What happened
President Donald Trump yesterday ended the two-day NATO summit in Turkey with warm words for U.S. allies, a promise to let Ukraine produce Patriot air-defense missiles and renewed fighting with Iran. After declaring the ceasefire “over,” Trump ordered a second night of strikes on Iran, which again fired at U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar. Iran’s leaders are “scum” and “sick people,” Trump told reporters. If Iran keeps bombing ships in the Strait of Hormuz, he said on social media, the “retribution” will “get much worse!” 

Who said what
Trump began the NATO summit “publicly bashing the alliance and reciting a list of grievances,” Politico said, but “behind closed doors” he “was far more positive” with fellow leaders. “There was a lot of love in that room,” Trump told reporters. “A lot of unity.” The Ankara summit “amounted to a master class in how to manage a mercurial president and minimize damage,” CNN said. “It’s a lesson clearly not absorbed by, or of much interest to, Iran.” 

What next?
The reignited battle over the Strait of Hormuz “could reflect a divide among Iran’s leadership” between “hard-liners seeking lasting control of the waterway” and “pragmatists” seeking sanctions relief, The Associated Press said. It also leaves Trump back “mired in an unpopular war that he cannot seem to end,” The Washington Post said: “with midterm elections less than four months away.”

What happened
A federal judge in Manhattan yesterday ordered President Donald Trump to pay writer E. Jean Carroll (pictured above) the $5 million a jury awarded her in 2023 for sexual abuse and defamation. Trump “has been stalling this case for years,” U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said in yesterday’s ruling, and after the Supreme Court last week denied his appeal of the verdict, “it is time ⁠for him to ‘do equity’ and pay the judgment.”

Who said what
Trump’s legal team had asked Kaplan to pause releasing the $5.8 million held in escrow — Trump’s deposit plus interest — until the Supreme Court decided whether to reconsider his appeal. Kaplan denied the request. In the “highly unlikely ​event” the justices accepted his petition and overturned the verdict, he wrote, Trump could sue to “recover any funds erroneously disbursed.” The “American People” stand with Trump and “demand an immediate end to all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes,” Trump’s legal team said in a statement.

What next?
The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals last night rejected an emergency motion by Trump to prevent the release of the money. “Carroll has waited more than three years for a jury’s verdict to be paid,” her lawyers wrote in an appellate filing. “She should not have to wait any longer.” 

The matriarch of one of Thailand’s richest families dropped a lawsuit against her son just days before it was scheduled to go to trial. Chiranuj Bhirombhakdi was suing her son under the country’s 1908 “ungrateful child” law, claiming his actions caused material and reputational damage to the family.

In May, Siranudh “Psi” Scott, an heir to the Singha beer dynasty, caused a “firestorm of controversy” when he publicly alleged he had been sexually abused by his older brother, Sunit, and a babysitter, said The Japan Times. Despite “strenuously” denying the allegations, Sunit was removed from executive roles at Singha’s parent company, Boon Rawd Brewery, soon after the claims were made.

Psi reportedly first told other family members of the alleged abuse about three years ago but “accepted financial compensation from them to keep quiet,” according to the Taipei Times. But after his mother sued him this year over a property dispute, he decided to speak out.

The “ungrateful child” law reinforces “traditional values of obedience and hierarchy,” The Telegraph said. It’s used to “protect parents from neglectful children,” enabling them to withdraw gifts or financial donations if their offspring are deemed “ungrateful, physically abusive, neglectful in old age or responsible for serious reputational harm.”

Some of Asia’s biggest countries have similar laws, and “more are on the way,” said The Times of London. China, Singapore and Taiwan place “varying legal obligations on children under civil or criminal law.” But as the Singha beer dynasty case demonstrates, such statutes and penalties may be “crude tools for dealing with the fraught emotional dynamics of families.”