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Oct 23, 2026 - World

President Donald Trump’s White House credited first lady Melania Trump with diplomacy to secure a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, but critics say Pope Leo XIV got there first.The White House statement came earlier in the day, saying the ceasefire is localized to the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky and would begin Oct. 29 to allow humanitarian aid in and prepare for civilian evacuations.“The situation in Oleshky is dire. Oleshky is a front-line war city on the brink of disaster. Oleshky’s remaining population is comprised primarily of elderly residents who urgently need medical attention, medicine, food, and clean water,” the first lady said. “The people of Oleshky have limited electricity, live amid mined roads, and endure regular military attacks. It was abundantly clear that without my intervention, the possibility to bring humanitarian aid into the city and to evacuate the elderly would be impossible.”Some observers, however, noted that the pope had publicly pushed for the same thing a week earlier.The Vatican said Leo “phoned Putin and asked him to arrange a ceasefire to let aid and food into the town” on Oct. 16, Reuters reported. The Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said the call was the pope’s initiative. The Kremlin said Putin agreed to “cooperate on this matter,” but its statement did not mention a ceasefire. The pope also spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Oct. 19.The progressive MeidasTouch network noted on X that the White House announcement came “just one week after Pope Leo personally called Vladimir Putin to push for the SAME THING,” and asked why the White House was “taking credit for an initiative Pope Leo was publicly pursuing a week ago.”“Pope Leo personally called Putin and Zelenskyy, pushing for a ceasefire in Ukraine. Now the Trump White House is trying to give MELANIA TRUMP the credit, completely ignoring the Pope’s efforts!” wrote former Biden aide Chris Jackson.

Oct 23, 2026 - World

Meghan reveals she was made aware of ‘disturbing allegations’ against him in 2018 by Met policeThe Duchess of Sussex has said she is “deeply distressed” over accusations involving child sexual abuse images against her estranged father, Thomas Markle Sr, and revealed she was made aware of “disturbing allegations” against him in 2018 by the Metropolitan police.Meghan issued a statement after the Sun newspaper published claims that her half-brother Thomas Markle Jr alleged he had found a stash of images belonging to their father at his former home in the Philippines. Continue reading...

Oct 23, 2026 - World

A prominent political strategist has called for the “immediate removal” of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law from “every diplomatic assignment” following an explosive report alleging that Jared Kushner secretly had access to roughly $1.75 billion in Gulf money while serving in the White House.“I call it financial treason: the exchange of entrusted American power for concealed foreign financial benefit,” wrote ex-GOP strategist Steve Schmidt in an analysis published Friday on his Substack.“The constitutional crime of treason has a specific definition that prosecutors must satisfy; my accusation concerns the betrayal of allegiance at the heart of this reported bargain. I will not pretend it is a misunderstanding about etiquette.”According to an excerpt from journalist Matthew Cole’s book “Princes and Thieves” published by Vanity Fair, Kushner became a signatory on a roughly $750 million account in the United Arab Emirates held through a charity. Cole reported that Emirati ruler Mohamed bin Zayed separately routed about $1 billion, allegedly intended for Kushner’s personal benefit, through Azerbaijan to Israel’s central bank at the encouragement of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.The report also alleged that Dutch intelligence found screenshots from Kushner’s phone on a Russian military intelligence server, indicating Moscow had penetrated the device. Kushner’s counsel has denied that the accounts existed and denied any wrongdoing.Kushner, who holds no official administration title, serves as an informal envoy and has helped lead U.S. negotiations involving Israel and Hamas, Russia and Ukraine, and Iran. Citing Kushner’s enormous influence on U.S. foreign policy, Schmidt called for immediate action from lawmakers not only to remove Kushner from his diplomatic roles, but also to launch a massive criminal probe.“Put Kushner and everyone with relevant knowledge under oath. The alleged transaction must be investigated as a potential crime. Accepting benefits corruptly in exchange for being influenced in official acts is bribery. The agreement, the benefits and the acts must be established,” Schmidt wrote.“There must be no family exemption. No private accommodation. No assumption that the money is too large, the people too powerful, or the implications too disturbing to confront. Americans have been asked to endure years of lies, cruelty, corruption and contempt while the most privileged people in the country explain why accountability must always wait. Enough.”

