Two reports released last week by the U.S. government shed light officially, for the first time, on the damage Iran has inflicted on the Pentagon’s aerial fleet since the war began almost seven months ago. TWZ has combined their accounting with open-source intelligence (OSINT) reporting and our own tracking to produce a comprehensive graphic visualizing what the U.S. has lost – and what it will cost to replace. The picture it paints is not a pretty one, with implications should the U.S. trade blows with a peer adversary in the Pacific.

On September 14, the Pentagon’s Lead Inspector General (IG) released its first quarterly report to Congress on Operation Epic Fury (OEF), which included aircraft casualties suffered by the U.S. from the beginning of the war on February 28, 2026, through June 30. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) followed the next day with even more detail, assessing the costs incurred during combat operations against Iran with an overview of aircraft losses through August 1, as well as the estimated replacement cost in 2026 dollars. TWZ went a step further, continuing where both reports left off with the help of the OSINT community, to update our previous visualization and tally losses through September 18, incorporating damage from attacks by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on American bases in the Middle East over the past two months. The final accounting can be viewed in the high-definition graphic below.

Drone Fleet Takes The Brunt Of The Blow

America’s MQ-9 Reaper drone fleet has absorbed the bulk of the damage and accounts for the largest single line-item expenditure in the CBO’s letter to the ranking member of the House Budget Committee. According to the Lead IG, “as many as 30” MQ-9A Reaper drones were destroyed in “various circumstances,” while the CBO booked 24 at a unit cost of $30 million (based on the Foreign Military Sales program), which totals $720 million to $900 million in lost equipment. The cost of a fully kitted-out Reaper can approach $50 million, depending on the sensors, weapons, and other mission equipment it carries. The Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, told the House Armed Services Committee in May that the Reaper was the war’s “most valuable player.”

But both numbers are stale. The Washington Post reported in August that at least 45 Reapers, approximately a quarter of the pre-war fleet, were shot down, crashed, or destroyed on the ground, citing three U.S. officials familiar with the matter. That figure covers MQ-9s lost across the Middle East, including those downed over Iran and by the Houthis in Yemen. The Air Force is on record admitting that the Reaper fleet shrank to 135 airframes as of May, down from an official total of 165 at the start of fiscal year 2026. Another two have been shot down since the Post’s report, according to open-source intel, bringing the total to 47, or more than $1.4 billion based on the CBO’s methodology. While every Reaper lost is expensive, in some cases at least, each would represent a soul, or crew, that may have been at risk in a previous era’s conflict, and no dollar figure captures that trade-off.

General Atomics’ iconic MQ-9A is no longer in production, and the service does not view the newer, in-production MQ-9B as a platform to meet its current needs and cost demands. Instead, it is targeting a replacement with a unit cost of around $10 million (excluding sensors) and pushing to accelerate the program to acquire these lower-cost platforms, dubbed the Massed Modular Aircraft (MMA). “If you don’t like losing an MQ-9A that cost on the order of $50 million, with the sensors, you’re probably not going to like losing an MQ-9B at a higher price point,” Lt. Gen. Christopher Niemi, the Air Force’s Chief Modernization Officer, said at a roundtable in September, according to a report from Air & Space Forces Magazine.

In June, the USAF confirmed to TWZ that after a relatively frantic hunt for additional airframes, it was planning to purchase a number of unused Reapers from General Atomics, which turned out to be fewer than 10. There is no easy answer to this problem, as cheaper alternatives cannot replace all the capabilities provided by pricier platforms. There are several more attritable alternatives in development, such as the General Atomics Wildfire, which the company is building specifically to meet the needs outlined in the MMA program. Swarm Aero’s Gamera is another possible contender.

The Reapers were not the only aerial drones lost. An MQ-4C Triton went down over the Persian Gulf in April after squawking a lost-link code and general emergency on its way back to Naval Air Station Sigonella in Italy. The Navy logged it as a Class A mishap and the cause remains unknown. There are only 20 in the fleet, and at $150 million a pop, the loss represents a significant outflow. Navy budget documents place the unit price higher at $238 million. And, in late May, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that Iran shot down an MQ-1 over international waters. CENTCOM declined to tell TWZ whether it was an Air Force Predator, which is officially out of service, or an Army Gray Eagle platform, and neither appeared in the government reports.

The Crewed Aircraft Tally

In terms of manned aircraft, the KC-135 Stratotanker fleet took the biggest hit. The workhorse aerial refueling tanker is primarily tasked with keeping America’s fighters, bombers, and cargo haulers airborne, and crews have been flying nearly nonstop sorties to support active operations in the CENTCOM area of responsibility (AOR). Two were destroyed and up to seven have been damaged, although the Air Force has become relatively efficient at repairing the damaged aircraft enough to fly them home. In a tragic incident on March 12, a collision between two Stratotankers that was “not due to hostile fire or friendly fire,” according to CENTCOM, resulted in the loss of six airmen after one of the aircraft went down over western Iraq.

Three F-15E Strike Eagles were destroyed early in the conflict due to friendly fire over Kuwait, and one was shot down over Iran on April 3, leading to a massive combat search and rescue (CSAR) operation. “Roughly eight” more were damaged in a recent salvo of ballistic missile fire on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, first reported by CBS News and confirmed by Air & Space Forces Magazine, both citing unnamed U.S. officials. President Donald Trump dismissed the reports, telling NewsNation there was “no damage, no nothing.”

The daring CSAR mission to save the two F-15E crew members who ejected inside Iran, one of whom 60 Minutes interviewed on September 13, took place between April 3 and 5. While no American lives were lost during the operation, several aircraft were destroyed, including two MC-130J Commando IIs and four Night Stalker MH-6 Little Bird helicopters (which TWZ was first to report), representing, at north of $400 million, the costliest single operation of the war for aircraft inventory. The mission reportedly included more than 150 aircraft and 92 special operators on the ground deep in enemy territory. The MC-130Js became stuck on a temporary remote airstrip and were deliberately destroyed by American forces to prevent capture, along with the Little Birds operated by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR). An HH-60W Jolly Green II was also struck but continued flying. The CBO booked the MC-130Js at $300 million, and the five helos at $122 million.

Two A-10C Warthog close air support jets also took hits. The first, while flying in a “Sandy” escort role during the rescue operation, was hit by enemy fire. “This pilot continued to fight, continued the mission, and then upon exit, flew his aircraft into another country and determined that the airplane was not landable,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, said during a presser in April. “The pilot then made the decision to eject over friendly territory, and was quickly and safely recovered.” The second Warthog sustained damage on the ground in Jordan during the IRGC’s latest round of strikes referenced above.

The most expensive single crewed loss was an E-3G Sentry, which is out of production and can only be replaced by the E-7A Wedgetail, a program that the Pentagon recently revived, at a unit cost the CBO estimates to be half a billion dollars. The jet, serial number 81-0005, was struck on the taxiway at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia on March 27, one of just 16 Sentries the service had left after initially deploying six to the theater before the conflict kicked off. The IG report lists it as damaged, but that is generous, considering that photographs and satellite imagery show the plane cut in half with the rear fuselage destroyed. The CBO report is more candid, categorizing the Sentry as lost in battle and assigning a $500 million replacement value. The Pentagon tried to cancel the E-7 program last year, but has since reversed course, after Secretary Pete Hegseth said the department’s mindset “completely changed.”

A handful of other hits round out the tally. A 5th-generation F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) was struck by Iranian fire in mid-March and forced to make an emergency landing. As far as we know, this was the first time an F-35 took hostile fire in combat. The following week, a first-person-view (FPV) short-range kamikaze drone successfully targeted a U.S. Army Black Hawk parked at a base outside Baghdad, Iraq. The next month, images circulated by Iranian state media, which TWZ did not independently verify, showed a CH-47F Chinook wrecked on the ground at Camp Buehring in Kuwait. And, in June, an AH-64 Apache was shot down near the Strait of Hormuz.

Recent retaliatory attacks by IRGC forces on U.S. bases have damaged additional aircraft in the weeks following the CBO’s cutoff date. Another four helicopters were hit since September 10, @DefenceGeek, a UK-based OSINT researcher and flight tracker, told TWZ. His team at @MATA_osint reviewed open-source videos and identified them as H-60 models, likely UH-60M/L variants.

