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Biden announces hundreds of millions in new security aid for Ukraine following Zelensky’s speech

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Biden announces hundreds of millions in new security aid for Ukraine following Zelensky’s speech

“The world is united in our assist for Ukraine and our willpower to make (Russian President Vladimir) Putin pay a really heavy worth,” Biden mentioned earlier than signing a presidential memorandum on the White Home to ship the navy help. “America is main this effort, along with our allies and companions, offering an infinite stage of safety and humanitarian help that we’re including to in the present day and we will proceed to do extra within the days and weeks forward.”

The brand new particulars in regards to the US’ navy help to Ukraine comes hours after Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, addressed US members of Congress, renewing his requires extra help as his homeland continues to battle Russian navy’s invasion.

Biden, in his remarks on Wednesday, tried to stage with People in regards to the lengthy street forward within the warfare.

“I need to be sincere with you,” the President mentioned. “This could possibly be an extended and troublesome battle. However the American individuals shall be steadfast in our assist of the individuals of Ukraine within the face of Putin’s immoral, unethical assaults on civilian inhabitants.”

Based on the White Home, the $800 million in safety help will present Ukraine with: 800 Stinger anti-aircraft methods, 100 drones, “over 20 million rounds of small arms ammunition and grenade launcher and mortar rounds,” 25,000 units of physique armor, 25,000 helmets, 100 grenade launchers, 5,000 rifles, 1,000 pistols, 400 machine weapons, 400 shotguns, in addition to “2,000 Javelin, 1,000 mild anti-armor weapons, and 6,000 AT-4 anti-armor methods.”

The US will particularly present Switchblade drones to Ukraine, two sources accustomed to the matter informed CNN. The small, moveable, so-called kamikaze drones carry warheads and detonate on influence. The smallest mannequin can hit a goal as much as 6 miles away, in response to the corporate that produces the drones, AeroVironment. It is unclear which mannequin the US will ship to Ukraine.

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The Switchblade drones had been added to Ukraine’s in depth listing of requested navy and technological help after Ukrainian officers consulted with congressional companions over the weekend on a draft of the listing.
The help stops in need of the no-fly zone or fighter jets that Zelensky has mentioned are essential to maintain Ukraine’s combat towards Russia.
Information of the extra help, which was first reported by The Wall Road Journal, comes because the White Home continues to face intense strain from Congress and Zelensky to seek out new methods to assist Ukraine.
The Ukrainian President, who stays in his nation, delivered an impassioned message for Biden on the finish of his remarks to Congress.

“You’re the chief of your grand nation,” Zelensky informed Biden. “I want you to be the chief of the world. Being the chief of the world means to be the chief of peace.”

Biden mentioned later Wednesday that he watched Zelensky’s speech from the White Home residence, calling it “convincing” and “vital.”

“He speaks for a individuals who have proven outstanding braveness and power within the face of brutal aggression, braveness and power that is impressed not solely Ukrainians, however the whole warfare,” Biden continued.

The $800 million in safety help comes from the large spending invoice the President signed into legislation on Tuesday, which incorporates $13.6 billion complete in new help to Ukraine.

The Biden administration will look to get these lots of of tens of millions in new help to Ukraine as shortly as attainable, with the President noting Tuesday that it’s turning into “exceedingly troublesome” to get new provides into Ukraine, although they’re nonetheless ready to take action.

The Biden administration can be persevering with to develop sanctions concentrating on high Russian officers and people in President Vladimir Putin’s interior circle, with plans to ramp up the variety of targets within the coming days and weeks, in response to a number of US officers.

The method has been ongoing, and has taken into consideration particular strategies of targets offered by high Ukrainian officers, together with Zelensky, the officers mentioned. In a name with Biden final week, Zelensky laid out a extra particular vary of targets for particular person sanctions, one of many officers mentioned. The administration is presently working to handle these requested targets.

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in his digital remarks to Congress, Zelensky went additional when he requested the US impose sanctions on all Russian politicians who proceed to assist the federal government. Whereas some Zelensky requests, together with the implementation of a no-fly zone, stay off the desk for Biden, the sanctions are seen by the administration as a device they’ll readily deploy.

