News of the World
10-03-2025, 06:36 AM
USA
Quote:Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a rare meeting of the most senior military leadership in the U.S. that they must "prepare for war."
"From this moment forward, the only mission of the newly restored Department of War is this: Warfighting," Hegseth said in his speech at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, referring to the name now used by the Trump administration for the Department of Defense.
"Preparing for war and preparing to win. Unrelenting and uncompromising in that pursuit. Not because we want war. No one here wants war. But it's because we love peace," he added.
Newsweek has contacted the Department of Defense for comment via email.
Why It Matters
Hundreds of generals and admirals with one-star rank or higher, along with aides and senior staff, were called from all around the globe to attend the meeting in Quantico, Virginia, Tuesday, for an address by Hegseth and President Donald Trump.
The move comes just weeks after Trump signed an executive order, renaming the Department of Defense as the Department of War—a title last used in 1947. Trump said the rebrand would send a message to America's enemies and allies alike.
What To Know
Trump and Hegseth used the speech to declare an end to “woke” culture in the military and targeted other policies of past administrations. Hegseth told senior military leaders that he no longer wants to see “fat generals and admirals” or overweight troops in combat units.
“It’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon leading commands around the country, in the world, it’s a bad look,” Hegseth said.
Since taking office under Trump, Hegseth has made physical readiness central to his effort to restore what he calls the military’s “warrior ethos.” He has repeatedly highlighted the importance of new fitness requirements as part of that broader push.
The Defense Secretary pointed to his own regimen as an example. “It all starts with physical fitness and appearance,” he said. “If the Secretary of War can do regular, hard PT [physical training], so can every member of our joint force.”
“Today at my direction, every member of the joint force, at every rank, is required … [to] meet height and weight requirements twice a year every year,” Hegseth went on.
He added that the U.S. military would mandate troops in combat roles to meet “this highest male standard only,” requiring every service member in such positions to score above 70 percent on the “male standard” of their branch’s physical fitness test.
Experts have said that Hegseth’s emphasis on physical standards is part of a wider cultural trend. Author and masculinities scholar Jackson Katz observed that “a key goal of right-wing cultural populism is the reassertion of male power after several decades of feminist progress,” which has “posed a significant challenge to male centrality” and fueled “the current right-wing backlash.”
Katz linked this to Hegseth’s push for fitness, pointing out that while “women have been challenging men with unprecedented success in areas like education, the professions, business, and politics,” men “continue to have an advantage … in physical size and strength.” He explained that some men see physical strength as an area in which they still hold an edge: “Women might be competing with me… but they can’t do as many pushups as I can! In a one on one confrontation… I have an advantage… due to my greater upper body strength.”
According to Katz, “it’s in the self-interest of men who are threatened by women’s gains and strengths to emphasize an area — physical size and strength — in which men continue to hold an advantage.”
Hegseth also railed against what he described as "woke" in his department.
"No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses, no more climate change worship, no more division, distraction or gender delusion, no more debris. I've said before and will say again, we are done with that s***," the Secretary of Defense said.
Hegseth said he would be overhauling the Pentagon’s Equal Opportunity program and Inspector General office, which recently reviewed his use of Signal for sensitive military discussions.
“We are overhauling an inspector general process — the IG that has been weaponized, putting complainers, ideologues, and poor performers in the driver seat,” he told senior leaders at Quantico.
Quote:Two packed Delta jets “absolutely smashed” into each other on the runway at LaGuardia Airport Wednesday night, according to authorities and terrified passengers — destroying a plane’s nose and ripping off a large part of a wing.
The saga unfolded when the wing of an aircraft carrying 32 people that was departing for Roanoke, Virginia, suddenly collided with the fuselage of an aircraft arriving from Charlotte, North Carolina, with 61 people aboard just before 10 p.m., Delta said in a statement.
“Their right wing clipped our nose and the cockpit. We have damage to our windscreen and… some of our screens in here,” one pilot could be heard saying in air traffic control audio.
Photos from the scene showed one of the plane’s windshields completely shattered and its nose banged up in the wake of the collision.
A huge part of a jet’s wing was also torn off.
“We got absolutely smashed by another Delta flight. I don’t know if we hit them or they hit us, but it was super jarring,” CBS News producer Joey Annunziato, a passenger on the flight from Charlotte, said in a video recorded from his seat just moments after impact.
“Everyone shot forward in their seats and it was kind of a little chaotic as soon as it happened. We were shocked at what happened.”
Annunziato added that his plane was moving at a “decent clip” when the collision unfolded.
Another passenger, William Lusk, told ABC that his plane suddenly “stopped, jerked, and jumped to the right” just after it landed.
”Everyone went dead silent. And as everyone went dead silent, the pilot calmly came on and said, ‘Hey, we’ve been in a crash, everyone remain calm’,” he told the outlet.
Despite the damage to the jets, miraculously, no passengers were injured during the collision, the airline said.
A flight attendant on board one of the aircraft suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was taken to the hospital in the wake of the saga, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Quote:WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has informed Congress that the US engaged in “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels following recent strikes on alleged trafficking boats in the Caribbean.
The Department of War told House and Senate lawmakers that a series of airstrikes in September had targeted trafficking gangs now designated as combatants waging an “armed attack” on America via a deadly surge of drug overdoses, sources with direct knowledge of the discussions told The Post.
The so-called “1230 report” to members of Congress, named after a section in the annual defense authorization bill, “is legally mandated … following any incident in which the United States Armed Forces are involved in an attack or hostilities,” a White House official said.
“This report was issued to Congress following the September 15 strike against a Designated Terrorist Organization,” the official added. “It does not convey any new information.”
The Pentagon notice was first reported by the New York Times Thursday.
President Trump had boasted about recent airstrikes eliminating four alleged Venezuelan drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean during a speech Monday at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia.
“If you try to poison our people, we will blow you out of existence,” Trump said, referencing the sinking of ships allegedly smuggling cocaine and fentanyl into the US. “That’s the only language they really understand. That’s why you don’t see any more boats on the ocean.”
At least 17 people were killed in the initial three strikes, the first of which targeted members of a Venezuelan prison gang trafficking drugs Sept. 2.
“[A]t the President’s direction, and in compliance with the law of armed conflict, on September 15, 2025, U.S. forces struck an unflagged vessel at a location beyond the territorial seas of any nation,” Wednesday’s notice said of the most recent strike.
“The vessel was assessed by the U.S. intelligence community to be affiliated with a designated terrorist organization and, at the time, engaged in trafficking illicit drugs, which could ultimately be used to kill Americans. This strike resulted in the destruction of the vessel, the illicit narcotics, and the death of approximately 3 unlawful combatants.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who chairs the Intelligence Committee, said the president “has every right under Article II of the Constitution to take action against narcoterrorists who are waging war on the United States.”
“Murderous drug cartels are responsible for hundreds of thousands of American deaths and have poisoned American communities for far too long,” Cotton added. “I commend President Trump’s decisive actions against these terrorist cartels, and urge him to continue protecting our country from the drugs and violence that they bring.”
Quote:President Trump said Thursday that he’s still weighing the idea of giving Americans up to $2,000 in rebates derived from the revenues his tariff agenda has generated.
Trump’s proposal to share some of the hundreds of billions of dollars the federal government has collected since he slapped foreign nations with steep levies in April, comes as the Supreme Court is slated to hear arguments in a case next month that will decide whether the president has the power to impose sweeping global tariffs.
“They’re just starting to kick in,” Trump said of the tariffs in an interview with One America News Network, “but ultimately, your tariffs are going to be over a trillion dollars a year.”
What does he plan to do with the money?
“Number one, we’re paying down debt,” Trump said, “because people have allowed the debt to go crazy.”
The president then argued that the $37 trillion national debt is actually “very little, relatively speaking” because the government is now taking in unprecedented sums of money from tariffs.