The True Cost Explained

Through August 1, the CBO estimated that the losses represented nearly $1.9 billion in 2026 dollars, but that figure only counts hardware the Pentagon “would have to change its plans to replace.” If the department sought funding to replace everything it lost with platforms available today, the true cost rises to $3.3 billion. For example, the A-10C Warthog is no longer being built, and the CBO assesses that if it were to be replaced with an F-35A instead, the price balloons from $0 to $120 million. Similarly, since the F-15E has no active production line, the replacement cost of four F-15EX would total $400 million, compared to $0 on paper. The CBO figure also includes a $500 million charge for a lost THAAD AN/TPY-2 radar, a prized air defense asset, one of only eight radars the Army has for its THAAD batteries. It is (obviously) not an aircraft but counted in the report’s accounting.

Taking into consideration the losses suffered since the CBO’s assessment on August 1, and the cost to repair damaged aircraft, which is not included in the table above, the $3.3 billion figure could top $4 billion. Additionally, CENTCOM told the IG that “hundreds of buildings and structures” were damaged and destroyed at various bases across the AOR, in addition to miscellaneous equipment, sensors, and other installations that were targeted but not included in the estimates. However, these are rough calculations, and the actual outlays will likely differ substantially.

Reports Highlight Strain On America’s Munitions Stockpile

The Lead IG and CBO both address the precarious state of America’s munitions stockpile, which contradicts recent commentary by some senior military officials. The IG reiterated that the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment said the “munitions expenditure in OEF has resulted in strategic inventory shortfalls and revealed industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply.” The CBO report goes further, concluding the U.S. has “probably used between one-half and two-thirds of its inventory” of Patriot, THAAD, Standard Missile 3 (SM-3), and SM-6 missiles since June 2025, and states that rebuilding those stocks “would probably take at least five years, even if production was increased.” These numbers generally align with a report earlier this year from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) that highlighted the rapid expenditure of critical munitions and how it could affect a future fight against China.

CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper, who is responsible for executing the day-to-day operations against Iran, said he was “not concerned at all” when asked about America’s munitions stockpile during the 60 Minutes segment mentioned above. “We’re well armed and ready for any contingency,” he told Norah O’Donnell. This may be sincere, as the commander overseeing an active war tends to get whatever is required, but other theater-level commanders don’t necessarily share the same sentiment.

Last month, the heads of U.S. European, Pacific, and Southern Commands, as well as the Chief of Naval Operations, each registered a formal “non-concur” in the August 14 Secretary of Defense Orders Book (SDOB), warning that extending their forces’ commitment to the Iran fight risked draining America’s combat power, especially in the Pacific. In an exclusive citing people familiar with the assessment, the Washington Post reported that Adm. Samuel Paparo, the commander of U.S. Pacific Command, “disagreed with the level of support he was ordered to continually provide, including an aircraft carrier strike group and naval destroyers.” On social media, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman called the story inaccurate but stated, “Non-concurs are standard. The Secretary sees them constantly.”

Back in 2024, prior to Operation Rough Rider, the Twelve-Day War, Midnight Hammer, and Epic Fury, Adm. Paparo voiced concerns about munitions expenditures, saying, “With some of the Patriots that have been employed, some of the air-to-air missiles that have been employed, it’s now eating into stocks, and to say otherwise would be dishonest.” He continued, “Inherently, it imposes costs on the readiness of America to respond in the Indo-Pacific region, which is the most stressing theater for the quantity and quality of munitions, because the PRC [People’s Republic of China] is the most capable potential adversary in the world.”

The math does not bode well should the U.S. get into a dust-up with China before stockpiles can be replenished. The CBO notes China “has many more ballistic and cruise missiles than Iran had at the onset of Operation Epic Fury,” with a “significantly larger economic base” that “can produce such missiles more rapidly.” As Iran has shown, stationary bases make for easy targets, and U.S. installations in the Pacific that fall under the PRC’s ballistic missile umbrella are exposed, unhardened, and require a high volume of interceptors to defend. “Having used a large portion of its missile defense inventory in combat operations against Iran, DoD now has fewer interceptors on hand to use in a potential conflict with the PRC,” the CBO concluded.

The Pentagon has since announced deals with Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to drastically increase Patriot and THAAD production, but that ramp-up will take years to materialize. According to the CBO, “Boosting missile production has historically been a slow process with lags of three to five years between the placement and delivery of new orders. After production was increased, several more years would be required to replace the missiles that have been used in the conflict with Iran.”

The Impact On Deterrence

Aircraft casualties are to be expected in any conflict, especially considering the intensity, scope, and length of operations against a formidable opponent with home-field advantage. Airframes can be rebuilt and stockpiles replenished. But such dynamics impact deterrence in other regions, as America’s own military leaders have said on the record in the past.

“Deterrence is achieved by that ability to demonstrate capability and will, and it comes down to your ability to either impose costs on an adversary or including in response to aggression. And it’s also a big part of defending yourself against missiles and so China is building 800+ missiles per year,” Adm. Paparo explained in a recent interview with Hawaii News Now. “And so the ability to defend that, the ability to impose costs, this gets back to the changing character of warfare with information operations, drone operations, and deep precision strike are much more salient instruments of national power than they’ve been in the past. And to be able to deter is to be able to demonstrate that the risk of armed conflict far outweighs the benefits and part of that is imposing costs and part of that is defending ourselves against those costs.”

TWZ noted many of these questions in February, before the first Tomahawk was fired, and has been reporting on stockpile concerns for years. Now, the Pentagon’s bill for the conflict conservatively sits at over $38 billion, America’s fleet of Reapers is down a quarter, and its bases in the Middle East are battered and could still be targeted. The interceptors that kept the number of aircraft depicted on our graphic from being higher are, by the CBO’s own estimate, years from being replaced – a notable dynamic considering military leaders have suggested China, with a much larger missile arsenal than Iran, could be prepared to move on Taiwan by 2027.

Contact the author: ian.ellis-jones@recurrent.io or @ianellisjones

Author’s note: Special thanks to @DefenceGeek and the team at the Military Air Tracking Alliance (MATA) for assisting with the open-source analysis and battle damage assessment. Be sure to follow them on X at @DefenceGeek and @MATA_osint.

The post Every American Aircraft Lost Or Damaged During The Iran War, Visualized appeared first on TWZ.

