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"I’m trying to get an important business deal done, so I firebombed the guy’s house to make him more likely to negotiate with me. I just want peace."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

How the US and Israel Used Rafael Grossi to Hijack the IAEA and Start a War on Iran

Rafael Grossi, director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), allowed the IAEA to be used by the United States and Israel—an undeclared nuclear weapons state in long-term violation of IAEA rules—to manufacture a pretext for war on Iran, despite his agency’s own conclusion that Iran had no nuclear weapons program.

On June 12th, based on a damning report by Grossi, a slim majority of the IAEA Board of Governors voted to find Iran in non-compliance with its obligations as an IAEA member. Of the 35 countries represented on the Board, only 19 voted for the resolution, while 3 voted against it, 11 abstained and 2 did not vote.

The United States contacted eight board member governments on June 10th to persuade them to either vote for the resolution or not to vote. Israeli officials said they saw the U.S. arm-twisting for the IAEA resolution as a significant signal of U.S. support for Israel’s war plans, revealing how much Israel valued the IAEA resolution as diplomatic cover for the war.

The IAEA board meeting was timed for the final day of President Trump’s 60-day ultimatum to Iran to negotiate a new nuclear agreement. Even as the IAEA board voted, Israel was loading weapons, fuel and drop-tanks on its warplanes for the long flight to Iran and briefing its aircrews on their targets. The first Israeli air strikes hit Iran at 3 a.m. that night.

On June 20th, Iran filed a formal complaint against Director General Grossi with the UN Secretary General and the UN Security Council for undermining his agency’s impartiality, both by his failure to mention the illegality of Israel’s threats and uses of force against Iran in his public statements and by his singular focus on Iran’s alleged violations.

The source of the IAEA investigation that led to this resolution was a 2018 Israeli intelligence report that its agents had identified three previously undisclosed sites in Iran where Iran had conducted uranium enrichment prior to 2003. In 2019, Grossi opened an investigation, and the IAEA eventually gained access to the sites and detected traces of enriched uranium.

Despite the fateful consequences of his actions, Grossi has never explained publicly how the IAEA can be sure that Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency or its Iranian collaborators, such as the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (or MEK), did not put the enriched uranium in those sites themselves, as Iranian officials have suggested.

While the IAEA resolution that triggered this war dealt only with Iran’s enrichment activities prior to 2003, U.S. and Israeli politicians quickly pivoted to unsubstantiated claims that Iran was on the verge of making a nuclear weapon. U.S. intelligence agencies had previously reported that such a complex process would take up to three years, even before Israel and the United States began bombing and degrading Iran’s existing civilian nuclear facilities.

The IAEA’s previous investigations into unreported nuclear activities in Iran were officially completed in December 2015, when IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano published its “Final Assessment on Past and Present Outstanding Issues regarding Iran’s Nuclear Program.”

The IAEA assessed that, while some of Iran’s past activities might have been relevant to nuclear weapons, they “did not advance beyond feasibility and scientific studies, and the acquisition of certain relevant technical competences and capabilities.” The IAEA “found no credible indications of the diversion of nuclear material in connection with the possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program.”

When Yukiya Amano died before the end of his term in 2019, Argentinian diplomat Rafael Grossi was appointed IAEA Director General. Grossi had served as Deputy Director General under Amano and, before that, as Chief of Staff under Director General Mohamed ElBaradei.

The Israelis have a long record of fabricating false evidence about Iran’s nuclear activities, like the notorious “laptop documents” given to the CIA by the MEK in 2004 and believed to have been created by the Mossad. Douglas Frantz, who wrote a report on Iran’s nuclear program for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2009, revealed that the Mossad created a special unit in 2003 to provide secret briefings on Iran’s nuclear program, using “documents from inside Iran and elsewhere.”

And yet Grossi collaborated with Israel to pursue its latest allegations. After several years of meetings in Israel and negotiations and inspections in Iran, he wrote his report to the IAEA Board of Governors and scheduled a board meeting to coincide with the planned start date for Israel’s war.

Israel made its final war preparations in full view of the satellites and intelligence agencies of the western countries that drafted and voted for the resolution. It is no wonder that 13 countries abstained or did not vote, but it is tragic that more neutral countries could not find the wisdom and courage to vote against this insidious resolution.

