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41-year-old set on ‘dream to be able to race in Africa’Rwanda to host despite criticism of human rights recordLewis Hamilton has said he hopes to remain racing in Formula One until he can take part in the African Grand Prix which is set to take place in Rwanda in the 2030s. The seven-time world champion believes it is right that F1 is to hold a race there despite criticism of the country’s human rights record.Last week F1 confirmed Rwanda was to host the African Grand Prix having concluded a 10-year agreement for the meeting on a purpose-built circuit, with the first race set for the early 2030s. It is lined up to be held on a circuit in Bugesera, 25 miles south of the capital, Kigali, which has yet to be constructed and marks a return to the African continent for the first time since it last held a race at Kyalami, South Africa in 1993. Continue reading...

Secret accounts, alleged payments to shadowy figures, and spies watching his phone are among the bombshell claims about Jared Kushner in a new book excerpt published Thursday by Vanity Fair. First, journalist Matthew Cole alleged Gulf rulers supplied roughly $2 billion to accounts for Trump’s son-in-law, including $750 million in a charity account Kushner allegedly helped manage.Second, another $1 billion allegedly reached Israel’s central bank for his personal benefit, with Benjamin Netanyahu requiring advance notice of transactions.Third, Cole also recounts a source’s allegation that Kushner transferred money to “a warlord, a mercenary and a one-time hit man," according to the excerpt.The fourth claim revolves around a promise of influence. “Jared promised MBZ that he’d push their agenda with Trump if they participated in a fund,” another source said, referring to UAE ruler Mohamed bin Zayed.Fifth, Russian spies allegedly penetrated Kushner’s phone first. Dutch intelligence subsequently gained access and monitored his screen, the excerpt said, according to Vanity Fair.Sixth, Gulf leaders initially discussed a separate $10 billion fund to support Trump’s priorities, including his border wall and reelection. Finally, Cole writes that four senior Trump officials, including two national security advisers, knew of no presidential authorization for Kushner’s foreign-account access, Cole writes.According to Vanity Fair, Kushner’s counsel denied the alleged accounts and legal violations, saying his arrangements with foreign officials had Trump’s approval.

Observers were shocked Thursday after a new book excerpt detailed how foreign spies spent months peering into the phone of President Donald Trump's son-in-law.In an excerpt published by Vanity Fair from his upcoming book "Princes and Thieves," investigative reporter Matthew Cole lays out how Dutch military intelligence flipped a Russian GRU hacker in 2017 and used him to reach a Russian server holding screenshots from Jared Kushner's iPhone. By early 2018, according to Cole, the Dutch had cracked the device themselves and could watch Kushner's screen in real time.What they saw, Cole reports, was Kushner logging into a UAE bank account stocked with hundreds of millions of dollars routed through a bank in Azerbaijan. Cole's reporting alleges that the Saudi and Emirati royals ultimately put at least $2 billion into accounts tied to Kushner, including roughly $750 million at First Abu Dhabi Bank, where Kushner was allegedly a signatory on an account owned by an Emirati charity, and about $1 billion in Israel's Central Bank.A former Mueller prosecutor told Cole that Kushner may have run afoul of federal bribery and foreign agents laws if he promised anything in return. Kushner's lawyer denied any wrongdoing and insisted "there are no accounts and never were."Reaction online was swift."Every word of this is f------ insane," investigative journalist Scott Stedman fumed on X. "Kushner cannot be in charge of negotiations."Stedman followed up by arguing that, if the reporting holds, Cole "may have uncovered the biggest case of foreign bribery (MBZ and MBS of Kushner) in U.S. history."Drop Site News co-founder Ryan Grim marveled at the backstory. "Aside from the shocking substance of this story, what's amazing is how it was unearthed by Cole," he wrote.Former Rolling Stone editor-in-chief Noah Shachtman summed up the chain of events, noting that Dutch cyberspies reverse-engineered a Russian hack to gain "unprecedented access to his world." He called it a "bananas story."National security journalist Zach Dorfman hailed it as "astounding reporting," while reporter Erin Banco kept it short. "This is wild," she posted.

