Top World News

Sep 17, 2026 - World

The Pentagon's thoughts about withdrawing 25,000 troops from Europe are spurring fears of the threat the move would create for U.S. allies.On Thursday, NBC News reported that the Pentagon is considering pulling out 25,000 or more U.S. troops from Europe, which is nearly a third of the American forces stationed there. The withdrawal would include aircraft, ships, and weapons, even though NATO allies have warned about the growing threat from Russia.Online critics pointed to the move as proof that President Donald Trump and his administration are aligned with Russian leader Vladimir Putin."For the umpteenth time: Trump works for Putin," wrote former GOP congressman Joe Walsh in a post on X. "He's a Russian asset. Plain & simple. Putin is smiling again today.""What US national security interest would this decision advance?" wondered former U.S. ambassador to Russia and political science professor Michael McFaul. "I missed the Party of Reagan and Peace Through Strength.""Trump is helping Putin to attack Europe," declared investigative journalist Robert van der Noordaa."As European countries build their defense capabilities, this kind of withdrawal may become possible," former U.S. ambassador Steven Pifer lamented. "It makes no sense now.""UNBELIEVABLE!" exclaimed influencer Brian Krassenstein, who had a theory for why the Trump administration was making the move. "This is happening right after the EU signed a trade deal with Canada and invited Canada to join the EU as an associated member. Trump is mad that two allies are working together after he pissed them both off."This would not be the administration's first drawdown in Europe. The Pentagon ordered about 5,000 U.S. troops out of Germany earlier in 2026 amid tensions with Berlin, Fox News reported.It also echoes Trump's first term, when he ordered roughly 12,000 troops out of Germany in 2020. That plan drew bipartisan pushback and was frozen by President Joe Biden, CBS News reported.What US national security interest would this decision advance? I missed the Party of Reagan and Peace Through Strength. https://t.co/Un0R9eB6GY— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) September 17, 2026

Sep 17, 2026 - World

MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace was aghast on Thursday's edition of "Deadline: White House" as Trump escalates his threats against Canada, seeking a closer partnership with the European Union — and Canada going for it anyway."I think ... the way it translates to voters, especially Republican voters, is the stench of weakness," Wallace told guest Cornell Belcher. "We have never looked so weak, being isolated. And I say this with a little bit of experience from my time in government: people care a lot about the national security implications. But the association of standing alone is something that all voters internalize and dislike, and it makes people feel frightened, and it makes America look weak."Belcher emphatically agreed, saying that it doesn't just make America "look" weak, but "it makes us, in fact, weak."The polling, he continued, shows that "Americans are more pessimistic about the current situation, but also more pessimistic about the future. You have majorities of Americans being pessimistic about the future. And it's an anomaly, because one thing you can always count on is for Americans to be optimistic, whether they're on the left or the right." Usually "American exceptionalism" unites everyone, he said, but it seems to have slipped away.""And it's not evaporating just because the price of gas is high," he added. Rather, it's a "deep moral calcification of our moral compass that is happening ... what you're seeing is, really, Trump presiding over the end of the American era."This is also evident in polls abroad, he said. "And you see him tearing apart the global order that has centered America ... they are reordering themselves, the globe. And America is not the centerpiece of that. So in a real way, he's made America less significant, and we're going to be less safe and less prosperous." - YouTube www.youtube.com

Sep 17, 2026 - World

A former top White House official has a simple theory as to why a bullying President Donald Trump president blew up America's relationship with its closest ally: "mind-melting incompetence."Miles Taylor, who served as chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security during Trump's first term, tore into the administration's handling of its relationship with Canada in a new Substack post."Canada is demonstrating, for every democracy watching, that the response to Trump’s bullying should be neither submission nor hysteria… but the calm construction of alternatives," he wrote. "Our allies aren’t leaving because they hate America. They’re leaving because they miss us, and they can’t stand the bully who’s holding us hostage."Taylor argued Trump's trade war pushed Ottawa to give up on repairing the relationship. Since retaking office, Trump has hit Canada with 50 percent tariffs, moved to ban imports including dairy, alcohol, lumber and cars, and repeatedly needled the country about becoming America's "51st state."Rather than "cave" the way Taylor says some American law firms did early in Trump's second term, Canada has instead looked elsewhere. Prime Minister Mark Carney has been exploring a closer partnership with the European Union, which has floated an unprecedented "associate member" status for Canada. "Trump spent two years mocking Canada as America's future 51st state," Taylor wrote. "This week, Europe offered to make Canada its first."Taylor praised Carney's calm, businesslike response, writing, "they've walked across the street to build a better future with people who keep their word." This presents a sharp contrast to Trump's blustering and bullying that has only made the situation worse, Taylor argued. "You have to marvel at the mind-melting incompetence required to produce this outcome," Taylor wrote, noting Canada and the U.S. share the "longest peaceful border"on Earth, an integrated defense relationship, and a history of fighting alongside each other, with roughly "70% of Canadian exports" flowing to the U.S.Taylor didn't hold back on Trump personally, calling him "the stupidest man" he believes has held office in Washington. He noted that even John Kelly, Trump's former chief of staff, has said Trump is "the most flawed person" he's ever met.Taylor added that previously overseas ally officials used to quietly ask "whether America was still America" — but that they've "since stopped asking."

