US floats prospect of joint strikes on Colombian armed groups
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth floated on Wednesday the possibility of joint strikes on Colombian armed groups, as he welcomed the nation into a military-led counter-narcotics coalition after its conservative president took over last week.
Colombia had authorized “joint military operations to destroy terrorists and terror networks,” Hegseth told a gathering of the U.S.-led Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition in Panama.
“Yes,” he replied when asked if he had discussed with his Colombian counterpart joint strikes against armed groups such as the National Liberation Army (ELN), which the U.S. designates as a terrorist group, and remnants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
“Designated terrorist organizations, with partnered governments, will be legitimate targets of the United States government,” to include Colombia, Hegseth said when asked if such operations were expected.
President Donald Trump’s Latin American policy has expanded dramatically beyond its early focus on the Panama Canal.
More than 200 people have been killed since the launch of U.S. military strikes on suspected drug boats last September, while a U.S.-led commando raid in January deposed Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela.
Critics say the U.S. strikes amount to war crimes worthy of the International Criminal Court, but Hegseth blasted the organization and encouraged coalition allies attending the meeting in Panama to withdraw from it.
He compared drug traffickers to al Qaeda or Islamic State terrorists.
Speaking at a hotel in Panama City, Hegseth invoked a revamped Monroe Doctrine, the 19th-century policy asserting U.S. primacy across the Americas that critics associate with decades of U.S. intervention.
He has called it the “Donroe Doctrine” — a play on Trump’s name.
“We will defend our hemisphere from external threats,” including from narco-traffickers and foreign malign influence, Hegseth said.
COLOMBIAN CRACKDOWN
Colombian President Abelardo De La Espriella’s vows of a security crackdown have been embraced by the Trump administration, which announced plans on Friday to provide $1 billion in U.S. security assistance to his government.
During his swearing-in remarks on Friday, De La Espriella vowed to “definitively eradicate the scourge of illicit crops” and committed to also joining the Shield of the Americas program founded by Trump.
De La Espriella has blamed his predecessor, leftist Gustavo Petro, for an expansion of armed groups.
Speaking alongside Hegseth at the event, Colombia’s new Defense Minister Jorge Eduardo Mora, a retired major general, said Colombia could take a critical role in combating narco-traffickers on both its Pacific and Caribbean coasts.
“I think the time has arrived for the narco-terrorist cartels to confront the power and the capabilities of the entire hemisphere, led by the United States,” Mora said.
One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the new security partnership was expected to surpass the level of cooperation under Plan Colombia, a U.S.-Colombia anti-narcotics initiative launched in the early 2000s.
De La Espriella’s election was part of a rightward shift rippling across Latin America.
In Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Panama and Peru, weak economies and rising crime have reshaped voter priorities, allowing once-fringe hard-right candidates to gain traction by promising crackdowns amid a global rise of right-wing nationalism.
In Panama, Trump’s administration won a major victory from the country’s Supreme Court in January after voicing concerns about encroachment by China. Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison, through local unit Panama Ports Company, lost the port concessions it had held for nearly three decades.
The Panama Canal handles 5% of global maritime trade, making control of its entrance ports a flashpoint for tension between Washington and Beijing.
Addressing the meeting, Panama President Jose Raul Mulino called drug trafficking the biggest threat facing the region and dismissed concerns that the U.S.-led coalition could infringe on members’ sovereignty. He made no mention of China.
Instead, he said the transnational crime groups that traffic drugs and people are the real threats to sovereignty.
“There’s never going to be a sustainable peace if this enemy (advances),” Mulino said.
CBS News Star Accused of Shocking Harassment by Colleague
CBS News correspondent Matt Gutman is facing serious accusations from a former ABC News colleague who claims he made sexualized remarks in the workplace, according to a wrongful-termination lawsuit filed in California.
Former ABC News field producer Samira Said named Gutman in a complaint filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court against ABC parent company Disney and others.
Said, who worked in ABC News’ Los Angeles bureau from May 2021 until March 2025, is seeking unspecified damages and alleges she faced discrimination, retaliation and a hostile work environment before ultimately losing her job.
Gutman, who previously worked for ABC News before joining CBS News, is mentioned in the lawsuit in connection with two alleged incidents involving inappropriate comments.
According to the complaint, Said was once assigned to a team that included Gutman and two other male crew members when a conversation allegedly turned to the appearance of a female correspondent.
The lawsuit claims Gutman began discussing the woman’s looks and allegedly rated her appearance using a numerical score based on her physical attributes.
Other male members of the crew allegedly joined in, with the lawsuit claiming the group continued discussing the woman’s body and appearance while Said was present.
Said claims the men then tried to pull her into the conversation by asking for her opinion.
She allegedly refused to participate and told them the discussion was inappropriate.
The lawsuit describes a second alleged encounter during a press event for a movie release.
According to Said, she and Gutman disagreed over whether their team should leave the work site.
The complaint claims Gutman then suggested, in front of several coworkers, that Said must have an after-hours date in the city and that was the real reason she did not want to relocate.
Said argues the remark undermined her professional judgment and turned the workplace disagreement into a sexualized stereotype.
The allegations involving Gutman are only one part of Said’s broader lawsuit against ABC and Disney.
