Intelligence officials to brief Senate on national security threats facing the United States

• March 25, 2025

By ERIC TUCKER and DAVID KLEPPER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration’s top intelligence officials face Congress for back-to-back hearings this week, their first opportunity since being sworn in to testify about the threats facing the United States and what the government is doing to counter them.

FBI Director Kash Patel, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, are among the witnesses who will appear Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee and Wednesday before the House Intelligence Committee.

Tuesday’s hearing will take place one day after news broke that several top national security officials in the Trump administration, including Ratcliffe and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, texted war plans for upcoming military strikes in Yemen to a group chat in a secure messaging app that included the editor-in-chief for The Atlantic.

The annual hearings on worldwide threats will offer a glimpse of the Trump administration’s reorienting of priorities, which officials across agencies have described as countering the scourge of fentanyl and fighting violent crime, human trafficking and illegal immigration.

Former FBI Director Christopher Wray routinely has said he is hard-pressed to think of a time in his career when the United States faced so many elevated threats at once, but the concerns he more regularly highlighted had to do with sophisticated Chinese espionage plots, ransomware attacks that have crippled hospitals and international and domestic terrorism.

“We have to change to the dynamic threat landscape that is changing constantly not just in America but abroad,” Patel said in a Fox News interview that aired Sunday night, citing the elevated threat from “narco-traffickers.” But, he added, “we’re not going to forget or ignore national security — never.”

The hearings are also unfolding against the backdrop of a starkly different approach toward Russia following years of Biden administration sanctions over its war against Ukraine.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed during a lengthy call with President Donald Trump to an immediate pause in strikes against energy infrastructure in what the White House described as the first step in a “movement to peace.”

​ Orange County Register 

Mike Huckabee, Trump’s pick to be Israel ambassador, will face senators as war in Gaza restarts

• March 25, 2025

By MATTHEW LEE and FARNOUSH AMIRI, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to Israel will face a confirmation hearing Tuesday on Capitol Hill as U.S. and Arab mediators struggle to get a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas back on track after Israeli forces resumed the war in Gaza last week with a surprise wave of deadly airstrikes.

Trump nominated Mike Huckabee, a well-known evangelical Christian and vehement supporter of Israel, to take on the critical post in Jerusalem days after he won reelection on a campaign promise to end the now 17-month war.

If Huckabee, a Republican, is confirmed by the Senate, his posting will likely complicate an already unstable situation in the Middle East as the former governor of Arkansas has taken stances on the conflict that sharply contradict longstanding U.S. policy in the region.

Huckabee, a one-time presidential hopeful, has spoken favorably in the past about Israel’s right to annex the West Bank and incorporate its Palestinian population into Israel. He has repeatedly backed referring to the West Bank by its biblical name of “Judea and Samaria,” a term that right-wing Israeli politicians and activists have thus far fruitlessly pushed the U.S. to accept.

Most notably, Huckabee has long been opposed to the idea of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinian people. In an interview last year, he went even further, saying that he doesn’t even believe in referring to the Arab descendants of people who lived in British-controlled Palestine as “Palestinians.”

“There really isn’t such a thing,” he said on the podcast show “Think Twice” with Jonathan Tobin. “It’s a term that was co-opted by Yasser Arafat in 1962,” referring to one of the early leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

During the same interview, Huckabee described himself as an “unapologetic, unreformed Zionist.”

As the situation in Gaza has deteriorated with the recent collapse of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage release deal, Israeli officials have begun to talk more seriously about re-occupation of the territory, something to which the Biden administration had been adamantly opposed.

Trump has made his own proposals about a potential U.S. takeover of Gaza, which have attracted attention as well as strong criticism from Arab nations and others.

Huckabee will likely be asked about all of these points in addition to ongoing Israeli military action against Hezbollah in Lebanon and persistent threats to the country from Iran and Iranian-backed proxy groups, like the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

In remarks prepared for his testimony, obtained by The Associated Press, Huckabee does not specifically mention either annexation or Trump’s Gaza plan. But he can be expected to offer qualified praise of both, given that he blasts many past Mideast policies as “failed” and speaks of the need to look “at entirely new ways” of promoting peace.

