Texas Weekly Online

Texas-trans-white
Menu
Menu

Author: shailender

Trump says he will be involved ‘indirectly’ in Iran nuclear talks

Trump says he will be involved ‘indirectly’ in Iran nuclear talks

The US president’s comments come ahead of a second round of high-stakes talks in Geneva on Tuesday. Listen to this article Listen to this article | 5 mins info United States President Donald Trump has said that he will be involved “indirectly” in the second round of the high-stakes nuclear talks between Iran and Washington in Geneva. Trump’s comments on Monday came as Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi travelled to the Swiss city for meetings ahead of the indirect talks with the US. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list Tensions in the Gulf region remain high ahead of the crucial negotiations, with the US deploying a second aircraft carrier to the region and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei warning that any attack on Iran would prompt a regional war. Trump told reporters on board Air Force One that the discussions on Tuesday were significant. “I’ll be involved in those talks, indirectly. And they’ll be very important,” he said. “Iran is a very tough negotiator.” Asked about the prospects for a deal, Trump said Iran had learned the consequences of its tough approach last June, when the US joined in Israel’s 12-day war on Iran and bombed three of its nuclear sites. The attacks came amid indirect talks between Iran and the US on Tehran’s nuclear programme and resulted in their derailment. However, Trump suggested Tehran was motivated to negotiate this time. “I don’t think they want the consequences of not making a deal,” he said. Despite the US president’s comments about Iran seeking an agreement, the talks face major potential stumbling blocks. Washington has demanded that Tehran forgo uranium enrichment on its soil and has sought to expand the scope of talks to non-nuclear issues, such as Iran’s missile stockpile. Advertisement But Tehran, which insists that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, has said it is only willing to discuss curbs on its programme in exchange for sanctions relief. It has said it will not accept zero uranium ‌enrichment and that its missile capabilities are off the table. ‘Fair and equitable deal’ Araghchi, who arrived in Geneva earlier on Monday, said he was in the city “with real ideas to achieve a fair and equitable deal”. He added, in a post on X, “What is not on the table: submission before threats.” The Iranian diplomat also met with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, in Geneva for a round of technical discussions. Tehran had suspended cooperation with the United Nations watchdog body after the US and Israel’s attacks on its nuclear sites. The IAEA has been calling on Iran for months to say what happened to its stockpile of 440kg (970 pounds) of highly-enriched uranium following the Israeli-US strikes and to let inspections fully resume, including in three key sites that were bombed: Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan. Tehran has allowed IAEA some access to the sites that were not damaged, but has not allowed inspectors to visit other sites, citing a potential risk of radiation. Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar, reporting from Tehran, said there was “optimism” in the Iranian capital ahead of the talks. “Officials here say the Iranian delegation in Geneva includes fully authorised economic, legal, political and technical teams. This signals that the Iranian side is ready for some serious concessions, particularly regarding its nuclear programme,” he said. But Serdar noted that the talks come in the face of a massive US military build-up in the region, which continues to grow. The Iranians, too, he said, were not “stepping back”, with the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launching military drills in the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf on Monday. Iran has ⁠repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital international waterway and oil export route from Gulf Arab states, in retaliation against any attack. The move would choke a fifth of global oil flows and send crude prices sharply higher. Iran has also threatened to strike US military bases in the region in the event of an attack, promoting concerns of a wider war. “This military escalation is going on in parallel with the diplomatic engagement. The regional countries are also stepping up diplomacy, because they have their concerns and they have their own fears,” Serdar said. Advertisement Adblock test (Why?)

