The Disqualification Assembly Line

Justice Noam Sohlberg opened Israel’s Central Elections Committee hearings with a warning that disqualifying a candidate or list denies an entire public the right to vote for it.

The committee then disqualified Ofer Cassif, Sami Abu Shehadeh, Ra’am and the Joint List in one day.

Cassif was barred by 19 votes to five, with two abstentions. He called the outcome predetermined and legally baseless.

The committee also voted to disqualify Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh. Reports differ on the tally, giving it as either 30–4 or 31–4, but agree on the unusual part: Sohlberg voted for the ban.

Chairmen of the committee generally avoid voting unless a tie requires it. Sohlberg said he would waive that neutrality because, in his view, this was a clear case.

At the hearing, Abu Shehadeh said: “I have never supported Hamas’s armed struggle against the State of Israel.” It made no difference.

Yair Golan backed Itamar Ben-Gvir’s petition to ban him, saying there should be “no discounts” for either Abu Shehadeh or Ben-Gvir and that both should be disqualified. Ben-Gvir’s own contribution was cleaner: “Sami Abu Shehadeh, bara, bara from the Knesset.”

Ra’am was disqualified 18–5, with one abstention, without Sohlberg’s support. Mansour Abbas answered that “Abu Yair,” who negotiated with him at Balfour, understands that disqualifying Ra’am is the only way to stop the next change government.

The Joint List was also barred and said the Central Elections Committee should rename itself the “Kahanist Elections Committee.”

The party Yachad, which said the previous day it would not join “the disqualification game,” voted to disqualify Abu Shehadeh. Its representatives skipped the votes on Ra’am and the Joint List. In Israel’s election ritual, the principle is apparently sacred enough to observe selectively.

The Supreme Court now has the final word. Decisions barring candidates or lists do not take effect without judicial review, and Israeli reporting expects the court to overturn at least some of the committee’s decisions.

Tomorrow, the committee turns to petitions against Otzma Yehudit, Religious Zionism, Zehut and the Democrats.

The committee began with a lecture on voters’ rights and ended by removing their options. Tomorrow it will decide whether the same law has room for Ben-Gvir.

#IsraelElections #Knesset #Raam #Balad

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The Corporate Prosecutor

OpenAI says it catches foreign influence operations. Conveniently, it owns the machine they allegedly used, the logs that identify them, the rules that define abuse and the blog where the verdict appears.

When the company says it disrupted a Chinese, Russian, Iranian or Israeli network, the public gets a polished dossier: operation names, selected prompts, a sample of output and a geopolitical label.

What stays inside OpenAI is the evidence that would let anyone test the label: account logs, clustering rules, false-positive rates, alternative explanations and internal dissent.

A platform can ban users from its own product. “This account used our model to write text” is a fact about the platform.

“We uncovered a state-linked influence operation” is a claim about coordination, intent and political purpose.

That claim reaches governments, reporters and researchers without an adversarial process, because the only witness with full access is also the prosecutor.

The business model completes the loop. Generative AI makes phishing, malware, multilingual propaganda and synthetic personas cheaper to produce.

The same companies sell the filters, monitoring and attribution meant to contain them. The more dangerous the information environment becomes, the more indispensable its landlord appears.

OpenAI’s reports may be right. That is not the standard. A private company should not get to turn an internal moderation judgment into geopolitical fact while keeping the underlying record private.

The company supplies the model, measures the abuse and sells the protection.

#OpenAI #AI #BigTech #Disinformation

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Xi Jinping Draws a Red Line: Dialogue With Trump Is Key to Avoiding US-China War


Xi Jinping used his meeting with Trump at the White House to call for closer communication between Washington and Beijing, warning that growing rivalry between the two powers must not spiral into a military confrontation.

Speaking at the start of the summit, Xi argued that the United States and China should maintain open and sustained dialogue despite their differences. He said greater mutual understanding, trust and cooperation could help the two countries avoid what is known as the “Thucydides Trap” — the risk of conflict when a rising power challenges an established one.

