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Oct 9, 2026 - World

Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s odyssey to Greece was described as a rousing success until the Wall Street Journal broke the news that Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle tried to shake down a Donald Trump donor, according to The Hill.The Journal reported late Wednesday that Guilfoyle asked Eric Deters, a Kentucky businessman and Trump supporter, to wire $100,000 to pay her American Express bill days before her July 2025 Senate confirmation hearing. “It won’t show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express that’s all that will show,” she allegedly texted him, CBS News reported. Deters says he never paid. He told CBS the request was a “quid pro quo,” while Guilfoyle called his claim “completely false.” Her lawyer, Jesse Binnall, has disputed the messages’ authenticity.The Hill spoke to one person deeply involved in U.S.-Greek relations, who requested anonymity and called the chaos around Guilfoyle a “clown show” that “tainted” a successful Rubio visit. The person said her conduct is unlikely to damage long-standing ties between Washington and Athens, but that it reinforced the idea that U.S. foreign policy is for sale and that closeness to Trump’s family and allies equals access. “It says, ‘we’re the merchants,’” the person said.Rubio was forced to address the issue, which took him off message, with the Hill reporting it appeared to have blindsided members of the Trump administration.“Our job is not to respond every time someone decides to give the media something without any advance warning, without having any chance to look at it and see what’s in there,” he told reporters while complaining that the story was “not the gospel."The allegations follow a Journal report last month that Guilfoyle promoted the business interests of a Greek construction and energy company and let its lobbyist into private diplomatic meetings. She has denied wrongdoing.Democrats have seized on the new report. “Reports coming out regarding Amb. Guilfoyle’s conduct are deeply concerning and suggest potentially corrupt influences on U.S. foreign policy,” Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) said in a statement to The Hill. “I have already demanded answers from Secretary Rubio regarding her conduct and will continue to press for transparency and accountability. As I have said before, if these allegations are accurate, Amb. Guilfoyle is unfit to represent the United States abroad and should be removed from her position.”

Oct 9, 2026 - World

Tories said to be ready to fight in Clacton, with standards investigation rumoured to be nearing its endNigel Farage’s rivals are gearing up for a byelection in Clacton in the months ahead, amid speculation that the standards inquiry into his £5m gift is nearing a conclusion.Conservative sources said the party was ready to fight in Farage’s seat, although senior figures in the shadow cabinet are divided about whether it would be winnable, given Farage’s victory in a byelection over the summer. Continue reading...

Oct 9, 2026 - World

A federal judge ruled that President Donald Trump’s first administration illegally sent asylum seekers to wait in Mexico, where they faced “persecution, torture, and possibly death.”U.S. District Judge Jesus G. Bernal of the Central District of California issued the 40-page ruling Wednesday in a lawsuit over the Migrant Protection Protocols, the policy better known as “Remain in Mexico.” A redacted version of the ruling was unsealed Friday, Politico reporter Kyle Cheney reported on X.Two legal aid groups, the Immigrant Defenders Law Center and Jewish Family Service of San Diego, sued in 2020 along with several asylum seekers, according to the ruling.The Trump administration launched the policy in January 2019, requiring many asylum seekers who arrived from Mexico to wait there while their cases moved through U.S. immigration courts, the ruling said. The Department of Homeland Security placed 66,985 people in that first version.The government said it created the program to address what it called a migration crisis at the southern border and to stop what officials viewed as abuse of the asylum system. But human rights groups documented more than 1,000 instances of violence against people in the program, including murder, torture, rape and kidnapping.“DHS concluded that MPP 1.0 enrollees awaiting their court hearings in Mexico ‘were subject to extreme violence and insecurity at the hands of transnational criminal organizations,’” Bernal wrote.Bernal ruled that the program broke a federal law requiring agencies to reasonably justify their decisions, because officials did not fully consider conditions in Mexico before launching it.“Yet, there is no evidence that Defendants considered the conditions in Mexico prior to implementing MPP 1.0,” the judge said.Bernal also ruled that the policy violated the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of a full and fair hearing for people facing deportation.“Defendants’ removal of MPP 1.0 enrollees to Mexico where they … ‘face[d] persecution, torture, and possibly death’ deprived them of this right,” Bernal wrote. “Where noncitizens face dangerous conditions, it would be ‘untenable’ to expect them to litigate their immigration case under such conditions."The policy also violated asylum seekers’ right under federal law to be represented by a lawyer, the judge ruled. Only about 7% of people in the program had attorneys, compared with 80% of asylum seekers in immigration court overall, according to immigration court records cited in the ruling.The judge further found that the program violated the First Amendment rights of the legal aid groups and asylum seekers at immigration hearing sites, where attorneys got at most one hour with clients before court and could not speak with people who had not hired them.“The Government fails to point to any evidence in the record, or even make any argument that the restrictions ‘fulfill[] a legitimate need,’” Bernal wrote.The Trump administration reinstated the policy in January 2025, according to the ruling. Bernal paused the revived version in April, but a federal appeals court later limited the pause to the Immigrant Defenders Law Center’s current and future clients.Bernal ordered the government to propose within 21 days how it will notify asylum seekers covered by the lawsuit, after formally voiding the original program’s policies and guidance.

Oct 9, 2026 - World

Men found inside RAF Molesworth, used by US and Nato for intelligence, freed on strict conditions as police continue investigationTwo Latvian men have been released on bail after being arrested at an RAF base in Cambridgeshire used by the US military and Nato.The two men, aged 32 and 26, were arrested at 2am on Thursday after they were discovered inside RAF Molesworth in Cambridgeshire, which is used by the US military and Nato for intelligence operations. Continue reading...

Oct 9, 2026 - World

Two powerful 7.7 and 6.6 magnitude earthquakes and a series of aftershocks struck Panama Friday afternoon, collapsing buildings near the epicenter and prompting evacuations across the country, the U.S. Geological Survey said.