BREAKING: Disturbing Details Emerge On Potential Threat To Melania Trump– trendingpoliticsnews.com News Source
EXCERPT:
An armed man arrested at President Donald Trump’s California golf club allegedly had first lady Melania Trump’s schedule and a trove of sensitive information about the Secret Service agents assigned to protect the president, prosecutors revealed Wednesday.
Jeanine John Taele, 38, possessed seven notebooks containing 208 pages of writings, drawings and sketches connected to Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles in Rancho Palos Verdes, according to reports.
The material included copies of Melania Trump’s schedule, lists of Secret Service schedules and details about individual security personnel, prosecutors said during a Los Angeles County court hearing.
Taele’s writings also contained detailed lists about surviving “off the grid,” The Associated Press reported.
Los Angeles County Judge John Lonergan Jr. called the allegations “alarming” during Wednesday’s hearing.
“This case itself is alarming in this day and age with the violence that is creeping into our everyday lives, especially with our partisanship in the political environment” ahead of the midterms, Lonergan said, according to the AP.
Buc-ee’s CEO Says He’s Prioritizing ‘Conservative, Business-Friendly’ States For New Locations– wltreport.com News Source
EXCERPT:
Although customers are willing to drive for miles for the experience of visiting one of the popular chain’s locations, the CEO of Buc-ee’s says leftist officials aren’t always as welcoming.
That’s why, as the business faces pushback against legal action against other companies using similar logos, he now says the company will be far more selective about where new locations will be opening.
“We have a lot of opportunities. We’re growing. We’re building in a lot of places, but when you find a conservative, business-friendly state with a phenomenal workforce, it makes a difference,” CEO Arch Aplin III said in a video clip posted by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R).
“And I’m starting to realize life’s too short to try to build in places that people don’t appreciate what you’re bringing versus a place like this, where people do appreciate what you’re building,” Aplin continued.
Currently, the company has locations in Texas, Arizona, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee. The franchise can also be found in Colorado, Missouri, Virginia and Ohio.
Its expansion has seen the company grow into a chain of giant travel centers and gas stations known for their clean restrooms, multiple fuel pumps and unique snack and merchandise selections.
His outspokenness received some social media attention:
Charles Barkley Takes Major Stand With Sophie Cunningham, Enes Kanter on Trans Players– www.westernjournal.com News Source
EXCERPT:
Before we get to the meat of this, let’s just get this out of the way: Professional athletes generally make terrible role models.
NBA legend Charles Barkley would likely agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly given in this famous commercial:
“I’m not a role model,” Barkley says in the legendary Nike commercial. “Just because I dunk a basketball doesn’t mean I should raise your kids.”
And Chuck is 100 percent correct, as much as the LeBron Jameses of the world may disagree.
But just because the Round Mound of Rebound isn’t a role model doesn’t mean he can’t share the occasional pearl of wisdom, like this:
WARNING: The following video contains language and descriptions of women that may offend some viewers.
Is Barkley right? Does the W in WNBA say it all?
Yes: 92% (12 Votes)
No: 8% (1 Votes)
(Remember what he said about not being a role model?)
Jokes aside, Barkley does occasionally wade into much more serious issues than the waistlines of San Antonio women. And he would often tackle those topics regardless of whether he’s irking Democrats or Republicans.
So it should come as little surprise that when Sir Charles was asked about the ongoing transgender issue that has engulfed the WNBA, he offered his unvarnished takes on the matter.
Trump Admin To Carry Out Largest Mass Visa Revocation in American History * The Gateway Pundit * by Robert Semonsen– www.thegatewaypundit.com News Source
EXCERPT:
The Trump administration is preparing to revoke the business and tourist visas of as many as 200,000 foreigners who entered the United States as temporary visitors and later sought asylum, escalating its campaign to restore control over an immigration system systematically abused for years.
If carried out at the projected scale, the action would amount to the largest mass visa revocation in American history.
