Trump pardoned the former Honduran president this week because, sure. Why not? read more
The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee [Adam Smith] said Sunday that surveillance video of U.S. military strikes targeting an alleged drug trafficking vessel in the Caribbean Sea on Sept. 2 would contradict how Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other Republicans have described it. read more
Juan Orlando Hernndez, whom Mr. Trump called a victim of persecution, helped orchestrate a decades-long trafficking conspiracy. read more
Donald Trump's drive to secure peace in Ukraine must not let Vladimir Putin off the hook for war crimes committed by Russian forces, a top EU official has warned, effectively setting a new red line for a deal. read more
President Trump lashed out at the New York Times for a story this week that pointed to his advanced age and a diminished White House schedule. "Trump, 79, is the oldest person to be elected to the presidency, and he is aging," the Times reported. "He does not get regular exercise, in part because he has a long-held theory that people are born with a finite amount of energy and that vigorous activity can deplete that reserve, like a battery." read more
Congress will vote on limiting Hegseth's travel budget unless he releases unedited video of boat strikes
There is bipartisan support to release the full video of the controversial strikes that day.
www.wbaltv.com
Tucked into Congress' massive defense policy bill is a provision that would limit Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's travel budget unless he provides the House and Senate Armed Services committees with unedited video of U.S. military strikes in the Caribbean.
The mandate in the must-pass piece of legislation " known as the National Defense Authorization Act " would withhold a quarter of the budget unless the Pentagon provides lawmakers "video of strikes conducted against designated terrorist organizations in the area of responsibility of the United States Southern Command."
It comes as a Sept. 2 "double-tap" strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean has come under intense scrutiny on Capitol Hill.
DANFORTH
Re your #13:
In early 2025, the U.S. Travel Association projected foreign travel spending would rise to $200.8 billion this year.
However, noting a "sharp and widespread" drop in arrivals, the World Travel & Tourism Council in May projected international visitor spending would drop to $169 billion for the year.
The lost revenue is set to benefit other countries " notably Canada and Latin America " as travelers seek out other destinations or decide to stay within their own countries or regions.
In the first half of 2025, Canadian arrivals to the U.S. fell nearly 18% year on year, representing a drop of more than 1,750,000 visits, according to the U.S. International Trade Administration.
www.cnbc.com
Some interesting historian-as-detective work represented in the volcanic activity link.
Unfortunately, one of my favorite theories about the major contributing factor in bringing the Black Death to Europe in the 14 th century seems to have fallen more to the wayside: Mongols catapulting plague corpses into a Venetian trading center on the Crimean Peninsula. See Matt Field, "Catapulting corpses? A famous case of medieval biological warfare probably never happened" (thebulletin.org) and Hannah Barker, "Laying the Corpses to Rest: Grain, Embargoes, and Yersinia pestis in the Black Sea, 1346-48" (www.journals.uchicago.edu).
The core questions according to the article: