Israel and Iran exchange missile strikes as Trump urges Tehran’s residents to evacuate. Macron says a ceasefire proposal is on the table amid growing European concern.
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10AM ET 06/17/2025 Newscast
The Emmy-winning studio is partnering with the powerhouse media and entertainment firm to co-finance a shared slate of feature documentaries.
TIME Studios, the Emmy-winning film and television division of TIME, and Partners In Kind, a purpose-driven media company founded to champion socially impactful storytelling, have teamed up to co-produce and co-finance a dynamic slate of documentary feature films over the next two years. United by a shared mission to drive cultural and social impact through storytelling, the two companies will collaborate on projects that amplify untold stories from around the world – at a time when authentic, impact-driven narratives are more critical than ever.
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The first project in the shared slate, WINNIE AND NELSON, directed by award-winning filmmaker Dawn Porter (John Lewis: Good Trouble, The Way I See It), is a biography and political thriller that explores how the love story between a young Winnie and an older Nelson Mandela ultimately fueled a revolution that changed the world – leaving Mandela as a global hero and Winnie as a misunderstood figure in history.
Another shared project, MONOLITH, exploring the impact of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, was recently announced as well. The film is being made in partnership with the legendary filmmaker’s estate and the Stanley Kubrick Film Archive, and is set for release in 2026. It is produced by Phoenix Pictures, Catchlight Studios, and Appian Way. It is directed by Stevan Riley (Listen To Me Marlon) and Executive Produced by Leonardo DiCaprio.
“This partnership is a natural alignment of values and vision,” said Dave O’Connor, President of TIME Studios. “Together with Partners In Kind, we’re proud to bring transformative stories to the screen that reflect the power of resilience, leadership, and love in the face of adversity.”
“At Partners In Kind, we are passionate about amplifying untold stories and bringing critical, often overlooked perspectives to the forefront,” said Gillian Hormel and Shelly Tygielski, Co-Founders of Partners In Kind. “Through this partnership with TIME Studios, we are proud to support filmmakers who illuminate complex truths, honor historical legacies, and challenge audiences to reflect on the ethical and cultural forces shaping our world. Together, we are committed to producing bold, enduring films that inform, engage, and inspire.”
Recognizing a shared vision of marrying impact and entertainment, the two organizations are currently evaluating multiple prospective inbound projects, alongside those originating within their respective development slates. The TIME Studios and Partners In Kind film collaborations will span diverse genres and perspectives, with each project rooted in cinematic excellence and a drive to engage audiences around urgent and enduring issues. Through the Partners In Kind Foundation, each project will also feature a corresponding impact campaign designed to extend its reach beyond the screen — activating audiences, sparking civic engagement, and supporting aligned grassroots initiatives.
Reflecting on the partnership, Dawn Porter emphasized the critical importance of bold investment in documentary filmmaking at this moment, sharing: “This creative partnership between Time Studios and Partners in Kind is exactly the type of investment in documentary filmmaking that is needed at this moment. I hope that other funders are inspired by this powerful partnership. Audiences love our films, and this investment allows us to continue to serve them.”
TIME Studios is represented by CAA and Partners In Kind is represented by Marc Chamlin at Loeb & Loeb LLP.
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After several days of an intensifying Israel-Iran war, the death toll and destruction is mounting. Hundreds of Israeli strikes across Iran, beginning with a surprise attack on June 13, are targeting not just Iran’s nuclear sites and scientists but also its military leadership and critical energy and communications infrastructure, including state television facilities. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statements urging the Iranian people to stand up to the “evil and repressive regime,” as well as its expanding range of targets, suggest that Israel’s military campaign may be aiming to destabilize the country and facilitate the collapse of the regime as much as to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.
Iran has failed to effectively deter or defend itself against these massive attacks that have shown Israeli intelligence capable of penetrating deep inside the country. But Tehran has nonetheless managed to launch a series of direct and deadly missile attacks on central and northern Israel. Various reports suggest Iran is eager to return to the negotiating table and that President Donald Trump is seeking a meeting between his Iran envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, but the Iranians are sending mixed messages about their willingness to return to negotiations as long as the Israeli attacks continue.
