Top World News
Trump-endorsed autocrat in Hungary concedes election loss after 16 years in power
Viktor Orbán, the autocratic Hungarian president and staunch Russian ally, conceded defeat in the country's national election on Sunday, ending his 16-year reign in power, according to reports. The Associated Press reported that with 60% of the vote counted, opposition leader Peter Magyar’s party held 52% of the vote compared to Orbán's 38% support. Orbán described the loss as "painful." "It’s a major blow for Orbán, the European Union’s longest-serving leader and one of its biggest antagonists, who has traveled a long road from his early days as a liberal, anti-Soviet firebrand to the Russia-friendly nationalist admired today by the global far-right," the AP reported. Trump endorsed Orbán in a Truth Social post on Friday, calling him " a truly strong and powerful leader." Trump added that the U.S. stood ready to "strengthen Hungary's economy," if Orbán won.
US ally calls out Trump's fibbing about helping to 'clean out' the Strait of Hormuz
A key U.S. ally called out President Donald Trump's fibbing about other countries agreeing to help the U.S. "clean out" land mines from the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday. Trump claimed during an interview on Fox News that “it won’t take long to clean out the Strait,” referring to reports that the Iranian regime had planted several sea mines in the area to depress shipping through the waterway. Trump also claimed that “numerous countries are going to be helping us," a claim that was swiftly undercut by a spokesperson for the government of the United Kingdom, The Guardian reported."The U.K. will not be involved in any blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the Guardian understands, after claims by Donald Trump on Sunday that the U.S. would be blockading the waterway with the assistance of NATO allies," the outlet reported. The U.K. spokesperson added that the Strait of Hormuz "must not be subject to tolling." "We are urgently working with France and other partners to put together a wide coalition to protect freedom of navigation," the spokesperson said. The announcement came at a time when the U.S.-Iran ceasefire appears fragile, and Vice President JD Vance announced on Saturday that peace talks between the two nations had broken down.
Anthony Albanese urges Israel to stop Lebanon attacks that intensified during Middle East ceasefire
PM tells Guardian Australia Hezbollah should cease reprisals and confirms Australia’s military surveillance aircraft will remain in regionFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAustralia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has urged Israel to stop its attacks on Lebanon and raised concern over its intensified military campaign on Beirut and the country’s south after the ceasefire in the Middle East.Albanese also called on Hezbollah to cease attacks on Israel, reiterating his government’s belief that the Middle East ceasefire must include Lebanon. The prime minister also confirmed Australia’s military surveillance aircraft would remain in the region for at least another month beyond its initial deployment. Continue reading...
Indian music legend Asha Bhosle dies aged 92
Two-time Grammy nominee was one of Bollywood’s most versatile and celebrated voicesThe Indian singer Asha Bhosle, whose voice defined Bollywood cinema and whose career spanned almost eight decades, has died in Mumbai at the age of 92.Bhosle, who recorded more than 12,000 songs, became her country’s pre-eminent exponent of playback singing – recording tracks that were then lip-synced on film by actors. She also boldly embraced cabaret and western-influenced melodies to forge a distinctive musical identity. Continue reading...
Floods, power outages and hundreds evacuated as Cyclone Vaianu lashes New Zealand’s North Island
Cyclone crossed coast near Maketu peninsula, packing destructive winds exceeding 130km/h (80 mph), heavy rain and large swellsCyclone Vaianu made landfall in New Zealand’s North Island on Sunday, triggering floods, power outages and forcing hundreds to evacuate.The cyclone crossed the coast near the Maketu peninsula, packing destructive winds exceeding 130km/h (80 mph), heavy rain and large swells, national weather provider MetService said, describing Vaianu as a “life-threatening” system. Continue reading...
