NASA teams up with NFL for Inspiration Tour with flyovers scheduled for football games

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Football League (NFL) have announced a collaboration featuring aircraft flyovers and astronaut appearances at select games.

“The agency will soon bring America’s strengths in space exploration and aeronautics innovation to the football field,” NASA said in a press release on Thursday, announcing its new Inspiration Tour.

So far, NASA participation is scheduled for the following games:

  • Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Atlanta Falcons in Pittsburgh on September 13th
  • Baltimore Ravens vs. New Orleans Saints in Baltimore on September 20th
  • Philadelphia Eagles vs. Los Angeles Rams in Philadelphia on October 4th
  • New York Jets vs. Cleveland Browns in East Rutherford, New Jersey on October 11th

More football game dates could be added, according to NASA.

The administration said that some of the games will experience flyovers showcasing NASA’s aircraft fleet, used for high-speed testing, high-altitude research, astronaut training and more.

“Regularly flying the aircraft maintains the health of the fleet and publicly demonstrates new technologies that may be applied to future commercial air travel,” NASA stated.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman will lead the tour across the country in order to “connect the agency with the people, technologies, and organizations that drive American leadership in space.”

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Charlie Kirk’s TPUSA sponsored by Israeli govt-aligned outfit, leaked contract shows

One year after Charlie Kirk’s killing, The Charlie Kirk Show is distributed by a federally registered agent of Israel and his widow, Erika, has reversed his critical positions on the US-Israeli special relationship.

Now, The Grayzone can reveal that the Turning Point USA (TPUSA) organization he founded is holding faith events sponsored by an Israel-based non-profit with close ties to the Israeli government.

A leaked contract obtained by The Grayzone reveals that TPUSA entered into an agreement with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) to sponsor a series of ostensibly Christian faith-based summits between 2025 and 2027. Signed on May 16, 2025, the contract committed IFCJ to pay $700,000 to TPUSA over two years. In exchange, the group was to receive a series of promotional benefits including main stage speaking slots for its President, Yael Eckstein, and the distribution of pro-Israel “activism kits” to over 200 college campuses.

View the full May 16, 2025 contract between IFCJ and TPUSA here.

From the May 2025 IFCJ/TPUSA contract obtained by The Grayzone

Based in Israel and Chicago, Illinois, IFCJ presents itself as a charity which raises money from Christians to assist Jews supposedly suffering from poverty and antisemitism. In fact, it is a fundraising behemoth which is currently on a spending spree, plowing millions into American conservative media while partnering closely with the Israeli government to spread Zionist propaganda.

In a recent interview, IFCJ President Yael Eckstein boasted that her organization effectively supplements the Israeli state: “We’re a non-governmental organization, but we effectively distribute the aid so well that the government of Israel asks the Fellowship to build projects for them during times of emergency.”

The IFCJ’s contract with TPUSA was inked in the midst of a severe crisis at the house that Charlie built. At the time, Kirk was publicly anguishing over the increasingly onerous demands of those he described as Jewish “stakeholders,” who were threatening to pull their support for TPUSA unless he stopped providing space at his events to conservative critics of Israel like Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly.

“It’s all of the sudden: ‘oh, Charlie: he’s no longer with us.’ Wait a second—what does ‘with us’ mean, exactly? I’m an American, okay? I represent this country,” he fumed to Kelly during an August 6, 2025 podcast.

Kirk had also become an outspoken opponent of US-Israeli plans to wage war on Iran.

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Ben Shapiro’s Uncle Who Stole U.S. Uranium and Built Israel’s Nuclear Program

Ben Shapiro has a favorite word.

Conspiracy.

Question whether Israeli pressure helped drag America into another Middle Eastern war?

“Conspiracy trash.”

Question Israel’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein?

“Mythology.”

Keep investigating?

“Brain rot.”

When Joe Kent accused Israel and its powerful American lobby of helping push America toward war with Iran, Shapiro did not merely disagree.

He ridiculed the question.

“Conspiracy trash.”
“Conspiratorial idiocy.”
“This stuff is brain rot.”

But there is one problem with Ben Shapiro’s favorite word:

OPEN HIS OWN FAMILY’S FILES.

