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CNN:"Here's the latest
• Strait of Hormuz: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer says his country is working with allies on a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. US President Donald Trump had urged countries to help secure the key shipping route, warning NATO faces a “very bad” future if allies failed to assist. Iran says Hormuz is “not closed” but operating under “special conditions.”
• On the ground: “Hundreds of thousands” of people have been evacuated from southern Lebanon after Israel said it launched “limited” ground operations. In Iran, smoke billowed over Tehran as state media reported loud booms. Meanwhile, one person was killed in Abu Dhabi after a missile hit a vehicle.
• Oil prices spike: EU energy ministers are meeting today to discuss how to curb rising energy costs. The price of oil yesterday rose to its highest level since July 2022. US gas prices are now at their highest since October 2023, with diesel just shy of $5 a gallon..."
CNN:"Violent attacks at Michigan synagogue and Virginia university rattle sense of safety in American communities
By
Emma Tucker
,
Elizabeth Wolfe
1 hr 41 min ago
A pair of attacks over 700 miles apart on Thursday struck at the heart of community safe havens, leaving shocked Americans with an uneasy sense of security.
First, a deadly shooting being investigated as terrorism devastated a Virginia university in a military town. Hours later, a targeted vehicle-ramming attack on a Michigan synagogue left congregants shaken to their core.
The shooting at Virginia’s Old Dominion University was committed by a veteran who was a convicted ISIS supporter. The attacker was able to kill one person and injure two others before a classroom of ROTC students subdued and killed him, the FBI said.
Then, a vehicle rammed into the Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield Township in an attack the FBI said targeted the Jewish community, carried out by a US citizen who was born in Lebanon, the Department of Homeland Security said. The synagogue had been on high alert for potential violence in the weeks before the building became engulfed in flames after the suspect drove through it with a rifle and a large number of explosives, officials said.
Though the motive in the attack is still unknown, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said there is a clear “nexus” between the Iran war and the attack, adding it’s no coincidence the suspect targeted a synagogue named Temple Israel...."
CNN:"The potential for a multi-day outbreak of severe thunderstorms is climbing as a massive, powerful storm tracks across the United States.
This storm has everything: feet of snow and blizzard conditions for parts of the Midwest and Great Lakes, roaring winds capable of knocking out power and elevating fire weather concerns in the Plains and Rockies, and thunderstorms that could unleash tornadoes and widespread damaging wind gusts.The storm’s snowy side packed the most significant punch early Sunday for millions in the north-central US, with wind-whipped snow creating dangerous travel. But from late Sunday through Monday, more than 100 million people in the eastern half of the country will face an increasingly severe thunderstorm risk.
..."
REUTERS:"March 12 (Reuters) - The U.S. and Western allies clashed with Russia and China on Thursday over Iran's nuclear intentions, as Washington sought at the United Nations to further justify the war it launched on Iran two weeks ago.
At a meeting of the 15-member U.N. Security Council, which is chaired this month by the U.S., Russia and China moved unsuccessfully to block a discussion about a committee established to oversee and enforce U.N. sanctions on Iran. They were overruled 11-2 with two abstentions.
The Reuters Iran Briefing newsletter keeps you informed with the latest developments and analysis of the Iran war. Sign up here.
Addressing the council, U.S. envoy to the United Nations Mike Waltz accused Moscow and Beijing of seeking to protect Tehran by blocking the work of the so-called 1737 Committee.
"All member states of the United Nations should be implementing an arms embargo against Iran..."
REUTERS:"CAIRO/RAMALLAH, March 15 (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed 16 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, health officials said, in one of the heaviest death tolls in a single day in weeks, as Israel continued to launch attacks on Lebanon and Iran.
Medics and the interior ministry of the Hamas-run Gaza said an Israeli airstrike killed a senior police official and eight other officers when it hit their vehicle near the entrance to Zawayda town in the central Gaza Strip. At least 14 other people, mostly bystanders, were wounded, the Gaza health ministry said...Earlier on Sunday, health officials said an Israeli airstrike had killed three people - a man, his pregnant wife, and their son - in the western area of Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip.
There was no immediate Israeli comment on the incidents in Gaza.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a Palestinian father, mother, and two of their children were killed as they drove in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian health authorities said, and the Israeli military said the incident was under review..."
WSJ:"Iran’s new supreme leader, in his first official message since he took over from his slain father, said his country would keep the Strait of Hormuz closed as shipping on the crucial oil route and nearby waters suffered a sharp uptick in attacks over the past day.
Mojtaba Khamenei also raised the possibility of opening new fronts in a war that the International Energy Agency said is causing the biggest-ever disruption to oil supply, according to a written statement attributed to him.The U.S. military has turned down requests to escort tankers or other civilian ships through the strait, with defense officials saying it won’t do so until the threat of Iranian fire has eased. The head of U.S. Central Command said its focus remains on destroying Iran’s missiles and drones..."
THEMOSCOWTIMES:"Russia is giving Iran “specific advice” on drone tactics, CNN reported Wednesday, in a sign of more sophisticated support than previously reported, even as officials in the Trump administration have sought to downplay the alleged information sharing.
“What was more general support is now getting more concerning, including [drone] targeting strategies that Russia employed in Ukraine,” a Western intelligence official told CNN on condition of anonymity.
The official declined to specify the extent of Russia’s tactical assistance to Iran..."
CNN:"Iran warned any attack on the country would spark a regional conflict.
The United States and Israel either did not believe them or judged it a risk worth taking. Eleven days into the war, it is the Gulf Arab nations that are paying the price, none more so than the United Arab Emirates.
More than 1,700 missiles and drones have been fired towards the UAE since the war began, according to the country’s defense ministry, more than 90% of them downed by interceptors, fighter jets and helicopters.
US President Donald Trump admitted in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper last week that Iran’s willingness to strike its Arab neighbors had been his biggest surprise of the war.
On Sunday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it was using 60% of its firepower against what it called US “bases” and “strategic interests” in neighboring Arab countries, with the rest directed at Israel.
More projectiles have been fired at the UAE than any other country, seemingly even more than Israel, which alongside the US started this war. Several have landed on homes, offices and roads in densely populated urban areas, killing four – all civilians..."
NYTIMES:"Live
Updated
March 9, 2026, 12:03 p.m. ET43 minutes ago
Live Updates: Oil Price Surge Rattles Markets; Iran’s Choice of Leader Signals Defiance
Stocks fell on fears of the Iran war’s effects on energy prices. Top clerics selected Mojtaba Khamenei as Iran’s supreme leader, despite President Trump’s warning that he was “unacceptable.”Here’s the latest.
U.S. stocks fell at the start of trading on Monday, after markets in Asia and Europe tumbled, as a spike in oil prices reflected global fears of a prolonged U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Meanwhile, Iran projected defiance by naming a son of its slain supreme leader as his successor.
Oil prices briefly surged early Monday to almost $120 per barrel, their highest level since the Covid pandemic, as President Trump’s plans for the next steps in the war, let alone its endgame, remained unclear and Iran showed no sign of bowing to his demand for unconditional surrender.
Investors appear increasingly worried about the lack of a clear offramp for the fighting, which has spread across the Middle East, disrupted oil supplies and raised costs for consumers and businesses. The price of gasoline in the United States jumped again on Monday to an average of $3.48 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club, a nearly 17 percent increase since the first U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28 and the highest level since 2024.
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, was appointed by senior clerics on Monday, days after Mr. Trump declared that he was an “unacceptable choice” and amid Israeli threats to kill Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s successor. Iran’s military and hard-line political forces trumpeted the selection, but in Tehran, opponents of the government were heard chanting “Death to Mojtaba” from their windows — reflecting widespread if muted dissent.
As the conflict raged into its 10th day, more than 1,300 people had already been killed in U.S. and Israeli strikes in Iran, according to the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations. And Iran was continuing with attacks across the Middle East, killing more than 30 people..."
NYTIMES:"Iran’s supreme leader may be dead, but there will be another. Its slain military commanders will be replaced. A governing system created over 47 years will not easily disintegrate under air power alone. Iran retains the capacity to strike back against American and Israeli airstrikes, and the war’s trajectory is unclear.
But the Islamic Republic, already weakened and unpopular, is now further diminished, its power at home and in the region at one of its lowest ebbs since its leaders took power during the revolution that overthrew Iran’s American-backed shah in 1978-79.
.."
THEGUARDIAN:"
Above the pastel murals of trees, paintbrushes, crayons and microscopes, black smoke rises. The glass windows of the school have been blown out by the force of the blast, and its curtains hang shredded from the frames.
Against one burned-out wall, the remains of a playground lie scattered: a red plastic slide, a jumble of child-sized chairs. On an overturned bookshelf a pair of pink plastic sandals have been neatly placed, now covered in dust from the blast.
The missile hit during the school’s morning session. In Iran, the school week runs from Saturday to Thursday, so when US and Israeli bombs began falling at around 10am on Saturday, classes were under way. At a point between 10am and 10.45am, a missile directly hit Shajareh Tayyebeh school, in Minab, southern Iran, demolishing its concrete building and killing dozens of seven to 12-year-old girls.
Footage released by Iran foreign press office shows destruction inside girls' school
Photographs and verified videos from the site, which the Guardian has not published due to their graphic nature, show children’s bodies lying partly buried under the debris. In one video, a very small child’s severed arm is pulled from the rubble. Colourful backpacks covered with blood and concrete dust sit among the ruins. One girl wears a green dress with gingham patches on her pockets and the collar, her form partly obscured by a black body bag. Screams can be heard in the background..."
HAARETZ:"Yair Foldes, Bar Peleg, Adi Hashmonaiand Nir Hasson
12:12 AM • March 08 2026 IST
Israeli police disrupted protests against the war in Iran in Tel Aviv and Haifa on Saturday evening.
In Tel Aviv, police forcibly dispersed dozens of demonstrators about 20 minutes after an anti-war protest began.
The move came after far-right agitators Mordechai David, Roi Starr and Yoseph Haddad arrived at the scene and began clashing with protesters, documenting them and verbally confronting them. Police, who were not present in Habima Square at the start of the demonstration, quickly arrived after the clashes began, later citing the confrontations as the reason for dispersing the protest.
Israeli far-right activist Yoseph Haddad films with his phone as he stands before anti-war activists gathering in HaBima Square in Tel Aviv on March 7, 2026.
Israeli far-right activist Yoseph Haddad films with his phone as he stands before anti-war activists gathering in HaBima Square in Tel Aviv on March 7, 2026. Credit: AFP/JACK GUEZ
A police officer at the scene ordered the demonstrators to leave, saying: "Due to the confrontations taking place here, and out of concern for public safety, I ask everyone to disperse."
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One protester was arrested during the dispersal on suspicion of "disturbing public order," while none of the far-right activists were detained. Cries of "traitor" were directed at left-wing lawmaker Ofer Cassif (Hadash-Ta'al), who attended the protest. He later left the area under police escort.
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SFSTANDARD.COM:"By Ezra Wallach
News Reporter
Published Mar. 7, 2026•6:52pm
Share
Mahla Shaghafi, an Iranian American woman who said she’s never voted for Donald Trump, nevertheless found herself wearing a hat riffing off of the president’s famous mantra.
On Saturday afternoon, this self-described Democrat sported a Make Iran Great Again baseball cap, as she shouted down a much larger anti-Iran war demonstration at the Embarcadero Plaza. Shaghafi, along with a few dozen others, came to challenge the larger group of approximately 200 anti-war protestors.
“The only president in the world that had the balls to take care of this murderous Islamic Republic was Trump,” she said. “None of us are happy about losing more innocent people in any country. But, you know, it’s war.”
..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"
...
3 U.S. service members killed in Iran operation, military says; Tehran vows to avenge Khamenei
...
March 1, 2026 at 11:00 a.m. EST . .."
NYTIMES:"Here’s the latest.
The Iranian government said on Sunday that U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran had killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the nation’s supreme leader for decades and an implacable enemy of Israel and the United States.
WASHINGTONPOST:"...
March 9, 2026 at 12:11 p.m. EDT Anthropic sued the Trump administration Monday, calling on a federal judge in San Francisco to strike down a government order forbidding military contractors from partnering with the artificial intelligence company on the grounds that it poses a risk to national security.
..
“These actions are unprecedented and unlawful,” the company’s attorneys wrote. “The Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech.”..."
REUTERS:"WASHINGTON, March 5 (Reuters) - (This March 5 story contains strong language in paragraph 3)
The U.S. Justice Department released FBI records on Thursday that summarize interviews of an unidentified woman in which she made accusations against President Donald Trump related to an alleged sexual encounter.
..
FBI agents interviewed the woman four times in 2019 as part of their investigation into accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The Justice Department had previously released a log confirming that the interviews took place but released a summary of only one of those four meetings, in which she accused Epstein of molesting her when she was a teenager.
..
The newly disclosed records, opens new tab, which were posted on the department's website on Thursday, show she also claimed Trump attempted to force her to perform oral sex after Epstein introduced her to the future president in New York or New Jersey in the 1980s when she was between 13 and 15 years old.
The White House did not immediately respond to questions about the disclosures. Politico, which first reported the disclosures, said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the woman's claims "completely baseless accusations, backed by zero credible evidence."
The Justice Department has cautioned that some of the documents include "untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump." Reuters could not independently confirm the accuracy of the woman's allegations, and FBI records suggest agents stopped speaking with her in 2019.
..
The Justice Department said in a post on the social media platform X that the records it released Thursday were among 15 documents that it had “incorrectly coded as duplicative” and not published as a result.
The disclosure comes as the Justice Department faces scrutiny in Congress over its handling of documents from the Epstein investigation, which it is required to make public. Democrats have accused Trump's administration of concealing records related to Trump, and a committee in the House of Representatives voted to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi so lawmakers can question her about how the government is handling the disclosures.Trump has said his association with Epstein ended in the mid-2000s and that he was never aware of the financier's sexual abuse. Records previously released by the department show Trump flew several times on Epstein's plane in the 1990s, which Trump has denied. After the financier was first accused of sexual misconduct, Trump called the police chief in Palm Beach to say that "everyone has known he's been doing this," according to an FBI interview record..."
CNN:"Republicans on Capitol Hill are asking the Justice Department to consider bringing criminal charges against Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide in President Donald Trump’s first administration who became a star congressional witness about the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, according to two sources familiar with recent developments.
GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk made a criminal referral of Hutchinson to the Justice Department in recent days, the sources said. He accused Hutchinson of lying to Congress in her summer 2022 testimony when she alleged Trump was aware of the potential for violence on January 6, 2021, and forged ahead with his attempts to rile up his supporters.
Loudermilk has long attempted to reframe the public perception of the events at the Capitol, including by scrutinizing the House committee that investigated the Capitol riot and found Trump was “directly responsible” for the riot. Loudermilk’s referral was co-signed by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who chairs the committee under which Loudermilk is running a probe of January 6.
..."
CNN:"Last week, the Trump administration delivered a catastrophic blow to US climate policy by repealing the longstanding scientific finding that planet-warming pollution poses a danger to humans.
Getting to this point was one of the administration’s most audacious deregulatory goals. But it doesn’t represent a complete success — yet. .."
NYTIMES:"For two years, settlers from a nearby outpost had tried to drive Mr. Abu Naim from his land, set on the stony outskirts of Al Mughayir, a Palestinian village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Their attacks came at all hours and in all manners, from vandalism and violent threats to beatings, according to the family, and Palestinian and Israeli witnesses.
Through it all, Mr. Abu Naim had hung on, quietly resisting an increasingly aggressive settler campaign to displace Palestinians in the West Bank. His struggle was chronicled in a recent New York Times article on Israel’s escalating campaign for control of the West Bank.
It all came to a head on Saturday when armed settlers descended on his home and viciously beat him, his wife, his daughter and his granddaughter, according to Palestinian and Israeli witnesses.
.."
APNEWS:"Video
‘They’re playing cute': Trump calls out major US allies who have not yet joined his Board of Peace
President Donald Trump opens Board of Peace meeting in Washington, calling it “one of the most important” things he’s done. At the same time, he called out major US allies who have not yet joined the Board of Peace, saying “they’re playing cute.”
Published 7:18 AM PST, February 19, 2026"
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WASHINGTONPOST:"President Donald Trump called on several Black Americans to tout his positive impact on minority well-being on Wednesday during the White House Black History Month celebration, including many who defended him from claims that Black people have languished during his tenure.
Ben Carson, one of the nation’s most prominent Black conservatives, who Trump said would soon receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, said Trump had not received enough credit for economic policies like opportunity zones that benefited Black Americans..."
CNN:"A federal judge on Thursday shut down Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s attempts to punish Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly over his urging of US service members to refuse illegal orders, ruling that the Pentagon chief’s actions were unconstitutionally retaliatory.
The decision landed two days after a grand jury in Washington, DC, declined to approve charges sought by federal prosecutors against the Arizona senator and several other Democratic lawmakers who taped a video last year warning that “threats to our Constitution” are coming “from right here at home,” and repeatedly implored service members and the intelligence community to “refuse illegal orders.”
Together, the grand jury declination and ruling from senior US District Judge Richard Leon represent major impediments to efforts by aides of President Donald Trump to use the levers of government to punish Kelly, a retired Navy captain and former astronaut, over his participation in the video.
Leon, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, wrote in a scathing, 29-page ruling that Hegseth was trampling over the First Amendment rights of Kelly and that his moves are an impermissible form of government retaliation.
“That Senator Kelly may be an ‘unusually staunch individual’ does not minimize his entitlement to be free from reprisal for exercising his First Amendment rights,” Leon wrote. “Senator Kelly was reprimanded for exercising his First Amendment right to speak on matters of public concern.”The Pentagon, the judge wrote, was targeting “unquestionably protected speech” that is actually entitled to “special protection” under the law..."
CNN:"Here's the latest
• DHS shutdown: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described ICE as a “rogue force” on CNN’s “State of the Union,” and called on Republicans to meet Democrats’ demands to rein in immigration enforcement agencies. His comments came after the Department of Homeland Security shut down this weekend over the bitter policy fight on immigration reforms. The funding lapse will not affect nationwide ICE enforcement, border czar Tom Homan said.
• Rubio in Europe: Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the White House wants Europe to reduce its dependence on American power and that Washington is “not asking Europe to be a vassal.” Rubio was speaking in Slovakia, a day after he offered some reassurance to uneasy European leaders at the Munich Security Conference.
• Iran talks: Rubio also said President Donald Trump prefers diplomacy in dealing with Iran and the administration is focused on negotiations. The US is planning to meet with Iranian officials again on Tuesday in Geneva, sources tell CNN..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"A top Trump administration official on Tuesday disclosed new details to support its claim that China conducted an underground nuclear explosion during Donald Trump’s first presidency, a contested assertion that, nevertheless, has become a catalyst for his push to resume such testing by the United States.
“We’re not going to remain at an intolerable disadvantage,” Christopher Yeaw, who heads the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control and Nonproliferation, said during a discussion at the Hudson Institute, a think tank in Washington. He urged Beijing to “come clean” about its nuclear weapons tests, which some U.S. officials and experts say is part of a determined Chinese effort to catch up to, if not eclipse, the United States’ global advantage in nuclear weapons technology..."
APNEWS:"MUNICH (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a reassuring message to America’s allies on Saturday, striking a less aggressive but still firm tone about the administration’s intent to reshape the trans-Atlantic alliance and push its priorities after more than a year of President Donald Trump’s often-hostile rhetoric toward traditional allies..."
THEGUARDIAN:"The EU’s foreign policy chief has denied claims levelled by the US that Europe is facing civilisational erasure, rejecting what she condemned as “fashionable euro-bashing” by Washington.
Kaja Kallas also said the US was discovering that it could not settle the war in Ukraine without Europe’s involvement and consent...“Euro-bashing” was now “very fashionable” despite all “the good things that Europe actually has to offer,” Kallas said. “When I travel around the world, I see countries that look up to us because we represent values that are still highly regarded.
“Contrary to what some may say, woke, decadent Europe is not facing civilisational erasure. In fact, people still want to join our club, and not just fellow Europeans. In Canada, I was told over 40% of Canadians have an interest in joining the EU.”
She challenged the US criticism of media freedom in Europe, pointing out that her own country, Estonia, ranked second in the world press freedom index and the US 58th. Given the EU’s record on human rights, she said, she found some of the criticisms very hard to take.
“We are, you know, pushing humanity forward, trying to defend human rights and all this, which is actually bringing also prosperity for people...."
WASHINGTONPOST:"Israel has moved aggressively in recent days to deepen its control over the occupied West Bank, unilaterally adopting policies that analysts say represent a major shift toward annexation and appear to defy President Donald Trump, who has said he opposes annexation but has not publicly pushed back on the escalating Israeli measures.
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This month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet, in a closed-door meeting, adopted measures to make it easier for settlers to purchase land and circumvent the Palestinian Authority in areas it has controlled since a 1995 agreement under the Oslo accords. The move was widely condemned in the Arab world and globally as a violation of international law and an undoing of decades-old regional security agreements.
After that decision, the White House issued a statement reiterating Trump’s opposition to annexation, and the president emphasized his position in an interview with Axios. “I am against annexation,” Trump said, adding: “We have enough things to think about now. We don’t need to be dealing with the West Bank.”
Both Trump and the White House statement brushed over his opposition to annexation in vague terms, and neither referenced the accelerating measures by Israel to expand settlements.Since then, Netanyahu visited Trump at the White House last week, and on Sunday, after returning to Israel, his cabinet voted to restart a process of land registration, suspended since 1968, in a part of the West Bank known as Area C. Experts say that move will probably result in Israel’s taking permanent control of swaths of territory as it designates it “state land.”.."
REUTERS:"CAIRO/JERUSALEM, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Israel fired airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing at least 11 Palestinians, Palestinian officials said, in what the military called a response to ceasefire violations by Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Gaza medics said an Israeli airstrike on a tent encampment housing displaced families killed at least four people, while health officials said another strike killed five in Khan Younis in the south and another person was shot dead in the north..."
CNN:"Tel Aviv
—
The Israeli government has advanced the registration of territory in the occupied West Bank as state land in a move that Palestinians have decried as “de facto annexation.”
For the first time since Israel occupied the territory in 1967, the government will create a mechanism to officially register large swaths of land under the state.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry defended the move as an “administrative measure” which would “bring order” to land registration. But government ministers made clear the intent was to increase settlement and entrench Israel’s grip on the land.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalal Smotrich said the land registry would continue “the settlement and governance revolution across all parts of our land” as he referenced Judea and Samaria, the biblical term for the West Bank. And Justice Minister Yariv Levin said Israel is “committed to strengthening its hold over all parts of our land, and this decision expresses that commitment.”
The government’s new measure will apply to what is known as Area C of the West Bank, about 60% of the territory and home to an estimated 180,000-300,000 Palestinians and to a settler population of at least 325,500, according to Israeli human rights group Btselem.
The Palestinian Presidency said the decision violated international law and amounted to “de facto annexation of occupied Palestinian territory.” In a statement, the president’s office warned that the move was a “declaration of the annexation plans aimed at entrenching the occupation through illegal settlement activity.”..."
REUTERS:"WASHINGTON, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Hundreds of judges around the country have ruled more than 4,400 times since October that President Donald Trump’s administration is detaining immigrants unlawfully, a Reuters review of court records found.
The decisions amount to a sweeping legal rebuke of Trump’s immigration crackdown. Yet the administration has continued jailing people indefinitely even after courts ruled the policy was illegal..."It is appalling that the Government insists that this Court should redefine or completely disregard the current law as it is clearly written," U.S. District Judge Thomas Johnston of West Virginia, an appointee of President George W. Bush, wrote last week, ordering the release of a Venezuelan detainee in the state.
Most of the rulings center on the Trump administration’s departure from a nearly three-decade-old interpretation of federal law that immigrants already living in the United States could be released on bond while they pursue their cases in immigration court.
....."
WASHINGTONPOST:"Stephen Voss/For The Washington Post)
By Jeremy Roebuck, Perry Stein, Theodoric Meyer and Salvador Rizzo
The Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute President Donald Trump’s critics entered a new phase this week, when federal prosecutors failed to indict six Democratic lawmakers who recorded a video reminding military service members of their duty to refuse illegal orders.
Department lawyers, under pressure from the president, previously targeted several of Trump’s most outspoken foes, including former FBI director James B. Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Both faced since-dismissed charges last year over alleged conduct unrelated to their political views.
But the case federal prosecutors put before a grand jury Tuesday — seeking to charge Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona), Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan) and four others over their 90-second video message — marked the first time the department has directly sought to classify critical speech from prominent Trump detractors as a crime.
Grand jurors roundly rejected the effort, The Washington Post reported. But legal observers and the lawmakers at the center of the probe have argued in the days since that the panel’s decision is almost beside the point.
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“This is not a good news story,” Kelly, a retired Navy captain and astronaut, told reporters during a news conference this week. “This is a story about how Donald Trump and his cronies are trying to break our system to silence anyone who lawfully speaks out against them.”
The attempt to charge the lawmakers represents an evolution of the campaign that began last year with cases against James and Comey, said Brendan Nyhan, a professor of government at Dartmouth College.
“Prosecuting people for speech criticizing the president is in some ways even more dangerous,” Nyhan said, “especially given these are legislators acting in their public role and especially given that they were calling for the military and national security state to follow the law.”
Still, some Trump allies in Congress, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), defended the administration’s efforts. He told reporters that Slotkin, Kelly and the others “probably should be indicted.”..."
CNN:"...Grace is among a growing group of would-be Americans whose cases are now in limbo after the Trump administration indefinitely froze citizenship decisions for applicants from certain countries it deems “high-risk.” The pause also applies to applications for green cards and visas from nationals of those countries, which the Trump administration says “demonstrate significant deficiencies in screening, vetting and information sharing.”...“It puts the lie to this idea that they only want to stop illegal immigration to the United States,” Hacking says. “What they want to do is stop legal immigration to the United States, especially from countries that aren’t predominately White.”..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"By Jake Spring, Ambrosia Wojahn and Brady Dennis
Nearly 17 years after the Environmental Protection Agency declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threaten the public’s health and welfare, the agency on Thursday rescinded the landmark legal opinion underpinning a wave of federal policies aimed at climate change.
The agency issued its “endangerment finding” in 2009, concluding that the government had a sound legal basis to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. In scrapping the policy this week, the EPA will seek to erase limits on emissions from cars, power plants and other industries that release the vast majority of the nation’s planet-warming pollution.
.."
THEGUARDIAN:"A top House Democrat on Monday accused the justice department of making “mysterious redactions” to documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that obscured the names of abusers, while also allowing the identities of the disgraced financier’s victims to become public.
Jamie Raskin, House judiciary ranking member, criticized the department after reviewing the unredacted Epstein files at a government facility in Washington DC on the first day they were made available to lawmakers.
..."
THEGUARDIAN:"Newly released evidence has shown that Gregory Bovino, a border patrol chief who was the face of the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts until last month, praised a federal agent who shot a Chicago woman during an immigration crackdown last year.
Marimar Martinez, a US citizen, was shot five times by a border patrol agent in October while in her vehicle. She was charged with a felony after officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) accused her of trying to ram agents with her vehicle. But the case was abruptly dismissed after video evidence emerged showing that an agent had steered his vehicle into Martinez’s car.
Lawyers for Martinez have pushed to make evidence in the dismissed criminal case public, saying they were especially motivated to do so after a federal agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis under similar circumstances..."
NYTIMES:"The security order that has bound together the West and much of the rest of the world since the end of World War II is under attack from President Trump and like-minded leaders, officials of the Munich Security Conference warned on Monday in remarkably blunt terms.
The world has entered an era of “wrecking ball politics,” a team of conference staff wrote on Monday, in their 2026 Munich Security Report. The conference is a highly watched annual gathering of security officials from Europe, the U.S. and beyond, and was roiled last year by a castigating speech from Vice President JD Vance, who called on European leaders to cooperate with parties they have deemed extreme..."
CNN:"The most volatile president in living memory is becoming ever more driven by the whiplash of his personal whims.
The disciplined execution of the early months of President Donald Trump’s second term — when well-drafted executive orders reshaped Washington and America’s global priorities — are now a memory.
Shuttering USAID, gutting the federal government, and assaulting the Ivy League curriculum might have been controversial. But they sprang from a rational playbook drawn up during Trump’s four-year exile from the White House.But lately Trump seems to be winging it more than usual. And he’s getting more extreme. His brittle temper in Washington — a contrast to his sunnier mood at weekends at home in Florida — is increasingly threatening.
How far he goes in his quest for dominance may depend on the tension between his strongman outbursts and domestic and international political realities that occasionally rein him in.Just last week, Trump sparked outrage with the most racist messaging anyone can remember from a White House when a reposted cartoon video on his Truth Social account depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.
Trump recently took fresh aim at elections, with America’s top intelligence official Tulsi Gabbard traveling to Georgia to search for evidence to prove his false obsession about fraud in 2020. He raised new concerns last week that he’ll try to fix November’s midterms by demanding the nationalization of voting.At the same time, confusion mounted over the status of his migrant crackdown, after two US citizens were shot by federal agents sent to Minnesota. Trump’s now calling for a “softer touch.” But this may only be a rebrand to ease disastrous optics of a purge that alienated many voters. And the federal agents sent into city streets in khakis were the direct result of Trump’s relentless personal demands for the militarization of law enforcement.
Meanwhile, Trump’s fixation with his legacy and his manic efforts to plaster his name everywhere took another twist last week, when it was reported he wanted Dulles International Airport and New York City’s Penn Station renamed after him.
On Sunday, he went on another Truth Social tirade, slamming the Super Bowl half time show by Puerto Rican star Bad Bunny as an “Affront to the Greatness of America,” saying that “Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children.”.."
WASHINGTONPOST:"President Donald Trump wrote on social media Thursday that he intends to replace the last remaining nuclear arms limitation treaty between the United States and Russia with a new treaty rather than extending it.
..."
APNEWS:"The Pentagon said Friday it is cutting ties with Harvard University, ending all military training, fellowships and certificate programs with the Ivy League institution.
The announcement marks the latest development in the Trump administration’s prolonged standoff with Harvard over the White House’s demands for reforms at the Ivy League school.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a statement Friday that Harvard “no longer meets the needs of the War Department or the military services.”
..
NYTIMES:"Trump Berates Female Reporter Pressing Him on Epstein for Not Smiling
President Trump scolded CNN’s chief White House correspondent, Kaitlan Collins, after she asked about the latest release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, calling her “the worst reporter.”"
CNN:"A US aircraft carrier shot down an Iranian drone that “aggressively approached” the ship in the Arabian Sea on Tuesday hours before two gunboats operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps approached a US-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz and threatened to board and seize the ship, according to a US military spokesman.
.."
CNN:"President Donald Trump called on Republicans to “nationalize the voting” in an interview that aired Monday, as his administration pushes to overhaul election ground rules ahead of the pivotal midterm races later this year...“We have states that are so crooked and they’re counting votes. We have states that I won, that show I didn’t win,” Trump said. “Now you’re going to see something in Georgia where they were able to get with a court order, the ballots, you’re going to see some interesting things come out.”
..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"...The U.S. government does not provide direct information about children in immigration custody. But federal data on family detention, and independent analyses of child detentions, suggest immigration authorities are increasingly ensnaring the youngest and most vulnerable lives in President Donald Trump’s effort to deport massive numbers of undocumented immigrants..."
CNN:"Justice Department officials are expected to meet Monday to discuss how to reenergize probes that are considered a top priority for President Donald Trump — reviewing the actions of officials who investigated him, according to a source familiar with the plan..."
APNEWS:"DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The death toll from a crackdown over Iran’s nationwide protests last month has reached at least 7,002 people killed with many more still feared dead, activists said Thursday.
The slow rise in the number of dead from the demonstrations adds to the overall tensions facing Iran both inside the country and abroad as it tries to negotiate with the United States over its nuclear program. A second round of talks remains up in the air as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed his case directly with U.S. President Donald Trump to intensify his demands on Tehran in the negotiations..."
APNEWS:"DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladesh on Thursday held its first election since the 2024 mass protests toppled Sheikh Hasina’s government. The balloting was mostly peaceful in a vote seen as a critical test of the country’s democracy after years of political turmoil..."
NYTIMES:"The Trump administration has gone to great lengths to arrest and detain as many people as possible during its immigration crackdown. But in recent weeks, a deluge of court cases has led federal judges to release hundreds of immigrant detainees back into the country, and threatens to overwhelm the court system.
In case after case, federal judges have found that the Trump administration has been ignoring longstanding legal interpretations that mandate the release of many people who are taken into immigration custody if they post a bond.
...
"
CNN:"The biggest myth about White Christian nationalism
Analysis by
John Blake
Jan 25, 2026
..."
NYTIMES:"After federal immigration agents shot and killed an American citizen in Minneapolis for the second time this month, Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota that outlined what she described as three “simple steps” to “bring back law and order.”
Her final step, however, seemed to have little to do with immigration or the state’s fraud scandal, the stated reasons for the federal government’s presence in Minnesota.
“Third, allow the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice to access voter rolls to confirm that Minnesota’s voter registration practices comply with federal law,” she wrote. Minnesota’s secretary of state, Steve Simon, a Democrat, swiftly rejected the demand, calling it an “outrageous attempt to coerce Minnesota into giving the federal government private data on millions of U.S. citizens in violation of state and federal law.”
Ms. Bondi’s request was part of a nearly yearlong fight in which the Trump administration has sought voters’ private data from states across the country. Numerous states, including Minnesota, have not complied, and the Justice Department has sued them.
.."
CNN:Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has mobilized the state National Guard to support the Minnesota State Patrol, Army Maj. Andrea Tsuchiya, state public affairs officer for the Minnesota National Guard, said in a statement Saturday.
..
“Stay safe and stay peaceful today,” Walz urged the public in a social media post Saturday. “Our public safety team has the resources, coordination, and personnel on the ground to maintain public safety and respond if needed. Thanks to local law enforcement for keeping the peace.”
..."
NYTIMES:"...
President Trump and members of his administration have said that Renee Good, the woman killed by a federal agent in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, “weaponized her vehicle” against the agent who shot her — an interpretation they claim is confirmed by the agent’s cellphone video.
“She didn’t try to run him over,” Mr. Trump said on the day of the shooting. “She ran him over.”
That description has been contested by local and state officials, who have blamed the federal government for the tension, saying aggressive tactics that violate police protocol had stirred unrest. Demonstrators have taken to the streets nationwide to protest the killing of Ms. Good, a U.S. citizen. The administration has responded by sending 1,000 additional agents to Minnesota.
In a video analysis, The Times focuses on some of the key contested moments of the agent’s cellphone video alongside other footage. More videos are likely to emerge, but the visual evidence shows no indication that the agent who fired the shots, Jonathan Ross, had been run over. The footage provides visibility into the positioning between the agent and Ms. Good’s S.U.V., and the key moments of escalation. It also establishes how Mr. Ross put himself in a dangerous position near her vehicle in the first place."
YOUTUBE/BBC:"Bystander footage captured the moments before the killing of 37-year-old Minneapolis man Alex Pretti by federal immigration officers.
His death on Saturday happened less than three weeks after Renee Good was shot dead by an immigration agent in the city.
BBC Verify has analysed footage of the shooting from multiple angles, piecing together a detailed picture of what happened..."
CNN:"Bishop's warning to prepare for 'new era of martyrdom' amid ICE clashes goes viral
Erin Burnett Out Front
CNN's Erin Burnett speaks with Bishop Robert Hirschfeld of the Episcopal Church of New Hampshire about his message to his followers about preparing for a "new era of martyrdom" following a wave of clashes across the US involving ICE..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"Echoing concerns of Pope Leo XIV over a new era of unilateralism and warfare, the three highest-ranking U.S. Catholic archbishops on Monday said “the moral foundation for America’s actions in the world” has been thrown into question by a resurgence in the use or threat of military force, including in Venezuela and Greenland.
The archbishops, Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago, Robert McElroy of D.C. and Joseph Tobin of Newark, in a statement released Monday, amplified comments by Leo, the first U.S.-born pontiff, who earlier this month lamented the demise of multilateralism..."
CNN:"On the verge of strikes in Iran, the US held off. What happens next is up to Trump"
CNN:"Powerful solar activity released by the sun is heading for Earth and it’s likely to create dazzling auroral displays in unexpected areas Monday evening and early Tuesday morning. It could also disrupt satellite-based communications and GPS accuracy.
A solar radiation storm, ranked at a level four out of five on a severity scale, is being tracked by the National Weather Service’s Space Weather Prediction Center, or SWPC.
“An S4 severe solar radiation storm is now in progress - this is the largest solar radiation storm in over 20 years,” SWPC shared on X, formerly known as Twitter. “The last time S4 levels were observed was in October, 2003. Potential effects are mainly limited to space launch, aviation, and satellite operations.”..."
LIVESCIENCE"
A supermassive black hole embedded in an early galaxy likely starved the galaxy of gas needed to form young stars, new observations revealed.New observations of a strange galaxy show it was slowly starved to death by its own black hole.
Two telescopes peered deep into space at the galaxy GS-10578, nicknamed "Pablo's Galaxy," after the name of the astronomer who previously studied it..."
THEGUARDIAN:"The pet I'll never forget
Life and style
The pet I’ll never forget: Otto, the wild, people-loving golden retriever who had 20 volunteer dog walkers
His charm and excitement helped us see the world as he did – full of kindness and joy. When we bought Otto, a golden retriever, a year after the death of our previous dog Bertie, we were sceptical that he could live up to our high expectations. What quickly became apparent, during the routine humiliation of our puppy training classes, was that Otto was a law unto himself..."
THEGUARDIAN:"He could use door handles and steal catnip from the kitchen cupboards. And, when I became very unwell, he would pace around me like a doctor on call
Robin Craig
Mon 2 Mar 2026 05.00 EST
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Prefer the Guardian on Google
Harvey came into our lives during a year of loss. It was 2004, and my grandmother had just died, quickly followed by our beloved cat Skeet (Manx English for “nosy”). With the family thrown into mourning, the house became eerily quiet and still, and my mother was grieving.
I was only 11, and did not know how to take care of her, but I did know that we needed the chaos and joy of a new cat. We found Harvey at the local cattery on the Isle of Man: he sat squeezed at the back of his pen, looking curiously at us with enormous, owl-like eyes. My mother smiled for the first time in months. We knew he was the cat for us.Harvey settled in quickly and we adored him. He was loved because he was so human – he used door handles to let himself in, concocted schemes to steal catnip from the kitchen cupboard, and meowed in a broken “mah-ow” that sounded disquietingly similar to “hallo”. But mostly he was loved because he so obviously loved us back. When he found one of us upset, he would instinctively sit close and purr, his calm weight anchoring us to the world..."
CNN:"...Archaeologists had thought that cats and humans began living with one another around 9,500 years ago in the Levant, which today includes parts of the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean, at the beginning of the Neolithic era when humans started growing crops...However, new analysis of genetic information recovered from cat skeletal remains at archaeological sites across Europe, the Middle East and Asia suggests that the domestic cats familiar today have far more recent origins and were not the first felines to live alongside humans..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"...When traveling, wildlife encounters often resemble nature documentaries, cinematic episodes capturing an animal’s strength, beauty and spirit. Many others look more like “America’s Funniest Videos.” Monkeys raiding hotel rooms. Sea lions nipping at snorkelers’ heels. A penguin bunking with a surprised guest.
Animals never cease to amuse — and amaze — us, especially when our interactions with them are unscripted. In some destinations — such as India, Australia and Africa, where development has encroached on natural areas — animals and humans bump into each other on a regular basis. You should do your best to keep a safe distance from wild creatures, even if they are in “your” space. .."
NYTIMES:"For a cow, Veronika has had what might be considered an idyllic life. She lives in a picturesque town in Austria, surrounded by snow-capped mountains and glacial lakes. She is a beloved family pet, rather than a production animal, and spends her days ambling through tree-lined pastures. And when she has an itch, she scratches it — by expertly wielding a stick.
Now, in a new study, Veronika has demonstrated even more advanced scratching skills, deploying different ends of a wooden broom to target different parts of her body. It is, scientists say, an example of flexible tool use, a behavior that is relatively rare in the animal kingdom. The paper, which was published in Current Biology on Monday, is the first scientific paper to describe tool use in cattle, which have not traditionally been celebrated for their smarts..."
CNN:"President Donald Trump on Friday tried to sell Big Oil executives on the promise of an expansive new drilling campaign in Venezuela.
But at least for now, the industry isn’t buying it.
.."
THEGUARDIAN:"One of Donald Trump’s top aides has ramped up the pressure on Denmark by questioning Copenhagen’s claim to Greenland, as leaders from major European powers rallied behind the Arctic territory.
Stephen Miller, the US president’s deputy chief of staff for policy, also claimed military intervention would not be needed to take over island because “nobody is going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland”.
After the removal of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, on Saturday, Donald Trump has renewed his calls for the US to take control of Greenland, prompting anger and alarm in Europe. On Tuesday the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the UK joined the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, in defending Greenland’s sovereignty.In an interview with CNN Miller said military intervention would not be needed in order to gain control over Greenland because of its small population..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"The White House published a website Tuesday with a revised version of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, underscoring President Donald Trump’s years-long effort to reshape the narrative surrounding the day in which a mob of his supporters overran the U.S. Capitol to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral college victory.
The White House website criticizes Democrats and some Republicans for engaging in what Trump has called a “witch hunt” against him after the Jan. 6 attack. Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury in August 2023 on four criminal counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, in a case investigating his involvement in the Jan. 6 attack and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Former special counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal prosecution of Trump, has denied that the case was politically motivated. Smith dropped the case after Trump was reelected in 2024, citing federal regulations that prohibit prosecutions against sitting presidents.
“The evidence here made clear that President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy,” Smith testified to lawmakers last month, according to a transcript released by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee. “These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him.”
Trump also was impeached following the attack, but the Senate acquitted him during the subsequent trial. The attack — and Trump’s involvement — became the focus of a bipartisan House committee, whose members are prominently featured on the White House’s new website.
The attack resulted in five deaths, including that of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick, who died the following day after being assaulted in the riot. Among the numerous revisions to the recounting of Jan. 6, the White House website claims that “Zero law enforcement officers lost their lives,” making no mention of Sicknick. The riot also left about 140 members of law enforcement injured, and years later, the trauma of defending the Capitol that day has continued to dog many officers...The White House website also falsely claims — as Trump has for years — that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen,” and that Vice President Mike Pence had the power to “return disputed electoral slates to state legislatures for review and decertification” but chose not to “in an act of cowardice and sabotage..."
CNN:"Suspect arrested after a fire destroys the only synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi, 6 decades after a KKK bombing
By
Chris Boyette A suspect has been arrested after a fire tore through Beth Israel, the only synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi, on Saturday, leaving the congregation forced to rebuild from the ashes — again.
Investigators have not yet determined a motive for the fire, which remains under investigation, but it comes amid a wave of antisemitic attacks in recent years...This isn’t the first time the synagogue has burned. On September 18, 1967, Beth Israel’s temple was bombed by local Ku Klux Klan members, in part because of the congregation’s work in the civil rights movement, according to the synagogue’s website..."
CNN:"President Donald Trump says he expects to nominate a new Federal Reserve chair this month. When that happens, Trump will have run out of excuses: This will officially become his economy, for better or worse.
Throughout the first year of his second term, Trump has mostly blamed America’s affordability problems on two men: Former President Joe Biden and Fed Chair Jerome Powell...
But those excuses are already falling flat..."
CNN:"The Justice Department is denying accusations of a cover-up and of flouting a new law following its partial and extensively redacted releases of files on Jeffrey Epstein in an ever-deepening political storm around President Donald Trump.
.."
CNN:"Epstein cites “our president” in 2019 letter to Larry Nassar...It is included in the latest collection of Epstein documents released Monday. In the letter, Epstein wrote: “Our president also shares our love of young, nubile girls.”
Authorities have not accused Trump of any wrongdoing or charged him with any crimes in connection with Epstein.
“Dear L.N.,” Epstein wrote, “As you know by now, I have taken the ‘short route’ home. Good luck! We shared one thing … our love and caring for young ladies and the hope they’d reach their full potential. Our President also shares our love of young, nubile girls.” Epstein makes another lewd reference to Trump’s treatment of women in the letter.
“Life is unfair,” Epstein wrote, before finishing the letter.
While not referencing this specific letter, the Justice Department on Monday released a statement saying some of the documents released “contain untrue and sensationalist claims” against the president.
“To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.”
...Nassar, the longtime doctor for the USA gymnastics team and Michigan State University, is serving a 60-year sentence in federal prison on child pornography charges. More than 150 women and girls publicly told a court he sexually abused them."
CNN:"Deaf Palestinian man beaten by Israeli settlers
In a mob attack on Thursday afternoon, a group of Israeli settlers beat an elderly deaf man and torched cars during a mob attack in a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank. Surveillance footage shows several settlers attacking the man with clubs while others run up and kick him while he’s on his knees. CNN's Jeremy Diamond reports..."
HAARETZ:"The demonstration planned to take place in Tel Aviv on Saturday night is not just another protest. It is not just a citizenship test for the Arab society in Israel either, but instead a test for all Israelis.
The recent wave of protest against crime in Arab society is civilian in nature, with no partisan markers in sight. Demonstrators will come out to the streets of Tel Aviv with one simple demand: Wanting to live.
Neither the organizers nor the protesters harbor any illusions that the rally will awaken the indifferent Israeli government or that Arabs' demand for personal safety will echo in the halls of the Knesset.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will likely not even spare a single sentence for the matter at the cabinet meeting, while National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir may even attempt to exploit the protest to stir conflict and incite against Arabs on social media..."
NYTIMES:"...
From the rubble and the ruin, the torture and the terror, the dust and the debris, something is stirring in the Middle East, a spirit that says no to endless cycles of violence and values a future for the region’s children above past feuds.
This sentiment is tenuous, contested and vulnerable. But with more than a half-million killed in Syria’s 13-year civil war and 70,000 Palestinians killed in the two-year Gaza war, alongside close to 2,000 Israelis, exhaustion is widespread. Shun retribution, murmur the war-weary, and think again.
“There is no other solution but finding a solution,” said Hassan Smadi, 48, a hospital worker in the battered southern Syrian town of Busra. He lost a younger brother, killed in the relentless bombing by Bashar al-Assad, the dictator ousted last year; his family fled to Jordan. “We are tired of war and bored of war, and want only to live peacefully.”
A sign close to where Mr. Smadi stood, installed recently by the local authorities outside a remarkably preserved Roman amphitheater, says, “On this earth, there exists that which deserves life,” a line from the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.
If there is a refrain heard across war-shattered Syria, where even the gray-green wilting trees look shellshocked, it is, “We just want to live.”
..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"The unflinching hosts of ‘I’ve Had It’ aren’t backing down
Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan have emerged as effective political commentators.In the lead-up to the 2024 election, when Democrats were seeking new liberal messengers, they probably didn’t have in mind Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan, 50-something best friends from Oklahoma who speak with a twang and look, as Welch describes it, “Fox News-coded.”.."
SPACE.COM:"Astronomers have discovered 53 new supermassive black hole-powered quasars that are blasting out jets of matter at near light-speed that stretch out for up to 7.2 million light-years, around 50 times the width of the Milky Way.
..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"On this, the scientists agree: Vincent van Gogh’s masterful post-impressionist painting “The Starry Night” is an iconic piece of art. Its mesmerizing whirls and swirls capture the imagination.
But do the flowing brushstrokes evoke the real physical phenomenon of turbulence? Was Van Gogh channeling the fluid mechanics that causes smoke from a chimney to chaotically curl or the eddies that form in fast-moving rivers when he painted the scene? There, a fierce debate begins.
..."
CNN:What we're covering
• Trump on affordability: President Donald Trump gave his administration high marks on the economy, grading himself an “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus.” He is traveling to Pennsylvania later to make remarks on the cost of living as many Americans report feeling a financial crunch.
• Boat strikes: Trump said video he’s seen of a second strike on an alleged drug boat is “not pretty,” but he defended the strikes as necessary to stop the flow of drugs into the US. Trump added he “doesn’t care” if Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were to testify before Congress. Hegseth and other top administration officials are expected to brief “Gang of Eight” lawmakers this afternoon, sources tell CNN.
• Ukraine war: Trump said it’s time for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “start accepting things” to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, arguing that Moscow has a stronger negotiation position. He also slammed European allies as “decaying” nations that are being weakened by immigration.
Immigration, boat strikes and the economy: Here's what Trump addressed in his latest interview
From CNN’s Michael Williams, Kit Maher and Aditi Sangal
President Donald Trump in an interview with Politico published today criticized some of America’s closest allies, argued that Russia has the “upper hand” in its war in Ukraine and discussed the video of boat strikes in Venezuela.
Here’s a quick roundup of what he said:
• Trump’s view of immigration in Europe: The president said “most” European nations are “decaying” due to immigration. Immigrants, according to Trump, have a different ideology, which will make European countries “much weaker, and they’ll be much different.” He also targeted London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan, saying he has “a totally different ideology of what he’s supposed to have” and was elected because “so many people have come in.”
• Assessment of the Russia-Ukraine war: Trump argued that Russia has the “upper hand” and a stronger negotiation position, and said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has to “start accepting things, you know, when you’re losing.”
• On boat strikes: Trump said the video he’s seen of a second strike on an alleged drug boat from Venezuela isn’t “pretty” but defended the strikes as necessary to stop the flow of drugs into the United States. Trump didn’t say how far he’d go to oust Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, but repeated that he wouldn’t “rule in or out” a ground invasion.
• High praise for his economy: The president graded himself an “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus,” as he heads to Pennsylvania today to communicate a message on affordability that risks being out of touch with what many Americans are feeling.
"
WASHINGTONPOST:"Trump’s latest anti-immigration push echoes the nativism of the 1920s
The president and his aides have escalated anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies in recent weeks..."
CNN:"Minneapolis mayor responds to Trump calling him a ‘fool’ for supporting immigrants: ‘That’s neither clever, nor is it right’
Erin Burnett Out Front
CNN's Erin Burnett talks to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey after the Trump administration calls Somali immigrants "garbage', and unleashes an ICE operation on the city..."
CNN:"In a major loss to President Donald Trump, the Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked the deployment of the National Guard to Chicago to protect ICE agents.
“At this preliminary stage, the government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois,” the court said in its unsigned order.
Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissented from the opinion."
NYTIMES:"The New York Times accused the Pentagon in a lawsuit on Thursday of infringing on the constitutional rights of journalists by imposing a set of new restrictions on reporting about the military.
In the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington, The Times argued that the Defense Department’s new policy violated the First Amendment and “seeks to restrict journalists’ ability to do what journalists have always done — ask questions of government employees and gather information to report stories that take the public beyond official pronouncements.”
The rules, which went into effect in October, are a stark departure from the previous ones, in both length and scope. They require reporters to sign a 21-page form that sets restrictions on journalistic activities, including requests for story tips and inquiries to Pentagon sources. Reporters who don’t comply could lose their press passes, and the Pentagon has accorded itself “unbridled discretion” to enforce the policy as it sees fit, according to the lawsuit..."
REUTERS:"WASHINGTON, Dec 10 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's administration wants the International Criminal Court to amend its founding document to ensure it does not investigate the Republican president and his top officials, a Trump administration official said, threatening new U.S. sanctions on the court if it did not.
If the court does not act on this U.S. demand and two others - dropping investigations of Israeli leaders over the Gaza war and formally ending an earlier probe of U.S. troops over their actions in Afghanistan - Washington may penalize more ICC officials and could sanction the court itself, the official said.
Sanctioning the court would significantly escalate the U.S. campaign against the ICC, which has long been criticized by U.S. officials including both Republicans and Democrats, who say the court infringes on U.S. sovereignty.
The Trump administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Washington has communicated its demands to ICC members, some of whom are U.S. allies, and has also made them known to the court. The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute that established the ICC in 2002 as a court of last resort, with the power to prosecute heads of state..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"
Opinion
George F. Will
A sickening moral slum of an administration
Regarding Venezuela, Ukraine and much more, Trump and his acolytes are worse than simply incompetent.
December 2, 2025 at 1:47 p.m. EST...Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seems to be a war criminal. Without a war. An interesting achievement.
In 1967, novelist Gwyn Griffin published a World War II novel, “An Operational Necessity,” that 58 years later is again pertinent. According to the laws of war, survivors of a sunken ship cannot be attacked. But a German submarine captain, after sinking a French ship, orders the machine-gunning of the ship’s crew, lest their survival endanger his men by revealing where his boat is operating. In the book’s dramatic climax, a postwar tribunal examines the German commander’s moral calculus.
..
No operational necessity justified Hegseth’s de facto order to kill two survivors clinging to the wreckage of one of the supposed drug boats obliterated by U.S. forces near Venezuela. His order was reported by The Post from two sources (“The order was to kill everybody,” one said) and has not been explicitly denied by Hegseth. President Donald Trump says Hegseth told him that he (Hegseth) “said he did not say that.” If Trump is telling the truth about Hegseth, and Hegseth is telling the truth to Trump, it is strange that (per the Post report) the commander of the boat-destroying operation said he ordered the attack on the survivors to comply with Hegseth’s order..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"Retired judges warn that the rule of law is unraveling
In interviews, former state and federal judges warn that democracy’s guardrails may already be weakened as the rule of law begins to falter. When the White House blasted a federal judge as “partisan” for dismissing the criminal cases against former FBI director James B. Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James this week, it was an attack that has become common in President Donald Trump’s second term..."
REUTERS:"...Lakanwal entered the U.S. in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden-era immigration program to resettle thousands of Afghans who helped the U.S. during the war and feared reprisal from Taliban forces who seized control after the U.S. withdrawal. More than 70,000 Afghans have been resettled in the U.S. under the program...
Pirro and Patel blamed the Biden administration for improperly vetting Lakanwal, although they offered no evidence to support their assertion.
According to a federal law enforcement dossier seen by Reuters, Lakanwal applied for asylum in December 2024 and was approved on April 23, three months after Trump took office.
.."
NAT'L WEATHER SERVICE FORECAST
NOAA:GOES EAST 
CNN:"President Donald Trump has repeatedly argued the affordability issue is an epic “scam” conjured up by Democrats.
“It’s a con job. I think affordability is the greatest con job,” Trump said from the Oval Office on Tuesday.
It’s a bizarre argument on many levels, especially since Trump is about to travel to Pennsylvania on Tuesday to promote his economic agenda and his continued focus on “ending Joe Biden’s inflation crisis,” a White House official told CNN.
And for Trump, calling affordability a scam is doubly strange because it’s the very issue that helped propel him back to the White House.
Trump’s affordability campaign pledge
Trump successfully tapped into anger over the cost of living in the 2024 election and promised voters he would swiftly bring down prices – even if that was never realistic in the first place.
Candidate Trump used remarkably similar language to what President Trump now dismisses as a hoax.
“Inflation is destroying our country,” Trump said during an August rally in North Carolina after holding up Tic-Tacs to highlight shrinkflation, when companies charge the same for a smaller amount of product. “We will target everything from car affordability to housing affordability to insurance costs to supply chain issues.”
Trump said at that rally he would instruct his Cabinet to deliver results “within the first 100 days,” if not earlier." Weeks later during a rally in Montana, Trump promised to bring down “prices of all goods.”
“Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again,” Trump said in a line that he repeated in late September in Pennsylvania.
The No. 3 promise in the 2024 Republican Party platform reads: “END INFLATION, AND MAKE AMERICA AFFORDABLE AGAIN.”
..."
CNN:"The Pentagon said Monday that it is investigating Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, a retired US Navy captain, in light of “serious allegations of misconduct” the department has received against him, and could even recall him to active duty to face a court martial or administrative punishment.
The investigation comes as President Donald Trump has been pushing relentlessly for consequences for Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers over a video they made reminding servicemembers of their duty to disobey illegal orders.
In a video posted last week on X, the lawmakers said that “threats to our Constitution” are coming “from right here at home,” and repeatedly urged the military and intelligence community to “refuse illegal orders.”
Trump called the lawmakers’ actions “seditious” and “treason.”
..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"A federal judge dismissed charges against former FBI director James B. Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James on Monday, delivering an emphatic blow to President Donald Trump’s efforts to engineer prosecutions of two of his prominent foes..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"President Donald Trump’s decision to invite Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for a “working visit” to the White House is a costly mistake.
Pariahs don’t usually get to visit the West Wing. Such invitations — like the one recently extended to Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who until this month was on the U.S. government’s list of designated terrorists — signal legitimacy to the rest of the world.
.."
CNN:"President Trump frequently demonstrates his disdain for journalists. He expresses his admiration for authoritarians almost as often.
Tuesday showed how intertwined those two instincts really are.
Trump repeatedly objected to press questions during an Oval Office photo op with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, whose country does not have a free press.
He lashed out at an ABC correspondent, Mary Bruce, after she invoked the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents.
The president said his ally, Brendan Carr, the chairman of the FCC, should “look at” punishing ABC over its news coverage.
“I think the license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake and it’s so wrong,” he asserted.Trump misstated how FCC licenses actually work, but his message was clear: He’d like his government to retaliate the way a dictator would.
..
According to Reporters Without Borders, which tracks press freedom all around the world, “independent media are non-existent in Saudi Arabia, and Saudi journalists live under heavy surveillance, even when abroad.”
“Despite societal reforms, journalists are still being detained and media outlets operate under strict state control,” the organization says.
Trump has no such control over the American media, but he acts like he wants to have it.
In his comments on Tuesday, Trump was “reflecting his belief that the press is there to be subservient to him, to shut up when he demands they shut up when he finds the question embarrassing,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, a non-profit founded by Khashoggi in 2018..."
NYTIMES:"...As the administration has stepped up its deportation efforts, though, the Catholic Church has gotten louder in its criticism. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on Wednesday issued a special message — the first since 2013 — opposing what it called the “indiscriminate mass deportation of people.”
...
YOUTUBE/MSNBC:"This week, Trump tried to downplay voters' concerns about affordability, a top issue that helped propel Democrats to big election wins on Tuesday. 
According to the Daily Beast, Friday night, he threw another extravagant party at Mar-a-Lago for his celebrity friends and loyal supporters featuring opera performances, ice sculptures, and a lavish dinner, all in the same night the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to allow it to withhold SNAP benefits from 42 million people..."
CNN:"Images of Donald Trump appearing to close his eyes at an Oval Office announcement this week rocketed around social media this weekend, with the president’s opponents seizing on the footage to raise questions about Trump’s on-the-job performance..."
WASHINGTONPOST"The Education Department plans to announce Tuesday that it will move multiple parts of the agency to other federal departments, an unprecedented and unilateral effort to dismantle an agency created by Congress to ensure all Americans have equal access to educational opportunity and better coordinate federal programs.
..President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March seeking to close the department and asked Education Secretary Linda McMahon to work with Congress to do so." The executive order aims to close the Department of Education and return its functions to the states which must require "that any program or activity receiving Federal assistance terminate illegal discrimination obscured under the label “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or similar terms and programs promoting gender ideology."
APNEWS:"WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans are growing increasingly concerned about their ability to find a good job under President Donald Trump, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll finds, in what is a potential warning sign for Republicans as a promised economic boom has given way to hiring freezes and elevated inflation.
High prices for groceries, housing and health care persist as a fear for many households, while rising electricity bills and the cost of gas at the pump are also sources of anxiety, according to the survey.
Some 47% of U.S. adults are “not very” or “not at all confident” they could find a good job if they wanted to, an increase from 37% when the question was last asked in October 2023.
Electricity bills are a “major” source of stress for 36% of U.S. adults at a time when the expected build-out of data centers for artificial intelligence could further tax the power grid. Just more than one-half said the cost of groceries are a “major” source of financial stress, about 4 in 10 said the cost of housing and health care were a serious strain and about one-third said they were feeling high stress about gasoline prices...."
