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Oct 31, 2026 - World

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow warned Saturday of a “credible threat” of an attack that could cause mass casualties at a popular park in the Russian capital. Observers noted the warning was strikingly specific.“The U.S. Embassy in Moscow has learned of a credible threat of an incident that could result in mass casualties TODAY, October 31, on the grounds of the Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve in Moscow,” the embassy wrote on X. It said the U.S. government “is coordinating response measures with the relevant authorities of the Russian Federation.”The embassy told Americans to avoid the park Saturday, stay away from large crowds, keep their phones charged and carry identification. Tsaritsyno is a sprawling former royal estate in southern Moscow that draws large crowds.The alert quickly drew comparisons to the March 2024 Crocus City Hall attack outside Moscow. In that attack, gunmen linked to the Islamic State killed more than 140 people at a concert venue, weeks after the U.S. Embassy publicly warned that extremists were planning to target large gatherings in Moscow.“Last time I remember this kind of specific alert it was before the Crocus City concert hall ISIS-linked attack in 2024,” wrote ABC News international correspondent Patrick Reevell, calling the warning “unusual.”Sarah Adams, a former CIA targeting officer and author of “Benghazi: Know Thy Enemy,” shared the alert with a brief comment: “You don’t see this everyday.”Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and a Kremlin envoy who has taken part in talks with the Trump administration, cast the warning as a sign of improving relations.“In a spirit of goodwill, the US has informed Russian security services and issued a public alert about a possible terrorist attack in Tsaritsyno Park in Moscow,” Dmitriev wrote. “US-Russia security services cooperation is vital for global security.”The embassy did not say who was behind the threat or what kind of attack it anticipated. There were no reports of an attack as of publication.

Oct 31, 2026 - World

Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has ordered the country’s top military commanders to answer any renewed U.S. or Israeli attack with a response “without geographical limitations," according to new reporting.Khamenei met with Iran’s three highest-ranking commanders and told them a new attack “must be met with an immediate and effective response, without geographical limitations” in order to achieve “maximum deterrence.” That’s according to a statement released after the meeting and reported by Axios correspondent Barak Ravid.“If the enemies once again launch military or terrorist attacks, it will be the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Armed Forces and the Iranian nation that determine when and under what conditions those hostilities will end,” Khamenei said, according to the statement.He also ordered that Iran’s “target bank” be updated “so that all types of the American-Zionist enemy’s material and non-material assets fall within the reach of the Armed Forces.” He praised the “intelligent steadfastness” of Iran’s proxies across the region.The meeting included Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Abdollahi, Army commander Maj. Gen. Hatami and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Maj. Gen. Vahidi. According to the statement, the commanders briefed Khamenei on military readiness along the Gulf coast, around the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman, and on Iran’s northwestern and southeastern borders. They also reported a “several-fold increase” in the production of ammunition and combat weapons.The warning comes days after Republican strategist Karl Rove said he expects President Donald Trump to resume strikes on Iran after Tuesday’s midterm elections. The Pentagon has two aircraft carrier strike groups in the region, and a third is on the way.

Oct 30, 2026 - World

Scottish detectives are investigating time that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell spent at Balmoral, King Charles’ private estate in Scotland.Police Scotland said it had received “information” and that inquiries into the disgraced royal’s time there with the late child sex offender were at a “very early stage," reported The Guardian.The Daily Express has reported that the inquiries relate to claims that women were trafficked to the estate.“We have received information and active inquiries are ongoing, but these are at a very early stage,” a Police Scotland spokesperson said. “All inquiries are evidence-led, with the needs of victim survivors at the heart of those inquiries.”Photos previously released by the U.S. Department of Justice appear to show Mountbatten-Windsor and Epstein on a shooting trip at Balmoral.The estate also appears in a string of cryptic emails released last year as part of the Epstein files. In August 2001, someone using the name “the Invisible Man” sent four emails to Maxwell, who has since been convicted of sex trafficking. In one, the sender said their “valet” had recently died and that they had “left the RN,” shorthand for the Royal Navy. Mountbatten-Windsor left the Royal Navy the month before.Another email from the same sender, dated Aug. 16, 2001, said they were at “Balmoral summer camp for the royal family” before asking Maxwell: “Have you found me some inappropriate friends?”In March 2002, Maxwell wrote to the Invisible Man that she had passed along a message to an unnamed person, beginning: “I just gave Andrew your telephone no.” She added that “Andrew” would be “very happy” if the person did some “two legged sight seeing.”The sender of the emails has not been confirmed.Several other British police forces, including the Metropolitan Police, Thames Valley Police and Surrey Police, have live investigations linked to the Epstein files. The National Police Chiefs’ Council said there is no national investigation at present.Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office over allegations that he shared sensitive information with Epstein while serving as a U.K. trade envoy. He denies wrongdoing, and that investigation continues.

Oct 30, 2026 - World

There is no end in sight for the drivers of illegal mining, while police action appears ineffectiveCora Bailey has been encountering illegal miners ever since she first started treating injured animals in the townships around Roodepoort, west of Johannesburg, in 1991. But as the price of gold has soared, so too has activity in the abandoned mine shafts that mark the area.In late September, dozens of zama zamas – the name given to illegal miners in South Africa, meaning roughly “to take a chance” in Zulu – arrived to dig for gold across the dirt road from her charity, Claw (Community Led Animal Welfare). Continue reading...

Oct 29, 2026 - World

President Donald Trump's administration quietly agreed to arm a foreign military unit with a gruesome human rights record, a new report revealed.The Trump administration agreed to send about $35 million in military aid, including armored personnel carriers, to Cameroon's Rapid Intervention Battalion, known as the BIR, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. U.S. officials and congressional aides told The Journal that State Department officials negotiated the aid alongside a deal for the Central African nation to accept deportees from the U.S. who aren't Cameroonian.The unit has a brutal past. A 2017 Amnesty International report accused the BIR of war crimes during its fight against the Boko Haram terrorist group, finding that members beat and drowned detainees and tortured some of them to death. Trump's first administration cut off some aid to the unit in 2019 and booted Cameroon from a U.S.-Africa trade pact over its forces' ongoing abuses, which Cameroon denied at the time.Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, placed a hold on the aid package earlier this year, according to The Journal. That stalled the deal for months until April, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio's team told her the administration was overriding her and pushing ahead.Shaheen this week tore into the arrangement as "grotesque" and said Rubio had let her down by signing off on it.In a statement, Shaheen argued that the U.S. has no business handing sensitive military gear to governments with shaky human rights records, let alone as payment for taking in people.Cameroon started accepting U.S. deportation flights in December and has taken in at least 36 people since, according to Refugees International, a humanitarian advocacy group. Some officials told The Journal the Trump administration intends to ramp up flights to African countries in the coming months. Around the time the aid was disclosed to Congress in January, the U.S. also steered $30 million to the United Nations refugee agency's operations in Cameroon, even as it slashed foreign aid elsewhere.The State Department wouldn't discuss the details of any agreement but praised its partnership with Cameroon on security and counterterrorism, and said it follows the Leahy Law, which prohibits military aid to forces tied to human rights abuses. Cameroon's embassy in Washington did not respond to The Journal's request for comment.