Ben’s uncle, Zalman Shapiro, ran NUMEC, a Pennsylvania facility handling highly enriched uranium that became the center of a decades-long U.S. investigation into missing American nuclear material diverted to Israel.

The CIA became sufficiently concerned about Shapiro’s relationship with Israel that CIA Director Richard Helms asked the FBI to investigate the “nature and extent” of that relationship.

Then Israeli intelligence figures appeared inside his nuclear facility.

One of them was Rafael Eitan.

Eitan would later head LAKAM, run Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, and participate in the Plumbat operation, which covertly diverted roughly 200 tons of uranium oxide to Israel.

So before Ben Shapiro dismisses questions about Israeli intelligence and influence as “brain rot,” there is somewhere Americans should look first:

His uncle’s files.

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China’s Communist Party Buying Access to US High Schools

The Chinese Communist Party has pursued a decades-long, multilayered strategy to embed its influence in American education, adapting each time federal investigations closed one channel.

At the university level, Confucius Institutes, Chinese government-funded language and culture centers, peaked at 118 in 2017. In August 2020, the Trump administration designated their US coordinating office a Chinese “foreign mission,” and Congress cut off Pentagon funding to host universities. By 2023, fewer than five remained.

However, the K-12 version of the program, Confucius Classrooms, was never subjected to the same pressure. The State Department reported in 2020 that there were about 500, more than the number of university-level institutes at their peak. No equivalent disclosure law or funding threat targeted school districts. A 2023 investigation by Parents Defending Education found that 143 school districts, including 20 near military bases, were still running Confucius Classroom-style programs.

The same pattern has resurfaced in a new form: the Young Envoys Scholarship (YES) program, administered by the China Education Association for International Exchange (CEAIE). The organization states on its Chinese-language website that it is guided by Marxism-Leninism and Xi Jinping Thought and that it “integrates the Party’s work into the entire process of the association’s operations.”

YES has already reached 83 universities and 27 K-12 schools across 30 states, including Taft High School and at least three other Chicago Public Schools campuses. It operates with essentially none of the federal oversight that eventually reined in Confucius Institutes.

Beijing’s objective through YES is blatant. Chinese officials describe it themselves: bring as many young Americans as possible into direct, positive contact with China. Xi Jinping set a target of bringing 50,000 American students to China over five years so that they return as “messengers” of friendship, in the Chicago consulate’s words. According to one participating school official, they will become “multipliers” whose influence will “triple and quadruple” as they carry favorable views of China back into their communities.

The mechanism is emotional and experiential rather than curricular. It includes fully or heavily subsidized trips, personal outreach from Xi Jinping to individual students and schools, staged cultural immersion, and extensive coverage in Chinese state media. As a Parents Defending Education investigation documents, these programs are designed to shape “how youth in the United States view China” before those students are old enough to become policymakers, business leaders, or voters.

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How Lockheed Martin, Raytheon & BAE Systems are propagandizing children to support war through STEM

Raytheon sponsors the Girl Scouts of America. BAE Systems is reading your toddlers their favorite fairytale stories. And Lockheed Martin funds children’s math and STEM festivals. This is done with great fanfare, supposedly to empower and inspire children to pursue their passion for science. In reality, though, these companies are attempting to launder their images and enlist the next generation to become cogs in the military-industrial complex.

All the while, these organizations’ products are being used across the world by the United States and Israel to commit war crimes – in Iran, Yemen, Palestine, and beyond – to target children.

MintPress explores the murky world of the arms companies training kids to bomb kids.

Normalizing War to Kids

When many Americans think of Raytheon (now officially rebranded as RTX Corporation), they don’t envisage rockets and cruise missiles; they think of math. For decades, the second-largest arms manufacturer on the planet has bankrolled a wide range of organizations aimed at getting children excited about STEM subjects.

Since 2009, Raytheon has been the title sponsor of MATHCOUNTS, a non-profit organization that provides engaging math programs for middle school students in every U.S. state, as well as organizing math competitions to find the brightest children in America.

In 2005, Raytheon launched its MathMovesU program, aimed, in its own words, “to inspire middle school students to get excited about math and science.” In addition to the materials provided, it has also spent millions on scholarships, grants, and study awards to thousands of students, teachers, and volunteers.

And its MathAlive! traveling exhibit promises, in rather outdated branding, to take math “2theXtreme”. MathAlive! Has also traveled to several countries in West Asia, including Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia – all of them among the biggest purchasers of Raytheon weapons technology.

