German-American model and TV personality Heidi Klum wore a Medusa costume for her annual Halloween event.

Truck rams into bus in southern India, killing at least 20 people, The state-run transport bus was carrying around 70 passengers en route to the city of Hyderabad in southern Telangana state when a truck coming from the opposite direction collided with it near the town of Chevella, local district official K. Chandrakala told The Associated Press.

The front of the bus was badly mangled, trapping several passengers inside. Heaps of stone chips or gravel were seen dumped inside the bus, burying alive at least one passenger who was later counted among the dead.

The rescue teams struggled to cut through the bus to retrieve the bodies.

Rajendra Prasad, superintendent at Chevella hospital said 20 bodies were moved to the mortuary and will be handed over to their families after identification.

Drivers of both the vehicles were among those dead.

So were three siblings in college from a family in Tandur town. “What will I do without my daughters,” their mourning father, Yellaiah Goud, said as relatives tried to console him.

Footage aired in local media showed a mother and her infant lying next to each other, both dead.

The bus conductor, Radha, who goes by single name, said there was “ear shattering noise when the truck hit the bus.” She sustained head injuries and was being treated.

The accident came a day after a minibus carrying passengers in western state of Rajasthan rammed into a parked truck late Sunday, killing at least 15 people and injuring two others.

The passengers were returning to the desert city of Jodhpur after offering prayers to a Hindu deity in the pilgrimage town of Kolayat, officials said.

Among the dead were 10 women, four children, and the driver, senior government official Shweta Chauhan told The Associated Press. The injured were hospitalized.

The victims were trapped in a mangled mass of metal, Chauhan said.

Senior police officer Kundan Kanwaria said the driver was trying to overtake another vehicle but crashed into the truck parked on the highway.

It is not uncommon in India for vehicles to be parked haphazardly along highways, often without warning lights or reflectors. They pose serious risks for nighttime drivers and have led to several deadly crashes in recent years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered his condolences to the bereaved families of both accidents.

The crash in Rajasthan came less than three weeks after a suspected short circuit sparked a fire on a passenger bus in the state, rapidly engulfing the vehicle in flames and burning at least 20 people to death.

___

Rajesh Roy And Omer Farooq, The Associated Press

A timeline of U.S. strikes on boats that have killed 64. The U.S. military has killed 64 people in 15 strikes that have destroyed 16 boats as part of a campaign that Washington says is aimed at curtailing the flow of drugs into the United States.

There have been three survivors of those strikes, two of whom were briefly detained by the U.S. Navy before being returned to their home countries.

The Trump administration has told Congress that the U.S. is now in an “armed conflict” against drug cartels beginning with its first strike on September 2, labeling those killed “unlawful combatants” and claiming the ability to engage in lethal strikes without judicial review due to a classified Justice Department finding.

Some members of Congress as well as human rights groups have questioned that finding and argued that potential drug traffickers should face prosecution, as had been the policy of interdiction carried out by the U.S. before President Donald Trump took office.

The Trump administration has also not provided public evidence of the presence of narcotics on the boats struck, nor their affiliation with drug cartels.

Military officials have said that no U.S. service members have been harmed in the strikes.

Here is the timeline of the attacks:
September 2, first attack

The first strike on a vessel in the Caribbean took place on September 2.

Trump announced the offensive on his social media accounts and said that under his orders, US forces “conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility.”

“TDA is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“Let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!” he added.

CNN reported that Defense Department officials have not, during briefings to members of Congress, presented conclusive evidence that the targets of the first attack were members of Tren de Aragua, and that those briefed said military officials could not determine the intended destination of the boat with certainty.

CNN also reported that the boat appeared to have turned around before it was struck.

The strike killed 11 people.
September 15

Less than two weeks later, the US military carried out a second strike against a vessel in international waters, killing three.

Trump said the vessel was allegedly “transporting illegal narcotics” from Venezuela.

“These extremely violent drug trafficking cartels POSE A THREAT to US National Security, Foreign Policy, and vital U.S. Interests,” he added.

