Former President Trump narrowly survived yet another assassination attempt after a sniper with a scoped AK-47 rifle got within a few hundred yards of him as he played golf at his West Palm Beach, Florida club on Friday.

It is the second time a madman armed with an assault rifle has tried to kill the 45th president in two months.

Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said the suspect had taken cover near a chain-link fence between 300-500 yards away from Trump, but conceded, "with a rifle and scope like that is not a long distance."

Law enforcement sources told The Post that the suspect is 58-year-old Ryan Routh of Hawaii.

European governments should halt welfare benefits to Ukrainian men of military age who are living in their countries, Poland's foreign minister said, a measure he said would help Ukraine call up more troops to fight Russian forces.

Following a meeting in Kyiv with his Ukrainian counterpart, Poland's Radoslaw Sikorski said ending social benefits for Ukrainian male refugees would also benefit state finances in host countries in Western Europe.

More than 4.1 million Ukrainians had temporary protection status in European Union countries as of July this year, and about 22 per cent of them were adult men, according to data from the EU statistics office, Eurostat.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer took his entire cabinet to Washington last week for a pow-wow with their American war allies to plead his case for allowing Ukraine to use long-range precision weapons to target Russian military bases and missile launch sites deep within Russia. Putin said Russia will 'respond in kind' and, although no one knows what that means, the Anglo-Americans are confident the Russian president is bluffing.

This week on NewsReal, Joe & Niall explain, again, that nuclear exchange isn't in play here; the two sides are indeed escalating, but under the threshold of M.A.D., and against the clock of Ukrainian statehood collapsing into its own footprint. Anyway, nothing major is likely to happen before the US election.

Speaking of which, what on Earth is all this post-debate nonsense between Trump and Harris supporters about Haitian immigrants sacrificing people's pets? As Joe dives into the voodoo, Niall brings up the NYT's election prediction: it's going to take 'days' to count all the votes, 'naturally', so the chances of Kamala not 'winning' are shrinking by the day...


Running Time: 01:56:19

Download: MP3 — 107 MB

Rolling out of my crib before dawn today (I was in it long before the charlatans Harris and Trump began their theatrical "debate"), it being another September 11th, I wondered where Dick Cheney was.

And I was still wondering where Elmer Gantry was, having received the previous day a form message from RFK, Jr.'s faith-based engagement team leader, Rev. Wendy Silvers, that she was conducting a "pop-up" prayer service for the great Ciceronians' debate, with Bobby Kennedy in the press room, rooting for his boy Donald.

Cheney and Harris vs. Kennedy and Trump. A tag-team match perfect for the World Wrestling Federation (WWF).

I had just dreamed, or so I thought, that Cheney was out night-riding his white stallion across the Wyoming hills, long gun tight aside his saddle, cowboy hat slung back with a full moon shining on his melonic noggin, sea-shells in his ears as he grooved from side-to-side to the music of that other Kamala Harris endorser, Taylor Swift. It's always wonderful, wonderful, oh so wonderful to get political advice from a fully-clothed warmonger and a scantily-clad diva.

In my dream I heard another voice as night rider Dick ripped off his earphones and pulled back on the reins. "Dick, Dick," an eerie voice rang out:

'If you want to save your soul from hell a-riding on our range,
Then cowboy change your ways today or with us you will ride
-try'ng to catch the devil's herd
Across these endless skies'
Yippee-yi-ay, yippee-yi-o,
The ghost herd in the sky.

That was it, I threw my old clothes on and headed up the hill to the lake to clear my mind of such a nasty flic. Dick hadn't changed his ways since 2001, except to embrace Democratic war making instead of Republican.

Actually, that's wrong, for as Mr. Neocon, a signer of the bloodthirsty neo-conservative document the Project for the New American Century, he always welcomed and got bipartisan support to attack Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.

The neo-cons who run the Democrats and Republicans alike, and whose document "Rebuilding America's Defenses" most interestingly stated long before COVID-19 that "advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool."

You don't say.

Australia said it will fine internet platforms up to 5% of their global revenue for failing to prevent the spread of misinformation online, joining a worldwide push to rein in borderless tech giants but angering free speech advocates.

The government said it would make tech platforms set codes of conduct governing how they stop dangerous falsehoods spreading, to be approved by a regulator. The regulator would set its own standard if a platform failed to do so, then fine companies for non-compliance.

The legislation, to be introduced in parliament on Thursday, targets false content that hurts election integrity or public health, calls for denouncing a group or injuring a person, or risks disrupting key infrastructure or emergency services.

The bill is part of a wide-ranging regulatory crackdown by Australia, where leaders have complained that foreign-domiciled tech platforms are overriding the country's sovereignty, and comes ahead of a federal election due within a year.

