Ukraine says fighting 'difficult' after reports of Russia's rapid gains
Ukraine faces intense battles and warns of Russia's preparations for new offensive operations in the ongoing war.
US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set to meet for talks on ending the conflict.
Ukraine said on Tuesday it was engaged in 'difficult' battles with Russian forces after Moscow had made rapid advances in a narrow but important section of the front line in the country's east.
The gains came just days before US President Donald Trump was to meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska for talks on the war, the first meeting between a sitting US and Russian leader since 2021.
The Ukrainian army said it was engaged in 'heavy' battles with Russian forces attempting to penetrate its defences.
'The situation is difficult and dynamic,' it said in a statement.
A map published by Ukrainian battlefield monitor DeepState, which has close ties with Ukraine's military, showed Russia had advanced around 10 kilometres over around two days, deep into a narrow section of the eastern front line.
The corridor - now apparently under Russian control - threatens the town of Dobropillia, a mining hub that civilians are fleeing and that has come under Russian drone attacks.
It also further isolates the destroyed town of Kostiantynivka, one of the last large urban areas in the Donetsk region still held by Ukraine.
'New offensive operations'
The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based observatory, said Russia was sending small sabotage groups forward.
It said it was 'premature' to call the Russian advances around Dobropillia 'an operational-level breakthrough'.
The military's Operational-Tactical Group Donetsk, which oversees parts of the front in the industrial region, also said Russia was probing Ukrainian lines with small sabotage groups, describing battles as 'complex, unpleasant and dynamic'.
Trump has described his summit with Putin on Friday as a chance to check the Russian leader's ideas for ending the war.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky warned ahead of the talks that Moscow was laying the groundwork for further attacks, after Trump said on Monday that both sides would have to swap territory for peace.
European leaders have meanwhile sought to ensure respect for Kyiv's interests.
Zelensky said in a statement on social media:
We see that the Russian army is not preparing to end the war. On the contrary, they are making movements that indicate preparations for new offensive operations.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022, has made costly but incremental gains across the sprawling front in recent months and claims to have annexed four Ukrainian regions while still fighting to control them.
Ukrainian police, meanwhile, said that Russian attacks in the past hours had killed three people and wounded 12 others, including a child.
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Yahoo
16 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Texas Republicans approve Trump-backed congressional map to protect party's majority
Texas legislators on Wednesday approved a new state congressional map drawn at the behest of President Donald Trump to flip five Democratic-held U.S. House seats in next year's midterm elections, after dozens of Democratic lawmakers ended a two-week walkout that had temporarily blocked passage. Republican legislators, who have dominated Texas politics for over two decades, have undertaken a rare mid-decade redistricting to help Trump improve their party's odds of preserving its narrow U.S. House of Representatives majority amid political headwinds. Legislators approved the new map in an 88-52 vote along party lines; under the body's procedural rules, final passage of the bill will require another vote that was expected later Wednesday. The map, which will have to be reconciled with the state Senate's version, has triggered a national redistricting war, with governors of both parties threatening to initiate similar efforts in other states. Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom is advancing an effort to redraw his state's map to flip five Republican seats. Democratic-controlled California is the nation's most populous state while Republican-led Texas is the second most populous. The Texas map would shift conservative voters into districts currently held by Democrats and combine some districts that Democrats hold. Other Republican states -- including Ohio, Florida, Indiana and Missouri -- are moving forward with or considering their own redistricting efforts, as are Democratic states such as Maryland and Illinois. Redistricting typically occurs every 10 years after the U.S. Census to account for population changes, and mid-decade redistricting has historically been unusual. Whenever the maps are drawn, in many states, lawmakers manipulate the lines to favor their party over the opposition, a practice known as gerrymandering. Texas Democrats on Wednesday raised multiple objections to and questions about the measure. Representative John Bucy, a Democrat, said from the House floor before passage of the bill that the new maps were clearly intended to dilute the voting power of Black, Latino and Asian voters, and that his Republican colleagues bending to the will of Trump was deeply worrying. "This is not democracy, this is authoritarianism in real time," Bucy said. "This is Donald Trump's map. It clearly and deliberately manufactures five more Republican seats