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The Anti Gay and Trans Political Climate Ins't Driving Folks Back To The Closet But The Opposite

2026-10-18T11:47:29.389-04:00

Sibrapid/Shutterstock

The hostile climate is inspiring LGBTQ+ people to publicly embrace who they are as a way to push back, according to a new survey.

Molly Sprayregen

The GOP’s relentless attacks on LGBTQ+ rights and dignity over the past two years have not driven the record number of LGBTQ+ adults back into the closet, according to a new reportfrom the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.

In fact, the hostile climate seems to be having the opposite effect, inspiring people to publicly embrace who they are as a way to push back.

The HRC Foundation 2026 Annual LGBTQ+ Community Survey found that 85% of LGBTQ+ adults are somewhat or very open about their identities, despite 56% saying the political climate makes them less likely to be open. 33% of respondents reported they are more open than they were two years ago, and 45% said they are just as open. Only 22% reported being less open than they were two years ago.

The most recent survey found that older LGBTQ+ adults were more likely to have remained just as open as they were two years ago, while younger adults were more likely to report becoming more open over the past two years.

One 34-year-old lesbian from West Virginia wrote that it is “more important than ever for me to be out in every space of my life as an act of resistance. Building community is life-affirming.”

The most popular reasons respondents reported wanting to be open about their LGBTQ+ identities were a desire to build support for LGBTQ+ people and a belief that visibility benefits the overall community.

“Despite the current political climate being anti-trans, I feel it is important to be open,” wrote a 54-year-old trans, asexual respondent from Arizona. “I believe the more people realize that trans people are still people and may even have things in common with them, the more we can change how they see us. Maybe we can show others we deserve the same protections and be allowed to be ourselves.”

Unsurprisingly, the survey found that trans and gender-expansive people were more likely to report that the current political climate and fears of harassment and discrimination made them less likely to be open.

The report emphasized that the high number of LGBTQ+ people living openly “should not be mistaken for an absence of fear or pressure.”

“These findings show both at once,” the researchers wrote, “powerful forces that can discourage openness, alongside powerful reasons to remain visible. LGBTQ+ people can experience pressure to hide while also seeing real value in being known, living authentically, supporting equality, and creating space for others.”

HRC President Kelley Robinson said in a statement that the data shows coming out is both “deeply personal” and “deeply political,” calling it “a way to build an environment where equality is a right, not a privilege.”

“Being seen is how we win support,” she said. “We come out for each other. This fall, we’re carrying that spirit to the ballot box. We’re voting in these midterms to protect every one of us, wherever we are on our journey.”

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Putin Gets From Trump Economic Relief and Trump Hopes to Get The Same Back

2026-10-18T11:35:45.633-04:00

President Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia last year in Alaska.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

By Alan Rappeport

Reporting from Washington

New York Times

What Happen he wanted the war to end because of the killing. If you know Trump know Trump is never bother by Others Killing and dying and this proves it because unless a miracle happens from Ukraine Friends in regards to satellite information and the rights arms the war will be extended.

adamfoxie

The Trump administration is ignoring the will of Congress and waiving new Russia sanctions amid fears that high energy prices will cost Republicans in next month’s elections.

For years, critics of President Trump accused him of welcoming help from Russia to tilt elections in his favor. Now, with midterm elections in the United States two weeks away, Mr. Trump is explicitly seeking economic support from Russia.

A week ago, the Trump administration announced that it was lifting sanctions on Russian diesel exports. Late on Friday night, the White House released an executive order exempting Russia from a sanctions law that Congress passed last month. The moves were a last-ditch effort to lower the soaring gas prices in America that polls show are turning voters against Mr. Trump and Republican candidates.

Ukraine has frustrated Mr. Trump in recent months with its attacks on Russian oil refineries, which he blames for high global energy prices. Although the attacks have disrupted global energy supplies, oil prices have been climbing since the United States attacked Iran at the end of February, leading to violence across the Middle East and clogging the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Gas prices on Saturday averaged $4.31 a gallon in the United States, according to the AAA motor club, up nearly 45 percent since the start of the war.

The crumbling of years of work by the United States to put economic pressure on Russia to end its war in Ukraine raises questions about the Trump administration’s strategy to broker a peace deal. Mr. Trump’s executive order on Friday comes as the administration is pushing for Europe to resume buying more Russian gas, as part of the peace deal.

Mr. Trump’s waiver of the sanctions also casts doubt on why Congress passed legislation that was intended to punish Russia but made imposing the sanctions optional.

On Saturday, Mr. Trump’s decision was hailed by Russia and assailed by Ukraine.

“The suspension of some of the provisions of the Graham Act marks an important and truly historic moment,” said Kirill Dmitriev, who is Mr. Putin’s special envoy for investment and economic cooperation. “These provisions could have effectively brought all economic cooperation between Russia and the United States to a complete halt, inflicting serious damage primarily on the U.S. economy and global markets.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who has maintained that Ukraine has a right to defend itself against Russia, condemned the sanctions relief for Russia and predicted that there would be more of that to come.

“I want to thank both Democrats and Republicans who supported his bill,” said Mr. Zelensky, who posted a photograph on social media of him with Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who died in July after working for more than a year to build support for the legislation. “That was a major victory: this truly bipartisan support. And now, the decision to undo all of this, to block all of it, seems wrong to me. And it definitely helps only the Russians.”

Skeptics of the law said that they were not surprised that Mr. Trump was ignoring the will of Congress. The sanctions in the law, which was named after Mr. Graham, were intended to target Russian officials, oligarchs and financial institutions. But the law also said that Mr. Trump could decline to impose the sanctions if he sent a letter to Congress explaining that they were not in the “national interest.”

The law also gave Mr. Trump new powers, which he has yet to deploy, to impose high tariffs on buyers of Russian energy products.

Some top Republican lawmakers who have recently run afoul of Mr. Trump criticized the president’s executive order on Saturday as letting President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia off the hook.

“Congress Must Investigate Trump’s Aid and Comfort to Putin,” Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, wrote in a post on social media.

Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, called the decision “beyond irresponsible.”

“It’s unconscionable that this administration is capitulating to a Russian dictator who illegally invaded Ukraine and butchers innocent civilians every single day,” Mr. Tillis said in a social media post. “If the President wants to actually bring down energy prices, he can do it by solving the Iran problem, not by doing a solid for Vladimir Putin.”

But it appears that Congress has little recourse. Even when Congress mandates sanctions, the executive branch has broad discretion on whether to deploy them based on what it believes is best for national security.

“Presidents have always sort of bridled at congressionally mandated measures,” said Adam M. Smith, a former senior adviser to the director of the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control in the Obama administration.

Mr. Smith said that he was surprised that Mr. Trump had opted against imposing any of the sanctions and noted that it gave the appearance that the president was turning away from Ukraine and toward Moscow.

“This plus the diesel deal will make some people concerned about where the president’s head is in this space,” Mr. Smith said.

Alex Zerden, the founder of the risk advisory firm Capitol Peak Strategies and a former official in the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said that Mr. Trump appeared to be adhering to the sanctions law as it was written. He was perplexed by the political calculus of seeking economic assistance from Russia after Congress demonstrated bipartisan support for crippling Russia’s economy.

“The optics around this are confounding given the bipartisan and presidential support for the Lindsey Graham legislation,” Mr. Zerden said. “But the president maintains wide discretion with this Congress.

During the Biden administration, the United States imposed more than a thousand sanctions on Russian targets and corralled allies to put a cap on the price of Russian oil. The Trump administration has been lenient in enforcing many of those sanctions and so far has only imposed new sanctions on Lukoil and Rosneft, Russia’s two largest oil companies.

The decision to offer Russia relief from sanctions because of fears about energy prices also represents an about-face for Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

At his confirmation hearing last year, Mr. Bessent said the Biden administration’s sanctions on Russia were not “fulsome” enough and described Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as one of the greatest tragedies of his adult life. He warned any Russian officials who were watching the Senate hearing that he would gladly ratchet up sanctions pressure to force Russia to the bargaining table.

“I believe that the previous administration was worried about raising U.S. energy prices during an election season,” Mr. Bessent said.

One on One With Pres.Zelenskyy and NPR on Adamfoxie

2026-10-18T11:01:56.404-04:00

I’ve wanted to interview Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy since I first arrived in Kyiv in January 2023 as NPR’s Ukraine correspondent. I’ve asked him questions at many press conferences here in Kyiv, but I saw real value in a one-on-one conversation, especially for NPR’s audience, which cares about what’s happening in the world. I wanted you to hear directly from one of the most recognizable world leaders today as his country defends itself from the largest, deadliest and most destructive war in Europe since WWII.

by Joanna Kakissis, Ukraine correspondent

Svet Jacqueline for NPR

NPR did sit down with Zelenskyy once before — Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep spoke to him in New York in September 2023. But getting the interview in Kyiv was challenging. Zelenskyy has a background in TV — he was a popular comedian before he was elected president — so it’s a medium his office seems to prefer. Radio is a harder sell, but not impossible. So we kept trying.

Zelenskyy understands the power of communication. He posts video addresses to Ukrainians nearly every night. He regularly gives interviews to international media, holds press conferences and sometimes even responds to reporters’ questions with voice memos. We made the case that NPR is invested in this story. I live here and work with two indefatigable Ukrainian producers, Polina Lytvynova and Hanna Palamarenko. We understand better than most what Ukraine is going through.

Last weekend, we finally got a call saying that Zelenskyy would do the interview. On Monday evening, we were told the interview was set for the following afternoon. We would have 40 minutes.

Then began the mad dash with logistics. Deputy international editor Tara Neill quickly mobilized resources in Washington, D.C. Videographers Ed Mathews and Anton Shtuka and photojournalist Svet Jacqueline joined Hanna, Polina and me. We left for the president’s office two and a half hours before the interview so we could have time to get through Zelenskyy’s security and set up (Once we got inside the grounds of the presidential office, I did take a few minutes to pet the beautiful black cat who lives there, Peremoha (Victory). Zelenskyy’s security team offered to exchange her for a Patriot missile, which Ukraine constantly runs out of).

We set up in a room where Zelenskyy holds press conferences. It has high ceilings, ornate floors and a soothing painting of what looks like a Ukrainian wheat field. I’d been here several times with the press corps. I was nervous (and self-conscious) about the video. I’d never done one before. I told myself to keep focused on what was important: having a meaningful and substantive conversation with Zelenskyy.

Even within the thick walls of the presidential office, we could hear an air raid siren outside. Shortly after it faded, Zelenskyy walked in and waved. He recognized me from the press conferences and knew I lived here. One of the first things I brought up was hearing five ballistic missiles hit the night before. Zelenskyy said he heard them too. "You understand," he said.

An interpreter translated my questions into Ukrainian for Zelenskyy, though he responded in English, a language he has become increasingly fluent in. We did have a couple of lost-in-translation moments, but the interview went well. Zelenskyy was warm, funny and engaged. He always looks tired. I'm not sure when he sleeps, given his hectic schedule and the constant attacks on Kyiv. But speaking with us, he was energetic and relaxed.

Zelenskyy was careful when talking about President Trump, who often blames Ukraine, not Russia, for starting the war. There were moments when he clearly wanted to say more, but did not because it was a “sensitive question.” The conversation moved well enough that we got an extra 10 minutes

Pres Zelenskyy with European Crowd laugh at Trump who is Politicly Down to Still behave Like a King

2026-10-17T11:53:48.833-04:00

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy | Dmytro Larin / Shutterstock

Adam Gonzalez

No matter what anyone says Trump cut off weapons to be sold to Ukraine, Intelligence and ordered Elon Musk to stop the Satellite help they have been getting to defend themselves from the drones that use the internet. More than 100 people dead. Those people or at least most of them would not been dead. From Babies, Teenager and older ones, dead.Plus the ones that are hurt.

Daniel Villarreal

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy drew a crowd’s laughter at a European summit on Friday when he wryly smiled in response to a question about US President Donald Trump’s midterm troubles.

“President Trump is facing pretty difficult midterm elections: His personal popularity is very low, diesel prices in the US are very high, and the war that he started in the Middle East is not going the way he wants it,” Sky News reporter Alistair Bunkall told Zelenskyy, then asking, “Do you think you are being treated as a scapegoat for his own problems?”

Zelenskyy looked down at his lectern and waited for about eight seconds before smiling at the audience, causing the audience to begin laughing.

“This is my answer,” Zelenskyy said.

Yesterday, Trump blamed Zelenskyy for rising fuel prices in the US, which have largely risen because Trump started a war with Iran, causing the country to close the Strait of Hormuz, a major waterway used to transport fuel and other resources internationally.

When asked on Thursday about Ukrainian military forces targeting Russian fuel sites amid Russia’s continuing four-year invasion of Ukraine, Trump said, “If you tell me that Zelenskyy is again shooting at [Russia’s] refineries, all he’s doing is making the world oil price higher. I think that’s a disgrace. There’s plenty of other targets; they don’t have to hit.”

“Zelenskyy is not a good guy for us to deal with,” Trump added, saying, “I think they actually both would like to see it end, but I think I find Zelenskyy to be more difficult to deal with than [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.”

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Young Voters Are Giving Trump The Finger You figure Out Which

2026-10-17T10:40:13.648-04:00

“I’m sure you know who Andrew Tate is,” said Suzanna Bridges, a conservative Catholic who sees misogyny laced into Trump world. “This administration is pushing for that kind of man right now — hyper, hypermasculine.”Credit...Callaghan O'Hare for The New York Times

By Sabrina Tavernise and Ruth Igielnik

Sabrina and Ruth interviewed more than two dozen young voters for this article.

New York Times

For Remi Martinez, it’s the deportations. For Michael Johnson, it’s the economy. For Suzanna Bridges, it’s the Epstein files and what she sees as misogyny embedded in the culture of the Trump administration.

All three youthful Americans voted for President Trump two years ago. All three regret it. All say they will vote Democratic this year, or not at all.

“I can’t go red, not this time — no,” said Mr. Johnson, 26, a sales representative for a plastics company in Des Moines.

In 2024, more than half of young men — 55 percent — supported Mr. Trump, according to an analysis of New York Times/Siena University polling, a dramatic departure from past elections when young Americans largely supported Democrats. Young women swung right as well, though not in such striking numbers.

Now, Democrats hold a slim, one-percentage-point advantage with young men, a group that is politically up for grabs. Around 10 percent of young men remain undecided. Among young women, 31 percent of whom supported Mr. Trump in 2024, the analysis found that support for the Republican Party had been cut to just 13 percent.

“Trump’s focus is not good,” said Marcos Jimenez, a 21-year-old studying to be a math teacher in Oakville, Calif. He voted for Mr. Trump on his economic promises, he said, only to get a war and spiraling costs.

“He’s focusing on things outside of the country like wars,” Mr. Jimenez said. “I wish he would focus more here.”

He will be supporting Democrats in the fall, he said: “They’re more for people.”

Young voters — nearly half of whom are people of color — chose Mr. Trump two years ago for many different reasons. Mr. Johnson, an immigrant from Liberia who came to Iowa at 15 and became a citizen soon after, said he had “started seeing the rise in biological males in women’s sports.”

Michael Johnson, standing in front of some shopping carts.

“I can’t go red, not this time — no,” said Michael Johnson, a voter in Des Moines.Credit...KC McGinnis for The New York Times

Mr. Johnson was not alone in saying that “threw” him off. In Times/Siena polling, half of young men said they thought the Democratic Party was too far to the left.

And Mr. Johnson was passionate about the election; he said he had persuaded 15 members of his extended family to vote for Mr. Trump, too.

Now he sees bigger problems — the price of gas and housing. Seven of his friends have taken second jobs. So has he, with a day job at the plastics company and a night job at Whole Foods. The rent on his mother’s African goods store is going up, he said, and gas prices are biting.

“Trump’s becoming an old, crazy man,” he said. “He doesn’t care anymore.”

Beyond the youngest voters, the next age group — voters between the ages of 30 and 44 — has also bolted, from a 17-point advantage for Mr. Trump among men of that age to a six-point advantage for Democrats.

