Top World News
Jul 1, 2026
'It's incredible': CNN analysts stunned by 'enormous implications' of Trump crypto profits
CNN analysts stressed the gravity of revelations of Trump's major profits from cryptocurrency.According to a New York Times report, the Trump family profited to the tune of $1.4 billion through their cryptocurrency business. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper described the revelations as "incredible" and "stunning" as he spoke with other analysts. According to the Times report, Trump reeled in more than $2.2 billion in total revenue in 2025."It really is hard to overstate just how unusual and how historic this is," New York Times investigative reporter Eric Lipton told Cooper.According to Lipton, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar bought half of the Trump family's crypto business. Lipton pointed out that the sons of Steve Witkoff, who was involved in negotiations with Iran, were also invested."We're talking about billions of dollars of financial ties between the UAE and the Trump family, at the same time as he is negotiating, sharing some of the most advanced technologies humans have ever created, and these AI chips with the UAE," Lipton explained. "There are enormous implications in foreign policy that are mixed up with the personal financial interests of the president."Veteran tech journalist Kara Swisher said the Trump administration is "a coin-operated presidency, really. You just put money in to give to him, and then he gives you other things, and this is exactly what's happening with the crypto stuff."She described the news of Trump's crypto profits as "astonishing," and mentioned that Trump's family is also profiting from a recent mining deal with Kazakhstan."It's a vig," Swisher said, using a loansharking term. "They go around from country to country shaking people down."
Jul 1, 2026
'Off the Richter scale': Presidential historian raises red flags about Trump mining deal
A presidential historian is sounding the alarm about a recent mining deal that's expected to enrich the Trump family."The audacity is so off the Richter scale," Douglas Brinkley said about a deal between the Trump administration and Kazakhstan to access one of the world's largest untapped reserves of tungsten.The New York Times reported on the $1.6 billion tungsten mining deal with the Central Asian country. The Times noted that the sons of both Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stand to benefit. Tungsten is used in "missile warheads, fighter jets, computer chips, and other critical goods," the Times noted.Brinkley reacted to details of the deal as reported by the NY Times during an appearance on The Jim Acosta Show on Tuesday."People aren't sure what's even going on," Brinkley said. "You have to hope the law will eventually hold President Trump accountable if he did some things that are illegal and illicit, but the law moves slowly."Brinkley agreed with host Jim Acosta's assessment that Trump's self-enrichment during his second term is unprecedented."Just think, not that long ago, there was a scandal because Jimmy Carter's brother Billy had a beer, or you know, Neil Bush got involved with a bit of a hedge fund banking thing run a little bit amok," Brinkley said. "They're so small, and then this is such a huge wake-up call, people."The way Brinkley sees it, "you're having a president of the United States using the White House for personal self-enrichment of a kind of mind-boggling audacity," adding that "it's a crisis, but we've got to get through it."Read on Substack
Jun 30, 2026
Pakistan roof collapse kills 14 children at tutoring centre
Local officials said preliminary reports showed the centre was unregistered and operating inside a privately owned residential building Fourteen children died after the roof of a tutoring centre collapsed in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore on Tuesday, rescue officials have said, as authorities opened the way for a possible negligence investigation.Punjab’s emergency service said rescuers found children and a 30-year-old female teacher under the rubble of the private after-school facility. The children killed were aged five to 16 with most below nine. Continue reading...
