“Two Palestinian teenagers have been killed during a raid by [squatters] and Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank. The killings occurred during a raid in al-Mughayyir on Wednesday. The village has been the site of repeated attacks by illegal Israeli [squatters] and Israeli forces in recent months. The Palestinian Wafa news agency, citing the head of the village council, identified the victims as Mohammad Na’ssan and Khalil Abu Aliya, both 19 years old. As residents tried to confront the [squatters], Israeli soldiers opened fire on the residents, critically wounding two young men, he said. They later died from the wounds. Sources from the village told Al Jazeera that snipers had taken positions on rooftops in the village ahead of the killings.” (09/03/26)
“In ancient Greece and Rome a leisured class could pursue philosophy, politics and the arts because slaves did the work. … A similar transformation happened much more recently, and to far more people, without anyone being enslaved at all. It happened in the twentieth century, in the ordinary home. Before the washing machine, doing the laundry for a family could take the best part of a day: hauling water, heating it, scrubbing, wringing, hanging out to dry. Before the vacuum cleaner, carpets were beaten by hand. Before the dishwasher, someone stood at a sink after every meal. … We are now entering a new phase of the same process, and it is set to be larger than anything that came before. Robots and artificial intelligence are beginning to do the work that used to require a person.” (09/03/26)
“A judge has again told the deadlocked jury in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial to keep trying to reach a verdict after a dramatic sixth day of deliberations. Tensions flared in court after the jury forewoman sent the judge a note saying one juror would not follow the court’s instructions on reasonable doubt.
The defence team asked for the holdout to be removed, a request that was denied by the judge. Clancy, 36, is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her three children – Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan – at her Massachusetts family home on 24 January 2023. … If the jury does not reach a verdict and Judge Sullivan declares a mistrial, prosecutors would need to decide whether to retry the case.” (09/03/26)
Source: Washington Post
by Stuart Anderson & Mark Regets
“Donald Trump is on track to become the first president in a century to oversee a U.S. labor force that will be smaller when he leaves office than when he entered. Since the start of his second term, the number of people in the United States who are either employed or looking for a job has dropped by 1.6 million — and it’s largely because of Trump’s immigration restrictions. Unless those policies change, a shrinking workforce will cause slower economic growth and lead to more expensive public debt. This is an anomaly in U.S. history. The civilian labor force has increased by the end of every president’s term, with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln’s because of the number of people who left the workforce to fight in the Civil War.” (09/03/26)
“In a country where governments are famously short-lived, the perceived success of Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni has often been attributed to her survival skills rather than her accomplishments. On Thursday, after 1,413 days — nearly four years — Meloni’s conservative administration became Italy’s longest-serving uninterrupted government since World War II, surpassing the record set by the late Silvio Berlusconi between 2001 and 2005. None of Italy’s 68 governments in the country’s 80 years as a republic has yet to complete a five-year term without interruption. Berlusconi came closest, but a government crisis forced him to resign briefly in 2005 before forming a new Cabinet. Meloni and her party will celebrate their feat on Friday with a large preelection rally in the southern city of Bari.” (09/03/26)
“Robby Soave gives his radar on Democratic Socialist candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier calling out her fellow Democrats who voted with Republicans to condemn socialism.” (09/03/26)
“If Russia attacks Europe, and Europe doesn’t call it war, is it actually a war? As the Kremlin continues to probe the West’s defenses, it’s clear that European leaders would prefer you call it ‘hybrid war,’ hoping that the focus stays on the ‘hybrid’ half of the equation and not on the ‘war.’ … hybrid war is a real category of warfare. It refers to an entire arsenal of non-kinetic actions a country can take to undermine its enemies. Russia has tried just about every hybrid warfare tactic you can think of: Cyberattacks. Troll farms and propaganda. Propping up far-right political parties to disrupt democracy in France and Germany. Interfering in American elections. As a KGB officer, Vladimir Putin is expert in this method, which is more subterfuge than brute force. The problem is that Russia long ago moved beyond this domain to begin carrying out open attacks on the West.” (09/03/26)
