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Vanuatu moves forward with UN climate resolution despite Trump opposition
Pacific island says the US weakened its proposal to advance a key climate ruling but vows to hold major polluters accountableThe Trump administration’s attempt to sink a UN resolution demanding countries act on the climate crisis has caused cuts to the proposal but hasn’t entirely killed it, according to the tiny Pacific island country spearheading the effort.The US has demanded that Vanuatu, an archipelago in the south Pacific, drop its UN draft resolution that calls on the world to implement a landmark international court of justice (ICJ) ruling from last year that countries could face paying reparations if they fail to stem the climate crisis. Continue reading...
Trump just walked into a staggering trap
As of this writing, six American troops are dead. Donald Trump says there will be more. More than 1,000 Iranians are dead, and there will certainly be many more. The map of the Middle East is a sea of fire under “Operation Epic Fury,” and only 27 percent of the U.S. public is onboard.So the real question isn’t whether “we” can win this war. It’s how fast Trump will claim he already has.Trump has been crowing that while Iran allegedly tried to kill him three times, he “got Khamenei on the first try.” Secretary of “War” Pete Hegseth called that “guts.” It isn’t guts. It’s the reckless bragging of a man treating a potential world war like the season finale of a reality series: blow everything up, grab the ratings, cancel the show before the numbers tank and the shark is jumped.But in Iran, the shark is taking a big bite out of the truth about why the war began.The trap Trump has walked into is staggering. He explicitly demanded regime change. Every historian and military strategist will tell you regime change has never happened without boots on the ground. Trump ruled that out. Sort of. It depends on the day.Utterly distasteful and offensive, Trump said he doesn’t get “the yips” about troops on the ground. The reason his predecessors, like anyone with a soul, got the yips was because they were risking American lives. What a heartless jerk.The most dishonest person in the world keeps making half-assed promises. As each falls apart, he makes another.We are almost a week in, and the reasons America went to war remain embarrassingly murky. Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed it was to neutralize an imminent threat to Israel. Trump said he was the one who pushed Benjamin Netanyahu, not the other way around. Hegseth, equally untruthful and idiotic, has his own theories.Americans were disillusioned and confused from day one. Now they’re getting angrier by the hour. There is no justification for this war. There never was. There never will be. And that’s becoming horrifically obvious.Meanwhile, the dominoes are falling. Gas prices are spiking. Economists warn that petroleum-linked inflation is just getting started. Refineries are destroyed. The Dow is spooked.Trump built his entire political identity on economic and no-war braggadocio: “best economy ever,” “I alone can fix it,” “no World War III,” “no forever wars.” Now he owns an oil shock and a war he started that has the makings of World War III.In May 2003, just six weeks into the Iraq War, George W. Bush famously strutted onto the USS Abraham Lincoln under a “Mission Accomplished” banner. He wanted to project strength, declare an end to major combat operations, and pivot to domestic politics before a long, bloody insurgency exposed the whole enterprise as a catastrophe built on lies.The same false premises are in play now: imminent threat, weapons of mass destruction, regime change, a grateful population to welcome Americans as liberators. Those premises collapsed. Wars started on false pretenses never end well.Trump is too ill-informed, and too reckless, to understand.There can be little doubt he is preparing his own “Mission Accomplished” moment — except he is more selfish, less humble, and has even less patience than Bush. To be clear, Bush was never known for humility. But compared to Trump, he looks like a pussycat.Trump will surely declare “victory” soon, not because the threat is eliminated but because the markets are screaming, the oil industry is hemorrhaging, and Trump sees giant losses on the horizon, along with the prospect of getting tied down trying to fix a country he broke.The only difference is that Trump won’t bother with a flight suit. He’ll do it in front of those flimsy black curtains that doubled as a Situation Room at Mar-a-Lago.Fresh off his attack on Venezuela, Trump wants the world to see him as the man who makes strongmen disappear, the most imperial of imperialists.But just as the Iraq justifications shape-shifted from WMDs to spreading democracy when the WMDs turned out not to exist, so “Operation Epic Fury” has mutated in real time from stopping an “imminent nuclear threat” to personal score-settling by a president who treats foreign policy like a drive-by shooting.Trump will simply “kill you,” as Hegseth might say. Make a mess, speed away, let someone else clean it up.Trump didn’t go to war for America. He went to war for Trump. And now he has to get out fast — for Trump.After September 11, Bush had the benefit of 90 percent public