NYTIMES:"‘No More Trump!’: Protesters Denouncing the President Unite Across the Country
Large numbers turned out at ‘No Kings’ rallies on Saturday that were scheduled in more than 2,600 cities and towns. Large crowds of protesters gathered in cities across the nation on Saturday to condemn a president they view as acting like a king, part of a daylong mass demonstration against the Trump administration.
By noon, a massive crowd had flooded Times Square in New York amid a carnival-like atmosphere with colorful signs, one that announced “I Pledge Allegiance to No King.” Protesters sported costumes, including the inflatable frog ensemble that activists in Portland, Ore., began wearing to poke fun at the White House’s attempt to portray activists as anarchists or domestic terrorists.
.."
CNN::"The Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement and National Guard deployments have ignited searing conflicts between the federal government and local officials in Democratic-run cities. But those battles are only the most visible manifestation of a much broader effort by President Donald Trump to exert unprecedented control over the nation’s large urban centers.
The administration is pressuring cities to adopt conservative policies on issues including racial diversity, transgender rights and immigration by moving to rescind their funding from a wide array of federal programs unless they do so...
NYTIMES:"Where Things Stand
Immigration crackdown: Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said the Trump administration was sending 300 National Guard troops from his state to Portland, Ore., a decision he called a “breathtaking abuse of power.” The move came a day after a federal judge blocked the White House from deploying Oregon’s National Guard in response to protests over immigration enforcement in Portland. In Illinois, Gov. JB Pritzker condemned the actions of federal agents in Chicago, saying that administration officials wanted to create a “war zone so they can send in even more troops.”" ...COMMENT: LIKE LIVING IN A POLICE STATE
CNN:"A federal judge ruled Tuesday that President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth violated federal law by using the US military to help carry out law enforcement activities in and around Los Angeles this summer.
US District Judge Charles Breyer concluded that Trump’s use of thousands of federalized California National Guard members and US Marines to provide protection to federal agents during an aggressive immigration crackdown in the Los Angeles area ran afoul of the Posse Comitatus Act, a 19th Century law that generally prohibits the use of troops for domestic law enforcement purposes.
.. “The evidence at trial established that Defendants systematically used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles. In short, Defendants violated the Posse Comitatus Act,” Breyer wrote." READ THE OPINION GRANTING INJUNCTIVE RELIEF
Wearing a hat that said "TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING" Trump fauns over and boasts about a picture sent to him by Putin
CNN:"
The spectacular rise and swift erasure of Black Lives Matter Plaza
By
Chelsea Bailey
...“Nobody should die like that.”
It was Starlette Thomas’ first thought when she watched a bystander’s video on social media of George Floyd dying under the knee of a White police officer.
And it was the spark that propelled her out of her office and into the streets of Washington, DC, where she joined the throngs in chanting three words that almost instantly galvanized into both a plea and a rallying cry:
Black Lives Matter.
In the days after the murder on Monday, May 25, 2020, along a Minneapolis road, hundreds of thousands flooded streets across the nation in protest. Most had been isolating for months as the coronavirus pandemic took hold.
But the death of yet another Black person at the hands of police seemed to shatter a dam in the American conscious...On June 5 – just 11 days after Floyd took his last breath – the district officially unveiled Black Lives Matter Plaza. The date happened to coincide with the birthday of Breonna Taylor, the Black American whose life had been cut tragically short that March in an encounter with police.
“We know what’s going on in our country,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said. “We had the opportunity to send that message loud and clear on a very important street in our city … And that message is to the American people that Black Lives Matter, that Black humanity matters, and we as a city raise that up as part of our values.”...Then, after nearly five years of the plaza hosting moments both horrifying and holy, a Republican congressman from Georgia introduced a bill that would have withheld federal funding from Washington, DC, unless the mural was erased.
Facing political pressure unlikely to soon relent, Bowser’s office ultimately announced the artwork – with the plaza’s official designation – would be removed.
On a Sunday this March, dozens of visitors paused at the intersection of 16th and I Streets NW to take final photos before construction crews pulverized Black Lives Matter Plaza into dust and piles of rock..."
CNN:"
President Donald Trump has been personally involved in discussions inside the administration over potentially suspending habeas corpus, a legal procedure that allows people to challenge their detention in court, two people familiar with the consideration told CNN.
One of Trump’s top aides, Stephen Miller, confirmed publicly Friday that the administration was “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus, adding that it “depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.”..." The Southern Poverty Law Center wrote "...In the run-up to the 2016 election, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller promoted white nationalist literature, pushed racist immigration stories and obsessed over the loss of Confederate symbols after Dylann Roof’s murderous rampage, according to leaked emails reviewed by Hatewatch.
The emails, which Miller sent to the conservative website Breitbart News in 2015 and 2016, showcase the extremist, anti-immigrant ideology that undergirds the policies he has helped create as an architect of Donald Trump’s presidency. These policies include reportedly setting arrest quotas for undocumented immigrants, an executive order effectively banning immigration from five Muslim-majority countries and a policy of family separation at refugee resettlement facilities that the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General said is causing “intense trauma” in children."
CNN:"The math Trump’s administration used to calculate tariff rates stuns economists"
CNN:"'A coward who is Vladimir Putin's puppet': Rep. Moulton on Trump's meeting with Zelensky
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) called President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance cowards and puppets after their meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky devolved into a tense shouting match...""
CNN:"A remarkable shouting match broke out in the Oval Office on Friday between President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, who was hoping to appeal to the US for continued security assistance during his trip to Washington.
Raising their voices, Trump and Zelensky — along with the Vice President JD Vance — engaged in a tense back-and-forth about the nature of US support, and whether Zelensky had demonstrated enough gratitude.
“You’re not really in good position right now,” Trump scolded Zelensky, raising his voice.
“You’re gambling with World War III,” the US president went on.
Vance called Zelensky “disrespectful” for trying to litigate the conflict in public...Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Donald Trump will no longer hold a joint news conference on Friday, a White House official confirmed.
The Ukrainians are about to leave the White House.
" COMMENT: PUTIN'S POODLES ARE BETRAYING UKRAINE AND THE WEST
YOUTUBE/FOXNEWS:"President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sparred during their meeting at the White House to end the Russia-Ukraine War, including Trump telling the Ukraine leader that he's "gambling with World War III."
"We signed a deal with Putin. He
did not keep it, what kind of diplomacy are you talking about?" Zelenskyy told Vance.
Vance told Zelenskyy his remarks were "very disrespectful."
"I think it's disrespectful to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media," Vance said.
"Have you said thank you once?" Vance asked Zelenskyy.
"What you're doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country, that's backed you," Trump said to Zelenskyy.
"Have you said thank you once?" Vance asked Zelenskyy.
"You've talked too much," Trump said to Zelenskyy.
"You're country is in big trouble. You're not winning this," Trump said. "You have a damn good chance at coming out okay because of us."
"If you didn't have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks," Trump said to Zelenskyy..
"In three days, I heard it from Putin, in three days," Zelenskyy responded. "It's going to be very hard to do business like this," Trump added.
.." COMMENT: ZELENSKYY AND UKRAINE DESERVE THE RESPECT OF TRUMP AND VANCE WHO ARE COWARDS AND TRAITORS TO DEMOCRACY BY BOWING TO PUTIN; UKRAINE AND ZELENSKY FIGHT FOR FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY WHILE TRUMP ET AL DESTROY AMERICA
CNN:"British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has urged US President Donald Trump against accepting any peace deal in Ukraine that would “reward” Russia or its allies.
“Mr. President, I welcome your deep and personal commitment to bring peace and stop the killing,” Starmer said at a joint news conference after a meeting between the two leaders in the Oval Office on Thursday.
“But we have to get it right. There’s a famous slogan in the United Kingdom from after the Second World War that is ‘we have to win the peace,’ and that is what we must do now, because it can’t be peace that rewards the aggressor, or that gives encouragement to dangerous regimes like Iran,” he added.
.."
APNEWS:"ROME (AP) — Pope Francis issued a major rebuke Tuesday to the Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations of migrants, warning that the forceful removal of people purely because of their illegal status deprives them of their inherent dignity and “will end badly.”
Francis took the remarkable step of addressing the U.S. migrant crackdown in a letter to U.S. bishops in which he appeared to take direct aim at Vice President JD Vance’s defense of the deportation program on theological grounds.
U.S. border czar Tom Homan immediately pushed back, noting that the Vatican is a city-state surrounded by walls and that Francis should leave border enforcement to his office.
History’s first Latin American pope has long made caring for migrants a priority of his pontificate citing the biblical command to “welcome the stranger” in demanding that countries welcome, protect, promote and integrate those fleeing conflicts, poverty and climate disasters...." MATTHEW 25:41 “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: 42 for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’44 “Then they also will answer [b]Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
NYTIMES:"Donald J. Trump on Friday tried to revise the history of the deadly attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, as new details in the federal prosecution against him were made public by the judge in the case.
His attempt to recast the events of Jan. 6, 2021, came on the same day that he compared his supporters who were arrested, convicted and imprisoned for their actions at the Capitol to the victims of the Japanese internment camps in the United States during World War II. And it followed a recent remark in which Mr. Trump declared Jan. 6 a day of “love.”...
On Friday, on his website Truth Social, Mr. Trump amplified a conspiracy theory that the attack on the Capitol was staged by the federal government, and he promoted his false claims that widespread fraud cost him the 2020 election......
"...The January 6th Select Committee found that the words “peacefully and patriotically” were drafted by Trump’s speechwriters – not Trump. Those two words were also completely at odds with the rest of Trump’s highly inflammatory remarks, during which he retold multiple lies about the election and directed the crowd’s anger at Vice President Pence and lawmakers. While Trump uttered the word “peacefully” just one time during his speech, which lasted more than an hour, he used variations of the word “fight” 20 times. That was Trump’s authentic voice. Though Trump knew the assembled crowd was “angry,” he ad-libbed the word “fight” on approximately 18 occasions. Trump also personally added multiple incendiary lines, including this one:
“We fight like Hell and if you don’t fight like Hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” JUSTSECURITY NYU LAW SCHOOL
FOXNEWS: Trump said :" I've been on a mission to rescue our nation from a failed and corrupt
3:16
political establishment and to give you back the country you believe in the country you were born in and the country
3:23
you deserve you're going to get it back we're all getting it back in that mission I will never quit I will never
3:30
Bend I will never break and I will never not ever under any
3:37
circumstances even in the face of death we will never give up never going to give up we're
3:44
going to turn it around we're going to have the four greatest years we've ever had I'm putting everything on the line...we're doing well everywhere because people are looking at the people
5:45
that are destroying our country and they say we're not going to take it anymore if we win Pennsylvania we win the whole
5:52
thing it's over right the whole thing
..."
COMMENT: SAME OLD ATTACKS ON MIGRANTS AND OTHER RACIAL SLURS; STRAIGHT OUT OF THE NAZI PLAYBOOK MEIN KAMPF
Stephanie Grisham used her remarks to condemn Trump’s behind closed doors statements, telling the audience that he mocks his supporters in private and has called them “basement dwellers.
“He has no empathy, no morals and no fidelity to the truth He used to tell me,
it doesn't matter what you say, Stephanie. Say it enough and people will believe you."
COMMENT: TRUMP'S STATEMENT TO HER IS A PART OF "THE BIG LIE", THE NAZI PROPAGANDA THAT LED TO THE HOLOCAUST: WIKIPEDIA: THE BIG LIE TRUMP'S ACCUSATIONS THAT DEMOCRATS ARE A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY (WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE WHAT SO EVER) AND SIMILAR FALSE STATEMENTS ARE A PART OF NAZI PROPAGANDA AS WELL WIKIPEDIA: ACCUSATION IN A MIRRORTHESE ARE TECHNIQUES THAT TRUMP, VANCE, AND THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN ARE CURRENTLY USING
WASHINGTONPOST: "...On Wednesday, the Justice Department published an indictment targeting two employees of RT, the media entity controlled by the Russian government that was formerly known as Russia Today...
Unsurprisingly, both efforts aligned with America’s political right. The company appears to have been Tenet Media, which published videos from popular right-wing commentators...
" COMMENT: RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE HAS NEVER BEEN A "HOAX"
HUFFPOST:"On Tuesday, an official social media account of Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign posted a racist meme implying that if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidency in November, nice suburban neighborhoods will be overrun with hordes of Black people and immigrants.
“Import the third world. Become the third world,” read the post on X, the former Twitter..."MORE RACIST FASCIST FEAR MONGERING PROPAGANDA FROM THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN
AP:"WASHINGTON (AP) — “Mass Deportation Now!” declared the signs at the Republican National Convention, giving a full embrace to Donald Trump’s pledge to expel millions of migrants in the largest deportation program in American history.
Some Republicans aren’t quite ready for that.
Lauren B. Peña, a Republican activist from Texas, said that hearing Trump’s calls for mass deportations, as well as terms like “illegals” and “invasion” thrown around at the convention, made her feel uncomfortable. Like some Republicans in Congress who have advanced balanced approaches to immigration, she hopes Trump is just blustering..."COMMENT: NOT VERY CHRISTIAN IS IT:"41 “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: 42 for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’"MATTHEW 25:41-43 NKJV
INSTAGRAM:"sjp.columbia
1d
A message from the children of Gaza to the national student movement 🥺💗 Please remember what we are fighting for and remember that the resilient people of Gaza want us to keep protesting and keep disrupting."COMMENT: ISRAEL AND HAMAS AND OTHER MILITANT FACTIONS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONTINUING BLOOD LETTING AND IT HAS TO STOP. HAMAS STATED IT WOULD DISARM IF A PALESTINIAN STATE WAS ESTABLISHED. THE RACIST FASCIST JEWISH RIGHT WANT TO KICK THE PALESTINIANS OUT AND NEITHER ISRAELIS NOR PALESTINIANS TRUST EACH OTHER. THE CONTINUING VIOLENCE IS NOT HELPING ANYONE EXCEPT THOSE WHO FEED OFF IT 
If anyone remembers what happened on the day of this picture:
His constant lies constitute a continuing insurrection and coup to establish a dictatorship.
ABCNEWS:"According to what sources said Scavino told Smith's team, Trump was "very angry" that day -- not angry at what his supporters were doing to a pillar of American democracy, but steaming that the election was allegedly stolen from him and his supporters, who were "angry on his behalf." Scavino described it all as "very unsettling," sources said.
....”
ABCNEWS:"...On Saturday, on the third anniversary Jan. 6, Trump is spending the day in Iowa, delivering his closing message before the Jan. 15 GOP caucuses, continuing to use the events of Jan. 6 as a rallying cry.
..On the campaign trail, Trump has downplayed the violence that ensued that day and has called those charged and convicted in attack "hostages."
Trump's claims of widespread election fraud have been rejected in at least 60 court cases, according to PolitiFact... "COMMENT: TRUMP EVER THE SERIAL LYING DEMAGOGUE PANDERS TO THE WHINING GRIEVANCE CROWD AND ALSO THE WHITE SUPREMACIST NEO-NAZI ELEMENTS TO CONTINUE HIS PLAN TO RE-TAKE THE PRESIDENCY. ALL OF AMERICA IS BEING HELD HOSTAGE BY HIS SHIT SHOW NEO NAZI WHITE SUPREMACIST NARRATIVE
MSNBC:"Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold joins Ali Velshi to discuss her reaction to the the state’s Supreme Court deeming Trump ineligible to run for higher office after finding Trump engaged in insurrection and the death threats she and other judges have received in the aftermath of the ruling. “It’s one of the reasons Trump is so dangerous to this country. In this country, people win and lose court cases and elections [but] we have to agree the systems have the outcomes that are correct,” Griswold says. “The use of violence to try and intimidate us is unacceptable in a democracy.”.."COMMENT: TRUMP'S ENTIRE CAMPAIGN IS AN ONGOING INSURRECTION: HE CONSTANTLY ATTACKS THE INTEGRITY OF THE LEGAL AND POLITICAL SYSTEM WITH HIS LIES AND PROPAGANDA AND INCITES VIOLENCE EVERYWHERE HE GOES JUST LIKE HITLER DID IN NAZI GERMANY 
MSN/CNN:"‘Frankly stunned’: Jake Tapper reacts to Trump invoking Putin at campaign rally
Former President Donald Trump echoed comments made by Russian President Vladimir Putin during a campaign rally attack on President Joe Biden..."PUTIN'S POODLE QUOTES HIS BOSS STALIN HITLER (SHITLER), THE POODLE'S AUTHORITY ON DEMOCRACY
WASHINGTONPOST:"Former president Donald Trump denigrated his domestic opponents and critics during a Veterans Day speech Saturday, calling those on the other side of the aisle “vermin” and suggesting that they posed a greater threat to the United States than countries such as Russia, China or North Korea. That language is drawing rebuke from historians, who compared it to that of authoritarian leaders....”COMMENT: Putin's poodle fauns over communist marxist and fascist dictators. The evidence shows that he and his co-conspirators tried to overturn a valid legal election and he continues to lie that the election was stolen. He knew he lost the election but as Hitler said if you say a lie long enough people will believe it. Trump the wannabe dictator is using Hitler's playbook.
CNN:"
A US Navy and Coast Guard operation on Tuesday rescued three mariners stranded on a tiny Pacific Ocean islet for more than a week after the trio spelled out “HELP” using palm fronds laid on a white-sand beach.
The mission also unexpectedly turned into a family reunion.
.."
CNN:"Sea otters aren’t just cute to look at, they also play a critical role in preserving the environment. By hunting invertebrates like clams and sea urchins, sea otters help preserve kelp forests, which in turn sequester carbon, protect coastlines and provide food and shelter for other marine life. " COMMENT: BE RESPECTFUL AND CAREFUL
CNN: YANKEES announcer called a foul that later hit him in the head. He received kudos for keeping it clean and like a Timex watch just kept ticking
"CNN:"
The Florida Board of Education approved a new set of standards for how Black history should be taught in the state’s public schools, sparking criticism from education and civil rights advocates who said students should be allowed to learn the full truth of American history.
The curriculum was approved at the board’s meeting Wednesday in Orlando......"
PRESIDENT.GOV.UA:"Dear attendees,
Dear Mr. Prime Minister, dear journalists, dear guests,
Today we welcome the Prime Minister of the Netherlands to Ukraine, and I am grateful that this visit is so important and so symbolic – coming to Ukraine almost immediately after the beginning, Rob, of your work at the head of the new Government. Your first visit was to Brussels, your second visit is to Kyiv, and this shows that the Netherlands will continue to be a defender of a united democratic Europe, a defender of normal life, and that Ukraine is among the priorities. We are very grateful for this.
The Netherlands has supported us since the first days of this war in many aspects. This includes defense support and assistance to our energy sector. Today Rob and I discussed energy and preparations for the next season. Support for sanctions against Russia, as well as political support for Ukraine. We especially appreciate your work on justice – on holding all Russian war criminals and Russia itself accountable for this completely unprovoked war of aggression. It is precisely in the Netherlands that work is ongoing to establish a tribunal for Russia’s aggression, and we expect that this year the tribunal will already be organizationally prepared. Today the Prime Minister and I managed to discuss essentially all of these aspects, and we also discussed many bilateral issues – and, by the way, in a very substantive way.
Thank you that the Netherlands will continue to support our defense. I informed the Prime Minister about the situation we are facing and about the Russian attacks that do not stop for a single day. That is why we need stable, steady support every day for as long as this war continues. The Netherlands demonstrates exactly the kind of support that works most effectively. This is a predictable annual volume, and we are grateful for this decision – €3 billion every year. Thank you for this.
The Netherlands is also investing in the PURL initiative, which is critical for us and enables the purchase of air defense missiles. Of course, these are primarily PAC-2 and PAC-3 missiles. And this is the only option for us today: Ukraine can receive at least the minimum number of missiles required for Patriot systems to protect us against Russian ballistic threats. It is important that together with the Netherlands we are already producing weapons. We have begun this work. And we will certainly continue this joint work and expand it. In particular, this is provided for in the joint statement adopted today between our states. We discussed this in detail during the meeting: investments, possible licenses, and production volumes – everything that is a priority today.
Last week on the frontline in Druzhkivka there was also a very specific request from our military regarding radars. I will not go into details now, but they are very much needed. This is something that helps in protection – in protecting the soldier. It is a serious challenge and a very painful issue. The Netherlands is one of the countries that produces some of the best radars of this kind, and today we discussed this request as well. I conveyed the request from our Armed Forces to the Prime Minister.
Of course, we also spoke in detail about the challenges caused by the war in the Middle East. We understand what is happening there and the nature of that war. We discussed some details about strikes on Gulf countries. We expect coordination on this. And you know that in Europe we are also coordinating with several states so that Europe’s interests are secured and so that destabilization around Iran does not exacerbate problems in Europe.
Ukraine has already begun making its contribution in this direction – to stabilization. As you all already know, the countries of the region and the United States have turned to Ukraine for support – and we will provide them with the necessary means, and above all our expertise – the experience of our military – to protect against “shaheds,” cruise missiles, and so on. But it is important that this example of the United States and the Gulf countries turning to Ukraine also becomes an impetus for Europe and our other partners – an impetus to implement what is necessary for shared security on our continent. Just like the Middle East, Europe needs to strengthen its defenses. We see how many air defense systems there were in the Middle East, including Patriots, but this is not enough against modern attacks and modern technologies. Ukraine has the expertise and the experience. All countries recognize, by the way, that this is the greatest experience today, and we also have the relevant production capabilities. We must share all this experience with our close friends and partners in Europe.
And a few more points. The Prime Minister and I also spoke about countering Russian oil tankers – the shadow fleet. This is a very relevant issue. Russia’s war directly depends on Putin’s ability to earn money from oil. That is why it is so important that European states stop the movement of tankers carrying Russian oil, which are still numerous in European seas. I know that the Netherlands is developing appropriate steps. Perhaps these will be legislative changes. Nevertheless, we must take every possible step to block and confiscate the shadow tanker fleet and the oil. It is important that this works. We have also discussed this with France, with other states, and with the European Commission – such decisions are needed. Just as sanctions against Russia are needed – the 20th sanctions package is necessary. We very much hope that partners will be able to unblock it.
And I am also grateful to the Netherlands for supporting the issue of a stable financial security guarantee for Ukraine – €90 billion for two years. We raised this issue with Rob today. This support is indispensable for us, and how many lives we are able to protect from Russian strikes directly depends on it. It is important that we are working very constructively on this issue with the vast majority of Europe. It is important that all countries support us in this. Thank you again, Rob, for making this a priority in your diplomatic work and for your visit. You are very welcome. Thank you so much.
Glory to Ukraine!
"
CNN:In an exclusive interview with Fareed Zakaria, President Zelenskyy stated that the Russians have been using Iranian drones and secondly have been providing the Iranians with intelligence against the US, Israel and the Gulf nations, the rationale being if the US and Europe can provide Ukraine with support, Russia can provide support to Iran. This is not a big secret.
REUTERS:"YEONCHEON, South Korea/TOKYO, March 14 (Reuters) - North Korea fired more than 10 ballistic missiles into the sea on Saturday, South Korea's military said, as the U.S. and South Korean forces conducted military drills and U.S. President Donald Trump renewed overtures towards Pyongyang for dialogue.
The missiles were launched from an area near the capital Pyongyang, around 1:20 p.m. (0430 GMT) towards the sea off the country's east coast, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement..."
APNEWS:"KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine is awaiting White House approval for a major drone production agreement proposed by Kyiv last year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday, as countries scramble to modernize their air defenses after the Iran war exposed shortcomings.
The proposed U.S.-Ukraine deal would cover various types of drones and air defenses that operate as a single system capable of protecting against swarms of hundreds or even thousands of Iranian-designed Shahed drones and missiles, Zelenskyy said in a message on social media..."
KYIVINDEPENDENT:"Kyiv has dispatched three teams of military experts to the Middle East, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on March 10 amid Iran's ongoing drone strikes in the region.
"This week, all three (teams) will be in three different countries... Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Saudi Arabia," Zelensky said in a briefing with journalists.
Countries across the Middle East have come under fire from Iranian Shahed drones and missiles in the wake of Israeli-U.S. strikes against Iran on Feb. 28.
Ukraine has signalled readiness to share its extensive experience with countering the low-cost kamikaze drones, which Russia launches in daily attacks against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure..."
REUTERS:"MOSCOW, March 6 (Reuters) - Russia said on Friday it would respond if Finland placed nuclear weapons on its territory, saying such a move would make the Nordic country more vulnerable.
The Kremlin reacted sharply after NATO member Finland said on Thursday it was planning to lift a longstanding ban on hosting such weapons, in a move that could open the door to placing them there during times of war.
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"This is a statement that leads to an escalation of tensions on the European continent," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
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"This statement adds to Finland's vulnerability, a vulnerability provoked by the actions of the Finnish authorities. The fact is that by deploying nuclear weapons on its territory, Finland is beginning to threaten us. And if Finland threatens us, we take appropriate measures."
The Finnish shift is part of a wider rethink of European deterrence that has prompted France to offer to extend the protection of its nuclear arsenal to other allies on the continent.
The changes are being driven by Russia's war in Ukraine and the unpredictable behaviour of U.S. President Donald Trump - notably his threat to take over Greenland - which has unsettled his NATO allies.
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WSJ:"The U.S. Army is rushing to the Middle East counterdrone systems that have been battle-tested in Ukraine, in an effort to thwart Tehran’s destructive attacks across the region, U.S. officials said.
A small number of the defensive systems, dubbed Merops, are being sent from U.S. Army stocks in Europe, along with U.S. personnel to operate them and train other troops, U.S. officials said.
U.S. officials said that additional systems will be provided by the U.S. company that produces them, Perennial Autonomy, in which billionaire Eric Schmidt is an investor. Schmidt declined to comment.
A U.S. official said that Ukraine is likely to provide trainers. Ukraine didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the U.S. and its regional allies have sought Kyiv’s help against Iranian strikes..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"By Noah Robertson, Ellen Nakashima and Warren P. Strobel
Russia is providing Iran with targeting information to attack American forces in the Middle East, the first indication that another major U.S. adversary is participating — even indirectly — in the war, according to three officials familiar with the intelligence.
The assistance, which has not been previously reported, signals that the rapidly expanding conflict now features one of America’s chief nuclear-armed competitors with exquisite intelligence capabilities.
Since the war began Saturday, Russia has passed Iran the locations of U.S. military assets, including warships and aircraft, said the three officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
“It does seem like it’s a pretty comprehensive effort,” one of the people said.
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Reached by The Washington Post on Friday, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, declined to comment on the intelligence findings. Moscow has called for an end to the war, which it labeled an “unprovoked act of armed aggression.”
The extent of Russia’s targeting assistance to Iran was not entirely clear. The Iranian military’s own ability to locate U.S. forces has been degraded less than a week into the fighting, the officials said.
Ask The Post AI
Dive deeper.Six U.S. troops were killed and several others were injured by an Iranian drone attack Sunday in Kuwait. Iran has fired thousands of one-way attack drones and hundreds of missiles at U.S. military positions, embassies and civilians, even as the joint American-Israeli campaign has hit more than 2,000 Iranian targets — including ballistic missile sites, naval assets and the country’s leadership.
“The Iranian regime is being absolutely crushed,” said a White House spokeswoman, Anna Kelly, without commenting on any Russian aid to Iran. “Their ballistic missile retaliation is decreasing every day, their navy is being wiped out, their production capacity is being demolished, and proxies are hardly putting up a fight.”
The CIA and the Pentagon declined to comment.The CIA and the Pentagon declined to comment.
When asked this week about his message to Russia and China, which are among Iran’s most powerful backers, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that he didn’t have one and that “they’re not really a factor here.”
Two of the officials familiar with Russia’s support for Iran said that China did not appear to be aiding Iran’s defense, despite close ties between the two countries.
In a statement, the Chinese Embassy in Washington referred to Beijing’s diplomatic efforts to engage with partners in the region since the war began and said that the conflict should be “immediately ceased.”
Smoke rises near al-Udeid Air Base in Doha, Qatar, on Feb. 28. (Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images)
Analysts said that the sharing of intelligence would fit the pattern of Iran’s strikes against U.S. forces, including command and control infrastructure, radars and temporary structures, like the one in Kuwait where six service members were killed.
The CIA’s station at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital, also was struck in recent days.
Iran is “making very precise hits on early warning radars or over-the-horizon radars,” said Dara Massicot, an expert on the Russian military at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “They’re doing this in a very targeted way. They’re going after command and control,” she added.
Iran possesses only a handful of military-grade satellites, and no satellite constellation of its own, which would make imagery provided by Russia’s much more advanced space capabilities highly valuable — particularly as the Kremlin has honed its own targeting after years of war in Ukraine, Massicot said.
Nicole Grajewski, who studies Iran’s cooperation with Russia at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, said that there had been a high level of “sophistication” in the Iranian retaliatory strikes, both in what Tehran has targeted and in its ability in some cases to overwhelm U.S. and allied defenses.“They’re getting through air defenses,” she said, noting that the quality of Iran’s strikes appeared to have improved even from its 12-day war with Israel last summer.
The Pentagon is quickly burning through its supply of precision arms and air defense interceptors, people familiar with the matter have told The Post, underscoring concerns raised by Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as President Donald Trump deliberated whether to approve the operation. The administration has sought to downplay Caine’s assessment..."
REUTERS:"KYIV/WASHINGTON March 4 (Reuters) - With the United States focused on its conflict with Iran, Ukraine could face a critical shortage of U.S. air defence missiles at a time when Russia shows no signs of easing its campaign of striking Ukrainian cities.
Since the U.S. and Israel began strikes on Iran on Saturday, Iran has fired hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones at Gulf countries. Most have been intercepted, including with the PAC-3 Patriot missile interceptors that Ukraine relies on to defend its energy and military infrastructure from ballistic missiles.
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The roughly 600 PAC-3s produced yearly by Lockheed Martin are already insufficient to cover U.S. needs and those of its allies in the Gulf, let alone Ukraine's, said Serhii Kuzan, head of the Kyiv-based Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center think tank.
"It's the very simple mathematics of war," Kuzan said, adding the Franco-Italian SAMP/T air-defence system - which has similar capabilities - had not ramped up production fast enough to offer an alternative.
Fabian Hoffmann, a doctoral research fellow at Oslo University who specialises in missiles, said stockpiling of Patriots by Gulf states meant they were unlikely to run out completely, particularly as the intensity of Iranian missile bombardments appeared to be decreasing, but they might need to become more selective in their use as time goes on.A wider shortage could be avoided if the U.S. and Israel are successful at destroying Iran's missile stockpiles and launchers in the coming days, according to Mykola Bielieskov of the state-run National Institute for Strategic Studies in Kyiv..."
REUTERS:"MOSCOW, March 3 (Reuters) - When President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, some Russian hardliners were cautiously optimistic, hoping his unpredictability and transactional nature might benefit Moscow on Ukraine.
But his attack on Iran means many now see him as a growing threat to Russia itself and are questioning if Trump is the pragmatic, potentially pro-Moscow strongman ready to deal in realpolitik that they thought he was...Some hawks are publicly demanding that Moscow abandon U.S.-brokered peace talks with Ukraine and double down on fighting there instead, arguing that the U.S.-Iran nuclear talks which preceded the U.S.-Israeli air war were a cynical ploy which showed Washington cannot be trusted.
"The unprincipled United States is a threat to the entire world," said nationalist tycoon Konstantin Malofeyev, who is married to a top Kremlin official. "This is the United States we are trying to negotiate with regarding Ukraine. Yes, it wants a weak Europe. But it also wants a weak Russia."
Boris Rozhin, an influential war blogger who goes by the moniker, "Colonel Cassad" and has nearly 800,000 followers on the Telegram app, said Trump was a monster, driven mad by impunity.
"To seriously count on any agreements or deals with it (the monster) is either foolishness or treason," opined Rozhin."
REUTERS:"KYIV, March 2 (Reuters) - Ukrainian troops have retaken nine settlements in the Zaporizhzhia region since the end of January and are pressing ahead with a counterattack along the southeastern frontline, the Ukrainian general staff said on Monday.
Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said that over the last month, for the first time since summer 2024, Ukrainian troops have regained control over more territory than Russian forces had been able to capture...Reports of Ukrainian advances in the Zaporizhzhia region started after Russian forces experienced sweeping outages of their Starlink communications terminals on the battlefield, following a decision by SpaceX owner Elon Musk to shut them down in response to a plea from Kyiv in late January.
A Ukrainian battlefield mapping project DeepState said that the Russian troops occupied 126 square kilometres (49 square miles) of Ukrainian territory in February, a 20-month low.
"We have survived this difficult battle for winter," Syrskyi said on the Telegram app.
Over the winter Russian forces intensified their campaign of strikes on Ukraine's energy system, leaving millions in the cold and dark. They also increased pressure on Ukraine's exhausted and thinly stretched troops along the 1,200-km frontline.
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But Ukraine held out, Syrskyi said."..."
REUTERS:"LONDON, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Images of debris from Russian strikes on Ukraine strongly indicate that Moscow has used a cruise missile whose development led Donald Trump to quit a landmark nuclear pact in his first term, two experts said, confirming earlier Reuters reporting.
The specialists based their analysis on images of fragments of the nuclear-capable missile provided to Reuters by three Ukrainian law enforcement sources, the first visual evidence published to date corroborating Russia's use of the weapon.
Its deployment dozens of times in Ukraine is a striking example of how the nuclear arms control edifice emerging from the Cold War has crumbled in recent years. This month saw the expiry of New START, the nuclear treaty that imposed limits on U.S. and Russian strategic weapons.
Russia's development of the 9M729 prompted Trump to quit the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, then a cornerstone of nuclear arms control, in 2019, saying the ground-launched missile could fly far beyond the permitted limit of 500 km (310 miles).The Ukrainian General Prosecutor's Office told Reuters in a written statement in November that one of the 9M729 missiles fired by Russia on October 5 last year flew more than 1,200 km...
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha and sources told Reuters in October that Russia had fired the 9M729 at Ukraine twice in 2022 and 23 times between August and October last year..."
REUTERS:"Russia's invasion of Ukraine: Four years of devastation captured in photos
Images from four years of fighting in Ukraine after Russia launched an all-out invasion, the biggest attack by one state against another in Europe since World War Two. Warning: Contains graphic content..."
REUTERS:"Hungary blocks Russia sanctions, EU cash for Kyiv on eve of Ukraine war anniversary
By Lili Bayer, Krisztina Than and Andrew Gray
February 23, 20263:53 AM PSTUpdated 18 mins ago
Summary
Hungary, Slovakia blame Ukraine for Druzhba pipeline outage
Ukrainian drones hit facility for Druzhba oil pipeline in Russia
Ukraine marks 4th anniversary of full-scale invasion on Tuesday
BRUSSELS, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Hungary maintained its veto on Monday on new EU sanctions on Russia and a huge loan for Ukraine amid a dispute over oil supplies, in a blow to Europe's pro-Ukrainian consensus on the eve of the war's fourth anniversary.
On the ground in Ukraine, Kyiv claimed a rare frontline advance, though Moscow continued its campaign of targeting Ukrainian cities, killing two people in drone strikes in the south...
The diplomatic spotlight was on Brussels, where European foreign ministers tried unsuccessfully to persuade Budapest not to punish Ukraine for delays restarting the flow of Russian oil to Hungary via a Soviet-era pipeline.
Soon after, another of Ukraine's EU neighbours, Slovakia, said it would refuse any requests from Kyiv for emergency electricity supplies from Monday until oil flows resume via the Druzhba pipeline.
Potentially escalating the crisis further, Ukraine said its drones struck a Russian pumping station overnight serving the pipeline. It was set up to supply Moscow's crude through Ukraine to eastern Europe, but shipments to Slovakia and Hungary have been cut off since January 27..."
APNEWS:"Updated 3:44 AM PST, February 22, 2026
Leer en español
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia attacked Ukraine with a barrage of missiles and drones, killing one person in the Kyiv region, Ukraine’s Emergency Service said on Sunday.
Another eight people, including a child, were rescued from under the rubble of destroyed buildings, the service said.
The attack caused damage and fires to erupt in five districts in the suburbs of Kyiv. In the village of Putrivka in the Fastiv district, emergency first responders worked on saving people buried under debris.
Russia also struck energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, resulting in significant fires, which were later extinguished, the emergency service said.
During the four years since Russia launched an all-out war on its neighbor, and despite a new push over the past year in U.S.-led peace efforts, Ukrainian civilians have endured constant aerial attacks. Russia has also ramped up attacks targeting the country’s energy grid, leaving Ukrainian civilians without electricity and heating amid harsh winter conditions..."
NYTIMES:"After Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States and much of the West all but severed economic ties to Moscow.
But since President Trump took office more than a year ago, he has described a “tremendous opportunity” for deals with Russia if the war ends, and the Kremlin has dangled possible investments in front of the famously transactional leader.
Now a Texas investor with ties to the Trump family is testing the possibility of making deals with Russian companies, even as the fighting in Ukraine rages on. The investor, Gentry Beach, said that he quietly signed an agreement with one of Russia’s biggest energy companies last fall to develop natural gas in Alaska.
Image
Gentry Beach in New York in 2018.
Credit...Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for GQ
Mr. Beach’s deal, which he insisted was motivated by business interests and not politics, shows how Mr. Trump is starting to bring Russia back into the Western economic fold, even as few signs point to President Vladimir V. Putin being ready to stop his assault on Ukraine and U.S. sanctions against Russia remain in place.
It also shows how the Kremlin’s messaging about what it says are immense business opportunities in Russia — an aide to Mr. Putin this week put their value at an improbable $14 trillion — is starting to resonate in the United States.
“Trump is a transactional president,” Mr. Beach said in an interview. “I don’t think people would have felt as comfortable working with Russian companies during the Biden administration as they do during the Trump administration.”
The project is in its early stages and faces steep hurdles, and Mr. Beach declined to disclose the financial details. The Russian company, Novatek, said it was “indeed having negotiations on the potential use” of its technology to liquefy natural gas in remote northern Alaska. But it did not confirm that it was working with Mr. Beach.
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REUTERS:"MUNICH, Feb 19 (Reuters) - European intelligence chiefs are pessimistic about the chances of an agreement being reached this year to end Russia's war in Ukraine, despite Donald Trump's assertions that U.S.-brokered talks have brought the prospect of a deal "reasonably close".
The heads of five European spy agencies, who spoke to Reuters in recent days on condition of anonymity, said Russia did not want to end the war quickly. Four of them said Moscow was using the talks with the U.S. to push for sanctions relief and business deals.
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The talks - the latest round of which took place in Geneva this week - are "negotiation theatre", one European intelligence chief said.
The remarks point to a striking gulf in thinking between European capitals and the White House, which Ukraine says wants to clinch a peace agreement by June ahead of the U.S. congressional mid-term elections in November. Trump says he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to make a deal.
"Russia is not seeking a peace agreement. They are seeking their strategic goals, and those have not changed," one of the European intelligence chiefs said. These include the removal of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy and for Ukraine to become a "neutral" buffer to the West...The main issue, a second intelligence chief said, is that Russia neither wants nor needs a quick peace and its economy is "not on the verge of collapse"..."
INDEPENDENT:"The White House has hit back at Volodymyr Zelensky after he said the US was piling undue pressure on Kyiv to end the war.
Zelensky said Trump’s insistence that Ukraine should compromise was “not fair” ahead of trilateral talks in Geneva, which ended abruptly on Wednesday after just two hours.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said that Trump believes the war has been “very unfair, not just for the Russians and Ukrainians who have lost their lives, but also for the American people and the American taxpayer who were footing the bill for this war effort before President Trump put a stop to it”.Both sides have said they are willing to continue peace talks in future, though it is not clear when or where this will take place.
Zelensky said he was dissatisfied with the lack of progress in Geneva, insisting that “sensitive political matters” and the need for compromise had not been addressed properly.
“As of today, we cannot say that the result is sufficient,” Zelensky said...Zelensky says further steps on peace talks will be determined in meeting today
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has said he is set to hold a peace talks discussion with the members of his negotiating team after talks in Switzerland.
"Today all members of our negotiating group will already be in Ukraine, and for tomorrow I have scheduled a special meeting with them regarding our next steps and decisions. There will be a report here in Kyiv on those aspects of the negotiations that should not be discussed over the phone. We will also define the further framework of talks with our partners – the American side, the Europeans – and with the Russian side," he said..."
REUTERS:"'Difficult' Ukraine peace talks end after Zelenskiy says Russia stalling
By John Revill and Olivia Le Poidevin
February 17, 202611:09 PM PSTUpdated 7 mins ago
Item 1 of 6 Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky walks out the InterContinental hotel on the day of U.S.-mediated peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, in Geneva, Switzerland, February 18, 2026. REUTERS/Pierre Albouy
[1/6]Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky walks out the InterContinental hotel on the day of U.S.-mediated peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, in Geneva, Switzerland, February 18, 2026. REUTERS/Pierre Albouy Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
Summary
Zelenskiy criticises US pressure for Ukraine concessions
Says progress made but positions differ
Russia says further talks will be held soon
GENEVA, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in Geneva ended on Wednesday after only two hours, with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy describing them as "difficult" and accusing Russia of deliberately delaying progress toward a deal to end the four-year-old war.
The two days of U.S.-mediated peace talks in Switzerland took place as U.S. President Donald Trump has twice in recent days suggested it was up to Ukraine and Zelenskiy to ensure the talks were successful.
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"We can see that progress has been made, but for now, positions differ because the negotiations were difficult," Zelenskiy told reporters in a WhatsApp chat shortly after talks concluded.
Rustem Umerov, the head of Kyiv's negotiating team, said separately that the second day had been "intensive and substantive". Both sides were working toward decisions that can be sent to their presidents, he said.
Russia's chief negotiator, former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky, told reporters that further negotiations would be held soon, without specifying a date. Earlier on Wednesday, Zelenskiy had accused Russia of "trying to drag out negotiations that could already have reached the final stage".
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Ukrainian officials have routinely accused Moscow - which has carried out a winter bombing campaign against Ukraine's energy system and pursued its battlefield offensive - of negotiating in bad faith.
PRESSURE FROM TRUMP
In an interview with U.S. website Axios published on Tuesday, Zelenskiy was quoted as saying that it was "not fair" Trump kept publicly calling on Ukraine, not Russia, to make concessions in negotiating terms for a peace plan.
Trump had told reporters on Monday that "Ukraine better come to the table fast. That's all I'm telling you."
Zelenskiy also said any plan requiring Ukraine to give up territory that Russia had not captured in the eastern Donbas region would be rejected by Ukrainians if put to a referendum.
"I hope it is just his tactics and not the decision," Axios quoted Zelenskiy as saying in the interview.
PUSH FOR EUROPEAN INVOLVEMENT
Ukrainian officials have been pushing for greater involvement of Kyiv's European allies in the peace process, with Zelenskiy saying ahead of Wednesday's talks it was "indispensable". Leading European nations - including France, Germany and the UK - have been strong supporters of Kyiv's stance.
The talks came just days before the fourth anniversary of Russia's 2022 invasion of its much smaller neighbour. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, millions have fled their homes, and many Ukrainian cities, towns and villages have been devastated by the conflict.
Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians..."
NYTIMES:"Opinion
Serge Schmemann
Trump Plays the Peace Game
Feb. 19, 2026, 11:00 a.m. ET
Credit...Illustration by Shannon Lin/The New York Times
Listen to this article · 8:27 min Learn more
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61
Serge Schmemann
By Serge Schmemann
Mr. Schmemann, an Opinion writer, is a former Moscow bureau chief of The Times.
To anyone who spent time in the old U.S.S.R., President Trump’s newly hatched “Board of Peace,” which holds its first meeting on Thursday at the newly rechristened Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, evokes worrying echoes.
Nobody loved peace as much as the Soviet people, or at least it seemed that way in the cascade of official proclamations. It was professed on billboards and May Day slogans and in “peace cruises” down the Volga at which starry-eyed foreigners were invited to sing “We Shall Overcome” with brightly dressed schoolchildren or met with peace-loving “ordinary” (read: carefully primed) Soviet citizens to discuss American militarism.
“Mir i druzhba” — “peace and friendship” — was often the first toast in any formal meeting between Soviet officials and foreigners, with the subtext that we, the foreigners, were the warmongers. A colleague of mine dubbed these toastmasters the “peace and friendship hard-liners,” and the underground humor mill suggested that many Soviets agreed. “Mir” also means “world” in Russia, which made for a neat anti-slogan: “We want mir! The whole mir!”.The Kremlin did not have a “Board” or an “Institute” dedicated to peace, like Mr. Trump now does, but it did have a “World Peace Council,” a “Soviet Peace Fund” and a “Soviet Peace Committee,” headquartered in Moscow on Prospekt Mira, the Avenue of Peace. The groups were a major weapon in Soviet foreign policy, organizing regular international peace conferences and providing generous secret funding for many international antiwar movements that were, in fact, glorifying the Soviet Union..."
NYTIMES:"President Trump repeatedly promised during his campaign that he would end the war in Ukraine in one day.
But by most measures, the war has grown worse for Ukrainians since Mr. Trump returned to the White House, not better. More civilians were killed and injured in 2025 than in the previous year. More missiles and drones are hitting city centers. Russia captured more territory in its slow-moving advances in 2025 than in any year since 2022, when it launched its full-scale invasion. Moscow has practically destroyed Ukraine’s power grid during the country’s harshest winter in more than a decade.
“It was a hard year — how else can you imagine it?” said Oleksandr Polishchuk, whose wife was one of 13 people killed when a missile slammed into their apartment building in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in April. “Shelling, having to go to work, dealing with household issues, no electricity, no heating. I think it was very hard, extremely hard.”..."
NYTIMES:"Ukrainian and Russian officials began a new round of U.S.-brokered peace talks on Tuesday in Switzerland, though hopes of a breakthrough to end the war were low. Fighting rages on, past negotiations have produced little, and major hurdles to a deal are unresolved..."
THEGUARDIAN:"Civilian casualties in Ukraine caused by bombing soared by 26% during 2025, reflecting increased Russian targeting of cities and infrastructure in the country, according a global conflict monitoring group.
Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) said 2,248 civilians were reported killed and 12,493 injured by explosive violence in Ukraine according to English-language reports – with the number of casualties an incident rising significantly.
An average of 4.8 civilians were reported killed or injured in each strike, 33% more than in 2024, with the worst attack taking place in Dnipro on 24 June. Russian missiles hit a passenger train, apartments and schools, killing 21 and injuring 314, including 38 children..."
REUTERS:"MOSCOW, Feb 16 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Monday that what it called the "main issues", including sensitive questions of territory, would be discussed in peace talks on Ukraine due to be held in Geneva this week.
The talks - between Russia, Ukraine and the United States - are due to take place on Tuesday and Wednesday at a time when Kyiv is under mounting U.S. pressure to strike a deal and as Moscow demands it cede the entirety of the Donbas area..."
CNN:"A Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) arbitrator has denied Vladyslav Heraskevych’s appeal and the Ukrainian skeleton rider will not be reinstated to compete in the Olympics wearing what he has deemed his “memory helmet.’’
Heraskevych was kicked out of the Milan Cortina Games – despite many meetings with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), including one with president Kirsty Coventry – over his insistence on wearing a helmet featuring images of athletes killed during the war in Ukraine in competition that was deemed to breach IOC rule 50.
In the ruling shared by CAS, the unnamed sole arbitrator said that she is “fully sympathetic to Mr. Heraskevych’s commemoration and his attempt to raise awareness for the grief and devastation suffered by the Ukrainian people, and Ukrainian athletes because of the war.” But, she ultimately sided with the IOC’s ruling that prohibits athletes’ ability to express views during competition and in the field of play.
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On Thursday, the IOC disqualified Heraskevych an hour before the first competition, arguing that his helmet – which depicts seven Ukrainian athletes killed in the war against Russia – was in violation of its policy against athlete expression.
Heraskevych wore the helmet in a training run on Tuesday, and said he intended to wear it throughout the Olympic competition.
Vladyslav Heraskevych shows his helmet following his disqualification for wearing it in tribute to athletes who have died amid Russia's attack on Ukraine at Cortina Sliding Centre on February 12.
Vladyslav Heraskevych shows his helmet following his disqualification for wearing it in tribute to athletes who have died amid Russia's attack on Ukraine at Cortina Sliding Centre on February 12. Annegret Hilse/Reuters
IOC President Coventry traveled from Milan to Cortina to meet with Heraskevych and his father prior to Thursday’s first two heats. Heraskevych, however, stood by his intention to wear the helmet. After he was disqualified, he showed a picture of himself in the helmet on X, writing, “This is price of our dignity.’’
The Ukrainian slider told CNN Sports’ Amanda Davies Thursday night that no matter what happened he was pleased with the attention the matter’s received: “First and the biggest win, it’s memory of the athletes. People are now super united about this story, and I’m really grateful that. I think it’s also a very good story how sport can unite people, and now they’re united around these athletes and they united around their dignity.”
Heraskevych, however, told the Associated Press Friday before the decision was handed down that his Olympic Games were effectively over, no matter what happened, saying, “Looks like this train has left.”
‘He’s won the medal of our hearts’
The news of the disqualification rippled through Cortina d’Ampezzo on Thursday as fans digested what it meant for Heraskevych and Ukraine.
As news of his DQ traveled, several fans wearing Ukrainian flags expressed their disappointment in the ruling but their support of Heraskevych. “This is even bigger than a medal,’’ Nathalia Khaichyk told CNN Sports. “He’s won the medal of our hearts.’’
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POLITICO.EU:"Ukrainian skeleton pilot Vladyslav Heraskevych will not be performing at the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina after he refused to comply with the rules on athletes’ self-expression, the International Olympic Committee announced Thursday.
Heraskevych wanted to wear a memorial helmet with portraits of Ukrainian athletes killed by Russia in his race Thursday and refused to consider wearing a black armband instead as a compromise offered to him by the IOC. So the committee decided to withdraw his accreditation from the Games.
“Despite multiple exchanges and in-person meetings between the IOC and Mr Heraskevych, the last one this morning with IOC President Kirsty Coventry, he did not consider any form of compromise,” the IOC said in a statement Thursday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticized the IOC’s decision in a post on X, noting that “660 Ukrainian athletes and coaches have been killed by Russia since the full-scale invasion began” almost four years ago.
“No rule has been broken” in Heraskevych’s wish to wear the memorial helmet, Zelenskyy said. “It is Russia that constantly violates Olympic principles.”
The IOC said it had been “very keen for Mr. Heraskevych to compete. This is why the IOC sat down with him to look for the most respectful way to address his desire to remember his fellow athletes who have lost their lives following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” according to its statement.
“The essence of this case is not about the message; it is about where he wanted to express it,” the committee added.
Heraskevych was able to display his helmet in all training runs. The IOC also offered him the option of displaying it immediately after the race when going through the mixed zone. However, the athlete instead demanded an apology for the pressure from the IOC.
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WSJ:"By
Gordon Fairclough
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| Photography by Patrick Wack/Inland for WSJ
Feb. 12, 2026 5:00 pm ET
KLAIPEDA, Lithuania—Germany’s top military officer, Gen. Carsten Breuer, stood astride a map of Lithuania laid out on the floor of a makeshift command post in this port city on the Baltic Sea.
A chill rain beat against the windows as Breuer and his aides reviewed plans to surge ammunition and fuel to an armored brigade positioned in the likely path of any Russian ground attack on NATO.
“We need to train where and how we will fight,” Breuer told the camouflage-clad soldiers gathered around him. “We need to be agile. We need a new mindset.”
Breuer is racing to prepare Germany’s armed forces for war. And for the 61-year-old veteran of conflicts from Kosovo to Afghanistan, the clock is ticking.
Germany’s military-intelligence agency estimates that within the next three years, Russia, whose armies poured into Ukraine in 2022, will have amassed enough weaponry and trained enough troops to be able to start a wider war across Europe. Breuer says a smaller attack could come at any time.
“We have to be ready,” he says. .."
REUTERS:"Feb 12 (Reuters) - Russia pounded Ukraine with drones and ballistic missiles overnight on Thursday, targeting energy systems and injuring at least seven people in the capital Kyiv, and the cities of Dnipro and Odesa, officials said.
"Hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles targeted energy systems, depriving people of power, heating, and water," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X.
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Two people were hurt in a "massive" attack on Kyiv, which also hit various buildings, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Klitschko said on Telegram there had been hits on both residential and non-residential buildings on both sides of the Dnipro River bisecting the city.
Fragments had fallen near two residential buildings in one district, but no fire had broken out.
Reuters witnesses heard explosions resound in the city.
Four people, including a baby boy and a four-year-old girl, were hurt in a missile and drone attack on the southeastern city of Dnipro and surrounding district, regional governor Oleksandr Ganzha said on Telegram.
One person was hurt in a drone attack on the southern city of Odesa on the Black Sea, which also damaged an infrastructure facility and an apartment building where a fire broke out at an upper floor, head of the city's military administration, Serhiy Lysak said..."
APNEWS:"BRUSSELS (AP) — Top European Union diplomat Kaja Kallas said Tuesday that she is drafting a list of concessions that she believes Russia must make to secure any long-term peace in Ukraine as U.S.-run talks to end four years of war show little sign of progress.Russian forces used cluster munitions in an attack on a market in Ukraine killing seven as envoys from Moscow and Kyiv met in Abu Dhabi last week for another round of U.S.-brokered talks. No breakthrough was made, although a new prisoner swap was agreed.
After saying in 2024 that he could end the war in a day, then 100 days, U.S. President Donald Trump has now given Ukraine and Russia until June to come to an agreement.
The EU is convinced that Russia is not negotiating seriously and it doubts that European and Ukrainian interests are being represented by the Trump administration, so work has begun on “a sustainable peace plan” that might force Moscow’s hand.“We have just seen increased bombing by Russians during these talks,” EU foreign policy chief Kallas said, including the targeting of Ukraine’s electricity grid during what has been the coldest winter of the war.
Kallas said that the 27-nation bloc is “very grateful” for U.S. diplomatic efforts so far, but “to have sustainable peace also, everybody around the table including the Russians and the Americans need to understand that you need Europeans to agree.”
.."
REUTERS:"KYIV, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Russian forces are trying to press forward around the city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv's military said on Monday, hoping to conclude a months-long campaign to seize the strategic hub as Moscow seeks to capture the whole of the Donetsk region.
Ukraine has struggled to halt slow Russian advances around Pokrovsk and elsewhere along the 1,200-km (746-mile) front line while it comes under U.S. pressure to reach a peace deal to end the four-year war in ongoing talks...Kyiv's General Staff said on Monday its forces still held the northern part of Pokrovsk, a city with a pre-war population of 60,000, and were also defending the smaller city of Myrnohrad nearby.
Pokrovsk, a railway nexus, has been the site of fierce fighting since last year. Its fall would mark Russia's biggest battlefield victory since it seized the eastern city of Avdiivka in early 2024.
Moscow claimed late last year to have captured Pokrovsk, which Kyiv denied.
Analysts say Russia has captured only about 1.3% of Ukrainian territory since early 2023, though its aerial bombardments have inflicted heavy damage on the national power network in recent months...Ukraine's 7th Rapid Response Corps, which oversees defences in the area, said Russia was "pressing in the Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad area" by exploiting "insufficient" Ukrainian air defences, using guided bombs and controlling heights and flanks with their greater manpower.
Ukrainian open-source researchers DeepState said Russian infantry was moving into the northern part of Pokrovsk and attempting to push further toward the nearby village of Hryshyne.
The group, whose map showed nearly all of Pokrovsk and much of Myrnohrad to be under Russian control, described the current fighting as "the last battles" for the two cities.
'A MATTER OF YEARS'
Nearly four years after its full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, Russia occupies almost a fifth of Ukraine's territory, including the Crimean Peninsula and parts of eastern Ukraine occupied before the war.
Russia is demanding that Ukraine relinquish the remaining 20% of the industrialised Donetsk region that it has been unable to conquer, something Kyiv refuses to do.
Moscow has pledged to keep fighting until it achieves its war aims and says the issue of territory is of "fundamental importance" to ongoing peace talks brokered by the United States.
Polls show that a majority of Ukrainians say it would be unacceptable to cede the rest of Donetsk, which includes the heavily defended, so-called "fortress cities" of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, in exchange for peace..."
REUTERS:"KYIV, Feb 7 (Reuters) - The United States wants Moscow and Kyiv to find a solution on how to end the war in Ukraine before summer, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.
In remarks to reporters released by his office on Saturday after Ukraine and Russia held two days of U.S.-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi this week, Zelenskiy said Washington had proposed talks in Miami in a week, and that Kyiv had agreed to that.
..
Zelenskiy also criticised Russia over an overnight attack on Ukrainian energy facilities, saying in comments posted on X that Moscow must be deprived of the ability to use the cold winter weather as leverage against Kyiv."The Americans are proposing that the parties end the war before the start of this summer, and will likely pressure the parties to adhere to this schedule," Zelenskiy said.
"The (November mid-term U.S. Congressional) elections are definitely more important to them. Let's not be naive. And they say they want to get everything done by June."..."
APNEWS:"KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday described the performance of the air force in parts of the country as “unsatisfactory,” and said that steps are being taken to improve the response to large-scale Russian drone barrages of civilian areas.
The repeated Russian aerial assaults have in recent months focused on Ukraine’s power grid, causing blackouts and disrupting the heating and water supply for families during a bitterly cold winter.
With the war about to enter its fifth year later this month following Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor, there is no sign of a breakthrough in U.S.-led peace efforts following the latest talks this week. Further U.S.-brokered meetings between Russian and Ukrainian delegations are planned “in the near future, likely in the United States,” Zelenskyy said.Zelenskyy said Friday he had discussed with his defense minister and the air force commander what new air defense measures Ukraine needs to counter the Russian barrages. He didn’t elaborate on what would be done.Russia fired 328 drones and seven missiles at Ukraine overnight and in the early morning, the air force said, claiming that air defenses shot down 297 drones.One person was killed and two others were injured in an overnight Russian attack using drones and powerful glide bombs on the central Dnipropetrovsk region, according to the head of the regional military administration, Oleksandr Hanzha.
A Russian aerial attack on the southern Zaporizhzhia region during early daylight hours injured eight people and damaged 18 apartment blocks, according to regional military administration head Ivan Fedorov.
A dog shelter in the regional capital was also struck, killing 13 dogs, Zaporizhzhia City Council Secretary Rehina Kharchenko said.Some dogs were rushed to a veterinary clinic, but they could not be saved, she said. Seven other animals were injured and are receiving treatment.Amid icy conditions in Kyiv, more than 1,200 residential buildings in multiple districts of the capital have had no heating for days due to the Russian bombardment of the power grid, according to Zelenskyy..."
REUTERS:"TAVRIISKE, Ukraine, Feb 4 (Reuters) - In the last few weeks, buses have stopped running to the village of Tavriiske in southeast Ukraine from the major city of Zaporizhzhia, some 50 km (31 miles) away.
As the war with Russia has drawn nearer, the village is slowly emptying. Maryna Vyshnevska, 35, said it had become too dangerous for her and her five children - some of the few remaining residents - to stay..."
CNN:"...A CNN investigation has uncovered new details around the recruitment tactics of Russian agents on the continent, exposing the rosy promises made to African job hunters and the reality of forced military service and bloody frontline fighting that many instead find. CNN reviewed hundreds of chats on messaging apps, military contracts, visas, flights and hotel bookings, as well as gathering first-hand accounts from African fighters in Ukraine, to understand just how Russia entices African men to bolster its ranks..."
CNN:"Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital Kyiv with ballistic missiles early on Tuesday, local authorities reported, following a pause in strikes on major cities and infrastructure agreed to by Russia and the US as Ukraine grapples with plummeting winter temperatures.
CNN staff in Kyiv reported hearing several strong explosions in the city.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last week agreed to pause attacking major Ukrainian cities and infrastructure until Sunday, following a “personal request” from US President Donald Trump, according to the Kremlin.