Meanwhile, there are growing calls from Israeli officials and some of Trump’s closest political allies for the U.S. military to join the fight. Trump signed the G-7 summit statement calling for de-escalation after initial resistance, but left the summit early, with his own statements that also sent mixed signals about future U.S. military involvement.
For many years both Iran and Israel had reasons to avoid a direct war of this nature, and many in the region and globally sought to prevent it. But those days are over. The war is here, and it is not clear if there is anyone willing or able to stop it.
Israel is Unlikely to Stop
For years, Israeli leaders have focused on the challenge of a nuclear Iran, as well as Iran’s expanding missile capabilities, and support for non-state proxy forces across the region forming the so-called “axis of resistance” against Israel. At various points, particularly in the 2011-2012 period, Israel considered using military force against Iran’s nuclear program. It ultimately decided against such unilateral action because of concerns about alienating Washington as well as a recognition that, on its own, Israel could not fully destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities. For much of the recent decade, Israel has instead fought Iran indirectly and covertly, through a shadow war of sabotage, cyberattacks, and assassinations of nuclear scientists.
The shadow war largely subsided (outside of Syria, where Israel carried out regular airstrikes against Iranian-linked targets) during the short time the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal, was in place. But after Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018, Israel’s targeting of Iranian nuclear and military assets resumed and expanded. Israel refrained from publicly acknowledging responsibility for such attacks, providing a cover that helped contain Iranian retaliation. During this time, the Iranians were never eager for a direct conflict with Israel given Israel’s far superior conventional power and its backing from Washington.
The October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks changed Israel’s strategic calculus in transformative ways. The attacks instilled a sense of vulnerability Israel had not experienced since its founding. The military campaign it launched in response quickly extended beyond Gaza, as the country attempted to restore deterrence and degrade the capabilities of its regional adversaries. For Israeli leaders, and not just Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran was always the ultimate target given its backing for groups fighting Israel, from Hezbollah in Lebanon to Iraqi Shia militant groups to the Houthis in Yemen.
With Israel’s military successes against Hezbollah last summer, and its degradation of Iranian air defenses in its attack against Iran in October, Israeli confidence in its ability to further degrade Iran’s capabilities without suffering serious retaliation increased substantially. Israeli military and strategic analysts believe Iran’s resilience was overestimated — and Israel’s military capabilities underestimated.
As is now evident to everyone, Israeli planners perceived a unique window of opportunity to strike Iran while it remained vulnerable. Even though Trump stated publicly he didn’t want Israel to strike Iran while negotiations were underway, Israelis likely calculated, correctly as it turns out, that once the strike became a reality no U.S. president would abandon Israel even if the United States would not directly join the attack. Israeli officials reportedly believed they had a green light for a strike from the Trump administration, and Trump himself has since said that he was fully informed ahead of the strike and supported it.
A military strike without full U.S. participation may seem strategically questionable given it is well known that Israel’s military capabilities on their own are unlikely to fully destroy Iran’s widely dispersed and deeply buried nuclear facilities. But from the Israeli perspective, military force is not always about achieving a definitive strategic victory. It’s about using force to manage conflicts. Even slowing down Iran’s nuclear program is a win, no matter how many times they might have to go back and attack again. Such attacks could also destabilize the Iranian government, an added benefit from Israel’s viewpoint if it leads to the collapse of the Islamic Republic. From the Israeli perspective, the military campaign is working, leaving little reason to halt the effort now. Former Israeli officials assess Israeli operations could continue for weeks.
The U.S. Position
Trump and other senior U.S. officials have repeatedly stated that the United States is not involved in the war, but the Iranians view the United States as complicit in the attack. Some Israeli reporting even suggests that Trump and other senior U.S. officials helped Israel deceive the Iranians into believing they were not in harm’s way as long as U.S. talks with Iran were underway to help Israel launch the initial surprise attack. Now that the Trump administration has been unable or unwilling to prevent this Israeli gambit, there is an increased risk that the United States will become further involved in the war. It is widely understood that to definitively set back Iran’s nuclear program through military force, Iran’s deeply buried enrichment facility at Fordo would need to be destroyed, something that only U.S. military capabilities could achieve.
