Rubio says Iran’s supreme leader alive, ‘increasingly engaging’ through intermediaries
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is alive and “increasingly engaging at some level,” although he has not appeared publicly after he was injured at the beginning of the war, Anadolu Agency reports.
“We haven’t seen him publicly, and I would imagine, given what’s happened to multiple leaders in that system, being very public is probably not something that’s recommended for them internally, but that said, I think there are indications out there that he is increasingly engaging at some level, although all of his communications have been in writing and through intermediaries,” Rubio told lawmakers during a hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
He said Iran’s internal decision-making process appears to be highly centralized, saying messages from negotiators are typically relayed back to a governing council for approval before any response is issued.
“It is our view of the system as we understand it, and as it’s been expressed to us both by the intermediaries and by Iran directly, that what (Abbas) Araghchi and (Mohammad Bagher) Ghalibaf bring or take from us, they then have to run back to this council and ultimately get guidance from them, and that process oftentimes takes three to five days to get a response,” he added.
READ: Trump says talks with Iran ‘going on continuously,’ adds, ‘where they lead, one never knows’
Although Rubio and US President Donald Trump insist talks with Iran continue, Iranian media reported Tuesday that exchanges of messages between the two countries have been halted for at least several days now.
Rubio’s comments come as Washington and Tehran continue efforts to turn a fragile ceasefire into a broader agreement following months of conflict that began Feb. 28 with US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
Iranian authorities said more than 3,000 people have been killed since the start of the war, while at least 13 US service members have been killed in Iranian retaliatory attacks.
Tehran retaliated with attacks targeting Israel and US allies in the Gulf, alongside the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
A ceasefire took effect on April 8 through Pakistani mediation, but subsequent talks in Islamabad failed to produce a lasting agreement. Efforts for a solution, however, have continued since.
READ: Iran to hold funeral ceremonies for late Supreme Leader Khamenei in 3 cities
Trump’s Yielding on Iran Leaves Netanyahu With Less Room To Strike Hezbollah
Washington is pressing Israel to avoid escalation in Lebanon while the US president tries to preserve negotiations with Tehran
Israel’s longest-serving prime minister and most controversial political figure finds himself at a major crossroads as the country faces a strategic conundrum. Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been at the heart of Israel’s political scene for three decades, is facing elections this fall after leading the country through almost three years of war.
The war, which began as Israeli retaliation for Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack, initially drew widespread support at home and sympathy from many Western governments. As it dragged on, international approval of Israel’s conduct, especially in Gaza, fell sharply, while Israeli public opinion became increasingly focused on hostage deals, ceasefires, and frustration with the government’s failure to deliver a decisive end to the fighting.
A joint US-Israeli attack on Iran that ended in April was the culmination of the regional war that has engulfed the region since October 2023. The operation showcased close US-Israeli coordination, but Reuters has reported that the two countries’ objectives later diverged, with Washington focused on preserving Iran negotiations and reopening the Strait of Hormuz while Israel sought to preserve freedom of action against Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed threats.
The confrontation with Iran did not begin with the later joint US-Israeli operation. In June 2025, Israel and Iran fought an intense direct conflict that brought open strikes between the two countries into the center of the regional war, sharpening Israeli concerns over Iran’s nuclear program and its network of armed proxies. A later joint US-Israeli attack on Iran, which ended in April 2026, marked a new phase in that confrontation and showcased close coordination between Washington and Jerusalem. That alignment has since come under strain as President Trump pursues a deal with Tehran while pressing Netanyahu to avoid escalation in Lebanon. Negotiations for a more permanent agreement are underway between the Trump administration and the Iranian government, while Israel cautiously awaits the outcome.
Monday’s tit-for-tat fire between Israel and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah organization, coupled with a reportedly heated conversation between Netanyahu and President Donald Trump, offered a stark illustration of the complex situation the Jewish state faces and the competing interests of the two previously aligned leaders. Neither leader denied any part of the reported conversation, which allegedly included expletive language from President Trump.
Netanyahu has no leverage with Trump essentially accusing him of being the reason behind the delay in reaching a ceasefire with Iran
“The alleged conversation exposed the give-and-take relationship between Netanyahu and Trump,” Dr. Kobby Barda, a senior researcher at the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), told The Media Line. “Netanyahu has no leverage with Trump essentially accusing him of being the reason behind the delay in reaching a ceasefire with Iran.
After Hezbollah continued attacking Israeli forces in Lebanon and firing rockets at Israeli communities in northern Israel, Netanyahu threatened on Monday to strike Beirut. The threat elicited a counterthreat from Iran, Hezbollah’s main sponsor, to withdraw from the ceasefire negotiations with the US. According to several media reports, President Trump then called Netanyahu and ordered him to halt any plans to strike Hezbollah targets in the Lebanese capital. Whether Netanyahu agreed or not, the Israeli military did not strike targets in Beirut overnight.
Israel, as a partner, cannot just enjoy the benefits of the partnership and do whatever it wants
“Israel and the US embarked on the war against Iran and are still partners,” Roni Rimon, a strategic adviser and partner at the public relations firm Rimon Cohen & Co., told The Media Line. “Israel, as a partner, cannot just enjoy the benefits of the partnership and do whatever it wants.”
For Netanyahu’s supporters and opponents alike, reports that President Trump screamed at him and ordered him to turn back Israeli troops became an opportunity to score political points four months before the scheduled election. From across the political spectrum, Netanyahu was criticized for yielding to American demands, giving rivals an opening to attack the Israeli leader, whose party leads in all polls.
“This is not a good position, not for Israel and not for Netanyahu,” said Barda. “He put all his eggs in one basket.”
Throughout his years in office, Netanyahu has cultivated close ties with the Republican Party, largely alienating much of the Democratic Party. Heightened tensions with the Obama and Biden administrations marked some of the lowest points in relations between the two allies.
“We are at a critical moment regarding a decision on whether the situation will escalate or enter a ceasefire,” Barda added.
According to Ariel Sender, head of the Republican Party’s campaign in Israel, reports of tension and harsh personal remarks during the call are false.
“The two leaders had an important conversation in which each one presented their position,” Sender told The Media Line. “Trump told Netanyahu he cannot escalate the attacks on Lebanon without coordinating with the US in advance.”
“Trump wants to control whatever has potential impact on a deal with Iran,” Sender added.
Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party and a key rival to Netanyahu’s Likud party in the upcoming election, blasted Netanyahu for “capitulating” to President Trump’s demand.
There has never been a prime minister in Israel who capitulated to such a demand, one that is blatantly unreasonable!
“There has never been a prime minister in Israel who capitulated to such a demand, one that is blatantly unreasonable!” Eisenkot, a former minister and Israeli military chief, posted on X.
Hezbollah began firing at Israel two days after the joint US-Israeli attack began in March. The fighting ended in a ceasefire days after the Iranian ceasefire took effect in April. Since then, Israel has continued to strike Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, further cementing its presence in the area, which Hezbollah says violates the original ceasefire reached in November 2024.
“What Netanyahu, the government, and the cabinet are doing today is harming the national interests of the State of Israel from a place of weakness. And don’t try to spin tales about the connection to the US’s negotiations with Iran,” Eisenkot continued.
“Trump is much more aggressive in his coercion, and Netanyahu’s hands are tied,” said Barda.
Fourteen Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire began, many of them by Hezbollah-operated fiber-optic drones that pose a significant challenge to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“The continued attacks by Hezbollah and the fact that the US is limiting Israel’s response to a certain extent, prevent Israel from doing what it thinks it needs to do militarily, which is a much more aggressive response,” said Rimon. “This creates internal pressure in Israel.”