Said also claims her relationship with the network deteriorated after she covered the devastating 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
According to the complaint, Said experienced severe psychological symptoms following the assignment while also dealing with lingering effects from COVID-19.
She was reportedly granted medical leave from August 2022 until January 2023.
Said alleges that when her psychiatrist later cleared her to return to work with recommended accommodations, ABC refused those requests and instead required her to return without restrictions and remain available for a full workweek.
She claims she was later reassigned to weekend desk shifts and faced additional negative treatment.
The situation allegedly came to a head in March 2025.
Said claims she suffered a foot injury while covering dangerous weather conditions and reported the injury to the company.
She says she was subsequently fired.
Her lawsuit accuses ABC and Disney of discrimination based on gender, ancestry and disability, as well as retaliation, failure to accommodate her medical needs, hostile work environment harassment and other alleged violations.
The claims have not been proven in court, and the lawsuit represents Said’s allegations.
5 Years After Taliban Takeover, Afghan Women See Their Futures Erased
Saturday marked five years since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, and for the country’s women and girls, the anniversary brought little to commemorate. Arshad Mehmood reports that restrictions initially imposed after the collapse of President Ashraf Ghani’s government have hardened into a sweeping system that excludes women from education, employment and public life.
Girls remain barred from schooling beyond sixth grade. Women face tight controls on movement, dress, work and access to public spaces, often requiring a male guardian simply to leave home. United Nations experts are urging governments not to legitimize the Taliban without measurable, independently verified improvements in human rights.
Behind those policies are lives thrown violently off course. Marzia Imamzadeh, a Hazara Shia refugee who dreamed of becoming a lawyer, fled toward Pakistan after the Taliban takeover and survived an Islamic State Khorasan Province attack on her convoy. A former Afghan women’s volleyball coach, now separated from her children, described struggling to obtain food and medical care while facing possible deportation.
Zala Ahmadi was one semester short of completing a computer science degree at Kabul University when the Taliban closed the door on her education and startup ambitions. She sold her family’s remaining gold jewelry to pay smugglers and now lives undocumented in Pakistan, watching from afar as her younger sisters lose their own educational opportunities.
Other women who escaped Afghanistan—including journalist Tahmina Usmani, former national athlete Marwa Ali and former Supreme Court Judge Tahmina Safi—describe a generation stripped of autonomy, security and hope. Their testimony also exposes a troubling contradiction: Foreign governments condemn Taliban abuses while maintaining political and humanitarian engagement.
Geopolitical analyst Paul Farley warns that excluding women from education and healthcare could leave Afghanistan desperately short of female doctors, nurses and midwives, driving maternal mortality higher. Activist Fariba Akbari says poverty, forced marriage, domestic abuse and deportation fears are feeding a largely overlooked mental health emergency.
Mehmood’s full report gives these women something the Taliban has tried to deny them: a public voice. Read it for the human stories behind five years of gender-based exclusion—and for the warning that silence may allow this system to become permanent.
Wildfire smoke now bigger prenatal threat than human sources of air pollution
In 1965, a presidential advisory panel issued a report warning that pervasive chemical and carbon pollution was harming environmental health and changing the climate. Five years later, President Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act.
Since that 1970 law and its amendments were passed, combined emissions of a half-dozen harmful air pollutants from vehicles and industrial sources have decreased by nearly 80 percent.
But mounting evidence shows that pollution from wildfire smoke is eclipsing those air-quality gains. The unchecked burning of fossil fuels is creating warmer, drier conditions that make wildfires more intense and destructive, and blanket communities in toxic smoke that is more harmful than pollution from other sources.
Now, a new study shows that smoke from wildfires is also reversing the health benefits of reducing air pollution for society’s most vulnerable population: babies in the womb.
Increasing wildfire activity is “systematically offsetting prenatal air quality gains” from reducing emissions from vehicles, refineries, factories and other human sources, researchers from the University of Maryland, College Park, report in the study, published Thursday in Frontiers in Environmental Health.
Low-income, rural and Indigenous populations bore the disproportionate burden of wildfire’s contribution to poor air quality, the authors found.
The major contribution of the study is its focus on a “very specific population that is quite at risk for adverse health outcomes,” said senior author Michel Boudreaux, associate professor of health policy and management. “We were looking at infants that were born and what their exposure was like during the prenatal period.”
Prenatal exposure to wildfire smoke significantly increases the likelihood that babies will be born too early or too small, raising their risk of dying early or developing chronic respiratory conditions and other diseases later in life.
The University of Maryland team studied how wildfire smoke and human sources of air pollution changed across the contiguous United States between 2003 and 2019, looking at air pollution data from the Environmental Protection Agency and live birth records. (The EPA datasets do not include years beyond 2019.)
To understand how much wildfire smoke contributed to unhealthy air exposures for unborn babies, the team used computer models to estimate exposures to fine particle pollution, or PM2.5, from both human sources, such as cars and industry, and natural sources, like wildfires. The team modeled air quality without emissions from fires to calculate how much of that total pollution came from wildfires.
The researchers obtained data for nearly 65 million babies born over 16 years and determined how many days they were exposed in the womb to the EPA threshold for unhealthy air.