The pause also came following trilateral talks between Russia, Ukraine and the US in Abu Dhabi, the first such talks since Moscow’s invasion in February 2022.
Several multi-storey residential buildings had been damaged, according to reports, Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the Kyiv’ military administration, wrote on Telegram.
Dnipro, in eastern Ukraine, was also being attacked by ballistic missiles, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.
While there have been no reported strikes on energy facilities or major cities since last Thursday, according to Ukrainian authorities, Russia has continued to strike logistics routes and transport infrastructure, with deadly results..."
REUTERS:"LONDON/WASHINGTON, Jan 30 (Reuters) - The United States and Russia could embark on an unrestrained nuclear arms race for the first time since the Cold War, unless they reach an eleventh-hour deal before their last remaining arms control treaty expires in less than a week.
The New START treaty is set to end on February 5. Without it, there would be no constraints on long-range nuclear arsenals for the first time since Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed two historic agreements in 1972 on the first-ever trip by a U.S. president to Moscow..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"After Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, countries across Europe pledged to become more like Poland.
Governments began pushing to build up their militaries. Factories pivoted from civilian products to tanks and jets. Prodded by U.S. President Donald Trump, Europe’s NATO members last year committed to spending 5 percent of their gross domestic product on security, defense and related infrastructure.
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While some countries struggled to meet an earlier NATO target of 2 percent of GDP on defense, Poland’s figure last year was 4.7 percent, the highest in the alliance. It’s the European Union’s fifth most populous nation and sixth largest economy, but it has the bloc’s largest standing army.
As Europe seeks to retool for the dual threats of Russian aggression and U.S. indifference, Poland is arguably already there. At least by the numbers. The challenge is that even as countries scrambled to build up their capabilities, the nature of the threat has changed.Russian drone incursions into Polish airspace and the sabotage of a major rail line have highlighted the inadequacy of a conventional army..."
CNN:"The first trilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia and the United States concluded in Abu Dhabi on Saturday, as all sides struck an optimistic tone following two days of discussions.
US officials described the talks — which saw officials from all three countries sit down together for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — as having “surpassed expectations” and said the mood in the room was “very upbeat, very positive, very constructive.” One US official said the meeting marked a significant step forward after months of quiet diplomacy, stressing that while a final deal is not guaranteed, progress would not have been possible without face-to-face talks. “Getting to this place was a really big step,” the official said, adding that the parties were probing each other’s positions and working creatively toward solutions.
..
REUTERS:"KYIV/MOSCOW, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Ukrainian and Russian negotiators met in Abu Dhabi on Friday to tackle the vital issue of territory, with no sign of a compromise, as Russian airstrikes plunged Ukraine into its worst energy crisis of the nearly four-year war.
Kyiv is under mounting U.S. pressure to reach a peace deal in the war triggered by Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, with Moscow demanding Kyiv cede its entire eastern industrial area of Donbas before it stops fighting.
..
"
WASHINGTONPOST:"KYIV — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky aimed a blistering speech at Europe during the World Economic Forum on Thursday after a last-minute meeting with President Donald Trump, which both leaders described as “good,” saying framework documents between the two countries — in hopes of ending the conflict — were nearing the final stages.
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After nearly four years of full-scale war, Zelensky described how life in Ukraine felt like the movie “Groundhog Day” with ramped-up attacks coming amid a brutally cold winter. All the while Europe is still unequipped to defend itself against Russia, he said, which has not slowed its assault since 2022.
As a result, Zelensky said, “the backstop of Trump is needed” with no security guarantees functioning without the United States. He emphasized that Europe needed to be a united force: “Europe should not be a salad of small and middle powers.”
“Europe loves to discuss the future but avoids taking action today, action that defines what kind of future we will have,” Zelensky said in his speech in Davos, Switzerland, following the hour-long meeting with Trump. “If [Russian President Vladimir] Putin decides to take Lithuania or strike Poland, who will respond? … Tomorrow you may have to defend your way of life.”..."
REUTERS:"Jan 19 (Reuters) - Russia launched a barrage of drone strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure overnight on Monday, cutting off power in five regions across the country amid freezing temperatures and high demand, Ukrainian officials said.
The Ukrainian air force said that Russian troops had launched 145 drones. Air defence units shot down 126 of them, it said.
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"As of this morning, consumers in Sumy, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv regions are without power," the energy ministry said in a statement. "Emergency repair work is underway if the security situation allows."
In the southern Odesa region, energy and gas infrastructure was damaged, the regional governor said, adding that one person was hurt in the attack.
DTEK, Ukraine's largest private energy company, said its energy facility in Odesa was "substantially" damaged, knocking out power for 30,800 households.
A local power grid company in northern Chernihiv region said that five important energy facilities were damaged, leaving tens of thousands of consumers without power.Moscow has stepped up a winter campaign of strikes on the Ukrainian energy system..."
NYTIMES:"China’s top general, second only to Xi Jinping, the nation’s leader, in the military command, has been put under investigation and accused of “grave violations of discipline and the law,” the Ministry of National Defense said on Saturday, the most stunning escalation yet in Mr. Xi’s purge of the People’s Liberation Army elite.
The general, Zhang Youxia, is a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, the Communist Party body that controls China’s armed forces. Another member of the commission, Gen. Liu Zhenli, who leads the military’s Joint Staff Department, is also under investigation, the Defense Ministry said. Its announcement did not say what either general was alleged to have done wrong..."
CNN:"Russian President Vladimir Putin has been invited to join US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace,” the committee that will oversee the reconstruction of Gaza, his spokesman said on Monday.
Speaking to reporters during a regular media briefing, Dmitry Peskov said: “President Putin also received through diplomatic channels an invitation to join this Board of Peace.”
.."
REUTERS:"WASHINGTON, Jan 14 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump told Reuters that Ukraine - not Russia - is holding up a potential peace deal, rhetoric that stands in marked contrast to that of European allies, who have consistently argued Moscow has little interest in ending its war in Ukraine.
In an exclusive interview in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to wrap up his nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. Zelenskiy, the U.S. president said, was more reticent.
..Trump's comments suggested renewed frustration with the Ukrainian leader. The two presidents have long had a volatile relationship, though their interactions seem to have improved over Trump's first year back in office.
At times, Trump has been more willing to accept Putin's assurances at face value than the leaders of some U.S. allies, frustrating Kyiv, European capitals and U.S. lawmakers, including some Republicans.
In December, Reuters reported that U.S. intelligence reports continued to warn that Putin had not abandoned his aims of capturing all of Ukraine and reclaiming parts of Europe that belonged to the former Soviet empire. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard disputed that report at the time..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"By Yulia Navalnaya
Yulia Navalnaya is a Russian opposition leader and the widow of Alexei Navalny. She is also chair of the Human Rights Foundation and of the Anti-Corruption Foundation advisory board.
Imagine a courtroom in which the only voice heard is that of the state, and a legal system in which laws are skewed to conform to the whims of the regime — a world without lawyers, where the persecuted are invisible and suffer in silence.
The best of The Post’s opinions and commentary, in your inbox every morning
Lawyers are the necessary intermediary between citizens and their governments. They insist on normative procedures, demand evidence and testimony, challenge unlawful decisions and laws, and, when necessary, speak uncomfortable truths. That is why every dictatorship, from China to Tanzania, tries to tame them — or to break them.
Russia is trying to do both..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"President Donald Trump said Tuesday that “help is on its way” to anti-regime protesters in Iran and warned that the country’s government — whose security forces, rights groups estimate, have killed as many as 2,000 people during a brutal crackdown on the demonstrations — will pay a “big price.”..."
THEGUARDIAN:"...While there have been heavier strikes on Kyiv in the almost four years of war since the full-scale Russian invasion, the impact of the 9 January raid on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has rivalled the dark days of the early weeks of the war, when Russian tanks were trying to force their way into the capital.
.."
THEGUARDIAN:"Opinion
Ukraine
Ending the war in Ukraine has more support than ever. So why is peace still not in sight?
Gwendolyn Sasse
...
The Paris declaration by the ‘coalition of the willing’ supports a nonexistent ceasefire that remains at the mercy of Russian intransigence
An end to Russia’s war against Ukraine is still not in sight. The frequency of high-level meetings of Ukrainian, US and European representatives in recent weeks, as well as the intermittent US-Russia exchanges, have not changed this fundamental reality. There is no ceasefire in place, European and US military support is not confirmed and, most importantly, Russia does not want the war to end."...
CNN:"Russia launched an Oreshnik missile into Ukraine overnight into Friday for the second time since the full-scale war began 2022, in a strike that Kyiv and its allies say is meant as a warning for the West.
While Russian defense officials did not say where the Oreshnik hit this time, Ukrainian authorities on Friday reported several explosions and a ballistic missile strike in the western city of Lviv.
The first use of the new weapon – which can carry nuclear or conventional payloads – was to target an apparently vacant factory in Dnipro in late November 2024.
Here’s what we know about the missile.
What is the Oreshnik?
It is likely a medium-range ballistic missile, with its use so far indicating a range of 600 to 1,000 miles. US defense officials deemed the Oreshnik fired in November 2024 to be an “intermediate-range ballistic missile” or IRBM, suggesting they thought its actual range could be over 3,000 miles.
The distance from Kapustin Yar, the Russian base from which it is thought to have been fired, to Lviv, its target this week, is about 900 miles.
A distinguishing feature of the Oreshnik is its capacity to rain down multiple separate warheads from the main missile. As many as six multiple independently-targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), which may themselves contain four to six ordnances, separate from the missile as it travels at hypersonic speeds; each can be pointed at specific objects, allowing one ballistic missile to launch a larger attack...
Oreshnik means “Hazel Tree”, based on its appearance when its multiple warheads fall to earth in streaks of fiery light..."
CNN:"Russia doubled down on its longstanding position of declaring Western forces in Ukraine “legitimate targets” on Thursday, days after France and the UK pledged to send troops there in the event of a peace deal.
“The Russian Foreign Ministry warns that the deployment of military units, military facilities, warehouses, and other infrastructure of Western countries on the territory of Ukraine will be classified as foreign intervention,” spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a statement..."
"In Nicosia, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President of Cyprus Nikos Christodoulides.
The Head of State congratulated Cyprus on the start of its presidency of the Council of the European Union.
“Thank you for your support, especially for the humanitarian assistance during this war and Russia’s attacks,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
The leaders discussed support for Ukraine’s European integration during Cyprus’s presidency of the Council of the European Union and the earliest possible opening of negotiating clusters. Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasized that Ukraine is counting on strong decisions and real progress over these six months.
They also addressed defense support for Ukraine, strengthening air defense, the supply of drones, and Cyprus’s participation in the PURL initiative and SAFE instrument.
The Head of State separately noted Cyprus’s participation in the Coalition of the Willing. The leaders discussed the diplomatic situation and joint efforts with American and European partners to achieve a dignified peace.
Particular attention was paid to the importance of strengthening sanctions against Russia, including additional restrictions on Russia’s shadow fleet and proposals for the 20th sanctions package of the European Union.
The presidents also discussed humanitarian support, including the rehabilitation of wounded warriors and medical treatment for children."
REUTERS:"KYIV, Jan 7 (Reuters) - U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators will revisit the thorny issues of territory and the fate of the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday, the most problematic points in peace talks to end Russia's war.
Kyiv is under U.S. pressure to secure peace in the nearly four-year-old conflict but is pushing back on Russian demands to cede its eastern Donetsk region and give up control of Europe's largest nuclear facility...The delegations are in Paris for a third day of talks among Kyiv's allies on peace and security guarantees for Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire with Russia, which has been cool on the U.S.-backed process.
"We expect, in particular, that the most difficult issues from the basic framework for ending the war will be discussed – namely, issues related to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and territories," Zelenskiy wrote on X, announcing a third session with the U.S. team in two days..."
REUTERS:"KYIV, Jan 5 (Reuters) - An overnight Russian air attack on Kyiv and its region killed two people, Ukraine’s authorities said on Monday, in what appeared to be the first reported deaths in Russian strikes on the Ukrainian capital this year.
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said the strike set ablaze a medical facility in the Obolonskyi district in Kyiv's northern sector, where an inpatient ward was operating. After the fire was extinguished, a body was found inside, the service added.
..
A woman was also injured and 25 people were evacuated, the service said on the Telegram messaging app.
It released a nighttime photo showing emergency responders carrying a body on a stretcher past an ambulance outside a building, with snow on the ground.
..
Russia also hit towns and villages across the Kyiv region, damaging homes and critical infrastructure, and killing a civilian in the Fastiv district, just southwest of the capital, the region’s governor Mykola Kalashnyk said on Telegram.
Small parts of the region were left without power, Kalashnyk added.
There was no immediate comment from Russia. Both sides deny targeting civilians in their attacks.
Russia has repeatedly attacked Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with missiles and drones during the nearly four-year-old war, saying it strikes military targets, while Ukraine says civilians and civilian infrastructure are often hit.
Reporting by Gleb Garanich in Kyiv and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Tom Hogue, Stephen Coates and Michael Perry"
REUTERS:"MOSCOW/KYIV, Dec 30 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Tuesday its position would toughen in talks on ending the war in Ukraine after accusing Kyiv of attacking a Russian presidential residence, an allegation that Kyiv said was baseless and intended to prolong the conflict.Kyiv has said Russia's accusations are "lies" aimed at justifying more attacks on Ukraine, and its foreign minister said on Tuesday that Russia had not provided any evidence "because there's none".
..
Russia said on Monday Kyiv had attacked a presidential residence in the Novgorod region with 91 long-range attack drones. It said it would retaliate and review its negotiating stance but would not quit talks on a possible peace deal..."
REUTERS:"MOSCOW/KYIV, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Russia accused Ukraine on Monday of trying to attack President Vladimir Putin's residence in northern Russia, although it provided no evidence to back up an assertion that Kyiv dismissed as baseless and designed to undermine peace negotiations.
The angry exchanges – including a statement by Russia that it was reviewing its stance in negotiations in response to the attack – dealt a new blow to prospects for peace in Ukraine.
..
U.S. President Donald Trump said Putin had told him about the alleged attack in a phone call on Monday morning, which had angered him. Still, Trump repeated his belief that a peace deal may be near.
"It's one thing to be offensive," Trump told reporters. "It's another thing to attack his house. It's not the right time to do any of that. And I learned about it from President Putin today. I was very angry about it."
On Sunday, Trump met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Florida and the U.S. president said they were "getting a lot closer, maybe very close" to an agreement to end the war, although "thorny" territorial issues remained.
On Monday, Putin struck a defiant tone, telling his army to press on with a campaign to take full control of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region. The Kremlin repeated demands for Kyiv to pull its forces out of the last part of the Donbas area that they still hold in eastern Ukraine.
Putin told Trump in Monday's phone call that Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022, was reviewing its stance following the reported drone attack, an aide said.
After the call with Putin, Trump told reporters outside his home in Palm Beach, Florida, that he had no further information about the alleged attack.
"I don't like it, it's not good," Trump said. Asked if U.S. intelligence agencies had evidence of such an attack, Trump said: "We'll find out."
Trump said the conversation with Putin was productive.
"We have a couple of issues that we're going to get resolved, hopefully, and if we get them resolved, you're going to have peace," Trump said.
LAVROV ACCUSES UKRAINE, ZELENSKIY ISSUES DENIAL
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Ukraine had tried to attack Putin's residence in the Novgorod region west of Moscow on December 28-29 with 91 long-range drones which were all destroyed by Russian air defences. No one was injured and there was no damage, he said in comments reported by Russian media.
"Such reckless actions will not go unanswered," Lavrov said in a statement, describing the attack as "state terrorism" and adding that targets had already been selected for retaliatory strikes by Russia's armed forces.
Lavrov did not offer any evidence for his assertions in his statement. It was not clear where Putin was at the time.
..
Lavrov said the attack took place during negotiations about a possible peace deal, and said Russia would review its negotiating stance but not quit the negotiations.
Denying Ukraine had planned such an attack, Zelenskiy accused Russia of preparing the ground to strike government buildings in Kyiv, saying Russia wanted to undermine progress at U.S.-Ukrainian talks on ending the war."Another round of lies from the Russian Federation," Zelenskiy told reporters via WhatsApp. "It is clear that we had a meeting with Trump yesterday, and it is clear that for the Russians, if there is no scandal between us and America, and we are making progress – for them it is a failure, because they do not want to end this war."
He added: "I am sure they are simply preparing the ground for strikes, probably on the capital, probably on government buildings.".."
CNN:"Russia carried out one of this year’s longest sustained attacks on Ukraine overnight, the day before Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is due to meet his US counterpart Donald Trump in Florida, as efforts continue to end the nearly four-year war in Eastern Europe.
The aerial attack on the city of Kyiv and the surrounding region killed at least two people and injured 44 more, including two children, according to local authorities.
More than 40% of residential buildings in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, also have no heating as a result, amid freezing temperatures, Oleksiy Kuleba, a senior government minister, said on social media.
The attack lasted nearly 10 hours. But local residents have been kept on edge into Saturday, with air raid sirens blaring on and off intermittently during the day.
Speaking on board a plane bound for the United States Saturday, Zelensky said he would be looking for a signal during talks with Trump that Ukraine would receive legally binding security guarantees as part of any peace deal.He also repeated calls for the bolstering of Ukraine’s air defenses, saying the country needed more missiles amid Russia’s relentless attacks. “The support of Europeans is important to us today. We do not have enough additional air defence systems,” he said.
Ahead of meeting Trump, Zelensky stopped in Canada Saturday for talks with Prime Minister Mark Carney. Speaking to reporters before their meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Carney announced a further 2.5 billion Canadian dollars ($1.83 billion) in economic assistance for Ukraine..."
TAIWANPLUS.COM/REUTERS TRANSCRIPT:"
REPORTER:
China’s arsenal is growing faster than that of any other nuclear power. A recent report cited by Reuters says that the country has placed 100 ICBMs into silos close to the Mongolian border. Although that is deep inland, some missiles have ranges exceeding 15,000 kilometers, meaning they can strike targets in the continental US, let alone in the Indo-Pacific.
William Yang (INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP):
China's rise in their missile capabilities and the expansion of their rocket force has definitely been a focus of the overall global observation of China's military modernization.
It comes at a time when the People's Liberation Army continues its very aggressive military operations.
And at the same time, the commitment and credibility of US defense commitment to its allies across the region has also been put to question.
REPORTER:
Although the report did not mention any targets, it does indicate that China’s arsenal – which stood at about 600 warheads last year – could nearly double to 1000 by 2030. That’s amid concerns that Chinese President Xi Jinping could move to invade Taiwan in 2027.
REPORTER:
There’s a growing risk of nuclear proliferation across the Indo-Pacific. A recent report quoted a Japanese lawmaker saying the country should consider its own nuclear weapons, North Korea continues building up its nuclear program despite sanctions, and US President Donald Trump said he’d be interested in restarting nuclear testing, although no details have been announced.
REPORTER:
As China builds up its nuclear arsenal and regional powers look to do the same, this could be a huge shift in Asia’s security situation.
Scott Huang and Lery Hiciano, for TaiwanPlus."
REUTERS:"WASHINGTON/PARIS, Dec 19 (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence reports continue to warn that Russian President Vladimir Putin has not abandoned his aims of capturing all of Ukraine and reclaiming parts of Europe that belonged to the former Soviet empire, six sources familiar with U.S. intelligence said, even as negotiators seek an end to the war that would leave Russia with far less territory.
The reports present a starkly different picture from that painted by U.S. President Donald Trump and his Ukraine peace negotiators, who have said Putin wants to end the conflict. The most recent of the reports dates from late September, according to one of the sources.
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The intelligence also contradicts the Russian leader’s denials that he is a threat to Europe.
The U.S. findings have been consistent since Putin launched his full-scale invasion in 2022. They largely align with the views of European leaders and spy agencies that he covets all of Ukraine and territories of former Soviet bloc states, including members of the NATO alliance, according to the sources.
"The intelligence has always been that Putin wants more," Mike Quigley, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a Reuters interview. "The Europeans are convinced of it. The Poles are absolutely convinced of it. The Baltics think they're first.”
Russia controls about 20% of Ukraine’s territory, including the bulk of Luhansk and Donetsk, the provinces that comprise the industrial heartland of the Donbas, parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson provinces and Crimea, the strategic Black Sea peninsula.
Putin claims Crimea and all four provinces as belonging to Russia. Trump is pressuring Kyiv to withdraw its forces from the small part of Donetsk they control as part of a proposed peace deal, according to two sources familiar with the matter, a demand that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and most Ukrainians reject.
“The president’s team has made tremendous progress with respect to ending the war" and Trump has stated that a peace deal "is closer than ever before," said a White House official without addressing the intelligence reports...
RUSSIA STILL PUSHING TERRITORIAL DEMANDS
Putin on Friday offered no compromises, although he told an annual news conference that he was ready to discuss peace.
He said his terms would have to be met as his forces have advanced 6,000 square km (2,300 square miles) this year..."
WSJ:"Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Moscow would achieve its goals in Ukraine either through diplomacy or on the battlefield, days after U.S. and European officials met with Ukraine’s leadership to try to hammer out a deal to end nearly four years of war.
Speaking to Defense Ministry officials, Putin lashed out against the previous Biden administration’s stance toward Russia and called European leaders backing Ukraine “piglets” who wanted to feast on the collapse of Russia.
Putin’s speech on Wednesday signaled that the Trump administration’s push to clinch a peace deal hasn’t changed the Kremlin’s war aims in Ukraine. Those include permanently blocking Ukraine’s path to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, limiting the size of its military and exerting influence over the country’s political future.
“The goals of the special military operation will undoubtedly be achieved,” Putin said, using the Russian euphemism for the war. “If the opposing side and their foreign patrons refuse to engage in substantive discussions, Russia will achieve the liberation of its historical lands through military means.”..."
WSJ:"European security officials now regularly broadcast a message nearly unimaginable a decade ago: Get ready for conflict with Russia.
Rarely a week goes by now without a European government, military or security chief making a grim speech warning the public that they are headed toward a potential war with Russia. It is a profound psychological shift for a continent that has rebuilt itself after two world wars by trumpeting a message of harmony and joint economic prosperity.
Over the weekend, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz compared Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategy in Ukraine to that of Hitler in 1938, when he seized the German-speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia before pressing on to conquer a large chunk of the continent. “If Ukraine falls, he won’t stop. Just like the Sudetenland wasn’t enough in 1938,” Merz told a party conference on Saturday.
That came days after NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte made a speech warning that “conflict is at our door” and that “we must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents or great-grandparents endured.” Rutte said that Russia could be ready to use military force against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization within five years. The head of the French military recently said that France was at risk “because it is not prepared to accept the loss of its children.”..."
BBC:"MI6 chief warns 'we are in a space between peace and war'
The new chief of MI6, Blaise Metreweli has said Britain's overseas spy agency is dealing with an "interlocking web of security challenges", during her first public speech.
Ms Metreweli, who took over as head of the Secret Intelligence Service in the autumn, is the first woman to head MI6, taking over from Sir Richard Moore.
The new chief pointed to the recent sanctioning of Russian entities accused of conducting information warfare, as well as two China-based companies sanctioned for their "indiscriminate cyber activities against the UK and its allies".
"Institutions which were designed in the ashes of the Second World War are being challenged. New blocks and identities forming and alliances reshaping," the MI6 chief has said..."
CNN:"UK’s new spy chief warns the ‘front line is everywhere’ amid growing threat from Russia...The new head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service MI6 will warn the nation that the “front line is everywhere” in her first public speech on Monday, with the UK facing a growing threat from Russia.
Blaise Metreweli became the first female chief of the Secret Intelligence Service’s 116-year history when she took up her post this fall. Commonly referred to as “C,” the chief is the only publicly named member of the famously secretive organization.
In a speech at MI6 HQ in London, Metreweli is expected to highlight the increasingly complex landscape of threats facing the UK, including technological disruption, information manipulation and terrorism.
The chief will also address the acute threat posed by an “aggressive, expansionist, and revisionist” Russia, alongside other hostile actors.
“The export of chaos is a feature not a bug in the Russian approach to international engagement; and we should be ready for this to continue until (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is forced to change his calculus,” she is expected to say.Security experts say Russia has been waging a hybrid war on Western allies of Ukraine, following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor. In the UK, Russian-backed operatives have set fire to Ukrainian-linked factories, police said.
Elsewhere in Europe, drones spotted near airports have halted flights, NATO airspace has been violated in Poland and Romania, and underwater cables have been disrupted in the Baltic Sea, sparking fears of sabotage. Russia has not claimed responsibility for any involvement in these incidents.
Metreweli is also set to emphasize the importance of mastering technology, whether that be in labs, in the field, or in MI6’s tradecraft. The chief previously led the service’s technology and innovation teams, a position made famous as “Q” in the James Bond movies.
“We must be as comfortable with lines of code as we are with human sources, as fluent in (computer programming language) Python as we are in multiple languages,” she is expected to say.
The spy chief will conclude her speech by underlining the power of human agency in tackling threats to UK security.
“The defining challenge of the 21st century is not simply who wields the most powerful technologies, but who guides them with the greatest wisdom. Our security, our prosperity and our humanity depend on it,” Metreweli will say.
In a more dangerous, tech-mediated world, the chief will call for the “rediscovery of our shared humanity,” to determine how the future unfolds.
“It is not what we can do that defines us, but what we choose to do. That choice – the exercise of human agency – has shaped our world before, and it will shape it again,” she is expected to say.The MI6 chief’s address comes just a week after a speech by British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, in which she highlighted the threat of information warfare. The government had sanctioned numerous organizations and individuals responsible for “delivering Russia’s information warfare,” Cooper said, as well as two China-based companies for their “vast and indiscriminate cyber activities against the UK and its allies.. .."
WSJ:"BERLIN—President Trump’s top envoys launched two days of meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders on Sunday as the administration stepped up pressure on Kyiv to put aside its resistance and agree to a peace deal with Russia by year-end.
The talks between Ukraine and its Western partners have become a tug of war, even without Russia at the table. Washington is pushing for quick decisions, while Zelensky and his European backers contend that significant differences remain that must be resolved.
Among those points, Ukraine has balked at Washington’s call to withdraw its forces from a portion of the eastern Donbas region that Kyiv’s forces still hold. European and Ukrainian officials have pushed for clarity on what the U.S. would do if Russia were to break a peace deal and attack Ukraine.
Both issues will be at the heart of the talks in Berlin. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz proposed the meetings during a talk European leaders held with Trump on Wednesday, which both sides described as difficult.“We want a lasting peace in Ukraine. Difficult questions lie ahead of us, but we are determined to move forward,” Merz said on X after talks began.
Trump said he was invited to join the Berlin talks but publicly doubted the trip would be worthwhile. On Friday, Trump decided to send his special Russia envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Witkoff, who has spearheaded talks with Ukraine and Russia on a U.S. peace plan, is expected to meet with the Ukrainians on Sunday before sitting down with European leaders. Over the past few weeks, he has shuttled between meetings with the Kremlin in Moscow and separate discussions with Kyiv in the U.S. or Europe..."
APNEWS:"KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold urgent talks Thursday with leaders and officials from about 30 countries that are supporting Kyiv’s effort to obtain fair terms for an end to the war with Russia.
The leaders of Germany, Britain and France were among those expected to take part in the meeting of Ukraine’s allies, dubbed the Coalition of the Willing, via video link..."
WSJ:"Disgruntled Gen-Z protesters, who have toppled governments and rattled rulers across the world this year, have claimed their first European victory.
Bulgaria’s government collapsed Thursday following a wave of youth-driven street protests over entrenched corruption and self-dealing elites widely seen as disconnected from the struggles of ordinary citizens.
Bulgaria has become the latest flashpoint in a year marked by Gen-Z unrest. Youth protests have felled governments in Nepal and Madagascar in recent months. Demonstrations over perceived privileges enjoyed by political elites have sparked mass rallies in Indonesia and the Philippines. In Tanzania, youth-led antigovernment protests were met with lethal government force..."
BBC:"Ukraine is preparing to present a revised peace plan to the White House, as it seeks to avoid making territorial concessions to Russia.
Kyiv is set to propose alternatives after President Volodymyr Zelensky again ruled out surrendering land, saying he had "no right" to do so under Ukrainian or international law.
He made the comments after meeting European and Nato leaders on Monday, part of a push to deter the US from backing a peace deal which includes major concessions for Ukraine, and which allies fear would leave it vulnerable to a future invasion.
The Ukrainian president told a news conference his team could send a new proposal to the Americans as soon as Tuesday, AFP news agency reported.
Zelensky's ongoing diplomatic tour of Europe follows intensive talks between US and Ukrainian negotiators over the weekend which failed to produce a deal to which Kyiv could agree.
On Sunday, Trump indicated that he viewed Zelensky as the main obstacle to securing a peace deal, something he has made a key foreign policy goal and which the president claimed he would be able to achieve rapidly during the 2024 presidential election campaign.
He told reporters that Russia was "fine" with the peace plan outlined to both sides by the US, but that he was a "little disappointed that Zelensky hasn't read it".
Almost simultaneously, Zelensky said he was waiting to briefed by his chief negotiator Rustem Umerov following three days of discussions with his US counterparts in Miami.
"Some issues can only be discussed in person," said Zelensky, ahead of a meeting in London attended by UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
The summit was widely viewed as a show of support for Ukraine as it seeks to resist White House pressure.
Trump called Europe's leaders "weak" in an interview with Politico published on Tuesday.
On whether Europe could help end Russia's war with Ukraine, the US president said: "They talk, but they don't produce, and the war just keeps going on and on."
No 10 said there had been an agreement that the US-led talks represented a "critical moment" to ramp up support for Ukraine, and repeated calls for a "just and lasting peace... which includes robust security guarantees".
..."
BBC:"Pokrovsk has not fallen yet. That is despite President Vladimir Putin's recent claim that Russian forces have taken the city.
There is no doubt Ukraine has been losing ground in this key city in the east. For Russia, Pokrovsk is another stepping stone towards its goal of taking control of all of the Donbas. But Ukraine needs to prove it is still capable of resisting.
At a Ukrainian command post, well behind the front line, orders are relayed by radio in rapid and quick succession. Soldiers watch dozens of live drone feeds. They are coordinating strikes on Russian positions inside the city.
The commander of the Skala Assault Regiment, Yuri, is keen to prove to us that Ukraine still controls the north of the city - to show that the Kremlin's claim that it has taken Pokrovsk is a lie.
Over the radio, they ask two of their soldiers to break cover from a building to display a Ukrainian flag. They move quickly to avoid being spotted. The drone feed shows the moment they briefly wave their yellow and blue flag, before quickly returning to cover..."
THEGUARDIAN:"Billed as the official home town of Santa Claus, or joulupukki as he is known in Finland, the city of Rovaniemi offers every imaginable Father Christmas-related experience – from a visit to his “office” on the Arctic Circle to reindeer sleigh rides. He even has his own branch of the Finnish design house Marimekko.
But this Christmas season, in addition to the hundreds of thousands of tourists from around the world coming in search of Santa, Finnish Lapland’s snow-covered capital is becoming an increasingly popular destination for international military visitors.
In recent weeks, thousands of Nato soldiers have been through Rovaniemi, which also has an airbase, for training exercises at nearby Rovajärvi, western Europe’s largest military exercise area, where they are preparing for a potential attack by Russia. Rovajärvi is about 55 miles from the Russian border.Rovaniemi, meanwhile, is soon expected to become a key base for Finland’s Forward Land Forces (FLF) – the Swedish-led Nato battlegroup intended to act as a deterrent on the eastern border.
The increase in military activity has not gone unnoticed by Rovaniemi’s tourists.
Donna Coyle and her daughter Lyla, holidaymakers from Scotland, were surprised to hear military aircraft while on reindeer safari. “We didn’t know anything about it,” said Donna.
Hannah Schlicker, from Stuttgart, Germany, said it was impossible to get away from the reality of Europe at war – even in Santa’s home town..."
BBC:"Russia has welcomed US President Donald Trump's new National Security Strategy, calling it "largely consistent" with Moscow's vision.
The 33-page document, unveiled by the US administration this week, suggests Europe is facing "civilisational erasure" and does not cast Russia as a threat to the US.
Combatting foreign influence, ending mass migration, and rejecting the EU's perceived practice of "censorship" are mentioned as other priorities in the report.
Several EU officials and analysts had pushed back on the strategy, questioning its focus on freedom of expression and likening it to language used by the Kremlin..."
BBC:"Russia has launched a major aerial bombardment against Ukrainian infrastructure targets as talks between the US and Ukraine in Florida are set to enter a third day.
Overnight Russia launched 653 drones and 51 missiles, most of which were downed, authorities said. One strike hit a railway hub at the town of Fastiv outside Kyiv, destroying the main station building and damaging rolling stock.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attack had been "meaningless from a military point of view, and the Russians could not have been unaware of this".
Earlier US and Ukrainian negotiators urged Russia to show a "serious commitment to long-term peace" after talks in Moscow failed to produce a breakthrough..."
THEGUARDIAN:"The Swedish navy encounters Russian submarines in the Baltic Sea on an “almost weekly” basis, its chief of operations has said, and is preparing for a further increase in the event of ceasefire or armistice in the Ukraine war.
Capt Marko Petkovic said Moscow was “continuously reinforcing” its presence in the region, and sightings of its vessels were a regular part of life for the Swedish navy. Its “very common”, he said, adding that the number of sightings had increased in recent years.
..
The Baltic Sea region is facing an increasing range of threats, including suspected hybrid attacks from drones, alleged sabotage of underwater infrastructure and a steady flow of ageing oil tankers in the form of shadow fleet ships carrying crude oil from Russia.Last month, the British defence secretary said that a Russian spy ship had entered British waters and shone lasers at military pilots, warning that the UK faced a “new era of threat” from hostile countries..."
APNEWS:"KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine and its European allies accused Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday of feigning interest in peace efforts after five hours of talks with U.S. envoys at the Kremlin produced no breakthrough.
The Russian leader “should end the bluster and the bloodshed and be ready to come to the table and to support a just and lasting peace,” said U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha urged Putin to “stop wasting the world’s time.The remarks reflected the high tensions and gaping gulf between Russia on one side and Ukraine and its European allies on the other over how to end a war that Moscow started when it invaded its neighbor nearly four years ago.
A day earlier, Putin accused the Europeans of sabotaging the U.S.-led peace efforts — and warned that, if provoked, Russia would be ready for war with Europe.
Since the 2022 invasion, European governments, along with the U.S., have spent billions of dollars to support Kyiv financially and militarily. Under President Donald Trump, however, the U.S. has tempered its support — and instead made a push to end the war.”
.."
BBC:"Russian President Vladimir Putin is starting a two-day visit to India, where he will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and attend an annual summit held by both countries.
Delhi and Moscow are expected to sign a number of deals during the visit, which comes months after the US increased pressure on India to stop buying Russian oil.
It also comes as US President Donald Trump's administration holds a series of talks with Russia and Ukraine in an attempt to end the war.
India and Russia have been close allies for decades and Putin and Modi share a warm relationship. Here's a look at why they both need each other - and what to watch for as they meet.
A special friendship, trade deals and geopolitics
By Steve Rosenberg
Why are relations with India key for the Kremlin?
Well, for a start, look at the numbers:
a population of nearly a billion and a half.
economic growth exceeding 8%. India is the world's fastest growing major economy.
That makes it a hugely attractive market for Russian goods and resources - especially oil.
..."
WSJ:"KYIV, Ukraine—President Vladimir Putin said Russia was ready to fight a war with Europe if attacked and accused the continent’s leaders of trying to sabotage peace efforts, calling recent proposed changes to a U.S. peace plan for Ukraine “absolutely unacceptable.”
“We do not plan to fight Europe, I’ve already said it a hundred times. But if Europe wants to fight us, and starts it, then we’re ready right now,” Putin said at an investment forum in Moscow on Tuesday, when asked about Europe’s defensive buildup.
The remarks, which came before Putin met White House special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow, represented some of the most pointed criticism of Europe by the Russian leader as he seeks to fuel divisions in the trans-Atlantic alliance..."
WSJ:"BERLIN—This week will bring a split screen that will reinforce growing doubts in Europe about the American commitment to the alliance that has served as the bedrock of Western unity since the end of World War II..."
REUTERS:"Drone technology has evolved rapidly over the nearly four years since Russia invaded Ukraine.
As both countries produce several million drones a year, the use of signal-jamming devices to cut the connection between drones and their pilots has become ubiquitous on the front lines.
DENSE FOG OF INTERFERENCE
Drones like the one used by Mex to hit the tank are increasingly being used to break through the dense fog of interference which has made countless Ukrainian and Russian drones fall out of the sky before they reach their targets..."
CNN:Russian President Vladimir Putin said that a US plan to end the war in Ukraine could “form the basis for future agreements” but renewed threats to seize more territory by force unless Kyiv withdraws.
Speaking to reporters in Bishtek, in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan on Thursday, Putin confirmed the Kremlin was expecting a US delegation headed by Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to visit Moscow early next week, adding that the Kremlin was ready for “serious discussion”.
But chances of a swift breakthrough appear slim after Putin repeated his maximalist demands, saying the war in Ukraine will only end “once Ukrainian troops withdraw from the territories they occupy.”
“If they don’t withdraw, we will achieve this through military means,” the Russian leader said..."
WSJ:"The White House is defending special envoy Steve Witkoff over a reportedly leaked conversation in which he told a Russian official that praising President Trump would help smooth over a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the war in Ukraine.
Witkoff also suggested that Putin call Trump ahead of a White House visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a conversation that gave the Kremlin an opportunity to press the case against giving Kyiv Tomahawk cruise missiles.
Bloomberg News reported Tuesday that Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy for a variety of diplomatic missions, had a phone call last month with a senior Russian official to suggest they work together on a peace plan for Ukraine and said that Putin should bring up the idea with Trump...."
REUTERS:"WASHINGTON/KYIV, Nov 25 (Reuters) -
"Late Monday and throughout Tuesday, Secretary Driscoll and team have been in discussions with the Russian delegation to achieve a lasting peace in Ukraine. The talks are going well and we remain optimistic. Secretary Driscoll is closely synchronized with the White House...as these talks progress," said U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Tolbert, a spokesperson for Driscoll.
The exact nature of the discussions was not immediately clear, and it was not known who was in the Russian delegation. A U.S. official said that Driscoll, who has emerged as a point man for U.S. diplomatic efforts on Ukraine, was also expected to meet Ukrainian officials while in Abu Dhabi.
Underlining the high stakes for Ukraine, its capital Kyiv was hit by a barrage of missiles and hundreds of drones overnight in a Russian strike that killed at least six people and disrupted power and heating systems. Residents were sheltering underground wearing winter jackets, some in tents...."
NYTIMES:"Ukrainian and European officials sprang into a frenzy over the weekend to alter President Trump’s new 28-point peace plan to end the war in Ukraine, developed with input from Russia and heavily weighted toward the Kremlin.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, for his part, sat back and watched.
For the Russian leader, a Kremlin-friendly peace plan that enshrines Ukraine’s perpetual subordination and vulnerability would be a win. So would a failed process that leads Mr. Trump to pull remaining support for Ukraine and further antagonize European allies.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials reported progress on talks aimed at amending the proposal, saying they had made some unspecified changes. By late Monday, the officials had returned home.
...CNN:"Russia’s drone revolution heaps pressure on Ukrainian defenses...A top-secret Russian unit based in Moscow has changed the landscape of drone warfare, turning what was an advantage for the Ukrainians into a vulnerability.
The unit is known as Rubicon and has expanded rapidly under Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov since his appointment in June last year. Belousov visited its headquarters in October 2024 and was shown a range of drones being developed, according to video published by official Russian media.
The advent of Rubicon – full name the Rubicon Center for Advanced Unmanned Technologies – is a prime example of how the Russian military has learnt to shrug off its rigid way of warfare during the Ukraine conflict and adapt to a rapidly evolving battlefield.
Ukraine had already established a separate branch within its military – the Unmanned Systems Forces – in mid-2024...Rubicon is not just about designing and deploying drones. It develops and tests advanced robotic systems and AI.
It pioneered the use of fiber-optic drones, which have had a significant impact on the battlefield. These are controlled via a fiber-optic cable, providing a secure video feed in real time and cannot be jammed.
It also improves the performance of other units.
“Rubicon formations remain a leading problem for [(Ukrainian)] drone operators, not only the drone companies themselves, but because they train other Russian drone units,” notes Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment.
.."
WASHINGTONPOST:"KYIV — The White House is pressuring Ukraine to sign on to its new peace proposal by Thanksgiving or lose U.S. support in its war with Russia, according to five people familiar with the talks.
U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll presented Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday with a version of the 28-point plan President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff recently drafted with Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev.
That plan, leaked to the news media and confirmed by several officials, includes several red lines for Ukraine, including a significant reduction of its army size and ceding territory to Russia that Moscow has not conquered militarily.
Zelensky addressed Ukrainians on Friday and told them the nation is facing “one of the most difficult moments in our history” as the United States, which has been the country’s biggest ally, seeks to force it into a deal that would cement Russia’s gains.
..."
REUTERS:"KYIV/WASHINGTON, Nov 21 (Reuters) - The United States has threatened to cut intelligence sharing and weapons supplies for Ukraine to press it into agreeing to the framework of a U.S.-brokered peace deal, two people familiar with the matter said.
Washington has presented Ukraine with a 28-point plan, which endorses some of Russia's principal demands in the war, including that Kyiv cede additional territory, curb the size of its military and be barred from joining NATO.
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The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Kyiv was under greater pressure from Washington than during any previous peace discussions, and that the U.S. wanted Ukraine to sign a framework of the deal by next Thursday.
A delegation of senior U.S. military officials met with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Thursday. The U.S. ambassador in Ukraine and the army public affairs chief travelling with the delegation described the meeting as a success and said Washington sought an "aggressive timeline" for the signature of a document between the U.S. and Ukraine.
Zelenskiy, who held a phone call on Friday with the leaders of allies Britain, Germany and France, appeared careful not to reject the U.S. plan or to offend the Americans.
"We value the efforts of the United States, President Trump, and his team aimed at ending this war. We are working on the document prepared by the American side. This must be a plan that ensures a real and dignified peace," he said.
EUROPE SAYS IT HAS TWO-POINT PLAN
European leaders, who were not consulted on the 28-point plan, expressed their strong support for Kyiv.
Europe's own plan consisted of two points, said the EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas: weaken Russia and support Ukraine.
U.S. officials, defending their plan, have said it was drafted after consultations with Rustem Umerov, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, a close Zelenskiy ally who served as defence minister until July.
.."
NYTIMES:"Russia launched a deadly barrage of missiles and drones against Ukraine, as President Volodymyr Zelensky sought to revive long-stalled peace talks on Wednesday with negotiations in Turkey.
At least 25 people were killed and some 73 wounded in Ternopil, in western Ukraine, when a Russian missile hit a residential building, according to the Ukrainian emergency service. The top three floors of the building were hit, the first time that a Russian missile had struck a residential complex in the city, and emergency workers were searching for people who may be trapped in the rubble.Mr. Zelensky said on social media that Russia had launched 470 attack drones and 48 missiles in the overnight attack, hitting energy, transport and civilian infrastructure across Ukraine.
The deadly strikes came as Mr. Zelensky was in Turkey to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, trying to reinvigorate efforts to end the war with what he said were new Ukrainian proposals..."
WSJ:"The new nuclear race has begun. But unlike during the Cold War, the U.S. must prepare for two peer rivals rather than one—at a time when it has lost its clear industrial and economic edge.
China, which long possessed just a small nuclear force, is catching up fast, while Russia is developing a variety of new-generation systems aimed at American cities.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has already used nuclear saber-rattling to throttle American support for Ukraine. He has deployed nuclear weapons to Belarus and, in recent weeks, tested a nuclear-powered missile and a nuclear-powered submarine drone that he claims are impervious to American defenses..."
WSJ:"Russia’s army is on the verge of its biggest Ukrainian conquest in more than two years. But the potential prize, a devastated city strewn with corpses, points to what could be a more important battle than the one for territory: Which side will bleed out of military resources first?
As the war approaches a fifth year, Russia is betting that its military machine, fed by its vast industrial capacity and much-larger population, will eventually overwhelm its western neighbor. Ukraine is seeking to deplete those resources and relying on Western allies to keep it funded and armed..."
CNN:"Russia says new nuclear weapons are of 'historic significance'
Russia has recently unveiled several new nuclear and nuclear powered weapons that President Vladimir Putin says will be "important for the entire 21st century." CNN's senior correspondent Fred Pleitgen breaks down some of their capabilities..."
CNN:"Russia has successfully tested its nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile and will work towards deploying the weapon, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday, which comes as Moscow launched its second deadly attack on Ukraine in two nights.
The timing of the missile test is notable, coming the same week that a potential summit with US President Donald Trump broke down, and the White House placed sanctions on two of Russia’s largest oil companies – some of the Trump administration’s most tangible actions against Russia to date.Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces, claimed the Burevestnik missile remained airborne for about 15 hours and covered a distance of around 14,000 kilometers (8,700 miles). During the test, the weapon demonstrated “its high capabilities in evading anti-missile and anti-aircraft defences,” Gerasimov said.Meanwhile, Putin said, “We need to determine the possible ways of using it and start preparing the infrastructure for deploying this weapon,” adding that it’s a product “no one else in the world has.”
Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev said that the details of the “successful” missile testing had been conveyed to the Trump administration during his visit to the US, as well as recent battlefield updates...."
CNN:"Russia is carrying out a “massive attack” on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, top Ukrainian officials said early Friday, with parts of the capital Kyiv left without power.
.."
BBC:"Estonia has requested a consultation with other Nato members after Russian warplanes violated its airspace on Friday morning.
Three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets entered the Estonian skies "without permission and remained there for a total of 12 minutes" over the Gulf of Finland, the government said.
.."
REUTERS:"BERLIN, Sept 17 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Wednesday accused Russia's Vladimir Putin of murder and trying to destabilise the West by testing its limits and sabotage, speaking at a parliamentary debate where he clashed with the far-right opposition.
Merz said recent Russian incursions into Polish and Romanian airspace were part of a long-running trend of testing the West's boundaries.
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"Putin has long been testing the borders, he is sabotaging. He is spying, he is murdering, he is trying to unsettle us. Russia wants to destabilise our societies," Merz said.
He said a Ukrainian surrender to Russia was unacceptable.
"A dictated peace, a peace without freedom, would encourage Putin to seek his next target," he said.
Merz has previously also criticised Putin as a war criminal, prompting the Kremlin to say that the German leader's views on the Ukrainian peace talks should be disregarded.
The Kremlin denies its forces have committed any war crimes in Ukraine and has also dismissed as nonsense claims by Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, that her husband was murdered in prison.
German support for Ukraine has drawn criticism from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), whose leader Alice Weidel on Wednesday accused Merz of "posing as a global politician and warlord". Jens Spahn, a Merz ally, in turn said Weidel was turning into a "fifth column" for Russia..."
THEGUARDIAN:"12.27 EDT
UK fighters to fly air defence missions over Poland as part of Nato's Eastern Sentry
UK Typhoon fighter jets will fly air defence missions over Poland as part of Nato’s new Eastern Sentry mission, the UK government has confirmed.
The jets will join other allied forces – including from Denmark, France and Germany – in patrolling the Polish skies after last week’s Russian drone incursion into Polish airspace.
The UK Ministry of Defence confirmed that the Typhoons will operate out of RAF Coningsby base in Lincolnshire, and will be supported by air-to-air refuelling aicraft RAF Voyager.
Up until July, six Typhoons had been based in Poland as part of air policing mission.
UK prime minister Keir Starmer said that “these aircraft are not just a show of strength, they are vital in deterring aggression, securing Nato airspace, and protecting our national security and that of our allies.”
He added:
“Russia’s reckless behaviour is a direct threat to European security and a violation of international law, which is why the UK will support Nato’s efforts to bolster its eastern flank through Eastern Sentry..."
NYTIMES:"The European Union’s foreign policy chief on Sunday accused Moscow of “reckless escalation” after a Russian drone flew through Romania’s airspace, the second incursion over a NATO country in less than a week.
Tensions have run high in Eastern Europe’s skies since more than a dozen Russian drones entered Polish airspace last week, prompting NATO to scramble fighter jets to shoot some of them down. That incident drew condemnation from Western officials who called it an escalation of the war in Ukraine. Taken together, the episodes further underscore how drones are making the Ukraine war felt outside the country’s borders.
Kaja Kallas, the E.U.’s foreign policy chief, echoed those sentiments on Sunday after the incident a day earlier in Romania.
“The violation of Romanian airspace by Russian drones is yet another unacceptable breach of an E.U. member state’s sovereignty,” she wrote on social media. “This continued reckless escalation threatens regional security.”
Romania, a NATO member, had said late Saturday that its air force had detected a Russian drone in the country’s air space. Its Defense Ministry said in a statement that the country had deployed two F-16 aircraft shortly after 6 p.m. local time to monitor Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian infrastructure near the Romanian border. About 20 minutes later, they detected the drone in Romanian airspace..."
APNEWS:"WHY THIS MATTERS: Polish airspace has been violated several times since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but there has been nothing on the scale of Wednesday’s violations in Poland or in any other NATO country.
WOHYN, Poland (AP) — Multiple Russian drones crossed into Poland in what European officials described Wednesday as a deliberate provocation, causing NATO to send fighter jets to shoot them down. A NATO spokesman said it was the first time the alliance confronted a potential threat in its airspace.
The incursion, which occurred during a wave of strikes by the Kremlin on Ukraine, and the NATO response swiftly raised fears that the war could spill over — a fear that has been growing in Europe as Russia steps up its attacks and peace efforts go nowhere.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it did not target Poland, while Belarus, a close ally of Moscow, said it tracked some drones that “lost their course” because they were jammed.
However, several European leaders said they believed the incursion amounted to an intentional expansion of Russia’s assault against Ukraine.
“Russia’s war is escalating, not ending,” European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters in Brussels. “What (Russian President Vladimir) Putin wants to do is to test us. What happened in Poland is a game changer,” and it should result in stronger sanctions.Polish airspace has been violated many times since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but never on this scale in Poland or anywhere else in NATO territory.
Poland said some of the drones came from Belarus, where Russian and Belarusian troops have begun gathering for war games scheduled to start Friday.It was not immediately clear how many drones were involved. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told parliament 19 violations were recorded over seven hours, but he said information was still being gathered. Polish authorities said nine crash sites were found, with some of them hundreds of kilometers from the border.
“There are definitely no grounds to suspect that this was a course correction mistake or the like,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told parliament. “These drones were very clearly put on this course deliberately.”...Dutch fighter jets came to Poland’s aid and intercepted some drones. Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski later thanked the Dutch government “for the magnificent performance of Dutch pilots in neutralizing” the drones.
NATO met to discuss the incident, which came three days after Russia’s largest aerial attack on Ukraine since the war began.
Poland says some drones came from Belarus
Tusk told parliament that the first violation came at approximately 11:30 p.m. Tuesday and the last around 6:30 a.m. Wednesday. Earlier, Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz wrote on X that more than 10 objects crossed into Polish airspace.
..."
CNN:"
President Donald Trump is mad that China is palling around with his strongmen friends.
Trump erupted on social media late Tuesday night — US time — as television footage aired of Chinese leader Xi Jinping hosting the authoritarian leaders of Russia and North Korea at a stunning military parade in Beijing.
“Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America,” Trump wrote in a message to Xi.
The Truth Social post heard around the world means one thing: If China’s two big gatherings of authoritarian leaders, US adversaries and erstwhile allies this week was intended as a personal affront to the US president, it worked perfectly. And it underscored the futility of his attempts to subject the true global hard men to his art-of-the-deal charms and his claims that his supposedly close relationships with such leaders can be decisive.Trump met with Putin in Alaska last month, but his gushing red-carpet welcome has so far failed to unlock any progress toward ending the war in Ukraine. Putin has defied Trump’s hopes by escalating attacks on civilians and is stalling on talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky. The US president’s first-term summits with Kim were similarly unsuccessful. The North Korean leader has more nuclear weapons now than he did before taking part in Trump’s photo-op diplomacy.
The president’s online tirade went on to point out that Americans had suffered heavy losses in the struggle against a common enemy, imperial Japan, the 80th anniversary of whose defeat was marked in Beijing on Wednesday.
“Many Americans died in China’s quest for Victory and Glory. I hope that they are rightfully Honored and Remembered for their Bravery and Sacrifice!” Trump wrote.China’s big celebration comes at a tense international moment as the new Asian superpower seeks to capitalize on Trump’s erratic foreign policy, which has shattered America’s reputation as a reliable great power.
Trump’s fury was ironic, since the last few days in China have seen the kind of performative spectacle that he loves.
But the gathering of anti-Western powers in Tianjin and Beijing is about more than trolling. It’s an early warning that Trump’s second-term policies based on tariff coercion, the bullying of lesser powers and “America First” nationalism may be backfiring..."
WASHINGTONPOST"By Niha Masih and Lyric Li
China is awash in nationalist fervor ahead of its celebration of the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II, which Beijing will mark Wednesday with a grand parade showcasing its military prowess.
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Alongside the spectacle, a quieter campaign is unfolding: one to recast wartime history in service of today’s geopolitical tensions with Washington.
In the run-up to the anniversary, several state-aligned scholars, media outlets and think tanks have downplayed the significance of American assistance to China during World War II, casting the U.S. as a self-serving power then and now. The effort has spilled into popular culture: from highly anticipated films dramatizing China’s role in the Korean War against American forces to AI-generated videos of World War II soldiers marveling at modern-day China, which have gone viral on social media.
“The fundamental purpose of U.S. ‘aid’ to China was to protect its own interests in China; it was by no means assistance based on an equal relationship,” a piece in the Historical Review, affiliated with the state-run Chinese Academy of History, said in its August issue. A commentary published by state-backed, nationalist Red Culture Institute read: “Even without U.S. aid … China would have a chance of winning [against Japan].”
But historians say American assistance was crucial for China to survive the war. Large parts of China were occupied by Imperial Japan and war broke out in 1937, in the lead-up to World War II. Japan’s defeat in 1945, following the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, led to China’s liberation. Japan officially surrendered its territory in China in a ceremony in Nanjing on Sept. 9, 1945.“China and the United States needed each other,” said Rana Mitter, a Harvard Kennedy School professor and author of “Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II.”
“Without China’s continued resistance, the U.S. would have had a much bigger problem in the Asia-Pacific region, and without American financial assistance and military advice, China would have had it much harder to last till the end of the war.”
Mitter’s book argues that China’s wartime contribution was not given proper credit in the West for decades. But now, China is picking and choosing the parts of history that best suit its current political needs.
“It’s not necessarily the details are wrong — sometimes they are, sometimes they’re not — but they are made to add up to a story that fits your present-day needs,” he said.
Tensions between the world’s superpowers, the U.S. and China, have intensified this year, coming close to a full economic rupture spurred by President Donald Trump’s trade war. Beijing, bristling at what it sees as U.S. efforts to contain its rise, has sought to position itself as a stabilizing counterweight to the disruption caused by Trump’s confrontational and unpredictable approach to geopolitics..."
CNN:"Kyiv was bombarded overnight by Russia’s second-biggest aerial attack since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with at least 19 people killed, including four children, according to officials.
Buildings belonging to the European Union and the British Council were damaged in the strikes into Thursday, causing both the EU and the United Kingdom to summon the top Russian diplomats in their capitals.
Among those killed are children aged 2, 17 and 14, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration.
Ukraine’s air force said that the Kremlin unleashed 629 air attack weapons on the country overnight, comprising 598 drones and 31 missiles.
Yuriy Ihnat, head of communications for the air force, told CNN that the strikes comprised “one of the largest combined attacks” on the country..."
WSJ:"BEIJING—North Korean leader Kim Jong Un plans to join Russia’s Vladimir Putin at China’s grand military parade in Beijing next week, in a show of unity and defiance of the West.
The parade on Wednesday will be hosted by Chinese leader Xi Jinping and is set to be the trio’s first event together, providing powerful optics as Beijing asserts itself as a leader of countries seeking to upend the U.S.-led international order.
Yet the potential for the three countries to build on the moment faces limits, as each pursues its own agenda with the U.S. A summit between President Trump and Xi before the end of the year is possible, as China seeks a reduction of U.S. tariffs.
Trump is also holding out the possibility of better ties with both Russia and North Korea. He met Putin recently in Alaska to discuss the war in Ukraine and earlier this week said he would like to meet Kim again, after meeting the North Korean leader three times during his first term.
Beijing revealed Kim’s inclusion on Thursday when it unveiled the guest list for the parade. Trump won’t be attending, nor will most European leaders. Instead, Xi is set to be joined by the leaders of countries including Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia. South Korea will be represented by the speaker of the country’s National Assembly.
The parade will commemorate the 80th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II and is an opportunity for China to show off its growing military might, as thousands of troops march past Tiananmen Square alongside some of China’s latest weapons.
For Kim, the event marks a shift as it would be his first time joining a multilateral gathering of leaders and his first visit to China since 2019. While Xi attended Putin’s Victory Day gathering in Moscow in May, North Korea sent a handful of military officers..."
REUTERS:"MOSCOW/LONDON, Aug 28 (Reuters) - Russian oil exports to India are set to rise in September, dealers said, as New Delhi defies U.S. punitive tariffs designed to force the country to stop the trade and push Moscow towards a peace deal with Ukraine.
India has become the biggest buyer of Russian oil supplies that were displaced by Western sanctions after Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022. This has allowed Indian refiners to benefit from cheaper crude.
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But the purchases have drawn condemnation from the government of U.S. President Donald Trump, which increased U.S. tariffs on Indian imports to 50% on Wednesday.
New Delhi says it is relying on talks to try to resolve Trump's additional tariffs, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also embarked on a tour to develop diplomatic ties elsewhere, including meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin.
U.S. officials have accused India of profiteering from discounted Russian oil, while Indian officials have accused the West of double standards because the European Union and the U.S. still buy Russian goods worth billions of dollars.
"The tariffs are part of a broader trade discussion between India and the U.S., and given India’s increasing domestic refinery runs amid discounted Russian barrels, we don’t see India scuppering its Russian imports in meaningful volumes," BNP Paribas said in a note.
The Indian oil ministry did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Without India, Russia would struggle to maintain exports at existing levels, and that would cut the oil export revenues that finance the Kremlin's budget and Russia's continued war in Ukraine.
Three trading sources involved in oil sales to India said Indian refiners would increase Russian oil purchases in September by 10-20% from August levels, or by 150,000-300,000 barrels per day.
The sources, who cited preliminary purchases data, could not be named because they were not authorised to speak publicly on the issue.
The two biggest buyers of Russian oil for India, Reliance and Nayara Energy, which is majority Russian-owned, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Russia has more oil to export next month because planned and unplanned refinery outages have cut its capacity to process crude into fuels...."
NYTIMES:"Here’s the latest.
President Trump said on Tuesday that American troops would not be sent to protect Ukraine as part of any peace agreement with Russia, as European leaders met for urgent talks over what a postwar security arrangement could look like.
In an interview on Fox News, Mr. Trump said that at no point will there be American troops on the ground in Ukraine as part of any security guarantee. The hosts asked him about any “assurances” he could make that there would be no U.S. “boots on the ground,” and he replied, “Well, you have my assurance, and I’m president.”
The shape of postwar security arrangements for Ukraine dominated discussions among European leaders the day after hastily arranged meetings with Mr. Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at the White House, which showcased solidarity with Kyiv but yielded few details of how the war with Russia could end.
The White House meetings produced smiles and warmth among Mr. Trump, Mr. Zelensky and European allies — but few public signs of tangible progress toward an end to the war. That will require follow-through from Mr. Trump, potentially sweeping concessions from Mr. Zelensky and a willingness by Russia to stop attacking Ukraine. Overnight, Russia launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Ukraine, causing injuries and damage to infrastructure and energy facilities, Ukrainian officials said, a day after at least 14 people were killed in Russian strikes.
