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'Full-fledged disaster': Trump's new sanction demand fuels rage and conspiracy rhetoric
President Donald Trump's Sunday morning demand that Republicans "add Iran to the Russian Sanctions Bill" after two U.S. service members were killed in Jordan has fueled outrage and the spread of conspiracy theories online. Trump's Truth Social comment on the fatal war in Iran referenced death only in his reliance on the name of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). "Republicans should add Iran to the Russian Sanctions Bill," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "That’s what Lindsey wanted to do."This comment appears to be a correction of one Trump made earlier in the week — saying Graham would have wanted the Senate to pass the Clarity Act — that reportedly made one ally "wince."“The most obvious and logical way [to honor Graham] would be the sanctions bill, because it’s his bill,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told Politico. “You’re not making anything up."The bi-partisan bill would slap sanctions on buyers of Russian oil and gas, according to Politico, in a report describing Graham as a "one of the chamber’s fiercest Russia hawks.""The problem is, the sanctions bill still faces serious doubts among some Republicans," Politico reported. "Graham at multiple points over the past year believed he had talked Trump into backing the measure, only for it to be put on ice as Trump tried to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin."On Sunday, Trump's oft-reported praise of Putin spurred Garry Kasparov, an anti-authoritarian activist, to suggest the Truth Social post foreshadowed a new change to the legislation."Soon, Trump will be saying that Graham really only wanted Iran to be on the sanctions bill and not Russia at all, and that in fact, in private, he thought Putin was a strong leader they could work with," Kasparov wrote. Meidas Touch editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski called out Trump for having lifted the sanctions in June."Seems like only yesterday the Trump Admin was lifting sanctions on Iran and declaring victory," he wrote. Activist podcaster Amy Siskind responded by citing recent Wall Street Journal reporting that Iran pocketed up to $6 billion from oil shipments after those sanctions were lifted. "Now Iran is is using that money to target and kill US troops, likely with the help of intelligence from China and Russia," Siskind wrote. "What a full-fledged disaster of foreign policy!"But conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer celebrated Trump's comment and used it as an excuse to recirculate her baseless theory that Graham's "sudden death" had been orchestrated by Russian and Iranian operatives — despite his office confirming cardiovascular disease was the root cause. "President Trump just called for Republicans to add Iran to the Russian sanctions bill," Loomer wrote. "Great idea. And then the DOJ needs to arrest every single American Woke Reich influencer who is colluding with Russia and Iran and attending their state sponsored propaganda tours. Their assets should be frozen."
'If only Trump were sane and decent': President outrages with response to soldiers' deaths
President Donald Trump's brief response to the death of two service members in the Iran conflict has spurred outraged calls that he stand before Congress and explain himself. Frustration mounted after news broke Saturday that two service members had been killed by direct Iranian fire and, as tensions mounted, the president was playing golf.On Sunday, former White House correspondent John Harwood took to X on Sunday to share with his 500,000 followers an Atlantic editorial from staff writer Tom Nichols. "Nichols asks Trump to do what a sane, decent president would do," wrote Harwood, "explain clearly and sensibly why he continues to send US troops into harm's way against Iran. [I]f only Trump were sane and decent."Nichols' editorial goes further in condemning both the war and Trump's passing comment to a right-wing NewsNation reporter that the deaths were "very sad." "Trump does not seem to comprehend that Iran has a higher pain tolerance than America," wrote Nichols. "Two more deaths are not, as Trump calls them, merely a “very sad thing.”In his editorial, Nichols argued the 16 young Americans who lost their lives in the war deserved a better from Trump. Specifically, the writer called for a better explanation of why their lives were sacrificed."The Iranian mullahs are among the world’s worst tyrants, and Trump could have made the case for ridding the planet of their rule over a nation of more than 90 million people," Nichols wrote. "But the president has not seen fit, in all this time, to give one address to the American people or to Congress about why he plunged the United States into war, the global economy into chaos, and young Americans into danger." Nichols predicted Trump will escalate the war before he gives a thorough, detailed explanation to the American public, then made a final demand. "Before one more member of the U.S. military is killed," wrote Nichols, "he should return to the airwaves—and stand before Congress—to explain what he’s doing in Iran and how many more lives he’s willing to risk."
São Tomé and Príncipe heads to polls in tense presidential election
Incumbent Carlos Vila Nova hopes to defeat his former party and secure second term as independentVoters in São Tomé and Príncipe go to the polls for a presidential election on Sunday as one of Africa’s least populous countries seeks to burnish its democratic credentials.According to the National Election Commission, about 142,000 people are registered to vote in the tiny African state’s elections, approximately 15% of whom live in the diaspora. Continue reading...
