The accusation is of abusing his power over federal funds and failing to faithfully execute the law. Her filing alleges the Trump administration canceled funding for Democratic-led states on political criteria, including how they voted in the 2024 election.
……….Kamlager-Dove’s office says 79 projects in California are at risk of losing funding. Vought faces impeachment articles, but the filing does not remove him from office; it puts Congress’ power over spending and the administration’s handling of federal funds at the center of a growing constitutional dispute.
See also ProPublica article, some of Vought actions during 2025:
Russell Vought Samuel Corum/Pool via CNP/MediaPunch/Reuters
What You Should Know About Russ Vought, Trump’s Shadow President
Vought is the architect of Trump’s broader plan to fire civil servants, freeze government programs and dismantle entire agencies. Here are some key things to know about the D.C. insider who wants to take a hatchet to the federal government.
October 20, 2025, 6:00 amChange AppearanceAutoLightDark
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On the second day of the federal government shutdown, President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated video set to the classic song “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” by Blue Öyster Cult. The star of that video, which quickly went viral, was Russell Vought, the president’s top budget adviser. More than that, Vought is the architect of Trump’s broader plan to fire civil servants, freeze government programs and dismantle entire agencies, and he’s a big reason the second Trump administration has been more effective at accomplishing its goals than the first. In the video shared by Trump, Vought appeared as the scythe-wielding Grim Reaper of Washington, D.C.
Vought’s title is director of the Office of Management and Budget. The OMB directorship is one of the most powerful jobs in Washington, and Vought has used his position to wage a quiet war to change the shape of the entire U.S. government. In Vought’s hands, OMB has acted as a choke point for the funding that Congress approves and agencies rely on to run the government. While he tends to operate behind the scenes as much as possible, his influence in Trump’s second administration is so pronounced that people have described him as akin to a shadow president.
Here are some of the key things you should know about Vought. Read ProPublica’s full investigation here. (Vought declined to be interviewed for the article. A spokesperson for him at OMB would not comment on the record in response to a detailed list of questions.)
1. Vought went from the mail room to becoming the chief antagonist of his own party.
A native of Trumbull, Connecticut, and the son of an electrician father and a mother who spent decades in public education before helping to launch a Christian school, Vought got his first job in D.C. politics working in the mail room for Republican Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, a fierce budget hawk known for criticizing members of his own party for breaking what he viewed as core conservative principles.
As Vought rose through the GOP ranks, eventually going on to advise then-Rep. Mike Pence, he grew disillusioned with members of his party who claimed to care about balanced budgets and spending cuts yet voted to approve bills loaded with pork-barrel spending and corporate giveaways.
In 2010, he quit Congress and helped launch an offshoot of the Heritage Foundation think tank called Heritage Action for America, which was tasked with strong-arming congressional Republicans to act more conservatively.
“I think he thought the Republican leadership was a bigger impediment to conservative causes than Democrats were,” a former Capitol Hill colleague of Vought’s said.
2. OMB’s massive power supercharges Vought’s influence.
While the Office of Management and Budget is part of the White House, Vought is a member of Trump’s cabinet along with the secretary of defense and attorney general. OMB director has little of the cachet of those jobs, but it plays a vital role. Every penny appropriated by Congress first passes through the OMB. It also reviews all significant regulations proposed by federal agencies, vets executive orders before the president signs them and issues workplace policies for more than 2 million federal employees.
“Every goddam thing in the executive branch goes through OMB,” explained Sam Bagenstos, a former OMB official during the Biden administration.
3. Vought’s early work at OMB helped lead to Trump’s first impeachment.
This isn’t Vought’s first stint as OMB director; he held the same position during the first Trump administration.
In 2019, after the Trump White House pressured Ukraine’s government to investigate then-candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter, it asked Vought, then acting director, to freeze $214 million in congressionally approved security assistance for Ukraine. He obliged.
This impoundment, later deemed illegal by the Government Accountability Office, would trigger congressional investigations and, ultimately, Trump’s first impeachment. During that process, Vought refused to cooperate with investigators, calling the probe a “sham process that is designed to relitigate the last election.”
After the attempt to freeze the Ukraine funds ultimately failed, Vought and Mark Paoletta, an attorney and close ally of Vought’s, spent the years between Trump’s presidencies developing a legal argument that not only are such impoundments legal, but there is a long history of presidents using the power. (Legal experts have disputed Vought’s version of that history.)
4. Vought played a surprising role in popularizing the phrase “woke and weaponized.”
In 2021, Vought launched the Center for Renewing America, a think tank devoted to keeping the MAGA movement alive and preparing for a second Trump presidency. According to previously unreported recordings obtained by ProPublica, Vought accepted an assignment from Trump to come up with a way for conservatives to counter Black Lives Matter. He popularized the concept of “woke and weaponized” government — a phrase embraced by GOP politicians and activists to disparagingly label policies, people and even agencies that didn’t fit with the MAGA agenda.
“If you’re watching television and the words ‘woke and weaponized’ come out of a politician’s mouth, you can know that this is coming … from the strategies we’re putting out,” Vought boasted in a recording obtained by ProPublica.
When Vought’s think tank released a federal budget blueprint in 2022, calling for $9 trillion in cuts over 10 years, the word “woke” appeared 77 times across its 103 pages.