For the reason that Russian invasion of Ukraine, the US has slapped sanctions on dozens of high Russian officers and oligarchs, in addition to their members of the family. Biden additionally signed off on concentrating on Putin immediately with particular person sanctions, in coordination with the European Union and United Kingdom.

In an indication of the velocity with which US officers wish to transfer to assist Ukraine, the administration has despatched about $300 million of the $350 million Biden not too long ago approved for Ukraine in slightly over two weeks.
As Russia’s invasion has raged on, Zelensky has pressured Biden and NATO to do extra, expressing frustrations over Western allies’ issues about frightening Putin. He renewed these calls on Wednesday.

“Russia has turned the Ukrainian sky right into a supply of loss of life for hundreds of individuals,” he informed Congress as he described the usage of missiles, bombs and drones by Russian troops to inflict brutal and lethal assaults on his nation. “We’re asking for a reply to this terror from the entire world.”

“To create a no-fly zone over Ukraine to save lots of individuals, is that this an excessive amount of to ask?” he mentioned. Zelensky went on to say, “You understand how a lot relies on the battlefield, on the flexibility to make use of plane, highly effective sturdy aviation to guard our individuals, our freedom, our land, plane that may assist Ukraine, assist Europe. they exist and you’ve got them, however they’re on Earth not within the Ukrainian sky.”

“I would like to guard our sky,” he mentioned.

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This story has been up to date with further reporting on Wednesday.

CNN’s MJ Lee, Oren Liebermann, Zachary Cohen, Natasha Bertrand, Jeremy Herb, Katie Bo Lillis, Sam Fossum, Donald Judd and Betsy Klein contributed to this report.

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Russia launches Christmas Day attack on Ukraine’s energy system

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Russia launches Christmas Day attack on Ukraine’s energy system

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Russia has carried out a Christmas Day attack on Ukraine’s energy system, leaving more than half a million people without heating, water and electricity. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack, the 13th large-scale assault of 2024 on the country’s grid, was “deliberate” and not a coincidence. “What could be more inhuman?” he wrote on X.

About 50 of the 70 missiles fired in the attack were intercepted, along with a “significant” portion of the more than 100 attack drones deployed, he added.

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This year Ukrainians marked Christmas Day on December 25 for the second time, after switching to the western Gregorian calendar last year. The decision to stop celebrating Christmas on January 7 in line with the Orthodox calendar was made by Kyiv to break with Russian influence.

Oleh Syniehubov, governor of Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region, told Ukraine’s national television news that the attack had left more than 500,000 people without heating, water and electricity.

Temperatures across Ukraine are around freezing point.

Heating supplies were also cut in some areas of Ukraine’s Ivano-Frankivsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, in the west and south of the country. 

Ukraine’s energy grid operator, Ukrenergo, urged consumers to limit consumption by not switching on multiple appliances at once, adding that the system was still recovering from the previous Russian attack on December 13.

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Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said that its power stations had been damaged and one of its long-term employees killed.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andriy Sybiha, said on X that the attack reflects Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response to “those who spoke about illusionary ‘Christmas ceasefire’”.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said last week that Zelenskyy had rejected his proposal for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange on the January 7 Orthodox Christmas.

Ukraine denied that such a proposal was ever on the table, asking Hungary to “refrain from manipulations” regarding the war. On Friday, Heorhii Tykhyi, spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, described it as “PR, a move” by Orbán.

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American Airlines lifts ground stop that froze Christmas Eve travelers

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American Airlines lifts ground stop that froze Christmas Eve travelers

An American Airlines agent talks to a customer at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Ill., last week. On Tuesday, the airline issued a national halt to flights.

Kamil Krzacznski/AFP via Getty Images


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Kamil Krzacznski/AFP via Getty Images

American Airlines passengers across the U.S. endured a sudden disruption of service on Christmas Eve, as a “technical issue” forced the airline to request a nationwide ground stop of its operations.

“The ground stop has now been lifted,” the Federal Aviation Administration told NPR shortly after 8 a.m. ET.

On Facebook and X, passengers shared stories of boarding planes early on Christmas Eve — only to be left waiting on the tarmac. In some cases, they described being told the flight would return to its gate so everyone onboard could deplane.

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The ground stop lasted for about one hour, according to the airline.

 “We sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience this morning,” the airline said.