“All the woke stuff happening” in the Democratic Party had pushed Remi Martinez, 44, to Mr. Trump, he said. Now Mr. Martinez, a dispatcher for a trucking company in western Kansas, regrets it.

Mr. Martinez is Hispanic and said people should not assume voters like him are opposed to deportations: “I don’t want rapists in my neighborhood either,” he said.

But, he added, Mr. Trump has swept up “hard-working people who have been here for years.”

So many people have been taken from his town of Garden City, a meatpacking area with large Hispanic population, that the town seems “shut down,” he said.

“They were just after everybody,” he said, “pulling over everybody.”

President Trump, facing a crowd.

“Trump’s becoming an old crazy man,” Michael Johnson said of the president, who has fallen out of favor with many young men.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

He plans to vote for Adam Hamilton, the Democrat, in the Kansas Senate race and is encouraging his daughter, who’s in her twenties, to support James Talarico in Texas, he said.

Get updates when new midterm election polls are added to our poll trackers. When new polling data drops we’ll send an update straight to your inbox. Get it sent to your inbox.

“The government needs to have checks and balances,” he said.

Though the movement among young women was smaller, Republicans did get an uptick of support in 2024. Today, Democrats’ lead with the group is vast at nearly 70 percentage points.

Ms. Bridges, 22, grew up in rural central Texas, and as a Catholic, she was put off by Democrats’ positions on transgender youth issues. Two years ago, she cast her first ballot — for Mr. Trump.

Now starting graduate school in international affairs at Texas A&M University, she does not like how Mr. Trump is treating American allies. She was angry when foreign aid was slashed — her faith calls for helping those in need — and when Mr. Trump barred news outlets from the White House.

She said that she found Mr. Trump’s dismissive treatment of the Epstein files appalling, and that his administration was going in reverse on women.

“I’m sure you know who Andrew Tate is,” she said, referring to the online influencer known for his chauvinistic views and who was arrested on charges of rape and sex trafficking. “This administration is pushing for that kind of man right now — hyper, hypermasculine.”

“I’m a Catholic conservative, not a Christian nationalist,” she added. “We have respect for women.”

Ms. Bridges said she did not find the Democratic Party appealing either; she did not trust Mr. Talarico, in part because of his change in position on transgender athletes, and in part because she didn’t like his mixing of faith and politics. She said she did not plan to vote in this election.

That would not be unusual. In 2022 — the last midterm election — only about 30 percent of voters under 30 showed up at the ballot box, compared with close to 70 percent of voters over the age of 65.

Many younger voters said they were looking for anyone — regardless of party — who could help make life affordable.Credit...Callaghan O’Hare for The New York Times

Unlike older voters, who tend to be more set in their partisan ways at the ballot box, young voters are still trying ideas on for size.

Liam Howard, 26, grew up in a politically conservative family in New Hampshire that regularly watched Fox News and listened to Glenn Beck, the conservative talk show host. In his early voting years, he said he considered himself a libertarian and voted for Republicans in 2018, his first election.

Then he went to college and “realized that liberals aren’t actually weird,” he said.

Mr. Howard now makes emergency lights for vehicles and lives with his parents because housing in southern New Hampshire has risen out of his reach.

“I can’t even afford a crappy studio apartment working 40 hours a week in a factory,” he said. “Thirty years ago, my job would have bought a house. It’s insane.”

That economic reality has drawn him to politicians like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, and Senator Bernie Sanders, the independent socialist in neighboring Vermont. About 30 percent of younger voters said that they would prefer a democratic socialist, more so than any other age group, according to Times/Siena polling.

Mr. Howard is one of them, and as a democratic socialist, he said he did not vote for president in 2024. Kamala Harris lacked ideas, he said, and he didn’t like her position on Israel. But he is excited by the crop of democratic socialists who have won primaries around the country this season and said he felt motivated to vote.

Despite the broad turn away from the Republican Party, about 44 percent of young men still prefer Republicans in this fall’s elections. Conner Fredrickson, a 28-year-old who owns an I.T. business and lives in Phoenix, said the president was “trying to build America back, make us stronger, make us more independent.”

He added: “Is he doing everything right? No. But nobody does everything right.”

Many younger voters said they were looking for anyone — regardless of party — who could help make life affordable. That has brought a new fluidity to the electorate.

Ryan Gellings, 25, a grocery marketer in Kansas City, Kan., considers himself a Republican. He is Catholic, likes small government and supported Mr. Trump in 2016, though he was too young to vote for him. He still likes what he calls Republican values, but he thinks Republican politicians are mostly yes-men for Mr. Trump. To his regret, he said, he voted for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for president in 2024.

Ryan Gellings, sitting on his bed.

“I love that Mamdani is taking care of his people,” said Ryan Gellings of Olathe, Kansas, who once supported Mr. Trump but has moved toward mavericks like Zohran Mamdani and Bernie Sanders.Credit...Chase Castor for The New York Times

Now he is drawn to candidates like Mr. Sanders, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York and Representative Thomas Massie, the maverick Republican in Kentucky, because, he said, they seem deeply committed to doing something about the cost of living, no matter which way the political winds are blowing.

“I love that Mamdani is taking care of his people,” he said. “If money is going to be wasted, it may as well be for the people,” Mr. Gellings added.

One-third of voters age 18 to 29 say neither party is focused on the right things, the highest share of any age group.

Mr. Gellings said he was planning to vote for Mr. Hamilton. But mostly, he is frustrated with both parties.

“We’re confused and ready to move — anywhere at this point,” he said. “We are tired of the current conversation.”

Katie Zacharia Gets Canned for Doing What Trump Does Non Stop, Lie

2026-10-17T10:23:30.327-04:00

Katie Zacharia during her first briefing at the White House on Tuesday. She was ousted on Friday.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Who can Lie at The White House???

The truth is that they all can lie and do but they need to stay behind the lies Trump thrown out like grenades in ww2.

Zacharia is out because she lied and was discovered while with Trump and she kept lying. The truth being so simple, you take your test after graduating from law school.and you are a lawyer, not half a lawyer or Attorney. But a lawyer in the state you took the exam. Yes she attended law school and took the test but she failed. You can take it several times.She figured as indicated by her own words now is that Who needs it!

But we never know what life ever is hiding from us, here is a job she really wanted and was kicked out as soon as she was hired. Only Trump can lie like that. Plus she contradicted Trump he said she was a lawyer without knowing like he always talk about things ode know nothing about. To be told by the awful never tell the truth media.He was embarrassed but I doubt that. This man has not been embarrassed since he was caught with a boy being friendly in school? Third party talk. Everybody talks about the girls Epstein kept as little whores but there were boys and A couple have come out with their facts about Trump molesting them.

Adam Gonzalez, Writer for Adamfoxie Blog

By Shawn McCreesh Tyler Pager and Hamed Aleaziz

New York Times

President Trump’s new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, was forced out of her role Friday after five days on the job, a rare reversal by the White House that capped a week of upheaval.

Ms. Zacharia, who had gained Mr. Trump’s attention as a conservative commentator, had gotten off to a shaky start with her first and only press briefing on Tuesday. She largely read off a script and ended questioning after just five and a half minutes. That was followed by an onslaught of headlines about whether she had misrepresented herself as a lawyer — the president called her “an attorney” — despite failing her bar exam.

Subsequent interviews she gave in the media, in which she tried to defend herself by pointing out how unprepared she had been to go before the Washington press corps, also went poorly.

Finally, after days of unrelenting press coverage, the Trump administration decided on Friday afternoon to do something it almost never does: It folded.

Mr. Trump was walking across the South Lawn to depart for a midterm rally in Georgia when he stopped to talk to reporters, telling them how he’d just encouraged his press secretary to “reconsider” her new job.

“Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider,” he told the reporters, recounting his conversation with her. “Katie, do you need this? I don’t think you need this.”

Three people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions, said Ms. Zacharia was ousted from her role as press secretary.

The president told reporters that Ms. Zacharia might continue to work for him “in some form, but maybe a more pleasant form.”

Later Friday, Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, said that Ms. Zacharia would be “transitioning into a new role that will be announced at a later date.”

Ms. Zacharia, in her own social media post late on Friday, wrote that it “was an honor to work for” Mr. Trump.

The president, she added, “is a kind, wonderful, gracious, thoughtful, enthusiastic, and hardworking man. I wish more Americans appreciated him. No one will ever make America great the way he has and continues to.”

Image

President Trump leaving the White House on Friday. He said he had told Ms. Zacharia: “Katie, do you need this? I don’t think you need this.”Credit...Alex Kent/The New York Times

Ms. Zacharia had just started on Monday, and hadn’t even moved to Washington yet.

It was last Friday that the president offered her the job. A little-known, unpaid Fox News commentator with whom many in the White House were unfamiliar, she was a surprise pick. While Ms. Zacharia did have the support of Natalie Harp, the powerful West Wing aide who rarely leaves the president’s side, others in the building believed her debut had been a disaster.

She was not a deft communicator.

She had represented herself as a lawyer in the news media, but when asked repeatedly by a New York Times reporter on the South Lawn of the White House to say in which state she had passed a bar exam, she twice replied, “When I moved to China.” She later told The Times that she had simply misheard the question — even though the president had repeated the reporter’s question to her while standing feet away.

The end was nigh after she appeared on Fox News on Thursday night to be interviewed by the president’s friend Sean Hannity, who asked her a few tough questions and treated her with rare skepticism.

Image

Ms. Zacharia had the support of Natalie Harp, a Trump aide who rarely leaves his side. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

The reception she got on Friday morning on “Fox and Friends” wasn’t exactly friendly, either.

“Do you wish you would have disclosed to the president about the bar and not passing the bar?” one of the hosts, Lawrence Jones, asked her.

“Well, Lawrence,” Ms. Zacharia responded, “those questions weren’t asked.” On Wednesday, Mr. Cheung had posted that “up and down the White House, everyone has been thoroughly impressed with Katie in just a few short days on the job.”

“At the end of this second term, she’ll be remembered as one of the all-time greats,” he wrote.

She may be remembered as having had what seems to be the shortest tenure in the history of the White House press secretary job: five days and one briefing.

In Mr. Trump’s first term, Anthony Scaramucci was fired as the White House communications director (a different role from press secretary) just 10 days after he was hired.

After news of Ms. Zacharia’s ouster broke, Mr. Scaramucci posted on X: “Records are made to be broken. But I take no pleasure in other people’s pain.”

The ousting of the administration’s top spokeswoman was the culmination of a week of remarkable turmoil inside Trumpworld.

Kimberly Guilfoyle, the ambassador to Greece, was fired on television on Tuesday (during Ms. Zacharia’s only briefing). The president spent time in the Oval Office trying to get to the bottom of a vicious fight between two of his loyalists, Richard Grenell and Alina Habba Mildon.

Paolo Zampolli, a longtime Trump confidant who claimed to have introduced the president to his wife, was pushed out at the State Department after one of his internecine feuds spilled into the press. And the daughter of Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, and others in her circle, came under scrutiny for their moneymaking overseas.

Ice Agents Who Rammed A Worker's Vehicle in Houston Was A Dead Man since 2017

2026-10-16T10:38:21.513-04:00

Federal immigration agents struck and injured a Mexican man in Houston on Saturday while conducting an operation. Credit...Brandon Bell/Getty Images

By Jazmine Ulloa

New York Times

When immigration agents struck a man with an S.U.V. in Houston over the weekend, they said they were chasing an undocumented Mexican man facing deportation and multiple criminal charges. But the photo they shared of their target was of a man whose family says he died almost a decade ago.

In a statement on Saturday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that agents conducting a surveillance operation had seen their target, Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, climb into a vehicle driven by Miguel Parra Hernandez. When they tried to pull over the vehicle, Mr. Parra Hernandez, a 48-year-old construction worker, and a second man fled on foot.

Surveillance footage captured an agent striking Mr. Parra Hernandez with an S.U.V. from behind as he ran away. The impact shattered the man’s leg, hip and ankle. The second man escaped.

That day, ICE released a photo of the man they said they were seeking and said he had not been captured.

But Jamie Jimenez, of Dallas, said the man in the photo was her father and that he died in 2017. He plunged to his death from a cliff as he fled immigration agents near the southern border, she said.

She told The New York Times in an interview on Wednesday that her family was horrified to see her deceased father depicted as a living fugitive, his face plastered on a Department of Homeland Security “wanted” bulletin that was broadcast on local newscasts. The death of the man pictured in the bulletin has not been previously reported.

Ms. Jimenez said her father’s name was Jose Hector Jimenez Mendoza. A Mexican death certificate she provided to The Times states Mr. Jimenez Mendoza was 43 when he died in Laredo, Texas, in October 2017.

Court records showed Mr. Jimenez Mendoza faced the same criminal charges that ICE attributed to Mr. Mendoza-Cervantes: arrests for driving under the influence and unlawful possession of a firearm. His daughter said Mr. Jimenez Mendoza used aliases, including the name ICE released as its target in the Houston operation. She also provided photos of her father, which appear to be the same man in the D.H.S. bulletin.

The newscasts over the weekend “opened deep, deep wounds,” said Ms. Jimenez, adding that she was speaking on behalf of her family. It is painful, she added, “knowing that he is no longer here, that he cannot speak up and defend himself.”

Jose Hector Jimenez Mendoza in an undated family photo.

Credit...via Immigrant Families and Students in the Fight

ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond Thursday to questions about Mr. Jimenez Mendoza and to requests for additional information about the man ICE is seeking. Public records show several people with variations of the name Jose Mendoza-Cervantes living in Texas. Ms. Jimenez was certain, however, that the man pictured in the bulletin was her father.

ICE has faced criticism from state and local officials over a pattern of violent and deadly traffic stops as the Trump administration has escalated its immigration arrests nationwide. Texas, which has a large unauthorized immigrant population and political leaders aligned with the White House’s deportation campaign, has seen some of the steepest surges in ICE operations.

In Austin, Austin police and Travis County prosecutors have opened an investigation into the shooting of a Venezuelan man by an immigration agent during a September traffic stop. Prosecutors in Harris County, which includes Houston, are investigating the July killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a father and construction business owner who had also been on his way to work when he was followed by unmarked ICE vehicles.

Sean Teare, the Harris County district attorney, said his office and the local sheriff’s office were investigating the traffic pursuit that left Mr. Parra Hernandez injured as a possible aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. ICE said Mr. Parra Hernandez had run in front of one of the agency’s vehicles and was struck. But surveillance video appeared to show the SUV veering toward Mr. Parra Hernandez.

Mr. Parra Hernandez, who is undocumented, must undergo multiple surgeries and remains hospitalized.

During a news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Parra Hernandez’s brother and supporters said Mr. Parra Hernandez had never crossed paths with Mr. Mendoza-Cervantes. Mr. Parra Hernandez has lived in Houston for 34 years and had never been stopped by immigration authorities, his family said. A search of court records based on his name and age turned up several traffic tickets but no criminal charges.

The passenger in Mr. Parra Hernandez’s vehicle fled and was not captured. At the Wednesday news conference, Cesar Espinosa, the executive director of FIEL, an immigrant rights group assisting Mr. Parra Hernandez’s family, displayed a photo of the passenger and said he did not resemble the man in the bulletin.

Mr. Espinosa said that agents were claiming to pursue Mr. Mendoza-Cervantes was a “failure of the system.”

“That they don’t have the correct name, that they don’t know he is deceased is unfathomable,” he said.

ICE said their target was an undocumented Mexican immigrant with a deportation order and described him as a “public safety threat,” citing “four prior arrests for driving under the influence and an arrest for unlawful possession of a firearm.” The agency also said he had been “removed twice and illegally entered our country — a felony — five times.”

Ms. Jimenez, 30, said her father, a pool plumber, had built a life as an undocumented worker in Dallas. He hailed from a small ranch in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosí and first crossed illegally into Texas when he was 18. He married her mother and they had two daughters, including Ms. Jimenez. He had been deported and returned to the United States at least twice, she said.

