leader

The International Criminal Court has found Sudanese militia chief Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman guilty of war crimes committed during Sudan’s Darfur conflict more than two decades ago. He was accused of playing a crucial role in the atrocities that killed hundreds of thousands of people.

It might surprise you that the best-performing stock for the 30 years between 1994 and 2024 wasn’t a tech stock — despite the rise of the internet, the smartphone, cloud computing, and, of course, artificial intelligence.

No, the best-performing stock over that period was none other than Monster Beverage (MNST -0.58%). That’s right, an energy drink largely known for sponsorship at UFC, monster truck, and bull-riding competitions, appreciated 2,000 times over that period, trouncing the return of even the “Magnificent Seven.”

While Monster is still going strong at a $65 billion market cap, it would be hard-pressed to repeat its 2,000 times performance over the next 30 years. But there’s another up-and-coming beverage brand that has only been public for four years and sports a mere $2.4 billion market cap. Could this healthier-for-you drink brand emulate Monster’s massive long-term gains?

Vita Coco brought the tropics to the U.S. market

Vita Coco (COCO -0.26%) has been a public company only since 2021, but it’s a 20-year-old brand founded in 2004 by co-founders Michael Kirban and Ira Liran. While Kirban is currently the chairman of the board, the company’s current CEO since 2022 has been Martin Roper, a veteran of The Boston Beer Company.

Back in 2004, the coconut water category was basically nonexistent in the U.S., but Kirban and Liran saw the opportunity to bring this staple of Brazil and other tropical countries to U.S. consumers. Coconut water has a lot of benefits, including natural sugars, vitamins, and electrolytes, making it a versatile drink that can be used as a sports drink, sweet treat, general hydrator, or alcoholic mixer.

As coconut water caught on, Vita Coco’s founders shrewdly grew the company in an intelligent way, cementing the company’s first-mover advantage. Even after many competitors attempted to break into the category, Vita Coco still commands a near-42% market share of the U.S. coconut water market today, dwarfing that of any other brand.

How Vita Coco boxed out competitors

Over two decades, Vita Coco fended off competition even from the likes of beverage giants Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) and Pepsi (NASDAQ: PEP). In 2009, Coca-Cola purchased the Zico brand, and Pepsi purchased the O.N.E. brand. But by 2021, Coca-Cola wound up selling Zico back to its founder, and Pepsi ended up selling O.N.E., along with other juice brands, to a private equity firm.

Vita Coco’s management claims its success against bigger, better-funded rivals came down to Vita Coco having “out-hustled, out-innovated, and out-maneuvered the competition.”

But it wasn’t just about execution. The founders were quite strategic and intelligent in how they grew their supply. Coconut water is actually a byproduct of coconut processing that was already taking place in tropical supplier countries like Brazil, the Philippines, and Thailand. So, Vita Coco’s founders went to these suppliers and offered to invest in the equipment needed to extract and preserve coconut water in exchange for long-term supply agreements.

By engaging with these high-quality existing suppliers early and replicating these agreements across the globe, Vita Coco gained high-quality coconut water supply while investing very little capital. Moreover, these agreements somewhat boxed out the competition from accessing these existing and knowledgeable partners.

Vita Coco has nurtured these relationships by reinvesting and donating proceeds back into these communities, qualifying as a public benefit corporation and further boosting its brand halo.

The shrewd strategy and solid brand execution are how Vita Coco grew to $560 million in revenue and $64.4 million in earnings over the past 12 months, while only having invested about $130 million in overall capital. That means Vita Coco is earning just over a 50% return on invested capital (ROIC) today.

Image source: Getty Images.

Category growth and appeal to younger customers could be a winner

At 42% of the U.S. coconut water business, Vita Coco actually has a much higher market share than Monster’s share of the energy drink category, which sits just below 20%. However, the energy drink market is much, much bigger than the coconut water segment, which explains why Monster currently dwarfs Vita Coco’s size.

Still, the coconut water category is growing quickly. Off near-zero in 2004, the U.S. coconut water category has grown to about $908 million in 2024. According to Grand View Horizon research, the market is projected to grow to almost $2.3 billion by 2030, good for a 16.8% compound annual growth rate. This higher growth is due to coconut water’s popularity with younger generations and high-growth urban and minority demographics.

Globally, coconut water is more established at about $7.1 billion. However, the global market is also set to grow at an above-gross-domestic-product (GDP) pace, at 7.2% compounded over the next 10 years, set to reach $14.5 billion by 2035, according to research firm Future Market Insights.

Can Vita Coco capitalize?

While Coca-Cola and Pepsi have retreated for now, the question is, can Vita Coco maintain or grow its share? There is still a lot of incoming competition from new and private brands, especially if coconut water turns out to be the attractive growth category that’s projected.

One concern is that there isn’t as much differentiation among coconut water brands as, say, flavored energy drinks, which have a lot more involved in their recipes. Varied flavors and more intricate recipes can lead to more brand differentiation. That may not last with coconut water, which is more similar to milk or orange juice — categories that are harder to differentiate.

That’s evidenced in Vita Coco’s lower gross margin, which stands at 36% today. That compares with much higher gross margins for Monster, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi, whose gross margins range from the mid-50s to low-60s. While Vita Coco makes a high ROIC, that’s a function of having invested very little capital, not high margins.

Still, that lower gross margin may also fend off competition, which may not find it easy or worthwhile to compete at such low margins. And if Vita Coco can hold off serious competition for long enough, it may be able to raise prices and margins down the road as it becomes more dominant.

All in all, I’d say Vita Coco has a good shot of multibagger returns over the long term, even if its current price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of around 40 looks pricey at the moment. As such, it’s a name to watch, especially for younger investors, and a stock to pick up on any pullbacks.

Sanae Takaichi has been elected to lead Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and is therefore likely become the next prime minister, the first female to lead the nation in its history.

Takaichi beat Shinjiro Koizumi, the son of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, in a run-off vote on Saturday after none of the five candidates won a majority in the first round of voting.

A former economic security minister, Takaichi, 64, skews towards the right-wing flank of the LDP.

A vote in parliament to choose the next prime minister is expected to be held on Oct. 15.

Takaichi is expected to replace Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba since the LDP remains the largest in parliament. However, following the recent elections, the LDP-led coalition no longer holds majorities in either chamber and will require cooperation from opposition lawmakers to govern effectively.

More to come…

San Diego Democrat and former state Senate leader Toni Atkins dropped out of the 2026 California governor’s race Monday, part of a continued reshuffling and contraction of the wide field of candidates vying to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Atkins told supporters in a letter Monday afternoon that during a childhood in rural Virginia, she often felt “too country, too poor, too gay” to fit in. After building a life on the West Coast, where she found acceptance and opportunity, she worked for decades to build on “the promise of California” and extend it to future generations, she said.

“That’s why it’s with such a heavy heart that I’m stepping aside today as a candidate for governor,” Atkins wrote. “Despite the strong support we’ve received and all we’ve achieved, there is simply no viable path forward to victory.”

