Category: World News

LONDON (AP) — As darkness gave way to dawn, thousands of people made their way to the legendary Stonehenge monument to mark the arrival of the summer solstice — the longest day of the year.

Crowds gathered in the early morning hours, greeting the sunrise with celebration that included music, dancing, and peaceful reflection amid the towering ancient stones.

The event was captured in a photo gallery assembled by AP photo editors.

Diplomatic teams from the United States and Iran convened in Switzerland on Sunday for peace negotiations, even as a dispute erupted over whether Iran had shut down one of the world’s most critical shipping lanes.

An Iranian delegation arrived in Switzerland for the talks, according to Iranian state media, while U.S. Vice President JD Vance departed Washington for the meetings, which Pakistan said would get underway Sunday. The two countries had previously agreed to a 60-day ceasefire while negotiations proceed.

Despite that agreement, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps declared the Strait of Hormuz closed on Saturday. However, U.S. military officials pushed back on that claim, saying commercial vessels had continued moving through the waterway without disruption. U.S. Central Command reported that 55 merchant ships passed through the strait on Saturday, carrying more than 17 million barrels of oil destined for global markets. American forces will work to keep commercial traffic flowing, Central Command added.

The Strait of Hormuz is a critical passage for the world’s oil and gas supplies, and any disruption there could have far-reaching economic consequences.

President Donald Trump addressed the situation in a social media post Saturday, stating that no toll would be charged for passage through the Strait during or after the 60-day ceasefire period — though he left open the possibility of imposing one if peace talks ultimately fall apart. He described such a potential toll as payment “for services rendered as the Guardian Angel to the countries of the Middle East.”

Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, took to social media to accuse the U.S. of failing to follow through on the first clause of a 14-point interim agreement between the two nations. That clause calls for a ceasefire “on all fronts,” including Lebanon. Mokhber stated that as long as the deal existed only on paper, the flow of energy from the Middle East would remain halted.

The interim deal was brokered by Pakistan and signed Wednesday by Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, with the goal of ending a conflict between the two nations that has lasted nearly four months.

Complicating matters further, the Lebanon ceasefire appeared shaky. Lebanese Civil Defence reported that 20 people were killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon on Saturday, just hours after a truce there took effect. Israel said it was responding to attacks from Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, while Hezbollah said it would not allow Israel “freedom of movement” in Lebanon. Lebanon’s state news agency reported that Israeli warplanes and drones struck locations across southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley on Saturday. An Israeli military official said Hezbollah fired more than 50 projectiles at Israeli forces overnight.

The IRGC pointed to what it called Israeli “crimes” in Lebanon — which it said violated U.S. ceasefire commitments — as justification for warning ships that they would be at risk near the Strait.

Israel, which is not part of the U.S.-Iran negotiations, has stated it is not bound by the deal and will keep its forces in Lebanese territory it currently occupies. Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 reported that the country’s prime minister and defense minister instructed the military to hold fire in Lebanon, though Israel would not pull back from areas it has captured.

A poll conducted by Israel’s Hebrew University and shared exclusively with Reuters found that about 92% of Israelis believe Iran benefited more from the joint Israeli-U.S. military campaign than Israel did. Only around 8% of Israelis felt their country came out victorious. Nearly 90% said the war’s goals were not achieved, and more than 70% said they do not believe claims of major achievements made by the Israeli prime minister.

Lebanon’s health ministry reports that 4,057 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since March 2, including medics, women, and children, though it does not specify how many were combatants. Israeli authorities say at least 32 soldiers and four civilians have been killed in fighting with Hezbollah.

On the U.S. side, the negotiating team includes Vice President Vance along with envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who is also Trump’s son-in-law. The Iranian delegation is led by chief negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and also includes Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, along with senior officials from security, the central bank, and the oil sector.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said Iran would use the Switzerland talks to push for the fulfillment of commitments, pointing to what he described as past failures by the other side to honor agreements.

Vance, speaking in a Fox News interview, expressed confidence that the ceasefire would hold and said he had seen no evidence that the Strait of Hormuz was actually closed. He departed for Switzerland shortly after 4 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday, telling reporters before boarding a plane at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland that negotiations would likely last “a couple days.”

“I think we’re going to hopefully make progress on the nuclear issue, make progress on the Lebanon ceasefire issue,” Vance said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy issued a grave warning Saturday, telling his citizens that Russian forces were preparing to launch a massive assault on Ukraine and urging everyone to take extra precautions as strikes across the country left at least six people dead.

Speaking in his nightly video address, Zelenskiy delivered an urgent message to the Ukrainian people. “Tonight and in the coming hours, it is especially important to pay close attention to air raid warnings,” he said. “The Russians have prepared for a massive attack. Please take care of yourselves.”

Russian forces have carried out a series of devastating strikes on Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities in recent weeks. Attacks last Monday left 10 people dead across the country and caused severe damage to the Pechersk Lavra monastery — a 1,000-year-old site considered a cornerstone of Ukrainian spiritual and cultural identity.

Zelenskiy has vowed that Ukraine’s military will continue its campaign of medium and long-range strikes, with a particular focus on Russia’s oil sector. He confirmed Saturday that Ukrainian drones hit an oil refinery in the Tyumen region of western Siberia, and that drones had also struck a Moscow oil refinery twice during the week.

In the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, Russian forces unleashed glide bombs Saturday, killing five people and wounding 10 others. Regional Governor Ivan Fedorov reported the details on Telegram, noting that the city absorbed nine separate strikes, with damage to multiple residential buildings and other infrastructure.

Near the Russian border, a bomb attack on the outskirts of the city of Sumy claimed one life, according to local officials.

In the southern Kherson region, Regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported that one person was killed in a drone strike on a village located north of the region’s main city, also known as Kherson.

In the central city of Poltava, Russian shelling injured three children, local officials confirmed.

For the second consecutive day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on neighboring Belarus to take down relay stations that he claims are playing a direct role in facilitating Russian drone strikes against Ukrainian regions.

Belarus, led by longtime President Alexander Lukashenko, has stood as one of Russia’s closest partners throughout the more than four-year conflict with Ukraine. The country allowed Russia to use its soil as a launching point for the February 2022 invasion.

Lukashenko, who has held power since 1994, has repeatedly insisted he does not wish to become more deeply entangled in the war. However, Zelenskiy has pushed Belarus to demonstrate through action that it will not actively back Russia’s military campaign.

Without mentioning Lukashenko by name, Zelenskiy addressed the matter in his nightly video message, making an indirect reference to Lukashenko’s disputed return to power. He stated that Ukraine has identified four relay stations on Belarusian soil that are supporting Russian military operations.

“Belarus still has time to dismantle this equipment. We also know about every factory in Belarus that works for Russia and supports the war,” Zelenskiy said.

He added, “Ukraine does not want this and we have warned the de facto leadership of Belarus which has influence over these developments.”

The previous Friday, Zelenskiy had given what he described as a week’s worth of time for the relay equipment to be removed, and he attached a clear warning to that deadline.

“If he doesn’t do it, we’ll do it,” Zelenskiy said on Friday, without providing further detail on what that action might look like.

In his most recent comments, Zelenskiy also turned attention to Belarus’s oil refining industry, arguing it is contributing to Russia’s ability to wage war. He said that between January and May, gasoline exports from Belarus to Russia grew by 13 times compared to the same stretch of time the previous year, while diesel exports tripled.

“Unfortunately, this helps Russia adapt to pressure and does not bring peace any closer,” Zelenskiy said. “It should be the opposite: peace should be brought closer.”

Ukraine’s armed forces have been conducting a sustained campaign of medium and long-range drone strikes, with Russia’s oil infrastructure as a primary target, as part of a broader strategy to weaken Moscow’s ability to sustain its war effort.

Three people have lost their lives following a fire at a single-story pavilion in the White City neighborhood of London, the London Fire Brigade announced on Saturday.

Authorities have launched a joint investigation into the cause of the deadly blaze, with the Brigade’s specialist fire investigation officers working in coordination with the Metropolitan Police Service to determine what sparked the fire.

LONDON — Britain’s Observer newspaper is reporting that Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected to step down as early as Monday, with senior figures in his Labour Party anticipating a formal announcement about his future.

According to the report, Starmer was at his Chequers country residence consulting with his wife before reaching a final decision. Senior Labour members are said to be anticipating a clear statement on his political future as soon as Monday.

Despite the report, a government source pushed back, saying Starmer remains fully focused on his responsibilities as prime minister and pointing to previous statements he has made affirming his commitment to the role.

The pressure on Starmer escalated significantly on Friday when rival Andy Burnham secured a seat in parliament — a move that now allows Burnham to formally mount a leadership challenge against the sitting prime minister.

Starmer addressed the situation Friday, saying he intends to fight any challenge to his leadership and calling on Labour members to avoid destructive internal conflict. “Don’t tear itself apart with infighting,” he urged the party.

The calls for his exit have grown considerably, with more than 100 elected Labour lawmakers — representing roughly one-quarter of the party’s total membership in the House of Commons — publicly calling for Starmer to either resign or at least lay out a timeline for his departure.

TYRE, Lebanon — Vice President JD Vance departed for Switzerland on Saturday as the White House worked to get stalled negotiations with Iran back on course.

Vance is scheduled to meet Sunday with Iran’s parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and central bank and oil officials. Mediators from Pakistan and Qatar have also traveled to Switzerland to participate in the discussions.

The goal of the technical-level talks is to work out the finer details of a preliminary agreement signed earlier this week by President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, which is designed to halt nearly four months of war between the two countries.

The talks nearly fell apart before they began. Vance had originally been set to meet with senior Iranian officials on Friday at a mountainside resort in the small Swiss village of Obbürgen, but Iranian officials initially pulled out due to escalating conflict between Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

However, U.S. and Qatari negotiators — with assistance from Iran — brokered an arrangement to reduce the active fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, according to U.S. and regional officials who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to comment publicly. Following that development, Iran’s state media announced Saturday that its top officials would make the trip to Switzerland after all.

Earlier in the day, Iran announced it had closed the Strait of Hormuz, citing what it called a U.S. failure to uphold its commitments under the interim deal by not ending the war. Iran also warned that while its team was heading to Switzerland, progress in the talks would be unlikely unless the fighting stopped.

President Trump responded by threatening to impose American tolls on the strategically vital waterway if a final deal with Iran is not reached within 60 days. In a social media post, Trump said the money would go toward “services rendered as the Guardian Angel to the countries of the Middle East,” while also noting the agreement currently guarantees toll-free transit for 60 days.

The U.S. pushed back on Iran’s claim about the strait. “Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz. Traffic continues to flow, and U.S. forces are monitoring the situation to ensure this remains the case,” said Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command. The military reported that 55 merchant ships moved through the strait on Saturday, carrying more than 17 million barrels of oil.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said negotiations toward a final agreement would only begin once key commitments are honored. If they are not, he warned, “the memorandum of understanding as a whole will be jeopardized.”

Vance confirmed that top negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff were already in Switzerland working through technical details ahead of the broader nuclear talks. The interim deal gives both sides 60 days to reach a nuclear agreement, though that window can be extended given the complexity of the issue.

Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi met with Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi in Tehran earlier Saturday as part of efforts to help revive the direct talks, according to officials in Islamabad who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

The interim agreement, signed earlier in the week, marked a significant milestone but left many questions open. Under the deal, the U.S. lifted its blockade of Iran’s ports and allowed Tehran to sell oil freely — terms that have drawn scrutiny from some members of Congress who have questioned whether the war was worth fighting. The deal also calls for billions of dollars of Iran’s frozen assets to be released.

Complicating the broader peace effort is the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. Neither party signed the U.S.-Iran agreement. Hezbollah and Israel entered open war two days after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28, with Hezbollah firing rockets and drones at northern Israel while Israeli forces seized large portions of southern Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to keep Israeli troops in southern Lebanon until all threats to Israel are eliminated. Hezbollah, for its part, has refused to stop its attacks unless Israel commits to a full withdrawal from Lebanon.

A new round of U.S.-backed talks between Lebanon’s government and Israel is expected to take place in Washington next week.

The United States and Iran offered starkly different versions of events Saturday regarding the Strait of Hormuz, even as high-level representatives from both countries prepared to sit down for talks in Switzerland the following day.

Iran announced earlier that it was shutting down the vital waterway and issued warnings to commercial ships to keep their distance. The announcement came amid continued fighting between Israel and Lebanon, despite a ceasefire having been declared.

According to Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, the naval arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sent warnings to ships operating near the strait, cautioning that vessels attempting to pass through could face mines or come under fire. Iranian state media also reported that maritime activity in the Persian Gulf had dropped following the announcement.

The US military flatly rejected Iran’s assertion that the strait had been closed.

“Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz,” said Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for Central Command, known as CENTCOM. “Traffic continues to flow, and US forces are monitoring the situation to ensure this remains the case.”

CENTCOM reported that 55 merchant vessels and 17 million barrels of oil moved through the strait on Saturday. The command further stated: “US forces remain present and vigilant to ensure all aspects of the agreement with Iran are adhered to, obeyed, and in full force and effect.”

The standoff over the waterway unfolded as diplomatic preparations continued ahead of the Switzerland talks. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced plans to travel there to serve as a mediator, and Qatar is also expected to be involved in the discussions.

The American delegation heading to the talks is expected to include Vice President JD Vance, Jared Kushner, and US special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, who are scheduled to meet with an Iranian delegation.

CNN reported that resolving the conflict in Lebanon is “the most important item on the Iranian delegation’s agenda” as their representatives prepare for the negotiations.

The talks are set to get underway Sunday, even as both sides continue to publicly disagree over what is happening in the Strait of Hormuz — one of the world’s most critical shipping routes for global energy supplies.

The Israel Defense Forces announced Saturday that Hezbollah launched more than 50 rockets at Israeli troops stationed in southern Lebanon during overnight hours, calling the attack a clear violation of the existing ceasefire agreement. The military also confirmed that two soldiers lost their lives in separate combat incidents and that 13 additional troops were wounded in the attacks.

The two soldiers killed were identified as Staff Sgt. Yoav Klein, 21, from Herzliya, and Staff Sgt. Nir Ben Ari, 21, from Kerem Maharal.

Klein served in Battalion 52 of the 401st “Iron Tracks” Brigade and died in the same incident that also claimed the life of Battalion 52 commander Lt. Col. Dor Gedalia Ben Shimhon and two other soldiers whose identities have not yet been cleared for release.

Ben Ari was a member of the Maglan Unit within the Commando Brigade. He was killed in a separate incident that left 13 fellow soldiers injured. According to reports, he was just nine days away from his 22nd birthday and had been expected to begin discharge leave later this month.

Channel 12 reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz directed the IDF to stand down from launching further strikes in Lebanon, a decision reached after consultations and coordination with the United States. The order does not include a withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, where troops are expected to remain deployed.

A senior IDF officer stated that Israeli forces continue to operate along what is known as the “yellow line” and remain active in the Nabatieh sector. The officer noted that dozens of Hezbollah fighters are surrounded in that area, which the military described as a significant hub of Hezbollah operations.

Overnight military operations targeted Hezbollah rocket launch sites, weapons depots, and command infrastructure, the IDF said.

Prime Minister Netanyahu reaffirmed Israel’s commitment to maintaining its military presence in southern Lebanon. A senior official speaking on behalf of the Prime Minister’s Office said Netanyahu made clear that Israel will stay in southern Lebanon “for as long as necessary to defend its northern border.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy confirmed on Saturday that Ukrainian drones had targeted an oil refinery deep inside Russia, striking a facility in the Tyumen Region of western Siberia — more than 2,000 kilometers, or roughly 1,200 miles, from Ukraine’s border.

In his nightly video address to the nation, Zelenskiy praised the Ukrainian military’s special operations forces, saying they “have reached Tyumen Region in Russia, including an oil refining facility. More than 2,000 km from our state border. This is effective work.”

The Tyumen Region’s governor, Alexander Moor, had earlier stated that Russian air defense systems pushed back the drone assault on the refinery. According to his preliminary assessment, the facility suffered no damage, and workers were safely evacuated.

The Tyumen refinery is considered one of Russia’s most advanced and capable facilities, with a nominal processing capacity of approximately 8 million metric tons of oil each year. Industry estimates indicate it processes around 6 million tons of crude annually, yielding roughly 0.5 million tons of gasoline and 2.5 million tons of diesel fuel.

Ukraine has been carrying out a sustained campaign of medium and long-range drone strikes against Russian targets for several months, with a particular focus on the country’s oil sector. The strategy is aimed at cutting off a key source of revenue that Moscow uses to finance its ongoing war effort.

Zelenskiy also announced that newly upgraded long-range drones had been successfully used in operations. “They can now reach targets at a distance of 3,000 km,” he said, adding, “These are entirely justified responses to Russian strikes against our state. Ukraine’s plan of long-range operations is being implemented.”

Scottish counter-terrorism officials have launched an investigation into a series of violent incidents that unfolded across Edinburgh on Friday evening, according to a statement released by police on Saturday.

Five men were injured during the attacks, and a 36-year-old white Scottish man was arrested in connection with a sequence of threats, robbery, and vandalism. Three of the victims needed to be taken to the hospital, though authorities confirmed their injuries were not life-threatening.

Officers on the ground confronted and apprehended the suspect at approximately 9:30 p.m. local time, which was 8:30 p.m. GMT.

Assistant Chief Constable Catriona Paton spoke out strongly against the violence, stating, “I want to send a clear message of support to all our communities that there is no place for racism or faith-based hate in a Scotland which is at its best when we stand together.”

The suspect remains behind bars as the investigation continues, police confirmed.

Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city, on Saturday to honor the memory of 16 people who died in 2024 when a railway station awning gave way — and to push for snap general elections.

The tragedy sparked student-led protests that at times turned violent and spread throughout the country, putting serious pressure on the 13-year hold that populist leader Aleksandar Vucic and his Serbian Progressive Party have maintained on power.

Those taking part in the demonstrations, along with opposition figures and human rights organizations, argue that the station collapse was a symptom of widespread government corruption and poor oversight of construction projects.

Despite temperatures hovering around 30 degrees Celsius — roughly 86 degrees Fahrenheit — crowds filled the streets of Novi Sad, chanting “Victory” and directing their frustration at Vucic and his party. Many protesters wore t-shirts and carried banners with the message “Students are winning.”

Organizers from the student movement say their goal is to take on Vucic and the Serbian Progressive Party in upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections, both currently scheduled for 2027. Vucic himself has suggested he could call those elections sooner.

Sanja Belic, a university professor from Novi Sad who addressed the crowd, put it plainly: “Without free and fair elections, everything else is empty words.”

The protesters and rights groups have also leveled accusations at Vucic and government officials of manipulating elections, using violence against political opponents, suppressing press freedom, corruption, and connections to organized crime. Vucic and those aligned with him have denied all of these claims.

“We must stand up, express our will, and win; we have no other choice,” said Goran Sajin, a protester in his 50s who joined the Novi Sad rally.

While the demonstration was underway, Vucic appeared in a live television broadcast and announced that his own supporters would hold a counter-rally on June 27. “I invite them not to show anger towards anyone … but to gather under the Serbian flag,” he said.

Serbia is currently a candidate for European Union membership, but is required to make significant improvements in areas including judicial independence, conditions for free and fair elections, and fighting corruption and organized crime. The country also must bring its foreign policy in line with EU positions, which includes imposing sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

PARIS — French authorities announced Saturday that drinking alcohol in public will be prohibited during the country’s annual Fete de la Musique music festival celebrations on June 21 in any administrative districts placed under a red heatwave alert starting at noon Sunday.

The announcement came after Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu convened an emergency crisis meeting to address the dangerous heat conditions spreading across the country.

“Prefects will issue decrees banning alcohol consumption in public spaces in the departments under red alert,” a statement from the Prime Minister’s office said.

The statement also noted that government-organized events would be required to go alcohol-free: “For all events organised by the state and its agencies, instructions have been given not to offer alcohol.”

France’s national weather agency, Meteo France, painted a concerning picture of conditions ahead, stating in its Saturday update that “very high temperatures are settling in for the long term across the country.” The agency formally issued a red heatwave warning covering 35 departments for Sunday, a list that includes the capital city of Paris.

BARCELONA, Spain — A Spanish judge has ruled that Begoña Gómez, the wife of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, must stand trial on charges of influence peddling and corruption, and must hand over her passport to authorities.

Investigative judge Juan Carlos Peinado issued the order on Saturday, citing concerns that Gómez posed a flight risk. Beyond surrendering her passport, she is also required to check in with a court every two weeks. No trial date has been scheduled yet.

The ruling immediately sparked a fierce political firestorm in Spain, with opposition leaders demanding that Sánchez’s Socialist government resign.

Prosecutors allege that Gómez used her status as the prime minister’s wife to steer government contracts toward a group of technology companies. Judge Peinado also accused her of misusing public funds in connection with hiring a consultant, and of improperly using software during her time as a professor at a public university.

Gómez has maintained her innocence throughout the proceedings. Sánchez has characterized the case as a politically motivated smear campaign orchestrated by conservative rivals intent on bringing down his left-wing government, which has held power since 2018.

Judge Peinado ruled that a businessman who allegedly benefited from the government contracts, as well as the consultant who worked with Gómez, will also face trial.

Sánchez, who has been a vocal critic of U.S. President Donald Trump, is navigating legal challenges on several fronts as Spain heads toward a general election expected by next year.

Earlier this week, former Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero appeared before a separate judge regarding his alleged involvement in a government airline bailout and to address the discovery of expensive jewelry found during a police search of his office. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Government officials were quick to denounce Saturday’s ruling as politically driven. The Socialist Party released a sharp statement calling the decision “an absolute scandal for democracy.”

“Begoña Gómez is innocent,” the party declared. “For two years now, she has been the target of a political and judicial witch hunt. Today’s development is just the latest escalation.”

Spain’s conservative opposition took the opposite stance, pushing for the government to call an early election. Miguel Tellado, secretary-general of the main opposition People’s Party, offered a pointed rebuke.

“Lawmakers and the architects of our constitution could never have imagined that the threats to our democracy could originate from the Spanish government itself,” Tellado said. “Now we see how the government attacks judges, prosecutors and the media while attempting to silence opposition parties. This is unthinkable in any modern democracy.”

The investigation into Gómez, which has been ongoing for two years, was set in motion after accusations were brought by the pressure group Manos Limpias — meaning Clean Hands — an organization that has pursued numerous legal cases, many of them tied to conservative causes.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military pushed back Saturday against claims by Iran that the Strait of Hormuz had been closed, asserting that the strategically important waterway is still open and that American forces are keeping a close watch on it.

“Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz,” said Navy Captain Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, in a statement to Reuters. “Traffic continues to flow, and U.S. forces are monitoring the situation to ensure this remains the case.”

Earlier Saturday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced that the Strait of Hormuz was closed and issued warnings for ships to stay away from the waterway. The declaration raised fresh concerns about the stability of a ceasefire deal between the United States and Iran — an agreement that had been intended to open the door to broader peace negotiations.

KYIV — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced Saturday that he has sent back a high-level state honor to Poland’s president, just one day after the award was officially revoked amid a dispute rooted in World War Two history.

