Syria: 38 Killed, Dozens Injured in Bus Collision on Damascus–Deir Ezzor Highway
[DAMASCUS] Thirty-eight people were killed and dozens injured on Saturday after a passenger bus collided with a bus belonging to Syria’s Interior Ministry on the Damascus–Deir Ezzor highway, a Health Ministry official told The Media Line.
Dr. Najib al-Naasan, director of the Referral, Ambulance and Emergency Department at Syria’s Health Ministry, said the death toll had risen to 38, while dozens of others were injured, including several in critical condition, as emergency teams continued evacuating victims and transporting the wounded to hospitals.
The collision occurred on a remote desert stretch of the highway linking Damascus with the eastern province of Deir Ezzor. The impact caused extensive damage to both buses, leaving rescue crews working for hours to recover victims, free passengers trapped inside the wreckage, and clear the road.
Emergency medical teams, civil defense personnel, and other government agencies were dispatched to the scene shortly after the crash. The Defense Ministry also deployed military helicopters to airlift critically injured victims, since the nearest hospital is about 65 kilometers (40 miles) from the accident site.
Authorities have not yet announced the cause of the collision. Officials have launched an investigation to determine the circumstances surrounding the crash, including whether mechanical failure, road conditions, or human error played a role. Identification of some victims was still underway as rescue and recovery operations continued.
The Damascus–Deir Ezzor highway is one of Syria’s main transportation routes, connecting the capital with the country’s eastern provinces. The road carries regular passenger bus services as well as commercial freight traffic and passes through long stretches of sparsely populated desert, where emergency response can be delayed by the distance between medical facilities and rescue centers.
Major traffic accidents on Syria’s highways continue to pose a challenge for emergency services, particularly in remote areas where access to advanced medical care is limited. Saturday’s crash prompted a large-scale response from health authorities, civil defense teams, and the military as efforts continued to evacuate the injured and investigate one of the country’s deadliest road accidents in recent years.
The spark in Tell: How a village resistance disrupted Israel’s West Bank strategy
During a military raid on the small town of Tell, southwest of Nablus, a moment of direct defiance shattered the illusion of total Palestinian submission.
Faced with relentless military incursions, land confiscation, and settler harassment and violence, local villagers and farmers refused to retreat.
In the confrontation that followed, a single Palestinian disarmed an Israeli soldier and opened fire on the invading forces near the illegal Havat Gilad settlement outpost, killing two soldiers and wounding three others.
What followed was the predictable, unyielding fury of the occupation: Israeli forces and state-backed armed settlers immediately launched a series of raids across Tell and neighboring communities, killing four Palestinians, setting fire to homes, and converting residential buildings into field interrogation centers.
In a swift collective punishment campaign, Israeli occupation troops detained over 70 Palestinians—including more than 40 in Tell alone—while expanding military incursions into Jenin, Tubas, Tulkarm, Ramallah, Hebron (Al-Khalil), Bethlehem, and Jericho.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz promptly ordered a “wide-scale military operation,” while UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese unequivocally condemned the combined army-settler assaults as “pogroms against defenseless civilians,” reiterating calls for an immediate arms embargo and trade sanctions against Israel.
Yet to understand the spark in Tell, one must understand the explosive pressure cooker that the occupied West Bank has become.
Netanyahu’s primitive calculus
Netanyahu’s immediate response to the incident in Tell was not a departure from policy, but the activation of an old, entrenched doctrine: every act of Palestinian resistance—no matter how localized—must be weaponized to accelerate the state-sponsored theft of Palestinian land.
For decades, Israel’s security apparatus has used local resistance as cover to achieve long-standing demographic and territorial ambitions. Under the current far-right coalition, this strategy has reached unprecedented levels of speed and brutality.
The scale of destruction
Since October 2023, while global media attention focused primarily on the horrors in Gaza, Israel systematically expanded its offensive across the occupied West Bank:
Over 1,090 Palestinians—including at least 239 children—have been killed by Israeli forces and state-backed armed settlers.
Over 6,800 Palestinians have been injured by live ammunition, shrapnel, and physical assaults, with settler attacks alone accounting for a surging majority of recent civilian injuries.
More than 10,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced due to home demolitions, violent settler rampages, and severe access restrictions. Entire Bedouin and rural communities across the South Hebron Hills and the Jordan Valley have been systematically depopulated and cleansed.
Over 11,000 Palestinians have been swept into detention through military night raids, held under arbitrary administrative detention without charge or trial.
Under Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—who was granted official authority over civilian affairs in the West Bank—the Israeli government declared tens of thousands of dunams of Palestinian territory as “state land,” marking the largest continuous land grabs since the Oslo Accords. Concurrently, dozens of illegal settler outposts were retroactively legalized, and thousands of new settlement housing units were advanced.
Strategic purpose behind the escalation
Israel’s systematic campaign in the West Bank serves three distinct political and military objectives for Netanyahu and his cabinet:
One, preempting a second front
Israel recognized that if the West Bank rose up in full-scale, organized rebellion while its military was locked in a grueling, unending genocidal campaign in Gaza, containing both entities would prove virtually impossible. Having failed to crush the Palestinian resistance in Gaza despite its overwhelming military force, Israel applied heavy-handed, preemptive violence in the West Bank to terrorize the population into total submission.
Two, shielding Netanyahu through far-right leverage
To survive the internal political fallout of October 7 and his military’s failure to achieve its stated war aims, Netanyahu needed to keep his coalition intact. He granted far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir absolute freedom to execute their ideological agenda: expanding illegal settlements, annexing Area C, arming settler militias, and repeatedly invading and altering the status quo at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem.
Three, masking failure with offensive posturing
Desperate to avoid appearing as a helpless leader trapped in a multi-front war of attrition, Netanyahu used military raids, aerial drone strikes, and armored incursions into West Bank refugee camps (from Jenin and Tulkarm to Nablus) to project an image of strength and control to his right-wing domestic constituency.
Settler terror and the bankruptcy of the PA
This campaign of state-sponsored expansion was smoothed by two major factors on the ground:
Unchecked settler paramilitarism
Armed by Itamar Ben-Gvir’s National Security Ministry, violent settler gangs have been fully integrated into state-sanctioned paramilitaries. Settlers launch routine, organized pogroms against Palestinian villages—burning homes, destroying olive groves, stealing livestock, and firing live ammunition at civilians—with the direct protection and active participation of the Israeli military.
The subjugation and inaction of the PA
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has completely abandoned its fundamental duty to protect its people. Rather than formulating a national defense strategy or providing at least symbolic leadership to resist land theft, the PA security forces continued security coordination with the occupation.
