Top World News
Fabergé egg crafted for Russian royalty expected to sell for more than $26 million
A rare Fabergé egg crafted for Russia’s ruling family before the revolution is going up for auction
French president unveils new 10-month voluntary military service for volunteers aged 18 and 19
French President Emmanuel Macron has announced a new military service program for volunteers aged 18 and 19
Guinea-Bissau marks another coup in Africa. Here is a look at other military takeovers
Guinea-Bissau has joined a growing list of African countries where military officers have seized power since 2020
Russia convicts 8 people over attack on a key bridge to Crimea
A Russian court has convicted eight people on terrorism charges over an attack on a bridge linking Russia to annexed Crimea
Indonesia intensifies search for victims after floods and landslides kill 49 people
Rescuers are searching in rivers and the rubble of devastated villages for bodies and possible survivors after floods and landslides on Indonesia’s Sumatra island
Taekwondo instructor who murdered a family consumed by fantasies of Olympic glory
A Sydney taekwondo instructor who admitted murdering a family of three was driven by fantasies of wealth and success
This Trump betrayal can be stopped
Ukrainians know Donald Trump’s Ukraine deal is a betrayal, even if Volodymyr Zelensky and others have to keep flattering Trump in the hope he changes his mind. Negotiated between American billionaire Steve Witkoff and Russian oligarch Kirill Dmitriev without Ukrainian or European participation, the proposed deal gives Russia even more territory, forces Ukraine to shrink its army, and prevents the country joining NATO. Its guarantees of future Ukraine security could easily melt away as did those Russia, the US and European nations made when Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in 1994. The treaty is culmination of Trump’s undermining of Ukraine, from his first cancellations of Biden-era military support to validating Valdimir Putin’s claims to Ukrainian territory.It’s tempting to simply mourn, but those of us who’ve opposed Russia’s invasion from the start can do more than just play the role of passive spectators, particularly with the Europeans stepping up to make clear they’ll have Ukraine’s back and to push back with a plan of their own. For all of Trump’s claimed deadlines. Ukraine is not going to simply accept, and may not at all. And while they’re negotiating, supporters of Ukraine and especially Ukrainian Americans, could and should organize nationally coordinated rallies calling on Trump to support Ukraine and not Putin. And making clear the kinds of support that would strengthen Ukraine’s hand. And while they’re coming up with counter-proposals, supporters of Ukraine, and especially Ukrainian Americans, could and should organize nationally coordinated rallies calling on Trump to support Ukraine and not Putin. And making clear the kinds of support that would strengthen Ukraine’s hand. These demonstrations should be led by Ukrainian Americans, whose families and futures are most directly affected. But they could also prominently engage other Eastern European communities — Polish, Latvian, Finnish, and others — whose homelands are also threatened by Russian aggression, and who become far more vulnerable if Ukraine accepts this deal. These communities bring powerful stories, deep networks, and shared stakes in the outcome. They recognize that Ukrainians are fighting both for them and for everyone who believes in democracy. Demonstration organizers can invite them to speak, co-create messaging, and amplify the call across media and social platforms. Broader outreach — such as to the networks that mobilized an estimated 7 million people for the October No Kings Day — could expand the size and impact. But the core message should remain rooted in the voices of those on the front lines of this geopolitical struggle.The slogans can be simple and direct: Don't Abandon Ukraine. Stand Against Putin. Stand with Ukraine and Democracy. The goal would be to pressure once-supportive Republicans to break their silent compliance and themselves demand restoration of at least baseline levels of aid. It would be about making the political cost of inaction too high to ignore — an easier task in the wake of GOP electoral defeats, as Trump’s poll numbers hit new lows, and as Republicans begin to break on the Epstein files.These rallies would also send a message to Trump himself. He’s refused to authorize new U.S. support, alternately halted and resumed the delivery of previously committed air defense systems and artillery ammunition, and lamented Russia’s expulsion from the G8 for its 2014 Crimea seizure, something he wants to reverse in the new treaty. Despite occasional tough sounding words, he’s given Putin far more leverage both on the battlefield and at the negotiating table. Ukraine may still prevail with courage, persistence, creativity, increased