The strike came amid rising tensions with that country, as the United States deployed military assets to the region.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has described the strikes on boats as “serial executions” and called on the UN to investigate, while saying that the US is seeking regime change. Venezuela’s defense minister, Vladimir Padrino, said it amounts to “an undeclared war,” while the foreign ministry denounced Washington’s “military threat.”

At the time, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said they expected more activity in the Caribbean in an effort to reduce drug traffic into the US.
September 19

Four days later, Trump announced another lethal military strike on a suspected drug trafficking vessel that he said was affiliated with a designated terrorist organization.

“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking illicit narcotics, and was transiting along a known narcotrafficking passage enroute to poison Americans,” Trump posted on Truth Social alongside a video of the operation.

Three people were killed in the strike.
October 3

Hegseth announced that the US military had carried out a fourth strike in which four people died.

The attack took place in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela, Hegseth wrote in a post on social media.

He did not say which alleged terrorist organization the boat was linked to, but added that “Our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were narco-terrorists, and they were operating on a known narco-trafficking transit route.”
October 14

Six people died in the fifth US strike on a vessel, this boat described by officials as off the Venezuelan coast.

Once again, Trump said the vessel was “affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization,” but he did not name a specific group or provide evidence of the boats activities.

In a letter to Congress in early October, the Pentagon said Trump had determined that the United States is in an “armed conflict” with the drug cartels his administration designated as terrorist organizations, and that cartel traffickers are “unlawful combatants.”
October 16

The US carried out a sixth strike on a boat in the Caribbean. This was believed to be the first operation in which not all crew members on board were killed.

The two survivors, one each from Ecuador and Colombia, were sent back to their home countries after being briefly detained on a US Navy ship.

“At least 25,000 Americans would die if I allowed this submarine to come ashore. The two surviving terrorists are being returned to their Countries of origin, Ecuador and Colombia, for detention and prosecution,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

Jeison Obando Pérez, 34 years old, was identified as the survivor repatriated to Colombia in a post on X by the country’s minister of the interior, Armando Benedetti. Pérez arrived “with brain trauma, sedated, drugged, breathing with a ventilator,” said Benedetti, who added that he had received medical attention.

The survivor from Ecuador, was identified as Andrés Fernando Tufiño Chila, 41 years old, according to a record from the National Police of Ecuador accessed by CNN. He arrived in the country on October 18 and underwent a medical evaluation.

The Office of the Attorney General of Ecuador reported on October 20 that there is no information that Tufiño Chila had committed a crime in Ecuadorian territory. However, US court documents indicate that he was arrested, convicted and imprisoned in 2020 for drug smuggling on the coast of Mexico before being deported.

“No, no… He is not. He is not a criminal,” said Tufiño Chila’s sister, who requested anonymity for security reasons, in statements to CNN from a small coastal town near Guayaquil, Ecuador.
October 17

Hegseth announced that a seventh targeted vessel “transporting substantial amounts of narcotics” was struck and that it was affiliated with a Colombian terrorist organization.

All three crew members on board were killed.

“These cartels are the Al Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere, using violence, murder and terrorism to impose their will, threaten our national security and poison our people,” Hegseth wrote.

“The United States military will treat these organizations like the terrorists they are—they will be hunted, and killed, just like Al Qaeda.”

The attacks sparked public clashes with Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who accused the United States of killing an innocent Colombian citizen during one of its strikes on vessels in the Caribbean. Trump announced he would cancel all US aid and subsidies to the country.
October 21 and 22, first attacks in the Pacific

The US military carried out lethal strikes on two ships in the Pacific, killing everyone on board each vessel, according to Hegseth.

Two people were killed in the eighth strike and three in the ninth.

Hegseth wrote on X that the first vessel targeted in the Pacific was “operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization and conducting narco-trafficking in the Eastern Pacific,” adding, “The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling.”

The action against vessels in the Pacific appeared to mark an expansion of the US military campaign, as the previous seven attacks were all conducted against ships in the Caribbean Sea.

“Narco-terrorists intending to bring poison to our shores, will find no safe harbor anywhere in our hemisphere,” Hegseth said.
October 24

The tenth attack killed all 6 crew members.

