00x Final Filter

Blurb:

Students and staff at colleges across the United States include relatives of Iran’s political elite, even as Iran’s leaders continue to oppose the United States in public rhetoric. According to reporting from The New York Post, children of senior Iranian officials have studied or taught at prestigious universities including the University of Massachusetts, Union College in New York and George Washington University in Washington, DC.The presence of these individuals in American academic institutions raises questions, given their family connections to the Iranian regime. Critics describe this as a striking contrast between Iran’s public hostility to US and the private choices of its elite to send their children abroad for education and careers.

Blurb:

A U.S. F-35 fighter jet was forced to make an emergency landing at a U.S. air base in the Middle East after taking fire believed to have come from Iran, according to two sources familiar with the incident.

Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, said the fifth-generation stealth aircraft was “flying a combat mission over Iran” when it had to divert and land.

“The aircraft landed safely, and the pilot is in stable condition,” Hawkins said. “This incident is under investigation.”

Blurb:

President Donald Trump bragged that the military might of the United States against Iran had led to members of the Middle Eastern nation’s military abandoning it during a Thursday bilateral in the Oval Office.

“There’s a lot of military defections. You have a lot of military defections in Iran,” Trump said while seated next to the visiting Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. “I don’t blame them.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent prompted Trump’s comments, saying during the bilateral meeting that the U.S is “seeing defections at all levels” in the Iranian military and that the regime will probably “collapse” into itself.

Blurb:

The Pentagon appears to be seeking hundreds of billions of dollars from Congress for the War with Iran.

However, with slim majorities in both chambers and a partisan divide over the conflict, will Republican leaders be able to squeeze that sum out of Congress?

On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported the Pentagon “has asked the White House to approve a more than $200 billion request to Congress to fund the war in Iran.”

Blurb:

Iran’s regime is being accused of sending a chilling message to its own people after reports that a 19-year-old wrestling champion was executed for protesting.

Saleh Mohammadi, a rising star in Iranian wrestling, was put to death Thursday in what activists say was a public hanging, despite warnings from the United States and pleas from members of the Iranian-American wrestling community.

Human rights advocates blasted the move as another brutal crackdown by the government tied to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Blurb:

As the federal government moves toward a sweeping release of all files on extraterrestrial life and unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), or UFOs, President Donald Trump’s administration has quietly registered the “aliens.gov” website domain, signaling a potential public portal for long-hidden secrets.

The move comes as momentum grows behind President Trump’s directive to declassify all records related to UFOs, UAPs, and alleged non-human technology.

Blurb:

 

The top European Union nations and the United Kingdom tried to take a stance against President Donald Trump, refusing to help protect traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump fired back, pointing out that America always comes to NATO’s rescue, especially when it comes to money.

You know, reminding them that they’re all a bunch of cheap and weak jerks who take advantage of America.

Blurb:

As Iran’s military lobs missiles at former friends and longtime enemies, there is a vacuum at the top of its government, according to a new report.

Mojtaba Khamenei was selected to replace his father, Ali Khamenei, as Iran’s supreme leader after the elder Khamenei was killed in a Feb. 28 attack by Israel.

Mojtaba Khamenei has been reported as being wounded in the attack, with the degree to which he was injured varying greatly depending on the source of the report.

Blurb:

The European Court of Human Rights has declined to hear a case brought by a Christian couple seeking the return of their two daughters, who were taken into state custody by Swedish authorities in 2022 following allegations of abuse and concerns about religious extremism.

Daniel and Bianca Samson have spent more than three years attempting to regain custody of their daughters, Sara, then 11, and Tiana, 10. According to the family’s legal representative, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the case was “inadmissible” because the parents had not exhausted all available legal remedies in Sweden. ADF International disputed that conclusion, saying in a statement that “there were no further options for domestic recourse.”

Blurb:

WASHINGTON: US senators advanced President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security in a knife-edge committee vote on Thursday (May 19), after a combative hearing exposed concerns about his temperament and policy agenda.