Jared Kushner allegedly accessed a secret Gulf-funded bank account while Dutch spies watched his phone, and moved money to a warlord, a mercenary and a one-time hit man, according to an explosive new book.In an excerpt published Thursday by Vanity Fair, investigative journalist Matthew Cole wrote that Dutch military intelligence found screenshots of Kushner’s iPhone on a Russian military intelligence server, then exploited a flaw in the phone to watch his screen themselves starting in early 2018.They saw Kushner, then a senior adviser to his father-in-law, President Donald Trump, log into a UAE bank account that had received hundreds of millions of dollars routed through Azerbaijan, according to “Princes and Thieves.” A source told Cole that Kushner appeared to transfer significant sums from the account to other individuals, including the warlord, mercenary and former hit man.Cole alleges the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the UAE put at least $2 billion into at least two accounts for Kushner during Trump’s first term.“Jared promised MBZ that he’d push their agenda with Trump if they participated in a fund,” one source told Cole, referring to UAE ruler Mohamed bin Zayed.Kushner’s ties to Gulf money have drawn scrutiny before. After leaving the White House, his private equity firm, Affinity Partners, received a $2 billion investment from a Saudi sovereign wealth fund led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a deal that has drawn scrutiny from ethics watchdogs.The book cites mostly unnamed sources. Kushner’s lawyer told Cole that Kushner broke no laws and had no connection to any UAE account, adding that there “are no accounts and never were.”Kushner himself blasted the book on X.“The allegations made by this author are completely insane, categorically false, and never happened,” he wrote.

President Donald Trump is facing the very real possibility that members of his own party may try to throw up roadblocks to his growing alliance with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, The Hill reported.Trump signed an executive order late Friday waiving sanctions on Russia that Congress passed last month, days before most of them were set to take effect, the Associated Press reported. The Senate approved the Lindsey Graham Russian Sanctions Act 86-11.The Hill reported that the prospect of a deal on Ukraine with Russia and China has also left some GOP senators "alarmed." The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Putin "proposed a summit" with Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to discuss ending the war. A senior U.S. official told the Journal that Trump had not agreed to it but could be receptive.Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) said a potential summit involving Putin to decide Ukraine’s fate is “foolhardy” and “morally wrong.”“Ukrainians have got to be part of any peace deal. It’s not only essential because otherwise we won’t have peace, but it’s also the right thing to do,” he told Sirius XM’s “The Julie Mason Show.” “Russia is trying to kill Americans around the world, covertly and overtly.”Cassidy is not alone.Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said in a CNN interview that “Putin is playing President Trump like a fiddle.” Even Trump allies are uneasy. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told The Hill last month that inviting Putin to the G20 summit in Miami in December was “giving [Vladimir Putin] more credit than he deserves.”The sanctions waiver followed Ukrainian complaints that Washington had restricted its access to Starshield, the satellite network Ukrainian forces use to operate drones. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, ordered the slowdown, citing people familiar with the matter, and that Musk and Trump discussed the decision after it became public. Reuters had reported that the order came from inside the White House, and a senior U.S. official told Reuters the president never made such a request.Four Republican senators, Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX), Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Tillis, signed a bipartisan letter Thursday to Pentagon Inspector General Platte Moring "demanding an investigation" into whether senior Pentagon officials ordered or knew in advance about the slowdown.The controversy came days after Trump announced a deal with Putin to import Russian diesel to combat high fuel prices. Senate Republican Policy Committee Chair Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) said she was “surprised” by the announcement and that "it raised questions" about whether the administration is following the law and Congress’s wishes, according to The Hill.

Flights to third countries where the detainees have no ties are scheduled as early as Wednesday, relatives detailSend us your questions about immigration and the midtermsRelatives of gravely ill detainees at two Florida immigration jails say authorities are about to deport their loved ones to unknown countries in Africa despite worsening medical conditions.Flights are scheduled as early as Wednesday, according to the families and the immigration advocacy group the Workers Circle, which has been monitoring conditions and speaking with detainees inside two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in south Florida. Continue reading...

