The administration has downplayed the importance of the text messages inadvertently sent to The Atlantic’s editor in chief. By Jeffrey Goldberg and Shane Harris. So, about that Signal chat. On Monday, shortly after we published a story about a massive Trump-administration security breach, a reporter asked the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, why he had shared plans about a forthcoming attack on Yemen on the Signal messaging app. He answered, “Nobody was texting war plans. And that’s all I have to say about that.” At a Senate hearing yesterday, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard,…
The Torero
At least six people are feared dead after a tourist submarine sank off the coast of Egypt. A further nine have been left injured in the incident, with four in critical condition, according to local reports. The tourist submarine, named Sindbad, had been carrying 44 passengers at the time of the sinking on Thursday, as it sailed off the coast of Hurghada. Rescue services have so far managed to save 29 people, reports Egyptian newspaper Al Masry Al Youm. The Red Sea Security Directorate received a report of the tourist submarine sinking,…
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that Vladimir Putin ‘will die soon’ amid rumours that the Russian leader is battling poor health. He said: ‘He (Putin) will die soon, and that’s a fact, and it will come to an end.’ Despite his attempts to project an image of hypermasculinity, Putin has long faced rumours that he suffers from health issues. In recent years the 72-year-old has appeared to have a puffy face, a twitching leg and blood-shot eyes only fuelling the speculation further. One particular famous incident in 2022 saw the president slouching in…
It was a quiet April morning in Augusta, Georgia, when Stephen and Erica Malbon woke up. Then they checked their phones. The couple’s lifestyle brand, Malbon Golf, had been swept into a social media storm by an eye-catching Masters outfit donned by ambassador and former world No. 1 Jason Day. Battle lines were drawn: those who deemed the Australian’s sleeveless vest and baggy pants an affront to the storied tournament — dubbed “a tradition unlike any other” — versus those who welcomed the look as a sorely needed injection of flair into the sport’s…
With distinctive two-fingered claws, the remains of a previously unknown species of dinosaur suggest it looked like a bizarre mix of sloth, giraffe and cult movie hero Edward Scissorhands, according to new research. Paleontologists unearthed the fossil in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, and the find is unique because the sheath of one of the digits is intact. Made of keratin (the same material as fingernails), the sheath reveals that the claw itself was much longer than the underlying bones. It is the largest claw of its kind found fully preserved in…
Leonardo DiCaprio’s girlfriend Vittoria Ceretti, 26, boldly went topless for a new shoot this week – as she made rare remarks about her romance with the actor, 50. Ceretti, who became the latest supermodel aged 25 or under to date DiCaprio when their relationship began in summer 2023 when she was 25 and he was 48, flashed her bust in a racy shoot for Vogue France. The stunning star wore a pair of sheer Louis Vuitton tights and sported minimal make-up for the shoot – which saw her open up about…
President Trump is demanding Colorado take down its “purposefully distorted” painting of him hanging in the State Capitol. “Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before,” Trump wrote in a post Sunday on Truth Social. “The artist also did President Obama, and he looks wonderful, but the one [of] me is truly the worst. She must…
Eating at Imperial Treasure’s new Huaiyang restaurant is a bit like meeting relatives you never knew you had in your ancestral village in China. Or rather, relatives you never bothered to look for in the first place. Because if you did, you feared they might serve you their version of yak tea and ask for money and your iPhone. But, by chance, you do meet them and, surprisingly, they turn out to be worldly sophisticates much more gastronomically cultured than you. And their top-of-the-line Xiaomis are way cooler than your…
The strangest space odyssey has finally come to an end. Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have come home. Their planned eight-day mission to the International Space Station became a nine-month sojourn on board the orbiting laboratory. The story involves technological glitches and accusations of political malfeasance. The space odyssey of Williams and Wilmore began on June 5, 2023, when they lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in a Boeing CST-100 Starliner atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V. Starliner was envisioned to become the second crewed spacecraft alongside the SpaceX Crew…
Democrats might be in meltdown mode right now over their recent shutdown surrender, but the top White House political official warned Republicans that they shouldn’t expect the other party’s dysfunction to help them in next year’s midterm elections. “Truthfully, I think the Republican Party’s success in the midterms will rise and fall on its own actions between now and then, irrespective of what the Democrats do,” said James Blair, the deputy chief of staff overseeing political and legislative affairs. Blair spoke with the Playbook Deep Dive podcast less than a…