Trump non fa la pace, la prezza: all’Iran la promette per il giorno dopo il voto di novembre, a Kiev impone una tregua che serve al gasolio americano, a Riyadh incassa senza sparare un colpo mentre a Gaza la pace è quella di un’Assemblea dove Netanyahu entra e Abbas resta fuori. A Levante questa sera, martedì 22 settembre 2026, Margherita Furlan dialoga con Moni Ovadia, attore, drammaturgo e scrittore, Francesco Dall’Aglio, storico e analista di politica internazionale, e Gianmarco Pisa, ricercatore per la pace e operatore dei Corpi civili di pace. Dal podio dell’ONU Trump ha detto tre cose in un’ora: con l’Iran «o si fa un accordo o dovrò distruggerli», ma l’intesa arriva «dopo le elezioni di metà mandato»; con l’Ucraina «una soluzione più rapida di quanto la gente possa pensare», e mentre siamo in diretta riceve Zelensky per imporgli una tregua energetica con il gasolio americano a 6,51 dollari al gallone; in Groenlandia due basi e il «controllo permanente sulla sicurezza». Nelle stesse ore l’Arabia Saudita riaccende l’oleodotto verso il Mar Rosso e aggira Hormuz, il Brent scende sotto i cento dollari, Teheran offre di riaprire lo Stretto in sette giorni. Affrontiamo insieme: L’Assemblea generale su invito: Abbas senza visto per il secondo anno, Netanyahu con un mandato d’arresto in tasca e la porta spalancata, lo scontro con il sindaco Mamdani AIPAC che raddoppia i milioni per le elezioni di metà mandato mentre il consenso vacilla, e le sanzioni americane in arrivo contro la Corte penale internazionale Riyadh e la lezione di Mattei rovesciata: chi controlla il tubo negozia da una posizione diversa da chi controlla solo il pozzo. La Petroline riaperta, i barili europei dirottati in Asia, l’uscita silenziosa da mBridge La tregua energetica fra Kiev e Mosca: una pausa per le città ucraine o per il gasolio americano prima del voto? L’Italia che firma con Rubio sui minerali critici, abborda la flotta ombra a sud della Sicilia e paga il petrolio che il Golfo decide di venderle Resta un diritto internazionale o solo la sua liturgia? Guterres, il relatore ONU sui 223 morti nei Caraibi, la Siria dei depositi che saltano LIBRI DEGLI OSPITI Moni Ovadia, Un ebreo contro, Edizioni Gruppo Abele, 2021. Francesco Dall’Aglio (con Carlo Ziviello), Oppenheimer, Putin e altre storie sulla bomba, ad est dell’equatore, 2023. Gianmarco Pisa, Fare pace, costruire società, Multimage. Gianmarco Pisa, Di terra e di pietra, Multimage. Gianmarco Pisa, Paesaggi kosovari 1998-2018, Multimage. SOSTIENI CASA DEL SOLE TV Casa del Sole TV è un progetto di giornalismo indipendente autofinanziato. Esiste perché esistete voi. Per donazioni: IBAN: IT63P0326822300052392596590 Intestato a: La Casa del Sole Edizioni Causale: Donazione Casa del Sole TV Membership YouTube:    / @casadelsoletvchannel   Analista Multipolare €5/mese Inviato della Verità €15/mese Architetto del Futuro €25/mese I LIBRI DI MARGHERITA FURLAN BRICS Scacco Matto (disponibile in italiano, inglese, russo) SEGUI CASA DEL SOLE TV YouTube: @CasadelSoleTVChannel Iscrivetevi, attivate la campanella, sostenete Casa del Sole TV. È grazie a voi che siamo qui ogni sera. #Levante #CasadelSoleTV #MargheritaFurlan #Geopolitica #Multipolarismo #Trump #ONU #Zelensky #Hormuz #ArabiaSaudita #Palestina #MoniOvadia #FrancescoDallAglio #GianmarcoPisa

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Moira Akers was prosecuted and convicted of the murder of a newborn in 2022. She claims to have given birth to a stillborn baby in her home in Columbia, Maryland, in 2018.

Prosecutors doubted Akers’ story, using her online searches for abortion services and lack of prenatal care as evidence of ill intent. But it was a “forensic method” devised in the 17th century that proved key to Akers’ conviction.

The method, known as a “float test,” was designed to determine if a baby was stillborn or born alive by placing the lungs of a deceased fetus in water. If the lungs float, then they are aerated, meaning the baby was breathing and alive prior to their death.

In 2018, former Maryland chief medical examiner Dr. David Fowler signed the autopsy report that, using the float test as proof, determined that Akers’ baby died after Akers asphyxiated it. Fowler also testified in Akers’ trial. Prosecutors used Fowler’s testimony and autopsy report as evidence to convict Akers of second-degree murder in 2022.

Similar to Fowler’s infamous 2021 testimony in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, in which he argued that George Floyd died due to drug intoxication and inhaling fumes from a car tailpipe, Fowler’s citation of the float test in Akers’ case has elicited criticism from the medical community. 

Fowler was also the subject of a scathing audit released by the Maryland Attorney General’s office last year, which found that at least 36 cases involving deaths that occurred during police restraint were improperly ruled accidents or left unclassified during his tenure

The float test has been widely discredited as imprecise and lacking methodological rigor. 

In the course of our reporting on Akers’ case, we not only reviewed court transcripts and the testimony of physicians and medical experts; we also pressed Fowler’s former office for comment about whether or not the float test was still used in fetal death investigations. Just prior to publication, Maryland Department of Health spokesman David McCallister disavowed the test.

“The lung float test is not part of OCME’s current routine practice, which reflects evolving scientific evidence, National Association of Medical Examiner (NAME) guidance, and the independent medical judgment of our forensic pathologists,” McCallister wrote in an email.

“When performed historically, the test was only one component of the overall forensic assessment and was interpreted together with the investigative and autopsy findings. How an individual autopsy finding is characterized or used in criminal prosecution is separate from OCME’s medical determination of cause and manner of death.”

McCallister’s disavowal of the float test marks a stunning departure from past practices for determining causes of death in Maryland. Whether the change will affect Akers’ case remains to be seen.

But what hasn’t changed is the fact that Akers was convicted, has served three years in prison, and is facing another prosecution—all while advocates and her lawyers are still fighting against a bureaucracy wedded to Fowler’s past practices. 

Akers’ fate remains in legal limbo, but her story reveals how flawed science can have real-life consequences, and how an indifferent bureaucracy can defend the mistakes of the past despite public outcry and scientific pushback in the present.

A Stillbirth or Murder?

Akers’ ordeal began in November of 2018.

According to a statement she gave to police, Akers was watching TV with her daughter when she noticed she was bleeding. The Howard County resident retreated to her upstairs bedroom. There, she gave birth to what she described as a baby that was not breathing, or stillborn.

The mother of two young children told police her husband did not want another child. Finances were tight, and the couple was already struggling to care for both a toddler and an 8-year-old.

“I almost didn’t want to admit to myself that it was [a pregnancy],” she told police. 

She hid the possible pregnancy from her family and did not seek prenatal care. “I just didn’t want my family [to know],” Akers said, “a stigma of them knowing that we had even contemplated the abortion part, but knowing that they wouldn’t be happy if we gave up the baby officially for adoption… that’s why I looked into the safe haven stuff.”

The birth itself was a moment of confusion and panic for Akers. When she started bleeding profusely, she thought it was possible the unexpected pregnancy could be the cause. After giving birth in her bathroom, she placed the baby’s remains in a plastic bag and put the bag in a closet.

Her husband, who had found her bleeding, called an ambulance. According to her lawyer, Akers refrained from discussing the ordeal in front of her two children when EMTs arrived at the house. But when she arrived at the hospital, she told doctors about the stillbirth. 

When Akers awoke from surgery, heavily sedated with painkillers and anesthesia, she found Howard County police detectives probing her with questions, which a recording reveals she struggled to answer through the haze of drugs. 

Even though the doctors told detectives not to question Akers after her surgery, they did anyway. And prosecutors were able to include statements Akers made during that interview while still heavily sedated and under the influence of multiple drugs, including fentanyl. 

“The hospital physicians attending told the police who had arrived at the scene not to speak to her for at least two hours after surgery because she was put under general anesthesia,” Akers’ lawyer, Debra Saltz, told us in an interview.

“So the police, rather than wait two hours, interviewed her. I think it was approximately an hour and 20 minutes later, they began an interview.”

Saltz challenged the admissibility of the interview in court. But presiding Judge McCrone ruled that Akers “sounded okay” after reviewing a recording of the interview. 

During Saltz’s cross-examination of lead medical examiner Dr. Nikki Mourtzinos, Mourtzinos made a critical admission: float tests are not performed in a uniform fashion, and the test does not call for a consistent, controlled (i.e. scientific) methodology. “Multiple people do things differently. Some people tie off the lungs, some people would clamp off the lungs and float them in water,” Mourtzinos testified. 

Saltz filed motions to toss out the float test results as evidence. But Judge McCrone ruled it admissible, too.

And more unresolved questions about the efficacy of the police and OCME investigations before Akers’ trial remain. 

Even though the official OCME autopsy report was not released until four months later, detectives claim Maryland’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) told them Akers’ baby’s death was likely a homicide.

But Saltz says OCME and Howard County detectives had already made up their minds about Akers before their investigation into her ordeal even began in earnest. “It was never going to be about science in this case. It was going to be about a determined outcome, which was going to be homicide, even though it should not have been,” Saltz told us.

Along with the float test results and her post-surgery interview with detectives, prosecutors focused on both Akers’ prior internet searches for abortion providers, as well as her lack of prenatal care, as evidence that she intended to kill her baby.

Again, Akers’ defense argued this evidence was inadmissible due to a state law that prevents drawing criminal inferences from a woman’s behavior during pregnancy. Again, Saltz was overruled. Judge McCrone allowed prosecutors to use Akers’ actions as evidence of later criminal intent.