In 1996, court records show, Mr. Jimenez Mendoza was charged with driving under the influence and unlawful possession of a firearm in a Dallas County court. He was fined and assigned community service and probation. Court records show he also had driving while intoxicated charges in Texas in 2003, 2004 and 2017. In May 2017, he was also convicted with giving law enforcement false information.

In the years before his death that October, Mr. Jimenez Mendoza separated from his wife and had become estranged from his daughter and later remarried, Ms. Jimenez said. She described her father as a hard-working man who provided for his loved ones and encouraged her to go to college. Shortly before his death, she had planned to invite him to her college graduation from the University of North Texas.

“We’re all human, we’re all flawed,” she said. “I had already thought of putting water under the bridge, but then of course, he passed.”

Ms. Jimenez said she tries not to think too much about her father’s death because she still has questions about what happened, including who was with him and what his final hours were like.

For her family, there was no mistaking it: The photo in the D.H.S. bulletin was Mr. Jimenez Mendoza. One close family member even wondered whether he could still be alive, she said.

Ms. Jimenez and her family felt compelled to correct the misinformation, she said. “I know he loved me, and I loved him,” she said, crying, “and that gives me peace.”

Trump Will Be Known As A Leader Who Sold Out His Country`s Dem Values to Appease a Dictator

2026-10-16T10:23:24.809-04:00

Photo illustration by Kim Hoeckele for The New York Times

By Thomas L. Friedman

Opinion Columnist

New York Times

If President Trump does not understand what will happen to him if he proceeds with his plan to trade away support for Ukraine’s democracy for Russian diesel, let me spell it out: He will enter the history books in the chapter on leaders who sold out their country’s democratic values to appease a dictator.

Donald Trump, meet Neville Chamberlain. When future students search online for “sellout,” “appeaser” or “traitor to his country’s core values,” their two pictures will come up first, side by side. And deservedly so. At least Chamberlain was trying, in what proved to be lethally misguided fashion, to avoid a world war. Trump is trying to avoid losing a few seats in Congress — and is likely to be no more successful in achieving his goal than Chamberlain was in achieving his.

I have never believed that Trump was somehow an agent of Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, or in his pay. It is much worse. He simply does not cherish democracy. He cherishes money. And he has no problem selling out the first for the second. When he acts in his own commercial interests, that’s his personal business. When he uses the American presidency to make a buck, it is our collective shame.

There is simply no core American value Trump will not sell out. Desperate to lower diesel prices, which are hurting Republicans in the midterms, Trump actually made a deal to import diesel fuel from Russia, even though it offers a potential windfall for the Kremlin so it can bomb Ukraine harder — and is unlikely to help lower prices or increase supplies much at all. Worse, his aides then asked Ukraine to refrain from attacks on Russia’s oil refineries, without Trump making the same demand of Putin regarding Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. It makes me sick to my stomach to even type this.

Unique among great powers, “the United States has always made the protection and promotion of liberal values part of its foreign policy because it’s part of the country’s political DNA,” Michael Mandelbaum, the author of the new book “The American Way of Foreign Policy: Ideology, Economics, Democracy,” told me. “Different presidents have given these values different emphases, depending on the circumstances and their own personal predilections.”

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But none have “ever abandoned them entirely — let alone repudiated them,” Mandelbaum added. “In that sense Trump really is unique. Of course, all presidents, including him, have operated in a domestic political environment in which those values are widely shared, which means that he will pay a political price for violating them. But in the short term that isn’t likely to help Ukraine.”

This is shocking to Ukrainians, who for nearly five years have been resisting Putin’s attempt to wipe their country off the map. My friend Vitaly Sych, the editor in chief of the Ukrainian news outlet NV, texted me from Kyiv the other day:

“When Donald Trump became president, Ukraine lost an ally.” From his first days in office, Trump “started positioning himself as a ‘negotiator,’ as an ‘intermediary’ between Ukraine and the aggressor — Russia,” Sych added. “That was strange enough. And now he is openly siding with Russia, pushing for Ukraine’s capitulation and calling it a peace deal,” Sych said. “If Ukraine hits an oil refinery in Russia, there is always an outraged post from the U.S. president on Truth Social. Is he now the Kremlin’s spokesperson?”

The United States has long stood for freedom and democracy, Sych said. “Now they are just for diesel. What a change.” Russian missiles and drones kill or wound dozens of civilians, including children, every day, he wrote. “Russians are killing us like in a shooting range. No concern comes out about this from the White House. Only about Russian diesel. It is a mix of intellectual and moral bankruptcy to claim we don’t want peace. Of course we want peace,” he said. “But we don’t want capitulation packaged as peace.”

I have to say, it is hard for me to decide who is more despicable: Trump or tough-guy Republican senators like Tom Cotton, who lambasted President Joe Biden for not sending enough military aid to Ukraine and today sits curled up in a corner of the U.S. Capitol, saying nothing while Trump sells Ukraine to Putin outright.

Here’s the beginning of a story in The Hill from Sept. 16, 2023:

A group of Republican senators sent a letter to President Biden Saturday urging him to “immediately” provide the missiles Ukraine needs to win its war against Russia. Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) shared the letter in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, arguing that not sending the weapons would “only prolong the war and cost lives.” Cotton was joined by Senators Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in his request. “We … urge you to immediately send MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to Ukraine,” they wrote. “Additional delay will only further undermine U.S. national security interests and extend this conflict.”

That was then — when Biden was president. This week a bipartisan group of 12 senators (six Republicans and six Democrats) sent a letter to Trump demanding that he rescind the diesel agreement and roll back the Treasury Department’s license allowing it. Cotton, who is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, did not sign the letter.

It is hard to tell whether Trump’s democracy-for-diesel idea is his alone or was cooked up with his negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. If those two are part of it, I hope they understand that they will share Trump’s infamy in the history books. The good work they have done to end the Gaza war will all be forgotten. They should speak up now, because history will have its eyes on them, too.

Trump Can Now Watch His Russia in Flames Ukraine War He vowed to Stop

2026-10-16T10:05:27.111-04:00

President Trump during a campaign stop in Alaska on Tuesday. He has not delivered on his promises to end the war in Ukraine, or to lower prices, and recent deals with Russia could complicate both issues.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

By Anton Troianovski and Luke Broadwater

Reporting from Washington

New York Times

On the campaign trail in 2024, President Trump promised lower prices and a swift end to the war in Ukraine.

Two years on, neither has been accomplished. And in his scramble to ease fuel prices ahead of the midterm elections, Mr. Trump has wreaked further havoc in his efforts to make peace in Ukraine.

Mr. Trump’s relationship with President Volodymyr Zelensky, already strained after last week’s U.S. decision to lift sanctions on Russian diesel, hit new headwinds on Thursday when the Ukrainian leader declared he would not abide by the U.S. plea not to attack Russian refineries. And with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia refusing Mr. Trump’s demand for a cease-fire, an end to the war appeared to recede even further.

The spat with Mr. Zelensky and the escalating conflict have combined to create a new liability for the White House, highlighting Mr. Trump’s remarkable friendliness toward Russia and his inability to end Europe’s biggest war in generations.

Russia is not known to have made any concession in exchange for Mr. Trump’s decision to lift diesel sanctions, and the move has not yet eased the pain at the pump. The average U.S. diesel price was around $6.32 a gallon on Thursday, compared to $6.29 a week earlier, according to the AAA.

A sticker of the president seen on a gas pump in Pennsylvania last month. Credit...Ted Shaffrey/Associated Press

But the White House appears to be hoping that voters care more about Mr. Trump’s push to lower prices than about the fate of Ukraine, and that they are no longer surprised by Mr. Trump’s forgiving attitude toward Mr. Putin. The diesel deal has already become a talking point for Mr. Trump as he tries to help Republicans avoid losing control of Congress in the Nov. 3 elections.

At a recent rally in Syracuse, N.Y., Mr. Trump cited the deal as proof that he was working to bring down gas prices.

“Russia agreed to send us millions and millions of barrels of oil and its diesel,” he said. “That’s what we really need.”

Administration officials have argued that doing deals with Russia could pave the way for peace in Ukraine by showing Mr. Putin and the hard-liners around him that a strong, postwar relationship with the United States was possible.

But Democrats and even some Republicans reacted to Mr. Trump’s diesel deal with Mr. Putin with outrage. Many saw it as the starkest Russia-friendly move yet by an administration that, for all of Mr. Trump’s kind words toward Mr. Putin, kept in place many Biden-era policies in support of Ukraine.

“We need to lower diesel prices,” the Iowa G.O.P. Senate candidate Ashley Hinson said in a debate Tuesday, “but I don’t think we need to be making a deal with Russia to do it.”

This week, a bipartisan group of senators called on Mr. Trump to reverse his decision to ease the diesel sanctions, describing the deal as a “gift to our adversary.”

Meaghan Mobbs, a conservative and advocate of pro-Ukraine policy, called Mr. Trump’s effort to provide economic incentives to Russia “a very Obama 2.0 policy” — a grave insult in Mr. Trump’s Washington, given President Barack Obama’s pariah status in the current administration.

Mr. Trump “has been embarrassed by Putin,” Ms. Mobbs said in a phone interview from Ukraine, referring to Russia’s almost immediate violation of the cease-fire on energy targets that Mr. Trump declared last weekend. “I don’t know of a bigger middle finger than that.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine met with European leaders in Brussels on Thursday. Credit...Pool photo by Nicolas Tucat

Ms. Mobbs and others said it was unlikely that the spat would affect the midterms, given voters’ focus on economic issues. It is the war in Iran, not the war in Ukraine, that has soured Americans as they contend with rising fuel prices.

Still, Mr. Trump’s friendly attitude toward Mr. Putin puts him on the fringe of American public opinion, even among Republicans, polls show. The Pew Research Center found in March that 83 percent of Americans had an unfavorable view of Russia, as did 83 percent of Republicans.

But he could be right if he is betting that Russia has declined on voters’ lists of concerns. A poll in July by the Chicago Council for Global Affairs found that 42 percent of Americans viewed Russia’s territorial ambitions as a “critical threat,” down from 50 percent two years ago and 67 percent right after Russia’s invasion began in 2022.

“I think that the public isn’t focused on Ukraine,” said Bruce Stokes, an expert on foreign policy and public opinion at the German Marshall Fund think tank. “There’s just so much else going on.”

The spat between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky over the past week has evolved into the most serious breakdown of the U.S.-Ukraine relationship since the two presidents’ public Oval Office argument in February 2025. Ukraine and its supporters worked hard to win over Mr. Trump, including by courting MAGA influencers and making a deal to give the United States a stake in Ukraine’s mineral reserves.

Mr. Trump at times seemed impressed by Mr. Zelensky and by Ukraine’s resolve. He praised him in June for being “courageous” and fighting with “great men.”

But over the summer, as fuel prices rose and the midterm elections approached, Mr. Trump and his administration grew increasingly concerned about the war’s impact on energy costs. Vice President JD Vance called Mr. Zelensky on July 31, when the two men “discussed the consequences of Russia’s war for global markets,” according to the Ukrainian president’s office.

In recent months, Mr. Trump’s main envoys for the Ukraine war, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, as well as Mr. Vance, have all asked Mr. Zelensky not to strike Russian oil refineries, according to a person familiar with those conversations. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.

Mr. Trump declared on Sept. 13 that “Mr. Zelensky has to do one thing: He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia.”

Export statistics showed that most of the diesel supply crunch came as a result of the war on Iran, though the attacks on Russian oil refineries also played a role. Ukraine said it was willing to halt its refinery strikes if Russia halted its own attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Mr. Putin refused.

Mr. Trump suspended sanctions on Russian diesel anyway on Friday. Mr. Zelensky’s anger built this week amid suggestions by Ukrainian officials that the United States was stopping intelligence support and Starlink satellite internet service for the Ukrainian military.

U.S. officials have said intelligence sharing has not been cut back. On Thursday, a bipartisan group of senators demanded a Pentagon investigation into the disruptions.

Mr. Zelensky told The Financial Times in an interview published Thursday that Ukraine had paused refinery strikes for three days to comply with Mr. Trump’s request, but was now resuming them. He criticized Mr. Trump for making deals with Mr. Putin and for openly admiring authoritarian leaders who have clung to power.

How can Mr. Trump “be friends with him?” Mr. Zelensky added. “I think that it’s a mistake.”

Republican supporters of Ukraine now fear that Mr. Zelensky’s attacks could make matters worse. As the U.S. president stewed over Mr. Zelensky over the weekend, some of the Ukrainian president’s critics in Mr. Trump’s orbit called Mr. Trump to air those grievances, the person familiar with the matter said.

Ms. Mobbs, who runs a charity providing humanitarian aid to Ukraine, said she doubted that Mr. Trump’s attacks on Mr. Zelensky would sway how Americans viewed Ukraine. But Mr. Zelensky’s criticism, she added, could sway Mr. Trump.

“I don’t know what he believes he will get by ratcheting up the pressure,” said Ms. Mobbs, whose father, Keith Kellogg, served as Mr. Trump’s envoy to Ukraine last year. “It’s not going to end well, in my opinion, based on everything that we know about the president’s psychology.”

Hungary Repealed Law Banning LGBTQ "Promotion or mentioning Gay" in Schools, TV, Etc

2026-10-15T10:18:09.066-04:00

Pecs, Hungary - Apr 11, 2025: Hungarian politician Peter Magyar leader of the Hungarian opposition and Tisza party giving a speech | Istvan Csak/Shutterstock

Daniel Villarreal

Hungarian lawmakers voted 139-51 on Tuesday to remove anti-LGBTQ+ provisions from a 2021 “child protection” law passed by the country’s former far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, which banned the “portrayal” or “promotion” of sexual and gender diversity in schools and child-accessible TV content.

Orbán lost reelection last April to Péter Magyar. That same month, a European Union (EU) court ruled that Hungary must repeal its ban on LGBTQ+ content in schools and primetime television, as it violates EU laws and treaties.

The law, which has been compared to Russia’s ban on “homosexual propaganda,” was widely condemned by the European Parliament. The law was also amended last year to justify a nationwide ban on Pride parades, Adelaide Now reported; though people marched anyway, with multiple people facing trial for organizing them in defiance of the ban.

The new law from the Hungarian legislature will simply seek to protect people under the age of 18 from material that can “seriously impair the child’s physical, intellectual, emotional, or moral development.” The new law will remove all mentions of regarding the portrayal and promotion of sexual and gender diversity.

Tamas Dombos from the Hatter Society rights group — a legal advocacy group for victims of anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, harassment, and violence — praised the court ruling, but told the aforementioned publication, “There is still a lot to do.” “Even if the government’s sole aim is to restore the legal status quo that existed before 2020, there are still a great many laws that would need to be amended… and we don’t know whether the government’s working on that,” Dombos said.

During Orbán’s tenure, Hungary also passed legislation that prevented correcting gender markers on personal documents for trans people, denying them gender recognition.

Orbán and his political party, Fidesz, won only 55 of the 199 seats in the Hungarian parliament, while his opponent, Péter Magyar, and his party, Tisza, won 138. Magyar and Tisza are considered center-right. While he avoided supporting LGBTQ+ rights during his campaign, Magyar said that he wanted Hungary to be a place “where no one is stigmatized for thinking differently than the majority, or loving differently than the majority.”

Magyar also campaigned on strengthening Hungary’s relationship with the EU. Previously, the EU froze billions in funding to Hungary over a wealth of violations, including the enactment of this anti-LGBTQ+ law.

Last month, Magyar announced that his government will move to end the country’s ban on same-sex couples adopting children. In 2020, the government under Orbán amended its constitution to ban adoption by same-sex couples by defining “family” as headed by a man and a woman and requiring any applications from single people to be approved by the family affairs minister, who would deny them to single individuals dating same-sex partners.

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Russia Was Loosing Trump Could Not Stand it Thus He Enters

2026-10-15T09:57:08.187-04:00

George Douglas

By David French

Opinion Columnist

New York Times

It’s horrible to have to type these words, but the president of the United States is throwing Vladimir Putin a lifeline. He is turning the American government against Ukraine, funding Russia and — perhaps worst of all — playing directly into Putin’s theory of victory.