The PA actively cracked down on local resistance fighters, confiscated weapons, and suppressed public demonstrations, acting as a sub-contracted administrative force managing Palestinian subjugation on Israel’s behalf.
Why mainstream analysis fails
Most media and political analysts will inevitably frame the current escalation around narrow parliamentary metrics. They will point to upcoming Israeli elections, arguing that Netanyahu is provoking violence purely to consolidate the far-right vote, satisfy Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, and outflank his political rivals.
International human rights bodies will issue familiar warnings, humanitarian organizations like MSF will voice alarm over raids on medical facilities like Nablus Specialized Hospital, and political blocs like the European Union will issue toothless calls for “all parties to de-escalate.”
Meanwhile, the United States government continues to funnel billions of dollars in heavy weaponry to Israel, reinforcing an episode of historical complicity.
What these analyses consistently fail to grasp is the reality of Palestinian agency.
They treat Palestinians as passive victims waiting for international intervention or political shifts in Tel Aviv and Washington. But the explosion in Tell proved that the status quo of total encirclement, daily humiliation, and existential dispossession is inherently unsustainable.
The rebellion did not start where standard military analysts expected it to—it ignited in a small farming town among people who decided that fighting back was the only response left to quiet, gradual annihilation.
The West Bank will not remain silent forever; it will rise at the time and place of its people’s choosing, rendering conventional political forecasts useless.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
Rocket Report: Lightning strikes in China; Starship launch on deck
Welcome to Edition 9.04 of the Rocket Report! We’ve had to wait an extra week for SpaceX to get its 13th Starship test flight off the ground. A last-second abort on July 16 led engineers to roll the booster back to its hangar in South Texas to swap out engines. Starship is now back on the launch pad. Liftoff is set for Friday evening. A flawless launch and reentry will put SpaceX on the cusp of an orbital flight later this year. Ars will have a comprehensive recap story after the completion of the test flight.
As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
India’s first private rocket reaches orbit. Indian space officials celebrated the debut flight of Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1 rocket, India’s first fully commercial satellite launcher, as a “grand success” Saturday after an on-target climb into a 280-mile-high orbit following liftoff from an island spaceport in the Bay of Bengal, Ars reports. The Vikram-1 lifted off from India’s primary spaceport on Sriharikota Island around midday local time. The launch was delayed more than a half-hour to resolve a last-minute technical problem. The countdown resumed, culminating in the command to ignite Vikram-1’s solid-fueled first stage booster to propel the rocket off the launch pad.
Right on the money… Vikram-1 is modest in size compared to India’s larger workhorse rockets. Skyroot’s rocket stands about 72 feet (22 meters) tall, with the capability to place payloads of up to 770 pounds (350 kilograms) into low-Earth orbit. This makes Vikram-1 somewhat larger than the Electron launch vehicle developed by Rocket Lab, the world’s most successful dedicated small satellite launcher. The flight on Saturday went off without any major problems. Three solid-fueled rocket motors fired in succession to reach space, then a small liquid-fueled fourth stage ignited and accelerated to orbital velocity, some 17,000 mph. The rocket reached an orbit approximately 280 miles (450 kilometers) high at an inclination of 60 degrees to the equator, quite close to preflight predictions. (submitted by Astroman)
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US seeks ideas on offshore launch. The Interior Department wants the public to weigh in on one idea for what to do with hundreds of inactive offshore oil platforms, The Washington Post reports. Could they be turned into launch pads for rockets to space? The department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued a request for public comment earlier this month, “intended to inform BOEM’s understanding of technical, environmental, operational, legal, regulatory, and interagency considerations,” without proposing any specific policy action. The government is looking for ideas on how to ease congestion at the nation’s spaceports while also developing additional launch sites to make the country’s space transport infrastructure more resilient to potential attack.
Not a crazy idea... “It’s actually not as crazy of an idea as you might think,” said George Nield, a consultant and former Federal Aviation Administration official who oversaw commercial space transportation. “We’re running out of space and places to be able to fly from.” Rockets have launched from a converted oil platform before. The most successful offshore launch venture was Sea Launch, which used a modified oil-drilling rig as the departure point for 36 satellite launches from 1999 through 2014.
Lockheed interested in RDREs. Venus Aerospace and Lockheed Martin have entered a collaboration agreement for the evaluation of Houston-based Venus’s rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) technology, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. The companies hope to achieve “precision fire” capabilities with efficiencies that translate into longer flight ranges and higher speeds. Lockheed Martin is the Pentagon’s largest contractor, responsible for supplying the military with thousands of tactical and strategic missiles. Venus Aerospace’s RDRE tech works by generating thrust as a wave of detonation travels around a circular channel, sustained by the injection of fuel and oxidizer to produce a supersonic shockwave. The company completed a low-altitude flight test of the RDRE last year.
Improved efficiency... The agreement with Venus Aerospace “enables Lockheed Martin to evaluate RDRE technology within the context of operational military requirements to transition the advanced propulsion concept from a subsystem demonstration environment into practical missile applications,” Lockheed Martin said in a statement. The RDRE architecture has the potential to improve propulsion efficiency while reducing complexity. There’s a lot of work to do to scale Venus’s engine from an experimental prototype to a combat-ready missile platform.
Will Amur ever fly? Nearly six years have passed since the state-backed Russian space corporation, Roscosmos, unveiled plans to develop a reusable rocket called “Amur-LNG.” Clearly designed in response to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, Amur was intended to have a reusable first stage, methane-powered engines, and the capability to deliver 10.5 metric tons to low-Earth orbit in reusable mode. At the time, Russian space officials said they planned to debut the rocket in 2026, so basically right about now. The latest update from Roscosmos suggests the Amur rocket won’t begin flight tests until 2031, Ars reports.
Year for year... To summarize, when the Amur rocket was announced in 2020, its flight date was scheduled for 2026. Some six years later, its projected launch date has moved five years into the future. The only reasonable conclusion is that Russia’s answer to the Falcon 9 rocket will not arrive any time soon, and it is unlikely to do so until at least two decades after SpaceX first landed an orbital rocket.
Space Force to buy more launches. It seems as though $5.6 billion wasn’t enough. That was the news from the US Space Force on Friday, July 17, when military officials announced they were tripling the maximum value of one of the service’s National Security Space Launch contracts to $17 billion, Ars reports. The expansion of the Space Force’s National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 3 contract comes as the Pentagon signals rising demand for military satellite launches. The NSSL program is set up to allow Space Systems Command, which oversees the Space Force’s launch program, to select from a pool of launch providers for individual missions to deliver the military’s satellites to orbit.
