States preparing lawsuit to block Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros, sources say

States preparing lawsuit to block Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros, sources say

Reuters reports: A group of U.S. ​states including California and New York are preparing a lawsuit ‌to block Paramount Skydance’s $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday. The lawsuit is expected to be filed in the coming weeks, the ​sources said. The case would mark the boldest move yet by the ​states in their effort to be at the forefront of U.S. ⁠antitrust enforcement, as their better-funded counterpart agencies in the Trump…

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Trump urges Netanyahu not to escalate latest round of attacks Israel started with strikes on Beirut

Trump urges Netanyahu not to escalate latest round of attacks Israel started with strikes on Beirut

Axios reports: President Trump will call Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and press him not to retaliate for Iran’s missile attack, Trump tells Axios. “I am going to call Bibi right now and tell him not to retaliate. Each of them had their fun. Israel had its strike, and Iran had its strike. We don’t need another one,” Trump said. Why it matters: The ceasefire in the Middle East is teetering after Israel struck Beirut and Iran fired multiple waves of missiles in response. Trump…

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Congress wants to tie the U.S. to Israel with this new legislation. It’s a trap

Congress wants to tie the U.S. to Israel with this new legislation. It’s a trap

Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick write: Congress is considering legislation that would embed Israel’s military deeply within the US military-industrial complex. Stunned by the cratering of public support for Israeli policies in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank and towards Iran, Israel’s advocates are frantically seeking to preserve and even escalate US support for the Jewish state in ways that do not rely on defense of its policies or permit scrutiny of the manipulations involved. Politically, this means avoiding public…

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Ukraine’s technological advances could mark a change in the nature of warfare

Ukraine’s technological advances could mark a change in the nature of warfare

Anne Applebaum writes: In a field outside of Kyiv last weekend, a van was parked discreetly behind some trees. Inside the van there were no passenger seats, just a long desk, two office chairs, two laptops, extra screens. Outside appearances to the contrary, this was a mobile drone-interceptor base, one of hundreds of similar vehicles now scattered around Ukraine. It’s also part of something much bigger: a set of technological advances that have changed the war with Russia, and maybe…

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Pete Hegseth’s D-day speech on immigration condemned as ‘grotesque stupidity’

Pete Hegseth’s D-day speech on immigration condemned as ‘grotesque stupidity’

The Guardian reports: The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, has been accused by historians and rights campaigners of “grotesque stupidity” and desecrating the memory of the soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy after he sought to link immigration to the D-day anniversary, saying Europe was facing a different “invasion” of its shores. Speaking in north-west France on Saturday to mark the 82nd anniversary of the D-day landings, Hegseth seized on the moment marking the wartime liberation of Europe to…

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The Trump-shaped shadow over the 2026 World Cup

The Trump-shaped shadow over the 2026 World Cup

Chris Jones writes: It’s hard to imagine a more fraught combination for what was supposed to be a fun Friday night: Seattle’s Pride celebration will feature a World Cup match on June 26 between Iran, where homosexuality is punishable by death, and Egypt, where homosexual activity is punishable by up to three years in prison. When FIFA’s schedulers announced the Pride Match pairing after December’s draw, it felt a little like a sick joke. The Egyptian Football Association has said…

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Pentagon sees Israel as critical counterintelligence threat to the U.S.

Pentagon sees Israel as critical counterintelligence threat to the U.S.

The New York Times reports: Recent U.S. intelligence reports have raised concerns about Israeli spy agencies eavesdropping on American negotiators working on a peace deal with Iran, amid rising concern over a more general counterintelligence threat by Israel. Israel and the United States have long known, and tolerated, that each was spying on the other. But an intensified Israeli effort to learn about U.S. positions in talks with Iran has crossed a line, according to some American officials. The reports…

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Iran demands cash for peace, presenting a political minefield for Trump

Iran demands cash for peace, presenting a political minefield for Trump

The Wall Street Journal reports: The U.S. and Iran have spent weeks struggling to forge a preliminary deal to end the war. One major reason why they are stuck: Tehran wants early access to cold, hard cash, and it is politically hazardous for President Trump to agree. For Trump, a decision to free Iran’s assets upfront would inevitably generate comparisons to his own attacks on the Obama administration for flying cash into Tehran in the hours after the nuclear accord…

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Hezbollah’s fiber-optic drones expose weakness in Israeli defenses

Hezbollah’s fiber-optic drones expose weakness in Israeli defenses

The New York Times reports: An explosive drone snaked between the hills of southern Lebanon before striking an Israeli armored personnel carrier. Two days later, another slammed into a tank. Three days after that, a third pounded into a missile-defense system. Each day, multiple drones attack Israeli forces, the Israeli military has said, and with lethal effect. In the past week alone, they have killed three soldiers. The relentless drone attacks by Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, have exposed…

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Hasan Piker on being banned from the UK, traveling to Cuba & supporting candidates critical of Israel

Hasan Piker on being banned from the UK, traveling to Cuba & supporting candidates critical of Israel

  The British government earlier this week barred left-wing political commentators Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur from entering the U.K. ahead of several speaking events. The Home Office said it was canceling their travel permits because “their presence in the U.K. may not be conducive to the public good.” Piker and Uygur, who are related, are both outspoken in their criticism of Israel. While the government did not cite a specific reason for the ban, some lawmakers and pro-Israel groups…

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As Trump pushes deportations, huge caseload strains immigration courts and undermines due process

As Trump pushes deportations, huge caseload strains immigration courts and undermines due process

The New York Times reports: Federal officials have quietly begun fast-tracking cases through immigration courts, pushing dozens of additional cases onto the dockets on certain days in an effort to more quickly process asylum and other claims. The fast-tracking, which is also intended to increase the pace of deportations, started without any formal notification or announcement from the Trump administration, according to immigration lawyers and court officials interviewed by The New York Times. But a surge of cases has been…

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American apartheid: Only ‘refugees’ accepted are white South Africans

American apartheid: Only ‘refugees’ accepted are white South Africans

Mother Jones reports: Every single one of the 599 refugees the US admitted last month was a white South African, according to data the State Department’s Bureau of Population released Friday. In fact, so was every other refugee admitted this year. Since October 1, 2025, the US has accepted 6,668 refugees. Of those, 6,665 were white South Africans. Three—admitted last November—were from Afghanistan. No other refugees were admitted. That data is backed up by the US Refugee Admissions Program, a…

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Are memories transferable — or edible?

Are memories transferable — or edible?

Claire L. Evans writes: It was the dead of winter in Boston. The surface of the Charles River was frozen solid. But Zachary Kelso braved the biting cold to finally put to rest a mystery that has haunted neuroscience labs for over half a century. To do that, Kelso, a research assistant in the Harvard lab of the neuroscientist Sam Gershman, needed some worms. Specifically, planarians: arrow-headed flatworms, which are among the simplest creatures to possess a brain and a…

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Whistleblower exposes DOGE plan to declare 2.7 million people dead, pushing immigrants to self-deport

Whistleblower exposes DOGE plan to declare 2.7 million people dead, pushing immigrants to self-deport

The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration had plans to classify 2.7 million living people — including some U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents — as dead as part of its immigration enforcement efforts, according to a former senior Social Security executive. The previously unreported plan, which the Social Security Administration said was not carried out, would have used one of the government’s most consequential identity databases to effectively erase people from the financial system, potentially cutting them off from…

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