Trump Punishes South Korea and Moves Closer to Kim Jong Un
Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to significantly scale back the already planned joint military exercises with South Korea. His explanation is unusually open: Seoul refused to support the United States in denuclearizing Iran, and North Korea, he said, has behaved "unthreatening and respectful" during his time in office. The exercises are expensive and inappropriately hostile toward Pyongyang, Trump wrote. Because a complete cancellation just days before they begin is no longer possible, he said he instructed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to substantially reduce their scope. The move affects the eleven-day summer exercise Ulchi Freedom Shield, which was supposed to involve around 18,000 South Korean troops alone. Joint combat scenarios, live-fire drills, precision strikes, river crossings and the distribution of prepositioned military equipment had been planned.
The decision comes just days after North Korea resumed its ballistic missile tests, which are banned by the United Nations. In early August, South Korea, the United States and Japan again detected the launch of a short-range missile that fell into the sea off North Korea's east coast. As recently as May, Hegseth had explicitly praised South Korea for increasing defense spending and taking greater responsibility for security on the Korean Peninsula. Now Trump is also making military cooperation dependent on whether Seoul supports his Iran policy. Democratic Senator and former Navy pilot Mark Kelly calls the reduction of the exercises shortsighted and a mistake. North Korea, meanwhile, had described the drills on Friday as preparations for a war of aggression and threatened tough countermeasures. Kim Jong Un has continued expanding his nuclear and missile arsenal since talks with Trump collapsed in 2019. Trump is nevertheless seeking closer ties with him again. One day before his decision, he posted a photo of himself with Kim and wrote that the two get along great. This approach is not new. After meeting Kim in Singapore in 2018, Trump already wanted to stop the joint exercises, called them provocative and pointed to the cost. Eight years later, history is repeating itself, this time with an additional message to a longtime ally: If you do not support Trump's war against Iran, you have to expect Washington to make you pay even when it comes to joint defense.
Gulf States Secretly Move Millions of Barrels of Oil Through Hormuz Every Day
Despite the war, attacks on tankers and the danger in the Persian Gulf, countries in the region continue moving enormous quantities of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. More than 4 million barrels a day are being transported, according to sources in the oil trade, on ships with their transponders switched off. The tankers pass through the strait into the Gulf of Oman, where the cargo is transferred to other vessels. The shipments include oil from the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Qatar and Kuwait. Off the coast of Oman, the scale of this secret traffic is now clearly visible. Around 150 ships are there, compared with about 40 in January. Many are waiting for tankers that pass through Hormuz without their tracking systems turned on. Before the war, around 20 million barrels of oil passed through the strait every day, roughly one-fifth of global supply. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright put the current flow last week at around 9 million barrels a day, almost half the prewar level. The fact that oil prices have not risen to the $150 per barrel that was feared at times despite the war is also tied to these covert shipments. Pipelines, released reserves and weaker demand are also helping. Brent has therefore remained mostly between $80 and $90 so far. But this trade is anything but safe.
The UAE state oil company Adnoc says 23 of its ships have been attacked while passing through the Strait of Hormuz since the conflict began. One sailor was killed and 20 others were injured. People in the oil trade believe there may have been more incidents involving commercial vessels than have officially become known. At the same time, the alternative route through the Red Sea is also becoming more dangerous. Saudi Arabia is already responding by moving its own transport capacity toward Oman. Sixteen supertankers operated by the Saudi shipping company Bahri are now gathered there, with three more on the way. Together, those ships could carry around 38 million barrels of oil. While the public discussion focuses on blockades, attacks and possible shortages, millions of barrels of oil are still moving every day with transponders switched off. That traffic is exactly what has so far kept the war from hitting gas stations around the world even harder.
Comment: The Journalist Is Liable, the Influencer Cashes In
A newsroom works under oversight and often at high risk. It is bound by journalistic standards of care and has to respect the rights of the people it names. It cannot later talk its way out of things by saying it only wanted to provoke. A false quote or a photo placed under the wrong event can lead to injunctions and damages. Then there are reprimands from the German Press Council and expensive court battles. An unproven, reputation-damaging story about a person named directly can threaten the existence of an entire outlet. That liability is as much a part of the profession as writing itself.
The same legal limits apply to the political world online, but often only once someone affected actually enforces them. On YouTube or TikTok, a claim can reach hundreds of thousands of people before anyone even asks whether it is true. A flashy thumbnail and a sentence nobody ever said, and the thing takes off. If somebody later asks for evidence, the factual claim suddenly becomes "exaggeration," "provocation" or simply "my opinion." That can have legal consequences too, but in practice often only once the person affected takes action. By then, the false impression has long been planted in the audience's mind.