In a statement sent to NPR, American says the widespread delays were caused by a “vendor technology issue” affecting systems that are needed for a flight to be “released” — one of the final key steps before a plane takes off from an airport.

Early circumstances around Tuesday’s outage seemed ominous, reminding travelers of a nightmare scenario that played out two years ago when computer problems fueled a meltdown for Southwest Airlines as it tried to cope with bad weather during the holidays.

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Southwest stranded millions of travelers — and was later ordered to pay a $140 million civil penalty.

Aviation industry veterans like George Hamlin, a consultant, notes that Southwest took the brunt of the blame for the meltdown — but, he adds, “now we’re finding out that it’s a larger, more endemic problem than that.”

Delayed American Airlines passengers who posted to social media Tuesday said pilots blamed the slowdown on a computer system that aims to ensure an optimal center of gravity by balancing planes’ cargo weight and other factors.

Winter weather also threatens to snarl Christmas Eve travel, including storms along the East and West Coasts of the U.S.

The FAA’s operations page shows nearly a dozen airports were deicing planes Tuesday morning, including at Philadelphia International, and Dulles International and Reagan National outside Washington, D.C.

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If you’re flying, the FAA recommends checking your airline’s flight status updates for potential delays. As of 9 a.m. ET, the FlightAware website’s “Misery Map” showed some 544 flights had been delayed and five canceled since 6 a.m. Nearly 120 of those delays were at Charlotte, N.C.’s, airport.

Nearly 12.7 million passengers are expected to fly on American Airlines this winter holiday season, comprising more than 118,000 flights, according to the airline. The most-traveled days in that span are both Fridays, ahead of and just after Christmas.

NPR’s Joel Rose contributed reporting.

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Private equity payouts fell 50% short in 2024

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Private equity payouts fell 50% short in 2024

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Private equity funds cashed out just half the value of investments they typically sell in 2024, the third consecutive year payouts to investors have fallen short because of a deal drought.

Buyout houses typically sell down 20 per cent of their investments in any given year, but industry executives forecast that cash payouts for the year would be about half that figure.

Cambridge Associates, a leading adviser to large institutions on their private equity investments, estimated that funds had fallen about $400bn short in payments to their investors over the past three years compared with historical averages.

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The data underline the increasing pressure on firms to find ways to return cash to investors, including by exiting more investments in the year ahead.

Firms have struggled to strike deals at attractive prices since early 2022, when rising interest rates caused financing costs to soar and corporate valuations to fall.

Dealmakers and their advisers expect that merger and acquisition activity will accelerate in 2025, potentially helping the industry work through what consultancy Bain & Co. has called a “towering backlog” of $3tn in ageing deals that must be sold in the years ahead.

Several large public offerings this year including food transport giant Lineage Logistics, aviation equipment specialist Standard Aero and dermatology group Galderma have provided private equity executives with confidence to take companies public, while Donald Trump’s election has added to Wall Street exuberance.

But Andrea Auerbach, global head of private investments at Cambridge Associates, cautioned that the industry’s issues could take years to work through.

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“There is an expectation that the wheels of the exit market will start to turn. But it doesn’t end in one year, it will take a couple of years,” Auerbach said.

Private equity firms have used novel tactics to return cash to investors while holdings have proved difficult to sell.

They have made increasing use of so-called continuation funds — where one fund sells a stake in one or more portfolio companies to another fund to another fund the firm manages — to engineer exits.

Jefferies forecasts that there will be $58bn of continuation fund deals in 2024, representing a record 14 per cent of all private equity exits. Such funds made up just 5 per cent of all exits in the boom year of 2021, Jefferies found.

But some private equity investors are sceptical that the industry will be able to sell assets at prices close to funds’ current valuations.

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“You have a huge amount of capital that has been invested on assumptions that are no longer valid,” a large industry investor told the Financial Times.

They warned that a record $1tn-plus in buyouts were struck in 2021, just before interest rates rose, and many deals are carried on firms’ books at overly optimistic valuations.

Goldman Sachs recently noted in a report that private equity asset sales, which had historically been done at a premium of at least 10 per cent to funds’ internal valuations, have in recent years been made at discounts of 10-15 per cent.

“[Private] equity in general is still over-marked, which is leading to this situation where assets are still stuck,” said Michael Brandmeyer of Goldman Sachs Asset Management in the report.

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