geneva_convenience

Who’s afraid of Zohran Mamdani? The answer, it would seem, is the entire establishment. The 33-year-old democratic socialist and New York City mayoral candidate has surged in the polls in recent weeks, netting endorsements not just from progressive voices like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders but also his fellow candidates for the mayoralty, with Brad Lander and Michael Blake taking advantage of the ranked-choice voting system in the primary and cross-endorsing Mamdani’s campaign.

With the primary just around the corner, polls have Mamdani closing the gap on Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced former governor of New York. This has spooked the establishment, which is now doing everything it can to stop Mamdani’s rise.

Take Michael Bloomberg, who endorsed Cuomo earlier this month and followed this up with a $5m donation to a pro-Cuomo Pac. The largesse appears motivated not by admiration for Cuomo – during his mayoralty, sources told the New York Times that Bloomberg saw Cuomo as “the epitome of the self-interested, horse-trading political culture he has long stood against” – but animosity towards Mamdani and his policies.

Mamdani wants to increase taxes on residents earning more than $1m a year, increase corporate taxes and freeze rents: policies that aren’t exactly popular with the billionaire set.

Iran wants the IAEA to do its job but the agency is yet to issue a condemnation of Israel’s actions.

Under international law and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, attacking nuclear sites is banned. It is a violation of international law. That is the first thing Israel did – attack Natanz, Isfahan and now Tehran. These nuclear facilities are under constant attack.

There’s still no condemnation from the agency. When Russia invaded Ukraine, and there was fighting around Zaporizhzhia, one of the first things the agency did was condemn the attacks in the vicinity of the nuclear facility because it poses great risk. They have yet to condemn Israel.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee announced Wednesday that the United States is organizing evacuations of American citizens out of Israel, as the specter of the U.S. potentially striking against Iran looms.

In a post on X, Huckabee wrote that the embassy is “working on evacuation flights and cruise ship departures” for citizens who are “wanting to leave” the country. Americans looking to leave Israel via an evacuation flight or cruise ship departure need to be registered via the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, Huckabee added.

But the announcement follows several days of signaling from President Donald Trump and the White House that it is mulling intervening in the ongoing fighting between Israel and Iran to take out Iranian nuclear facilities buried underground.

WASHINGTON—After he was forcibly removed from a press conference held in Los Angeles yesterday by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Democrats in the House of Representatives backed a resolution Friday that thanked federal agents for handcuffing Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA).

“We express gratitude to law enforcement for bravely apprehending a sitting U.S. senator who expressed dissent in a public forum,” read the resolution, which won the support of 75 Democrats and praised both FBI and Secret Service agents for risking their lives to throw Padilla to the ground, handcuff him, and drag him outside.

“Every day, these brave officers stand in the line of fire to protect us from individuals who dare to exercise free speech. Thankfully, they were able to stop the senior senator from California before he could ask any difficult or probing questions on behalf of his constituents. We stand behind them, no matter which elected officials they may choose to assault, injure, or imprison.” Democrats also voted to give Noem a special commendation for bravely protecting authoritarianism in the face of danger.

Many European nations have pledged to significantly increase defence budgets in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and as U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has threatened to scale back military support for the region.

U.S. drone-maker Anduril and German defence giant Rheinmetall said on Wednesday they will link up to build military drones for European markets, in a sign of Europe leveraging American technology to boost military capabilities.

Thomas Laliberty, president of Land & Air Defense Systems at Raytheon, said there were no easy replacements for its weapons in Europe and he expected the firm to maintain a long-term footprint on the continent, including through new partnerships.

She dreamed of seeing the band Coldplay live in concert. She loved trying new foods and was learning Italian. She wrote poetry constantly and shared it with friends and family. She was so proud of having summited Iran’s highest peak, Mount Damavand, that she made sure to mention that fact to everyone she met.

Early Friday morning, as they slept, Parnia Abbasi and her family were killed by an Israeli strike on their apartment building in the Sattarkhan neighborhood of Tehran, among the first civilian deaths in a sustained assault that does not yet show signs of stopping.

Israel appeared to have been targeting a professor at Shahid Beheshti University, Iranian media reported. Pictures of the Abbasis’ building shared online appeared to match those of Abdolhamid Minouchehr, head of the nuclear engineering faculty at the university. The Israel Defense Forces declined to comment on Abbasi’s death but confirmed in a statement that the military had targeted and “eliminated” Minouchehr, whom it described as an expert on reactor physics.

She dreamed of seeing the band Coldplay live in concert. She loved trying new foods and was learning Italian. She wrote poetry constantly and shared it with friends and family. She was so proud of having summited Iran’s highest peak, Mount Damavand, that she made sure to mention that fact to everyone she met.

Early Friday morning, as they slept, Parnia Abbasi and her family were killed by an Israeli strike on their apartment building in the Sattarkhan neighborhood of Tehran, among the first civilian deaths in a sustained assault that does not yet show signs of stopping.

Israel appeared to have been targeting a professor at Shahid Beheshti University, Iranian media reported. Pictures of the Abbasis’ building shared online appeared to match those of Abdolhamid Minouchehr, head of the nuclear engineering faculty at the university. The Israel Defense Forces declined to comment on Abbasi’s death but confirmed in a statement that the military had targeted and “eliminated” Minouchehr, whom it described as an expert on reactor physics.

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The San Francisco Police Commission unanimously accepted a nearly $9.4 million donation Wednesday night to expand the police department’s drone program and add 10 new drone take-off sites.

“This is by far the largest one-time donation I think we’ve ever considered,” said police commissioner Kevin Benedicto. The Board of Supervisors will vote on the gift later this month.

The donation was proposed last week by Ripple Labs, a San Francisco-based crypto company run by billionaire Chris Larsen, and the San Francisco Police Community Foundation, a nonprofit that Larsen founded in 2023. Larsen has been a long-time proponent of increasing the SFPD’s use of technology and donated $250,000 to the passing of Prop E.