Jun 30, 2026
Trump skewered for 'un-American' response to Supreme Court ruling: 'He should resign'
The internet criticized President Donald Trump's response on Tuesday to the Supreme Court ruling that upheld birthright citizenship and rejected the president's executive order.Trump posted a bizarre — and apparently sarcastic — statement on his Truth Social platform following the ruling."I would like to congratulate President Xi, and the Great Country of China, on their massive Birthright Citizenship WIN!" Trump wrote.Media and political commentators responded to the president's remarks."Sour, miserable, and un-American, even by the denatured standards of this president," Tom Nichols, staff writer at The Atlantic, wrote on X."He should resign if he doesn't like the Constitution he swore to uphold. UnAmerican!" Peggy Gabour, progressive political commentator, wrote on X."Translation: 'I’m super jealous that a dictator got permission to flush human rights down the toilet and I didn’t,'" Patric Reynolds, comic book artist and political commentator, wrote on Bluesky."Sorry, but isn’t Trump born of an immigrant?" The political account Mary Shelley’s Fluoxetine wrote on Bluesky.Sour, miserable, and un-American, even by the denatured standards of this president https://t.co/Ougc2u5ot5— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) June 30, 2026
Jun 30, 2026
Delhi plans to ban petrol rickshaws and scooters in effort to cut toxic fumes
Government hopes for 30% of city’s fleet to be electric by 2030, in move hailed as ‘gamechanger’ on air pollutionThe unruly chaos of Delhi’s roads would be unrecognisable without the rickshaws and scooters that zip through India’s capital in their millions, emitting toxic fumes in their wake. But now, ambitious policies aim to give the city’s most recognisable vehicles an environmental makeover.On Monday, Delhi’s government announced plans to eventually ban petrol scooters, motorbikes and autorickshaws in favour of those running on electricity, in an attempt to bring down dangerously high pollution levels in the city by the end of the decade. Continue reading...
Jun 30, 2026
Putin admits to failure that blows up Trump's big Alaska win
Russian President Vladimir Putin has publicly disavowed the existence of any formal agreement reached during his August summit with President Donald Trump in Alaska, undercutting months of Kremlin messaging that had treated the meeting as a diplomatic turning point in the war in Ukraine.Senior Russian officials had insisted for months that a path to ending the war — largely on Moscow's terms — had effectively been settled in Anchorage, with only Ukrainian resistance standing in the way, but that narrative has unraveled in recent days, and Putin himself finally undercut Trump's diplomatic claims, reported the Washington Post.“There were indeed no agreements reached in Anchorage," Putin told reporters Sunday.“The spirit of Anchorage — although it wasn’t expressed in any formal documents, and no one put any signatures down — in Anchorage we discussed certain possibilities for ending the crisis in Ukraine,” Putin added, "and the compromises discussed were precisely the proposals the American side made to us.”Three top Russian officials recently accused the White House of failing to honor the supposed Alaska agreement, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov going so far as to suggest the summit may have been a U.S. "ploy to buy time to rearm the Kyiv regime," but Secretary of State Marco Rubio pushed back on the premise that any deal had been reached at all."If there had been an agreement, we would have had an end of the war," Rubio told reporters, noting that Russia's actual demands — including the entirety of Ukraine's Donetsk region — had never been agreed to.Analysts close to the Kremlin suggest the reversal reflects a shifting battlefield reality rather than a change of heart. Fyodor Lukyanov, a foreign policy analyst who advises the Kremlin, wrote that Trump likely arrived in Anchorage believing Ukraine's defeat was inevitable, but that Kyiv and European allies have since spent 10 months convincing him otherwise.That shift comes as Russian forces have stalled on the battlefield for the first time in four years, while Ukraine has scaled up drone production enough to sustain strikes deep inside Russian territory, including on occupied Crimea. Military analysts say Russia is increasingly playing catch-up technologically, even as it retains advantages in manpower and conventional weaponry.Meanwhile, Trump's attention has been pulled toward the conflict with Iran, and no major diplomatic breakthrough favoring Russia has emerged since the Anchorage summit.Putin said Sunday that Russia expects renewed U.S.-led peace talks, including a visit from envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, once the situation with Iran is resolved — suggesting Moscow still hopes to revive negotiations on more favorable terms, even as it now concedes the much-touted Alaska "deal" never actually existed.
