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Jul 8, 2026 - World

A new analysis estimated that President Donald Trump racked up a $103 billion bill for the Iran war in 120 days.According to an analysis by Popular Information, the Trump administration has no plan to pay for the Iran war, and neither do congressional Republicans.The analysis found that over four months, the U.S. spent more than $103 billion on the war in Iran, based on budgetary costs such as operations, personnel, and matériel. It also noted that Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, told the House Appropriations Committee last week that the U.S. has spent $30 billion on the war.According to Popular Information, expenses for weapons such as missiles, interceptors, and bombs total about $46.7 billion, making it the highest cost. The other major expenses included operations such as mobilization, administration, and combat, which cost $28.5 billion, and losses such as damage or destruction of military assets, which cost $20.3 billion, per the analysis."The Trump administration has offered Congress lowball war cost estimates," Popular Information noted. In May, Pentagon comptroller Jay Hurst and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified that the war cost only $29 billion. In April, the estimate was $25 billion.The Trump administration and congressional Republicans are declining to pay for the war costs through tax increases or spending cuts, according to Popular Information, which included a quote from House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-OK) saying, "War is never paid for when you fight it."However, taxes were levied to pay for the costs of World Wars I and II, Popular Information noted.

Jul 8, 2026 - World

Lawrence Bishnoi, who is in prison in India, is accused of orchestrating assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in 2023US and Canadian authorities say they have “dismantled” the leadership of a notorious Indian criminal group, charging dozens of operatives who have “inflicted pain and cruelty on people, victims around the globe”, including a high-profile murder in Canada that strained diplomatic relations between Canada and India.At a press conference on Tuesday, members of the FBI and Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said as part of Operation Hard Ball – a multiyear federal investigation into murder-for-hire plots, shootings, extortion and drug trafficking – they had charged 37 people, some of whom were already in custody. Authorities are still searching for seven fugitives in the US, two in India and one in Europe. Continue reading...

Jul 8, 2026 - World

Amid reports that diplomats and world leaders are beside themselves over Donald Trump’s threats at the NATO conference in Turkey, the president attempted Wednesday to spin the meeting as a lovefest.Sound raspy and looking tired, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, looking over his shoulder, the president, as is his custom, departed from his prepared notes to claim that he is quite the popular guy with his counterparts.“They respect us as a country," Trump said. "They didn't respect us two years ago. They laughed at us. NATO laughed at us, everybody laughed at us. They don't laugh anymore.” Trump then added an odd remark.“And they're, you know, just again, if you could have seen the respect and the love in the room and it's love really for the country, for our country," Trump said. "I don't want to say me because you'll say, oh, he's so conceited. He's such a conceited person. But they do.”“I mean, you know, they, like the job I'm doing,” he continued. “They said, ‘We love, sir, we love you.’ These are grown people saying that. Isn't that nice?”“Maybe, I don't know, maybe they're trying to get to me. And, in a way they did, because there was tremendous unity in that room,” he asserted. - YouTube youtu.be

Jul 8, 2026 - World

President Donald Trump will fly his aging Air Force One out of Turkey, ditching the Qatari-gifted jet he calls "the world's most luxurious plane," a decision experts suggest was made based on security equipment concerns. Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday that he'd fly the old plane from Turkey to the UK — sending the new jet ahead separately so U.S. troops could tour it. "For old time's sake," he wrote.Andrew Feinberg, White House correspondent for The Independent, wrote on X, posited another reason for the switch. "The most likely reason for this is that the 'new' ex-Qatari jet doesn't have the self-defense capabilities needed when flying from Turkey while in a shooting war with Iran," Feinberg wrote. "The actual VC-25 aircraft does have those capabilities."Frank Kendall, who served as Air Force secretary under President Joe Biden, according to MS NOW, also raised concerns about safety."The biggest thing — and I can't say a lot about it because of classification — will be the degree to which it has command and control capability on the aircraft," Kendall said.The post went live hours after Trump declared the Iran ceasefire was "over" at the NATO summit in Ankara, where he also told reporters the U.S. would "very probably hit" Iran again that night. According to US Central Command, the two countries had been trading live fire since Tuesday, when Iran attacked three commercial tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. hit more than 80 Iranian targets in response.The War Zone has confirmed the old plane — in service since 1990 — carries missile defense systems, radar jammers, and shielding against the electromagnetic pulse of a nuclear blast. Whether the new Qatari jet has any of that remains classified and unconfirmed, the outlet reported.The Air Force said only that its team "made trades on some of the less commonly used mission sets."When The War Zone asked Jason Lambert, president of L3Harris's Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance division — the contractor that built the new plane — whether it was hardened against a nuclear blast and had full command-and-control capability, he said: "That's one I'll have to direct you back to the Air Force.""Americans deserve answers on how the administration has decided to spend their taxpayer dollars, and ignore real national security concerns, in the rushed VC-25B Bridge aircraft retrofit program … all in service of delivering President Trump a pretty, fancy plane for his personal enjoyment," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and 12 Senate Democratic colleagues wrote in a letter Tuesday demanding answers and calling the program a national security risk."Spitballing here, but perhaps one reason it doesn't have those capabilities is because Trump wants to keep it if he leaves office," conservative attorney George Conway wrote on X, quoting Feinberg. Trump has said he plans to donate the jet to his presidential library.To fund the conversion, the Air Force diverted money from the Sentinel nuclear missile program, according to the senators' letter.

Jul 8, 2026 - World

Early flight data shows K2 Airways plane crashed into sea with five crew on board south-west of KarachiPakistan has located the wreckage of a Boeing cargo plane, the country’s airports authority said, adding that rescuers were searching for the five crew members on board when the aircraft went missing.The plane was approaching Karachi from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates when radar showed it “rapidly descending” on Tuesday evening after reporting a “navigational system issue”, according to the Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA). Continue reading...