Reporter: You're meeting with the Saudi Crown Prince next week.

Trump: More than meeting, we're honoring Saudi Arabia, the Crown Prince.

Mali: JNIM released footage showing its militants inside the Donzo militia headquarters they captured in Lolony, Sikasso region.

Trump on Epstein:

I was never in his island.

Bill Clinton went there supposedly 28 times.

Trump on Thailand and Cambodia:

I spoke to the Prime Ministers of both countries and they're doing great.

I think they’re going to be fine.

Trump on Saudi Arabia:

They want to buy a lot of F-35 jets, but they want to buy actually more than that fighter jet.

I'm looking at that.

Trump:

I hope that Saudi Arabia will be going into the Abraham Accords fairly shortly.

Senior Trump officials held three White House meetings this week to consider possible military operations in Venezuela.

Source: Reuters

Marco Rubio is ramping up U.S. pressure over Sudan’s war, linking any ceasefire to cutting weapons flows to the RSF.

In a call with the UAE Foreign Minister, Rubio pushed for a humanitarian pause and action to curb arms shipments to the group.

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The U.S. has reopened the long-closed Roosevelt Roads naval base in Puerto Rico as part of a major military buildup near Venezuela.

Source: CBS News

The UN Security Council extended the Abyei peacekeeping mission until November 2026, saying future renewals depend on progress in the Sudan–South Sudan dispute.

Sudan: Reports say RSF detained three North Darfur ministers in El-Fasher and killed Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Abbas Adam and relatives as they tried to flee.

Trump on Sadiq Khan:

He’s a terrible mayor… your mayor is a disaster.

Today you have people being stabbed in the ass or worse.

Trump to GB News:

You have areas in London and in Paris where the police don’t even want to go.

You have Sharia law where they don’t want to obey the laws of your country or France.

Trump to GB News:

You’re putting up windmills all over. You’re killing all the birds.

They’re ugly as hell, they make noise, they’re very unsafe, and every time that thing goes around it loses money.

Sudan: The army and allied forces recaptured Umm Dam Haj Ahmed in North Kordofan from UAE-backed RSF militias this morning.

NEW: Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said providing more aid to Ukraine would not help end the war with Russia and might “fuel further corruption,” citing a recent $100 million energy-sector graft scandal in Kyiv that prompted Zelensky to call for the dismissal of two ministers.

NYT:

A major corruption investigation in Ukraine has exposed a scheme tied to Zelensky’s longtime business partner, leading to ministerial resignations and public backlash.

Zelensky isn’t implicated but faces growing pressure for trying to curb anticorruption investigators earlier in the year.

The scandal damages his reformist image at a time when Ukrainians are suffering wartime blackouts and Western allies are urging a tougher fight against corruption.

NEW: Colombia signed a $3.6B deal with Saab for 17 Gripen E/F fighter jets (15 E models, 2 F trainers), with deliveries from 2026–2032.

The purchase finalizes a decision made in April and beats a competing US-backed F-16 offer.

China told its citizens to avoid traveling to Japan after Japan’s PM said the country could use its self-defence forces if China attacked Taiwan.

Nigeria: ISWAP reportedly ambushed a convoy between Damboa and Biu, killing several soldiers and CJTF members and abducting a brigade commander.

NATO allies — led by the Netherlands — have cancelled their joint plan to buy six Boeing E-7A Wedgetail AWACS aircraft, saying the effort lost its “strategic and financial foundations.”

NATO now says the E-3A replacement process is still underway and needs to speed up.

Allies are looking at alternative AWACS options such as Saab GlobalEye, L3Harris/Global 6500 CAEW, and Northrop Grumman’s E-2D.