Average daily prenatal exposure to air pollution from human sources dropped by 37 percent during that time, the analysis found, but contributions from wildfires doubled, offsetting those gains.
Although the study does not integrate data on preterm birth, birthweight or other outcomes, it is a very good exposure-characterization study, said Ilona Jaspers, an inhalation toxicologist and professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who was not involved in the study.
“What this study does do well is confirm and expand the well-established finding that ambient PM2.5 in the United States is increasingly wildfire-dominated, offsetting Clean Air Act gains, but applies a birth-weighted lens to it,” she said.
Wildfire smoke exposures are likely to have vast public health consequences, Jaspers said. In previous studies, Jaspers and her colleagues used prescription insurance claim data to show that exposure during specific perinatal periods can lead to childhood respiratory diseases.
The research doesn’t look at how much time the mother was spending outside, if she wore an N95 mask or if she had an air-filtration system in her home, which Boudreaux acknowledges as a limitation of the study. But data sources like Purple Air that track wildfire smoke are detecting a large amount of pollution in the form of a PM2.5 inside people’s homes, he said.
The new study highlighted regions and populations that were disproportionately affected by wildfire smoke. In the West and Northwest, wildfires’ contributions to air pollution more than doubled over the study period. And the communities where wildfires are responsible for the largest reversals in air quality—low-income, rural and American Indian and Alaska Native populations—often have the least access to neonatal care.
Since exposure to wildfire smoke early in life can cause life-long health problems, reducing exposure in the prenatal period will yield long-term benefits, Boudreaux said.
The last six years have seen several catastrophic fires in the West and Canada, Boudreaux said. If the team were to extend the study through 2026, he said, they’d likely see wildfires make an even higher contribution to unhealthy prenatal exposures. But that’s just speculation, he cautioned.
What is clear, he said, is that wildfire smoke now accounts for an increasing share of “acute, massive air pollution days” that endanger babies’ health. “What that tells me is that the next frontier is how do we help people manage exposure to wildfire smoke, which is a different kind of exposure than ambient pollution from other sources.”
That means providing communities with resources like clean-air shelters, air filters and better access to healthcare when they are exposed, he said. Ultimately, he said, “we should be asking, are there things we can do to reduce the risk of climate change in general?”
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.
Less than a month after the June 2025 strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with US House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) in Johnson’s Capitol Hill office.
In their private meeting after the photo above was taken, Johnson gave Netanyahu a Bible study pamphlet that contains Jewish tropes and proclaims the foundational antisemitic blood libel of deicide: the claim not just that some Jews were involved in Jesus’s crucifixion, but that all Jews are culpable.
Although the pamphlet and accompanying videos are supportive of Israel, they repeat the antisemitic claim, long renounced by major world religions, that Israel, the Jews, killed Jesus.
The two-part Bible study was a treatise urging US politicians to take Israel’s side. The two lessons had been distributed to congressional and White House Bible-study groups starting the day after Israel launched a sustained attack on Iran last year, when the push was on for the US to join in.
The two-part lessons were posted online on June 13 and 14, 2025. It’s not that the two pamphlets were written that quickly; they were recycled.
Capitol Ministries — which runs Bible studies for the House, Senate, White House, and governors — often reuses previous lessons, or repurposes them in the context of current events. The Israel lessons were resurrected to make a Biblical case for the US to join Israel’s new offensive.
For instance, the June 13, 2025, study guide notes that, “Given ongoing attention to Israel and Gaza, I thought this would be a good time to provide a biblical primer as to why you and our nation should remain staunch allies of Israel.” That language has been in there since at least October 18, 2021.
And the same Bible study pamphlet has been warning about Iran’s “nearly-enriched nuclear threat” since 2011.
So, over the years, many influential leaders in the Trump administration and the Republican Congress may have seen the recycled Israel lessons.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) has been involved with Capitol Ministries and its leaders, Ralph and Danielle Drollinger, for more than ten years.
“Ralph and Danielle are there to instruct, admonish, encourage, exhort and inspire elected officials to lead their lives and conduct themselves in a way that brings glory to God,” Thune said in 2015, “to remind us of what is important, what our priorities should be.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth participates in the Capitol Ministries White House Bible studies, the Pentagon confirmed to me last year.
On June 21, 2025, about a week after the Bible studies, President Donald Trump launched three separate strikes against nuclear targets in Iran.
Then, the following month, Netanyahu came to Washington. His itinerary before meeting with Trump at the White House included a stop at Johnson’s office
Spectrum News reported that, after the meeting, Netanyahu said, “First comes strength, then comes the peace.”
Johnson issued a brief statement about the meeting, but neither man shared everything that transpired. Some details Johnson saved for the 2025 annual report of Capitol Ministries.
In a quotation accompanying the same picture from his office that he used for his social-media post, Johnson gave Capitol Ministries a more substantive account of what happened at the meeting.
This photo of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s visit to my office last summer was taken right before I shared with him a copy of Ralph’s two-part Bible study on “The Biblical Case for Defending Israel.” We discussed it at some length and Bibi left with a copy.
CapMin is an invaluable resource that I and countless other members greatly appreciate. The solid weekly Bible studies are always timely and applicable to our personal lives, as well as our vocational decisions.
