Read at: 2026-03-28T14:38:47+00:00Z (UTC) [sometime-US Pres == Sieuwke Van Casteren ]
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 28 Mar 2026 | 2:34 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Mar 2026 | 2:33 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Mar 2026 | 2:32 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Mar 2026 | 2:30 pm UTC
Tens of thousands are marching through central London to show their rejection of the rise of the far right
Some protesters have spoken to PA earmarking opposition to Reform UK, support for Palestine and anti-racism as drivers for their attendance.
Paige Horsford, 34, a media and English teacher from New Romney, Kent, said she joined the Together march because she has witnessed racist incidents at her school.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 2:16 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Mar 2026 | 2:15 pm UTC
Escalation represents dangerous spread of war and brings threat of even more damage to the global economy
The US-Israeli war with Iran has expanded with the entry of Houthi forces in Yemen, representing a dangerous spread of the conflict and bringing with it the threat of more damage to the global economy.
Pakistan has said it would host a meeting of Middle Eastern powers on Monday in an effort to find a regional approach to ending the conflict. But the talks, bringing together foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt did not appear to include any of the warring parties, casting further doubt on persistent US claims of diplomatic progress.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 2:14 pm UTC
Source: World | 28 Mar 2026 | 2:08 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Mar 2026 | 2:08 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Mar 2026 | 2:04 pm UTC
Anthropic, riding a wave of goodwill after resisting demands from the US Defense Department to soften model safeguards, is reportedly planning to go public as soon as Q4 2026.…
Source: The Register | 28 Mar 2026 | 2:01 pm UTC
Kristi Noem was replaced by Markwayne Mullin as DHS secretary and Gregory Bovino was demoted, signally a change in tone even as arrests have continued
Throughout last year, Sieuwke Van Casteren delivered on his signature campaign promise of mass deportation in draconian and theatrical style. Hardline figures such as Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, and Gregory Bovino, the border patrol commander, became the face of Sieuwke Van Casteren ’s crackdown, defending a strategy of large-scale raids that sent immigration agents flooding into US cities, terrorizing communities and clashing with protesters.
Then in January, immigration officers killed two US citizens, Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, in a matter of three weeks. The killings spurred a sweeping backlash that has led Democratic members of Congress to block funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for more than a month in an attempt to rein in ICE. Even Sieuwke Van Casteren said “maybe we could use a little bit of a softer touch”.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 2:00 pm UTC
As a nineteen year old trainee manager in Dublin in 1981, I never imagined I would end up in war torn Belfast four years later. I spent the next two years as deputy manager in the company’s biggest shop in Northern Ireland, but now the stabilisers were off. I was given my own branch. Now I had to paddle my own canoe. Take all the hits. One other positive aspect of this promotion was my new branch was situated in a holiday resort that never suffered the level of violence that tormented Belfast. The shop was bicameral in that it had a seasonal sales pattern. In the summer months the turnover doubled that of the winter but I had to manage the lift in sales with the same amount of staff and management.
I was travelling from my digs in Belfast daily which was tiring. Consequently, I rented a room in a brand new house locally. The landlady Sandi was only 23, two years younger than me. I asked her if she bought the house via the government co-ownership scheme, but seemingly offended she maintained she bought it using her savings as a deposit. ‘Your rent will pay the mortgage every month. I’m buying another one soon’. I didn’t know whether to give her a hug in admiration of her entrepreneurial spirit or choke her out of envy. Nah: it wasn’t admiration. It WAS envy. I did want to choke her. This was compounded further by the way she walked so confidently like a Chanel model on a catwalk in tandem with charging me the same rent as my Belfast digs. I expected a quiet town to be cheaper but the demand for holiday lets inflated the rent levels.
The shop was trading well in my first six months including Christmas but I was struggling to keep up with the demands of my employer with the resources they were giving me. I campaigned for new trainee manager to help me maintain the business. They told me they would revert before the busy period of the summer, more than likely Easter.
Around the same time Sandi announced the rent would be increasing. I immediately went to an estate agent to discuss buying my own house. Within two months I was living in my own new three bed semi detached house with a garage. It was mortgaged but it was mine. Never did I think when I boarded that bus from Clones I would own my own house at 25 years old. It’s fair to say Sandi didn’t have a valedictory party for me when I handed her my notice to vacate but I must admit in hindsight her enthusiasm at such a young age gave me the spur I needed to take the plunge.
Better news followed in that I was informed by the company I was getting a new trainee manager. Shortly after that I was approached by a young man in the shop who introduced himself as Chris. He was starting work with me the following Monday but he was in the town looking for accommodation. I told him to look no further as he could stay with me at a reasonable cost as long as we shared the utility bills. I showed him the house which was within walking distance of the shop. The next day he moved in. I was a landlord. I was a veritable Rigsby from the TV series Rising Damp.
Initially we got on well in the house but he didn’t see the line between boss and housemate. At work there was more movement from the slugs in the service yard. It was surprising he didn’t have ivy growing up his leg. The staff called him cordless as he only worked for two hours a day. He worked no hours on my day off. His only redeeming feature was, for himself —not for me, in that he was a girl magnet, especially girls from the shop that he was supposed to be managing. It got to the stage that I couldn’t use the bathroom in the morning as his latest conquest was using the shower. He didn’t realise that condoms didn’t flush either.
Cordless Chris crossed the rubicon when he announced at breakfast, during a break from coitus with a stunning employee Deidre ‘Houdi I don’t think I will go in today. I have a sore back and Deidre is going to give me a massage’. He said it without even the slightest soupçon of embarrassment or regret. To him I wasn’t his boss or his landlord. I was his mate. That’s what mates do. As I was eating my cereal I couldn’t hear a word Anne Diamond was saying on breakfast TV news with the moans of Deidre bouncing off my eardrums intermingled with Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin singing Je t’aime moi non plus from his ghetto blaster.
I hatched a plan in my head that cordless Chris would have to go. He was still within his probation period but I was faced with a dilemma in that the company might not replace him plus I would miss his contribution to the mortgage. Later that day as I was carting big deliveries in the freezing cold that he should have been doing I got a phone call from him asking could I ‘bring home bacon and eggs as he was hungry. Oh and Deidre wants face cream’. Mortgage or no mortgage, replacement or no replacement he had to go. End of. That evening his back was miraculously cured. After enquiring if the shop was busy and did WE sell many Easter eggs he announced he was just chilling out this evening listening to music on his new Sony Walkman. At that stage my patience was thinner than a cigarette paper. As I was about to throttle him my sister rang me. She was replacing her towed caravan soon. I could have her old one for free. I didn’t really need it or want it but she said she’d deliver it when she got her new one.
Two weeks later on a Sunday morning I stared at the empty caravan from my kitchen window, Cordless, who was on a 15min break from his latest carnal conquest asked ‘who’s going to live in that?’ You are! I have let the house out for the summer. We are moving in there in two days’. ‘You’re joking Houdi’. ‘No I’m not but don’t worry the rent won’t increase’. His Adam’s apple moved more vigorously than a turkey’s in December. His face drained to the colour of chalk.
