Top World News

A New York Times photographer on Wednesday revealed several suspicious new details in President Donald Trump's plane swap amid a threat.Douglas Mills, a photojournalist who was on Air Force One with the press corps as the group headed back from Turkey after a NATO summit in July with Trump and several administration officials, told CNN's Erin Burnett the incident was "alarming" after learning Trump had left the plane in a catering truck.Burnett mentioned that Mills and other reporters were asked to lower their window shades. And in an interview with reporters after that flight, Trump had commented specifically on window shades."Probably on a dangerous flight because of the sleazebags that we have to deal with, it has to be closed," Trump said. "But if I go, you go, right? Perhaps someday you want to change professions?"Mills said that comment now has a different meaning."In hindsight, I think back on that, wow, if he didn't, why did they just put our shades down and not his shades up in the front of the plane? So that was kind of a red flag to me mentally," Mills said. "I felt like obviously we were a decoy. And in that moment, we didn't know all the facts that we know now."Burnett pointed to the window shades, asking if that was a potential giveaway that something irregular was happening."Maybe that's why they had to put your window shades down, right? Because they didn't want you to see the catering," she said. "That's exactly right," Mills said."By the time we got to the front of the plane, I had taken those pictures of the catering truck on the backside of the plane as we were motoring up," he said. "And I was shooting pictures through the van that we were driving in. And once we got up and looked out and saw the president was already on board, that kind of also said to me something's going on." This foreign visit was atypical, and Trump ditched his usual goodbye."But no, none of that happened this time," Mills said. "He went up the steps and was on there before we ever got out of our cars. It was unusual. And then once we got up on the plane and the shades had to go down, there were just a lot of questions throughout. And now in hindsight, it was one of those things as a reporter, photographer, you know, that we probably should have been asking more questions about because a lot of things didn't fit right."

Former Republican insider Steve Schmidt argued on Wednesday that President Donald Trump's biggest fear is someone who tries to hold him accountable — like CNN's Kaitlan Collins.In his podcast and video series "The Warning," the co-founder of the anti-Trump organization, The Lincoln Project, compared Trump's "Trojan horse" move in Turkey, where he left journalists and his own aides as "bait on the chum plane" under a credible threat, to former President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II. He juxtaposed this with the moment FDR learned that a torpedo was fired at the USS Iowa, where he rushed to the rail to see it coming towards the ship. "When he was aboard a presidential aircraft flying with Dwight Eisenhower sitting next to him shortly after giving him command of the D-Day operation with the hydraulics out on the airplane, FDR lit a cigarette, threw his head back and laughed at all of it," Schmidt said, citing a book from Rick Atkinson that describes the incident."He says we'll see how good those Army Air Corps pilots are and has a big laugh," Schmidt said. "That's what courage under fire looks like. That's what cool under fire looks like. But this man, intimidated by Kaitlan Collins, is no FDR. He's no Eisenhower. He's the weakest American president in history, with a yellow stain as wide as his ankles running down the middle of his back. This is a fearful man, and you see it all the time."As Trump made his way off Air Force One with a catering cart, it revealed more about him "as an obese American fascist," Schmidt explained. And his reaction after the reports surfaced was telling."Look at this decaying geriatric sloth trying to make it up these stairs," Schmidt said. "Look at him coming down. Look at the bruising on his hand, the skin color, the preposterous wig. Decrepitude and decay etched all over his body and face. And we, the people, are his prisoners in a dungeon of rot and American decay.""With Pete Hegseth and little Marco as bait and Donald Trump safe on his way back to the loving arms of Melania," Schmidt added, mocking Trump. "What a sick and demeaning moment, perhaps in all the history of the country, the lowest in the history of the degraded American presidency."

Ángel Aguirre indicted in case that rocked Mexico and became symbol of its brutal cartel violenceThe former governor of Guerrero state in Mexico has been formally charged over his alleged involvement in the disappearance of 43 students in 2014, a case that has become a symbol of the country’s brutal cartel violence and government impunity.Ángel Aguirre, who was arrested last week, is accused of forced disappearance and obstruction of justice for ordering the destruction of surveillance tapes that may have shed light on what happened to the students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college on the night of 26 September 2014. Continue reading...

Kyaw Zwar Minn was ousted for declaring loyalty to Aung San Suu Kyi after 2021 coup but refused to leave his homeMyanmar’s ousted ambassador to the UK has gone on trial on trespassing charges for refusing to leave a diplomatic residence after being unceremoniously locked out of the embassy in 2021.Shortly after Myanmar’s military seized power in 2021, triggering mass protests that spiralled into a civil war, Kyaw Zwar Minn was locked out of the embassy for declaring his loyalty to the deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Continue reading...