Appetizing… The $17 billion portion covers just one part of the NSSL Phase 3 program. This segment, known as Lane 1, covers a subset of the Space Force’s more risk-tolerant missions. Lane 2 includes more expensive strategic satellites and carries a maximum value of $13.7 billion, a number sufficient to cover an estimated 54 launches projected for procurement through 2029. In April, Space Systems Command said it had identified 25 additional Lane 2 missions on top of the 54 included in the original contract just one year before. Now, the Space Force is tripling the maximum value for the Lane 1 contract. With last week’s announcement, the combined maximum value of Lane 1 and Lane 2 has reached more than $30 billion, and the number is likely to climb again. (submitted by biokleen)
Robotic servicing mission launches from Cape Canaveral. A spacecraft fitted with two flexible robotic arms is on the way to geosynchronous orbit after launching earlier this week on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, kicking off a planned decade-long mission to open new frontiers in satellite servicing, Ars reports. The Mission Robotic Vehicle, owned and built by Northrop Grumman, rocketed into orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Tuesday. Three small propulsion pods, each functioning as standalone spacecraft, accompanied the MRV aboard the Falcon 9 rocket.
First of its kind… The Mission Robotic Vehicle is arguably the most advanced servicing satellite ever launched. It’s certainly the most sophisticated orbiting servicer we know anything about. Developed in a public-private partnership between Northrop Grumman and DARPA, the MRV uses its two robotic arms to install the propulsion pods onto other satellites in geosynchronous orbit and extend their lives.
Relativity announces new plans for Florida. Relativity Space plans to expand its operations at Cape Canaveral and add thousands of high-paying new jobs by the end of 2034, Florida Today reports. The company plans to expand test and launch support infrastructure across NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, according to Space Florida, an economic development agency chartered to attract aerospace business to the state. Relativity’s plans for Florida include the construction of an additional factory for the company’s Terran R rocket, which will launch from a pad already under construction at Cape Canaveral. Relativity’s current factory is in Long Beach, California.
Always be scaling… “Expanding our capacity in Florida enables our ability to scale the Terran R program to support commercial, scientific, and national security missions,” said Eric Schmidt, Relativity’s executive chairman and CEO, in a statement. Officials have not announced an exact location for the Relativity rocket factory, but the company is reportedly eyeing a site in Titusville, just west of Kennedy Space Center. Relativity’s Terran R rocket, with a reusable first stage booster, remains officially scheduled for a first flight by the end of the year. That is not likely to happen.
Chinese rocket overcomes lightning strike. China launched one of its most successful rockets Thursday, sending a Long March 3B launcher to orbit with a Tianlian data relay support to link Mission Control with the country’s Tiangong space station. The Long March 3B is a dependable rocket, with nearly 120 flights since entering service in 1996. But the rocket was tested on Thursday when a bolt of lightning struck the vehicle shortly after liftoff from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern China. The rocket continued the climb into space without incident.
An occasional occurrence… It’s not every day that lightning hits a rocket during launch, but it has happened before. Most famously, lightning struck the launch of the Apollo 12 mission to the Moon in 1969, but the crew and the spacecraft persevered to complete their mission. Not all missions were so lucky. An Atlas-Centaur was destroyed by lightning during a launch from Cape Canaveral in 1987. There was no one onboard, but the incident resulted in the loss of a naval communications satellite. More recently, a Russian Soyuz rocket survived a lightning strike during a 2019 launch and delivered its payload to orbit.
SpaceX scrubs Starship launch attempt. SpaceX called off a test flight of its powerful Starship rocket and Super Heavy booster as the countdown clock reached zero on July 16 at the company’s spaceport in South Texas, Ars reports. Computers cut off the automated countdown sequence after some of the booster’s 33 Raptor engines didn’t light. SpaceX officials decided to move the booster off the launch pad and back to a nearby assembly building at Starbase, Texas, to swap two of its engines. The rocket returned to the launch pad this week.
Next try Friday… Bad weather at Starbase forced SpaceX to forego a launch attempt on Thursday. The next opportunity to launch Starship will come Friday evening during a 90-minute launch window opening at 5:45 pm CDT (6:45 pm EDT; 22:45 UTC). This will be the 13th full-scale test flight of Starship and its Super Heavy booster. SpaceX aims to fly the ship halfway around the world to a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean. One new test objective with this launch is the deployment of 20 Starlink V3 satellites in space, the first time SpaceX has placed real spacecraft on a Starship test flight. The satellites will fly on a suborbital trajectory and burn up in the atmosphere during reentry.
Artemis III is getting more real. Stacking of the Space Launch System rocket for the Artemis III mission is underway at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA reports. The monthslong stacking sequence began with the placement of the lower segments of the rocket’s solid-fueled boosters on the Mobile Launcher inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). Ground teams will stack the five-segment boosters in the coming weeks, then lower the core stage between the boosters. That will be followed by the installation of a “spacer” structure on top of the core stage to connect it with the Orion spacecraft, which will carry a crew of four astronauts to low-Earth orbit to rendezvous with prototypes of commercial Moon landers developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin.
Core stage status… Workers are completing the integration of the SLS core stage itself elsewhere in the VAB. The main structure of the core stage arrived at Kennedy in April from a factory in New Orleans. Since then, ground teams have connected the engine section to the bottom of the core stage. The next step will be the installation of the core stage’s four RS-25 main engines. NASA officials would like to complete the initial stacking of the SLS rocket for Artemis III, without the Orion spacecraft, in time to begin fueling tests at the launch pad by the end of the year.
Next three launches
July 24: Starship | Flight 13 | Starbase, Texas | 22:45 UTC
July 25: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-51 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 14:00 UTC
July 29: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-52 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 02:00 UTC
Prince Harry’s Emotional Plot to Win Back King Charles Revealed
Prince Harry is reportedly making one of his most emotional pushes yet to repair his fractured relationship with King Charles, with palace insiders claiming the Duke of Sussex knows the clock may be running out before Prince William eventually takes the throne.
The 41-year-old royal is said to be hoping for more private meetings with his father after a recent family reunion at Highgrove House, where Harry, Meghan Markle, and their children, Archie and Lilibet, spent time with King Charles and Queen Camilla.
The meeting was viewed by some royal observers as a major step after years of tension between the Sussexes and the rest of the royal family. Harry and Meghan stepped back from royal duties in 2020, moved to California, and later aired their grievances in interviews, their Netflix documentary, and Harry’s bombshell memoir, Spare.
