In a final push ahead of the impending Trump Administration, the Biden White House is set to announce an additional $1.25 billion in military assistance to Ukraine.
The large package of aid includes a significant number of munitions, including for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems and the HAWK air defense system. The package will also include Stinger missiles and 155 mm and 105 mm artillery rounds.
The officials are expected to make the announcement on Monday, the Associated Press reported.
The recent funding came after Biden earlier this month announced a $988 million aid package to Ukraine to ensure it ‘has the tools it needs to prevail in its fight against Russian aggression.’
‘This administration has made its choice. And so has a bipartisan coalition in Congress. The next administration must make its own choice,’ Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin previously said during a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. ‘But, from this library, from this podium, I am confident that President Reagan would have stood on the side of Ukraine, American security and human freedom.’
The Biden administration has been committed to giving Ukraine as much aid as possible before Trump takes office in January.
During the campaign, President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance heavily criticized the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Trump also said he would end the war before even entering office without offering further details. Vance suggested earlier this year that the best way to end the war was for Ukraine to cede the land Russia has seized and for a demilitarized zone to be established, a proposal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy flatly rejected.
Since the campaign trial, Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy while at a ceremony commemorating the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Saturday after a devastating fire there in 2019.
This latest announcement marks the administration’s 22nd aid package through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.
Earlier in December, House Speaker Mike Johnson rejected a request by the administration for Congress to authorize $24 billion in additional funding.
‘It is not the place of Joe Biden to make that decision now,’ Johnson previously said. ‘We have a newly elected president, and we’re going to wait and take the new commander in chief’s direction on all that. So, I don’t expect any Ukraine funding to come up now.’
The Reagan-era director of the FBI, and later the CIA, is urging the Senate to reject two of President-elect Donald Trump’s selections for top law enforcement and intelligence posts.
In a letter to senators on Thursday reported by Politico, former FBI and CIA director William Webster wrote that Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard are unqualified to be FBI director and director of national intelligence, respectively.
Webster, who is 100 years old, is the only person to have led both the FBI and CIA. He warned senators that Patel’s personal loyalty to Trump could conflict with the FBI’s duty to uphold the rule of law.
‘His record of executing the president’s directives suggest [sic] a loyalty to individuals rather than the rule of law — a dangerous precedent for an agency tasked with impartial enforcement of justice,’ he wrote, according to Politico.
As for Gabbard, Webster criticized her ‘profound lack’ of intelligence experience and said a seasoned leader is needed for the DNI post.
‘Effective management of our intelligence community requires unparalleled expertise to navigate the complexities of global threats and to maintain the trust of allied nations,’ he wrote. ‘Without that trust, our ability to safeguard sensitive secrets and collaborate internationally is severely diminished.’
The Trump transition team defended the president-elect’s selection of Patel to lead the FBI.
‘Kash Patel is loyal to the Constitution. He’s worked under Presidents Obama and Trump in key national security roles,’ said Alex Pfeiffer, a Trump transition team spokesman.
Another transition official, Alexa Henning, observed that Webster had supported President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris against Trump.
‘Lt. Col. Gabbard is an active member of the Army and has served in the military for over two decades and in Congress. As someone who has consumed intelligence at the highest levels, including during wartime, she recognizes the importance of partnerships with allies to ensure close coordination to keep the American people safe,’ said Henning.
Patel and Gabbard have proven to be two of Trump’s more controversial nominees for key positions in his next administration.
Patel was the chief investigator in the congressional probe into alleged Trump-Russia collusion, uncovering government surveillance abuse that led to the appointment of two special counsels who determined that there was never any collusion and the premise of the FBI’s original investigation was bogus. He has raised concern among top law enforcement professionals for his outspoken criticism of the FBI and Justice Department, accusing them of partisanship.
Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman and military officer from Hawaii, is likewise under scrutiny after she met with since-toppled Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2017, who was accused of using chemical weapons on his own citizens during the country’s civil war. Gabbard refused to call him a war criminal during her 2020 presidential campaign and said she was skeptical that his government had perpetrated a chemical weapons attack earlier that year that had killed dozens of Syrians. However, she later called Assad a brutal dictator.
