Trump Undecided on $14 Billion Arms Package for Taiwan After Talks With Xi

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Trump Undecided on $14 Billion Arms Package for Taiwan After Talks With Xi

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) President Trump has said he’s undecided on moving forward with a massive $14 billion package of arms deals for Taiwan following his visit to Beijing and talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“I’ll make a determination over the next fairly short period. I’m gonna make a determination,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One as he was heading back to the US, according to POLITICO.

The president said he needed to speak with the person “running Taiwan,” though a US president hasn’t spoken with Taiwan’s leader since Washington severed formal diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979 as part of a normalization deal with Beijing. Back in 2016, Trump became the first president-elect to hold a call with Taiwan’s president.

Trump and Xi in Beijing on May 14, 2026 (White House photo)

The Trump administration approved a massive $11 billion package of arms deals for Taiwan in December 2025, more than was approved for the island during the entire Biden administration. US officials have already put together another package worth $14 billion, which includes Patriot missile defense systems and advanced surface-to-air missiles, according to the Financial Times.

Trump is under pressure from Democrats in Congress to move forward with the new arms package, and he has been criticized for discussing weapons sales to Taiwan with Xi since the “Six Assurances” the US gave to Taiwan in 1982 under the Reagan Administration said that the US had “not agreed” to consult with Beijing on arms sales to the island.

“He brought that up,” Trump told reporters when asked about discussing the arms sales with Xi. “He talked about that to me, obviously. So what am I going to do, say ‘I don’t want to talk to you about it because I have an agreement that was signed in 1982?’”

For its part, Beijing often points to the 1982 joint comminique between the US and China that states the US government “does not seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to Taiwan, that its arms sales to Taiwan will not exceed, either in qualitative or in quantitative terms, the level of those supplied in recent years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and China, and that it intends gradually to reduce its sale of arms to Taiwan, leading, over a period of time, to a final resolution.”

The Six Assurances the US gave to Taiwan do not take back the pledge to reduce and eventually end arms sales to Taiwan, but do say that the US “has not agreed to set a date for ending arms sales to Taiwan.”

China has made clear that it strongly opposes the continued US arms sales to Taiwan, which have increased in recent years, and it responded to the $11 billion package that moved forward in December by launching major military drills around Taiwan that simulated a blockade.

Xi also issued a strong warning to Trump regarding Taiwan during the talks in Beijing, saying it is the “most important issue in China-US relations” and that if it’s mishandled, the US and China will have “clashes and even conflicts, putting the entire relationship in great jeopardy.”

Trump told reporters that Xi “feels very strongly” about Taiwan and “doesn’t want to see a movement for independence.” The US president added that he “didn’t make a comment on it. I heard him out. I have a lot of respect for him.”

Tim Walz Enabled ‘Culture of Tolerance’ w/ Minnesota Fraud, Report Finds

Luis Cornelio
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Tim Walz Enabled ‘Culture of Tolerance’ w/ Minnesota Fraud, Report Finds

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) A new investigative report gives a scathing review of Gov. Tim Walz’s handling of Minnesota’s fraud scandal — reporting that his administration allowed the fraud to run rampant.

The Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Committee released its final 84-page report Tuesday, saying Walz led through a “culture of tolerance” that enabled serial fraudsters to steal billions in public funds.

According to the report, several officials within Walz’s office, the state Department of Human Services, and the Attorney General’s Office knew “that large-scale fraud” was likely occurring in the Child Care Assistance Program by 2019 and in the Minnesota Department by 2020.

Worse, the Walz administration “ignored and consciously downplayed shocking levels of fraud across” several programs, including Medicaid waiver programs, Emergency Medical Transportation, Integrated Community Supports, sober homes, Adult Day Care, Assisting Living Services and others, as reported by Fox News.

“Governor Walz created a culture that enabled fraud by failing to hold anyone in his administration accountable, despite years of credible whistleblower and OLA reports and actual federal criminal indictments and convictions,” the report stated.