Atkins began her political career on the San Diego City Council after serving as a women’s clinic administrator. She became the first out LGBTQ+ person to serve as Senate president pro tem, the top position in the California Senate. She was also the speaker of the state Assembly, making her the first legislator since 1871 to hold both leadership posts.

In Sacramento, Atkins was a champion for affordable housing and reproductive rights, including writing the legislation that became Proposition 1 in 2022, codifying abortion rights in the California Constitution after national protections were undone by the U.S. Supreme Court.

With President Trump and his allies “gutting health care, cratering our economy, and stripping away fundamental rights and freedoms,” Atkins told supporters Monday, “we’ve got to make sure California has a Democratic governor leading the fight, and that means uniting as Democrats.”

Under California’s nonpartisan primary system, the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to the general election. Votes on the left could be fractured among a half-dozen Democratic candidates, creating a more viable path forward for one of the two high-profile Republicans in the race to make it to the November ballot.

Atkins picked up millions of dollars in donations after entering the governor’s race in January 2024, and reported having $4.3 million on hand — more than most candidates — at the end of the first half of the year. More recent reports from major donations suggest her fundraising had lagged behind former Orange County-based U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former state Atty. Gen. and Biden appointee Xavier Becerra.

Although well-known in political circles, Atkins is not a household name. Recent polls, including one conducted by UC Berkeley and co-sponsored by The Times, showed her support in the single digits.

Nine months before the primary, the field of candidates is still in flux, and many voters are undecided.

At the end of July, former Vice President Kamala Harris made the biggest news of the campaign when she said she would not run. Shortly afterward, her political ally Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis abandoned her gubernatorial bid and announced she would run for state treasurer.

Some polling has shown that Porter, who left Congress after losing a bid for a rare open seat in the U.S. Senate, is the candidate to beat.

Last week, lobbyist and former state legislative leader Ian Calderon, 39, launched his campaign for governor, calling it the advent of a “new generation of leadership.”

Calderon, 39, was the first millennial elected to the state Assembly and the youngest-ever majority leader of the state Assembly. He is part of a political dynasty from southeastern Los Angeles County that’s held power in Sacramento for decades.

His family’s name was clouded during his time in Sacramento when two of his uncles served prison time in connection with a bribery scheme, but Calderon was not accused of wrongdoing.

McDowell competed in four Ryder Cups between 2008 and 2014, picking up nine points from 15 matches, and his success over Hunter Mahan in the final singles match at Celtic Manor in Wales in 2010 closed out victory for the Europeans.

He went on to serve twice as a vice-captain – under Thomas Bjorn in 2018 and under Padraig Harrington for the 2020 Ryder Cup in 2021.

His experiences from those encounters and his observations of events since give him an insight into the spirit among European teams and the recipe for success in the febrile atmosphere generated by the competition.

“The European system that has been developed is obviously turning into something very robust. Take the chemistry of partnerships and developing great relationships.

“Eleven of the 12 players who competed in Rome [in 2023] competing again for Europe in this Ryder Cup, something that has never been done before, and look at the results.

“It was an incredible first four sessions, the domination. Clearly that’s not something a team can do every year so you’re always having to cycle new players in and out, figure out the chemistry between them, put great pairings together, continue to be a dominant force in the foursomes.”

Traditionally Europe have been more successful in the pairs formats of the event, with the United States often enjoying the upper hand in the singles, as was the case in the 2025 edition.

“Friday and Saturday are huge days because you lay the foundation down for what Sunday’s singles can be,” reflected the 2010 US Open champion.

“America are historically a little stronger in singles over the years but Europe laid the foundations down in those pairings. It comes down to understanding what makes a great pair, and that comes from all the analytics.

“But there’s so much more to that. It comes from the great friendships that are struck up in the team rooms, the camaraderie.

“The players come from all over Europe – different countries, different cultures and different backgrounds. They all come together.”

For much of the last 16 years, the stock market has been unstoppable. With the exception of the five-week COVID-19 crash in February-March 2020, and the roughly nine-month bear market in 2022, the bulls have been in firm control on Wall Street.

The catalyst for this ongoing outperformance primarily rests with Wall Street’s trillion-dollar businesses. Think Nvidia (NVDA 0.27%) and Apple, as well as newer trillion-dollar club members Broadcom and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, which is also known as TSMC.

All told, just 11 publicly traded companies have ever reached a $1 trillion market cap, not accounting for the effects of inflation, and 10 trade on U.S. exchanges. This includes all members of the “Magnificent Seven,” along with Broadcom, TSMC, and billionaire Warren Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway.

Image source: Getty Images.

While Nvidia appears to have the inside path to retaining its current title as Wall Street’s most valuable public company by the turn of the decade, another Mag Seven member is ideally positioned to dethrone Nvidia and leapfrog the likes of Apple and Microsoft along the way.

Despite its AI dominance, Nvidia’s spot atop the trillion-dollar pedestal is far from secure

As of the closing bell on Sept. 24, artificial intelligence (AI) titan Nvidia clocked in with a market cap north of $4.3 trillion. It’s the first public company to have reached the $4 trillion mark, and is believed to have a chance to surpass a $6 trillion valuation, based on the price targets of Wall Street’s most optimistic analysts.

This optimism stems from Nvidia’s dominant position as the leader in AI graphics processing units (GPUs) deployed in enterprise data centers. Three generations of advanced AI chips — Hopper (H100), Blackwell, and now Blackwell Ultra — have enjoyed insatiable demand and extensive order backlogs.

Aside from clear-cut compute advantages, Nvidia’s AI hardware benefits from a persistent lack of AI GPU supply. As long as enterprise demand overwhelms available hardware, Nvidia is going to have no trouble charging a premium for its GPUs and netting a gross margin in excess of 70%.

While these competitive edges would imply that Nvidia’s spot atop the trillion-dollar pedestal is secure, historical precedent would beg to differ.

One of the prime threats to Wall Street’s largest public company is that every next-big-thing trend dating back more than three decades has eventually navigated its way through a bubble-bursting event early in its expansion. This is to say that investors consistently overestimate the early adoption and real-world utility of next-big-thing innovations. Though AI has undeniable long-term applications, most businesses are nowhere close to optimizing these solutions at present, or have yet to net a positive return on their AI investments.

Competition is something that can’t be ignored, either. Even with external competitors lagging Nvidia in compute ability, there’s a very real possibility of Wall Street’s AI darling losing out on valuable data center real estate and/or being undermined by delayed AI GPU upgrade cycles.

Many of Nvidia’s largest customers by net sales are developing AI GPUs to deploy in their data centers. Though these chips won’t be competing with Nvidia’s hardware externally, they’re considerably cheaper to build and more readily accessible. It’s a recipe for Nvidia’s competitive edge to dwindle in the coming years, and for Wall Street’s AI kingpin to cede its title as the most valuable public company.

Image source: Amazon.

This will be Wall Street’s most valuable public company come 2030

Although Apple or Microsoft would seem to be logical choices to reclaim the top spot that both companies have previously held, dual-industry leader Amazon (AMZN 0.78%) is the trillion-dollar stock that looks to have the best chance to become Wall Street’s most valuable company by 2030.

