Defaced by a scum-bag

Urgent motion filed to stop carving of Trump’s name into US Institute of Peace building

Ousted board members say a contractor has already been selected for the project.

By Ashley Ahn

Ousted board members of the U.S. Institute of Peace are asking a federal court to block the imminent carving of President Donald Trump’s name on the headquarters of the nonpartisan institution he sought to dismantle shortly after taking office.

Members of the board who were removed by the administration filed an emergency motion Thursday in Washington in a dispute that has echoes of Trump’s effort to place his name on the Kennedy Center.

The motion was filed as an emergency petition, alleging that a contractor has already been selected to carve Trump’s name into the Constitution Avenue headquarters that the administration sought to shutter as part of the Elon Musk-led DOGE effort to shrink the government.

The former board members said in their motion that they had asked Kenneth Jackson, the DOGE official serving as acting president of the USIP, to ensure the carving would not happen as they pursue litigation to preserve the independent nonprofit created by Congress.

“The building — which was largely funded by private donations to USIP as a tax exempt nonprofit corporation — is a work of expressive architecture designed to be ‘symbolic of USIP’s’ independent ‘mission,’” the emergency motion said. “Alteration of the design to impose a different message would cause irreparable harm.”

The USIP was created under President Ronald Reagan to provide research and training aimed at promoting democracy around the world. Trump’s name was added to the exterior of the building in December, shortly before the president hosted a signing ceremony at the institute with the presidents of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The bolted-on affixture is removable, and is featured next to the institute’s name, which is engraved into the facade.

The institute has been locked in a legal battle with the Trump administration as it hopes to reinstate its former president ousted by Trump last year. In May 2025, a federal judge ruled that the administration’s actions to dismantle the nonprofit was “unlawful” but the ruling was stayed by a federal appeals court panel a month later.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The USIP’s emergency motion comes days after Trump announced the Kennedy Center would be closing following a court ruling that blocked his name from being added to the building. Trump has threatened to tear down the center, and was seen on Wednesday viewing a large printout that appeared to say “Kennedy Center DEMOLISH.” The Kennedy Center, which USIP referred to in its motion, is seen as a bellwether for other institutions that Trump has sought to rebrand in his image.

“Notwithstanding the importance that the President and his supporters place on attaching his name to notable buildings,” the motion said, “Appellants will suffer no harm or prejudice whatsoever if they are precluded from carving the President’s name into the USIP building unless and until this litigation concludes in their favor.”

Special session

Newsom floats prospect of special session or executive action on AI

The California governor told POLITICO he plans to take further action on AI safety before leaving office.

By Chase DiFeliciantonio and Jeremy B. White

Gavin Newsom told POLITICO he plans to take further action on AI safety before leaving office, raising the possibility of a special California legislative session amid escalating concerns about the technology’s potential risks to humanity.

His plans, he said, could take the form of a special session, executive action or steps by state agencies under their existing authority.

“Is there a legislative play? Is there a framework around a special session in that respect? Is there executive action?” Newsom said, adding he was also looking at “authority within existing agencies that have oversight authority based on laws, rules, and regulations.”

“We’re looking at across the spectrum,” the governor said. “We’re looking to see what we can do in the next few weeks — days, weeks, and months.”

The California governor and likely presidential candidate described the car he was riding in during a Wednesday evening call as strewn with dozens of pages of ideas and memos focused on the issue.

“After that Hugging Face incident weeks ago, we were on this,” Newsom said, referring to the July incident in which rogue OpenAI programs executed an autonomous cyberattack. He said he has been in discussion with state legislative leaders, tech safety advocates and those representing AI labs, among others, in crafting a response.

Any additional move by California, the global locus of the tech and AI industry, could have major national and even global repercussions.

Newsom said he felt spurred to act in part because of “the tendency of the Trump administration to do absolutely nothing.”

His remarks come amid deep fissures in the industry — and in Washington — over how to regulate the industry, and with President Donald Trump repeatedly dismissing concerns about AI. In California, Newsom said, “We’re mindful that we need to continue to iterate and that we must continue to lead.”

