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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed on Thursday that 8,000 North Korean soldiers in Russia are expected to begin combat operations against Ukrainian troops in Kursk ‘in the coming days.’

The secretary said that of the 10,000 North Korean soldiers believed to have been sent to Russia for training, 80% of that force is now in the Kursk region, where Ukraine first launched an incursion in August.

Ukraine has since captured and held onto roughly 460 square miles according to reports earlier this month, not only prompting civilian evacuations from the region but also forcing Russia to fight its war on its own territory. 

Blinken, speaking alongside Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and their South Korean counterparts in a joint press conference Thursday, said Russia has been training the North Korean troops in artillery and UAV basic infantry operations like trench clearing in an indication that Moscow ‘fully intend[s] to use these forces in frontline operations.’

The Russian military has also apparently provided these troops with uniforms and equipment in what Austin also said ‘strongly indicates that Russia intends to use these foreign forces in frontline operations in its war of choice against Ukraine.’

‘[Russian President Vladimir] Putin has been throwing more and more Russians into a meat grinder of his own making in Ukraine. Now he’s turning to North Korean troops, and that is a clear sign of weakness,’ Blinken said. 

The secretary also said Russian troops are seeing record high casualty rates with some 1,200 casualties reported a day in eastern Ukraine – a rate that is more than Russia has endured at any other time since the war began more than two and half years ago.

The deployment of North Korean troops to Russia, first confirmed by the Pentagon a week ago, is the first time in 100 years that Russia has invited foreign troops onto its soil, confirmed Blinken. 

When pressed by reporters about whether Ukrainian forces can continue to hold onto the territory in Kursk, Austin said simply, ‘Yes.’

‘If you take a look at what I said earlier in terms of the numbers of casualties that Russia is suffering on a daily basis… [and] you do the math on a given month – those are pretty big numbers,’ Austin said. ‘Ten thousand pales in comparison to those kinds of casualties.’

Blinken said additional security assistance will be announced for Ukraine in ‘the coming days.’

The joint address came just hours after North Korea on Thursday also launched its longest ever intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) roughly 620 miles over an 86-minute period in the direction of the East Sea, reported Japanese authorities.

Austin told reporters on Thursday he did not believe Russia had any involvement in the latest missile test but said the U.S. is continuing to work with allies and partners in the region to analyze the missile launch. Though Austin also warned that North Korea’s partnership with Russia is likely to ’embolden’ it.

‘[North Korea] stands a chance of gaining in this exchange,’ Austin said in reference to its partnership with Russia. ‘This is something we’re going to have to continue to watch very, very closely. 

‘It will… potentially embolden them to do more of the kinds of things that we’ve seen them do here recently,’ he added in reference to the ICBM launch. 

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Prominent conservative women are pushing back against billionaire and Harris campaign surrogate Mark Cuban for arguing that former President Trump would never surround himself with ‘strong, intelligent women.’

‘@mcubanI’ve been a CEO and professional sports team owner JUST like you,’ former Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., said Thursday in response to Cuban on X. ‘I’m one of the millions of strong, conservative women who back Trump. You might think we’re stupid, or that we’re garbage. We think it’s time to replace you and Kamala with leaders who don’t hate us.’

Loeffler’s comments came in response to Cuban’s remarks on ABC’s ‘The View’ on Thursday morning.

‘Donald Trump, you never see him around strong, intelligent women. Ever,’ Cuban said. ‘It’s just that simple. They’re intimidating to him. He doesn’t like to be challenged by them.’ 

The remarks were quickly condemned by the Trump campaign, with campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt calling the comment ‘insulting.’

‘This is extremely insulting to the thousands of women who work for President Trump, and the tens of millions of women who are voting for him,’ Leavitt said. ‘These women are mothers, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders, and they are, indeed, strong and intelligent, despite what Mark Cuban and Kamala Harris say.’ 

Speaking to Fox News Digital, Leavitt added that ‘joy at Kamala HQ has been replaced by division, vitriol, and a disturbing level of disrespect for the millions of Americans who are supporting President Trump after four years of destruction under Kamala Harris.’

However, Loeffler and Leavitt weren’t the only conservative women to respond to Cuban, with many others taking to X to voice their frustrations with the billionaire’s remarks.

‘I’ll take this seriously when @mcuban can define what a woman is,’ conservative columnist Carly Bird said.

‘More of the same condescending rhetoric from Harris allies,’ said Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa. ‘This strong, intelligent woman voted for Donald J. Trump — and I’ve been proud to be on the road across this great country with @TeamTrump!’

‘Trying to think of a response to sissy man @mcuban but I’m too dumb and weak to do so,’ quipped conservative columnist Julie Kelly.

