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Aug 29, 2026 - World

CIA Director John Ratcliffe raised eyebrows this week after secretly jetting off to Moscow, Russia, and while the Kremlin denied that any meetings between Russian officials and Ratcliffe took place, two insiders on Saturday revealed at least one apparent reason for the mysterious trip.Two sources briefed on the matter told Axios Saturday that while in Moscow, Ratcliffe proposed a “trilateral meeting” between President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in just the latest effort to end the Russo-Ukraine war. Since the beginning of his second term, Trump has struggled to bring about an end to the conflict despite his repeated efforts.“Ratcliffe's visit was partly aimed at determining whether Russia's heads of intelligence services could help convince Putin to move toward resuming U.S.-mediated negotiations with Ukraine, the sources said,” Axios’ Barak Ravid wrote in the outlet’s report.“On Friday, U.S. officials briefed Zelensky on Ratcliffe's talks in Moscow and the proposal for a trilateral summit.”Ratcliffe’s trip was so secretive that even top White House aides were “in the dark” about the expedition. The trip reportedly sent European officials “scrambling for information,” according to the Wall Street Journal.According to reports, Ratcliffe took a secretive route to Moscow aboard an unmarked U.S. C-17 military cargo plane flying out of Latvia. Trump, when asked about the trip by reporters, downplayed the mission as being “semi-routine.”“This was the first time Ratcliffe got personally involved in the diplomatic push to broker a breakthrough between Russia and Ukraine,” Axios’ report reads.“Ratcliffe met with his Russian counterparts: SVR foreign intelligence chief Sergey Naryshkin and FSB director Alexander Bortnikov. Trump told Axios that Ratcliffe's visit was ‘standard business’ and not intended to warn Russia against attacking NATO territory.”

Aug 29, 2026 - World

The devastating flash floods in Nepal this week that killed at least 670 people and left around 3,000 missing — including 90 Americans — might have claimed fewer lives if not for the actions of the Trump administration, former USAID disaster-response chief Jeremy Konyndyk suggested on Saturday.A series of catastrophic flash floods hit Nepal near its border with China on Wednesday causing unprecedented destruction. The event is believed to have been caused by a glacier collapse in the Himalayas.Konyndyk, who led USAID’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic under the Biden administration, raised an unsettling question as to whether the Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, may have crippled locals’ ability to adequately prepare for such a disaster.“DOGE famously used keyword searches for terms like ‘climate’ to terminate federal grants,” Konyndyk wrote, referring to the DOGE-led blitz to gut funding for USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development.“Among the victims: a collab between USAID and NASA for flood prediction, early warning, disaster readiness, glacier inventories, and mapping dangerous glacial lakes… in Nepal.”Spearheaded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, DOGE oversaw around $60 billion in cuts to U.S. foreign aid under the Trump administration, leaving “few surviving” USAID projects in its wake. Among the USAID programs Konyndyk said was affected was SERVIR, a program that produced detailed and advanced flood forecasting with “days lead time” that “allows people to plan and prepare for [floods].” The program also specifically monitored the “potentially dangerous glacial lakes of Nepal.”A notice from NASA supports Konyndyk’s assertion that SERVIR was impacted by DOGE cuts.“Earlier this month USAID notified SERVIR partners that they have terminated all agreements and contracts with NASA and the SERVIR network,” the notice, published in late March of 2025, reads. “Without the partnership with USAID, NASA cannot continue the SERVIR program.”DOGE famously used keyword searches for terms like "climate" to terminate federal grants.Among the victims: a collab between USAID and NASA for flood prediction, early warning, disaster readiness, glacier inventories, and mapping dangerous glacial lakes......in Nepal. pic.twitter.com/AYkA8kZqnf— Jeremy Konyndyk (@JeremyKonyndyk) August 28, 2026

Aug 29, 2026 - World

Matt Bradley and crew assaulted while interviewing woman who said settlers had driven family out of homeA Palestinian woman and an NBC News team are reported to have been attacked and injured by masked Israeli settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Saturday, amid worsening confrontations in the area.Benjamin Netanyahu said he condemned the violence committed “by a handful of rioters”. Continue reading...

