Vance Warns Military Action Remains on Table as Iran Nuclear Talks Stall in Geneva

DHS Funding Impasse Deepens as White House and Democrats Fail to Bridge Demands

NYC Mayor Mamdani Proposes Nearly 10% Property Tax Hike to Close $5.4 Billion Deficit

Colbert Blasts CBS and FCC After Network Blocks Democratic Politician's Appearance

U.S. Presents Seismic Evidence Alleging Secret Chinese Nuclear Test as Trump Orders Resumption of American Testing

2026 Winter Olympics medal count

Vance Warns Military Action Remains on Table as Iran Nuclear Talks Stall in Geneva

Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday that Iran had failed to acknowledge core U.S. demands in nuclear negotiations in Geneva, after which Washington agreed to give Tehran two weeks to close the gaps between the sides. Tehran had indicated ahead of the talks that it was willing to compromise around the edges of its nuclear program, including moving its near-weapons-grade uranium offshore, according to people familiar with the matter, but Vance said it was clear from his briefing that no breakthrough had been reached and that military action remained an option. The U.S. has demanded Iran end its enrichment of uranium, a central aspect of its nuclear work, which the White House fears gives Iran the capacity to build a nuclear weapon. As negotiations resumed, Iran sent a veiled threat by carrying out military exercises in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, with news agencies affiliated with the country's security agencies showing footage of cruise missiles being launched from trucks and boats Monday as a tanker sailed in the background. President Trump has assembled a massive naval force just off Iran's coast, including roughly one-third of the U.S. Navy, with a second aircraft carrier days away.

WSJ

Source

DHS Funding Impasse Deepens as White House and Democrats Fail to Bridge Demands

The White House on Tuesday rejected the latest offer from Democratic lawmakers on proposed new constraints on federal immigration officers, the latest sign that there would not be a quick resolution of the stalemate that has left the Department of Homeland Security without funding since Saturday. A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe private negotiations, said the two parties were still far apart but that President Trump's team remained interested in continuing good-faith talks to resolve the impasse. In response, aides for the Democratic leaders in Congress said that Republicans had largely ignored the guardrails the public was demanding and urged them to begin negotiating in good faith, as they said their side had been doing. Both White House officials and Democrats on Capitol Hill have kept largely confidential the specifics of their offers to end the standoff that allowed funding for the agency — which was created after 9/11 to coordinate homeland security — to lapse as of 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

NYT

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NYC Mayor Mamdani Proposes Nearly 10% Property Tax Hike to Close $5.4 Billion Deficit

Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, on Tuesday proposed raising property tax rates in New York City by nearly 10 percent, a measure he is preparing as a "last resort" to be deployed if he cannot persuade Gov. Kathy Hochul to raise income taxes on the wealthy. The suggested 9.5 percent increase would affect more than 3 million single-family homes, co-ops, and condos and over 100,000 commercial buildings, Mamdani said as he delivered his preliminary spending plan. The mayor acknowledged that his proposal would not merely force the wealthy to pay more taxes but would also be a "tax on working- and middle-class New Yorkers," and stressed that this was not his first choice. He noted that New York City mayors had little authority to raise taxes without the governor's and Legislature's acquiescence and said that a city property tax increase — combined with raiding the city's reserve funds — was the only way to address a looming budget deficit projected to reach $5.4 billion over two years.

NYT

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Colbert Blasts CBS and FCC After Network Blocks Democratic Politician's Appearance

Stephen Colbert lashed out at the Federal Communications Commission and his own network during his show Monday night after CBS scrapped an interview he had planned with Texas State Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat running for Senate. After teasing an appearance by actress and businesswoman Jennifer Garner on Monday's episode of "The Late Show," Colbert said he would not have his other expected guest on the show. "We were told in no uncertain terms by our network's lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast," Colbert said in a scathing six-and-a-half-minute monologue, adding that he was also told he couldn't mention that he was unable to bring the politician on the show. Colbert said the network was worried about running afoul of the FCC's equal-time rules, which apply to radio and broadcast television and require shows that feature candidates during elections to also bring on their opponents. While there is a longstanding exemption for news and talk-show interviews, last month the FCC issued what it called "guidance" on the rules that was widely interpreted as aimed at late-night and daytime shows that often feature Democratic politicians.

WSJ

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U.S. Presents Seismic Evidence Alleging Secret Chinese Nuclear Test as Trump Orders Resumption of American Testing

The U.S. presented new seismic data Tuesday to buttress its recent allegation that China has secretly carried out low-yield nuclear tests, challenging Beijing's insistence that it has scrupulously observed an international accord banning all nuclear detonations. A senior State Department official said that a seismic monitoring station in Kazakhstan had detected a 2.75 magnitude event on June 22, 2020, the time at which the U.S. has accused China of conducting a clandestine low-yield nuclear test. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1996 allows signatories to carry out activities to assure the safety and reliability of their nuclear arsenal, including experiments involving fissile material, as long as they don't result in a nuclear-explosive yield. The question is whether China has crossed that line, as the Trump administration now alleges, and whether the U.S. needs to respond in kind or can continue to rely on supercomputers and other techniques to maintain and upgrade its nuclear arsenal.

Background (Oct. 30, 2025): The latest allegations follow President Trump's order in October for the U.S. military to immediately restart the process for testing nuclear weapons after a 33-year halt, a move widely seen as a message to rival nuclear powers China and Russia. Trump made the announcement on Truth Social while en route to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping for trade negotiations in Busan, South Korea. No nuclear power other than North Korea, most recently in 2017, has carried out explosive nuclear testing in over 25 years.

WSJ / Reuters

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February 18 2010: WikiLeaks publishes leaked documents

Chelsea Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst in Iraq, secretly downloaded and leaked hundreds of thousands of classified documents—starting with the “Reykjavik13” cable WikiLeaks published on February 18, 2010. The disclosures exposed previously hidden civilian casualties and alleged abuses in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, deeply embarrassing the U.S. government and its diplomatic corps. Depending on your perspective, Manning is either a courageous whistleblower who revealed grave misconduct or a traitor who recklessly endangered national security.

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Sources

1. WSJ — Iran Nuclear Talks
2. NYT — DHS Shutdown / Democrats
3. NYT — NYC Property Tax / Mamdani
4. WSJ — Colbert / FCC Equal-Time Rules
5. WSJ — U.S. Alleges Chinese Nuclear Test
6. Reuters — Trump Orders Nuclear Testing Restart (Oct. 30, 2025)