The official purpose of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, is “to promote the safe, secure and peaceful use of nuclear technologies.” Since 1965, all of its 180 member countries have been subject to IAEA safeguards to ensure that their nuclear programs are “not used in such a way as to further any military purpose.”

The IAEA’s work is obviously compromised in dealing with countries that already have nuclear weapons. North Korea withdrew from the IAEA in 1994, and from all safeguards in 2009. The United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China have IAEA safeguard agreements that are based only on “voluntary offers” for “selected” non-military sites. India has a 2009 safeguard agreement that requires it to keep its military and civilian nuclear programs separate, and Pakistan has 10 separate safeguard agreements, but only for civilian nuclear projects, the latest being from 2017 to cover two Chinese-built power stations.

Israel, however, has only a limited 1975 safeguards agreement for a 1955 civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States. An addendum in 1977 extended the IAEA safeguards agreement indefinitely, even though the cooperation agreement with the U.S. that it covered expired four days later. So, by a parody of compliance that the United States and the IAEA have played along with for half a century, Israel has escaped the scrutiny of IAEA safeguards just as effectively as North Korea.

Israel began working on a nuclear weapon in the 1950s, with substantial help from Western countries, including France, Britain and Argentina, and made its first weapons in 1966 or 1967. By 2015, when Iran signed the JCPOA nuclear agreement, former Secretary of State Colin Powell wrote in a leaked email that a nuclear weapon would be useless to Iran because “Israel has 200, all targeted on Tehran.” Powell quoted former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asking, “What would we do with a nuclear weapon? Polish it?”

In 2003, while Powell tried but failed to make a case for war on Iraq to the UN Security Council, President Bush smeared Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an “axis of evil,” based on their alleged pursuit of “weapons of mass destruction.” The Egyptian IAEA Director, Mohamed ElBaradei, repeatedly assured the Security Council that the IAEA could find no evidence that Iraq was developing a nuclear weapon.

When the CIA produced a document that showed Iraq importing yellowcake uranium from Niger, just as Israel had secretly imported it from Argentina in the 1960s, the IAEA only took a few hours to recognize the document as a forgery, which ElBaradei immediately reported to the Security Council.

Bush kept repeating the lie about yellowcake from Niger, and other flagrant lies about Iraq, and the United States invaded and destroyed Iraq based on his lies, a war crime of historic proportions. Most of the world knew that ElBaradei and the IAEA were right all along, and, in 2005, they were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for exposing Bush’s lies, speaking truth to power and strengthening nuclear non-proliferation.

In 2007, a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) by all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies agreed with the IAEA’s finding that Iran, like Iraq, had no nuclear weapons program. As Bush wrote in his memoirs, “…after the NIE, how could I possibly explain using the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community said had no active nuclear weapons program?” Even Bush couldn’t believe he would get away with recycling the same lies to destroy Iran as well as Iraq, and Trump is playing with fire by doing so now.

ElBaradei wrote in his own memoir, The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times, that if Iran did do some preliminary research on nuclear weapons, it probably began during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, after the US and its allies helped Iraq to manufacture chemical weapons that killed up to 100,000 Iranians.

The neocons who dominate U.S. post-Cold War foreign policy viewed the Nobel Prize winner ElBaradei as an obstacle to their regime change ambitions around the world, and conducted a covert campaign to find a more compliant new IAEA Director General when his term expired in 2009.

After Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano was appointed as the new Director General, U.S. diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks revealed details of his extensive vetting by U.S. diplomats, who reported back to Washington that Amano “was solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program.”

After becoming IAEA Director General in 2019, Rafael Grossi not only continued the IAEA’s subservience to U.S. and Western interests and its practice of turning a blind eye to Israel’s nuclear weapons, but also ensured that the IAEA played a critical role in Israel’s march to war on Iran.

Even as he publicly acknowledged that Iran had no nuclear weapons program and that diplomacy was the only way to resolve the West’s concerns about Iran, Grossi helped Israel to set the stage for war by reopening the IAEA’s investigation into Iran’s past activities. Then, on the very day that Israeli warplanes were being loaded with weapons to bomb Iran, he made sure that the IAEA Board of Governors passed a resolution to give Israel and the U.S. the pretext for war that they wanted.

In his last year as IAEA Director, Mohamed ElBaradei faced a similar dilemma to the one that Grossi has faced since 2019. In 2008, U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies gave the IAEA copies of documents that appeared to show Iran conducting four distinct types of nuclear weapons research.