“Netanyahu is within the boundaries of whether to appease Trump or Israeli public opinion,” he continued. “Without public opinion, Netanyahu would choose to follow the US because of the partnership between the two. What he is doing now is trying to increase the pressure on Lebanon without taking actions that the US forbids him to take.”
Hezbollah fire into Israel continued Tuesday, despite President Trump’s declaration that Israel and Hezbollah would scale down the fighting. President Trump continues to insist that a deal with Iran is imminent. Failure to reach such an agreement would likely resume the war between the sides and bring Hezbollah into the fighting once again.
“Trump is creating a blame game vis-à-vis Iran and doesn’t want Israel to be the one that causes the negotiations to fail,” said Sender. “He wants to Iranian’s to be the ones to decline a deal, and then he will have legitimacy to resume the war.”
Elections in Israel are scheduled for the fall. Netanyahu, who is on trial on several corruption charges, is seen by his supporters as the leader who improved Israel’s regional status by projecting strength after Hamas’ deadly attack in October 2023. The opposition, which says Netanyahu is unfit for leadership, sees him as responsible for the greatest terrorist attack to hit the Jewish state because of Hamas’ surprise offensive. His opponents also blame him for dragging out the war to avoid an investigation into the events that led to the attack and to delay an election that could remove him from power.
Still, ballots are expected to open at the end of October, and while some polls give Netanyahu’s Likud party a larger lead than others, several surveys suggest his ability to form a coalition is at risk.
“Netanyahu’s situation is not good,” said Rimon. “He spent his term cultivating his political base, but to govern, he needs 10 mandates from outside of his base, and those he is currently losing. The current situation isn’t helping him get those 10 mandates back.”
According to Rimon, Israel’s security situation is not the only issue troubling voters. Another divisive matter is a law that would extend the exemption ultra-Orthodox Jews have from otherwise mandatory conscription. Netanyahu, who needs his ultra-Orthodox partners to form a stable coalition, is caught between his political interests and growing public pressure to abolish the exemption.
The prolonged war has pushed the conscription debate to the forefront and threatens to deepen divisions within Israeli society. An unresolved conflict with Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas would only further strain the military, putting Netanyahu’s policies and political interests under even greater scrutiny. The war in Gaza also remains unresolved, with a fragile ceasefire stuck in the second phase of implementation.
For Netanyahu, the coming months could be among the most consequential of his political career. Caught between an assertive American administration on which he relies, unresolved regional conflicts, and an electorate weary after years of war, he faces a rocky path to political survival. Whether he can balance Israel’s security needs with mounting domestic and international pressure may determine not only the outcome of the election but also the legacy of Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.
Amazon-owned Ring should pay Americans for scanning their faces, lawsuit says
A lawsuit against Amazon is seeking financial damages for millions of Americans whose faces may have been recorded by Ring cameras since the Familiar Faces feature was rolled out late last year.
Plaintiff Charles Sigwalt yesterday filed a class action suit that aims to represent all people in the US “who had their facial recognition data collected, retained, and otherwise used by the Familiar Faces feature created and implemented by Defendant.” The lawsuit will seek “far” more than $5 million, but the $5 million figure was given in the complaint because US district courts have jurisdiction for civil actions seeking at least that amount.
“Here, there are millions of Americans who have walked by Ring cameras which have activated the Familiar Faces feature… the damages in this action far exceed $5,000,000.00 when calculating the statutory damages that may be owed to each Class member in addition to the actual damages caused by the aggregate loss of value of biometric information,” the lawsuit said.
Ring’s Familiar Faces feature is designed to identify people who appear at one’s door and provide alerts to the owner of the camera. Amazon says Familiar Faces is not enabled by default but that owners of Ring cameras can turn it on. Ring camera users can create a “personal directory of up to 50 familiar faces” so they can be alerted when one comes to the door.
Sigwalt lives in Virginia and filed the suit in US District Court for the Western District of Washington, where Amazon is headquartered. He proposes a nationwide class of all people in the US whose faces were scanned and a subclass for Virginia residents.
“Familiar Faces uses facial recognition technology to scan the face of all guests and passersby before categorizing who they are using artificial intelligence,” the lawsuit said. “AI then collects a ‘face print’ of the respective person and translates it into a unique patchwork of numbers that allows Ring to re-identify who that person is each time Familiar Faces deploys facial recognition on them.”
“Violates basic notions of consumer privacy”
The complaint notes that Familiar Faces isn’t available everywhere in the US because some areas have stricter privacy laws than others:
Ring clearly has the ability to follow biometric privacy laws with respect to the Familiar Faces feature—but it deliberately chooses not to. Specifically, Ring told The Washington Post that Familiar Faces will not be available in Texas, Illinois, or Portland, Oregon because each jurisdiction has strict laws banning this type of biometric facial recognition surveillance. However, the rest of the country, including Plaintiff and Class members do not get the same respect.
The lawsuit argues that Amazon’s conduct is illegal even in parts of the US without specific laws banning this type of facial recognition. The lawsuit pointed to a Federal Trade Commission policy statement that businesses “engaging in surreptitious and unexpected collection or use of biometric information” may violate the FTC Act’s prohibition on deceptive and unfair trade practices.
“Ring’s collection, retention, and use of biometric information without adequate consent demonstrates that Ring violates Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act—which protects against deceptive and unfair trade practices,” the complaint said, adding that “Ring’s collection of facial recognition [data] violates basic notions of consumer privacy in the United States.”
Lawsuit seeks injunction and payouts
The lawsuit further alleges violations of Virginia state laws, such as one prohibiting the use of people’s pictures for purposes of trade without their consent. “Defendant knowingly violated this provision of the Virginia code by using personal data, photographs, and likenesses in the form of pictures and biometric information of Plaintiff and Class members without their written consent for the purposes of trade,” the lawsuit said.
Other allegations include intrusion upon seclusion, negligence, and unjust enrichment. The complaint says Amazon did not compensate class members for the use and retention of their biometric data despite “increased sales due to the Familiar Faces feature of Ring cameras.” It seeks an injunction to change Amazon’s behavior, financial payouts to compensate class members for privacy violations, and disgorgement of profits.
Amazon declined to comment on the lawsuit when contacted by Ars today.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) wrote in November that Ring’s Familiar Faces will scan “many people who have not consented to a face scan, including friends and family, political canvassers, postal workers, delivery drivers, children selling cookies, or maybe even some people passing on the sidewalk.” The EFF said Amazon seems to be “try[ing] to unload some consent requirements onto individual camera owners themselves” with messages reminding customers to comply with applicable laws.
“But Amazon—as a company itself collecting, processing, and storing this biometric data—could have its own consent obligations under numerous laws,” the EFF said, urging regulators to “investigate, protect people’s privacy, and test the strength of their laws.”
Senator urged Amazon to end Familiar Faces
US Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has urged Amazon to discontinue the Familiar Faces feature. Markey sent Amazon a letter in October 2025 asking how Familiar Faces works, and summarized Amazon’s responses in a February 2026 letter that repeated his call to end Familiar Faces.
Markey said that Amazon revealed in its response to his first letter “that Ring’s privacy protections apply only to device owners who may ‘opt in’ to the Familiar Faces feature, while providing no comparable consent mechanism for individuals unknowingly subjected to facial recognition, leaving members of the public with no right to consent to a facial scan and no control over their biometric data.”
