On ending the battle in Ukraine, Rutte says Trump is ‘the one one who can get this achieved’
Chatting with reporters after a gathering with a bipartisan group of senators on Capitol Hill, the Nato secretary common Mark Rutte stated that he had “full confidence” in Donald Trump’s means to dealer peace between Ukraine and Russia. He evaded a query about whether or not he was involved that the president has persuaded Volodymyr Zelenskyy to “go softer” on Russia.
“He’s the one one that may get this achieved,” Rutte stated. “You will have a president with a variety of expertise due to his first time period in workplace, and who has a transparent imaginative and prescient on bringing this battle to a sturdy and lasting finish.”
Rutte will meet with Trump in just a few hours. “We’ll focus on additional how we from Nato could be useful in delivering his imaginative and prescient of getting a full-scale piece in Ukraine which, in fact, all of us pray for after his monumental success in Gaza,” Rutte stated earlier.
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As Jeff Merkley hits the twentieth hour of his Senate ground speech, his Democratic colleagues within the higher chamber have praised his efforts, and joined him on the ground to ask questions and provides him small breaks as he continues his marathon monologue.
The senate’s prime Democrat, Chuck Schumer, referred to as it “unbelievable”, characterizing the speech as a part of the “struggle to guard American households from Trump’s reckless and corrupt administration”.
Earlier, senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, stated that it “says rather a lot” in regards to the Trump administration that Merkley can spend hours “speaking all of the alternative ways Trump is hurting hardworking People and never run out of issues to say”.
Cory Booker, the senator from New Jersey who presently holds the report for longest ground speech (coming in at over 25 hours), stated Merkley was “demonstrating how Trump is shifting us in the direction of tyranny, as a substitute of standing up for American beliefs”.
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Trump urges cattle farmers to chop beef costs
Donald Trump has urged US cattle farmers to “get their costs down” so as to encourage People to purchase their beef.
On Fact Social, the president stated that ranchers all through the nation “don’t perceive” that the one motive they’re “doing so effectively”, is due to Trump’s tariffs on a number of international locations, “together with a 50% Tariff on Brazil”.
He added:
If it weren’t for me, they’d be doing simply as they’ve achieved for the previous 20 years – Horrible! It could be good if they’d perceive that, however in addition they need to get their costs down, as a result of the buyer is a really large consider my considering, additionally!
Over the weekend, Trump informed reporters he was contemplating importing beef from Argentina so as to decrease costs for shoppers.
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Watchdog group says prime prosecutor’s use of Sign could also be unlawful
Sam Levine
The revelation {that a} prime federal prosecutor used an encrypted messaging utility and had messages set to autodelete after eight hours is “deeply troubling” and could also be unlawful, a watchdog group stated.
Lindsey Halligan, the interim US legal professional for the japanese district of Virginia, used Sign to speak with Anna Bower, a journalist for Lawfare, in regards to the legal case she is pursuing towards New York legal professional common Letitia James. Bower revealed the total dialog Monday night and stated Halligan had set messages to autodelete after eight hours.
Lindsey Halligan speaks with a reporter outdoors the White Home, 20 August 2025. {Photograph}: Jacquelyn Martin/AP
“The story about U.S. Legal professional Lindsey Halligan’s use of Sign is deeply troubling. That she used the app apparently to debate authorities enterprise with a reporter and configured her messages to vanish after eight hours, raises severe issues that she is actively violating the Federal Information Act and the Justice Division’s personal records-retention guidelines,” stated Chioma Chukwu, the chief director of American Oversight, a non-profit that continuously recordsdata lawsuits underneath the Freedom of Info Act to acquire federal data.
“Even when parts of the dialog would possibly comprise info not usually topic to speedy public disclosure underneath the Freedom of Info Act, federal regulation nonetheless requires that such data be preserved for specified intervals. Setting such communications to robotically delete will not be solely inconsistent with these obligations however patently illegal,” she stated. “If Halligan failed to make sure these Sign messages have been preserved, her actions might have violated federal regulation and warrant investigation or corrective motion by Legal professional Normal Pam Bondi and Performing Archivist Marco Rubio.”
The justice division didn’t return a request for remark.
Federal regulation usually requires authorities staff to protect official authorities data and units penalties for destroying them.
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Per my final put up, it’s price underscoring that Platner has achieved important momentum since he entered the race to problem incumbent Republican senator Susan Collins.
Maine’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, launched her bid for Senate not too long ago – making the schism between the previous and new guard of the get together abundantly clear.
In the meantime, Jordan Wooden, one other Maine Democratic candidate for Senate, stated at present that Platner’s reddit feedback are “disqualifying and never who we’re as Mainers or as Democrats”.