‘Just when you think the Kamala camp can’t possibly alienate and divide people any more than they already have…now they attack women who support Trump. Nice job, Mark,’ added Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump.

Cuban’s comments came just a few days after President Biden apparently described Trump supporters as ‘garbage’ during a Zoom call with Voto Latino on Tuesday.

‘The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,’ Biden said in response to comments made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage’ during Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden.

The White House has denied that the president was referring directly to the former president’s supporters with the remark.

Nevertheless, Trump has seized on the Biden comments, telling supporters in Wisconsin on Wednesday that Democrats have expressed too much ‘hatred’ towards those who disagree with them.

‘My response to Joe and Kamala is very simple: You can’t lead America if you don’t love Americans,’ Trump said. ‘And you can’t be president if you hate the American people, and there’s a lot of hatred there.’ 

The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.

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Billionaire Mark Cuban appeared to try and spin him out of a mess, after making some insulting comments on ‘the View’ about women who support former President Trump.

Cuban appeared on ABC’s ‘The View’ on Thursday morning when he made the comments.

‘Donald Trump, you never see him around strong, intelligent women. Ever,’ Cuban said. ‘It’s just that simple. They’re intimidating to him. He doesn’t like to be challenged by them, and, you know, Nikki Haley will call him on his nonsense with reproductive rights and how he sees and treats and talks about women. I mean, he just can’t have her around. It wouldn’t work.’

After taking a verbal beating for his remarks on social media, Cuban turned to social media on Thursday afternoon to clear up his statements.

‘This is what I said during a conversation about why Nikki Haley was not active in his campaign,’ Cuban said. ‘I know many strong, intelligent women voting for Trump, including in my extended family. I’m certainly not saying female voters are not smart, strong and intelligent.

‘I know he has worked with strong, intelligent women, like Elaine Chao, Kelly Anne, Ivanka and many others,’ Cuban added. ‘I stand by my opinion that he does not like being challenged publicly.’

Jimmy Failla commented on Cuban’s post, saying, ‘Shoulda just told us there was an apostrophe in your statement. This is junk, babe.’

Failla was referring to the White House’s spin on President Biden’s remarks earlier this week, when he apparently described Trump supporters as ‘garbage’ during a Zoom call with Voto Latino on Tuesday.

‘The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,’ Biden said in response to comments made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage’ during Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden.

The White House immediately denied that the president was referring directly to Trump’s supporters, but instead added an apostrophe in the word ‘supporter’s,’ and claimed he was referring to the comedian’s garbage.

Failla was not the only person commenting on Cuban’s spin.

‘Everyone heard what you said, Mark. Now you’re trying to rewrite history. You insulted tens of millions of American women, and they won’t forget this!’ one person wrote.

Another wrote, ‘You know exactly what you said Mark. Be a man and own up to it instead of back [pedaling].’

Trump also responded to Cuban’s remarks on Thursday evening.

‘Mark Cuban, a really dumb guy, who thinks he’s ‘hot stuff’ but he’s absolutely nothing, is now out there saying that I don’t surround myself with strong women,’ the former president said. ‘Actually, he is very wrong. I surround myself with the strongest of women – with the understanding that ALL women are great, whether strong or not strong.

‘This guy is such a fool, he’s constantly on television being critical, and only for the reason that I tuned him out completely while President because he called incessantly. I told him, very pointedly, ‘Look Mark, I’ve got a lot of things to do, I just can’t be taking so many pointless calls from you,’’ Trump continued. ‘In any event, that affected him greatly, because he’s a very insecure guy, and a MAJOR LOSER, always has been and always will be! Nobody likes him, nobody respects him, and he’s unattractive both inside and out! He should go back to talk about the person he was forced to support, because I didn’t want it, Lyin’ Kamala Harris. Also, he’s got no clubhead speed!

‘I may, in fact, be surrounded by the strongest women in the world, including Heads of Countries, who make Mark look like a ‘baby!’ All strong women, and women in general, should be very angry about this weak man’s statement,’ he concluded.

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman and Michael Lee contributed to this report.

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: A top House Republican is questioning the Department of Justice about what he says is ‘apparent coordination’ with left-wing civil rights groups over its lawsuits against two Republican-led states over efforts to remove non-citizens from its voter rolls.

‘The Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government is conducting oversight of the apparent coordination between the Civil Rights Division and left-wing advocacy groups to impede the ability of states to ensure the accuracy of their voter rolls,’ Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who is chairman of the subcommittee, says in a letter obtained by Fox Digital.

