One Impact, Many Answers - But No Responsibility!
The war began on February 28 with rockets, sirens, and images that stay with you. Among them: the strike on an Iranian elementary school in Minab. Children, rubble, a place where classes should have been taking place that morning. Since then, one question has remained and has grown heavier with each passing day: Who was responsible for more than 170 deaths? U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters that the results of the Pentagon investigation would be released - but only when, in the view of the Department, the time was right. He gave no date. No timeline. No explanation why an attack on a school should only be addressed publicly later.
Read also our article: Minab, 175 Dead and a Tomahawk - One Video and 116 Meters
Donald Trump, meanwhile, said he had seen nothing leading him to believe that the United States was responsible. The incident was "horrible," he said. At the same time, he added that he did not know whether it would ever be determined who was to blame because missiles had been flying everywhere at the time. That sentence stands out. Not only because of what it says, but because of when it was said. While the Department of Defense continues to point to pending results, the president is already drawing a line between suspicion and responsibility. It is not an exoneration, but it is not clarification either. Only distance.
What remains is an attack on a school, an ongoing process, and a government that is investigating while at the same time explaining why, in the end, nobody may be able to say with certainty what happened. For the families of the children, that is not an answer. For the public, it is not either.
Germany Cancels Its Largest Warship Since 1945
Six F126 frigates, originally priced at ten billion euros, later rising to an estimated eighteen billion, with the first ship not expected before 2033 - Germany has killed the project. Instead, the Bundeswehr will buy eight MEKO A-200 frigates from German manufacturer TKMS, the first four for 6.3 billion euros and four more optional for 5.3 billion. The first ship is expected in the water by 2029. The math is clear, and so is the message behind it: Germany is rearming, but it no longer has time for prestige projects. The F126 belonged to a different era. Its design emerged in 2020, when European militaries were still thinking about limited overseas missions, not defending the continent itself. The Ukraine war destroyed that assumption and with it the strategic logic behind the ship. Western generals watched Russia lose a large part of its Black Sea fleet - to drones, to unmanned underwater vehicles, to cheap weapons defeating expensive targets. A flagship that takes decades to develop and ultimately becomes a target because of its size no longer fits that picture.
The Dutch manufacturer DSNS, which won the original contract, was overwhelmed by the project financially and in terms of schedule. Rheinmetall was supposed to step in, had just taken over shipbuilder NVL and wanted the contract. It was not enough. Rheinmetall shares lost 18.5 percent on Wednesday. The company, which in just a few years expanded from ammunition and artillery systems into satellites, drones and now shipbuilding, is paying the price for an acquisition that analysts had already viewed skeptically when NVL was bought. At the same time, Berlin also abandoned the FCAS fighter jet project with France because the participating companies could not agree on leadership. Two major projects in a short period of time - both from the prewar era, both too slow, too expensive, too complicated for what Europe currently needs. The Bundeswehr wants to become Europe’s largest conventional military force. For that, it needs ships that float and aircraft that fly - and soon.
Trump Wants Cheap Gas - But Markets Do Not Move on Election Timetables
Donald Trump wants gasoline prices to fall. Not eventually. Now. Although gas prices in the United States have already dropped significantly over the past month and fell an average of forty-nine cents per gallon, it is not enough for him. Hope for an end to the war with Iran calmed markets, oil prices declined, but at many gas stations drivers are still seeing prices far above what had been normal before the war. Trump reacted publicly and directly. Shortly after midnight, he wrote that the major oil companies were not lowering prices at the pump sufficiently in line with lower crude oil prices. He announced that the Department of Justice should examine whether consumers were being overcharged and whether somebody was profiting from the situation.
The problem with this calculation: crude oil prices and pump prices do not move in lockstep. Crude oil is the largest cost factor, but only one part of the final price. Taxes, refining, transportation, storage and distribution all play a role. Last year alone, crude oil costs accounted for a little more than half of the American gasoline price. The rest was spread across processing, supply chains and taxes. In states such as California this becomes especially visible because of higher taxes and higher refining costs. Then there is time. Refineries often purchase crude oil long before processing begins. What falls on the markets today may have been bought at high prices weeks earlier. After that, fuel still has to move through pipelines, terminals, tanker trucks and storage before reaching the gas station. Consumers therefore see price movements much later than markets do.
The war with Iran intensified this delay. When ships were temporarily unable to move freely through the Strait of Hormuz, energy prices rose worldwide. A significant portion of global oil and gas traffic passes through this route. Even now, as more ships are moving again and the situation has eased somewhat, market observers do not expect a rapid return to prewar levels. There is also a second effect: when crude oil prices exploded, many gas stations did not pass the full increase on to customers. Many operators are not corporations but family businesses or small companies with only a few locations. Now some are trying to recover losses from recent weeks.
Despite the decline, American drivers are still paying significantly more than before the war. Fuel remains more expensive than last year, and higher energy costs have long spread into other areas - groceries, airline tickets and many everyday goods. Before the war, Trump had promoted low energy prices. When prices rose, the message changed. At one point, he even argued that high oil prices were good for America because the United States produces a lot of oil. So far, the market has not shown much concern for that argument. Gasoline is falling. But not at the push of a button. And certainly not on the schedule of an election campaign.