Mr. Zelensky, whom Mr. Trump greeted more warmly than in their previous Oval Office meeting, where he berated the Ukrainian leader as insufficiently grateful, pointed to progress with the United States on security guarantees to keep Russia from invading again, though he left without a formal agreement. He said Ukraine would purchase $90 billion in American weapons through Europe as part of the security guarantees. In return, the United States would buy drones from Ukraine, he said.
But wide gaps remained between Russia’s demand for territorial concessions and Ukraine’s insistence on a cease-fire to stop Moscow’s deadly attacks. Mr. Trump, who is pressing for a quick peace deal, says one can be reached without a cease-fire.
After Monday’s gathering, Mr. Trump said on social media that he had begun “the arrangements” for a face-to-face meeting between Mr. Zelensky and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. But on Tuesday, the Kremlin played down the prospect of such a meeting.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin held a “frank and very constructive,” 40-minute call after the meeting with Mr. Zelensky and the European leaders, according to Yuri Ushakov, Mr. Putin’s foreign policy aide. The two men had agreed that more senior negotiators would be appointed for direct talks between Russia and Ukraine, Mr. Ushakov told Rossiya 24, a state-run news channel, but he made no mention of Mr. Putin participating.
When he met with Mr. Trump in Alaska last week, Mr. Putin refused to accept a cease-fire.
Here’s what else to know:
Cease-fire push: At Monday’s meeting, some European officials gently pressed Mr. Trump on the need to secure an urgent cease-fire, which they argued would help stop the mounting civilian death toll in Ukraine and create stability for genuine peace negotiations. But aware that Mr. Trump dislikes the term “cease-fire,” they are calling it a “truce” instead.
U.S. military aid: The $90 billion in American weapons that Mr. Zelensky said would be part of sweeping security agreements with Western allies could include sophisticated weapons that are in short supply in Ukraine: air defense systems and war planes. How Ukraine would pay for them remains unclear.
Peacekeeping force: Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain said proposed security guarantees would include an international force stationed in Ukraine after a cease-fire or peace agreement. That contingent could be as small as a few hundred observer troops, or a defensive force in the tens of thousands. Russia has already objected to the idea.
...Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and the country’s state-run news media on Tuesday played down the prospect of a direct meeting between the leaders of Russia and Ukraine, a day after President Trump said that he had initiated steps for a bilateral meeting between them.
Russian state news media barely mentioned the possible meeting in coverage of Monday’s talks between Mr. Trump, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and European leaders at the White House. Instead, reporters and commentators largely portrayed the meetings as proof that Mr. Trump was nudging Mr. Zelensky and European leaders to accept Russia’s terms to end the war.
In an interview on state-run television on Tuesday, Mr. Lavrov said that while Russia was not against a bilateral meeting between Mr. Zelensky and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in principle, “any contacts involving top officials should be prepared very carefully.”
Mr. Lavrov also referred to Mr. Zelensky dismissively as “this character” and “this man,” and suggested that the Ukrainian president must repeal laws that the Kremlin believes curtail the rights of Russian speakers in the country before entering into direct negotiations with Mr. Putin.
Mr. Lavrov’s comments suggested that Moscow may be treading a fine line to make sure it doesn’t offend Mr. Trump or undermine his efforts to bring the war to an end, and offer at least a semblance of progress..."
NYTIMES:"
Russia attacked Ukraine overnight with 270 drones, as well as missiles, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday, hours after President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders held talks with President Trump aimed at finding a path toward a peace deal.
The Russian attacks targeted energy and transport infrastructure in the industrial city of Kremenchuk in central Ukraine’s Poltava region, where dozens of explosions were heard, according to the city’s mayor, Vitalii Maletsky. He said that more than 1,400 residences and more than 100 businesses had been left without power as a result.
There were no immediate reports of fatalities from the attacks, which came a day after Ukrainian authorities said that 14 people had been killed and dozens injured in Russian attacks on large Ukrainian cities and villages near the front line.
Before this week’s strikes, Russia appeared to have scaled back its air attacks on Ukraine, in what Ukrainian officials and analysts described as an attempt by the Kremlin to curry favor with Mr. Trump amid peace efforts.
But Mr. Maletsky said on social media that the attacks showed that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia “wants to destroy Ukraine.”
.."
THEGUARDIAN:"European Union leaders made a rallying call to defend Ukraine’s freedom to decide its own future in advance of their virtual summit with Donald Trump – convened to discuss US strategy before the president’s talks with Vladimir Putin on Friday.
With the exception of Hungary, all EU leaders signed a joint statement, with Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, also calling for the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to attend the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska on Friday.
Trump insists his meeting with Putin is a “feel-out” to gauge the Russian leader’s willingness to compromise, but European leaders fear Trump will be lured into a joint declaration with Moscow that involves irretrievable concessions before substantive talks between Ukraine and Russia.
Putin may also use the meeting to advance a wider agenda of normalisation of relations between the US and Russia, a development that would start to lock Trump into economic cooperation with Moscow rather than confrontation.
The EU leaders said: “Meaningful negotiations can only take place in the context of a ceasefire or reduction of hostilities,” adding: “We share the conviction that a diplomatic solution must protect Ukraine’s and Europe’s vital security interests."
REUTERS:"MOSCOW, July 15 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin intends to keep fighting in Ukraine until the West engages on his terms for peace, unfazed by Donald Trump's threats of tougher sanctions, and his territorial demands may widen as Russian forces advance, three sources close to the Kremlin said.e
Putin, who ordered Russian troops into Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting in country's east between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops, believes Russia's economy and its military are strong enough to weather any additional Western measures, the sources said.
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Trump on Monday expressed frustration with Putin's refusal to agree a ceasefire and announced a wave of weapons supplies to Ukraine, including Patriot surface-to-air missile systems. He also threatened further sanctions on Russia unless a peace deal was reached within 50 days.
The three Russian sources, familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking, said Putin will not stop the war under pressure from the West and believes Russia - which has survived the toughest sanctions imposed by the West- can endure further economic hardship, including threatened U.S. tariffs targeting buyers of Russian oil.
"Putin thinks no one has seriously engaged with him on the details of peace in Ukraine - including the Americans - so he will continue until he gets what he wants," one of the sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.
..."
APNEWS:"KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia fired more than 700 attack and decoy drones at Ukraine overnight, topping previous nightly barrages for the third time in two weeks as Moscow intensifies its aerial and ground assault in the three-year war, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday.
Russia has recently sought to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses by launching major attacks that include increasing numbers of decoy drones. The most recent one appeared aimed at disrupting Ukraine’s vital supply of Western weapons..."
CNN:" —
Russia launched waves of drones and ballistic missiles at multiple targets across a broad swath of Ukraine early Friday, killing at least four people in the capital and wounding around 40 across the country.
A CNN producer in the Kyiv region reported hearing at least two explosions in the pre-dawn hours and images from the capital showed flames rising over apartment buildings and firefighting crews at work.
As daylight broke, residents picked through debris in damaged apartments, with images showing entire walls ripped away and windows shattered. Several cars parked in the streets below were covered with pieces of glass and masonry.
Ukraine is hit by nightly barrages of Russian drones and missiles. But the country has been bracing for a major retaliatory strike promised by President Vladimir Putin following its daring raids on airfields deep inside Russia.
Four people had been killed in Kyiv, mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram early Friday morning local time, adding that search and rescue operations were ongoing.
Ukraine’s emergency services also said three firefighters were killed in Kyiv. It was unclear whether that death toll given by the mayor included the three firefighters. The strikes also hit Chernihiv, near the border with Belarus, which was rocked by 14 explosions from drones and ballistic missiles, including cruise missiles and Iskander-M missiles, according to Vyacheslav Chaus, the head of Chernihiv regional military administration. In the northwestern city of Lutsk – around 60 miles from the border with Poland – Russian strikes wounded ..
.."
KYIVINDEPENDENT:"Russia launched a mass missile and drone attack against Ukraine overnight on June 6, targeting the capital, major cities, and the country's far-western regions.
The attack comes a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to retaliate against Ukraine for its drone strike against Russian air bases in a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Air raid alerts were activated in all Ukrainian regions, following Russia's latest mass attack. Ukraine's Air Force warned during the night that multiple Russian Tu-95MS strategic bombers had taken flight and likely already launched cruise missiles.
Explosions were reported in Kyiv, Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi Oblast, Lviv, Lutsk, and other cities as drones and missiles targeted all regions of the country.
Ukraine's Air Force reported that Russia launched 452 drones overnight, including Iranian-designed Shahed-type suicide drones, along with 45 missiles of various types.
Air defenses intercepted 199 drones, while another 169 dropped off radars — likely used as decoys to overwhelm Ukrainian systems. Ukrainian forces also intercepted 36 missiles, including the Iskander-M ballistic missile.
"Russia doesn't change its stripes — another massive strike on cities and ordinary life. They targeted almost all of Ukraine — Volyn, Lviv, Ternopil, Kyiv, Sumy, Poltava, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy, and Chernihiv regions," President Volodymyr Zelensky said the morning after the attacks.
"Russia must be held accountable for this. Since the first minute of this war, they have been striking cities and villages to destroy life." Multiple fires broke out across Kyiv as drones struck residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure..."
AP:"ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) — The first direct Russia-Ukraine peace talks since the early weeks of Moscow’s 2022 invasion ended after less than two hours Friday, and while both sides agreed on a large prisoner swap, they clearly remained far apart on key conditions for ending the fighting.
One such condition for Ukraine, backed by its Western allies, is a temporary ceasefire as a first step toward a peaceful settlement. The Kremlin has pushed back against such a truce, which reKYIV — President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened new sanctions against Moscow after Russia launched another massive missile and drone attack across Ukraine overnight, casting further doubt on Moscow’s intentions in an already shaky peace process brokered by the Trump administration.
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Trump had in recent days appeared to have abandoned the threat of harsh financial sanctions after a phone call May 19 with Russian President Vladimir Putin in which he touted potential new trade deals with Russia. Trump’s remarks after the attacks Sunday indicated a growing sense of frustration with his Russian counterpart.
“I’m not happy with what Putin is doing. He’s killing a lot of people,” Trump told reporters Sunday before he boarded Air Force One. “I don’t know what the hell happened to Putin. I’ve known him a long time. Always gotten along with him, but he’s sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don’t like it at all,” Trump said.
Asked if he would consider more sanctions on Russia, the U.S. president said: “Absolutely.”
..
REUTERS:PARIS, May 13 (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday he was in favour of imposing new sanctions on Russia in coming days if Moscow failed to agree to a ceasefire, mentioning financial services and oil and gas as possible targets.
"Our intention is to impose new sanctions against Russia in the coming days" if Moscow refuses to implement a ceasefire, Macron said in a prime-time interview on TF1. "We are coordinating in this regard. Macron's comments echoed those by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz earlier on Tuesday, who said European allies would roll out "a significant tightening of sanctions" on Russia if President Vladimir Putin does not agree to a ceasefire.
Merz also cited sectors including energy and financial markets as possible targets. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Monday the European Commission had been asked to propose new sanctions in those areas.
The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Poland said on Saturday that Russia would be hit by new punitive measures if it did not heed calls for a 30-day ceasefire within days.
.."
PRESIDENT.GOV.UA:"
Dear friends!
Thank you to all of you who represent countries that believe in international law!
I’m glad to see you all here in Ukraine – not just supporting us from afar, but actually standing with us. It shows that we’re all Europe, all democracies – united not just by borders or institutions, but by shared values and hopes. You’ve come with strong decisions, real support for our people, and a readiness to increase pressure on Russia for the sake of true peace.
I know that today a decision is prepared for new support for our defense – for producing weapons in Ukraine – worth one billion euros. In total, it’s about four billion euros in new support decisions from Europe as of today. Thank you very much for this.
Russia must feel our shared – and most importantly, growing – strength. That’s what’s needed for peace. The desire to end this war has to grow inside Russia, and that begins with a feeling – the feeling that they are losing, losing from this war as any aggressor should – that is what is needed. I ask you to keep working for exactly that. And it’s very symbolic that our meeting is taking place during these days when we honor the memory of those who defeated Nazism 80 years ago, and when we celebrate Europe Day – the day of a new Europe, a day directly linked to the victory of the Allies in World War II. Our continent has a long and rich history, but today we are most proud of our new Europe – a Europe that knows how to live and stands up for the right to life. We must save this Europe. We’re proud of a Europe that does not kill. That is united. That stands for international law. A Europe that respects the individual – and if we ask who that individual is, it’s definitely not some ruler or a tsar. At the heart of today’s Europe is respect for every human being, for each person’s individuality and identity – the character of each nation, each individual, and each family. A united Europe together with our democratic friends around the world stands for exactly that. And it must be protected. .."
CNN:"Some US allies are highly alarmed by the framework the Trump administration is pushing to end the Ukraine war and Europeans are bracing for the outcome of another round of high-level talks between the US and Russia, multiple diplomatic sources told CNN.
The administration’s framework, presented in Paris last week, proposes significant sacrifices from Kyiv, including US recognition of Crimea as Russian territory and Ukraine ceding large swaths of territory to Russia, according to an official familiar. Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday called “to freeze the territorial lines at some level close to where they are today.”
Asked what concessions Russia was offering on Thursday, Trump replied, “stopping the war,” suggesting that not “taking the whole country” is a “pretty big concession.”
Multiple allied diplomats said they are rattled by what the Trump administration is proposing, because they believe such a framework sends a dangerous message to Russia’s Vladimir Putin and other world leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping, that illegal conquest could be rewarded, multiple diplomats said.
“This is about the fundamental principles of international law. This is very much about our own existence and the weakening of any safeguards that my or other countries have for our own independence,” an Eastern European diplomat told CNN. They and other sources spoke on background to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters. “If one country in Europe is currently under pressure or being forced to give up parts of its own legal territory, territory that has been that has been recognized as part of Ukraine … if one country in Europe is forced to do that, no country in Europe or elsewhere can feel safe, NATO or no NATO,” the diplomat said..."
CNN/REUTERS:"
President Vladimir Putin said in remarks published on Sunday that Russia had sufficient strength and resources to take the war in Ukraine to its logical conclusion, though he hoped that there would be no need to use nuclear weapons.
Putin ordered thousands of Russian troops into Ukraine in February 2022, triggering Europe’s biggest ground conflict since World War II and the largest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the depths of the Cold War.
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have been killed or injured and US President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to end the “bloodbath” that his administration casts as a proxy war between the United States and Russia.
.."
THEGUARDIAN:"Sumy is situated a mere 16 miles (25km) from the Russian border. It is home to soldiers and civilians. Residents are used to frequent drone and rocket attacks, and to the constant wail of air raid sirens. Sunday’s double-tap strike, though, was terrible. It was the most egregious Russian attack this year, leaving 35 dead and 129 injured. Eleven people remain in a critical condition. There are 15 wounded children.Asked for his reaction, Donald Trump appeared to downplay the latest Russian atrocity, calling it “a mistake”. Subsequently, he blamed Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, and Joe Biden, the previous US president, by falsely claiming they “started” the war with Russia. Serhii Khvostov, the head of the damaged conference centre in Sumy, was unimpressed. “Trump is a mistake. This is an act by stupid and angry Russians. There’s no logic to it,” he said. “It’s easy to look away. But the world has to understand what is happening here.”
KYIVINDEPENDENT:"A full ceasefire can end the hot phase of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine "in the coming weeks" if Western countries put sufficient pressure on Moscow, President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a visit to Chernihiv on April 3.
Kyiv on March 11 said it was ready to begin a complete 30-day ceasefire, proposed by the U.S., as long as Russia accepted the same terms. Russia has so far refused, only agreeing to partial ceasefires in exchange for restored access to international markets.
Russia and the U.S. are continuing to hold private talks on the possibility of an unconditional ceasefire, Zelensky told a group of entrepreneurs during a working visit to Chernihiv.
"Then in Saudi Arabia, you know, we agreed to an unconditional ceasefire," he said.
"Russia has not agreed to it yet, we see that. Although we know that there are conversations between Americans and Russians on this topic. There are non-public conversations."
The U.S. and Europe need to work in concert to pressure Moscow into a full ceasefire as quickly as possible, Zelensky said.
"The issue now is putting pressure on the Russians to get there," he said.
"I think it is possible to do this as soon as possible in the coming weeks, maybe months, or maybe in different ways: sometimes it happens at the same time. Especially with this phase of the end of the war. A full ceasefire is the right step and one that Ukraine has agreed to and supports."
Earlier in the day, Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev confirmed that he had arrived in Washington to hold talks with U.S. officials on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin between April 2 and 3. Dmitriev reportedly met with Steve Witkoff, U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, at the White House on April 2.
The content of their discussions remains unclear..."
KYIVINDEPENDENT:"Strong statements made after a summit of European leaders in Paris on March 27 demonstrated two things — France and the U.K. are determined to send peacekeepers to Ukraine, but the plans are currently hostage to the whims of the Kremlin.
"You cannot trust the Russians any further than you can throw them today, and that really is going to be the blockage in the negotiation process for all parties," Dr. Ian Garner, assistant professor in totalitarian studies at Poland’s Pilecki Institute, told the Kyiv Independent.
In the face of a retreating U.S., several European countries have moved forward with plans to send troops to Ukraine as part of a "reassurance force" in case of the ceasefire with Russia, French President Emmanuel Macron announced at the Paris summit.
Any potential force deployed would be "a force designed to deter, in order to send that message to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin that this is a deal that is going to be defended," U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer added.
But at the same time, Starmer acknowledged the obvious impediment to what is needed in order to put the plan into action — an actual peace deal.
"We agreed here in Paris today that it’s clear the Russians are filibustering. They are playing games, and they’re playing for time," he said.
"It is a classic from the Putin playbook, but we can’t let them drag this out while they continue prosecuting their illegal invasion."
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PRESIDENT.GOV.UA:"President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a phone conversation with President of France Emmanuel Macron to coordinate their positions.
The Ukrainian President expressed gratitude for France’s support and joint efforts in achieving a just and lasting peace.
The parties specifically discussed the outcomes of the online meeting of leaders regarding support for Ukraine, held on Saturday under the joint chairmanship of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron. The Presidents of Ukraine and France noted that the number of countries willing to contribute to advancing peace is growing.
A separate topic of discussion was the U.S. proposal for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire. Ukraine immediately agreed to it, but for its implementation to begin, Russia must stop setting conditions.
.."
CNN:"“Do you think you can trust Putin?” German Brig. Gen. Ralf Hammerstein asks with a wry smile.
It’s a rhetorical question to which most of Europe would give the same answer – no.
As the Trump administration continues to pursue a deal to end the war in Ukraine — one that may end up being more favorable to Moscow than Kyiv — Europeans, for the first time in decades, are focusing on their own military might.
Nowhere is that shift as prominent as in Germany. Its armed forces, known as the Bundeswehr, have been the victim of years of underinvestment – but that is set to change.
Presumptive Chancellor Friedrich Merz has decided that now is the moment for Germany to invest in its military, on levels not seen since the Cold War..."
KYIVINDEPENDENT:"Russian President Vladimir Putin's decree threatening Ukrainians with deportation from occupied territories and Russian territory violates international law, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said on March 21.
"We emphasize that these systematic deportations and persecutions are part of Russia's genocide policy against the Ukrainian people," Tykhyi said.
According to the decree, Ukrainian citizens residing in Russia and occupied Ukrainian territories must leave by Sept. 10 or "regulate their legal status."
The decree intensifies Moscow’s efforts to Russify conquered areas by pressuring Ukrainians to accept Russian passports or forcing them out while encouraging Russian citizens to move in." Putin's decree also mandates that all "foreign citizens and stateless persons" residing in the occupied territories must undergo medical screenings for drug use and infectious diseases by June 10.
Tykhyi denounced the decree as null and void, calling it another step in Russia’s campaign of discrimination, persecution, and forced displacement of Ukrainian citizens.
The spokesperson also said it contradicts Moscow's claims of readiness for a peaceful settlement and undermines initiatives to establish peace..."
CNN:"
A Russian presidential aide has cast doubt on a US ceasefire proposal for Ukraine, as American special envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Moscow to brief Kremlin officials on the peace plan.
As the Trump administration emphasizes that the ball is now in Russia’s court, Kremlin aide Yuriy Ushakov said Thursday that Moscow doesn’t want a temporary ceasefire, claiming it would give a break to the Ukrainian army. Ushakov said he explained Russia’s stance to US National Security Adviser Michael Waltz in a Wednesday phone call.
“(I) outlined our position that this is nothing more than a temporary respite for the Ukrainian military and nothing more,” Ushakov said in an interview with Russian state media, pouring cold water on the proposal before Thursday’s talks began..."
KYIVINDEPENDENT:"NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has announced that alliance members are ramping up their defense investments and preparing additional financial support for Ukraine. His remarks came after a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump on Feb. 27.
"Great to talk with Donald Trump. US & NATO are getting stronger. NATO Allies are moving quickly to invest more in defense. Big increases announced & others to follow," Rutte said in a post on X.
He also emphasized NATO's continued support for Ukraine, adding that "on Ukraine, Allies are preparing billions more in aid and contributions to security guarantees."
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REUTERS:"LONDON, March 1 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Keir Starmer greeted President Volodymyr Zelenskiy with a warm embrace on Saturday after the Ukrainian leader flew to London for talks following his clash at the White House with U.S. President Donald Trump.
In an extraordinary Oval Office meeting on Friday, Trump threatened to withdraw support for Ukraine, three years after Russia invaded its smaller neighbour.
In London, a crowd cheered as Zelenskiy arrived for talks with Starmer at his Downing Street office before a summit of European leaders that the Ukrainian president will attend on Sunday to discuss a peace plan for Ukraine..."
CNN:"Russian opposition politician sends message to people who say Ukraine-Russia war doesn’t involve the US
Newsroom
Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian opposition politician and one of President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, joins CNN’s Jessica Dean to discuss President Donald Trump’s talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
" Jessica Dean posed the question what do you say to Americans who say the war in Ukraine doesn't concern us? Vladimir Kara Murza stated when large countries like Russia become dictatorships no one will be safe. There cannot be security and economic prosperity without democracy and respect for human rights. This is not a theory; it is a basic principle of civilized law, and its violation is happening now
KYIVINDEPENDENT:"European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will visit Kyiv on the third anniversary of Russia's full-scale war, Costa announced on Feb. 20.
Last week, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced plans to hold a summit for Ukraine's partners in Kyiv on Feb. 24 to discuss the next joint steps on peace and security.
The visit aims to reaffirm the EU's "support to the heroic Ukrainian people and to the democratically elected President Volodymyr Zelensky," Costa said on X.
The statement comes after U.S. President Donald Trump denounced Zelensky as a "dictator without elections," reiterating Kremlin talking points about the Ukrainian president's legitimacy..."
KYIVINDEPENDENT:" President Volodymyr Zelensky pushed back at the U.S.’ demand for a $500 billion fund to be financed with Ukrainian natural resource revenue, saying that the U.S.’s aid grants are not debts, during the Ukraine: Year 2025 forum in Kyiv on Feb. 23.
Negotiations on a deal to entrench U.S. interests in Ukraine's reserves are ongoing, with the latest draft presented by the White House demanding $500 billion of Ukraine’s natural resources, including critical minerals, to recuperate American aid to Ukraine.
Zelensky said that he will not recognize such a large sum since it vastly outweighs the $100 billion the U.S. has sent to Ukraine under former President Joe Biden.
The president added that the aid given to Ukraine cannot be counted as debts since they are grants and stressed that security guarantees need to be included in the deal. So far no such guarantees have been put in place, he said.
“I am not signing something that will be paid by 10 generations of Ukrainians," Zelensky said, adding that he wants a dialogue with Trump..."
CNN:"
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is set to join an emergency summit in Paris on Monday, Britain’s PA news agency reported, as European leaders scramble to respond to the Trump administration’s push to work with Russia to end the war in Ukraine – potentially without them at the negotiating table.
“The UK will work to ensure we keep the US and Europe together,” Starmer was quoted as saying in a statement released by Downing Street on Saturday. “We cannot allow any divisions in the alliance to distract from the external enemies we face.”..."
REUTERS:"PARIS/RIYADH, Feb 17 (Reuters) - European leaders meeting in Paris on Monday for emergency talks called for higher spending to ramp up the continent's defence capabilities but remained split on the idea of deploying peacekeepers to Ukraine to back up any peace deal.
The Paris meeting was called by French President Emmanuel Macron after U.S. leader Donald Trump arranged bilateral peace talks with Russia, excluding European allies and Ukraine from negotiations to end the war that are scheduled to begin in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday..."
NYTIMES:"As an anxious Europe sought clarity on President Trump’s approach to Russia and Ukraine, Vice President JD Vance instead used a speech in Munich on Friday to signal support for far-right parties, including Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which Moscow has backed through misinformation campaigns.
Addressing European leaders at the Munich Security Conference, Mr. Vance scolded them for not sufficiently upholding democratic values — an accusation many of them have leveled at the Trump administration — and offered what amounted to White House political backing for Europe’s far right. He urged the Europeans to end their opposition to anti-immigration parties such as the AfD, parts of which have been classified as extremist by German intelligence, and said the effort to marginalize them and their radical ideas amounted to antidemocratic action..." COMMENT: MATTHEW 25:41 “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: 42 for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’
CNN:"Vice President JD Vance reiterated on Friday that NATO remains an important alliance for the United States, as the Munich Security Conference kicked off in Germany with the Russia-Ukraine war expected to be a focal point of discussions.
“Europe is of course a very important ally to the United States, NATO is a very important military alliance … but we want to make sure NATO is actually built for the future, and part of that is ensuring that NATO does a little bit more burden-sharing in Europe so the United States can focus on some of our challenges in East Asia,” Vance said, speaking to reporters beside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte..."
CNN:"
Europe’s American century is over.
Two geopolitical thunderclaps on Wednesday will transform transatlantic relations.
Donald Trump’s call with Vladimir Putin brought the Russian leader in from the cold as they hatched plans to end the war in Ukraine and agreed to swap presidential visits.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, meanwhile, went to Brussels and told European allies to “take ownership of conventional security on the continent.”
The watershed highlights Trump’s “America First” ideology and his tendency to see every issue or alliance as a dollars and cents value proposition. It also underscores his freedom from establishment advisors steeped in the foreign policy mythology of the West, who he thinks thwarted his first term.
Although Hegseth recommitted to NATO, something fundamental has changed.
America’s interventions won two world wars that started in Europe and afterwards guaranteed the continent’s freedom in the face of the Soviet threat. But Trump said on the campaign trail he might not defend alliance members who haven’t invested enough in defense. He thus revived a perennial point posed most eloquently by Winston Churchill in 1940 about when “The New World, with all its power and might” will step “forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”..The US-Russia call and a future summit with Putin in Saudi Arabia, which Trump said would happen soon, may be a hint that he’s not just cutting Zelensky out of the deal – but Europe too.
In a statement, France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain, the European Union, the European Commission, plus the United Kingdom and Ukraine, warned “Ukraine and Europe must be part of any negotiations.” And they warned Trump, who seems to want a peace deal at any cost, that “a just and lasting peace in Ukraine is a necessary condition for a strong transatlantic security.”
Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt is worried by the cozy call between Trump and Putin. “The disturbing thing is of course that we have the two big guys, the two big egos … believing that they can maneuver all of the issues on their own,” he told Richard Quest on CNN International. Bildt evoked the most damning historical analogy possible — the appeasement of Adolf Hitler by Britain that allowed the Nazis to annex the Sudetenland. “For European ears, this sounds like Munich. It sounds like two big leaders wanting to have peace in our time, (over) a faraway country of which they know little. They are preparing to make a deal over the heads of that particular country. A lot of Europeans know how that particular movie ended.”.."
REUTERS:"MOSCOW, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Russia's point man for relations with the United States said on Monday that all of President Vladimir Putin's conditions must be met in full before the war in Ukraine can end, suggesting Moscow is playing hardball with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trump, who has repeatedly said he wants to end the war in Ukraine swiftly after hundreds of thousands of deaths, said on Sunday he thought he was making progress though he has not set out how he hopes to end the conflict.
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APNEWS:" Russian President Vladimir Putin had a call Tuesday with Chinese President Xi Jinping, emphasizing the two countries’ close ties, a day after Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th U.S. president.
The two leaders have developed strong personal links that helped bring relations between Moscow and Beijing, growing even closer after Putin sent troops into Ukraine in 2022. China has become a major customer of Russian oil and gas and a source of key technologies amid sweeping Western sanctions on Moscow.
In Tuesday’s call with Xi, Putin emphasized that Russia-China relations are based on shared interests, equality and mutual benefits, noting that they “don’t depend on internal political factors and the current international environment.”
“We jointly support the development of a more just multipolar global order and work to ensure indivisible security in Eurasia and the world as a whole,” Putin told Xi in remarks carried by the Russian state TV. “Joint efforts by Russia and China play an important stabilizing role in global affairs.”
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APNEWS:"KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — For weeks, Ukrainian troops braced for an unfamiliar enemy: North Korean soldiers sent to bolster Moscow’s forces after Ukraine launched a lightning-fast incursion and seized territory in Russia’s Kursk region over the summer.
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"KYIV, Dec 25 (Reuters) - Russia attacked Ukraine's energy system and some cities with cruise and ballistic missiles plus drones on Wednesday in an "inhuman" Christmas Day assault, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.
Nearly three years into the war, the strikes wounded at least six people in the northeastern city of Kharkiv and killed one in the region of Dnipropetrovsk, the governors there said.
Half a million people in Kharkiv region were left without heating, in temperatures just a few degrees Celsius above zero, while there were blackouts in the capital Kyiv and elsewhere...."
BLOOMBERG:"Russia rebuffed incoming US President Donald Trump’s call for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, while saying it’s ready to hold negotiations on a long-lasting peace agreement to end almost three years of war.
“A ceasefire is a road to nowhere” that Ukraine will use to build up its military capacity, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an online news conference on Thursday. “We need conclusive, legally-binding agreements which will create all the conditions for ensuring the security of the Russian Federation and, of course, the legitimate security interests of our neighbors.” With Ukraine on the defensive as Russia makes grinding progress on the battlefield, Trump and his advisers have given signals that President Vladimir Putin could keep de facto control of the almost 20% of Ukrainian territory his forces occupy. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has also softened his stance by suggesting his government could use diplomatic means to recover its territory..."
KYIVINDEPENDENT:"Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov said during a Defense Ministry meeting on Dec. 16 that Moscow aims to seize the entirety of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts in 2025.
Speaking at a Defense Ministry meeting, Belousov reiterated Russia's commitment to achieving what he described as the "goals announced by President Vladimir Putin in June."
"In 2025, Moscow plans to achieve victory in the war," he added.
On June 14, Putin stated that Russia would agree to a ceasefire and peace talks only if Ukraine withdrew from the four Ukrainian oblasts and formally abandoned its aspirations to join NATO. A separate priority is, without a doubt, the European Union and everything necessary for Ukraine’s full EU membership. At all levels within the EU – from the highest institutions to civil society leaders – Ukraine’s voice must be strong, clear, and persuasive. We need EU membership. Next year, we must do our utmost to achieve this in the course of negotiations and in building relations with our partners in the EU. This is why Poland's presidency in the EU, and Denmark's in the second half of the year, must become historic for Ukraine..."
KYIVINDEPENDENT:"President Volodymyr Zelensky met with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris for a trilateral meeting on Dec. 7, as world leaders visited France for the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral.
The three leaders reportedly spoke for about 35 minute at the Elysee Palace. Zelensky praised the meeting as "productive and meaningful" in a post on social media..
.."
CNN:"
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he wants to work “directly” with US President-elect Donald Trump and is open to his ideas, highlighting Kyiv’s eagerness to keep its most important ally onside as Russia intensifies its attacks.
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YOUTUBE/FREE DOCUMENTARY-HISTORY:"Russia – the largest country on Earth. Misunderstood by many and feared by even more. For the past century, Russian history has been intertwined with the history of its security services, which were used by the Soviet state to crush dissent. Millions suffered at the hands of the most extraordinary and dangerous security network the world has ever known – mass executions, clandestine wars, coups d’état, spies who were capable of stealing the atomic bomb from America, and hacking and poisoning scandals. While many things have changed in modern Russia, the security network is arguably as strong as ever. The reason behind this is the rise of a lowly lieutenant colonel to President of this vast country, Vladimir Putin..."
CNN:"What we're covering
• President Vladimir Putin has escalated his threats to countries that allow Ukraine to use their weapons to target Russian territory. He said Moscow was entitled to strike military targets belonging to those countries.
• Putin’s warning came after Russia struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a new medium-range ballistic missile that carried multiple warheads. Experts said it was likely the first time that such a weapon had been used in combat.
• Putin also said that the regional conflict had taken on “a global nature” after Ukraine targeted Russia this week with missiles made in the US, UK and France.
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Western air defense systems would be able to shoot down warheads from Russia’s new missile, a military analyst told CNN, casting doubt on President Vladimir Putin’s claims that it “cannot be intercepted.”
However, Ukraine does not currently possess those air defense systems.In televised comments Friday, Putin claimed the hypersonic ballistic missile known as Oreshnik — fired for the first time at Ukraine on Thursday — could not be intercepted by air defenses. “There are currently no means of countering such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world,” Putin said...
Britain’s armed forces would be ready to fight Russia “tonight” if Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded another eastern European country, according to a top UK military official...China has called for restraint in the aftermath of Moscow using a nuclear-capable ballistic missile in a strike on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, and said all parties need to “cool down the situation.”...
CNN:"Top telecom executives met with US national security officials at the White House on Friday as concerns mount over a long-running Chinese cyber-espionage campaign that has targeted some of the most senior US political figures in the country.
The hackers burrowed deep into some major US telecom providers to spy on phone calls and text messages and have proved difficult to kick out of some networks, people briefed on the matter said.
The meetings were a chance for telecom executives to advise the government on how it could boost its defenses against sophisticated hacks, according to the White House. The groups also shared intelligence on the operation with one another.
The hack is shaping up to be one of the biggest cyber and national security challenges facing the incoming Trump administration.
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PRESIDENT.GOV.UA:"Thank you so much. Thank you very much, dear Roberta, Madam President!
Dear ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, our friends, friends of Ukraine!
I thank you for supporting Ukraine.
Thank you, Roberta, for calling this extraordinary session of the European Parliament to mark 1,000 days of full-scale war.
Thank you for ensuring that not a single one of the thousand days of this terrible war became a day of betrayal of our shared European values....
"
"MOSCOW, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday lowered the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a broader range of conventional attacks, and Moscow said Ukraine had struck deep inside Russia with U.S.-made ATACMS missiles.
Putin approved the change days after two U.S. officials and a source familiar with the decision said on Sunday that U.S. President Joe Biden's administration allowed Ukraine to use U.S.-made weapons to strike deep into Russia.Russia had been warning the West for months that if Washington allowed Ukraine to fire U.S., British and French missiles deep into Russia, Moscow would consider those NATO members to be directly involved in the war in Ukraine.
The updated Russian nuclear doctrine, establishing a framework for conditions under which Putin could order a strike from the world's biggest nuclear arsenal, was approved by him on Tuesday, according to a published decree.Analysts said the biggest change was that Russia could consider a nuclear strike in response to a conventional attack on Russia or its ally Belarus that "created a critical threat to their sovereignty and (or) their territorial integrity".
"The big picture is that Russia is lowering the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a possible conventional attack," said Alexander Graef, a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg.The previous doctrine, contained in a 2020 decree, said Russia may use nuclear weapons in case of a nuclear attack by an enemy or a conventional attack that threatened the existence of the state.
The U.S. National Security Council said it had not seen any reason to adjust the U.S. nuclear posture. Together, Russia and the U.S. control 88% of the world's nuclear warheads.
Putin is the primary decision-maker on the use of Russia's nuclear arsenal..."
PRESIDENT.GOV.UA:"Prime Minister Orban!
President Michel!
Dear Leaders!
I am glad for this opportunity to meet and work together for Europe and for our nations.
Yesterday, I spoke with President Trump, as many of you did. It was a productive conversation, a good conversation. Of course, we cannot yet know what his actions will be. But we do hope that America will become stronger. This is the kind of America that Europe needs. And a strong Europe is what America needs, to my mind. This is the connection between allies that must be valued and cannot be lost.
There are many challenges. Since our last meeting in this format, Russia’s war has escalated significantly. And it was Russia that caused this escalation. North Korea is now, in effect, waging war in Europe. North Korean soldiers are attempting to kill our people on European soil.
"SOCHI, Russia, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday congratulated Donald Trump on winning the U.S. election, praised him for showing courage when a gunman tried to assassinate him, and said Moscow was ready for dialogue with the Republican president-elect.
In his first public remarks since Trump's win, Putin said Trump had acted like a real man during an assassination attempt on him while he was speaking at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania in July." Reuters headline states Putin said the new world order is underway
KYIVINDEPENDENT:"In his speech declaring victory in the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 6, Donald Trump made no mention of Ukraine yet alluded to just how consequential his second term in office will likely be for the country ravaged by Russia’s invasion.
"We had no wars, for four years, we had no wars. Except we defeated ISIS," Trump said in comments referring to his first term as president.
"They said ‘he will start a war.’ I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to stop the wars," Trump added.
How does Trump plan to stop Russia's war against Ukraine?
That's the million-dollar question that is undoubtedly being discussed in capitals worldwide, not least in Kyiv and Moscow..."
KYIVINDEPENDENT:"Beijing was fast at claiming that it had no knowledge of Russia's deepening partnership with North Korea.
The U.S. had jumped on the opportunity, hoping to pressure China to dissuade North Korea from taking an active part in Russia's war against Ukraine.
Observers, however, are skeptical about China's signals, believing that the deal to deploy North Korean troops on Ukrainian battlefields couldn't have passed without Beijing's knowledge."
CNN:"North Korea said it conducted an intercontinental ballistic missile test on Thursday morning, a launch believed to have achieved the longest flight time yet for a North Korean missile.
The test comes just days ahead of the United States presidential election on Tuesday, and follows warnings from South Korea’s intelligence agency that Pyongyang was planning to launch an ICBM testing its reentry technology around the time of the election.
The test also comes as North Korea appears to have intensified its nuclear production efforts and strengthened ties with Russia, deepening widespread concern in the West over the isolated nation’s direction..."
PRESIDENT.GOV.UA:"First, I want to thank the Prime Minister of Iceland for hosting this Summit. Thank you so much for the invitation. The Fourth Ukraine – Nordic Countries Meeting in such a format. It is a successful format to my mind and I’m glad that it is developing.
Dear friends!
Thank you for your strong support for Ukraine and for upholding the highest standard of principled assistance from your nations.
The first thing dictators attack is that – principles. Different 'Putins' around the world undermine principles within their own societies, using propaganda and repression, so that people cannot stand up for what they believe in. And then, when the dictatorship gains strength and has enough resources, it tries to export its lack of principles, creating a gray zone without values next to itself.
Europe has had to face this many times. Now, we are at another defining moment.
Russia is trying to convince nations that giving up principles is easy – that they can ignore international law and turn a blind eye to injustice, as if this will bring stability. This is the main message from Moscow – Putin tells everyone to forget their principles, not to be decisive and to hand over Ukrainian land and people, and then, supposedly, Russian bombs will stop.
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WASHINGTONPOST:"KYIV — Russian forces are summarily killing surrendering Ukrainian soldiers in increasing numbers on the battlefield, often shooting them point blank just after they have been taken prisoner, Ukrainian officials say.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, authorities have opened 43 criminal investigations into 113 possible arbitrary killings, with more than a third of those cases registered since the beginning of the year, according to Ukraine’s prosecutor general office. But that does not take into account the more recent spike.
“Since the end of last year, the number of such crimes has been steadily increasing,” the prosecutor general’s office said in written comments to The Washington Post...."
"MOSCOW, Oct 27 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that Russia's defence ministry was working on different ways to respond if the United States and its NATO allies help Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with long-range Western missiles.
The 2-1/2-year-old Ukraine war has triggered the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the depths of the Cold War, and Russian officials say the war is now entering its most dangerous phase.Russia has been signalling to the United States and its allies for weeks that if they give permission to Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory with Western-supplied missiles, then Moscow will consider it a major escalation.
Putin said on Sept. 12 that Western approval for such a step would mean "the direct involvement of NATO countries, the United States and European countries in the war in Ukraine" because NATO military infrastructure and personnel would have to be involved in the targeting and firing of the missiles..."
CNN:"The thousands of North Korean troops US intelligence says arrived in Russia for training this month have sparked concern they will be deployed to bolster Moscow’s battlefront in Ukraine.
They’ve also turned up alarm from the United States and its allies that growing coordination between anti-West countries is creating a much broader, urgent security threat – one where partnerships of convenience are evolving into more outright military ties.
..."
"LONDON, Oct 24 (Reuters) - As U.S. election jitters hung over this week's meeting of global finance chiefs in Washington, a smiling Vladimir Putin was in the Russian city of Kazan welcoming leaders of countries which together make up nearly half the world's population.
The BRICS club of emerging economies may be a long way from rivalling the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or challenging U.S. dollar dominance. But the first summit with its new batch of members showed clear signs of its growing weight. The final communique was long on words and short on detail about creating new payment and trade mechanisms which could by-pass Western-dominated structures - including, notably in Russia's case, sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine.
But the summit scored a series of diplomatic wins: the presence of U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and of Tayyip Erdogan, president of NATO member Turkey, which has expressed interest in joining the BRICS group. India and China chose the summit to profile new efforts to nurture ties.For Putin, the simple fact that so many leaders travelled to Russia for the talks was useful in countering the narrative that his country faces isolation from the global economy.
"They (Western capitals) are not getting the importance of this thing," said Alicia Garcia-Herrero, a senior fellow at the Bruegel economic think tank. "It's all signalling that the West is losing power."..."
KYIVINDEPENDENT"Russia is helping Pyongyang evade sanctions and develop its nuclear capabilities in return for North Korean troops and missiles, Ukraine's military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov told The Economist in comments published on Oct. 22.
Budanov previously revealed that close to 11,000 North Korean troops are already in Russia and will be ready to fight by Nov. 1.
The move would signal deepening military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang, with North Korea already providing Russia with artillery shells and ballistic missiles for war against Ukraine.
Russia's support in nuclear capabilities includes providing technologies for smaller tactical nuclear weapons and submarine missile-launch systems, Budanov claimed.
The sanctions evasion can also be vital for North Korea, which faces heavy economic restrictions over its nuclear program. Russia has blocked the renewal of a U.N. monitoring program overseeing Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile development..."
"KAZAN, Russia, Oct 22 (Reuters) - India's Narendra Modi told Russian President Vladimir Putin on the eve of the BRICS summit that he wanted peace in Ukraine and that New Delhi was ready to help achieve a truce to end Europe's deadliest conflict since World War Two.
Putin, who ordered tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, wants the BRICS summit to showcase the rising clout of the non-Western world after the United States and its European and Asian allies tried to isolate Russia over the war." 
KYIVINDEPENDENT:"Close to 11,000 North Korean troops are in Russia and will be "ready to fight" in Ukraine by Nov. 1, Ukrainian military intelligence head Kyrylo Budanov said in comments published by the War Zone on Oct. 17.
Budanov said the first group of 2,600 soldiers will be deployed to Russia's Kursk Oblast, where Ukraine began a cross-border incursion in August and still holds significant swathes of territory. The troops will be using Russian equipment and ammunition, but further information is currently unknown.
"We don't have the full picture right now," Budanov said.
Concerns about North Korea's direct involvement in Russia's full-scale war have reached a fever pitch in recent days.
Speaking at a press conference in Brussels on Oct. 17, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia is planning to train and engage not only infantry but also North Korean specialists in various branches of the military.
"We know about 10,000 soldiers from North Korea they are preparing to send to fight against us," he added.
The Kyiv Independent contacted the President's Office to ask about the discrepancy between Budanov's and Zelensky's figures, but had not received a response at the time of publication.
South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) said on Oct. 18 that Pyongyang had recently decided to deploy 12,000 North Korean soldiers, including special forces, to support Russia's war effort. The NIS did not say if the troops had already been sent into the field or where they might be deployed.
At the same time, Pentagon spokesperson Pat Ryder said on Oct. 17 that he "can't confirm whether there are North Korean forces that have gone to Russia" but added that the U.S. would "continue to monitor" the situation.
If the reports were true, it would "demonstrate the situation that Russia finds itself in, the dire situation that it finds itself in, in terms of its forces on the battlefield."
"And so it just demonstrates the desperation in terms of identifying additional forces for their military," Ryder added.
.."
KYIVINDEPENDENT:"North Korea has sent 10,000 soldiers to Russia to boost its war efforts against Ukraine, a Western diplomat familiar with the matter told the Kyiv Independent on Oct. 15.
Concerns over the deepening military ties between Moscow and Pyongyang have escalated dramatically this week.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Oct. 13 that Russia's plans for supporting its full-scale invasion of Ukraine would this autumn include "the actual involvement of North Korea in the war."
The Western diplomat told the Kyiv Independent that it’s unclear what kind of soldiers they are or what their roles were. The Kyiv Independent contacted Ukraine's Foreign Ministry but did not receive a reply at the time of publication. Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) declined to comment.
As Russia and North Korea deepen military ties, Western diplomats and experts stress that it shows Moscow's increasing need for resources to continue waging its costly war in Ukraine. “It’s a clear indicator how far Russia and its military have fallen over the last 2.5 years that it’s having to beg, borrow and buy support from North Korea,” John Foreman CBE, the U.K.’s former defense attache in Moscow from 2019 to 2022, told the Kyiv Independent.Earlier this year, the two countries signed a mutual defense pact during Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Pyongyang.
.."
"MOSCOW, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Russia's Vladimir Putin held talks with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Friday in Turkmenistan, where the two leaders hailed their countries growing economic ties and similar views on world affairs, an entente viewed with concern by the United States.
At odds with Washington and the European Union over Russia's war in Ukraine, something he casts as part of a wider existential struggle against an arrogant and self-interested West - Putin is keen to deepen ties with what he calls the Global East and Global South.Putin, whose country is hosting a summit of the BRICS nations in Kazan on Oct. 22-24, invited Pezeshkian to come to Russia on an official visit, a proposal the Iranian leader accepted according to Russia's state RIA news agency...."
KYIVINDEPENDENT: "Ukraine should receive the first Mirage 2000 fighter jets from France in the first quarter of 2025, French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on Oct. 8.
French President Emmanuel Macron unveiled in June that Paris would provide Kyiv with an unspecified number of Mirage 2000-5 planes to boost its airpower.
The planes "will be equipped with new equipment: air-to-ground combat capabilities and anti-electronic warfare defense," Lecornu noted.
.." 
CNN/REUTERS:"President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Wednesday that Russia could use nuclear weapons if it was struck with conventional missiles, and that Moscow would consider any assault on it supported by a nuclear power to be a joint attack.
The decision to change Russia’s official nuclear doctrine is the Kremlin’s answer to deliberations in the United States and Britain about whether or not to give Ukraine permission to fire conventional Western missiles into Russia.
Putin, opening a meeting of Russia’s Security Council, said that the changes were in response to a swiftly changing global landscape which had thrown up new threats and risks for Russia."
CNN:"
The North American Aerospace Defense Command says it detected four Russian military aircraft flying near Alaska on Monday, less than two weeks after US Army soldiers were deployed to the area as part of a “force protection operation” amid an increase in Russian and Chinese military exercises in the region..."
CNN:"...Dubbed “Ocean-2024,” the seven days of drills that ended Monday are the latest in a recent slew of military exercises and joint patrols between Russia and China that come on the heels of vows from Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to tighten military cooperation, even as the Kremlin wages its war against Ukraine.
China sent several warships and 15 aircraft to waters off Russia’s Far East coast for Ocean-2024, according to the Russian military. In addition, Chinese and Russian forces this month touted deepened strategic coordination during joint naval drills in waters near Japan and held their fifth joint maritime patrol in the northern Pacific..." Meanwhile, ..."The North American Aerospace Defense command intercepted Russian military aircraft flying near Alaska four times over the last week in what appears to be an uptick in activity amid tensions between the US and Russia."
KYIVINDEPENDENT:"“Russian intelligence is everywhere. And its propaganda is everywhere, not only in Estonia but all over the world,” Estonian President Alar Karis told the Kyiv Independent during an interview on the sidelines of the 20th annual Yalta European Strategy (YES) Conference in Kyiv.
Russia has been actively meddling in the domestic affairs of the Baltic states."
KYIVINDEPENDENT:"While the Russian advance on Pokrovsk had slightly slowed down in recent days, Vuhledar, in the southern part of Donetsk Oblast, became a new focal point of the ongoing Russian offensive.
Located 50 kilometers south of Pokrovsk, Vuhledar is often referred to as a "fortress" among the military and has been under consistent Russian attacks since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
As part of the most recent wave of offensives in Donetsk Oblast, Russian troops resumed their assault on the city...."
"MOSCOW, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, responding to a question about the potential delivery of long-range U.S. missiles to Ukraine, warned the United States on Wednesday not to joke about Russia's "red lines".
Lavrov said the U.S. was losing sight of the sense of mutual deterrence that had underpinned the balance of security between Moscow and Washington since the Cold War, and that this was dangerous. It was the second time in just over a week that Lavrov has cautioned the U.S. that a third world war would not be confined to Europe...." COMMENT: THE PUTIN REGIME IS A CRIMINAL TERRORIST IMPERIALIST FASCIST ORGANIZATION THAT HAS CROSSED ALL LINES OF HUMAN DECENCY
KYIVINDEPENDENT:"At least seven civilians were killed and 47 were wounded in Lviv in the early hours of Sept. 4 amid Russia's attack against Ukraine, Lviv Oblast authorities reported. Children were among the casualties.
Several explosions were heard in the city amid a nationwide air raid alert as Russia launched drones and missiles against the country. Multiple casualties were reported also in Kryvyi Rih.
Explosions were heard in other cities overnight, including Kyiv, Sumy, Lutsk, and Rivne.
The fatalities in Lviv included two girls aged 9 and 14, another child, a 50-year-old nurse at a local clinic, and a man, authorities said.
There are seven children among the wounded, including a 10-year-old boy. Some 47 people have been hospitalized as a result of the attack, of whom seven are in critical condition, Governor Maksym Kozytskyi reported."
"KYIV, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Loud explosions rocked Ukraine's capital Kyiv early on Monday as Russia launched a barrage of missiles, sparking fires and damaging homes and infrastructure, officials said.
Residents across the city were awoken by a quick succession of bangs and the sound of air defence missiles blasting off skyward to intercept targets."
"WASHINGTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Two U.S. researchers say they have identified the probable deployment site in Russia of the 9M370 Burevestnik, a new nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile touted by President Vladimir Putin as "invincible."
Putin has said the weapon - dubbed the SSC-X-9 Skyfall by NATO - has an almost unlimited range and can evade U.S. missile defenses. But some Western experts dispute his claims and the Burevestnik's strategic value, saying it will not add capabilities that Moscow does not already have and risks a radiation-spewing mishap."
"KYIV, Aug 29 (Reuters) - One of Ukraine's F-16 fighter jets crashed while repelling a major Russian attack on Monday, Kyiv's military said, the first such loss reported since the long-awaited arrival of the U.S.-made planes this month.
The jet came down and its pilot died while it was approaching a Russian target, the Ukrainian General Staff said on Thursday on Facebook....
"
KYIVINDEPENDENT:"The Kursk operation is Ukraine's right of self-defense, Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze said ahead of an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Aug. 29.
As Kyiv's incursion into Kursk Oblast entered its fourth week, Ukraine is in control of 1,294 square kilometers (around 500 square miles) and 100 settlements, including the town of Sudzha, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Aug. 27. The Kyiv Independent could not verify these claims.
According to Braze, Ukraine's right of self-defense is covered by Article 51 of the U.N. Charter the UN Charter includes Kyiv's right to strike at military targets on Russian soil.
"And Ukrainians have been very, very careful and very, very diligent in not going after civilians (in Kursk Oblast), in not doing what Russians have been doing on the Ukrainian territory," the minister said.
"This is the normal military counteractions, so this counteroffensive, in our view, is also covered by the right of self-defense."
"MOSCOW, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Russia said the West was playing with fire by considering allowing Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with Western missiles and cautioned the United States on Tuesday that World War Three would not be confined to Europe.
Ukraine attacked Russia's western Kursk region on Aug. 6 and has carved out a slice of territory in the biggest foreign attack on Russia since World War Two. President Vladimir Putin said there would be a worthy response from Russia to the attack.
Sergei Lavrov, who has served as Putin's foreign minister for more than 20 years, said that the West was seeking to escalate the Ukraine war and was "asking for trouble" by considering Ukrainian requests to loosen curbs on using foreign-supplied weapons.Since invading Ukraine in 2022, Putin has repeatedly warned of the risk of a much broader war involving the world's biggest nuclear powers, though he has said Russia does not want a conflict with the U.S.-led NATO alliance."We are now confirming once again that playing with fire - and they are like small children playing with matches - is a very dangerous thing for grown-up uncles and aunts who are entrusted with nuclear weapons in one or another Western country," Lavrov told reporters in Moscow.
"Americans unequivocally associate conversations about Third World War as something that, God forbid, if it happens, will affect Europe exclusively," Lavrov said..."COMMENT: THE PUTIN REGIME IS AN IMPERIALIST FASCIST TERRORIST GANGSTER ORGANIZATION WORKING WITH ITS ALLIES AND PROXIES TO SPREAD ITS MURDEROUS CANCER IN UKRAINE, EUROPE, THE MIDDLE EAST, ASIA, AFRICA, AND LATIN AMERICA
"KYIV, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Russia launched several waves of missile and drone attacks targeting scores of Ukrainian regions and killing at least four people, Ukraine's military said early on Tuesday, a day after Moscow's biggest air attack of the war on its neighbour.
Two people were killed when a hotel was "wiped out" in the central Ukraine city of Kryvyi Rih, regional officials said. Two died in drone attacks on the city of Zaporizhzhia, east of Kryvyi Rih.
Kyiv region's air defence systems were deployed several times overnight to repel missiles and drones targeting the Ukrainian capital, the region's military administration said on Telegram.
Reuters' witnesses reported at least three rounds of explosions overnight in Kyiv.
On Monday, Russia launched more than 200 missiles and drones, killing at least seven and damaging energy infrastructure in an attack condemned by U.S. President Joe Biden as "outrageous"
CNN:"...“The bombing was everywhere around us, all night. Our house is still intact, but it won’t be for long. Everything else has been damaged,” Halyna told CNN. “Our soldiers came and took us away,” she added.
A nurse and a miner, the couple are among tens of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing Pokrovsk and the surrounding towns as it becomes more and more likely that the city could become the next key battleground of the war in Ukraine.
Russian forces have been inching toward the city for weeks, but the situation has become critical in recent days. Moscow has been pushing hard to capture Pokrovsk even as it struggles to contain the Ukrainian incursion in the Kursk border region.Pokrovsk is a strategic target for Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear that his goal is to seize all of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Pokrovsk sits on a key supply road that connects it with other military hubs, and forms the backbone of Ukrainian defenses in the part of Donetsk region that is still under Kyiv’s control..."
CNN:"US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a guided-missile submarine to the Middle East and accelerated the arrival of a carrier strike group to the region ahead of an anticipated Iranian attack against Israel, the Pentagon said in a statement Sunday evening.
The USS Georgia, a nuclear-powered submarine armed with cruise missiles, was operating in the Mediterranean Sea in recent days, according to the Navy, having just completed training near Italy.
Austin ordered the submarine into the waters of the Middle East, the Pentagon said. The movement of US missile submarines is rarely revealed publicly, and the nuclear-powered vessels operate in near-complete secrecy.
The announcement of a submarine’s movement is a clear message of deterrence to Iran and its proxies, who the US and Israel believe are preparing for a potential large-scale attack on Israel..."
KYIV-INDEPENDENT:"Russia will receive hundreds of Fath-360 and other ballistic missiles from Iran in the near future following an agreement signed in December 2023 between Moscow and Tehran, intelligence sources revealed to Reuters on Aug. 9."
TIMES OF INDIA:"Russia has reportedly transferred advanced missile systems to Iran amid escalating tensions in the Middle East. This significant arms deal includes Iskander missiles and Murmansk-BN systems, capable of suppressing satellite communications over vast distances."
CNN:"
The US is sending a carrier strike group, a fighter squadron and additional warships to the Middle East as the region braces for an Iranian retaliation to the killing of a senior Hamas leader in Tehran earlier this week.
It is perhaps the largest movement of US forces to the region since the early days of the Gaza war, when the Pentagon sent two carrier strike groups toward the Middle East in a very public warning to regional militant groups not to expand the fighting...."
WASHINGTON-POST:"When President Biden said he was dropping his reelection bid, the sudden upheaval in U.S. politics came as a blow for many in the Russian elite who closely track relations between Moscow and the West.
Biden’s withdrawal in favor of Vice President Harris has upended a race that the Kremlin and its backers believed Donald Trump could win, creating “a window of opportunity” to settle the war in Ukraine on Russia’s aggressive, expansionist terms, according to analysts and current and former Russian officials."
"LONDON/WASHINGTON, July 25 (Reuters) - North Korean hackers have conducted a global cyber espionage campaign in efforts to steal classified military secrets to support Pyongyang's banned nuclear weapons programme, the United States, Britain and South Korea said in a joint advisory on Thursday.
The hackers, dubbed Anadriel or APT45 by cybersecurity researchers, are believed to be part of North Korea's intelligence agency"
"SEOUL, Aug 1 (Reuters) - North Korea wants to reopen
nuclear talks with the United States if Donald Trump is re-elected as president and is working to devise a new negotiating strategy, a senior North Korean diplomat who recently defected to South Korea told Reuters.
The escape of Ri Il Gyu from Cuba made headlines globally last month. He was the highest-ranking North Korean diplomat to defect to the South since 2016.
In his first interview with international media, Ri said North Korea has set Russia, the U.S. and Japan as its top foreign policy priorities for this year and beyond.While bolstering relations with Russia, Pyongyang was keen to reopen nuclear negotiations if Trump - who engaged in both fiery brinkmanship and unprecedented diplomacy with North Korea during his previous term - won re-election in November, Ri said.
"
"WASHINGTON, July 10 (Reuters) - The United States will start deploying longer range missiles in Germany in 2026, the two countries announced at a meeting of the NATO alliance on Tuesday, a major step aimed at countering what the allies say is a growing threat Russia poses to Europe.
The decision will send Germany the most potent U.S. weapons to be based on the European continent since the Cold War, in a clear warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A U.S.-German statement said the "episodic deployments" were in preparation for longer-term stationing in Europe of capabilities that would include SM-6, Tomahawk and developmental hypersonic weapons with greater range.
The move would have been banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty signed by the U.S. and the Soviet Union in 1987 but that collapsed in 2019.
"We cannot discount the possibility of an attack against Allies’ sovereignty and territorial integrity," the allies said in a communique released on Wednesday..."
ABCNEWS:"UNITED NATIONS -- Russia’s foreign minister accused the United States on Tuesday of holding the entire West “at gunpoint” and impeding international cooperation, a claim the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations denounced as “hypocrisy” by a country that invaded neighboring Ukraine...."
SWISSINFO.CH:"July 11, 2024 - 10:22
1 minute
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday denounced NATO’s summit promise to grant eventual membership to Ukraine and said Russia should work towards the “disappearance” of both Ukraine and the military alliance....”
"GENEVA, July 9 (Reuters) - A lethal strike on a children's hospital in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, was likely caused by a direct hit from a Russian missile, the head of the U.N. human rights monitoring mission said on Tuesday, citing its own analysis.
