Gaza Strip
Why 370bn tech group Palantir pays 1.4 percent tax rate: Report
Why $370bn tech group Palantir pays 1.4 percent tax rate: Report Palantir Technologies, the United States data analytics and artificial intelligence company which has contracts with the country's military and intelligence apparatus, has "engineered its corporate structure" to pay no US federal corporate income tax, according to a new report. The study by the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research (CICTAR) comes as Palantir reports soaring revenues, driven partly by government contracts, while it faces continued criticism for providing technology to the Israeli military amid the genocide in Gaza. What does the report show? Earlier this week, Palantir reported second-quarter revenue of $1.94bn, up 93 percent from a year earlier. But despite its rapid growth, CICTAR said its global effective tax rate was just 1.4 percent in 2025.
Abdul El-Sayed's Argument for America--and Against His Own Party
The Michigan U.S. Senate candidate on campaigning with Hasan Piker, being a capitalist, and why his fellow-Democrats need to "stop compromising." Abdul El-Sayed, the front-runner in Michigan's Democratic primary for Senate, is sometimes lumped together with other rising stars on the left. He does refer to the Democratic Party's "brand" as "bullshit" and has taken clear left-leaning positions on health care, Israel, and much else. But, at the same time, he is a self-described capitalist. He is also a former public-health official and a Rhodes Scholar. As he told me when we spoke recently for The New Yorker Radio Hour, his influences include both Bernie Sanders, a socialist, and Barack Obama, a liberal Democrat. He refers to Israel's war in Gaza as a genocide, but unlike, say, Darializa Avila Chevalier, who is almost certainly going to win a congressional seat in New York, he denounces the October 7th massacre--and certainly would not have attended, as Chavalier did, a pro-Hamas rally on October 8th, or ever. El-Sayed is forty-one and the son of Egyptian immigrants. If elected, he would be the first Muslim ever to serve in the U.S. Senate. His opponent in the August 4th primary, Haley Stevens, represents the Party establishment: she has won endorsements from Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. She is a former Obama Administration official who worked on the rescue of the car industry, which is an especially appealing credential in Michigan. Stevens and groups supporting her have spent sixty million dollars on ads--half of that sum has come from the pro-Israel lobbying group . At this point, polls suggest that El-Sayed is leading Stevens in the Democratic Party race, but in a general election he is trailing the Republican Mike Rogers by ten points, while Stevens is running even. El-Sayed, who is both fluid and charming, also shows flashes of bravado and hauteur, particularly directed against his opponents. It was perhaps not a good idea, considering his Oxford and Ivy League bona fides, to say that Stevens could not "string together two coherent sentences." According to, El-Sayed recently said on a call with donors, referring to Senator John Fetterman, "You put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message, and all of a sudden starts to sound a lot different." He is strong with younger voters; he is trailing with Black voters. He would ban, withhold funding for arms for Israel, push for Medicare for All, and "get money out of politics."
Israeli air strike in Gaza City kills family of six, medics say
At least 12 Palestinians, including six members of one family, have been killed in three separate Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip, according to local medics. Video footage showed the family's apartment on fire overnight in the western al-Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City. The brother of Firas al-Masri told the BBC that he had been burnt to death along with his wife, Salsabeel, and their three daughters and son, Faryal, Salma, Amira and Naim. The Israeli military said its target was a Hamas operative and that it was still looking into the results of the attack. On Tuesday afternoon, another four people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a home in the al-Samar area of central Gaza City, Palestinian media cited medics as saying.
Can AI systems make moral decisions in war?
What is Iran's Pickaxe Mountain? Can AI systems make moral decisions in war? Artificial intelligence is reshaping how wars are fought. From autonomous drones to AI-powered command-and-control, machines are paving the way for fewer decision-makers in the war room and boots on the ground. That transformation is already reshaping conflicts by introducing new technologies in Kyiv, Gaza and Tehran.
Israeli attacks on Gaza kill 14, including mourners attending funeral
'This is an apartheid regime' Does Trump have real leverage over Netanyahu? Multiple Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 14 Palestinians, more than half of them in a drone strike on a funeral procession. Nine months into its so-called "ceasefire" with Hamas, Israel continues to violate it on a near-daily basis. At least 20 others were injured, the Al-Awda Hospital added. Witnesses said the drone targeted Palestinian mourners gathered outside the Ahmad Yassin Mosque as they waited to begin a funeral procession for a Palestinian killed in a separate attack earlier in the day in the same area.
Israeli forces kill five Palestinians in latest attacks on Gaza
'This is an apartheid regime' Does Trump have real leverage over Netanyahu? An Israeli drone attack and gunfire in Gaza have killed at least five people, including a nine-year-old girl, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Tala Abu Matar died when Israeli gunfire targeted an encampment on the eastern side of the Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, medics said. The Israeli military acknowledged striking the area, saying without elaborating that it targeted "terrorist infrastructure". Following shooting on Friday, a Palestinian man died of wounds sustained from Israeli fire near Al-Bureij camp, said a health official.
Hospital workers wounded in Israeli drone attack on Gaza's Kamal Adwan
'This is an apartheid regime' Does Trump have real leverage over Netanyahu? Hospital workers wounded in Israeli drone attack on Gaza's Kamal Adwan An Israeli drone attack on a hospital in northern Gaza injured staff members, despite a " ceasefire " being in place, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. At least three people were hurt in the courtyard and three others nearby, medical sources said. The attack happened despite the facility being in the so-called Green Zone, an area under Israeli control. The ministry condemned the attack, describing it as part of Israel's "systematic targeting of health facilities".