The National Guard and Memphis police officers were responding to a shots-fired call in downtown Memphis in the early hours of July 5 shortly before 4 a.m. local time. Officials previously said the officers and Guard members pursued an “armed male carrying a handgun” after seeing several people leaving the area. The National Guard has said Johnson turned toward the Guard members while holding his weapon.
According to the newly obtained autopsy, Johnson had a gunshot wound that entered the right side of his back and an exit wound on the upper right side of his chest. There was no gunshot stippling, soot, or muzzle imprint on the wound, indicating he was shot at range.
The cause of death was a gunshot wound, and the manner of death was ruled a homicide. A death being ruled a homicide in an autopsy does not automatically mean it was a criminal act.
Officials said two members of the National Guard fired shots, but the autopsy only showed one gunshot wound. Officials have not said if he pointed the gun at the National Guard members.
The personal effects listed in the autopsy report included a “handgun magazine with rounds” but did not list a handgun.
A toxicology screen was done on Johnson’s blood and came back with “no positive findings” of drugs or alcohol in his system.
A large section of Union Avenue around Ida B. Wells was blocked off by law enforcment after a fatal shooting involving members of the National … Show more
Jack Armstrong/The Commercial Appeal
Why has the National Guard been in Memphis?
Guard spokesperson Lt. Col. Darrin Haas previously said the National Guard was in the area as part of the Memphis Safe Task Force, established by the Trump administration to combat crime in the city. Memphis is among several Democrat-led U.S. cities where the administration has deployed the National Guard, citing crime and protests, including Washington, DC, where they have been for a year.
“We’re going to make Memphis safe again,” Trump said at the time.
The National Guard has been patrolling the streets of Memphis both on its own and alongside law enforcement. Guard members are routinely seen at crime scenes. Many of them are military police and are mostly trained to enforce military law and defend military bases, vastly different training than Memphis police receive.
The shooting in July was the fourth shooting, and third fatal shooting, involving a member of the Task Force in Memphis, which also includes the FBI, Homeland Security and other federal forces.
It is not clear whether charges could be filed against the two National Guard members for the shooting. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said an investigation is “open and ongoing,” and the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office said a charging decision had not yet been made.
The National Guard did not respond to a request for comment from The Commercial Appeal.
The fatal shooting of a man in Memphis by an armed Tennessee National Guardsman on Sunday brought shock and concern to some members of the community. Those feelings were still fresh Wednesday when word arrived that another person had been killed by a member of the Memphis Safe Task Force.
“It’s another day in an occupied city,” sighed Jessica Miller, an organizer with the activist group Indivisible Memphis, which has strongly opposed the presence of the task force in her city since it was announced by President Donald Trump on September 15.
The White House cited “tremendous levels of violent crime” in Memphis when it bolstered law enforcement resources there — a move that drew cautious support from the city’s mayor and mirrored a similar effort in Washington, DC.
Wednesday’s shooting of Alfonso Ivy, 47, by a Drug Enforcement Administration agent was the fifth involving a member of the task force and the fourth since May. Officials say the suspect “pointed a handgun at members of the Memphis Safe Task Force,” while fleeing a warrant on drug charges.
In Sunday’s shooting, suspect Tyrin Johnson, 20, was described asa person “armed with a handgun” who had “reportedly fired shots in the area,” although a statement from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation says the reason guardsmen fired in that case is “under investigation.”
The Trump administration and its Republican supporters in Tennessee point to falling crime in the city known as the Home of the Blues as proof that the task force is effective in making residents safer. The city has faced the distinction of having the highest violent crime rate last year among US cities with a population over 250,000, according to a CNN review of FBI data.
But after the fatal shootings this week, and withno end to the task force mission in sight, critics say they feel under siege.
“There’s no accountability, and there’s no goalposts,” said Miller. “Even where there were goalposts, they keep being moved.”
Few answers yet on Task Force shootings
All five shootings connected to the task force have involved federal law enforcement officers, and the TBIsays they are still under active investigation. No updates have been provided about the investigations, and no charges have been filed in any of the cases.
The NAACP on Friday called for a federal investigation into Johnson’s death.
“The federal government has unique expertise and skill in investigating law enforcement misconduct, and in the case of Mr. Johnson, there are challenges that arise given the involvement of federal officials,” state NAACP president Gloria Sweet-Love wrote to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in a letter that also called on the Memphis Safe Task Force to be suspended immediately.
The five incidents match the total number of officer-involved shootings involving the Memphis Police Department and the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office for all of 2024, according to TBI records. There were four police shooting cases in Memphis investigated by the TBI in 2025 before the task force was formed.
The task force combining local law enforcement with the National Guard, state troopers, and several federal agencies was created with the promise of lowering the city’s crime rates.
“We’ve been here a short while, and in another two or three months, you’re going to have, like, no crime,” Trump said in a speech celebrating the task force in March.
As of Wednesday, there had been a 40% drop in “serious crimes,” including murder and sexual assault, in Memphis over the last 10 months compared to the same period a year earlier, according to city records.
The task force — including its federal, state and local officers — made 10,883 arrests, spokesperson Dave Oney told CNN on Thursday.
Opponents of the task force note that crime was already decreasing in Memphis before the unit’s arrival. The Memphis Police Department said that included nearly 500 fewer people shot in Memphis in 2025 compared to the year before.
As investigations continue, patrols intensify
Although Memphis has mostly Democratic political leadership, the cooperation of Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee – who signed off on the National Guard deployment – has given them little room to fight the presence of armed troops on Memphis streets. Tuesday, Lee told CNN’s affiliate WMC he was waiting for more information on Monday’s shooting.
Although Memphis has mostly Democratic political leadership, the cooperation of Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee – who signed off on the National Guard deployment – has given them little room to challenge the presence of armed troops on Memphis streets after similar deployments were successfully turned back by leaders in Chicago and Portland, Oregon. Tuesday, Lee told CNN’s affiliate WMC he was waiting for more information on Monday’s shooting.
