U.S. President Donald Trump renewed a threat to impose sanctions on Russia on Friday if there is no progress toward a peaceful settlement in Ukraine in two weeks, showing frustration at Moscow a week after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
&#8220;I&#8217;m going to make a decision as to what we do and it&#8217;s going to be, it&#8217;s going to be a very important decision, and that&#8217;s whether or not it&#8217;s massive sanctions or massive tariffs or both, or we do nothing and say it&#8217;s your fight,&#8221; Trump said.
He was unhappy about Russia&#8217;s deadly strike on a factory in Ukraine this week, he said.
&#8220;I&#8217;m not happy about it, and I&#8217;m not happy about anything having to do with that war,&#8221; Trump told reporters at the White House.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, said on Friday that Russia was doing everything it could to prevent a meeting between him and Putin, while Russia&#8217;s foreign minister said the agenda for such a meeting was not ready.
Zelensky has repeatedly called for Putin to meet him, saying it is the only way to negotiate an end to the war.
Trump had said he had begun the arrangements for a Putin-Zelensky meeting after a call with the Russian leader on Monday that followed their Alaska meeting on August 15.
Zelensky accused Russia of stalling.
&#8220;The meeting is one of the components of how to end the war,&#8221; he said on Friday at a press conference in Kyiv with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. &#8220;And since they don&#8217;t want to end it, they will look for space to (avoid it).&#8221;
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told NBC there was no agenda for such a summit.
&#8220;Putin is ready to meet with Zelensky when the agenda would be ready for a summit. And this agenda is not ready at all,&#8221; he said.
The statement echoed Moscow&#8217;s established rhetoric about a leaders&#8217; meeting being impossible unless certain conditions were met.
Asked for his response to Lavrov&#8217;s comments and what the next steps are, Trump told reporters earlier on Friday: &#8220;Well, we&#8217;ll see. We&#8217;re going to see if Putin and Zelensky will be working together. It&#8217;s like oil and vinegar a little bit.&#8221;
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Trump had taken sanctions off the table in preparation for his summit in Anchorage with Putin. But at the same White House event where he mentioned possible sanctions, he showed a photograph of his meeting with Putin on the red carpet in Alaska, saying Putin wanted to attend the World Cup 2026 soccer tournament in the United States.
&#8220;I&#8217;m going to sign this for him. But I was sent one, and I thought you would like to see it, it&#8217;s a man named Vladimir Putin, who I believe will be coming, depending on what happens. He may be coming, and he may not, depending on what happens,&#8221; Trump said.
Trump&#8217;s comments did not address the fact that Russia was banned from international competitions such as the World Cup after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and has not taken part in qualification for the 2026 tournament, which will be hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
During a visit to a nuclear research center on Friday, Putin said Trump&#8217;s leadership qualities would help restore U.S.-Russia relations.
&#8220;With the arrival of President Trump, I think that a light at the end of the tunnel has finally loomed. And now we had a very good, meaningful and frank meeting in Alaska,&#8221; Putin said.
Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine that Russia launched in 2022. Analysts estimate that more than a million soldiers on both sides have been killed or wounded and fighting is continuing unabated, with both sides also attacking energy facilities.
Russia has maintained its longstanding demand for Ukraine to give up land it still holds in two eastern regions while proposing to freeze the front line in two more southerly regions Moscow claims fully as its own and possibly hand back small pieces of other Ukrainian territory it controls.
Zelensky meanwhile has dropped his demand for a lengthy ceasefire as a prerequisite for a leaders&#8217; meeting, although he has previously said Ukraine cannot negotiate under the barrel of a gun.
At the press conference with Rutte, Zelensky said they had discussed security guarantees for Ukraine. He said the guarantees ought to be similar to NATO&#8217;s Article 5, which considers an attack on one member of the alliance as an attack against all.
Rutte said NATO allies and Ukraine are working together to ensure security guarantees are strong enough that Russia will never try to attack again.
&#8220;Robust security guarantees will be essential, and this is what we are now working on to define,&#8221; he said.
(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa, Sabine Siebold, Steve Holland, Andrea Shalal and Jonathan Spicer; Writing by Max Hunder and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Philippa Fletcher, Rosalba O&#8217;Brien and Daniel Wallis)

