The Pentagon announced today that the last US troops have left Iraq. Twenty-three years after the 2003 invasion. More than 4,500 Americans died there.

The last US troops left Iraq today. More than 4,500 Americans died there over 23 years. An Iraqi resident said it felt like being born again. Here is Wednesday.

The Pentagon announced today that the last US troops have left Iraq. Twenty-three years. More than 4,500 American deaths. Iran celebrated. Experts warned of a security vacuum.

The Pentagon announced Wednesday that it had finished pulling all US forces from Iraq. The final troops departed from an air base in northern Iraq under an agreement between the Iraqi and US governments. Italy completed its own Iraq withdrawal the same day, ending its 12-year military presence. US forces first invaded Iraq in 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein, left in 2011, and returned in 2014 at Iraq’s invitation to fight the Islamic State group, known as ISIS, which had seized much of the country. Ahmed Saleh, an Iraqi resident, told reporters: “Our feeling? The withdrawal of American forces is like I am born again, and I am 70 years old. The withdrawal of American forces is the withdrawal of the occupier.”

The Iraq withdrawal arrives inside the Iran war. US forces were not simply occupying a peacetime Iraq. They were stationed in a country where Iran-backed militias had been attacking US positions throughout 2026, and those militias have been one of the active theaters in the broader Iran conflict this brief has tracked since February. The departure celebrated in Baghdad today leaves behind a specific question: what fills the security space? US defense analysts warned Wednesday of a potential vacuum that could embolden Iran-backed militias and allow the resurgent Islamic State group to regroup in territory it once held. Iran and its allies celebrated the withdrawal as a victory. The Iraqis who said it felt like being born again are the same people who lived through the 2003 invasion, the insurgency, the emergence of ISIS, and now this. More than 4,500 Americans died in Iraq. More than 200,000 Iraqi civilians died. The last American base emptied on a Wednesday in September 2026 while the United States was simultaneously fighting a war with the country next door.

Manchester City was found guilty of Premier League financial charges today. The charges involve £900 million in alleged sham contracts. It is the end of a years long investigation.

Manchester City was found guilty Wednesday of Premier League financial charges after an investigation found the club had used approximately £900 million in what prosecutors called “sham” contracts to disguise financial dealings and circumvent the league’s rules.

Manchester City is one of the most successful football clubs in the world, winning multiple Premier League titles, FA Cups, and the Champions League over the past decade. The charges against the club, which the Premier League had been investigating for several years, alleged that the club had misrepresented payments to players, managers, and agents in ways that inflated or disguised the true financial structure of their contracts. The Premier League has strict rules governing financial fair play, designed to prevent wealthy owners from simply buying success by spending beyond sustainable limits. A guilty verdict against the club does not yet specify punishment. The possible consequences range from points deductions to relegation to expulsion from the league. Whatever the Premier League’s adjudicatory panel decides will be the most significant governance decision in English football since the league was founded in 1992.

Brazil’s first round of presidential elections put far-right Flávio Bolsonaro ahead of incumbent President Lula. A runoff is coming. The political direction of the world’s largest democracy in Latin America is in play.

The far right made gains in Brazil as Flávio Bolsonaro topped President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the first round of the presidential election, meaning neither candidate secured more than 50% of the vote and a runoff election is required.

Flávio Bolsonaro is the senator son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, whose administration from 2019 to 2022 oversaw a dramatic increase in Amazon deforestation, a hostile approach to indigenous rights, and repeated attacks on democratic institutions. Lula, the incumbent, has been in office since January 2023 and has overseen a significant reduction in Amazon deforestation and a reorientation of Brazil’s international relationships. Brazil is the largest country in Latin America, the ninth-largest economy in the world, home to the Amazon rainforest which absorbs roughly 10% of global carbon emissions, and a member of the BRICS bloc. Its presidential election is not a domestic story. The first round result putting a Bolsonaro ahead of Lula describes a political environment in which the democratic and environmental gains of the Lula administration are facing a genuine electoral challenge. The runoff will determine which direction the country, and the Amazon, takes next.

French police clashed with teenagers blockading schools on Wednesday as unions staged a national day of protests. Hundreds of high schools were shut. Rubbish bins were burning.