The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 8-7 to approve Senator Markwayne Mullin’s nomination to lead the powerful agency responsible for carrying out Trump’s high-profile immigration crackdown.

Blurb:

Secretary Scott Bessent revealed that the U.S. Treasury is actively identifying and freezing bank accounts tied to Iran’s regime leadership, a move aimed at increasing internal pressure and encouraging defections from within the government.

Blurb:

During the recently concluded “Two Sessions” annual legislative meetings, the National People’s Congress (NPC) passed a new “Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress” that many scholars and educators fear will threaten the survival of languages including Tibetan, Mongolian, and Uyghur, and further undermine cultural identity among non-Han communities in China. Strongly promoted by Xi Jinping and other CCP leaders, the law was passed with 2,756 votes (and just three opposing votes and three ⁠abstentions) and is scheduled to take effect on July 1 of this year.

It contains wide-ranging provisions that encompass education, housing policy, entertainment, and other areas. The law formalizes assimilationist policies including the strict promotion of Mandarin as the “national common language” in education and public affairs. Schools and universities will no longer be allowed to teach core subjects in languages such as Tibetan, Uyghurs, or Mongolian. It also contains language suggesting restrictions on freedom of speech and potential penalties for those outside of China who “engage in activities that undermine ethnic unity” or incite “ethnic separatism.”

Blurb:

After days of delay, complaint, and indecision, six nations have committed to helping the United States patrol the Strait of Hormuz, preventing the Iranian regime from closing the economically key waterway.

President Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform shared an alert on Thursday, and the governments themselves issued a joint statement confirming the important shift in open opposition to the terrorist Iranian regime during the joint U.S.-Israeli Operation Epic Fury. Japan and five European allies of the USA will finally do their fair share in the Strait, which is actually more important for their economies and energy supply than for ours.

Besides Japan, the countries that are now stating their “readiness” to assist in patrolling the Strait of Hormuz are Great Britain, Italy, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. “We condemn in the strongest terms recent attacks by Iran on unarmed commercial vessels in the Gulf, attacks on civilian infrastructure including oil and gas installations, and the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian forces,” the countries explained in the joint statement.

Blurb:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has detained and deported hundreds of pregnant, postpartum and nursing immigrants since the start of the Trump administration, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed for the first time Wednesday. Federal policy says that such individuals should only be detained in limited circumstances.

Between January 1, 2025, and February 16, 2026, 363 pregnant, postpartum and nursing immigrants were deported, DHS reported in response to questions submitted last fall by Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat. Sixteen miscarriages were recorded during that time period. In total, 498 pregnant, postpartum and nursing people were reported as “booked out” of ICE detention in that timespan, meaning that they were detained and then left ICE facilities.

As of February 16, 121 people who were actively detained were pregnant, postpartum or nursing, according to DHS. Of those, nine were in their third trimester of pregnancy.

Blurb:

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is back in the news after publicly commenting on “hostility” toward federal judges.

The remarks came on Tuesday when the chief justice was interviewed by Senior District Judge Lee Rosenthal at a Rice University event. During her line of questioning, Rosenthal noted Roberts’ past acknowledgement that public criticism “comes with the territory” of being a judge. She then asked him how he handles such critiques of the Supreme Court or his judicial opinions.

The Bush 43 appointee began his answer by recognizing that judges aren’t “flawless” and that criticisms of their work “can very much be healthy.” What’s garnering attention is the next part in which he said that “the problem” that occasionally arises is when “the criticism … move[s] from a focus on legal analysis to personalities.”

“You see, from all over … [there’s] not just any one political perspective on it, that it’s more directed in a personal way, and that, frankly, can be actually quite dangerous,” Roberts said. “Judges around the country work very hard to get it right, and if they don’t, their opinions are subject to criticism. But personally directed hostility is dangerous, and it’s got to stop.”