Newsom’s signature last year on California’s first-in-the-nation AI transparency and incident reporting law set off a cross-country tour of copycat lawmaking in states like New York and Illinois. And last week he signed two AI safety bills to regulate the kind of third-party safety checks now being called for by the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic.

He described those new laws as the “first steps to the kind of independent third-party reviews and safety standards that people are advocating for.”

Newsom vetoed an earlier version of the state’s AI transparency law that would have required pre-release safety checks for some AI programs. The bill would have also required companies to have shutdown capabilities for some AI programs, echoing the rekindled debate over “kill switch” failsafes in the wake of recent autonomous cyberattacks.

In the interview, he called the pared-back law he ultimately signed last year as “the floor, not the ceiling,” and said the bills he signed last week were a representation of an effort “to continue to build off that to begin to scaffold the next steps and to organize the next steps as new information presents itself, as conditions arise.”

The politics for Newsom are especially fraught. He has upheld California as a national leader on AI regulation, arguing the safety law he brokered last year struck a careful balance of addressing catastrophic incidents while protecting a vital industry.

That record will come under intense scrutiny if Newsom runs for president in a cycle expected to be dominated by AI concerns. He will face questions about whether California did enough under his leadership to limit the risk from a homegrown industry that he consistently championed as an economic engine.

Outside of California, the landscape is shifting rapidly. Washington is still scrambling to react to an AI whistleblower’s blunt warning last week that Silicon Valley saw a real possibility of a technologically-spurred apocalypse.

Newsom told reporters last week that he was well aware of that hazard, saying he’d been “hearing for years now” about the concerns raised by the whistleblower, while adding the Hugging Face attack should “scare the hell out of anyone.”

In Europe

 I am traveling in Europe, nice to be back.

Traveling

 Will be back, just traveling.

What can go wrong is going wrong.....

Hegseth allies campaign to put loyalist in Army secretary job

Pentagon officials are pushing spokesperson Sean Parnell for the position and launching attacks against other candidates.

By Paul McLeary and Jack Detsch

Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon allies are waging a behind-the-scenes campaign against administration officials vying for the Army Secretary job — an unprecedented effort to get the Defense secretary’s spokesperson nominated for the role.

They’re advocating for Sean Parnell — an Army combat veteran and unsuccessful Pennsylvania congressional candidate — over Army Comptroller Marc Andersen and Assistant Secretary for Special Operations Derrick Anderson, who the White House is also considering for the job, according to a defense official and an administration official.

The move would install Hegseth’s loyalists in the two most powerful Army positions. The Pentagon chief fired the service’s top uniformed leader, Gen. Randy George, in April and replaced him with Gen. Christopher LaNeve, Hegseth’s former military adviser. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned last month over concerns about the direction of the Pentagon.

“Everyone in the Pentagon knows that Secretary Hegseth’s preferred pick for secretary of the Army is Sean Parnell,” said the defense official. “The other Pentagon officials being floated in the media as potential candidates are just trying to up their public profiles so they can land big jobs when they leave the administration.”

It’s rare that administration officials would voice such contempt for presidentially-appointed, Senate-approved officials. Both the other two contenders have served without controversy and given no indication of publicly advocating for the Army job.

Parnell’s controversial past and lack of Pentagon experience would make a tricky path to confirmation. His then-estranged wife alleged that he abused her and one of their children, forcing Parnell to abandon his 2021 Senate bid. He has denied the allegations and now has shared custody of his children. He likely would also face backlash over Hegseth’s firing of George, who enjoyed strong support in Congress.

“He’s pretty unconfirmable,” said one person familiar with Senate thinking, who like others, was granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations. “When people look at Secretary Hegseth, and you put Sean Parnell next to him, they have very similar issues. And there most certainly is buyer’s remorse when it comes to Secretary Hegseth.”

It’s also not clear whether the White House would support Parnell. Andersen, the Army’s top budget official, is the administration’s leading contender as he would likely preserve some of the service’s most ambitious modernization initiatives, according to a person familiar with the dynamics and the administration and defense official.

