News
Trump Administration Ends Tracking of Kidnapped Ukrainian Children in Russia
The State Department has ended funding for the tracking of thousands of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia, and American officials or contractors might have deleted a database with information on them, according to a letter that U.S. lawmakers plan to send to Secretary of State Rubio on Wednesday.
The work on the abducted children by the Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab was frozen when President Trump signed an executive order in late January halting almost all foreign aid spending. Since then, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and an official under him, Pete Marocco, have ended the vast majority of foreign aid contracts, including the one to the Yale lab.
The congressional letter, organized by Representative Greg Landsman, Democrat of Ohio, said “the foreign aid freeze has jeopardized, and may ultimately eliminate, our informational support of Ukraine on this front.”
The State Department and the Yale center “had been preserving evidence of abducted children from Ukraine it had identified, to be shared with Europol and the government of Ukraine to secure their return,” the letter said, according to a copy obtained by The New York Times. Europol is the main law enforcement agency of the European Union.
“We have reason to believe that the data from the repository has been permanently deleted,” it said. “If true, this would have devastating consequences. Can you please update us as to the status of the data from the evidence repository?”
A person familiar with the work of the Yale Center said the details in the letter were accurate.
The Yale lab was one of several recipients of $26 million in congressional funding over three years through the State Department to track war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine. That work began in 2022 under a program called the Conflict Observatory.
The lab did research into abducted children and the “filtration sites” they and others were taken to in Russian-occupied Ukraine, where Ukrainians were interrogated and prepared for deportation to Russia. The researchers used open-source information and commercial satellite imagery.
Yale researchers were compiling the database, called Caesar, so the State Department could share information on abducted children with Europol and the International Criminal Court, which could eventually bring charges against Russian officials. In 2022, after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. accused the Russians of committing “genocide.”
Ukrainian officials say Russia has abducted 20,000 children from Ukraine. Yale researchers said in earlier reports they have tracked 30,000 children to sites outside of Ukraine. They have put information into the database on 6,000 children taken to Russia and more than 2,400 to Belarus. The database has detailed information on 314 kidnapped children in Russia: their names and photographs, and dossiers of 20 to 30 pages on each child.
Some of the findings were previously disclosed in public reports from Yale. The center also gave information on the children to the Ukrainian government.
The main contractor for the State Department project is the MITRE Corporation, a nonprofit that mainly does work for the U.S. government, including for intelligence agencies. The Yale lab had a contract under it.
The State Department did not reply to a request for comment about the project and the status of the database. The MITRE Corporation also did not reply.
In July 2023, a Russian official said Russia had brought 700,000 children from conflict zones in Ukraine to Russia.
The Yale researchers have not been able to work on the project since the funding freeze began in late January. When the U.S. government halted weapons aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine after President Trump berated Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Feb. 28, the president of Ukraine, the Yale researchers lost access to satellite imagery.
The Trump administration restarted the intelligence sharing and weapons aid after a meeting in Saudi Arabia this month between U.S. and Ukrainian officials. But the Yale researchers still do not have access to satellite images.
Mr. Trump is trying to align with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and the two spoke on the phone on Tuesday. Mr. Trump said he wants to arrange a 30-day cease-fire in Ukraine, which the Ukrainians have agreed to, but Mr. Putin said he would only halt strikes temporarily on energy infrastructure.
Details of the State Department’s termination of its contracts for the research into potential Russian war crimes in Ukraine were earlier reported by The i Paper, a British news site and The New Republic.The Washington Post first reported details of the congressional draft letter on Tuesday.
The museums, designed by conservative nonprofits and Trump appointees, tell the story of early America, from colonization to revolution. The one exhibition looking beyond the early years is the “Wall of American Heroes.” It is a list of 51 people, chosen to illustrate 250 years of American history.
A White House spokesman said they were “individuals who shaped this nation’s history, culture and spirit across generations.”
The people pictured on this national honor roll — and the people left out — help illustrate what this administration sees as the highlights of American history.
Amid the administration’s efforts to reshape the nation’s relationship with its past, Trump appointees heavily weighted the list toward a single era of American history — and a few specific kinds of hero.
