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Category: Politics

Hegseth channels his inner Tarantino with fake Bible verse from Pulp Fiction

Hegseth channels his inner Tarantino with fake Bible verse from Pulp Fiction

Richard Luscombe writes: It was perhaps inevitable that a braggadocious Christian nationalist defense secretary elevated from his role as a weekend Fox News television host would pluck a fake Bible verse from a violent Hollywood blockbuster and present it at a Pentagon prayer session to rally the troops for the “holy war” in Iran. Certainly among a glut of stories swirling around Pete Hegseth this week, including articles of impeachment brought against him by a group of ambitious Democratic lawmakers,…

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Viktor Orban’s defeat punctures Europe’s far right, but also offers it a road map

Viktor Orban’s defeat punctures Europe’s far right, but also offers it a road map

The New York Times reports: Vice President JD Vance wasn’t the only right-wing ally whose last-minute pitch for Prime Minister Viktor Orban fell flat. In the weeks before Mr. Orban lost power in a landslide election on Sunday, Hungary’s faltering populist was also flanked on the campaign trail by far-right leaders from France, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands. Now, those politicians must reckon with the bruising defeat of a man who was at once their leadership model, intellectual godfather and,…

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Lt Gen Ben Hodges: Putin’s fear will come true — the Crimean bridge is going to come down

Lt Gen Ben Hodges: Putin’s fear will come true — the Crimean bridge is going to come down

  “If Russia is no longer able to use any of the ports there, if the Ukrainians are able to isolate it, that big bridge is eventually going to come down.” Crimea is still the “decisive terrain of the war” and will deter Putin’s ability to control the Black Sea, says Lieutenant General Ben Hodges. You have been watching Frontline, with Kate Gerbeau, Philip Ingram and Louis Sykes, produced by Times Radio.

One‑way attack drones: Low‑cost, high‑tech weapons ‘democratize’ precision warfare

One‑way attack drones: Low‑cost, high‑tech weapons ‘democratize’ precision warfare

Iran’s Shahed drone is essentially a poor man’s cruise missile. AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky By Michael C. Horowitz, University of Pennsylvania and Lauren Kahn, Georgetown University Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have propelled drones into the headlines. The word “drone” now stretches to cover everything from hobbyist camera rigs available on Amazon to the Predator and Reaper systems the United States has relied on to fight terrorist organizations over the past 20 years. A common ancestor in the animal…

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End U.S. military aid to Israel

End U.S. military aid to Israel

Bernie Sanders writes: I am a proud Jewish-American. My father fled Poland in 1921 to escape poverty and antisemitism. Those in his family who stayed were murdered by the Nazis. Since childhood, I have known very well where antisemitism, racism, fanaticism and demagoguery lead. So let me be clear. Speaking out against the horrific and inhumane actions of Israel, and its extremist leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, is not antisemitic. Speaking out about the dangerous and destructive role that Israel plays in…

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Amid quarrel with pope, Trump abruptly strips Catholic charity of funding to house migrant children

Amid quarrel with pope, Trump abruptly strips Catholic charity of funding to house migrant children

Miami Herald reports: The Trump administration has abruptly canceled an $11 million contract with Catholic Charities to shelter and care for migrant children who enter the U.S. alone, ending a relationship between the Catholic Church and the U.S. government dating back to the first arrivals of Cuban exiles in South Florida. The development comes amid rising tensions between the administration and American Catholics over President Donald Trump’s heated criticism of the Vatican’s first American pope, Leo XIV. The pontiff has…

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Trump is trying to distract us from Pope Leo’s calls for peace. Don’t take the bait

Trump is trying to distract us from Pope Leo’s calls for peace. Don’t take the bait

Sam Sawyer, S.J., writes: During a weekend full of bad news for Mr. Trump, his post [attacking Pope Leo] followed a lack of progress in negotiations with Iran and the resounding electoral loss of his favorite European leader, Viktor Orban, in Hungary. Relative to the Catholic world, his post came the day after Pope Leo XIV led a prayer vigil for peace in St. Peter’s and was joined in prayer all around the world. It came within hours of a…

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Vance questions the pope on just war theory hours after Leo honored its founder, St. Augustine

Vance questions the pope on just war theory hours after Leo honored its founder, St. Augustine