“I am proud of the work they’ve done,” Lee said. “But anytime there is a shooting involving law enforcement or the National Guard, we want to make certain there is a full investigation, and that’s what’s happening.”
Democratic Mayor Paul Young – who himself was the victim of stalking and attempted kidnapping in his own home last year – has said the city is willing to accept the help, and he declined to weigh in on the task force shootings while they are still being investigated.
“I want to let all of the information from the investigation play out before making any remarks,” he said to WMC after Monday’s shooting. “But I will say this. It hurts to lose anybody. And I hate to see anyone lose their life.”
Members of the National Guard patrol on October 11, 2025 in Memphis as part of a federal task force established by President Trump.Brett Carlsen/Getty Images
Miller says she passes federal street patrols nearly every day, and some task force patrols are becoming more intense as the National Guard gets involved more directly with law enforcement patrols.
“In the beginning, they were almost like tourists,” she said. “We saw them walking around, going to the Peabody (Hotel), just going down Beale Street, walking around shopping centers. But over the past couple of months, we have seen an increase in the aggressiveness.”
Gov. Lee told NPR when the task force was organized last year, state Guard troops would not be armed unless law enforcement requested it.
Some members of the community say they don’t feel safer and were hoping to get answers from Memphis Police Chief CJ Davis, who was scheduled to attend a public safety town hall hours after Wednesday’s shooting. She had to cancel due to a “conflict,” the state senator hosting the town hall said.
“This is not a reality that anyone should be expected to live in. What is happening is unfathomable,” resident Dai Williams told WMC.
Activists filed suit after clashes with task force
After the intense federal immigration enforcement operations in several major Democratic-majority cities in the past year, local activists say many in the Memphis immigrant community have been afraid to be seen in public for fear of being detained. Indivisible Memphis started a service to deliver food and personal supplies to immigrants.
“We’ve made over 3,000 deliveries in the past year,” said Miller. “People have reported avoiding work, avoiding medical appointments, avoiding school, even avoiding reportingcrimes because they fear the interaction with law enforcement.”
Members of the Tennessee National Guard working as part of the Memphis Safe Task Force conduct a community safety patrol on Oct. 12, 2025, in Memphis.George Walker IV/AP/File
Following a pattern seen in other cities, some groups in Memphis have been following Task Force vehicles and monitoring their activity.
Under Tennessee’s “Halo Law,” any law enforcement officer can order a civilian to get at least 25 feet away from a crime scene. Four people represented by the ACLU of Tennessee filed a lawsuit in May accusing the task force of abusing the law to block them from documenting officers’ actions, sometimes ordering them to stay more than 100 feet away from arrest scenes.
“The recent shootings are yet another example of the harm being carried out on the ground that’s making people unsafe,” said Zee Scout, an attorney for the ACLU of Tennessee. “Certainly, it is another example of the importance of documenting what’s happening.”
In one case, Jessica Chodor testified in the lawsuit she approached a scene where law enforcement that was part of the task force had reportedly pulled two people over to document it and was told she had to go back to her car. Chodor refused, body camera footage obtained by the ACLU showed, but moved across the street, saying she would stay 25 feet away.
The state trooper grabbed her as she was walking away from him, the video showed, handcuffing her and forcing her to the ground. The trooper can be heard in the video telling Chodor, “You’re resisting arrest and interfering.”
“While they pinned me to the ground, the officers put such a forceful weight on my back that I could not breathe,” Chodor said in the suit. “The amount of force they were using terrified me, and I worried I could be killed.”
Chodor testified that she was detained for 27 hours and charged with Resisting Official Detention. The charge was dropped in December.
“I am incredibly anxious and scared that they will retaliate against me again,” Chodor wrote in a lawsuit affidavit, “but I refuse to let their intimidation tactics stop me from exercising my rights and supporting my community members who are even more often victimized by their abuses of power.”
President Donald Trump arrives at Graceland, the home of singer Elvis Presley, on March 23 after participating in a Memphis Safe Task Force roundtable.Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images
In their response to the lawsuit, the Trump administration said the law enforcement response to the activists is constitutional because it “was to respond to obstructive conduct and perform their law-enforcement duties, not to retaliate against Plaintiffs for any First Amendment expressive conduct.”
With no clear answer to how long armed troops and federal agents will remain on their streets, Memphis activists like Miller insist there are better ways to make the city safer.
“There’s things that could be put in place in Memphis that would actually make long-term change to the crime rate instead of an occupation that, whenever they leave, it’s not going to make a difference,” she said.
Hydropower, or hydroelectric power, harnesses the energy of moving water to generate electricity. It’s one of the oldest and most widely used renewable energy sources, relying on the natural water cycle to continuously replenish its fuel supply. Large dams and reservoirs are the most recognizable form, but hydropower also includes run-of-river systems that divert a portion of a river’s flow through a turbine.
The allure of hydropower stems from its high energy output and relatively low operating costs once a facility is built. Unlike fossil fuel plants, hydropower doesn’t directly emit greenhouse gasses during electricity generation, making it an attractive alternative in the fight against climate change. Moreover, hydropower facilities can provide a range of additional benefits, including flood control, water supply for irrigation and drinking, and recreational opportunities.
Awareness of glacio-hydrological situation in Nepal
Integrating glacio-hydrological and power grid models to assess the climate-resiliency of high mountain hydropower in Nepal
•Climate change impacts on hydro-dominated power systems in a high-mountain country.
•Coupling of glacio-hydrological model and a high spatial-temporal power grid model.
•Adaptation strategies for surplus electricity management are more critical in wet scenarios.
•Storage hydro capacity needs drop by 7.2 in Cold-Wet & 6.8 GW in Warm-Wet scenarios.
•Employing adaptation strategies results in cost savings of about 3.76 billion USD.
