With the deadline for a government shutdown less than a week away, there's no clear agreement between the two major parties on how to move forward, and President Trump has issued a sharp rebuke of Democrats' "unserious and ridiculous demands."

Government funding is set to expire on Sept. 30. Republicans have been broadly united in their support of a clean continuing resolution (CR), Washington terminology for a stopgap funding bill. President Donald Trump has also backed a clean CR.

As the Epoch Times notes further (emphasis ours), Republicans cannot keep the government open on their own. Under Senate rules, Republicans will need the support of multiple Democrats in that chamber to avert a government shutdown, and Democrats have placed conditions on their support.

In the past Israel relied on its weapons superiority to dissuade potential attacks from neighbors, but that gap is obviously narrowing, as the massive Iranian retaliatory missile strikes on Tel Aviv and other cities demonstrated last June. Lessons from Ukraine should also be taken into account, as Israeli armor might not have the same battlefield presence it once did if cheap drones are so effective in destroying vastly more expensive tanks.

While the superior-armed IDF military has clearly been pushing forward in Gaza, as the war is soon to reach the two-year mark, Hamas has all the while released a steady stream of battlefield videos showing its militants engaged in successful ambushes. Large IDF tanks have been blown up often by militants sneaking up and placing IEDs directly on them.

The US Treasury said Monday it stood ready to "do what is needed" to support Argentina's economy, as President Javier Milei battles to calm jittery financial markets.

Self-declared "anarcho-capitalist" Milei, a close ally of President Donald Trump, has been faced with a run on the peso, having to sell off dwindling foreign reserves in the aftermath of a provincial election trouncing for his party.

As he seeks a US loan to cover debts reaching maturity, Milei is due to meet Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.

Bessent wrote on X Monday that "all options for stabilization are on the table."

These may include "swap lines, direct currency purchases, and purchases of US dollar-denominated government debt from Treasury's Exchange Stabilization Fund," he said. Swap lines are transactions in which two central banks agree to swap their currencies at a set exchange rate for a specified period.

According to Peter Turchin's database on American political violence — specifically, political assassinations, attempted and successful — this decade has already exceeded all past peaks except for the Civil War. It looks like Turchin and his team have counted 20 assassinations in the 1860s. The count for the 2020s is already at least 10 or 12, when adding those that have occurred in 2025 (Charlie Kirk, Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, and State Senator John Hoffman and his wife).

As Turchin argues, whether it is assassinations or "shooting rampages," both represent manifestations of political instability that he ascribes primarily to two root structural conditions: "popular immiseration and overproduction of credentialed elite aspirants."

At least three people were killed and sixteen injured by a Ukrainian drone strike on a wellness complex in Crimea on Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry has said. A school building was also damaged, according to Crimean regional head Sergey Aksyonov.

The Russian Defense Ministry ministry stated that the attack targeted a "resort area of the Republic of Crimea, where there are no military facilities."

Aksyonov said emergency services were working at the site and urged residents to "remain calm and trust only official information."

'Gaza is on fire; the Jewish state will not relent', Israeli Defence Minister Katz excitedly proclaims: "The IDF is striking with an Iron fist at terrorist infrastructure". In fact, over recent weeks Israel has struck at 'infrastructure' in West Bank, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Tunisia - besides Gaza.

The so-called 'Rules-Based Order' blueprint (if it ever truly existed beyond narrative) has been ripped up in favour of violent Zionism: Genocide, sneak attacks under the guise of on-going peace negotiations, assassinations, and the de-capitation of political leaderships. It is war without limits; without rules; without law; and in complete disdain for the UN Charter. Ethical boundaries, more particularly, are dismissed as mere 'moral relativism'.

Something profound is re-shaping Israeli foreign policy. The transformation needs be understood as a U-turn within the very core of Zionist thinking (a journey from Ben Gurion to Kahane), as Yossi Klein has written.

Israel's strategy from past decades continues to rest on the hope of achieving some literal Chimeric transformative 'de-radicalisation' of both Palestinians and of the Region, writ large - a de-radicalisation that will make 'Israel safe'. This has been the 'holy grail' objective for Zionists since Israel was first founded.

Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer claims that such radical mutation in consciousness will only come from the bombing of opponents into utter submission. (The lesson which he draws from WWII). One aspect - Israel's foreign policy - then is clear: It is the 'War of the Jungle'.

But there is another aspect; one perhaps more troubling: These norms and ethical principles that Israel openly seeks to tear apart are, in the last resort, American proclaimed norms and values. Strikingly, the U.S. has abandoned its traditional ethos when it comes to Israel. And rather than criticise or seek to limit Israel's use of such norm-busting military actions, the Trump Administration emulates them - sneak attacks under the guise of talking peace, de-capitation attempts, and striking with missiles at unknown vessels off Venezuela, vaporising the crew.

