Ukraine’s parliament confirmed energy executive Sergii Koretskyi as prime minister on Thursday, making him the third person to lead the wartime government in a broader cabinet reshuffle President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced this week.
Volodymyr Fesenko, director of the Penta think tank, said Koretskyi’s reputation as a capable manager who has stayed out of political factions gives him an advantage as he takes over the role during a difficult period for Ukraine’s energy sector.
Two decades running Ukraine’s energy companies
Koretskyi brings more than 20 years of experience in oil production and refining, energy retail, wholesale management, and international financing to the role. Since May 2025, he has served as CEO of Naftogaz, Ukraine’s largest state-owned company, which handles much of the country’s gas production, imports and supply.
Before leading Naftogaz, Koretskyi headed Ukrnafta, Ukraine’s largest oil company and part of the Naftogaz group. Earlier in his career, he ran the Western Oil Group and served as CEO of the Continuum Group, which owns WOG, one of Ukraine’s largest chains of filling stations.
Koretskyi was born in Lutsk, a city in western Ukraine. Outside the energy sector, he also founded a coffee chain business.
Winter preparation tops the agenda
Koretskyi takes office as Ukraine works to rebuild an energy grid battered by Russian strikes last winter, when the country’s power infrastructure absorbed its heaviest bombardment since the war began. Getting the grid ready for the coming winter will be one of his first major tasks, a challenge complicated by Ukraine’s continued shortage of interceptor missiles needed to shoot down incoming Russian ballistic missiles.
Zelenskiy told reporters Wednesday that winter preparation is the government’s top priority heading into the colder months.
Koretskyi’s appointment continues a pattern of wartime leadership changes in Kyiv, where Zelenskiy has now installed three different prime ministers since Russia’s full-scale invasion began. His energy background sets him apart from his predecessors and signals that Zelenskiy wants someone with direct technical experience managing the same infrastructure now under repeated attack.
Ukraine’s power grid has become one of the war’s central battlegrounds away from the front lines, with Russia targeting generation and transmission facilities in an effort to weaken civilian morale and strain the country’s economy during winter months. Naftogaz, the company Koretskyi led until his appointment, has played a central role in keeping gas and power flowing to households and industry despite the strikes.
His shift from corporate energy management to national government places him in charge of coordinating not just infrastructure repair but also the broader economic and political response to a war that shows no sign of ending soon. How he balances those responsibilities, alongside the technical demands of grid recovery, will likely shape assessments of his tenure in the months ahead.
George Mensah
George Mensah is a Senior Political & Conflict Correspondent at ClicxPost, covering global politics, international conflict, and economic developments. With five years of experience in breaking news and geopolitical reporting, he delivers fast, accurate analysis on major world events.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s decision to remove Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov after just six months in the post triggered rare wartime protests across Ukrainian cities on Thursday, underscoring how divisive the move has proven among a public that had largely rallied behind him.
Fedorov, a 35-year-old reformer known for his tech-focused approach to government, is the only minister to have served in every one of Zelenskiy’s cabinets since the president’s election in 2019. Parliament was expected to vote Thursday on Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko as his replacement. It remains unclear whether Fedorov will be offered another government role.
Supporters credit Fedorov with helping shift battlefield momentum toward Ukraine this year, pointing to his push to expand drone purchases and a move that cut off Russian military units from Starlink internet access. But his efforts to restructure the defence ministry and armed forces put him at odds with Ukraine’s top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, and he never delivered on promises to fix long-standing problems with military conscription. Zelenskiy did not offer a specific explanation for the dismissal but told reporters he wants to see “greater unity” between the defence ministry and military leadership.
From marketing specialist to cabinet minister
Fedorov was born in Vasylivka, a town in southern Ukraine now under Russian occupation, and grew up in nearby Zaporizhzhia, a city that faces near-daily Russian bombing and drone strikes. He worked as a young marketing specialist before Zelenskiy, then a television personality, recruited him to run the social media campaign behind his landslide election victory in April 2019.
At age 28, Fedorov was named minister for digital transformation, a newly created position in Zelenskiy’s first cabinet that gave him room to pursue technology-driven changes to government services. His ministry built Diia, a smartphone app whose name means “action” in Ukrainian. The app, marketed as putting “the state in a smartphone,” lets Ukrainians handle government tasks such as registering vehicles or filing for marriage and divorce without visiting a government office.
A public appeal that brought Starlink to Ukraine
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, Fedorov posted a public appeal to SpaceX founder Elon Musk asking him to activate Starlink satellite internet service over Ukraine. Musk did so almost immediately. Ukraine’s military now relies on tens of thousands of Starlink terminals, which commanders have described as central to how they coordinate on the battlefield. In February, Fedorov worked with Starlink to block Russian forces from accessing the service without authorization.
He also became an early advocate for building what he called an “army of drones,” a technology that later became a dominant factor in the war. His ministry created a points-based system that rewarded Ukrainian soldiers for video-verified strikes on Russian troops and equipment, letting them earn credits toward weapons such as drones. The program also generated a large dataset on battlefield activity, which Fedorov described as leverage Ukraine could use when negotiating for additional military support from its allies.
A defence ministry overhaul that fell short
Zelenskiy promoted Fedorov to defence minister in January 2026, and he pledged to bring the same data-driven approach that built Diia to a ministry that had faced repeated corruption and mismanagement scandals throughout the war. He laid out a plan for winning the war that included inflicting 50,000 Russian casualties per month, neutralizing Russian aerial attacks, and damaging Russia’s economy to the point of forcing a resolution.
He did not follow through on proposed changes to Ukraine’s conscription system, an issue that has generated public frustration for years over who serves and for how long. Fedorov did announce a restructuring of service contracts across Ukraine’s roughly one million-person armed forces, along with plans to raise pay, particularly for infantry troops. But soldiers already serving said the changes favored new recruits over those who had been fighting since early in the war. People who volunteered in the war’s opening months still have limited options to leave service, aside from serious injury.
