FT: Talks between the United States and Iran in Pakistan have reached a stalemate over control of the Strait of Hormuz, two sources briefed on the negotiations say, with Iran insisting it retain authority over the waterway and rejecting joint control proposals
I'm one of those trans women. I worked ground ops for Artemis I.
I am torn between celebrating the success of my friends and peers and grieving how my dream of working for NASA was shattered by hateful assholes in Tallahassee
The Artemis II landing and recovery director is Liliana Villarreal, a Colombia-born aerospace engineer. If Hegseth had any say over NASA operations he would have fired her before she had the opportunity to do her absolutely brilliant job leading the landing and recovery of the Artemis II crew.
Like, the Tea Party Caucus purposely didn’t call themselves the “Right-wing Populist Caucus” even though that’s what they were. And they only had 19 seats in the House! The Progressives have 95 seats in the House! It wouldn’t hurt them to come up with a catchier name tbh.
We fought and lost a war in Iran so that both the Iranians and the Russians could make far more money from oil—the Iranians from tolls, the Russians from higher prices and the end of sanctions. That isn’t just strategic defeat; it’s self-destructive foolishness at a level unknown to military history
Something like “Patriot Democrats” or “Patriot Party” to echo the “Patriots” in the revolutionary war who fought for independence (and supported the Constitution) against the “Loyalists” who fought for the king. Or “Revolutionary Democrats” or something…idk
My husband made an offhand remark today about how Progressive Democrats need a name akin to “Tea Party” - that the Tea Party movement (gross) was way smaller than the progressive movement but they knew how to brand/market themselves. I’m beginning to think he’s right. They don’t have a good name.
Joe Kernen comes close to having a coronary on air as Pete Buttigieg dogwalks him all over the Squawk Box studio about Trump's economic mismanagement and inflation
Per OpenRouter, that aggregates access to AI models, usage between 3/30-4/5 reached 27T tokens. Chinese models accounted for 12.96T, exceeding US models (3.03T) for 5th consecutive week. The 6 most-used models on the platform were all Chinese, led by Alibaba’s Qwen3.6 Plus and Xiaomi’s MiMo-V2-Pro.
Imo, also a sign that Ukraine is confident in its domestic capacity and European support. The US has lost its leverage. We might see Witkoff/Kushner flail helplessly when/if they go to Kyiv (though, tbh, they are always pathetic so it’ll be hard to spot the difference)
On asylum: fall of the Assad regime in Dec 2024 significantly altered global migration landscape, with approx 1.3M Syrians returning home by late 2025. This shift has directly impacted asylum grant rates by reducing the volume of cases that were historically approved
1/2. Notice that after losing the war Trump threatens his allies rather than Russia — even though Russia quite literally helped Iran defeat the US and he knows it.
3/3. No matter what else is going on, the one predictable thing about any Trump policy is that he will find a way to prop up Putin and his fascist regime.
The Iran war increasingly looks not only like another shocking humiliation, but perhaps the greatest strategic blunder in American military history. trib.al/VVZfBVu
This Administration is requesting $1.5 trillion for the Department of Defense while cutting health care, education, and other services Americans rely on. Working families are being told there’s no money for what they need, but there’s always money for what Trump wants.
"Biden, Harris, and the Democrats might be persuaded by protests while Trump and the Republicans can't be and might respond violently" is hard to square with "the parties are the same, it makes no difference who wins the US election, especially when it comes to foreign policy and Israel-Palestine."