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A consortium of American companies, backed by US President Donald Trump's administration, is seeking up to USD 4.4 billion in investment for an integrated liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Pakistan, according to a media report on Monday. The proposed project will cover imports, storage, regasification, gas transmission and sales to large consumers on a merchant basis, the Dawn newspaper reported. LNG is natural gas that has been cooled to around minus 162 degrees Celsius, turning it into a liquid and reducing its volume by about 600 times. This makes it easier to store and transport by specialised ships. At its destination, the LNG is converted back into gas through a process called regasification and supplied to consumers. It is used to generate electricity, fuel industrial processes, produce fertilisers and provide energy for heating and cooking. It is also used as a fuel in some vehicles and ships. Pakistan currently has no LNG storage facilities, leaving its supplies of ..
The federal government must pull three taxpayer-funded Trump administration ads from television and social media sites that appear to have been made for political or propaganda purposes, including one that trumpets the president's claim that every American will get USD 5,000 if Republicans keep control of the House and Senate in the midterm election, a judge has ruled. US District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon in New York sided with a coalition, including the nonpartisan watchdog Common Cause, in ordering the government to take down the advertisements entitled USD 5,000 to Americans," "Every Democrat Voted Against No Tax on Tips," and "Cost of Socialism." She said they must be taken off official government websites, including social media sites such as YouTube, Instagram, or other similar sites. She also ordered that any slots, placements, reservations, or arrangements for the airing or dissemination of the ads through authorised third parties, including by Trump's flagship super PAC MAGA
A localised ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia took effect early Tuesday ahead of a humanitarian mission led by US first lady Melania Trump, as missile attacks resumed in Kyiv. Meanwhile, Finland's president and Norway's prime minister spoke on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, officials said, in their first known direct contact since shortly after Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. After the conversation with Putin, the two Nordic leaders had a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, according to Zelenskyy's office. Russia and Ukraine began observing a localised ceasefire in a devastated southern Ukrainian city Tuesday, before a planned humanitarian mission brokered by US first lady Melania Trump, but Moscow kept up its deadly missile attacks on other cities in the meantime. The local pause in fighting started at 3 am to allow an aid mission into the Russia-occupied city of Oleshky later this week. The situation in
The US government isn't doing enough to fight the surge in cyberscams, and partnerships with the private sector remain fragmented and voluntary, an investigation into the global scam industry led by the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress has found. The government doesn't even have a unified accounting of how much money has been seized from overseas scam compounds, nor how much has been returned to victims, according to the report, released Tuesday by ranking Democrats Senator Maggie Hassan and Rep Don Beyer. Citing findings from a yearlong investigation into global scams by The Associated Press and FRONTLINE, the report called for greater collaboration across agencies, support for victims, and deeper private sector engagement. "Transnational criminal organisations run massive compounds that exploit US technology, including AI, to carry out scams against Americans with devastating consequences," Hassan said in an email. "The scale of this exponentially growing challenge ...
The White House has completed the review of a proposal to modernise the permanent labour certification process (PERM), considered as the first step for sponsoring foreign workers for a green card. The Department of Labour proposal seeks to revise the labour market test and other aspects of the PERM programme which were last modified in 2004. It had submitted the proposal to the Office of Management and Budget of the White House for review in July. The agency is advancing the proposal amid a broader enforcement crackdown targeting the PERM programme by the US administration as part of the actions taken by the Anti-Fraud Taskforce led by Vice President J D Vance. Earlier this month, the US suspended PERM programmes of Microsoft, Adobe and six other tech employers such as Infosys Technologies and Tata Group. The specific content of the proposal will not be known until publication, but according to the description of the proposed rule, it would revise the minimum standards for PERM ..
