by Julia Jester | Jul 17, 2026 | News, White House, World, World News
Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted delegations from 66 countries Thursday for a summit on what the Trump administration describes as a resurgence of far-left political terrorism.
“Our counterterrorism doctrine has had a blind spot — a blind spot when it comes to extremist violence from the political left,” Rubio said in his opening remarks, criticizing what he called a double standard in dismissing acts of violence and terrorism as “legitimate forms of political expression, so long as they served a left-wing cause.”
“This is a distinctive and unique evil,” he said of radical leftism, citing the domestic assassination attempts on President Donald Trump and murder of Charlie Kirk. “It has always been driven by a hatred, above all else, a hatred for civilization itself.”
Rubio argued far-left extremist and Antifa networks pose a transnational threat.
“They coordinate, they communicate, they travel, they train, and they act, sharing the same infrastructure, sharing the same enemies, sharing the same mission,” he said. “We will either cooperate across our borders, or the terrorists will continue to exploit the gaps between them.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, FBI Director Kash Patel and Education Secretary Linda McMahon also represented the Trump administration at the ministerial.
Throughout his remarks, Miller characterized all leftists — not just far-left extremists — as evil and a threat to Western civilization.
“The leftist is fundamentally motivated by envy, by hatred, by jealousy,” Miller said. “The leftist looks at what is beautiful and what is good and what is natural and is filled with envy and hatred. The leftist looks at a perfect family with the perfect life and the
by Rep. Ro Khanna | Jul 17, 2026 | Opinion, World
Last weekend, as I stood in the ruins of Khirbet Zanuta, a Palestinian Bedouin village demolished by settler attacks, a car carrying armed men pulled up and blocked the road.
After roughly 20 minutes, Israeli soldiers arrived. I assumed they came to help me and my aide pass. Instead, they moved one of their vehicles to block the road. I was with my aide Cam Kasky and seven others, including a driver, a New York Times photographer and security. We were held there for about 90 minutes, as the New York Times, the Jerusalem Post and many other media outlets have confirmed.
I was released because I am a member of Congress, and David Brownstein, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, heroically intervened. Palestinians do not get to make calls for such help.
Photos taken by Rep. Ro Khanna’s staff showing armed Israeli settlers blocking the only road out of Khirbet Zanuta on July 8, 2026. Courtesy Rep. Khanna’s staff
For three days last week I traveled through the West Bank and listened to Palestinians describe their lives. No one decided in advance what I would be allowed to see. I witnessed the indignities Palestinians endure, the contempt they are treated with every day and the violence of Israeli settlers. I’m sharing my experiences both to help people understand the horrors Palestinians are living through and to give context to my vote for a House amendment on Israeli aid that was defeated Wednesday.
In Bethlehem, the wall runs over 400 miles, most of it well inside the West Bank rather than along any border. It cuts through Palestinian villages and
by Zeeshan Aleem | Jul 14, 2026 | Opinion, White House, World
After the U.S. military detained then-Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January, Secretary of State Marco Rubio outlined a three-part plan for Venezuela: stabilization, recovery, and transition to democracy. But what the U.S. is doing to Venezuela counts as nothing but colonization.
An astonishing report by The New York Times, based on interviews with more than a dozen officials and people close to governments in Washington and Caracas, details the imperial overhaul of Venezuela’s government and economy after Trump’s ouster of Maduro. The U.S. isn’t just setting up an economically advantageous policy regime to access Venezuela’s oil, but is now directly controlling much of Venezuela’s state revenue. “The U.S. Treasury receives the revenue from most of Venezuela’s exports, then disburses it to Venezuela through the country’s banking system, a relationship akin to parents handing out allowances to children,” the Times reports. “Mr. Rubio and his team set the conditions on what that money can be spent on, and by whom.”
The U.S. is systematically stripping Venezuela’s government of its right to self-determination.arco
That’s just one of many remarkable new structures and rules that Rubio has installed to give him immense control over Venezuelan affairs. According to the Times, Rubio is administering the application of U.S. sanctions against Venezuela and determining who in the country can do business with the world without getting hit by penalties. He’s helping set up U.S. access to Venezuela’s oil resources, while boxing out European companies. He’s constantly issuing edicts by text message directly to Acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez, who has turned to him for sign-off on major political appointments, including the minister of defense. When Venezuela issued
by The Associated Press | Jul 12, 2026 | News, World
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran said it considers the Strait of Hormuz closed once again after a vessel using an “unauthorized route” was struck by a warning shot in the critical waterway, further jeopardizing the already tenuous ceasefire agreement with the United States.