The operating segment that typically introduces consumers to Amazon is its online marketplace. According to estimates from Analyzify, Amazon’s e-commerce segment accounts for a 37.6% share of U.S. online retail sales. Amazon’s spot as the leading e-commerce giant isn’t threatened — although its operating margin associated with online retail sales tends to be razor thin.

While Amazon’s retail operations provide a face for the company, it’s a trio of considerably higher-margin ancillary segments that’ll be responsible for bulking up the company’s operating cash flow in the years to come.

Nothing has more bearing on Amazon’s long-term success than cloud infrastructure platform Amazon Web Services (AWS). Tech analysis firm Canalys pegged its share of worldwide cloud infrastructure spend at 32% during the second quarter, which is nearly as much as Microsoft’s Azure and Alphabet‘s Google Cloud on a combined basis.

AWS has been growing by a high-teens percentage on a year-over-year basis, excluding currency movements. The thinking here is that the inclusion of generative AI solutions and large language model capabilities for AWS clients will only enhance the growth rate for AWS.

As of the June-ended quarter, AWS was pacing more than $123 billion in annual run-rate revenue. Most importantly, AWS is responsible for almost 58% of Amazon’s operating income through the first half of 2025 despite accounting for less than 19% of net sales. Even if an AI bubble forms and bursts, application providers like AWS can weather the storm.

The other pieces of the puzzle for Amazon are advertising services and subscription services. When you’re drawing billions of people to your site monthly, it’s not difficult to command exceptional ad-pricing power.

It also doesn’t hurt that Amazon has landed exclusive streaming partnerships with the National Football League and National Basketball Association. When coupled with e-commerce shipping perks and exclusive shopping events, Amazon has plenty of pricing power with its Prime subscription.

Finally, Amazon is historically inexpensive. From 2010 to 2019, Amazon closed out each year between 23 and 37 times trailing-12-month cash flow. Based on Wall Street’s consensus, Amazon’s cash flow per share is forecast to grow from a reported $11.04 in 2024 to $27.52 in 2029.

In other words, Amazon is valued at only 8 times projected cash flow in 2029, which means it can reasonably add $2.5 trillion to $4 trillion in market value from here and still be trading at a significant discount to its average cash flow multiple during the 2010s.

Four of America’s nominally closest allies — Britain, Australia, France and Canada — disgraced themselves this week by recognizing a so-called Palestinian state. In so doing, these nations didn’t merely betray their Western civilizational inheritance. They also rewarded terrorism, strengthened the genocidal ambitions of the global jihad and sent a chilling message: The path to international legitimacy runs not through the difficult work of building up a nation-state and engaging in diplomacy, but through mass murder, the weaponization of transnational institutions and the erasure of historical truth.

The Trump administration has already denounced this craven capitulation by our allies. There should be no recognition of an independent Palestinian state at this moment in history. Such a recognition is an abdication not only of basic human decency, but also of national interest and strategic sanity.

The global march toward recognition of an independent Palestinian state ignores decades of brutal facts on the ground as well as the specific tide of blood behind this latest surge. It was less than two years ago — Oct. 7, 2023 — that Hamas launched the most barbaric anti-Jewish pogrom since the Holocaust: 6,000 terrorists poured into Israel, massacring roughly 1,200 innocent people in acts of unconscionable depravity — systematic rape, torture, kidnapping of babies. The terrorists livestreamed their own atrocities and dragged more than 250 hostages back to Gaza’s sprawling subterranean terror dungeons, where dozens remain to this day.

Many gullible liberal elites wish to believe that the radical jihadists of Hamas do not represent the broader Palestinian-Arab population, but that is a lie. Polls consistently show — and anecdotal videos of large street crowds consistently demonstrate — that Hamas and like-minded jihadist groups maintain overwhelming popularity in both Gaza and Judea and Samaria (what the international community refers to as the West Bank). These groups deserve shame, scorn and diplomatic rebuke — not fawning sympathy and United Nations red carpets.

The “government” in Gaza is a theocratic, Iranian-backed terror entity whose founding charter drips with unrepentant Jew-hatred and whose leaders routinely celebrate the wanton slaughter of innocent Israelis as triumphs of “resistance.” Along with the kleptocratic Palestinian Authority dictatorship in Ramallah, this is who, and what, Group of 7 powers like Britain and France have decided to reward with an imprimatur of legitimate statehood.

There is no meaningful “peace partner,” and no “two-state” vision to be realized, amid this horrible reality. There is only a sick cult of violence, lavishly funded from Tehran and eager for widespread international recognition as a stepping stone toward the destruction of Israel — and the broader West for which Israel is a proxy.

For decades, Western leaders maintained a straightforward position: There can be no recognition of a Palestinian state outside of direct negotiations with Israel, full demilitarization and the unqualified acceptance of Israel’s right to exist in secure borders as a distinctly Jewish state. The move at the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state torches that policy, declaring to the world that savagery and maximalist rejectionism are the currency of international legitimacy. By rewarding unilateralism and eschewing direct negotiation, these reckless Western governments have proved us international law skeptics right: The much-ballyhooed “peace process” agreements, such as the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, are not worth the paper they were written on.

In the wake of Oct. 7, these nations condemned the massacre, proclaimed solidarity with Israel and even briefly suspended funding for UNRWA, the U.N. aid group for the Palestinian territories, after agency employees were accused of participating in the attack. Yet, under the relentless drumbeat of anti-Israel activism and diplomatic cowardice, they have now chosen to rehabilitate the Palestinian-Arab nationalist cause — not after the leaders of the cause renounced terrorism, but while its most gruesome crimes remained unpunished, its hostages still languish in concentration camp-like squalor and its leaders still clamor for the annihilation of Israel.

Trump should clarify not only that America will not join in this dangerous, high-stakes charade, but also that there could very well be negative trade or diplomatic repercussions for countries that recognize an independent Palestinian terror state. The reason for such consequences would be simple: Undermining America’s strongest ally in the Middle East while simultaneously creating yet another new terror-friendly Islamist state directly harms the American national interest. There is no American national interest — none, zero — in the creation of a new Palestinian state in the heart of the Holy Land. On the contrary, as the Abraham Accords peace deals of 2020 proved, there is plenty of reason to embolden Israel. Contra liberal elites, it is this bolstering of Israel that fosters genuine regional peace.

The world must know: In the face of evil, America does not flinch, does not equivocate and does not reward those who murder our friends and threaten the Judeo-Christian West. As long as the Jewish state stands on the front lines of civilization, the United States must remain at its side, unwavering, unbowed and unashamed. Basic human decency and the American national interest both require nothing less.

Josh Hammer’s latest book is “Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.” This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. X: @josh_hammer

“The dawn of freedom will emerge, and the flag of Palestine will fly high in our skies.”
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was applauded by the UN General Assembly after he vowed Palestinians will not leave their homeland.

The last Syrian president to address the UN General Assembly spoke at the gathering in 1967.

Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa has arrived in New York for the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), becoming the first Syrian head of state to attend the annual gathering in almost six decades.

