Aggregator

"What a day on an Italian beach would smell like," one satisfied reviewer raved.

Hayden Panettiere’s boyfriend was in the room as EMS workers tried in vain to resuscitate the “Heroes” actress.

Moscow Swarmed By 600+ Ukrainian Drones In Massive Overnight Barrage

Ukraine has launched another massive overnight drone wave on Russia. While this is nothing new or unusual, the number of drones concentrated specifically on the Moscow region was much larger than prior attacks.

Over 600 drones were sent on Moscow and the surrounding region overnight into Tuesday morning, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. It ranks among the single largest assaults on the capital of the war. Regional reports say it's the largest drone attack on Moscow of the last two years.

Moscow on Tuesday. @exilenova_plus/Telegram, The Moscow Times

At least 180 of the drones were confirmed downed over the Moscow region alone - possibly more - with emergency crews responding to several crash sites, including at another Wildberries warehouse near Moscow.

Authorities cited that at least three people were injured in the assault, including a 10-year old girl. Smoke has been seen rising over residential and construction areas in social media photographs.

At least 5,000 homes or businesses are reported to be without power in the wake of the overnight strikes, regional energy provider Mosoblenergo has said.

The Associated Press has cited at least 800 Ukrainian drones launched across the whole country, as part of the same broader attack. The report further indicated:

The overnight attack started a fire at a warehouse of Wildberries, Russia’s biggest online retailer, in an industrial zone. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted the company, which it says helps supply the Russian military, an allegation Moscow denies.

Wildberries said its facility sustained "insignificant damage."

The online retailer, widely seen as the 'Russian Amazon', has seen its logistics hubs frequently targeted over the past month.

Purported video of military & security outposts desperately trying to repel the inbound drone attack:

It's crazy in Moscow.
All four airports are currently closed.

It's also incredibly loud in various districts as Russia's air defence tries to land a few more drones on its people. pic.twitter.com/qMz1JRadF5

— Tim White (@TWMCLtd) August 18, 2026

EuroNews observes that seven out of ten of the company's biggest warehouses have been it and suffered serious damage, enough to take them offline: "Seven logistics hubs belonging to Wildberries, Russia's largest online retailer, have now been struck and knocked out of action since the campaign began in July."

While none of this has substantially changed Russian forces' ground momentum along the front lines, the Institute for the Study of War has said that the aerial campaign is effectively pressuring the Kremlin, given the steady economic setbacks and devastation.

The Kyiv Independent

"Moscow simply does not have enough air-defense coverage to shield every piece of infrastructure in its rear, even ten of its most valuable commercial sites," the ISW assessment concluded. However, nothing has indicated that President Putin is ready to change course - instead we are seeing things steadily escalate on both sides.

Tyler Durden Tue, 08/18/2026 - 12:15

The team is dealing with injuries at the position.

Local nonprofits are also rehabbing full blocks at once -- all while violent crime makes historic drops.

The "My Heart Will Go On" singer returns to the stage in Paris next month after a six-year absence due to stiff person syndrome.

The "My Heart Will Go On" singer returns to the stage in Paris next month after a six-year absence due to stiff person syndrome.

Three suspects allegedly broke into A-Z Market with power tools before allowing as many as 60 people to storm the Bellflower business, causing nearly $30,000 in losses.

David Cronenberg's four-decade-old monster movie can still compete with today's horror, goop for goop.

“What worries me the most is that schools are not rebuilt once this emergency is over,” Shakira told journalists. “Every day that children don’t go to school is a day they miss out on their future.”

The "Nashville" star's father confirmed her death Sunday.

The "Nashville" star's father confirmed her death Sunday.

Kevin, Nick and Joe will kick off the throwback run with a trio of gigs at MSG from Aug. 20-22.

It really doesn't get better than this.

This game is cutthroat!

The siblings were at the South Carolina apartment complex where Panettiere went into cardiac arrest and died, Page Six can confirm.

The siblings were at the South Carolina apartment complex where Panettiere went into cardiac arrest and died, Page Six can confirm.

We have the ultimate plan for you.

A San Diego Padres minor-league coach remains in federal immigration custody after being detained at an airport while traveling home from a work assignment. Oswaldo José Pirela, the Padres’ minor-league catching coordinator, was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at El Paso International Airport early Sunday, according to his family. An ICE...

NSA Blocked Reports Of China Interference In US Elections From Reaching Trump: Declassified Docs

Authored by Travis Gillmore via The Epoch Times,

Newly declassified intelligence emails reveal that decisions were made by National Security Agency (NSA) leadership to block reports of Chinese influence in American elections from reaching President Donald Trump.

Four pages of emails, all dated March 13, 2020, were released on Aug. 18 by the White House Government Transparency Task Force.

According to one email—written by an unidentified NSA employee following a meeting about intelligence reporting foreign efforts to target the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections in the United States beginning in 2014—internal concerns were raised about the agency’s suppression of the reports.

