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Recent Articles
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The Epstein Files and the Machinery of Forgetting
Editorial The first instinct of power, when threatened, is not denial but delay. Delay until outrage exhausts itself, until headlines thin, until the public grows bored or distracted or numb. The newly unsealed Jeffrey Epstein-related documents land in public view with the weight of something both familiar and unfinished, a reminder not merely of a disgraced financier and the crimes that orbited him, but of how expertly the machinery of forgetting has been engineered. These files do not arrive as a revelation in the cinematic sense. There is no single smoking gun, no neat moral closure. Instead, they arrive like sediment, layer upon layer of testimony, allegation, recollection, and evasion. … |
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US and Israel bomb Iran with talks and threats leading up to attacks
The United States and Israel have launched strikes on Iran despite ongoing talks between Washington and Tehran over Iran’s nuclear programme. Iran responded to Saturday’s attacks with missile and air strikes across the region, including in Israel, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq. Israeli officials said their strikes targeted Iran’s military and nuclear-related infrastructure, while airspace across Israel was closed and emergency measures imposed. Several other countries in the region also announced the closure of their airspace. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump said Washington has begun a “major combat operation” in Iran, aimed at “eliminating threats from th… |
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Former lieutenant governor of Virginia kills wife and himself
Virginia’s former lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, has shot and killed his wife before taking his own life in an apparent murder-suicide, according to authorities in the United States. The 47-year-old politician and his wife, 49-year-old dentist Cerina Fairfax, were found dead in their home in the Washington, DC, suburb of Annandale in northern Virginia. Their teenage son called the police shortly after midnight to report the crime. Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said on Thursday that the incident appears to have been related to the couple’s ongoing divorce. “It’s very sad for this community,” Davis said. “A lot of people who know the Fairfax family. Everybody’s shocked. We’re s… |
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The war on Iran will likely end in American retreat
Iran can credibly impose costs that the United States cannot bear and that the world should not suffer. The US – Israel war plan was a decapitation strike, sold to President Donald Trump by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and David Barnea, the director of the Mossad. The premise was that an aggressive joint US–Israeli bombing campaign would so degrade the Iranian regime’s command structure, nuclear programme, and IRGC senior leadership that the regime would fracture. The United States and Israel would then impose a pliable government in Tehran. Trump seems to have been convinced that Iran would follow the same course as had occurred in Venezuela. The US operation in Venezuela in January 20… |
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Catherine OHara as The Girl Who Became Our Comic Conscience
Catherine O’Hara stunned the world when she chose to walk away from Saturday Night Live. It was an incredible opportunity, one that could launch a career overnight, but she declined it. The stakes were high—she risked fading into obscurity before anyone recognized her name—yet that choice demonstrated her determination to forge her own path. She grew up in Toronto, the youngest in a large family, surrounded by the noise and warmth of siblings who never let her fade into the background. Catherine was quick to laugh, quicker to make others laugh, and she discovered early that humor was her way of connecting. She would mimic voices, invent characters, and turn ordinary afternoons into small per… |
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Spielberg and Coppola and Lucas is the toxic friendship that built modern Hollywood
A new book captures how Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg went from allies to rivals, driving a filmmaking revolution in the process. By Patrick Smith Removed from bookmarks I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice George Lucas should have died. It was 1962; the 17-year-old had just crashed his yellow Autobianchi convertible into a walnut tree, in Modesto, California. The car rolled, bounced and came to rest – it was “beyond mangled, flipped upside down and twisted like a crushed Coke can against the tree”, writes Paul Fischer in his new book, The Last Kings of Hollywood: Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg and the … |
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Rail regulators accused of ignoring safety recommendations
