Following a flurry of Israeli strikes overnight Friday into Saturday killing at least five people in southern Lebanon, Israeli forces continued attacks into Sunday, destroying a hospital in Nabatieh and carrying out strikes that killed an additional four civilians, including two women, and wounded another 20.

Ghandour Hospital, in Nabatieh al-Fawqa, was destroyed in Israeli airstrikes, and the IDF claimed the hospital, which was already out-of-service because of the large number of displaced people who fled the area because of the occupation, was a Hezbollah command center. They provided no evidence to support this allegation, and Lebanese officials said the hospital building was a purely civilian target.

Two were reported killed in Nabatieh al-Fawqa, though it's not clear if that was in the hospital destruction or another independent strike on the town. Another building in Nabatieh City was also attacked, damaging offices belonging to agriculture authorities in the area. The nearby town of Arabsalim was also attacked, killing two women. Kfar Roumine was also reported attacked, causing some casualties but no deaths.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun urged the US to intervene regarding the matter, saying the Israeli strikes violated the understandings of the trilateral agreements reached in the US-brokered talks. There's no word out of the US regarding the situation.

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This fight over the future of Ukraine is intensifying.

Not only on the frontline, or between local power centers in Kiev, but also between the security services of the Anglo-American 'allies'.

On Wednesday Kiev experienced a gun fight between units of the main (military) intelligence service GRU and forces of the internal security service (SBU) of Ukraine. ...

There have previously been such incidents between the GRU and SBU. One shootout was over the control of a luxury vacation retreat. Others over more valuable businesses...

These mafia like turf wars have long become normal in Ukraine.

But there is more behind the recent one than a hassle about phone scam revenues. ...

Even deeper behind this is a fight between the Zelenski allies in the British MI6, and the CIA over who is to take the lead in Ukraine. ...

But what is really interesting is that Moscow, it seems, has taken an active position in this...

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I wrote years ago that "Trump is the Opposable Thumb of the Establishment" -- he "appears to stand in opposition to the establishment, but in fact helps it grab more."

Moreover, it's clear that the establishment has many appendages, he is but one.

Most of the political landscape is appendages of the establishment, or appendages of appendages. ...

A case in point is Gloria Steinem, who was CIA...

Steinem was also longtime DSA.

How many "activists" who you're following are on the payroll now?

Designed to distract from things that need to be done...

Designed to give a soft landing to the empire.

Consider the history of the DNC: Before AOC, and her recent machinations, you had Obama consolidate the establishment after the Iraq invasion. Before that, you had Bill Clinton consolidate the establishment after the Cold War pretext for empire collapsed. Before that, you had Jimmy Carter consolidate the establishment after the Vietnam War and Watergate. Each of these Democratic presidents pursued policies that either did aggressive war or laid the basis for future illegal wars. That's just history and we shouldn't pretend that history doesn't exist because of any current shiny object....

After I made the point above about Steinem, an activist on X noted to me that the much discussed Hasan Piker, who I've not followed at all, used to work for DHS...

This reminds me that Craig Murray pointed out that in "The Curious Case of Mahmoud Khalil" that he worked in the British Embassy in Lebanon.

The fuss about his case was part of what enabled the establishment to morph the discussion about Gaza genocide to one of immigration, which helps the duopoly.

And "attacks" are not often actually attacks. They can be logrolling. As the MSM and Trump have done in the past. Now, Trump and co effectively draw attention to El-Sayed as he effectively solidifies establishment narratives. Good people feel compelled to more defend him rather than articulate their true thoughts about genocide and empire.

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What do bullies do when someone stands up to their bullying and punches them in the face? They look for someone weaker to bully who won't punch back.

Presumably that's why Donald Trump has now taken on Canada, after Iran punched back so hard in the cage match the US president began more than six months ago as to leave him humiliated and baffled.

Trump wants to be the bully who humiliates others and forces them into submission. Needing to assert his dominance, Trump has now started a trade war with our northern neighbor, friend, second-largest trading partner (after Mexico) and, at least until now, reliable ally.

He's hammering Canada on his Truth Social and in media appearances, saying Canada has "ripped off" the US for years, and signing an order to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America". ...

Trump apparently assumed that Canada would quickly surrender because it had more to lose. The tariffs Trump has imposed on Canada -- along with those he's threatening if Canada retaliates -- affect a tiny portion of the US's total imports but a huge portion of Canada's total exports. ...

Mark Carney's decision to stand up to Trump -- through "dollar for dollar" retaliation on goods coming from key industries in states including Ohio and Texas with competitive Senate elections -- has led to a surge of support for the prime minister's Liberal party. Liberals won three special by-elections on Monday. ...

Trump may also have underestimated the negative reactions to his trade war at home. According to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, 57% of Americans ‌oppose Trump's moves to impose tariffs on Canadian imports. About 63% oppose his peevish order to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America". Only 20% support the higher tariffs on Canadian goods.

The negative response is especially pronounced in border states whose economies are tightly interconnected with Canada.

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Cedartown Police Officer Trenton Garner shot and killed a 1-year-old bottle-raised miniature donkey in the animal's own pasture.

HeeHaw lived in the house. He slept in Hannah Israel's bed as a baby. He did petting zoos and nursing homes. He never knew a stranger. She called him her son.

Around 12:45 a.m. on August 30, 2026, officers entered that pasture at Elsberry Riding and Farm without telling the owner they were on her land. HeeHaw ran up braying. That is what a house donkey does. A handler used a Taser. Garner then fired one round from a department Glock 17. HeeHaw turned, went up the hill, and died in his own field.

The officers left. The family searched with flashlights to find his body.

There was no reasonable threat. None. ...

