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New digital marking system is aimed at reducing human errors but many students say it has resulted in wrong gradesA national outcry has erupted in India after more than 400,000 students requested copies of their answer sheets amid mounting complaints of errors in the marking of the country’s most important school-leaving examinations.Within days of the grade 12 exam results being issued, students began reporting marking discrepancies they linked to a new digital marking system. Continue reading...

Trump's plan to send Ebola-exposed Americans to Kenya instead of bringing them home suffered a major blow, according to reporting by The Daily Beast. A Kenyan court suspended Trump's plans the day they were supposed to begin, The Beast reported. United States officials planned to quarantine Americans at a Kenyan air force base, with the White House describing it as a "state-of-the-art facility," ABC News reported. The epicenter of the current outbreak, which has led to more than 1,000 suspected cases and nearly 250 deaths, is the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Although no Americans have been reported infected on U.S soil, a doctor was treated for the virus in Germany, and six Americans have reportedly been exposed, The New York Post reported.

House Republicans on the Armed Services Committee released their defense budget proposal this week for fiscal year 2027, which includes more than $1.1 trillion in spending, but buried within the 500-plus-page document is a provision that one foreign policy analyst warned Friday was “unprecedented,” and could reshape the U.S. military indefinitely.That provision is titled the “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” and according to Ben Freeman, a foreign policy analyst at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, it would “provide a higher level of military-industrial integration [with Israel] than the U.S. has with any other country in the world.”Writing in a report published by Responsible Statecraft, Freeman noted that the United States and Israel “already work together heavily” on military operations and intelligence sharing. He also acknowledged that the United States “has worked closely with its NATO partners” militarily. The provision buried within the defense spending proposal, however, was “a different beast entirely,” Freeman warned.“It would fuse the U.S. and Israeli defense sectors in multiple areas vital to the battlefields of the future, like autonomous systems and cyber,” Freeman wrote. “It would also bring extraordinary Israeli influence to the U.S. beyond what it already has through the Israel lobby and its robust network of social media influencers.”The expanded Israeli influence on U.S. politics that the budget provision may clear a path for, Freeman cautioned, could become irreversible.“It would give the Israeli government the opportunity to greatly expand one of the most powerful levers of influence in U.S. politics: jobs in the U.S.,” Freeman wrote.“By expanding or starting new co-production facilities like it already has in Mississippi and Arkansas, the Israeli government could boast of providing jobs on U.S. soil, thereby securing allies among members of Congress who represent the districts where those jobs lie.”Freeman continued, “The result could well be a U.S. political system even more susceptible to the whims of an Israeli government that seemingly has no qualms about drawing the U.S. into military conflicts in the Middle East.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was criticized Friday after giving what was intended as a motivational speech to a group of Navy sailors.Hegseth joined the military personnel for a workout drill on USS Boxer, which is docked in Singapore, when he stopped to give a pep talk about the ongoing Iran war.“The president said 'Iran can either do it the right way, with a deal across the table, or they can deal with my guy on the left.' That happened to be me. But it's not me. It's you guys!” Hegseth said.People online mocked Hegseth's message to the group."The cringe level is off the charts," journalist Aaron Rupar, who has 1.1 million followers, wrote on X."Hegseth is an actor playing a Secdef in a cheesy movie," former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), a frequent Trump administration critic and veteran, wrote on X."Pete Hegseth got how many of our fellow Americans killed and injured and how many bases destroyed all because he used GROK to plan a war with Iran and then got America's A-- handed to her?" Pastor Ben Dixon, a political commentator with more than 164,000 followers, wrote on X."This is so ... stupid!" Gwilym Eades, a lecturer in human and environmental geography at Royal Holloway University of London, wrote on Bluesky.the cringe level is off the charts https://t.co/SvhS7oolvs— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 29, 2026

Republican Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo avoided answering a direct question about President Donald Trump's tariff policies and their impact on the tourism-reliant state during a recent interview.Lombardo spoke to 2 News Nevada in an exclusive interview last week and appeared visibly uncomfortable with denouncing Trump's tariffs, which have led to a tourism crisis in the state that heavily depends on travelers, especially in cities like Las Vegas. The loss of global tourism has hit the state's economy and become a serious concern among Nevada lawmakers ahead of the midterm elections this fall, according to Politico.But Lombardo apparently did not have a strong stance on the topic, 2 News Nevada reported."I don't know all the nuances of foreign policy associated with that and the tariffs and how it directly affects Nevada, but me as the governor of the state of Nevada, I'm concerned about Nevada," Lombardo said.In February, Nevada State Treasurer Zach Conine said that Trump's tariffs have cost the state $2.1 billion and Conine has demanded that the administration pay the state for costs incurred as a result of the president's policy, KOLO 8 News Now reported.Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo punts on whether he supports Trump's tariffs: "I don't know all the nuances of foreign policy associated with that and tariffs and how it directly affects, uh, Nevada." pic.twitter.com/FoNDtJUd6D— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 26, 2026

