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Waymo announced Tuesday that it is offering accounts for teens ages 14 to 17, starting in Phoenix.

The Alphabet-owned company said that, beginning Tuesday, parents in Phoenix can use their Waymo accounts “to invite their teen into the program, pairing them together.” Once their account is activated, teens can hail fully autonomous rides.

Previously, users were required to be at least 18 years old to sign up for a Waymo account, but the age range expansion comes as the company seeks to increase ridership amid a broader expansion of its ride-hailing service across U.S. cities. Alphabet has also been under pressure to monetize AI products amid increased competition and economic headwinds.

Waymo said it will offer “specially-trained Rider Support agents” during rides hailed by teens and loop in parents if needed. Teens can also share their trip status with their parents for real-time updates on their progress, and parents receive all ride receipts.

Teen accounts are initially only being offered to riders in the metro Phoenix area. Teen accounts will expand to more markets outside California where the Waymo app is available in the future, a spokesperson said.

Waymo’s expansion to teens follows a similar move by Uber, which launched teen accounts in 2023. Waymo, which has partnerships with Uber in multiple markets, said it “may consider enabling access for teens through our network partners in the future.”

Already, Waymo provides more than 250,000 paid trips each week across Phoenix, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Austin, Texas, and the company is preparing to bring autonomous rides to Miami and Washington, D.C., in 2026.

In June, Waymo announced that it plans to manually drive vehicles in New York, marking the first step toward potentially cracking the largest U.S. city. Waymo said it applied for a permit with the New York City Department of Transportation to operate autonomously with a trained specialist behind the wheel in Manhattan.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to move forward, at least for now, with plans to implement large-scale cuts to the federal workforce, issuing a stay that lifts a lower court’s injunction against the administration’s executive order.

In a 6–3 decision, the justices granted the emergency request filed by the White House last week, clearing the way for Executive Order No. 14210 to take effect while legal challenges play out in the Ninth Circuit and potentially the high court.

The order directs federal agencies to carry out sweeping reductions in force (RIFs) and agency reorganizations. 

It has been described by administration officials as a lawful effort to ‘streamline government and eliminate waste.’ Critics, including labor unions, local governments and nonprofit organizations, argue the president is unlawfully bypassing Congress to dismantle major parts of the federal government.

A majority on the Court stressed that it was not ruling on the legality of specific agency cuts, only the executive order itself.

‘Because the Government is likely to succeed on its argument that the Executive Order and Memorandum are lawful—and because the other factors bearing on whether to grant a stay are satisfied—we grant the application,’ the Court wrote. ‘We express no view on the legality of any Agency RIF and Reorganization Plan produced or approved pursuant to the Executive Order and Memorandum. The District Court enjoined further implementation or approval of the plans based on its view about the illegality of the Executive Order and Memorandum, not on any assessment of the plans themselves. Those plans are not before this Court.’

The district court in California had blocked the order in May, calling it an overreach. But the Supreme Court’s unsigned decision on Tuesday set aside that injunction, pending appeal. The majority said the government is ‘likely to succeed’ in defending the legality of the order.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented forcefully, writing that ‘this Court sees fit to step in now and release the President’s wrecking ball at the outset of this litigation.’ She warned that the executive action represents a ‘structural overhaul that usurps Congress’s policymaking prerogatives’ and accused the majority of acting prematurely in an emergency posture without fully understanding the facts.

‘This unilateral decision to ‘transform’ the Federal Government was quickly challenged in federal court,’ she wrote. ‘The District Judge thoroughly examined the evidence, considered applicable law, and made a reasoned determination that Executive Branch officials should be enjoined from implementing the mandated restructuring… But that temporary, practical, harm-reducing preservation of the status quo was no match for this Court’s demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture.’

The executive order, issued in February, instructed agencies to prepare immediate plans for reorganizations and workforce reductions, including eliminating roles deemed ‘non-critical’ or ‘not statutorily mandated.’ The administration says it is a necessary response to bloated government and outdated structures, claiming the injunction was forcing agencies to retain ‘thousands of employees whose continuance in federal service… is not in the government and public interest.’