in Congress because Trump himself knows the voters are rejecting his agenda." Republicans argued the map was created to improve political performance and would increase majority Hispanic districts. Bucy was among the Democrats who fled the state earlier this month to deny the Texas House a quorum. In response, Republicans undertook extraordinary measures to try to force the Democrats home, including filing lawsuits to remove them from office and issuing arrest warrants. The walkout ended when Democrats voluntarily returned on Monday, saying they had accomplished their goals of blocking a vote during a first special legislative session and persuading Democrats in other states to take retaliatory steps. Republican House leadership assigned state law enforcement officers to monitor Democrats to ensure they would not leave the state again. One Democratic representative, Nicole Collier, slept in the Capitol building on Monday night rather than accept a police escort. Republicans, including Trump, have openly acknowledged that the new map is aimed at increasing their political power. The party currently controls 25 of the state's 38 districts under a Republican-drawn map that was passed four years ago. Democrats and civil rights groups have said the new map dilutes the voting power of racial minorities in violation of federal law and have vowed to sue. Nationally, Republicans captured the 435-seat U.S. House in 2024 by only three seats. The party of the president historically loses House seats in the first midterm election, and Trump's approval ratings have sagged since he took office in January. This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Texas GOP passes Texas redistricting map to boost Trump in 2026
Yahoo
16 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Fact Check: Monks thanked Trump for role in peace talks between Cambodia and Thailand. Here's context
Claim: A group of Cambodian monks thanked U.S. President Donald Trump in summer 2025 for ending a war between Cambodia and Thailand. Rating: What's True: Cambodian monks on a march for peace thanked Trump for his role pressuring the leaders of Cambodia and Thailand to agree to a ceasefire following an armed conflict between the two countries. What's False: While Trump contributed to the truce, he did not "end a war" between Cambodia and Thailand. The ceasefire occurred after 5 days of armed conflict at the border between the two countries, not a sustained war, and a ceasefire refers to a temporary pause in conflict, not a permanent end. In August 2025, a claim spread online that a group of Cambodian monks had thanked U.S. President Donald Trump for ending a war between their country and Thailand. Many of the posts included one or more images that appeared to show monks in orange robes holding signs with pictures of Trump's face. The rumor spread on X, Facebook and Instagram. One post spreading the claim, from former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, received over 45,000 likes on X as of this writing. These posts need context. It is true that a group of Cambodian monks thanked Trump for his peacemaking efforts. However, they expressed gratitude to the U.S. president for his role in helping broker a temporary pause in fighting, also known as a ceasefire, between Cambodia and Thailand — not for permanently ending any war between the two countries. As a result of the July 28, 2025, ceasefire agreement, Cambodia and Thailand paused fighting in a five-day armed conflict at the neighboring countries' border. While the territorial dispute resulted in the deadliest escalation of violence between Cambodia and Thailand since 2011, neither side officially declared war — and journalists and diplomats, as of this writing, have largely not described it as such. Thus, we rate this claim a mixture of truth and falsehood. Monks thanked Trump On Aug. 10, 2025, a group of Cambodian Buddhist monks participated in a march for peace in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, amid reports that the two neighboring countries accused the other of violating the ceasefire. Some of these monks carried signs with a picture of Trump that said: "Thank you! Mr. President." Images of the march and these signs were available through Getty Images, a reputable image bank. Several credible news outlets, including Reuters, also published various pictures and videos of the monks with their posters, further indicating that monks did, in fact, hold up portraits of Trump alongside a message of thanks. According to Reuters, the march "stopped briefly at the US embassy to show gratitude to Trump for initiating the ceasefire agreement." Why the monks thanked Trump On July 26, 2025, Trump said in a Truth Social post that he spoke to the leaders of both countries to "request a Ceasefire, and END to the War, which is currently raging." In his post, he added that he told both countries he would not negotiate any trade deal with either side until the fighting stopped. Two days later, Thailand and Cambodia came to a ceasefire agreement. At the time of Trump's threat, both countries faced a potential 36% U.S. tariff that would have begun on Aug. 1. Three days after the ceasefire announcement, the White House announced a reduction in the tariff rate for both countries to 19%. In a July 31 exclusive, Reuters reported that Trump's call "prompted Thailand to join ceasefire talks." Snopes cannot independently verify Reuters' report. However, according to multiple reputable outlets, after Thailand's