He plans to reaffirm his strong endorsement of Trump’s policies toward Israel during his first term in office, notably his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, his decision to move the U.S. embassy to the holy city from Tel Aviv, his recognition of the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory and his sealing of the Abraham Accords, in which several Arab nations normalized relations with Israel, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

“President Trump’s first term was the most consequential for Israel and the Middle East ever with his historic Abraham Accords, and finally moving our embassy to Jerusalem, the ancient, indigenous and biblical eternal capital of the Jewish people,” Huckabee’s prepared remarks say.

Trump’s pick for ambassador to Panama also testifying

Another nominee testifying before the committee on Tuesday is Kevin Cabrera, Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to Panama, a country that has bristled at the Republican president’s repeated calls for the U.S. to retake control of the Panama Canal for national security reasons due to potential threats from China. The status of the canal was one of the top items on Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s agenda when he visited Panama City on his first trip as America’s top diplomat in February.

“One of the key aspects of our cooperation is ensuring the security of the Panama Canal, a critical international waterway that facilitates global trade and economic growth,” Cabrera will say according to remarks prepared for the hearing.

He plans to praise decisions by the Panamanian government to withdraw from China’s Belt and Road Initiative and to review contracts with a China-based company that is running ports at both ends of the canal. The company has preliminarily agreed to sell its interests in the subsidiaries that run the ports, but the deal is not yet complete.

Amiri reported from New York.

​ Orange County Register 

Mike Huckabee, Trump’s pick to be Israel ambassador, will face senators as war in Gaza restarts

• March 25, 2025

By MATTHEW LEE and FARNOUSH AMIRI, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to Israel will face a confirmation hearing Tuesday on Capitol Hill as U.S. and Arab mediators struggle to get a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas back on track after Israeli forces resumed the war in Gaza last week with a surprise wave of deadly airstrikes.

Trump nominated Mike Huckabee, a well-known evangelical Christian and vehement supporter of Israel, to take on the critical post in Jerusalem days after he won reelection on a campaign promise to end the now 17-month war.

If Huckabee, a Republican, is confirmed by the Senate, his posting will likely complicate an already unstable situation in the Middle East as the former governor of Arkansas has taken stances on the conflict that sharply contradict longstanding U.S. policy in the region.

Huckabee, a one-time presidential hopeful, has spoken favorably in the past about Israel’s right to annex the West Bank and incorporate its Palestinian population into Israel. He has repeatedly backed referring to the West Bank by its biblical name of “Judea and Samaria,” a term that right-wing Israeli politicians and activists have thus far fruitlessly pushed the U.S. to accept.

Most notably, Huckabee has long been opposed to the idea of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinian people. In an interview last year, he went even further, saying that he doesn’t even believe in referring to the Arab descendants of people who lived in British-controlled Palestine as “Palestinians.”

“There really isn’t such a thing,” he said on the podcast show “Think Twice” with Jonathan Tobin. “It’s a term that was co-opted by Yasser Arafat in 1962,” referring to one of the early leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

During the same interview, Huckabee described himself as an “unapologetic, unreformed Zionist.”

As the situation in Gaza has deteriorated with the recent collapse of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage release deal, Israeli officials have begun to talk more seriously about re-occupation of the territory, something to which the Biden administration had been adamantly opposed.

Trump has made his own proposals about a potential U.S. takeover of Gaza, which have attracted attention as well as strong criticism from Arab nations and others.

Huckabee will likely be asked about all of these points in addition to ongoing Israeli military action against Hezbollah in Lebanon and persistent threats to the country from Iran and Iranian-backed proxy groups, like the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

In remarks prepared for his testimony, obtained by The Associated Press, Huckabee does not specifically mention either annexation or Trump’s Gaza plan. But he can be expected to offer qualified praise of both, given that he blasts many past Mideast policies as “failed” and speaks of the need to look “at entirely new ways” of promoting peace.