Labor unions and state officials opposing the plan say it goes beyond normal workforce management and could gut services across multiple agencies. They point to proposed cuts of over 50% at the Department of Energy, and nearly 90% at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

The case is Trump v. American Federation of Government Employees.

‘Today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling is another definitive victory for the President and his administration,’ wrote White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields in an email to Fox News Digital. ‘It clearly rebukes the continued assaults on the President’s constitutionally authorized executive powers by leftist judges who are trying to prevent the President from achieving government efficiency across the federal government.’

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Four men in Quebec, including two active members of the Canadian Armed Forces, were arrested and charged in what Canadian police say is a case of “ideologically motivated violent extremism.”

Three of the men, all in their mid-twenties, “were planning to create an anti-government militia” with the intent to “forcibly take possession of land in the Québec City area,” the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said in a statement on Tuesday.

“To achieve this, [the three men] took part in military-style training, as well as shooting, ambush, survival and navigation exercises,” the statement continues. “They also conducted a scouting operation. A variety of firearms, some prohibited, as well as high-capacity magazines and tactical equipment were allegedly used in these activities.”

The three were charged with facilitating terrorist activity. A fourth individual, a man in his early thirties, faces numerous firearms and explosives-related charges, police said.

In a January 2024 search near Quebec City, police say they found “16 explosive devices, 83 firearms and accessories, approximately 11,000 rounds of ammunition of various calibres, nearly 130 magazines, four pairs of night vision goggles and military equipment.”

They used the account to advertise military-style training in Quebec and Ontario, Gasse added.

Gasse did not elaborate on what specific ideology allegedly motivated the men, or the location of the land near Quebec City police claim they plotted to seize.

“It’s a good thing we caught them when we did,” Gasse said.

“The Canadian Armed Forces is taking these allegations very seriously and has fully participated in the investigation,” a department spokesperson said in an email.

Extremism within Canada’s armed forces is a longstanding issue, with a 2022 government report noting that the country’s military is “not immune to infiltration” by members of extremist groups.

“The suspected presence of members of extremist groups within [the Department of National Defence/Canadian Armed Forces] is a pressing moral, social and operational issue,” the report concluded.

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For a fleeting moment, Ukraine’s conflict may have come full circle.

In the past 48 hours, US President Donald Trump has perhaps said his most forcefully direct words yet on arming Ukraine. And in the same period, the Kremlin have given their blankest indication to this White House that they are not interested in a realistic, negotiated settlement to the war.

Let us start with Trump’s comments on arming Ukraine, a reversion to a basic bedrock of US foreign policy for decades – opposing Russian aggression. “We’re going to send some more weapons,” the president said Monday of Ukraine. “We have to – they have to be able to defend themselves. They’re getting hit very hard.”

Behind him, his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth nodded, despite this contradiction of the administration’s announcement days earlier of military shipments being stopped. What did Trump actually mean? He was short on detail.

A Pentagon spokesman later said that “at President Trump’s direction, the Department of Defense is sending additional defensive weapons to Ukraine to ensure the Ukrainians can defend themselves while we work to secure a lasting peace and ensure the killing stops.”

The about-face came days after Volodymyr Zelensky’s call with Trump on Friday, in which the Ukrainian leader said the two men spoke of joint weapons production, and air defense.

Zelensky urgently needs more Patriot interceptor missiles, which are the only way of taking down Russian ballistic missiles, and which only the US can authorize trade in. Trump spoke a day earlier with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has offered to buy Patriots from the US to supply to Ukraine. Enough is afoot to have led Zelensky to declare on Saturday his Trump call was “the best conversation we have had during this whole time, the most productive.”

Trump’s failure to provide details may be strategic, or a by-product of his occasional disdain for them. But while he may sound briefly a little more like his predecessor, Joe Biden, in terms of arming Ukraine, herein lies one stark difference. Biden publicly announced in agonizing detail every capability he gave Kyiv, perhaps hoping the transparency would avoid a sudden unexpected escalation with Moscow.

