Another one bites the dust.

The past few weeks had been billed as a retribution tour for Donald Trump, as he settles old scores with his critics within the Republican party.

Call it what you will, but the evidence is now overwhelming that the Republican party is Trump's party and nothing - not an unpopular war in Iran, not sagging poll numbers among the general public, not rising consumer prices, not concerns about billion-dollar White House ballrooms - has changed that.

Thomas Massie, the independent-minded congressman from Kentucky, was comfortably defeated on Tuesday in the Republican primary race to decide who goes forward to take on the Democrats in November's midterms. The Trump-backed candidate Ed Gallrein is heading towards a 55% share of the vote.

Republican rebel Massie, a constant thorn in Trump's side, is just the latest in a political casualty count that is now stretching into double figures. His transgressions were multitude.

Her husband Abraham was recently diagnosed with extremely rare form of bone cancer, she wrote in resignation letter

Tulsi Gabbard is resigning from her post as Director of National Intelligence to support her husband through his battle with "an extremely rare form of bone cancer," Fox News Digital learned.

Gabbard notified President Donald Trump during a meeting in the Oval Office Friday. Her last day at ODNI is expected to be June 30.

Fox News Digital exclusively obtained her formal resignation letter, in which Gabbard says she is "deeply grateful for the trust you placed in me and for the opportunity to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for the last year and a half."

"Unfortunately, I must submit my resignation, effective June 30, 2026," she wrote. "My husband, Abraham, has recently been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of bone cancer."

Activists recounted being severely beaten and starved during their illegal imprisonment

International activists with the Global Sumud Flotilla revealed upon their arrival in Turkiye on 21 May that they were subjected to sexual abuse and torture during their abduction in Israel.

Survivors reported prolonged beatings, starvation, and degrading strip searches, with reports of rape and sexual assault.

Arriving in Istanbul, the activists bore clear signs of torture and mistreatment with swollen hands, broken bones, and severely bruised by the violence. Footage captured upon their arrival showed detainees displaying their injuries, one removing a scarf to reveal painful wounds sustained in custody.

Europe is the 'jungle' now. No garden left to speak of.

Josep Borrell is a Spanish socialist who held several high-ranking positions in the European Union. Until 2024, he was a vice-president of the European Commission and the high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy. In that capacity, he ran Europe's External Action Service, which is the diplomatic body that executes Europe's foreign policy decisions around the world. He remains a man with a great deal of influence over European perspectives.

In 2022, Borrell created a bit of an international incident when he described Europe as a "garden" and the rest of the world as a "jungle." "We have built a garden," he told aspiring European diplomats in Bruges, Belgium. "Most of the rest of the world is a jungle. The jungle could invade the garden. The gardeners should take care of it."

As the head of the European Defense Agency, Borrell's comments made strategic sense. As he said in that same speech, "The jungle has a strong growth capacity...Walls will never be high enough to protect the garden. The gardeners have to go to the jungle, Europeans have to be much more engaged with the rest of the world. Otherwise, the rest of the world will invade us, by different ways and means."

Diplomatic condemnation will not suffice as a response to the overnight attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said

Around 15 people still remain unaccounted for after a Ukrainian drone strike on a school dorm in the Russian town of Starobelsk, President Vladimir Putin has said, adding that he has ordered the military to prepare retaliation for the attack.

At least 39 people were injured in the strike and six were killed, according to Putin. He ruled out the possibility that the school was hit by accident, noting that 16 Ukrainian drones hit the same location in three waves, with no military sites in the vicinity.

The Russian president slammed the incident as a "terrorist attack by the neo-Nazi regime," vowing revenge.

The appeals made by the Prime Minister of India to the populace of the country are part of global mitigation measures announced by different countries in the aftermath of Israel and America's ill-conceived and illegal war against Iran, and the destruction it has wrought on India and the world.

Use public transport as much as possible; avoid buying precious metals for at least a year; avoid non-essential foreign travel; and adopt work-from-home (WFH) schedules — these are some of the austerity appeals made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the citizens of the country in recent days.

In this context, the ongoing war in the Middle East has especially been painful for India. For a country that imports more than 80% of its crude oil, and 60% of its natural gas, as well as many precious forms of fertilizers for its agricultural sector, the war has particularly been a source of immense concern for India. Therefore, it becomes essential to analyze the impact of the ongoing war on India's economy.

American President Donald Trump has repeatedly (and rightfully) criticized the Kiev regime for its corruption.

