Fears that President Donald Trump could freeze foreign assets are driving billions in gold out of New York's vaults, an economics journalist warned.

In a Thursday article for The Bulwark, economics editor and columnist Catherine Rampell described the gold retreat as a signal of how far U.S. relationships, in particular with its European allies, have deteriorated.

"In a frightening sign of just how much trust has been lost between the United States and its erstwhile allies, billions of dollars of gold reserves are being repatriated or otherwise moved out of Trump's reach," Rampell wrote.

The Dutch central bank announced on Wednesday that it had moved roughly $12 billion in gold, most of it held in New York, to vaults in London, Rampell noted. France's central bank recently sold about $15 billion in bullion stored in New York and replaced it with bars kept in Paris. Germany and Italy, which are the second- and third-largest holders of gold reserves behind the U.S., have spent the past year weighing whether to bring theirs home too, Rampell added.

The concern is less that Trump would seize the gold than that he might freeze it, Rampell explained. Washington and its allies did the same with Russia's reserves after the invasion of Ukraine, she pointed out.

A German member of the European Parliament, Markus Ferber, warned that the risk is impossible to dismiss, she noted.

"Trump is erratic, and one cannot rule out that someday he will come up with creative ideas how to treat foreign gold reserves," Ferber said, per Rampell.

Rampell admitted the scale of the fear caught her off guard.

"It hadn't really occurred to me that investors might be diversifying away from U.S. dollar-denominated assets because they also feared losing access to them," she wrote.

The nervousness has built during a string of Trump moves, including his "Liberation Day" tariffs, his threats to annex Greenland, his push to take "golden share" stakes in private companies, and his stated wish to personally inspect Fort Knox, according to Rampell.

Because gold sits inside the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Trump's campaign to control the Federal Reserve feeds fears that foreign reserves could be next, Rampell wrote. A representative of Germany's Taxpayers Federation put it bluntly, she noted.

"It's our money," the representative said. "It should be brought back."

Will Saletan from The Bulwark unloaded on Thursday about President Donald Trump's new oil deal with Venezuela — a turn of events that, he said, lays bare how "absolutely disgusting" Trump's plot has been all along.

Trump, said Saletan, "said it more than doubles American oil reserves ... and he wrote this: 'One of the things I'm going to do with the Venezuelan oil is fill up the strategic national reserves,'" which were depleted severely by Trump's war with Iran. He claims that this oil is a "gift from Venezuela to the people of the United States."

Right-wing outlets aren't even trying to hide what this is anymore, said Saletan. They aren't claiming that Trump's operation to capture Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro was about liberating the people, he added, leading him to conclude that it was always about oil.

For example, Saletan noted, right-wing commentator Ben Ferguson said of the deal, "I think this vice president and president understand this is a moment in Venezuela where you could have a lot of leverage, and you could get something good, and clearly they're willing to play ball. Now, that's big — they're willing to play along because we have leverage." The leverage, Saletan noted, is the fact that America just attacked their country.

Meanwhile, he said, Rachel Campos-Duffy, the wife of Trump's Transportation Secretary, acknowledged on Fox News, "I think in Venezuela, the reviews on this are very mixed — mostly negative — among them, not because they're not happy about the potential economic upsides, but they don't trust Delcy Rodríguez" — that being the acting president the U.S. installed in place of Maduro, despite her having all the same policies as her predecessor apart from being more open to do oil deals.

Even Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) — who has talked a big game about genuine liberation for Latin American countries — is now saying, "The United States helped them liberate themselves from Maduro. So the reward is to give fair benefits to the oil companies," including "100 years" of being able to exploit the country's oil reserves. "This is the way Trump and his allies in Congress think — it's always, always about the money," said Saletan.

But perhaps the most damning admission, said Saletan, came from former Trump deputy National Security Adviser Victoria Coates, who said Venezuelan oil contracts should "enshrine this deal so a change of government will not imperil those billions of dollars of investment we're going to have to see out of our private sector to make this work." In other words, it needs to be set up so even if the current regime is replaced with a democracy, the oil still flows no matter what the Venezuelan people want.

"Look, I don't know what your political views are. Maybe you believe in capitalism, maybe you don't," concluded Saletan. "But one thing we should all agree on is that this corrupt, coercive deal is disgusting and ruthless, and it's wrong. It is a total perversion of capitalism combined with the worst kind of socialism."

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MS NOW anchor and former Republican Party chairman Michael Steele barely concealed his anger on Thursday while laying out the suffering that President Donald Trump's war in Iran has inflicted on U.S. Navy sailors.

The USS Abraham Lincoln has become a poster child for the issue, having been deployed to the Persian Gulf for a record amount of time, leaving sailors with strained resources and a mental health crisis.

"There are 18 families who have proof ... when we look at how this began, where we are now, and the lack, I think, of regard for the sacrifice of those 18 service members," said Steele.

Steele then went on to tear down remarks on the subject made today by Vice President JD Vance.

His red flags, he said, were "on high, high red alert when he says, we're not going to set an artificial timeline. What if I told you three weeks? Well, the president told us four. Mr. Vice President, do you remember that? Did he miss that part of the conversation? In the month of February? March? He told us four weeks when he says, you know, I have a problem with the phrase an end to the war. I want to push back on that just a little, because major combat operations are currently not ongoing."

"Well, sir, that's not the definition of a war," said Steele. Regardless of whether combat operations are taking place, he said, "once I can still shoot at you and you still be in war, that's what Iran is doing. You have no response to that."

It's high time, he continued, for Congress to "step in and bring some coherent sanity to this madness before more lives are lost."

"We have the USS Lincoln just docking, taking, getting to a port after how many months at sea. And no one in this government had the common sense to realize we can't leave that big-behind ship out there all this time, with none of the soldiers or sailors getting off at a port. Someone has got to take control of this. The country at this November election is going to be looking to someone to do that, because clearly these numbnuts can't do it."

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A businessman dubbed "MAGA's Man in Latin America" who once accepted an award at Mar-a-Lago is now sitting in a Bolivian jail accused of plotting to have his pregnant ex-girlfriend killed, according to a new report.

Fernando Cerimedo, a business associate of Brad Parscale, the digital mastermind behind two of President Donald Trump's presidential campaigns, was arrested at Bolivia’s Viru Viru Airport last month on conspiracy-to-murder charges, the Bulwark reported Thursday.

Cerimedo built a career advising conservative populist leaders across the region on digital strategy, including Argentina's Javier Milei, according to the report.

At a February "Hispanic Prosperity Gala" at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club, Cerimedo accepted an award for "Hispanic Political Consultant of the Year" and singled out his benefactor: "Thank you to Brad Parscale! For believing [in] me all the time, and giving me your technology."

Six months later, on Aug. 17, gunmen posing as delivery drivers shot Cerimedo's pregnant ex-girlfriend, Nadia Beller, outside a hotel in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, according to the report.

Beller survived and began giving interviews from her hospital bed "implicating Cerimedo," the Bulwark reported.

Cerimedo was arrested attempting to fly to his native Argentina and now "faces preventive detention" and separate investigations into alleged drug trafficking, The Bulwark Reported reported.

"The scandal is raising questions about Parscale’s ties to Cerimedo as well," The Bulwark reported.

"The New York Times and the Economist both described Cerimedo as Parscale’s 'partner.' La Derecha Diaria, a right-wing website in Argentina founded by Cerimedo, announced last year that Cerimedo would be the 'representative' in Latin America for two of Parscale’s companies."

Paracale, whose career in politics was eclipsed after he was taken into custody by police in 2020 over what were described as "mental health" problems, declined to comment to The Bulwark.

President Donald Trump made the unusual move of publicly correcting his own commerce secretary after he claimed no Americans had died in the Iran war, a conflict that has killed 18 U.S. service members.

The correction came in a Truth Social post published about 7:30 a.m. Thursday. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had appeared on CNBC the day before and said the war had resulted in no American deaths, while arguing to investors that the conflict would be good for the bond market.

"I think the way the president is playing Iran, right, there's not — there haven't been American deaths," Lutnick said. "It's really just an economic choke out, which the administration is now executing more broadly, and I think it'll be very effective."

Lutnick used the phrase to describe squeezing Iran's economy rather than defeating it on the battlefield. He told CNBC that the strategy was working, and he tied it to his forecast that borrowing costs would fall.

"So I'm very optimistic that the bond market will treat us very well," Lutnick said, predicting in the same interview that interest rates would stabilize within a couple of months. The war, which began on Feb. 28, is now in its seventh month.