Instead, Biden ended up with an excruciating public debate with Kyiv about every new system, and arms shipment, during which every seemingly impossible demand – from HIMARS rockets, to tanks, to F-16 fighter jets, to strikes inside Russia by ATACMs – was eventually acceded to. The plain, open ladder of American escalation was laid bare to the Kremlin. Trump perhaps seeks to avoid that by saying less.

But after barely six months in office, Trump finds himself back where Biden always was, after trying almost everything else – cosying up to then criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin, falling out and making up with Zelensky, and spurning before eventually backing Europe. But the timing of his latest conversion, however enduring, reveals the desperation of this moment in the conflict.

The most recent, record Russian use of drones to attack Kyiv exposed possibly critical shortcomings in the capital’s air defenses. They would only have worsened without being resupplied, at a time when Ukraine has reported 160,000 Russian troops are massing to the north and east of the frontlines. The months ahead will be unpredictable and critical for Kyiv, even with renewed US military support.

Trump’s reversal may have stopped panic edging towards the risk of collapse. Why the shift?

Trump has always tried playing nice with Putin. Patient diplomacy, gentle words, and even last week’s brief pause in military aid – a Kremlin demand for a deal – still did nothing to change Putin’s position. The Kremlin does not want peace. And so Trump has learned slowly, rejecting the travails of recent history, that Russia is an opponent.

Firefighters work at an apartment building which was damaged during Russian drone and missile strikes in Kyiv on July 4.
A medical worker treats a woman as people take shelter in the basement of their apartment building during a Russian drone strike in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 7.

The end of the US’ longest war in Afghanistan, in which Biden withdrew fast in the wake of a hasty deal signed by Trump with the Taliban, led to scenes that haunted Trump’s predecessor and remain a potent stick with which Republicans beat Democrats. The repetition of a similar rout of American allies in Ukraine, or Eastern Europe, would be an indelible stain on the Republican or MAGA record. That is not imminent, or even that likely for now. But the seeds of it lie perhaps in any success for Putin’s planned aggression in the coming months.

Meanwhile, after six months of toying with the ideas of diplomacy, the Kremlin is back where it started too: willing to accept a peace only if it is surrender by another name. Its recent goal has been achieved: it has flattered the White House’s belief that it could talk out an end to the war, and taken enough time in talks that Russia’s summer offensive is now adequately manned, and the ground below these troops hard.

As recently as Monday, Putin’s top diplomat was repeating Russia’s most maximalist set of demands. Sergey Lavrov told a Hungarian newspaper that the “underlying causes” of the war must be eliminated, and gave a long, expansive list of impossibles, including the “demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, lifting sanctions on Russia, rescinding all lawsuits against Russia, and returning the illegally seized Western-based assets.”

He added to that a requirement that Ukraine pledge to never join NATO, and also that occupied Ukrainian territory be recognized as Russian, including parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson that Moscow hasn’t even seized yet. It was a dizzying echo of Russia’s demands when it engaged in diplomacy for the first time in Istanbul, in the opening weeks of the war, as its soldiers shot civilians dead in the suburbs of Kyiv.

Putin’s rationale for rejecting real diplomacy is simple. He has sold this war (falsely) as an existential clash between Russia and its traditional values, and a liberal, expansionist and aggressive NATO. It is a binary moment in Russian history, his narrative insists. To entertain a short, albeit deceptive ceasefire on American terms would contradict the urgency of that false story, and risk undermining the skimpy morale of his troops, whose lives his commanders often fritter away in brutal, frontal assaults.

Putin can mollify Trump with talk of his desire for peace. But he cannot let slip the façade of the motherland being under assault. His retreat back to type has been shorter and easier than Trump’s. But still the Kremlin sees the enemy where it always has been, and where it always needs to be, for its war of choice to continue ending the lives of so many Russian men early.