According to Markey’s follow-up letter, Amazon also revealed that “individuals seeking deletion of their biometric data [must] request removal from each individual Ring device owner, forcing people to make separate deletion requests for every home they visit,” and “that the number of law enforcement agencies on its Neighbors Public Safety Service has grown from 2,161 in 2022 to 2,723 today.”
Ring posed privacy risks before the Familiar Faces and Search Party features were launched. In 2023, the FTC filed a lawsuit accusing Ring of invading users’ privacy by “allowing thousands of employees and contractors to watch video recordings of customers’ private spaces.” Amazon did not admit any wrongdoing but agreed in a settlement to pay $5.8 million for customer refunds, delete certain types of data, and implement privacy and security controls.
Michael Jackson Drank ‘Two Bottles of Cough Syrup a Night to Sleep’
Michael Jackson’s private struggle to sleep may have been even more disturbing than fans ever knew.
A former bodyguard for the King of Pop claims the superstar was so desperate for rest that he would sometimes down two full bottles of cough syrup in one night, far beyond the recommended dose on the label.
The shocking claim comes from Matt Fiddes, who worked as Jackson’s personal bodyguard from 1999 to 2009. According to Fiddes, Jackson would send him out to buy multiple bottles of cough syrup because the singer believed it was the only way he could get through the night.
But even that allegedly was not enough.
Fiddes said safety limits meant he often had to visit several different pharmacies to collect the medicine Jackson wanted. When he returned to the singer’s hotel room, he claimed he watched in horror as Jackson quickly drank bottle after bottle.
“I get to his hotel room, and it horrified me because he downed them,” Fiddes recalled during an appearance on The Art of Dialogue podcast. “He downed them. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And then he got another one. Downed it.”
Fiddes said he tried to warn Jackson that he was taking far too much.
“I was like, ‘Whoa, I think you should just take two, five milliliter teaspoons of that, Mike,’” he said.
But according to the bodyguard, Jackson insisted he needed it.
“He said, ‘No, I have to have it. I won’t sleep. I got this important meeting in the morning. I got people flying in,’” Fiddes claimed.
The saddest part, according to Fiddes, was that even the massive amount of syrup did not work.
“He drank two bottles of it,” he said. “And he was still wide awake two hours later. He stayed up all night.”
Jackson’s desperate battle with insomnia would later become a major part of the tragic story surrounding his death.
The music icon eventually hired Dr. Conrad Murray to oversee his medical care. Murray was reportedly paid $150,000 a month and was tasked with helping Jackson sleep as the singer prepared for his planned comeback concerts.
Jackson biographer Steve Knopper has said the singer had tried to get doctors to give him stronger and stronger sleep drugs and painkillers, but many refused.
“But doctor Murray would say yes,” Knopper said.
Murray later administered propofol, a powerful anesthetic normally used in medical settings, to help Jackson sleep. The drug became central to the investigation into Jackson’s death on June 25, 2009.
At Murray’s trial, prosecutors revealed that Jackson had been receiving nightly propofol treatments for insomnia. Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2011 and sentenced to four years in prison.
Fiddes also painted a heartbreaking picture of Jackson’s final years, claiming the singer was never the same after being accused of child molestation.
“It was clear after the trial verdict he was never going to be able to click his fingers and be back in Michael Jackson mode again,” Fiddes said.
He described Jackson near the end as a shell of the man the world once knew.
“He was like a walking dead man by the end,” Fiddes claimed. “Eating and sleeping was a battle. He was just a complete mess.”
Fiddes said the accusations took a devastating toll on Jackson, who he claimed wanted desperately to prove his innocence and move on with his life.
“He lost so much weight,” Fiddes said. “It took a big toll on him. But he was adamant he wanted to prove his innocence. Michael wanted to get all this rubbish behind him.”
The former bodyguard added that it was painful for Jackson to hear the allegations made against him.
“He struggled,” Fiddes said. “It was awful for him to hear all those things said about him.”
Nearly two decades after Jackson’s death, new claims about his final years continue to stir fascination, sadness, and debate among fans.
For millions, he remains one of the most gifted entertainers who ever lived.
But behind the glittering stage lights, moonwalks, and record-breaking fame, those who were closest to him say Jackson was also a deeply troubled man fighting private battles the public never fully saw.
It’s easy to think of recycling as the solution, but the vast majority of plastic waste now ends up in landfills, or worse.
A large amount of plastic waste gets shipped overseas. In a new study, my colleague and I analyzed what happens when plastic waste is shipped to lower- and middle-income countries, where open burning is a common way of dealing with excess waste. The result, we found, is pronounced increases in toxic air pollution.
A worker carries a basket of plastic waste, wood and coconut husks to be used as fuel to fry tofu at a factory in Sidoarjo, Indonesia, in 2025. Burning waste is a common way to cut fuel costs, but studies have found high levels of microplastics in the tofu from these factories, toxic ash inside the buildings and hazardous levels of air pollution.Robertus Pudyanto/Getty Images
When plastic burns, it releases particularly toxic air pollutants. Fine particles can penetrate deep into people’s bodies, along with gases that include carbon monoxide, styrene gas and hydrogen cyanide. It also releases persistent organic pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and dioxins. These particles and gases have been linked to health risks ranging from respiratory and cardiovascular disease to cancer and reproductive and neurological disorders.
The ash from open burning can also contaminate soil and groundwater with persistent organic pollutants, heavy metals and other toxicants, creating more chances for people to be exposed to them through food and water.
Where this exported plastic waste ends up has been shifting.
In 2018, China stopped importing plastic waste, causing the total amount of plastic waste moving among countries – at least through official channels – to drop dramatically. Between 1992 and 2016, China’s plastic waste imports made up 45% of global imports.
We harnessed data from multiple monitoring systems, including satellite observations and cargo ship tracking signals, to understand where these plastic waste imports went and how much air pollution was released by openly burning this waste.
We found that particulate matter air pollution – of great concern for health – increased an average of 3.3% at the locations of large open waste dump sites in Indonesia after China’s ban in 2018-19 relative to expected business as usual, based on data from 2012-17. We found increases up to 1.68 micrograms per cubic meter.
Based on risk estimates from a global study of mortality associated with long-term exposure to outdoor fine particulate matter, this corresponds to an approximate 1.5%, 1.9% and 3.5% increase in mortality risk from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer and lower respiratory infections, respectively.
In mid-2025, Malaysia followed suit, allowing plastic waste only from countries that have ratified the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal – a treaty that the U.S. has never ratified.
For these bans to be effective, these countries must also find ways to contend with illegal plastic waste shipments and paper imports contaminated by plastic waste.
Meanwhile, negotiations for an international, legally binding treaty on plastic waste, started in 2022, have stalled. In mid-2024 the European Union did pass a new regulation on waste shipments, prohibiting exporting plastic waste to countries outside the group of wealthy countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development from November 2026 to at least May 2029.
The effectiveness of these and future policies at reducing air pollution – and other kinds of environmental degradation – can be evaluated using methods like ours.
Ways to reduce plastic waste
As of 2021, only 5% to 6% of U.S. domestic plastic waste was recycled, according to estimates from the advocacy group Beyond Plastics and Bennington College. It is now even harder to export plastic waste to other countries that could “recycle” it.
Part of the problem is lack of capacity: The Association of Plastic Recyclers estimates that current plastic reclamation facilities in the U.S. and Canada could at most increase their plastic recycling by 35% to 44%, depending on the type of plastic, leading to a total recycling rate of 7% to 9%.
