Iran issues list of demands, complicating efforts to reopen Strait of Hormuz

Iran issues list of demands, complicating efforts to reopen Strait of Hormuz

The New York Times reports: A top Iranian national security official delivered a sweeping set of demands on Saturday that he said the United States must meet before the Strait of Hormuz can reopen to maritime traffic, throwing the fate of the critical trade waterway into question. Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, issued a statement carried by state media laying out multiple requirements for reopening the strait. He called for the United States to…

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Greenland issues ‘strong warning’ as Trump-linked oil firm prepares to drill

Greenland issues ‘strong warning’ as Trump-linked oil firm prepares to drill

The Guardian reports: An American oil company connected to Donald Trump is preparing to sink wells in remote Greenland despite not having received permission from the local authorities. As the US president renews his threats to claim the vast Arctic territory, materials to prepare for drilling were brought ashore in recent days on Greenland’s eastern coast. That has prompted Greenland’s government to issue a “strong warning” that no approval had been granted to land the kit. “All future logistical matters…

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U.S. accused of meddling in British politics with $500,000 grant for ‘public education’ courses

U.S. accused of meddling in British politics with $500,000 grant for ‘public education’ courses

The Guardian reports: The US embassy in London is offering grants of up to half a million dollars for new “public education” programmes in what has been criticised as interference in British domestic politics. Using language that the pro-Trump Maga movement has sought to appropriate, a funding notice identifies a goal of fostering a “national conversation” about “shared civilizational values” underpinning US-UK ties. Priority will go to applicants aiming to celebrate “freedom of speech” and “limited government”. It comes after…

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Trump nominates Project 2025 author to be Interior Department inspector general

Trump nominates Project 2025 author to be Interior Department inspector general

The Hill reports: President Trump has nominated a former White House official and Project 2025 author to be the Interior Department’s internal watchdog, a move that critics say could hurt the integrity of the office’s investigations. Trump nominated Dennis Kirk, one of the authors of a chapter of the conservative policy playbook and a former official in the White House Office of Personnel Management during the first Trump administration, to be the department’s inspector general. Mark Greenblatt, a former inspector…

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At Trump’s DOJ, watchdogs gutted as misconduct complaints soar

At Trump’s DOJ, watchdogs gutted as misconduct complaints soar

Reuters reports: In one courtroom after another, federal judges have accused U.S. President Donald Trump’s Justice Department of an extraordinary spate of misconduct, including making false statements, failing to comply with court orders and improperly using the legal system to harass political opponents. Such rebukes might be expected to trigger a flurry of activity within the department’s two ​internal watchdogs tasked with policing the government’s most powerful law-enforcement agency. But shrinking staffs and fears of political retribution have largely sidelined…

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Brain drain: Emigration of doctors, engineers, other highly educated Israelis hits record high

Brain drain: Emigration of doctors, engineers, other highly educated Israelis hits record high

The Times of Israel reports: High-earning Israelis working in tech and healthcare are emigrating in sharply rising numbers, almost doubling over five years, a new study by the Israel Tax Authority has found. The research by the Israel Tax Authority’s Planning and Economics Division, which examined incomes of Israeli emigrants over the past decade, found the rate at which affluent Israelis left the country increased sharply in 2023 and 2024 to record highs, and was almost double what it was…

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Birdsong follows a fundamental law of human language

Birdsong follows a fundamental law of human language

Scientific American reports: The twittering of songbirds may bear little resemblance to human speech, but new research on Bengalese finches shows that their vocalizations do follow a fundamental structural principle found in all languages. Zipf’s law states that a handful of words—or, in this case, chirps, whistles and trills—occur frequently, while most are rare. Specifically, the most common word (“the,” in English) appears roughly twice as often as the second-most common (“of”), three times as often as the third most…

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Iran plots to deal Trump a blow in midterms by keeping him entangled in war

Iran plots to deal Trump a blow in midterms by keeping him entangled in war

Patrick Wintour writes: Tehran has set out a protracted negotiating timetable designed to keep Donald Trump embroiled in the Iran conflict until the midterm elections, in the hope of inflicting the same ruinous blow on his presidency as Jimmy Carter suffered over the 1979-81 US embassy hostage crisis. For many inside Iran, inflicting meaningful revenge on Trump is a legitimate and self-standing war aim, reflected in the mood of those attending the funeral of the supreme leader Ali Khamenei where…

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Trump is now boxed in by his idle threats and munitions shortages

Trump is now boxed in by his idle threats and munitions shortages

Nancy A. Youssef and Jonathan Lemire write: The United States is running out of missiles. After five months of war with Iran, stockpiles of long-range weapons are so low, current and former U.S. defense officials told us, that they don’t believe the U.S. has enough to combat a threat in Asia. The remaining supplies, depending on the munition, are as low as 20 percent of what the Pentagon would like to have in hand. And stores of sophisticated interceptor missiles,…

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Trump’s top general is ‘looking for an off-ramp’ from Iran war as U.S. military options remain limited, sources say

Trump’s top general is ‘looking for an off-ramp’ from Iran war as U.S. military options remain limited, sources say

CNN reports: Over the last few weeks, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine has privately made clear to other top Trump advisers that the US needs to find an off-ramp from the war with Iran — because the military options on the table to escalate the conflict could backfire and airpower alone is unlikely to achieve President Donald Trump’s stated objectives, according to three sources familiar with the matter. “Caine is looking for an off ramp,” one of…

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Meta ordered to pay almost $1 billion over social media harm to children

Meta ordered to pay almost $1 billion over social media harm to children

  Fortune reports: A New Mexico court has ordered Instagram and Facebook parent company Meta to pay $567 million to address harms to young people from its platforms in the second phase of a landmark trial. Judge Bryan Biedscheid said in a ruling late Thursday that the bulk of the money — $420 million — will be used for treatment services for young people. The rest will go toward awareness and prevention, screening services and other costs over the next…

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The Leipzig drone bomb marks a dangerous escalation for Europe

The Leipzig drone bomb marks a dangerous escalation for Europe

Dan Sabbagh writes: The armed drone found at Leipzig airport on Wednesday may not have exploded, but the fact that it got inside the perimeter, close to Ukrainian cargo planes, raises obvious concerns for the security of international aviation. Though the identity of the culprits is unknown, the initial evidence points firmly towards a Russian-orchestrated plot. It is the first time that a drone with explosives has been found in Europe far from the Ukrainian border. Photographs published by German…

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ICE will release body camera video only when it serves the agency’s PR interests

ICE will release body camera video only when it serves the agency’s PR interests

The Associated Press reports: Immigration and Customs Enforcement is moving to equip officers with body cameras in the next two months but the agency’s policy gives it broad control over what footage will be made public by specifying any releases must be in its “best interests.” After years of delays, ICE said its field officers nationwide will have body-worn cameras by the end of September. The rollout comes after recent fatal shootings by officers enforcing President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown…

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OpenAI’s latest math breakthroughs commit research misconduct, experts say

OpenAI’s latest math breakthroughs commit research misconduct, experts say

Scientific American reports: OpenAI’s newest chatbot may be a whiz at math, but it seems to be lagging far behind humans in its academic rigor. Last week the company announced 10 more artificial-intelligence-generated math advances that were found during internal development and testing of its next major large language model. This batch of results came from that LLM, Astra, and each one resolves or progresses a different “long-standing open problem” of “substantial interest” to the mathematical community. The company said…

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