Webster was appointed to direct the FBI by President Jimmy Carter in 1978, and he remained atop the bureau under President Ronald Reagan’s two terms in office. In 1988, Webster became director of the CIA under President George H.W. Bush and served through 1991.
‘I urge you to weigh the critical importance of nonpartisan leadership and experience,’ Webster wrote. ‘The safety of the American people — and your own families — depends on it.’
Fox News’ Brooke Singman and Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.
Russia is willing to work with President-elect Trump to help improve relations with Ukraine so long as the U.S. makes the first move, Kremlin officials said this week, adding fresh momentum for the possibility of peace talks as its war in Ukraine threatens to stretch into a third year.
Speaking to reporters Thursday in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated that Russia could be ready to come to the negotiating table regarding its ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine — echoing the phrasing used by the Kremlin to describe its war in Ukraine — so long as the U.S. acted first.
‘If the signals that are coming from the new team in Washington to restore the dialogue that Washington interrupted after the start of a special military operation [the war in Ukraine] are serious, of course, we will respond to them,’ Lavrov said in Moscow.
But he stressed that the U.S. should move first, telling reporters that ‘the Americans broke the dialogue, so they should make the first move.’
His remarks come after Trump’s pick for Ukraine envoy, retired Lieutenant-General Keith Kellogg, told Fox News in an interview this month that both Russia and Ukraine appear to be willing to negotiate an end to the war — citing heavy casualties, damage to critical infrastructure, and a general sense of exhaustion that has permeated both countries as the war drags well past the thousand-day mark.
‘I think both sides are ready,’ Kellogg said in the interview. ‘After a thousand days of war, with 350,000, 400,000 Russian [soldiers] down, and 150,000 Ukrainian dead, or numbers like that — both sides are saying, ‘okay, maybe this is the time, and we need to step back.’’
To date, Russia has lost tens of thousands of soldiers in the war. As of this fall, an average of 1,200 soldiers were killed or injured per day, according to U.S. estimates.
In Ukraine, the country’s energy infrastructure has seen extreme damage as the result of a protracted Russian bombing campaign, designed to collapse portions of the power grid, plunge the country into darkness, and ultimately, wear down the resolve of the Ukrainian people.
Most recently, Russia launched a Christmas Day bombardment against Ukraine’s power grid, directing some 70 cruise and ballistic missiles and 100 strike drones to hit critical energy infrastructure in the country.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Christmas Day timing was a ‘deliberate’ choice by Putin. ‘What could be more inhuman?’ he said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military has lost around 40% of the land it seized in Russia’s Kursk region — a loss that could further erode morale.
Lavrov’s remarks also come as Kellogg prepares to travel to Ukraine in January for what he described to Fox News as an information-gathering trip.
He declined to elaborate further on what he will aim to accomplish during the visit, saying only that he believes both countries are ready to end the protracted war — and that incoming President Trump could serve as the ‘referee.’
‘Think of a cage fight. You’ve got two fighters, and both want to tap out. You need a referee to kind of separate them.’
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he is open to having the peace talks in the third country of Slovakia, citing an offer made by the country’s prime minister during a visit to the Kremlin earlier this week.
It is unclear whether Ukraine would be willing to have the talks held in Slovakia, a country whose leaders have been vehemently opposed to sending more EU military aid to Ukraine.
Ukraine did not immediately respond to Fox News’s request for comment on the peace talks, or whether it would be open to Slovakia’s offer to host.
The U.S. Treasury Department has delayed the deadline for millions of small businesses to Jan. 13, 2025, to file a new form, known as a Beneficial Ownership Information report.
The Treasury had initially required many businesses to file the report to the agency’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN, by Jan. 1. Noncompliance carries potential fines that could exceed $10,000.
This delay comes as a result of legal challenges to the new reporting requirement under the Corporate Transparency Act.
The rule applies to about 32.6 million businesses, including certain corporations, limited liability companies and others, according to federal estimates.