Ultimately, both decreasing plastic use and increasing recycling will likely be needed to solve the problem. Beyond consumer choices, packaging reuse – creating packaging and return systems that put the same materials back to work – can reduce the need for new plastics.
Recycling experts call for harmonized design standards to help streamline processing and deliver higher-quality recycled plastics, as well as extended producer responsibility fees or taxes to raise the cost of producing products that aren’t recyclable. The fees can provide needed funding to scale up recycling and other programs to reduce generation of plastic waste.
Since 2021, seven states have enacted extended producer responsibility laws focused on packaging: Maine, Oregon, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Washington and Maryland. However, it will take time to see the effects. Colorado’s final implementation plan, authorized in 2022, was approved only in late 2025. The first payment of extended producer responsibility fees to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment are scheduled to begin in mid-2026.
Ultimately, reducing and better managing our nation’s plastic waste can help prevent global health harms.
Why is this Trump official dead set on saving a failing California dam?
The Potter Valley Project, which dams Northern California’s Eel River, isn’t doing very much right now. Its reservoir is clogged with sediment, and drought often empties it out. The project once supported a hydroelectric power plant that could produce about 9 megawatts of electricity, which is about 1 percent of a typical fossil-fuel-fired plant, but it has not worked in years. Plus, some of its infrastructure may be at risk of collapsing during an earthquake.
Like thousands of other small dams across the U.S., it is now more trouble than it’s worth. That’s why the utility that owns the project, Pacific Gas and Electric, moved last year to demolish it and undam the river. PG&E has wanted to abandon the project for decades, but a final removal agreement required years of careful negotiation. The dam project currently supplies water to vineyards and cities in Sonoma County, and it’s the sole water source for the rural farm community of Potter Valley.
The final agreement was a delicate compromise: The Round Valley Indian Tribe, which has senior rights to water from the Eel, agreed to let some water flow from the river to farmers through a diversion tunnel, and the farmers agreed to accept about half the water they had received in past years when the reservoir was full. Supporters say that dam removal will restore natural water flow for vulnerable fish that have long inhabited the river.
But now, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins appears determined to blow up the deal.
An aerial view of the Potter Valley Project. Kyle Schwartz / CalTrout
The longtime ally of President Trump has joined a small group of local residents in mounting a public campaign against the deal. She may well succeed — she’s already identified an obscure Southern California water agency that suggests it’s open to taking control of the dams.
The intervention is just the latest in a series of efforts by Rollins to turn conservation issues into culture-war fodder. Under her leadership, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, hastargeted federal funding for sustainable farming practices as well as programs that broaden farmers’ access to USDA support — terminating billions of dollars worth of grants on the grounds that such initiatives are what Rollins has called “woke” holdovers from the Biden administration.
Supporters of dam removal have reacted to Rollins’s intervention with incredulity.
“It’s not really even the federal government [opposing the agreement]. It’s a couple of MAGA extremists who happen to be government actors,” said U.S. Representative Jared Huffman, a Democrat who represents the area in Congress. “It’s sort of political theater masked as some sort of policy move that purports to be about taking over and operating this project, which is pretty preposterous.”
Rollins’s attempt to derail the Potter Valley deal has thrown the region’s future into question. Without an agreement, the Eel River and its surrounding environment will likely continue to deteriorate. The Round Valley tribe could sue to claim its senior rights over the river’s water, leading to prolonged litigation that could jeopardize water availability for nearby farms and cities. And water deliveries from the degraded reservoir will likely continue to be meager. More broadly, the development threatens a recent trend of negotiation and compromise in vulnerable watersheds across the country. The Potter Valley project is the latest in a series of dam removal agreements, from the Juniata River in Pennsylvania to the massive Klamath River dam removal on the California-Oregon border. These bipartisan agreements are fragile even in the best of times, but by politicizing the issue, Rollins may have made a permanent truce impossible.
Even though many farmers who receive water from the Potter Valley Project support the dam removal agreement, there are many local landowners and conservative residents who oppose it. One of the most vocal is a ranch-animal veterinarian named Rich Brazil, who lives in the small town of Potter Valley, just south of the main project dam. Brazil’s daughter, Keely Brazil Covello, is a filmmaker who writes a blog called America Unwon that advocates for farmers and ranchers. Her blog, which is ranked 44th on Substack’s “Climate & Environment” leaderboard, has publicized the perceived downsides of the deal and framed it as an existential threat to Potter Valley.
“This will change the face of that area,” said Covello, who now lives in Southern California. “People need to know what’s happening.”
After PG&E secured the dam removal deal, Covello began writing frequently about the deal. In early September, Rollins retweeted one of Covello’s posts about Potter Valley with the caption, “I’m on it.” That month, Covello and her father helped organize a letter addressed to Rollins and seven other leaders in the Trump administration that urged the officials to reject the agreement as “inadequate, noncompliant with federal law, and dismissive of community and environmental consequences.” Rollins and Covello later engaged in what appeared to be a coordinated messaging campaign about the dam removal effort.
In the following months, Rollins held a series of meetings with Covello, Rich Brazil, and other local dam removal opponents, and posted to social media about how the state legislature and Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom are putting “fish over people” — a standard attack line used on environmental activists in California. In December, Rollins published a letter to the editor in a local newspaper, The Mendocino Voice, condemning the dam removal effort for its threat to farmers and ranchers in the region.
Later that month, the agriculture secretary also filed a notice to intervene in the project proceedings as well as comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, the nation’s independent dam regulator, requesting that the commission suspend PG&E’s formal request to surrender its license for the dams. “If this plan goes through as proposed, it will devastate hundreds of family farms and wipe out more than a century of agricultural tradition in Potter Valley,” said Rollins in a statement. “This plan would put countless USDA investments at risk and leave families even more vulnerable to drought and wildfire.”
Multiple current and former USDA staffers and officials told Grist that the USDA’s arguments in its request to FERC appear to omit the conservation and environmental priorities of the agency’s mission areas. In it, the agency argued that the dam decommissioning would cause adverse impacts to many of USDA’s mission areas, claiming impacts across five of the USDA’s subagencies, including the U.S. Forest Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service, or NRCS.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins delivers remarks to farmers from the Truman balcony of the White House as President Donald Trump looks on in Washington, D.C. Oliver Contreras / AFP via Getty Images
Erin Foster West, a former NRCS staffer who is now executive programs director at the National Young Farmers Coalition, said that while the NRCS and Forest Service have historically managed and worked to support very small dams, the Potter Valley Project appears to have no obvious connection to USDA’s operations.
Gloria Montaño Greene, who served as deputy undersecretary of the USDA’s Farm Production and Conservation mission area during the Biden administration and was involved with the Klamath Dam removal, said these processes typically unfold very differently than the administration’s current approach — slowly, across multiple administrations, with a wide range of stakeholders at the table. The USDA’s public intervention here, she suggested, looks nothing like that.
“What’s the NRCS saying? What’s the state of California saying? What are the tribal leads for the area saying? There are many voices in the conversation,” she said.
Answers to these questions have remained elusive, and the story has only gotten stranger. Covello, Brazil, and the other dam removal opponents met with USDA officials in January at the Farm Bureau convention in Anaheim and in Washington, D.C., a month later. Then, in late April, Rollins announced that an entity had emerged to buy the dams from PG&E: the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District, a water service provider some 500 miles away in Riverside County. A member of the Elsinore Valley board appeared on Covello’s podcast and declared her ambition to take over the dams, framing it as an altruistic gesture that will protect water supply for all Californians.