National Catholic Reporter reports: Hours after Pope Leo XIV paid public homage to St. Augustine, one of the key architects of just war theory, Vice President JD Vance questioned the pontiff’s understanding of the Catholic doctrine for determining whether a war is morally justifiable. “When the pope says that God is never on the side of people who wield the sword, there is more than a 1,000-year tradition of just war theory,” Vance said at a Turning Point USA event…

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Former U.S. and Iranian negotiators on ceasefire talks and how war could end

Former U.S. and Iranian negotiators on ceasefire talks and how war could end

  After the first round of ceasefire negotiations in Pakistan collapsed over the weekend, we speak to two former nuclear negotiators about prospects for ending the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, including what another nuclear deal might look like. Robert Malley, a U.S. negotiator for the 2015 nuclear deal (which President Trump withdrew from in his first term), says Trump’s “mercurial” behavior makes it difficult to predict his objectives and the course of any future talks. “Iran was in full…

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MAGA is starting to look beyond Trump

MAGA is starting to look beyond Trump

Wired reports: For months now, it seems that every day brings with it a new faction of MAGAworld getting angry with President Donald Trump over something he says or does. In recent memory, to name a few, podcaster Joe Rogan has compared ICE raids to Gestapo operations; conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has questioned Trump’s cognitive abilities; former US representative Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed Trump had “gone insane;” former Fox News host Tucker Carlson called the president a “slave” to Israel;…

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How geography powers Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz, despite U.S. blockade

How geography powers Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz, despite U.S. blockade

The Washington Post reports: Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains constrained a week after the United States and Iran said they would facilitate vessel passage under a two-week ceasefire agreement. Instead, tensions have escalated. After Iran said ships must coordinate with its forces — and, in some cases, pay a toll — President Donald Trump called the demands “extortion” and announced Sunday that the United States would block ships entering or exiting Iranian ports, adding pressure to an…

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The Strait of Hormuz blockade is as much about China as Iran

The Strait of Hormuz blockade is as much about China as Iran

Javier Blas writes: Over the past decade, China has built the world’s largest oil emergency stockpile — a multi-layered cache of strategic and commercial reserves with more than a billion barrels. Washington probably hopes that Beijing will convince Iran to soften its demands at the negotiating table, as it has done previously: In 2023, it brokered a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran. But most of the leverage Beijing had over Tehran rested on the money it was paying for…

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Iran war escalation could trigger global recession, IMF warns

Iran war escalation could trigger global recession, IMF warns

The Guardian reports: A further escalation in the Iran war could trigger a global recession, spiralling inflation and a sharp backlash in financial markets, the International Monetary Fund has warned. Against an increasingly volatile backdrop, the Washington-based fund said the economic damage from the Middle East conflict was steadily rising as it cut its growth forecasts for 2026 based on the impact from the war so far. In its half-yearly update, the IMF said the UK would suffer the sharpest…

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Italy halts defense pact with Israel

Italy halts defense pact with Israel

Politico reports: Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has suspended Italy’s defense cooperation agreement with Israel as she continues to distance her government from the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran that has enveloped the Middle East. Speaking on the fringes of a wine industry event in the northern city of Verona on Tuesday, Meloni told reporters her government “has decided to suspend the automatic renewal of the defense agreement with Israel in consideration of the current situation.” The 2003 deal concerns the exchange…

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Trump turns against his last ally in Europe

Trump turns against his last ally in Europe

Politico reports: U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday branded Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as “unacceptable” and complained she was “no longer the same person,” a day after she criticized his attack on Pope Leo XIV. In a phone interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Trump said he was “shocked by her. I thought she was brave, but I was wrong.” Asked about Meloni’s comments on Monday — where she branded Trump’s attack on Pope Leo XIV as unacceptable…

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Caught in the crackdown: As arrests at anti-ICE protests piled up, prosecutions crumbled

Caught in the crackdown: As arrests at anti-ICE protests piled up, prosecutions crumbled

By A.C. Thompson, ProPublica and FRONTLINE, and Gabrielle Schonder, FRONTLINE This story was originally published by ProPublica The National Guard soldiers in desert camo piled out of unmarked vans in East Los Angeles last June, cordoning off East Sixth Street, a residential street lined with single family houses, and blocking a nearby road leading to an elementary school. A squad of federal agents moved in flinging flash-bang grenades — explosives designed to disorient — into a small home before storming…

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