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  • Why did Trump meet members of an anti-Zionist Orthodox Jewish group?

    Why did Trump meet members of an anti-Zionist Orthodox Jewish group?

    Weeks ahead of back-to-back critical elections – Israeli national polls and U.S. midterm contests – former U.S. President Donald Trump welcomed a delegation of Haredi Jewish leaders, several of whom hold well-documented anti-Zionist views, to the White House this Thursday, in a pre-Rosh Hashanah gathering that broke from the standard format of typical presidential holiday receptions for religious groups.

    The group of rabbis and community representatives, who traveled to Washington D.C. from the New York and New Jersey region, secured a rare one-on-one meeting with Trump at the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk, where they sat directly across from the former president. Trump’s Jewish son-in-law and former senior advisor Jared Kushner was also present for the discussion. Following the Oval Office audience, the delegation also held talks with Vice President JD Vance and U.S. Congressman Mike Lawler, a New York Republican facing a competitive re-election battle this November in the heavily Democratic-leaning 17th Congressional District.

    Yossi Gestetner, a New York-based political activist and outspoken pro-Israel voice who participated in the meeting, shared the news on social media platform X, writing: “I had the great honor and privilege to introduce 6 Leading Rabbis of the Hasidic Community in the US to @JDVance. I told the @VP that in this room there are the leaders of the most visibly Jewish people in the US, and despite the noise on social media and disagreements, he should know that his role is respected and appreciated by all those in the room.”

    Among the six rabbis in attendance was Aaron Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe and a leading figure in global Orthodox anti-Zionist circles. Teitelbaum leads the ultraconservative Satmar community based in Kiryas Joel, New York – a village that falls within Lawler’s congressional district – and oversees a movement with roughly 100,000 adherents worldwide. Photographs from the meeting show Teitelbaum seated directly across from Trump, reading from a pre-prepared letter during the audience.

    Miko Peled, an Israel-American author and activist familiar with the Satmar movement, told Middle East Eye that Teitelbaum was the most influential religious leader in the visiting delegation. Other anti-Zionist Haredi leaders note that the Satmar community takes a more cautious, nuanced approach to public anti-Zionist advocacy than smaller factions such as Neturei Karta International. “We know that officially it would be politically incorrect for them to meet with people who state unambiguously that [they] call for the entire dismantlement of the Zionist state of Israel,” explained Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, a prominent Neturei Karta activist who frequently organizes protests against Israeli government policy in New York.

    The unprecedented gathering has drawn mixed reactions from across the political spectrum. Critics of current Israeli policy on social media have praised the meeting, pointing to growing questioning of the longstanding bipartisan U.S. commitment to unrestricted support for Israel among American conservative circles as a sign of potential shifting political alliances.

    According to Peled, the Haredi delegation came to the meeting with two core goals. First, they sought to publicly reaffirm their anti-Zionist positions and clarify that they do not identify as Zionists. Second, they aimed to raise awareness of growing tensions between their global community and the current Israeli government, which has escalated pressure on Haredi communities over longstanding military conscription exemptions. Haredi Jews in Israel have held widespread protests against forced conscription for decades, and demonstrations have frequently been met with violent crackdowns by Israeli police.

    The exemption for Haredi seminary students originated as a limited, temporary exception when Israel first gained statehood, but has expanded into a mass, ongoing dispute as the Haredi population has grown rapidly. Data shows Haredi Israelis made up roughly 10% of the national population in 2009, and that share has climbed to approximately 14% as of 2025. While some Haredi factions agree to work with secular Israeli political coalitions to protect their community autonomy, others remain firmly anti-Zionist, rejecting the legitimacy of the Israeli state entirely.

    A senior White House official confirmed in an email to Middle East Eye that the meeting marked the first gathering of this specific group of Haredi rabbis at the White House since 1979, though some Hasidic leaders have met with former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton at the executive residence in the years since, leaving it unclear whether the 1979 benchmark refers specifically to anti-Zionist Haredi sects. The official added that the delegation “thanked the President for all he had done in combatting anti-Semitism, advocating for school choice with the Middle-Class Tax Credit, and for fighting for peoples of faith.”

    The official noted that the White House Faith Office regularly hosts religious leaders from across the United States to meet with the president, and that the administration has previously welcomed a range of Jewish representatives including Gaza hostage families, Holocaust survivors, and rabbis from multiple Jewish denominations.

    Peled characterized the meeting as a historic, significant moment, noting that Trump adjusted his own schedule to accommodate delays in the delegation’s private jet travel to Washington, a sign of how important the gathering was to the former president. Political analysts point out that the choice to host the delegation carries clear electoral logic: Kiryas Joel, the heart of the Satmar community in the U.S., falls directly within the congressional district represented by Lawler, a pro-Trump incumbent locked in a tight re-election race.

    Democratic critics have framed the meeting as a nakedly partisan political play. Halie Soifer, a former policy advisor to President Barack Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris who now leads the Jewish Democratic Council of America, argued that the gathering served a narrow partisan goal for the Trump administration and the Republican Party.

    “The selection of just a group of Hasidic men is on brand for Donald Trump,” Soifer told Middle East Eye. “He brought in a very small non-representative sample of Jewish leaders to the White House, and was sure to include a vulnerable Republican incumbent who is likely to lose his seat in November.”

    Soifer emphasized that the American Jewish community is not a monolith, noting that pre-holiday gatherings hosted by the Biden administration routinely included a broad cross-section of Jewish leadership, spanning all major denominations and political perspectives, rather than a narrow, non-representative fringe group.

  • US Congress passes bill punishing universities that boycott Israel

    US Congress passes bill punishing universities that boycott Israel

    On a Thursday vote, the U.S. House of Representatives has advanced a Republican-sponsored bill targeting U.S. universities that participate in boycotts of Israel or restrict student access to Israel-based academic exchange programs, setting up a critical next step for the legislation in the U.S. Senate. The final vote tally for the Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act stood at 237 in favor to 169 against, with unusual cross-party defying the typical partisan line on this deeply divisive issue.

