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At least 81 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israeli attacks and forced starvation since dawn as the Israeli military said it had begun the first stages of its planned assault to seize the enclave’s largest urban centre, Gaza City, where close to a million people remain in perilous conditions.

Three other Palestinians starved to death in the besieged enclave on Wednesday, bringing the total count of hunger-related deaths to 269, including 112 children.

Israeli attacks included a strike on a tent housing displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza that killed three people.

Mohammed Shaalan, a prominent former Palestinian national basketball player, was the latest victim of shootings at GHF aid distribution points, as Israeli forces shot him dead in southern Gaza. At least 30 aid seekers were killed on Wednesday.

Gaza has been stalked by famine as Israel’s punishing blockade and ongoing assault have choked off food, fuel, and medical supplies.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) warned that malnutrition is rising across Gaza amid Israel’s ongoing aid blockade. “This isn’t just hunger. This is starvation,” WFP said.

“Malnutrition is a silent killer,” the agency said, noting that it causes “lifelong developmental damage” and weakens immune systems, “making common illnesses deadly”.

This isn’t just hunger. This is starvation.

Malnutrition in #Gaza is rising fast – with more children and mothers showing severe signs.

Malnutrition is a silent killer:
🔴 Weakens immune systems, making common illnesses deadly
🔴 Causes stunting & lifelong developmental damage… pic.twitter.com/nEmqSsJX7M

— World Food Programme (@WFP) August 20, 2025

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) says nearly one in every three Palestinian children in Gaza City is now malnourished.

Israeli rights group Gisha has debunked a series of Israeli government talking points that seek to minimise and evade responsibility for the starvation crisis unfolding across all of Gaza.

Despite Israel’s claim that the United Nations is to blame for a lack of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip, Gisha says that “Israel has used its control over aid entry as a weapon of war since day one” of its military offensive.

“Israel has created and continues to create conditions that make the transfer of aid into Gaza almost impossible,” it said.

Meanwhile, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has reiterated calls for an immediate ceasefire and described the conditions its staff are working under in Gaza as dire.

“We are working under catastrophic conditions,” said Dr Hind, a UNRWA physician in Gaza.

Another health worker said staff often walked distances “under the scorching sun” just to reach their posts before working to deliver care “to our people in dire need of help”.

Gaza’s civil defence has, meanwhile, sounded the alarm over the severity of the fuel crisis in the enclave, saying the lack of fuel is compromising its ability to respond to emergency and rescue situations.

“Many times, our vehicles have stopped on the way to missions, some due to fuel shortages and others due to a lack of spare parts for maintenance,” a statement by the civil defence said. “We face major humanitarian challenges amid the ongoing threats of an escalation in the Israeli war of extermination.”

Another wave of ‘mass displacement’

The strikes come as Israel’s military said that it will call up 60,000 reservists in the coming weeks as it pushes forward with a plan to seize Gaza City, which has come under relentless attacks over the last several weeks. A military spokesperson said the first stages of its assault on the city have begun.

Close to one million Palestinians are reportedly trapped in the area, where Israeli tanks have been pushing closer to the city’s centre this week. Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for UN chief Antonio Guterres, expressed concern over the army’s operations in Gaza City, which he said would “create another mass displacement of people who’ve been displaced repeatedly” since the war began.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said Israeli forces have been intensifying attacks in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood, as well as Jabalia in the north.

“That includes ongoing explosions from systematic demolitions of homes. This is a very effective strategy by the Israeli military, which funnels down into one main goal: emptying the Gaza Strip of its population by depriving people from having something as basic as a home,” Mahmoud said.

“People are leaving behind their belongings, their food supplies that they managed to get in the past few weeks,” he added.

Relatives of Israeli captives held in Gaza have condemned the Israeli Defence Ministry’s approval of the plan to seize Gaza City and accused the government of ignoring a ceasefire proposal approved by Hamas, saying it was “a stab in the heart of the families and the public in Israel”.