acting prime minister, Phumtham Wechayachai, and Cambodia's prime minister, Hun Manet, agreed on the ceasefire, both thanked Trump. (They also thanked Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who hosted the peace talks, and China, whose diplomats participated in the meeting.) On Aug. 7, Hun Manet also posted a letter on Facebook nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize "for his crucial role in restoring peace and stability at the border between Cambodia and Thailand." Thus, reputable reports and statements from Cambodia and Thailand's leaders indicated Trump had a legitimate and significant role in the ceasefire agreement. With this context, it is clear that the monks' thank you signs referenced Trump's efforts to broker a ceasefire. Trump helped pause a conflict, not 'end a war' While Trump referred to the conflict between Cambodia and Thailand as a "war" in his Truth Social post, neither Cambodia nor Thailand have officially declared war against each other over the border conflict as of this writing, based on a search for news articles about a war declaration. The New York Times reported that Wechayachai warned on July 25 that the border dispute "could develop into war," suggesting that Thailand's leader, at least, did not consider the conflict a "war." On occasion, journalists and experts will refer to a conflict as a war even if the countries have not officially proclaimed it as such. In fact, the Merriam-Webster definition of war includes any "open and declared armed hostile conflict between states and nations," a criteria that Cambodia and Thailand's July 2025 border conflict technically met, despite the lack of official declaration. According to the United Nations, the conflict displaced more than 131,000 people in Thailand and over 4,000 in Cambodia. The Associated Press reported on July 26 that at least 32 people had died. Still, the AP, the United Nations and the U.S. State Department have not, as of this writing, referred to the Thailand-Cambodia border conflict as a war. The AP, long considered the standard for journalistic language, "considers the number of casualties, the intensity of fighting, the involvement of each party, and what each country was calling the conflict" to determine whether it describes a conflict as "war" to avoid diminishing the word's importance. As such, the claim that Cambodian monks thanked Trump for "ending a war," while somewhat accurate, may have misrepresented the scope or nature of the conflict as well as the subsequent peace talks. Al Jazeera Staff. "Thailand and Cambodia Agree to Ceasefire: Will It Stop the Deadly Fighting?" Al Jazeera, 28 July 2025, Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. Bartlett, Kate. "Thailand and Cambodia Agree to Ceasefire. What's behind the Conflict?" NPR, 28 July 2025, "Cambodia-Thailand: Border Violence Turns More Violent and Deadly — Expert Comment." ACLED, 8 Aug. 2025, Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. Cheang, Sopheng, and Jintamas Saksornchai. "Tensions Linger despite Ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia." AP News, 29 July 2025, Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. "CNBC-TV18 on Instagram: 'over 2,500 Cambodian Buddhist Monks Marched, Carrying Banners and Flags to Promote Peace with Thailand. The Monks Also Thanked US President Trump for Supporting the Cambodia-Thailand Ceasefire, Following the Worst Border Clashes between the Two Nations in over a Decade. #Cambodia #Thailand #BorderClashes #Trump #Cnbctv18digital.'" Instagram, 11 Aug. 2025, Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. "Definition of War." Merriam-Webster, Drury, Flora. "Why Are Thailand and Cambodia Fighting at the Border?" BBC, 24 July 2025, "Further Modifying the Reciprocal Tariff Rates." The White House, 31 July 2025, "How the AP Decided to Refer to the Conflict between Israel and Iran as a War." AP News, 20 June 2025, Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. Manet, Hun. "ស្របតាមសំណូមពររបស់ប្រជាពលរដ្ឋខ្មែរទាំងក្នុងនិងក្រៅប្រទេស និងដើម្បីជាការថ្លែងអំណរគុណចំពោះឯកឧត្តមប្រធានាធិបតី Donald Trump..." 7 Aug. 2025, Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. Nachemson, Andrew. "Thailand, Cambodia Border Tensions Continue as Talks Conclude in Malaysia." Al Jazeera, 7 Aug. 2025, Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. Narin, Sun, et al. "Thailand Warns of War with Cambodia as Deadly Clashes Enter 2nd Day." The New York Times, 25 July 2025, "On Ceasefire Deal between Cambodia and Thailand." U.S. Embassy & Consulate in Thailand, 8 Aug. 2025, Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. "Over 2,500 Cambodian Buddhist Monks Marched, Carrying Banners and Flags to Promote Peace with Thailand. The Monks Also Thanked US President Trump for Supporting the Cambodia-Thailand Ceasefire, Following the Worst Border Clashes between the Two Nations in over a Decade." 