Independent News Drop

KELI From Inkwell, this is the Independent News Drop. It's Saturday, May ninth. The time is eight p.m. Central. I'm Keli, with Hast.

HAST Good evening. We're following developments out of the Middle East tonight, and also circling back on a workplace-discrimination case that's drawn some skepticism from inside the federal agency bringing it.

KELI The New York Times lawsuit — we've been tracking this one. The EEOC filed suit against the Times alleging gender discrimination, but there's a wrinkle worth naming. The lawyer leading the case for the commission has spent years building cases around discrimination against men. Now, here's where the framing gets interesting. You'll hear this described as a sign the EEOC has abandoned its original mission. But the structural point is simpler: a former EEOC commissioner told The Intercept that the complaint itself is weak. Quote: "They're putting out their best facts in this complaint, and the facts are pathetic." That matters because it's not about the lawyer's history — it's about what evidence the agency actually has. Watch the coming days to see if the Times moves to dismiss on those merits, or if discovery reveals something the complaint didn't surface.

HAST You're saying the brief itself is the problem, not the advocate.

KELI Right. The advocate's record is irrelevant if the underlying case is thin.

HAST Overseas now. Indonesian authorities have located the missing Singaporeans after the Mount Dukono eruption. They were found near the crater rim. Search-and-rescue teams recovered them after days of intensive operations following the volcanic activity earlier this week.

KELI Staying in that region but broadening the lens. The U.S. and Iran appear to be holding to a ceasefire in the Persian Gulf, but the signals are mixed. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued a new warning to Washington today — don't attack Iranian vessels — while Israel launched fresh strikes into Lebanon, killing at least two dozen people. So you have de-escalation on one track and active military operations on another.

HAST Related but distinct crises.

KELI Exactly. Meantime, in the West Bank, a family in Jenin says Israeli settlers forced them to exhume their father's body hours after his funeral. The circumstances around that confrontation are still being reported, but it's part of a broader pattern of tension between Palestinian communities and settler movements in occupied territory.

HAST Separate front. Venezuela's Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez is headed to The Hague to present her government's case in a land dispute with Guyana before the International Court of Justice. This is her first trip out of the Caribbean since the government faced international pressure over alleged abductions and detentions. The case itself centers on Venezuela's historical claim to Guyana's Essequibo region, which sits atop significant oil reserves.

KELI On this day, in 1940, German fighter pilots accidentally bombed the German city of Freiburg during the early months of World War II — a reminder that even established militaries can inflict unintended harm in theaters they believe they control.

KELI That's the Independent News Drop. We'll be back next hour. From Inkwell.