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The seven-metre (23-foot) figure, packed with 14 kilograms (31 lb) of gunpowder, was part of a decades-old ceremony held on 5 April in El Burgo, a small town near the southern city of Malaga.

yal Adom, head of security for an Israeli community on the border with Lebanon, has a clear vision for the land just a few hundred meters away.

“I want to occupy,” he told The Intercept. “Yes, occupy, the word nobody likes. I want to occupy southern Lebanon. Move all the Arabs from there, up to the Litani River.”

We’re sitting in the command and control center in Moshav Netu’a, a village so close to the U.N.-brokered “Blue Line” separating Israel and Lebanon that one can see the physical barrier from the windows of many homes. Here, amid a temporary pause in fighting between the U.S.–Israeli alliance and Iran, there’s no sense of peace.

“The Arabs’ only motivation to stop fighting is if you take their land,” Adom said. “You kill them, it doesn’t matter. You hurt them, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Only taking territories. This is the only thing that matters to them.”

Just like the SS using the Totenkopf

A man deported to Mexico has claimed that officers not only refused to see his documents but accused him of fraud

A U.S. citizen has been deported to Mexico despite telling arresting officers that he had proof of citizenship at home, according to a new report.

According to Univision’s Lidia Terrazas, 25-year-old Denver-born Brian Morales was threatened with either deportation or prison time following a traffic stop in Texas by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents.

This is the latest in a string of incidents involving U.S. citizens and Department of Homeland Security agents during the first 18 months of Trump’s second term in office. In addition several American children have been deported alongside their parents, including a child undergoing cancer treatment in the U.S.

I wonder, what's more expensive: a decent wage for warehouse workers or the aftermath of a $600m arson?

The messaging from China’s Communist government may once have been dogmatic and rigid — not anymore. Having largely tamed the internet at home with tight censorship, Beijing is now tapping the power of social media and artificial intelligence to tell its story — and often to skewer the U.S. and its president.

In a five-minute AI-generated animation modeled after classic martial arts movies, China’s state media frames out an allegory for the war in Iran. A white eagle in regal attire representing the U.S. unleashes an evil laugh before his army attacks a group of Persian cats draped in black cloaks standing in for Iranians, who vow to fight after losing their leader and close off a crucial trading route.

Touching on injustice, revenge and worldly wisdom, the metaphor-rich short is the latest example of several AI-generated animations created by China’s state media in recent months to mock the U.S. as a global bully, including Donald Trump’s threat to take over Greenland and his plan to exert U.S. predominance in the Western Hemisphere.

The deft use of AI animation comes after Xi Jinping has pushed for years to boost the country’s abilities to spread its messages globally, gain a greater say on world affairs and counter Western narratives that Beijing often sees as biased or even derogatory about China. Pro-Iran groups similarly have used sleek, AI-generated memes to taunt the U.S. and Trump.

A war-driven jump in gas prices helped push US inflation to 3.3% in March, marking the fastest annual pace in nearly two years, new Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed Friday.

On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.9%, triple the 0.3% pace seen in February, when inflation was 2.4%, the latest Consumer Price Index data showed.

Gasoline prices, which rose a record 21.2% during the month, accounted for nearly three-quarters of the overall monthly increase.

Economists had expected prices to jump 0.9% from the month before and for the annual rate to climb to 3.4%, according to FactSet.

US intelligence indicates that China is preparing to deliver new air defense systems to Iran within the next few weeks, according to three people familiar with recent intelligence assessments.

It would be a provocative move considering Beijing said it helped broker the fragile ceasefire agreement that paused the war between Iran and the US earlier this week. President Donald Trump is also set to visit China early next month for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The intelligence also underscores how Iran may be using the ceasefire as an opportunity to replenish certain weapons systems with the help of key foreign partners.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20260411153708/https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/10/us/eric-swalwell-sexual-misconduct-allegations-invs

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20260411150201/https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/eric-swalwell-allegations-22198271.php

The war with Iran is preventing huge amounts of oil from flowing out of the Persian Gulf, but the prices that many people track don’t fully capture the scale of the disruption.

Only way to avoid it is to be in a place where you don't need to burn fossil fuels or use products which are created by burning them (eg: get your nitrate fertilizer production to be solar based instead of methane-based)

Weeks before Kennedy ousted Monarez, HHS announced that it was terminating 22 research projects focused on the development of mRNA—the revolutionary technology that enabled the creation of the COVID vaccines and saved millions of lives. Not only did Kennedy cancel $500 million worth of mRNA projects, but HHS also announced that “no new mRNA-based projects will be initiated.” Thanks to mRNA research, the COVID vaccines were developed and administered more quickly than any vaccine in history. Instead of building upon this research to prepare for future pandemics, Kennedy claims that HHS is “moving beyond the limitations of mRNA and investing in better solutions.”

“We reviewed the science, listened to the experts, and acted,” Kennedy said. But it has been clear for decades that Kennedy has his own ideas about what constitutes science and expertise. He believes Wi-Fi causes cancer and that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. He claimed that Covid was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people,” while the “people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” His standards for evidence have always been warped by paranoid conspiracism. In his 2021 book The Real Anthony Fauci, Kennedy claimed that COVID ushered in an age of “medical totalitarianism” in the U.S. and accused Fauci of a “coup d’état against democracy” and a “pre-planned demolition of the American Constitution.” We can presume that the irony—given his current boss—is lost on Kennedy.