Australian PM Albanese says no help for ISIL relatives held in Syria camp

Australian PM Albanese says no help for ISIL relatives held in Syria camp

Listen to this article Listen to this article | 4 mins info Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced that his government will not repatriate Australian women and children from Syria who have been identified as relatives of suspected ISIL (ISIS) fighters. “We have a very firm view that we won’t be providing assistance or repatriation,” Albanese told ABC News on Tuesday. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Albanese said that while it is “unfortunate” that children have been affected, Australia is “not providing any support”. “As my mother would say, you make your bed, you lie in it,” he said. “We have no sympathy, frankly, for people who travelled overseas in order to participate in what was an attempt to establish a caliphate to undermine and destroy our way of life,” he added. A spokesperson for Australian Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke also warned that those who return to Australia from Syria will face the law if they have committed crimes. “People in this cohort need to know that if they have committed a crime and if they return to Australia, they will be met with the full force of the law,” the spokesperson said, according to the Reuters news agency. A total of 34 women and children holding Australian citizenship were released on Monday from the Kurdish-controlled Roj detention camp in northern Syria. The Australians, who are said to be relatives of ISIL fighters, were later returned to the camp due to what was described as “technical reasons”, the Reuters and AFP news agencies reported. Roj detention camp director Hakmiyeh Ibrahim told Al Jazeera that the women and children from 11 families were handed over to relatives “who have come from Australia to collect them”. Advertisement The women and children were seen boarding minibuses to reach the Syrian capital, Damascus, from where they were to depart for Australia. But halfway through the trip, Kurdish escorts were ordered to turn back, as the group did not have permission “to enter government-held territory”, according to Al Jazeera’s Heidi Pett, who is reporting from Aleppo. Rashid Omar, an official at the Roj camp, later confirmed to AFP that the Australian nationals were forced to return to the detention facility. He said that representatives of the families were still working to resolve the issue with Syrian authorities. ‘Concern in the Australian population’ The humanitarian organisation Save the Children Australia filed a lawsuit in 2023 on behalf of 11 women and 20 children, seeking their repatriation, citing Australia’s “moral and legal responsibility” to its citizens. The Federal Court ruled against Save the Children, saying the Australian government did not control their detention in Syria. A 17-year-old Australian boy died while under detention in Syria in 2022. Rodger Shanahan, a Middle East security analyst, told Al Jazeera that the Australian government is facing more resistance to the return of its citizens from Syria following the deadly Bondi Beach attack in December, in which 15 people were killed, at a Jewish festival in Sydney. “I think that there’s a concern in the Australian population that people might appear to have done away with their radical views, but they still retain them deep down,” Shanahan said. While Kurdish-led forces still control the Roj camp, they withdrew from the larger al-Hol camp in January, when Syria’s central government’s security forces took control of the area. At one point, the al-Hol camp housed some 24,000 people, mostly Syrians, but also Iraqis, and more than 6,000 women and children with foreign nationalities. Governments around the world have been resisting the repatriation of their citizens from the camps in Syria. The Roj camp also housed United Kingdom-born Shamima Begum, who was 15 when she and two other girls travelled from London in 2015 to marry ISIL fighters in Syria. In 2019, the UK government revoked Begum’s citizenship soon after she was discovered in a detention camp in Syria. Since then, Begum has challenged the decision, which was turned down by an appeals court in February 2024. Born in the UK to Bangladeshi parents, Begum does not hold Bangladeshi citizenship. She is reported to still be in the Roj camp. Adblock test (Why?)