“Instead of addressing the problem directly early in 2019 in the wake of the OLA reports on CCAP fraud, he downplayed or ignored the evidence and closed the criminal investigation unit that was having the greatest impact,” the report continued.

The report also stated that Walz attempted to shift blame to others rather than take responsibility.

In total, the fraud reportedly cost taxpayers $300 million in federal meal program fraud and as much as $9 billion in Medicare fraud.

The ongoing fraud scandal has increasingly been viewed as a major factor behind Walz’s decision not to pursue reelection in 2026, despite previously planning another run. The embattled Minnesota governor has nevertheless remained a rumored contender for the Democratic Party’s 2028 presidential nomination.

Newsom’s Ex-Chief-of-Staff Won’t Testify Against Him After Plea

Luis Cornelio
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Newsom’s Ex-Chief-of-Staff Won’t Testify Against Him After Plea

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Gavin Newsom and Xavier Becerra could avoid deeper scrutiny in a political corruption scandal involving several former aides and consultants after Newsom’s former chief of staff secured a plea deal, a defense attorney said Friday.

Dana Williamson, Newsom’s former chief of staff, entered a plea agreement that dropped harsher charges tied to a scheme to siphon $225,000 from Becerra’s dormant attorney general campaign account. Five other individuals were implicated in the scheme but have already entered guilty pleas.

As part of the agreement, Williamson will not be required to cooperate with federal investigators in any potential probe involving Newsom, California’s governor, and Becerra, now viewed as a frontrunner to succeed him in the 2026 gubernatorial race.

Her attorney, McGregor Scott, said the plea deal resulted from negotiations between the defense and investigators.

“I’m a good lawyer,” Scott told KCRA 3 News.

Williamson’s plea deal appears to bring an end to a political scandal that rocked California. It remains unclear whether Newsom or Becerra will face any investigative scrutiny.

Becerra has long claimed he believed the payments were for account management services rather than part of a scheme to steal the money for the personal use of the co-conspirators.

Kars4Kids ‘Charity’ with Annoying Jingle Exposed for Ties to Israel

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Kars4Kids ‘Charity’ with Annoying Jingle Exposed for Ties to Israel

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) It is widely considered to be one of the most annoying — and effective — commercial jingles of all time.

Three decades later, the original child performers in the ubiquitous Kars4Kids jingle, written in the mid- to late-1990s, are all now approaching middle-age. And yet, the commercial’s staying power may have as much to do with the confusing lack of context as with the insipid earworm of a song.

It raises more questions than it answers, most notable among them: Why would someone donate a perfectly good car, and to what end?

That question appeared to be answered in a May 8 ruling by California Superior Court Judge Gassia Apkarian, who determined that the nonprofit’s parent company, Lakewood, N.J.-based Oorah Inc., had violated the state’s laws regarding false advertising and unfair competition.

“The public interest is served by transparency in the ‘charity marketplace,’” she wrote.

“When a charity generates millions annually through a ‘jingle’ that conceals its primary religious and geographic focus, it creates an unfair playing field for local California charities that are honest about their missions.”

The case was first brought in 2021 by Orange County resident Bruce Puterbaugh, who said he had donated his vehicle under the belief that it would benefit underprivileged children.

Instead, those donations benefited Orthodox Jewish outreach programs including a summer camp in upstate New York, a young adult “matchmaking” program, mission trips for 17- and 18-year-olds to Israel, and a $16.5-million building purchase in Israel, as well as $437,000 vaguely earmarked for “Middle East outreach,” the New York Post reported.

“The failure to disclose that funds benefit adults and families — and that this support is contingent upon a specific religious affiliation — is a material omission,” Apkarian wrote in her ruling. “A reasonable consumer donating to a ‘kids’ charity would attach importance to the fact that their donation is actually supporting adult matchmaking and general family subsidies.”

