Top World News

Sep 8, 2025 - World

Japan’s economy expanded at a stronger rate in the fiscal first quarter than previously estimated, despite worries about U.S. tariffs and domestic political uncertainty, according to government data

Sep 7, 2025 - World

President Donald Trump interrupted his appearance at the US Open to send out a message about Israel's war in Gaza."Everyone wants the Hostages HOME," the president wrote Sunday on Truth Social. "Everyone wants this War to end!" "The Israelis have accepted my Terms. It is time for Hamas to accept as well," he continued. "I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting. This is my last warning, there will not be another one! Thank you for your attention to this matter."Before heading to the men's final tennis match in New York, Trump told reporters at the White House that he was also ready to move to a "second stage" of sanctions against Russia. The president, however, did not provide specific details.

Sep 7, 2025 - World

When the Supreme Court says Donald Trump is above the law, who speaks for the 11 dead on that boat U.S. forces blew up in the Caribbean? Their lives ended not in a battlefield crossfire or a clash between nations, but at the whim of one man emboldened by six justices who declared him untouchable.Trump simply ordered human beings erased, confident the Court had given him immunity from any consequence and the leaders of his military would obey an illegal order. Eleven souls were sacrificed not just to his cruelty, but to a judicial betrayal that transformed the presidency into a license to kill.For most of our history, American presidents have at least gone through the motions of cloaking lethal force in some form of legal justification.Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War but sought Congress’s approval. Franklin D. Roosevelt went to Congress for Lend-Lease before escalating aid to Britain, and sought a declaration of war against Japan. George W. Bush and Barack Obama leaned heavily on the post-9/11 Authorizations for Use of Military Force to justify everything from Afghanistan to drone strikes in Yemen and Somalia to killing Osama Bin Laden.The principle has always been that the United States does not simply kill people without some kind of legal process. It may be stretched, it may be abused, but it has been invoked.What Trump has now done with the strike on a small boat off Venezuela’s coast is to break that tradition in a way that is both lawless and unprecedented. He gave the order to kill 11 human beings with no congressional approval, no international authorization, and no visible evidence justifying it.This was simply murder on the high seas. And the world knows it.He did it in the full knowledge that six Republican appointees on the Supreme Court have granted him immunity for crimes committed while in office, even international crimes. That ruling opened the door to precisely this sort of extrajudicial killing and stripped away one of the last guardrails protecting both our law and our global standing.The official claim is that the boat carried members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. But 11 people on a small vessel that couldn’t possibly travel as far as America doesn’t sound like a cartel’s drug shipment (typically there’s only one or two people manning such a boar); it sounds like desperate migrants fleeing a collapsing country.That possibility makes the strike even more chilling when paired with a story Miles Taylor has told about Trump’s senior advisor Stephen Miller. Taylor recounts traveling with Miller and a Coast Guard admiral after a drug war event in Key West.On that trip, Miller asked the admiral if it would be legal to use a Predator drone to obliterate a boat full of migrants in international waters. Miller’s reasoning was that migrants weren’t covered by the Constitution, so what was to stop us from blowing them out of the water?The admiral reportedly shot back that it would violate international law, that “you cannot kill unarmed civilians just because you want to.” At the time it was an alarming glimpse into the sadistic mind of a man who saw immigrants as less than human.Now it looks like Trump has taken Miller’s reported hypothetical and turned it into policy. What was once an outrageous musing has become a bloody precedent.This has profound legal and moral implications.By attacking a vessel flying the flag of a sovereign state, Trump risked triggering a direct military confrontation. Venezuela could have fired back at American forces in the region. A firefight at sea can escalate quickly into a regional war, and Venezuela’s leader Nicolás Maduro would have every incentive to turn to Russia and China for protection.Leaders of both of those nations are eager to deepen their presence in our hemisphere, and this gives them an opening. It’s not inconceivable that Moscow or Beijing could send ships or aircraft to Venezuela in response.That would put foreign military forces hostile to us within 1,300 miles of Miami. If shots were fired between American forces and Russian or Chinese deployments in the Caribbean, the slide toward a larger war would be real, very much like the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1963 (except then we had a statesman as a president, instead of a corrupt buffoon).World War I began with a simple assassination that pitted one nation against another and then the sinking of the civilian boat the Lusitania; this is how great power conflicts can begin. Trump’s reckless strike doesn’t just risk Venezuelan