Xi said both nations would benefit from cooperation and suffer from confrontation. He specifically called for regular communication between the US and Chinese militaries, along with stronger mechanisms for managing and preventing crises.

The Chinese leader also pointed to areas where the two countries could build closer ties. Among his proposals was an invitation for 100,000 young Americans to travel to China over the next five years for educational and exchange programs.

The appeal comes as Washington and Beijing remain locked in intense competition over artificial intelligence, trade and technology, while tensions surrounding Taiwan continue to complicate the broader relationship.

Both governments have imposed tariffs and other restrictions on trade, while the US has tightened controls on advanced semiconductor technology and equipment exported to China.

Trump, meanwhile, welcomed Xi and Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan to the White House, describing his relationship with the Chinese president as a strong personal friendship.

The US president said the two sides had made progress on several issues, including efforts to create what he described as a more balanced trading relationship and expand market access for American farmers and ranchers.

Trump also said security, technology and artificial intelligence would be among the subjects discussed during the visit. He has recently used the term “super intelligence” to describe the next stage of AI development.

Xi also emphasized his personal rapport with Trump, saying the two leaders had maintained contact and developed mutual respect. He said both sides should work toward a stable and constructive relationship and steer US-China ties in a predictable direction.

The White House summit followed a highly ceremonial welcome for Xi, who arrived in Washington with Peng Liyuan. Trump had personally traveled to Andrews Air Force Base the previous evening to greet the Chinese leader upon his arrival.
Despite the diplomatic pageantry, the meeting comes against the backdrop of significant strategic competition.

Washington continues to restrict China's access to advanced chips, semiconductors, software and chip-making equipment, while trade tensions remain unresolved.

A temporary US-China tariff truce that was due to expire in November has also been extended until February, according to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The extension keeps negotiations between the world's two largest economies open as both sides seek further concessions.

The talks in Washington therefore combine diplomatic outreach with continuing economic and technological rivalry, with Xi presenting dialogue and crisis-management mechanisms as key tools for preventing competition from turning into direct conflict.

#Trump #XiJinping #USChina #WhiteHouse

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Iran’s Seven-Day Ransom Note

Masoud Pezeshkian says Iran will give up uranium enriched to 60 percent. Abbas Araghchi says the Strait of Hormuz can reopen in seven days. First, Washington must lift the blockade, ease oil sanctions and release at least $12 billion in frozen Iranian assets.

In a Fox News interview, Pezeshkian rejected any nuclear-weapons ambition twice: “Absolutely not. Absolutely not.”

He said Tehran was ready to relinquish its 60-percent enriched uranium under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and called dilution “not a big deal.”

Asked where Iran’s estimated 440 kilograms of 60-percent uranium were, he offered a riddle: Washington says it destroyed everything, so either that claim is true or it is false.

Pezeshkian also said Iran wanted a deal with the United States before November’s midterm elections. Later that night, he said America’s midterms did not interest Tehran and played no role in Iranian calculations. Tehran’s message changed depending on whether the interviewer offered a clock or a microphone.

Araghchi’s seven-day proposal is less a peace plan than a sequence for releasing pressure. All hostilities, including in Lebanon, would stop.

The United States would release Iran’s frozen assets, waive sanctions on Iranian oil and end its naval blockade. On the seventh day, Iran would reopen Hormuz.

Comprehensive nuclear talks would begin immediately afterward, replacing the 60-day timetable in the June memorandum.

Iran is offering to reopen a waterway it closed, after the United States meets the price of reopening it. That is not diplomacy in the old sense. It is a seven-day hostage schedule for the world’s energy trade.

An Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps spokesman said the previous form of fighting had stopped, but the confrontation continued. Fewer than 10 commercial ships passed Hormuz that morning. Tehran calls that de-escalation. Tankers call it waiting for permission.

Then came the nuclear rumor. Iranian MP Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani said he had heard from an Arab analyst that Iran had bought a nuclear weapon from North Korea.

#Iran #Hormuz #Nuclear #UnitedStates

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China’s Iran Supply Chain

Donald Trump spent the Xi summit calling China’s leader a friend and artificial intelligence “super intelligence.”

