As tanks roll through Washington today to mark the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday—and the 79th birthday of President Donald Trump—Europe is commemorating a different anniversary, not with combat vehicles but with a passenger liner moored near a riverbank.
Dignitaries from across Europe are gathering in Schengen, a riparian village in Luxembourg, to celebrate the creation of an international agreement to abolish controls at their countries’ common borders.
One hallmark of our current moment is that when an event happens, there is little collective agreement on even basic facts. This, despite there being more documentary evidence than ever before in history: Information is abundant, yet consensus is elusive.
The ICE protests in Los Angeles over the past week offer an especially relevant example of this phenomenon.
To pull off the most ambitious and sophisticated attack in the long history of antagonism between the Middle East’s preeminent powers, covert Israeli agents set up a drone base deep inside Iranian territory. They recruited disaffected Iranians to aid their cause. They smuggled weapons systems across enemy lines.
The countries surrounding Iran have condemned Israel’s attack today. Some statements were more florid than others, and some were more convincing. Bahrain, whose monarchy Iran has repeatedly attempted to topple, urged Israel to de-escalate. Azerbaijan, whose secular government is constantly at odds with Iran, “resolutely” reproached Israel for its attack but gave no indication that it would cease being a resolute ally of Israel and the United States.
On October 7, 2023, Israel suffered the most catastrophic assault in its history when Hamas terrorists killed more than 1,000 people and took hundreds of others hostage. Almost a year later, Israel assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, the most powerful militia in the world, along with the entire leadership of his organization.
The health secretary wants regulators to question long-settled science and public health guidance.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered the termination of all remaining overseas employees of USAID to complete the dismantling of the six-decade-old agency. USAID was an early target of Elon Musk and DOGE. We look at the dismantling of USAID and what it means for people around the world to lose this lifeline, as detailed in a new Amnesty International report.
Democratic Congressmember Ilhan Omar of Minnesota joins Democracy Now! to discuss the increasing authoritarianism of the Trump administration, including its crackdown on anti-ICE protesters in Los Angeles, targeting of pro-Palestine students on college campuses and plans for a massive military parade coinciding with Trump’s birthday on June 14. “We are in the midst of the creation of a police state,” says Omar.
Israel has launched a large-scale military attack on Iran, killing top military officials, nuclear scientists and civilians in the deadliest attack on the country in decades. Iran has launched drones at Israel in response. The unprovoked attack, which Israel described as a “preemptive strike,” comes just days before scheduled nuclear talks between Iran and the United States.
Waymo and Tesla offer competing—and potentially bleak—futures for self-driving cars in society.
This is no Depp/Heard trial—but it might be something stranger.
Barry Lam joins Felix Salmon to nerd out on philosophy and the deficit.
Around half of those employees are in the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention.
The health secretary, who wants Americans to make healthier choices, rarely mentions smoking.
The studies are cited in a document sent to lawmakers.
The HHS secretary announced his plans in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece Monday afternoon.
The State Department would not provide data to support the secretary’s repeated claim that 85 percent of the US global AIDS program is operational.
The Waves also discusses the Riverside Church controversy and the case of Sarah Milov.
What we say matters, especially depending on whom we say it to.
The Waves also discusses the case against Jeffrey Epstein and Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman Is in Trouble.
The president’s approval rating had been ticking upward since its biggest drop in April.
The General Services Administration, which oversees government contracting, is leading a review of more than 20,000 consulting agreements for what is “non-essential.
The crowded contest in the Garden State shows how hard it is to address pocketbook issues.
Earlier, Buffett warned Saturday about the dire global consequences of President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Trump has blamed shaky economic numbers on his predecessor.
Smoke is still billowing from sites across Iran, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel just made a speech, in English, warning that Israel would keep attacking for “as many days as it takes” to eliminate the Iranian nuclear program. So far the catalog of damage is mostly rumor—tantalizing rumor, for Iran’s enemies, but rumor nonetheless.
At the end of the classic 1972 film The Godfather, the new don of the family, Michael Corleone, attends a baptism while his men wipe out the heads of the other New York mafia families—all of them Michael’s enemies, and all intending one day to do him harm. Rather than wait for their eventual attacks, Michael dispatched them himself. “Today, I settled all family business,” Michael says to his traitorous brother-in-law, before having him killed.