5. Vought’s vision for what would become Project 2025 began during Trump’s first term.
In 2017, while an adviser at OMB, Vought played a lead role in trying to implement a Trump executive order that called for a top-to-bottom reorganization of the federal government. A former OMB senior staffer said Vought initially wanted to eliminate the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and to fold the Department of Education and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, along with food stamps programs, into a new Department of Welfare. “They wanted to call it that because they think it sounds bad,” a former OMB analyst said. “There were very few, if any, debates where Russ wouldn’t take the most extreme option available to him, the most conservative, the most budget-cutting.”
Trump’s Cabinet secretaries at the time resisted wholesale cuts, and few of the plans reached fruition. But Vought’s suggestions now read like a guide to the second Trump administration, which has gutted both USAID and the CFPB and is hollowing out the Department of Education.
“I didn’t realize it then,” the former OMB staffer said, “but I was writing the first draft of Project 2025.”
6. Vought’s role shows Project 2025 has indeed shaped the administration.
Vought was a key figure in the work of Project 2025, the coalition of conservative groups that created a roadmap and recruited future appointees for the next Republican administration. He led Project 2025’s transition portion, which included writing some 350 executive orders, regulations and other plans to more fully empower the president. “I don’t want President Trump having to lose a moment of time having fights in the Oval Office about whether something is legal or doable or moral,” Vought said in a private 2024 speech.
During the 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly claimed to have nothing to do with Project 2025. His campaign aides criticized the initiative, and news reports suggested that Project 2025 leaders would be blacklisted from working in the Trump White House.
But Vought deftly navigated the controversy, and Trump brought him back to OMB.Meanwhile, the administration has moved quickly to fulfill many of Project 2025’s policy objectives. Early on in this month’s government shutdown, when Trump announced that he would soon meet with Vought to decide which “Democrat Agencies” to temporarily or permanently cut, he referred to his budget director as “Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame.”
7. Elon Musk and DOGE often acted at Vought’s direction, insiders say.
Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO and the world’s wealthiest person, may have grabbed the headlines as his Department of Government Efficiency took a chainsaw to budgets and staffing. But court records, interviews and other accounts from people close to Vought show that DOGE’s efforts were guided, more than previously known, by the OMB director.
“I can’t imagine that the DOGE team knew to target all these little parts of the government without Russ pointing them there,” a former OMB branch chief told ProPublica.
In May, an official with Citizens for Renewing America, a group founded by Vought, credited Vought with steering DOGE’s cuts. “DOGE is underneath the OMB,” the official said, according to a video of her remarks. “Honestly, a lot of what Elon began pinpointing … was at the direction of Russ.”
An administration official who has worked with Vought and Musk told ProPublica that DOGE showed Vought that it was possible to ignore legal challenges and take dramatic action. “He has the benefit of Elon softening everyone up,” the official said. “Elon terrified the shit out of people. He broke the status quo.”
8. Vought has used OMB to try to pressure Democrats into reaching a deal with Republicans to end the shutdown.
Vought has frozen $26 billion in federal funding for infrastructure and clean energy projects in blue states in the days after the federal government shut down on Oct. 1. The government has also followed through on Vought’s earlier threat to fire a massive number of civil servants if the shutdown were not averted.
“We work for the president of the United States,” a senior agency official who regularly deals with the OMB told ProPublica. But right now, he added, “it feels like we work for Russ Vought. He has centralized decision-making power to an extent that he is the commander in chief.”
Under Section 30-24-3 of New Mexico law, knowingly giving anything of value to a person likely to become a witness is a third degree felony, and Maxwell is the central living witness to the trafficking of children at Zorro Ranch, Epstein’s New Mexico property, where the state reopened its criminal investigation in February.
See: Christopher Armitage Substack
New Mexico attorney general sues DOJ over Epstein files he says are needed for state probe
Raúl Torrez is investigating Epstein’s alleged crimes in his state.
Ex-Goldman Sachs lawyer told panel that Epstein made her firm ‘millions’ of dollarsFormer Goldman Sachs lawyer Kathy Ruemmler told a House panel tha…Show more
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to force the Department of Justice to turn over unredacted Epstein files he says are necessary to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged crimes at the Zorro Ranch property that was formerly owned by the convicted sex offender.
Accusing the Department of Justice of “obstruction,” the lawsuit said that Torrez’s office has asked the DOJ for the records ten times since their investigation launched earlier this year, but have not received the necessary documents.
“USDOJ and Acting Attorney General [Todd] Blanche are refusing to facilitate the investigation of state law crimes by hiding information about Epstein and his co-conspirators from Attorney General Torrez and state law enforcement, when New Mexico is one of few jurisdictions that still may have an opportunity to hold Epstein’s associates accountable or otherwise provide some sense of justice to survivors,” the complaint said.
Filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., the lawsuit asked a judge to declare the Department of Justice’s unwillingness to turn over all the records unlawful and force the turnover of the records. Torrez’ office is seeking “complete and unredacted access to the Epstein files.”
“They have continued to tell the public and members of Congress that they are cooperating with this office when they are not, and most importantly, they continue to withhold critical information that we think is essential to delivering justice to the victims and the survivors in this case,” Torrez said in a call with reporters Tuesday afternoon.