“With that being said, we’ll pay back debt, but we also might make a distribution to the people,” Trump continued.
Trump described his plan, which he’s floated before, as “a dividend to the people of America.”
“We’re thinking maybe $1,000 to $2,000 – it would be great,” the president said of the size of the checks Americans might get.
Any disbursement from the federal government would require congressional approval.
The federal government has raked in about $214.9 billion in revenues from tariffs this year, according to Fox Business, citing data from the Treasury Department.
The $31.3 billion in tariff revenue collected in September, however, was $73 million less than the August record.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has repeatedly said that he expects the US to generate at least $300 billion in tariff revenue by the end of the year.
In August, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that most of the president’s tariffs were not covered by an emergency powers law – a decision that followed two lower courts finding that most of the levies imposed on US trading partners were illegal.
The appeals court allowed Trump’s tariffs to remain in place pending his administration’s appeal to the Supreme Court.
The justices on the high court will hear oral arguments in the case in the first week of November.
Quote:President Donald Trump is open to talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “without any preconditions,” a White House official said, as South Korea’s unification minister warned Pyongyang’s missiles could reach the US mainland.
“President Trump in his first term held three historic summits with North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un that stabilized the Korean Peninsula. US policy on North Korea has not changed,” a White House official told Fox News Digital. “President Trump remains open to talking with Kim Jong Un, without any preconditions.”
South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young used blunt language in Berlin this week, telling reporters, “North Korea has become one of the three countries capable of attacking the US mainland,” according to the Yonhap News Agency. “What needs to be acknowledged should be acknowledged rationally.”
The White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on Chung’s claim.
Yonhap also reported that Chung said Pyongyang’s “strategic position is different” than in 2018, when Trump and Kim held their first summit in Singapore.
“Acknowledging this reality should be the starting point” in dealing with the regime, Chung told reporters.
But experts say North Korea has long held the capability to reach the US mainland with intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“They’ve tested ICBMs for a long time,” said Bob Peters, senior research fellow for strategic deterrence at the Heritage Foundation.
“The question, then, for a long time, is, do they have a warhead that can go underneath a nose cone on an ICBM that goes by definition, exo atmospheric, comes down and then hits a target with some semblance of accuracy and then detonate and produce a nuclear yield,” Peters added. “That’s been the real question — do they have that capability? That’s not what it sounded like the South Korean minister said.”
Meanwhile, Kim has said dialogue with the US is possible, but on his terms.
“If the United States drops the absurd obsession with denuclearizing us and accepts reality, and wants genuine peaceful coexistence, there is no reason for us not to sit down with the United States,” state media quoted Kim as saying.
A meeting with Kim would be Trump’s fourth sit-down with the dictator, at a time when his nation has once again grown increasingly hostile to US interests.
In July, the White House said Trump “remains open to engaging with Leader Kim to achieve a fully denuclearized North Korea.” But North Korea asserted it would not meet the US president if he was going to demand denuclearization.
On Monday, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Son Gyong told the United Nations General Assembly that his country will never give up its nuclear program, Reuters reported.
Trump is scheduled to travel to Asia later this month for an economic leaders’ summit with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung. A senior US official said no Demilitarized Zone meeting with Kim is currently on the agenda.
Quote:WASHINGTON — Longtime Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) acknowledged that her party forced the government into a shutdown on Wednesday in order to secure “health care for everybody” — including illegal immigrants.
Waters, 87, was questioned outside the US Capitol Tuesday about Democrats’ opposition to a stopgap funding bill in both chambers of Congress that would have kept the government’s lights on until Nov. 21.
“Are Democrats demanding health care for illegal aliens?” asked LindellTV reporter Alison Steinburg.
“Democrats are demanding health care for everybody,” Waters responded, hours before her Senate colleagues blocked the spending measure.
“We want to save lives,” she added. “We want to make sure that health care is available to those who would die not having the help of their government.”
“So you’re good with a government shutdown, even if it means giving health care to people who aren’t American citizens?” Steinburg followed up.
“That’s what you’re pushing on,” Waters shot back. “You’re standing here and you’re trying to make me say that somehow we’re going to put non-citizens over Americans.
“Quit it! Stop it!” she fumed. “This is the kind of journalism we don’t need. You’re divisive.”
Only three Democrats — Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada as well as Rep. Jared Golden of Maine — and independent Sen. Angus King, also of Maine, voted for the so-called “clean” continuing resolution.
A Republican majority was able to pass the legislation in the House, but it failed to clear the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) both whipped their caucuses against the spending bill, claiming it didn’t do enough to preserve Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire at the end of 2025.
Hillary Clinton ripped for tone-deaf remarks about white men of ‘a certain religion’ damaging the US
Quote:Hillary Clinton has been rapped as tone-deaf after she recently suggested that white men of a “certain religion” were partly to blame for causing “such damage” to the United States.
The former secretary of state was accused of spreading “evil” after she made the remarks on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” last week.
“The idea that you could turn the clock back and try to recreate a world that never was dominated by, you know, let’s say it: white men of a certain persuasion, a certain religion, a certain point of view, a certain ideology, it’s just doing such damage to what we should be aiming for,” Clinton said.
“We were on the path to that … We were on the right trajectory.”
The backlash against her was swift, with some on social media blasting her for spreading more hate—— especially in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination in Utah on Sept. 10.
“Two weeks after Charlie Kirk is assassinated, Hillary Clinton reminds everyone that white Christian men are dangerous and doing damage to America. These people have no intention of turning down the temperature. They know they’re encouraging what happened,” one person tweeted.
“Hillary Clinton makes yet another case for violence against white Christian men — the constant drumbeat against huge segments of the population is dehumanizing and dangerous. Her focus on Christianity is chilling — especially given the fact that she can’t bring herself to even name the religion,” another raged on X.
“The spread of evil continues,” one X user said.
Another ripped Clinton for not sounding “very egalitarian.”
“Would she like us to assume that, while the contributions of all Americans are welcome, some are more welcome than others?” the person added.
Quote:Unearthed note cards from the Biden era show the administration detailed the names and photos of high-profile Democrats, such as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as lesser-known individuals for then-President Joe Biden to ostensibly reference during live events, documents obtained by Fox News Digital show.
Five different “palm cards,” which are hand-sized note cards frequently used by politicians for quick reminders or talking points during public events, especially while on the campaign trail, were uncovered amid an investigation of National Archive documents related to the Biden administration’s use of an autopen, and obtained by Fox News Digital.
Four of the five cards obtained by Fox Digital are stamped with a disclaimer reading, “PRESIDENT HAS SEEN,” while a fifth card detailing an ABC News reporter’s question to Biden during a press conference did not include that stamp.
It is unclear if Biden relied on each of the cards during the various public events.
Clinton was among a handful of Americans who received a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S., in the waning days of the Biden administration. One of the palm cards obtained by Fox Digital reads “Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipients” and was followed by photos and short biographies of the recipients, including a photo of Clinton and a short note detailing she “was the Secretary of State in the Obama-Biden administration.”
The note card also included a photo of Hollywood actor Denzel Washington, who also received the prestigious award in January, and a note describing him as an actor, director and producer whom the New York Times called “one of the greatest actors of the 21st century.” The note also had photos and short bios for lesser known individuals who received the award, including renowned chef José Andrés and businessman and philanthropist David Rubenstein.
Another palm card simply reading, “Judicial Confirmations Milestone Speech,” showed a photo of Schumer and a separate photo of Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin accompanied by the roles in the Senate, their party and the states they represent. The card included a stamp reading, “PRESIDENT HAS SEEN.”
Biden celebrated his administration confirming 235 judicial nominees in January in a speech from the State Dining Room and was joined by Schumer and Durbin during the event. Durbin and Schumer also held other public events celebrating the Biden administration’s judicial confirmation strides earlier in Biden’s Oval Office tenure.