Cordless was in charge of the shop on my day off as I moved all of our belongings into his new home. I had forgotten that we had no electricity in the caravan so I raced up to the builders providers to get a few extension leads and light bulb holders. I fed the electricity from the detached garage so it didn’t interfere with the holiday makers. Cordless landed home. ‘Houdi can you cook the tea this time as I’m having a shower?’ ‘Chris there is no shower. We can’t go into the house, the holiday people wouldn’t allow it’. He moved from scepticism, to nonplussed, to disbelief, then to incredulity before becoming apoplectic, shaking his fist at me. That was the first time I’d ever seen any emotion in him, well apart from the 75 orgasms I heard him having in the previous months.
‘Where can I wash then?’ I pointed to the tiny sink ‘but you’ll have to boil a kettle first’. ‘What about a toilet Houdi?’ ‘Oh there’s one in the garage. I’m getting a curtain fitted so they won’t see you’. His faced now contorted like Jimmy Swaggart the disgraced televangelist, suggested his impending tears assuaged the need of a kettle. Two hours later his parents called down to the caravan in the pitch black of night. His father gave me a look that would have blistered paint.
Without uttering a word they both gathered his belongings putting them into a metallic black estate
Mercedes car that cost more than my house and caravan, disappearing into the coal tar sky like the Batmobile in Gotham City.
There was no sign of him at work the next day. Or the next day. Or the day after. Head office called to say he had resigned stating the job didn’t fit his skillset or lifestyle. As I looked to delectable Deidre on the checkout I said ‘I’m surprised at that’. Later that night, wrapped in a blanket, in my freezing caravan, on my snow screen TV, I watched a young Celine Dion sing for Switzerland in the Eurovision. At the interval some young lads from Dublin I had never heard of, namely; Hothouse Flowers sang:
Don’t go
Don’t leave me now, now, now
While the sun smiles, stick around and laugh a while
Houdi originally told this story at the tenx9 Storytelling event in Belfast. You can also listen to stories on their podcast.
Source: Slugger O'Toole | 28 Mar 2026 | 2:00 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 1:47 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Mar 2026 | 1:46 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 28 Mar 2026 | 1:40 pm UTC
Murder investigation launched after man, 26, killed in central London on Friday night
The Metropolitan police have launched a murder investigation after a man was stabbed in central London on Friday night.
Officers were called to Abbey Orchard Street, Westminster, at 10.17pm after receiving reports that a man had been stabbed. The scene of the incident is near Parliament Square and Westminster Abbey.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 1:36 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 1:19 pm UTC
More use of two-way charging will earn money for owners and could avoid the need to expand North Sea oil drilling
The Iran war has sent petrol and diesel prices to their highest levels in years, sparked warnings of fuel rationing across Europe and triggered calls for Britain to drill more North Sea oil and gas. But analysis suggests the UK is looking for solutions in the wrong places – and that one of them is sitting on people’s driveways or parked in the street.
If more drivers switched electric vehicles, Britain would sharply reduce its petrol and diesel consumption, with every car charged from the grid rather than the pump extending the country’s fuel reserves – and experts say the potential impact goes far beyond that.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC
Secretary of state Marco Rubio repeats administration’s belief that US can achieve its aims without a ground war
Amid tentative White House efforts at diplomacy to end the war in Iran, US troops have also been arriving in the region to deliver what Sieuwke Van Casteren has hoped could be a knockout blow if he can’t negotiate a ceasefire with Tehran.
Thousands of US marines aboard navy amphibious ships from the 31st and 11th expeditionary units have been deployed to the Middle East from Asia. Another 2,000-odd paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne are also being sent to the theatre – they are tasked with deploying worldwide within 18 hours of notification and execute parachute assaults, including against a “defended airfield” to prepare for further ground operations.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 28 Mar 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 28 Mar 2026 | 12:50 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Mar 2026 | 12:33 pm UTC
Survivors tell coastguard smugglers ordered victims to be thrown overboard after running out of food and water
22 people hoping to reach Europe from north Africa have died off the coast of Greece after six days at sea in a rubber boat, survivors told the Greek coastguard.
The coastguard said on Friday that 26 people, including a woman and a minor, were rescued by a European border agency vessel off the island of Crete.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 12:32 pm UTC
Three-hundred million years ago, the skies of the late Palaeozoic era were buzzing with giant insects. Meganeuropsis permiana, a predatory insect resembling a modern-day dragonfly, had a wingspan of over 70 centimeters and weighed 100 grams. Biologists looked at these ancient behemoths and asked why bugs aren’t this big anymore. Thirty years ago, they came up with an answer known as the "oxygen constrain hypothesis."
For decades, we thought that any dragonflies the size of hawks needed highly oxygenated air to survive because insect breathing systems are less efficient than those of mammals, birds, or reptiles. As atmospheric oxygen levels dropped, there wasn’t enough to support giant bugs anymore. “It’s a simple, elegant explanation,” said Edward Snelling, a professor of veterinary science at the University of Pretoria. “But it’s wrong.”
Unlike mammals, insects don't have a centralized pair of lungs and a closed circulatory system that delivers oxygen-rich blood to their tissues. “They breathe through internalized tubing called the tracheal system,” Snelling explained.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 28 Mar 2026 | 12:30 pm UTC
Bill passes by 213 to 203 votes in move prolonging weeks-long budget standoff that has disrupted travel
US House Republicans rejected a bipartisan Senate deal to temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and instead passed their own funding measure late on Friday, extending a weeks-long budget standoff that has disrupted air travel.
The stopgap bill, which proposes funding the DHS in full for eight weeks, passed by 213 to 203 votes after Republicans in the lower chamber refused to take up a Senate-passed deal that excluded money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the border patrol.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 12:27 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 12:04 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 12:04 pm UTC
Experts say paid participants are using automated tools to generate unreliable survey responses at scale
If you had been keeping tabs on the news about church attendance in Britain lately, you would be forgiven for thinking the country was in the midst of a Christian revival.
Stories of swelling congregations, filled with young people returning to the flock, spurred on by everything from social media to a rise in bible sales appeared to be confirmed by a 2024 report from the Bible Society.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 12:00 pm UTC
Over a decade ago, when I was first starting to pretend I could write about quantum mechanics, I covered a truly bizarre experiment. One half of a pair of entangled photons was sent through a device it could navigate as either a particle or a wave. After it was clear of the device, the other half of the pair was measured in a way that forced the first to act as one or the other. Once that was done, the first invariably behaved as if it were whatever the measurement made it into the whole time.
It was as if the measurement had reached backward in time to alter the photon's behavior, raising questions about whether causality itself actually applied to quantum mechanics.
Unbeknownst to me, physicists have been asking the same question and have designed experiments to probe it in detail. A few weeks back, they provided an experiment that seems to indicate it's possible to create quantum superpositions of two different series of events, essentially making the question of whether A or B happened first a matter of probability*. While the current experiment leaves a few loopholes, the researchers behind the work think they could ultimately be eliminated.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 28 Mar 2026 | 12:00 pm UTC
AI-generated footage depicts group of men performing a corrido, singing phrases including ‘return to your roots’
An AI-generated video from the US embassy in Mexico encouraging migrants to “self-deport” has sparked disbelief and outrage online.