European support. But Trump’s general abandonment makes the Ukrainian situation far harder, even as the war-burdened Russian economy faces 20 percent interest rates, 10 percent inflation, and key labor shortages.Could rallies and marches still make a difference? Ukrainian and other Eastern European communities have historically leaned Republican, giving them unique leverage. When economic interests have pressured Trump, he’s reversed course on tariffs and on immigration raids targeting farmworkers and hotel workers. Nixon-era anti-Vietnam demonstrations helped halt bombing raids and accelerated troop withdrawals — even as Nixon claimed they had no affect. There are no guarantees. But coordinated, visible action could restore at least some of the support for Ukraine that Trump pulled, and shift him back in his weather vane-spin towards supporting Kyiv and not Moscow. At the very least, action would give Ukrainian Americans and their allies a way to speak out while the fate of Ukraine hangs in the balance, because publicly they’ve been much too silent. Hope alone is not a strategy. But when people organize with a common voice, they never know what they might achieve.Paul Loeb is author of Soul of a Citizen, The Impossible Will take a Little While, and three other books on social change, totaling 350,000 copies in print. An earlier version appeared in The Fulcrum
Taliban accuses Pakistan of killing 10 – including nine children – in strikes on Afghanistan
The strikes come a day after a suicide attack on a security compound in Pakistan’s Peshawar cityPakistan strikes on neighbouring Afghanistan have killed 10 people – among them nine children – a Taliban government spokesperson has said, a day after a suicide attack on a security compound in Pakistan’s Peshawar city.“The Pakistani invading forces bombed the house of a local civilian resident ... As a result, nine children (five boys and four girls) and one woman were martyred” in Khost province, Zabihullah Mujahid said on X. Continue reading...
Trump-pardoned CEO's firm accused of 'knowingly' enabling Hamas attacks
A new lawsuit against a cryptocurrency company whose billionaire founder was recently pardoned of federal crimes by President Donald Trump argued that the firm "knowingly" helped finance the Oct. 7, 2021, attack on Israel by Hamas, Reuters reported on Monday.The firm, Binance, serves as an exchange for cryptocurrency trading, and was the primary competitor to FTX before the latter firm was implicated in a fraud scheme by its CEO and declared bankruptcy in 2022."According to a complaint made public on Monday, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange laundered money for Hamas even after pleading guilty in November 2023 and paying a $4.32 billion criminal penalty for violating federal anti-money-laundering and sanctions laws," reported Reuters.The plaintiffs, who include 306 American victims and relatives of victims, "accused Binance of knowingly enabling Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Iran's Revolutionary Guard to move more than $1 billion through its platform, including more than $50 million after the October 7 attack," according to the report."Binance intentionally structured itself as a refuge for illicit activity," the complaint said. "To this day, there is no indication that Binance has meaningfully altered its core business model."Binance's former CEO and founder, Changpeng Zhao, pleaded guilty to money laundering charges in 2023. Earlier this year, Trump gave him a full pardon, claiming that he was politically targeted by the Biden administration.However, that pardon came after Binance spent months promoting a stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency venture owned by Trump family members that has netted them over $1 billion in profit.
'We will not let them die ignored': Bishop eulogizes thousands slated to die from GOP cuts
Surrounded by cardboard “tombstones” that displayed likely causes of death of thousands of people in the United States under Republican policies, Bishop William J. Barber II on Monday gave a eulogy in Raleigh, North Carolina, honoring those who are being directly targeted by the Trump administration’s cuts to healthcare, public health funding, and other essential government programs.The word “eulogy,” he said, comes from the Greek word “eulogia,” and means “good words.”“But the question is, what is the ‘good word’ when people shouldn’t be dead?” asked the president of the grassroots group Repairers of the Breach and the co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, adding that the people he was speaking about are projected to die in the coming year solely due to “policy violence.”