U.S. Central Command said a short time later that its forces began a third round of strikes against Iran.
“The United States is imposing a heavy cost by continuing to degrade Iran’s ability to attack civilian mariners and commercial ships freely transiting the strait,” the military said.
A Cyprus-flagged container ship struck by Iran suffered “significant engineroom damage” and a civilian crew member is missing, U.S. Central Command said.
Senior U.S. officials had previously said in Washington that negotiations to further cement last month’s deal to end the war will be unable to progress without the strait being secure — and had even said they expected Iran to offer public statements to that effect.
Instead, the Revolutionary Guards Corps stated in an online post on Saturday that Iran launched warning shots at a “violating ship.” Iran further reported that the strait would now remain closed until further notice.
Those announcements followed Iran and Oman’s foreign ministers meeting on Saturday to discuss the strait that lies between them, after days of Iranian attacks on ships and U.S. retaliation that dealt a blow to the interim deal to end the war.
Iran’s new supreme leader, still unseen since the war began, also vowed in his first statement since the funeral of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that Iranians would avenge his killing in the war’s opening strikes on Feb. 28.
Such revenge “is the will of our nation and must certainly be carried
by Nicholas Grossman | Jul 10, 2026 | Opinion, White House, World
The U.S. and Iran are shooting again, the second (and larger) flare up since they signed a Memorandum of Understanding in June.
The main point of contention is the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for international trade that Iran blocked in response to the initial U.S.-Israel attack in February. The MOU reflects U.S. desperation to get ships flowing again, giving Iran economic benefits in exchange for Iran merely promising to “make arrangements … for the safe passage of commercial vessels,” without specifying what those arrangements are. Iran has consistently asserted it will control Hormuz and charge fees for passage, while the U.S., especially President Donald Trump, has been acting as if the strait is totally open and on a fast track back to prewar normal.
Except it clearly isn’t. More ships went through after the MOU, but even at peak it was fewer than half the daily prewar average. They avoided the middle of the strait, fearing mines, and Iran told them to travel by Iranian coastal waters and register with a new “Persian Gulf Strait Authority.” The U.S., for its part, encouraged ships to bypass Iran by hugging Oman’s coast on the opposite side. Iran shot at some ships near Oman to assert control, the U.S. shot at Iran to contest it, then back-and-forth retaliation followed.
Reaching a real peace agreement is even harder when the president keeps lying about the reality of the situation, and demanding that others do as well.
The fight could escalate or settle down again, but the underlying problem remains: a large gap between (1) the facts on the ground and the text of the MOU, and
by Jen Psaki | Jul 9, 2026 | Crime & Courts, Donald Trump, The Briefing with Jen Psaki, World
This is an adapted excerpt from the July 8 episode of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
It’s already been a rough week for President Donald Trump, who has been facing humiliation after humiliation.
On Wednesday, a federal court officially ordered that $5 million of the president’s money be released to E. Jean Carroll, who successfully sued him for defamation. In a blistering order, the judge wrote that Trump “has been stalling this case for years.”
It’s safe to say the president is not having a great week.
“A jury unanimously concluded that he sexually abused and defamed plaintiff and awarded her damages accordingly,” he continued. “It is time for him to ‘do equity’ and pay the judgment.”
Also on Wednesday, another federal judge rejected Trump’s efforts to put his name back on the Kennedy Center — a loss we know has humiliated Trump because his administration has left a tarp over the place where his name used to be, as if that tarp means his name is actually still there.
On top of all of that, Trump faced even more humiliation when his so-called peace negotiations with Iran fell completely apart. (Who could have seen that one coming?) The U.S. has already launched multiple new rounds of airstrikes against Iran, including one on Wednesday evening.
Trump has now declared his ceasefire over, claiming he doesn’t even want a deal anymore. Oil prices spiked and gas prices are expected to rise again soon.
So it’s safe to say the president is not having a great week. But perhaps the most humiliating thing that happened to the president in recent days — the thing you know gets under his skin