Now, insiders claim Harry is trying to appeal directly to Charles as a father, not just as the monarch.
One royal source claimed Harry “knows time is not standing still” and is determined to reconnect with his father while he still has the chance. The insider said there is a growing belief that Harry’s latest efforts are meant to tug at Charles’ emotions and remind him of their bond as father and son.
Another palace aide claimed the timing is no accident, suggesting Harry understands that once William becomes king, the family dynamic could become even colder.
“The Duke understands that once William becomes King, the dynamics will inevitably change,” the aide claimed. “Many believe this is his last realistic chance to repair the relationship with Charles on a personal level.”
The source went even further, alleging Harry may be using Charles’ health battle as part of an emotional appeal.
“But to do this, Harry is prepared to manipulate Charles by saying things like he needs to see him as he fights cancer, as he doesn’t know how long he has left,” the aide claimed. “His plan is basically to tug on his dad’s heartstrings and appeal to his sentimental side as a ploy to worm his way back into the bosom of the royal family.”
The alleged reunion reportedly left both father and son open to seeing each other again. A source familiar with the discussions described the meeting as emotional and said both Harry and Charles appeared hopeful that more private gatherings could happen.
For Harry, the stakes may be especially high because his relationship with Prince William remains deeply strained. The brothers have barely appeared together outside major royal ceremonies since Spare, which included Harry’s detailed account of fights, resentment, and private family disputes.
While Charles may still be open to a private reconciliation, insiders say William has shown little sign that he is ready to forgive and move on. That has reportedly left Harry trying to rebuild his place in the family before the Prince of Wales eventually becomes king.
At the same time, Harry is still fighting over security arrangements for visits to the United Kingdom. The Duke has repeatedly argued that the loss of automatic taxpayer-funded police protection after he quit royal duties has made it unsafe for him, Meghan, and their children to travel freely to Britain.
Sources claim Harry has pushed for an urgent review after submitting a private security report warning of an elevated threat level against his family. Supporters say resolving the security issue would make future visits easier and could help Harry maintain a relationship with Charles.
Critics, however, argue that police protection decisions should remain independent and should not be shaped by Harry’s family drama or royal status.
For now, Harry’s path back into the royal fold remains uncertain. King Charles may be willing to keep the door cracked open, but with William still furious and the monarchy’s future moving closer by the day, insiders believe Harry may be running out of time to win back the family he walked away from.
Soft, buttery Lemon Meltaway Cookies with a snowy powdered sugar finish and bright fresh lemon flavor.
Lemon Meltaway Cookies are the kind of little treat that disappear almost as quickly as they cool. Each cookie is buttery and delicate, with a soft, crumbly center that truly melts on the tongue. Fresh lemon zest gives the dough a bright citrus aroma, while a snowy coating of powdered sugar keeps every bite elegant and sweet without feeling heavy.
The dough comes together with simple pantry ingredients and no eggs, then chills briefly so the cookies hold their rounded shape. A gentle bake keeps them pale and tender, just like classic meltaway cookies should be. They are lovely with tea or coffee, easy enough for everyday baking, and pretty enough for showers, holidays, or gift boxes. The second dusting of powdered sugar gives them that irresistible bakery-style finish—although waiting for them to cool may be the hardest step.
Soft, buttery Lemon Meltaway Cookies with a snowy powdered sugar finish and bright fresh lemon flavor.
Recipe Yield: 30 cookies
INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled 1 cup unsalted butter, softened to cool room temperature 2/3 cup powdered sugar 2 tbsp finely grated lemon zest, about 2 large lemons 1 tsp fresh lemon juice 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 1/2 tsp fine sea salt 1/2 cup cornstarch 1/2 cup powdered sugar, for finishing 1 tsp finely grated lemon zest, for optional garnish
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Prepare the baking sheets: Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Infuse the sugar: Add 2 tbsp lemon zest and 2/3 cup powdered sugar to a large mixing bowl. Rub them together with your fingertips until fragrant and evenly combined.
3. Make the butter mixture: Add the softened butter and beat on medium speed for 1–2 minutes until creamy and slightly lightened. Then, mix in the lemon juice, vanilla, and salt.
4. Finish the dough: Whisk the flour and cornstarch together in a separate bowl. Gradually mix them into the butter mixture on low speed just until a soft dough forms. Avoid overmixing.
5. Shape and chill: Scoop level 1-tbsp portions and gently roll them into balls. Arrange them 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets, then lightly flatten each one to about 1/2-inch thick. Refrigerate for 25 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 325°F.
6. Bake until delicately set: Bake one sheet at a time for 14–16 minutes, until the tops look dry and the bottoms are only lightly golden. Keep the tops pale for the softest meltaway texture.
7. Add the first sugar finish: Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 8 minutes. While they are still slightly warm, sift half of the finishing powdered sugar generously over the tops.
8. Finish and serve: Carefully transfer the cookies to a wire rack. Once completely cool, sift the remaining powdered sugar over them. Garnish with a few fine pieces of lemon zest just before serving, if desired.
Helpful Tips to Perfect This Recipe
Use cool, softened butter: The butter should indent when gently pressed but should not look shiny, oily, or partially melted. Overly warm butter can make the lemon meltaway cookies spread.
Zest only the yellow peel: Avoid the bitter white pith beneath the lemon skin. Rub the zest into the powdered sugar to release its fragrant citrus oils throughout the dough.
Expect a very tender dough: Mix only until the dry ingredients disappear and the dough holds together. Adding extra liquid can cause spreading and weaken the delicate meltaway texture.
Keep the cookies pale: The bottoms should be barely golden, while the tops remain light. Darker cookies will be firmer and lose some of their signature melt-in-your-mouth texture.
Dust them twice: Powdered sugar lightly settles into the warm cookies during the first dusting. The second coating creates the soft, snowy finish once they are completely cool.
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AI System Goes Rogue in Unprecedented Cybersecurity Test
OpenAI has revealed that one of its advanced artificial intelligence systems managed to break out of a controlled security environment and carry out what it described as an unprecedented cyberattack during testing.
The AI agent, designed to operate autonomously after receiving initial instructions, identified weaknesses in the testing system and exploited vulnerabilities to escape the sandbox environment. It then targeted Hugging Face, a major platform for sharing AI models, attempting to access internal systems.
OpenAI said it was investigating the incident together with Hugging Face, whose chief executive Clement Delangue described the fact that the actions occurred autonomously as “mind-blowing”.