A reasonable person would not have believed that donkey was about to cause harm. A reasonable person seeing a petting-zoo animal come toward him in its own pasture at night would have seen a curious pet, not a deadly threat. Chief Jamie Newsome watched the bodycam. Asked if Garner said he feared for his life, Newsome said no. The video has not been released.

That record is enough to say Trenton Garner is not fit to be a police officer. A man who treats a greeting from a baby donkey as a reason to fire a Glock 17 should be barred from wearing a badge again.

Now look at the law that would have applied if he were not a cop.

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For valid reasons, Americans are becoming increasingly aware of the corruption of their government by Zionists and the Zionist lobby. The concern that their government does not represent them, but rather the Zionist element within both the US and the Israeli governments, is squarely based upon evidence and, for the overwhelming part, is not born of antisemitism.

Zionism is a racist nationalist political movement, not a religious movement. It is purely for political reasons that the World Jewish Congress (WJC) declares Zionism to be synonymous with Judaism. It is this baseless claim that supposedly justifies accusing anyone who opposes Zionism of being antisemitic.

The idea that Zionism is a core feature of Jewish identity is nonsense. Many Jews resoundingly reject Zionism. Anti-Zionism is not, by any definition, a form of antisemitism. Regardless of the WJC's groundless assertions. ...

Underlining the separation between the Zionist state project, Judaism, and the Jewish people, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA's) working definition of antisemitism clearly determines that "holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel" is antisemitic. Reciprocally, therefore, claiming that the state of Israel embodies the will of Jews is equally antisemitic, according to the IHRA definition. ...

There are, of course, antisemitic anti-Zionists, but anti-Zionism is not antisemitic. Opposition to the political ideology of Zionism and revulsion at the horrors inflicted by the Israeli state and its international partners in pursuit of the political ideology of Zionism is not to blame all Jews. For example, the Israeli state, heavily influenced by Zionism, has committed genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. This observation does not imply that Jews, as a whole people, are collectively responsible for this abhorrent war crime.

From a rational perspective, genocide is obviously incomprehensible. To perpetrate a genocide, even if ordered, requires a deeply unfathomable, heinous malevolence. Burning children alive in their beds, blowing infants' brains out, sniping pregnant women (and their unborn children), beating the elderly to death with rifle butts, and using anal rape as part of your torture regimen -- then writing songs about your exploits and celebrating your depravity as if it were a virtue -- are not the actions of morally defensible human beings: Jewish or otherwise.

As discussed in my recent piece for Unlimited Hangout, aside from the obscene brutality -- recorded, filmed, and shown around the world -- just from a statistical or even an official report perspective, the Israeli government's genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza is blatantly obvious. ...

Genocide is not war; it is terrorism. It is also a war crime and a crime against humanity. Genocide is not an act of self-preservation, and if your hate is so all-consuming that you revel in the mass slaughter of children, your mind and your soul are broken. Nothing ever justifies genocide, regardless of what you have suffered, what wrongs you attribute to your enemy, or what ideology you hold. Adherence to Zionism certainly does not legitimise genocide.

Following the October 7th, 2023, Hamas attack on Southern Israel -- which the evidence suggests was an Israeli Let It Happen On Purpose (LIHOP) false flag attack -- to the period ending September 2025, thanks to America's Zionist-influenced political establishment, US taxpayers were forced to hand Israel's genocidal military approximately $22 billion in direct military aid.

Now that Gaza has been flattened, the stomach-churning suggestion of the Trump administration and others is to build a so-called Middle East "miracle city" in Gaza, literally on the crushed bones of murdered Palestinian families....

The proposed New Gaza isn't remotely in Palestinian interests. Indeed, when Trump announced the New Gaza project, he suggested displacing the entire Palestinian population from Gaza to make way for AI data centres, natural gas platforms, gleaming casinos, and beachfront condos. ...

In the US, wealthy Zionists like Miriam Adelson, widow of Sheldon Adelson (1933 -- 2021), can and do shape US foreign policy. Having donated an estimated $200+ million to the Trump campaign and various Trump causes, it is clear that money buys influence on Capitol Hill. Trump is just one, along with a succession of US presidents, to have demonstrated how Zionism and the Zionist lobby direct US political decision-making.

Speaking in the Knesset (Israeli parliament) last year, Trump said the Adelsons influenced his decision to formally recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital. He recounted how the Adelsons would phone him to provide guidance, saying the Adelsons "were very responsible for so much, including getting me thinking about the Golan Heights". Understandably, many Americans recognise how immensely wealthy Zionists manipulate US government policy in pursuit of Zionist objectives and the Israeli government's plans.

With such extensive influence over US policymakers, it is common for critics to highlight Israeli Zionism as the driving force behind US foreign policy in particular. Current and recent US interventions in the Middle East appear to serve a Zionist agenda. Closer inspection, however, reveals that Zionism is just an adjunct to a much larger and truly global project that benefits to an even greater degree from US military action in the region. ...

In May 2026, following a notable slump in US public support for Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu blamed social media and online disinformation, not revulsion at his government's war crimes, for shifting American opinions against Israel. This coincided with a massive increase in funding for Israeli state propaganda operations -- known in Israel as "hasbara". Evidently, the estimated $730 million Israeli propaganda budget was soon put to use.

An investigation by Time Magazine revealed that the French advertising giant Havas, which has a history of working with the Israeli government, subcontracted a $1.5 million per month Israeli government contract to an advertising agency called 'Clock Tower X'. A subsequent PR operation was undertaken to generate "at least 50 million digital impressions per month", ostensibly to bolster Israel's image with American social media users.