There’s no other way to understand President Trump’s actions since Friday. There’s a lot to cover, so hang with me. But the bottom line is that a sequence of events that began with his announcement on Oct. 9 that the United States had agreed to purchase potentially millions of tons of diesel fuel from Russia may be culminating in a near-total betrayal of the Ukrainian people.

The purchase, justified by Trump as bringing down diesel prices in the United States, isn’t nearly enough to meaningfully move America’s immense diesel market. It could, however, put roughly $4 billion into the Russian treasury — cash that it can use to fund its war in Ukraine or to help prop up its ally Iran.

What came after the deal was even worse than the deal itself. On Sunday, Trump decided to protect his investment. He declared — all on his own — that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an “energy cease-fire.” Ukraine had been conducting a remarkably successful series of strikes deep inside Russia aimed at Putin’s oil industry. The attacks have been so effective that they’ve raised doubts as to whether Russia would even be able to deliver the agreed upon amount of fuel to the U.S.

In fact, Trump blamed Ukraine for rising fuel prices, not his own war with Iran, and said that Ukraine needed a “new president.”

Trump’s cease-fire announcement came as a surprise to both nations. He wasn’t announcing an agreement; he was trying to coerce compliance — including, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, by also threatening to cut off intelligence sharing.

Consider that for a moment. Trump wasn’t announcing a deal at all. There was no deal. He made it up and then demanded that both nations do what he said.

How did the two nations respond? Ukraine complied with Trump’s demands. It paused its successful energy strike campaign. Before that, Zelensky had even offered to hold new presidential elections if Russia agreed to a 60-day cease-fire.

Russia had different ideas. On Monday night, Russian munitions slammed into six Ukrainian energy sites, plunging parts of the city of Izyum into darkness. And then on Tuesday night, Russia struck Ukrainian energy sites once again, this time deluging Kyiv with missiles and hitting Kyiv’s Combined Heat and Power Plant 4, one of Kyiv’s “key energy facilities,” according to Zelensky.

Russia also rebuffed Ukraine’s cease-fire offer. “I don’t think he deserves a respite,” said Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister.

Most ominously, on Monday and Tuesday night, ballistic missiles slammed into Kyiv, with no meaningful warning at all. Zelensky said that Ukraine had not received the usual warnings that it gets from its partners, most notably the United States.

The Trump administration says that it is still sharing intelligence, and the Ukrainian foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, also said intelligence sharing was continuing.

But an anonymous official told Politico, “They told Ukrainians no warning happened because of bad weather conditions, which is seen as not an adequate reason in Kyiv. Thus many are getting increasingly worried this might not have been the case.”

And then, to make matters worse, news emerged on Wednesday that the Pentagon-funded version of Starlink, called Starshield, was being throttled for Ukrainian forces. It was dropping connectivity for objects moving at speed, crippling its use by many Ukrainian drones.

The message to Ukraine is clear: You are at our mercy.

If we want to understand what is really going on, we can’t look at these events in isolation. They’re occurring just as Russia has escalated its so-called gray zone attacks on our NATO allies. Gray zone attacks are acts that are just below the threshold for open war. The aim is to frighten and destabilize allies (and alliances) without triggering a direct conflict with NATO that Russia would almost certainly lose.

In July the Council on Foreign Relations issued a report chronicling a staggering array of Russian gray zone attacks. For example, the International Center for Counterterrorism and Globsec has documented “151 confirmed Russian-directed industrial sabotage incidents in Europe between February 2022 and February 2026.”

In addition, “Russian-linked drones have forced repeated airport closures across Europe and even penetrated Estonian and Polish airspace in September 2025.” Russia has also used a Baltic Sea shadow fleet to damage “Nord Stream pipelines, the Estlink 2 power cable and at least 11 undersea telecom cables.”

On Sunday, The Financial Times reported that spy agencies are warning that Russia may attempt to kill European defense chiefs and that Russia “has ordered an expansion of sabotage and ‘hybrid’ operations in Europe as it seeks to fatally weaken support for Kyiv in the coming months.”

How do all these events fit together? First, we have to understand Russia’s evolving theories of victory in its war against Ukraine.

Russia began with a failed blitzkrieg — an attempt to take Kyiv in a matter of days, if not hours. The initial attack resulted in a stunning Russian defeat. It suffered catastrophic losses on the outskirts of Kyiv, and a Ukrainian counteroffensive later in 2022 clawed back much of the territory that Ukraine lost in the opening days and months of the war.

Then Russia changed tactics. It tried to turn the battlefield into a kind of meat grinder — a war of attrition designed to slowly but surely destroy the Ukrainian Army and capture the entirety of the Donbas region of Ukraine. This was Russia’s obvious next move and the one that worried me the most. How could a much smaller Ukraine withstand the sheer numbers and relative industrial might of Russia?

And for a time, it seemed that the Russian approach might work. Slowly but surely, Russian troops advanced west. At a snail’s pace, yes, but they advanced.

Then something surprising happened: The Ukrainians revolutionized warfare with their drone operations, and Ukraine started grinding down Russian forces, to the point that Russia is now losing more soldiers than it can easily replace, and — as the Institute for the Study of War reported on Tuesday — “Ukraine has retaken significant territory from Russia in 2026, and at the theater level has nearly zeroed out Russian gains for the year.”

In fact, according to the institute, “Russian forces have only made a net gain of about 100 square kilometers thus far in 2026, thanks to Ukrainian counteroffensives, which have liberated at least 1,046 square kilometers.”

“Russia’s summer offensive has failed,” the institute reported, and “Russia’s fall offensive is likely to fail as well.”

A war that began with Russia trying to replicate the fall of France in 1940 has transformed into something else entirely — a bloody stalemate more like the drone war version of World War I’s Battle of Verdun, where the lines barely move and both sides bleed for every inch of ground they take.

Several days ago (before Trump’s diesel fuel announcement), I spoke to Gen. David Petraeus about the course of the war so far. Petraeus is a former director of the C.I.A., and he commanded coalition forces during the surge that turned the tide in Iraq. He pointed not just to Ukraine’s extraordinary success with drone warfare on the front lines but also to Ukraine’s success at striking deep into the Russian heartland.

“Ukraine is taking away its fuel,” Petraeus said. Russia is “one of the world’s largest oil producers,” and yet “increasingly, that doesn’t mean that Russians can find gasoline.”

In addition, Ukraine’s strike campaign has been so effective that it has sunk roughly 300 Russian vessels in the Black Sea and surrounding areas, and it has isolated Crimea so effectively that “they’re essentially starving Crimea of fuel, refined fuel products and other important commodities,” Petraeus said.

And Ukraine has done all this while developing a surprisingly robust defense industrial base that’s producing drones by the millions, as well as Ukraine’s own cruise and ballistic missiles.

But Ukraine still needs Western support. American interceptor shortages have left Ukraine vulnerable to Russian ballistic missile attacks, and the country still depends on European aid, on American intelligence and on American weapons it’s able to purchase with European funds.

Remove that support, and Russia has a chance to win the war. It may well be Putin’s last hope, short of total national mobilization, to defeat Ukraine.

So now you see the game and the part that Trump is playing. Everything he’s doing now is exactly what Putin wants. Putin has brilliantly manipulated Trump using a meaningless injection of diesel fuel into the American market (designed to play well in the midterms) to portray himself as Trump’s friend and to drive an even bigger wedge between Trump and Zelensky.

But that’s not all. As my colleagues in the newsroom reported this month, Trump’s negotiations to end the war also include lucrative oil deals that “would benefit Middle Eastern business executives with ties to the two main U.S. negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.”

And there’s something else in play. Trump has long held a grudge against Ukraine and Zelensky — for the dumbest reason imaginable.

It’s easy to forget the 2019 Trump-Ukraine scandal that led to Trump’s first impeachment. There have been so many scandals since that it hovers at the edge of our memories and can feel small compared with, say, Jan. 6.

But it wasn’t. It was a big deal then, and it’s a big deal now. If you recall the conversation between Trump and Zelensky that led to Trump’s impeachment, Trump made two requests. First, he pressured Zelensky to investigate the Biden family.

That’s what made headlines, in part because the concept of weapons for political favors is so easy to understand.

The second request was much stranger and more important. In the reconstructed transcript of the call between Trump and Zelensky, Trump referred to a CrowdStrike server and said, “They say Ukraine has it.” He then demanded that Zelensky “get to the bottom of it.”

But why? Trump gave a cryptic explanation.

“As you saw yesterday,” Trump continued, “that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine.”

What the heck was Trump talking about?

He was referring to a wild and thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 election. In other words, Trump blames Ukraine for all or part of what he calls the “Russia hoax.”

As a result, when Putin appeals to Trump, he can not only dangle lucrative business deals in front of Trump’s team but also exploit existing animosity that is rooted in the fever dreams of Trump’s bizarre imagination. Zelensky is an enemy; Putin is a potential friend.

And what of the gray zone attacks against Europe? As Petraeus told me, “These are probes. They are intended to intimidate, disrupt, test individual countries and the alliance collectively.”

The purpose, according to Petraeus, is to “complicate the flow of assistance to Ukraine and even discourage it and create public anxiety, test to see where the alliance’s real red lines are. Perhaps drive a wedge between some of the countries that are a bit soft on Russia, if you will.”

In addition, Putin is trying to “undermine those governments that have been Ukraine’s staunchest supporters,” Petraeus said, and he pointed to upcoming elections in France, Germany and Italy.

If Putin can turn Trump against Ukraine and frighten or otherwise influence European countries into withholding aid to Ukraine out of fear of Russian attacks or out of greater sympathy for Russia (a number of far-right parties in Europe have long been more friendly to the Kremlin), then Ukraine would truly stand alone.

In Trump’s second term, the United States is far worse than unreliable. It’s becoming unhinged. It threatens its allies and begins trade wars with its closest friends, and now the combination of corruption and conspiracy drives an American president into the arms of one of our most dangerous enemies.

This is not America first; it’s Trump first. If Putin prevails, rest assured that it will not be Ukrainians alone who pay the price.

Trump-Russian Diesel Deal Won't Do Anything For High Prices in US

2026-10-15T09:42:53.076-04:00

No Diesel for Russians no diesel for US. Even if there were a full tanker full of Diesel coming to US, it will not get here before elections and it would only last 3 days. May be Trump is using this as an excuse to do something he's been wanting to do since 2025, Abandon Ukraine and marry Putin.

By Aruni Soni

New York Times

Diesel prices in the United States are hovering near record highs — and a deal President Trump announced last week to increase Russian fuel exports is unlikely to lower them significantly anytime soon.

The amount of diesel Russia could supply under that agreement is much lower than what the country was exporting this time last year and constitutes a small proportion of the diesel supply the world has lost because of Mr. Trump’s war with Iran, energy analysts said. And it is not clear that Russia could even deliver all the fuel the president and Russian offiicials have promised.

The numbers are stark.

From July through September of 2025, Russia exported around 693,000 barrels of diesel a day, according to S&P Global Energy. For the same period this year, the country exported around 140,000 barrels a day. Now, Mr. Trump and a Russian deputy prime minister, Alexander Novak, say that the country would export 300,000 metric tons of diesel in October, or roughly 75,000 barrels a day when stretched across a month.

The numbers under Mr. Trump’s deal with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia look even more meager when compared with the diesel that the world is no longer getting from the Middle East since the United States and Israel began attacking Iran on Feb. 28. Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East exported 809,000 fewer barrels of diesel every day from July through the end of September, compared with the same period in 2025, according to S&P Global data.

“The main issue is still the Strait of Hormuz, that there is not enough diesel coming out of the Strait of Hormuz,” said Sarah Raffoul, oil product analyst at Argus, referring to the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which a significant share of the world’s fuels used to flow.

The shortfall of diesel supplies from the Middle East and Russia is the main reason the price of the fuel is up by around 77 percent so far this year.

The U.S. retail price of diesel

Note: Data as of Monday, Oct. 14.Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration.The New York Times

Russian diesel exports, which accounted for around 9 percent of the global diesel trade in 2025, began falling after Ukraine started attacking and debilitating Russian refineries last year. They’re down roughly 552,000 barrels a day, according to S&P Global Energy.

Mr. Novak said this week that by the end of the year Russia will be exporting diesel at close to the levels it was shipping before refineries were seriously compromised by Ukrainian strikes.

But many analysts consider those numbers to be unrealistic because roughly 40 to 50 percent of Russian refining capacity is offline. “The numbers that both Trump and Novak are talking about seem predicated on their refineries ramping back up to a more normalized level,” said Matt Smith, a commodity analyst at Keplr, a research and data firm.

Top diesel exporters last year

Repairing and restarting refineries can take months or years in the best of circumstances. Russia may find it challenging to secure replacement parts because it is subject to stringent U.S. and European sanctions. The Trump administration lifted some sanctions on Russia last week, making it easier for the country to export diesel but it left many other restrictions in place.

The loss of refining capacity has forced Russia to export more crude oil because it can no longer turn as much of its oil into fuels like diesel and gasoline. Having more Russian crude available does little to bring down diesel prices because other countries do not have enough spare refining capacity to turn that crude into the fuel that powers trucks, tractors and other heavy machinery.

“Russian crude oil exports are actually higher than they were, in part because Russia doesn’t have any refineries to run, or it has significantly less capacity to run,” said William O’Neil, an analyst at S&P Global Energy. “All that crude oil that would have been processed at Russian refineries just gets exported anyway.”

Of course, any additional diesel that makes it out of Russia would increase global supplies and, in turn, reduce prices, but analysts said they expected that impact to be small.

“I don’t think anyone should discount modest effects — the people who are making money at the margin, they really care, it’s true in refining, it’s true in long-haul freight,” said Kevin Book, a managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, a research firm in Washington. “The point is the magnitude, and if you compare this to the size of the deficits, we’re talking about something that is potentially meaningful, but not transformative.”

If Russia were to begin exporting more diesel, it probably wouldn’t come straight to the United States, Mr. Smith said. The fuel would probably go to other countries like Brazil, which has a large agriculture industry and imports diesel. If Brazil bought more fuel from Russia it would end up buying less from the United States, potentially helping to lower U.S. prices.

But even having more diesel available will do only so much. That’s because the war with Iran has caused a sharp increase in the global price of oil, to just above $100 a barrel, and the price of transporting oil by ship.

Elon Musk Ex Wife says He Cut His Daughter's Health Ins When She Came Out As Trans

2026-10-14T10:23:37.987-04:00

Vivian Jenna Wilson | Screenshot Desigual/Instagram

Vivian Wilson has described her transphobic billionaire father as a “pathetic man-child.”

Daniel Villarreal

Billionaire transphobe Elon Musk allegedly cut off his daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson’s health insurance coverage the day after she came out as transgender. Wilson’s mother, Justine Wilson, made this claim in Musk, the newly released nearly four-hour documentary about Musk’s global influence over right-wing politics.

Justine Wilson – who married Musk in 2000, divorced him in 2008, and birthed six of his children (one of whom died after 10 weeks due to sudden infant death syndrome) – spoke of her trans daughter in the documentary, saying, “[Vivian] is extremely strong-willed. Elon and I had five kids, and the one who was most openly defiant was Jenna [Vivian’s middle name],” People magazine reported.

The mother said that when Vivian was 6 years old, Elon told her, “In this world, there are winners and losers. Do you want to be a winner or do you want to be a loser?” Justine Wilson added, “The subtext there was, ‘If you do not follow me and do what I say, you will be a loser.’ ”

Justine Wilson said that Musk treated Vivian Wilson’s gender transition like the “death of a child” and added that her trans daughter felt “pain” after Musk wrote on X (the social media platform that he has owned since 2022) that he had lost his child to the “woke mind virus.”

In response to her father, Vivian Wilson published a defiant social media post in which she wrote, “I look pretty good for a dead b**ch… and you don’t.” She later reprinted the phrase on apparel to fundraise for LGBTQ+ youth.

Justine Wilson noted that she and Musk had actually experienced the death of a child, and that she saw her daughter’s newly declared gender identity as merely a part of her daughter growing up.