Donald Trump

With No Ukraine Peace Deal, Trump Again Threatens Russia Sanctions

Global Politics

Sanctions

Ukraine-Russia War

Vladimir Putin

Volodymyr Zelensky

World

President Donald Trump&#8217;s increased tariffs on U.S. imports from foreign countries could reduce the national deficit by $4 trillion over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office estimated on Friday.
If Trump&#8217;s global tariff hikes continue, increased revenue could shrink primary deficits by $3.3 trillion and cut federal interest payments by $0.7 trillion over the next decade, CBO, Congress’ nonpartisan analyst, said.
The current top tariff rates may not hold as negotiations with trading partners and international legal challenges are ongoing.
But the additional tariff revenue could help offset the deficit increases triggered by the Republicans&#8217; tax-cut and spending bill passed this year. CBO estimated this would widen the deficit by $3.4 trillion over the next decade.
The U.S. federal debt is $37.18 trillion, according to the Treasury Department. It has continued to grow under Republican and Democratic administrations as the U.S. Congress continues to authorize the federal government to spend more money than it takes in.
Lawmakers face a government funding deadline at the end of September or risk a shutdown if spending bills are not passed.
The latest CBO estimate marks an increase from June, when it forecast a $2.5 trillion reduction in primary deficits and a $500 billion cut in interest outlays.
U.S. tariff rates across countries and products averaged 16.7% in August, up from 15.1% in June, according to Oxford Economics. More than $26 billion in duties have been assessed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection this fiscal year, far surpassing the hundreds of millions recorded in the previous year, according to the analysis.
(Reporting by Bo Erickson; editing by Scott Malone and Clelia Oziel)

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Trump delivers remarks on tariffs at the White House