State Department documents cited by the Associated Press show the measure would apply to B1 and B2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026. Officials expect the State Department and Department of Homeland Security to carry out the revocations jointly and on a rolling basis.
“We are coordinating with DHS to identify and revoke the nonimmigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said. He declined to give a final number because the review is still underway.
B1 visas are intended for temporary business travel, while B2 visas cover tourism, family visits and medical treatment. Applicants are expected to prove they plan to leave the United States rather than use temporary admission as an entry point for permanent settlement.
NAACP denounces supreme court decision to allow Trump administration to restrict mail-in voting – live | Trump administration– www.theguardian.com News Source
EXCERPT:
The president of the NAACP, which sued Donald Trump in April to block his order to restrict mail-in voting, denounced the supreme court decision that allows the order to be implemented, despite claims that it is illegal and unconstitutional.
The NAACP president, Derrick Johnson, said in a statement:
“Let this ruling be a reminder that democracy is never, ever, guaranteed. We have to fight for it, we have to fight to keep it, and we have to protect the rights we do have within it. Those in power know full well that they are unpopular and will lose in a free and fair election, and so they are trying to do everything they possibly can to make it difficult for you to vote.
Trump’s order has nothing to do with election integrity. It has everything to do with maintaining power at all costs.”
Houthis claim strike on Saudi tanker in latest Red Sea escalation– www.euronews.com News Source
EXCERPT:
Yemen’s Houthis said on Monday that their forces hit a Saudi oil tanker in the Red Sea with a ballistic missile, as the Iran-backed group continues to pursue a maritime blockade of the Bab el-Mandeb strait, another crucial artery for global shipping.
“The strike was accurate and direct, resulting in a fire breaking out aboard the vessel and causing a number of other ships that were present in the target area to flee,” the Houthis said in a statement.
“This targeting comes as part of the implementation of the Armed Forces’ decision to ban maritime navigation by the Saudi enemy.”
The Houthi claim came hours after a British maritime agency said a tanker struck by an “unknown projectile” caught fire off Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast.
“The Company Security Officer reported a tanker has been struck by (an) unknown projectile causing a fire to the vessel on the main deck,” said the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations.
“All crew are safe and accounted for and no environmental impact has been reported,” it added.
Nolte: The Day CNN Stopped Lying for Nearly 30 Minutes– www.breitbart.com News Source EXCERPT:
It was a day unlike any other in the 46-year history of CNN, a day when CNN’s lying, self-serving bias, misinformation, and disinformation ceased for nearly 30 minutes.
This miracle began sometime after noon E.T. on Monday, August 24, 2026, a miracle witnessed by the one-third of one percent of Americans who sat spellbound, staring in awe, wonder, and confusion at a CNN that, for a brief and shining moment, stopped doing this…
But, somehow, even those of us who were not watching — or, roughly 99.7 percent of Americans — still felt it. Yes, across this great nation of ours that CNN hates so much, we all stopped. And in that moment, we sniffed the air. Then we looked at one another. Then a slow smile crossed our lips and lit our eyes. Something had changed, and this something that had changed had changed for the better.
The very atmosphere all around us felt, well, lighter, and even cleaner. Up in the sky there was something one witness aptly described as a “glow of decency.” And then it hit us. All at once we realized that an evil that had plagued us for so long, a smug and insufferable evil, a not-terribly-bright evil, had, for whatever reason, ceased.
For nearly 30 glorious minutes, America began to feel like America again. Truth reigned again. Facts mattered again. Context was once again a thing. Decency felt within our grasp. You could almost hear angels singing, a sound as lovely as the laughter of children. And then, just when it began to feel real, Warner Bros. Discovery fixed its technical glitch, and CNN came back on the air.
New York Woman Charged in Alleged ISIS-Inspired Plot to Attack State Capitol– legalinsurrection.com News Source
EXCERPT:
The FBI announced that Jessica Bowie, 35, of Albany, NY, faces charges connected to a plot to attack the New York State Capitol.