The chief OCME pathologist who conducted the float test testified in Akers’ trial that the final mechanism of injury was asphyxiation and exposure. However, the autopsy did not find petechial hemorrhaging in the eyes or any trauma around the neck indicating strangulation. The medical examiner argued that the determination of asphyxiation was due to observed inflammation in the pancreas, a less common indicator of strangulation.

But there was also substantive evidence that the baby was stillborn.

The defense offered expert testimony that argued the detection of multiple infections in Akers’ placenta and umbilical cord was indicative of a stillbirth. 

“One of the more perplexing aspects regarding the opinions of Drs. Simon and Mourtzinos [the state medical examiners who conducted the autopsy] is that they describe gross and microscopic evidence of chorioamnionitis (inflammation of the placenta and its membranes), and funisitis (an inflammation of the umbilical cord), along with inflammation of the umbilical cord’s arteries and vein,” Gregory J. Davis, a forensic pathologist and professor at the University of Kentucky, wrote in a letter to the court.

The jury convicted Akers of second-degree murder. Judge McCrone sentenced her to 30 years. 

New Obstacles for Prosecutors, but the Float Test Remains

In February 2025, after she had served three years in prison, the Maryland Supreme Court granted Akers a new trial. In a 5-2 decision, Justice Brynja M. Booth wrote for the majority: 

We hold that the internet searches are irrelevant and that the trial court erred as a matter of law in admitting them. We similarly hold that Ms. Akers’ bare decision to forgo 2 prenatal care was not probative of motive or an intent to kill or harm a live child… In light of our holding on the inadmissibility of the abortion searches, we reverse the judgment of the Appellate Court and remand this case to the circuit court for a new trial. 

To win a conviction against Akers during the retrial of the case, prosecutors have to navigate a major evidentiary obstacle now that the Maryland Supreme Court has essentially barred them from using much of the “evidence” used to convict Akers in 2022.  

But the float test will still be admissible, and Saltz says prosecutors are likely to use it. Even though Fowler’s former office has publicly repudiated the test, the shadow and influence of Fowler himself still looms large. 

“Dr. Fowler had a very large impact on this case and the judge heavily credited his testimony and relied on his testimony to allow in evidence the fetal lung float test,” Saltz told us.

Saltz says the admission by Fowler’s former office that the float test is scientifically unreliable should give prosecutors pause. “I find it hard to believe that the state’s attorney’s office in Howard County would still consider using this outdated test,” she wrote in an email.

“I have always believed that they were motivated by emotion rather than science as they undertook to prosecute my client. I would hope they would dismiss the charges based on this newest information.”

For now, prosecutors are not talking. A spokesman for the Howard County State’s Attorney’s Office said they do not comment on pending cases.

“It is the policy of the Howard County State’s Attorney’s Office not to comment to the media on the facts, evidence, or litigation strategy of a pending case until the matter has concluded,” Yolanda Vazquez wrote in an email.  

Akers’ fate will be decided soon; the case is set for trial in November. Saltz says she is prepared to defend Akers, float test or not.

“My client is a very, very strong person. And she always held out hope that this would go her way… she knew that she had a stillborn baby,” Saltz said. “And there are plenty of people—including myself and the actual scientists who can read scientific evidence—who believe her.”

À Haute-Goulaine, la chambre régionale des comptes des Pays de la Loire épingle une commune de 5 992 habitants qui a recruté comme directeur général des services un cadre condamné définitivement à deux reprises pour abus de confiance, faux et usage de faux. Le maire savait.

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Un recrutement en connaissance de cause

Le directeur général des services (DGS) a été condamné à deux reprises, définitivement. En février 2023 : six mois de prison avec sursis, 5 000 € d'amende et cinq ans d'interdiction d'exercer une fonction de trésorier, pour abus de confiance au détriment d'une association. En juillet 2023 : nouvelle amende de 5 000 €, cinq ans d'inéligibilité, pour abus de confiance, faux et usage de faux (plus de 34 000 € d'achats personnels réglés avec la carte professionnelle d'un poste précédent).

Selon la chambre, le maire avait connaissance de ces atteintes à la probité dès l'embauche. Le dossier ne comportait pourtant qu’un compte rendu d’entretien, celui du candidat retenu. L’intéressé a ensuite été maintenu en poste et a bénéficié d’un reclassement lui accordant à tort plus d’un an d’ancienneté.

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Argent public, concurrence et intérêts locaux

Le reste du rapport prolonge le constat. La masse salariale a progressé de 52 %, tandis que les effectifs pourvus augmentaient de 22 % jusqu’en 2024. À la cantine, environ 48 000 euros de pénalités contractuelles n’ont jamais été appliqués malgré des prestations ne respectant pas les exigences prévues. Le prestataire n'a respecté ni la loi Egalim ni le cahier des charges.

Plus révélateur encore, le marché de la crèche a été remis en concurrence avec seulement douze jours pour répondre. Un seul candidat s’est présenté : le prestataire sortant, contre quatre en 2017. Dans une autre opération, la concession d’aménagement du centre-bourg est passée de 8,3 à 11,2 millions d’euros. Les participations publiques ont augmenté de 1,7 million, tandis que les obligations de logements sociaux du concessionnaire diminuaient de 44 %.

Le rapport ne décrit donc pas seulement une succession d’erreurs techniques. Il pose une question: que reste-t-il de la concurrence et du contrôle démocratique lorsque les mêmes acteurs peuvent être reconduits, rémunérés ou favorisés malgré des irrégularités documentées ?

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Le 17 septembre, Vladimir Poutine signe un décret plaçant les filiales russes d'Auchan, de Leroy Merlin et de Nestlé sous administration d'une société tierce. Le 19, Marine Le Pen et Jordan Bardella publient sur Moscou le communiqué le plus dur de leur carrière politique. Le 21, le Kremlin leur répond qu'il est en désaccord. Trois dates, et une question que personne ne pose : qu'est-ce qui a changé, au juste ?

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Quatre ans de guerre en Ukraine n'y avaient pas suffi. Il aura fallu un décret sur des hypermarchés.

Le 17 septembre, un décret signé de Vladimir Poutine transfère les actifs russes de trois groupes européens — le distributeur Auchan, l'enseigne de bricolage Leroy Merlin, le suisse Nestlé — à une société d'« administration temporaire » nommée L.E.V. Management. Le Kremlin invoque l'appartenance de ces entreprises à des pays « inamicaux ». En clair : l'État russe prend la main sur des biens français sans les acheter. Roland Lescure dénonce la mesure le lendemain.

Le 19, Marine Le Pen et Jordan Bardella publient un communiqué commun. Le Kremlin, écrivent-ils, ne peut « espérer dicter directement ou indirectement la politique de la France par l'intimidation, la menace, la déstabilisation ou la pression psychologique ». Le même jour, dans l'Oise, Bardella qualifie la démarche russe d'hostile et parle, à propos de l'Ukraine, d'un bain de sang.

Le 21, Dmitri Peskov, porte-parole de la présidence russe, se déclare en désaccord catégorique : la Russie ne menace ni la France ni aucun pays européen.

On a appelé cela une brouille. Le mot est mal choisi, et il faut reprendre l'affaire de plus haut pour voir pourquoi.

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Ce qui lie le Rassemblement national à la Russie, et ce qui ne l'y lie pas

Trois choses distinctes sont continuellement confondues dans ce dossier. Les démêler est la condition pour en juger.

Il y a d'abord une dette. En septembre 2014, le Front national obtient un prêt de neuf millions d'euros auprès de la First Czech Russian Bank, établissement fondé à Prague puis installé à Moscou, réputé proche du pouvoir russe. L'affaire est révélée par Mediapart deux mois plus tard. La banque fait faillite en 2016 ; la créance est cédée à une société russe de location de véhicules, puis à Aviazaptchast, une entreprise russe d'aéronautique. Le parti a donc eu, des années durant, un créancier russe. Entendue par la commission d'enquête parlementaire sur les ingérences étrangères, Marine Le Pen a toujours tenu la même ligne : si cela l'avait engagée à quelque chose, elle n'aurait pas signé.

