Hello and welcome to Background Briefing available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org. I'm Ian Masters,

and today we'll examine a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with 2,780 injured with nine dead in Lebanon,

as pages used by Hezbollah blew up simultaneously, injuring faces, eyes, and blowing off hands.

We'll discuss whether this further humiliation of Iran and Hezbollah will provoke a retaliation against Israel

or whether Israel is planning a larger war in Lebanon, as Israel's defense minister has suggested.

Joining us is Thanasi Kambanis, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation

and director of the Center for International Research and Policy.

Until recently, he worked as a journalist based in Lebanon, and his books include A Privileged to Die,

Inside Hezbollah's Legions and their endless war against Israel,

Once Upon a Revolution, an Egyptian story, and most recently, Shia power comes of age, the transformation of Islamist

politics in Iraq 2003 to 2003. Then we'll look into the unprecedented leak to the New York Times

from inside the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court, revealing that the supposed centrist

Chief Justice Roberts, who only calls

balls and strikes, is a zealous Republican activist out to rig the playing field before the game

begins. Joining us is Lisa Graves, the executive director of the new corporate watchdog group

True North Research. She has served as a senior advisor in all three branches of the

federal government, as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department, as Chief

Council for nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as a deputy chief of the Article

Three Judges Division for the U.S. courts. Then finally we'll assess whether there will be a limit,

as incendiary claims by Trump and

Vance ramp up, blaming Biden and Harris for the assassination attempts on Trump, while Musk

...