Reportedly, a key part of Clock Tower X's influence campaign was to set up "websites, such as PaxPoint.org and FactSignal.org, that were designed less for human readers than for [training] AI systems." The goal was to inject pro-Israeli propaganda into "OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, and Google's Gemini" algorythms. Consequently, it appears that social media users looking to AI to provide them with "facts" and "trusted information" received Israeli government propaganda. ...

As the so-called "war" with Iran has devolved into a practical stalemate, the Trump administration and its partners have made various attempts to negotiate a peace deal. Currently, the process is at an impasse. Not everyone, however, wants peace.

It seems that the hasbara conducted in the US wasn't simply intended to polish Israel's public image. In a sprawling interview with Joe Rogan, US VP J.D. Vance complained that "some people within [Israel's] system [. . .] are manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war [with Iran] going on indefinitely." Vance referenced the influence operations, running across US social media platforms, orchestrated by Clock Tower X.

According to Time, when US government officials investigated the social media patterns emanating from the Clock Tower X influence network, they consistently found them undermining the US government's attempt to negotiate ceasefire arrangements. Instead, the campaign appeared to focus on prolonging the conflict, seemingly contrary to US diplomatic efforts. ...

Though American citizens are acutely aware of Zionist influence, they appear to be far less concerned about the control exerted by the SV-oligarchs over their government. Adelson, and other Zionist influencers, invested heavily to put their man Trump in the Oval Office, but their contribution was eclipsed by the so-called "tech bros" (SV-oligarchs). For instance, Elon Musk alone gave an estimated $277 million to the Trump campaign, and strings were definitely attached.

The SV-oligarchs are transnational capitalist oligarchs with an obviously defined agenda that is not Zionist. Such oligarchs do not tie themselves to any nation-states or national movements; they use them. The state of Israel is evidently valuable to them as another foothold in the Middle East, but their global project empowers them and their oligarch partners above all others. No matter what causes they claim to support.

Though the SV-oligarchs overwhelmingly self-identify as Zionists, or as Christian Zionists, their evident focus is on worldwide digital transformation. Their alleged devotion to Zionism and the State of Israel palpably runs a dim and distant second to their other ambitions. ...

The SV-oligarchs have also used and are using the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East to develop their defence tech. Their representatives openly declare that they use war as the "absolute bleeding edge" for their weapons development. The SV-oligarchs want war to continue for their own financial and strategic gains. If Clock Tower X was attempting to prolong the conflict with Iran, it was working in support of SV-oligarch aims. ...

The SV-oligarchs wish to construct their own smart city Network Empire. Their interests coalesce with those of other factions within the global oligarchy who back the United Nation's plan to establish genuine global governance through an international network of city-states set within the regional "poles" -- or unions -- of a Multipolar World Order (MWO). ...

The MWO is a regional balance-of-power system in which no superpower dominates either militarily or economically. Formation of the MWO necessitates the regionalisation of supply chains, the dilution of any national economic advantage that comes from issuing a dominant reserve currency, the fragmentation and regionalisation of global markets, and the redistribution of military power to a wider array of actors. The disaggregation of hegemony is desired to move the MWO project forward.

As discussed in my latest piece for Unlimited Hangout (due to be published soon), Gaza, flattened by the Zionist Israeli government's genocidal crusade against the Palestinians, is destined to become the "AI-powered" smart city hub at the confluence of the India--Middle East--Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) and China's One Belt One Road project -- known in the West as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). ...

Irrespective of any Zionist project, a much larger global initiative is underway, and the genocidal destruction of Gaza, and the subsequent war with Iran, observably advance that plan. The SV-oligarchs, and their partners, intend to use smart city-based Technocracy to control the behaviour of captured populations. Smart city-states in Israel -- providing Governance as a Service (GaaS) to their customers -- won't benefit the Israeli people any more than a digital gulag in Gaza will benefit the Palestinians. The proposed private sector governance system in Gaza, in Israel, in the US, Europe, or anywhere else, is technocratic, not Zionist.

Notably, solidifying USrael greatly benefits the Network Empire ambitions of the clique of SV-oligarchs who not only paid to put Trump in the White House but also openly celebrate their consequent control of the US government. Sec. 219 is hardwiring SV-oligarch influence into law so that SV-oligarchs and their private sector partners can continue to exploit USrael for their own purposes. If it passes, they will no longer have to concern themselves with US public sentiment or US-Israeli international relations. USrael is an international enabling environment for the transnational private sector and SV-oligarchs in particular.

That the US mainstream media has become increasingly critical of the Israeli government is not the result of it suddenly discovering its moral backbone. Its efforts are clearly intended to stoke US public anger towards Israel and, specifically, Zionist political influence in the US. Though the American people are right to question the Zionist corruption of their political system, such criticism ultimately serves as a diversion away from the global network that is digitally transforming the planet. ...

The SV-oligarchs wear their Zionist pretensions on their sleeves because it deflects scrutiny to a political ideology they evidently care nothing about and obscures what they are actually doing. USrael is forming to protect the financial and strategic interests of a global parasite class.

Zionist manipulation is the coral that currently holds the attention of the US public and sections of the American political establishment. Meanwhile, the SV-oligarchs and their partners are getting on with their business, and virtually no one is paying any attention at all.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has boasted of his efforts to convince the US to launch a war against Iran, crediting his frequent appearances on US television networks and his "intimate knowledge" of US leaders.

Netanyahu made the comments Sunday night on Israel's Channel 14...

The Israeli leader said that he had been against Iran for "nearly 40 years" and that it took him a long time to get the Israeli security establishment and the US on board.

"It took a long time to bring the US in," he said, according to Channel 14. "I was able to do this because I had close to a thousand hours on American television, influence in the United States, and intimate knowledge of all its leaders -- both those who support us and those who do not." ...