Behind the diplomatic confetti, his administration was pressing Beijing over suspected low-yield nuclear tests and shipments that kept Iran’s drone and missile programs alive.

U.S. officials have held quiet talks with China in Geneva, New York and Casablanca about Beijing’s expanding nuclear arsenal and allegations that it has conducted low-yield tests despite a three-decade testing moratorium. Washington wants China to address the claims. Beijing has not publicly provided a substantive answer.

Trump nevertheless called his meeting with Xi “very productive” and predicted “tremendous things” between the two countries. He also claimed Xi liked Trump’s preferred label for AI: “SUPER INTELLIGENCE.” The White House can rename artificial intelligence. It cannot rename a nuclear test.

On Iran, U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue said Trump told Xi that any direct or indirect Chinese assistance to Tehran was “totally unacceptable.” Iranian customs records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal tell a different story about the supply chain: roughly 1,300 shipments of dual-use components went from China to Iran’s Defense Ministry in the first half of 2026. The consignments included electronics, GPS equipment, motors and aircraft-engine parts usable in drones and missile-guidance systems.

Days before the war began, Chinese suppliers delivered about 300 tons of chemical compounds to Iran’s Defense Ministry. Some chemicals documented in the records, including sodium perchlorate, can be used to produce solid-fuel propellant for ballistic missiles. The shipments continued after the war began, including more than a dozen consignments worth over $6 million in drone-capable parts.

Pezeshkian supplied the financial footnote: “One of the problems we face is that our money is blocked in China.” Beijing keeps Iranian money under lock while Chinese companies keep sending material that can help Iran build weapons.

Trump gave Xi a state dinner. Xi got two more months of trade truce, a lecture on Iran and the right to keep explaining what 1,300 shipments were for.

#China #Iran #Trump #Nuclear

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Yanbu Gets NATO by Another Name

The Houthis say they struck Riyadh and Saudi Aramco facilities in Yanbu with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones. Saudi Arabia now has France deploying soldiers, radar and air-defense systems to guard an oil terminal, while Turkey and Pakistan prepare to test their new collective-defense pact.

Explosions were reported near Jizan shortly after 2:27 a.m., followed by two blasts near Riyadh airport around 3:38 a.m. The Houthis claimed two operations: one against a “sensitive target” in Riyadh and another against Aramco facilities in Yanbu. Saudi air defenses said they intercepted six ballistic missiles aimed at Taif and Yanbu.

Loading at the Yanbu oil terminal has yet to resume, and insurers have raised rates for tankers connected to the port. Emmanuel Macron said France would send “soldiers, radars and defence systems” to protect Yanbu. “Not to participate in any conflict,” he said, “but to protect this site.” France has found a new definition of nonparticipation: sending troops and air defenses to protect a belligerent state’s oil export terminal.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan have scheduled an urgent meeting of their chiefs of staff under the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement. Signed in August, the pact treats an armed attack on one member as an attack on all three.

The foreign ministers arranged the meeting in New York after condemning attacks on Mecca and other civilian sites.

The alliance now faces its first test: whether a missile launched from Yemen turns the Saudi war into a three-country obligation.

Pezeshkian says the Houthis “are responsible for their actions and do not take instructions from us.” The Houthis answer that Bab el-Mandeb is part of Yemen’s national sovereignty and warn that the next period will be more painful for the Saudi government. Tehran has discovered the useful freedom of commanding a partner that officially takes no commands.

In Sanaa, Houthi security forces have confiscated Yemeni flags from civilians ahead of the September 26 anniversary of the 1962 revolution that ended the imamate and created the republic. The movement speaks of Yemeni sovereignty at Bab el-Mandeb while policing the flag of the Yemeni republic in its own capital.

Yanbu now has French radar. Riyadh has Turkish and Pakistani generals on the way. The Houthis have missiles and a sovereignty lecture. Everyone has a defensive mission. The oil terminal has a front-row seat.

