The partial reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world's oil passes, was the principal achievement of the Memorandum of Understanding and a key priority for the United States seeking to avoid a global economic crisis. read more
President Donald Trump's appointees reportedly terminated an early-stage criminal investigation into his controversial clemency for a convicted fraudster. read more
Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, advised Donald Trump not to host Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, having called the Ukrainian president a "little fucker", a "special-needs child" and "Mr Bean on crack", according to a new book. The suggestion that a US cabinet official described a world leader in such terms is included in Regime Change, a blockbusting account of the second Trump administration by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, set to be published worldwide on Tuesday. News of Bessent's alleged remarks may embarrass the Trump administration, although the meeting that did take place on 28 February 2025 proved outright disastrous, as Trump and JD Vance blasted Zelenskyy for not being grateful for aid in his fight against Russian invaders, and for not wearing a suit.
President Donald Trump is doubling down on his feud with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. read more
The attack on a girl's elementary school in the Iranian town of Minab was one of the US military's deadliest civilian bombings in decades. But nearly four months on, the Pentagon has produced no answers about why the military fired a Tomahawk cruise missile into a school on the first day of the war, killing at least 175 people, mostly children. Some critics doubt that the Pentagon ever will, or will bury the results under classifications to keep the worst mistakes secret from the public. As the US signs a shaky memorandum of understanding on a ceasefire with Iran, the secretive investigation into the attack has also become a test case for the self-styled secretary of war Pete Hegseth's new approach to what he calls "warfighting". As he said in early March, nearly two weeks after the attack, "our rules of engagement are bold, precise and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it". read more
Five people with direct knowledge of the commutation claim that the Trump team did not want any probing into whether improper payments were made to commute a sentence to David Gentile, according to a report by The New York Times. Gentile was convicted of a $1.6 billion fraud against thousands of investors while running his private equity firm.
This is typical for the serial child rapist who pardons cop killers.