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UN committee warns Palestinian children increasingly unprotected amid pressure on rights groups

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UN committee warns Palestinian children increasingly unprotected amid pressure on rights groups

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on Monday warned that Palestinian children are being left increasingly unprotected as human rights defenders and humanitarian organizations are forced to halt or scale back their work in the occupied Palestinian territories, including Gaza and the West Bank, Anadolu reports.

In a statement, the committee strongly condemned what it described as Israel’s recent tactics of labeling human rights defenders and civil society organizations as “terrorists.”

It said the measures have been accompanied by military raids, travel bans, financial sanctions, threats of arrest, destruction of records and threats of secondary sanctions against partners supporting their work.

The committee expressed concern that organizations assisting children are being forced to curtail operations because of “sustained harassment, threats, bans, sanctions and attacks on their reputations.”

READ: Israeli army kills 2 Palestinians in southern occupied West Bank

“For more than three decades, these organizations have played a vital role in defending Palestinian children, including in the Israeli military courts, and in documenting grave violations against Palestinian children at the hands of Israeli forces,” it said.

“Without them, Palestinian children will be even less protected, and violations of their rights risk continuing with impunity.”

The committee called on Israel to immediately remove restrictions on child rights defenders and humanitarian groups and urged the international community to hold Israeli authorities accountable for attacks targeting Palestinian human rights defenders.

“Child rights defenders have continued to stand with Palestinian children and families in extraordinarily dangerous conditions,” it said. “They must be protected, not punished.”

READ: ‘Losing bet’: Hebrew media reports failure of armed militias to challenge Hamas in Gaza

Following user outcry, AMD reinstates memory encryption in consumer CPUs

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Following user outcry, AMD reinstates memory encryption in consumer CPUs

Consumer AMD CPUs will once again offer encryption protections against physical attacks after facing user backlash for silently removing the feature.

As Ars reported last week, AMD stripped the protection, known as TSME, from consumer Ryzen processors. Short for Transparent Secure Memory Encryption, TSME encrypts the entire contents stored in memory, making the data useless to adversaries performing cold boot attacks and similar intrusions requiring physical access.

Now you see it, now you don’t, soon you’ll see it again

About a decade ago, AMD added TSME to its high-end CPUs. Over the next few years, AMD added the protection to lower-end processors, including the consumer version of its Ryzen chips, a CPU that costs less than the Pro version. Over the years, users of these lower-end chips have gotten used to the added security, although some security experts (and plenty of novices, too) note that consumer chips are far less likely to be targeted by physical attacks. Recently and without warning or notice, the lower-end line of AMD chips suddenly dropped the protection, and it did so in a way that was impossible to detect on Windows machines and required a fair amount of technical work when using Linux. AMD last week declined to explain or acknowledge the change.

Following the revelation, social media was deluged by comments from AMD consumers decrying the move. They noted that AMD’s quiet removal of TSME after supporting it for so long seemed underhanded. The move came solely as a result of firmware changes made in a recent update. With no physical changes required to silicon, continued support was largely, if not purely, a matter of will rather than a necessity required by changes to hardware. The critics called on AMD to reverse the move.

Over the weekend, AMD said it planned to do just that in a firmware update scheduled for release next month. More often than not, the chipmaker refers to TSME as Memory Guard.

“Regarding certain non-PRO Ryzen 9000-series desktop processors, a BIOS option to enable Memory Guard was previously available but was removed in a recent update,” AMD said in an email. “Based on valuable community feedback, we will reinstate this option in an upcoming BIOS release in July.”

The company has yet to explain why it removed the protection. Critics speculate that AMD dropped it in an attempt to steer customers toward more costly CPUs.

It’s possible, though, that there were less nefarious reasons, such as the difficulty of continued support as chip designs changed. Another possibility is that AMD made the move for performance reasons. Encrypting and decrypting data in memory creates latency. Slowdowns are the enemy of gamers, one of the more popular customer segments using the 9000-line of Ryzen processors. Since many gamers already voluntarily disabled TSME and had little need for it in the first place, AMD may not have considered the change of much consequence.