During the trial, Oorah CEO Esti Landau acknowledged that the organization’s reach in California was limited to a backpack drive, the primary purpose of which was a “branding exercise.” Nonetheless, an estimated $25% of the Kars4Kids revenue came from California.

The ruling effectively results in a ban on the insipid ads in California, unless the ads include an “express, audible disclosure” about where the funds go. It also bars them from using young children.

But like a cockroach weathering a nuclear winter, the setback is unlikely to keep Kars4Kids from continuing to air its commercials elsewhere.

The organization previously was fined in Pennsylvania and Oregon in 2009 for “misleading solicitation practices,” and even in Minnesota, the land of 10,000 frauds, an investigation by Attorney General Keith Ellison found that less than 1% of the $3 million that the state gave had gone to benefit children locally.

Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.

FBI Has Some 75,000 Unreleased Thomas Crooks Records

Ken Silva
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FBI Has Some 75,000 Unreleased Thomas Crooks Records

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The FBI has at least some 75,000 unreleased records pertaining to Thomas Crooks, the man who allegedly tried assassinating Donald Trump at his July 13, 2024, campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, court records show.

That information comes from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed last July by the transparency organization Judicial Watch, which is seeking all of the FBI’s records on Crooks.

In January, the FBI admitted to having 45,000 records responsive to Judicial Watch’s lawsuit. A month later, that number grew to 75,000.

In response to the lawsuit, the FBI has started making monthly disclosures. To date, the bureau has released four productions of a few dozen pages apiece—200 pages in total.

The FBI said in an April 20 status report that it has sent “narrowing proposals” to Judicial Watch since the number of records is so large. It’s unclear whether Judicial Watch is receptive to that proposal. The parties are set to file another status report on June 22.

Many of the pages released so far are highly redacted. Some are being withheld altogether, either because they’re sealed by the court or because the FBI is citing FOIA exemptions—including redactions to hide the identities of FBI informants.

The sealed records may be related to the DOJ’s grand jury investigation, which was intended to find out Crooks’s motive and whether he had help. As part of that investigation, the DOJ subpoenaed Crooks’s internet and financial records. No witnesses were called to the grand jury.

In December, a judge issued an order that allowed the DOJ to provide those records to Congress. But it’s not clear whether the same records would be subject to FOIA disclosure.

Members of Congress have claimed that the FBI is stonewalling them, but FBI Director Kashyap Patel insists that the bureau provided them everything.

“Congress is accusing us of not turning over all of this stuff — but all of this stuff doesn’t exist. It is an empty narrative they’re firing into a vacuum,” Patel told Fox News in November. “The very limited information we have not turned over is respective to victims’ rights. There isn’t some trove of documents that we haven’t sent over there.”

Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.

Ex-Sen. Sinema Seeks to Subpoena Adultery Victim’s Therapy Records

Ken Silva
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Ex-Sen. Sinema Seeks to Subpoena Adultery Victim’s Therapy Records

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Former U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is being sued for having sex with her security guard and breaking up his family in the process. Now, she seeks to subpoena the mental therapy records of the woman who was the security guard’s wife at the time of the affair.

Sinema’s subpoena was disclosed Thursday in a motion to quash the subpoena by Heather Ammel, who was married to Matthew Ammel, the guard with whom the ex-senator allegedly had an affair.

“[Sinema] also subpoenaed [Heather’s] privileged therapy records,” her motion to quash, which was first reported by Court Watch, says. “[Sinema’s] request is completely unrelated to the issue.”

Sinema’s lawyers have yet to respond to the motion to quash.

Heather is suing Sinema for “alienation of affection”—a North Carolina law that says someone can be held financially liable for initiating an affair—and seeks over $25,000 in damages.

However, Sinema said in a motion to dismiss filed in March that her relationship with Matthew only started after he and Heather were separated. Moreover, the relationship didn’t occur in North Carolina, according to her motion.