In January, Zach Witkoff sat down at a table in Islamabad and signed a deal with Pakistan’s finance minister. Witkoff is the young CEO of Donald Trump’s crypto finance firm, World Liberty Financial, and the arrangement he struck that day would allow WLF’s stablecoin to be used for Pakistan’s cross-border transactions.

It was a hugely consequential moment for World Liberty. Despite Trump’s association and the involvement of his sons, this firm hasn’t exactly lit the blockchain world on fire. The value of the company’s token has plummetted from 31 cents to just 8 cents in recent months. World Liberty could use a deal like this—a government vouching for and endorsing the use of its coin. And the deal was being consummated, standing behind Witkoff was General Asim Munir, the top officer in Pakistan’s army.

Munir has been a frequent visitor to the Trump White House and is a chief architect of Pakistani efforts to mediate an end to the Iran war. That means he’s working with Witkoff’s father, Steve Witkoff, the billionaire New York City real estate developer who Donald Trump appointed to be his Mideast envoy. The elder Witkoff will join Vice President JD Vance and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner at the negotiating table on Saturday, facing off with Iran’s negotiators in talks being brokered by Pakistan.

The Witkoff connection is not a coincidence. It’s another example of how the Trump crew is mixing business—their personal financial business—with US foreign policy.

Social media giant Reddit has been ordered to appear before a grand jury in Washington, D.C., as part of a federal effort to unmask anonymous online critics of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

According to a subpoena obtained by The Intercept, Reddit has until April 14 to provide a wide range of personal data on one of its users, whom U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been trying unsuccessfully to identify for more than a month.

Attorneys for the Reddit user say their client’s posts and their anonymity are squarely protected under the First Amendment and that ICE’s use of a grand jury marks a disturbing escalation for the agency after seeing its previous efforts to investigate political speech quashed in court. The subpoena was issued by federal prosecutors in the capital after ICE’s effort to identify the same user failed in a Northern California federal court. (The U.S. attorney’s office in Washington declined to comment on the case.)

New rules approved by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could blunt the impact of a federal judge’s order freezing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee and putting many of its decisions on hold, experts say.

The changes were posted online Thursday in a new charter for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP — the document that lays out how the panel is supposed to operate. The CDC is required to review and renew the charter every two years, although it rarely makes significant changes.

The charter was posted nearly a month after a Massachusetts federal judge, in a lawsuit brought by the American Academy of Pediatrics and several other medical organizations, halted Kennedy’s remade ACIP and reversed many of the vaccine policy changes the panel had made over the last year — a move that adds further confusion over vaccine policy in the U.S. The judge said the committee’s members, many of whom are critical of vaccines, appeared to be “distinctly unqualified” to serve on the panel. The Department of Health and Human Services hasn’t yet appealed the ruling, but it has 60 days to do so.

Car ownership has long been integral to the American dream. But as automakers slash the production of inexpensive models to cater to customers who can afford oversized pickups and sport utility vehicles, buyers find themselves facing sticker shock at the same time they are already frustrated by the lingering effects of high inflation.

Consumer prices rose 3.3% in March, the biggest yearly increase since May 2024, while new car prices were up 12.6% from a year ago, the Labor Department reported Friday.

New vehicles now sell for an average of nearly $50,000, up 30% in six years, and average monthly payments — based on 10% down and a 6-year note — recently hit $775. Looking for something on the cheap end? The share of vehicles listing for less than $30,000 is about 13% — down from 40% five years ago, per the car review site CarGurus.

A U.S. appeals court on Friday declared unconstitutional a nearly 158-year-old federal ban on home distilling, calling it an unnecessary and improper means for ​Congress to exercise its power to tax.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of ‌Appeals in New Orleans ruled in favor of the nonprofit Hobby Distillers Association and four of its 1,300 members.

They argued that people should be free to distill spirits at home, whether as ​a hobby or for personal consumption including, in one instance, to create ​an apple-pie-vodka recipe.

The ban was part of a law passed during ⁠Reconstruction in July 1868, in part to thwart liquor tax evasion, and subjected violators ​to up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

President Donald Trump's overhaul of US refugee policies has created a major shift in the number and nationalities of people admitted to the country, US government data shows.

Since October 2025, 4,499 refugees were resettled in the US, according to the Refugee Processing Center. All, except three from Afghanistan, were South African.

In the last full fiscal year of the Biden administration, which started in October 2023, 125,000 people were accepted from 85 countries.

Last year, Trump halted all refugee admissions, including for applicants from warzones, but allowed Afrikaners, a white minority group he said was persecuted, to seek resettlement. South Africa objected to his characterisation.

White House staff were warned last month not to use insider information to place bets on predictions markets.

The email was sent to staff on 24 March, a day after US President Donald Trump announced a five-day pause on his threat to attack Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure.

It referred to press reports that raised concerns over government officials using non-public information to place bets on platforms like Kalshi or Polymarket.

White House spokesman Davis Ingle told the BBC that "any implication that Administration officials are engaged in such activity without evidence is baseless and irresponsible reporting."

Ingle also said that all federal employees are subject to government ethics guidelines that prohibit the use of insider information for financial gain.