11 Aug. 2025, Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. Reuters. "Cambodian Buddhist Monks March to Support Peace with Thailand | REUTERS." YouTube, 10 Aug. 2025, Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. Reuters Staff. "Thailand and Cambodia Trade Accusations but Fragile Truce Holds." Reuters, 30 July 2025, Ry, Roun, and Reuters. "A Buddhist Monk Holds a Portrait of U.S. President Donald Trump during a March for Peace, in Phnom Penh." Reuters Connect, 10 Aug. 2025, Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. ---. "Buddhist Monks Hold Portraits of U.S. President Donald Trump during a March for Peace, in Phnom Penh." Reuters Connect, 10 Aug. 2025, Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. Saksornchai, Jintamas, and Sopheng Cheang. "Tens of Thousands Flee Thailand-Cambodia Fighting." AP News, 25 July 2025, "Secretary Rubio's Phone Call with Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister Prak - United States Department of State." United States Department of State, 27 July 2025, Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. TANG CHHIN Sothy , and AFP. "A Cambodian Buddhist Monk Holds a Placard Showing a Portrait of US..." Getty Images, 10 Aug. 2025, Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. TANG CHHIN SOTHY, and AFP. "A Cambodian Buddhist Monk Holds a Portrait of US President Donald..." Getty Images, 10 Aug. 2025, Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. ---. "Cambodian Buddhist Monks Take Part in a March for Peace in Phnom Penh..." Getty Images, 10 Aug. 2025, Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. "The Ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand." U.S. Embassy & Consulate in Thailand, 28 July 2025, Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. "The Ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand - United States Department of State." United States Department of State, 28 July 2025, Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. The White House. "Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Continues Enforcement of Reciprocal Tariffs and Announces New Tariff Rates." The White House, 7 July 2025, Titthara, May, and Jonathan Head. "Cambodia and Thailand Agree to 'Immediate and Unconditional Ceasefire.'" BBC News, edited by Ayeshea Perera, 28 July 2025, Trump, Donald J. "Just Spoke to the Prime Minister of Cambodia Relative to Stopping the War with Thailand. I Am Calling the Acting Prime Minister of Thailand, Right Now, to Likewise Request a Ceasefire, and END to the War, Which Is Currently Raging. We Happen to Be, by Coincidence, Currently Dealing on Trade with Both Countries, but Do Not Want to Make Any Deal, with Either Country, If They Are Fighting — and I Have Told Them So! The Call with Thailand Is Being Made Momentarily. The Call with Cambodia Has Ended, but Expect to Call Back Regarding War Stoppage and Ceasefire Based on What Thailand Has to Say. I Am Trying to Simplify a Complex Situation! Many People Are Being Killed in This War, but It Very Much Reminds Me of the Conflict between Pakistan and India, Which Was Brought to a Successful Halt." 26 July 2025, Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. "UN Urges Restraint as Thailand-Cambodia Clashes Displace Thousands; Security Council Meets." UN News, 25 July 2025, Wongcha-um, Panu, and Poppy Mcpherson. "Exclusive: Trump's Call Broke Deadlock in Thailand-Cambodia Border Crisis." Reuters, 31 July 2025, Accessed 20 Aug. 2025.
Politico
18 minutes ago
- Politico
Trump's elections power grab
MAIL FAIL — Donald Trump has long been a critic of voting by mail, even falsely blaming the explosion of mail-in voting in 2020 for his electoral loss. This week he took his grievances to the next level: Trump said that he would soon be moving to ban the practice. In a lengthy Truth Social diatribe, Trump said he would 'lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we're at it, Highly 'Inaccurate,' Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES, which cost Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper, which is faster, and leaves NO DOUBT,' claiming no other country in the world uses mail-in voting. Trump continued, saying he would sign 'an EXECUTIVE ORDER to help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections. Remember, the States are merely an 'agent' for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.' There's just one problem: the president's entire premise for his purported executive order is bunk. The U.S. is far from the only country to allow for vote by mail. The vast majority of Americans already vote on paper ballots, and voting machines are faster, cheaper and more accurate at tabulating those ballots than counting by hand. More important, the Constitution is clear on who has the power to regulate elections: the states and Congress, not the president. 'The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations,' the Elections Clause reads. 'It says nothing about the president of the United States being able to step in by waving a magic wand in the Oval Office,' Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat and one of the country's longest-serving chief election officers, told Nightly. It's not clear what form any prospective presidential order would take. In the Oval Office on Monday, Trump said 'the best lawyers in the country' are writing the executive order 'to end mail-in ballots because they're corrupt.' The White House responded to a series of questions from Nightly on the forthcoming EO — including where the president's legal authority would come from — with a statement from spokesperson Harrison Fields that answered none of them, instead blasting Democrats having 'eroded faith in our elections.' When asked at a Tuesday press briefing about the White House's plans, press secretary Karoline Leavitt was vague on details, saying there will be 'many discussions with our friends on Capitol Hill and also our friends in state legislatures across the country.' The mere assertion that he has the authority to issue national election policy by decree is a fairly audacious power grab, one that crosses a significant red line on elections — a line that Republicans have vigorously defended in the past. 