Oct 23, 2026 - World

Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has courted Donald Trump and other leading MAGA figures for a decade, according to a trove of newly leaked emails reviewed by the Guardian.The leak, reported Friday, includes more than 420,000 emails and documents from the party, most dating to before 2019. The AfD has confirmed a cyberattack on an external provider in September but said only parts of a few inboxes, "mostly unused for years," were copied unlawfully.The Guardian reported that senior AfD officials agonized over the wording of an “obsequious” congratulatory telegram after Trump’s 2016 win, which included the wish that his “hopes as a person be fulfilled.” The party quickly moved to asking the White House for support on policy, the paper reported. A second message, sent Jan. 20, 2017, asked Trump to help remove the United Nations’ “enemy state” clauses. The AfD’s federal board adopted the request on a Jan. 16 call, according to a record in the leaked documents. When the party’s federal office circulated an English draft on Jan. 19, Georg Pazderski, then the party’s Berlin leader and a federal board member, objected to the tone and the request.“You don’t address the president as Mr Trump, he is Mr President. Otherwise a bit wordy and flowery. I stand by it: the enemy-state clause doesn’t belong in this letter at all. You don’t do that in a letter of congratulation. It looks like a begging letter,” Pazderski wrote, according to the Guardian.Other documents show a growing relationship between Alice Weidel, now the AfD’s leader, and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. The two met in Zurich in March 2018, though the files show "no follow-up," according to the Guardian.The AfD has surged since then. It won 12.6 percent of the vote when it entered the Bundestag in 2017 and came second with 20.8% in the February 2025 federal election, the Guardian noted. It now leads national polls at about 30 percent. On Sept. 6 it won 43.8 percent in Saxony-Anhalt, and Trump hailed the result on Truth Social. “Wow! The Populist Party in Germany just had a really big night,” he wrote, ending with “MGGA!!!”Germany’s domestic intelligence agency monitors the party as a suspected rightwing extremist organization, the Guardian reported.AfD politician Markus Frohnmaier said he could not verify the documents, which he said were obtained unlawfully, and described the contacts as ordinary political outreach, according to the Guardian. The paper said the US State Department has had friendly contacts with the party during Trump’s second term.

Oct 23, 2026 - World

First lady Melania Trump claimed she secured a “ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine, but it covers only one occupied town, and neither country immediately confirmed it.The White House made the claim in a statement Friday, saying the first lady “successfully secured a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, localized to the city of Oleshky.” Melania Trump shared the statement on X.The statement said the ceasefire would begin Oct. 29, allowing humanitarian aid into Oleshky and preparing to evacuate civilians through a safe passageway.About 2,000 residents remain trapped in the Russian-occupied town in Ukraine’s Kherson region without enough food or medicine, the Kyiv Independent reported.“It was abundantly clear that without my intervention, the possibility to bring humanitarian aid into the city and to evacuate the elderly would be impossible,” Melania Trump said in the statement.The statement described her role as “Exclusive Intermediary” and said she and an unnamed representative worked directly with “Russian and Ukrainian leadership” to set the terms.Pope Leo XIV had been pushing for a truce in Oleshky, calling Russian President Vladimir Putin on Oct. 16 and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Oct. 19 to seek a humanitarian ceasefire there, the Kyiv Independent reported.After the Oct. 16 call, the Kremlin said Putin “supported the Vatican’s intention” to help protect the town’s residents and organize supplies, America Magazine reported.Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said Russia had considered all of Kyiv’s earlier evacuation proposals.“We are now moving towards agreeing the final details on ensuring a ceasefire and evacuating everyone who wishes to leave, not just from Oleshky elsewhere, but directly to territory controlled by the Ukrainian government,” Lubinets said.“There are still some difficult issues, so to speak, but I hope that in the near future we will all see results from these negotiations,” he added.During a meeting with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff in St. Petersburg this week, Putin asked him to thank the first lady for leading mediation on Oleshky, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters, according to the Russian state news agency TASS, the Daily Beast reported.The Daily Beast said it remains unclear what role the first lady has played in addressing the Oleshky crisis.Her husband, President Donald Trump, repeatedly said as a candidate that he would end the war within 24 hours, and in a September 2024 debate he said he would settle it before he even took office.“Well, I was being a little bit sarcastic when I said that,” Donald Trump said in a March 2025 TV interview, 54 days into his second term, according to the AP.On Oct. 11, Donald Trump posted that the two countries had agreed to an energy ceasefire, but Zelenskyy said the next day that Russia was still striking Ukraine’s energy facilities.“In the Kremlin, both President Putin and officials at other levels have repeatedly stated we do not want a ceasefire,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that week.Putin agreed Wednesday to resume three-way talks with the United States and Ukraine after Nov. 10, at Witkoff’s request, CNN noted.Hours later, Russia launched a massive missile attack on Kyiv, CNN reported.