When the State Stops Counting the Dead
The missing magician Daniel Hidden was found dead in Mount Cougal National Park after disappearing without a trace. His mother said that he had "not been himself" or "not been like he usually was" the last time she saw him.
During a single weekend, four people died in American national parks. A 17 year old girl drowned in Sequoia National Park after slipping into a river. A 23 year old man fell to his death at a waterfall in Yosemite. A body was found in the desert at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. In Great Smoky Mountains National Park, someone died in a motorcycle accident. Park authorities made no public statements about any of these cases. Not because they did not know. Because they were not allowed to. An internal memo from the Department of the Interior from December, reviewed by The Washington Post, explicitly prohibits park employees from confirming deaths to the public. The severity of injuries may not be communicated. Means of transportation may be mentioned. Nothing more. Seven current and former park employees confirmed that this represents a fundamental break from previous practice, which had operated under the principle of "maximum disclosure, minimum delay." Anyone who speaks today risks consequences, which is why all statements remained anonymous.
At the Grand Canyon, a 72 year old man died from extreme heat on June 12. On June 16, a couple aged 67 and 68 also died there from the heat. This was only announced on June 19. Hikers walking the same route during those days knew nothing about it. On average, around 350 people die each year in American national parks. The Department of the Interior says it merely wants to standardize communications and has no intention of hiding deaths. The difference between that intention and the actual outcome is difficult to see. A government that stops reporting its own dead has not suddenly discovered respect for the privacy of victims. It has decided that bad news is not news.
Google Is Losing the People Who Built the Future
Google has billions. Its own chips. Its own data centers. The largest research workforce in the industry. And yet something is happening right now that creates more fear inside these companies than a bad product. People are leaving. With Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel, two more key developers are moving to Anthropic. Not marketing people. People from the engine room. Adler worked on programming tools for Gemini. Pritzel worked on training the models themselves. These are the positions where it is decided whether an idea becomes a product or an excuse.
A few days ago, Nobel Prize winner John Jumper left as well. Noam Shazeer moved to OpenAI. Now more names from the same environment are following. Google says: normal market. Lots of movement. Happens everywhere. But when the movement is almost entirely in one direction, at some point an uncomfortable question appears. Why are people leaving a company with practically unlimited resources for smaller firms? The answer may be uncomfortable. In this business, what matters is no longer only who owns the most servers. It matters who gets to decide what is built on them.
According to reports, at least one departure was preceded by conflict over computing power. Resources were reassigned. Officially for better coordination. In large corporations, sentences like that sound harmless. Internally they often mean: your project is no longer a priority. At the same time, Anthropic and OpenAI are preparing for public offerings. Being there early is no longer about salary. It becomes about wealth. One number stands out: according to SignalFire, DeepMind employees move to Anthropic almost eleven times more often than the other way around. Google is not losing its buildings. Google is losing people who know what to do with them.
30 to 70 Years in Prison for a Box of Magazines
Daniel Sanchez Estrada was not at the protest. He attacked nobody, carried no weapon and destroyed no property. After his wife was arrested, he moved a box of antifascist magazines. For that, a federal judge in Fort Worth, Texas sentenced him on Tuesday to 30 years in prison. His wife Maricela Rueda, who had asked him to move the box, received 70 years. Benjamin Hanil Song, the only defendant accused of actually shooting at a police officer, received 100 years. Autumn Hill, Savanna Batten, Zachary Evetts, Meagan Morris and Elizabeth Soto each received 50 years - for participating in a noise protest using fireworks outside the Prairieland detention center in Alvarado on July 4, 2025.
The sentences exceed any punishment imposed on participants in the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack. In March, the jury convicted the defendants in part for material support of terrorism - arguing that they were all dressed in black and had used the encrypted application Signal. Judge Reed O'Connor, a George W. Bush appointee, and Judge Mark Pittman, a Trump appointee, applied enhanced terrorism sentencing rules even though Pittman himself had publicly questioned during the proceedings whether Antifa should even be mentioned in his instructions to the jury. Of course, everything possible will now be done to correct what is seen as this injustice, and all of us have already met with the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the best known civil rights organizations in the United States that provides legal support in defense of constitutional and civil liberties.
The legal basis for the intensified prosecution came in September 2025 after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Trump then designated Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization by executive order and issued Presidential Memorandum NSPM-7, which directed a broader crackdown on left wing activists. The Department of Justice described Tuesday’s sentences as the first success of these directives. FBI Director Kash Patel had publicly marked the case as a priority as early as October. Since then, additional indictments have followed, most recently against 15 individuals in Minnesota.
We will report extensively on this case in the coming weeks. For now, however, the priority is to provide every necessary form of support. Initial appeals have already been announced or are being prepared while further reporting and investigation efforts are already underway - because at this point every piece of information may become important.