The Department of Justice sued Alabama and Virginia in recent months over their moves to remove non-citizens from the voter rolls. The DOJ has claimed that the states have violated clauses that say states must complete their maintenance program no later than 90 days before an election under a clause known as the Quiet Period Provision.

‘This systematic voter removal program, which the State is conducting within 90 days of the upcoming federal election, violates the Quiet Period Provision,’ the DOJ said as it filed suit against Virginia. 

Virginia has insisted that the state’s process is ‘individualized’ and conducted in accordance with state and federal law. A lower court ordered 1,600 individuals to be restored to the voter rolls, but that has since been blocked by the Supreme Court.

The DOJ sued Alabama on similar grounds, alleging that changes to the voter registration lists took place 84 days before Election Day.

‘The right to vote is one of the most sacred rights in our democracy,’ Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement. ‘As Election Day approaches, it is critical that Alabama redress voter confusion resulting from its list maintenance mailings sent in violation of federal law.’

But Roy says the lawsuits from the DOJ came after lawsuits by left-wing civil rights groups. In the letter, Roy says that the Sept. 27 Alabama lawsuit came weeks after a Sept. 13 lawsuit from a coalition of left-wing civil rights groups. The cases were consolidated on Sept. 28.

In Virginia, a civil rights lawsuit was filed on Oct. 7, and the DOJ filed its lawsuit on Oct. 11. 

‘The cases involve the same or similar plaintiffs and lawyers and follow a similar pattern with respect to the timing of each complaint. These circumstances raise questions as to whether the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division is working with these groups to file cases to keep noncitizens on voter rolls just before the 2024 election and prevent states from ensuring that only eligible citizens vote in federal elections,’ Roy says.

He also says the DOJ ‘did not object to consolidating its cases with those filed by left-wing organizations and attorneys with a public history of opposing bipartisan efforts to prevent noncitizens from voting.’

Roy says many of the groups have objected to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. 

‘The American people deserve to know whether left-wing activist groups are dictating the DOJ’s legal strategy with respect to noncitizens voting in the upcoming election,’ he writes.

Roy is asking for all documents and communications relating to the lawsuits and any of the civil rights groups involved in the suits, as well as documents to show whether the DOJ plans to file any additional lawsuits against the states.

Virginia was handed a legal victory this week when the Supreme Court halted the lower court’s decision to reinstate 1,600 potential noncitizens to the rolls. A divided court granted the state’s stay application pending appeal in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. 

The DOJ said in a statement Wednesday after the Supreme Court’s ruling, ‘The Department brought this suit to ensure that every eligible American citizen can vote in our elections. We disagree with the Supreme Court’s order.’

Fox News’ Haley Chi-Sing contributed to this report.

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Harris campaign surrogate Mark Cuban’s suggestion that women in Donald Trump’s orbit are weak and dumb is blowing up on her campaign even as the furor continues to rage over President Biden’s dismissal of Trump supporters as ‘garbage.’

‘Donald Trump, you never see him around strong, intelligent women. Ever,’ Cuban said during an appearance on ABC’s ‘The View’ Thursday. ‘It’s just that simple. They’re intimidating to him. He doesn’t like to be challenged by them and, you know, Nikki Haley will call him on his nonsense with reproductive rights and how he sees and treats and talks about women. I mean, he just can’t have her around. It wouldn’t work.’

The comments resulted in a firestorm of criticism from Trump supporters – both men and women. 

‘Obviously, I wasn’t talking about Nikki Haley, and I wasn’t talking about all Trump supporters,’ Cuban told Fox News Digital. ‘That’s ridiculous.’ 

Asked if he would have chosen his words differently in hindsight, Cuban said: ‘I would probably just add that I’m only speaking to the point that I haven’t seen [Trump] side-by-side on the campaign trail with women I consider strong and intelligent. Like Nikki Haley, Kellyanne [Conway] and Tulsi [Gabbard], among others.’

Cuban also sought to add context with a post on X, formerly Twitter, shared Thursday afternoon, noting that he knows ‘many strong, intelligent women voting for Trump,’ citing members of his ‘extended family’ as an example. He also said that women who have worked for Trump in the past, such as Ivanka Trump and Kellyanne Conway, represent ‘strong, intelligent women.’ 

Cuban stated in his post on X that he still stands by his opinion that Trump ‘does not like being challenged publicly.’  

Meanwhile, In a statement to Fox News Digital, Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt called Cuban’s comments ‘extremely insulting to the thousands of women who work for president Trump, and the tens of millions of women who are voting for him.’

‘These women are mothers, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders, and they are, indeed, strong and intelligent, despite what Mark Cuban and Kamala Harris say.’ 