    Thirty-three Democratic members, most of whom are facing competitive re-election races this cycle and hold long-standing pro-Israel voting records, broke with their party to support the measure. Only two Republican lawmakers voted against the bill. The legislation’s scope is limited to postsecondary institutions that participate in federal student aid programs; it requires universities receiving federal funding for international study and foreign language initiatives to submit annual verification confirming they do not bar domestic students from joining Israel-based programs, nor block Israeli students from enrolling in programming on their own campuses.

    The debate over the bill comes against the backdrop of the ongoing Israel-Gaza war, which has reshaped U.S. political discourse around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and amplified campus activism. The conflict erupted after Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023 killed roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel. Since that date, Israeli military operations in Gaza have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, per official counts from the Palestinian Ministry of Health. In response to the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the enclave, student and faculty coalitions at dozens of top U.S. universities have stepped up pressure on institutional leadership to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement targeting Israel. To date, the vast majority of university administrations have either ignored these demands or rejected them outright.

    House Republican supporters of the bill framed the legislation as a necessary check on anti-Israel discrimination on taxpayer-funded campuses. “Our universities should not use taxpayer-funded federal programs to discriminate against Israeli students, faculty, institutions, or businesses simply because they are Israeli,” Tim Walberg, Republican chair of the House education committee, told colleagues ahead of the final vote. House Republican Conference leader Virginia Foxx went further, characterizing ongoing anti-war protests on college campuses as inherently antisemitic, arguing that “the antisemitic rot that has corroded college campuses must be eradicated.” She added: “Today, the House sent a clear message: if an institution of higher education chooses to capitulate to the caustic BDS movement, there will be consequences – starting with this bipartisan legislation.”

    Democratic opponents of the bill pushed back against this framing, arguing the legislation unnecessarily infringes on First Amendment protections for peaceful protest and political expression. Bobby Scott, the top Democratic member of the House education committee, argued the bill is unnecessary on its face and dangerous for free speech. “No college or university has embraced the BDS movement anyway. So, we should combat antisemitism wherever it occurs, but we should not do so by punishing protected speech or conflating a student’s view with university policies,” Scott said on the House floor. Even some lawmakers who publicly oppose BDS voted against the measure, citing core free speech principles. New York Democratic Congressman Jerrold Nadler explained ahead of the vote that while he rejects the BDS movement, he could not support the bill because protecting the right to dissent is critical to safeguarding all expression: “It is the only way to ensure speech I do agree with is equally protected,” Nadler said.

    Pro-Palestinian activists have long pushed back against claims that campus protests and BDS organizing are inherently antisemitic, arguing that critics deliberately blur the line between criticism of the Israeli government’s policies and anti-Jewish bigotry to silence legitimate dissent. Bill supporters have countered that the legislation does not target individual speech, but rather seeks to prevent discriminatory institutional practices supported by federal public funds.

    Political analysts have noted the House vote comes as partisan tensions over Israel policy have exposed deep rifts within the Democratic caucus, just ahead of a critical midterm election that will determine which party controls Congress for the final two years of the current presidential term. Some observers view the bill as a deliberate effort by House Republicans to amplify these divisions and appeal to swing voters ahead of the vote. Just months earlier, in July, more than 100 House Democrats backed a separate bill that would cut portions of U.S. military aid to Israel, a vote that laid bare the competing ideological currents within the party on Middle East policy. For now, the fate of the Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act rests with the Senate, where it faces an uncertain path forward.

  • Flock says its cameras make US safer – so why are they being sabotaged?

    Flock says its cameras make US safer – so why are they being sabotaged?

    Across the tree-lined, affluent streets of Houston’s historic Old Braeswood neighborhood, an unusual act of coordinated resistance unfolded in the dead of late July night. Four surveillance units operated by private technology firm Flock Safety were torn from their metal mounts, their distinctive black oval casings and attached solar panels left crumpled on the pavement. Each camera bore a red sticker warning of constant 24/7 recording, and this act of sabotage is far from an isolated incident: similar attacks have already been reported in Minnesota, California, and Georgia, marking a sharp escalation in public backlash against the rapid nationwide expansion of AI-enhanced mass surveillance.

    Founded in 2017, Flock Safety has grown to become the United States’ largest provider of automatic license plate readers (ALPRs), AI-powered cameras that capture images of every vehicle that passes their field of view. While the company does not release exact deployment figures, it confirms partnerships with more than 7,000 U.S. communities and estimates roughly 100,000 Flock cameras are currently installed across the country. What sets Flock apart from older generations of ALPR technology is not just its AI capabilities, but its interconnected national database: local law enforcement agencies that purchase a small number of Flock cameras gain access to a network of tens of thousands of devices spanning multiple states. For example, Houston’s METRO Transit Authority owns just 35 Flock cameras, but can search data from more than 20,000 devices across the network, extending as far as Albany County, New York. Internal documents obtained by the BBC show this network’s scope has expanded exponentially in recent years: in Houston’s Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District, a typical 2024 license plate search covered roughly 270 camera networks; by 2025 that number nearly doubled, and by 2026, one in five searches span more than 6,000 separate networks.

    For civil rights advocates, this broad, unregulated access to everyday movement data poses an existential threat to personal privacy. Christopher Rivera, a policy advocate with the Texas Civil Rights Project, argues that the network allows law enforcement to map every detail of a person’s daily routine: their commute to work, their children’s school campuses, their places of worship. Recent high-profile cases of misuse have amplified these concerns. Just last week, a Kentucky police officer was arrested and charged after abusing the Flock system to track his ex-girlfriend, who had a active protection order against him, more than 2,000 times. The incident was only detected by Flock’s new mandatory AI-powered audit tool designed to flag suspicious activity. In a separate 2025 case, a Johnson County, Texas, detective searched more than 80,000 Flock images to locate a woman suspected of obtaining an abortion — all without a required judicial warrant.