“As alleged, Bowie plotted to deploy an explosive device at the New York State Capitol, intending to kill public officials and to destroy ‘as much of the building as possible’ before fleeing to ISIS‑controlled territory in Syria,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg. “The National Security Division and our law-enforcement partners are committed to the painstaking work of preventing plots like this from succeeding and securing convictions against those who attempt such plots.”
Bowie faces one count of violating 18 U.S.C. 2339B(a)(1) – Attempting to Provide Material Support or Resources to Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.
According to the criminal complaint, Bowie converted to Islam five years ago and goes by Aisha Saif.
FBI Special Agent Joshua Parker, in the affidavit in support of a criminal complaint, wrote that between May 2026 and July 2026, several social media accounts with messages that support terrorism were traced back to Bowie.
An FBI confidential human source (CHS-1) posed “as an ISIS facilitator” while communicating with Bowie between July 16, 2026, and August 17, 2026, on a messaging platform.
China’s New Missile Can Target Planes Flying Near US: Report– www.ndtv.com News Source
EXCERPT:
Beijing:
China has developed hypersonic glide vehicles that can launch air-to-air weapons targeting high-value targets such as command-and-control aircraft thousands of miles away, Bloomberg reported, citing a person with direct knowledge of the matter. The new addition to Beijing’s arsenal comes at a time when the US is struggling with supplies of crucial air defence missiles and long-range strike weapons following the six months of war with Iran.
It can be a threat to aircraft such as aerial refueling tankers, airborne early-warning and control jets and flying command posts, including the US Air Force’s E-4B Nightwatch.
The Chinese military has also added air-to-air capabilities to some hypersonic cruise missiles and built anti-ship capabilities into several types of missiles, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg.
China is the only country publicly known to operate and develop hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs) capable of launching air-to-air missiles. The developments mark a significant expansion of the country’s efforts to use its growing missile arsenal — largest in the world at more than 3,150 ballistic weapons — for a wide range of military missions, sources said.
Mideast live: Oil tanker struck by projectile in Strait of Hormuz off Oman– www.france24.com News Source EXCERPT:
German GDP growth revised upwards, defying Iran war turmoil
German growth rose faster than previously thought in the second quarter thanks to strong exports, official data showed, as Europe’s biggest economy defied the turmoil unleashed by the Iran war.
Gross domestic product grew 0.3 percent from April to June compared with the first three months of the year, according to revised data from the statistics office Destatis. A first estimate in July had put growth at 0.2 percent.
What could new US sanctions on Iran entail?
The US says it is preparing to announce new sanctions on Iran. It’s been billed an “economic D-day” and is expected to add further pressure on the country’s economy that’s already been battered from previous sanctions and a US naval blockade.
The renewed economic pressure would not be the first time the US has used economic tools at its disposal to corner Iran.
US sanctions oil trader Wellbred over Iran links
The US imposed sanctions on Singapore-based Wellbred Capital and its trading firms in the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland, citing links with Iran, as it steps up measures to target Tehran’s global financial links.
The company had ties to Iranian oil shipping magnate Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said on its website on Monday.
“Shamkhani built Wellbred as a company outside the network’s Iranian business, though Shamkhani is ultimately responsible for Wellbred’s operations,” it added in a statement outlining the measures targeting nearly 60 companies, individuals and ships.
Six months of war: 20 dead in 68 incidents near Hormuz, IMO says
The Strait of Hormuz has been the main focus of the six-month war between Iran and the US and Israel, with many commercial vessels targeted in the vital conduit for oil and gas shipments.
In total, 68 incidents have been confirmed by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in the Gulf and neighbouring bodies of water, the equivalent of one every 2.6 days.
Across all incidents, at least 20 seafarers or port workers were reported killed, 35 wounded and one missing, the UN maritime agency said.