House GOP panics as Mamdani mulls arresting Trump ally
House Republicans lashed out at New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani Saturday after reports revealed that the rising star in the Democratic Party was actively considering arresting a key ally to President Donald Trump.Speaking with The New York Times, Mamdani revealed that he was having “active” conversations with the New York City Law Department about whether he could order the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s scheduled to visit New York City in September for a gathering of the United Nations General Assembly.In 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for alleged crimes related to Israel’s siege on Gaza, which countless human rights groups and a United Nations committee have labeled a genocide. The ICC alleged that Netanyahu has used starvation as a method of warfare and intentionally directed attacks on civilians.“Whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do, but we won’t be writing our own laws to that end,” Mamdani told the Times when asked whether he planned to order the arrest of Netanyahu, long a key ally to Trump.Responding to reports of Mamdani’s remarks, the official House Republicans account on X lashed out at the progressive mayor and urged him to instead focus on addressing “antisemitism” in his city.“Mamdani is threatening to arrest the head of one of our closest allies,” reads a post from the House Republicans’ account on X published Saturday. “He should stop politicizing local law enforcement and interfering with US foreign policy and instead focus on rising rent and housing prices and antisemitism in NYC.”House Republicans’ post was shared by Netanyahu’s son, Yair Netanyahu, a podcast host and avid supporter of Israel who since 2023 has lived in a “luxury Florida apartment,” despite being eligible for military service, The Jewish Chronicle reported.Mamdani is threatening to arrest the head of one of our closest allies. He should stop politicizing local law enforcement and interfering with US foreign policy and instead focus on rising rent and housing prices and antisemitism in NYC. https://t.co/xWA4TnXZVX— House Republicans (@HouseGOP) July 18, 2026
Trump admin accused of 'war crime' after strike leaves thousands without water: report
About 10,000 people in nearly two dozen villages in southern Iran were without drinking water while the region was under an excessive heat warning on Saturday, after the US struck a water desalination plant in the village of Bonji in one of its latest attacks on Iranian civilian infrastructure.Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting said the drinking water supply was expected to be restored within a week, and emergency supply operations had begun.Drop Site News reported comments from the deputy governor for political and security affairs in Hormozgan province, who said several missiles had hit power infrastructure and water desalination plants in the region near the Strait of Hormuz, which President Donald Trump has demanded control over as he’s ramped up attacks on Iran in recent days, despite a ceasefire and a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to end hostilities that was agreed to in June.On Saturday, Iranian officials said the country was suspending its commitments to the MOU after the US violated the agreement repeatedly over the past week.“The US has violated and suspended all its commitments within the framework of the Islamabad MOU,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi. “We also likewise have suspended all of our commitments as a result; we are no longer implementing those commitments.”He added that Tehran is now “busy defending the country.”A representative for Hormozgan province, Ahmad Moradi, told Iran’s Tasnim news agency that over the past two nights, “about seven to eight people” have been killed in US attacks, all of whom were civilians. One attack targeted a bridge and hit two family cars. The neighborhood of Tappeh Allaho Akbar in Bandar Abbas was also hit, killing a woman and injuring a one-year-old, whose wounds required doctors to amputate.At least 116 telecommunication towers were out of service in southern Iran Saturday, Al Jazeera reported.The Iranian Embassy in India posted a video of the destruction of a bridge and also condemned the US attack on a maritime surveillance tower at the Chabahar Port, which US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth boasted about on social media on Thursday.“For a state that once cast itself as the global champion of order, liberalism, and the war on terrorism, proudly displaying images of destroyed bridges and civilian infrastructure has become its only remaining ‘victory,’” said Esmaeil Baqaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Saturday. “Yet with the collapse of every bridge, every tower, and every civilian facility, it is not merely steel and concrete that is being reduced to rubble. It is America’s moral standing—along with the entire architecture of international law and the civilizational claims of the West—that is crumbling before the world’s eyes.”According to Drop Site, US attacks have targeted nine bridges, two airports, a railroad junction, and a road tunnel since Wednesday. At least 41 Iranians have been killed and 408 have been wounded in US attacks so far this month, with Iranian authorities reporting that at least three women and one child are among those killed.In a letter to United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, Amir-Saeid Iravani, Iran’s permanent UN representative, wrote on Saturday that US attacks had “targeted and caused extensive damage to ports, transportation networks, communications facilities, logistics hubs, radar installations, coastal defense systems and other infrastructure indispensable to the civilian population, and to the functioning of the national economy.”“The continued commission of these unlawful armed attacks poses a grave threat to international peace and security, freedom of navigation, regional stability, and the security of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz,” wrote Iravani.Iran has retaliated against the US this week by striking American allies, including Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan. Kuwait’s government Saturday said a power plant and water treatment plant had been attacked for the second time in two days, as well as an oil facility.Two US soldiers were killed and a third was missing after an Iranian attack on a US military base in Jordan—the first American service members to be killed from hostile fire since an initial ceasefire was brokered in April.Roxane Farmanfarmian, a professor of Middle East politics at the University of Cambridge, told Al Jazeera that Iranian forces are “using Kuwait, in particular, as an example of what they can do in retaliation.”“The US is clearly hitting the south in Iran and hitting airports, desalination plants, and bridges, and so the same kinds of things are being hit now in Kuwait to show what kind of effect Iran really can have on those countries that are hosting American bases,” she said.Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, echoed Iranian officials’ condemnation of the US attack on the southern water desalination plant on Saturday, saying it was “not a legitimate military target.”“It is a war crime to target it,” he said.