The strike in broad daylight was part of a series of attacks that killed at least 41 people across Ukraine, including children. The Kremlin said it was Ukrainian anti-missile fire, not Russia, that struck the hospital."
CNN:"
A court in Moscow has ordered Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of late Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny, to be arrested in absentia, her spokesperson said Tuesday.
The Basmanny District Court in Moscow accused Navalnaya of “participation in an extremist organization,” her spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said in a post on social media. She has also been added to an international wanted list, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti."
MSN/NEWSWEEK:"Belarus on Sunday issued a nuclear threat amid rising tensions at its border with Ukraine.
The country will be prepared to use nonstrategic nuclear weapons if its sovereignty and independence are threatened, said Pavel Muraveiko. He was appointed chief of the general staff of country's armed forces and first deputy minister in May."
KYIVINDEPENDENT:"Dmitry Rogozin, a Russian official heading the Russian occupation of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, said on June 27 that it is time to burn everything Ukrainian down to the root" so that "there is no trace left."(Emphasis added)
Rogozin's comments were the latest in a long series of genocidal comments directed at Ukraine made by Russian officials and propagandists, a trend that has only increased since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The genocidal intent of Russia's aggression toward Ukraine has manifested in war crimes and indiscriminate violence directed at Ukrainian civilians, but also in the denial and distortion of history, attempts to erase Ukrainian culture, and the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children."
REUTERS:"SEOUL/MOSCOW, June 18 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed on Tuesday to deepen trade and security ties with North Korea and to support it against the United States, as he headed to the reclusive nuclear-armed country for the first time in 24 years.
The U.S. and its Asian allies are trying to work out just how far Russia will go in support of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whose country is the only one to have conducted nuclear weapon tests in the 21st century..."
MSN/BUSINESS INSIDER:"Although they are members of NATO and the EU, the Baltics are in a precarious position. Bordering Russia or its ally Belarus, they are small and were part of the Soviet Union until its collapse. Furthermore, over 20% of the population of Estonia and Latvia and 5% of Lithuania are ethnically Russian.
All of this has put them in Moscow's crosshairs. Russia seems to be employing unconventional methods against them that blur the line between war and peace and fall into what is called the "gray zone."
.
.."
AP:
"ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — President Vladimir Putin warned Wednesday that Russia could provide long-range weapons to others to strike Western targets in response to NATO allies allowing Ukraine to use their arms to attack Russian territory.
Putin also reaffirmed Moscow’s readiness to use nuclear weapons if it sees a threat to its sovereignty.
The recent actions by the West will further undermine international security and could lead to “very serious problems,” he said, taking questions from international journalists — something that has become extremely rare since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.
“That would mark their direct involvement in the war against the Russian Federation, and we reserve the right to act the same way,” Putin added."
APNEWS:"Russian warships conducted drills in the Atlantic, the military said Tuesday, as they were heading to visit Cuba, part of Moscow’s efforts to project power amid the tensions with the West over Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the Admiral Gorshkov frigate and the Kazan nuclear-powered submarine conducted the exercise that was intended to simulate a missile strike on a group of enemy ships.
The ministry said the drills involved computer simulation of an attack on sea targets more than 600 kilometers (over 320 nautical miles) away.
The Admiral Gorshkov is armed with new Zircon hypersonic missiles. The weapon has been designed to arm Russian cruisers, frigates and submarines and could be used against both enemy ships and ground targets.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has touted Zircon as a potent weapon capable of penetrating any existing anti-missile defenses by flying nine times faster than the speed of sound at a range of more than 1,000 kilometers (over 620 miles).
The Admiral Gorshkov and the Kazan are accompanied by two support vessels on their visit to Havana, which Cuban officials said reflected “historically friendly relations” between Russia and Cuba.The Cuban Foreign Ministry said the Russian warships will be in Havana between Wednesday and June 17, noting that none will carry nuclear weapons and assuring their presence “does not represent a threat to the region.
..."
CNN:"The USS Helena, a fast-attack nuclear submarine, surfaced in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a day after Russian naval forces arrived in Havana to conduct drills with the island nation, a Russian ally.
In a statement posted on X, US Southern Command said, “The fast-attack submarine USS Helena is in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as part of a routine port visit as it transits the U.S. Southern Command geographic area of responsibility while conducting its global maritime security and national defense mission.”
The specific movements of Navy submarines are highly classified and are rarely disclosed publicly..."
NYTIMES:"A senior Biden administration official warned on Friday that “absent a change” in nuclear strategy by China and Russia, the United States may be forced to expand its nuclear arsenal, after decades of cutting back through now largely abandoned arms control agreements.
The comments on Friday from Pranay Vaddi, a senior director of the National Security Council, were the most explicit public warning yet that the United States was prepared to shift from simply modernizing its arsenal to expanding it. They were also a warning to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia about the likely U.S. reaction if the last major nuclear arms control agreement, called New START, expires in February 2026 with no replacement..."WASHINGTONPOST:Russia’s Foreign Ministry has been drawing up plans to try to weaken its Western adversaries, including the United States, and leverage the Ukraine war to forge a global order free from what it sees as American dominance, according to a secret Foreign Ministry document. Russia is seeking to subvert Western support for Ukraine and disrupt the domestic politics of the United States and European countries, through propaganda campaigns supporting isolationist and extremist policies, according to Kremlin documents previously reported on by The Post. It is also seeking to refashion geopolitics, drawing closer to China, Iran and North Korea in an attempt to shift the current balance of power..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio), who chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Sunday that it was “absolutely true” that some Republican members of Congress were repeating Russian propaganda about the invasion of Ukraine instigated by Russian President Vladimir Putin.Turner did not specify which members he was referring to, but he said he agreed with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), who said in an interview with Puck News last week that Russian propaganda had “infected a good chunk of my party’s base” and suggested that conservative media was to blame..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"Former president Donald Trump has privately said he could end Russia’s war in Ukraine by pressuring Ukraine to give up some territory, according to people familiar with the plan. Some foreign policy experts said Trump’s idea would reward Russian President Vladimir Putin and condone the violation of internationally recognized borders by force."
KYIV-INDEPENDENT:"French President Emmanuel Macron was left on his lonesome by his fellow European allies after saying that the possibility of sending Western troops on the ground in Ukraine should not be “ruled out” in the future.
Macron made the remarks on Feb. 26 at a gathering of 20 European heads of state and other Western officials at an allied conference in Paris to reaffirm support for Ukraine as Russia’s war against the country enters its third year.
...
CNN:"It’s a scenario that’s playing out up and down the front lines in Ukraine. As the United States Congress stalls on US President Joe Biden’s request for an additional $60 billion in security assistance for Kyiv, Ukrainian commanders are facing tough choices on how to use the dwindling stockpiles of ammunition.
Kyiv suffered its most significant loss in recent months last week when its troops abandoned Avdiivka..."
KYIV-INDEPENDENT:"Almost immediately following the end of the EuroMaidan Revolution in Ukraine in February 2014, Russia swiftly moved to annex and occupy the Crimean Peninsula. Within a couple of months, unrest erupted in eastern Ukraine followed by Russian-backed militias taking over administrative buildings.
The events mark the start of Russia's 10-year invasion and occupation of Ukraine that continues to this day.
.."
NEWSWEEK:"The head of Polish military counterintelligence has warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin is already prepared for a small operation against NATO frontier states in northeastern Europe, as the alliance seeks to deter aggression from Moscow while bolstering Ukraine against the ongoing Russian invasion.
"Putin is certainly already prepared for some mini-operation against one of the Baltic countries," Jarosław Stróżyk, who was appointed to lead the Polish military counterintelligence service in March—told the Dziennik Gazeta Prawna publication..."
BLOOMBERG:"German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned of the dangers of a Russian victory if Ukraine’s allies don’t increase military support and financial aid, ahead of a meeting with US President Joe Biden.
“Make no mistake: A Russian victory in Ukraine would not only be the end of Ukraine as a free, democratic and independent state, it would also dramatically change the face of Europe,” Scholz wrote in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.
"COMMENT:SEND NATO FORCES IN AND PUSH THE RUSSIANS OUT
CNN:"President Joe Biden on Tuesday slammed Donald Trump after the former president said he would encourage Russia to invade countries that don’t meet their NATO obligations, saying such comments amount to bowing down to Vladimir Putin."
WASHINGTONPOST:"...Capturing Avdiivka would mark Moscow’s most significant battlefield victory since the failure of a Ukrainian counteroffensive last year — and would be the clearest sign yet that Russian forces are regaining the initiative as Kyiv runs short of soldiers, weapons, ammunition, morale and money..."COMMENT: THIS IS ON TRUMP AND HIS MINIONS
BBC:"The UN's top court has said it has jurisdiction to hear a case brought against Russia by Ukraine.
Kyiv brought the case at The Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ), days after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Kyiv accuses Moscow of falsely using genocide law to justify its brutal invasion which continues..."
THE-GUARDIAN:"
Rishi Sunak pledges £2.5bn in military aid to Ukraine during Kyiv visit
UK prime minister also signs multi-year security treaty with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, calling it ‘a strong signal to Putin’
"
THE-KYIV-INDEPENDENT:"As sanctions bite, Russia eyes Ukraine’s mineral resources to fund its invasion. Russia's 2024 federal budget brought little in the way of surprises, the country is gearing up for a long war...."
MSN/NEWSWEEK:"A top Ukrainian military official has issued a desperate plea for resources as Russia gains momentum in its war against Ukraine...."
BUSINESS-INSIDER:"The Kremlin has been painting a rosy picture of the country's economy even amid a swathe of Western sanctions — but "the real situation is bad," Igor Lipsits, a prominent Russian economist, told Reuters.
..."
THE-KYIV-INDEPENDENT:"Along with war crimes, such as torture, rape, and executions, Russia has also taken civilian hostages in the areas it has occupied, at times transferring them to prisons both in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory and Russia for reasons unknown. The hostages include people taken off the streets, psychiatric patients, and inmates of Ukrainian prisons now under Russian-occupied territories..."
THE-KYIV-INDEPENDENT:"Russia launched a record number of drones into Ukraine over the course of six hours on Holodomor Memorial Day on Nov. 25. According to the Kyiv City Military Administration, "this was the largest drone attack since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.".."
PRESIDENT.GOV.UA:"...Ladies and gentlemen!
Next Monday will mark the six hundredth day of our resistance to Russia's full-scale aggression against our people, against Ukraine. And today, no one can say for sure how many more days we will have to defend our independence and identity. But we can already say several things, which are important.
First: Putin will not achieve Ukraine. Second: Russia cannot afford a new arms race. And third: democracy can win this battle. It is necessary not only for our country, but for every nation, for the whole world...."
CNN:"All 27 EU member states have dispatched officials to a key meeting in Kyiv on Monday, a European Union official told CNN.
..
The bloc convened in the Ukrainian capital to reaffirm their support for Kyiv amid Russia's invasion...."
"Sept 7 (Reuters) 
CNN:"Russia's conditions to revive the Black Sea grain deal amount to "blackmail," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told national news agency Ukrinform on Monday.
The deal "must be restored," but not "at the expense of blackmail and fulfilling Russia’s whims," he said. "
NYTIMES:"Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, plans to travel to Russia this month to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin to discuss the possibility of supplying Russia with more weaponry for its war in Ukraine and other military cooperation, according to American and allied officials.
"
CNN:"“What is going on now is simply the genocide of the Ukrainian people. Both Ukrainian and Russian. The motivation for my action was to not contribute to these crimes. Ukraine will unequivocally win this war simply because the people are very united. Before they were not like this, but now they are very unified. The whole world is helping them, because first and foremost, human life should be valued."
The pilot also urged other Russians in the military to defect to Ukraine." The pilot, Maksim Kuzmov was found shot dead in Spain "...Ukrainska Pravda and other outlets reported on Feb.19..." 
CNN:"
Ukraine’s Security Service says it has identified a Russian commander who is accused of giving orders to shoot civilians.
The SBU announced in a statement on Thursday that it is investigating Vadym Ovchinnikov, the commander of a Russian intelligence group, who it alleges ordered the shooting of a Ukrainian family during the occupation of the town of Bucha in March of 2022.
CNN:"...Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky put it bluntly on Monday, when he thanked Denmark for pledging to provide Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets, which the Netherlands also agreed to give Ukraine. “All of Russia’s neighbors are under threat,” he said, “if Ukraine does not prevail.” He will find few who disagree among those neighbors....”
CNN:"NATO allies on Tuesday reaffirmed their support for Ukraine’s push for membership of the alliance, according to a final declaration issued by the 31-member group at a summit in Lithuania.
“Ukraine’s future is in NATO,” it said.
"We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met," the communiqué added..."
PRESIDENT.GOV.UA:"In the Republic of Lithuania, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and First Lady Olena Zelenska took part in an event organized as part of the "Raising the Flag for Ukraine in NATO" campaign...”
CNN:"US President Joe Biden and his British counterpart, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, touted their "unwavering support" for Ukraine and shared condemnation of Moscow's "brutal aggression" as they met in Washington, DC, Thursday..."
NEWSWEEK:"British officials are now a "legitimate military target" for Moscow, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday, responding to remarks from the U.K.'s foreign secretary that Ukraine has the right to strike military targets inside Russian territory..."
CNN:"The Russian Foreign Ministry called on senior US diplomats on Friday to express "strong protest" over US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan's remarks about Ukrainian strikes on Crimea, after he said the US has not placed limitations on Kyiv to hit its territory.
The ministry called Sullivan's remarks in an interview with CNN on Sunday "unacceptable."
CNN:"Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked President Biden Sunday for the “powerful” financial assistance provided by the US, which totals $37 billion, and for the new military assistance package, according to a readout from the president’s office.
"
CNN:"British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has underscored his country’s support for Ukraine’s defense against Russia, saying “Ukraine’s security is our security.”
.."
CNN:"Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has arrived in the United Kingdom to meet with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, 10 Downing Street said in a statement Monday..
.."
CNN:Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with his French counterpart in Paris on Sunday, the latest stop on his tour of European capitals providing Kyiv with weapons.
CNN:"European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Tuesday that Russia is seeking to destroy values of freedom in Ukraine because it is afraid of the country’s path to the European Union.
"We Europeans cherish our liberty, our democracy, our freedom of thought and speech," von der Leyen said alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a visit to Kyiv to mark Europe Day.
CNN:"Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said NATO countries must prepare for a long war in Ukraine, calling on allies to increase defense spending.
“Russia has prepared for a long confrontation and so must we,” Kallas tweeted on Wednesday....
"
PRESIDENT.GOV.UA:"The leaders condemned in the strongest possible terms the illegal, unjustifiable and unprovoked aggression by Russia against Ukraine..."
Meanwhile,"[a] day after Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a harsher crackdown on internal “enemies,” authorities raided the homes of activists from the Russian human rights organization Memorial, which was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year."
ICC:"Today, 17 March 2023, Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (“ICC” or “the Court”) issued warrants of arrest for two individuals in the context of the situation in Ukraine: Mr Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Ms Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova.... "
WASHINGTONPOST:"Poland plans to give Ukraine Soviet-made MiG-29 fighter jets, becoming the first NATO country to provide long-sought warplanes since the Russian invasion began last year, Polish President Andrzej Duda said at a news conference Thursday.
The first four are set to arrive in the coming days. Western governments had thus far declined to send fighter jets out of concern over escalating tensions between NATO and Russia."
CNN:"US President Joe Biden made an unannounced trip to Kyiv early Monday for the first time since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost a year ago..."
EUROPEAN-PARLIAMENT:
CNN:"The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has voted unanimously to demand the creation of a special international tribunal to prosecute Russian and Belarusian political and military leaders “for the crime of aggression in Ukraine,” according to a statement published Thursday.
PACE, composed of members appointed by the national parliaments of the Council's 46 member states, proposes a tribunal in The Hague “to prosecute Russian and Belarusian political and military leaders who planned, prepared, initiated or executed Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.” 
CNN:"European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told Ukraine's first lady Olena Zelenska that the alliance's support for her nation is "unwavering," as world leaders and policymakers gathered at the World Economic Forum Tuesday..."
"KYIV, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Ukraine accused the Kremlin on Saturday of reviving the "genocidal" tactics of Josef Stalin as Kyiv commemorated a Soviet-era famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in the winter of 1932-33."
CNN:"Russia's invasion of Ukraine has plunged Europe into an era of insecurity, Germany's President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Friday, a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said the world faces the ”the most dangerous decade” since the end of World War II. .."
CNN:"Former Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev told CNN Tuesday that “terror is the only thing left” for Russian President Vladimir Putin, “like for any miserable terrorist in the world.”
CNN:"Nina Khrushcheva, great-granddaughter of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, discusses Russian President Vladimir Putin's propaganda speech and "'crazy rhetoric against the West.'.. After 22 years under Putin there is absolute hopelessness for the future of the country. Things are turning into a dystopian novel divorced from reality.
ALJAZEERA:"A police monitoring group says more than 1,300 people have been arrested at demonstrations across Russia against President Vladimir Putin’s announcement of a partial mobilisation of civilians to fight in Ukraine."
CNN:"European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told lawmakers at the European Parliament in Strasbourg that "Europe's solidarity with Ukraine will remain unshakeable," and that she would be visiting Kyiv on Wednesday.
Von der Leyen said European sanctions against Russia would remain in place and that the European Union's (EU) 27-nation bloc would continue to offer financial support to Ukraine.
..
"
CNN:"Russia is plundering gold in Sudan to boost Putin's war effort in Ukraine-...Multiple interviews with high-level Sudanese and US officials and troves of documents reviewed by CNN paint a picture of an elaborate Russian scheme to plunder Sudan's riches in a bid to fortify Russia against increasingly robust Western sanctions and to buttress Moscow's war effort in Ukraine.
The evidence also suggests that Russia has colluded with Sudan's beleaguered military leadership, enabling billions of dollars in gold to bypass the Sudanese state and to deprive the poverty-stricken country of hundreds of millions in state revenue.
In exchange, Russia has lent powerful political and military backing to Sudan's increasingly unpopular military leadership as it violently quashes the country's pro-democracy movement..."
CNN:"A new report from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe documents the discovery of torture chambers at a summer camp in Bucha, Ukraine.
This report — OSCE's second one — covered the period between April 1 to June 25...
"
CNN:"Russia's actions in Ukraine provide enough evidence to conclude that Moscow is inciting genocide and committing atrocities intended to destroy the Ukrainian people, according to the first independent report into allegations of genocide in that country.
"
BBC:"Kira Glodan, a three-month-old baby, is one of the latest victims in the war in Ukraine. She was killed along with her mother and grandmother in a Russian missile strike in Odesa..”
BBC:"Russian forces executed civilians in various locations in the Kyiv region
"In recent weeks,.. [W]e have gathered evidence that... Russian forces have committed extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings
which must be investigated as likely war crimes" says Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard.
.."
"REUTERS:A woman carries her cat as she walks past buildings that were destroyed by Russian shelling amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine in Borodyanka the Kyiv region Ukraine, April 5, 2022
..."
BLOOMBERG:"14, 2026.Source: AFP/Getty Images
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By Sujata Rao and Julien Ponthus
March 15, 2026 at 12:19 PM PDT
Updated on March 16, 2026 at 4:27 AM PDT
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5:04
US stock futures edged higher and oil prices reversed an advance on hopes that more tankers will be able to traverse the Strait of Hormuz, with talks ongoing to ensure the waterway’s security.
Contracts for the S&P 500 Index rose 0.7% — pointing to the first gain in five days for the underlying gauge — as President Donald Trump raised pressure on nations to help reopen the key oil route and said the US was talking to Iran. NATO said some member states are discussing Hormuz security with the US and other countries.
While attacks on oil facilities kept crude trading well above $100 a barrel, prices slipped about $4 off levels hit earlier in the day. Following the transit of two vessels on the weekend, India is attempting to get six others to cross, while several other nations are trying back channels to Iran to ensure safe passage for their tankers.
Treasury 10-year yields slipped two basis points, after rising for five straight sessions, while the dollar fell 0.4% from three-month highs touched last week. Europe’s Stoxx 600 Index edged up 0.2%, reversing an earlier loss.
“The market is trying to stabilize, but it is not one that has turned optimistic,” said Charu Chanana, chief investment strategist at Saxo Markets. “Equities may welcome any sign that Hormuz could be reopened, but with further strikes still being threatened and diplomacy still patchy, conviction is low and positioning is likely to stay very twitchy.”
Brent Crude Has Surged to Highest Since 2022
Source: ICE, Bloomberg
Read: Iran War Catapults Asia to the Frontline of a Global Fuel Crisis
Attention will also focus this week on a slew of central bank meetings, including at the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of Japan and the Bank of England. Those will be crucial to gauge policymakers’ thinking on how the oil shock will impact economy and the prospect for interest rates.
PlayPlay3:17
Anna Edwards, Lizzy Burden, Tom Mackenzie, Mark Cudmore break down today’s key themes
While oil above $100 a barrel is fanning inflation fears, it’s also likely to dampen economic growth, casting uncertainty on how policymakers will respond.
“Every day that goes by with the Hormuz Strait closed is another bad news for the global economy,” said Francois Rimeu, senior strategist at Credit Mutuel Asset Management. “If the crisis continues there will be at some point some kind of trigger that will make investors realize the scale of the supply shock that’s building up.”
As Wall Street dialed back its bets on rate cuts for this year, bonds from the US to Japan and Australia have dropped. A gauge of global debt has also ceded its year-to-date gains. Gold traded below $5,000 as high oil prices threaten Fed rate cuts.
Still, analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. expect Treasuries and most other government bonds to edge higher by year-end, seeing growth risks outweighing the inflation pulse.
Read more on Iran:
US Allies Wary of Joining Trump’s Strait of Hormuz Mission
Trump Threatens Xi Summit Delay If China Doesn’t Help in Hormuz
Corporate Highlights
UniCredit SpA made a €35 billion ($40 billion) bid for Commerzbank AG that will allow it to increase its shareholding beyond 30%, easing the path for a potential future acquisition. Commerzbank shares rise as much as 5.3% while UniCredit SpA shares slid.
GN Store shares surged, while Amplifon fell, after GN agreed to sell its hearing-aid business to Amplifon in a deal that values the unit at DKK17 billion on a cash-free and debt-free basis.
Meta outperformed Magnificent Seven stocks in premarket trading after Reuters reported that the social media giant is planning layoffs that could affect 20% or more of the company.
Bayer gained after UBS upgraded the stock to buy from neutral, seeing upside amid recent share-price weakness and positive developments in the US glyphosate legal case.
Key Events This Week
For a list, click here.
Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
S&P 500 futures rose 0.7% as of 7:12 a.m. New York time
Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.8%
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5%
The Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.2%
The MSCI World Index was little changed
Currencies
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.4%
The euro rose 0.5% to $1.1475
The British pound rose 0.3% to $1.3271
The Japanese yen rose 0.3% to 159.23 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin rose 2.7% to $73,686.24
Ether rose 6.9% to $2,276.57
Bonds
The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined three basis points to 4.25%
Germany’s 10-year yield declined three basis points to 2.96%
Britain’s 10-year yield declined five basis points to 4.77%
Commodities
West Texas Intermediate crude fell 1.6% to $97.13 a barrel
Spot gold fell 0.3% to $5,005.44 an ounce
..."
WSJ:"President Trump’s decision to attack Iran came after briefings about one of the war’s biggest risks: that Tehran could shut the Strait of Hormuz and shake the global economy.
The rapidly expanding war has exposed how the White House was counting on the quick collapse of the Iranian regime, how the planning was confined to a small circle of advisers and how confident Trump was that U.S. military force could contain the fallout. Some takeaways:
Trump was warned Iran could shut the world’s most important oil chokepoint—and went ahead anyway.
Before the U.S. and Israel launched the military assault against Iran on Feb. 28, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Trump in multiple briefings that an American attack could prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that carries 20% of the world’s oil exports from the Persian Gulf to the rest of the globe.
While he acknowledged that it was a possibility, Trump decided to move ahead with the operation. He believed that Tehran would likely capitulate before it could close the strait or cause significant economic damage. And if it came to it, he told his team, the U.S. military would be able to handle it. On Friday evening, Trump said the U.S. bombed military targets on Iran’s Kharg Island, a critical hub for the country’s crude oil exports, to pressure Tehran to reopen the strait.
The president was driven by his confidence in the power of the U.S. military.
Behind Trump’s rationale for war was a deep confidence in the capabilities of the U.S. military to deliver a swift, decisive victory, according to administration officials and others familiar with the matter.
The president often brags about the military and its lethality. And he is especially fond of Caine, whom he often refers to by his nickname, Razin Caine. Despite setbacks, Trump has publicly maintained confidence that the military can execute its mission.
But costs continue to mount. At least 13 American servicemembers have been killed, making the war in Iran the deadliest military operation of Trump’s two terms, and more than 1,300 Iranians have been killed, according to the country’s envoy to the United Nations. Trump and some advisers were also surprised by the breadth of Iran’s retaliation, according to people familiar with the matter, including the wave of missiles and drones launched across the region, from Azerbaijan to Oman.
Trump’s decision was shaped by the success of previous military operations in Iran and Venezuela.
Trump’s decision last summer to launch a mission to strike three Iranian nuclear sites, known as Operation Midnight Hammer, convinced him that he could bomb Iran, absorb a brief backlash and then personally dictate the off-ramp, U.S. officials and others familiar with the matter said.
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The mission to depose Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January reinforced in Trump’s mind that swift regime change could be managed with a well-executed military operation and by backing a more accommodating successor, without triggering wider instability.
But that didn’t happen this time. Instead, Iran named hard-liner Mojtaba Khamenei as the new supreme leader after joint U.S.-Israeli strikes killed his father. In a statement this week, the younger Khamenei vowed to keep blocking the Strait of Hormuz. Trump has publicly lamented that the military operation killed Iranian leaders who potentially could have ushered in friendlier relations with the U.S.
Only a small group of top advisers was looped into the preparations to go to war.
Preparations for a major military operation typically involve weeks or months of deliberations, written options papers, dissenting views from officials across different agencies, and meetings with the National Security Council. But according to administration officials, planning for the Iran operation was handled by a much smaller circle. .."
WSJ:"
Arab diplomats trying to find a diplomatic path out of the war now being waged by the U.S. and Israel against Iran say Tehran, emboldened by its ability to rattle the global economy by choking oil shipments, has laid out steep preconditions for any return to talks.
Iran is demanding that the airstrikes stop before it entertains cease-fire discussions and wants firm guarantees that it won’t be attacked again if it agrees to stop the fight, Arab diplomats said. It also wants reparations for damages and is hoping to get U.S. forces to disengage from the region.
The demands are part of a broader public expression of confidence—whether real or feigned—in recent days.
After nearly two weeks of intense American and Israeli airstrikes that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, sank much of the Iranian navy and hit its missile sites, Iran’s leadership appears to be firmly in control and capable of landing blows against its neighbors.
Its military continues to score hits on targets around the region, including a number of tankers and cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for a fifth of world oil shipments. The attacks are aimed at driving oil prices higher and have succeeded in spiking benchmark prices above $100 a barrel for a period.
.."
WSJ:"President Trump’s suggestions that the war with Iran might soon be over are bringing a new problem to the fore: Israel and the U.S. have different ideas on when to end the conflict and under what conditions.
Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have spoken nearly every day since the war began, sometimes more than once a day. Netanyahu has also held conversations with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and envoy for Iran. All those talks center on the current state of the war and how to end it, the U.S. officials said, as both countries try to bridge their differences in real time.
There is some concern among White House officials that Israel wants the war to last after the U.S. expresses its desire to end the bombing campaign, the officials said. U.S. and Israeli officials say the Israeli message is it will stop its campaign in Iran whenever U.S. involvement stops. Trump has told aides he wants to end the war on his terms and, after brokering a cease-fire in last year’s 12-day war, believes he can put a stop to the fighting when he wants, U.S. officials said.
“The end of America’s involvement in this conflict will ultimately be determined by the commander in chief, when he feels the military objectives are fully met, and the threat of the rogue Iranian regime has been completely demolished,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"Exclusive
Iranian school was on U.S. target list, may have been mistaken as military site
The strike killed at least 175, many of them children, and has raised questions as to whether the military’s use of AI to identify targets was a factor..."
REUTERS:"PARIS, March 11 (Reuters) - A senior official from a Paris-based Iranian opposition group said on Thursday that the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran would not topple the clerical leadership, arguing that only a popular uprising backed by internal resistance could do so..."
REUTERS:"March 9 (Reuters) - The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran is rattling businesses worldwide, driving up energy prices, squeezing supplies of critical raw materials and raising questions about the reliability of trade routes critical to the flow of goods from food to car parts.
Below are the main disruptions so far:
The Reuters Iran Briefing newsletter keeps you informed with the latest developments and analysis of the Iran war. Sign up here.
TRAVEL CHAOS
The war has closed much of the region's airspace and crippled Dubai and Doha airports, two of the world's busiest transit hubs, stranded tens of thousands of passengers and forced airlines to cancel about 40,000 flights--the travel industry's biggest disruption since the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Governments are scrambling to repatriate citizens, and airports are gradually resuming operations, but at only a fraction of normal capacity.
Private jets have emerged as an alternative for marooned travellers to get out of the Gulf whilst others have embarked on long taxi drives across the desert to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in the hope of flying home from there.
Shipments ranging from fresh produce to airplane parts are in limbo as Middle East conflict squeezes cargo capacity and pushes up freight rates.
AIRLINES
The shutdown of Gulf airspace rippled quickly across airline networks and battered the industry's shares.
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Prices of flights between Asia and Europe have soared, some airlines including Wizz Air (WIZZ.L), opens new tab and Lufthansa (LHAG.DE), opens new tab have changed routes, and Ryanair (RYA.I), opens new tab has seen a jump in demand for short-haul flights as Europeans stay closer to home for Easter.
Some prices of jet fuel, the second-largest expense for carriers after labour, have doubled since the start of the conflict, adding pressure on carriers.
U.S. airlines, which abandoned the practice of hedging against fuel costs, could be the hardest hit if the war is prolonged. European and Asian airlines maintain active fuel hedging strategies.
For pilots, the Iran war is making the skies even more perilous, ratcheting up pressure on those flying through them due to events from drone incursions to flight paths squeezed by conflict.
IMPACT ON DUBAI
The conflict has put at risk the Middle East's carefully constructed image as a safe and high-end vacation hot spot after billions of investment in recent years from Abu Dhabi to Dubai. Tourism is worth some $367 billion annually to the region.
It has also laid bare how heavily global air travel relies on a handful of hubs led by Dubai, the world’s busiest international airport..."
CNN:"• On the ground: Israel has started a “wide-scale wave” of strikes against what it says is regime infrastructure in three areas of Iran. Turkey said NATO air defenses shot down another Iranian missile as it entered Turkish airspace, and Gulf nations also reported overnight attacks.
• Oil prices soar: G7 nations “are not there yet” on releasing oil reserves, according to France’s finance minister, with oil surging past $100 per barrel for the first time since 2022. Meanwhile, Bahrain’s national oil company declared force majeure as the war continues to threaten energy sites.
• Iran’s new leader: Ali Khamenei’s son Mojtaba Khamenei has been named the next supreme leader. US President Donald Trump previously said Mojtaba would be an “unacceptable” choice and Israel vowed to target any successor.
• School strike: New video appears to confirm a US airstrike targeted a naval base next to an Iranian school. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the US was “still investigating” while Trump cast blame on Iran.
..."
BARRONS:"UPDATES with Mexico, Israel, US, Tunisia
Lion-emblazoned flags of pre-revolution Iran fluttered in cities across the world on Saturday as demonstrators took to the streets a week after the start of the war in the Middle East.
Europe, Africa and the Americas saw demonstrations, with some protesting against Iran's Islamic regime, others railing against the war, and some in support of Iran's late supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the first US-Israeli strikes of the conflict.
In Englad, anti-war protesters gathered outside Fairford air force base, southwest England
In Englad, anti-war protesters gathered outside Fairford air force base, southwest England Photo: JUSTIN TALLIS
Paris saw two demonstrations: one supporting the US-based Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late shah, to head up a transition, and another denouncing that scenario.
"I support Pahlavi who is calling for a revolution," Masoud Ghanaatian, 35, a student, told AFP at a protest in southern Paris, where participants carried photos of the late shah's son and waved US, Israeli and pre-revolution Iran flags.
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"He's a democrat. He can oversee a transition and promises to organise elections."
Hundreds of pro-Pahlavi demonstrations also gathered in Stockholm, holding up pictures of him and his late father.
..
But farther north, protesters wearing yellow vests reading "Free Iran" showed off stickers on their hands that read "No Shah, no Mullah"...
"
WASHINGTONPOST:"Exclusive
Pentagon bars press photographers over ‘unflattering’ Hegseth photos"
BLOOMBERG:"By Dan Williams, Christine Burke, and Kateryna Kadabashy
March 4, 2026 at 10:58 PM PST
Updated on March 5, 2026 at 7:12 AM PST
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5:51
...
The US-Israeli war on Iran waged for a sixth day with little sign of easing, as the Islamic Republic vowed to intensify its retaliation and oil extended gains.
Arab states across the Middle East — as well as Israel — reported interceptions of Iranian missiles and drones on Thursday, with Qatar telling residents to remain indoors due to the high level of threat.
Tehran said it launched drone attacks on US forces in Iraq and Kuwait, and struck an oil tanker in the Persian Gulf, underlining the risk to shipping in the energy-rich region.
Israel said it carried out a twelfth wave of airstrikes on the Iranian capital, hitting military and intelligence assets, following attacks on the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon. At least 1,230 people have died in Iran so far, and dozens elsewhere in the region.
US and Israel Strike Iran, and Tehran Retaliates Across the Region
Sources: Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project as of March 3 evening ET
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said retaliatory attacks will intensify in coming days, according to the Nour news agency. US President Donald Trump was similarly defiant on Wednesday, saying the US is “doing very well on the war front.” The White House said it was close to “complete and total control of Iranian airspace.”..."
APNEWS:"Video
Thousands of Iranian government supporters mourning Khamenei chant ‘Death to America’
Thousands of Iranian government supporters filled the main square in the central city of Yazd in mourning on Sunday, led by Shiite clerics, after US and Israeli strikes killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Published 4:38 AM PST, March 1, 2026"
REUTERS:DUBAI, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Thunderous blasts and towering fireballs from Iranian missiles streaking across Gulf states vindicated their leaders' long-held fears that Tehran can bring war to their doorstep, likely to harden Arab rulers' support for U.S.–Israeli strikes.
Even in the Palm, Dubai's swankiest resort, explosions rattled buildings and hit a luxury hotel, sending panicked residents running for cover as missiles and interceptors tore across the sky. It was a stark sign that the conflict had spilled beyond Iran’s borders - just as Tehran had warned it would.
"What has now been proven is that we - not the United States - are in the line of fire," said Dr Ebtesam Al-Ketbi, President of the Emirates Policy Center. "When Iran struck, it struck the Gulf first under the pretext of targeting U.S. bases."
Analysts say Iran's strikes on Gulf countries are meant to demonstrate that no U.S. ally in the region is beyond reach, and to raise the cost of backing Washington’s campaign..."
THEGUARDIAN:"
Trump rebukes Starmer again for not letting US attack Iran from UK bases
US president criticises prime minister for third time 24 hours, describing him as ‘not Churchill’ over initial refusal
...
Donald Trump has launched a deeply personal attack on Keir Starmer over his refusal to let the US launch initial strikes on Iran from British bases, telling reporters: “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”
In his latest extraordinary salvo, the US president said he was not happy with the UK even though the prime minister eventually agreed the US could use Diego Garcia for strikes on Iranian missile facilities.
It was the third time in 24 hours that Trump had criticised Starmer for the UK’s refusal to aid the initial strikes, underlining his frustration at western allies for not unequivocally backing the action..."
NYTIMES:"Just one day into the war with Iran, the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in the attacks launched by the United States and Israel. His death was both celebrated and mourned by Iranians, whom President Trump urged to “take back” their country.
But the coordinated attacks that launched Saturday have also yielded hundreds of other casualties — among them at least six American service members. Their deaths are a sobering detail in a conflict that the Trump administration has said could last for weeks, while officials have warned that more U.S. casualties are expected..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"As President Donald Trump directs military strikes on Iran, he’s also fighting online attacks at home from some of the loudest voices in his MAGA political movement.
“This is Israel’s war. This is not the United States’ war,” former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Tuesday on his weekly political podcast.
Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI.
“No one should have to die for a foreign country,” Megyn Kelly, another former Fox News host with a massive online following, said on her podcast Monday.
Daily Wire podcaster Matt Walsh beseeched fellow conservatives on Monday to stop supporting Trump’s military campaign. “I can’t take the gaslighting, guys. I really can’t,” he wrote on X.
MAGA critics of Trump’s new military conflict say they’re struggling to reconcile it with his “America First” principles and long record of criticizing costly and protracted American military interventions. The president has said operations against Iran could go on for four to five weeks, or longer.
“I think to them it feels legitimately like a betrayal on a fundamental tenet of Trumpism,” said Matthew Dallek, a professor at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management..."
WSJ:"PARIS—President Trump’s diplomats are increasingly willing to chastise Europeans in public. The response from authorities here has been sharp: Mind your own business.
In recent weeks, Trump administration envoys have waded into some of Europe’s most sensitive political debates, demanding action to counter far-left violence, migration and antisemitism.
In the latest flare-up, the X account of the U.S. Ambassador to France, Charles Kushner, posted that the killing of a far-right activist this month in Lyon showed how the far-left was a threat to public order. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot summoned Kushner to a meeting in protest.
In a breach of diplomatic protocol, Kushner didn’t show up.
“We do not accept that foreign countries and foreign authorities should invite themselves into our national political debate,” Barrot said this week.
Trump’s envoys have cast aside decades of tradition that call for diplomats to avoid meddling—at least publicly—in the politics of their host country. As the guarantors of European security, U.S. officials have long prodded European politicians on various issues—but usually behind closed doors and rarely with the bluntness of Trump’s diplomats..."
WSJ:"...Wall Street smells an opportunity in the chaos over President Trump’s tariffs.
The Supreme Court’s tossing of Trump’s sweeping tariffs last week kicked off a scramble among business leaders to sort out what might come next—including how they might claw back the levies they have been paying to import goods from around the world.
..
WSJ:"WASHINGTON—President Trump told a national audience on Tuesday that he had unleashed a new age of economic prosperity. One thing he didn’t say: I feel your pain.
At the core of Trump’s State of the Union address was a calculation that he can persuade Americans that the economy is in better shape than many think it is. In touting “a turnaround for the ages,” the president opted against sending a message to voters that he understands the anxiety that polling shows is widely felt, including among swing voters the GOP needs to preserve its congressional majorities in this fall’s midterm elections..."
WSJ:"
...
WSJ Opinion: Scott Lincicome on Where the Trump Tariff Wars Are Going Next
...
Now that the Supreme Court has struck down Trump's "emergency" tariffs, will the government refund the billions of dollars it unlawfully collected? And as Trump turns to other tariff authorities, how much will he be limited by those laws?
Well, that will show the Supreme Court—or something. President Trump is reacting to his Friday tariff defeat not by calming the trade waters but by roiling them further. He is aiming in fury at the Supreme Court, but he will end up hitting the economy and Republicans in Congress.
The smart play after his legal defeat would be to take an off-ramp and forgo or pause new tariffs. Instead the White House this weekend dusted off Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 as a work-around. That provision lets a President impose tariffs of up to 15% across the board for up to 150 days “to deal with large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits.”
What a relic, which wasn’t intended to manage a trade deficit per se. Instead it’s a holdover from a bygone era of the gold standard, fixed exchange rates and periodic panics about global liquidity.
..
The balance of payments is much broader than the balance in the trade of goods or services. It encompasses an economy’s total international position, including trade and capital flows. These days the U.S. balance of payments deficit is effectively zero because trade and capital flows exactly offset each other. The balance of payments is such a nonissue that the feds stopped publishing several data series about it in the 1970s.
..."
NYTIMES:"President Trump, promoting a secure border and defending his administration’s hard-line immigration agenda, told the families of people killed by undocumented immigrants that their loved ones would still be alive if the 2020 election hadn’t been “rigged.”
Mr. Trump has been ramping up a series of unfounded attacks on the security of U.S. elections, and he has frequently repeated the lie that he won the election in 2020. His latest comments, delivered at the White House in front of grieving families on Monday, was the first time he linked his theory to the fates of people who had been murdered.
“If that election wasn’t rigged,” Mr. Trump told the families, “every single one of the people in this room right now would not be here.”
Minutes later, a woman named Marie Vega shared her story of loss. Her son, Javier Vega Jr., was shot and killed by two undocumented immigrants during a robbery attempt in 2014, two years before Mr. Trump was first elected.
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Ms. Vega also reaffirmed the president’s claim that he had been cheated: “By the way, you won that election as well,” she said, turning to Mr. Trump. “And we know it.”
The event on Monday, in which Mr. Trump gathered several families at the White House to sign a proclamation honoring people who had been killed by undocumented immigrants, showed how closely people the president has called angel families have become intertwined with his political identity.
For over a decade, those families have provided powerful political cover for some of Mr. Trump’s most aggressive policies, which are predicated on the idea that undocumented immigrants are responsible for violence. Mr. Trump and his supporters often point to high-profile crimes as evidence, but data shows that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people who are born in the United States.
As Americans remain torn over the administration’s aggressive and sometimes violent methods of immigration enforcement, these families are continuing to back up Mr. Trump. On Monday, they stepped up to the microphone to praise the president, elevate his unfounded claims or serve as character witnesses.
..
"
CNN:"The US Supreme Court on Monday approved an emergency appeal from a Republican congresswoman in New York who asked the justices to block a state court ruling that ordered her Staten Island-based district to be redrawn ahead of the midterm election.
The high court’s three liberal justices dissented from the decision..."
CNN:"Back-flipping, nunchuck-weilding humanoid robots delighted and amazed viewers at China’s annual televised new-year extravaganza with their kung-fu choreography. But they – and their rivals who took to the stage Monday night – also carried a message about just how rapidly Chinese androids are advancing.
The fluid movements, agility and fault recovery of Chinese firm Unitree Robotics’ bots, which kicked and flipped on-stage alongside young, human martial artists during the broadcast, were leaps ahead of the staid handkerchief-twirling and shuffling footwork of the Unitree models that performed last year to much fanfare.
And it wasn’t just Unitree. Across state broadcaster CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala this year, China’s growing tech capabilities – and the fierce competition within its high-tech sector – were on full display.
It’s a theme that’s not new at the gala, China’s largest televised event, which equates roughly to the Super Bowl in its TV programming heft. But it underscores China’s growing drive to transform itself into a tech powerhouse amid a wide-ranging rivalry with the US.Several major robotics firms took coveted slots in the roughly four-hour-long gala.
..."
REUTERS:"WASHINGTON/GENEVA/DUBAI, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Even for a U.S. president long fixated on deal-making, Donald Trump’s assignment of his favorite envoys to juggle two sets of negotiations – the Iranian nuclear standoff and Russia’s war in Ukraine - in a single day in Geneva has left many in the foreign policy world scratching their heads.
The shuttle diplomacy on Tuesday by U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has raised questions not only about whether they are overstretched and outmatched, but about their serious prospects for resolving either of the twin crises, experts say..."
NYTIMES:"By Erika SolomonLeily Nikounazar and Sanjana VargheseProduced by Jon Hazell
Feb. 17, 2026
Updated 1:57 p.m. ET
With patriotic anthems and chants against the country’s clerical rulers, Iranians on Tuesday began commemorating the end of a traditional 40-day mourning period for loved ones killed at the peak of the government’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests.
The authorities have moved quickly to tamp down protests or other demonstrations of anti-government sentiment to mark the occasion, with videos verified by The New York Times showing security patrols in at least two cities.
Tuesday is the first of what are expected to be several days of memorial ceremonies across the country to honor the 40th day since thousands of protesters were killed from Jan. 8 to Jan. 10. The commemorations will test both of the success of the crackdown and the ability of government opponents to find new ways to defy the state..."
WSJ:"WASHINGTON—Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt was about to start a news conference at the capitol building in Oklahoma City last week when his phone rang.
President Trump was on the line—and he wasn’t happy.
Trump expressed frustration that Stitt, the Republican chairman of the National Governors Association, was defending a pair of Democratic governors whom the president wanted to bar from a coming event at the White House. “This is the White House,” Trump told the governor, according to people familiar with the exchange. “I can invite whomever I want.”
Trump’s tense exchange with Stitt, which was followed by critical social-media posts about the governor, is emblematic of the tightrope Stitt has been walking as the head of the bipartisan organization of governors. Stitt has gently pushed back on some of Trump’s actions, raising concerns that the president’s muscular use of federal power is stepping on states’ rights. But he is also trying to avoid making an enemy of the president, who maintains a tight grip on the Republican Party.The tensions will be on display later this week when governors visit the White House for a Friday morning meeting, which Stitt helped organize, and a dinner with the president. Trump excluded Democratic Govs. Jared Polis of Colorado and Wes Moore of Maryland from the events, setting off days of hand-wringing within the National Governors Association over how to respond.
Trump’s criticism of Stitt marked the latest conflagration between the president and a member of his own party, including those elected in ruby-red states such as Oklahoma, where Trump has dominated politics. .."
NYTIMES:"The U.S. economy is growing, but not evenly.
What began as an uneven rebound from the Covid-19 pandemic has hardened into what many economists describe as a “K-shaped” economy, in which higher-income households pull ahead while lower-income households fall further behind. High interest rates, rising costs and the rapid growth of artificial intelligence could deepen those divides, economists warn.
“We are returning to a typical pattern of extremely high income inequality, and it now stands at a 60-year peak,” Beth Ann Bovino, chief economist at U.S. Bank, wrote in a recent report. “The worry is not just where we stand now, but also whether ongoing developments will worsen the situation.”
The net worth of the top 1 percent of households climbed to a record share of nearly 32 percent of the national total in the third quarter of 2025, according to data from the Federal Reserve, which started tracking household wealth in 1989. Spending patterns have also split: Households earning under $75,000 a year are spending less on discretionary categories like travel and experiences than they did in 2019, while those making more than $150,000 are spending more, according to Bank of America Institute.
Retail sales softened in December, data released on Tuesday showed, weighed down by a slight drop in purchases of vehicles and food.
More executives are acknowledging the divide and its effects on their business.
..
"
REUTERS:"WASHINGTON/FORT BRAGG, North Carolina, Feb 13 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday embraced potential regime change in Iran and declared that "tremendous power" will soon be in the Middle East, as the Pentagon sent a second aircraft carrier to the region.
Trump's military moves and tough talk comes even as Washington and Tehran seek to revive diplomacy over Tehran's long-running nuclear dispute with the West.
..
A source briefed on the matter told Reuters that U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will hold negotiations with Iran on Tuesday in Geneva, with representatives from Oman acting as mediators. The source said Witkoff and Kushner will also meet officials from Russia and Ukraine on Tuesday in Geneva in the U.S. drive to bring an end to the war in Ukraine.
..
"
REUTERS:"BERLIN, Feb 16 (Reuters) - German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil said on Monday the European Union was at a turning point in which countries should not hide behind national interests but accelerate progress to strengthen EU influence and sovereignty.
"We want to cut through knots, we want to find solutions always with the goal of strengthening Europe's sovereignty and making Europe strong," Klingbeil said in Brussels. "This is a very European moment."..."
APNEWS:"CHICAGO (AP) — Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino praised a federal agent who shot a Chicago woman during an immigration crackdown last year, according to evidence released Wednesday by attorneys who accused the Trump administration of mishandling the investigation and spreading lies about the shooting.
Marimar Martinez, a teaching assistant and U.S. citizen, was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent in October while in her vehicle. She was charged with a felony after Homeland Security officials accused her of trying to ram agents with her vehicle. But the case was dismissed after videos emerged showing an agent steering his vehicle into Martinez’s vehicle.
Her attorneys pushed to make evidence in the now-dissolved criminal case public, saying they were especially motivated after a federal agent fatally shot Minneapolis woman Renee Good under similar circumstances..."
NYTIMES:"In an extraordinary court filing, the top federal prosecutor in Minnesota acknowledged on Thursday that officials had provided incorrect information about a shooting by an immigration agent last month.
The prosecutor, Daniel N. Rosen, asked a judge to dismiss charges against a man who was wounded in that shooting, as well as another man who had been accused of attacking the agent. Mr. Rosen wrote that “newly discovered evidence in this matter is materially inconsistent with the allegations” that federal officials made in a charging document and in courtroom testimony.
“Accordingly, dismissal with prejudice will serve the interests of justice,” wrote Mr. Rosen, who was nominated by President Trump to be U.S. attorney in Minnesota..."
NYTIMES:"...Today many act as if America’s identity as a nation of immigrants was written into the Constitution itself. In reality, it was the product of a political effort less than a century ago — one that was so successful at creating a new national story that it birthed the sheer ethnic diversity in this country that the Trump administration is now determined to undo..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"By Jacob Bogage, Jeff Stein and Perry Stein
The Internal Revenue Service improperly shared confidential tax information of thousands of individuals with immigration enforcement officials, according to three people familiar with the situation, appearing to breach a legal fire wall intended to protect taxpayer data.
..
The erroneous disclosure was only recently discovered, the people said. The IRS is working with officials from the Treasury Department, Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security on the administration’s response.
Federal law mandates strict protections of the identities of taxpayers, including the sharing of data within the federal government. Undocumented immigrants have for years paid taxes with assurances from the federal government that doing so would not result in them being targeted by immigration enforcement..."
NYTIMES:"Trump Says He Will Now Invite Democrats to Governors’ Meeting
Even as he reversed course on excluding Democrats, the president repeatedly attacked a Republican governor who had planned to oversee the meeting.Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma told Democratic governors on Wednesday that President Trump had reversed course and would now invite them to an annual gathering of the nation’s governors at the White House, after the president had previously moved to exclude Democrats from the meeting..."
REUTERS:"Feb 9 (Reuters) - The Trump administration is set this week to overturn an Obama-era scientific finding that serves as the legal basis for federal greenhouse-gas regulation, the Environmental Protection Agency said on Monday.
Repealing the so-called endangerment finding, a scientific determination that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health, would remove the legal foundation for broader greenhouse gas regulation and would mark the Trump administration's most wide-reaching climate policy rollback..."
NYTIMES:"The Trump administration plans to rescind $600 million in public health funds from four states led by Democrats because it finds the grants “inconsistent with agency priorities,” according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.
The programs slated to be cut are in California, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota. They include grants to state and local public health departments as well as to some nongovernmental organizations. A list of the cuts was shared with relevant congressional committees on Monday..."
THEGUARDIAN:"The wife of an Irish man who has been held by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for five months - despite having a valid work permit – is pleading for help in instigating his release from the “dire conditions” he is facing in detention.
“I just want him home where he belongs. I want us to be able to finish what we started,” Tiffany Smyth, wife of Seamus Culleton, said during a Wednesday press conference.
“Seamus is a good man. He doesn’t deserve what is going on, and it’s heartbreaking. It’s absolutely heartbreaking. I don’t know how I’ve gone on these last five months to be honest, it’s just been awful, and I don’t wish this upon anybody.”
Smyth added that she is a US citizen and has lived her whole life in the Boston area..."
CNN:"Mass layoffs outlined last month by the likes of Amazon and UPS made for the worst January for job cut announcements since the Great Recession, new data showed Thursday.
US-based employers announced 108,435 job cuts in January, a threefold increase from layoff announcements in December and more than double what was tallied in January a year earlier, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas’ latest monthly report..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"Electricians are getting harder to find, and some construction projects are on hold. Smartphones are expected to get pricier for potentially years to come. And promising innovations are being starved of investment funding.
Those are just some of the domino effects from the technology industry’s insatiable spending on artificial intelligence, which is diverting resources and attention from other sectors of the economy..."
NYTIMES:"Current economic conditions and Trump administration policies could lead to “a widespread collapse of American agriculture,” a bipartisan coalition of former Agriculture Department officials and leaders of farm groups warned in a letter on Tuesday.
The letter to the heads and ranking members of the House and Senate agricultural committees was signed by 27 influential figures in the farming sector, including former heads of powerful associations representing corn and soybean farmers and officials from the Bush and Reagan administrations. It expressed dismay at the “damage done to American farmers.”
While there are many reasons for increasing farm bankruptcies and decreasing profits, “it is clear that the current administration’s actions, along with congressional inaction, have increased costs for farm inputs, disrupted overseas and domestic markets, denied agriculture its reliable labor pool, and defunded critical ag research and staffing,” the letter warned.
..."
WSJ:"Real Estate
The Housing Market Is Swinging Toward Buyers
Nearly two-thirds of home buyers last year purchased at discount to original listing price, highest proportion since 2019 Many home shoppers have given up on the depressed housing market, where sales are stuck at a 30-year low. But those buying are enjoying discounts at the highest rate in years.
...
THEGUARDIAN:"ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
‘A profound sense of being hunted’: with all eyes on Minneapolis, ICE arrests continue quietly across the US
Immigration operations are still stoking fear and disrupting the ability to go to work, school or doctor’s appointments With the public’s outrage and attention focused on the deadly surge of federal agents in Minneapolis, immigration operations have quietly continued across the US – albeit in less noticeable but still troubling ways, advocates say.
..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit is weighing whether to overturn a lower-court order in Maryland that bars immigration officials from arresting certain people during green card interviews with their U.S. citizen spouse, a tactic being employed by the Trump administration elsewhere in the country...Attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland say that the administration’s effort amounts to a “bait and switch,” in that, under its current policy, people with final orders of removal are invited with their U.S. citizen spouse to show up for a green card interview to begin a first step toward gaining legal permanent status. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers then arrested some while they were in the offices of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for the interview..."
CNN:"...
President Donald Trump on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, on November 18, 2025. Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
“Unreliable,” “untethered to the facts” and “simply not credible.”
As the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown moved from Los Angeles to Portland to Chicago last year, that is how federal judges described claims made by the government in court.
Now, as the administration battles fresh lawsuits over its immigration operations in Minnesota and Illinois, it faces accusations of aggressive tactics, unlawful treatment of protesters and retaliatory detentions – all of which it has defended itself against before.
In Chicago, the government will again face US District Court Judge Sara Ellis, who has already accused one of its top immigration officials of lying under oath. And in Minnesota, where lawsuits have been filed by protesters, residents and state officials, another judge said federal attorneys have yet to turn over “meaningful” evidence to support some of their claims..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"By Ellen Nakashima, Warren P. Strobel, Ben Brasch, Jeremy Roebuck and Emily Davies
At a televised Cabinet meeting last August, President Donald Trump turned to his top intelligence official, noting that she had evidence of “how corrupt the 2020 election was,” and asked when she’d produce it.
“I will be the first to brief you once we have that information collected,” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard replied.
Gabbard, who coordinates the nation’s 18 spy agencies, has put “election integrity” and holding former government officials accountable for alleged election interference among her priorities.
Trump has long maintained that the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden, was rigged. U.S. national security officials at the time said they found no evidence of widespread fraud and numerous courts rejected claims of election irregularities as unfounded.
..."
THEGUARDIAN:"Defence companies, their hiring processes and their employees have become a key target of state-sponsored cyber-espionage campaigns, according to a report from Google released before the Munich Security Conference.
The report catalogues a “relentless barrage of cyber operations”, most by state-sponsored groups, against EU and US industrial supply chains. It suggests the range of targets for these hackers has grown to encompass the broader industrial base of the US and Europe –from German aerospace firms to UK carmakers.
State-linked hackers have long targeted the global defence industry, but Luke McNamara, an analyst for Google’s threat intelligence group, said they had seen more “personalised” and “direct to individual” targeting of employees.
“It’s harder to detect these threats when it’s happening on an employee’s personal system, right? It’s outside a corporate network,” he said. “The whole personnel piece has become one of the major themes.”
.."
CNN:"The Trump administration has ordered a review of federal funding sent to more than a dozen Democratic-led states, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
The sweeping scale of the review is outlined in a budget data request that was sent Tuesday to all federal departments and agencies except for the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The Office of Management and Budget memo, which was reviewed by CNN, requests detailed spending information to “facilitate efforts to reduce the improper and fraudulent use of those funds.” Notably, the effort “does not involve withholding funds,” the memo says and is “part of a “data-gathering exercise.”
The request signals a dramatic escalation of the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive strategy to target federal funding in blue states – an unprecedented policy approach triggered during last year’s government shutdown that has rapidly accelerated in the wake of sweeping fraud allegations in Minnesota..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"By Amanda Coletta, Simon Elegant and Huiyee Chiew
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” and tariff deals with China on Friday after a four-day visit that analysts said was an effort reset a deeply troubled relationship amid Canada’s efforts to diversify trade away from the United States.
Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI.
Carney announced the easing of some of the tariffs the two countries had imposed on each other, with Canada agreeing to allow in 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles at a much-reduced tariff of 6.1 percent, while China will cut canola seed tariffs to about 15 percent..."
REUTERS:"DUBAI, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday blamed President Donald Trump for weeks of demonstrations that rights groups said have led to more than 3,000 deaths.
"We consider the U.S. president criminal for the casualties, damages and slander he inflicted on the Iranian nation," Khamenei said, according to Iranian state media.
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The protests erupted on December 28 over economic hardship and swelled into widespread demonstrations calling for the end of clerical rule in the Islamic Republic.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene, including by threatening "very strong action" if Iran executed protesters.
But on Friday, in a social media post, he thanked Tehran's leaders, saying they had called off mass hangings. Iran said there was "no plan to hang people".
In comments that appeared to respond to Trump, Khamenei said: "We will not drag the country into war, but we will not let domestic or international criminals go unpunished," state media reported..."
THEGUARDIAN:"n Thursday 8 January, Iran went dark. In the midst of massive national protests, the government shut down the internet, phone calls, and almost all communication out of the country. That evening a violent crackdown began. In some cities, government forces opened fire on crowds, killing thousands – according to some estimates, possibly tens of thousands – in two days of bloodshed. The internet blackout has meant that a clearer picture of what happened – drawn from witness reports, videos, photographs and testimony from hospitals – has taken time to assemble.
When the violence began, there were demonstrations taking place in more than 200 cities, according to human rights groups. This is the story of what unfolded in one of them..."
LIVESCIENCE:"Physicists have put thousands of atoms into a "Schrödinger's cat" state — smashing the record for the most macroscopic object to be observed in a quantum state.
In a new study, researchers observed nanoparticles of 7,000 sodium atoms acting as a cohesive wave, pushing the strange world of quantum mechanics to new limits. Building on this research, future experiments could finally put biological molecules into a quantum state, opening up new ways to investigate their physical properties..."
CNN:"Scientists have discovered the largest organic molecule containing sulfur — a key ingredient for life — ever identified in interstellar space. The researchers call the discovery a “missing link” in scientists’ understanding of the cosmic origins of life’s chemistry."
LIVESCIENCE.COM:"Scientists have identified the world's oldest known rock art — a hand stencil created at least 67,800 years ago in Indonesia.
This artwork, nestled in a cave in southeast Sulawesi, is also the earliest archaeological evidence of modern humans (Homo sapiens) living on the islands between the Asian and Australian continental shelves, according to a study published Wednesday (Jan. 21) in the journal Nature. The hand stencil is surrounded by younger rock art, including another hand stencil.
This discovery could fill a major gap in scientists' understanding of the journey the ancestors of Indigenous Australians took before reaching the continent at least 60,000 years ago..."
BBC:"Tiny lion cubs try to avoid getting crushed by elephants
Lion cubs have to weave through towering elephants as a herd of giants walks through the lion pride. The elephants won't step aside for anyone so they could crush a tiny lion cub with a single step.
..."
APNEWS:"CAMBRIDGE, New York (AP) — After he and his fellow monks sang morning prayers in their church nestled in a forest, Brother Luke walked back to his residence to be greeted by a different kind of choir.
