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A bizarre incident involving a Fox News host and the interim president of a foreign nation has become one of President Donald Trump's favorite stories to tell, according to a new report. The New York Times Saturday profiled Secretary of State Marco Rubio and revealed his growing power over Venezuela and the apparent pleasure it gives the president. This becomes evident when the Times details an Oval Office encounter between the two men. "Mr. Rubio could be the next leader of Venezuela, Mr. Trump suggested," according to the report. "And while the president’s aides say he was joking — and that he frequently teases Mr. Rubio about an overseas assignment — the fact is that Mr. Rubio does not need to move to Caracas."Rubio's control over the foreign nation, whose leader, incumbent Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, the U.S. captured during a military strike on Jan. 3, has only grown, the Times reports.Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s vice president, now leads the country on an "acting basis" but with detailed instructions from Washington, according to the report. The Times then detailed the backstory of a '"surprising" announcement, made before even the Venezuelan government could, that Rubio made about Rodríguez earlier this year. Rubio announced she would would travel to India. "When the Fox News anchor Bret Baier contacted Ms. Rodríguez about participating in an interview, she told him that Mr. Trump would have to approve," the Times reports."Mr. Trump loved that Ms. Rodríguez was deferring to him, and has repeatedly recounted the story to others when they ask about her, according to multiple people familiar with his comments."

Vigilantes also took part in the fight that raged all night and the following morning, residents sayNigerian soldiers killed more than 300 members of kidnapping and cattle bandit gangs in the north-western state of Zamfara this week, according to a government official.Government troops targeted the gangs in Gummi district in a two-day operation that “led to the elimination of more than 300 terrorists”, Zamfara’s information commissioner, Mahmud Muhammad Dantawasa, said in a statement. Continue reading...

President Donald Trump late Friday night publicly threatened to decimate "all areas of Iran" over mounting fears for his personal safety. Trump's took to Truth Social about 11:20 p.m. to inform to Iranians that he would not hold back should any assassination attempt occur. "1000 Missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran," wrote Trump, "with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat, pronounced in many corners of the Globe, to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate, the sitting President of the United States of America, in this case, ME!Trump was likely responding to the Wall Street Journal report Thursday that Israel intelligence shared with the U.S. may indicate Iran has developed a new plan to assassinate Trump."Iran for years has vowed openly to retaliate against Trump for the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, who was a top general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in the president’s first term," the report noted. Trump said late Friday that any word of such attempt would result in an enormous retaliation effort from the U.S. "Orders have already been given, and the U.S. Military is ready, willing, and able, for a one year period of time, subject to extension, to completely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran," said Trump. The months-long war began earlier this year with a strike, subjected to new scrutiny last week from CNN, which resulted in the bombing of a school and the deaths of 168 children. CNN's unnamed sources said an important step had been skipped. "Senior US military commanders bypassed warnings in critical databases that intelligence about potential targets in Iran was severely out of date," the report stated. "The decision by senior commanders to ignore the warnings was made for 'expediency,' two of the sources said, in a rush to provide targets at the start of the war. But it also directly contributed to the accidental strike on the school."Trump concluded his threat Friday night with the words "PRAISE BE TO ALLAH!"Read the full post here.

The Trump administration admitted it's worried that a nuclear deal with Iran is increasingly unlikely, the Wall Street Journal reported.Senior U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal on Friday that a nuclear deal with Iran is "growing increasingly unlikely" in a "rare acknowledgment."A deal to limit Iran's nuclear capacity was one of Trump's "core foreign-policy goals," the Journal noted. However, the senior officials who spoke to the Journal are expecting Iran to release a statement declaring that it will stop firing at ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz and leave it open."One of the officials suggested there would be serious consequences if such a promise isn't made by Saturday," the Journal wrote, referring to the Strait of Hormuz statement. "Others didn't suggest there was a firm deadline."The Journal noted that Trump told reporters earlier this week that Iran will "never build a nuclear weapon under our deal, but I don't know if we're going to have a deal." Sources told the Journal that a nuclear deal wouldn't be possible unless Iran hands over control of its buried enriched uranium, and the U.S. has "low-cost military options to block access to the nuclear material forever." Under the current memorandum of understanding, the U.S. and Iran have 60 days to reach a final nuclear agreement, which could be extended, the Journal added. "Iran made no explicit promises to scale back its nuclear program in the interim deal," the Journal wrote. "But it did commit to the two sides reaching a satisfactory solution for handling Iran's existing stockpile of highly enriched uranium."

The Trump administration erroneously touted export numbers for an American staple while the real numbers spark concern, per a report. Reuters reported that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had to revise beef export sales and slash numbers by 90 percent compared to the incorrect number offered for a sales period ending in late June.The USDA touted in early July that the exporters sold more than 126,000 metric tons of U.S. beef to foreign buyers, but the real number turned out to be just over 12,000 metric tons. The error came as U.S. beef prices have reached record highs this year because of "tight cattle supplies" and demand, and beef exports have also continued to decline since 2022, Reuters reported. Although domestic demand for hamburgers and steaks is strong, the increased price and reduced production of beef are feeding the declining exports, Reuters noted."We're priced out of the world market to a certain extent," Austin Schroeder, a commodity analyst at Brugler Marketing & Management, told Reuters. "It wouldn't make a lot of sense for that big of an export number."The USDA also erroneously reported record sales of more than 38,000 metric tons of beef to Chile and more than 32,000 metric tons to Italy, according to Reuters, which noted neither of those countries is a major market for U.S. beef. The corrected figures revealed the U.S. actually sold 367 tons to Chile and 350 tons to Italy, and revised sales downward to 14 other countries as well, according to Reuters.The U.S. also has low domestic supplies of beef and has had to increase the amount of beef it imports, Reuters added. The beef industry was threatened by the outbreak of screwworm earlier this year, which led to the declaration of a state of disaster in Texas.

Knives were out for Vice President JD Vance — and coming from an unlikely ally, The Daily Beast reported Thursday.Fox News host Brian Kilmeade fired off a tough demand and called for the Vice President to be pulled from the Iran negotiations.“The one thing we need is a different negotiating team. If we go to negotiations and that’s a big if, this team can’t do it,” Kilmeade said.Vance has stumbled through two rounds of high-stakes talks — first in Pakistan, then Switzerland — and has appeared shaky on the details of the deal he helped broker. Instead, the Fox anchor argued that Vance and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff should turn their attention to Ukraine as pressure grows for the U.S. to reach an agreement amid escalating fighting this week. As the fragile truce has unraveled quickly, Tehran has struck back at American allies from Qatar to Jordan, and both sides are trading blame over who broke the ceasefire first.Kilmeade referred to current negotiators as "a waste of time," and claimed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been "calling the shots." "We should demand different people," Kilmeade said. "The foreign minister is a waste of time, and the speaker is a waste of time. The IRGC is calling the shots. So, why are we pretending to talk to the other guys? Talk to the people who make the decisions. Knowing ahead of time that they’re not to be trusted."

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...

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...