Trump's USA

The construction of the ballroom
Expert: Trump's ballroom is an ethical nightmare

Conservatives, historians and political scientists are critical of Donald Trump's construction of a large ballroom. On Tuesday, photos were released showing parts of the East Wing of the White House being demolished to make way for the new building.

- They are destroying the history of this building forever, says political scientist Martha Joynt Kumar to the Washington Post.

The 8,360-square-meter building risks overshadowing the main White House building itself, which is barely half as large, warns a group of conservationists in an open letter that the newspaper has seen.

In addition, experts warn that the financing is unclear and opens the door to corruption. Trump has said that he will pay for it himself, but has also said that some anonymous donors will contribute up to $20 million to the project. Corruption expert Richard Painter says it opens the door for people to secretly pay for political favors or access to the Trump administration.

– I consider this ballroom an ethical nightmare. 

The President's team
Trump nomination: "I have a little Nazi side"

One of Donald Trump's intended agency heads is quitting the assignment after racist messages were leaked to the website Politico.

The matter concerns Paul Ingrassia, who was nominated by Donald Trump to head the Office of Special Investigations. In the messages, Ingrassia wrote, among other things, that he sometimes has a "Nazi side" and used a derogatory word for blacks. He also called Martin Luther King "the George Floyd of the 1960s" and complained that King was given a national holiday.

"It should be abolished and thrown into the seventh circle of hell," Ingrassia wrote.

In a statement, he writes that he is dropping out of this week's Senate hearing and is no longer seeking the position because he lacks "enough votes." 

Surrogacy Debate
Families' Accounts Drained in Surrogacy Scandal in the US

Hundreds of American families have lost large sums of money in what is described as one of the biggest scandals in the US surrogacy industry, reports the Wall Street Journal. Money that should have gone to surrogates and fertility clinics instead went to a business owner's music studio, rap career and a vegan luxury fashion brand.

The company Seam is said to have used an estimated $16 million of clients' money for other things. But it is just one of a number of companies that are exploiting a largely unregulated industry, the newspaper writes.

These are so-called escrow companies - third parties that handle payments to surrogates and fertility clinics during long and expensive processes. According to the review, millions of dollars have been handled with almost no transparency or oversight, which has left hundreds of families in financial limbo.

The US surrogacy industry is a multi-billion dollar industry driven by rising infertility, more LGBTQ families and international clients from countries where surrogacy is banned.