Hamas says the Israeli military’s push into Gaza City is a clear sign that Israel plans to continue “its brutal war against innocent civilians” and aims to destroy the Palestinian city and displace its residents.

“Netanyahu’s disregard for the mediators’ proposal and his failure to respond to it proves that he is the true obstructionist of any agreement, that he does not care about the lives of [Israeli captives], and that he is not serious about their return,” the Palestinian group said.

The Gaza City offensive, which was announced earlier this month, comes amid heightened international condemnation of Israel’s ban on food and medicine reaching Gaza and fears of another forced exodus of Palestinians.

“What we’re seeing in Gaza is nothing short of apocalyptic reality for children, for their families, and for this generation,” Ahmed Alhendawi, regional director of Save the Children, said in an interview. “The plight and the struggle of this generation of Gaza is beyond being described in words.”

Mediators, meanwhile, continue to pursue efforts to secure a ceasefire in the 22-month war.

Qatar and Egypt have said they have been waiting for Israel’s response to the proposal, which Hamas had agreed to earlier this week.

The latest framework calls for a 60-day truce, a staggered exchange of captives and Palestinian prisoners, and expanded aid access.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not publicly commented on the proposal, which is backed by the United States. Last week, he insisted any deal must ensure “all the hostages are released at once and according to our conditions for ending the war”. There have been further reports that the far-right government is holding to that line.

Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said Arab states must pressure the US into getting Israel to agree to a ceasefire.

“Clearly, the Israelis are of two minds: One mind is recalling the reservists, issuing the plans, approving the plans for directly re-occupying the Gaza Strip [and] transferring its people from the north to the south in preparation for ethnically cleansing Gaza.”

“On the other hand, there is of course the domestic pressure … [and] the idea that Israel can secure the release of a few hostages alive and get involved in some sort of a longer[-term] deal,” Bishara said.

“Without Arab pressure on Washington, I think the Israelis will probably go with the first scenario.”

Israel’s genocidal war has killed more than 62,122 Palestinians, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.

Top seed Francesca Jones took the first step to reaching the US Open main draw by winning her opening qualifier, but Heather Watson was among four Britons to lose on Tuesday.

British number four Jones beat Slovakia’s Viktoria Hruncakova 6-3 6-4. She will face Ekaterine Gorgodze of Georgia on Wednesday as she looks to reach the US Open main draw for the first time in her career.

Jones has never received direct entry to a Grand Slam through her ranking and narrowly missed out this time, despite having climbed to a career-high 86th in the world since the US Open cut-off point.

The 24-year-old served six aces in a match lasted one hour 22 minutes and notched an 87% win rate on her first serves.

Meanwhile, former British number one Watson was defeated 6-3 3-6 4-6 by Gorgodze as she failed to reach the main draw for a fourth successive year.

British women’s number seven Harriet Dart edged out Romanian Anca Todoni – who sits 112 places above her in the rankings – 7-5 6-7 (3-7) 7-6 (10-6).

British men’s number five Jan Choinski lost 7-6 (7-4) 6-4 to Argentina’s Andrea Collarini, but Oliver Crawford beat Alex Bolt of Australia 5-7 6-4 6-4.

George Loffhagen was beaten 4-6 5-7 by Jason Kubler, while 22-year-old Jack Pinnington Jones lost 6-3 7-6 (8-6) 7-6 (14-12).

Jodie Burrage began her qualifying campaign with a win on Monday, but British number five Dan Evans was eliminated and will miss out on the main draw of a Grand Slam for the first time since 2018.

There are six Brits in action on Wednesday in the second round of qualifying:

Players must win three matches in qualifying to advance to the main singles draws for the tournament, which begins on Sunday.

Jack Draper, Cameron Norrie and Jacob Fearnley have direct entry into the men’s singles, with Emma Raducanu, Katie Boulter and Sonay Kartal in the women’s.