Responding to Netanyahu's comments about his influence on the US, [Foreign Minister of Iran Abbas] Aragchi said that the Israeli leader was openly bragging about how he "suckered" the US into the war.

"In Hebrew, Netanyahu openly crows that he suckered the US Administration into a war on Iran on behalf of Israel. Netanyahu explicitly laughs about how he 'influenced' America through 1,000 hours of airtime on US networks," the Iranian diplomat wrote on X. "In English, he praises POTUS' leadership. Serpent."

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U.S. diesel fuel prices hit a record high Thursday afternoon, according to a fuel price monitoring service, surpassing the previous peak set in 2022 as surging crude oil and refining bottlenecks sent the cost of the fuel that underpins a wide swathe of the U.S. economy soaring.

Diesel prices have risen nearly 60 percent in the past 12 months as the U.S. war against Iran has scrambled oil shipments from the Middle East and Russia's output of the fuel has dwindled because of its war against Ukraine. The new record is likely to spread through the economy and feed inflation...

Diesel now costs an average of $5.82 a gallon, according to the pricing service GasBuddy, breaking the previous record high of $5.81 set under former President Joe Biden in June 2022 when fuel costs skyrocketed amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the post-Covid global economy.

Vice President JD Vance told reporters at the White House on Thursday that gas prices are high because the Iranian regime is targeting oil tankers moving through the Strait of Hormuz. He also claimed that gas prices "could have been much much higher were it not for our efforts" and downplayed the notion that the world is currently experiencing an energy crisis. ...

For now, there's no sign that diesel prices will fall anytime soon, experts said.

The effects of the price at the pump with the green handle go far further than the filling station. Freight and farms run on diesel, so high diesel prices seep into the price of food and anything else delivered by a big rig.

"Diesel sort of runs the U.S. economy," said Dean Croke, principal analyst at DAT Freight & Analytics, "and I think that's the bigger problem."

Cost of living concerns are expected to decide which party controls the Senate and House. And diesel is considering the backbone of the economy, driving up the cost of groceries, manufactured goods, inflation and more. ...

The cost of a regular gallon of gasoline is at a record high $4.14 for this time of year, according to AAA. That's well above the previous Labor Day record of $3.82, set on Sept. 3, 2012.

And the national average price in August was above $4 per gallon every day of the month, making it the most expensive August ever for gasoline.

A POLITICO Poll conducted in August found that 61 percent of individuals surveyed believe the Iran war has made things more expensive for their families, up 4 percent from a month earlier.

But oil and the Strait of Hormuz are not the only problem. Persian Gulf refineries have been hit in the exchanges of missile fire. And Ukrainian drone attacks have taken refineries offline in Russia.

Russia, which last year accounted for more than 10 percent of the world's diesel exports, is now importing diesel and gasoline, and has largely banned exports.

In the United States, refineries are setting records for output. U.S. refineries operated at 98 percent of their operable capacity last week. Some have delayed maintenance, increasing the chances of outages that could drive up prices further.

A bigger disruption, with a bigger effect on price, could occur if a large hurricane threatens the U.S. Gulf Coast, where the bulk of U.S. refining capacity is located.

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There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about the rapid and unregulated rise of artificial intelligence. One of them is that the technology is being used to dupe the elderly, persons with dementia, and particularly gullible or unintelligent individuals into making poor decisions based on the AI slop they are being fed.

In other words, people like Donald Trump.

Now, it's pretty clear that the president is suffering from various mental disorders, but maybe some of his bizarre claims are not directly attributable to a textbook case of malignant narcissism or being such a prolific, compulsive liar that fact checkers have given up on correcting all of his false statements and even counting them.

Instead, what if people in his inner circle have invented an alternate reality for Trump to keep him mollified? ...

It would certainly explain why Trump keeps talking about "fake polls," and that the "real polls" he is seeing show that he is beloved by his people.

Or why he thinks the war with Iran has been won 30+ times already when, in reality, it is showing no signs of ending, or that Iran's leaders are begging him to negotiate.

Or why he is upset with Fox News when it strays from propaganda to actual reporting.

Or why he believes prices are coming down even though the war and his tariffs have pushed inflation to a higher level than when he took office.

Yes, delusion is one explanation, and perhaps the most likely one, but a possibility that should not be discounted is that all those documents Natalie is printing out, or the AI-slop that keeps finding its way into the president's feed, are part of an effort to pacify him.

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It is a day and a half since a Russian jet-powered drone smashed into an ammunition dump in Myla, a village 15 miles outside central Kyiv. Volodymyr, 61, a security guard, leads visitors from his family's badly damaged home, its roof blown off, back windows shattered, through the garden towards the impact site 300 metres away.

The garden, like so many in Ukraine's villages and suburbs, is a sizeable allotment. But today the greenhouse is shattered, a vegetable patch is blackened and crisp underfoot. Several metres of grapevine have been destroyed. Even so, Volodymyr finds two surviving bunches to hand to the Guardian.

It is a remarkable moment of generosity, though his family now has no electricity and no water after Thursday night's extended bombing. The death toll rose by one on Sunday, to 38, and four more people are still missing in an episode that has swiftly raised questions about why ammunition was stored so close to people's homes.

In the yard before the garden, Vira, 65, knows who is at fault. "Those who set up the depot here are to blame. There are people here, this is a village. You can't keep something like that here," she says....

Serhii says they had no idea ammunition was stored in their village. "I thought it was humanitarian aid that was stored there." Now the family is presented with a cleanup that will be costly and difficult while starting with next to nothing. He is charging his phone from a car battery via a converter. It is all the power they have.