The company also enjoys a longtime partnership with the Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA). In 2017, for example, it launched the GSUSA’s first national computer science program and cyber challenge for middle and high school girls.

“The progress to diversify the STEM workforce needs to be accelerated… At a time when technology is transforming the way we live and work, we can – and should – show young women a clear path to taking an active role in this transformation,” said Thomas A. Kennedy, then-Raytheon CEO; “Working together, Raytheon and Girl Scouts will help girls build confidence to see themselves as the robotics engineers, data scientists and cybersecurity professionals who will create a better tomorrow.”

Raytheon also spearheaded the GSUSA’s “Think Like a Programmer” project, which encourages girls to explore the world of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, and developed many of the programming badges available to the scouts.

GSUSA appears proud of this relationship. Its website profiles one former scout who now works at Raytheon as a success story and a model to follow. The article includes a step-by-step guide and a list of tips for those wishing to follow in her footsteps.

Unsurprisingly, Raytheon also works closely with the U.S. military on these matters, establishing four new STEM “centers of innovation” with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America in Michigan, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Washington, D.C., all near military bases.

While some might be surprised by the closeness of the relationship between a children’s organization and an arms manufacturer, it is worth remembering that the scouting movement was originally established by Lieutenant-General Robert Baden-Powell, as a stepping stone towards boys joining the military. Baden-Powell was deeply concerned that English boys would not be physically fit enough to fight for their country in any upcoming wars, and designed an organization that would train them both physically and mentally to do so.

Kirsten Bayes from the Campaign Against the Arms Trade was unimpressed by Raytheon’s attempts to improve their image and to train the next generation of weapons manufacturers. “Our view is that arms companies have no place in schools or colleges, and should certainly not be working with children’s educational charities,” she told MintPress, adding:

“Schools and other places of education should be places where children learn, grow and develop their full potential. They should not be a recruiting ground where arms companies whitewash their activities.”

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Repeat After Media: Data Centers Are Wonderful and Good

If you follow conservative media and Republican politicians, you could be convinced that any opposition to AI data centers is not due to their sprawling footprint, greed for electricity or insatiable need for cooling water. Rather, it’s the result of a Chinese Communist plot.

These data centers are dreadfully unpopular. “Seven in 10 Americans oppose constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their local area, including nearly half, 48%, who are strongly opposed,” according to Gallup (5/13/26). From YouGov (9/1/26): “About half (51%) of Americans say that the construction of new data centers is a bad thing for the country. Only 20% say it is a good thing.”

The reasons for this opposition is that these centers put enormous strain on the electrical grid, need loads of water for cooling, can be extremely noisy and take up lots of space in communities. “The environmental footprint of data centers already rivals some of the world’s largest countries,” AP (6/3/26) reported.

Much like how some liberals have convinced themselves that MAGA and American nationalism are fueled by Kremlin disinformation, the right-wing line is that communities opposing these giant data centers are motivated not by their own interests or common sense, but some unseen Beijing-manufactured psychosis.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) demanded that the Justice Department “investigate foreign influence efforts targeting the buildout of American AI infrastructure,” as he suspected that a “network of foreign actors, led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is attempting to manipulate US policy and public opinion on data centers.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), in the words of Newsmax (9/2/26), believes “China is helping fuel opposition to artificial intelligence data centers in the United States.” “Beijing has a strategic interest in convincing Americans to slow construction of the infrastructure needed to compete in the global AI race,” the far-right outlet paraphrased.

The Washington Examiner‘s Facebook page (8/30/26) featured a cartoon from A.F. Branco depicting a Chinese data center running a psy-op on Americans who oppose data centers.

The National Interest (9/1/26) said:

Chinese entities have a long history of collaborating with far-left causes, and they have again found common ground in opposing the construction of data centers. They are pushing mutually reinforcing messages that criticize a host of alleged environmental and ethical concerns as reasons to disempower American growth in a critical economic and competitive sector. Officials at the federal, state and local levels should recognize this noxious alliance as they field criticism of data centers.

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Mamdani’s 200-strong ‘influencer’ army revealed — with some PR peddlers pocketing taxpayer cash

They’re under Zo’s influence.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani assembled an army of nearly 200 “influencers,” giving the social media stars VIP access to push the lefty administration’s talking points, a new bombshell report revealed.