#SaudiArabia #Houthis #Yemen #Yanbu

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Inside the CIA’s Darkest Game: When Deep Cover Becomes a Trap


Behind every intelligence operation lies another operation — the one no one is supposed to see. In the shadowy world of espionage, carefully constructed identities can become prisons, bureaucratic rivalries can be as dangerous as enemy agents, and a single mistake can bring an entire mission crashing down.

That world is at the heart of Moscow X, the espionage novel by former CIA analyst David McCloskey. Drawing on his experience inside the agency and at field stations in the Middle East, McCloskey depicts intelligence work not as a seamless machine run by flawless professionals, but as a dangerous system driven by human ambition, secrecy, miscalculations and competing agendas.

The novel follows CIA officers Sia Fox and Max as they pursue a potentially explosive Russian source known by the codename Persephone.

Their target is Anna, the wife of a powerful Russian financier with connections to Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. The operation is built around an elaborate deception designed to make it appear that Russian officials are stealing money — a scheme intended to create suspicion and instability among Moscow’s political elite.

On paper, it looks like a masterstroke of covert warfare. On the ground, nothing is that simple.

The agents operate through layers of false identities, secret communications and carefully controlled encounters, never knowing exactly who may be watching. Every relationship can become a vulnerability.

Every conversation can carry a hidden meaning. And every decision made inside the agency can have consequences thousands of miles away.

McCloskey’s CIA is powerful, but it is hardly omnipotent. It is a sprawling bureaucracy populated by people who make mistakes, misread situations and sometimes keep information from their own colleagues. Operations that appear perfectly designed from Washington can become unpredictable once they collide with reality.

That tension gives Moscow X much of its unsettling power.
The most frightening element is not necessarily the enemy intelligence service waiting on the other side. It is the possibility that the machinery designed to protect an operation may itself become a source of danger. Secrecy breeds mistrust.

Rivalries distort decisions. And the people working under deep cover can find themselves trapped inside identities they created for someone else.

For officers living this way, deception is not simply a professional tool. It becomes a way of life.

McCloskey’s background gives the story an unusual sense of authenticity. Before turning to fiction, he worked as a CIA analyst at Langley and in Middle Eastern field stations. His previous novel, Damascus Station, also drew heavily on the world of intelligence and the experience of officers operating in hostile environments.

But Moscow X goes further into the darker side of the profession. It asks what happens when an intelligence service demands that people spend years constructing elaborate lies — and then expects them to remain psychologically untouched by those lies.

The answer is complicated. Loyalty becomes conditional. Friendships become potential liabilities. Romance can become an operational risk.

Even success may come with a price that cannot be calculated in advance.

And that may be the most disturbing idea at the center of McCloskey’s fictional world: the greatest threat to a covert operation does not always come from an enemy lurking in the shadows. Sometimes it comes from the system itself — from secrecy, bureaucracy and the human beings forced to navigate both.

In the world of Moscow X, the line between controlling the operation and becoming trapped inside it can disappear without warning. And once that happens, there may be no safe way out.

#CIA #Espionage #MoscowX #SpyThriller #Intelligence

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Turkey’s Ten-Million-Drone Peace Message

Turkey says it has no hostility toward Israelis. Its military chief says the country will produce 5 million drones within five years and 10 million within a decade. Ankara’s peace vocabulary now comes with industrial output targets.

The dispute began after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz posted a video titled “My Clear Message to Dictator Erdogan.”

Turkey’s communications director, Burhanettin Duran, called Katz’s language “undignified and inappropriate” and said it would not obscure what Ankara describes as Israel’s record in Gaza.

Erdogan gave the diplomatic version in an interview with Newsweek. He said Israel was promoting a “misguided narrative” that portrayed Turkey as a new threat, tied the rhetoric to Israel’s domestic politics and election climate, and said Turkey held no hostility toward “the Israeli people or toward any other society.”

Ankara’s problem, he said, was with policies it considers unlawful and destabilizing.

At the Denizkurdu-I/2026 naval exercise, Turkey tested joint operations combining crewed platforms with unmanned and autonomous systems in the air, on the surface and underwater.