On Thursday, Trump insisted that Lutnick had been thinking about a country that the commerce secretary never named.

"Sec. Lutnick had Venezuela on his mind when he said nobody was killed. 18 people were killed in Iran!" Trump wrote.

Trump's reference to Venezuela pointed to a different operation, in which U.S. forces struck targets across that country on Jan. 3 and captured President Nicolás Maduro with few American casualties, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Lutnick had named Iran directly. He also credited the administration's handling of Iran with his optimism about the bond market, according to the interview transcript. The Pentagon's casualty database contradicts the claim, listing 18 service members killed and 757 wounded since the war began, CNN reported last month.

The military quietly added 60 injuries to the count in a single week in late August, The Intercept reported.

That raised the combined total of dead and wounded to 776. Some 345 of those casualties have come since a second ceasefire collapsed on July 7, according to the outlet. One U.S. government official called the sudden increase "an accounting trick" and accused the Pentagon of slow-walking the number.

Mario Nawfal, who runs a large news aggregation account on X, posted the clip roughly half an hour after Trump's message and called it a "SERIOUS flub."

"[P]eople in the administration like Lutnick can easily forget, or intentionally ignore, the men and women who've been killed or wounded," a USA Today opinion column argued.

Trump's own allies made a nearly identical charge against President Joe Biden during the 2024 campaign. Biden falsely said at a CNN debate that no American troops had died on his watch, Fox News reported.

"[T]he stumbling, bumbling buffoon that we have in the White House had the audacity to say that under his watch that no military members have died," Darin Hoover, the father of a Marine killed in the 2021 Kabul airport bombing, told Fox News Digital.

Two years later, support for the war Trump ordered has fallen to 31 percent, its lowest level since the early weeks of the fighting, Al Jazeera reported, citing a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Pollsters found 83% of those surveyed said they expect the fighting to continue for a long time. Gasoline now costs more than a dollar a gallon above pre-war levels, the outlet reported.

Trump's overall approval stands at 32 percent, with 64 percent disapproving, in a national poll released Monday by the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

"With the midterm elections just two months away, the clock is ticking for President Trump and the Republican Party to offer solutions to the nation's most pressing problems," said Tatishe Nteta, the poll's director and a political science professor at the university.

Gloria Steinem — the iconic feminist journalist who revolutionized work for generations of women to come — has died. She was 92.

Steinem passed away in her New York City home on Wednesday, surrounded by those who loved her, The Gloria Steinem Foundation announced Thursday morning.

"Gloria’s greatest gift was her ability to listen to others, to make others feel seen and heard," the foundation stated. "Her words, actions, and example gave people permission to be their truest selves. Gloria lived true to her independent spirit, always with curiosity and a great sense of humor."

The cause of death was not revealed.

Steinem dedicated her life to causes such as reproductive freedom, domestic violence prevention and workplace gender inequalities.

She became a household name in 1963, when she went undercover as a Playboy bunny and exposed the poor conditions workers faced in Hugh Hefner’s clubs.

In her later years, Steinem hosted talking circles in her home and wrote a forthcoming book, "𝘈𝘯 𝘜𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦," according to the foundation.

"Gloria loved the tradition of lighting signal fires on hills to light the way to the other side of the mountain," they stated. "Lighting your own candle for Gloria makes you part of this global and celestial community circle."

Read more about her life and work here.

Lawyer and journalist Katie Phang is questioning the timing of a private Oval Office meeting between President Donald Trump and a bribery-linked Brazilian billionaire.

On August 20, Joesley Batista met with Trump, and the following day, the president announced the U.S. would allow up to 300,000 metric tons of imported beef product over the next 90 days, sold at 25 percent below market price, Phang explained in a Wednesday podcast episode. She noted that Batista's company, JBS, processes meat and is the world's largest meatpacker.

"I'm calling him the Brazilian billionaire beef bro of Donald Trump," Phang said.

She characterized the Trump White House as a "pay-to-play kind of place" and noted that the two men reportedly discussed how additional supply from Brazil could help if Trump dropped a 26 percent import tax.

"It's like you can't even script it, right?" Phang said. "You can't even script it."

The arrangement, which Trump framed as relief for "working American families," drew immediate pushback from cattle ranchers who say the move undercuts them, Phang explained.

"The timing stinks, does it not?" she asked. "Be mad. Farmers, ranchers, those of you that supported Donald Trump, be outraged. Be outraged that your bottom line is being impacted by corruption and grift and graft."

Phang tied the deal to a broader pattern and pointed to Pilgrim's Pride — majority-controlled by JBS — as the single largest donor to Trump's inaugural committee at $5 million. The figure prompted a letter from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Phang noted.

"Its $5 million donation amounts to more than the contributions from Apple's CEO plus Amazon, Meta, and Google combined," Phang said.

JBS admitted in 2017 to paying bribes to Brazilian politicians. Joesley and his brother Wesley later served jail time, Phang said.

"You think that just because they got caught in Brazil bribing politicians to get favorable deals, you think that would stop in Brazil?" Phang asked. "What's to stop them from doing the same thing in America?"

The Justice Department is simultaneously running an antitrust probe into the major meatpackers, including Tyson Foods, Cargill, JBS and National Beef, after Trump blamed foreign-owned processors for high prices.

Trump's new nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia could make ending his war with Iran even harder, foreign policy analyst Trita Parsi warned Wednesday, because it opens the door for Tehran's regional rival to enrich uranium, the very capability U.S. bombs are meant to strip from Iran.

The 30-year agreement, sent to Congress for review, would hand U.S. firms the lead role in building the kingdom's civilian nuclear program and, after a two-year study, could permit enrichment at a plant on Saudi soil operated by the United States. Critics note it does not require Riyadh to accept the Additional Protocol, the U.N. nuclear watchdog's most intrusive inspection regime. Enrichment is dual use: the same process that fuels a power reactor can, pushed further, yield the core of a bomb.

Critics have seized on the contradiction that Washington is at war to force zero enrichment on Iran, which insists its program is peaceful, while smoothing the path for the Saudis. Parsi delivered a blunt takedown.

"Washington is providing Riyadh a pathway to the bomb," even as it demands Iran give up enrichment entirely.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) said the administration's "hypocrisy is matched only by their recklessness," accusing it of letting Saudi Arabia pursue nuclear weapons technology "under the guise of preventing an Iranian nuclear bomb." Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) warned the deal would "set off a nuclear race in the region."

The move also cuts against decades of policy aimed at denying Iran the very technology now on offer to Riyadh. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as a senator, even co-sponsored a 2019 bill that would have required Saudi Arabia to forgo enrichment.

Trump has insisted the alarm is overblown, shouting on Truth Social, "There will be no enrichment of material!" He added that the pact hinges on Riyadh normalizing ties with Israel through the Abraham Accords. Rubio, for his part, has insisted the deal has "safeguards in place."

The clash comes as the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran, launched in late February, grinds on. Parsi and other analysts say the double standard hands Tehran a fresh grievance and a reason to walk away from talks, raising the odds the fighting drags on. Blocking the Saudi deal, meanwhile, would take a two-thirds vote in both chambers, a bar even critics concede is steep.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) became the first Republican lawmaker to call for President Donald Trump to replace Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The retiring North Carolina Republican voted to confirm the former Fox News host to lead the Pentagon, but he said Hegseth's purge of the military's top ranks – including the resignation this week of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll – has created a leadership void during a time of war and showed he's not up to the job.

"I thank @SecArmy Dan Driscoll for his leadership to our Army and service to our country," Tillis posted on X. "Dan was the right man at the right moment to lead our Soldiers and Army, civilians."

Driscoll is among at least 20 generals, admirals and civilian defense leaders who have been fired or pushed out since Hegseth became defense secretary, according to a CBS News review, including the Army, Navy and Air Force's top uniformed officers.

"Our understanding and assumptions of warfare are being challenged in places like Ukraine and Iran, and Dan understands the old way of doing business no longer applies," Tillis added. "He and [former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy] George began a transformative period of innovation in how we array our forces and equip our Soldiers. He challenged our legacy approach to manning and procurement. Most of all, he cared deeply about the men and women in our Army formations and quickly earned their respect."

Before his nomination, Hegseth criticized officers he viewed as too focused on diversity initiatives, and as secretary he abruptly dismissed Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Charles Q. Brown and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti in February 2025, along with other senior leaders, often without public explanation. A source told CBS News that Black and female officers have been disproportionately removed from promotion lists, and no active-duty four-star women currently serve.