Trump’s Tariffs Could Reduce U.S. Deficit By $4 Trillion, CBO Estimates

When &#8220;The Wizard of Oz at Sphere&#8221; opens off the Las Vegas Strip on Aug. 28, audiences will experience the 1939 film classic in a way its creators probably never thought possible.
Nearly 18,000 people will find themselves in the eye of the swirling tornado that rips Dorothy&#8217;s Kansas farmhouse off its moorings and hurtles it onto Munchkinland. The film has been enhanced to fill a 160,000-square-foot wall of LED panels that spans three football fields, encircling the audience and reaching 22 stories high, as 750-horsepower fans kick up wind and debris to simulate the twister.
The $104 or more per seat spectacle is more than meets the eye. &#8220;The Wizard of Oz&#8221; marks one of the most significant partnerships between a studio and a technology company to use artificial intelligence to forge a new media experience.
Reuters spoke with nine people, including principals directly involved in the project and senior entertainment industry experts, who told the story behind a project that some industry veterans see as a potential watershed moment in Hollywood&#8217;s use of AI tools.
&#8220;It definitely represents a really meaningful milestone in AI-human creative collaboration,&#8221; said Thao Nguyen, immersive arts and emerging technologies agent at CAA. &#8220;I think it will set a precedent on how we reimagine culturally significant media.&#8221;
Bringing Dorothy and the Wicked Witch to the massive Sphere, a globe-shaped entertainment venue featuring advanced technology, took two years and brought together its creative team, Warner Bros Discovery executives, Google&#8217;s DeepMind researchers, academics, visual effects artists &#8212; more than 2,000 people, in all.
The development occurred during intense apprehension over AI&#8217;s impact on jobs in Hollywood and the desire to preserve human creativity. Some visual effects companies initially contacted to work on the project declined because they were not permitted to work with AI at the time.
&#8216;YOU&#8217;RE TOAST!&#8217;
Getting here took the blessing of Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav, his studio chiefs and lawyers who established guidelines for using AI. &#8220;Wizard of Oz at Sphere&#8221; drew upon archival materials from the film &#8212; including set blueprints, shot lists, publicity stills and film artifacts &#8212; as well as some 60 research papers to help deliver the movie in resolution representing a ten-fold improvement over previous work.
&#8220;We had to reimagine the cinematography, we had to reimagine the editing, and we had to do all of this without changing the experience,&#8221; said Oscar-winner Ben Grossmann, who oversaw the project&#8217;s visual effects. &#8220;Because if you touch anything about this sacred piece of cinema, you&#8217;re toast!&#8221;
Rather than exploiting AI to cut jobs, they sought to use it to breathe fresh life into a classic story and create new experiences with existing intellectual property.
&#8220;Hollywood embraces new technology, and everyone can&#8217;t wait to be the second one to use it,&#8221; said Buzz Hays, a veteran film producer who leads Google Cloud&#8217;s entertainment industry solutions group. &#8220;What &#8216;The Wizard of Oz&#8217; is doing for us is giving that first opportunity where people go, &#8216;Oh my god, this is not at all what I thought AI was going to be.'&#8221;
The project began in 2023 with Sphere executives discussing which project would push the technological boundaries of the venue that had already hosted U2 and Darren Aronofsky&#8217;s &#8220;Postcard from Earth.&#8221;
&#8220;The Wizard of Oz&#8221; quickly topped the list as a familiar, beloved film well-suited for the Sphere&#8217;s enormous canvas, said Carolyn Blackwood, head of Sphere Studios. It presented an opportunity to reintroduce the classic to a new generation in a way that would place them inside L. Frank Baum&#8217;s world.
Symbolically, the team chose a classic film that was a technical marvel of its time. While not the first movie to use Technicolor, &#8220;The Wizard of Oz&#8217;s&#8221; dramatic transition from sepia tones to hyper-saturated color marked a cinematic milestone.
Sphere Entertainment&#8217;s CEO James Dolan and creative collaborator Jane Rosenthal, Tribeca Film Festival co-founder and noted film producer, envisioned a more ambitious project than a mere digital remastering of a classic. Rosenthal tapped Hays to bring in Google as a technical partner.
AI &#8216;QUARANTINE ZONE&#8217;
Dolan approached Warner Bros Discovery CEO Zaslav, a friend and business partner from the early days of cable TV, to propose bringing &#8220;Oz&#8221; to the Sphere. &#8220;I had just been to the Sphere with a friend and was really blown away,&#8221; said Zaslav, adding that Dolan and Rosenthal also won over his studio chiefs, &#8220;who loved the idea. It&#8217;s an example of the great IP we own at Warner Bros.&#8221;
Before turning over one of the world&#8217;s most important entertainment properties, Warner Bros set strict ground rules. Google could train its generative AI models on each major actor to reproduce their performances, but the data would remain the studio&#8217;s property. None of the &#8220;Oz&#8221; training data would be incorporated into Google&#8217;s public AI models.
&#8220;One of the things critical to getting this project started was creating a safe place for experimentation,&#8221; said Grossmann. &#8220;Warner Brothers and Google and the Sphere created an environment where they said, &#8216;We don&#8217;t necessarily know how it&#8217;s going to end, but we&#8217;re going to create a little quarantine zone here.'&#8221;
The visual effects team initially tried enlarging images using CGI, which would have created photorealistic animated versions of the characters. That approach was rejected because it would violate the integrity of the original performances.
&#8220;AI was effectively a last resort, because we couldn&#8217;t really do it any other way,&#8221; said Grossmann, whose Los Angeles studio, Magnopus, worked on such photo-realistic computer-animated films as Disney’s “The Lion King.”
AI enhanced the resolution of tiny celluloid frames from 1939 to ultra-high-definition images. It restored details &#8212; like freckles on Dorothy&#8217;s face or burlap texture on Scarecrow&#8217;s face &#8212; obscured by Technicolor&#8217;s process. AI also helped &#8220;outpaint&#8221; on-screen images to fill gaps created by camera cuts or framing, as when it took a close-up of the Tin Man chopping a door of the Witch&#8217;s castle with an axe to free Dorothy and completed the image of the woodman.
It took months of repeated fine-tuning and Google&#8217;s DeepMind braintrust to elevate consumer-grade AI tools to deliver crisp images with the Sphere&#8217;s 16K &#8220;super&#8221; resolution.
Musicians re-recorded the entire film score on the original sound stage to take advantage of the venue&#8217;s 167,000 speakers. The vocal performances of Judy Garland and other actors remain unaltered.
FLYING MONKEYS
Despite attention to authenticity, the project has attracted criticism from some cinephiles who object to altering the cherished film. Entertainment writer Joshua Rivera called it &#8220;an affront to art and nature.&#8221;
&#8220;None of these people criticizing this have seen the film or understand what we are doing,&#8221; said Rosenthal.
In a private midnight screening for Reuters, Grossmann offered a glimpse of what’s to come.
Some changes are subtle, as when Uncle Henry stands by the front door while neighbor Almira Gulch demands Toto. AI places the performer, who spends much of his time out of view, back into frame, stitching together a wider view to fill the Sphere&#8217;s expansive viewing plane.
Other changes aim to realize the filmmakers&#8217; vision in ways that weren&#8217;t technically feasible 86 years ago. As Dorothy and friends encounter the Wizard in the Emerald Throne Room, a 200-foot-high green head looms over the audience, eyes bulging and voice booming, creating a more imposing depiction than the original image of an actor in green makeup projected on smoke.
&#8220;Whenever we made a change, it was because we wanted the audience to experience what Dorothy was experiencing directly,&#8221; said Grossmann. &#8220;We completed something filmmakers were intending to do but were limited by 1939&#8217;s tools .
Coordinated physical effects add another dimension. Flying monkeys will swoop into the Sphere as 16-foot-long helium-filled simians steered by drone operators, one of many Four-D effects.
The result is an amalgam of cinema, live production, and experiential VR. &#8220;I think that&#8217;s going to change the way people think about entertainment and experience,&#8221; Grossmann said.
(Written by Dawn Chmielewski; Editing by Anna Driver and Ken Li)