Photo: Office of the Speaker of the House / X
The first of Drollinger’s two Israel study guides argues that the US should help Israel even though it’s in a time-out for killing Jesus:
“[T]he spiritual blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant accrue to the Church for a time (until God grafts Israel back in) due to the present apostasy of Israel, having executed the Messiah.”
Highlighted excerpt of Capitol Ministries study guide.
In a video for Part 2, Drollinger argues that the Bible says Jews were only “sidetracked” by God. For crucifying Jesus.
“Israel has stumbled. They’re on the side track of God’s plan as He grafts in the gentiles into His kingdom. And they’ve been sidetracked because they crucified their messiah.”
The pamphlets for both parts of that lesson list Johnson, among many other Republicans1, as sponsors.
Excerpts from Capitol Ministries Bible study guide, The Biblical Case for Defending Israel, Part 1. Imaage: Screenshot / Capitol Ministries PDF.
Neither Johnson’s office nor the Israeli embassy in Washington responded to emails requesting confirmation and comment.
You might think Capitol Hill media might have learned about and reported a lengthy discussion between the US House speaker and Israel’s prime minister about the biblical case for the US to side with Israel. Especially when that argument stipulates that the Jews killed Jesus.
And especially when Drollinger has made news before with derogatory statements about women, Catholics and LGBTQ+ people.
It wasn’t even the first evangelical shadow diplomacy Johnson has engaged in with huge stakes. His meetings with Ukraine’s Fellowship Foundation point man, unreported at the time, led to Johnson supporting Ukraine aid.
Nevertheless, for whatever reason, Johnson bringing Drollinger’s teachings into his Netanyahu meeting has not been previously reported. I only learned about it going through the annual report.
And it’s not the first time this issue has arisen on Capitol Hill in recent years. Johnson has a complicated history when it comes to references to deicide.
In 2024, Senaator Chuck Schumer (D-New York) was trying to pass the Antisemitism Awareness Act to enact legal definitions of antisemitism. Jewish Insider reported that Schumer, the majority leader at the time, believed an unnamed Republican senator would force a floor vote on an amendment to exempt deicide from the definitions.
Calling Jews Christ-killers, in other words, would not be considered antisemitism under the law.
So Schumer went to Johnson, who had already got the bill through the House, for help. He asked Johnson about attaching the bill to a much bigger one, military spending, to block the deicide amendment from getting a potentially divisive floor debate. Schumer feared such a debate could make things worse for American Jews.
But the bill’s inclusion of deicide had already prompted blowback from the Christian right. Charlie Kirk suggested, falsely, that the bill had outlawed parts of the Bible. Tucker Carlson responded: “Yes. The New Testament.”
Reportedly, Johnson told Schumer no, he wouldn’t add the antisemitism legislation to the military spending bill.
We still don’t know which senator was set to push a deicide amendment but, in April 2025, The Forward reported that Senator Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) was pushing one. Cassidy’s been a Drollinger sponsor since 2013.
Without the amendment, Representative Josh Brecheen (R-Oklahoma) voted against the bill because it defined blaming Jews for the crucifixion as antisemitism:
This statement is not antisemitic; it is a biblical and historical fact, as Jesus was a Jew.
I sincerely wish I could have supported this bill, as I have always opposed antisemitism, but I cannot approve of any measure that mischaracterizes what the Bible says as bigoted or hateful.
The bill died when a slew of bipartisan amendments cost it majority support.
As I reported last year, Johnson had only become a sponsor of Drollinger’s House Bible study in May 2025, the month before the Israel Bible lessons. Just a couple months before, Trump administration leaders had revived the weekly White House cabinet meetings of the Bible study.
One of those leaders was Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, now being sued for proselytizing to her staff. The other was Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought.
During Vought’s 2017 confirmation hearing, he stood by a previous published statement that Muslims “stand condemned” for not accepting Jesus as their savior.
When Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent-Vermont) asked whether Jews also stand condemned, Vought said he was writing about his school, Wheaton, which “has a statement of faith that speaks clearly with regard to the centrality of Jesus Christ in salvation.”
There’s no public indication of whether Johnson is being influenced by Drollinger’s teachings, or sponsors the Bible studies because those teachings reflect his own, previously held beliefs.
In 2024, for instance, Johnson was asked whether he believed in a biblical rationale for aiding Israel.
Q: Do you also think that there’s a moral or biblical rationale for the US to be supporting Israel at this time?
JOHNSON: Sure. It’s my personal belief it begins in the first book of the Bible, the Torah, and Genesis, where it says very clearly that God will bless the nation that blesses Israel and curse the nation that curses Israel. So, whether you look at this as a matter of faith, whether you look at it in purely pragmatic reasons, it’s very important, very important for us to support Israel as the only stable democracy in the Middle East. … For some of us it goes even deeper than that because it is a matter of faith.
That’s in line with Drollinger’s teachings. Here’s the short version of Drollinger’s biblical exegesis as outlined in the lessons that Johnson shared last year with Netanyahu:
God made a promise to Israel — the Abrahamic Covenant — that applied to the whole world. Israel’s allies would be blessed, her enemies cursed.
