Trump brushes off Yemen chat breach as a ‘glitch’
US President Donald Trump on March 25 dismissed theaccidental addition of a journalist to a group chatabout Yemen air strikes as a “glitch” and stood by his top national security team despite the stunning breach.
Mr Trump’s administration faces mounting pressure following a report on March 24 by The Atlantic magazine’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg about the conversation on the Signal messaging app.
The chat about attacks on Iran-backed Houthi rebels involved some of the administration’s most senior officials, including Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice-President J.D. Vance and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz.
Mr Trump, who returned to the office in January, told broadcaster NBC in a phone interview that the breach was “the only glitch in two months, and it turned out not to be a serious one”.
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Zelensky welcomes truce, blasts US support for Russia exports
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on March 25 welcomed US-brokered agreements towards Ukraine and Russia halting strikes in the Black Sea and on energy infrastructure, but criticised Washington for agreeing to ease restrictions on Russian exports.
An earlier White House statement on the issue did not clearly state when such a halt would come into effect, or which restrictions would be lifted, and initial statements from Kyiv and Moscow showed apparent disagreements.
Ukraine assumed the partial ceasefire would come into force from the moment Washington published the deals, Mr Zelensky said, but Russia said the US first needed to lift sanctions affecting Russian agriculture exports.
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‘Distorted’ Trump portrait to be removed after he complains
Colorado state has pledged to remove a portrait of Donald Trump from public display after the US president complained that it was deliberately unflattering.
“Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted,” Mr Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.
The president suggested that British-born artist Sarah Boardman “must have lost her talent as she got older.”
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SpaceX rocket fuel makes stunning swirl in European sky
A stunning blue and white spiral spotted in skies across Europe late on March 24 was created by frozen fuel tumbling from a SpaceX rocket, according to weather forecasters and scientists.
The UK’s Met Office said on X it had received many reports of an “illuminated swirl” in the sky on the evening of March 24, likely caused by a rocket that had blasted off earlier from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
“Don’t panic! No, it wasn’t a UFO but the degassing of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket,” said the French state weather forecaster Meteo France in the country’s central Loire Valley.
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Grandparents arrested over France toddler death
A months-long investigation into the mysterious death of a French toddler took a surprise turn on March 25 when police arrested four people including the boy’s grandparents on suspicion of murder and concealment of a body.
The death of Emile Soleil, a boy of two-and-a-half whowent missing in a French Alpine villagein July 2023, had remained unexplained even after some of his remains were discovered nine months later.
Prosecutors at the time said the cause of his death could have been “a fall, manslaughter or murder”.
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United StatesDonald TrumpSecurity issuesUkraineVolodymyr ZelenskyWars and conflictsRussiaSpace and cosmosEuropeFranceMurder/Manslaughter
