Esmail Qaani under guard and questioned as Iran probes Nasrallah killing

Esmail Qaani under guard and questioned as Iran probes Nasrallah killing

Middle East Eye reports: Esmail Qaani, the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, is alive and unhurt but under guard and being questioned as Iran investigates major security breaches, multiple sources have told Middle East Eye. Qaani has not been seen in public since Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a massive air strike on Beirut on 27 September, an event that rocked the anti-Israel Axis of Resistance alliance. Since then, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps…

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The ‘beautiful confusion’ of the first billion years comes into view

The ‘beautiful confusion’ of the first billion years comes into view

Rebecca Boyle writes: The galaxies were never supposed to be so bright. They were never supposed to be so big. And yet there they are — oddly large, luminous objects that keep appearing in images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Kevin Hainline is part of a team that uses the JWST to find these galaxies, whose brightness, apparent mass, and sheer existence a virtual eyeblink after the Big Bang are among the biggest surprises from the three-year-old…

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Why the Supreme Court might cast the final vote for president

Why the Supreme Court might cast the final vote for president

Aziz Huq writes: The new Supreme Court term that began this week isn’t overflowing with obvious blockbusters. The justices have taken one big culture-war case — a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming health care for trans youth — but turned down invitations to deepen the court’s assault on the administrative state. Will such modesty last? One reason to think not is this: The presidential election cycle is just getting to the point where political conflicts could mutate into constitutional…

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In Florida Senate race, two candidates with vastly different views on the climate

In Florida Senate race, two candidates with vastly different views on the climate

Inside Climate News reports: Florida’s narrowing Senate race, between two candidates with vastly different views on the environment and climate, is shaping up to be consequential as each party pursues control of the chamber in November. The incumbent, Rick Scott, a Republican, faces a formidable challenge from former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Democrat. Various recent polls indicate the contest is tightening. In one poll last month Scott led Mucarsel-Powell by a mere percentage point. Forty-five percent of would-be voters…

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Meteorologists get death threats as Hurricane Milton conspiracy theories thrive

Meteorologists get death threats as Hurricane Milton conspiracy theories thrive

Rolling Stone reports: As Hurricane Milton approaches Florida, meteorologists are staying awake for days at a time trying to get vital, life-saving information out to the folks who will be affected. That’s their job. But this year, several of them tell Rolling Stone, they’re increasingly having to take time out to quell the nonstop flow of misinformation during a particularly traumatic hurricane season. And some of them are doing it while being personally threatened. “People are just so far gone,…

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Daughters to dads who support Trump: ‘You chose him over me’

Daughters to dads who support Trump: ‘You chose him over me’

A good father knows how important it is to protect his daughter. This November, fathers need to protect their daughters from Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/q7oQUDKXEp — The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) October 8, 2024 NJ.com reports: The anti-Donald Trump group, The Lincoln Project, is out with a new digital ad that’s focused on abortion and access to reproductive health care. The ad comes as the former president has been trying to thread a divide between his own base of anti-abortion supporters and…

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‘The first live-streamed genocide’: Al Jazeera exposes war crimes Israeli troops filmed themselves

‘The first live-streamed genocide’: Al Jazeera exposes war crimes Israeli troops filmed themselves

A new documentary from Al Jazeera takes a look at evidence of war crimes in Gaza in the form of social media posted by Israeli soldiers recording and celebrating their own attacks on Palestinians. We play excerpts from the film Investigating War Crimes in Gaza, now available online, and speak to two of the journalists involved in its production, director Richard Sanders and Gaza-based correspondent Youmna ElSayed. “Israelis themselves were telling us precisely what they were doing and why they…

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Evidence that Israeli snipers have repeatedly shot children in the head in Gaza

Evidence that Israeli snipers have repeatedly shot children in the head in Gaza

Dr Feroze Sidhwa writes: I worked as a trauma surgeon in Gaza from March 25 to April 8. I’ve volunteered in Ukraine and Haiti, and I grew up in Flint, Mich. I’ve seen violence and worked in conflict zones. But of the many things that stood out about working in a hospital in Gaza, one got to me: Nearly every day I was there, I saw a new young child who had been shot in the head or the chest,…

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Rashid Khalidi, America’s foremost scholar of Palestine, is retiring: ‘I don’t want to be a cog in the machine any more’

Rashid Khalidi, America’s foremost scholar of Palestine, is retiring: ‘I don’t want to be a cog in the machine any more’

Razia Iqbal writes: History has a striking capacity to intrude on the present day, as it does when I meet Rashid Khalidi. The Palestinian American professor’s retirement from his position as the Edward Said chair of modern Arab history at Columbia University was imminent, and that morning he has received alarming news: a gang of extremist Israeli settlers had stormed a house on Silsila Road in Jerusalem, a property that had been in his family’s possession since the time of…

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U.S. disaster programs are teetering. Milton could topple them

U.S. disaster programs are teetering. Milton could topple them

Politico reports: The federal government could be nearing a collapse of its ability to help with major disasters as the second catastrophic hurricane in less than two weeks bears down on Florida. Hurricane Milton, a Category 5 storm whose winds reached 180 mph late Monday but weakened to a Category 4 early Tuesday, is whirling toward a possible landfall in Tampa Bay just as the main federal disaster programs are facing financial instability amid a series of recent calamities, including…

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Elon Musk is piling onto all the hurricane disinformation, hampering relief efforts

Elon Musk is piling onto all the hurricane disinformation, hampering relief efforts

Politico reports: Elon Musk is using his social media network to spread election conspiracy theories about U.S. disasters — just as online falsehoods are complicating the federal response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Musk has helped spread accusations that the Federal Emergency Management Agency “actively blocked” donations to victims of Helene and is “seizing goods … and locking them away to state they are their own” — allegations that FEMA officials call false and which run afoul of state and…

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Necessity is the mother of invention

Necessity is the mother of invention

  Marshall, the county seat of Madison County NC, a sliver of a town that sits between steep slopes on the east and the French Broad River to the west, got swamped by the Helene flooding. Residents and neighbors in the surrounding area have shown resourcefulness and initiative in disaster recovery that will provide lessons for generations to come on the power of community and the capacity of ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary feats.  

Google’s former CEO: AI advances more important than climate goals

Google’s former CEO: AI advances more important than climate goals

Mashable reports: AI is demanding more and more energy for its immense processing needs, and while many of it’s leaders are addressing the climate concerns, others are letting artificial intelligence lead the way. Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt is among the latter, for one. Appearing at a recent Washington AI summit, Schmidt argued that current climate goals should be abandoned in favor of a no-bars-held approach to AI investment. “All of that will be swamped by the enormous needs of this…

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Will Biden sink Harris?

Will Biden sink Harris?

Stephen Zunes writes: President Joe Biden’s continued support for Israel’s far-right government, including his refusal to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to the U.S. cease-fire proposal for Gaza put forward in May and his failure to demand an end to Israel’s ever-widening warfare, has not only led to the loss of countless civilian lives — it could also lead to the election of Donald Trump. In her interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday, Kamala Harris skirted a number…

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