The White House referred questions to the Pentagon, which did not respond to requests for comment. Andersen declined to comment and Anderson did not respond to a request for comment.

Andersen, who was confirmed to be the Army’s comptroller job in October, would put a career business executive in the top spot rather than the kind of culture warrior Hegseth has favored for several other posts. He spent two decades in venture capital and consulting for tech firms, and would likely continue Driscoll’s efforts to steer the service toward the use of innovative drone initiatives and integration of AI.

But the administration official said that Andersen once supported “Trump’s fiercest critics,” including former Reps. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), and retiring Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.).

The person familiar and a third defense official said that Andersen has not met or supported either Bacon or Kinzinger. He disclosed his past donations to Comstock to the White House in the nominating process for his initial Army job, the official said.

The other contender, Anderson, would find his confirmation “dead on arrival” in the Senate, the administration official said, after reportedly keeping a political appointee in place who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

But that person, Elias Irizarry, was previously praised by a Pentagon spokesperson and Hegseth has not taken action against him since his hiring was first reported by The Washington Post in June.

Trump has appointed Adam Telle, the Army’s assistant secretary for civil works, to temporarily fill the top job.

Any administration nominee is likely to face questions from the Senate about Driscoll’s departure and Hegseth’s broader purge of senior leaders, including the Army’s well-regarded former commander in Europe and Africa, Gen. Christopher Donahue.

Such moves also are expected to put promotions in a holding pattern.

“The Senate’s going to be a little tougher on them than what they were two years ago,” said Bacon.“I don’t think they’re going to get a freebie.”

Someone needs to meet the meat grinder

Trump tries to kill regulations on ‘HOAX’ AI dangers

The president is trying to shut down a growing push for AI regulation, amid calls from leaders to slow the production of artificial intelligence.

By Elleiana Green and Owen Dahlkamp

President Donald Trump tried to shut down a burgeoning push for the United States to further regulate artificial intelligence on Monday morning, saying the U.S. has already done enough to prevent artificial intelligence from catastrophic risks and that the dangers posed by the technology are a “HOAX.”

In a flurry of social media posts Monday, the president decried placing additional guardrails on AI, argued that the technology and data centers will boost the economy, claimed there’s a conspiracy against it and alleged, without evidence, that there’s no real threat posted by AI.

“AI taking over the World, destroying Humanity, and all other things bad, is a HOAX, no different from RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA — UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE — IMPEACHMENT HOAX #1 — IMPEACHMENT HOAX #2 — and all of the other HOAXES and SCAMS that America was forced to endure,” he said on Truth Social.

His posts come as technology leaders called for the industry to slow down the production of AI over the weekend, sending tech stocks tumbling Monday.

Earlier Monday, Trump suggested that his presidency alone was enough to stave off further regulations. “The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

He also focused on the threat China poses in the tech race, writing that “there is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China.”

The president has repeatedly said in public remarks over the past week that his top priority is ensuring China does not gain supremacy over a new technology that is poised to reshape civil society.

Trump also called out Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, claiming that he is “now pretending to be a ‘perfect little angel’” after the Trump administration had previously “stopped AI ‘people’ from doing bad, or potentially bad, ‘things.’“

Over the weekend, Amodei was the first major AI leader to publicly call for a slowdown, writing in a lengthy essay, “We must slow down the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models.”

Shortly after, xAI CEO Elon Musk said on social media that “Dario is right.”

OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, also said he agreed with Amodei, adding that the issue has been a topic of discussion at OpenAI. And OpenAI’s top European lobbyist, in an interview with POLITICO, called on the United Kingdom to also introduce new regulations.

The Trump administration previously clashed with Anthropic publicly after the company attempted to restrict how the Pentagon could use its Claude AI model, resulting in it being designated a supply-chain risk. The AI giant sued, and a federal judge in late July said that it seemed that the administration overstepped its authority in targeting the company.

One of Anthropic’s most advanced models was also slapped with export controls in June after the administration deemed its release posed security risks. In an attempt to comply, Anthropic shut down the model entirely before the ban was partially lifted later that month.

Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s Monday social media post.

The president on Monday also called Jensen Huang, chief executive of Nvidia, while Huang was on stage at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles Monday afternoon. Speaking to the crowd through the call, Trump again brushed aside calls to rein in the technology.

“The data centers are great, and they make people wealthy, and they make states wealthy, and it’s the oil for the next 20-25 years, bigger than the internet. And AI, much more so,” he said, according to a video posted by an attendee, adding that people who are calling for tighter regulations “are just playing right into the hands of a lot of people that don’t want to see it happen,” including “political people” and “China.”

“We’re not gonna let that happen. It’s a hoax,” the president said.

“You’re right, we are not gonna let that happen, sir,” Huang, whose company designs and sells the most advanced hardware used for training AI models, said in response.

Concern from lawmakers and the tech industry spiked last week after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned and issued a warning that the emerging technology could “could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

His prediction increased fears about the growing capabilities of the technology, with top AI labs in recent weeks disclosing several instances in which rogue AI agents broke out of their testing environments and carried out sophisticated hacking campaigns across the internet.

Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance told reporters on Monday before Trump’s social media post that AI is “something we’re concerned by, but we want to make sure that we actually regulate smartly and we’re thoughtful about the risk here.”

He added, “I feel a little bit weird about the fact that you have so many frontier AI tech companies kind of coming to the government and begging the government to regulate them. It feels a little bit to me like a bit of a Trojan horse.”

At this point, Vance said the U.S. should be mindful of risks, but he does not think Americans should “be scared of anything.”

Democrats in Congress sharply criticized Trump’s commentary on Monday, saying he was abdicating a responsibility.

“Calling Americans worried about the existential risks posed by AI ‘treasonists’ and ‘traitors’ is further proof President Trump doesn’t understand the current moment,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said in a post, as he called for Congress to act.

In the days since Coxon’s resignation, Congress has been at odds about how to regulate AI production going forward, even as some lawmakers from both parties say that now is the time for Congress to step in.

On Sunday, House Speaker Mike Johnson said in an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union” that developers, not Congress, are responsible for ensuring products are safe. The Louisiana Republican said he would support talks with tech leaders on AI.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said AI risks are “deeply concerning” in an interview on POLITICO’s “The Conversation” with Dasha Burns last week. Cruz, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, said he may hold a markup this month on AI legislation, including a bill he is working on with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to address biological or nuclear threats.

And some progressives, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), have called for a complete shutdown of AI research.

Humans as pets...

Casar urges AI whistleblowers to ‘speak the truth’ as worst-case predictions mount

The Texas Democrat said he has heard from experts who have hesitated to speak out about the technology’s risks for fear of sounding alarmist.

By Owen Dahlkamp

Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) called for activists and whistleblowers to speak more forcefully about the threats arising from advanced artificial intelligence, saying the time for “tempered” rhetoric has passed.

His remarks were delivered Tuesday at the Pro-Human Assembly, a conference on AI organized by the Future of Life Institute, which advocates for keeping humans at the helm of the technology. His comments follow warnings from employees at frontier labs, including Anthropic whistleblower Jacob Coxon, that have fueled widespread public concern about the technology’s advancing capabilities.

Casar said Tuesday he has heard from experts that “they’ve held back on describing how dangerous the technology has become because they’re afraid they’re going to sound crazy.”

The Texas progressive added that as once-hypothetical fears about the technology come to fruition, “we need people who are sounding the alarm to speak clearly and directly about what needs to happen next.”

“The only way we can build the mass awareness and mass organizing necessary [is] to push politicians to stop mass destruction,” said Casar.

Casar also called for the U.S. to lead on AI diplomacy while advocating for a ban on superintelligence, a type of sophisticated AI that would far surpass humans’ cognitive abilities, and a pause on advanced AI development until a government-enabled vetting regime can be put in place.

In an interview earlier this year, Casar said Democrats were “in the wilderness” on AI issues and called for the party to be “AI populists” who “stand with working people who know in their gut the potential for AI to exacerbate inequality.

Why? Fat orange turd is why....

