Global Pulse

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  • ‘Mr Rogers was political, too’: Ms Rachel challenges critics over Gaza and ICE detention

    ‘Mr Rogers was political, too’: Ms Rachel challenges critics over Gaza and ICE detention

    Beloved children’s educator and YouTube creator Rachel Accurso — known widely to her young audience as Ms. Rachel — has used a high-profile appearance on the viral digital talk show *SubwayTakes* to push back against critics who insist children’s entertainers should stay out of political debate, while using her platform to condemn the harm facing children in Gaza and demand an end to child detention in U.S. immigration facilities.

    During the unedited interview, host Kareem Rahma introduced Ms. Rachel, whose gentle, accessible educational content has earned her a massive global following among families, as “essentially the Mr. Rogers of today.” One of the show’s Gen Z producers went a step further, dubbing her the “Taylor Swift for toddlers” for her cross-generational cultural appeal. But the viral conversation quickly moved beyond playful praise of her work to confront the growing backlash Ms. Rachel has faced since she began speaking out in support of Palestinian children and against U.S. immigration detention policy.

    In addressing five of her so-called “controversial” opinions, Ms. Rachel centered her argument on the legacy of Fred Rogers, the iconic American children’s television host whose *Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood* shaped generations of young viewers. She rejected the pervasive myth that Rogers remained strictly apolitical, pointing to a series of defining political acts and messages throughout his decades-long career. Among these was a 1969 episode where Rogers shared a swimming pool and a towel with his Black co-star Officer Clemmons, a deliberate rebuke of racial segregation in public spaces at the height of the civil rights movement. She also highlighted Rogers’ public opposition to the nuclear arms race, woven into storylines on his show, and his landmark 1969 Senate testimony that successfully defended public broadcasting funding from proposed cuts. If Rogers, a figure universally revered by American audiences, saw protecting children as an inherently political act, Ms. Rachel argued, there is no reason modern children’s advocates should silence themselves on issues harming children today.

    The conversation turned to Gaza, where Ms. Rachel condemned the ongoing violence that has killed nearly 74,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom are civilians and many of whom are children. Pointing to UN findings that characterize the targeting of civilians in the enclave as genocide, she pushed back against attempts to dismiss labeling of the crisis. “Why would we bomb kids and take their limbs and their schools… and then say we can’t call this genocide?” she asked during the interview, a clip of which quickly spread across social media platforms. She also rejected criticism of her calls for humanitarian aid, pushing back against claims that pre-existing medical conditions among starving Gaza children negate their urgent need for food and lifesaving assistance.

    Ms. Rachel’s advocacy for Gaza follows a high-profile pledge she made earlier this year to match rapper Macklemore’s $1 million donation to Palestinian humanitarian relief, with all funds directed to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. Her interview also covered U.S. immigration policy, where she forcefully stated that “Children do not belong in detention centers. Ever.” Citing peer-reviewed pediatric research and United Nations reports, she detailed the severe long-term physical and psychological harm that detention inflicts on migrant children, arguing that the responsibility to protect children does not depend on their nationality or immigration status. Echoing Fred Rogers’ core philosophy, she concluded: “The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe.”

    Public reaction to Ms. Rachel’s interview has been deeply divided. Many activists and social media users praised her willingness to speak out, noting that her stances only appear controversial because of skewed media framing. “Ms Rachel brought her ‘controversial’ takes to *SubwayTakes* with Kareem Rahma – though none of them actually feel that controversial if you believe in basic human decency,” one user wrote. Labor advocacy group Domestic Workers echoed the praise, writing “She’s right. That’s why we #readthemhome because they belong there. They belong with their families. They belong in classrooms, playgrounds, and libraries.”

    At the same time, Ms. Rachel has faced sustained online criticism from pro-Israel groups and commentators, who have labelled her antisemitic and accused her of supporting Hamas over her advocacy for Palestinian children. These accusations echo a campaign launched in April 2025 by pro-Israel group StopAntisemitism, which called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate claims Ms. Rachel was being paid to spread Hamas-aligned propaganda. No publicly available evidence has ever substantiated that allegation. Ms. Rachel has repeatedly rejected these claims, emphasizing that her concern for the safety and well-being of Palestinian children does not reduce her compassion for Israeli or Jewish children affected by violence.

  • Sharaa says Israeli attacks on Syria at odds with ‘joy’ of global community towards his country

    Sharaa says Israeli attacks on Syria at odds with ‘joy’ of global community towards his country

    In a high-stakes address to the United Nations General Assembly, Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa has formally announced his war-torn nation’s reentry into the global fold, while delivering a sharp rebuke of sustained Israeli military incursions into Syrian territory that he says directly contradict the growing international consensus welcoming Damascus back to diplomatic engagement.

    Speaking from the UN podium, Sharaa outlined the scale of unprovoked Israeli actions targeting his country, saying that Israel has carried out more than 500 separate air strikes, over 1,200 ground incursions, and detained more than 300 Syrian citizens in Syrian territory in recent years. “The world celebrates our return to the international community, yet Israel continues to launch attacks against Syria,” he stated. “This trajectory runs completely counter to the global shift we are seeing toward engagement with Syria. We categorically reject all Israeli aggression.”

    Sharaa also doubled down on Syria’s sovereignty claims to the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau seized by Israel from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and illegally annexed by Israel in 1981. “Any attempt to violate our sovereignty and international law will be confronted. The Golan Heights will always remain Syrian territory,” he emphasized. The Syrian leader called for a full return to the terms of the 1974 disengagement agreement between the two countries, which established a UN-monitored buffer zone along their shared border. That agreement broke down after Israel invaded southern Syria and occupied the buffer zone immediately following Sharaa’s government taking power in late 2024, when he led a coalition that ousted long-time former president Bashar al-Assad.