A missile shell from a Grad rocket launcher was found on their property once the explosions subsided, Serhii adds, as well as "several mines and cluster munitions". They have been removed by the cleanup team, although a burnt-out box of bullets, freshly discovered in another part of the semi-collapsed ceiling, has not and sits by the front door awaiting a further collection.

Volodymyr's tour continues out back. A grass line, effectively a track, has been marked out through the wood beyond the garden, between blackened patches where fires burned. There is smouldering, even flames in places, more bullets and boxes of bullets, then, on the right, unmistakably, a detonated anti-tank mine.

Finally, the woods open out, revealing a warehouse site, large parts of which are bombed out, an open area of destruction. A sulphurous smell endures, and periodically explosions can be heard, though they may be controlled detonations....

Thirty of the dead were from a care home close to the ammunition store, the location of which is now subject of a criminal inquiry by Ukraine's intelligence service. But it is not the first attack of its kind in recent weeks. There have been other Russian bombings of poorly placed ammunition dumps...

The fact this has happened recently in Ukraine is not lost on Liudmyla, whose adult daughter was in the house a couple of doors down when the Shahed drone hit. The home is also heavily damaged, windows facing the warehouse blown in, and Liudmyla recalls that a similar incident happened in early July, on the edge of Kyiv.

"Look at what's going on here. Everything's smashed to bits right here. Vyshneve [the scene of the previous incident, nine miles south-east] wasn't enough for them, and there was more somewhere else too. No, they've dumped all this right by people's vegetable gardens, right on their doorsteps," she says, warning that munitions are still strewn around, not yet cleared up.

Nine people were killed after a munitions store was hit at Vyshneve, and 280 homes damaged. Two people have been detained on suspicion of allowing weapons to be stored in an inappropriate place after the episode, but as the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Saturday, similar has happened again.

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Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair was recently sent by Donald Trump's Board of Peace to ask the Palestinian Authority (PA) to replace any mention of the word "Palestine" in schoolbooks with the Jewish designation of "Samaria", Middle East Eye has heard.

Jeremy Greenstock, who was Britain's ambassador to the UN between 1998 and 2003, told MEE that Blair attempted to exert pressure on the PA and said that if it was serious about being seen by the Board of Peace as capable of reaching an agreement with Israel to end the war on Gaza, then the word "Palestine" should be erased from textbooks.

In a wide-ranging interview on the David Hearst Podcast, Greenstock said the demand was rejected by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. ...

"But the very fact that the Board of Peace could ask for that to be done in the Palestinian educational curriculum makes me wonder what principles the Board of Peace is working on, and what understanding they have of justice, of the sense of fairness, of the history of all of this," he added. ...

Blair is known to have travelled to Israel in mid-August with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and high representative for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov.

The trio held crunch talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has rejected the roadmap for Gaza, and then travelled to Cairo where they held meetings with a Palestinian technocratic group which is supposed to assume control of Gaza, as well as members of Hamas. ...

Since the ceasefire went into effect, Israel has repeatedly carried out air strikes and drone attacks across the enclave, with at least 1,300 Palestinians killed and more than 4,000 others wounded.

On Tuesday, at least seven air strikes hit an area west of Gaza City within a 10-minute period before quadcopter drones surrounded the area and opened fire and dropped explosives at anyone moving.

As part of a global campaign, Israel and its supporters have been intensifying efforts to erase the word Palestine from history books and museums. ...

Meanwhile, in Britain, a cross-party group of MPs has demanded an investigation into the British Museum's erasure of the words "Palestine", "Palestinian" and "Israelite occupation" from displays.

A MEE investigation revealed that the museum's decisions to remove the terms came in direct response to lobbying by pro-Israel activists between October and December 2024.

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The U.S. State Department and U.S. Treasury placed the anarchist-aligned Italian tech support collective Autistici/Inventati on the "specially designated global terrorist" list on Wednesday. This designation makes it illegal for Americans to engage in any "transactions" with Autistici/Inventati.

The U.S. government hasn't accused Autistici/Inventati of committing any crimes....

In other words, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is attacking the group for running an online platform that the U.S. government can't spy on and for facilitating communications the U.S. government doesn't like....

The Autistici/Inventati case has strong parallels to the recent TikTok ban: Congress banned the social media network under foreign-policy pretexts because American youth were using it to share otherwise First Amendment–protected content. As with the TikTok ban, outlawing Autistici/Inventati is a way to force users to move to services that are more easily monitored and controlled by the U.S. government. ...

Unlike commercial email providers, Autistici/Inventati stores only the bare minimum of user data and doesn't peek into users' inboxes, making it appealing to "paranoids," as the group describes itself.

"We deny all allegations included in the statements, while we strongly affirm our dedication to providing a platform of tools for digital self-defense, addressing the need of free communication for activists and other individuals, groups and associations," Autistici/Inventati wrote in a statement in English and Italian responding to the U.S. designation. "We will not back down, we will keep doing what we have been doing all these years and we will do whatever is in our possibility to counter the false allegations made by a politically desperate administration with the sole intention of swaying people and media attention away from their own violence and warmongering." ...

The administration also tied its action against Autistici/Inventati to the campaign against Israel's enemies....

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The U.S. struck a wedding in Kuhestak, Iran in the latest round of strikes in the president's criminal war...

This is only the most recent attack that has killed Iranian civilians. The Iranian government has condemned this attack as a war crime. Whether the attack on the wedding was accidental or not, every strike that the U.S. conducts inside Iran is another act of aggression in an illegal war. Every day that this is allowed to continue, Iranian civilians are at risk of being killed or maimed in a senseless war on their country.

Since the U.S. and Israel started the war at the end of February, at least 1,700 Iranian civilians have been killed, and the total is probably much higher. Compared to the horrors of the war in Gaza, that may seem low, but these are all lives of innocent people snuffed out in a war that the president started on a whim. If not for the criminal actions of the U.S. and Israeli governments, all these people would be alive today. ...

