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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday ordered Russian forces to suspend strikes on Kyiv for three days as U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Moscow for talks aimed at reviving efforts to end the war in Ukraine. The American negotiators are expected to travel to Kyiv on Sunday for further discussions.

Ukraine had earlier proposed a temporary ceasefire ahead of the diplomatic meetings, which come as Washington attempts to restart negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv after peace efforts had stalled.

“Indeed, such information was received from the Ukrainian side. Russian President and Commander-in-Chief Putin gave orders to hold off on attacks on Kyiv for three days, starting at midnight today,” Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov told Russian state media on Saturday.

The Kremlin said the decision was directly connected to the upcoming American diplomatic activity in the Ukrainian capital.

“This is due to the preparation and conduct of American contacts in Kyiv,” Peskov said.

Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s special envoy, and Kushner arrived in Moscow on Saturday after traveling aboard a U.S. government aircraft that stopped in Helsinki before entering Russian airspace. Russian special presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev met the delegation at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport.

The two American envoys subsequently met with Putin at the Kremlin as part of the Trump administration’s continuing effort to broker an agreement between Russia and Ukraine. Putin said at the opening of the meeting that Moscow was comfortable working with Witkoff and Kushner and stressed the importance of trust in mediators involved in the negotiations.

President Trump said Friday that the latest round of shuttle diplomacy could help establish conditions for resolving the conflict and that the United States has developed a vision for what eventual peace agreements between Russia and Ukraine could look like.

Following their Moscow meetings, Witkoff and Kushner are expected to travel to Kyiv on Sunday to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials. The visits place the two American emissaries in the middle of another attempt to narrow the substantial differences that remain between the Russian and Ukrainian positions.

The temporary halt comes after weeks in which Russian drone attacks against Ukrainian cities have intensified. At the same time, Ukraine has expanded its campaign against Russian oil infrastructure, with the number of strikes reaching a monthly record in August since the war began in 2022.

The ceasefire order followed a large-scale Russian overnight assault across Ukraine in which at least five people were killed and six others wounded, according to Ukrainian reports.

Zelensky said the latest strikes included attacks against airports in Kyiv and Boryspil, and he suggested that Moscow had deliberately targeted the facilities because of preparations for the arrival of the American delegation.

“They were deliberate, for the first time in a long while,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram. “Clearly, Russia’s strikes on the airports are a reaction to discussions and preparations concerning the possibility of the American side using an aircraft to arrive in Ukraine.”

Despite the three-day pause in attacks on Kyiv, the Kremlin has cautioned that the broader diplomatic process remains far from a settlement. Peskov said Friday that there were still no concrete conditions in place for achieving peace, although contacts and American mediation efforts were continuing.

Putin’s order applies to strikes on Kyiv rather than representing a comprehensive ceasefire across the entire front. Russian state media reported that the suspension was to begin at midnight and continue for three days, while Ukraine was also expected to observe a ceasefire during the period.

The diplomatic initiative comes as the Trump administration continues trying to bring the two sides toward an agreement after more than four years of war. Witkoff and Kushner have emerged as key intermediaries in those efforts, holding repeated contacts with Russian and Ukrainian officials.

For now, the three-day pause offers a temporary respite for Kyiv while the American envoys conduct their meetings — but whether the diplomatic push can produce a broader halt to the fighting remains unresolved.

{Matzav.com}

The Lakewood Board of Education is set to hold a special meeting Wednesday afternoon to address courtesy busing and hazardous routes, a potentially significant discussion coming just weeks after a transportation funding crisis left thousands of local families facing sharply higher costs for non-mandated school busing.

The special session is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 9, at 4:30 p.m., with the Board expected to discuss transportation for students attending nonpublic schools and, in particular, how Lakewood’s policies governing roads deemed hazardous should be applied under New Jersey law.

The issue could have significant implications in Lakewood, where thousands of children who live within the state mileage limits for mandatory transportation nevertheless travel along heavily trafficked roads that the district itself has formally classified as hazardous.

“A hazardous road is hazardous regardless of what school a child attends,” the Board said, emphasizing that student safety and consistent application of transportation policy will be central to the discussion.

The Board could take formal action during Wednesday’s meeting.

The distinction between mandated transportation, courtesy busing and hazardous-route transportation has taken on heightened importance following the turmoil surrounding Lakewood’s non-mandated busing program ahead of the new school year.