    Immigrant rights organizers add another layer of concern: while federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) does not hold a direct contract with Flock, there have been multiple documented cases of local law enforcement using the Flock database to track people on behalf of immigration authorities. For Jessie, a Central American immigrant living in Houston who requested anonymity to protect her pending green card extension application, the Flock camera installed outside her home has turned daily life into a constant exercise in evasion. “It makes me feel as if I’m being stalked,” she explained, adding that she now changes her commute route daily to avoid creating a predictable movement pattern.

    Surveillance technology is not a new innovation in American policing, but the combination of AI integration and Flock’s national connected network has pushed the issue into the national spotlight. Unlike older ALPR systems that only allow searches by license plate number, Flock’s AI enables officers to search footage using descriptive terms — such as “Caucasian man, blue shirt” — expanding the scope of surveillance far beyond vehicle tracking. While Flock itself does not integrate facial recognition technology, the BBC has uncovered previously unreported documents showing that the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, which serves Houston, already uses a controversial competing facial recognition tool called Clearview AI. Clearview’s database contains more than 70 billion images scraped from public social media and internet platforms, and the company has already been fined millions in data penalties across multiple European countries, including a £7.5 million fine from the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office has declined to comment on its ongoing Clearview AI contract, which runs through March 2027.

    Law enforcement supporters of Flock argue the technology has delivered transformative public safety results that cannot be ignored. Chief Ray Schultz of the Memorial Villages Police Department, a small Houston-area jurisdiction, says his department averaged just three stolen vehicle recoveries per year before adopting Flock; today, that number stands at 45. Schultz also cited a recent case where Flock data helped locate an elderly woman with dementia who had become lost 60 miles from home, reuniting her safely with her family. “It’s a very good tool. It makes the community safer,” Schultz said, adding that while officers who misuse the system should face accountability, “don’t throw out a tool that is valuable, that can help recover a missing child.”

    The growing backlash has already led to tangible policy and business shifts across the country. More than 200 U.S. communities have chosen to cancel or decline to renew their Flock contracts since 2021, according to privacy advocacy group Secure Justice — including 90 cancellations in August 2026 alone. Major cities including Los Angeles, Seattle, and Austin have already cut ties with the company, driven by both cost concerns and widespread public opposition to mass surveillance. The issue has also become a key talking point in upcoming 2026 midterm elections, with bipartisan calls for regulatory guardrails. Republican Congressman Keith Self has introduced federal legislation that would require law enforcement to obtain a warrant before accessing Flock data for federal investigations.

    Flock has adjusted some of its policies in response to public pressure: it now requires mandatory AI-led audits of user activity, and has reduced the default data retention period from 30 days to 7 days for non-investigation related footage, though individual law enforcement agencies can still opt to store data for much longer periods. Flock founder and CEO Garrett Langley told the BBC that decisions around data retention and information sharing should be left to local governments, not private technology companies. “I don’t think a technology company should be making decisions like that,” Langley said. “As long as it’s a lawful investigation, we are not going to tell cities what laws they should or should not enforce.” Langley frames Flock as a public safety company, not a surveillance firm, a claim that is undermined by three patents the company filed between 2020 and 2025 that all include the word “surveillance” in their titles. He also noted the company’s technology has helped solve roughly one million crimes and locate more than 10,000 missing people, calling the ongoing vandalism of cameras “disappointing” and saying the debate over balancing safety and privacy is a necessary one.

    For critics and community members like Jessie, however, no policy changes can ease their concerns about the growing power of AI-driven surveillance in everyday life. “I just don’t trust that they’re doing it to keep us safe,” she says.

  • Indian state gives taxi and tuk-tuk drivers a year to learn local language

    Indian state gives taxi and tuk-tuk drivers a year to learn local language

    A contentious new regulation mandating basic conversational Marathi for taxi and tuk-tuk drivers in India’s western state of Maharashtra has triggered widespread pushback, prompting state authorities to delay enforcement by 12 months and reigniting decades-old tensions over language, migrant labor and regional identity.

    The policy, which aimed to require all commercial passenger vehicle drivers to demonstrate basic proficiency in Maharashtra’s official language, launched its first round of testing on August 20. Under the original framework, drivers who failed the oral assessment faced a one-month grace period to re-test, after which their operating licenses could be suspended or revoked entirely. State officials framed the rule as a practical public safety measure, arguing that improved communication between drivers and local passengers would reduce confusion and create safer journeys for all road users.

    But the mandate immediately sparked outcry from drivers’ unions, who warned that forcing working drivers into a high-stakes test threatened to put thousands out of work overnight. A large share of commercial drivers in Maharashtra are internal migrants, who relocated to the state from other parts of India – most notably the populous Hindi-speaking states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar – in search of stable employment. Many of these drivers have been out of formal education for decades, leaving them little time or flexibility to study a new language while working full time to support their families.

    Amid growing public protests, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced the one-year extension last week, acknowledging that most migrant drivers needed far more time to build basic conversational skills. State Transport Minister Pratap Sarnaik added that further extensions could be granted down the line, after the full year of learning is completed.

    Maharashtra is home to nearly 979,000 active taxi and tuk-tuk permits, with almost half of those concentrated in the bustling Mumbai metropolitan region, one of India’s largest commercial and population hubs. For drivers who faced immediate risk of losing their livelihoods, the extension has delivered much-needed relief. “We were worried that if our licences were suspended, our daily income would be affected,” explained Lakhan Pandey, a Mumbai-based taxi driver. “Now we feel somewhat relieved.”

    Beyond the immediate policy dispute, the row has dragged into the open a political debate that has shaped Maharashtra’s public life since the state’s founding. The state was created in 1960 following a years-long mass campaign for a separate Marathi-speaking state. As Mumbai grew into India’s financial capital, it attracted wave after wave of internal migrants from across the country, and language quickly became tied to fierce disputes over access to jobs and economic opportunity for native Marathi speakers.

