Politics and views in the United States.

The Palestinian Ambassador calls on U.N. to stop Israeli attacks. Impacts continue from agency funding cuts, and state bills mirror federal pushback on DEI programs.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to 2025 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

The same images are back to haunt us.

Small children on Guerneas, little siblings injured and disoriented, trying to comfort and reassure each other.

Entire families killed.

Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour is calling on the Security Council to condemn renewed Israeli attacks on Gaza that killed more than 400 Palestinian civilians.

The Israeli Prime Minister says the deadliest single day in a year and a half of war is only the beginning.

A fragile ceasefire held for two months but collapsed, with Hamas accusing Israel of not negotiating seriously on a final peace deal, and Israel demanding the release of more hostages.

The Trump administration has cut funding for voting security, putting employees of the election cybersecurity agency on leave.

In spite of steps taken over the last four years, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes says he feels like the canary in the coal mine.

We've had our knees kicked out from underneath us.

Foreign adversaries now have an open door to come in and do all kinds of things, including repeating the pattern of bomb threats intended specifically to disrupt our elections on election day like we saw in November.

Without a centralized election information analysis center, he says we'll see increasingly more misinformation and political deepfakes.

Fontes says a bipartisan group of local officials are discussing a replacement.

A federal judge in Maryland ruled Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency violated the Constitution in several ways during its rush to close the U.S. agency for international development.

The judge's order says Congress created USAID and dismantling it would require changing the law.

He also wrote Musk was not properly appointed.

In a letter to Congress, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy says the Postal Service will work with the Department of Government Efficiency to reduce spending, cutting 10,000 jobs, reviewing retail leases and tackling counterfeit postage.

His letter comes amidst renewed discussion of privatizing the post office.

American Postal Workers Union President Mark Diamonstein says that would be hard on rural America.

Bad news for the older adults, veterans and disabled people depending on the post office to deliver mail to everyone and for their communities.

It's also very important, I think, for the public to be reminded that good living wage jobs help our communities.

They help make them stronger.

That good jobs turnover in the community, the restaurants, the small retail stores, the housing.

Federal state legislatures are moving to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

The Advanced Ohio Higher Education Act would ban DEI at public colleges, prohibit faculty strikes and make it harder to keep tenure.

Scott DeMuro is with the Ohio Education Association.

There are very serious attacks on collective bargaining rights embedded in that law.

It is one of these culture war fronts where extremist politicians are trying to eliminate all efforts at inclusion, diversity and accessibility.

I'm Edwin J. Vieira for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

Find our trust indicators at publicnewsservice.org.