The drills ran across the Black Sea, Sea of Marmara, Aegean and eastern Mediterranean.

This is not a fleet plan. It is a national industrial doctrine measured in machines that can observe, jam, strike and swarm.

Ankara calls it self-reliance. Israel hears a neighbor building a military production line on continental scale.

Erdogan says Turkey has no hostility toward Israelis. Katz calls him a dictator. Turkey’s navy tests unmanned warfare across three seas.

The general staff gives the region a production target large enough to make every crisis look like a sales forecast.

#Turkey #Israel #Erdogan #Drones

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The Campaign’s Rental Democracy

A new poll gives Yashar! 22 seats, Likud 18 and Bennett’s Beyachad 13. Israel’s election campaign has already found its central ideology: everyone is somebody else’s existential threat.

The full result puts the Democrats at 11, Yisrael Beytenu and Otzma Yehudit at nine each, the Joint List at seven, Shas, United Torah Judaism and Religious Zionism at six each, Ra’am at five, and Amcha Yisrael and the Reservists at four apiece. That is a crowded Knesset before anyone has formed a government or explained who will sit with whom.

Beyachad’s Ram Ben-Barak called Netanyahu “Israel’s greatest enemy.” Bennett went to Bnei Brak, faced activist Mordechai David, and told him: “I suggest you enlist quickly, because once I am prime minister, you won’t get a shekel from the state.” David then blocked Bennett’s vehicle. Israeli politics has reached the stage where conscription policy is settled through traffic obstruction.

Likud candidate Elisha Medan offered the counter-slogan: “I’m not sure pushing an entire public is the way.” Democrat candidate Moshe Radman said there was room for demands to recognize the Nakba and accusations of war crimes. The campaign now has a complete menu: end the draft exemptions, protect the draft exemptions, recognize the Nakba, disqualify the Arabs and call Netanyahu the enemy.

The Democrats demanded personal security for party leader Yair Golan, arguing that police assigned him the same threat level as Gadi Eisenkot while providing protection to Eisenkot.

The High Court will sit as an expanded nine-justice panel on Thursday to decide the disqualification of Ofer Cassif and Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh.

Meanwhile, Justice Noam Sohlberg issued a temporary order barring the Satmar-linked association HaShekel HaTahor from offering payments to people who promise not to vote.

The petition alleged payments worth $200 to people who declared that they would abstain. Israeli law prohibits a bribe meant to influence a voter either to vote or to stay home.

The country is choosing a parliament. One party threatens to cut off a citizen’s money unless he enlists. Another group allegedly pays voters to stay home. The court decides who may stand. The poll tells everyone they are winning.

#IsraelElections #Knesset #Bennett #Netanyahu

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The Payroll Armies’ Graveyard

Kabul, Damascus and Mokha did not fall because Islamists discovered a mystical substitute for money. They fell because their defenders were paid by patrons, commanded by competing bosses and asked to die for states that had already been privatized.

The Taliban, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and the Houthis differ in doctrine, social base and foreign sponsors. Taliban fighters had Pakistani sanctuary. HTS grew under a Turkish umbrella. The Houthis received Iranian technology and military support. None of them won alone.

They shared something more practical. Each had spent years building a system in which the gunman, the tax collector, the judge and the local administrator answered to the same political order. Kabul had payrolls.

Assad had Russian air power and Iranian militias. Yemen’s Joint Forces had Saudi and Emirati cash. Their enemies had a chain of command that reached beyond their own countries.

America spent about $88 billion building Afghan security forces. Saudi Arabia budgeted billions to pay Yemeni soldiers and civil servants.

Assad raised military salaries days before fleeing Damascus. The money kept arriving because the sponsors mistook the payroll for the army.

The Houthis did not beat a richer enemy by abolishing interest. They beat a fragmented enemy because their own administration, coercion, taxation and recruitment were controlled by one movement. The financial doctrine matters because it tightens that control. It does not turn theology into logistics.

The lesson for Washington and the Gulf is not that Islamism has a magic formula. It is worse: states cannot rent a national army from men whose loyalty is divided between salary, tribe, commander and foreign sponsor.