French teenagers on Tuesday and Wednesday set fire to rubbish bins and hurled objects at police who responded with batons and tear gas, as students kept up blockades and protests at hundreds of high schools, demanding better conditions. The student protests were part of a broader national strike day organized by French labor unions.

France has a specific cultural tradition of student protest that connects to the country’s labor movement in ways that are unusual among Western democracies. When unions call a national strike day, high school students frequently join, treating the labor question as their own even before they are in the workforce. The specific demands of Wednesday’s students, better conditions in their schools, connect to a broader French debate about underfunded public education, overcrowded classrooms, and what young people are being prepared for in an economy being reshaped by the same AI forces this brief has been tracking all month. French Prime Minister Michel Barnier faces a government already under pressure from both the left and the far right. Students blockading hundreds of high schools and clashing with police is the political weather of a country that has historically resolved this kind of pressure through either concession or escalation. Both remain available on Wednesday.

CNN investigated how Jared Kushner’s investment in an Israeli company could be a major conflict of interest. The company has interests directly affected by US policy that Kushner helped shape.

CNN published an investigation Wednesday examining how Jared Kushner’s private equity firm, Affinity Partners, invested in an Israeli company in ways that could represent a major conflict of interest given Kushner’s role in shaping US Middle East policy during the first Trump administration and his ongoing informal advisory role in the second.

The specific conflict of interest concern involves a company whose business interests are directly affected by US policy decisions on Israel, and whose value would be materially influenced by the same policies Kushner has advised on or is positioned to influence going forward. Kushner’s Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements between Israel and several Gulf states that he brokered in the first Trump administration, directly affected the business environment in which Israeli companies operate. An investment in an Israeli company made after those accords were negotiated, by the person who negotiated them, whose government continues to develop the relationships those accords created, describes a conflict of interest architecture that the CNN investigation is now bringing into public view. No charges have been filed. The investigation is published. Both of those things are true on the same Wednesday.

Passengers stopped a pilot who allegedly tried to crash a plane flying to Israel. An off-duty officer and other passengers restrained him. He was arrested.

Passengers on a flight heading to Israel described stopping a pilot who allegedly tried to intentionally crash the aircraft. An off-duty law enforcement officer and other passengers restrained the pilot before the plane was safely landed.

Aviation security is built around the assumption that the pilots in the cockpit are the last line of defense rather than the threat. Cockpit security procedures post-September 11, the reinforced cockpit doors, the dual-key entry systems, the protocols requiring two people in the cockpit at all times, are all designed to prevent an external actor from accessing the pilots. When the threat is the pilot, the defense architecture is different: it requires passengers and crew to recognize what is happening in the cockpit, override a sealed space designed to keep people out, and physically restrain someone in a confined area while the aircraft is in the air. That is what happened on Wednesday. The passengers succeeded. The plane landed safely. The pilot was arrested. The details of who the pilot was, what his motive was, and where the flight originated have not been fully established in today’s reporting.

Timnit Gebru won the Alternative Nobel Prize today. She said the real existential risk from AI is not the technology itself. It is the CEOs avoiding oversight of it.

The 2026 Right Livelihood Awards were announced in Stockholm on Wednesday, the annual prizes known as the Alternative Nobel, founded in 1980 and awarded to people working on practical solutions to global challenges. Among the winners was Timnit Gebru, the AI researcher who was fired by Google in 2020 after refusing to retract a paper about the risks of large language models. Gebru told Democracy Now: “The real existential risk is AI CEOs avoiding oversight.”

Timnit Gebru’s Right Livelihood Award arrives in a week when the Anthropic CEO published an IPO prospectus warning his own AI poses existential risks to humanity, four AI CEOs signed voluntary safety standards with the president, and Congress adjourned without passing any AI regulation. Gebru’s specific argument, that the risk is not the technology but the people building it avoiding accountability for it, is a different claim from what the Anthropic prospectus describes. Anthropic says the risk is that AI becomes too powerful. Gebru says the risk is that the people building powerful AI refuse to be governed. Both claims can be true simultaneously. The Right Livelihood Award going to the researcher who was fired for raising concerns about large language models, in the same week large language models are being used to run the federal government’s portal and a company is seeking $2 trillion to build more of them, is a specific kind of timing that the award committee could not have fully planned but could not have improved.