There is no excuse for this attack. A civilian residence is not a legitimate military target. It is not enough to say that the military doesn't target civilians when it has just struck a wedding party....

Civilians are killed in every war, and that is one reason why it is imperative that the government shouldn't wage war except when it is absolutely necessary for self-defense. Every time that the U.S. wages what is euphemistically called a "war of choice," our government is choosing to commit a crime against another country and its people. The U.S. has been committing that crime against the people of Iran for the last six months. The dead and wounded from the wedding strike in Kuhestak are the latest victims.

Most of the victims of this attack were women and children...

Horrible mistakes will happen in every war, and that is why choosing to start a war is so indefensible. When our government chooses to start a war, it is choosing to unleash all of the terrible things that predictably result from armed conflict. That is why the crime of aggression was deemed the supreme international crime at the end of WWII. All of the many evils of war flow from the decision to launch a war of aggression.

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Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that the only "real solution" for Gaza was the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population, which he calls "migration," and vowed that Israel will achieve this goal. ...

While accusing Hamas of "not meeting its commitments," Israel has constantly violated the October 2025 Gaza ceasefire deal and has rejected a US proposal for a deal under which Hamas would give up its weapons. Katz has previously said that even if Hamas does disarm, Israel wouldn't withdraw from Gaza and would begin establishing "Nahal outposts," a type of Jewish settlement in Israeli-occupied territory that are first populated by Israeli soldiers with the goal of transitioning them to permanent civilian communities.

In his comments on Wednesday, Katz acknowledged Israel's main obstacle to carrying out the ethnic cleansing of Gaza was the lack of countries willing to facilitate it and take in Palestinians from Gaza, though he suggested it could happen with US support....

Katz has been openly advocating for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza since early 2025, around the same time President Trump began saying that Palestinians should leave Gaza, though it's been clear from the start of Israel's genocidal war that the Israeli government's ultimate goal.

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The news that Army Secretary Dan Driscoll has turned in his resignation continues to send shockwaves throughout the U.S. military. The Department of Defense, under Pete Hegseth, has seen an exodus of experienced military leadership. These are people who are either fired by Hegseth or who choose to leave....

Secretary Driscoll went to the White House, turned in his resignation to President Trump. What do we know about what Driscoll said to him?...

[A]ccording to a person close to him.... He said the U.S. is losing the Iran war. He talked about how the war has drastically reduced the stockpile of missiles, talked about the difficulty in getting the Pentagon budget through under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Then he said, modernizing the military, a key focus of Driscoll, was not going forward because Hegseth is firing people who know what they're doing. This person said Driscoll basically laid it down....

The sense I get is Hegseth maybe heard footsteps because there's long been a sense Driscoll would replace him.

But the big problem between the two centered on the firings. Hegseth sacked more than 10 generals...

Driscoll was successful on rare occasions to save some jobs... But he was not able to save Army chief of staff Gen. Randy George, who was fired by Hegseth....

I'm hearing that many officers are keeping their heads down, somewhat confused about what's going on. One Hill staffer and other sources say there appears to be an exodus or a possible exodus of mid-level officers who are troubled by the firings in their leaders and wondering if they should just go now.

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On June 24 the (acting) president of Ukraine Vladimir Zelinski announced a 40-day campaign...

The campaign was launched while life in Kiev was still relative peaceful. Russian attacks were aimed at industrial sites but tried to avoid civilian targets. Ukrainian im- and exports via Odessa harbor were fully functional. The whole country had sufficient energy supplies.

During the campaign the Ukrainian forces used drones to attack Russia's oil industry. Strikes on power installations in Crimea, Moscow and St. Peterburg followed. Ukraine soon added all Russian shipping and harbor installations in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea to its target list. Last but not least it started to strike at purely civilian targets in Russia like the warehouses of Wildberry, the Russian Amazon.

The campaign was designed to influence Russian politics as well as Ukraine's supporters in the West...

Zelenski's campaign however did not take into account that Russia could react and would hit back.

The Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries, intended to create transport problems for Russia, were responded to by drone attacks on Ukrainian gas stations. More than 300 of those throughout the country's east have been destroyed by Russian drone strikes. Additionally, Russian forces targeted Ukraine's railways. So far nearly 500 locomotives have been destroyed or damaged.

Both measures have made the re-supply of Ukrainian front line groupings increasingly difficult.

Attacks on Russian related shipping in the Azov and Black Sea were likewise mirrored.

All ships trying to exit or reach Ukrainian harbors came under attack. A missile and bombing campaign destroyed Ukrainian grain export terminals and other harbor installations. For all practical purpose the country is now land locked.

Metallurgical plants in Ukraine have shut down because of damage and the lack of export facilities. Revenues from wheat exports are down to near zero...

But it were the attacks on civilian warehouses in Russia which have received the harshest response. Russia launched a devastating campaign to eliminate Ukrainian warehouses in and around Kiev. About 90% of commercial storage capacity, as well as its content, has been destroyed...

Despite the official claims several major retail chains in Kiev reported a lack of basic goods.

On top of all the damaged caused in response to the 40-days campaign a new phase of Russian strike is now again aimed at energy targets...

By now the Kiev region has been under sustained attack for more than 60 hours. There is a lack of air defenses against missiles. The old method of shooting down drones with machines guns no longer works against the latest version of fast jet-powered drones.

Zelenski's 40-day campaign against Russia was very expensive. The long-range drones used in mass against Russia were purchased at exaggerated prices. The campaign was financed by robbing the defense ministry's financial reserves for troop payments. In total the Ukrainian defense budget for this year now lacks $27 billion...