“[With his ‘woke mind virus’ post,] Elon was telling her, through telling the world, what that point of view actually was,” Justine said. “And Elon never tried to repair things, that’s not in his nature… If a relationship ruptures, then it ruptures.”

The mother also claimed that the day their daughter came out as trans, Musk said he’d always love her, but the very next day, he cut off her health insurance.

The documentary, which is now in select theaters, will be released nationwide on October 16. Musk has threatened legal action against its director, Alex Gibney, for the film’s alleged factual distortions. Musk has called the film a “hit piece.”

Vivian Wilson has repeatedly used her social media to call out her father as “cold,” “cruel,” “very quick to anger,” and “uncaring and narcissistic.”

In a March 2025 Teen Vogue interview, Vivian Wilson described her dad as a “pathetic man-child” and said, “Why should I be scared of this man? Because he’s rich? Oh, no, I’m trembling. Ooh, shivering in my boots here. I don’t give a f**k how much money anyone has.”

“People thrive off of fear,” she added. “I’m not giving anyone that space in my mind.”

LGBTQ Nation newsletter

At 34 RJ Mitte 'Breaking Bad' Walter White's Son is Dead

2026-10-14T10:10:49.189-04:00

Mr. Mitte was born with cerebral palsy and brought his own experience of living with the disability to the role of Walter White Jr. on the Emmy-winning show.

By Remy Tumin

New York Times

RJ Mitte, the actor best known for playing the son of Bryan Cranston’s Walter White on “Breaking Bad,” died on Monday in Brownsville, Texas. He was 34.

A representative for Mr. Mitte confirmed the death and said that the cause was suicide. No further details were provided.

“It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of beloved actor, philanthropist and passionate disability rights advocate RJ Mitte,” the representative said in a statement.

Mr. Mitte was born with cerebral palsy and brought his experience of living with the disability to the role of Walter White Jr., who was known as Flynn, on the Emmy-winning show.

Mr. Mitte, who had little acting experience before “Breaking Bad,” brought a raw sensibility to his character as he grappled with being a teenager and the eventual exposure of his father’s secret life as a drug kingpin.

The actors RJ Mitte in a dark jacket and Bryan Cranston in a yellow jacket in a scene from “Breaking Bad.”

The actors RJ Mitte, left, and Bryan Cranston in “Breaking Bad.”Credit...Ursula Coyote/AMC

“There’s a perfect role for anybody,” he told The Oregonian in 2010.

Roy Frank Mitte III was born on Aug. 21, 1992, in Jackson, Miss., and adopted by Roy Frank Mitte Jr. and Dyna Mitte (pronounced mitt-y).

His parents divorced when he was 2 months old, and he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy when he was a toddler. He wore leg braces throughout childhood, which gave him “a different perspective on what we are as humans and how we interact with each other,” he told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2019.

RJ Mitte Is Remembered by ‘Breaking Bad’ Cast and Creator

Mr. Mitte grew up splitting time between his paternal grandparents’ ranch in Texas and Lafayette, La., where he lived with his mother and sister, Lacianne Carriere.

His mother was paralyzed in a car accident a few months after his sister was born, and Mr. Mitte pitched in where he could — mowing lawns and doing courier services — to help support his family.

His sister was cast in a film at 18 months old, and the family relocated to Los Angeles.

Mr. Mitte enrolled in the acting studio run by his sister’s manager. After a few background roles (including on “Hannah Montana”), the then-13-year-old auditioned for the role of Flynn.

The description of the character called for an actor with brown hair, big eyebrows and mild cerebral palsy, Mr. Mitte told Vice in an interview in 2016.

“That was my life,” he said. “Except for the methamphetamine.”

The character was based on a real person that the show’s creator, Vince Gilligan, knew in college.

“I think it’s really important that we have characters in television and film that are having real impact,” Mr. Mitte said in the interview. “People are hungry for realism. They are hungry to see characters like Flynn.”

“Breaking Bad” premiered in 2008 to critical acclaim, and Mr. Mitte stayed with the show through the remainder of the series, which ended in 2013. The New York Times recently named it the best television show of the 21st century.

“You don’t have to keep bringing up that he has a disability,” Mr. Mitte told The Oregonian. “It’s just there.”

Mr. Mitte would go on to continue disability advocacy work, as an ambassador for United Cerebral Palsy and Shriners Children’s, and as president of the Mitte Foundation, an organization that supports philanthropic efforts and community initiatives in Brownsville.

He also continued to support his mother and sister, both of whom survive him. He had been engaged to Kennedy Suarez, his representative said.

“I have devoted my life to my mom and my sister, and I still take care of them today,” he told The Morning Herald in the 2019 interview.

After “Breaking Bad,” Mr. Mitte appeared in the television shows “Switched at Birth” (2011) and “The Guardians of Justice” (2022).

He stars in “Talking to Strangers,” a movie released in July about a loner with cerebral palsy. He also stars in “One Eye Open,” a horror movie scheduled to be released on Friday.

When Mr. Mitte appeared on “The Joe Vulpis Podcast” last week, he was asked what it felt like to have people still discovering his character, Flynn, all these years later.

“It’s truly life changing,” he said. “Every day it’s something different now.”

If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.

Trump Hand The Victory to Putin. Who Only Offers More War More Deaths particularly Civilians

2026-10-14T09:49:28.387-04:00

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Moscow this month.Credit...Igor Ivanko/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Paul Sonne

Reporting from Berlin

New York

Times

The wins for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia came in rapid succession from Washington.

President Trump proffered sanctions relief for Russian diesel fuel. He publicly called for Ukraine to get a new leader. And he pressured Kyiv to stop a strike campaign against Russian oil facilities that has damaged the Russian economy.

Mr. Putin, in return, offered more war.

Minutes after Mr. Trump announced the diesel deal, the Kremlin reiterated Mr. Putin’s stance that he would not negotiate with Ukraine at the moment, because he remained angry about Ukrainian strikes during last month’s Russian parliamentary election.

The next day, Russia launched an attack on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia that killed 22 people, including four children. It was the latest in a near daily drumbeat of devastating Russian strikes, which have dramatically increased the civilian toll in Ukraine as Kyiv sorely lacks air-defense missiles.

And Mr. Putin has signaled that he plans to escalate further, aiming to knock out Ukraine’s power and water infrastructure in what Ukrainians expect to be the worst winter of the war.

Mr. Putin is reaping his victories as Mr. Trump’s own domestic political needs align with his longstanding inclination to tip the scales toward Russia. With the American president focused on trying to bring down fuel prices before a difficult midterm election, he is pushing Kyiv to trade away its leverage for nothing in return.

Emergency workers using powerful flashlights walk across a mound of rubble and through the wreckage of a destroyed building.

Rescue workers at the site of an airstrike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Saturday.Credit...Reuters

Ukraine has said it would suspend its oil refinery strikes if Russia ceased attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities heading into the winter. But when Mr. Trump announced an “energy cease-fire” on Sunday, he meant only a suspension of oil refinery strikes in both countries, The New York Times reported. Ukraine has only one major oil refinery, and Russian strikes took it largely out of service in 2022.

Mr. Trump has promoted his energy deal with Mr. Putin as an example of how he is tackling America’s diesel challenge, which experts say is more attributable to the war with Iran. But it was seen as a betrayal by Ukrainian officials, undercutting years of Western efforts to starve the Russian war machine of cash.

It may not even do much to lower diesel prices. Economists have said the amount of fuel discussed is not enough to move the needle significantly.

“The U.S. president is focused on one thing, which is himself and his reading of the world,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.

That reading, Mr. Gabuev said, includes Mr. Trump’s stubborn denial that his own decision to go to war against Iran caused fuel prices to skyrocket. “In his picture of the world, the Gulf war doesn’t play a role in the current diesel crisis, and there needs to be a magical solution with someone he is predisposed to, who is Vladimir Putin.”

President Trump walking on an airport tarmac with Air Force One on the right. A handful of people, some in military uniform, and a presidential limousine, are beyond him.

President Trump in Youngstown, Ohio, on Monday. In recent days, he offered sanctions relief for Russian diesel fuel, called for a new Ukrainian president, and pressured Kyiv to stop hitting Russian oil facilities.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Earlier this year, things were looking difficult for Mr. Putin. Expenditures on the war were rapidly expanding. Progress on the battlefield had slowed to a crawl. Global prices for oil, Russia’s top export, had slumped to around $60 a barrel.

Then Mr. Trump launched the war in Iran, alongside Israel. Oil prices jumped to over $100 a barrel. The vast use of air defense missiles by the United States and its Gulf allies in response to Iran’s attacks dried up the supply for Ukraine, leaving it increasingly vulnerable. With Mr. Trump looking for a way out, Russia’s longstanding relationship with Iran offered Mr. Putin a new calling card with Washington.

As the Iran war accorded benefits to Russia, Ukraine tried to limit Moscow’s economic gains with increasingly effective strikes on oil refineries — the campaign that Mr. Trump is now demanding that Kyiv end.

Kyiv’s systematic targeting of Russian oil infrastructure brought the war home to Russia as never before, causing lines at the pump across the country and forcing Russia, one of the world’s largest diesel suppliers, to suspend exports.

As Ukrainian strikes decreased production, Russia’s tax revenue from oil and gas for the first three quarters of the year fell by 17 percent compared with the same period in 2025, even as fuel prices rose dramatically. (A rise in the ruble and Russian domestic fuel subsidies also played a role.)

Now, the diesel deal could pour billions of dollars into the Russian economy. An extended suspension of Ukrainian strikes on oil refineries, if Kyiv agrees to one under the intense American pressure, could generate much more money.

Dense, dark smoke billows from a burning industrial site.

Smoke rising from a burning oil refinery in Moscow in June. Strikes on Russian oil facilities over the last few months have disrupted the Russian economy.Credit...via Reuters

The wins for Mr. Putin go beyond the diesel deal. Mr. Trump has also welcomed Russian ministers this year for Group of 20 events in North Carolina and Wisconsin, and he plans to host Mr. Putin in December at the G-20 summit in Miami. His administration is also negotiating potential business deals with the Kremlin, in what Mr. Trump’s team has cast as inducements to a peace deal.

The Russians want even more from the U.S. president, analysts say.

When Mr. Trump returned to office in 2025, Moscow hoped that the United States would cut off all support for Ukraine and force President Volodymyr Zelensky into a capitulation largely on the Kremlin’s terms.

Mr. Trump’s Oval Office blowup with Mr. Zelensky in March of last year made it seem as if Moscow’s dream was within reach. The Trump administration’s decision to halt weapons donations to Ukraine and suspend intelligence sharing stoked hopes even further.

But in the months since, U.S. intelligence sharing resumed. Mr. Trump brokered a deal for the Europeans to buy weapons from the United States for Ukraine. And U.S.-led peace negotiations fizzled as the Trump administration became distracted by the war in Iran.

Fyodor Lukyanov, a Russian political scientist who advises the Kremlin, wrote last month that Ukraine would be left with little defense if the United States completely ceased its military support.

“But Trump is unlikely to take that step,” Mr. Lukyanov wrote, “even if he were personally inclined to do so,” because a complete Ukrainian defeat would not win him any plaudits in the American political establishment.

An air defense missile launcher, mounted on a wheeled trailer and sitting on snowy ground. Two armed people stand behind it, with a city in the distance.

A Patriot air defense system in Warsaw in 2023. Mr. Trump brokered a deal for Ukraine to acquire American weapons by allowing Europe to buy and sell the goods as a middle man.Credit...Kacper Pempel/Reuters

Such a move by Mr. Trump might also invite more aggressive actions from Congress, particularly after the midterms. The Senate recently passed a Russia sanctions bill, named in honor of Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, with a veto-proof margin, though Mr. Trump retains the power to waive its provisions on national security grounds and will need to do so to import Russian diesel.

As Mr. Trump so far stops short of forcing Ukraine into a surrender, Mr. Putin is likely to continue his escalation, said Hanna Notte, an analyst at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and the author of a new book on Russian foreign policy called “We Shall Outlast Them.”

She said of Mr. Putin, “It’s quite clear that his intention right now is to inflict a really, really nasty winter on the Ukrainians.”

Although Russian forces remain largely stuck on the battlefield, Mr. Putin has long believed that he can achieve victory in Ukraine by outlasting Kyiv and what he sees as its fickle Western allies, analysts say. He believes they will eventually pull back their extensive support of Ukraine as their own domestic problems mount, analysts say.

The French presidential election next year could usher in the far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who has advocated halting financial assistance to Ukraine. Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany is also under pressure from a surging far-right party that has pressed for ending support for Ukraine. And both Britain and France are struggling under huge government debts that are far more expensive to service at current interest rates.

“You could make the case that from the Kremlin’s perspective, the future looks better, more conducive to an outcome of the war that is closer to their terms,” said Sam Charap, a Russia analyst at the RAND Corporation. “You have to change that perception of the future, diminish that optimism, to affect their calculus.”

NPR:

In an interview with NPR, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the Trump administration warned it could cut intelligence-sharing with Ukraine unless Ukrainian forces halt long-range drone strikes on Russian oil refineries. Zelenskyy said the administration's decision to lift sanctions on Russian diesel won't lower fuel prices and refuted President Trump's claim that Ukraine caused the price to spike, instead pointing to the war in Iran. This interview comes as Russia's full-scale invasion approaches its five-year mark.

🎧 Zelenskyy says that every piece of intelligence is crucial for Ukraine, as stopping ballistic missiles is a top priority, NPR's Joanna Kakissis tells Up First. Missiles have killed dozens of Ukrainians, including more than 20 people recently in an apartment building in Pryluky. Zelenskyy recounted to Kakissis visiting a wounded girl in the hospital whose father died in the attack, though she didn't know it. Zelenskyy says he feels the impact of each attack deeply. Last week, Trump said that Russia and Ukraine agreed to halt some strikes on energy sites. Zelenskyy said he would comply if Russia did the same. Two hours after Trump's announcement, Russia targeted a Ukrainian power plant, and the strikes have continued.

Elliot Page Joins The Boys in Spreading at Bathouse

2026-10-13T10:39:45.863-04:00

Elliot Page attends "The Odyssey" New York Premiere at AMC Lincoln Square Theater on July 14, 2026 in New York City. The actor was recently featured in a steamy New York Magazine shoot. Theo Wargo/WireImage

This story originally appeared on Out.

Dawn Ennis

Where is "the hottest party in the East Village" of New York City? And who will you find there?

How about New York's newest resident pop star, Troye Sivan? He's there with playwright and actor Jeremy O. Harris, award-winning author Marlon James, and actor Elliot Page, just to name a few of the LGBTQ+ celebrities hanging out and sweating together.

And all of them were wearing next to nothing.

That's how a writer for New York Magazine's online style publication, The Cut, summed up his visit to the Russian & Turkish Baths on East 10th Street. NYC's oldest bathhouse is over a mile east of the Stonewall Inn in a neighborhood famous for LGBTQ+ nightlife, culture and community.

But Matthew Schneier — the magazine's out gay chief restaurant critic, who is married to comedian and Straightiolab podcast host, George Civerisf — didn't just pen a piece about the bathhouse. He brought along a famous out gay photographer, some high-fashion items from Gucci, Hermès, and Dior, and they put together a steamy spread of the hottest queer and straight guys to ever bare their chests.

The result is "The Boys in the Baths," a rare look at some of the coolest stars of today as they shvitz and kibitz.

"Around Labor Day, we invited a mix of Baths regulars and a few first-timers — Troye Sivan, who’d just moved to the city; Marlon James, days after getting the book review of a lifetime," wrote Schneier, "to wear some fashion. But hardly any."

Page — who's still waiting for offers for new roles coming off his star turn in Christopher Nolan's megahit movie, The Odyssey — hasn't been shy about baring his chest since recovering from top surgery. In the photo by photographer Ryan McGinley, Page is rocking a strong six-pack, and those abs don't lie.

The out trans man revealed he's a newcomer to bathhouses and that, if you were to hear him singing in the shower, you're likely to hear either songs by Cher or Julie Andrews.

