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LONDON (AP) — A startled British government on Tuesday defended its decision to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, after U.S. President Donald Trump attacked the plan, which his administration had previously supported. Trump said that relinquishing the remote Indian Ocean archipelago, home to a strategically important American naval and bomber base, was an act of stupidity that shows why he needs to take over Greenland. “Shockingly, our ‘brilliant’ NATO Ally, the United Kingdom, is currently planning to give away the Island of Diego Garcia, the site of a vital U.S. Military Base, to Mauritius, and to do so FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER,” he said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social. “There is no doubt that China and Russia have noticed this act of total weakness.” “The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY, and is another in a very long line of National Security reasons why Greenland has to be acquired,” Trump said. The blast from Trump was a rebuff to efforts by Prime Minister Keir Starmer to calm tensions over Greenland and patch up a frayed trans-Atlantic relationship. Starmer on Monday called Trump’s statements about taking over Greenland “completely wrong,” but called for the rift to be “resolved through calm discussion.” The British government said Tuesday that despite the president’s post, it believes the U.S. still supports the Chagos deal. Cabinet Minister Pat McFadden said that a flurry of social media posts from Trump “criticizing a number of world leaders” showed the president “is frustrated right now” as European allies push back on his desire for Greenland. “I don’t really believe this is about Chagos. I think it’s about Greenland,” McFadden said. Remote but strategic The United Kingdom and Mauritius signed a deal in May to give Mauritius sovereignty over the Chagos Islands after two centuries under British control, though the U.K. will pay Mauritius at least 120 million pounds ($160 million) a year to lease back the island of Diego Garcia, where the U.S. base is located, for at least 99 years. The U.S. government welcomed the agreement at the time, saying it “secures the long-term, stable, and effective operation of the joint U.S.-U.K. military facility at Diego Garcia.” In recent years, the United Nations and its top court have urged Britain to return the islands to Mauritius, and the British government says it’s acting to protect the security of the base from international legal challenge. A government spokesperson said that “the U.K. will never compromise on our national security,” and “this deal secures the operations of the joint U.S.-U.K. base on Diego Garcia for generations, with robust provisions for keeping its unique capabilities intact and our adversaries out.” But the deal has met strong opposition from British opposition parties, which say that giving up the islands puts them at risk of interference by China and Russia. Islanders who were displaced from the islands to make way for the U.S. base say they weren’t consulted and worry the deal will make it harder for them to go home. Strong opposition Legislation to approve the agreement has been passed by the House of Commons, but faced strong opposition in Parliament’s upper chamber, the House of Lords, which approved it, while also passing a “motion of regret” lamenting the legislation. It’s due back in the Commons on Tuesday for further debate. Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch criticized Starmer’s Labour Party government over the agreement. Badenoch said in an X post that Trump is right and that Starmer’s “plan to give away the Chagos Islands is a terrible policy that weakens UK security and hands away our sovereign territory. And to top it off, makes us and our NATO allies weaker in the face of our enemies.” Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, an ally of the president said: “Thank goodness Trump has vetoed the surrender of the Chagos islands.” The U.S. has described the Diego Garcia…

One of the biggest revelations in WWE Unreal Season 2 is the release of R-Truth over the summer of 2025, which Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque broke down. In fact, it doesn’t sound like R-Truth was released by WWE; rather, the contract expired, and the promotion didn’t intend on renewing it. It may have been partially due to money, as the two sides may have been separated on this topic. “We got to a point in Truth’s run where his contract was coming up, when you are dealing with contracts and money, and you’re very far apart in the numbers and communication breaks down, it’s very easy for both sides to read into the communications differently,” Triple H explained. “Okay, well, if you’re not going to come [to] us, then, Truth, we’re gonna let your contract lapse.” pic.twitter.com/Ajfa4hjW3K — just put the clips in the bag (@ShootOrWork) January 19, 2026 Part of the negotiation tactic was hoping this would “force his hand” and get R-Truth back into the negotiations. However, this is not what happened, as he sent a message out on social media saying he was “released.” So, was R-Truth ever released by WWE? Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images. Triple H then clarified that R-Truth was “never not under contract with” the promotion. Meanwhile, R-Truth — who was “hurt” by the matter — confirmed that he felt as though he was “released.” Road Dogg, who is Truth’s close friend, even understood the business side of the matter. “While it broke my heart, it made perfect business sense to not renew his contract,” Road Dogg stated. “At his age, you might not get that reward back.” Luckily, Truth and WWE were able to come to an agreement. He returned less than a week after announcing his “release.” R-Truth made his surprise return at Money in the Bank, costing John Cena and Logan Paul their match against Cody Rhodes and Jey Uso. Upon his return, R-Truth seemed destined for a more dramatic character, going by Ron Killings (his government name). However, since then, he has reverted to his comedic character. The post WWE COO Triple H clears the air on R-Truth’s release appeared first on ClutchPoints.