Sep 17, 2026 - World

While dozens of major companies flee Cuba under President Donald Trump-era sanctions, a select group of insiders with ties to the president are quietly positioning themselves to scoop up the island's assets, according to the Guardian.That includes executives working for the Trump Organization.Spanish hotel giants Meliá and Iberostar, Canadian mining firm Sherritt International, European shipping companies, and even Visa and Mastercard have all pulled out of Cuba this summer, spooked by sweeping new secondary sanctions tied to Trump's pressure campaign following the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Axios last month there are "no escape valves" left for the island.But the Guardian reports a different story is playing out behind the scenes."A growing cast of Washington and Florida insiders – from billionaire Trump cronies and Rubio-linked lobbyists to Cuban exiles – are jockeying for control of the communist-ruled island-nation’s key assets, charging top dollar to help clients navigate the ever-expanding web of sanctions, and positioning themselves for lucrative business opportunities in the case of regime collapse," the Guardian's Lee Schlenker and Ed Augustin reported.The Guardian report added that, "several Trump Organization executives who had previously traveled to the island to explore real estate deals and who even registered the Trump trademark there in 2008 have in recent months returned to Cuba under the aegis of Dominari Holdings for meetings."Meanwhile, ordinary Cubans have endured a fuel blockade since January, after the administration cut off oil shipments from Venezuela and pressured Mexico into halting its own deliveries. Yet Treasury-authorized fuel exports from Florida and Texas to Cuba's private sector have surged past $160 million this year, up from almost nothing in 2025."If I had done during the Biden administration what Trump's friends have done now, I'd have been put in jail," said one longtime Cuba policy expert, granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Sep 17, 2026 - World

A Nobel Peace Prize-winning psychiatrist fears President Donald Trump has become too unstable to be trusted with nuclear codes.Dr. Henry David Abraham, professor of psychiatry emeritus at Tufts University School of Medicine, told The i Paper's Kieron Monks he's troubled, not by the results of Trump's cognitive tests, but by how often he's taking them. Trump announced in May he'd scored a perfect 30 out of 30 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, or MoCA, for the fourth time — his third such test in just over a year."You give a MoCA for a rapid screen. Is the person functioning in a cognitive sense or not?" Abraham told Monks. "If you are doing two, three, four, you're not doing a rapid screen. You're looking for a trend."Abraham, who shared in the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize as part of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, said Trump's conduct during "recent strikes on Iran and Venezuela" worries him most. "He's certainly our most impulsive president in my lifetime," Abraham said. "He is an unstable individual with absolute control over the American nuclear arsenal.""Some of the President’s threats towards Iran, such as 'a whole civilisation will die tonight', were widely taken as a veiled reference to nuclear weapons," the report notes. "The clinician also pointed to disturbing images Trump has posted on social media, including an AI-generated image of him pressing a red button while surrounded by explosions and mushroom clouds."Citing the Iran war quagmire, Abraham said, "He’s embarrassed every day about it, or at least attacked every day about it. What prevents him one night from saying, ‘Oh, I can solve this Iran problem in 10 seconds’ – which would essentially be the use of nuclear weapons.”Abraham also drew attention to "Trump’s medical records, pointing to a recent check-up that involved a record 22 medical specialists.“Those 22 doctors, they had better figure it out, and they better come forward,” he insisted, while "urging whistleblowers to share details from Trump's medical files, including a recent checkup involving a record 22 specialists."