lives. It risks American troops, regional stability, and, in the most ominous scenario, world peace itself.Meanwhile, at home, the timing is impossible to ignore. Authoritarians throughout history have turned to foreign crises to distract from domestic scandals.Nixon expanded the war into Cambodia as Watergate began to close in. Reagan invaded Grenada days after hundreds of Marines were killed in Beirut. Trump has lived for decades under the shadow of allegations of sexual predation, including reports that Jeffrey Epstein recorded him with underage girls during the years he owned and ran Miss Teen USA.If new evidence of that were to surface, Trump would need a distraction on a scale large enough to blot out the outrage. Creating a crisis with Venezuela, complete with martial language and threats of escalation while renaming the Department of Defense to Department of War, serves that purpose. It’s the oldest play in the authoritarian book: wag the dog.Except this time the stakes are far higher. This time we’re dealing with a president who’s been told by six corrupted members of the highest court in the land that he’s above the law.When Miles Taylor first revealed Miller’s macabre question about bombing migrant boats, some dismissed it as idle cruelty. It now looks like a glimpse into the inner workings of Trump’s policy mind. In this worldview, immigrants are vermin, human rights are optional, Democrats are “extremists,” and lethal force is just another tool of politics.Combine that with the Supreme Court’s gift of immunity and you have a recipe for lawless violence on a scale America has never contemplated. The entire edifice of international law is designed to prevent precisely this sort of conduct.Extrajudicial killings, violations of sovereignty, the targeting of civilians: these are the acts that international courts prosecute when they can, and that history condemns when courts cannot stop them.And now we’re learning that Trump did something similar in 2019 when he was last president. He authorized a SEAL Team strike against North Korea, where they killed three civilians in a boat who were simply out fishing.If America embraces this new Putin-like assertion of America’s power to bomb anybody, anywhere, on the whim of the president, we’ll have abandoned any claim to moral leadership.Worse, we will have normalized the authoritarian logic that anyone the president labels an enemy can be eliminated without trial, without evidence, without process. We’ll have handed Xi Jinping a rationale to attack Taiwan; all he has to do is claim that a non-governmental gang within that nation is importing drugs into China (or something similar).The international reaction has already been severe. America’s allies are horrified, our adversaries have been emboldened, and human rights groups are openly appalled.But the real test is here at home. Do we still believe in the principle, famously cited by our second president, John Adams, that America is a nation of laws and not of men? Do we still insist that presidents cannot kill at will? If Trump can strike a boat off Venezuela today, what is to stop him from ordering lethal force against dissidents, protesters, or political opponents tomorrow?Keep in mind, the same Stephen Miller — who reportedly wanted to blow up boats of immigrants to kill more brown people — just in the past week claimed that the Democratic Party is a “domestic extremist organization.”The doctrine of immunity means there is no legal backstop. The only remaining check is political will. And Trump’s fascist toadies are all in on more extrajudicial killings.On Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete “Kegger” Hegseth said:“We’ve got assets in the air, assets in the water, assets on ships, because this is a deadly serious mission for us, and it won’t stop with just this strike.”Secretary of State “Little Marco” Rubio echoed the sentiment, saying during a speech in Mexico City that similar strikes “will happen again.”This is why Democrats, independents, and every American who values the rule of law must call this out for what it is: an atrocity against eleven people, an assault on international norms, and a direct threat to American democracy.Trump has shown us exactly how far he’s willing to go. He’s willing to risk a war in our hemisphere. He’s willing to put our troops in danger. He’s willing to risk drawing Putin and Xi into a confrontation with us that could spiral out of control. He’s willing to destroy lives to protect himself. And he’s doing it because six Republicans on the Supreme Court told him he could.If Congress doesn’t act now to confront and contain this lawless behavior, if we don’t restore accountability to the presidency, then we’ll have surrendered not just our moral authority but our future.The question is not whether Trump wants a distraction from his scandals; of course he does. The question is whether we’re willing to let Trump and his fascist toadies drag America and the world into catastrophe to get it.This isn’t just about a boat off Venezuela. It’s about whether America will allow a president, blessed by the Court, to kill without evidence, without process, without even the pretense of law.Eleven dead migrants are the proof of what immunity means in practice: impunity. If Trump can slaughter refugees today, what stops him from targeting dissidents, protesters, even political opponents tomorrow?The answer, unless Congress and the people act, is nothing. And “nothing” is what those justices have left to protect us, our laws, and our humanity.