Il y a ensuite une image. En mars 2017, à quelques semaines du premier tour de l'élection présidentielle, la candidate se rend au Kremlin et y serre la main de Vladimir Poutine. La photographie existe. Elle est ressortie à chaque échéance depuis, et elle ressortira.

Il y a enfin une doctrine, et c'est la seule des trois qui relève du débat politique légitime. Le RN conteste le soutien financier français à l'Ukraine au nom de la priorité donnée aux intérêts français. Le 3 septembre, sur BFMTV, Louis Aliot, vice-président du parti et maire de Perpignan, proposait de « couper le robinet » de l'aide à Kiev : tout le monde est à l'os, disait-il en substance, et l'on trouve encore de l'argent pour financer des armes. La formule a valu au parti une volée de bois vert — Gabriel Attal parlant de soumission à des puissances dictatoriales.

Ces trois choses ne pèsent pas du même poids. Une dette est un fait, une photographie est un symbole, une doctrine est une position que l'on peut soutenir ou combattre. Les additionner produit un procès facile ; les distinguer produit une analyse.

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Pourquoi ce n'est pas une brouille

Une brouille suppose une relation, et un différend qui la rompt. Ici, rien de tel.

Le RN n'a rien révisé de son jugement sur la guerre. Il n'a pas annoncé qu'il soutiendrait l'aide à l'Ukraine, ni désavoué son vice-président, ni changé une ligne de son programme. Il a réagi à un acte précis : la saisie de biens français par un décret étranger. Sa doctrine est demeurée exactement la même — la défense des intérêts français d'abord — et c'est précisément cette doctrine qui, appliquée cette fois, l'a conduit à parler dur.

Il y a là une cohérence qu'on refuse de lui reconnaître et qu'il faut pourtant lui

Several key German industry groups and energy analysts are warning that Germany could face severe gas supply issues, and potentially entirely deplete its storage, if an exceptionally cold winter occurs. Of course, predictions of this sort have been made off and on in recent years. Germany has never actually run out of gas before. The question is now how alarmist these warnings are and how realistic an actual gas and energy shortage is this time around.

Currently, the government argues there will be no gas shortage. However, storage operators, energy executives and some economists argue that a mild winter should be manageable and a brutally cold one could get tight enough to force industry to cut production and send prices soaring.

One of the most dire warnings comes from Markus Krebber, chief executive of RWE, Germany’s largest power producer.

“If we get a mild winter, everything will be fine,” he told Focus in an interview. “If the winter is hard, there can be significantly higher prices. And it can get tight.”

Krebber said Germany is entering the season “with the lowest gas storage levels of the past 20 years” – lower even than in 2022, when Russian pipeline flows collapsed. “That works if we have a normal winter. If we get a particularly cold winter, it can get scarce.”

He has also warned that if Germany does not add more power supply, “there will be distribution battles for electricity” among industry, data centers and the electrification of heat and transport.

The data supports Krebber’s concerns. The German gas storage association (INES) warns that Germany entered September at its lowest storage levels in 15 years, at around 53 to 56 percent. INES models show that if refills remain sluggish and if Germany experiences an extremely cold winter, similar to the weather of 2010, storage reserves could be exhausted as early as January or February, potentially leaving daily supply shortfalls of up to 25 percent.

German underground gas caverns are roughly 20 percentage points below last year’s level and far under the seasonal norm. While Berlin’s own rules call for most gas storage sites to reach 80 percent by Nov. 1, almost no one now expects that to happen.

“By now all the experts agree: these 80 percent are already technically almost impossible to achieve and also not realistic,” Klaus Müller, president of the Federal Network Agency, said in a Phoenix television interview. He added that storage is not the whole story. “We have created our own capacities with four liquefied natural gas terminals. We can obtain gas from Norway, Belgium, Holland, France.”

Energy market consultants and industry group analyses point out that weak summer gas refills – driven by unfavorable price spreads between summer and winter gas and price volatility from global conflicts – have left Germany reliant on steady ongoing imports. They point out that cold weather is not the only factor, as disruptions could be exacerbated by pipeline outages, reduced LNG flows, escalating conflict in Ukraine or the Middle East, and various other scenarios. All of this comes at a time when Germany’s buffer is much thinner than in previous years.

Not everyone is panicking, though. The Federal Network Agency, Germany’s energy regulator, has also acknowledged the low storage levels but stated they do not currently indicate an imminent crisis or inevitable shortage.

Claudia Kemfert, an energy economist at the German Institute for Economic Research, says that a distinction must be made between shortages and higher prices. She has said an acute shortage is not her base case, but that low stocks leave the system more exposed if cold weather, high LNG prices and supply interruptions hit at once. Relying on last-minute cargoes, she has argued, is “risky and expensive.”

Historical weather data supports less extreme gas shortage scenarios. On average, the past ten winters have been extremely mild in Germany, with the exception of last year’s winter, which was exceptionally cold. If there is a repeat this year or the winter is even colder, it could indeed tip Germany into an energy crisis, but the odds appear to be against such a scenario.

In the meantime, industrial companies in Germany are already taking precautionary measures, as a severe cold snap would likely force curtailments on industrial consumers first to stretch remaining gas through February and March to protect vital natural gas deliveries to households.

Another piece of good news it that the European Union as a whole is near 70 percent in terms of gas storage, far better than Germany. This means that the crisis is unlikely to grip all of Europe. Still, Germany is Europe’s largest economy and a key hub of industry. Any gas or energy crisis in the country would have broad repercussions across Europe.

The post Will Germany run out of gas this winter? Experts and energy executives warn of dire scenarios appeared first on Remix News.

A 30-year-old Tunisian man charged with raping a jogger in a public park outside Turin has failed to appear at his latest court hearing and can no longer be located more than two years after the attack, Italian court officials reported.

The defendant, who has not been publicly named, missed a Sept. 17 hearing at a Turin court, where he is accused of sexual violence in the June 29, 2024, assault and rape in Luserna San Giovanni.

Italian media outlet Turino Today indicates that the man may have already left Piedmont and returned to Tunisia but his current whereabouts are unknown.

According to the prosecution’s account presented in court, the 40-year-old woman was running in a municipal park in late afternoon when a man grabbed her from behind. The struggle quickly turned violent. Prosecutors say he sexually assaulted her and fell onto her during the fight, fracturing her legs. She bit his arm through a red T-shirt. He then fled.

A carabinieri officer who responded testified that the woman could not stand.

“I was among the first to intervene,” the officer told the court. “I remember that the woman could not stay on her feet because of the fractures to her legs. I supported her while we waited for the ambulance.”

Police found the suspect after patrol officers noticed a man walking with his partner with a wound resembling a bite mark, leading the officers to suspect that the man may have been the rape suspect. Officers said he appeared nervous. At his home, he broke down in tears, showed the bite marks and handed over the clothing he said he had worn during the attack, including the red shirt the victim had described. Taken to the station, he confessed to the crimes in the case.

In court, the victim’s husband said that the rape and assault dramatically changed life for his wife, him, and their children.

“For at least a year, she could only walk on crutches. She suffered so much,” he said.

The woman’s sister told the court: “I was informed by phone of what had happened. My sister is a rock, but nothing is the same for her anymore. The same goes for us: these are things that mark you, there is no going back.”

The first judge did not impose pretrial detention on the suspect. Reporting on the ruling, the judge cited the man’s cooperation, the fact that he was not arrested in the act, the absence of a prior criminal record, and a finding that there was no concrete flight risk.

The post ‘She suffered so much’ – Tunisian migrant charged with raping a female jogger in a public park disappears during trial appeared first on Remix News.

An Algerian migrant has been sentenced to ten years in prison for raping a child and sexual assaults on 3 other children

A 36-year-old Algerian migrant, who worked as a security guard, has been sentenced to ten years in prison after a Savoie criminal court found him guilty of aggravated rape of a child and sexual assaults on minors.

The court found him guilty of sexually assaulting his then-7-year-old stepdaughter in 2020, forcing an adolescent to perform fellatio, of sexual assault on another minor, and of sending a photograph of his genitals and a video to a friend of one of the victims. The most serious acts occurred at the home he shared with his then-wife during an evening in November 2020 in Saint-Pierre-d’Albigny.

