LIVE LIVE: ‘Behave yourself’: China’s veiled warning to Rubio
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President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump speak with Los Angeles firefights as they tour the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood affected by the recent wildfires | AP/PTI

LIVE: ‘Behave yourself’: China’s veiled warning to Rubio

Trump visits fire-ravaged areas, promises to work closely with local authorities to support the victims


US President Donald Trump on Friday (January 24) toured the fire-ravaged Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles, shaking hands with firefighters and talking to a few residents, surveying the extent of destruction.

The new President walked through a neighbourhood of levelled homes and scorched trees and firefighters presented him with a white fire helmet, emblazoned with the number 47 on the front and side.

Trump expressed his shock at the devastation and promised to work closely with local authorities to support the victims.

'Get rid of FEMA, too slow'

Earlier, Trump said he was considering “getting rid of” the Federal Emergency Management Agency, offering the latest sign of how he is weighing sweeping changes to the nation's central organization for responding to disasters.

Instead of having federal financial assistance flow through FEMA, the Republican president said Washington could provide money directly to the states. He made the comments while visiting North Carolina, which is still recovering months after Hurricane Helene, on the first trip of his second term.

“FEMA has been a very big disappointment," the Republican president said. “It's very bureaucratic. And it's very slow." Trump said Michael Whatley, a North Carolina native and chair of the Republican National Committee, would help coordinate recovery efforts in the state, where frustrations over the federal response have lingered. Although Whatley does not hold an official government position, Trump said he would be “very much in charge.”

The president emphasized his desire to help North Carolina, a battleground state that's voted for him in all of his presidential campaigns.

According to reports, Trump also visited Swannanoa to meet with those affected by Hurricane Helene. As the victims shared their experiences of the devastating storm, Trump blamed Joe Biden for the disaster.

Live Updates

  • 25 Jan 2025 11:00 AM

    'Getting hard criminals out': Trump admin begins deportation flights

    Within just a little over four days after Donald Trump took over as the 47th President of the United States, the country has begun deportation flights for illegal immigrants using military aircraft.

    Mass deportation of illegal immigrants has been one of the major poll promises of the Trump campaign. As part of it, Trump has also signed an executive order declaring that future children born to undocumented immigrants would no longer be treated as citizens.

    The Department of Defense said two of its aircraft conducted repatriation flights from the US to Guatemala.

    White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later told reporters that Trump’s border policies have already led to the arrest of 538 illegal immigrants and deportation flights using military aircraft, the first since President Dwight Eisenhower, have begun.

    "Deportation flights have begun. President Trump is sending a strong and clear message to the entire world: if you illegally enter the United States of America, you will face severe consequences," she wrote on X.

    Talking to reporters in North Carolina, President Trump said, "Deportation is going very well. We're getting the bad, hard criminals out. These are murderers. These are people that have been as bad as you get, as bad as anybody you've seen. We're taking them out first."

    According to Congressman Tony Gonzales from Texas, the Department of Defense on Friday assisted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with deporting 80 Guatemalan nationals from Biggs Army Airfield.

    "Texas has been ground zero for the border crisis and will be ground zero for deportation operations. In four days, President Trump has done more to protect our country than Biden did in four years,” he said.

  • 25 Jan 2025 10:58 AM

    Pete Hegseth confirmed as US Defence Secretary

    The US Senate has narrowly confirmed Pete Hegseth as the country’s Defence Secretary after Vice President J D Vance cast a rare tiebreaker vote, approving President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Pentagon after a contentious battle over his nomination amid allegations of sexual assault and alcohol abuse. In the 100-member Senate, the ruling Republican Party has 53 members.

    With the vote tied at 50-50, Vance used his rare vote to confirm the nomination of Hegseth, 44, a veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

    All 47 Democrats voted against Hegseth, a former Fox News host.

    Three Republican Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitch McConnell also voted against him.

    Hegseth’s confirmation process has been mired in allegations of sexual assault, alcohol abuse and financial mismanagement of veterans’ charities, all of which he has denied.