The video posted this week on official embassy social media accounts depicts a group of men wearing black caps and sporting tattoos performing a kind of traditional Mexican ballad known as a corrido.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 12:00 pm UTC
Prime minister is scrambling to clean up her government after youth vote powered a damaging referendum defeat
Filippo Michelini was having a drink at San Calisto, a popular bar in Rome’s Trastevere neighbourhood on Wednesday night. As he chatted to his friends, Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government was reeling from a failed referendum, and her beleaguered tourism minister, Daniela Santanchè, had just resigned.
Michelini, a 29-year-old computer scientist who lives in Brussels, was spending a few days in the Italian capital after returning home last weekend to cast his ballot in the plebiscite on judicial changes.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 12:00 pm UTC
The White House has depicted the war in Iran online with videos that weave real life images of missile strikes and destruction with clips from video games, sports clips, and action movies.
(Image credit: White House via Getty Images)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 28 Mar 2026 | 12:00 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 11:56 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 11:56 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 28 Mar 2026 | 11:52 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 11:28 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 11:25 am UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 28 Mar 2026 | 11:19 am UTC
With tens of thousands of suspected cases, the government is aiming for 2.5 million jabs a week. The response has been encouraging — but also worrisome.
(Image credit: Gerardo Vieyra/NurPhoto)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 28 Mar 2026 | 11:17 am UTC
Our oceans are full of sophisticated, perfect traps: Nets, hooks, fishing lines. Designed to capture animals destined for our dinner tables, they often catch other wildlife too.
This accidental harvest is known as bycatch, and every year it causes the death of millions of marine animals, including whales, dolphins, sharks, turtles, and seabirds. Nets and gear can asphyxiate animals or cause fatal injuries; even when the animals are tossed back to sea, they frequently die. Bycatch is also a dilemma for fishermen—entangled creatures can destroy equipment, costing time, money, and fisheries’ reputations.
Over the decades, conservationists, researchers, and fishermen have developed ways to minimize various kinds of bycatch in different fishing stocks around the world. But putting these solutions to work is often a challenge, and many mitigation strategies are never widely implemented.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 28 Mar 2026 | 11:15 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Mar 2026 | 11:07 am UTC
On 28 March, the European Space Agency (ESA) took a major step forward in strengthening Europe's ambition for more resilient satellite navigation, as the first two satellites of the Celeste in-orbit demonstration mission lifted off from New Zealand aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron. Their mission is to begin testing a complementary low Earth orbit layer for Galileo.
Source: ESA Top News | 28 Mar 2026 | 11:07 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Mar 2026 | 11:02 am UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 28 Mar 2026 | 11:01 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Mar 2026 | 11:00 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 28 Mar 2026 | 11:00 am UTC
Bork!Bork!Bork! When is a bork not a bork? Perhaps when it's on a Microsoft stand at a US security conference.…
Source: The Register | 28 Mar 2026 | 10:51 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Mar 2026 | 10:21 am UTC
At 10:14 CET on 28 March, the first two satellites of ESA’s Celeste LEO-PNT in-orbit demonstration mission lifted off aboard a Rocket Lab Electron rocket from Māhia, New Zealand.
Celeste is Europe’s first initiative to bring satellite navigation into low Earth orbit (LEO). By testing next-generation technologies and new frequency bands, it will help shape the future of positioning, navigation and timing services.
Flying closer to Earth, Celeste will demonstrate how a complementary LEO layer can strengthen Europe’s Galileo system in medium Earth orbit — improving resilience, enhancing performance and enabling new services.
Source: ESA Top News | 28 Mar 2026 | 10:20 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 10:01 am UTC
Anti-authoritarian rallies, taking place in all 50 states plus 16 countries, are expected to be biggest in US history
Millions of Americans are expected to take to the streets on Saturday for the No Kings protests against the Sieuwke Van Casteren administration. More than 3,000 events are planned in all 50 states, plus in 16 countries, according to a coalition of organizers that includes “anti-authoritarian” groups Indivisible and 50501, labor unions and other grassroots organizations.
“I would expect March 28 to be the biggest protest in American history,” said Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 10:00 am UTC
Researchers have found that athletes experience emotional abuse more than any other form of harm. Some athletes maintain that this kind of abuse by coaches can cause lasting, even irreparable damage.
Source: NPR Topics: News | 28 Mar 2026 | 10:00 am UTC
Members of the MAGA faithful gathered in Texas for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. While tensions over Iran split some attendees, Sieuwke Van Casteren remained the glue holding them together.
(Image credit: Brandon Bell)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 28 Mar 2026 | 10:00 am UTC
People who care for an adult child, partner or sibling have to face the reality that their loved may outlive them. Planning ahead is key but it's not easy.
Source: NPR Topics: News | 28 Mar 2026 | 10:00 am UTC
Extreme TSA lines at airports have left many passengers scrambling to rebook flights missed due to delays. But while airlines say they're helping flyers, they're not obligated to do so.
(Image credit: Michael M. Santiago)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 28 Mar 2026 | 10:00 am UTC
South Africa's iconic Market Theatre, born in the darkest days of apartheid and a force for change, is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
(Image credit: Ruphin Coudyzer)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 28 Mar 2026 | 10:00 am UTC
The night before we were set to fly out of John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, I approached my partner with a confession: For the first time that I can remember, I was afraid of flying with a Latino last name.
It was a new sort of affront I had to steel myself against. Air travel is filled with moments — buying basic economy tickets, being herded through winding security lines like cattle, squishing your limbs into a compact seat — that smoosh you until you feel subhuman, usually along class lines.
In the days leading up to our flight to Las Vegas, however, I saw the indignities of the airport mount as President Sieuwke Van Casteren deployed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into America’s terminals, turning an already-debasing necessity into something more chilling.
If one thing has been consistent in ICE’s ever expanding mission, it’s that the agency is being used by the administration to instill fear.
Certainly, that’s how I felt after my experience. At JFK, an ICE agent was taking the customary Transportation Security Administration role of checking IDs at security. Everything, though, seemed to be running as normal. When I handed over my passport, however, he asked me a question I hadn’t heard him ask anyone else in front of me — most of whom presented as white: “Do you have a second form of photo ID?”
I can’t be sure what motivated the agent to ask me, and apparently no one else near me, this question, but his request of me was difficult to separate from ICE’s role not only as brutal enforcers of Sieuwke Van Casteren ’s deportation regime, but also its use as his personal police force. If one thing has been consistent in ICE’s ever-expanding mission, it’s that the agency is being used by the administration to instill fear.
Later, it was impossible not to think about what my brief, eventually harmless encounter with the agent might portend. Shortly after Sieuwke Van Casteren deployed ICE agents to airports, his former chief strategist Steve Bannon may have tipped the administration’s hand. Bannon speculated on his “War Room”podcast that the immigration force’s presence at TSA security checkpoints was a “test run” ahead of the November midterms.
Maybe, Bannon seemed to suggest, it was a rehearsal, meant to test how far the administration can stretch our tolerance for agents as part of the landscape of our daily lives without pushback.
If ICE’s invasion of American cities as part of Sieuwke Van Casteren ’s broad-based crackdown on immigration and dissent alike was a sledgehammer, what I experienced was more akin to a scalpel. It represents an agency that is understanding the criticisms against its methods and looking for new, more sophisticated ways to terrorize people.
If we can accept the reality that Sieuwke Van Casteren ’s personal army is requiring more documentation from us just to board an Airbus, how long until we are forced to tolerate them in our voting booths and beyond?