The incident, and AMD’s refusal to discuss it, is emblematic of the public relations landscape that has emerged over the past two decades. Once, Big Tech and corporations in general were willing to acknowledge service and product changes to ensure customers had a predictable experience. They also showed a willingness to admit mistakes and to say how they planned to do better. Now, there’s only silence. As the companies’ power and dominance have mushroomed, their sense of accountability has diminished proportionately.

AMD didn’t respond to questions sent for this story.

TSME transparently encrypts all physical memory flowing in or out of the processor. It protects against cold boot attacks and similar attacks that use sophisticated techniques to siphon data out of memory chips once an adversary has gained physical access to them. Memory pages are automatically encrypted and decrypted on each write or read. An ephemeral encryption key is created during each system start and isn’t accessible by software. Unlike Secure Memory Encryption, TSME is OS independent, a condition that makes it much easier to enable.

The automatic encryption and decryption does come at a performance cost that differs depending on the tasks the chips are performing. Some game developers advise users to disable TSME.

Oftentimes, disabling security protections is frowned upon. In this case, the move is less risky since systems running consumer chips are less likely to store data that’s valuable enough to motivate a sophisticated physical attack.

The counterargument is that AMD has included TSME in its consumer Ryzen CPUs for about a decade. The company long left the decision to enable or disable the protection to users. Critics argue that the removal deprived them of a capability that had been tacitly promised. Making the move silently only added to the sense AMD was pulling a fast one.

Despite AMD’s continued opacity about the incident, the company deserves credit for restoring TSME. Customers complained, some bitterly, and AMD heard and granted their demands.

Trump threatens to invade Iran, torpedoing Swiss peace talks

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Trump threatens to invade Iran, torpedoing Swiss peace talks

US President Donald Trump’s threats to destroy Iran and send US forces to occupy the country on Sunday appear to have derailed peace negotiations in Switzerland, with the Iranian delegation reportedly walking out and demanding an apology.

Following Iran’s announcement that it was closing the Strait of Hormuz again after Israel intensified its assault on Lebanon, Trump went on a tirade Sunday in which he threatened to assassinate negotiators and said Iran “won’t have a country” if access to the critical waterway was shut off, while also threatening to “take over” Iran with a full US invasion.

According to Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst, Trump told the Iranian negotiators that if they close the strait, which Iran claimed to have shuttered once again on Saturday, you “won’t even make it back to their f***ing country,” in what appeared to be a threat to assassinate the negotiators, as happened during the initial phase of the war.

But after Trump’s threats — which broke the first clause of the memorandum of understanding — Iran’s negotiators filed a complaint with the Pakistani and Qatari mediators and stormed out of the mountain resort where talks were being held, according to several outlets.

While Trump clearly sought to project strength, Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said his team “do not take American threats seriously.”

In previous months, as Trump sought to squeeze concessions from the Iranians, he issued escalatory threats to wipe out their “whole civilization” and “blow up” the whole country. However, he did not act on those threats, even as Iran refused to budge from its negotiating posture.

“Don’t they think that if their threats had worked, they wouldn’t have ended up in today’s desperate situation?” Ghalibaf said.

Ghalibaf said the US had “better be more careful with their statements,” adding that “our armed forces are ready to respond in a different way.” He said, “No matter what they say, we are the ones who act.

While the Iranian delegation left the venue, talks are reportedly continuing via mediators. However, according to the Lebanese outlet Al Mayadeen, the delegation said it will not return until Trump apologizes for his threats and Israel fully withdraws from Lebanon.

According to senior Israeli officials cited by Channel 12, Israel is reportedly considering “limited withdrawals” from Lebanon, including in areas within its so-called “buffer zone.” Despite Iranian claims, the officials said the US has not requested Israel’s withdrawal from the country.

Previous peace talks have been derailed by Trump’s threats to commit indiscriminate war crimes in Iran. But last week has seen perhaps the most violent swing yet in his approach toward Iran.

While last week Trump acknowledged Iran’s right to enrich uranium and maintain a nuclear energy program like that of other nations, his outburst Sunday appeared to have been prompted by a statement by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who said the US would be “forced to accept” its right to enrichment.

Responding to statements by Pezeshkian, who said Iran would not give up its “right to enrich uranium”, Trump reportedly said Pezeshkian had better “watch his mouth” and “shape up,” or the US “will take over the rest of the country.”