Under New Jersey law, transportation is generally mandated for elementary students in grades K-8 who live more than two miles from school and high school students who live more than 2½ miles away. Nonpublic-school students who live within those distances are not automatically entitled under state law to regular transportation, although districts and transportation agencies may provide what is commonly known as courtesy or subscription busing.

But New Jersey law separately addresses districts that choose to provide courtesy transportation and have children who must walk along hazardous routes.

Under N.J.S.A. 18A:39-1.5, a school district providing courtesy busing is required to adopt a policy concerning students who must walk to or from school along hazardous routes. That policy must identify hazardous routes within the district requiring courtesy busing and establish the criteria used to determine which roads qualify.

State law provides a lengthy list of factors that districts may consider when making that determination, including traffic volume, vehicle speeds, population density, whether adequate sidewalks exist, blind curves, steep inclines, nearby drop-offs, bridges and overpasses, railroad tracks and busy roads or highways that children would be required to cross. Municipal officials are also supposed to work with the school district in establishing the criteria used to designate hazardous routes.

Lakewood already maintains an extensive official list of roads that the Board of Education has determined to be hazardous.

The district’s current student transportation regulation states: “For safety purposes, District policy prohibits students from crossing roads deemed to be hazardous.” It further provides that no bus route may be established in violation of that policy and that students may not be permitted to ride a bus contrary to the policy.

The district’s hazardous-road list includes Route 9, Route 70, Cedar Bridge Avenue, County Line Road, Cross Street, Hope Chapel Road, New Hampshire Avenue, Pine Street, Prospect Street, Squankum Road, Vermont Avenue, James Street, Joe Parker Road, Chestnut Street, Clifton Avenue, Forest Avenue, Oak Street and numerous other heavily traveled Lakewood roads.

That existing policy is expected to loom large over Wednesday’s discussion: If the district has formally determined that children cannot safely cross certain roads, how should that safety determination affect transportation for a student who lives within the ordinary two-mile or 2½-mile threshold?

The issue is particularly consequential for Lakewood because its transportation system operates on a scale unlike virtually anywhere else in New Jersey.

A state-commissioned review of the Lakewood school district found that in fiscal year 2024, transportation or transportation funding covered 40,958 students. Of those, 35,769 were nonpublic-school students, including 9,510 classified as receiving courtesy transportation. Another 4,281 were public-school students, including 1,779 courtesy riders.

The same state review found that the Lakewood Student Transportation Authority transports roughly 25,000 mandated nonpublic-school students and approximately 10,000 nonpublic students receiving courtesy busing each year. It noted that Lakewood’s nonpublic transportation obligation dwarfs that of other New Jersey districts even when courtesy busing is excluded.

The issue exploded into public view last month when Lakewood families were initially informed that the cost of non-mandated transportation through the LSTA would jump from $385 to $945 per student for the 2026-27 school year following the loss of funding that had helped support courtesy transportation.

For a family with several children using courtesy busing, the increase threatened to translate into thousands of dollars in additional annual transportation expenses.

After days of meetings involving LSTA, government officials, askanim and representatives of Igud Hamosdos, the additional charge was dramatically reduced. Igud Hamosdos subsequently informed local mosdos that families would instead be required to pay an additional $290 per student and urged parents to opt into the transportation program.

Even with that immediate crisis eased, however, the episode left unresolved a much broader question: Which children are properly classified as ordinary courtesy riders, and how should students whose routes to school involve roads already officially determined to be hazardous be treated?

New Jersey Department of Education guidance makes clear that simply living along a hazardous route does not, by itself, create the same statewide entitlement to free transportation as meeting the statutory mileage requirements. The state says boards are not generally required to provide busing solely because a student lives less than the mandated distance but faces hazardous conditions.

At the same time, once a district provides courtesy busing, state law requires it to maintain a hazardous-route policy, identify the routes requiring courtesy transportation and establish objective standards governing those determinations.

That distinction is likely to be critical Wednesday.

The discussion is also expected to focus on whether those safety standards are being applied uniformly. The central concern is straightforward: A roadway that the district has determined is too dangerous for one child to cross does not become less dangerous because another child attends a different type of school.

New Jersey’s own nonpublic transportation guidance states that nonpublic students living within the mandatory mileage thresholds may receive courtesy transportation in accordance with the policies adopted by their resident district board of education. The state also permits a board or coordinated transportation services agency to charge parents for some or all of that transportation, subject to statutory restrictions.