About half of the incidents have involved tankers, 20 percent container ships and 15 percent bulk carriers.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) classified 47 of the incidents as attacks.
Liberia-flagged vessels have been most affected, being involved in 13 incidents, followed by 10 vessels each from Panama and the Marshall Islands.
Iran-flagged vessels were reported as being involved in four incidents.
Pakistan says army chief held talks with Iran focussed on preventing further escalation of Middle East conflict
Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir held discussions with Iran that were focussed on measures including the prevention of a further escalation of the conflict and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the Pakistani military said in a statement on Tuesday.
Munir discussed regional peace and ways to reach a negotiated settlement to disputes, the statement added.
Commodity vessel transits through Strait of Hormuz fall to three-month low, data shows
Only one commodity vessel transited the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, the lowest number since May 7, preliminary shipping data showed on Tuesday.
One very large gas carrier entered the strait from the Gulf of Oman on Monday, initial data from shiptracker Kpler showed at 0251 GMT, compared with six vessels of all types on Sunday. The figures could change as some ships had switched off transponders on their way through.
Oil tanker struck by projectile off Oman
An oil tanker was struck and disabled by a projectile in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Oman, causing damage but no casualties, a British maritime agency said early Tuesday.
“The Master of an oil tanker reports the vessel has been struck by an unknown projectile causing damage to the engine room and disabling the vessel,” with the crew reported as safe, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said.
The incident occurred nine nautical miles (16.7 kilometres) northeast of Ash Shishah in Oman, it said.
The online statement did not specify the vessel’s nationality or direction of travel.
Oil prices steady as investors weigh impact of expanded US sanctions against Iran
Oil prices steadied on Tuesday, after falling more than 2% in the previous session, as investors assessed the impact of harsher US secondary sanctions against Iran.
Brent crude futures were down 9 cents, or 0.1%, at $92.16 by 0104 GMT, while US West Texas Intermediate crude was up 1 cent at $85.02 a barrel.
Both contracts fell more than 2% on Monday with US crude oil falling to a one-week low on profit taking after prices rallied over the previous two weeks.
‘Not an isolated incident’: Russian drones stalk Ukraine’s civilians in ‘human safaris’– www.france24.com News Source
EXCERPT:
First, he freezes, caught off guard. Then the young Ukrainian cyclist begins to backpedal awkwardly, his eyes never leaving the Russian drone that hovers ahead of him. It moves closer, and he swings his leg over the bike and tries to run. He doesn’t make it.
Even though the footage, posted Friday on the official Telegram account of the 3rd Army Corps of the Russian armed forces, cuts off before the moment of impact, the video’s description leaves no doubt of the outcome. The Russian soldiers congratulate themselves on having taken out an “enemy combatant” in the Ukrainian district of Kramatorsk, not far from the front line in the northern Donetsk region.
Two years of ‘human safaris’
But the cyclist was visibly unarmed, wearing civilian clothes and looked like any other young man riding his bike down a country road. Independent Russian media outlet Astra quickly accused the Russian military of trying to pass off an unarmed cyclist as a Ukrainian combatant.
The video spread swiftly across social media as influential accounts, including prominent Kremlin critic and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, reposted the footage to denounce the Russian military’s apparent cruelty.
Approval of Iran war hits record low– www.washingtontimes.com News Source
EXCERPT:
Americans’ support for the war with Iran has fallen to the lowest level since the conflict began, helping keep President Trump’s approval rating at a record low.
Support for U.S. military action against Tehran dipped to 31%, down 3 points from earlier this month and down 6 points since the start of the war, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week.
This drop is attributable to fewer self-identified Republicans supporting the war. Roughly 69% of Republicans backed the Trump administration’s actions against Iran, compared with 77% in March, just after the U.S. and Israel first launched strikes on Iran.
The war’s unpopularity mirrors Mr. Trump’s approval numbers.
Another Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed Aug. 17 put Trump’s approval at 33% and disapproval at 64%, the lowest of his second term and tied with the low point of his first term.
