Nearly 18 months after the Palisades Fire left a trail of destruction across one of Los Angeles’ most affluent neighborhoods, Pacific Palisades is preparing to host its first major car show since the disaster in an effort to help revive the battered community. The inaugural Pacific Palisades Motor Classic will take over the Palisades Village...
The European Central Bank raised interest rates for the first time in almost three years, concluding it can no longer ignore the upswing in inflation caused by the Iran war. The deposit rate was lifted to 2.25% from 2%. Bloomberg's Oliver Crook reports from Frankfurt. (Source: Bloomberg)
Surveillance footage shared by Russian media appeared to showed the car igniting in a fireball and careening into a parked vehicle.
The House rejected a short-term extension of a government spy program set to lapse in just one day. The House voted 198-218, with 19 Republicans joining nearly every Democrat against the three-week patch of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The bill would have needed a two-thirds majority to pass under an expedited […]
The UFC has given a sneak peek inside “the claw,” the imposing stage set up ahead of a historic fight this weekend on the White House South Lawn. Stepping out of the White House press corridors, one is greeted with a massive, larger-than-life red, white, and blue “UFC FREEDOM 250” medallion fitting of a $60 […]
Inflation, as measured by the producer price index, soared eight-tenths of a percentage point to 6.5% for the year ending in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday, driven by higher energy costs from the war in Iran. The inflation rate was the highest since November 2022, when inflation spiked under President Joe Biden […]
Iran and the United States have riddled their fragile ceasefire with missiles in the 14th week of the war.President Donald Trump confirmed on Tuesday that the U.S. Army AH-64 Apache helicopter downed while patrolling the Strait of Hormuz on Monday had been shot down by Iranian forces. While the uninjured pilots were rescued, the president stressed that "the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack."'US forces remain vigilant, lethal, and ready.'Hours later, U.S. Central Command announced that it had begun launching "self-defense strikes," which it characterized as a "proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression."Early Wednesday, Trump noted on Truth Social that "they’ve taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price!!!"The president clarified later in the day that more American strikes were forthcoming."We hit them hard yesterday. We're going to hit them again hard today, in case you miss it, in case you don’t turn on your television set, and we’ll see what happens with the deal," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.On Wednesday evening, CENTCOM launched another series of "self-defense" strikes, stating afterward that it had targeted "Iranian military surveillance capabilities, communication systems, and air defense sites across Iran."RELATED: US Apache helicopter crashes near Strait of Hormuz on 100th day of Iran war; Trump says end in sight Ford Williams/U.S. Navy/Getty ImagesIranian media claimed, however, that among the structures damaged in the American strikes was a pair of water tanks in the south of the country with a combined capacity of 2.5 million liters — tanks said to have supplied water to tens of thousands of civilians. When asked by the New York Times about reports of damage to water facilities, CENTCOM declined to comment."U.S. Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy assets fired precision munitions on Iranian targets that posed a threat to U.S. forces and international commercial ships transiting regional waters," CENTCOM said in a statement. "The strikes are in response to Iran's unwarranted and continued aggression. U.S. forces remain vigilant, lethal, and ready."According to Trey Yingst, an Israel-based Fox News reporter, Trump said that the U.S. fired at least 49 Tomahawk missiles into Iran and executed bombings via fighter jets, hitting targets as close as 40 miles outside Tehran. Trump also reportedly said that if the Iranians don't sign the peace agreement, "we'll bomb the s**t out of them."Iranian state media reported on Thursday that in retaliation for the American strikes, "18 important targets belonging to the U.S. military in the region were successfully hit during two operational waves following the recent aggression against Iranian territorial integrity."The Iranians maintain that their attacks constitute self-defense "as recognized under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations."According to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the targets were located "at the Al-Salem and Ahmad al-Jaber air bases, as well as the Sheikh Isa air base."Citing an unnamed military official, Jordanian state media reported that 20 missiles had been intercepted and neutralized by the country's air defense systems, adding there had been no human casualties or material damage.Iranian drones and "hostile aerial targets" were reportedly intercepted over Bahrain and Kuwait.While Iranian media also claimed that the Strait of Hormuz had been completely closed in response to the American strikes, CENTCOM stated on Wednesday evening that "commercial ships are continuing to transit in and out of the Strait of Hormuz."Trump emphasized on Wednesday that "the UNITED STATES of AMERICA CONTROLS the Strait of Hormuz — NOT Iran."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
China turned to new tactics to press its claims in the waters east of Taiwan, sending maritime agency ships on a multi-day patrol that for the first time questioned foreign commercial boats in the area.
Trump's U.S. ambassador to Turkey is accused of helping Jeffrey Epstein find a personal assistant who became both a recruiter and a victim in his sex trafficking network, Raw Story has learned.Sarah Kellen told members of the House Oversight Committee last month that she was working as a host at the W Hotel in Honolulu in 2001 when she was recruited to work for Epstein and his partner Ghislaine Maxwell. A woman working as an intern at the hotel’s front desk befriended her and told her about the opportunity.Kellen told the committee that Epstein had helped get the woman, whose name is redacted from an interview transcript, an internship at the W “because he was friends with Tom Barrack," who owned the hotel.Kellen said she didn’t realize at the time that Epstein and Maxwell were her prospective employers.“She never told me his name,” Kellen told members of the committee, chaired by Rep. James Comer (R-KY), during her May 21 interview. “She just told me there was a wealthy couple in New York that was looking for a new traveling assistant and if I would be interested. She had taken some risqué photos of me earlier, and I learned that she had sent them to Jeffrey, and then she started telling me about the job opportunity.”Barrack, a key diplomatic player for the Trump administration in the Middle East as ambassador to Turkey and special presidential envoy for Syria and Iraq, has not commented publicly about his well-documented, decades-long relationship with Epstein. His role in potentially connecting Kellen with Epstein has not been previously reported.The start of Kellen’s employment with Epstein and Maxwell overlaps with a period when the couple was friendly with the future president and first lady. Donald Trump told New York magazine in October 2002 that he had known Epstein for 15 years and that he was “a lot of fun to be with,” adding, “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”The friendship between Epstein and Trump, along with Barrack, is detailed in the book Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff, which describes the three as “a 1980s and ’90s set of nightlife Musketeers.”A billionaire real estate investor, Barrack reportedly introduced Trump to Paul Manafort, his first campaign chairman during the 2016 campaign. Manafort was later convicted of crimes related to his political consulting work for a pro-Russia party in Ukraine.A prolific fundraisier for the Trump campaign, Barrack spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention, and following Trump’s election, chaired the 2017 inauguration committee.Before that, Barrack reportedly leveraged his business connections in the Middle East to smooth over distrust among Gulf Arab leaders following Trump’s call early in the campaign for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering” the United States. The effort appeared to pay dividends when Trump made the first international trip of his first term, a visit to a summit in Saudi Arabia. The close relationship between Trump and the Gulf states has continued into the second administration, with the government of Qatar giving a plane to the president. Tom Barrack described Donald Trump as "one of my closest friends for forty years" during his speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention.Courtesy C-SpanIn 2022, Barrack was acquitted of charges that he acted as an unregistered foreign agent for the United Arab Emirates during the 2016 campaign. Now, as a U.S. diplomat stationed in Ankara, he praises the partnership between the two countries as being "of critical importance to the Middle East," and recently claimed credit for processing visas for the Iranian team so they could travel to the United States to compete in the World Cup.Epstein, who would be indicted for sex trafficking in July 2019, appeared to view himself as the odd-man-out during Trump’s ascent to power, while Barrack quietly assisted.Summarizing Wolff’s Fire and Fury in a January 2018 email, Landon Thomas Jr. — author of the 2002 New York profile — reported to Epstein: “There are a few paragraphs on you, TB, DJT partying around NYC in 90s etc. — and then MW says you are airbrushed out of DJT history while Barrack sticks around.”“I know,” Epstein replied.Raw Story was unable to reach Barrack for comment through the State Department or the U.S. Embassy in Ankara.In 2012, Epstein credited Barrack with connecting him to Kellen in an email to another employee to arrange for a visit by Barrack and Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, then the ruling emir of Qatar who was interested in buying Epstein’s New York townhouse.Epstein had planned to be in Paris at the time of the visit. In an email, he instructed an unidentified employee to be ready to receive the guests “well dressed” and in “heels.”“It’s Tom Barrack coming, so you can tell him I thank him every day for Sarah,” Epstein added.