approval. He had goodwill. Trump is starting his war in the basement, with an approval rating at a record low, 36-39 percent, and 60 percent disapproval. With his war, he barely has a quarter of Americans behind him.Rising body counts will not move Trump the way they would move a normal president. What will move him are the Dow and oil futures. When the financial fallout becomes intolerable, he will declare victory and bolt, leaving a destabilized Middle East to deal with the wreckage he made.Trump has zero patience. He cannot stand to be associated with losing. A grinding, inconclusive Middle East war is the definition of losing — slowly, expensively, in public.When his lies grow old and the polls get even worse, Trump will sprint for his “Mission Accomplished” banner. He will announce that he has eliminated Iran’s nuclear program, degraded its drone and missile capabilities, avenged three assassination attempts, and secured a historic win.Then he will leave Israel alone in the fight, the region in flames, the cleanup to whoever’s still standing.Trump doesn’t care about our soldiers. He doesn’t care about peace, stability, or the families of the six Americans already killed and the others to follow. He cares about one thing: how Donald Trump looks when “the show” comes to an end.John Casey was most recently Senior Editor, The Advocate, and is a freelance opinion and feature story writer. Previously, he was a Capitol Hill press secretary, and spent 25 years in media and public relations in NYC. He is the co-author of LOVE: The Heroic Stories of Marriage Equality (Rizzoli, 2025), named by Oprah in her "Best 25 of 2025.”
Oil price continues to rise amid Middle East crisis but stock markets rebound across Asia
Reports of attack on US registered tanker in Gulf lifts crude by 3% to $84 a barrel as gas price also starts to climbBusiness live – latest updatesMiddle East crisis – live updatesStock markets have rebounded in Asia after days of heavy losses driven by the war in the Middle East, but oil and gas prices have continued to climb amid disruption to supplies.South Korea’s KOSPI, which posted its biggest ever fall on Tuesday of 12%, rose by almost 10% on Thursday, while Japan’s Nikkei climbed by 1.9%. MSCI’s Asia-Pacific index excluding Japan jumped by 2.7%. Continue reading...
Cologne Cathedral, one of Germany's best-known landmarks, to charge tourists for admission
Cologne Cathedral, a famous German landmark and popular tourist draw, will start charging an admission fee to visitors as church officials struggle with rising maintenance costs
US and Mideast countries seek Kyiv's drone expertise as Russia-Ukraine talks put on ice
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the United States and its allies in the Middle East are seeking Ukraine’s expertise in countering Iran’s Shahed drones
Families of Kenyan recruits duped into fighting in Russia's war demand sons return
Families of Kenyan recruits duped with promises of work in Russia who ended up on the front lines of the fighting in Ukraine are petitioning the country’s parliament to ban the recruitment of Kenyans for Moscow’s war
Lauren Boebert shames GOP for voting to cover up sex scandals: 'Go tell your daughters!'
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) lashed out at several of her Republican colleagues for opposing a motion that would require Congress to release information on payouts that silence victims of congressional sex scandals.During a House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) moved to release information about payouts for sexual misconduct. Boebert spoke out in support of Mace's motion in committee after a majority of Republicans in the full House voted down a similar effort."And I want to thank Congresswoman Nancy Mace for introducing this privileged motion," the Colorado Republican said. "I think at this point, this is something that should be introduced on a weekly basis. I am absolutely disgusted that we could even get to 50 members of Congress who want immediate transparency. Don't we all campaign on transparency? Don't we all go out and tell the American voters that we are leaders and that we are going to get justice for them, that we are going to do right by them?""And then we hire their daughters to come work for us," she continued. "And your tax dollars, millions and millions of dollars, has been used in this slush fund as hush money to silence victims who have been sexually harassed, sexually abused by members of Congress."Boebert noted that attention had been focused on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but the misconduct was "happening right here in our nation's capital.""And to every member who voted to send this to committee, where you know this was sent to die on the House floor just moments ago," she remarked. "I hope you have a darn good reason to tell your constituents why you were not going to stand up for the victims.""And I'm glad that we are doing something about it here in the Oversight Committee," the lawmaker added. "And to the members who voted against this, go home and tell your daughters what you did today! Go home and tell your daughters what happens in the workplace, no matter where it is, in your hometown, in your nation's capital, and tell them what you did to help continue to cover up decades of corruption!"