The other exhibitions in the Freedom Trucks were crafted by a pair of conservative nonprofits, PragerU and Hillsdale College. But the “Wall of American Heroes” was created by Freedom 250, a nonprofit effort whose leaders were chosen by President Trump and that was created to lead the planning of celebrations of the nation’s 250th birthday, overshadowing a bipartisan congressional commission.
A spokeswoman for Freedom 250 said Mr. Trump was not directly involved in the selection of those featured.
But the list clearly tracks Mr. Trump’s own lifetime and the heroes of the conservative political movement.
The wall’s tilt toward heroes of the baby boomer generation, for instance, extends beyond Hollywood stars and musicians. Of the four religious leaders on the list, two — Archbishop Fulton Sheen and the Rev. Billy Graham — also appeared on TV regularly in the 1950s and 1960s. The only painter on the list is Norman Rockwell, known for his idealized depictions of American life in that period.
By contrast, there is only a handful of figures from the first decades of American independence.
“That’s a disservice, if your intention is to present the last 250 years,” said Sarah Weicksel, the executive director of the American Historical Association. “Because all of the people on this list are building on the work and struggles and progress that was made by the people in the 150 years prior.”
The “Wall of American Heroes” was inspired by a similar display in a traveling museum created by the State of Virginia. But Virginia’s display celebrates little-known historical figures.
Mr. Trump’s, by and large, celebrates people who are already well-known — and, often, people who were famous in their own time. For example, it praises P.T. Barnum, a circus impresario who used hoaxes and freak shows to draw crowds. The wall calls him an “icon of American sensationalism.”
The spokeswoman for Freedom 250 said that many of the names on the wall were drawn from a list of 250 people that Mr. Trump wants to include in a “Garden of American Heroes” in Washington.
The spokeswoman declined to say what criteria were used to narrow down the list.
The only president whose name appears on the wall — not on the list of heroes, but alongside his quotation — is Mr. Trump himself.
Explore the Wall of Heroes
Navigate the display by dragging from side to side.
Washington — Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey will return to Congress on June 30, his spokesperson said, after being away since March in an unexplained absence that has confounded Capitol Hill.
“Congressman Kean is eager to return to in person work on June 30 and resume a full schedule,” Kean’s spokesperson, Harrison Neely, told CBS News on Thursday. The New Jersey Globe first reported on his return date.
Kean’s whereabouts since he last voted on March 5 have not been disclosed. When he first made a statement about the absence in late April, the New Jersey Republican said he was addressing a “personal medical issue.”
Kean said earlier this month that he would return to Washington within a matter of weeks, at which point he would provide more details about his health.
“Right now I am focused on my recovery and under the advice of healthcare professionals, I will transition from virtual work to in person work within a matter of weeks. At that time I will be completely transparent as to the nature of my medical condition,” Kean said in a June 2 statement released by his campaign.
The statement came hours before polls closed in New Jersey’s GOP primary for his seat, in which he ran unopposed.
He has missed more than 130 votes during his absence.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters earlier this month that he had recently spoken with Kean. Johnson said he was aware of the health issue, but would not disclose the details.
“What he’s dealing with is not very common and not a big thing,” Johnson said.
new video loaded: Obama Presidential Center Opens in Chicago
By Shawn Paik
June 18, 2026
-
Vermont19 seconds agoPossible tornado causes damage in small Vermont town during Thursday’s intense storms – The Boston Globe
-
Virginia3 minutes agoFirst responders train in Blacksburg
-
Washington8 minutes agoWashington State University Vancouver faculty, staff anxiously await details of 15% budget cuts
-
Wisconsin15 minutes agoPresident of Wisconsin’s largest mosque released from ICE custody
-
West Virginia18 minutes agoCommunity Catalyst Grant applications are open through West Virginia First Foundation through June 30 – WV MetroNews
-
Wyoming23 minutes ago250 Portraits self-portrait exhibition now on display throughout downtown Jackson
-
Crypto30 minutes agoCrypto’s Courtside Takeover: Digital Assets in Pro Tennis
-
Finance33 minutes agoConsumer confidence plunges among younger adults
