US pulls last aircraft carrier in Asia as Trump focuses on Iran and the Western Hemisphere

BY BEN FINLEY AND DIDI TANG
Updated 8:18 PM PDT, August 15, 2026
Leer en español

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s war against Iran is stretching the limits of U.S. aircraft carriers and leaving the western Pacific without one of the key American warships as China shows more signs of aggression.

The perils of falling in love as a Communist Party member in China

World China

10 min read

By Sylvie Zhuang

4 hr ago

Hong Kong — She was about to marry the love of her life, a foreign man she met at an overseas airport, who’d asked for her number and quickly followed up. But instead of congratulating their long-time colleague, her co-workers, under the orders of their department head, urged her to think again.

Victims of Northern Michigan mass shooting range in age from 13 to 53

Updated: Aug. 15, 2026, 7:56 p.m.
Published: Aug. 15, 2026, 12:41 p.m.
By Jennifer Eberbach | jeberbach@mlive.com
MISSAUKEE COUNTY, MI — Michigan State Police officials have released details on the victims of a Northern Michigan mass shooting that left six people dead, including the suspected shooter, and another injured across three crime scenes.

Hurricane Lala Passes Big Island: Hawaiʻi Spared From Direct Hit

Big Island

UPDATE: The eye of the storm passed the southern point of Hawaiʻi island without making landfall, but left one person dead, others injured by a falling tree.

By Twilight Greenaway,

Taylor Nāhulukeaokalani Cozloff,

Kevin Dayton

About 10 hours ago

The eye of Hurricane Lala passed the southern tip of the Big Island as of Saturday evening, bringing a storm that blew fierce winds, caused gushing floods, knocked out power for some 60,000 people and contributed to the injuries of several people — at least one fatally.

In Jesus land DSA candidates don't flourish. That's why you need a man like Rob Sand

Edited by Yiannis Damellos

August 15, 2026

I was looking for a Democratic Socialist candidate in Iowa, but I could not find one. Iowa has shifted from a moderate swing state into a reliably conservative Republican stronghold, which explains why Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates do not run statewide there. What I found was a Christian fellow who goes by the name of Rob Sand and is considered the best Democratic hope to flip the State.

Lithuania's corgi racers run at their own pace

By Andrius Sytas
August 15, 202610:54 AM PDT
Updated 4 hours ago
VILNIUS, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Corgi owners waved toys, treats and even a broom on Saturday to coax their dogs over the finish line at a race in Lithuania's capital, ​where many of the competitors seemed more interested in sniffing around than ‌winning.

UK hits back after Netanyahu labels it 'the Islamic republic of Britain'

Copyright AP Photo

By Nathan Rennolds

Published on 15/08/2026 - 8:16 GMT+2•Updated 8:17

ShareCommentsAdd Euronews on Google

Netanyahu made the comments during an army radio podcast interview, in which he also joked that the UK was the "first Islamic republic with nuclear weapons."

Hawaii braces for potential first direct hit by a hurricane in 34 years

Hawaii is bracing for what could be its first direct hit from a hurricane since 1992, as category one storm Lala churns off its coast

15 minutes ago

Brandon Drenonand

Packing 75mph (120km/h) winds, Lala gained hurricane strength on Saturday. In a worst-case scenario, it could dump up to 25in (63cm) of rain on Big Island and produce a 3ft storm surge.

West Wing Is Crumbling as Trump’s Behavior Triggers Exodus

 DAILY BEAST  TRUMPLAND  ROME IS BURNING 

Karoline Leavitt is one of four White House stalwarts to leave this summer. And more are on their way.

David Gardner

Chief National Correspondent  

Updated Aug. 15, 2026 4:19 AM EDT Published Aug. 14, 2026 3:17 PM EDT 

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty

Donald Trump’s increasingly eccentric behavior has led to a West Wing exodus amid concerns that the White House is veering out of control.

5 people shot at Virginia State University as police investigate multiple shooters

BY PATRICK WHITTLE
Updated 7:25 AM PDT, August 15, 2026
A shooting involving multiple suspects and five people shot at Virginia State University prompted a campus lockdown early Saturday.

It happened near the university’s Quad Annexes, where campus police and Chesterfield County officers discovered five people suffering from gunshot wounds outside campus dormitories. Officers responded just before 1:30 a.m. and the lockdown was lifted at about 9 a.m., county police said.