He added:
With Donald Trump and his sycophants demonizing People, spewing hate, and operating roughshod over the structure, Democrats want to have the ability to condemn Trump’s actions with ethical readability. Graham Platner not can.
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Maine Democratic senate candidate, embroiled in current controversy, covers tattoo acknowledged as a Nazi image
Graham Platner, the Democratic senate candidate from Maine, stated that he has lined a tattoo on his chest that’s well known as a Nazi image.
In an interview with the Related Press, Platner stated he determined to get it lined as a substitute of eliminated – a promise he initially made – as a result of it might be quicker and simpler given the choices of the place he lives in Maine.
Graham Platner attends a city corridor in Portland, Foremost, 25 September 2025. {Photograph}: Daryn Slover/AP
“Going to a tattoo elimination place goes to take some time,” he informed the AP. “I needed this factor off my physique.”
This comes after Platner revealed, on an episode of the Pod Save America podcast, that he bought the skull-and-crossbones tattoo in 2007, when he was within the Marine corps. He stated that he didn’t understand, till not too long ago, that the picture has been related to Nazi police.
Platner has not too long ago discovered himself embroiled in controversy after inflammatory Reddit posts spanning 2013 to 2021 resurfaced. These included Platner calling cops “bastards”, questioning why Black individuals tip much less, and showing to agree with characterizations of rural white voters as “racist” and “silly”. Final week he issued a video apology for the feedback.
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On ending the battle in Ukraine, Rutte says Trump is ‘the one one who can get this achieved’
Chatting with reporters after a gathering with a bipartisan group of senators on Capitol Hill, the Nato secretary common Mark Rutte stated that he had “full confidence” in Donald Trump’s means to dealer peace between Ukraine and Russia. He evaded a query about whether or not he was involved that the president has persuaded Volodymyr Zelenskyy to “go softer” on Russia.
“He’s the one one that may get this achieved,” Rutte stated. “You will have a president with a variety of expertise due to his first time period in workplace, and who has a transparent imaginative and prescient on bringing this battle to a sturdy and lasting finish.”
Rutte will meet with Trump in just a few hours. “We’ll focus on additional how we from Nato could be useful in delivering his imaginative and prescient of getting a full-scale piece in Ukraine which, in fact, all of us pray for after his monumental success in Gaza,” Rutte stated earlier.
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Merkley’s marathon Senate speech enters nineteenth hour
Jeff Merkley, Oregon’s Democratic senator, has been talking on the ground of the higher chamber for 19 hours. As my colleague, Chris Stein, reviews, a spokesperson for the senator says he’s planning to talk “so long as he can”.
Merkley began talking on Tuesday night and has issued a number of damning critiques of the president and his administration. “Equal justice underneath regulation – that’s the imaginative and prescient right here in America. Not unequal injustice, which is what the president is pursuing by taking the ability of the federal government and going after people that he doesn’t like or perceives to be political opponents,” he stated.
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Up to date at 13.35 EDT
High Democrat on Home oversight committee urges DOJ to show over Epstein recordsdata
Robert Garcia, rating member of the Home oversight committee, has referred to as on US legal professional common Pam Bondi and the justice division to show over all Jeffrey Epstein-related recordsdata.
Following this week’s launch of a posthumous memoir of Virginia Giuffre, a survivor of the disgraced financier’s intercourse trafficking operations, Garcia stated:
“Virginia Giuffre’s allegations are heartbreaking and horrific, together with testimony that distinguished world and US leaders perpetrated sexual assault and intercourse trafficking of women and younger girls. Ms. Giuffre clearly contradicts the company’s declare that the Epstein recordsdata didn’t justify additional investigation. In mild of this, the DOJ should adjust to our subpoena and supply our Committee with the total Epstein recordsdata instantly, as a result of the American individuals demand the reality, the survivors deserve justice, and we should finish this White Home cover-up.”
In the meantime, in a letter to Bondi, Garcia wrote:
“Your refusal to launch the recordsdata and your continued disregard of a congressional subpoena raises severe questions on your motives. Oversight Democrats assist transparency and accountability for the survivors of Epstein’s crimes, as described by Ms. Giuffre, whatever the identities of the perpetrators or co-conspirators or their positions of energy. You, nonetheless, are going to excessive lengths to hide the reality from the American individuals, apparently in cooperation with President Trump.”
‘No person’s Woman’ by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, Westminster, London, UK – 21 Oct 2025 {Photograph}: Mark Thomas/ShutterstockShareRachel Leingang
The No Kings alliance, the left-leaning teams behind the mass days of protest final Saturday and in June, is constructing a nationwide speedy response community that can name on supporters to take new actions every week.