Aug 29, 2026 - World

Milo Yiannopoulos, the once-prominent British MAGA figure and provocateur who last year urged the Trump administration to “deport millions and millions of people,” was deported Friday to Britain, The New York Times reported Saturday.Yiannopoulos was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) earlier this week in Louisiana, with the agency claiming that he had “overstayed” his visa after failing to appear for an immigration hearing.Once a rising star during President Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign, Yiannopoulos’ political career collapsed in 2017 after video surfaced of him defending “perfectly consensual” sexual relationships between adults and minors.A former Breitbart editor, Yiannopoulos spent years on the fringes of conservative politics after his 2017 fall, including a stint as an unpaid intern for former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) in 2022 and work on Ye’s short-lived 2024 presidential campaign.Yiannopoulos was also a fierce defender of the Trump administration’s mass deportations, having called for “total legal immunity” for ICE agents and for ICE checkpoints to be established at supermarket entrances, gas stations and strip malls.“Mr. Yiannopoulos did not respond to messages seeking comment. He had lived in the United States for more than a decade, joining the staff of Breitbart News on a nonimmigrant visa reserved for people with ‘extraordinary ability,’” the Times’ report reads.“He has frequently tested the limits of his provocations with incendiary remarks about Islam, feminism and immigrants. Mr. Yiannopoulos has also reveled in Mr. Trump’s mass deportation campaign. Last year on social media he called for ‘on the spot deportation’ for those who couldn’t prove they were in the country legally.”

Aug 29, 2026 - World

Call it socialism, imperialism, corruption or theft — senators, conservatives, journalists, former ambassadors and economists all agree President Donald Trump's "deal" to control 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil is a very bad move. Trump's Truth Social announcement on Friday of a deal with Delcy Rodríguez — who became Venezuela's acting president in January after the U.S. military captured former President Nicolás Maduro — spurred an uproar over cries of corruption."Using our troops for a private oil grab is corruption at epic scale," said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA). "Here’s a guarantee—this will pad the pockets of Trump family and Big Oil companies and delay transition to cleaner energy."Kaine was not the only U.S. senator to condemn Trump's deal with Venezuela — or to claim corruption was the cause. "This isn't a win," said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD). "This is proof Trump put our service members at risk to get Venezuelan oil for his billionaire buddies. Putting our soldiers’ lives on the line for private profit is a gross dereliction of his constitutional duty." Independent journalist Juliet Jeske of Decoding Fox News also looked at the deal from a humanitarian perspective. "Trump is stealing oil from country that just had a catastrophic earthquake and where most of the populace lives in extreme poverty," Jeske wrote on X. "I don’t think he ever really cared about Maduro. He just wanted their oil."This perspective was shared by Michael McFaul, a Stanford University professor of political science who served as U.S. Ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014."Delcy Rodriguez is a dictator," McFaul wrote. "Cutting a deal with her to steal Venezuelan oil to benefit Americans is both immoral and impractical. The Venezuelan people will never go along with this deal." McFaul fumed that Trump had yanked the U.S. back to the 19th century and the age of imperialism."We are now acting like a typical imperialist empire," McFaul said. "His Venezuelan oil deal is just that- straight-up imperialism, using military force to seize the assets of a country in the south. Deeply regrettable."CNN's Jim Acosta echoed this concern — arguing the president had taken the U.S. back to the 1700s — but added a jab at Trump's rising gas-price problems."Trump is desperate," Acosta wrote. "Trump is choosing oil over freedom for the Venezuelan people. Experts say this won’t lower gas prices right away."Even some conservatives fumed at Trump's fuel fix, among them conservative think tank Cato Institute economics expert Scott Lincicome. "So, after taking 31 US government equity stakes in private companies over the last year, Trump just announced a MAJORITY-STATE-OWNED oil company?" wrote Lincicome. "This isn't even 'creeping' socialism anymore."Independent journalist Aaron Rupar likened the "deal" to a form of socialism as well — National Socialism. "Nazi Germany also pillaged the natural resources of countries it conquered," Rupar wrote.