The threat to fully occupy Iran, which Trump made publicly for the first time on Sunday, stands in sharp contrast to his comments that continuing the war for much longer would cause “economic catastrophe” and that even limited ground operations, such as one he had proposed to seize Iran’s uranium, would be too big an effort to be worth it.

The war with Iran is already deeply unpopular among the American public, even without US boots on the ground. Polls have shown that even a majority of Republicans would be opposed to Trump escalating the war by deploying ground troops, and military officials have shelved planned operations to occupy certain strategic locations, including Kharg Island, fearing a large number of American casualties.

Nevertheless, Trump also told Yingst that the US could become the “guardian angel” of the Strait of Hormuz, collecting tolls and taking oil from countries using the waterway for exports. He did not make clear how the US would gain control of the strait under such a scenario.

Iran announced that it would close the strait again on Saturday after Israel deepened its occupation and escalated its bombing of southern Lebanon, despite the MOU’s ceasefire agreement covering all fronts.

Iranian negotiators have described an end to Israel’s Lebanon occupation, which has killed more than 4,000 people and forced more than 1.2 million Lebanese civilians from their homes in the south, as a red line for negotiating peace.

Behind the scenes, Trump has acknowledged that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is using Lebanon to sabotage the ceasefire and drag the US back into a full-scale war.

In the phone call with Yingst, Trump once again said he was “disappointed Israel can’t put Hezbollah away,” adding that Israel “can’t do anything without knocking buildings down.” He also said he was close to allowing Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa—the former leader of al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate—to take over the operation against Hezbollah.

And while Trump has raged against Israel’s actions in Lebanon while privately claiming that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to sabotage peace, he has not taken concrete action to force Israel to comply with the memorandum’s terms.

“The mixed messages coming out of the White House,” remarked Jeet Heer, a writer at The Nation, “are going to make it much harder to end the war, and could in fact spark further conflict.”

Trita Parsi, executive vice president at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, described Israel’s continued escalations as “an existential threat” to the peace process between the US and Iran.

He told ABC News on Saturday that Iran’s threat to close the strait just before a meeting in Geneva this weekend was meant to be “part of a background of how serious they are” about ensuring that the US understands the stakes if Israel refuses to withdraw.

“Israel would prefer for this war to continue until you have a complete defeat of the Iranians, which, of course, is not in the cards,” Parsi said. “The Israelis sold this war to Trump as a quick, easy fix to the region’s problems that would take no more than four days, and they were dead wrong.”

“Now, Trump is recognizing that US interests necessitate that he pull out of this war and strikes this deal, but the Israelis are trying to sabotage it because they are afraid they’re going to be left out, that the balance in the region is going to shift against their interests,” he added.

“They’re willing to essentially jeopardize their relationship with the United States over this.”

– Common Dreams

Montreal Police Confirms 3 Dead After Côte-des-Neiges Shooting

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Montreal Police Confirms 3 Dead After Côte-des-Neiges Shooting


Montreal police announced on Monday that three people were dead after a shooting incident in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood.  The fatalities included a police officer, the suspect and a civilian.  

When law enforcement responded to an active shooting situation the police officer was reported as injured, and residents were told to remain indoors as officers searched for an armed suspect. 

A female police officer who was in critical condition is now stable.  The police reported a weapon used by the suspect has been seized. 

The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal issued an imminent-threat alert around 11:30 a.m. local time, warning that an armed and dangerous person was believed to be in the Côte-des-Neiges sector. Police told people in the area to avoid the streets, lock their doors, and stay away from windows while the operation continued. 

“We are asking everyone to avoid the sector. The situation is not under control,” Montreal police spokesperson Jean-Pierre Brabant said. 

Early reports placed the police response near Jewish institutions in Côte-des-Neiges, a diverse west-central Montreal neighborhood with a sizable Jewish population and several Jewish schools, synagogues, and community buildings. Authorities had not announced a motive or said whether the incident was connected to the Jewish community. 

Local and international outlets initially reported uncertainty about the number of casualties and the circumstances of the shooting. Police had not immediately released details about the suspect, the nature of the officer’s injuries, or whether any civilians had been wounded. 

