“In a potential boost to Middle East ceasefire efforts, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that he authorized direct negotiations ‘as soon as possible’ with Lebanon aimed at disarming Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants and establishing relations between the neighbors. The two countries have technically been at war since Israel was established in 1948. There was no immediate response from Lebanese authorities, but the announcement appeared to bolster the tentative ceasefire in the Iran war that had staggered under the weight of Israel’s bombardment of Beirut, Tehran’s continued chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz and uncertainty over whether planned peace talks can find common ground. Netanyahu’s announcement came amid disagreement over whether the ceasefire deal included a pause in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, and a day after Israel pounded Beirut with airstrikes that resulted in the deadliest day in Lebanon since the war began on Feb. 28.” (04/09/26)
“OpenAI is finalizing a model with advanced cybersecurity capabilities that it plans to release only to a small set of companies, similar to Anthropic’s limited roll out of Mythos, a source familiar told Axios. AI capabilities have reached a tipping point, at least in terms of autonomy and hacking capabilities. Model-makers are now so worried about the havoc their own tools could cause that they’re reluctant to release them into the wild. Anthropic announced plans Tuesday to limit access of its new Mythos Preview model to a hand-picked group of technology and cybersecurity companies over fears of its advanced hacking capabilities.” (04/09/26)
“Argentina’s Congress has passed a controversial amendment making it easier to mine in glacier regions, a move environmentalists say weakens protections for crucial water sources. The pioneering Glacier Law, approved in 2010, prohibited all mining and exploration activities in glacier regions by protecting them as water reserves. The reform shifts the responsibility of defining protected glacier areas from the Argentine Institute for Snow, Ice and Environmental Sciences (Ianigla) to the provincial governments. President Javier Milei, who backed the reform, said the change ’empower[s] the provinces to utilise their resources’ and allows mining activities ‘where there was nothing to protect’. The reform has proven divisive, with those opposed organising protest rallies. Argentina’s Senate had already approved the bill in February 2026, so approval by the lower house was the last major hurdle left.” (04/09/26)
“The security cabinet approved the establishment of 34 new [squats] in a meeting two weeks ago, The Times of Israel has learned. This brings to 103 the total number of new [squats] established or retroactively legalized [sic] by the government since it took office in 2022. Only six new [squats] were formally approved by Israel in the 30 years following the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. Security cabinet meetings and their decisions are classified, and there has been no official confirmation of the decision by the government.” (04/09/26)
“A U.S. judge in Washington ruled on Thursday that the Pentagon is hampering journalists in defiance of a court order that required it to restore access to credentialed reporters covering the seat of U.S. military power. U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman said the Defense Department must comply with his earlier order that sided with The New York Times and other news organizations challenging restrictions imposed on them last year. ‘The Department cannot simply reinstate an unlawful policy under the guise of taking ‘new’ action and expect the Court to look the other way,’ Friedman wrote in his ruling. The judge called the Pentagon’s actions a ‘blatant attempt to circumvent a lawful order of the Court.'” (04/09/26)
“First lady Melania Trump denied that she had a friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein or that she had any ties to his crimes in a head-turning White House address Thursday. … Trump has previously taken legal action over claims related to herself and Epstein with three publishers issuing apologies for publishing claims that the sex offender introduced her to her future husband. … She did not answer any questions shouted by reporters as she left.” (04/09/26)
“For the second year in a row, the Trump administration is proposing slashing federal funding for tribal colleges and universities. President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposal calls for a $1.5 trillion increase to defense spending and would carve billions of dollars out of programs that fulfill trust and treaty responsibilities to tribal nations, including entirely eliminating funding for the Institute for American Indian Arts, the country’s only federally funded college for contemporary Native American arts. The budget proposal released last week also calls for cutting funding for TCUs, as well as funding for two schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Education: Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas and the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in New Mexico. Students at both colleges sued the BIE last year over funding and staffing cuts made by the administration.” (04/09/26)
“The West African affiliates of al Qaeda and Islamic State have clashed in Niger for the first time, according to a statement from one of the groups, a development that analysts said signals an intensification of their years-long rivalry. Al Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al‑Islam wal‑Muslimin (JNIM) and Islamic State in the Sahel Province (ISSP) engaged in their first skirmishes in 2019 and have since clashed hundreds of times, resulting in more than 2,100 deaths, according to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), a conflict monitoring group. That fighting had unfolded exclusively in Mali and Burkina Faso until last week when ISSP fighters attacked a JNIM position in the Tillaberi region of western Niger.” (04/09/26)
“An ‘opportunistic’ thief who stole a handbag containing an emerald-encrusted Fabergé egg and watch set worth up to £2.2m from a central London pub has been jailed for more than two years. Enzo Conticello, 29, took Rosie Dawson’s handbag which she had placed between her legs on the ground as she stood outside the Dog and Duck in Soho on 7 November 2024. The Fabergé items were in her handbag after she had taken them for display at a work event earlier that evening. They have not been recovered. Conticello — also known as Hakin Boudjenoune — was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court after he pleaded guilty to three charges of fraud by false representation and one count of theft at an earlier hearing. The court heard Conticello was after ‘easy money’ and that he had handed over the bag, which also contained a laptop and credit cards, to buy drugs.” (04/09/26)
“Federal authorities have arrested and charged an Army veteran with top secret clearance on accusations of sharing classified national defense information with a journalist, who is accusing the Trump administration of retaliating against a whistleblower. Courtney Williams, 40, of Wagram, N.C., was indicted by a grand jury Wednesday, a day after she was arrested by the FBI, the Justice Department said in a statement. … Williams is a named source in Seth Harp’s The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces, an investigative nonfiction book about a string of unsolved murders at the special operations base that was published in August. In a book excerpt published by Politico, Williams alleges sexual harassment and discrimination within Delta Force at the North Carolina base.” (04/09/26)