"If we had a @SecWar who maintained the same priorities and forward-thinking, he would be fighting to retain talented leaders like Dan and the many flag officers he has forced into retirement," Tillis wrote. "Instead, he is creating a leadership void at the top of our military ranks."

"I served on Senate Armed Services for 8 years and as chair or ranking member of the Personnel and Readiness subcommittee," Tillis added. "I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country. He is intimidated by competence and retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well-being of our fighting force. I urge the President to find a new leader at the Pentagon who will retain and empower our military talent rather than diminish it."

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) drew laughs from a CNN political panel on Wednesday after insisting she would not discuss a personal detail about her Democratic opponent — before blurting it out anyway.

The moment came during Collins’ interview with Politico’s Jonathan Martin, who asked whether the personal life of Maine Democratic candidate Troy Jackson should be considered fair game in their Senate race.

“Well, I’m not going to bring up the fact that the mother of his two children is his second cousin," Collins replied. “I don’t know whether people know that or not.”

“I think you just mentioned it,” Martin quickly pointed out.

“Well, in Aroostook County, you know,” Collins said.

The clip drew immediate laughter on the CNN set of “Inside Politics with Dana Bash.”

“But I’m not going to bring that up,” Bash joked Wednesday. “The thing that I’m going to say — something I’m not going to bring up.”

“That was so well crafted,” CNN political director David Chalian added, chuckling.

Chalian said that Collins “clearly didn’t mind talking about it,” even as she tried to suggest it would not become “a centerpiece of her campaign.”

But he doubted that Jackson’s relationship would decide the race, instead suggesting that Collins's relationship with President Donald Trump would likely matter more to Maine voters.

“And how she navigates being a Republican running for reelection in this environment from a state that was not hospitable to Donald Trump in any of the times he ran for office,” he said.

“She’s using what she can,” Bash concluded, “given the fact that Troy Jackson is a local politician and elected official.”

President Donald Trump's administration has been accused of a war crime after a missile strike hit a wedding and, according to an Iranian humanitarian group, killed a child and three others, reports show.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society said four people were killed and more than 50 injured after shrapnel from a U.S. missile struck a home in Sirik, on Iran's Strait of Hormuz coastline, where a wedding was underway, according to the report, reported the BBC.

Iran has launched missile and drone strikes against U.S. targets across the Persian Gulf region after American forces resumed attacks on Iran this week, escalating a conflict that reignited after the strike that hit a wedding ceremony, according to the report.

The U.S. military said it was aware of the reports but denied targeting noncombatants. "The U.S. military never targets civilians," Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins said on behalf of U.S. Central Command.

Centcom said the strikes followed "recent attempted attacks" by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and on American forces.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps vowed retaliation, and by early Wednesday had fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at a U.S. Marine base in Jordan's Aqaba. Jordanian forces said they intercepted 13 missiles, destroying 10, with three landing in remote areas and no casualties reported. Kuwait's military said its air defenses responded to Iranian fire, explosions were reported in Bahrain, and a U.S. base in Iraq's Kurdistan region was hit, damaging a maintenance center and warehouses.

The exchange follows a monthlong pause after the U.S. and Israel launched wide strikes on Iran in late February, prompting Iranian retaliation against Israel, U.S. bases and Gulf allies, and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

A ceasefire extension known as the Memorandum of Understanding, signed in June, has since expired.

Washington has paired its renewed strikes with a fresh sanctions campaign announced in August, targeting Iran and its trading partners.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said allies have pledged support for the effort. Iranian officials have dismissed the sanctions as a continuation of prior pressure they said was tied to Washington's military failure in the earlier conflict.

The Justice Department's first-ever prosecution of protesters of the Trump administration under a church-protection law now faces dismissal, with defendants arguing President Donald Trump ordered it out of spite.

Most of the more than 30 people charged over a January ICE protest inside a St. Paul church asked a federal judge on Aug. 31 to throw out the case, according to a joint motion filed in U.S. District Court in Minnesota.

A large slate of lawyers argued the government charged their clients as political payback at the behest of the president as part of a selective and vindictive prosecution, the motion states.

The defendants were reacting to Trump's directives, which "caused terror, violence, and murder in Minnesota" when they entered Cities Church in St. Paul on Jan. 18, prompted by the knowledge that its pastor David Easterwood also worked for the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office, their attorneys argued.

Federal charges followed within days.

Federal agents arrested Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights attorney and activist, on Jan. 22, and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the arrest on social media, claiming that NAACP leader Levy Armstrong "allegedly played a key role in organizing the coordinated attack on Cities Church." A grand jury indicted nine defendants a week later, and a superseding indictment in February added 30 more people.

Days earlier, Renee Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother of three, was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis.

The Trump administration's crackdown on protesters continued following the church arrests. Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse at the VA hospital, was shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol officer on Jan. 24 while protesting peacefully in Minneapolis, the motion says.

The shootings occurred during Operation Metro Surge, which sent as many as 2,000 federal agents and officers into the Minneapolis area for what the motion describes as one of the largest single-city Homeland Security mobilizations in years.

Those arrested at the Minnesota church, including Armstrong and others, pleaded not guilty in February to conspiracy against rights.

"They have altered the facts, just as they altered my image as a way of trying to criminalize nonviolent, peaceful protests and lawful dissent against their unlawful and unjust actions," Armstrong told Democracy Now!, referring to an administration photo that appeared digitally altered to show her crying.

The activist's protests were based on the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a law Congress passed to stop violence against abortion providers. The law covers places of worship. No one had ever been criminally charged under the law's place-of-worship provision in its 30-year history, according to the motion.

The vindictive prosecution motion notes that the charges are "unequal, oppressive" and have "a clear and dangerous chilling effect on the Defendants and anyone else who wants to voice their opposition to U.S. Government policies"

The motion argues that the Justice Department brought the case "at the direction and behest of President Donald J. Trump" and to fulfill a "mission to satisfy the personal animosities of its chief client, Donald Trump."

"Sadly, this is not at all hyperbole, but the cold hard facts behind this prosecution," the motion says of the department's approach.

While these defendants face felonies, people convicted of blocking abortion clinics went free. Trump pardoned 24 people convicted of FACE Act violations within days of taking office in 2025, some of whom had been convicted in multiple jurisdictions, according to the motion.

One pardoned defendant had live-streamed her intent to "terrorize this place" the day before she barricaded a Manhattan clinic door, crushing a worker's hand with such force that three people were needed to pry the door open, the motion says.

"The record shows that individuals who engaged in the same or much more serious and violent conduct, whether at a progressive liberal church or an abortion clinic, were treated differently," the motion says.

Anti-abortion activist Mark Houck was charged with shoving an elderly clinic escort to the ground twice and was acquitted at trial, the motion says. He then sued the government, and a district judge dismissed every claim as not plausible.

The administration reportedly agreed to pay Houck more than $1 million to settle the case on appeal without ever filing a brief in defense of the government, according to the motion.

"Not only were such similarly situated individuals not prosecuted, they were in many instances rewarded with large monetary payouts from the Justice Department," the motion says.

Two other church disruptions drew no federal charges at all, the motion says. Protesters in Orlando, Florida, rose during a children's sermon at an LGBTQ-affirming church in March 2025 and shouted "Synagogue of Sin!" at the congregation, according to the motion.

Republican congressional candidate Valentina Gomez stood up during a service at a Texas church in November 2025 and said that "homosexuality is a sin and whoever supports that is worthy of death," the motion says.

Neither incident produced a federal investigation or a FACE Act charge, according to the filing.

The dismissal motion is not the only trouble facing prosecutors. U.S. Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko ordered the Justice Department in July to hand over grand jury testimony and evidence so he could determine whether the government misled jurors while seeking the indictment.

Journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort filed their own motions to dismiss in August, with Fort arguing that she was covering the protest as a reporter.

"The invasion of Cities Church was a planned, coordinated effort to disrupt a worship service and interfere with religious exercise that placed congregants, including children, in fear for their lives," Doug Wardlow, litigation director at True North Legal, said in February on behalf of the church.

Defendants asked the court to dismiss the case outright, or to grant them access to internal Justice Department communications and hold a hearing where they could present evidence, according to the motion.

Apple executives' decision to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America" on its Maps app is setting off a firestorm inside the tech giant, with employees furious that leadership caved to President Donald Trump out of fear of his wrath, according to a new report.