Item 1 of 6 Syrian friends Mohammed and Mahmoud, who asked not to be pointed out in this handout picture taken by Finnish Border Guard, stand among a group of migrants who arrived from Russia to Salla border crossing in Finland November 20, 2023. Finnish Border Guard/Handout via REUTERS
[1/6]Syrian friends Mohammed and Mahmoud, who asked not to be pointed out in this handout picture taken by Finnish Border Guard, stand among a group of migrants who arrived from Russia to Salla border… Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab Read more
Summary
Finland plans tough new measures to deter asylum seekers
Finns accuse Russia of funnelling migrants across border
Moscow denies assertion, says Finland and NATO to blame
Syrian friends recount how they reached border by bike
HOILOLA, Finland, June 11 (Reuters) – Only the whine of mosquitoes mars the tranquility of this idyllic spot amid the rolling forests and blue lakes of eastern Finland, on the European Union’s longest border with Russia.
But Finnish authorities fear the peace and quiet of places like Hoilola could soon be shattered by the arrival of large numbers of asylum seekers – part of what Helsinki sees as a “hybrid war” being waged by Russia against the West.
Finland is deploying more border guard patrols, drones and electronic detectors and is building fences along sections of the border. In Helsinki, parliament is expected to approve before its summer recess tough new legislation that critics say will violate the country’s human rights commitments.
Late last year Finland shut all crossing points for travellers along its 1,340 km (833 mile) border with Russia indefinitely after some 1,300 migrants from nations such as Syria and Somalia arrived via that route.
Reuters Graphics
Since then, only a few dozen asylum seekers have crossed the heavily forested border into Finland, but Helsinki believes the Kremlin stands ready to funnel more migrants across at any time – something Moscow has strongly denied.
Under the planned new legislation, Finnish border guards will be able to call on thousands of reservists to help patrol the frontier, to detect migrants’ phone signals, to send the migrants to detention centres and – most controversially – to push them back into Russia without accepting their asylum applications.
“Finland cannot just allow the opening of such a new route (for migrants) into Europe,” Finnish Interior Minister Mari Rantanen, from the nationalist Finns Party, told Reuters.
“But overall this is not about a migrant route: this is about a situation in which the authorities of another country are helping or even pressing and pushing migrants to Finland’s border,” said Rantanen.
Relations with Moscow, once relatively cordial, have deteriorated sharply since Finland’s decision to join NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
through the Gulf of Guinea, located off the West African coast. The region serves as the main gateway for cocaine shipments from South America to Europe. In recent months, several large-scale anti-trafficking operations have taken place there. In September, the French Navy reported that 54 tonnes of narcotics had been seized in the area since the beginning of the year.
Claesson also emphasized that Moscow is combining “sabotage, special operations, and even attacks against individuals” with strikes on critical infrastructure and the “exploitation of vulnerabilities in the information environment” in an effort “to divide us” and “undermine the cohesion” of the European community.
S. Korea to move up deployment of Iron Dome-like interceptor against N. Korean threats to 2029
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By Yonhap
Published Apr 3, 2026 3:17 pm KST
Updated Apr 3, 2026 4:13 pm KST
Hanhwa Systems’ Low-Altitude Missile Defense system multi-function radar / Courtesy of Hanhwa Systems
South Korea will advance the deployment of a homegrown interceptor system akin to Israel’s Iron Dome by two years to 2029 in a bid to better counter North Korea’s long-range artillery threats, the state arms procurement agency said Friday.
The country will seek to deploy a prototype of the Low-Altitude Missile Defense (LAMD) system designed to simultaneously intercept incoming artillery rounds by 2029, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said.
The decision was approved at a meeting of a pan-government committee on defense project promotion.
The LAMD system, which consists of a radar, tactical communications component, launchers and interceptors, is designed to intercept simultaneous attacks from North Korea at low altitudes.
The government plans to invest 842 billion won ($558 million) in developing the LAMD system by 2030……………
……..Meanwhile, DAPA also plans to acquire Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) shipborne interceptors to be topped on an 8,200-ton Aegis destroyer of the Jeongjo the Great class via foreign military sales.
The move comes after the government decided to secure SM-3 shipborne missiles through overseas purchases in 2024. The arms procurement agency plans to ink the deal within this year, investing 753 billion won for the project.
United States Forces Korea (USFK) is a sub-unified command of United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM). Major USFK elements include Eighth U.S. Army (EUSA), U.S. Air Forces Korea (Seventh Air Force), U.S. Naval Forces in Korea (CNFK), U.S. Marine Forces Korea (MARFORK) and Special Operations Command Korea (SOCKOR). [Source: Wikipedia]
According to Reuters, there are about 28,500 American troops stationed in South Korea, the United States’ third-largest military presence outside its country after Japan and Germany, according to data from the U.S. Defense Manpower Data Center. USFK data showed it had about 19,500 Army soldiers, 7,800 airmen and women, 350 Navy sailors and 120 Marines stationed in South Korea. Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, is the largest U.S. overseas military base, housing the USFK headquarters and thousands of troops, civilian workers and their family members. Other major bases include Army Garrison Yongsan in central Seoul, Camp Walker in the southeastern city of Daegu, and two air bases in Osan and Gunsan, south of Seoul. [Source: Hyonhee Shin, Joyce Lee, Reuters, March 8, 2021]
House version of NDAA further limits US troop reductions in South Korea
By
Julie Masson
Stars and Stripes • July 28, 2026
Soldiers with the Theater Air Naval Ground Operations, or TANGO, security force fire from cover at the Rodriguez Live Fire Complex in Pocheon, South Korea, June 25, 2025. (Trevares Johnson/Stars and Stripes)
The $1.15 trillion defense policy bill passed by the House last week places further restrictions on the use of federal funds to reduce the number of U.S. service members stationed on the Korean Peninsula.