"I went to a bathhouse recently. I’ve only in the past couple of years been like, 'Yeah, that sounds nice, to like go somewhere and sit around in your body like that,'" said Page. "I do sing in the shower sometimes. The same songs and lyrics will get stuck in my head, and I don’t know why. Like 'Do you believe in life after love?' That’s one I’ll belt out. Or 'The Sound of Music:' I’ve never seen the movie, which seems crazy, but for some reason I find myself belting out that song in the shower. I can’t explain it."

After The Trump Diesel Deal, He Faces a New Crisis Over Ukraine

2026-10-13T10:12:16.486-04:00

Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in Kyiv last month.Credit...Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

By Anton Troianovski Jeanna Smialek Andrew E. Kramer and Steven Erlanger

New York Times

President Trump’s new diplomatic crisis over Ukraine first erupted at Steve Witkoff’s exclusive golf club outside Miami on Friday.

Senior Ukrainian and European officials had traveled to the club, Shell Bay, for talks with Mr. Trump’s peace envoys, Mr. Witkoff and Jared Kushner. They had planned to discuss updated proposals to end the war in Ukraine ahead of another trip to Russia by Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner.

But Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner soon made an announcement that stunned the visitors and much of the world when the news became public shortly thereafter. The United States, the Americans said, would suspend sanctions on Russian diesel fuel. The Americans added a firm request from Mr. Trump: that Ukraine stop attacking Russian oil refineries.

One of the Ukrainians asked what they would get in return.

The Americans responded that the United States was doing a lot for Ukraine already, according to three people familiar with the meeting, and should not have to make a trade for Ukraine to stop its refinery attacks. The Americans then mentioned U.S. intelligence assistance, considered vital to the Ukrainian war effort.

Some in the room heard that as a veiled threat, according to two of the people. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, denied any suggestion of a threat to withhold such support. But the official also said that Mr. Trump had grown so angry with Ukraine that it was hard to say what he might do.

Now, the dispute has ballooned into the biggest crisis between Washington and Kyiv since the Oval Office blowup with Ukraine’s president last year. The future of U.S. support for Ukraine again appears to be hanging in the balance. The escalating back-and-forth showed how Mr. Trump’s efforts to bring down energy prices before next month’s midterm elections have threatened to destabilize the fragile Ukraine talks.

Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner are now indicating that they have put their expected trip to Russia on hold until President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine mends fences with Mr. Trump, two people familiar with the talks said.

Smoke rising against a yellow and orange sky.

Smoke rising from an oil refinery after a reported Ukrainian drone strike last month.Credit...Reuters

To the Ukrainians and their European supporters, the attacks on Russia’s fuel refineries are Kyiv’s most effective way to respond to Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine’s energy grid. Ukraine is prepared to stop attacking energy infrastructure, Mr. Zelensky has said, if Russia does the same.

Russia has refused such a deal. Nevertheless, to Mr. Trump, Ukraine’s attacks are an affront to a U.S. administration that has continued to provide intelligence and some military support to Ukraine despite the American president’s harsh words about Mr. Zelensky. Diesel prices in particular have become a sore spot for Mr. Trump, causing farmers’ costs to spike just as harvest season arrives and the midterms are weeks away.

“He better damn well stop,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Saturday, referring to Mr. Zelensky and Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries, and ignoring Russia’s strikes on the Ukrainian energy grid. “He wants to make problems for the world. He wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers.”

Export statistics indicate that the increase in diesel and energy prices stems largely from Mr. Trump’s war with Iran, though Ukraine’s attacks on Russia have also played a role.

A fuel pump at a gas station.

Higher diesel prices are largely a result of President Trump’s war in Iran. Credit...Hilary Swift for The New York Times

On Sunday, Mr. Trump said on social media that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an “ENERGY CEASEFIRE” with immediate effect. Neither side confirmed an agreement. A person familiar with his thinking said that Mr. Trump was referring to a cease-fire only on refineries in both countries — even though Ukraine’s refining capacity had been all but destroyed early in the war.

“They agreed because I said they agreed,” Mr. Trump asserted at the White House on Monday, referring to the cease-fire he had announced. He reiterated his frustration with Mr. Zelensky. “I think, actually, Putin wants to make a deal more than Zelensky,” the president said.

On Monday, European and Ukrainian leaders suggested that while they would be open to an energy cease-fire, they were skeptical that Russia would follow through on one. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, noted that Russia had attacked Ukrainian energy infrastructure Sunday night “just hours after” the announcement.

Six Hours of Talks

The meeting on Friday at Mr. Witkoff’s golf club lasted about six hours, two people familiar with it said. Much of the meeting involved brainstorming about what the future peace talks might require to work, and the focus was on the standard issues, according to several people. The issues included accession to the European Union for Ukraine, for instance, and the question of territorial control.

Mr. Witkoff stepped out at one point to join a call between Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, and Mr. Trump, according to one of the people, who was in the room for the meeting. In addition to Ukraine’s three-person negotiating team, the national security advisers to the leaders of Britain, Germany and France, as well as top officials from the European Union and NATO, joined the meeting.

But Mr. Trump’s diesel deal with Mr. Putin quickly overshadowed the rest of the talks. Mr. Zelensky on Friday called Mr. Trump’s deal with Mr. Putin to allow imports of Russian diesel fuel in order to lower prices a “weak decision.” As the dispute intensified, Mr. Trump on Saturday said Ukraine needed “a new president.”

Vladimir V. Putin at a table with diplomats.

A photo released by Russian state media showing President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia meeting with Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner at the Kremlin last month.Credit...Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik

European leaders, including France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, and the head of the E.U.’s executive arm, Ursula von der Leyen, issued statements of support for Mr. Zelensky. Members of Congress criticized the diesel deal as helping fund Russia’s war machine.

“The United States should not provide Putin with a financial lifeline while Russia continues to kill Ukrainian civilians,” a bipartisan group of six senators, including the Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and John Curtis of Utah, said in a statement on Sunday. “The administration must immediately reverse course.”

Björn Seibert, a senior E.U. official who attended Friday’s meeting in Florida, gave ambassadors from across the European Union’s 27 nations a briefing on the meeting on Sunday, according to one European official who was there and three diplomats briefed on the matter.

Both the official and two of the diplomats said that the Europeans in Florida were taken by surprise by the Trump administration’s diesel announcement. The official said the ambassadors were stunned by the announcement.

One major takeaway from Florida, Mr. Seibert told ambassadors, was that the Americans were engaging more with the Russians than they publicly acknowledge, the official and one of the diplomats said. No further details on those engagements were given during Mr. Seibert’s briefing, which lasted about 20 minutes, according to the official.

The Trump administration has argued that energy deals with Mr. Putin, in addition to lowering energy prices, could help pave the way for a settlement in Ukraine by showing the Kremlin that reintegration into the world economy was possible for Russia if it compromised in the war.

Elen Musk's $276 Mil Midterm Rescue For Republicans

2026-10-13T09:55:18.920-04:00

Elon Musk has shown less public interest in elections in recent months, but he has patched up his relationship with President Trump and quietly spent enormous amounts to help Republicans in the midterms.Credit...Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times

He is still interfering in our elections only because he is got money to throw away

By Theodore Schleifer

Theodore Schleifer has written about Silicon Valley politics for a decade.

New York Times

Elon Musk has quietly funneled more than $276 million into Republican groups and his super PAC since the start of July, building a huge turnout operation to help the party battle headwinds in the midterm elections.

The staggering amount of money makes Mr. Musk, the richest person in the world, by far the largest known donor in the midterms. Representatives for Mr. Musk supplied the previously unreported figures on his political giving to The New York Times before a federal filing deadline on Thursday.

In an effort to save Republicans’ Senate majority, he gave a total of $158 million this summer to the Senate Leadership Fund, the main super PAC backing the party’s candidates for the chamber, according to his team. In sum, that is one of the largest political donations in American history, and more than the group’s Democratic rival raised from all of its donors that quarter.

Mr. Musk has also built a major Republican turnout operation through a super PAC he founded in 2024, America PAC. He donated over $76 million this summer to the group, which in turn spent that much on building a sprawling canvassing program to try to turn out hard-to-reach Republican voters. The group is active in seven Senate battlegrounds and nearly three dozen House races.

Elon Musk’s campaign contributions

2025-2026

$366 mil.

2023-2024

$290 mil.

Since July 2026

+$276 mil.

Prior to July 2026

$90 mil.

2025-2026

$366 mil.

2023-2024

$290 mil.

Since July 2026

+$276 mil.

Prior to July 2026

$90 mil.

Sources: Federal Election Commission filings (prior contributions), representatives for Mr. Musk (most recent contributions).Jillian Vordick/The New York Times

Mr. Musk has already given far more money, about $366 million, to federal committees during the 2025-26 election cycle than he did during the 2024 election, when he laid out roughly $290 million to help return President Trump and Republicans to power. He has given even more in undisclosed donations during both elections, according to people briefed on the giving.

The latest torrent of spending has helped give the Republican Party a financial advantage in the midterms, as well-funded outside groups like Mr. Trump’s powerful super PAC flood the airwaves with advertising in the final weeks. No Democratic billionaire is spending nearly as much as Mr. Musk, and money remains a central worry for the party in an otherwise favorable political environment.

The donations also clear up the mystery of how much staying power Mr. Musk wants to have in American politics.

“In terms of political spending, I’m going to do a lot less in the future,” he said in May 2025.

Mr. Musk, who oversees a vast business empire that has benefited from enormous federal contracts, is famously unpredictable and often jumps from one project to another. He has been far quieter about his political work since his dramatic blowup with Mr. Trump last year. After months of wielding vast influence inside the White House and overseeing Mr. Trump’s government cost-cutting project, he raged against the president’s major domestic policy bill and floated threats to start a third party.

But the two men have warmed back up, appearing together at three events in the last two weeks and praising each other.

Elon Musk talking to a large group of reporters with cameras and microphones, as President Trump stands next to him and looks on.

Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump have appeared together at recent events and offered praise for each other. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Now Mr. Musk has donated more than a quarter-billion dollars to help Mr. Trump and Republicans in the midterms. The money signals his commitment to the right and sets him up as a potential player in the 2028 presidential election, when his super PAC says it intends to remain active — the first time it has confirmed such plans.

Beyond Mr. Musk’s donations to his super PAC and the Senate Leadership Fund, his representatives said that from July through September, he had given smaller but still substantial amounts to other conservative groups:

$20 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund, the main super PAC for House Republicans

$10 million to Lone Star Liberty PAC, a group supporting Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee for Senate in Texas

$10 million to the Republican Governors Association

$2 million to the Republican Attorneys General Association

“If Democrats take control of Washington and win key gubernatorial and attorney general races this November, then America risks becoming a socialist, woke and borderless country,” said Andrew Romeo, a spokesman for America PAC. “These robust investments have allowed the G.O.P. apparatus to get its message out so Republicans can have a fighting chance to defy history.”

Pushing for Paxton

On voters’ doors across Texas, the campaign literature carries a stark warning: “Radical Democrat socialists are winning elections all across America. Could Texas be next?”

The hanging door cards are the work of Mr. Musk’s voter-turnout operation, which deployed nearly 3,000 paid canvassers last week around the country, according to America PAC officials.

The group has devoted most of its more than $76 million in midterm spending so far to this canvassing program, shelling out smaller amounts on advertising, mail, phone calls and text messages. Much of the messaging targets Democrats, sometimes in misleading or overheated ways.

Ten different examples of political literature that the Musk operation is hanging on voters’ doors, many of them attacking Democrats.

Mr. Musk’s political operation is distributing literature with attacks on a wide range of Democratic candidates, according to direct mail shared by Mintt, a mail-tracking firm. Some of the claims overstate Democrats’ actual positions or describe Democrats as socialists when they do not identify as such.

This spring, Mr. Trump’s political advisers asked Mr. Musk to reprise America PAC’s 2024 field program, a person familiar with the conversation said. Despite the challenging environment for Republicans, some party strategists believe that a field program can make the difference in particularly tight races.

America PAC relies on a few voter-canvassing firms that compete aggressively with one another for work and for staffing, according to people briefed on the operation.

Turnover in the canvassing industry is high. One canvasser who worked for America PAC told The Times that he was paid between $1.50 and $3.00 for each door he knocked on across Texas in the heat. America PAC says it has knocked on about 6.5 million doors across the country so far.

Mr. Musk and his operation, people close to them say, have been particularly focused on the Texas Senate race. The group has unloaded over a third of its disclosed spending in that expensive race, more than in any other. It is uncommon to run an extensive field campaign in large states like Texas, where television ads are more often used to reach voters.

Mr. Musk, a resident of Austin, has extensive business interests and property holdings in Texas. Mr. Paxton, the state attorney general, has investigated Mr. Musk’s opponents, like Media Matters, a liberal group.

Mr. Musk’s $10 million donation to Mr. Paxton’s super PAC came at a critical time, when the Republican candidate was being badly outspent.

And Mr. Musk’s $158 million in donations to the Senate Leadership Fund, the most the super PAC has ever received from a single donor in a quarter, may have made it possible for that group to suddenly spend big for Mr. Paxton after months of reluctance.

That is because Mr. Musk’s donations preceded the decision in late August by the super PAC, led by allies of Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the majority leader, to start what has become a $149 million pro-Paxton ad campaign.

A Focus on Transgender Issues

As it did in 2024, Mr. Musk’s operation is focused not on persuading swing voters, but on registering and turning out voters with conservative beliefs — especially “low-propensity” ones who are less likely to cast a ballot.

This is a lot harder for Republicans in a midterm election, without Mr. Trump at the top of the ballot.

To do it, Mr. Musk’s super PAC is leaning hard into the culture wars, especially transgender issues. (Mr. Musk’s daughter, who is transgender, has spoken about their clashes over her identity, and he has suggested that this led to his increased political engagement.)

At voters’ doors in Texas, canvassers are told to target Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic candidate for governor, over her record on transgender issues, according to parts of a script reviewed by The Times.

Similarly, the Musk operation is leaving literature on doors that claims that James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas, has a “radical trans agenda.” And America PAC’s top ad in the state, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact, denounces Mr. Talarico over his past comments suggesting that “God is nonbinary.”

The Musk group is also targeting other Democratic Senate candidates over transgender issues, including Josh Turek, the party’s nominee in Iowa. Nationally, one of the super PAC’s most visible ads on Facebook features a man in makeup and reads: “He made his plan to vote. Did you? Don’t stay home while crazies elect radicals.” The group is running ads and sending mail on a broad range of topics, but socialism is a core theme. The Musk super PAC regularly attacks Democrats as socialist and ties them to figures like Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, according to 48 pieces of direct mail shared by Mintt, a mail-tracking firm.

Online, it is even running personalized messaging that invokes a voter’s first name. For example, in a video showing smiling Democrats: “Why are they smiling? Because Christopher hasn’t made a plan to vote yet.”

Much of this outreach points voters to an America PAC website where conservatives can learn about how to register to vote. The super PAC is pushing what it calls an “America Pass,” a digital card on Apple or Google wallets on voters’ phones that lists their registration information, along with election dates and deadlines in their home state.

A Big Spender With a Back-Seat Role

Elon Musk, with an American flag image behind him, holds an oversize check for $1 million.

Mr. Musk was highly visible during an important judicial election in Wisconsin in early 2025, as well as during the 2024 election. This time around, he has stayed behind the scenes.Credit...Jim Vondruska for The New York Times

While Mr. Musk is spending big again and using some tactics that are similar to those he deployed two years ago, this is not 2024 anymore.

He is in a different place politically. While he and Mr. Trump appear to be on good terms again — “our modern-day Thomas Edison,” the president called him on Thursday — Mr. Musk is taking a hands-off approach this election and does not appear as personally passionate.

He has not brought up the midterm elections or the Trump presidency much in private conversations with friends, according to people who have spoken to him in recent months. He is focused on his businesses, these people say, and he and his business lieutenants have taken a less active role in America PAC’s operations, entrusting major decisions to Chris Young, his top adviser.