Businesses and owners that didn’t comply would potentially face civil penalties of up to $591 a day, adjusted for inflation, according to FinCEN. They could also face up to $10,000 in criminal fines and up to two years in prison.
However, many small businesses are exempt. For example, those with over $5 million in gross sales and more than 20 full-time employees may not need to file a report.
The Treasury delayed the compliance deadline following a recent court ruling.
A federal court in Texas on Dec. 3 had issued a nationwide preliminary injunction that temporarily blocked FinCEN from enforcing the rule. However, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that injunction on Monday.
“Because the Department of the Treasury recognizes that reporting companies may need additional time to comply given the period when the preliminary injunction had been in effect, we have extended the reporting deadline,” according to the FinCEN website.
FinCEN didn’t return a request from CNBC for comment about the number of businesses that have filed a BOI report to date.
Some data, however, suggests few have done so.
The federal government had received about 9.5 million filings as of Dec. 1, according to statistics that FinCEN provided to the office of Rep. French Hill, R-Ark. That figure is about 30% of the estimated total.
Hill has called for the repeal of the Corporate Transparency Act, passed in 2021, which created the BOI requirement. Hill’s office provided the data to CNBC.
“Most non-exempt reporting companies have not filed their initial reports, presumably because they are unaware of the requirement,” Daniel Stipano, a partner at law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, wrote in an e-mail.
There’s a potential silver lining for businesses: It’s “unlikely” FinCEN would impose financial penalties “except in cases of bad faith or intentional violations,” Stipano said.
“In its public statements, FinCEN has made clear that its primary goal at this point is to educate the public about the requirement, as opposed to taking enforcement actions against noncompliant companies,” he said.
The BOI filing isn’t an annual requirement. Businesses only need to resubmit the form to update or correct information.
Many exempt businesses — such as large companies, banks, credit unions, tax-exempt entities and public utilities — already furnish similar data.
Businesses have different compliance deadlines depending on when they were formed.
For example, those created or registered before 2024 have until Jan. 13, 2025, to file their initial BOI reports, according to FinCEN. Those that do so on or after Jan. 1, 2025, have 30 days to file a report.
There will likely be additional court rulings that could impact reporting, Stipano said.
For one, litigation is ongoing in the 5th Circuit, which hasn’t formally ruled on the constitutionality of the Corporate Transparency Act.
“Judicial actions challenging the law have been brought in multiple jurisdictions, and these actions may eventually reach the Supreme Court,” he wrote. “As of now, it is unclear whether the incoming Trump administration will continue to support the Government’s position in these cases.”
Richard Parsons, who helped Time Warner divorce from AOL after what was considered one of the worst takeovers in history, has died. He was 76.
His death was confirmed by Lazard, where he was a longtime board member.
Parsons became CEO of AOL Time Warner in 2002, replacing Gerald Levin, who stepped aside two years after the media giant’s disastrous $165 billion merger with the upstart internet company.
As CEO and later chairman, he led Time Warner’s turnaround, dropping “AOL” from the corporation’s name and shrinking the company’s $30 billion in debt to $16.8 billion by selling Warner Music and other properties.
“The merger did not work out quite the way many of us expected. The internet bubble burst and we had to fix the leaks,” Parsons told The Independent in 2004. “It was not as monumental a task as many people thought, as the fundamental businesses of the old Time Warner — like publishing, the cable networks and movies — was running well.”
He said that after the merger, AOL’s business had collapsed and Warner Music Group was declining, along with the entire music industry. “So we sold our music business, as well as other nonstrategic assets, to strengthen our balance sheet and put in new management.”
Parsons stepped down from Time Warner in 2007.
Richard Dean “Dick” Parsons was born into a working-class family on April 4, 1948, in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant section and grew up in South Ozone Park in Queens, New York. He was a middle child among five siblings.
He attended public school, skipping two grades, and at age 16, the 6-foot-4 Parsons enrolled at the University of Hawaii, where he played basketball and met his future wife, Laura Ann Bush, whom he married in 1968.