Train derails in Switzerland, injuring five amid avalanches in the Alps

Train derails in Switzerland, injuring five amid avalanches in the Alps

The accident, near the town of Goppenstein, occurred as the region is under its second-highest avalanche warning, a level four out of five. Listen to this article Listen to this article | 2 mins info Published On 17 Feb 202617 Feb 2026 Click here to share on social media share2 Share A regional train has derailed in southern Switzerland, injuring five people, police said, as the risk of avalanches in the region has reached its second-highest level. The accident on Monday near the town of Goppenstein occurred amid heavy snow and at an altitude of 1,216 metres (4,000 feet), according to the AFP news agency. “According to initial findings, an avalanche may have crossed the tracks shortly before the train passed,” police said, adding that the public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation. “Five people were injured. One of them was taken to hospital,” police added. The train accident follows a series of deadly avalanches across the Alps in recent days involving skiers. On Friday, three skiers were killed after being swept away by an avalanche in the upmarket French Alpine resort of Val d’Isere. Cedric Bonnevie, who oversees the resort’s pistes, said one of the victims was a French national while the others were foreign citizens. He said one victim appeared to have been caught in the avalanche high on the mountain slope, while the other two were part of a group of five, including a professional guide, lower on the mountain face and did not see the avalanche approaching. In Italy, rescuers said last week that a record 13 backcountry skiers, climbers and hikers had died in the mountains over the previous seven days, including 10 in avalanches triggered by an exceptionally unstable snowpack. Fresh snowfall during recent storms, combined with windswept snow sitting on weak internal layers, has created especially dangerous conditions across the Alpine arc bordering France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy, Italy’s Alpine Rescue said. Advertisement “Under such conditions, the passage of a single skier, or natural overloading from the weight of snow, can be sufficient to trigger an avalanche,” Federico Catania, Alpine Rescue’s spokesperson, said. The avalanche deaths have occurred on ungroomed mountain slopes, away from the well-maintained and monitored Winter Olympic sites in Lombardy near the Swiss border, Cortina d’Ampezzo in Veneto, and the cross-country skiing venues in Val di Fiemme, within the autonomous province of Trentino. A Securite Civile helicopter flies over an off-piste area around the Alpe d’Huez, French Alps, during an avalanche emergency response rescue mission on January 29, 2026 [Jeff Pachoud/AFP] Adblock test (Why?)

Thune guarantees voter ID bill to hit the Senate despite Schumer, Dem opposition: ‘We will have a vote’

Thune guarantees voter ID bill to hit the Senate despite Schumer, Dem opposition: ‘We will have a vote’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., is ready to put Senate Democrats to the test on voter ID legislation. The Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act has earned the backing of 50 Senate Republicans, including Thune, which is enough to break through a key procedural hurdle. Whether it can pass from the Senate to President Donald Trump’s desk is, for now, an unlikely scenario if lawmakers take the traditional path in the upper chamber. Still, Thune wants to put Democrats on the spot as midterm elections creep closer. “We will have a vote,” Thune told Fox News Digital. SCHUMER SAYS DEMS WILL FIGHT VOTER ID PUSH ‘TOOTH AND NAIL,’ BALKS AT DHS ROLE IN ELECTIONS His comments came as he crisscrossed his home state of South Dakota, where he and Republicans in their respective states are out selling their legislative achievements as primary season fast approaches. Thune viewed the opportunity of a floor vote as a way to have Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his caucus explain to voters why they would block a legislative push to federally enshrine voter ID and proof of citizenship to register to vote. “We will make sure that everybody’s on the record, and if they want to be against ensuring that only American citizens vote in our elections, they can defend that when they have to go out and campaign against Republicans this fall,” Thune said. COLLINS BOOSTS REPUBLICAN VOTER ID EFFORT, BUT WON’T SCRAP FILIBUSTER But the political makeup of the Senate will prove a tricky path to navigate if Republicans want to pass the bill. Though the majority of the Senate GOP backs the bill, without at least a handful of Senate Democrats joining them, it is destined to fall victim to the 60-vote filibuster threshold. And Schumer has time and again made clear that he and the majority of Senate Democrats view the legislation, which passed the House last week, as a tool of voter suppression that would unduly harm poorer Americans and minority groups. So Senate Republicans are looking at their options. One, which Thune already threw cold water on, is nuking the Senate filibuster. The other is turning to the talking, or standing, filibuster. It’s the physical precursor to the current filibuster that requires hours upon hours of debate over a bill. FETTERMAN SLAMS DEMOCRATS’ ‘JIM CROW 2.0’ VOTER ID RHETORIC AS PARTY UNITY FRACTURES Some fear that taking that path could paralyze the Senate floor. Thune acknowledged that concern, having previously made it himself, but noted another wrinkle. “A lot of people focus on unlimited debate, and yes, it is something that could drag on for weeks or literally, for that matter, months,” Thune said. “But it’s also unlimited amendments, meaning that every amendment — there’s no rules — so every amendment will be 51 votes.” He argued that there are several politically challenging amendments that could hit the floor that would put members in tough reelections in a hard spot and possibly cause them to pass, which “could also be very detrimental to the bill in the end.” Thune didn’t shut down the idea of turning to the talking filibuster, especially if it ended in lawmakers being able to actually pass the SAVE America Act. But in the Senate, outcomes are rarely guaranteed on politically divisive legislation. “I think that, you know, this obviously is a mechanism of trying to pursue an outcome, but I don’t know that, in the end, it’ll get you the outcome you want,” Thune said. “And there could be a lot of ancillary damage along the way.”