Abstract
Climate change significantly impacts hydrological systems resulting in hydropower generation uncertainties. In this study, a high-resolution glacio-hydrological model is coupled with an hourly-resolution power grid model to evaluate the climate change influences on hydropower generation across Nepal. Four climate future scenarios namely Cold-Dry, Warm-Dry, Cold-Wet, and Warm-Wet are developed to compare the changes in water availability and optimal power system with historical climate. The total flow increases for the wet scenarios (+11.4% under Cold-Wet for the Koshi basin), compared to the dry scenarios (−24.6% under Warm-Dry for the Karnali basin) for all the major river basins in Nepal. The results illustrate the distribution and magnitude of changes in total water availability and power generation are not proportional for dry and wet scenarios as a ∼20% reduction of water availability in the dry scenarios only results in a ∼2–3% decrease in electricity generation. The capacity requirements of hydro storage decrease by 7.2 GW for Cold-Wet and 6.8 GW for Warm-Wet scenarios compared to historical climate indicating higher capacity requirements in dry scenarios. Larger impacts observed at higher altitudes suggest more attentive adaptation strategies in developing climate-resilient hydropower systems. Results suggest that Nepal should not be entirely focused on exploiting its hydropower potential but rather diversifying the generation mix including solar PV and hydrogen technology. For the least-cost power system expansion, the Warm-Wet climate appears to be the most desirable and a cost savings of about 3.76 billion USD in hydropower development can be realized if better adaptation strategies are employed
Nepali rescuers seeking to reach hydropower workers believed trapped in tunnels swamped by flood debris have resumed work after rain and rising river waters hampered efforts.
Nepal’s government says more than 100 workers may still be alive and trapped inside multiple tunnels at hydropower projects, with key rescue efforts focused on the Trishuli 3A and 3B sites.
Could have been 900 workers in the tunnels at the time of the flood.
Nepal flood disaster: 900-plus hydropower workers among 3,000 still missing
KATHMANDU Sun, 30 Aug 2026
Nepal’s disaster authorities have identified 933 hydropower workers among those missing, with rescuers racing against time to reach workers believed to be trapped inside tunnels at several power projects in the Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts.
The number is particularly significant because many of the affected hydropower projects are either operational or under construction, and workers were inside tunnels and other underground facilities when the floodwaters and huge volumes of mud and debris struck.
At the Upper Trishuli 1 hydropower project, 350 of 576 people initially reported missing had been rescued by Saturday, while 93 remained unaccounted for at the Rasuwagadhi project. Another 42 were missing from the Langtang Khola project, 158 from Upper Trishuli 3B and 42 from Upper Trishuli 3A, according to information available to rescuers. Officials have warned that the actual number could be higher because some construction projects may have workers who were not formally registered.
The immediate priority is to determine how many of those still missing are alive inside the tunnels.
An 11-member Indian rescue and medical team, including specialists experienced in tunnel operations, has arrived in Nepal to support the effort. India has also been sending relief supplies and other assistance as the scale of the catastrophe has become clearer.
The claim that the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency cut funding for a U.S. Agency for International Development and NASA program in early 2025 that provided early warning for floods in Nepal is still under investigation.
The rumor stems from X posts by Jeremy Konyndyk, a former Biden- and Obama-era USAID official, about the SERVIR program, which he wrote carried out “flood prediction, early warning, disaster readiness, glacier inventories, and mapping dangerous glacial lakes” in Nepal.
According to the SERVIR program’s website in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, which includes Nepal, the program had “concluded” in January 2025. Snopes could not independently verify whether the program ended because DOGE pulled USAID/NASA funding or for another reason.
Because the program ended before the deadly August 2026 floods, it’s impossible to say whether increased monitoring or an early-warning system could have enabled evacuations or saved lives.
Here’s a number Donald Trump will never say out loud: 48.
That’s how many of America’s top researchers quietly walked out of Harvard, MIT, Yale, Carnegie Mellon, UCSF, the University of Michigan and the National Institutes of Health this summer, and walked into Canadian universities with a cheque from Ottawa in their hand and a look on their face like someone who just got out of a bad marriage.
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On Thursday, Mélanie Joly stood up at UBC in Vancouver and announced the first 64 Eddie Goldenberg Research Chairs of Canada. Three quarters of them came from the United States. All four of the top-tier, highest-paid distinguished chairs came from the US. The federal government is putting $504 million behind them over eight years, plus another $37 million to recruit 63 younger researchers over the next year, all of it under a $1.7 billion talent program Carney’s government launched in December while everybody was watching the tariff fight.
Everyone with a pulse saw this coming in January of 2025. JD Vance had already stood at a National Conservatism podium and told the room that professors are the enemy. RFK Jr. was about to run American health policy. Vatnik Soup posted at the time that the resulting brain drain would be unprecedented and that Europe and Canada should welcome these academics with open arms. That was a prediction. This week it became an invoice.
Then Trump actually did it. By January of this year Nature had counted more than 7,800 American research grants terminated or frozen and roughly 25,000 scientists and staff walking out of federal research agencies. He went after foreign students. He went after anything with the word equity in it. He accused universities of harbouring people who hate America, which is a strange thing to say about the places that gave America the internet, mRNA vaccines and the atomic bomb.
The late Eddie Goldenberg, Chrétien’s old chief of staff, saw the opening and spent his last months telling Ottawa and the universities to make an ambitious play for every disaffected researcher in Trump’s America. Carney’s government listened, rebranded the whole program in his name, and put real money behind it. Each chair gets at least a million dollars a year for eight years to build a lab and hire a team. The distinguished chairs get $1.5 million a year. That is not a job offer. That is a life raft with a research budget.
