A State of the Union — and the Shadow of War

We’re being conditioned to accept constant monitoring as normal, and this latest move only confirms it. As of July 7, every new passenger car and van sold in the European Union must include a driver-monitoring camera under the bloc’s General Safety Regulation. Known as the Advanced Driver Distraction Warning system, it uses an infrared camera to track your eyes and head movements, warning you if it determines you’ve looked away from the road for longer than the permitted time. Brussels says it’s about saving lives as part of its Vision Zero initiative to eliminate traffic deaths. Maybe it will. But it’s also another example of governments normalizing constant surveillance in the name of public safety. Officials insist the system won’t include facial recognition or biometric identification and is designed as a “closed loop,” meaning the camera data is supposed to remain inside the vehicle and not be transmitted

Just one day after President Trump publicly floated the idea of bombing Iran’s bridges and critical infrastructure, Iranian officials say that’s exactly what happened. In Trump’s own words: “We’re not attacking at the highest level. The highest level is the bridges, which we can knock down. I would say in one day we could knock down every bridge in Iran, there’s not a thing they can do about it.” Iran’s Foreign Ministry is now accusing the United States of committing a “blatant war crime” after airstrikes damaged two railway bridges, including one connecting Iran with Turkmenistan and China. Iranian media also says another strike disrupted passenger rail service between Tehran and Mashhad, where millions of mourners gathered ​​​​​for the funeral procession of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The timing isn’t going unnoticed. Targeting transportation routes during one of the country’s largest public gatherings raises obvious questions about whether the strikes were directed solely at military objectives.

Cuba has suffered yet another nationwide blackout, with Union Electrica (UNE), the state electricity company, announcing a “total disconnection” across the entire island on Monday, leaving the country’s 9.6 million inhabitants without power. For many Cubans, this isn’t an occasional inconvenience like a California rolling blackout. It’s a way of life. Some have electricity for only a few hours a day, while others go days without power, and this was all before the latest nationwide outage. No electricity means no refrigeration, no lights, no internet, no running businesses, and often no reliable access to food or clean water on a regular basis. Officials blame the blackouts on a lack of fuel, and it’s not hard to see why when the U.S. has imposed the longest-running trade embargo in history on Cuba. Since January, the U.S. has tightened its oil restrictions, allowing just one Russian oil tanker to dock on the

A CNN report released Tuesday suggests the deadly strike on an Iranian elementary school that killed 168 children was not the unavoidable mistake the government portrayed it to be. Nor did President Trump’s claim hold up when he said, “Based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran.” According to multiple sources familiar with the investigation, senior U.S. military commanders were warned that the information used to identify targets inside Iran was based on intelligence that was years old. Those warnings were embedded directly inside the Pentagon’s targeting databases, flagging that the information needed to be re-vetted before strikes were approved. Instead of re-vetting the intelligence before unleashing a deadly missile strike, commanders reportedly signed off anyway because it was faster and they were on a timeline. This information was never disclosed to those demanding accountability, even when military officials reportedly determined within days that outdated intelligence

For months, warnings about fertilizer shortages were treated as if they were overblown. Not anymore. It seems things have gotten bad enough that President Trump has declared a national emergency over America’s fertilizer supply. The White House is temporarily lifting tariffs on phosphate fertilizer imported from Morocco to help farmers, but that’s not a solution. It’s an admission that the supply chain is already breaking down. The administration wants Americans to believe this is simply about getting more fertilizer into the country. It’s not, though. The real problem is that fertilizer production depends on far more than phosphate. Sulfur, ammonia, natural gas, and shipping routes are all essential pieces of the puzzle, and many of those supply lines were disrupted after the conflict surrounding the Strait of Hormuz escalated. This is impacting everyday people. You can’t interrupt the global supply of fertilizer ingredients and expect grocery store shelves to remain

How much confidence would you have in an Alzheimer’s blood test that incorrectly tells 40% of healthy people they may have the disease? A new FDA-cleared blood test designed to detect Alzheimer’s disease, Fujirebio’s Lumipulse plasma test, is drawing criticism after Mayo Clinic researchers found it produced an alarming number of false-positive results when used in real-world patients. Considering these tests can cost between $500 and $1,000, you’d think the accuracy rate would be a little more impressive. Instead, people who don’t actually have Alzheimer’s could be told they might, triggering fear, additional medical tests, spinal taps, and potentially life-changing medical decisions. The researchers noted that the faulty results were linked to differences in testing reagents, prompting a Class II recall of some components, and urged doctors to interpret positive results cautiously. Where does that leave us today? The test is currently being used as a gateway to Alzheimer’s drugs