Karoline Leavitt unleashes on CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins to her face: 'Especially you!'
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt directly attacked CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Wednesday during the first press briefing since the United States and its ally Israel launched military strikes against Iran. Leavitt had made several comments criticizing media coverage of the Trump administration and went after reporters at the White House, specifically Collins and CNN. The Trump administration has presented several different objectives since launching its military operation five days ago — with Cabinet members and even President Donald Trump giving conflicting information over what prompted the attacks and led to the regional conflict that has now left six American troops dead. "Is it the position of this administration that the press should not prominently cover the deaths of U.S. service members?" Collins asked Leavitt. "No, it's the position of this administration that the press in this room and the press across this country should report on the success of Operation Epic Fury and the damage it is doing to the rogue Iranian regime that has threatened the lives of every single American in this room," Leavitt said. "If the Iranian regime had their choice, they would kill every single person in this room, and so we can all be very grateful that we have an administration, that we have men and women in our armed forces who are willing to sacrifice their own lives for the rest of us in this room and for every American across the country, and for every troop that is based in the Middle East."Collins pushed back on what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had said earlier Wednesday. When Leavitt started to clash with her, things became personal. "But Secretary Hegseth was complaining that it was front-page news about these six service members who were killed," Collins said. "That's not what the secretary said, and that's not what he meant, and you know it!" Leavitt said, appearing visibly upset by Collins' statement. "You are being disingenuous. There is not — we've never had a secretary of defense who cares more..." Collins then interjected and read the statement directly from Hegseth, who had claimed that the press had purposefully tried to speak badly about Trump."The press only wants to make the president look bad," Leavitt said. As you know, the press, the deaths of U.S. service members under every president. The press does only want to make the president look bad. That's a fact. Especially, you know, listen to me, especially you, and especially CNN, and the secretary of defense cares deeply about our warfighters and our men and women in uniform. He travels all across this country to meet with them, to connect with them. And your network has hardly ever probably reported on that." Collins responded again to Leavitt's attacks — pointing out that covering the slain military members was not an attempt to attack Trump."That's not making the president look bad, that's showcasing that," Collins said. "And I just told you that the president of the United States will be attending their dignified transfer. So please. So, please," Leavitt said. "We expect you to cover that as you should, Kaitlan. But you and your network know that you take every single thing this administration says and tries to use it to make the president look bad. That is an objective fact."Collins pushed back again. "I don't think covering troop deaths is trying to make the president look bad," Collins said."If you're trying to argue right now that CNN's overwhelming coverage is not negative of President Donald Trump, I think the American people would tend to agree, and your ratings would tend to disagree with that as well," Leavitt said.
US submarine sinks Iranian warship as conflict spreads beyond Middle East
Frigate goes down off Sri Lanka as Washington and Israel step up their offensive and promise to hit ‘deeper’ targets in IranMiddle East crisis – live updatesA torpedo fired by a US submarine sank an Iranian warship off the south coast of Sri Lanka as the Trump administration followed through on its threats to destroy Tehran’s military and political leadership.At least 87 Iranian sailors were killed in the attack on the Iris Dena. The frigate was sailing in international waters as it returned from a naval exercise organised by India in the Bay of Bengal. The torpedo strike prompted questions from former US officials about whether Washington’s aim of eliminating all of Iran’s military breached international law. Continue reading...