    Sharaa’s condemnation received backing from Jordan’s King Abdullah II, who delivered his own blistering address to the General Assembly on Tuesday. King Abdullah argued that Israel’s repeated strikes on Syria make clear that the country holds territorial ambitions that extend far beyond the occupied Palestinian territories.

    Diplomatic efforts to normalize relations between Syria and Israel are currently being brokered by the United States, but Sharaa has ruled out any progress toward diplomatic ties while Israeli military actions continue. Speaking at a think tank event Tuesday, he made clear that he cannot entertain the idea of formal diplomatic relations so long as Israel carries out air strikes on Syrian soil and occupies the Golan Heights, his birthplace.

    The most recent high-profile Israeli strike came just last month, when Israel bombed a northern Syrian air base that it claimed would be used by Turkish forces. Syria’s close alliance with Turkey has turned the country into an emerging arena of geopolitical competition between Ankara and Tel Aviv, adding another layer of complexity to the already volatile region.

    The 1974 disengagement deal was originally reached during the rule of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad’s father, and created a security framework and the UN buffer zone that held for decades. The status of the Golan Heights became even more contentious in 2019, when then-US President Donald Trump—who has openly expressed admiration for Sharaa—unilaterally recognized Israeli sovereignty over the occupied territory, a long-sought policy win for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    Sharaa, who addressed the UN General Assembly for the first time last year just months after taking power, used this year’s speech to highlight his administration’s progress in stabilizing Syria after decades of conflict. He said that his government has restored basic security across most of the country, ended Syria’s long period of international isolation, cracked down on transnational organized crime and the trade in captagon—the illicit amphetamine that flourished under the Assad regime—and is cooperating with international bodies to eliminate leftover chemical weapons stockpiles from the previous government.

    While international sanctions on Syria have been lifted following the political transition, Sharaa’s administration still faces steep domestic challenges, including a collapsed national economy and slow progress on reconstruction after years of civil conflict. Even amid these hurdles, Sharaa struck a confident note about his nation’s future. “Syria is rising,” he told the assembly Wednesday. “We have proven to the world that regional security can only begin with a stable, restored Syria starting from Damascus.”

  • Eight US sailors assigned to USS Abraham Lincoln attempted suicide, Navy says

    Eight US sailors assigned to USS Abraham Lincoln attempted suicide, Navy says

    A shocking disclosure from acting U.S. Navy Secretary Hung Cao has confirmed that eight crew members attached to the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group attempted suicide during one of the service’s longest recent deployments to the Middle East. The revelation came in a formal Tuesday response to New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who had pressed for answers after family members of deployed sailors raised urgent alarms over plummeting mental health and intolerable living conditions at sea amid the U.S. military campaign against Iran.

    The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which first departed its home port in California last November for an initial rotation to the South China Sea, was redirected to the Middle East ahead of planned U.S. strikes on Iran in February. What was scheduled to be a six-month deployment ending in May was repeatedly extended, leaving roughly 5,000 service members aboard at sea for a total of 250 days before the USS George Washington was dispatched to replace it in August. The crew is now en route back to the U.S., with their first stop on dry land in the Thai resort city of Pattaya, where scores of sailors have been seen frequenting local bars, shopping malls and beaches after months confined to the ship.

    In his letter, Cao clarified that the eight suicide attempts included sailors from across the entire strike group: core Abraham Lincoln crew, carrier airwing personnel, strike group and destroyer squadron staff, crews from escorting destroyers, and personnel from all embarked aviation squadrons. He noted that the ship carried five chaplains and multiple dedicated mental health clinicians to address the spiritual and emotional needs of the deployed crew. Cao pushed back against widespread reports of systemic broken plumbing and chronic fresh food shortages, acknowledging only temporary localized piping failures, intermittent issues with the ship’s reverse osmosis desalination units, and a short-term reduction in available meal options. The U.S. Navy has previously acknowledged minor supply challenges during the deployment but has consistently rejected claims of a widespread mental health crisis aboard the vessel. The BBC has reached out to the U.S. Navy for additional comment beyond the information contained in Cao’s letter.

    Gillibrand condemned the Trump administration’s earlier dismissals of the crew’s poor conditions, calling the treatment of U.S. service members “completely unacceptable.” In a Wednesday statement to the BBC, she said, “What Trump and Secretary Hegseth dismissed as ‘fake news’ turned out to be serious and deteriorating conditions for our service members. Our troops and their families make immense sacrifices every single day, yet the president dismissed them with open disrespect.”

    The revelation of multiple suicide attempts comes amid a well-documented growing mental health crisis across the U.S. military. Data analyzed by USNI News confirms suicide is already the leading cause of death for active-duty U.S. Navy sailors and Marines, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs reports that veterans face substantially higher suicide rates than civilians with no military service. A January 2025 peer-reviewed study of 956 active-duty U.S. sailors further reinforced these concerns, finding that naval personnel assigned to ships experience higher rates of serious psychological distress than service members in any other U.S. military branch. The study identified unique, chronic stressors of life at sea, including substandard living conditions, constant disruptive noise, and grueling operational schedules that leave troops with insufficient time for sleep and recovery.

    For anyone struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health distress connected to the issues discussed in this report, support is available through BBC Action Line or the U.S. Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling 988.

  • In Amish country, nurses go door to door to stop deadly spread of measles

    In Amish country, nurses go door to door to stop deadly spread of measles

    Nearly five months after the United States’ deadliest measles outbreak in three decades began in rural Pennsylvania, public health workers are waging a targeted, on-the-ground campaign to curb transmission in one of the state’s most isolated populations: the Amish community.

    Home to roughly 90,000 Amish residents – the largest concentration of the devout Christian group in the country, who first settled in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County in the early 1700s – the region has become the epicenter of a public health crisis that has already claimed four lives. Unlike most modern communities, the Amish broadly reject many trappings of 21st-century life, from widespread technology use to regular engagement with conventional Western medical systems, creating unique barriers to routine immunization.