RJ Mitte died on Wednesday at 34. He played Walter White Jr. on Breaking Bad. He himself lived with cerebral palsy. The role was not a performance of something foreign to him.

RJ Mitte, the actor best known for playing Walter White Jr. in the AMC series Breaking Bad, died Wednesday in Beverly Hills at age 34. No cause of death has been announced.

RJ Mitte was cast in Breaking Bad at 13 years old to play the teenage son of a chemistry teacher turned methamphetamine manufacturer. The character, Walt Jr., has cerebral palsy and navigates a family falling apart. Mitte himself lives with cerebral palsy and was not performing disability from the outside. He was one of a small number of actors with a disability to have been cast in a major dramatic series to portray a character with the same disability, rather than having a non-disabled actor take the role. Breaking Bad has aired its final episode but continues to be watched by millions of people discovering it for the first time. Walt Jr. is the moral center of the show, the person whose opinion of his father matters most and who is being protected from the truth the longest. Mitte was 13 when he took that role. He was 34 on Wednesday. The show he is part of will be watched by people who do not yet know it exists.

The thread underneath Wednesday

The last US troops left Iraq on Wednesday, 23 years after the 2003 invasion that killed more than 4,500 Americans and more than 200,000 Iraqi civilians, with Iran celebrating the departure and experts warning of an ISIS resurgence and security vacuum left behind. Manchester City was found guilty of Premier League financial charges involving £900 million in alleged sham contracts after a years long investigation, with punishment ranging from points deductions to relegation still to be determined. Brazil’s first round of presidential elections put far-right Flávio Bolsonaro ahead of incumbent Lula, a runoff required to determine the direction of the Amazon and the world’s ninth-largest economy. French police clashed with teenagers blockading hundreds of high schools as unions staged a national strike day over school conditions and labor concerns. CNN published an investigation into how Jared Kushner’s investment in an Israeli company could be a major conflict of interest given his role shaping US Middle East policy. Passengers stopped a pilot allegedly trying to crash a flight to Israel, an off-duty officer and others restraining him while the aircraft was in the air. Timnit Gebru won the Right Livelihood Award and said the real existential risk from AI is the CEOs who are avoiding oversight of it, the Alternative Nobel going to the researcher Google fired for raising large language model concerns in the same week those models are running the federal government’s portal. RJ Mitte died at 34. Spain banned all evictions until 2030 following the Madrid housing protests that started with an 87-year-old woman’s eviction last week. Christa Pike’s Tennessee execution was botched and she was left in critical condition, 911 calls revealing emergency help was delayed by confusion. Trump and tech executives signed voluntary AI safety standards following the state dinner. Kimberly Guilfoyle is under scrutiny and Trump said he is considering firing her as US Ambassador to Greece. The Trump administration filed criminal charges against an asylum seeker who was shot by ICE. Jack Smith testified before the Senate. Evan Gershkovich reflected publicly on his imprisonment in Russia and his recovery two years after his release.

Eight sections, 50 days until the midterms. The last American troops left Iraq while the United States is at war with Iran next door. See you tomorrow.

What to watch tomorrow: Watch whether the Premier League announces a punishment for Manchester City following the guilty verdict, because the range from points deductions to expulsion from the league is the most consequential gap in English football governance and the decision will come quickly given the season is already underway. Watch the Brazil runoff campaign as both candidates emerge from the first round, because the margin and the coalition dynamics coming out of a first round that put Bolsonaro ahead of an incumbent Lula will define the next several weeks of the hemisphere’s most watched democracy. Watch whether any details emerge about the pilot who allegedly tried to crash the Israel-bound flight, because the motive and identity of the person in the cockpit determine whether this is an isolated incident or part of a pattern. And watch whether Timnit Gebru’s Right Livelihood Award win produces any formal response from the AI companies whose oversight she has been critical of, because an Alternative Nobel going to their most prominent internal critic in the same week they signed voluntary safety standards describes a specific gap between the award and the accountability it calls for. See you tomorrow.

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