Doug Bledsoe has made the rounds as a high school football coach. He’s been head coach at North Hollywood, Dorsey, Pasadena and University. He says his latest coaching position will be his last until his 3-year-old grandson reaches high school.

It’s going to be his most challenging, trying to rebuild a Narbonne program that once again had an exodus of players and coaches after rule violations caused the City Section to impose a three-year playoff ban and make the program vacate its City title. This also happened in 2019 and the team dropped to 2-9 during a similar transition year in 2021.

Bledsoe insists, “The Narbonne Gauchos ain’t dead.”

He has four returning all-league players, including King’leon Sheard, a defensive end who had two sacks in last season’s City Section Open Division final won by the Gauchos. They chose to stay even though there will be no playoffs when the 10-game regular season ends.

“They love the school,” Bledsoe said. “We told them what we could do for them.”

There’s about 30 varsity players. Bledsoe is confident he and his staff can prepare his many new varsity players for the season ahead. Playing 10 games will be better than the eight games played last season when Marine League coaches boycotted playing the Gauchos, resulting in the loss of four games.

A new coach and a new principal give the Gauchos a chance to start over. The harsh penalty imposed also could be reduced with good behavior. One sign of the dramatic change in a year’s time is that the Gauchos had 27 transfers in the football program a year ago. There are currently none in the City Section transfer portal for this season.

The starting quarterback will be basketball point guard Quamare Meadows, who was the JV quarterback two seasons ago but didn’t play last season.

Narbonne opens on the road against Los Osos on Aug. 22. It will play its first league game in two seasons against runner-up San Pedro on Oct. 3.

Aug. 7 (UPI) — A landmark Anglo-French “one-in, one-out” migrant agreement saw the first small boat arrivals on the British coast taken into custody in preparation for being returned to France, the government said Thursday.

The detentions got underway on Wednesday with migrants who had crossed the Channel “illegally” held in secure immigration centers pending their removal to France, which was expected to take place in a matter of weeks, according to a Home Office news release.

It pledged full transparency, saying detainees would be briefed on the process for returning them to France and kept updated on their progress through the system on an individual basis.

For each migrant sent back, Britain will take in one pre-approved to claim asylum who has not previously attempted to enter the country and who has completed a formal application and security clearance process in France that is only open to those with a passport or identity document.

Pre-checked individuals, or family groups, will then journey safely from France via scheduled rail, ferry or airline services.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper declined to say how many migrants had been detained but vowed to fight any challenge launched in the courts in an attempt to block them from being sent back to France.

“The transfers to immigration removal centers are underway as we speak, so we won’t provide operational details at this point that criminal gangs can simply use and exploit. But no one should be in any doubt: anyone who arrives from now on is eligible for immediate detention and return,” she said.

Cooper added that it was the very early stages of a pilot that would take time to scale up, but stressed, given that France was a safe country for all, including migrants, the government would “robustly defend against any legal challenge that people try.”

However, Home Office sources told The Guardian that the scheme inked last month during a state visit to Britain by French President Emmanuel Macron would initially only involve about 50 asylum seekers.

Immigration lawyers warned that the ambiguous terms of the treaty left it open to legal challenge by individuals trying to prevent their removal from the country.

At least one charity cautioned that the scheme shut out people fleeing war or famine in countries including Eritrea or Sudan because they were unlikely to meet the criteria for official identification.

“This week in Calais, we spoke with many people from Eritrea and almost none of them have copies of their Eritrean passports because they were never able to obtain one,” said a spokesperson for Refugee Legal Support.

The spokesperson said the largest group making the journey across the Channel so far this year were Eritreans, 86% of whom had their refugee claims upheld once they reached Britain — but virtually all of them would never get that chance under the scheme.

The deal, marking the first time Britain has been able to return migrants who arrive from France, came as the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats in the first seven months of 2025 topped a record 25,436.

