Today in our brief news:
➜ Trump sends Vice President JD Vance hunting for alleged wrongdoing in Democratic-run cities after Republicans lose control of Congress. Eight months of war with Iran, a lost Senate majority, and suddenly somebody else has to take the blame.
➜ The legendary SS United States now rests on the ocean floor. Once the fastest passenger ship on the Atlantic, the 302-meter ocean liner was deliberately sunk off Florida and is set to become the world's largest artificial shipwreck reef.
➜ In Moscow, the SUV belonging to Sergei Zavorotny, a former spokesman for Ukraine's prime minister, explodes after traveling just 200 meters. The driver suffers devastating injuries as investigators search for whoever planted the suspected bomb beneath the driver's seat.
➜ Trump wants to "get Cuba done" before 2028 and refuses to rule out military force. After the war with Iran, the American president is already talking about the next country whose future he apparently intends to decide personally.
➜ 218 signatures force a new House vote on the Epstein files. Mike Johnson lashes out at Thomas Massie as an attention seeker but can't answer a simple question about whether he supports the bill. Roughly three million withheld files remain at the center of the fight.
Trump Puts Vance in His Place: The War Costs Republicans Their Senate Majority, and Now Democratic Cities Are Supposed to Take the Fall
JD Vance has handed Donald Trump a bill nobody in the White House wants to pay. Eight months of war with Iran, economic turmoil, a crushing defeat in the midterm elections. The vice president explicitly blamed the war for Republican losses. Anyone who thought losing the Senate for the next six years was worth it should say so publicly, Vance wrote after November 3. Trump responded Thursday with an order. His vice president was to devote his "complete and undivided attention" from now on to fraud and crime in Democratic-run cities and states.
"We don't need a deal with Iran," Trump wrote. Those days were over. America had Iran's money, hundreds of billions of dollars, and its strait. In Trump's accounting, the Strait of Hormuz already appears to be American property. In reality, tankers there still need escorts from the U.S. Navy. And Vance, who negotiated a short-lived ceasefire over the summer, is now supposed to look elsewhere for people to blame, at Trump's direction.
As recently as Wednesday evening, Vance was considering another round of talks with a senior Iranian official. Once an opponent of sweeping American military interventions, the vice president had defended Trump's war only halfheartedly. Now its outcome hangs over his potential presidential run in 2028. In a television interview Sunday, Trump refused to commit to a successor. Vance's office remained silent about the public reprimand. Democrats take control of Congress in January. They are preparing investigations into Trump's business dealings, while corruption was among voters' most pressing concerns. And at precisely this moment, Trump orders his vice president to go after alleged wrongdoing in Democratic-run areas. Asked about the situation, the White House merely reiterated its opposition to further talks with Iran.
Trump considers the war effectively over from a military standpoint and sees progress in Qatar's mediation efforts. A return to large-scale bombing was unlikely, he said. At the same time, he assured Hugh Hewitt that he would strike again without hesitation if the effort failed. U.S. forces recently attacked Iranian air defense positions. Oil shipments through Hormuz are recovering after months of blockade, but attacks on ships are increasing. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency, UKMTO, reported two tankers hit. On Wednesday, a crew escaped unharmed northwest of Ras Al Khaimah; after an attack Tuesday in the Persian Gulf, several people needed medical treatment. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for support to protect shipping during talks among the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations in Paris. To no avail. Fighting between the Saudi-led coalition and the Iranian-backed Houthis is also threatening passage through Bab el-Mandeb.
Meanwhile, Iranian Parliament Speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf claims Washington asked Vladimir Putin to mediate direct talks. Russia was a close strategic partner, he said. Major General Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, had conveyed Iran's demands to Putin. America needed to respond; Tehran was ready for negotiations just as it was ready for more war. The White House did not answer a question about the alleged request to Moscow. Trump has given Vance his new assignment. Off Hormuz, the Navy remains on station.
The Fastest Ship on the Atlantic Rests on the Ocean Floor: The Final Voyage of the SS United States
At 9 PM on November 11, 2026, a piece of American maritime history disappeared beneath the water off Florida's coast. The SS United States, once the fastest passenger ship on the Atlantic, was deliberately sunk to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Seventy-four years after her maiden voyage, the 302-meter ocean liner was sent to the seabed to begin a new life as an artificial reef. A ship built for speed took several hours to make her final journey. This time, the voyage went straight down.