Protests reflect divided views on his removal
The demonstrations that broke out Thursday mark an unusual moment in wartime Ukraine, where public protest has been rare given the demands of the conflict and general wartime unity around the government. Fedorov’s supporters view his dismissal as a loss for a ministry that badly needed the kind of institutional reform he was attempting, and see his record on drones and Starlink as evidence he understood the technological demands of modern warfare better than many of his predecessors.
Others inside the defence establishment saw his approach differently. His tensions with Syrskyi point to a broader disagreement over how much civilian leadership should push into decisions traditionally left to military commanders, a friction that has surfaced periodically throughout the war as Zelenskiy has tried to balance civilian oversight with operational authority on the battlefield.
Klymenko, if confirmed by parliament, would bring a different background to the post. As interior minister, he has overseen domestic security and law enforcement rather than the drone procurement and digital systems that defined Fedorov’s tenure. His appointment would represent a shift away from the technology-first approach Fedorov championed and toward a minister with deeper ties to Ukraine’s security services.
Zelenskiy’s call for “greater unity” between the ministry and military leadership suggests the change is meant to smooth over the friction between Fedorov and Syrskyi, even if it comes at the cost of losing a minister whose public profile and battlefield initiatives had made him one of the more visible figures in the government outside the president himself.
Whether Fedorov’s removal proves to be the end of his role in Ukrainian government or simply a pause remains an open question. His history of loyalty to Zelenskiy since 2019, combined with the public backing evident in Thursday’s protests, leaves open the possibility that he could resurface in another capacity as the war continues and the government looks for ways to manage both battlefield demands and public expectations heading into another difficult winter.
Ukraine’s parliament confirmed energy executive Sergii Koretskyi as prime minister on Thursday, making him the third person to lead the wartime government in a broader cabinet reshuffle President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced this week.
Volodymyr Fesenko, director of the Penta think tank, said Koretskyi’s reputation as a capable manager who has stayed out of political factions gives him an advantage as he takes over the role during a difficult period for Ukraine’s energy sector.
Two decades running Ukraine’s energy companies
Koretskyi brings more than 20 years of experience in oil production and refining, energy retail, wholesale management, and international financing to the role. Since May 2025, he has served as CEO of Naftogaz, Ukraine’s largest state-owned company, which handles much of the country’s gas production, imports and supply.
Before leading Naftogaz, Koretskyi headed Ukrnafta, Ukraine’s largest oil company and part of the Naftogaz group. Earlier in his career, he ran the Western Oil Group and served as CEO of the Continuum Group, which owns WOG, one of Ukraine’s largest chains of filling stations.
Koretskyi was born in Lutsk, a city in western Ukraine. Outside the energy sector, he also founded a coffee chain business.
Winter preparation tops the agenda
Koretskyi takes office as Ukraine works to rebuild an energy grid battered by Russian strikes last winter, when the country’s power infrastructure absorbed its heaviest bombardment since the war began. Getting the grid ready for the coming winter will be one of his first major tasks, a challenge complicated by Ukraine’s continued shortage of interceptor missiles needed to shoot down incoming Russian ballistic missiles.
Zelenskiy told reporters Wednesday that winter preparation is the government’s top priority heading into the colder months.
Koretskyi’s appointment continues a pattern of wartime leadership changes in Kyiv, where Zelenskiy has now installed three different prime ministers since Russia’s full-scale invasion began. His energy background sets him apart from his predecessors and signals that Zelenskiy wants someone with direct technical experience managing the same infrastructure now under repeated attack.
Ukraine’s power grid has become one of the war’s central battlegrounds away from the front lines, with Russia targeting generation and transmission facilities in an effort to weaken civilian morale and strain the country’s economy during winter months. Naftogaz, the company Koretskyi led until his appointment, has played a central role in keeping gas and power flowing to households and industry despite the strikes.
His shift from corporate energy management to national government places him in charge of coordinating not just infrastructure repair but also the broader economic and political response to a war that shows no sign of ending soon. How he balances those responsibilities, alongside the technical demands of grid recovery, will likely shape assessments of his tenure in the months ahead.
Flooding intensified across Texas overnight as days of heavy rain sent rivers surging, forcing emergency crews to pull people from rising water before sunrise Thursday. The National Weather Service in San Antonio issued an urgent warning for residents to move to higher ground immediately, describing a “large and deadly flood wave” moving down the same river that flooded a year ago, killing two dozen children and counselors at Camp Mystic.
The storms hit multiple counties near the Mexico border and across the Texas Hill Country, where officials in Kerrville told residents to shelter on the highest level of their homes. The Uvalde County Office of Emergency Management issued a shelter-in-place order and reported that major highways and city streets were closed due to flooding and water covering the roadways.
No deaths or injuries had been reported as of early Thursday. Forecasters also issued several tornado warnings during the storms.
Texas Game Wardens rescued more than 40 people from the flooding, most of them in the Uvalde County area, according to a spokesperson for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
Rainfall totals rival last year’s disaster
The National Weather Service reported 10 to 20 inches of rain fell over the past two days, with 8 inches falling in just two hours early Thursday morning. One river gauge less than 10 miles from Kerrville recorded a rise of 32 feet in four hours. Forecasters said the river was expected to crest at a level close to the catastrophic flood of July 4, 2025.
Flood watches were expected to remain in effect in some areas through Friday evening.
Families scramble as water rises
Uvalde police ordered mandatory evacuations for parts of the city by Wednesday, notifying affected residents directly and asking others to stay alert in case evacuations expand, the department said in a Facebook post.
Residents along the Leona River watched the water creep closer throughout the day and rushed to pack their vehicles, many uncertain where they would go. One man loaded two kayaks into his truck bed in case he needed them. Lightning cut through darkened skies as the river, normally calm, turned brown and formed rapids that pushed against Kerrville’s high bridge and into nearby neighborhoods by Wednesday afternoon.