    Local health officials estimate that only around one in four Amish residents in the Lancaster area have received the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, a gap that public health experts stress is not rooted in religious opposition. “A lot of people who haven’t gotten vaccinated, it’s not because they have a strong stance against getting vaccinated for measles. It’s just that they haven’t gotten around to it. It’s not convenient,” explained Braxton Mitchell, a genetic epidemiologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who has long studied Amish communities in the region. Without easy access to transportation or regular primary care, routine immunization often falls by the wayside, and the community’s tight-knit, highly social structure means the highly contagious measles virus spreads rapidly once introduced.

    To reach this under-served population, Chester County – which borders outbreak epicenter Lancaster – has adapted its response, drawing on door-to-door outreach strategies honed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dale Weiser, a clinical supervisor and nurse with the Chester County Health Department, has spent months making daily house calls across the rural countryside, sometimes driving 30 miles or more each day to administer vaccines in private home settings, often at residents’ kitchen tables.

    Many Amish adults lack health insurance and have limited ongoing interaction with the formal healthcare system, Weiser explained, so building trust is the first critical step to increasing uptake. “When you start talking and you answer their questions, and build that trust, a lot of times they will make a different decision,” she said. To date, Weiser has personally vaccinated roughly 100 people, and the county has administered 538 total MMR vaccines, more than 60% of them in private, in-home settings to accommodate residents who cannot travel to clinics or prefer to keep their vaccination decision private.

    This boots-on-the-ground approach has also helped public health workers address persistent vaccine misinformation that has seeped even into this insulated, technology-limited community. Weiser says she regularly encounters common falsehoods spread by national anti-vaccine groups, from claims that vaccines contain heavy metals that cause magnetism to assertions that shots include microchips. While staunch anti-vaccine advocates remain largely unpersuaded, local officials note that many undecided Amish residents – especially new parents – have begun asking questions and seeking immunization after seeing neighbors and loved ones fall seriously ill.

    Statewide, the response has delivered measurable progress: since the outbreak began in late April, public health departments have administered nearly 4,300 MMR vaccines at pop-up clinics near the outbreak’s core. Even so, the outbreak has already become the deadliest the U.S. has experienced since 1992, with four confirmed deaths: two infants, one 18-year-old, and a 40-year-old woman. Experts warn that measles, which was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, has established sustained community transmission, and the upcoming school year risks accelerating spread even further. Weiser predicts the outbreak will continue for another six to 12 months.

    Beyond public health challenges, the crisis has ignited sharp political tensions between state and federal health leaders, centered on vaccine policy and misinformation. Federal Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longstanding vaccine skeptic, drew widespread condemnation after publicly disputing that one of the infant deaths was caused by measles complications. Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has publicly accused Kennedy of spreading harmful misinformation that worsens the outbreak. The county coroner, a Republican, initially stated one infant died from a ruptured spleen, but leading infectious disease experts note that measles causes spleen enlargement, directly increasing the risk of rupture, and contributed substantially to the child’s death.

    Public health experts also point to recent actions by the Trump administration that have amplified public doubt about MMR vaccine safety. Most recently, former President Trump issued an executive order calling for the combined MMR vaccine to be split into three separate doses – a change doctors universally agree is unnecessary, more costly, and does nothing to improve the shot’s proven safety record. “What he’s doing is casting doubt,” said Dr. William Moss, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “He basically said the vaccine could be dangerous in its current combined form.” For frontline workers working to build trust and curb transmission, these political divisions only add another layer of complexity to an already difficult fight against a fast-spreading, preventable disease.

  • Residents eating garden weeds in Russian-occupied city cut off from food and water

    Residents eating garden weeds in Russian-occupied city cut off from food and water

    Nestled between the Dnipro River and Russian military positions in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region, Oleshky has been locked under Russian occupation since the early days of Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022. For the thousands of residents who remain in the once-thriving riverside city, every day is a brutal fight for survival marked by shortages, constant shelling, and widespread violence against civilians.

    Halia, a resident trapped in the city whose name has been changed to protect her from retaliation by occupation forces, shared a devastating account of a recent civilian killing in an interrupted phone interview with the BBC. She first reported that two more civilians had lost their lives overnight, and three days later confirmed the victims were a married couple she knew personally. The pair had traveled 23 kilometers to the nearby town of Radensk to collect a bag of food, but failed to return before Russian occupation authorities implemented a curfew. They were subsequently killed in a drone strike. Four independent sources have confirmed the September 20 deaths of the two civilians, who were killed solely while seeking basic sustenance.

    Halia’s story is far from unique. Dozens of harrowing firsthand testimonies from Oleshky residents have been collected by the BBC in recent weeks, painting a picture of a humanitarian disaster that has escalated dramatically since the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka Dam in June 2023. The dam collapse flooded the entire region, submerging Oleshky’s buildings up to their rooftops and displacing thousands. While Ukraine and NATO have accused Russian forces of blowing up the dam, Moscow has blamed Ukrainian military actions for the destruction.

    Before the 2022 full-scale invasion, Oleshky was home to roughly 24,000 people. Today, the Ukrainian government estimates that only around 6,000 residents remain trapped in the city and its surrounding outskirts, including 200 children. For this trapped population, basic needs that most take for granted have become impossible to secure.

    Residents report that children in the area are suffering from acute malnutrition, lack access to any formal education, and have almost no access to emergency medical care. Only one hospital remains partially operational in the entire city, opening just a few days a week almost exclusively to perform emergency amputations for people injured by shelling and landmines. Oleshky has been completely cut off from gas, electricity, and running water since the dam collapse, forcing residents to scavenge for alternative sources of fuel and clean water.

