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Following a wave of fierce backlash, President Donald Trump claimed Thursday that Ukraine’s access to SpaceX’s Starlink services had been fully restored — only to have that claim immediately undercut by a Ukrainian official, Axios’ Barak Ravid reported Friday.Last week, Ukraine’s ability to use Starlink services for combat drone missions was compromised after its access to the broadband internet service was restricted without warning. Some prominent Ukrainian figures suspected Trump was behind the move given the president’s growing frustrations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.Subsequent reporting tied the newly imposed Starlink restrictions directly to the White House, and on Thursday, Trump neither confirmed nor denied the allegations that he had spoken to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk about restoring Ukraine’s access to Starlink.“I don't want to comment on it, you know, whether I called or whether somebody else called. Doesn't make any difference,” Trump told reporters. “The bottom line: He put it back.”And yet, despite Trump’s claim, a Ukrainian official disputed the president within a matter of hours.“A Ukrainian official tells me that Starlink and Starshield are still restricted in Ukraine despite Trump's claim that it is back up,” Ravid wrote in a post on X.????A Ukrainian official tells me that Starlink and Starshield are still restricted in Ukraine despite Trump's claim that it is back up— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) October 23, 2026

Several senior Trump administration officials expressed fears that the president’s next move may very well send the U.S. and global economies “further cratering,” Zeteo reported Friday.According to multiple reports citing Trump administration officials, the president appears poised to renew attacks on Iran in a matter of days. Earlier this month, the Pentagon instructed U.S. Central Command to finish preparations for resuming major combat operations, and on Thursday, The Atlantic reported that President Donald Trump was “considering” authorizing “several days of strikes.”Speaking on the condition of anonymity, several senior Trump administration officials warned that such a move could prove disastrous on multiple fronts.“Several senior officials I spoke to are (to put it mildly) massively skeptical that revving Trump’s war machine back up will bring about the (supposedly) intended result of forcing the Iranian government to make significant concessions and end the war in Trump’s favor,” Zeteo’s Asawin Suebsaeng reported. “These officials also fear a further cratering of the U.S. and global economies, which have already suffered significantly during the oil crisis and other shockwaves caused by Trump’s war and Iran’s shuttering of the Strait of Hormuz. (This is to say nothing of the likelihood of a growing death toll in multiple nations, the danger to U.S. troops, and other inevitabilities if Trump keeps at it.)”Iranian officials have already made clear that a U.S. attack would be met with an immediate response, including the destruction of Middle East oil facilities, submarine communication cables and AI facilities and data centers in the region.“In the event of a war, cables, datacentres and artificial intelligence facilities could also be targeted. If the conflict breaks out again, we will have a broader plan,” said Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, according to Iranian state media.“There can be no arrangement in which Iran’s economic lifelines come under attack while the economic architecture enabling those attacks is considered untouched and immune.”

Case filed in 2022 by patient unable to afford medicine leads to cap on drug prices for millions who face ruin if diagnosedThe Indian government has moved to reduce the price of cancer drugs after a retired bank clerk took her case to the supreme court.From next month, 137 cancer drugs in India will be cheaper as the government tries to tackle the tragedy of poorer patients either forgoing treatment, selling land or falling into debt to meet the high cost of some medicines, which are making large profits for hospitals and pharmacists. Continue reading...

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...

Hepatitis B study in Guinea-Bissau that was to be funded by CDC and that drew global backlash ‘will not move forward’The US-backed hepatitis B vaccine trial in African newborns that drew global backlash was halted, the lead researcher said on Wednesday.It was “now clear” that the study “will not move forward in Guinea-Bissau”, Frederik Schaltz-Buchholzer, a Danish researcher, wrote on LinkedIn, adding, “we were not given the necessary governmental approval.” Continue reading...

Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka spent a week in jail after defying restrictions on protests in Delhi amid government crackdownAn Indian court has ordered the release of two leaders of India’s Cockroach movement who were jailed last week amid a mounting state crackdown on youth-led protests.The two leaders of the Cockroach Janta party (CJP) movement, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, had spent a week in Delhi’s Tihar jail after being arrested by Delhi police last week. Continue reading...

Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander was detained by Israeli troops in the West Bank while helping Palestinian farmers harvest olives, an Israeli rights group said.Lander, the former New York City comptroller, announced his detention Wednesday in a post on X that included a selfie taken aboard a bus.About 90 volunteers with Rabbis for Human Rights, an Israeli group, were detained near Nahalin, a village outside Bethlehem, the Jerusalem Post reported. A source told the Post that Lander was later released with a warning.“I’ve been detained by the IDF, along with a group of rabbis & volunteers. We were simply harvesting olives in a grove near Nehalim in the West Bank,” Lander wrote. “The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know.”Lander won the Democratic nomination for New York’s 10th Congressional District in June, defeating Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), PoliticsNY reported. He faces Republican Jennifer Moore in November, according to News 12.In a video posted by the group Israelis for Peace, Lander said, “They’ve just told us that all of the non-Israelis, all of the internationals who have been harvesting today, are gonna get on that bus. That is to say, we’re being arrested by the Israeli military for harvesting olives.”“We were not causing any problem or making any threats to anyone,” he said. “[Palestinians] haven’t harvested it since Oct. 7 because they’re afraid Israeli settlers will come and beat them or burn their olive trees.”Anton Goodman, acting executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, said in a statement quoted by the Post, “We came to accompany farmers to land they had been unable to access for three years, and after two hours of peaceful olive harvesting, large numbers of troops arrived and closed off the area.”“Instead of protecting people working their land, the army is keeping them away from it and detaining those who came to accompany them for identification,” Goodman said.Troops declared the field a closed military zone, an area off-limits to civilians, the Post reported. Activists told the outlet they agreed to go but were detained anyway.Palestinian olive pickers were detained along with the activists, the Times of Israel reported, citing Palestinian media.Police took the foreign volunteers to a regional military headquarters for questioning, a source told the Post. One detainee told the outlet that no one was harmed. The Israel Defense Forces did not respond to the Post’s request for comment.Rabbi Jill Jacobs, CEO of the rabbinic human rights group T’ruah, and former Israeli Deputy Attorney General Yehoshua Schoffman were among those detained, the Post reported.Jacobs said in a statement that the military “forcibly removed those who came to provide a protective presence.”Gilad Kariv, a member of Israel’s parliament from the Democrats party, said that the group "did not break any laws or violate any lawful orders, nor did they confront anyone.”Israeli authorities are inclined to deport the foreign activists, a source told the Post.

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.