She added: ‘The joy at Kamala HQ has been replaced by division, vitriol, and a disturbing level of disrespect for the millions of Americans who are supporting President Trump after four years of destruction under Kamala Harris.’

Biden called Trump supporters ‘garbage’ during a Zoom call with Hispanic voters earlier this week. During Cuban’s appearance on ‘The View,’ he argued Biden’s remarks did not ‘matter at all.’   

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

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One Apprentice alum and attorney has joined the campaign for Donald Trump as some alumni of the reality show have publicly endorsed Kamala Harris ahead of Tuesday’s presidential election.

Erin Elmore appeared on season three of NBC’s The Apprentice in 2006 and was ‘fired’ after nine episodes, but she says the experience was immeasurable in the impact both it and Trump have had on her career.

Elmore is one of the 11 Apprentice contestants who recently penned a public letter in support of former President Trump’s re-election bid after another cohort publicly endorsed Vice President Harris.

Their letter read, ‘it is disappointing and shameful that these contestants would use the platform that Donald Trump gave them to attack him in this manner. Is this the thanks he gets for literally changing the trajectory of our lives?’ 

A letter obtained by Politico from six people formerly involved with The Apprentice claimed that former President Trump is a ‘divisive, self-interested, and erratic leader with a fragile ego.’

Elmore wholeheartedly disagrees with the letter’s characterization, claiming in an interview with Fox News Digital that ‘every bit of success I have in this life and everything that I’m doing is because of Donald Trump.’

She joined the show in 2006 as a 26-year-old who had recently graduated law school and made it nearly all the way through season 3. 

Yes, I heard the words, ‘you’re fired.’ But I was rehired on the campaign many, many years later,’ said Elmore in an interview with Fox News Digital. ‘But before we get into that, you know, Donald Trump was someone that saw a young person who was ambitious; he gave me every opportunity in the world. After I left the show, he asked me, ‘what do you want to do?’ And I said, ‘I want to get into journalism.’ And he wrote me a letter of recommendation, handed me a folio with people that I could contact. He said, This is on you. This is your job to do it.’

‘And he wrote me a letter of recommendation, handed me a folio with people that I could contact. He said, ‘This is on you. This is your job to do it.’

— Erin Elmore

Elmore landed a job in news media after her time on the show in Jacksonville, Florida before going on to work at QVC. She says everything changed when Donald Trump first went down that escalator in 2015 and threw his hat in the ring for commander-in-chief.

‘I was there for about ten years and I was very comfortable,’ said Elmore to Fox News Digital. ‘I had gotten married. I had had a child. And by the way, in both of those monumental situations in my life, who did I get surprise phone calls from Donald Trump saying, ‘congratulations on your wedding. I heard you had a beautiful son. Congratulations.’ So our paths were always connected.’ 

‘But when he came down that golden escalator and said he was running for president, I called his personal assistant that I kept in touch with over those ten years. I said, ‘Rona, I am quitting my job. I have a six-month-old baby at home. I am going to dedicate my life to getting this man elected.’

Erin Elmore served as a deputy press secretary in 2016 for the RNC and as a Trump surrogate in the same cycle. She has stepped up again in 2024 for re-election efforts as part of the Women for Trump bus tour visiting swing states with figures like Lara Trump.

She says that she finds it ‘sad’ that other alumni from the Apprentice haven’t seen the character she sees in former president Trump.

‘Not only were you exposed to the American platform, you had everyone in America watching you,’ said Elmore to Fox News Digital. ‘But Donald Trump gave us the opportunity to meet with titans of industry, business leaders, CEOs–the networking opportunities were absolutely to the moon.’

‘And I just don’t know how anyone could possibly say that they weren’t afforded every opportunity in the world. Yes, I approached Donald Trump after I was on the show and I said, ‘Would you write me a letter of recommendation? Would you help me with some job opportunities?’ But you know what? That’s how the world works. We have to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and make ourselves successful. And the fact that these people can’t really see what the show has done for them is just sad and it speaks more about them than it does about us,’ added Elmore.

As for what’s in store after next week’s presidential election, Elmore says she plans to first focus on her family, including her son’s student council campaign.

‘We’re all scared. We’re all emotional. But to me, the most important thing is being a good wife and a mother,’ said Elmore. ‘And I’ve been in this game a long time and I know so many people want so many amazing things. I think what I’m going to do is I’m going to manage my son’s student council campaign, because I know exactly what to do in politics.’

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A new report from the House of Representatives is accusing the Biden administration of failing to recover some $200 billion in fraudulent COVID-19 pandemic loans.

The House Small Business Committee, led by Chairman Roger Williams, R-Texas, has been conducting a years-long investigation into how the Small Business Administration (SBA) has handled the emergency financial aid programs that sprung up when state governments shut down businesses across the country during the pandemic.