RAQQA, Syria (AP) — The Syrian military claimed Tuesday that guards from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces had abandoned a camp in northeast Syria housing thousands of people linked to the Islamic State group, allowing the detainees to escape. The al-Hol camp houses mainly women and children who are family members of IS members or accused of being otherwise affiliated with the group. Thousands of accused IS militants are separately housed in prisons in northeast Syria. The SDF subsequently confirmed that its guards had withdrawn from the camp, blaming “international indifference toward the issue of the ISIS terrorist organization and the failure of the international community to assume its responsibilities in addressing this serious matter,” using another abbreviation for IS. It said its forces had redeployed “in the vicinity of cities in northern Syria that are facing increasing risks and threats” from government forces. Representatives of the U.S. military did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Earlier Tuesday, Syria’s ministry of interior said Tuesday that 120 Islamic State members escaped from a prison in northeast Syria a day earlier, amid clashes between government forces and the SDF, which guards the prison. Security forces recaptured 81 of the escapees, “while intensive security efforts continue to pursue the remaining fugitives and take the necessary legal measures against them,” the statement said. The SDF and the government have traded blame over the escape from a prison in the town of Shaddadeh, amid the breakdown of a ceasefire deal between the two sides. Also Tuesday, the SDF accused “Damascus-affiliated factions” of cutting off water supplies to the al-Aqtan prison near the city of Raqqa, which it called a “blatant violation of humanitarian standards.” The SDF, the main U.S.-backed force that fought IS in Syria, controls more than a dozen prisons in the northeast where some 9,000 IS members have been held for years without trial. Many of the detained extremists are believed to have carried out atrocities in Syria and Iraq after IS declared a caliphate in June 2014 over large parts of Syria and Iraq. IS was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, but the group’s sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in both countries. Under a deal announced Sunday, government forces were to take over control of the prisons from the SDF, but the transfer did not go smoothly. On Monday, Syrian government forces and SDF fighters clashed around two prisons housing members of the Islamic State group in Syria’s northeast. The clashes came as SDF chief commander Mazloum Abdi was said to be in Damascus to attempt to solidify a ceasefire deal reached Sunday that ended days of deadly fighting during which government forces captured wide areas of northeast Syria from the SDF. Abdi issued no statement after the meeting and the SDF later issued a statement calling for “all of our youth” to “join the ranks of the resistance,” appearing to signal that the deal had fallen apart. Interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa postponed a planned trip to Germany Tuesday amid the ongoing tensions in northeast Syria. Since toppling Bashar Assad in December 2024, Syria’s new leaders have struggled to assert their full authority over the war-torn country. An agreement was reached in March that would merge the SDF with Damascus, but it didn’t gain traction. Earlier this month, clashes broke out in the city of Aleppo, followed by the government offensive that seized control of Deir el-Zour and Raqqa provinces, critical areas under the SDF that include oil and gas fields, river dams along the Euphrates and border crossings. ——— Sewell reported from Beirut. Source

PARIS (AP) — Here, verbatim, are text messages that U.S. President Donald Trump received from French President Emmanuel Macron and the head of NATO, Mark Rutte, and which he published on Tuesday: Macron: “From président Macron to President Trump My friend, We are totally in line on Syria We can do great things on Iran I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland Let us try to build great things: 1) i can set up a g7 meeting after Davos in Paris on thursday afternoon. I can invite the ukrainians, the danish, the syrians and the russians in the margins 2) let us have a dinner together in Paris together on thursday before you go back to the us Emmanuel” Rutte: “Mr. President, dear Donald — what you accomplished in Syria today is incredible. I will use my media engagements in Davos to highlight your work there, in Gaza, and in Ukraine. I am committed to finding a way forward on Greenland. Can’t wait to see you. Yours, Mark” Source