Whereas, in 2003, Bush’s yellowcake document from Niger was clearly a forgery, the IAEA could not establish whether the Israeli documents were authentic or not. So ElBaradei refused to act on them or to make them public, despite considerable political pressure, because, as he wrote in The Age of Deception, he knew the U.S. and Israel “wanted to create the impression that Iran presented an imminent threat, perhaps preparing the grounds for the use of force.” ElBaradei retired in 2009, and those allegations were among the “outstanding issues” that he left to be resolved by Yukiya Amano in 2015.

If Rafael Grossi had exercised the same caution, impartiality and wisdom as Mohamed ElBaradei did in 2009, it is very possible that the United States and Israel would not be at war with Iran today.

Mohamed ElBaradei wrote in a tweet on June 17th 2025, “To rely on force and not negotiations is a sure way to destroy the NPT and the nuclear non-proliferation regime (imperfect as it is), and sends a clear message to many countries “that their 'ultimate security' is to develop nuclear weapons!!!”

Despite Grossi’s role in U.S.-Israeli war plans as IAEA Director General, or maybe because of it, he has been touted as a Western-backed candidate to succeed Antonio Guterres as UN Secretary General in 2026. That would be a disaster for the world. Fortunately, there are many more qualified candidates to lead the world out of the crisis that Rafael Grossi has helped the U.S. and Israel to plunge it into.

Rafael Grossi should resign as IAEA Director before he further undermines nuclear non-proliferation and drags the world any closer to nuclear war. And he should also withdraw his name from consideration as a candidate for UN Secretary General.

US Retreats Seeks Truce Heeds Russian Warnings, Hormuz Straits Closure Threats, Iran Ahead On Points

Trump's State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce says America is "the greatest country on earth next to Israel" pic.twitter.com/0jYxTh52Qh

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) June 22, 2025

Trump LOSES IT ON Israel Over Ceasefire After INSANE 24 Hours

Trump says Israel and Iran have negotiated ‘complete’ ceasefire

Donald Trump has claimed that Israel and Iran have negotiated a ceasefire, halting a two-week-old war that has killed hundreds in tit-for-tat strikes by Israeli warplanes and Iranian ballistic missiles. The ceasefire was set to begin late on Monday, Trump said, with Iran halting its attacks first and then Israel set to cease offensive operations in the coming hours.

Trump said he hoped that the ceasefire would lead to an end of what he called the “12 Day War”. Shortly before the announcement, powerful explosions were reported in the Iranian capital of Tehran, according to Agence France-Presse.

There was no immediate official response from Iran or Israel. A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran had agreed to the US-proposed ceasefire. Hours earlier, it reported that three Israeli officials had signalled Israel was looking to wrap up its strikes on Iran soon and had passed the message on to the US. On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was “very, very close to completing” its goals.

Jeffrey Sachs: How Israel Will SABOTAGE Ceasefire

'There Was No Imminent Threat,' Says Sen. Chris Murphy After Iran Intelligence Briefing

In addition to pushing back against U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson's claim that President Donald Trump "made the right call" attacking Iran's nuclear sites, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy on Monday spelled out "ideas that should guide Americans' thinking as they digest the hourly news updates during the early days of what may become yet another American war of choice in the Middle East."

Johnson (R-La.) claimed in a Saturday night post on the social media site X that "leaders in Congress were aware of the urgency of this situation and the commander-in-chief evaluated that the imminent danger outweighed the time it would take for Congress to act."

Responding early Monday, Murphy (D-Conn.) said that "there was no imminent threat. I got briefed on the same intelligence as the speaker."

That echoed a statement the senator put out on Sunday, in which he said that "I've been briefed on the intelligence—there is no evidence Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States. That makes this attack illegal."

"Only Congress can declare preemptive war, and we should vote as soon as possible on legislation to explicitly deny President Trump the authorization to drag us into a conflict in Middle East that could get countless Americans killed and waste trillions of dollars," he added, calling Trump "a weak and dangerously reckless president."

Murphy—a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations—also published a long piece on his Senate website on Monday, stressing eight key points:

There is an industry in Washington that profits from war, and so it's no surprise that the merits of conflict are dangerously overhyped and the risks are regularly underestimated.

Almost every war plan our military has devised for the Middle East and North Africa in the last two decades has been a failure.