Nonetheless, Trump continued to claim he wants peace and for Iran to return to the negotiating table. On Monday, he sent mixed signals: “I think Iran basically is at the negotiating table where they want to make a deal, and as soon as I leave here, we’re going to be doing something,” Trump told reporters in Canada. Hours later, he posted on Truth Social, “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” He did not say why. He has also said that there cannot be peace if Iran has nuclear weapons.
Trump’s aspirations for diplomacy are seemingly based on the notion that Iran will be forced to capitulate at the negotiating table because of Israel’s overwhelming military pressure. But it is difficult to see diplomacy succeeding soon in the aftermath of such a destructive war. Israel not only killed Iran’s top military leadership, including the current head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, but also reportedly the Supreme Leader’s adviser overseeing nuclear diplomacy efforts. The next round of talks was cancelled after Israel’s attack began. Trump’s initial inflammatory statements after the strikes, threatening that Iran needs to accept a deal or “nothing will be left” were not conducive to encouraging diplomacy.
Trump may also be misreading Iran. The Iranian regime was unlikely to capitulate to maximalist demands like abandoning all domestic nuclear enrichment even before these attacks. It would be less likely to do so now when it has little reason to trust that a new deal on less favorable terms will guarantee its survival. This calculation is even more likely now given the widening scope of Israeli military actions. The Iranians may opt for a strategy of resistance in a bid for survival in the midst of what many expect to be a prolonged conflict. Iran’s foreign minister said Iran would continue retaliating as long as Israeli attacks continue and is demanding a ceasefire before the resumption of talks. Trump would have to exert considerable pressure on Israel to halt its attacks at a time when Israel feels it has the upper hand. There has been little evidence to date that Trump has been willing to do so in any meaningful way like threatening arms shipments.
Absent a return to diplomacy that could stave off further Israeli strikes, U.S. choices are now realistically to commit U.S. troops and resources and join the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, stay out of an offensive operation but continue to help defend Israel against Iranian missile strikes, or actively work to contain this war even without the prospects for an imminent nuclear deal. Based on Trump’s approach to Israel to date, as evidenced in Gaza, he is more likely to let Israel’s campaign run its course, with all the costs that could entail, including the possibility the United States could get involved more deeply than Trump might have wanted.
Indeed, despite Trump’s persistent insistence that he doesn’t want the United States involved in Middle East wars, it is not difficult to contemplate scenarios where the United States nonetheless gets further embroiled in this war beyond its current efforts to defend Israel from Iran’s missile strikes (President Joe Biden also helped defend Israel from Iranian missile and drone launches in April and October of 2024). Trump has already threatened to retaliate against Iran “at levels never seen before” if Iran attacks U.S. targets. But if Israeli attacks and Iranian retaliation continues, it will be difficult to ensure Americans are not caught in the crossfire, even if unintended.
With over half a million Americans living in Israel, Iran’s increasingly indiscriminate retaliatory strikes could lead to American casualties. A resumption of Iraqi militia attacks on U.S. forces is also possible, though Iran is likely to be cautious about such direct attacks, or other provocative moves like closing the Straits of Hormuz or attacking U.S. bases in the Gulf, as the United States weighs military options. Still, militia forces, particularly the Houthis in Yemen, are not always aligned with Tehran, and continued strikes against Israeli interests as the Gaza war continues alongside the Israel-Iran war could lead to American casualties. American deaths could be the red line that ultimately pushes Trump to join Israel’s war on Iran.
If Not the United States, Who?
If the Trump administration is unwilling or unable to contain and ultimately end this war, who could step in and play that role? Trump has talked about Russia mediating, which has good ties with both Iran and Israel. Russia is unlikely to want to see the collapse of the Islamic Republic. But the swift demise of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria was a clear demonstration that even after years of defending Assad, Russia was unable to save it. Instead, Russia prioritized its war against Ukraine. And since Russia supplied significant military capacity to Iran, which the Israelis are currently trying to destroy, it’s unlikely the Israelis would view Russia as looking out for their interests. European states such as France have already rejected the idea of Russian mediation. In many ways, a protracted conflict that bogs down the United States and Europe is not the worst scenario for Russia as it continues its fight in Ukraine.