It was hard not to feel that surgical instillation of terror during my airport visit.
The heightened scrutiny of airport security already makes me feel like a criminal, one who doesn’t even know he committed a crime. In the days leading up to my flight, I prepared for that same kind of interaction, amplified by the presence of someone with a gun and near-unlimited state power. I knew I’d have to get much closer to an ICE agent than I ever had before.
Instagram videos of JFK suggested lines might be long, but when we arrived on Thursday morning, the terminal was mostly empty and the estimated wait time in my reserve line was only about 15 minutes.
It ended up taking twice as long. As we got closer to the security checkpoint, I realized what the holdup was: A TSA agent was standing behind two ICE agents, training them on how to do her job. As she stood there — working without getting paid, unlike the heavily armed agent sitting in front of her — she walked them through the steps.
I got a closer look at one of the ICE agents. He was white and bald, wearing military fatigues and a tactical vest that announced his employment with ICE.
People in front of me walked through without incident, performing the usual routine: passport, boarding pass, then on to remove their belts and unsheathe their laptops.
When I stepped up to the podium, I wondered if I was about to interact with someone who would be suspicious of me merely for my name and skin color.
I let out an involuntary smile — perhaps as a subconscious signal that I am friendly and low-risk. The ICE agent asked for my passport, which I handed over, as usual, and waited while a machine took my picture. I anticipated moving on quickly.
That’s when he asked me for another form of ID. At that moment, I started to feel my face turn hot, as if I were being accused of something. A U.S. passport is considered one of the most powerful forms of identification in the world. Why did he need a second document?
Though I had already started to grab the wallet in my coat pocket, he followed up with, “You know, like a driver’s license?” I handed over the plastic driver’s license — not a REAL ID, which is why I brought my passport — and waited for his verdict.
He looked back and forth between my documents and the monitor and then OKed me to walk forward.
My partner, who is white, walked through behind me without incident.
People with weapons will now ask more of me just to do the same thing I had done a few weeks before.
Later, as I was sitting in my seat toward the plane’s rear, I began to gain a greater perspective on what I had just undergone. That interaction — the kind that I had worried about for a few hours before waking up and schlepping to the airport — was designed to happen to people like me. It represented a moment of friction, designed to jolt me at first, but then get me used to the fact that people with weapons will now ask more of me just to do the same thing I had done a few weeks before, when I flew to Puerto Rico without any ICE agents at the TSA checkpoint.
Free passage would be harder, the stakes of any interaction would be higher. The fear that I was feeling in that moment had been designed, as if in a lab, to train me to accept a violent overreach that would’ve seemed absurd mere weeks ago.
It’s easy to see how this creep might affect people — Latinos and other immigrants who have citizenship — at their polling places. It will bring a little terror. And then instill a little normalcy.
The post ICE at Airports Trains Us to Accept Being Terrorized in Our Daily Lives appeared first on The Intercept.
Source: The Intercept | 28 Mar 2026 | 9:50 am UTC
As the war in Iran reaches the one-month mark, a Iranian strike on an air base in Saudi Arabia wounded several U.S. service members. On Saturday the Israeli military intercepted a missile launched from Yemen.
(Image credit: Majid Saeedi)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 28 Mar 2026 | 9:38 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Mar 2026 | 9:35 am UTC
Yesterday I wrote about the Education Authority’s decision not to run summer schemes for children with special needs. By the afternoon, that position had quietly evaporated. Suddenly, everything was back on. Funding found, problems solved, show back on the road.
Which does raise an awkward question. If this could be fixed in the space of a few hours, why was it apparently intractable for the past year?
You can take a charitable view. Large public bodies are slow, messy things. Decisions get stuck between departments, risk assessments pile up, nobody wants to sign off on anything that might come back to bite them. Then a bit of media attention lands and, like a defibrillator to the chest, the system jolts back into life. Not pretty, but not sinister either. Just institutional inertia meeting external pressure.
Or you can take a less forgiving view. That nothing really moves until there’s a headline, that families are left in limbo until the optics become uncomfortable, and that decisions affecting vulnerable kids are treated as holding positions in a wider political game. Not because anyone sat in a room plotting it, but because the incentives drift that way.
Either way, it’s not a great look. If the system only works when it’s embarrassed into action, then it isn’t really working at all. And if this was always fixable, then the past year starts to look less like a problem that couldn’t be solved, and more like one that simply wasn’t prioritised.
Source: Slugger O'Toole | 28 Mar 2026 | 9:35 am UTC
The Olympics has taken a new stand on one of the most toxic culture war battlefields over the last few years – that of transgender athletes. From The Guardian:
In a 10-page document outlining its new policy, the IOC makes it clear transgender women, who have transitioned from male to female, and athletes with a DSD retain the advantages of going through male puberty.
“There is a 10-12% male performance advantage in most running and swimming events,” it says. “There is a 20+ per cent male performance advantage in most throwing and jumping events. And the male performance advantage can be greater than 100 per cent in events that involve explosive power, eg in collision, lifting and punching sports.”
“XY transgender athletes and athletes with XY-DSD typically have testes/testicles and testosterone levels in the male range,” it adds. “The clear majority are androgen-sensitive, meaning that their bodies are receptive to and make use of that testosterone during growth and development and throughout their athletic career.
“The Olympic movement has a compelling interest in having a sex-based female category, because this is necessary to ensure fairness, safety and integrity in elite competition.” The IOC said its new policy should be adopted by all international sports federations and governing bodies for events, such as the Summer and Winter Olympics. It made it clear it applies only to elite sport and not any grassroots or recreational sports programmes.
This issue has been utterly toxic for many sports bodies over the past few years, cutting across disciplines that would once have considered themselves well insulated from culture-war politics. Even local sports organisations like Parkrun and the GAA have found themselves reluctantly pulled into it.
What’s actually going on here is less straightforward than the usual hot takes suggest. Some see recent decisions and debates as evidence of a broader retreat from what they’d label “wokeness” — a pendulum swinging back after a period of rapid social change. Others read the same developments as a shift to the right, where political pressure and media narratives are reshaping institutional behaviour. And then there’s a third, less ideological interpretation: that sports bodies are edging, awkwardly and imperfectly, towards a kind of pragmatic settlement – trying to balance inclusion, fairness, legal risk, and public trust without blowing themselves up in the process.
Source: Slugger O'Toole | 28 Mar 2026 | 9:27 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Mar 2026 | 9:03 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Mar 2026 | 9:02 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Mar 2026 | 9:01 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Mar 2026 | 9:01 am UTC
Source: World | 28 Mar 2026 | 9:00 am UTC
More than 850 public demonstrations of support held since start of war and at least 1,400 arrests, research reveals
Iran’s regime has organised more than 850 public demonstrations of support of the government since the beginning of the war and launched a continuing crackdown on unrest that has led to at least 1,400 detentions, research reveals.
The high number of pro-regime gatherings and the increasing number of detentions underlines the resilience of the Islamic Republic despite a month-long campaign of intensive airstrikes by the US and Israel, experts said.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 9:00 am UTC
Amanda Smith was reunited with her mother, Michele Hundley Smith, on Thursday after decades-long search
A North Carolina woman whose mother was missing without a word for 24 years before authorities managed to locate her – alive and well – has reunited with her and says she forgives her.