·
June 3, 2025
The names that should embarrass Washington
Phillip Zamore. He ran the RNA Therapeutics Institute at the University of Massachusetts. RNA therapeutics is the field that gave the world the COVID vaccine. He is now going to McGill. He told the Globe and Mail he shopped his move to Europe and Japan before Canada made him an offer that took his breath away, and then he said the part that should be carved into the wall of every Republican senator’s office: “I’ve pretty much lost my country.” He said he was scared to keep being a scientist in America, that the international trainees he wanted to recruit could be denied visas or deported. He didn’t leave because Montreal has better bagels. He left because his own government made him afraid.
Kevin Hall. This one is personal for anyone who has watched RFK Jr. pretend to care about what Americans eat. Hall was one of the most respected nutrition scientists at the NIH. He ran the studies on ultraprocessed food that actually proved the thing Kennedy keeps yelling about. He quit last year and said federal officials were censoring his work. The guy whose research made the “Make America Healthy Again” slogan sound remotely credible is now at the University of Ottawa, because the people running MAHA couldn’t stand him telling the truth about it.
Peter Caravan. A kid from Newfoundland who did his undergrad at Acadia, his PhD at UBC, and then spent twenty years at Mass General and Harvard Medical School building one of the top molecular imaging programs on the planet. He’s coming back to UBC as a distinguished chair with $12 million in research money. He stood at the podium Thursday, got choked up, and said he meant it in the literal sense when he called it an honour. He was coming home. He also said nobody from Canada recruited him. He came looking for us.
There’s more. Sara Seager, the MIT astrophysicist who hunts for life on other planets, is at U of T. Curtis Huttenhower left Harvard for UBC. Kathryn Whitehead left Carnegie Mellon for UBC to work down the hall from Pieter Cullis, the Canadian who invented the lipid nanoparticles inside every mRNA shot on earth, and she said she wasn’t even looking. Ethan Zuckerman, the man who invented the pop-up ad and later apologized for it, is going to McGill, which is the only part of this story America might be glad to lose.
How happy are they? Look at the tape
Nobody in these interviews sounds like a mercenary. They sound like people who got out.
Zamore said the things he valued about democracy, especially the role of science within it, no longer exist at the federal level in America. Caravan cried. Whitehead called it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Dozens of the 64 are Canadians who left for the American money years ago and are coming back now that the American money comes with a loyalty test attached.
That’s the part the Trump people will never understand. Scientists don’t need a flag. They need a lab, a budget, students who won’t be deported, and a government that doesn’t fire them for publishing the wrong result. For eighty years the United States had all four. In eighteen months it burned three of them for a photo op.
Masked Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian woman and an NBC News crew in the West Bank town of Jalud on Saturday while the team was interviewing Aida Ahmed Abdullah, who said settlers had driven her family from their home. Video shows a car with Israeli plates reversing toward the group before at least four masked men jumped out and beat the woman and journalists with sticks and thrown rocks, injuring Abdullah along with NBC correspondent Matt Bradley and three other crew members, though Israeli authorities said her injuries were not life-threatening. The attack came amid a broader wave of settler violence in the area, including a days-long siege of the nearby village of Qusra and settlers pepper-spraying Palestinian workers there the same day. Israeli security forces said they intervened to separate the groups and confiscated vehicles linked to the rioters, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the violence as the work of “a handful of rioters,” though his government has faced accusations of turning a blind eye to settler attacks, which according to U.N. data killed 76 Palestinians between January and July compared to three Israelis killed over the same period. The West Bank, home to about 3 million Palestinians and 500,000 Israeli settlers since Israel captured it in 1967, has also seen a reported rise in attacks on journalists amid the escalating violence.
Source: Aaron Parnas, Substack
Palestinian woman and NBC News team attacked by masked Israeli settlers in West Bank
The woman and crew were treated for injuries. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he condemned the violence committed “by a handful of rioters.”
Wyden Releases New Report on Failure of Wall Street Banks to Blow the Whistle on Jeffrey Epstein’s Sex Trafficking and Money Laundering Schemes
‘Looking the Other Way’ Report Caps 4-Year Investigation Into Banks Ignoring Hundreds of Millions of Dollars in Suspicious Transfers; Report Reveals Obstruction by Treasury Department, Senate Republicans and Major Banks; Wyden Outlines Roadmap for Accountability and Legislation to Stop the Ultra-Wealthy from Brazenly Flouting the Law
Washington, D.C. – Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., today released a new report detailing how years of complicity by top officials at multiple Wall Street Banks enabled Jeffrey Epstein to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars around the world to finance his sex trafficking operation.
Wyden’s report, “Looking the Other Way,” caps a 4-year investigation that included the review of Suspicious Activity reports (SARs), material from multiple lawsuits and court filings and requests for information sent to Wall Street Banks and the Treasury Department. The report lays out compelling evidence that top bankers looked the other way and allowed Epstein to have ready access to the mountains of cash he used to lure, harbor, and transport his victims.
The report exposes how top bankers shielded Epstein from federal scrutiny by delaying the reporting of Epstein’s suspicious financial activity to the U.S. government, likely in violation of federal anti-money-laundering laws. It includes new details about the extent of suspicious activity reported by Deutsche Bank after Epstein’s death, new details from bank reports filed about suspicious transfers to Epstein through accounts at Bank of America, and names top officials at JPMorgan Chase and other banks who were responsible for reporting Epstein’s shady activities to the government but instead protected Epstein in order to gain access to Leon Black and other billionaires.
“I said from the start that if you want to get to the bottom of the Jeffery Epstein cover-up, you had to follow the money. My small team of investigators did what Trump’s attorney general and Treasury secretary said was impossible: they connected the dots and found evidence of multiple crimes related to Epstein’s associates. Bank records they reviewed, along with public court filings, detail a shocking pattern of the biggest Wall Street banks in the country choosing to ignore clear evidence of sex trafficking and money laundering, just to keep a wealthy client on the books,” Wyden said. “This report is a ready-made roadmap for prosecutors, investigators and members of Congress to finally start holding the Epstein class accountable.”