The House on July 22 approved its version of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2027, which authorizes appropriations for the Pentagon, military construction and defense-related Department of Energy activities. The measure squeaked by, 216 to 212.
The bill’s provision on U.S. military posture in South Korea amends language from the current fiscal year’s version to further limit the use of federal funds to reduce the U.S. military presence on the peninsula.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un speaks during the first enlarged meeting of the 7th Central Military Commission of the Workers‘ Party of Korea (WPK) in this undated photo released on May 18, 2018. Korean Central News Agency via ReutersTYPE
Interstate
IMPACT ON U.S.Critical
STATUS Unchanging
North Korea
South Korea
Updated August 2, 2026
Overview
Under leader Kim Jong-un, North Korea has pursued nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to guarantee regime survival, posing an acute threat to South Korea and Japan—both key U.S. allies. Kim has deepened ties with Russia, providing artillery and troops for the war in Ukraine, while silencing domestic opposition through mass detention and political purges.
Capital One dismissal bid puts Trump’s JPMorgan Chase political debanking lawsuit in sharper focus
Story by Zachary Bynum
• 6h
A new filing in Trump’s Capital One case highlights the legal hurdle facing a separate $5 billion lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase: proving political discrimination when bank agreements grant broad authority to close accounts……….
Capital One asked a federal judge in Miami to dismiss with prejudice a lawsuit brought by Trump’s trust and affiliated businesses, which accuse the bank of closing more than 300 accounts because of political bias following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
JPMorgan Chase, one of the world’s top banks, worked with Epstein from the late 1990s until 2013, even as employees raised concerns about him, according to a new report by The New York Times. Epstein died by suicide in a New York City jail cell in 2019 while facing federal sex trafficking charges.
JPMorgan Chase processed more than 4,700 transactions for Epstein, which totaled more than $1.1 billion and included payments to his victims, the Times reports. It wasn’t until 2019 thatJPMorgan opened an internal investigation – called Project Jeep – and filed a report with federal regulators, retroactively flagging these transactions as suspicious, according to the outlet.
Epstein was also regularly withdrawing tens of thousands of dollars in cash nearly every month, which should have set off internal alarms, the Times reports. The bank also set up accounts for women who turned out to be Epstein’s victims, according to the Times.
JPMorgan spokesperson Joseph Evangelisti told the Times the bank’s relationship with Epstein “was a mistake and in hindsight we regret it, but we did not help him commit his heinous crimes.”
Big banks enabled Epstein sex trafficking, US senator says
Story by Alissa Gary, oregonlive.com
• 18h
Several major Wall Street banks ignored or failed to report Jeffrey Epstein’s suspicious financial transactions, enabling his extensive sex trafficking operation, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden concluded in a Tuesday report.
After the disastrous US led coalition onslaught on Iraq, supposedly to remove the ruler, Saddam Hussein and all his Sunni faith Baath Party, we saw terrible consequences in the Middle East:
The 2003 Iraq War began on March 20, 2003, when a U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq and rapidly defeated Iraqi military forces, capturing Baghdad by April 9, 2003. The war followed a U.S. ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq, which he refused, and was justified by claims of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorism. Wikipedia Encyclopedia Britannica
The world learned later Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, even though he may have aspired to have them.
Of course Halliburton became famous:
Halliburton was awarded a $7 billion no-bid contract during the Iraq War, which raised significant controversy due to its ties with former Vice President Dick Cheney, who was CEO of the company prior to taking office. The company has been criticized for profiting from the war and for alleged misconduct related to its contracts. Wikipedia corpwatch.org
See today the extent of Halliburton locations globally:
Over the next 12 years the exiled Baath Party emerged as ISIS and wreaked havoc across the region as they fought, and nearly succeeded, in creating a Sunni Islamic Caliphate, enemies of Iranian Shia. See:
From military forces to spying, former Baathists are a powerful factor in the rise and control of Islamic State. A look inside the group’s surveillance operation shows how
MALA QARA, Iraq – Mohannad is a spy for Islamic State. He eavesdrops on chatter in the street markets of Mosul and reports back to his handlers when someone breaks the militant group’s rules. One man he informed on this year – a street trader defying a ban on selling cigarettes – was fined and tortured by Islamic State fighters, according to a friend of Mohannad’s family. If the trader did not stop, his torturers told the man, they would kill him.
Mohannad is paid $20 for every offender he helps to catch.
He is 14.
The teenager is one cog in the intelligence network Islamic State has put in place since it seized vast stretches of Iraq and neighbouring Syria. Informers range from children to battle-hardened fighters. Overseeing the network are former army and intelligence officers, many of whom helped keep former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party in power for years.
Saddam-era officers have been a powerful factor in the rise of Islamic State, in particular in the Sunni militant group’s victories in Iraq last year. Islamic State then out-muscled the Sunni-dominated Baath Party and absorbed thousands of its followers. The new recruits joined Saddam-era officers who already held key posts in Islamic State.
The Baathists have strengthened the group’s spy networks and battlefield tactics and are instrumental in the survival of its self-proclaimed Caliphate, according to interviews with dozens of people, including Baath leaders, former intelligence and military officers, Western diplomats and 35 Iraqis who recently fled Islamic State territory for Kurdistan.
