Latest news with #JointChiefs
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump says he wants "real end" to Iran's nuclear program
President Trump says he wants "a real end" to Iran's nuclear problem, with Tehran abandoning it "entirely," and not just a ceasefire between Iran and Israel. Speaking on Air Force One after cutting short his time at the G7 summit in the Canadian Rockies, Mr. Trump told reporters, including CBS News senior White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs that, "I didn't say I was looking for a ceasefire." Earlier, the president said on his Truth Social platform that, "Publicity seeking President Emmanuel Macron, of France, mistakenly said that I left the G7 Summit, in Canada, to go back to D.C. to work on a "cease fire" between Israel and Iran. Wrong! He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire. Much bigger than that." Mr. Trump said on Air Force One that he wants "a real end," with Iran "giving up entirely" on its nuclear program. He predicted that Israel won't be slowing up its barrage on Iran. "You're going to find out over the next two days. You're going to find out. Nobody's slowed up so far," he said. The president said he'll be in the White House Situation Room Tuesday morning, as opposed to being in Canada, monitoring developments in Middle East. He can be "well versed" in the White House, he noted, and not have to rely on phones to know what's happening. When asked about his thinking in calling for the evacuation of Tehran, Mr. Trump said he wants "people to be safe." During his session with reporters on the plane, he sounded undecided about sending special envoy Steve Witkoff or Vice President JD Vance or both to meet with Iranian negotiators. "I may," he said, but "it depends what happens when I get back" to Washington. Addressing any possible threat to U.S. interests, Mr. Trump said Iran knows not to touch U.S. troops. The U.S. would "come down so hard if they do anything to our people," he warned. Mr. Trump declined to say if the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Lt. Gen. Dan Caine and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have provided him with options in the event Iran attacks U.S. bases in Middle East. "I can't tell you that," he said. The president said "we'll be talking to them" when asked if the "Gang of Eight" congressional leaders had been briefed on anything yet. But "it's not necessary," he added. And when asked if the U.S. would get involved in destroying Iran's nuclear program, he said he hoped it "is wiped out long before that." Iran is "very close" to having a nuclear weapon, Mr. Trump asserted. "I don't care what she said — I think they were very close to having them," referring to testimony by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in March. On efforts to help Americans leave the Mideast, with much of the commercial airspace in the region closed, Mr. Trump said the administration is "working on that. We're doing the best we can." And on any signs of North Korean or Russian involvement in aiding Iran, Mr. Trump said, "I haven't seen it." Harry Chapin: Songwriter, activist and father How the U.S. Army was born Consumers warned about "gas station heroin"
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
There's never a perfect time to have a baby — but 2025 is looking pretty tough
Tariffs are raising the costs of everything from strollers to cribs. Worries of a recession might make some prospective parents want to hold off on having kids. If you already feel like you're in a financial tight spot, it might be good to wait — if you can. Carolyn Bolton and her husband have wanted kids since they met five years ago. The timing, however, has never been ideal. During the housing crisis in 2021, the couple struggled to afford a home near Washington, DC, where they now rent. At the time, Bolton also wanted to move up in her career, "waiting for that next level that would ease the financial burden a little bit," Bolton, 37, an advocacy manager at the National Council for Adoption, told Business Insider. Even though they felt ready for kids last year, they hit some roadblocks to parenthood. After a couple of miscarriages, they consulted a fertility doctor and may need to consider IVF, which ranges in cost from $15,000 to $30,000. They also have concerns around how AI may impact the job market, as Bolton's husband is a tech editor for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "That's definitely worrying us a little bit, financially," Bolton said. "But I'm also 37, so now's the time, especially if we want more than one child." They're not alone. At a time of economic uncertainty, prospective parents understandably feel stuck on whether — or when — they should start trying. It will undoubtedly be harder to financially prepare for a baby when essentials like strollers can cost $300 more. Tariffs are already making basic household items more expensive. Recessions, or worries of them, tend to lower birth rates. "Historically, fertility has moved with the economy," Melanie Guldi, an associate professor of economics at the University of Central Florida, told Business Insider. "When times are good, people have more babies; when times are bad, people have fewer babies." Beyond day-to-day costs and general stability, "parents are also really concerned about the costs of what it would take to give their would-be children a good life," Karen Benjamin Guzzo, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina and director of the Carolina Population Center, told BI. On top of groceries, they want to be able to financially swing birthday parties, extracurriculars, and quality day care services. "You want the American dream, and it seems like the American dream is different now than when we were kids," Bolton said. Ultimately, deciding on when to have kids is highly personal, and not everyone is comfortable delaying the process. Still, if you have the flexibility and want to be on more solid financial ground first, experts say it might behoove you to wait. The costs of having a kid were already rising in pre-tariff times. Delivery, on average, is around $2,800 after insurance. Then, there are astronomical childcare costs. In states like California, Hawaii, and Massachusetts, parents spend over $30,000 on average annually to raise one child, with more than half going to day care services. Because day cares typically charge higher rates for infants than toddlers, having two children in day care at the same time can cost families $60,000 a year in areas like Washington, DC. Tariffs tack on extra financial strain. More than 70% of baby gear is made in China, the target of the largest tariffs. "Cribs, car seats, strollers, toys — everything is going to be more expensive if tariffs are applied," Guzzo said. (As of now, the tariffs are under a 90-day pause until mid-August). Zooming out, the bigger economic picture also doesn't spell stability. It's not a great time to buy a house or switch to a higher-paying job. It's also not ideal to retire right now — something to consider if you plan on relying on grandparental care. "There are a lot of things that are going to make raising families much harder and more expensive," Guzzo said. "I think that will weigh negatively on people's decisions to have kids." The good news for people hoping to conceive soon is that politicians, from the Trump administration to New York City's mayoral candidates, are promising to institute policies that would make parenthood more attainable in an effort to raise the US's record-low birth rate and keep their working parent voters. Bolton hoped Trump, who ran on a campaign promise to drastically reduce IVF costs, would have announced some new guidance by now. One Trump administration proposal shared with aides was to give families a $5,000 cash "baby bonus" for giving birth. Still, it will unlikely ease the financial burdens parents face, based on evidence from other countries that have tried similar incentives. Japan brought in four-day workweeks, but that didn't change the fertility trajectory. Sweden, with some of the best financial support for parents in the world, has a dwindling birth rate. What pushes people to have more babies — or delay them — is tricky to study. Guldi said we have a breadth of economic and demographic research into fertility patterns around the Great Depression and post-World War II, two hugely destabilizing periods in the 20th century. Even still, there's no one factor researchers can point to that would encourage another baby boom. Guldi said that if politicians want to encourage people to have more kids (and meaningfully help parents), they will have to adopt a multi-pronged approach, with more than one policy at play. For starters, Guzzo said, politicians need to focus on policies that would bring the US in line with most industrialized countries. The US doesn't offer national parental leave, and has the second-most expensive childcare system in the world. Policies targeting these two issues could make having kids more feasible and affordable. However, Guldi pointed out that even European nations like Finland and Spain with more robust parental support are dealing with record-low birth rates. "While these policies might nudge people to have a child, you're not going to have people that weren't going to have kids all of a sudden have two kids," she added. Timing when you have kids is as much a personal decision as having them in the first place. Guldi said it all boils down to how precarious your financial situation feels and how prepared you are for the future. "It will depend on the individual, how they evaluate that uncertainty," she said. For some, feeling secure in their industries and having family to help out might be enough to weather higher costs. Meanwhile, parents who already have a child might want to wait to have a second to save on day care costs. Beyond immediate finances, Guzzo said people who want to have a child with another person often need to feel secure in their partnerships before considering kids. Not only do dual-parent households usually have more money to spend, but divorced or single parents can accrue additional financial strain, especially in a potential recession. Having more control over when you have kids is also why parents are having them later or not at all, Guzzo said. "I don't think it's that people are really deciding not to have kids," she said. "I think people are deciding, over and over again, not right now." For people who feel they can't wait any longer to try for kids, their past experiences navigating a rocky economy can strangely reassure them. "I'm an elder millennial, I feel like we've lived through so many economic downturns," Bolton said. " There's never going to be a good time to have or not have a kid." Read the original article on Business Insider
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
North Korea appears to stop loudspeaker broadcasts toward the South