After graduation, he returned to New York state to attend Albany Law School, moonlighting as a part-time janitor to help pay his tuition and finishing at the top of his class. During an internship at the New York state legislature, he developed ties to moderate Republican Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, who became vice president under Gerald Ford in 1974 in the wake of President Richard Nixon’s resignation. Parsons became associate director of President Ford’s domestic policy council.
“The old-boy network lives,” Parsons told The New York Times in a 1994 interview. “I didn’t grow up with any of the old boys. I didn’t go to school with any of the old boys. But by becoming a part of that Rockefeller entourage, that created for me a group of people who’ve looked out for me ever since.”
After Ford’s defeat by Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election, Parsons returned to New York and joined the law firm of Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler in 1977, as did his friend Rudy Giuliani. Parsons and his wife and three children moved to Rockefeller country, Briarcliff Manor in Westchester County. Coincidentally, his maternal grandfather had been a groundskeeper on John D. Rockefeller’s nearby estate, Kykuit.
Parson’s clients included Rockefeller’s widow, Happy, and the Dime Savings Bank of New York. In 1988, he accepted an offer to head Dime Bancorp, which had been struggling through the savings & loan crisis after aggressively approving high-risk mortgages as housing prices crashed. In 1989, it posted a $92.3 million loss. By the end of 1993, after ordering massive layoffs, Parsons helped the bank complete a $300 million recapitalization. In 1995, he helped engineer Dime’s merger with Anchor Savings, creating one of the nation’s largest thrift institutions.
Parsons joined the Time Warner board on the recommendation of Rockefeller’s brother Laurance. He became president of Time Warner in 1995.
As a Rockefeller Republican, Parsons considered himself a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. Parsons worked for Giuliani’s campaign for New York mayor but kept a behind-the-scenes profile. ″I didn’t want to be positioned as the Mayor’s Black guy,″ he told the Times a few years later.
Giuliani put him in charge of the mayoral transition team in 1993 but Parsons turned down an offer to become deputy mayor for fiscal affairs. His relationship with Giuliani later soured after the mayor tried to pressure Time Warner Cable to carry the then-fledgling Fox News Channel in New York.
Richard Parsons on Capitol Hill in 2008.Tim Sloan / AFP / Getty Images file
Two years after stepping down from Time Warner, Parsons became chairman of Citigroup in 2009, helping to stabilize the banking giant in the wake of the financial crisis. In May 2014, he was named interim CEO of the Los Angeles Clippers after the NBA banned owner Donald Sterling for life because he had made racist remarks.“Like most Americans, I have been deeply troubled by the pain the Clippers’ team, fans and partners have endured,” Parsons said.
Parsons played down race as a factor of his success.
“For a lot of people, race is a defining issue. It just isn’t for me,” he told the Times in 1997. “It is … like air. It’s like height. I have other things that I’m focused on.″
He later came out of retirement to briefly serve as CBS chairman in the wake of Les Moonves’ ouster following sexual harassment and assault allegations during the #MeToo movement.
After only a month as CBS’ interim chairman, Parsons stepped down suddenly in October 2018, citing health concerns.
“When I agreed to join the board and serve as the interim chair, I was already dealing with a serious health challenge — multiple myeloma — but I felt that the situation was manageable,” Parsons said in a CBS statement announcing he had been replaced by Strauss Zelnick. “Unfortunately, unanticipated complications have created additional new challenges, and my doctors have advised that cutting back on my current commitments is essential to my overall recovery.”
Parsons was active in many charities, including playing leading roles for the Jazz Foundation of America, the Apollo Theater Foundation and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. During his years on the Apollo Theater board, he helped the historic Harlem entertainment venue raise nearly $100 million. Parsons and his wife also donated 40 works of art to the American Folk Art Museum in July 2021 to help celebrate its 60th anniversary.
India’s former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has died at the age of 92, according to statement from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
The hospital said he lost consciousness at home on Thursday and was brought to the AIIMS in New Delhi.