Employees are furious that the company is rolling over because of higher-ups' fear of the wrath of President Donald Trump who demanded the name change in an executive order, media watchdog Status reported Wednesday.

At the same time the public is rejecting the “deeply stupid” name change, which Google has also agreed to follow, Apple was late to the game and employees are not happy.

The controversy intensified after Interior Secretary Doug Burgum appeared on Fox Business on Monday, telling host Maria Bartiromo, "I know that the president reached out to Apple directly, so I'm sure that we may be seeing that change coming up soon to Lake America."

According to Oliver Darcy at Status, "While Apple had likely always planned to update its map to reflect the executive order—it had, after all, also swapped Gulf of Mexico for 'Gulf of America'—Status has learned that executives at the company were irked by Burgum’s comments. By disclosing that Trump had personally phoned Cupertino, the White House had framed any decision Apple made as one in which it 'was capitulating to the president’s demands.'"

Inside the company, Status reported it would be difficult to find a single employee who genuinely supports the change.

"There is not a soul who is for it," one person familiar with the matter told Darcy, adding that "everyone considers it f-----g nuts."

Still, Apple's leadership and most of its rank-and-file are described as "resigned" to these kinds of concessions under Trump's second term, understanding "that Trump will f--- with the company if the company doesn't do what he wants," the person said.

The dispute over Lake Ontario's name has become one of the more visible flashpoints in Trump's escalating trade dispute with Canada, whose officials have mocked the renaming effort as absurd. Like Google's version, Apple's change applies "only to Maps for users located in the United States." Canadian users and much of the rest of the world still see the lake listed under its original name.

President Donald Trump’s decision to sign an executive order renaming Lake Ontario as “Lake America” has been a spectacular flop with voters — and one very high-profile political podcaster, according to a new analysis.

Two “Morning Joe” co-hosts Wednesday morning discussed Joe Rogan's dismissal of the move as a mere 14 percent of Americans voters report support for the decision.

The segment begins with a clip of a smirking Rogan.

“It’s to distract you from the fact we are in a war we can’t win with Iran — it doesn’t make any sense,” Rogan said. “Who cares if it’s Lake Ontario? It’s a good name. We’ve had that name forever."

Co-host Jonathan Lemire and Willie Geist were quick to pile on.

Geist reported that a recent Ipsos/Reuters poll found 63 percent of respondents opposed Lake Ontario’s renaming, a mere 14 percent supported the decision and 21 percent said they weren’t sure how they feel about it.

"Perhaps because it was so, so deeply stupid,” Geist said with a laugh. "Jonathan Lemire, this again, the case of President Trump diving headfirst into an issue that apparently has no audience.”

"I don't say this a lot, but Joe Rogan? Exactly right," Lemire said. "It's meant to be a distraction; it's a culture war. And, you know, it's to get us to talk about something else. But there is a serious underbelly here, which is the fact that this trade war with Canada, as we just discussed, is going to have real political implications and not good ones for Republicans. And frankly, Willie, it also shows Trump's just running out of ideas. We already did the Gulf of America. Now it's Lake of America.”

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A member of President Donald Trump's first administration delivered Wednesday a stark warning to his former boss over what he describes as the White House's "convoluted" plan to deal with a sinister partner.

Elliott Abrams, Trump's former special representative to Venezuela, in a Washington Post editorial shredded the president's deal to claim 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil as an "unconstitutional" gambit — and warned he was relying on a dangerous partner to push it through.

"Because major U.S. oil companies have been unwilling to pony up large amounts of cash to invest in Venezuela, Trump has allied the government with the most shadowy and repellent Venezuelan businessman he could find," wrote Abrams.

"When I served in the first Trump administration as special representative for Venezuela, we knew exactly what [Alejandro] Betancourt stood for and kept him far away from the U.S. government."

Before delving into his many problems with Betancourt, Abrams details many problems he has with Trump's oil plan; namely that the agreement is unconstitutional under Venezuelan law that states the deposits belong to the people, who haven't agreed to it, and U.S. law likely doesn't allow the Pentagon to enter into the oil trade.

But Betancourt is "worse" than these major legal problems, Abrams writes.

Betancourt, who denies wrongdoing, is under a Swiss arrest warrant for alleged money laundering involving Venezuela’s state oil company and made a fortune under the "corrupt" Hugo Chávez, writes Abrams.

That reportedly hasn't stopped senior U.S. officials from lobbying to resolve the Switzerland case or inviting Betancourt to Washington for meetings with the administration.

The resultant deal, argues Abrams, is one that will do nothing to ease the pain American drivers feel at the gas pump.

"Hundreds of billions of dollars in investments will be announced — some by grifters looking for special advantages, some by oil companies looking for favor with Trump and some by the president himself," wrote Abrams.

"The tragedy is that the United States is now the partner to an unelected despot...this oil deal will prove to be the great sellout — of Venezuela’s natural resources and its people’s right to self-government."

President Donald Trump admitted that he's not trying to bring Iran to the bargaining table in a Truth Social post.

On Tuesday night, Trump let the admission slip during an attack on "ABC Fake News."

In the post, he wrote, "I'm not trying to force Iran to the bargaining table," and "I couldn't care less if they sign a worthless, to them, agreement." He also signed off with, "When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?"

Inviting a top Russian official onto American soil has drawn fierce criticism and left Western allies fuming, according to The Wall Street Journal.

In a Tuesday editorial, The Journal's editorial board slammed the Trump administration's decision to bring Russia's finance minister to this week's G-20 gathering in North Carolina, calling the move "especially unfortunate."

"The German finance minister was justifiably angry to see Russia welcomed to such a forum for the first time since the Ukraine invasion in February 2022," the board wrote. The Journal warned that Russian leader Vladimir Putin "will pocket the international legitimacy from the visit and continue his terror bombing of civilians in Kyiv."

The Journal's criticism landed the same day Germany blamed Moscow for a drone attack at Leipzig airport last month. The Journal noted that the airport serves as a supply route for Ukraine. German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt cast the incident as part of a wider campaign and said his country does not consider itself "at war" but has become "the daily target of hybrid warfare," according to The Journal.

Putin's "hybrid" playbook, which includes cyberattacks and dragging anchors across undersea cables, is a way to deny responsibility while forcing the West to absorb the cost of escalation, according to The Journal. The aim is to splinter NATO without firing a shot, The Journal warned.

"Mr. Putin is behaving like he thinks he can get away with flagrant provocations," The Journal wrote. "Europe for too long hasn't wanted to risk speaking plainly about the threat, which makes Germany's blunt comments this week all the more welcome."

Russia is pegged as the main culprit for 144 drone incidents across 13 countries in less than two years, according to an International Institute for Strategic Studies count cited by The Journal.

The Journal suggested that Trump's "time would be better spent trying to move the late Sen. Lindsey Graham's Russian sanctions bill through the House, where its fate this week is uncertain."

Two news anchors reacted with alarm to the global bond selloff and mocked the Trump administration's failed response.

On Tuesday, CNN anchor Erin Burnett and Richard Quest, the host of Quest Means Business, explained what's happening in the global bond market and why it spells trouble for major economies.

Burnett described how "turmoil" like the war in Iran has led to "meaningful economic impacts, and people experience them every single day." Referring to a global bond selloff, Burnett explained, "something happened today in the market that was sort of a five-alarm fire when it comes to where things are going."

"It's very concerning because it's the markets telling governments, not just in the United States but also in Europe and in Japan, that their fiscal path is unsustainable," Quest said.

Quest explained that investors known as "bond vigilantes" are behind the global selloff, adding that they only "come out of the woodwork when they see government debt or even corporate debt" that they think is unsustainable.

"They basically ratchet the price down and the yield up," Quest explained. "That's not fine for a company, but that's only a company. In this case, we're talking about the U.S. government debt."

Quest noted that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tried to quell the turbulent bond markets a couple of weeks ago, but that "seems to have failed because rates are back where they were. The market is basically saying they don't believe what this administration is planning to do."

Burnett flagged that as "a hugely significant thing to say" because the Treasury Secretary, along with the Federal Reserve chairman, are people who "the markets have taken very seriously."

She also played a clip of Bessent saying, "The U.S. bond market has been the best-performing market since the president came in," which was met with laughter by Quest.

"He was trying to move the price rather than the fundamentals," Quest said, explaining Bessent's failure. "The best analogy that I can give you for that quote from Bessent is that famous line, 'the cleanest dirty white shirt in the laundry,' and that's what the U.S. is."

