CURRENT EVENTS - TAX DAY - April 19

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nycfan said:
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“… Ten embassies and 17 consulates would be shuttered under the Trump administration plan, including Eritrea, Luxembourg, South Sudan and Malta. All would be folded into embassies in nearby countries. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently revoked all visas for South Sudanese citizens in the United States.

“Posts were evaluated based on feedback from regional bureaus and the interagency, consular workload, cost per [U.S. Direct Hire] billet, condition of facilities, and security ratings,” the memo states.

Five of the proposed consulate closures are in France: Lyon, Rennes, Bordeaux, Strasbourg and Marseille. Two are in Germany: Düsseldorf and Leipzig. The list also includes Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital, as well as Florence, Italy.

The consolidation of diplomatic outposts would also apply to a number of major U.S. allies. For Canada, this would mean U.S. consulates in cities such as Montreal and Halifax would be downsized to “provide ‘last-mile’ diplomacy with minimal local support.” …”
 

China Accuses U.S. Spy Agency of Winter Games Cyberattacks​

Beijing is growing increasingly aggressive in pushing back against perceived efforts by the U.S. to prevent China’s rise​



“Chinese police issued wanted notices for three people they said engaged in cyberattacks against China on behalf of the U.S. National Security Agency, a rare step by Beijing as hostilities between the superpowers escalate.

The accusations that the NSA targeted the Asian Winter Games held in the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin in February are part of efforts by Beijing to present China as a victim of U.S. aggression alongside the Trump administration’s hefty tariffs against the country.

… It added that investigators also found evidence of involvement by the University of California and Virginia Tech, without providing details. …”

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ACC on the attack against … the Olympics in China??
 
nycfan said:
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The consolidation of diplomatic outposts would also apply to a number of major U.S. allies. For Canada, this would mean U.S. consulates in cities such as Montreal and Halifax would be downsized to “provide ‘last-mile’ diplomacy with minimal local support.”



^ the Halifax consulate is basically a waiting room with 6 chairs behind a metal detector and 3 or 4 windows. I have never seen more than 1 window open at a time in my 3-4 visits there. You also have to make an appointment as they offer basically no walk in services I believe.

Really not much to downsize.
 

About 25% of IRS workers planning to take buyout offer​



“… The deadline for IRS employees to accept the latest round of “deferred resignation” buyout offers was Tuesday morning. The latest numbers indicate that roughly 22,000 people want to take the offer, the sources said. There are only about 90,000 people employed at the IRS, which means about 25% of the workforce is now preparing to leave.

… This is the second round of buyouts offered by the Trump administration. In the first round, which wrapped in early March, CNN reported that about 4,700 people, or around 5% of the IRS workforce, accepted the offer. The second round has proved much larger.

… “I’m hearing a lot of people accepted the deferred resignation,” one IRS employee in Atlanta said. “The workplace is toxic these days. Morale is low. People try to come in and think positively, but they don’t make it through a full workday without negativity, even in conversation with other employees, or getting the next email in their inbox with bad news.” …”
 
altmin said:
The United States has removed sanctions on a close aide of the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, the state department said, adding that the punitive measures had been “inconsistent with US foreign policy interests”.

www.theguardian.com

‘West as we knew it no longer exists,’ warns von der Leyen – Europe live

Wide-ranging interview addresses how Trump presidency has upended certainties over EU-US relations
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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"...inconsistent with US foreign policy interests." Yeah. Right. inconsistent with trump admins policy. Call me a traitor, but if trump gets us into a war of any kind whereby we are fighting against one of our long-time allies - and fighting on the same side as one of our long-time enemies (like Russia, N. Korea, etc.) I'll turn coat.
 


“… The order resurrected some policies from Trump’s first administration, such as a mandate to community health centers to provide insulin and injectable epinephrine at discounted rates to uninsured and some low-income patients. The Biden administration rescinded this rule in 2021, saying it would be excessively burdensome to health centers.

… The order instructs the Department of Health and Human Services to work with Congress to reconsider how it negotiates certain Medicare drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.

The drug price-negotiation program, created by the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, has been a sore point for the pharmaceutical industry.

Some drugs become eligible for negotiations sooner than others. If it is a pill, a drug becomes eligible after it has been on the market for nine years. If it is injected, it is 13 years. Since the law’s passage in 2022, the industry has pushed to address the eligibility requirements, which it says discourage development of pills. …”
 
nycfan said:


“… The order resurrected some policies from Trump’s first administration, such as a mandate to community health centers to provide insulin and injectable epinephrine at discounted rates to uninsured and some low-income patients. The Biden administration rescinded this rule in 2021, saying it would be excessively burdensome to health centers.

… The order instructs the Department of Health and Human Services to work with Congress to reconsider how it negotiates certain Medicare drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.

The drug price-negotiation program, created by the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, has been a sore point for the pharmaceutical industry.

Some drugs become eligible for negotiations sooner than others. If it is a pill, a drug becomes eligible after it has been on the market for nine years. If it is injected, it is 13 years. Since the law’s passage in 2022, the industry has pushed to address the eligibility requirements, which it says discourage development of pills. …”
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“… Tuesday’s order instructs the Food and Drug Administration to improve a drug importation program introduced during Trump’s first term.

… The order called for the FDA to streamline the import program to help states obtain approval….”

[No word on how that will work with threatened pharmaceutical tariffs - or whether Red States will be prioritized for exemptions from FDA]
 


“… Shapley is the Internal Revenue Service’s fourth leader in less than four months as the Trump administration rapidly shrinks the agency. During the Biden administration, Shapley rose to prominence as an IRS supervisory criminal agent who came forward to Congress and contended that the Justice Department had slow-walked its tax investigation into Hunter Biden.

… Shapley replaces Melanie Krause, who had been acting commissioner since late February and announced her departure after the Treasury Department and the Department of Homeland Security signed a data-sharing agreement aimed at helping the government find some immigrants suspected of crimes. Krause had succeeded Douglas O’Donnell, a longtime agency employee who retired in February. O’Donnell had succeeded Danny Werfel, who resigned on Inauguration Day.

… Shapley brings a profile significantly different from any recent commissioner, entering the job without long experience in the senior ranks of the IRS and starting after sharply criticizing the agency from the inside.

…Since the beginning of the administration, the IRS has lost or is losing its chief financial officer, chief tax compliance officer, chief risk officer, chief privacy officer and its top lawyer and human-resources executive, among others. Shapley will now take over the agency without that core group of managers. …”
 
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