Watches cover 6 million residents
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued disaster declarations for dozens of counties as the storms spread. As of Wednesday evening, roughly six million Texans across 57 counties were under a flood watch set to run through early Thursday night, with watches in 34 of those counties extending through Friday evening.
Uvalde County recorded some of the highest rainfall totals in the state. Officials there carried out dozens of rescues and said more people still needed help as river levels continued climbing. Roads and highways throughout the region remained closed because of high water. The county typically receives about 23 inches of rain over a full year, according to the Uvalde County Extension Office, meaning the storm delivered close to a year’s worth of rainfall in a matter of days.
The flooding renews scrutiny of the Hill Country’s vulnerability to fast-moving river surges, a risk that drew national attention after last year’s flood at Camp Mystic. Emergency officials across the affected counties continued rescue operations into Thursday as rivers remained at or near record levels.
Federal disaster aid under President Donald Trump is arriving slower and being denied more often than under any president since 1989, and states that didn’t vote for him face a much higher chance of rejection, according to an Associated Press analysis.
Since taking office last year, Trump has approved roughly 65 requests for major disaster declarations while denying more than two dozen others from states, tribes and territories seeking federal money after hurricanes, tornadoes, storms, floods and fires. The AP’s review of data going back to 1989, when federal law first set standards for disaster determinations, found no other president has shown such a gap in approval rates between states that supported him politically and those that didn’t.
The slower pace and higher denial rate come as Trump’s administration weighs a broad restructuring of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which oversees disaster aid. Major disaster declarations are meant to cover events that exceed what state and local governments can handle on their own.
Republican states fare better than Democratic ones
During his second term, Trump has denied a larger share of disaster requests than any president in the AP’s 36-year dataset, and those denials fall unevenly by party. Trump has approved 80% of requests from Republican governors, compared with about 60% from Democratic governors, based on FEMA data reviewed by the AP.
A batch of denials earlier this month affected four Democratic-led states: Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island, all seeking aid tied to a February snowstorm. Rhode Island’s Democratic members of Congress said in a joint statement that the denial reflected “extreme partisanship” and argued Trump was shifting a larger financial burden onto states that didn’t back him. White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson disputed that characterization, saying there is “no politicization” in the president’s disaster relief decisions.
The pattern marks a reversal from Trump’s first term, when he actually approved a higher share of requests from states that had opposed him than from those that supported him. No other president, including Trump during his first term, has shown as wide a partisan split as exists now. During Barack Obama’s second term, he approved 87% of requests from Democratic governors and 79% from Republican governors, but Obama’s approval rate was identical regardless of how a state voted in the presidential election.
When a request is denied, the cost of recovery falls on individuals, insurers and local governments instead of the federal government.
Approval times have roughly tripled
Since Trump returned to office, it has taken an average of six weeks for him to approve a major disaster declaration after a governor, tribal leader or territorial official submits a request, according to the AP. Because damage assessments often take several weeks to complete before a request is even filed, the total time between disaster and approval frequently stretches past two months.
By comparison, Trump approved disaster requests in about three weeks on average during his first term, a pace close to Joe Biden’s. Presidents before them, including Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, all averaged under two weeks for approval.
Every president has had some requests that took longer than average to process. But under Trump’s second term, that has become the rule rather than the exception. Seventy percent of Trump’s approvals during this term have taken at least a month, compared with about a quarter during his first term and under Biden, and fewer than 10% under Bush, Clinton and the two Obama terms.
Jackson said Trump’s administration conducts a more thorough review than prior administrations “to ensure American tax dollars are used appropriately and efficiently by the states to supplement, not substitute, their obligation to respond to and recover from disasters.”
Longer approval times mean longer waits for individuals who depend on federal aid for temporary housing, daily expenses and home repairs. The delays also complicate planning for local officials, who often need to know whether the federal government will reimburse them for debris removal and infrastructure repairs before starting that work.
A FEMA nominee promises faster decisions
FEMA has cycled through four temporary leaders since Trump’s second term began in January 2025. One of them, Cameron Hamilton, is now awaiting Senate confirmation to lead the agency permanently.
At a Senate committee hearing last month, Hamilton said he would work to speed up both disaster declaration decisions and reimbursements to states. He also said he would push FEMA to remain objective and fair when reviewing requests and making recommendations to the president.
Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL, was fired from his role as FEMA’s acting director in May 2025 after publicly opposing Trump’s plan to dismantle the agency entirely. His return to consideration for the permanent post suggests Trump may now favor reshaping FEMA rather than eliminating it.
Proposed changes could mean more denials ahead
A council appointed by Trump has recommended a series of changes to FEMA that would shift more financial responsibility onto states, a move that could reduce both the number of approved disaster declarations and the total amount of federal money distributed.
Among the council’s proposals is a requirement that states, territories and tribes meet a minimum level of annual spending before qualifying for a presidential disaster declaration. A separate recommendation, which would need congressional approval, would cut the federal government’s share of disaster costs from a current minimum of 75% down to 50%, leaving state and local governments to cover the rest.
In exchange, the council proposed speeding up payments for governments that do get approved, with federal funds arriving within 30 days of a declaration instead of the months or years it can currently take for reimbursements tied to documented expenses. For individual disaster victims, the council recommended combining several separate categories of federal aid into a single payment for those whose homes become uninhabitable.
The proposed overhaul would represent one of the most significant changes to federal disaster response since the underlying law took effect in 1989, and its outcome will likely shape how quickly, and how fully, future disaster victims receive help from Washington regardless of which party controls their state government.
Joe Biden will publish a memoir titled “Promise Me, America” on Nov. 17, addressing his decision to seek a second term, his choice to eventually drop out of the 2024 race, and his record on the economy, according to publisher Little, Brown and Company.
The release date falls two weeks after the November midterm elections, a timing that could complicate Democratic efforts to keep campaign attention on President Donald Trump rather than on Biden’s own legacy. Many Democrats blame Biden’s decision to run for reelection for Trump’s return to the White House, and party leaders have hoped to avoid distractions before votes are cast.