And so, for a brief moment, Putin and Trump find themselves back where Russia and the US were in 2022. Moscow has tens of thousands more troops reportedly amassed to invade Ukraine yet again. Diplomacy seems pointless. Washington needs to help defend Ukraine or risk global embarrassment – the demise of its military hegemony. And Ukraine is still there, in the middle, watching both powers on either side vacillate and spin, yet holding on.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

Former Vice President Kamala Harris offered a take so ‘weird’ and ‘not good’ in an interview with social media personality Kareem Rahma that they both agreed to nix airing the footage, according to Rahma. 

Rahma, who hosts the popular series ‘Subway Takes,’ where he asks commuters and sometimes celebrities their opinions, previously told the New York Times that he conducted an interview with Harris during the summer of 2024, but that it was never released. 

Rahma said in an interview clip with Forbes’ Steven Bertoni posted on social media Monday that Harris’ take was so ‘bad’ he felt fortunate it didn’t make the cut. 

‘Her take was really confusing and weird – not good,’ Rahma told Bertoni. And we ‘mutually agreed to not publish it. And I got lucky, because I didn’t want to be blamed for her losing.’

‘Her take was that bad?’ Bertoni said. 

‘It was really, really bad… it like, didn’t make any sense,’ Rahma said, revealing Harris’ take was ‘bacon as a spice.’ 

Neither Harris nor Rahma immediately responded to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

Rahma, who is Muslim, told the New York Times in a story published in November 2024 that Harris’ team originally proposed she would share a ‘hot take’ against people removing their shoes on airplanes.

But Harris went on to declare that bacon was a spice – a food that Rahma and other Muslims do not consume for religious reasons. The Times reported that Rahma was ‘taken aback’ by Harris’ statement. 

‘Think about it, it’s pure flavor,’ she said, per the unaired footage obtained by the Times. 

The Times’ story said two senior campaign managers for Harris said the topic of bacon had been previously raised, while Rahma and his manager said that wasn’t the case. Harris’ campaign reportedly apologized for sharing her take on bacon and offered to re-film the episode, but Rahma declined, according to the Times. 

Rahma told the Times that his reasoning for not airing the interview was because he didn’t want to upset the Muslim community, and that he was hoping to ask Harris questions about the Biden administration’s policy regarding the Israel–Hamas war. 

‘It was so complicated because I’m Muslim and there’s something going on in the world that 100% of Muslims care about,’ Rahma told the Times. ‘And then they made it worse by talking about anchovies. Boring!’

Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, also appeared on Rahma’s series leading up to the 2024 election, where he discussed gutter maintenance. Walz’s interview was posted in August 2024. 

Fox News’ Yael Halon contributed to this report. 

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As the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran continues, the Jewish State’s leader said that he would be open to having access to some of America’s most powerful military equipment.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a stop on Capitol Hill Tuesday afternoon to meet with House Speaker Mike Johnson before a later confab with the Senate. It’s his first trip to Washington since the 12-day war between Israel and Iran erupted, and comes on the heels of a stoppage in fighting between the two countries.

When asked if he would be open to Israel gaining access to B-2 stealth bombers and bunker-busting bombs — the same U.S. military equipment used to cripple Iran’s nuclear program — Netanyahu appeared to relish the thought.

‘Would I like to see Israel have the capacities that the United States has? Of course we’d like it. Who wouldn’t want it?’ he said.

‘But we are appreciative of what assistance we’ve received, and I think it’s served not only the interest of Israel’s security but America’s security and the security of the free world,’ Netanyahu continued.

Netanyahu’s sentiment comes as a bipartisan duo in the House, Reps. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., are pushing to allow President Donald Trump the capability to send Israel the stealth bomber and powerful, 30,000-pound bombs capable of burrowing 200-feet into the ground before exploding, if Iran is found to still be marching forward with its nuclear program.

Their bill currently has three other Democratic co-sponsors, including Reps. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., and Juan Vargas, D-Calif.

The same aircraft and munitions were used in Operation Midnight Hammer, the secretive strike authorized by Trump last month to hit some of Iran’s key nuclear facilities, including Fordow, a facility buried below layers of rock that previous Israeli strikes couldn’t crack. Currently, the U.S. does not loan out any of its fleet of B-2s to allies.

