Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“US president Donald Trump says that his war in Iran — currently in a supposed ceasefire — resulted in ‘total and complete victory. 100%. No question about it.’ The Iranian regime, via a statement from its Supreme National Security Council, also claims ‘great victory.’ If the war is really over (I’m skeptical), who actually won? Well, not you.” (04/09/26)
Source: New York Times
“Unmasking the Creator of Bitcoin.” (04/09/26)
Source: Reuters
“Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday announced a 32-hour ceasefire over a two-day period for Orthodox Easter and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Kyiv would abide by the measure. The ceasefire for Orthodox Easter celebrations on Sunday coincides with a pause in U.S.-led efforts to clinch a settlement to the four-year-old conflict amid hostilities in Iran and the broader Middle East. Putin’s announcement was similar to a 30-hour ceasefire he ordered last year. Each side accused the other of violating it.” (04/09/26)
Source: CounterPunch
by John W Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead
“Every bomb dropped abroad is a bill sent home. Every war waged in the name of ‘security’ is paid for by Americans who go without — without affordable healthcare, without stable housing, without a government that prioritizes their well-being. As the U.S. pours trillions into endless wars and military expansion, Americans are left paying the price — not just in dollars, but in lost freedoms and eroded constitutional protections. This is not national defense. This is organized theft.” (04/09/26)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/04/09/war-abroad-tyranny-at-home-and-the-theft-of-a-nation/
Source: Santa Rosa Press Democrat
“U.S. applications for unemployment benefits rose last week before Iran, Israel and the U.S. announced a two-week ceasefire deal that injected a degree of optimism into a still-clouded global economic picture. The number of Americans applying for jobless aid for the week ending April 4 jumped by 16,000 to 219,000 from the previous week’s 203,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s more than the 210,000 new filings analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet were expecting but within the range of the past several years. Filings for unemployment benefits are considered representative of U.S. layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market.” 904/09/26)
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2026/04/09/us-filings-jobless-aid/
Source: Reason
by Veronique de Rugy
“The president’s fiscal 2027 budget is out, and I have two reactions. The first will sound familiar: Like so many budgets before it, this is not a serious effort to put America’s government on a sustainable path. The second is more important: It would be a mistake to dismiss it as just another unserious document. That is exactly how we got here.” (04/09/26)
Source: CoinDesk
“A StarkWare researcher has proposed Quantum Safe Bitcoin, a hash-based scheme that can make bitcoin transactions resistant to quantum attacks today without changing the Bitcoin protocol. The method works within existing consensus rules but requires massive off-chain GPU computation, driving estimated costs to $75 to $200 per transaction and making it far more complex than standard payments. Framed as a last-resort emergency tool rather than a permanent fix, QSB contrasts with long-term proposals like BIP-360, which seek protocol-level quantum resistance but are likely years away from activation.” (04/10/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Israel is already aggressively sabotaging the Trump administration’s two-week ceasefire with Iran by slaughtering huge numbers of civilians in Lebanon …. The US and Israel are trying to claim that Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire agreement, but Pakistan, whom the US appointed to mediate the agreement, says this is false. The New York Times reports that the White House took part in Pakistan’s public messaging which explicitly included Lebanon in the ceasefire conditions, before changing its tune after Israel attacked. Iran has reportedly responded to these violations by again halting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. This serves as yet another reminder that the world can have peace or it can have Israel — but it cannot have both. Israel is a genocidal apartheid state whose entire existence is premised upon a strategy of unceasing violence and abuse in the middle east.” (04/09/26)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/04/09/the-world-can-have-peace-or-israel-but-not-both/
Source: Space.com
“The Artemis 2 astronauts have hit the midway point in their journey back to Earth from the moon, according to NASA. The quartet — NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover Christina Koch and the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen — remain on track arrive at their home planet on Friday evening (April 10). … Orion’s return trajectory plan for Artemis 2 was altered after the heat shield on Artemis 1 experienced unexpected char and material losses during atmospheric reentry. Now, rather than hitting the atmosphere head-on, Orion will perform what’s called a ‘lofted’ reentry, dipping down into the atmosphere briefly, before delving back down for its final descent — similar to a stone skipping once across a pond before sinking beneath the water.” (04/09/26)
https://www.space.com/news/live/artemis-2-nasa-moon-mission-updates-april-9-2026
Source: Independent Institute
by K Lloyd Billingsley
“‘No Kings’ protests have been breaking out all over California, even in the quaint village of Cambria on the central coast. In effect, for nearly three decades, that town was ruled by the closest equivalent of a monarch since the days of Spanish colonialism. As King Arthur (Graham Chapman) noted in the Monty Python Holy Grail film, ‘you don’t vote for kings,’ and that was true of Peter Douglas. Born in Germany in 1942, Douglas came to the United States in the early 1950s and earned undergraduate and law degrees from UCLA. In 1972, three years after the Santa Barbara oil spill, Douglas co-authored Proposition 20, the ballot initiative that created the California Coastal Commission (CCC), a temporary 15-member commission to impose land-use regulations along the state coastline. … Douglas ruled the California coast for 26 years without ever facing the voters.” (04/09/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/04/09/no-kings-doesnt-apply-in-california/