  • 25 Jan 2025 10:56 AM

    Senate heads towards confirming Kristi Noem as Trump's homeland security secretary

    The Senate is heading towards a vote on confirming South Dakota Gov Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary, placing her at the head of a sprawling agency that will be essential to both national security and President Donald Trump's plans to squash illegal immigration.

    Republicans were determined to barrel through on Noem's confirmation, threatening to keep the Senate working through the weekend to install Trump's national security Cabinet officials. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth won confirmation Friday night, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe were already in place.

    Noem, a Trump ally who is in her second term as South Dakota governor, received some support from Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security Committee when it voted 13-2 to advance her nomination earlier this week. Republicans, who already hold the votes necessary to confirm her, have also expressed confidence in her determination to lead border security and immigration enforcement.

  • 25 Jan 2025 10:54 AM

    Democratic states weigh more support for immigrants

    As President Donald Trump tightens the nation's immigration policies, lawmakers in Democratic-led states are proposing new measures that could erect legal obstacles for federal immigration officials and help immigrants lacking legal status avoid deportation.

    The resistance efforts in California, New York and other states are a counterpoint to the many Republican-led states advancing measures to aid Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration, highlighting a national divide.

    Democrats in states such as Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington are backing measures to expand health care and higher education for immigrants, restrict landlords from inquiring about immigration status or block government agreements to open new immigrant detention centres.

    Unlike in criminal courts, there is no constitutional right to a government-funded attorney in immigration courts. As Trump ramps up deportation efforts, some state measures would help pay for attorneys to defend people facing immigration proceedings.

    One leader of such efforts is New York Assemblywoman Catalina Cruz, who came to the US at age 9 from Colombia and remained without legal status for over a decade before gaining permanent residency and becoming a US citizen and a lawyer.

    Cruz has filed more than a half-dozen bills to aid immigrants. One would assert a right under state law to legal counsel in immigration proceedings in New York, or elsewhere if the immigrant was living in New York. Another would authorize state grants for organizations to hire, train and equip staff to provide legal aid to people facing deportation.

    “In a world where the threat of mass deportations is imminent,” the legislation "gives people an opportunity to fight their case, to fight for their families, to fight for their rights,” Cruz said.

    Some legislative proposals also would fund attorneys who could help immigrants obtain legal residency.

    A bill by Oregon state Senator Lisa Reynolds would require the state Department of Human Services to offer grants to nonprofits to help people who aren't citizens change their immigration status or become lawful permanent residents. It would provide $6 million to launch the program during the budget biennium beginning in July.

    In California, about one in five children live in families where at least one person does not have legal status, according to The Children's Partnership, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit.

    California Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, chair of the chamber's education committee, is sponsoring legislation that would make it more difficult for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to enter schools and child-care centers.

    The bill would require federal officials to have a judicial warrant, written statement of purpose, valid identification and approval from a facility administrator. If those criteria are met, federal immigration officials still could only access areas where children aren't present.

    Muratsuchi said he started working on the legislation as soon as Trump was elected.

    “This is a top priority to protect all of our students, including our immigrant students,” Muratsuchi said.

  • 25 Jan 2025 10:48 AM

    Opting out of WHO not good for anyone, including US: Soumya Swaminathan

    Former chief scientist of the World Health Organisation, Soumya Swaminathan, has said the US opting out of WHO would not be good for anyone including that country and contributions to the global health watchdog depends on the GDPs of respective countries.

    Hoping that the US, which has so much technical and scientific expertise, will reconsider its decision, she said if it opts out, the North American nation would also be unable to access data of WHO to be part of solutions.

    "The richer the country, the more you pay because you have to pay as a percentage of your GDP. The current system is very fair. You cannot expect a small country in the middle of Africa like Congo to pay the same amount as the United States," Swaminathan told PTI Videos, on the sidelines of the Hyderabad Literary Festival.

    She was responding to US President Donald Trump’s comments that his country with 325 million population paid USD 500 million to the WHO against China with 1.4 billion people paying USD 39 million.