The incident comes after several security scares involving Jewish institutions in Montreal since the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. Jewish schools in the city were struck by gunfire in separate incidents in 2023 and 2024, prompting increased concern among Jewish community organizations and local officials. No connection between those earlier cases and Monday’s police operation had been reported. 

Côte-des-Neiges is one of Montreal’s most densely populated and ethnically varied areas, home to students, immigrants, religious communities, and major institutions. A police alert in such a neighborhood carries immediate public-safety concerns, especially when issued during daylight hours. 

As of the latest reports, police were asking the public to avoid the area and allow officers to continue their operation. 

Man used massage gun on his tired eyeballs. It went as well as you’d expect.

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Man used massage gun on his tired eyeballs. It went as well as you’d expect.

For our weary eyeballs, strained and tired from long periods locked onto screens, rest and relaxation can do wonders. But a man in Scotland came up with an eye-popping plan to try to pamper his pooped peepers.

Ophthalmologists discovered it when the man, who was in his 20s, appeared at an eye treatment center in Edinburgh. He told them he had noticed increasing floaters and flashing lights in his right eye over the previous six days. According to a BMJ Case Report, the man said he hadn’t had any eye or head injuries before the vision problems began, and that his family didn’t have a history of eye disorders that might explain them. Besides having mild near-sightedness and needing glasses, he usually didn’t have any problems with his eyes, he said.

When the doctors—Niamh O’Connell ‍‍and Ashraf Khan—took a close look, they were surprised to find that both of his eyes were in terrible shape. In his right eye, he had multiple retinal tears, widespread retinal bruising, and a condition called retinal dialysis—a retinal break at a junction in the front of the eye—that is usually seen after a significant eye injury. In his left eye, he had more widespread bruising and six full-thickness rips in his retina.

Given the findings, they had more questions. They pressed him on any “untoward” things that might have happened to his battered orbs. The man then reluctantly admitted he had been trying to soothe his tired eyes with a percussive massage gun. Specifically, he used a gun with a small head attachment shaped like a bullet.

The massage gun with the small head attachment the man used.

Credit: BMJ Case Reports, 2026

The massage gun with the small head attachment the man used. Credit: BMJ Case Reports, 2026

Describing the man as a “hesitant historian,” the doctors said he eventually confessed to using the massage gun directly on and around both eyes on a weekly basis for three months to help with his eye fatigue. They noted that he did not have a history of psychiatric conditions or drug use.

Occular offense

The doctors acknowledged that percussive massage therapy may be helpful for some soft tissues, like muscles, with the vibrations possibly relieving pain, improving blood flow, and promoting relaxation. But it can demonstrably cause serious damage to the eyeballs.

The ill-conceived thwacking therapy likely caused all of the damage to the man’s eyes, the doctors concluded. The gun would have rapidly compressed the eyeballs back, causing them to squish out from the sides, which is thought to lead to retinal dialysis. Still, the doctors noted that the retinal dialysis was unusual because it was seen in the lower quadrant of the eye closest to the ear (inferotemporal quadrant). When retinal dialysis occurs from blunt trauma—like taking a fist to the eye, a more common cause of trauma—it usually occurs in the upper quadrant closest to the ear (superior temporal). Overall, the man’s case marks a first in scientific literature for how to injure an eyeball.

After identifying the injuries, the doctors used laser treatments to mend the retinal tears and rips and seal the break. At a six-month follow-up appointment, the man’s condition was stable without any deterioration. His vision was preserved, despite his injuries having a high risk of progressing to vision loss.

While his decision to put a massage gun to his eyes was highly questionable, he at least demonstrated good judgment in the aftermath, saving his sight, his doctors concluded. “This favorable outcome was likely due to the patient’s prompt presentation soon after noticing symptoms and the immediate initiation of treatment,” they wrote.

Jeffrey Epstein ‘Exploited’ Bill Gates’ Marriage

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Jeffrey Epstein ‘Exploited’ Bill Gates’ Marriage


Melinda French Gates never trusted Jeffrey Epstein — and according to a bombshell new column, she may have been the only one in Bill Gates’ inner circle who saw the warning signs clearly.

A new piece from bestselling author Michael Wolff claims the disgraced financier had a disturbing front-row seat to the unraveling of Bill and Melinda’s 27-year marriage.

