Author: potus

Three Bulgarians have been found guilty of spying for Russia in Britain and across continental Europe as part of one of the largest Russian espionage rings ever uncovered by the British police.During a three-year period, the group, led by a Bulgarian I.T. specialist, Orlin Roussev, 47, conducted six operations targeting journalists and critics of the Russian government, prosecutors said, adding they also carried out surveillance at a U.S. military site in Germany, where they believed Ukrainian soldiers were being trained.“This case is a clear example of the increasing amount of state threat casework we are dealing with in the U.K.…

What is President Trump up to? This is arguably the most important question in the world right now — and perhaps the toughest to answer.Mr. Trump’s words and actions seem to revolve around a central idea: The world is a zero-sum game. Whoever pays the most into the pot is the loser; whoever gets the most is the winner.That may sound like a mere difference of perspective or negotiation style. But most of the postwar international order is based on the idea that the world is a positive-sum game: a collection of overlapping systems that benefit all who participate in…

HOLLAND, Mich. (AP) — Protesters demanding an in-person town hall from their western Michigan GOP congressman chanted loudly Friday as honking drivers signaled support, disrupting the usual calm of a conservative family vacation town.Mere hours later, Rep. Bill Huizenga held a town hall — by phone. The vocal disruption seen outside his Holland office earlier in the day was absent, as the more controlled setting allowed for questions from pre-selected letters and callers.“I know this may not be satisfactory to some who would like to just create a scene and be, you know, be disruptive,” Huizenga said on the call.…

Panama will release 112 migrants who had been deported from the United States last month and were being held in a remote jungle camp, a minister said on Friday, after lawyers and advocates said the conditions violated Panamanian and international laws.The migrants come from countries that the United States cannot easily return deportees to, often because those nations will not receive them.Panama was issuing 30-day temporary humanitarian passes to the migrants to give them time to arrange their return to their homelands, or to other countries willing to take them, Panama’s security minister, Frank Ábrego, told reporters on Friday. He…

To the Editor:Re “Giving Up Foreign Policy Pretenses,” by Ross Douthat (column, March 2):President Trump and Vice President JD Vance are repeating a foreign policy misstep that Neville Chamberlain, Britain’s prime minister, made famous in the 1930s: appeasement.Some may speculate that Mr. Trump is playing three-dimensional chess, or that the past 80 years could have been improved with less trade, fewer alliances and reduced globalization. However, these arguments miss a fundamental point.Henry Kissinger, who is mentioned in Mr. Douthat’s column, had a mixed legacy of achievements. Yet it’s doubtful he would have permitted the disorganized preparation and lack of discipline…

United States President Donald Trump has issued a statement threatening Russia with tariffs and sanctions, amid accusations that he favours Moscow over the country it has invaded, Ukraine. On his Truth Social platform on Friday, Trump avoided condemning Russia’s invasion, which has been denounced as an unjustified crime of aggression under the United Nations Charter. Instead, he focused on Russia’s latest bombardment, which happened just days after the US announced it would temporarily stop sharing military intelligence with Ukraine. “Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale…

The United States will immediately start offering a rapid pathway to citizenship for South African farmers, President Trump said in a social media post on Friday, falsely claiming that South Africa’s government was confiscating their land “and MUCH WORSE THAN THAT.”The post largely echoed what Mr. Trump has previously said about South Africa, including in an executive order last month in which he suspended all American aid to the country and offered refugee status to Afrikaners, a white ethnic minority.In January, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa signed into law a measure that would allow the government to take land…

A Palantir Technologies TITAN, Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node, for military defense field intelligence deployment, is displayed at the companys booth during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada on Jan. 5, 2023.Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty ImagesPalantir is rolling out its first two artificial intelligence-enabled systems to the U.S. Army, the company said Friday.The Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node systems, or TITAN, act as a mobile ground station that harness AI to collect data from space sensors to assist soldiers with warfare strategy and improve strike targeting and accuracy, according to Palantir.President and Chief Technology…

The Trump administration said Friday it is ending collective bargaining for more than 50,000 Transportation Security Administration officers that staff checkpoints at U.S. airports and other transportation hubs.The Homeland Security Department said the move will remove bureaucratic hurdles, while the union representing workers did not immediately comment.President Donald Trump on Jan. 20 forced out TSA administrator David Pekoske, whom he had named to the job in 2017 and was reappointed by former President Joe Biden.Trump has not yet named a candidate to replace Pekoske.The TSA reached a new seven-year labor deal in May 2024 with the American Federation of Government Employees after nearly…

After President Trump imposed tariffs on Canada on Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an extraordinary statement that was largely lost in the fray of the moment. “The excuse that he’s giving for these tariffs today of fentanyl is completely bogus, completely unjustified, completely false,” Mr. Trudeau told the news media in Ottawa. “What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us,” he added.This is the story of how Mr. Trudeau went from thinking Mr. Trump was joking when he referred to him as “governor” and Canada as…