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Former President George W. Bush appeared to take a jab by praising the general who is pushing President Donald Trump to end his war in Iran, five miles from the crucial Republican midterm convention he did not attend.Bush made the remark Wednesday during an onstage appearance at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, where former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice interviewed him for the center's "Engage" series.About five miles away, the Republican Party was opening its first-ever midterm convention at the American Airlines Center, a two-day event billed as a celebration of Trump's America First agenda, Axios reported. Trump and Vice President JD Vance were the only confirmed speakers, and Bush was not expected to be among them.In his opening remarks, Bush thanked the center's staff before turning to Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was in the audience."Thank God you are where you are, and we appreciate it," Bush said.The war with Iran was nearly six months old, and Trump's top general had spent weeks telling other administration officials privately that the United States needed a way out of a conflict the president chose to enter, CNN reported in August.Caine made clear to other senior Trump advisers that the military options for escalating the war could backfire, and that bombing alone was unlikely to achieve the president's stated goals, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN."Caine is looking for an off ramp," one of the sources said bluntly.He raised the same concerns with CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vance, and coordinated with them before meetings with the president so they could lay out the limits of the options on the table, two of the sources told CNN."I think it is just his way of protecting the military," one of the sources said of those conversations.Caine had made a version of the argument in public, telling lawmakers at a hearing that "airpower has its limits," according to CNN.Senior military commanders believe American munitions stockpiles are "dangerously low," and Caine raised the shortage with Trump in at least two meetings where escalation was discussed, CNN reported.Before the war began, Trump had invoked Caine by name in a post claiming his top military adviser believed the conflict "will be something easily won," according to CNN.In the same White House meeting where he raised the stockpile problem, Caine told Trump that the military could "absolutely wreck" Iran if the president decided to go ahead, one source told CNN."He's definitely pulling punches," a source familiar with Caine's interactions with Trump told CNN, comparing those White House conversations with what the general says privately to military leaders."He is out of his depth on this one," another source familiar with Caine's handling of the war told CNN.Caine's spokesman, Joseph Holstead, declined to discuss the chairman's private conversations with the president or other senior officials and rejected what he called anonymous, agenda-driven descriptions of them, CNN reported."General Caine is an incredible asset to President Trump's national security team, and the overwhelming success of Operations Epic Fury, Midnight Hammer, and Absolute Resolve speaks for itself," a White House official told CNN.Privately, Caine has told people he wants to restore trust in his post and in the military more broadly "even as Trump has politicized both," according to CNN.Bush did not mention Trump, the war, or Caine's role in it. Video of the moment circulated Thursday morning after the account Headquarters posted it on X. The account wrote that Bush "appears to shade Trump by praising the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine," and paired the line with a clip of the exchange.Bush has criticized the direction of American politics before without naming Trump, Axios reported, most pointedly in a 2017 speech at his presidential center."Bigotry seems emboldened," Bush said in that address. "Our politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication."Bush did not name Trump in that speech either, and he has generally said little publicly about him.He declined to endorse a candidate in the 2024 election, Axios reported. Trump, for his part, once said it would have been "wonderful" if then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) had moved to impeach Bush over the Iraq war.The absence from this week's convention underscores the split between the Trump-era Republican Party and the Bush-era version of it, Axios reported. A person familiar with the convention planning, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said Bush was not expected to appear.Republican National Committee spokesman Zach Kraft said Trump and Vance were the only speakers confirmed at that point and declined to say whether Bush had been invited, Axios reported. Bush's office did not respond to the outlet's question about an invitation.Bush had already made other plans for the week. KERA reported that he had previously scheduled events marking the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.Dallas has been Bush's home base since the early 1990s. His presidential library sits on the Southern Methodist University campus, and a stretch of highway in the city is named for him, Axios reported.The convention hall sits a 4.9-mile drive from the center, about 17 minutes in traffic.Rice, who conducted Wednesday's interview, is the person Bush has said he wrote in for president in 2020, according to Axios.

The United States is facing an imminent “strategic disaster” as Yemen’s Houthis inch closer to capturing a major oil trade “chokepoint,” The Guardian reported Thursday, a development that could soon open a “second front” in President Donald Trump’s deeply unpopular war against Iran.Multiple news outlets reported Thursday that the Houthis had captured the Yemeni town of Mocha, which sits on the coast of the Red Sea in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which, like the Strait of Hormuz, is a major chokepoint for global shipping. According to Euronews, the two straits account for roughly a “quarter of daily petroleum and crude shipments, and nearly one-third of the world's maritime trade.”The Houthis are also working toward seizing complete control of Yemen’s west coast on the Red Sea, having previously vowed to block all Saudi Arabia shipments out of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.“Seizure of the coast would be a strategic disaster for Saudi Arabia and the US, taking Iran and its proxies closer to full control of two chokepoints for western shipping on opposite sides of the Arabian peninsula,” The Guardian’s report reads.“Observers have said a reduction in hostilities — the most intense since the UN-sponsored ceasefire of April 2022 put an end to major military exchanges — now seems unlikely in what is seen as an attempt by the Houthis to open a second front in the Iran-US war, alongside the battle for control of Hormuz.”The new threat to global trade comes as diesel prices in the United States soared to an all-time average high of $5.85 a gallon, breaking the previous record set in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Average costs for regular gasoline have spiked as well, reaching $4.15 a gallon last week.As noted by The Guardian, Saudi Arabia had also become increasingly “reliant” on traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait following disruptions to trade through the Strait of Hormuz.