UKRAINE WAR
Quote:Moldova's pro-European Union (EU) Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) won a parliamentary majority in legislative elections watched closely by the Kremlin, securing more than double the vote of the pro-Russian Patriotic Electoral Bloc (BEP).
Why It Matters
Sunday's general election, seen as a stark choice between a path to EU membership or closer ties with Russia, was marred by allegations of Russian interference. The Eastern European state borders Ukraine, where a war following Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion is still being fought. A breakaway eastern Moldovan region called Transnistria hosts Russian troops.
Moldova has been shifting to the West, developing closer ties with NATO, though it remains constitutionally neutral, and it is seeking membership of the EU.
What To Know
With nearly all polling station reports counted, electoral data showed the governing PAS had 50.16 percent of the vote, while the pro-Russian Patriotic Electoral Bloc has 24.19 percent, the Central Election Commission said on its website.
The Russia-friendly Alternativa bloc came third with 7.97 percent of the vote, followed by the populist Our Party, with 6.20 percent. The right-wing Democracy at Home party won 5.62 percent of the vote, which is enough to enter parliament.
Cristian Cantir, a Moldovan associate professor of international relations at Oakland University, told the Associated Press that PAS's victory is “a clear win for pro-European forces in Moldova, which will be able to ensure continuity in the next few years in the pursuit of their ultimate goal of EU integration.”
Election day was marked by a string of incidents from bomb threats at several polling stations to cyberattacks on electoral and government infrastructure.
Opinion polls before the election had put PAS, the party of President Maia Sandu, and the Patriotic Electoral Bloc neck and neck, with neither expected to get close to a majority. So the result will be a relief for the government and its European partners, and it will enable the government to press on with its aim of EU membership by 2030.
Before the vote, Sandu had warned of Russian meddling to influence the outcome of the election. She said Russia was spending "hundreds of millions of euros" on its influence campaign.
Russia consistently denied it was interfering in Moldova's election.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moldova applied to join the EU. It was given candidate status later that year and, in 2024, the EU agreed to open accession negotiations, further increasing tensions with Russia.
The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) said last week NATO military units were massing in Romania close to the Moldovan border as part of a bid by the European Union to "occupy" Moldova, according to TASS, Moscow's state news agency.
The EU was "determined to keep Moldova within the framework of their Russophobic policies," the Russian intelligence service said in a report. NATO says it fully respects Moldova’s constitutional neutrality.
Quote:WASHINGTON — Ukrainian defense and national security officials are on their way to Washington to hammer out details of a proposed drone deal with the Trump administration, The Post has learned.
Representatives of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and its National Security and Defense Council will be working with their American counterparts Tuesday through Friday as Washington and Kyiv aim to solidify a defense agreement that would bind the countries closer together.
“Following the results of the negotiations between the presidents of Ukraine and the United States, a Ukraine delegation will arrive to Washington from Sept. 29 to Oct. 2 for technical consultations on the drone deal,” said new Ukrainian Ambassador to the US Olga Stefanishyna.
“Ukrainian officials will be meeting with American officials on a variety of topics,” a senior administration official said Monday evening.
The meetings come as Ukraine aims to build upon a successful meeting between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of last week’s United Nations General Assembly.
“I think now after today’s meeting, we need to not lose the time,” Zelensky’s top adviser Andriy Yermak told The Post following the Sept. 23 sitdown.
While details of the potential drone deal are scarce, Zelensky told reporters in New York last week that the US and Ukraine had technical groups working on an agreement that “concerns drones that the United States will purchase directly from Ukraine.”
Ukraine has become a leader in drone technology and advancement, creating an unmanned aircraft industry from scratch as it grappled with a full-scale Russian invasion beginning in February 2022.
Currently, hundreds of producers are making millions of drones and counter-drone systems, which are then put to work fighting off Russian attacks and updated daily for effectiveness.
Quote:Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered 135,000 men to be conscripted into the army, the largest autumn draft held by the Kremlin in nine years.
“From Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2025, conscript 135,000 Russian citizens aged 18 to 30 who are not in the reserve and are subject to enlistment into military service,” the decree states, according to the TASS state-owned news agency.
Vladimir Tsimlyansky, head of the Russian General Staff’s mobilization department, has also insisted that the conscripted soldiers will not be deployed to the forces currently invading Ukraine, a promise Moscow has been previously accused of breaking.
The latest order also calls on federal agencies to organize the conscription of federal employees, as well as workers from subordinate organizations.
Russia holds conscription drives twice a year in the spring and fall, with last autumn’s drive bringing in about 133,000 soldiers.
Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, the Russian military has averaged about 127,000 new conscripts every fall. Earlier this year, Russia recruited 160,000 soldiers during the spring draft cycle.
Despite the Kremlin’s promises that conscripts won’t be deployed to fight in Ukraine, where hundreds of Russian soldiers die every week, Ukrainian officials have repeatedly claimed that conscripts have been captured along the frontlines.
The conscriptions comes as part of Putin’s demands that the Russian military expand to a force of 1.5 million active personnel by 2026, up from around 1 million.
To meet Putin’s decree, Moscow passed a bill last week set to eliminate the bi-annual conscription orders and replace them with a year-round draft to bolster Russia’s military.
Quote:Europe is under threat of a hybrid war by Russia and must rearm itself and be prepared for the possibility of an all-out conflict, Denmark’s prime minister warned on Wednesday.
Speaking before the European Union summit in Copenhagen, Mette Frederiksen said the continent was facing unprecedented danger following the spate of Russian drones that invaded NATO’s airspace last month, which experts have warned was a tactic to test the bloc’s defenses.
“I hope that everybody recognizes now that there is a hybrid war and one day it’s Poland, the other day it’s Denmark, and next week it will probably be somewhere else that we see sabotage or we see drones flying,” Frederiksen told reporters.
“I want us to rearm. I want us to buy more capabilities. I want us to innovate more, for example, on drones,” she added.
“When I look at Europe today, I think we are in the most difficult and dangerous situation since the end of the Second World War.”
Frederiksen’s warning comes as the EU mulls how to fend off Russian aggression by 2030, with intelligence services warning that Russia could be ready to mount an assault elsewhere in Europe in three to five years.
As a prep for such an invasion, EU intelligence officials and military analysts have accused Moscow of testing NATO’s defenses with the recent wave of drone and jet incursions over Poland, Denmark, Estonia and Romania last month.
While Frederiksen has stopped short of directly blaming Russia for the drones spotted over her nation in September, she said Russia remains the sole entity currently threatening the EU, requiring the continent to present “a very strong answer back.”
The incidents have pushed several EU nations to open discussions on creating a “drone wall” to protect the continent from Russia’s UAV assaults.
The drone wall would consist of a network of sensors and weapons around the European border to detect, track and neutralize unmanned UAVs entering the continent’s airspace.
Quote:Ukraine will have the power to decimate Russian oil refineries, crippling the main source of funding for its war machine, and launch an Operation Spider Web-style attack on more military bases if the US commits to sharing intelligence and long-range missiles, experts told The Post.
With President Trump reportedly green-lighting an intelligence-sharing agreement for strikes deep inside Russia, Ukraine will be capable of more precise and more destructive attacks against Moscow, said George Barros, of the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.
And should the US fulfill Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s request for Tomahawk cruise missiles — capable of reaching targets 1,500 miles away — the combination could bring Russia to its knees.
“Russia has always been protected by the tyranny of distance,” Barros said, “but with tomahawks and precise intelligence from the West, you have the payload plus the distance to take out big targets that Ukrainian systems just haven’t been able to hit.”
The newest intelligence-sharing agreement allows the Pentagon and US intel agencies to help Kyiv target oil refineries, pipelines and other infrastructure that provide the Kremlin with revenues and resources needed to sustain its bloody war on Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported.