    In 1966, the regional nationalist party Shiv Sena was founded on a “sons of the soil” platform, which argued that Marathi speakers were being displaced from work by incoming migrants. The party went on to become one of the most dominant political forces in the state, with Marathi identity at the core of its political appeal. Today, Maharashtra’s ruling coalition is led by Fadnavis’ Bharatiya Janata Party and a faction of Shiv Sena that split from the original party in 2022, while the rival Shiv Sena faction and the regional Maharashtra Navnirman Sena both continue to prioritize Marathi identity politics.

    Political analysts note that while widespread support exists for encouraging migrants to learn basic Marathi, the issue is often amplified for political gain. “The issue is not simply about communication between drivers and passengers, but about Marathi identity, migration and employment,” said Prakash Akolkar, a veteran journalist, author and political analyst. “Ordinary people do not always treat language with the same intensity as political parties. Parties have often raised the issue when it suits the political circumstances.”

    Some advocates for Marathi promotion take a firmer stance, however. Deepak Pawar, a political scientist and head of the Marathi Abhyas Kendra, a center that promotes Marathi language learning, argued that any person who has lived and worked in Maharashtra for years should have already acquired at least basic familiarity with the language. Refusing to do so, he said, amounts to “linguistic arrogance”.

    Similar tensions have played out across other Indian states, including neighboring Karnataka, where local language activists have raised alarms that Kannada is being sidelined as many migrants rely exclusively on Hindi or English to get by.

    Under the revised Maharashtra policy, drivers are not required to read or write Marathi, or achieve fluency – only a basic working knowledge for routine work conversations. To support drivers, the state government has organized targeted training courses focused on common phrases drivers need for work: asking for passenger destinations, discussing fares, and sharing basic directions.

    Thus far, state transport department data shows that roughly 166,000 drivers have completed the training and passed the required oral test. Munawar Sheikh, a 58-year-old tuk-tuk driver, was among those who completed the course at a training center in Thane, just outside Mumbai. Over four days of classes, Sheikh and his peers learned 16 high-frequency phrases and questions, from “Where do you want to go?” to “the fare will be according to the meter.” Sheikh said the course left him confident enough to hold basic conversations with Marathi-speaking passengers.

    For many drivers, however, the biggest barrier remains finding the time to learn while working full time. Ajay Singh, a Mumbai taxi driver, said he is eager to learn Marathi but cannot afford to take time off work to attend classes. “From the time we wake up until late at night, we have to drive. Otherwise, there is no food on the table. Taking a few hours out of the day for a class is financially difficult for me,” he explained. Singh earns between 1,500 and 2,000 rupees (roughly $17 to $23) per day, and says losing even a few days of wages would leave him unable to cover rent and his children’s school fees. Instead, he is learning on the job, listening to Marathi radio during his shifts and practicing phrases with native-speaking passengers.

    Like many other migrant drivers, Pandey said he never opposed learning Marathi – he only asked for enough time to learn without putting his livelihood at risk. The one-year extension has addressed that core concern. “We live here, we work here. Of course we should learn Marathi,” Pandey said. “Just give us the time to learn it without putting our livelihoods at risk.”

  • UN General Assembly endorses a new world map that shows more accurately Africa’s size

    UN General Assembly endorses a new world map that shows more accurately Africa’s size

    In a landmark vote Friday, the United Nations General Assembly gave formal backing to a new global map projection that correctly depicts Africa’s actual geographic size, capping off a years-long advocacy campaign spearheaded by African nations and international geographic justice groups.

    The non-binding resolution, put forward by Togo with unified support from the entire African Union bloc, passed with overwhelming global backing: 164 UN member states voted in favor of the measure, while only the United States cast a opposing vote. Six nations — Serbia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Ukraine — chose to abstain from the vote.

    The resolution calls on governments and multilateral institutions worldwide to phase out the centuries-old Mercator projection, a mapping standard that has dominated global cartography since the 16th century, in favor of the Equal Earth projection, a modern alternative that geographers and advocacy leaders confirm renders continental proportions with far greater geographic accuracy.

    First developed in 2018, the Equal Earth projection accounts for the Earth’s natural curvature to display all landmasses in their true relative sizes. By contrast, the Mercator projection, originally created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator to aid 16th-century European maritime navigators, systematically distorts continental sizes: it inflates the apparent area of polar-adjacent landmasses including North America and Greenland, while drastically shrinking the size of equatorial regions including Africa and South America. One striking example of this distortion sees the Mercator projection depict Greenland as roughly the same size as Africa; in reality, Africa is 14 times larger than the Arctic island.

    UN officials emphasized that the resolution does not implement an outright ban on the Mercator projection, nor does it force any entity to adopt the Equal Earth model. Instead, it acts as a formal global endorsement encouraging voluntary adoption of the more accurate projection for general use, from education to public policy and digital mapping.

    Speaking ahead of the vote, Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey framed the shift as more than a technical cartographic adjustment. “Maps shape our understanding of the world,” Dussey told the assembly. “They guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions.”

    Advocacy groups that led the multi-year campaign to secure UN backing welcomed the resolution as a critical step toward correcting long-standing geographic bias. Africa No Filter, one of the leading organizations behind the push, noted in a statement that the group now aims to see the accurate projection integrated into everyday global systems: “We want to see accurate maps in schools, textbooks, newsrooms, businesses and on the digital platforms billions of people use every day.”

    International leaders also celebrated the vote as a small but meaningful step toward greater geographic and historical accuracy. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot wrote on social platform X following the vote: “Changing the map obviously doesn’t change the world. But correcting a representation that distorts it is already an act of truth.”