“‘Promise Me, America’ is about the challenges we faced as a nation. It’s about the decisions I made and why I made them,” Biden said in a video statement released Wednesday alongside the announcement. “It’s about why I chose to run for reelection and why I chose to step aside.”
Biden, who turns 84 three days after the book’s publication, worked with a small editorial team on the memoir, a common practice among modern presidents writing about their time in office. Little, Brown did not disclose financial terms for the book, though past presidential memoirs have typically sold for at least seven figures. Every president since Harry Truman has published a book about their White House years, with few exceptions.
The title mirrors Biden’s 2017 memoir, “Promise Me, Dad,” which focused on the death of his son Beau. His earlier books include “Promises to Keep,” published in 2007 to support his first presidential run, a campaign in which Barack Obama won the nomination and picked Biden as his running mate.
A presidency shaped by crisis and questions about his health
Biden took office in January 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic and weeks after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters trying to block certification of the 2020 election results. His term included the U.S. response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, conflict in the Middle East, and the passage of large infrastructure and economic aid packages.
Much of the public interest in the memoir is likely to center on his health during his final years in office, particularly his performance in the June 2024 debate against Trump that led him to abandon his reelection campaign. Then-Vice President Kamala Harris took his place on the ticket and lost to Trump in November.
Former first lady Jill Biden wrote in her own memoir, “View from the East Wing,” published in June, that her husband appeared so disoriented during the debate that she worried he was having a stroke. She noted that the White House initially attributed his performance to a cold. “The biggest lesson for us, I think, was that if you don’t explain something well enough then the question won’t go away,” she wrote. “There was never a satisfying enough explanation offered for Joe’s debate performance, and a lot of people never got over it.”
Biden was the oldest person to serve as president, and questions about his physical and mental fitness followed him through much of his term. Journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson explored those questions in their 2025 book “Original Sin,” subtitled “President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.” That same year, Biden disclosed that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
A crowded market for political books
“Promise Me, America” arrives during a slow year for nonfiction sales overall, with few political titles breaking through commercially. Exceptions this year have included Vice President JD Vance’s “Communion” and “Regime Change,” an account of Trump’s second term by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.
A spokesperson for Little, Brown said Biden plans to promote the book through a tour and media interviews. In his video statement, Biden addressed his health directly, telling viewers that many people had asked how he was doing.
“I’ve been spending a lot of time with my family. I’m dealing with a cancer diagnosis, been getting treatment, and it’s going really well,” he said. “I want to thank all those who have offered their prayers and support and well-wishes. It’s meant the world to me and to Jill.”
Political stakes for Democrats
The book’s release date puts Biden back in the news cycle just as Democrats look to capitalize on midterm gains and shift attention toward Trump’s second-term record. Party strategists have generally preferred that Biden stay out of the spotlight since leaving office, given how divisive his decision to seek reelection remains within the party.
Biden has largely avoided the public eye since January 2025, making the book tour one of his first extended returns to public commentary on his presidency. How Democratic voters and lawmakers respond to that renewed visibility, so soon after an election in which the party is trying to define itself apart from Biden’s legacy, remains to be seen.
The memoir will likely reopen debate over how Biden and his advisers handled questions about his age and capacity while he was in office, a subject that drew criticism from both parties throughout 2024. Whether “Promise Me, America” offers new detail on those decisions, or on the internal deliberations that led to his withdrawal from the race, is something readers won’t know until the book reaches shelves in November.
George Santos will trade one unlikely career for another this fall, appearing as a contestant on Fox’s “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test” after stints as a congressman, a felon, and a podcast host.
The network announced Wednesday that Santos will appear in the show’s fifth season, which sends contestants through military-style challenges in a Malaysian jungle, including exposure to chemical gas and other combat-simulation exercises. Santos confirmed the news himself on X, posting a promotional photo of himself standing next to a tree with a serious expression.
“I took my fat behind off the coach and tried something new!” Santos wrote. “And it changed EVERYTHING! I can’t wait to share this experience with y’all!”
He joins a cast of more than a dozen contestants, including former NBA player Matt Barnes and actor Ruby Rose. Fox describes the show as a test of physical, mental and emotional endurance, with challenges this season including a claustrophobic search through an underground bunker and a supply retrieval mission while suspended above the jungle floor.
From Congress to prison to reality TV
Santos was elected to the House of Representatives from New York in 2022 as a Republican, but his time in office lasted less than a year. Reporters uncovered that he had invented large parts of his biography, including claims about his education, employment history and financial background, none of which held up to scrutiny.
The House voted to expel him in December 2023 as he faced federal charges connected to stealing from campaign donors, collecting unemployment benefits he wasn’t entitled to, and lying to Congress about his personal wealth. He pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to prison, though President Donald Trump commuted his sentence after Santos had served about 84 days behind bars.
Santos attempted a political comeback afterward, launching another campaign for his old House seat. That effort collapsed quickly when he failed to raise any meaningful campaign funds, and he dropped out of the race.
Since leaving politics, Santos has built a public presence as a podcast host, using the platform to comment on politics and his own downfall. His reality TV appearance extends a run of media ventures that have kept him visible despite his expulsion from Congress.
Santos did not respond to a message seeking comment on his upcoming appearance.
What “Special Forces” puts contestants through
“Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test” strips celebrity contestants of the usual reality show comforts, placing them under the direction of former special forces operatives who run them through simulated combat training. Past seasons have featured challenges built around sleep deprivation, interrogation drills, and physically demanding tasks meant to break down contestants both physically and psychologically.
This season’s Malaysian jungle setting adds heat and terrain to the list of obstacles. The bunker search and the suspended supply retrieval Fox previewed Wednesday reflect the show’s format of pairing claustrophobic, high-stress environments with physical risk. Contestants who don’t meet the demands of a given task can withdraw voluntarily, a option the show frames as a real test of whether they can push past their own limits.