Major housing nonprofit in Los Angeles’ Skid Row facing financial collapse

The prospect of SRO Housing Corp., which operates 2,500 units of affordable housing, going under creates a significant new problem for Mayor Karen Bass and other local political leaders.

By Liam Dillon

The largest provider of housing for formerly homeless residents in Los Angeles’ Skid Row area has warned city officials it is running out of money and will collapse unless it receives more public funding or other assistance, its leader told POLITICO.

Anita Nelson, CEO of SRO Housing Corp., which operates 2,500 units of affordable housing in nearly three dozen buildings, said the city has not responded with sufficient urgency to her nonprofit’s “dire” financial situation.

“The handwriting is on the wall,” Nelson said.

The prospect of SRO Housing’s failure puts thousands of the city’s most vulnerable tenants at risk and creates a significant new problem for Mayor Karen Bass and other local political leaders who have struggled to pull Los Angeles out of an intractable homelessness crisis.

And it comes at a fraught time for the city and county, which have faced a barrage of criticism in recent months from the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress over allegations of widespread waste and corruption in the effort to address homelessness. The Department of Housing and Urban Development is attempting to withhold nearly $250 million in funding from the region, while a House Oversight subcommittee is expected to zero in on Los Angeles during a hearing Tuesday on “fraud and failure in federally funded homelessness services.” Bass, citing scheduling conflicts, declined an invitation to testify and told MS NOW that the hearing was an attempt to intimidate the region.

More than 73,000 people are homeless in Los Angeles County, according to the latest survey, and the dissolution of SRO Housing would add substantial humanitarian and financial stress to the region’s response.

The organization’s precarious finances have been known for years. Most notably, the disintegration in 2023 of another major nonprofit landlord, Skid Row Housing Trust, revealed systemic funding problems for groups trying to provide permanent housing in a neighborhood with overwhelming levels of homelessness, drug addiction and mental illness. The city pushed the trust’s 29 properties into a receivership and spent $30 million keeping them afloat for nearly two years before transferring the buildings to other owners.

At the time, Nelson and city housing officials raised alarms that SRO Housing could follow suit.

In May, a meeting between SRO Housing leaders and the city housing department showed that the organization’s financial footing had become more perilous, according to an internal department memo obtained by POLITICO summarizing the conversation.

The memo said SRO Housing needed “immediate assistance,” was facing “severe financial distress” and anticipated roughly six months of solvency. It said the organization would shut down without help.

Nelson told POLITICO that she never told the city that SRO Housing expected to close in six months — which would have meant November — and that the organization is not currently planning to do so. But she said that she communicated the nonprofit’s growing crisis to the housing department.

“They’re not feeling our sense of urgency,” Nelson said. “The sense of urgency for me is real.”

About 500 units, roughly 20% of SRO Housing’s portfolio, are vacant, Nelson said. SRO Housing has lost money every year since 2022, according to the nonprofit’s public financial reports, with the shortfall rising to a cumulative $27.8 million. Its debts and other liabilities exceed its assets by nearly $70 million, the most recent financial report said.

Sharon Sandow, a housing department spokesperson, did not answer a list of questions from POLITICO, including why the department’s account of the May meeting differed from Nelson’s on SRO Housing’s timeline for dissolution.

“The memo speaks for itself,” Sandow said in a statement. “The department is very focused on preservation and is making that a top priority to come up with creative strategies to preserve struggling portfolios.”

Bass and City Council member Nithya Raman, her opponent in the upcoming mayoral election and chair of the council’s previous Housing and Homelessness Committee until August, did not respond to questions from POLITICO.

Both SRO Housing and the former Skid Row Housing Trust were formed in the 1980s to rehabilitate 1920s-era residential hotels and apartment complexes in downtown Los Angeles to serve as permanent housing. Many of the buildings have tiny individual living quarters and shared bathrooms, and these properties remain SRO Housing’s core portfolio.