And in recent news:
Capital One says Trump Organization accounts were closed after money laundering review
Abu Dhabi: The Central Bank of the UAE reviewed the issued statement of yesterday by the U.S. authorities regarding Proposal of Special Measure Regarding Banque Misr UAE branches, as a Financial Institution Operating Outside of the United States of Primary Money Laundering Concern. The Central Bank would like to emphasise the following:
1- Branches of Banque Misr operating in the UAE are subject to the laws and regulations in force in the UAE.
2- The Central Bank expects banks licensed in the UAE not to expose the UAE’s financial system to reputational risks, to respect the laws and regulations of the countries whose financial institutions are used in conducting transactions, and not to misuse the advanced financial infrastructure of the UAE.
3- The Central Bank periodically examines the procedures for Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) at banks operating in the UAE, verifies the effectiveness of the sanctions screening and other systems, and requires banks to enhance these procedures and systems in accordance with the requirements of the applicable laws and regulations.
4- For Banque Misr branches in the UAE, the Central Bank has decided to conduct a special and urgent examination that includes a forensic/in-depth lookback covering the period referred to in the statement issued by the U.S. authorities, with a focus on banking transactions of the companies mentioned in the statement.
5- The Central Bank is currently studying the available options regarding the status of the bank in the event it is decided to impose the special measure against it after completing the procedures in accordance with U.S. laws. The appropriate decision in this regard will be taken in due course, taking into consideration the obligations of the bank towards its customers in the UAE.
As a state-owned institution, Bank Misr is deeply connected to Egypt’s national heritage. It was founded in 1920 by Talaat Harb and other notable figures as the country’s first bank fully owned by citizens, with a mission to support domestic growth without reliance on the West. Nationalized in 1960, it now ranks as Egypt’s second-largest bank and holds significant investments across various economic sectors.
The main concern, according to sources, is that global financial partners might defensively restrict or closely scrutinize their dealings with the wider Bank Misr network to avoid compliance issues. Any operational disruptions could be highly damaging to Egypt’s fragile economy. The country is currently battling a weak currency and declining foreign exchange reserves, while regional conflicts have severely cut into key revenue sources like tourism. As a result, Cairo has increasingly depended on multibillion-dollar rescue aid from the UAE and the International Monetary Fund.
Timothy Kaldas of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy observed that while Washington intentionally designed the sanctions to isolate the UAE branch, this strategy does not guarantee the parent company will avoid collateral damage. He predicted that international compliance teams will inevitably scrutinize all transactions involving Bank Misr more closely.
Bank Misr’s UAE division has operated for over four decades, with branches in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and Ras Al Khaimah. Besides offering standard retail and corporate banking, these branches serve as a vital channel for Egyptian expatriates in the Gulf to send money home—a crucial source of foreign currency for Cairo.
The Treasury Department alleged that the branch’s clients included shell companies linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran’s Ministry of Defense. These entities allegedly sought to evade sanctions and launder funds for Mujtaba Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader.
Under a new proposed regulation, the Treasury aims to cut off Bank Misr UAE from U.S. correspondent banking services. This rule also prohibits the Egyptian headquarters, as well as any other international bank, from routing U.S. transactions for the sanctioned branch. However, Washington chose not to deploy its most aggressive economic measures; it refrained from freezing the branch’s U.S. assets or threatening secondary sanctions against foreign institutions with ties to the UAE branch.
Miad Maleki, a former Treasury official now with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, noted that targeting a specific, mid-sized branch enables the U.S. to sever a critical dollar pipeline to Iran without causing widespread instability in global markets. He described the move as a unique opportunity for the Treasury to carry out a precise, targeted action. However, Maleki also agreed that the parent bank in Egypt will likely feel pressure as international institutions pull back defensively to reduce their own exposure.
Former State Department sanctions official Richard Nephew pointed out that while the penalty falls short of the sweeping “economic reckoning” previously championed by the administration, it still sends a strong warning. He suggested that the move aims to make other multinational banks—particularly Chinese institutions operating in Hong Kong—think twice about facilitating Iranian trade.
Alongside the measures against Bank Misr UAE, the Treasury sanctioned the manager of Bank Melli’s Dubai branch and a Hong Kong shell company accused of laundering funds for a designated Iranian exchange firm. Earlier in the week, Secretary Bessent declared Washington’s commitment to forcing the closure of all international branches of Bank Melli. Bank Melli is Iran’s largest state-owned financial institution; despite U.S. threats, its Dubai office reportedly remained operational throughout the week.
President Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale has registered as a foreign agent for Israel, hired to create digital campaigns combating antisemitism in a contract worth $6 million.
Parscale filed paperwork with the Foreign Agents Registration Act saying he began work for the Israeli government on Sept. 18. He registered a company called Clocktower X LLC and is primarily corresponding with Israel’s minister of Foreign Affairs and Eran Shayovich, listed as chief of staff at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to his LinkedIn.
Parscale’s contract was first reported by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington-based think tank that advocates for restraint in foreign policy.
According to Parscale’s contract, his company is hired to create content where at least 80 percent “is tailored to Gen Z audiences across platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, podcasts, and other relevant digital and broadcast outlets.”
The contract also states that “Agency shall provide strategic communications, planning, and media services in support of Client’s engagement by the State of Israel to develop and execute a nationwide campaign in the United States to combat antisemitism.”
Fernando Cerimedo, an Argentine political operative who has worked on right-wing campaigns across Latin America, was arrested in Bolivia this week in connection with the attempted murder of a woman with whom he reportedly had a romantic relationship.
As Drop Site News pointed out, he is business partners with President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale, and The Economist has called him “MAGA’s man in LatAm” for “forging close ties” to the US leader’s right-wing movement.
Aug. 19 (UPI) — Bolivian prosecutors will seek six months of pretrial detention for Argentine political consultant Fernando Cerimedo, a former campaign adviser to Argentine President Javier Milei and an adviser to Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz, over his alleged role as the intellectual author of a shooting attack against his former partner, Nadia Beller.
