A POLITICO poll found limited support for Ursula von der Leyen across Germany, France and Spain.

Only around one in five Germans and Spaniards, and 12% of French respondents, said she was doing a good job.

Meanwhile, 45% of Germans, nearly one-third of French and Spanish respondents said she was doing a bad job.

More than one in five French respondents said they did not know who she was, compared with 10% in Spain and 5% in Germany.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev:

Look, the European Parliament consists of these Islamophobes, and this should always remain in the spotlight.

There is an undeclared war against our religion and against the Islamic world, and Islamophobia is only a small part of it. Ignoring the Muslim world, discrediting it, and equating it with terrorism.

The insulting acts against our values and against the Holy Quran — do you think these are happening by accident? No. This is a deliberate policy.

Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov:

Our Western colleagues — people with colonial genetics — have not lost their colonial and neocolonial instincts.

They instinctively, and perhaps consciously — probably many of them consciously — act precisely in line with their colonial habits and tendencies.

ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming is now Asia's richest person on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, surpassing Gautam Adani.

Both around $105 billion but Zhang ranks higher.

His wealth jumped $12 billion this month after Bloomberg updated ByteDance's private valuation using BlackRock/Fidelity filings and cut its risk discount from 25% to 10% following TikTok's US resolution (Oracle/Silver Lake JV).

ByteDance's AI products (Doubao chatbot, Seedance video model) also boosted investor interest.

Zhang's fortune has grown 8x since 2019.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Greece:

Türkiye conveys its warnings and objections to Greece through bilateral channels when necessary, asserts its position at NATO, and takes the matter to the United Nations.

We invite our neighbor and ally Greece to fulfill the requirements of its treaty obligations in a more mature manner, in line with the spirit of alliance.

At a time when there are so many security challenges around us, Greece should not add another one.

Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov:

The International Criminal Court is a structure that probably should not even be criticized in detail.

Everyone knows that it is a quasi-judicial body and has little in common with justice.

It is completely controlled by Western sponsors — although not by all Western sponsors.

Some Western countries, including the United States, do not want this court to continue its activities because, as you can see, it irritates many in the North, the South, the West and the East.

U.S. officials met Houthi representatives in Oman over the weekend after the group seized a strategic stretch of Yemen’s Red Sea coast.

Source: Reuters

Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov:

The United States has clearly said that NATO — Ukraine’s membership in NATO — must be forgotten if we want to settle the conflict. And the realities on the ground must be recognized.

They call this the territorial issue. Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff have said several times that the territorial issue is the root of the problem.

Let them call it a territorial issue. For us, it is a question of people.

Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov:

We are doing everything possible to minimize human losses, above all among civilians.

Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov:

If the Americans had not walked away from the Anchorage agreements, if Europe had not pulled them away from those agreements, we would already have been living without war for a year.

That is an obvious fact. Draw your own conclusions.

Houthis told US officials in an Oman meeting that they won't attack American vessels, Israeli ships, or commercial vessels — only Saudi ones.

This is a notable shift.

Since after the May 2025 ceasefire the Houthis explicitly excluded Israel and kept targeting Israeli-linked shipping.

The meeting included sanctioned Houthi official Mohammad Abdulsalam and Abdelmalik al-Ajri.

Source: Reuters

NEW: Yemen's Houthis claim two new strikes on Saudi Arabia:

Aramco facilities in Yanbu hit with "dozens of ballistic missiles and drones" causing "large fires and widespread destruction," and Khamis Mushait air base hit with ballistic missiles.

They say it was retaliation for 450+ Saudi airstrikes this week.

The Yanbu claim is notable.

The pipeline feeding that port is already offline from a Sept 10 attack and Aramco is canceling European deliveries, so damage to the facilities themselves would compound the disruption.

No independent confirmation of damage.

Houthis pledged continued strikes deep into Saudi territory under a "blockade for blockade, escalation for escalation" doctrine.

Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov:

Previously, Trump said, "This is Biden's war, if I were president, nobody would have started it."

But now this has become the war of the current administration.

All the sanctions introduced under Biden have been extended without exception by the Trump administration.

Pentagon Seeks Fit and Groomed Troops for Hegseth’s Address

Commanders are being asked to nominate troops who pass fitness and waist-to-height standards and meet strict grooming requirements for Pete Hegseth’s 'State of the Force' address.

READ MORE

The U.S. Navy is considering buying warships from Japan and South Korea to quickly expand its fleet and counter China’s naval buildup.

Options include Japan’s Mogami-class frigates and South Korean-built vessels as Washington works to rebuild its own shipbuilding capacity.

Source: Nikkei Asia

Ted Cruz on Trump:

I don't think he respects girly men. He doesn't respect people who are weak.

He respects people who have strength because, listen, the guy's got a cast iron backbone.

Ted Cruz:

The Democrats have handed their party over to the crazy. I mean, we see the rise of the Marxists and the Islamists who are doing massive damage.

And if the Democrats take the House or, God forbid, the House and the Senate, they will spend two years waging war on President Trump.

Ted Cruz on Trump:

In that 2016 campaign, I was the only candidate who beat Trump over and over again.

I won 12 states, and he and I stood in the arena and I punched him in the face as hard as I could, and he punched me in the face as hard as he could, and we kept on going.

And I will say, look, Trump, I think, respects someone who has backbone, someone who’s a fighter.

Ted Cruz:

They hate President Trump with a burning passion and they’re going to crawl over broken glass to vote.

So, we’re going to see real left-wing turnout and because they all are unified by hate of Trump.

Their party is not unified except they all hate Trump.

Q: Trump called you "Lyin’ Ted."

Ted Cruz: Look, the man has an instinctual genius. What was so effective about it was my single strongest attribute was that the voters trusted me — that they trusted that I said what I believed and did what I said.

And so the jiu-jitsu of Trump was to take my greatest strength and make an attack that goes right at it.

And I think he does that instinctually in a very effective way.

Ted Cruz on Trump:

Why does Trump resonate with a truck driver? They know the guy’s got balls.