He says he told then-US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld ahead of the 2003 Iraq invasion that “you will finish this very quickly. But your primary goal is the Iranian regime. And the Iranian regime is trying to develop a nuclear weapon, even then.”
He says Israel had no evidence that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was trying to develop a nuclear weapon then, apparently contradicting congressional testimony he gave in 2022 in which he said there was “no question whatsoever that Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction.
Netanyahu has been ridiculed by some in the American press over the past week, which has been airing footage of that congressional testimony during which he urged the US to invade Iraq, insisting that it would stabilize the region.
Built to export LNG from the Middle East, the war on Iran has caused the cessation of exports and made Egypt in need of LNG from the US.
The illegal war on Iran by the US-Israel in February 2026 has pushed many Egyptians into poverty, with increasing food insecurity.
The Houthis launched a drone attack to hit a US LNG tanker which caused a sufficient fire for it to need to be pulled by tugs 13 miles from the port into a part of the Mediterranean away from shipping lanes. If it had ignited the gas tanks it would have blown up like an atom bomb and caused the incineration of the port plus thousands of Egyptians living in the region
Egypt had previously been an LNG exporter — Damietta hosted one of the Arabic-speaking world’s first LNG export terminals — but declining domestic gas production turned the country into a net importer.
The Damietta Alliance Container Terminal has officially started commercial operations after receiving its first vessel call from the Essen Express, a 13,117-TEU container ship operated by Hapag-Lloyd.
The launch marks the opening of a new Mediterranean–North Africa transshipment hub built with more than $600 million in investment. The terminal is designed primarily to handle transshipment cargo and has an annual capacity of up to 3.3 million TEU.
According to the developers, about 80% of the terminal’s throughput is expected to come from transshipment operations, while the remaining 20% will support import and export flows serving Damietta, Cairo and nearby regional markets including the Levant and the Black Sea region.
The facility spans about 93 hectares and includes a 1,670-metre quay with a depth of 18 metres. Equipment at the terminal includes 12 fully electric ship-to-shore cranes with 25-row outreach and 40 hybrid rubber-tyred gantry cranes. The site also features rail infrastructure with six train lanes, two of which are operational at launch.
The Eastern Mediterranean’s Fragile Energy Architecture and What One Drone Revealed
Energy infrastructure has always been the silent variable in geopolitical risk modelling. Markets price crude oil, natural gas futures, and shipping rates against a baseline assumption that the physical systems moving these commodities remain largely intact. That assumption is increasingly difficult to defend along the Eastern Mediterranean corridor, where a single drone strike on July 29, 2026 exposed the structural fragility sitting beneath Europe’s post-Russia gas diversification strategy.
The drone strike on Egypt’s Damietta port was not simply a regional security incident. It was a stress test applied to one of the most consequential energy chokepoints in the world at a moment when that chokepoint was already operating under historically elevated load.
Whilst wildfires raged around Madrid and Valencia, Morocco appears to have organised an invasion of thousands of young men into Cueta, a Spanish exclave which has existed for centuries in North Africa.
Post-Colonial Era and Moroccan Sovereignty Claims
The 20th century ushered in dramatic changes for the broader region, and Ceuta and Melilla were no exception. As decolonization movements swept across Africa, Morocco, newly independent in 1956, quickly laid claim to both cities, viewing them as integral parts of its territorial sovereignty. For Morocco, Ceuta and Melilla are akin to colonial vestiges that ought to be reintegrated into the kingdom, much like Gibraltar is for Spain in its own dispute with the United Kingdom.
Spain, however, has steadfastly maintained that Ceuta and Melilla are integral parts of its national territory. Both enclaves were officially declared autonomous cities in 1995, further cementing their political and administrative ties to Madrid. Spain’s argument is based on a legal framework that sees Ceuta and Melilla as long-established Spanish municipalities, predating the modern Moroccan state.
This ongoing territorial dispute remains a thorn in Moroccan-Spanish relations, though it is overshadowed by the more pressing concerns of migration and security in the Mediterranean region.
The invasion of migrants into Cueta whilst the King of Morocco met with President Trump at the White House:
Tens of thousands of migrants crossed into Ceuta, Spain. Now Trump says the ‘same thing is going to happen’ in the US
Story by Andrew Romano
• 2d
As many as 60,000 migrants crossed from Morocco into Spain’s tiny North African territory of Ceuta between Wednesday and Friday, triggering a chaotic humanitarian crisis and a flurry of fierce political attacks on both sides of the Atlantic.
But John Massie explains the US support of the Moroccan desire to take Cueta and have signed the Abraham Accord, along with Bahrain, United Arab Emirates,Kazakhstan, Sudan to reveal alliances.
‘Now they’re acting shocked at the invasion’ US representative accuses Republicans of hypocrisy over Ceuta crisis
Kentucky Republican representative Thomas Massie has accused his party of hypocrisy over the ongoing migrant crisis in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.
1 Aug 2026, 23:59 | Updated: 1d ago
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Republican representative Thomas Massie has accused his party of hypocrisy over the ongoing migrant crisis in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. Picture: Getty
A Republican representative has accused his party of hypocrisy over the ongoing migrant crisis in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.
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About 60,000 mainly young men had crossed into Ceuta by land and sea from Thursday in an unprecedented surge at one of the European Union’s only land borders with Africa. At least 67 were killed in the mass rush.