Lucy and Iso excitedly woofed as they spotted the Orthodox monk, who heads the monastery’s German shepherd breeding program, coming to take them and 10-week-old Pyrena for their morning walks.
For nearly six decades, the monks of New Skete in upstate New York have financially supported their community and deepened their spiritual life by breeding German shepherds and running on-site, weekslong training programs for all kinds of canines..."
THEGUARDIAN:"...I’m not an ardent cat lover, and I don’t consider myself to be an especially soppy person, but his words send chills down my neck. I feel something open in my chest and my eyes start prickling.
What I’m feeling is kama muta – an under-recognised emotion that has been the focus of Fiske’s work for more than a decade. According to Fiske and his colleagues, kama muta evolved to bind us to others and strengthen our relationships. “It motivates you to embrace and care for other people,” says Jon Zabala, a researcher at the University of the Basque Country. We experience it at some of the most important events of our lives – births, weddings, and funerals ..."
CNN:"Scientists found tryptophan, the ‘sleepy’ amino acid, in an asteroid. Here’s what it means Tryptophan, the essential amino acid behind the Thanksgiving myth that eating turkey can make you sleepy, has been found to exist on Bennu, a small asteroid that swings by our planet about every six years..."
CNN:"The clever, adaptable urban raccoon may be evolving a shorter snout — a key physical trait of pets and other domesticated animals. The new finding describes what a biologist says could be the first account of domestication in its earliest stages..."
THEGUARDIAN:"The raccoon that barged into a Virginia liquor store, smashed bottles of booze and passed out drunk in a bathroom this past Black Friday has at least two other break-ins under his belt, a local government official has revealed.
Before burgling the Ashland ABC store on 29 November, the raccoon had separately broken into a karate studio and a department of motor vehicles office, all on the same block of businesses, Hanover county animal protection officer Samantha Martin said on an episode of the local government’s official podcast published Thursday.
Martin told Hear in Hanover that the raccoon had even eaten some of the snacks kept at the DMV in what perhaps presaged the boozy bender that the animal was later said to have gone on the day after the Thanksgiving holiday.
“This is not the first time he’s been in one of the buildings,” Martin said on Hear in Hanover. “Supposedly, this is the third break-in he’s had...."
BBC:"Listen to world's first 'chat' between humans and whales
A team of scientists had a conversation with Twain, the humpback whale. They also recorded other whales chatting while they were hunting for their next meal."
REUTERS:"WASHINGTON, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Scientists have observed the largest-known rotating structure in the cosmos - a gargantuan thread-like assemblage of hundreds of galaxies, gas and dark matter that makes up a filament in the macrostructure of the universe called the cosmic web.
The filament, located about 140 million light-years from Earth, was observed by scientists primarily using the MeerKAT radio telescope located in South Africa, an array of 64 interlinked satellite dishes.
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The rotating filament is astonishingly large, measuring about 50 million light-years long and 117,000 light-years wide. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km). By way of comparison, our Milky Way galaxy, which itself is part of a filament in the cosmic web, measures roughly 100,000 light-years in diameter.
"We believe that the universe on very large scales is made of a network-like distribution of galaxies, gas and dark matter," said University of Cambridge astrophysicist Madalina Tudorache, co-lead author of the study published this month in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, opens new tab.
"This network is called the cosmic web, and it is formed of clusters, which are very dense clumps of matter, often formed of many groups of galaxies; voids - which are empty or almost empty regions of space; and filaments, which are strand-like structures which connect the very dense regions and border the voids," Tudorache said.
The rotating filament described in the new study is populated by nearly 300 galaxies of various sizes as well as gas and dark matter, the mysterious invisible stuff estimated to make up 27% of the cosmos..."
LIVESCIENCE.COM:"Advanced alien civilizations could be communicating 'like fireflies' in plain sight, researchers suggest
News
By Harry Baker published 19 hours ago
A new paper posits that advanced alien civilizations may communicate through subtle flashes, like fireflies do on Earth. The thought experiment suggests that we need to avoid human biases in our search for extraterrestrial life..."
REUTERS:"NEW YORK, Jan 9 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Friday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's administration from freezing access by five Democratic-led states to more than $10 billion of federal funds for childcare and family assistance based on what it said were concerns about fraud.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian in Manhattan, an appointee of Democratic former President Joe Biden, said he issued a temporary restraining order for the reasons stated in a legal filing by California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York, which filed the lawsuit..."
WSJ:"American employers added jobs at a subdued pace in December, capping a year in which the U.S. labor market lost considerable momentum. Outside of the two most recent recessions, 2025 saw the lowest pace of average monthly job growth since 2003.
The U.S. economy added a seasonally adjusted 50,000 jobs in December, the Labor Department said Friday. That was a slight slowdown from November’s 56,000 gain and undershot economists’ expectations for a 73,000 increase.
The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.4% last month, although it has drifted up from 4% last January...."
WASHINGTONPOST:"Treasury secretaries for decades have been careful to avoid partisan public remarks, fearing that overt political wrangling could undermine their credibility in the eyes of global investors and foreign leaders.
..
Then there is Scott Bessent.
President Donald Trump’s combative treasury secretary in recent days has attacked prominent Democrats by name on social media, described inflation as largely a blue state problem, and lampooned three Democratic governors as “Grinches” and “radical leftists” suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
The jousting shows that compared to his predecessors in both parties, Bessent is unusually eager to engage in partisan combat. He attended the president’s campaign-style rally in Pennsylvania this month, a rare move for a treasury secretary. In a recent appearance at the New York Times’ DealBook conference, he responded to questions about Trump administration practices with gibes about former president Barack Obama and Hunter Biden, the son of another former Democratic president, and echoed his boss’s attacks on the press, claiming that he no longer reads the Times.Once described in a magazine profile as “the least MAGA-afflicted of all of Trump’s top officials,” Bessent in recent months has emerged as an unapologetic political brawler on behalf of the Make America Great Again movement. The secretary’s aggressiveness has won him presidential praise as “our savior,” but left traditionalists grumbling.
..
“There’s a standard of decorum that’s traditionally applied to the treasury secretary that they are ignoring completely. That’s par for the course for the Trump administration,” said one veteran of past Republican administrations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. “But it’s particularly jarring when it comes to the Cabinet officer who most presidents have wanted to keep out of politics.”
..."
WSJ:"The U.S. pledged to protect Ukraine from any future Russian attack, U.S. officials said, offering to support European security guarantees and seek Senate backing for Washington’s promised role, which it hasn’t yet publicly detailed.
The American pledge, which Russian officials are likely to dispute, came on the second day of talks in Berlin among the U.S., Ukraine and European leaders and top officials. It remains unclear to what extent Washington would militarily intervene.
The shift could lift one of the biggest obstacles to Kyiv signing up to a peace deal with Russia, but a bigger hurdle remains, over territory. Still unresolved is the issue of which contested territories Kyiv would keep and whether Ukraine would withdraw unilaterally from an area of the Donetsk region that it currently controls.
European officials have for months offered Ukraine security guarantees to deter a future Russian attack but they have stressed the need to have some form of U.S. help to backstop those plans. European officials have advised Ukraine to tread carefully in agreeing to other major concessions until they had locked in clear U.S. military support..."
CNN:"On the surface of it, Disney’s plan to invest $1 billion in OpenAI while licensing its characters to Sora looks a bit like Goliath capitulating to David. Why would Disney open its precious intellectual property to the masses to do whatever they please? The same IP its lawyers historically would have sued you over if you so much as thought of baking a cake in Simba’s likeness for your kid’s “Lion King”-themed birthday party?..."
NYTIMES:"After the long, torturous summers that bake northern India in 40-degree Celsius (104 degree Fahrenheit) heat, winter should be welcomed as a reprieve. Instead, it is our season of sadness.
The annual pollution emergency faced by hundreds of millions of Indians is upon us — three months of physical and emotional suffocation..."
REUTERS:"ANKARA, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Pope Leo lamented during his first trip outside Italy as Catholic leader on Thursday that the world was seeing an unusual number of bloody conflicts, and warned that a third world war was being "fought piecemeal" with humanity's future at risk.
In his first speech given overseas since his election in May to lead the 1.4 billion-member Church, Leo, the first U.S. pope, said "ambitions and choices that trample on justice and peace" were destabilising the world.
..."
APNEWS:"West Africa’s vast Sahel region has become the deadliest place in the world for extremism, with thousands of people killed. The military governments of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have turned from Western allies to Russia for help combating the fighters affiliated with al-Qaida or the Islamic State group.
When the Africa Corps replaced Wagner six months ago, weary civilians hoped for less brutality. The United Nations says they have been abused by all sides in the conflict..."
REUTERS:"A REUTERS SPECIAL REPORT
They help preserve America’s dominance in the Pacific. They’re paying a painful price ...The Pacific isle of Ebeye and its 10,000 people support a nearby U.S. military base that serves as a bulwark against a Chinese or Russian missile attack. But conditions are harsh: Diabetes is rampant, fish in the surrounding waters are contaminated, and lifespans are short. The island’s neglect may provide an opening for Beijing..."
WSJ:"Amazon.com plans to lay off as many as 30,000 employees starting as early as Tuesday, according to people familiar with the matter, the latest cost-cutting move for the tech giant that is seeking to slim down and conserve cash.
..."
WSJ:"...When Munger died two years ago, weeks before his 100th birthday, the billionaire investor was among the nation’s most beloved businessmen, celebrated for his wit and wisdom—and the role he played helping Warren Buffett build Berkshire Hathaway into a trillion-dollar company.
The unexpected last chapter of Munger’s life is less well-known. In the year before his death, Munger made over $50 million from a bet on an out-of-favor industry he had shunned for 60 years. He revved up his real-estate activities, working with a young neighbor to place big, long-term wagers, unusual for a nonagenarian. He faced down health challenges and wrestled with the future.
“Even a week or two before passing away, he was asking questions such as, ‘Does Moore’s Law apply in the age of AI?’” recalls his friend Jamie Montgomery, referring to whether artificial intelligence would see exponential gains like those experienced in computational power.
Friends and family say Munger’s eventful last period offers lessons for investors—and a blueprint for how to age with grace, equanimity and purpose.
“To the day he died, that mind was running,” says Munger’s stepson, Hal Borthwick. “He never stopped learning.”..."
CNN:"During a question-and-answer session Warren Buffett held with his company’s shareholders in 2008, a young man asked him a bold question: “Do you know and believe in Jesus Christ, and have a personal relationship with him?”
“No. I’m an agnostic,” the billionaire replied. “And I grew up in a religious household, and if you asked that question of my mother or father, you’d have gotten a different answer. I’m a true agnostic. I’m not closer to either a theist or an atheist. I simply don’t know, and maybe someday I’ll know and maybe someday I won’t. But that’s the nature of being an agnostic.”
Buffett may not be religious, but he has invested in plenty of spiritual stock throughout his life. As the 95-year-old prepares to step down as CEO of conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway at the end of this year, many are hailing his financial wizardry. He has been described as one of the most successful investors in history, with an estimated fortune of $150 billion.
But Buffett also leaves behind a body of spiritual wisdom that can help people with more than their money. He’s tapped into insights from Zen Buddhism, Confucius, Stoic philosophers and even the New Testament to show people how to cope — not just with market fluctuations but with life’s downturns as well.
Buffett is not just a business icon — he’s a Zen master, say scholars and practitioners of religious traditions who study his work.
The aura of spirituality that surrounds Buffett has radiated for years. To many of his followers, he’s the “oracle of Omaha.” They don’t make appointments with him; they make pilgrimages from as far away as China and Australia to his modest Omaha home and attend Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meetings to meet the man one money manager called “the God of investing.”
And authors write business books about him that segue into sermonettes, with titles like “The New Tao of Warren Buffett” and “Investment Mantras of Warren Buffett.”But the best source for Buffett’s spiritual guidance is the man himself. He’s created his own body of spiritual wisdom. Investors and non-investors alike pore over his parables and proverbs such as, “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” Or “It (wealth) lets you be in more interesting environments, but it can’t change how many people love you or how healthy you are.”
These are the kinds of Buffett spiritual truth bombs that convinced Leo Babauta, a Zen Buddhist, that Buffett has a Zen-like sensibility.
“He’s one of the richest men in the world, and yet I really don’t feel like he has made that a central part of who he is,” Babauta, author of “The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential…in Business and in Life,” tells CNN.
“He’s surrounded by people who are focused on making money, and he sees how people are deluded (by that). That’s one of the central ideas of Zen: We’re all living these illusions of what’s going to make us happy.”
For Buffett, being a good investor and a good person are intertwined. A person will always live in a bull market if they remember these three spiritual principles, as expressed in his own words:
...‘Envy and greed go hand in hand’
“Thou shall not covet” is one of the Ten Commandments. Envy is one of the seven deadly sins. And yet much of capitalism — and social media engagement — is driven by envy. We often want what someone else has — and we want more than we need.
Buffett may be a man of great wealth, but there are no stories of him chasing after the toys many billionaires splurge on. He still lives in a five-bedroom, two-bathroom Nebraska home he bought in 1958 for $31,500. He still eats at McDonalds and once drove a 20-year-old car with a license plate that read “THRIFTY.” One famous story involves Buffett treating fellow billionaire Bill Gates to lunch at McDonalds and offering to foot the bill after pulling coupons out of his pocket...‘If you’re the luckiest 1% of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99%’
In June of 2006, Buffett made an extraordinary public announcement. In a series of letters, he said he would give the bulk of his fortune away to various foundations and charities. That charitable impulse was also reflected in his final letter to shareholders last month. He acknowledged he has little time left and said he would accelerate his giving by donating about a billion dollars to four of his family’s foundations.
Few wealthy people in America embody the New Testament adage, “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” more than Buffett. That kind of generosity is what inspired Robert L. Bloch, son of the founder of H&R Block, to write a book, “The Warren Buffett Book of Investing Wisdom: 350 Quotes from the World’s Most Successful Investor,” which collects many of the investor’s most inspiring quotes. Bloch tells CNN that Buffett’s gratitude and generosity are “bedrock spiritual principles.”...‘American magic has always prevailed, and it will do so again’
It’s been a tough year for many Americans. Nearly half say they struggle to meet basic needs such as groceries and health care, according to a recent poll published by Politico. Numerous other polls show more than half of Americans feel like the country’s best days are behind them.
And yet Buffett has faith — in America. Faith is another quality that is central to Christianity, a religion he rejects. Faith, according to most revered figure in Christianity, can move mountains. It’s defined as “confidence in what we hope for and assurance of what we do not see,” according to another New Testament writer...
"
CNN:"President Donald Trump went on a lying spree about inflation last week.
Grocery prices. Gas prices. Prescription drug prices. Overall prices. Over just three days, Trump made false claims about all of them.
Trump was discussing the issue of “affordability” after Democrats won state and local elections Tuesday in part by campaigning on the cost of living. He argued that this theme was “a con job by the Democrats” given how successful he said he has been in lowering prices.
But Trump repeatedly used inaccurate statistics and assertions to make his case that Democrats were dishonest. Here is a fact check.
Prices are up during this Trump presidency
Over and over, Trump claimed overall prices have fallen since he returned to office in late January.
“Every price is down,” he said Thursday. “Everything is way down,” he said at another Thursday event. “Prices are down under the Trump administration, and they’re down substantially,” he said Friday, adding, “Everybody knows that it’s far less expensive under Trump than it was under Sleepy Joe Biden. And the prices are way down.”
None of that is true.
Prices are up during this administration. Average prices were 1.7% higher in September than they were in January, according to the most recent figures from the federal Consumer Price Index, and 3% higher than they were in September 2024. There has been inflation every month of the term, and far more products have gotten costlier than cheaper.
Inflation has accelerated to 3%
Trump claimed Friday: “We have almost no inflation. We’re down now to 2%.” He said at the same event: “Inflation is almost nonexistent.”
Those claims are slightly more accurate than Trump’s late-October claims that “we don’t have any inflation” and that “we’re down to 2%, even less than 2%.” But the new claims are still wrong.
Inflation not only very much continues to exist but has been accelerating since the spring. As of September, the year-over-year inflation rate had increased for five consecutive months..."
THEGUARDIAN:"‘Bloodshed was supposed to stop’: no sign of normal life as Gaza’s killing and misery grind on
Seham Tantesh in Gaza, Julian Borger and Emma Graham-Harrison in Jerusalem
A boy sitting with head in hands amid the rubble of a house destroyed in an Israeli strike in Nuseirat
A boy sits slumped amid the rubble in Nuseirat, central Gaza, after an overnight Israeli airstrike on 29 October in which at least 50 Palestinians died.
Photograph: Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images
The term ceasefire ‘risks creating a dangerous illusion life is returning to normal’ for Palestinians squeezed into the remaining 42% of their land behind Israel’s ‘yellow line’..."
CHINA VICTORY DAY PARADE 2025 YOUTUBE
WASHINGTONPOST:"OpenAI’s latest chatbot model, GPT-5, is an improved artificial-intelligence tool: faster, more capable, more accurate. But it’s not the technomagic wand some AI optimists hoped for. The leap to “superintelligence,” the prize behind $400 billion in Big Tech investment this year, now looks later rather than sooner, if even possible.
Get first-person illustrated stories about how work is changing
It’s not the end of the world if Silicon Valley adjusts its dreams of miracle cures, super-materials and warp-speed growth down toward steady office-automation efficiencies for now. Progress is often uneven, with periods of rapid innovation followed by plateaus in which new technology is incorporated. And tempering our immediate hopes for scientific wonders at least means diminishing our fears of rogue machines and mass job extinction.
But this slowdown comes at a dangerous time in which investors are running one step ahead of a populist backlash that could shackle AI with regulation before the technology can reach its next breakthrough. There’s now substantial risk that the industry’s critics turn the public narrative toward its visible harms — whether it’s fears of lost jobs, environmental harm or a broader upheaval of daily life — without enough visible benefits to counteract them.
Americans already tell pollsters they are more concerned than excited about AI. Their doomscrolls bring stories of chatbot addiction, celebrity deepfakes and synthetic voices cloning loved ones to scam the elderly. Older generations worry that younger ones are cheating their way through school...."
CNN:"A recruitment poster recently shared on the Department of Homeland Security’s social media pages depicts Uncle Sam at a crossroads. In one direction point the words “homeland” and “opportunity.” Toward the other, “invasion” and “cultural decline.”
In its caption, the agency overseeing the country’s immigration system presents these choices as an existential national struggle: “Which way, American man?”
It’s a sentiment that the agency is trying to wield to recruit new employees. Many of its posts implore viewers to apply for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has been infused with a windfall of cash from President Donald Trump’s landmark policy bill and hopes to hire 10,000 additional personnel to help with the administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
But underlining the new strategy are undertones that historians and experts in political communication say are alarmingly nationalist — and fraught with appeals to a specifically White and Christian national identity.
“Persuaders succeed when they connect to emotional archetypes,” said Nicholas J. Cull, a professor of communication at the University of Southern California and historian of the role of mass communication in foreign policy. “Fear is often the most prominent in propaganda, but nostalgia runs a close second.”
“Often they land like one/two punches in a classic boxing attack,” Cull said. “That seems to be the intent here.”..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"ICE plans $100 million ‘wartime recruitment’ push targeting gun shows, military fans for hires
A strategy document shared among immigration officials details plans to use influencers and geo-targeted ads to supercharge their push to hire thousands of deportation officers nationwide.
Today at 5:00 a.m. EST U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are planning to spend $100 million over a one-year period to recruit gun-rights supporters and military enthusiasts through online influencers and a geo-targeted advertising campaign, part of what the agency called a “wartime recruitment” strategy it said was critical to hiring thousands of new deportation officers nationwide, according to an internal document reviewed by The Washington Post..."
CNN:"
President Donald Trump threatened legal action against The New York Times, calling the newspaper’s citation of legal experts’ opinion of his lawsuit against CBS “likely unlawful.”
The Times reported Tuesday evening that legal representatives for Trump and Paramount are set to begin mediation on Wednesday over Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit alleging “60 Minutes” deceptively edited an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris before the election. (CBS said they simply aired different portions of the same answer.)..."
CNN:"
A federal appeals court will allow the Trump administration to implement directives from the president cracking down on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, as an appeal of a ruling pausing those orders plays out.
Two of the three judges on the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals panel wrote concurring opinions raising concerns about the anti-DEI directives, even as they concluded that the administration had met the bar for putting the trial judge’s ruling on hold.
The circuit order is a major win for President Donald Trump, who has made the elimination of DEI programs a centerpiece of his administration..."
COMMENT: THIS IS A STAY PENDING APPEAL, NOT A FINAL DETERMINATION OF THE LEGALITY OF THE ORDERS MEMORANDUM OPINION OF DISTRICT COURT JUDGE; DISTRICT COURT PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION; DISTRICT COURT CLARIFIED PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION; 4TH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS STAY PENDING APPEAL
" WASHINGTON, Jan 20 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday rescinded sanctions imposed by the former Biden administration on far-right Israeli settler groups and individuals accused of being involved in violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, the new White House website said.
The website said Trump rescinded Executive Order 14115 issued on Feb. 1, 2024, which authorized the imposition of certain sanctions "on Persons Undermining Peace. Security, and Stability in the West Bank."
Trump's decision is a reversal of a major policy action by former President Joe Biden's administration which had slapped sanctions on numerous Israeli settler individuals and entities, freezing their U.S. assets and generally barring Americans from dealing with them.
As much of the world's attention has focused on the war in Gaza, growing violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank and land grabs in the occupied territory have raised concern among some of Israel's Western allies..."
ATLANTIC:"Did Elon Musk actually toss off a Sieg heil! at Donald Trump’s inauguration rally today?
A lot of people online seem to think he did, based on data from their eyeballs. Freeze-frame images of Musk on social media show the world’s richest man at a podium in Washington, D.C.’s Capital One Arena engaging in what could definitely be construed as a Nazi salute..."
"WASHINGTON, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Donald Trump on Thursday blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for helping start that nation's war with Russia, a comment that further suggests Trump is likely to radically shift U.S. policy toward Ukraine if he wins the Nov. 5 election.
The Republican former president has frequently criticized Zelenskiy on the campaign trail, repeatedly calling him "the greatest salesman on Earth" for
having solicited and received billions of dollars of U.S. military aid since the war broke out in 2022.Trump has also slammed the Ukrainian leader for failing to seek peace with Moscow, and he has suggested Ukraine may have to cede some of its land to Russia to make a peace deal, a concession Kyiv considers unacceptable...." COMMENT: ONCE AGAIN PUTIN'S POODLE, A DE FACTO RUSSIAN PET, BARKS. RUSSIA HAS ALWAYS SOUGHT TO CREATE DIVISION AND MAKE AMERICA TURN ON ITSELF WHICH IS WHAT TRUMP HAS BEEN DOING, AND CONTINUES TO DO
NYTIMES:"...An investigation by The New York Times found that Israeli soldiers and intelligence agents, throughout the war in Gaza, have regularly forced captured Palestinians like Mr. Shubeir to conduct life-threatening reconnaissance missions to avoid putting Israeli soldiers at risk on the battlefield..."
"...Deadly strikes in central Gaza overnight killed or injured dozens of Palestinians, health officials and the United Nations said on Monday, as the Israeli military hit a hospital complex where it said Hamas fighters were hiding and a separate attack damaged a school turned shelter..."
NYTIMES:"
On the Trail, Trump and Vance Sharpen a Nativist, Anti-Immigrant Tone
From calling for mass deportations to spreading false claims about migrants eating pets, former President Donald J. Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, are taking a hard line...
Mr. Trump then took a broad swipe at several corners of the globe.
“They’re coming from the Congo. They’re coming from Africa. They’re coming from the Middle East. They’re coming from all over the world — Asia,” Mr. Trump said. “A lot of it coming from Asia.
“What’s happening to our country is we’re just destroying the fabric of life in our country,” Mr. Trump continued. “We’re not going to take it any longer. You got to get rid of these people. Give me a shot.”
Kathleen Belew, an associate professor of American studies at Northwestern University and the author of “Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America,” said Mr. Trump’s campaign was taking a page from “an old playbook.”
“It’s straight-up fear-mongering,” Ms. Belew said. “It’s incredibly efficient to demonize people and make others scared of them, and it’s always carried a huge and violent cost.”
" COMMENT: THE ONLY TRUE NATIVISTS ARE THE NATIVE AMERICANS. THE REST OF YOU ARE IMMIGRANTS AND SOME OF YOU ARE DECENDANTS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS PUSHING "MANIFEST DESTINY" MURDER AND BRUTALITY
CNN:"
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in July effectively spiked a draft hostage and ceasefire deal by introducing a raft of new, 11th-hour demands, according to a report by the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth citing a document it obtained.
The report lends credence to charges often leveled at the prime minister – most notably by hostage families – of purposefully prolonging the war and torpedoing deals for his political benefit. Far-right members of Netanyahu’s coalition have pledged to bring down the government should he end the war.
Several news outlets, including CNN, have reported on the late July demands made by Netanyahu, but this is the first time the Israeli document has been obtained in full.
According to the newspaper, at least three of six hostages found dead in Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces over the weekend were due for release as part of the May draft agreement – Carmel Gat, Aden Yerushalmi, and Hersh Goldberg-Polin."
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed “there will be a strong reaction” to the deaths of the six hostages whose bodies were found in Gaza this weekend, and plans “to hurt Hamas in a way Israel hasn’t done before,” according to an Israeli official.
“The intention of the PM now is to hurt Hamas in a way Israel hasn’t done before,” the official told CNN..."
CNN:"Iran claims Hamas leader killed by ‘short-range projectile,’ contradicting reports it was hidden bomb"REUTERS: " For many of the Druze community in the Golan Heights mourning 12 youngsters killed in a missile strike at the weekend, the carnage came as a shock despite the months of daily rocket fire and air strikes between Israel and southern Lebanon." THENATIONAL:"After the attack, right-wing members of Israel’s security cabinet showed up in Majdal Shams to mourn, despite a request from Yasser Gadban, a local Druze community leader, for them to stay away.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was met by chants of "murderer" during his visit, while far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has repeatedly called for war against Lebanon, was surrounded by angry locals when he arrived in the area."COMMENT: THE WAR MONGERS WANT THE CARNAGE TO CONTINUE UNTIL WE ARE ALL DEAD. THE WHOLE WORLD IS SICK AND TIRED OF THIS CONSTANT STRIFE. WE MUST HAVE PEACE AND A PEACEFUL RESOLUTION WITHOUT VIOLENCE AND WAR.
CNN:"
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the United States’ and Germany’s decision to deploy US long-range missiles in Germany from 2026 is “reminiscent of the events of the Cold War” and could see Russia station similar missiles in response.
“If the United States of America implements such plans, we will consider ourselves free from the unilateral moratorium on the deployment of medium and shorter-range strike weapons, including increasing the capabilities of the coastal forces of our Navy,” said Putin, speaking at Russia’s annual Navy Day in St. Petersburg.
Putin added that the development of Russian medium and shorter-range strike weapons was “in the final stages,” and Russia would take “reciprocal measures to deploy them.”...COMMENT: YOU HAVE BEEN THREATENING THE WORLD WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS SINCE THE INVASION OF UKRAINE. WHAT DO YOU EXPECT ASSHOLE.
REUTERS:"MOSCOW, June 23 (Reuters) - Russia, the world's biggest nuclear power, could reduce the decision-making time stipulated in official policy for the use of nuclear weapons if Moscow believes that threats are increasing, parliament's defence committee chairman said.
The war in Ukraine has triggered the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis..."BOTH THE KREMLIN AND NORTH KOREA HAVE BEEN THREATENING THE WEST WITH NUCLEAR ARMAGEDDON FOR YEARS.
THEGUARDIAN:"The provocative Jerusalem Day parade by thousands of Jewish nationalists celebrates Israel’s capture and occupation of East Jerusalem and its holy sites in the 1967 war, a move that is not internationally recognised. It has often featured violent clashes between marchers and Palestinian residents of the Old City, as well as anti-Arab hate speech and vandalism of Palestinian property, although last year’s march passed relatively peacefully......"
WIKIPEDIA:"The Nakba (Arabic: النَّكْبَة an-Nakba, lit. 'the catastrophe') was the ethnic cleansing[1] of Palestinians in Mandatory Palestine during the 1948 Palestine war through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with the destruction of their society, and the suppression of their culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations.[2] The term is also used to describe the ongoing persecution and displacement of Palestinians by Israel.[3] As a whole, it covers the fracturing of Palestinian society and the long-running rejection of the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.[4][5]"WIKIPEDIA:"The history of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict traces back to the late 19th century when Zionists sought to establish a homeland for the Jewish people in Ottoman-controlled Palestine, a region roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition.[1][2][3][4] The Balfour Declaration of 1917, issued by the British government, endorsed the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, which led to an influx of Jewish immigrants to the region. Following World War II and the Holocaust, international pressure mounted for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, leading to the creation of Israel in 1948..."
CNN:"To Donald Trump, Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán is “fantastic,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping is “brilliant,” North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is “an OK guy,” and, most alarmingly, he allegedly said Adolf Hitler “did some good things,” a worldview that would reverse decades-old US foreign policy in a second term should he win November’s presidential election, multiple former senior advisers told CNN.
..”An undercurrent of implied violence has always been an essential ingredient of Donald Trump’s strongman persona. As the ex-president’s first trial and the general election approach, he is turning up the heat, creating a tense political atmosphere...."
CNN:"...In 2006, I opened the office of OneVoice Gaza in Gaza City to galvanize Palestinians behind the goal of a two-state solution reached through negotiation with Israel and our neighbors..."COMMENT: VIOLENCE IS COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE. IT ONLY LEADS TO MORE VIOLENCE HATRED AND DEATH. ONE CAN'T BELIEVE THAT WE HAVEN'T LEARNED THIS BY NOW
"LONDON, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin waited three days before commenting on Hamas' massacre of Israelis, which happened to take place on his 71st birthday. When he did, he blamed the United States, not Hamas.
"I think that many will agree with me that this is a clear example of the failed policy in the Middle East of the United States, which tried to monopolise the settlement process," Putin told Iraq's prime minister."COMMENT: HAMAS stated Oct 7 was for 30 years of oppression and immediately called for shitler to act as mediator. Iran feigned surprise. Anyone with half a brain could see that the current war was precipitated by fascist imperialist Russia and its proxies. HAMAS attacked on Putin's birthday. The IDF was aware of the plan a year before but thought it was just "aspirational" NYTIMESThe current catastrophe was calculated and precipitated by Hamas, Iran and Russia. Netanyahu was aware of the plan and has used it to galvanize the right and conduct genocidal tactics creating more hatred towards Israel. At this point Israel Hamas Iran and Russia are responsible for every drop of blood spilled.
CNN:"
Arab and Muslim leaders decried Israeli “war crimes” in Gaza at a summit in Riyadh where Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a first public meeting...."COMMENT:THE JEWS ARE INDIGENIOUS TO ISRAEL AND THE MIDDLE EAST. IRAN IS A FASCIST PROXY OF AN IMPERIALIST TERRORIST RUSSIA AS IS EVERY FASCIST TERRORIST ORGANIZATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST. IT IS HAMAS' STRATEGY TO USE CIVILIANS AS SHIELDS. ISLAMIC FASCIST THINKING VIEWS ALL INDIGENOUS PEOPLE AS SLAVES.(REUTERS:Arab militias scorn ethnic Africans as 'slaves'; hundreds of thousands flee Sudan) .HAMAS IRAN AND RUSSIA IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS CATASTROPHE. SPARE US YOUR BULLSHIT PROPAGANDA
"Matisyahu - One Day (YouTube Version)"
"Bob Marley & The Wailers - One Love / People Get Ready (Official Music Video)"
METERORED:"These wonderful scenes were filmed at a depth of over 650 metres at the Winslow reef complex on Tokelau Ridge." 
WASHINGTONPOST:"...Designer Michael Schmidt is best known for his work in metal. He made chain-mail dresses for Cher, jewelry for his longtime collaborators at Chrome Hearts and a metal gown for Doja Cat that was inspired by Tina Turner (another former client).
Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI.
But he is also an avid knitter — and so he jumped at the chance to do a collection woven entirely from the wool of gay sheep.
Wait, what?..."
THEGUARDIAN:"...Calamity is unapologetically ballsy, scrappy and even smelly. She fires her pistol into the heavens anytime she simply wants to make a point. The whipsmart sharpshooter was the only cinematic female hero I had come across who was not Angelina Jolie wearing hot-pants. Unlike most female and non-binary characters then on screens, James O’Hanlon’s script gave Calamity all the best lines: “This town ain’t big enough for the both of us, not for that frilled-up, flirtin’, man-rustlin’ petticoat it ain’t.”
Butler’s campy, rollicking flick was, probably unintentionally, among the queerest Hollywood releases of its time. It starts off with what is essentially a drag show – despite not being to the Deadwood crowd’s tastes. Then, in a hilarious meet-cute, the Adelaid who Calamity fetches from “the windy city” turns out to be the less vocally gifted, but more “purty” Katie Brown (Allyn Ann McLerie). They shack up together in a kitschy, chintzy queer cottage of dreams. Many have taken Jane for a lesbian, but when she and Katie become rivals for the affection of blue-buttoned Lieutenant Danny Gilmartin (Philip Carey), Calamity seems to experience every bisexual’s nightmare: the two people she fancies getting together..."
CNBC:"CNBC’s Julia Boorstin and Dario Gil, IBM director of research, join 'Power Lunch' to discuss the new AI alliance between META and IBM.
.."IBM, META, AMD, ORACLE, INTEL and about 50 other companies are forming the AI alliance to build vetted interoperable AI tools. They will develop and deploy benchmarks and evaluation standards, tools and other responsible development of AI systems at global scale. They're also talking about addressing social issues witb AI as well as educating policy makers.The IBM Director of Research Dario Gil stated that Open Source has become the modern way develop interoperable standards...
CNNBUSINESS:
CNN:THE WHOLE STORY WITH ANDERSON COOPER: HOW TO UNSCREW A PLANET. Solving the pressing climate issues requires science and everyone's cooperation
On https://play.max.com
CNN:"Researchers have discovered a distant disc galaxy that has surprisingly similar characteristics to our own Milky Way, and it could change our understanding of how galaxies form.
The galaxy, which has been named REBELS-25, is far more orderly than the existing science suggests it should be for its age, according to research led by astronomers from Leiden University in the Netherlands.
REBELS-25 is much younger than our galaxy, but it already shares its rotation and structure, rather than appearent published October 7..."
NYTIMES:"
By David French
Opinion Columnist
I couldn’t stop blinking back tears, and I couldn’t understand why.
I’d just walked out of a movie called “The Testament of Ann Lee.” Lee was the founder of the American Shakers, a tiny utopian Christian sect that started in England in the mid-18th century. Lee brought a small band of followers to the United States shortly before the Revolution.
The Shakers were known for their ecstatic worship (hence the name), their egalitarianism and pacifism, their absolute commitment to celibacy and their furniture. Shakers committed themselves to excellence in all things, and their craftsmanship was impeccable.
I’m not exactly the target audience for a film about chair-making religious extremists. I’m more the kind of moviegoer who’s drawn to Will Ferrell or lightsabers or dragons. Also orcs. I find great meaning in superhero movies. But my wife and son were going, and I wanted to hang out with them..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"Environment
Good news: We saved the bees. Bad news: We saved the wrong ones.
Honeybees have never been in danger of extinction. But scientists are finding that they can accelerate the demise of native bee populations..."
APNEWS:"NEW YORK (AP) — As workers face frozen salaries, inflation and fear of layoffs, some have decided to branch out from their traditional careers. They’re taking on side jobs to bring in additional income and provide a backup plan should they find themselves out of work, or adding second, third and sometimes fourth jobs — what some call “polyworking” — to the mix..."
CNN:"The Rev. Jesse Louis Jackson, the towering civil rights leader whose moral vision and fiery oratory reshaped the Democratic Party and America, has died, his son said. He was 84.
Jackson, a protégé of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., had been hospitalized in recent months and was under observation for progressive supranuclear palsy. He died Tuesday morning, surrounded by his family, according to a statement from his nonprofit social justice organization, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
“His unwavering commitment to justice, equality, and human rights helped shape a global movement for freedom and dignity. A tireless change agent, he elevated the voices of the voiceless – from his Presidential campaigns in the 1980s to mobilizing millions to register to vote – leaving an indelible mark on history,” the statement read..."
CNN:"
Robert Duvall, the Oscar-winning actor best known for “The Godfather,“ “Apocalypse Now” and many other tough-guy roles over an acclaimed screen career that spanned six decades, has died. He was 95.
Duvall died “peacefully” at his home in Middleburg, Virginia on Sunday, according to a statement sent by his public relations agency on behalf of his wife, Luciana.
.."
CNN:"James Van Der Beek, the soft-eyed actor whose boyish good looks and earnestness landed him the leading role in ’90s teen drama “Dawson’s Creek” and catapulted him to stardom, has died. He was 48...Following his death, Van Der Beek’s wife Kimberly, with whom he shared six children, shared a link via social media to a GoFundMe campaign, asking for support because Van Der Beek’s illness left the family in “financial strain.”..."
THEGUARDIAN:"Terrance Gore, a speedy outfielder who played for three World Series champions while spending parts of eight seasons in the major leagues, has died. He was 34.
Chad Funderburk, a family friend who also worked with Gore through his baseball academy, confirmed Gore died on Friday night. He said Gore’s family would provide further details when they feel ready..."
CNN:"Brad Arnold, the lead singer of the Grammy-nominated rock band 3 Doors Down, died Saturday, months after he announced that he had been diagnosed with Stage 4 kidney cancer. He was 47.
The band said in a statement that Arnold “passed away peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, in his sleep after his courageous battle with cancer.”..."
CNN:"Former Philadelphia Eagles defensive lineman Kevin Johnson died from “blunt head trauma and stab wounds” at a homeless encampment, according to the medical examiner.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner said Johnson, 55, was pronounced dead Wednesday morning after being found unconscious. His death was ruled a homicide and is being investigated..."
NYTIMES:"Billy Bass Nelson, who turned a part-time job sweeping floors for a New Jersey barber named George Clinton into a gig as the first bassist for Funkadelic, Mr. Clinton’s groundbreaking band that melded R&B, funk and acid rock into a groovalicious exploration of the furthest reaches of the musical universe, died on Saturday. He was 75.
"
THEGUARDIAN:"Maine’s governor has hailed the life of a woman who spent nearly 100 years fishing for lobsters as “amazing” and expressed hopes that her memory inspires “the next century of hardworking” fishers in the state.
The subject of Governor Janet Mills’ tribute, Virginia “Ginny” Oliver, died on 21 January at age 105, according to an obituary published on Monday by her family.
Some regard stories such as that of Oliver, who came to be known as her state’s “Lobster Lady”, as evidence of the growing number of Americans who extend their working days well past the typical retirement age as the cost of living in the US has soared, wages have stagnated and many therefore have been unable to save..."
CNN:"Catherine O’Hara, the radiant actress whose singular comedic delivery helped elevate movies and TV shows like “Beetlejuice,” “Home Alone” and “Schitt’s Creek” to cult classic status, has died. She was 71.
A statement from CAA, the agency that represented O’Hara, said the actress died Friday “at her home in Los Angeles following a brief illness.”..."
APNEWS:"Two-time Grammy Award-winning reggae drummer Sly Dunbar, who fueled countless tracks from Bob Marley to Bob Dylan and was one-half of the influential reggae rhythm section Sly & Robbie, has died. He was 73.
Dunbar’s wife, Thelma, announced the death to the Jamaica Gleaner.
Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare — Sly & Robbie, also known as “The Riddim Twins” — played on reggae classics by Black Uhuru, Jimmy Cliff and Peter Tosh and would garner attention far from Jamaica, from the likes of Grace Jones and the Rolling Stones..."
CNN:"Claudette Colvin, whose 1955 arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery, Alabama, bus helped spark the modern civil rights movement, has died. She was 86.
Her death was announced Tuesday by the Claudette Colvin Foundation. Ashley D. Roseboro of the organization confirmed her death.
Colvin was arrested months before Rosa Parks gained international fame before refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus."
WASHINGTONPOST:"Scott Adams, who became a hero to millions of cubicle-dwelling office workers as the creator of the satirical comic strip “Dilbert,” only to rebrand himself as a digital provocateur — at home in the Trump era’s right-wing mediasphere — with inflammatory comments about race, politics and identity, died Jan. 13. He was 68.
His former wife Shelly Miles Adams announced his death in a live stream Tuesday morning, reading a statement she said Mr. Adams had prepared before his death. “I had an amazing life,” the statement said in part. “I gave it everything I had.”..."
THEGUARDIAN:"Music
Bob Weir was a songwriting powerhouse for the Grateful Dead – and the chief custodian of their legacy
Alexis Petridis
...
‘The Kid’s jazz-influenced rhythm guitar made him utterly integral to the Dead and his later collaborations solidified the band’s influence over latter-day alt-rock
Bob Weir, co-founder of rock group the Grateful Dead, dies at age 78
Bob Weir: a life in pictures
Aaron Dessner: ‘Bob Weir remained completely in touch with the Grateful Dead’s wild wonder. I’ll never forget playing with him’"...
APNEWS:"LONDON (AP) — Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96.
The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died Saturday in London, where she lived.
Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who co-founded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice..."
CNN:"Tatiana Schlossberg, an environmental journalist who was a granddaughter of President John F. Kennedy, died on Tuesday, her family announced. She was 35.
“Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts,” the family said in a statement posted on social media by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum..."
CNN:"... Arnett asked bin Laden why he was declaring a jihad, holy war, against the United States.
Bin Laden gave a long answer critiquing American support for Israel and US allies in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia...."
NYTIMES:"Brigitte Bardot, the pouty, tousle-haired French actress who redefined mid-20th-century movie sex symbolism in films beginning with “And God Created Woman,” then gave up acting at 39 to devote her life to the welfare of animals, died on Sunday at her home in southern France. She was 91.
Fondation Brigitte Bardot, which she established for the protection of animals, announced her death..."
CNN:"Roy Ayers, the legendary American vibraphonist, composer and pioneer of jazz-funk, died Tuesday, his family said. He was 84.
The producer passed away in New York City after a long illness, the family announced on Facebook. A specific cause of death was not immediately disclosed.
Ayers “lived a beautiful 84 years and will be sorely missed,” his family said..." YOUTUBE/NORMAN CONNORS ROY AYERS STARSHIP
CNN:"Look back at Russia's armed conflicts since Putin took office
Anderson Cooper 360
CNN's Matthew Chance takes a look at the career of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the parallels of a number of wars Russia has been involved in the past and the war in Ukraine today.Source: CNN”
CNN:"The administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis this month quietly proposed extending Florida’s controversial prohibition on classroom instruction related to sexual orientation and gender identity to all grades.
The Florida Department of Education approved the proposed rule on March 9 and it was published in the Florida Administrative Register for review on March 16. The State Board of Education is scheduled to take it up on April 19.
DeSantis last year signed into law a measure that banned such instruction through fourth grade, arguing at the time that young children should not be exposed to concepts like gender identity. The fight over the legislation attracted opposition from across the country, including the White House and Walt Disney Company. In response to Disney’s objections, DeSantis moved to strip the company of its special governing tax district.
.."
ALJAZERRA:"The leader of Myanmar’s ruling generals will travel to Russia next week for economic talks as both governments face diplomatic isolation over militaristic moves.
Senior General Min Aung Hlaing will attend the Eastern Economic Forum in the far-eastern city of Vladivostok, the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported on Saturday.
.."Moreover, the source of much of the misinformation about vaccines comes from an unobvious source: the Russian government’s propaganda apparatus, which cultivates and exploits foreign anti-vaccine “useful idiots,” causing palpable harm to Americans and citizens of other Western countries." In addition, the..."anti-mask movement in many ways, shares similarities with that of the anti-vaccine movement..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"
Reckoning of American Indian boarding schools grows
The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition identified 115 more schools than the 408 federally funded schools previously recognized, bringing the known number of schools that forced Native American children to assimilate to White culture to 523 across the U.S.
The coalition scoured thousands of records scattered across the National Archives, universities, tribal offices and local historical societies to identify and map the schools as part of an effort to raise awareness about an often forgotten part of U.S. history.
“Regardless of who was complicit in running these schools, whether it was done by the federal government or a church or religious group, they both thought it was acceptable to create these schools to remove Native children from their land, strip them of their language and reprogram them under a Manifest Destiny model,” said Samuel Torres, deputy chief executive of the coalition.
Tens of thousands of American Indian children attended these schools, although no one knows the exact number. Thousands are believed to have died, the coalition said.There are increasingly few Native elders alive to give firsthand accounts of their time at the schools. Many are now in their 70s and 80s and attended the schools in the late 1940s and ’50s. Some were physically, mentally and sexually abused. Their experiences left them deeply scarred.
‘12 years of hell’: Indian boarding school survivors share their stories
The coalition’s work comes amid a growing effort to expose the harmful legacy of the boarding school era on American Indian families and tribes as part of the federal government’s broader, centuries-long policies to try to eradicate Native Americans and seize their land. The reckoning has been spurred in large part, many Native leaders said, by the discovery in 2021 of roughly 200 unmarked graves of children who died at a residential school in Canada."
CNN:"You know the story: a young, undersized, aspiring artist from New York’s Lower East Side who loves his country and hates bullies uses a superhero persona to take on the Nazis and becomes a war hero. It’s the origin of Captain America. It’s also the origin of Jack Kirby, his co-creator.Captain America debuted 82 years ago this month, in 1941’s “Captain America Comics” no. 1, the brainchild of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.
.."
CNN:"Armed Idaho locals show up to library board meetings to push ban of over 400 books
CNN's Nick Watt is in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, where locals are pushing back against activists trying to get more than 400 books banned from the library — books that the library doesn't even have.Source: CNN Trustees of the local library are under seige by "American Redoubt" and are facing a recall. Locals are resisting. A coalition of conservatives and liberals are attmpting to fight back but the book ban crowd has been running and winning elections.
.."COMMENT:The book ban crowd are nothing more than fascist nazis. The scary part is that they are winning. They say they are Christian? Utter nonsense. "He who does not love does not know God, for God is love"1 John 4:7-11 NKJV
CNN:"Former US Army corporal and Medal of Honor recipient Hiroshi “Hershey” Miyamura has died, according to a news release from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.
He was 97 years old.
Miyamura was born on October 6, 1925, in Gallup, New Mexico. He joined the Army in January 1945 as part of a mostly-Japanese American infantry regiment, according to the statement. “He was discharged from the Army shortly after Japan surrendered but later enlisted in the US Army Reserve” and returned to active duty after the Korean War began."
President Dwight D. Eisenhower presented Miyamura with the Medal of Honor on White House grounds in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 27, 1953, for his actions near Taejon-Ni, Korea, during the Korean War.
On April 24, 1951, then-Cpl. Miyamura was a machine-gun squad leader with Company H occupying a defensive position when the enemy threatened to overrun the position. Aware of the imminent danger to his men, he engaged in close hand-to-hand combat, killing approximately 10 of the enemy before returning to administer first aid to the wounded and directed their evacuation.
When another assault hit the line, he manned his machine gun until his ammunition was expended and ordered the squad to withdraw while he stayed behind bayoneting his way through infiltrated enemy soldiers to a second gun emplacement and assisted in its operation. He ordered his men to fall back while covering their movement and killed more than 50 of the enemy before his ammunition was depleted and he was severely wounded but was still seen continuing to fight an overwhelming number of enemy soldiers before being captured by the enemy."
ABCNews: video and audio of free divers swimming with humpbacks in Bermuda. "5 reasons why swimming with whales and touching them is dangerous.
Sea life
Swimming with whales can be lots of fun, but it is not recommended, more so, touching them can be extremely dangerous for both you as a human and the whale itself...It must take a really bold or crazy person to swim out into the ocean and harass a 50,000-pound mammal...Swimming with Whales is not a good idea. They are massive in size and its weight could easily crush you to death.
It is just common sense to leave them alone. This mammal is best observed from a safe distance..."
LIVESCIENCE:"Whale watchers near the U.S.-Canada border recently witnessed a brutal mass brawl between more than a dozen aggressive orcas and a pair of defensive humpback whales. The intense confrontation, which lasted for several hours, included breaching, tail-slapping, biting flippers and loud vocalizations that could be heard from above the surface, according to reports. But it is unclear which species swam away victorious.
The cetacean showdown took place Sept. 29 in the Juan de Fuca Strait in the Salish Sea..."
NYTIMES:"There is a battle raging across America (and soon in the halls of the Supreme Court) over what it means to be an American and what our nation should aspire to be.
It’s part of a war between two stories of nationhood that we’ve been waging since the United States was created 249 years ago.
One vision is civic. It says that we Americans may lack a common history, religion or ethnicity, but what we share are the ideals in the Declaration of Independence: Each human has a natural and equal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To be American, in this tradition, is to create a society dedicated to making these ideals a reality.
The other vision — an animating force inside the Trump administration — is exclusive and ethnonationalist. Vice President JD Vance laid it out explicitly in a speech this summer: a national identity based not on ideals, but on privileged heritage and bloodlines..."
CNN"...
Nearly five years after the 2020 election, the debunked conspiracy that Trump was robbed of the election due to massive voter fraud has become gospel in many corners of the Republican Party. Back in power, Trump has not only pardoned rioters but also rewarded the advisers, allies and attorneys who promoted the lie on his behalf.
Some have new jobs at the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department. And at the White House, Kurt Olsen, a lawyer behind one of Trump’s major lawsuits in 2020 seeking to throw out millions of votes, now reportedly has a role investigating issues from 2020 and other voting-related matters. Others are running for office with Trump’s endorsement. And some are helping advance Trump’s agenda on elections through their outside advocacy efforts.
– Heather Honey, a self-styled election researcher, who seeded the 2020 conspiracy theory that there were more votes than voters in Pennsylvania, has been installed into a key election integrity position at the Department of Homeland Security.
– Honey is a close ally of Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who aided Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia and is now running a national “election integrity” network that’s more powerful than ever and is pushing Trump’s election priorities on the ground in key states.
– Trump is also endorsing figures who backed his election falsehoods, including Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a 2020 “fake elector”, who is running for the GOP nomination for governor in next year’s midterm elections.
– And Sigal Chattah, a Republican lawyer who represented an indicted fake elector in Nevada, is now the state’s interim US attorney and is reportedly pushing for 2020-related probes.
“The overall dynamic, which is a huge problem for the country no matter which party wins, is that people can lose faith in the reliability of elections,” said Ben Ginsberg, a top GOP election lawyer turned Trump critic. “And elections are the basic mechanism for the peaceful transfer of power that has always been the foundation of our country.”
The president’s elevation of unrepentant election deniers into positions of power comes as he tries to assert new authority over elections. Trump sought to require voters to show proof of citizenship to vote, attempting an end-run around states and Congress. He recently pledged to act unilaterally to impose voter identification requirements on states and to end most mail-in voting, which would upend a safe and reliable voting method used by millions of Americans.
This year, Trump also signed an executive order, seeking broad changes in how elections are run, although the Constitution primarily vests states with that power. (Parts of the order have been blocked in court.) The Justice Department is demanding that states hand over information about their voters – including sensitive personal data, such as partial Social Security numbers – as they hunt for examples of fraud.
Mitchell even suggested recently that Trump could deploy “emergency” powers over future elections. Comments like these, coupled with Trump’s actions, have put current and former election officials on edge, with the midterms one year away and the 2028 presidential election on the horizon.
“Russia, China and Iran are sitting back and laughing at us because we’re doing this to ourselves. Our leaders are planting distrust in our own elections and institutions,” said Kathy Boockvar, a Democrat who was Pennsylvania’s top election official during the tumultuous 2020 election. “Having election deniers in these positions of power adds stress to the system.”
A White House spokesperson referred CNN to other agencies and did not respond to questions about the administration’s elevation of figures who have promoted debunked election conspiracies or whether the president was considering invoking emergency powers over elections..."
CNN:"President Donald Trump made a series of false claims about elections in a Monday social media post in which he pledged to “lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS” and voting machines – including an inaccurate assertion that states have to run elections in the manner the president tells them to.
Here is a fact check of some of Trump’s comments.
“We are now the only Country in the World that uses Mail-In Voting. All others gave it up because of the MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD ENCOUNTERED.”
False. Dozens of other countries use mail-in voting, as CNN and others have pointed out when Trump has made such claims before. These countries include Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Switzerland.
The specifics of different countries’ policies vary, but it’s simply not true that every other country has abandoned mail-in voting.
“WE WILL BEGIN THIS EFFORT, WHICH WILL BE STRONGLY OPPOSED BY THE DEMOCRATS BECAUSE THEY CHEAT AT LEVELS NEVER SEEN BEFORE, by signing an EXECUTIVE ORDER to help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections.”
Trump’s claim about Democrats is nonsense. There is simply no basis for the assertion of massive cheating. US federal elections are free and fair; there has generally been a tiny quantity of ballot fraud representing a minuscule percentage of votes cast.
“…Democrats are virtually Unelectable without using this completely disproven Mail-In SCAM. ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING, and everybody, IN PARTICULAR THE DEMOCRATS, KNOWS THIS.”
More fiction. Mail-in voting is a legitimate method used by legitimate voters to cast legitimate ballots. Elections experts say the incidence of fraud tends to be marginally higher with mail-in ballots than with in-person ballots
.."
CNN"
For the first time, scientists have quantified the causal links between worsening heat waves and global warming pollution from individual fossil fuel and cement companies, pushing the boundaries of extreme weather event research in multiple surprising ways.
The new study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, looks at a far more expansive series of heat waves than previous research. It also incorporates the causes of climate change into the calculations.
Instead of looking at one or two localized extreme heat events, the new study encompasses 213 heat waves around the world from 2000 to 2023. It finds, not surprisingly, that heatwaves became much more likely and severe during that period, largely due to the burning of fossil fuels.
.."
NYTIMES:"The nation’s leading scientific advisory body issued a major report on Wednesday detailing the strongest evidence to date that carbon dioxide, methane and other planet-warming greenhouse gases are threatening human health.
The report, published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, is significant because it could complicate the Trump administration’s efforts to revoke a landmark scientific determination, known as the endangerment finding, that underpins the federal government’s legal authority to control the pollution that is driving climate change.
The finding dates to 2009, when the Environmental Protection Agency concluded that planet-warming greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare and so should be regulated under the Clean Air Act. The Obama and Biden administrations used that determination to set strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars, power plants and other industrial sources of pollution.
But in July, the Trump administration proposed to rescind the endangerment finding and contended that subsequent research had “cast significant doubt” on its accuracy.
The proposal is one of President Trump’s most significant steps yet to derail federal climate efforts. If the move is held up in court, future administrations would have no authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. The new National Academies assessment contradicts the administration’s claims. The 136-page report, assembled by a committee of two dozen scientists, concludes that the original endangerment finding was accurate..."
CNN:"The world struck a new climate deal at the COP30 summit in Brazil Saturday, which calls for a tripling of funding to help countries adapt to increasingly severe climate impacts. But countries failed to agree to a roadmap away from fossil fuels, after entrenched divisions threatened to collapse the talks.
The agreement came after more than two weeks of increasingly fraught negotiations between representatives of more than 190 countries in the port city of Belém, known as the gateway to the Amazon. Disagreements reached such fever pitch there were fears the summit would collapse with no deal. Talks stretched overtime as dozens of nations pushed back against an outcome that didn’t explicitly mention a transition away from oil, coal and gas — the drivers of the climate crisis.
But just after midday local time Saturday, the COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago gaveled through a deal.
The final text contained no mention of fossil fuels, signaling a retreat from consensus agreements only two years old. It included only a general agreement on deforestation, rather than more explicit commitments, which had been another key issue in the negotiations.
More than 80 countries, including Colombia, the UK and France, supported the concept of a “roadmap” to transition away from fossil fuels, building on a commitment made at COP28 in Dubai in 2023. However, intense opposition from petrostates — including Saudi Arabia and Russia — and other heavy fossil fuels users prevented consensus.As part of reaching the deal, Corrêa do Lago instead said the COP presidency in Brazil would produce side texts detailing a global roadmap for moving away from fossil fuels and addressing deforestation that not all countries signed off on.
This unorthodox move was intended to demonstrate that all countries’ issues were heard at the summit, and allow COP to potentially build off the language in future negotiations.
After the agreement was gaveled through, multiple developing countries spoke out against it, including Colombia, which formally objected to the lack of inclusion of a reference to fossil fuels.
There was some progress at COP30. Wealthier countries agreed to work toward tripling the money available to help climate-vulnerable countries adapt to the ravages of global warming — a potential goal of $120 billion a year by 2035, to come out of the $300 billion pot of funding they agreed to at last year’s COP.
The summit deal also included an agreement to a plan for a “just transition” — the idea that as the world moves away from fossil fuels, workers in these industries must not be left behind but instead are helped into cleaner jobs. However, this included no specific funding..."
NYTIMES:"
Two of the best-known Israeli human rights groups said Monday that Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, adding fuel to a passionately fought international debate over whether the death and destruction there have crossed a moral red line.
The two groups were B’Tselem, a rights monitor that documents the effects of Israeli policies on Palestinians, and Physicians for Human Rights — Israel. Their announcement was the first time major Israeli rights groups have publicly concluded that the Gaza war is a genocide, an assessment previously reached by some organizations like Amnesty International.
In a report titled “Our Genocide,” B’Tselem cited the devastating effects of Israel’s war on ordinary Palestinians to support their claim: the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza; the razing of huge areas of Palestinian cities; the forced displacement of nearly all of Gaza’s two million people; the restriction of food and other vital supplies.
All together, the Israeli campaign has amounted to “coordinated action to intentionally destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip,” the organization wrote. “In other words: Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”
Israel rejected the accusations as “baseless.”
.."
APNEWS:"LONDON (AP) — The leaders of Britain, France and Germany demanded Israel allow unrestricted aid into Gaza to end a “humanitarian catastrophe,” after French President Emmanuel Macron announced that his country will become the first major Western power to recognize a Palestinian state.
The joint statement, issued after a call between Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, called for an an immediate ceasefire and said that “withholding essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable,” though it broke no new diplomatic ground..."
REUTERS:"PARIS/WASHINGTON, July 24 (Reuters) - France intends to recognise a Palestinian state in September at the United Nations General Assembly, President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday in hopes of bringing peace to the region, but the plan drew angry rebukes from Israel and the United States.
Macron, who unveiled the decision on X, published a letter sent to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas confirming France's intention to press ahead with Palestinian recognition and work to convincing other partners to follow suit..."
USA-TODAY:"
See the Good Trouble protests across the US in opposition of Trump
People line Cedar Street in front of the Ingham County Health Department during the 'Good Trouble Lives On' protest on Thursday, July 17, 2025, in Lansing, Mich.
People line Cedar Street in front of the Ingham County Health Department during the 'Good Trouble Lives On' protest on Thursday, July 17, 2025, in Lansing, Mich.
Nick King, Lansing State Journal Via USA TODAY NETWORK
People line Cedar Street in front of the Ingham County Health Department during the 'Good Trouble Lives On' protest on Thursday, July 17, 2025, in Lansing, Mich.
People line Cedar Street in front of the Ingham County Health Department during the 'Good Trouble Lives On' protest on Thursday, July 17, 2025, in Lansing, Mich.
Nick King, Lansing State Journal Via USA TODAY NETWORK
Protesters with "Good Trouble Lives On" during a national anti-Trump rally at the Arizona state Capitol in Phoenix on July 17, 2025.
Protesters with "Good Trouble Lives On" during a national anti-Trump rally at the Arizona state Capitol in Phoenix on July 17, 2025.
Rob Schumacher, The Republic Via USA TODAY NETWORK
Good Trouble protestors hold up signs to passing cars from the pedestrian bridge crossing Route 18 in New Bedford, N.J.
