United News of Bangladesh

Egg prices hit a record high as the U.S. contends with an ongoing bird flu outbreak, but consumers didn't need government figures released Wednesday to tell them eggs are terribly expensive and hard to find at times. The latest monthly consumer price index showed that the average price of a dozen Grade A eggs in U.S. cities reached $4.95 in January, eclipsing the previous record of $4.82 set two years earlier and more than double the low of $2.04 that was recorded in August 2023. The spike in egg prices was the biggest since the nation's last bird flu outbreak in 2015 and accounted for roughly two-thirds of the total increase in food costs last month, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of course, that is only the nationwide average. A carton of eggs can cost $10 or more in some places. And specialized varieties, such as organic and cage-free eggs, are even more expensive. “We do use eggs a little less often now. You know, because of the price,” said Jon Florey as he surveyed his options in the egg case at Encinal Market in Alameda, California. “I was going to make a quiche that I like to make and it’s about six eggs, so I figured I’d do something else.” When are egg prices expected to go down? Relief is not expected any time soon. Egg prices typically spike around Easter due to high holiday demand. And the U.S. Department of Agriculture predicted last month that egg prices were likely to go up 20% this year. Even if shoppers can afford eggs, they may have difficulty finding them at times. Some grocers are having trouble keeping their shelves stocked, and customers are encountering surcharges and limits on how many cartons they can buy at a time. Encinal Market owner Joe Trimble said he has a hard time getting all the eggs he orders from his suppliers, so most of the time his shelves are only about 25% full. “It’s something you don’t think about until you look at the shelf and it’s nearly empty," Trimble said. Eggs are “just expected to be there in the same way you expect there to be milk. It’s a key item to have in a grocery store because people don’t go out looking for something else to eat on a Saturday morning. They want it. They want to have some scrambled eggs or over-easy eggs on a Saturday morning.” How bad is the bird flu outbreak? The main reason that eggs are more expensive is the bird flu outbreak. When the virus is found on a farm, the entire flock is killed to limit the spread of disease. Because massive egg farms may have millions of birds, just one outbreak may put a dent in the egg supply. Nearly 158 million birds have been slaughtered overall since the outbreak began. The Agriculture Department says more than 23 million birds were slaughtered last month and more than 18 million were killed in December to limit the spread of the bird flu virus. Those numbers include turkeys and chickens raised for meat, but the vast majority of them were egg-laying chickens. And when there is an outbreak on a farm, it often takes several months to dispose of the carcasses, sanitize the barns and raise new birds until they are old enough to start producing eggs, so the effects linger. Bird flu cases often spike in the spring and fall when wild birds are migrating because they are the main source of the virus, but cases can pop up any time of year. The virus has also spread to cattle and other species, and dozens of people — mostly farmworkers taking care of ill animals — have been sickened. But health officials say the threat to human health remains low and eggs and poultry are safe to eat because sick animals aren't allowed into the food supply. Plus, properly cooking meat and eggs to at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit kills any virus, and pasteurization neutralizes bird flu in milk. What else is driving egg prices up? Egg farmers also face higher feed, fuel and labor costs these days because of inflation. Plus, farmers are investing more in biosecurity measures to try to protect their birds. Ten states have passed laws allowing the sale of eggs only from cage-free environments. The supply of those eggs is tighter and focused in certain regions, so the effect on prices can be magnified when outbreaks hit cage-free egg farms. Many of the egg farms with recent outbreaks were cage-free farms in California. Cage-free egg laws have already gone into effect in California, Massachusetts, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Michigan. Total demand for eggs is also up significantly in recent years. Consumers are buying more eggs, and the growth of all-day breakfast restaurants is adding to demand. CoBank analyst Brian Earnest said the current cost of eggs could discourage some buying, which would ease the demand pressure but might not have a noticeable effect. It will likely take months for egg producers to fill the gaps in supply. “As consumers continue to stock up on eggs, supplies at the store level will remain tight, and with Easter right around the corner, that could prolong the tighter supplies,” Earnest said. While prices remain elevated, producers of baked goods and other food items that rely on eggs as a main ingredient will have to decide how much to increase prices or reduce production, he said.