'Due to Trump’s illegal war': U.S. service members' deaths met with despair and rage
News that two service members had been killed by direct Iranian fire rocked the nation on Saturday. U.S. Central Command announced the two service member's death, a third's disappearance and four medical evacuations one day after a base was attacked in Jordon. "Out of respect for the families, CENTCOM will withhold additional information, including the identities of the fallen warriors, until 24 hours after the next of kin have been notified," the statement read.Sixteen U.S. service members have been killed and more than 430 wounded since the war began, the Associated Press reported. "The battle over the Strait of Hormuz has intensified in a conflict increasingly focused on control of the essential waterway that previously carried a fifth of the world’s crude oil," the Associated Press reported. "The strikes threaten civilians and infrastructure, including desalination plants for drinking water, while the global economy again is on alert."Americans responded to the news with words of outrage and despair. "Really awful, dark, foreboding developments in the Middle East over the last 24 hours," wrote MS NOW analyst Sam Stein. "Hard to see how you deescalate from here."Political strategist Mike Nellis condemned President Donald Trump for mounting an attack on Iran without approval from Congress."I will ask again: for what?" Nellis wrote. "Trump has no plan, no clear mission, and he’s getting our sons and daughters killed for his own vanity." Nellis later added, "I’ll tell you what: if Barack Obama had launched an illegal war, 16 U.S. service members were dead, and another was missing in action, the MAGA media machine would be frothing at the mouth. Right now? Quiet as a church mouse. F---ing cowards."Political podcaster Shaykh Sulaiman said simply, "Due to Trump’s illegal war."
Trump 'fabrications' threaten fragile truce with world leader: NBC News
President Donald Trump's public address may have severely damaged the nation's delicate relationship with China and threatened a crucial summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this fall, NBC News reported Friday.Trump on Thursday night leveled explosive allegations that China had illicitly obtained 220 million American voter files—including names, addresses, phone numbers, and political party preferences, the report noted. NBC reported that Trump branded it "the largest compromise of election data in history," but offered no credible evidence to support the claim.His statements were undercut by a 2021 memo from the current CIA Director John Ratcliffe, MS NOW reported on Friday morning.The allegations immediately backfired. China's foreign ministry swiftly rejected the accusations as fabricated, with spokesperson Lin Jian dismissing Trump's claims as a "malicious smear" designed to undermine bilateral relations."China has consistently adhered to the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries," Lin stated at a Beijing briefing Friday. "China has no interest in, and has never interfered in, U.S. elections."The timing couldn't be worse, NBC News reported, as both nations attempt to maintain a fragile trade ceasefire while navigating deep geopolitical tensions. Trump's public accusations—which contradict findings from his own CIA Director John Ratcliffe, based on a 2021 memo—now threaten to unravel months of diplomatic groundwork, the report stated.While Trump stopped short of explicit threats toward Beijing or Xi personally, experts warn the damage to relations is substantial. The accusations inject fresh hostility into an already fraught dynamic."Beneath the veneer of Washington and Beijing trying to get along, there continues to be friction," Ja Ian Chong, a political science professor at the National University of Singapore told NBC. "This could add to that."