.."
CNN:"
The first test images from a groundbreaking observatory named for trailblazing astronomer Vera Rubin have captured the light from millions of distant stars and galaxies on an unprecedented scale — and are expected to reveal thousands of previously unseen asteroids.
While the National Science Foundation has so far released only a couple of images and a brief video clip of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s first imagery, more images and videos taken using the largest camera ever built are expected to be shared at 11:30 a.m. ET Monday on the agency’s YouTube channel. The facility is jointly funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science......"
CNN:"Astronomers have used mysterious fast radio bursts, or millisecond-long bright flashes of radio waves from space, to help them track down some of the missing matter in the universe.
Dark matter and dark energy make up most of the universe. Dark matter is an enigmatic substance that shapes the cosmos, while dark energy is a force that accelerates the expansion rate of the universe, according to NASA. Both are impossible to directly observe but can be detected due to their gravitational effects.
But the rest of the universe is made of cosmic baryons, or ordinary matter, which can be found in tiny particles called protons and neutrons.
“If you add up all the stars and planets and cold gas that you see with your telescopes, it only amounts to less than 10% of ordinary matter in the universe,” said Liam Connor, assistant professor of astronomy at Harvard University.
While astronomers thought most of the universe’s ordinary matter was floating in the spaces between galaxies, called the intergalactic medium, or within the extended halos of galaxies — vast, spherical regions including stars and hot gas — they couldn’t measure this foglike matter. That’s because ordinary matter emits light at different wavelengths, but much of it is so diffuse that it’s like trying to spot fog, astronomers say....
BBC:"The Kremlin claimed Donald Trump was showing signs of "emotional overload" after he called Vladimir Putin "absolutely crazy" following Moscow's largest aerial assault on Ukraine.
The US president said on Truth Social on Sunday that "something has happened" to Putin, after Russia killed 13 in Ukraine with 367 drones and missiles. "He has gone absolutely crazy," Trump said. "Needlessly killing a lot of people."
Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, said the comments were "connected to an emotional overload of everyone involved".
Germany's chancellor, Friedrich Merz, meanwhile said that Ukraine's allies had removed all range limits on supplied arms, amid reports he would give Kyiv Taurus missiles.
Trump's comments followed Russia's largest combined aerial attack since its full-scale invasion of February 2022. At least 13 people were killed and dozens injured in Ukraine during the night between Saturday and Sunday after Russia fired 367 drones and missiles.
Between Sunday evening and Monday morning, Russia launched 355 drones against Ukraine, killing 10. The Ukrainian air force said it was the largest attack yet conducted with drones alone.
Peskov said the latest aerial assaults were a response to Ukrainian attacks on Russia's "social infrastructure".
The Russian defence ministry said that air defence systems destroyed 20 Ukrainian drones over several Russian regions.
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine's president, said on Sunday there was no "military sense" to Russia's aerial attacks - rather they were "an obvious political choice... by Putin, a choice by Russia... to continue the war and destroy lives."
.."
CNN:"...The military is one of the few large institutions left in America where citizens voluntarily form close relationships with people of different religions, socio-economic backgrounds and ethnicities — all in service of a common national purpose.
Combat veterans in particular talk about the brotherhood, and sisterhood, formed in battle.
“The enduring emotion of war, when everything else has faded, is comradeship,” William Broyles Jr., a combat veteran in Vietnam, wrote in a classic essay. “A comrade in war is a man you can trust with anything, because you trust him with your life.”
But now some of America’s leaders are telling a different story. The Trump administration has launched a purge of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives throughout the armed forces and military academies. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says a culture of “wokeness and weakness” has made the military less lethal.
Pete Hegseth testifies during his Senate Armed Services confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on January 14, in Washington, DC.
Pete Hegseth testifies during his Senate Armed Services confirmation hearing on January 14, in Washington. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Hegseth, who wrote in a book published last year that “America’s white sons and daughters are walking away” from military service, says he wants to restore the “warrior” mentality to America’s military.
“I think the single dumbest phrase in military history is ‘Our diversity is our strength,” Hegseth said in February in a speech at the Pentagon.
But the strongest rebuttal to Hegseth’s argument is military history itself. Many of the nation’s biggest military blunders occurred because there wasn’t enough diversity in the armed forces..."
CNN:"
President Donald Trump’s effort to do as much as possible as quickly as possible to remake the federal government would gut agencies that have existed for decades or longer. His larger plans would remake elements of the government infrastructure that have been around for centuries.
From Benjamin Franklin to John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon to Barack Obama, it took all of US history to build up some of what Trump has talked about trying to tear down, privatize or remake. And that’s not counting the reforms he plans for safety net programs such as Social Security and Medicare, which he says, without evidence, are full of fraud, but which are also on objectively unsustainable paths..."
CNN:"
When the Justice Department lifted a school desegregation order in Louisiana this week, officials called its continued existence a “historical wrong” and suggested that others dating to the Civil Rights Movement should be reconsidered...Civil rights activists say that’s the wrong move. Many orders have been only loosely enforced in recent decades, but that doesn’t mean problems are solved, said Johnathan Smith, who worked in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division during President Joe Biden’s administration.
“It probably means the opposite — that the school district remains segregated. And in fact, most of these districts are now more segregated today than they were in 1954,” said Smith, who is now chief of staff and general counsel for the National Center for Youth Law...The dismissal has raised alarms among some who fear it could undo decades of progress. Research on districts released from orders has found that many saw greater increases in racial segregation compared with those under court orders.
“In very many cases, schools quite rapidly resegregate, and there are new civil rights concerns for students,” said Halley Potter, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation who studies educational inequity...Ending the orders would send a signal that desegregation is no longer a priority, said Robert Westley, a professor of antidiscrimination law at Tulane University Law School in New Orleans.
“It’s really just signaling that the backsliding that has started some time ago is complete,” Westley said. “The United States government doesn’t really care anymore of dealing with problems of racial discrimination in the schools. It’s over.”
Any attempt to drop further cases would face heavy opposition in court...
CNN:"
The world may feel cold, scary and cruel, but if you are open to seeing it, there is a lot of kindness, according to a new report.
The World Happiness Report, released each year on the International Day of Happiness, is a global analysis on happiness and well-being in partnership with Gallup, the University of Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
This year’s report paid special attention to acts of benevolence and people’s expectations of their communities.
What are acts of benevolence? The report divided them into three categories: donating money, volunteering and doing a nice thing for a stranger.
.."
WASHINGTONPOST:"It’s impossible to pin down the essence of an entire generation. Still, as members of Gen Z, we spend a lot of time thinking about what makes us different from those born before and after us.
Boomers can’t navigate technology. Millennials walk their “doggos” and despise “adulting.” Gen Alpha is doomed. As for Gen X? No one really knows.
Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI.
1:20
Is the generation born between 1997 and 2012 allergic to driving, glued to their headphones, and obsessed with the digital camera revival trend? Well, it seems (Video: Amber Ferguson, Abigail Walker, Ethan Beck, Jade Tran/The Washington Post)
Now it’s us sitting in the hot seat, facing bafflement from both sides. Our generation was born between 1997 and 2012, so our oldest might remember the presidency of George W. Bush, while our youngest could’ve grown up reaching for an iPad while at a restaurant. You might know some of us for our unsettling stare or our preference for subtitles. What’s universal is that people outside our generation can’t seem to figure us out.
..
As technology has made it easier to talk to anyone, communication has become increasingly blunt. For better or worse, the phone call is a thing of the past, mostly helpful for talking to family members who struggle with texting. Otherwise, a random call signals a problem. Those surprise calls are necessary for when something so important arrives that a text can’t be sent. When your pocket starts buzzing, there’s one burning question: What’s the issue?
The answer is often nothing. But that moment of panic brings up many possibilities: Is someone in the hospital? Did I forget about plans? Am I getting fired/hired? The natural response is to cut to the chase. The “hellos” are replaced with a direct, occasionally curt tone and a no-nonsense response. Those fraying social cues are replaced, even in text messages, with something more immediate. It might seem rude, but today, it’s just the pace of information..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"A new line of research has revealed a surprising finding about how the presence of wolves helps keep people safe.
By Dino Grandoni, Alice Li and Joshua Lott
This reporting was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
December 28, 2025 at 5:00 a.m. ESTToday at 5:00 a.m. EST
13 min
ORR, Minn. — The first clue was the flock of ravens.
Tom Gable spotted the birds while driving to work. He pulled over and saw what they were circling: a rib cage poking out of the fresh dusting of December snow, about 20 yards from the road.
Climbing down an embankment, he found more carnage. Tufts of fur scattered like confetti. Trails of blood on the frozen river. And the disemboweled remains of a deer carcass..."
CNN:"
The US Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday it is cutting 10,000 full-time employees across health agencies, the department told CNN.
This comes on top of 10,000 employees who’ve left voluntarily, shrinking the workforce from about 82,000 full-time employees to 62,000.
The cuts were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. In its announcement, HHS said it will consolidate from 28 to 15 divisions, including a new Administration for a Healthy America, and will reduce regional offices from 10 to five. The workforce reduction will save $1.8 billion per year, the agency said.
HHS’ new priority will be to end “America’s epidemic of chronic illness by focusing on safe, wholesome food, clean water, and the elimination of environmental toxins,” the agency said.
.."
NYTIMES:"President Trump’s intensifying conflict with the federal courts is unusually aggressive compared with similar disputes in other countries, according to scholars. Unlike leaders who subverted or restructured the courts, Mr. Trump is acting as if judges were already too weak to constrain his power.
“Honest to god, I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Steven Levitsky, a Harvard political scientist and coauthor of “How Democracies Die” and “Competitive Authoritarianism.”
“We look at these comparative cases in the 21st century, like Hungary and Poland and Turkey. And in a lot of respects, this is worse,” he said. “These first two months have been much more aggressively authoritarian than almost any other comparable case I know of democratic backsliding.”
..."
BBC:"Hungary has passed a law banning Pride marches held by the LGBTQ+ community, sparking outrage in and out of the country.
Parliament voted for the measure just a day after the bill was submitted on Monday, in a process fast-tracked by the ruling right-wing Fidesz party under Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Orban praised the legislation, which bans the event on alleged grounds it is harmful to children, saying: "We won't let woke ideology endanger our kids."
Pride marches had been held for the past 30 years in Hungary. Opposition lawmakers lit flares during the voting session on Tuesday, while demonstrators blocked a bridge in central Budapest. Human rights groups have also condemned the move.
It is the latest measure from Orban's government targeting Hungary's LGBTQ+ community...
"
CNN:" Millions of Americans could soon feel the impact of the deep staffing cuts being planned at the Social Security Administration, which is undergoing a massive reorganization that the acting commissioner has acknowledged is being steered by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
The loss of experienced employees who manage Social Security’s fragile and interdependent web of computer systems will likely leave the agency vulnerable to technical outages and, potentially, interrupt the benefit payments that are sent to more than 73 million retirees, people with disabilities and others, Martin O’Malley, who served as commissioner under the Biden administration, told CNN..."
APNEWS:"WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has paused offensive cyberoperations against Russia by U.S. Cyber Command, rolling back some efforts to contend with a key adversary even as national security experts call for the U.S. to expand those capabilities.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, on Monday confirmed the pause.
Hegseth’s decision does not affect cyberoperations conducted by other agencies, including the CIA and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. But the Trump administration also has rolled back other efforts at the FBI and other agencies related to countering digital and cyber threats.
..."
CNN:"
Las Vegas
—
Geoffrey Hinton, known as the “godfather of AI,” fears the technology he helped build could wipe out humanity — and “tech bros” are taking the wrong approach to stop it.
Hinton, a Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist and a former Google executive, has warned in the past that there is a 10% to 20% chance that AI wipes out humans. On Tuesday, he expressed doubts about how tech companies are trying to ensure humans remain “dominant” over “submissive” AI systems.
“That’s not going to work. They’re going to be much smarter than us. They’re going to have all sorts of ways to get around that,” Hinton said at Ai4, an industry conference in Las Vegas.
In the future, Hinton warned, AI systems might be able to control humans just as easily as an adult can bribe 3-year-old with candy. This year has already seen examples of AI systems willing to deceive, cheat and steal to achieve their goals. For example, to avoid being replaced, one AI model tried to blackmail an engineer about an affair it learned about in an email..."
CNN:"
First-time applications for unemployment benefits rose much more than expected last week, a likely indication of some “noisy” data, but also a potential worrisome hint that cracks may be forming in America’s long-solid labor market.
There were an estimated 242,000 jobless claims filed last week, according to seasonally adjusted data released Thursday by the Department of Labor. That’s an increase of 22,000 from the prior week’s tally and a figure that landed well above economists’ expectations for 220,000 claims.
It’s the largest weekly spike in claims in more than four months and the weekly claims — a proxy for layoffs — are at their highest level since early December, Labor Department data shows..."
YOUTUBE/CNN":"Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) faced angry voters in Roswell, Georgia, who were upset about President Trump attempting to expand his own power using executive orders"
NYTIMES:"President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia shocked the audience at the annual security conference in Munich in 2007 by demanding the rollback of domineering American influence and a new balance of power in Europe more suitable to Moscow.
He didn’t get what he wanted — then.
Nearly two decades later, during the very same conference, top officials from President Trump’s cabinet made one thing clear: Mr. Putin has found an American administration that might help him realize his dream.
Comments by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance raised fears among attendees that under the new administration the United States. might align with Russia and either assail Europe or abandon it altogether.
Such a shift, analysts say, would give Mr. Putin a previously unthinkable victory far more momentous for him than any objectives in Ukraine..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"By Dan Lamothe, Missy Ryan and Alex Horton
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has decided to remove retired Gen. Mark A. Milley’s security detail, suspend his security clearance, and order an inspector general inquiry into his behavior as the Pentagon’s top officer, senior defense officials said Tuesday, taking extraordinary action against a frequent target of President Donald Trump.
The move comes after years of Trump criticizing Milley for perceived disloyalty and Milley acknowledging in congressional testimony that he had served as a source for several unflattering books about the first Trump administration. Milley, 66, retired in 2023 following four tumultuous years as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under both Trump and President Joe Biden.Hegseth’s plan, first reported by Fox News, is part of the new defense secretary’s effort to reestablish “warfighter culture” in the Pentagon, one senior defense official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid backlash....While Trump selected Milley for the chairman’s post, the two men had a bitter falling out over issues that included Trump’s desire to use active-duty military forces to quell protests in America’s streets and Milley’s efforts to reassure Chinese officials that Trump wasn’t looking to attack Beijing as his time in office ended. Though Milley and other officials said that the general coordinated those calls with Trump administration officials, Trump attacked the general, saying at one point that the calls to China were “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH.”
More recently, the retired general told Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward that Trump is “fascist to the core” and that Milley had faced a series of death threats he attributed to Trump’s steady drumbeat of verbal attacks.
“No one has ever been as dangerous to this country as Donald Trump,” the general told Woodward in a book published last year. “Now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is the most dangerous person to this country.”..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"
By Spencer S. Hsu, Tom Jackman and Mariana Alfaro
Two newly freed leaders of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups called for investigations into the prosecution of people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, assailing judges, jurors and prosecutors as they sought “retribution” after being granted clemency from President Donald Trump.
The statements by Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, released from sentences of 22 years and 18 years for seditious conspiracy, came before House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) on Wednesday announced formation of a new Judiciary subcommittee led by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Georgia) to investigate the House’s own investigation of the Capitol riot four years ago.
The moves underscored how the punishments of Jan. 6 defendants have become a rallying cry for parts of Trump’s base, and how his pardons of all of nearly 1,600 defendants — including, controversially, those convicted of political violence and assaults against police — have fed into GOP efforts to punish Democrats for what they call the “weaponization” of the Justice Department.
They also mark a deeper fight over how the history of the Jan. 6 Capitol breach will ultimately be written.
On Wednesday, several federal judges granted the Justice Department’s pardon-based requests to dismiss cases while saying in their rulings that the true story of Jan. 6 could not be whitewashed.
“Dismissal of charges, pardons after convictions, and commutations of sentences will not change the truth of what happened on January 6, 2021,” U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote in dismissing one riot defendant’s case.
CNN:"
Republican senators struggled to defend Donald Trump’s decision to commute and pardon hundreds of January 6 protesters, including those who were charged and convicted of crimes against police officers, just hours after the president entered office Monday.
Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, who has warned before about giving a blanket pardon to the rioters, said, “I just can’t agree” with Trump’s decision..."
CNN:"As President Donald Trump this week sought to rewrite the history of his supporters’ attack on the US Capitol, a database detailing the vast array of criminal charges and successful convictions of January 6 rioters was removed from the Department of Justice’s website.
The searchable database served as an easily accessible and up-to-date repository of all January 6, 2021, cases prosecuted by the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.
The US attorney’s office declined to comment.The removal of the comprehensive website cataloguing the largest criminal investigation in modern department history coincides with Trump’s decision to pardon all convicted January 6 defendants. The president also released early from prison 14 people convicted of seditious conspiracy and asked the federal courts in Washington to dismiss the more than 300 cases that hadn’t yet been resolved. .."
CNN:"President-elect Donald Trump is reveling in his victory and the subsequent celebration, being described as having a much different mentality than he did in 2017 and feeling like his popular vote win gives him a mandate as he speaks with world leaders, top aides and allies, business CEOs and his transition team.
Sources who have spoken to Trump in the last 24 hours describe him as forward-looking and grateful. He has lavished praise on his campaign co-chairs, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles – who Trump named as his White House chief of staff on Thursday evening. Trump has boasted about his numbers with minority voters and winning the popular vote, sometimes with disbelief, and asked what they need to do to get started on some of his agenda items..."
APNEWS:"Former Trump aide Steve Bannon warns prosecutors: ‘the hunted are about to become the hunters’
Longtime Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon appeared in court Tuesday for a pretrial hearing in his New York criminal case. Bannon is accused of defrauding donors who gave money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border..."
CBSNEWS:"
U.S.
Ohio governor, other leaders condemn neo-Nazi march in Columbus: "Your hate isn't welcome in our city"
By Lucia Suarez Sang
Updated on: November 18, 2024 / 9:02 AM EST / CBS News
Leaders in Ohio condemned a group of neo-Nazis parading around part of Columbus carrying flags with swastikas on Saturday afternoon.
Columbus public safety dispatchers told CBS affiliate WBNS on Saturday that they received multiple 911 calls around 1:30 p.m. about a group of individuals marching in the city's Short North.
Video sent to the station showed nearly a dozen people wearing black pants, shirts and head coverings and red masks covering their mouths marching down the street. Three of the people were carrying black flags with red swastikas. It was not immediately clear who was in the group.
On Monday, the White House weighed in, issuing a statement saying the "hateful poison of Nazism" is "hostile to everything the United States stands for, including protecting the dignity of all our citizens and the freedom to worship."..."
APNEWS:"Transgender youth in the United States have been flooding crisis hotlines since the election of Donald Trump, who made anti-transgender themes central to his campaign. Many teens worry about how their lives could change once he takes office.
During his presidential bid, Trump pledged to impose wide-ranging restrictions and roll back civil rights protections for transgender students. And his administration can swiftly start work on one major change: It can exclude transgender students from Title IX protections, which affect school policies on students’ use of pronouns, bathrooms and locker rooms.
One ad that aired over 15,000 times crystallized Trump’s stance on rights for transgender and nonbinary Americans: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"In Worcester, Massachusetts, police officers enforcing anti-prostitution ordinances coerced women to touch their genitals and perform sex acts.
In Phoenix, officers clearing homeless encampments illegally disposed of personal belongings of the people who lived there, including tents, sleeping bags, identification cards and medicine.In Lexington, Mississippi, officers jailed those unable to pay fines for minor offenses and added more fees, a scheme one federal prosecutor likened to a “debtor’s prison that Charles Dickens wrote about.”
These abuses, and others like them, are documented in exhaustive Justice Department reports that followed sweeping police misconduct investigations in those three cities and five others — Minneapolis; Louisville; Memphis; Trenton, New Jersey; and Mount Vernon, New York.The Biden administration launched the probes in the wake of the national outcry over the police killings in 2020 of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville. Reports issued over the last two years have focused largely on excessive use of force and the kind of racial profiling associated with those high-profile cases.
But beyond the most shocking examples of police violence, the reports have highlighted something else: the pernicious ways that other patterns of unlawful policing can disrupt and cause deep harm to local communities.
Investigators detailed how officers sexually assaulted women, mistreated the homeless, exploited poor people, threatened and abused minors, taunted and arrested people suffering from mental and behavioral health episodes and punished protesters exercising their constitutional rights to free speech — especially those who denounced police violence..."
CNN:"
A “worldwide catastrophe” is imperiling Pacific Islands and the world must respond to the unprecedented and devastating impacts of rising seas “before it is too late,” the United Nations chief has warned.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a global SOS – “Save Our Seas” – from the Pacific Island nation of Tonga on Tuesday with a plea to the world to “massively increase finance and support for vulnerable countries” in grave danger of the human-caused climate crisis."
FORBES:"...Scientists have repeatedly warned rising global temperatures could bring “catastrophic” consequences if no action is taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change reporting in 2022 that, by 2030, those emissions will rise over 10% above 2010 levels. Increased emissions could drastically reduce the chances of meeting a monumental goal laid out at the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100, scientists said. By 2033, U.N. scientists have warned the world could pass that 1.5 degree Celsius threshold, likely triggering more intense droughts, flooding and water security issues, according to the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change..."
NYTIMES:"The authorities in New Delhi closed schools and urged people to stay indoors as toxic smog, which has plagued neighboring Pakistan for weeks, choked India’s capital in what officials called a medical emergency.
..."
CNN:"
Authorities across the United States are investigating after racist text messages – some with references to “slave catchers” and “picking cotton” reminiscent of the country’s painful and bigoted past – have been received by children, college students and working professionals from unrecognized phone numbers in the wake of the presidential election.
The NAACP president warned Thursday of possible broader implications of the hate-filled rhetoric reported in more than 20 states from New York to California, and the District of Columbia. Attorneys general of both parties are condemning the messages and vowing to root out their senders.
“The unfortunate reality of electing a president who, historically, has embraced and at times encouraged hate, is unfolding before our eyes,” NAACP CEO Derrick Johnson said. “These messages represent an alarming increase in vile and abhorrent rhetoric from racist groups across the country, who now feel emboldened to spread hate and stoke the flames of fear that many of us are feeling after Tuesday’s election results.”..."
YOUTUBE/CNN:
NYTIMES:"When the history of the 2024 election is written, one of the iconic images illustrating it will surely be the mug shot taken of Donald J. Trump after one of his four indictments, staring into the camera with his signature glare. It is an image not of shame but of defiance, the image of a man who would be a convicted felon before Election Day and yet possibly president of the United States again afterward.
Sometimes lost amid all the shouting of a high-octane campaign heading into its final couple of weeks is that simple if mind-bending fact. America for the first time in its history may send a criminal to the Oval Office and entrust him with the nuclear codes. What would once have been automatically disqualifying barely seems to slow Mr. Trump down in his comeback march for a second term that he says will be devoted to “retribution.”
In all the different ways that Mr. Trump has upended the traditional rules of American politics, that may be one of the most striking. He has survived more scandals than any major party presidential candidate, much less president, in the life of the republic. Not only survived but thrived. He has turned them on their head, making allegations against him into an argument for him by casting himself as a serial victim rather than a serial violator.
His persecution defense, the notion that he gets in so much trouble only because everyone is out to get him, resonates at his rallies where he says “they’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you, and I’m just standing in the way.” But that of course belies a record of scandal stretching across his 78 years starting long before politics. Whether in his personal life or his public life, he has been accused of so many acts of wrongdoing, investigated by so many prosecutors and agencies, sued by so many plaintiffs and claimants that it requires a scorecard just to remember them all..."
CNN:"Former President Donald Trump’s suggestion that the US military should be used to deal with “the enemy from within” on Election Day has reignited concerns about what he might ask US forces to do if he wins a second term as commander in chief.
And it is senior military leaders who served under him that have most clearly sounded the alarm about Trump.
The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, told Bob Woodward in his new book “War” that the former president “is the most dangerous person to this country … A fascist to the core.”
And on Thursday on The Bulwark podcast, Woodward said Gen. Jim Mattis, who served as Trump’s defense secretary, had emailed him to say that he agreed with the assessment that Milley had provided Woodward. On the podcast, Woodward said the thrust of Mattis’ email about Trump was “Let’s make sure we don’t try to downplay the threat, because the threat is high.”
Trump has long had a boyish fascination with the military, idolizing World War II generals George Patton and Douglas MacArthur. As a teenager, he reveled in his stint at a military-style boarding school in New York.
Despite that fascination, Trump took multiple deferments to avoid service in the Vietnam War.
When he became president, Trump staffed his cabinet with senior generals. He appointed Mattis, a retired four-star general to head the Pentagon; his chief of staff John Kelly was another retired four-star general, and two of his national security advisers were three-star generals, Michael Flynn and H. R. McMaster.
Trump loves the pomp and ceremony of the military and lobbied for a massive Kremlin-style parade in Washington, DC while, he was in office. In the end, the parade never happened.
Despite Trump’s bromance with the military, senior retired generals and admirals haven’t loved him back. Some even seem to think that it is the former president who is the real “enemy within.”
Going back as far as four years ago, Mattis, provided a statement to The Atlantic magazine that “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us.”
Similarly, Kelly told CNN’s Jake Tapper last year that Trump is “a person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.”
In McMaster’s book, “At War with Ourselves,” a memoir of his time working at the Trump White House, McMaster wrote that in the aftermath of Trump’s 2020 electoral defeat, Trump’s “ego and love of self… drove him to abandon his oath to ‘support and defend the Constitution,’ a president’s highest obligation.”
..."
APNEWS:"MOUNT OLIVE, N.C. (AP) — The U.S. military trained him in explosives and battlefield tactics. Now the Iraq War veteran and enlisted National Guard member was calling for taking up arms against police and government officials in his own country.
Standing in the North Carolina woods, Chris Arthur warned about a coming civil war. Videos he posted publicly on YouTube bore titles such as “The End of America or the Next Revolutionary War.” In his telling, the U.S. was falling into chaos and there would be only one way to survive: kill or be killed..."
CNN:"The arrival of a new Bob Woodward book has a well-established choreography; enterprising reporters get hold of copies of the heavily embargoed volume a week or so ahead of its publication date and mine it for the news it contains.
Both CNN and The Washington Post, where Woodward retains the honorific title of associate editor, covered the news in the latest book, “War,” last week. And news there was: At the height of the pandemic, President Donald Trump sent Russian President Vladimir Putin a secret shipment of Covid-19 testing equipment, and since he has left office, Trump has called Putin as many as seven times.
Ahead of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden blamed former President Barack Obama for not doing more to counter the Russian leader when he invaded Crimea in 2014, telling a friend, “That’s why we are here. We fucked it up. Barack never took Putin seriously.”..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"Donald Trump and his campaign have waged an aggressive campaign against fact-checking in recent months, pushing TV networks, journalism organizations and others to abandon the practice if they hope to interact with Trump. Trump nearly backed out of an August interview with a group of Black journalists after learning they planned to fact-check his claims. The following month, he and his allies repeatedly complained about the fact-checking that occurred during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, berating journalists and news executives in the middle of the televised debate.
And this month, Trump declined to sit down for an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” because he objected to the show’s practice of fact-checking, according to the show.
Campaign advisers also expressly asked CBS News to forgo fact checking in its vice-presidential debate with Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance — who then complained on air when a moderator corrected him..."
CNN:"
Donald Trump lashed out at E. Jean Carroll and several other women who have accused him of sexual assault following a hearing in New York where the former president’s attorneys tried to convince a federal appeals court that he should get a new trial after a jury found he sexually abused and defamed the onetime columnist....
CNN:"...Trump’s lying is most exceptional in its relentlessness, a never-ending avalanche of wrongness that can bury even the most devoted fact-checkers. But it’s also notable for its repetitiveness. He has found his hits, and he’ll keep playing them no matter how many times they are debunked...As Trump enters the post-Labor Day sprint of his 2024 campaign for the presidency, his commentary is filled with many of the same false claims he made as president from 2017 to 2021. He’s even repeating some of the false claims he used during his 2016 presidential campaign..."
YOUTUBE/CNN:"CNN's Kaitlan Collins speaks with former Trump national security adviser John Bolton about former President Donald Trump’s remarks in Detroit, in which he bragged about his willingness to abandon NATO allies in the face of Russian aggression"
AP:"
Inside Washington’s federal courthouse, there’s no denying the reality of Jan. 6, 2021. Day after day, judges and jurors silently absorb the chilling sights and sounds from television screens of rioters beating police, shattering windows and hunting for lawmakers as democracy lay under siege.
But as he seeks to reclaim the White House, Donald Trump continues to portray the defendants as patriots worthy of admiration, an assertion that has been undercut by the adjudicated truth in hundreds of criminal cases where judges and juries have reached the opposite conclusion about what history will remember as one of America’s darkest days..."
CNN:"
A group of Republican state attorneys general are suing the Biden administration over a federal effort to expand access to voter registration.
The lawsuit targets an executive order issued by President Joe Biden in March 2021 that directed the heads of all federal agencies to submit proposals for their respective agencies to promote voter registration and participation through various points of contact with the public. The president issued the order as GOP-led statehouses were pushing voter suppression legislation in the aftermath of the 2020 election..." 
CNN: In response to an FBI threat assessment of possible retaliatory attacks against Democrats CNN interviewed Joe Moore a former Army sniper and undercover operative who infiltrated the KKK. Moore stated that nationally the KKK was decimated but many joined like minded alt right groups. They use the First Amendment to cover their real intent which is to take over the government by force.
FORBES:"Harris's profile as you know
1:43
the first
1:45
African-American woman who could be the
1:47
president that could make it appealing
1:49
to a lot of
1:50
Voters I always just said put the best
1:53
player in I mean we've got a Dei hire in
1:55
here and Biden said first off he said
1:58
he's going to hire a a black female for
2:01
vice president and that not he just
2:04
skipped over what about what about white
2:06
females what about any other group it
2:09
just when you go down that route you you
2:12
um you take mediocrity and that's what
2:14
they have right now as a vice president
2:16
so are you suggesting she's she was a
2:17
Dei hire 100% she was a Dei hire he said
2:21"
CNN/YOUTUBE:"Our panel is back.
Stephen Collinson, you write.
this morning,
I, under the headline Trump
Conviction heralds
a somber and volatile
moment in American history
that the danger is acute
because with his attempt
to stay in power
after losing the 2020
election, Trump has already shown
he'll do what it takes to save himself,
even if his actions catastrophically hurt
democratic institutions..."
NYTIMES:"This story is told in three parts. The first documents the unequal system of justice that grew around Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. The second shows how extremists targeted not only Palestinians but also Israeli officials trying to make peace. The third explores how this movement gained control of the state itself. Taken together, they tell the story of how a radical ideology moved from the fringes to the heart of Israeli political power...."
CNN:"
A federal judge on Wednesday blasted a convicted January 6 rioter for downplaying the US Capitol attack and using the kind of revisionist rhetoric that former President Donald Trump often uses on the campaign trial.
“This cannot become normal… We cannot condone the normalization of the January 6 US Capitol riot,” US District Judge Royce Lamberth said while sentencing Taylor James Johnatakis to more than seven years in prison.The judge warned of a “vicious cycle … that could imperil our institutions” if Americans, upset with future election results, resort to the “vigilantism, lawlessness and anarchy” that occurred on January 6, 2021.“There can be no room in our country for this sort of political violence,” Lamberth said.”
CNN:" Take them seriously as well as literally. There is no precedent for two dozen former White House officials coming out so strongly against the fundamental fitness of the man they served with on a day-to-day basis...... Republican voters should keep in mind the words of the one-time conservative hero (and liberal villain) former Vice President Dick Cheney: “There has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.”"
CNN:"
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday quoted Russian President Vladimir Putin to attack President Joe Biden as a “threat to democracy” and doubled down on language condemned for its ties to White supremacist rhetoric, saying at a campaign event in New Hampshire that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”..."
NYTIMES:"How a Group of Students in the Pacific Islands Reshaped Global Climate Law
They watched climate change ravage their home countries as rich, polluting nations did nothing. Then they had an idea.The group of students who logged in to Justin Rose’s class on international environmental law in February 2019 were spread out across thousands of miles of ocean. Many were based at the Port Vila campus on Éfaté, a small but mountainous island of vivid tropical green in the middle of Vanuatu’s archipelago of volcanoes, where the University of the South Pacific’s school of law is based. But U.S.P. also had campuses in Fiji, Samoa, Tuvalu, the Cook Islands, Kiribati and other island nations — places that were experiencing some of the most pronounced impacts of the planet’s fast-changing climate.
Listen to this article, read by Kirsten Potter
It was always a tough class to teach, Rose, an Australian expert in Pacific Island law, told me in July. There are few classes in which the profound impacts of climate change feel less theoretical or the power of the students more constrained. As the class began, rising seas meant that villages across the South Pacific were already being compelled to move to higher ground, forcing people to abandon their homes and the livelihoods that once sustained them. Often, the graveyards left behind slid into the sea, scattering bones into the surf. Some countries were so low-lying that they were in danger of erasure. “It’s a pretty grim thing to have to do, year after year — to tell young Pacific Islanders that the best available science says they won’t have habitable sovereign territory within their lifetimes,” Rose says..."
AMNH.ORG:"Every atom of oxygen in our lungs, of carbon in our muscles, of calcium in our bones, of iron in our blood - was created inside a star before Earth was born.
Hydrogen and helium, the lightest elements were produced in the Big Bang.
Almost all of the other, heavier, elements were produced inside stars.
Stars forge heavy elements by fusion in their cores. In a star of intermediate mass, these elements can mix into the star’s atmosphere and be spread into space through stellar winds.
During the supernova explosion of a massive star is the only time when elements heavier than iron are fused. The supernova expels this material across interstellar space..."
CNN:"
Artificial intelligence is coming for your job: 41% of employers intend to downsize their workforce as AI automates certain tasks, a World Economic Forum survey showed Wednesday.
Out of hundreds of large companies surveyed around the world, 77% also said they were planning to reskill and upskill their existing workers between 2025-2030 to better work alongside AI, according to findings published in the WEF’s Future of Jobs Report. But, unlike the previous, 2023 edition, this year’s report did not say that most technologies, including AI, were expected to be “a net positive” for job numbers...."
CNN:"For about 50 years, the scientific community has been grappling with a substantial problem: There isn’t enough visible matter in the universe.
All the matter we can see — stars, planets, cosmic dust and everything in between — can’t account for why the universe behaves as it does, and there must be five times as much of it around for researchers’ observations to make sense, according to NASA. Scientists call that dark matter, because it does not interact with light and is invisible..."
ABCNEWS:"One of nature's most awe-inspiring creatures, the rare and giant blue whale, was seen off the coast of Massachusetts in a rare back-to-back sighting.
Cape Ann Whale Watch, a touring group based in Gloucester, Massachusetts, took to Facebook on Monday to share footage of one of two blue whale sightings that day.
"We got to see this 'largest animal on our planet' on both of our trips today," the group wrote alongside footage of the blue whale spouting water and breaching to the surface..."
CNN:"For Māori conservationist Mere Takoko, “losing one whale is like losing an ancestor.” The animals “taught our people about navigation across the Pacific, particularly across the Milky Way… And this is information that was given to our ancestors.”
The environmental activist from the small town of Rangitukia, on New Zealand’s east coast, is spearheading a movement of Indigenous groups in the Pacific pushing to protect the magnificent marine mammals, inking a groundbreaking treaty to make them legal persons with inherent rights."
CNN:"Rare footage shows deep-sea creature attacking camera
Scientists from Australia and the UK captured unique footage of the rare deep-sea hooked squid, one of the largest deep-water squids in the world."
WASHINGTONPOST:"When conservationists began efforts to save the Iberian lynx, a wild cat that had long been considered a symbol of the Iberian Peninsula, they felt the lynx would be extinct in roughly five years if their efforts failed...."
CNN:"
Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, never experienced a ruinous population collapse, according to an analysis of ancient DNA from 15 former inhabitants of the remote island in the Pacific Ocean.
The analysis also suggested that inhabitants of the island, which lies about 3,700 kilometers (2,300 miles) from the South American mainland, reached the Americas in the 1300s — long before Christopher Columbus’ 1492 landing in the New World."
AP:"Taters the cat stars in NASA's first video sent by laser from deep space
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An orange tabby cat named Taters stars in the first video sent by laser from deep space, stealing the show as he chases a red laser light.
Thumbnail source: NASA
CNN:"Arnold Schwarzenegger says going to the gym is all about 'survival'
CNN's Chris Wallace joins actor and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for a visit to Gold's Gym in Venice Beach, California, Schwarzenegger's regular workout spot since he first moved to the United States in 1968."
:"YOUTUBE/60-MINUTES:"Once bound for extinction, giant pandas were saved by their one evolutionary advantage: they're adorable. Scott Pelley reported on their resurgence in 2019." Two giant pandas from China arrived at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. and made their debut January 24,2025
"
POINT DEFIANCE ZOO & AQUARIUM:"
Leaf it to Willow to redefine fall fun! 🍂 Watch as our adorable and spunky muskox calf joyfully dives headfirst into her very first pile of maple leaves and turns her leafy playground into a zoomie extravaganza. 🍁😍
..
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"WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Fresh corroboration of the perplexing observation that the universe is expanding more rapidly than expected has scientists pondering the cause - perhaps some unknown factor involving the mysterious cosmic components dark energy and dark matter.Two years of data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have now validated the Hubble Space Telescope's earlier finding that the rate of the universe's expansion is faster - by about 8% - than would be expected based on what astrophysicists know of the initial conditions in the cosmos and its evolution over billions of years. The discrepancy is called the Hubble Tension..."
CNN:"
The supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, Sagittarius A*, is spinning rapidly and altering space-time around it, a new study has found.
Space-time is the four-dimensional continuum that describes how we see space, fusing one-dimensional time and three-dimensional space together to represent the space fabric that curves in response to massive celestial bodies...."
CNN:"Astronomers have observed a massive pair of jets releasing from a supermassive black hole 7.5 billion light-years from Earth. The megastructure spans 23 million light-years in length, making these black hole jets the largest ever seen, according to new research.
Black holes are viewed as the garbage disposals of the universe, gobbling up nearly everything that comes close to them. But a fraction of material is ejected before an object falls in, forming a jet on either side of the black hole, said Martijn Oei, a postdoctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology and the lead author of a new study describing the discovery."
NYTIMES:"When NASA’s next-generation space observatory launches in a few years, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will expand the search for exoplanets as well as rogue planets, or worlds that travel through space without orbiting stars...
”"
CNN:"
The powerful Euclid telescope has captured millions of stars and galaxies in a dazzling new mosaic — and it represents just the first piece of a massive puzzle the observatory has been designed to solve.
The European Space Agency mission, launched in July 2023, will create the largest and most accurate 3D map of the cosmos yet to help answer enduring questions about the “dark side” of the universe..."
LIVESCIENCE.COM:"Astronomers have spotted an unexpectedly hot galaxy cluster in the early universe that's challenging theories of galactic evolution.
The scorching cluster existed just 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang, blazing far earlier and hotter than current models of galaxy cluster formation predict should be possible. The discovery suggests that the predicted patterns of cluster growth might need a rethink, researchers reported Jan. 5 in the journal Nature..."
CNN:"...OpenStar is one of a constellation of fusion companies has sprung up over the past five years, pursuing diverse technologies, said Gerald Navratil, a professor of fusion energy and plasma physics at Columbia University.
“The maturity of the field is such that now private venture capitalists are willing to put up money to try to see if they can get to fusion a little faster,” he told CNN.
One of the largest commercial ventures, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which uses high-temperature superconducting magnets within a tokamak, has raised more than $2 billion.
Others, like OpenStar, are exploring more unusual tech. Seattle-based Zap Energy is trying to build a compact, scalable reactor that doesn’t use magnets at all, but instead fires pulses of power into a stream of plasma..."
CNN:"
It feels as if America has emerged from a viral medical pandemic only to be consumed by a moral pandemic, fueled by hate that is poisoning our hearts and minds. It is making people hate and turn against one another, to fear and punish that which makes us different rather than embracing what makes us unique and our common humanity.
..."
CNN:"Holocaust survivor Michael Bornstein reacts to comments made by Fox News host Greg Gutfeld about the work skills of concentration camp inmates during World War II... "
CNN:"Emails shared with CNN by the Texas Department of Public Safety detail a trooper-medic expressing concerns to a supervisor over the inhumane treatment of migrants along the border in Eagle Pass, Texas...”
WASHINGTONPOST:
CNN:"
A Saudi court has sentenced a retired teacher to death over his comments online, say his brother and advocacy group Human Rights Watch.
Muhammad al-Ghamdi, a 54-year-old retired Saudi teacher, was sentenced “following 5 tweets criticizing corruption and human rights violations,” his brother Saeed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi tweeted last week.
According to Human Rights Watch, Muhammad al-Ghamdi was arrested last year and given little access to a lawyer before his conviction in July..."
CNN:"
Hundreds of families gathered in the West Darfur capital of El Geneina on June 15, plotting their escape from what had become a hellscape of blown-out buildings scrawled with racist graffiti and streets strewn with corpses. The state governor had just been executed and mutilated by Arab militia groups, leaving civilians with no choice but to flee.
What followed was a gruesome massacre, eyewitnesses said, believed to be one of the most violent incidents in the genocide-scarred Sudanese region’s history..."
CNN:"After being a Nazi leader for two and a half decades, he says he regrets his past beliefs Reality Check's John Avlon speaks with former NSM leader Jeff Schoep about the nationwide increase in extremism and what led him to change his neo-Nazi beliefs..."
CNN:"Survivors give horrific accounts of 'parade' of sexual abuse at Catholic high school
Four survivors shared their stories more than 50 years after they were brutally physically and sexually assaulted by priests at an all-girls Catholic high school in Baltimore."
CBSNEWS:"Two decades ago, the 9/11 Commission found al Qaeda acted alone in the Sept. 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans, but victims' families say that isn't true. They point to a newly-released video filmed outside the U.S. Capitol two years before the attacks, and other evidence, as proof. The families are now suing Saudi Arabia, claiming its government provided crucial assistance to the hijackers and planners of the attacks.
.."
CNN:"The latest United Nations report on the Taliban published Friday is a blistering indictment of the delusions that surrounded the US withdrawal agreement with the Taliban that was negotiated by Donald Trump’s administration in 2020.
President Joe Biden followed through on that agreement almost two years ago when he withdrew all US troops from Afghanistan in a chaotic evacuation that marked the end of the US’ longest war.
The withdrawal agreement was supposed to be predicated on the Taliban negotiating with the elected Afghan government about some kind of power-sharing arrangement and cutting their ties to terrorist groups like al Qaeda. But none of that happened..."
CNN:"When the US withdrew from Afghanistan years later, the presidential palace quickly overrun by the Taliban, all I could think was, “How could my husband die, and his death didn’t break me, yet the fall of the country he died in did? How could this be worse than the knock at the door?”
But this time, everything I loved and everything I had invested in was broken alongside me in pieces on the floor. The country I cherished, the people I treasured. The girls in the school in Paktya – the village Chris died in – who made me pillowcases and gifts, the children at the Kabul orphanage I had just carried, there was no more hope for them. I wanted to hold those babies and never let them go.
How could America let it get to this? We are better than this. How cruel to empower Afghan women and little girls for years, ensure they knew they could be anything they wanted in life, and after they became it, leave them to be hunted and killed for following their dreams?..."
CNN:"
Two Indianapolis police officers had spent the day searching in vain for a missing baby in a stolen vehicle when they stopped to eat and gather their wits.
A woman suspected of stealing the 2010 black Honda Accord had been taken into custody earlier that day...but the vehicle was still missing. More urgently, baby Kason Thomass... had yet to be found...
“It was time for us to decompress because we were disappointed that we could not find him,”... “And then God opened up the heavens to us and almost took him and put him right in our hands.”...
"
REUTERS:"TOKYO, Dec 11 (Reuters) - U.S. nuclear-capable bombers flew over the Sea of Japan alongside Japanese fighter jets on Wednesday, Tokyo said, in a show of force following Chinese and Russian drills in the skies and seas around Japan and South Korea.
Japan and the U.S. "reaffirmed their strong resolve to prevent any unilateral attempt to change the status quo by force and confirmed the readiness posture of both the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) and U.S. forces," Japan's defence ministry said in a statement on Thursday..."
BBC:"Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigner and media tycoon Jimmy Lai has been found guilty of colluding with foreign forces under the city's controversial national security law (NSL).
The 78-year-old UK citizen, who has been in jail since December 2020, pleaded not guilty. He faces life in prison and is expected to be sentenced early next year.
Lai used his now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper as part of a wider effort to lobby foreign governments to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and China, the court found.
Hong Kong chief executive John Lee welcomed the verdict, noting that Lai's actions "damaged the country's interests and the welfare of Hong Kongers". Rights groups called it "a cruel judicial farce".
They say the NSL, which Beijing defends as essential for the city's stability, has been used to crush dissent.
Delivering the verdict on Monday, Judge Esther Toh said there is "no doubt" that Jimmy Lai "harboured hatred" for the People's Republic of China (PRC), citing his "constant invitation to the US to help bring down the government of the PRC with the excuse of helping the people of Hong Kong".
When Lai testified in November, he denied all the charges against him, saying he had "never" used his foreign contacts to influence foreign policy on Hong Kong..."
CNN:"In an interview with Reason magazine two weeks ago, Sen. Rand Paul suggested that congressional Republicans were uncomfortable with much of what President Donald Trump was doing. But the senator said they were too “afraid” to do something about it.
“Even with the tariffs, you know, the farm-state senators will all privately tell you, ‘We are free trade, and this is killing our farmers,’” Paul said.
He added: “What Founding Father would ever have imagined a Congress with no ambition? Completely without ambition. Feckless. Completely without principles. And afraid of their own shadow. Afraid of their own president. And unable to even squeak.”..."
REUTERS:"...'WE'RE NOT TRASH'
“I don't even feel myself because I'm scared everywhere I go. Am I a target? I don't even know. That's very sad,” said Ifrah Farah, a U.S. citizen from Somalia and the owner of a hair salon in Karmel Mall.
“I never did anything wrong; I'm a hard-working mom. We're not trash," she said.
Jamal Osman, a Minneapolis city council member and Somali refugee who immigrated to the U.S. as a teenager, said he’s been deluged with calls from constituents asking if it’s safe to venture outside and to get updates on ICE activity, noting that the community now feels like a “war zone.”.."
BLOOMBERG:"The US plan for ending Russia’s invasion is a remarkable document. It rewards aggression and punishes the victim. It undermines the most important principle of international law, which is that sovereign borders should not be changed by force. It suggests security guarantees, but fails to say how they would be enforced — and then limits the means by which they could be.
It amounts to the enforced capitulation of Ukraine for gain and profit, the blueprint for a modern Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in which one side’s interest in the division of Ukraine is territorial and the other’s commercial. It is, in a word, shameful..."
CNN:"Newly released inflation figures show that President Donald Trump was wrong when he repeatedly claimed this month that grocery prices are “down” or “way down.”
They were up, again, last month. And they have increased since the start of his presidency.
Average grocery prices rose 0.3% from August to September, according to Consumer Price Index figures released Friday. That increase followed a 0.6% jump from July to August, which was the biggest month-to-month jump in three years.
Average grocery prices in September were about 2.7% higher than they were a year prior and about 1.4% higher than they were in January, the month Trump returned to office.
The grocery price increases have been broad, spanning the vast majority of product categories tracked by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Prices in four of the six major grocery categories increased from August to September. The cereals and bakery products category was up 0.7%; the nonalcoholic beverages category was also up 0.7%; the meats, poultry, fish and eggs category was up 0.3%; the “other food at home” category was up 0.5%. The fruits and vegetables category was unchanged, while the dairy and related products category was down 0.5%.
Prices in all six categories have increased over the past year. Since September 2024, the nonalcoholic beverages category was up 5.3%; the meats, poultry, fish, and eggs category was up 5.2%; the “other food at home” category was up 1.9%; the cereals and bakery products category was up 1.6%; the fruits and vegetables category was up 1.3%; and the dairy and related products category was up 0.7%.
There have been particularly sharp increases since September 2024 in the prices of coffee (up 18.9%) and beef and veal (up 14.7%). Overall consumer prices are up 3.0% since September 2024.
Repeated false claims about grocery prices
Trump campaigned on a promise to reduce grocery prices. Since returning to the White House, he has claimed over and over that he has actually done so – ignoring the federal data that shows he has not.
He continued to make such claims even after the September release of the previous Consumer Price Index report that showed the 0.6% increase in average grocery prices from July to August.
“Grocery prices are way down,” he said Tuesday. “Groceries are down,” he said October 16. “Now, as you know, groceries are down,” he said October 14. “We’ve gotten prices way down for groceries,” he said October 10. “Under my leadership…grocery prices are down,” he told world leaders at the United Nations on September 23.
It’s normal for grocery prices to rise over time, as overall prices tend to do, and there is always a complicated mix of domestic and international factors at play. This year’s inflation in grocery prices is markedly lower than the 2022 spikes that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it’s important to note that food prices can be volatile for reasons like severe weather, unexpected supply chain snarls and other temporary disruptions.
But food economists like Michigan State University professor David Ortega say two of Trump’s signature policies – tariffs on imported goods (including food) and a crackdown on undocumented immigrants (who make up a large percentage of the US farm workforce) – have clearly contributed to the increases in grocery prices this year.
“This uptick in food prices is consistent with what we would expect the effects of some of the administration’s policies to have on food,” Ortega said.
.."
WSJ:"The Trump administration is preparing sweeping changes at the Internal Revenue Service that would allow the agency to pursue criminal inquiries of left-leaning groups more easily, according to people familiar with the matter.
A senior IRS official involved in the effort has drawn up a list of potential targets that includes major Democratic donors, some of the people said.
The undertaking aims to install allies of President Trump at the IRS criminal-investigative division, or IRS-CI, to exert firmer control over the unit and weaken the involvement of IRS lawyers in criminal investigations, officials said. The proposed changes could open the door to politically motivated probes and are being driven by Gary Shapley, an adviser to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Shapley has told people that he is going to replace Guy Ficco, the chief of the investigative unit, who has been at the agency for decades, and that Shapley has been putting together a list of donors and groups he believes IRS investigators should look at. Among those on the list are the billionaire Democratic donor George Soros and his affiliated groups, according to a senior IRS official and another person briefed on the list. It couldn’t be determined upon what grounds Shapley would seek to begin such an investigation.
.."
REUTERS:"For decades, Republicans railed against what they saw as a liberal media establishment shaping American politics from the left.
Nearly a year into U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term, that narrative is flipping. A new constellation of influencers, billionaire moguls and social-media platforms – many embracing or amplifying White House themes – is pulling the nation’s information ecosystem to the right.
Right-wing influencers and conservative media personalities, often working in lockstep with Trump officials, have become a potent force in a widening campaign of retribution against perceived enemies of the Trump administration. Empowered by ownership and technology shifts in the media and bolstered by financial incentives, these figures help discredit Trump’s rivals and amplify his administration’s talking points and false claims, blurring boundaries between official messaging and private-sector news and opinion.
This account is based on a review of more than 300 hours of podcasts and TV shows, thousands of social media posts and interviews with 48 people – including influencers, elected officials, political strategists and media owners – and an examination of court filings...."
CNN:"Cuts to social protection for people living in poverty have created “fertile ground” for far-right movements around the world, according to a United Nations report.
Popular support for the far right has grown globally in recent years. In Europe, Giorgia Meloni became Italy’s most far-right leader since Benito Mussolini in 2022, while the far-right Alternative for Germany is now Germany’s largest opposition party. The Trump administration has endorsed far-right parties in Europe, and in Argentina far-right libertarian Javier Milei won the presidency in 2023.
The UN report, unveiled Wednesday, says changes to welfare systems have made it harder to access benefits by tightening eligibility rules or imposing stricter conditions, contributing to the kind of economic precarity and alienation that drives people to the far right.
“These punitive welfare systems increase economic insecurity, erode trust in public institutions and leave millions feeling humiliated and abandoned by mainstream politics,” the report’s author, Olivier De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said in a press release.
“It is in this void that far-right populists thrive, presenting themselves as champions of those left behind by the ‘elite.’”
But he warned: “Their agenda is not to empower people in poverty – it is to further dismantle protections for their own gain.”
..."
REUTERS:"Divers off the coast of Sapientza Island in southern Greece have launched a determined effort to remove "ghost nets" — abandoned fishing gear that silently strangles marine ecosystems.Divers off the coast of Sapientza Island in southern Greece have launched a determined effort to remove "ghost nets" — abandoned fishing gear that silently strangles marine ecosystems.
Draped like curtains over the seabed, these nets trap unsuspecting sea creatures and slowly disintegrate into microplastics, poisoning the waters and suffocating life.
Attaching inflatable lift bags to the heavy, tangled nets, the divers worked with precision and urgency...."
CNN:"Celebrated photographer and conservationist Beverly Joubert is lucky to be alive. She died — four times by her husband Dereck’s count — working in Botswana in March 2017.
The Jouberts were in the bush in the Okavango Delta, when a buffalo, a creature they had extensive experience with, knocked Dereck down, before impaling his wife. The horn entered under her arm, passing through her chest, lacerated her neck and went up into her face.
“Beverly died in my arms twice and I was able to pull her back,” Dereck Joubert told CNN. “Then again in the medical plane, then again in the hospital.”
Seven surgeons and eighteen hours later, Beverly Joubert began the long road to recovery. “I now have 41 screws in (my) face and seven plates, so I am a little bionic,” she said with a gentle smile, sitting next to her husband on a video call..."
REUTERS:"UNITED NATIONS, Sept 12 (Reuters) - The United Nations General Assembly on Friday overwhelmingly voted to endorse a declaration outlining "tangible, timebound, and irreversible steps" towards a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians ahead of a meeting of world leaders.
The seven-page declaration is the result of an international conference at the U.N. in July - hosted by Saudi Arabia and France - on the decades-long conflict. The United States and Israel boycotted the event.
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A resolution endorsing the declaration received 142 votes in favor and 10 against, while 12 countries abstained.
The vote comes ahead of a meeting of world leaders on September 22 - on the sidelines of the high-level U.N. General Assembly - where Britain, France, Canada, Australia and Belgium are expected to formally recognize a Palestinian state.
The declaration endorsed by the 193-member General Assembly condemns the attacks against Israel by Palestinian militants Hamas on October 7, 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza.
It also condemns the attacks by Israel against civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza, siege and starvation, "which have resulted in a devastating humanitarian catastrophe and protection crisis."
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the resolution secured the international isolation of Hamas.
"For the first time today, the United Nations adopted a text condemning it for its crimes and calling for its surrender and disarmament," he said in an X post..."
CNN:"What we're covering here
• The US economy added just 22,000 jobs last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. The unemployment rate rose to 4.3% from 4.2%.
• Friday’s report is the first data under a new leader at the BLS, after President Donald Trump fired the previous one for producing data that Trump baselessly claimed must be “a scam.” Just 73,000 positions were added in July and previous monthly totals were substantially revised down.
• Friday’s data was far worse than expected, with economists having forecast around 76,500 jobs added in August.
• It’s the latest snapshot of the US economy under Trump’s aggressive trade agenda, as inflation continues to tick up and there are now more unemployed people than jobs for them..."
WSJ:"As President Trump sat with top donors at his New Jersey golf club this month, he made a private admission: He believed the coronavirus vaccine was one of the biggest accomplishments of his presidency, but he couldn’t bask in it.
Trump told donors at a dinner—who were paying $1 million to be there—that he wished he could talk more about Operation Warp Speed, the government program he initiated that helped expedite the development of the vaccine, attendees said. The guests included Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla, whose company developed one of the first Covid-19 vaccines.
Trump’s private comments illuminate the fraught politics around vaccines that the White House is confronting, which reached a boiling point Wednesday after the administration fired the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other top officials quit their jobs in the midst of disagreements with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccine policy.
The agency is now facing a crisis. Longtime officials there said Kennedy is ignoring scientific findings to pursue an antivaccine agenda, threatening public health as the calendar gets closer to winter and seasonal outbreaks of Covid and other viruses.
A spokesman for HHS didn’t respond to requests for comment..."
WSJ:"U.S. companies have an unwelcome message for inflation-weary consumers: Prices are going up.
Companies including Hormel Foods, J.M. Smucker and Ace Hardware said this week they would raise prices for reasons ranging from higher meat costs to tariffs. Large retailers like Walmart, Target and Best Buy said some tariff-related price increases are already in place. More are on the way.
“Some vendors are clearly communicating cost increases. Some are adjusting promotions. Some are planning to potentially increase prices with new product introductions, which always happens,” Best Buy Chief Executive Corie Barry said on an analyst call Thursday. She said price increases are much lower than the overall tariff rate.
The escalating prices offer a glimpse of how President Trump’s trade policy is starting to trickle down to American shoppers. For consumers fatigued by recent bouts of heavy inflation, the announcements portend another round of sticker shock when buying groceries and household goods.
..."
BLOOMBERG:"Applications for US unemployment benefits rose last week to the highest level since June and continuing claims climbed, adding to evidence the US labor market is slowing.
Initial claims increased by 11,000 to 235,000 in the week ended Aug. 16. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 225,000 applications.
Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, rose to 1.97 million in the week ended Aug. 9, the highest since November 2021, according to Labor Department data released Thursday.
US Jobless Claims Rise, Signaling Labor Market Slowing
Recurring filings climb to highest level since November 2021
Source: US Labor Department
A sustained pickup in new filings risks adding to concerns about the labor market after the most recent US jobs report showed subdued hiring and higher unemployment. The latest rise in continuing claims indicates out-of-work Americans are finding it increasingly difficult to find another job.
The four-week moving average of new applications, a metric that helps smooth out fluctuations from week-to-week, climbed to 226,250 — the highest in a month..."
CNN:"At least six people were killed and several injured on Monday after two attackers opened fire on a busy bus stop in Jerusalem, Israeli officials said, marking the deadliest attack in the city in more than two years.
The gunmen, who arrived at the junction in a vehicle carrying weapons, ammunition and a knife, shot at dozens of people waiting near buses in the area.
“I saw people falling or getting hurt while trying to escape,” eyewitness Elazar Toledano told Reuters. Toledano said it took people a few seconds to understand what was happening after the first burst of gunfire. “Someone suddenly shouted ‘Terror attack!’ and people started running.”
The suspected attackers were killed by an Israeli combat soldier and a civilian at the site, prompting calls by far-right ministers for the arming of more civilians in Israel. Police identified the gunmen as Muthanna Omar, 20, and Muhammad Taha, 21, who are both from villages just outside Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank..."
APNEWS:"WHY THIS MATTERS: Protests in Nepal have revealed the extent of young people’s frustration with the lack of opportunity in the Himalayan nation, as they spiraled into a broader challenge to the government. While around a fifth of young people are unemployed, many note that the children of the political elite seem to enjoy luxury lifestyles and numerous advantages.
KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Nepal’s government responded to escalating violent protests over a ban on popular social media platforms with deadly force. The public outrage over the ban and the deaths of 19 protesters on Monday led to the resignation of the prime minister and exposed deep discontent over corruption."
REUTERS:"Several districts of Gaza City hit
Gaza health officials report more deaths from hunger
Egypt making latest push for ceasefire talks
CAIRO, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Israeli forces demolished houses in eastern areas of Gaza City overnight, killing at least 11 people in aerial and tank fire, local health authorities said, as the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas told mediators it was ready to resume ceasefire talks.
Residents and medics said eight people were killed when Israeli tank shelling hit a house in Zeitoun neighbourhood, while a man was killed in an airstrike on a building in the nearby Shejaia suburb. Two other people were killed in tank shelling in Tuffah, a third Gaza City suburb.