“All of California benefits when there’s water and all of California is harmed when there’s not,” Burke told Grist when asked why she wanted to acquire the project. She admitted that “there might be no benefit” to her district and said that “we are just interested and doing our due diligence.” Burke added that she first learned about the dam removal deal when she read an X post from Chad Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff who is running for governor as a Republican.
Policymakers and environmentalists have blasted Elsinore Valley’s involvement as at best a political stunt and at worst a plan to siphon water from Northern California and deliver it farther south. There is no infrastructure that could convey water from Potter Valley down to Elsinore Valley, making a direct water transfer physically impossible, but that has not quelled suspicions. Huffman’s office has begun a formal investigation into Elsinore’s involvement.
For Rollins, the political frenzy around the dam removal may be part of the point, according to Alicia Hamann, executive director of the environmental advocacy organization Friends of the Eel River.
“The involvement of this water district, nearly 600 miles away from the project, with no tangible connection to the power or the water associated with the project, is really bizarre,” said Hamann. She suspects that the administration could be using the case to appeal to farmers ahead of November’s midterm elections. Farmers, despite voting overwhelmingly for the GOP, have been increasingly dissatisfied with the administration’s trade policies and geopolitical conflicts roiling America’s farm economy.
In response to inquiries from Grist, a USDA spokesperson reiterated Rollins’s position, saying that dam removal “is expected to create severe, lasting consequences for the region’s agricultural producers and surrounding communities.” The spokesperson added that removing the dams would harm water quality and compromise drinking water supplies, reduce firefighting capacity, and put groundwater wells at risk “while jeopardizing substantial USDA investments tied to loans, insurance programs, conservation work, and rural development.” The spokesperson also pointed to other “unresolved issues” but did not clarify them.
Rollins’s intervention has fractured the delicate consensus around the dam removal agreement, but no one involved seems to have any clue what will happen next. PG&E’s proposal to decommission the dams is still pending before FERC, and neither USDA nor Elsinore Valley has submitted a formal proposal to take them over.
In the meantime, the two sides of the debate have begun to exchange legal barbs. Friends of the Eel River and other environmental organizations submitted a public records request to the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District on May 5. The request, a copy of which was shared with Grist, cites concerns that the water district’s decision to explore purchasing the dams from PG&E violates the Brown Act, a California law that requires local legislative bodies to conduct their business in public.
Elsinore Valley appears to be pushing back. That same week, the water district and the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank cofounded by Rollins herself in 2021, began to file a torrent of their own public records requests to organizations that were involved in dam removal talks. While some of these were governmental agencies that are legally required to respond to such requests, others were private sector actors that are typically not subject to the law, like the conservation nonprofit CalTrout. The request toCalTrout, a copy of which was shared with Grist, sought all electronic communications concerning the Potter Valley Project; all records, internal documents, and funding applications; and all communications shared with a variety of related entities and agencies.
“We are not a public agency. So we were really confused we got it,” said Charlie Schneider, a project lead at the nonprofit. “What are they even after is hard to understand, right?”
Just days later, however, the America First Policy Institute rescinded its request. (The Institute declined to respond to a request for comment, instead directing Grist to the nonprofit’s public comment submitted to FERC opposing the dam removal.)
The most important local player in the Potter Valley conflict is the Round Valley Indian Tribe, which has senior rights to the water from the Eel River, meaning it could, in theory, assert a claim to the water that farmers and cities who rely on the Potter Valley Project are now using. The tribe has been pushing dam removal for generations, and the PG&E agreement was only possible thanks to their cooperation. They will allow farmers who got water from the dams to receive some of their Eel River water through a new diversion tunnel, and in exchange, the farmers will give the tribe money for ecosystem restoration.
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In an interview with Grist, tribal president Joseph Parker vowed to claim his tribe’s water rights if USDA continued to block the removal deal. This would mean a lengthy adjudication of the Eel River’s water rights, which could block Elsinore or any farmers downstream from taking water from the dams even if they did stay in place.
“We talked to USDA, we told them our story, and they listened, but you could tell they didn’t want to listen,” said Parker. “[The farmers] have been getting free water this whole hundred-plus years. Hopefully they know that we aren’t backing down and that we’re here for the long fight.” The tribe has addressed letters to both Rollins and Elsinore warning them about “the potential liabilities that any successor owner of these dams will likely face, and the resolve of our people to oppose their retention.”
Meanwhile, locals who have come to support the agreement argue that there’s no alternative to dam removal now that PG&E has decided to offload the project.
“If anybody had asked me ten years ago what would happen if [the Project] was gone I would have said it would be disastrous,” said Janet Pauli, a grape and hay farmer who is one of Potter Valley’s largest landowners and the head of the irrigation district representing most of the area’s farmers. “But that was then, and this is now.” Pauli helped secure the 2025 agreement in exchange for water diversion that would supply farms and cities downstream from Potter Valley during the winter.
Livestock graze on a patch of field not flooded by a swollen Eel River in Ferndale, California, in 2024. Stephen Lam / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
Pauli also argues that it’s possible to mitigate the negative effects of dam removal for local farmers in Potter Valley by expanding a nearby dam on the Russian River and building other water storage projects in the valley. She said that opponents of dam removal haven’t been advocating for those projects, which would make the area more self-reliant.
Covello and the other opponents of dam removal don’t believe that those replacement projects for Potter Valley will ever be built, or that the winter water diversions from the Eel River will come to fruition. She also said she’s heard from both tribal members in the area and employees at PG&E that dam removal will offer far fewer benefits than proponents claim.
“It’s not gonna happen, and it’s not gonna work,” she said. “What we have works right now, and California can’t build anything to save its life.”
A spokesperson for PG&E said the utility had tried multiple times to find a buyer for the dam and is moving forward with decommissioning. The spokesperson said that there has been “misinformation” about the utility’s role and the availability of alternatives to dam removal. “There is a significant difference between an entity inquiring about the Potter Valley Project and actually submitting a proposal to acquire the project,” the spokesperson said in an apparent reference to Elsinore Valley’s overtures.
Keeping the dams up would be an enormous challenge, even if Elsinore Valley succeeds in acquiring them. By all accounts, the Potter Valley Project is in terrible condition. The hydroelectric power house broke down in 2021, and the diversion tunnel from the dams sits on a seismic fault zone capable of triggering a major earthquake. Furthermore, the dams are out of compliance with federal environmental laws around fish passage and water quality. Upgrading them to meet all these conditions would take hundreds of millions of dollars.
FERC, for its part, appears to be moving forward with the Potter Valley dam license surrender and decommissioning in lieu of any viable alternative. On May 22, the agency kicked off its environmental assessment of the Potter Valley removal project by releasing its first National Environmental Policy Act scoping document. That document calls dam retention “infeasible” because of seismic stability concerns, fruitless past efforts to find an operator for the project, and PG&E’s preferred alternative to remove the structure.
“FERC is saying, ‘There’s nothing else in front of us to assess,’” said CalTrout’s Schenider. “It’s certainly helpful [in] understanding where things are actually at.”
Even though they’re on opposite sides of California’s traditional conservation debate, which pits environmentalists who want to keep water in rivers against farmers who want to use it, Schneider agrees with Pauli, the local grape and hay farmer who thinks dam removal is the best path forward for the community.