According to the lawsuit, Heather Ammel found that Sinema was messaging her husband salacious photos, including one of her wrapped in a towel. Sinema also encouraged the husband to bring MDMA drugs—commonly known as ecstasy—on work trips “so that she could guide him through a psychedelic experience.”

In 2024, Matthew Ammel flew to San Francisco and stayed in Sinema’s hotel “for hours.” Later that year, he stayed at her home in Arizona.

Matthew also took their kids to see Sinema, attending a Green Day concert at one point, according to the lawsuit.

Sinema and Matthew remain in a relationship, the lawsuit added.

It’s not clear when a judge will rule on the former senator’s motion to dismiss. The parties have an evidentiary hearing set for August.

Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.

Brown Student Suing Media Company for Falsely Naming Him as School Shooting Suspect

Ken Silva
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Brown Student Suing Media Company for Falsely Naming Him as School Shooting Suspect

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) A Brown University student is suing several news stations for falsely reporting that he was a suspect in the school shooting last December, which killed 19-year-old sophomore Ella Cook and 18-year-old freshman Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov and wounded nine others.

The student, Ben Erickson, was identified on Dec. 14 by WKOW 27 in Wisconsin as the “man detained in deadly Brown shooting.” At the time, officials took a person into custody that anonymous sources identified as a 24-year-old man from Wisconsin. That individual, whose name was never released by authorities, was later released.

“Contrary to the December 14 internet post, Ben was never named a ‘suspect’ in connection with the Brown University mass shooting,” says Erickson’s lawsuit, which was first reported by Court Watch.  “Moreover, even after the perpetrator of the Brown University mass shooting was identified, the Defendant failed and refused to issue a retraction, correction, or make any edits whatsoever to the December 14 internet post for more than 100 days.”

Erickson seeks compensatory damages for the harm done to his reputation. He’s suing Allen Media Broadcasting, which owns the stations that falsely accused him of being a suspect. Allen Media Broadcasting has until May 27 to respond.

Claudio Neves Valente, 48, was eventually named as the true alleged shooter. Authorities say Neves Valente, who had been a graduate student at Brown studying physics during the 2000-01 school year, also fatally shot Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro at Loureiro’s Boston-area home two days later.

Neves Valente, who had attended school with Loureiro in Portugal in the 1990s, was found dead days later in a New Hampshire storage facility. Neves Valente had reportedly “vanished” for years before his attack.

Justice Department officials said in January that during the search of the storage facility where Neves Valente’s body was found on Dec. 18, the FBI recovered an electronic device containing a series of short videos made by Neves Valente after the shootings.

In the recordings, the shooter admits in Portuguese that he had been “planning the Brown University shooting for a long time,” according to a press release. In a transcript provided by the Justice Department, he said he had been working out details for at least six semesters. He did not provide a motive for targeting Brown or the MIT professor, with whom he attended school in Portugal decades ago.

He said he felt he had nothing to apologize for. He also complained in the videos about injuring his eye in the shootings.

“I’m not going to apologize because during my lifetime no one sincerely apologized to me,” he said.

Neves Valente said his “only objective was to leave more or less” on his “own terms” and to ensure he “wouldn’t be the one who ended up suffering the most from all this.”

According to police, a witness had several encounters with Neves Valente before the attack at Brown. As police posted images of the person of interest, the witness began posting on the social media forum Reddit that he recognized the person and theorized that police should look into “possibly a rental” gray Nissan. Reddit users urged him to inform the FBI, and the witness said he did.

Up until that point, the police affidavit says officials had not connected a vehicle to the possible shooter.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.

Security Costs for FBI Director’s Girlfriend Estimated at $1 Million Per Year

Ken Silva
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Security Costs for FBI Director’s Girlfriend Estimated at $1 Million Per Year

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) FBI Director Kashyap Patel’s girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, is being protected by agents on the bureau’s Nashville SWAT team. According to the New York Times, such measures are costing the taxpayers an estimated $1 million per year.