Local health authorities said they had received desperate calls from families trapped in the Zeitoun area, including from people saying they were wounded, and that ambulance vehicles could not reach them.
"The explosions are almost non-stop in eastern Gaza areas, mainly Zeitoun and Shejaia. The occupation (Israel) is erasing homes there, as we hear from some friends who live nearby," said Ismail, 40, from Gaza City..."
APNEWS:"MAALE ADUMIM, West Bank (AP) — Israel’s far-right finance minister announced approval of contentious new settlement construction in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Thursday, which Palestinians and rights groups worry will scuttle plans for a future Palestinian state by effectively cutting the West Bank into two separate parts.
The announcement comes as many countries, including Australia, Britain, France, and Canada said they would recognize a Palestinian state in September.
“This reality finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognize and no one to recognize,” said Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich during a ceremony on Thursday. “Anyone in the world who tries today to recognize a Palestinian state — will receive an answer from us on the ground,” he said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not publicly comment on the plan on Thursday, but he has touted it in the past..."
WSJ:"U.S. job growth slowed in July, a signal that pockets of weakness that had been marring the labor market are starting to take hold.
The U.S. added a seasonally adjusted 73,000 jobs in July, the Labor Department reported Friday, below the gain of 100,000 jobs economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected to see.
Revisions cut down the jobs growth originally reported for May and June by a combined 258,000. That left May as having added just 19,000 jobs and June just 14,000. A perfect storm of changes is keeping business leaders cautious. Tariffs are weighing on manufacturing. Workplace raids are hurting immigrant-dependent sectors like landscaping and meatpacking. And cutbacks to the federal workforce are squeezing government hiring.
..
President Trump on Friday afternoon said he had directed his team to fire the top official at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In a social-media post, he said the BLS commissioner would be “replaced with someone much more competent and qualified.” He asserted without evidence that the government’s jobs numbers have been manipulated for political purposes.
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CNN:"...He said he’s built up a loyal seasonal workforce for his Wasco County operation called CE Farm Management, about 90 minutes from Portland, with the same people coming year after year and staying in touch with birth announcements and Christmas cards in between. But this year half of them did not arrive, and many of his neighbors were scrambling for pickers too. All told, Chandler said he will lose $250,000-$300,000 of revenue, left to rot on the trees..."
NYTIMES:"Long before President Trump harnessed a working-class coalition to win last November’s election, leaders of the nation’s biggest labor unions, in public and private, were warning Democrats that those voters could defect. In the months since, their admonitions have grown only more pointed.
Their calculus is simple. Despite campaign promises to improve working people’s lives, and Mr. Trump’s appeal among the rank and file, top union officials do not view the president, whose signature policy law benefits the wealthy, as a true ally of organized labor. And if Democrats regain the ground they’ve lost with blue-collar voters, many of whom are union members, it could help leaders with their own struggles, including flagging membership and criticism that they are losing touch with everyday workers.
But it is not likely to be easy..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday unveiled a proposal to rescind the landmark legal opinion that underpins virtually all of its regulations to curb climate change.
The move would end EPA regulations on greenhouse gases emitted by vehicles from lightweight cars to heavy-duty trucks, while also undercutting rules that limit power plant emissions and control the release of methane by oil and gas companies. The EPA’s new proposal argues that Congress, in the Clean Air Act, does not give the agency the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
Ask your climate questions. With the help of generative Al, we'll try to deliver answers based on our published reporting.
If the rule takes effect, it would immediately reverse the vehicle regulations and spark a legal battle that probably would take years. Should the Trump administration prevail in court, the rule would severely limit the ability of future presidents to curb fossil fuel emissions.
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“If finalized, today’s announcement would amount to the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said Tuesday at a truck dealership in Indianapolis.
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The EPA released what is known as the “endangerment finding” in 2009. It concluded that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, establishing a legal basis to regulate them as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
The EPA’s latest proposal seeks to revise the agency’s own past interpretation of the Clean Air Act.
“We do not have that power on our own to decide as an agency that we are going to combat global climate change because we give ourselves that power,” Zeldin said, referencing Congress’s ability to enact laws.
“This is not just an attack on science but on common sense,” said Zealan Hoover, a former senior adviser to the EPA administrator under President Joe Biden. “The National Climate Assessment provides over 2,000 pages of detailed evidence that climate change harms our health and welfare, but you can also ask the millions of Americans who have lost their homes and livelihoods to extreme fires, floods and storms that are only getting worse.”
...
"
REUTERS:"American Nazis: The Aryan Freedom Network is riding high in Trump era
This neo-Nazi group is changing the face of U.S. white extremism.HOCHATOWN, Oklahoma - Wearing cargo shorts, flip-flops and a baseball cap shading his eyes from the sun, Dalton Henry Stout blends in easily in rural America.
Except for the insignia on his hat. It bears the skull and crossbones of the infamous “Death’s Head” SS units that oversaw Nazi Germany’s concentration camps – and the initials “AFN,” short for Aryan Freedom Network, the neo-Nazi group Stout leads with his partner..."
CNN:"What we're covering
• Funeral processions: Crowds have gathered in Gaza to mourn Al Jazeera journalists who were among seven people killed by Israel in a military strike on Gaza. The UN called the strike a “grave breach of international humanitarian law”.
• Journalist targeted: The IDF said it targeted correspondent Anas Al-Sharif, 28, a prominent reporter who extensively covered the war from inside Gaza, after previously accusing him of leading a Hamas cell, an allegation Al-Sharif denied.
• Media access: Israel does not allow international journalists to enter the Gaza Strip to report independently..."
CNN:"For the past month Chinese aircraft carrier strike groups have been operating further from home shores and in greater strength than ever before, testing state-of-the-art technology and sending a message they are a force to be reckoned with, analysts and officials say.
Since early May, a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) flotilla led by the carrier Shandong has conducted exercises north of the Philippines; its newest carrier, the soon-to-be commissioned Fujian, has been on sea trials in disputed waters west of the Korean Peninsula; and its oldest carrier, the Liaoning has led exercises in the Pacific waters of Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
During the drills the Fujian for the first time conducted aircraft take-off and landing operations at sea using its advanced electromagnetic catapult system (EMALS), regional defense officials said.
..."
APNEWS:"
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The world’s nations are gathering in France next month to tackle what the United Nations calls a global emergency facing the world’s oceans as they confront rising temperatures, plastic pollution choking marine life, and relentless overexploitation of fish and other resources.
The third U.N. Ocean Conference aims to unite governments, scientists, businesses and civil society to take action and raise money to address these and other crises facing the oceans and the people who rely on them for their survival.
Conference Secretary-General Li Junhua told reporters on Tuesday he hopes it will not be another routine meeting but “the pivotal opportunity” to accelerate action and mobilize people in all sectors and across the world.
The conference, co-sponsored by France and Costa Rica, takes place in Nice on the French Riviera from June 7 to June 13. It is expected to bring together more than 60 world leaders, dozens of ministers, about 4,000 government officials and 6,000 members of civil society, Li told The Associated Press.
..“What is different this time around?,” she said. “Zero rhetoric. Maximum results.”
..."
REUTERS:"TURKU, Finland/BERLIN, May 27 (Reuters) - Germany's foreign minister threatened unspecified measures against Israel on Tuesday and said Berlin would not export weapons used to break humanitarian law, as he and Chancellor Friedrich Merz delivered their most severe rebuke yet over Gaza.
Germany, along with the United States, had long remained in support of Israel's conduct since the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas, even as Israel became increasingly isolated internationally. Its about-turn comes as the European Union is reviewing its Israel policy and Britain, France and Canada also threatened "concrete actions" over Gaza...."
NYTIMES:"The Israeli military announced on Sunday that its forces had begun “extensive ground operations” throughout the northern and southern Gaza Strip, advancing its plan to move farther into the enclave and seize more land in an intensified campaign likely to displace more civilians there.
This new stage in the 19-month war is aimed at pressuring Hamas into releasing the hostages it is still holding and ultimately destroying the group or forcing it to surrender, according to the Israeli government and military officials.
But details were scarce, and it was not immediately clear how far the Israeli forces would go at this stage, or which areas of Gaza would be most affected.
Israeli warplanes have been pounding Gaza in recent days to prepare the way for the expansion of ground operations, the military said, adding that the wave of strikes had hit what it described as more than 670 “Hamas terror targets.”..."
NYTIMES:"Jewish Groups and Synagogues Defend Students Detained by ICE
More than two dozen are joining a legal effort to free a Tufts University student the Trump administration is trying to deport because of her pro-Palestinian views.
..
They are a group of progressive Jewish organizations and congregations, and they are coming to the defense of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Muslim graduate student at Tufts, who faces deportation after she helped write an essay critical of Israel.
The coalition includes synagogues in places like West Newton, Mass., San Francisco and the Upper West Side of New York, along with J-Street, a pro-Israel advocacy group. On Thursday, they filed a brief in federal court in Burlington, Vt., objecting to the tactics the government was using against Ms. Ozturk in the name of combating antisemitism.
In the brief, the groups argued she should be released from the Louisiana immigration detention center where she has been held for over two weeks, after masked immigration agents surrounded and arrested her on a street near her home in Somerville, Mass.
“Jewish people came to America to escape generations of similar predations,” the brief says. “Yet the images of Ozturk’s arrest in twenty-first century Massachusetts evoke the oppressive tactics employed by the authoritarian regimes that many ancestors of amici’s members left behind in Odessa, Kishinev, and Warsaw.”
There have been reports of almost 1,000 international students and scholars at universities across the country who have lost their legal status since mid-March, according to the Association of International Educators.
..."
CNN:"
At least 22 people, including seven children, were killed Tuesday in an Israeli strike on a school compound sheltering thousands of displaced people in the Al Bureij camp in central Gaza, hospital officials said.
Dozens more were injured in the strike, they said.
At the site of the attack, video from the scene showed a large crater where people searched through the rubble of the school for survivors, the remnants of tents and belongings littering the ground.
Safaa Al Khaldi, who was sheltering at the school, said that her son was injured in the strike.
“Our children are starving, our children cannot find a piece of bread,” she said, referring to Israel’s complete blockade of Gaza, now in its third month. “What did we do wrong?”
.."
CNN:"Disturbing aftermath of Israeli settler rampage
Dozens of Israeli settlers launched an arson attack on an agricultural area in the occupied West Bank Tuesday evening, injuring at least 4 Palestinians. The attack took place in the town of Beit Lid east of Tulkarm, damaging the Deir Sharaf Bedouin village and Al-Juneidi dairy factory. It is the latest in what has become the most violent period of Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in nearly two decades since the UN began tracking such incidents. CNN's Jeremy Diamond surveys the aftermath at the scene of the attack.
.."
"WASHINGTON, March 25 (Reuters) - Food banks across the country, already strained by rising demand, say they will have less food to distribute because of at least $1 billion in federal funding cuts and pauses by the Trump administration, according to Reuters interviews with organizations in seven states.
Hunger in the U.S. has ticked up in recent years with rising inflation and the end of pandemic-era programs that expanded food aid. President Donald Trump's administration has vowed to lower inflation by cutting back on government spending, including two U.S. Department of Agriculture programs that helped schools and food banks buy food from local farms.
.."
CNN:"...The number of Israeli herding outposts has dramatically increased since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition took power in 2022 on a platform of settlement expansion. The government includes ministers who are themselves settlers and want to annex the occupied territory to Israel. In the wake of the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, which triggered Israel’s invasion of Gaza, settlers have accelerated land grabs with support from the state.
Israeli herding outposts have ballooned by nearly 50% since the war broke out, according to a joint report shared exclusively with CNN by Peace Now and Kerem Navot, two Israeli advocacy groups that oppose settlements and track their development, covering data up to the end of December 2024.
Settlers established 49 new illegal shepherding outposts between October 7, 2023, and December 2024, seizing large swathes of surrounding land, according to the report which was corroborated by a CNN analysis of satellite imagery of the area..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"JERUSALEM — Hamdan Ballal, a Palestinian co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” was attacked Monday by a group of Jewish settlers in the West Bank and later arrested by the Israeli army, according to activists and a neighbor who spoke to The Washington Post. Ballal was in his home village of Susya, part of the cluster of rural Palestinian communities known as Masafer Yatta, when settlers approached the village and tried to graze their sheep on private Palestinian land just before iftar, the sundown meal at which Muslims break their daily fast during Ramadan, according to Nasser Nawaj’ah, who lives in the small village and reports on settler violence for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. He spoke with Ballal’s wife, who described the attack.
A video taken by Khamudi Mahmoud, a resident of the village, shows a tall man wearing a T-shirt and baseball cap aggressively approaching Ballal in a rocky clearing as Ballal backs away and a crowd of villagers shout behind him.
Dozens of masked settlers wielding batons, knives and a rifle then attacked property and residents, activists focused on documenting settler attacks in the area said in a statement afterward..."
CNN:"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced fury from protesters outside Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem, a day after he resumed the war in Gaza, shattering the two-month-old ceasefire with Hamas.
On Highway 1 – the main road connecting Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – some protesters held a banner reading: “The future of the coalition or the future of Israel.”
The banner alludes to how, over nearly 18 months of war and fragile ceasefires, Netanyahu has been accused of prioritizing the solidity of his governing coalition over the security of his country, as well as the lives of Israeli hostages and Palestinians in Gaza.
Those accusations have been made with fresh anger after Israel bombarded Gaza overnight into Tuesday and killed more than 400 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, in one of the war’s deadliest days..."
CNN:"
Palestinians demonstrated against Hamas in northern Gaza on Tuesday, in what appeared to be the largest protest against the militant group since its attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Video obtained by CNN showed large crowds, estimated to be thousands of people by a CNN journalist on the ground, marching through the streets of Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, chanting “For god’s sake, Hamas out,” “Hamas terrorists” and “We want an end to the war.”
A message shared on social media appeared to call for nine anti-Hamas demonstrations across Gaza on Wednesday, with the protest organizers saying, “our voices must reach all the spies who sold our blood.”.."
CNN:"
The US Treasury Department notified lawmakers on Monday that a China state-sponsored actor infiltrated Treasury workstations in what officials are describing as a “major incident.”
In a letter reviewed by CNN, a Treasury official said it was informed by a third-party software service provider on December 8 that a threat actor used a stolen key to remotely access certain Treasury workstations and unclassified documents.
“Based on available indicators, the incident has been attributed to a Chinese state-sponsored Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actor,” Aditi Hardikar, assistant secretary for management at the US Treasury, wrote in the letter.
A Treasury spokesperson said in a statement to CNN that the compromised service has been taken offline and officials are working with law enforcement and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
“There is no evidence indicating the threat actor has continued access to Treasury systems or information,” the Treasury spokesperson said..."
CNN:"Body-worn camera footage released Friday shows correctional officers at the Marcy Correctional Facility in upstate New York punching and kicking a handcuffed inmate in a fatal beating that is now under investigation by the New York attorney general.
Robert Brooks was pronounced dead on December 10 at Wynn Hospital in Utica, according to Attorney General Letitia James. Brooks, 43, had been serving a 12-year prison sentence since 2017 for first-degree assault, prison documents show.
CNN has reviewed the footage, parts of which show surrounding officers kicking and punching Brooks, who has his hands handcuffed behind his back in a medical examination room. Brooks’ face appears bloody in some of the footage.
At one point, an officer appears to shove something in Brooks’ mouth before repeatedly hitting him in the face. Another officer then punches Brooks in the groin before using a shoe to strike him..."
CNN:"
A newborn baby died from the cold in a tent encampment in Al-Mawasi, in southern Gaza, a health official said Wednesday, highlighting the stark challenges to survival faced by Palestinian children displaced from their homes amid Israel’s ongoing assault on the strip.
Sela Mahmoud Al-Fasih “froze to death from the extreme cold” in Al-Mawasi, Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, the director general of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, posted on X on Wednesday.
In the past week, at least four infants have died of hypothermia from low temperatures and a lack of access to warmth while living in tents, Dr. Ahmed Al-Farra, the head of pediatrics and obstetrics at Nasser Hospital, in Khan Younis, said on Thursday. Among them were a three-day-old and a one-month-old who also died in Al-Mawasi, he said.
Staff in the neonatal ICU see at least five cases of hypothermia per day, added Al-Farra. Reduced breastfeeding and limited availability of infant formula has severely compounded the risk of hypothermia among babies, he told CNN. Meanwhile, health workers are struggling to treat young patients due to shortages of electricity, diesel and other fuel.
“This is one of the disastrous results of this criminal war,” said Al-Farra..."
APNEWS:" Democrats in North Carolina were celebrating big wins in the swing state after the November election, including victories in races for governor and other top statewide offices. But the political high didn’t last long.
Republican lawmakers are stripping away some core powers of the newly elected officials through a series of wide-ranging changes, anticipating that the result of a yet-to-be-called state legislative race will cost them their veto-proof majority next year. Critics say the moves, which were rushed through without any chance for public comment or analysis, undermine the voters and are simply undemocratic, but they have few options for undoing them.
“Let us speak plainly: This bill is nothing more than a desperate power grab,” said Courtney Patterson, vice president of the NAACP’s North Carolina chapter...."
NYTIMES:"Amnesty International on Thursday became the first major international human rights organization to accuse Israel of carrying out genocide in Gaza, drawing a rebuke from Israeli officials who denied the claim.
Amnesty’s contention, outlined in a 296-page report, comes as the International Court of Justice, the principal court of the United Nations, is reviewing similar allegations by South Africa, claims that have been at the heart of difficult debates about the war around the world.
“Israel committed and is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,” the Amnesty report said.
“Israel’s unlawful conduct throughout its military offensive resulted in unprecedented harm to Palestinians in Gaza that resulted in the massive scale of killings and serious injuries over an extremely short time,” it added.
Lawyers say that genocide is among the most difficult crimes to prove in international law because it requires demonstrating the specific intent to destroy a group, “in whole or in part,” something that Israeli leaders have persistently denied is their intent in Gaza.
In a rare move, the Israel chapter of Amnesty International protested the findings of the report, saying “the majority” of local members “holds that the claim that Israel is committing a genocide is not sufficiently substantiated.”
Still, the local chapter said that it was worried “serious crimes” were being perpetrated in Gaza and that the killing and destruction in Gaza was at “catastrophic proportions and must cease immediately.”
The chapter later said that four members of its board resigned over differences of opinion on the report. The organization didn’t clarify whether those who resigned were in favor or against the report..."
THE ICC:"
Today, on 21 November 2024, Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court (‘Court’), in its composition for the Situation in the State of Palestine, unanimously issued two decisions rejecting challenges by the State of Israel (‘Israel’) brought under articles 18 and 19 of the Rome Statute (the ‘Statute’). It also issued warrants of arrest for Mr Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr Yoav Gallant...."
NYTIMES:"We Americans live in faith with our Constitution and with the past generations of Americans who swore to protect it and fought to defend it. One week from today, we will decide whether Donald Trump is fit to be president of the United States again. He is not. When we entrusted our Constitution and our democracy to him before, he betrayed us. Campaigning for the presidency again, he now promises to exact vengeance against his fellow Americans whom he deems “the enemy from within,” those who have dared to challenge his betrayal, an enemies list that includes Republicans and Democrats alike.
There could be no higher duty of American citizenship than to decisively repudiate a man who betrayed the nation when he was previously entrusted with the highest office in the land and now threatens the persecution of American citizens who have crossed him. In the almost 250 years since the founding of the nation, no president before Donald Trump has ever so betrayed America..."
THEGUARDIAN:"
World must act to prevent ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Gaza, António Guterres warns
Secretary general makes appeal as civilian casualties mount amid intensive Israeli strikes on north
Patrick Greenfield in Cali, Malak A Tantesh in Gaza and Julian Borger in Jerusalem
Wed 30 Oct 2024 14.05 EDT
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The UN secretary general, António Guterres has warned Israel could carry out the “ethnic cleansing” of Gaza if the international community does not make a determined stand to prevent it.
Guterres made his appeal at a time of mounting civilian casualties from the Israeli bombardment of northern Gaza. A strike on Tuesday in Beit Lahiya district killed at least 93 people, in what the UN said was just one of at least seven “mass casualty incidents” across Gaza in the past week.
At the same time, aid deliveries to Gaza are reported to have fallen to their lowest level since the start of the war, leading to growing allegations that Israel’s true intention is to drive the remaining Palestinian population out of at least part of Gaza.
The UN secretary general, speaking on the sidelines of the COP16 biodiversity conference in Colombia, suggested that the “ethnic cleansing” of Gaza had been prevented until now by its people’s refusal to succumb to the intense pressure to flee their homes and by Arab resolve not to accept mass population transfers...."
"JERUSALEM/CAIRO, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Israel's parliament passed a law on Monday to ban the UN relief agency UNRWA from operating inside the country, alarming some of Israel's Western allies who fear it will worsen the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Israeli officials cited the involvement of a handful of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees' thousands of staffers in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel and a few staffers' membership in Hamas and other armed groups."
WASHINGTONPOST:"Is Israel carrying out de facto ethnic cleansing?
A pro-settlement Israeli group and some Israeli lawmakers gathered a couple miles from northern Gaza’s blasted neighborhoods to rally around settling Gaza.Just a couple miles from Gaza, top Israeli politicians gathered earlier this week and declaimed their grand visions for its future. “If we want it, we can renew settlements in Gaza,” said far-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, telling a gathering of a major settler organization that he would encourage the “voluntary transfer” of Palestinians living in war-stricken Gaza out of the territory and the return of Jewish settlers, including those who were forced out of Gaza by their own government in 2005.
“What we have learned this year is that everything is in our hands,” Ben Gvir said, before identifying what he considered the major legacy of militant group Hamas’s terrorist strike on southern Israel more than a year ago. “We are the owners of this land. Yes, we experienced a terrible catastrophe on October 7. But what we need to understand, one year later, is that so many Israelis have changed their thinking. They have changed their mindset. They understand that when Israel acts like the rightful owners of this land, this is what brings results.”
The mindset that he was extolling was a certain streak of ruthlessness in cracking down on its enemies, from Palestinian group Hamas to Hezbollah in Lebanon, where Israel was doing “whatever we want,” as Ben Gvir put it, in its ongoing military operations. It underscores the conviction of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who still speaks of achieving a “total victory” against Israel’s foes even when myriad Western leaders want him to agree to deals ceasing hostilities over both Gaza and Lebanon..."
CNN:"Israel has been on the receiving end of scathing criticism from European leaders who are trying to restrain the Jewish state from pressing on with its wars in Gaza and southern Lebanon.
From calls for a complete halt of weapons sales to Israel and considering sanctions on far-right Israeli ministers, to talks among EU members on reviewing Israel’s Association Agreement with the bloc, European leaders are trying to use their leverage to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into negotiating ceasefires.
Adding impetus to their effort is the fact Israeli military strikes are now hitting UN peacekeeping bases in southern Lebanon, which house European troops."
AP:"Army Gen. Mark Milley delivered a full-throated defense of democracy and not-so-subtle swipes at former President Donald Trump during a packed ceremony as he closed out his four, often tumultuous years as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
I'm deeply honored to have worn the cloth of this nation for 43 and a half years
and I'm humbled to have served as the 20th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
but today is not about anyone up here on this stage it's not about the president the Secretary of Defense May CQ it's not about us it's about something much larger than all of us it's about our democracy it's about our Republic we are unique among the world's armies we are unique among the world's militaries we don't take an oath to a country we don't take an oath to a tribe we don't take an oath to a religion we don't take an oath to a king or queen
or they're Tyrant or dictator that we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator
we don't take an oath to an individual we've taken oath to the Constitution and
we take an oath to the idea that is America and we're willing to die to
protect it ..."
CNN:"
John Kelly, the retired Marine general who was Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, entered the 2024 fray in stunning fashion, saying the former president fits “into the general definition of fascist” and wanted the “kind of generals Hitler had” in a series of interviews published Tuesday.
Kelly’s comments, two weeks from Election Day, are the latest in a line of warnings from former Trump White House aides about how he views the presidency and would exercise power if returned to office.
In addition to the fascist comments, Kelly — who was Trump’s chief of staff from 2017 to 2019 — told The New York Times that the former president “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.”
He also confirmed to The Atlantic that Trump had said he wished his military personnel showed him the same deference Adolf Hitler’s Nazi generals showed the German dictator during World War II, and recounted the moment...
CNN:"Israel’s widening military operations in Gaza and Lebanon – and looming response to Iran’s missile attack – are testament to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s need for political survival, a former Israeli diplomat told CNN.
CNN:"No food has entered northern Gaza since the start of October, putting 1 million people at risk of going hungry, the World Food Programme told CNN on Friday.
In August, approximately 700 hundred aid trucks entered northern Gaza. In September, only 400 aid trucks entered, after commercial operations ceased at the Allenby Crossing on the border between the occupied West Bank and Jordan, the WFP added. No food trucks have entered northern Gaza in October, the WFP told CNN.
On Wednesday, the WFP said in a report that the aid entering the strip has plummeted to its lowest level in months, forcing the organization to stop the distribution of food parcels in October.
“Hunger remains rampant and the threat of famine persists,” WFP added. .."
NYTIMES:"...The story Netanyahu wants to tell the world is that Iran and its proxies are the main obstacle to the world of inclusion stretching from Europe, through the Middle East, and over to the Asia-Pacific region.
I beg to differ. The keystone to this whole alliance is a Saudi-Israel normalization based on reconciliation between Israel and moderate Palestinians.
If Israel now moved ahead and opened a dialogue on two states for two peoples with a reformed Palestinian Authority, which has already accepted the Oslo peace treaty, it would be the diplomatic knockout blow that would accompany and solidify the military knockout blow Israel just delivered to Hezbollah and Hamas...."
WSJ:"In less than two years, OpenAI has gone from a little-known nonprofit lab working on obscure technology to a world-famous business whose chief executive is the face of the artificial-intelligence revolution.
That change is tearing the company apart.
On Wednesday, OpenAI’s chief technology officer became the latest high-profile executive to announce an exit, departing as the company prepares to become a for-profit corporation. The exits are public eruptions of tensions that have been growing in the company behind ChatGPT since CEO Sam Altman returned following his brief ouster last year.
Some tensions are related to conflicts between OpenAI’s original mission to develop AI for the public good and new initiatives to deploy moneymaking products. Others relate to chaos and infighting among executives worthy of a soap opera. CTO Mira Murati is one of more than 20 OpenAI researchers and executives who have quit this year, including several co-founders..."
WOKEPREACHERTV: Billy Graham's grand daughter spoke about why she became involved in politics. It started in 2016 when a man bragged about assaulting women. Various leaders propped up this man as a poster boy for Godly manhood and leadership. She watched pastors overlook his actions and continued supporting him. These same pastors looked the other way concerning the assaults, the name calling and January 6. The reason why she got involved in politics is to go against faith leaders who support a man who destroys everything that Jesus stands for: Justice Mercy and Humility citing Micah 6:8.
CNN:"A former president of the United States
who wants to be the next president
is now directly
spreading the slogans of the conspiracy
cult QAnon,
as well as posting a crude,
sexist and misogynistic slur online,
reposting. To be precise.
Which means
he didn't come up with it himself,
but liked it so much that he wanted
the rest of the world to see it,
which is both a gentle introduction
and a warning.
One posting of several uses
two QAnon catchphrases
nothing can stop what is coming,
which refers to the so-called mass
arrests of so-called deep state members,
which in the world of QAnon
is basically anyone who has irked
Donald Trump...."
CNN:"
The father of an American hostage still being held in Gaza by Hamas criticized the deadly attacks in Lebanon that caused pagers and walkie-talkies to explode killing dozens, stating “this pager, mission-impossible action, it’s like treating agony with more agony.”
Adi Alexander, whose son Edan Alexander is being held, said in an interview on “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” that “this vicious cycle of violence needs to stop.”
Israel has not officially taken credit for the attacks, but CNN has reported that Tuesday’s operation was a joint effort between the IDF and Mossad..."
CNN:"US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has called for “fundamental changes” to the way Israeli forces operate in the occupied West Bank after the killing of American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi at a protest last week.
Blinken’s sharply worded rebuke came after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Tuesday that it was “highly likely” that Eygi was “hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire.”"
CNN:"Many are feared killed and wounded after Israeli forces struck a humanitarian zone created to shelter displaced people in southern Gaza, in what Israel said was an attack on Hamas terrorists in the area.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Monday evening that it “struck significant Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command-and-control center embedded inside the humanitarian area” in Khan Younis, Gaza.
Hamas denied it had placed fighters in the area.
Gazan authorities said dozens of Palestinian families had been buried in the strike on a crowded displacement camp and that a search was underway to locate victims." 
CNN:"
With its announcement that militants guarding Israeli hostages in the buildings and tunnels of Gaza had “new instructions” to kill them If Israeli troops closed in, Hamas signalled the opening of a chilling new chapter in an already brutal war...."
CNN:"
A federal appeals court ruled on Monday that white supremacist and nationalist groups will have to pay a more than $2 million in punitive damages to people who suffered physical or emotional injuries from the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
In 2021, a jury ruled white nationalist leaders and organizations had to pay more than $26 million in damages to those who suffered injuries from the rally.
"
CNN: Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and the MAGA mob are calling for revenge and retribution
Andrew McCabe and James Comey were legally harassed by Trump for years but nothing came of it.
In the interview with Anderson, McCabe stated that people in the Justice Department and Intelligence are worried that they and their families will be subjected to extra-judicial unconstitutional detentions or worse.
WASHINGTONPOST:"The Justice Department on Wednesday charged two Russian media executives in an alleged scheme that authorities say illegally funneled millions of dollars to a Tennessee-based company to create and publish propaganda videos that racked up millions of views on U.S. social media...."
BLOOMBERG:"Almost two-thirds of Americans considered middle class said they are facing economic hardship and don’t anticipate a change for the rest of their lives, according to a poll commissioned by the National True Cost of Living Coalition.
By many traditional measures, the US economy is strong, with robust labor, housing and stock markets, as well as solid gross domestic product growth. But the data don’t capture the financial insecurity of millions of households who worry about their future and are unable to save, according to the group, created this year to come up with cost-of-living tools that help gauge economic well-being...."
WASHINGTONPOST:"The United Nations Security Council approved, 14-0, a U.S.-sponsored resolution to support the American-backed cease-fire plan for Gaza. Russia abstained.
The vote was a rare diplomatic victory for the Biden administration in the international body, where criticism has grown over what is seen by many as U.S. support for the war and Israeli intransigence..."
CNN:"The United Nations' top court has ordered Israel to halt its military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
“Israel must immediately halt its military offensive and any other action in the Rafah Governorate which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part," said Judge Nawaf Salam, president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The court, which sits in The Hague, the Netherlands, made the ruling on Friday as part of the ongoing genocide case brought by South Africa.
.."
NYTIMES:"
Israeli Bulldozers Flatten Mile After Mile in the West Bank
Videos from Tulkarm and Jenin show bulldozers destroying infrastructure and businesses, as well as soldiers impeding local emergency responders.Over two weeks, Palestinians watched as Israeli military bulldozers tore up mile after mile of their streets and alleys, sewage seeping into the dusty ruts left behind...."
BLOOMBERG:"
Sundar Pichai, Google, and the AI Boom
Ahead of Google's developer conference I/O, Google & Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai sits down exclusively with Bloomberg Originals Host & Executive Producer Emily Chang to discuss the future of search, accelerating work on Google's AI models and how his upbringing prepared him for this moment. (Source: Bloomberg) ..”
WSJ:"As the U.S. and some Arab nations try to persuade Israel to work toward resolving its conflicts with Palestinians for good, young Palestinians increasingly say they don’t see an independent state as viable given Israel’s deep footprint in the West Bank and Gaza. Their pessimism, coupled with a flatlining peace process, makes it less likely a two-state solution will be achieved. It could also force Palestinian, Israeli and international leaders to return to the drawing board. Palestinians under 25 are less optimistic about the future than their elders, according to polling from the West Bank-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. They are also more supportive of using violence to fight for democratic rights than their parents and grandparents, a symptom of the past’s failed diplomacy, said Khalil Shikaki, the center’s director...."
CNN:"
Almost exactly six months ago, Israelis awoke to a nightmare. Civilians in the southern part of the country, areas near the border with Gaza, were under a brutal, ongoing attack. It would become the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust and a prelude to unspeakable suffering on both sides of the border.Six months after Hamas launched that deadly rampage, knowing that Israel’s response would be ferocious, there are only losers in this terrible war...."
REUTERS:"DEARBORN, Michigan, Feb 27 - The depth of Democratic Party anger over President Joe Biden’s handling of the Gaza war has caught his campaign off guard and could depress support in November’s election, according to Reuters interviews with more than a dozen senior party and campaign officials and five dozen voters and activists....
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CNN:"Steven Spielberg had words of caution and hope on Monday while accepting an honor from the University of Southern California.
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NYTIMES:"...They have preserved this way of life for hundreds of years through isolation — some villages can take a week to reach. But since September, the Marubo have had high-speed internet thanks to Elon Musk...."
WASHINGTONPOST:
CNN:"...
JPMorgan Chase now fights off about 45 billion attempts a day by hackers to infiltrate its systems. That’s double what it was last year, highlighting the escalating cybersecurity challenges the bank and other Wall Street titans are facing..."
WASHINGTONPOST:"The major cloud computing provider spun out of Hewlett-Packard said late Wednesday that it had been hacked by a suspected Russian intelligence team, the second such hack of a major U.S. internet company reported this month...."
CNN:"
Imprisoned Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi paid tribute to the Iranian people’s determination to “dismantle” the “despotism and obstruction” of the Islamic Republic’s regime in her Nobel Peace Prize lecture delivered by her children, Kiana and Ali, on Sunday.
Her teenage twins, who have not seen their mother in years, accepted the award on her behalf at a ceremony in the Norwegian capital, Oslo..."
CNN:"Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Hamas' founder who later became one of Israel's top informants, speaks with CNN's Jake Tapper about Israel's war on the terror group and the situation in Gaza" Yousef states that Hamas wants the total annihilation of Israel and Jews and wants to establish a global Islamic state. Yousef states that Israel is fighting for the Palestians to be free from Hamas.
CNN:"
More than a billion Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists around the world are celebrating Diwali, the festival of lights.
Diwali, also called Deepavali, is one of the biggest festivals in India. It’s also widely celebrated in Nepal, Malaysia, Fiji and other countries with large South Asian diasporas. Homes, businesses and public spaces are lit up with diyas, or oil lamps made from clay, and fireworks displays abound. People gather with their families, eat sweets and exchange gifts.
Despite its deep religious significance, Diwali today is also a cultural festival observed by people regardless of faith.
Here’s what to know about the holiday..."
ABCNEWS:"Tennessee otter enjoys playing in the snow"
Cat Saves Dog Being Attacked by Coyotes
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Cat Saves Dog Being Attacked by Coyotes
CNN:"
A 2-year-old girl who walked barefoot more than three miles with her family’s two dogs was found sleeping off a wooded Michigan trail using the smaller dog as a pillow, authorities said.
Troopers were called to a house in rural Faithorn, Michigan, around 8 p.m. on Wednesday after the toddler, Thea Chase, had wandered away from the home, Michigan State Police Lt. Mark Giannunzio told CNN on Friday.
Faithorn is a small town about a mile east of Wisconsin’s border in northern Michigan."
CNN:"Stunning photos spotlight vanishing ‘super tusker’ elephants
By
Anna Tunkova
Updated 17 hr ago
Federico Veronesi’s “Walk the Earth” is the result of years spent tracking Africa’s last super tuskers. In the book, he describes them as “the last guardians of Africa’s wild spirit, embodying the soul of the untamed wilderness.”
Photo gallery: 'Walk the Earth'
6 photos
Federico Veronesi’s “Walk the Earth” is the result of years spent tracking Africa’s last super tuskers. In the book, he describes them as “the last guardians of Africa’s wild spirit, embodying the soul of the untamed wilderness.” Federico Veronesi"
APNEWS:"An endangered Pacific Northwest orca that made global headlines in 2018 for carrying her dead calf for over two weeks is doing so once again following the death of her new calf, in another sign of grief over lost offspring, researchers said..."
CNN:"
It’s the body of water that instils fear and inspires sailors in equal measure. Six hundred miles of open sea, and some of the roughest conditions on the planet
...It is, of course, the Drake Passage..."
CNN:"World's largest species of fish spotted in rare appearance
Researchers from the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology Shark Research Lab say they spotted the whale shark a mile off the Kāneʻohe Bay."
CNN:"
An orca pod in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico has devised a cunning strategy to hunt and kill whale sharks — the world’s largest fish that can grow up to 18 meters (60 feet) in length — new research has revealed..."
AP:"SEATTLE (AP) — It’s a good thing seals aren’t on a humpback whale’s menu.
A photograph by a whale-watching naturalist captured a seemingly bewildered seal in the mouth of a humpback whale after the giant marine mammal accidentally gulped it last Thursday in the waters off Anacortes, Washington.
The food mix-up began while a Blue Kingdom Whale and Wildfire Tours boat spotted birds flying over a school of fish and a humpback whale swimming toward it, Captain Tyler McKeen said..."
NYTIMES:"When a cat dashed into the woods of Yellowstone National Park during a camping trip in June, his California owners, Benny and Susanne Anguiano, thought they’d never see him again.
The couple searched for five days through the woods near their campground at Fishing Bridge R.V. Park but never found their 2-year-old male Siamese cat, Rayne Beau, pronounced “rainbow.” ..."
CNN:"Koalas are very hard to see at night.
Their gray fur blurs with the bitumen on dimly lit roads, and they move deceptively quickly for a marsupial often seen languidly munching on leaves high in trees.
But for an endangered species whose population numbers are said to be unreliable due to their elusive nature, koala sightings are becoming all too common during breeding season in some areas in and around Brisbane. And not just in trees.
Day and night, they’re spotted close to busy roads, on fences, up power poles, in backyards, near swimming pools, in schools – places they aren’t safe..."
APNEWS:"CHICAGO (AP) — A pair of snowy owls spotted along a Lake Michigan beach has drawn curious crowds and sparked happy speculation about how long the Arctic birds of prey will call Chicago home.
Word of the two owls has circulated on birder forums in the nation’s third-largest city for about a week, according to the Chicago Ornithological Society. While snowy owls aren’t rare in Chicago, their frequency varies widely each winter. Generally, a handful are reported around December, but sometimes there aren’t any..."
PHYS.ORG:"Fleeting blasts of energy from space, known as fast radio bursts (FRBs), are a cosmic enigma. A Canadian-led international team of researchers has published new findings suggesting that supernovae are the predominant contributors to forming sources that eventually produce FRBs..."
CNN:"
Scientists in California shooting nearly 200 lasers at a cylinder holding a fuel capsule the size of a peppercorn have taken another step in the quest for fusion energy, which, if mastered, could provide the world with a near-limitless source of clean power.
.”.."
CNN:"A glowing supernova remnant, a nebula shaped like a cat’s paw and the iconic “Pillars of Creation” are just a few of the celestial objects that shine in 25 never-before-seen images captured by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to mark the telescope’s 25th anniversary.
Chandra, named in honor of the late Indian American astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, launched to space aboard the space shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999. The crew, including STS-93 Commander Eileen Collins, deployed the telescope into its oval-shaped orbit, which takes Chandra on a path around Earth that is nearly one-third of the distance to the moon..."
CNN:"...Astronomers thought barred spiral galaxies such as the Milky Way didn’t appear until the universe reached at least half of its current age because it was believed that it took several billion years of galactic evolution before the massive collections of stars within galaxies could form central bars...
WASHINGTONPOST:"A group of U.S. scientists say they have repeated their landmark energy feat — a nuclear fusion reaction that produces more energy than is put into it. But this time, they say the experiment produced an even higher energy yield than one in December that got international attention for making a major step forward toward the long elusive goal of producing energy through fusion..."
"WASHINGTON, Aug 10 (Reuters) - The peculiar wobble of a subatomic particle called a muon in a U.S. laboratory experiment is making scientists increasingly suspect they are missing something in their understanding of physics - perhaps some unknown particle or force.
Researchers on Thursday announced new findings about the muon (pronounced MEW-on), a magnetic and negatively charged particle similar to its cousin the electron but 200 times more massive, in their experiment at the U.S. Energy Department's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois.The experiment studied the wobble of muons as they traveled through a magnetic field...."
WSJ:"
An international team of astrophysicists has discovered hundreds of mysterious structures in the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
These one-dimensional cosmic threads are hundreds of horizontal or radial filaments — slender, elongated bodies of luminous gas that potentially originated a few million years ago when outflow from Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole, interacted with surrounding materials, according to a study published Friday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. .."
CNN:"
The James Webb Space Telescope and other observatories witnessed a massive explosion in space that created rare chemical elements, some of which are necessary for life.
The explosion, which occurred on March 7, was the second brightest gamma-ray burst ever witnessed by telescopes in more than 50 years of observations, over one million times brighter than the entire Milky Way Galaxy combined. ..
CNN:"What would be the ultimate solution to the energy problems of an advanced civilization? Renowned British American physicist Freeman Dyson theorized it would be a shell made up of mirrors or solar panels that completely surrounds a star — harnessing all the energy it produces.
“One should expect that, within a few thousand years of its entering the stage of industrial development, any intelligent species should be found occupying an artificial biosphere which completely surrounds its parent star,” wrote Dyson in a 1960 paper in which he first explained the concept.
If it sounds like science fiction, that’s because it is:.."
CNN:"Sophie Kinsella, the best-selling author behind the “Shopaholic” book series, has died at age 55.
The writer, whose real name was Madeleine Sophie Wickham, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer in 2022.
Kinsella’s family announced her death in a statement on her Instagram account on Wednesday. It said: “We are heartbroken to announce the passing this morning of our beloved Sophie (aka Maddy, aka Mummy). She died peacefully, with her final days filled with her true loves: family and music and warmth and Christmas and joy."
APNEWS:"MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Steve Cropper, the lean, soulful guitarist and songwriter who helped anchor the celebrated Memphis backing band Booker T. and the M.G.’s at Stax Records and co-wrote the classics “Green Onions,” "(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay” and “In the Midnight Hour,” has died. He was 84.
Pat Mitchell Worley, president and CEO of the Soulsville Foundation, said Cropper’s family told her that Cropper died on Wednesday in Nashville. The foundation operates the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis, located at the site of the former Stax Records, where Cropper worked for years..."
CNN:"Viola Ford Fletcher, the oldest living survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre, died at 111 years old Monday, her grandson Ike Howard confirmed.
“She had a beautiful smile on her face,” Howard told CNN. “She loved life, she loved people.”
Fletcher sat with CNN multiple times for interviews in recent years as she and other living survivors pursued a lawsuit against the city of Tulsa and other related departments, alleging they were complicit in the 1921 massacre and that its effects were still being felt today..."
NYTIMES:"Jimmy Cliff, the Jamaican reggae singer known for songs including “You Can Get It If You Really Want” and “The Harder They Come,” has died. He was 81.
Cliff’s wife, Latifa Chambers, announced his death in a post on his official Instagram page early Monday. The cause was pneumonia, she wrote. “Jimmy, my darling, may you rest in peace,” she said in the post.
He won two Grammy Awards. He won best reggae recording in 1986 for “Cliff Hanger,” and best reggae album in 2013 for “Rebirth.”
In 1972, Cliff starred in the movie “The Harder They Come,” about a struggling Jamaican musician who turns to crime. The movie helped bring reggae music to a wider audience.
A full obituary will be published later..."
CNN"Dick Cheney, America’s most powerful modern vice president and chief architect of the “war on terror,” who helped lead the country into the ill-fated Iraq war on faulty assumptions, has died, according to a statement from his family. He was 84.
“His beloved wife of 61 years, Lynne, his daughters, Liz and Mary, and other family members were with him as he passed,” the family said, adding that he died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease.“Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing,” the family added.
..."
CNN:"Diane Ladd, the three-time Academy Award nominee whose roles ranged from the brash waitress in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” to the protective mother in “Wild at Heart,” has died at 89.
Ladd’s death was announced Monday by daughter Laura Dern, who issued a statement saying her mother and occasional co-star had died at her home in Ojai, California, with Dern at her side. Dern, who called Ladd her “amazing hero” and “profound gift of a mother,” did not immediately cite a cause of death..."
CNN:"Space." CBS/Getty Images
Los Angeles
AP
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June Lockhart, who became a mother figure for a generation of television viewers whether at home in “Lassie” or up in the stratosphere in “Lost In Space,” has died. She was 100.
Lockhart died Thursday of natural causes at her home in Santa Monica, family spokesman Lyle Gregory, a friend of 40 years, said Saturday..."
REUTERS:"Oct 11 (Reuters) - Diane Keaton, the quirky U.S. actress who won an Academy Award and captured hearts with her endearing performance as Woody Allen's eccentric, insecure girlfriend in the 1977 romantic comedy "Annie Hall," has died at the age of 79, People reported on Saturday, citing a family spokesperson.
..
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CNN:"Jane Goodall, whose lifelong work as a primatologist helped broaden the world’s understanding of animal behavior and emotions, has died, her institute said Wednesday. She was 91.
Her field studies with chimpanzees not only broke barriers for women and changed the way scientists study animals, but documented emotions and personality traits within these primates that blurred the line between humans and the animal kingdom.
She passed away due to natural causes in California during a speaking tour in the United States, according to her institute.
“Dr. Goodall’s discoveries as an ethologist revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world,” the institute said in a statement on social media..."
NYTIMES:"Robert Redford, the big-screen charmer turned Oscar-winning director whose hit movies often helped America make sense of itself and who, offscreen, evangelized for environmental causes and fostered the Sundance-centered independent film movement, died early Tuesday morning at his home in Utah. He was 89.
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NYTIMES:"William H. Webster, the only person ever to lead both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency, switching from lawman to spymaster while the bureau was investigating high crimes at the White House and the C.I.A., died on Friday in Warrenton, Va. He was 101.
A family spokesman, Jim McGrath, confirmed the death, at a care center, but did not specify a cause.
..."
CNN:"Famed NASA astronaut Jim Lovell, who commanded the harrowing Apollo 13 mission that was forced to abandon a lunar landing attempt in 1970, has died. He was 97.
Lovell died on August 7 in Lake Forest, Illinois, according to a NASA news release. The cause of death was not immediately clear.
Lovell’s family requested privacy but said, “We are saddened to announce the passing of our beloved father, USN Captain James A. ‘Jim’ Lovell, a Navy pilot and officer, astronaut, leader, and space explorer,” in a statement...."
NYTIMES:"Connie Francis, who dominated the pop charts in the late 1950s and early ’60s with sobbing ballads like “Who’s Sorry Now” and “Don’t Break the Heart That Loves You,” as well as up-tempo soft-rock tunes like “Stupid Cupid,” “Lipstick on Your Collar,” and “Vacation,” died on Wednesday. She was 87..."
AP:""Sometimes there are strange symmetries in death, as in life. The twin passings of Sly Stone and Brian Wilson this week brought that into sharp relief.
Both were musical geniuses who paid a high price for their gifts. They burned bright, with art they created at their peaks that became more moving and meaningful with time, only to see their creative lights extinguished suddenly through mental health and addiction issues. Both were 82 when they died — Stone on Monday and Wilson on Wednesday.
.."
NYTIMES:"
Justice David Souter, touted as a steadfast conservative for the Supreme Court in 1990, soon revealed himself as the opposite.
He valued constitutional privacy, individual equality and the separation of church and state. And in 1992, when the justices confronted a major test of abortion rights, he unflinchingly cast a vote to affirm Roe v. Wade.
From the elevated courtroom bench that June 29, 1992, morning, as Souter read his portion of the opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, he emphasized regard for the 1973 precedent and the court’s “promise of constancy.”
“Like the character of an individual,” the New Hampshire native said in his distinctive Yankee drawl, “the legitimacy of the court must be earned over time. … The court’s concern for legitimacy is not for the sake of the court but for the sake of the nation to which it is responsible.”. When I contacted Souter nearly three decades later, as the court was about to hear a new abortion case (one that would lead to the 2022 reversal of Roe), he asked, “to be excused from voicing recollections of Casey.”
.."
CNN:"Val Kilmer, a movie star who throughout his career proved he was up for any task, from playing a cocky naval pilot to wearing the Batman suit, died on Tuesday, according to his daughter Mercedes Kilmer, who released a statement to the New York Times and the Associated Press. He was 65.
The cause of death was pneumonia, Mercedes Kilmer told the media outlets"
CNN:"
Former US Rep. Mia Love, the first Black woman elected to Congress as a Republican, passed away following a fight with an aggressive form of brain cancer, her family announced on X Sunday night.
Love, who was 49, represented Utah’s 4th Congressional District from 2015-2019.
“With grateful hearts filled to overflowing for the profound influence of Mia on our lives, we want you to know that she passed away peacefully today,” the Love family wrote on Mia Love’s X account...."
NYTIMES:"George Foreman, a heavyweight boxing champion who returned to the sport to regain his title at the improbable age of 45, and who parlayed his fame and his amiable personality into a multimillion-dollar grill business, died on Friday night in Houston. He was 76.
His family announced the death, in a hospital, on his Instagram account. Roy Foreman, George’s brother, said the cause was not known.
.."
NYTIMES:"Roberta Flack, the magnetic singer and pianist whose intimate blend of soul, jazz and folk made her one of the most popular artists of the 1970s, died on Monday in Manhattan. She was 88.
She died en route to a hospital, according to Suzanne Koga, her manager and friend. The cause was cardiac arrest, she said. Ms. Flack revealed in 2022 that she’d been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which left her unable to perform.
.."
CNN:"
Ozzy Osbourne, the hellraising frontman of Black Sabbath and reality TV star, has died aged 76.
The news was confirmed via the Associated Press on Tuesday, who included a statement from the Osbourne family:
“It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time.”
.."
NYTIMES:"Maggie Smith: A Life in Pictures
She had a long, award-winning career as a screen and stage actress, finally becoming a household name with her memorable turn in “Downton Abbey.”"
CNN:"
Physicist Peter Higgs, whose theory of an undetected particle in the universe changed science and was vindicated by a Nobel prize-winning discovery half a century later, has died aged 94, the University of Edinburgh said on Tuesday.
The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 at the CERN research centre near Geneva was widely hailed as the biggest advance in knowledge about the cosmos for over 30 years, and pointed physics towards ideas that were once science fiction...."
CNN:"Extrajudicial executions, rape, forced abortions, jail without trial, torture, starvation rations that leave prisoners so hungry some turn to eating insects.
These are just some of the abuses commonplace in North Korean prisons and other detention facilities, according to former detainees whose testimony forms the basis of a new report released by a human rights watchdog this week.
Using interviews with hundreds of survivors, witnesses and perpetrators of abuse who have fled the country, along with official documents, satellite images, architectural analysis and digital modeling of penal facilities, the non-profit NGO Korea Future has built up what it says is the most detailed picture yet of life inside the secretive country’s penal system..."
CNN:"Meet the women fighting for compensation for cancers they say were caused by France’s nuclear testing...In 2013, Hinamoeura Cross, a 25 year-old Tahitian lawyer and mother, received a phone call that would change her life forever. After a routine blood test, the medical laboratory called and asked if she had been stung by a bee. Confused, Cross said no. The technician explained that her test results showed an abnormally high white blood cell count, and recommended she see a doctor immediately. Soon after, Cross was diagnosed with leukemia..."
"LONDON, July 7 (Reuters) - The global cost-of-living crisis is pushing an additional 71 million people in the world's poorest countries into extreme poverty, a new report published by the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) on Thursday has warned.
Achim Steiner, UNDP administrator, said an analysis of 159 developing countries showed that the surge in key commodity prices this year was already slamming parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, the Balkans, Asia and elsewhere.Export volumes of aluminum oxide, which is used to make the metal aluminum, an important material in weapons production and aerospace, are 400 times higher than last year.The rise in reported export values may partly be explained by inflation. But the data shows that many Chinese tech sellers have continued to do business with Russia despite U.S. scrutiny."
CNN:"Anderson asks George Will if is he worried about democracy: Hear his reply. Contrary to the myth today Americans are quite willing to confront their mistakes. On balance our progress is stunning. The discord today is unsightly awful and childish but we've seen worse. I don't think our democracy is in danger of death but I do think it is in danger of being attenuated and weakened. Democracy depends upon above all else on a culture of persuasion of conversation
.."
AP:"As President Donald Trump entered the final year of his term last January, the U.S. recorded its first confirmed case of COVID-19. Not to worry, Trump insisted, his administration had the virus “totally under control.”
Now, in his final hours in office, after a year of presidential denials of reality and responsibility, the pandemic’s U.S. death toll has eclipsed 400,000. And the loss of lives is accelerating.
-Ed-Shames-101st-Airborne.jpg "Col(Ret)-Ed-Shames-101st-Airborne")
CNN: Two FSB defectors say there are many Russians in the FSB who want to escape from Russia. "Every second FSB officer wants to run away". "There are a lot of people who now work in the Putin system but want to find- a way to work together with the West, with Ukraine, with Europe, with the United States, and to stop Putin." Because there have been FSB agents who pretended to seek asylum but in reality continued to work for Putin, many countries have made it more difficult for many Russians to get visas to enter their countries
CNN:"I care about dismantling Christian nationalism both because I’m a practicing Christian and because I’m a patriotic American – and no, those identities are not the same. As Christians, we can’t allow Greene, Boebert or Trump to distort our faith without a fight.
We must speak loudly when our faith is used as a political tool, we must uproot it from our own churches and communities and we must form alliances with religious minorities and the nonreligious – who suffer the impact of Christian nationalism the most. Religion, and Christianity in particular, has flourished in America not because of government aid or favoritism, but for the opposite reason: religion’s freedom from government control. Government involvement in religious affairs doesn’t aid the free exercise of religion. And as Christians, we are called to love our neighbors rather than make them feel unwelcome in their own country.
As historian Jemar Tisby has written, “[to] follow Christ is to reject the Christian Nationalist ideology. Marjorie Taylor Greene and her allies can follow Jesus’s teachings or the teachings of Christian Nationalism, but they cannot do both.”"
CNN:"
On a dark autumn evening almost four years ago, Janie Yoshida was driving her daughter home from high school play rehearsal when she noticed a teenager walking by himself next to a busy road.
Tre Burrows, it turned out, was also in the play at Somerset Academy Canyons High School in Boynton Beach, Florida.
“I pulled over to the side of the sidewalk and rolled the window down and said, ‘Hey, where do you live? I’ll take you home,’” Janie recalled.
The 17-year-old kept insisting he was fine, until Janie put on “my mom’s voice” and demanded: ‘“Get in the car.”
The polite young man with the gregarious smile complied. But, Janie soon learned, he led a life more challenging than she imagined – one in which she’d soon play a far bigger role.
“He wanted me to drop him off at a main intersection. And I said, ‘Of course not. Just show me where you live.’ And he goes, ‘No, I can walk the rest of the way,’” Janie recalled. Reluctantly, Tre directed Janie to where he and his family were living.
A motel...."
CNN:"
Life can change forever in the space between two heartbeats. It’s a fact Pati Navalta knows all too well.
In 2014, her 23-year-old son Robby Poblete was looking forward to a new career, training to be a welder and planning his future in their hometown of Vallejo, California.
Then a sudden act of gun violence ended his life and set Navalta on an unexpected course.
From the depths of her grief, Navalta looked to her son’s example and chose to create. The longtime journalist, activist and author wrote a book about her experiences and founded the Robby Poblete Foundation in her son’s memory.
“I thought if I created something to help the city become safer, then it could literally change the narrative,” Navalta told CNN.
.."
CNN:"Judah Samet survive two unthinkable tragedies: imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp and the 2018 massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue. But still he held onto his faith in humanity – and made a point of sharing what he’d witnessed...
“I have the right to believe that the world is a rotten place, but I don’t,” he said in a 2019 interview with the USC Shoah Foundation, which shared a video of his remarks and praised Samet’s “tireless efforts to document the past and secure a better future.”
“He went through his life with an unrelenting optimism and just saw the good in everybody and every situation,” said his daughter, Elizabeth H. Samet..."
CNN:"As soon as some members of the Islamic Center of Muncie saw the man coming toward them, they knew he was trouble...He was going to plant a bomb at the mosque in hopes of killing or wounding hundreds of Muslims. He was on a scouting mission to pick a location to hide his bomb and to gather intelligence that would validate his assumption that Islam was a murderous ideology.
“I told people that Islam was a cancer; and I was the surgeon to cure it,” he says.
But when McKinney entered the mosque, he encountered a form of resistance that he had not planned for. Something happened that day that would change him in a way he never expected..."
"
CNN:"Multiple space and ground-based telescopes witnessed one of the brightest explosions in space when it reached Earth on October 9. The burst may be one of the most powerful ever recorded by telescopes.
Gamma-ray bursts, or GRBs, are the most powerful class of explosions in the universe, according to NASA. Scientists have dubbed this one GRB 221009A, and telescopes around the world continue to observe its aftermath.“The exceptionally long GRB 221009A is the brightest GRB ever recorded and its afterglow is smashing all records at all wavelengths,” said Brendan O’Connor, a doctoral student at the University of Maryland and George Washington University in Washington, DC, in a statement.
“Because this burst is so bright and also nearby, we think this is a once-in-a-century opportunity to address some of the most fundamental questions regarding these explosions, from the formation of black holes to tests of dark matter models.”
Scientists believe the creation of the long, bright pulse occurred when a massive star in the Sagitta constellation — about 2.4 billion light-years away — collapsed into a supernova explosion and became a black hole.
CNN:"
At first glance, it looks like another of those viral photos that we can barely watch anymore.
It shows a White state trooper and a Black man during a traffic stop on a bright, sunny day. The trooper is leaning his thick arms through the open passenger window to clutch the Black man’s right hand. The man’s back is pinned against the passenger seat, and his eyes are squeezed shut. He appears to be wincing in pain.
But this photo is being widely shared for another reason. The trooper is reaching into the car to help, not to harm. And the encounter has been described by those who witnessed it not as tragic, but inspired.
“It was a really beautiful moment for me to see this take place between my dad and the officer,” said Ashlye V. Wilkerson, the 39-year-old driver of the car who surreptitiously took the photo.
The state trooper still has trouble digesting what happened that afternoon.
“It’s just one of those things I can’t explain,” said Trooper Jaret Doty of the North Carolina State Highway Patrol..."
CNN: "...Physicists, engineers and computer scientists are trying to harness the counterintuitive behavior of quantum mechanics to build quantum computers, leading eventually to the quantum internet. And this effort isn't just an abstract goal of academics; it has been identified by the US government as an important national initiative. Federal agencies have begun to lay out the framework for an American quantum infrastructure. The Department of Energy for example, plans to link together its laboratories with a quantum internet. A quantum internet is both similar and different to the ordinary internet..."
CNN:"When Pardeep Kaleka first contacted Arno Michaelis, he was looking for answers.
It was 2012, just a few weeks after a White supremacist entered the Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, and gunned down Kaleka’s father and five other members of his community.
As Kaleka wrestled with feelings of anger, guilt and cynicism, he wanted to understand what would drive someone to target his place of worship. More than that, he wanted someone to take accountability. After carrying out the massacre, the Oak Creek shooter had turned the gun on himself. So Kaleka turned to a substitute: Michaelis, a former White supremacist who had helped found the neo-Nazi skinhead organization to which his father’s killer belonged. The two exchanged some messages and agreed to meet at a Thai restaurant in Milwaukee a few days later..."
TIMES-COLONIST:
CNN:"Scientist makes an extraordinary discovery about the largest animal that's ever lived
Blue whales in Patagonia produce a unique song dialect, but it's being drowned out by the noise of large ships. The new Original Series "Patagonia: Life on the Edge of the World" airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET. Source: CNN."The scientist wants to develop an acoustic alert system and with the cooperation of ships we can reduce the risk of ship strikes