#Yemen #Afghanistan #Syria #Houthis
#IsraelElections #Knesset #Bennett #Netanyahu

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Bennett’s Bnei Brak Campaign Stop

Naftali Bennett went to Bnei Brak to speak with yeshiva students. The event ended with objects thrown, a staff member struck in the head and the former prime minister escorted from the restaurant.

Police said a passerby threw an object at a public figure and missed. Officers from the Bnei Brak–Ramat Gan station arrested the suspect immediately. Bennett’s Beyachad party gave a fuller account: after about 30 minutes of conversation with the students, a group of political activists arrived, and two objects thrown toward Bennett struck a female staffer in the head.

Magen David Adom treated her at the scene. She was released without needing further medical care, and Bennett later said she was feeling well. Bennett himself was unhurt. The party said the conversation with the yeshiva students had been “good and substantive” before the disturbance.

A magistrate initially extended the suspect’s detention through Monday. The Tel Aviv District Court accepted his appeal and shortened it by a day, ordering his release on Sunday while the investigation continues.

Bennett said he would keep holding meetings across the country. That is the correct answer to a bottle or salt shaker thrown in a restaurant. Bnei Brak did not become a political no-go zone. It became another campaign stop where Israel’s conscription argument left the panel discussion and entered the dining room.

#IsraelElections #Bennett #BneiBrak #Politics

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Hormuz, Paid in Advance

Iran offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz after six days. First, the United States would halt military operations, lift its naval blockade, ease oil sanctions and release at least $12 billion in frozen Iranian assets. Tehran’s sequence was simple: Washington moves first, then the oil route opens.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi presented the proposal in New York through Qatari mediators. It called for a regional ceasefire, including Lebanon and Yemen, followed by a seven-day sequence. Washington would meet Iran’s conditions during the first days. Iran would reopen Hormuz on day six. Nuclear talks would begin on day seven.

Araghchi said shipping could not return to normal by decree after Iran had been bombed, threatened with annihilation and subjected to a naval blockade. Tehran closed the route because its own routes were closed.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had rejected the offer and told aides he expected U.S. attacks on Iran to resume after the November midterm elections. Trump says Iran wants a deal because it is “losing so badly,” while presenting the U.S. blockade as control of Hormuz.

Pezeshkian says Iran is ready for nuclear talks but will not accept what CBS translated as “bullying or coercion.” He also told Al Jazeera that Iran no longer trusts talks with Washington because previous rounds brought sanctions and military action.

That leaves the Iranian president asking why he should meet Trump if an agreement can be signed and then ignored.

Iran treats the Strait as leverage against a blockade. Washington wants the Strait open before it offers Iran anything. Both sides say they want negotiations. Their opening positions are built to make the other side surrender first.

#Iran #Hormuz #Trump #Nuclear

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The CDC’s Managed Decline

The CDC has gone from 9,279 employees in March 2025 to 6,683 in May 2026: a 28 percent fall in 14 months.

Washington did not merely cut a public-health agency. It kept the agency’s logo, stripped out its capacity and placed political supervision where scientific judgment used to sit.

The first Trump administration cuts removed 18 percent of the workforce. Retirements, resignations and continuing hiring limits pushed the loss further.

The National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion fell from 968 employees to 501, a 48 percent reduction.

Centers responsible for emerging and zoonotic diseases, respiratory disease, HIV and sexually transmitted infections, workplace safety and injury prevention all lost staff.

The management structure followed the same logic. Of the 11 CDC center directors in place in March 2025, only one remained by September 2026, according to the New York Times.

Acting directors fill positions that once belonged to senior public-health leaders. The agency has deployed roughly 100 staff members to the Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of Congo. During the 2014 West Africa outbreak, it sent about 2,000.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s political appointees now review communications and direct scientists toward projects outside ordinary CDC practice.

A no-bid contract worth $362,000 went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to examine whether vaccination during pregnancy causes autism, using money from a program that supplies free vaccines to roughly half of U.S. children. The premise has been rejected by numerous studies.