Wolff, writing on his Substack HOWL, described Epstein as someone who allegedly inserted himself into Gates’ personal and professional world at a time when the Microsoft billionaire was trying to expand the Gates Foundation into a global powerhouse.

But behind the polished public image of one of the richest and most famous couples in the world, Wolff claims Epstein saw something far darker.

According to Wolff, Epstein believed Gates was dealing with two major problems around 2014: growing the foundation into something as influential as Microsoft — and escaping what Epstein allegedly viewed as a miserable home life.

“Or, at least, this is how Epstein came to perceive and portray the situation,” Wolff wrote.

Bill and Melinda Gates would not divorce until 2021, two years after Epstein died by suicide in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.

But Wolff claims that years before the split, Epstein had what he called a “detailed picture of the marriage’s hellscape.”

“Melinda Gates’ version of the breakup of her marriage puts considerable blame on Epstein — and her abhorrence of her husband’s new friend,” Wolff wrote.

Epstein’s version, according to Wolff, was very different. He allegedly claimed Gates was the one who needed a trusted friend because he was so unhappy with his wife.

That alleged friendship soon created what Wolff described as the “Melinda problem.”

French Gates reportedly objected to Epstein’s growing influence around her husband and the foundation. Epstein, of course, was not just any wealthy acquaintance. He was already a convicted sex offender, having served time after soliciting a minor for prostitution.

Wolff claims French Gates was especially alarmed by what came up when she searched Epstein’s name online.

In Wolff’s telling, Epstein and Gates allegedly discussed how to improve Epstein’s public image so French Gates would be more willing to accept him in their orbit.

But French Gates has made it painfully clear that she never accepted him.

She has said she met Epstein only once — and was immediately shaken by him.

“Have you ever in your life been around somebody that you just know is evil?” she told The Guardian earlier this month, becoming emotional as she recalled the encounter.

“Any woman who has ever been around somebody who is evil or had an experience and then if you’re around somebody else who is evil. Just no, no,” she said.

French Gates has also publicly criticized her ex-husband for continuing to associate with Epstein despite her objections.

She has said Gates’ relationship with Epstein was one of the factors that contributed to the end of their marriage.

Gates has since acknowledged that French Gates was skeptical of Epstein. Earlier this year, he reportedly told foundation staff that she was “always kind of skeptical about the Epstein thing.”

The Epstein connection resurfaced again this year after newly released files included an explosive allegation involving Gates and a sexually transmitted infection. According to the documents, Epstein drafted a 2013 email claiming Gates had contracted an infection after “sex with Russian girls” and allegedly discussed giving Melinda antibiotics.

Gates has strongly denied the claim and said there is no truth to it.

For French Gates, however, the renewed attention around Epstein has brought back painful memories.

During an interview with NPR host Rachel Martin on the podcast Wild Card, French Gates said seeing the Epstein coverage made her feel “sad, just unbelievable sadness.”

She said the details were “personally hard” because they brought back “very, very painful times” in her marriage.

“I left my marriage, I had to leave my marriage, I wanted to leave my marriage,” she said.

Bill and Melinda French Gates were once seen as one of the most powerful couples in the world — billionaires, philanthropists and public do-gooders with a global empire of influence.

But years later, Epstein’s name is still tied to one of the most painful chapters of their private life.

And Melinda French Gates has made one thing clear: she knew something was wrong from the start.

Heatwave tightens its grip on Europe

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Heatwave tightens its grip on Europe


A prolonged heatwave is expected to grip much of Italy until at least the end of June, with temperatures forecast to reach 39°C across large parts of the country, according to weather service iLMeteo.it.

Italian Meteorologist Mattia Gussoni was quoted by ANSA as saying that the highest temperatures will be concentrated across the northern plains and the Tyrrhenian regions. Major cities including Milan, Florence and Rome are expected to experience severe bioclimatic stress, with daytime highs of 37-38°C feeling even hotter because of the urban heat island effect.

Night-time conditions are also expected to remain oppressive, with temperatures struggling to fall below 24-25°C, creating so-called “super tropical nights” that hinder the body’s natural cooling process and can significantly affect sleep quality.