John Hardie, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, noted that Ukraine has already been able to hit 16 of 38 key oil refineries in recent months, with the number likely to go up with help from the US and NATO.
“These types of strikes create fuel shortages in Russia, force Moscow to limit exports, and ultimately hurt the Russian economy and ability to wage war,” Hardie said.
“And just as important, it brings the war home to Russians, who have been largely apathetic until the economic blows start coming in,” he added.
The attacks so far, however, haven’t completely destroyed a refinery.
A lucrative refinery near Volgograd, for instance, was targeted in August, but the damage only halted operations for a month, the BBC reported.
The Tomahawk missiles — considered one of the most powerful and effective long-range precision cruise missiles — could change that.
“A 100-kilogram (220-pound) warhead can cause some damage like what we’ve seen so far, but a 1,000-kilogram warhead would put Russian equipment out of commission for good,” Barros said.
Quote:Russia appears to have altered its missiles to better evade Ukrainian defense systems — with interception rates plummeting since August in what experts fear may be a “game changer for Russia,” according to reports.
Ukrainian defense systems stopped just 6% of Russian ballistic missiles in September, an alarming decline from the 37% interception rate logged just a month earlier.
That decline comes as Russia’s ballistic missiles have been behaving differently at the end of their flight paths, with Ukrainian officials reporting the projectiles have begun making last-minute maneuvers apparently intended to “confuse and avoid” interception systems, the Financial Times reported.
Those changes appear to be present only in ballistic missiles — which are launched under rocket power and then follow unpowered trajectories to their targets — instead of the cruise missiles which are flown under jet power throughout their trajectory.
And while Russia’s missile changes appear to have become dangerous effective only in recent weeks, a report from the US Defense Intelligence Agency suggests they have been in development since at least April.
“[Ukraine] struggled to consistently use Patriot air defense systems to protect against Moscow’s ballistic missiles because of recent Russian tactical improvements, including enhancements that enable their missiles to change trajectory and perform maneuvers rather than flying in a traditional ballistic trajectory,” the report read.
It’s likely the missile changes Russia made were software-based modifications to guidance systems rather than alterations of the projectile’s physical engineering, according to experts.
“A steeper terminal trajectory, that’s something you can program into the missile,” University of Oslo missile researcher Fabian Hoffman told the Financial Times.
He added that this was a part of a long-standing pattern of Russia and Ukraine “playing an adaptability game” to outfox the other’s weapons systems since the war began four years ago.
Ukraine has been relying heavily on American-made and -provided Patriot interceptor rockets and launchers for defense against Russian missiles. The systems are made by Raytheon and Lockheed-Martin, which routinely receive battlefield data to upgrade their effectiveness.
But Ukrainian officials have cautioned Russia has been frequently able to remain a step ahead of updates.
Quote:Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday denounced the assassination of conservative icon Charlie Kirk as a “disgusting atrocity,” claiming the public killing has exposed a “deep rift” in America.
Putin hailed the Turning Point USA founder as a hero for giving his life defending beliefs that Russia also shares and offered condolences to his family three weeks after the 31-year-old right-wing activist was gunned down before thousands during a speaking event at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10.
“This is a disgusting atrocity, especially since it was broadcast live,” the Russian leader said while speaking at the Valdai Discussion Group in Sochi.
“We all saw it. It was truly horrific. First and foremost, I extend my condolences to Mr. Kirk’s family and all his loved ones. We sympathize and empathize.”
Putin went on to call the savage execution proof of a gaping societal divide in America.
“What happened is a sign of a deep rift in society,” he said.
“In the United States, I don’t think there’s any need to escalate the situation externally because the country’s political leadership is trying to restore order domestically.”
Since the father of two was fatally shot in the neck, conservatives have condemned political violence and slammed rising left-wing rhetoric, which they say has fueled a wave of recent targeted attacks.
Tyler Robinson — a 22-year-old with “leftist ideologies” and a transgender boyfriend — was charged with aggravated murder and other offenses for the brazen killing.
During the conference, the Kremlin also fired back at President Trump for calling Russia a “paper tiger,” a remark he made last month, warning that the country was in economic trouble over its invasion of Ukraine.
Quote:Kyiv has pitched Washington on ways it could help the US replace Russia in oil sales to Europe — as President Trump pushes the continent to divest from Moscow’s energy sector to end its brutal war on Ukraine, The Post can exclusively reveal.
Pipelines deep beneath Ukraine’s surface could help funnel fuel either drilled in the country through the US-Ukraine mineral deal or shipped in from the US, Ukrainian Energy Minister Svitlana Grynchuk told The Post.
The potential partnership means American oil companies could replace Moscow in Europe’s energy sector.
“Ukraine’s gas and oil infrastructure has always been a key part of European energy security because Ukrainian territory was like a transit from Russia to Europe — and we have very, very good gas and oil infrastructure,” Grynchuk said.
“The US and other international partners could use this infrastructure for ensuring European energy security by supplying it and also the storage potential of gas and oil in Ukraine.”
Ukraine has the most liquid natural gas storage in all of Europe.
Peace and profit
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s top advisor, Andriy Yermak, said he briefly proposed the idea to US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last week, telling The Post that Kyiv could help the US supplant Russia in providing oil to holdout European nations.
Should President Trump sign on, he could help end Russia’s war on Ukraine and boost the US economy in one swing by replacing Russian oil with American energy sales to Europe, Yermak said.
“I asked him to introduce me to your Secretary of Energy,” he said of his conversation with Waltz.
“I asked him that please, as soon as possible, please arrange the meetings [between US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Grynchuk,] and we can come.”
America’s potential interest in such an arrangement is unclear. Ukraine’s proposal is in the very early stages. Waltz’ and Wright’s offices did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.
Quote:A drone swarm that flew over Germany's Schleswig-Holstein state deliberately surveyed the NATO ally's critical infrastructure, including a power plant and a naval facility, according to a report by Der Spiegel, which cited an internal government memo.
Why It Matters
Tensions have been rising on NATO's eastern flank following the suspected violation by Russian drones and jets of the airspace of several NATO members. Russia has denied accusations it intentionally launched drones and aircraft into NATO airspace.
The airspace violations highlight the increasing threats to NATO member states and the potential for wider regional instability. The incidents also raise questions about the effectiveness of NATO members' air defense systems and the need for enhanced regional security measures.
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he believes NATO countries should shoot down Russian aircraft when they violate NATO airspace.
What To Know
Schleswig-Holstein's interior minster, Sabine Sütterlin-Waack, confirmed that drones were seen flying above the coastal state just south of Denmark overnight into Friday, September 26, and that the incident is under investigation for potential sabotage or espionage.
“Among other things, due to the recent incidents in Denmark and other European countries, Schleswig-Holstein is in intensive and ongoing coordination with the federal government and the Bundeswehr,” Sütterlin-Waack said, Der Tagesspiegel reported.
The confirmation of drones over Germany comes as NATO's Denmark investigates a wave of drone disruption to its airports that officials have characterized as a hybrid attack, and coincides with Estonian, Polish, and Romanian accusations against Russia of serious airspace incursions.
Russia has called the accusations unfounded.
The sighting over Schleswig-Holstein was not the only security related incident involving drones last week. Also on Thursday, suspicious drones were spotted over the Bundeswehr site in Sanitz, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and a day later there was a similar incident over the Navy Command in Rostock, as per Der Tagesspiegel.
Security experts warn that critical infrastructure in Germany is not sufficiently protected, it said.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Monday that drones had flow over critical infrastructure in both Germany and Denmark.
“We also still don’t know exactly where they are really coming from," Merz said, per Der Tagesspiegel. "The suspicion is that they come from Russia.”
On September 10, when several Russian drones breached Poland’s airspace, NATO aircraft were scrambled to intercept and shoot down some of the devices. It was the first direct encounter between NATO and Russia since it launched its war on Ukraine in February 2022.