Santa Cruz departmental prosecutor Alberto Zeballos said Wednesday that prosecutors filed charges against Cerimedo for attempted femicide and will request that he remain for 180 days in Palmasola prison while the investigation moves forward, Bolivian newspaper EL DEBER reported.
“We have an alleged perpetrator in custody, as the intellectual author,” Zeballos said, referring to Cerimedo.
Prosecutors also opened a second investigation into Cerimedo in La Paz for alleged illicit enrichment after raiding two homes linked to the consultant and finding money, a satellite phone, valuables and vehicles, including one equipped with security features reserved for official use, according to La Paz departmental prosecutor Luis Carlos Torrez.
Israel has hired Clock Tower X LLC, a company with conservative leanings led by Trump’s former campaign manager, Brad Parscale, with a $6 million contract to promote pro-Israel content on social media platforms
Israel has hired Clock Tower X LLC, a company with conservative leanings led by Trump’s former campaign manager, Brad Parscale, with a $6 million contract to promote pro-Israel content on social media platforms.
The campaign will primarily target TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and podcasts, aiming to reach 50 million monthly impressions.
The company is also tasked with creating websites designed to shape Israel’s representation in AI models like ChatGPT and using MarketBrew AI to amplify pro-Israel narratives in Google and Bing search results.
The billionaire’s move to the Southern Cone is less about taxes or paranoia than about a vision of political and economic control
Pablo AlabarcesPablo Alabarces is a distinguished professor of popular culture in the faculty of social sciences at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and a senior researcher at CONICET
June 25, 2026
What Is Peter Thiel up to in Argentina?
The billionaire’s move to the Southern Cone is less about taxes or paranoia than about a vision of political and economic control
Pablo AlabarcesPablo Alabarces is a distinguished professor of popular culture in the faculty of social sciences at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and a senior researcher at CONICET
June 25, 2026
Peter Thiel holds up money at a bitcoin conference in Miami in April 2022. (Marco Bello/Getty Images)
Javier Milei’s rise to power in Argentina has transformed the country into a laboratory for the global far right and tech capital. At the center of this convergence stands Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, who has been living in Buenos Aires for just over a month.
Some commentators in the press and on social media have claimed that Thiel’s relocation represents a new flight of defeated Nazis to South America (though Thiel is not a Nazi, let alone a defeated one). Others suggest that his interest in the Southern Cone is due to fear of wealth taxes in California or a global collapse. Thiel’s arrival in Argentina is not, however, the product of paranoia, a mystical impulse or fascination with Javier Milei’s rhetoric; it is a logistical operation coordinated by a network of intermediaries, advisers and think tanks belonging to the transnational far right. And ultimately, it is part of a larger project of political and economic control.
After the end of World War II, many Nazi criminals escaped to South America — often with the covert support of local governments. None, of course, made it public; the Nazis had very bad press in Latin America in the postwar period. Among them, the government of Juan Perón (1946-1955) in Argentina attempted to recruit German scientists, much as the U.S. did with Wernher von Braun, a German-American aerospace engineer who was a member of the Nazi Party and one of the most important champions of space exploration in the 20th century. Perón’s attempt was a fiasco: Ronald Richter was neither much of a Nazi nor much of a scientist, though he managed to get Perón to finance a hydrogen isotope fusion energy project for several years, which was later revealed to be a hoax.
Far more serious was the case of SS officer Adolf Eichmann, a pivotal figure in the implementation of the “Final Solution,” who was abducted in Buenos Aires by the Mossad in 1960, taken to Israel, tried and executed. Over the years, the presence of Nazis in Argentina (and Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay) turned the country into a sort of pop-culture metaphor for a criminal safe haven. When the Blue Meanies are defeated by the psychedelic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in the animated Beatles film “Yellow Submarine,” one of them asks, “Where can we flee? To Argentina?” The existence of a relatively significant German immigrant community in certain areas of Argentina contributed to the myth.
It is surely for this reason that a recent article in The Nation magazine begins by connecting Peter Thiel’s move to Argentina with that of Nazi criminals. Its author, David Futrelle, also jokes about the infamous escape of British criminal Ronnie Biggs to Brazil in 1964 (Biggs and 14 other men stole £2.6 million from the Glasgow-London Royal Mail Train in 1963). But Thiel is no train robber either; he is a German-born billionaire, naturalized as an American and later a New Zealander, who could become Argentine and, just in case, has also bought land in Uruguay. It is certainly an irony for a patron of JD Vance and the forces of “antiglobalist” nationalism to himself have citizenship in so many countries and be, in effect, a hyperglobal rootless cosmopolitan.
ICYMI: Congressman Al Green sent a communiqué to President Donald Trump formally notifying him that he filed H.Res.1486 to impeach President Donald John Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors
(Houston, TX) – On Monday, August 24, 2026, Congressman Al Green sent a communiqué to President Donald Trump formally notifying him that he filed H.Res.1486 to impeach President Donald John Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors. Please see the next page for a copy of Congressman Green’s letter to President Trump.
SANTIAGO, Aug 26 (Reuters) – Chile is in the final phase of negotiations with the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) over tariffs, Chile’s undersecretary of international economic affairs Claudia Sanhueza told Reuters on Tuesday.
Chile is the world’s largest copper producer and copper cathodes are already exempt from U.S. tariffs. Sanhueza said President Donald Trump’s administration currently had low tariff rates on other exports from the Andean nation.
Both legal instruments were signed on 13 December 2023. The European Parliament gave its consent to them on 29 February 2024.
The ITA entered into force on 1 February 2025. It will be repealed and replaced by the AFA once the latter enters into force.
The negotiating directives for the modernisation of the existing EU-Chile Association Agreement were first adopted by the Council in November 2017, setting out the scope of the negotiations. The EU and Chile concluded the modernisation negotiations on 9 December 2022.