    Ukrainian authorities have made repeated attempts to deliver humanitarian aid and supplies to the trapped population, but these efforts have failed to reach residents in recent months. Earlier this week, the Kremlin acknowledged that Oleshky is facing what it called a “critical situation” with acute shortages of food and medicine, but attempted to shift blame to Kyiv, claiming Russian military forces are working to resolve the crisis. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha rejected that framing, telling the UN General Assembly in New York this week that Oleshky is under a “full blockade” imposed by Russian forces, and called on the international community to exert pressure on Moscow to allow unimpeded access for humanitarian aid.

    For residents like Halia, the daily struggle for food is the most immediate threat. She told the BBC that the last official food delivery to Oleshky arrived back in May, and she now only eats one small meal a day. “I make some plain bread, sometimes I can have it with a tomato, or with some honey, and a tea. That’s it,” she explained. With summer vegetable gardens now exhausted, many residents have been forced to forage for edible wild weeds in local gardens, and discussions about which plants are safe to eat, along with posts to swap, sell, or share tiny portions of food, dominate local messaging chat groups on Telegram. No shops remain open in the city, meaning residents cannot access replacement clothing, hygiene products, or basic household goods.

    Some residents previously risked traveling on foot along mine-littered roads to leave the city in search of supplies, but the security situation has deteriorated so sharply that even that dangerous option is now considered too deadly.

    Counting the full civilian death toll in Oleshky has been made nearly impossible by restrictions imposed by occupation authorities. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has recorded at least 29 civilian deaths and 54 injuries in Oleshky and the nearby town of Hola Prystan so far this year, but local volunteers say the actual number is far higher.

    Ksenia Arkhipova, a Ukrainian volunteer who escaped Oleshky in summer 2022, shortly after it fell to Russian forces, has spent more than two years compiling a public record of civilian deaths in the city. Working with residents still trapped inside, she has recorded the names and dates of birth of roughly 1,200 dead civilians in a running spreadsheet, and said the list grows by one or two names every single day. “Someone was killed by a drone, someone else stepped on a landmine,” she explained. While the BBC cannot independently verify the full death count, multiple residents have confirmed the scale of unrecorded killing.

    Tetiana, another trapped resident whose name has also been changed for her safety, shared her own experience of losing both of her parents to violence in Oleshky earlier this year. She provided the BBC with the couple’s dates of birth and photos to confirm their identities, but asked that their names not be published to protect her from retaliation. “They were shot inside their home. Russian soldiers came there and wanted to take it,” she said.

    Worse than the uncounted deaths, residents say, is the Russian occupation authorities’ ban on burying civilians killed by violence. Occupation forces require that any non-natural death be confirmed by a post-mortem examination conducted by a Russian doctor, a procedure that is completely impossible to carry out in Oleshky’s collapsed healthcare system. Only residents who die of natural causes are allowed to be formally buried, Tetiana said, meaning “some bodies have been on the streets since December.”

    Unclaimed bodies are either piled in the local hospital’s morgue, which has had no power since last winter, or left out in the open where stray dogs feed on the remains, according to volunteer Arkhipova. The BBC has verified this detail through multiple graphic photos provided by residents, which are too disturbing to publish.

    Ester Vrataryova, co-founder of the charity Humanity that provides support to trapped residents in Oleshky and other occupied Ukrainian territories, described the burial ban as a deliberate tool of violence against the local population. “This is a tool of psychological pressure,” she said. “If you try to bury a dead body, you’ll become the next one.”

  • ‘We will never bow our head’: Iran’s president strikes defiant tone in UN speech

    ‘We will never bow our head’: Iran’s president strikes defiant tone in UN speech

    Delivering his first address to the United Nations General Assembly just 24 hours after U.S. President Donald Trump issued a brutal threat to “annihilate” the Islamic Republic, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian delivered a defiant yet diplomatic message on Wednesday: Tehran will never capitulate to American pressure, but remains open to negotiated de-escalation.

    Speaking directly to Trump, Pezeshkian emphasized that escalating sanctions, coercive pressure and intimidation tactics would only strengthen Iranian resolve. “The resistance of the Iranian people will only increase in the face of sanctions, increased pressure, increased bullying. We will never bow our head or bend at the knee,” he told the assembled global delegation. To open his address, Pezeshkian held up a portrait of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader, who was assassinated in the opening strikes of the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran launched last February amid stalled nuclear negotiations.

    He also displayed graphic photographs of Iranian children killed in U.S. airstrikes, alongside images of their graves. One attack on an elementary school in Minab left at least 150 people dead, roughly 120 of whom were children. A second strike, which dispersed thousands of lethal tungsten pellets, targeted a sports complex in the southern Iranian city of Lamerd. Earlier this month, a United Nations fact-finding mission concluded there were “reasonable grounds” to classify these strikes as war crimes, findings that underpinned Pezeshkian’s critique of U.S. and Israeli military action.

    The conflict that began in February has dragged on for months, with two successive ceasefire agreements collapsing, and drawn in regional actors from Arab Gulf states to Yemen and Lebanon, raising fears of a full regional escalation.

    Pezeshkian pushed back against long-standing U.S. claims that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism, arguing that the label is a cynical misrepresentation by the actors that initiated the current war. “Those who are terrorists, and train and protect terrorists, describe us as such. We have only defended ourselves. We are not terrorists. America and Israel attacked us,” he said. He added that Iran has not launched an offensive attack against any other sovereign state in more than two centuries, yet remains branded a rogue actor by Western powers.

    Addressing the core nuclear dispute that the Trump administration has cited as a key justification for war, Pezeshkian reaffirmed Iran’s long-held position that Tehran has no interest in developing a nuclear weapon, but will not abandon its right to peaceful civilian nuclear technology. He pointedly noted the contradiction in U.S. framing: the Trump administration has claimed Iran is close to building a nuclear bomb, even as it boasts that it destroyed Iran’s entire nuclear program in 2025 pre-war strikes.