In a post shared to social media on Saturday, Representative Thomas Massie wrote: “Don’t fall for the fake Fox/GOP outrage.
“Two weeks ago the House passed a bill that greenlighted the transfer of Spanish territory to Morocco.
“Every Republican except me voted for it, but now THEY are acting shocked at the invasion.”
Massie referenced H.R. 8595, the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2027 in his fiery post.
The Kentucky Republican was the sole GOP lawmaker to vote against the legislation, which passed the House on July 15 in a 217-209 vote. Most Democrats opposed the measure.
Abraham Accords signing ceremony (From left) representatives of Bahrain, Israel, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates posing for a photograph on the South Lawn of the White House after signing the Abraham Accords, Washington, D.C., September 15, 2020.
Quick Facts
Date concluded: 2020–
Significance: Normalizes diplomatic and economic ties between Israel and Muslim-majority countries.
The ties between King of Morocco and Donald Trump:
King Mohammed VI: ‘Donald J. Trump’ Highway Honors Morocco-US Friendship
Beyond its role as a key transport link between Morocco’s northern and southern regions, the Tiznit-Dakhla expressway carries a diplomatic significance in Morocco-US relations.
Agadir – King Mohammed VI has said Morocco’s decision to name the Tiznit-Dakhla expressway after President Donald Trump honors Rabat-Washington bilateral ties.
In a letter on July 2, King Mohammed VI informed the US President of his decision to name the Tiznit-Dakhla Expressway after him.
The monarch said that although Moroccan-American relations have always been based on “close friendship and constant loyalty,” they have reached a stronger level of strength and cooperation during Trump’s two presidential terms.
The monarch recalled the US recognition in 2020 of Morocco’s sovereignty over its southern provinces in Western Sahara, describing the decision as a historic step that “will forever be etched in the memory of Moroccans” and gave new momentum to bilateral relations.
Published: Jul 31, 2026, 22:42 IST | Updated: Jul 31, 2026, 22:42 IST
Federal investigators are probing a suspected cyberattack on more than 30 community water systems across Minnesota, after malicious digital activity disrupted operations and forced several utilities to switch to manual controls. According to state officials, four cities publicly confirmed the attacks, while investigators are examining whether the hackers have links to Iranian cyber groups. The FBI has cautioned that the findings remain preliminary, and officials are also considering whether the attackers intentionally tried to appear Iran-based amid heightened U.S.-Iran tensions. The incident has once again raised concerns over the security of America’s critical infrastructure, including water, wastewater, energy, and transportation systems. Previous cyber incidents involving alleged Iran-linked hacking groups have already placed U.S. utilities on high alert.
Trump blames “grossly incompetent” Minnesota for cyberattacks, despite feds investigating Iran’s role
Story by Anthony Bettin
• 38m
Though federal authorities in his own administration are investigating Iran’s role in recent cyberattacks on Minnesota’s water systems, President Trump on Friday said he blames the state itself.
The Trump administration plans to cut the operating budget of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) by $707 million for the fiscal year 2027.
The administration said it plans to restore CISA to its core mission of protecting federal networks and enhancing the cyber security and resilience of critical infrastructure.
The proposed budget cuts followed remarks by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem, accusing the agency of straying from its core mission of “what it was created to do: hunt and harden systems.”
However, critics say the budget cuts would have significant national security implications at a critical moment when the country faces increased nation-state cyber threats.
American Water, the largest publicly traded United States water and wastewater utility, recently experienced a cybersecurity incident that forced the company to disconnect key systems, including its customer billing platform. As the company’s investigation continues, there are growing concerns about the vulnerabilities that persist in the water sector, which has increasingly become a target for cyberattacks.
The breach is a stark reminder of the critical infrastructure risks that have long plagued the industry. While the water utility has confirmed that its operations and water quality were not affected, American Water’s shutdown of its billing system and customer portal highlights the critical intersection between operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) vulnerabilities in essential services.
The state of the water and wastewater industry
Water and wastewater systems in the U.S. are vital to public health and the environment, but they also suffer from chronic underfunding, legacy infrastructure and an expanding attack surface. The reliance on OT systems, many of which lack modern security protections, has made these utilities particularly susceptible to cyber threats.
According to a report by CISA, pro-Russia hacktivists have increasingly targeted industrial control systems (ICS) within water utilities, often exploiting default passwords, unsecured remote access points and other weak cyber hygiene practices.
UK Brings New Trafficking Charges Against Tate Brothers
News
British prosecutors brought 38 additional charges against Andrew and Tristan Tate after identifying four more alleged victims. The brothers were arrested in Miami, and the U.K. has requested their extradition.
Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service has brought 38 additional charges against social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate, including rape and trafficking for sexual exploitation, and requested their extradition from the United States.
The brothers were arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service on Saturday, July 18, according to a CPS statement published the following day. British prosecutors said the new charges concern four additional alleged victims and bring the total number of alleged victims in the U.K. case to seven.
Andrew Tate, 39, faces seven additional rape counts, three counts of arranging or facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation, and three counts of assault causing actual bodily harm. He also faces 19 additional charges involving indecent images of a child and extreme pornography.
Tristan Tate, 38, faces two rape counts, one count of sexual assault, and three counts of arranging or facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation.
The alleged offenses took place between July 2010 and August 2017, prosecutors said. The new charges bring the total number faced by the brothers in Britain to 59, including 21 previously authorized charges involving three alleged victims.