Blurb:

An Indiana trial court made a deeply troubling decision that abortion may be part of the right to religious exercise under Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”). The March 5 decision reveals several problems with our current legal system, our understanding of what religion is, and how far we have come from the culture of the American founding era.

The lawsuit was filed by a couple of anonymous plaintiffs and a group called “Hoosier Jews for Choice,” who all allege that the Indiana law — which makes it a crime for doctors in the state to perform abortions in most cases — violates the plaintiffs’ religious exercise rights under the state’s RFRA.

At the outset, there are simply narrative problems left unchallenged by the court. For example, one of the plaintiffs “believes that, at least prior to viability, a fetus is a part of the body of the mother.” This is factually incorrect and is not a religious belief at all. Whether one calls an unborn child a “fetus” or a “zygote” or an “embryo,” it is scientifically not a part of the mother’s body up until some arbitrary point in time, such as “viability,” when it becomes something other than part of the mother’s body. From the moment of conception, the unborn child has DNA distinct from that of its mother. Religion does not entitle people to their own set of facts in this way.

Further, this argument leads to a disturbing slippery slope. There is no rational reason to proclaim that a “pre-viable” baby before a certain age is “a part of the body of the mother” and then becomes its own person separate from the mother at a later stage of pregnancy. This is completely arbitrary. If the court accepts this claim as a legitimate religious belief, I see no good reason why a different “religious” individual could not claim a religious belief that a nursing infant still attached to and dependent on his mother is also “a part of the body of the mother.” Is there a potential religious exercise right to kill a nursing newborn?

Blurb:

In recent years, as AI has begun to enter military planning and operational design, a persistent unease has surfaced among practitioners. Even with improved tools, increased tempo, and unprecedented access to data, plans continue to falter on integration, coherence, and a shared sense of direction. Marco Lyons’ recent War on the Rocks article on the perceived decline of operational art gives voice to this unease in a way that is both timely and important.

We do not know enough about the specific wargame, its constraints, or its internal dynamics to adjudicate these conclusions directly. What Lyons’ account nevertheless captures with clarity is a set of recurring difficulties that many practitioners recognize: fragmented campaigns, sequential decision-making, and a widening gap between planning activity and operational coherence.

Drawing on our experience teaching operational art and experimenting with planning, we share this concern. Yet Lyons’ observations may also point to something deeper: a tension between different ways of thinking about operations.

Blurb:

Polling throughout the nearly three-week U.S.-Israeli military operation against Iran has consistently shown near-unanimous backing for President Donald Trump’s decision to launch Operation Epic Fury among the MAGA base and overwhelming support among Republicans, while a new Rasmussen Reports survey released Monday finds that a majority of likely voters overall say the operation has been succeeding.

The Rasmussen poll found that 61 percent of likely voters say the military operation against Iran has been successful so far, including 35 percent who describe it as “very successful.”

The survey also underscored the level of public engagement with the conflict, with 81 percent of voters saying they have been closely following developments, including 49 percent who said they have followed them “very closely” — a group among whom support rises to 66 percent.

Support is markedly stronger among Republicans and Trump voters.

Eighty-one percent of Republicans say the operation has been successful, along with 56 percent of unaffiliated voters and 45 percent of Democrats.

Blurb:

The Texas Medical Board has finally released rules for a law called the Life of the Mother Act (Senate Bill 31). This policy clarifies existing Pro-Life protections and makes sure doctors understand they can give life-saving care to a mother without breaking Texas’ Pro-Life laws. The law also requires ongoing education for physicians and their advising attorneys.

For years, the Texas Medical Board didn’t give clear guidance on Pro-Life laws, which is unusual for them, leaving doctors unsure how to handle complicated situations. The Life of the Mother Act fixes that.

Blurb:

British Defence Minister Al Carns has warned “we live in very dangerous times” with soaring threats from Russia and the Middle East stretching from the “high north” to Iran. The alarm follows more than two weeks of the US-Israeli war on Iran, during which British troops have fought off drone and missile threats from Iran and its proxies.

