The US president and the Israel lobby intervened heavily in the battle to oust Massie Trump-endorsed Republican candidate Ed Gallrein has defeated Representative Thomas Massie in a primary election in Kentucky, in a result that the Israel lobby spent tens of millions of dollars to secure. Gallrein defeated Massie by 54.9% to 45.1% in Tuesday’s election, and will face off against Democratic candidate Melissa Strange this November. Massie had comfortably held Kentucky’s fourth congressional district since 2012, and easily fended off five primary challenges in the intervening years, but this year faced intense pressure from the president and pro-Israel megadonors. Massie’s insistence that Donald Trump release the full, unredacted Epstein files and refusal to back the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ spending package angered the president, who announced last year that he would back ...
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Leszek Miller has lashed out at Ursula von der Leyen, Kaja Kallas, and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel have done “unimaginable damage” to the EU through a series of disastrous policies, former Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller has said. Miller, who was responsible for Warsaw’s 2004 accession to the EU, took to X on Tuesday after Merkel received the newly created European Order of Merit award, presented to her by von der Leyen during a ceremony in Strasbourg. “Merkel and von der Leyen are two German women who have caused unimaginable damage to the European Union. I hope that justice will still catch up with them,” Miller wrote. Merkel led Germany from 2005 to 2021 through multiple crises. Among her most divisive policies was the decision to admit large numbers of asylum see...
London has allowed Russian-origin diesel and jet fuel to enter Britain as the Middle East conflict drives a sharp rise in energy costs The UK has rolled back some sanctions on Russian oil, allowing imports of diesel and jet fuel made from Russian crude in third countries, as households and airlines grapple with a fuel price crisis driven by conflict in the Middle East. The move effectively reverses London’s October pledge to ban imports of fuel made from Russian crude abroad, reopening a route for Russian oil to enter the British market through refiners in countries such as India and Türkiye. Western nations have imposed sanctions and price-cap measures on Russian oil exports since the 2022 escalation of the Ukraine conflict in an effort to reduce Moscow’s revenues. The trade license, which takes effect on Wednesday, allows imports of the fuels for an indefinite period, though officials sa...
Top lawmaker Adam Smith has pressed US Central Command chief Brad Cooper to acknowledge what he called “obvious” US culpability The Pentagon has once again refused to admit responsibility for a strike on an Iranian school that killed more than 170 people, most of them children, despite pressure from US lawmakers. The Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in southern Iran was hit on February 28, the first day of the US-Israeli bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic. According to Iranian officials, 175 people were killed, most of them children. US officials initially offered conflicting explanations , with President Donald Trump even suggesting the strike was “done by Iran.” Investigations by media outlets and analysts later concluded that the school was likely hit by a US-made missile . An internal military probe reportedly found US forces likely used “outdated tar...
The US and China remain strategic rivals, while Moscow and Beijing deepen a partnership built on long-term geopolitical interests The current choreography of great-power diplomacy has prompted a familiar round of speculation. Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives in China only days after his US counterpart Donald Trump’s own high-profile visit to Beijing, and commentators are already speaking of a new “great triangle” between Russia, China and the United States. The timing, however, is largely coincidental because Putin’s visit was planned long in advance. Meetings between the Russian and Chinese leaders are now routine and form part of an increasingly institutionalized partnership. Trump’s trip, by contrast, had already been postponed several times, most recently because of the war with Iran. The American president was clearly reluctant to arrive in Beijing while trapped i...
As Xi hosts Trump and Putin, Beijing is proving it can engage both powers at once without turning global politics into a zero-sum game These days all the world is closely following the high-level international meetings in China. US President Donald Trump just completed his first state visit to China since his trip in November 2017. On May 19, another top foreign guest will arrive on a two-day state visit: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. Unlike his American colleague, Putin has always regarded Beijing as one of his preferred international travel destinations; the last time he was here was less than a year ago, in September 2025. The two sequential trips symbolize the growing importance of China as a global player; Beijing has become an indispensable actor in critical dimensions of world politics and economy. More than ‘business as usual’ The two summits are not a sudden and unexpected ...