By James P. Sutton,Peter Gattuso,Ross Anderson
Copyright thedispatch
On a visit to the White House on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a joint press conference with the president at which Trump announced. the framework of a peace deal for the war in Gaza. Netanyahu said he agreed to the terms, which call for an immediate ceasefire; the exchange of hostages and prisoners; a staged Israeli withdrawal from Gaza; and the installation of a transitional government led by “qualified Palestinians” and international experts, and overseen by a “Board of Peace,” chaired by Trump and including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Trump warned that if Hamas did not agree to the deal, he would give full U.S. support to Israel’s future efforts to prosecute the war against Hamas. Netanyahu also formally apologized to Qatar for impinging on the country’s sovereignty by conducting strikes against Hamas in the Qatari capital of Doha earlier this month, expressing “regret,” according to a White House statement. Hamas representatives said that they would review the deal.
Oregon and the city of Portland sued the Trump administration on Sunday in an effort to block the deployment of the Oregon National Guard to Portland. “The facts cannot justify this overreach,” wrote Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield and Portland City Attorney Rob Taylor in the suit, arguing that the move was an unconstitutional abuse of power. Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, said Monday that Trump had told her he had heard of fires in the city and that she believed that he was referring to videos from 2020. “I told him in very plain language there is no insurrection or threat to public safety that necessitates military intervention in Portland or any other city in our state,” she said.
The civil rights division of the Department of Health and Human Services announced on Monday that it is initiating the debarment process for Harvard University, potentially blocking the institution from receiving future federal research grants. HHS’ Office for Civil Rights informed Harvard in a letter that the administration did not believe the university had done enough to address antisemitism on campus, leading the government to conclude that it was not a responsible enough entity to do business with the government. Harvard did not make a public statement in response to the news.
The Trump administration announced plans Monday to increase coal production and roll back regulations, including opening 13.1 million acres of federal land for mining, reducing the royalty rate for coal extraction, loosening enforcement of coal plant pollution and wastewater regulations, and directing $625 million in federal funds to retrofit and extend the life of aging coal facilities. Coal produced just 16 percent of the United States’ electricity in 2023, but administration officials insist that expanding coal plants is essential for economic growth, national security, job creation, and meeting the rising electricity demand from AI data centers. “Beautiful, clean coal will be essential to powering America’s reindustrialization and winning the AI race,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said. Analysts remain skeptical about a long-term U.S. coal rebound, as economics increasingly favor less carbon-intensive fuels.
Iranian authorities on Monday hanged a man that the government claimed was one of “the most important spies” for Israel. The Iranian judicial service said that Bahman Choubi-Asl had been convicted on charges of “corruption on earth” for allegedly helping Israeli intelligence to gain access to Iranian data centers and obtain government data. Over 1,000 people have been executed in Iran this year, 11 of whom were sentenced to death for spying. The same day, the United States deported around 100 Iranian nationals to Tehran on Monday following a rare agreement between Washington and Iran, the New York Times reported. Details about the deportees’ identities were not disclosed, and neither the White House nor the president has made any public comments about the move.
Artificial intelligence company Anthropic on Monday released its latest large language model, Claude Sonnet 4.5, which ranks as the best coding model on the market, according to industry benchmark tests. Anthropic claimed that Sonnet 4.5 could operate autonomously for up to 30 hours, writing 11,000 lines of code in the process, an increase from the seven hours of autonomous work the previous model was capable of. The new model was released alongside new features for coders and expanded availability of Claude for Google Chrome extension. Anthropic’s competitor, OpenAI, rolled out parental controls for ChatGPT on Monday, allowing parents to link accounts with teens aged 13 to 17 and receive distress alerts—amid growing congressional concern after a group of parents testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee earlier this month that interactions with AI chatbots contributed to their children’s suicides.
New Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul addressed his country’s parliament for the first time on Monday, saying that he would seek a diplomatic resolution to the ongoing border conflict with Cambodia. Following clashes Saturday between troops from the two countries, Thai officials in the border province of Sa Kaeo on Monday gave the Cambodian government an October 10 deadline to provide a plan to evacuate all Cambodians from areas they claimed were Thai territory.
A Dutch-flagged cargo ship was struck by an explosive device near Yemen on Monday, injuring two people. The Houthis, a Yemeni militant group, have been attacking shipping in the Red Sea for the past two years, although their responsibility for the attack has not been confirmed. Israeli forces also intercepted a Houthi ballistic missile overnight Sunday, which the Houthis claimed was carrying a cluster bomb and targeting sites in Tel Aviv.
Andrei Kartapolov, the head of the Russian parliament’s defense committee, said Monday that any U.S. personnel assisting Ukraine in launching Tomahawk cruise missiles against Russia would become military targets. The comments came after Vice President J.D. Vance said Sunday that the U.S. was considering providing long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, citing the continuing refusal of the Kremlin to engage in peace talks. Also on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the country to aim for drafting 135,000 men this fall, the most significant fall conscription goal since 2016.
Serbian police arrested 11 Serbian nationals on Monday for allegedly placing pigs’ heads outside French mosques and throwing paint at Paris’ Holocaust memorial, along with three synagogues and a restaurant. Police said that a 12th suspect “acting under the instructions of a foreign intelligence service” was responsible for training the individuals.
