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A senior aide to U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee stopped an urgent warning from reaching Washington that Israel might be violating one of President Donald Trump's clearest demands, according to a new report.The New York Times reported that Israel approved in March more West Bank settlements at once than it ever had before , and staff at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem saw the move as possibly crossing Trump's red line against annexing the West Bank – so they wrote an urgent memo for policymakers in Washington.According to three U.S. officials, Huckabee's top adviser David Milstein quashed it.The Times reported that this wasn't the only time. A dozen people who work with Milstein told the paper that since he arrived in April 2025, he has repeatedly blocked or rewritten embassy reporting to make Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government look better.When settler violence in the West Bank surged this spring, embassy staff drafted reports suggesting Israel was failing to stop it, but officials said Milstein blocked them. The cable that instead went to Washington, with Milstein listed as first author, was titled "Government Cracks Down on Escalating West Bank Violence."Milstein also buried a report on investigations into the killings of nine Palestinian Americans by Israeli settlers and soldiers, according to officials. Embassy staff found that most of the cases had stalled, some had been closed and no one had been charged. Milstein argued for telling Congress that Israel was handling the cases properly."If you don't get accountability, you endanger more American citizens," said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who led 30 lawmakers in asking for answers.Embassy cables dropped from several a week to a few a month after Milstein took control of the section that handles Palestinian affairs. Staffers told the Times they stopped writing reports because they expected him to block them, and he also reportedly asked colleagues whether they were "pro-Israel" or "pro-Hamas."The gap between what the embassy reported and what was in the news became wide enough that White House and State Department officials contacted embassy staff directly at least twice to find out what was happening, the Times reported.Some senior White House officials have complained about Milstein to colleagues.The Times said it isn't clear whether Milstein's actions changed White House policy. It also isn't clear whether the blocked memos would have reached Trump himself. But since February, Trump has said little about annexation even as Israel has expanded its control of the West Bank.Milstein, 36, is the stepson of right-wing radio host Mark Levin, a close ally of both Trump and Netanyahu, and officials told the Times those relationships affect how he is treated. He previously worked for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TeX) and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis."The embassy ought to tell Washington everything — the good, the bad and the ugly," said Dan Kurtzer, who was ambassador to Israel under President George W. Bush. "If they're not doing so, they are damaging the policy-making process and possibly undermining the president's policies."Huckabee didn't address any of the specific incidents, and he blew off the Times' reporting as "so lacking in fact that it ranks up with other Times farcical endeavors" and said he "categorically" rejects it.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says the revelation that two of President Donald Trump’s top political advisers worked for a pro-Russian government in the Balkans while the midterms loom is a sign Republicans are looking beyond Trump, according to Politico.Christie, a Republican who Politico says is considering another White House run, said the episode is indicative of the party looking past the Trump era.“If your top political advisors are not paying attention to the midterms and instead are paying attention to taking money off the table in a foreign country, that seems to indicate to me that they’ve moved on from Donald Trump as their top priority, and I think you’re going to see a lot of that,” Christie said.His comments follow a New York Times report that Chris LaCivita and James Blair spent several days in Republika Srpska, a partly self-governing region of Bosnia, in the week before Sunday’s elections there. Each was reportedly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars through a Washington law firm to advise the government on voting issues. The midterms are Nov. 3.Trump, who according to Politico, wasn’t aware of the trip, distanced himself from the pair in a Truth Social post on Wednesday. “They do not work for me, other than as outside consultants,” he wrote, adding that they are “allowed to do work for others” and that if there is a conflict, “I will terminate them, immediately!” The post came just months after Trump hailed Blair as “one of the brightest political minds in the Country” and tasked him with helping Republicans win the midterms, Politico noted.Not everyone sees the trip as a problem for the party’s midterm push. A Republican consultant working for MAGA Inc. told Politico the group’s work wasn’t affected because most of it is done by phone. “We were summoned to a 9 a.m. Saturday conference call where we went over polling information for two hours,” the consultant said. “I didn’t know they were out of town till I read it in The New York Times.”

Responding to a Guardian report that revealed thousands of tonnes of fuel was transported to Russia, Seoul said it was investigating the casesSouth Korea will take legal action if it finds that shipments of fuel from its ports to Russia broke domestic law, the government has said, responding to a Guardian report on the trade.The government, in a statement issued by the foreign and trade ministries and the customs service, said that it is “checking additional information concerning the loading cases reported by the Guardian” and “if the verification establishes that our laws and regulations have been violated, it plans to act in accordance with the law”. Continue reading...

Investigators probe Asahi, Kirin, Suntory and Sapporo breweries – which together control more than 90% of Japan’s beer marketJapanese authorities have raided the country’s four biggest breweries over suspicions they colluded to set the price of beer and other beverages – a practice media reports said could have forced drinkers to pay over the odds.Officials from the Fair Trade Commission this week searched the offices of Asahi Breweries, Kirin Brewery, Suntory Beer and Sapporo Breweries – which together control more than 90% of the domestic market. The quartet are suspected of violating the anti-monopoly law. Continue reading...