The Wall Street Journal's conservative editorial board warned that rising bond yields carry a message that President Donald Trump ignores at his peril.

In a Tuesday editorial, the paper's editors argued that climbing yields on long-dated government debt are not a catastrophe but a long-overdue return to normal, while cautioning that the picture could darken fast if Washington refuses to change course.

The board pointed to a global selloff that pushed the 10-year Treasury note to 4.8 percent on Tuesday and drove the 30-year U.S. bond to 5.28 percent. It also lifted Britain's 30-year government bond to its highest level in nearly three decades. Japan's 10-year yield touched a peak unseen in 30 years, The Journal noted.

Rather than sound an alarm, The Journal celebrated the shift as investors waking from almost two decades of what it called "financial repression," an era of central-bank bond buying and rock-bottom rates that let "spendthrift" governments borrow cheaply and pile on debt.

But The Journal conceded the transition carries danger as "some market crack-ups are sure to occur, though who knows where and when." The Trump administration could stave off a reckoning with policies that spur growth, "which doesn't include tax increases or tariffs," according to The Journal.

The Journal also noted that federal debt held by the public now equals 100 percent of GDP and annual interest payments have topped $1 trillion, which exceeds the entire defense budget. Neither party will touch the spending on programs like Social Security and Medicare, which is driving the climb, according to The Journal.

"The bond vigilantes aren't yet in full cry, but their early murmurs are welcome," The Journal wrote. "They are sending a message to Washington and other Western nations to clean up their fiscal acts."

However, "the real worry is if the politicians don't listen," The Journal warned.

President Donald Trump’s escalating threats to effectively destroy Iran set off alarm Tuesday, with one foreign-policy analyst warning that the president appeared to be signaling that nuclear weapons were “on the table now.”

Trump announced on Truth Social that the United States was striking Iranian targets near the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for what he called Iran’s failed attempt to add sea mines to the waterway and its launch of eight missiles toward a U.S. military base in Jordan.

Trump went even further in a later phone call with Fox News, where he warned that Iran would be hit “much harder” if it retaliated - and even “wiped out as a country” if the conflict continued.

The escalated rhetoric sparked swift fury online, with critics accusing Trump of going too far by threatening the destruction of an entire country.

“WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!” sanctions expert Brett Erickson wrote Tuesday on X. “Throughout this entire war, I have been incredibly skeptical of any claims that President Trump is so much as DISCUSSING the use of nuclear weapons. “This reads to me clear as day that they are on the table now.

“Disgusting,” he added.

Liberal political commentator Vince Wilson pointed his blame at Capitol Hill.

“These spineless Republicans in Congress are enabling this,” he posted.

Economist and policy researcher Sky Marchini saw the message as “Trump’s Final Warning,” while another critic, Geoff Wolf, asked: “So who in Trump’s orbit profited on this one today?”

Freelance journalist Manny Otiko had his own take: “Trump threatens to wipe out an entire country, and he calls them crazy?”

President Donald Trump threatened Iran Tuesday with an ominous warning that seemed to allude to the use of nuclear weapons.

Trump’s latest threat comes amid a wave of fresh U.S. strikes against Iran near the Strait of Hormuz, strikes that U.S. officials say were designed to “prevent Iran from rebuilding the radar and missile capabilities it needs to attack ships” traveling through the strait, Axios reported. The strikes were also, according to Trump, retaliation for Iranian strikes on the U.S. Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan.

“The United States is, as we speak, striking Iranian Targets near the Strait of Hormuz. The strikes are large and powerful, and in retaliation for the Iranians’ failed attempt at adding sea mines to the Strait, which currently has no mines (They have been completely removed or detonated!), and the Iranians shooting eight missiles, all successfully knocked down, at our Military Base in Jordan,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

“If the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings and, when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran!”

Trump’s threat echoed a previous threat he issued to Iran in April when he warned that a “whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”

Onlookers were left in shock Tuesday after the leader of a U.S. ally openly boasted on live television about a successful "influence" campaign waged on American leaders to push the U.S. into launching its deeply unpopular war against Iran.

Underwater in the polls ahead of the nation's October elections, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to Israel's popular Channel 14 Sunday night with a pitch to voters.

“I’ve been against Iran for almost 40 years… it took a long time to bring the United States to its senses,” Netanyahu said in Hebrew, according to Zeteo’s Prem Thakker.

“[I’ve had] close to 1,000 hours on American television with the ability to influence the United States — with the intimate knowledge of all its leaders, both those who support us and those who don’t support us — the ability to navigate this field, through it.”

A White House insider told Bloomberg in March that President Donald Trump’s decision to launch a war against Iran was “partly motivated by pressure from outside allies” — chief among them being Netanyahu. Speculation that Netanyahu had “pulled” Trump into the deeply unpopular conflict was so strong that Trump felt compelled to respond: “Israel never talked me into the war with Iran,” he wrote in a social media post in late April.

“The gall. In English, Netanyahu lavishes praise on U.S. leaders. In Hebrew, he boasts of how he manipulated them,” Thakker wrote in a report published in Zeteo Tuesday.

“Netanyahu explicitly cites how the U.S. media has served as a compliant springboard, a vessel for his influence operation on, if not the populace, at least the consultants and members of Congress who engage with cable news more than their actual constituents.”

Breck Worsham, a prominent right-wing influencer and ex-Trump supporter, expressed shock at how Netanyahu appeared to openly brag “on how he manipulated Trump,” as did journalist Max Blumenthal.

“Netanyahu appeals to Israeli voters by boasting that he manipulated Trump,” Blumenthal observed.

Netanyahu has pushed for the United States to attack Iran since at least the 1990s, and also confirmed his support last year for “Greater Israel,” the territorial aspirations of some Israelis to significantly expand the nation’s borders.

“There comes a point when every dam breaks,” Thakker mused. “It should’ve happened decades ago. Years ago. Months ago. Every single day delivers another reminder of how heartlessly violent the Israeli state is, and how that behavior is carried out on the U.S. dime.”

President Donald Trump just pulled off what one political expert described as a "mafia state" type of move that revealed the rotten core of a deal he allegedly struck with a foreign country over its oil reserves.

Trump recently announced that the U.S. and North American Blue Energy Partners, a private company led by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, entered into a partnership to tap Venezuela's 65 billion barrel oil reserves, a deal that is estimated to be worth tens of billions of dollars. Betancourt was previously under investigation on corruption charges until Trump's former attorney, Rudy Giuliani, persuaded the first Trump Department of Justice to drop its probe.

David Rothkopf, global affairs columnist at The Daily Beast and a former international trade official in the Clinton administration, argued during a new episode of "The Daily Beast Podcast," that the "deal" Trump announced is not a deal at all.

"The United States is getting this all because we attacked Venezuela and at gunpoint are saying, 'Hand over the oil!' That's illegal under international law," Rothkopf said. "It's also ... illegal under Venezuelan law, which has a constitution that says you can't hand over reserves to a foreign government. It's probably illegal under U.S. law because it involves cash flowing into the U.S. government ... which requires congressional approval."

Rothkopf drew a comparison between the Trump administration's move to seize Venezuela's oil and the way Russia's government operates, arguing that the Trump administration will break laws and customs without regard.

"It's a crime," Rothkopf said. "It's not a deal."

MAGA pundits were cornered by panelists on CNN's "NewsNight" with host Abby Phillip on Monday over the president's latest batch of empty threats toward Iran.

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated video of him attacking Kharg Island, a strategic island in the Persian Gulf that the Iranian regime has used to attack merchant ships in the area. Trump has previously threatened to strike the island and posted the threat on the same day U.S. forces hit Larak Island in the Strait.

May Mailman, legal director for Independent Women's Law Center and a former Trump administration staffer, argued that Trump's comments were meaningless because they were written on Truth Social.

"When are we going to stop being like, so triggered by Truth Social and an AI video?" she asked.

Her comment caused an uproar on the panel.

"How dare we take the President of the United States seriously?" Isaiah Martin, a Democratic content creator, responded rhetorically.

Leigh McGowan, host of the "Politics Girl" podcast, argued that Trump's video was another in a long series of "unhinged" behavior that should worry Americans.

"It's so absurd," McGowan said. "He does crazy things that are completely unhinged; says he's going to annihilate the entire civilization. Then does this bombing thing, and we're supposed to be like, 'Oh, he's just joking. He's just coming in there for a little joke.' It's a terrible way to lead anyone."