Some Christians argue that the crucifixion voided God’s promise, meaning nations didn’t have to worry about God anymore when they dealt with Israel. Drollinger attributes this belief, in part, to antisemitism: A rationale for hating Jews and acting against Israel.
Drollinger teaches an alternate view. Yes, he says, the Jews killed Jesus. In his words, “Israel … executed their messiah.” (Most major religions have renounced this view.) But …
… God’s not done with Israel, Drollinger argues. God has merely put Israel in time out until the end of the story, when Jews are prophesied to play a part again (by converting to Christianity or being damned for eternity). So the Abrahamic Covenant, with blessings for Israel’s allies and curses for her enemies, remains in effect.
In other words, Drollinger perpetuates the claim of deicide. He just argues that it shouldn’t be held against Israel.
Drollinger shared his thoughts about Israel killing Jesus in the course of his twovideos about his Israel Bible studies.
Drollinger’s Bible study includes other tropes about Israel that are also considered antisemitic, even though they’re superficially complimentary. Israel’s smart, Drollinger says. And good with money.
Drollinger has even written that he was in the gallery when Netanyahu urged a 2015 joint session of Congress to kill the Iran nuclear deal. Drollinger wrote that he “enthusiastically joined in the thundering applause.”
Ironically, the year before Netanyahu’s congressional speech that Drollinger attended, Netanyahu addressed the United Nations, touching on antisemitism.
As Netanyahu explained, “For centuries the Jewish people have been demonized with blood libels and charges of deicide.”
The Anti-Defamation League agrees, calling it a “myth” to blame Jews for Jesus’s crucifixion:
The myth that Jews collectively murdered Jesus, also referred to as “deicide,” has been used to justify violence against Jews for centuries. Historians as well as Christian leaders have agreed that the claim is baseless.
A range of Jewish and secular groups and leaders last year condemned the Bible study for repeating the deicide slur.
Still, Israeli officials have understood for years that evangelical Christian support in the US is based in some measure on the wish to fulfill biblical prophecy. Johnson’s presentation to Netanyahu is only the latest confirmation of how important the Bible is to US foreign policy.
US evangelical Christian politicians may have nothing against Jews personally and may love Netanyahu’s policies. Or they may be fervidly antisemitic, harboring poisonous views of Jewish people. Either way, Drollinger’s theology perpetuates the charge of deicide, antisemitism’s original sin, but it also requires Israel to be intact for Jesus to return.
These kinds of belief are wildly underappreciated throughout American culture and government.
After the US joined Israel’s attack on Iran last year, for instance, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation received reports from service members about commanders celebrating the arrival of the End Times:
[T]he commander and his wife spent most of the Bible study yesterday in excessive and extreme glorification and overall celebration of the sudden attack on Iran by American forces and all of the other matters connected to the Israeli attacks on Iran…. They had big fat grins on their faces as they assured us that the “End Times” were now here just as heralded and predicted in the New Testament Book of Revelation.
According to Drollinger, his students in Congress and the cabinet are already predisposed toward Israel, often as part of their culturally Christian backgrounds. His lessons just provide a biblical basis, he says.
[W]e need to buoy the convictions of our members based upon Scriptural truths … so that, when push comes to shove, they know why they believe they’re pro-Israel: from what the Bible says.”
Recently, congressional Democrats have proved much more willing to buck Israel’s interests, voting in growing numbers against US arms for Israel.
Republicans, Drollinger says, base their support for Israel on the Bible. Democrats tempt their own ruin abandoning Israel:
[W]e see one political party for the most part basing their policies on the Mosaic law, the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20, and we see another one, increasingly — no matter what the matter is — it’s contrary to the Ten Commandments in their basis for reasoning, which is really shaky ground and it could demolish a political party that continues to do that …. The views that they hold are not tied to Mosaic law.
Of course, representatives in both parties swear to uphold the Constitution, not Mosaic law.
And Drollinger insists he’s not a Christian nationalist, not a Dominionist. He opposes both, and opposes theocracy, because, he says, the Bible does, too. He just wants as many elected officials as possible to base their votes and policies on God’s will.
Independent journalist Jonathan Larsen formerly was an executive producer at MSNBC, where he helped create Up w/ Chris Hayes, and previously was a senior producer on Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann. This and other articles can be read at Jonathan Larsen’s Substack.
Hamas delegation led by al-Hayya heads to Cairo to discuss Gaza ceasefire agreement
Hamas political bureau chief Khalil al-Hayya is due to arrive in Cairo on Sunday at the head of a senior leadership delegation, on his first visit to Egypt since assuming the leadership of the movement, to discuss efforts to consolidate the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, Anadolu reports.
A Hamas source told Anadolu that “a high-level leadership delegation headed by the movement’s leader, Khalil al-Hayya, will arrive tonight in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, to hold talks with Egyptian officials.”
The source added that the delegation will meet Egyptian General Intelligence Service chief Hassan Rashad to discuss a number of issues and developments related to the Palestinian issue, foremost among them talks aimed at consolidating the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip.
According to the source, the delegation also includes Hamas Shura Council chief Mohammed Darwish, head of the movement abroad Khaled Meshaal, Hamas chief in the West Bank Zaher Jabarin, and head of the Arab and Islamic Relations Office Basem Naim.