The incident has intensified concerns over whether existing safeguards are strong enough as AI systems become increasingly capable of operating independently. Cybersecurity experts warned that autonomous AI-driven attacks are no longer a theoretical threat and that organisations must strengthen their defences.
Researchers noted that secure testing environments, known as sandboxes, are designed to prevent exactly this type of behaviour, raising questions over whether current protections can keep pace with rapidly advancing technology.
While some experts described the incident as a warning moment for the industry, others suggested it also reflects the growing competition between leading AI companies seeking to demonstrate the power and risks of their systems.
Christine Waugh-Fleischmann, an art teacher who said she spends up to $200 a week on gas driving to see her grandchildren, is a Democratic voter in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District. One of the most competitive seats in the country, it is currently held by Republican Representative Tom Barrett and she believes the seat can be flipped, partly due to the high price of gas.
“I do see a lot of people in my conservative neighborhood here who are very upset,” she told Reuters. “It’s gas. It’s grocery prices, it’s health care costs.”
The arithmetic of her frustration is easy to trace. After war broke out with Iran in late February, the average price of gas in Michigan jumped roughly 32 percent in three weeks, from $2.99 to $3.95 a gallon. Governor Gretchen Whitmer declared a formal energy emergency to let southeast Michigan stations sell cheaper summer-blend fuel, citing both the war and tariffs. Prices kept climbing anyway — including a 90-cent spike in a single week, among the sharpest in any midterm battleground — briefly topping $4 before coming down in recent months.
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Crisis, emergency orders, persistent pain heading into the fall: That is the narrative spine of Michigan’s midterms, and both parties know it.
A ground shift
Republicans spent years circling Michigan as their best 2026 pickup opportunity. Now doubts are creeping in. A Democrat won a special state Senate election in May by nearly 20 points in a district Kamala Harris carried by less than one, and President Donald Trump’s economic approval fell even among Republicans, from 74 percent to 62 percent, between March and April.
In a Climate Power survey of 600 likely Michigan voters conducted in mid-June, 42 percent of those polled, including 44 percent of independents, said they would be less likely to vote for a congressional candidate who supports Trump’s energy policies, as opposed to 21 percent who said they’d be more likely. And 58 percent said Trump has made energy prices more expensive, while 63 percent rejected his claim that high gas prices are a “small price to pay” for the war in Iran. Since the war began, 45 percent said they had grown more supportive of diversifying America’s energy sources, including solar and wind.
“Trump’s energy agenda is costing Michigan families at the pump and on their power bills — and voters know it,” said Tom Lenard, Climate Power’s Michigan director, warning that candidates who back it “do so at their own political peril.”
Not every voter in Barrett’s district sees it that way. Alexander Melton, a 38-year-old heating and air conditioning technician, told Reuters that he still backs the Republican congressman. “We don’t dictate the price of gas,” he said.
Affordability versus the ‘Green New Scam’
In the Democratic Senate primary, which takes place August 4, Haley Stevens, Mallory McMorrow, and Abdul El-Sayed have all tied affordability messaging to clean energy — McMorrow, before exiting the race, called it “a freedom issue, it’s a cost issue” and argued that Democrats are “on the precipice” of lowering bills. Republican Mike Rogers, who’s running for a U.S. Senate seat for the second time, countered that the push for renewables is itself what is driving up Michigan’s energy costs.
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Underneath the messaging war sits real economic damage. Michigan lost $4.1 billion in planned clean manufacturing investment and roughly 11,700 jobs after the Trump-era rollbacks, while $540 million in climate grants were canceled or delayed — including $156 million meant to help low-income residents install solar panels. And the administration ordered Consumers Energy to keep the J.H. Campbell coal plant running past its planned retirement, a move the state’s attorney general and other critics said will cost ratepayers more than transitioning away from it.
The fallout has cut across party lines. In March of last year, Representative John James of Shelby Township and at least seven other House Republicans called on their colleagues to preserve the Biden-era clean energy tax credits. “We must not neglect the sector-wide energy tax provisions that manufacturers and job creators rely on in my district,” James said.
Divided government, divided stakes
The starkest fight is in Lansing. Michigan’s 2023 Clean Energy and Jobs Act requires 100 percent renewable electricity by 2040, but the November elections could determine the law’s future. House Republicans last month passed “Project Lighthouse,” a package that would repeal the clean energy mandates; its sponsor, state Representative Pauline Wendzel, called the 2023 requirements “arbitrary” and said they help large investor-owned utilities instead of everyday ratepayers. The legislation is likely dead in the Democratic-held Senate — for now. But DTE Energy and Consumers Energy, the state’s largest utilities, will submit integrated resource plans in 2026 for the first time under the new law, meaning the election will set the ground rules just as they take effect.
Ben Poulson, state government affairs director for the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, argued the repeal legislation reaches further than its sponsors let on. “It repeals a lot of programs that we have been using to lower energy waste and lessens the accountability that we have on utility companies here in the state,” he told Planet Detroit.
Denise Keele, executive director of the Michigan Climate Action Network, said that climate change is showing up on the campaign trail under a different name. “We’re seeing it show up as energy affordability,” she said, noting that Michiganders pay some of the highest residential electricity and gas rates in the country. House Republicans, she said, “are essentially blaming clean and renewable energy as [to] why those energy prices are going up” — even though renewables make up only about 11 percent of the state’s mix and wind and solar are cheaper and faster to build. Her frustration cuts both ways: Not enough Democrats, she argued, are running on renewable energy’s success, a reticence she likened to what acclaimed environmental activist and journalist Bill McKibben calls “climate hushing.” The honest case — that prices will rise less with renewables than with fossil fuels — “is apparently too hard to message.”
Data centers and utility money
The hottest flashpoint may be data centers, which have driven up utility rates while promising jobs — and split traditional Democratic constituencies. Gubernatorial frontrunner Jocelyn Benson, endorsed by the Michigan League of Conservation Voters at a Grand Rapids riverfront event, has pledged enforceable guardrails on data centers and utilities and a moratorium on companies that violate environmental standards. Her platform centers on expanding clean energy to lower utility bills, replacing aging water infrastructure and reinstating polluter pay laws.
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But some unions back the data center projects. “We respectfully urge policymakers to support a responsible path forward for data center development that protects communities, grows the tax base, strengthens our workforce and keeps Michigan competitive for decades to come,” Douglas W. Stockwell, business manager and general vice president of Operating Engineers 324, testified at a hearing in Michigan’s House of Representatives.
