“The co-pilot accused of trying to hijack a flydubai plane planned to crash the aircraft into Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport or a tower block in the Israeli city, US and Israeli reports suggest. The Omani national was ‘a lone wolf’ extremist, according to the reports. The United Arab Emirates’ attorney-general has said the co-pilot attempted to carry out ‘a terrorist act’ on flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv last Wednesday. He attacked and wounded the captain with the emergency crash axe kept in the cockpit before being overpowered by passengers. Another crew travelling on the plane was able to land it in Saudi Arabia. Israel’s prime minister has said the co-pilot underwent ‘Islamist radical indoctrination’ and the captain, passengers and a second crew prevented ‘a 9/11 disaster’.” (10/05/26)
“On September 29, the Energy Department said it would make up to 40 million barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve available through an exchange intended to stabilize oil supply. The move was a reminder of something easy to miss in debates over the Iran war: Its costs do not stay on the battlefield. American households can start paying them well before voters get a chance to judge the decisions behind them. War is usually pictured through missiles, airstrikes, casualties, and ruined cities. Yet some of the burden can surface thousands of miles from the fighting—in gas prices, shipping costs, grocery bills, and whatever is left in a family’s bank account at the end of the month. The war with Iran has made that connection hard to ignore. When oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz are disrupted, the shock moves through global energy markets and reaches the United States.” (10/05/26)
“A big reason for the rules of war is to prevent a country that’s losing a conflict from unleashing a last-resort wave of attacks on innocent civilians. After its 4 1/2-year war in Ukraine, Russia appears to fit that description, adding one more justification for the 1949 Geneva Conventions – to which Moscow is legally bound. Civilian casualties in Ukraine were up 37% in the first half of 2026 from the same period last year. And, increasingly, the slaughter is in major cities, away from the most contested territory. ‘I … see the nature of this war changing’, said Alexander De Croo, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, during a visit to the country last month. ‘Civilian infrastructure is being attacked deliberately and relentlessly, day and night,’ he said. ‘Buses. Trains. Bookshops. Supermarkets. The ordinary places where ordinary people live their lives.’ In addition, Russia’s gloves-off tactics appear to come from orders on high.” (10/02/26)
“Forces of the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen have recaptured several key areas around Bab el-Mandeb Strait from Iran-backed Houthi rebels, Yemeni officials said Monday. The officials said forces allied with the internationally recognized government have retaken the crucial town of Dhubab just north of the strait. They also captured the towns of Bab and Hadeid, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters. Witnesses said they saw government tanks and forces entering the towns. The government push came as part of a major offensive launched early Monday under air cover by a Saudi military coalition. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that it was expected that the Saudi-backed government in Yemen would hit back at the rebels to reclaim territory.” (10/05/26)
“‘Seven men drugged and gang raped a 20-year-old woman’. That verdict in the alleged Cornell rape case was delivered by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has joined a chorus of others in pronouncing the guilt of Cornell students accused of raping a fellow student. Mind you, not a single witness has testified under oath publicly and not a single charge has been brought. However, guilt is now being collectively declared from the usual figures and outlets who have never been late to mob justice. Ocasio-Cortez declared, ‘I want to be clear that the culture of rape, sexual assault, and pedophilia is protected in elite institutions across the United States and including Cornell University in this instance. It has got to stop’. We have been here before.” (10/05/26)
“For many Okinawa locals, the arrest of a US soldier [sic] accused of robbing and killing a woman in a hotel room has reignited decades of frustration over crimes involving US military personnel there. ‘Honestly my first reaction was, ‘Not again!” 52-year-old longtime Okinawa resident Ai Sato told the BBC. ‘Nothing has changed since I was a child. How many times are we going to repeat the same thing, create more victims, cause their families to suffer, and ultimately, cause the people of Okinawa to grieve?’ Akemi Oshiro, a 62-year-old Ginowan resident shared similar sentiments. ‘I know we shouldn’t get used to terrible things like this, but because they keep happening, I’ve stopped being surprised’, she told the BBC. Okinawa hosts the largest US military presence in Japan. It is home to several US military bases and tens of thousands of American troops.” (10/05/26)
“A federal appeals court heard opposing arguments Monday over whether a judge had the authority to restore billions of dollars in funding that the Trump administration cut from Harvard University. U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs ruled last year that the cuts amounted to illegal retaliation for Harvard’s rejection of the administration’s demands for changes to Harvard’s governance and policies. The government had tied the move to Harvard’s delays in dealing with antisemitism, but the judge said the university’s federally backed research had little connection to discrimination against Jews. The ruling restored more than $2.6 billion in research funding for the wealthy Ivy League school. Though the money has resumed flowing, a Justice Department attorney told a three-judge panel of the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday that Burroughs lacked the legal power to require the administration to pay it.” (10/05/26)
“Any search for the chief enabler of Donald Trump’s corruption and subversion of American democracy really must lead to one and only one place: the Supreme Court. The reactionary majority, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, has repeatedly bailed Trump out from his many prosecutions, enabled his wildly lawless trampling over the basic appropriations process, and (in what is for my money the worst Court decision in American history, Trump v. U.S.) explicitly immunized him from being prosecuted for breaking, in effect, any law. Yet despite that, many Trump critics still balk at proposals to attack the Court’s power head-on. At a recent conference about liberalism in the 21st century, when asked about Court reform, Bob Bauer, former White House counsel for President Obama, warned that ‘You don’t respond to norm breaking by breaking more norms’.” (10/05/26)
“There are certain dates that have become a regular feature in American life. In February, the Sandhill Cranes return to the Platte River in Tennessee. In March, the swallows return to San Juan Capistrano…and in October, the protesters have returned to Hupper Island, the summer vacation home of Chief Justice Roberts. The last migratory pattern is more recent and certainly less welcomed. In past years, liberal protesters have descended on the homes of conservative justices to disrupt their lives, shout abuses, and, in one case involving Justice Brett Kavanaugh, seek to kill a member of the Court. Protesters outside the home of Justice Amy Coney Barrett left bloody dolls on the lawn, knowing that she had young children inside. This week, the protesters appeared at the vacation home of Chief Justice John Roberts in Maine.” (10/03/26)
“A big reason for the rules of war is to prevent a country that’s losing a conflict from unleashing a last-resort wave of attacks on innocent civilians. After its 4 1/2-year war in Ukraine, Russia appears to fit that description, adding one more justification for the 1949 Geneva Conventions – to which Moscow is legally bound. Civilian casualties in Ukraine were up 37% in the first half of 2026 from the same period last year. And, increasingly, the slaughter is in major cities, away from the most contested territory. ‘I … see the nature of this war changing,’ said Alexander De Croo, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, during a visit to the country last month. ‘Civilian infrastructure is being attacked deliberately and relentlessly, day and night,’ he added. ‘Buses. Trains. Bookshops. Supermarkets. The ordinary places where ordinary people live their lives.’ In addition, Russia’s gloves-off tactics appear to come from orders on high.” (10/02/26)