The last Syrian leader to attend the UNGA was President Nureddin al-Atassi, who ruled before the al-Assad family came to power in 1971 and maintained its rule until al-Sharaa toppled Bashar al-Assad’s government in December.

Al-Sharaa arrived in New York on Sunday, leading a large delegation of Syrian officials, in what state media described as a “landmark trip”.

The symbolism of the visit was also significant because it is the latest milestone in the normalisation of al-Sharaa and his government, who seized power in the country in a lightning offensive after spending more than a decade as a rebel fighter in northern Syria.

Al-Sharaa had a meeting with United States President Donald Trump in May, the first such encounter between a Syrian president and a US president in 25 years, at a summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council, alongside Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. At the meeting, Trump said the US would drop all sanctions on Syria, which he subsequently did, and added that Washington was “exploring normalising relations with Syria’s new government”.

Al-Sharaa’s fledgling government has been contending with internal strife, notably an eruption of violence in the southern area of Suwayda in June, as well repeated Israeli attacks and military incursions into Syrian territory despite talks between the two nations.

Syria has accused Israel of violating the 1974 Disengagement Agreement that followed their 1973 war, by establishing intelligence facilities and military posts in demilitarised areas to advance its “expansionist and partition plans”.

In an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation, al-Sharaa said “President Trump took a big step towards Syria by lifting the sanctions with a quick, courageous and historic decision.

“He recognized that Syria should be safe, stable and unified. This is in the greatest interest of all the countries in the world, not just Syria,” he added, saying he hoped to have another meeting with Trump while in the US.

“We need to discuss a great many issues and mutual interests between Syria and the USA. We must restore relations in a good and direct way.”

At the end of June, Trump signed an executive order “terminating” most remaining sanctions on Syria, which was welcomed in Damascus as unlocking “long-awaited reconstruction and development” funds.

After arriving in the US, al-Sharaa met members of the Syrian community.

Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani also raised the country’s new flag over the Washington embassy.

في لحظة تاريخية، وزير الخارجية والمغتربين السيد أسعد حسن الشيباني يرفع علم الجمهورية العربية السورية فوق مبنى السفارة السورية في العاصمة الأميركية واشنطن. pic.twitter.com/PWyUEGSIBK

— وزارة الخارجية والمغتربين السورية (@syrianmofaex) September 19, 2025

Translation: In a historic moment, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Mr Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani, raises the flag of the Syrian Arab Republic above the building of the Syrian embassy in the US capital, Washington.

Remember the vaunted Trump-Putin summit? It was just a month ago this week, but Americans could be excused for having forgotten. Nothing good has come of it. The cringy Alaska photo-op for the American and Russian presidents certainly didn’t yield President Trump’s long-promised deal to end Vladimir Putin’s criminal war on Ukraine.

In fact, as each day since has shown, worse than nothing has come from that failed bro-fest. Which begs renewed attention to it. Putin arrived to Trump’s literal red-carpet welcome and left with an apparent if unstated license — as then-candidate Trump said last year of the Russians — “to do whatever the hell they want.”

And they have.

On Tuesday last week, a Russian bomb hit a group of Ukrainian retirees collecting their pension checks, killing two dozen and injuring more — another day’s civilian toll in Putin’s ongoing offensive, the harshest in more than three years of war and one that’s struck U.S. and European installations. The next day, stunningly, about 20 Russian drones flew over next-door Poland, a NATO ally, forcing the alliance to scramble jets to shoot down threats over its territory for the first time in NATO history.

And mostly we’ve heard bupkis from Trump — except to keep blaming the war on his predecessor President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, never Putin. Even servile Senate Republicans have roused themselves to press for punishing sanctions against Russia, but Trump withholds his blessing.

You’d think the self-proclaimed “president of peace” would at least be riled that Putin’s impunity since Alaska is a stick in the eye to Trump’s wife as well. Melania Trump wrote Putin a letter — which Trump delivered at their summit — urging him to protect children. “It was very well received,” Trump boasted later.

Oh, yeah? Putin’s public response to the first lady has been missiles and drones that have killed and injured Ukrainian children in their beds and at their schools. Meanwhile, nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children remain kidnapped in Russia, a war crime.

What a tragic irony that the president who promised he’d end the Ukraine war on “day one,” and who incessantly contends Russia never would have invaded had he, Putin’s friend, been president in 2022, now presides over Russia’s escalation of the war and its unprecedented incursion into NATO territory. And Trump acts all but impotent.

For three years until his return to power, Russia did not test the United States’ pledge to “defend every inch” of NATO territory. Now it has. And at the news of the Poland intrusion, Trump, the supposed leader of the free world, showed himself to be little more than an internet troll.

“What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!” was his online outburst long hours after the news last Wednesday. The next day he suggested the drones’ flight into Poland “could have been a mistake,” provoking rebuttals from Polish leaders and NATO allies. And when NATO’s European members last Friday reinforced the alliance’s eastern flank defenses against Russia, they announced no U.S. contributions.

Much was made last spring of Trump’s nickname among some Wall Street types for his on-again, off-again tariffs: “TACO,” for Trump Always Chickens Out. But that moniker better describes Trump’s Russia stance: He repeatedly sets up a face-off against Putin, and invariably face-plants.

For weeks ahead of the August summit, Trump threatened “extreme consequences” if Russia didn’t agree to a cease-fire. Then, as quickly as U.S. soldiers rolled out the red carpet for Putin, Trump rolled up his cease-fire talk. After hours under Putin’s sway, he came away talking not about what Russia would do for peace but what territorial concessions Ukraine would make. And a month later, he’s still resisting Congress’ proposed sanctions against Russia, even as he’s levied big tariffs on India and China in part as punishment for buying Russian oil.

Nothing Trump claimed would happen as a consequence of his summitry has come to pass. Not a meeting between Putin and Zelensky, nor a trilateral follow-up with the Nobel-coveting Trump joining as mediating peacemaker. Putin has had high-level meetings since the Alaska summit, but they’ve been with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un — all drawn closer in solidarity against the United States’ hegemony.

Trump’s embarrassingly weak response to Russia’s aggression, together with his passivity in the face of Israel’s defiance in renewing its offensive in starving Gaza, recently prompted a New York Times analysis declaring “the bystander phase of the Trump presidency.” A Wall Street Journal headline said Trump is “sidelining himself” in foreign policy. On Wednesday, New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman wrote that, just as Trump sought to rename the Department of Defense to be the Department of War, the White House should be called “Waffle House.” (Or Taco Bell?) The criticisms are international: Poland’s deputy prime minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said in a video last week that Putin, by his hostilities, is “mocking” Trump’s peace talk.

There’s mockery indeed in Moscow, where politicians and state-run media continue to celebrate Putin as the summit winner. Russians weren’t quaking in their valenki when Trump told “Fox & Friends” hosts on Friday that his patience with Russia is “running out fast.” Alexei Zhuravlyov, a leader of the Russian State Duma, said Trump’s “normal state” is “either waiting to talk to Putin, talking to Putin or explaining how well he talked to Putin.” Pundit Mikhail Rostovsky dismissed Trump’s fussing and threats as “a new ‘Groundhog Day.’”