The strikes are illegal, and a major setback for the international rule of law that has undergirded American security for 75 years.

You cannot bomb knowledge out of existence. Iran knows how to make a nuclear bomb.

We didn't need to start a war with Iran because we know—for sure—that diplomacy can work.

Even opponents of this strike need to admit Iran is weak, and we cannot know for sure what the future holds.

There are many very, very bad potential consequences of Trump's attack. The worst consequence, of course, is a full-blown war in the region that draws in the United States.

Israel is our ally and Iran IS a threat to their people, but we should never allow Israeli domestic politics to draw us into a war.

"This is a moment where Congress needs to step in," Murphy argued. "This week, we are likely to take a vote that makes it crystal clear President Trump does not have the authorization for these strikes or a broader war with Iran."

"This is also a moment for the American people to stand up and say we do not want another war in the Middle East," he added, recalling the U.S. invasion of Iraq. "In the last 20 years, we have seen the untold damage done—the lives lost, the billions of dollars wasted, and our reputation squandered—and we won't allow Trump to take us down that path again."

After Tehran on Monday responded to Trump's attack by firing missiles at a base in Qatar that houses American forces and, reportedly, a site in Iraq, the U.S. president announced on his Truth Social network a cease-fire between Iran and Israel—which was bombing its Middle East opponent before the United States started also doing so.

Pepe Escobar : What Will Moscow and Beijing Do?

EU may take action against Israel if conditions in Gaza do not improve

The EU may take action to increase pressure on Israel unless there are “concrete” improvements for the inhabitants of Gaza, its foreign policy chief has said. After meeting the bloc’s foreign ministers in Brussels, Kaja Kallas said it was “very clear” that Israel had breached its human rights commitments in Gaza and the West Bank. She said if the situation for Palestinians did not improve, the EU could discuss “further measures and come back to this in July”. But Kallas declined to spell out details: “The concrete question is what then we [the EU] are able to agree?

“But right now, the most important thing is to improve the situation on the ground, improve the lives of people in Palestine and stop the suffering and also human toll that we see there every day.”

The foreign ministers discussed the EU’s relationship with Israel after a report by Kallas’s team found “indications” that its ally was in breach of human rights obligations over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza and settler violence in the West Bank.

Lisa Musiol of the International Crisis Group, which works to prevent conflict, said the EU had “missed an important opportunity to make clear to the Israeli government that its policies in Gaza and the West Bank have long crossed a red line and will come at a cost for EU-Israel relations”. A review of the EU-Israel association agreement – a trade and cooperation pact – was triggered last month by 17 member states in protest at Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Aaron Maté : Trump’s Unconditional Surrender to Israel

Rights groups warn Gaza Humanitarian Foundation it may be liable for international law violations

Fifteen international human rights organisations have called on the Israel- and US-backed Gaza food delivery group, Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), and other private groups running humanitarian aid delivery in Gaza to cease their operations or face legal consequences.

In a letter sent on Monday to GHF and the affiliated Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions, the rights advocates warned that private contractors operating in Gaza in collaboration with the Israeli government risk “aiding and abetting or otherwise being complicit in crimes under international law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide”. They also noted that the contractors may be liable under US law and in other jurisdictions.

The letter marks the latest warning against GHF, which has been mired in controversy since replacing most UN-run relief operations in Gaza. Major aid groups have boycotted it and accused it of violating the principles of neutrality and independence that are bedrocks of humanitarian work. GHF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The rollout of GHF operations over the last three weeks – after a two-month blockade on most aid entering Gaza that has pushed the territory’s 2.1 million residents to the verge of famine – has been deadly. Scores of Palestinians seeking food aid have been killed by Israeli forces in chaotic scenes surrounding four privately run distribution hubs a UN official has described as “death traps”.

“GHF’s militarized model, coupled with its close collaboration with Israeli authorities, undermines the core humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence,” the letter sent on Monday warned. “We urge all parties involved – State actors, corporate entities, donors and individuals – to immediately suspend any action or support that facilitates the forcible displacement of civilians, contributes to starvation or other grave breaches of international law, or undermines the core principles of international humanitarian law.”