Senior western officials have confirmed European militaries are increasingly concerned about the Strait and demands by America for countries such as the UK to become involved. A UK refusal to send ships to help unblock the Strait of Hormuz has caused huge tension from US President Donald Trump towards UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Blurb:

Even after one of history’s greatest military triumphs that took out some of the world’s most dangerous architects of terror, the Democrat media machine continues to whing and whine and decry the elimination of murderous madmen and the world state sponsor of terror. It sneers, nitpicks, and all but mourns the fall of a regime that has spread bloodshed for decades. The eradication of Iran’s mullahcracy would be a seismic win for human freedom and global security, relief for millions living under its boot. And still, the party of grievance and its media echo chamber can’t stand it.

Report: Iranian President Pezeshkian Wants to Resign

But there’s no one to whom he can submit that resignation. Perhaps he doesn’t want to go “meet” all his erstwhile terrorist colleagues. Israel Channel 14 is reporting that Iran’s President Pezeshkian wants to resign: @DBalazada reports that President Pezeshkian intended to submit his resignation to the Supreme Leader today following the elimination of Ali Larijani. However, he was informed by the IRGC that a meeting with Mojtaba Khamenei is currently not possible (David).

Pezeshkian was elected president in 2024.

The obvious question: Is there really a new Ayatollah with all his faculties to whom he could resign? More from Channel 14: Pezeshkian is reportedly “exceptionally angry” at the Revolutionary Guards, accusing them of “reckless” conduct. He claims the failure to protect Ali Larijani was not negligence, but a deliberate move to ensure his elimination. The IRGC is reportedly “very pleased” with Larijani’s death, having already prepared an “elimination dossier” on him and his brother. The bottom line – Iran is transitioning into an extremist military regime where Mojtaba Khamenei acts as a mere “puppet” of the Revolutionary Guards, who completely control the country (Channel 14).

Blurb:

U.S. Central Command announced Wednesday that it had carried out a series of strikes on fortified Iranian positions designed to control maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

Hours ago, U.S. forces successfully employed multiple 5,000-pound deep penetrator munitions on hardened Iranian missile sites along Iran’s coastline near the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian anti-ship cruise missiles in these sites posed a risk to international shipping in the strait.

To fully understand what this means, let’s take a look at the battlespace.

Blurb:

Iran’s state television published a threat on Wednesday saying the Islamic Republic would be attacking oil and gas infrastructure in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates amid a new wave of strikes on its Persian Gulf neighbours and Israel.

Iran used some of its latest missiles to evade air defences and kill two people near Tel Aviv, as the war in the Middle East showed no signs of slowing.

The threat to oil and gas infrastructure resembled other attack warnings put out by Iran during the war, copying the style used by the Israeli military. Iran specifically threatened Saudi Arabia’s Samref Refinery and its Jubail Petrochemical Complex. It also threatened the U.A.E.’s Al Hasan Gas Field and the petrochemical plants and a refinery in Qatar.

Blurb:

President Trump hasn’t made up his mind yet on whether he wants to send American forces into Iran and seize the country’s nuclear material, which would be a very dangerous operation, sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.

In private conversations, he has told people close to him: “I have a lot of decisions to make.”

The Pentagon has prepared multiple options for the president as potential next steps in the Iran war.

After the U.S. military strikes on three nuclear sites last summer, the International Atomic Energy Agency, a nuclear watchdog, said it could not account for an estimated 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium Iran had before the strikes.

Mr. Trump believes Iran’s military assets are dramatically degraded — with their navy and air force essentially gone — but he is concerned about Iran’s capability to plant mines, two of the sources told CBS News. He thinks Iranians can gum up oil shipping in the Strait of Hormuz because the mine-laying operations take only three or so people.

On Tuesday, Mr. Trump said it was unclear if Iran had begun laying mines or not. He told reporters, “We don’t even know if there are any mines there, but if there are, you know, we’d like to have a little help in finding them.”