Following six years of talks, Pitt Rivers Museum will return body parts collected by British colonial administrators to north-east IndiaAnthropologists and community leaders from Nagaland, a remote state in north-eastern India bordering Myanmar, have expressed joy and relief that human remains belonging to their ancestors that had been on display in a British museum for nearly a century are finally being returned.On Monday, the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford announced that 39 pieces of human remains – including parts of skulls, a finger and a piece of skin with hair – belonging to the Naga tribes, will be returned to Nagaland after six years of negotiation between the community and the museum. Continue reading...

White House advisers have privately warned President Donald Trump that the Iran conflict could last through the end of his term.According to a Wednesday article by The Wall Street Journal, the message cuts sharply against the swift victory Trump has promised the public. Citing unnamed U.S. officials, The Journal reported that Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and others have told the president in the Oval Office and Situation Room that Tehran may keep resisting the American pressure campaign well past Inauguration Day in January 2029.Trump has offered a far rosier timeline. He told reporters this week that the war would end "immediately" after November's midterm elections "because they can't hold out any longer," The Journal noted.The conflict is in its seventh month and has killed 18 service members, The Journal added. Rather than escalate major combat, Trump has leaned on a naval blockade and sanctions meant to force Tehran to abandon its nuclear program, a strategy the Trump administration has dubbed "Operation Economic Outcast."When asked about the war's trajectory, White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales defended the approach and played down any fixed timeline. "Only President Trump knows what he will do and when," she said, per The Journal.Vance likewise declined to set an end date. It would be "irresponsible" to write out a strategy and timeline for an adversary that keeps targeting commercial ships, he told reporters.Analysts told The Journal that a drawn-out siege looks increasingly likely and increasingly costly. Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institution said the blockade is "unlikely to produce a decisive outcome in the near or even medium term."Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group framed the standoff as a grinding stalemate that punishes both sides without breaking either."Everyone pays," he said. "But neither leadership is yet paying enough to accept the other side's terms."Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has already pushed some Middle East troop deployments into 2027, signaling Washington is bracing for a longer fight, The Journal reported.

Three men are on trial over the death of brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their friend, US citizen Jack Carter Rhoad, in EnsenadaThe father of two Australian surfers killed in Mexico two years ago testified in court on Tuesday that his life had been turned into hell, as the high-profile trial continued into its second day.Three men are charged in the killing of Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson, aged 30 and 33, respectively, and their 30-year-old American friend Jack Carter Rhoad, who were on a surfing trip to Mexico’s Pacific coast in April 2024. Continue reading...

India’s statistical system once commanded respect, and its data on economic and social indicators was considered rigorous – that appears to have eroded• Don’t get This is India delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereThere isn’t much that we Indians agree on these days. GDP numbers are no exception. Last week, India released glowing GDP numbers for the latest quarter – 7.8% growth – higher than the forecast 7%. It sparked a furore.Subhash Garg, a former finance secretary under Narendra Modi’s government and now a critic, reframed what Modi called a “herculean feat” as mere smoke and mirrors. According to Garg, the government revised last year’s current-price GDP downwards to inflate this year’s number – he believes the real growth is only 2.6%. Continue reading...

Foreign minister Shisir Khanal tells the Guardian the world’s biggest economies need to help Nepal, which contributes less than 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions Nepal is demanding $20m in climate compensation for the recent devastating floods, as a senior minister called on the world’s most polluting countries to “wake up” and accept shared responsibility for a disaster that led to the death or disappearance of more than 6,000 people.Scientists believe the climate crisis had a role to play in the floods, which were triggered when a melting glacier partially collapsed and set off a deadly landslide and flash flooding through Chinese-controlled Tibet and Nepal in late August. So far, more than 1,300 are confirmed dead and more than 5,500 still missing, with hopes of their survival diminished after 12 days of rescue operations. Continue reading...

Chinese man at Trishuli hydropower project and Nepali woman in Nuwakot found 10 days into rescue operationEmergency responders have rescued a Chinese man and a Nepali woman in two separate operations as authorities continued to search for thousands of people missing 10 days after massive floods hit Nepal.The Nepali military said on Saturday a joint team comprising personnel from its army and South Korean disaster experts rescued the man from a 225-metre (740ft) tunnel in the Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower project, and that he was undergoing a health assessment. Pictures showed him being evacuated by helicopter after being carried out of the tunnel. Continue reading...