Tulsi Gabbard was sworn in as President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence on Wednesday shortly after she was confirmed by the Senate, where Republicans who had initially questioned her experience and judgment fell in line behind her nomination. Gabbard is an unconventional pick to oversee and coordinate the country’s 18 intelligence agencies, given her past comments sympathetic to Russia, a meeting she held with now-deposed Syrian President Bashar Assad and her previous support for government leaker Edward Snowden. Musk calls for US government to 'delete entire agencies' A military veteran and former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, Gabbard was confirmed on Wednesday by a 52-48 vote, with the Senate’s slim Republican majority beating back Democratic opposition. The only “no’ vote from a Republican came from Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. She is the latest high-ranking nominee to win Senate confirmation as the new administration works to reshape vast portions of the federal government, including the intelligence apparatus.

Elon Musk called Thursday to “delete entire agencies” from the United States' federal government as part of his push under President Donald Trump to radically cut spending and restructure its priorities. Musk offered a wide-ranging survey via a videocall to the World Governments Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, of what he described as the priorities of the Trump administration interspersed with multiple references to “thermonuclear warfare” and the possible dangers of artificial intelligence. “We really have here rule of the bureaucracy as opposed to rule of the people — democracy,” Musk said, wearing a black T-shirt that read: “Tech Support.” He also joked that he was the “White House’s tech support,” borrowing from his profile on the social platform X, which he owns. “I think we do need to delete entire agencies as opposed to leave a lot of them behind,” Musk said. “If we don’t remove the roots of the weed, then it’s easy for the weed to grow back.” While Musk has spoken to the summit in the past, his appearance Thursday comes as he has consolidated control over large swaths of the government with Trump ’s blessing since assuming leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency. That’s included sidelining career officials, gaining access to sensitive databases and inviting a constitutional clash over the limits of presidential authority. Trump wants Jordan and Egypt to take in Palestinians from Gaza. Here's why the idea is rejected Musk's new role imbued his comments with more weight beyond being the world’s wealthiest person through his investments in SpaceX and electric carmaker Tesla. His remarks also offered a more-isolationist view of American power in the Middle East, where the U.S. has fought wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. “A lot of attention has been on USAID for example,” Musk said, referring to Trump's dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development. “There's like the National Endowment for Democracy. But I’m like, ‘Okay, well, how much democracy have they achieved lately?’” He added that the U.S. under Trump is “less interested in interfering with the affairs of other countries.” There are “times the United States has been kind of pushy in international affairs, which may resonate with some members of the audience,” Musk said, speaking to the crowd in the UAE, an autocratically ruled nation of seven sheikhdoms. He also noted the Trump administration's focus on eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion work, at one point linking it to AI. Apple changes Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America on maps “If hypothetically, AI is designed for DEI, you know, diversity at all costs, it could decide that there’s too many men in power and execute them,” Musk said. On AI, Musk said he believed X's newly updated AI chatbot, Grok 3, would be ready in about two weeks, calling it at one point “kind of scary.” He criticized Sam Altman's management of OpenAI, which Musk just led a $97.4 billion takeover bid for, describing it as akin to a nonprofit aimed at saving the Amazon rainforest becoming a "lumber company that chops down the trees.” Musk also announced plans for a “Dubai Loop” project in line with his work in the Boring Company — which is digging tunnels in Las Vegas to speed transit. However, he and the Emirati government official speaking with him offered no immediate details of the plan. “It’s going to be like a wormhole," Musk promised. "You just wormhole from one part of the city — boom — and you're out in another part of the city.”

