The U.S. military is now talking openly about offensive space warfare

The U.S. military is now talking openly about offensive space warfare

Ars Technica reports: Earlier this year, officials at US Space Command released a list of priorities and needs, and among the routine recitation of things like cyber defense, communications, and surveillance was a relatively new term: “integrated space fires.” This is a new phrase in the esoteric terminology the military uses to describe its activities. Essentially, “fires” are offensive or defensive actions against an adversary. The Army defines fires as “the use of weapon systems to create specific lethal and…

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Why Israel captured Syria’s tallest mountain just hours after Assad fell

Why Israel captured Syria’s tallest mountain just hours after Assad fell

CNN reports: Mount Hermon’s summit is a tremendous asset under Israel’s control. At 9,232 feet (2,814 meters), it is higher than any point in Syria or Israel, and second to only one peak in Lebanon. “People sometimes say in the age of missiles, land is not important – it’s simply untrue,” Inbar said. In an academic paper published in 2011, he wrote of the many advantages presented by Mount Hermon. “It enables the use of electronic surveillance deep into Syrian…

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Kash Patel’s warm Senate welcome reflects the GOP’s turn against the FBI

Kash Patel’s warm Senate welcome reflects the GOP’s turn against the FBI

The New York Times reports: Kash Patel, President-elect Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has called the top ranks of the bureau “a threat to the people” and published a list of enemies, vowing retribution for investigations of top Republicans. He appears — at least for now — to be on a glide path for confirmation, with Republican senators lining up enthusiastically behind him. As Mr. Patel made the rounds on Capitol Hill this week ahead of…

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You should worry about Kash Patel running the FBI

You should worry about Kash Patel running the FBI

Ankush Khardori writes: Some key pieces appear to be snapping neatly into place for Donald Trump’s much-feared prosecutorial revenge tour as the year draws to a close. Trump’s new nominee to lead the Justice Department, Pam Bondi, is a staunch loyalist who predicted last year that after Trump’s reelection, “the prosecutors will be prosecuted — the bad ones.” Trump told NBC News that the members of the Jan. 6 committee should “go to jail” (even as he claimed that he…

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No women will lead House committees for first time in two decades

No women will lead House committees for first time in two decades

ABC News reports: No women will lead a House committee for the first time in two decades after House Republicans revealed their list of committee leaders for the 119th Congress on Thursday. The 17 standing committees, whose leaders were selected by the House Republican Steering Committee, will be dominated by white men when the new Congress is seated on Jan. 3. No people of color were selected, either. The last time there was not at least one woman leading a…

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With donations and praise, tech titans ingratiate themselves with Trump

With donations and praise, tech titans ingratiate themselves with Trump

The New York Times reports: The $1 million donations came gradually — and then all at once. Meta. Amazon. OpenAI’s Sam Altman. Each of these Silicon Valley companies or their leaders promised to support President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inaugural committee with seven-figure checks over the past week, often accompanied by a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to bend the knee. The procession of tech leaders who traveled to hobnob with Mr. Trump face-to-face included Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, and Sergey Brin,…

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What is entropy? A measure of just how little we really know

What is entropy? A measure of just how little we really know

Zack Savitsky writes: Life is an anthology of destruction. Everything you build eventually breaks. Everyone you love will die. Any sense of order or stability inevitably crumbles. The entire universe follows a dismal trek toward a dull state of ultimate turmoil. To keep track of this cosmic decay, physicists employ a concept called entropy. Entropy is a measure of disorderliness, and the declaration that entropy is always on the rise — known as the second law of thermodynamics — is…

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Syrian rebels reveal year-long plot that brought down Assad regime

Syrian rebels reveal year-long plot that brought down Assad regime

The Guardian reports: Syrian rebels began planning the military assault that toppled the Assad regime a year ago, in a highly disciplined operation in which a new drone unit was deployed and where there was close coordination between opposition groups around the country, the top military commander of the main rebel group has revealed. In his first interview with foreign media since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s 54-year-rule, Abu Hassan al-Hamwi, the head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) military wing,…

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Hope and despair at Assad’s ‘human slaughterhouse’

Hope and despair at Assad’s ‘human slaughterhouse’

Aubin Eymard and Cian Ward write: Crowning the top of a small hill, surrounded by the rocky outcroppings of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range about 20 miles north of Damascus, Sednaya Prison has attracted thousands of Syrians since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime on Dec. 8. For more than half a century, many of the secrets of the regime’s inner workings remained impenetrable. Sednaya was one of the best kept. “Until last Sunday, people could drive by the prison, but…

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The Syrian upheaval has Iranian leaders reeling, too

The Syrian upheaval has Iranian leaders reeling, too

The New York Times reports: In the days since the abrupt and unexpected obliteration of Iran as a dominant presence in Syria, the government has faced a fierce public backlash over the billions of dollars spent and the Iranian blood shed to back the Assad regime. The criticism has come from unexpected corners, including conservatives, and is flowing freely on television channels and talk shows, and in social media posts and virtual town halls attended by thousands of Iranians. It…

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Assad’s secret escape from Syria

Assad’s secret escape from Syria

Reuters reports: Bashar al-Assad confided in almost no one about his plans to flee Syria as his reign collapsed. Instead, aides, officials and even relatives were deceived or kept in the dark, more than a dozen people with knowledge of the events told Reuters. Hours before he escaped for Moscow, Assad assured a meeting of about 30 army and security chiefs at the defence ministry on Saturday that Russian military support was on its way and urged ground forces to…

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McConnell defends polio vaccine, an apparent warning to RFK Jr.

McConnell defends polio vaccine, an apparent warning to RFK Jr.

The New York Times reports: Senator Mitch McConnell, the former Republican leader and a survivor of polio, issued a pointed statement in support of the polio vaccine on Friday, hours after The New York Times reported that the lawyer for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has petitioned federal regulators to withdraw the vaccine from the market. Without naming Mr. Kennedy, Mr. McConnell suggested that the petition could jeopardize his confirmation to be health secretary in the incoming Trump administration. “Efforts to…

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Tulsi Gabbard’s meetings with GOP senators described as ‘BS sessions’ with ‘a lot of eyerolls’

Tulsi Gabbard’s meetings with GOP senators described as ‘BS sessions’ with ‘a lot of eyerolls’

The Hill reports: Tulsi Gabbard is struggling through her meetings with senators this week, sources told The Hill, highlighting the difficult path she faces in winning confirmation to be director of national intelligence. Nearly a half dozen sources, including senators and individuals close to the situation, indicated that Gabbard is having trouble during meetings with lawmakers, with one source familiar describing the sit-downs as “not going well.” “She was proving to be a little shallow, like a House member talking…

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‘Unprecedented risk’ to life on Earth: Scientists call for halt on ‘mirror life’ microbe research

‘Unprecedented risk’ to life on Earth: Scientists call for halt on ‘mirror life’ microbe research

The Guardian reports: World-leading scientists have called for a halt on research to create “mirror life” microbes amid concerns that the synthetic organisms would present an “unprecedented risk” to life on Earth. The international group of Nobel laureates and other experts warn that mirror bacteria, constructed from mirror images of molecules found in nature, could become established in the environment and slip past the immune defences of natural organisms, putting humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections. Although…

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