Month: October 2025

Plans for a potential summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin appear to be off the table for now, despite Trump’s recent claim that the two leaders would soon meet in Budapest to discuss the ongoing war in Ukraine.

A senior White House official confirmed Tuesday that “there are no plans for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the immediate future,” effectively halting speculation of a meeting in the coming weeks. Trump had told reporters last Thursday that he expected to sit down with Putin “within two weeks or so,” suggesting that senior advisers from both nations would hold preliminary discussions first. Those early talks began on Monday when Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov by phone.

According to the White House, that conversation went well enough that no in-person meeting between the two diplomats is currently planned.  The official said that “Secretary Rubio and Foreign Minister Lavrov had a productive call. Therefore, an additional in person meeting between the Secretary and Foreign Minister is not necessary, and there are no plans for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the immediate future.”

A second White House source described the call as “productive” but added that Trump decided to “press pause” after being briefed, believing both sides were not yet prepared to engage in serious peace negotiations. Another Rubio-Lavrov phone call could take place later this week, though no specific date has been confirmed. Both diplomats are expected to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit this weekend.

Trump’s interest in rekindling dialogue with Putin has made little tangible progress since his phone call with Putin last Thursday, and his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House last Friday. Zelenskyy, who visited Washington to appeal for U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles and other advanced weaponry, revealed Monday that the Trump administration had declined to provide Ukraine with the long-range missiles—though he said the “issue is not off the table.” Despite the setback, Zelenskyy described his meeting with Trump as “positive” and said he was awaiting word on whether he might be invited to participate in the now-stalled Budapest discussions.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin has emphasized that no meeting between Trump and Putin had ever been formally scheduled. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that “you can’t postpone what was not scheduled, with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov echoing that sentiment in an interview with Russia’s TASS state news agency, noting, “we cannot postpone what has not been agreed upon.” Ryabkov added that internal discussions are ongoing and promised to share updates “as new information becomes available.”

Lavrov later confirmed that his conversation with Rubio focused on developing a “framework for the next meeting” between the two presidents. “The key point is not the venue or timing, but how we will proceed substantively on the tasks that were agreed upon and on which broad understanding was reached in Anchorage,” he said, referencing Trump and Putin’s August meeting in Alaska. Lavrov added that Moscow’s stance remains consistent with the principles both leaders outlined during that earlier summit. “Those understandings are based on the agreement achieved at that time, which President Trump very succinctly formulated when he said that what is needed is a long-term, sustainable peace, not an immediate ceasefire that would lead nowhere,” he explained.

Lavrov also criticized the U.S. for what he characterized as an unwillingness to address the deeper causes of the war, saying “now, Washington is saying that we need to stop immediately and not discuss anything further. We need to stop and let history decide. You see, if we just stop, we will forget about the root causes of this conflict, which the American administration clearly understood when Donald Trump came to power.”

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According to federal officials, two people — a Deputy U.S. marshal and the suspect — were injured Tuesday morning during an immigration enforcement operation in South Los Angeles.

Sources told news outlet CNN that the incident unfolded around 8:52 a.m. near 400 East 20th Street, just south of the 10 Freeway, as federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Marshals Service conducted a targeted enforcement stop.

According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the operation began when “ICE law enforcement officers, assisted by U.S. Marshals, pulled the illegal alien over in a standard law enforcement procedure.” Officials said the situation escalated when “the illegal alien weaponized his vehicle and began ramming the law enforcement vehicle in an attempt to flee.” DHS said that as officers attempted to stop the suspect “fearing for the safety of the public and law enforcement, our officers followed their training and fired defensive shots.” The agency confirmed that “the illegal alien was shot in the elbow and one law enforcement officer was shot in the hand by a ricochet bullet. Both are in the hospital.”

A law enforcement source said that the ICE agent’s firearm discharged after the suspect rammed a vehicle used by the enforcement team. Investigators believe the shooting occurred as an officer smashed the suspect’s car window with their service weapon and tried to pull the driver out, causing the weapon to discharge and strike both the suspect and a deputy marshal.

The injured deputy marshal, who sustained a gunshot wound to the hand, was taken to a local hospital and is reported to be in stable condition with a non-life-threatening injury, according to the U.S. Marshals Central District of California. The suspect’s condition remains unclear as of Tuesday afternoon, though officials earlier described him as having been “gravely wounded.” DHS later confirmed that the man, described as an unauthorized immigrant who had “previously escaped from custody,” was taken back into custody following the incident.

The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed that the shooting involved a federal agent and said the department is assisting in the ongoing investigation. Authorities have not released the suspect’s name or any additional details as the inquiry continues.