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that President Donald Trump's calls for lower interest rates won't lead the central bank to change its rate decisions. “People can be confident that we’ll continue to keep our heads down, do our work, and make our decisions based on what’s happening in the economy,” Powell said, under questioning from members of the House Financial Services Committee. Powell spoke on the second day of his semiannual testimony to Congress. Earlier Wednesday, Trump said on social media that “Interest Rates should be lowered, something which would go hand in hand with upcoming Tariffs!!!” Yet Powell indicated during a press conference last month that the Fed, after cutting its key rate three times late last year, would hold off on further cuts as it waited for evidence that inflation is moving closer to its 2% target. Government watchdogs fired by Trump sue his administration And many Fed officials want to wait and see how Trump's policies, including the tariffs he has proposed and those he has put in place, affect the economy. Most economists worry that tariffs will at least temporarily push up inflation. On Wednesday, the government reported that inflation picked up last month, with consumer prices rising 3% in January from a year earlier, up from a 3 1/2 year low of 2.4% in September. The uptick makes it even less likely the Fed will cut its key rate anytime soon. The Fed's rate influences borrowing costs throughout the economy, including mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards. The Fed cut its key rate three times last year, to about 4.3% from 5.3%, but said in January that it would keep its rate unchanged until inflation declined further. Fed officials in December had forecast that they would implement two cuts this year, but some economists now think the Fed may be on hold all year.

Eight government watchdogs have sued over their mass firing that removed oversight of President Donald Trump's new administration. The lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court in Washington asks a judge to declare the firings unlawful and restore the inspectors general to their positions at the agencies. They said in the filing that they play a critical, nonpartisan role overseeing trillions of dollars in federal spending and the conduct of millions of federal employees. Congress was not given the legally required 30-day notices about the removals, something that even a top Republican decried. Trump has said he would put new “good people” in the jobs. The White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the lawsuit. Apple changes Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America on maps The administration dismissed more than a dozen inspectors general in a Friday-night sweep on the fourth full day of Trump's second term. Though inspectors general are presidential appointees, some serve presidents of both parties. All are expected to be nonpartisan. At the time of the firings in late January, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said there may have been good reasons for the terminations but that Congress needed to know. The role of the modern-day inspector general dates to post-Watergate Washington, when Congress installed offices inside agencies as an independent check against mismanagement and abuse of power. Democrats and watchdog groups said the firings raise alarms that Trump is making it easier to take advantage of the government. Trump, said at the time the firings were “a very common thing to do.” The inspector generals’ lawsuit says that isn’t true.

Apple renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America on its maps Tuesday after an order by President Donald Trump was made official by the U.S. Geographic Names Information System. The move follows Google, which announced last month that it would make the change once the official listing was updated and wrote in a blog post Sunday that it had begun rolling out the change. In Google's case, the company said people in the U.S. will see Gulf of America and people in Mexico will see Gulf of Mexico. Everyone else will see both names. After taking office, Trump ordered that the water bordered by the Southern United States, Mexico and Cuba be renamed. The U.S. Geographic Names Information System officially updated the name late Sunday. Microsoft has also made the name change on its Bing maps. The Associated Press, which provides news around the world to multiple audiences, will refer to the Gulf of Mexico by its original name, which it has carried for 400 years, while acknowledging the name Gulf of America.

The Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development is stiffing American businesses on hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid bills for work that has already been done, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday. The administration’s abrupt freeze on foreign aid also is forcing mass layoffs by U.S. suppliers and contractors for USAID, including 750 furloughs at one company, Washington-based Chemonics International, the lawsuit says. “One cannot overstate the impact of that unlawful course of conduct: on businesses large and small forced to shut down their programs and let employees go; on hungry children across the globe who will go without; on populations around the world facing deadly disease; and on our constitutional order,” the U.S. businesses and organizations said. An organization representing 170 small U.S. businesses, major suppliers, an American Jewish group aiding displaced people abroad, the American Bar Association and others joined the court challenge. It was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington against President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, acting USAID Deputy Administrator Peter Marocco, a Trump appointee who has been a central figure in hollowing out the agency, and Russell Vought, Trump’s head of the Office of Management and Budget. It is at least the third lawsuit over the administration's rapid unraveling of the U.S. aid and development agency and its programs worldwide. Trump and ally Elon Musk have targeted USAID in particular, saying its work is out of line with Trump’s agenda. 25% steel, aluminum tariffs to be announced Monday: Trump Marocco, Musk and Rubio have overseen an across-the-board freeze on foreign assistance and agency shutdown under a Jan. 20 executive order by Trump. A lawsuit brought by federal employees associations has temporarily blocked the administration from pulling thousands of USAID staffers off the job. The funding freeze and other measures have persisted, including the agency losing the lease on its Washington headquarters. The new administration terminated contracts without the required 30-day notice and without back payments for work that was already done, according to a U.S. official, a businessperson with a USAID contract and an email seen by The Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal by the Trump administration. For Chemonics, one of the larger of the USAID partners, that has meant $103 million in unpaid invoices and almost $500 million in USAID-ordered medication, food and other goods now stalled in the supply chain or ports, the lawsuit says. For the health commodities alone, not delivering them “on time could potentially lead to as many as 566,000 deaths from HIV/AIDS, malaria, and unmet reproductive health needs, including 215,000 pediatric deaths,” the lawsuit says. The filing asserts that the administration has no authority to block programs and funding mandated by Congress without approval. Marocco defended the funding cutoff and push to put all but a fraction of USAID staff on leave in an affidavit filed late Monday in the lawsuit brought by the workers’ groups. “Insubordination” and “noncompliance” by USAID staffers made it necessary to stop funding and operations by the agency to allow the administration to carry out a program-by-program review to decide what U.S. aid programs could resume overseas, Marocco wrote.

President Donald Trump said Monday that a precarious ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas should be canceled if Hamas doesn’t release all the remaining hostages it is holding in Gaza by midday on Saturday — though he also said that such a decision would be up to Israel. Trump was responding to Hamas saying it will delay the further release of hostages in the Gaza Strip after accusing Israel of violating the three-week-old ceasefire. The U.S. president said that after the freeing of three visibly emaciated hostages on Saturday it was time for Israel to demand the release of all hostages by noon on Saturday, or restart the war. “If they’re not here, all hell is going to break out," Trump said. He added of the ceasefire, “Cancel it, and all bets are off.” Trump said the final decision would be up to Israel, saying, “I’m speaking for myself. Israel can override it.” But asked if the U.S. would join in a response to Hamas if hostages weren't freed, Trump added, "Hamas will find out what I mean.” Those comments came after Trump said in an interview with Fox News Channel that Palestinians in Gaza would not have a right to return under his plan for U.S. “ownership” of the war-torn territory — contradicting other officials in his administration who have sought to argue Trump was only calling for the temporary relocation of its population. Less than a week after he floated his plan for the U.S. to take control of Gaza and turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East,” Trump, in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier airing Monday, said “No, they wouldn’t” when asked if Palestinians in Gaza would have a right to return to the territory. It comes as he has ramped up pressure on Arab states, especially U.S. allies Jordan and Egypt, to take in Palestinians from Gaza, who claim the territory as part of a future homeland. “We’ll build safe communities, a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is,” Trump said. “In the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land. No big money spent.” Arab nations have sharply criticized the Trump proposal, and Trump is set to host Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House on Tuesday. In addition to concerns about jeopardizing the long-held goals of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Egypt and Jordan have privately raised security concerns about welcoming large numbers of additional refugees into their countries even temporarily. When asked how he'd convince Abdullah to take in Palestinians, Trump told reporters, “I do think he’ll take, and I think other countries will take also. They have good hearts.” But he also threatened to potentially withhold billions of dollars of U.S. assistance to Jordan and Egypt if they don't go along with his plan. “Yeah, maybe, sure why not," Trump said. "If they don’t, I would conceivably withhold aid, yes.” Trump’s comments risked jeopardizing the already tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza after 15 months of war, with the existing framework for negotiations calling for the massive humanitarian and reconstruction assistance for civilians in Gaza. After Trump’s initial comments last week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Secretary of State Marco Rubio respectfully insisted that Trump only wanted Palestinians relocated from Gaza “temporarily” and for an “interim” period to allow for debris removal, the disposal of unexploded ordnance and reconstruction. Speaking of the condition of the remaining hostages, Trump told reporters Monday that he feared Hamas had released the hostages in the best condition and that many scheduled for release are gravely ill or already dead. “Based on what I saw over the past two days, they’re not going to be alive for long," he said. In a video message released Saturday after Hamas freed the latest hostages on Saturday, Rachel and Jon Goldberg-Polin, the parents of slain American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, called on Trump and his negotiating team to “think bigger and faster” and press for the release of all the remaining hostages this week. “All 76 hostages out this week,” they said. “End of war. Who benefits from dragging it out for so long? Not the people of this region. Let’s get it done right now.” Trump last week didn't rule out deploying U.S. troops to help secure Gaza but at the same time insisted no U.S. funds would go to pay for the reconstruction of the territory, raising fundamental questions about the nature of his plan. Egypt on Monday reiterated its rejection to the transfer of Palestinians from their territories in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, warning that such proposals threaten “the foundations of people” in the Middle East. In a statement, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem its capital is the base for “comprehensive and just peace” in the region. The statement said Egypt rejects any violations to the Palestinians’ “right of self-determination … and independence,” and “upholds the right of return for Palestinian refugees who were forced to leave their homeland,” in a reference to hundreds of thousands who were forced to flee their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war. A senior Hamas official blasted Trump’s latest remarks about the U.S. ownership of Gaza as “absurd.” Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas' politico bureau, said these comments “reflect a deep ignorance of Palestine and the region.” In comments released by Hamas early Monday, he said Trump’s approach toward the Palestinian cause will fail. “Dealing with the Palestinian cause with the mentality of a real estate dealer is a recipe for failure,” he said. “Our Palestinian people will thwart all transfer and deportation plans.”

