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Sep 19, 2026 - World

The United Nations (U.N.) General Assembly rebuked the Trump administration this week after the U.S. blocked a foreign leader from attending the annual gathering of the international body in New York scheduled for next week.As reported by Reuters, the Trump administration extended visa sanctions last Wednesday against Palestinian officials, whom U.S. State Department officials accused of working to “internationalize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” The visa sanctions include Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, thereby barring him from visiting the United States for the U.N.’s annual meeting.In a vote of 152-3, however, members of the U.N. voted to allow Abbas to attend the annual meeting virtually, with a number of U.N. members condemning the United States for barring a head of state from attending the event.“The United Nations Headquarters Agreement clearly provides that the issuance of visas to representatives of Member States participating in UN meetings constitutes an international obligation of the host country,” said Chinese U.N. Deputy Permanent Representative Sun Lei in a statement. “At a time when the Palestinian people are suffering oppression and the foundations of the two-State solution are being undermined, depriving Palestine of the right to present its case before the UN, make its appeals, and call for international assistance is without legal basis, unacceptable in conscience, and indefensible in reason.”The three nations that voted against allowing Abbas to virtually attend the annual U.N. meeting were the United States, Israel and Paraguay, the South American nation whose president, Santiago Peña, holds a deep connection with the state of Israel, stating last year that he sees Paraguay “as an extension of the Israeli territory.”“The resolution adopted today provides for special arrangements for Palestine’s participation in the general debate and other activities of the 81st session of the General Assembly,” Sun continued. “These arrangements represent a temporary remedy, adopted out of necessity to address the unjust treatment endured by Palestine.”

Sep 19, 2026 - World

A new “disaster” in the Middle East may further jeopardize Republicans’ electoral prospects in November, with the GOP already facing an uphill battle amid soaring prices, two analysts warned on Saturday.According to BBC, the Yemeni militant group known as the Houthis claimed to have carried out missile attacks on Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, as well as on “energy sites” on Saudi Arabia’s west coast, which borders the Red Sea. The attacks, one analyst warned, could raise global oil prices — which have climbed significantly in recent days — even further.“Creates quite the predicament,” warned CNN national security analyst Alex Plitsas. “Attacking Saudi oil raises prices. Saudi is also a major US ally. Failing to respond to that is problematic for the alliance, but also could cause a second choke point in the [Bab al-Mandeb Strait], also causing prices to rise. Six weeks before elections.”This month, the Iran-backed Houthis have gained significant control over the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a critical global shipping chokepoint in the Red Sea. The developments risk sending global oil prices even higher as the Houthis vow to block Saudi shipments of oil through the shipping waterway.National-security writer and geopolitical analyst Brandon Weichert called the development a “disaster,” and warned that it was an example of an ongoing “once-in-a-lifetime” shift on the world stage.“This is a disaster. And oddly everyone just seems to be acting like it'll all work out,” Weichert wrote in a social media post on X Saturday. “It'll work out all right. In the form of a once-in-a-lifetime changeover in power and influence. You are witnessing the end of the US-led global empire in real time. And it's stupider than ever.”Creates quite the predicament. Attacking Saudi oil raises prices. Saudi is also a major US ally. Failing to respond to that is problematic for the alliance, but also could cause a second choke point in the Bab el Mandeb, also causing prices to rise. Six weeks before elections. https://t.co/02ZFpm6TOu— Alex Plitsas ???????? (@alexplitsas) September 19, 2026

Sep 19, 2026 - World

The White House received a renewed offer from Iran for ending the war, a senior Iranian official told Al Jazeera on Saturday, putting the next move on President Donald Trump in a conflict that has sent global oil prices soaring.Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview that Tehran had communicated to the Trump administration via Qatari mediators its conditions for ending the war “on all fronts.”“A response from President Trump is awaited,” Al Jazeera’s report reads.As paraphrased by Al Jazeera, Tehran presented Trump with three conditions to end the conflict: a halt to hostilities “across the region,” an unfreezing of Iranian assets, and an end to the U.S. naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz.Should Trump and his administration refuse Iran’s conditions, Rezaei warned, Tehran was well prepared for an extended conflict.“It is in Washington’s interest to accept Iran’s conditions for exiting the war, [Rezaei] said. Trump’s threats will yield no results, and Iran is prepared for a decisive war. He said the US president’s assessments and calculations regarding Iran were flawed, and that the war was instigated by [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu,” Al Jazeera’s report reads.“Iran knows the US military’s vulnerabilities and is more prepared than ever to counter its air strikes, he said, adding that it recently tested an anti-ship missile near a US aircraft carrier. Iran is serious about defense, Rezaei said, and if attacked, will strike US bases and Washington’s interests in the region with greater force.”Gas prices in the United States have reached unprecedented heights in recent weeks due to Trump’s deeply unpopular war against Iran, with “the worst still to come,” per The Washington Post.