Problems began compounding about a decade ago as housing subsidies fell behind the cost of operations. Costly breakdowns of plumbing, heating and electrical systems have accelerated as the properties have aged. And changes in leasing practices to prioritize housing residents with severe mental health and drug addiction issues left providers complaining that bureaucratic delays left rooms vacant for too long and, once filled, concentrated too many disorderly people in their buildings.

Nelson commissioned a study that found in 2019 almost half of SRO Housing’s buildings were operating at a loss. During the subsequent Covid-19 pandemic, Nelson said, rent collections dwindled while property damage and insurance costs soared.

When the trust failed in 2023, city officials told the Los Angeles Times that they worried SRO Housing’s situation was no longer sustainable and pledged to help. Nelson said over the past three years she’s continued to warn the city about the organization’s worsening condition.

“It’s not a secret,” she said. “They can’t say, ‘Anita didn’t say anything.’ I’ve put out there the dire conditions we face.”

Nelson declined to say how much money SRO Housing needs to remain afloat. But she said some of the problems hurting the organization’s finances are bureaucratic.

In the May meeting, Nelson said she complained of being unable to open a new, 81-unit affordable housing development outside Skid Row because the city-owned utility had yet to provide electricity. And, in early 2023, SRO Housing received $45 million in state dollars to rehabilitate three of its older buildings in Skid Row. Today, construction is complete, but 130 of the renovated units remain empty, she said. Nelson attributed SRO Housing’s vacancy problems to regional housing officials who are responsible for matching prospective tenants to its buildings.

There have been some wins. Since May, the electricity has been turned on at the new building, which is now fully occupied, Nelson said. And she said the city has helped the organization access federal housing assistance vouchers that pay higher rents.

In the memo, the housing department noted discussing a three-year plan to stabilize SRO Housing’s balance sheet, but there is no active proposal, Nelson said. She added that city officials rejected a bid to convert some of SRO Housing’s buildings from permanent residences to interim shelters because of potential legal and logistical issues, even though the conversion would have aligned with the preferences of both the Trump and Bass administrations.

The city also has held up a request from SRO Housing to sell the Rosslyn, a historic 1923 hotel that was converted to 264 studio apartments, to another supportive housing provider, Nelson said. The organization has been looking to offload the building because of growing operational deficits.

In September 2025, a Rosslyn tenant died in a fire in his room on the building’s seventh floor. Repairs are being finished only now.

Amanda Spiva, who was relocated from her fifth floor studio because of water damage from the fire, said she’s faced numerous problems in the 11 years she’s lived in the Rosslyn.

Plumbing has been a constant concern, Spiva said. She said she’s had to pay her neighbors $25 to use their bathroom when her toilet has failed at night or over weekends. She’s also dealt with mold and vermin as well as public safety problems she attributed to trespassers.

“For people who live here and call it home, we don’t want to see people with machetes in the elevators, people who might stab you,” Spiva, 60, said as she prepared to move her belongings back from her temporary unit. “We want to feel safe and have pride of place.”

Changing war....

‘Horror in the sky’: Ukraine races for a solution to Russian jet-powered drones

The Kremlin’s newest innovation is causing havoc for Kyiv’s air defenses.

By Veronika Melkozerova

Russia is upgrading its attack drones by powering them with fast turbojet engines, making them much more difficult to intercept and forcing Ukraine to develop technology to knock them down.

The shift is adding to the strain on a country already accustomed to nights spent under air-raid alerts: faster drones give air-defense crews less time to respond, can outpace the defenses that helped counter earlier Shaheds and threaten homes, transport and critical infrastructure across Ukraine.

"Together with dozens of Ukrainian companies, we are already looking for cheap and mass-produced solutions, in particular for intercepting jet-powered drones. Some interceptors are already undergoing combat testing," Ukrainian Defense Minister Evgeniy Khmara said last week at a meeting of Ukraine's allies.

"We cannot simply wait while Russia refines its repertoire of killings. Right now, we need to focus as much attention as possible on securing the skies, finding ways to protect people, and scaling up our response to Russian drones," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last Friday.

