President Joe Biden has announced that the United States would be delivering 31 Abrams Tanks to Ukraine as the country heads into a new phase of its war against Russia.
“With spring approaching, the Ukrainian forces are working to defend the territory they hold and preparing for additional counter-offensive,” President Biden said. “To liberate their land, they need to be able to counter Russia’s evolving tactics and strategy on the battlefield in the very near term.”
Biden explained that the tanks are some of the “most capable in the world,” they would improve Ukraine’s ability to fight in open terrain, and give them “an enduring capability to deter and defend against Russian aggression.”
The announcement was accompanied by Germany’s decision to send 14 Leopard 2 A6 tanks to the nation as well.
“Germany supports Ukraine in defending against Russia’s aggression,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Wednesday. “We are supplying Leopard 2 tanks in close cooperation with our international partners.”
Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy expressed gratitude to the Biden administration following Wednesday’s announcement.
“It’s an important step on the path to victory,” Zelenskyy said on Twitter. “Today the free world is united as never before for a common goal — liberation of Ukraine.”
However, it will likely be months before any tanks are delivered to the front and Ukrainian troops get fully trained to use the complex weapons.
A public petition for the British government not to go through with Brexit gained so many signatures that the Parliament website crashed on Thursday.
There's a phenomenon on the internet called the "Streisand Effect," whereby a person's attempt to suppress information ends up widely publicizing that very same information. It was named after a situation an incident when Barbra Streisand tried to keep images of her Malibu mansion off the web and inadvertently drew massive amounts of attention to it. And it's why Devin Nunes' mom was trending on Twitter Tuesday morning.
The Democratic National Committee stands by its decision not to allow Fox News to host a Democratic primary debate in the 2020 presidential election, a party official told Cheddar on Thursday. "Our role at the DNC is to make sure we have a fair process and we do not believe Fox News can have a fair debate,” the DNC communications director Xochitl Hinojosa said.
In a presidential field that's growing more crowded by the day, Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is looking to stand out by making foreign policy central to her campaign while her fellow Democratic candidates tussle over progressive moonshots like the Green New Deal or Medicare for All. At a campaign event in Concord, N.H., during the Presidents Day weekend, Cheddar's J.D. Durkin spoke with Gabbard, who said her agenda is based on her belief that the U.S. is "addicted" to regime-change wars.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2019.
While New York City is mired in finger-pointing over the loss of Amazon's HQ2, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey urges the company to reconsider the bid that Newark made.
According to House Ways and Means Committee Member Judy Chu, the GOP "made false claims" about the tax bill that passed in December of 2017 and is taking effect this tax season. "They said things like the American public would get on the average a $4,000 per person increase. Well, that is certainly not the case," Chu, a California Democrat, told Cheddar.
Bradley Tusk, the founder and CEO of Tusk Strategies and former campaign manager of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, knows exactly why Amazon's HQ2 plans in New York City fell apart. "It's not that we didn't get it because of some geopolitical economic trend or something out of our control. We didn't get it because our own politicians and Amazon themselves were too incompetent and too arrogant and too tone deaf to get it right," Tusk told Cheddar.
Amazon's blog post announcing it will pull the plug on its New York City headquarters is nothing but a bluff to bring politicians back to the negotiating table, said D.A. Davidson Analyst Tom Forte. "Absolutely Amazon's bluffing," Forte told Cheddar Friday.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