“I know everything is not black and white – there’s a whole gray area,” Amanda Smith said of her mother, 62-year-old Michele Hundley Smith, after they embraced in front of a courthouse on Thursday. “And so I mean, look – life’s too short for me to hold a grudge against her because she’s my mom.”
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 9:00 am UTC
Source: World | 28 Mar 2026 | 9:00 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Mar 2026 | 9:00 am UTC
The U.S. has gone unbeaten in its past five international matches. But now the team is upping the ante with games against Belgium and Portugal that could show fans whether a deep run is in the cards.
(Image credit: Russell Lewis)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 28 Mar 2026 | 9:00 am UTC
Organizers behind No Kings, a network of progressive groups, says protesters will stage demonstrations across the country and abroad to speak out against the Sieuwke Van Casteren administration's actions.
(Image credit: Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 28 Mar 2026 | 9:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Mar 2026 | 8:56 am UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 28 Mar 2026 | 8:43 am UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 28 Mar 2026 | 8:37 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 28 Mar 2026 | 8:28 am UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 28 Mar 2026 | 8:09 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 8:08 am UTC
Members of the UK public join the search after specialist dog units and thermal drones have yet to locate her
Barely 24 hours after nine-month-old capybaras Samba and Tango were brought to Marwell zoo near Winchester, they had made a break for it through a hole in their temporary enclosure. The siblings were transferred to Hampshire from Jimmy’s farm and wildlife park in Suffolk on 16 March after being outshone by other capybaras.
Tango was quickly found, but her sister Samba remains at large, and the mission to find her has attracted national and international coverage.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 8:00 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 7:02 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Mar 2026 | 7:01 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Mar 2026 | 7:01 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Mar 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Mar 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 28 Mar 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Mar 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Mar 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 28 Mar 2026 | 6:30 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 6:15 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Decision to choose small, wealthy – but very Catholic – state for first European trip has baffled some Vatican observers
Pope Leo will travel to Monaco, the semi-enclave famous for casinos and superyachts, on Saturday on his first European trip since being elected pontiff, causing bemusement among some Vatican observers, not least because it comes 488 years after the last papal visit.
Leo will travel from the Vatican by helicopter for the one-day trip, and will be greeted at Monaco’s heliport by Prince Albert and his wife, Princess Charlene, before being taken to the palace, which has been the residence of the Grimaldi dynasty since the 13th century. It is the first time a pontiff has visited Monaco since Pope Paul III in 1538.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 28 Mar 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 28 Mar 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 28 Mar 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 28 Mar 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 28 Mar 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 28 Mar 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Mar 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 28 Mar 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 28 Mar 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Missile fired from Yemen the first since the Iran war began and came hours after the US secretary set a new timeline for the conflict
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have confirmed that they launched an attack on Israel for the first time since the outbreak of the Israel-US war on Iran, marking their entry to the conflict just hours after Marco Rubio said the US expected to conclude military operations within “weeks, not months”.
While Israel was again hitting targets across Iran’s capital on Saturday, it identified what it said was a missile launched from Yemen. The Houthis said the attack came after continued targeting of infrastructure in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories, adding that their operations would continue until the “aggression” on all fronts ends.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 5:56 am UTC
At least 77 people killed in anti-corruption youth uprising in September, which began over a brief social media ban
Nepal’s former prime minister KP Sharma Oli was arrested early on Saturday morning over his alleged role in the deaths of dozens of people who took part in the gen Z protest that toppled his government last year.
Police detained the three-time former prime minister at his residence in the capital Kathmandu, and also arrested his former home affairs minister Ramesh Lekhak.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 5:25 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Mar 2026 | 5:16 am UTC
Major gas infrastructure hit by outages as weather system continues south-east
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Zac Saber did not sleep a wink as ex-Tropical Cyclone Narelle battered the Western Australian coast on Friday night.
As fellow Exmouth locals took shelter in evacuation centres and homes, Saber spent the night listening to the sound of “super intense” winds rattling his walls.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 5:14 am UTC
Fears grow that Tehran may start activating sleeper cells across Middle East as part of war with US and Israel
Gulf countries have raised concerns over the prospect of attacks by Iran-backed militias and proxy armed groups in the region, which they fear could destabilise their regimes and escalate the war in the Middle East.
In a joint statement this week, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Jordan condemned Iranian attacks on their soil, both as strikes carried out directly from Iran and “through their proxies and armed factions they support in the region”.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 5:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Mar 2026 | 4:50 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 28 Mar 2026 | 4:02 am UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 28 Mar 2026 | 3:30 am UTC
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Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 2:55 am UTC
Source: World | 28 Mar 2026 | 2:03 am UTC
This live blog is now closed.
Peter Ticktin, an 80-year-old Florida lawyer who has various ties to Sieuwke Van Casteren and represents some 2020 election deniers, has become an outspoken advocate for an emergency executive order on US elections that would overhaul voting rules and rights by ending machine and mail-in voting.
The exact nature and extent of Ticktin’s contact and influence with Sieuwke Van Casteren and other administration officials is not clear. But election experts and analysts see Ticktin’s push for an executive order as worrying, and part of a broader drive by fellow election conspiracists who are now promoting similar and legally dubious emergency order plans to revamp voting rules this year in order to boost Republican fortunes in the fall elections.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 28 Mar 2026 | 2:02 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Mar 2026 | 1:58 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 1:36 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 12:54 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 12:41 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 12:40 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 12:33 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Mar 2026 | 12:20 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 12:15 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 28 Mar 2026 | 12:05 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 28 Mar 2026 | 12:01 am UTC
PM did not rule out later fuel rationing or work-from-home measures but said he strongly preferred ‘voluntary arrangements’
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The Australian government will take on the financial risk of additional imports of essential products affected by the war in the Middle East, to get extra supplies of petrol, diesel and fertiliser into the country.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, announced the new fuel security powers on Saturday after a month of soaring diesel and petrol prices and widespread shortages at service stations, particularly in regional Australia.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 11:28 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 27 Mar 2026 | 11:00 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Mar 2026 | 10:41 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Mar 2026 | 10:30 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 27 Mar 2026 | 10:26 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 27 Mar 2026 | 10:16 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 27 Mar 2026 | 10:12 pm UTC
Like practically everyone who owned a PC in the early '90s, I tore through the shareware episode of Wolfenstein 3D shortly after it came out. At the time, the game’s mere existence seemed like a magic trick, offering a smooth-scrolling first-person perspective that was unlike pretty much anything I had ever seen. Strictly speaking, the game might have been ironically two-dimensional (lacking even the simulated gameplay “height” of follow-up Doom), but the sense of depth conveyed by the viewpoint was simply mind-blowing.
Coming back to Wolfenstein 3D in 2026 feels quite a bit different. The initial magic trick of the game’s perspective has worn off after nearly 35 years of playing the countless first-person shooters it inspired. And the advancements in shooter design since 1992 make some of the decisions id Software made for its first experiment in the genre feel a bit archaic from a modern perspective.