Noah Rothman, a senior writer at the National Review, argued that he is also tired of Trump's empty threats, and said they are no longer credible in either the U.S. or in Iran.

"What is credible is the lawn mowing strategy that we've begun to see articulated in the press, and the Iranians should be very afraid of our degree to degrade their capability to project power," Rothman said.

Martin was taken aback by the argument, and pointed out that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had recently claimed "all objectives" of Trump's war had been achieved.

"So, they lied?" Martin said.

Rothman stammered and conceded that some of the Trump administration's claims about the war have been untruthful.

Outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) dropped the hammer on several of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein's alleged co-conspirators in a scorched-earth rant on Monday night.

Massie took to the House floor and read the names of several alleged Epstein co-conspirators. The names included Jes Staley, Leon Black, Les Wexner, David Copperfield, Lapo Elkann, Tom Pritzker, Glenn Dubin, Frédéric Fekkai, Eduardo Teodorani-Fabbri, Jean-Luc Brunel, Daniel Siad, Ramsey Elkholy, Prince Andrew, and Lesley Groff. Everyone Massie mentioned who has spoken publicly about their relationship with Epstein has denied any wrongdoing.

Massie said he hoped the move would "shame the Department of Justice into releasing the names of more co-conspirators."

This is the second time that Massie has exposed the names of some of Epstein's alleged co-conspirators. In February, Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) exposed three names: Leon Black, Jes Staley, and Les Wexner.

It happened at a time when the Trump administration is trying to outrun the Epstein files saga, which has consumed much of the second Trump presidency. The Trump DOJ has claimed it won't release any more files, despite acknowledging that it holds more than 3 million unreleased records.

A series of unprecedented Pentagon leaks stunned onlookers Monday, appearing designed to pull the United States out of a war rather than push it deeper in, breaking with decades of precedent.

On Sunday, The Washington Post published a bombshell report that revealed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had been warned by several U.S. military leaders that a prolonged large-scale operation against Iran was “unsustainable,” despite Hegseth’s claims to the contrary. The Post’s report was based on a recent classified assessment and inside sources, suggesting Pentagon officials had leaked the information to the outlet.

As argued by conservative commentator Saagar Enjeti, the leaks illustrated how poorly the deeply unpopular U.S. war against Iran had gone during its first six months.

“Never in my lifetime have I seen the Pentagon brass desperately leak to keep the US OUT of a war. It is always the opposite to box a President in,” Enjeti wrote Monday in a social media post on X. “Just shows how bad things are.”

Andrew Fox, a retired British Army major and military analyst, was equally stunned by the nature of the leaks.

“An astonishing leak, and not officially denied, to my knowledge,” Fox wrote Monday in a social media post on X. “A leak like this is unprecedented. Perhaps some US officers do remember the ‘and domestic’ part of their oath.”

Others, like foreign policy scholar Arta Moeini, were more taken aback by which forces appeared to be pushing for the United States to continue its war against Iran.

“Even the US military wants to pull back from the Middle East. Ironically it's the civilian leadership that keeps us permanently engaged in a region peripheral to our interests,” Moeini wrote Monday in a social media post on X.

A conservative columnist for the Washington Post is not happy with his employer's publishing a weekend bombshell report that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing stiff opposition from Pentagon generals as the Iran war drags on.

According to the exclusive from the Post’s Alex Horton and Tara Copp, a handful of U.S. military leaders have warned Hegseth that “prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable” and puts the military at risk should another threat emerge elsewhere — “including the U.S. homeland.”

“Leaders of the U.S. European Command, the U.S. Pacific Command and the U.S. Southern Command, along with the Navy’s top admiral, responded with what is characterized in the SDOB as a ‘non-concur,’ those familiar with the assessment said — meaning they disagree with the secretary’s order to extend their forces but will execute it nevertheless,” the report continued.

Marc Thiessen, who joined the Post as a columnist after a stint as a spokesperson for Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) and serving as a speechwriter for President George W. Bush, announced he wants a criminal investigation of Horton and Copps sources -- leaving open whether they should be prosecuted also.

On X, he linked to the WaPo announcement of the “exclusive " story and accused, “Whoever leaked this is a traitor and ought to be prosecuted.”

That falls in line with Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell, who is angling to be the new Army Secretary despite a history of domestic abuse allegations, who issued a statement saying, “publishing highly classified assessments from the Secretary’s orders book is a crime” and “a betrayal of the force.”

The Post picked a side and went with the reporters, issuing a statement that reads, in part: “The assertion that such a publication is a crime is both incorrect and irresponsible.”

Concerns were raised on Monday morning that 80-year-old President Donald Trump is having problems understanding what is going on in his war on Iran.

Sunday evening, the Pentagon confirmed an attack on Larak Island in the Gulf of Hormuz, reportedly taking out Iranian rocket launchers designed to disperse sea mines into the waterway.

According to the Washington Post, “The exchange of fire was the first in a month between the two sides as the Trump administration seeks to navigate a ceasefire.”

Hours later, Trump posted an AI “slop” video of the attack on his Truth Social account; however, he identified the besieged island as Kharg Island, home to the vast majority of the country’s oil exports.

According to MS NOW’s Vaughan Hillyard, that led to some distress over a possible major escalation — but now there is a belief that the president did not comprehend what is going on.

Speaking with MS NOW host Stephanie Ruhle, he explained, ”I think it's worth noting there, you mentioned the AI video of attempting to bomb Kharg Island that the president posted overnight. We were actually just messaging, a few of us on our team, and we believe that the president of the United States has conflated Kharg Island with Larak Island, which is where the launchers that IRGC launchers were struck.”‘

"They are 410 miles away, for another geography lesson, Kharg Island from Larak Island. But it seems like perhaps the president of the United States got confused which islands his military generals were talking to him about here.”

- YouTube youtu.be

President Donald Trump's executive assistant Natalie Harp faced criticism over a Truth Social post claiming a critical Iranian oil island was being destroyed, which a U.S. official said was not targeted.

A U.S. official said the overnight strikes did not target Kharg Island, Reuters correspondent Idrees Ali reported Monday morning. A post claiming the Island had been blown to "smithereens" went up on Trump's Truth Social account at 10:08 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, hours after American forces struck Iran.

A 10-second video of a burning refinery complex paired with the post included the caption, "Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!!"

Phillips P. O'Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, aimed his response at Harp rather than at the president.

"Poor Natalie got confused between Kharg Island and Larak Island--worshipping can be such exhausting business," O'Brien wrote on X Monday morning.

Harp has been reported for months to be the aide who physically publishes material to the president's account. The Wall Street Journal reported in May that Harp supplies Trump with stacks of printed drafts and waits for his approval before posting, often during overnight hours.

The 34-year-old is a former conservative television anchor who joined Trump's circle ahead of the 2024 election. Colleagues have nicknamed her the "human printer" for the portable printer she carries, the Journal reported.

Harp "plays into the less productive and more troublesome parts of his nature, putting things in front of him that aren't vetted," one of those four people told MS NOW.

One national security official raised concerns that Harp's proximity to Trump gave her access to more sensitive information than anyone else in his orbit, MS NOW reported. Colleagues had made "subtle moves" to create distance between Harp and the president, another of the four people told the outlet.

The criticism resumed Monday morning, hours after the post appeared, as commentators connected it to that earlier reporting.

"Trump is winning the Iran War in the AI world Natalie Harp has created for him," MeidasTouch editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski wrote on X.

Marcy Wheeler, a national security journalist, tied the post directly to the question of who is running the war.

"How does the Commander in Chief post AI slop claiming to have 'blown to smithereens' a sensitive island when that's not what was struck at all?" Wheeler wrote. "What OTHER key actions in this war is he entirely confused about? Is the Commander in Chief even in charge? If not, who is?"

American forces did strike an Iranian island on Sunday, but it was not the one named in the post.

U.S. Central Command announced strikes on two Iranian rocket launchers on Larak Island, a U.S. official said, marking the first American strikes on Iran in more than a month.

Analysts have long treated a strike on Kharg's oil facilities as a far greater escalation than one on a launcher site, AP reported, because it would cut off the revenue that funds the Iranian government.

Harp's role became a public argument two weeks ago, when a single line from a Democratic senator drew a sustained response from the White House.

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) named Harp during a rally in Atlanta on Aug. 16, in a passage otherwise devoted to the president's priorities.