Polish President Karol Nawrocki made the decision Friday to take back the medal he had presented to Zelenskiy in 2023. The move came after Zelenskiy renamed a Ukrainian military unit in honor of WWII-era Ukrainian insurgents who have been accused of carrying out massacres of Polish civilians.

Writing on the social media platform X, Zelenskiy explained his reasoning for returning the decoration. “We believed that the Order of the White Eagle, awarded in 2023, was meant for the Ukrainian People and our army. That is what was said at the time,” he wrote. “Today, I sent the Order back to the President of Poland.”

Zelenskiy also shared a photograph showing the medal being placed in a box and dispatched to the Polish president’s office.

Despite the tension, Zelenskiy expressed appreciation for Poland’s ongoing backing of Ukraine and said his country would “remain open to all meaningful formats of engagement with Poland in order to try to avoid conflicting interpretations of the difficult and painful chapters of our shared past.”

The fallout extended beyond Zelenskiy himself. His chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, announced he was giving back his own Polish honor — the Golden Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, which he had received last year. Budanov described Nawrocki’s original decision to revoke Zelenskiy’s award as “a gift” for Russia.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha had already weighed in before Zelenskiy’s announcement, calling Nawrocki’s move “a strategic error” and asserting that no foreign head of state “is going to dictate our history to us.”

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who is a political opponent of Nawrocki, called on both leaders to keep their composure and avoid escalating the situation further.

When Nawrocki announced the revocation, he was careful to note the action was “not directed against the Ukrainian people” and that it did “not signify a change in the strategic direction of Polish security policy.”

Poland has been one of Ukraine’s strongest backers throughout the more than four-year conflict with Russia. However, public opinion in Poland toward Ukraine has grown increasingly complicated in recent years, shaped by frustration over the large influx of Ukrainian refugees, disagreements about grain imports, and lingering wounds from the wartime massacres.

The controversy involves the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, known by its Ukrainian acronym UPA. While many Ukrainians view the UPA as patriotic fighters who resisted both Soviet and Nazi forces — and as a symbol of Ukraine’s drive for independence from Moscow — the group is also linked to the Volhynia massacres. Those killings, which took place between 1943 and 1945, resulted in the deaths of approximately 100,000 Polish civilians at the hands of Ukrainian nationalists, according to Poland. Thousands of Ukrainians also lost their lives in retaliatory violence during that same period.

The dispute over how to interpret the UPA’s legacy now threatens to deepen a diplomatic rift between two nations that have otherwise been close strategic partners during Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine.

A sharp war of words between Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and U.S. President Donald Trump continued Saturday, with Meloni firing back after Trump suggested she was trying to repair ties with Washington simply to boost her standing at home.

The feud began Friday when Meloni publicly called Trump a liar after he claimed she had “begged” him for a photo during this week’s Group of Seven summit held in France.

Trump kept the argument going Saturday, posting on his Truth Social platform — and misspelling her name as “Gigiorgia” — that “she wants to be friends again in order to get her ‘numbers up’.”

Meloni responded directly on Instagram, writing in English: “President Trump, these constant, unprovoked attacks are senseless.”

She went further, adding: “My popularity is none of your concern. I suggest you focus on yours.”

Meloni also pointed out that “being his friend has certainly not helped” her popularity. Her government, which took office in 2022, has actually seen public approval climb in recent polls to around 35% after a steady decline throughout 2025. Her Brothers of Italy party leads polling at roughly 28%, while the opposition Democratic Party sits at about 22%.

Trump, who was sworn in during January 2025, recently saw his own approval rating nudge up by one percentage point to 36%, still hovering near the lowest levels of his political career. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that growing public frustration over the cost of living had eased slightly.

Trump also renewed criticism of Italy for refusing to allow the use of American military bases on Italian soil during the war with Iran, which the U.S. and Israel launched at the end of February.

Meloni stood firm on the issue, stating: “Their use is governed by agreements that we have always respected and that cannot be violated. As long as I am prime minister, Italy remains a sovereign nation.”

Authorities in France announced Saturday that Claude Guillemot, one of the founders of the global video game company Ubisoft, was killed when a small plane went down in western France.

The aircraft, a twin-motor Cessna 421, was carrying Guillemot and a flight instructor when it crashed Friday evening near La Baule airport along the Atlantic coast. Both men were described as licensed and experienced pilots. The mayor of the area, Franck Louvrier, confirmed in a public statement that neither survived. An investigation into the cause of the crash has been launched.

The plane came down in a field just moments before it was set to land at La Baule-Escoublac Airport, according to an airport official who spoke with the Associated Press. That official requested anonymity, as they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Ubisoft issued a brief statement acknowledging Guillemot’s death but declined to offer any additional comment.

Guillemot was one of five brothers who together established Ubisoft back in 1986. The company has since grown into one of the most recognized names in gaming, producing hit titles including the Assassin’s Creed series, Just Dance, and the Rayman and Tom Clancy game franchises.

Russian authorities have freed 24 Filipino citizens who spent months behind bars without facing any charges in a Siberian city, Philippine officials announced Saturday. The breakthrough came after Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. personally brought up their situation during a face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The 24 individuals were expected to land in Manila aboard two separate flights early Sunday morning. Philippine Foreign Secretary Theresa Lazaro, who had traveled with Marcos to his talks with Putin on Wednesday in the Russian city of Kazan, was set to welcome the first group of returnees, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila.

Marcos was in Kazan representing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as he currently holds the bloc’s rotating presidency. He and other leaders of the 11-nation group gathered to mark the 35th anniversary of ASEAN’s diplomatic ties with Russia. On the sidelines of that summit, Marcos held a one-on-one meeting with Putin.

The speed of the release drew attention, coming just days after Marcos raised the issue on Wednesday. The Philippines is a close treaty ally of the United States in Asia and was among the majority of ASEAN nations that backed a United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Singapore was the sole ASEAN member to impose sanctions on Russia, and Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong also attended the Kazan summit.

Speaking to reporters following his meeting with Putin, Marcos said he had expressed concern about the Filipinos, who had been held for roughly nine months in the city of Irkutsk in southeastern Siberia with no charges filed against them. He noted that the Philippines had little information about their well-being.

Philippine officials said there were reports suggesting the detained individuals may have been lured by illegal job recruiters and then detained in Russia over possible immigration violations.

Putin told Marcos he had not been aware of the situation but pledged to look into it. Later that evening over dinner, the Russian leader informed Marcos that the Filipinos had not been found guilty of any wrongdoing. Marcos recalled Putin saying, “Don’t worry, we will find a way to fix this problem.” Shortly after, Russian officials notified the Philippine delegation that the Filipinos would be deported and sent back to Manila right away.

According to Philippine Ambassador to Moscow Igor Bailen, approximately 15,000 Filipinos currently live and work throughout Russia.

LA PAZ, Bolivia — Bolivia’s President Rodrigo Paz declared a state of emergency on Saturday, granting the country’s military sweeping authority to dismantle road blockades that have strangled fuel and food deliveries to the capital city of La Paz and other major urban centers.

The crisis has been building for five weeks, with protesters demanding Paz resign over government-imposed austerity measures — chief among them the elimination of long-standing fuel subsidies. The unrest has sparked violent clashes between demonstrators armed with dynamite and riot police, resulting in at least 365 arrests and 37 injuries, according to official figures.

At least 17 people have lost their lives, with most deaths attributed to a breakdown in medical care caused by transportation disruptions, according to Bolivia’s ombudsman’s office and human rights organizations. The government says at least seven of those deaths were directly caused by patients being unable to reach hospitals due to the blockades.

Supermarket shelves were emptied, hospitals ran out of oxygen, and businesses shuttered as the protests dragged on — prompting growing calls from parts of Bolivian society for the president to use force to restore order.

Paz addressed the nation on television to defend the emergency declaration. “This is not a state of emergency to restrict people’s lives. It is a state of emergency to give people back their freedom,” he said.

On Friday evening, Paz reached an agreement with one labor union whose leaders called for the blockades to be removed. However, other protest groups have refused to come to the table and are continuing to demand his resignation.

The emergency decree bans “blocking streets, avenues, roads and highways in ways that affect transportation and supplies” and directs the armed forces to temporarily assist police “in restoring order, reopening roads and protecting the population.” According to the government, the decree does not suspend due process rights or constitutional protections, and residents are still permitted to go about their normal daily lives.

The state of emergency is set to remain in effect for 90 days, though the government indicated it could be lifted sooner if “violence and threats against the population come to an end.”

Paz took office in November, ending nearly two decades of continuous rule by Bolivia’s Movement Toward Socialism party, known as MAS, which had presided over the country’s most severe economic crisis in a generation. A centrist who defeated more conservative opponents, Paz had pledged to fix chronic fuel shortages and rebuild the central bank’s depleted reserves while preserving the social welfare programs that had been a cornerstone of MAS’s support.

However, his austerity policies — particularly the removal of fuel subsidies — have worsened inflation. While his administration did address fuel shortages, the replacement fuel was of poor quality and reportedly damaged thousands of vehicles. Economic reform legislation aimed at attracting foreign investment has stalled in Congress.

Indigenous highland communities and rural workers’ groups, who had previously backed MAS but helped bring Paz to power last year, have been at the forefront of the protests. They accuse his administration of ignoring their concerns since taking office.

Paz is now caught between pressure from Bolivia’s hard-right, which holds power in Congress, and the entrenched political left. Former President Evo Morales has thrown his support behind the protests and is calling for a new election from a hideout in the coca-growing tropical region, where he is hiding from an arrest warrant on charges related to statutory rape.

The Trump administration has expressed support for Paz, who restored diplomatic ties with the United States after years of anti-Western sentiment under Morales. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio contacted Paz last week to say Washington was “ramping up emergency assistance and logistics operations support” to help address the shortages created by the blockades.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth condemned the protests as “attempts to overthrow the legitimate government” and issued a warning to those he described as “profiting on death and destruction in our hemisphere.” “The United States is watching,” Hegseth wrote on X.

MILAN — Fashion house Dolce & Gabbana brought the spirit of a Mediterranean getaway to Milan Fashion Week on Saturday, unveiling a menswear collection crafted for scorching summer temperatures and leisurely seaside escapes.

Designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana set the scene with a video projection of a rocky coastline bathed in sunset light. Models moved through a runway space framed by columns evoking a sun-drenched Mediterranean terrace, dressed in everything from swimwear to flowing silk pajamas.

As the collection’s narrative shifted from dawn to day, the clothing followed suit — laser-cut suits, tunics, and relaxed trousers took center stage, all engineered to keep wearers cool while moving seamlessly from a city workweek to a weekend by the water. A standout piece among the accessories was a generously sized travel bag crafted from leather, suede, and raffia.

The looks celebrated the male form with short shorts highlighting muscular legs and open-knit tops that showed off the torso. Suit jackets arrived with distinctive upright lapels and creative details on the back, including panels that could be unbuttoned to let in a breeze.

The brand’s signature attention to craft was on full display in woven leather jackets, a texture that carried through to the footwear as well.

True to the label’s aesthetic, the collection leaned into bold embellishments — rhinestones adorned denim pieces, while more refined coral beading appeared on suits, shirts, and trousers. Religious imagery also wove through the lineup, with cross necklaces styled to resemble rosaries and icon-inspired prints featured on T-shirts.

The show concluded with a procession of models dressed entirely in white, delivering a clean, unmistakably summery finale.

Watching from the front row were Polish soccer star Robert Lewandowski, two-time NBA champion Kawhi Leonard, Italian actor Michele Morrone — known for Netflix’s “365 Days” — and K-pop artist Soobin.

Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, voted Wednesday to grant procedural immunity to Likud lawmaker Tally Gotliv, temporarily halting a criminal indictment that accused her of publicly revealing the identity of a Shin Bet intelligence officer. The vote came two days after the Knesset House Committee recommended approving her immunity request, and it has sparked a broader national debate over how far parliamentary protections can legally extend into matters of national security.

Following days of intense committee hearings, lawmakers approved immunity on two separate legal grounds: that Gotliv’s alleged actions occurred in the course of carrying out her parliamentary duties, and that the indictment was filed in bad faith or applied in a discriminatory manner against her.

The case traces back to social media posts attributed to Gotliv in January 2024. Prosecutors allege she identified the partner of protest leader Shikma Bressler as a Shin Bet employee and connected him to claims surrounding the October 7 attacks. Both the Shin Bet and other security officials have disputed those claims. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has maintained that the disclosure posed a serious threat to national security and is not protected under the immunity provisions available to members of Knesset.

Gotliv has consistently framed the case not as a narrow legal matter but as part of a larger political struggle over October 7, the behavior of the security establishment, and what she describes as the weaponization of legal power against right-wing lawmakers.

Israeli law provides two distinct types of parliamentary immunity. Substantive immunity permanently shields acts and statements made in the course of parliamentary work. Procedural immunity, by contrast, is temporary — it can block an indictment from being filed during a lawmaker’s term if the Knesset approves it, but it does not erase the underlying allegations or amount to an acquittal.

Speaking with The Media Line ahead of the full Knesset vote, Gotliv argued that immunity exists to protect lawmakers from pressure by state officials, not to serve as a personal privilege. “It allows a member of Knesset to do his work faithfully,” she said. “A member of Knesset is not above the law,” she added, saying the law grants immunity specifically to allow lawmakers to carry out their responsibilities.

She also accused Attorney General Baharav-Miara of selectively targeting right-wing lawmakers while failing to pursue journalists and public figures she said had violated confidentiality or privacy obligations. “Whether it is a violation of an order, for example, or the exposure of things that must be exposed, the purpose is to bring the public things the public must know,” Gotliv said. “That is exactly why immunity was created.”

The full Knesset vote broke almost entirely along coalition and opposition lines. Only Likud lawmaker Yuli Edelstein crossed party lines, publicly cautioning that the precedent set by the vote could be exploited in future cases involving the exposure of intelligence personnel.

Yesh Atid lawmaker Merav Ben Ari, who voted against immunity in committee, told The Media Line the outcome was never in doubt. “Formally, it is over for now from the Knesset’s side,” she said. “Once immunity is left in place for a member of Knesset, it means that person is protected from prosecution as long as he or she is a member of Knesset.”

Ben Ari acknowledged that parliamentary immunity serves a legitimate purpose in principle — particularly in cases involving speech, protest activity, or legitimate parliamentary confrontations — but said Gotliv’s situation falls well outside those boundaries. “In the end, she crossed a security line,” Ben Ari said. “She exposed the name of a Shin Bet person, and by doing so, she endangered him and his family.”

Ben Ari drew a comparison to a past immunity case involving former lawmaker Basel Ghattas, who was accused of smuggling phones to security prisoners, saying that case was clearer because the conduct was obviously outside protected parliamentary activity. She concluded that lawmakers should not be the ones deciding whether their colleagues receive immunity. “This whole issue of immunity should not be in the hands of members of Knesset,” she said, adding that she plans to pursue legislation that would shift such decisions to a more balanced and professional body.

“In this case, she used her political power, her connections in the coalition, and her friends to get immunity,” Ben Ari said. She was sharper still when asked what the public should take from the coalition’s vote. “It means there is a coalition here that legitimizes and gives protection to offenders,” she said. “Tally Gotliv was supposed to go to a police investigation. She did not go. She used her immunity.”

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, which opposed Gotliv’s immunity request and has moved toward legal action, argues the problem is more fundamental. Attorney Yael Bloch, director of the organization’s litigation department, told The Media Line that none of the legal grounds for immunity apply in this case. “There is no legal basis to grant immunity,” Bloch said. “None of the grounds set out in the law exists here.”

Bloch explained that under Israeli case law, immunity can cover situations where a lawmaker carrying out legitimate parliamentary work inadvertently crosses into unlawful conduct — such as a defamatory remark during a heated debate. She said Gotliv’s case is categorically different. “This was not a slip,” Bloch said. “It was not spontaneous. It was not by mistake.” She said the posts were planned, repeated, and continued even after warnings that the disclosure could endanger security personnel. “A member of Knesset is not allowed to plan in advance to break the law and then say immunity protects him,” Bloch said.

Bloch also dismissed Gotliv’s selective enforcement argument, saying no evidence was presented that the indictment was filed in bad faith or due to discrimination. “The decision is unreasonable, illegal, and illogical,” Bloch said. “It is not based on the grounds that appear in the law.” She said the High Court of Justice has the authority to overturn it: “The court can cancel the decision and say it was illegal because it was not based on the legal grounds set out in the law.”

The legal fight is already underway. Following the Knesset’s vote, the Shin Bet officer whose identity was allegedly exposed filed a petition with the High Court of Justice challenging the decision. His lawyer, Idan Seger, had previously warned the House Committee that granting immunity would send a dangerous signal to those serving in Israel’s intelligence and security services. In a letter to the committee, Seger argued that Gotliv’s posts were not a spontaneous political statement but a deliberate and repeated disclosure of confidential information that stretched immunity doctrine beyond what the law and Supreme Court precedent allow.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid, who oversaw the Shin Bet during his time as prime minister, responded to the vote with a pointed statement. “This was not a vote for Tally Gotliv,” Lapid wrote. “It was a vote against the Shin Bet.” He said undercover intelligence personnel would now have to wonder what protection they can expect if their identities are exposed in a political dispute. “Tally Gotliv received immunity,” Lapid added. “The Shin Bet had its secrecy removed.”

The case has also drawn attention to broader questions about Israel’s system of checks and balances. Bloch noted that international observers sometimes misunderstand Israel’s governmental structure by comparing it to systems with a firm separation of powers. “Formally, Israel has three branches,” she said, “but the government controls the Knesset through the coalition majority.” In that context, she argued, the judiciary and legal gatekeepers take on an especially critical role. “There are not really three fully separate branches,” Bloch said. “There are, in many ways, two, and the judicial system is the one they are constantly trying to weaken.”

Gotliv’s supporters reject that framing, arguing instead that legal gatekeepers have accumulated too much power and that elected officials need tools to resist interference from unelected officials. For coalition members, Gotliv’s publications were part of a legitimate political and public campaign over unresolved questions from October 7 — not a private act disconnected from her role as a lawmaker.

The immunity Gotliv has won inside the Knesset is not permanent and is not beyond legal challenge. If the High Court overturns the decision, the attorney general could move forward with the indictment during the current parliamentary term. If the court leaves the decision intact, the criminal case will remain on hold until this Knesset concludes, unless circumstances change. Should a new Knesset be elected and Gotliv return as a lawmaker, the attorney general could seek to revive the case.

Israel’s immunity law was designed to shield lawmakers from intimidation and preserve parliament’s independence. The Gotliv case has now forced the country to confront a harder question: what happens when the Knesset itself decides that the protections meant to defend parliamentary work also apply to an alleged breach of security secrecy?

Israel and Hezbollah reached an agreement Friday to restore a ceasefire in Lebanon, even as US officials scrambled to keep escalating violence from undermining ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran.

A senior White House official told Sky News Arabia that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed “100%” to renewing the ceasefire. A separate senior Israeli official told Walla that the terms were simple: “If Hezbollah does not attack, Israel will not attack.”

The ceasefire came after a tense day of diplomacy. Iran had demanded guarantees about the situation in Lebanon before it would return to the negotiating table with the United States.

CNN, citing a source with knowledge of the discussions, reported that Washington sent word to Tehran that Israel had no plans to expand its military operations. That source told CNN: “Hezbollah violated the ceasefire. Israel agreed to absorb it, and that message was conveyed to the Iranians. Now it is up to Hezbollah to stop.”

The diplomatic push followed a deadly confrontation in southern Lebanon. The Israel Defense Forces announced that Battalion 52 commander Lt. Col. Dor Ben Shimhon was killed in combat. Three other soldiers also died in the same incident, though their names had not yet been cleared for release.

IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said a Battalion 52 tank was struck overnight Friday. Early findings suggest the vehicle may have been hit by something from the air. Investigators have not ruled out an anti-tank missile, a drone, or a Hezbollah explosive device as the cause.

In response, Israel launched a sweeping military campaign against Hezbollah positions, conducting more than 150 strikes across Lebanon — hitting infrastructure in the south as well as targets further into the country.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz stated: “We will not allow harm to our soldiers or citizens, and every violation of the ceasefire by Hezbollah will be met with great force.”

The fighting also disrupted planned diplomatic activity in Switzerland. A scheduled meeting between US Vice President JD Vance and an Iranian delegation led by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf was called off.

That meeting had been set to coincide with an in-person signing ceremony following the digital signing of a memorandum of understanding by President Donald Trump and President Masoud Pezeshkian.

PARIS — Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Paris on Saturday to protest political executions in Iran, defying an official order prohibiting the gathering. Authorities arrested 20 people during the event, according to rally organizers.

The crowd assembled at Place Vauban, near the Les Invalides monument in the heart of Paris, before police moved in to break up the demonstration. Shahin Gobadi, a spokesperson for the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, or NCRI, confirmed the dispersal and the arrests.

Attempts to reach Paris police for comment were not immediately successful.

French authorities had prohibited the NCRI, an Iranian opposition organization, from holding the rally, citing concerns about possible clashes between groups with opposing viewpoints. The NCRI pushed back on that reasoning, calling it “bogus.”

The group challenged the prohibition in court, but a Paris court upheld the ban on Saturday before the rally got underway.

The original ban was issued on Thursday evening, just hours after France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot spoke by phone with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araqchi. The two officials discussed the latest efforts to bring an end to the Iran war during that call.

France’s foreign ministry denied the NCRI’s claim that the rally ban was connected to that diplomatic conversation.

The NCRI, which serves as the political wing of the People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran, has a long history of organizing large-scale demonstrations in Paris. Those events have drawn thousands of attendees over the years, including prominent former officials from the United States, Europe, and Arab nations who have been critical of Iran’s Islamic Republic.

MADRID — Spain’s highest court has ordered the government to pay 2.5 million euros — roughly $2.87 million — to a man who spent 15 years behind bars for crimes he did not commit, according to a ruling by the country’s Supreme Court.

Ahmed Tommouhi, a 75-year-old bricklayer from Morocco, relocated to Spain in 1991 hoping to build a better life. That same year, he was convicted of two rapes and one count of robbery in the Catalonia region of northeastern Spain and sentenced to 24 years in prison.

After a lengthy fight to clear his name — during which one of the victims came forward and stated that Tommouhi was not her attacker — he was finally exonerated of the last remaining charge against him this past December.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Tommouhi expressed the lasting toll the ordeal has taken on him. “The justice system has ruined my life,” he said. He made clear that no amount of money could restore what he lost, adding, “they’ve stolen 36 years of my life.”

The Supreme Court stepped in after the National Court had previously refused to award Tommouhi any compensation, arguing that no errors had been made during his original trial. The Supreme Court disagreed, overturning that decision and declaring that Tommouhi had been the victim of an “unequivocal and qualified” judicial error during the original proceedings in Barcelona.

According to the Supreme Court, the original trial failed to take into account a biological expert analysis that demonstrated the person responsible for the rapes was not Tommouhi — a critical piece of evidence that was overlooked at the time.