‘In creating the COVID Lending Programs, Congress understood that the relief funds needed to be issued quickly to help businesses cope with the economic strain of the pandemic,’ a new report released by the committee said.

‘The rush to get pandemic relief funding out quickly resulted in shortcuts being taken to deliver aid quickly to small businesses in hopes of recouping improper disbursements on the back end.’

The report also accused the SBA of making ‘numerous decisions that decreased the likelihood’ the government would be able to recoup any money given under false pretenses.

‘In total, it is likely that $200 billion from the COVID Lending Programs were disbursed to fraudulent recipients,’ the report said.

Out of roughly $5.5 trillion Congress approved for aid during the pandemic, roughly $1.2 trillion went to the SBA.

It was largely disbursed by two major pieces of legislation, the CARES Act, signed by former President Trump, and the American Rescue Plan, signed by President Biden.

While making recommendations for reform across the entire COVID loan system, the report accused Democrats of devoting disproportionate attention to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which accounted for roughly $64 billion in fraudulent loans, rather than the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL), which the report said saw $136 billion in fraud.

Written by staff for the committee’s Republican majority, the report acknowledged that the additional responsibility given by the Trump administration in 2020 strained its comparatively smaller federal agency infrastructure. 

‘In the days after Congress passed the initial COVID relief legislation, SBA employees worked night and day to craft the rules and policies for its new lending programs,’ the report said.

The SBA had already issued more money in the first 14 days of these programs than it had in the previous 14 years combined, the report said.

It said SBA staff ‘did a remarkable job’ setting them up, ‘but under the circumstances, these SBA employees did not have adequate support, staff, or time to design these programs to be fraud resistant.’

The report accused the Biden administration of not doing enough to put in anti-fraud guardrails and failing to recover the funds lost after taking over the White House in January 2021.

The report also knocked the previous Democratic majority Congress for focusing on PPP, while the ‘fraud rate’ for EIDL ‘was approximately four times higher.’

It accused Democrats of focusing on PPP because of the involvement of private sector partners.

‘It is likely that this misplaced focus by Congressional Democrats, and their surrogates in the media, obscured the realities of fraud in these programs, at least to some degree,’ the report said. ‘While there should be investigations to ensure private companies are following the rules, Members of Congress and their staff should be careful to direct their efforts toward oversight that is beneficial to the American people, and not just part of a broader messaging push against an emerging industry.’

Republicans noted that PPP needed ‘substantial changes’ to be made more effective and less vulnerable to fraud.

Fox News Digital reached out to the SBA and the House Small Business Committee’s Democratic minority for comment.

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Nondairy milk lovers, rejoice.

Starting next week, Starbucks will stop charging coffee drinkers who wish to customize their drinks with nondairy milk options an extra fee, the company announced Wednesday.

The change will go into effect on Nov. 7, the day the company will launch its holiday menu, Starbucks said in a release.

Starbucks said dropping the extra charge will make ‘it easier for customers to make their Starbucks beverage their own’ by customizing popular drink recipes with nondairy milk options, including soy milk, oat milk, almond milk or coconut milk, according to the release.

‘Core to the Starbucks Experience is the ability to customize your beverage to make it yours. By removing the extra charge for non-dairy milks we’re embracing all the ways our customers enjoy their Starbucks,’ Brian Niccol, Starbucks’ chairman and CEO, said in the release.

Substituting a nondairy milk is the second-most-requested customization from customers, according to Starbucks. It falls behind adding a shot of espresso.

The company estimates that customers who pay to modify their milk choices will get a price reduction of more than 10% when the change goes into effect.

‘This is just one of many changes we’ll make to ensure a visit to Starbucks is worth it every time,’ Niccol said in the release.

Starbucks announced earlier that it will discontinue its Oleato olive oil drinks in early November.

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Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol shared more details about the company’s turnaround strategy during the company’s quarterly conference call on Wednesday.

For three straight quarters, Starbucks has reported declining sales. But the coffee chain is hoping that some easy tweaks to its U.S. business will pay off and help reverse the trend as it plots a more ambitious and comprehensive game plan.

Many of the coming changes are meant to help Starbucks achieve a smaller goal: delivering a customized drink to the customer in under four minutes. About half of current transactions are within that threshold, according to Niccol.

As Starbucks focuses on the turnaround, the company is also planning fewer new locations and renovations in fiscal 2025 to free up capital, CFO Rachel Ruggeri told investors on the call.

Shares of Starbucks were flat in trading Thursday after the company reported that its revenue fell for the third straight quarter.