As for the Europeans, they are largely taking Israel’s side in this war, despite their growing opposition to Israeli actions in Gaza. In the past, Europe served as an important channel for defusing U.S.-Iranian tensions. But in the aftermath of Iran’s arming Russia with drones to attack Ukrainian cities, not to mention increased targeting of European nationals by the Iranian government in recent years, European hostility toward Iran has grown. In this context it is not surprising that French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to defend Israel and blamed Iran for destabilizing the Middle East. The United Kingdom sent fighter jets to the region as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer refused to rule out defending Israel against Iranian attacks.
In the current fractured geopolitical environment, where the United Nations Security Council is paralyzed by division, the U.N. is also hamstrung. In conflicts like this one, the U.N. tends to condemn continued military escalation and repeatedly calls for de-escalation but with little ability to do much to bring wars to an end. This pattern has played out in Gaza repeatedly. Indeed, today’s wars–from Gaza to Ukraine to Sudan–only underscore how fragile, if not in tatters, the international rules-based order has become.
Against this backdrop, less traditional players may step in to try to contain the conflict, such as regional powers like the Saudis, who have been playing an increasingly active mediating role. The Chinese also have a strong interest in regional stability to protect their energy interests, and have also shown increased interest in mediation as their brokering of the Saudi-Iran agreement to resume diplomatic relations in March 2023 demonstrated. Still, the prospects that the Saudis, other Arab powers, or the Chinese can provide a successful offramp to end the Israel-Iran war is a long-shot given current Israeli strategic thinking and continued American backing for what appears to be increasingly maximalist goals, both vis-à-vis Iran but also toward the Palestinians.
What Comes Next
Without an offramp, several bad to very bad outcomes are possible. The conflict could spill over to inflame the entire region, just as we saw in the case of the protracted Gaza war—Houthi strikes disrupting global maritime traffic, Iran-backed militias in Iraq resuming attacks on U.S. forces, spikes in oil prices if critical oil routes are shut down or disrupted. If Iranian leaders believe they will continue to face existential attacks regardless of the nature of their retaliation or willingness to return to the negotiating table, there is a high probability they will more actively back signature tactics like terrorism against Israeli and American targets globally, believing that exacting a higher price may at least change the cost calculus for Trump. As many observers have noted, Iran may also resort to exiting the NPT and weaponizing its nuclear program to offset its inability to deter or defend itself from Israeli attacks through conventional means, the very outcome the Israeli strikes were intended to prevent.
But such drastic measures come with costs to Iran and are by no means assured. It is also possible Iran will bide its time and refrain from escalatory responses, either because it is unable do so after Israel’s devastating attacks or because it calculates that restraint may yield other benefits as Iranian leaders fight for their survival—including preserving political and economic lifelines with its Arab neighbors who also would reject a nuclear-armed Iran. Arab states have condemned the Israeli attacks and are resuming calls for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East, an initiative Iran has supported in the past but which Israel opposes.
Some may hope that the tactical successes of the Israeli attacks will yield strategic wins that were previously unthinkable—like a more moderate and tamed Islamic Republic or its collapse entirely. But like those who thought the Iraq war would reshape the Middle East in positive directions, such wishful thinking can be dangerous, failing to think through far worse outcomes when military campaigns lack a clear strategic endgame or realistic assessments of future political outcomes. Unfortunately, even beyond the already heavy toll this war is taking on both the Iranian and Israeli people, its continuation can lead to much worse.
An offramp is desperately needed, but tragically the constellation of forces in Israel, the United States, and indeed worldwide make finding one extremely difficult.
The post Israel and Iran: A War with No Offramp appeared first on Just Security.
June 17, 2025 By Shane O’Brien
A group of Queens and Brooklyn lawmakers is calling on the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to temporarily suspend operations at Green Asphalt, an asphalt plant in Blissville, until the company addresses alleged air pollution affecting nearby neighborhoods.
Green Asphalt, located at 37-98 Railroad Ave., uses recycled asphalt to produce mixes marketed as more cost-effective and sustainable than traditional asphalt. The company has operated out of the industrial area near Newtown Creek since 2011.
However, residents in both Blissville and Greenpoint have long complained about persistent fumes and odors from the facility, which they say have created serious quality-of-life issues for more than a decade. The DEC cited Green Asphalt with a nuisance violation in January 2024, noting that emissions from the plant “unreasonably interfered with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property.”