Since then Russia is suspected of testing NATO’s resolve by violating the airspace of Norway, Romania, Denmark, Lithuania, Estonia, and now Germany too.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that Russia was using its “shadow fleet” of sanctions-busting oil tankers to launch and control drones over European countries, and he called for the Baltic to be closed to the Russian tankers.
Macron accuses tanker off French coast of being in Russia’s shadow fleet: ‘Very serious wrongdoings’
Quote:PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday that an oil tanker off the French coast had committed “very serious wrongdoings” and linked it to Russia’s shadow fleet, which is avoiding Western sanctions over Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
The tanker was sailing last week off the coast of Denmark and was cited by European naval experts as possibly being involved in drone flights over the country.
Brest prosecutor’s office said a judicial investigation has been open into the crew’s “refusal to cooperate” and “failure to justify the nationality of the vessel.”
The ship’s current status wasn’t clear. It left the Russian oil terminal in Primorsk near Saint Petersburg on Sept. 20, sailed off Denmark and has stayed off the coast of the French western port of Saint-Nazaire since Sunday, according to Marine Traffic monitoring website.
Macron suggested it was stopped by French authorities’ “intervention,” saying: “I think it’s a good thing that this work has been done and that we’ve been able to stop it.”
“There were some very serious wrongdoings made by this crew, which is why there are legal proceedings in the case,” Macron said on the sidelines of a summit of European Union leaders in Copenhagen, Denmark. He didn’t elaborate and France’s maritime authorities did not immediately respond to a request for details.
Macron said the incident highlights “the existence and the reality of a phenomenon that we have been describing and denouncing for a long time” that is “these notorious shadow fleet” that represents tens of billions of euros for Russia’s budget and finances an estimated 40% of Russia’s war effort.
Macron said between 600 and 1,000 ships are transporting Russian oil and gas despite Western sanctions.
The tanker known as “Pushpa” or “Boracay,” whose name has changed several times, was sailing under the flag of Benin and appears on a list of ships targeted by EU sanctions against Russia.
Quote:Russian President Vladimir Putin has mocked NATO nations' claims of Russian drone incursions in their air space.
“I won’t do it anymore — to France, Denmark, Copenhagen, Lisbon — wherever they could reach,” Putin joked, as he addressed a forum of foreign policy experts in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi. Putin described the most recent accusations of Russian drone flights over Denmark as part of NATO efforts to “inflame tensions to boost the defense spending.” At least ten European countries, including Poland, Germany and France, have accused Russia of flying drones into their territories in recent months, while the European Union has launched a drone wall initiative to bolster its eastern flank.
Meanwhile, European leaders are sounding the alarm over escalating Russian provocations across the Baltic region. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk declared "this is war" on Thursday as he urged NATO to abandon “illusions” and confront what he called a “new type of war.” The remarks came during a high-level summit in Copenhagen focused on bolstering continental defense amid a wave of suspected sabotage and drone activity.
What to Know:
- Tusk said Poland shot down Russian drones violating its airspace in early September.
- He warned that incidents near Polish infrastructure—including ports and pipelines—are happening “almost every day.”
- Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the situation a “hybrid war” targeting NATO allies.
- German forces raided the Russian vessel Scanlark, uncovering evidence of drone launches and sabotage.
- French commandos arrested crew members of the suspected “shadow fleet” tanker Borocay in Saint-Nazaire.
- Polish authorities detained a GRU suspect accused of burying explosive-packed cans in Łódź cemeteries.
- Drone disruptions in Denmark, Norway, and Germany remain under investigation, with Russia as the prime suspect.
- Russia denies all allegations and claims it does not seek conflict with Europe.
- Tusk emphasized Ukraine’s role in the broader conflict: “If Ukraine loses, it will mean our defeat.”
Quote:Russia is set to import gasoline from Asia to offset a growing fuel shortage since Ukrainian attacks have disrupted nearly 40 percent of the country’s oil refining capacity, it has been reported.
Business daily Kommersant said Russia will look to China and other allies in Asia for gasoline following Ukrainian drone and missile strikes on Russian refineries, some of which have been forced to halt production indefinitely.
Berlin-based energy expert Thomas O’Donnell told Newsweek that Ukraine is now producing and successfully launching drones at oil facilities faster than Russia's ability to repair them.
Newsweek has reached out to Russia’s Independent Fuel Union, which deals with motorists’ concerns over gas.
Why It Matters
While Russian state media does not criticize the Kremlin, there is some leeway in its coverage of economic problems and outlets have been reporting the long queues for service stations across the country that have caused motorists’ anger.
In an energy superpower, shortages at the pump pose a political problem for Vladimir Putin who has tried to portray his aggression in Ukraine as not impacting the daily lives of Russians.
What To Know
Ukrainian drone strikes have hit Russia’s oil refining industry hard, forcing refinery shutdowns and restrictions on how much gas motorists can purchase.
Data from the analytics firm Ciala said that at the end of September, nearly 38 percent of Russia’s oil refining capacity—around 338,000 tons of crude per day—was offline.
Around 70 percent of the outages were due to drone strikes which knocked out a quarter of Russia’s total refining capacity—about 236,000 tons per day.
Since August, Ukraine has targeted at least 16 of Russia's 38 oil refineries, according to the Financial Times, with Russian diesel exports at their lowest level since 2020, citing research group Energy Aspects.
In September, four refineries halted operations after drone attacks, including the Kirishi "Kinef" plant in Leningrad region—the second-largest in Russia—and Rosneft’s Ryazan refinery, which is among the country’s top five.
O’Donnell told Newsweek that Ukraine’s first drone strikes on refineries two years ago proved they could cause damage but it was not clear if Kyiv had sufficient drone production capacity to outpace Russia’s ability to repair the sites.
Now with more sophisticated tactics and hitting refineries at ever longer distances, Ukraine was showing it was overwhelming Russia's capacity to defend the refineries and to repair them, he said.
As well as the price rises and annoyance for Russian motorists, Ukraine’s strikes will also hurt transportation inside Russia, whose trucks and railways are heavily dependent on diesel, said O’Donnell.
"Not only is the supply down, but the supply is being affected in the regions contiguous with Ukraine, where it would mostly come from, so now it has to come from farther distances," he added.
In the most recent incident, a fire broke out early Wednesday at the Novo-Yaroslavsky oil refinery in Yaroslavl region, northeast of Moscow, local authorities reported.
Gas stations in some parts of Russia and occupied Crimea have limited sales to no more than 30 liters per customer and more than 20 regions across the country now face shortages.
On Tuesday, a Russian government decree extended until the end of the year a temporary ban on the export of gasoline outside the country and the Kommersant report suggested that Moscow’s trading allies in Asia may be asked to step in, including China, South Korea and Singapore.
Gasoline imports from Belarus and lifting import duties on fuel entering through the Far East and federal budget subsidies are also measures that are aimed to ease the crisis, Kommersant reported.
Quote:The U.S. will provide intelligence to Ukraine for long-range missile strikes inside Russia targeting its energy infrastructure, it has been reported.
Citing unnamed officials, The Wall Street Journal said that President Donald Trump had allowed the Pentagon and intelligence agencies to help Kyiv attack the sites that generate revenue for Vladimir Putin’s war machine.
Newsweek has contacted the White House and the Kremlin for comment.
Why It Matters
The United States has been sharing intelligence with Kyiv for a long time but the Wall Street Journal report, carried by other outlets, suggests that Washington wants to make it easier for Kyiv to hit energy sites that are integral to Russia’s economy.
The U.S. has said it was weighing up providing Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, which could be part of a new commitment by the Trump administration to help Kyiv. Ukraine's strikes deep inside Russia on oil facilities have caused gasoline shortages across the country that pose a political problem for Putin.
What To Know
U.S. officials cited by the WSJ said Washington may provide Ukraine with intelligence to target refineries, pipelines, power stations and other infrastructure far from its borders and ask NATO allies to provide similar support. Reuters confirmed the report, citing two unnamed U.S. officials.