It should be noted that Ukraine has long had such issues, to the point that corruption there can be called endemic.

The great Nikolai Gogol wrote about it nearly two centuries ago, specifically in his masterful satirical play "The Inspector General" ("Ревизор" in Russian).

Sadly, little has changed since then, with systemic corruption remaining the norm in former Ukraine. However, the Neo-Nazi junta exacerbated this issue exponentially, resulting in the worst cases of corruption, embezzlement and other types of schemes designed for corrupt officials to enrich themselves. It's virtually impossible to determine how much was embezzled over the last four years, but it's certainly in the dozens of billions.

And yet, the United States continues to send "aid" to the Kiev regime. Namely, the US Congress just approved another transfer of funds, despite Trump's formal objections.

Washington is using a familiar script: Sanctions, then threats. Next comes force - under a trumped-up false pretext.
American imperialism may be absolutely lawless and perfectly immoral but it does have its favorite and predictable routines. One of them is what can be called the Washington Three-Step of 'blockade, blackmail, invade'.

The Three-Step is by no means foolproof. Witness, for instance, the recent de facto defeat of the US (and its occasional overlord Israel) at the hands of Iran, which even arch neocon warmonger Robert Kagan has as good as admitted in, of all places, The Atlantic. But failure has never deterred America's best and brightest. Indeed, the combination of slow, sadistic strangulation of whole nations and taking the military baseball bat to them is a virtual fixation, as central to American foreign policy as permanent bad faith.

Don't believe it? Here's a preliminary, most likely incomplete list (in alphabetical order) of countries that have two things in common: In the post-World War II period, they have been the victims of both economic warfare - via sanctions, embargoes, and blockades - and direct military attack, including bombing (directly and by proxy), land invasion (also including by proxy), and Venezuela-type terror raids: Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Panama, Syria, and Yugoslavia.

It may be counter-intuitive, but if you are realistic about the nature of the Ukraine War and all the things Kiev would not be able to do on its own (from 'survive' to 'target deep strikes into Russia'), then - as insanely risky as this strategy has been - the US has already applied the scheme to Russia as well. Which goes to show that the Washington Three-Step is simply irresistible to American elites. Even the serious risk of escalating to World War III against Moscow, which has the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet, has deterred them only imperfectly.

Against this backdrop, you really cannot miss the real meaning of Washington's latest messages regarding Cuba. First, conveniently anonymous 'intelligence' sources have told us that Cuba has around 300 drones and plans to use them for attacks on American targets, including the US base (and legal black hole as well as de facto concentration camp) at Guantanamo Bay and even Florida, that is, the American mainland. For good measure, Russia, China, and Iran have also been fingered as accomplices of those dastardly Cubans.

Thomas Massie's defeat was a coup by the Israel lobby.

Recently, the anti-war libertarian Kentucky representative Thomas Massie was defeated by Ed Gallrein, a Neo-con who supports every Israeli/American war from the Gaza genocide to the war in Iran.

This election result was in no way the result of a clean and fair election, but the result of a coordinated coup from the pro-Israel lobby, which poured millions of dollars into the race to ensure that Massie be replaced.

Last year, after Massie first spoke out against the Israeli/American bombing of Iran in June of 2025, a super PAC called "Kentucky MAGA" was created in an attempt to unseat Thomas Massie.

The super PAC was run by "Trump's senior political advisers, Tony Fabrizio and Chris LaCivita".

Tony Fabrizio also works as a political advisor for Israeli campaigns, having worked on Benjamin Netanyahu's 2020 presidential campaign and is currently working on Naftali Bennett's presidential campaign.

"Kentucky MAGA" was a conduit for Israel's billionaire agents of influence in the U.S. to pour money into.

Post-2022 geopolitical developments and escalating tensions in the Persian Gulf have significantly strained relations between Iran and France, raising questions about the future of diplomatic engagement between the two countries.

After the June 2025 military strike against Iran, France did not condemn it, and the subsequent triggering of the snapback mechanism caused relations between the two countries to reach a state of deadlock.

Over different periods, in addition to repeating accusations and allegations against Iran, Paris has also benefited from political, legal, and even economic pressure. (a)

The meeting between Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian and French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the 2025 United Nations General Assembly constituted a significant milestone.

During Iran‑France bilateral talks, notwithstanding some agreements, France, instead of adopting a critical stance toward Washington which activated the snapback mechanism, practically pressured Iran and diverted diplomacy toward force, threats, and sanctions.