Weekend Reading
What fresh hell is this? #Incompetence #Corruption #Affordability
“Sensing that the Iranian regime was weakened by Israel’s 12-day war in June 2025 and a popular uprising in January 2026, Israel and the United States launched airstrikes on Iran on February 28. They expected a quick victory through targeted assassinations of Iran’s leadership. But decapitation did not produce regime collapse. Instead, it opened the door for a new generation to take over ... On the battlefield, Iran’s armed forces applied the lessons of the June 2025 war with precision. They responded to the U.S.-Israeli assault that began in February 2026 with systematic salvos of missiles and drones designed to deplete U.S. and Israeli interceptor stockpiles across the region. They had concluded that their adversaries expected to destroy Iran’s missile capability quickly and were not prepared for a prolonged campaign. During the 2025 war, Israel had targeted the entrances to Iran’s ‘missile cities,’ effectively sealing them and forcing Iran to launch mainly from eastern regions beyond Israel’s reach. Iran responded by dispersing its missile launchers across its vast geography and embedding engineers inside the missile cities, alongside military personnel, to repair damaged launchers and entrances in real time. This enabled Iran to continue firing longer than Israel and the United States had expected. The IRGC also deployed cheap drones to overwhelm U.S. radar systems and military positions across the Persian Gulf and Israel, impeding the bombing campaign and opening missile routes to targets all over the region. Drawing on the logic of asymmetric warfare—and on the experience of using human-wave attacks to overwhelm Iraqi positions in the 1980s—Iran dispatched swarms of Shahed drones. These cheap, expendable weapons degraded the air defenses protecting U.S. bases, as well as those of Washington’s Arab allies, and opened corridors for precision missiles to strike high-value targets. The Iranian military had learned not just to absorb punishment but also to win strategic advantage by frustrating its adversaries’ war aims.” (Narges Bajoghli and Vali Nasr/Foreign Affairs)
“A potential peace deal between the United States and Iran hinges on the Trump administration agreeing to release $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets, a top Iranian official told CNN on Friday, warning that the US would ‘enter into a dark corridor’ should it resume fighting. ‘The negotiations are at a deadlock and (US President Donald) Trump must break this deadlock,’ Mohsen Rezaei, military adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, told CNN in an exclusive interview in Tehran. ‘The ball is in Trump’s court.’ Iran has reportedly demanded the release of $12 billion in frozen funds as soon as once an interim agreement is signed with the US, and another $12 billion at a later stage. US officials are concerned that any unfreezing of funds at this stage could remove a key leverage point over the regime. Trump has demanded that any agreement appear far stronger than the nuclear deal struck in 2015, and to avoid anything that could be construed as handing over ‘pallets of cash,’ a phrase he has invoked to criticize then-President Barack Obama’s decision to give Tehran financial compensation.” (Frederik Pleitgen and Claudia Otto/CNN)
“On the second night of June 2026, several thousand Albanians took to the streets of Tirana, blocking traffic and chanting ‘Albania is not for sale.’ Their immediate target was Prime Minister Edi Rama. Their actual target was a $1.4 billion resort development on Sazan Island, a 1,400-hectare strip of land at the mouth of Vlorë Bay that was, until recently, a top-secret military zone studded with 3,600 nuclear bunkers and a half-century-old Soviet submarine base. The American developer behind the project is a firm called Atlantic Incubation Partners LLC, affiliated with Jared Kushner’s private equity vehicle Affinity Partners. Albania’s Special Prosecution Office Against Corruption and Organized Crime — known as SPAK — has opened a formal investigation into the land reclassifications that cleared the way. Most of the international coverage has focused on the optics: Ivanka Trump describing Sazan as a ‘private island’ the family had ‘discovered,’ the Aman Resorts branding, the flamingos and Mediterranean monk seals in the adjacent Vjosa-Narta wetlands, the ‘Trump Island’ jokes on The Daily Show. The optics are bad, but they’re also a distraction. The interesting questions are these: Why, of all the post-government opportunities available to a former White House adviser, did Jared Kushner choose a strategically located former military island honeycombed with Cold War tunnels? Who introduced him to it? Where is the money coming from? And — given who his introducer is, and who his introducer’s social circle is — should anyone be entirely comfortable taking the ‘luxury eco-resort’ pitch at face value? The answers, as far as they go, are documented. Kushner told the All-In Podcast that he discovered the island while on vacation aboard the yacht of his friend Nathaniel Rothschild, and that he later met privately with Edi Rama aboard the same yacht to begin discussions. Affinity Partners’ principal known investor is the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which wired Kushner $2 billion in 2021 over the objections of its own screening committee. And Nat Rothschild’s documented social network — the people he has worked with, sued, sailed with, and been photographed with for the last two decades — overlaps in non-trivial ways with the social network that ran Jeffrey Epstein’s last decade. This is not a piece arguing that Kushner is building Epstein’s island. It is a piece arguing that the network around Kushner is harder to dismiss than the press has so far been willing to dismiss it.” (Tom Elliott)