'I thought it was a joke': Mockery as Iran talks collapse while Trump booed at UFC event
The internet was stunned on Saturday night after Vice President JD Vance announced that talks had failed between Iran and the United States — all while President Donald Trump and his family attended a UFC event in Miami. Trump walked into the arena to a largely cheering crowd, though many booed while Kid Rock blared, just as Vance had publicly acknowledged the conversation between the Iranian and American diplomatic teams had not reached an agreement despite the 21 hours of marathon talking. People didn't hold back from sharing their thoughts on social media:"I guess all the Iran experts had to be at the UFC?" Writer and essayist Hari Kunzru wrote on Bluesky. "When I heard that Trump was at a UFC fight tonight while Vance was trying to hammer out the Iran deal at four in the morning, Iran time, I thought it was a joke," writer Mary Pezzulo wrote on Bluesky."How the f--- is the president and Secretary of State at a UFC fight in Miami while war negotiations affecting the world economy are falling apart. And I know that MF-- isn’t going to try to play golf tomorrow too," Ron Filipkowski, Editor in Chief of MeidasNews, wrote on Bluesky."These 2 pics are happening simultaneously: LEFT: Vance after he fails to secure permanent ceasefire to the illegal war Trump launched. RIGHT: Trump attends UFC fight 5 days after threatening genocide of 90M people. This is what happens when you elect a genocidal fascist and an unqualified sycophant," Qasim Rashid, human rights lawyer, wrote on Bluesky."He clearly just wants to run the UFC, not the country. Someone should find a way to make that happen," Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin, founder of The Gaia Leadership Project & The Ripple Effect Institute, wrote on Bluesky."There was never a framework for a deal. I heard someone say, 'Not only does Iran have the cards, but they hold a strait.' Another Trump failure," writer and editor Stephen Simpson wrote on X. "The Strait was open. Trump started an unprovoked, unauthorized war, and now the enemy controls the Strait, and won’t give it back," liberal political commentator Marlene Johnson wrote on X.
Vance is now 'walking on eggshells around Trump': report
Vice President JD Vance is increasingly finding himself “walking on eggshells” around President Donald Trump as he takes on a central role in high-stakes negotiations to end the Iran conflict, according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal.The Journal reported Friday that Vance – long viewed as an anti-interventionist voice within the MAGA administration – has been thrust into leading peace talks with Iranian officials, tying his political future to the outcome of a war he initially sought to distance himself from.A close friend of Vance who recently spoke with him said the vice president described feeling “like he was sometimes walking on eggshells around Trump because of his antiwar views.” A Vance spokesperson disputed that account, telling the Journal, “He’s walking on so many eggshells that he’s on his way to Pakistan at the president’s request to lead negotiations.”The talks, set to take place in Islamabad, represent the highest-level engagement between the U.S. and Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the outlet noted Friday. For Vance, who will be joined by Trump allies, including son-in-law Jared Kushner, they mark "the most significant international assignment of his career" as he prepares to face seasoned Iranian negotiators.“The conflict has created a political liability for a vice president who once promised ‘no new wars,’ including one with Iran,” according to the Journal. “Trump knows Vance’s skepticism of foreign intervention and that the vice president represents a branch of the party opposed to the hawkish positions espoused by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), a senior administration official said.”Vance, however, still supports the mission despite his beliefs, the aide added. The assignment adds to a growing list of responsibilities handed to Vance, including overseeing efforts to root out fraud in federal programs after making a controversial campaign appearance in Hungary.