“The Kremlin believes that Russia is slowly but surely achieving its goals in Ukraine,” Rostovsky added. “Therefore Moscow does not intend to stop there.”

Putin has said as much himself. Only Trump doesn’t seem to hear him. Or doesn’t want to.

Bluesky: @jackiecalmes
Threads: @jkcalmes
X: @jackiekcalmes

Sept. 17 (UPI) — The Trump administration has announced the unsealing of an indictment and a multimillion-dollar reward for information on the leader of a Sinaloa Cartel-linked gang, as it cracks down on the infamous narcotics trafficking organization.

Federal law enforcement accuses Juan Jose Ponce Felix, also known as El Ruso, of being the leader of Los Rusos, a Mexican gang controlling the Mexicali drug trafficking corridor and a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel.

“Ponce Felix’s organization directly manages the distribution of millions of dollars’ worth of narcotics, particularly cocaine, fentanyl, methamphetamine and heroin, from Mexico to the U.S.,” the Drug Enforcement Administration said in a statement, adding with proceeds sent back to Mexico.

According to the State Department, Felix is not only the leader of Los Rusos, but its founder as the primary armed wing of La Mayiza, a powerful faction of the U.S.-designated Sinaloa Cartel.

La Mayiza was co-founded by Ismael Zambada Garcia, also known as El Mayo, who pleaded guilty in the United States in late August to being the leader of the criminal enterprise.

The DEA alleges that Ponce Felix, in 2012, before he became the leader of Los Rusos, worked with Zambada Garcia, leading a “fleet of cartel soldiers” in 2012, who conducted kidnappings, hostage takings, torture and murder.

He has been charged four times in two different California districts.

Along with the unsealing of the indictment, the State Department offered a reward of $5 million for information that leads to his arrest or conviction.

“For years, Ponce Felix has resorted to kidnapping, torture and murder to maintain his grip on power,” DEA Administrator Terrance Cole said in a statement.

“This reward underscores this administration’s whole-of-government approach and unwavering commitment to destroy the Sinaloa Cartel.”

The announcement comes weeks after the DEA led a four-day domestic operation from Aug. 25 to 29, targeting the Sinaloa Cartel, which resulted in 617 arrests and the seizure of drugs, 420 firearms and more than $11 million in U.S. currency.

On Wall Street, market cap serves as a differentiator of good and great businesses. While there are plenty of budding small- and mid-cap companies, businesses with valuations in excess of $10 billion have (more often than not) demonstrated their innovative capacity and backed up their worth to Wall Street.

But among this class of proven businesses is a truly elite group of 11 public companies that have reached the psychologically important trillion-dollar valuation plateau, not accounting for the effects of inflation over time (looking at you, Dutch East India Company). These 11 indelible titans include all seven members of the “Magnificent Seven,” Broadcom, Berkshire Hathaway, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, and Saudi Aramco, the latter of which doesn’t trade on U.S. exchanges.

Image source: Getty Images.

Last week, integrated cloud applications and cloud infrastructure services provider Oracle (ORCL 3.33%) came within a stone’s throw of becoming the 12th public company to reach at least a $1 trillion valuation before retreating. While the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) makes it a logical candidate to eventually surpass a market cap of $1 trillion, there’s another industry leader that’s ideally positioned to become Wall Street’s next trillion-dollar stock.

Oracle came oh-so-close to entering the trillion-dollar ranks

Following the closing bell on Sept. 9, Larry Ellison’s company delivered nothing short of a jaw-dropper with its fiscal 2026 first-quarter operating results.

It’s exceptionally rare when a megacap company moves by a double-digit percentage in a single trading session. At one point on Sept. 10, Oracle stock was higher by more than 40% and peaked at a market cap of $982 billion. Though it’s given back $150 billion in market value since its Sept. 10 peak, it closed out the week with a 25% gain, which isn’t shabby at all.

The hoopla surrounding Oracle has to do with its updated remaining performance obligations (RPO) forecast — RPO is essentially a backlog of future revenue based on contracts signed — and projected growth ramp for its high-margin Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) segment. OCI offers on-demand cloud-computing services, which can run AI workloads on private, public, and hybrid clouds, and also leases out AI compute.

On a year-over-year basis for the quarter ended Aug. 31, Oracle announced its RPO jumped 359% to $455 billion on the heels of signing four multibillion contracts during the fiscal first quarter. During the company’s conference call, CEO Safra Catz singled out privately held OpenAI and xAI, as well as Magnificent Seven members Meta Platforms and Nvidia, as some of these significant cloud contracts.

What’s perhaps even more impressive than the growth of Oracle’s backlog is its projected ramp in sales from OCI. Catz laid out a stunning growth forecast that calls for:

• 77% sales growth to $18 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2026
• 78% sales growth to $32 billion in FY 2027
• 128% sales growth to $73 billion in FY 2028
• 56% sales growth to $114 billon in FY 2029
• 26% sales growth to $144 billion in FY 2030

Catz and Oracle co-founder/Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison have outlined a clear path to outsized growth that the company has lacked since the dot-com days. However, a wait-and-see approach from investors may be preferred in the quarters to come given that Oracle has missed Wall Street’s earnings per share consensus in three of the last four quarters. This could stall its efforts to quickly join the elite trillion-dollar club.

Image source: Getty Images.

This is the sensational company that can beat Oracle to the trillion-dollar plateau

Considering how Wall Street lives and breathes anything having to do with AI, you might be thinking a tech company is the next logical candidate to reach the trillion-dollar plateau. But what if I told you that time-tested retailer Walmart (WMT 0.14%), which closed out last week with a market cap of $825 billion, has an inside path to a $1 trillion valuation?

On the surface, things might not seem perfect for the retail industry. Recent job market revisions point to a potentially weakening U.S. economy.

At the same time, the effects of President Donald Trump’s tariff policies have begun to show up in monthly inflation reports. Between May and August, the trailing-12-month inflation rate, based on the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), rose by 67 basis points to 2.92%. When coupled with a weakening job market, rising inflation ignites fears of stagflation, which is a worse-case scenario for the Federal Reserve.

These scenarios are typically bad news for most retailers — but Walmart isn’t “most retailers.”

For decades, Walmart’s success has derived from its focus on value and convenience. When times are tough or uncertain in America, people turn to Walmart for a good deal on groceries, toiletries, and countless other items. If Trump’s tariffs are eventually ruled legal by the Supreme Court and remain in place, their inflationary impact is only going to drive more consumers, including affluent shoppers, into Walmart stores. Even if the company eats a portion of these tariffs, the benefit from increased foot traffic more than outweighs its sacrifice.

To build on this low-cost/value point, Walmart undeniably uses its size to its advantage. It has deep pockets and purchases products in bulk to lower its per-unit cost. This allows it to undercut mom-and-pop shops and national grocery chains on price and keeps consumers confined to its ecosystem of products and services (especially when they live close to a supercenter).

Another key to Walmart’s success has been its embrace of technology. Promoting its online retail channels and Walmart+ subscription service helped lift global e-commerce sales by 25% during the fiscal 2026 second quarter (ended July 31), and has pushed its U.S. e-commerce operations into the profit column. It’s also leaning into AI as a way to improve supply chain management and improve order fulfillment times.