    “Iran does not accept for nuclear technology to be at the exclusive disposal of some,” Pezeshkian said. “We will not bow our head and give up the right that is inherently ours. We say it clearly: no nuclear weapons and no limitations to peaceful nuclear technology.” He also called out what he framed as blatant hypocrisy from the U.S. and Israel, noting that the international community allows Israel to maintain an open secret nuclear arsenal while forcing unprecedented inspections and restrictions on Iran’s peaceful program. “Atomic and nuclear bombs are in the hands of the Israeli regime, but the inspectors are requested to come to Iran. The nuclear weapon is in Israel, but the inspectors are in Iran. Israel kills, but Iran is subject to sanctions. They kill. We are sanctioned. We are punished,” he said.

    The Trump administration has also pointed to Iran’s ballistic missile program as a core threat to justify military action. In response, Pezeshkian said Iran has every right to maintain a robust defensive military capability to deter potential attacks, noting that its military posture is never aimed at regional hegemony. “Iran must be powerful, so as to avoid being threatened. We do not wish to use our power for hegemony,” he said. “Our defensive systems have been built so that no one can think that the bombing of Iranian cities can go unanswered.”

    Pezeshkian also pushed back against U.S. claims that widespread domestic protests earlier this year justified the invasion, arguing that the unrest was orchestrated by Washington and Tel Aviv to undermine Iranian stability, while the overwhelming majority of Iranians support the Islamic Republic. “The people of Iran have been in the street demonstrating in support of their homeland,” he said, adding that pro-government supporters had stood guard against “equipped, armed and trained by America and Israel to cause insecurity in our country.”

    The UNGA address comes alongside behind-the-scenes diplomatic engagement: U.S. and Iranian officials held talks on the sidelines of the General Assembly Tuesday, a meeting Iranian state media framed as direct negotiations, a characterization that Trump appeared to confirm before the U.S. later walked it back to describe the engagement as indirect.

    As part of new diplomatic proposals, Iran has submitted updated preconditions to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global energy chokepoint that has become a major flashpoint in the conflict, with both Washington and Tehran imposing rival blockades on the waterway. A senior Iranian official told Agence France-Presse that Tehran’s terms have hardened, now requiring the immediate release of $24 billion in Iranian funds frozen by Western sanctions and an end to Saudi Arabia’s blockade of Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen, a key Iranian ally.

    The most recent ceasefire extension, agreed by Iran and the U.S. in June, collapsed over the summer in large part over disputes surrounding the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has pushed to impose tolls on commercial shipping passing through the waterway. Pezeshkian defended Iran’s position on the strait, arguing that it is unreasonable to allow foreign powers to benefit from the waterway while using it as a tool to pressure Iran. “In the Strait of Hormuz, we can’t let some have free access and gain their interests from a waterway, while at the same time using that waterway to impose their aggressions upon us… to forbid us access to our own waterways,” he said.

    Iranian reprisals for the U.S.-Israeli attacks have fallen disproportionately on U.S. Arab Gulf allies, stoking regional pressure for a new diplomatic approach. Earlier this week, both Qatar and the United Arab Emirates called for renewed engagement with Iran and the negotiation of a new regional security framework to end the ongoing conflict.

  • ‘Make women feel seen’: Why the Dutch have a new word for labia

    ‘Make women feel seen’: Why the Dutch have a new word for labia

    For decades, women across Europe have spoken of the quiet discomfort of encountering stigma woven into the very language used to describe their bodies — from outdated, shame-linked anatomical terms to judgmental phrasing in medical documentation. Now, a landmark decision from one of the Netherlands’ most authoritative dictionaries has put this long-running advocacy effort in the global spotlight, opening a new chapter in the fight for gender-inclusive, respectful terminology.

    Last month, Dikke van Dale, the Netherlands’ leading reference dictionary, announced it will add “vulvalippen” — a neutral, anatomically accurate term for labia that translates directly to “vulval lips” — to its upcoming online update. The new entry will appear alongside the long-standing traditional term “schaamlippen”, which literally translates to “shame lips”.

    Activists across the continent have spent years pushing to revise terminology tied to women’s bodies, sexuality and health, united by the core goal of moving away from words that carry implicit misogyny and judgment. Shari Klein, co-founder of the Dutch advocacy group Schaamteloos — which campaigns against terms incorporating the root “schaam”, meaning shame — spoke at a recent public march celebrating the dictionary’s decision, emphasizing the profound impact language has on self-perception.

    “Language shapes how we see ourselves,” Klein explained. “It’s crucial people have a more neutral, anatomically correct word – not a word that links to shame, whether consciously or subconsciously.”

    While calls to adopt “vulvalippen” are not new, campaigners say the dictionary’s decision marks a key cultural milestone, signaling that mainstream society may finally be ready to confront outdated linguistic norms. Esther Van der Valk, a member of prominent Dutch feminist organization Dolle Mina, noted that the shift is also tied to broader efforts to advance sex positivity and eliminate body shaming. Following the dictionary’s announcement, the movement’s next priority is to persuade medical providers and government officials to adopt the new term in patient consultations, public health leaflets and official documentation.

    Ton den Boon, editor of Dikke van Dale, defended the decision to add the new term, noting that “vulvalippen” has already gained widespread traction across Dutch public life: it appears regularly in media, biology textbooks, medical resources, and even veterinary medicine, making its formal inclusion long overdue.

    Still, the question of whether the term will achieve full mainstream adoption across all sectors remains open. The campaign also opens the door to broader re-evaluation of other Dutch anatomical terms that carry similar stigma, including “schaam haar” (shame hair, the traditional term for pubic hair), “schaam been” (shame bone, referring to the pubic bone) and “schaam lice” (shame lice, the common term for pubic lice).

    This Dutch push for linguistic reform is not an isolated effort. It mirrors parallel campaigns across Europe that have sought to rework harmful terminology for decades. In 2018, German journalists Gunda Windmüller and Mithu Sanyal launched a petition to swap the German equivalent of “shame lips” for “Vulvalippen”, after Windmüller learned from gynecologists that many women experience deep shame when discussing their bodies during medical appointments. When researching her reporting, Windmüller found she could not even reference basic female anatomy without including the word “shame”. While “Vulvalippen” has not yet been added to major German dictionaries, the term has already entered common use in textbooks, women’s magazines and everyday conversation, and Windmüller says she hopes the Dutch decision will reignite momentum for reform in Germany.