MS NOW analyst to CIA director: 'Were you part of a deep state plot?'
MS NOW’s David Rohde argued Friday morning that CIA Director JohnRatcliffe needs to explain why he let President Donald Trump make false claims that contradict his own investigation.Rohde appeared on "Morning Joe" to discuss the top CIA official's presence in the room on Thursday night when the president accused China of tampering with US elections.He then held up a government memo from Ratcliffe authored that stated otherwise.“This speech to me just shows how desperate, delusional and dangerous this administration, this president is becoming,” he began. "Just on Ratcliffe, I think he owes an explanation to the American people.” Holding up the memo, he continued, “This is a public document. This is his dissent that he put out in January 2021 after the election. And the main point he made was that he believed that the amount, the effort to shape, not to interfere, not to change votes — there is no mention in this document from John Ratcliffe that China tried to or changed any votes in the 2020 election. John Ratcliffe simply made the argument that the Chinese effort to influence the operation through propaganda and bots online was larger than the broader assessment that Representative Jim Himes was just talking about.”“And that dissent is actually in this document: It's actually public,” he continued. “And so if there's anyone who should be held to account now, whether it's by President Trump or if he testifies before Congress, it's John Ratcliffe, he either lied, allowed this giant plot to happen where all this was hidden from the president. He is a member of the deep state, or he did not, and which one is it? Director Ratcliffe, were you part of a deep state plot that hid from the president?” - YouTube youtu.be
Seven Americans quarantining at Kenya Ebola facility after US travel ban, says aid group
Aid workers are first known people to quarantine at facility, which sparked huge opposition in Kenya Seven American aid workers who had been in Congo to fight the Ebola outbreak are quarantining at a new isolation facility in Kenya after the US government introduced travel restrictions, the head of a US charity employing them told Reuters.The aid workers are the first known people to quarantine at the facility, which has sparked huge opposition in Kenya and is at the heart of a legal case in which a court has ordered the work to be suspended. Construction continued, however, according to US officials and satellite imagery reviewed by Reuters. Continue reading...
ICE arrests human rights lawyer who fled Chinese crackdown
Arrest in Pennsylvania of Wu Shaoping, who is awaiting asylum decision, raises fears of deportation and persecutionA Chinese human rights lawyer has been arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), raising concerns he could be deported to China where he would face persecution.Wu Shaoping fled China at the end of 2019 amid a crackdown on human rights lawyers. He travelled to the US on a tourist visa and made an asylum claim in 2020, for which he is still awaiting a decision. Continue reading...
Weather tracker: Thunderstorms strike across Europe amid record heatwave
Storms are typical during intense heat but this week’s have been extreme. Plus, deadly monsoon rains in BangladeshHailstones the size of golf balls have been seen in French villages as, on top of the exceptional European heatwave, thunderstorms have struck across parts of Europe.While thunderstorms are typical during and after a period of extreme heat, the storms across countries such as France, Germany and Poland have been particularly severe, bringing flooding, strong winds and heavy showers with large balls of hail. Continue reading...
Trump swiftly fact-checked with the same documents he claims prove his election theory
Trump's claims about China interfering in U.S. elections were fact-checked by political analysts in real-time using documents he released.In Trump's Thursday night speech, he announced that his administration would be releasing documents and intelligence findings that support his claim that China meddled in the 2020 U.S. elections. However, the documents didn't show anything of the sort, analysts noted.During the speech, CNN senior national security reporter Zachary Cohen pointed out in a post on X that CNN had reviewed documents Trump was talking about in his speech.The documents "largely discuss vulnerabilities that have been known for years and/or are reflected in the 2021 US intel community assessment," Cohen wrote. "None of the declassified information supports the claim that any previous election results — including the 2020 presidential contest that Trump lost — were manipulated by foreign interference or fraud in a way that would've changed the outcome."Legal analyst Adam Klasfeld similarly explained in a post on X that "Trump is lying about the intelligence community's findings about China's actions in the 2020 election," and shared the files.One line of findings from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence shared by Klasfeld read, "We assess that China did not deploy interference efforts and considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the US presidential election."Also looking at one of the documents touted by Trump, reporter Sam Stein wrote, "One of the documents that Trump has disclosed tonight has a section noting that China targeted the BIDEN campaign and does 'not currently intend to covertly interfere to try and sway the outcome of the election."Political commentator Kyle Griffin noted, "Donald Trump took 18 months to release documents that he now claims show election activities that would have taken place on his watch in 2020."
