Authored by Chris Hedges via Consortium News
Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, a fearless Palestinian-American journalist (he's an American-born Kuwaiti of Palestinian descent) whose writing and reports are defined by unparalleled integrity, depth and eloquence, was arrested on March 3rd in Kuwait.
He is charged with spreading false information and harming national security.
His arrest took place following his reporting of the shooting down of three U.S. fighter planes by the Kuwaiti military in an act of friendly fire during the U.S.-Israel war with Iran. Ahmed, along with other news outlets such as the BBC, published footage of a U.S. F-15 E Strike Eagle crashing in al-Jahra west of Kuwait City.
I fear Ahmed, a graduate of Columbia Journalism School who has worked for The New York Times, PBS Frontline, Al Jazeera English, Vice on HBO, The Huffington Post and appeared on numerous news outlets including the BBC and CNN, will be charged under new, draconian security laws instituted in Kuwait, which have already led to dozens of arbitrary arrests.
Kuwait has desperately tried to maintain the fiction that it did not serve as a staging area for US attacks on Iran.
The NY Times had also confirmed this week:
The arrest of the journalist, Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, which Kuwaiti authorities had yet to publicly confirm, would be one of many detentions across the Persian Gulf as governments there try to repress information about local effects of the war in Iran.
“It is understood that authorities have charged him with spreading false information, harming national security and misusing his mobile phone — vague and overly broad accusations that are routinely used to silence independent journalists,” the committee said in a statement.
He had not posted online or been seen in public since early March, it said. His Twitter and Instagram accounts appeared to have been deleted.
Iran repeatedly attacked Kuwait, including strikes on Kuwait International Airport, the Ali Al Salem Air Base, the U.S. garrison at Camp Buehring and an operations center that saw six U.S. soldiers killed and dozens wounded. Iran also attacked the Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery and a Kuwaiti oil tanker.
WATCH: Clear footage of a U.S. F-15E jet that was shot down over Kuwait on March 1-2 in a friendly fire incident by Kuwaiti F-18 jet. pic.twitter.com/rk1uAANWNh
— Clash Report (@clashreport) March 16, 2026France 24 broadcast a video of HIMARS missiles allegedly being fired from Kuwait into Iran. Ahmed’s reporting also undercut the lie of Kuwaiti neutrality.
The Kuwaiti authorities will, I expect, for this reason, seek to turn Ahmed into an example for the rest of the press.
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Tyler Durden Fri, 04/17/2026 - 23:25The Iran war seems to be cooling, as a two week ceasefire holds, but people are still dying from spillover effects and sporadic conflict in neighboring Iraq.
"Drone and rocket strikes in Iraq's northern Kurdistan region on Friday killed three Iranian Kurds, including two women fighters, an exiled opposition group said, blaming the attack on Iran," AFP reports. It's unclear if the projectiles were sent across the border, or whether pro-Iran groups inside Iraq carried out the killings.
Illustrative: AlhurraThis comes several weeks after US officials first floated the possibility of arming Iranian Kurdish dissident groups. Kurdish organizations in Iraq and along the border insisted at the time that there was no plan to receive arms and training from the US.
The fear was that the US statements and avalanche of international press reports claiming a potential impending plan to use Kurds as a proxy ground force served to put a bright red target on the Kurdish community of Iran (and by extension Iraq).
Indeed throughout the conflict there had been sporadic Iranian attacks on Kurdish areas, particularly in northern Iraqi Kurdistan. That appears to still be happening, with the Friday report:
“The Islamic Republic of Iran launched a new wave of missile and drone strikes today targeting... civilian camps of the PDKI,” killing one person and wounding his father, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) said on X.
In a separate attack, two women fighters were killed and other fighters wounded, the party added.
A PDKI official told AFP the fighters were killed in an attack on their positions in the Soran area, nestled in the Zagros mountains near the Iranian border.
In other Iraq-related news connected to the Iran war, the US Treasury on Friday has slapped new sanctions on a series of Shia pro-Iran militia leaders.
The United States Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has targeted seven pro-Iran Iraqi militia commanders, accused of organizing and carrying out attacks against US soldiers and facilities.
They are "some of Iraq's most violent Iran-aligned militia organizations," such as Asa'ib Ahl Al-Haqq, Kata'ib Hezbollah, Kata'ib Sayyid Al-Shuhada, and Harakat Al-Nujaba - according to the Trump administration.
"We will not allow Iraq's terrorist militias, backed by Iran, to threaten American lives or interests ... Those who enable these militias' violence will be held accountable," US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated.
Tyler Durden Fri, 04/17/2026 - 23:00Authored by Neetika Walter via Interesting Engineering,
Scientists have tested gravity across some of the largest structures in the universe and found that it behaves exactly as predicted by long-standing physical laws.
Galaxies and clusters trace gravity’s pull across the universe.iStock PhotosResearchers led by University of Pennsylvania used data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope to examine how galaxy clusters move across vast cosmic distances.
Their results show that gravity weakens with distance in line with the inverse-square law first described by Isaac Newton and later embedded in Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
The findings challenge alternative theories that suggest gravity changes at large scales and instead reinforce the idea that an unseen component, dark matter, is shaping cosmic motion.
Gravity holds at scale“Astrophysics has been plagued by a massive discrepancy in the cosmic ledger,” said Patricio A. Gallardo.
“When we look at how stars orbit within galaxies or how galaxies move within galaxy clusters, some appear to be traveling way too fast for the amount of visible matter they contain.”
To test whether gravity itself might be responsible, the researchers analyzed subtle distortions in the cosmic microwave background as it passes through massive galaxy clusters.
These distortions, caused by the motion of hot gas around clusters, allowed the team to measure how quickly clusters are moving toward each other across distances spanning hundreds of millions of light-years.
The results closely matched predictions from classical and relativistic physics, showing no evidence that gravity weakens differently than expected at these scales.
“It is remarkable that the law of the inverse of the squares—proposed by Newton in the 17th century and then incorporated by Einstein’s theory of general relativity—is still holding its ground in the 21st century,” said Gallardo.
Dark matter case strengthensThe study addresses a long-standing puzzle in cosmology. Observations have consistently shown that stars at the edges of galaxies and galaxies within clusters move faster than visible matter alone can explain.
“That is the central puzzle,” Gallardo explained.
“Either gravity behaves differently on very large scales, or the universe contains additional matter that we cannot directly see.”
Because the new measurements confirm that gravity behaves as expected, the results strengthen the case for dark matter as the missing component.
“This study strengthens the evidence that the universe contains a component of dark matter,” said Gallardo. “But we still do not know what that component is made of.”
The work also places constraints on theories such as Modified Newtonian Dynamics, which attempt to explain cosmic motion by altering the laws of gravity.
By extending tests of gravity to distances far beyond the scale of individual galaxies, the research provides one of the most comprehensive validations of standard cosmological models to date.
Future observations using more detailed maps of the cosmic microwave background and larger galaxy surveys could further refine these measurements and test gravity with even greater precision.
“With so many unanswered questions, gravity remains one of the most fascinating areas of research. It’s a naturally attractive field,” Gallardo said.
The study was published in Physical Review Letters.
Tyler Durden Fri, 04/17/2026 - 22:35