“A former senior official who has hired such agents said Ms. Wilkins’s Nashville detail — two SUVs and four agents — costs about $1 million a year, with additional overtime, vehicle and other expenses,” the Times reported Friday.

The Times added that FBI officials recommended a threat assessment to see if Wilkins, who doesn’t even live with Patel, really needs that kind of protection. But Patel “berated” them, saying his authority was all that was needed.

An FBI director’s girlfriend has reportedly never received taxpayer funded security before, but bureau spokesman Ben Williamson has said that she needs protection due to threats she’s received.

Critics say the arrangement risks delaying the FBI Nashville office’s response to mass shootings or terror attacks.

The Times also reported Friday that Wilkins accompanied Patel to a closed-door meeting on combating trafficking of fentanyl. The meeting was reportedly hosted by Sen. David McCormick, R-Pa., who said he invited Patel. The FBI claimed that Wilkins, who works with a non-profit group that publicizes fentanyl deaths, was invited, too.

In addition, the Times revealed more details of Patel and Wilkins’s use of the FBI jet. Last May, they reportedly traveled from Washington to Philadelphia to see George Strait and Chris Stapleton perform—staying in a private suite that sells for between $35,000 and $50,000.

Patel reportedly declined to comment on who financed that outing.

Patel’s trips have also included seeing Wilkins sing the National Anthem at a wrestling match in Pennsylvania last week, and visiting a hunting resort called Boondoggle Ranch in Texas a week later.

FBI spokesman Ben Williamson has attempted to downplay his boss’s use of the FBI jet, posting on Twitter/X that Patel is forced to use a government plane even when flying for personal reasons. Williamson also said Patel pays a reimbursement in advance for his flights, as per government rules.

However, Patel is only required to pay the equivalent of commercial fare for his flights. The cost of operating FBI jets is exponentially more than that. For example, a Government Accountability Office report found in 2013 that then-Attorney General Eric Holder paid $420.90 for a flight that cost the taxpayers $15,894.

Republicans, including Sen. Chuck Grassley, frequently railed against former FBI Director Chris Wray’s use of the FBI jet. So did Patel himself.

“I want to ground Chris Wray’s private jet travel that he pays for with taxpayer dollars to hop around the country,” Patel said in 2023.

Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.

Israel Drops Charges Against Soldiers Accused of Sexual Torture

Jose Nino
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Israel Drops Charges Against Soldiers Accused of Sexual Torture

(José Niño, Headline USA) The Israeli military dropped all charges against five soldiers accused of sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee, and by April 2026 those soldiers returned to reserve service with no completed internal investigation.

According to the BBC, the military cited “complexities in the evidentiary structure” as its reason for abandoning the case in March. Two of the five soldiers had failed polygraph tests when asked whether they inserted an object into the detainee’s body. Israeli Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir authorized their return to duty, with some assigned to combat roles.

Amnesty International called the decision “yet another unconscionable chapter in Israel’s granting of impunity.”

Multiple human rights organizations have documented testimonies from former detainees describing sexual assault by trained dogs at Sde Teiman and other Israeli detention facilities. Israeli analyst Shaiel Ben Ephraim confirmed he spoke with two Sde Teiman guards. One had witnessed such abuse and said it was “too awful to describe.” The other believed it was true based on accounts from colleagues.

A UN-backed Euro Med Human Rights Monitor report published in April 2026 titled “Another Genocide Behind Walls” concluded that sexual violence using animals constituted “an organised state policy rather than isolated misconduct.”

The case originated in July 2024 when ten Israeli reservists were arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a Palestinian male detainee at the Sde Teiman military detention facility in southern Israel. The injuries were so severe the prisoner required hospitalization.

CCTV footage of the assault was leaked and later broadcast on Israeli television, showing guards assaulting the detainee while obscuring him with riot shields.

