The United States wants to initiate direct talks with the Houthi movement in an attempt to end the war in Yemen, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The Trump administration is looking to prompt Saudi Arabia into taking part in secret talks in Oman with Houthi leaders to broker a cease-fire in Yemen, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the plans.

The US plan comes at a time when fears of broader regional war are growing, according to the report.

The Trump administration views Houthi forces in Yemen as "Iran proxies" and says Tehran should be held responsible for rocket and drone attacks against Saudi Arabia, the report said. Over recent months, the Houthi militants have conducted several drone attacks on Saudi airports and oil facilities.

A Washington, DC, mom says her political-consultant husband left her for Rep. Ilhan Omar, according to a bombshell divorce filing obtained by The Post.

Dr. Beth Jordan Mynett says her cheating spouse, Tim Mynett, told her in April that he was having an affair with the Somali-born US representative and that he even made a "shocking declaration of love" for the Minnesota congresswoman before he ditched his wife, alleges the filing, submitted in DC Superior Court on Tuesday.

The physician, 55, and her 38-year-old husband — who has worked for left-wing Democrats such as Omar and her Minnesota predecessor, Keith Ellison — have a 13-year-old son together.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said Tuesday that he will accept the offer of international aid to help fight the fires raging across the Amazon rainforest, but that French President Emmanuel Macron must first apologize to him.

Bolsonaro appeared offended by Macron's comments related to his handling of the unfolding crisis in the Amazon, and wanted them retracted.

"And then we can speak," he said, according to The Associated Press.

The Brazilian leader's demand for an apology follows Macron lashing out after a Bolsonaro supporter mocked Macron's wife, Brigitte, in a Facebook post, comparing her to Bolsonaro's wife, Michelle, and suggesting Macron was jealous.

Bolsonaro commented on the post in Portuguese, "don't humiliate the guy ... haha," leading Macron to respond during the Group of Seven summit on Monday that the comment was "very disrespectful."

"He said very disrespectful things about my wife. I have great respect for the Brazilian people and can only hope they soon have a president who is up to the job," Macron said.

Last week, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebuffed all existing Rules of Engagement (ROE) in Iraq and Lebanon, showing his readiness for war and an apparent willingness to ignite it. For the first time since 2006 his drones violated the old rules of engagement; an Israeli drone exploded in a southern suburb of Beirut, in unclear circumstances. Despite this lack of clarity and the attack's less than obvious conditions and objective, a few hours later Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah promised to attack Israel in retaliation for the killing of two Hezbollah operatives in Syria. Now Netanyahu has attacked again. Israeli jet attacked a 1982 base of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command FPLP-GC) in the Lebanese Bekaa Valley. This is a strong indication that Netanyahu accepts the challenge launched by Nasrallah, with all its consequences. It also indicates the continuation of Israel's policy of provocation, its "long arm" that, it is claimed, can reach any target (without exception!), and its willingness to teeter on the edge of the abyss of war.

There is room for doubt about the explosion of a suicide drone in the suburb of Beirut, particularly as the objective was apparently insignificant from the intelligence and military points of view (damage to an empty building where the Hezbollah public relations office is situated) as reported by the local media. Nevertheless, it is clear that Israel would not risk of war with Hezbollah after 13 years of abstinence without targeting a substantial objective worthy of Hezbollah's predictable reaction. Most probably, Prime Minister Netanyahu evaluated that the destruction of the target in the suburb of Beirut with a suicide drone could save many Israeli lives, and that the death of a few Israeli soldiers as "collateral damage" - a certain consequence of Hezbollah's forthcoming hit - is an acceptable loss.

But it is highly unlikely that Israeli intelligence failed to identify the target Israel hit in Aqraba, 15 km from Damascus airport, used as a base for Hezbollah in Syria. Israel may have wrongly identified the house as an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base - it is easy to guess that wherever the IRGC is present, Hezbollah is with it in Syria - a mistake that led to the killing of two Hezbollah members.

Washington would do anything to prevent an Iran-Iraq oil pipeline from ever being built, even if the Europeans were in favor, policy researchers told RT.

"Iraq would feel the wrath of the US" should it pursue a cross-border pipeline project with its neighbor Iran, believes the head of the British-based consultancy firm Alfa Energy, John Hall.