Netanyahu’s remarks also came after he met with Trump on Monday, and he lauded his work with the president since his return to the White House.

‘I have to say that the coordination between our two countries, the coordination between an American president and Israel Prime Minister has been unmatched,’ he said. ‘It offers great promise for Israel, for America, for our region and for the world.’

He also hinted that ‘it may be very likely’ the pair may meet again before he leaves Washington. 

Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.

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Thirteen women and two men who survived captivity by Hamas said they experienced or witnessed sexual violence while held hostage in Gaza, according to a new report by a group of Israeli researchers known as the Dinah Project.

The Dinah Project experts — all women — gathered first-hand testimonies from the 15 returned hostages, one survivor of an attempted rape during the October 7, 2023 terror attacks, 17 eye and ear witnesses and 27 first responders who attended the scenes of the attacks.

These testimonies, coupled with forensic reports and photographs and videos from the attacks, led them to conclude that Hamas used sexual violence in a widespread, systematic and “tactical” way as a “weapon of war.”

The report, published on Tuesday, describes some of the survivors’ experiences.

One female hostage was beaten and sexually assaulted at gunpoint while in captivity, according to the report. She said she was chained by an iron ankle chain for three weeks and was repeatedly asked about the timing of her menstrual cycle. The report details that many of the 15 former hostages were threatened with rape in the form of forced marriage. Almost all of them reported verbal sexual harassment and some physical sexual harassment, including unwanted touching of private parts, it said.

Israel has in the past accused international organizations, including the UN and its agencies, of ignoring widespread sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas and other militant groups during the October 7 attacks.

The Dinah Project is an Israeli group established following the attacks to seek justice for victims of sexual violence. Made up of legal and gender experts, it is led by legal scholar Ruth Halperin-Kaddari and Sharon Zagagi-Pinhas, who was the former chief military prosecutor of the Israel Defense Forces, and operates under the auspices of the Ruth and Emanuel Rackman Center for the Advancement of Women at Bar-Ilan University.

The first official acknowledgment by the UN of the use of sexual violence during the attacks came some five months after October 7. Then, following a mission to Israel, the UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten published a report concluding there were reasonable grounds to believe conflict-related sexual violence occurred in multiple locations, and that there was clear and convincing evidence that hostages in Gaza were subjected to sexual assaults.

Hamas has denied in the past that militants committed sexual violence, saying in a statement in December that these were “unfounded lies and allegations.”

The scale of the atrocities committed on the day of the attacks meant that first responders and investigators were overwhelmed. According to Jewish customs, bodies must be buried as soon as possible after death, so the focus of the first responders, many of whom were Orthodox Jewish volunteers, was on recovering remains rather than investigation.

In many instances, authorities did not have a chance to collect sufficient forensic evidence because they were attending scenes while the attacks were still ongoing. This meant that there were often no detailed records or photographs of the crime scenes in the immediate aftermath. Many of the victims of sexual violence were murdered by their attackers, which meant there were almost no first-hand testimonies, according to the report.

As some of the hostages were released and more time passed, allowing victims to process their experiences, researchers were able to collect more comprehensive first-hand evidence.

The Dinah Project researchers called for the sexual violence perpetrated during the attacks to be recognized as crimes against humanity, and said the perpetrators must be held accountable and receive international condemnation.

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The conversation touches on triumph gold’s rationale for expanding into the United States, highlighting the project’s access to year-round work, low dilution, and proximity to major producers such as Rio Tinto and Osisko Development.

‘We’ve added a highly compelling silver project in one of North America’s most mining-friendly jurisdictions,’ Anderson said. ‘Utah allows us to operate year-round, and the acquisition gives us exposure to high-grade silver and regional-scale discovery potential with minimal dilution to our shareholders.’