Controversial “manosphere” influencers Andrew Tate, 39, and his brother Tristan, 38, were arrested by US Marshals at a bare-knuckle boxing event in Miami on July 18 and are being held in secure housing in federal detention.
The brothers are fighting extradition to the UK, where they face a combined total of 59 criminal charges there, including rape, sex trafficking and offenses related to indecent images of a child and extreme pornography.
Andrew Tate under arrest in Miami over charges including rape and sex trafficking on July 18, 2026. BACKGRID
The charges have “put a target on their back for them to get stabbed, jumped, murdered,” their lawyer Joe McBride told reporters after a scheduling hearing in court Monday.
“Every time somebody walks by their cell they get called a word that starts with a ‘P’ that’s more appropriate to (Jeffrey) Epstein and not appropriate to them,” McBride said, speaking outside the C. Clyde Atkins U. Courthouse
“There’s a pecking order in jail, it’s very real, and when you come in with those allegations, there’s no excuses.”
McBride added that the child sex claims meant that the brothers are seen as “fair game” and the public is “greenlighting for them to get murdered in jail.”
“These allegations against them are the worst for a multitude of reasons, it’s one of the reasons why they’re in solitary,” he said. “We hope to get them out.”
Tristan Tate (pictured) and Andrew are facing 59 total criminal charges in the UK. BACKGRID
Federal Magistrate Judge Lauren Louis set a date Monday for a detention hearing on whether the brothers can be released on bail while awaiting extradition to be held on Aug. 13.
It means the Tates will remain in jail for two more weeks at the very least as they fight against being sent to the UK in a process which could last months.
McBride told The Post Monday he was hopeful the brothers will be released on bail but admitted “it’s a tall climb” because the presumption is against bail unless defendants can prove special circumstances, which he believes they can.
The Tate brothers’ lawyer Joseph McBride speaking to the media outside of C. Clyde Atkins US Courthouse in Miami on July 27, 2026. REUTERS
The Tates –– who are dual US and UK citizens –– did not attend Monday’s hearing, but they did make a brief appearance in court two days after their arrest.
Andrew Tate’s X account –– which McBride told The Post is being updated by his team as he does not have access to a phone –– has repeatedly stated that he is being held in the jail’s special housing unit and has “no commissary, no phone calls, no yard time”.
It has also claimed that his neighbor is “a cannibal who screams throughout the night.”
A courtroom sketch of the Tate brothers in Miami federal court on July 20, 2026. AP
Judge Louis gave the brothers’ legal team until Aug. 5 to file a motion for the brothers to be released on bail and prosecutors until Aug. 10 to respond before the hearing.
Prosecutors in Britain have said the latest charges were brought forward after British police investigated claims made by an additional four victims.
The new claims are the latest in a long-running international legal battle involving the Tates which has spanned the US, Britain and Romania.
The brothers are being criminally prosecuted in Romania over allegations which include having sex with a minor, trafficking minors, running an organized crime operation and money laundering.
The pair vehemently deny all the allegations against them, with Andrew’s X account claiming that he is being held as a “political prisoner.”
Joseph Daniel McBride (born June 30, 1978) is an American criminal defense and civil litigator, media personality, and international consultant. He founded The McBride Law Firm in 2019 and is widely known for his representation of Andrew Tate and those charged during the January 6 United States Capitol attack, including Richard Barnett.[1][2]
Raised in Brooklyn, McBride graduated from law school in 2014 and spent several years in Manhattan representing defendants as a legal aid attorney. Following the January 6 Capitol attack, he represented a number of those involved in the event, and appeared on behalf of U.S. House Select Committee witnesses.
He has worked as an attorney and counselor at his New York City law firm since 2019.
According to McBride, he was inspired to become a lawyer after his adopted brother, Anthony, was pressured into pleading guilty or facing 10 years imprisonment for a crime he claims his brother did not commit.[4]
Career
McBride founded The McBride Law Firm, PLLC, and has served as an attorney and counselor at the firm since 2019. He also received the Avvo Client’s Choice Award in 2019. In addition, he is a partner at Power Dynamic Strategies (PDS), a US-based consulting firm with a significant presence in the United Arab Emirates.[4]
January 6 clients: DOJ prosecutions
Richard Barnett
McBride became an advocate for those charged during the January 6 Capitol attack. He also operates the January 6th Legal Fund for the legal needs of his clients involved in the events of January 6.[5] McBride took Richard “Bigo” Barnett as his client, an Arkansas window installer who put his feet on a desk in the office of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on January 6, 2021. In April 2021, a judge released Barnett from pretrial detention,[6] deeming him not dangerous enough to remain in jail; this followed a federal appeals court ruling in March that made it harder for the Department of Justice to keep those not accused of assault or planning an attack to stay imprisoned.[7][8]
In March 2021, after an incident at a virtual hearing with U.S. District Court JudgeChristopher R. Cooper in which Barnett became frustrated because of his pretrial detention, McBride defended his client in a statement to NBC News: “Mr. Barnett’s frustration stems from the fact that he is incarcerated pre-trial, despite lacking any criminal history…Normally, facts like these are more than enough for an individual to fight their case from the outside.”[9]
Barnett was eventually found guilty of all charges and was sentenced to serve 54 months in prison.[10]
Ryan Nichols
McBride also represented January 6 defendant Ryan Nichols, who was released from pretrial detention by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan in November 2022 after 20 months of imprisonment.[11] McBride had spent months filing motions for Nichols’ release from pretrial detention, and complained that officials at a correctional facility in Washington, D.C. had stolen a thumb drive containing attorney-client privileged information, a claim contested by Judge Hogan. However, Hogan concluded that Nichols had issues with access to discovery, and that the facility holding him in Rappahannock, Virginia was not suited for the large amount of digital video evidence he had to review for his trial, and agreed to release him.[12]
Nichols was eventually found guilty of all charges and sentenced to serve 63 months in prison.[13]
Christopher Quaglin
In March 2023, U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden claimed that McBride had misled the court during the trial of January 6 defendant Christopher Quaglin about the qualifications of another lawyer to whom he was transferring the case.[14][15] However, McFadden declined to discipline McBride, and only admonished him with a statement.[16][17] In April 2022, Quaglin had filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and jail superintendent Ted Hull treated him with “malicious indifference.”[18][19][20] As reported in Law & Crime that month, McBride noted that since Quaglin’s arrest a year prior he had been transferred to half a dozen different facilities, and said: “The intensity and duration of his mistreatment grows worse with each transfer.”
