Morning Brief: U.S. envoys at the Kremlin; Ukraine says Starshield limits are back; Xi presses Taiwan claim; Vance takes lead on Iran talks
Plus a Salvadoran-backed strike on a Haiti gang, Homan's warning to a new caravan, an ICE officer dragged by a car near Chicago, the United suspect's asylum claim, DOJ vs. Blumenthal on ballroom donors, and justices weighing limits on agency fines.
6 AM CT video brief · 1:53Presenter voice and image generated with AI tools.Read transcript
I'm Nora Vale with your 6 AM World Brief for Thursday, November 12. U.S. envoys head into the Kremlin to meet Putin. Zelenskyy: Starshield speed limits are back. Xi presses Taiwan claim; 29 Chinese aircraft patrol. Vance takes lead on Iran talks. Homan: caravan won't be released into the U.S. Justices weigh limits on agency fines. In national weather, from the National Weather Service: Tropical Depression Pena, with top winds near 35 mph, may bring impacts to parts of Hawaii. Strengthening coastal storm to bring a soaking rain to the Northeast Thursday into Friday, with accumulating snow likely in the higher elevations of New York and northern New England. Our opinion. Talks only work from strength; keep the pressure on until deals can be verified. The border law and real courts belong to every American. Full stories and sources at WorldBriefNow.com. I'm Nora Vale.
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner walked from their Moscow hotel to the Kremlin on Thursday for a meeting with Vladimir Putin, AP reported, after two days of U.S.-mediated Russia-Ukraine talks in Abu Dhabi that ended with an agreement on a large prisoner exchange. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov held preliminary consultations with the two envoys at the Four Seasons Hotel near the Kremlin before the meeting, APA reported; Russian state media quoted Ushakov as saying no position had been worked out yet. The envoys were met at Vnukovo Airport by Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev, CNBC reported, citing TASS.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that units have recorded "significant disruptions" to Starshield, the military version of SpaceX's Starlink service, for several days along the entire front line, calling them "not random errors but systematic speed restrictions" that cut off terminals moving faster than 161 km/h (100 mph), CNBC reported. "There have already been strikes that got through because our interception systems cannot reach sufficient speeds," Zelenskyy said, adding that Ukraine is trying to clarify the reasons with the U.S. side. Similar limits imposed on Oct. 14 were lifted Oct. 24; SpaceX did not immediately respond to NBC News.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Thursday in Beijing's Great Hall of the People that "the complete reunification of the motherland must be realised, and it will certainly be realised," calling the Taiwan question an "unwavering historical mission" of the Communist Party and making no mention of force, Reuters reported via CNA. Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council said neither its government nor its people could accept "one country, two systems," and Taiwan's defense ministry said it detected 29 Chinese military aircraft on a "joint combat readiness patrol" around the island starting Thursday. The speech comes a week before the APEC summit in Shenzhen, where Xi is due to meet President Trump again.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said airstrikes Sunday near Port-au-Prince hit strongholds of the 400 Mawozo gang and the home of its leader, in an operation by a Haitian police task force backed by Salvadoran troops, Fox News reported, citing the Miami Herald. The strikes are tied to the search for four Salvadoran members of a U.N.-backed security mission missing since a gang ambush on Oct. 18. Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé thanked Bukele, saying "THE GANGS WILL GET NO SLEEP!"
Vice President JD Vance is considering face-to-face talks with Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, after President Trump authorized him to lead renewed negotiations, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing U.S. and Middle Eastern officials, according to Iran International and Anadolu. Vance sent Rezaei a letter in October requesting a meeting but no date is set, and Iran is demanding that the U.S. lift its naval blockade, release frozen assets and ease oil sanctions first, demands Secretary of State Marco Rubio called unrealistic. Mehdi Mohammadi, an adviser to Iran's parliament speaker, said Tehran rejected Vance's request for direct talks until Washington gives its final response to Iran's proposal.
A migrant caravan of roughly 2,000 people has reached southern Mexico and is heading north, with some members saying they hope last week's Democratic midterm wins will help them enter, the Daily Wire reported, citing CNN. White House border czar Tom Homan said on Fox News that "Congress may be more blue, Texas may be more blue, but the White House is red, bright red," and that "these caravans can come to the border all they want, they're not going to be released into the United States," and that migrants will be turned around or prosecuted. The State Department recently announced visa actions against more than 15 people it said organized or promoted caravans.
Jose Garnica-Naranjo, 32, a Mexican citizen, was arrested Wednesday after allegedly accelerating away from an ICE traffic stop in Chicago Heights on Tuesday while an officer was partially inside his car, throwing the officer over a center median and then striking him, the Department of Homeland Security said, the New York Post reported. The officer suffered contusions, cuts and scrapes but no broken bones and has been released from the hospital; ICE said Garnica-Naranjo has prior convictions for domestic violence and assault. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin cited "a more than 1,600% increase in assaults" against officers and blamed rhetoric from "sanctuary politicians like Illinois Governor JB Pritzker."
Rony Alexander Gomez-Alberto, 34, the Honduran accused of trying to storm the cockpit of a United Airlines flight on Nov. 9 while claiming to have a bomb, was granted asylum by an immigration judge after his third attempted illegal entry in 2019, the Department of Homeland Security told Fox News. An application excerpt released by DHS quotes him writing, "I am also afraid that I will be killed — either by private citizens or the police — in both of these countries because I am transgender." DHS said he was deported after 2011 and 2014 border crossings and released by ICE in January 2020 on a judge's order; Secretary Markwayne Mullin said he was "allowed into our country because of a weak asylum system."
Aaron Reitz, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas, wrote that Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., is using his investigation of donors to President Trump's privately funded White House ballroom to threaten "citizens for associating themselves with the President" and ordered him to preserve all related records, the Washington Examiner reported. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said "The First Amendment expressly prohibits Congress from infringing the speech and association rights of Americans." Blumenthal says undisclosed donors may have benefited from "favorable government actions" and has demanded records from companies including Apple, Meta, Google and Nvidia or face possible subpoenas in January 2027.
At Tuesday's argument in Department of Labor v. Sun Valley Orchards, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh questioned whether the Labor Department can impose H-2A farmworker penalties in its own proceedings rather than in federal court, and Kavanaugh cited the 40-year-old Tull precedent that civil penalties "could only be enforced in courts of law," SCOTUSblog's Ronald Mann wrote. Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson pointed to past approval of administrative civil penalties, and Mann predicted the case will "come down late and be sharply divided." The justices meet in private conference Friday with 11 new relists, including the government's appeal over President Trump's asylum-ban Proclamation 10888, SCOTUSblog reported.
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