Four minor girls were identified as victims. None were named in the reporting, according to French news outlet Le Dauphine.

The three-day trial before the Savoie court ended with a conviction on all counts: aggravated rape of a minor, sexual assaults on minors, and corruption of a minor. The public prosecutor, Christophe Dubois, had asked for 12 years. The court also imposed a permanent ban from French territory and registration on the national sex-offenders file.

The defendant, an Algerian national who had been living in France illegally since his divorce from the mother of one of the victims, maintained his innocence throughout. On the first day, he told the court, “I am innocent. All of this is just lies!”

The next day, he told a civil party: “I am not the kind of person who touches minors.”

Court-appointed psychologists and psychiatrists described him as psychologically normal, with no mental disorder.

In his closing argument on Sept. 16, prosecutor Christophe Dubois opened with a blunt assessment: “This trial leaves a bitter taste with an accused who never stopped contesting the facts.”

Dubois said the gravity of the potential sentence made it tempting for the defendant “to flee reality given how heavy the sentence he faced was.”

The post Algerian migrant sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping and sexually assaulting 4 children, including 7-year-old appeared first on Remix News.

On election night in Berlin-Neukölln, clan boss Issa Remmo walked into the Left Party’s (Die Linke) victory party and declared he finally felt supported by the party. Now, the far-left party is in damage control after trying to distance itself from Remmo, whose son has already leaked chats alleging his family’s ties go deeper with the Left Party than anyone thought possible.

Issa Remmo, widely described by police and prosecutors as the head of Berlin’s Remmo family, appeared at the Neukölln district association’s public election-night gathering yesterday evening, Sept. 20, 2026. The Left Party had just finished first in the local election with a provisional 25.7 percent, ahead of the CDU at 18.8 percent. Remmo posed for photos, including with a victory sign, and spoke to the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper.

“The Berlin Left is not hostile towards Jews,” he said, addressing a charge that had dogged the party throughout the campaign. “In Germany I feel supported by a party for the first time.” He added that he would not vote for an anti-Jewish politician.

Julius Betschka of Stern Magazine posted the scene the same evening, calling it “incredible” and noting that Remmo had been in the sights of the justice system for decades.

Wahnsinn. Der Chef des berüchtigten Remmo-Clans, Issa Remmo (seit Jahrzehnten im Visier der Justiz), feiert laut @morgenpost mit der Linkspartei in Neukölln den Wahlsieg. Er fühle sich von der Partei unterstützt, soll Remmo gesagt haben. pic.twitter.com/1JrXashpZl

— Julius Betschka (@JuliusBetschka) September 20, 2026

The Left Party’s explanation has holes

The Left Party’s immediate response was one of denial. Jorinde Schulz of the Neukölln district board told dpa the event was public, Remmo was not on any guest list, and there were “neither political nor personal relations” with him. Lead candidate Elif Eralp said on ZDF shef “was not invited and was sent out again…We have nothing to do with organized crime. We fight it.” 

Berlin state manager Bjoern Tielebein was blunter: “Types like him are definitely not our allies… Everything one hears and knows about this person is repulsive.”

Journalist Yossi Bartal, who said he was present, wrote that he recognized Remmo, informed organizers, and that Remmo was then “very clearly” asked to leave a loud, crowded hall that anyone could enter. Remmo was also reported at the larger Kreuzberg party later and turned away at the door.

However, the various accounts that attempted to distance the Left Party from Remmo appear to have fallen apart 24 hours later due to leaked messages from Firas Remmo, Issa’s son. Firas posted Instagram screenshots of messages he said came from MP Ferat Koçak. In one, the Left Party MP sent “greetings with respect back to your father” and proposed a morning visit. In another, dated Feb. 17, Koçak wrote “Brother help me spread this,” attaching a video of his own Bundestag speech criticizing the term “clan crime,” and asked that “all your people” share it. Firas replied “Gladly brother.” Koçak reacted with a heart emoji.

Firas captioned the posts: “We are part of something big. We stand together… We are a team.” Koçak had not publicly confirmed or denied the chats as of Monday afternoon.

If the chats are accurate, they do not prove Remmo was formally invited to the party. They do make the “complete stranger walked in off the street” version harder to sell.

Photos were also circulated showing Remmo posing with Ibrahim Ibrahim, described by the NGO Democ as a leading German supporter of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an EU-listed terrorist organization. Other images placed Ibrahim with Bundestag member Ferat Koçak and candidate Vanessa Emde. The Neukölln board later confirmed Ibrahim’s presence among “hundreds of guests,” including many from the Palestinian community.

@der_neukoellner MdB Ferat Koçak feiert bei Wahlparty seiner @LinkeNeukoelln mit Ibrahim Ibrahim (r.), Vertreter des extremistischen „Vereinigten Palästinensischen Nationalkomitees“ (VPNK), Dach für PFLP und Hamas in Berlin. Ibrahim gratuliert: VPNK war „Teil dieses Erfolgs“. pic.twitter.com/xy6LdPN420

— Alexander Fröhlich (@alx_froehlich) September 20, 2026

The Remmo family has roots in southeastern Turkey via Lebanon, and its members settled in Berlin in the 1980s. Family members have been convicted in two of Germany’s most spectacular art thefts: the 100-kilogram “Big Maple Leaf” gold coin from the Bode Museum in 2017 and the 2019 Green Vault burglary in Dresden. 

In 2018, prosecutors seized 77 properties attributed to the family on the theory they were bought with criminal proceeds; courts later ordered the confiscation of dozens of them. Issa Remmo himself has not been convicted. However, to police, prosecutors, and a large part of the Berlin public, the Remmo name is synonymous with organized clan crime.

Governing Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) condemned the photos and Remmo’s presence at the Left Party’s event.

“That Issa Remmo appears at the election party of the Berlin Left is a disturbing signal,” he wrote. A party that wants to take responsibility for the city, he said, must make unmistakably clear that there is “no proximity whatsoever to structures that belong to organized crime.” 

Dass Issa Remmo auf der Wahlparty der Berliner Linken auftaucht, ist ein verstörendes Signal. Gerade eine Partei, die Verantwortung für unsere Stadt übernehmen will, muss unmissverständlich deutlich machen, dass es keinerlei Nähe zu Strukturen geben darf, die zur organisierten…

— Kai Wegner (@kaiwegner) September 20, 2026

He said Berlin had spent years pushing police, courts, and administration against clans and those efforts “deserve political backing, not pictures that raise doubts about the necessary distance.” Anyone who wants to govern Berlin, Wegner added, must stand “without ifs and buts” on the side of the rule of law.

Even the left is taking a harsh stance.

Green Party state chair Nina Stahr said the Left would have to explain the incident before any coalition talks.

Morgenpost commentary called the scene “a slap in the face for our police officers.”

As for Issa Remmo, he see a Left Party that he can benefit from. His family has spent years fighting asset forfeiture, and the Left Party wants to abolish weapons-ban zones, restrict certain police analytics, and treat large-scale property seizures with suspicion.

The post Germany: Outrage after notorious clan chief celebrates at Left Party election celebration in Berlin appeared first on Remix News.

Town officials have voted to move toward dissolving Ronda, based on advice from NC Local Government Commission. But some still hold out hope.

Ronda beyond help? NC town appears headed for dissolution. is a story from Carolina Public Press, an award-winning independent newsroom. Our breakthrough journalism shines a light on the critical overlooked and under-reported issues facing North Carolina’s more than 11 million residents. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Par Eric V.

Alors que le prix à la pompe s'envole, Macron est bien décidé à continuer à chérir les causes des maux qu'il dénonce, en particulier une soumission humiliante aux USA et à leurs guerres, qu'elles soient directes ou par proxy.

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Macron n'a pas encore prononcé son discours à l'Assemblée Générale de l'ONU, mais il a quand même beaucoup parlé à l'extérieur de la salle. En particulier, il a proposé une masse d'initiatives pour tenter d'endiguer la crise pétrolière que le Courrier annonce depuis le mois d'avril.

Au menu de ses péroraisons, notamment, une présence militaire française en Arabie Saoudite, pour protéger les installations pétrolières déjà menacées par l'Iran, et désormais directement menacées par le mouvement Ansarullah. Bref, des dépenses militaires, et une prise de risque pour sécuriser une région déstabilisée par une guerre israélo-américaine qui nous est imposée.