It would only take a 21% move higher for Walmart to become the 12th public company to reach $1 trillion, and it looks to be in an ideal position to do so.

NEW YORK — Gov. Kathy Hochul on Sunday urged New Yorkers to vote for Zohran Mamdani for mayor of New York City, giving the Democratic nominee one of his most significant endorsements to date in the contest to lead the nation’s biggest city.

Writing in the New York Times’ opinion section, Hochul said that while she and Mamdani diverged on some issues, they came together on the importance of addressing the affordability crisis in the city and across the state.

“But in our conversations, I heard a leader who shares my commitment to a New York where children can grow up safe in their neighborhoods and where opportunity is within reach for every family,” wrote Hochul, a fellow Democrat. “I heard a leader who is focused on making New York City affordable — a goal I enthusiastically support.”

The stunning success of Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, in the race for New York City mayor has exposed divisions within the Democratic Party as it struggles to repair its brand more than half a year into Donald Trump’s presidency. Hochul’s endorsement is the latest sign that Democratic leaders who had been skeptical of Mamdani’s left-leaning views are beginning to consolidate around him.

Mamdani thanked Hochul for the boost, saying it’s a sign that “our movement is growing stronger.”

“Governor Hochul has made affordability the centerpiece of her work. I look forward to fighting alongside her to continue her track record of putting money back in New Yorkers’ pockets and building a safer and stronger New York City where no one is forced to leave just so they can afford to raise a family,” Mamdani said in a statement Sunday night. “I’m grateful to the Governor for her support in unifying our party — as well as the work she’s done standing up to President Trump, securing free lunch meals for our kids, and expanding access to childcare.”

In recent weeks, the other candidates in the race — former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and Republican Curtis Sliwa — have intensified their criticism of Mamdani over his platform and past statements ahead of the city’s general election in November.

U.S. House Republican Leadership Chair Elise Stefanik, a New York congresswoman, said Hochul’s endorsement is a sign that the governor is moving left to shore up falling poll numbers.

“At the exact moment when New Yorkers are looking for strong leadership from their Governor with a majority opposing Zohran Mamdani, Kathy Hochul embraces this raging Communist who will destroy New York making it less affordable and more dangerous — once again putting criminals and communists first, and New Yorkers LAST,” Stefanik said in a Sunday statement.

Mamdani soundly defeated Cuomo in the Democratic primary. Cuomo has since relaunched his campaign as an independent. Adams, a Democrat, skipped the primary to run as an independent in November. Sliwa ran unopposed in the Republican primary.

Hochul served as lieutenant governor to Cuomo and replaced him after he stepped down in 2021 following a barrage of sexual harassment allegations. He denied wrongdoing during the campaign, maintaining that the scandal was driven by politics.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass plans to endorse Antonio Villaraigosa, a longtime compatriot and the city’s former mayor, in the 2026 governor’s race on Tuesday.

“Antonio and I have known and worked together our entire adult life,” Bass said in a statement. “I have seen up close the impact he has made not just for our city but for our entire state. Our country is at a crossroads and it’s vital that our state have a leader who will lead California into the future.”

Villaraigosa said he was honored to have Bass’ support, describing the mayor as “a fierce advocate for working families, children, seniors, and underserved communities and a tireless champion for social and economic justice and for the people of Los Angeles.”

The race to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom has drawn a crowded field of contenders with notable credentials.

In addition to Villaraigosa, who served as Los Angeles’ mayor for eight years, other prominent candidates include former Rep. Katie Porter of Irvine, former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, former state legislative leader Toni Atkins, current state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, former state Controller Betty Yee, wealthy businessman Stephen Cloobeck, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton.

After former Vice President Kamala Harris opted against entering the gubernatorial race, independent polling has found that Porter and Bianco have a narrow edge in the 2026 contest. But much could happen in the eight months before the June primary. Politically active Californians are largely focused on the November special election about redrawing California’s congressional districts.

Despite being the Democratic leader of the nation’s second-largest city in an overwhelmingly blue state and a veteran congresswoman, it’s unclear how much weight Bass’ endorsement will have in the governor’s race.

Her favorability ratings have dropped since she was elected mayor in 2022. Shortly before Bass won the mayoral contest, 50% of Los Angeles voters had a favorable opinion of her, according to a UC Berkeley/Los Angeles Times poll. In April, after wildfires ravaged the area, 50% had an unfavorable view of her. However, Bass’ reputation may have rebounded as she vigorously defended the city during federal immigration raids this summer.

Bass has known Villaraigosa, a former two-term Los Angeles mayor and legislative leader, for more than half a century. They met as community activists in the 1970s, focused on issues such as the drug epidemic, police accountability and poverty.

They have long supported each other’s political pursuits. Villaraigosa was an early backer of Bass’ 2022 mayoral campaign and served on her mayoral transition team.

Bass is scheduled to publicly endorse Villaraigosa on Tuesday morning outside of the Los Angeles Sentinel, a Black-owned weekly newspaper. Los Angeles City Council President Marqueece Harris Dawson, Councilwoman Heather Hutt, Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson, Inglewood City Councilwoman Dionne Faulk and South Los Angeles religious leaders are also expected to attend.

The city’s Black voters were part of the coalition Villaraigosa built that won him the mayor’s race in 2005.

“I understood from an early age that much of the success that I have had is on the backs of the civil rights movement,” Villaraigosa told the Sentinel in 2022. He added that he “wouldn’t have been elected mayor if not for African Americans, Latinos, Asians, Jews and progressive whites all coming together.”

After Los Angeles police officers shot at people on three consecutive days late last month, the LAPD’s civilian bosses turned to Chief Jim McDonnell for an explanation.

The Police Commission wanted to know: What more could the department be doing to keep officers from opening fire?

But in his response at the panel’s meeting last week, McDonnell seemed to bristle at the notion his officers were too trigger-happy.

“I think what we’re seeing is an uptick in the willingness of criminals within the community to assault officers head-on,” he said at the Aug. 26 meeting. “And then officers respond with what they have to do in order to control it.”

The commission has heaped praise on McDonnell for his performance since taking over the department in November. But the exchange over the recent cluster of police shootings — part of an overall increase that has seen officers open fire in 31 incidents this year, up from 20 at the same point in 2024 — marked a rare point of contention.

Commission Vice President Rasha Gerges Shields told the chief that she and her colleagues remained “troubled by the dealings of people both with edged weapons — knives, other things like that — and also those who are in the midst of a mental health crisis.”

During a radio appearance earlier this year, the chief brushed aside questions about shootings, saying officers are often put into dangerous situations where they have no choice but to open fire in order to protect themselves or the public.

“That is something that’s part of the job unfortunately,” he said. “It’s largely out of the control of the officer and the department as far as exposure to those types of threats.”

Such remarks have left some longtime observers worried that the department is backsliding to the days when department leaders tolerated pervasive and excessive use of force. McDonnell’s defense of aggressive tactics during this summer’s pro-immigration protests, critics argue, sends a dangerous message to the rank-and-file.