“For USDA, some funding support for those farmers … strikes me as a much better use of their time and energy than trying to save 100-year-old dams that are eventually going to fill with sediment,” he said.
Kyle Farmer, a farmer and rancher who lives in Potter Valley, said the truth is far more nuanced than the fish-versus-people framing that Rollins has adopted. He once fought to preserve the dam, but now he views the big challenge in Potter Valley as finding a way to make farmers and residents whole once the dams inevitably go down.
“It would be great if this was a fish-versus-farmer problem, because there is a lot of precedent on how to handle those,” he said. “What we haven’t made much progress on is how to replace aging infrastructure. This is more like a town whose bridge is failing.”
How Pacific islands can gain from Australia-Japan ties
In their meeting on May 4 in Canberra, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Japanese counterpart, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, agreed to prioritize a range of issues including supply chains, energy, critical minerals, trade and security.
Under the framework of the Joint Declaration on Economic Security Cooperation, the leaders also pledged to support Pacific island countries (PICs) to combat money laundering through capacity-building initiatives. This should be seen by PICs as a positive development, as the crime remains one of the key challenges in the region.
The implicit identification of China as a threat to regional stability will displease some Pacific Island nations and perhaps encourage others. In all, however, strengthening Australia-Japan ties is overwhelmingly positive for a disparate region.
Multilateralism is central to the diplomatic and economic functioning of the island nations. In light of the US’s repudiation of international institutions and China’s increasingly aggressive acts, its decline is cause for alarm. North Korean missiles flying over Japan and Chinese aircraft buzzing foreign planes may feel far from, say, Port Moresby. But Pacific island governments notice, register and are planning for this more disputatious era.
Chinese influence in the Pacific Island countries is well documented; its economic and security cooperation initiatives in the region have surged in recent decades. Solomon Islands is closely aligned with China. Kiribati has welcomed Chinese funding for airstrip upgrades, seen by some analysts as evidence of grey-zone military tactics. Luganville Wharf on Vanuatu may soon serve a similar “dual-use” purpose — for Chinese commercial and military vessels alike.
The Australian government is well aware of these investments (or encroachments, depending on who you ask). For its part, Japan’s Takaichi government is pushing itself to step up across the islands, adding hard capabilities to its energetic diplomatic efforts.
In February this year, Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi welcomed 28 countries to Tokyo for the third Japan-Pacific Islands Defense Dialogue. Agreements were made with Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Fiji covering maritime security and disaster relief. Koizumi has been clear that the global and regional security environment is deteriorating and that Japan is sharpening its military capabilities and partnerships in response.
Under Koizumi, Japan’s defense budget will now exceed 9 trillion yen (around US$56 billion), closing in on the 2% of GDP target well ahead of schedule. Self-defense is the priority, but self-defense will come, in part, in the form of stronger alliances across the Indo-Pacific.
Koizumi’s call for the “autonomy” of the Pacific island countries aligns with this approach and serves as a clear rebuke to China. Japan’s alternative pitch is the preservation of national sovereignty with Tokyo serving as a long-term security partner. This is the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) way, as it were. Now in its tenth year but updated for the current circumstances, Japan’s FOIP vision is based on freedom of navigation and trade, and the preservation of national sovereignty.
The Albanese government has faced diplomatic setbacks in the Pacific islands, not least the failure of a security and climate pact with Vanuatu in 2025. (A revised version of the Nakamal Agreement was approved by Vanuatu’s cabinet in May 2026, but only after explicit language limiting China’s security and investment role in the country was stripped out.)
Australia is sometimes seen as “other” on the islands or too close a partner of the United States. Japan’s renewed focus on the islands, therefore, will be welcome.
As Japan-Australia collaboration on global challenges intensifies, this will have positive knock-on effects on Pacific security.
For example, on April 18, Australia signed contracts for 11 of Japan’s Mogami-class frigates in a deal worth A$10 billion (US$7 billion). This acquisition will bolster the Royal Australian Navy. The frigates, to be built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, will have a range of up to 10,000 nautical miles — a gamechanger for Australia’s efforts to protect the Pacific islands’ maritime sovereignty.
The deal was followed by Prime Minister Takaichi’s overhauling of defence export regulations. Now, Japan’s firms will be able to sell lethal weaponry to countries with which it holds defense equipment and technology transfer agreements, including Australia and New Zealand. Increased exports and improved interoperability with Japan’s Self-Defense Forces will be a plus for regional security and stability.
In tandem with defense export reform, Japan’s official security assistance (OSA) budget for 2026 has been doubled to 18.1 billion yen (A$175 million). PNG and Tonga were named priority recipients for the 2025-2026 period. Dual-use assets for disaster response and maritime infrastructure building have already been provided to PNG.
Australian policy in the Pacific island countries has tended to focus on economic support. A record A$2.2 billion worth of Official Development Assistance (ODA) was committed to the Pacific in the 2026-2027 budget. Climate funding has been generous for some island nations. But tools to preserve national sovereignty have been constabulary- and maritime policing-oriented. For example, Australia’s Pacific Maritime Security Program, under which 12 Pacific island countries plus Timor-Leste have been gifted Guardian-class patrol boats, is a notable success. In terms of hardware, Japan is now well placed to add lethal weapons to the foundations of regional security.
Pacific island countries are too small — economically, militarily and diplomatically, with very limited resources and capacity — to explicitly take sides in the superpower rivalry. They should be cautious about middle power alignment, too. That said, external interests that act in good faith to preserve, not erode, national sovereignty should be welcomed. To that end, Australian economic aid and Japan’s more defense-edged approach are opportunities to be exploited.
The concept of rowing between the reefs — finding a path through choppy geopolitical waters without cleaving to one side of a conflict — has become somewhat of a cliché in international affairs. But it is surely the best way for Pacific island countries to preserve national sovereignty and secure prosperity in an era of escalating confrontation.
Moses Sakai is resident Vasey fellow at the Pacific Forum, a foreign policy think tank based in Hawai’i. He was previously a research dellow at PNG National Research Institute and a visiting scholar on US foreign policy at the University of Delaware.
Mathematicians warn of AI threats to profession as industry encroaches
Mathematicians warned against rising tech industry influence in a declaration describing the many challenges that AI poses to mathematics research. The timing of the declaration comes two weeks after OpenAI publicized one of its AI models as having disproved an 80-year-old mathematical conjecture in geometry.
The declaration was developed by a working group of 16 researchers over eight months following a conference held at Leiden University in the Netherlands in September 2025. Published on June 2, 2026, the resulting Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics has been endorsed by the International Mathematical Union—the international non-governmental organization that hosts conferences and oversees the most prestigious prizes in mathematics such as the Fields Medal.
“Mathematicians should find it quite striking that tech companies are suddenly interested in their work,” said Kevin Buzzard, a mathematician at Imperial College London, in a statement. “The Leiden Declaration is a well-thought-through response to what is currently happening, as AI continues to disrupt this space.”
The Leiden Declaration, which has already drawn hundreds of signatories, warns that recent AI developments are threatening “characteristic values” of mathematical research, “often in ways that disproportionately affect students and early-career mathematicians, and hence the long term future of the discipline.”
First, it points out how AI models can “produce plausible but unreliable (or even incorrect) arguments which are difficult to distinguish from correct mathematical proofs.” Such developments put reviewers under increasing pressure and are “jeopardizing our ability to implement traditional standards for the correctness, transparency, and independent verifiability of proof,” the declaration warns.