He plans to reaffirm his strong endorsement of Trump’s policies toward Israel during his first term in office, notably his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, his decision to move the U.S. embassy to the holy city from Tel Aviv, his recognition of the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory and his sealing of the Abraham Accords, in which several Arab nations normalized relations with Israel, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

“President Trump’s first term was the most consequential for Israel and the Middle East ever with his historic Abraham Accords, and finally moving our embassy to Jerusalem, the ancient, indigenous and biblical eternal capital of the Jewish people,” Huckabee’s prepared remarks say.

Trump’s pick for ambassador to Panama also testifying

Another nominee testifying before the committee on Tuesday is Kevin Cabrera, Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to Panama, a country that has bristled at the Republican president’s repeated calls for the U.S. to retake control of the Panama Canal for national security reasons due to potential threats from China. The status of the canal was one of the top items on Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s agenda when he visited Panama City on his first trip as America’s top diplomat in February.

“One of the key aspects of our cooperation is ensuring the security of the Panama Canal, a critical international waterway that facilitates global trade and economic growth,” Cabrera will say according to remarks prepared for the hearing.

He plans to praise decisions by the Panamanian government to withdraw from China’s Belt and Road Initiative and to review contracts with a China-based company that is running ports at both ends of the canal. The company has preliminarily agreed to sell its interests in the subsidiaries that run the ports, but the deal is not yet complete.

Amiri reported from New York.

​ Orange County Register 

Mangione wants a laptop in jail while he awaits trial in killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO

• March 25, 2025

By JENNIFER PELTZ, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Luigi Mangione is asking for a laptop in jail, but just for legal purposes — not for communicating with anyone — as he awaits trial in the killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO.

In a court filing made public late Monday, Mangione’s lawyers proposed that he get a laptop configured solely to let him view a vast amount of documents, video and other material in the case surrounding the shooting of Brian Thompson. Similar limited-laptop provisions have been made for some other defendants in the federal lockup where Mangione is being held.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is prosecuting Mangione on a rare New York state charge of murder as an act of terrorism, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. According to Mangione’s lawyers, prosecutors are frowning on the laptop request, saying that some witnesses have been threatened.

Defense lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo wrote that there’s “no connection to Mr. Mangione for any of said alleged threats.”

Mangione, 26, is accused of gunning down Thompson in December outside a Manhattan hotel where UnitedHealthcare was about to hold an investor conference. Thompson, who was 50 and had two children in high school, worked for decades within UnitedHealthcare and its parent company.

Mangione, an Ivy League computer science graduate from a Maryland real estate family, has pleaded not guilty to the New York state charges. He also faces a parallel federal case that carries the possibility of the death penalty. He hasn’t entered a plea to the federal charges or to state-level gun possession and other charges in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested days after Thompson’s death.

Thompson’s killing alarmed the corporate world, where some health insurers hastily switched to remote work or online shareholder meetings.

But at the same time, the case channeled some Americans’ frustrations with health insurance companies. Mangione’s writings and words on bullets recovered from the scene reflected animus toward health insurers and corporate America, authorities have said.

Some people have lionized the accused killer, donated money to his defense and even flocked to his court appearances. Others, including elected officials, have deplored the praise for what they cast as ideological violence and vigilante justice.

Through his lawyers, Mangione has released a statement thanking supporters.

If he does get a laptop, it would be unable to connect to the internet, run video games or play movies or other entertainment, his lawyers said in Monday’s filing. But it would let him examine, from his jail cell, more than 15,000 pages of documents and thousands of hours of video that prosecutors gathered and were required to turn over to his attorneys.

Otherwise, he can view the material when meeting with his lawyers. But they say there aren’t enough visiting hours in the day for him to do that and properly help prepare his defense.

​ Orange County Register 

Greenlanders unite to fend off the US as Trump seeks control of the Arctic island

• March 25, 2025

By DANICA KIRKA, Associated Press

NUUK, Greenland (AP) — Lisa Sólrun Christiansen gets up at 4 a.m. most days and gets to work knitting thick wool sweaters coveted by buyers around the world for their warmth and colorful patterns celebrating Greenland’s traditional Inuit culture.

Her morning routine includes a quick check of the news, but these days the ritual shatters her peace because of all the stories about U.S. President Donald Trump’s designs on her homeland.