Iran’s highest joint military authority, known as the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, announced Saturday that it is shutting down the Strait of Hormuz to all ship traffic. The decision was reported by Iran’s state-run Mehr news agency.

According to the announcement, the closure is being described as the “first step” taken in response to what Iran claims are violations of a ceasefire agreement by the United States and Israel. Officials warned that if what they characterized as “aggression” does not end, further measures will follow.

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Tarique Rahman is departing Sunday on his first foreign trip since assuming office, with visits to Malaysia and China on the itinerary. The six-day journey is centered on attracting overseas investment, expanding employment opportunities for Bangladeshi workers, and establishing the new government’s foreign policy direction.

Rahman is set to fly to Kuala Lumpur on Sunday afternoon for a meeting with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. He will then travel to China on Monday for a three-day official visit, extended at the invitation of Chinese Premier Li Qiang.

During the China portion of the trip, Bangladesh’s Foreign Secretary Asad Alam Siam told reporters Saturday that officials anticipate signing between 15 and 17 bilateral agreements. Siam also confirmed that the long-stalled Teesta River project would be part of the discussions.

Rahman’s schedule in China includes a meeting with Premier Li on June 25, followed by a session with President Xi Jinping on June 26. He is also expected to attend the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions — commonly referred to as the Summer Davos Forum — held in the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian. The event brings together global business and political figures to discuss economic growth, innovation, and emerging technologies.

The China visit follows the Bangladeshi government’s recent approval of a 41.89 billion taka ($340 million) infrastructure project for the Chinese Economic and Industrial Zone in Chittagong. The initiative is backed by 24.67 billion taka in concessional Chinese loans and is projected to generate approximately 100,000 jobs while drawing more than $500 million in foreign direct investment in its first phase.

In Malaysia, talks are expected to center on labor migration, the hiring of Bangladeshi workers, and broader economic cooperation. Malaysia is one of the top destinations for Bangladeshi migrant workers, and the money those workers send home represents a vital source of foreign currency for Bangladesh.

The trip also carries significant diplomatic weight. Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was removed from power during a mass uprising in 2024 and has since been residing in India, was widely regarded as having closer ties to New Delhi, though she also maintained a relationship with China and secured major Chinese-backed infrastructure deals during her tenure.

Relations between Bangladesh and India have shown some improvement since Rahman’s government took office in February, but friction remains — particularly over border tensions and alleged push-ins of migrants across the shared frontier.

Asif Shahan, a professor of development studies at the University of Dhaka, offered context on the diplomatic significance of the visits. “Although ties with India have improved somewhat, tensions persist, notably over border issues. Strengthening relations with China reflects Dhaka’s broader effort to balance its external partnerships,” he said.

Shahan added: “The visits are as much economic as diplomatic. China is crucial for investment, while Malaysia remains key for overseas employment — both align with the government’s economic priorities.”

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian guided bombs tore into an apartment building in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, early Saturday morning, leaving at least one person dead and nine others injured, including a 6-year-old child, according to local officials.

Rescue workers pulled a body from the wreckage several hours after the strike, Mayor Ihor Terekhov reported via Telegram. He said the bombs hit the low-rise residential building in Kharkiv’s Kholodnohirskiy district in the early morning hours.

The head of the regional administration, Oleh Syniehubov, confirmed that nine people were hurt in the attack, with five of them requiring hospitalization.

Syniehubov also reported a separate incident in Kharkiv from Friday evening, when a Russian drone hit a civilian vehicle, fatally striking a man and wounding the woman who was driving.

Russian officials did not immediately respond to or acknowledge either attack.

Ukraine’s air force reported that it successfully intercepted 92 out of 99 Russian drones launched during the overnight period, with the remaining seven reaching targets across three locations.

On the Russian side, Gov. Alexander Moor said Saturday that Russian air defenses turned back a Ukrainian drone attack aimed at an oil refinery in Tyumen, located in Western Siberia. He said the facility suffered no damage and that workers were safely evacuated.

Ukraine has made a consistent effort to strike Russian oil infrastructure as a strategy to reduce Moscow’s war funding and bring the impact of the conflict home to the Russian population. Fuel shortages have been reported in some areas as a result.

In one of the largest drone offensives since Russia launched its full-scale invasion more than four years ago, Ukraine struck a major oil refinery near Moscow for the second time in a single week on Thursday, generating massive clouds of black smoke visible over the capital and causing disruptions to hundreds of flights.

Russia’s Defense Ministry stated Saturday that its forces shot down 177 Ukrainian drones overnight, though it did not specify how many managed to reach their intended targets. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said two drones were brought down as they approached the capital.

A Spanish judge has determined that Begoña Gomez, the wife of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, must stand trial on corruption charges, according to a ruling issued Saturday.

Gomez faces allegations that she leveraged her position as the prime minister’s wife to steer work contracts in her favor. She has denied any wrongdoing. The legal action was originally brought forward by far-right groups.

Investigating judge Juan Carlos Peinado issued orders requiring Gomez to hand over her passport, prohibited her from leaving Spain, and mandated that she appear before the court two times each month.

This case is among several corruption investigations that are either approaching or already at the trial stage, all of which are creating political pressure for Sanchez, who is considered one of the last remaining left-leaning leaders in Europe. Sanchez himself has not been named in any of the cases and has publicly stated that the investigations are part of a coordinated effort to push him out of office.

A number of Sanchez’s close political allies are also under scrutiny. These include the Socialist party’s third-ranking official and Sanchez’s former transport minister, both of whom face allegations tied to kickbacks connected to public works, oil and gas deals, and the purchase of masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. All deny any wrongdoing.

In a separate development, Spain’s High Court announced it is investigating former Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on allegations that he led a network that profited by lobbying government authorities on behalf of outside clients, including the airline Plus Ultra. Zapatero has denied the allegations.

LONDON — Nine people are still fighting for their lives following a deadly train collision that occurred Friday near Bedford, a town approximately 60 miles north of London, where the driver of one of the trains was killed.

The crash happened at roughly 5:15 p.m. local time on Friday, when two passenger trains — both heading toward London — struck each other. The driver of one of the trains did not survive, dying at the scene of the collision.

On Saturday, British Transport Police Chief Constable Lucy D’Orsi provided an update on the victims. She confirmed that more than 80 people had been taken to hospitals Friday night.

“As of this morning, 28 remain in hospital, and nine are in a critical condition,” D’Orsi said, adding that investigators are actively working to determine the cause of the accident.

Video footage shared on social media by a passenger aboard one of the trains showed what appeared to be the crumpled front end of one train locked into the rear of the other, though the rail cars themselves remained upright.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer took to social media platform X to call the event a “devastating incident.”

Buckingham Palace also released a statement on behalf of King Charles, saying: “His Majesty is greatly saddened by the rail crash in Bedford yesterday evening and is being kept regularly updated on developments. His thoughts and sympathies are with the family of the deceased and with all those injured or affected by such a tragic incident.”

LONDON (AP) — A collision between two passenger trains in central England turned deadly Friday afternoon, killing the driver of one locomotive and leaving nine people in critical condition, according to police.

British Transport Police Chief Constable Lucy D’Orsi reported that more than 80 people required hospital treatment following the crash. By Saturday, 28 of those victims were still receiving hospital care.

The crash drew a response from the royal family, with Buckingham Palace releasing a statement saying King Charles III “is greatly saddened” by the incident. The palace added that “his thoughts and sympathies are with the family of the deceased and with all those injured or affected by such a tragic incident.”

Investigators are now working to determine why a commuter train heading toward London’s St. Pancras Station rear-ended another train traveling to the same destination on Friday afternoon.

Images and footage shared on social media captured dozens of passengers — some bandaged and others appearing unharmed — gathered near emergency vehicles lined up alongside the train tracks.

Passenger Peter Knapp described being violently thrown forward by the force of the impact, then witnessing fellow riders suffering broken bones and serious bleeding.

“People were crying, screaming. People were so scared and confused,” Knapp said. “I got up and I saw a lot of people who were unable to speak, had broken legs.”

A second passenger, Brett Byatt, spoke with the BBC about the severity of the scene inside his train car. “Only three to four of us were uninjured in a full carriage,” he said. “Everyone else had either a serious wound that was bleeding profusely, or a situation where they couldn’t stand, or couldn’t move their neck, or I saw a woman’s snapped leg.”

Britain’s rail network has long been considered among the safest in the world. The country’s last fatal multi-train crash prior to this one occurred in Wales in October 2024 — itself the first such deadly collision in more than 25 years.

Authorities in Germany are investigating a deadly overnight collision between two freight trains on a railway bridge in the city of Munich, officials announced Saturday.

The impact sent two rail wagons tumbling off the bridge and crashing onto the road below, a fall of roughly 5 meters — about 16 feet — according to the German news agency dpa. One person died as a result of the crash, though the victim has not been publicly identified.

The cause of the collision remains under investigation, and no explanation has been provided yet by officials.

Munich police closed off the street running beneath the bridge and asked drivers to steer clear of the area as crews worked to recover and clear the wreckage. Authorities say the derailed wagons were empty at the time of the crash, meaning there was no danger to the surrounding public.

No other injuries were reported in connection with the incident.

NEW DELHI — Hundreds of students and young activists affiliated with India’s rapidly growing Cockroach Janta Party gathered near Parliament in New Delhi on Saturday, clanging steel plates with spoons in a demonstration calling for the ouster of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

The protest added to mounting pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, with demonstrators citing a pattern of examination irregularities and repeated leaks of test papers. Authorities responded by deploying heavy security personnel, while police used cameras and drones to keep watch over the crowd.

Protesters held up signs and made their voices heard through the noise of banging cookware, all united behind a single demand: Pradhan’s resignation.

“This is just the beginning. If Dharmendra Pradhan doesn’t resign or if no action is taken regarding this issue, this protest will not end here,” said CJP supporter Deepak Kumar.

At the heart of the demonstrations is outrage over a leaked exam paper for a major nationwide medical program. The test paper was distributed last month through the social media messaging platform Telegram. In response, authorities postponed the exam and temporarily blocked access to Telegram across India. The exam is now set to take place on Sunday, and the government has stated the leak is currently under investigation.

For many students, the issue is deeply personal. “We study in poverty, live in poverty for 24 hours everyday, for years at length, and after that our (exam) papers get leaked. Will I not get angry at this?” said student Vicky Kumar.

The Cockroach Janta Party itself was born out of controversy in May, when a Supreme Court judge named Surya Kant sparked widespread anger by comparing unemployed young people to “cockroaches.” Rather than taking offense, supporters reclaimed the insult as a badge of toughness and resilience. That decision helped the group build an audience of more than 22 million followers on Instagram.

Since then, the movement’s focus has broadened beyond the original remarks, now encompassing concerns about joblessness, the rising cost of living, and holding the government accountable. The CJP blends sharp political criticism with self-deprecating humor, with members jokingly describing themselves as unemployed and perpetually online. Videos and memes poking fun at corruption, unemployment, and political dysfunction have racked up millions of views, and numerous parody accounts have also adopted the cockroach as a satirical symbol of political commentary.

At least 15 migrants, among them a young girl, have been found dead along Libya’s eastern Mediterranean coastline over the course of the past week, following what is believed to have been a boat capsizing. Security, navy, and medical sources shared the information with Reuters on Saturday.

According to a navy source, 10 survivors reported that the vessel had approximately 61 people aboard when it went down.

The bodies were discovered at multiple locations along the shoreline near Tobruk, a city situated close to the Egyptian border. Two security officials noted that the remains were in an advanced state of decomposition and cautioned that additional victims may still be found along the coast.

The Tobruk Red Crescent posted images on Facebook showing volunteers dressed in white hazmat suits carefully retrieving bodies from rocky stretches of shoreline and placing them into white plastic bags.

Libya has served as a major transit point for migrants attempting to reach Europe ever since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi during a NATO-backed uprising in 2011. Desperate individuals fleeing poverty and conflict have since risked their lives crossing vast desert terrain and the treacherous waters of the Mediterranean.

Libya’s oil-dependent economy also draws migrants from impoverished regions who are searching for employment opportunities.

In a separate incident, the Emergency Medicine and Support Centre in Khumas city — which operates under the health ministry based in the capital, Tripoli — reported that its medical staff treated 13 migrants following another boat capsizing off the coast.

Switzerland’s foreign ministry announced Saturday that negotiations between the United States and Iran are continuing at the Bürgenstock resort, with Swiss officials describing the venue as a “discreet and reliable setting” for the sensitive diplomatic talks.

The ministry confirmed it is playing a facilitating role in efforts to implement a memorandum of understanding between the two nations, but stopped short of providing any additional details about who is at the table or what specific issues are being addressed.

In a formal statement, Swiss officials cited confidentiality as the reason for withholding information about the participants and the substance of the ongoing discussions.

SAO PAULO — The Brazilian government believes a hacking attack was responsible for an unauthorized emergency alert that was pushed to cell phones across several parts of the country in the early hours of Saturday morning.

According to a statement from the National Protection and Civil Defense Secretariat, the nation’s citizen notification system was taken offline at approximately 1:30 a.m. local time — 4:30 a.m. GMT — after a message containing the word “misanthropy,” which means hatred of humanity, was delivered to users across multiple states.

Officials said the alert was triggered remotely without authorization. The case has been turned over to Brazil’s Federal Police for a full investigation, and authorities say the notification system will be brought back online as soon as it is safe to do so.

Russian air defense systems successfully intercepted a drone targeting an oil refinery in the Western Siberian region of Tyumen on Saturday, the area’s top official announced.

Governor Alexander Moor shared the update via Telegram, stating: “A drone attack on the Tyumen oil refinery has been repelled. Emergency services are working at the site where the debris fell. According to preliminary information, the refinery has not been damaged and staff have been evacuated.”

The Tyumen region lies more than 2,500 kilometers — roughly 1,550 miles — from the Ukrainian border, making it one of the most distant Russian energy hubs to face such an incident. The area ranks among Russia’s most vital oil and natural gas producing zones.

The targeted facility is considered one of the most advanced and complex refineries in the country, with a processing capacity of approximately 8 million metric tons per year. In practice, it handles around 6 million tons of crude oil annually, yielding roughly 0.5 million tons of gasoline and 2.5 million tons of diesel fuel, based on industry estimates.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza — Two children lost their lives in an Israeli strike on a Gaza City apartment early Saturday morning, Palestinian health officials reported.

Even with a ceasefire in place between Israel and the militant group Hamas, the Gaza Strip has experienced near-daily Israeli attacks that have collectively killed more than 1,007 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The strike hit a residential apartment in Gaza City at approximately 2 a.m. local time, the ministry said. Rescue crews were still working to recover additional bodies, and the death toll was expected to increase. No immediate figures were available for the number of injured.

An Associated Press reporter who visited the scene observed broken rubble and large pieces of concrete covered in blood.

The two victims were identified as sisters — 4-year-old Zina and 14-year-old Lana. Their bodies were taken to the morgue at Shifa Hospital, where they were wrapped in white hospital bags as family members gathered around them.

Their cousin, Mohammad Safadi, who suffered a wound to his forehead, described the moment of the attack. “I was sitting at home. The rocket fell on us without a warning,” he said, adding that both he and his wife were also injured.

Safadi questioned the validity of the ongoing ceasefire. “This ceasefire the occupation and the negotiation team speak of … is this really a ceasefire? We are civilians. I never held a weapon,” he said.

The Israeli military did not immediately release a statement but indicated it was looking into the matter. Israel has maintained that its operations target Hamas and other armed groups that pose a security threat.

Five Israeli soldiers have died since the truce went into effect.

The conflict began when Hamas-led militants launched an attack into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage. Israel’s military response in Gaza has since resulted in the deaths of 73,018 Palestinians, including those killed after the ceasefire began, the Gaza Health Ministry reported Saturday.

The Health Ministry operates under the Hamas-led government but is staffed by medical professionals who maintain detailed casualty records. United Nations agencies and independent analysts generally regard its data as reliable. The ministry does not separate civilian deaths from militant deaths, though it notes that women and children account for roughly half of all fatalities.

CAIRO — At least five people lost their lives in the Gaza Strip on Saturday as a result of Israeli strikes and gunfire, according to health officials.

An Israeli airstrike targeted an apartment building in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City, killing four Palestinians — among them two women and a child. Medics reported that the unit was completely destroyed and that several additional people suffered injuries in the attack.

In a separate incident further to the north, Israeli forces fatally shot a woman in the town of Beit Lahiya, according to medics.

The Israeli military had not issued any response to either incident at the time of reporting.

Although a ceasefire reached in October was intended to bring major hostilities between Hamas and Israel to a halt, deadly attacks have continued in the region. Gaza’s health ministry reported that more than 1,010 Palestinians have died from Israeli fire since that ceasefire took effect. During the same timeframe, four Israeli soldiers were killed by militants operating in Gaza.

Israeli officials maintain that their military operations are designed to prevent imminent threats posed by Hamas and other armed groups. Hamas, for its part, seldom releases information regarding casualties among its own fighters.

Negotiations between Israel and Hamas remain at a standstill over the next phase of a Gaza plan put forward by Trump, which calls for Hamas to disarm and for Israel to carry out military withdrawals.

WARSAW, Poland — Ukrainian officials are pushing back hard after Polish President Karol Nawrocki declared he would take back the highest honor Poland can bestow upon a foreign leader — stripping Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle.

Nawrocki made the announcement Friday, citing Zelenskyy’s decision to name a Ukrainian military unit after a paramilitary organization that has been accused of massacring Polish civilians during World War II.

The honor had originally been awarded to Zelenskyy in 2023 by former Polish President Andrzej Duda, recognizing his contributions to security, resilience, and the defense of human rights.

The controversy stems from a decree Zelenskyy signed on May 26, which officially named a unit within Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army — known by its Ukrainian acronym UPA. The UPA was active during the 1940s and 1950s and has long been a source of tension between Poland and Ukraine due to accusations of large-scale killings of Polish civilians.

In a 13-minute video address posted to social media, Nawrocki explained his reasoning. “For the majority of Polish society, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army remains above all a formation responsible for cruel crimes against the citizens of the Polish Republic during World War II,” he said. He also stressed that revoking the award would not reduce Poland’s support for Ukraine in its ongoing war against Russia.

Ukrainian officials responded sharply. Kyrylo Budanov, chief of the Ukrainian Presidential Office, wrote on Telegram that Nawrocki’s move was “an unfriendly act toward our people” and called it “a gift to the Moscow aggressor, which will certainly use it against both of our countries.”

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha described the decision as “a strategic mistake by the President of Poland, one that benefits only Moscow.”

Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland, Vasyl Bodnar, said the timing made the decision “especially painful,” given that Ukrainians are actively defending against Russian missile and drone attacks.

All three Ukrainian officials announced they would return any honors they had received from the Polish government.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who is a political rival of Nawrocki, called on both leaders to ease tensions rather than inflame them. “The front line runs elsewhere,” Tusk wrote on social media Friday night, warning that the dispute between Poland and Ukraine “delights Putin and shocks our allies.”

Zelenskyy’s May decree framed the naming decision as a way to honor military tradition and recognize the unit’s role in defending Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity.

Historically, the UPA fought against both Nazi German and Soviet forces in pursuit of Ukrainian independence. However, the group has also been accused of killing tens of thousands of Polish civilians, primarily in the Nazi-occupied regions of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. Poland’s parliament formally recognized those killings as genocide in 2016.

Ukraine’s position is that armed groups on multiple sides — including the UPA and Polish underground forces — were responsible for violence that resulted in significant civilian casualties among both Poles and Ukrainians.

The dispute comes despite recent signs of progress between the two countries. A December meeting between the two presidents in Warsaw had been seen as a step forward on historical reconciliation, including movement on the issue of exhuming Polish victims.

Poland is set to host a major international event focused on Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction next week, and Zelenskyy is expected to attend.

One person is dead following a collision between two freight trains on a bridge in Munich, Germany, early Saturday morning, according to local police.

The crash caused two of the rail cars to derail and fall onto the street below the bridge. A police spokesperson in the southern German city confirmed to Reuters that investigators are still working to determine what caused the incident.

Emergency crews were called to the scene in Munich’s northern Milbertshofen district at 1:40 a.m. local time — 11:40 p.m. Friday GMT — with approximately 60 first responders sent to assist, according to a fire department spokesperson.

TYRE, Lebanon — Israeli airstrikes struck southern Lebanon on Saturday, killing at least seven people — among them two children — just hours after reports surfaced of a ceasefire agreement. The continued violence is now threatening an interim accord between the United States and Iran aimed at ending the broader Middle East conflict.

Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that the strikes hit the southern town of Nabatiyeh and surrounding villages, with at least seven more people still trapped beneath rubble in the aftermath.

Mediators have been working frantically to stop the fighting between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The situation escalated sharply on Friday, when clashes left at least 47 people dead in Lebanon and four Israeli soldiers killed.

An Israeli military official, speaking anonymously in accordance with regulations, said Hezbollah fired more than 50 projectiles at Israeli forces in southern Lebanon overnight, prompting Israel to begin targeting the group there.

Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Yechiel Leiter, wrote on X Friday that Israel “remains firmly committed to an immediate ceasefire” — but only if Hezbollah honors the agreement and stops its attacks.

Hezbollah has publicly stated it will observe a ceasefire if Israel does the same, but has stopped short of confirming that any ceasefire is actually in effect. A Hezbollah official, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to comment publicly, said Friday that Qatar, the U.S., and Iran were all working to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah — but declined to say a deal had been finalized.

The conflict between Hezbollah and Israel erupted just days after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28. Hezbollah responded by firing rockets and drones at civilian areas in northern Israel, while Israel moved to seize large portions of southern Lebanon.

An interim agreement between the U.S. and Iran, signed digitally earlier this week, has already produced one tangible result: the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran had closed during the conflict — a move that had cut off major global supplies of oil and natural gas. The deal also calls for renewed talks on Iran’s nuclear program, which is at the heart of the wider conflict.

Neither Israel nor Hezbollah signed the deal. It calls for a halt to military operations in Lebanon and for Lebanon’s sovereignty to be respected. With fighting still ongoing, the agreement is now in jeopardy. U.S.-Iran talks scheduled to begin Friday in Switzerland have been postponed with no new date set.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to keep Israeli forces in southern Lebanon until all threats to Israel are eliminated. Hezbollah has refused to stand down unless Israel commits to withdrawing from Lebanon — a condition Iran says is also part of the deal.

Smoke could be seen rising over southern Lebanon on Saturday, and Israeli jets flew low over the coastal city of Tyre. A strike on the village of Barish killed four family members — two parents and their two children. In the village of Arab Salim, a body was recovered from a destroyed home. Drone strikes in the villages of Doueir and Kfar Rumman killed a person on a motorcycle and a Lebanese soldier.

Netanyahu’s office offered no immediate response to questions about the ceasefire efforts. On Friday, Netanyahu posted on X that, on his orders, the Israeli military had “struck powerfully” at 150 Hezbollah targets, killing dozens of militants. Military spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said Israeli forces were operating in a “forward defense zone” and would continue to do so.