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Chérir les causes de nos maux

Emmanuel Macron s'agite, avec son Premier Ministre Lecornu, pour refroidir la colère qui monte en France face à l'augmentation des prix du pétrole, et en particulier du carburant domestique. En année électorale, il faut bien reconnaître que l'ébullition peut très vite partir en vrille. La stratégie est d'endetter un peu plus l'État pour soulager la pression sur le pouvoir d'achat.

Dans le même temps (le fameux "en même temps" que tout le monde connaît), Macron prend bien soin de ne pas s'attaquer aux racines du mal : sa soumission à l'ordre "occidental", conduit par Donald Trump, qui lève un impôt de fait sur les peuples pour financer la défense d'un État d'Israël dominé par de dangereux extrémistes. Là encore, le projet de Grand Israël qui anime les délires d'un Ben Gvir ou d'un Smotrich, dont Nétanyahou est prisonnier autant que complice, se traduit par un appauvrissement des Français, qui n'ont rien demandé.

On peut certes compter sur la presse Bolloré, relais fidèle des positions israéliennes, pour faire croire à ces pauvres Français que c'est le prix à payer pour défendre l'Occident face à la menace islamiste. Certains tombent encore dans le panneau.

La réalité est que nous payons aujourd'hui pour une guerre qui n'est pas la nôtre. On comprend bien que, pour survivre, Israël doive affronter l'Iran dont le fondement est la contestation sioniste. Mais l'intérêt des Français, dans cette affaire, où est-il ?

Depuis le 31 août 2026, le centre hospitalier de Condom (Gers) n’a plus de service de médecine générale. Vingt lits fermés faute de médecin titulaire. L’Agence régionale de santé (ARS) d’Occitanie a prolongé une suspension temporaire "jusqu’à nouvel ordre".

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Le 20 septembre, le conseil municipal a voté une motion de soutien aux personnels, s’opposant à cette fermeture de fait et exigeant une réouverture pérenne. Il a saisi l’ARS... c’est tout ce que la commune peut faire.

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Une fermeture devenue indéfinie

Le service de médecine générale du centre hospitalier de Condom devait déjà composer avec des interruptions temporaires. Durant deux ans, des médecins intérimaires se sont succédé sans permettre de stabiliser les effectifs. Début septembre, même un remplacement prévu a été annulé à la dernière minute, rendant impossible la continuité des soins. Les derniers patients ont alors été orientés vers d’autres structures.

Le directeur départemental de l’ARS, Frédéric Lopez, reconnaît que le service de vingt lits connaissait des difficultés récurrentes. Les urgentistes de Condom, déjà mobilisés le soir et le week-end, avaient été sollicités pour assurer la continuité. Mais cette organisation n’était pas tenable durablement. Selon l’ARS, aucune date de réouverture ne peut aujourd’hui être annoncée. Malgré le coût élevé des médecins intérimaires, calculé en milliers d’euros par vacation, l’ARS estime que l’absence d’activité coûte encore davantage à l’établissement. La fermeture ne constitue donc même pas une économie évidente.

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Quand l’administration suspend sans fermer

Le conseil municipal, dans sa motion du 20 septembre, demande une réouverture « rapide et pérenne » et saisit officiellement l'ARS. Mais une motion municipale n'a aucune force contraignante face à une agence régionale de santé qui répond à une tutelle parisienne, elle-même arbitrée par des enveloppes budgétaires nationales. Les élus et les personnels réclament des réponses alors que le territoire de la Ténarèze dépend de cet établissement de proximité.

Cette fermeture le rapport de force entre une administration centrale et des territoires ruraux dépossédés de toute capacité de décision. Les communes paient le prix d’une organisation sanitaire qui concentre les moyens ailleurs et laisse les petites structures à la merci d’un recrutement national défaillant. Pendant que l’ARS parle de sécurité et de pérennité, les patients du Gers perdent un service de proximité sans que quiconque ait réellement tranché devant eux.

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Par Vincent Clairmont

Un lecteur me demande pour quelles raisons je conseille de sortir de l'assurance-vie en unités de compte. La question est légitime et mérite une réponse complète, parce que je répète cette position depuis mai sans l'avoir jamais démontrée d'un seul tenant.

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Elle tient en quatre raisons, dont trois sont arithmétiques et une juridique. Et elle appelle une réserve importante, que je place à la fin parce qu'elle change la portée pratique de tout ce qui précède.

Première raison : les frais s'empilent sur cinq étages

Un contrat multi-supports peut prélever cinq niveaux de frais : frais sur versement, frais de gestion annuels du contrat, frais d'arbitrage entre supports, frais internes des unités de compte elles-mêmes, et frais d'éventuelles options de gestion pilotée.

Les deux qui comptent sont récurrents. Les frais de gestion annuels du contrat sur la poche UC se sont établis en moyenne à 0,88 % en 2025, au même niveau qu'en 2024. À cela s'ajoutent les frais internes des fonds sous-jacents — le TER, pour total expense ratio, c'est-à-dire le coût total de fonctionnement du fonds, prélevé avant que la performance ne vous soit affichée. Pondéré par les encours sur plus de quatorze mille fonds, il ressort à 1,60 %.

Additionnez : 2,48 % par an, avant même le moindre arbitrage. Le chiffre est celui de la fédération professionnelle elle-même, publiée le 6 mai dernier. Ce n'est pas une estimation de contradicteur.

Ce chiffre paraît modeste parce qu'on le compare à une performance annuelle. Il faut le composer. Deux et demi pour cent prélevés chaque année pendant vingt ans consomment près de quarante pour cent du capital. Sur la même durée, un support à 0,15 % de frais annuels en consomme moins de quatre. La différence n'est pas un détail de gestion : c'est la moitié de ce que vous espérez gagner.

Et ces frais sont prélevés sur l'encours. Vous les payez que le support monte ou qu'il baisse.

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Deuxième raison : vous n'êtes pas le client

C'est le point que je tiens pour le plus structurant, et il n'est pas moral, il est mécanique.

Dans un contrat multi-supports classique, une partie des frais internes des fonds remonte vers le distributeur sous forme de rétrocessions de commission. Autrement dit, celui qui vous conseille un support est rémunéré par celui qui le fabrique.

Par Thibault de Varenne

L'échéance tombe cette nuit. Faute d'unanimité avant minuit, les sanctions européennes visant près de trois mille personnes et entités disparaissent d'un coup. Deux d'entre elles doivent en sortir, à la demande de la France et du Luxembourg. Le compromis proposé pour dénouer l'affaire mérite plus d'attention que les deux noms.

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Il est huit heures à Bruxelles et les ambassadeurs des Vingt-Sept se rasseyent. Ils ont déjà échoué lundi soir. Ils avaient déjà échoué le 15 septembre, ce qui leur avait valu une semaine de délai, jusqu'à cette nuit. Passé minuit sans accord, il n'y a plus de sanctions du tout.

On observe rarement d'aussi près le fonctionnement réel d'une machine.

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Ce qui se décide, et par qui

Le régime européen de sanctions individuelles — gel des avoirs, interdiction d'entrée — frappe aujourd'hui près de trois mille personnes et entités. Il ne vaut que six mois. Il faut le renouveler par unanimité : vingt-six oui et une abstention ne suffisent pas, et un seul gouvernement peut donc laisser tout tomber.

Ce pouvoir-là, la Slovaquie le brandit depuis des mois pour obtenir la radiation de deux hommes d'affaires russes, Alicher Ousmanov et Mikhaïl Fridman, inscrits en 2022 comme soutiens du régime. Le 11 septembre, la France s'est jointe à elle sur le premier nom ; le Luxembourg a réclamé le second. La présidence irlandaise, qui

Dès le 1er octobre, des milliers de garages pourraient perdre leur habilitation à établir les cartes grises. Pour s'y conformer, ils devront justifier de trois ans d’ancienneté et traiter au moins 200 dossiers par an. Une réforme qui entend répondre aux fraudes du Système d’immatriculation des véhicules (SIV), mais qui risque surtout de faire payer aux petits professionnels les défaillances du système public.