"He doesn't want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace, gifted by the Emir of Qatar," Ossoff said, according to Forbes.

Outrage from the White House reached a fever pitch for more than a week, involving the president, his spokespeople, and his family. Trump called Ossoff a "Pee-wee Herman look-alike" when a reporter asked about the remark and did not address Harp directly, Forbes reported. The White House then attacked the reporter who asked the question, CNN's Kristen Holmes.

White House spokesperson Davis Ingle called Ossoff's comments "cringeworthy" and criticized the senator's voting record, he told TIME.

"It's been amazing to watch this White House melt down over this all week," Ossoff later told MS NOW.

The response generated weeks of coverage examining Harp's access that the original remark had not. Posts from Trump's account have been deleted before after drawing complaints, including two involving artificial intelligence.

Harp posted a video containing racist imagery depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, along with an AI-generated image portraying Trump as a Christ-like figure, MS NOW reported.

Both posts were deleted following bipartisan backlash, and Trump told reporters on Feb. 6 that he did not post the Obama video, saying "somebody else" did and that it was "slipped and missed" during review.

Twelve days later, press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump's posts "should be taken as the policy of the Trump administration" because they came "straight from the horse's mouth," The Independent reported.

"When you see it on Truth Social, you know it's directly from President Trump," Leavitt said at the Feb. 18 briefing.

Outside of an exchange of fire early Sunday morning, the U.S. war against Iran has been in a weeks-long lull since July as part of an apparent effort by President Donald Trump to “push the conflict out of the minds of voters,” but that strategy may very well invite attacks on U.S. forces just ahead of the midterms, one expert warned.

“Trump appears to be pursuing a very different gamble: maintaining a low-level conflict until the midterms — neither securing a diplomatic deal nor allowing the situation to deteriorate into full-scale war,” wrote foreign policy expert Trita Parsi in an analysis published Sunday in Responsible Statecraft.

“A period of relative tranquility that pushes Iran out of the headlines and, in the run-up to the elections, weakens the connection between rising inflation and gas prices, on the one hand, and Trump’s foolish war of choice, on the other.”

Instead of direct military action, the Trump administration has leaned into economic sanctions, revealing a string of secondary “D-Day” sanctions last week designed to further cause havoc to Iran’s economy. While Trump may very well hope to avoid escalations in the conflict until after the midterms, Tehran might have other plans.

“If Washington wants to keep things quiet until the midterms, Tehran may conclude that the optimal moment to strike back is two or three weeks before the Congressional elections, maximizing the political damage to Trump,” Parsi wrote.

“If sanctions weaken Iran over time while the global economy recovers and adjusts to the new reality in the Strait [of Hormuz], a prolonged pause will work against Tehran. Iran may therefore decide to escalate dramatically, taking full advantage of Trump’s perceived vulnerability in the run-up to the elections.”

Parsi warned, however, that Iran’s own alleged gamble — that stripping the GOP of its control of Congress may “restrain Trump in 2027” — may be “misplaced.”

“A Trump humiliated at the polls and potentially facing a third impeachment attempt may be forced to play defense at home, but precisely because of his domestic troubles, he may also be incentivized to lash out abroad,” Parsi wrote. “Freed from electoral constraints, Trump may be willing to take risks he previously eschewed, including deploying ground troops.”

Togo-sponsored resolution calls to phase out traditional map that depicts continent as similar size to Greenland

The UN general assembly will vote on Friday on a resolution for the world to formally phase out the traditional Mercator map of the globe in favour of one that more accurately displays Africa’s size.

Robert Dussey, Togo’s foreign affairs minister, said the resolution was sponsored by Togo and backed by countries including the African Union’s 54 other member states. He did not specify the total number.

Pedro Sánchez continues to defend Rabat after police report claiming border forces helped 70,000 cross border

• Europe live – latest updates

Spain has seen no evidence “whatsoever” that Morocco planned or facilitated a mass border breach into its north African territory of Ceuta, the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has told parliament.

The address on Thursday followed the emergence of a police report, commissioned by a judge and widely quoted in the media, claiming Moroccan border forces had actively aided about 70,000 people to cross the border in late July.

Claim relating to 1960 attack on hundreds of protesters part of wave of litigation over apartheid crimes in South Africa

The day dawned brightly on 21 March 1960, as residents of the South African township of Sharpeville gathered to protest against pass laws, which forced “Black, Indian and Coloured” South Africans to carry documents at all times specifying where they were allowed to be.

Abraham Mofokeng joined the march, one of dozens organised nationwide by the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), a breakaway group from the African National Congress (ANC). “The weather was very nice, the sun was out. You could not have suspected that the day would go so horribly,” said Mofokeng, who was then a 20-year-old factory worker.

Referendum result means fewer seats in parliament and new rules on candidates, ahead of December elections

Guinea-Bissau voters have approved a new constitution, which critics say will undermine democracy, that significantly expands presidential powers ahead of elections due in December.

According to provisional results, 70% of voters approved sweeping changes in the tiny west African state’s first constitutional amendment since revisions that ended the one-party socialist state more than three decades ago.

Study reveals that pesticide poisoning kills 11,000 people each year, with India accounting for nearly 60% of fatalities

Almost half of the world’s farmers are poisoned by pesticides every single year, a study has found.

Using publicly available data from 2006-2023, the study, which was commissioned by Pesticide Action Network, found there to be an estimated 402-433m cases of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning of farmers and farm workers every year.

President cites Donald Trump’s suggestion that he might reconsider US support for British sovereignty, and threatens swifter sanctions on British oil interests

President Javier Milei has said “winds of change favourable” to Argentina’s claim to the Falkland Islands were “blowing around the world” in a televised address, citing signs that Donald Trump might reconsider the US position on the islands’ sovereignty.

“Recently, President Trump declared that the US is re-evaluating its historic position in relation to the Malvinas,” he said, using the Argentinian name for the islands.

Opposition leader says interim government lacking democratic mandate to negotiate on natural resources

• The US and Venezuela: a century-old relationship drenched in oil

The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has questioned Donald Trump’s oil deal with Venezuela’s interim government, saying the country’s natural resources do not belong to “an illegitimate regime”.

In her first public comments since Trump announced what he called “the biggest oil deal in world history” with Venezuela last Friday, Machado walked a diplomatic tightrope between challenging the agreement and trying not to rile the White House.

Relocation coincides with proposed laws that opponents say would entrench power of US tech billionaires in country

Dozens of protesters converged on Peter Thiel’s mansion in Buenos Aires this week after a congressional session raised questions about the billionaire’s presence in the country.

In white masks, they held signs saying “Peter Thief” and “No to the Peter Thiel law” in front of the wrought-iron gates of the $12m (£8.9m) residence, which Thiel bought in April as he moved his family to Argentina.

A visual look at how Washington’s relationship with Caracas has gone from cordial to ‘predatory’

• Trump ally defends Venezuela oil deal amid ‘gunpoint diplomacy’ criticism

• Nobel laureate Machado: ‘Illegitimate’ Venezuela regime has no right to strike US oil deal

Written in the middle of the last century, the US Department of State memo conveys its message in a curt and undiplomatically honest tone: the glue that binds Washington to Caracas is, and is always likely to be, oil.

“All US policies toward Venezuela are affected in greater or less degree by the objective of assuring an adequate supply of petroleum for the US,” the 1950 document reads.

Tech company submits to controversial Trump order to rename body of water amid US trade spat with Canada

Apple has renamed Lake Ontario as “Lake America” for US users of its Maps app, after an executive order from Donald Trump to change the name of the Great Lake amid his trade spat with Canada.

The Apple Maps app now displays the controversial new name for the lake, which sits between New York state and the Canadian province of Ontario, for users in the US. Apple users outside the country will still see the Lake Ontario name.

Jump lifts currency to highest level against dollar in a month, while global markets remain jittery

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The Japanese yen has soared by more than 2% against the dollar amid speculation the Bank of Japan is set to raise interest rates.

The latest jump on Thursday lifted the yen to its highest level against the dollar in a month, at 155.57, and followed a 0.9% move the previous day.

Oil consumption plummets and EV sales soar as analysts say demand may not fully return even if crude price falls

China’s carbon dioxide emissions fell by 1% after the outbreak of the US-Israeli war on Iran, thanks to a sharp reduction in oil consumption and a steady rise in the use of electric vehicles and public transport, analysis shows.