Under the treaty, Britain is responsible for the costs of transporting migrants in both directions, and France is entitled to refuse to accept returnees it believes pose “a threat to public policy, internal security, public health or the international relations of any of the Schengen states.”

Schengen states refer to the borderless, free travel area comprising 25 of 27 member countries of the European Union plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

As City Section 11-man football coaches prepare for the official start of practices on Monday, there’s a noticeable change under way.

They’re not fighting one another. Rather, they are uniting as a group, understanding and embracing their similar challenges while trying to create environments to keep the players and their parents invested in the future.

They still gripe and complain, but it’s part of working in the Los Angeles Unified School District. They are sacrificing, many as walk-on coaches, for “little” victories that inspire them to keep coaching.

Whether they realize it or not, this is the only way forward — helping kids develop as players and students first. Worry about on-field wins and losses later.

All they want is a fair and equitable playing field, though sometimes even that can’t be achieved.

Coaches have had to put themselves out on a limb. There was courage displayed last season when the head coaches at San Pedro, Gardena, Carson and Banning decided to forfeit games against Narbonne while demanding an investigation by LAUSD into alleged rule violations. Families were not happy at losing the opportunity to play games. Purists who believe forfeiting is never acceptable were aghast. Coaches involved received strong criticism by some.

It forced an investigation, resulting in players being declared ineligible and Narbonne vacating its City title and being declared ineligible for the 2025, 2026 and 2027 playoffs.

Every coach who signed on to the protest ended up resigning except for San Pedro’s Corey Walsh. They helped clean up a mess that shouldn’t had been allowed to fester.

When City Section coaches gathered for their annual meeting last month to discuss the season ahead, there were many hugs, handshakes and discussions of identical challenges (academic eligibility, increasing roster numbers, finding assistant coaches, concerns about federal immigration raids). The warmth was real because many of the older coaches have been mentors. Hamilton’s Elijah Asante used to coach L.A. Jordan first-year coach James Boyd.

So many families have left. The days when Carson, Banning, Dorsey and Crenshaw could compete against and beat the best of the Southern Section teams are gone. Remember when Crenshaw played De La Salle in the CIF Open Division state championship game in 2009? Coach Robert Garrett is still around with 290 career victories, but the Cougars’ roster hovers around 25 players with no JV team.

It doesn’t mean the former powers can’t rise again as champions within the City Section. Those who have stayed, from coaches to players, deserve praise for taking on an adventure that can be daunting. There are good, loyal people determined to help along the way.

New facilities have opened. All-weather fields and new grass fields are multiplying. Garfield, Roosevelt and Hamilton debut new stadiums this fall. A strong collection of City Section quarterbacks are ready to let the ball fly, from Eagle Rock’s Liam Pasten to Carson’s Chris Fields. There is no certain dominant team, though the usual contenders — Birmingham, Carson, San Pedro — are teams to watch. So far, 71 schools are playing 11-man football.

There’s a story line certain to provide inspiration — Palisades High trying to rise again after its campus was damaged during the Palisades fire. Even though its football field was largely untouched, the team is starting the season not allowed to play on the field and will be playing at Santa Monica College. Students have yet to return to the campus. TV cameras will be out en force to capture the drama if the Dolphins can put together a dream season.

Southern Section teams also begin practices on Monday. If you think you’re watching the movie “Groundhog Day,” you are correct. Every Division 1 title since 2016 has been won by Mater Dei or St. John Bosco. It’s almost certain to happen again in 2025.

It doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be some outstanding games in the Southern Section, starting with the Aug. 22 matchup of Santa Margarita and new coach Carson Palmer taking on Mission Viejo at Trabuco Hills.

There’s always excitement and intrigue when the pads first come on next week. Teaching kids who have never worn shoulder pads is both comedy and memorable. It will be just one more responsibility for City Section coaches who receive a $5,622 stipend over four months and are expected to be Superman every day.

To all coaches, thank you for your sacrifice and for providing teenagers the guidance, discipline and structure that will be needed when their playing careers are finished.