According to a recent report, Tehran talked with Baghdad about building an oil pipeline through Iraq into Syria. The sides have also reportedly discussed reviving the existing pipeline connecting Kirkuk in Iraqi Kurdistan with the city of Baniyas on Syria's Mediterranean coast. The pipeline was heavily damaged by US airstrikes in 2003 and has remained defunct since. The proposed project is said to be aimed at providing an alternative route for Iranian oil should the Strait of Hormuz be closed in case of a direct conflict with the US.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said he has no interest in talking with Donald Trump as long as US sanctions on Tehran stay in place. Trump floated the idea of meeting Rouhani at the G7 summit.

During the G7 event in France on Monday, Trump said he would be ready to meet Rouhani "if the circumstances were right." For such a meeting to happen, Tehran has to "be a good player" and complete a laundry list of demands, including abandoning its ballistic missiles program, the president stressed. He added that there is a "really good chance" that he would hold talks with Rouhani sometime in the future.

Rouhani, however, said that he is not interested in sitting down with Trump unless the US scraps all sanctions first.

The US should act by lifting all illegal, unjust and unfair sanctions imposed on Iran.

The Iranian leader added that productive talks are "impossible" unless Washington "respects the rights of the Iranian people."

Moscow dismissed claims by US Republican Senator Ron Johnson that he was denied entry to the country over his scathing criticism of the Kremlin. The lawmaker well knew he was blacklisted so he never applied for a visa, it said.

In a strongly worded statement on Monday, Johnson claimed that his visit to Russia as part of a bipartisan congressional delegation was about to be derailed after he failed to get a green light from the Russian authorities.

"Unfortunately, Russian officials continue to play diplomatic games with this sincere effort and have denied me entrance to Russia".

Johnson, who is the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, then launched into a long Russia-bashing tirade, describing President Vladimir Putin's policy as "a tragedy of historic proportions."

Lebanon, Iraq and Iran have declared recent Israeli aggression as an act of war after attacks on Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq over the weekend, promising devastating retaliation if the violence continues.

A pair of kamikaze drone attacks on Beirut's southern suburbs on Sunday and a drone strike on Palestinian militia in the Bekaa Valley early on Monday morning were akin to "a declaration of war," Lebanese President Michel Aoun told the United Nations Special Coordinator on Monday, adding that the aggression "allows us to resort to our right to defending our sovereignty."

The international community must reject Israel's "blatant violation" of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Lebanon and Israel, PM Saad al-Hariri implored ambassadors from the UN Security Council's permanent members. "Any escalation could develop into a regional cycle of violence that nobody can predict the extent of."

And any Israeli drones overflying Lebanon will be shot out of the sky, Hezbollah Secretary-General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah warned Tel Aviv. "Hezbollah will tolerate no more Israeli drones penetrating Lebanese airspace," he declared on Sunday after an explosive-laden drone took out Hezbollah's media center in Beirut.

U.S. national-security adviser John Bolton says there is no need for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to "rush" into any course of action regarding Russia's involvement with separatist forces in eastern Ukraine.

"I think, from the perspective of a new government in Ukraine, President Zelenskiy would be well-advised to look at how to unfold a strategy of dealing with the Russians very carefully," Bolton told RFE/RL in a wide-ranging interview on August 27 in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv.

"I don't think there is any reason to rush it into one course of action or another.... I think working this through over a period of time makes sense for the new government in Ukraine."


"I don't suppose that the Europeans are going to have a solution that is readily apparent," he added in reference to the so-called Normandy format of negations aimed at ending the Ukraine conflict.

The alleged use of sexual blackmail by spy agencies is hardly unique to the case of Jeffrey Epstein. Although the agencies involved as well as their alleged motivations and methods differ with each case, the crime of child trafficking with ties to intelligence agencies or those protected by them has been around for decades.

Some cases include the 1950s -1970s Kincora scandal and the 1981 Peter Hayman affair, both in the U.K.; and the Finders' cult and the Franklin scandal in the U.S. in the late 1980s. Just as these cases did not end in convictions, the pedophile and accused child-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein remained at arms' length for years.

"For almost two decades, for some nebulous reason, whether to do with ties to foreign intelligence, his billions of dollars, or his social connections, Epstein, whose alleged sexual sickness and horrific assaults on women without means or ability to protect themselves... remained untouchable," journalist Vicky Ward wrote in The Daily Beast in July.

The protection of sex traffickers by intelligence agencies is especially interesting in the wake of Epstein's death. Like others, Epstein had long been purported to have links with spy agencies. Such allegations documented by Whitney Webb in her multi-part series were recently published in Mintpress News.