Report stating that Trump administration directed funds towards right-wing groups comes ahead of presidential election.

1,439 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and 5,052 injured since the 'ceasefire' began in October 2025.

A year after his explosive tenure at Doge, the SpaceX CEO is back in the Trump administration’s good graces Pete Hegseth announced on Wednesday that Elon Musk will co-lead a government project to study the future of warfare, marking the SpaceX CEO’s first return to government since he ran the chaotic, so -called “department of government efficiency”, or Doge. Musk will be joined by Palmer Luckey, CEO of the defense tech company Anduril, and Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House. A defense department press release on the effort, called Project Meridian, described its goal as “identifying the capabilities required to achieve absolute technological dominance on the next-generation battlefield”. The project will run for 120 days and culminate in an unclassified public report of its recommendations. Continue reading...

Authoritarian-friendly mass surveillance has never been more adorable

Satellite imagery shows further destruction of homes, businesses and places of worship since fragile ceasefire An update to Google Maps has revealed the extent of devastation during the three-year Gaza war and the severity of the continuing humanitarian crisis faced by the territory’s 2.3 million inhabitants. The images were taken in June this year and show further destruction of homes, businesses, places of worship and infrastructure since a fragile ceasefire came into effect almost 12 months ago. Continue reading...

A third of undergraduate women say they've been sexually assaulted. But on average, Cornell reported expelling just one attacker per year.

"ICE is just churning bodies into the detention system."

Hundreds of CT residents have had money seized through a law that allows the state to charge a fee for every day a person spends in prison.

Ukraine’s president was in New York as part of his diplomatic effort to build international support for his country’s grueling 4½-year fight against Russia’s invasion.

YouTube video by Wombat City Studios

Israeli soldiers' Gaza testimony causes backlash across much of the country's political establishment.

Technologies from Israel have turbocharged surveillance by ICE, Border Patrol, and the Department of Homeland Security.

The United Nations’ human rights watchdog has found that two U.S. strikes likely constitute war crimes.

“Nobody tell us that we’re going to Guantanamo Bay.”

YouTube video by BBC Ideas

The world’s most powerful country responded to the worst terrorist attack in its history by inflicting terror of its own – around the world, and at home

Israel removed 11 million U.S. tons of debris likely holding human remains and evidence of war crimes, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor says

Some people act as if they have to work with fascism, letting it grow into the unstoppable beast that will devour them

There’s a growing backlash to the surveillance systems that have quietly wired themselves into American neighborhoods, with concern growing among people who have never felt watched this way before. Ge...

Ahmed Soliman’s attorneys fear he may have been sent to one of Equatorial Guinea’s notorious torture prisons.

Pro-democracy activists Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan were found guilty of ‘incitement to subversion’ in controversial national security case Two pro-democracy activists who were put on trial for organising an annual Tiananmen Square massacre vigil in Hong Kong have been sentenced to seven years in jail, in one of the city’s most significant national security cases. Chow Hang-tung, 41 and Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, were found guilty in August of incitement to subversion. The court found they had “incited other persons to organise, plan, commit or participate in acts by unlawful means with a view to subverting the state power”. Continue reading...

What sounds like the overwrought penultimate episode in a sci-fi series about AI doom is now our reality

Many don’t see relief in sight amid increased U.S. sanctions and longtime economic and financial troubles.

The United ​States launched ‌a strike on ​a ​vessel operating along "narco-trafficking ⁠routes in ​the ​Caribbean", killing three people, U.S. ​Southern ​Command said in ‌a ⁠post on X on ​Wednesday.

Funding cuts in 2025 left women, children, older and displaced people hard hit, with 64m fewer people receiving aid The humanitarian aid system is crumbling as funding shrinks, pressures increase and governments not only fail to protect civilians but are increasingly responsible for endangering them, a new report warned on Thursday as figures revealed 64 million fewer people received aid last year. With aid contributions cut by 30% between 2022 and 2025 and thousands of aid workers losing their jobs, the humanitarian system has suffered one of its biggest contractions since being formed in the post-second world war era, according to the State of the Humanitarian System 2026 report. Continue reading...

Some 11,000 die, with India accounting for nearly 60 percent of the fatalities.

Far-right parties, Maga ideology and Kremlin money are conniving to suffocate liberal idealism for another generation, says Guardian columnist Rafael Behr