Earlier this month, the US-based Center for Constitutional Rights had warned in a separate letter to Johnnie Moore, the evangelical leader and Trump adviser appointed to run the foundation after its former head resigned, that he and other GHF representatives may face civil litigation or criminal prosecution. “Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in the weeks since GHF began its dehumanizing, militarized ‘distribution hubs’ in coordination with Israeli forces,” said Katherine Gallagher, a senior staff attorney at CCR, which also signed on to the most recent letter. “If it continues its deadly, militarized operations, legal consequences will follow, whether in the United States or beyond.”

Oil prices sink after Iranian strike on US airbase reduces fears of market disruption

Oil prices dropped sharply after Iran’s retaliatory missile strike on a US airbase reduced concern that the country was poised to strain energy markets by closing off a vital trade route.

Crude oil prices sank by 7% on Monday, with West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures dropping to $68.51, as the Iranian action on the Al Udeid base in Qatar raised hopes that the conflict would not immediately disrupt oil supplies from the region.

No casualties were reported after the strike, which the US defense department described as “largely symbolic” after the US bombed three nuclear sites in Iran on Saturday.

While the Iranian parliament voted to close the strait of Hormuz – through which more than a fifth of the world’s oil supply, 20m barrels, and much of its liquefied gas passes each day – it has so far remained open.

House Democratic veterans back moves to limit Trump’s military authority

A group of 12 House Democratic military veterans have thrown their weight behind efforts to constrain Donald Trump’s military authority, announcing they will support a War Powers Act resolution in response to the US president’s go ahead for airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. The veterans – some of whom served in Iraq and Afghanistan – were strongly critical of Trump’s decision to launch what they called “preventive air strikes” without US congressional approval, drawing explicit parallels to the run-up to some of America’s longest recent wars.

“Twenty years ago, in their rush to appear strong and tough, politicians – from both parties – failed to ask the hard questions before starting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” they wrote in a letter led by Representative Pat Ryan to Trump sent on Monday. “We refuse to make those same mistakes.”

Their intervention comes as multiple war powers resolutions are gaining momentum on Capitol Hill, with the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, pushing for a vote as early as this week to rein in the president’s military actions. The veterans did not specify which measure they would support, as competing versions are being drafted by different Democratic factions alongside a bipartisan effort. ...

Representatives Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, have been championing one bipartisan resolution, while the ranking Democrats on the House foreign affairs, armed services and intelligence committees are preparing an alternative, according to Punchbowl News. Democratic aides described the latter to the outlet as providing cover for members uncomfortable with backing the Massie-Khanna approach, though lawmakers will not be discouraged from supporting both measures.

As Democrats back war drive against Iran, Sanders seeks to contain mass anti-war sentiment on “Fighting Oligarchy” tour

The unprovoked and illegal bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities by US B-2 bombers on Saturday has already sparked widespread opposition within the American and international working class. On Sunday, over a dozen anti-war protests drawing thousands of people were held across the United States, including in New York City, Washington D.C. and San Francisco. These demonstrations come just one week after millions participated in the nationwide “No Kings” protests, held in opposition to Trump’s assault on democratic rights and his drive to establish a presidential dictatorship.

Leaders of the Republican Party have largely marched in lockstep with Trump and the illegal assault on Iran, with both House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune issuing statements of support. Prominent Democrats have also backed the war, including Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, who released his own statement endorsing the attack. ...

The Democrats have refused to call for any mass action in response to Trump’s war crimes. Instead, Representatives Ro Khanna (D-California) and Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), along with Senators Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), have introduced war powers resolutions that nominally seek to reassert congressional authority over the launching of offensive wars. None of the resolutions currently enjoy majority support within either party, and none were endorsed by party leadership prior to Saturday’s strikes. Notably, all of the proposals—including Sanders’s “No War Against Iran Act”—leave intact Trump’s authority to order so-called “defensive” strikes if US forces are attacked.

Speaking to CNN’s Erin Burnett on Sunday, Khanna—one of the sponsors of the war powers resolution—made clear that he supports Trump’s plans to deploy thousands more troops and additional military hardware to the region. “I support the president now in terms of deploying to do everything we can to keep our troops safe,” Khanna said. Later in the interview, Khanna explicitly denied that Iran had any right to self-defense. “We need to make it clear to Iran that the worst thing they can do is to hit any American asset or American troop,” he said. “They will have unanimous condemnation by Congress if they dare to take that step…”

Now that the United States has bombed Iran using B-2 stealth bombers and Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker-busting bombs—among the most aggressive escalations imaginable—the toothless character of the Kaine, Sanders and Massie resolutions stands fully exposed. Far from restraining US militarism, these measures serve as post-hoc political cover for war. Their built-in “self-defense” loophole provides a pretext for strikes that are in violation of international law and thoroughly criminal. While Iran retains the right to self-defense under international law, these resolutions recognize that right only for the United States. They make no allowance for other nations to defend themselves against US or allied aggression. In doing so, the resolutions reinforce the doctrine of imperialist impunity: Washington and its proxies may bomb, invade and assassinate with full legal and political backing, while any act of resistance is condemned as terrorism or escalation.