Trump hit with 'haunting' blackmail theory explaining his Iran moves: 'We're not joking'
Over the past month, President Donald Trump has dramatically escalated his administration’s war against Iran, culminating with his threat to destroy Iran’s entire civilization earlier this week, but according to Tucker Carlson’s independent media outlet, a “blackmail” operation could potentially be forcing the president’s hand.The theory was outlined in a Friday morning newsletter from the Tucker Carlson Network, which pointed to a past incident that some have characterized as an attempted effort to blackmail a sitting U.S. president. Specifically, the newsletter cites claims made by political writer Daniel Halper in his 2014 biography “Clinton Inc.,” supported in part by sworn testimony given in 1998 to the congressionally established Office of Independent Counsel.“Establishment media never reports this, but the Israeli government has a storied history of blackmailing U.S. Presidents,” the newsletter reads. “Perhaps the most jarring example occurred in the 90s, when Israel used recordings of a Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky phone sex session as leverage to pressure Clinton into releasing convicted spy Jonathan Pollard from prison. We’re not joking. That really happened.”Evidence supporting the allegation that Israel had attempted to use phone recordings of Clinton and Lewinsky as “leverage” first emerged in 1998 after Lewinsky testified before the Office of Independent Counsel about her affair with the sitting president. During her testimony, Lewinsky said that in early 1997, Clinton had told her “that he suspected a foreign embassy was tapping his telephones, (he did not specify which one),” just one month after then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Clinton in the Oval Office.Later in 1998, Netanyahu again met with Clinton amid peace talks between Israel and Palestine that were being held in Wye River, Maryland. It was during that meeting that Netanyahu “privately” approached Clinton with a “demand” for the United States to release Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, who was convicted of espionage in 1987 and sentenced to life in prison.“The Israelis present at Wye River had a new tactic for their negotiations – they’d overheard Clinton and Monica and had it on tape,” reads an excerpt from Halper’s book, written using “on-the-record interviews with former officials” and “hundreds of pages of documents,” The Times of Israel reported at the time of the book’s publication.“Not wanting to directly threaten the powerful American president, a crucial Israeli ally, Clinton was told that the Israeli government had thrown the tapes away. But the very mention of them was enough to constitute a form of blackmail. According to information provided by a CIA source, a stricken Clinton appeared to buckle.”As to how the alleged incident between Clinton and Netanyahu relates to Trump’s escalations in his war against Iran, the Tucker Carlson Network suggested that Netanyahu – who has “pushed for the United States to attack Iran since the 1990s” – may be using a similar tactic to what he was alleged by Halper to have done nearly three decades ago to another U.S. president.“Israel’s current top priority is making sure Operation Epic Fury does not stop. They know the U.S. fighting their war for them is the best chance at expanding their borders and becoming a global superpower, and a peace deal would foil their plot,” the newsletter reads, according to an excerpt shared by the Daily Caller writer John Loftus.“That could mean Clinton-style blackmail against Trump, or something far more morbid. We do not know for sure whether that is happening, but the mere possibility is haunting enough to keep the president up at night.”
JD Vance's team is exhausted trying to 'publicly portray support' for Trump: insider
As Vice President JD Vance jets off to Pakistan, where he is expected to take the lead in negotiating an end to the US war on Iran, his inner circle is admitting that making a public show of support for Donald Trump is wearing them down.Vance has been reported to have been against the attack behind the scenes, but has been supportive of the president in public.With the New York Times reporting, “Before the war began, the vice president was planning to be heavily focused on traveling the country ahead of the midterm elections, counteracting widespread concerns over the cost of living and affordability by attacking Democrats as out of touch and politically extreme,” he has instead been pressed into service as a war cheerleader along with the rest of the president’s Cabinet. According to MS NOW’s Jake Traylor, that has been problematic for Vance’s team.Speaking with host Anna Cabrera, he reported, “Now he is headed to Pakistan to be the chief lead negotiator for a war he never wanted in the first place, and that has come at a cost.”“I spoke with multiple White House officials inside the White House and also former White House officials that have worked with Vance closely before,” he added. “One person told me that Vance's national security team is extremely weary right now, trying to publicly portray support for the president and the war that he has started, but also privately having deep concern for the war itself.”“Another White House official told me that, quote, realistically, Vance has lost clout within the White House because of his dissent,” he elaborated. “So there's been a lack of influence that White House officials are telling me Vance has right now, even though he is ultimately the lead negotiator in this moment.” - YouTube youtu.be
Trump ordered Pentagon to rewrite report that labeled China a 'security threat': WSJ