Swalwell’s ‘I should be working’ gym, pool videos resurface as Dem rival hammers his missed House votes

Swalwell’s ‘I should be working’ gym, pool videos resurface as Dem rival hammers his missed House votes

One of Rep. Eric Swalwell’s, D-Calif., top Democratic opponents in the race for California governor unleashed a “savage” campaign ad using Swalwell’s own words against him. Billionaire gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer, who was also unsuccessful in running for president in 2020, used multiple videos Swalwell posted on social media during the 2025 government shutdown by the pool and at the gym as an attack on his missed votes in Washington, D.C. The Swalwell videos, which were initially intended as an attack on Republicans and blaming them for why he wasn’t working during the 40+ day shutdown, repeatedly say, “I should be working.” “Eric Swalwell’s job is to vote in Congress,” the ad starts out in between videos of Swalwell in the pool and at the gym telling his followers that he “should be working” right now. “In 2025, Eric Swalwell missed 95 votes. That’s more than Rep. Raul Grijalva missed. Rep. Grijalva died in March 2025.” UNEARTHED PHOTO OF SWALWELL MEETING WITH TOP CCP OFFICIAL RAISES ALARM BELLS: ‘VERY DISTURBING’ According to GovTrack.US, Swalwell missed 102 out of 139 roll call votes, or 73%, between Sept. 19, 2025 and Feb. 9, 2026. In late November, he announced his run to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom as California’s next governor. In Steyer’s ad, the billionaire’s campaign claims Swalwell has missed 68% of votes since declaring his candidacy.   “He hasn’t been showing up to work, and now he’s asking for a promotion,” the advertisement concluded, as it continued showing clips of Swalwell bench pressing and talking about how he should be in a suit on Capitol Hill and not pumping iron.  ICE DIRECTOR FLIPS SCRIPT ON SWALWELL AFTER DEM LAWMAKER DEMANDED HIS RESIGNATION “Savage,” Democratic commentator Kaivan Shroff posted on X. “Steyer going negative on Swalwell this early is the latest piece of evidence Dem primaries this cycle are going to be nastier than they’ve been in a while,” senior Huffington Post editor Kevin Robillard posted on X. “Brutal ad,” Washington Free Beacon reporter Jon Levine posted on X. Swalwell began posting these videos last summer, complaining that Republicans had sent him home for political reasons.  “I should be working right now. I should be in Congress. I should be voting to lower your costs. But, instead, I’m in a pool because Republicans sent everyone home because they don’t want to release the Epstein files,” Swalwell said in a late July video he posted to his social media accounts from a glistening pool on the water. “We could be working to lower your costs, make sure healthcare is affordable, and make sure we are restoring the rights of everyone in our community. I should be working right now.” “Swalwell has, however, kept constituents informed of his workouts even if he is not actually working,” Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley posted on X last summer. “It turns out that the shutdown was not the problem since he is being outvoted by deceased colleagues.” According to Swalwell and other Democrats, at the time, Republicans sent everyone in Congress home early to avoid voting on an Epstein transparency app, later passed. However, Republicans said that Democrats were trying to ram through measures already being pursued by the executive branch at the time.  The pool video was part of a series of other “I should be working right now” videos from Swalwell at the time, including one he took while throwing out the first pitch for his hometown’s minor league baseball team and another one of him bench pressing 135 pounds at the gym. Fox News Digital reached out to Swalwell and his representatives for comment on the criticism about him missing votes, but did not hear back in time for publication.