The EU-Chile Interim Trade Agreement deepens the trade and investment relationship between the EU and Chile. It removes most the remaining trade tariffs on goods, facilitates increased trade in services, and makes it easier for small companies to do business.
The ITA includes a new chapter on trade and sustainable development. The commitment to sustainable trade practices covers climate change, energy, the environment, raw materials, disaster risk reduction, and sustainable food systems. The agreement also includes social issues such as labour rights, gender equality, and responsible business conduct.
While the ITA is now in force, the AFA will enter into force when all EU Member States have completed their respective ratification processes. The ITA will then cease to exist and will be replaced by the AFA.
Chile’s government history includes its transition from Spanish colonial rule to independence in 1818, followed by periods of political instability, including civil wars and military dictatorships, notably the 1973 coup d’état led by General Augusto Pinochet. Since the return to democracy in 1990, Chile has developed a stable political system with regular elections and a multiparty framework. Wikipedia Freedom House
Impact of El Niño on Chile 2026:
The ECMWF SEAS5 seasonal forecast issued in May projects a consolidating El Niño through the second half of 2026, with sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies exceeding +2 °C by October. For Chile, the signal matches the classic fingerprint: warmer winter and spring in the north and the Andes, and above-average precipitation in south-central Chile from August onward.
What El Niño is — and why it matters
The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the dominant source of interannual climate variability over the tropical Pacific. It manifests as anomalous SST warming in an ocean stripe —the Niño 3.4 region— that shifts global atmospheric circulation and reshapes rainfall, temperature and storm patterns far from the tropics.
Chile is especially responsive. During El Niño events central Chile tends to see wetter winters and the cordillera often accumulates more snow than usual, translating into greater water availability for the following agricultural season and hydro generation. Conversely, northern Chile and the altiplano often face drier summers and stronger heatwaves.
The operational implication is direct: anticipating the ENSO phase lets you reposition planning choices months ahead —irrigation schedules, reservoir policy, wildfire preparedness, logistics sizing — in sectors where the gap between wet and dry outcomes is measured in very large sums.
Andes Meltdown: New Insights Into Rapidly Retreating Glaciers
Using satellite data, scientists are documenting the inexorable melting of South America’s glaciers and ice fields, with Andean glaciers thinning by nearly three feet a year since 2000. The loss of ice poses a threat to water supplies and agriculture from Bolivia to Chile.
The U.S. and U.K. are using energy investment to shape post-Assad Syria.
Gulf states are taking the public lead while Western companies quietly drive the reconstruction of the country’s oil, gas, and power sectors.
Syria’s hydrocarbon sector remains strategically valuable, with substantial oil and gas reserves offering both economic recovery potential and a way for the West to reduce Russian influence while securing new regional energy supplies.
The agreement signed last week between the Syrian Petroleum Company (SPC), the U.S.’s ConocoPhillips and Great Britain’s Novaterra ConocoPhillips — covering the development of new gas fields and the expansion of output at existing sites — is the latest move in Washington’s and London’s long?game for shaping Syria’s post-Assad landscape. Rather than repeat the overt, Western-fronted reconstruction model used in Iraq, both countries have opted for a subtler architecture: powerful Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., take the visible lead, while Western firms and planners operate behind them. This approach fits neatly into the broader U.S. effort to re-establish Western influence across the Middle East and to revive the Arab–Israeli normalisation framework that defined Donald Trump’s first term — a framework designed to limit the strategic space available to Russia and China. The question now is how far this strategy can run, and what Washington and London ultimately intend to build in Syria.
The U.S./G.B.-led early lifting of international sanctions against the previous Russia-backed al-Assad regime signalled the West’s seriousness in rebuilding Syria’s cornerstone oil and gas sectors as part of a broader revitalisation of its economy, by dint of which it can become “stable, unified and at peace with itself and its neighbors”, as delineated in the sanctions removal order. Before the country’s civil war started in March 2011 as part of the Arab Spring movement, it was a significant crude oil power, with production of around 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) from proved reserves of 2.5 billion barrels. In fact, before the recovery rate had begun to decline due to a lack of enhanced oil recovery techniques being employed at the major fields, it had been producing nearly 600,000 bpd. At that time, Europe was importing around US$3 billion of oil per year from Syria, with many of the continent’s refineries configured to process the heavy, sour ‘Souedie’ crude oil that makes up much of Syria’s output, and was exported — together with its sweet and lighter ‘Syrian Light’ grade — to Germany, Italy, and France, from one of its three Mediterranean export terminals: Banias, Tartus, and Latakia.
With at least 73 GW data centre projects in the connection pipeline, the Labour government moved earlier this year to consult on proposals to curtail speculators snapping up spots in the connection queue.
But buried in the consultation document is also a proposal for embedding greater “demand flexibility” into data centre grid connection agreements.
Problem
Heatwaves are one of the triggers for electricity grid stress. Jon Saltmarsh, chief technology officer at Energy Systems Catapult told The Ecologist: “Heat affects all types of generation – it’s not specifically a renewables problem.
“Higher external temperatures result in gas generation thermal plants operating less efficiently while transformers and transmission networks have to be derated at higher temperatures.”
This makes balancing supply and demand for electricity very difficult, particularly as demand surges from consumers trying to keep cool.
The UK grid operator NESO can already pay large industrial users, including data centres, to switch off the grid and use their back-up generators through existing policies such as the Balancing Mechanism and Flexibility Services.
Saltmarsh added: “Much of the flexibility provided by industry comes from back-up diesel generation. For short periods of time, the carbon emissions are very limited. It only becomes a problem when used regularly.”
Rules
A source at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) said: “Data centres will not run from diesel powered generation at a significant scale when demand limitations are in place.
“Environmental permit requirements place limits on the operation of emergency generators, meaning they are not expected to provide a large-scale solution to data centre flexibility.”