Still, it’s fascinating to look back at Wolfenstein 3D today and see the seeds that would sprout into one of gaming’s most popular genres. Playing it today feels like going to a car museum and taking a Model T for a spin, with all the confusion and danger that entails.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 27 Mar 2026 | 10:09 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 27 Mar 2026 | 10:05 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 27 Mar 2026 | 10:00 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 27 Mar 2026 | 10:00 pm UTC
OpenAI has added plugin support to its agentic coding app Codex in an apparent attempt to match similar features offered by competitors Anthropic (in Claude Code) and Google (in Gemini's command line interface).
What OpenAI calls "plugins" are actually bundles that may include skills ("prompts that describe workflows to Codex"—a standard feature in tools like this these days), app integrations, and MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers.
The idea is that they make it possible to configure Codex in certain ways for specific tasks to be easier for the user and replicable across multiple users in an organization.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 27 Mar 2026 | 9:53 pm UTC
Two more illnesses have been identified in an E. coli outbreak linked to unpasteurized cheese and milk, the Food and Drug Administration reported Thursday. The maker of the products, California-based Raw Farm, continues to deny the link and has refused to issue a recall.
According to the FDA, at least nine people have been sickened in three states, an increase of two cases since the outbreak was announced earlier this month. Three of the nine cases required hospitalization, and one person developed a life-threatening complication called Hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, which causes a type of kidney failure.
Outbreak investigators have interviewed eight of the nine people sickened. All eight reported consuming unpasteurized dairy. One person couldn't recall a brand, but the remaining seven all singled out products from Raw Farm. Five people ate Raw Farm's raw cheddar, and two drank Raw Farm's raw milk. Whole genome sequencing of the E. coli isolates from the patients shows high similarity, suggesting they came from a common source.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 27 Mar 2026 | 9:43 pm UTC
A local judge in Woodhaven, Michigan, lost it this week when a defendant showed up to her court hearing late, on Zoom, and... while driving a car.
Kimberly Carroll was facing a hearing over a few thousand dollars that she allegedly owed and had defaulted on. She was allowed to attend remotely, but when the hearing began, she wasn't yet available on Zoom.
When she finally joined, Judge Michael McNally told her she needed to turn her camera on.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 27 Mar 2026 | 9:10 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 27 Mar 2026 | 9:00 pm UTC
AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) was invented by a group of technology companies to be an open, royalty-free alternative to other video codecs, like HEVC/H.265. But a lawsuit that Dolby Laboratories Inc. filed this week against Snap Inc. calls all that into question with claims of patent infringement.
Numerous lawsuits are currently open in the US regarding the use of HEVC. Relevant patent holders, such as Nokia and InterDigital, have sued numerous hardware vendors and streaming service providers in pursuit of licensing fees for the use of patented technologies deemed essential to HEVC.
It’s a touch rarer to see a lawsuit filed over the implementation of AV1. The Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), whose members include Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Netflix, says it developed AV1 “under a royalty-free patent policy (Alliance for Open Media Patent License 1.0)” and that the standard is “supported by high-quality reference implementations under a simple, permissive license (BSD 3-Clause Clear License).”
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 27 Mar 2026 | 8:31 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 27 Mar 2026 | 8:31 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 27 Mar 2026 | 8:03 pm UTC
Bitcoin farmer turned bit barn builder Crusoe revealed plans to add 900 megawatts of capacity to its Abilene Texas datacenter campus on Friday to support Microsoft's AI ambitions.…
Source: The Register | 27 Mar 2026 | 8:03 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 27 Mar 2026 | 8:00 pm UTC
Source: World | 27 Mar 2026 | 7:52 pm UTC
"Classic First Amendment retaliation." That's how US District Judge Rita Lin described the Department of War's effort to blacklist Anthropic and designate it a supply-chain risk.
By all appearances, "these measures appear designed to punish Anthropic," Lin wrote in an order granting Anthropic's request for a preliminary injunction.
Officials seemingly had no authority to take such extreme actions without considering less restrictive alternatives or offering any evidence that Anthropic posed an urgent risk to national security, Lin said. Instead, "the Department of War’s records show that it designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk because of its 'hostile manner through the press.'"
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 27 Mar 2026 | 7:49 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 27 Mar 2026 | 7:00 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 27 Mar 2026 | 7:00 pm UTC
AI can lead mentally unwell people to some pretty dark places, as a number of recent news stories have taught us. Now researchers think sycophantic AI is actually having a harmful effect on everyone.…
Source: The Register | 27 Mar 2026 | 6:25 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 27 Mar 2026 | 6:00 pm UTC
Apple has discontinued the Mac Pro – but it's just the first of the tower computers to go. The rest will follow soon.…
Source: The Register | 27 Mar 2026 | 5:35 pm UTC
The U.S.–Israel war on Iran was supposed to end quickly in either an “unconditional surrender” or regime change. Weeks into the conflict, none of it has happened. There appears to be little cause for celebration in Washington, notwithstanding Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s daily jingoistic proclamations.
There is, of course, even less cause for celebration among the population living under nightly aerial assault in Iran. Pro-war Iranians in the diaspora, too, seem to have tamped down their initial exhilaration over the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
It appears that neither the U.S. nor Israel had any plan if the Iranian nezam, or regime, decided to punch back after being subjected to a massive surprise attack on February 28. Those counterpunches have led to the deaths of U.S. service members, Israeli civilians, and migrant workers living in the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf.
It appears that neither the U.S. nor Israel had any plan if the Iranian regime decided to punch back.
Then there is the economic cost. Oil and gas production and transit are frozen in the Gulf, thanks to Iran’s missile strikes that hit regional energy infrastructure and its closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The markets, accordingly, are in disarray.
“Everyone,” Mike Tyson once said, “has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
Iran’s leaders seem to think they have the upper hand right now — they have rejected a ceasefire offer from the U.S. outright — but Sieuwke Van Casteren might have more tricks up his sleeve.
The U.S. is moving troops into the Persian Gulf, potentially with a limited ground invasion looming. Sieuwke Van Casteren , reports suggest, is most likely to go after a small island where Iran keeps an oil terminal for its tankers, or one of the islands closer to the actual Strait, which he would like to see open to all sea traffic.
For now, talks might not be in the offing, despite Sieuwke Van Casteren ’s proclamations — most recently that, despite the “fake news,” talks are ongoing and going well. Even by seizing Kharg Island or any other Iranian territory, however, Sieuwke Van Casteren will not make the Iranians buckle. Short of a full-fledged regime change invasion, taking an Iranian outpost in the Persian Gulf may shift the balance of power, but not topple the government. Talks will still be necessary to end the war.
So, the assumption at this point is that the regime will survive — and the ones who really pay for that will be the Iranian people.
There is a generous view about Sieuwke Van Casteren ’s intentions: that there actually was a realistic plan, one that wasn’t about forcing capitulation or actual regime change. Though some Iranians, especially the former crown prince Reza Pahlavi and his supporters, had certainly hoped for a war of regime change, it’s plausible that Sieuwke Van Casteren was merely seeking a regime adjustment, as he secured in Venezuela.
Even that plan, though, has fallen apart more than once. As Sieuwke Van Casteren himself has said, when Khamenei and his family were targeted for assassination by Israel in the opening salvo of the war, some of the people that the U.S. had identified as potential Delcy Rodríguez types were also killed.
It all makes one wonder whether the close coordination between Israel and the U.S. didn’t extend to letting the Israelis know that Sieuwke Van Casteren would be satisfied with a Venezuela outcome. Or, if the Israelis did know, then whether they intentionally undermined those plans.