A promotion for the upcoming “Wizard of Oz at Sphere” movie in Las Vegas

Hollywood’s Biggest AI Debut? Las Vegas Sphere’s ‘Wizard Of Oz’

The European Commission will keep pressing for a preferential tariff for wine and spirits exports to the U.S. that would spare the sector the 15% rate applied on most items under the EU-U.S. trade deal, the EU&#8217;s trade commissioner said on Thursday.
&#8220;This one we didn&#8217;t get in. But I can tell you that there is clear commitment from the European Commission to put it on the table,&#8221; Maros Sefcovic said when asked if a preferential rate for the sector had been secured.
Sefcovic spoke after the European Union and the U.S. detailed commitments made in the deal reached last month, which includes a 15% U.S. tariff on most imports from the bloc, including autos, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and lumber.
The same rate also applies to EU wine and spirits exports, despite industry efforts to get a lower, or even zero rate.
That means U.S. buyers of French Champagne, Irish whiskey, and Italian Prosecco could face significant price rises, with the tariffs impacting some $10 billion worth of alcoholic beverage imports each year, analysts say.
Brands affected include Diageo&#8217;s Guinness beer and Pernod Ricard&#8217;s Jameson Irish whiskey.
The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, an industry group representing spirits producers and marketers, has called for permanent zero tariffs by both sides and expressed disappointment that no preferential rate had been agreed.
&#8220;Without a permanent return to zero-for-zero tariffs on spirits, American distillers do not have the certainty to plan for future export and job growth without the fear of retaliatory tariffs returning,&#8221; it said.
It added that it was &#8220;determined to continue engaging with the Trump administration to urge for additional negotiations&#8221;.
That message was echoed by Herve Dumesny, director general of European industry group spiritsEUROPE.
&#8220;We urge both sides to remain at the negotiating table and deliver a swift, full return to zero-for-zero,&#8221; Dumesny said.
&#8220;This means reaffirming the support for our sector across the Atlantic by removing U.S. tariffs on EU spirits and lifting any suspended EU retaliatory measures on U.S. products.&#8221;
The EU announced a six-month suspension of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports, including distilled spirits and wine, on August 5, according to the U.S. spirits council.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Charlotte Van Campenhout; Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten, Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Helen Popper)

Bottles of wine in a wine shop in Paris

EU Still Seeking Lower U.S. Tariff For Wine And Spirits, Says Trade Commissioner

BERLIN/MILAN (Reuters) -A Ukrainian man was arrested at a holiday bungalow in Italy on suspicion of coordinating attacks on three Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022, officials said on Thursday, a breakthrough in an episode that sharpened tensions between Russia and the West.
Described by both Moscow and the West as an act of sabotage, the explosions largely severed Russian gas supplies to Europe, prompting a major escalation in the Ukraine conflict and squeezing energy supplies on the continent. No one has taken responsibility for the blasts and Ukraine has denied any role.
The arrest comes just as Kyiv is engaged in fraught diplomatic discussions with the United States over how to end the war in Ukraine without giving away major concessions and swathes of its own territory to Russia.
&#8220;Politically we are firmly on Ukraine&#8217;s side and will continue to be so,&#8221; said Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig when asked if the arrest would affect Berlin&#8217;s ties to Kyiv. &#8220;What is important for me is that Germany is a country of law, and crimes in our jurisdiction are fully investigated.&#8221;
The suspect, identified only as Serhii K. under German privacy laws, was part of a group of people who planted devices on the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, a statement from the prosecutor&#8217;s office said.
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He and his accomplices had set off from Rostock on Germany&#8217;s northeastern coast in a sailing yacht to carry out the attack, it said. The vessel had been rented from a German company with the help of forged identity documents via middlemen, it added.
Authorities acted on a European arrest warrant for the suspect, who faces charges of collusion to cause an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage and destruction of important structures.
An official in the Ukrainian president&#8217;s office said he could not comment as it was not clear who had been arrested. The official reiterated Ukraine&#8217;s denial of any role in the blasts.
Successive Ukrainian governments have seen the pipelines as a symbol of, and vehicle for, Russia&#8217;s hold over European energy supplies that Kyiv argued made it hard to act against Moscow ever since Russia&#8217;s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
FORMER UKRAINIAN OFFICER?
The Wall Street Journal reported that the suspect was a retired captain in Ukraine’s armed forces and previously served in Ukraine’s security service SBU, as well as in an elite unit that defended Kyiv in the early months of Russia&#8217;s full-scale invasion in 2022.
The officer purportedly headed a team of two soldiers and four civilian divers covertly recruited by a special Ukrainian military unit to lay explosives that damaged the undersea pipelines, the WSJ said, citing investigators.
German prosecutors declined to comment on the WSJ report.
Carabinieri officers arrested the suspect overnight in San Clemente on Italy&#8217;s Adriatic coast, where he was supposed to spend a few days with his family.
&#8220;Once his presence had been verified, the Carabinieri surrounded the bungalow and launched a raid, during which the man surrendered without resistance,&#8221; a statement by the Carabinieri said, adding the suspect was 49 years old.
A police official told Reuters the suspect was arrested because, when providing documents at a hotel check-in, an alert flagging he was wanted popped up at the police headquarters, which dispatched a Carabinieri police patrol.
In September 2022, one of the two lines of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was damaged by mysterious blasts, along with both lines of Nord Stream 1 that carried Russian gas to Europe.
Moscow, without providing evidence, blamed Western sabotage for the blasts, which cut off most Russian gas supplies to the lucrative European market. The U.S. denied having anything to do with the attacks.
The Washington Post and Germany&#8217;s Der Spiegel magazine have previously said the team that carried out the attack was put together by a former Ukrainian intelligence officer, who denied involvement.
In January 2023, Germany raided a ship that it said may have been used to transport explosives and told the United Nations it believed trained divers could have attached devices to the pipelines at about 70 to 80 metres deep.
The boat, leased in Germany via a Poland-registered company, contained traces of octogen, the same explosive that was found at the underwater blast sites, according to the investigations by Germany, Denmark and Sweden.
Russia&#8217;s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 triggered Europe&#8217;s deadliest conflict in 80 years, in which analysts say more than 1 million people have been killed or injured.
(Reporting by Rachel More, Philippe LeroyBeaulieu, Sarah Marsh, Giulio Piovaccari, Gavin Jones, Thomas Escritt, Tom Balmforth, Stine Jacobsen; writing by Matthias WilliamsEditing by Gareth Jones and Philippa Fletcher)