Other highlights from the interview include:

  • Details on the Coyote Knoll acquisition structure, including share issuance and milestone payments
  • Ongoing strategic value of the company’s flagship Freegold Mountain project in Yukon
  • Exploration potential at Andalusite Peak, Triumph’s underexplored copper-gold property in Northern British Columbia
  • Comments on the permitting environment in Canada and the potential impact of fast-tracking federal legislation

Watch the full interview here:

About triumph gold

triumph gold is a junior exploration company focused on advancing gold, silver and copper assets across North America. The company’s holdings include the Freegold Mountain project in Yukon, Andalusite Peak in British Columbia and the newly acquired Coyote Knoll project in Utah.

For more information: https://triumphgoldcorp.com/

Media Contact

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To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/258113

News Provided by Newsfile via QuoteMedia

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Even amid a fragile ceasefire, Iran continues to warn the United States and Israel that it retains the ability to inflict serious damage if provoked. 

Iranian officials have declared the country can sustain daily missile strikes for two years — a claim drawing increasing scrutiny from military experts and Western intelligence analysts.

‘Our armed forces are at the height of their readiness,’ said Major General Ebrahim Jabbari of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), speaking to the semi-official Mehr News Agency. ‘The warehouses, underground missile bases, and facilities we have are so enormous that we have yet to demonstrate the majority of our defense capabilities and effective missiles.’

‘In case of a war with Israel and the U.S., our facilities will not run out even if we launch missiles at them every day for two years,’ he added.

Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior military advisor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, echoed that warning: ‘The Zionists know that some of our forces, such as the Navy and the Quds Force, have not yet entered into battle,’ he said. ‘So far, we have produced several thousand missiles and drones, and their place is secure.’

But intelligence analysis suggests Iran’s claims mask serious losses.

Tehran began the conflict with an arsenal of about 3,000 missiles and 500 missile launchers to 600 missile launchers, according to open-source intelligence. By the end of the so-called ’12-Day War’ — a series of attacks by Israel on its military storage warehouses and production facilities followed by U.S. attacks on nuclear sites and Iran’s counterattacks — it was down to between 1,000 missiles and 1,500 missiles and only 150 launchers to 200 launchers. 

‘The regime has increasingly been forced to choose between using or losing these projectiles as Israel targeted missile launchers,’ said Behnam Ben Taleblu, Iran expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. 

Replacing the missile launchers after Israel degraded their production capabilities will be extremely difficult, according to Danny Citrinowicz, Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies. 

‘Israel attacked every place that the Iranians manufacture missiles,’ he told Fox News Digital. 

Iran may have the capacity to attack Israel with its missiles, but ‘not in the hundreds.’ 

Could Iran strike the US homeland?

Iranian rhetoric occasionally has floated the idea of striking the U.S. directly, but analysts agree that the threat is far more limited.

‘The theoretical way they can strike the U.S. is just using their capacity in Venezuela,’ Citrinowicz said, referring to Iran’s growing military cooperation with its capital of Caracas. ‘Strategically, it was one of the main goals that they had — to build their presence in Venezuela. But it’s a long shot. It would be very hard to do so, and I’m not sure the Venezuelan government would like that to happen.’

Instead, any retaliatory strike would likely focus on U.S. assets and personnel in the Middle East.

Can Kasapoglu, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and Middle East military affairs expert, said Israel’s war aims went beyond missile factories, targeting Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and advanced weapons development.

‘We are not 100% sure about the damage to centrifuges, so we cannot say the nuclear program is annihilated,’ Kasapoglu said. ‘But we can safely assume the nuclear program had a setback for years.’

He added that Israel focused heavily on Iran’s solid-propellant, medium-range ballistic missiles — many of which have ‘very high terminal velocity, close to Mach 10,’ and are capable of evasive maneuvers. 

‘That makes them even more dangerous,’ he said.

Still, despite the setbacks, Iran ‘is still the largest ballistic missile power in the Middle East,’ he emphasized. ‘We saw that during the war, as Iran was able to penetrate Israeli airspace — even when Israeli and American interceptors were firing interceptor after interceptor to stop a single ballistic missile.’

Comparing ‘magazine depth,’ Kasapoglu noted Iran still maintains a deeper stockpile of missiles than Israel, even with U.S. assistance, and has interceptors.