South Carolina's Republican-majority Senate voted to stop a measure to push a new congressional map forward — an open rejection of President Donald Trump's demand for redistricting, according to reports.As early voting began on Tuesday for the already scheduled June primary, a measure to accept a redrawn congressional map failed in the state's Senate in a 20-24 vote, NBC News reported.The vote "was a surprise rejection of President Donald Trump, who had urged lawmakers to pass a redrawn map that eliminated the state’s single majority-Black district and gave Republicans a chance to win the seat," according to NBC News.Last week, the South Carolina House had approved the map and aimed to enact it for the midterm elections this fall.That changed on Tuesday, despite pressure from the Trump White House. Lawmakers had considered seeking another primary election for the districts affected by the new map in August, but some GOP lawmakers ended up changing their minds."Neither my conscience nor my common sense will allow me to stop an election that is already underway," said Republican state Sen. Richard Cash, who reportedly changed his vote citing the timing.Earlier this month, South Carolina Republican Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey said that a new, last-minute map could be "short-sighted," according to NBC News."I believe that our state is stronger with vibrant parties. I think we, as a whole, are stronger when we have a clash of ideas. I think that’s true at the national level. I think it’s true at the state level. We are stronger when we have a clash of ideas and we can discuss those policy goals," Massey said. "Republicans are stronger when the Democratic Party is vibrant and viable."

The number of goals Donald Trump set out on Feb. 28 when he launched the unprovoked attack on Iran was held up to the light by MS NOW’s David Rohde on Tuesday morning, who made clear the president's war so far has been a failure.Well beyond the Strait of Hormuz stalemate that has the Trump administration grasping for an answer, Rohde singled out five claims that the president made when he announced the attack, with only one coming to fruition -- and even that appears doubtful after this weekend's events.Speaking with “Morning Joe” co-host Jonathan Lemire, Rohde got right to the point as the producers displayed a graphic showing the administration coming up far short of its goals.“Remind us, please, about the goals that this administration first set out for this conflict and what has actually been achieved,” Lemire prompted his guest.“Look, I want to give credit to all the service members that are out there in particularly the day after Memorial Day, but this has been a disaster for this administration to have the Secretary of State [Marco Rubio], as we just saw him on his plane, trying to play down, almost trying to placate the Iranians and the American public about how this conflict has gone was extraordinary,” he began.“I looked up President Trump's speech on February 28th when he announced the war, so achieved: ‘annihilate their navy.‘ Maybe. I mean, I think that's generally true. But this morning, the New York Times has reported that there are hundreds of these speedboats and this — look, I believe the United States Navy, I don't believe the Iranians at all — if they're laying mines with one of these speedboats. That's why it was part of the attack yesterday; that's extraordinary. That shows how emboldened the Iranians are. So that's maybe achieved or partly achieved.”“And then everything else. 'Destroy their missiles,'” he continued. “The latest assessment is that 70% of Iran's missile capacity remains intact. They have knocked out some of the factories. But again, that is not an achievement. Overall, ensure the region's terrorist proxies no longer destabilize the region — That's not happening at all. That's not even part of these negotiations. And the missiles aren't either.”“Ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon,” he continued. “That's not even part of the current negotiations that will come in this 60-day second round of talks. And then, most tragically, what he said to, as he said to ‘the great people of Iran, take over your government,’ and the regime remains in place.”“So it's astonishing to me that an American president is in this position,” he concluded. “And they just, you know, this administration … just continues to mismanage this war.” - YouTube youtu.be

Middle Eastern nations that were on the receiving end of a threat from Donald Trump over the holiday weekend called his bluff because he no longer carries the weight he thinks he does.That was the claim made by MS NOW host Joe Scarborough and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius on Monday morning after the affected nations balked.Over the weekend, as Trump was boasting that an agreement with Iran was imminent, he then jumped ahead and wrote on Truth Social, “I am mandatorily requesting that all Countries immediately sign the Abraham Accords, and that, if Iran signs its Agreement with me, as President of the United States of America, it would be an Honor to have them also be part of this unparalleled World Coalition.”As the Washington Post reported, “Analysts, however, expressed doubt that the countries would agree to sign on, especially when tensions are running high amid ongoing conflicts in Iran, Lebanon, and Gaza. Official Iranian policy also calls for the eradication of Israel, and its replacement by a Palestinian state.”Scarborough jumped into the fray by saying Trump, who has been diminished in the region by the Strait of Hormuz stalemate, doesn’t have the leverage to make such demands.Stating Trump’s new Iran deal pronouncement is “starting to sound like every other BS peace deal,” Scarborough added, “And I say that I know they're talking, they think they're close, but you have the Iranians saying, no, we're never going to give up our nukes. We're going to continue putting tolls on the strait.”“And then you have Donald Trump yesterday basically holding a weak hand, actually going all in, saying, okay, Saudi Arabia, okay, Turkey, all right, all these other countries that are never going to join the Abraham Accords, the only way they're going to work is if all of you join the Abraham Accords. And the Saudis have already said, we're not going to do it. We're not going to do it without a Palestinian state. Is there a peace still? Are they really moving forward to one, or is this just more of the same?”“So, Joe, it is, as your comments suggest, a very confusing and disheartening situation,” Ignatius replied. “It's obvious to me that President Trump badly wants out of this war. He's looking for an exit ramp as hard as he can, he feels that another round of kinetic strikes will be difficult for the U.S. — for the US military it’s unlikely to easily achieve his goals.”“It will lead, inevitably, to some kind of ground invasion of Iran, which is the last thing that I think he wants. And so he has come up with a peace proposal that is so far short of the war aims that he had when he started,” he added. - YouTube youtu.be