The Defense secretary said the US conducted a nighttime attack on a ship allegedly operated by Tren de Aragua in the Caribbean.
October 27, multiple strikes

Hegseth reported multiple strikes in a single day for the first time, with three missiles hitting four vessels in international waters of the eastern Pacific on Monday, 27th.

He reported that 14 people were killed aboard the vessels “operated by designated terrorist organizations” and that there was one survivor who was not recovered.

“The four vessels were known by our intelligence apparatus, transiting along known narco-trafficking routes, and carrying narcotics,” the Defense Secretary stated.

Hegseth said that the US military had contacted the Mexican government to look for the survivor. The Mexican Navy said Friday that the search is in a “suspended active” status and the person is considered missing.
October 29

The United States Armed Forces carried out an attack on a vessel in the Pacific Ocean that left four dead, Hegseth reported.

“This vessel, like all the others, was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics,” the Defense Secretary said in a post on X. He added that US forces suffered no casualties.
November 1

The US military carried out a strike on another vessel in the Caribbean Sea and killed three people on board, according to Hegseth.

“Today, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out a lethal kinetic strike on another narco-trafficking vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO) in the Caribbean,” Hegseth announced on X with an unclassified video of the strike. No US forces were harmed in the strike, he noted.

By Michael Rios, Avery Schmitz and Matt Stiles

#LONDON, November 2. The United States upgrading a long-abandoned base Puerto Rico obviously preparing for potential military operations in Venezuela, Reuters said, citing satellite photos.

According to the agency, construction works at the former Roosevelt Roads naval base in Puerto Rico which was closed more than 20 years ago, began on September 17 when operations to clear and repave taxiways leading to the runway began. Apart from that, the United States is expanding civilian airport infrastructure in Puerto Rico and on the island of Saint Croix, the US Virgin Islands. These territories are located some 500 miles (around 800 kilometers) off Venezuela.

Washington accused Caracas of not doing enough to combat drug smuggling. Under this pretext, the US deployed large forces to the Caribbean. The Miami Herald reported earlier, citing sources, that "the Trump administration has made the decision to attack military installations inside Venezuela and the strikes could come at any moment." Meanwhile, speaking to reporters, US President Donald Trump denied that he had made a decision to deliver strikes on Venezuela.

Fire and explosion at store in northwestern Mexico leave at least 23 dead and a dozen injured.

The fire occurred Saturday in downtown Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora state, Sonora Gov. Alfonso Durazo said in a video posted on social media.

Six people remained hospitalized on Sunday morning, according to Sonora’s prosecutor’s office. Sonora Attorney General Gustavo Salas Chávez said preliminary investigations showed the deaths were caused by inhalation of toxic gases.

Images circulating on social media show a massive fire engulfing the Waldo’s store. One video showed a burned man collapsing onto the asphalt a few meters (yards) from the store entrance.

Prosecutors said they believe the fire originated in a transformer but the exact cause is under investigation.

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum sent her “deepest condolences” to the families and loved ones of the victims.

She said she was in touch with the state governor to provide support and instructed Interior Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez to send a team to assist victims’ families and the injured.

The store Waldo’s also lamented the deaths on social media and said it was collaborating with authorities.

#Chinese calligraphy album fetches more than $1 million at auction

#Agriculture and auto sectors top priorities for government support amid U.S. tariffs: Nanos.

Canadians believe the agriculture and auto sectors should be the federal government’s top priorities when it comes to supporting industries impacted by U.S. tariffs, according to a new Nanos Research survey conducted for CTV News.

The survey asked participants to rank which industries the government should be spending the most money to help by identifying their top two priorities.

“One interesting thing, and this is from a political perspective, is that there’s not really one thing that cuts right across the country,” said Nik Nanos, founder and chief data scientist at Nanos Research.

The agriculture sector was picked by respondents as the top priority, with 29 per cent ranking it first and another 19 per cent ranking it second. The auto industry was not far behind, with 24 per cent putting it first and 18 per cent putting it second.

The softwood lumber sector came in third on the list, with 15 per cent ranking it first and 31 per cent putting it second. The aluminum industry was fourth on the priority list, with 15 per cent of respondents putting it first and 25 per cent ranking it second.

