1A

Following months of a tenuous ceasefire and several rounds of failed negotiations, the U.S. and Iran traded military strikes this week threatening to once again plunge the surrounding region into conflict.

A whistleblower inside the United States Postal Service is warning that the agency is rushing to implement a system to deal with mail-in ballots that, due to its untested nature, could disenfranchise millions of voters in the U.S.

Months after the beginning of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in U.S. cities, and after several fatal shootings, ICE now says it has enough body cameras for its agents.

And, in global news, following renewed violence between Washington and Tehran, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged support for Iran this week in its conflict with the U.S. and encouraged other world leaders to do the same.

The U.S. is working with interim President Delcy Rodriguez on a plan to take control of roughly one fifth of Venezuela’s oil supply.

And voters in Iceland struck down a referendum on restarting talks to join the European Union.

We cover the most important stories from around the world in the News Roundup.

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If you’ve driven on any road in the U.S. lately, chances are your license plate has been captured by a Flock camera.

Flock lets police around the country track your car. The company’s cameras can even help determine whether you’ve committed a crime. Now, it’s is facing big time backlash for what critics call excessive surveillance.

What does widespread deployment of license plate readers on U.S. roads means for our privacy?

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Imagine a small town in rural Tennessee — a town square, a yellow brick courthouse, a family-owned restaurant, a café, and beautiful sunrises and sunsets across the Appalachian foothills.

Now, imagine a group of far-right real estate developers — backed by Silicon Valley venture capital and with powerful ties to Washington — move into town. They have a vision to build a new kind of community and turn it into a haven for like-minded white Christians.

That’s what’s happening in Gainesboro, Tennessee. And it’s part of a growing movement by some far-right Christian nationalists to relocate to red states and turn small towns into white enclaves. 

Locals in Gainesboro are alarmed. They call it a “takeover.” And they are pushing back. That’s the story of “Our Town,” a new Bloomberg investigative podcast series. We sit down with its hosts to talk about this takeover in Tennessee.

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For some of you, it’s still a week away. For others — the doors are already open.

It’s back to school. But in this edition of 1A, it’s all about the teachers. They’ve been called heroes. They’ve fought for better salaries and benefits. They‘ve been asked to do more with less. They’ve started go-fund-me campaigns to pay for your classroom supplies when the funding just isn’t there.

Last year, we asked teachers what excited and worried them before the school year. And this year, we’re doing it again.What are teachers in the U.S. feeling ahead of a school year sure to be filled with triumphs and perils?

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Between 1950 and 1975, an estimated 1.5 million women were sent to homes for unwed mothers across the United States. There, most were hidden away from their families and communities until they gave birth and placed their babies for adoption. Some of those adoptions were involuntary.

That type of experience is hard to forget. For one family, a past that had been buried for decades finally came to light after a DNA test connected two long-lost sisters. We hear from both of them, as part of the new book, “My Mother’s Daughter: Finding Myself in My Family’s Fractured Past.”

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