US supreme court clears way for Trump to deport migrants to countries not their own

The US supreme court on Monday paved the way for the Trump administration to resume deporting migrants to countries they are not from, including to conflict-ridden places such as South Sudan. In a brief, unsigned order, the court’s conservative supermajority paused the ruling by a Boston-based federal judge who said immigrants deserved a “meaningful opportunity” to bring claims that they would face the risk of torture, persecution or even death if removed to certain countries that have agreed to take people deported from the US.

As a result of Monday’s ruling, the administration will now be allowed to swiftly deport immigrants to so-called “third countries”, including a group of men held at a US military base in Djibouti who the administration tried to send to South Sudan. The court offered no explanation for its decision and ordered the judge’s ruling paused while the appeals process plays out. The three liberal justices issued a scathing dissent. ...

In the dissenting opinion, justice Sonia Sotomayor accused the court of “rewarding lawlessness” by allowing the government to violate the due process rights of the immigrants facing removal. She also charged that the conservative majority appeared more concerned by the “remote possibility” that the federal judge exceeded his authority than by “the idea that thousands will suffer violence in far-flung locales”.

“In matters of life and death, it is best to proceed with caution,” she wrote. “In this case, the government took the opposite approach.”

NYC Mayoral Primary Day: Zohran Mamdani on Building a Movement & Campaigning for an Affordable City

Zohran Mamdani appears to pull ahead of Andrew Cuomo

Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City, has drawn level with Andrew Cuomo in the city’s primary, according to a new poll, as voters brave record-breaking temperatures to cast their ballots.

Mamdani, a 33-year-old New York assemblyman, may even be leading Cuomo, the 67-year-old former governor and scion of a prominent New York political family, if the poll’s simulation of the system of ranked-choice voting is correct.

A survey by Emerson College Polling/PIX11/The Hill, found that Cuomo led Mamdani 35% to 32% – within the margin of error – for first-choice votes but when calculated by voters’ final round choices, with six other candidates eliminated, Mamdani came out on top at 52% to Cuomo’s 48%. ...

Cuomo has led the polls until now, but Mamdani has surged in recent weeks, setting up a contest between a centrist and a progressive that may, or may not, indicate the direction of travel for Democrats nationally. Both factions of the party will welcome a win as significantly indicative.

Cuomo, whose campaign is lavishly backed by some of New York’s richest people, is endorsed by Mike Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, as well as Bill Clinton and Jim Clyburn, the influential South Carolina congressman. Meanwhile Mamdani scored endorsements from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, but not the New York Times editorial board, which called him “uniquely unsuited” for the city’s challenges.

‘A timebomb’: could a French mine full of waste poison the drinking water of millions?

Stocamine, which lies in the old industrial town of Wittelsheim, Alsace, once held an old potash mine. Now, the mine shafts are closed, storing poisonous waste from elsewhere. Above the mine shafts is one of Europe’s largest aquifers. Some fear this toxic waste won’t stay sealed in the mine. In time, scientists say it could seep into the Alsace aquifer, which feeds into the Upper Rhine aquifer running between France, Switzerland and Germany, potentially contaminating the drinking water of millions of people. Contained in the mine are substances that have been linked to mass die-offs in wildlife, which could have severe and longlasting effects on ecosystems.

On 17 June, a judge upheld the decision of the government and ruled the waste should stay and be smothered in tonnes of concrete to avoid it leaking out. Those campaigning for it to be removed have called the decision “a timebomb for future generations”. ... The aquifer sits 5 metres below the surface. Down another 500 metres through striped pink and white rock is the old potash mine, containing 125km of tunnels. A space the size of seven football pitches contains mercury, arsenic and other heavy metals as well as cyanide and residues from household waste incinerators. Reports suggest additional illegal waste may be hidden down there too.

