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A conservative editorial board threw cold water on one of President Donald Trump's latest diplomatic wins, warning his team was getting played.The Wall Street Journal's editorial board wrote Wednesday that there is "no cause to be grateful" to Russian President Vladimir Putin for freeing Stephen Hubbard, a retired American teacher jailed in Russia since 2022. Trump said Wednesday that Putin let Hubbard go after a personal plea from the president and asked for nothing in return.The board welcomed Hubbard home but argued the Russian leader "takes Western hostages as part of his statecraft." The editorial laid out a pattern. Putin seizes someone, slaps them with bogus charges, secures a conviction in a rigged court and then frees or swaps them whenever it suits him.The board pointed to The Journal's own reporter, Evan Gershkovich, whom Putin used as a bargaining chip to win back an assassin held in Germany. It also noted that Russian security services detained a Japanese reporter just last week, possibly to pressure Tokyo.Putin didn't need anything new for Hubbard because he has "already been piling up concessions" from Trump while escalating his war on Ukraine, Europe and NATO, the editorial argued. Among them, the board listed loosened U.S. sanctions on diesel sales, waived sanctions in a bill from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and what its sources described as intermittent limits on Ukraine's access to Starlink.The board also took aim at Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, who told Putin in Moscow on Wednesday, "you are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that." The editorial dismissed the remark as a "rhetorical smooch," arguing that jailing a man on false charges for four years and then letting him go hardly earns that title.Hubbard's homecoming shouldn't distract from what's at stake, the editorial warned. It accused Putin of bombarding women and children with missiles and drones every night, helping Iran target and kill Americans in the Middle East and seeking to help China fracture U.S. alliances in Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific.

President Donald Trump lashed out at CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Wednesday, calling her a “dummy” and a “low-IQ person” during a tense exchange over his administration’s handling of Russia.The confrontation erupted as Trump defended his decision not to impose additional sanctions on Moscow while his administration pursues negotiations over the war in Ukraine.“We are maybe close to a deal for the first time in a long time,” Trump said. “When you’re close to a deal, and you have very delicate negotiations, you don’t put sanctions on.”But when Collins pressed him about whether he had lifted sanctions in exchange for a prisoner’s release, Trump abruptly turned hostile.“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re a low-IQ person. You’re a dummy, and you work for CNN,” Trump snapped.“But that’s what you said,” Collins said as she pushed back. Trump moments earlier also accused the reporter of knowing nothing and called CNN “fake news.”The president then launched into a lengthy explanation about negotiations to secure the release of an American prisoner held in Russia, arguing that imposing sanctions could derail such efforts. “The negotiation would obviously come immediately to an end,” Trump said Wednesday. “So use your head.”President Trump is directly tying waiving Russian sanctions to the release of the freed American Stephen Hubbard, despite denying he gave anything to Putin. https://t.co/TUxcvodPuF— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) October 21, 2026

Elon Musk's attempt to distance himself from a move Ukraine says put lives at risk took a major hit with a new report.The SpaceX founder personally ordered the slowdown of a military-grade version of Starlink that Ukrainian forces rely on, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter. The speed cap rendered some of Ukraine's attack and interceptor drones close to useless, according to the report.That account clashes with what Musk told the public. Hours after the slowdown came to light, he posted on X that "any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS."Some U.S. officials told The Journal that Musk acted on his own and that Trump never specifically ordered any retribution against Kyiv. But one person familiar with the situation said Musk spoke with several senior Trump administration officials, including the president, before imposing the cap. Ukrainian officials said the restriction allowed Russian missiles to slip past their defenses.Two people said Musk and Trump discussed the decision by phone shortly after it became public, while the president was on the campaign trail. One of them claimed the pair had also talked it over before the cap went into effect.As the uproar grew, SpaceX representatives reached out to their White House counterparts hoping to settle on a shared message that the company and the Trump administration had worked together before Musk gave the order, according to the report. Trump, meanwhile, told reporters Monday that he didn't know who was behind the slowdown, "but I would like to find out."The slowdown, which started Oct. 14, came just days after Trump lashed out at Ukraine over strikes on Russian diesel refineries, which he blames for high fuel prices.Last week, The Telegraph reported that Musk had pitched the idea of slowing the service to Trump, citing four sources familiar with the talks.Michael Kofman, a war expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the restrictions "continue to hamper Ukrainian strike operations and air defenses." Denys Sienik, Ukraine's top diplomat in Washington, said Tuesday that Kyiv was still trying "to understand whether the connection has been restored or will be restored."SpaceX did not respond to The Journal's request for comment.