And on X, a semi-reliable indicator of where the billionaire’s mind is, Mr. Musk has written just seven direct posts this year about candidates in competitive midterm races, according to a Times review, a far cry from his relentless calls throughout 2024 to elect Mr. Trump. Five of those posts focused on Mr. Talarico — and one appeared critical of Senator Susan Collins, a vulnerable Republican in Maine.

Gone, too, are Mr. Musk’s barnstorming campaign stops, like the ones he did in Pennsylvania in October 2024 or a Wisconsin judicial election in the spring of 2025. There are no more sweepstakes where he personally hands an oversize check of $1 million to some registered voters who sign a petition, a gambit that drew legal challenges.

Mr. Musk has not evidently grown infatuated with candidates this time around, as he did with Mr. Trump. The closest he came was a $10 million donation for a long-shot Republican running for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky — an investment that went poorly.

The $276 million figure is, of course, just what is publicly known. Mr. Musk has also made some seven-figure donations to support midterm candidates through groups that are not required to disclose their donors, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Neil Patrick Says His Love of Wrestling [wwe] Was a Clue He Was Gay

2026-10-12T10:28:11.841-04:00

This story originally appeared on Them.

“I secretly liked the WWE when I was younger. It was kind of a tell for knowing I was gonna be gay,” Harris said during an interview with Sam Roberts.

BYDELIA CURTIS

Imagine this. Huge, beefy men are tumbling over each other, a mess of biceps, calves, and thighs, slick with sweat, bodies glistening, hair wet and plastered to their faces and necks. If you thought I was describing a heated gay sex scene, you’d be wrong. I’m actually referring to the ultimate queer-coded sport, WWE wrestling, which actor Neil Patrick Harris claims is a total tell for being gay.

While appearing as a guest on the Sam Roberts’ Show for SiriusXM on September 15, the How I Met Your Mother actor chatted with the host about all manner of topics including his upcoming film Sunny Dancer, but what piqued my gay interest most was when he reminisced about liking WWE as a child and what that implied about his sexuality growing up.

In a clip of the interview shared to Sam Roberts’ X account on September 21, the star sits in a studio with Roberts as he asks Harris whether he’s always been into WWE, saying, “Who doesn’t love WWE?” Harris replied with, “I secretly liked the WWE when I was younger. It was kind of a tell for knowing I was gonna be gay.”

Roberts then jokingly asked whether he should be doing some self exploration to which Harris said, “No,” but then started discussing WWE saying, “You know, like tight shorts; they’re oiled up…grappling…it’s like, ‘I’m not supposed to be liking this as much as I am.’”

And he has a point. There is something incredibly homoerotic lying beneath the surface of the testosterone-fueled spectacle. It’s a tangle of limbs, overt exclamations of masculinity, brawls between rivals that get intimately close. You could cut the tension with a proverbial sword — All the while, being cheered on by the masses, with no one batting an eye.

The actor also revealed that he had a love for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, another action-packed series that began in the 1980s featuring a very buff, nearly naked hero with a sassy blunt-banged bob, wearing nothing but tiny brown underwear, boots, and a harness. He collected those action figures, too, by the way.

In the interview Roberts confirms that Harris secretly liked WWE while he starred in Doogie Howser saying, “Oh, if I’d known that me and Doogie are into the same s**t, it would have been awesome.”

To be honest, Harris was definitely onto something, especially given that in recent years, queer and trans folks have been making a splash in the WWE scene with wrestler Aaron Rourke aka “The Dime Piece” or “Evil Gay,” being the first out gay wrestler to win a WWE title in March of 2026 and trans wrestler Gabbi Tuft returning to the sport as her fully-realized self in 2024 after beginning her medical transition in 2021following open heart surgery in 2019. Them’s newsletters.

The Escalating Assault on Civilians in Ukraine Cities is Taking a Toll

2026-10-12T10:05:34.376-04:00

At least 30 people were killed in a Russian strike on a commuter bus in the country’s east, officials said, a day after an attack on an apartment building far behind the combat zone killed 22.

By Marc Santora

New York Times

It was a devastating scene in a devastated city.

Under shredded netting meant to shield civilians from Russian drones, near residential buildings shattered by explosions, the charred metal skeleton of a commuter bus was all that was left on Thursday after another Russian strike in Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine.

At least 30 people were killed, local officials said, the latest civilian casualties in Moscow’s unrelenting campaign to make Ukraine’s towns and cities unlivable.

As rescue workers in Kramatorsk were tending to the injured and gathering body parts from the street, President Volodymyr Zelensky was making his way to another Ukrainian city, Pryluky, where he implored the world to do more to counter Russian aggression.

He stood near the rubble of an apartment building destroyed by a Russian missile on Wednesday, killing 22 people, including five children. Entire families died in that strike.

Speaking in Pryluky, which was hit despite being about 200 miles from any combat zone, Mr. Zelensky said that Russia was seeking ways to expand its advantage in the skies and unleash more terror.

He warned that China was developing technology meant to compete with the Starlink satellite network and planned to share it with Russia. He called on the United States to allow Ukraine to use Starlink to target Russian missile and drone launch sites inside Russia.

The price of inaction, Mr. Zelensky said, was scenes like those in Pryluky, where he met with rescue workers and grieving families.

The Russian military has attacked civilian homes throughout the war. But the death toll is rising as Moscow fields an ever-growing supply of powerful precision weapons, stretching Ukraine’s air defenses with daily onslaughts.

The Kremlin has expanded its arsenal of newly developed jet-powered drones and increased the range of powerful guided bombs dropped from warplanes. Russia is also employing new communication tools that allow pilots to remotely guide munitions for precision strikes from hundreds of miles away.

Russia launched about 3,500 jet-powered drones against targets across Ukraine in September, compared with 350 in June, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. Ukraine is working furiously to develop interceptors that work against the jet-powered drones, which travel hundreds of miles per hour.

On Thursday morning, one of those jet drones smashed into a store in downtown Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, killing three people and injuring 14 others, city officials said.

The store was hit a day after a large-scale bombardment on Wednesday killed at least 30 people across the country, including six in the capital.

Mr. Zelensky noted that the bombardment, which included the cruise missile strike on the apartment complex in Pryluky, coincided with President Vladimir V. Putin’s 74th birthday.

“This is the kind of ‘gift’ Putin gave himself for his birthday,” Mr. Zelensky said on Wednesday. “The killing of children, the killing of people.”

While drones and missiles pose the biggest threat across Ukraine, frontline cities like Kramatorsk, where the bus was struck, are being slowly destroyed by artillery and guided bombs that can pack hundreds of pounds of explosives.

In August, Russia dropped a record 8,700 guided bombs on military and civilian targets, according to the Ukrainian military. The only reliable defense against these bombs, which can hit targets more than 100 miles from where they are released, is to take out the warplanes that deliver them or destroy the warehouses where they are stored.

The epicenter of the fighting remains the eastern Donetsk region, where the majority of glide bomb strikes are recorded. Ukraine still controls around 20 percent of the territory, including Kramatorsk, Sloviansk and other cities that make up a belt of heavily fortified land.

Around 93,000 civilians remain in areas under Ukrainian control in Donetsk, including more than 4,200 children, according to local officials.

“The Russians are deliberately targeting civilians,” Vadym Filashkin, the head of the Donetsk regional military administration, said in a statement after the attack on the bus. “For them, a bus carrying passengers is an attractive target precisely because a single strike can kill as many people as possible.”

Nataliia Novosolova and Liubov Sholudko contributed reporting.

Trump Calls For Ditching Zelensky~Ukraine Shrugs

2026-10-12T09:51:28.763-04:00

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at a World War II memorial ceremony in Kyiv on Tuesday.Credit...Genya Savilov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

President Trump lashed out at President Volodymyr Zelensky for striking Russian oil refineries. Mr. Zelensky said he’ll stop — if Russia does too.

By Maria VarenikovaDzvinka Pinchuk and Ivan Nechepurenko

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

New York Times

Ukraine on Sunday shrugged off President Trump’s suggestion that it ditch Volodymyr Zelensky as its president because it has continued to strike Russian oil refineries.

Mr. Trump has called out Mr. Zelensky for the strikes, blaming them for rising global energy prices. Ukraine needs “a new president,” he said on Saturday.

Mr. Zelensky shot back on Sunday that Ukraine was ready to stop striking Russian refineries, but only if Russia stopped striking Ukrainian energy infrastructure. “Any de-escalation steps must be reciprocal and backed by real guarantees,” he wrote on X.

On Saturday, after Mr. Trump made his comments, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said that Mr. Zelensky “has the support of the Ukrainian people, and they have the right to decide.”

“Statements from abroad only confirm that he is doing his job well,” he added.

Mr. Zelensky has previously said he would hold elections if Russia agreed to a cease-fire. In an interview with ABC News on Sunday, he said to hold a vote safely, there would have to be a cease-fire lasting 60 days.

Ukrainians have grown accustomed to Mr. Trump’s off-the-cuff foreign policy.

On Sunday, Mr. Trump announced in a social media post that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to an “energy cease-fire.” Neither Kyiv nor Moscow has confirmed that there is such a deal.

Mr. Zelensky said that he had discussed Mr. Trump’s announcement in a call with international allies, and that they were “awaiting details from the American side.”

“Ukraine supports the cease-fire, and it is important that Russia supports it as well,” he wrote on social media.

But shortly after Mr. Trump’s announcement, Russia struck a power plant in Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, according to Mr. Zelensky’s office — an attack that offered a stark indication of Moscow’s position on a possible cease-fire.

On Friday the Trump administration lifted sanctions on Russian diesel sales, saying the move would lower prices.

But some question whether Russian diesel will indeed ease the pinch. And lifting sanctions on Russian diesel will undermine U.S. energy sanctions. Some European countries, including Germany, said they would stand by sanctions despite the U.S.-Russia diesel deal.

“Suspending sanctions on Russian diesel provides Moscow with more revenues to wage war,” wrote Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, on X. “This is not the time to ease pressure on Russia, and Europe won’t.”

Online, some Ukrainians bristled at the suggestion that Washington or Moscow should dictate who leads their country, but largely dismissed Mr. Trump’s remark as domestic politicking before the midterm elections in the United States.

“Trump is trying to save his own skin ahead of the elections,” Iryna Tsariuk, an activist from Odesa, wrote in a social media post on Facebook. “He doesn’t care at all about Ukraine or the fact that Russia killed more than 70 people on Wednesday and Thursday,” she added.

Russian missile and drone strikes continued overnight Saturday to Sunday, wounding eight people in Kyiv, the capital, and killing an 11-year-old boy in Dnipro, a city in central Ukraine, according to local authorities. After Russian strikes on energy and water infrastructure, Kyiv authorities urged residents to stock up on water.

“Russia is leveling Ukrainian cities, starving people in Oleshky, killing entire families in one attack, but for some reason you won’t find Tweets that Putin has gone too far,” wrote Yarema Dukh, a political analyst and communications expert, referring to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

Even Ukrainians who oppose Mr. Zelensky have objected to Mr. Trump’s most recent remarks, arguing that decisions about Ukraine’s leadership must be made by Ukrainians.

Mr. Zelensky has faced widespread criticism in Ukraine over corruption allegations involving people in his inner circle and over his personnel decisions, including the dismissal of his popular defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov.

The share of Ukrainians who trust Mr. Zelensky has fallen from 65 percent last year to 58 percent, according to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.

But if anything, the rebuke from the U.S. president has the potential to unite Ukrainians. Mr. Zelensky saw a bump in support at home after Mr. Trump criticized him in a White House meeting in 2025.

"There is nothing in the world that could boost Zelensky’s approval rating today more than Trump’s childish outbursts at him, screaming that he needs to be replaced,” Mykhailo Lavrovskyi, a Ukrainian serviceman, said on X.

In Russia on Sunday, Ukrainian drones hit another major data center operated by the Russian technology giant Yandex. The center, in the Vladimir region east of Moscow, was the company’s third to be attacked in Russia over the past four days, prompting widespread internet disruptions across the country.

Web services were also knocked offline for Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg and Vkusno I Tochka, the fast-food chain that replaced McDonald’s in Russia.

In a statement on Friday, Yandex called its data centers its “iron heart” and said restoring services was a “top priority,” though “unfortunately, it is a complex challenge.”

Live Crime Center Surveillance Software Goes Beyond "Flock" and What People Imagine

2026-10-11T11:32:36.685-04:00

A police officer monitors video surveillance in the real-time crime center at the Irvine Police Department in California in 2024. It's unclear whether Irvine uses Axon Fusus surveillance software or another software in its crime center.

Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images

Meg Anderson

NPR

More than a week after a young plague researcher’s mysterious death from pneumonia, Russia has still not publicly identified the pathogen that killed her.

The possibility that the researcher contracted pneumonic plague in her lab led to global fears of an outbreak. Those worries have begun to recede as no other known cases have surfaced in the Irkutsk region, where Darya Shipilova, a 28-year-old researcher at the Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East, died on Oct. 2.

But the absence of an official explanation for Ms. Shipilova’s death, despite thousands of tests conducted on others in the community and on her own remains, has stoked concerns about what, if anything, Russia’s authoritarian government might be hiding.

According to Rospotrebnadzor, the Russian public health regulator, Ms. Shipilova’s remains did not test positive for any of the dangerous pathogens she was working on at the institute, which included the bacterium that causes the plague. The regulator has said she died of pneumonia of an unknown origin. Pneumonia can be caused by numerous viruses, bacteria and fungi.

The World Health Organization is still seeking to understand the “causative agent” of the fatal pneumonia, whether or not it was the plague, Maria Van Kerkhove, the W.H.O.’s director of epidemic and pandemic management, said at a news conference on Wednesday.

“If that is ruled out — they say that is ruled out — what did she actually die from?” Ms. Van Kerkhove asked.

Experts said they believed that with modern testing technology, the Russian authorities should know the answer by now.

“Presumably, they have the capability within days to do a simple genome sequence,” said Raj Panjabi, who served as a White House public health official during the Biden administration. “Presumably, they’ve done that, but they’ve not shared the results, and that’s concerning.”

The lingering questions reflect a broader lack of global public trust that stems in part from unanswered questions about the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic.

More than six years after Covid upended the world, questions remain about whether the lab that was studying bat coronaviruses in the Chinese city where the pandemic started played a role in the outbreak. China swiftly rejected the possibility and impeded a global investigation into the matter.

In Russia, any possible case of a pathogen escaping a lab attracts outsize attention globally in part because the country is one of the few in the world that continues to work on biological weapons, according to the U.S. intelligence community’s annual threat assessment.

That has led to greater concern among officials and experts in the United States, who point to the nation’s vulnerabilities.

“The United States does not have a licensed plague vaccine,” said Andrew Weber, a senior fellow at the Council on Strategic Risks and a former Pentagon official in charge of biodefense. “Given that Russia has an illegal bioweapons program, it is very concerning.”

There is no indication that the Irkutsk institute was doing bioweapons research, people briefed on U.S. intelligence said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to give a candid assessment.

Ms. Shipilova was involved in testing which antibiotics and doses worked against Y. pestis, the bacterium that causes the plague, according to the summary of a study presented this year at a Moscow infectious disease conference.

The plague, which is endemic to Siberia and some other regions of the world, caused the “Black Death” that ravaged Eurasia in the 14th century, but it is treatable with antibiotics if caught quickly. Pneumonic plague is considered the most dangerous of the three main forms of infection, because it spreads from person to person and causes deadly, rapid-onset pneumonia.

Referring to Ms. Shipilova as “the patient,” the Russian authorities have said that she was vaccinated against the dangerous microorganisms she was working with, and that two reviews of the institute ruled out any “emergency situations” at the lab. The quarantine measures that the Russian authorities took in the Irkutsk region were put in place out of caution, owing to the nature of the patient’s work, they said.

Plague vaccines have long existed, but experts have raised serious doubts about their effectiveness and safety.

Beyond what pathogen led to Ms. Shipilova’s pneumonia, many other questions remain unanswered, including where she was in the days leading up to her death, what she was working on at the institute at the time, and how and when her illness first showed itself and then progressed.

Labs around the world working with deadly germs take extensive precautions to keep workers from being infected, but accidents have occurred.