The SS United States was launched in Newport News, Virginia, in 1952. On her first Atlantic crossing, she set a speed record for westbound passenger ships that still stands today. She averaged around 66 kilometers per hour, even though a severe storm battered the ship during the crossing. She made it across the Atlantic in less than four days. Grace Kelly and Elizabeth Taylor were among her passengers, as were American presidents. At 302 meters, she was even 33 meters longer than the Titanic. She crossed the ocean more than 800 times.
The liner was taken out of service in 1969. Since 1996, she had been sitting in Philadelphia while plans to turn her into a floating museum fell apart and the years ate away at her structure. Eventually, the choice came down to scrapping her or giving her a second purpose underwater. Around $13.5 million was budgeted for the project. The once-luxurious passenger liner was to become the world's largest artificial shipwreck reef.
Before sinking her, workers removed hazardous materials and large sections of the interior. They cleaned the fuel tanks, took out more than 400 portholes, and cut openings in the decks. Explosives were expressly ruled out. Seawater flowed into the hull through valves. The ship was originally supposed to go down early in the afternoon. But the process dragged on until she finally disappeared beneath the surface around 9 PM. In her final minutes, the enormous hull listed sharply to port.
The wreck lies approximately 41 kilometers southwest of Destin-Fort Walton Beach in about 55 meters of water. If the ship is resting upright, its upper decks are roughly 15 to 18 meters below the surface. As of November 12, a final survey confirming the ship's exact position on the seabed was still unavailable.
Nun sollen sich Mikroorganismen und weitere Meeresbewohner am Stahl ansiedeln, später auch Fische. Die Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will die Entstehung dieses Lebensraums wissenschaftlich begleiten und unter anderem die Wasserchemie untersuchen. An Land sollen die beiden rund 20 Meter hohen Schornsteine in einem geplanten Museum an die Vergangenheit erinnern. Der Atlantikrekord bleibt über Wasser. Das Schiff selbst hat seinen letzten Hafen auf dem Meeresgrund gefunden.
200 Meters to the Explosion: Bomb Rips Apart Former Ukrainian Government Spokesman's SUV in Moscow
200 meters. That was as far as the Toyota Fortuner made it this morning. Then a bomb exploded on Kirovogradskaya Street in Moscow's Chertanovo district. The doors on the left side were blown off the SUV, and the driver was hurled through the windshield onto the pavement. An ordinary residential courtyard, a short drive through Moscow. Someone had apparently made sure the journey would end right there.
The vehicle belongs to 72-year-old Sergei Zavorotny, a former spokesman and adviser to Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov. Russian investigators have yet to officially confirm whether Zavorotny himself was behind the wheel. The badly injured driver was taken to a hospital. The explosion struck a vehicle whose owner had spent years working in the political circle of a Ukrainian government that is now long gone. Old political connections, however, rarely disappear along with the governments they once served.
Another driver witnessed the explosion up close. The Toyota had been coming toward him, he said, and the man behind the wheel had been wearing his seat belt. The blast still threw him through the windshield. The SUV then continued rolling with nobody at the wheel and stopped about a meter from the witness's vehicle. He got out, found the injured man lying in the street, checked his pulse, and called an ambulance. The man was still breathing.
The injuries reveal the force of the explosion. Shrapnel struck the driver's chest and back. His legs were badly injured, and part of his arm was torn off. The information released so far points to a homemade explosive device beneath the driver's seat. There has been no official confirmation. Whether the bomb was actually planted there and how it was detonated remain unknown. For the man inside the vehicle, that distinction made no difference anymore.
The injuries reveal the force of the explosion. Shrapnel struck the driver's chest and back. His legs were badly injured, and part of his arm was torn off. The information released so far points to a homemade explosive device beneath the driver's seat. There has been no official confirmation. Whether the bomb was actually planted there and how it was detonated remain unknown. For the man inside the vehicle, that distinction made no difference anymore.
In a city where political loyalties cast long shadows, roughly 200 meters were enough that morning to turn a car into a wreck. Whoever planted the bomb remains unknown. Given the destruction, there is little doubt that someone was at least willing to accept the driver's death.