The heatwave extends beyond Italy, with France and Germany expected to be at the centre of the European heat event. Temperatures could approach 40°C in Paris and several German cities, while London is forecast to reach around 35°C as the hot air mass pushes unusually far north.

In France, authorities have placed dozens of regions under the highest level of heat alert, with temperatures forecast to exceed 42°C in parts of the southwest. Nearly 2,700 schools are expected to close or modify timetables because of the extreme conditions, while French officials have confirmed three heat-related deaths and warned that the hot weather is likely to persist for several more days.

In the United Kingdom, the heatwave is expected to bring temperatures of up to 35°C in London. Authorities have issued health warnings as unusually high temperatures are forecast to put pressure on transport infrastructure and increase health risks, particularly for vulnerable people.

According to iLMeteo.it, the heat is being driven by a large subtropical air mass spreading across Europe and the Mediterranean. The combination of already hot air and additional warming caused by compressing air within a strong high-pressure system could produce temperatures up to 15°C above seasonal averages in parts of France and Germany, raising the possibility of challenging records set during the 2003 European heatwave.

The forecast indicates mostly sunny and increasingly hot conditions across Italy through Wednesday, with isolated afternoon thunderstorms developing over mountainous and inland areas. The subtropical high-pressure system is expected to strengthen further, with temperatures potentially reaching 41°C from next weekend.

Via ANSA/BBC

Lebanon tries to find a place on the map

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Lebanon tries to find a place on the map

In the jigsaw puzzle of Middle East peace talks under way, Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun is trying to remind the warring parties in the current Middle East wars that his country is important, too.

He worries because two powerful adversaries, Iran and the United States, appear to regard Lebanon as a kind of sideshow to the main event of their conflict. Iran views its military aid to, and diplomatic defense of, its proxy ally Hezbollah, as a key to its status as a regional force. “The efforts of Lebanon’s brave fighters and the powerful diplomacy of Iran will guarantee the sovereignty and territorial integrity of beloved Lebanon,” said Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of Iran’s rubber-stamp parliament.

US President Donald Trump seems dismissive of Lebanon’s concerns. He expresses concern about Israel’s bombing of Lebanon and complains that all Israel seems to know is to “bomb buildings.” Last Sunday, as Israel kept bombing, Vice President J S Vance, who is overseeing peace negotiations with Iran, groused to Israel that it “can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem.”

Hence, Aoun’s appeal for attention. He demanded that Iran stop intervening in Lebanon via its military arms support for Hezbollah. “It is not your country, it is our country,” he said, and added, “You are not trying to help us. It is the Lebanese who are paying the price for your own interests, and our interests do not coincide with yours. We are tired and we want to live in peace.”

After getting a weekend phone call from Vance about US negotiations the US expected to hold with Iran, Aoun rather testily remarked, “We welcome any assistance to end the war, but we distinguish between assistance and interference in internal affairs. We are a sovereign country and no one negotiates on our behalf.”

Lebanon is sending envoys to Washington on Tuesday, June 22, for talks with Israel. Aoun wants the focus on two issues: Hezbollah to disarm and Israel to leave the country.

But on Monday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Aoun’s demands on him. “My directive, and that of the Minister of Defense, to the Israeli Defense Forces is clear,” Netanyahu said. “Our fighters in southern Lebanon have full freedom of action to thwart any direct or emerging threat to them or to the residents of the North [of Israel]. The IDF has no restrictions in this regard.”

This week’s talks mark the fourth round of negotiations that Trump ordered Netanyahu and Aoun to organize this this year. Israel has proposed that Lebanon’s army disarm Hezbollah. Israel, which intends to keep forces in Lebanon’s south indefinitely, would provide muscle if Hezbollah resisted.

Aoun says Israel’s demands are unrealistic. Lebanon’s army is undertrained and ill-equipped. Moreover, such a move would likely lead to internal strife. Shiites make up 40% of the force; it’s unlikely they would join an anti-Hezbollah battle.

“Any controversial domestic issue in Lebanon can only be approached through conciliatory, non-confrontational dialogue and communication. If not, we will lead Lebanon to ruin,” Aoun said delicately. “We can’t let the country descend into another civil war.”

Such fears reflect experience. Two past efforts to rein in Hezbollah only exposed government weakness and Hezbollah’s determination to hold onto to its weapons. In the first case, in the early 1980s, the government ordered the army to crack down on Muslim militias. Shiites deserted or refused orders en masse.