Since the violation was issued, residents say conditions have worsened, with increased complaints of noxious odors and air quality issues on both sides of the Newtown Creek.
The LIC Post first reported the issue earlier this month, highlighting growing frustration from residents and renewed pressure from local officials. Lawmakers are urging the DEC to enforce a temporary shutdown until the plant adopts effective mitigation measures to address the environmental concerns.
Green Asphalt has stated that its use of recycled materials supports the city’s climate goals and provides cost savings for contractors working on infrastructure projects across the five boroughs.
A number of city, state and federal lawmakers in Queens and Brooklyn have now called on Green Asphalt to implement changes that would reduce pollution in the surrounding neighborhoods.
In a joint statement, U.S. Rep Nydia Velázquez, State Senators Kristen Gonzalez and Michael Gianaris, Assembly Members Emily Gallagher and Claire Valdez and Council Members Julie Won and Lincoln Restler have called on Green Asphalt to double the height of its existing smokestack in order to carry emissions from the plant further into the atmosphere and away from the surrounding area.
“Green Asphalt committed to increasing the height of the emissions stack and redirecting emissions away from our residential community by June, but they have failed to do so,” elected officials said in a joint statement.
“Emissions from Green Asphalt are impacting the health and safety of Greenpoint and Blissville residents alike. We demand Green Asphalt be a better neighbor.”
Elected officials also pointed to a letter sent by the DEC to Green Asphalt last week noting that the department has “regularly received numerous community complaints and inquiries” regarding odors emanating from the Green Asphalt plant. The DEC also noted that community members have raised concerns over potential health implications associated with emissions from the facility.
In the letter, the DEC ordered Green Asphalt to “immediately” double the height of the emissions stack as soon as the company received authorization from the Department of Buildings.
The DEC also ordered Green Asphalt to perform stack testing for air contaminants as soon as the emissions stack is increased.
Elected officials said the DEC letter is welcome but added that they are pushing for the state body to take more aggressive action and shut Green Asphalt down until the company has increased the height of its emissions stack.
“While we appreciate the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation’s Wednesday letter requiring the company to double the height of the emissions stack as soon as they have the necessary approval and not later than year’s end, we are pushing for DEC to take more aggressive action by requiring Green Asphalt shut down their operations until the modifications to the emission stack are completed,” elected officials said in a joint statement.
Local residents had raised numerous concerns about Green Asphalt prior to the recent joint statement.
Thomas J. Mituzas, a member of the Blissville Civic Association, said he was forced to temporarily move his 96-year-old aunt out of the area last summer over concerns for her health because the air was “choking us so badly.”
“We had the windows closed, and it was still choking us,” Mituzas said.
Warren Davis, president of the Blissville Civic Association, said air quality in the local area can be suffocating, stating that the level of contamination varies from day to day.
“First, you get the smell,” Davis said. “Then, it’s choking. At times it’s very heavy, but at other times it’s light.”
Others said the level of contamination depends on wind speed and direction, with pollution impacting Blissville residents on certain days and Greenpoint residents on others, depending on the wind.
Willis Elkins, executive director of the Newtown Creek Alliance, said the plan emits ” foul-smelling particulate matter” and that the issue has been “getting worse and worse” for many years.
“Anyone who experiences it has instant issues with it,” Elkins said. “It’s not a subtle issue. It’s a very strong odor and it smells like burning rubber.”
Carlos Castell Croke, chair of Community Board 2’s Environmental Committee, has also penned a letter to the DEC over the issue, stating that he has experienced the smell while cycling across the Kosciuszko Bridge.
“It’s definitely not pleasant,” Castell Croke said. “I imagine if you were living in it, that it could be really bad.”
Green Asphalt said in a statement earlier in June that it has been in compliance with the DEC’s air requirements since it was first permitted in 2017. The statement further added that the company is addressing any complaints related to the January 2024 violation.
“We have been working diligently to address any odor complaints. Green Asphalt’s goal is to remain in good standing with the community as we have over the last 14 years, and we continue to engage with local stakeholders in Greenpoint and Long Island City to resolve this as soon as possible,” the company said in a statement.