SEOUL, June 12 (UPI) -- North Korea appears to have stopped broadcasting loud noises towards the South, Seoul's military said Thursday, one day after South Korea halted its anti-Pyongyang loudspeaker campaign near the demilitarized zone. "Today, there were no areas where North Korea's noise broadcasts to the South were heard," the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a text message to reporters. The North had been broadcasting bizarre noises such as metallic screeching and animal sounds since last year, as Cold War-style provocations escalated along the inter-Korean border. Newly elected South Korean President Lee Jae-myung has vowed to lower tensions with Pyongyang, and on Wednesday ordered the suspension of the South's propaganda broadcasts of K-pop, news and information across the border. Lee's office said that the move was made "to ease the military standoff between the South and the North and to open the way to restoring mutual trust." It was also meant to "alleviate the suffering of residents in border areas who have suffered due to North Korea's noise broadcasts," spokeswoman Kang Yoo-jung said in a briefing Wednesday. Seoul resumed the propaganda broadcasts roughly one year ago in response to a series of provocations by North Korea that included floating thousands of trash-filled balloons across the border. Lee, who won a snap election on June 3 to replace impeached former President Yoon Suk Yeol, vowed during his campaign to suspend the loudspeaker broadcasts as well as prevent defector groups from floating balloons with anti-Pyongyang leaflets and USB drives over the border. On Thursday, Lee pledged to swiftly restore communication channels with the North. "We will stop wasteful hostilities and resume dialogue and cooperation," he said in a speech marking the 25th anniversary of the first inter-Korean summit between former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. "We will restore the crisis management system that prevents accidental clashes and avoids heightening tensions," Lee said in the speech, which was read on his behalf by a senior official at a commemorative event in Seoul. "To this end, we will strive to quickly restore the inter-Korean dialogue channels." The two Koreas reestablished a military hotline in 2018 during a period of detente. However, the North stopped answering the daily calls in 2023 as relations soured amid expanded U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises and a hardline stance by former President Yoon.
Washington Post
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Trump's top general contradicts his assessment of Putin, L.A. unrest
Gen. Dan Caine, who since becoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in April has assiduously avoided the public spotlight, on Wednesday broke with President Donald Trump's assessment of the threat posed by Russia and the ongoing protests and violence in Los Angeles. Caine's comments during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing were restrained but significant, coming from the nation's top military officer whom Democrats and moderate Republicans had feared might show little appetite for going against a president prone to pushing falsehoods in pursuit of his political agenda.
CNN
10-06-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Hegseth back in the spotlight with series of Capitol Hill hearings
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth heads to Capitol Hill for a series of congressional hearings over the next week that are likely to be a major test of his leadership following what is widely viewed as a rocky first few months on the job. The hearings, which begin Tuesday in front of a House subcommittee, will be the first time Hegseth will testify to Congress since his confirmation hearings in January and negative headlines earlier in the spring about chaos and dysfunction at the Pentagon. Lawmakers will have their first chance to question Hegseth under oath about his role in Signalgate, in which he and other national security officials discussed detailed military plans in a text chain that inadvertently included a prominent journalist. Hegseth – who will be testifying alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine – is also likely to face questions on a number of other thorny topics, including his plans to mobilize Marines to Los Angeles; the large-scale military operation against the Houthis in Yemen that ended abruptly last month; and his clashes with the Pentagon's Joint Staff. Drama consumed Hegseth's office this spring. He invited Elon Musk to the Pentagon for a classified briefing without first informing the White House and fired three senior Defense Department officials he accused of leaking to the press. Hegseth also faced significant blowback after sharing detailed military plans in a secure messaging app about a forthcoming strike on Yemen back in March. The tumult and negative headlines Hegseth created – including one from his former spokesman John Ullyot, who said the Pentagon was in 'chaos' under his leadership – led key White House officials to warn him that the drama needed to stop, officials familiar with the matter told CNN. In a statement ahead of the hearing, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said, 'The entire OSD team is working diligently together to return the DoD to its core mission of warfighting and to deliver results. Our accomplishments thus far are proof of that effort, and as the White House stated Monday, Secretary Hegseth has 'the full support' of