“He was being treated for age-related medical conditions and had a sudden loss of consciousness at home on 26 December 2024,” AIIMS wrote. “Resuscitative measures were started immediately at home. He was brought to the Medical Emergency at AIIMS.”
But despite the hospital’s efforts, Singh was declared dead at 9:51 p.m. local. (11:21 a.m. ET), it added.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the country mourned Singh’s passing and called him one of country’s “most distinguished leaders.”
“As our Prime Minister, he made extensive efforts to improve people’s lives,” Modi wrote on X on Thursday.
Singh served as prime minister for two terms. In 2004, after unexpectedly winning national elections, Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi decided she didn’t want the country’s top job after all.
She instead turned to Singh, who was then known for his role in unleashing a bold wave of economic reforms in the early 90s when he was finance minister.
His government introduced welfare schemes such as a jobs program for the rural poor, according to Reuters. In 2008, Singh struck a landmark deal that allowed peaceful trade in nuclear energy with the United States for the first time in three decades, according to Reuters. The following year, he was guest of honor at then-US President Barack Obama’s first White House state dinner.
By the time his second term was up, Singh’s achievements were being overshadowed by high-profile corruption cases in his administration. Singh was never accused of being corrupt but his image took a hit.
Months before his death, Singh said at a press conference that he did the best he could as prime minister, Reuters reported. “I honestly believe that history will be kinder to me than the contemporary media or, for that matter, the opposition parties in parliament,” he said, according to Reuters.
Singh is survived by his wife and three daughters, Reuters reported.
Israeli forces unleashed a series of strikes on the Yemeni capital Sanaa and the western city of Hodeidah on Thursday, according to Houthi-run media, killing at least four people and injuring more than a dozen others.
The strike on Sanaa International Airport killed at least three people and injured 16 others, al-Masirah television reported. Further west, at least one person was killed in the attack on Hodeidah, added al-Masirah.
Three people have also been reported missing in Hodeidah, and rescue and search operations are ongoing, according to al-Masirah.
The Israeli military said on Thursday it hit “military targets” belonging to Iran-backed Houthis.
“The targets that were struck by the IDF include military infrastructure used by the Houthi terrorist regime for its military activities in both the Sanaa International Airport and the Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement.
In recent months, the Houthis have fired missiles at Israeli cities in what they say is in response to the Israeli offensive in Gaza, which has killed more than 45,300 Palestinians.
The Israeli military has repeatedly struck Yemen since launching its war in Gaza following the Hamas-led October 7 attack.
Earlier on Thursday, Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam said on X that Israel had struck the airport in Sanaa and other “civilian infrastructure,” condemning a “crime against the Yemeni people.”
Power plants were struck in Sanaa and Hodeidah, according to a Telegram channel associated with the Houthis.
The United States and the United Kingdom have previously struck the Houthis after the group disrupted shipping in the Red Sea, one of the world’s busiest waterways.
Last week, a projectile fired from Yemen hit Tel Aviv, injuring at least 16 people. Days before, Israel intercepted another missile launched by the Houthis, with shrapnel causing extensive damage to a school near Tel Aviv.
Finnish police said on Thursday they are investigating whether a foreign ship was involved in the damage of an undersea power cable connecting Finland and Estonia following a sudden outage on Wednesday.
Baltic Sea nations are on high alert for potential acts of sabotage following a string of outages of power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines since 2022, although subsea equipment is also subject to technical malfunction and accidents.
The 658 megawatt (MW) Estlink 2 power interconnector remains offline following the outage that began at midday local time on Wednesday, leaving only the 358 MW Estlink 1 in operation between the two countries, operator Fingrid said.
“The police, in cooperation with the Border Guard and other authorities, are investigating the chain of events of the incident,” Finnish police said in a statement.
Investigators were probing the potential role of a foreign ship, police said without naming the vessel.
Police in Sweden are meanwhile leading an investigation into the breach last month of two Baltic Sea telecom cables, in an incident German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has said he assumed was caused by sabotage.
Separately, Finnish police continue to investigate damage caused last year to the Balticconnector gas pipeline linking Finland and Estonia, as well as several telecoms cables, and have said this was likely caused by a ship dragging its anchor.