    Trump recently signed an executive order beginning the process of withdrawing America from the WHO, the second time in less than five years that the US has made a move to withdraw from the world body.

    She opined that for health security in the future and to protect people from pandemics, all countries, including the US, need to work together.

    "Even the United States will actually find it difficult to access data to be part of solutions to know what is going on in the other parts of the world if they are not part of WHO," Swaminathan said.

    "I think it is really not good for anyone that such an important, such a large country is withdrawing." Asserting that health is interconnected and all the health risks are global, she said today viruses arising in one part of the world can spread around the world within 30 hours.

    "So, unless we have global collaboration and global policies and rules and regulations and understanding between countries, it is going to be impossible to address the threats to global health," Swaminathan said.

  • 25 Jan 2025 10:41 AM

    China's veiled warning to Rubio

    China's veteran foreign minister has issued a veiled warning to America's new secretary of state: Behave yourself.

    Foreign Minister Wang Yi conveyed the message in a phone call Friday, their first conversation since Marco Rubio's confirmation as President Donald Trump's top diplomat four days earlier.

    “I hope you will act accordingly,” Wang told Rubio, according to a Foreign Ministry statement, employing a Chinese phrase typically used by a teacher or a boss warning a student or employee to behave and be responsible for their actions.

    The short phrase seemed aimed at Rubio's vocal criticism of China and its human rights record when he was a US senator, which prompted the Chinese government to put sanctions on him twice in 2020.

    It can be translated in various ways — in the past, the Foreign Ministry has used “make the right choice” and “be very prudent about what they say or do” rather than “act accordingly.”

    The vagueness allows the phrase to express an expectation and deliver a veiled warning, while also maintaining the courtesy necessary for further diplomatic engagement, said Zichen Wang, a research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, a Chinese think tank.

    “What could appear to be confusing is thus an intended effect originating from Chinese traditional wisdom and classic practice of speech,” said Wang, who is currently in a mid-career master's programme at Princeton University.

    Wang was foreign minister in 2020 when China slapped sanctions on Rubio in July and August, first in response to US sanctions on Chinese officials for a crackdown on the Uyghur minority in the Xinjiang region and then over what it regarded as outside interference in Hong Kong.

    The sanctions include a ban on travel to China, and while the Chinese government has indicated it will engage with Rubio as secretary of state, it has not explicitly said whether it would allow him to visit the country for talks.

  • 25 Jan 2025 8:20 AM

    Marco Rubio tells Chinese counterpart that administration will put ‘America First’

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio told his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi that the Trump administration will pursue a relationship with China that puts the American people first.

    "Secretary Rubio emphasised that the Trump administration will pursue a US-PRC (People's Republic of China) relationship that advances US interests and puts the American people first," said the State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce.

    “The Secretary also stressed the United States’ commitment to our allies in the region and serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan and in the South China Sea,” Bruce said.

  • 25 Jan 2025 8:15 AM

    Saudi Arabia's crown prince to invest $600 billion in US over 4 years

    Saudi Arabia’s crown prince said during a phone call with President Trump that he wishes to invest $600 billion in the United States over the next four years,

    “The crown prince affirmed the kingdom’s intention to broaden its investments and trade with the United States over the next four years, in the amount of $600 billion, and potentially beyond that,” a report said.

  • 25 Jan 2025 8:14 AM

    President seeks immunity for January 6 civil lawsuits

    President Donald Trump is seeking immunity in several civil lawsuits seeking to hold him liable for the violence during the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

    Trump’s personal lawyers argued that he should be immune from civil claims because he was acting in his official capacity as president as he tried to overturn his 2020 election loss.

  • 25 Jan 2025 8:13 AM

    Mexico ready to work with US President

    The Mexican government said they are ready to work with President Donald Trump's administration which is deporting Mexican citizens from the United States.

    "We will always accept the arrival of Mexicans to our territory with open arms," the ministry said.

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X that Mexico on Thursday had accepted a record four deportation flights in one day.

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