Proxy forces and Chinese involvement

The regional threat isn’t limited to Iran’s mainland arsenal. Iran’s proxies, particularly the Houthis in Yemen, remain a potent force.

‘The Houthis are the one Iranian proxy I am really concerned about.’ 

Kasapoglu pointed to new intelligence accusing Chinese satellite companies of providing real-time targeting data to the Houthis, who have resumed maritime attacks in the Red Sea. 

‘Two days ago, they attacked a Liberian-flagged Greek merchant vessel,’ he said.

With advanced Chinese satellite support and hardened anti-ship cruise missiles, the Houthis could destabilize shipping lanes and widen the conflict beyond the Israel-Iran front.

‘Iran still has significant asymmetric capabilities in the maritime domain and transnational terrorist apparatus, but it’s hard to see how deploying these assets would not invite further ruin,’ said Taleblu. ‘Bluster and hyperbole have long been elements of Iran’s deterrence strategy.’ 

The so-called ’12-Day War’ ended in a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, but the region remains on edge. Iran’s leaders continue to boast about untapped military capabilities, but battlefield losses, manufacturing disruptions and previous counter-attack measures have limited its options. 

While Tehran retains the power to project force and threaten both Israel and U.S. regional assets, experts agree that its ability to launch sustained, high-volume attacks has been meaningfully curtailed.

Iran may still be dangerous, but its bark, for now, may be louder than its bite.

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President Joe Biden’s former chief of staff and a fixture of his re-election campaign, Ron Klain, privately announced during Biden’s disastrous debate performance: ‘We’re f—ed.’

‘2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America,’ a new book released Tuesday by journalists Josh Dawsey of The Wall Street Journal, Tyler Pager of The New York Times and Isaac Arnsdor of The Washington Post, is the latest analysis of how Biden lost the White House. 

The authors described how, during the June 2024 debate, ‘Biden’s aides winced as the president started answering the first question about the economy and voters who felt they were worse off under his presidency.’ 

And backstage, as Biden stumbled over an answer that questionably ended with, ‘We finally beat Medicare,’ back in the holding room, Klain stood up and announced, ‘We’re f—ed,’ according to the authors. 

Mike Donilon, Bruce Reed and Klain were among those leading Biden’s final prep ahead of the debate, according to the book. 

Despite Klain expressing doubt internally, Klain continued to defend the president amid calls from donors and politicians for Biden to step down. 

On June 30, 2024, Klain reshared an X post that urged Americans to ignore the ‘news reports’ with ‘anonymous sources about Dem donors calling for Biden to withdraw.’

‘We are the Democratic Party! These people don’t get to decide to oust a pro-labor pro-people President,’ Klain said on July 4, 2024, in response to The New York Times reporting about the Democrats’ pressure campaign against Biden. 

According to the book, after the debate, Klain called Jeff Zients, his successor as Biden’s chief of staff, to say he was ‘disturbed that Biden was planning to spend the weekend at Camp David.’

‘We have an emergency,’ Klain told Zients, according to the book. ‘We have a crisis on Capitol Hill, and the crisis is going to accelerate.’

But Zients insisted Biden was going to Camp David to be with his family, instead of Klain’s plan to appease the progressive wing of the party with a bold second-term agenda. 

‘I have no f—ing clue why he’s going to Camp David this weekend,’ Klain said, according to the authors. ‘He needs to be working the phones, day and night.’

Even before the debate, when concerns about the first octogenarian president’s ability to lead the country through a second term came to a boiling point, Klain had concerns, as portrayed in the book. 

Klain had overseen debate prep for every Democratic presidential candidate since 2004, according to the authors. Between Biden’s cold, a shorter prep window than usual and staffers privately expressing concern, debate prep in Camp David did not quite go as planned, the authors claimed.

‘This is going to be really touch and go in Atlanta,’ Klain told Donilon and Reed ahead of the debate, according to the book. 

Fox News Digital has written extensively dating back to the 2020 presidential campaign about Biden’s cognitive decline and his inner circle’s alleged role in covering it up.

When reached for comment, Klain told Fox News Digital, ‘I have nothing to add.’

Biden did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

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