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Gulf states may soon have to ‘repatriate tens of billions of dollars in investments’ from the U.S.

Gulf states may soon have to ‘repatriate tens of billions of dollars in investments’ from the U.S.

Politico reports: President Donald Trump is counting on money from the Gulf Arab States to power his economic golden age. But as the war with Iran nears its fifth week and the regional economy enters a free fall, hundreds of billions of dollars that Middle Eastern governments have pledged for U.S. projects are under threat. That has the Trump administration concerned that Gulf leaders may not be able to fulfill promises to invest heavily in the U.S., according to three…

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Robert Pape describes the ‘escalation trap’ that the U.S. is falling into in the war against Iran

Robert Pape describes the ‘escalation trap’ that the U.S. is falling into in the war against Iran

  Is America’s war in Iran headed toward an escalation trap? Robert Pape, professor of political science at the University of Chicago and an expert on global security, argues that the decapitation of Iran’s leadership failed to break the regime, while upping the pressure for more force — including raising the specter of a ground war. Pape joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the difference between initial tactical success and long-term strategic success.

How Iran’s calibrated disruption of shipping threatens global energy

How Iran’s calibrated disruption of shipping threatens global energy

Soran Mansournia writes: The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) does not need aircraft carriers, command of the sea or even a total blockade to threaten the global energy supply. In the Strait of Hormuz, it relies on something older, cheaper and, in some ways, more effective: the weaponization of geography. The corps does not need to destroy fleets or physically block every vessel to produce systemic disruption. It only needs to raise the risk of transit high enough that normal…

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Is Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf the kind of Iranian leader Trump might work with?

Is Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf the kind of Iranian leader Trump might work with?

The Wall Street Journal reports: Iran’s combative Parliament speaker, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, is emerging as an unlikely figure in Washington’s search for a deal to halt a widening Middle East war. Ghalibaf, a former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps air-force commander and Tehran mayor, has denied any talks with the U.S. are under way. He has taunted President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and called the U.S.-Israeli air war with Iran a quagmire. He served in the Revolutionary Guard during Iran’s…

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DOJ agrees to let Michael Flynn loot Treasury to the tune of $1.25 million

DOJ agrees to let Michael Flynn loot Treasury to the tune of $1.25 million

Liz Dye writes: Two years ago, a court in Florida threw out Michael Flynn’s malicious prosecution lawsuit seeking $50 million from the US government. Yesterday, the government agreed to settle it anyway, handing $1.25 million in taxpayer dollars to the former national security advisor. Clearly this is an outrageous abuse by the Trump DOJ. It’s also a template for the looting to come, as everyone from Proud Boy Enrique Tarrio to Trump himself lines up to feed at the government…

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Deputy attorney general endorses illegally sending ICE agents to voting sites

Deputy attorney general endorses illegally sending ICE agents to voting sites

Democracy Docket reports: During a norm-shattering appearance at a conservative political conference Thursday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said he couldn’t understand why anyone would disagree with a president deploying federal agents to the polls. Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Blanche was echoing recent calls from far-right activists for President Donald Trump to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to voting sites during the 2026 midterms — a tactic clearly meant to intimidate voters and poll…

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Why China insists on internal unity and international harmony

Why China insists on internal unity and international harmony

Peter C Perdue writes: If you think that the People’s Republic of China is still a communist country, you are in for a shock. It is, of course, a single-party state ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. But what is the role of the CCP today? The Party celebrates billionaires, runs a capitalist economy, and depends heavily on global trade and investment. This is far from what Mao Zedong imagined when he took power in 1949. Then, the CCP claimed…

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Trita Parsi: Iranians increasingly expect this to be a long war

Trita Parsi: Iranians increasingly expect this to be a long war

  Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute joins Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussein to analyze the growing risks of a “lose-lose” war between the U.S. and Iran. As oil prices, sanctions dynamics, and regional tensions shift, the conflict may be creating more problems than it solves for both sides. Axios reports: Iranian officials have told the countries trying to mediate peace talks with the U.S. that they have now been tricked twice by President Trump and “we don’t want to be fooled…

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Trump’s ‘absurdly incoherent’ Iran pleas leave allies befuddled

Trump’s ‘absurdly incoherent’ Iran pleas leave allies befuddled

Politico reports: Donald Trump’s messaging on what he wants from American allies in his war against Iran is so confusing that any effort to help in reopening the Strait of Hormuz remains deadlocked, according to four European government officials. Washington has not made any formal requests for equipment, said the officials, who were granted anonymity to speak freely on the sensitive talks, while allies are also reluctant to send military assets to the region over fears they would be attacked…

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Trump’s war in Iran exposes America’s shift from a global guardian to an arbiter of chaos

Trump’s war in Iran exposes America’s shift from a global guardian to an arbiter of chaos

Eduardo Porter writes: To shield ordinary Indians from the war in Iran, the government in Delhi redirected supplies of liquefied gas to Indian families, for which it is the main cooking fuel, limiting supplies to the plastics industry. The Nepalese government rationed gas and the Philippines trimmed the government workweek to four days. Bangladesh closed universities and rationed fuel. They have been hardest hit by Iran’s closure of the strait of Hormuz. Economies in Asia import over a third of…

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Trump appeared to have financial motive for keeping classified documents, Jack Smith finds

Trump appeared to have financial motive for keeping classified documents, Jack Smith finds

MS NOW reports: Special counsel Jack Smith gathered evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump took many top secret documents that related to his worldwide business interests, and investigators considered this a likely motive for Trump concealing them at his Florida club after he left the White House, according to newly released case records. The special prosecutor also had evidence indicating that after leaving office Trump had shown a classified map to passengers on a private plane, including his future chief of…

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‘A new world is being born’: Rebecca Solnit on the ‘slow revolution’ the far right cannot tolerate

‘A new world is being born’: Rebecca Solnit on the ‘slow revolution’ the far right cannot tolerate

Zoe Williams writes: When I speak to Rebecca Solnit, she is beaming, and I can’t immediately figure out why. Her new book, The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change, blasts in with a pragmatic positivity, it’s true. She writes with a “pull yourself together, don’t even think about despair” tone. But that’s not why she’s smiling – it’s because Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor just got arrested. “Why is the UK doing these things the US should be…

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A landmark verdict against Meta and Google could change social media

A landmark verdict against Meta and Google could change social media

Kaitlyn Tiffany writes: After deliberating for nine days—and emerging at one point to tell the judge that it was having a difficult time reaching a decision—a jury in Los Angeles finally returned its verdict today, finding both Meta and Google liable for creating addictive products that caused a young woman’s mental-health problems. The two companies were ordered to pay $3 million in compensatory damages: 70 percent by Meta and 30 percent by Google. (Meta-owned Instagram played a larger role in…

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World’s earliest known dog identified at ancient hunter-gatherer site

World’s earliest known dog identified at ancient hunter-gatherer site

Science reports: In the summer of 2004, Douglas Baird was leading excavations at a remote hunter-gatherer site called Pınarbaşı in central Turkey when his team found something unusual: three puppies placed in a pit directly above a human burial. The bones were too small to tell whether they belonged to wolves or dogs. Their proximity to the human suggested the latter, but the remains—dated to about 15,800 years ago—were nearly 5000 years older than any confirmed dog. “Our minds were…

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