The U.S. is doing this openly - thumbing its nose, like Israel, at international law and conventions.

It does appear that key components of the U.S. Establishment increasingly favour the military strategies of Israel and even are shifting from the moral ethos of a 'Just War', shall we say, to one closer to the Hebraic ethos of 'Amalek'. It amounts to updating western moral 'software' with the alternative 'justice' of absolute war.

There is something ineffably eternal about the "drum beating and bell chiming from sundown to daybreak" when it comes to the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower standing in the north end of ancient Beijing.
There can hardly be equal structures around the world when it comes to architecture as music. They are like two powerful, solemn notes being played over and over again for centuries - the sounds and echoes reverberating across the mega-metropolis.

Both towers are part of the so-called Beijing Central Axis - and serious scholars make no bones about their essential role in reflecting people's existence in History. In China after all, architecture is regarded as frozen music.

Liang Sicheng, the father of modern Chinese architecture, regarded the Beijing Central Axis as the world's greatest urban symphony - sorry Place de la Concorde or Piazza San Marco - with the Drum Tower and the Bell Tower as the grand finale.

The same might apply to the Drum/Bell couple in Xian, former Chang'an, the imperial capital, which today is the privileged stage for scores of young Tang Barbies from all parts of China posing night after night.

In Beijing of course it's way more solemn. The Bell/Drum couple is regarded as the guardian buildings of the Forbidden City - announcing time after time the proper regulation of people's lives.

But it's a stele built during the Qing dynasty, with an inscription written by Emperor Qianlong, that provides us with an intriguing parallel with our current geopolitical volatility.

It reads: "The resonant sound of the Bell heralds good governance. The magnificent buildings of the Bell and Drum Towers symbolize the loftiness of imperial power. The bell chimes and drum beats tell time to regulate people's lives. These solid towers stand forever to carry forward benevolent governance."

Western European nations' move to reimpose sanctions has derailed a recent monitoring agreement, Tehran has said.

Iran's top security body has announced the suspension of nuclear cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), citing actions by Western European nations against the Islamic Republic.

On Friday, the UN Security Council voted to reimpose sanctions on Iran, which had been suspended in return for curbs on its nuclear program in a 2015 deal. The so-called "snapback" mechanism was initiated by Britain, France, and Germany last month.

"The ill-considered actions of three European countries regarding the Iranian nuclear issue... will effectively suspend the path of cooperation with the Agency," Iran's Supreme National Security Council said in a statement cited by state news agency IRNA.

The European nations took these steps despite the Iranian Foreign Ministry's cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog and "the presentation of plans to resolve the issue," it said.

The US president is addressing the crowd gathered at a football stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

US President Donald Trump praised slain conservative podcaster and activist Charlie Kirk as one of the "giants of our generation," honoring his influence and legacy in remarks following Kirk's memorial service.

Kirk, who co-founded conservative action group Turning Point USA at just 18 years old, was killed by a sniper on September 10 when speaking to students at a college in Utah.

Speaking at Charlie Kirk's memorial service in Glendale, Arizona, Trump said the country has lost "one of the brightest lights of our times."

"Kirk was heinously murdered by a radicalized, cold-blooded monster for speaking the truth that was in his heart. He was violently killed because he spoke for freedom and justice, for God, country, for reason, and for common sense. He is a martyr for American freedom. Non of us will ever forget Charlie Kirk, and neither will history."

This week, Israeli ground forces pushed deeper into dense residential areas of Gaza City, forcing families to choose between displacement and death. Tareq Hajjaj spoke to residents there who are refusing to leave: "There's no point in struggling to find a better place in hell," they told him. At the same time, the Israeli government is advancing settlement plans that would dissolve the West Bank as a geographic and political entity.

Benjamin Netanyahu called for Israel to become a self-sufficient "super Sparta" and with a broader defiance of international norms. Abduljawad Omar says Israel is embracing isolation in order to annihilate the Palestinians. And now, after two years of brutality and over 65,000 Palestinians killed, a key United Nations commission concluded that Israel has committed four of the five genocidal acts defined by the Genocide Convention and urged an arms embargo.

In the United States, political figures are struggling to contain the growing public rejection of Israel's assault on Gaza. At the Democratic National Committee's meeting in Minneapolis, the party's establishment leaned on familiar pressure tactics while grassroots support for Palestinian rights grows within its base.

State power is being wielded against individuals. Immigration Judge Jamee Comans ordered Mahmoud Khalil deported in a decision widely understood as retaliation for his activism, and the University of California, Berkeley, turned over private information of more than 150 students, staff, and faculty to federal authorities.