“We will not let them die ignored,” said Barber. “We will not let their deaths go unregistered on the conscience of this nation and this state, and among the people.”375,000 people are at risk of loosing food assistance in North Carolina, millions more nationally. #MoralMonday gatherings are taking place in AL, AZ, AR, CT, DE, IN, KY, MS, MO, NE, NJ, NC, OH, SC, TN, TX, VT, VA, WV, calling for elected officials to stop #PolicyViolence. pic.twitter.com/CHfnL5r6L6— Repairers of the Breach (@BRepairers) November 24, 2025 Barber spoke at the flagship event of Repairers of the Breach’s regular Moral Mondays prayer protest, while supporters in more than 15 states including Alabama, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, and Texas also delivered eulogies for those who are expected to die as a result of the $186 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, and funding slashed by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) that was passed in July.Roughly 51,000 people are expected to die annually as they lose access to SNAP and Medicaid, as well as those whose healthcare costs will skyrocket if Affordable Care Act subsidies are allowed to expire at the end of the year. People with disabilities and low-income senior citizens are also expected to be impacted by OBBBA provisions that will make it harder for them to access Medicare Savings Programs."Because we are fighting for the life of those who yet remain,“ said Barber. ”When they passed the Big Ugly Deadly Destructive Bill—don’t ever call it the Beautiful Bill—when they passed it, it represented a death sentence.“Standing Against Deadly Policy Violence | National Moral Monday Flagship Broadcast 11-24-2025 https://t.co/uFk1mNdse3— Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II (@RevDrBarber) November 24, 2025 Barber noted that Republicans were able to pass the law after lying about “waste and fraud and abuse” in the federal programs that rely on them for healthcare and food assistance.“They had to tell a lie to keep their promise to the wealthiest people in America,” said the bishop, referring to thousands of dollars in annual tax cuts for the richest households that are included in the OBBBA.Sloan Meek, who has cerebral palsy and relies on Medicaid, also gave a statement.“I feel a lot of fear and worry right now that every cut and rate reduction to Medicaid will change my whole life,” said Meek. “Having disabilities does not mean I am sick, but it does mean I need consistent treatment and care to stay healthy. I do not want to become sick. I do not want to lose my community. I do not want to lose my voice. I do not want to be forced out of my home to live and receive care from a bunch of strangers. I do not want to die because of a political issue. These are the fears I share with every disabled person using Medicaid in North Carolina right now. I would like to ask every legislator to please see us as having valuable and important lives that are worth supporting.”The event also aimed at the Trump administration’s actions weakening the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)—with the federal government denying and delaying states’ disaster assistance requests—and President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, which most recently unleashed federal agents on North Carolina communities from Charlotte to Raleigh.The tombstones that flanked Barber read, “I lost Medicare,” “I was disappeared,” “I lost medical research,” “FEMA did not respond.”“The big, bad, deadly budget bill proved that Washington lawmakers are more than willing to kill tens of thousands of people to line the pockets of the wealthy—but now even that level of destruction and death wasn’t enough,” said Barber in a statement ahead of the event. “Lawmakers are now allowing healthcare subsidies to expire, forcing millions of people to come up with more money for health plans—or die trying. And the Trump administration just unleashed its masked army of ICE agents to terrify and abduct immigrants in Charlotte and Raleigh.”“One of the grandest, cruelest ironies is that many of the leaders greenlighting these deadly policies profess to be Christian. I’m not sure what Bible they’re reading, but my Bible tells me to protect all people—including poor people and foreigners—without condition or judgment,” Barber continued. “We cannot stay silent in this moment.”Barber said the event was being held two days before Repairers of the Breach was preparing to send an open letter to every member of the North Carolina General Assembly, calling for the body to hold an “emergency session and vote to tell Congress and the president to take hands off the people of North Carolina, to reverse policies that will hurt 307,000 North Carolinians that will lose Medicaid, that will cause 375,000 to lose food stamps.”On Monday evening, the organization was planning another event to call on Congress and the White House “to immediately cease and desist” their attacks on Latino and immigrant communities across the country, deploying “Liberty Vans”: mobile rapid-response command centers staffed by volunteer lawyers and campaigners to provide support to communities targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.