This approval for additional intelligence to Ukraine preceded Trump’s post on Truth Social last week saying that Ukraine could retake all its land occupied by Russia, according to the paper.
Vice President JD Vance said Washington was considering a Ukrainian request to obtain Tomahawks, which have a range of 1,550 miles, therefore putting most of European Russia easily within range—a prospect that has rattled Kremlin propagandists on Russian state TV.
It comes amid reports that Ukrainian missile and drone attacks on Russian infrastructure had disrupted nearly 40 percent of the country’s oil refining capacity, as motorists across the country face gasoline shortages.
Since August, Ukraine has targeted at least 16 of Russia's 38 oil refineries, the Financial Times reported, and Russian diesel exports are at their lowest level since 2020.
Lines at gas stations are annoying motorists, but the fuel shortages also pose a problem for Russia’s military and agricultural sectors, Berlin-based energy analyst Thomas O’Donnell told Newsweek.
This is because as well as affecting Russia’s ability to produce war materials, military vehicles are heavily reliant on diesel and the regions near the front line are among the areas most affected by the shortages.
Also, Ukraine's first major drone campaign two years ago caused a diesel shortage in Russia which hurt farmers harvesting their crops, a problem that becomes more marked in the coming weeks, with a knock-on effect on grain exports, O’Donnell added.
EUROPE
Quote:Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) has come under scrutiny for seemingly defending cousin marriage, as debate swirls on the practice and its prevalence in certain minority communities.
Despite scientific findings linking cousin marriage to a range of genetic birth defects, negative effects on I.Q. and increased risk of Alzheimer’s, mood disorders, and schizophrenia, NHS England’s Genomics Education Programme published guidance last week downplaying its dangers while touting alleged societal benefits.
The guidance admitted the genetic risks, yet noted that other factors can cause defects in children, such as alcohol consumption and the age of parents, “none of which are banned in the UK.” Meanwhile, the article claimed that cousin marriage is tied to “stronger extended family support systems and economic advantages”.
“Genetic counselling, awareness-raising initiatives and public health campaigns are all important tools to help families make informed decisions without stigmatising certain communities and cultural traditions,” the guidance continued.
Contrary to the claims of supposed familial benefits of cousin marriage made by the NHS, critics have warned that such practices are likely to be used as control mechanisms for women.
Aneeta Prem MBE, founder of the Freedom Charity, told the Mail on Sunday: “First cousin marriage is not just a cultural tradition – it is a safeguarding risk. At Freedom Charity, we have seen how it is tied to dishonour abuse, where young people are pressured from childhood and given little or no real choice.”
Quote:The knife-wielding terrorist accused of killing two people outside a UK synagogue on Thursday has been identified as a 35-year-old British citizen of Syrian descent, officials announced.
Jihad Al-Shamie allegedly carried out the rampage at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Manchester, which was celebrating Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
“We are now able to confirm that, although formal identification is yet to take place, we believe the person responsible for today’s attacks is 35-year-old Jihad Al-Shamie,” police said in an updated statement, according to The Sun.
Al-Shamie was not previously known to anti-terrorism or police officials, that update revealed.
The madman plowed his vehicle into pedestrians and stabbed a security guard outside the temple just after 9:30 a.m. before being shot dead by British cops as he was stabbing a window in an attempt to get inside, police said.
“The second he got out of the car, he started stabbing anyone near him. He went for the security guard and tried to break into the synagogue,” one eyewitness told The Sun.
Other witnesses said Al-Shamie appeared to be wearing a bomb-loaded belt, but no explosions occurred during the spree.
A delivery driver who watched as cops confronted the terrorist recounted the tense scene which ended with gunfire.
“The guy had a knife, and he was just stabbing the window trying to get in the [synagogue],” the man identified as Gareth Tonge told BBC.
“Within seconds, the police arrived, they gave him a couple of warnings, he didn’t listen so they opened fire,” he said, adding, “[Al-Shamie] started getting back up and they shot him again.”
Quote:Prince William is giving raw insight into how Kate Middleton’s 2024 cancer diagnosis affected him.
The Prince of Wales, 43, spoke about his wife’s health battle with Eugene Levy for the actor’s Apple TV+ series, “The Reluctant Traveler.”
A clip from the upcoming episode, titled “Living the Royal Life in the UK,” shows the future king and the “Schitt’s Creek” star, 78, discussing how life can change in the blink of an eye.
“We’ve been very lucky; we hadn’t had many illnesses in the family for a very long time. My grandparents lived until they were in the high 90s,” William said, referencing the late Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip.
“They were the vision of fitness, and stoicism, and resilience, if you like. So we’ve been very lucky as a family,” he added. “But I think, when you suddenly realize that the rug, if you were, the metaphorical rug, can be pulled from under your feet quite quick at any point.
“You maybe think to yourself, ‘It won’t happen to us, we’ll be OK.’ Because I think everyone has a positive outlook, you’ve got to be positive,” William said. “But when it does happen to you, then it takes you into some pretty not great places.”
Elsewhere in the episode, during William and Levy’s walk around the grounds of Windsor Castle, the royal teased, “We provide this service for everyone. We do personalized tours everywhere.”
After the actor inquired what William does in his free time, he replied, “Sleep.”
William added, “When you have three small children, sleep is an important part of my life.”
While sitting down for a pint at a local pub, Levy and William also touched on the last few years.
Quote:A Scottish university student took his own life just three months after his school mistakenly reported that he didn’t have enough credits to graduate on time – and now his family is looking to ensure other struggling students don’t slip through the cracks.
Ethan Brown, a 23-year-old geography major at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, killed himself on Dec. 13, 2024 — the day he was supposed to graduate with honors.
Months earlier, in September 2024, the school “wrongly informed him that he did not have the necessary credits to graduate,” the University of Glasgow wrote in a statement obtained by People.
Brown’s mother, Tracy Scott, found her son dead in his bedroom, and said she still wakes up every day in disbelief he’s gone.
“You wake up and you think it’s a bad dream, but it’s not,” Scott tearfully told STV News.
Scott pushed the school to probe Brown’s supposed failing marks.
“Upon investigation, the University identified the error and commissioned an internal report by a recently retired senior professor into the circumstances; this was shared with Ethan’s family on its completion,” the school wrote.
Officials with the school met with “representatives of the family” less than two months after Brown’s death and offered “a sincere apology” and their “deepest sympathies,” according to the statement.
The school added that the “tragic” miscalculation “should have been picked up during the exam board process.” It also assured that the error was an isolated incident, according to the statement.
The oversight wasn’t just contained to inside the classroom, though.
Brown reportedly flagged his own “wellbeing concerns” to someone at the school, who didn’t report it to the campus’ mental health and support services.
Quote:German police closed the Oktoberfest fairgrounds on Wednesday morning following a bomb threat from the suspected perpetrator of an explosion in northern Munich, city officials said.
At least one person’s death was believed to be connected to the explosion at a residential building early Wednesday, which Munich police said was deliberately set on fire and part of a domestic dispute.
It was not immediately clear whether the deceased was the suspected perpetrator or someone else.
Another person, who was not considered to be a danger to the public, remained missing.
Specialized teams were called to the scene to defuse booby traps in the building, police said.
Photos from the area also showed a burned-out van.
Officials discovered the bomb threat to Oktoberfest in a letter from the alleged perpetrator.
Police searched the fairgrounds for other explosive devices and asked workers to leave the area.
Authorities said the festival will be closed at least until 5 p.m. local time (1500 GMT) Wednesday.
This year’s Oktoberfest began on Sept. 20 and ends Oct. 5.
The world’s largest beer festival usually attracts up to 6 million visitors.
In 1980, Oktoberfest was the target of a deadly neo-Nazi attack.