The series has drawn a mix of athletes, actors and public figures in previous seasons looking to demonstrate resilience outside their usual public roles. Santos’s addition to the cast fits that pattern, though his path to the show runs through a criminal case rather than a sports career or acting resume.
A pattern of reinvention
Santos’s move to reality television isn’t a sharp break from his recent public life so much as a continuation of it. Since his expulsion from Congress, he has leaned into his notoriety rather than away from it, using his podcast to discuss his conviction, his time in prison and his views on national politics. His social media presence has remained active, often mixing self-deprecating humor with defenses of his conduct in office.
His new post on X captures that same tone, framing the “Special Forces” appearance as a personal reinvention rather than an attempt to escape his past. The self-deprecating reference to his physical condition, paired with the promise that the experience “changed EVERYTHING,” suggests Santos is positioning the show as both entertainment and a personal narrative device, an attempt to demonstrate change through physical hardship rather than political rehabilitation.
Whether audiences respond to that framing remains to be seen. Santos remains one of the more recognizable figures to leave Congress under a cloud in recent years, and his fabricated biography, ranging from invented Wall Street jobs to a nonexistent college volleyball career, became a defining feature of his brief time in office. That history gives his reality show appearance an added layer of scrutiny, since viewers and cast mates alike may test how much of what Santos says about himself, on camera or off, can be taken at face value.
Fox has not released a premiere date for the new season, nor has it detailed the full roster of challenges contestants will face beyond the bunker search and supply retrieval. The network’s announcement Wednesday focused primarily on cast additions, with Santos, Barnes and Rose named among the higher-profile participants set to compete.
For Santos, the show offers a national platform distinct from his podcast audience, one built around physical performance rather than political commentary. It also places him alongside professional athletes and entertainers, a considerable distance from the House Ethics Committee findings that detailed his financial misconduct and led to his removal from office.
His comeback attempt at the ballot box failed for lack of resources. His comeback attempt in the jungle will test something else entirely: whether he can physically endure what the show’s format is designed to make grueling, without the option of simply walking away from the cameras the way he stepped back from his House race.
U.S. warplanes and ships pushed the fight with Iran further north on Thursday, striking new targets near Tehran for the first time in this round of combat while American forces also opened fire on a tanker accused of running Washington’s naval blockade. Iran answered before sunrise with missile and drone attacks on U.S. allies across the Gulf and said the damage could grow.
The exchange marks the sharpest escalation since the U.S. and Israel opened the war on Iran on Feb. 28, and it has effectively ended a short-lived interim agreement that had paused the fighting. Iranian officials say U.S. strikes have killed more than 35 people and wounded over 300 in the past several days. The Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that carries a large share of the world’s oil shipments, sits at the center of the latest fighting, with both sides threatening to choke it off entirely.
Col. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesperson for the Iranian military’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said Thursday that Iran would strike regional infrastructure broadly if President Donald Trump follows through on threats to hit Iranian bridges and power plants. “All the infrastructure in the region will be crushed under the steel blows of the powerful armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Zolfaghari said. He added that Iran would not tolerate American interference in the strait, calling it “Iran’s invincible red line.”
New strikes hit closer to Tehran
Iranian state media reported U.S. strikes early Thursday around the capital and in Semnan province, where Iran builds ballistic missiles and runs its space program. Additional strikes hit Hamedan, Hormozgan, Khuzestan, Lorestan, Markazi, and Sistan and Baluchistan provinces, according to Iranian outlets.
The U.S. had already resumed daytime strikes on Wednesday, a shift from the mostly nighttime campaign of previous weeks. U.S. Central Command said an attack that day hit Iranian defense and missile sites on Greater Tunb Island, a small but strategically placed island inside the Strait of Hormuz.
The U.S. Navy also opened fire on the Belma, a Curacao-flagged oil tanker headed toward Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal. According to the U.S. military, the tanker ignored repeated warnings before an American aircraft fired a missile into its smokestack, disabling the vessel without sinking it.
A separate U.S. strike Wednesday hit a barracks used by Iran’s 388th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, an armored unit, in Sistan and Baluchestan province. Iranian state television reported at least 13 missiles struck the site, killing seven people, including both conscripts and career soldiers, and wounding others.
Iran’s response came before dawn Thursday, with missile and drone attacks on Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait, all of which host U.S. forces. None of the three countries reported immediate casualties or confirmed damage. Kuwaiti authorities said a second wave of incoming fire hit the country Thursday afternoon.
A drone also struck the northern Iraqi city of Irbil overnight, though Iraqi authorities said air defenses intercepted it before it caused damage. Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi condemned the attack while on a visit to Washington, where he said Baghdad would work to disarm armed groups operating outside state control, including several backed by Iran.
Oil prices climb as blockade returns
Iran shut down shipping through the Strait of Hormuz when the war began in February, a move that drove up prices for oil, fertilizer and other goods worldwide and gave Tehran leverage in ceasefire talks. The U.S. now says it wants to reopen the strait by force, but that would likely require a far larger naval presence and possibly tens of thousands of ground troops.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, traded above $85 a barrel Thursday, more than 15% higher than before the war began but still well under the nearly $120 it hit at the conflict’s peak. The increase creates a political problem for Trump and Republicans, who are trying to hold their congressional majority in November’s elections. Washington’s difficulty keeping the strait open led Trump to reinstate the naval blockade on Wednesday.
Trump maintained Wednesday that Iran wants a deal, though he offered no specifics. “They don’t like what we’re doing, and they do want to settle. We’ll find out whether or not we settle with them, or we just finish it off,” he said during remarks at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania.
Diplomatic efforts to slow the fighting have not gained traction. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday it was still working to bring Washington and Tehran back to the table, though ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi acknowledged the process has grown harder. “Whenever the parties exhaust the logic of escalation, the formula for peace is there,” Andrabi told reporters.