“The question of Epstein’s intelligence connections hangs over the entire story. Was he or wasn’t he? And if he was, who was he working for? CIA? Mossad? KGB? All of the above? It is the plutonium pit of the case, the box no one in authority has seemingly been able – or wanting – to crack open. So was he joking with the red sparrow ‘badges’ and jackets for ‘the girls’? Was he burnishing his reputation as Coney Island’s Bondstein? Or was he brazenly celebrating the success of a honeypot and kompromat operation? By 2018, at the very least, Epstein and his coterie were aware of his reputation as an international man of mystery, and he and his johns were secure in their impunity. Our discovery of Epstein’s red sparrow badges and clothing prompted us to take another, closer look at two Russian women in his orbit. They arrived not from the backwoods of Eurasian impoverishment – his preferred hunting grounds – but from the highest levels of post-Soviet Russian politics and power. One of them, Masha Drokova, was close enough to Putin to have worked with his top strategist. The other, Svetlana Pozhidaeva, is the daughter of a reputed Russian KGB officer and a brilliant, multilingual graduate of Russia’s top foreign service school. Both women sailed through Epstein-world during the height of his international trafficking operation. Both went on to successful careers in Silicon Valley. And both have denied being spies, despite numerous allegations.” (Nina Burleigh and Katie Chenoweth/American Freakshow)
“When government officials shut down major roads and highways in Southern California during a record storm in the winter of 2023, it seemed obvious to Johnathon Ervin that his delivery drivers should stay home. Ervin was the owner of Battle-Tested Strategies in Palmdale, one of thousands of small businesses Amazon.com Inc. has hired over the years to deliver its packages. Palmdale is on the north side of Los Angeles County, which was experiencing an unusual winter storm. Snow circled the Hollywood sign. The mountains near Palmdale received their first blizzard warning in 34 years, and other parts of the county were warned to expect flash floods. Flights to LAX were briefly grounded, beaches and parks shut down, and Disneyland’s ‘Magic Happens’ show didn’t go on. But the decision about whether to brave the storm wasn’t up to Ervin, he says — the manager of Amazon’s local warehouse ordered him to send his drivers out. ‘I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ recalls Ervin, a US Air Force veteran who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. ‘The roads are closed.’ He sent the Amazon rep videos he’d shot on his phone that showed snowy roads blocked off by orange cones, with the flashing lights of a police cruiser standing guard. ‘He was like, ‘Well, we still have to attempt delivery,’ Ervin says. ‘Central Ops said we must attempt delivery.’ The manager wouldn’t refer Ervin to anyone at Central Ops, he says, and when he stressed that sending out his drivers would put them in danger, the rep kept repeating, ‘Delivery must be attempted.’ Ervin, who was in the middle of an escalating series of conflicts with Amazon, says he felt the company was leaving him no choice. If his drivers didn’t head out into the storm, Battle-Tested Strategies’ contract with Amazon, its sole customer, would be at risk. ‘We are still going to send your drivers,’ the manager had told him, according to a lawsuit he later filed in California state court. In the end, he says, his team ended up trying to follow the order. A couple of months later, Amazon informed him it was canceling the contract anyway, and Ervin’s business soon went kaput. ‘They control everything,’ he says. ‘You’re just a cog.’” (Josh Eidelson/Bloomberg BusinessWeek)
“Naked, hungry, raped and lying in her own urine, the woman said her captors after two days of misery handed her a phone. Call your friends and family, they said. Tell them to buy your freedom or you’ll be killed. The 38-year-old said she screamed on the calls as horrified loved ones listened to her being tortured in a remote village in western Sudan. Now safely in the capital, Khartoum, she looked through photos she took of her battered face and body after being freed in September. She wants them to serve as evidence to hold the attackers accountable. ‘I thought about seeking justice one day,’ she told The Associated Press. The AP does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted. The United Nations calls sexual violence one of the ‘most defining features’ of Sudan’s war, now in its fourth year. It says sexual assaults have soared since the war began but it did not have data on assaults by combatants. The U.N. says many women have been subject to sexual slavery and forced to pay ransoms for their release, sometimes up to $10,000. The AP met three women who said they were abducted, held as sex slaves and forced to buy their freedom. They were introduced by aid workers who said they were aware of what had happened. The AP could not verify the accounts by the women who spoke out in a country where discussing sexual assault remains deeply taboo.” (Sam Mednick/AP)
“Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces have had a long history of violations, going back to when they were known as the ‘Janjaweed’. Over the past few years, they have been trying to change their image and become influential political actors in Sudan, but will that work? Al Jazeera’s Hala Saadani looks back at the RSF’s history and where they may go from here.” (Al Jazeera)
“Live Science reports that scientists from the Institute of Culture of Barcelona have examined 25 skeletons discovered in eight graves at Barcelona’s Royal Monastery of Santa Maria Pedralbes, which was founded in the fourteenth century by Queen Elisenda of Montcada. She moved into a small palace next to the monastery after the death of her husband, James II. When Elisenda died in 1364, her remains were dressed in a monastic habit and placed in a narrow wooden coffin with a gold-embroidered silk textile and aromatic herbs. Analysis of the bones suggests she was about 70 years old at the time of death. The study also investigated the tombs said to have belonged to the monastery’s first two abbesses. The remains of a woman thought to represent Sobirana Olzet, the first abbess, indicate that she had suffered a knife wound to her face shortly before death. In the tomb of Francesca Saportella, the second abbess and the queen’s niece, the researchers recovered the remains of nine people that had been interred at different times, including four male skulls with stab wounds, and the mummified torso of a pregnant woman. In a third tomb, thought to belong to a knight, the bones of two women and three children were found. One of the women still had a long ponytail attached to her skull. The team members are now sequencing DNA samples taken from the remains in an effort to identify relationships among the dead and possible pathogens.” (Archaeology)
“Multiple sources with knowledge of CBS News’ hiring practices say the CEO of Paramount Skydance David Ellison was integrally involved not only in reviewing candidates, but also in meeting personally with at least two contenders — including (Nick) Bilton. (CBS News pushed back on that characterization.) … Bilton, a U.K.-born, Florida-reared contrarian had spent nearly two decades studying the ticks and psychology of billionaires. And it paid off. As we reported yesterday, Bilton is making $2.5 million for his new ‘60 Minutes’ gig. Sources tell us that salary is $1 million more than what ‘60 Minutes’ veteran Tanya Simon was pulling down for the same job before she was ousted by Weiss earlier this month. (CBS News did not comment.) … Like Weiss, it is hard to pin down exactly where Bilton falls on the political spectrum. The central tension is that Bilton, who regularly criticized Donald Trump during his first term in the pages of Vanity Fair, now finds himself inside a company that many see as friendly, if not subservient to the Trump Administration … One thing is certain: Despite coming up as a beat reporter grinding out stories first as a tech writer at the Times and then as a correspondent at Vanity Fair, Bilton was always comfortable walking the corridors of power and would soon find himself sitting at the table with some of the most powerful figures in the world. Like Weiss, he knows how to impress the wealthy and powerful. Also like Weiss, he arrives with a certain amount of personal baggage … ‘The Times crowd resented Nick. They thought he was too flashy and not a lot of substance,’ says one source who worked with Bilton. ‘I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if [he and Bari] bonded more over hating all the stuffed shirts at the Times than their shared politics.’ Bilton and Weiss also could commiserate about the risk of taking unpopular positions on social media. By Bilton’s own admission, ‘the digital mob’ was a scourge, something he knew firsthand. In 2013, in one of his earliest columns for the Times, he wrote: ‘I got into an argument with a group of people on Twitter about Trayvon Martin, which was the main news story of that time. I know, how could I be so stupid? To think that I could have a constructive conversation about something on social media. Luckily, my part in the Twitter fight didn’t last long. A friend saw my tweets and instantly sent me the text message: ‘ABORT! ABORT! ABORT!’ That and a few other of his columns prompted Gawker to pronounce Bilton ‘the New Worst Columnist at the New York Times.’” (P6Hollywood)