Iranian officials canceled their planned travel to Switzerland, saying the fighting in Lebanon must stop before negotiations can proceed. U.S. Vice President JD Vance also postponed his trip to Switzerland.

On Saturday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told the semi-official ISNA news agency that Pakistan’s interior minister would travel to Iran as part of continuing diplomatic efforts. Baghaei said earlier that consultations through intermediaries were ongoing regarding the next phase of negotiations toward a final U.S.-Iran agreement. He noted that because the initial deal was signed digitally, the Switzerland meeting was not considered urgent, and plans were being made to hold talks in the coming days.

The Switzerland talks were expected to center on Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran insists the program is for peaceful purposes only, though it holds a large stockpile of uranium enriched to levels just below weapons-grade — enough to build multiple atomic bombs if it chose to, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog.

The negotiations are expected to be challenging. The 2015 nuclear deal — which U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned during his first term — took more than 18 months to complete. The current interim agreement gives negotiators 60 days to reach a nuclear deal, with the possibility of an extension. It also offers significant incentives for Iran, including the eventual removal of all international sanctions and a $300 billion fund for postwar rebuilding.

Iran has already gained some concessions. Following the signing of the interim deal, the U.S. lifted its blockade of Iranian ports and is now allowing Iran to sell its oil on the open market. The agreement also calls for Iran’s frozen assets to be released, though the timeline for that remains unclear.

Two Syrian soldiers were killed Saturday when unidentified attackers struck near the city of Manbij in the northeastern Aleppo region, according to Syria’s Defence Ministry.

The ministry confirmed the deaths in a statement but did not release any additional information regarding the circumstances of the attack or the identity of those responsible.

At least seven people lost their lives and three others were hurt after two roadside bombs exploded in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, according to the Associated Press, which cited local police.

The first bomb struck a vehicle in the Bannu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. A second device then detonated shortly after, targeting the rescuers who had rushed to help victims of the initial blast, according to senior police officer Yasir Afridi.

Afridi reported that five people were killed in the first explosion and two more died in the second, with three individuals sustaining injuries.

No group or individual has stepped forward to claim responsibility for the attacks. Authorities have launched a search operation to track down those responsible. The district administration and the office of the Bannu divisional commissioner had not responded to requests for comment at the time of reporting.

Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari publicly condemned the bombings on the social media platform X, issuing a stern warning to what he called “internal and external handlers of terrorism” against offering safe havens, logistical support, or financial backing to terrorist networks.

KYIV — A growing diplomatic dispute between Ukraine and Poland escalated Saturday when President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff announced he was giving back a Polish state honor in protest of actions taken by Polish President Karol Nawrocki.

Kyrylo Budanov said he was returning the Golden Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland — an award he received last year — calling Nawrocki’s recent decision a “gift” for Russia. The move threatens to strain relations between two nations that have been close strategic partners as Ukraine seeks international support in its ongoing war with Russia.

The dispute began Friday when Nawrocki announced he was revoking the Order of the White Eagle — Poland’s highest honor — from Zelenskiy. The Polish president cited Zelenskiy’s decision to rename a military unit after World War Two-era Ukrainian insurgents who have been blamed for the massacre of Polish civilians.

Budanov took to social media to express his objection, writing: “Our nations have long-standing relations and different pages of history — both heroic and tragic. However, this should be an occasion for deep reflection, not crude political speculation.”

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha had already weighed in before Budanov’s announcement, calling Nawrocki’s decision a “strategic error.” Meanwhile, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk — a political opponent of Nawrocki — appealed to both leaders to keep a level head amid the escalating tensions.

GUADALAJARA, Mexico — The images look familiar at first glance: young men dressed in Mexico’s green national team jersey, a FIFA-style logo in the corner, the layout mimicking the collectible Panini stickers that soccer fans around the world trade during every World Cup tournament.

But posted across downtown Guadalajara — taped to concrete benches, utility poles, and walls — each face carries a single word above it:

“DESAPARECIDO.”

Missing.

One poster features Christian Emmanuel Rivera, who disappeared in August 2023. Another shows Jaime Adrián Ramírez, gone since September 2020.

While Guadalajara serves as a host city for the 2026 World Cup, families desperately searching for missing relatives have turned one of soccer’s most recognizable images into a powerful awareness campaign. Their goal: to make Mexico’s 135,000 missing people visible to the enormous number of international visitors now filling the city’s streets.

The effort was organized by Luz de Esperanza, a search collective operating in the western state of Jalisco — the state with the highest number of disappearances in all of Mexico, with more than 16,000 people listed as missing in its official registry. Members of the collective say other groups have already reached out, interested in using the same approach.

“This is our way of drawing attention to the fact that we miss our children, that they are absent from our lives,” said María de Jesús Solís, 57, whose son Jaime Adrián vanished nearly six years ago.

Solís wears a pendant with her son’s photograph around her neck every day.

“This is my boy,” she said. “The difference is that now he’s wearing the World Cup shirt.”

Throughout Mexico, relatives of the missing have banded together into search collectives that comb through fields, ravines, abandoned buildings, and hidden graves — conducting investigations that families say the government has repeatedly failed to carry out on its own.

Members of Luz de Esperanza have fanned out across Guadalajara nearly every Sunday since 2021, distributing stacks of missing-person flyers in the hope that someone will recognize a face or offer a useful tip. The group refers to this ongoing effort as a “search for the living.”

This month, the collective swapped many of those standard flyers for hundreds of the new World Cup-inspired posters.

For Solís, the campaign reflects deep frustration over what she sees as misplaced priorities.

“We’re not against the World Cup,” she said. “But we’re against the excessive spending.”

She noted that authorities poured millions of dollars into preparing the city for the tournament, while search collectives frequently pay out of their own pockets for water, food, and transportation during their searches.

“The government is showing a beautiful face to the world,” Solís said. “But if you look around, the city is full of posters of our children.”

On a recent morning, Solís and Guadalupe Rivera joined fellow members of Luz de Esperanza at an abandoned property on the edge of the city. The women moved through darkened rooms and into a cluttered backyard filled with garbage, some carrying metal probes used to test the ground for signs of hidden graves.

Rivera pushed a steel rod into the soil as others combed through the property. Her son, Christian Emmanuel, disappeared nearly three years ago. She joined the collective almost right away.

“I thought that if I joined a group, the search would move faster,” she said. “Time keeps passing, and I’m still searching.”

Rivera takes part in searches for human remains to support other grieving families — but she holds onto the hope that she will never find her own son that way.

“I want to find him alive,” she said. “I want him to show up at my front door.”

The idea for the World Cup campaign, Rivera explained, came from a straightforward observation: if soccer is dominating every conversation in the city, perhaps it could also create an opening for people to notice those who are no longer there.

The members of the collective are sports fans themselves, Rivera said.

“When it’s the World Cup, even if you’re not really a fan, you sit down at home and watch it with your family,” she said. “But our family isn’t whole anymore.”

Some residents have welcomed the posters, Rivera said, while others have pushed back, arguing that the World Cup should be a time for celebration rather than a reminder of violence and grief.

But the families say they have no choice but to keep finding new ways to make their missing loved ones visible to the world.

“The government never pays attention to us,” Rivera said. “So we want to see whether, this way, the world will.”

LA PAZ — Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz took dramatic action early Saturday, announcing a state of emergency as the nation struggles under the weight of a blockade crisis that has brought its economy to a standstill for the past 50 days.

Speaking directly to the nation in a formal address, Paz outlined the measure, which now allows for the deployment of military forces throughout Bolivia in an effort to reestablish order.

At least five people were killed in Israeli airstrikes and drone attacks across southern Lebanon on Saturday, according to Lebanese state media — just hours after a ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group officially took hold.

Lebanon’s state news agency NNA reported that Israeli warplanes and drones launched multiple strikes throughout the Nabatieh region, hitting residential buildings and homes during the overnight hours and into Saturday morning. Israeli artillery also bombarded Nabatieh and surrounding areas before dawn.

The ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was reached on Friday following a sharp escalation in violence in Lebanon, a U.S. official confirmed. A senior Israeli official and two Hezbollah sources separately verified the agreement to Reuters. According to the U.S. official, the truce was set to take effect at 4 p.m. local time — 1300 GMT — on Friday.

LAGOS, Nigeria — When a plane carrying hundreds of Nigerian nationals escaping South Africa touched down in Lagos last week, passenger Iniebong James felt an immediate wave of relief. That feeling quickly gave way to anxiety.

Nearly two weeks after arriving back in his home country, James, 52, is working to rebuild a life he walked away from a decade ago. In 2016, he packed his belongings and traveled to South Africa on a six-month visitor’s visa — and never left. Without legal permission to remain, he established himself as a car mechanic in the country’s Eastern Cape Province.

Things were manageable until May, when anti-immigrant demonstrators attacked him, leaving him with a head injury, he told The Associated Press.

That attack unfolded against a backdrop of rapidly intensifying hostility toward migrants in South Africa. In recent months, the country has seen marches demanding that undocumented immigrants leave, along with reports of violence directed at foreign nationals.

Governments across Africa have responded by flying their citizens home. Hundreds of migrants from Nigeria and other African nations have been repatriated, with officials pointing to threats of violence and an increasingly dangerous atmosphere.

South Africa has long drawn people from across the continent, including large numbers of Nigerians, because of its comparatively strong economy and greater opportunities. However, that attraction has periodically been met with outbursts of xenophobic hostility. Some South Africans blame foreign nationals for high unemployment, strained public services, and crime.

Before heading to South Africa, James had worked as a truck driver for a haulage company in Lagos. That company shut down in 2016 when Nigeria’s economy slipped into its first recession in roughly twenty years. Unemployment was a concern, but it was the days-long blackouts that ultimately pushed him to go.

To get by on an expired visa, James said he paid community police officers 200 rands — about $12.14 — each week to allow him to keep his shop running. On two separate occasions, he said he paid immigration officers after being arrested. The AP was unable to independently confirm those claims.

James said he is glad to be home and to have his freedom back, but he acknowledges that the economy that once drove him away is now significantly worse, and he fears finding work will be even harder than before.

DUBAI — A potential agreement between Washington and Tehran to wind down their conflict carries a sharp contradiction at its core: the economic incentives designed to bring Iran to the table may end up empowering a force that the United States and its Western allies have designated as a terrorist organization.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have spent years building a vast commercial empire under the cover of international sanctions, with business interests spanning oil production, construction, shipping, telecommunications, and port operations.

Now, as both governments prepare for negotiations that could unlock billions of dollars for Iran and throw open its economy to global investment, the elite military force stands to be among the biggest winners of any deal reached.

Four senior Iranian sources told Reuters that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is uniquely positioned to capture a significant share of whatever financial benefits flow from sanctions relief, expanded oil exports, and incoming foreign investment.

But that same deep entrenchment in Iran’s commercial landscape could become one of the most serious barriers to a final agreement. Because the Guards are so thoroughly woven into Iranian business, their terrorism designation may make it extremely difficult to fully free the country’s economy from sanctions restrictions.

The Guards were established by Iran’s late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and grew considerably more powerful under his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gaining political influence while leading efforts to extend Iran’s reach across the Middle East and crush internal opposition.

Since the war broke out on February 28 — triggered by strikes that killed Khamenei — the Guards have only tightened their grip on power within the country, playing a key role in installing Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as the new supreme leader. The Guards have indicated they support the effort to reach a deal ending the conflict.

One senior source described the Guards as the true victors of the war, noting that having protected the survival of Iran’s Islamic system, they are better positioned than anyone to benefit from sanctions being lifted — particularly given their decades of experience running Iran’s sanctions-evasion operations.

A spokesperson for the Guards declined to offer any comment.

An interim agreement announced this week would allow waivers permitting sanctioned Iranian oil sales, while a more sweeping deal in the coming months could eliminate all remaining sanctions and give Iran access to a $300 billion reconstruction fund.

The Guards do not release financial information publicly, but a second senior source said that any economic recovery effort would naturally expand the organization’s already considerable financial reach — pointing to existing multibillion-dollar trade networks, oil activities, shipping operations, and construction enterprises.

The Guards’ engineering division, Khatam al-Anbia, oversees hundreds of affiliated companies involved in major infrastructure and energy projects, with additional involvement in telecommunications, automobile manufacturing, tourism, and logistics, according to official statements and public records.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Iranian investment law requires foreign companies to partner with local firms, and the sheer volume of companies linked to the Guards means the organization effectively controls access to Iran’s most profitable sectors for any outside investor.

That reality puts Western companies returning to the Iranian market in a difficult position — they could find themselves doing business alongside or through entities connected to the Guards even without any direct dealings, while still risking exposure to sanctions that specifically target the organization.

Jeremy Paner, a former Treasury Department sanctions investigator now serving as a partner at the law firm Hughes Hubbard and Reed, put it plainly: “The IRGC is the entity pulling all the strings behind the oil sector, so you can’t ignore all of the legal effects of doing business with them.”

Even with the interim deal authorizing Iranian oil exports, Paner warned that “there’s still legal exposure for U.S. companies because of the IRGC lurking in the background.” He noted that the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, passed in 2016, allows victims of terrorist attacks to pursue legal action against U.S. companies that assist groups accused of terrorism, including the Guards.

If broader negotiations fail and sanctions remain largely in place, the Guards would still benefit from the interim oil export waivers and retain their firm hold on the economy through their long-established expertise in evading sanctions, the senior Iranian sources said.

The Guards’ economic expansion was actually accelerated by the sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear program starting in the early 2000s, as the organization built networks to move oil, manage shipping, and conduct trade through middlemen and shell companies.

That model became increasingly difficult to sustain after U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from a 2015 nuclear agreement between major world powers in 2018 and launched a “maximum pressure” campaign — measures he has since expanded further during his current term in office.

A third senior Iranian source said those steps narrowed the space available for sanctions evasion and drove up the cost of maintaining illicit financial networks.

U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi are both making their way to Switzerland for diplomatic talks, according to a report from Axios on Friday. The development comes as a newly established ceasefire in Lebanon appears to have reinvigorated efforts to transform a short-term Iran war agreement into a more permanent regional settlement.

Israel and Hezbollah reached a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon on Friday, following a surge in fighting that had thrown doubt over ongoing U.S.-Iran negotiations — talks considered essential to reopening the Strait of Hormuz and stabilizing global oil supplies.

Earlier this week, the two sides put their signatures on a 14-point memorandum of understanding, pausing hostilities and creating a 60-day period to work through disagreements over Iran’s nuclear program and other complex issues standing in the way of a more durable agreement.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance had scrapped plans on Thursday to travel to Switzerland for the negotiations, citing the escalating tensions in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant organization.

With the ceasefire now in effect, Witkoff is en route to Switzerland to meet up with Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, who is already on the ground there, Axios reported. Araqchi is expected to arrive Saturday.

The move may be an indication that both parties are prepared to begin detailed technical negotiations toward a permanent ceasefire arrangement. The White House did not respond when asked about Witkoff’s travel plans.

A senior U.S. official confirmed that the Lebanon ceasefire took hold around 4 p.m. local time (1300 GMT), following an exchange of fire, and noted that American and Qatari negotiators had brokered the agreement with assistance from Iran.

Two Hezbollah sources and a senior Israeli official separately confirmed the ceasefire to Reuters. “If Hezbollah does not attack us, then for us it is not a time of war,” the Israeli official said, while noting that Israeli forces would remain in southern Lebanon, where they have occupied territory along the country’s northern border.

Two Lebanese security sources reported that Israel carried out roughly a dozen airstrikes during the first hour after the ceasefire took effect, though no further strikes were recorded after 5 p.m. Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes after midnight into Friday had left 47 people dead and 97 wounded. The Israeli military separately reported that four of its soldiers were killed in an incident in Lebanon, without providing additional details.

The ongoing conflict in Lebanon has complicated the broader negotiations, since halting the fighting there is listed as a condition of the wider U.S.-Iran accord.

UNRESOLVED ISSUES REMAIN

Following Wednesday’s signing of the memorandum of understanding, preparations for technical talks at the Swiss mountaintop resort of Buergenstock were moving forward when the White House announced Thursday that Vance would not be attending. Switzerland’s foreign ministry said the talks had been delayed but that the country remained ready to host them and that preparatory work was ongoing.

The broader interim agreement calls for the United States, Iran, and their respective allies to declare an immediate and permanent end to military operations across all fronts, including Lebanon. Israel, which was excluded from the negotiations, has stated it is not bound by the deal.

Araqchi, speaking by phone with his Pakistani counterpart on Friday, said the United States would bear responsibility for any failure to uphold its commitments under the deal — including bringing an end to the fighting in Lebanon — according to his ministry.

ISRAEL-LEBANON TALKS ON THE HORIZON

Lebanon was drawn into the regional conflict when Hezbollah began firing at Israel on March 2, prompting Israel to launch a military offensive against the group and push into southern Lebanon.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the most recent Israeli strikes but said the escalation would not derail efforts to reach a comprehensive ceasefire. The U.S. State Department said Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Aoun, reiterating the importance of disarming Hezbollah while reaffirming American support for a “fully sovereign” Lebanese state.

Rubio and Aoun also discussed the possibility of holding a new round of Israel-Lebanon negotiations in Washington from June 23 to June 25. The Lebanese presidency stated that a comprehensive ceasefire would be a foundational requirement for those discussions.

TRUMP STANDS BEHIND THE DEAL

The Iran war, which began on February 28 with air attacks by the U.S. and Israel on Iran, has claimed at least 7,000 lives, predominantly in Iran and Lebanon. The conflict has also driven up energy prices, fueling inflation across the globe.

Brent crude oil prices edged upward on Friday but were still on track for a weekly decline of roughly 8% following the Lebanon ceasefire. Oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz had also picked up following the signing of this week’s memorandum. Before Iran blockaded the strait during the war, it had carried nearly one-fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas supplies. The body Iran set up to oversee the strait announced Friday it would waive planned fees during the interim deal’s negotiation window.

The memorandum of understanding includes provisions for easing economic sanctions on Iran, unfreezing tens of billions of dollars in Iranian assets, and immediate U.S. waivers on Iranian oil exports. It also calls for a $300-billion reconstruction fund for Iran along with other financial incentives.

President Trump again defended the agreement in the face of criticism from Washington, including from some Republican allies in Congress who have questioned whether he gave up too much to end a war that is unpopular with most Americans ahead of November’s midterm elections.

“The War has diminished Iran!” Trump wrote on social media Friday, adding, “We didn’t meet out of desperation, Iran did. They are FINISHED! We’ll play out the 60 days. They get no money, not 10 cents!”

Panama’s Maritime Authority (AMP) announced late Friday that a drone strike targeting a Panama-flagged cargo ship in the Black Sea left one crew member dead and two others wounded, with one of the injured sailors reported to be in serious condition.

According to the AMP, the attack took place on Thursday. Despite the violence, the vessel was able to remain operational and continue along its planned route.

In a statement, the authority said it has “activated the relevant protocols to gather official information on the incident and maintains communication with the parties involved.”

The AMP did not identify the origin of the drone strike. However, the agency issued a warning advising all ships to avoid navigating through waters belonging to Ukraine and Russia in both the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, located to the north.

Panama oversees the largest ship registry in the world, with approximately 16% of all merchant vessels worldwide sailing under its flag.

Costa Rican authorities made an arrest Friday in connection with a suspected death threat directed at President Laura Fernandez, according to the country’s security ministry.

While no actual attack on the president was carried out, Fernandez had already been removed from the area earlier that day following an unexplained detonation heard near her location. She had been visiting the northern part of the country to observe the impact of illegal gold mining operations in the region.

The Central American nation’s security ministry confirmed the arrest without providing additional details about the suspect.

A massive fire at a resort hotel in the Dominican Republic left one person dead and forced close to 1,700 tourists to evacuate, according to local authorities.

The blaze broke out at the Viva Wyndham Dominicus Beach Hotel in Bayahibe, a community situated on the southeastern coast of the Dominican Republic. Officials announced the details of the incident on Friday, June 19.

Authorities confirmed the large-scale evacuation was carried out as the fire swept through the property, displacing hundreds of guests staying at the resort.

LA PAZ — Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz reached an agreement Friday with the Bolivian Workers’ Confederation, known as the COB, in what could be a turning point in a standoff that has brought the country to a near standstill over the past 50 days.

The ongoing unrest has had a severe impact on everyday life in Bolivia, with citizens facing lengthy lines at fuel stations and struggling to obtain basic necessities like food and medical supplies due to widespread roadblocks set up by protesters.

The head of the COB’s executive leadership, Mario Argollo, expressed cautious optimism about the agreement. “There is a country waiting for white smoke to appear today,” Argollo said. “We believe we must begin to iron out our differences; we must start building a country based on consensus, with workers participating in the decisions.”

HAVANA (AP) — Analysts are describing Cuba’s newly announced economic reforms as the most dramatic transformation of the island’s communist economy since the Cuban revolution, as the grandson of former President Raúl Castro declared in a published interview that Cuba must chart a new path forward economically.

The sweeping package of 176 measures is designed to loosen the grip of Cuba’s centrally controlled economy, which has been severely strained by a tightened U.S. embargo under President Donald Trump. Under the current system, the Cuban government controls what gets produced, who produces it, the prices goods are sold at, and how national resources are distributed.

Among the proposed changes are greater opportunities for private businesses to operate, the ability to import and export goods without going through government intermediaries, the freedom to hire workers directly, the authorization of private banks, and the ability for Cubans living abroad to invest back home. The reforms would even allow fast-food chains to open on the island.

“Elements that for decades were listed as pillars of the revolutionary economy, such as the state monopoly on foreign trade and the centralization of productive forces, have been dismantled,” said Luis Carlos Battista, a Cuban-American political scientist and lawyer who is a doctoral candidate at the University of Salamanca.

Former President Raúl Castro — who continues to hold considerable influence in Cuba — has previously attempted more modest economic reforms, but those efforts were repeatedly slowed by bureaucratic obstacles. Cuban authorities acknowledged when announcing the current reforms that implementation may proceed slowly, and they stressed the measures will not be fully effective unless the U.S. lifts its energy and financial embargo against the island.

Since January, Cuba has faced a severe U.S. energy and financial embargo that has effectively cut the island off from fuel — its primary energy source — worsening a crisis that had already been building for five years. Power outages have stretched as long as 20 hours per day, limiting access to healthcare, transportation, and education.

President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have both acknowledged they are pursuing a maximum pressure campaign aimed at changing Cuba’s political and economic system, which has persisted for six decades in the face of U.S. pressure. Neither has ruled out the use of military force.

In a video interview published Friday by the United Arab Emirates-based outlet The National, Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro — the grandson of the revolutionary leader — stated that Cuba “doesn’t even slightly represent a threat” to the United States.

Rodriguez Castro added that Cuba’s government is pursuing what he described as a “very Cuban” approach to its economy.

“Our country must seek a path to economic development where we must inevitably diversify our economy, diversify the way we do business and diversify the way we do investments,” he said.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel indicated the proposed measures were modeled in part on the economic approaches of Vietnam and China — communist nations that have incorporated market-based elements into their economies.

Lee Schlenker, a research associate at the Quincy Institute in Washington, said ongoing U.S. sanctions are likely to present a major stumbling block to the reforms.