“I get overwhelmed,’’ Christiansen said earlier this month as she looked out to sea, where impossibly blue icebergs floated just offshore.

The daughter of Inuit and Danish parents, Christiansen, 57, cherishes Greenland. It is a source of immense family pride that her father, an artist and teacher, designed the red-and-white Greenlandic flag.

“On his deathbed he talked a lot about the flag, and he said that the flag is not his, it’s the people’s,” she said. “And there’s one sentence I keep thinking about. He said, ‘I hope the flag will unite the Greenlandic people.’’’

Island of anxiety

Greenlanders are increasingly worried that their homeland, a self-governing region of Denmark, has become a pawn in the competition between the U.S., Russia and China as global warming opens up access to the Arctic. They fear Trump’s aim to take control of Greenland, which holds rich mineral deposits and straddles strategic air and sea routes, may block their path toward independence.

Those fears were heightened Sunday when Usha Vance, the wife of U.S. Vice President JD Vance, announced she would visit Greenland later this week to attend the national dogsled race. Separately, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright will visit a U.S. military base in northern Greenland.

The announcement inflamed tensions sparked earlier this month when Trump reiterated his desire to annex Greenland just two days after Greenlanders elected a new parliament opposed to becoming part of the U.S. Trump even made a veiled reference to the possibility of military pressure, noting the U.S. bases in Greenland and musing that “maybe you’ll see more and more soldiers go there.”

News of the visit drew an immediate backlash from local politicians, who described it as a display of U.S. power at a time they are trying to form a government.

“It must also be stated in bold that our integrity and democracy must be respected without any external interference,” outgoing Prime Minister Múte Boroup Egede said.

Greenland, part of Denmark since 1721, has been moving toward independence for decades. It’s a goal most Greenlanders support, though they differ on when and how that should happen. They don’t want to trade Denmark for an American overlord.

The question is whether Greenland will be allowed to control its own destiny at a time of rising international tensions when Trump sees the island as key to U.S. national security.

David vs. Goliath

While Greenland has limited leverage against the world’s greatest superpower, Trump made a strategic mistake by triggering a dispute with Greenland and Denmark rather than working with its NATO allies in Nuuk and Copenhagen, said Otto Svendsen, an Arctic expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Trump’s actions, he says, have united Greenlanders and fostered a greater sense of national identity.

“You have this feeling of pride and of self-determination in Greenland that the Greenlanders are not, you know, cowed by this pressure coming from Washington,” Svendsen said. “And they’re doing everything in their power to make their voices heard.”

Denmark recognized Greenland’s right to independence at a time of its choosing under the 2009 Greenland Self-Government Act, which was approved by local voters and ratified by the Danish parliament. The right to self-determination is also enshrined in the United Nations charter, approved by the U.S. in 1945.

U.S. national security

But Trump is more focused on the economic and security needs of the U.S. than the rights of smaller nations. Since returning to office in January, he has pressured Ukraine into giving the U.S. access to valuable mineral resources, threatened to reclaim the Panama Canal and suggested that Canada should become the 51st state.

Now he has turned his attention to Greenland, a territory of 56,000 people, most from indigenous Inuit backgrounds.

Greenland guards access to the Arctic at a time when melting sea ice has reignited competition for energy and mineral resources and attracted an increased Russian military presence. The Pituffik Space Base on the island’s northwest coast supports missile warning and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO.

Before Trump’s re-election, Greenlanders hoped to leverage this unique position to help the country achieve independence. Now they fear it has made them vulnerable.

Cebastian Rosing, who works for a water taxi firm that offers tours around the Nuuk fjord, said he’s frustrated that Trump is trying to take over just as Greenland has begun to assert its autonomy and celebrate its Inuit origins.

“It’s so weird to defend (the idea) that our country is our country because it’s always been our country,” he said. “We’re just getting our culture back because of colonialism.”

Strategic importance

It’s not that Greenlanders don’t like the U.S. They have welcomed Americans for decades.

The U.S. effectively occupied Greenland during World War II, building a string of air and naval bases.

After the war, President Harry Truman’s government offered to buy the island because of “the extreme importance of Greenland to the defense of the United States.” Denmark rejected the proposal but signed a long-term base agreement.