The web of online personalities are being fed talking points by City Hall through an encrypted Signal group text, potentially running afoul of local record-keeping laws, according to the study by the Columbia Journalism Review.

Some influencers are even pocketing taxpayer funds “for work on particular messaging campaigns,” though not for their coverage, the report states.

The secret Signal chat – named “NYC Creators Announcements” – combined with murky money left many watchdogs aghast.

“City leaders must be deliberate about how they communicate,” said Citizens Union Executive Director Grace Rauh “Any discussion of official government business must occur in a manner that ensures records are preserved and accessible under the Freedom of Information Law. The rules exist to protect the public.”

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Trump Administration To Spend $4 Million on European Rightwing Media

The US will help Europeans free themselves from the yoke of their Leftist-Globalist elites.

Euro-Globalists are in a panic over the news that the US Donald J. Trump’s administration will reportedly spend $4 million to bolster right-wing media in ‌Europe.

This is said to be part of a package of at least $25 million for civil society groups working on conservative causes in the region.

What these sons of George Soros do not seem to understand is that this is a core Trump policy: ‘Cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.’

2025 US National Security Strategy:

“American diplomacy should continue to stand up for genuine democracy, freedom of expression, and unapologetic celebrations of European nations’ individual character and history. America encourages its political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit, and the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism.

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Trump Says Iran’s Oil Hub Kharg Island Is Being Blown “TO SMITHEREENS”

President Trump issued a stunning message Sunday night indicating that Iran’s most important oil-export hub was under devastating attack.

“Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!! President DJT,” Trump announced on Truth Social.

Trump’s post included a dramatic AI-generated video depicting explosions across the island.

Neither the White House nor the Department of War had publicly confirmed a new attack on Kharg Island’s oil facilities. Reuters reported that Iranian state media had also issued no immediate response.

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Iran Says Persian-Language Media Outlets ‘Funded By CIA’ Are Military Targets

One key tool Washington has long utilized for influence operations and covert regime change plotting abroad has long been the establishment of foreign media for political messaging.

The idea is that a foreign language satellite news channel gets presented as ‘independent’ while in reality it beams propaganda onto a unsuspecting population within a so-called ‘rogue’ state being targeted by the US.

For example, WikiLeaks previously revealed that US intelligence invested heavily in such projects to bolster anti-Assad forces and sentiment in the context of last decade’s proxy war in Syria.

Currently, Iran says it is fully aware of several Persian-language media outlets which are subversive, given they have the backing of the US, UK, or Israeli governments, or others like Saudi Arabia.

The AFP in a Wednesday report has said Iranian state media has newly called out the following as hostile propaganda media fronts:

  • BBC Persian
  • Iran International
  • Radio Farda

An Iranian military spokesman has said these have been added to the armed forces’ “military target bank” – putting the outlets on notice that their offices and infrastructure could come under attack.

“These hostile media outlets are the soldiers of Zionism and America and are included in our military target bank,” military spokesman Abolfazl Shekarchi announced.

He charged that they are “directly connected to Mossad, CIA and enemy intelligence organizations.” He emphasized: “The Iranian Armed Forces do not view these news outlets as media.”

And interestingly, per AFP: “Iran has designated Iran International as a terrorist organization since 2022 and has warned that cooperation with the channel is punishable under Iranian law.”

Earlier in the Iran war, we featured analysis which pointed out that Iran International calls itself the “most popular Persian speaking foreign based news channel in Iran”.It employs 700 people and broadcasts into Iran from London via satellite, radio and social media outlets.

Iran International has been accused by critics of promoting “regime change” in Iran and advancing the position of the former shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi, for a return to power. The outlet has long denied links to Israel or Saudi Arabia. The outlet reported heavily on protests that struck Iran at the beginning of this year, sparked by a cost-of-living crisis brought on, in part, by US sanctions.

In January 2025, the news site reported that more than 36,500 people were killed in a crackdown on protests. Those numbers were significantly higher than those estimated by the US and other western-based human rights groups.

US President Donald Trump cited casualty numbers similar to those reported by Iran International days before launching a war on Iran on February 28, but did not disclose where he had gotten the death toll number.

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