In the second case, in 2008, the government ordered that a secret communications network operated by Hezbollah in south Lebanon be dismantled. The government also demanded that Hezbollah end the the use of Beirut Airport as a secret transit point for weapons from Iran. Hezbollah sent its forces, along with other allies, to occupy the largely Sunni Islamic downtown in West Beirut. The government capitulated.

‘Pay the price’

Mahmoud Qamati, a Hezbollah leader, has threatened that “a confrontation with the political authority is inevitable after the war” and vowed that Lebanese officials involved with Israel “would pay the price for their betrayal.”

Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s current leader, said efforts to disarm Hezbollah would lead to a “serious crisis.”

“There will be no life in Lebanon,” he added.

Lebanon’s sectarian political system, in which representation is divided among Christian, Sunni Muslim and Shiite Muslim populations, was birthed during the long Ottoman and French rule. It carried over into Lebanon’s 1945 independence. The presidency is headed by a Christian, prime ministers are Sunni and the speaker of Parliament Shiite. Bureaucracy is also divided along sectarian lines. Druze, a 6% minority, are guaranteed parliamentary seats and bureaucratic jobs.

Meant to reduce confessional conflict, the system instead cemented religious-political rivalries that turned violent with alarming regularity.

Outsiders contributed to unrest, and worse. In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, to expel the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was headquartered in Beirut, but also to install Christian leader Bashir Gemayel as president, with expectations he would sign a permanent peace treaty with the Jewish State.

Syria blew up that scheme by organizing the assassination of Gemayel. Guerrillas drove Israeli forces into southern Lebanon, which they occupied for 18 years.

Enter Iran

The south is the heartland of Lebanon’s Shiite population; Iran is also a largely Shiite country and, along with Syria, supported revolt led by Hezbollah. Israel, unable to subdue Hezbollah, fled the south in the year 2,000.

Hezbollah did not disband, but rather found a new, if somewhat bogus, mission: to expel Israel from a small territory known as Sheba Farms. The area is located at the edge of the Golan Heights, territory that Israel wrested from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War. Syria suddenly decided the Lebanese might have a claim to Sheba Farms. Hezbollah decided to “liberate” it.

From then on, frequent border clashes and occasional full scale war broke out between Israel and Hezbollah. Iran upgraded Hezbollah’s mission, calling it the “forward defense” of an “axis of resistance” that includes Hamas in the Golan Heights and Houthis in Yemen.

That’s the history Aoun is up against. Can a separate peace between the US and Iran also spell the end of Hezbollah?

Report: Kennedy Space Center not ready for era of super heavy rockets

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Report: Kennedy Space Center not ready for era of super heavy rockets

NASA’s infrastructure at Kennedy Space Center, the crown jewel of US spaceports, is aging and approaching its limit due to increased demand from private companies, including SpaceX and Blue Origin, a new report finds.

“NASA’s launch infrastructure is vital to providing the agency, other government agencies, and commercial partners access to space for their most complex and expensive missions,” states the report, published by the NASA Office of Inspector General. “Nevertheless, NASA’s launch infrastructure is dated and often does not provide the capacity to meet the growing demands of the agency and its partners.”

The report covers NASA’s launch facilities at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. However, the most noteworthy information in the report concerns the Florida spaceport, where demand from SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s New Glenn launch vehicles is expected to stress NASA.

Roads and gas lines

NASA only has a handful of launch pads at Kennedy. Launch Complex 39A is currently leased by SpaceX for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches, and also houses a new launch facility that will soon support Starship launches. Launch Complex 39B is home to NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, and Launch Complex 39C has not been used due to its proximity to this pad. Finally, NASA has built a 10-acre site, Launch Complex 48, that it may lease to small launch vehicle companies.

The space agency’s neighbor to the south, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, has many more pads. This includes the Launch Complex 36A and 36B leased to Blue Origin for the New Glenn rocket.

Although the Space Force manages its own launch facilities, the military works closely with NASA and they share some responsibilities. Most critically, there are supply lines for helium and nitrogen, as well as 231 miles of paved roads and bridges that serve both Kennedy and Cape Canaveral. Additionally, the report cites serious concerns about a six-decade-old electricity distribution system for NASA’s launch pads.