The LAPD sits at a “pivotal” crossroads, according to Jorja Leap, a professor at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

The federal consent decree that followed the Rampart gang scandal of the late 1990s pushed the LAPD into becoming a more transparent and accountable agency, whose leaders accepted community buy-in as essential to their mission, said Leap.

Out of the reforms that followed came its signature outreach program, the Community Safety Partnership, which eschews arrests in favor of bringing officers together with residents to solve problems at some of the city’s most troubled housing projects.

Leap said support for the program has in recent years started to wane, despite research showing the approach has helped drive down crime. “The LAPD has now evolved into an inward-facing organization,” she said.

McDonnell was not available for an interview this week, an LAPD spokeswoman said.

Others faulted the chief for his response to the Trump administration’s immigration raids in Southern California, taking issue with the local police presence at federal operations and the aggressive actions of LAPD officers toward protesters and journalists during demonstrations in June.

Fernando Guerra, a political science professor at Loyola Marymount University, said McDonnell seems unwilling to acknowledge how the sight of riot-gear-clad officers holding off protesters created the impression that police were “protecting the feds and the buildings more than the residents of L.A. who pay for LAPD.”

McDonnell has repeatedly defended his department’s response, telling reporters earlier this year that officers were forced to step in to quell “direct response to immediate, credible threats.”

He also issued an internal memo voicing his support to officers in the Latino-majority department and acknowledging the mixed feelings that some may have about the immigration raids.

After his public swearing-in in November, McDonnell acknowledged how much had changed with the department since he left in 2010, while saying that “my perspective is much broader and wider, realizing that we are not going to be successful unless we work very closely with the community.”

At the time, his appointment was viewed with surprise in local political circles, where some questioned why a progressive mayor with a community organizing background like Karen Bass would hitch her fortunes to a law-and-order chief. Others argued that McDonnell was an appealing choice: A respected LAPD veteran who also served as the chief in Long Beach and later as Los Angeles County sheriff.

After numerous scandals in recent years, McDonnell’s selection for the job was widely seen as offering stability while the city prepared for the massive security challenges of the upcoming World Cup and Olympic Games.

With an earnest, restrained manner, McDonnell has won over some inside the department who were put off by his predecessor Michel Moore’s micromanaging leadership style. After his much-publicized union battles during his tenure as sheriff, McDonnell has courted the powerful Los Angeles Police Protective League by putting new focus on police hiring and promising to overhaul the department’s controversial disciplinary system.

By some measures, McDonnell has also delivered results for Bass. Violent crime numbers continue to drop, with homicides on pace for 50-year lows.

But the two leaders have taken starkly different positions on the White House’s indiscriminate raids and deployment of National Guard troops.

McDonnell took heat during a City Council hearing in June when he described federal law enforcement officers participating in immigration operations as “our partners.”

Andrés Dae Keun Kwon, policy counsel and senior organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said that McDonnell’s record on immigration was one of the reasons the ACLU opposed his selection as chief. Since then, Kwon said, the chief seems out of touch with the message of Bass and other local leaders rallying around the city’s immigrants.

“Given that we’re three months into this Trump regime siege of Los Angeles you’d think that the leader of this police department” would be more responsive to the community’s needs, Kwon said.

In a statement, Clara Karger, a spokeswoman for Bass, said that “each leader has a different role to play in protecting Angelenos and all agree that these indiscriminate raids are having devastating consequences for our city,” she said.

McDonnell’s relationship with the Police Commission has been cordial, but several department insiders — who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose private discussions — said that behind the scenes some commissioners have started to second-guess the chief’s handling of disciplinary cases.

The tensions were evident at the recent meeting when the issue of officer shootings led to a public dressing-down of the chief.

Echoing the frustrations of LAPD critics who flood the commission’s meetings on a weekly basis, board members questioned how it was possible that officers needed to fire their weapons on back-to-back-to-back days last month.

Commissioner Fabian Garcia called the three shootings “a lot.”

He and his colleagues told McDonnell they expected the LAPD to present a report on the shootings at a future meeting.

McDonnell responded, “Great, thank you,” before launching into his regular crime and staffing updates.

Portugal’s Joao Almeida outpaced overall leader Jonas Vingegaard to win the gruelling 13th stage of the Vuelta a Espana – as the race was again disrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters.

Almeida of UAE Team Emirates-XRG took over the lead from team-mate Felix Grossschartner with less than six kilometres to go to the summit finish at the Alto de Angliru.

The Portuguese and Vingegaard, the top two in the general classification, then broke away from Jai Hindley and 2023 winner Sepp Kuss with three kilometres to the summit before the duo battled it out in for the stage win up the steep ascent.

Earning bonus seconds with his first stage win at the Vuelta, Almeida closed the gap to Visma-Lease a Bike’s Vingegaard to 46 seconds in the overall rankings.

“This is a special one, I still don’t believe it,” Almeida said.

“I just put my pace from the bottom and I just did my bit the best I could. Jonas was always on my wheel. We were both on the limit and I was waiting for his attack anytime.

“I think this is the hardest climb in the world, its crazy, I’m really sore.”

Great Britain’s Tom Pidcock remains third overall despite finishing seventh in the stage, but he is now two minutes 18 seconds off two-time Tour de France winner Vingegaard.

Australia’s Hindley, who took third in the 202.7km ride from Cabezon de la Sal to Alto de L’Angliru, sits fourth in the general classification.

Protesters waving Palestinian flags disrupted the stage before the climb to Angliru, affecting lead riders Jefferson Cepeda, Bob Jungels, and Nico Vinokurov.

The stoppage lasted a few seconds before security intervened.

“We were slowed down a bit by a demonstration during the race, but that didn’t change anything – we knew we would be caught by the best,” said Vinokurov, who held a three-minute lead over the peloton before the disruption.

The race organisers were forced to end stage 11 without a winner on Wednesday because of protests.

Meanwhile, the Asturias government boycotted Friday’s stage while urging Israel-Premier Tech to pull out of the race.

Stage 13 finished in Asturias, with two more stages on Saturday and Sunday also passing through the principality.

Gimena Llamedo, vice-president of the principality, said “it would be best for everyone” if Israel-Premier Tech withdrew from this year’s Vuelta.

“We don’t have the capacity to prevent your participation,” Llamedo said.

“Not even the government of Spain has it. But what we can and want to do is express our disagreement.”

After stage 11, the team, owned by Israeli-Canadian businessman Sylvan Adams, said pulling out of the race would “set a dangerous precedent” in cycling.

“We must not be impassive or indifferent to what is happening in Gaza. It is a matter of conscience, of mere humanity,” said Llamedo, urging the protesters not to endanger the safety of the cyclists or disrupt the race.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 64,231 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

The ministry also says 370 people have so far died during the war as a result of malnutrition and starvation, including three over the past 24 hours.

TOKYO — The leaders of China, North Korea and Russia stood shoulder to shoulder Wednesday as high-tech military hardware and thousands of marching soldiers filled the streets of Beijing.

