VIJAY PRASHAD looks at the web of militias and drug-trafficking gangs that emerged in the Sweida region through the Syrian civil war, and how they relate to recent clashes and Israel’s intervention

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any wackier, we get the return of Michele Bachmann.
The Minnesota Tea Party Republican, who served in Congress between 2006-2015 and briefly ran for president, likes to extol the virtues of “American exceptionalism,” and claims the US is “the indispensable nation of the world.”

The crew of the Freedom Flotilla boat, Handala, warned Israel to obey international law but are now in captivity, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

Waves of protesters are refusing to comply with the latest crackdowns on dissent, but the penalties are higher in Starmer’s Labour Britain than in Trump’s autocratic United States, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

Funds are being raised to bring the bombed al-Shifa hospital back from the ashes, reports Linda Pentz Gunter

From Labour’s panic over the Corbyn-Sultana formation to Democratic Party grandees distancing themselves from Zohran Mamdani, centrist cliques on both sides of the Atlantic are quick to throw the same old insult, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER