23: Modi In New York

Israel’s Netanyahu to Lebanese civilians: ‘Take this warning seriously’
House to take up new funding bill as some Republicans fear a 'galactically stupid' shutdown Donald Trump pressured Republicans to pass a citizenship voting bill or shut down the government. This week, Speaker Mike Johnson will try to move forward without it......... Johnson and other GOP leaders are pleading with their party not to allow a shutdown just five weeks before Election Day, which would be unprecedented in modern times. Swing-district Republicans say it would be a terrible move, as their party would likely get blamed by voters. ......... “It’s, in my opinion, galactically stupid to do a government shutdown even after an election. Before an election, it’s even worse. It’s self-immolating as a party if we do that right before an election,” said Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., who represents one of several dozen competitive districts that could decide the House majority. “So we should not shut the government down.” .......... Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who also faces a competitive race, said: “Shutting down the government is bad politics, bad governance.”

Massive radio survey reveals our universe's structure at the largest scales
Indian-origin billionaire tears into Elon Musk over 'no plebs allowed' post: 'You owe me apology'
U.S. "losing a generation" to fentanyl as agents fight Mexican cartels supplying the drug, DEA head says We are in the midst of the worst drug crisis in U.S. history. The drug is fentanyl, and unlike cocaine and heroin, it's a purely chemical, man-made drug. It's cheap to produce, easily smuggled, and packs an incredibly addictive punch – 50 times more powerful than heroin. Nearly all the fentanyl flooding into the U.S. is made in Mexico by two powerful drug cartels, with chemicals primarily purchased from China. And as you're about to hear, it is frequently hidden in counterfeit pills made to look just like prescription drugs. It's the scourge of our time. Last year more than 70,000 Americans died from fentanyl; that's a higher death toll than U.S. military casualties in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan combined.......... We were so naive to fentanyl. We thought fentanyl, you hear about it, but you think 'Oh that's just affecting people on the streets, homeless people, drug addicts.' No. It is so insidious. ........... Angela King: Absolutely. Which is shocking to me because at the rate that fentanyl is killing people in this country, it is absolutely ludicrous that this is not on the front page of every newspaper and every news broadcast daily. ......... Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid – a chemical cousin to morphine – originally designed for hospital patients in extreme pain. Now it is in cities and towns in all 50 states. Frequent users heat up fentanyl powder and inhale it. But more often it's sold in pill form – deliberately made to look like real prescription drugs – the one on the left contains fentanyl. Just two milligrams, an amount that fits on the tip of a pencil, can kill. ............ Anne Milgram: The cartels don't sell fentanyl as fentanyl. They hide it in other drugs like cocaine or methamphetamine or heroin. They make it into these fake pills that look identical to pharmaceutical drugs that Americans would recognize, like Oxy or Xanax, Percocet, Adderall. It will be a very massive high that is very short. And that person, they're betting if they survive, will come back again and again and again to buy more. ........... Anne Milgram: As complex and as massive a problem as this is, it's also not a whodunit. We know who's responsible. It's the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Cartel that are based in Mexico. They dominate and control the entire global fentanyl supply chain, starting in China, going to Mexico, coming into the United States. ........... Troy Miller: The majority the fentanyl that we're seeing, about 90%-plus is coming in passenger vehicles. .............. Commissioner Troy Miller, a 30-year veteran of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, told us almost all the fentanyl coming into the country is smuggled through legal ports of entry like here at San Ysidro, between San Diego and Tijuana. It's the busiest land port in the Western Hemisphere. .............. More than 60,000 cars snake through 34 lanes 24-7. Officers have a minute or less to decide who gets a second look, and they only have the resources to search 8% of the cars. Dogs trained to sniff out fentanyl are some of their best assets. The cartels are constantly adapting, for example, hiding pills in gas tanks to mask the scent............ Troy Miller: Well, in the San Diego field office, we're seeing 200,000 people a day. Every one of these 200,000 people is presenting themselves as a legitimate traveler. .......

We were astonished to learn two-thirds of the people arrested smuggling fentanyl are American citizens paid by the cartels.

............... the bipartisan border bill killed by the Senate at the urging of former President Donald Trump. It would have provided 1,500 new border and customs officers and 100 high tech detection machines. ............ Sherri Hobson: Cartels are very business-oriented. They look for profit. They look for perpetual power. They're institutionalized. ..... They do their homework. They do their analysis. ............. the cartels' move into fentanyl was entirely predictable. When the U.S. opioid crisis triggered a crackdown on the drug industry and many companies were sued by ravaged communities, the supply of legal opioids dried up – but the demand from Americans addicted to the drugs did not. .............. So I think what happened was they said, "You know what? We have an open market. We have millions of people that are addicted to Oxycodone. We can do fentanyl. We can create these counterfeit pills and we can, we can sell them." .......... Anne Milgram: And what's happening on social media? The cartels use it to organize themselves to get individuals who will carry the drugs across the border from Mexico, to post ads for drugs, and to sell drugs. Whether it's SnapChat, Instagram, TikTok, there are drugs being sold there every single day. .......... And seven out of 10 of those counterfeit pills the DEA tests have a potentially deadly dose of fentanyl.

Raising the Stakes, Israel Gambles That Hezbollah Will Back Down Israel’s intensifying strikes show how determined it is to stop Hezbollah’s cross-border attacks — and how far it is from achieving that goal. ...........

and how close both sides are to an all-out war.

............ Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, has even dared Israel to invade southern Lebanon, a move that could just as plausibly lead to a protracted stalemate as an Israeli victory. .......... Military analysts have debated the feasibility of Israel’s attempting to fight three land conflicts at once, especially given the challenges posed by an invasion of Lebanon......... After 11 months of fighting, Israel’s military still has not fully defeated Hamas in Gaza. And Hezbollah controls a larger and more mountainous area than Hamas does in Gaza. The Lebanese militia also is generally considered to have a better trained army than Hamas has, in addition to more sophisticated fortifications.