Quote:Online fast-fashion retailer Shein plans to open its first bricks-and-mortar shops in France in November under an agreement with department store owner Société des Grands Magasins, a move that sparked criticism from French retailers.
The stores in the BHV department store in central Paris and Galeries Lafayette department stores in five other French cities mark a new step for Shein, which has up to now only hosted temporary marketing-driven pop-ups around the world.
SGM president Frédéric Merlin said the launch would attract a younger clientele, adding that a customer might buy a Shein item and a designer handbag on the same day.
Galeries Lafayette, which sold the stores operated by SGM under its name through a franchise agreement, said it opposed the move, which would violate the franchise agreement, and plans to stop it from happening.
“Galeries Lafayette profoundly disagrees with this decision with regards to the positioning and practices of this ultra fast fashion brand that is in contradiction with its offer and values,” the group said in a statement.
RETAILERS CRITICIZE DEPARTMENT STORE DEAL WITH SHEIN
The move was, however, criticized by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who said it went against the broader goals of Paris to promote what Hidalgo described as ‘sustainable local commerce’, such as by backing local businesses and locally-made goods.
“We are extremely concerned by BHV’s decision to host, in November, the first permanent store of the Shein company in France,” wrote Hidalgo on LinkedIn.
Shein, which sells 12-euro dresses and 20-euro jeans, faces pressure from other retailers, politicians and regulators in France, where lawmakers have backed a draft law regulating fast fashion that would, if implemented, ban Shein from advertising.
“In front of the Paris City Hall, they are creating the new Shein megastore, which – after destroying dozens of French brands – aims to flood our market even more massively with disposable products,” Yann Rivoallan, head of fashion retail association Fédération Francaise du Pret-a-Porter, said in a statement.
Quote:They’re too good to be true.
Italian police have seized 21 pieces of art suspected of being counterfeit at a Salvador Dalí exhibit.
On Tuesday, a squad seized upon the exhibition in Parma — titled “Dalí, Between Art and Myth” — taking possession of the allegedly false works, which included drawings, tapestries, and engravings.
Doubts about the authenticity of the artworks began in January when officers from the Rome unit of the Carabinieri art squad performed a routine inspection of the exhibit while it was on view at the Museo Storico della Fanteria. They noted that “something seemed to be amiss.”
“We noticed that only lithographs, posters and drawings by Dalí were on display, along with a few statues and other objects, but no paintings or anything of importance,” Diego Poglio, the senior officer leading the investigation, told the Guardian. “It was difficult to understand why someone would want to organize an exhibition of such low-value works.”
Art authentication expert Mark Winter told The Post that hundreds of thousands of fake Dalí lithographs have been circulating since the mid-1970s.
“Once could say that in the art market nothing is more common than a fake Dalí lithograph,” he stated. “The error here in Parma was to organize an exhibition and it triggered the attention of the Carabinieri art department. They knew that being a Dalí exhibit there was a high probability there would be forgeries.”
AFRICA & EUROPE
Quote:Egypt suffered a devastating loss in September when a pharaoh’s priceless bracelet was stolen from a museum in Cairo – and melted down.
Now forever lost, the bracelet belonged to Pharaoh Usermaatre Amenemope, a Third Intermediate Period king who likely ruled between 993 and 984 B.C., officials announced. It was housed in the Egyptian Museum’s restoration laboratory before the theft.
A restoration specialist apparently took the bracelet and transported it to a silver jeweler, who sold the bracelet to a gold jeweler for $3,735.
The bracelet was then sold to a gold foundry worker for $4,000, who melted it down with other metals before authorities could save it. Egyptian officials said all suspects have been arrested, and authorities are investigating the incident.
It’s unusual for artifacts to be stolen from museums this way – but it’s not without precedent. See a few similar cases below.
‘America’ gold toilet
Though not an ancient treasure, the “America” gold toilet sculpture by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan was nonetheless valuable.
In the early morning hours of Sept. 14, 2019, a team of burglars swiped the fully functioning toilet from England’s Blenheim Palace, the mansion where Winston Churchill was born.
The satirical work weighed a whopping 215 pounds and was valued at $3.5 million in 2019. It was insured for 4.8 million pounds, or $6 million, per The Associated Press.
In June 2025, two suspects were jailed in relation to the incident.
The toilet has never been recovered. Authorities believe it was cut up and sold, AP reported.
Golden Horns of Gallehus
The Golden Horns of Gallehus were two of the most famous artifacts from ancient Denmark, according to the National Museum of Denmark.
The artifacts were unearthed in 1639 in Gallehus and dated back to around 400 A.D. They were carved with Nordic and Roman motifs, testifying to cross-cultural exchange in ancient Europe.
ASIA
Quote:When firefighters brought out the body of his 4-year-old son in a bag from a budget hotel demolished by a 6.9-magnitude earthquake in the central Philippines, Isagani Gelig stooped down and gently stroked the black cadaver bag for several minutes, trying to feel his child’s remains inside for the last time.
A bag containing the body of Gelig’s wife, the Condor Pension House’s receptionist, was carried out next. She had worked there at night while taking care of their son, John. A rescuer handed him a cellphone found with her body and he nodded a confirmation that it was hers.
Gelig and his family had frantically called after the powerful earthquake shook the city of Bogo in Cebu province Tuesday night, but she never picked up.
“I went around the rubble and kept calling out their names,” Gelig told The Associated Press beside the hotel ruins, where he and rescuers discovered their remains pinned together in the first-floor rubble.
The death toll from the earthquake rose to at least 72 people Thursday with nearly 300 injured. Disaster officials said there have not been reports of additional missing people.
More than 170,000 people were affected, including many who have refused to return home because they were traumatized and fearful of aftershocks.
The earthquake damaged or destroyed 87 buildings and nearly 600 houses in Bogo, a relatively new and progressive coastal city of about 90,000, and outlying towns. Bridges and concrete roads were damaged and a seaport in Bogo collapsed.
The quake was triggered around 10 p.m. by a shallow undersea fault line that Filipino seismologists said has not moved for at least 400 years.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. flew to Bogo on Thursday to assess the damage and offer aid and support to survivors while mourning with the families of the victims. Just days ago, the president was in the central region after a fierce storm left at least 37 people dead and lashed more than half a million people, including in Cebu province.
Quote:He’s the boob for the job.
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has ordered an emergency crackdown on breast augmentation surgeries claiming they are “anti-socialist,” according to a report.
Pyongyang City’s Ministry of Public Safety issued the emergency orders against the “rotten capitalist” implants with perpetrators facing harsh sentences in the dictatorship’s labor camps, UK outlet Metro reported.
“Strike teams” were deployed to central areas, including Pyongyang, over the summer where federal agents in civilian clothing scanned for black market doctors and unnaturally buxom women, Daily NK reported, citing sources in the hermit kingdom.
Women suspected of having had surgeries could be subjected to physical examinations by Kim’s public health goons, according to that report.
“Women or private doctors caught could face criminal punishment, including being sent to labor camps, on charges of anti-socialism,” the anonymous source dished to the outlet.
The recent demand for boob jobs, eyelid surgeries, and eyebrow tattoos is a result of women in their 20s and 30s soaking in “bourgeois ideology,” the North Korean government contends.
In mid-September, one private doctor was put on public trial alongside two 20-something augmentees who all stood with their heads bowed for hours as they were excoriated by a prosecutor, Metro reported.
“Women living in a socialist system have been corrupted by bourgeois customs and have committed rotten capitalist acts,” an unidentified prosecutor said, Metro reported.
Prosecutor’s revealed at trial that those two augmented women were in fact subject to physical examination by government officials.
Illegal contraband displayed at the trial included smuggled silicone, medical tools, and bundles of cash which were seized by the North Hwanghae Province Security Bureau.