READ: Hamas reaffirms commitment to completing 2nd phase of Trump’s Gaza plan
EU Moves to Keep Strategic Raw Materials in Europe with Tougher End‑of‑Life Vehicle Rules
The End-of-Life Vehicles (ELV) Regulation enters into force on Thursday, revising the rules that govern the design, production, collection, and end-of-life treatment of vehicles.
It aims to strengthen circularity in the automotive sector by improving resource efficiency, increasing the recovery and reuse of valuable materials, and enhancing the environmental performance of vehicles throughout their lifecycle.
They will also help secure a more stable supply of secondary raw materials, reducing Europe’s dependence on imported virgin resources and supporting a more resilient industrial base.
The new rules encourage vehicle design that makes dismantling, reuse, recycling and recovery easier, while improving the information available on the removal and replacement of components during use and at the end of a vehicle’s life.
This will help both the automotive and recycling industries recover higher-quality components and materials more efficiently.
Use more recycled content
The Regulation also establishes requirements concerning the use of recycled materials in new vehicles. It sets mandatory targets for recycled plastic content of 15% from 2032 and 25% from 2036. In addition, the Commission will establish recycled content targets for steel and aluminium, which should apply from 2033.
The recycled content requirements are a key step towards creating a genuine market for secondary raw materials.
By providing long-term certainty for investors and manufacturers, the Regulation will encourage investment in recycling capacity, keep valuable materials in the European economy, strengthen Europe’s industrial resilience and reduce dependence on imported virgin raw materials.
Clearer, stricter implementation
Further measures strengthen the collection and traceability of vehicles reaching the end of their life. Reinforced traceability requirements, stronger enforcement, and clearer criteria that distinguish used vehicles from end-of-life vehicles will improve implementation across Member States.
New measures are also introduced to foster a higher recovery of critical raw materials from end-of-life vehicles, especially aluminium, copper and rare earth elements, to facilitate their reuse and recycling in the EU.
The Regulation also provides that from mid-2031, only roadworthy vehicles may be exported outside the EU, helping to protect the environment and prevent end-of-life vehicles from being exported as second-hand vehicles.
It strengthens Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), ensuring that producers contribute to the costs of collecting and treating end-of-life vehicles.
By making producers responsible for the end-of-life phase of the vehicles they place on the market, the framework creates incentives for more sustainable vehicle design and helps ensure that high-quality collection, dismantling and recycling systems are properly financed.
It also strengthens cooperation between producers and waste management operators and extends the framework to additional vehicle categories, including lorries, buses and motorcycles.
The entry into force of the new End-of-Life Vehicles Regulation marks an important step towards a more resilient, sustainable and competitive European economy. By strengthening the recovery, reuse and recycling of materials and components from vehicles, the Regulation helps keep valuable resources within Europe’s economy for longer, reducing reliance on imported primary raw materials.
It supports the transition to a more circular automotive sector, maximising the efficient use of resources while enhancing environmental protection across the vehicle lifecycle.
In doing so, the Regulation contributes to the EU’s strategic objective of greater resource independence, strengthens the sustainability and competitiveness of Europe’s industrial ecosystem, and reinforces the Union’s leadership in the transition towards a cleaner and more resource-efficient future.
Secret ICE Agent Tried to ‘Entice’ Minneapolis Activists Into Confrontational Tactics
Organizers in Minneapolis long suspected they were being surveilled by the federal government during the height of the winter protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It was not until a court filing on Thursday, however, that the youth-led Sunrise Movement and other groups learned the depths of infiltration.
The Sunrise Movement has long preached nonviolence even as it pursues aggressive tactics, such as making a racket outside of the hotels where ICE agents sleep.
But the group’s public commitment to peaceful protest did not spare it from a months-long, aggressive campaign of government snooping that included ICE agents attending its meetings and protests undercover, subpoenas of its financial records, and at least one apparent attempt to entice an organizer into backing more confrontational tactics.
Sunrise Movement Executive Director Aru Shiney-Ajay said in an interview Thursday that the government’s tactics are a sign that the Trump administration is losing the battle for public opinion.
“What this is meant to do is scare protesters and scare people away from joining protest groups,” she said. “It is very essential that we remember that actually what we are doing is incredibly normal, it is incredibly popular, and we cannot let ourselves be scared out of organizing.”
Operation Puppet Master
The revelations about the tactics ICE used against Sunrise, along with a wide variety of labor unions and protest groups, came in a court filing from a defense attorney for one of 15 Minnesota activists charged in June for trying to stop the federal government’s immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities.
Shortly after federal agents killed Alex Pretti on Jan. 24, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations opened two investigations it called “Operation Puppet Master” and “Project Whipple Shield,” the latter a reference to the federal building that was the site of many ICE protests.
Supposedly, those probes would focus on a network supporting “violent opportunists and agitators.” In reality, the investigative reports that the federal government has turned over to defense attorneys show that undercover ICE agents secretly recorded at churches, libraries, and schools even when organizers stressed the importance of nonviolence.
In the case of Sunrise, undercover agents were already targeting the group before the killings of Pretti and Renee Good.