“With these new measures, along with others that are likely on the table, they will only have a true effect if complemented with the gradual lifting of U.S. prohibitions and sanctions more broadly,” Schlenker said.

Schlenker and other analysts noted that without sanctions relief, many of the announced measures will be difficult or impossible to implement — particularly because potential investors face penalties within the U.S. financial system if they conduct business with Cuba.

Additional challenges include a lack of trust from potential investors and what Battista described as a “slow and inefficient” bureaucracy that could hinder meaningful progress.

Despite those hurdles, Paolo Spadoni, an associate professor in the Department of Social Sciences at Augusta University in Georgia, said Cuba’s government has only a narrow window to produce real results.

“If Cuban leaders hope to survive this unprecedented crisis and the pressure from the United States, they must move quickly with the implementation of reform and the achievement of tangible results,” Spadoni said.

Diplomatic decorum collapsed at the United Nations on Friday when Israel’s ambassador and a senior UN official became embroiled in a loud, public argument during an official hearing in New York.

The confrontation took place at a meeting commemorating the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict. Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon directed his anger at Pramila Patten, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative for children and armed conflict, calling on her to step down and accusing her of bias after her report placed Israel on a blacklist for alleged abuses for the first time.

“You caved to the secretary-general’s obsession with targeting Israel,” Danon said, referring to U.N. chief Antonio Guterres.

Another UN official, Vanessa Frazier — Guterres’ representative for children and armed conflict — interrupted the exchange by shouting a point of order. She urged Danon to stop making “personal attacks” and stated that she had “verified evidence.”

Danon responded by telling Frazier to be silent.

“We are a member state, and you work for the U.N., and you will be quiet now. You will be quiet … you and your shameful report,” he said.

Frazier, who previously served as Malta’s ambassador to the United Nations, released her own report this week on behalf of Guterres. That report warned that Israeli settler groups could be added to a global blacklist for violations against children, with Guterres describing a “staggering” rise in such violations against Palestinian children.

Israel already appears in the annexes of that report — often referred to as the “list of shame” — for alleged violations.

When Patten’s report was released last month, Danon called it “a new low,” and Israel’s foreign ministry announced it would cut all ties with Guterres, who is set to leave his position after 10 years when his term ends at year’s end.

Both reports also include Israel’s adversary Hamas on their blacklists.

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — Asylum seekers who were deported by the United States to Sierra Leone now face the possibility of being transferred to their home countries — the same places where they fear persecution — even though U.S. courts had previously ordered that they could not be sent there, according to an attorney involved in the case and documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

Roughly a dozen people arrived in Sierra Leone on Thursday following a deportation flight from the U.S. — the second such flight to the country. A previous flight brought nine West African migrants there last month. Attorney Erica Reilly, who represents one of the migrants, shared these details on Friday.

Sierra Leone is among at least nine African nations that have entered into third-country deportation arrangements with the United States. Officials have indicated that only citizens of West African countries are being accepted. A number of Latin American and Caribbean nations have entered into similar agreements.

A pamphlet distributed to migrants when they arrived in the capital city of Freetown stated that the government and its contractors were working to “return you home as quickly and safely as possible.” The document described Sierra Leone as a “temporary transit location” and made clear that “no long-term settlement is provided for or permitted.”

The pamphlet was distributed by Kenvah Solutions, a private contractor hired by the Sierra Leone government to manage housing, meals, medical care, and transportation for the deportees. A copy was reviewed by the AP. Neither Kenvah Solutions nor Sierra Leonean authorities responded to requests for comment.

Advocates say the Trump administration has used a series of often-secret agreements to deport thousands of people to nearly two dozen countries that are not their own — a key part of the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement strategy. Immigration attorneys argue that these third-country deportations serve as a legal workaround to push asylum seekers back toward their home countries indirectly.

Sierra Leone’s foreign minister, Timothy Kabba, stated last month that the country’s agreement with the Trump administration comes with a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. government. The program allows up to 25 deportees per month and 300 per year, though the length of the arrangement has not been disclosed.

Reilly, who is representing a Nigerian man among those deported Thursday, said her client and others like him had legal protections from U.S. courts — judges had determined they faced credible fears of persecution if returned to their home countries. Now, she says, those individuals have almost no way to stop that from happening.

“They’re put in a position where they just don’t have a say at all,” Reilly said.

Earlier this month, human rights attorneys filed a case against Equatorial Guinea before Africa’s top human rights body, alleging that the central African nation has been forcing U.S. deportees back to their countries of origin in violation of their rights.

“The U.S. government knows exactly what’s going to happen in the vast majority of these situations,” Reilly said. “Our government is just saying, ‘What happens to them after they leave the United States is not our problem.’”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is reportedly planning a visit to the Middle East next week, according to a Friday report from Axios citing two sources familiar with the matter.

The planned itinerary is said to include stops in Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. A subsequent Axios report, drawing on a third unnamed source, indicated that Rubio is expected to host a summit with foreign ministers from the Gulf Cooperation Council during his time in Bahrain.

As of Friday, the State Department had not responded to requests seeking confirmation of the trip.

ACCRA, Ghana — Leaders from Africa and the Caribbean gathered in Ghana on Friday, calling on nations that once participated in the slave trade to issue formal apologies and provide reparations for the trafficking of millions of enslaved Africans.

The gathering, dubbed the “Next Steps” conference and held in the Ghanaian capital of Accra, produced a declaration demanding that countries involved in the Atlantic slave trade “offer full, formal and unconditional apologies as a foundational step towards reconciliation, trust-building and reparatory justice.”

The push comes on the heels of a United Nations resolution passed in March that described the transatlantic slave trade as “the gravest crime against humanity.” While the resolution is not legally binding, it carries significant moral weight on the world stage. Conference organizers said their goal was to shift the reparations conversation from symbolic acknowledgment to real, enforceable action — potentially requiring compensation under international law.

Historians estimate that roughly 12 million Africans were forcibly taken by European traders between the 16th and 19th centuries and enslaved on plantations, generating enormous wealth at an immeasurable human cost.

Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama told delegates that the U.N. resolution had opened a new door for serious dialogue on the issue. He stressed that the lasting damage caused by slavery continues to affect people across Africa, the Caribbean, and the broader African diaspora.

“We’re here because recognition creates responsibility, and because the enduring consequences of this history continue to demand thoughtful, coordinated, and sustained international engagement,” Mahama said, addressing representatives from more than 80 nations.

This is not the first time Ghana has hosted such discussions. At a reparations summit there in 2023, participants floated the idea of creating a Global Reparation Fund, though the details of how it would function were never fully spelled out.

Support for reparations is far from universal in the countries that would be expected to contribute. In the United States, for instance, public opinion leans heavily against the idea. A 2021 Pew Research Center survey found that only about three in ten American adults believed that descendants of enslaved people in the U.S. should receive some form of repayment, whether in the form of land, money, or other means.

Activists supporting reparations argue the effort should go beyond direct cash payments to individuals, and also include development assistance for affected nations and the return of resources taken during the colonial era.

WARSAW, Poland — Polish President Karol Nawrocki announced Friday that he intends to revoke Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Order of the White Eagle — Poland’s most prestigious state honor — following a controversial decision by the Ukrainian leader to name a military unit after a group accused of killing Poles during World War II.

Zelenskyy had received the Order of the White Eagle back in 2023, awarded by Poland’s then-President Andrzej Duda in recognition of Zelenskyy’s contributions to security, resilience, and the defense of human rights.

The honor will now be taken away after Zelenskyy signed a decree on May 26 designating a unit within Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces after the UPA — known as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army — a paramilitary organization that was active during the 1940s and 1950s and is accused by Poland of carrying out mass killings of Polish civilians.

In a 13-minute video address posted to social media, Nawrocki explained his reasoning: “For the majority of Polish society, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army remains above all a formation responsible for cruel crimes against the citizens of the Polish Republic during World War II.”

Despite revoking the honor, Nawrocki made clear that Poland’s backing of Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression would not waver as a result of this decision.

The timing is notable — Poland is set to host a major international conference next week focused on Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction, and Zelenskyy is expected to be in attendance.

According to Zelenskyy’s decree, naming the military unit after the UPA was intended to honor the unit’s battlefield performance in defending Ukraine’s territorial integrity and independence, while also restoring historical military traditions.

The UPA was a military organization that fought for Ukrainian independence, battling both Nazi German and Soviet forces during the war. However, Poland holds the group responsible for the wartime slaughter of tens of thousands of Polish civilians, primarily in the Nazi-occupied regions of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. In 2016, the Polish parliament formally recognized those killings as genocide.

Ukraine’s position is that armed groups on multiple sides — including both the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and Polish underground forces — carried out attacks and reprisals that resulted in large numbers of civilian deaths among both Poles and Ukrainians.

Poland’s liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk also voiced criticism of Zelenskyy’s decree, though he cautioned that Russian President Vladimir Putin could stand to gain from any deepening rift between Poland and Ukraine over historical grievances.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha issued a statement on June 3 calling on both nations to dial back the tension, saying the escalation was not in the interest of either Ukrainians or Poles. He urged both sides to let professional historians handle the more sensitive chapters of their shared past.

The dispute comes despite recent signs of progress between the two countries. A presidential meeting held in December in Warsaw had suggested momentum toward historical reconciliation, including advances on the question of exhuming Polish victims.

Emergency crews responded quickly Friday evening after two trains slammed into each other on rail lines north of London, with disturbing images circulating on social media showing passengers with bandaged head wounds.

The crash took place south of the town of Bedfordshire, along routes that link St. Pancras station in central London to towns throughout central England. Crews from Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue were dispatched after the incident was reported at 6:45 p.m. As of early reports, emergency officials had not yet released any figures on the number of people hurt.

One passenger who was riding in the front carriage of one of the trains described the terrifying moment of impact. “I felt like I’d been in a bomb explosion,” witness Peter Knapp told the BBC.

Knapp went on to paint a grim picture of the aftermath, describing “bloodied faces,” passengers who appeared to have suffered broken legs, and “smoke everywhere.” He also noted the presence of ambulances, fire engines, and police officers who had arrived at the scene.

Photographs taken after the collision appeared to show both trains still sitting on the tracks, with visible damage to the cars. According to The Times of London, staff at Bedford hospital were put on standby and warned to prepare for the possible arrival of as many as 50 injured individuals.

HAVANA — Cuba’s government has given the green light to its most sweeping market-oriented economic reforms in decades, but residents of the capital city are greeting the news with a complicated blend of hope, doubt, and sheer exhaustion.

Lawmakers approved a package of 176 measures following the Communist Party’s endorsement of the plan earlier in the week. The reforms include expanding opportunities for private enterprise, drawing in more foreign investment, allowing private involvement in banking, and opening certain state-owned companies to private shareholders. Government officials have emphasized that the changes are designed to preserve socialism — not dismantle it.

For many Cubans, the announcement signals something larger: that one of the world’s few remaining Soviet-style economies may be gradually shifting toward a model more like China or Vietnam, as a worsening crisis continues to take a toll on everyday life.

But on the streets of Havana, the mood was far from celebratory.

Olian Valdes, a 50-year-old resident, said he didn’t even hear about the announcement until hours after it was made — because power outages had left his home without electricity. “First, let’s see whether these measures are actually implemented,” he said. He added, “I don’t think it will make much difference for ordinary Cubans because they have nothing to invest. The gap between salaries and prices will remain the same.”

Cuba has been grappling with chronic shortages of food, fuel, and medicine for years. Conditions have deteriorated sharply in 2026 as fuel supplies have tightened and widespread blackouts have become increasingly common.

Not everyone was dismissive of the changes. Omara Oliva, 53, acknowledged that the current system has reached a breaking point. “We’re at a point where the current system simply isn’t working,” she said. “If new measures — even capitalist ones — help people eat better and improve their lives, then they are welcome.”

Despite the scale of the announcement, authorities have offered little clarity on how quickly the measures will go into effect, how they will be regulated, or who stands to benefit first. That lack of detail is particularly unsettling in a country where inflation has gutted wages and many households depend on money sent from abroad or income earned through the informal economy.

Leonardo Benitez, 61, summed up the cautious sentiment shared by many. “For now, we have to wait and see,” he said, noting that the reforms would only matter if they were applied fairly.

African and Caribbean nations gathered in Ghana this week to endorse a comprehensive reparations plan, demanding formal apologies, debt cancellation, and financial compensation from countries that benefited from the transatlantic slave trade.

The 19-point plan was adopted at the close of a three-day conference and represents a joint effort by the African Union and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Commission on Reparatory Justice. The document does not specify which individual countries should issue apologies.

Among its key provisions, the plan calls for the creation of a Global Reparations Fund, broad debt relief and cancellation for affected nations, and reforms to international financial institutions aimed at giving countries in the Global South a greater voice. It also demands the return of looted cultural artifacts and ancestral remains, climate justice funding, and targeted measures to address the specific suffering endured by African women and girls during slavery.

Additionally, the plan urges African nations to offer diaspora Africans pathways to citizenship and the right of return, while committing to preserving historic coastal forts and castles as memorials to the slave trade.

The conference builds on momentum from a United Nations resolution passed in March, which recognized transatlantic slavery as the “gravest crime against humanity.” That resolution passed with 123 votes in favor, though the United States, Israel, and 52 other nations — including European Union members and Britain — either voted against it or abstained. Both the EU and the U.S. expressed concern that the resolution could create a ranking system among crimes against humanity.

Historians estimate that at least 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped and forcibly transported aboard European ships between the 15th and 19th centuries. Advocates argue that the lasting effects of that era — including systemic racism and economic inequality — demand a formal, coordinated response.

Previously, CARICOM and the African Union had each been developing their own separate reparations frameworks. The Ghana conference allowed both organizations to combine their work into a single unified document, which will now be presented at the next U.N. General Assembly.

Several heads of state addressed the conference, many striking a tone that distinguished between personal guilt and collective responsibility. Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama told delegates: “None of us gathered in this hall today can be held personally responsible for the atrocities of the transatlantic slave trade. History does not ask us to inherit guilt, but it asks us to inherit responsibility.”

Leaders from Namibia, Liberia, Senegal, Barbados, and Sao Tome and Principe attended in person, along with the vice president of Equatorial Guinea.

French President Emmanuel Macron participated virtually from the Elysee Palace, saying that enslaved people “were torn from their homelands, deported, dehumanised, and treated as goods.” He cautioned that reparations should not be viewed “as an end point, or a cheque written to bring the story to a close.”

Last month, French lawmakers voted to formally repeal slavery-era laws that had classified enslaved people as “movable property” and permitted abuse and corporal punishment — though the legislation stopped short of including any reparations demands.

British Transport Police announced Friday they were responding to a two-train collision approximately 60 miles north of London, with multiple people reported injured in what authorities described as a major incident.

Video footage circulating on social media appeared to show the front end of one train tangled with the rear of another, with both trains remaining on the tracks following the crash.

The East of England Ambulance Service confirmed it dispatched several emergency resources to the scene, including an air ambulance, and asked members of the public to stay away from the area. The collision occurred on the railway line just south of Bedford.

Transport minister Heidi Alexander took to X to express her reaction, writing that she was “deeply concerned” by what was being reported about the collision.

Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service also confirmed its crews were on scene at the railway south of Bedford, echoing the call for the public to avoid the area.

Train operator East Midlands Railway announced it would be unable to operate any trains into or out of London for the rest of the day as a result of the crash. Thameslink also reported that all rail lines running between Luton and Bedford were blocked while the situation was being investigated.

WARSAW — Polish President Karol Nawrocki announced Friday that he has made the decision to revoke Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s Order of the White Eagle, the highest honor Poland can bestow upon an individual.

The move comes after Zelenskiy drew sharp condemnation from Poland when he renamed a Ukrainian army unit after nationalist insurgents who carried out massacres of Polish civilians during World War Two. The decision triggered widespread outrage across Poland.

From a concealed location somewhere in Bolivia’s Chapare forest region, former president Evo Morales is biding his time — and keeping a close eye on the chaos unfolding across the country.

For 50 days, highway blockades organized by labor unions and indigenous groups have brought Bolivia to a standstill. The disruptions have left at least 14 people dead and pushed the center-right government of Rodrigo Paz dangerously close to collapse.

In an exclusive video interview with Reuters, Morales said he has maintained regular communication with protesters. He acknowledged that the wave of public anger in the streets has “made him think” about re-entering politics — though he insisted he is not actively running for anything.

The blockades have severed critical roadways, leaving trucks stranded and cutting off supplies of fuel, food, and medicine to communities across the country.

The crisis began after Paz made a sudden decision to eliminate long-standing fuel subsidies in an effort to reduce Bolivia’s budget deficit. The country, a major lithium producer, has been struggling with a deepening dollar shortage and is in ongoing negotiations with the International Monetary Fund over a potential rescue package.

Paz later adjusted fuel prices and reversed some unpopular land reform policies, but the blockades continued to grow as frustration expanded beyond fuel costs. Unions are now demanding wage increases, an end to fuel and dollar shortages, and Paz’s resignation.

Paz took office in November 2025 with the support of President Donald Trump, as part of a broader U.S. effort to expand its influence in the region. He has pointed the finger at Morales — who ruled Bolivia for nearly 14 years and remains a towering figure on the political left — for fanning the flames of the unrest.

Andres Arauz of the Center for Economic and Policy Research told Reuters that the government has leaned heavily on casting Morales as the villain in order to shift attention away from the underlying social problems. He said Paz is “trying to spin this and frame it as political confrontation, and thus basically wait it out.”

Morales is currently the subject of an arrest warrant on charges of trafficking a minor, tied to allegations that he fathered a child with a teenager in 2016 while serving as president. Morales denies any wrongdoing, calling the charges “fabricated” and driven by political motives.

In his Reuters interview, Morales rejected any suggestion that he is behind the protests, saying the “indigenous rebellion” is rooted in economic suffering.

“In my experience as a former president, if there is a conflict, it is the fault of the state if it is a social demand,” Morales said, adding that Paz had made “unfulfilled commitments.”

As Paz attempts to negotiate an end to the blockades, Morales’ presence looms large over the talks. On Wednesday, Paz opened dialogue with union leaders in La Paz, striking a conciliatory tone.

“We must build the nation, but we have to build it by accepting diverse ways of thinking,” Paz said, urging both sides to move past mutual distrust.

A Capital Under Siege

In La Paz, the high-altitude capital, daily life has taken on a grim character. Restaurants sit nearly empty, hospitals are running short on medications, and grocery store shelves in the meat section have gone dark after selling out.

“We feel deeply suffocated,” said Pamela Espada, a regional supermarket manager, explaining that she has resorted to flying meat in from Santa Cruz and waking at 2 a.m. to track down eggs.

The cost of basic foods has skyrocketed since the blockades began — tomato prices have doubled, and chicken has become 70% more expensive.

The economic ripple effects have been severe. Ernesto Olivares, who leads the Gastronomic Association of La Paz, said 42% of the city’s restaurants have been forced to shut down. “The exhaustion has reached its limits,” he said. “La Paz is being held hostage by politics.”

Hospitals have also been pushed to a breaking point. The blockades have made transferring patients between facilities nearly impossible.

Outside La Paz’s main public hospital, cancer patients and their families gathered to chant, “We want to live!”

Erika Alvarez, whose brother is fighting cancer in the mining city of Oruro — roughly 140 miles, or 225 kilometers, south of La Paz — was brought to tears. “They tell me he needs chemo, but in Oruro there is nothing, there are no medicines. With these political problems, with these blockades, I cannot bring my brother here,” she said.

Rosario Calle, president of the Association of Cancer Patients and Families, said she is aware of patients — particularly those in rural areas — who have already died after being unable to receive care in time.

Inside the capital, critical pain medications including morphine and tramadol are in short supply.

“They cry out and they don’t know how to soothe the pain,” Calle said. “What we want are solutions. Enough already.”

Morales has called on Paz to step down and allow new elections to be held. He warned that the standoff could reach a breaking point if his movement is shut out of any future vote — though he said he does not support such an escalation.

“If they don’t want it with votes, it’s with bullets,” he said.

CAIRO — A vessel packed with migrants attempting to reach European shores capsized in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya last week, killing or leaving missing 51 people, according to a monitoring organization that announced the findings on Friday.

The shipwreck took place on June 12 in waters off the eastern portion of the North African country. Ten migrants managed to survive, according to the Abreen group, which monitors migrant activity in eastern Libya. Eleven bodies have been pulled from the water, while 40 additional people remain unaccounted for.

The Libyan coast guard and the Red Crescent, operating out of the eastern city of Tobruk, reported recovering bodies that began washing ashore over the previous 24 hours. Video shared by the coast guard showed rescue personnel carrying remains in white body bags to shore.

This disaster is the most recent in a string of deadly incidents along this stretch of the Mediterranean. The Libyan coastline serves as one of the primary launching points for migrants from North Africa who are attempting to reach Europe in search of a better life. Smugglers routinely pack these individuals onto small, dangerous watercraft, and thousands have lost their lives making the treacherous crossing.

Between January 1 and May 16 of this year, more than 800 migrants were reported dead or missing along the central Mediterranean route, according to the International Organization for Migration. The previous year saw that number exceed 1,300 along the same path.

Libya has become the primary transit hub for people fleeing conflict and poverty across Africa and the Middle East in recent years. The country descended into widespread instability following a NATO-backed revolt that overthrew and killed its longtime ruler, Moammar Gadhafi, in 2011.

Human traffickers have exploited that instability, moving migrants across Libya’s extensive borders — borders it shares with six different nations. These migrants are typically forced onto dangerously overcrowded boats, including inflatable rubber vessels, to make the sea crossing.

Those who are caught at sea and returned to Libya face detention in government-run facilities where abuse is rampant. According to investigators commissioned by the United Nations, conditions in these centers include forced labor, beatings, sexual violence, and torture — treatment that rises to the level of crimes against humanity.

Chile’s foreign ministry announced Friday that it is working alongside prosecutors investigating how Haitian children and teenagers entered the country through a family reunification program — after officials discovered that a number of those minors could not be found at the addresses listed for them.

The situation has attracted significant attention in Chile due to a dramatic increase in arrivals from Haiti in the early months of 2025, many of which took place on charter flights. The case has raised broader concerns about how immigration controls were applied within a program designed to bring families back together.

Earlier this week, Chile’s prosecutor’s office confirmed it had launched a formal investigation into the large-scale entry of Haitian minors that occurred last year.

The foreign ministry stated it has been turning over all documents requested by investigators. Foreign Minister Francisco Perez also dispatched a team to Haiti to examine how Chile’s consulate there was handling the reunification process.

According to local media reports, approximately 2,800 Haitians entered Chile under family reunification between January 1 and April 30 of last year. That figure represents the majority of the more than 3,200 Haitian arrivals who came in on temporary residence permits during that same window. Reports indicate that roughly half of those who entered under the family reunification category arrived on charter flights, most of which were linked to small Caribbean airlines.