For Lakewood, where the overwhelming majority of school-age children attend nonpublic schools and where major arteries such as Route 9, County Line Road, Cedar Bridge Avenue and Cross Street carry substantial traffic, the practical consequences of how the hazardous-route policy is interpreted could be considerable.

Wednesday’s meeting therefore comes at a particularly sensitive moment for the community’s school transportation system. What began several weeks ago as a dispute over the price of courtesy busing is now raising a more fundamental question about how Lakewood determines which children can safely be expected to walk to school.

The Board’s discussion could clarify whether changes are necessary in the district’s current approach and whether transportation policies involving hazardous roads are being applied consistently to public- and nonpublic-school students.

For parents whose children live within the normal mileage limits but would otherwise have to navigate roads Lakewood itself has deemed hazardous, Wednesday’s meeting could prove especially consequential.

At its core, the issue before the Board is not simply how far a child lives from school, but what that child would actually encounter along the way.

As the Board put it, “A hazardous road is hazardous regardless of what school a child attends.”

{Matzav.com}

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee delivered a sharp condemnation of violent Israeli settlers during a visit to the West Bank town of Turmusayya, describing attacks against local residents as an “act of terror” and saying those responsible constituted a “band of terrorists” engaged in “criminal activity.”

Huckabee said his visit was intended in part to show support for U.S. citizens “who live in Turmusayya and other communities across this region” and who are “disturbed by people who have created extraordinary challenges that are unfair and illegal.”

The ambassador acknowledged that his use of the term terrorism to describe the violence has drawn criticism. Nevertheless, he defended the characterization during remarks at Turmusayya Town Hall, saying the actions fit the definition of terrorism and referring to the perpetrators as a “band of terrorists” involved in “criminal activity.”

“It’s important that we continue to put the pressure to say letting a few people do these horrible activities of criminal nature is detrimental…to everyone, Israeli, Palestinian alike,” he said.

Huckabee’s remarks were not the first time he has used the term “terrorists” to describe Israelis accused of carrying out violent attacks against Palestinians. In August, he condemned an attack on the West Bank village of Qusra, where the home of a Palestinian American was among the locations targeted.

According to Huckabee, those responsible for that incident burned a mosque and left graffiti on a wall reading, “Huckabee, this is from the terrorist.”

The ambassador’s repeated condemnations represent a forceful response from the Trump administration to violence attributed to Israeli settlers. President Donald Trump previously rescinded sanctions that the Biden administration had imposed against Israelis accused of violent activity in the West Bank.

“I’m glad they admitted it,” Huckabee said today, referring to the graffiti in which the perpetrators used the word terrorist to describe themselves. “I don’t think that’s what they intended to do, but I do think that they represent a very tiny minority.”

The State Department has also denounced the violence. A department spokesperson said last week that the U.S. position remains consistent with the Trump administration’s broader objective of pursuing peace in the region.

{Matzav.com}

A fundraising campaign established to support the parents of Lindsay Clancy has surpassed $1.1 million, with contributions pouring in as her closely watched Massachusetts murder trial ended in a mistrial after jurors were unable to reach a unanimous verdict.

The Musgrove Family Fund was launched on Aug. 11 by Wisconsin organizer Brandee Mulligan on behalf of Clancy’s father, Michael Musgrove. As of Friday, approximately 33,500 donors had contributed $1,124,849 toward the campaign’s $2 million goal.

According to the fundraiser, the money is intended to help Mike and Paula Musgrove recover financially after years of expenses associated with their daughter’s case. The couple relocated from Connecticut to Massachusetts so they could remain near Clancy and attend court proceedings, accumulating costs for travel, hotels and everyday living expenses.

Contributions to the campaign climbed as Clancy’s trial, one of Massachusetts’ most closely followed criminal cases, approached its conclusion.

Plymouth Superior Court Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial Friday after the jury informed the court that it could not unanimously decide whether Clancy, 36, was criminally responsible for the deaths of her three children. Clancy was accused of strangling Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, who was 8 months old, inside the family’s Duxbury home on Jan. 24, 2023.

The jury was reportedly divided 11-1 after spending nearly 40 hours deliberating over the course of seven days.

Clancy, who previously worked as a labor and delivery nurse, had entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Her attorney, Kevin Reddington, maintained during the trial that Clancy had been suffering from postpartum psychosis, a rare and serious psychiatric condition that can occur after childbirth. The defense also argued that medical providers had overmedicated her.