Sources familiar with the matter said Green Asphalt is exploring ways to expand the height of the plant’s emissions stacks to carry emissions further into the atmosphere and avoid quality-of-life issues for the surrounding community. They said expanding the smokestacks is a “complex” and timely issue and not a quick fix.
Green Asphalt had hoped to have increased the height of the smokestacks within the first half of 2025, but sources conceded that this is now unlikely. They added that they are hopeful the expansion will take place “quite soon.”
Company sources also stated that Green Asphalt has a positive impact on the environment by using recycled asphalt and subsequently removing 2,600 trucks off New York roadways every year.
Castell Croke said the company’s use of recycled materials is “good for the environment” but noted that it has also violated state laws.
“I don’t necessarily want them to stop their operation,” Castell Croke said. “I think what they’re doing and creating – recycled asphalt and recycled material for construction – is generally a good thing, but the burden it’s having on the local neighborhood is unfair.”
We’ve stood on the frontlines of the climate movement, inside global summits where fossil fuel lobbyists outnumber Indigenous delegates, in communities navigating climate disruption, and on the streets demanding justice. Over time, one truth has become harder to ignore: climate change is not just an environmental crisis, it’s a symptom of a deeper economic pathology.
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The engine behind it all is an economic model built for endless growth, powered by extraction and globalized trade. It has delivered rising emissions, deepening inequality, and a system in which multinational corporations can sue governments simply for trying to protect people or ecosystems, thanks to trade agreements laced with investor protections.
One shadowy clause of international law, innocuously named Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), lets foreign corporations bypass national courts and sue governments in secretive tribunals, if public-interest laws threaten their profits. The results are both dangerous and absurd: Germany sued for regulating coal pollution; Australia targeted for tobacco controls; Central American countries penalized for protecting their water.
It’s a system that rewards polluters and punishes protectors. And it’s baked into the very fabric of the global economy, ensuring that any meaningful environmental regulation can be legally challenged by the corporations it threatens.
Read more: How to Manage Your Climate Guilt
Meanwhile, the same system has given rise to what can only be described as illogical trade—the global exchange of identical products, where countries import and export the same foods, often across vast distances. Butter from England is shipped to Germany, while German butter is shipped to England. Apples grown in New Zealand are sold in California, where local apples are left to rot. We burn energy and resources to swap goods we already have, all in the name of profit. And yet the emissions from this endless back-and-forth from shipping and aviation are rarely counted in countries’ official climate tallies. That’s because most nations use so-called territorial accounting, which excludes emissions produced beyond their borders.
Yet most climate responses continue to treat the symptoms. Carbon offsets, electric vehicles, and glossy net-zero pledges are held up as solutions, while the core logic—produce more, ship further, grow faster—goes unchallenged. We are, in effect, trying to solve a crisis caused by overconsumption, with more consumption.
But what if the solution isn’t more, but less? That’s the promise of localization. First articulated decades ago by Helena Norberg-Hodge, founder of the global organization Local Futures, localization focuses on rebuilding local food, energy, and economic systems so that they serve people and places, rather than distant shareholders. It involves shortening supply chains, reducing reliance on volatile global markets, reviving local knowledge, and strengthening community ties. In essence, localization shifts power away from global corporations and back to communities.
If this model sounds like a utopian fantasy, it isn’t. It’s how most of the world lived for millennia, rooted in place, producing what was needed close to home, adapting to ecological limits rather than overriding them. Many Indigenous and land-based cultures continue to do just that, offering practical blueprints for sustainability grounded in lived experience.
Localization is already re-emerging, in farmers’ markets, tool libraries, repair cafés, and community-owned energy grids around the world. From Nairobi to Nova Scotia, from Barcelona to Bangalore, people are rediscovering the wisdom of small-scale, locally rooted economies. They’re growing food in urban backyards, launching local currencies, and building energy cooperatives that keep power—literally and figuratively—in community hands.
Read more: Local Efforts Are Essential For Tackling Growing Health Threat from Extreme Heat
But it’s not flashy. You can’t make a viral TikTok about trade justice. It’s easier to film a slick reel about your time at the annual U.N. climate conference or blame a climate-denying politician than to explain the invisible architecture of global capitalism. Localization isn’t “sexy,” but that’s precisely why it’s powerful. It invites us to turn away from spectacle and back toward deeper relationships with place, community, and sufficiency.