When Trump resurrected the proposal during his first term, it was quickly rejected by Denmark and dismissed as a headline-grabbing stunt. But now Trump is pursuing the idea with renewed energy.

During a speech earlier this month he told a joint session of Congress that the U.S. needed to take control of Greenland to protect its national security. “I think we’re going to get it,” Trump said. “One way or the other.”

A model in the Marshall Islands?

Even so, Trump has his admirers in Greenland.

And there is no greater fan than Jørgen Boassen. When he spoke to The Associated Press, Boassen wore a T-shirt featuring a photo of Trump with his fist in the air and blood streaming down his face after an assassination attempt last year. Underneath was the slogan, “American Badass.”

Boassen works for an organization called American Daybreak, which was founded by former Trump official Thomas Dans and promotes closer ties between the U.S. and Greenland.

The former bricklayer, who describes himself as “110%″ Inuit, has a litany of complaints about Denmark, most stemming from what he sees as mistreatment of local people during colonial rule. In particular, he cites Inuit women who say they were fitted with birth control devices without their permission during the 1970s.

Trump must act to secure America’s back door, Boassen says, because Denmark has failed to guarantee Greenland’s security.

But even he wants Greenland to be independent, a U.S. ally but not the 51st state.

What he has in mind is something more like the free-association agreement the Marshall Islands negotiated with the U.S. when it became independent in 1986. That agreement recognizes the Pacific archipelago as a sovereign nation that conducts its own foreign policy but gives the U.S. control over defense and security.

“We’re in 2025,’’ Boassen said. “So I don’t believe they can come here and take over.”

Whatever happens, most Greenlanders agree that the island’s fate should be up to them, not Trump.

“We have to stand together,’’ Christiansen said, her knitting needles clicking and clacking.

This story, supported by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, is part of an ongoing Associated Press series covering threats to democracy in Europe.

​ Orange County Register 

Greenlanders unite to fend off the US as Trump seeks control of the Arctic island

• March 25, 2025

By DANICA KIRKA, Associated Press

NUUK, Greenland (AP) — Lisa Sólrun Christiansen gets up at 4 a.m. most days and gets to work knitting thick wool sweaters coveted by buyers around the world for their warmth and colorful patterns celebrating Greenland’s traditional Inuit culture.

Her morning routine includes a quick check of the news, but these days the ritual shatters her peace because of all the stories about U.S. President Donald Trump’s designs on her homeland.

“I get overwhelmed,’’ Christiansen said earlier this month as she looked out to sea, where impossibly blue icebergs floated just offshore.

The daughter of Inuit and Danish parents, Christiansen, 57, cherishes Greenland. It is a source of immense family pride that her father, an artist and teacher, designed the red-and-white Greenlandic flag.

“On his deathbed he talked a lot about the flag, and he said that the flag is not his, it’s the people’s,” she said. “And there’s one sentence I keep thinking about. He said, ‘I hope the flag will unite the Greenlandic people.’’’

Island of anxiety

Greenlanders are increasingly worried that their homeland, a self-governing region of Denmark, has become a pawn in the competition between the U.S., Russia and China as global warming opens up access to the Arctic. They fear Trump’s aim to take control of Greenland, which holds rich mineral deposits and straddles strategic air and sea routes, may block their path toward independence.

Those fears were heightened Sunday when Usha Vance, the wife of U.S. Vice President JD Vance, announced she would visit Greenland later this week to attend the national dogsled race. Separately, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright will visit a U.S. military base in northern Greenland.

The announcement inflamed tensions sparked earlier this month when Trump reiterated his desire to annex Greenland just two days after Greenlanders elected a new parliament opposed to becoming part of the U.S. Trump even made a veiled reference to the possibility of military pressure, noting the U.S. bases in Greenland and musing that “maybe you’ll see more and more soldiers go there.”

News of the visit drew an immediate backlash from local politicians, who described it as a display of U.S. power at a time they are trying to form a government.

“It must also be stated in bold that our integrity and democracy must be respected without any external interference,” outgoing Prime Minister Múte Boroup Egede said.