Sep 7, 2025 - World

There is arguably no better canary in the coal mine for the death of democracy than a president who seizes for himself the power to wage war.We seem to be headed there.President Donald Trump’s recent — and ongoing — unauthorized military aggression against Venezuela fails to meet even the minimal legal standard for presidential war powers. Trump and his henchmen have largely dispensed with pretexts.Citing no particular provocation, Trump blithely declared Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro America’s latest mortal enemy. That sort of gratuitousness is brought to you with a shrug by corporate media increasingly committed to a mission of stenography.The administration has designated Tren de Aragua a “foreign terrorist organization” — which may well be accurate but does not seem to have come with any provable link to Maduro other than rhetorical. Even if true, nothing in U.S. law permits unilateral military action on that ground alone by a U.S. president.But following the law has always ranked below the bottom of Trump’s “things to do” list in life.Here’s how the United States has apparently begun to launch an illegal war almost overnight, without a millisecond of congressional debate. And with scant attention at best in the news media.The Escalation — One Week, One DirectionAugust 8, 2025 — Trump designates Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization under the 2001 AUMF framework.(AP)Late August — U.S. naval and marine units mobilize in the southern Caribbean under an “anti-cartel” initiative.(The Guardian)September 2 — A U.S. drone strike sinks a speedboat allegedly linked to Tren de Aragua, killing 11. The administration justifies it as a drug interdiction.September 3, 2025 — Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro denounces the U.S. strike as a violation of sovereignty, orders militias to mobilize, and warns that Washington is laying the groundwork for regime change.September 3–4 — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth calls the strike “just the beginning.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio signals more strikes are being considered.September 5 — Trump orders the Pentagon rebranded as the Department of War in communications and signage. Hegseth becomes “Secretary of War.”September 5–6 — Ten F‑35 stealth fighters are deployed to Puerto Rico. Trump publicly states he’s weighing strikes inside Venezuela.Trump’s posture toward Maduro wasn’t always so hostile. During his first term, he told Axios on June 21, 2020, he was “open to meeting” with Maduro and even called him “very smart.”The timing was just astonishing, especially in today’s context. Trump publicly praised Maduro fewer than three months after his own Department of Justice had issued a press release headlined: “Nicolás Maduro Moros and 14 Current and Former Venezuelan Officials Charged with Narco-Terrorism, Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Criminal Charges.”Apparently narco-terrorism didn’t concern Donald the First as much as it seems to concern Donald the Second.Back in 2020, Trump did reverse himself on Twitter, but only after heads exploded among Florida Republicans. Taking issue with fellow strongmen has never ranked as one of Trump’s strengths.Trump has always positioned himself as an isolationist — and his repeated campaign pledges of “no more endless wars” — arguably garnered more votes than most analysts credited. Trump mocked “globalist” entanglements, vowed to bring troops home and end foreign adventurism.That’s all a thing of the past now that Trump openly aspires to become the world’s most dominant dictator.He drools about invading and seizing Greenland. He muses obscenely about annexing Canada, or at the very least, waging a mindless economic war with it and many other close allies. He obsesses about seizing the Panama Canal.His MAGA base has always been animated by extreme nationalism — ethnically and economically grounded — and it’s widely presumed that instinct mutates into isolationism. Even among those whose political philosophies can only be captured in five words or less.It remains to be seen how Trump’s abandonment of isolationism might play out with the base. But never underestimate the power of a cult leader.What’s more, we should not discount similarities to the dicey motives of previous U.S. adventurism — “war for oil” in Iraq springs to mind — especially given that Trump is exponentially more transactional than all previous U.S. presidents combined.On Saturday, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller defended Trump’s Venezuela policy by calling the country “so rich in resources, so rich in reserves,” while describing Maduro as “the head of the cartel.” In poker, that’s known as a “tell.”Let’s hope I’m wrong in thinking this Venezuelan adventure is far graver than a few news cycles of an unstable Trump cosplaying as a warlord. But, to me, this one has real potential for disaster.I don’t like the looks of that canary.

Sep 6, 2025 - World

Outside of Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, there is little excitement within the Pentagon and among former defense officials to see the Department of Defense (DOD) renamed as the Department of War (DOW) with worries about cost, confusion and also how other nations will use the change for propaganda purposes.According to a report from Politico, the long-anticipated rebranding landed with a thud on Friday as the president and the controversial Hegseth discussed it in an Oval Office press availability.Trump told reporters, “We won World War I, we won World War II, we won everything before that and in between, and then we decided to go woke, and we changed the name to DOD. So, we’re going Department of War.”That was greeted with “frustration, anger and downright confusion at the effort, which could cost billions of dollars for a cosmetic change that would do little to tackle the military’s most pressing challenges — such as countering a more aggressive alliance of authoritarian nations,” wrote Politico’s Jack Detsch, Paul McLeary and Joe Gould.One former defense official scoffed, “This is purely for domestic political audiences. Not only will this cost millions of dollars, it will have absolutely zero impact on Chinese or Russian calculations. Worse, it will be used by our enemies to portray the United States as warmongering and a threat to international stability.”“I see there being a million small headaches and annoyances if this actually happens. It’ll eat up time and effort,” a current Pentagon official added.Going on the record, former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) cautioned on X, “If we call it the Dept. of War, we’d better equip the military to actually prevent and win wars. Can’t preserve American primacy if we’re unwilling to spend substantially more on our military than Carter or Biden. ‘Peace through strength’ requires investment, not just rebranding.”Politico is reporting, “The seemingly ad hoc rollout of the name change has caused confusion within the building. One Pentagon official, who independently decided to squat on the Department of War LinkedIn page to prevent a foreign adversary or Trump administration critic from taking it over, openly asked on the social network to whom he should hand the page.”Another official pointed out that the Pentagon, during Trump’s second term, has already been dragged into making major changes at Hegseth’s request, when they were forced to scrub any mention of DEI initiatives, explaining, "That was just taking down photos. The seal will have to change and thus anything with it.”The Department of War changes would be significantly more labor-intensive.“On a tactical level, it would mean having to rebrand a mountain of contracting, marketing, business development materials, you name it, both digital and otherwise, that specifically cite the Department of Defense or DOD,” a defense analyst warned.You can read more here.