Iran Apparently Isn't Enough for Trump: Now He Wants to "Get Cuba Done" Too
HEWITT: "Will you order military force to free Cuba?"
TRUMP: "I want to get Cuba done before I leave, yeah."
The war with Iran is already over again, at least according to Donald Trump's statements. Apparently, there's still room for Cuba on his calendar. Before leaving the White House in 2028, the American president wants to have the island "taken care of." A country with millions of people is reduced, in that language, to a task someone checks off before calling it a day. And hanging over the desk is the possibility of another war.
On Thursday, radio host Hugh Hewitt asked Trump whether he would order military force if "freeing" Cuba required it. "I want to get Cuba done before I leave, yeah," Trump replied. In Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he said, they had an exceptionally capable man for the job. The politician, whose family comes from Cuba, would very much like to do it. Cuba was a "failed place," Trump said. The question of American bombs was left without a rejection.
Back in March, Trump had announced that he might have the "honor" of taking Cuba "in some form." He left open whether he would free the island or take it over. "I think I can do anything I want with it," he said at the time. International law, in this view, appears only as an inconvenient objection. The will of one president is supposed to be enough to decide the future of another people. Cuba was facing an unprecedented economic crisis at the time. The American blockade of Venezuelan oil shipments made the hardship worse. Washington increased the pressure on a population whose economic suffering was then held up as proof that its country had failed.
By May, the initial discussions inside the White House had turned into serious interest in military action. Tougher sanctions and what amounted to an oil blockade were supposed to force Cuba's leadership into making concessions. U.S. military victories in Venezuela and Iran were intended to intimidate them. But the Iran war developed differently than expected, and Cuba proved more resilient. Suddenly, an attack was on the table too.
In June, Rubio refused to assure Congress that the United States would not invade Cuba. Now Trump is once again talking about getting the country "done" before 2028. No decision to attack has been made. But the language of power has already moved on: from economic strangulation to the open question of whether American soldiers will be sent in to finish the job.
218 Signatures Against Johnson's Excuses: The Fight Over the Epstein Files Becomes a Reckoning for the Republican
"We always handled this with care to protect victims and to get all the information out to the public. You have to do both of those things. Thomas Massie has never given a darn about that," Johnson told me. He was defending his handling of an issue that had played a major role in numerous midterm campaigns.
Asked whether he supported the bill, Johnson refused to give an answer. He said he needed to review it first.
218 signatures. That was all Thomas Massie needed to take control of the next fight over the Epstein files out of Mike Johnson's hands. The Republican congressman had gathered enough support to force a vote in the House of Representatives on a second law requiring the release of the records. Johnson, also a Republican and the speaker of the House, responded by attacking the man who had set the whole thing in motion. Transparency is apparently a wonderful thing, as long as nobody demands that it actually be enforced.
The new Epstein Files Transparency Act bill is supposed to give the original law some teeth. Members of Congress and attorneys general would be able to sue the Justice Department if it failed to comply with its obligations to release the files. Survivors of Epstein's abuse would also be given that right. According to Massie, state attorneys general would also be able to pursue Epstein's alleged co-conspirators. Survivors would gain access to their records. Above all, the department could be forced to release documents it was unlawfully withholding.
Reporter Manu Raju wanted to know whether Johnson would fight the vote. The speaker said he had never tried to prevent the release of the Epstein files. Raju reminded him that he had fought the previous bill. Johnson then invoked protecting the victims and claimed Massie had raised the issue solely to get attention. The files had sat untouched throughout Joe Biden's entire administration, he argued. Massie's effort was intended to go after Trump. Ask about a bill in Washington, and sometimes you get a lecture about the questioner's motives instead.
Raju asked again, directly, whether Johnson supported the new bill. Johnson replied that he hadn't even seen the petition to force the vote. Massie was once again seeking attention and trying to cause chaos on his way out, he claimed. At the same time, Johnson insisted he had always supported full transparency. He still didn't answer the question.
Massie posted the interview clip and mocked Johnson's performance as a complete meltdown on camera. While the speaker talked about political motives, the number 218 was already staring him in the face. The Justice Department says it is withholding roughly three million files to protect victims. Questions remain about missing documents and the names appearing in them. Johnson's professed commitment to openness now comes with an uncomfortable consequence: The House can vote on whether the release of those files can be enforced in court.