Here’s how Niccol plans to help Starbucks’ sales rebound:

Starbucks customers have become used to walking into a cafe and seeing a counter crowded with mobile orders. Niccol wants to change that.

“When it works well, it’s great, but sometimes it can be a challenge for both customers and partners,” he told investors on the company’s conference call.

Mobile orders account for more than 30% of Starbucks’ U.S. transactions.

Niccol said Starbucks is working to improve the accuracy of the app’s timing, so customers know when their drinks are ready. Plus, he wants to better separate mobile order pickups from in-person ordering inside restaurants and curtail how much customers can customize their drinks.

“Right now, I think there’s some customization specifically in the mobile order app execution that’s just really wide and unnecessary,” Niccol told CNBC. “So I just think that we need to put better guardrails in place so that we get you access to customization that’s correct for the drink you’re ordering, and then also it allows our baristas to be more consistent with what they execute.”

The Starbucks menu will be getting a makeover.

Niccol said the coffee chain needs to focus on “fewer, better” offerings. Slimming down the menu will make it easier for baristas to make every drink consistently. It should also improve speed of service since they’ll have fewer drink recipes to remember.

“There’s always a long tail on the menu, and those items, frankly, we don’t execute all that great,” Niccol said, adding that baristas often take longer to make drinks that are unfamiliar.

Niccol said Starbucks would also be taking a look at the items that it wouldn’t have put on the menu if the four-minute standard was already in place.

While the changes may disappoint some customers, Niccol said he thinks that they’ll appreciate faster, more consistent service in the long run.

As part of Niccol’s “Back to Starbucks” plan, he wants the company’s locations to feel like “third places” for customers to work and socialize in outside of their homes and offices.

The coffee chain’s positioning as a “third place” helped it grow into a global behemoth, but somewhere along the way, it lost that reputation. Niccol said he wants to reintroduce more personal touches, like serving coffee in ceramic mugs to customers who choose to linger in cafes. Sharpies will also be making their triumphant return, after being supplanted by printed labels.

Starbucks is also reviewing its store designs, with a focus on bringing back more comfortable seating and amenities.

“The reality is the majority of what we have are these cafes that I think don’t have the right seats, potentially have the right texture, don’t have the right layers, don’t have the right warmth. We need to bring that back,” Niccol said.

In recent years, the company has rolled out more pickup-only locations, with little to no seating, particularly in urban areas. Niccol said even those cafes could be more welcoming to customers.

“I think there are design elements that can still bring forward this idea of a community coffeehouse, even in some of the executions that we’ve made that just don’t lend itself to putting the full, traditional coffeehouse experience,” he told CNBC.

In the early days of the Covid pandemic, Starbucks banished its condiment bars behind the counter. Since then, when customers want to add milk or sugar to their drinks — even a simple drip coffee — they have to ask baristas directly.

But that will change soon. Niccol said the condiment bars will reappear, freeing up more time for baristas and easing some customer headaches.

Starbucks has already been increasing the average number of hours that it schedules baristas. More shifts — and more consistent scheduling — have lowered the company’s turnover and helped overall retention.

But Niccol also wants to make sure that cafes are properly staffed, from the busy morning rush to “shoulder hours,” leading up to and away from peak times.

Since his first week on the job in early September, Niccol has said that he wants to revamp the company’s marketing. On Wednesday’s call, he said he wants its marketing to target a broader audience than Starbucks Rewards members and to showcase the quality of Starbucks coffee.

Customers can also expect to see fewer deals as part of the marketing shift. Niccol said discount-driven offers are “ineffective” and can overburden baristas.

Niccol comes from a marketing background and started his career at Procter & Gamble. He then moved to Yum Brands and worked in various marketing positions before ascending to lead Taco Bell. That marketing expertise was useful when he joined Chipotle and will likely also prove valuable at Starbucks. He’s already tapped a former Chipotle alum, Tressie Lieberman, as the new chief global brand officer of Starbucks.

After years of pleading from customers, Starbucks will finally drop the extra charge for its milk substitutes, starting Nov. 7. The change means some customers could save more than 10% on the cost of the drinks, according to the company.

More broadly, Starbucks isn’t planning to change North American prices through the next fiscal year, which ends around early October, in the hopes of improving consumers’ perception of its pricing.

Executives have pointed to pushback against higher prices as one reason why occasional customers have stopped visiting its locations as often.

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The analysis found that a network dubbed “Storm-1516” — which has a history of producing staged videos and deepfakes that parrot the Kremlin’s propaganda – has close connections with a group created by the late Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The Russian Foundation to Battle Injustice (R-FBI), founded by the former Wagner mercenary boss in 2021, is part of a multi-pronged disinformation effort that has increasingly pivoted from false claims about the Ukraine war to focus on the 2024 US presidential election. The group, which casts itself as a “human rights” organization, is led by Mira Terada, a Russian woman who served more than two years in a US prison on money laundering charges.