Trump also said on social media that Iran released an American citizen who had been wrongly detained since 2024, though he gave no further details. Human rights lawyer Jared Genser identified the person as his client, Dena Karari, a U.S.-Iranian citizen who runs a nonprofit organization and had been charged with espionage. Iran has not confirmed the release, and Karari’s detention had not previously been made public, which is common in cases involving the Islamic Republic.
The fighting shows no sign of slowing as both sides expand the geography and intensity of their attacks. Iran’s threat to target regional infrastructure, paired with Trump’s own warnings about striking Iranian power plants and bridges, points toward a conflict that could widen well beyond the current front lines in the Gulf.
Israeli veterans who once patrolled southern Lebanon’s occupation zone in the 1980s and 1990s say the country’s current military presence there feels like a repeat of a strategy they watched fail the first time, even as Israeli leaders present it as a hard-won gain.
Gil Shely served in what Israel called the southern Lebanon “security strip” in the late 1980s. He remembers his commanders telling him every day that his presence there was protecting northern Israel. “Looking back, it was all fairy tales,” he said.
Israel pulled out of that strip in 2000. Its forces have since returned, this time occupying a stretch of southern Lebanon roughly 10 kilometers deep. Israeli officials describe the goal as shielding border towns from Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia that has fought Israel for decades.
A zone born out of war
The current buffer zone was announced in late March, during a period of heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that coincided with the broader war involving Iran. It followed similar zones Israel established in Gaza and Syria after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, a shift in strategy that has reshaped how Israel approaches its borders on multiple fronts.
For Shely, watching the new occupation unfold brought back old fears. “When I hear news that a soldier has been killed there, I am crushed. My heart screams out for the unnecessary sacrifice,” said Shely, 56, whose youngest son is about to enter Israel’s mandatory military service.
Israel has lost dozens of soldiers in the buffer zone since March, when Hezbollah fired missiles into Israel and triggered an Israeli offensive that displaced a million people in Lebanon and killed thousands, including hundreds of civilians. Hezbollah has not released its own casualty figures.
Veterans who served in the original security strip describe years of clearing explosives, running ambushes, and fighting guerrilla-style attacks from militants who used the occupation itself to sharpen their tactics. Erez, 51, who served in Lebanon in the 1990s and asked to be identified only by his first name, lost close friends there. His son is now stationed in the new buffer zone. “We hoped we would never have to go back,” he said.
Netanyahu calls it a turning point
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces an October election and weak polling numbers, pointed to the buffer zone as a major achievement during a June 30 visit with troops. He called the security zones a fundamental change in approach, saying Israel no longer tolerates an armed group holding ground on its border and that Israeli forces target attack infrastructure both above and below ground.
The zone today is largely empty of the Lebanese civilians who once lived there; most fled villages that have since been reduced to rubble. From the Israeli side of the border, military vehicles can be seen moving through destroyed neighborhoods, and the sound of detonations occasionally carries across the hills as smoke rises from the wreckage. Israeli towns hit by Hezbollah missiles and drones sit in plain view on the other side.
One reservist, who served as a young conscript shortly before the 2000 withdrawal and returned to duty this month, said the scale of weapons and infrastructure Hezbollah has built up since then is striking. Still, he said military force alone will not solve the underlying problem. “What’s the purpose? What are you doing it for? You’re fighting, risking yourself, it’s not clear, they don’t make it clear to the soldiers. It’s vague and frustrating,” said the reservist, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
A movement born from the last withdrawal
Israel’s 2000 exit from Lebanon followed years of public pressure that grew louder as soldiers died. Mothers of fallen and active-duty soldiers led that push through a group called Four Mothers — Leave Lebanon in Peace. Rachel Madpis Ben-Dor, one of the group’s founders and its current chairperson, sees history repeating itself. “Then, our children, and now our grandchildren,” she said. “We are making the same mistake now.”
Ben-Dor, who lives in northern Israel, said she believes soldiers can defend her town from positions closer to the border, without occupying Lebanese territory. She said she wants an end to the destruction on both sides. “We don’t want to see villages wiped out. We want peace with Lebanon and we need the world’s support,” she said.
Not everyone shares that view. Benny Gantz, a former defense minister who as a brigadier general in 2000 personally closed the border gate behind Israel’s retreating troops, argues Israel cannot afford to withdraw without safeguards this time. His son recently served on the front line in Lebanon. “We have no choice but to create a buffer,” Gantz said. “We can’t look at reality as we want to see it. We have to look at reality as it is and try to shape it. It will have to be a combination of military, security and diplomacy.”
Talks underway in Rome
Israel and Lebanon are currently holding U.S.-backed negotiations in Rome, working from an initial framework meant to lead toward Hezbollah’s disarmament and eventually a formal peace agreement. Hezbollah has rejected the disarmament demand outright, leaving the talks without clear momentum on the issue most likely to determine whether Israeli troops eventually leave the buffer zone or stay indefinitely.
The gap between the two negotiating positions echoes the years before Israel’s 2000 withdrawal, when political and military leaders debated whether occupying southern Lebanon made Israel safer or simply exposed soldiers to a prolonged guerrilla campaign with no clear endpoint. Hezbollah emerged from that earlier occupation stronger and more sophisticated than when Israel first entered Lebanon in 1982, a pattern veterans like Shely and Erez say worries them now more than ever.
Whether the current buffer zone produces a different outcome will likely depend on what happens in Rome, and on whether Hezbollah’s fighting capacity has been degraded enough by the recent war to change the group’s calculus. For now, Israeli soldiers continue rotating through a landscape of rubble and abandoned villages, patrolling territory that Israeli commanders describe as a strategic necessity and veterans of the last occupation describe as a warning from the past.
U.S. President Donald Trump has renewed threats against a fortified Iranian nuclear site called Pickaxe Mountain, telling Iranian officials to prepare for a possible strike on the facility buried beneath a mountain south of Tehran.