Quaglin was eventually found guilty and sentenced to 144 months in prison.[21]
January 6 clients: Select Committee
McBride also appeared on behalf of January 6 select committee witnesses Alexander Bruesewitz and Ali Alexander, as reported by Politico in January 2023.[22]
Keith Raniere
McBride worked as a defense attorney on the legal team of NXIVM sex cult leader Keith Raniere.[23][24][25] In 2021, before Raniere’s appeal to the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals, McBride expressed concern with how the FBI was handling the case. In a February 18, 2021 appearance on the Law & Crime Network, he said: “We have a lot of questions about the FBI’s work in this case. People here were hurt on some level but the question…is about proving each element of each crime beyond a reasonable doubt. We don’t think that the government did that in this case.”[26][27]
McBride also spoke to Channel 13 news in Tucson, Arizona about the case in February 2021, stating: “There is a system of laws and procedures set in place and if somebody’s going to lose their trial, it’s got to be a fair trial. They’ve got to lose on the facts, by the rules.”[28]
Views
McBride was described by the Washington Examiner as a supporter of Donald Trump.[29] He has accused the FBI of discriminating against Catholics and compared defendants accused of crimes during the January 6 attack to Jesus.[30] From January 3 to 5, 2023, McBride undertook a three-day fast on behalf of the January 6 detainees.[31] excommunicated Catholic ex-Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò sent McBride a letter voicing support for the fast and stating: “I can only encourage and bless this commendable gesture of penance.”[32]
In May 2022, he spoke against prolonged solitary confinement on his Twitter account, stating that it “violates a prisoner’s human rights every time it is used,” and thanked U.S. Congressman Louie Gohmert for opposing the punishment of January 6 detainees during pretrial confinement.[34]
Media
McBride has appeared on Fox News, Newsmax, and One America News, among other outlets.[4] He was featured on Part 3 of Tucker Carlson’s Patriot Purge, a three-part series that concluded in November 2021. On March 9, 2023, McBride appeared with Donald Trump Jr. on an episode of Trump’s online video series Triggered. While appearing on Tucker Carlson’s program, McBride said that a man whose face was obscured by red paint at the January 6 attack was “clearly a law enforcement officer”; a HuffPost reporter later produced evidence showing the man to be fan of the St. Louis Cardinals.[35]
Demand for Trump’s son to testify over links to rape-accused Andrew and Tristan Tate
EXCLUSIVE: Donald Trump’s son Barron could be called to testify as Congress faces demands to investigate the President’s family links to rape accused Brit brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate
View 4 Images
Donald Trump’s youngest son could be asked to testify about his reported links with Andrew Tate(Image: ANGELA WEISS, AFP via Getty Images)
Donald Trump’s youngest son is being requested to testify over his links with rape-accused brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate.
The call was made as pressure grows for a US congressional investigation into the misogynist influencers’ links with the President’s inner circle. Democratic congresswoman Yassamin Ansari has urged the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, to “swiftly open” an inquiry into the Tate brothers’ “coordination and extensive relationships with members of the President’s orbit, including his son, Barron Trump.”
What’s Barron got to do with all this? Over the years, the Trumps and the Tates seem to have forged a mutually beneficial alliance. Donald Trump Jr has been friendly with Andrew since 2016 and, while I wouldn’t go so far as to call Barron and Andrew besties, the New York Times has reported that a teenage Barron admired the influencer and had a Zoom call with him. According to the New Yorker, Barron also spent a lot of time with Justin Waller, who has called himself the Tates’ “third brother”, and gave Barron dating advice. Barron, in turn, gave his dad a political steer: he is widely credited, including by the president himself, for pushing Trump to tap into manosphere influencers such as Tate during the 2024 election in order to mobilise young male voters.
In return for their help with the election, the Tates got friends in high places. “The Tates will be free, Trump is the president,” Andrew posted after the inauguration. And that prediction was partly correct: it has been widelyreported that the Trump administration intervened in 2025 to get the Romanian government to lift travel restrictions on the Tates, who were under house arrest in the country for trafficking charges. (Romania’s foreign minister has said he did not face any pressure from the US regarding the Tates. The Trump administration has said it had no insight into the matter.)
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