Prosecutors, led by Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague, presented a sharply different account, arguing that Clancy deliberately planned the killings and intentionally carried them out.

Judge Sullivan scheduled a status hearing for Sept. 29. At that time, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz is expected to indicate how prosecutors intend to proceed, including whether they will seek a new trial, pursue a plea agreement or dismiss the charges.

Clancy will meanwhile remain in custody at Tewksbury Hospital, where she has been held since the deaths of her children.

She has been paralyzed from the waist down since Jan. 24, 2023, when she jumped from a second-story window in an apparent suicide attempt on the same night her children were killed.

The GoFundMe campaign has been verified by the fundraising platform and identifies Mike and Paula Musgrove as its direct beneficiaries. The page states that the fundraiser was created with their approval and with the knowledge of Reddington.

In explaining the purpose of the campaign, Mulligan wrote that the fund is not asking donors “to agree on Lindsay, her case, or what the outcome of her trial should be.”

Paula Musgrove is retired, while Mike Musgrove works as a photographer.

The latest fundraising effort is separate from a GoFundMe established in 2023 for Clancy’s ex-husband, Patrick. That campaign raised more than $1 million to assist with medical expenses, funeral costs and legal bills following the deaths of the couple’s three children.

{Matzav.com}

Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu said today that Israel has already completed “80-90%” of the work necessary to eliminate the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program, but warned that the campaign is not over and that Israel remains prepared to carry out additional military operations inside Iran.

Speaking in an interview with i24NEWS, Netanyahu portrayed the confrontation with Tehran as the culmination of Israel’s broader campaign against Iran and its network of proxies across the Middle East. He said Iran’s nuclear ambitions had posed an existential danger to Israel and that Israeli action had dramatically reduced that threat.

“We have done 80-90% of the work. We need to complete what remains,” Netanyahu said.

The prime minister said Israel retains the operational capability to return to Iranian territory if necessary, pointing to previous Israeli operations as evidence that the IDF can reach targets deep inside Iran.

Netanyahu said Israeli pilots “were there and can be there at any moment,” making clear that Israel considers additional strikes an option if Tehran attempts to rebuild capabilities that Israel has targeted.

His comments came as concerns remain over the status of Iran’s nuclear program following extensive Israeli and American strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. The International Atomic Energy Agency has said it still lacks access to key bombed sites and information about Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60%, a level approaching weapons grade. Before the attacks, the IAEA estimated Iran possessed 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched to that level.

Netanyahu said Israel’s strategy was deliberately designed to first weaken the forces surrounding the Jewish state before confronting Iran itself. He described Tehran as “the head of the octopus,” with its regional proxies serving as the tentacles Israel sought to sever before turning directly toward the Iranian regime.

In related remarks reported from the interview, Netanyahu said, “My intention was that ultimately we would confront Iran, the head of the octopus, and cut off its tentacles.”

The prime minister pointed to Israel’s military campaigns against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iranian-linked forces elsewhere in the region as parts of that broader strategy. He maintained that weakening those groups helped create the conditions for Israel to confront Iran more directly.

Netanyahu has also made clear in recent days that Israel’s objectives extend beyond Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. In an earlier portion of his i24NEWS interview, he said Israeli agencies were working toward the collapse of the Iranian regime itself.

“We will defeat this regime. It will fall, we will bring it down. It is already standing on very shaky legs,” Netanyahu said.

Asked whether Mossad Director Roman Gofman was involved in efforts aimed at bringing down the Iranian government, Netanyahu replied, “All of our systems, under my direction, are working to bring down this regime and defeat it.”

The comments come amid renewed fighting between Iran and the United States and continued uncertainty over Tehran’s nuclear activities. The U.S., Britain, France and Germany are currently seeking an IAEA resolution that would report Iran to the U.N. Security Council over what they say is Tehran’s failure to meet its nuclear safeguards obligations and provide inspectors with required access and information.

Netanyahu indicated that Israel is closely watching for Iranian efforts to restore both its nuclear capabilities and the regional proxy network damaged during the fighting. He said Israel intends to act again if necessary rather than allow those capabilities to be rebuilt.

While Netanyahu’s assessment that Israel has completed as much as 90% of the campaign suggests that he believes the bulk of the immediate nuclear threat has been addressed, his comments also underscored that Yerushalayim does not regard the Iran campaign as finished.

