Melania Trump’s possible incentive for joining Trump and Natalie Harp at car race

A former deputy press secretary for Donald Trump believes that Melania Trump has an incentive for recently ending her long and mysterious absence from the public spotlight, including when she was seen with her husband and his controversial aide Natalie Harp at Sunday’s Freedom 250 Grand Prix car race in Washington, D.C.

Sarah Matthews said in an interview Sunday that the first lady is probably getting paid to show up at certain events, and her rate for an appearance may “have gone up” amid heightened scrutiny around Harp’s constant presence in the 80-year-old president’s life, including during sensitive international travel, the Daily Beast reported.

“We know too that — it’s been reported — that Melania gets paid for showing up at events when they were on the campaign trail, which is crazy to think that you have to pay your own wife to show up somewhere,” said Matthews, who was press secretary during Trump’s first administration and resigned following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Matthews was speaking on the MeidasTouch’s On Sunday with Jack Cocchiarella podcast. She painted a picture of a checked-out first lady as well as a wife, 56, who is understandably embarrassed by all the reports about her husband’s relationship with a much younger, 35-year-old aide, whose recently leaked letters to the president revealed her deep adoration for him.

—The Mercury News

As 3 dangers converge, California's coast faces rare winter of big waves, erosion, flooding

LOS ANGELES — A rare convergence of a powerful El Niño, super king tides and sea level rise spurred by climate change could menace California with record coastal flooding this winter.

Already, officials are observing higher tides than typical. Swells are eroding beaches, damaging parking lots and bathrooms, and even resurfacing long-buried coastal infrastructure. And that's before El Niño even kicks into high gear.

Jonathan Warrick, a research geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said that the climate pattern — commonly viewed as a rainmaker in Southern California — also turbocharges the sea. "There's a phenomena during El Niños where the waters offshore California get warmer, and they actually rise up, up to a foot, sometimes more, higher than average," he said.

That may not seem like much, but it's more than enough to wreak havoc on lower-lying homes and coastal infrastructure. Over the past 125 years, the average sea level in San Francisco Bay, for example, has already risen by about 1 foot — an increase experts link to human-caused climate change.

—Los Angeles Times

Israel accuses Hamas of planning attacks with kites and balloons

Israeli officials accused Hamas of planning renewed attacks on its territory using kites and balloons, and gave the Iran-backed militant group until Wednesday to rein in their use or face reprisals.

The Israel Defense Forces has been instructed to “adopt a policy of zero containment and zero tolerance toward the launching of kites and balloons from Gaza toward the communities of the Negev,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement on Monday, referring to a region targeted during the October 2023 Hamas attacks that triggered the war in Gaza.

“If the launches continue, forceful action will be taken to put an end to the phenomenon,” he said. “A balloon or kite will be treated the same as a drone, with or without explosives.”

In the years leading up to the Oct. 7 attacks, kites and balloons with braziers or explosive devices attached were launched from Gaza and caused fires that burnt thousands of acres of farmlands and forests in Israel. The weekend discovery of a half a dozen kites that landed in communities along the border — albeit with no such payloads — triggered concerns about a resumption of such attacks.

—Bloomberg News

Zelenskyy marks Ukrainian independence with call to make Russia 'howl'

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy used his address to the nation on the 35th anniversary of the country's independence to issue a direct challenge to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, saying Moscow must be forced to its knees through the unity of the international community.

As European leaders gathered in Kyiv to mark the anniversary, Zelenskyy praised the Ukrainian people's "resilience" over more than 1,640 days of full-scale war in a 20-minute video posted on social media. "In all his plans for Ukraine, Putin got the most important thing wrong," Zelenskyy said, explaining that Russia has underestimated the Ukrainian people.

"The enemy counted our resources, our stockpiles, our equipment, but failed to take into account what was key: people, the greatest achievement of Ukraine's independence. The people who make up our state. People who take responsibility. People who do not want Russia here and who fight tooth and nail for peace and independence."

Putin wanted to make Russia great, Zelenskyy said, but today there are long queues at petrol stations in the country while his soldiers are being turned into "fertilizer" on the battlefield by Kyiv's army.

—dpa