    Similar efforts have already yielded results in other parts of Europe. In Sweden, a successful 2009 campaign led to the addition of a new term for hymen to the country’s academic dictionary. The traditional term, “mödomshinna”, translates to “maidenhood membrane” or “virginity skin”, a phrasing that activists from the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU) argued was both anatomically inaccurate and reinforced harmful myths about virginity and female sexuality. The new term, “slidkrans”, translates to “vaginal corona”, a name that accurately reflects the biological reality of the hymen: a natural ring of tissue folds, not an intact seal that breaks during first intercourse. “With a new word we can challenge the myths that seek to control women’s sexuality and freedom,” explained RFSU’s Sonja Ghaderi. While the term is now widely used by healthcare providers in youth clinics, Ghaderi noted that harmful misinformation persists, underscoring the ongoing need to challenge limiting social constructs embedded in language.

    Across the Channel, the movement has also gained traction in the UK, where feminist podcast host Nicola Denson-Elliott has launched a petition to replace the term “hysterectomy” — the medical name for surgical removal of the womb — with “uterectomy”. Denson-Elliott points out that “hysterectomy” has deep linguistic roots in the word “hysteria”, a historical term once used to label women’s emotional distress as a unique gendered disease. Advocates argue the new name would be more anatomically accurate and free of outdated, misogynistic baggage, framing the existing term as a form of medical misogyny. “Women deserve terminology that respects them,” the petition states.

    Not all experts oppose reform, but some caution that any changes to medical and anatomical language require careful consideration to avoid confusion. Dr. Beth Malory, a linguistics researcher who studies gendered language in healthcare, notes that new terms must be tested for clarity before widespread adoption. “Will people understand uterectomy? Is simply saying removal of the womb better?” she asked, adding that new terminology must not be ambiguous, and changes need to be considered within the broader context of existing medical language to prevent confusion.

    Malory’s own research on language used in pregnancy and obstetrics has highlighted just how much harm outdated, judgmental phrasing can cause. One common term she highlights is “incompetent cervix”, used to describe a cervix that shortens prematurely, increasing the risk of pregnancy loss and preterm birth. Malory says many women have told her the term makes them feel personally blamed for a medical condition they cannot control.

    “Why do we need judgmental words like failure or incompetency?” asked Dr. Brooke Vandermolen, an obstetrician who has stopped using several problematic terms in her own practice, including “failure to progress”, the traditional phrase used to describe labor that does not advance as expected. “Language is incredibly important and the words we choose can show recognition and make people feel validated and seen.”

    In 2022, the UK’s Royal College of Midwives released official guidance offering alternative, less stigmatizing phrasing for common obstetric terms. Even so, Vandermolen says many traditional terms remain in widespread use and continue to cause unnecessary emotional distress for patients. She says she hopes the Dutch decision to add “vulvalippen” to its national dictionary will spark broader conversations across the UK and beyond about how language shapes experiences of women’s health. “What we say can have a lasting impact,” she noted.

  • Indians are discovering the thrill of shopping without paying

    Indians are discovering the thrill of shopping without paying

    In an age of endless on-demand digital consumption, two young Indian software developers have built a viral online experiment that cuts to the core of modern consumer psychology: a fake food delivery platform that never actually sends a single meal to your door.

    Created by 26-year-olds Purvansh Parmar and Anshul Sharma from Udaipur, Rajasthan, FoodNeverComes brands itself as the world’s first ‘dopamine kitchen’, and has already drawn more than 2.7 million unique visitors since launching in June. The platform mimics the full experience of ordering takeout: users browse 22 simulated local kitchens, scroll through 327 photo-ready dishes spanning everything from butter chicken to bibimbap, add selections to their digital cart, watch the order total rise, and complete a fully functional simulated checkout. They even get a live delivery tracker showing a rider en route, followed by an AI-generated phone call claiming the driver can’t find their address. But the entire exchange is staged — no food is ever cooked, packed, or dispatched. The site’s blunt slogan sums up its premise: ‘The food never comes — but the dopamine does.’

    FoodNeverComes is far from a one-off gimmick. It is part of a fast-growing new category of online platforms dubbed ‘dopamine sites’: digital spaces that replicate the full ritual of consumer activity without any actual purchase, delivery, or consumption. The trend first emerged in South Korea before spreading globally, spawning a wave of copycat projects that cover everything from fake retail shopping on platforms like Dopamine Shop and Fakehaul to simulated vacation planning. The core insight driving these sites is a simple question that cuts through modern consumer culture: what do we actually get pleasure from when we shop or order online — the product itself, or the process of getting it?

    The idea for the platform grew out of the founders’ own personal experiences with impulsive digital consumption. The pair, who met while studying computer science and now run AI product development firm NeuroX AI, noticed a common pattern in their own habits and those of people around them: filling online shopping carts with desired items, only to abandon the order without checking out. Sharma regularly browsed electronics, adding dozens of devices to his cart before closing the tab without buying. Parmar watched his mother do the same with household goods, adding items to her cart with a promise to ‘order later’ that never came. For Parmar himself, the pattern played out repeatedly on food delivery apps: during a two-month work project in Mumbai, he spent between 5,000 and 10,000 rupees per week on spontaneous takeout orders, often for treats like Belgian waffles, ice cream, and even a large jar of sour cream he had no use for and ended up giving away. That experience led him to a key realization: ‘perhaps the real craving was not always for the food, but for the ritual of ordering it.’