President Donald Trump's Special Envoy for Peace Missions, Steve Witkoff, prostrated himself before Russia's Vladimir Putin at a summit on Wednesday — despite Putin's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, butcher of civilians, and the lack of any progress in getting him to back off his demands for territorial and political control of his neighbors."You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian," said Witkoff. "You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that, I commend you, and I thank you again."This display earned disgust and horror from commentators on social media, both in the U.S. and around the world."Holy s---, Witkoff just called Putin a 'humanitarian,'" wrote the account "Vatnik Soup." "Because of Putin, thousands of Ukrainian civilians are dead, hospitals lie in ruins, and people are suffering from hunger, torture and Russian terrorism.""What is clear is Putin is playing rope a dope with Trump/Witkoff: Release a hostage here, feign interest in peace talks there, signalling willingness to listen, while blaming Ukraine for intransigence. But never actually agreeing to change course," wrote John Foreman, an independent defense consultant and former British defence attaché in Moscow."The sheer insanity of American diplomacy under Trump is becoming difficult to comprehend," wrote Substacker Gandalv. "Steve Witkoff, a New York property developer somehow entrusted with negotiating Europe’s most consequential war since 1945, has just saluted Vladimir Putin as a humanitarian. The man who invaded Ukraine, ordered the destruction of its cities and presides over a state accused of abducting Ukrainian children. Apparently, releasing an American whom Russia wrongfully imprisoned makes Putin a humanitarian. Imagine sending a property salesman to negotiate with a war criminal, only to discover he cannot distinguish between a humanitarian gesture and the man responsible for creating the humanitarian catastrophe. They are so cringe.""US humiliation level 100," wrote Czech political analyst Vláďa Foltán."Absurd simpering obsequiousness from a representative of the most powerful country on earth, and another American humiliation, to add to the growing, growing list," wrote Kyiv Independent correspondent Jimmy Rushton.

A Republican lawmaker who worked as an FBI agent in Ukraine demands sworn testimony over a decision he warned "costs human lives."Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) told CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday that if Elon Musk ordered a lapse in Starshield coverage for Ukraine, as a report says, "that is likely a violation of the law." Fitzpatrick said Musk has authority over Starlink, the commercial satellite internet service, but not Starshield, which the congressman called "a military-grade national security tool.""No individual civilian should have any decision-making authority on how that's deployed," he said.Collins asked whether it was clear Musk was responsible. "Well, that's what the report says. But we got to investigate," said Fitzpatrick, a former FBI agent who chairs the Ukraine caucus in Congress."We got to call the witnesses. Got to bring them in, put them under oath, and get to the bottom of it," he said. "Because this is a very, very serious matter. It cannot be glossed over."He added that "lapsing Starshield in that manner" is something that "costs human lives," and "there's got to be consequences to that."Asked whether that could include putting Musk under oath, Fitzpatrick replied, "You got to interview everybody. Yes."He also threatened to hit the executive branch where it hurts, noting it "does not have a dime of their own money" and that there "needs to be financial consequences to any agency or any agency head that had any part in this."Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said earlier Tuesday that "we haven't pulled anything back" and that Starlink "has the option to make those decisions." Fitzpatrick wasn't satisfied."These answers are wildly insufficient," he said. "There's a lot of finger-pointing, a lot of people saying, well, not me. Okay, if not you, then who?"Fitzpatrick said he has spoken with several colleagues on both sides of the aisle and there is "a strong, strong resolve" to pursue oversight as soon as Congress returns.He didn't spare President Donald Trump either. Asked whether Trump is equivocating on Ukraine and Russia, Fitzpatrick said, "I think they all are." When Collins raised Trump's claim that Russia hasn't been doing much lately, the congressman shot back, "It's ridiculous.""Ukraine is our ally," he said. "Russia is the self-identified enemy of the United States."