Greenland, part of Denmark since 1721, has been moving toward independence for decades. It’s a goal most Greenlanders support, though they differ on when and how that should happen. They don’t want to trade Denmark for an American overlord.

The question is whether Greenland will be allowed to control its own destiny at a time of rising international tensions when Trump sees the island as key to U.S. national security.

David vs. Goliath

While Greenland has limited leverage against the world’s greatest superpower, Trump made a strategic mistake by triggering a dispute with Greenland and Denmark rather than working with its NATO allies in Nuuk and Copenhagen, said Otto Svendsen, an Arctic expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Trump’s actions, he says, have united Greenlanders and fostered a greater sense of national identity.

“You have this feeling of pride and of self-determination in Greenland that the Greenlanders are not, you know, cowed by this pressure coming from Washington,” Svendsen said. “And they’re doing everything in their power to make their voices heard.”

Denmark recognized Greenland’s right to independence at a time of its choosing under the 2009 Greenland Self-Government Act, which was approved by local voters and ratified by the Danish parliament. The right to self-determination is also enshrined in the United Nations charter, approved by the U.S. in 1945.

U.S. national security

But Trump is more focused on the economic and security needs of the U.S. than the rights of smaller nations. Since returning to office in January, he has pressured Ukraine into giving the U.S. access to valuable mineral resources, threatened to reclaim the Panama Canal and suggested that Canada should become the 51st state.

Now he has turned his attention to Greenland, a territory of 56,000 people, most from indigenous Inuit backgrounds.

Greenland guards access to the Arctic at a time when melting sea ice has reignited competition for energy and mineral resources and attracted an increased Russian military presence. The Pituffik Space Base on the island’s northwest coast supports missile warning and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO.

Before Trump’s re-election, Greenlanders hoped to leverage this unique position to help the country achieve independence. Now they fear it has made them vulnerable.

Cebastian Rosing, who works for a water taxi firm that offers tours around the Nuuk fjord, said he’s frustrated that Trump is trying to take over just as Greenland has begun to assert its autonomy and celebrate its Inuit origins.

“It’s so weird to defend (the idea) that our country is our country because it’s always been our country,” he said. “We’re just getting our culture back because of colonialism.”

Strategic importance

It’s not that Greenlanders don’t like the U.S. They have welcomed Americans for decades.

The U.S. effectively occupied Greenland during World War II, building a string of air and naval bases.

After the war, President Harry Truman’s government offered to buy the island because of “the extreme importance of Greenland to the defense of the United States.” Denmark rejected the proposal but signed a long-term base agreement.

When Trump resurrected the proposal during his first term, it was quickly rejected by Denmark and dismissed as a headline-grabbing stunt. But now Trump is pursuing the idea with renewed energy.

During a speech earlier this month he told a joint session of Congress that the U.S. needed to take control of Greenland to protect its national security. “I think we’re going to get it,” Trump said. “One way or the other.”

A model in the Marshall Islands?

Even so, Trump has his admirers in Greenland.

And there is no greater fan than Jørgen Boassen. When he spoke to The Associated Press, Boassen wore a T-shirt featuring a photo of Trump with his fist in the air and blood streaming down his face after an assassination attempt last year. Underneath was the slogan, “American Badass.”

Boassen works for an organization called American Daybreak, which was founded by former Trump official Thomas Dans and promotes closer ties between the U.S. and Greenland.

The former bricklayer, who describes himself as “110%″ Inuit, has a litany of complaints about Denmark, most stemming from what he sees as mistreatment of local people during colonial rule. In particular, he cites Inuit women who say they were fitted with birth control devices without their permission during the 1970s.

Trump must act to secure America’s back door, Boassen says, because Denmark has failed to guarantee Greenland’s security.

But even he wants Greenland to be independent, a U.S. ally but not the 51st state.

What he has in mind is something more like the free-association agreement the Marshall Islands negotiated with the U.S. when it became independent in 1986. That agreement recognizes the Pacific archipelago as a sovereign nation that conducts its own foreign policy but gives the U.S. control over defense and security.

“We’re in 2025,’’ Boassen said. “So I don’t believe they can come here and take over.”

