuts have them feeling under attack.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The stress is starting to build. Like, jobs really not secure at this point. It's like contraction in my stomach and chest. I started to like not be able to eat or sleep.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: At the Vatican officials announced that Pope Francis has pneumonia and will remain hospitalized in Rome. The head of the Catholic Church is 88 years old.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He went into the hospital last Friday. The Vatican said his condition is, quote, complex, but that he's in good spirits.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The Pope had part of his right lung removed when he was younger, leaving him prone to respiratory issues. Over the last few years, he's faced a number of health challenges.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He's been using a walker or a wheelchair more and more, but he's kept up a busy schedule.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And finally, astronomers announced yesterday that Earth's chance of being hit by asteroid is now at its highest level ever recorded. To be clear, that is still very low, but they've got their eye on an asteroid called 2024 YR4, which they just spotted in December.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It's expected to pass very close to Earth in 2032, on December 22nd to be exact, and there's a chance 3.1% that it could actually hit the planet.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It's smaller than other asteroids that researchers have tracked somewhere between 130 and 300 feet long, but it could demolish a city with a direct hit. Again, there's a slim chance that could happen.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But it's a good time to remember that NASA has a program designed for these situations. In the last few years, it ran a test smashing a spacecraft into an asteroid on purpose to see if it could knock it off course, and it was able to minimally alter its path that way.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The agency's administrator at the time said the test showed, quote, NASA is serious as a defender of this planet.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.