Haitian migrants have been settling in Chile in growing numbers over the past decade, making Haitians one of the largest immigrant communities in the South American nation. In recent years, Chile has tightened its entry requirements, and President Jose Antonio Kast — who assumed office in March — has pledged to take a firm stance against unauthorized migration.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy issued a stark warning Friday, giving Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko one week to remove equipment stationed in Belarus that Russia has been using to carry out attacks on Ukraine — and threatening Ukrainian action if the deadline is not met.

Zelenskiy stated that signal relay stations are positioned in two Belarusian regions along the Ukrainian border, and that Russian forces have been using them to help guide strikes against Ukrainian civilians. Reuters was unable to independently confirm those claims.

Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv, Zelenskiy challenged Lukashenko’s insistence that Belarus does not want to be part of the conflict. “What’s the point of saying he doesn’t want to be in the war? Let him remove this equipment, let him switch it off. I think a week will be enough for him to do that,” Zelenskiy said.

He then added a pointed warning: “If he doesn’t do it, we’ll do it” — offering no further details on what that would mean.

Over recent months, Zelenskiy has repeatedly cautioned that Russia intends to pull Belarus deeper into the ongoing war. Russian troops used Belarusian soil as a launching point when they first invaded Ukraine back in February 2022.

Last month, Lukashenko brushed aside suggestions that his country would become more deeply entangled in the conflict, though he did say Belarus and Russia would jointly defend themselves if faced with aggression. Earlier this week, in an interview with Al Arabiya television, Lukashenko said Ukraine had nothing to fear from Belarus and called on both sides to make compromises to bring the war to an end.

Meanwhile, Russia accused Ukraine this week of carrying out a fatal drone strike on a bus transporting Belarusian children through Russian territory. Ukraine denied any involvement. One woman accompanying the children was killed, and eight people were injured in the incident — among them six children. Belarus’ Foreign Ministry responded by demanding “complete explanations” from Ukraine.

Belarus has been Russia’s most steadfast ally throughout the war. Russian drones have been documented crossing Belarusian airspace while targeting Ukraine, and Belarus has announced the deployment of Russia’s Oreshnik intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile system. The two countries also conducted joint nuclear drills in May.

YEREVAN, Armenia — Multiple members of Armenia’s opposition were taken into custody on Friday, as a prominent pro-Russia political party asked the country’s Constitutional Court to nullify Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s recent election victory, claiming the vote was marred by violations and efforts to suppress opposition voices.

The opposition Strong Armenia party filed an appeal with the Constitutional Court seeking either to void the election results entirely or to require a second round of voting. The party also condemned the arrests of opposition figures, calling them an attack on democratic principles. Several additional opposition parties joined the effort, each accusing the ruling party of pressuring government workers to cast ballots in its favor and paying other voters for their support.

Armenian authorities have flatly denied any wrongdoing related to the election and have instead pointed the finger at the opposition, accusing them of being the ones who bribed voters.

The Constitutional Court is expected to decide within two days whether it will take up the case.

According to final tallies released by the Central Election Commission, the June 7 election saw Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party capture 49.7% of the vote — enough to form a new government as it continues efforts to pull Armenia away from Moscow’s orbit and build stronger relationships with Western nations.

International observers offered a mixed assessment of the vote. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) acknowledged that Armenian voters had a “genuine choice” at the ballot box, but also pointed out that the campaign was “highly confrontational” and plagued by allegations of violations that spawned numerous criminal cases against opposition candidates — creating a perception of “selective justice.”

Strong Armenia is headed by Armenian-Russian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, a businessman who built his wealth in Russia and is currently under house arrest on charges of calling for the government to be overthrown — allegations he has dismissed as politically motivated. Armenian investigators had already issued six arrest warrants targeting Strong Armenia members the day before the election, accusing them of purchasing votes.

On Friday, additional opposition members were arrested on comparable voter bribery charges. Ruslan Barsegyan and Ashot Egiazaryan, both of whom ran for parliament under the Strong Armenia banner, were remanded into custody for two months while an official investigation proceeds. Asatur Kocharyan, affiliated with the opposition Armenia bloc, was placed under house arrest.

Former lawmaker and government critic Ruben Akopyan was also arrested Friday, and another opposition politician, David Kazinyan, had been jailed the day before on Thursday.

Strong Armenia characterized the wave of arrests as an “attempt to completely destroy democracy in the country.” In a formal statement, the party declared: “Investigative bodies, the prosecutor’s office, and the courts have been turned by this government into instruments for punishing and suppressing the opposition. We will not tolerate this and will fight to the end with the full force of the law and with determination.”

Analyst and former lawmaker Mikayel Zolyan offered a different interpretation, suggesting the arrests reflect the government’s determination to prevent the opposition from stirring up instability. “Pashinyan is showing pro-Russian forces that if they think they can manage to incite unrest and thereby achieve certain goals … then they shouldn’t even try,” Zolyan said.

Russia, which maintains a military base on Armenian soil, has cautioned that Yerevan’s pivot toward the West could bring serious political and economic fallout. President Vladimir Putin has drawn comparisons between Armenia’s direction and Ukraine’s path, in what many viewed as thinly veiled threats, suggesting that Russia’s conflict with Ukraine stemmed from Ukraine’s pursuit of an association agreement with the European Union.

In the weeks leading up to the election, Moscow imposed a series of trade restrictions on Armenia — including import bans on flowers, brandy, wine, and various fruits. OSCE election monitors described these measures as “direct pressure” on the Armenian vote, while Russia maintained the bans were tied to agricultural import rule violations.

Allies of a Belarusian opposition figure who went missing last year are calling on the U.S., Poland, the EU, and the U.N. to open investigations into his case, following a newly published report pointing to Russian involvement in his disappearance.

Anatol Kotau, 46, was last seen in August after traveling from his home in Poland to Turkey. Shortly after arriving, he went silent — no longer responding to messages from his wife.

A joint investigative report released this week by Deutsche Welle, the Belarusian Investigative Center, and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project found that Kotau boarded a yacht departing from the Turkish city of Trabzon. Also on board were two Russian men, a woman from Azerbaijan, and four crew members.

According to the report, the yacht was stopped in the Black Sea by the Russian coast guard, and Kotau was taken off the vessel. What led him to travel to Turkey — and why he would have gotten on a boat heading toward Russia, given his status as a Belarusian dissident — remains unknown.

Kotau has already been convicted in absentia in Belarus, a close Russian ally, and sentenced to 12 years in prison on charges of extremist activity and conspiracy to seize power — charges he denied.

Reuters has reached out to the Russian embassy in London for a response to the allegations of Moscow’s involvement.

Dmitry Bolkunets, an exiled activist who heads a group known as the Belarus Democratic Forum, sent a letter to U.S. National Security Adviser Andy Baker requesting help in locating Kotau. Reuters obtained a copy of the letter.

“The facts presented indicate that this was not a random event, but the result of a meticulously planned special operation,” Bolkunets wrote, characterizing it as a kidnapping carried out by Russia’s FSB security service.

Bolkunets also reached out to John Coale, an envoy for President Donald Trump who has been involved in negotiations with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko over the release of political prisoners. Coale replied that he would bring up the matter with authorities in Minsk.

Additional appeals were directed to Poland’s prime minister and president, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, and the U.N. Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.

Kotau’s wife, Anastasia, told Reuters she is hopeful the appeals will lead to a serious investigation by both the U.S. and Poland, where her husband had been living under refugee status.

DAKAR, Senegal — Gunfire and explosions tore through Niger’s primary international airport recently, serving as the latest indicator that armed extremist groups are shifting their focus toward cities and urban areas across Africa’s Sahel region as they battle for territory and influence, according to analysts.

The jihadi organization JNIM, which has ties to al-Qaeda and is considered the most powerful militant group operating in the Sahel — the vast stretch of land just south of the Sahara desert — has claimed responsibility for Thursday’s assault on Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey. The attack resulted in the deaths of 11 soldiers and two civilians.

This was actually the second time this year that the airport has come under attack. The facility is considered a critical strategic location, functioning as the command center for Niger’s ruling military government and housing the majority of the country’s air force, drones, and aircraft. It also serves as headquarters for a regional military alliance uniting forces from Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso.

Back in January, the Islamic State group’s Sahel Province, known as ISSP, claimed credit for a similar strike in which gunmen on motorcycles stormed the airport, targeting high-value drone equipment. These attacks on Niger, unprecedented at this scale in recent memory, come alongside a major raid and an ongoing fuel blockade carried out by al-Qaeda in and around Mali’s capital city of Bamako.

Both al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters and those backed by the Islamic State group — rival factions with competing visions for the region — began ramping up their operations last year as they each seek to expand their foothold in what has become one of the world’s most active terrorism hotspots.

Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim, who serves as deputy project director for the International Crisis Group think tank, noted that the recent wave of attacks signals a broader strategic shift. Militant groups are no longer limiting themselves to isolated, under-policed rural communities — they are now increasingly setting their sights on urban areas.

The three neighboring countries of Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali sit at the center of this militant activity. All three are currently governed by military juntas that took power through coups, driven in large part by frustration with Western partners and elected governments.

All three nations have since pivoted away from Western allies and toward Russia as their primary security partner. French and American military forces have pulled out of the region, while Russian military personnel have taken their place.

Ibrahim noted that while Thursday’s attack was less significant in scale than the January strike, it still carries weight for JNIM’s broader strategy. “JNIM in Niger is trying to mark its territory. This is a message to the government but also to IS,” he said, referring to the Islamic State group.

Niger’s geographic position makes it especially valuable to these competing factions. The country shares borders with Mali and Burkina Faso to the west — where JNIM holds its strongest presence — and with Nigeria and Chad to the south and east, where groups like Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP, are active. To the north, Niger extends deep into the Sahara toward Libya and Algeria.

Analysts are raising alarms that ISSP and ISWAP are working to use the border between Niger and Nigeria as a bridge to link the two organizations, potentially creating a connected extremist corridor across a massive stretch of African territory — something JNIM is actively working to prevent.

Wassim Nasr, a senior research fellow at the Soufan Center, described the situation bluntly. “Niger is a territory of competition between them,” he said. “If JNIM loses the upper hand in Niger against the Islamic State, it will jeopardize its upper hand in Mali and Burkina Faso. … You have an open space like the Wild West, where each is looking to mark its territory.”

A Toronto court delivered a guilty verdict Friday against Frank Stronach, the 93-year-old Austrian-Canadian billionaire who founded one of the world’s largest auto parts companies, convicting him of sexual assault and indecent assault against two women in incidents that took place decades ago.

Stronach had originally faced 12 charges stemming from allegations made by seven different complainants, and he entered a not guilty plea to all of them.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy handed down the guilty findings on two of those charges, each related to a separate complainant.

Stronach built his fortune by launching auto parts giant Magna out of his garage in 1957, eventually becoming one of Canada’s wealthiest individuals. He later founded The Stronach Group, a business focused on horse racing.

He stepped down as Magna’s chairman in 2011, and the following year launched a political party in his home country of Austria.

The trial got underway in February. By the time closing arguments concluded in April, prosecutors had dropped one charge entirely and agreed Stronach should be acquitted on four others. Friday’s verdict found him guilty on two of the charges that remained.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iranian state media are celebrating what they call a “magnificent defeat” of the United States, and Tehran is wasting no time capitalizing on the moment — rushing to get oil flowing again under this week’s interim peace agreement and working to bring an end to Israeli military action in Lebanon.

But the Islamic Republic has taken serious hits of its own and faces a difficult road ahead. The country’s economy has been devastated by the conflict, mass protests shook the nation in January, and its supreme leader has not been seen publicly. Iran is now heading into nuclear negotiations with the U.S. after having been struck during two previous rounds of talks.

The agreement offers badly needed relief from international sanctions, though much of that relief depends on Iran scaling back its nuclear program — at the very least by diluting its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. That requirement has drawn sharp criticism from hard-line factions within Iran. Meanwhile, the U.S. is insisting Iran stop uranium enrichment altogether, a demand Tehran has rejected for decades.

Iran’s leadership is putting on a confident front, having held onto power through weeks of intense American and Israeli airstrikes. Officials also believe U.S. President Donald Trump is unlikely to restart the war, given Iran’s demonstrated capability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz and send shockwaves through the global economy.

“It’s too much to say that Iran has emerged a victor, but it could have been much worse,” said Farzan Sabet, an Iran expert at the Geneva Graduate Institute think tank. “I think that the real victory for Iran was … survival.”

As part of the interim agreement, the U.S. has agreed to issue waivers permitting Iranian crude oil exports. According to Lloyd’s List Intelligence, at least three state-owned Iranian oil tankers have already departed as the U.S. naval blockade was lifted.

Tracking firm TankerTrackers.com reported Friday that Iran has shipped nearly 18 million barrels of oil over the past five days, worth an estimated $1.44 billion.

Dozens of additional tankers carrying oil could soon leave from Kharg Island, Iran’s primary export hub on the Persian Gulf, which would put further downward pressure on global oil prices.

Benchmark Brent crude, which was trading above $110 per barrel last month, has dropped to around $80 since the agreement was reached. The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States has also fallen below $4 — a closely watched figure as midterm congressional elections approach.

Before the deal, international sanctions had forced Iran to move its oil through a so-called “shadow fleet,” selling primarily to China at discounted prices. The new arrangement allows Iran to pursue more buyers and command better rates.

That revenue will be critically important as Iran confronts the economic wreckage left by the war.

Since authorities lifted a months-long internet blackout, many Iranians have been sharing photos online of their bare refrigerators.

Basic food items like meat have become unaffordable for many families. The Iranian rial, which exchanged at 32,000 to the dollar at the time of the 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers, has now collapsed to more than 1.5 million to the dollar.

“The conflict is estimated to have cost at least one million Iranian jobs, with 20% of workforce losses tied to the state-imposed internet shutdown,” said Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“Ordinary Iranians, already struggling under systemic mismanagement and corruption as well as U.S. sanctions, have felt those burdens compounded by hyperinflation that has rendered the Iranian rial effectively worthless,” Dagres added.

The collapse of the rial triggered the nationwide demonstrations that spread across Iran in January, threatening the rule of then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran’s security forces responded with the deadliest crackdown in the country’s history, killing thousands.

The 86-year-old Khamenei and other senior leaders were killed in Israel’s opening strikes on February 28. State funeral ceremonies are scheduled for July 4 through 9, timed to coincide with the six-month mark of the protest crackdown. The government has organized continuous rallies since the war began as a show of strength.

More moderate voices inside Iran are urging the country to pursue the economic opportunities that negotiations could bring. In addition to a full lifting of sanctions, the agreement promises a $300 billion investment fund for Iran if a final deal with the U.S. is reached — though the source of that funding has not been made clear.

The key question is how far Iran’s new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei — the son of the late leader — and establishment hard-liners are willing to compromise. In a statement carried by state media, he expressed support for the interim deal, saying the talks “will not mean accepting the enemy’s opinion,” while also acknowledging he held a “different viewpoint” without providing specifics.

The ongoing conflict in Lebanon has already put the broader agreement in jeopardy. Negotiations that were set to take place Friday in Switzerland were called off as fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants escalated — though the two sides did agree to halt hostilities by Friday.

Israel has stated it will maintain its military presence across large portions of southern Lebanon and continue operations against Hezbollah until the group no longer presents a threat. Hezbollah has refused to stop its attacks unless Israel withdraws its forces.

The interim U.S.-Iran deal — which neither Israel nor Hezbollah is party to — calls for an end to military operations on all sides and for Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity to be respected.

“The end of the war in Lebanon is an inseparable part of (the) complete end of the war,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tuesday. “And the end of the war also includes the end of the occupation.”

That stance leaves American negotiators with little room to maneuver, and Vice President JD Vance’s planned trip to Switzerland was subsequently postponed.

Looking at the broader negotiations, Iran appears to have succeeded in keeping two long-standing U.S. and Israeli demands off the table: discussions about its missile program and its backing of Hezbollah and other militant organizations.

On the nuclear front, Iran agreed to “downblend” its highly enriched uranium stockpile, addressing one of Washington’s primary concerns.

However, Raja News, a media outlet aligned with ultra-conservative hard-line factions, slammed that concession, claiming Iran had “given up its most important levers” — reflecting the intense internal pressure not to yield on other nuclear issues, particularly the broader enrichment program.

“I’m not very optimistic about the kind of second round of discussions that are going to focus on the nuclear issue,” Sabet said. “It’s not actually clear to me yet that those will go anywhere, at least this year.”

Speaking at the conclusion of a two-day European Union summit in Brussels, French President Emmanuel Macron declared Friday that France will not support the establishment of so-called “return hubs” — offshore detention facilities for migrants — in third countries.

Macron expressed doubt about whether such facilities have ever proven effective. “We are in favour of a more effective return policy, but … I have never seen a return centre in a third country that actually works,” he told reporters.

The French leader also raised concerns about whether these hubs are consistent with the values Europe was founded on. “I’m not sure that’s what our Europe is about. I’m not sure that these are the fundamental principles on which our Europe was built, and I don’t believe it’s effective either,” Macron said.

His comments came just days after the European Parliament approved a sweeping migration reform package aimed at speeding up deportations and permitting offshore detention centers. Critics of the measure argue it takes a harsh approach and undermines protections for those seeking asylum.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez also voiced opposition to the return hubs during a press briefing Friday following the summit. However, he acknowledged that Spain’s position puts it in the minority among European nations. Sanchez argued the hubs would amount to a financial drain, saying they are “simply going to waste economic resources, and Europe doesn’t have many of those.”

What was once seen as one of the closest relationships between a European leader and U.S. President Donald Trump has taken a dramatic turn, with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni publicly calling out the American president over remarks she says were simply made up.

When Trump was inaugurated for his second term in 2025, Meloni stood out as the only European leader invited to attend the ceremony — a sign, many believed, of a special bond between Washington and Rome. A year and a half later, that relationship appears to have collapsed, leaving Meloni in a difficult position on the world stage, according to political analysts.

The friction between the two right-leaning leaders began building with the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, a conflict that hurt Europe’s economy and stirred strong anti-war feelings among the Italian public.

Footage from this week’s G7 summit in France seemed to suggest the pair had patched things up. But any hope of reconciliation was dashed on Friday when Trump told an Italian television channel that Meloni had “begged” him to take a photograph with her.

Meloni responded sharply, saying Trump had invented the story. She went even further, accusing him of showing more respect toward the West’s adversaries than toward its longtime allies.

“There is one thing he should remember: neither I nor Italy ever beg,” she said.

Her forceful response on social media drew praise from across Italy’s political spectrum, with most parties viewing Trump’s comments as a direct insult to the country. However, analysts cautioned that Meloni would now face pressure to take a firmer and more consistent stance toward Washington, rather than continuing to seek goodwill from an unpredictable president who has repeatedly broken with traditional diplomatic norms.

“Meloni cannot keep changing her approach depending on Trump’s unpleasant remarks. She must decide whether to adopt a less accommodating stance or, like other countries such as Canada, a firmer approach,” said Piero Ignazi, a political analyst at the University of Bologna.

Opposition figures wasted no time pointing out that the extraordinary public dispute exposed the failure of Meloni’s original plan to win Trump over through flattery and friendship.

“Have you finally understood that allying with those people means going against Italy? Enough with MAGA caps and enough with building bridges with Trump,” said former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who leads a centrist opposition group.

Trump’s 2024 election victory had initially seemed to open the door for Meloni to cultivate a unique relationship with a political ally who shared her ideological outlook, positioning herself as a go-between for Washington and a largely skeptical Europe. Trump had heaped praise on her at various points in 2024 and 2025, describing her at different times as “a fantastic leader and person,” “a beautiful young woman,” “a very successful politician,” and “an inspiration to all.”

When Trump rolled out sweeping tariffs against the European Union, Meloni stood apart from other European leaders by keeping her tone measured, arguing that preserving Western unity against shared threats was more important. She also refrained from publicly criticizing Trump even as fellow European leaders voiced frustration over his handling of the Ukraine-Russia war and his reluctance to press Israel on the Gaza conflict.

But the Iran war backed Meloni into a corner. Things deteriorated sharply in April when Trump lashed out at Pope Leo for criticizing the conflict. Meloni came to the pope’s defense, which prompted Trump to accuse her of lacking courage. She also refused U.S. military planes carrying weapons for the Iran war access to an airbase in Sicily, saying the Americans had not followed the required procedures.

“This was the original sin, in Trump’s eyes,” said Francesco Galietti of political risk consultancy Policy Sonar.

In the near term, Galietti noted that standing up to Trump — who polls very poorly in Italy — could give Meloni a boost at home. But he warned that the falling out threatens a key part of her political identity heading into elections scheduled for next year.

“This is like a horrible slap in the face,” Galietti said. “It completely jeopardizes her strategy that when we hold elections, the Italians will eventually choose her because she is the safest pair of hands.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has agreed to work with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on a new push for peace in the ongoing war with Russia, according to a Ukrainian presidential adviser who spoke to reporters on Friday.

The two leaders crossed paths on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit held at the French resort of Evian-les-Bains on Wednesday. At the gathering, Zelenskiy called on allied nations to ramp up pressure on Russia to bring the more than four-year-old conflict to an end.

During their meeting, the two presidents explored what steps might breathe new life into diplomatic efforts. Lula put forward several ideas, including reaching out to the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Presidential communications adviser Dmytro Lytvyn shared details of the conversation with the press.

“They agreed that, in particular, based on such ideas and contacts, they would try to achieve something and later they would discuss it based on the results,” Lytvyn said.

Beyond the United States, France, and Britain — nations with which Ukraine already maintains close diplomatic ties — the permanent Security Council members also include Russia and China.

An earlier U.S.-backed mediation effort fell apart earlier this year after Russia demanded additional territorial concessions from Ukraine, a condition Kyiv has firmly rejected.

Zelenskiy has also called on U.S. President Donald Trump to re-engage in peace mediation and arrange a direct meeting between him and Russian leader Vladimir Putin — something Putin has said he is not willing to do at this time.

Speaking after the G7 meeting in Brazil, Lula noted that Zelenskiy had previously shown little interest in his diplomatic overtures, but that his stance had now changed. Lula told reporters at a news conference that he had already been in contact with all five permanent Security Council leaders and planned to reach out to them again.

Ukraine has been stepping up its diplomatic activity in recent weeks as the U.S.-led peace process stalled, partly due to the conflict involving Iran.

OSLO — Norway is cracking down on artificial intelligence in the classroom, announcing a near-total prohibition on the use of generative AI tools for young students while also placing tight limits on how older children can use the technology.

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere made the announcement at a press conference Friday, saying that relying on AI puts younger children at risk of bypassing critical stages of their education.

“The most important thing in school is that our children learn to read, write and do mathematics,” Stoere said. He confirmed the new standards will go into effect when the school year begins in late August.

Under the new guidelines, students in first through seventh grade — ranging from ages 6 to 13 — should generally not be using AI at all. Teenagers in lower secondary school, between the ages of 14 and 16, may use AI tools carefully and only under the direct supervision of a teacher.

For students in upper secondary education, ages 17 to 19, the government says learning to use AI appropriately is encouraged so they are ready for higher education and the workforce.

The announcement comes as Norway has been grappling with a widespread drop in student test scores. In 2024, the government already banned smartphones from schools and restored greater authority to teachers to maintain classroom discipline.