In the US, environmental campaigners say the authorities have been trying for years to make it easier for operators to rely on data centre diesel generators to take the strain off the overloaded grid.
In 2023, Piedmont Environmental Council in Virginia warned that the local Department of Environmental Quality was trying to push through changes to strict rules about when data centres can run on diesel generators.
Slammed
As temperatures climbed to record levels across the Eastern states of the US in July this year, residents living near massive data centre clusters saw black smoke billowing from the facilities’ banks of diesel back-up generators.
Two punishing heatwaves that month prompted PJM Interconnection (PJM), the electricity grid operator serving 14 states across the region, to ask “large load” customers, including data centres, to switch over from the grid to their own power sources in order to avoid blackouts.
According to data released by PJM for 3 to 5 July and 14 to 17 July, the operator relied on generators running for 1,799 hours beyond the limits set down in their environmental permits, providing 9 GW of relief for the overloaded grid.
Environmental campaigners representing residents living in areas dominated by the region’s data centre clusters slammed the decision, which was authorised by the US Secretary of State for Energy.
See full article at theecologist.org
And how about availability of diesel:
Note also that European stress has migrated from road fuel into refined products — diesel is up roughly 40% since mid-June, with about a quarter of Russian refining capacity lost to strikes and Saudi Arabia’s Jazan refinery shut since 27 July. Forecourt availability, which is what this page measures, remains the least stressed part of the European picture.
In today’s market, EN590 diesel supply is shaped by more than refinery production capacity. Scheduled maintenance, domestic demand, export priorities, logistics constraints, and contractual obligations all affect how refineries allocate production. Consequently, buyers involved in diesel fuel procurement, bulk fuel allocation, or long-term supply agreements must understand how allocation decisions influence cargo availability before entering negotiations.
This article explains how refinery allocation works, why it matters to international buyers and suppliers, and how procurement strategies can be adapted to changing refinery operations while reducing commercial and logistical risk.
Industry Overview: Understanding Refinery Allocation EN590
Refinery Allocation Within the Petroleum Trading System
Refinery allocation is the process through which a refinery distributes its available production among contracted customers, domestic markets, export programs, and strategic inventories. Although production planning begins months before physical delivery, actual allocations are continually adjusted in response to operational performance and market conditions.
For EN590 diesel fuel, allocation decisions typically follow refinery production forecasts, contractual commitments, maintenance schedules, and export economics. A refinery with sufficient production capacity may still reduce export allocations if domestic consumption increases or if planned maintenance temporarily lowers output.
Within international petroleum trading, allocation serves as a mechanism for balancing supply with contractual obligations. Large integrated refiners often prioritize long-term customers before making additional cargoes available to traders or spot buyers. As a result, allocation influences not only physical supply but also procurement timing and commercial negotiations.
Refinery allocation also affects petroleum logistics, as export terminals, storage operators, vessel scheduling, and inspection providers coordinate around confirmed production volumes. Therefore, allocation decisions extend well beyond refinery operations and influence every stage of the downstream supply chain.
Diesel generators for nuclear power station backup;
Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant loses external power supply
By Reuters
August 20, 20267:26 AM GMT+1Updated August 20, 2026
MOSCOW, Aug 20 (Reuters) – The Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine has switched to emergency diesel generators after damage to a high-voltage line caused the facility to lose external power, the plant management said on Thursday.
“Plant personnel are monitoring the equipment’s operating parameters. All necessary measures to maintain the safe condition of the power units are being taken in full,” the Moscow-installed management said, adding that radiation levels were normal.
The plant, Europe’s largest with six reactors, produces no electricity but needs power supplied by two external links to keep nuclear fuel cool.
Russia seized the plant in the first weeks of the war that began in 2022, and both Moscow and Kyiv have since regularly accused the other of military action that compromises nuclear safety.
Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Kirsten Donovan
And
The Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) has lost external power supply again. Backup diesel generators were used to meet the station’s own needs. This was announced on August 20 by the ZAES press service.
The 330 kV Ferroalloy-1 high-voltage power transmission line, which provided external power to the NPP, shut down automatically due to damage. After the loss of external power supply, the power units of the station were regularly switched to power from backup diesel generators.
“The radiation background at the site of the Zaporizhia NPP and in the observation area is within the natural values and does not exceed the established norms,” the Telegram channel said.
The personnel of the NPP monitors the parameters of the equipment and takes all necessary measures to maintain the safe condition of the power units. The situation at the Zaporizhia NPP is under constant control of the plant’s specialists
Attack marks first time military action has forced a fully operating nuclear power plant to rely on backup generators
Tue 19 May 2026 15.49 BSTShare
A drone strike that cut off external power to a nuclear reactor in the United Arab Emirates this week has revived concerns over the safety of nuclear plants during wartime.
Reactor no 3 at the Barakah nuclear plant lost vital off-site power for about 24 hours after the attack on Sunday, forcing it to rely on emergency diesel generators.
The UAE’s defence ministry said on Tuesday that three drones targeting the plant had originated from Iraqi territory, suggesting a pro-Iranian proxy group was most likely to have been behind the strike.
Two were intercepted, but one got through, causing a fire near a four-reactor plant that supplies the UAE with a quarter of its electricity.
The UAE said the strike hit an electrical generator “outside the inner perimeter”, raising fears it could have hit the switch yard which lies just beyond a wall around the site’s reactors.
The impact of heatwaves on nuclear power generation is welldocumented, with a plethora of headlines often accompanying record temperatures in nations that rely on the technology.
For example, around 70% of electricity is generated by nuclear power in France, leaving it vulnerable to the impacts of heatwaves.
During the July 2026 heatwave, three of France’s 57 nuclear reactors had to shut down. Generation was reduced at another seven, causing an almost 9% dip in power production.
(This is a well-known phenomenon – France has seen reductions in nuclear generation due to heatwaves in 2003, 2006, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2025.)
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