    Parmar and Sharma argue that over time, the routine of ordering food becomes tied to the small rush of dopamine the act produces. What starts as a response to genuine hunger eventually becomes a go-to coping mechanism for boredom, stress, or habit — even when there is no physical need for food. ‘Sometimes you’re not hungry at all. You’re bored or busy, and then you realise that ordering food makes you feel good. You start associating the act of ordering with that dopamine hit. Eventually, it’s not just the food you want,’ Parmar explains.

    Leading behavioral scientists and neuroscientists say the concept aligns with decades of research into how the brain processes reward and desire. Ravi Dhar, director of the Yale Center for Customer Insights, describes this experience as ‘anticipatory utility’ — the distinct pleasure that comes from looking forward to a desired experience. This anticipatory pleasure is often strongest for items that spark the imagination, from new shoes to a vacation to a restaurant meal, because the anticipation itself becomes a core part of the overall experience. In many cases, Dhar notes, the anticipation can be more enjoyable than actually owning or consuming the item: ‘The thrill is in the chase.’ Once the item is obtained and the tension of waiting is resolved, psychological arousal quickly fades.

    Contrary to popular online framing that casts dopamine as simply the brain’s ‘pleasure chemical’, modern neuroscience draws a clear line between the desire to obtain something and the pleasure of having it. University of Michigan neuroscientist Kent Berridge, who developed the influential theory of separate ‘wanting’ and ‘liking’ brain processes, explains that dopamine primarily drives the motivation to pursue a reward — not the experience of pleasure that comes after getting it. This system, which Berridge calls ‘incentive salience’, can be triggered by tempting online products even when the eventual pleasure of ownership is minimal. ‘Some situations can trigger wanting by itself,’ Berridge says. ‘We can pursue something intensely even when the eventual pleasure is weak — or, in more everyday terms, want something more than we ultimately like it.’

    Stanford University addiction psychiatrist and *Dopamine Nation* author Dr. Anna Lembke echoes this distinction, noting that framing dopamine as a pleasure chemical is a major oversimplification: ‘Dopamine is the molecule that says “get more of” or “do more of”, but it doesn’t necessarily equate to pleasure.’ She also points to the powerful role of ritual in reinforcing desire: the familiar routines that lead up to a reward can become reinforcing on their own, just as the pre-use rituals of drug addiction often become as meaningful to the user as the drug itself. ‘Anticipation of reward can be as reinforcing as the reward itself,’ she explains.

    When it comes to whether repeatedly ordering imaginary food can actually satisfy a real craving, experts are divided. Berridge says the ritual could certainly produce a dopamine rush and activate the brain’s wanting system, but he expects the novelty of the experience to fade quickly, and would be surprised if most users return for more than a handful of orders. Dhar, however, is more open to the idea that simulated consumption can act as a healthy release valve for unmet consumer desires: ‘While we still need more empirical data to know if simulated shopping can satisfy a consumer urge, evidence from simulated consumption in gaming shows it can be highly effective,’ he says.

    Others warn of a potential downside: the ritual of fake ordering could simply reinforce the same impulsive consumer habits it aims to address. Lembke notes that research is still ongoing, and the impact will likely vary from person to person, but she suspects that over time, these sites could end up ‘reinforcing the same addictive neural networks they are trying to simulate.’ That said, she sees one key silver lining: users who seek out these platforms have already acknowledged on some level that they struggle with impulsive consumption, and that acknowledgment is the first critical step toward making change.

    Sharma himself has experienced the dynamic firsthand. When his smartphone screen cracked, he spent a full week comparing replacement screens on Amazon, adding multiple options to his cart before eventually repairing his original handset and never buying a new one. ‘I enjoyed the process of research and putting the phones in the cart,’ he says. ‘Eventually I didn’t buy a phone.’ Now he catches himself doing the same thing on food delivery apps when he feels anxious, filling his cart with dishes and never checking out — which led him to recognize his own pattern of impulsive browsing.

    Beyond food, the founders have expanded their concept of simulated consumption to travel with a second platform: TripNeverLeaves. The site lets users plan an entire dream vacation, from choosing a destination and picking a flight seat to booking a hotel and selecting activities, before taking them on a virtual flight that never actually leaves the runway. So far, the site has drawn more than 100,000 visitors, demonstrating broad interest in the concept across different consumer activities. The FoodNeverComes blog also explores the deeper psychological side of the project, covering topics from food delivery addiction and the psychology of the abandoned shopping cart to the guilt that often follows impulsive ordering.

    Lembke notes that younger users may be particularly susceptible to the reinforcing effects of these digital platforms, because the prefrontal cortex — the region of the brain that acts as a ‘brake’ on impulsive desire — does not fully finish developing until early adulthood. ‘In childhood and early adolescence, the front lobe… is not yet fully connected to the emotion centres of the brain. Hence, teens are more likely to take risks without appreciating the negative consequences, and more likely to get addicted to reinforcing substances and behaviours, once exposed,’ she explains.

    For now, Parmar and Sharma say their projects are not intended to generate revenue. They plan to keep both platforms free for all users, and eventually share anonymized visitor data with neuroscientists and psychologists to support further research into consumer behavior. What started as a lighthearted joke about overordering takeout has grown into a provocative social experiment that poses a fundamental question about modern consumer culture: when so much of the thrill of consumption comes from the anticipation before we get what we want, do we actually need to buy the thing at all?

  • How the oil capital of the US welcomed a solar power boom

    How the oil capital of the US welcomed a solar power boom

    For nearly 70 years, the Cargil family has worked the flat, arid plains outside Uvalde, a small community in southwest Texas. At 67, Steve Cargil, the third generation to tend the land, long expected one of his three children would carry on the legacy he inherited from his father. That certainty crumbled in 2018, when a devastating hailstorm wiped out an entire season of carefully tended cabbage and onion crops that Cargil and his son Ryan had nurtured for months.

