Trump preparing for more Iran war; Election rigging in November?

• EU extends Ukraine military training mission mandate to 2028: Kaja Kallas announced that EU member states agreed on extending the mission for Ukraine by two years. A coordination group will be established in Kiev to study combat lessons and strengthen military education. The EU Commission President also proposed funding the modernization of two training centers in Ukraine and thanked the Netherlands for contributions that close existing financing deficits. 

• In a new revelation, the mother-in-law of Iran’s leader says Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei was present at Imam Reza's shrine during the burial of his father, the martyred Leader Seyyed Ali Khamenei. 

• According to a recent Fox News poll, 71% of registered voters in the US believed that the Trump administration lacked “a clear strategy for ending the war with Iran,” while 60% said the US had made the wrong decision to launch military action. The poll also found that 47% of respondents believed military action against Iran would make the US less safe, while 32% said it would make the country safer.

• The US has imposed sanctions on Iran’s Rail and Automobile industry with the aim to “isolate” Iran further. USS Theodore Roosevelt departed San Diego on Sunday bound for West-Asia to replace the USS George Washington reports Al-Monitor.
• Wired: Google, SpaceX, and a host of startups are all planning to build data centers in space. But for those plans to work, they’ll need power. Lots of it. Star Catcher, a startup based in Jacksonville, Florida, aims to provide it by concentrating the sun’s energy and using lasers to beam it to satellites’ waiting solar panels. The company is preparing to launch its prototype system aboard a SpaceX rocket this week that will transmit energy to another satellite in orbit.

• RT: Over the past few months, there’s been a noticeable surge in reports regarding Germany’s interest in missiles – ranging from ballistic and cruise missiles to land- and sea-based systems. Various partners are involved in the initiative, including the US, Ukraine, Türkiye, and Israel. Berlin’s financial commitment to advancing military programs has reached unprecedented levels. The country is significantly ramping up defense spending. Between 2024 and 2025, approximately 200 new defense industry companies emerged in Germany, and another 100 have appeared since November 2025. But why is Germany showing such interest in missiles?

• CNN: The intelligence report, circulated across the US military this spring in the midst of the war with Iran, immediately set off alarm bells: A Chinese ship in the Middle East was transporting components of a nuclear weapons program. The US military swung into action with plans to intercept the vessel, according to four sources familiar with the episode. According to two of the sources, armed members of the US military were preparing to board the ship. Military planes were in the air, one of those sources and another source familiar with the incident said. It was only just before the planned operation that officials dug deeper into the report put together by a special operations command analyst and found it had been generated with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) — and that a chatbot the analyst had used inaccurately identified the material the ship was carrying. CNN was not able to learn what the misidentified cargo was. The report, according to one of the sources, was “entirely false.” But it also “almost started a war,” the source said. Any US operation against a Chinese vessel could have risked spiraling into an armed conflict between the two nations.

• 'It is impossible to defeat a country like Russia, so victory will undoubtedly be ours' - Russian President Vladimir Putin. Other statements made by the president at a meeting with the leaders of the parties that won seats in the Russian State Duma: 'Courage, bravery, and heroism have been demonstrated in Donbass and Novorossiya; It will not be possible to intimidate such people and it is impossible to defeat such people or such a country; All attempts to disrupt the election campaign and interfere in our internal affairs have completely failed; The state will provide assistance to the families of those killed in the attacks on the elections in the border regions and will award the heroes posthumously; The elections confirmed the respect Russians have for the Special Military Operation (SMO) troops.' 

• Pistol Pete Hegseth just fired the professors at West Point, the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy. Not because they did anything wrong. Because they have job security. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memo Tuesday ending civilian tenure at all US military service academies — ordering West Point, the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy to stop appointing civilian faculty to tenured positions immediately. Hegseth's reasoning in his own words: "Civilian academic norms dilute our focus on lethality."

• US-led military operation shifts headquarters to Jordan after Iraq withdrawal. The US-led Operation Inherent Resolve has shifted its headquarters to Jordan following the completion of the coalition’s military withdrawal from Iraq, US Central Command (CENTCOM) stated. In some ways it is merely a symbolic move at this point, given that the US is still fully entrenched in West Asia with bases throughout the region, so the occasion is really more a milestone for Iraq and its own national sovereignty, rather than a momentous geopolitical juncture.  

• Every seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and a third of U.S. Senate seats, some 470 contests in all, will be decided Nov. 3, and the War Department will help ensure foreign actors don't meddle in those elections. "As we approach this election cycle, we must prove that we can and will protect the integrity of our democratic processes from any threat," said Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. "In my role as secretary of war, the Department of War will effectively wield its capabilities to protect and uphold the reliability of America's voting mechanisms against external manipulation and disruption from foreign actors, while maintaining the fundamental freedoms that characterize our country." [I'm not worried about foreign actors. I'm worried about AIPAC, ICE, Palantir, the War Department, etc. Right now the US is fiddling in the coming elections in Brazil as it has been doing lately all over Latin America, along with Israel. If the Repubs are declared the winners in November then we know they rigged the elections which they can easily do. Bruce]