Map of Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Credit: NASA OIG

Map of Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Credit: NASA OIG

One example of overcapacity cited by the report concerns the availability of gaseous nitrogen used during the fueling, testing, and launching of rockets. During the Artemis I launch campaign in 2022, there were issues with the availability of enough nitrogen to support the rocket. But according to the report, the problem has not gone away.

“The system cannot simultaneously support launches … of Blue Origin’s New Glenn launch vehicle at Space Launch Complex 36 and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur launch vehicle at Space Launch Complex 41,” the report states. “Blue Origin officials stated this issue created a major scheduling challenge during preparation for the New Glenn-1 mission that launched in January 2025, and further expressed concern that during future Space Launch System launches there could be 1- to 2-month blackout periods from the pipeline.”

The solution for this is to construct a new gaseous nitrogen system to supplement the existing capacity, but the $25 million project is currently unfunded.

Demand expected to surge

Officials are also concerned that the number of annual launches, in addition to major test firings, will reach or exceed the number of days in a year by late 2028 or 2029, placing “significant strain” on Kennedy’s spaceport systems. And increasingly, these will come from rockets, putting the most stress on roads and requiring the most commodities for launch.

SpaceX has told NASA it plans to launch Starship every eight days from Launch Complex 39A for the purposes of propellant depots in orbit. (The report states, in a footnote, that “at least” 15 Starships will be required to deliver propellant for a Starship lunar lander.) From all of its Florida pads, SpaceX estimates 120 annual Starship launches, and Blue Origin projects 120 annual launches of its super heavy-lift New Glenn rocket as well by 2035.

In addition, Blue Origin has expressed interest in a third New Glenn pad located north of NASA’s existing pads.

“Space for additional launch pads at Kennedy is also limited and may require extensive time and resources to develop a launch pad that can support super heavy-lift launch vehicles,” the report states. “While Kennedy officials identified a potential location north of LC 39A and LC 39B for a new super heavy-lift launch pad, the area is a protected wetland and would have to undergo lengthy and extensive federal and local review and approval processes.”

Despite aging infrastructure, since 2021, the budgets NASA uses to pay for construction projects and perform maintenance on launch-related infrastructure have decreased between 11 and 47 percent when adjusting for inflation, the inspector general found. Moreover, based on existing laws, it is difficult for NASA to accept contributions from commercial companies for large-scale, shared infrastructure projects.

The bottom line is that NASA’s launch facilities are aging and increasingly under high stress due to commercial activity. Those commercial launch activities, in terms of the largest and most impactful rockets, are only at the beginning of what is likely to be an exponential growth curve. And as the space agency faces tight deadlines in its space race with China, the budget for substantial repairs and upgrades is decreasing.

Connecticut: Have You Called 911 for Help? Tell Us About Your Experience.

By
Peter.DiCampo@propublica.org
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connecticut:-have-you-called-911-for-help?-tell-us-about-your-experience.
Connecticut: Have You Called 911 for Help? Tell Us About Your Experience.

Have you called 911 for a medical emergency in Connecticut? ProPublica and The Connecticut Mirror, two nonprofit newsrooms, are examining emergency medical services in the state and want to hear from those who have had firsthand experiences seeking care. 

We would like to learn more about your story and if you faced a long wait for emergency care to arrive. 

We know people in some towns have had to wait up to 20 minutes for an ambulance, but the numbers don’t show what happens as time drags. And they can’t explain the impact on your life in the weeks and months following delayed emergency care. We’ve heard that emergency medical services are often underresourced, but in order to understand what the strained system actually looks like for communities across the state, we need to hear from you. 

If you have called 911 for a medical emergency in Connecticut for yourself or someone else, we want to hear your experience. 

You can fill out our brief form to share your experience. Our reporters read through every response and may follow up with you. You can also email CT Mirror reporter Jenna Carlesso and ProPublica reporter Cassandra Garibay at [email protected] if you have any questions or concerns. 

Don’t live in Connecticut but know someone who does? You can also help by sending this form to them. 

If you work or volunteer for emergency medical services in Connecticut, we also want to hear from you. Please fill out our EMS experience form.

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