His administration would measure “success not only by the battles we win,” Trump said in his inaugural address, “but also by the wars that we end — and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”

But nine months into his second go-round in the White House, Trump is beating a curious path to executing his “peace through strength” foreign policy agenda, a phrase he borrowed from a fellow Republican president, Ronald Reagan, who saw building a strong military and economy as the bedrock to Soviet deterrence.

Trump’s take on Reagan doctrine includes sharper threats, bombings and no shortage of bravado.

It’s too soon to tell how history will judge Trump’s version, but the Gipper had his doubters, too.

“There are a lot of people who would have given Reagan a not-passing grade around 1983 or so,” said University of Tennessee scholar Andrew Busch, noting the year that Reagan ordered the U.S. invasion of a Caribbean island, Grenada. “By 1989, when he left office, they would say, ‘Wow, that guy was like the biggest peacemaker in the 20th century in some ways.’”
Peace done Trump-style

Trump’s unique approach to Reaganesque diplomacy was on full display during his trip to Asia this past week.

As he made his way to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit, Trump announced via social media that he was cancelling trade talks with Canada and imposing another 10% tariff on imports of Canadian goods. He expressed outrage over a television ad — paid for by the Canadian province of Ontario — that used a spliced audio of Reagan criticizing tariffs and aired during the World Series.

Read more: Carney says he told Ontario premier not to run anti-tariff ad, apologized to Trump

Then as Trump met with leaders in Malaysia and South Korea, the U.S. Navy carried out more lethal strikes on suspected drug boats in the Pacific.

His administration moved to shift the USS Ford and thousands of additional sailors from the Mediterranean toward the Caribbean Sea waters near Venezuela, continuing the biggest U.S. troop buildup in Latin America in more than 50 years.

Trump wasn’t done.

Minutes before a critical meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, Trump took to social media to suggest he was preparing to discard a decades-old U.S. prohibition on testing the nation’s nuclear weapons.

Later, as he made his way back to Washington, Trump was coy on whether he really meant to say he was ordering the resumption of explosive testing of nuclear weapons — something only North Korea has undertaken this century -- or calling for the testing of U.S. systems that could deliver a nuclear weapon, which is far more routine.

He remains opaque about whether he intends to resume underground nuclear detonation tests.

“You’ll find out very soon,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday, as he headed to Florida for a weekend stay.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is not shedding light on what kind of testing the administration planned to undertake. But he is reiterating Trump’s Reagan-borrowed mantra.

“America will ensure that we have the strongest, most capable nuclear arsenal, so that we maintain peace through strength,” Hegseth said Friday. “That’s what this is. In every meeting, that’s what we talk about: Peace through strength.”
A classic top-to-bottom operation

While the loose talk about nuclear testing was certainly unsettling to some, reaction appeared to be relatively measured. Trump, after all, has made many pronouncements only to later make pronounced shifts in positions.

For example, in a matter of weeks recently, he went from maintaining Ukraine must cede land to Russia to proclaiming that he believed Kyiv could win back all of the land lost in the war to declaring “fighting should stop at the lines they are at now.”

Administration officials are loath to question Trump’s tactics but acknowledge that some may appear to be contradictory, particularly with what seem to be spur-of-the-moment reversals in his public statements.

Rather than regard these abrupt changes in course as defects, administration officials privately argue that they give the U.S. more influence and make adversaries and potential adversaries — not to mention allies and partners — more wary to cross Trump.

But policy consistency has long been regarded as key in national security and international relations, not least because it provides a concrete basis for international understandings and actions that other countries consider when making their own decisions.

“This is a product of a lack of process,” said Ian Kelly, a retired career diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Georgia in Trump’s first term. “It’s a classic top-to-bottom operation and there doesn’t seem to be any consultation with other stakeholders, especially with Congress, but also long-standing allies.”
Steering clear of the endless war pitfall

Trump has managed to grasp tightly onto the “peacemaker” title even as his administration has carried out an activist foreign policy in the early going of his second term.