Over the years, authorities and waste producers around the world have used former mines as “safe” eternal graves for toxic waste – out of sight, out of mind. But the rock here is in motion, subsiding under pressure from neighbouring mines, corroding in 30C heat. Ceilings are sagging and walls are caving in at a rate of 2cm a year. There are concerns some of the containers of waste are not accessible – or won’t be for much longer.

Projections vary, but research suggests that over the next 300 years water will gradually flood the mine. Some scientists say it is possible to seal the pits and delay the release of contamination – or even stop it altogether. Other scientists argue that the only thing to ensure the safety of future generations is to remove the waste, which could cost about €65m (£55m). The government has chosen to inject tonnes of concrete into the galleries and backfill shafts to make them watertight, leaving the waste down there permanently. Environmental groups believe this is reckless, given the uncertainty over shifting rock.

Killer whales seen grooming each other with kelp in first for marine tool use

Killer whales have been observed mutually grooming each other with a type of seaweed, the first known instance of a marine animal using tools in a way that was previously thought to be the preserve of primates such as humans. A group of killer whales, which are also known as orcas, have been biting off short sections of bull kelp and then rolling these stems between their bodies, possibly to remove dead skin or parasites. The behavior is the first such documented mutual grooming in marine animals and is outlined in a new scientific paper.

The discovery was made in a contained group of 73 killer whales that live in the southern part of the Salish Sea, a section of the Pacific Ocean hugging the coast of Washington state in the US and Canada’s British Columbia.Researchers were surprised to see a whale remove a 2ft section of bull kelp, balance it on its nose and then approach another whale to wedge the kelp between their bodies and rub it between them. At first, the scientists thought this was a quirky one-off but then noticed this was a widespread behavior within the group, according to the paper, published in journal Current Biology. ...

Cetaceans such as whales have been previously seen with kelp draped over their bodies, a practice known as “kelping”. The behavior witnessed for the first time last year and published in the new study, however, differs because the kelp is selected, trimmed and manipulated between two whales working together.

The “allokelping” occurred between all whales within the pod, but particularly between those closely related, of a similar age and involving those with lots of dead skin. This has led researchers to posit that the grooming practice is done to remove dead skin, help the whales stay free of parasites and foster the sort of social bonds that a select group of other animals, such as humans, get from interacting in this way. ...

Killer whales, despite their name, are the largest members of the dolphin family and can reach up to 33ft (10 metres) long and weigh as much as 22,000 pounds (10,000kg). Known to be an intelligent apex predator found in all of the world’s oceans, killer whales have been seen working cooperatively when hunting but until now it wasn’t known that they use tools in this way.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

George Dubya Trump Seeks Regime Change In Iran

Patrick Lawrence: ‘Completely & Totally Obliterated’

Trump and Netanyahu aim to remake the Middle East with bombs. Iran shows why that will always fail

Trump’s attack on Iran is ‘unconditional surrender’ to Israel

TACO Trump Bombs Iran

US State Department Spokeswoman Says Israel Is Greater Than America

Fordow Attacked Again; Trump Talks Up Regime Change, Brays About Iran Nuclear Site Success as Israel Taking Increasing Toll from Attacks, Iran Puts Pieces in Place for Strait of Hormuz Closure; UPDATE: Iran Media Claims Attack on US Base in Syria

Proliferation, Retaliation, And Other Consequences Of The War On Iran

Giant asteroid could crash into moon in 2032, firing debris towards Earth

F-Bombs and Real Bombs: Trita Parsi on Shaky Iran Ceasefire & Trump's Anger at Netanyahu

Russia-Iran meet. Medvedev nuclear post. Trump, Iran regime change

A Little Night Music

Ike Turner/Jackie Brenston - Rocket 88 (Original Version)

Ike Turner & His Kings Of Rhythm - Matchbox

Ike Turner & His Rhythm Kings - So Fine

Ike Turner & His Orchestra - Cuban Get Away

Ike Turner & His Orchestra - Loosely (aka The Wild One)

Ike Turner & His Kings Of Rhythm - She Made My Blood Run Cold

Ike Turner and his Kings Of Rhythm - Do You Mean It

Ike Turner & His Kings Of Rhythm - You've Got To Lose

Ike Turner & His Kings Of Rhythm - The New Breed Part 1

Ike Turner - Gettin Nasty