Two days earlier, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping huddled together, smiling broadly and clasping hands at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

The gatherings in China this week could be read as a striking, maybe even defiant, message to the United States and its allies. At the very least, they offered yet more evidence of a burgeoning shift away from a U.S.-dominated, Western-led world order, as President Trump withdraws America from many of its historic roles and roils economic relationships with tariffs.

Trump himself indicated he was the leaders’ target in a message on social media to Xi: “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America.”

But China’s military parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, and the earlier economic gathering, is also simply more of the self-interested, diplomatic jockeying that has marked regional power politics for decades.

Each of these leaders, in other words, is out for himself.

Xi needs cheap Russian energy and a stable border with North Korea, his nuclear-armed wildcard neighbor. Putin is hoping to escape Western sanctions and isolation over his war in Ukraine. Kim wants money, legitimacy and to one-up archrival South Korea. Modi is trying to manage his relationship with regional heavyweights Putin and Xi, at a moment when ties with Washington are troubled.

The events highlight China’s regional aspirations

China is beset with serious domestic problems — stark economic and gender inequalities, to name two — and a tense standoff with Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing claims as its own. But Xi has tried to position China as a leader of countries that feel disadvantaged by the post-World War II order.

“This parade showcases the ascendancy of China propelled by Trump’s inept diplomacy and President Xi’s astute statecraft,” said Jeff Kingston, a professor of Asian studies at Temple University Japan. “The Washington consensus has unraveled, and Xi is rallying support for an alternative.”

Some analysts caution against reading too much into Russia-China-North Korea ties. China remains deeply wary of growing North Korean nuclear power, and has long sought to temper its support — even agreeing at times to international sanctions — to try to influence Pyongyang’s pursuit of weapons.

“Though the Russia-North Korea tie has resumed to a military alliance, China refuses to return to the year of 1950,” when Beijing sent soldiers to support North Korea’s invasion of the South and the USSR provided crucial military aid, said Zhu Feng, dean of the School of International Relations of Nanjing University. “It is wrong to believe that China, Russia and North Korea are reinforcing bloc-building.”

Russia looks to China to help ease its isolation

For the Kremlin, Putin’s appearance in Beijing alongside major world leaders is another way to shrug off the isolation imposed by the West on Russia in the wake of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

It has allowed Putin to take to the world stage as a statesman, meeting a host of world leaders, including Modi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. And Putin’s reception by Xi is a reminder that Russia still has major trading partners, despite Western sanctions that have cut off access to many markets.

At the same time, Russia does not want to anger Trump, who has been more receptive than his predecessor, particularly in hearing out Moscow’s terms for ending its war with Ukraine.

“I want to say that no one has been plotting anything; no one was weaving any conspiracies,” Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said about Trump’s social media message. “None of the three leaders had even thought about such a thing.”

Kim Jong Un walks a diplomatic tightrope in Beijing

The North Korean leader’s trip to Beijing will deepen new ties with Russia while also focusing on the shaky relationship with his nation’s most crucial ally, and main economic lifeline, China.

Kim has sent thousands of troops and huge supplies of military equipment to help Russian forces to repel a Ukrainian incursion on their territory.

Without specifically mentioning the Ukraine war, Kim told Putin on Wednesday that “if there’s anything I can do for you and the people of Russia, if there is more that needs to be done, I will consider it as a brotherly obligation, an obligation that we surely need to bear.”

The Institute for National Security Strategy, a think tank affiliated with South Korea’s spy agency, said in a report this week that Kim’s trip, his first appearance at a multilateral diplomatic event since taking power in 2011, is meant to strengthen ties with friendly countries ahead of any potential resumption of talks about its nuclear program with Trump. The two leaders’ nuclear diplomacy collapsed in 2019.

“Kim can also claim a diplomatic victory as North Korea has gone from unanimously sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council for its illegal nuclear and missile programs to being embraced by UNSC permanent members Russia and China,” said Leif-Eric Easley, professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.

India’s Modi is playing a nuanced game

Modi is on his first visit to China since relations between the two countries deteriorated after Chinese and Indian soldiers engaged in deadly border clashes in 2020.

But the tentative rapprochement has its limits. Praveen Donthi, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, said the Indian leader did not participate in Beijing’s military parade because the “distrust with China still exists.”

“India is carefully walking this tightrope between the West and the rest, especially when it comes to the U.S., Russia and China,” he said. “Because India does not believe in formal alliances, its approach has been to strengthen its relationship with the U.S., maintain it with Russia, and manage it with China.”

Even as he takes some steps toward China, the United States is also on Modi’s mind.

India and Washington were negotiating a free trade agreement when the Trump administration imposed 25% tariffs for New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil, bringing the combined tariffs to 50%.

Trade talks have since stalled and relations have significantly declined. Modi’s administration has vowed to not to yield to U.S. pressure and signaled it is willing to move closer to China and Russia.

But Donthi said India would still like to keep a window open for Washington.

“If Modi can shake hands with Xi five years after the India-China border clash, it could be far easier for him to shake hands with Trump and get back to strengthening ties, because they are natural allies,” he said.

Klug writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Kim Tong-hyung and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea; Ken Moritsugu in Beijing; Sheikh Saaliq in New Delhi; and Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed to this report.

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad — Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, is praising a U.S. strike on a boat suspected of carrying drugs in the southern Caribbean.

President Trump said Tuesday that 11 people were killed aboard the boat that had departed Venezuela, which is located near Trinidad and Tobago.

“I, along with most of the country, am happy that the U.S. naval deployment is having success in their mission,” Persad-Bissessar said in a statement late Tuesday. “The pain and suffering the cartels have inflicted on our nation is immense. I have no sympathy for traffickers; the U.S. military should kill them all violently.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the drugs aboard the vessel were likely headed to Trinidad or elsewhere in the Caribbean.

Persad-Bissessar said that restricting illegal guns, drugs and human trafficking would decrease violence in the Caribbean region and the twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, which has imposed two state of emergencies in recent months.

“Our country has been ravaged by bloody violence and addiction because of the greed of the cartels,” Persad-Bissessar said. “The slaughter of our people is fueled by evil cartel traffickers.”

Other Caribbean leaders were more reserved in their remarks.

Barbados Today, a local news site, quoted Barbadian Foreign Minister Kerrie Symmonds as saying that foreign ministers within Caricom, a 15-member regional trade bloc, wrote to Rubio to ensure that future military operations within the Caribbean don’t occur without prior notice or explanation.

“What effectively we are trying to do is to work through the diplomatic channels of making sure that there are no surprises and practices, so that you get notification wherever it is feasible for actions that are going to have a foreseeable regional impact,” Symmonds was quoted as saying.

He said that ongoing dialogue would “avoid misunderstandings, and we can maintain and strengthen our mutual confidence with each other.”

Trump has said that the vessel targeted in the strike in international waters was operated by Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang. The White House didn’t immediately explain how the military determined that those aboard the vessel were Tren de Aragua members.

The strike came after the U.S. announced last month that it planned to boost its maritime force in waters off Venezuela to fight threats from Latin American drug cartels.