Whatever happens, most Greenlanders agree that the island’s fate should be up to them, not Trump.

“We have to stand together,’’ Christiansen said, her knitting needles clicking and clacking.

This story, supported by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, is part of an ongoing Associated Press series covering threats to democracy in Europe.

​ Orange County Register 

International students weigh new risks of pursuing higher education in the US under Trump

• March 25, 2025

By CAROLYN THOMPSON, Associated Press

Since plunging during the COVID-19 pandemic, international student enrollment in the U.S. has been rebounding — a relief to American universities that count on their tuition payments. Two months into the new Trump administration, educators fear that could soon change.

Unnerved by efforts to deport students over political views, students from other countries already in the U.S. have felt new pressure to watch what they say.

A Ph.D. student at the University of Rochester from South Asia said it feels too risky to speak about LGBTQ+ causes she once openly championed or even be seen near a political demonstration. With reports of travel bans circulating, she likely won’t fly home for the summer out of fear she would not be allowed back into the U.S.

“You’re here for an education so you’ve got to keep moving forward on that end,” said the student, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being targeted by authorities. “But also it’s very hard to, say, ‘OK, I’m at work. I’ve got to zone out. I can’t be thinking about the news.’”

Educators worry it’s a balancing act that will turn off foreign students. As the U.S. government takes a harder line on immigration, cuts federal research funding and begins policing campus activism, students are left to wonder if they’ll be able to get visas, travel freely, pursue research or even express an opinion.

“It has a chilling effect,” said Clay Harmon, executive director of AIRC, a membership organization focused on recruiting and enrolling international students. “Even if there’s no direct consequence or direct limitation right now, all of this cumulatively produces an impression that the U.S. is not welcoming, it’s not open or that you may be in some kind of danger or jeopardy if you do come to the U.S.”

During a recent trip to India, the biggest sender of students to the U.S., the consensus among recruiting agencies was that far fewer of that country’s students are interested in American colleges than in recent years, Harmon said.

Some students are waiting to see how policy changes will play out, while others already have deferred admission offers for fall 2025, he said. Student social networks are active, and news about immigration-related developments in America — like a Republican proposal to prevent Chinese students from studying in the U.S. — spreads quickly.

Students in Canada, China, India and elsewhere have been seeking answers and advice on Reddit and other social media sites, wondering whether to move forward with U.S. plans, or choose a college in the United Kingdom, Germany or elsewhere in Europe.

International students are coveted as an antidote to declining domestic enrollment and source of full-price tuition payments. In the 2023-2024 academic year, 1.1 million international students at U.S. colleges and universities contributed an all-time high $43.8 billion to the nation’s economy and supported more than 378,000 jobs, according to data released by NAFSA, an agency that promotes international education.

International graduate students also play a large role in advancing research, said Fanta Aw, who heads NAFSA.

Aw said universities must work to remind prospective students that detentions like those of a pro-Palestinian activist Columbia University and, more recently, a scholar at Georgetown University, still are not the norm, despite the attention they receive.

“We have international students at lots of universities,” she said, and news coverage has focused on consequences for international students at just a couple of colleges. “So we have to also put into perspective the fact that the vast majority of students are in universities where we’re not hearing anything.”

The messaging from colleges and universities on the changing political climate has varied. Some, including Northeastern University in Boston, have responded to Trump’s directives with webpages to keep current and prospective students informed.

“Our global community will continue to be a welcoming place for admitted students from all corners of the world,” spokeswoman Renata Nyul said via email.

Others have gone further. Bunker Hill Community College in Boston has suspended its one- to two-week study abroad programs, citing concerns about potential travel restrictions. Administrators at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism have warned students who are not U.S. citizens about their vulnerability to arrest or deportation.