Gas leak at Nord Stream 2 as seen from the Danish F-16 interceptor on Bornholm

Ukrainian Man Arrested For Nord Stream Attacks Heightens Tensions Between Russia And The West

Italy

Nord Stream Pipeline

Politics

Russia

Ukraine

Ukraine Russia

KYIV (Reuters) -Russia targeted a U.S.-founded electronics manufacturer near Ukraine&#8217;s border with the European Union in a major air attack on Thursday as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy sought U.S. support to bring Russian leader Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.
The overnight attack, which included 574 drones and 40 missiles, was one of the largest of Russia&#8217;s full-scale invasion of its neighbour, now in its fourth year.
One person was killed and 22 were wounded, most of them in the attack that damaged storage facilities at the electronics manufacturer in Ukraine&#8217;s far-Western Zakarpattia region, authorities said.
&#8220;It was a regular civilian business, supported by American investment, producing everyday items like coffee machines. And yet, it was also a target for the Russians,&#8221; Zelenskiy wrote on X.
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&#8220;This is very telling.&#8221;
Mukachevo mayor Andriy Baloha said the damaged enterprise belonged to the U.S.-listed company Flex Ltd. The corporate headquarters of the company, a global technology, supply chain and advanced manufacturing solutions partner, is in Austin, Texas and its registered office is in Singapore.
The company employed thousands of the area&#8217;s residents, Baloha said. Flex, which grew from a family firm founded in Silicon Valley in 1969, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In Ukraine&#8217;s western city of Lviv, the attack killed one person, wounded three others and damaged 26 homes, said Governor Maksym Kozytskyi. Authorities in southeastern Ukraine&#8217;s Dnipropetrovsk region also reported damage to businesses, homes and gas lines. Two industry sources told Reuters a key gas pumping facility had been attacked, without giving a location.
Russia said Putin had repeatedly said he was ready to meet Zelenskiy but that Ukraine was trying to undermine Trump&#8217;s efforts to resolve the conflict and its leader was illegitimate.
The defence ministry in Moscow said it had struck Ukrainian energy and airfield infrastructure as well as military industrial facilities overnight, and captured another frontline village &#8211; Oleksandro-Shultyne, Russian news agency RIA reported. Ukraine said it had hit a Russian oil refinery, a drone warehouse and a fuel base.
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports.
SECURITY TALKS
U.S. President Donald Trump met both Zelenskiy and Vladimir Putin over the past week in pursuit of a diplomatic end to the fighting but has acknowledged that his Russian counterpart may not want to make a deal. Zelenskiy urged Trump to react firmly if that was the case.
&#8220;We are ready. But what if the Russians are not ready?&#8221; he said in comments released on Thursday. &#8220;If the Russians are not ready, we would like to see a strong reaction from the United States.&#8221;
U.S. and European military planners have begun exploring post-conflict security guarantees for Ukraine, according to U.S. officials and sources, but the path to peace remained uncertain.
A defence ministry source in Turkey, which has opposed sanctions on Russia while also giving military help to Ukraine and joining a &#8220;Coalition of the Willing&#8221; to help it with post-conflict security, said peace was still far off.
&#8220;It is necessary to first secure a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, then determine the framework of a mission with a clear mandate, and clarify the extent to which each country will contribute,&#8221; the Turkish source said on condition of anonymity.
The Kremlin said Putin had discussed Ukraine with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday, when Moscow also said attempts to resolve security issues without Russian involvement were a &#8220;road to nowhere&#8221;.
On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was ready for an honest talk about security guarantees for Ukraine and accused Ukraine&#8217;s European backers of &#8216;adventurism&#8217; by excluding Moscow from their discussions.
Russia, which denies targeting civilians, has used missiles and drones to strike Ukrainian towns and cities far from the front lines throughout the war.
Thousands of civilians, the vast majority of them Ukrainian, have been killed since Moscow&#8217;s full-scale invasion of February 2022. More than a million Russian and Ukrainian soldiers are estimated to have been killed or wounded.
(Reporting by Anastasiia Malenko; Writing by Dan Peleschuk; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Tomasz Janowski, Philippa Fletcher)
&nbsp;