The poll also found 80% of Americans, including 71% of Republicans and 87% of Democrats, believed the Iran conflict would drag on for an extended period.
Sudanese medical group accuses rebel group of killing 27 people– abcnews.com News Source
EXCERPT:
Ethnic clashes in southern Sudan have killed 27 people, including four children, a local medical group said
CAIRO — Four children were among at least 27 people killed in the latest ethnic clashes in southern Sudan, a local medical group said on Tuesday.
The killings were carried out by the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM-N) in Qardud and Abu Hamama, areas inhabited by the Otoro tribe in South Kordofan, according to the Sudan Doctors Network, which monitors casualty numbers in the war-torn East African country.
Earlier this year, intense fighting erupted between forces linked to SPLM-N and the Otoro tribe, which is a minority group in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan.
The ethnic standoff, first instigated by land disputes, adds another layer to the country’s ongoing civil war which broke out in April 2023 between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The attacks have forced many people to flee toward Abu Hitan, a nearby village and Kadugli, the largest town in South Kordofan, said the doctors.
The Sudan Doctors Network said in a statement on Facebook that it stressed “that targeting unarmed civilians, including women and children, on ethnic grounds constitutes an explicit violation of international humanitarian law.”
Hilary Clinton Says The Democratic Party Is Going Through An “Experiment” When It Comes To The Rise Of The DSA– www.louderwithcrowder.com News Source
EXCERPT:
The Democratic Party should be doing everything in its power to ensure the American people are better off. Instead, they do nothing except fight against your best interests. The solution is to not engage in an “experiment” with the American people, but Hilary Clinton just said the quiet part out loud.
According to Clinton, the Democratic Party is “going through an experiment” to see “who can actually respond to young people’s very real concerns.”
Can anyone name the last time the Dems have made life more affordable or helped to increase your quality of life? No? I didn’t think so.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the Democratic Party’s current “experiment” amid the rise of democratic socialist candidates “healthy,” drawing swift conservative backlash from critics who accused her of embracing the party’s socialist wing.
It is bizarre that rather than fixing these “concerns” now, they are waiting for even more progressive candidates to come in and usher in their leftist utopia.
“The Democratic Party right now is, I think, going through a kind of experiment, like who can actually respond particularly to young people’s very real concerns about where they are at this point in their lives and what kind of future do they have for themselves? I think that is healthy,” said Clinton.
Spencer Pratt Calls Out Psychotic Women Defending Lindsay Clancy– www.louderwithcrowder.com News Source
EXCERPT:
Watch Louder with Crowder every weekday at 11:00 AM Eastern, only on Rumble Premium!The “mass psychosis” of deranged feminists defending Lindsay Clancy will go down as one of the most deranged movements in American history. This toxic femininity, however, did not begin after idiotic internet rumors about this case. According to Spencer Pratt, it started before COVID. This is why he said what needed to be said.
Pratt took to social media to bring attention to these mass delusions.
The Lindsay Clancy mass psychosis proves that a lot of people need to have their Wifi taken away. But this psychosis started many years before TikTok.
In one specific example, he described how a group of dads attacked a migrant who engaged in an evil act around their kids.
Some criminal migrant m*sturbates in front of children at a public beach; the dads rightfully beat the sh*t out of him, but a woman suffering from suicidal empathy intervenes to protect and comfort that child sex offender? When you see the invasion of Spain, you see a woke woman gleefully waving the invaders in. Is this what Matriarchy looks like? Where this kind of suicidal empathy that exploits the noble virtue of unconditional maternal compassion and perverts it towards the criminal dregs of society, all because wokeness now supersedes all virtue?”
California set to ban ‘addictive’ social media features to protect teens– www.washingtonpost.com News Source EXCERPT: Advocates say legislation in the nation’s most populous state would carry particular weight in the national movement to curb tech’s influence on young people.