The military’s own indictment described soldiers “stabbing the detainee’s bottom with a sharp object” that caused cracked ribs, a punctured lung, and an internal rectal tear, as the BBC reported.

The arrests did not spark public outrage over the abuse. Instead, they triggered angry protests. On July 31, 2024, the New York Times reported that dozens of far right Israelis stormed two military facilities, Sde Teiman and a military court building at Beit Lid, demanding the soldiers be freed. Senior Israeli politicians from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s ruling coalition traveled to the protests and voiced support for the accused soldiers, per Al Jazeera.

As Twitter user Mel documented, protesters “literally took over a part of the base for a short period of time trying to break the reservists free.”

During a Knesset session following the soldiers’ arrests, Likud Member of Knesset Hanoch Milwidsky was directly asked whether it was legitimate to “insert a stick into a person’s rectum.”

As Antiwar.com reported, he replied, “Yes! If he is a Nukhba [Hamas militant], everything is legitimate to do! Everything!”

As Mel observed, this was “the Knesset member shouting that ‘everything is legitimate’ when asked if inserting a metal rod into the rectum is legitimate for soldiers to do.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the prosecution of the soldiers a “blood libel.” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich described them as “heroic warriors.” National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir called them “our best heroes.”

José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino 

Senate Bars Members from Getting Paychecks During Shutdowns

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Senate Bars Members from Getting Paychecks During Shutdowns

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Two weeks since Democrats finally ended the longest federal shutdown in history — surpassing by more than a month the record they set last year — the Senate unanimously passed a resolution via voice vote that would stop its own members from receiving paychecks during future shutdowns.

Senate Resolution 526 updates the Congressional Register to require the secretary of the Senate to withhold all payments to the senators themselves until “practicable after the date on which the Government shutdown ends.”

It will take effect on Nov. 4, the day following the next general election.

The measure, sponsored by Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., was well received in the public, although critics said it was largely performative since most senators did not need their paychecks to live month-to-month, as many U.S. workers do.

Kennedy himself ranks as the 62nd wealthiest member of Congress, with an estimated net worth of just over $21 million. His fellow Louisianan, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, is among the poorest, with a reported net worth of $8,000.

Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif. is reported as the most penurious member of the upper chamber, with a net worth of around $86,690.

Kennedy acknowledged in a floor speech Wednesday that in order to get the votes to pass the resolution, it ultimately had to have little practical impact.

“Frankly, if I were king for a day and I wanted to stop government shutdowns, I’d do more than this. I would do two things,” he said.

“If government shuts down, a senator loses his pay. It’s not escrowed (you get it back later) — you just don’t get your pay,” he added. “I’m also saying you can’t leave Washington, can’t go home.”

The most recent shutdown, spearheaded by Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., lasted from Feb. 14 to April 30, a period of 76 days, and was designed to undermine the efforts of Immigration and Customs Enforcement as they pursued mass deportation of criminal illegal immigrants.

Instead, it put Americans at greater risk for acts of terrorism, including an April 25 assassination attempt on President Donald Trump during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner at the Washington Hilton.

The shutdown, targeting only the Department of Homeland Security, also resulted in massive wait times at the airport screening stations operated by the Transportation Security Administration. Trump was able to ease the strain, in part, by dispatching ICE agents to fill in for absent TSA screeners.

The dysfunction came on the heels of a then-record-breaking full government shutdown last year, which lasted 43 days from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12.

Both were part of a disturbing trend of Democrats lurching farther leftward and opting to weaponize chaos over compromise, at the expense of U.S. citizens. Schumer caught flack in early 2025 for capitulating to the GOP majority, which led to calls from his socialist-leaning base that he resign or be primaried.

Coincidentally, the third-longest shutdown also was ushered by the Democrat minority during the halfway point of Trump’s first presidential term. It lasted 35 days, from Dec. 22, 2018, to Jan. 25, 2019. Trump famously got back at then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., by grounding her flight on an international public-relations trip after she canceled his State of the Union address.

Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.

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