Though Russia took swift action to quarantine and test individuals who had come into contact with the researcher, Rospotrebnadzor has not held any news briefings and has provided information only in periodic public statements. The Kremlin has declined to field specific questions, urging the public to listen only to public health officials.

Russia has been slow to reveal the details of other incidents with possible public health implications.

In 2019, Moscow concealed critical information about the failed underwater recovery of a nuclear-powered missile in the White Sea, which caused an explosion and left seven people dead. The authorities did not initially say that a nuclear device was involved, acknowledge a spike in radiation or warn doctors that they were treating irradiated patients.

Nondisclosure has long been the modus operandi of the Soviet and now Russian bureaucracy, said Alexander Kelle, a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg in Germany. He cautioned against reading too much into the paucity of details.

“Just because there is a lack of information, we have to be careful not to equate that with something nefarious,” Mr. Kelle said, noting that there were many legitimate public health reasons for researchers to work on dangerous pathogens.

To posit any link to Russian biowarfare, he said, would “be stretching the very limited evidence that has been presented too far.”

In a video message on Thursday, the governor of the Irkutsk region, Igor Kobzev, sought to close the book on the episode. He said that the medical monitoring of people in the region had concluded and thanked his fellow Russian officials for taking swift action under intense scrutiny.

Mr. Kobzev said the W.H.O. had publicly confirmed that there were no risks to public health, though the organization has said it has not received enough information from Russia to make a risk assessment.

Some people commenting on Mr. Kobzev’s video in his Telegram channel weren’t having it.

“What caused the pneumonia that killed the healthy young woman?” one asked.

“Are there really still naïve, gullible people in our city who would believe this?” another commenter said.

A third wrote: “X-Files, nothing to see here.”

8 Killed Incl 5 yr Old and Toddler in Shooting Erie PA.

2026-10-11T11:10:32.804-04:00

Police officers at the scene of a shooting that left multiple people dead in Erie, Pa., on Friday.Credit...Matt Barnum/WJET via AP

By Emmett Lindner and Tim Arango

New York Times

A neighbor’s Ring doorbell camera showed two women arriving at the home in a residential neighborhood on the east side of Erie, Pa., on Friday evening, screaming and pounding on the door. The sounds of muffled gunshots were heard from inside.

Moments later, the two women were shot dead in the street. Inside, the gunman then shot himself with a .40-caliber handgun.

When police arrived, just before 5 p.m., there was just silence.

“Those officers were met with eerie silence when they arrived there,” Chief Rick Lorah of the City of Erie Police Department said at a Saturday afternoon news conference.

After deploying a drone and a robot, the officers finally entered the home, and found the bodies of seven people, including a 5-year-old boy; a girl who was 1 year and 10 months old; and a woman who was 8 months pregnant. All of the victims inside the home were family members of the suspected shooter, who was only identified as a 45-year-old man, city officials said at the news conference.

In total, nine people were dead, including the shooter. Of the eight people he killed, seven were family members. The other, a family friend, was one of the women found dead on the street.

“It was horrific,” Chief Lorah said. “It was the worst scene I have ever experienced.”

Officers responded to the home within minutes of receiving an alert, city officials said. Emergency responders could not immediately determine if there was an ongoing threat at the scene, but no gunshots were fired after their arrival, officials said. They conducted a tactical response, releasing flash bang devices that some in the neighborhood mistakenly thought were additional gunshots, officials said.

There was no standoff, and all of the deaths occurred before officers arrived at the scene, the officials said, pushing back on rumors that had spread on social media about officers delaying entering the home when they arrived. Multiple generations of the family lived together in the home, and some residents were away on Friday night, officials said. Responding to criticism that the city was slow to release information, Mayor Daria S. Devlin said that part of the reason was that officers needed time to notify other family members of the victims.

Neighbors were rattled and sought answers as they heard gunshots ring out.

Jennifer Lott, who lives on the block where the shooting took place, said she was at home on Friday evening when she heard gunshots. She ran to the street and when she didn’t see anything she returned inside to grab her phone.

By Daniel Wood/The New York Times

The identities of the shooter and the victims were not immediately released, and no motive was disclosed. The shooting took place near 7th and Perry Streets, according to a statement from the mayor. The area around the intersection is mainly residential.

Chief Lorah said it was too early to determine an exact motive, but he said that “mental health is at play.” He said that there was a history of the police being called to the residence, but not recently. He said the department’s last interaction with the shooter was in 2022.

The district attorney, Elizabeth Hirz, said that no other people were involved and, therefore, there was no criminal case to bring. But Chief Lorah said the investigation will continue, and will likely focus on the two women who arrived at the scene, and what they knew about what was happening inside the house. He said that investigators would obtain their cellphone records as part of that investigation.

Ms. Lott, 52, said she hadn’t slept all night, and that her neighborhood on Saturday was strewed with crime scene tape, and the road remained blocked to traffic.

She said she knew the identities of two women whom she saw were dead in the street, but was uncertain who else had died. “They wouldn’t give any names,” she said of the police. “They just said nobody made it out of the house.”

She said she knew the gunman and his family, but was not close to them. She described a pattern of domestic turmoil that has gone on for years.

“All I know is they argued a lot,” she said.

Trump Rebukes Ukraine Over Oil Strikes Calls for Elections/Ukraine~He is Gone All For Putin

2026-10-11T10:51:35.211-04:00

At night, a partly collapsed building is illuminated by bright lights. Several people in helmets and uniforms are working on debris and rubble.

Rescuers at a residential building destroyed after a Russian attack in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Saturday.Credit...Daria Nazarova/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Tump takes the other foot off Ukraine and Stands with Putin. Pres Zelenskyy was never Trump's hero. He hated him for his Impeachment about offering money to get his way and used Biden's son as someone who was dirty. The kettle calling the pan dirty. But he figured Zelenskyy was too popular and Ukraine was fighting Russia tooth and nail. So he stayed with the winner like he usually does. But having made a deal with Putin which will personally make him lots of money and maybe bring the Prize of Diesel down before the elections, his Demented mind figured is time to drop Ukraine and go with his old buddy Putin.

He told Zelenskyy, ordered him to stop bombing the The Diesel Refineries. Obviously he doesn't know people that are fighting for their lives. No way would Ukraine stop bombing Putin where it most hurt and where he can use the money to extend the war. Zelenskyy said nothing but kept bombing.

Trump comes out in his nondiplomatic mouth and ordered Zelenskyy to hold elections which will be an equivalent for Ukraine to giving up. An election which probably Putin will win and they go back to what Ukraine was before, An independent state with a Russian Sympathizer as President who did Putin's biting.

So now well see what Papa Trump-Putin does next.

Adam Gonzalez. for Adamfoxie

By Marc Santora and Andrew E. Kramer

New York Times

Hours after President Trump said the United States would buy Russian diesel, the Kremlin said there would be no immediate resumption of discussions to end the war

President Trump on Saturday accused Ukraine of causing a “world problem” with Russian refinery attacks and said it should “get a new president,” further undermining Kyiv a day after saying he would open U.S. markets to Russian diesel.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Saturday, he said the United States had told Ukraine, “you can do whatever you want to Russia. Don’t hit the refineries because that’s a world problem that’s caused.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, he said, “wants to make problems for the world.” He added, “I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president.”

Over four years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, Ukraine has pursued a strategy of mid- and long-range strikes that have battered Russian supply lines and oil infrastructure. The attacks have helped Ukraine stall Russian advances and even claw back some territory, but Mr. Trump on Saturday linked them to high fuel prices, which spiked this year after the United States and Israel attacked Iran.

“He wants to make problems for the world,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Zelensky. “He wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers with diesel fuel because Russia supplies a large portion of the diesel fuel throughout the world.”

Later on Saturday, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said that Mr. Zelensky “has the support of the Ukrainian people, and they have the right to decide.” He added, “Statements from abroad only confirm that he is doing his job well.”

Mr. Trump’s announcement on Friday came despite a Russian ban on exporting fuel and was followed by the lifting of U.S. sanctions on Russian diesel exports until April. The Kremlin apparently offered no concessions in return.

Hours later, Russian officials said peace talks would not resume immediately.

ImageA person in blue overalls fuels a white truck at a Mobil Diesel gas station. Blue and white signage is visible.

A diesel station in New York City last month.Credit...Hilary Swift for The New York Times

“We will think about when these negotiations might be resumed,” Yuri Ushakov, President Vladimir V. Putin’s foreign policy adviser, said in a statement Friday night.

The diplomatic efforts fizzled shortly after Ukrainian negotiators arrived in Miami to meet with Mr. Trump’s top envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. As those talks were about to begin, Mr. Trump spoke at length with Mr. Putin over the phone.

While Mr. Trump’s announcement of the diesel deal made no mention of Ukraine, it was poised to hurt Ukrainian efforts to defend itself, as any major purchase of Russian fuel would help fund Moscow’s war machine.

Ukrainian officials said on Saturday that the talks in Miami had ended without a breakthrough.

In an online chat with reporters on Friday evening, Mr. Zelensky did not hide his sense of betrayal.

“I believe our team is simply being used as a smoke screen, and that is certainly not fair,” Mr. Zelensky said. He has worked hard to maintain a stable relationship with the White House as Mr. Trump has steered America closer to Russia and away from traditional democratic allies.

“It is certainly not how partners should treat each other,” Mr. Zelensky added, calling Mr. Trump’s diesel announcement a “weak decision.”

For Kyiv and its European allies, the short-lived talks in Miami laid bare how U.S. diplomacy has drifted from pursuing a durable peace settlement to hunting for business deals with Russia. The Trump administration has placed the burden of compromise almost entirely on Ukraine and put little pressure on Moscow to stop its campaign to destroy the Ukrainian state.

On Saturday, Mr. Trump similarly did not suggest that Mr. Putin should make compromises. The U.S. president said that Mr. Zelensky, though, “could have settled this war many times, many many times, and he chooses not to.”

On Saturday, Mr. Zelensky said Russia had directed five guided bombs at a residential area of Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, killing at least 20 people, including three children. “In Russia, they take any easing of pressure to mean they can keep fighting, to mean they can keep dropping bombs on cities,” he said.

Daniel Fried, a longtime senior U.S. diplomat and former ambassador to Poland, said it was “very clear that the Russians are completely uninterested in any diplomatic approach and are simply standing back waiting for the West, the U.S., the Ukrainians to come to them with some bigger and better offer.”

“When you start chasing after them, they simply smirk and wait for you to purchase bigger and better bouquets to throw at their feet,” Mr. Fried said.

He said Mr. Trump was undermining not only Ukraine’s security but also Europe’s.

“All of this is taking place at a time when Russia is escalating its shadow warfare against Europe, and we are acting as if that is not occurring,” he said.

It is unclear whether Mr. Trump’s move to import Russian diesel will have much immediate impact on prices before the U.S. midterm elections.

In a statement after his call with Mr. Trump on Friday evening, Mr. Putin said that Russia had “confirmed its willingness to supply oil and petroleum products to the U.S. market and global markets at large,” but he did not specify any amounts.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine with a beard and dark clothing. A blue and yellow Ukrainian flag is visible in the background.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has worked hard to maintain a stable relationship with the White House as Mr. Trump has steered America closer to Russia and away from traditional democratic allies.Credit...Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Mr. Trump’s end run around Ukraine continued a pattern that had been playing out since he started his second term claiming he could end the war in 24 hours.

Last year, Kyiv agreed to Mr. Trump’s call for an immediate, unconditional cease-fire, but Moscow flatly rejected it. That first round of diplomacy established a dynamic that still defines negotiations: Ukraine received no reward for saying yes, and the Kremlin paid no price for saying no.

Since then, ambitions of forging a lasting peace have largely evaporated. Instead, only a handful of hastily announced tactical pauses and holiday truces have emerged.

Still, when the Trump administration opened the latest diplomatic track on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in late September, Ukrainian officials were startled by how far Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff went in their offerings to Russia.

According to officials familiar with the discussions, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential diplomatic talks, the Americans put three lucrative economic incentives on the table to coax Moscow into a limited cease-fire, either on energy infrastructure or at sea.

Washington floated releasing billions of Russian sovereign assets immobilized in the West. The money, the officials said, was viewed as an upfront incentive for partial truces, not a reward for their enactment. This revived a proposal from last year to release funds to Russia. Then, the suggestion was to release up to $100 billion.

The Americans also revisited a plan to sell off parts of the Russian oil giant Lukoil in a multibillion-dollar deal that would go to a group of Middle Eastern investors, including some with business ties to U.S. negotiators.

And Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner revived a U.S. proposal that would allow Belarus, the Kremlin’s ally and neighbor, to export potash, according to officials familiar with the talks.

Kyiv has avoided rejecting any proposal outright but has demanded guardrails. For instance, it has suggested dollar-for-dollar mirror payments of frozen assets to Ukraine or guarantees of additional military aid upon any truce breach.

But Mr. Zelensky’s frustration with Washington was clear earlier this week when he visited the site of a Russian missile strike on an apartment building in northern Ukraine, hundreds of miles from the front lines. The strike killed 22 people, including five children — among more than 100 civilians killed in Russian strikes last week alone.

Asked about Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s comments that talks to end the fighting were “proving elusive” because the war had reached a “strategic stalemate,” Mr. Zelensky bristled.

“We are not at a diplomatic dead end,” he said. The problem, he added, was that there was not enough pressure on Moscow.

“Shut down their entire economy,” he said. “Sew Russia’s mouth shut. Don’t feed them with your own sales.”

US Treasury Scott Bessent Says Trump Makes Jokes About Him Being Gay All the Time

2026-10-10T11:06:12.964-04:00

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks with the media after meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng at JPMorgan Chase headquarters on September 20, 2026, in New York City. Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images

Jacob Ogles

Advocate

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent maintains that his sexuality played no role in President Donald Trump choosing him for the Cabinet. But he said that Trump makes jokes about his sexual orientation.

“He’ll occasionally tell me, he goes, ‘You’re breaking Melania’s friends’ hearts,’” Bessent said in an interview with Axios. “‘They see you on TV, and they want an intro, and we have to break the news to them.’”

Bessent, the highest-ranking out official in Cabinet history, discussed his work in the administration in a lengthy sit-down with Axios co-founder Mike Allen. The 64-year-old also said being openly gay didn’t significantly affect his career on Wall Street before he entered government.

He acknowledged turning down a Naval Academy appointment because he was gay. Instead, Bessent attended Yale. But while his sexuality shaped his educational choices, he said discrimination didn’t hold him back in finance, even in the 1980s.

“It’s very difficult to talk about the counterfactual,” he said. “But, I don’t think going to Yale held me back. Maybe some people who went to other Ivy League schools would think it might. But I think that it makes you aware, and I’ve openly spoken about it before.”

Bessent said concerns about discrimination may have influenced the career path he chose within finance.

“A great thing about money management is there’s a scorecard,” he said. “Maybe in sales, maybe in trading, maybe in relationship management, there’s a lot of subjectivity.”

Bessent’s own department has faced criticism over its handling of workplace discrimination. In June 2025, House Democrats urged him to reverse a Treasury proposal to remove sexual orientation and gender identity as explicitly listed grounds for sex discrimination complaints on its Equal Employment Opportunity forms. The lawmakers warned that the changes could confuse employees about their rights and discourage reporting.

“It’s deeply troubling to see someone who has benefited from civil rights protections turn around and try to strip them from others,” Rep. Ritchie Torres, a gay New York Democrat, told The Advocate at the time. Treasury did not respond to a request for comment for that report.

Allen asked about comments Bessent made during his Senate confirmation hearing, when Bessent insisted Trump selected him “not because of my sexual preference, not because Treasury secretaries with green eyes do better,” but because he was the best candidate for the job. Bessent stood by that assessment.

“I think that’s one of the reasons we have such a great team,” Bessent said.

Bessent was confirmed last year, days into Trump’s second term. His appointment made him the first openly gay Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate under a Republican president. It also put him fifth in the order of succession, ahead of former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who was 14th in line and the highest-ranking out official in former President Joe Biden’s administration.

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