“Inaccurate AI-generated drafts are cheap to produce, and there is a risk of cluttering the literature with claimed results that are simply wrong,” said Leslie Ann Goldberg, head of computer science at the University of Oxford, in a statement. “Once that happens, the errors are likely to propagate as new results are built on faulty foundations.”
Second, the declaration highlights how “models trained on published works frequently return outputs that do not properly cite the human works they synthesize,” while also pointing out that many current AI models were trained on data obtained through “exploiting licenses and access arrangements” or “simply violating copyright protections.”
Third, the declaration describes how the use of AI “may become incentivized for its own sake, disrupting our mechanisms for hiring, funding and recognition” while leaving out researchers who lack access or are “unwilling to use technologies controlled by organizations whose values they do not share.”
Fourth, the declaration warns against mathematics research “communicated through informal channels such as press releases or blog posts, often without any research paper or other disclosure of information necessary for scientific evaluation.” Such communication strategies can lead to “oversimplification” in media reporting that overemphasizes AI tools’ significance at the expense of prior human contributions, and “misleadingly uses specific mathematical tasks as metrics for the general reasoning capacities of commercial products.”
Fifth, the declaration describes “increasing involvement of technology companies in mathematical research” as threatening the “autonomy of mathematics,” especially as university budgets are under pressure and researchers may feel greater professional incentive to collaborate with technology companies on “asymmetric terms.” This also raises the risk that mathematics research questions amenable to AI-driven techniques may be prioritized.
The OpenAI example
Many of the Leiden Declaration’s warnings seem especially relevant to how OpenAI announced its model’s mathematical achievement on the same day that news publications reported the company was preparing to offer stock shares to the general public. The declaration pointedly described corporate press releases highlighting AI mathematical achievements as operating on “market timelines before the accepted processes of community evaluation in mathematics can take place.”
“The tech industry proceeds in accordance with commercial logic, which is antithetical to the values of mathematics,” said Michael Harris, a mathematician at Columbia University and an author of the declaration, in a New York Times interview. He also spoke of the declaration attempting to “recover control of the narrative about the values and goals of mathematics from the AI industry.”
OpenAI uploaded a research paper describing its AI model’s mathematical proof along with commentary from independent mathematicians. But the company did not disclose information about prompts, AI training data, and the amount of computational resources used to solve the mathematics problems in question, said Rodrigo Ochigame, a historian and anthropologist of computing and artificial intelligence at Leiden University and another author of the declaration.
“The AI model is proprietary and unavailable to anyone outside the company,” Ochigame told The New York Times. “We get a flashy promotional video, while basic information needed to assess the scientific meaning of the result is kept secret.”
The OpenAI achievement was “remarkable” but likely involved substantial compute resources, said Ursula Martin, a mathematician and computer scientist at Oxford University and an author of the declaration, in The New York Times interview. She suggested that similar quantities of equivalent effort from human mathematicians would have probably solved the problems in the same way—and she cautioned that mathematics is also about the “cultivation of ideas, understanding, judgment and human insight” beyond solving problems.
Similar expressions of support for human intellectual efforts in mathematics appear in endorsements published on the Leiden Declaration website.
“In my experience, mathematical ideas, like children, must be nurtured and grow over the years,” said Peter Scholze, director of the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics, in a statement. “Just like I do not want my children to be educated by AI, I am pondering my mathematical ideas without use of AI, and generally avoid reading AI-generated text as best as I can.”
Recommendations for humans
So what is a human mathematician to do during the AI boom? The Leiden Declaration recommends that individual mathematicians transparently disclose their use of AI tools, retain responsibility for the correctness of their mathematical work, continue crediting human authors while properly attributing work even if AI tools make that difficult, and consider using only AI tools that align with the values articulated in the declaration
The declaration also reminds mathematicians that mathematics has “applications in the development of technology for use in warfare, oppression, mass surveillance, and the undermining of democracy,” and so mathematicians should make ethical decisions accordingly when choosing external partnerships with tech companies.
Professional mathematical organizations can develop guidelines for the use of AI and other automated tools in publication and review, protect the rights of researchers as authors through licensing agreements that prevent their work from being used as training data without consent, and support the role of peer-reviewed publications. The declaration also suggests such organizations “actively prepare to become involved if major mathematical results are claimed using unconventional means.”
The authors of the declaration also offer straightforward recommendations for policymakers, including “protect the rights of authors,” “regulate the artificial intelligence industry,” and “invest in public computational infrastructure.” Under “don’t believe the hype,” the declaration warns about how “there is currently a strong commercial incentive on the part of the technology industry to overstate the capabilities of their products.”
Lastly, the declaration acknowledges that the tech industry “has offered lucrative jobs, monetary rewards, computing resources, and intellectually stimulating opportunities that some mathematicians have found attractive… in an era of underfunding of higher education and precarious academic employment.” It calls on such collaborations between mathematicians and the tech industry to abide by the standards laid out in the declaration.
“By endorsing the declaration, the IMU affirms that the future of mathematical research must be guided by human judgment, fair and transparent practices, and the shared values of the global mathematical community,” said Ulrike Tillmann, vice president of the International Mathematical Union, in a statement. “Mathematics is, and should always remain, a profoundly human endeavor.”
Growing Drone Threat Raises Concerns Over UK Energy Infrastructure
Britain is considering tighter restrictions on airspace above critical energy infrastructure amid growing concerns that hostile drones could be used to disrupt the country’s electricity network and potentially trigger widespread power outages.
The debate follows an investigation highlighting vulnerabilities across the UK’s network of substations, transmission lines and power facilities, which form the backbone of the national electricity grid. Security experts, lawmakers and campaigners have warned that advances in drone technology have created new risks for infrastructure that was not originally designed with aerial threats in mind.
Officials are examining whether designated no-fly zones should be introduced over sensitive energy sites to deter unauthorized drone activity and provide additional legal tools for enforcement. The proposal comes as governments across Europe reassess critical infrastructure security in response to evolving threats from both state and non-state actors.
The concerns reflect broader changes in modern warfare and sabotage tactics. Low-cost drones have become increasingly prominent in conflicts around the world, demonstrating an ability to strike military, industrial and energy targets with precision while remaining relatively inexpensive and difficult to detect. Experts say the same technologies could be adapted to target civilian infrastructure.
Britain has already experienced a sharp increase in drone-related incidents around sensitive sites. Government figures released earlier this year showed reported drone incursions near UK military bases more than doubled in 2025 compared with the previous year, prompting authorities to expand powers for the armed forces to counter unmanned aerial threats.
Security specialists argue that energy facilities are particularly attractive targets because even limited disruptions can have cascading effects across electricity networks. They have called for a layered approach that combines airspace monitoring, drone detection systems, physical security measures and closer coordination between government agencies and infrastructure operators.
The UK government and National Grid have faced increasing pressure to strengthen protections around key assets as geopolitical tensions and technological developments continue to reshape the threat landscape. Supporters of stronger safeguards say the country must move quickly to address vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.
The Pentagon Is Running an AI Propaganda Mill Targeting Latin America
The United States is feeding Pentagon propaganda to internet users in Latin American countries using a new AI-laden content mill, an investigation by The Intercept has found.
La Tilde quietly began development early this year and appears to still be a work in progress, pitching itself as a modern media brand for Latin American audiences with articles published in both Spanish and English. Its name references the accent mark emphasizing vowels in Spanish; “news with an accent” is the site’s catchphrase.