The report reveals the role of clean energy in cushioning the price shocks caused by the strait of Hormuz crisis to the world’s biggest oil importer. It also reinforces hopes that China, which is the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, may be nearing a turning point in decarbonising its economy.

Speed limit dropped from 60km/h for around 70% of general roads in the hope of making narrow streets of crowded cities safer

Drivers on residential roads in Japan have been forced to take their foot off the accelerator, after the speed limit was slashed from 60km/h (37mph) to 30km/h in an attempt to reduce deaths and injuries among pedestrians on narrow urban streets.

The new limit, which went into effect on Tuesday, applies to residential roads with no centre line or maximum speed signs, media reports said.

Wong, 29, is accused of urging foreign powers to impose sanctions, blockades and other hostile measures against China

Joshua Wong, one of Hong Kong’s most prominent pro-democracy activists, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to conspiring to seek foreign sanctions against Hong Kong and China, a national security charge that carries a maximum life sentence.

Prosecutors have accused Wong, 29, of working with the exiled Hong Kong activist Nathan Law to urge foreign powers to impose sanctions, blockades or other hostile measures against China.

Ship has been plagued by reports of deteriorating living conditions and poor mental health because of lengthy deployment

The USS Abraham Lincoln, a US aircraft carrier at the centre of a row over conditions on board after months at sea as part of Donald Trump’s war against Iran, has arrived off a Thai port.

Reports of deteriorating living conditions and poor mental health on the vessel, including attempted suicides, have made headlines around the world, provoking criticism of the president’s actions in the Middle East.

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‘Gut-wrenching’: Bowen to meet with Nepali community today

Chris Bowen said he would meet members of the Nepali Australian community later today.

Every person who’s been rescued or found is a relief to their family and to the broader Australian community. But of course, we still have 36 Australians who are missing and unaccounted for, which is just gut-wrenching for all Australians and for the Nepalese Australian community in particular, whom I’m spending time with later today.

But all I can say is that we’re continuing to send any support that the Nepalese government asked for.

I think that leaders in the Pacific were deeply concerned: one, that a missile test was done without permission of the countries whose airspace it had travelled through, and two, that there was no notice of the said missile test. So I think it’s both. It is a concern about sovereignty and safety, and one that Australia fully backs.

It’s a pretty strong statement, Sally, and one that Australia played a role in crafting.

New record for Australia as more than 27,000 EVs sold in August, driven by the rising cost of fuel and new government policy

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Electric vehicle sales in Australia exceeded petrol cars for the first time last month as a transformation driven by high fuel prices and government policy encouraging clean car uptake accelerated.

More than 27,000 EVs were sold in August, a new record for a single month and representing 24.9% of new cars sold. The climate-friendly technology surpassed both petrol vehicles (nearly 26,000 sold) and diesel cars (23,600).

Daniel Billings said ‘I did what I did’ in call from friend’s house after 2024 domestic violence murder

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Two hours after Daniel Billings murdered his ex-girlfriend Molly Ticehurst in a frenzied stabbing, he spoke to a woman he had met on Tinder.

“I’m sorry I murdered her,” Billings told the woman during a phone call at 2.02am on 22 April 2024.

Bureau of Meteorology suggests El Niño has already broken records, with Pacific Ocean temperature change exceeding 2C in six months

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The growing El Niño weather phenomenon to Australia’s east is already breaking heat records, with forecasts showing it may easily surpass previous events, according to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology.

Separate research suggests climate change has greatly shortened the odds of the event hitting record extremes.

Helen Paterson’s work on advancing how police and courts understand memory is recognised in prestigious Eureka prizes

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Memory is an imperfect thing: research shows that recollections of single events – a purse being snatched, say – differ from those about repeated or ongoing events, such as incidents of domestic and family violence.

“What our research shows is that compared to a single-event witness, a repeated-event witness tends to report more gist-like details, the overall details of what typically would happen, and the things that remain constant between the episodes,” said Helen Paterson, an associate professor in forensic psychology at the University of Sydney.

Governments now moving faster to impose costs on Moscow for its increasing attacks over support for Ukraine

Russia’s suspected sabotage campaign across Europe appears to be gathering pace again, confronting governments with a problem they have struggled to solve since the start of the war in Ukraine: how to impose a meaningful cost on Moscow for attacks that remain deliberately below the threshold of conventional war.

Over the past month alone, an explosives-laden drone was discovered next to a Ukrainian cargo plane at Germany’s Leipzig airport, Poland has faced suspected acts of sabotage, and a string of unexplained explosions and fires have hit defence facilities supplying Ukraine across Europe.

As polls point to victory in Saxony-Anhalt for AfD party promising deportations, people face agonising choice: stay or go

As the Bible study session wrapped up, leaving worshippers to mingle over cake and coffee, Fatemeh, 44, fought back tears as the conversation turned to Sunday’s state election in Saxony-Anhalt.

“I worry about it every day,” she said. “I can’t stop thinking about my son and what might happen to us.”

Fatemeh worries about what might happen after the elections. Photograph: Christian Jungeblodt/The Guardian

Under-pressure carmaker will shed 15% of workforce and halve its product line in sector’s biggest ever restructure

The car company Volkswagen has announced it will shed 100,000 jobs by the end of the decade after being hit by US tariffs and fierce competition from Chinese rivals.

The German manufacturer said management and unions had agreed as part of a sweeping cost-cutting plan to cut a further 50,000 positions by 2030, bringing total job losses in the pipeline to 100,000.

Student protesters among those hacked, says digital rights group, though Aleksandar Vučić’s government denies spying

At least 14 people from across Serbian civil society were targeted with advanced spyware earlier this year in what the digital rights group Share Foundation said was the largest documented ​wave of such infection in Serbia to date.

The wave of spyware infections was discovered in August after Apple notified people in 110 ⁠countries that they had probably been victims ⁠of mercenary spyware.

A Maltese businessman has been cleared of involvement in the journalist’s death, but his trial revealed the challenges faced by those leading the search for her killers

The conclusion of the longest-running murder trial in Maltese history has left a country in turmoil, and a grieving family still searching for answers.

At 7.30pm on Wednesday, gasps and cheers echoed around hall 22 of the courts of justice in Valletta, as a jury pronounced a businessman accused of ordering the murder of the investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia not guilty.

Troops escort settlers into al-Mughayyir and raze village outside Hebron as ethnic cleansing of West Bank continues

Israelis have shot dead two teenagers in a Palestinian village encircled by settlers, and Israeli troops have razed an entire village outside Hebron, in the latest attacks in a surge of Israeli terror and ethnic cleansing across the occupied West Bank.

The shootings targeted Khalil Abu Alia, 16, who was about to start 11th grade at the al-Mughayyir boys school, and 19-year-old Omar al-Nassan, who graduated from the same institution with top marks this summer.

Itamar Ben-Gvir claims proposal for illegal forced displacement of 2 million people is ‘realistic’ and ‘concrete’

Israel’s far-right national security minister has set out a plan for the illegal forced expulsion of all Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, with the intention of sending them abroad.

Speaking in the run-up to close-fought Israeli elections, Itamar Ben-Gvir said the plan aimed to remove 250,000 Palestinians from Gaza in the first year, followed by the rest of its population of roughly 2 million over the next six years.

President said Howard Lutnick had Venezuela operation on his mind when he was discussing Iran war on CNBC

Donald Trump has claimed his commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, erroneously stated that no Americans had been killed in the war with Iran because he was thinking about a previous US operation, in Venezuela.

The claim, at odds with the Pentagon’s count of 18 US service members dead in the US-Israel war on Iran, sparked a swift backlash as Trump struggles to end the conflict after six months.

Air bases used by US in UAE and Kuwait hit as Israeli defence chief says Iran’s regime fears collapse due to economic pressures

Iran has continued to demonstrate an ability to target bases in the Gulf used by the US despite six months of war and a new sanctions regime described by the Trump administration as an “economic D-day”.

As Iran’s military targeted US bases in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, despite threats of further strikes by the US president, Israel’s defence chief warned that economic pressures from the sanctions could lead Tehran to escalate to more “extreme measures”.

Defence minister says he believes US backing could tip regional balance in favour of forced resettlement

Israel’s defence minister has said his country is seeking Donald Trump’s support to approve plans to expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip in what has widely been condemned as a potential war crime.

Israel Katz said there was “no real solution for Gaza in the end without this
migration” during a conference hosted by the Israeli news site Ynet and the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. He said the Israeli government was “organised and prepared to get them out by sea, by air, by every way possible”.