US, Iran teams meet for two hours in Rome
"The talks continue to be constructive – we made further progress, but there is still work to be done. Both sides agreed to meet again in the near future. We are grateful to our Omani partners for their continued facilitation," the official said.
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The Independent
14 minutes ago
- The Independent
Latest portrait of ‘orange' Trump that will be hung in the White House is revealed
A new, 'orange' portrait of President Donald Trump appears to be the latest in a run of paintings hanging in the White House, with a senior aide teasing there's 'more to come.' Deputy Assistant to the President Sebastian Gorka unveiled the artwork just hours after Trump hosted leaders from across Europe in hopes of finding a path to peace in Ukraine. The new painting shows a non-smiling Trump striding between a row of American flags, wearing a trademark navy suit and red tie combo set to a luminous burnt orange backdrop. 'One of the new @WhiteHouse paintings of President @realDonaldTrump,' Gorka wrote on X Monday evening. 'More to come.' The artist behind the painting, who paid for it and its placement in the White House, was not immediately apparent. On Monday, as nine leaders of European nations and NATO posed for their 'family photo' in the Grand Foyer ahead of a multilateral meeting in the East Room, Trump showed off another new artwork. Flanked by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to his right and French President Emmanuel Macron to his left, Trump pointed to a large painting depicting a bloodied president pumping his fist in Butler, Pennsylvania, last summer, after he survived an assassination attempt. 'That was not a good day,' he said. 'That was not a great day. See the picture.' The portrait joins an array of new paintings hung on the White House walls since Trump returned to office in January. In April, the president hung a striking new portrait of himself in the East Wing area with his face painted with the American flag. The picture was wedged between portraits of former first ladies Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush. A month later, the president unveiled a piece in the West Wing that features him alongside former GOP presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan, in front of an American flag. Trump, however, is notoriously particular about his depiction in paintings and portraits hanging in public institutions. The president flew into a fit of rage in March, demanding that a portrait of himself painted by artist Sarah Boardman be removed from the Colorado Capitol building. Trump peddled a conspiracy theory that it was 'purposely distorted' in an alleged petty plot orchestrated by Colorado Governor Jared Polis. The White House has donated a portrait of Trump to the Colorado Capitol to replace one that the president hates. The Independent has contacted the White House for more information.
The Independent
43 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump wants to change how elections are run. The Constitution won't let him
Donald Trump has vowed to implement significant changes to the conduct of US elections, despite constitutional constraints limiting his ability to act unilaterally. His pledges, made on his social media platform, are rooted in the same false information and conspiracy theories he has consistently used to account for his 2020 election defeat. Mr Trump specifically targeted mail voting, which remains popular and is utilised by approximately one-third of all voters, and voting machines, a form of which is employed across nearly all of the country's thousands of election jurisdictions. Ironically, these are the very systems that facilitated Mr Trump's victory in the 2024 election and enabled Republicans to secure control of Congress. Trump's post marks an escalation even in his normally overheated election rhetoric. He issued a wide-ranging executive order earlier this year that, among other changes, would have required documented proof-of-citizenship before registering to vote. His Monday post promised another election executive order to "help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm elections." The same post also pushed falsehoods about voting. He claimed the U.S. is the only country to use mail voting, when it's actually used by dozens, including Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Similar complaints to Trump's, when aired on conservative and conservative-leaning networks such as Newsmax and Fox News, have led to multimillion dollar defamation settlements, including one announced Monday, because they are full of false information and the outlets have not been able to present any evidence to support them. Trump's post came after the president told Fox News that Russian President Vladimir Putin, in their Friday meeting in Alaska, echoed his grievances about mail voting and the 2020 election. Trump continued his attack on mail voting and voting machines in the Oval Office on Monday, during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The announcement signals yet another way that Trump intends to stack the cards in his favor in the 2026 midterm elections, after he already has directed his attorney general to investigate a Democratic fundraising platform and urged states to redraw their congressional districts to help the GOP maintain its majority in the House of Representatives. Here's a breakdown of Trump's latest election post and why Congress is the one entity that can implement national election rules. Trump's post Trump for years has promoted false information about voting, and Monday was no exception. He claimed there is "MASSIVE FRAUD" due to mail voting, when in fact voting fraud in the U.S. is rare. As an example, an Associated Press review after the 2020 election found fewer than 475 cases of potential fraud in the six battleground states where he disputed his loss, far too few to tip that election to Trump. Washington and Oregon, which conduct elections entirely by mail, have sued to challenge Trump's earlier executive order — which sought to require that all ballots must be received by Election Day and not just postmarked by then. The states argue that the president