Despite widespread reporting that the mass protests in France were sparked by students over deteriorating school conditions, President Donald Trump took to social media Tuesday to claim they were instead about Muslims’ purported desire to “take over” the European nation.The protests began last month in Paris suburbs, led by high school students protesting “overcrowded classrooms, teacher absences, outdated facilities and other grievances,” Euronews reported. The protests soon spread nationwide and have resulted in violent clashes with police. More than 5,000 people have been arrested, 190 students injured, and a 15-year-old boy reportedly lost his hand in clashes with law enforcement.Trump insisted he knew different, however, blaming the civil unrest squarely on migration and the nation’s Muslim population.“What’s happening in France is nothing less than out of control mass migration,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “This isn’t about schools, this is about Islam wanting to take over a once great Country!”Trump has long targeted Muslims in both rhetoric and policy. During his first presidential campaign, he called for an explicit ban on Muslims entering the country. Shortly after taking office in 2017, he signed an executive order barring travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries, a policy widely dubbed the “Muslim ban.”In June 2025, Trump revived the policy with a sweeping ban on travelers from 12 countries, including the Muslim-majority nations of Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

Donald Trump’s comment that Iran is free to attack major population centers on the West Coast has created outrage among those seeing it on the news, but failed to have much impact on his rally attendees.That is according to MS NOW’s Mychael Schnell, who is traveling with the president and was on hand when he blurted, “They can take out a city. Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego — it’ll be over very soon.”Appearing with MS NOW host Stephanie Ruhle, Schnell admitted, “I can tell you for myself, I was standing on the press riser in that room, and it was the moment where I thought to myself, ‘Did I really just hear that correctly? Is that what the president said?’”“I can tell you there were some applause and some claps in the room after that line, but there wasn't a rousing reaction that maybe President Trump would anticipate,” she continued before offering, “Because, to that point that you just alluded to, Nebraskans right now are struggling with high gas prices, particularly high diesel prices that are well over $6 a gallon, which is squeezing farmers.”“Farmers make up such a key part of the workforce here,” she elaborated. “They're unable to power up their tractors, their pickup trucks and other machinery on their farms because of the high diesel costs, so Nebraskans here don't see this as a laughing matter.” - YouTube youtu.be

Donald Trump’s suggestion that he would let Iran attack Los Angeles or San Diego at a Nebraska rally on Monday night led MS NOW’s Jonathan Lemire to raise the possibility that the president might be teasing out something.During a “Morning Joe” panel discussion that focused an extensive amount of time on Trump telling the crowd, “They [Iran] can take out a city. Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego," Lemire added a warning.Asserting Trump is “…trying to justify a failed war of choice, a war that has made the economic situation for most Americans worse and there's no end in sight,” Lemire continued, "Despite what he claims, he's saddling Republicans with another unpopular issue.”“They're going to be asked about this,” he predicted.“Now, also, we know President Trump has next to no filter,” he observed. “He's blurting something out of nowhere about Los Angeles or San Diego. Is it possible he received some sort of briefing that there's actually a threat against one of those cities, and he's now just saying that? Or at the very least, this is now yet another moment of where there is no bottom.” - YouTube youtu.be

A glib rally comment by Donald Trump on Monday night that he would be fine with Iran bombing either Los Angeles or San Diego set off a call for his impeachment on MS NOW on Tuesday morning.Speaking in Grand Island, Nebraska, the American president made an off-the-cuff remark when talking about the cost of the war, telling the applauding crowd it was “a small price to pay for keeping the world safe – keeping our country safe."“They can take out a city,” he continued before adding, “Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay.”After sharing the clip on “Morning Joe,” the hosts said the president’s defenders were already dismissing the comment as a “joke” no one should take seriously.They were not amused.“President Trump last night in Nebraska, again, trying to justify the higher prices Americans are paying for fuel and other goods, while also just casually calling for Iran to attack two of the most populous cities in the United States, “ co-host Mike Brzezinski remarked.Co-host Joe Scarborough added, “Yeah. You know, there will be some, ‘Oh, he's just joking. He's just —.' Well, okay, well, great. Tell me then, please, what other American president in our history post-Civil War, have called for the destruction of entire cities — joking. If this is your joke, this is your idea of a presidential joke, joking about the killing of 10 million or so people? Is that, is that where we are?”“I don't get when the president of the United States says Iran can obliterate Los Angeles and San Diego — not funny — if you're an American who actually believes that presidents should do more than divide us,” he added.Co-host Willie Geist pointed out, “As you say, Joe, it goes without saying that if any other president, especially a Democrat, let's say Barack Obama, for example, or Joe Biden made that joke, there would be outrage across the board and maybe calls for impeachment.”“Well, of course there would be calls for impeachment,” Scarborough agreed, “if he called for the obliteration of, say, Jacksonville or Birmingham, or if it were a Democratic president calling for the obliteration of Republican cities. Of course, of course, there would be immediate calls for impeachment.” - YouTube youtu.be