Military says brigade commander did not have approval to distribute leaflets calling on civilians to leave area used by Hezbollah to launch attacks; flyers dropped by drone

The Israeli military clarified on Sunday that there was no evacuation recommendation given for civilians in southern Lebanon, and that flyers dropped in the southern village of Wazzani calling on residents to leave had been distributed by a brigade commander without permission.

The military said it has launched an investigation into the incident.

The flyers called on Lebanese civilians in highlighted zones close to the border to evacuate by 4 p.m. due to Hezbollah activity in the area.

Venezuela has announced the arrest of three Americans, two Spaniards and a Czech citizen, accusing them of plotting to assassinate President Nicolas Maduro. The arrests were first announced Saturday by the country's Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who said that one of the Americans is Wilbert Joseph Castañeda Gomez - a Navy SEAL - who state television said served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Colombia.

Cabello alleged this was all part of another CIA plot to overthrow the Maduro government, which comes after Washington has contested the official results July 28 election which ensured the longtime strongman another six-year term as leader.

Cabello further held up rifles he claimed were used by the six foreigners as part of the anti-government plot. Below is an image circulated by state media of Gomez, who is being described as an active elite SEAL...

The relationship between Russia, the IMF, and BRICS isn't what most folks have been led to believe.

IMF Communications Director Julie Kozack confirmed during a press briefing on Thursday that the first Article IV consultations with Russia since 2021 will take place next week. She also praised BRICS expansion. Both of these caught multipolar enthusiasts off guard since they assumed that Russia wouldn't ever re-engage with the IMF, which they consider to be BRICS' rival. What follows are the exact words that she said, which will then be analyzed in the larger context of Russia's financial grand strategy:

"The IMF and all of our member countries have a mutual obligation to conduct Article IV Consultations. It's in our articles of agreement. Actually, in the case of Russia, since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the economic situation has been exceptionally unsettled, which has made it difficult to anchor Article IV Consultations, especially thinking about the outlook and policy frameworks for both the near- and the medium-term.

"Now that the economic situation is more settled, Article IV Consultations with Russia are resuming, as I said at the beginning, in line with the obligations of both the Fund and the member country.

"As part of the upcoming Article IV Consultation, the team will hold bilateral discussions with the Russian authorities. It will hold both virtual discussions from September 16th, and then the team will travel to the country for in person meetings. As is the case for all Article IV Consultations, the team will meet with a number of different stakeholders to discuss the country's economic developments, prospects, and policies. [...]
"With respect to the BRICS or any other groups of countries, our view is that improved and expanding international cooperation and deepening trade and investment ties among groups of countries should be welcomed and encouraged, provided that they aim at reducing fragmentation and reducing trade and investment costs among members. The decision to join such initiatives is a sovereign decision of each member country. And I'll leave it at that."

Readers should also be aware that Russia appointed a new Executive Director to the organization earlier this month, Ksenia Yudaeva. She's an advisor to the Bank of Russia's chief but also under US sanctions. Kozack declined to comment when asked whether Yudaeva would be allowed to serve at the IMF's headquarters in DC upon taking over her new role in November. In any case, the importance is that Russia is actively re-engaging with the IMF, and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently hinted at why.

The Republican vice presidential candidate has outlined what peace talks with Russia might look like.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has a concrete proposal to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict, his running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, has claimed.

Trump has repeatedly said he would stop the fighting "in 24 hours" if elected, most recently at Tuesday's debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats' candidate to succeed President Joe Biden.

Vance told former US Navy SEAL and CIA contractor Shawn Ryan, in a podcast interview:

"To end the war, you need somebody that first of all people are terrified of. You need to be worried that if Donald Trump - or God forbid, Kamala Harris - says something, that they actually mean it. But you believe it with Donald Trump, you don't believe that with Kamala Harris. That's deterrence."

Asked about what a Trump peace proposal would look like, Vance outlined a scenario he considered probable.

Are Washington's Voting Rights on the UN Security Council at Risk? "...a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting."

The main obstacle to a ceasefire in Gaza is not Israel or Hamas. It's the United States. Here's what you need to know:

The Security Council approved the Biden-authored ceasefire deal on June 10, 2024. (Three months ago) US diplomats assured the other members of the Security Council that Israel supported the agreement. That claim turned out to be false. Israel does not back the deal and refuses to implement its provisions. Even so, the so-called Biden Plan passed the Council in the form of Resolution 2735. Here's a summary of the agreement:

By resolution 2735 ... the 15-member organ noted that the implementation of this proposal would enable the following outcomes to spread over three phases, the first of which would include an immediate, full and complete ceasefire with the release of hostages; the return of the remains of some hostages who have been killed; the exchange of Palestinian prisoners; withdrawal of Israeli forces from the populated areas in Gaza; the return of Palestinian civilians to their homes; and the safe and effective distribution of humanitarian assistance at scale throughout Gaza.

Adopting Resolution 2735, United Nations

There's no ambiguity here, the Council's demands are clear. Both parties to the conflict are required to implement the provisions of the resolution that are "binding" under international law.