Top World News

Oct 23, 2026 - World

Following a wave of fierce backlash, President Donald Trump claimed Thursday that Ukraine’s access to SpaceX’s Starlink services had been fully restored — only to have that claim immediately undercut by a Ukrainian official, Axios’ Barak Ravid reported Friday.Last week, Ukraine’s ability to use Starlink services for combat drone missions was compromised after its access to the broadband internet service was restricted without warning. Some prominent Ukrainian figures suspected Trump was behind the move given the president’s growing frustrations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.Subsequent reporting tied the newly imposed Starlink restrictions directly to the White House, and on Thursday, Trump neither confirmed nor denied the allegations that he had spoken to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk about restoring Ukraine’s access to Starlink.“I don't want to comment on it, you know, whether I called or whether somebody else called. Doesn't make any difference,” Trump told reporters. “The bottom line: He put it back.”And yet, despite Trump’s claim, a Ukrainian official disputed the president within a matter of hours.“A Ukrainian official tells me that Starlink and Starshield are still restricted in Ukraine despite Trump's claim that it is back up,” Ravid wrote in a post on X.????A Ukrainian official tells me that Starlink and Starshield are still restricted in Ukraine despite Trump's claim that it is back up— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) October 23, 2026

Oct 23, 2026 - World

Several senior Trump administration officials expressed fears that the president’s next move may very well send the U.S. and global economies “further cratering,” Zeteo reported Friday.According to multiple reports citing Trump administration officials, the president appears poised to renew attacks on Iran in a matter of days. Earlier this month, the Pentagon instructed U.S. Central Command to finish preparations for resuming major combat operations, and on Thursday, The Atlantic reported that President Donald Trump was “considering” authorizing “several days of strikes.”Speaking on the condition of anonymity, several senior Trump administration officials warned that such a move could prove disastrous on multiple fronts.“Several senior officials I spoke to are (to put it mildly) massively skeptical that revving Trump’s war machine back up will bring about the (supposedly) intended result of forcing the Iranian government to make significant concessions and end the war in Trump’s favor,” Zeteo’s Asawin Suebsaeng reported. “These officials also fear a further cratering of the U.S. and global economies, which have already suffered significantly during the oil crisis and other shockwaves caused by Trump’s war and Iran’s shuttering of the Strait of Hormuz. (This is to say nothing of the likelihood of a growing death toll in multiple nations, the danger to U.S. troops, and other inevitabilities if Trump keeps at it.)”Iranian officials have already made clear that a U.S. attack would be met with an immediate response, including the destruction of Middle East oil facilities, submarine communication cables and AI facilities and data centers in the region.“In the event of a war, cables, datacentres and artificial intelligence facilities could also be targeted. If the conflict breaks out again, we will have a broader plan,” said Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, according to Iranian state media.“There can be no arrangement in which Iran’s economic lifelines come under attack while the economic architecture enabling those attacks is considered untouched and immune.”

Oct 23, 2026 - World

Case filed in 2022 by patient unable to afford medicine leads to cap on drug prices for millions who face ruin if diagnosedThe Indian government has moved to reduce the price of cancer drugs after a retired bank clerk took her case to the supreme court.From next month, 137 cancer drugs in India will be cheaper as the government tries to tackle the tragedy of poorer patients either forgoing treatment, selling land or falling into debt to meet the high cost of some medicines, which are making large profits for hospitals and pharmacists. Continue reading...

Oct 22, 2026 - World

Secret accounts, alleged payments to shadowy figures, and spies watching his phone are among the bombshell claims about Jared Kushner in a new book excerpt published Thursday by Vanity Fair. First, journalist Matthew Cole alleged Gulf rulers supplied roughly $2 billion to accounts for Trump’s son-in-law, including $750 million in a charity account Kushner allegedly helped manage.Second, another $1 billion allegedly reached Israel’s central bank for his personal benefit, with Benjamin Netanyahu requiring advance notice of transactions.Third, Cole also recounts a source’s allegation that Kushner transferred money to “a warlord, a mercenary and a one-time hit man," according to the excerpt.The fourth claim revolves around a promise of influence. “Jared promised MBZ that he’d push their agenda with Trump if they participated in a fund,” another source said, referring to UAE ruler Mohamed bin Zayed.Fifth, Russian spies allegedly penetrated Kushner’s phone first. Dutch intelligence subsequently gained access and monitored his screen, the excerpt said, according to Vanity Fair.Sixth, Gulf leaders initially discussed a separate $10 billion fund to support Trump’s priorities, including his border wall and reelection. Finally, Cole writes that four senior Trump officials, including two national security advisers, knew of no presidential authorization for Kushner’s foreign-account access, Cole writes.According to Vanity Fair, Kushner’s counsel denied the alleged accounts and legal violations, saying his arrangements with foreign officials had Trump’s approval.

Oct 22, 2026 - World

Observers were shocked Thursday after a new book excerpt detailed how foreign spies spent months peering into the phone of President Donald Trump's son-in-law.In an excerpt published by Vanity Fair from his upcoming book "Princes and Thieves," investigative reporter Matthew Cole lays out how Dutch military intelligence flipped a Russian GRU hacker in 2017 and used him to reach a Russian server holding screenshots from Jared Kushner's iPhone. By early 2018, according to Cole, the Dutch had cracked the device themselves and could watch Kushner's screen in real time.What they saw, Cole reports, was Kushner logging into a UAE bank account stocked with hundreds of millions of dollars routed through a bank in Azerbaijan. Cole's reporting alleges that the Saudi and Emirati royals ultimately put at least $2 billion into accounts tied to Kushner, including roughly $750 million at First Abu Dhabi Bank, where Kushner was allegedly a signatory on an account owned by an Emirati charity, and about $1 billion in Israel's Central Bank.A former Mueller prosecutor told Cole that Kushner may have run afoul of federal bribery and foreign agents laws if he promised anything in return. Kushner's lawyer denied any wrongdoing and insisted "there are no accounts and never were."Reaction online was swift."Every word of this is f------ insane," investigative journalist Scott Stedman fumed on X. "Kushner cannot be in charge of negotiations."Stedman followed up by arguing that, if the reporting holds, Cole "may have uncovered the biggest case of foreign bribery (MBZ and MBS of Kushner) in U.S. history."Drop Site News co-founder Ryan Grim marveled at the backstory. "Aside from the shocking substance of this story, what's amazing is how it was unearthed by Cole," he wrote.Former Rolling Stone editor-in-chief Noah Shachtman summed up the chain of events, noting that Dutch cyberspies reverse-engineered a Russian hack to gain "unprecedented access to his world." He called it a "bananas story."National security journalist Zach Dorfman hailed it as "astounding reporting," while reporter Erin Banco kept it short. "This is wild," she posted.