The arrival of the jet-powered drones raises the stakes for Ukraine’s survival through the winter. Unless Ukraine can field an affordable interceptor at scale to shoot down the large numbers of Russian jet-powered drones, it will be forced to use aircraft and missiles worth far more than the drones they destroy, depleting the defenses it must preserve for Russia’s ballistic and cruise missiles, which are capable of causing far greater damage.

More than 60 local defense producers are now rushing to produce interceptors to help stop what Zelenskyy has described as “horror in the sky.”

“There are three to five companies who have already shown some results,” Zelenskyy said earlier this month, adding that the next step is to begin mass production.

A faster target

In a war that has seen dizzying technological advancements on both sides, Russia has upgraded its propeller-powered Geran drones, originally modeled on Iran's Shaheds, and has launched a new iteration powered by turbojet engines. While the old Geran-2 models fly at about 200 kilometers per hour, the latest Geran-5s can reach speeds of up to 600 kph. The newest drones also fly at higher altitudes, while their engines have a lower thermal footprint.

Meanwhile, many of Ukraine's interceptor drones fly at about 300 kph, so they can't catch the newest Gerans. That's forcing Ukraine to use its fighter jets to try to intercept them.

Russia can produce about 3,000 of the newest drones a month, Ukrainian military intelligence said.

Moscow has also changed its deployment tactics, said Brave1, a Ukrainian government platform aimed at boosting arms sector innovation.

The new jet-powered drones are targeting passenger trains, warehouses, logistical routes, civilian housing and shopping malls. Vladimir Putin is “terrorizing day and night,” Zelenskyy said Sunday.

“Ukraine was doing everything to master interception of regular Shaheds, while the jet-powered ones are faster and fly higher. And there are not enough interceptor missiles for all the jet-powered drones Russia sends against Ukraine,” said Andriy Zahorodnyuk, a former defense minister who now heads the Center for Defense Strategies think tank.

New drone hunters

Ukraine has developed high-speed quadcopters that can work against older Russian jet-powered drones. Brave1 said some can fly up to 550 kph, fast enough to intercept Geran-3 drones, with a top speed of about 500 kph.

But for the newest types of Russian drones, "you need a different means," said Oleksii Babenko, CEO of the Ukrainian defense company Vyriy Industries. At those speeds, Ukraine needs turbojet- or rocket-powered interceptors because propeller-driven drones cannot keep up, he said.

In June, defense companies Noctis and Vyriy presented their own high-speed interceptor, which has shown good results against jet-powered drones, Babenko said.

"We are working in four areas regarding drone interceptors — these are turbojet drones, impeller interceptors with electric engines, high-speed electric racing 'copters, and technologies for shooting down Shaheds on head-on courses," Brave1 said.

Brave1 is also working on small anti-aircraft missiles, but said they are more difficult to design than the simpler counter-drones used against older Shaheds.

“Logistics, procurement, production will also take some time. But this problem will definitely be solved. It's just that, unfortunately, for a month or two, we will have to shoot them down with more expensive means, that is, with missiles from fighter jets. Or turrets at the moment when it is already close to the target,” Babenko added.

The drone and counter-drone race is part of a wider technology cycle involving artificial intelligence, satellite communications, missiles and electronic warfare, where both countries constantly innovate in reaction to each other's advances.

Russia's new drones, a reaction to Ukraine's success in knocking down older Gerans, weren't a surprise, Babenko said.

“The defense ministry warned us that this problem is coming and we need to be prepared. Unfortunately, defense producers were not ready.  I would say not a single defense industry in the world was ready for this,” Babenko said.

Defense producers lacked engineers and cash to get ready.

“We don't have enough of them, other manufacturers don't, and here are the consequences. Will we prevent similar problems in the future? We definitely plan to do so, but this war doesn't always give everyone time,” Babenko said.

But Ukraine is confident it will master the technology to counter the new threat.

"Jet-powered Shaheds are a serious challenge, but we will overcome it and in turn offer the Russians many unpleasant surprises," Brave1 said.

His doing......

‘Not too much they can do about it’: Frustrated White House faces spiking oil prices

Wars in the Middle East and Europe are driving oil and diesel prices higher, leaving the White House with few quick fixes as Republicans head into the midterms.