'We used to at least pretend that we had some intrinsic fear of centralized power, especially presidential power,' said Stephen Richer, the former GOP Maricopa County, Ariz., recorder who became a Republican pariah for loudly standing up for the security of elections post-2020. 'And I think when you're talking about the means for installing federal officers, you should be doubly skeptical of any centralization of that power.' It's not hard to find examples of this skepticism. Sixteen Republican secretaries of state called Democrats' H.R. 1 — their sweeping elections legislation first introduced in 2019 — a 'unnecessary bill [that] federalizes and micromanages state election systems,' arguing Congress should not 'dictate a one-size-fits-all election policy to the states.' Similarly, fifteen Republican secretaries called in 2022 for Biden to rescind an executive order that directed federal agencies to register people to vote. 'If any adjustments need to be made, such adjustments are the province of Congress, not the Executive branch,' they wrote. The pushback thus far has been much more muted. When Trump issued an executive order earlier this year looking to dictate requirements around voter registration and mail balloting, Democratic-led states sued — and federal courts blocked key parts of that order as an attempt to usurp the constitutional powers of Congress and the states. Should Trump go ahead with trying to outright ban mail voting, Democrats expect the same result. 'I sure hope that the White House knows that the courts stand ready to significantly pare back executive orders where they step over the constitutional line, and we're going to be there as we were in round one,' Simon, the Minnesota Democrat said. While Republicans are not ringing the alarm bells about Trump's intentions, they too want to defend the states' reputation as so-called laboratories of democracy — and still want to gingerly remind the president of that line. 'Couldn't be more appreciative and supportive of President Trump's focus on election integrity,' Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson, who heads both the bipartisan National Association of Secretaries of State and the Republican Secretaries of State Committee, said in a statement, stressing he was speaking in his personal capacity and not on behalf of the organizations. But 'regarding specifics mentioned in the President's social media post, we will wait to see the details before commenting,' he continued. 'That said, election procedure decisions have and should continue to be made at the state level, and I trust President Trump will keep these important principles in mind as he crafts future executive orders.' Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@ Or contact tonight's author at zmontellaro@ or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @ZachMontellaro. What'd I Miss? — DOJ goes 0-3 in requests to unseal Jeffrey Epstein grand jury materials: A federal judge rejected the Justice Department's effort to unseal grand jury transcripts and exhibits in the Jeffrey Epstein case today, writing that the government itself is the 'logical party' to make the Epstein files public and criticizing its motion as a 'diversion' tactic. 'The information contained in the Epstein grand jury transcripts pales in comparison to the Epstein investigation information and materials in the hands of the Department of Justice,' U.S. District Judge Richard Berman, a Bill Clinton appointee, wrote in a 14-page opinion. Berman's decision is the third by a federal judge to deny nearly identical motions by the Justice Department to make public certain grand jury material in the cases of Epstein, the disgraced financier who died by suicide in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, and his onetime girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. — Pentagon says US will play a minimal role in Ukraine's security guarantee: The Pentagon's top policy official told a small group of allies Tuesday night that the U.S. plans to play a minimal role in any Ukraine security guarantees, one of the clearest signs yet that Europe will need to shoulder the burden of keeping lasting peace in Kyiv. The comments from Elbridge Colby, the Defense undersecretary for policy, came in response to questions from European military leaders in a huddle led by Joint Chiefs chair Gen. Dan Caine. Defense chiefs from the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Finland pushed the U.S. side to disclose what it would provide in troops and air assets to help Ukraine maintain a peace deal with Russia, according to a European official and another person briefed on the talks. — Gabbard to cut ODNI staff by nearly 50 percent: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced plans today to overhaul her office, cutting hundreds of staff and consolidating teams focused on countering malign influence and cyber threats. The move, dubbed ODNI 2.0, is the latest effort by the Trump administration to slim down the federal government, and comes after a wave of top-level departures at the ODNI's Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center earlier this year. According to a fact sheet released by ODNI, Gabbard has already eliminated 500 staff and reduced the office's size by 30 percent since she was sworn in to the role in February. The new plan would boost that number to over 40 percent