Skip to content
Project 2025
Search

Latest Stories

Follow Us:
Top Stories
The Iran War’s Price Tag: Billions Lost While Americans Go Without

The Iran War’s Price Tag: Billions Lost While Americans Go Without

A child holding a basket full of colorfully painted eggs.

Congress Bill Spotlight: Easter Monday Act, Federal Holiday

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting of the Cabinet in the Cabinet Room of the White House

Trump’s Troubled Appointees Face Scandals, Backlash, and Low Support

Kristi Noem facing away with her hand up to be sworn in as she testifies.

Kristi Noem is a Criminal. They Fired Her Because She’s a Woman

People at voting booths.

Just the Facts: Voter ID, States’ Powers, and Federal Limits

Does the foreign aid package include millions of dollars for pensions in Ukraine?

Man waving U.S. and Ukrainian flags

A man supporting Ukraine funding demonstrates outside the U.S. Capitol before the House passed the foreign aid package on April 20

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Tom Kertscher, Wisconsin Watch
By Tom Kertscher, Wisconsin WatchMay 10, 2024
Tom Kertscher, Wisconsin Watch
See More Writings by author

This fact brief was originally published by Wisconsin Watch. Read the original here. Fact briefs are published by newsrooms in the Gigafact network, and republished by The Fulcrum. Visit Gigafact to learn more.

Does the April 2024 U.S. foreign aid package include millions of dollars for pensions in Ukraine?

No.

The $95 billion U.S. aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan prohibits funds from being allocated to pensions in Ukraine.

President Joe Biden signed the package into law April 24, 2024.

Ukraine gets $61 billion for its war with Russia, including $14 billion for buying weapons.

Also included is $8 billion in economic support that “may include budget support,” none of which “may be made available for the reimbursement of pensions.”

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who represents most of northern Wisconsin, said on Wisconsin talk radio that the law includes “millions” for pensions in Ukraine.

His office, pointing to a U.S. State Department news release, told Wisconsin Watch that Tiffany meant to say that previous U.S. aid packages funded Ukrainian pensions.

A top Ukrainian official warned in December that Ukraine might have to stop making pension payments if foreign assistance wasn’t provided soon.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

US Congress Making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and for other purposes.

omny.fm Guest: Congressman Tom Tiffany - The Meg Ellefson Show 042524 - The Meg Ellefson Show

U.S. State Department The United States Funds Economic Survey of Ukraine for Sustainable Recovery

Financial Times Ukraine warns of pension and salary delays without western aid


Latest news

Just the Facts: The SAVE Act and the Future of Voter ID Rules
Elections

Just the Facts: The SAVE Act and the Future of Voter ID Rules

Posters are displayed next to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as he speaks at a news conference to unveil the Take It Down Act to protect victims against non-consensual intimate image abuse, on Capitol Hill on June 18, 2024 in Washington, DC.
Media & Technology

Deepfakes: The New Face of Cyberbullying and Why Parents, Schools, and Lawmakers Must Act

Team Trump had to start a war to learn how the global economy works
Economy

Team Trump had to start a war to learn how the global economy works

Read More

Sketch collage image of businessman it specialist coding programming app protection security website web isolated on drawing background.

Amazon’s court loss over Just Walk Out highlights a deeper issue: employers are increasingly collecting workers’ biometric data without meaningful consent. Explore the growing conflict between workplace surveillance, privacy rights, and outdated U.S. laws.

Getty Images, Deagreez

The Quiet Rise of Employee Surveillance

Amazon’s loss in court over its attempt to shield the source code behind its Just Walk Out technology is a small win for shoppers, but the bigger story is how employers are quietly collecting biometric data from their own workers.

From factories to Fortune 500 companies, employers are demanding fingerprints, palmprints, retinal scans, facial scans, or even voice prints. These biometric technologies are eroding the boundary between workplace oversight and employee autonomy, often without consent or meaningful regulation.

Keep ReadingShow less
Close up of a woman wearing black, modern spectacles Smart glasses and reality concept with futuristic screen

Apple’s upcoming AI-powered wearables highlight growing privacy risks as the right to record police faces increasing threats. The death of Alex Pretti raises urgent questions about surveillance, civil liberties, and accountability in the digital age.

Getty Images, aislan13

AI Wearables and the Rising Risk of Recording Police

Last month, Apple announced the development of three wearable smart devices, all equipped with built-in cameras. The company has its sights set on 2027 for the release of their new smart glasses, AI pendant, and AirPods with built-in camera, all of which will be AI-functional for users. As the market for wearable products offering smart-recording capabilities expands, so does the risk that comes with how users choose to use the technology.

In Minneapolis in January, Alex Pretti was killed after an encounter with federal agents while filming them with his phone. He was not a suspect in a crime. He was not interfering, but was doing what millions of Americans now instinctively do when they see state power in motion: witnessing.

Keep ReadingShow less
AI - Its Use, Misuse, and Regulation
Glowing ai chip on a circuit board.
Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash

AI - Its Use, Misuse, and Regulation

There has been no shortage of articles hailing the opportunity of AI and ones forecasting disaster from AI. I understand the good uses to which AI could be put, but I am also well aware of the ways in which AI is dangerous or will denigrate our lives as thinking human beings.

First, the good uses. There is no question that AI can outthink human beings, regardless of how famous or knowledgeable, because of the amount of information it can process in a short amount of time. The most powerful accounts I've read have been in the field of medical research: doctors have fed facts into AI, asking for a diagnosis or a possible remedy, and AI has come up with remarkable answers beyond the human mind's capability.

Keep ReadingShow less
Overbroad AI Export Controls Risk Forfeiting the AI Race
a black keyboard with a blue button on it
Photo by BoliviaInteligente on Unsplash

Overbroad AI Export Controls Risk Forfeiting the AI Race

The nation that wins the global AI race will hold decisive military and economic advantages. That’s why President Trump’s January 2025 AI Action Plan declared: “It is the policy of the United States to sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.”

However, AI global dominance does not just mean producing the best AI systems. It also means that the American “AI Stack” – the layered collection of tools, technologies, and frameworks that organizations use to build, train, deploy, and manage artificial intelligence applications – will become the international standard for this world-changing technology. As such, advancing a commonsense export policy for American AI chips will play a decisive role in determining whether the United States remains embedded at the core of global AI development or is gradually displaced by rival systems.

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2026