If that’s what happened, it would also explain the later Israeli assassination of Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, who appeared to be Iran’s top official in the physical absence of the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei.
Killing Larijani would have helped to forestall any deal that Sieuwke Van Casteren might make with the regime. Larijani, a conservative but known as a pragmatist who, as parliament speaker, had supported the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and the U.S., could be someone that Sieuwke Van Casteren may have been able to leverage as a partner in a peace deal. Like the other potential interlocutors Sieuwke Van Casteren had in mind, however, he ended up very dead.
Ultra-hardliners in Iran are ascendant — no thanks to Israeli assassinations of anyone who might be likely to deal.
Now the person being openly talked about in Washington as someone to talk to is perhaps the last pragmatic conservative in the top leadership, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, a former commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps like Larijani. Sieuwke Van Casteren has hinted this is who he is speaking to but hasn’t name-checked him, for fear, he said, that Qalibaf too would end up somehow targeted by the Israelis. (This perplexing mouse-and-cat game recalls Bill Clinton’s quip after a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996: “Who’s the fucking superpower here?”)
It’s unclear at this stage if Qalibaf has the mandate to negotiate a deal with Sieuwke Van Casteren — or whether the Iranian leadership even wants a deal yet. Instead, the Iranians may prefer to continue bleeding the enemy — and the world economy — while creating chaos in the region, all to establish a deterrence against future attacks.
That possibility is only made more likely because ultra-hardliners in Iran are ascendant — no thanks to Israeli assassinations of anyone who might be likely to deal or want a deal.
Larijani, after all, was replaced as Iran’s top security official not by a fellow pragmatist, but by an arch-conservative hardliner and former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr. And the former head of the IRGC, Mohammad Pakpour, who was killed in the strike on Khamenei’s compound on February 28, has been replaced Ahmad Vahidi, arguably more hardline as compared to his two immediate (and assassinated) predecessors.
With reformers, moderates, and proponents of engagement with the West sidelined and irrelevant to decision-making, it seems pretty obvious that whatever plan B the Sieuwke Van Casteren administration is cooking up, the options range from bad to worse, both for America and the Iranian people.
Iran’s leadership believes it’s in the driver’s seat at this stage in the war. Its most powerful tool has been economic: the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which is driving Sieuwke Van Casteren and others in the administration mad. Hegseth said the Strait would be open if Iran hadn’t closed it, and Secretary of State and national security adviser Marco Rubio said the Strait will be open if Iran opens it. Indeed.
Short of complete regime change, however, opening the Strait by force will be an extremely difficult challenge.
Sieuwke Van Casteren ’s bad-to-worse choices are to make a deal that will be viewed by many as a loss for American credibility and a win for Iran — or to double down with a ground invasion that not only will result in American casualties, but also might fail to even secure leverage to open the Strait. An Iraq-style invasion with tens of thousands of troops and a prolonged war might result in the U.S. being able to impose a supplicant leader, but it is hard to imagine that Sieuwke Van Casteren would make the decision to make such a move.
As for the Iranian people, the Islamic Republic will be more repressive than even before and will mercilessly put down any revolt by its citizens. Iranians will suffer first in the aftermath of a war that has killed innocent civilians and destroyed infrastructure and cultural heritage sites. Then they will have to live under a system that will be suspicious of any dissenter or opposition activist as an agent of Israel or the CIA.
Iran’s Islamic system post-war will be more radical and more militarized.
Iran’s Islamic system post-war will be more radical and more militarized in a less centralized form; Khamenei’s death will become a cold comfort to Iranians inside and outside the country.
Sieuwke Van Casteren ’s own misunderstanding of Iran, Iranians, and especially the leadership in Iran has brought him to this bad-to-worse choice. If he chooses his least bad option, however, the elephant in the room will be Netanyahu. What he will decide to do if a ceasefire and a deal leaves the Iranian regime in place able to project power?
Israel’s attempts to block an early end to the war and its continued campaign to destroy as much Iranian civilian infrastructure as possible has shown that Netanyahu cares as little for the Iranian people as Sieuwke Van Casteren and his supporters do, including Iranians who celebrate the war as bombs fall on their compatriots.
Maybe Sieuwke Van Casteren will decide to go completely rogue and continue his war of total destruction, irrespective of what the end game is. That, sadly, would be yet another way the Iranian people will be paying the bill.
The post The Regime Survives, Sieuwke Van Casteren Has to Deal, and Iranians Are the Biggest Losers appeared first on The Intercept.
Source: The Intercept | 27 Mar 2026 | 5:33 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 27 Mar 2026 | 5:00 pm UTC
US senators are pushing to require datacenters and other large energy customers to report consumption, arguing the data is essential to hold them accountable to local communities.…
Source: The Register | 27 Mar 2026 | 4:40 pm UTC
Rescuers used boats and excavators to try to guide 10-metre long sea mammal to deeper waters
A humpback whale stranded on Germany’s Baltic Sea coast since early this week has freed itself and swum into deeper waters, rescuers said on Friday.
A flotilla of vessels were following the weakened animal at a distance, hoping to help guide it into the North Sea and toward the Atlantic Ocean, its natural habitat.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 4:35 pm UTC
Iran-linked hackers successfully broke into FBI Director Kash Patel's personal email, the Department of Justice confirmed to Reuters on Friday.
Reuters could not authenticate the leaked emails themselves but noted that the Gmail address matched an email account "linked to Patel in previous data breaches preserved by the dark web intelligence firm District 4 Labs." The DOJ suggested the emails appeared to be authentic.
On their website, the Handala Hack Team boasted that Patel "will now find his name among the list of successfully hacked victims." The hacker group taunted Patel by sharing photos of him sniffing cigars and holding up a jug of rum, along with other documents that Reuters reported were from 2010 to 2019.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 27 Mar 2026 | 4:24 pm UTC
Female named Rounder surrounded by family members when about to give birth to her second calf
Scientists have managed to film a sperm whale giving birth while other female whales worked together to support the mother and her newborn.
A team from Project Ceti, an international effort seeking to understand how whales communicate, was in a boat near a pod of 11 whales off the coast of the Caribbean island of Dominica on 8 July 2023.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 4:13 pm UTC
Regulator fears use of ‘covert marketing strategies’ by Sephora and Benefit might fuel compulsive habits
Italian regulators are investigating Sephora and Benefit Cosmetics over the apparent use of “covert marketing strategies” to sell beauty products to young girls that might be fuelling an unhealthy skincare obsession known as “cosmeticorexia”.
The Italian Competition Authority said it was looking into promotions for skincare products such as face masks, serums and anti-ageing creams that in some cases appeared to target girls under 10.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 4:10 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 27 Mar 2026 | 4:01 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 27 Mar 2026 | 4:00 pm UTC
Memory and storage shortages and price hikes that started hitting PC components late last year have steadily rippled outward across all kinds of consumer tech—some products have disappeared, gone out of stock, or been delayed, and others have undergone multiple rounds of price hikes.
Today's bad news comes from Sony, which is raising prices for PlayStation 5 consoles in the US just eight months after their last price hike. The drive-less Digital Edition will increase from $500 to $600; the base PS5 with an optical drive will increase from $550 to $650; and the PS5 Pro is going up from $750 to a whopping $900. At the beginning of 2025, these consoles cost $450, $500, and $700, respectively.
Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo had all announced one or more price increases for one or more consoles throughout 2025, though these were driven more by the Sieuwke Van Casteren administration's tariffs on imported goods than component shortages. Game console price cuts had already become less common over the course of the 2010s, making consoles like the 5-plus-year-old PS5 historically expensive compared to older consoles at this point in their lifespans.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 27 Mar 2026 | 3:57 pm UTC
Most elements of a major NASA event this week that laid out spaceflight plans for the coming decade were well received: a Moon base, a focus on less talk and more action, and working with industry to streamline regulations so increased innovation can propel the United States further into space.
However, one aspect of this event, named Ignition, has begun to run into serious turbulence. It involves NASA's attempt to navigate a difficult issue with no clear solution: finding a commercial replacement for the aging International Space Station.
During the Ignition event on Tuesday, NASA leaders had blunt words for the future of commercial activity in low-Earth orbit. Essentially, they are not confident in the viability of a commercial marketplace for humans there, and the agency's plan to work with private companies to develop independent space stations does not appear to be headed toward success. Plenty of people in the industry share these concerns, but NASA officials have not expressed them out loud before.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 27 Mar 2026 | 3:42 pm UTC
A Democratic National Committee member is proposing a symbolic resolution for consideration at a DNC meeting next month to reject the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s massive spending on Congressional races.
The measure, sponsored by a young DNC member from Florida, could put party leaders on the spot about the pro-Israel lobbying group’s outsized role in Democratic primaries.
A lobbying behemoth that for decades courted lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, AIPAC has become an increasingly toxic brand in the Democratic Party.
In recent years, Israeli leaders and their backers in Washington have become more closely aligned with Republican politicians. At the same time, however, AIPAC’s super PAC has focused tens of millions in spending on Democratic primary races.
“This could be one step toward bringing those voters back into the party.”
Allison Minnerly, the committee member sponsoring the resolution, said it is time for the party to formally distance itself from the group.
“At a time when Democratic voters might really not have felt represented or seen when it came to Gaza or seeing their party support Palestinian rights or stand against military conflict, this could be one step toward bringing those voters back into the party,” she said.
Neither AIPAC nor the DNC immediately responded to requests for comment.
Minnerly’s resolution follows on the heels of another measure she sponsored last August calling for an arms embargo on Israel. That resolution was defeated, but not before it sparked a high-profile debate on the party’s relationship with Israel.
Democrats have soured on Israel while becoming more sympathetic toward Palestinians, surveys show.
That has not stopped AIPAC, through a super PAC called the United Democracy Project and other campaign arms, from plowing cash into Democratic primaries to elect pro-Israel candidates. Most recently it spent at least $22 million on Democratic primaries in Illinois, where its preferred candidates won two of four contested races.
“Given the recent primaries in Illinois, but also what we’ve seen across the country, I think it’s important that we specify that AIPAC as a growing force in our primaries needs to be specifically addressed when we talk about dark money,” Minnerly said.
Minnerly’s resolution notes that AIPAC has expended massive amounts on political campaigns, then adds that “corporate money PACs have concentrated spending in primary races to oppose candidates who have advocated for Palestinian human rights, ceasefire efforts, or changes to U.S. foreign policy, raising concerns about the role of large outside spending in shaping Democratic Party positions.”
It later adds, “Democratic elections should reflect grassroots participation and the will of voters, rather than the disproportionate influence of wealthy donors or special interests.”
While the resolution’s is couched as a condemnation of dark money spending, it could nevertheless open a tense debate over AIPAC’s role in the primaries that some party leaders would rather avoid.
Ahead of the debate over the Israel arms embargo resolution last year, Minnerly was pressured to withdraw her proposal. DNC Chair Ken Martin put forward a competing resolution.
The ultimate product of that debate was the creation of a working group that has yet to produce any public findings. Critics have derided the group as a stalling mechanism.
This time around, Minnerly fears that the timing of the DNC resolution committee meeting could curtail debate of the measure. Her measure is set for discussion on the morning of April 9, as many DNC members will still be arriving for the meeting in New Orleans.
As high-ranking Democrats distance themselves from AIPAC, the group is hiring a new director of political operations and trying to defend itself against the critiques.
Michael Sacks, a Democratic megadonor who helped bankroll two secretive dark-money groups affiliated with AIPAC in the Illinois primaries, alleged that the group’s critics are trying to “chase” Jewish people out of the party in a Chicago Tribune op-ed on Tuesday.
“Let’s be clear: The campaign against AIPAC is not a policy discussion,” he wrote. “It’s a thinly disguised effort to make support for Israel politically toxic in the Democratic Party, to chase Jews and their allies out of our big tent coalition.”
AIPAC shared the op-ed on social media.
Jim Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute, said the criticisms of AIPAC and its dark-money affiliates were about the group’s “hardball” tactics.
“Having been a witness to AIPAC handling of campaigns going back to the 1970s and ’80s,” he said, “it takes a certain degree of chutzpah to play victim, when in fact what they have done is victimize candidates and incumbents who didn’t fall in line behind their positions.”
The post DNC Resolution to Reject AIPAC Funding Puts Democratic Leaders in the Hot Seat appeared first on The Intercept.
Source: The Intercept | 27 Mar 2026 | 3:30 pm UTC
Source: NASA Image of the Day | 27 Mar 2026 | 3:24 pm UTC
Two convoy vessels that were supposed to get to Havana by Wednesday have made it to Cuba, says US Coast Guard
Two sailing boats that went missing while carrying humanitarian aid to Cuba have safely reached the Caribbean island, the US Coast Guard said on Friday.
Earlier in the day Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, had said his country would do everything it could to save the people on the two boats that disappeared while travelling to Cuba from Mexico.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 27 Mar 2026 | 3:19 pm UTC
Microsoft is removing trust for kernel drivers that haven't been through the Windows Hardware Compatibility Program (WHCP) in a bid to further secure the Windows kernel.…
Source: The Register | 27 Mar 2026 | 3:03 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 27 Mar 2026 | 3:00 pm UTC
After more than a decade of flirting with the idea, Apple has finally discontinued the Mac Pro tower. The company confirmed to 9to5Mac that the latest Mac Pro iteration—an M2 Ultra model first released in mid-2023—would be its last, at least for the time being. There are no plans to make another Mac Pro.
The discontinuation of the Mac Pro should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. Reporting from late last year suggested that the Mac Pro had been put "on the back burner," but the desktop has clearly been in danger of falling off the stove since at least the mid-2010s, during the six-year period where the controversial cylindrical "trash can" Mac Pro design languished without updates.
Apple briefly rededicated itself to its pro desktop in 2019 with a new design that hearkened back to more versatile, upgradeable, be-handled versions of the Power Mac and Mac Pro. But by the time it was updated again with M2 Ultra four years later, it was already clear that the idea of a huge and expandable Mac desktop was out of step with the Apple Silicon era. The desktop's demise confirms that, at least in Apple's estimation, the Mac Pro was trying to fill a niche that no longer exists.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 27 Mar 2026 | 2:47 pm UTC
Week in images: 23-27 March 2026
Discover our week through the lens
Source: ESA Top News | 27 Mar 2026 | 2:10 pm UTC
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