“We did not know why we were here, trying to defend the election and identify threats to it, if we were unable to actually report what those threats were because of issues like this,” the NSA employee wrote.

According to another email, NSA analysts had proposed releasing the reports in 2018.

Task force officials are digging through files to determine why evidence of the Chinese Communist Party’s attempts to influence the elections was not passed on to the president, Congress, and some intelligence leaders, including then Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, now CIA director.

Certain aspects of the reports on the Chinese election influence were censored because “it was judged that some of the details regarding the 2016 election were ‘sensational’ and so required a limited distribution [redacted],” an NSA analyst wrote, noting that colleagues tried for 16 months to get the information published.

“People higher in the chain than us—including but not limited to people at ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence]—time and again failed to make real decisions in a timely manner,” they said.

Intelligence officers were told in February 2020 that the office approved the report, and analysts prioritized its delivery, but the NSA deputy director blocked its release, according to the documents.

George Barnes served as NSA deputy director from 2017 to 2023.

“[The deputy director] explained that he was concerned that releasing the [redacted] at this time—in the current political climate, with an acting [director of national intelligence (DNI)] who had been tasked … to ‘clean house’ in the intelligence community, and with an administration that is suspicious of the [intelligence community] and aggressive in removing anyone who stand in their way—would damage NSA’s credibility,” the analyst wrote, referring to Trump appointee Richard Grenell, who became acting DNI on Feb. 20, 2020.

The analyst said the deputy director was concerned that releasing the information could be viewed as political in nature because of the two-year delay.

“I lacked the courage to point out that we, [redacted], had processed the information in a timely manner, and the delay in releasing it was due in part to decisions and inaction on the part of people in the room,” the analyst wrote.

According to the analyst, the deputy director also sought to keep the NSA’s reputation separate from the CIA, FBI, and ODNI—agencies he perceived “had been tarred as hosting or being part of the ‘deep state.’”

The analyst said the deputy director thought publishing the report would “destroy that trust.”

“He felt the questioning of NSA that would ensue would have ramifications on the credibility of NSA reporting overall and would result in morale problems among the broader NSA workforce, a la when the [redacted],” the analyst wrote.

Other elements of the gathered intelligence were excluded from reporting because it would have been impossible to conceal the identity of members of Congress, the analyst said. Such cases require special approval, as dictated by the “Gates Procedures,” established by Robert Gates, former director of Central Intelligence, in 1992.

Newly declassified National Security Agency documents include emails between intelligence officers about decisions made at higher levels to not share information with President Donald Trump, released by the White House Government Transparency Task Force on Aug. 18, 2026. Courtesy of the White House

Given the circumstances of the discussion, the other analyst deduced that disclosure was unlikely, writing in the memo: “In light of our experience with the [redacted], we would consider ourselves lucky” if new intelligence reporting regarding the 2020 election was distributed before election day.

The meeting concluded with the deputy director suggesting “exploring maybe a ‘crazy idea’ like using” an unidentified redacted process to share intelligence “so that the analysts there who needed to see this information could have access to it without it having to be serialized.”

Politicized Intelligence

A senior White House official briefed a small group of reporters, including The Epoch Times, on Aug. 16 about the upcoming release, emphasizing the politicization of intelligence gathering and reporting revealed by the documents.

“It shows that a very high-ranking official, a deputy director of the NSA at the time, made clear he wasn’t intending on sharing some of the intelligence about China and other election threats because of various political statements,” the official said.

“That’s the highest official thus far we have seen mentioned, who seemed to have some awareness that information would not be being sent to the president and to Congress and to policymakers about election interference or election security and election vulnerabilities.”

The internal emails came to light because they were forwarded to a civilian ombudsman tasked with overseeing intelligence community shortcomings.

Investigations Continue

More documents are under scrutiny by task force members, and new releases are expected soon, according to the administration official.

He said that in a few months, the task force is expected to release a “full body of evidence” detailing that there was “extensive intelligence about the vulnerabilities of the election system” gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies during the period between 2019 and 2021-22.

“But for some reason … the intelligence agencies just made a decision not to brief it to the people who could potentially implement policies that would address the vulnerabilities,” the official said.

Voting machine integrity was also of concern to the intelligence community, according to the official, with five foreign nations found to be capable of hacking U.S. election machines.

“The notion that we would go six years without fixing a known vulnerability is something that we’re all eager to solve,” he said.

The task force expects to release more details about some of the vulnerabilities in the coming weeks.

Prior revelations related to the suppression of intelligence reports include evidence that information was intentionally kept out of presidential daily briefings and declassified FBI documents. Then-FBI agent Nikki Floris wrote to a colleague that she “was basically running a shadow government across the FBI at one point” after successfully blocking the release of certain reports.

The Epoch Times reached out to the NSA for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

Tyler Durden Tue, 08/18/2026 - 11:55