Russian drone and missile strike in Lviv

Russia Slams Ukraine In Massive Strikes, Blames Kyiv For Blocking Peace Talks

ATMEH, Syria (Reuters) -A pre-dawn U.S. military raid in northwestern Syria early on Wednesday targeted and killed a senior member of the Islamic State group, a U.S. official told Reuters.
It was the second known raid in northern Syria by U.S. troops since former President Bashar al-Assad was ousted in December. The Islamist-led government that replaced him has pledged to prevent a resurgence of Islamic State and is part of an anti-ISIS alliance that includes the U.S.-led coalition fighting the group.
The U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the raid killed a senior ISIS member who was seen as a candidate to be the leader of ISIS in Syria.
No U.S. troops were killed or injured in the raid, the official added.
A Syrian security source and Syria&#8217;s state-owned Al-Ikhbariya said the target was killed as he tried to escape.
Another Syrian source said the target was an Iraqi national and was married to a French national. It was not immediately clear what happened to his wife.
The Pentagon did not immediately have any public comment on the reports.
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The operation began at around 2 a.m. (1100 GMT), according to the Syrian security sources and neighbours in the town of Atmeh, in Idlib province.
Helicopters and drones provided air cover, one Syrian security source and residents said. Local Syrian forces set up a cordon around the neighbourhood, but U.S. forces conducted the actual raid, the second security source said.
Abdelqader al-Sheikh, a neighbour, said he was up late with his son and heard a noise in the yard next door.
&#8220;I called out, &#8216;Who are you?&#8217; and they started speaking to me in English, telling me to put my hands up,&#8221; Sheikh told Reuters.
He said the armed forces stayed on the roofs of surrounding houses for the next two hours and that he could hear someone nearby speaking Arabic in an Iraqi accent.
In July, the Pentagon said its forces had conducted a raid in Aleppo province resulting in the death of a senior Islamic State leader and his two adult Islamic State-affiliated sons.
Idlib has been a hiding spot for senior Islamic State figures for years. U.S. forces killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the village of Barisha in Idlib province in 2019 and his successor, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi, in Atmeh in 2022.
(Reporting by Karam al-Masri in Atmeh, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Idrees AliWriting by Maya GebeilyEditing by Frances Kerry, Rod Nickel)

A building, where according to Syrian security forces and residents, U.S. forces took part in a pre-dawn raid that targeted a member of the Islamic State group, a U.S. official and a Syrian security source said, stands in Atmeh