Major refugee aid groups sued the Trump administration on Monday over the president's executive order suspending the federal refugee resettlement program and funding for resettlement agencies. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle asks the court to declare Trump’s executive order illegal, stop the order’s implementation and restore refugee-related funding. “President Trump cannot override the will of Congress with the stroke of a pen,” Melissa Keaney, an attorney at the International Refugee Assistance Project, said in a news release. “The United States has a moral and legal obligation to protect refugees, and the longer this illegal suspension continues, the more dire the consequences will be.” President Donald Trump’s recent order said the refugee program — a form of legal migration to the U.S. — would be suspended because cities and communities had been taxed by “record levels of migration” and didn’t have the ability to “absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees.” The Trump administration didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed by the International Refugee Assistance Project on behalf of Church World Service, the Jewish refugee resettlement agency HIAS, Lutheran Community Services Northwest and individuals including refugees. Ukrainian and Western leaders laud US aid package while the Kremlin warns of 'further ruin' The organizations say their ability to provide critical services to refugees in the U.S. and abroad has been severely inhibited by Trump's order. It already has impacted refugees who had been approved to come to the U.S. by having their travel canceled on short notice and kept families hoping to reunite apart, the lawsuit says. It argues that the refugee suspension is unlawful and violates Congress’ authority to make immigration laws. The federal refugee program has been in place for decades and helps people who have escaped war, natural disaster or persecution. Despite longstanding support for accepting refugees, the program has become politicized in recent years. Refugees undergo an extensive vetting process that can take years. They are usually referred to the U.S. State Department by the United Nations. Ukrainian and Western leaders laud US aid package while the Kremlin warns of 'further ruin' While the resettlement program has historically enjoyed bipartisan support, the first Trump administration also temporarily halted it and then dramatically lowered the number of refugees who could enter the U.S. each year. Religious organizations do the majority of the refugee resettlement work in the United States. Seven of the 10 federally funded national agencies that resettle refugees are faith-based. The lawsuit is the latest legal challenge to Trump immigration policies, including his order to end automatic citizenship for children born to people in the country illegally, and his order to shut down asylum access at the southern border.  

President Donald Trump said he'll announce Monday that the United States will impose 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports, including from Canada and Mexico, as well as other import duties later in the week. Meanwhile, Trump said he's serious about wanting Canada to become the 51st state in an interview that aired Sunday during the Super Bowl preshow. “Yeah it is,” Trump told Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier when asked whether his talk of annexing Canada is “a real thing” — as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently warned.