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Viktor Orbán ‘Looks Like He Could Lose’ Hungary Election Tomorrow | Fraser Nelson

US-Iran Peace Talks Face Major Obstacles as Both Sides Claim Advantage

 

The Sphinx Thinks It Stinks

 



Opinion

Maureen Dowd

The Sphinx Thinks It Stinks

 

April 11, 2026, 7:00 a.m. ET

Maureen Dowd

By Maureen Dowd

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/11/opinion/melania-trump-epstein-statement.html

Opinion Columnist, reporting from Washington

 

President Trump is desperately trying to move on from his ruinous war in Iran. But there was no way he expected to be moving on — or moving back — to the Epstein files.

 

Thanks, Melania.

 

The world gasped when the first lady emerged from the mists on Thursday to give a statement that ended up yanking America’s eyeballs back to Jeffrey Epstein.

 

“Be Best,” this was not.

 

After firing the prevaricating Pam Bondi and threatening on Easter that the Iranians might soon be “living in Hell,” the president surely thought he was finally wriggling away from the sordid, sticky pedophile scandal.

 

For mysterious reasons, the Slovenian Sphinx stunned the West Wing, walking into the grand entrance hall of the White House to dump kerosene on the flickering Epstein fire.

 

In effect, Melania’s dramatic message was: Hey, guys, we’re not done here yet. Everybody come look at what my husband so terribly doesn’t want you to look at!

 

No one, not even Trump’s inner circle, seemed to know that this bizarre monologue was coming or what was driving it.

 

Gobsmacked aides scrambled to answer reporters’ questions about what the president knew and when he knew it.

 

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When Jacqueline Alemany of MS NOW called Trump, he told her he knew nothing in advance about the first lady’s statement.

 

The next day, he clarified to The Times’s Shawn McCreesh that, while he did not know that his wife was making the statement, he had known that she was upset by rumors that she was closer to Epstein than she had said, and wanted to clear the air.

 

“It doesn’t bother me,” he said, contradicting those who sniggered that she threw him under the bus. She had “a right to talk about it,” he said.

 

But he mused: “Would I have done it that way? Perhaps not, perhaps, I don’t know.”

 

For the first time, the first lady — who glided so serenely on skyscraper stilettos in her infomercial, “Melania” — looked shaken.

 

“The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today,” she told reporters, adding: “The false smears about me from meanspirited and politically motivated individuals and entities looking to cause damage to my good name to gain financially and climb politically must stop.”

 

The irony of Melania bitterly complaining about the sort of slimy tactics that fueled her husband’s rise was not lost on listeners.

 

“To be clear,” she said, “I never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice, Maxwell.” They had “overlapping social circles” in Palm Beach and Manhattan, which explained the photo of her partying with Donald, Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

 

Melania turned up in the Epstein files with a 2002 email to Maxwell, complimenting her on a picture that ran with a magazine piece about Epstein, asking how Palm Beach was, and telling Maxwell to call her when she was back in New York. She called Maxwell “G” and signed off, “Love, Melania.” Ghislaine wrote back, calling Melania “Sweet pea.”

 

“My polite reply to her email doesn’t amount to anything more than a trivial note,” Melania said.

 

The first lady called on Congress “to provide the women who have been victimized by Epstein with a public hearing specifically centered around the survivors” so they could tell their stories.

 

Shouldn’t the men doing the alleged crimes be the ones called to answer?

 

It was also astonishing that she felt compelled to clear up the little matter of how she and Donald met.

 

“I am not Epstein’s victim,” she said. “Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump. I met my husband, by chance, at a New York City party in 1998.”

 

In her memoir, the first lady recounted that a friend took her to the Kit Kat Club in Manhattan, where she met the celebrity developer.

 

She described how Trump flirted with her and asked for her number even though he was with a “beautiful” blond date. She refused but said that she would take his instead.

 

“I tucked the card into my clutch before his date returned to the table,” she wrote.

 

That should have been an early warning for her about Donald the Duplicitous.

 

The party was hosted by Paolo Zampolli, a former Italian modeling agent who recruited the young Slovenian model to come to America and who takes credit for introducing Donald and Melania. Zampolli has now been elevated by the president to be a special envoy for global partnerships, whatever that means. The flashy Trump acolyte got a D.C. townhouse where he throws parties and shows off pictures of the Trumps.

 

Zampolli posted photos on X this week showing himself with Vice President JD Vance and Viktor Orban at a table in Hungary. He has offered to testify before Congress that he played Cupid for the pair.

 

As The Times recently reported, Zampolli asked ICE to interfere in a nasty custody battle he was having with Amanda Ungaro, his Brazilian ex-girlfriend and the mother of his child.

 

Ungaro, in jail in Miami on a fraud charge, was deported after Zampolli’s call. He claims that he was merely inquiring about her case, not trying to get her deported.

 

The Epstein obsession among Trump’s base was planted by his henchmen and most devoted followers and then it came back to bite him — including this new chunk taken out of him by Melania. Conspiracy theories about Melania feed off a web of intersections. Through the modeling world, Zampolli had met Epstein and they had talked about buying a modeling agency together. His name pops up several times in the Epstein files, where Epstein refers to Zampolli as “trouble.”