Norway first began bringing computers into classrooms during the 1990s and later embraced tablets following the launch of the iPad in 2010, gradually moving away from traditional books and handwriting instruction.

On Friday, the government also said it plans to introduce legislation that would fund a return to printed books in classrooms, signaling a deliberate reversal of the shift toward digital tablets.

In April, Norway also announced plans to prohibit children from using social media until they reach age 16, joining a growing movement led by Australia and other countries aimed at limiting young people’s use of electronic devices.

KOHIMA, India — Thousands of people from the Naga community walked through driving rain on Friday, rallying together to demand justice for survivors of sexual violence following a wave of reported cases across the state.

Demonstrators gathered in Kohima, the capital of Nagaland, where speakers urged their community to stop staying quiet about sexual violence out of fear of social backlash and judgment.

Rosemary Dzuvichu, an adviser for the Naga Mother’s Association and a leading voice for women’s rights in the region, described the barriers survivors face: “Victims and victim families have faced doubts cast on victims, character assassination and often pressures and compromises on the victim to marry the rapist or perpetrator. Many cases have therefore remained unreported.”

Nagaland is a small, mountainous state that has long been regarded as one of the safest places for women anywhere in India. However, a string of sexual assaults over recent months has deeply unsettled that reputation.

Independent researcher Sophy Lasuh, who attended the rally alongside her sister, shared her thoughts on what the moment revealed about her community: “We need to reflect and ask ourselves what it means to be a close knit society when we mourn and grieve together without question, yet abandon survivors of sexual assault to fight alone, carrying a shame that actually belongs to the perpetrator.”

Sexual assault against women remains a widespread problem across India. According to the country’s National Crime Records Bureau, police logged 29,536 rape cases in 2024 — a number experts believe vastly understates the true scale of the problem, given the stigma attached to sexual violence and many victims’ distrust of law enforcement.

Standing in the rain with an umbrella, surrounded by fellow members of her tribe, Sanglishe Yimkhiumg, 45, made her feelings clear: “We do not want Nagaland to be this way.”

When Abed Hachem’s home was damaged during a 2024 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, he rebuilt it from scratch. Now, returning to his village of Qlaileh in southern Lebanon, he faces something far worse — almost nothing is left to rebuild.

Where his house once stood, there is only rubble. His garden is gone, replaced by dust and debris. Scattered among the ruins of what used to be his living room are children’s toys and broken furniture.

“Oh dear… Oh God. There was a building here… here… there was a building here,” said the 46-year-old father of three, gesturing toward the skeletal remains of his neighbors’ homes.

Among the few structures still standing in the village is the spire of the local mosque.

The current round of violence between Israel and Hezbollah began on March 2, when Hezbollah launched attacks on Israel in solidarity with its ally Iran, pulling Lebanon into the broader regional conflict. Israel answered with airstrikes and a ground invasion that took control of portions of southern Lebanon.

The toll has been devastating: more than 3,900 people have been killed, and roughly 1.2 million have been forced from their homes as Israeli evacuation orders emptied village after village across southern Lebanon. Israel has maintained that its military campaign targeted Hezbollah’s fighters and military infrastructure.

Now, as residents like Hachem make their way back, they are confronting the painful reality of communities that no longer exist.

“The whole village is destroyed. My house is destroyed. The village is destroyed. Where are we supposed to go now?” he said. “There is nothing left. A lifetime’s work is all gone.”

Among those killed was a neighbor Hachem considered a brother — a man he shared tea with every morning. That neighbor’s son also died in the violence.

“They have nothing to do with political parties, nothing to do with weapons, nothing to do with wars,” Hachem said, his voice filled with frustration. “The man was just trying to support his family, and he and his son died for nothing.”

An interim agreement announced between the United States and Iran brought a brief pause to the fighting earlier this week, giving displaced residents a window to return home. Hostilities flared once more before a new ceasefire took hold Friday afternoon.

For Hachem, the agreement came too late to save what mattered most.

“This agreement they reached, they should have made it from the very beginning,” he said. “Not after people were destroyed.”

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The British bar association has placed the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor on temporary suspension, as disciplinary proceedings against him move forward.

Karim Khan, a 56-year-old British barrister, was stripped of his ICC duties last week after the court’s oversight body determined he had engaged in “serious misconduct” related to allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a female staff member. Khan has firmly denied all allegations.

The Bar Standards Board, which oversees attorneys who practice law in England and Wales, announced Friday that Khan has been suspended from legal practice. The board said a disciplinary hearing would take place within four weeks but declined to specify what information formed the basis of its decision.

Attorneys representing Khan said the British regulator’s suspension was rooted in the Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties’ finding of serious misconduct. In a statement, his legal team said Khan “unequivocally denies all allegations of impropriety” and pledged to take “all necessary steps to challenge the decision of the Bureau.”

The Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties — the executive committee of the ICC’s oversight body — concluded last week that Khan had committed a “serious misconduct” and a “serious breach of duty,” recommending he be removed from his position. A formal vote on whether to permanently oust him is set for next month.

The misconduct allegations against Khan have been swirling around the court in The Hague for more than two years. He is accused of sexual misconduct involving a female aide.

An investigation by The Associated Press in 2024 revealed, through whistleblower documents, that Khan allegedly noticed the woman working in a different ICC department and had her transferred to his office. In 2025, Khan had temporarily stepped away from his duties while a United Nations investigation was conducted.

A report released in April by the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services concluded there was evidence of “nonconsensual sexual contact” between Khan and his aide — occurring “in his office, at his private residence” and during an official mission, according to a copy reviewed by the AP. However, a three-judge panel tasked with legally evaluating those findings determined the investigation was not conclusive enough.

The ultimate decision about Khan’s future now rests with the 125-member Assembly of States Parties, the body that oversees the ICC. A diplomatic official, speaking without authorization to discuss the matter publicly, told the AP that several countries believe the misconduct allegations are politically motivated — an effort to derail the court’s investigation into Israel. “This is what happens when you go after friends of the U.S.,” the official said.

The ICC issued arrest warrants in 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister. In that ruling, judges stated there was reason to believe the two men used “starvation as a method of warfare” by limiting humanitarian aid and deliberately targeted civilians during Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza — allegations Israeli officials have rejected.

The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on Khan and roughly a dozen other court staff members connected to the Israel warrants and to investigations involving American personnel in Afghanistan. Those sanctions have disrupted a wide range of ongoing investigations at the court.

On Thursday, the ICC announced that a special session will be convened on July 24 in New York to hold the removal vote. Three senior officials familiar with the process, who were not authorized to speak on the record, said New York was chosen for logistical reasons — every member nation already has representation at the United Nations there.

For Khan to be removed, 63 countries would need to vote in favor. It remains uncertain who might take over the role. Two deputy prosecutors have been handling his responsibilities for the past year.

BRUSSELS (AP) — After a two-day summit, European Union leaders have left Brussels without reaching an agreement on whether to establish an informal communication line with the Kremlin, several of them acknowledged on Friday.

European Council President António Costa, who led the summit, had already taken steps through his office to make contact with Russia. He proposed sending a senior official to initiate that connection. Costa was clear that his intention was not to act as a mediator or to create a separate negotiating process running alongside the one currently being led by the United States — a process that itself has shown little sign of progress.

For months, European capitals have been debating whether to appoint someone to facilitate talks with Russia in hopes of jumpstarting a peace process. That idea has largely been dismissed, however, with many EU members skeptical that Russian President Vladimir Putin would come to the table regardless.

Rather than pursuing direct talks, the bloc’s 27 member nations have shifted their focus toward defining what concessions Russia must offer in exchange for any lasting peace agreement.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš told reporters after the overnight session that the leaders had not resolved their disagreements. “Europe is unable to agree even on whether there will be negotiations or who will lead them,” he said.

Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin took a more supportive stance toward Costa’s outreach effort. “Opening up a channel is not a mistake in our view, and I trust António Costa,” he said. Martin also stressed that any formal negotiations would need to center on Ukraine and Russia directly, adding, “there are no indications that Russia is coming to the table at all.”

Putin has been working to sideline both Europe and Ukraine from discussions about the conflict’s future, preferring to engage directly with the United States. However, the Kremlin said Friday it would welcome dialogue with European leaders — provided Europe drops what it described as a confrontational posture.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, “We are ready for contact, we were not the ones who initiated cutting such contacts, terminating them completely. If forces emerge that realize the need to resume dialogue with Russia, not to lecturing it or, worse, to issue ultimatums … then President Putin and the Russian side would certainly be open to it.”

As leaders departed the summit, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever made light of the situation, joking that Costa himself should be sent to Moscow. “I was just talking about you, António,” De Wever said with a laugh while shaking Costa’s hand. “I was full of praise, saying you are the only one who can represent us and that we will send you to Moscow.”

Not everyone was amused by the idea of Europe playing a neutral role. Margus Tsahkna, the foreign minister of Estonia — a country on the EU’s eastern border that has experienced drone incursions and was once under Soviet occupation — argued that “Europe must not assume the role of a neutral mediator.” Instead, he said, the EU should be strengthening Ukraine’s hand in order to “force the Kremlin into serious negotiations.”

Police on the Indonesian tourist island of Bali have broken up an illegal wildlife operation involving 21 live green sea turtles, authorities announced Friday.

Officers conducted a raid on June 10 along the island’s Pegametan coast after local residents tipped off police about suspected illegal turtle trading in the area. The raid resulted in the seizure of all 21 living animals. Nanang Pri Hasmojo, who heads law enforcement for the Bali police force, confirmed the details of the operation.

A 67-year-old man, identified only by his initials KS, was taken into custody. Investigators believe he was responsible for holding the turtles before they could be distributed and sold.

During early questioning, the suspect reportedly told police that the turtles had been sent to him by an associate from waters near Madura, an island located in East Java province. He allegedly received the animals directly on the beach, where another individual was supposed to pick them up for resale.

“We are continuing to investigate the case and pursuing other suspects involved in the network,” Hasmojo stated. The suspect has been charged under Indonesia’s wildlife protection laws and could face up to 15 years behind bars along with substantial fines if convicted.

Indonesia has legally protected turtle species since 1990 through conservation and fisheries legislation. A regulation issued by the Environment Ministry in 2018 further strengthened protections for the six species of sea turtles found in Indonesian waters, and additional government rules ban their trade entirely.

Sea turtle poaching — carried out by both local communities and organized criminal operations — is considered a major factor in a global conservation crisis. The International Union for Conservation of Nature reports that six of the world’s seven sea turtle species are now classified as threatened.

A 2022 study conducted by researchers at Arizona State University and published in the journal Global Change Biology found that more than 1.1 million sea turtles were killed between 1990 and 2020. The killings were largely driven by demand for meat, alleged aphrodisiacs, and use in traditional and spiritual practices.

According to that same study, the green turtle — scientifically called Chelonia Mydas — made up 56% of all sea turtle killings over that 30-year span.

Bali was historically one of the biggest hubs for green turtle trafficking. That trade was fueled in part by the traditional use of turtle meat in religious offerings tied to Balinese Hinduism, the dominant faith on the island, which is home to roughly 4.5 million people.

JUBA, South Sudan — A Vietnamese national who was deported to South Sudan as part of the Trump administration’s controversial third-country deportation program has been sent back to Vietnam, following more than a year spent in detention.

South Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the return of 44-year-old Tuan Phan during a press briefing on Friday.

Ministry spokesperson Agok Anyar offered a positive assessment of Phan’s time in their custody, saying: “We are grateful that while in our custody Mr. Phan was very disciplined, joyful, and importantly, he remained healthy.”

Phan was among eight men sent to Africa in May 2025. Their deportation was briefly halted midflight when a federal judge blocked their removal to South Sudan, citing procedural problems. The men were first diverted to a U.S. military base in Djibouti before ultimately arriving in Juba, South Sudan’s capital, aboard a military aircraft in July 2025 — after the Supreme Court cleared the way for their removal.

All eight men had criminal convictions in the United States, though each had already completed their prison sentences before being taken into immigration custody.

Phan is the second of the eight men to be repatriated. Jesus Munõz-Gutierrez was previously flown back to Mexico in September. Dian Peter Domach, the only South Sudanese citizen among the group, was released upon arrival. The remaining men in the group are nationals of Cuba, Myanmar, and Laos.

Court records show Phan came to the United States as a child in 1991. In 2000, shortly after turning 18, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison after fatally shooting someone during a gang-related confrontation. A deportation order was issued against him in 2009, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement took him into custody immediately after he finished his sentence in March 2025.

While detained in Juba, the men were held in a gated residence under armed guard, according to a U.S. Senate report. A congressional aide who visited Juba last year became the first non-South Sudanese official to check on the men, the report noted.

Michael Bochenek, a senior counsel for Human Rights Watch, raised concerns about the lack of outside access to the detainees, saying it meant “there’s been no independent check on people’s treatment and conditions of confinement and raises serious questions about South Sudan’s compliance with human rights norms and essential safeguards against abuses in detention.”

The choice of South Sudan as a receiving country drew particular criticism given the nation’s poor human rights record, widespread corruption, and ongoing political instability. Armed conflict displaced more than half a million people there in 2025, according to the United Nations.

At least seven African nations have agreed to accept deportees who are not their own citizens as part of deals with the U.S. government, which has in turn agreed to pay those governments millions of dollars. The monitoring group Third Country Deportation Watch reports that more than 180 people have been sent to these countries under such arrangements.

While the terms of many of these agreements have been disclosed publicly, the specifics of the South Sudan deal remain unclear. State Department documents that have been made public show South Sudan made requests to the U.S. after agreeing to accept the men — including sanctions relief for a former top official and assistance with the prosecution of a prominent opposition figure. What South Sudan ultimately received in return has not been confirmed.

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed Friday that four of its soldiers were killed during a combat incident in southern Lebanon, including Lt. Col. Dor Ben Shimhon, the commander of Battalion 52. Investigators are working to determine whether the tank carrying the soldiers was struck by a planted explosive device or an explosive drone deployed by Hezbollah terrorists.

IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin stated that the battalion commander’s tank was hit at around 12:30 a.m. The cause of the strike has not yet been officially determined, and the investigation remains ongoing. The identities of the three other soldiers who died in the incident have not been cleared for public release.

Ben Shimhon had taken command of Battalion 52 on April 20, 2026, roughly a week after the unit’s previous commander was seriously injured in combat. He had led the battalion through two months of active fighting before his death.

Ben Shimhon was married and the father of two daughters. He came from a family deeply rooted in military service — he and four of his brothers served in the 401st Brigade, while another brother served in the Golani Brigade. His wife is also an active-duty combat officer serving in the Combat Intelligence Collection and Border Defense Corps.

Defrin also disclosed that at approximately 4 a.m., an explosive drone struck a Commando Brigade task force, wounding five soldiers, including an officer.

The IDF spokesman noted that Hezbollah continues to violate the existing agreement, and that Israeli forces are maintaining freedom of action in the Yellow Line area. He added that the military stands ready at any moment to resume intensive operations in both Lebanon and Iran.

According to Defrin, Israeli forces struck 30 targets prior to the battalion commander’s death, and an additional 70 targets were hit by air and ground forces in the aftermath.

A court in the United Kingdom sentenced two men to prison on Friday after they were found guilty of carrying out a coordinated arson campaign targeting property belonging to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Roman Lavrynovych, a 22-year-old Ukrainian national, received a seven-year prison sentence, while Stanislav Carpiuc, a 27-year-old Romanian citizen, was sentenced to two years behind bars. Both were convicted of conspiracy to damage property through fire.

According to prosecutors, the two men targeted a vehicle and two separate properties connected to Starmer across three consecutive nights in May 2025. They allegedly carried out the attacks under the direction of a Russian-speaking individual who used the alias “El Money.” That person communicated with Lavrynovych through the messaging platform Telegram. The true identity of “El Money” was never uncovered, and no charges were filed against them.

The Italian government pushed back hard on Friday against U.S. President Donald Trump after he claimed that Premier Giorgia Meloni had “begged” him for a photo opportunity during the recently concluded G7 summit — a rebuke that signaled Italy’s patience with Trump’s bragging had run out.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani scrapped a scheduled visit to the United States this weekend in response, describing Trump’s remarks as “serious and offensive” to both Meloni personally and to Italy as a nation.

Meloni herself took to video to fire back, calling Trump’s account “completely fabricated” and closing with a pointed declaration: “Italy and I do not beg.”

Trump made the comments during an interview that aired Friday morning on the Italian La7 television network. A La7 correspondent had originally asked Trump about the situation in Ukraine, but Trump brought up Meloni and the discussion shifted to their encounter — captured on video — at the G7 gathering in Evian-les-Bains, France. The two leaders were seen speaking together at various moments during the summit, including a one-on-one conversation on a small sofa.

According to La7, Trump said Meloni had pleaded with him for a photo, adding that he felt sorry for her and went along with it even though he wasn’t required to. The network has posted a dubbed version of the exchange online, as the original English audio was not made available.

In her video response, Meloni said she felt compelled to speak up because “certain things deserve an immediate response.”

“Donald Trump’s statements are completely fabricated. I am frankly stunned,” she said. “I don’t know why the president of the United States behaves this way toward his own allies. After all, this isn’t the first time this has happened.”

That last line appeared to be a reference to an April interview Trump gave to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, in which he criticized Meloni for refusing to support the U.S.-Israel war against Iran. Meloni had stayed silent at the time, but on Friday she made clear she was done holding back.

“I can only say that it’s a shame he doesn’t show the same resolve toward the enemies of the West, toward the enemies of the United States — toward leaders with whom he, on the other hand, is much more accommodating,” Meloni said. “But there’s one thing he must remember: Italy and I do not beg.”

Meloni had initially worked to strengthen the long-standing relationship between Italy and the United States when Trump began his second term, positioning herself as a go-between for Washington and the European Union. She was the only EU head of state to attend his inauguration.

However, the relationship has become strained over several issues, including the U.S. military action against Iran — which Meloni has called illegal — as well as Trump’s stance on Ukraine, which Italy strongly backs. Trump’s tariffs and the strong U.S. support for Israel in the Gaza conflict have added further tension.

Italy’s Defense Minister Guido Crosetto also weighed in, rejecting Trump’s version of events and saying he could not imagine Meloni ever begging anyone for a photo, “not even under threat.”

“I can, however, imagine how much it cost her to set aside what Trump had said weeks ago, to serve the interests of Italy, of Europe, and of the West,” Crosetto wrote on X. “Jokes of this kind do no good to anyone: neither to the USA, nor to Italy, nor to the alliance.”

The White House confirmed late Thursday that Vice President JD Vance has scrapped his scheduled trip to Switzerland, where he was expected to attend a formal signing ceremony for a memorandum of understanding (MoU) designed to bring an end to the conflict with Iran.

The decision came just hours after Vance appeared at a White House press conference and left the door open on his travel plans. Despite earlier reports that a ceremony had been set for Friday in Geneva, Vance told reporters Thursday, “My plan is to go to Switzerland,” while acknowledging he did not know “exactly when.”

He also indicated that technical-level negotiations were expected to begin over the weekend, saying, “We think these technical negotiations are going to start sometime this weekend — that’s still the plan — but that could change.”

Earlier in the week, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had announced that Pakistan would host the Switzerland ceremony to mark the agreement and formally launch those negotiations. Friday’s planned event was meant to serve as a ceremonial signing and the official kickoff of the talks.

President Donald Trump had already digitally signed the MoU on Wednesday in Versailles. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also signed the document. Whether Vance’s trip will be rescheduled remains unclear.

The White House announcement came as violence continued in Lebanon. The Israel Defense Forces reported that four of its soldiers, including a battalion commander, were killed by a Hezbollah drone in southern Lebanon. The military said it then carried out retaliatory strikes against Hezbollah targets.

At Thursday’s press conference, Vance took aim at Israel’s military strategy and its resistance to the MoU, which includes provisions that would restrict Israel’s ability to strike Hezbollah and respond to attacks.

“It’s clear that large segments of the Israeli political system and population are very sensitive about this deal,” Vance said. “But I also think they’re picking up on some misinformation about the deal and running with it and sort of panicking about it.”

Directing his remarks at Israeli critics of the agreement, Vance added: “I guess my response to them would be: What is your exact proposal? You’re a country of nine million people. You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have.” Notably, Vance misstated Israel’s population — the actual figure is approximately 10 million.

President Trump also weighed in on Israel’s military actions in Lebanon during the G7 conference, telling reporters: “We have a little dispute over Lebanon. I say, ‘You can do a little softer touch, Bibi. You don’t have to knock down a building every time somebody walks into it that’s from Hezbollah.’”

MOSCOW — Russia signaled Friday that it is prepared to engage in conversations with European nations, but made clear it will not be pressured into negotiations on anyone else’s terms.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said practical reasoning alone demands such dialogue, given what he described as an “enormous number” of complicated matters that need to be addressed. However, he stressed that Europe must rethink how it approaches Russia before any meaningful exchange can happen.

“The Europeans have a very serious misconception: They assume that negotiations with Russia must be conducted from a position of strength and based on Russia’s weakness. This is the biggest mistake… Such talk will lead nowhere,” Peskov told reporters.

He went further, adding: “Does this stem from European incompetence, misinformation, or stupidity? We don’t know for sure, but it’s a fact.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously indicated a willingness to speak with European governments, but has insisted they must initiate contact, since it was they who severed ties. The EU has now imposed 20 separate rounds of sanctions on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

EUROPE SHIFTS ITS POSITION

For more than a year, European nations largely stepped back from direct engagement with Russia, leaving U.S. President Donald Trump to take the lead in attempting to negotiate a resolution to the conflict. That posture appears to be changing.

The office of European Council President Antonio Costa made “brief contacts at diplomatic level” with the Kremlin over recent weeks in order to “open communication channels,” according to an EU official who spoke Wednesday.

Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker told the Financial Times in an interview released Thursday that the EU should capitalize on the current “momentum” surrounding Ukraine peace discussions to push forward with efforts to restart direct talks with Putin.

Peskov echoed Russia’s conditional willingness, saying Moscow would engage if the other side came ready for genuine conversation — “not to engage in moralising or, especially, to issue ultimatums.”

Costa’s outreach, however, exposed fault lines within the EU. At a summit of EU leaders held in Brussels, some member states said the initiative had not been coordinated with them and argued the bloc should instead focus on increasing pressure on Russia.

UKRAINE DRONE STRIKES HIT MOSCOW AREA

Ukraine has claimed it is gaining the upper hand in the war through an intensified wave of drone strikes targeting locations deep within Russia, including ports, oil refineries, and other critical infrastructure. Russia disputes this characterization and says it will continue fighting until its goals are met — with or without a diplomatic resolution.

The governor of the Moscow region announced Friday that an eight-year-old girl had been killed in a large-scale Ukrainian drone attack that struck the capital and surrounding areas the previous day. The assault, involving hundreds of drones, ignited a major oil refinery in southeast Moscow for the second time in just three days.

“Indeed, drone attacks continue. Appropriate measures are being taken to mitigate the consequences,” Peskov acknowledged.