Trump claims as a shining achievement his decision to order strikes in June on three critical Iranian nuclear facilities that he says “obliterated” the Iranian program. The bombing caused significant damage in an operation in which no American troops were harmed.

While Trump insists the program was destroyed, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said this week that renewed movement has been detected recently at Iran’s nuclear sites.

Before those strikes, some of Trump’s die-hard backers, including Steve Bannon, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and commentators Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk, expressed consternation as Trump mulled military action. They pointed to Trump’s own wariness over decades of war fomented in previous administrations.

Trump’s strikes in the Caribbean appear to be landing huge blows to Venezuelan drug smugglers and unsettling the government of President Nicolás Maduro. At the moment, that seems to be coming with “very little political cost” for Trump, said Justin Logan, director of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington.

But Logan argues that Trump should be careful as he ponders the path ahead in Venezuela and steer clear of the pitfalls of the “endless wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan that left an indelible mark on the American psyche. This one would be in his own backyard.

“This administration seems to favor these short, sharp strokes and then say they have resolved the problem altogether,” Logan said. “I’m afraid what will happen is that we will discover that none of these problems have actually been put to bed.”

Scientists try to prove link between Amazon gold mining and disabilities in babies. Rivers that have been the lifeblood of their people now carry mercury from illegal gold mining, threatening the health of their unborn children.

“Breast milk is no longer reliable,” said Alessandra Korap, a leader of the Munduruku people.

At Sai Cinza, a Munduruku community surrounded by illegal mines, the family of three-year-old Rany Ketlen struggles to understand why she has never been able to raise her head and suffers from muscle spasms.

Scientists may soon have an answer. Rany is one of at least 36 people in the area, mostly children, with neurological disorders not explained by genetic tests, according to preliminary data from a groundbreaking study into the impacts of mercury contamination.

While scientists have warned of the risks that mercury could pose to Indigenous children in the Amazon, none have established a causal link to disabilities in their communities, as this study may soon do.
Eat the fish poisoned by mercury or go hungry

Rany’s father, Rosielton Saw, has worked as a miner near their village for years, following in the footsteps of his father, Rosenildo.

Sitting at the family’s one-bedroom wooden home, the older man said he knew the mercury they used was dangerous.

But mining about 30 grams of gold per week provides just “enough to support ourselves,” Rosenildo Saw said.

The family regularly eats surubim, a carnivorous fish that accumulates mercury in the river biome. Rany Ketlen, who has severe swallowing problems, drinks the fish broth.

In recent years, government health officials have reported dozens of other patients in the wider region suffering from similar disorders. But a lack of testing and access to medical care has made it difficult to compile a full picture of the problem or establish the exact causes.

Now researchers are collecting data on neurological problems known to be associated with mercury poisoning, ranging from acute brain malformation to memory issues, in a multi-year study concluding by the end of 2026.

The scientists involved in the latest unpublished research, backed by Brazil’s leading public health institute, said a top suspect is the mercury seeping into waterways after miners use it to bind tiny specks of gold extracted from riverbanks – a largely lawless trade spurred on by record-high prices for the precious metal.

The mercury has contaminated river fish that are a staple for Indigenous communities and accumulated in women’s placentas, breast milk and offspring at alarmingly high levels, often two or three times the hazardous threshold for pregnant mothers.

Chief Zildomar Munduruku, who is also a nurse, said he cannot tell his people to stop eating fish, despite guidance from health officials.

“If we obey their rules, we will go hungry,” he said.
Even if mining stops, mercury will linger

Far downstream from Sai Cinza, diplomats and world leaders gather next month in the Amazon for the United Nations climate summit, known as COP30. Brazilian organizers have called it the “Forest COP,” focusing global attention on threats to tropical rainforests and their inhabitants, such as illegal mining across the region.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has driven thousands of miners out of Indigenous lands since he returned to office in 2023. But the mercury left behind cannot be broken down as it cycles through air, water, and soil, fueling a lasting health crisis.

Brazil’s government has stepped up monitoring of mercury levels in the Munduruku Indigenous Territory, trained public health officials to identify early signs of mercury poisoning and invested in clean water sources for remote communities, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

Even if “gold mining in the Amazon came to a complete stop, the mercury that was deposited ... would remain for many more decades,” said Paulo Basta, a researcher at public health institute Fiocruz, who has studied mercury contamination of Indigenous people for more than three decades.