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Depuis 2009, les préfectures ont progressivement abandonné l’accueil physique pour les démarches d’immatriculation. Le SIV repose désormais largement sur un réseau de professionnels habilités : environ 33 000 entreprises réalisent près de 85 % des immatriculations.

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Trois ans d’ancienneté et 200 dossiers : le couperet du 1er octobre

L’arrêté du 21 juillet 2026 durcit les conditions d’habilitation. À compter du 1er octobre, les professionnels devront notamment justifier de trois années d’activité et avoir traité au moins 200 dossiers par an. Des garages pourtant habilités depuis la création du SIV en 2009 pourraient ainsi perdre leur autorisation s’ils n’atteignent pas ce volume.

La Fédération nationale de l’automobile (FNA), qui représente plus de 170 000 entreprises, a alerté le 11 septembre sur les conséquences de cette échéance rapprochée. Dans certaines zones rurales, le retrait d’un professionnel peut signifier plusieurs dizaines de kilomètres supplémentaires pour effectuer une démarche autrefois accessible localement.

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La fraude du SIV sert-elle de justification à une concentration ?

La réforme intervient après la découverte d’un dispositif de fraude d’ampleur : près d’un million de véhicules auraient été immatriculés entre 2022 et 2024 par l’intermédiaire de structures fictives, avec environ 550 millions d’euros de pertes fiscales. L’État cherche donc à renforcer le contrôle d’un réseau devenu indispensable après la fermeture des guichets préfectoraux.

Mais la réponse soulève une question de responsabilité. Pourquoi un garagiste rural, qui n’a commis aucune fraude, devrait-il perdre son habilitation parce que l’administration n’a pas suffisamment surveillé son propre fichier ? Le seuil de 200 dossiers favorise mécaniquement les professionnels disposant d’un volume d’activité important, tandis que les petits garages assurant un service de proximité sont davantage exposés.

La FNA demande le retrait de l’arrêté, ou à défaut une période transitoire d’un an et un seuil abaissé à 100 dossiers. Elle envisage également un recours en urgence devant le Conseil d’État. Cet arrêté illustre une fois de plus comment la bureaucratie, après avoir failli, se retourne contre ceux qui rendent encore le service qu’elle a abandonné.

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T-invariant is publishing its latest regular report, Chronicle of the Persecution of Scientists No. 36, dated August 31, 2026. Azat Miftakhov has published a paper in the French quarterly La Revue de la filière mathématiques (June–August 2026). The paper was written at the suggestion of French mathematician Bernard Randé, a member of the journal’s editorial board and of the international association Solidarité FreeAzat. Miftakhov completed the work while held in prison in Dimitrovgrad.

Azat Miftakhov’s paper is titled “La conjecture de Chui dans un cadre hilbertien” (“Chui’s Conjecture in a Hilbert Space Setting”). Unfortunately, we have not been able to read it. The paper was not posted on arXiv.org, and the journal itself is available only by subscription. However, The Insider published the first page of Miftakhov’s manuscript, which gives a sense of both the subject of the paper and his approach to the problem.

The problem Miftakhov tackled concerns a variant of Chui’s conjecture. The conjecture came about in 1971, more or less by accident. In a short note, the well-known American mathematician Charles Chui asked how to place N unit point charges on the unit circle so that the average strength of the field they generate inside the disk is as small as possible. More precisely, he asked whether this quantity is bounded below by an absolute constant — one that holds for any number of charges in any arrangement. The answer came a year later: in 1972, Donald Newman published an elegant solution — yes, such a constant exists, and π/18 will do.

The conjecture itself is a remark Chui dropped in that same note. It is plausible, he wrote, that the minimum is attained by the most natural arrangement: the charges placed at the vertices of a regular N-gon. Chui offered no proof and moved on to entirely different things. The conjecture remains unproven to this day.

Even the case of two charges turned out to be hard. The proof was found in 2023 by Fedor Nazarov, a professor at Kent State University in Ohio. He posted his answer on MathOverflow, a forum where mathematicians put questions to one another, and where Nazarov has been answering his colleagues’ questions for many years under the username fedja.

Mathematicians have tried reformulating Chui’s conjecture for Hilbert spaces (that is, spaces equipped with an inner product). In this setting, there has been significant progress. In 2020, Evgeny Abakumov (Gustave Eiffel University, Marne-la-Vallée), Alexander Borichev (Aix-Marseille University), and Konstantin Fedorovskiy (Bauman Moscow State Technical University and St. Petersburg State University) posted an important paper, “Chui’s conjecture in Bergman spaces.” They proved Chui’s conjecture in weighted Bergman spaces for a broad class of weights: the minimum is attained if and only if the charges are evenly spaced. But some cases remained open, and the authors listed them explicitly at the end of the paper.

It was precisely this set of problems that Randé proposed to Miftakhov. The first page of his manuscript opens with the words “Let us assume” and contains the statement of the theorem and the beginning of the proof. He looks at the case where the charges lie strictly inside the disk rather than on the circle itself. And what he proves is not an inequality but an exact equality: the energy of any configuration equals the energy of the regular-polygon configuration plus an explicit nonnegative term that vanishes only when the charges form a regular polygon. If Miftakhov has indeed proved this, then Chui’s claim (for Bergman spaces) follows as a corollary. The original Chui conjecture, however, remains open.

On March 5, 2026, three mathematicians from the St. Petersburg Department of the Steklov Mathematical Institute — Evgueni Doubtsov, Anton Tselishchev, and Ioann Vasilyev — posted the preprint “Weighted Chui’s conjecture.” Their work follows Newman’s line of attack: they generalize his bound to arbitrary positive charges and to spaces of any dimension. At the end of the paper, the authors pose several open questions, the first of which is what happens when the charges lie not on the circle but inside the disk.

On March 6, 2026, Bernard Randé received Miftakhov’s manuscript, in which the charges likewise lie inside the disk. These are different problems, but the setup is the same — and so is the timing.

The Solidarité FreeAzat website writes: “In October 2025, Solidarité FreeAzat, together with the Navalny France team and the organization La Libre Pensée, held an evening in Paris devoted to writing letters in support of Russian political prisoners. Among the participants was Bernard Randé, a mathematician, a former teacher in the preparatory classes at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, and a member of our association. Instead of an ordinary letter of support, he decided to give Azat what he misses most — a real mathematical problem.”

Getting mathematical formulas into facilities run by the FSIN [Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service — T-invariant] is a challenge in its own right: such letters often never reach their recipients. A long wait followed, and on March 6, 2026, Bernard Randé received a reply from Azat via Solidarité FreeAzat. The letter opened with the words: “And so your problem, which brightened my days and cost me many hours of sleep, became a breath of fresh air for me. Thank you so much for that!” Attached to the letter were six handwritten pages containing the solution to the problem Randé had posed.

The Solidarité FreeAzat website writes: “Azat worked under exceptionally harsh conditions. Over four months in detention — with no scientific library, no internet access, no chance to discuss mathematics with colleagues, and only a few hours a day with pen and paper — he managed to solve a problem that was open at the time.” Here we have to take their word for it, since we have not yet seen Miftakhov’s paper. Still, the fact that the paper was published is a strong signal in itself.

Averil Aussedat, a member of Solidarité FreeAzat and a postdoctoral researcher in mathematics at the University of Pisa, proposed that her university officially invite Azat to present his result. On July 23, 2026, Azat Miftakhov’s wife, Elena Gorban, received an official letter from the University of Pisa inviting Azat to speak at a research seminar to be held in April 2027. If Miftakhov is not allowed to present his work in Pisa in April 2027, one can only hope that on September 3, 2027, when his latest sentence ends, he will be released and able to engage with colleagues and work under normal conditions.

Chui’s problem has been around for 55 years. Today it is being worked on by Abakumov in Paris, Borichev in Marseille, Fedorovskiy in Moscow, Doubtsov and his colleagues in St. Petersburg, and Nazarov in Ohio. Now one more participant is joining the conversation — from a prison in Dimitrovgrad, from the Polar Owl penal colony [a special-regime prison above the Arctic Circle — T-invariant], in a letter written on FSIN letterhead. Not as an object of pity or a media story, but as a colleague — with a new theorem.

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