    Geographers have long backed the shift away from general use of the Mercator projection, noting that its only practical, valid application remains the original purpose for which it was designed: maritime navigation. Mark Monmonier, a veteran geography professor at Syracuse University, summed up the widespread academic consensus in comments on the resolution: “Outside of that very narrow navigation application, there is no point in using it.”

  • McVay says entire Rams roster is traveling to Australia, but Aaron Donald’s playing status still TBD

    McVay says entire Rams roster is traveling to Australia, but Aaron Donald’s playing status still TBD

    MELBOURNE – The National Football League is set to make landmark history this week as it hosts its first-ever regular-season game on Australian soil, but one major question still hangs over the Los Angeles Rams ahead of their opening-week clash with the San Francisco 49ers: will future Hall of Fame defensive tackle Aaron Donald take the field?

    Rams head coach Sean McVay confirmed Friday, as the team wrapped up early preparations for their long-haul journey from Southern California, that the entire 53-man roster will travel Down Under for the contest at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground. However, he stopped short of confirming whether the recently unretired 35-year-old superstar will suit up for the historic matchup.

    Donald’s unexpected return to the NFL sent shockwaves through the league last weekend, just two and a half years after he walked away from the game following a legendary 10-season career with the Rams that included 10 Pro Bowl selections, eight First-Team All-Pro honors, and a Super Bowl victory. Since coming out of retirement, the star defender has been working aggressively to rebuild his game conditioning, and McVay acknowledged Friday that Donald has made striking progress in his comeback push.

    Still, the final call on his availability won’t be made until the team assesses how he handles the intensity of practice and travel over the coming days. “I don’t have that answer quite yet,” McVay told reporters. “His ramp-up process has gone really well – he’s so intentional about his training rhythm and daily routine. This week will be a critical indicator of how he feels, and we’re going to take it one day at a time to evaluate where he’s at. If he feels good enough to go, that’s great. If not, I have full confidence that the rest of our defensive line group, who have put in all the reps through camp, will step up and perform.”

    The Rams received more positive injury updates on two other key stars ahead of the game: star pass rusher Myles Garrett, who missed more than a dozen training camp reps with muscle soreness and a minor knee issue, is still on track to start in Melbourne. Dynamic All-Pro wide receiver Puka Nacua, who suffered a core muscle injury three weeks ago, has also cleared key recovery milestones and is expected to play. “He’s feeling really good,” McVay said of Nacua. “He’s already hitting high-speed drills at a great pace, and it’s going to be exciting to have him back out on the field with us.”

    The two NFC West rivals have taken starkly different approaches to preparation for the most geographically distant game in NFL history. The Rams are completing their full training camp week at their Woodland Hills, California facility, and will not fly to Australia until less than 48 hours before kickoff. The game is scheduled for Friday morning Melbourne time, which is Thursday night for U.S. audiences. The 49ers, by contrast, traveled to Australia earlier this week and have conducted all their on-site preparation locally to acclimate to the time zone difference.

    McVay defended the Rams’ schedule, a strategy the team has refined during previous international trips to London and Mexico City, even as he acknowledged that this journey is unprecedented in its distance. “At the end of the day, our approach comes down to one simple question: what do we think is best for our players, to put them in the best position to play at their best?” McVay said. “There are a lot of different theories and approaches to this, but I have a lot of trust in our group and the plan we’ve put in place. Hopefully it pays off, and I know our guys are confident in what we’re doing.”