DSA Co-chair Who Hates The Rich And Went To An Ivy League School Lives In $1.5 million Brooklyn Home Owned By Parents– www.louderwithcrowder.com News Source
EXCERPT:
Most people do not go to Ivy League schools. Most people do not live in a $1.5 million home in Brooklyn. This is why it is bizarre, yet hypocritical, that someone reaps the fruits of someone else’s labor in such a way while also demanding the rich pay their fair share.
DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo is a double-standard rich kid who reaps the fruit of his parents’ labor. His parents went beyond the American Dream, and to call Gordillo an ungrateful, spoiled brat would be an understatement.
To put it into perspective, here are his past comments:
To claim his parents had “success” would be an understatement.
Gordillo lives in a $1.5 million Brooklyn home that’s owned by his parents. The two-story, 2,000-square-foot home in Bed-Stuy, a neighborhood that has been increasing in value over the past few decades, “was bought in 2019 by his mommy and daddy through a dummy corporation, Chucuito LLC, for just under $1 million,” the New York Post reports.
Kids outlearn AI—and we still don’t know why– www.technologyreview.com News Source
EXCERPT:
“It’s just totally miraculous,” says Frank. “If you train GPT-2 on 30 million words, you get a nonsense generator; you don’t get a kid.”
Exactly how babies pull this off is a mystery. Researchers know a lot about what kids learn and how they use language at different stages in development, but there’s still a lot we don’t know. Perhaps the most enduring question is why babies can learn language at all. The syntax of human language—the rules for combining words into sentences—includes recursive, nested structures that allow us to express virtually infinite ideas with a finite lexicon of words and pieces of words. This seems like something that should be a problem for babies. They only splash about in the shallows of a fathomless ocean of language. And yet, somehow, that’s enough. From a drop, they infer the depths.
One solution, put forward in the 1950s by the MIT linguist Noam Chomsky, is that babies are born with hardwired knowledge of grammar. Chomsky was reacting to a rival view, championed by the psychologist B.F. Skinner, that language acquisition is entirely environmental. Skinner thought language was learned through conditioning and reinforcement, the way a dog figures out how to sit or shake for treats. Chomsky countered by citing the “poverty of the stimulus”—the idea that language, especially syntax, is too complex and children’s exposure to it too “impoverished” for them to learn entirely from experience. “His signature argument was, essentially, that language cannot be learned on the basis purely of statistics,” says Richard Futrell, a linguist and cognitive scientist at the University of California, Irvine. Instead, Chomsky posited that language is based on a set of logical rules and argued that children needed innate knowledge of those rules to deduce the grammar of their language from scraps of speech.
The U.S. imposed 50% tariffs on some Canadian products on Saturday after trade talks between the two countries fell apart on Friday.
In response, Canada said it would impose its own retaliatory tariffs beginning on Sept. 8.
Negotiators for both sides had been working on a deal all week, at times signaling that an agreement was near. President Donald Trump had postponed the original deadline of Wednesday just hours ahead of it being imposed, saying that there was a soon-to-be finalized deal. Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s trade minister for the U.S., told reporters on Thursday that a deal was “very close.”
However, both sides blamed the other for not reaching a deal as the tariffs, impacting roughly $20 billion in Canadian exports, including wine, furniture, dairy products, cement, clothing, fishing rods, hockey equipment, went into effect on Saturday morning.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, in a post on X early Saturday morning, that “Canada declined to finalize the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week.”
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a statement released on Friday that despite working toward a deal, “that progress has not been enough to meet our objectives for Canadians,” saying that “last-minute changes in the U.S. proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal.”
OH, CANADA: ABC Reports the US-Canada Tariffs Like It’s the CBC– www.newsbusters.org News Source
EXCERPT:
As is now widely reported, the United States and Canada failed to reach a trade deal. As a result, there will be a fresh round of tariff exchanges. The most Trump-deranged of the three major network evening newscasts has taken a side, and as a result may need to consider a name change.