Karoline Leavitt melts down at 'fake news' asking if Trump believes America backs Iran war
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt delivered an attack on the media on Wednesday during the first press briefing since the U.S. launched its military operation against Iran five days ago. NBC News senior White House correspondent Garrett Haake asked Leavitt why President Donald Trump, just days after his State of the Union address, had not laid out the case for why the U.S. had planned with its ally Israel to launch military strikes on Iran. Leavitt blamed the press for conflicting reports over the Trump administration's objectives in the military action, and what prompted the attacks. "Does the president believe the country supports the actions that he's taken so far in Iran?" Haake asked.Leavitt responded to the question with a swipe at the media, including the reporters at the briefing. "I think he does. And I think the president knows the country is smart enough to read past many of the fake news headlines produced by people in this room, that this action was unjustifiable," Leavitt said. "Again, this is a rogue terrorist regime that has been threatening the United States, our allies and our people for 47 years," Leavitt argued. "And the American people are smart enough to know that. And they've also been smart enough to listen to the president himself, not just over the past year in this second term, but during his first term as president and also for the past 40 years of his life. This is a president who has been remarkably consistent on this issue, that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon. And the president tried peace through diplomacy exhaustively and extensively. He and his team gave it their best go."
'Dude, I'm not MAGA': Alex Jones distances from 'sellout' Trump over Iran war
Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones sought to distance himself from President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement over the ongoing military operation against Iran.During his Wednesday broadcast, Jones criticized Trump for suggesting ground troops could be deployed in Operation Epic Fury."I have no doubt the Marines and the Army are going to kick their ass, but we're going to have a lot of dead people. And I mean a lot," he warned. "And their answer is continue to kill whoever the new leader is, just keep killing the generals, killing the leadership, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill.""You can say what you want about the Iranian cult, Islamic cult, but at least they stand for something," he continued, noting that Trump was "starting to give in and bend and do things that aren't what he said he would do, that aren't America first."Jones claimed that he had been offered millions to "sell out" his principles."I won't sell out against America First. And if I start seeing Trump sell out to whatever, I'm not going along with it. But I love the idiot, neocon, Johnny-Come-Lately Trump supporters that, like, if you don't support whatever [White House Chief of Staff] Susie Wiles wants or whatever the new war is, you're not a patriot. You're the fake MAGA," he remarked. "Dude, I'm not MAGA!" Jones exclaimed. "I'm 1776 worldwide. I'm a populist American. Make America great again; how about make America free again? So, MAGA's great, but I'm not MAGA, and I've told you that for, you know, seven, eight, nine years. I am 1776."The right-wing conspiracy theorist went on to compare Trump to a used lawnmower."I'm proud I supported Trump for 10 years and got persecuted," he said. "If Trump at the end starts going sideways, it's like you got a lawnmower, you mow the yard with it for 10 years, and then one day the engine blows, and it's cheaper just to get a new one than to replace the motor.""You're like sad about the lawnmower that the engine blew up, but you just put it out at the curb, you know, when they do the trash pickup once a year for, you know, appliances and stuff, and you put the old refrigerator out there and the old lawnmower, and oh, you were a good lawnmower, bye, bye," he added. "It's like I'm not mad that I had the lawnmower and cut the grass and did all this, and now the lawnmower's broken. Right now, black smoke's coming out of the lawnmower, and it's sputtering, and it's on fire. So I think this lawnmower is probably done.""We can't kick illegal alien Somalis out of the country, but we can go fight a million-man army. It's insane."