Papers, interviews and fresh data reviewed by Reuters suggest the humanitarian crisis unleashed by illegal mining will have permanent consequences for current and future generations of Indigenous communities in the Amazon.

A 2021 study by Basta and his colleagues found 10 of 15 mothers tested in three Munduruku villages had elevated mercury levels. An earlier study found 12 of 13 people in a Yanomami village where mining was rampant had dangerous mercury levels in their bloodstream. Nearly all the 546 registered cases that were in the government’s databases by March 2025 were collected by Basta and his team.

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Basta said. The Munduruku, Yanomami, and Kayapó territories have populations of tens of thousands of people who could potentially be contaminated by mercury.
Proving causation is not easy

In the study now underway, Basta’s team aims to provide a crucial missing link in the puzzle: proof that mercury is causing disabilities. For that, they are following 176 pregnant women to test babies during their first years of life.

At Sai Cinza, where Rany Ketlen and her family live, the researchers’ preliminary data showed that, on average, mothers in the study had mercury levels five times higher than the Brazilian Health Ministry considers safe and their babies had three times that level. Rany Ketlen’s sister, one-year-old Raylene, is one of them, though she has not yet shown any symptoms.

“This mercury disease, if you don’t look for it, you won’t find it,” said Cleidiane Carvalho, a nurse who set out years ago to connect researchers with the sick Indigenous children she came across. Without their studies, she worried, the crisis “will be silenced, neglected forever.”

But proving a causal link to mercury contamination has been a challenge.

Fiocruz researchers found that Indigenous communities often lack basic health services and are vulnerable to various infectious diseases, all potential causes of neurological problems. Marriage among close cousins, which can cause genetic disorders, is also more common in small Indigenous communities.

It is likely that mercury is among the causes of the conditions of the 36 patients who did not have an inherited genetic disorder, but that does not rule out other factors, said Fernando Kok, a geneticist at the University of Sao Paulo who is working on the Fiocruz study.

Exams that find mercury in people’s bodies are like snapshots of a patient’s recent diet, so they alone cannot prove a prior contamination as a cause of neurological problems.

“It’s a perfect crime, because it leaves no signature,” Kok said.

Reporting by Ricardo Brito, Manuela Andreoni and Adriano Machado; editing by Brad Haynes and Claudia Parsons, Reuters

White #House restricts reporters’ access to part of press office, Journalists are now barred if they do not have prior approval to access the area known as Upper Press -- which is where Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s office is located and is near the Oval Office.

Reporters have until now been able to freely visit the area, often wandering up to try to speak to Leavitt or senior press officers to seek information or confirm stories.

Media are still allowed to access the area known as “Lower Press,” next to the famed White House briefing room, where more junior press officers have their desks, the memo said.

The policy comes amid wider restrictions on journalists by the Trump administration, including new rules at the Pentagon that major outlets including AFP refused to sign earlier this month.

The change at the White House was announced by the National Security Council in a memorandum titled “protecting sensitive material from unauthorized disclosure in Upper Press.”

“This memorandum directs the prohibition of press passholders from accessing... ‘Upper Press,’ which is situated adjacent to the Oval Office, without an appointment,” said the memo, addressed to Leavitt and White house Communications Director Steven Cheung.

“This policy will ensure adherence to best practices pertaining to access to sensitive material.”

It said the change was necessary because White House press officers were now routinely dealing with sensitive materials following “recent structural changes to the National Security Council.”

Trump has gutted the once powerful NSC, putting it under the control of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, after former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz was reassigned in May following a scandal over the use of the Signal app to plan strikes on Yemen.

Trump’s administration has made a major shake-up to access rules for journalists since his return to power in January.

Many mainstream outlets have seen their access to areas like the Oval Office and Air Force One reduced, while right-wing, Trump-friendly outlets have been given more prominence.

The White House also banned the Associated Press news agency from key areas where Trump speaks after it refused to recognize his order changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.