Iran rejects ‘delusions’ after Trump says he wants the Strait of Hormuz to be a U.S. territory

“As long as you do not accept the reality of defeat and stop indulging in delusions, Iran will continue to enforce the blockade,” 

Iran’s deputy foreign minister said.
Aug. 15, 2026

By Amin Khodadadi

TEHRAN, Iran — A defiant Iran called on the U.S. to “accept the reality of defeat and stop indulging in delusions” after President Donald Trump suggested that he would soon declare the Strait of Hormuz a “territory of the United States.”

Magnitude 7.7 earthquake strikes off coast of Indonesia, tsunami warning issued

Friday, August 14, 2026 5:31 PM
ASSOCIATED PRESS

A powerful magnitude 7.7 quake has struck off the coast of Indonesia, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia early Saturday, damaging buildings and homes, and triggering a tsunami warning. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Trump's vaccine order would require millions of individual shots last used decades ago

Health 

Aug 14, 2026 4:16 PM EDT

By Matthew Perrone 

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Public health experts have been quick to condemn an executive order from President Donald Trump aimed at upending childhood vaccinations in the U.S., but the biggest obstacles may be the unprecedented financial and logistical challenges it would impose on parents, health providers and drugmakers.

The Odyssey Belongs to All of Us

In many ways, Christopher Nolan’s film is not a faithful adaptation. But it takes seriously both what the text is doing and how it has been read since. Why, then, have Emily Wilson and other scholars been so dismissive? 

Sukaina Hirji August 14, 2026

Tell me, O Muse, of a complicated text. For scholars of antiquity, it has been equal parts bewildering and gratifying to see Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey stir up such charged reactions, from the MAGA meltdown over Nolan’s casting choices, to the massive box office numbers and countless social media posts analyzing and memeifying every aspect of the film, to the critical response from many scholars—the most viral of which was a pan written by my colleague and famed translator Emily Wilson in the London Review of Books.

Can Youth persuade David Gilmour to stage a live show with The Orb?

“It could be more amazing than U2’s triumph in Las Vegas. I think you could even blow that out of the water” 
By Julian Marszalek ( Prog, Classic Rock )
Published 3 days ago

In 2010, producer Youth (aka Martin Glover of Killing Joke) connected David Gilmour with The Orb, and result was the album Metallic Spheres – which was rebooted in 2023 as Metallic Spheres In Colour. Youth told Prog how it all came about, and couldn’t hide his enthusiasm over the idea of a live show, featuring the Pink Floyd guitarist.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Live at Slane Castle 2003 Full Concert (High Quality)

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Live at Slane Castle 2003

Full Concert (High Quality)

The legendary Red Hot Chili Peppers - Live at Slane Castle concert, filmed in Ireland on August 23, 2003, is widely considered one of the band's greatest live performances. Playing to a massive crowd of 80,000 fans, the show captures the band at the absolute peak of their By the Way album era.

The Lesson Watergate Was Supposed to Teach

DNYUZ

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. thought Nixon’s downfall would restrain presidents for generations. Instead, Watergate helped write the script for the scandals that followed.

August 13, 2026

By Jake Lundberg

PHOTO: The New York Times

Historians are generally better off interpreting the past than predicting the future. By training, we’re meant to read sources, not tea leaves. In the fall of 1973, during the middle acts of Watergate’s Shakespearean drama, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. tried to do a little bit of both. In the cover story of The Atlantic’s November issue that year, “The Runaway Presidency,” Schlesinger cast President Richard Nixon’s abuses as the result of long-standing historical trends that had empowered the chief executive, and in the process offered a hopeful prognosis for what was to come. “Watergate,” Schlesinger wrote, “is potentially the best thing to have happened to the presidency in a long time. If the trails are followed to their end, many, many years will pass before another White House staff dares take the liberties with the Constitution and the laws the Nixon White House has taken.”

Fiasco in the Factory: Taxpayers Funded a $533 Million Artillery Plant That Made Nothing

by Jesse Coburn
August 12, 2026, 6:00 am

Reporting Highlights

• Ready, Fire, Aim: In a rushed process exempted from normal rules, the Army hired General Dynamics, which brought on a Turkish subcontractor with little vetting, to make artillery shells.
• Money for Nothing: Despite being paid $533 million, General Dynamics did not produce a single usable shell at its new factory — and has not been held publicly accountable.
• Wages of Failure: Since the Army halted two production lines at the factory, the General Dynamics unit responsible for the debacle has received contract awards totaling $2.5 billion.