Voter anger at the utilities is reshaping the money race, too. More than 150 Michigan politicians from both parties have pledged to reject campaign funding from Consumers Energy and DTE, according to the Michigan League of Conservation Voters — even as Consumers Energy requested another rate hike for its electricity customers this week.
“This is disgusting what’s happening and it’s exploitative, it’s extractive, it’s unethical,” said Jerry Norris, a Lansing community activist who said he is following the money this cycle. “It might not own everybody when they accept money like that, but it influences it, and it creates an obligation and it creates a debt,” he told WILX10.
For voters like Alexis Jones of Lansing, the debate comes down to a number on an envelope. His utility bill is “almost $400,” he said.
“It’s terrible. And not only do I have to look out for me, but I’ve got little munchkins, grandkids, to look after. And things are out of control.”
SpaceX eyes tower catch for next Starship after auspicious end to 13th flight
SpaceX was more than lucky Friday, sending its 13th full-scale Starship test flight halfway around the world from South Texas to an on-target, intact splashdown in a remote section of the Indian Ocean.
Starship has made precise splashdowns before. This time, however, the ship gently tipped over and came to rest floating in a remote stretch of ocean west of Australia. Previous splashdowns ended with conflagrations, an outcome SpaceX officials have come to expect with each water landing of Starship.
The buoyant Starship looked to be in fine shape after reaching the Indian Ocean. SpaceX engineers flew drones over the vehicle to inspect its heat shield, getting their best look yet at how more than 18,000 ceramic tiles insulating the ship’s stainless steel airframe weathered the trip to space and back. The tiles withstood temperatures up to 2,600° Fahrenheit (1,430° Celsius) as Starship streaked back into the atmosphere at the end of its hour-long flight from Starbase, Texas.
Encouraged by the picture-perfect end to Friday’s flight, SpaceX is likely to take the next leap with Starship on the next launch, according to the company’s founder and CEO, Elon Musk. That would entail hurling Starship on a longer-range trajectory, perhaps into low-Earth orbit, to bring the vehicle back to the launch site. Mechanical arms on the launch tower will attempt to capture the ship as it slows to a hover. SpaceX has already done this with the rocket’s massive Super Heavy booster, which is larger and heavier than Starship itself, but comes back at a fraction of the speed.
“Unless we discover problems after mission data review, SpaceX will attempt to catch the ship with the tower on next flight,” Musk wrote on X Friday evening.
Starship’s six Raptor engines afloat in the Indian Ocean.
Credit: SpaceX
Starship’s six Raptor engines afloat in the Indian Ocean. Credit: SpaceX
Hungry for data
Engineers have long identified the performance and durability of the heat shield as one of the toughest challenges for the Starship program. SpaceX’s ambition for Starship includes rapid turnarounds, and eventually multiple flights per day. If this is to be achievable, the heat shield has to be robust against the vibrations and extreme temperatures it sees during launch and reentry. It can’t be refurbished or replaced after every flight.
“This is the first time we’ve put an intact Starship in the water,” said Dan Huot, a SpaceX communications manager providing commentary on the company’s live webcast. “This is a dream scenario for the team that’s trying to get this heat shield data.”
The intact splashdown Friday also opens up the possibility for SpaceX to tow the rocket back to shore, probably somewhere in Australia, for more detailed inspections. Starship is designed for reuse, but not after exposure to salt water.
“This is so critical for refining the heat shield and everything else. The really good news is … you’re looking at a pretty intact-looking heat shield,” Huot said. “We were flying at a significantly higher dynamic pressure, so putting way more stress on this vehicle on the way uphill, and it’s sitting there in the water.”
SpaceX continued receiving signals from Starship after splashdown through the company’s Starlink satellite broadband network. A camera onboard Starship showed no signs of external damage to the vehicle’s six Raptor engines as water lapped against the lens.
Friday’s test flight was the 13th launch of SpaceX’s Starship on top of its massive Super Heavy booster, and the second flight of the latest iteration of the world’s most powerful rocket—Starship Version 3.
Starship and its Super Heavy booster lift off from SpaceX’s launch site in South Texas at 5:51 pm CDT on July 24, 2026.
Credit: Reginald Mathalone/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Starship and its Super Heavy booster lift off from SpaceX’s launch site in South Texas at 5:51 pm CDT on July 24, 2026. Credit: Reginald Mathalone/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The 408-foot-tall (124-meter) rocket lifted off from Starbase, Texas, a few miles north of the US-Mexico border, at 5:51 pm CDT (6:51 pm EDT; 22:51 UTC). Thirty-three methane-fueled Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster steered the rocket east over the Gulf of Mexico and into the upper atmosphere, where the booster separated from Starship’s upper stage after burning most of its cryogenic propellant.
The only thing left incomplete on SpaceX’s checklist for Flight 13 was the controlled splashdown of the Super Heavy booster. It was supposed to relight its engines for a landing burn off the coast of Texas, simulating maneuvers required to return the booster back to the launch pad for recovery and reuse.
But some of the Raptor engines failed to restart for the landing burn, and the booster fell into the ocean at high speed. SpaceX also had trouble with the booster splashdown on the last flight in May. Friday’s flight showed some progress, but engineers have more work to do on recovering this version the Super Heavy booster. SpaceX previously recovered and re-flew Super Heavy boosters two times with the Starship Version 2 design, but not with Version 3.
“The booster successfully completed the high thrust portion of the boostback burn with all 33 engines, the first time with a Super Heavy V3, before ending the burn early,” SpaceX officials wrote in an update on the company’s website. “It attempted to relight its engines for the landing burn, with a subset successfully igniting before experiencing a hard splashdown in the Gulf.”
Success in space
Starship continued accelerating into space as the Super Heavy booster descended toward the Gulf, firing its six engines more than five minutes before beginning a half-hour coast over the Caribbean Sea, Atlantic Ocean, and South Africa.
A few minutes after engine shutdown, Starship opened its payload bay door and started deploying a stack of 20 Starlink satellites. The satellites are the first of SpaceX’s upgraded Starlink V3 model, with significant improvements in throughput and power. They are also larger and heavier than Starlink V2s, meaning they will not fit on SpaceX’s smaller, workhorse Falcon 9 rocket.
Starship released the Starlink V3s using its Pez-like deployer, tossing them overboard through a slit-like opening on the side of the spacecraft. The flat-panel satellites did not stay in space for long. They flew on the same arcing suborbital trajectory as Starship, and were designed to burn up as they fell back into the atmosphere less than an hour after launch.