More than 3,000 rail accidents, causing 23 deaths and nearly 1,200 injuries over the past decade, have been attributed to human error and track defects. Yet, federal railroad regulators have largely ignored most safety recommendations arising from these investigations, according to a new study. An analysis by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland reveals a powerful industry behind these failures, using its influence to thwart federal safety reforms. It is accused of actively lobbying President Donald Trump’s administration to reduce track inspection and repair requirements and loosen rules aimed at preventing crew fatigue. The center’s analysis of data … |
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Permission To Enter America Can Vanish Mid Flight
The story, at first glance, is almost too ordinary to provoke alarm. A passenger boards a commercial flight, a child in tow, tickets purchased, itinerary confirmed, the quiet contract of modern travel intact. There is an implicit promise embedded in that exchange—not written in the fine print, but understood by millions who step onto aircraft each day—that movement, once begun, will be completed. Not without delay, perhaps, not without inconvenience, but with continuity. What occurred instead was rupture. Somewhere between departure and destination, the passenger ceased to be a traveler and became a problem. Delta Air Lines, in its response, did what corporations have trained themselves to d… |
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Renee Nicole Good and her murder
Halenews Editorial The killing has already been diced into bureaucratic fragments: a federal agent, a Minnesota street, a woman dead, a government mumbling about procedure while another city absorbs yet another rupture. That sterile accounting matters, but it is not enough. The public keeps asking a question older than the press and more durable than outrage: who was she? And why must we only learn her name after the state has erased her? Renee Nicole Good did not seek to be a symbol. She did not audition for national relevance. She lived a life that should have remained private—work, children, grief, partnership, rebuilding. And yet here we are, forced to know her only through the instant o… |
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Foreign element caused recall of 90000 bottles of child ibuprofen
Federal regulators have ordered a nationwide recall of nearly 90,000 bottles of children’s ibuprofen after contamination was discovered in two production lots. The medicine, manufactured by Strides Pharma and distributed by Taro Pharmaceuticals, was pulled from circulation following complaints of “gel-like masses and black particles” in the liquid suspension. The Food and Drug Administration confirmed the recall earlier this month, classifying it as a Class II event—meaning the risk of serious harm is considered remote, but temporary or reversible health effects are possible. Parents are being urged to stop using the affected bottles immediately, which carry expiration dates of January 31, 2… |
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Will Marco Rubio Last As Secretary Of State
Editorial A cabinet room is not built for silence. Cameras hum, chairs shift, the choreography of agreement unfolds before anyone speaks. Praise is currency there, but it is never free. When Donald Trump turned toward Marco Rubio after the Munich speech, smiling, approving, and joking that he was doing so well he might be fired, the line landed the way these lines always do—laughter first, interpretation later. The remark lived in that peculiar space Trump has mastered, where humor is both shield and message, where admiration carries a reminder about gravity: the center must remain the center. Rubio smiled. Politicians learn that smile early, the one that acknowledges the joke while absorbin… |
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Jordan Jones shot dead
Local police reported that a security officer at a Georgia club was shot and murdered while trying to break up a quarrel between a guy and a woman. The Acworth Police Department reported in a news statement that Jordan Alexander Jones, 28, of Lawrenceville, Ga., was shot and killed approximately 2:42 a.m. local time while trying to break up the altercation. According to the news release, when APD officers got to the site, they "found a victim with a gunshot wound." "As soon as they got there, officers started helping until Cobb County Fire and Metro EMS arrived. The APD said, "The victim was taken to Kennestone Hospital, where he later died from his injuries." The police agency stated it got… |
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How the fight for public land around Los Angeles hinges on saving one parcel at a time
Over the last year, activists have organized droves of people across the United States to protest and petition Congress over concerns that the Trump administration will sell off our most beloved outdoor spaces. We’ve worried about general threats to public lands, such as whether the 700,000-acre Angeles National Forest or the 150,000-acre Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area will remain pristine protected landscapes. We’ve also seen specific examples of what activists have cautioned could happen: a large mining operation that could open just outside Joshua Tree National Park and a large housing development proposed at the border of Yosemite National Park. And although that attenti… |
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Humanity Has Gone Over the Edge