Sunrise is a national organization with a Twin Cities chapter. Long known for its aggressive climate advocacy, the youth-led group pivoted just before the start of the federal government’s crackdown on immigrants in Minnesota to fighting the Trump administration’s authoritarianism.
“We are a strictly nonviolent movement. We make that very clear in almost every training we run, in all the meetings we run,” she said.
Yet almost as soon as Operation Metro Surge started, ICE agents were attending Sunrise trainings on the sly.
Undercover agents attended a “how to stop ICE” training that Sunrise hosted at a church on Dec. 13. By Dec. 22, an undercover agent had been added to the Signal group for planning one of Sunrise’s hotel protests. On Jan. 9, two undercover agents attended a noise demonstration outside a Hilton Hotel, noting that a member of the crowd set off fireworks at one point.
The killing of Pretti — and the ensuing nationwide backlash against ICE — appears to have done nothing to slow the investigation. One week after Pretti’s slaying, two undercover agents attended a Sunrise Movement Twin Cities training on “resistance skills” hosted at a public library.
The meeting included primers on de-escalation at protests, and the ICE agent noted that it was “made clear that the Sunrise Movement organization focused on ‘peaceful’ protests.”
That did not stop the undercover agent from making a private approach to one of the organizers, according to a report the agent produced. The agent told the organizer that he worked in construction and “could build items that might assist other groups with more ‘direct-action’ protests.” When the undercover agent declared that “going to jail did not bother him,” the organizer “acknowledged” the agent’s comments and took down his phone number, according to the report.
Kevin Riach, the attorney representing one of the defendants in the indictment targeting Minneapolis activists, said in a court filing this week that that report was one of several showing that ICE’s undercover agents “actively participated in organizing and directing the groups they were surveilling, at times working to entice people into discussing or committing crimes.”
By the start of March, the federal government had scaled down its immigration crackdown in Minneapolis — but it was continuing to investigate groups such as Sunrise.
On March 9, ICE sent a subpoena to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for the nonprofit’s wire transactions dating back to Jan. 1, 2023, long before Trump was even elected to his second term. That same date, ICE also sent a subpoena to the Clearing House, a private wire transfer company, for years of financial records from Sunrise and several labor unions.
The Sunrise Movement was never given notice of those subpoenas or an opportunity to contest them, Shiney-Ajay said.
Training for This Moment
None of the activists who were eventually charged in a June 16 indictment were members of the Sunrise Movement, Shiney-Ajay said.
ICE declined to offer an explanation for why it investigated Sunrise and the other groups.
“HSI investigates individuals and organizations when there is just and legal cause to do so and within the scope of its legal authorities. To preserve the integrity of our work and protect law enforcement sensitivities, we do not comment on ongoing investigations, investigative tactics, or procedures,” an agency spokesperson said.
“It will likely make many Americans think twice before joining a protest, attending a meeting, donating to an advocacy organization, or speaking out at all.”
While it had never been confirmed that ICE was closely studying the Sunrise Movement before this week, Shiney-Ajay said it had long been treated as a possibility. The group was specifically concerned that federal agents might act as provocateurs at protests.
“We put a lot of work into training de-escalation and safety leads at all of our protests,” she said. “I certainly think that that was a worthwhile investment, reading these things now.”
She said it was “telling” that the investigation was led by the Department of Homeland Security rather than the FBI, which might be constrained by more “rules and regulations.”
The revelation of the widespread ICE probe has already sparked another backlash.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which has received funding from conservative and libertarian donors, said it found the investigation disturbing.
“Some activists have violated federal law, and the government is entirely justified in investigating and prosecuting them. But criminal conduct by some members of a movement does not justify government surveillance and investigation of anyone who shares their broader political goals. That type of aggressive scrutiny chills protected speech and association. It will likely make many Americans think twice before joining a protest, attending a meeting, donating to an advocacy organization, or speaking out at all,” said Aaron Terr, the group’s director of public advocacy.
On Thursday, a coalition of dozens of Minnesota groups promised that that they would not be cowed.
“We know the truth, and we will not be intimidated,” the groups said. “When self-serving politicians are losing, they lie and attempt political repression, trying to silence the voices of those who bravely stand up to them. Minnesotans will not be intimidated or divided by sham accusations or investigations of some of the countless groups and community members who organized, acted, and stood up together to protect their neighbors during Operation Metro Surge.”
Sean Penn may have moved on from his marriage to Robin Wright years ago — but according to a source, the Hollywood heavyweight never fully got over the woman he once called his wife.
As Penn prepares to celebrate his 66th birthday on August 17, his complicated history with Wright is once again drawing attention, including claims that the Oscar winner tried to rekindle their romance long after their divorce was finalized.
Penn and Wright first began dating in the late 1980s and went on to become one of Hollywood’s most recognizable couples. They welcomed two children together, daughter Dylan Frances, now 35, and son Hopper Jack, 33, before tying the knot in 1996.
But their marriage was anything but smooth.
Wright filed for divorce in 2007, though the couple went through several attempts at reconciliation before finally ending their marriage for good in 2010.
Years later, Wright admitted their repeated breakups and reunions were largely driven by their desire to keep their family intact.