In 2022 the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream gas pipelines running along the seabed in the same waters were blown up, in a case still under investigation by Germany.
Organizers said Friday that two Sydney to Hobart sailors have died at sea amid wild weather conditions that forced line honors favorite Master Lock Comanche to withdraw among mass retirements.
The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia in Sydney, which administers the yacht race, has said that one sailor each on entrants Flying Fish Arctos and Bowline were killed after being struck by the boom, a large horizontal pole at the bottom of the sail.
The race will continue as the fleet continues its passage to Constitution Dock in Hobart, with the first boats expected to arrive later on Friday or early Saturday morning. The race is 628 nautical miles (722 miles, 1,160 kilometers) long.
David Jacobs, vice-commodore of the CYCA, said the race would “absolutely” continue.
“The conditions are challenging, but they’re not excessive,” he said. “So we’ve got sort of winds at about 25 knots coming from the north seas around about two meters or thereabouts, so the conditions that most of the sailors would normally easily handle.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese paid tribute to the sailors who died.
“We have sadly awoken to tragedy in the Sydney to Hobart with the awful news two sailors have lost their lives,” he said. “Our thoughts are with the crews, their families and loved ones at this deeply sad time.”
The incident aboard Flying Fish Arctos occurred around 30 nautical miles east-southeast of Ulladulla on the New South Wales south coast. Crew members attempted CPR but could not revive their teammate.
The crew member aboard Bowline was struck approximately 30 nautical miles east/north-east of Batemans Bay and fell unconscious, with CPR also unsuccessful.
A police vessel was escorting Bowline to Batemans Bay, where she is expected to arrive later Friday morning.
“As these incidents are being dealt with by the Water Police and all family members are yet to be contacted, we cannot provide further details at this stage,” the CYCA said in a statement. “Our thoughts are with the crews, family and friends of the deceased.”
Flying Fish Arctos, a New South Wales-based 50-footer, has contested 17 previous Hobarts since being built in 2001. The boat was designed for round-the-world sailing and is currently used by Flying Fish, a sailing school that operates in Mosman, a suburb on Sydney’s north shore.
The deaths come 26 years after six sailors were killed in storms during the 1998 running of the race, which triggered a state coronial inquest and mass reforms to the safety protocols that govern the race.
The first all-Filipino crew of 15 sailors was entered in the 2024 race, but was among about 15 retirements because of the weather. With veteran sailor Ernesto Echauz at the helm, Centennial 7 was one of six international entrants and includes sailors from the Philippines’ national team and the Philippines navy.
Last year, LawConnect won line honors after holding off defending champion Comanche by less than a minute in an exciting finish between the super maxis. LawConnect, which was runner-up in the last three editions of the race, finished in 1 day, 19 hours, 3 minutes, 58 seconds. Comanche’s time was 1 day, 19 hours, 4 minutes, 49 seconds – a margin of just 51 seconds.
It was the second-closest finish in Sydney to Hobart history after Condor of Bermuda beat Apollo by seven seconds in 1982.
Comanche holds the race record of 1 day, 9 hours, 15 minutes, 24 seconds, set when it won in 2017.
LawConnect, which led out of Sydney Harbor, was leading the 2024 race but still had 400 nautical miles before reaching Hobart, indicating a finish overnight Friday night. Celestial V70 is in second place, about 10 nautical miles behind LawConnect.
South Korea’s parliament voted to impeach prime minister and acting President Han Duck-soo on Friday, less than two weeks after parliament stripped President Yoon Suk Yeol of his powers over his short-lived martial law order that plunged the country into political chaos.
The main opposition Democratic party filed the impeachment motion on Thursday after Han refused to fill three vacant seats in the Constitutional Court, which is set to adjudicate Yoon’s impeachment trial.
Han’s impeachment comes as the country has been embroiled in weeks of political turmoil and uncertainty following Yoon’s declaration of martial law on December 3, which lasted only six hours and sparked mass protests.
