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Aug 7, 2026 - World

A Republican lawmaker argued Friday that President Donald Trump was using an unconventional move — and playing mind games — with Iran's leader.Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) told TMZ that when Trump refers to the ayatollah as "the gay ayatollah" it's on purpose."The president wants to put as much pressure on them as he can, so he's trying to keep them off balance," Hoeven said. "So he's doing a lot of things to keep the regime, which is an irrational, oppressive regime [that] oppresses their own people."Trolling Iran has become part of Trump's perceived strategy, and how he wants to pressure its regime, Hoeven explained. "I think he's messing with them in a way to keep them off balance and create division over there," he added. Iran has reportedly taken similar measures against Trump. Reports indicate Tehran has recruited senior psychologists to tailor messages for what they described as Trump's "impaired mental state," specifically targeting the president.Sen. John Hoeven says President Trump is trying to throw Iran's ayatollah off balance by making comments about his sexuality.????: @hicharliecotton pic.twitter.com/RpQ2cVCURq— TMZ (@TMZ) August 7, 2026

Aug 7, 2026 - World

A murdered journalist, an organized crime racket, and an alleged scheme to siphon off tens of millions of dollars: These all appear in a new report about a Trump Tower rising in the Caucasus.The Daily Beast on Friday revealed the dark and tangled history behind a 70-story skyscraper President Donald Trump's sons are building with a company co-owned by an oligarch. "The president’s sons are trumpeting a new Trump Tower — but not the Moscow oligarch behind one of the companies they named in the deal," wrote the Beast reporter Will Neal. "[That oligarch] has shady ties to Russia."The development in question is Trump Tower Tbilisi, of which Eric Trump, 42, shared an AI rendering in May with the gushing comment that it "marks our first project in the region."A joint investigation by The Daily Beast, PunchUp and The Newsground reported one of the groups named on the project, Biograpi Living, is co-owned by Paata Gamgoneishvili — the oligarch in question. Biograpi Living now insists it has nothing to do with the deal, despite being featured prominently in the Trumps' own announcement.The White House denied the report had anything to do with Trump“This has nothing to do with the president,” spokeswoman Anna Kelly told the Beast, "whose investment holdings are held in fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions."That didn't stop the Beast from digging into Gamgoneishvili's past. Among the startling narratives revealed in the report is the brutal rape and murder of Bulgarian television journalist Viktoria Marinova."Investigative outlet Bivol tied Gamgoneishvili and Isaev in 2019 to the network behind an alleged scheme that siphoned tens of millions of dollars out of the Bulgarian arm of Russian oil giant Lukoil," the Beast reported. "The year before, a TV journalist who had hosted Bivol’s reporters for a segment about the wider scandal was found murdered. Authorities said her killing was not connected to her work—a conclusion Bivol’s editor disputed."The Beast also tied Gamgoneishvili, a Moscow trader during the Soviet Union's collapse, to Boris Yeltsin, the former President of Russia. "Gamgoneishvili backed the then-president through a union of Afghan war veterans and was handed a state medal for it," the Beast reported. "Yeltsin rewarded the veterans movement with lucrative import perks, and parts of it later curdled into an organized crime racket. Gamgoneishvili ran his own trading business under the union’s wing and rode the same wave to a shopping mall fortune."Two of his Moscow malls alone sold to an Austrian fund for around $230 million in 2006."

Aug 7, 2026 - World

Decision follows supreme court ruling that allowed US government to strip protections for Haitians and SyriansTemporary protected status (TPS) for hundreds of South Sudanese nationals in the United States is set to end after a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration can move forward with stripping their protections.On Friday, US district judge Patti Saris of the district of Massachusetts rejected an attempt by immigrant rights organizations including the New York-based African Communities Together to keep TPS for South Sudanese nationals living in the US. Continue reading...

Aug 7, 2026 - World

Teenager killed his grandparents ⁠before opening fire at school near Bangkok, where more than 30 were woundedA Thai teenager killed his grandparents before opening fire at his school, where he shot five people dead and took his own life, police have said, in an attack that has shaken a country struggling to deal with gun violence.The 14-year-old wounded more than 30 people in the ⁠shooting at the prestigious Debsirin Nonthaburi school northwest of Bangkok. Nine people were in a critical condition, the Thai health department said. Continue reading...

Aug 7, 2026 - World

An economist sounded the alarm on the Trump administration's "desperate attempt" to avoid "blaring warnings" from financial markets.In a Thursday opinion column published by The New York Times, economist Eswar Prasad explained why President Donald Trump and the U.S. Treasury were interested in buying billions of dollars' worth of Japanese yen and intervening in the country's currency policy."But they are tied together by one big problem: unsustainably high levels of government debt," Prasad wrote. "Currency market intervention is a desperate attempt by Tokyo and Washington to evade the blaring warnings from financial markets."Prasad noted, "It's rare for the United States to intervene in another country's currency policy," and "it usually happens because there is a crisis."However, the Trump administration has been propping up the currencies in allied countries to reward friends and push its agenda. "It seems risky and expensive to buy another country's currency or even offer to temporarily swap dollars for that currency, especially one whose value is falling," Prasad wrote. "The administration has U.S. economic interests in mind but is also keen to propagate its policies and reward its allies."Prasad pointed out that the Trump administration "propped up the Argentine peso" in October and discussed similarly intervening in the United Arab Emirates. "None of those countries had reached the level of emergency usually required," he wrote. "None of these actions were born of benevolence."According to Prasad, the Trump Treasury is also interested in buying yen to stop it from falling because a weak yen means pricier imports and higher debt costs for Japan, but it also erases Trump's tariffs. However, the U.S. can't outrun its debt, and "with no sign of any discipline on fiscal matters, it will probably result in Washington digging itself into an even deeper debt hole," Prasad wrote.