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Police in Scotland braced for large-scale protests if Trump visits new golf course

Long-rumoured trip to open course could take place this month after proposed meeting with King Charles shelved
Police in Scotland are gearing up for a possible visit by Donald Trump later this month that is expected to take in his golf resort in Aberdeenshire.
The long-rumoured visit is not expected to include a meeting with King Charles, despite earlier suggestions the US president could meet the monarch at either Balmoral or Dumfries House in Ayrshire.
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Has the Trump-Putin bromance finally run its course?

US president appears to have run out of patience with his Russian counterpart – but how that transmits into practical support for Kyiv remains to be seen
Europe live – latest updates
“I’m not happy with Putin. I can tell you that much right now,” Trump said, expressing his frustration with the Russian leader over the war in Ukraine. “We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin … He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
It may not have been Churchillian in oratorical flourish, and with Trump everything is capable of being reversed in hours, but possibly, just possibly, the rupture between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump has happened. If so it is a transformatory moment, and a vindication for both Volodymyr Zelenskyy as he arrives in Rome for the annual Ukraine reconstruction conference and for those others, notably the British and the French governments, who have patiently helped the scales to fall from Trump’s eyes about Putin’s true intentions. At long last..

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US only has 25% of all Patriot missile interceptors needed for Pentagon’s military plans

Exclusive: Low stockpiles for the crucial Patriot missile interceptors led to Trump administration pausing transfers to Ukraine
The United States only has about 25% of the Patriot missile interceptors it needs for all of the Pentagon’s military plans after burning through stockpiles in the Middle East in recent months, an alarming depletion that led to the Trump administration freezing the latest transfer of munitions to Ukraine.
The stockpile of the Patriot missiles has fallen so low that it raised concern inside the Pentagon that it could jeopardize potential US military operations, and deputy defense secretary, Stephen Feinberg, authorized the transfer to be halted while they reviewed where weapons were being sent.
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Netanyahu nominates Trump for Nobel peace prize at White House meeting

US leader upbeat on Gaza ceasefire prospects but does not share any additional details on preparations
Benjamin Netanyahu told Donald Trump that he would nominate him for the Nobel peace prize on Monday, as the two leaders met for the first time since the US launched strikes on Iran’s nuclear program as part of a short-lived war between Israel and Iran.
Trump was expected to press Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire in Israel’s 21-month-old war against Hamas in Gaza amid an outcry over the humanitarian cost of an offensive that has led to nearly 60,000 deaths, most of them Palestinian.
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Middle East crisis: Trump calls for Gaza hostages release ahead of Netanyahu meeting at the White House – as it happened

US president will host Israeli prime minister following joint strikes against Iran
A US envoy met Lebanese officials in Beirut on Monday to discuss a proposed plan to disarm Hezbollah, hours after Israel launched new air strikes and a cross-border ground assault.
The Israeli escalation was seen by Lebanese officials and diplomats as an attempt to ratchet up pressure on Hezbollah, whose leader Naim Qassem said in a televised speech on Sunday that the group still needed arms to defend Lebanon from Israel.
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Netanyahu returns to White House holding all the cards in Gaza talks

Joint attack on Iran puts Israeli PM in powerful position as he dangles prospect of Trump-brokered ceasefire deal
Donald Trump will host Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington DC on Monday as the US president seeks again to broker a peace deal in Gaza and the Israeli prime minister takes a victory lap through the Oval Office after a joint military campaign against Iran and a series of successful strikes against Tehran and its proxies in the Middle East.
Netanyahu and Trump have a complex personal relationship – and Trump openly vented frustration at him last month during efforts to negotiate a truce with Iran – but the two have appeared in lockstep since the US launched a bombing run against Iran’s nuclear programme, fulfilling a key goal for Israeli war planners.
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Is Trump tariff deal really a win for Vietnam – or a way of punishing China?

US exports account for third of Vietnam’s GDP and 40% tariff on so-called transshipments – products with Chinese input – means uncertainty for manufacturers
As news spread that Vietnam would become just the second nation to reach an initial tariff agreement with Washington, shares in the clothing companies and manufacturers that have a large footprint in the country rose with optimism.
Just hours later though, they declined sharply, as it became clear that the devil would be in the detail, and the most striking part of the deal might in fact be aimed at Vietnam’s powerful neighbour China.
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Maga influencer and de facto national security adviser Laura Loomer holds outsized sway on Trump

The 32-year-old was instrumental in high-profile national security firings, and has cheerled the attacks on Iran
After years of claiming to be the vanguard of a new “America First” isolationist movement rebelling against the neoconservative policies of the George W Bush administration that led to the bloody wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Maga’s online influencers are cheering for another war in the Middle East.
And not just any war: they are applauding Donald Trump’s high-risk decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, a move that was considered a war too far even by the Bush administration.
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EU agrees deal with Israel to increase Gaza aid

The European Union and Israel have reached a deal to expand humanitarian aid entering Gaza, the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas announced Thursday.

“This deal means more crossings open, aid and food trucks entering Gaza, repair of vital infrastructure and protection of aid workers. We count on Israel to implement every measure agreed,” Kallas said.

The measures will be implemented in the coming days, making sure that aid is delivered directly to the local population and that there is no aid diverted to militant group Hamas, Commission spokesperson Anouar El Anouni said at a media briefing.

The measures Israel and the EU agreed upon include an increase of daily trucks for food, fuel and other items entering Gaza, the opening of several other crossing points in both the northern and southern areas, the reopening of the Jordanian and Egyptian aid routes, as well as the distribution of food supplies through bakeries and public kitchens throughout the Gaza Strip.

Israel blocked all food d..

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Trump officials used shadowy website to target pro-Palestinian academics for deportation, court records show

As the Trump administration identified pro-Palestinian academics to target for deportation, it relied heavily on an anonymously-run pro-Israel website that has been criticized for doxxing, according to newly unsealed court documents and testimony at an ongoing trial.

To support President Donald Trump’s deportation drive, the Department of Homeland Security assembled a “tiger team” of intelligence analysts who built dossiers on about 100 foreign students and scholars engaged in pro-Palestinian activity, the records show.

More than 75 of those people were identified by the shadowy website Canary Mission, according to deposition testimony unveiled this week in a case challenging the Trump administration’s targeting of pro-Palestinian scholars.

The federal judge currently overseeing a trial in the case unsealed the deposition transcripts, which contain hundreds of pages of sworn testimony by administration officials about the campus deportation effort. Some of the details in the transcr..

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