 

Early Thursday just after midnight, Ungaro, clearly upset that Melania didn’t help her in the ICE deportation, posted threatening messages directed at her on X. One now-deleted post read: “I have nothing left to lose in my life. I will tear down the entire system — be careful with me bitch.” In another, she said: “Maybe you should be afraid of what I know … of who you are, and who your husband is.”

 

Melania’s statement came later that day, but who knows if there’s any connection?

 

As always with the sphinx on the Potomac, it’s a riddle.

‘There’s not a chance Trump’s not upset’: First Lady's fmr top aide talks surprise Epstein speech

Melania LINKED With Epstein? 2002 Email Exposes Message To Maxwell | Trump KILLED Epstein For Wife?

 

Iran Unable to Find Mines It Planted in Strait of Hormuz, U.S. Says

 



Iran Unable to Find Mines It Planted in Strait of Hormuz, U.S. Says

 

The lost mines have prevented Iran from quickly complying with President Trump’s demand to allow more ships to pass through the waterway.

 

Julian E. Barnes

By Julian E. Barnes

Julian E. Barnes reports on national security and has been tracking the Iranian effort to mine the Strait of Hormuz.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/10/us/politics/iran-mines-strait.html

April 10, 2026

 

Iran has been unable to open the Strait of Hormuz to more shipping traffic because it cannot locate all of the mines it laid in the waterway and lacks the capability to remove them, according to U.S. officials.

 

The development is one reason Iran has not been able to quickly comply with the Trump administration’s admonitions to let more traffic pass through the strait. It is also potentially a complicating factor as Iranian negotiators and a U.S. delegation led by Vice President JD Vance meet in Pakistan this weekend for peace talks.

 

Iran used small boats to mine the strait last month, soon after the United States and Israel began their war against the country. The mines, plus the threat of Iranian drone and missile attacks, slowed the number of oil tankers and other vessels passing through the strait to a trickle, driving up energy prices and providing Iran with its best leverage in the war.

 

Iran left a path through the strait open, allowing ships that pay a toll to pass through.

 

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has issued warnings that ships could collide with sea mines, and semiofficial news organizations have published charts showing safe routes.

 

Those routes are limited in large part because Iran mined the strait haphazardly, U.S. officials said. It is not clear that Iran recorded where it put every mine. And even when the location was recorded, some mines were placed in a way that allowed them to drift or move, according to the officials.

 

As with land mines, removing nautical mines is far more difficult than placing them. The U.S. military lacks robust mine removal capabilities, relying on littoral combat ships equipped with mine sweeping capabilities. Iran also does not have the capability of quickly removing mines, even the ones it planted.

 

In a social media post on Tuesday discussing a pause in the American-Israeli war with Iran, President Trump said a two-week cease-fire was contingent on the “COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING” of the Strait of Hormuz.

 

On Wednesday, Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, said that the strait would be open to traffic “with due consideration of technical limitations.” American officials have said Mr. Araghchi’s comment about technical limitations was a reference to Iran’s inability to quickly find or remove the mines.

 

Mr. Araghchi is now in Islamabad for meetings on Saturday with Mr. Vance. Given Mr. Trump’s demands to open the strait, the issue of how quickly safe passage through the waterway can be increased is likely to be a point of discussion.

 

The U.S. military sought to destroy Iran’s navy, sinking ships and targeting naval bases. But Iran has hundreds of small boats that it can use to harass ships or lay mines. Destroying all of those small boats has proved impossible.

 

Even before Iran began laying mines, threats from its leaders quickly disrupted global shipping and sent oil prices up sharply. On March 2, a senior official with the Revolutionary Guards announced that the strait was closed and claimed Iran would set ships “ablaze” if they entered the waterway, according to state media.

 

In the days after that threat, Iran began mining the strait, even as the United States intensified strikes on Iranian naval assets. At the time, American officials said Iran was not planting mines quickly or efficiently.

 

Because it was difficult to track the small boats deploying the mines, the United States is uncertain precisely how many Iran has placed in the strait or where they are located.

 

Julian E. Barnes covers the U.S. intelligence agencies and international security matters for The Times. He has written about security issues for more than two decades.

Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally (RN), held a secret dinner with Bernard Arnault, the world's richest man and CEO of LVMH, and other major French business leaders on Tuesday, April 7, 2026.

 


Le Pen met France’s richest man and other major CEOs at secret dinner

Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally (RN), held a secret dinner with Bernard Arnault, the world's richest man and CEO of LVMH, and other major French business leaders on Tuesday, April 7, 2026.

The meeting, held at the exclusive Drouant restaurant in Paris, signifies a strategic shift as France’s business elite seeks to "build bridges" with the far right ahead of future elections. Attendees described the evening as a "robust exchange of views" rather than a formal endorsement.

 

Key Attendees

According to reporting from Le Nouvel Obs and Politico, the dinner included more than a dozen CEOs and influential figures:

Bernard Arnault: CEO of LVMH.

Patrick Pouyanné: CEO of TotalEnergies.

Catherine MacGregor: CEO of Engie.

Sébastien Bazin: CEO of Accor.

Cyrille Bolloré: CEO of the Bolloré Group and son of billionaire Vincent Bolloré.

Jean-Dominique Senard: Chairman of Renault.

Henri de Castries: Former CEO of AXA.

Paul Hermelin: Former CEO of Capgemini, who reportedly organized the event.