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Aug 23, 2026 - World

The Trump administration deported a father of two who helped them prosecute Mexican drug cartels and put him at extreme risk of torture, Maryland court records show. The man, identified only as John Doe, was the subject of a memorandum opinion filed Friday by U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher.Doe was granted Deferral of Removal under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) in 2024 after an immigration judge found he would likely be tortured if returned to Mexico, where he had testified against cartel-affiliated defendants on behalf of the Justice Department.Journalist Kyle Cheney wrote on social media Sunday that Doe "was illegally removed three times in recent weeks," including once to Mexico despite his CAT protection. Gallagher's opinion details a chaotic series of removals beginning in July, including one attempt to deport Doe to Guatemala, which refused to accept him and handed him to Mexican officials, who also declined to take him. Doe was deported to Mexico outright on Aug. 1 “without his phone or other personal belongings.”The opinion notes that Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director David Venturella and Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally moved to terminate Doe's CAT protection just days before his removal in a process the court called "extremely rare,” and with no explanation in the record for their involvement.Former immigration attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick wrote that Doe "put himself at enormous risk to turn on the cartels and testify against them, making him a target for a hideous death if they ever got their hands on him," adding that "the Trump admin deported him to Mexico anyway."Journalist Christy Somos described the pattern more broadly, writing that the administration is "just grabbing people and throwing them wherever – other countries, camps, in danger."Gallagher ordered Doe's immediate return and directed that he be detained within 200 miles of Baltimore, Maryland, if held further, with daily status reports required until he arrives.A man who aided US authorities by testifying against Mexican cartels was illegally removed *three times* in recent weeks — including to Mexico, where he had protection from deportation due to threat of torture/death.A judge in MD has ordered his return.https://t.co/McUyfk3yFL pic.twitter.com/7hlurhoRG4— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 23, 2026

Aug 23, 2026 - World

Onlookers were left stunned Sunday as new details emerged regarding the now-collapsed U.S.-Canada trade negotiations, details that include a series of extraordinary demands from the Trump administration.Trade talks between Washington and Ottawa fell through Friday, leading both nations to vow to impose tariffs on each other. President Donald Trump imposed a 50% tariff on a number of Canadian goods, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney vowed to match those tariffs “dollar for dollar.”As to why the talks fell through, a number of news outlets, along with Carney himself, have since revealed a series of “last-minute” demands proposed by the Trump administration that critics argued "encroached on Canadian sovereignty.”Carney claimed that Trump demanded “Canada change its French language.” Carney also claimed that the Trump administration “introduced language in the final hours of negotiations that would have restricted Canada’s ability to make trade deals with other countries,” the Associated Press reported Sunday.Accepting such terms, Carney said, would have reduced Canada to “the economic equivalent of the 51st state.”Luis Moreno, the former U.S. ambassador to Jamaica, called the Trump administration’s demands “utter and total insanity.” Arnaud Bertrand, a notable entrepreneur, described the Trump administration’s demands as “insane,” and called them “de-facto annexation.”Canadian physician and health commentator Kashif Pirzada also expressed shock, calling the Trump administration’s demands “basically colonization through the back door,” and author and military researcher Chris Owen argued there was no scenario in which Canada would even entertain such demands.“The US wanted Canada to automatically mirror US tariffs and break its own existing trade deals with its partners – in effect running Ottawa's trade policy from Washington,” Owen wrote Sunday in a social media post on X. “No country could have accepted that.”Utter and total insanity. WOW. https://t.co/NctaFqiEFV— Luis Moreno (@LuisMorenolg) August 23, 2026

Aug 23, 2026 - World

President Donald Trump has received a stark warning from a ranking member of the House Budget Committee over a recent late-night social media attack. U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA) appeared on MS NOW Sunday morning to condemn Trump's economic policies as he threatens the United States' northern neighbor with a trade war. "This is going to be massive overall in terms of both exports and imports," Boyle said. "At a time in which the American economy is really teetering on recession, this is the kind of thing that actually could push us over the edge."Trump's new 50 percent tariffs went into effect after trade talks fell apart on Friday, prompting Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney to argue the country was under attack."They asked too much and they offered too little," Carney said. "You're at war when you get attacked. We got attacked."A dollar-for-dollar retaliation — which would target exports such as steel, dairy appliances and agricultural equipment — is now slated to take place on Sept. 8. "These are the largest tariffs that we have faced in almost a century," said Boyle. "The last time tariffs were this large, of course, was the Great Depression."Boyle blamed both Trump and Republicans in Congress for the growing threat of recession — then made a telling slip of the tongue. "Why is a Republican majority in Congress just so weak that they're not willing to stand up for this president," said Boyle, then corrected himself on the "Freudian slip." "Or, stand up to this president," he said. "Instead, they're standing up for this president."

Aug 20, 2026 - World

A vape distributor accused of illegally peddling nicotine products to kids has found a champion in Washington, D.C., a former ally of President Donald Trump's who is raking in millions as a lobbyist.His name is Roger Stone. Mother Jones reported Thursday that Stone has earned more than $4 million as a lobbyist for firms such as vape-distributor Ecto World under the new administration."Trump’s return to the White House has been a tremendous boon to Stone, who not long ago was claiming he had been nearly bankrupted by legal fees," Mother Jones reported. The report describes him as a "conspiracy theorist and political provocateur who was convicted of lying to Congress and witness tampering in the Trump–Russia investigation, sentenced to 40 months in prison, and subsequently pardoned by Trump."Stone’s lobbying firm Drake Ventures has signed up a slew of clients that include the cryptocurrency investor “Bitcoin Jesus,” indicted last year on federal fraud charges, and the military junta in Myanmar, reportedly paying Stone $50,000 a month.Crimes against humanity have spiked in the Junta since the military takeover in 2021, the report notes. As for Ecto World, it stands accused in New York of trying to get people hooked on nicotine. "New York State Attorney General Letitia James sued Ecto World and other vape companies for illegally distributing, marketing, and selling addictive candy- and fruit-flavored disposable nicotine products," the report states, "many produced in China, targeting sales to children and fueling the youth vaping epidemic."

Aug 20, 2026 - World

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was presented a real head-scratcher on Thursday, he admitted at a press conference. "We've got a spike in oil prices today that I don't really understand," Bessent said during a White House address.Bessent made this bold claim as the international price benchmark for oil rose 2.4 percent to reach $93.78 per barrel just before noon, Thursday, according to CNBC. Oil prices reached their highest level in more than three weeks earlier this week after Iran pledged the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed, Reuters reported on Tuesday. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to threaten that he would announce the “MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY!”When Politico's Dasha Burns requested comment on the threat from a source inside the White House, she was told that Trump has decided to move away from military escalation and toward economic pressure."That means Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is more involved in the war than Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at this point," Burns explained. Yet, despite his position of power as both a war advisor and the leader of the department that balances (or tries to) the budget of the U.S. government, Bessent admitted he couldn't understand how continuing hostilities against a country that controls the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's primary waterway passages for the oil trade, would cause oil prices remain high.This left viewers scratching their heads, too. "Feels like it’s his job to know," replied political commentator Chris Robinson, "but I understand Bessent is just a humble soybean farmer who’s estimated worth is half a billion dollars,."Another political commentator, Jim Stewartson argued that it was a question of intelligence."In addition to being an amoral greedmonster, " he wrote, "Scott Bessent is unbearably dumb."But HFI Research, whose substack on energy policy reaches roughly 19,000 readers, argued it was a question of honesty, writing, "If you are going to lie, at least try."