Blanche Rescinds Trump $1.8 Billion Fund, Wins GOP Backing

This is the evening edition of the One News Page Global Briefing, for Monday, the third of August, twenty twenty-six. Here is what matters now.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has formally rescinded President Donald Trump's one point eight billion dollars "anti-weaponization fund," a mechanism intended to compensate political allies. The move came after Republican senators demanded written assurances that the arrangement was dead. G O P Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who had threatened to block Blanche's nomination, announced Monday that they would advance his bid and support him. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on his nomination Tuesday. Trump is reportedly exploring ways to revive the fund, but the formal rescission remains in place and the nomination support is secured.

Meanwhile, in the United States, wildfires across Washington state, including around Spokane, have destroyed hundreds of homes and other buildings and forced large-scale evacuations amid extreme heat and drought. Officials described the outbreak as the largest natural disaster in Spokane's history. Figures varied by source. The Guardian reported that sixty thousand people had fled and that fifteen major blazes were raging, while Euronews reported about six hundred buildings destroyed and five thousand home evacuations. Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown said nearly half of the city's neighborhoods had been evacuated or were at risk, and firefighters were hoping that improving weather would help contain the flames.

In the Middle East, President Trump said he called off planned new attacks on Iran after Tehran and other Middle Eastern countries asked the United States to hold off, claiming that "the perimeters of a deal" had been agreed to. The announcement followed reports that he had been planning intense weekend strikes and a Friday threat to hit Iran "very hard." Trump said negotiations with Iran would begin Monday but declined to set a deadline, while mediators disputed his assertion that an outline of a deal was already in place. He again called for the immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran, meanwhile, said it was nearing an agreement with Oman over a new shipping route through the strait.

Elsewhere in Asia, Myanmar's detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi met a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the aid organization and Myanmar's government confirmed. The eighty-one-year-old Nobel laureate was ousted in the February twenty twenty-one military coup, and her whereabouts and health have been largely unknown since. Her son, Kim Aris, said photographs of the meeting gave him "a reason to hope" for the first time since the coup. Myanmar's civil war has killed more than one hundred thousand people on all sides.

In entertainment news, Ariana Grande announced she will step back from public-facing work after her world tour ends next month, citing "endless, ongoing public scrutiny." She has withdrawn from a planned twenty twenty-seven London revival of "Sunday in the Park with George," in which she was to appear opposite her "Wicked" co-star Jonathan Bailey.

In Indonesia, a passenger ferry carrying at least two hundred and fifty people caught fire in waters off Madura island, killing at least five people and leaving forty-one others missing, Indonesian authorities said. A total of two hundred and twenty-five people were rescued, some after jumping into the sea.

At the B B C, Tony Livesey has left B B C Radio five Live after sixteen years. He stepped back from his show last month following allegations about his previous career as editor-in-chief of David Sullivan's Sport newspapers, and staff were told he would not return.

In U S politics, the author of an internal Democratic Party report on the twenty twenty-four presidential election loss claimed that a chapter discussing generational wealth accumulated by high-ranking elected officials was omitted from the published version. The author also said the missing section raised questions about President Biden's decision to seek re-election. The Democratic National Committee disputed the characterization, and the dispute has added to party turmoil.

In sport, Serena and Venus Williams will play women's doubles at the Cincinnati Open after receiving a wild card, marking their first doubles appearance since the twenty twenty-two U S Open. The sisters have won fourteen major doubles titles; the U S Open begins on thirty-one August.

In the United Kingdom, Christopher Phillips, sixty, was sentenced to two years and four months in prison after pleading guilty to concealing his mother Sylvia's body in a freezer at their shared home for almost three years and fraudulently receiving more than seventy thousand pounds of her benefits and other funds.

Also in Britain, Rod Liddle, the provocative columnist for the Sunday Times and the Sun and a former editor of B B C Radio four's Today programme, has died after a short illness. He was sixty-six.

That was the evening edition of the One News Page Global Briefing. Read the complete briefing and explore its supporting coverage at One News Page.