Risky investigations bring things like this to light.
The document shows internal performance and compensation descriptions for so called task force officers working with ICE. Specifically, it outlines that these officers are paid for their involvement in enforcing immigration laws - including salary, overtime and additional benefits. Notably, payments are made monthly and include quarterly bonuses. These bonuses are tied to specific requirements, targets and performance metrics set by ICE or ERO.
The document comes from our article: Investigations reveal: Bounty list - How ICE pays local police for arrests, even involving children
The economic absurdity is that care and accuracy are exactly what get punished. A newsroom spends days obtaining documents and checking statements, while half a dozen videos can be produced in the same amount of time. Reporting takes time and money, while the loud performance costs a vlogging camera, editing software and a microphone. Because anger gets more clicks than a carefully worded caveat, the person who moves faster and more recklessly ends up making more money, rewarded through the monetization of attention, advertising and fundraising campaigns. Verified truth is competing against an invention that can be finished in a few minutes. The careful outlets are simply left behind.
The machinery behind it often has no interest in the full truth. That is especially damaging when it comes to educating people about "right-wing populism and the far right." The good projects suffer from it too, because credibility matters to them as well. A thumbnail that makes people angry gets passed around, while a sober caveat gets ignored. The distribution of attention naturally favors the sensational over the verified, and day after day the incentive points in the wrong direction. The system rewards what is loud and skips over what forces people to think. It becomes most dangerous when real events are treated as nothing more than raw material. A real photo gets attached to the wrong event. A suspicion becomes certainty in the thumbnail, an unsupported sentence becomes a fabricated claim. If the story later falls apart, it was supposedly always just provocation. By then, the audience has already absorbed it and passed it on. One round is enough, the correction by journalists comes days too late and barely reaches half the audience.
Investigations inside ICE detention facilities: Hell on Earth – The Krome Deportation Center in Miami
The system becomes especially effective through closeness to the audience. Many people tell their viewers about their own lives right alongside politics, so the audience knows the dog and the last vacation. That familiarity creates a loyalty that takes every contradiction personally and turns the critic into an enemy. At that point, people defend the person they believe they know, and the question of truth takes a back seat. Closeness beats evidence, and affection replaces scrutiny. A fact-check barely gets through that closed loyalty. Anyone who contradicts them is quickly dismissed as "mainstream media" or as part of some invented conspiracy.
The damage does not stop with a single false report. Especially for young people, the line between a newsroom and a political channel becomes blurred, with both appearing under the same label of "news" or "education." The sloppy image created by some then gets projected onto everyone who makes news. An honest name ends up counting for as little as a loud one. The irresponsibility of individual loudmouths is then dumped onto an entire profession, including those who actually do their work properly.
If outrage and being loud work so well, why does it apparently convince the wrong people?
And the nasty answer is: Maybe a significant part of this supposed "education against the right" is not actually very successful at getting people away from the right. What it is very successful at is entertaining its own followers, producing outrage, generating reach and monetizing that reach.
The investigative journalist works with liability on his back, with conviction and with the "attack" at the right moment, while his digital competitor often works with little more than the algorithm. One has to be able to prove what he claims, the other mainly has to make sure people click. This imbalance costs journalism reach and money. It costs the public the shared ground of verified facts on which any real debate can still take place. Without that ground, the public breaks apart into camps that no longer believe anything the other side says. That is extremely dangerous. Investigative journalism has repeatedly brought to light things governments, corporations or authorities would have preferred to keep hidden, triggering resignations, investigations and political consequences. Its successes do not come from being loud, but from evidence, documents and work that has to stand up in court in the end, or from help that directly benefits the victims.
BBC Wants Trump's Family Under Oath - but the Secret Service Is in the Way
Donald Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC is pulling his own family deeper and deeper into the case. The British broadcaster wants to question Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner and obtain documents from them because, in the BBC's view, they have personal knowledge of central issues in the dispute. The case is being heard in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in Miami under case number 1:25-cv-25894-RKA. U.S. District Judge Roy K. Altman is presiding, while U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué A. Lett is handling discovery matters. That is exactly where an unusual problem has now emerged: The BBC cannot get its subpoenas served. Ivanka Trump and Kushner are protected by the Secret Service, while Donald Trump Jr. is also surrounded by security personnel. Attempts to personally serve the court papers went nowhere.
The BBC therefore asked on Friday to be allowed to serve the subpoenas instead by email and certified mail. Lett gave Trump's side a shortened deadline of August 21 to respond. For the BBC, the three family members are anything but side characters. Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. were both in the Oval Office on January 6, 2021, while Trump was still working on his speech. Donald Trump Jr. also spoke directly with his father after the violence at the Capitol had begun. The BBC wants to use that testimony to examine Trump's own claim that it is false to suggest he incited violence. That is exactly what his lawsuit is about. Trump accuses the BBC of taking two widely separated parts of his speech and stitching them together for a 2024 documentary, deliberately creating the impression that he had urged his supporters to attack the Capitol.