“We’re going to take out Pickaxe Mountain. Tell the Iranians to be ready,” Trump said during a July 13 interview on the Hugh Hewitt Show. The comment marks the latest escalation in a standoff over Iran’s nuclear program that has already drawn U.S. and Israeli strikes on the country’s enrichment infrastructure twice in roughly a year.
Location and scale
Pickaxe Mountain sits 220 kilometers south of Tehran, just 2 kilometers from the Natanz nuclear complex, one of Iran’s two main uranium enrichment sites. The peak reaches about 1,600 meters above sea level, and the facility carved into it remains under construction, according to the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a Washington-based think tank that tracks nuclear proliferation.
Natanz itself has been hit twice in the current conflict, first during the war the United States and Israel launched on February 28, then again during last year’s 12-day war. Both strikes damaged the above-ground enrichment hall; the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog has confirmed that structure was destroyed, and the underground plant was likely damaged as well. The tunnel complex at Pickaxe Mountain, by contrast, has not been targeted in either round of strikes.
Origins tied to a 2020 sabotage attack
Construction at Pickaxe Mountain began in 2020, shortly after an explosion Iranian officials attributed to sabotage struck the Natanz facility. Tehran said the damage from that incident could set back its development of advanced centrifuges, the machines used to enrich uranium.
Months later, in September 2020, Iran’s nuclear chief at the time, Ali Akbar Salehi, said the country had begun building what he described as a larger, more modern hall inside the mountain for producing advanced centrifuges. Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, referenced the project in a March interview with PBS Frontline, saying Iran had already signaled its intent to move sensitive nuclear work underground. He called it part of a deliberate pattern by Tehran to bury its most important facilities.
That pattern is not unique to Pickaxe Mountain. Iran built its Fordow enrichment plant into a mountainside near Qom for similar reasons, placing it far enough underground to complicate any airstrike. Pickaxe Mountain appears to extend that same logic, this time next to Natanz rather than Fordow.
What satellite imagery shows
ISIS analysts have tracked the site through satellite imagery for years. Their most recent assessment, published July 14, describes two pairs of tunnel entrances believed to connect to a single underground facility, estimated to run at least 100 meters beneath the mountain. The defenses at the site rely mainly on a wide security perimeter and reinforced tunnel entrances rather than any above-ground structure that could be hit directly.
The eastern pair of tunnel entrances has been partially filled in since the two wars, a move that blocks vehicle access without sealing the tunnels completely. Sam Lair, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who has also reviewed recent satellite images of the site, told Reuters that strengthening the tunnel entrances would make it harder to hit the facility with penetrating munitions such as bunker-buster bombs.
Current status remains unclear
Trump said the U.S. has been monitoring the site closely and has not observed activity there. “They’re not doing well with their nuclear situation. Every time we hear about it, we blow it up. So they don’t like talking about it. But we’ll probably give Pickaxe a shot relatively soon,” he said in the July 13 interview.
ISIS reached a similar conclusion in its report, stating that the facility does not appear operational yet, though construction continues. The group said satellite imagery alone cannot establish a timeline for when the site might become functional.
There’s also uncertainty about the facility’s ultimate purpose. ISIS noted it remains unclear whether Iran still intends to install a large-scale centrifuge assembly line inside the mountain, given the damage its centrifuge manufacturing capacity has already suffered in prior strikes. If Iran does rebuild that capability, the group said, it could instead opt for a smaller assembly facility at Pickaxe Mountain, one still capable of supporting a weapons program.
The military calculus
Analysts generally agree the facility sits too deep for even the most powerful bunker-buster bombs in the current U.S. arsenal to reach, including the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator that the U.S. used against Fordow last year. ISIS argued the site is better suited to a ground assault or sabotage operation than an aerial one, though the report also noted that deep-penetrating weapons delivered by air could still exploit certain vulnerabilities.
Lair offered a similar read on Iran’s posture. He said Iran appears to be conducting activity at the site it wants to protect, and its steps to reinforce the tunnel entrances suggest real concern about a future attack.
Why this matters now
Trump’s comments come as the U.S. and Iran remain locked in an uneasy standoff following two rounds of direct military conflict in the span of about a year. Unlike Fordow and Natanz, which were both built with known enrichment infrastructure that inspectors had monitored for years under past nuclear agreements, Pickaxe Mountain was never part of any inspection regime. That leaves outside analysts dependent on satellite imagery and second-hand accounts to judge what Iran is actually building, and how close it might be to using it.
Whether Washington moves from threats to action will likely depend on what surveillance shows in the weeks ahead, particularly any sign that Iran is resuming centrifuge production elsewhere and shifting components toward the mountain.
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has installed 59 natural gas turbines for its Colossus 2 data center project in Tennessee without securing federal clean air permits, according to communications between regulators and xAI representatives reviewed by Reuters.
The potential emissions from those turbines far exceed the threshold that would trigger a federal permit requirement, and they would be released near predominantly Black communities that already face disproportionately high rates of lung disease, according to a Reuters analysis based on government data and the regulatory correspondence.
The number of unpermitted turbines identified by Reuters is roughly double what xAI has publicly acknowledged. The company previously said it was running 27 unpermitted turbines for Colossus 2 as of January and has argued that permits aren’t required for them. At least 57 of the 59 turbines sit in Mississippi, just over the state line from the Tennessee data center they serve.
The findings show how surging electricity demand from AI data centers is pushing companies to build off-grid power plants faster than environmental oversight can keep pace, with real risks to public health in the surrounding communities.
A Pattern of Fast-Tracked Approvals
The xAI turbines are among dozens of off-grid power plants proposed or under construction for data centers nationwide. Local authorities often approve these projects in weeks or months, skipping the years of environmental studies and public hearings typically required for power plants that connect to the electric grid.
Mississippi regulators issued a permit in March for permanent turbines at Colossus 2, clearing construction of 41 gas-fired units. That approval came three weeks after the state held its only public hearing on the project.
Ben King, an analyst with the think tank Rhodium Group who reviewed the Reuters findings, said the xAI cluster already ranks among the largest off-grid data center power projects in the country. “This looks to be an unprecedented level of behind-the-meter gas being installed in one place,” he said, referring to off-grid natural gas plants that serve a single customer.