It also invites a cultural reckoning. For decades, we’ve been sold the idea that progress means faster, bigger, and farther away, that convenience and instant gratification is best. But true security, as anyone who has been through a natural disaster knows, doesn’t come from global supply chains. It comes from knowing your neighbour, your farmer, and your local water source.
Of course, localization isn’t a silver bullet. But as Norberg-Hodge writes in her book Ancient Futures, “once we recognize that the global economy is at the root of so many of our problems, the way forward becomes clearer and, paradoxically, easier. Rather than confronting an overwhelming list of seemingly disconnected social and environmental crises, we need only focus on a few strategic economic shifts.”
And if even a fraction of the political will, public money, and media attention currently lavished on speculative green tech were redirected toward strengthening local systems, we could move faster and more fairly toward a liveable future.
Consider this: a single lithium mine required for electric vehicle batteries can destroy entire ecosystems and displace local communities. Meanwhile, a local food cooperative or a solar microgrid can reduce emissions, empower people, and build social cohesion, all without tearing up another mountain.The age of incrementalism is over. We’ve spent too long treating symptoms—rising emissions, resource scarcity, ecological breakdown—without addressing the deeper cause of an economic system that demands constant growth, no matter the cost. To build a livable future, we must confront that root.
U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) adds Apple products, and TP-Link routers flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added Apple products, and TP-Link routers flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.
Below are the descriptions for these flaws:
- CVE-2025-43200 Apple Multiple Products Unspecified Vulnerability
- CVE-2023-33538 (CVSS score 8.8) TP-Link Multiple Routers Command Injection Vulnerability
Last week, Apple confirmed that the now-patched vulnerability CVE-2025-43200 in its Messages app was actively exploited in the wild to target journalists with Paragon’s Graphite spyware.
The IT giant addressed the flaw CVE-2025-43200 on February 10, 2025, with the release of iOS 18.3.1, iPadOS 18.3.1, iPadOS 17.7.5, macOS Sequoia 15.3.1, macOS Sonoma 14.7.4, macOS Ventura 13.7.4, watchOS 11.3.1, and visionOS 2.3.1. The same versions also addressed the WhatsApp vulnerability CVE-2025-24200 that was exploited in “extremely sophisticated” targeted attacks.
“A logic issue existed when processing a maliciously crafted photo or video shared via an iCloud Link.” reads the advisory published by the company. “Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals.”
The company addressed this vulnerability by implementing improved checks.
This week, Citizen Lab confirmed that Paragon’s Graphite spyware was used to hack fully updated iPhones, targeting at least two journalists in Europe. The group found forensic evidence showing the phones had communicated with the same spyware server. Apple quietly alerted the victims earlier this year, marking the first confirmed case of Paragon’s tools being used in real-world attacks.
On April 29, 2025, Apple alerted select iOS users of spyware targeting. Forensic analysis confirmed that two journalists, including Ciro Pellegrino, were infected with Paragon’s Graphite spyware. Both cases were linked to the same attacker. Apple has since patched the zero-click exploit used in the attack, now tracked the flaw as CVE-2025-43200, in iOS version 18.3.1.
Early this week, Paragon accused the Italian government of refusing its offer to help investigate spyware use against a journalist. The company said this led to its decision to end contracts in Italy. Paragon claimed it proposed a way to verify if its tools were misused, but authorities declined. This marks the first time a spyware firm publicly cut ties with a client over alleged abuse. Paragon confirmed the statement’s accuracy but declined further comment.
The second vulnerability added by CISA to its KeV catalof is a command injection vulnerability in the /userRpm/WlanNetworkRpm component that impacts several TP-Link router models (TL-WR940N, TL-WR841N, TL-WR740N).
According to Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 22-01: Reducing the Significant Risk of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities, FCEB agencies have to address the identified vulnerabilities by the due date to protect their networks against attacks exploiting the flaws in the catalog.
Experts also recommend that private organizations review the Catalog and address the vulnerabilities in their infrastructure.
CISA orders federal agencies to fix the vulnerabilities by July 7, 2025.
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(SecurityAffairs – hacking, CISA)