The consequence is visible before the next emergency arrives. State and local health departments once received answers from CDC grant officers in less than a day.

The response time has risen to more than 10 days after staffing cuts left three project officers where there had been 20.

Vaccine advisers have not met since December because of litigation, and the agency has not issued updated respiratory-vaccine recommendations for the coming season.

Kennedy talks about rebuilding trust in public health while the institution that produces public-health guidance is hollowed out, politically screened and sent to investigate his preferred theories.

That is not a reform program. It is a controlled demolition with a wellness slogan.

#CDC #PublicHealth #RFKJr #UnitedStates

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Ireland Plays, Then Boycotts the Ritual

Ireland will play Israel on Sunday in Debrecen, Hungary. Goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu will not. The squad voted by a “significant majority” to fulfill the fixture, then decided that handshakes, pennants and ordinary pre-match politeness were apparently too much football.

Bazunu withdrew from the squad, saying participation would be wrong because of his personal conviction that “the killing of innocent people is wrong.” He was the only player to leave the team. Reports that seven other players had also refused to play were not borne out by the Football Association of Ireland’s statement or by manager Heimir Hallgrímsson, who said the rest of the squad trained.

The Ireland players will wear black armbands “in recognition of all lives lost in the conflict.” They will not take part in some elements of the pre-match ceremony, will not exchange pennants or shake hands with Israeli players, and will suspend media duties for the rest of the international window. The FAI and players also plan to donate match fees and proceeds from Ireland’s October 1 match against Austria to charity.

A collective boycott would have forfeited the match and exposed the association to UEFA sanctions. The players chose a narrower version: play the 90 minutes, reject the ceremony and turn the warm-up into a political statement. UEFA gets its fixture. Ireland gets its protest. Bazunu gets the only act that costs a place on the team.

Israeli midfielder Dor Peretz said Israel would offer handshakes regardless. Coach Ran Ben Shimon said he planned to shake Hallgrímsson’s hand and did not want to “make a big story” out of it. That leaves the Irish squad preparing a gesture meant to deny normality while the Israelis prepare to act normally.

Ireland is not boycotting Israel. It is boycotting the part of football where opponents pretend the match is only football.

#Israel #Ireland #Football #NationsLeague

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#Trump #XiJinping #ÉtatsUnis #Chine

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#Trump #Xi #summit #Predue

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🐓🪓Ben-Gvir’s Prison Theatre

Itamar Ben-Gvir entered the cell of Hassan Salameh, one of Hamas’s highest-profile prisoners, surrounded by masked guards and cameras. He told Salameh: “I want to kill you. I want to execute you.” Then he published the footage himself.

Salameh has been in Israeli custody since 1996 and is serving 48 life sentences for his role in Hamas suicide bombings that year, including attacks on Jerusalem’s No. 18 bus line. Dozens of Israelis were killed in the campaign that followed Israel’s killing of Hamas bomb-maker Yahya Ayyash.

Ben-Gvir told Salameh that the prison conditions were his doing and that he had made the prisoner’s life “hell.” He said that if appointed defense minister in the next government, he would work to execute prisoners convicted of killing Israelis and advance “voluntary migration” from Gaza and the West Bank.

Hamas called the video a public death threat and said Israel had turned prisons into sites of “direct physical liquidation.” It said the footage would not weaken Salameh or other Palestinian prisoners and renewed its commitment to secure their release.

A minister publicly tells a handcuffed prisoner that he wants to kill him. Hamas broadcasts the threat as proof of Israeli brutality. Each side gets material for its audience. The only person who cannot leave the set is the prisoner in the cell.

#Israel #BenGvir #Hamas #Prisoners

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Peter Thiel, the founder of Palantir, sat down for an interview with Axel Springer and Matthias Döpfner.

In it, Thiel reflects on good and evil and, quite seriously, argues that the Devil may not be all that bad. At the very least, he’s effective.

The guy genuinely seems to have a thing for Satanism

#Thiel #Palantir #Springer #interview

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