Jun 28, 2026
Trump's war backfires as Iran now declares it must 'obtain the atomic bomb': MAGA expert
Iranian state media has reportedly declared that the country now has "no choice but to obtain the atomic bomb," according to a post circulating online — a statement that, if accurate, would mark a dramatic escalation amid the ongoing exchange of strikes between the U.S. and Iran.The claim was relayed by the account The Hormuz Letter, which posted what it described as a breaking statement from Iranian state media. According to that post, Iranian state media argued the country must "absolutely reach nuclear deterrence" before current negotiations can be conducted, framing the pursuit of a weapon as necessary to remove what it called "the military option for the occupation and partitioning of Iran" from the table.The reported statement seized the attention of David Pyne, an America First conservative who posts under @AmericaFirstCon and who has been sharply critical of the administration's handling of Iran. Pyne argued the development vindicated his earlier warnings about the consequences of President Donald Trump's approach."Iran is responding to Trump's continued nuclear threats against it by building more nuclear missiles just as I predicted they would do," Pyne wrote. He contended that "Trump's war on Iran hasn't reduced Iran's nuclear threat in any way" but had instead "served to greatly magnify and expand Iran's nuclear threat against the US and Israel."Pyne went further, delivering a stinging assessment of the president's broader record."Trump's disastrous foreign policy and endless unwinnable wars make Jimmy Carter look like a veritable foreign policy genius by comparison," he wrote.The reported statement also caught the attention of Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, who reacted with unease. "Ugh. Hope it's just bluster; fear it is not," McFaul wrote, sharing the same post.The reported declaration comes against the backdrop of a rapidly deteriorating ceasefire, with the U.S. carrying out repeated strikes on Iranian targets in recent days and Trump himself warning that "the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist" if forced to "militarily complete the job." Trump has also continued to insist that "Iran will never have a Nuclear Weapon."The Iranian framing — that only a nuclear deterrent can forestall foreign intervention — runs directly counter to the administration's stated goal of ending Tehran's weapons ambitions, and underscores the risk that the military campaign could harden rather than halt Iran's nuclear drive.
Jun 28, 2026
Defense official stuns with answer to why US keeps having to restrike same Iranian sites
A senior U.S. defense official has explained why the American military keeps returning to bomb the same Iranian targets it has already struck repeatedly since the conflict began in late February, according to Fox News national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin.In a post on social media, Griffin said she pressed the official on why the U.S. has had to go back and restrike sites that have been hit multiple times since February 28, when the war began. The answer, she reported, was that Iran has rebuilt its air defense and missile systems along the Strait of Hormuz in the months since the U.S. bombing campaign wound down on April 7.That reconstitution, the source told Griffin, is why the military is now having to strike areas like Qeshm Island and Sirik that it had already targeted in the past."In the time since the cease fire on 7 April, Iran has reconstituted — thus the targets around the Strait of Hormuz," the official told Griffin.The official acknowledged the scale of the damage already inflicted on Iranian positions while making clear that Tehran has adapted."There is a LOT that is damaged… a LOT… but they moved things around," the source said.Griffin noted that roughly 10 weeks had passed since the April ceasefire was announced — a window during which, by the official's account, Iran was able to rebuild enough capability to draw fresh U.S. strikes.The reporting offers a window into the cyclical nature of the campaign, in which previously degraded Iranian systems are repaired and repositioned, prompting renewed American attacks. The post was amplified by conservative commentator Erick Erickson.I asked a senior defense official why the US has had to go back and restrike these sites that have been hit multiple times since February 28 when the war began. I was told Iran has reconstituted its air defense and missile systems along the Strait of Hormuz since the US bombing…— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) June 27, 2026
Jun 28, 2026
Columnist recounts trying to hang up on Trump during 'very strange' phone call
A British columnist's phone call with Trump was so "strange" that he began looking for a way to end it.Financial Times columnist Ed Luce recounted the interaction during an episode of The Mona Charen Show. Luce said that, at the request of his editor, he called Trump around the start of the Iran war."I wondered about the usefulness of this," Luce said about the call, which he described as "very strange." The call even reminded him of "Alice in Wonderland," Luce said.Luce said that he had called Trump before, saying, "He's perfectly friendly. He answers my questions, and sometimes talks for quite a long time."In this phone call, Trump "started repeating himself" after 15 minutes, Luce said. "I contrived to end the call, which I never expected. I said, 'Mr. President, I know you're really busy.'"Luce said Trump started to ask him questions about the Iran war, like, "Should I take the oil? Should I take Kharg Island?""The response I gave was, 'I'm not qualified to answer that, Mr. President,' and I tried finding out, 'Is this an option you're considering?'" Luce said. "But it became very clear to me, and everyone else really, by about between the 7th and 10th of March, very early on into Operation Epic Fury, that he was looking for an offramp."However, the show's host, conservative writer Mona Charen, added that "people who are members of his golf club" say that Trump often asks for advice from random people."He would just bump into people on the links, and he would say to any random golfer, 'So what should I do about North Korea and the nukes?'" Charen said. "It's just mindboggling."
