News From Around the Web
#1 Trump Pushes for Direct Meeting Between Zelenskyy and Putin - NBC News, The New Arab, Ludima Wealth Management, Gustav Torstensson Vasa, john macker, and ibonews on X
President Donald Trump said Monday that in a bid to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, he plans to set up a direct meeting between the two countries' leaders, followed by a trilateral meeting in which he would take part. Trump revealed the next steps in his attempt to broker a peace deal on Truth Social after a full afternoon of meetings at the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders who are eager to see Ukraine safeguarded from future Russian aggression. When the talks ended, Trump wrote, he called Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the arrangements. He spoke to Putin for about 40 minutes in the Oval Office without the European leaders present...
#2 Trump Spars With European Leader During Ukraine Talks Over Key Step to Peace - Peter Pinedo for Fox News, Extreme MAGA, Kaveh_Moshashaei, Al Arabiya English, John Morello, Linda, and The Iron Lady on X
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz broke with the generally optimistic tone of European leaders during their meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Donald Trump on Monday, stating that peace talks could not continue without a ceasefire. This follows Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday and a meeting with Zelenskyy on Monday. Merz, who has been in office since May, issued an impassioned call for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, despite Trump having repeatedly expressed his belief that a ceasefire is not necessary to achieve a permanent peace between Russia and Ukraine...
#3 The GOP Spent Millions Supporting Mail Ballots. Now Trump’s Attacking Them Again - Politico, Bob Barney, Christopher Riordan, Ken Martin/FactPost/JayEd, HowlingMadR, SweetestChick40, SocratesSista, and DBeach former Democrat on X
Donald Trump’s renewed crusade against mail voting is once again threatening to undermine his party’s efforts. Republicans poured tens of millions of dollars last year into convincing their voters that casting ballots by mail was safe after Trump spent years bashing the practice and baselessly insisting it was rife with fraud. And it worked, with GOP voters closing or even reversing the mail voting gap with Democrats in several states. But now Trump is attacking mail voting again as he ratchets up his push to protect Republicans’ House majority in the midterms, scrambling a strategy Republicans effectively used to bank millions of votes in 2024. The president said Monday he wants to “lead a movement” to eliminate “corrupt” voting by mail ahead of the 2026 election and suggested he would sign an executive order to help do so...
#4 Missouri AG Andrew Bailey to Become FBI Co-deputy Director, Joining Dan Bongino - Joe Walsh for CBS News, Domenica D'Elia, Patriots News-Vet Powered, dotdash dotdash, Greg Perkins, Sandman 0530, and Georgeanne Matranga on X
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey will serve as the FBI's co-deputy director, alongside the law enforcement agency's current second-in-command, Dan Bongino. "I am proud to announce I have accepted the role of Co-Deputy Director of the FBI," Bailey wrote on social media, thanking President Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi for "the opportunity to serve in the mission to Make America Safe Again." "I will protect America and uphold the Constitution," Bailey said. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche earlier in the day confirmed the news on X, saying Bailey "took on the swamp, fought weaponized government, and defended the Constitution" as Missouri's top law enforcement official. Bailey will resign from his current job on Sept. 8, he said in a statement. "My life has been defined by a call to service, and I am once again answering that call, this time at the national level," Bailey wrote...
#5 Outspoken Liberal Gets Quick Karma With Restraining Order After Spending $1M to Help Democrats - Phillip Nieto for Daily Mail/MSN, Writer, CR HAITT, Dave Nicholson, Mary Meyers, Cold Dead Hands, and The Lion on X
A prominent Texas Democrat is having his fundraising war chest frozen by a state judge. The judge hit Beto O’Rourke and his political organization with an expanded restraining order over their ability to fundraise for Democratic state lawmakers. Over the last two weeks, Democratic lawmakers in Texas caused chaos after fleeing the state in an attempt to prevent a vote on congressional redistricting that would favor the GOP getting more power in Congress...
#6 Draft of New ‘MAHA’ Report Suggests RFK Jr. Won’t Target Pesticides - Will McDuffie for ABC News, The Bork Report, Dennis Koch, FOX 29, MAHA for Mayor—Make Our Cities Healthy Again!, and ichimura on X
The draft of an upcoming government report suggesting ways to improve the health of American children does not recommend severe restrictions on pesticides and ultra-processed foods, according to a copy of the document obtained by ABC News. The draft's language, if left unchanged, would constitute a win for the agriculture industry and a potential setback for Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) allies, who have railed against the use of chemical additives in America's food supply, arguing that they harm children. A person familiar with the draft cautioned that the language could still change before it's released to the public...
#7 US State Department Revokes 6,000 Student Visas - Ana Faguy for BBC News, Instant News, ClustZ - News That Matters, Steve Lessner, The Asian Chronicle, and Rostrum News on X
The State Department has revoked more than 6,000 international student visas because of violations of US law and overstays, the department told the BBC. The agency said the "vast majority" of the violations were assault, driving under the influence (DUI), burglary, and "support for terrorism". The move comes as the Trump administration continues its crackdown on immigration and international students. While the State Department did not specify what they meant by "support for terrorism", the Trump administration has targeted some students who have protested in support of Palestine, arguing they had expressed antisemitic behaviour...
#8 Oklahoma Will Test Teachers From New York and California to Guard Against ‘Radical Leftist Ideology’ - Heather Hollingsworth and Jamie Stengle for AP News, The Grade, WGRZ, The Independent, Daily Gossip, and The Hindustan Times on X
Oklahoma will require applicants for teacher jobs coming from California and New York to pass an exam that the Republican-dominated state’s top education official says is designed to safeguard against “radical leftist ideology,” but which opponents decry as a “MAGA loyalty test.” Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s public schools superintendent, said Monday that any teacher coming from the two blue states will be required to pass an assessment exam administered by PragerU, an Oklahoma-based conservative nonprofit, before getting a state certification...
#9 Senate Democrat Rips Costco for ‘Refusing to Sell’ Abortion Pills - Steff Danielle Thomas for The Hill, The Dragon Slayer, LifeNews.com, The North Tower 1776, Cmama, and Stanton Public Policy Center on X
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) hammered Costco on Friday for appeasing “far-right extremists,” after the retailer said earlier this week that its pharmacies would not dispense the abortion medication mifepristone. “I am deeply alarmed by news reports that Costco is refusing to sell safe, effective, and legal medication for no other reason than to appease the politics of anti-abortion fanatics,” Murray said in a statement following the news. “I refuse to stand by and allow far-right extremists to bully major corporations and dictate what medicine women can or cannot get access to.”
#10 Meta’s Flirty AI Chatbot Invited a Retiree to New York. He Never Made It Home - Reuters, John, Techy Quantam, Fear The Lord KJV(Life Insurance Agent) frank AV on X
When Thongbue Wongbandue began packing to visit a friend in New York City one morning in March, his wife Linda became alarmed. “But you don’t know anyone in the city anymore,” she told him. Bue, as his friends called him, hadn’t lived in the city in decades. And at 76, his family says, he was in a diminished state: He’d suffered a stroke nearly a decade ago and had recently gotten lost walking in his neighborhood in Piscataway, New Jersey. Bue brushed off his wife’s questions about who he was visiting. “My thought was that he was being scammed to go into the city and be robbed,” Linda said. She had been right to worry: Her husband never returned home alive. But Bue wasn’t the victim of a robber. He had been lured to a rendezvous with a young, beautiful woman he had met online. Or so he thought...