Brown University has advised international students and staff, including visa holders and permanent residents, to postpone travel after a Brown professor was deported to Lebanon despite having a U.S. visa. Homeland Security officials later said she “openly admitted” to supporting a Hezbollah leader and attending his funeral.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

​ Orange County Register 

Wife of Oscar-winning Palestinian director says he was savagely beaten outside his home

• March 25, 2025

By JULIA FRANKEL, Associated Press

SUSIYA, West Bank (AP) — The lawyer for an Oscar-winning Palestinian director who was attacked by Jewish settlers and detained by Israeli forces says he will be released. Lea Tsemel, the attorney for Hamdan Ballal, said Tuesday that he and two other Palestinians spent the night on the floor of a military base while suffering from serious injuries sustained in the attack.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

The wife of an Oscar-winning Palestinian director who was attacked by Jewish settlers before being detained by the Israeli army said Tuesday that he was beaten in front of his home by three men in military fatigues while another filmed it.

Hamdan Ballal and the other directors of “No Other Land,” which looks at the struggles of living under Israeli occupation, had mounted the stage at the 97th Academy Awards in Los Angeles earlier this month when it won the award for best documentary film.

On Tuesday, he and two other Palestinians were being held at a police station in the occupied West Bank, according to their attorney, Lea Tsemel, who was only allowed to speak to them by phone several hours after they were detained late the night before.

She said all three had been wounded in the attack and were accused of throwing stones at a young settler, allegations they deny.

Palestinian residents say around two dozen settlers — some masked, some carrying guns and some in military uniforms — attacked the West Bank village of Susiya on Monday evening as residents were breaking their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Soldiers who arrived pointed their guns at the Palestinians, while settlers continued throwing stones, they said.

The Israeli military said Monday it had detained three Palestinians suspected of hurling rocks at forces and one Israeli civilian involved in a what it described as a violent confrontation. On Tuesday, it referred further queries to police, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

‘I’m dying!’

Lamia Ballal, the director’s wife, said she heard her husband being beaten outside their home as she huddled inside with their three children. She heard him screaming, “I’m dying!” and calling for an ambulance. When she looked out the window, she saw three men in uniform beating Ballal with the butts of their rifles and another person in civilian clothes who appeared to be filming the violence.

“Of course, after the Oscar, they have come to attack us more,” Lamia said. “I felt afraid.”

West Bank settlers are often armed and sometimes wear military-style clothing that makes it difficult to distinguish them from soldiers.

On Tuesday, a small bloodstain could be seen outside their home, and the car’s windshield and windows were shattered. Neighbors pointed to a nearby water tank with a hole in the side that they said had been punched by the settlers.

Film looked at Palestinians’ struggle to stay on the land

“No Other Land,” which won the Oscar this year for best documentary, chronicles the struggle by residents of the Masafer Yatta area to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages.

The joint Israeli-Palestinian production has won a string of international awards, starting at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2024. It has also drawn ire in Israel and abroad, as when Miami Beach proposed ending the lease of a movie theater that screened it.

Basel Adra, another of the film’s co-directors who is a prominent Palestinian activist in the area, said there’s been a massive upswing in attacks by settlers and Israeli forces since the Oscar win.

“Nobody can do anything to stop the pogroms, and soldiers are only there to facilitate and help the attacks,” he said. “We’re living in dark days here, in Gaza, and all of the West Bank … Nobody’s stopping this.”

Masked settlers with sticks also attacked Jewish activists in the area on Monday, smashing their car windows and slashing tires, according to Josh Kimelman, an activist with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence. Video provided by the group showed a masked settler shoving and swinging his fists at two activists in a dusty field at night.

Open-ended military rule

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians want all three for their future state and view settlement growth as a major obstacle to a two-state solution. Most of the international community considers the settlements illegal.

Israel has built well over 100 settlements, home to over 500,000 settlers who have Israeli citizenship. The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering population centers.

The Israeli military designated Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s and ordered residents, mostly Arab Bedouin, to be expelled. Around 1,000 residents have largely remained in place, but soldiers regularly move in to demolish homes, tents, water tanks and olive orchards — and Palestinians fear outright expulsion could come at any time.

The Palestinians also face threats from settlers at nearby outposts. Palestinians and rights groups say Israeli forces usually turn a blind eye to settler attacks or intervene on behalf of the settlers.

The war in Gaza has sparked a surge of violence in the West Bank, with the Israeli military carrying out widescale military operations that have killed hundreds of Palestinians and displaced tens of thousands. There has been a rise in settler violence as well as Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

​ Orange County Register