“The tilde is not an ornament. It is a millennial arrow designed to provide direction, save space, and turn up the volume,” a narrator states in a promotional video for the site bearing telltale signs it was AI-generated, such as a newspaper whose sloppily rendered headline reads “SO THEE HOUTIERRER TO TO GHAHOBATEE,” followed by imagery of two medieval monks. “That is why we place the accent on what matters. From the regional pulse and your well-being, to the big ideas and the global context.”
So far, La Tilde’s coverage amounts to an unusual blend of personal finance tips (“Why instant payments matter so much for your business and your wallet”) and articles extolling the value of U.S. military operations in Latin America (“Operation Absolute Resolve: The mission that captured Nicolás Maduro and set a new standard for precision and coordination”).
Its article on the U.S. abduction of the Venezuelan president praises the mission in Trumpian prose, calling it “The Perfect Operation – Coordination, Timing and Precision at an Unprecedented Scale,” and “a military operation of coordination and accuracy never seen before.” Citing “information obtained exclusively by La Tilde,” it describes the operation’s tactical brilliance, flawless execution, and incredibly precise coordination of military assets in the air and on the ground.
If this reads like Pentagon a press release, that’s because it is. An explanation for its glowing coverage of the U.S. military can be found after clicking a small link tucked at the bottom of the site. “La Tilde is a product of an international media organization publicly funded from the budget of the United States Government,” its About page reads.
This easily missed disclosure language is identical to two other Pentagon-sponsored propaganda sites recently revealed by The Intercept.
Targeting audiences, foreign or domestic, with state-run information campaigns remains a politically sensitive topic, and a token disclosure that La Tilde is a U.S.-funded platform allows the American government to say it technically informed readers about the actual source of the information.
According to a defense official familiar with U.S. information operations, La Tilde is operated as a military messaging platform for U.S. Special Operations Command South, or SOCSOUTH, which executes special forces missions throughout South and Central America as well as the Caribbean. When asked about SOCSOUTH’s role behind La Tilde, spokesperson Trevor Wild replied with the text of the site’s About page noting that it’s a government operation, but declined to comment further.
U.S. Southern Command, or SOUTHCOM, which is broadly responsible for coordinating military assets in the countries La Tilde targets, denied involvement. SOUTHCOM “does not fund, operate, or have any official association with La Tilde,” according to spokesperson Steven McLoud, who did not respond to further questions.
Unlike most news websites, La Tilde carries no bylines, masthead, or mention of actual staff of any kind. Although the site claims it employs “dozens of freelance reporters and content creators,” at least some of the site appears to have been generated by a large language model. Running articles through Pangram, an AI-text detection service, produced multiple hits for both English and Spanish writing either partially or entirely written by machines (though such tools are known to deliver false positives).
Emerson Brooking, a fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab and former Pentagon cyber-policy adviser, told The Intercept he was struck by site’s shoddiness, describing it as “AI all the way down.”
Despite the low quality of AI-generated articles, this approach could help the Pentagon spin up propaganda efforts faster than in the past. “If you can generate new content and even news fronts at the flip of a switch, your influence operations can shift target and focus much more quickly,” Brooking said. “That seems to be the thinking behind recent AI-powered Russian and Chinese networks, for instance.”
An analysis of subdomains hosted on LaTilde.co reveals the site plans to launch bespoke versions for readers in Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, and Peru.
Some pro-U.S. content is clearly tailored to these national audiences. An article filed to the site’s “In Good Hands” section highlights the benefits of U.S.–Panamanian joint jungle warfare training exercises, regaling readers with how “temperatures and heart rates climb at the Cristóbal Colón Naval Air Base as Panamanian security forces push forward through the ‘Green Mile,’ the demanding final test of the Combined Jungle Operations Course.” Such joint initiatives are, according to La Tilde, a bulwark against China’s efforts to engage in similar joint exercises in Latin America. Rather than engage with “Beijing’s predatory practices,” the article suggests countries should follow Panama’s lead and “seek training opportunities closer to home or with longstanding partners such as the United States.”
The article makes no mention of the controversy surrounding PANAMAX, a joint military exercise between SOUTHCOM and the Panamanian forces that has sparked increased protest on the grounds it violates national sovereignty. Permanent U.S. military installations in Panama were shuttered in 1999 as part of a 1977 treaty between the two countries; Panamanian opposition parties decried the reestablishment of an American military presence under the guise of joint exercises as a “camouflaged invasion.” Participants in the 2025 PANAMAX exercise La Tilde is pushing include the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, previously known as the School of the Americas, a Pentagon training institute whose graduates included thousands of Latin American death squad gunmen and dictator Manuel Noriega.
The importance of military and intelligence-sharing compacts with the U.S. is a recurring theme. “Far from weakening sovereignty, this kind of cooperation can strengthen it,” one article says.
Other stories from La Tilde argue the American side of Latin American controversies, similarly downplaying issues of national sovereignty. One piece describes how the U.S. abduction of Maduro “has reawakened a long-contained hope among millions of Venezuelans inside and outside the country.” Another alleges Ecuador is a nexus of the international cocaine trade, echoing claims the Trump administration has used to expand Operation Southern Spear, SOUTHCOM’s Caribbean airstrike campaign that has killed more than 200 civilians to date.
It’s unclear who exactly is operating the site on a day-to-day basis. A similar network of military propaganda pages, descendants of an Obama-era information warfare program called the Trans-Regional Web Initiative, appears to be administered by military contractor General Dynamics Information Technology. Renée DiResta, who co-authored a 2022 report on online propaganda efforts backed by U.S. Central Command, told The Intercept that the TRWI successor websites share a common Google Ads identifier code owned by General Dynamics, according to a recent comprehensive analysis of the network she conducted. La Tilde also runs a legal disclosure with identical language as those sites.
General Dynamics did not respond to multiple requests for comment about La Tilde.
Halcyon Group International, another information warfare contractor that operates Diálogo Américas, a similar pseudo-news site backed by the Pentagon, told The Intercept it was not involved with La Tilde.
Design of the La Tilde website was subcontracted to Antpack, a Colombian digital marketing firm. Multiple files hosted on the site created by the AI image-generation service Midjourney contain the word “Antpack” in their name. The Intercept signed up for a user account on La Tilde, part of planned functionality that will let readers comment and save articles for later. Once registered, The Intercept was able to view comments left on a non-public version of the site used by its developers, who posted under names corresponding to LinkedIn profiles of Antpack employees. Antpack did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
U.S. Special Operations has a long record of leading the American internet propaganda efforts, ranging from high-tech efforts to less-sophisticated projects like phony online newsrooms. SOCOM has since 2018 operated the Joint Military Information Support Operations Web Operations Center, which coordinates information warfare and online psychological operations.
The Intercept reported in 2023 that SOCOM was working on acquiring state-of-the-art “deepfake” video fabrication technologies to “generate messages and influence operations via non-traditional channels,” according to procurement documents. La Tilde appears to be using low-effort AI tools rather than anything cutting-edge. Art accompanying its stories often includes portion of the prompt used to quickly generate the image in the file name, and shows mixed results, such as a rendering of the White House portico missing several of its columns or a diploma with garbled text. Photographs illustrating pro-SOUTHCOM messaging, however, are drawn from the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, an official Pentagon media library.
“The intent is probably to fill these sites with generic material, build an audience base, and then slip in more pieces of explicit propaganda, like that rather fulsome recounting of the U.S. attack on Venezuela,” Brooking said. “This is how you build these sorts of networks. But the content is lazy, the AI is bad, and the required disclosures make the whole thing a farce.”