Eight lies Trump told to take America to war
It should come as no surprise that Donald Trump has piled lie upon lie to justify his attack on Iran in violation of international law, constantly shifting his rationale as one lie collides with another.The following litany of lies reveals how Trump is responsible for fueling a burgeoning war in the Middle East.Lie #1Trump has said consistently that he opposes and would never involve the US in regime change and nation building, calling it a “proven, absolute failure.”Reality: Under Trump in 2025-26, the US has sought regime change in both Venezuela and Iran by attacking both nations and deposing their leaders. Former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro was captured and brought to the US to face criminal charges, Trump stating that the US would “run” the country until a stable government could be formed. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the US’s attack on Iran, with Trump urging the Iranian people to rise up and oust the theocratic regime. Lie #2After the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2025, Trump said that the US had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities and completely destroyed Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.Reality: The bombing of the nuclear facilities did not destroy Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. A US Defense Agency (DIA) report concluded that the strikes set back the program by three to six months. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director Rafael Grossi said that Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile was largely unaccounted for.Had the US bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities destroyed its nuclear enrichment program like Trump said, why in 2026 was the US attempting to negotiate a nuclear agreement with Iran? Wasn’t that what the 2025 bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities already accomplished? Lie #3Trump claimed that Iran was actively building nuclear weapons as a pretext for engaging in bad-faith negotiations, ultimately leading to the US’s attack on Iran.Reality: Iran was never building nuclear weapons. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told Congress in March 2025 that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi stated the agency had “not found any proof” of an effort by Iran to build a nuclear weapon. The false justification for attacking Iran mirrored the justification for the US’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 based on the falsehood that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Lie #4Trump said the massive US military build-up in the Middle East was intended to pressure Iran to negotiate a nuclear agreement, with diplomacy preferred over force.Reality: Trump’s purpose in authorizing the massive US military build-up in the Middle East was obvious: to employ it. Attacking Iran was not a spur-of-the-moment decision but rather a long thought-out plan featuring a large, coordinated military attack on Iran conceived long before it was executed. The US was not going to amass that kind of military power halfway across the globe without intending to use it.Lie #5Trump claimed that he preferred resolving the issue of Iran’s nuclear program through negotiations and diplomacy.Reality: Trump never intended to negotiate in good faith but rather to use the “failed” negotiations as rationale for the attack on Iran. First, Trump gave negotiations a scant two months to reach settlement while in 2015, the US and an international coalition took 20 months to complete a successful nuclear agreement with Iran. Second, Trump knew the US’s “red line” negotiating position — that Iran could enrich no uranium after having enriched it for decades for domestic nuclear power — would never be accepted. Third, the US attacked Iran half way through Trump’s stated two-month negotiating window, a diplomatic solution never meant to be given a chance. Lie #6Trump claimed the US attacked Iran because it was a threat to America and the American people.Reality: Iran poses absolutely no threat to America. First, it has no nuclear weapons’ capability and lacks the long-range missiles to reach the US mainland. Second, if it ever developed such missiles, attacking the country with the most powerful military in the world would ensure Iran’s annihilation. Lie #7Trump claimed US citizens are safer today due to the attack on Iran.Reality: Since Iran posed no threat to the US, the attack on Iran didn’t make US citizens any safer. Instead, it could make them less safe through Iranian retaliatory bombing of US military bases and through potential terrorist activity in the US within Iranian-supportive sleeper cells. Lie #8Trump claimed the timing of the attack on Iran was necessary to eliminate “imminent threats” from a nation on the verge of developing nuclear weapons.Reality: The timing had nothing to do with eliminating “imminent threats” which didn’t exist and everything to do with the looming 2026 mid-term elections. Trump’s purpose was two-fold: to try and score a huge foreign policy victory that he could ride all the way to the Nov. 4 election and to deflect focus on the economic woes he has created for the American people through his failed policies.Trump’s lies that Iran was enriching uranium to build nuclear weapons and that it posed a serious threat to America provided the false justification for the US’s attack on Iran. That perfidious duplicity launched a series of horrific events with no end in sight.Thanks to Trump’s lies, the US attacked Iran, resulting in the heartbreaking killing of more than 100 Iranian children whose elementary school was bombed. American soldiers have been killed by Iranian retaliatory strikes on US bases, and putting American “boots on the ground” in Iran is being contemplated. The outbreak of a region-wide war has already begun as civilian deaths have been reported in countries across the Middle East. Thanks to Trump, a diplomatic settlement between the US and Iran that could have avoided all of the bloodshed and destruction was never given a chance. This is Trump’s war, and he bears responsibility for all of the human suffering that it is bringing. Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor.
