News

Hard Numbers: Nicki Minaj spreads vax misinformation, France kills top enemy, Jakarta’s toxic air, Lebanon gets Iranian fuel

Hard Numbers: Nicki Minaj spreads vax misinformation, France kills top enemy, Jakarta's toxic air, Lebanon gets Iranian fuel
Fashion Costume Institute Gala Featuring: Nicki Minaj Where: New York, New York, United States When: 06 May 2019

22.7 million: Trinidad-born US rapper Nicki Minaj has caused a political uproar after telling her 22.7 million Twitter followers that the COVID vaccine caused her Trinidadian cousin's friend to get swollen testicles and become impotent. The country's health minister called out Minaj, as did the White House.

6: France announced the death of Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, the leader of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara whom Paris calls its "enemy number one" in the Sahel. France says al-Sahrawi, a former member of the Polisario Front separatist movement in Western Sahara, masterminded multiple deadly attacks in the region, including one that killed six French aid workers last year in Niger.

5.5 million: An Indonesian judge ruled that President Joko Widodo was negligent on addressing air pollution in th country's famously congested and polluted capital of Jakarta, which just last year recorded 5.5 million illnesses related to this problem. Jokowi, as he's known by most Indonesians, promised in 2019 to move the capital to a new site on the sparsely populated island of Borneo, but the pandemic stalled his plans.

40: As Lebanon reels from fuel shortages, a convoy of about 40 trucks loaded with Iranian fuel entered the country from Syria on Thursday. The shipment was brokered by Hezbollah, the influential Iran-backed militant group and political party in Lebanon. By accepting the fuel, Lebanon now risks US sanctions over Iran's nuclear program.

More For You

People gather outside the Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport to decry President Trump's travel ban on 19 countries which went into effect this morning.

5: US President Donald Trump added five new countries – Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan, and Syria – to the list of nations banned from traveling to the US.

US President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Finland's President Alexander Stubb, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pose for a family photo amid negotiations to end the Russian war in Ukraine, at the White House in Washington, D.C., USA, on August 18, 2025.
REUTERS/Alexander Drago

With the release of its National Security Strategy, the Trump administration has telegraphed how the US intends to engage with allies, and what it expects from them.