We elected an imbecile — and his latest move could kill us all
Since Donald Trump has been back in office, energy prices have increased at more than double the rate of inflation. The Consumer Price Index from the end of October reported an “all items price index” increase for food, shelter, and transportation of 3.0 percent over a 12-month period, while energy services for the same period rose by 6.4 percent. After promising to slash energy prices, Trump has done the opposite. His energy policies reflect the same ethos driving everything else in his retribution playbook: reward donors and inflict pain on Democrats, even when the economic consequences are nationwide.Lust for retributionIn early October, Trump announced the claw-back of billions of dollars in federal funding for utilities, money that had been appropriated to reinforce power grids and reduce electricity prices. Targeting blue states exclusively, Budget Director Russ Vought announced the cancellation of “nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda.” In all, 321 Congressionally set awards supporting 223 wind, solar, and transmission projects were trashed. Trump’s aversion to clean energy isn’t the only factor driving costs. His refusal to upgrade the grid, his half-baked export and tariff initiatives, and his blind support for energy-sucking AI data centers are all contributing to surging energy prices with no relief in sight. As Canary Media framed it, “Trump slapped tariffs on certain wind turbine materials and opened a sham “national security” probe to pave the way for even more. He halted construction on a nearly completed offshore wind farm and moved to revoke permits for two more. He canceled hundreds of millions in port funding critical to offshore wind development and imposed new directives to stifle renewable projects on federal lands.” Trump’s dedication is showing: after only ten months of Trump 2.0, US household electric bills have increased by 10 percent, and are expected to continue climbing.UN Climate SummitTrump is doing more than reversing US climate successes, he’s also undermining progress in other parts of the world. Last month, when the International Maritime Organization agreed on the world’s first carbon tax on global shipping to encourage the transition to cleaner fuels, Trump released a childish Truth Social rant threatening to retaliate. This month, he ignored the UN Climate Summit in Brazil. Thankfully, California Governor Gavin Newsom attended, representing the world’s fourth-largest economy. Newsom highlighted California's efforts to step up on climate where Trump has stepped out. Facing down the embarrassment of an antiquated, know-nothing, pro-fossil fuel regime, Newsom didn’t hold back. When asked about the US retreat from global climate action, he called Trump “an invasive species … He’s a wrecking ball president trying to roll back progress of the last century … he’s doubling down on stupid.” Newsom did more than talk. While he was at the summit, he signed new Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with Brazil, Colombia, and Chile to advance clean energy, wildfire prevention, and other climate-related initiatives. He also expanded California’s existing partnerships with China and Mexico on clean energy development and zero-emission freight corridors. Newsom managed to bolster California's profile as a stable international business and climate partner despite the optics of a US president ruled by ego and impulse.Our loss, China’s gainIn September, addressing the UN, Trump called climate change a “con job” and urged other world leaders to abandon their climate efforts despite the Earth’s rising temperatures. Trump claimed falsely that China sells wind turbines to the world without using them at home, and told assembled leaders, “If you don’t get away from the green energy scam, your country is going to fail.” The next day, China pledged the reverse. Xi Jinping announced China’s plan to increase electric vehicle sales and dramatically increase wind and solar power, targeting a 600 percent increase over 2020 levels. Despite Trump’s claim, China has vastly expanded wind power developments at home, adding 46 gigawatts of new wind energy this year alone, enough to power than 30 million homes. Meanwhile, our Cro-Magnon regime froze permits for wind farms and issued stop work orders, ending tens of thousands of wind energy jobs in the process.Critics agree that Trump’s withdrawal from climate efforts ceded valuable ground to China, which is now rapidly expanding its renewable and EV industries. China’s Ming Yang Smart Energy just unveiled OceanX, a two-headed offshore wind turbine. OceanX is expected to cut offshore energy costs to one-fifth of Europe’s costs while allowing wind farms to operate with fewer, more powerful turbines. “China gets it,” Newsom said at the UN Climate Summit, “America is toast competitively, if we don’t wake up to what the hell they’re doing in this space, on supply chains, how they’re dominating manufacturing, how they’re flooding the zone.”Newsom is right. Americans are suffering the tragedy of an uninformed and unstable president who rejects science, a president who wants to take us back to the 19th century. We have also inflicted our tragedy on the rest of the world.Pope Leo frames climate action as a moral and spiritual imperative, tying the “cry of the Earth” to the “cry of the poor,” because small island nations and the global south, including poor states in the US, will continue to suffer the most from extreme weather and climate destruction. Trump will be dead before climate change becomes an obvious existential threat. As Newsom said, he is only temporary. But the global destruction he leaves behind could be permanent. We owe it to our children, ourselves, and all the earth’s inhabitants to never again elect an imbecile, and to shut this one down before he kills us all. Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
Steve Bannon guest says quiet part aloud with Trump admission: 'That's the only outcome'
Former CIA adviser Jim Rickards, a MAGA supporter, admitted that President Donald Trump's plan to end the war in Ukraine was to give Russian President Vladimir Putin "everything he wants.""The criticism of the plan is that it gives Putin almost everything he wants," Rickards told MAGA influencer Steve Bannon on Monday. "Well, I have news for you. That's how we're going to end the war. That's the only way you're going to end the war. The Russians won, you know, with a lot of casualties and a lot of people.""So why should the Russians concede anything? They shouldn't."Bannon agreed: "The Russians won the war.""If you're the United States, you've got two choices. Keep fighting or keep supporting the war, or agree to Putin's plan," Rickards asserted. "Now the criticism that, oh, you know, you're agreeing to Putin's plan. Well, that's the only outcome here, short of World War III.""Ukraine has lost," he added. "The brilliance of this 28-point plan was that it recognizes what I just described."