Halenews Editorial Humanity has just gone over the edge of a cliff, and there may be no way back. Picture eight billion people in free fall and you begin to grasp the scale of what is now in motion. The only reason this does not feel urgent is because the catastrophe has not yet interrupted daily life. Nuclear war is no longer a distant Cold War nightmare. Reckless politics, fragile alliances, and leaders who talk about force the way bored men talk about dares have made it real again. If this goes wrong—and it can—the lights do not flicker. They go out. Satellites die. GPS disappears. Phones become paperweights. Banks freeze. Hospitals improvise. The internet, games, streaming, and social li… |
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China with its axis of authoritarians is only growing stronger under Trump
As Donald Trump prepares to depart for China to meet Xi Jinping, it is a moment for America’s traditional allies to reflect on a sobering fact: the balance of power is rapidly shifting against the United States. Since becoming president, Trump’s actions have fractured America’s alliance system just as Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin have consolidated theirs. As if to underscore this, the Russian president will likely arrive in Beijing days after Trump. His will be a red carpet welcome. Donald Trump’s will be far more exposing – and we all know why. Instead of a mighty demonstration of American firepower, his Iran war has exposed huge vulnerabilities. And less discussed but no less consequentia… |
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The World of Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress who was highly regarded for her roles in influential films, such as Casablanca (1942), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) and Anastasia (1956). She is the second most decorated Hollywood actress, with three Oscars, after Katherine Hepburn. Bergman was considered to have tremendous acting talent, an angelic natural beauty and the willingness to work hard to get the best out of films. She was also a very versatile actress, fluent in five languages and appearing in a range of films, plays and TV productions. Ingrid was born in Stockholm, Sweden on August 29, 1915. Her mother was German (of Jewish extraction) and her father Swedish. Her mother died when she was t… |
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President Trump Fires Attorney General Pam Bondi
President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi in the middle of an escalating international conflict, removing the nation’s top law enforcement authority at the exact moment legal clarity matters most. There was no transition window, no easing into change—just a sudden rupture that leaves a sharper question than the conflict itself: who is enforcing the law now, and on whose terms? A sitting president has dismissed his attorney general in the middle of an escalating international conflict. Not after resolution, not during a lull, not at the clean edge of a policy cycle—but in the thick of it, when legal clarity and institutional steadiness are not luxuries but requirements. That tim… |
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Energy Realism. Physics Over Slogans
Opinion | Feature Editorial Energy Realism: Physics Over Slogans The Grid at Midnight Picture a city at midnight. The wind has calmed, solar panels are dark, and the grid leans heavily on backup power. Politicians speak of “green revolutions,” but engineers know the reality: electrons obey physics, not slogans. The global conversation about energy has become strangely unserious for something so foundational to modern life. We cling to absolutes, divide into camps, and prefer moral certainty over physical reality. The result is passion without progress. Part I: Energy as Physics, Not Branding Energy systems are not ideological constructs. They are physical networks governed by constraints: st… |
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The Evil Queen of Homeland Security
Kristi Noem’s defense of the ICE agent who killed Renee Nicole Good has ignited one of the most explosive political firestorms of her career. Her remarks—branding Good a “domestic terrorist” and standing behind a podium emblazoned with a Nazi-era slogan—have drawn condemnation from lawmakers, activists, and ordinary citizens who see her as emblematic of authoritarian excess. The controversy is not a passing headline; it is a defining moment that reveals the deeper instincts of a politician who has built her career on toughness, loyalty, and spectacle, but who now finds herself accused of weaponizing cruelty into policy. The reaction to her stance has been visceral because it touches a raw ne… |
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How to Write and Publish Science Fiction
Science fiction has always been a genre of defiance. From Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, the best sci?fi stories refuse to accept the world as it is. They imagine what could be, what should be, and sometimes what must never be. Yet for the modern writer, the act of creating and publishing science fiction is itself a rebellion—against shrinking attention spans, against publishing monopolies, against the quiet pressure to write something “safe.” This is not a neutral craft. To write and publish science fiction today is to step into a contested space where art, commerce, and politics collide. 1. The Spark: Writing Against Gravity Every sci?fi story begins … |