The R-FBI organization and the Storm-1516 campaign are among a multitude of active Russian disinformation efforts, many of them overlapping, according to US and European intelligence sources. They use American and foreign social media influencers to promote propaganda and disinformation in the West.

In recent weeks, the network has invented stories out of whole cloth targeting Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. They range from fabricated claims that Harris was responsible for a hit-and-run in San Francisco and shot an endangered rhino while on safari in Zambia, to a baseless allegation that Walz sexually assaulted a student.

The Harris campaign has previously expressed concern that media coverage could amplify false Russian claims. Responding to a request for comment on the Russian disinformation narratives attacking Harris and Walz, Morgan Finkelstein, national security spokesperson for the campaign, said: “Vladimir Putin wants Donald Trump to win because he knows Trump will roll over and give him anything he wants. We condemn in the strongest terms any effort by foreign actors to interfere in U.S. elections.”

NBC and Wired have also covered the narratives, attributing them to Storm-1516.

Clemson said it was able to connect Storm-1516 to R-FBI by using scraped data and social listening software to analyze their historical, technical and organizational ties.

“We have found Storm-1516 to be tightly connected to the Russian Foundation to Battle Injustice (R-FBI). Their behavior is much too closely linked than would reasonably occur by accident or simple correlation in aims,” Darren Linvill and Patrick Warren, co-directors of Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub, wrote in their report published Wednesday. “R-FBI affiliated individuals also frequently share Storm-1516 narratives on their own blogs or news pages. All of this is done at strategic times and routine rates not possible by chance.”

The disinformation campaign has ramped up ahead of the November 5 election, and as US intelligence agencies warn of a major Russian government-backed effort to influence the vote in favor of former US president Donald Trump, who they assess is the Kremlin’s preferred choice. The Biden administration in September announced a sweeping set of actions to tackle the Russian campaign, including unveiling criminal charges against two Russian nationals, sanctions on 10 individuals and entities, and the seizure of 32 internet domains.

Warren and Linvill note that the themes and methods used by Storm-1516 and R-FBI are consistent with those deployed by Prigozhin’s now defunct Internet Research Agency (IRA), widely known as Russia’s troll factory.

One of the recent fake Storm-1516 videos, which was shared by R-FBI network members, showed a man alleging an endangered black rhino was killed during a “diplomatic visit” to Zambia. “It was a female American politician. Her name was Kamala,” the ranger said, claiming that she shot a young rhino while on safari at North Luangwa National Park, and the incident was “swept under the rug.”

Another staged video attributed to the network featured a young woman claiming that Harris paralyzed her in a hit-and-run in San Francisco in 2011. US intelligence agencies assessed that a Russian operation produced the video. Like other disinformation that has gained traction, the video appeared to be staged with an actor rather than manipulated using AI. It was shared by a fake news outlet, “KBSF-TV.”

Many of the websites associated with the Russian disinformation network sound like American media outlets, with names such as The Miami Chronicle, The Boston Times and DC Weekly – a technique that was also used by the IRA.

But they are just fronts for narratives invented in St. Petersburg, where Wagner has its headquarters – an office also used by R-FBI, according to Russian media reports.

Influencers linked to R-FBI come from around the world and, according to Clemson, are often the first social media accounts identified “sharing specific Storm-1516 narratives.”

One American has been actively involved in spreading the fake stories: John Mark Dougan, a former Florida sheriff’s deputy who fled to Moscow in 2016 after facing felony charges of wiretapping and extortion in the US. Granted asylum in Russia, Dougan has become a vocal player in the Kremlin’s disinformation ecosystem, but a senior European intelligence official says he is a small cog in a much larger wheel.

Dougan is part of a constellation of characters promoting pro-Russia talking points through fake videos and websites. A Clemson report last year connected Dougan to the fake news website DC Weekly through a domain and internet protocol address shared by his personal website and two sites marketing his books. The use of real people is a departure from tactics used by Prigozhin’s IRA, which often distributed disinformation through bot networks, but much of the messaging is the same.

An official from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) told reporters last week that the content contained “several indicators of manipulation that are consistent with the influence efforts and tactics with Russian actors.” The US State Department said there was no record of a Kazakh exchange student at the Minnesota school at that time.

On October 24, the same X account carried fake video purporting to show an individual ripping up mail-in ballots for Trump in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Within three hours it was reposted tens of thousands of times.