The communications reviewed by Reuters show that xAI, now owned by Musk’s SpaceX, has installed 57 off-grid turbines in Southaven, Mississippi, across the state line from its Colossus 2 data center in Memphis, which supports the Grok chatbot and other AI systems. Records show two additional unpermitted turbines were installed for the project at a separate site whose location Reuters could not determine.
The records came from a Reuters public records request and included emails between Trinity Consultants, which represents xAI and its subsidiary MZX Tech, and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality. xAI did not respond to a request for comment.
Civil Rights Groups Sue Over Emissions
The turbines sit at the center of a widening dispute over whether the AI industry is adding disproportionate pollution to communities of color. The NAACP and the Southern Environmental Law Center sued xAI in April to halt the turbines’ operation, arguing the emissions fall under the federal Clean Air Act and that the company shouldn’t be running them without permits. The groups say the turbines are polluting homes, schools and churches in historically Black neighborhoods.
“The scale of it is astonishing,” said Patrick Anderson, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “This is an absolutely huge Clean Air Act violation that threatens public health.”
Securing a Clean Air Act permit would have subjected the project to extensive review and public comment, a process that can take years. Mississippi regulators and xAI have argued in court filings that the turbines qualify for an exemption because they’re classified as mobile and intended to run at the site for less than a year. “MDEQ has determined that portable/temporary turbines do not require an air permit,” the state agency said in a statement to Reuters.
The Environmental Protection Agency said in January 2026 that temporary turbines exceeding emissions thresholds still need permits. The agency told Reuters it’s now weighing changes that would give portable units more regulatory flexibility while still protecting public health. xAI, MDEQ and the EPA all declined to answer Reuters’ questions about how the turbines might affect communities of color living near the site.
The U.S. Justice Department entered the lawsuit with a June 15 filing arguing that restricting the turbines could threaten national security, since xAI’s systems support U.S. military operations, including operations tied to Iran.
Mary Rock, a senior attorney at Earthjustice representing the NAACP and the Southern Environmental Law Center, said the case could set a troubling precedent. “This sets up scenarios where the government can create sacrifice zones and tell communities they have to breathe illegal air pollution,” she said.
The dispute mirrors a 2022 study by researchers at UCLA and Columbia University, published in the journal Nature Energy, which found that communities historically subjected to redlining, where banks once denied mortgages to Black applicants, now face disproportionately high exposure to pollution from fossil fuel facilities. “Air pollution from these and other sources contributes to systemic racial disparities in chronic disease and ultimately shorter lives,” said Lara Cushing, a UCLA public health professor who co-authored the study.
The Numbers Behind the Pollution
Emails reviewed by Reuters included manufacturer emissions data for 32 of the 59 turbines, including 30 at the Southaven site. Based on that data, Reuters calculated that those 30 turbines alone could emit close to 2,500 short tons of nitrogen oxide, 4,000 short tons of carbon monoxide and 22 short tons of formaldehyde a year, assuming continuous operation at 80% capacity, the load level the EPA says gas turbines typically run at for efficiency.
Nitrogen oxides contribute to smog and respiratory inflammation, according to the American Lung Association. Carbon monoxide limits the body’s ability to absorb oxygen, and formaldehyde is a known carcinogen. The site’s potential emissions far exceed the Clean Air Act threshold of 100 short tons annually for pollutants like nitrogen oxide, the level that triggers permitting requirements.
“This is a massive amount of turbines and an unfathomable amount of air pollution,” said Southaven resident Shannon Samsa, director of the Safe and Sound Coalition. “It’s not a hypothetical that air pollution is bad for you.”
Nicholas Mailloux, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies air quality, said the nitrogen oxide emissions calculated for roughly half the plant’s turbines would place the facility among the top 25 gas plants in the country for that pollutant, based on EPA data for actual emissions nationwide.
Who Lives Nearby
In Southaven’s Colonial Hills neighborhood, residents say the turbines run around the clock, firing off bursts of noise they compare to jet engines. Ervin Laws, a Colonial Hills resident in his 20s, said the noise wakes him up at night. “I can’t do anything about it, because he’s got more money than me,” he said, referring to Musk.
A Reuters analysis of CDC data found that in 27 of 28 census tracts within five miles of the site, spanning both Mississippi and Tennessee, estimated asthma rates exceeded their respective countywide averages. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease rates were also higher in 24 of those tracts. Researchers commonly use a five-mile radius to identify populations likely exposed to pollution from a stationary source.
A separate Reuters analysis of Census Bureau data found that residents near the facility are disproportionately Black. Within five miles of the site in DeSoto County, Mississippi, about 46% of residents are Black, compared with 33% countywide. Across the state line in Tennessee, where residents have no voice in Mississippi’s permitting process, about 94% of residents within five miles of the facility are Black, compared with 52% in the surrounding Shelby County.
Jayajit Chakraborty, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said the Reuters findings align with existing research showing that communities of color face higher exposure to fossil fuel pollution. Shelby County and parts of DeSoto County have previously failed to meet federal ozone standards and remain under EPA-approved plans meant to keep them from falling out of compliance again. Nitrogen oxide is a key building block of ozone formation, which the EPA says can damage respiratory health.
“Given this community struggles with high asthma rates, additional NOx exposure at such high rates could exacerbate public health issues in a community that is already seeing more than its fair share of exposure to toxic air pollution,” said Victoria Nelson, an independent environmental engineer formerly with the EPA.
Sarah Gladney, 72, has watched xAI expand across the Memphis area from her home in Boxtown, a historically Black neighborhood a few miles from where the company built its first data center, Colossus 1, in 2024. “Once they got their foot in the door in Memphis, I feel like it’s going to be a continuous movement of xAI into these other communities,” she said. “It’s all about the money, and it’s not about the health or wellness of the people that live in or near these communities.”