Leaders of the organizations informed the Guardian that there was power for “some sort of disruption”, and future actions might embody focused boycotts, campaigns at universities, extra road protests, and electoral organizing in native communities.
After an estimated 7 million individuals took to the streets final weekend, tens of 1000’s joined a nationwide name on Tuesday to listen to what’s subsequent for the rising motion. Leaders celebrated the broad turnout, saying it confirmed how a lot opposition to Trump there was in all corners of the US, and talked about the way to maintain and develop a motion throughout an more and more authoritarian second for the nation.
The subsequent steps for this burgeoning resistance will present the sturdiness of the motion and whether or not it may well strain Democrats or pillars of civil society to face stronger towards Trump, or whether or not it may well drive defections from Trump’s Republican allies to fracture his energy.
For the total story, click on right here:
Hundreds of protestors take to the streets with placards through the “No Kings” nationwide day of protest towards Donald Trump and the present administration. {Photograph}: Derek French/SOPA Photos/ShutterstockShareDani Anguiano
Democrat Scott Wiener will run for the US Home seat lengthy held by Nancy Pelosi, the California state senator introduced on Wednesday.
Pelosi, the primary feminine speaker of the Home, has represented San Francisco in Congress since 1987 and has not but stated whether or not she’s going to search re-election in 2026. However Democrats are more and more going through requires change with youthful candidates who will supply new opposition to Donald Trump.
Wiener has served as a state lawmaker since 2016 and stated he was in search of workplace to face as much as Trump because the president wages a “full-on battle towards immigrants and LGBTQ individuals” and the price of dwelling continues to extend.
“We’d like greater than rhetoric and good intentions from Democrats. We’d like motion. We’d like somebody who will struggle like hell for essentially the most marginalized in our neighborhood – somebody who will get up for trans youngsters, undocumented immigrants even when it’s unpopular, even when it means getting personally attacked and threatened,” Wiener stated in an announcement. “We’d like leaders with spines, who don’t simply put their finger within the air to see the place the winds are blowing or what polls effectively.”
As a state lawmaker, Wiener, an legal professional who attended Harvard regulation faculty, authored a not too long ago handed invoice banning federal and state regulation enforcement from sporting masks and has promoted laws to deal with California’s housing disaster and broaden local weather motion.
“I’m operating for Congress to defend San Francisco, our values, our individuals and the structure of the US with every little thing I’ve,” Wiener stated in a video saying his candidacy. “I’ve stood as much as violence and hate my whole life. Trump and his Maga extremists don’t scare me.”
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Up to date at 12.33 EDT
Forward of the president’s assembly with Nato secretary common Mark Rutte, the place we are able to count on the stalled progress to finish the battle in Ukraine to be prime of the agenda, my colleagues are overlaying the most recent developments in Europe.
My colleague, Tom Ambrose, notes that Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated that that Donald Trump’s name for Ukraine and Russia to cease on the present frontlines was “a very good compromise”, however is uncertain that Vladimir Putin will agree.
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Only a fast replace, senator Jeff Merkley, of Oregon, continues to be talking on the senate ground. He’s been talking for 16 hours in a far-ranging critique of the Trump administration’s insurance policies.
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Up to date at 11.32 EDT
Vance meets with households of Israeli hostages after press convention with Netanyahu
A short time in the past, vice-president JD Vance met with households of Israeli hostages who returned alive and households members of deceased hostages who haven’t been returned.
Earlier, Vance met with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who maintained that Israel has an “unmatched alliance” and partnership with the US.
“I used to be impressed together with your readability, together with your incisiveness, together with your solidarity for our widespread trigger,” he stated of Vance.
JD Vance and Benjamin Netanyahu meet on the prime minister’s workplace in Jerusalem, Israel. {Photograph}: Getty Photos
The vice-president stated that the nations they’d be sitting all the way down to work on the Gaza peace plan. “We’re have a really robust process forward of us, which is to disarm Hamas however rebuild Gaza,” he stated.
When Vance was requested in regards to the fragility of the present ceasefire he stated “this factor takes monitoring, and it’s going to take a variety of work.”
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Up to date at 11.22 EDT
One repeated chorus from Home Republicans at present was how Democrats push again on a number of coverage points just because they’re loth to assist the president.
Most of at present’s audio system repeated this declare at present, with Home convention chair Lisa McClain even saying “president Trump might have the remedy for most cancers, and the Democrats would vote no” as a result of it got here from him.
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Up to date at 11.14 EDT