When asked whether Putin had watched footage of the burning refinery, Peskov deflected, telling reporters they should instead look at images from Ukrainian cities struck by Russian forces.

“These strikes will continue,” he added.

LONDON — A commanding special election win by Andy Burnham on Friday has triggered a political chain reaction that could soon bring down Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the man who led the Labour Party back to power less than two years ago after a 14-year absence from government.

Burnham is widely considered the top contender to succeed Starmer, particularly after his overwhelming performance in the Makerfield seat in northwest England. Even as Labour has struggled with poor poll numbers and significant losses in recent local elections, Burnham managed to defy the political odds in a major way.

The 56-year-old not only fended off the challenge from the anti-immigration Reform UK party, but he dramatically boosted Labour’s vote share to nearly 55%. That’s especially striking given that at local elections just last month, Reform UK captured virtually every seat within the Makerfield constituency.

With his return to Parliament after nearly a decade away — during which he served as the widely popular mayor of Greater Manchester — Burnham is now positioned to mount a direct challenge to the struggling Starmer for both the Labour leadership and the country’s top office. While he has stopped short of formally declaring his intentions, his words leave little doubt about where his ambitions lie.

Burnham framed his win as “the change moment” and said he and his supporters hoped to “lay out a new path” for Britain.

“I think we need in this country right now for people to feel a sense of hope that there is something better to work towards on the horizon,” he said.

The next scheduled national election in the UK isn’t required until 2029, but British political rules allow a party to swap out its leader — and therefore its prime minister — without triggering a nationwide vote.

Here’s how a leadership change could unfold:

Despite Starmer’s repeated insistence that he would fight any challenge to his position, he may soon conclude that he would lose a leadership vote — a deeply humbling outcome for a man who delivered a landslide Labour victory in July 2024. Starmer now ranks among the most unpopular prime ministers in modern British history, battered by a series of policy stumbles and controversies. Chief among them was his widely criticized decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to Washington, despite Mandelson’s connections to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Reports suggest that members of his own Cabinet may inform him this weekend that his position is no longer tenable and that resigning would be better both for him and for the Labour Party.

If Starmer chose to leave office right away, the Cabinet and Labour’s governing body would likely select a temporary leader to serve as prime minister — someone not expected to compete in the full leadership race. Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy has been mentioned as someone who could fill that role.

Another option would be for Starmer to announce he plans to step down at a future point, such as the party’s annual conference scheduled for September.

Burnham is expected to enter any leadership contest that follows. The bigger question is who else might join the race. Wes Streeting, who stepped down as health secretary last month, has signaled he intends to run. Other names being floated include Starmer’s former deputy Angela Rayner, who resigned last year over an unpaid property tax matter, and Al Carns, who left his post as armed forces minister last week over disagreements with Starmer’s defense spending plans.

A significant faction within Labour is pushing for no one to challenge Burnham at all, hoping he could walk into 10 Downing Street this summer, ahead of the party conference.

On Friday, Starmer found himself in the awkward position of publicly congratulating Burnham — knowing full well the victory only intensifies scrutiny of his own leadership.

The prime minister confirmed he had not yet spoken with Burnham but made clear he has no intention of stepping aside.

“Yes, I will run, I will stand,” Starmer said when asked whether he would contest a leadership challenge. “I’ve said repeatedly I’m not going to walk away from that.”

Under Labour’s rules, if a formal challenge is mounted, Starmer would automatically appear on the ballot. Any challenger would need to secure the support of at least one-fifth of Labour’s House of Commons lawmakers — that’s 81 members. Candidates who clear that bar would then need backing from either 5% of local party branches or at least three affiliated organizations, such as trade unions or cooperative societies.

Eligible party members and affiliates would then vote using a ranked-choice system, with the winner being the first candidate to surpass 50% of the vote. King Charles III would then formally invite that person to become prime minister and build a new government.

If a full contest takes place, the process could take three to four months, with the party holding town hall events before ballots are opened to its membership.

BRUSSELS — Just hours after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth publicly criticized NATO allies and announced a Pentagon review of their performance, leaders of numerous European nations were already going through their own checklist of security progress — covering many of the same issues Hegseth raised.

In many ways, Hegseth was telling the Europeans what they already know.

The European agenda included increased defense spending, investment in military production industries, lessons drawn from the ongoing war in Ukraine, and the development or purchase of drones, air defense systems, and long-range weapons.

At a summit that wrapped up Friday, European leaders discussed how to best deploy joint European Union funding, eliminate bureaucratic obstacles to speed up procurement, improve “military mobility” for faster troop and equipment deployment, and upgrade ports and airports.

“Europe’s defense readiness must be decisively ramped up by 2030,” they reaffirmed — a goal they have been working toward since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Intelligence agencies have cautioned that Russian President Vladimir Putin could order military action elsewhere in Europe before the decade is out, particularly if he manages to defeat Ukraine. European nations have also accused Russia of carrying out acts of sabotage and spreading disinformation across the continent.

Roughly two-thirds of European Union member countries are also NATO members, and the unpredictability of the Trump administration has pushed them to accelerate their own independent efforts. Hegseth’s announced review was simply the most recent unexpected development.

Hegseth does not regularly attend NATO meetings, and he departed Thursday’s gathering of defense ministers before it concluded. Still, his first major address to the alliance in February 2025 and his follow-up appearance this week left a strong impression.

On Thursday, he branded NATO a “paper-tiger,” called allies “shameful,” and declared that “too many failed” a test set by President Donald Trump — who had sought use of European bases to launch strikes against Iran.

He also criticized allies for emphasizing “gender equity and climate change” and attacked their immigration policies.

Hegseth then gave NATO members six months to demonstrate improvement before a Pentagon performance review that would tie the continued presence of American forces in Europe — and U.S. financial contributions to NATO — to whether he judges them to be doing enough.

“It’s protection racket framing that undermines NATO solidarity, trust in the U.S. commitment to NATO, and, ultimately, U.S. security interests,” said Rachel Ellehuus, Director-General of the Royal United Services Institute think-tank.

The specifics of what the review will actually examine remain unclear.

“It will be designed to ensure that NATO is moving fast and irreversibly toward Europe leading, stepping up to take primary responsibility for the defense of Europe,” Hegseth said. “Some countries will fail and others will pass with flying colors.”

He said the process might last “up to six months, could be less,” and would involve U.S. military commanders, members of Congress, and the allies themselves.

Hegseth also said that American contributions to the shared NATO budget — which funds its headquarters and other facilities — would be tied to ally performance. “Where other allies do not spend with urgency, our dues contributions will go down,” he said.

Speaking to reporters at Brussels airport before departing, he added that the review would also look at “where is the right place for basing. Where can we make sure we have access and overflight when we need it, so that America is properly postured on the continent.”

NATO itself played no direct role in the Iran conflict, though it did work to protect alliance territory from potential attack.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said he could not yet explain what Hegseth’s review would involve.

“There’s still no clarity on exactly what the outcome will be, because that will depend on the review. So, we’ll see what happens,” Rutte said, adding that “wherever we can be helpful, we will be helpful.” Rutte is expected to travel to Washington next week, where he may learn more.

From Rutte’s perspective, European allies and Canada are making solid progress, even if more can always be done.

“What we are seeing is staggering amounts of money coming in,” he told reporters. “Europe and Canada are spending in 2025 more than $90 billion extra compared to 2024, which is almost a 20% increase in defense spending.”

That additional funding must now be converted into actual military equipment, weapons, and ammunition.

At last year’s summit, allies agreed to raise their defense budgets to match the United States as a share of gross domestic product. President Trump left that meeting satisfied, describing his NATO counterparts as a “nice group of people.” But the new review casts a shadow over the alliance’s next summit, scheduled for July 7-8 in Turkey.

Despite the tension, senior European military officers have taken on more command roles within NATO, and U.S. allies have stepped up to lead the effort to channel arms and money into Ukraine as the Trump administration has pulled back.

Some European nations and Canada are also spending billions to purchase critical air defense systems from the United States, which they then donate to Ukraine — a conflict they view as an existential threat to Europe as a whole.

By most measures, it is difficult to identify what more the allies could be doing or doing faster — unless the expectation is that they provide unrestricted access to their airspace and military bases for American military operations beyond Europe.

Ellehuus, a former senior U.S. advisor at NATO, argued that decisions about troop positioning “should be driven by detailed threat assessments, operational requirements, and military planning – not used as a form of reward, punishment or revenge.”

“Such framing undermines allies while they’re actively trying to solve the problem and telegraphs to adversaries that U.S. security commitments have a price tag,” she said.

TUBARA/JUAN DE ACOSTA, COLOMBIA — At first look, these two side-by-side towns along Colombia’s hot and humid Caribbean coast seem nearly identical. Single-story houses with rocking chairs on their porches surround town plazas, and locals plan their errands to dodge the brutal midday sun. Mango trees shade the streets where children meander home from school.

Yet Tubara and Juan de Acosta — both located near the port city of Barranquilla — are sharply split when it comes to Sunday’s presidential election, which places two very different visions for Colombia’s future head to head.

In Juan de Acosta, where murders and extortion have surged alongside rising drug trafficking activity along its coastline, right-wing candidate Abelardo De La Espriella earned 55% of the vote in the first round. He has promised a firm hand against armed groups and criminal organizations.

Just next door, Tubara threw its support behind leftist senator Ivan Cepeda, giving him just under 60% of their votes. His message centered on expanding social programs, including reforms to healthcare, pensions, and education.

De La Espriella, a 47-year-old lawyer and businessman with no prior experience in politics, has leaned heavily into military-style imagery and language throughout his campaign. He calls himself “the Tiger,” labels his political movement “Defenders of the Homeland,” and salutes at campaign rallies and in promotional materials — despite never having served in the armed forces.

His tough-on-crime stance gave him a lead of several percentage points over Cepeda in the first round, and more recent polling shows him eight points ahead heading into the runoff.

For residents of Juan de Acosta, the rise in violence feels foreign to their community. Nicanor Alba, who was trimming and bagging pork ribs for customers at his butcher stand near the town plaza, described the toll extortion has taken.

“You set up your business and tomorrow they come and say ‘if you don’t give us 50,000, 30,000 or 40,000 (pesos), it’s over,’” said Alba, whose own brother was killed five years ago.

He said multiple friends and neighbors have been targeted by extortion on more than one occasion, and that recent homicide numbers left him stunned.

“That had never been seen before in Juan de Acosta, it’s a bunch of people,” said the butcher, who intends to cast his vote for De La Espriella.

The town’s location — with road access to Colombia’s interior and a stretch of coastline — has turned it into what authorities describe as a “strategic point” for drug smugglers, according to Colonel Eddy Sanchez, the police commander for Atlantico province.

Two criminal organizations — Los Pepes and Los Costenos — have long been active in the area, including in drug sales, Sanchez said. More recently, the country’s largest criminal gang, the Clan del Golfo, has also moved in.

“The Clan del Golfo uses this municipality as a platform to reach maritime areas and, using speedboats, ship drugs abroad,” Sanchez said.

“Of course, that leads to issues of violence,” he added, though he noted that murders have dropped from 15 in 2025 to just 2 so far in 2026, returning to the town’s historical average. Police have classified 14 of last year’s killings as contract murders.

Tubara, meanwhile, recorded no murders in 2025 and only one so far in 2026, Sanchez said.

“It’s a territorial dispute, where some gangs are trying to enter the municipality while others are trying to push them out to fully control local drug trafficking,” said Oscar Andres Arteta, Juan de Acosta’s interior secretary, adding that local government and police are working together to combat extortion.

Juan Gabriel Coronel, 42, who sells meat, ice cream, and dry goods at a small shop in Juan de Acosta, also plans to vote for De La Espriella in hopes of curbing crime — but he has personal health concerns weighing on him as well.

“I had a liver transplant 17 years ago and have never been denied my medication in that time,” said Coronel, who is a client of a healthcare provider the government took over in 2024 due to alleged care failures. For the past six months, he said, he has been paying for his medication out of his own pocket.

On the other side of the ballot, Cepeda, 63 and the son of a murdered communist leader, swept all but one Caribbean province in the first round among a field of 13 candidates.

To win the runoff, he will need to grow his numbers in those coastal provinces and in the capital, Bogota, according to Luis Fernando Trejos, a political science professor at the Universidad del Norte. Trejos estimates Cepeda needs between 2.5 million and 3 million additional votes to pull off a victory.

De La Espriella, who outpaced Cepeda by roughly 700,000 votes in the first round, will also need to expand his support. More than 41 million Colombians are eligible to cast ballots, but fewer than 24 million participated in the first round.

Both candidates have lined up backing from influential political figures along the coast, Trejos noted. De La Espriella has made a point of highlighting that he grew up in the inland Caribbean city of Monteria. His campaign billboards show his tiger persona wearing a Barranquilla soccer jersey with the message: “Abelardo is coastal like you. … Coastal votes coastal.”

He has also accused Cepeda’s campaign of planning a large-scale vote-buying effort on the coast — a claim Cepeda’s team has firmly rejected.

In Tubara, Cepeda supporters have been actively working to drive up voter turnout. Clara Algarin, a clinical psychologist and former city councilor, told Reuters she has been coordinating transportation for voters who were unable to reach polling stations during the first round.

Algarin expressed admiration for the current leftist president’s expansion of free public university education and a 230,000 peso (about $66) monthly state pension he created for people who were unable to save for retirement — including her own mother.

“My mother worked as a domestic servant from the age of 16. She never had the possibility of being paid a pension before,” Algarin said.

Her husband, Javier Gomez, operates a bakery — its porch decorated with a bright Cepeda campaign banner. He said he was glad to pay his employee the 23% minimum wage increase for this year that the current president put in place.

“The work that (the employee) does deserves the payment of a living wage,” Gomez said while taking a break from packaging fresh bread.

A preliminary agreement between the United States and Iran has been signed, marking a potential step toward ending hostilities and beginning talks on a more comprehensive deal.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was photographed holding the memorandum of understanding shortly after it was signed, with the image released by the Islamic Republic News Agency. The signing took place in Tehran in the early hours of Thursday.

The agreement was signed by President Trump and represents an early-stage framework intended to lay the groundwork for broader negotiations between the two countries.

While the signing signals a diplomatic opening, officials and analysts note that considerable obstacles remain before any permanent or wide-ranging peace arrangement can be finalized between Washington and Tehran.

BEIJING (AP) — Vibrant dragon boat races, lion dances, and festive gatherings filled communities across mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan on Friday as people celebrated the Dragon Boat Festival.

The holiday stretches back more than 2,000 years and, while best known for its athletic competitions, has deep roots in Chinese history and ancient beliefs surrounding health, protection, and living in harmony with nature.

“The Dragon Boat Festival is probably the richest and most diverse of all traditional Chinese festivals,” said Liu Xiaofeng, a history professor at Tsinghua University. “Across different regions, people developed a wide variety of traditions based on ideas connected to the summer solstice and the balance of yin and yang.”

Central to the festival’s story is the ancient poet Qu Yuan, who according to legend took his own life by drowning more than two millennia ago. The tradition of dragon boat racing grew from tales of people rushing out onto the water to search for him and tossing rice into the river to keep fish from consuming his body.

In Beijing, a three-day competition features men’s, women’s, and mixed-team races at distances of 100, 200, and 500 meters. Competitors from Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, and Guangdong are taking part in the weekend-long event.

Crews moved their paddles in perfect unison, guided by the thundering beat of onboard drummers, as each boat drove hard toward the finish line while crowds of spectators cheered from the banks.

Many others followed the action from home, enjoying the holiday with family over “zongzi” — a traditional sticky rice dish prepared for the occasion.

The 2026 Beijing festivities are scheduled to run through June 21 at the city’s Grand Canal.

“The competition helped strengthen our team spirit,” said Li Maoshan, one of Friday’s race participants. “It also gave us an opportunity to demonstrate the spirit of perseverance and hard work.”

In Hong Kong, participants added a playful touch to the races by wearing costumes, including a cartoon depiction of Ne Zha, a figure from Chinese Taoist tradition.

The British Bar Standards Board announced Friday that it has placed an interim suspension on Karim Khan, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor who was already suspended by the court itself on June 8 following sexual misconduct allegations.

The British legal regulatory body stated that under its Enforcement Regulations, the interim suspension must be reviewed by an Interim Suspension Panel at a formal hearing within the next four weeks. The board confirmed the suspension took effect immediately upon the announcement.

Khan, who is 56 years old, has denied the allegations that have been brought against him.

TOKYO — Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Friday that a vessel owned by a Japanese company, with three Japanese crew members aboard, has safely made its way through the Strait of Hormuz and out of the Gulf region.

The ship had been stranded in the Gulf as a result of the Iran war. According to the ministry, Japanese officials worked directly with Iran to arrange the vessel’s safe passage. The tanker is now headed back to Japan.

The vessel is identified as a Liberian-flagged crude oil tanker belonging to Japan’s Kyoei Tanker company.

With this ship’s departure, Japan’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that all Japan-linked vessels with Japanese crew members on board have now successfully left the Gulf.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi addressed the situation on social media platform X, stating: “Following the recent signing of a memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran, the government will continue making every diplomatic effort to ensure that free and safe navigation of vessels in the Strait of Hormuz resumes promptly.”

Despite this development, Prime Minister Takaichi noted that 37 vessels with ties to Japan are still waiting for clearance to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

LONDON (AP) — Andy Burnham has spent his career navigating the corridors of British political power, and now he has his sights set on the very top — the prime minister’s office at 10 Downing Street.

The 56-year-old presents himself as a down-to-earth northerner who favors T-shirts over suits, enjoys a game of soccer in his free time, and has been known to take the decks at DJ competitions spinning tracks from the 1990s. But beneath that casual image lies a seasoned political operator with decades of experience at the highest levels of British government.

Burnham is widely expected to mount a challenge against Prime Minister Keir Starmer following his victory in a special parliamentary election — a result he described as a “turning point” for politics in the United Kingdom.

He grew up in a part of northwest England situated between Liverpool and Manchester, the son of a British Telecom engineer and a receptionist. He joined the Labour Party during his teenage years, went on to study at Cambridge University, and first entered Parliament in 2001.

Over the next fifteen years as a lawmaker, he climbed the political ladder under Prime Minister Tony Blair and later served in Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Cabinet from 2007 to 2010.

He made two unsuccessful bids for the Labour Party leadership — in 2010 and again in 2015 — before stepping away from Westminster entirely to pursue the mayoralty of Manchester.

It was in that role that he earned the nickname “King of the North,” a reference inspired by the television series “Game of Thrones” that reflects both his fierce advocacy for his home region and his openly ambitious political outlook.

The title gained traction during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Burnham publicly clashed with Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson over what he characterized as a “London-centric” response to the health crisis.

Since taking charge of Greater Manchester in 2017, Burnham has overseen a dramatic transformation of the region — a city historically tied to the Industrial Revolution. The city center has experienced a building boom, with skyscrapers rising on former industrial land. He also unified a fragmented public transit system under public ownership, rebranding it as the Bee Network and expanding its services.

Within the Labour Party, he is seen as sitting to the left of Starmer, which plays well with party members. He is also regarded as one of the party’s most effective communicators — a stark contrast to the more rigid public speaking style he displayed during his earlier leadership campaigns. Today he comes across as relaxed and approachable.

Three successive mayoral election wins, combined with his strong showing in the Makerfield by-election — where he soundly defeated the candidate from the anti-immigration party Reform UK — have reinforced his reputation as someone who can win. Many within Labour are hoping he can help reverse the sharp drop in the party’s popularity that has occurred in the two years since Starmer led them to a landslide general election victory.

Burnham is now promising to take what he calls “Manchesterism” to a national level — a governing philosophy centered on investing in communities that have long been overlooked by decision-makers in London, and prioritizing people and place over party politics.

“What we’ve built in Greater Manchester needs to go national,” he said during the campaign. “I know what it is to turn places around.”

Not everyone is convinced. Critics argue that his policy platform lacks specifics and sidesteps difficult questions — particularly around how his proposals would be funded. They also point out that governing an entire nation of 70 million people is a fundamentally different challenge from leading a city region of 3 million.

Even so, Burnham enters this next chapter with considerable momentum behind him as he positions himself for a potential run at Britain’s highest office.

One week into the World Cup, international visitors are flooding social media with wide-eyed reactions to the quirks of everyday American life — and the posts are going viral.

From free soda refills to oversized dogs and the ongoing debate over what truly counts as great barbecue, tourists from around the globe are sharing their genuine surprise and delight at experiences that most Americans take for granted.

One visitor from Japan described bread at a Texas Roadhouse restaurant in Dallas as “insanely good,” capturing the kind of unexpected enthusiasm that has characterized many of these social media moments.

The cultural discovery happening at gas stations, chain restaurants, and roadside stops across the country has provided a lighthearted backdrop to what is otherwise a tense moment in U.S. foreign relations, with Washington currently navigating strained ties with a number of its longtime allies.

Massive travel destinations like Buc-ee’s — the sprawling Texas-based travel center chain — have become unlikely tourist attractions for World Cup visitors experiencing American road culture for the first time.

Social media posts from fans visiting for the tournament reflect a genuine curiosity about American daily life, with many expressing that the country surprised them in ways they did not anticipate before arriving.

Australian authorities announced Friday that the country has found its first suspected case of H5N1 bird flu on the mainland, discovered in a remote corner of the nation’s southwest.

A brown skua — a type of migratory seabird — was discovered in Western Australia’s Cape Le Grand National Park and tested positive for avian influenza. Additional testing is underway to identify the exact strain, according to state Agriculture Minister Jackie Jarvis.

“We are taking the suspected case of H5 bird flu seriously,” Jarvis said. “If this is confirmed H5 bird incursion, there will be a rapid and coordinated national response.”

The highly aggressive H5 strain of bird flu has been spreading through wild bird and mammal populations since 2021, resulting in the deaths of millions of animals. It has also made its way into poultry and dairy farm operations and has infected some agricultural workers.

Until now, Australia stood alone as the only continent without a confirmed mainland case of the deadly strain. H5 was previously confirmed on Heard Island, an Australian sub-Antarctic territory, in late 2025.

In anticipation of the virus potentially reaching its shores, Australia has spent recent years strengthening biosecurity measures at farms, monitoring shorebirds for signs of disease, vaccinating at-risk species, and running response simulations.

“While, if confirmed, this would obviously be a very concerning development, Australia has spent the past few years preparing for this likelihood,” Environment Minister Murray Watt said in a statement.

Jarvis said results confirming whether the deceased brown skua was infected with H5 bird flu are expected by Saturday. She also noted that a second sick bird — a giant petrel — was found in the same location and is also being tested for influenza.

Wayne Boardman, a wildlife veterinarian and associate professor at Adelaide University, expressed deep concern about the potential impact on Australia’s native animals.

“This strain of bird flu has caused huge die-offs of birds and sea mammals,” he said.

“My concerns are that if the H5N1 avian flu virus is confirmed, it will pose a huge risk to some of our more endangered shorebirds, some of our coastal raptors, and our precious, unique, endemic and endangered Australian sea lions, whose population is precarious,” Boardman added.