The BBC apologized for the misleading edit but denies that it defamed Trump. Trump is seeking a total of $10 billion, $5 billion for defamation and another $5 billion for allegedly unfair business practices. His lawyers now call the effort harassment of the family and accuse the BBC of abusing the process to dig into Trump's inner circle. The broadcaster had previously asked Trump to accept service on behalf of his daughter and son-in-law or to instruct the Secret Service to allow the subpoenas to be served. Trump refused. At the same time, the lawsuit has already taken an uncomfortable turn for him. Judge Lett had ordered the production of extensive financial records from the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust after Trump himself claimed financial harm caused by the BBC. Altman temporarily halted that order while Trump amended his complaint and narrowed his claimed damages more heavily toward harm to his personal reputation. The trial is currently scheduled to begin on February 15, 2027, and last two weeks. What began as a lawsuit in which Trump is demanding $10 billion from the BBC has long since become a case in which the broadcaster wants to know what his children and son-in-law know about January 6 - and wants to question them about it under oath.
Motor Oil Is Running Short - the Middle East War Is Now Hitting Repair Shops and Drivers
The war in the Middle East is now reaching even the oil change at the repair shop. Volkswagen, Stellantis and Toyota are changing their motor oil formulations because high-quality Group III base oils are becoming scarce worldwide. Europe and the United States have so far imported a large share of them from the Middle East. During the first months of the war, manufacturers were still able to rely on stockpiles, but those reserves are now running low.
Prices for Group III base oils have risen to around $4,000 per ton, almost three times their prewar level. One major reason is the Iranian missile strike in March on a large Shell gas-to-liquids plant in Qatar. The damage was severe, repairs took time, and other suppliers in the region sold off the volumes they had available for Europe and the United States before declaring force majeure. Gabriella Twining of Argus Media warns that the number of alternatives is getting smaller and smaller. Even if the Strait of Hormuz were fully reopened tomorrow, she expects new shipments to reach Europe and the United States no earlier than October. Automakers are therefore trying to find other suppliers and approve new lubricant formulations. That is not a simple swap, because every new oil has to meet the manufacturers' technical requirements. Stellantis has already tested modified formulations and says it has found products that meet industry standards.
Volkswagen has secured the supplies it needs for now but is looking for additional sources. Toyota also says it has found alternative suppliers. Drivers in Japan are already feeling the effects. Since June, some Suzuki dealerships have faced delays in routine motor oil changes. A taxi company in Osaka says its base oil costs have doubled, forcing it to raise fares. There is still no all-clear. The market remains vulnerable because new shipping problems or further refinery shutdowns could quickly make the shortage worse again. Then the war in the Middle East turns into a very real higher bill at the repair shop, and even an ordinary oil change can take longer and become significantly more expensive.
Russia Blacks Out Pope Francis - Statements About LGBT People Removed From Autobiography
In Russia, not even Pope Francis' autobiography is safe from censorship. In the Russian edition of his book "Hope," published by Alpina Publisher, several passages about gay and transgender people have been removed. Published photos show pages where entire sections of text have been covered over. The same cuts also appear in the electronic edition. Theologian Natallia Vasilevich compared the Russian version with the original and determined exactly which statements had disappeared. Among the passages removed were Francis' words that the Church is also open to gay and transgender people.
Also removed was his statement that transgender people can be baptized and serve as godparents. The sentence saying that homosexuality is "not a crime, but a human reality" can no longer be read either. The Russian edition also removed the reference to the Vatican declaration Fiducia supplicans, which under certain conditions allows priests to bless people in same-sex relationships. The changes fit Russia's legislation of recent years. Since 2022, there has been a complete ban on so-called "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relationships." On that basis, bookstores and online retailers have already removed hundreds of titles containing LGBT material from sale. Then there is the Supreme Court's decision to classify a supposed "International LGBT Movement" as extremist, even though no such organization actually exists in that form. In practice, that created a tool that can be used to target LGBT issues far beyond individual groups. Since the war began, pressure on the Russian book market has intensified even further. At least 600 books are said to have disappeared from sale for censorship reasons.
More than 50 writers have been designated "foreign agents." Publishers and booksellers are facing administrative and criminal proceedings. Now even a pope is being retroactively adjusted to fit Russian rules. His words remain in the original, but Russian readers are being given an edition in which precisely the sentences that contradict state policy are missing.