{Matzav.com}

Maria Bartiromo was not fired by Fox News and remains an employee of the network, according to her attorney, who is pushing back sharply against reports surrounding the longtime television host’s abrupt departure from her Fox programs and warning that those spreading what he calls false claims could face legal action.

“The irresponsible reports that have been published stating that Maria Bartiromo was fired or is no longer an employee of Fox are absolutely and unequivocally false,” a spokesperson for attorney Bryan Freedman, Bartiromo’s attorney, said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times on Friday.

Freedman suggested that news organizations or individuals reporting that Bartiromo had been fired could ultimately be forced to defend those assertions in court.

“Make no mistake, we have the receipts and witnesses and they will come out whether through the courthouse or otherwise.”

Freedman is a prominent entertainment attorney who previously represented Tucker Carlson following Carlson’s departure from Fox News in 2023.

“Those reporting her firing or the incredulous facts supporting that fiction have exhibited a complete and utter reckless disregard for the truth,” Freedman, who has represented celebrities including Vin Diesel, Seth Rogen and Julia Roberts, added.

The attorney’s comments came one day after Fox News Media announced that it had parted ways with Bartiromo, who had spent more than 12 years with the company. Bartiromo joined Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network in 2013 following a lengthy career as an anchor and financial reporter at CNBC.

Fox did not publicly disclose what led to the separation. Bartiromo herself has not issued a public statement explaining the circumstances surrounding the development, with Freedman’s comments serving as the response from her side.

“We thank Maria for her work over the last 12 ½ years and wish her all the best on her next chapter,” Fox News Media said in announcing the move.

The network said Bartiromo’s departure from its programming was effective immediately. Fox also announced that the two programs she had hosted would be renamed and would receive new hosts, with a replacement also selected for “Sunday Morning Futures.”

President Donald Trump reacted to the news on Truth Social on Sept. 3, describing Bartiromo as a “true warrior” and “total professional.” Trump also predicted that viewers of her Fox programs would be unhappy about her departure.

Vice President JD Vance addressed Bartiromo’s situation during a White House press conference amid speculation that she could potentially succeed Karoline Leavitt as White House press secretary following Leavitt’s departure from the administration last month.

“No, I don’t think so,” Vance said when asked whether Bartiromo was being considered for the position. Vance nevertheless spoke positively about Bartiromo and described her as a friend.

Bartiromo’s exit from Fox programming marks the network’s most prominent on-air departure since Tucker Carlson left in 2023 after hosting what had been the highest-rated program in cable news prime time. Several years earlier, Fox News had also parted ways with longtime host Bill O’Reilly.

Bartiromo’s agency representatives did not respond to an earlier request for comment Thursday. Fox News also did not immediately respond Friday to a request from The Epoch Times seeking additional comment about Freedman’s assertions.

{Matzav.com}

Rudy Giuliani accused New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani of undermining the NYPD and fostering an atmosphere in which criminal behavior is tolerated, as a series of random attacks on subways and city streets has renewed concerns about public safety. Giuliani made the remarks today during an appearance on Newsmax’s “Saturday Report.”

The former New York City mayor said seemingly random acts of violence have become a particularly disturbing problem for New Yorkers and argued that the approach taken by City Hall plays an important role in determining how criminals behave.

“You have a mayor who is indifferent,” Giuliani said, referring to Mamdani. He went on to contend that crime has declined nationally since President Donald Trump took office because authorities have adopted a firmer posture toward criminal behavior.

Giuliani maintained that even when police officers are performing effectively, the message coming from political leadership can make a substantial difference. In New York, he argued, a change in the level of tolerance for criminal activity can produce a 10% to 20% swing in crime.

At the same time, Giuliani praised the city’s police commissioner and the work being done by NYPD officers. His criticism was directed at Mamdani, whom he accused of making their jobs more difficult. Giuliani said the mayor “might as well get on television and tell people to commit crimes.”

Giuliani also addressed recent incidents involving people being randomly shoved or stabbed in the subway system, linking such attacks to what he described as an uncontrolled mental-health crisis. He acknowledged that overall crime was higher during his own tenure as mayor and that organized crime posed a more substantial threat at the time.

Discussing proposals to dispatch social workers to potentially dangerous encounters involving mentally ill individuals, Giuliani argued that sending them without police protection could have deadly consequences. A social worker responding alone, he said, “would have been killed by now.” He recalled that under his administration, police officers accompanied social workers and individuals living on the streets were given “virtually no other choice” but to leave. Giuliani rejected the notion that people have a right to establish encampments or live on sidewalks and accused the current administration of encouraging such conditions.

