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Iran’s rulers are now in a stronger position than before the war began

Iran’s rulers are now in a stronger position than before the war began

The New York Times reports: Their supreme leader and top commanders were killed. Military bases, factories and bridges were reduced to rubble. Their economy has taken blow after blow. Yet Iran’s authoritarian rulers believe they have emerged from this war in a stronger position than when it began. After six weeks of an intense U.S.-Israeli campaign and with a temporary cease-fire in place, Iran’s leadership isn’t conciliatory as it enters into renewed negotiations with the United States. Instead, it has…

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Pope Leo not planning to visit U.S. after Pentagon officials threatened military force against papacy, reports

Pope Leo not planning to visit U.S. after Pentagon officials threatened military force against papacy, reports

The Catholic Observer reports: The Defense Department summoned the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.S. to the Pentagon in January and subjected him to a “bitter lecture warning that the United States has the military power to do whatever it wants — and that the Church had better take its side,” according to published reports. Elbridge A. Colby, the Defense Department’s undersecretary for policy, summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, who had served as the Holy See’s apostolic nuncio to the U.S. for…

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Orban’s fate is a warning about the danger of getting too close to Trump

Orban’s fate is a warning about the danger of getting too close to Trump

David Broder writes: The caps said it all. Writing on Truth Social in late March, President Trump expressed solidarity with Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister. Looking ahead to Hungary’s parliamentary election this Sunday, Mr. Trump called Mr. Orban “a truly strong and powerful Leader” who “fights tirelessly for, and loves, his Great Country and People.” In case there was any doubt where his support lay, he concluded: “I AM WITH HIM ALL THE WAY!” This was no isolated enthusiasm. Despite…

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Government ordered to turn over files on Renee Good’s killer, ICE agent, Jonathan Ross

Government ordered to turn over files on Renee Good’s killer, ICE agent, Jonathan Ross

The Intercept reports: Federal prosecutors in Minnesota are being forced to turn over critical information on the shooting of Renee Good by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jonathan Ross in relation to a separate case involving Ross. Prosecutors have until May 1 to provide a slew of records, including Ross’s personnel file, to a magistrate judge to review and determine which files should be released. The materials could shine light on the killing of Good, an observer who died after…

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NASA is throttling the scientific pipeline and diminishing our ability to see and understand our planet

NASA is throttling the scientific pipeline and diminishing our ability to see and understand our planet

Kate Marvel writes: Artemis II’s journey around the moon, scheduled to conclude on Friday, has delivered stunning new images of our home world taken from space. Those pictures remind us that Earth has changed immensely since the last time astronauts went near the moon in 1972. So has NASA. Budget cuts, chaos and political interference now threaten the very science that motivates and enables space exploration. President Trump’s 2027 budget request calls for a nearly 50 percent cut to NASA’s…

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Mass drowning of chicks puts emperor penguins at risk of extinction

Mass drowning of chicks puts emperor penguins at risk of extinction

The Guardian reports: The mass drowning of emperor penguin chicks as sea ice is melted by the climate crisis has led the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to declare the species officially in danger of extinction. Emperor penguins rely on “fast” ice – sea ice that is firmly attached to the coast – for nine months of the year. It is where their fluffy chicks are hatched and grow until they have their waterproof feathers. Adults moult every…

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Israel kills hundreds in Lebanon. J.D. Vance claims ‘the Israelis [are] trying to set us up for success’

Israel kills hundreds in Lebanon. J.D. Vance claims ‘the Israelis [are] trying to set us up for success’

Wired reports: The last time a government official from Lebanon sat down to think carefully about national digital infrastructure, nobody expected another war with Israel. That’s how it has always gone. “We were not ready for this,” says Kamal Shehadi, the Lebanese minister of technology and AI, and minister of the displaced. “I have to admit that we didn’t expect something of this magnitude to happen.” On March 2, 2026, Israeli evacuation warnings began appearing on phones across southern Lebanon….

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Iran tightens its grip on Strait of Hormuz despite cease-fire

Iran tightens its grip on Strait of Hormuz despite cease-fire

The Wall Street Journal reports: Iran told mediators it would limit the number of ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz to around a dozen a day and charge tolls under the cease-fire struck by President Trump, showing Tehran plans to tighten its grip on the world’s most important energy-shipping lane. Ships that pass will have to coordinate with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the powerful paramilitary group that has been labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European…

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Gulf states fear an emboldened Iran after Trump’s cease-fire. ‘Iran is the only one that is happy with the outcome’

Gulf states fear an emboldened Iran after Trump’s cease-fire. ‘Iran is the only one that is happy with the outcome’

The Wall Street Journal reports: The Iranian government hailed the cease-fire with the U.S. by posting images on social media of President Trump waving the white flag and collapsing on his knees in defeat. America’s allies and partners in the Middle East fear that Tehran may have a point—and that they will end up paying the price for a war in which the overwhelming military might of the U.S. and Israel failed to secure political gains. Subjected to thousands of…

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A growing chorus of disaffected Trump supporters fume about Iran war on Truth Social

A growing chorus of disaffected Trump supporters fume about Iran war on Truth Social

The New York Times reports: The people logging into Truth Social each day tend to count themselves among the most ardent supporters of President Trump and his MAGA movement. In recent weeks, though, even some in the echo chamber have turned against his actions in Iran. Thousands of users on the social media platform, which Mr. Trump created in 2022, have responded to the president’s drumbeat of posts with a mix of frustration, disbelief and outrage. They have written that…

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Anthropic’s Claude Mythos finds thousands of zero-day flaws across major systems

Anthropic’s Claude Mythos finds thousands of zero-day flaws across major systems

The Hacker News reports: Artificial Intelligence (AI) company Anthropic announced a new cybersecurity initiative called Project Glasswing that will use a preview version of its new frontier model, Claude Mythos, to find and address security vulnerabilities. The model will be used by a small set of organizations, including Amazon Web Services, Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, CrowdStrike, Google, JPMorgan Chase, the Linux Foundation, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Palo Alto Networks, along with Anthropic, to secure critical software. The company said it’s forming this…

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Republican overlords view ballot initiatives as giving voters too much power

Republican overlords view ballot initiatives as giving voters too much power

The New York Times reports: Voters frustrated by one-party control in Republican states over the last decade have increasingly turned to citizen-sponsored initiatives to enact policies that their legislatures won’t. They expanded Medicaid, adopted paid sick leave, raised the minimum wage and safeguarded access to abortion. Now, the legislators are striking back. In North Dakota, Utah and South Dakota, legislatures are sponsoring measures on the November ballot that would raise the threshold for approving citizen amendments to 60 percent, not…

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Pesticides may wreak havoc on the gut microbiome

Pesticides may wreak havoc on the gut microbiome

Science reports: Eight years ago, Bhanudas More went for a routine blood test. More, a farmworker in this small village in Maharashtra state, was lean, worked long hours in the fields, and seemed healthy, so the result startled him. He was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, a disease commonly associated with sedentary life in the city. Medication did little to bring his condition under control. He also began to experience persistent bloating and stomach discomfort. “I was taking the medicines,…

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How Netanyahu duped Trump

How Netanyahu duped Trump

The New York Times reports: Netanyahu and his team outlined conditions they portrayed as pointing to near-certain victory: Iran’s ballistic missile program could be destroyed in a few weeks. The regime would be so weakened that it could not choke off the Strait of Hormuz, and the likelihood that Iran would land blows against U.S. interests in neighboring countries was assessed as minimal. Besides, Mossad’s intelligence indicated that street protests inside Iran would begin again and — with the impetus…

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