Early bird: Trump's speech in Congress was interrupted by banging sticks. A record number of Americans are applying for British citizenship
Trump read Zelensky's letter, but heard the banging of a gavel
At the very beginning of Trump's speech, Democrat Al Green harassed the president and his mostly inaudible remarks were interrupted by repeated strikes of a gavel. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, urged the congressman to behave properly and the sergeant-at-arms led him out of the room. Green's uproar protested against the disruption of health insurance by the Trump administration.
The President then spoke more extensively about negotiations with Russia for peace in Ukraine. And with pleasure he read from a letter, which he said he had just received from Volodymyr Zelensky - and which resembled a message that the Ukrainian leader had published on X earlier in the day. "My team and I are ready to work under the strong leadership of President Trump to achieve lasting peace," Trump read during his speech and expressed delight over the letter, according to the BBC.
A record number of Americans apply for British citizenship due to Trump's election
Americans applied for British citizenship in record numbers last year, with the highest number of applications ever submitted in the fourth quarter of 2024, which coincided with the re-election of US President Donald Trump. According to data from the British Home Office, more than 6,100 US citizens applied for British citizenship last year, which is the most since records began in 2004, when fewer than 3,000 Americans applied.
Last year's numbers also recorded a significant increase compared to 2023, when fewer than 5,000 people applied for US citizenship. The number of American applications surged in the last three months of 2024, with more than 1,700 people applying which is the most for the last two decades, CNN reported.
Arab states want to invest billions in Gaza
A reconstruction plan worth 53 billion dollars (over 1 trillion Czech crowns), designed to rival President Donald Trump's idea for the USA to "take over Gaza" and relocate over two million Palestinians, has been approved by Arab officials at an extraordinary summit in Egypt's capital, Cairo.
"The Egyptian plan is now an Arab plan," announced Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Secretary-General of the League of Arab States. Without specifically mentioning president Trump’s ideas, he emphasized that "the Arab stance is to reject any relocation, whether voluntary or forced". Egypt elaborated a detailed plan with a 91-page document containing images of green quarters and magnificent public buildings, to counteract the American plan known as "the Middle East riviera", which shocked not only the Arab world, wrote on its BBC website.