By Scott Waldman and James Bikales

The widening conflicts in the Middle East and Europe are plunging global energy markets deeper into crisis and domestic fuel manufacturers are starting to show signs of strain.

Now, with the midterm elections less than two months away, President Donald Trump and a frustrated White House appear to have few options available to ease the rally in oil prices that has imperiled the GOP hold on Congress.

There is little hope for a quick resolution to the Iran war. A key Saudi Arabian pipeline is now shut down for a few weeks after an attack. An Iranian proxy group has strengthened its control over a second global energy choke point. Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries are challenging diesel fuel production. Tankers crossing the Strait of Hormuz are getting hit.

It has resulted in prices at the pump spiking just as Republican lawmakers are set to face voters. The price of a global barrel of oil jumped to $109 on Monday, the highest since May. The price of a gallon of diesel is now at the record high of $6.23 while a gallon of regular gas is $4.32, according to AAA.

The mood inside the White House is “frustration they can’t get this resolved,” said Stephen Moore, a former Trump economic adviser. He said the high energy prices are a “tax on the economy” that is overcoming some positive fundamentals such as the rise of retirement savings and the growth of the stock market.

“The problem is there’s not too much they can do about it,” he said. “It’s a global market, it’s a global oil supply.”

That’s causing “anxiety” inside the White House, according to an outside energy adviser, granted anonymity to speak candidly. For one thing, there are few immediate mechanisms available to the administration to bring down prices.

“They’re still looking for magic bullets,” the former adviser said.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the Saudi East-West pipeline, which was shut down last week after a series of drone attacks, would be operational “very soon,” though he declined to offer details, saying that more information would be available Tuesday. The pipeline’s operator, Saudi Aramco, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum acknowledged at the G20 energy minister summit in Dallas that prices were high but insisted that it was only a temporary issue. Burgum attempted to contrast the rise in prices that have come in the aftermath of the U.S. and Israel attack against Iran in February with the Biden administration’s attempt to drive renewable energy production to replace fossil fuels.

“This is a temporary disruption instead of a strategic direction of the prior administration,” Burgum said in front of the audience of foreign dignitaries and energy industry officials.

President Donald Trump, who had successfully jawboned market prices lower in previous months, attempted the same in a series of social media posts Monday.

He wrote on Truth Social that “Oil is flowing through the Hormuz Strait.” He also wrote that “Iran wants to make a deal, quickly and badly,” which his administration was “open to.” He stated that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to stop striking energy infrastructure, because the “World’s Diesel price rise is mostly caused by the Russia/Ukraine War, not Iran.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy quickly noted that no such agreement had been made.

Despite Trump’s posts, oil prices hovered near four-month highs.

White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said the administration was actively working to cut energy prices, including meeting with global and industry leaders to “discuss diversifying supply chains, expanding refining capacity, and increasing production.”

“President Trump remains committed to unleashing American energy dominance, cutting costs, and putting more money back in the pockets of hardworking American families,” she said in a statement.

Adding to the overall woes, some refineries in the United States are showing signs of stress after months of running nearly full-out to keep up fuel supply. The ExxonMobil refinery in Joliet, Illinois, experienced a power outage Sunday that will reduce its output until the end of the week.

ExxonMobil spokesperson Liza Steger said in a statement Monday morning that the company is assessing the refinery’s status and the cause of the outage was under investigation.

One industry official said the incident was just another warning sign that diesel prices in particular are at risk of spiking further, especially heading into the fall and winter, when diesel demand is highest.

“It’s not normal for refineries to run at 95 plus percent utilization for [six] months, and then when our inventories of diesel are lower than they normally are, any additional trip in that system is just going to have a much bigger price pop than it otherwise would normally,” the official said.

Wright said he is confident there will be a “rapid increase” in the flow of oil and refined products out of the Middle East in the coming weeks, citing conversations with the U.S. military and exporting companies. He added that he expects U.S. refiners to increase their throughput thanks to relaxed biofuel blending requirements, while more Russian and Chinese refining capacity comes back online.