Author: nick

[ad_1] Photograph Source: Tasnim News Agency – CC BY 4.0 Ask what ordinary Iranians think about the recent escalation and you’ll find little reliable information. Even a young Iranian in London may lower their voice and glance around. The difficulty is that many Iranians appear to hold several truths at once: they oppose the Islamic Republic, fear foreign military intervention, resent sanctions, and long for ordinary lives. These positions are not contradictory. Outside Iran, they are often treated as though they are. Whether Tehran closes not just one but two of the world’s most important maritime choke points is, for…

[ad_1] Debbie Norris Woodell, former executive director of the Dunn Housing Authority in North Carolina, was sentenced to two years in federal prison and three years of supervised release after pleading guilty to conspiring to steal taxpayer money from the agency. Prosecutors said that from 2016 to 2021, she worked with others to steal more than $200,000 by creating fake bids and invoices for maintenance work that was never done, forging documents, misleading the housing authority’s board, and using agency credit cards for personal purchases, including home improvements and an ATV. In addition to her prison sentence, Woodell must repay…

[ad_1] Image by Center on Conscience and War. On July 4, the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, more than 500 veterans and military families gathered in the birthplace of the nation to reject what they called the Trump administration’s fascist vision for the country’s future (including domestic troop deployments and endless war). The coalition—About Face, 50501 Vets, Veterans For Peace, Common Defense, Military Families Speak Out, Fayetteville Resistance Coalition, and CCW—marched under the banner Freedom Over Fascism. Among them in the streets of Philadelphia were at least a dozen currently-serving members of the U.S. military, part of…

[ad_1] Photograph Source: SVG by Notwist. Symbol first illustrated by Thomas W. Benton on a 1970 poster – Public Domain America’s counterculture has been flipped by the Trump Administration’s Gonzo Governance. In 1970, Charles Reich argued —first in a New Yorker article and then a book—that The Greening of America was taking place: The New Yorker article began There is a revolution underway. It is not like revolutions of the past. It has originated with the individual and with culture, and if it succeeds it will change the political structure only as its final act. It will not require violence…

[ad_1] Things I liked about the World Cup: Congolese superfan Lumumba, Norwegian superplayer Haaland, and Mexican superduck Merlin. Things I did not like: Hydration breaks, Infantino, and Trump. Turns out space is not only cold, but also sweet. Hmm… Cosmic ice-cream… 567-million-year-old fossils suggest animals evolved earlier than we thought. Scientists have identified a key driver of age-related cognitive decline. Targeted magnetic stimulation of the brain shows promise for memory improvement. U.S. military test grounds regularly penetrated by unknown platforms. The blurry sonar blob tabloids turned into a sunken UFO. Our friend Susan Demeter shares a puzzling encounter with ‘bridal-veiled…

[ad_1] The ceasefire was supposed to mark the beginning of the end of a crisis. Instead, it quickly became a symbol of strategic failure. With renewed clashes in the Strait of Hormuz, fresh U.S. strikes on Iranian military targets, and Tehran’s retaliation, the last hopes that the Donald Trump administration could manage the Iran crisis through negotiations have collapsed. What remains today is not a clear path toward an agreement, but a return to the familiar instruments that have defined U.S. policy for years: economic pressure, military threats, and the use of hard power. This time, however, there is one…

[ad_1] As Washington celebrates tactical wins against Islamic State affiliates in Nigeria, Americans should demand policymakers pause. What began as advisory support, intelligence sharing, and targeted strikes now risks expanding across the Lake Chad Basin. Americans should watch closely for the familiar signs of mission creep: initial “capacity building” evolving into direct involvement, with vague goals, shifting objectives, and no clear exit. The Lake Chad region—spanning Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon—has long been a theater of instability. At its core is the insurgency linked to Boko Haram, which emerged in northeastern Nigeria in the early 2000s. Open war against the…

[ad_1] Image by Europena. Reading James Baldwin’s 1964 weighty but buoyant tome, “Nothing Personal,” struck like lightning as he shredded the myths that blind. Buoyant because it is replete with lightning strikes illuminating the coarse world created by myths, or lies; buoyant because it lights the way forward, in a scant 60 pages, to a human world. In particular Baldwin reveals the lie at the base of the American Myth promoted by those who benefit to the harm of those who provide the fodder: “It is, of course, in the very nature of a myth that those who are its…

[ad_1] Eritrea’s dictator, Isaias Afwerki, hopes for reconciliation with Washington. The northeastern African state, sometimes called the North Korea of Africa, is one of the world’s most reclusive, impoverished, and repressive states. However, its leader apparently hopes for better times.  No doubt, Asmara needs financial support, given its disastrous dirigiste policies and Eritrea’s forbidding economic conditions. According to Bertelsmann Stiftung: “Eritrea remains one of the world’s poorest countries, and poverty is endemic. … the poverty rate is very high, and most Eritreans rely on support from relatives in the diaspora to survive. Consequently, the majority of the population is structurally…

[ad_1] Dozens of detainees at the country’s largest immigration detention center told investigators with civil rights groups that they’re subjected to beatings, medical neglect, malnutrition, and inhumane conditions. In a joint report released today, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) say that the abuses described in interviews with 71 people being held at Camp East Montana, a privately operated immigration detention center inside the Fort Bliss Army Base near El Paso, Texas, violate national and international human rights law. “People during our interviews described unbearable cruelty and international human rights violations,” Angélica César Rosales, a fellow…