Israel Tests Iran

Plus: Trump watches the Knicks, H-1B fee ruling, Mormons off the list, and more…

Hezbollah, which operates out of Lebanon but is distinct from the Lebanese government (unlike Hamas in Gaza, which is deeply enmeshed in the government), does not seem to want to be covered by a ceasefire deal.

“Hezbollah, for its part, has rejected any cease-fire with Israel, and has continued firing on Israel from its positions in southern Lebanon,” notes The New York Times. Iran, meanwhile, has held Hezbollah up as necessary to cover in any sort of agreement.

Meanwhile, a U.S. helicopter—an Apache gunship—”went down near the coast of Oman while patrolling regional waters,” per a report from U.S. Central Command. The two crew members were rescued relatively quickly, and the cause is unknown.

Iran is trying to “impose a new equation”—according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—by firing at Israel in response to that country’s attacks on the terrorist group Hezbollah, near Beirut. But, to Netanyahu, this equation is “unbearable and unacceptable.” He made that much clear by striking Tyre again after Iran issued its warning.

The relationship between phones and fertility: “Did the introduction of the iPhone causally reduce fertility?” asks Brad Wilcox, researcher with the Institute for Family Studies, discussing a new paper examining “causal evidence from AT&T’s 2007–2011 carrier monopoly” by Caitlin K. Myers and Ezekiel Hooper.

Takes abound (though it’s hard to know how reliable the paper is, take it with grains of salt).

Maybe it’s the dating apps:

QUICK HITS

• Yes to everything David Bernstein is saying. I have never once considered the climate question:

• Excellent:

• “The Trump administration has drawn up a plan to surge US Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel to New York City, a move that threatens to escalate tensions with New York Governor Kathy Hochul over the president’s migrant crackdown,” reports Bloomberg. “President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said Monday he’d warned Hochul of the surge before she signed a bill late last month curbing operations and banning masked ICE agents in her state.”
• Do Mormons count as Christians? The Defense Department seems to think no, Sen. Mike Lee (R–you already know which one) thinks yes (and is himself Mormon). The reason why it’s relevant to the government at all? “This decrease in religious affiliation codes is not designed to make any claims on the legitimacy of any faith or religious belief, nor is it intended to provide a list of ‘officially approved’ religions,” said the department. “Rather, it is designed to allow chaplains to quickly look at the religious composition of their units and determine how they structure resources to best provide for warfighters of all faith groups.”
• The votes are in: Nithya Raman is officially running against Karen Bass in the L.A. mayoral primary; Spencer Pratt is out.
• OpenAI is trying to IPO, following in Anthropic’s footsteps.

Associate Editor, Reason

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