“Everyone is up in arms, and rightly so, about what Bari Weiss is doing to CBS News in general and 60 Minutes in particular. The firing of Scott Pelley will reverberate in American journalism history as a symbolic execution of the single most groundbreaking and successful news program in the annals of U.S. broadcast television. Two of the program’s other prominent on-air correspondents were fired, as well, and we’ve seen countless news stories this week about the chaos and turmoil that have resulted. Three of the show’s remaining correspondents—Bill Whitaker, Lesley Stahl, and Jon Wertheim—reportedly huddled this week to discuss their next move; Stahl is currently out of contract. This is a tempestuous time at one of the nation’s most staid journalistic institutions. But let’s back up a minute to appreciate how we got here. How did someone like Weiss, with no broadcast news experience, get put in charge of the network with the longest and proudest news tradition in the country? Well, we know the answer to that question. David Ellison, head of Paramount (which owned CBS), hired her last October, three months after the Trump administration approved the takeover of Paramount by Ellison’s company, Skydance. Before that, of course, Weiss had started up the very successful Free Press newsletter, devoted mainly to attacking left-wing wokery and cancel culture for dedicated subscribers. But the pivotal moment, or actually moments, in her career came before that. The first was her hiring, in April 2017, by The New York Times. The second was her famous departure from that same paper, which she cynically and shamelessly used to get a bevy of wealthy, angry, rich men to stake her to the Free Press. You know that saying about how sometimes liberals are so open-minded that their brains start falling out their ears? Weiss’s ascent provides a lesson in how liberal institutions can sometimes place such value on proving that they’re open-minded that other liberal values, like standing for actual liberal things in the world, get tossed aside.” (Michael Tomasky/TNR)
“Hunter (Biden) wrote in his memoir that his father, though broken by the 2015 death of the revered Beau (in which the subtext must inevitably have been the agony of comparison), always stood by his side. Biden often blamed the pressures of his political career for his troubled son’s difficulties and provided a refuge for Hunter’s young family during his spirals into chaos. During Hunter’s trial, Joe was tormented by the need to look legally neutral. I am told that guilt and anxiety about the ordeal of his prodigal son, finally sober and with a new marriage and baby, were the only things the president could think about, as he stumbled through D-Day commemorations in France, a G7 meeting in Italy, and a Hollywood fundraiser. Just two weeks before the high-wire debate with Trump, Hunter was convicted on three felony counts and faced up to 25 years behind bars. The president immediately flew to Wilmington to sustain Hunter with a father’s forgiving embrace. The thought of losing his only surviving son would have addled the brain of the most lucid parent, much less an 81-year-old candidate sparring with a MAGA minotaur on national television. The death of Beau and the conviction of Hunter were the slow-moving, degenerative agents of Joe Biden’s decline.” (Tina Brown/Fresh Hell)
“FRANCE 24 management and the FRANCE 24 editorial committee (SDJ) have denounced the pressure FRANCE 24 journalists Nina Masson and Yong Chim faced after asking a question about the anti-Bolloré letter as a ‘serious violation of press freedom’. Published on the eve of the Cannes Film Festival and signed by some 600 industry professionals, the open letter expressed alarm over rightwing French billionaire Vincent Bolloré’s growing control over French cinema through the UGC theatre chain and the Canal+ Group, where he is the majority shareholder. The petition, which deplored the tightening ‘grip of the far right’ on French cinema, prompted a quick response. Maxime Saada, president of the Canal+ Group – France’s biggest source of film financing – announced that the network would no longer work with the signatories. The latest incident occurred as Masson and Chim took part in an interview organised to promote Antonin Baudry’s feature film ‘La Bataille de Gaulle’.” (France24)
“For Hildegard of Bingen, the famous twelfth-century Benedictine abbess and mystic, the earth produces goods commensurate with every need of the human body. This conviction was rooted in her broader theological framework of viriditas, or ‘greening power,’ a divine life force that animates all creation and expresses itself in various ways, including in the healing properties of plants. In her encyclopedic book Physica, she sought to codify the natural world—plants, elements, trees, stones, fish, birds, animals, reptiles, and metals—according to each component’s effects on the four temperaments. Citrus trees (more ‘hot than cold’), signify chastity. When boiled in wine and consumed daily, their leaves alleviate daily fevers. Radishes cleanse the brain. Horseradish makes a lean person strong. Chamomile is calming to the intestines, and mullein is good for those who are sad. Wild lettuce, whose milky sap would later be studied in the nineteenth century for its mild sedative quality, extinguishes ‘uncontrollable lust.’ It can be made into a kind of lettuce soup, the liquid of which is to be poured upon hot stones in a sauna while placing the cooked leaves on one’s belly. The four temperaments, originally defined by the Greeks but interpreted by Hildegard in a more spiritually inflected way, are no longer reasonable medical categories, though I would be considered melancholic—the ‘iceberg temperament.’ If not careful, I might be brought down by poisoned daydreaming.” (Nicolette Pollek/The Paris Review)