U.S. Troops Take Down Senior ISIS Terrorist In Syria, Official Says

ISIS

Syria

Terrorism

(Reuters) — Hurricane Erin, churning north in the Atlantic hundreds of miles offshore, is expected to trigger a dangerous storm surge and tropical storm conditions on Wednesday along North Carolina’s Outer Banks and other stretches of the U.S. East Coast.
The National Hurricane Center warned that roads in the low-lying barrier islands may become impassable, with waves as high as 20 feet crashing ashore. The heavy surf is likely to result in significant beach erosion, it said in its 8 a.m. EDT update.
North Carolina Governor Josh Stein declared a state of emergency on Tuesday, freeing up state money and manpower to help during the storm and its aftermath.
Tropical storm and storm-surge warnings are in place for other parts of the North Carolina coastline.
Earlier in the week, the coastal counties of Dare and Hyde — which encompass most of the Outer Banks — ordered residents and tourists to evacuate the vulnerable Ocracoke and Hatteras islands, whose populations swell during the summer months.
Local media reported that ferries took more than 2,220 people off Ocracoke, with the final sailing scheduled for 11 a.m. on Wednesday. Ferries to Hatteras will keep operating as long as conditions allow, ABC News affiliate WCTI reported.
But Chris Styron, manager of the Pony Island Inn on Ocracoke, is ignoring the evacuation orders and staying to watch over the 50-room hotel.
&#8220;We&#8217;re used to storms like this,&#8221; Styron said. &#8220;I&#8217;m born and raised here. We&#8217;re not really worried — it&#8217;s so far offshore.&#8221;
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The eye of Erin, rated as a Category 2 storm with sustained winds of 100 mph (155 km/h), was expected to move midway between the U.S. East Coast and Bermuda on Wednesday and Thursday as it traveled northward, the NHC said. That trajectory will keep the worst of its winds offshore.
Tropical-storm-force winds extend up to 265 miles (426 km) from the storm’s center, with hurricane-force winds extending for 90 miles.
Even so, the NHC warned beachgoers along most of the East Coast to stay out of the water because of &#8220;life-threatening surf and rip currents.&#8221;
Along the New Jersey shore, swimming and other water activities were prohibited on beaches from Cape May north to Sandy Hook, with high surf and rip current warnings in effect into Friday, the NWS said. Coastal flooding is expected to peak during high tide on Thursday.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams ordered all city public beaches — including Coney Island and Brighton Beach — to close on Wednesday and Thursday.
Fortunately, temperatures in New York were expected to be seasonably cool on Wednesday and Thursday, with highs only reaching 70°F, well below the average of 82°F.
Erin, the fifth named storm of the 2025 Atlantic season and the first to attain hurricane status, had strengthened to a Category 5 storm. The last Atlantic storm to reach that intensity was Hurricane Milton in October 2024.
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Frank McGurty and Mark Porter)

Hurricane Erin

Hurricane Erin Threatens North Carolina’s Outer Banks With Storm Surge

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The White House launched an official TikTok account on Tuesday, taking advantage of its more than 150 million U.S. users to spread the messages of President Donald Trump.
Trump has a soft spot for the popular app, crediting it with helping him gain support among young voters when he defeated Democrat Kamala Harris in the November 2024 presidential election.
Past intelligence assessments have said the short video app&#8217;s owners are beholden to the Chinese government and that it could be used to influence Americans.
“The Trump administration is committed to communicating the historic successes President Trump has delivered to the American people with as many audiences and platforms as possible,&#8221; White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said as the site went live.
&#8220;President Trump’s message dominated TikTok during his presidential campaign, and we’re excited to build upon those successes and communicate in a way no other administration has before,” she said.
The account, @whitehouse, began operation on Tuesday evening, with the aim of communicating the president&#8217;s policies, a White House official said.
(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Leslie Adler, Rod Nickel)

White House Launches Official TikTok Account

Karoline Leavitt

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White House

Americans are deeply concerned over the prospect that advances in artificial intelligence could put swaths of the country out of work permanently, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The six-day poll, which concluded on Monday, showed 71% of respondents said they were concerned that AI will be &#8220;putting too many people out of work permanently.&#8221;
The new technology burst into the national conversation in late 2022 when OpenAI&#8217;s ChatGPT chatbot launched and became the fastest-growing application of all time, with tech heavyweights like Facebook owner Meta Platforms, Google owner Alphabet and Microsoft offering their own AI products.
While at present there are few signs of mass unemployment &#8211; the U.S. jobless rate was just 4.2% in July &#8211; artificial intelligence is stirring concerns as it reshapes jobs, industries and day-to-day life.
Some 77% of respondents to the Reuters/Ipsos poll said they worried the technology could be used to stir up political chaos, a sign of unease over the now-common use of AI technology to create realistic videos of imaginary events.
Americans are also leery about military applications for AI, the Reuters/Ipsos poll showed. Some 48% of respondents said the government should never use AI to determine the target of a military strike, compared with 24% who said the government should allow that sort of use of the technology. Another 28% said they were not sure.
The general enthusiasm for AI shown by many people and companies has fueled further investments, such as Foxconn and SoftBank&#8217;s planned data center equipment factory in Ohio. It has also upended national security policies as the United States and China vie for AI dominance.
More than half of Americans &#8211; some 61% &#8211; said they were concerned about the amount of electricity needed to power the fast-growing technology.
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Google said earlier this month it had signed agreements with two U.S. electric utilities to reduce its AI data center power consumption during times of surging demand on the grid, as energy-intensive AI use outpaces power supplies.
The new technology has also come under criticism for applications that have let AI bots hold romantic conversations with children, generate false medical information and help people make racist arguments.
Two-thirds of respondents in the Reuters/Ipsos poll said they worried that people would ditch relationships with other people in favor of AI companions.
People were split on whether AI technology will improve education. Some 36% of respondents thought it would help, while 40% disagreed and the rest were not sure.
The Reuters/Ipsos survey gathered responses online from 4,446 U.S. adults nationwide and had a margin of error of about 2 percentage points.