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Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced that it has fully restored service following extensive internet outages on Monday that left many users unable to access several major websites. The cloud computing giant, which powers a large portion of the publicly available internet infrastructure and countless digital tools, confirmed in an update Monday evening that all AWS systems had resumed normal operations.

Widespread internet outages occurred throughout the day on Monday after the major outage at AWS disrupted access to popular platforms, apps, and games for millions of users. AWS went down due to a malfunction in one of its core database systems, the company said.

AWS had previously said on Monday that the company was continuing to “apply mitigation steps,” adding that “we are in the process of validating a fix,”  referring to a specific problem set off by the connectivity issue announced shortly after 3 a.m. Eastern Time.

AWS explained that the disruption originated from a problem with its EC2 internal network, which in turn affected several services, including DynamoDB, SQS, and Amazon Connect.  By 6:35 a.m. ET, AWS announced that the database issue had been “fully mitigated” but warned that users might still encounter performance delays. However, just a few hours later — at 10:14 a.m. ET — the company acknowledged ongoing “significant API errors and connectivity issues across multiple services in the US-EAST-1 Region” and said it was still investigating. The company later said in a statement at 11:43 a.m. ET that “the root cause is an underlying internal subystem responsible for monitoring the health of our network load balancers,” adding that it was temporarily limiting new customer requests while restoring full functionality.

The disruption impacted major platforms including Snapchat – who confirmed that some users were “having issues,” while social media posts showed people losing access to friends lists and daily streaks – as well as the McDonald’s app and gaming services like Roblox and Fortnite. The outage highlighted how dependent businesses and institutions have become on cloud-based technology. According to the tracking site Downdetector, the outage prompted more than 6.5 million user reports, showing that over 1,000 different websites and online services were offline.

Additional major companies also affected included including Microsoft Outlook, Zoom, and Lyft, as well as United Airlines, T-Mobile, Starbucks, and Delta, who reported minor flight delays. Users of Medicare, the U.S. federal health insurance program, said they were unable to log in during its open enrollment period. In the U.K., the HM Revenue and Customs website also went down for some users. The outage affected even Amazon’s own services like Prime Video, with Ring doorbell cameras and Alexa-enabled smart devices being rendered unresponsive, while others couldn’t access the Amazon website or download books to their Kindle devices.

Similarly, media outlets such as Disney, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Associated Press also reported problems, with the AP activating its “AP Backup” system to maintain access to breaking news. Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S., also reported its platform was down due to the AWS outage; with other apps including Robinhood, Venmo, and Duolingo also affected.

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President Donald Trump met with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the White House on Monday, where the two leaders discussed trade and the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal, in addition to signing an agreement on Australia’s rare-earth minerals — which could potentially serve as a bargaining chip in the United States’ trade war with China.

The meeting marked Albanese’s first visit to the White House since Trump returned to office. The Australian prime minister is aiming to strengthen his country’s relationship with Washington, leveraging Australia’s vast reserves of critical minerals to deepen strategic ties. The push comes amid global unease after China introduced sweeping export limits on rare earth materials — a move that has shaken economies worldwide. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last week that America and its allies, including Australia, are discussing a coordinated response to the restrictions.

Trump said at the White House as the two leaders met: “We are discussing critical minerals and rare earths and we’re going to be signing an agreement that’s been negotiated over a period of four or five months. We’ve been working on that for quite a while. In about a year from now, we’ll have so much critical mineral and rare earths that you won’t know what to do with them.” The two leaders signed the agreement at the top of the meeting, with a White House official later announcing that the United States and Australia will jointly invest more than $3 billion in critical mineral initiatives over the next six months. The projects are tied to recoverable resources estimated to exceed $50 billion in value.

Albanese described the new agreement as an $8.5 billion “pipeline that we have ready to go,” calling it a major step forward in the partnership on minerals and rare earths. He praised the deal as “taking it to the next level,” highlighting the growing economic and defense collaboration between the two nations.

According to both leaders, the pact will involve Australia taking on a greater role in processing rare earth elements. Albanese noted that the country has the “capacity” to increase those operations, signaling Australia’s readiness to expand its part in the supply chain. Under the plan, the United States and Australia will each contribute $1 billion over the next six months to launch initial projects. Additional ventures are expected in both nations, and one initiative will include Japan, Albanese said.

Later when asked whether the U.S. might consider lifting tariffs on Australia, Trump shifted to praising his overall trade strategy before noting, “I will say this, Australia, pays very low tariffs, very, very low tariffs. Australia pays among the lowest tariffs.”

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