has no such authority, and they are seeking a declaration from a federal judge in Seattle that their postmark deadlines do not conflict with federal law setting the date of U.S. elections. Trump also alleged that voting machines are more expensive than "Watermark Paper." That's a little-used system that has gained favor and investments among some voting conspiracy theorists who believe it would help prevent fraudulent ballots from being introduced into the vote count. Watermarks would not provide a way to count ballots, so they would not on their own replace vote tabulating machines. While some jurisdictions still have voters use electronic ballot-marking devices to cast their votes, the vast majority of voters in the U.S. already vote on paper ballots, creating an auditable record of votes that provides an extra safeguard for election security. In his post, Trump also claimed that states "are merely an 'agent' for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes" and must do what the federal government "as represented by the President of the United States" tells them to do. Election lawyers said that's a misrepresentation of the U.S. Constitution. It also flies in the face of what had been a core Republican Party value of prioritizing states' rights. Thousands of elections, none under presidential control Unlike in most countries, elections in the U.S. are run by the states. But it gets more complicated — each state then allows smaller jurisdictions, such as counties, cities or townships, to run their own elections. Election officials estimate there are as many as 10,000 different election jurisdictions across the country. A frequent complaint of Trump and other election conspiracy theorists is that the U.S. doesn't run its election like France, which hand counts presidential ballots and usually has a national result on election night. But that's because France is only running that single election, and every jurisdiction has the same ballot with no other races. A ballot in the U.S. might contain dozens of races, from president on down to city council and including state and local ballot measures. The Constitution makes the states the entities that determine the "time, place and manner" of elections, but does allow Congress to "make" or "alter" rules for federal elections. Congress can change the way states run congressional and presidential elections but has no say in the way a state runs its own elections. The president is not mentioned at all in the Constitution's list of entities with powers over elections. "The president has very limited to zero authority over things related to the conduct of elections," said Rick Hasen, an election law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Courts have agreed — no presidential involvement Parts of Trump's earlier executive order on elections were swiftly blocked by the courts, on the grounds that Congress, and not the president, sets federal election rules. It's unclear what Trump plans to do now, but the only path to change federal election rules is through Congress. Although Republicans control Congress, it's unclear that even his party would want to eliminate voting machines nationwide, possibly delaying vote tallies in their own races by weeks or months. Even if they did, legislation would likely be unable to pass because Democrats could filibuster it in the U.S. Senate. Mail voting had bipartisan support before Trump turned against it during the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 election, but it's still widely used in Republican-leaning states, including several he won last November — Arizona, Florida and Utah. It's also how members of the military stationed overseas cast their ballots, and fully eliminating it would disenfranchise those GOP-leaning voters. The main significance of Trump's Monday statement is that it signals his continuing obsession with trying to change how elections are run. "These kinds of claims could provide a kind of excuse for him to try to meddle," Hasen said. "Very concerned about that."
Daily Mail
44 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Alaskan man is left 'speechless' after Putin gifts him Russian motorbike after the American complained that sanctions made refitting his own model impossible
An Alaska man as been left 'speechless' after Russian President Vladimir Putin gifted him a new Russian motorcycle after the American man complained that sanctions made refitting his own model impossible. An employee of the Russian embassy in the United States handed the man, Mark Warren, the keys to his new Ural motorcycle in the parking lot of the Anchorage hotel where the Russian delegation was staying. 'I have to say that this is a personal gift from the President of the Russian Federation,' Andrei Ledenev, the embassy employee, told Warren. The white-haired, bespectacled Warren was seen hopping aboard his new bike, Ledenev behind him and another man in the sidecar, to take it for a spin. 'It's night and day,' Warren said. 'I like my old one, but this one is obviously much better. 'It's newer, it's more precise in control. 'I'm speechless, it's amazing. Thank you very much.' The unexpected gift by the Russian leader came after reporters with Russian state television Channel 1 met Warren by chance on the streets of Anchorage ahead of the summit. The reporters stopped to admire Warren's bike, which is manufactured by Ural, whose original factory was founded in 1941 in what was then Soviet Russia. Warren told a reporter, Valentin Bogdanov, that he struggled to obtain spare parts for the bike, including a new starter, because the manufacturing plant is 'located in Ukraine.' 'So for you, if they resolve this conflict here in Alaska, I mean Putin and Trump, it will be good?' Bogdanov asks Warren. 'Yes, it will be good,' the Alaskan replies. Ural, which is headquartered in Washington State, says that all of its motorcycles are assembled in Kazakhstan. The vehicles are known for their iconic sidecars, and were initially developed for use by the Soviet military during WW2 on the Eastern front. The company pulled all its production out of Russia after the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, as sanctions prevented them from exporting bikes.