Watch as the American Broadcasting Company’s Senior Political Correspondent closes out her report on financial news on Iran and Canada- doing her darnedest to sound like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:
WATCH: Rachel Scott’s close to their report on Iran sanctions and Canada tariffs leaves one with the impression they are watching the CBC as opposed to ABC
RACHEL SCOTT: And, David, back to Canada. They are not backing down. They say more retaliatory tariffs are on the way.… pic.twitter.com/pNqvIQXc6G
RACHEL SCOTT: And, David, back to Canada. They are not backing down. They say more retaliatory tariffs are on the way. President Trump says that Canada wants the benefits of being a state without actually being one. But tonight, Canada is making it clear they will not be pushed around. David?
DAVID MUIR: Rachel Scott live at The White House for us. Rachel, thank you.
Iran’s rial currency hits new record low as US prepares to announce more sanctions– abcnews.com News Source
EXCERPT:
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s currency hit a record low Monday as Washington prepared to announce new sanctions it said would add further pressure on an economy already battered by previous sanctions and a U.S. naval blockade.
The rial dropped to 2.02 million to the U.S. dollar as trading opened on currency markets. Iran’s official Central Bank rate stood at around 1.5 million rial to the dollar, but the market rate is what most Iranians pay.
The currency had already been under pressure before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, as Iran faced double-digit inflation and negative growth, but has repeatedly hit new lows as nearly six months of war have taken an even greater toll.
Iranians find daily staples increasingly unaffordable. Since the war began, rice is up some 60% and prices of beef are more than 150% higher. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that GDP will contract more than 5%.
Still, economic pressure has not yet translated into political pressure. Iran retains a key strategic advantage: Its attacks and threats on ships in the Strait of Hormuz have brought traffic in the vital waterway to a near halt, damaging the world economy and heaping pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump ahead of congressional elections.
South Korea says US cancels joint marine drill over Iran war– www.channelnewsasia.com News Source
EXCERPT:
SEOUL: South Korea said on Monday (Aug 24) that the United States had cancelled a large joint amphibious landing exercise scheduled for next month due to constraints on force availability caused by the war with Iran.
The biennial Ssangyong drills involve marine forces from South Korea and the US and are designed to strengthen combined operations, typically involving warships, aircraft and ground forces rehearsing amphibious landings.
The cancellation follows US President Donald Trump’s order last week to scale down the separate annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, cutting the joint drills from 11 days to five.
Trump at the time cited their high cost and said they sent an “inappropriate and hostile” signal to North Korea, while highlighting his relationship with its leader, Kim Jong Un.
“The US Marine Corps formally notified our forces in June that its ability to deploy forces during this year’s Ssangyong exercise would be constrained due to the situation in the Middle East,” Han Seung-jeon, a spokesman for the South Korean Marine Corps, told reporters at a news briefing.
Seoul and Washington were continuing consultations on resuming the amphibious exercise, he said, without giving details.
Iran faces ‘greatest financial offensive ever’, says US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent– www.bbc.co.uk News Source
EXCERPT:
The US announced a host of sanctions against Iran and threatened its supporters in what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said was “the single greatest financial offensive ever”.
Labelling it an “economic D-Day” for Iran, Bessent said the US would sever all economic ties with the country and added that any nation financially partnering with Iran would also be isolated.
However, the latest threat to the Iranian regime follows several U-turns and extended deadlines from the White House in its efforts to end the conflict.
The war has led to hikes in global oil prices, and in response to the latest threat Iran warned it would shut down all oil exports from the region if the war continued.
The Iranian regime has also issued a fresh warning to shipping to not pass through the Strait of Hormuz without its permission, according to Reuters.
One fifth of the world’s oil and gas usually passes through strait, a narrow waterway south of Iran, but the flow has been effectively blocked by the country since the conflict began at the end of February, leading to higher oil prices globally.