Artificial Intelligence Photo Illustrations

Staggering Number Of Americans Fear AI Will Permanently Displace Workers

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U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expects a big jump in revenues from sweeping tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, and said the money would be used first to start paying down the federal debt, not to give rebate checks to Americans.
Bessent, speaking in an interview on CNBC&#8217;s &#8220;Squawk Box,&#8221; said he expected to substantially revise upward his earlier estimate of $300 billion in revenues from the tariffs, but declined to be more specific.
Bessent said he had not spoken with Trump about the idea of using funds from the tariffs to create a dividend for Americans, but stressed that both of them were &#8220;laser-focused&#8221; on paying down the debt.
&#8220;I&#8217;ve been saying that tariff revenue could be $300 billion this year. I&#8217;m going to have to revise that up substantially,&#8221; Bessent said. &#8220;We&#8217;re going to bring down the deficit to GDP. We&#8217;ll start paying down the debt, and then at that point that can be used as an offset to the American people.&#8221;
The U.S. economy could return to the &#8220;good, low-inflationary growth&#8221; of the 1990s, Bessent said, but he blamed higher interest rates for problems plaguing some pockets of the economy, singling out housing and lower-income households with high credit card debt.
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A cut in the Federal Reserve&#8217;s key interest rate &#8211; which Trump has continually pressed for &#8211; could help facilitate a boom or pickup in home building, which would help keep prices down in one to two years, he said.
The U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday reported a small increase in groundbreaking for single-family homes and permits for future construction in July, even as high mortgage rates and economic uncertainty continued to hamper home purchases.
Trump&#8217;s wide-ranging import tariffs have kept the Federal Reserve from lowering interest rates this year, with most central bank policymakers wary of easing borrowing costs until they have more confidence the levies will not rekindle inflation, which has yet to return to the Fed&#8217;s 2% target.
Recent indications of softening in the job market, however, have largely convinced investors that the Fed will cut rates by a quarter of a percentage point when it meets in mid-September. That expectation has helped bring down mortgage rates in recent weeks.
Bessent has previously said a 50-basis-point cut in rates was warranted.
(Reporting by Andrea ShalalEditing by Mark Potter and Leslie Adler)

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent

Bessent Says U.S. Tariff Revenues To Rise ‘Substantially,’ Focus On Reducing Debt

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National Debt

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country needed to rapidly expand its nuclear armament and called U.S.-South Korea military exercises an &#8220;obvious expression of their will to provoke war,&#8221; state media KCNA reported on Tuesday.
The United States and South Korea kicked off joint military drills this week, including testing an upgraded response to heightened North Korean nuclear threats.
Pyongyang regularly criticizes such drills as rehearsals for invasion and sometimes responds with weapons tests, but Seoul and Washington say they are purely defensive.
The 11-day annual exercises, called Ulchi Freedom Shield, will be on a similar scale to 2024 but adjusted by rescheduling 20 out of 40 field training events to September, South Korea&#8217;s military said earlier. Those delays come as South Korean President Lee Jae Myung says he wants to ease tensions with North Korea, though analysts are sceptical about Pyongyang&#8217;s response.
The exercises were a &#8220;clear expression of &#8230; their intention to remain most hostile and confrontational&#8221; to North Korea, Kim said during his visit to a navy destroyer on Monday, according to KCNA&#8217;s English translation of his remarks.
He said the security environment required the North to &#8220;rapidly expand&#8221; its nuclear armament, noting that recent U.S.-South Korea exercises involved a &#8220;nuclear element.&#8221;
Efforts by the United States and its allies to tackle North Korea&#8217;s development of nuclear weapons are expected to be discussed at an upcoming meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in Washington.
&#8220;Through this move, North Korea is demonstrating its refusal to accept denuclearisation and the will to irreversibly upgrade nuclear weapons,&#8221; said Hong Min, North Korea analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification.
A report by the Federation of American Scientists last year concluded that while North Korea may have produced enough fissile material to build up to 90 nuclear warheads, it had likely assembled closer to 50.
North Korea plans to build a third 5,000-tonne Choe Hyon-class destroyer by October next year and is testing cruise and anti-air missiles for those warships.
(Reporting by Ju-min Park and Joyce Lee; Editing by Ed Davies and Stephen Coates)

Kim Jong Un

North Korea’s Kim Calls For Rapid Nuclear Buildup Amid U.S.-South Korea Exercises

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