Sep 18, 2026 - World

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth helped "set the stage" for a U.S. strike that killed at least 123 children by slashing former President Joe Biden's civilian protection teams, officials said.The officials, who are involved in the Pentagon's internal investigation of the Feb. 28 strike on an elementary school in Minab, Iran, described their findings in a Bloomberg report published Friday. They said the investigation's report has been "all-but-complete for several months" but has not been released. The United States has not publicly accepted responsibility for the strike, Bloomberg reported.Two Tomahawk missiles struck the Shajarah Tayyebeh Elementary School on the first day of the U.S. attack on Iran, killing more than 150 people, including at least 123 children, according to the report.Bloomberg called it the deadliest U.S. military targeting error of the 21st century in terms of child deaths.Teachers had moved children from the playground into a prayer room for cover after the first missile hit, according to an account Bloomberg drew from rights advocates and the watchdog group Airwars. Within minutes, a second missile struck, and part of the roof collapsed, and only a few children in the prayer room survived, the account said.President Donald Trump's administration demanded an overwhelming air assault in the final days of February, and the officials said that order squeezed the time available to finalize targets.That urgency, combined with gaps in information about the site, "cuts in civilian-protection personnel" and an overreliance on artificial intelligence, "set the stage for the deadly error," they told Bloomberg.Officials involved in the probe pointed to "gaps … left after Hegseth dismantled" most of the Pentagon's civilian harm mitigation units, Bloomberg reported.Staffing across those teams fell roughly 90% to fewer than 20 people, and the team at U.S. Central Command, which carried out the strike, shrank from 10 people to one, people with direct knowledge told Bloomberg. No member of those teams reviewed the Minab site before the strike, the officials said, partly because of the staffing cuts and partly because of a decision to leave the group out of planning. Those reviews map civilians near a target and look for lower-risk ways to strike it, according to the report, though Bloomberg said it is unclear whether one would have raised questions about the school.The Biden administration had built up the civilian protection efforts after an August 2021 drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, killed 10 civilians when U.S. forces mistook an aid worker for a threat, the outlet reported.Hegseth announced a shift in Pentagon spending in a February 2025 video on X, saying $50 billion would be redirected toward new priorities, Agence France-Presse reported."We will move away from woke, Biden-era, non-lethal programs, and instead spend that money on President Trump's America First, peace through strength, priorities," Hegseth said.The Pentagon's civilian harm mitigation plan and its Civilian Protection Center of Excellence were tagged for elimination under that push, the national security publication War on the Rocks reported the following month. Bloomberg reported that Hegseth has described his cuts to those efforts in the same terms.In past conflicts, preparing lists of proposed targets "had taken hours for staffers to complete," according to the report.Before the Iran attack, much of that work was "condensed into several minutes" using Maven Smart System, an artificial intelligence tool made by Palantir Technologies, people involved in the review told Bloomberg.A Palantir spokesperson told Bloomberg there is no evidence the company's software was at fault in the Minab strike."America, regardless of what so-called international institutions say, is unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history," Hegseth told reporters on March 2, two days after the strike. "All on our terms with maximum authorities. No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars."On Thursday, United Nations investigators said there were reasonable grounds to conclude that the Minab strike and another U.S. attack that day amounted to war crimes, Bloomberg reported.The Pentagon declined to comment beyond saying the incident remains under investigation, and a senior administration official also cited the probe, according to the report."The United States does not target civilians," the official added.Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, cited the Minab strike on Tuesday when he filed eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth, accusing him of "ignoring laws that minimize civilian casualties," Truthout reported."By directing the Department of Defense in a manner that foreseeably dismantled the safeguards necessary to distinguish civilian objects from military objectives, Secretary Hegseth thereby effected the murder of civilians," one article says.House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) sent members home early on Wednesday for a seven-week campaign recess before the midterm elections, CNN reported. Massie's resolution had started a clock requiring a vote within days, but the early exit pushes that vote to November.Johnson said the early exit had nothing to do with Hegseth, according to CNN."It is a publicity stunt by someone who wants attention. It will immediately be tabled of course," the speaker said, referring to a procedural vote that would set the articles aside without debate. "But we probably won't do that today, we will do it when we come back.""We should not be playing games with national security," Johnson added.

Sep 18, 2026 - World

Group trapped at Hotel Bamy after US removal as rights groups sound alarm over poor conditions and violenceTwo men that the Trump administration expelled to Equatorial Guinea were bound, fitted with bags over their heads, beaten and pushed down a flight of stairs, all in plain view of other US deportees, according to witnesses and human rights lawyers.The men – one from Egypt and one from Eritrea – were then taken to a prison. About 30 detainees from the US remain trapped at a hotel in the outskirts of the coastal city of Malabo after being deported from the US. Detainees have said they believe the men were beaten for telling the press and human rights advocates about the poor conditions and violence inside the hotel, and that they are haunted by flashbacks and terrified they will be retaliated against next. Continue reading...