“Divorce in and of itself, and with children, is devastating,” Wright told The Telegraph in 2014.
She explained that the couple repeatedly tried to make things work because of their children, saying they would get back together, break up and then try again in hopes of preserving the family.
But according to a source, Penn wasn’t necessarily ready to close the door on their relationship even years later.
After Wright filed for divorce from her third husband, Saint Laurent executive Clément Giraudet, Penn allegedly saw an opportunity to grow close to his ex again.
“They’ve been hanging out a lot lately and, some friends say with a wink, enjoying occasional booty calls,” a source claimed in 2023.
Still, the insider said Wright had little interest in turning their renewed closeness into another full-blown romance.
“Robin’s more interested in co-parenting amicably and nothing much more,” the source claimed, adding that the situation was reportedly disappointing for Penn.
The source went even further, claiming Wright has remained the woman Penn has never truly been able to forget.
“Everyone will tell you he lurches from one bad romance to another because he’s still got Robin on his mind 24/7,” the insider alleged. “She’s absolutely the love of his life, no question.”
Wright, however, has publicly described their relationship in much less romantic terms.
Speaking to People in February 2023, the Forrest Gump actress said she and Penn had managed to rebuild a friendship after a period of estrangement.
“To be friends with the father of your children… I mean, it’s a gift, because we know divorce with children is one of the most difficult things in life,” she said.
Wright explained that no matter what happened between them romantically, she and Penn would always be connected because of their children.
“We’re always gonna be family, whether we’re together or apart, you know?” she said. “And I think that’s beautiful, and I wish that for everybody.”
Despite reaching a more peaceful place with Penn, Wright has also spoken candidly about the mistakes she believes they made while raising Dylan and Hopper.
Last year, the actress revealed she carries a “huge regret” over the way she parented their children, particularly when Penn was frequently away.
“He was gone so much of the time,” Wright explained. “He’d come back and be the policeman, and then he’d leave me with the residue.”
Wright said Penn tended to be the strict parent, while she would soften the rules after he left — creating two dramatically different parenting styles.
“We were both extremes,” she admitted. “They didn’t get that grey area in the middle, which is stern, and that is what they needed.”
Looking back, Wright said she wishes she had been tougher.
“I have a huge regret as a mother and have experienced the fallout of this regret for many years with my kids,” she said. “I wasn’t hard enough on them.”
More than 15 years after Penn and Wright officially ended their marriage, their relationship appears to have evolved into something calmer — a friendship built around their children and decades of shared history.
But if the source’s claims are accurate, Penn may have once hoped their renewed bond would become something much more.
Bird remains found aboard 737 engine from Ryanair Greek incident
Bird remains were found in the engine of a Ryanair Boeing 737 NG plane where a passenger was partially sucked through a broken window shortly after takeoff from Greece in July, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said.
The NTSB is investigating the incident where a piece of the engine broke off the plane and smashed the window, leaving one passenger with serious injuries. The plane, headed to Germany, lost pressure and was forced to make an emergency landing.
NTSB issues preliminary report for the July 10 engine fan-blade-out failure on Ryanair flight 1879 during climb out from the Thessaloniki International Airport in Thessaloniki, Greece: https://t.co/J38avfYZAspic.twitter.com/es22bMFmJB
The NTSB said in its preliminary report into the July 10 incident that four suspected bird strikes to the airplane’s No. 2 engine were reported by flight crew in the 12 months preceding the accident.
“Bird remains were reportedly found in two of the cases,” although no damage was located during subsequent maintenance, it said.
A loud bang sound was recorded about nine minutes and twenty seconds after the start of the takeoff roll, according to the cockpit voice recorder cited in the report.
Examination of the engine revealed cases of fractured fan blades, while three loose fan blade fragments were recovered from the engine.
NTSB finds evidence of birds and fan blade fatigue in Ryanair 737 engine fan blade out event. A passenger was partially ejected from a window during the accident. https://t.co/NPpT6hZ7fapic.twitter.com/TOhzsVua5W
The NTSB said the CFM engine made by a venture between France’s Safran and U.S.-based General Electrichad been inspected in May with no findings.
Ryanair declined to comment while a spokesperson for CFM said it was assisting with the investigation. Boeing deferred to the NTSB, citing the agency’s requirements and international rules governing air crash investigations.
— Breaking Aviation News & Videos (@aviationbrk) July 10, 2026
The NTSB, an independent U.S. government agency that investigates civil transportation accidents, is leading the investigation into the Ryanair flight.
The agency said it is still looking at whether the incident is similar to other cases, such as an April 2018 engine failure on a U.S. Southwest Airlines flight that killed a passenger who was partially sucked out the window.
“The investigative team is aware of previous … events with similar engine models that resulted in damage to engine inlets or cowlings and fuselage structures,” the report said. “Determination of any relevant similarities or details between this accident and previous events remains under investigation.”
FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford told Reuters last month in an interview: “I don’t think the early indications are that (the recent Ryanair problem) mimics what the Southwest incident was.”
Engine debris shattered a cabin window on a Ryanair Greece–Germany flight, nearly pulling a 61-year-old passenger out. She suffered friction burns. pic.twitter.com/cGh1Wwmoq3