Jun 27, 2026
'Iran will no longer exist': Trump launches new bombing threat after fresh strikes
President Donald Trump issued a stark threat against Iran on Saturday night, warning that the country could cease to exist if it continues attacking, as he announced a new round of U.S. strikes targeting Iranian military sites.In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said American aircraft had hit Iranian missile and drone storage locations along with coastal radar sites, accusing Tehran of breaching the ceasefire yet again."United States aircraft just struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations, and coastal radar sites, for violating the Cease Fire Agreement, AGAIN!" Trump wrote, adding an exasperated, "It is very possible that they will never learn!"The president then escalated to an explicit warning about the conflict's potential trajectory."There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started," Trump wrote. "If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!"The post came amid a rapidly deteriorating ceasefire, with U.S. and Iranian forces exchanging fire following attacks on commercial shipping near the Strait of Hormuz.In a separate post minutes earlier, Trump amplified a quote from adviser Stephen Miller attacking Democrats, linking to a Fox News video.
Jun 27, 2026
Nobel winner delivers scathing Musk takedown: 'Blood of millions of children on his hands'
A Nobel laureate held the world's richest man Elon Musk responsible for the deaths of millions of children in a scathing takedown.Renowned economist Paul Krugman called Musk "a horrible, terrible person" in a recent episode of his podcast. Krugman mostly focused on Musk's cuts to USAID while in the Trump administration."For most of last year, Elon Musk was the second most powerful man in America," Krugman explained. "He was running a large part of the government's budget, and during that time, he established a track record of evil incompetence."Musk "fed USAID to the wood chipper," and "more or less personally set out to destroy this aid agency, set out to cut off healthcare, nutritional assistance, just basic necessities of life for millions and millions of extremely desperate people," Krugman said, adding that "he did so callously, carelessly."Krugman continued, saying, "I mean, really evil and really incompetent on enormous scales, and why aren't people talking about it more?"USAID was "the principal channel for aid to the most desperate, poorest people in the world," Krugman continued. Cuts by Musk have "led to millions of unnecessary deaths, including millions of children," Krugman added, saying the point was proven by studies, health models, and "field evidence of widespread death as a result of the cancellation."He described Musk as "quite evil," and "very much like Trump, somebody who can dish it out, but can't take it, can't even handle the kind of criticism that any public figure should expect to receive," Krugman said.On Holding Elon Musk Accountable by Paul KrugmanWhy aren't we talking more about DOGE?Read on Substack
Jun 27, 2026
Supreme Court blew chance to erase legacy of law-breaking Kristi Noem: conservative
“The pungent odor of Kristi Noem lingers in Washington.”Those are the opening words of longtime conservative columnist George Will, whose column in the Washington Post hammered the 6-3 Supreme Court majority for wrongly dismantling the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program depended upon by hundreds of thousands of immigrants.According to Will, the conservative majority deliberately ignored overwhelming evidence that Kristi Noem's actions were driven by racial "animus," and therefore "violated the pertinent law."As he pointed out, within three days of the former Department of Homeland Security head terminating TPS for Haitians and Syrians, which led to the court case that made its way to the nation's highest court, Noem publicly recommended "a full travel ban on every damn country that's been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies" who "slaughter our heroes" and "suck dry our hard-earned tax dollars."He dryly added, "She [Noem] refrained from echoing Trump’s assertion about kitten-cooking Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. This marks her as a MAGA moderate. JD Vance spread the pet-eating fiction because he said creating 'stories' (his word) makes the media notice Americans’ suffering.""Surely justices are not required to ignore such rhetoric? And although thoughtful people disagree about whether, or how much, justices should consider the downstream consequences of their rulings," he suggested.Expressing his disappointment with the conservative-majority court, he offered, "Time and freshening breezes will cleanse Washington, dissipating the legacies of appointees like Noem, and of the president who chose them. The court’s mistaken ruling she provoked will be more lasting."