  • Germany’s far-right AfD bids for first taste of power in eastern vote

    Germany’s far-right AfD bids for first taste of power in eastern vote

    As Germany prepares for this weekend’s critical state election in Saxony-Anhalt, the entire nation is holding its collective breath. Polls currently place the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and its lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund on track to win an outright parliamentary majority – a result that would mark the first time a far-right party has claimed full state-level power in post-war German history, a shift that could reshape the country’s political trajectory for decades to come.\n\nFor AfD leadership, a decisive victory in this eastern German state would be far more than a regional win: it would act as a critical stepping stone toward their long-held goal of gaining national power. For the party’s opponents, however, an AfD majority represents an existential threat to Germany’s post-war democratic order.\n\nThe election also casts fresh uncertainty over the future of embattled conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz, leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Plagued by poor public approval and booing at recent public appearances, Merz is widely seen as a liability for center-right candidates on the campaign trail. Many political observers note he may already regret his public pledge to halt the far-right’s rise, a promise that has been undermined by the AfD’s growing momentum across the country.\n\nAt the center of the election campaign is 35-year-old Siegmund, a charismatic AfD figure who has dominated media coverage and energized grassroots support in the state. Labeled “Germany’s Most Dangerous Man” by leading German magazine Der Spiegel, Siegmund has pushed back against widespread reports that neo-Nazi affiliates hold influential positions in his inner circle, often presenting a populist, relatable public image across social media – sharing content of himself interacting with adoring supporters and riding a retro East German scooter.\n\nThe AfD’s surging popularity in eastern Germany, its long-standing stronghold, has been fueled by two overlapping forces: lingering nostalgia for the pre-reunification East German era and widespread public anger at the status quo. Voters across the state have voiced deep frustration over a range of issues, including unmanaged immigration, perceived public safety failures, Germany’s stagnant national economy, skyrocketing energy costs, and billions in aid sent to Ukraine. For many committed supporters, the AfD represents the only party offering meaningful, radical change, with Siegmund framed as a leader who has restored hope for disillusioned voters. Even more hesitant backers say they have abandoned decades of support for mainstream parties, which they see as unresponsive to working-class needs. As one AfD legislator put it, a turn to regional governance would prove to voters that “the sky won’t fall in” if the party takes power.\n\nDetractors argue that the AfD’s policy platform for Saxony-Anhalt is deeply controversial and incompatible with Germany’s democratic and social values. Key planks include segregating child refugees into separate schooling, on the grounds that their stay in Germany is temporary; the party’s manifesto also condemns what it calls the aggressive promotion of “sexual deviations and non-reproductive lifestyles” over “normal family structures,” calling for a ban on LGBT rainbow flags in public schools and a curriculum that reduces focus on Nazi history and emphasizes more “positive” elements of German national history. On immigration, the party has proposed creating a dedicated task force to detain and deport migrants who lack legal residency, while calling for an immediate end to what it labels “illegal, culturally alien” mass migration.\n\nThe AfD has also faced repeated scrutiny over its well-documented pro-Russia sympathies, leading to warnings that the party cannot be trusted with sensitive state intelligence. Just this week, Berlin publicly blamed Moscow for a failed drone attack on Leipzig/Halle Airport, a claim the Kremlin has denied. The controversy comes amid reports of a Russian military mug displayed in the office of senior AfD state figure Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, who dismissed the item as a simple souvenir, adding “it’s not our war.” German security officials have also warned of escalating Russian-backed disinformation campaigns targeting AfD’s political rivals, a charge Moscow dismisses as “anti-Russian hysteria.”\n\nWidespread concerns over extremism within the party are not limited to foreign policy. Saxony-Anhalt’s AfD branch is officially classified as a right-wing extremist movement by German domestic intelligence, which accuses the local organization of being rooted in “racist ideology” and holding anti-constitutional goals. During a recent AfD rally covered by the BBC, an attendee was spotted wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with “Arisch” – the German term for Aryan, the white supremacist racial category weaponized by the Nazis to promote their ideology of a master race. While it remains unclear whether the man was a party member, supporter, or casual attendee, the incident has reinforced long-standing concerns about extremist influence within the movement. The AfD, which frames itself as a conservative libertarian movement, rejects all extremism claims as politically motivated smears and rejects any comparison to National Socialism. If elected to a majority, Siegmund has even refused to rule out dissolving the state branch of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (BfV), the body that monitors the party’s extremist activities.\n\nGermany’s mainstream parties have maintained a long-standing “Brandmauer” (firewall) policy, ruling out any formal or informal coalition with the AfD. This political blockade means the party must win an outright parliamentary majority to take power, rather than forming a coalition with smaller parties. Its path to victory therefore depends heavily on whether smaller competing parties manage to clear the 5% vote threshold required to gain seats in the state parliament – a mathematical reality that could work heavily in the AfD’s favor if smaller rivals fail to qualify.\n\nUnlike past regional elections where the AfD has only managed to crack the mainstream firewall, this vote could see the party bypass it entirely. If the AfD secures a majority, it will face an unprecedented test: for years, the party has built its support on anti-establishment rhetoric, blaming Berlin for all of Germany’s problems. Once in power, it will no longer be able to solely rail against incumbents – it will have to deliver on its promises, facing the same governing pressures that have frustrated mainstream parties for decades.\n\nState governments in Germany wield significant authority over key policy areas including local education, policing, and cultural policy, and their delegates hold seats in the Bundesrat, the federal government’s upper legislative chamber. An AfD-led state government would therefore be able to implement its controversial policy agenda at the regional level while gaining a far louder voice in national politics. Currently, the AfD not only leads polls in most eastern states but also holds a lead in national polling, making this regional election a critical bellwether for the country’s future.\n\nThough Saxony-Anhalt is a small state by population, its upcoming election is one of the most consequential political moments in modern German history, with outcomes that will ripple across the entire nation and European politics as a whole.

  • Mistrial declared in Lindsay Clancy murder case, after jury deadlocks

    Mistrial declared in Lindsay Clancy murder case, after jury deadlocks

    After seven days of deliberation that failed to produce a unanimous verdict, a Massachusetts judge has formally declared a mistrial in the closely watched murder case against Lindsay Clancy, a 36-year-old former nurse accused of killing her three young children in 2023. The stunning outcome has left the case, and Clancy’s future, in legal limbo, deepening national divides over postpartum mental health and criminal responsibility that have gripped the American public for months.

    Clancy does not dispute that she killed her children — 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan — at their family home in Massachusetts. Immediately after the killings, she attempted suicide by stabbing herself and jumping from a second-story window, a trauma that left her permanently paralyzed. She has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder, with her legal team arguing she was severely impaired by postpartum psychosis at the time of the crimes and cannot be held criminally liable for her actions.

    The case moved through six weeks of testimony before the jury entered deliberations. Over the course of seven days, totaling more than 40 hours of discussion, the jury signaled three times that they were unable to reach the unanimous verdict required by Massachusetts law, which demands a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to secure a conviction. On the final day of deliberations, Clancy’s lead attorney Kevin Reddington made a last-ditch effort to avoid a deadlock: he requested that one holdout juror, who the jury noted had failed to follow instructions on the reasonable doubt standard, be removed from the panel.

    Judge Jeffrey Sullivan denied Reddington’s request and ordered the jury back to continue deliberations. When the panel returned an hour later still unable to reach a consensus, Sullivan ruled there was no alternative but to declare a mistrial. Reddington immediately filed an emergency appeal to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, asking the state’s highest court to order the jury to resume deliberations and force questioning of the holdout juror. The high court rejected the appeal, clearing the way for the mistrial ruling to take effect.

    Court observers described a quiet, shocked atmosphere in the courtroom as the ruling was announced. Clancy appeared downcast and expressionless, while Reddington was visibly upset by the outcome. Outside the courthouse, Reddington told reporters he believed 11 of the 12 jurors leaned toward a verdict favorable to Clancy, with only a single holdout blocking consensus. No official information about the jury’s internal deliberations or individual positions has been released to the public.

    A hung jury and subsequent mistrial do not resolve the case: it does not confirm Clancy’s guilt, nor does it result in an acquittal. Clancy will remain in custody at a mental health facility, held on the existing first-degree murder charges, while prosecutors weigh their next steps. A status hearing is scheduled for September 29, where the prosecution will outline its plans for moving forward. Options available to prosecutors include holding a second trial or negotiating a plea agreement with Clancy’s defense team.

    Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz told reporters Friday that no final decision had been made, and his office would review the case with its legal team before determining whether to pursue a new trial. “The facts are Lindsay Clancy killed her three children and the evidence suggested to us that she was in control of her actions when she committed those homicides,” Cruz said. Reddington has already announced he plans to file a motion to reconsider the mistrial ruling, which will be heard at the September hearing.

    The horrific nature of the crimes, combined with the central question of postpartum mental health, has made the case a national sensation that has deeply divided public opinion. Hundreds of journalists covered the trial daily, and thousands of Americans followed live streamed proceedings closely, sparking widespread debate over how the criminal legal system should treat people experiencing severe postpartum psychiatric episodes. The high level of public attention even drew comment from U.S. President Donald Trump, who weighed in from the White House Friday. He called the case a “horrible tragedy” and noted, “She did a horrible, horrible thing. Can’t be worse. I assume there’s going to be another trial… But you’ll find out what the price to pay is. There’ll be a price.”

    This story contains details of violence and suicide that may be distressing to some readers. If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or mental health distress, support is available globally through Befrienders Worldwide at www.befrienders.org, and in the United Kingdom through the BBC Action Line at bbc.co.uk/actionline.

  • Brazilian Supreme Court justices at odds as election and probe into failed bank loom

    Brazilian Supreme Court justices at odds as election and probe into failed bank loom

    SAO PAULO — Brazil’s highest judicial body has slid deeper into a damaging institutional crisis, after two high-profile Supreme Court justices delivered competing demands for severe disciplinary action against one another this Friday. The public feud has sent shockwaves through Brazil’s political landscape just months ahead of the country’s October general elections, raising urgent questions about the integrity of the nation’s judiciary.

    The conflict centers on two justices with starkly different political and ideological backgrounds. Alexandre de Moraes, 57, rose to national prominence last year after leading the high-profile prosecution that resulted in the imprisonment of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro on charges related to the 2022 attempted coup d’état. His adversary on the bench, 53-year-old Andre Mendonca, made history as the Supreme Court’s first self-identified evangelical Christian justice, a direct appointment by Bolsonaro during his presidential term.

    The roots of their escalating animosity trace back to a sprawling federal investigation into large-scale financial fraud linked to the collapsed Banco Master, a once-prominent Brazilian financial institution led by disgraced ex-banker Daniel Vorcaro. The sprawling probe has already tangled multiple sitting politicians, making it an especially explosive issue ahead of the upcoming October elections.

    The crisis escalated rapidly earlier this week, when Mendonca ordered the unsealing of a portion of federal police intercepted communications between Vorcaro and third parties. The released documents include dozens of private messages from the fallen banker that suggest he repeatedly sought personal guidance from de Moraes. The revelations compound existing suspicions against de Moraes, after federal investigators uncovered that de Moraes’ wife had provided legal consulting services to Banco Master under a 130 million reais (approximately $25 million) contract.

    These disclosures have sparked a growing wave of calls for de Moraes’ resignation from across Brazil’s political sphere, media outlets, and leading legal experts. Even Flávio Bolsonaro, a presidential candidate and the son of the former president, who has himself been drawn into the Banco Master scandal over allegations he received roughly $21 million to produce a hagiographic film about his father’s political career, joined the chorus demanding de Moraes step down. In one intercepted message, Vorcaro wrote to a contact, “I am grateful to you for my life,” while in another, he pleaded, “For the love of God, see if you can block all these evil (measures against Banco Master).

    But the narrative shifted just as quickly, when Brazilian media outlets reported on Wednesday that Mendonca had held a private, off-the-record meeting with Vorcaro last year. In an official statement, Mendonca defended the gathering, framing it as a routine informational meeting similar to conversations other Supreme Court justices held on the same case. He later confirmed last Thursday that he held a second, more recent meeting with the jailed banker. What makes the encounter controversial is that Mendonca interrogated Vorcaro without the required authorization from the full Supreme Court — a mandatory step when investigating a sitting member of the court — and did not allow any federal police officers or public prosecutors to attend the questioning.

    Mendonca has justified his actions by saying Vorcaro claimed he had been subjected to mistreatment while in police custody, a claim that Brazil’s national attorney general has already formally rejected as unsubstantiated.

    By late Thursday, de Moraes had responded with swift and unprecedented action: he formally submitted a request to Supreme Court Chief Justice Luiz Edson Fachin to open a full investigation into Mendonca’s conduct. De Moraes blasted his colleague’s actions as politically motivated, and argued that Mendonca’s unauthorized, secretive interrogation of Vorcaro meets the legal standard for an impeachable offense. De Moraes is pushing for the Brazilian Senate to ultimately consider removing Mendonca from the bench.

    Brazil’s Senate, which holds the constitutional authority to initiate impeachment proceedings against sitting Supreme Court justices, currently has dozens of pending impeachment requests targeting de Moraes, with only a small handful of similar requests filed against Mendonca to date. By Friday, Brazilian media confirmed that Mendonca had submitted his own counter-request to Chief Justice Fachin, asking that de Moraes be suspended from all Supreme Court duties while the graft allegations against him are adjudicated.

    Chief Justice Fachin, speaking Friday morning at an official ceremony held at the presidential palace in the presence of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — who has publicly stated no individual should be exempt from judicial investigation — announced his next steps. Fachin said he will request formal written clarifications from Mendonca, de Moraes, Attorney General Paulo Gonet (who is also mentioned in Vorcaro’s intercepted messages), and Federal Police Director Andrei Rodrigues. Without explicitly naming the public feud between his two colleagues, Fachin said he would “do what is right, in the time and in the shape that the legal order requires.” He added, “The institutions of the Republic must be preserved, overall in moments of the biggest tension.”