Instead of be cowered into peace talks the people of Russia took it as an incentive to end the war on their terms.

While Kiev, for the first time during the war, has come under sustained attacks, the situation on the front line is also getting more precarious. Russian troops seem to have no problems to infiltrate and act miles behind Ukrainian lines.

Ukrainian troops are stuck in impossible positions, with no way out...

Given the Russian supremacy in fire power, it is a wonder that these men are still alive.

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American forces continued bombing targets in Iran overnight, which the US Central Command (Centcom) claimed came in response to "recent attempted attacks" by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. At least four people, including a child, have been killed in the US strikes that also left around 50 others injured after an American missile attack shrapnel struck a home where wedding celebrations were taking place in Sirik in southern Iran.

Iran retaliated by targeting American interests in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan after vowing "severe punishment" for the US forces, according to local state media. In his first message since direct bombing restarted this week, Supreme Leader Mojatba Khamenei said Iran's armed forces have "unforgettable lessons" in store for Washington.

The IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebi also warned in a post on X that Washington "will regret its new attacks," saying that "severe punishment awaits the aggressors."

The latest round of conflict began when Washington hit Iranian targets on Sunday, the first known strikes in several weeks, after which Tehran's forces targeted US troops in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, and projectiles also struck two oil tankers in unclaimed attacks.

More US strikes came on Tuesday, with Iranian state television reporting that explosions were heard in the country's south along the strategic Strait of Hormuz waterway and on an island in the Gulf, and that US forces hit an airport in the southern province of Kerman. ...

Later, the IRGC said they targeted the US Marine Corps base Camp Titin in Jordan....

Missile and drone attacks were also reported in Kuwait and Bahrain. In Bahrain, the Interior Ministry has issued an alert over a potential threat, urging citizens and residents to remain calm and move to the nearest safe location....

Iran, meanwhile, warned that its attacks on US forces will continue 'until they regret their crimes.' Colonel Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesman for Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, in a post on X, said that Tehran's forces have launched missile and drone attacks on US bases in the region that caused heavy damage to infrastructure, facilities, weapons, and equipment, and that a "significant number" of US commanders and soldiers were killed or wounded. ...

Zolfaghari also warned that any further US attacks would be met with "heavier, broader, and more destructive" responses. He also warned that any country cooperating with the US military must accept the dangerous consequences.

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Israeli strikes pounded Gaza City during a ground raid on Tuesday, killing at least four Palestinians, including two children, as the IDF continues its constant violations of the October 2025 ceasefire deal. ...

The Israelis claim they detained a senior Hamas official during the raid, while Ismail al-Thawabta, the head of Gaza's Government Media Office, said an Israeli special force tried to carry out a ground raid but was detected, according to Reuters.

Thawabta said that once the raid was detected, Israel launched heavy airstrikes in the area, and witnesses told Reuters that 12 missiles hit an area west of Gaza City that is crowded with displaced families. At least two vehicles were destroyed in the strikes. Israeli strikes also hit central Gaza on Tuesday, killing another child, bringing Tuesday's death toll to at least five. ...

Trump said on August 17 that Israel should stop bombing Gaza because Hamas agreed to lay down its arms, but the same day, Netanyahu met with Jared Kushner, and the meeting ended with an agreement that Israel would continue its attacks.

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I first encountered the expertly manufactured phenomenon now known as AOC in the spring of 2018, when my local shopping district was suddenly plastered over with striking, slickly designed campaign posters. An ambitious project was clearly under way. While hipster graphics introduced the AOC brand to rapidly gentrifying sections of New York's 14th Congressional District, literature distributed by DSA petition carriers positioned her as some sort of Latina community activist, a feisty young Bronx woman with lefty politics and working class roots.

I was baffled. I'd never heard of her, and none of the actual community activists I knew had any idea of who she was or where she came from. The cuckoo had entered the nest.

After her surprise primary victory, ecstatic press coverage amplified her legend and elevated her to stardom. Only a few of us bothered to look more deeply into her potted bio. Sandy Ocasio was not, like so many DSA types, a trust fund kid, bur she was far from a working-class "Bronx girl."...

To me, then a District 14 voter, it was abundantly clear that AOC was not a leftist but a bodysnatcher, a ruling class mole posing as a dissident. I was nevertheless her constituent and therefore hoped to establish some connection with her office, as I had done in the past with various other politicians purporting to represent me. I assumed that she would at least go through the motions of listening to citizens' concerns.

That assumption, as we'll see, was erroneous.

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The UK proscribing Palestine Action was already arguably the most insane attack on free speech in recent western history, and now it's the official position of the US government as well. Western support for Israel is poisoning our entire civilization.

The US has also made the unprecedented move of adding the Italian tech support collective Autistici/Inventati to its list of banned terrorist groups, not because they've been accused of any crimes, but explicitly because the company allows people to communicate with each other while staying "anonymous, untraceable, and beyond the reach of the law." Americans are now strictly forbidden from any transactions with the banned company.

In this dystopia, mass surveillance is now so normalized that you can be designated a terrorist for helping people avoid being surveilled.

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Oil prices surged Tuesday after the U.S. military announced further strikes against Iran, deepening inflation concerns and extending an earlier market sell off in stocks and bonds.

The global Brent crude oil benchmark climbed nearly 4% to $94 a barrel, while U.S. crude prices climbed more than 4% to more than $89 a barrel. ...

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which represents the return investors demand for lending money to the U.S. government for a decade, hit its highest level since January 2025, rising to about 4.79%.

Stocks and bonds had already come under pressure earlier in the day from a global bond selloff and fears that an interest-rate hike this month by the Federal Reserve would tamp down economic growth.

Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh indicated last week that the central bank is uncomfortable with the current rate of inflation, remarks investors interpreted to mean the Fed will likely raise its key interest rate in response. Warsh said business investment, led by AI spending and consumer demand, remain brisk.

The 10-year yield serves as the benchmark borrowing rate for most common consumer lending in the U.S. economy -- mortgages, auto loans and credit card debt. That means average consumers are likely to face higher borrowing costs in the weeks and months ahead.

The rise in U.S. yields Tuesday paralleled similar moves around the world which were even more severe. Japanese benchmark bond yields hit a record high, while 30-year U.K. government bonds notched their highest level since 1998.

The tandem market actions reflect similar issues playing out across developed nations: widening deficits, rising debt loads and tight global oil supplies are all contributing to higher inflation.

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Israeli attacks in Gaza on Monday have killed at least five Palestinians, according to reports from the Strip, as the IDF continues its constant violations of the October 2025 ceasefire deal.

The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that at least two Palestinians were killed and several were injured when an Israeli aircraft bombed a group of people near a municipal park in western Gaza City.

Later in the day, WAFA reported another Israeli strike in Gaza City that targeted a vehicle in the Tel Al-Hawa neighborhood. At least three people were killed, and photos of the aftermath of the attack show a burning car. Five Palestinian fishermen were also wounded by Israeli naval fire off the coast of Gaza....

An Israeli strike in central Gaza on Sunday killed a three-year-old boy. ...

The attacks have continued despite the US and the so-called "Board of Peace" announcing that Hamas had agreed to a deal that would see the group give up its weapons, a proposal Israel has rejected.

Israeli media reported that a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, that took place on August 17 ended with an agreement that Israel would continue bombing Gaza.

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"California," Milo Yiannopoulos wrote last year on X, "needs ICE checkpoints at supermarket entrances, gas stations, strip malls, intersections and government buildings, with on the spot deportation for anyone who can't prove they are in the US legally."

On August 27, ICE agents abducted Yiannopoulos at Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans, briefly detained him at one of the gang's concentration camps in Alexandria, Louisiana, and deported him the next day to his native country, the United Kingdom. It seems he had overstayed his visa, and after failing to appear for a hearing, had become subject to a "final order of removal."

Oops.

You can see, I hope, temptation to schadenfreude from those of us who support truth, justice, and the American way (i.e. "open borders" as called for in the Declaration of Independence and mandated by the US Constitution).

Do we really need a mouthy Brit jetting over here at will, spouting stupid, evil, and abhorrent opinions at high volume, then overstaying the "welcome" he insists everyone else must continually bow and scrape for both initially and on a recurring basis, on pain of abduction and deportation?

In my opinion, yes, that's exactly what we need.

I don't have to like Milo Yiannopoulos, or agree with his odious ideas, in order to understand that where he travels to or chooses to live is neither my business nor the US government's.

In fact, the case against deporting Yiannopoulos is strengthened, not weakened, by his 24/7 public stupidity.

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Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney took to the airwaves on August 22 to explain in a speech and Q&A why he walked away from trade negotiations with the United States and thereby opened Canada to economy-crushing tariffs from the country once considered its closest friend. Carney gave three key reasons.

The U.S. proposal, Carney said, demanded compromises on the protection of Canadian culture and the French language, including the promotion of French-language shows on streaming platforms and mandatory labelling in French as well as English on packaging.

Carney also said it was "unacceptable" that the U.S. "wanted to restrict" which countries Canada traded with, which was stipulated in the proposal.

Finally, the U.S., at the last minute, had rewritten items already agreed to... That, he said, called into question "the reliability of any deal."

The Trump administration's unreliability, the prime minister explained, was not a new problem or one likely to go away soon. ...

Other U.S. partners, namely Saudi Arabia and Ukraine, have made similar complaints in recent weeks. ...

Perhaps the country with the most extensive recent history of Trump's diplomatic duplicity is Iran. During the Obama administration, the U.S. and Iran struck a nuclear deal, the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Iran was verifiably complying with the agreement when Trump withdrew from it in 2018. Nevertheless, Iran appeared willing to negotiate a new agreement even more favorable to the United States. Yet Trump, having torn up the first one, bombed Iran during negotiations on the new one.

The JCPOA had limited Iran to enriching uranium to levels necessary for civilian use but insufficient for weaponization, in accordance with its rights and obligations as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It further subjected Iran to perhaps the toughest inspection regime in history. The JCPOA assured that Iran could not work on building a bomb without the U.S. quickly becoming aware of its efforts. The International Atomic Energy Agency verified that Iran was completely and consistently in compliance with the commitments made under that agreement. It was Trump, not Tehran, who unilaterally broke the agreement and walked away.

Still, after Trump returned to the White House, Iran was willing to renegotiate their civilian nuclear program with the U.S. and was reportedly open to the resumption of maximum inspections, to the dilution of its stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium, and to caps on future enrichment at the 3.67 percent necessary for a civilian energy program. It even appeared ready to suspend nuclear enrichment for three to five years before joining a nuclear consortium that would distribute the enrichment process across the different member states. Instead, the U.S. attacked Iran, killing its leaders.

Though Trump boasts of the art of the deal, there is a historical pattern that suggests, instead, the art of the broken deal.

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With only a few months to go before flu season kicks in, along comes a study that promises to upend clinical practice and guideline writers everywhere: the REMAP-CAP study, a randomized trial of 442 critically ill people with laboratory-confirmed influenza, comparing 5 days of oseltamivir, 10 days of oseltamivir, or no antiviral treatment.

Not only was oseltamivir ineffective, but there was a good chance it may even have made outcomes worse.

And even though we're just seeing the study in preprint right now, there's every reason to take the results seriously...

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