Mike Huckabee on Israel reporting: The media deserves our contempt
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New York Post
18 minutes ago
- New York Post
Controversial Princeton prof with Iran ties steps down amid criticism from dissidents, senators
A controversial Princeton professor with strong ties to the Iranian regime has quietly stepped down from the Ivy League school, following a campaign from dissidents to remove him. Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a Middle East security and nuclear policy specialist, retired from his position after 15 years as the head of the school's Program on Science and Global Security on June 1, according to an announcement listing retiring employees on Princeton's website. The professor is controversial for being heavily involved in Iran's chemical and nuclear programs beginning in 2004, long before the country was known to have been building up its nuclear arsenal, according to Swiss journalist Bruno Schirra. Advertisement 4 Seyed Hossain Mousavian, an Iranian security specialist, quietly stepped down from Princeton University after 15 years and amid a federal crackdown on alleged antisemitism at the school. Getty Images The move comes amid the news Princeton could lose more than $200 million in grants from the Trump administration for not tackling antisemitism on campus, The Post has learned. Iranian opposition activists as well as Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz, a Princeton alumnus, had long urged the school to fire Mousavian. Advertisement 4 The Trump administration reportedly paused the payment of more than $200 million in grants. to the Ivy League school amid allegations of antisemitism. LightRocket via Getty Images 'It's a victory, but one has to wonder if he's staying behind the scenes somehow,' said Lawdan Bazargan, a former political prisoner in Iran, a human rights activist and member of the US-based Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists. The group has waged a two-year campaign to get the university to ditch Mousavian. 'We exposed the truth,' the group said in a press release last week. 'Mousavian is not a neutral scholar but a former ambassador of the [Islamic Republic of Iran] who defended the fatwas to kill author Salman Rushdie. Advertisement 4 Former Iranian Kurdish leader Sadiq Sharafkindi (left) and Nuri Dehkordi were two of the four opposition politicians killed in the Berlin restaurant Mykonos in 1992, while Mousavian was Iranian ambassador to Germany. Associated Press Shirin Ebadi, a former Iranian judge who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, has also previously accused Mousavian of supporting the fatwa. Before being hired by Princeton in 2009, Mousavian had also worked as a diplomat and editor of the Tehran Times, the English-language newspaper which is a mouthpiece for the regime. Mousavian was also Iran's ambassador to Germany in 1992 when four dissidents were murdered in the back of a restaurant in Berlin. Advertisement The group of dissidents which campaigned to get him fired from Princeton has previously alleged when Mousavian was ambassador to Germany, 23 Iranians were killed in Europe for being enemies of the mullahs. In 1997, a German court concluded that the Iranian leadership, including the foreign ministry, masterminded the murders and that the headquarters for plotting them was the Iranian embassy, but did not name Mousavian. During the trial, German newspaper Tagesspiegel reported a former Iranian spy, Abolghasem Mesbahi, said under oath, 'Mousavian was involved in most of the crimes that took place in Europe. 4 Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tours a nuclear facility in 2008. The country's nuclear program is much older than many Western intelligence sources had predicted. AP 'Specifically, in Germany, it concerns the crimes that were committed against Iranian opposition members.' Following the trial Mousavian was called back to Tehran. Mousavian, whose Princeton email address is still active and who is still prominently featured on the school's website, did not return a request for comment Tuesday. He wrote of his retirement on Twitter: 'After 15 years of service at Princeton University, I retired at my own request at the end of May 2025. Advertisement 'I am deeply grateful to the university officials for their support and especially for their commitment to freedom of expression.' The retirement coincides with the imminent publication of a 2004 interview with Mousavian by Schirra. The interview, which is now being published by the Middle East Research Institute, a US-based nonprofit that studies extremism, suggests Iran's nuclear program was secretly active for decades before Western intelligence sources warned of its existence. Advertisement 'After Iraq's attack [in 1980], we announced our defensive chemical and nuclear programs,' said Mousavian in the interview, who was then deputy of Iran's National Security Council. In April, Cruz urged the school to fire Mousavian, saying: 'His presence at Princeton makes students feel justifiably afraid for their safety.'
Washington Post
19 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Appeals court upholds Arkansas ban on gender-affirming care for minors
A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a 2021 Arkansas law banning gender-affirming care for minors, ruling that parents 'do not have unlimited authority to make medical decisions for their children.' The St. Louis-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit ruled 8-2 that the Save Adolescents From Experimentation Act does not discriminate against transgender people or violate the rights of medical professionals — rejecting a closely watched challenge to the nation's first-of-its-kind ban on gender transition treatment for transgender youth. The SAFE Act also prohibits doctors from referring trans youth to other providers for gender-affirming care, which can include puberty blockers and hormone therapy, among other treatments. Tuesday's ruling follows the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in June, upholding Tennessee's similar ban on gender-affirming care for minors. In the court's majority opinion, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that Tennessee's ban does not discriminate on the basis of sex and that courts must give elected officials wide latitude to pass legislation when there is scientific and policy debate about the safety of such medical treatments. The 8th Circuit cited the Supreme Court's ruling in U.S. v. Skrmetti throughout its majority opinion. Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin (R) praised the 8th Circuit's decision Tuesday. 'I applaud the court's decision recognizing that Arkansas has a compelling interest in protecting the physical and psychological health of children and am pleased that children in Arkansas will be protected from risky, experimental procedures with lifelong consequences,' Griffin said in a statement. The American Civil Liberties Association — which brought the original challenge to the 2021 law alongside a doctor who provided gender-affirming care in the state and four transgender youths and their families — slammed the ruling. 'This is a tragically unjust result for transgender Arkansans, their doctors, and their families,' Holly Dickson, executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas, said in a statement Tuesday. 'The state had every opportunity and failed at every turn to prove that this law helps children; in fact, this is a dangerous law that harms children. The law has already had a profound impact on families across Arkansas who all deserve a fundamental right to do what is best for their children.' Griffin and the state's medical board filed the appeal with the 8th Circuit in July 2023, after U.S. District Judge James Moody of the Eastern District of Arkansas blocked them from enforcing the state's ban on medical treatment for transitioning young people. Moody had said the ban violated the rights of transgender people and endangered their health: 'Rather than protecting children or safeguarding medical ethics, the evidence showed that the prohibited medical care improves the mental health and well-being of patients and that, by prohibiting it, the state undermined the interests it claims to be advancing.' The 8th Circuit, sitting en banc, reversed Moody's ruling. 'The minors argue that the Act classifies based on sex in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. They argue that a minor's sex determines whether he or she can receive certain medical treatments,' Judge Duane Benton wrote in the 8th Circuit's majority opinion. 'To the contrary, as the Supreme Court explained about a similar Tennessee law, the Act classifies based only on age and medical procedure.' 'The minors alternatively assert that the Act discriminates based on transgender status,' Benton wrote. 'To the contrary, the Act does not classify based on transgender status. Like the Tennessee law upheld by the Supreme Court, the Act effectively divides minors into two groups. In one group are minors seeking drugs or surgeries for the purposes that the Act prohibits. In the other group are minors seeking drugs or surgeries for purposes the Act does not prohibit.'
Bloomberg
36 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Mexico Sends New Group of Inmates With Cartel Ties to US
By Updated on Leer en español Mexico's government transferred 26 inmates with ties to organized crime to the US, including some linked to the country's most powerful drug gangs, in its latest push to collaborate with Washington on combating the cartels.