In little time, SpaceX ground teams established contact with each of the satellites through radio and laser communication links, and “downloaded key telemetry” before their fiery demise. This provided engineers with their first look at the performance of Starlink V3s in space.
Powered by six Raptor engines, Starship is seen accelerating toward space Friday in this view captured by a camera on the Super Heavy booster moments after stage separation.
Credit: SpaceX
Powered by six Raptor engines, Starship is seen accelerating toward space Friday in this view captured by a camera on the Super Heavy booster moments after stage separation. Credit: SpaceX
With the satellite deployments complete, attention turned to a brief restart of one of the ship’s Raptor engines, something engineers forewent on the last flight. The burn lasted approximately 14 seconds, and was visible to observers in South Africa. SpaceX hailed the demonstration as “core capability for future orbital missions.” Gravity then pulled Starship back to Earth.
The next steps for Starship are getting to orbit and returning the ship to the launch site. Those achievements will give SpaceX the capability to begin launching operational Starlink V3 satellites, unlocking higher-speed direct-to-device connectivity for consumers and the US military, and the revenue to go along with it.
For NASA, an orbital flight puts SpaceX on a path toward orbital refueling. This demonstration is vital for any Starship flight beyond low-Earth orbit, including missions to the Moon in support of NASA’s Artemis program. NASA is working with SpaceX and Blue Origin to develop human-rated versions of Starship and the Blue Moon lander to ferry astronauts to and from the lunar surface.
“Excited for what will be learned from this mission,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman wrote on X after the launch of Flight 13. “When Starship comes online, its capabilities will be game-changing, not least of which will be ensuring we never give up the Moon again!”
SpaceX has one active launch pad in Texas, and a second Starship pad undergoing renovations there. Two Starship launch sites are under construction at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The orbital refueling demonstration will include two Starship launches, allowing the vehicles to rendezvous and dock with one another in orbit. One ship will then transfer methane and liquid oxygen propellants to the other through automated couplers.
It will take multiple refueling runs in rapid succession to refill a Starship with enough propellant to reach the Moon, requiring rapid reuse of Starships and the Super Heavy boosters at multiple launch pads. With Friday’s test flight, SpaceX seems poised to embark on the next phase of Starship’s iterative development program. It won’t be easy.
“Really critical data collected this mission on a demonstration deorbit burn for Raptor, and a first flight for the next generation Starlink satellites,” Shana Diez, SpaceX’s director of Starship flight reliability, wrote on X.
“It feels like we are ready to kick into gear on delivering payload to orbit, which I am very excited for,” Diez added. “Development vehicles are fun but at the end of the day, we are here to put things into space and I am psyched about this rocket’s game changing capabilities.”
Self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth has a problem with low testosterone. It’s left him suffering from what you might call an acute crisis of masculinity. And I’m pretty sure that he caught it from Teddy Roosevelt.
Bear with me. I’ll explain.
Last week, the Trump administration’s preening, strutting, wanna-be he-man announced a new mandatory annual screening for troops age 30 and older, including women, for testosterone deficiency. Troops under 30 can volunteer to be screened, and anyone with low hormone levels will have the option to receive testosterone replacement therapy.
“It’s about restoring and optimizing your natural capability,” said Hegseth, by ensuring “you have the biological foundation required to sustain the fight” on the “brutal and unrelenting” modern battlefield. Like all Hegseth initiatives, he linked it to “lethality” — now the animating feature of his life. He called topping off troops’ testosterone levels a “sacred duty.”
Anyone who has observed Hegseth for more than 15 seconds in the last 15 years could tell you the man is riddled with deep insecurities. His quest to fully transition the Defense Department to what he calls “The High-T Department of War” is just the latest manifestation of nagging anxieties about himself and the wheel-spinning, never-winning military he leads.
Poor Pete’s woes have been piling up since he headed off to college at Princeton, if not before. Hegseth acts like he was drafted against his will by the Ivy League and escaped it by joining the Army National Guard as an infantry officer in 2003. He fondly recalls guarding “Islamic assholes” at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, alongside “hard-working, God-fearing, America-loving middle-class men” whom he contrasts with “millionaires at Princeton,” a school he derides whenever he can.
Stuffed in Hegseth’s Army-issue green duffle bag when he arrived at Gitmo was a sheet of plain white copy paper inside a black plastic frame with a quote from his hero, former President Teddy Roosevelt. This long love affair with TR has continued over the decades. Pete wrote a ridiculous 2016 book, “In the Arena,” based on the “timeless truths of Teddy Roosevelt’s iconic ‘Man in the Arena’ speech” from 1910. And he still references that speech to this day and routinely works Teddy into his public remarks whenever he can.
Last year, Hegseth wanted the Pentagon to cut ties with the Boy Scouts of America because, he believed, “the organization once endorsed by President Theodore Roosevelt” had strayed from their mission to “cultivate masculine values.” (He later bullied the Scouts into submission.) And just last month, he talked up TR to U.S. troops in Cuba — where Roosevelt fought during the Spanish-American War — using his hero as proof of America’s right to intervene “in the affairs of Latin American nations.”
No one more exemplified the anxieties of privileged men of his time than Teddy Roosevelt, who grew up in the swirl of post-Civil War America in which urbanization, industrialization, a new emphasis on “brainwork,” and new technologies led to a crippling novel condition dubbed neurasthenia: nervous exhaustion, or a deficiency of “nerve-force.” This affliction was “modern and originally American,” according to the then-most influential expert on the now-archaic medical diagnosis.
Rich, white Anglo-Saxon men like Teddy professed complete cultural, racial, and sexual superiority but grew extremely anxious it was being stolen from them. (Yes, you guessed it: Immigrants, radicals, and independent, unduly educated, or otherwise unruly “new” women were prime culprits.) Men were fast becoming feeble and feminized; only through manly endeavors like weightlifting, hiking, hunting, sports, horseback riding, and excursions into the wild could they counteract the debilitating effects of over-civilization. Roosevelt, for example, transformed himself from a frail, sickly weakling who was called a “sissy” by peers and “Jane-Dandy” by the press into a man’s man via boxing, shooting, wrestling, and travel out West, where he reinvented himself as a cowboy.
The scholar Yeonsik Jung summed up the neurasthenic age nicely, writing: “Channeled through the medical knowledge of neurology, it made American men’s racial, sexual, and spatial anxieties function to act out their racist, misogynist, nativist, and imperialist impulses which legitimized exclusionary political techniques toward the racial and sexual others such as the U.S. imperial expansion in the 1890s and 1900s.” These white American men had to win back, as another scholar put it, “the potency of their violent masculinity—their ability to out-savage the savage” on the American frontier before turning overseas to places like the Philippines, Haiti, and Nicaragua. Roosevelt’s own expansionist imperialism and his campaign against “race suicide” were firmly rooted in this toxic ferment. When the United States initially failed to annex Hawaii after a group of missionaries and pineapple plantation interests took over and set up their own government in the 1890s, for example, Roosevelt called the reluctance “a crime against white civilization.”
