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Lawyers claim Eman el-Shazly, from Birmingham, was detained in effort to silence her sister, a critic of Sisi regimeThe UK Foreign Office has been asked to intervene to secure the release of a British-Egyptian woman who it is claimed has been arrested in Cairo because of her sister’s political activism.Eman el-Shazly, a 45-year-old based in Birmingham, was arrested on 16 August while visiting Egypt. Her lawyers say she has been detained in an attempt to silence her sister Mona, a relentless and harsh critic of the Egyptian government on her UK-based YouTube channel. Continue reading...

CNN's Erin Burnett was floored on Wednesday's broadcast of "OutFront" by video of a catastrophic flash flood in Nepal that has left at least 150 people dead and more than 47 Americans missing. Reports indicate that the flooding was caused by a half-mile-wide chunk of a glacier breaking off. CCTV captured footage of a wall of black, muddy water destroying buildings and cars as it tore through a town. Officials expect that toll to rise in the coming days, Burnett reported. Burnett highlighted one segment that showed a seven-story building enveloped in water, looking as if "a bomb hit it.""This is unforgettable," Burnett said. "You can't unsee that. You see that black wall of water? That looks like a bus depot of some sort, and it rolls through. And then, just as if they were matchbox cars, we don't even know how many innocent people's lives were lost in that instant."

CIA Director John Ratcliffe made a secret trip to Moscow this week specifically to warn Russia against attacking NATO countries, according to people briefed on the visit — a trip President Trump publicly dismissed as merely "semi-routine."The trip was first reported on Tuesday, despite Kremlin denials that any talks were going on.The visit, whose purpose is now confirmed by the Wall Street Journal, marks Ratcliffe's first publicly known trip to the Russian capital and comes on the heels of fresh U.S. intelligence assessments warning that Vladimir Putin could test NATO's resolve with a limited strike on an allied country, likely a Baltic nation, sometime in the next few years. Officials are worried Putin, boxed in by the war in Ukraine and facing domestic pressure, could launch anything from a cyberattack to a small-scale land incursion.Complicating matters further, U.S. weapons stockpiles have been stretched thin by both Ukraine transfers since Russia's 2022 invasion and the ongoing war with Iran, potentially factoring into Putin's calculus about how the West would actually respond to an attack.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed Ratcliffe met with Russian intelligence officials during the trip, though not directly with Putin, who Peskov said was briefed on the discussions afterward.Trump offered little clarity when asked about the visit during a Wednesday interview with radio host Glenn Beck, quickly pivoting to talk about ending the Russia-Ukraine war instead."Something may come out of it," Trump said. "We're working very hard to get that war ended, and frankly they both want to see it ended at this point."Ratcliffe's trip follows several previous visits to Moscow by U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff amid ongoing peace negotiations, but international visits by a sitting CIA director are notably rare. The last time an agency chief traveled to Moscow was November 2021, when then-Director William Burns delivered his own warning to Putin not to invade Ukraine — a warning that ultimately went unheeded just months later.

President Trump's escalating trade fight with Canada is about to make one of the most basic household necessities more expensive, as Canada prepares retaliatory tariffs on toilet paper and hundreds of other American goods.The news was reported by The Daily Beast on Wednesday.Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled a list of nearly 900 products set for 25 percent to 50 percent tariffs starting in September, matching the levies Trump has already slapped on Canadian goods. Toilet paper made the list — a particularly painful target given that paper products already jumped in price after Trump's earlier 'Liberation Day' tariffs. Procter & Gamble, which makes Charmin, said those tariffs alone forced a 25 percent price hike on its paper products last summer, according to the report. The U.S. imported $328 million worth of toilet paper from Canada in 2024, more than from any other country, and even Costco's popular Kirkland private-label paper products are largely Canadian-sourced, according to the Guardian.The White House defended its posture toward Canada in a statement to the Daily Beast."Canada was offered the most generous trade deal of any of America's trading partners despite being overwhelmingly reliant on access to the American economy," the White House said.Trump has shown no interest in de-escalating, telling right-wing radio host Glenn Beck this week that Canada — a wartime ally in every major U.S. conflict since World War I — is one of the "worst countries in the world" for how it treats American consumers.The timing comes as Trump is already facing mounting criticism over the affordability crisis gripping American households. A three-time Trump voter publicly confronted him on live television this week, telling him in vulgar terms to focus on lowering costs. With Americans using an average of 141 rolls of toilet paper a year, more than any country on Earth, according to Statista, the coming price hike threatens to become an unusually literal symbol of the trade war's toll on everyday life.Ironically, the Trump administration faced toilet paper woes in the first term as well, when the beginning of the COVID pandemic led to widespread panic-buying and shortages.