    Shortly after the storm, Ryan told his father, “You do everything right, and we work so hard, and you come out one morning and it’s all gone.” With none of his children willing to take on full-time farming, Cargil faced the imminent end of his family’s agricultural legacy, and an uncertain retirement—one without a traditional pension, a common reality for American farmers.

    Then, an unexpected opportunity emerged. Cargil signed a 25-year lease with energy developer OCI Energy, granting the company access to 600 acres of his land—roughly a quarter of his total property—to build a utility-scale solar farm. Today, that agreement delivers Cargil $200,000 in guaranteed annual income, a windfall he never could have imagined. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think that a solar project would be on my farm,” Cargil says. “Looking back now, I call it a blessing.”

    The steady lease income has already reshaped Cargil’s life and the future of his farm. Amid a years-long crippling drought across the American Southwest, he has been able to redirect all his allocated irrigation water to the 1,800 acres he continues to cultivate, eliminating the constant financial stress of volatile diesel and fertilizer prices that have pushed many small American farms to bankruptcy. “It’s changed my life,” he says.

    Cargil’s story is at the center of a historic energy shift unfolding across Texas. Long known as the heart of American oil production, Texas surpassed California earlier this year to become the nation’s top producer of solar-generated electricity. According to U.S. Energy Information Administration data, last March marked the first time Texas produced more electricity from solar power than from coal. On hot summer afternoons, when demand for electricity peaks to power millions of air conditioning systems, solar regularly meets roughly one-third of the state’s total power needs, according to Mark Stover, executive director of the Texas Solar and Storage Association.

    Stover explains the state’s unprecedented solar boom is driven by two core factors. First, Texas operates its own independent power grid, making it far faster and cheaper to connect new solar farms to the system than in other parts of the country. Second, Texas is one of the fastest-growing states in the U.S., with its population surging 15.8% between 2015 and 2025, creating explosive demand for new, affordable electricity generation. “We need a whole lot of power in Texas, and we need it quickly,” Stover says.

    Decades of incremental manufacturing improvements have also driven down the cost of solar technology to the point that it is now the cheapest form of power generation in the state, according to James Scott, vice president of project development at OCI Energy. “No one would have believed that 20 years ago,” Scott says. Once a solar farm is constructed, the cost of its output can be locked in for decades, because its fuel—sunlight—is free. OCI sells power at $40 per megawatt-hour for 25-year contracts to large corporate buyers including Apple and Amazon, which prioritize long-term price stability. By comparison, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports new coal plants produce power at nearly $90 per megawatt-hour.

    For this boom to continue, developers rely on rural landowners like Cargil, because utility-scale solar requires large, flat plots of open land. In exchange, leases—typically 25 to 30 years with annual incremental increases—provide stable, multigenerational income for farm families, allowing many to retire comfortably, set up long-term family trusts, or keep struggling operations solvent. Stover adds that the land footprint of solar development across Texas is far smaller than critics claim, noting that “the industry is utilizing less than 0.15% of Texas land.”

    Despite the economic and energy benefits, solar expansion has sparked significant pushback in some rural communities. In northeast Texas’s Franklin County, a small group of long-time local residents has fought new utility-scale solar projects for years. BF Hicks, a local lawyer whose family has owned land in the county since the 1800s, says he became an opponent after watching neighbors sign long-term leases that allowed developers to clear centuries-old oak forests for new installations, and burn the cleared vegetation, leaving smoke hanging over the town for weeks. The issue became personal for Hicks when a solar farm was built adjacent to his family’s 200-year-old cemetery.

    David Truesdale, a retired federal law enforcement officer who moved to Franklin County to escape urban density, joined the opposition after a proposed solar project was sited near his home. He notes that under current Texas law, large solar projects do not require mandatory environmental review, and raises safety concerns about the lithium-ion battery storage units paired with most large solar farms, warning that a single battery fire can trigger a cascading chain reaction that destroys large swathes of surrounding land. “We’re destroying the world as we’re trying to save it,” Truesdale says of the widespread land clearing he has witnessed.

    While both Hicks and Truesdale emphasize their opposition is not rooted in partisan politics, their concerns reflect broader rural anxieties about solar development, including negative impacts on scenic views, altered water runoff patterns after land clearing, and the risk of battery fires. Former President Donald Trump has attacked wind and solar power as “farmer destroying” and moved to roll back federal tax credits for renewable energy projects. Yet polling from Fabrizio Lee and Associates—Trump’s own polling firm—found in February that 68% of Republican voters believe the U.S. needs “all forms of electricity generation, including utility solar” to keep energy costs low. Stover adds that solar development has broad support in Texas’s Republican-controlled state legislature, where policymakers accept that “these technologies bring reliability benefits to the grid.”

    Back in Uvalde, Cargil says the steady income from his solar lease has given him renewed optimism that his family’s farm will survive to see a fifth generation of Cargil stewards, even as he has no immediate plans to retire. Echoing advice his father passed down to him decades ago, Cargil says, “You’re better off being lucky than being smart. And this was one of those cases where I was just lucky.”

  • A red carpet and military flyover – How Trump welcomed Xi

    A red carpet and military flyover – How Trump welcomed Xi

    When former U.S. President Donald Trump welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping to the United States, the welcoming ceremony included two key ceremonial displays that drew widespread attention: a formal red carpet procession and a dramatic military flyover conducted by the U.S. armed forces. The aircraft selected for this aerial tribute were two B-1 Lancer bombers, combat-tested aircraft that hold a central position in the United States’ long-range strike arsenal. Beyond their military capabilities, these bombers are widely recognized for the deafening, thunderous roar they generate as they pass over populated areas, a sound that leaves a lasting impression on all who witness it. This ceremonial welcome was crafted to showcase diplomatic protocol while highlighting elements of U.S. military capacity during a high-stakes bilateral meeting between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies. The combination of traditional diplomatic pageantry and the powerful military overflight reflected the complex nature of the U.S.-China relationship at the time, blending gestures of diplomatic respect with subtle demonstrations of national strength.