President Trump.' Following his appearance before the House Appropriations subcommittee on Defense on Tuesday, Hegseth is set to testify before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Defense on Thursday and the House and Senate Armed Services committees also in the coming days. There might also be split-screen moments that reveal some daylight between Hegseth, who considers himself a fierce MAGA warrior, and Caine, who has no social media presence and prefers to stay under the radar. Caine has also disagreed with Hegseth in the past – particularly when it came to the Houthi campaign in Yemen, which Caine was deeply skeptical of, people familiar with the matter told CNN. White House officials will be monitoring Hegseth's testimony, particularly when it comes to Signalgate, which received bipartisan criticism from lawmakers in March. At the time, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sen. Roger Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi, said the information Hegseth posted should have been classified, and asked the Pentagon's inspector general to probe the matter. Hegseth has repeatedly claimed the information he posted, about the military operation against the Houthis in Yemen, were not classified 'war plans.' The administration will also be watching how Hegseth defends President Donald Trump's use of the military domestically – both at the border, where nearly 10,000 active duty troops have been deployed to help deter migrants from crossing into the US, and in California, where Trump activated the California National Guard over the will of state and local officials in response to protests in Los Angeles. On Saturday night, Hegseth posted on X that 'the@DeptofDefense is mobilizing the National Guard IMMEDIATELY to support federal law enforcement in Los Angeles. And, if violence continues, active duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized — they are on high alert.' That comment raised eyebrows both at the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, where officials wondered why Marines would need to be deployed in addition to National Guard troops and what their tasks would be. Lawmakers will likely have similar questions about how the troops have been trained, what their mission is in LA, and what their instructions are for the use of force. On Monday, US Northern Command confirmed that roughly 700 Marines based in California were being activated and heading to Los Angeles to 'seamlessly integrate' with California National Guard troops on the ground there that were mobilized by Trump over the weekend. It is still unclear what their specific task will be once in LA, sources told CNN. Like the National Guard troops, they are prohibited from conducting law enforcement activity such as making arrests unless Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, which permits the president to use the military to end an insurrection or rebellion of federal power. Those questions will likely be particularly pointed during hearings before the Armed Services committees. The ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Jack Reed, said on Sunday that the guard deployment and Hegseth's decision to put active-duty Marines on high alert 'sets a troubling precedent for military intervention in local law enforcement.' More broadly, though, the hearings come as Hegseth has tried in recent months to lay low and project calm to convince the White House that he's up to the job. But he still has no chief of staff after his first one, Joe Kasper, was pushed aside amid complaints that he was fighting with other Pentagon advisers and generally just difficult to reach. And the White House remains deeply skeptical of one of Hegseth's closest aides, Ricky Buria, because he worked under former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Meanwhile, Hegseth has remained fixated on leaks behind the scenes, people familiar with the matter said, further annoying some White House officials. A wide-ranging leak investigation he ordered in April is ongoing, a defense official said, and Hegseth has continued to push for polygraph tests of senior Pentagon officials. 'Secretary Hegseth is absolutely right to be concerned about leakers who are risking our nation's national security,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN in a statement. 'Pete is doing a fantastic job leading the Pentagon, and the President has full confidence in him.' Most recently, Hegseth was particularly angry about critical reporting on the anti-Houthi campaign, people familiar with the matter said. The operation, the largest to date on Hegseth's watch, had limited success and did not end on the Pentagon's terms. Rather, it ended because of a negotiated deal brokered by Trump's Middle East envoy. While Hegseth and CENTCOM Commander Michael Kurilla routinely touted the success of the anti-Houthi operation, Caine routinely asked tough questions about it and appeared deeply skeptical that it would yield useful results, the sources said. He ultimately recommended to Trump that it be wound down, especially since it did not appear to have a clear goal or end-game. For now, Hegseth remains in Trump's good graces, and he was at the White House on Monday along with other members of Trump's national security team to discuss the situation in Los Angeles. 'We have an obligation to defend federal law enforcement officers,' Hegseth posted on X, announcing the Marine deployment, 'even if (California governor) Gavin Newsom will not.'