Stephen Miller's wife, Katie Miller, had a meltdown on Tuesday, slamming the reporter who revealed President Donald Trump had used Air Force One as a decoy to evade an assassination threat.Miller unleashed her anger on Washington Post reporter Dan Lamothe, who had described how Trump had ditched his high-security aircraft and jumped inside an airport catering truck before boarding a secret plane that flew out of Turkey in July, The Daily Beast reported. The White House had claimed Trump was on Air Force One.Miller lashed out at Lamothe in a post on X, resharing his quote with her own commentary."There is some loser out there super pleased and fulfilled with himself because the leftist media is giving him attention and telling him how brave he is," Miller wrote.Journalists and some White House staff apparently did not know Trump had taken a separate flight due to the credible threat, instead believing they were on the same plane as the president.

President Donald Trump's plane-swap plan "to save his own skin" exposed a darker reality behind how he treats the American public and press corps, an analyst reported on Tuesday.After it was revealed that Trump used a food truck to avoid a potential Iran terror threat, "might seem like an amusing caper," it was actually a "cowardly plot hatched by Trump, Pete Hegseth, Dan Caine and Trump’s security staff," reported David Gardner for The Swamp, The Daily Beast's Substack."For a start, the president has been caught in a bare-faced lie to the American public," Gardner wrote. "For some reason, he cannot understand that the media is the proxy of the people. To mislead the press is to mislead the country."But that wasn't the only revelation behind what happened."Worse—way worse—was Trump’s acceptance that the White House press corps, his own White House and military officials and the flight crew were expendable as long as he was safe from what must have been a credible Iranian terror threat," Gardner wrote.This bombshell had a different outcome, and "left Americans as sitting ducks.""We already knew he dodged going to Vietnam because of spurious bone spurs. But that was just Trump," Gardner wrote."This was unforgivable," Gardner added.

The wild capture and release of a female big cat into a nature reserve is the first step towards reintroducing a population that hasn’t been seen for 70 yearsOn 31 July, “Umit” – which means hope in Kazakh – was released into a nature reserve on the edge of Lake Balkhash after more than a decade of careful planning to return the caspian tiger to the region. With this release, Kazakhstan became the first country to restore its tiger range after they had been thought extinct, with the last reliable sighting in the country recorded more than 70 years ago.Umit – a wild-caught female tiger transported from the Russian far east – will be joined by more big cats in the coming years, with plans to establish a self-sustaining population of about 50. A wild-caught male flown from Russia is still being monitored by authorities and will be released when he is judged fit to survive alone. Two wild tiger cubs are also being reared on the reserve in special enclosures, with as little human contact as possible, and are likely to be released into the marshlands next year, to feast on boar, deer and kulans, a type of wild donkey. Continue reading...

President Donald Trump's obsession with Greenland has inspired a new harebrained business venture, Rachel Maddow told her viewers on MS NOW Monday night — and it already appears to be falling apart.But before that, she said with some bemusement, the venture actually tried to get her to promote it.Several weeks ago, she said, her office got "a totally unsolicited, totally over-the-top PR pitch offering me an embargoed, confidential sneak peek at a new project from Dr. Phil," announcing he was going to Greenland to do a TV show and asking if she'd be interested in covering it.The "footage" they offered Maddow continued, "turned out to be footage in Greenland of an American guy talking about his plans to drill for oil in Greenland, which he apparently believed he had a right to do." She put the video on."That's why we're here, to reposition the road-building equipment," said a man in the clip, adding that "for a fact" they have all the authorizations to move forward with the work."The guy they're explaining this to appears to say, 'This is unlawful,'" Maddow noted. "It's kind of hard to hear, but it sounds like that's what he says." Nonetheless, "some PR firm, in its infinite wisdom, believed that I would find it an exciting opportunity to help promote a new Dr. Phil TV show about how exciting it would be to drill for oil in Greenland."Since that PR pitch, she said, things haven't gone so well for this enterprise."First of all, you should know that in 2021, Greenland passed a national moratorium, a national ban on all future oil exploration," said Maddow. Despite this, once Trump resumed his public obsession with annexing Greenland, "for some reason, a new company formed in Texas called Greenland Energy," who "said they were going to drill for oil in Greenland." Then, in June, they visited a remote part of Eastern Greenland with no roads, and "announced to the villagers there that this company, this Texas company, had permission ... to start bringing their equipment, their oil drilling equipment to this untouched Arctic area of Greenland."Sadly for them, said Maddow, "the company later apologized and said, actually, they didn't have permits to do that. They put out a statement sort of correcting the record, saying, quote, our enthusiasm for the project led us to communicate in a way that created confusion." - YouTube youtu.be