An aircraft used for President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda leaked fuel onto the runway at the Mesa Gateway Airport, temporarily closing it, and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement pilot told air traffic controllers that his plane’s fuel gauge wasn’t working, according to audio reviewed by the Arizona Mirror.“Can you send the trucks? We have a fuel leak, again,” the pilot told ground control at the airport Friday.Mesa Gateway Airport is home to the Arizona Removal Operations Coordination Center, or AROCC for short, a 25,000-square-foot facility that opened in 2010 to little fanfare and can house up to 157 detainees and 79 employees from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to an ICE press release from 2010.It is also the operational hub of “ICE Air,” has been the site of severe overcrowding, and has also been a frequent departure point for flights that have sent immigrants to African countries they’ve never been to. The facility made national headlines because it was set to be where two gay Iranian men were set to be deported from, ultimately to their deaths.“On October 16, there was a fuel spill at Mesa Gateway Airport involving a contract charter plane,” an unnamed U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the Mirror. “The fire department responded and cleared the scene. There were no injuries or damage.”The day after the leak occurred, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin visited the facility.The airport itself said that there was a “mechanical issue resulting in a small fuel venting from the wing” which led to the aircraft returning to the ICE-operated hangar.“Mesa Fire declared the aircraft safe, and it will depart when the operator has cleared the mechanical issues,” Ryan Smith, Mesa Gateway spokesman, told the Mirror.The aircraft in question is operated by GlobalX, a charter company that plays a pivotal role in Trump’s deportation program.“Negative because our indicators are MEL’d right now,” the ICE pilot replied to ground control when asked if they knew how much fuel that they had spilled.MEL, or minimum equipment list, is a designation that allows operators to fly without certain pieces of equipment functioning temporarily from the Federal Aviation Administration. In this case, it meant that when ground control wanted to learn how much fuel the ICE jet had leaked, it couldn’t, because the aircraft did not have a functioning fuel gauge.The leak and its subsequent clean up temporarily closed one of Mesa Gateway’s runways as airport officials inspected it, cleaned it and towed the ICE aircraft back to AROCC.Ground control audio captured by liveATC.net also showed that ground control was unaware of the initial leak until Mesa Fire Department reported it as it tried to respond.“Requesting clearance to the fuel spill,” a fire department truck can be heard saying over the radio.“I’m not aware of a fuel spill,” ground control responded back.Other charter services used by ICE have come under scrutiny for cutting corners, and in the past, ICE has been sued for the conditions on its flights. ICE flights have also been increasing, with more in September than in the prior two months, according to Human Rights First.The plane that leaked its fuel has performed 2,040 total flights for ICE since 2021, according to data supplied by ICE Flight Monitor. This year, it has made 216 flights, up from the 209 it did for the entirety of 2025.Detainees are supposed to be at AROCC for no more than 12 hours while they wait to be loaded onto a plane, either so they can be deported or transferred to a different ICE facility. The Mirror’s reporting found that publicly available data shows how overcrowded the facility has become in the past year. The average length of stay in 2026 is about 36 hours, compared to the same time frame in 2025, when the average stay was about 12 hours.In 2025, the average daily population was approximately 21 people for the same timeframe. So far in 2026, there have been an average of 274 detainees each day. The Mirror found one individual in the data who stayed for 18 days, coinciding with a time when the population of the facility was near its peak of 777 individuals in a single day.Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: [email protected].