and save more than $700 million annually. — Trump calls on Fed board member Cook to resign: President Donald Trump called on Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook to resign today after housing finance regulator Bill Pulte opened a new avenue of attack against the central bank. Pulte in recent days referred Cook to the Justice Department on allegations that she 'potentially [committed] mortgage fraud,' saying she had named two different properties as her primary residence on loan applications in 2021. Fed board members can be removed only 'for cause,' a provision that has not been fully litigated but has generally been interpreted to mean that the president can't fire a central banker over policy disagreements. — Fear of Trump funding 'wrench' escalates as Congress faces shutdown cliff: President Donald Trump's budget director has talked about attempting the ultimate override of Congress' funding prerogatives during the final 45 days of the fiscal year — and that time is now. With six weeks left until Oct. 1, lawmakers are staring down a government shutdown deadline alongside the threat of a 'pocket rescission,' a controversial White House tactic to cancel federal cash without the consent of Congress. It's also a ploy that the government's top watchdog, along with key lawmakers from both parties, say is illegal. 'The money evaporates at the end of the fiscal year,' White House budget chief Russ Vought said last month in defense of the gambit, adding it has 'been used before.' — Obama backs California effort to redraw districts in response to Texas: Former President Barack Obama is supporting California's mid-cycle redistricting effort as a 'responsible approach' to Republicans drawing new maps in Texas. Obama praised California Gov. Gavin Newsom's ballot measure proposal to redraw congressional districts and tilt at least five congressional districts in the state towards Democrats at a fundraiser on Tuesday for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. 'I believe that Governor Newsom's approach is a responsible approach,' he said, according to excerpts obtained by POLITICO. 'I think that approach is a smart, measured approach, designed to address a very particular problem in a very particular moment in time.' — Pentagon says US will play a minimal role in Ukraine's security guarantee: The Pentagon's top policy official told a small group of allies Tuesday night that the U.S. plans to play a minimal role in any Ukraine security guarantees, one of the clearest signs yet that Europe will need to shoulder the burden of keeping lasting peace in Kyiv. The comments from Elbridge Colby, the Defense undersecretary for policy, came in response to questions from European military leaders in a huddle led by Joint Chiefs chair Gen. Dan Caine. Defense chiefs from the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Finland pushed the U.S. side to disclose what it would provide in troops and air assets to help Ukraine maintain a peace deal with Russia, according to a European official and another person briefed on the talks. AROUND THE WORLD ARCTIC SABER-RATTLING — Russia's saber-rattling in the Arctic is forcing Canada to deepen military cooperation with its Nordic NATO allies — a marked policy shift away from the United States. Prime Minister Mark Carney has dispatched two top Cabinet ministers to Sweden and Finland this week in pursuit of new defense deals — including a look at Sweden's Saab Gripen fighter jet. Canada had previously decided on the Lockheed Martin F-35, a flagship export under President Donald Trump. But amid a trade war, at a time when other allies are turning away from the U.S. war plane, Canada is reconsidering its C$19-billion plan to buy a new fleet of F-35s. 'Clearly, there are trade tensions [with the U.S.], and we want to become closer to our friends,' Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said Monday as Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch formally welcomed her to Stockholm. MOSCOW'S HARD LINE — Moscow isn't shifting on what it considers to be acceptable security guarantees for Ukraine, a top Kremlin official said today. The comments by Moscow's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov undercut hopes that any progress has been made toward ending the Ukraine war since Russian President Vladimir Putin met with U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday in Alaska. Lavrov's remarks further indicate that the Kremlin has not softened on its maximalist positions on Ukraine: that it becomes a neutral rump state; drastically reduces its military; and abandons its NATO membership aspirations after Russia is finished with it. Nightly Number RADAR SWEEP THE NEW AMERICAN SOUTH — In 1995, the rapper André 3000 declared that the cultural weathervane was pointing southward. A year later, his native Atlanta hosted the Olympics, one of the first signals that the South was beginning to see a reverse of the Great Migration that defined the region 50 years earlier. Since then, it has produced cultural touches such as Beyoncé, Mr. Beast and Bama Rush. The South's transformation into a major cultural hub was no accident. Over the last three decades, tax breaks, education incentives and growing cultural and economic clout have pulled more Americans and immigrants to the South. Amanda Mull reports on the region's transformation for Bloomberg. Parting Image Jacqueline Munis contributed to this newsletter. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.