The discussion then shifted to the approaching 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Giuliani argued that the United States has lost sight of some of the lessons learned after 9/11 and warned about extremist Muslims seeking political influence or control in communities including Dearborn, Michigan, and New York. He stressed that his criticism was not directed at Muslims as a whole. Giuliani has made similar warnings in recent Newsmax appearances ahead of the anniversary.

Giuliani recalled that following the 9/11 attacks, he explicitly urged New Yorkers not to retaliate against Muslims or Arabs. He said his administration established a task force aimed at preventing such a backlash. At the same time, he argued that the thousands of Americans killed in terrorist attacks should be remembered accurately and that the historical record should not be recast as though Islamists had been the victims.

Turning specifically to this year’s Ground Zero commemoration, Giuliani said he believes relatives of 9/11 victims do not want Mamdani to attend the ceremony.

“If he had a little bit of a heart, even with his views, he wouldn’t go,” Giuliani said, arguing that Mamdani’s attendance would upset victims’ relatives, whom he described as the most important people at the commemoration. Giuliani further charged that Mamdani “stands in direct support of the movement that killed their children.”

Giuliani said that during his administration, and later under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, considerable deference was given to the wishes of 9/11 families when decisions were made about commemorating the attacks. He argued that the terrorist threat remains serious today, warning that an attack “could happen again tomorrow,” even with President Trump in office.

Giuliani’s comments come amid an ongoing debate in New York over public safety, the city’s response to homelessness and mental illness, and Mamdani’s planned participation in events marking a quarter-century since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The United States cast the lone vote against a United Nations resolution encouraging governments, schools and other institutions to move away from the centuries-old Mercator world map in favor of projections that more accurately portray the relative size of continents, particularly Africa. The General Assembly approved the measure Friday by a 164-1 vote.

Six countries — Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine — abstained from the vote, leaving the U.S. as the only nation to formally oppose the resolution.

The measure encourages U.N. member states to adopt the “Equal Earth” projection or similar maps instead of relying on the widely used Mercator projection, which dates to the 16th century. The Mercator map was originally developed for navigation but significantly enlarges land masses farther from the equator.

The resolution followed the African Union-backed “Correct the Map” campaign, led by Togo, which has argued that the map created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator inaccurately minimizes Africa’s enormous geographic size and influences perceptions of the continent.

“For over 450 years, we have based our understanding of Africa, and the world, on a map that is wrong!” the campaign said. “In fact, you could fit the United States, China, India, Japan, Mexico and much of Europe into Africa and still have land to spare.”

Yaryna Ferencevych, the U.S. deputy representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, sharply criticized the measure while explaining Washington’s decision to vote against it, arguing that the issue went beyond simply choosing a different method of displaying the globe.

Ferencevych said the resolution “mocks the work and purpose of this institution.”

“While this initiative is presented as an anodyne effort to update cartographic proportions, the United States clearly sees it cannot be separated from the much larger and more radical ideological project it belongs to – as its most vocal and committed proponents plainly and openly state,” Ferencevych said in explaining the U.S.’ no vote.

She argued that the General Assembly should be devoting its attention to more consequential international matters rather than debating the political and ideological implications of mapmaking.

“Instead of focusing on genuine problems of international peace, prosperity, or good relations, this body is debating map projects from the 16th century, and their role in promoting reparations and “cognitive justice,” Ferencevych added.

Ferencevych further contended that measures of this kind contribute to declining confidence in the United Nations.

“Resolutions like this and the ideological agenda they promote, are barnacles on our work here, and the reason this institution is losing its credibility,” Ferencevych continued. “When the United Nations questions why it is losing legitimacy in the world, and is not taken seriously, time and again, we point to resolutions such as this.”

The resolution does not prohibit countries or organizations from continuing to use the Mercator projection, nor does it mandate a single replacement. Instead, it encourages governments, educational institutions, international organizations and technology companies to use the Equal Earth projection or other maps that more accurately depict the relative sizes of the world’s land masses.

Togo Foreign Minister Robert Dussey welcomed the General Assembly’s decision, portraying the effort as having significance beyond the technical question of cartography.

“It is about justice, dignity, equality and the way we represent our world,” he wrote on X. “For too long, inherited cartographic representations have distorted our perception of the true size and place of Africa and other regions of the world. Correcting the map means correcting the way we see the world.”

{Matzav.com}