President Donald Trump floated the idea of changing the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America” on Tuesday amid his ongoing trade feud with Canada, a pitch that was met with collective sighs by critics who spoke to their exhaustion with the chaotic Trump administration.In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump claimed that his administration was “giving serious consideration” to the name change as he did not “expect to [be] doing much business with Ontario any longer.” The idea is similar to his executive order issued in early 2025 to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America,” a move that received intense scrutiny at the time.Regarding Trump’s latest name-change idea — one that came amid Trump imposing 50% tariffs on some Canadian goods, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney vowing to match said tariffs “dollar for dollar” — critics were quick to condemn it.The Bulwark's Sam Stein quipped on X, "He's out of ideas."Stephen Hayes, editor and CEO at The Dispatch, mocked, "It's still astonishing - ten years into the Trump era - that our president so often behaves like a 10 year-old. And that so much of our national policymaking is based on the juvenile emoting of an adult who functions like a preteen."“We are living in the stupidest f------ times,” wrote Jason Willan, a prominent fantasy sports analyst, in a social media post on X.Roland Ley, a former contributor for Euromaidan Press, called Trump the “greatest idiot” he had witnessed in his “lifetime.”“Just as internationally 'Gulf of America' isn't recognised, this won't be either,” Ley wrote in a social media post on X. “Not even passed by the US Senate anyway.”In response to Trump’s announcement, Canadian horse-racing photographer Julie Wright quipped, “Lunatic says what,” and prominent online influencer Mario Nawfal argued that Trump’s trade war was “getting silly” in a post on X to his more than 3.8 million followers.“It would require a lot more than a President’s bad mood to change the name of a gulf or great lake!” Nawfal wrote. “Maybe a vote or something a bit more thought out.”

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) wants to break the back of foreign actors who use US influencers as fronts, and she is willing to go around House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to get it done.In an interview with Politico Playbook, Luna, who has been a thorn in Johnson's side, claims she has seen contracts "in the millions" that could rock MAGAworld if they were exposed.The Florida Republican is rolling out the Foreign Propaganda Registration Act, an amendment to the Foreign Agents Registration Act that would require influencers to disclose when they're being paid by a foreign government to push political messaging, according to the proposal first shared with Playbook."Being an influencer right now is kind of like the wild west," Luna told Playbook. "There's a lot of things laws haven't caught up to."Luna received briefings on foreign influence efforts, spoke with multiple government agencies about the issue and heard about payments occurring "on the back end" from people inside the influencer world.When asked whether she was aware of specific influencers receiving foreign money, Luna said: "I have a number of those people. I'm not going to put anyone on blast. That's not my job."The practice reaches deep into the influencer ecosystem. "Some of your biggest profile names… a large portion of them, in some way, shape, or form, have been approached at one point to push a certain position that's probably tied to a foreign country," Luna said.Luna is confident Johnson will support the measure. If not, she has a familiar recourse: she previously used a discharge petition to try to bypass House leadership and force action on a congressional stock-trading ban, and a person familiar with her thinking said she could turn to the tactic again. According to the report, "The fight ballooned in recent months inside MAGA, where the sprawling influencer ecosystem that fueled Trump’s political rise faces growing accusations within its own ranks that foreign governments and other well-funded interests are trying to manipulate it. Allegations have been leveled against influencers targeting JD Vance, Tucker Carlson and recently that Laura Loomer’s trip to Ukraine was funded by the country — which she vehemently denied."

President Donald Trump hinted Tuesday that his administration may take immediate action to intervene in what he called a “humanitarian crisis of epic proportions” in Iran, demanding that it be addressed immediately.“The failing Islamic Republic of Iran is not paying large segments of their military, while at the same time killing protesters, even when they are not protesting, at levels not seen before,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “It is a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions, and must be stopped, NOW.”Iran executed a protester last weekend who was accused by Iranian officials of taking “operational action” on behalf of Israel, according to Iran International. A wave of protests broke out in Iran in January amid economic crisis, though Iran has accused Israel of stoking dissent. While Israel has not explicitly admitted to its involvement, the Mossad — Israel’s intelligence agency — admitted it was among protesters “in the field.” Israel’s far-right Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu admitted as much as well, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a similar admission.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued a threatening ultimatum Monday with a message that CNN’s Jeremy Diamond said would “ripple around the world.”Speaking during a press conference at the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C., Bessent unveiled the Trump administration’s new “economic D-Day” plan, officially named Operation Economic Outcast, which is designed to financially squeeze Iran into submission through the use of secondary sanctions and other measures.“Nations that facilitate any interactions with the regime should quickly heed our message: those who stand with the United States will reap the rewards of our partnership — those who tether themselves to the Iranian regime should expect to share in the isolation of a withering regime,” Bessent warned.“The United States expects action… Every country has a defined timeline to shut down activities we have identified. Any entity that facilitates money laundering on behalf of Iran will be removed from the U.S. dollar system. The clock just started ticking.”Operation Economic Outcast was teased by Bessent on Sunday in an op-ed he penned for the Financial Times. Almost immediately, multiple experts warned that the plan was not only destined to fail, but could very well backfire, with one expert — political scientist Robert Pape — warning that it could potentially “shut down critical shipping lanes and spike oil prices overnight.”Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent threatens entire world with consequences for ignoring its new sanctions plan against Iran, says countries have a "defined timeline" to take action."Any entity that facilitates money laundering on behalf of Iran will be removed from the U.S. dollar… pic.twitter.com/oAYMLtwxOW— Alexander Willis (@ReporterWillis) August 24, 2026