LONODN (The Independent) - America is split on whether Donald Trump’s health and age are impacting his ability to serve as president, a new poll has found. Speculation over Trump’s physical fitness during his second term has grown ever since photos of his swollen ankles and bruised hands, which are sometimes covered by makeup, began circulating online. Online rumors reached a fever pitch when Trump, 79, did not make a public appearance over the Labor Day weekend, aside from a brief sighting at his Virginia golf course Saturday.

In a YouGov survey conducted Tuesday, 38 percent of Americans said Trump’s health and age “severely limit his ability to do the job” as president, while 21 percent said it had “little effect.” On Monday, a former Biden administration aide, Meghan Hays, accused the Trump administration of not being transparent about the president’s empty Labor Day weekend schedule.

 

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BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai politics were in chaos on Wednesday as the ruling Pheu Thai party said it had sought royal approval to dissolve the parliament for a new election, moments after the biggest group in the house said it would back another party to form a government. The chief whip of the Pheu Thai party, which last week suffered the loss of its prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra. Paetongtarn’s dismissal last Friday for an ethics violation triggered a scramble for power, with her Pheu Thai party racing to shore up a fragile coalition with a slender majority as its former alliance partner Bhumjaithai mounted a bold challenge to form its own government. 

 

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MONTREAL (AFP) -- More than 1,000 residents of Canada’s vast and remote far north are under evacuation orders as forest fires rage in the drought-struck region. Canada is undergoing its second worst fire season in recent memory, with 8.3 million hectares (20.5 million acres) of forest — an area the size of Austria — scorched thus far. Fires are now threatening the towns of Fort Providence and Whati in the Northwest Territories, prompting the first evacuations this year in the enormous area, where some land and large islands straddle the Arctic Circle. 

 

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MARSEILLE (AFP) -- French police on Tuesday killed a man suspected of stabbing five people in the southern port city of Marseille, one of whom is in critical condition, a public prosecutor said. The assailant, a Tunisian national with legal status in France, stabbed several people at a hotel that had just evicted him for non-payment, then attacked several others on a busy shopping street, prosecutor Nicolas Bessone told reporters. “It would appear that he blindly and gratuitously attempted to strike people,” Bessone said. The man first stabbed his roommate, leaving the victim in critical condition, the prosecutor said.  He then attacked the hotel’s manager, who fled into the street along with his son, who was stabbed “in the back.”   

 

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WASHINGTON (Dispatches) -- In a recent escalation in the southern Caribbean, the U.S. military killed 11 people during a strike on a Venezuelan vessel accused of carrying illegal narcotics, according to President Donald Trump.  It marked the first known operation since the Trump administration deployed warships to the region, raising concerns over aggressive U.S. intervention near Venezuela’s territorial waters. President Trump described the incident as a successful crackdown on drug trafficking, claiming the targeted boat was part of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. earlier this year. Trump further alleged that the gang is controlled by Venezuela’s government under President Nicolás Maduro—a claim consistently denied by Caracas, which views such accusations as unfounded and politically motivated. Critics argue that this use of force reflects a pattern of U.S. military aggression aimed at destabilizing Venezuela under the guise of combating narcotics trafficking. The Venezuelan government maintains its sovereignty and condemns what it calls unlawful U.S. interference, calling for respect of international law and dialogue rather than militarized actions that risk escalating tensions in the region.