Yeah, breasts are not
red enough for Communist Kim.Quote:The Israeli Navy intercepted the latest flotilla attempting to break the maritime blockade around the Gaza Strip on Wednesday and took Greta Thunberg and other activists into custody.
Footage from the scene on the Mediterranean shows the navy vessels intercepting the 47 boats that make up the Global Sumud Flotilla, which organizers say is carrying more than 500 activists, including climate advocate Thunberg.
The Swedish activist was seen sitting on the ground as Israeli sailors presented her belongings to her so that she could be taken into custody.
“Already several vessels of the Hamas-Sumud flotilla have been safely stopped and their passengers are being transferred to an Israeli port,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry posted on X. “Greta and her friends are safe and healthy.”
Those aboard the ships could be seen chanting “Free Palestine!” as their journey game to an end about 100 miles from their intended destination, similar to the failed venture in June.
The floatilla members claimed Israeli warships were jamming their communications and live cameras just before the flotilla was intercepted.
“They are currently hailing our vessels, telling us to turn off our engines and await further instructions or our boats will be seized and we will face the consequences,” said Greg Stoker, an American veteran aboard one of the boats in the flotilla.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said the activists would be taken to Ashdod, where Israel houses a naval base, and would then be expelled from the country.
Tajani said he had received assurances from his Israeli counterpart that no violence would be used against the flotilla.
The activists had previously rejected Israel’s calls for the boats to turn around and arrive at the Jewish state, where the military offered to take charge of the humanitarian aid on board and deliver it to Gaza.
The group maintains that the blockade around Gaza is illegal given the humanitarian crisis inside the Palestinian enclave, where hundreds of thousands of civilians are suffering from malnutrition.
Quote:The Israeli military has issued a final warning for Palestinians to evacuate Gaza City as its army nears its complete encirclement to fight Hamas, officials said.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the IDF is taking control of the Netzarim Corridor just south of the city, effectively “bisecting” the Gaza Strip as he ordered all civilians to evacuate, the Times of Israel reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated that the looming assault is the best way to apply pressure to Hamas, which is currently going over President Trump’s cease-fire proposal.
“This is the last opportunity for Gaza residents who wish to do so to move south and leave Hamas terrorists isolated in Gaza City, in the face of IDF activity that continues with full force,” Katz said.
The defense minister warned that anyone who chooses to remain in the city will be considered a “terrorist and supporters of terror.”
Katz added that the full-scale invasion of Gaza City will proceed regardless of the current ongoing talks to secure a peace deal, saying that the IDF is “preparing for all possibilities” to bring the hostages home and eliminate Hamas.
With the encirclement of Gaza City nearly complete, those who have not left the city yet will have to do so through the IDF checkpoints in the south, officials said.
The looming siege around Gaza City has raised alarms over the humanitarian situation, with human rights groups slamming the evacuation as forced displacement and targeting of anyone who fails to leave as a violation of international law.
Quote:Hamas’ top military leader in Gaza wants the terror group to reject President Trump’s cease-fire proposal, urging negotiators to walk away from the deal, according to a new report.
Ezz al-Din al-Hadad, who helped plan the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack, slammed Trump’s 20-point peace deal as a way to eliminate Hamas without achieving any of its goals, the BBC reported.
The terror chief, who holds the fate of the 48 hostages in his hands, called on negotiators in Qatar to reject the deal, reportedly telling the team that he plans to continue the war with Israel.
Al-Hadad’s position is the strongest rebuke from the terror group so far after Trump presented his framework for a peace deal and demanded Hamas accept it by the end of the week.
As Hamas’ delegation reviews the terms, it has emerged that some of its political leaders were open to accepting the deal — so long as adjustments were made to fulfill the terror group’s goal of an independent Palestine.
The political leaders, however, have limited influence in the negotiations as al-Hadad and his army hold the biggest bargaining chips, the 48 hostages in Gaza, 20 of whom are still believed to be alive.
Al-Hadad, who is known as the “Ghost of al-Qassam,” was named Hamas’ top chief in Gaza after Israel eliminated his two predecessors, Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar and then his brother Mohammed Sinwar.
Along with al-Hadad, Palestinian Islamic Jihad — a fellow terror group that helped conduct the Oct. 7 attack and kidnappings — has also rejected the plan, with members of the terror groups claiming the deal only “serves Israeli interests.”
Quote:Multiple Israeli government officials are blaming the current United Kingdom leadership, led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, for the deadly terrorist attack against a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur after issuing repeated warnings about rising antisemitism.
A rogue terrorist killed two worshippers and injured multiple others outside the packed Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Manchester on Thursday.
The assailant — later identified as 35-year-old British citizen Jihad Al-Shamie — was shot and killed by police while he was trying to break into the synagogue after plowing a car through pedestrians and stabbing a security guard. Frantic officers tried to usher onlookers away as they warned the suspect “has a bomb.”
The feared explosives latched to his belt were deemed “not viable,” authorities later clarified.
Politicians near and far were quick to condemn the vile attack, but Israeli officials took it a step further and pinned blame on the British government for failing to stamp out antisemitic extremism within its borders.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called out Starmer’s leadership directly and asserted that the Jewish community expects “a change of course” away from “anti-Israeli incitement.”
“The truth must be told: blatant and rampant antisemitic and anti-Israeli incitement, as well as calls of support for terror, have recently become a widespread phenomenon in the streets of London, in cities across Britain, and on its campuses. The authorities in Britain have failed to take the necessary action to curb this toxic wave of antisemitism and have effectively allowed it to persist,” he wrote on X.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alluded to the UK’s “weakness” against terrorism, which he said invited the massacre.
“As I warned at the UN: weakness in the face of terrorism only brings more terrorism. Only strength and unity can defeat it,” he wrote on X.
Starmer denounced hatred against Jews and acknowledged the need to stamp out growing antisemitism within the UK.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
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My Original Stories (available in English and Spanish)
List of Compiled Binary Executables I have published...
HiddenChest & Roole
Give me a free copy of your completed game if you include at least 3 of my scripts!
Just some scripts I've already published on the board...
KyoGemBoost XP VX & ACE, RandomEnkounters XP, KSkillShop XP, Kolloseum States XP, KEvents XP, KScenario XP & Gosu, KyoPrizeShop XP Mangostan, Kuests XP, KyoDiscounts XP VX, ACE & MV, KChest XP VX & ACE 2016, KTelePort XP, KSkillMax XP & VX & ACE, Gem Roulette XP VX & VX Ace, KRespawnPoint XP, VX & VX Ace, GiveAway XP VX & ACE, Klearance XP VX & ACE, KUnits XP VX, ACE & Gosu 2017, KLevel XP, KRumors XP & ACE, KMonsterPals XP VX & ACE, KStatsRefill XP VX & ACE, KLotto XP VX & ACE, KItemDesc XP & VX, KPocket XP & VX, OpenChest XP VX & ACE
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
My Original Stories (available in English and Spanish)
List of Compiled Binary Executables I have published...
HiddenChest & Roole
Give me a free copy of your completed game if you include at least 3 of my scripts!
Just some scripts I've already published on the board...
KyoGemBoost XP VX & ACE, RandomEnkounters XP, KSkillShop XP, Kolloseum States XP, KEvents XP, KScenario XP & Gosu, KyoPrizeShop XP Mangostan, Kuests XP, KyoDiscounts XP VX, ACE & MV, KChest XP VX & ACE 2016, KTelePort XP, KSkillMax XP & VX & ACE, Gem Roulette XP VX & VX Ace, KRespawnPoint XP, VX & VX Ace, GiveAway XP VX & ACE, Klearance XP VX & ACE, KUnits XP VX, ACE & Gosu 2017, KLevel XP, KRumors XP & ACE, KMonsterPals XP VX & ACE, KStatsRefill XP VX & ACE, KLotto XP VX & ACE, KItemDesc XP & VX, KPocket XP & VX, OpenChest XP VX & ACE