The US Treasury Department proposed a rule on Thursday to crack down on American high-tech investments such as supercomputing and artificial intelligence in China, Russia, North Korea and other "countries of concern". The US government has been working for years to deny China and other adversaries investments that could help them boost their military power. That programme began in 2023 when then-President Joe Biden signed an executive order putting restrictions on outbound US investments in sectors such as semiconductors, quantum computing and artificial intelligence going into China. Treasury later established the Outbound Investment Security Programme. In December 2025, Congress passed a law that codified and expanded the programme to target more technologies and more foreign countries, including Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Russia. The inclusion of Russia in the proposed rule has come days after President Donald Trump waived sanctions on Russia following a diesel deal with Presid
The Trump administration moved on Wednesday to end its legal fight to overhaul a popular student loan forgiveness programme. The Department of Justice appealed after federal judges ruled in June in favour of advocates who said the Public Service Loan Forgiveness programme risked becoming a tool for political retribution. But it dropped two appeals on Wednesday in single-sentence joint agreements, which stipulated that each side would pay its own fees. Federal officials provided no explanation, but advocates praised the ruling. "The Trump administration's attempt to weaponise public service loan forgiveness against organisations it disagrees with was anti-democratic and unlawful from the start," Dan Zibel, an attorney for the group Student Defense, said in a written statement. "This is a significant victory for millions of Americans who have dedicated their careers to public service." The PSLF programme was designed to make jobs in government, public schools, fire and police ...
Vice President J D Vance declined to endorse Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu for reelection a day after President Donald Trump endorsed the embattled Israeli leader. "The president has the most influential endorsement in American or international political history," Vance said on Monday during an interview with journalist Mark Halperin. "I endorse American candidates, and that's where I'm focused on the midterms," Vance said, while travelling to campaign for Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley of North Carolina. "So, I'm not getting involved in Israeli elections." Vance has campaigned for a foreign leader -- then-Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban -- last spring before the right-wing leader's party lost that country's parliamentary election. Vance's deference to Trump on Netanyahu comes at an extraordinarily sensitive time for Jewish Americans and the US alliance with Israel. Concerns about antisemitism have surged across the political spectrum ahead of the midterm ..
The US Treasury Department said Tuesday that it's imposing USD 1.2 billion in fines on Bank of America for allegedly violating anti-money laundering and sanctions laws. The fines on America's second-biggest bank amount to the third-largest in the department's history. "When a bank of this size fails to meet its anti-money laundering and sanctions obligations, the consequences extend far beyond its own walls, exposing the entire US financial system to significant illicit finance risks," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. "Today's actions send a clear message that even the biggest financial institutions are not above the law." Treasury said Bank of America also reached an USD 11.6 million settlement with the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control over "apparent violations of numerous sanctions programs, including on Iran, Russia, narcotics, and global terrorism." In a statement, Treasury said its Financial Crimes Enforcement Network assessed the USD 1.2 bill
The US Department of Justice is investigating whether the decision of the White House television press pool to halt coverage of President Donald Trump last month violated antitrust law, an agency spokesperson said Saturday. Emily Covington, a spokesperson for the department, said group boycotts among business competitors might violate US law. "The Antitrust Division is simply investigating to determine whether these news organizations have violated the antitrust laws," she said. The announcement came after the television pool of five broadcasters last month ceased presidential coverage after the administration barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House. Messages were sent late Saturday to the five outlets seeking comment: ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX and NBC. The White House press pool, which is a rotating cast of news outlets that covers the president, has become a proxy for the wider fight over whether the president, or anyone, can control the content of news reports - a type of
President Donald Trump said Monday that he will stop using taxpayer funds for television advertisements glorifying himself that sparked a major backlash, and instead tap his super PAC to cover costs going forward. In a post on his social media site, Trump defended the ads, which cost at least USD 1.5 million in federal funds and have drawn intense criticism. Trump said they were "positive promotion for our Great USA." "This is a rather standard thing to do," the president wrote, while blaming intense criticism for using taxpayer funds on the ads on the "Radical Left." But the president added that he'd "decided to do the Patriotic Ads, among others, and pay for them myself, and with money I raised for MAGA, Inc." That is Trump's political war chest, which had amassed more than USD 400 million by the end of July. Trump has begun to tap it to boost Republican candidates around the country ahead of midterm elections. Trump provided no details on reimbursing taxpayers for ads that alrea