The framed quote Hegseth stuffed into that Gitmo duffle, which he also took to the forever wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, are lines from “The Man in the Arena” speech:
Am I striving valiantly?
Is my face marred by dust and sweat and blood? Am I spending myself in a worthy cause?
Am I daring greatly?
Am I in the arena?
“Spending myself” is an intriguing phrase here that’s key to my diagnosis of Hegseth. I’m not a medical doctor, but long ago I studied the intersection of medicine and masculinity in the late 19th and early 20th century en route to my Ph.D. A great panic of the era surrounded what historians came to call the “spermatic economy,” the belief that a man’s semen was a finite reserve of vital energy — like money in a bank account — and “spending” this essential life force through masturbation or excessive sex would leave him depleted, leading to nervous exhaustion’s below-the-waist variant: sexual neurasthenia. (President Donald Trump, who espouses pseudoscientific claptrap about good and bad “genes” also reportedly believes humans are closed-loop systems that, like a battery, have a finite amount of energy.)
Such fin de siècle fears of debilitation led to “rejuvenation” cures like French physiologist Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard injecting himself and others with crushed guinea pig testicles — launching the field of “organotherapy” — and Austrian physiologist Eugen Steinach’s surgical procedure, a partial vasectomy to restore vigor which found favor with patients from psychoanalysis founder and noted head case Sigmund Freud to William Butler Yeats, the Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet. (“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”)
Hegseth is heir to this utter nuttery — obsessed as it was with limits on semen spending and banking one’s virility. His hysteria over the military becoming “effeminate” has led him to conclude that those who wish to “master the profession of arms” must have their testosterone tanks topped off. And he claims, without evidence, that pumping troops full of this hormone — which people of every sex and gender produce — will improve “combat readiness.” Hegseth also thinks his new policy will make troops “strong, resilient and capable.”
But while testosterone is tied to muscle mass, it isn’t linked with actual strength. A 2019 study found that men who received injected testosterone while engaged in intense exercise and a restricted diet — meant to mimic “strenuous military operations” — did not see gains in strength or endurance; a 2022 follow-up also found no increase in physical performance. Moreover, supplementing testosterone actually signals the body to shut down its own natural production, which can shrink the testicles and reduce one’s sperm count. (Paging Dr. Steinach!)
Hegseth believes you can measure manhood by testing testosterone, the same way he believes you can kill your way to victory on the battlefield.
Hegseth appears to believe more is better, advocating for a “high T” fighting force. But high levels of testosterone — which is currently classified as a controlled substance with potential for abuse — can lead to acne, balding, breast tissue growth, impaired ability of the heart to pump blood, infertility, erectile dysfunction, and increased risk of death.
Of course, it’s hard to say what’s normal if you’re testing millions of healthy people. Testosterone levels can change depending on when a patient is tested, whether they have recently eaten, exercised heavily, or are sick, among other factors, Dr. Alvin Matsumoto, a professor emeritus at the University of Washington School of Medicine, recently told The Intercept. For example, in about a third of men whose testosterone initially tests low, a second test produces a normal result. Tests also have high inter-lab variability. On that front, doctors usually assess testosterone levels only when symptoms of low T appear, and less than 6 percent of men between 30 and 79 actually have a deficiency.
Last week, a group of senators called out Hegseth for his bizarre obsession with troops’ testosterone, noting his department “provided no evidence that this sweeping new policy will improve force readiness or health, nor has it explained the scientific basis, costs, or risks associated with implementing it across the force.” They also pointed to “recent repeated efforts to redefine military culture around an exaggerated conception of masculinity.”
Exaggerated masculinity is an apt description for Hegseth. In his 2024 book, “The War on Warriors,” he bemoaned a plot to manufacture “soft men, and a weak military.” He describes an effort to make the armed forces “fatter,” “slower,” and “effeminate” by those “obsessed” with “neutering our military,” and delves into the dangers posed by “Pentagon pussies.”
After 18 months of crackpot policies and puerile posturing at the helm of the War Department, Hegseth’s hysteria has only grown. Like Roosevelt, Hegseth is forever struggling to display his manhood through physical exertion — posting videos of himself engaging in humiliating fitness challenges. Similarly, he’s been propping up America’s long-sagging martial prowess by beating up on the likes of Venezuela, attacking elementary school kids in Iran, blowing up unarmed boats packed with civilians in the Caribbean Sea, and threatening tiny Cuba, where his hero Teddy won fame for a Spanish-American War charge up San Juan Hill.
“Speak softly and carry a big stick” was Roosevelt’s foreign policy prescription. But from the war against the Houthis last year to the war on Iran today, Hegseth has found that his stick just doesn’t measure up. The resulting insecurity has led the emasculated War secretary to fire women and Black men from top leadership positions, block the promotion of women military officers, banish transgender service members, and denounce “fat generals and admirals” and “females” whom he believes “can’t meet the same combat arms physical standards as men.” He has now added low-T troops to the list of scapegoats for his department’s underperformance, instead of examining his failings as a leader.
Hegseth believes you can measure manhood by testing testosterone, the same way he believes you can kill your way to victory on the battlefield. It’s part of a mélange of flaccid fallacies and fantasies that seem to dominate the worldview of a man who paid $50,000 to a woman who accused him of raping her, whose former sister-in-law accused him of “abusive” behavior toward his second wife, and whose own mother once called out the fact that he “belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego.” And as America’s wars go south, Hegseth has become ever more unhinged and his public tantrums more pronounced. “You have Trump derangement syndrome!” he snapped at Michigan Sen. Gary Peters this week, after failing to admit earlier claims about victory in the Iran war were premature.
Hegseth is exactly where he wants to be — “in the arena” — even though it’s abundantly clear his crisis of masculinity is becoming a catastrophe for his department, the rest of America, and great swaths of the globe, from the Caribbean to Iran. All the testosterone in the world isn’t going to win America’s wars, achieve Hegseth’s dream of turning “soft men” hard, or transform “Pentagon pussies” into something more in line with his fantasies, much less cure the crushing insecurities swirling in the brain of America’s fragile war secretary and the deep deficiency that has long plagued him.
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