Donald Trump's public tough-guy posturing on China masks a stunning capitulation to Beijing. When Pentagon officials presented a draft National Defense Strategy last fall that characterized China as the top U.S. security threat — the same assessment his own first administration endorsed — Trump ordered it rewritten in friendlier terms.According to the Wall Street Journal's Heather Somerville, Alexander Ward, and Gavin Bade, Trump "balked" at the Pentagon assessment and commanded his deputy to soften the language. The revised National Defense Strategy published in January struck an entirely different tone."President Trump seeks a stable peace, fair trade, and respectful relations with China," the document now declares — a stunning reversal from the bipartisan consensus that characterized China as the most consequential U.S. adversary.The shift represents a seismic policy reversal. Trump's own first-term defense strategy took the same hardline approach the Pentagon recommended. Now Trump 2.0 is discarding that bipartisan framework in favor of a new mantra: "Don't rock the boat."The capitulation goes far deeper than rhetoric. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has imposed a stranglehold on China policy, requiring his personal sign-off for any China-related actions. The result is Kafkaesque: senior Commerce officials sit waiting by Lutnick's office or watch for his car outside the building before pursuing routine China policy actions.Other agencies have resorted to workarounds, pursuing a ban on a China-linked router maker by strategically avoiding naming either the company or China in the official order — essentially hiding policy from public view.The reversal has alarmed Trump's own national security aides. China hawks in the administration have adopted gallows humor, calling the shift the "Busan Freeze," referencing the South Korea meeting between Trump and Xi that produced a fragile trade detente.Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other officials appealed to Trump to walk back tariffs and dial down the trade war so minerals could flow from China again — an apparent capitulation to economic pressure over strategic security.The pivot was deliberate and premeditated. Trump initially asked national security advisers to develop a harder line on China's technological encroachment. But the president later abandoned the restrictions, and in April, Trump fired Douglas Feith and other China hawks from the National Security Council, dismantling the directorate that had coordinated administration actions on tech and China.Against a president who fancies himself a master dealmaker, China is clearly winning, the Journal is reporting.
Nobel winner says Trump just made 'America's weakness' clear with one foolish move
Donald Trump's recent comments on Truth Social and during a speech addressing the war with Iran have made the United States look foolish, a Nobel Prize winner claimed. Paul Krugman believes the president has made America look like a laughing stock in recent weeks. But the long-term damage of doing so makes Trump's administration an unreliable ally to world leaders who would previously be reassured by the US as an ally. Not anymore, according to the veteran economist, who says the recent statements made by Trump have undermined America's world standing. Writing in his Substack, Krugman suggested Trump's rhetoric has not only severed close ties with friendly nations but emboldened other, more aggressive countries to take action. "Think about Gulf states that relied on America to protect them and preserve their access to world markets," he wrote. "Now they know that we can’t and won’t, while Iran holds a knife at their throats.""They’re now looking to themselves for security — and starting to buy equipment and technology from Ukraine, which has learned the hard way how to fight a modern war."Think about Asian and European nations that have swallowed Trump’s many insults, and mostly avoided retaliating against his tariffs, because they feared both U.S. power and the loss of U.S. support. Now America’s weakness and unreliability have been laid bare."Krugman went on to suggest previous statements made by Trump, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, had worsened the war. Trump's comments on the importance of oil have only made it harder for his administration, the veteran economist suggested. "In Trump’s mind, control over fossil fuels is the essence of national greatness," Krugman wrote. "In his inaugural address, Trump declared that 'We will drill, baby, drill … We will be a rich nation again, and it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it.'""But this was obvious nonsense. For one thing, the narrative that woke environmentalists had hobbled U.S. fossil fuel production was at odds with the reality that fracking had in fact caused a boom in oil and gas production that began under Obama and continued under Republican and Democratic administrations alike.""Trump has been doing all he can to block development of wind and solar power, in the apparent belief that this will empower America. But what it actually does is empower regimes that are in a position to disrupt world oil supply, while having little to lose from chaos in the world economy. Which means, above all, Iran."
Islamabad prepares to host historic negotiations between Iran and the US
In Pakistan’s capital, the army has been deployed, a public holiday has been declared and the streets are eerily emptyMiddle East crisis – live updatesThe streets of Islamabad were on strict lockdown as Pakistan’s capital prepared to play host to historic negotiations between Iran and the US that have dangled the promise of an end to war that has devastated the Middle East.Even as the US-Iran ceasefire looked increasingly precarious, amid Israel’s continued bombardment of Lebanon and disputes over the terms of the talks, Pakistani officials insisted that the make-or-break peace negotiations would be going ahead over the weekend as planned. Continue reading...