Local election officials swiftly debunked the video. A day later, the ODNI, FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the video had been manufactured and amplified by Russian actors. Linvill said Clemson identified the video as a Storm-1516 narrative based on the way it was produced and distributed, adding: “It’s gonna be a rough couple of weeks.”

In an analysis of 25,000 fake stories posted by Storm-1516 and websites affiliated with Dougan between July 2023 and February 2024, Clemson researchers found just 49 included three or more images or video. Of those 57% were identified as Storm-1516 narratives, and 27% were stories from the R-FBI, showing a shared ecosystem.

“While there is no evidence Dougan is responsible for the creation of the narratives themselves, he claims responsibility for a series of AI-generated, fake news websites that have been used to covertly disseminate Storm-1516 messages,” Clemson said in their report.

‘Centralized and orchestrated from above’

In May 2021, Mira Terada arrived at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport, after serving jail time in the US. She was greeted by one of Prigozhin’s closest aides, Maxim Shugaley, who presented her with flowers, according to a video posted on his Telegram account.

Shortly after, Terada announced she would head up Prigozhin’s R-FBI (its name a nod to the Federal Bureau of Investigation adding him to its most-wanted list). The organization describes itself as a “independent non-profit organization supported by private donations from Russian citizens” and publishes content in Russian, English, German, and French.

Once known as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “chef,” Prigozhin ran the Wagner paramilitary force before falling foul of the Kremlin and leading a short-lived mutiny in June 2023. He died in a mysterious plane crash two months later, but his influence still looms large.

Terada attended the headquarters’ opening in November 2022 along with other key figures in Russia’s information landscape: Konstantin Pridybaylo, a prominent journalist with state media outlet RT, and Ruslan Ostashko, a Russian TV presenter whose Telegram channel has nearly half a million subscribers.

The Biden administration has sought to blunt RT’s influence ahead of the elections and expose what it says is the Russian state media network’s key role in the Kremlin’s global intelligence and influence operations. In September, the US Justice Department charged two RT employees for covertly funneling nearly $10 million into a US company to create and amplify content that aligned with Russian interests.

Still, Gerard says that R-FBI and other Russian operations are unlikely to influence the outcome of the US election. “Their goal is less ambitious. They simply want the international community to believe that they have the power to influence, to destabilize. They want to be spoken about,” he said.

To that end, Terada has gathered a network of would-be influencers to propagate a range of false stories. She also chairs the BRICS Journalists Association (BJA), which includes foreign reporters in Russian allied states.

Terada has appeared with those reporters, and John Mark Dougan, at media events and conferences. In March – in one of several public appearances together – she stood with Dougan at the launch of his book “Betrayal of the Truth,” and quoted the Russian ultra-nationalist Alexander Dugin as saying the book was a “way to convey the truth about the incredible crimes of American globalist minorities against humanity.”

Last week, The Washington Post reported that Dougan had connections with Dugin’s Moscow institute, the Center for Geopolitical Expertise, and cited documents obtained by a European intelligence service that it said showed Dougan was provided funding by an officer from the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service.

Another prominent figure in propagating Russian disinformation is American Tara Reade, a former Senate staffer who in 2020 accused then-presidential candidate Joe Biden of sexual harassment.

Reade defected to Russia in 2023 and became a contributor to RT. She has shared Storm-1516 narratives on her X profile 32 times over the last year, and has appeared on the R-FBI website six times, according to Clemson.

The links between Terada’s group and other Russian disinformation efforts are at best opaque, which is likely no accident. The Kremlin has opted for nodes of activity, some closely related to the state’s intelligence services, others less so.

“It’s very centralized and orchestrated from above, but it can sometimes be chaotic and less coherent. There are actors that take their own initiative… and it’s hard to tell sometimes if individuals are acting alone or as a part of a group.”

The Clemson researchers also acknowledge the challenges in establishing the exact organizational relationship between Storm-1516 and R-FBI, but said they were part of a “common structure.”

“The Storm-1516 narratives have had the biggest impact of any Russian disinformation operation the last four years… It means that whoever’s behind Storm-1516 is the most impactful actor. And the strongest evidence that I have is that an entity, either in or behind the R-FBI, is behind Storm-1516,” Warren said.

Sean Lyngaas contributed reporting.

Clemson researchers gathered the full set of R-FBI reports by scraping their website and used qualitative hand coding of individual R-FBI reports to organize them into categories and then counted those over time. To document the connections between the R-FBI influencers and the R-FBI and Storm-1516, researchers used the scraped data from the R-FBI website to find all mentions of those personalities and their full account histories on X (from Sprinklr) to measure how often and early they shared Storm-1516 and R-FBI content.

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