    Witnesses confirmed that de Moraes and Mendonca did not exchange a single word during two full Supreme Court sessions held Wednesday and Thursday. The two justices, who sit adjacent to one another on the court bench (seating is ordered by the date each justice was appointed), are set to gather again for official business next week.

  • Revealed: Microsoft signed $125m contract with Israel during first year of Gaza war

    Revealed: Microsoft signed $125m contract with Israel during first year of Gaza war

    An investigation by Middle East Eye has uncovered a previously hidden $125.4 million software licensing contract between tech giant Microsoft and Israel’s Ministry of Defense, signed in 2024 amid growing global outcry over the company’s military ties to Israel. The details of the agreement were buried deep within Israel’s 2024 annual budget execution report, published by the country’s finance ministry in March 2025, and only came to light after a close analysis of hundreds of entries in the document’s procurement commitments section.

    Buried among the list of the defense ministry’s largest multi-year procurements, the entry confirms the 2024 agreement is valued at approximately 464 million Israeli shekels. As of the end of December 2024, the full contract value remains outstanding, with no payments disbursed that year, and the engagement is scheduled to conclude in 2027. The public budget document provides no additional details about what specific software is covered under the deal, which Israeli defense or military units will access the licensing, or whether the 2027 end date refers to the license term, the payment schedule, or both.

    When reached for comment by Middle East Eye, Microsoft declined to answer any questions about the newly uncovered contract, stating only that it had “nothing to add from our side.”

    This new agreement aligns closely with a 2021 $133 million three-year contract between Microsoft and the Israeli military previously exposed by the Associated Press. That investigation revealed the Israeli military was classified as an “S500” client, a status reserved for Microsoft’s highest-priority customers, and included more than 600 individual subscriptions linked to key Israeli military units, including the elite cyberwarfare division Unit 8200. Former Microsoft employees familiar with the company’s Israeli contracts told MEE the 2024 agreement is almost certainly a three-year renewal of the 2021 deal, matching both the timeline (running 2024–2027) and the similar contract value. The Israeli budget document does not explicitly label the agreement as a renewal.

    The newly revealed contract predates the 2025 public controversy over Microsoft’s provision of cloud services to the Israeli military. In August 2025, a joint investigation by The Guardian, +972 Magazine and Local Call reported that Unit 8200 had used Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to store recordings of millions of phone calls from Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, with the database directly supporting Israeli military operations and air strike planning. Subsequent reporting by the Associated Press found that Microsoft’s global Azure support team responded to roughly 130 direct requests from the Israeli military in the first 10 months of the 2023–2024 Gaza war. Following the controversy, Microsoft commissioned an external review from law firm Covington & Burling, after which company president and vice chair Brad Smith announced Microsoft had “ceased and disabled a set of services to a unit within the Israel Ministry of Defense.” A leaked internal email later confirmed the company only disabled a small subset of services for a single Israeli military unit, with no additional details provided.

    The 2024 licensing agreement, recorded in the budget as of December 2024 (nine months before the service disablement), shows no connection to the small set of cloud and AI services Microsoft cut. The contract is explicitly categorized as software licensing, not the cloud or AI services that were the subject of the controversy. Microsoft has publicly confirmed that the vast majority of its existing business with the Israeli military remains active, a partnership that stretches back more than two decades. Internal documents show Microsoft maintains a dedicated team of at least nine employees focused solely on serving the Israeli military, including a senior executive who spent 14 years in Unit 8200 and a former IT leader for Israeli military intelligence. The company also maintains a substantial physical footprint in Israel, including two large server farm facilities outside Tel Aviv, a 46,000-square-meter campus in Herzliya, and a southern office that flies a large Israeli flag.

    Critics say the new contract offers clear evidence of Microsoft’s ongoing complicity in human rights violations against Palestinians. Abdo Mohamed, a former Microsoft data scientist fired after organizing a vigil for Palestinian victims at the company’s Redmond, Washington headquarters and now an organizer with the activist campaign No Azure for Apartheid, called the contract proof that company leadership intentionally doubled down on its profitable military ties amid the war. “The newly revealed deal cements the active role Microsoft, its technologies and its executives play in powering Israel’s apartheid and genocide,” Mohamed told MEE. “As Israel intensified its ongoing genocidal and ethnic cleansing campaign all over Palestine in 2023 and 2024, and as workers with our campaign at Microsoft spoke out in protest of its genocide profiteering business, Microsoft executives chose willingly to double down on their complicity in genocide and apartheid by signing this contract worth over $100m.” Mohamed added that the deal’s timing coincided with a surge in Israeli military use of Microsoft’s cloud and AI services, which reached up to 200 times pre-October 2023 levels in some use cases. “That’s why our campaign continues to apply pressure until Microsoft puts an end to its genocide-profiteering business with the Israeli military and government,” he said.

    Union organizers say growing worker outrage over the contract has spurred new efforts to organize tech workplaces to push for change. Marcus Barnett, a spokesperson for the United Tech and Allied Workers section of the UK’s Communication Workers Union, noted that tech workers are not disconnected from the global outcry over the war. “Tech workers haven’t been isolated from the rest of the world witnessing war and genocide dominate the news headlines and our phone screens,” Barnett said. “It’s no surprise that many are turning to workplace organising to assert their humanity, and we urge anyone with real concerns to stand up and form a workplace union to articulate these issues with strength.”

    Since October 2024, Microsoft has fired at least nine employees over protests against its Israeli military business, with more than a dozen total facing termination or arrest for speaking out against the partnership. The 2024 Microsoft contract is one of 33 major defense procurement deals signed by Israel that year, with the full set of agreements totaling $13.6 billion. The vast majority of that value comes from arms and military hardware purchases, mostly from the U.S. government, with Microsoft’s deal among a small handful of non-hardware engagements. The Israeli defense ministry does not label the Microsoft contract as explicitly war-related, and routine software licensing renewals for government entities are not inherently tied to military operations. MEE contacted the Israeli government and Israeli embassy in the UK for comment but received no response.