A federal court has begun hearings in a pivotal case as Harvard seeks to force the United States government to return $2.6bn in federal funding frozen earlier this year.

A lawyer for Harvard, Steven Lehotsky, said at Monday’s hearing that the case is about the government trying to control the “inner workings” of Harvard. The funding cuts, if not reversed, could lead to the loss of research, damaged careers and the closing of labs, he said.

President Donald Trump’s administration has battered the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university with sanctions for months as it presses a series of demands on the Ivy League school, which it decries as a hotbed of liberalism and anti-Semitism.

Harvard has resisted, and the lawsuit over the cuts to its research grants represents the primary challenge to the administration in a standoff that is being widely watched across higher education and beyond.

The case is before US District Judge Allison Burroughs, who is presiding over lawsuits brought by Harvard against the administration’s efforts to keep it from hosting international students. In that case, she temporarily blocked the administration’s efforts.

At Monday’s hearing, Harvard is asking her to reverse a series of funding freezes. Such a ruling, if it stands, would revive Harvard’s sprawling scientific and medical research operation and hundreds of projects that lost federal money.

A lawyer for the government, Michael Velchik, said the government has the authority to cancel research grants when an institution is out of compliance with the president’s directives. He said episodes at Harvard violated Trump’s order combating anti-Semitism.

Judge questions basis for government’s findings on anti-Semitism

Burroughs pushed back, questioning how the government could make “ad hoc” decisions to cancel grants and do so across Harvard without offering evidence that any of the research is anti-Semitic.

She also argued the government had provided “no documentation, no procedure” to “suss out” whether Harvard administrators “have taken enough steps or haven’t” to combat anti-Semitism.

“The consequences of that in terms of constitutional law are staggering,” she said during Monday’s hearing. “I don’t think you can justify a contract action based on impermissible suppression of speech. Where do I have that wrong?”

Velchik said the case comes down to the government’s choosing how best to spend billions of dollars in research funding.

“Harvard claims the government is anti-Harvard. I reject that,” Velchik said. “The government is pro-Jewish students at Harvard. The government is pro-Jewish faculty at Harvard.”

Harvard’s lawsuit accuses the Trump administration of waging a retaliation campaign against the university after it rejected a series of demands in an April 11 letter from a federal anti-Semitism task force. A second lawsuit over the cuts filed by the American Association of University Professors and its Harvard faculty chapter has been consolidated with the university’s.

The April letter demanded sweeping changes related to campus protests, academics and admissions. For example, the letter told Harvard to audit the viewpoints of students and faculty and admit more students or hire new professors if the campus was found to lack diverse points of view.

Harvard President Alan Garber has said the university has made changes to combat anti-Semitism but said no government “should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue”.

Monday’s hearing ended without Burroughs issuing a ruling from the bench. A ruling is expected later in writing.

Trump’s pressure campaign has involved a series of sanctions

The same day Harvard rejected the government’s demands, Trump officials moved to freeze $2.2bn in research grants. Education Secretary Linda McMahon declared in May that Harvard would no longer be eligible for new grants, and weeks later, the administration began cancelling contracts with Harvard.

As Harvard fought the funding freeze in court, individual agencies began sending letters announcing the frozen research grants were being terminated. They cited a clause that allows grants to be scrapped if they no longer align with government policies.

Harvard, which has the nation’s largest endowment at $53bn, has moved to self-fund some of its research, but warned it can’t absorb the full cost of the federal cuts.

In court filings, the school said the government “fails to explain how the termination of funding for research to treat cancer, support veterans, and improve national security addresses antisemitism”.

The Trump administration denies the cuts were made in retaliation, saying the grants were under review even before the April demand letter was sent. It argues the government has wide discretion to cancel contracts for policy reasons.

The research funding is only one front in Harvard’s fight with the federal government. The Trump administration also has sought to prevent the school from hosting foreign students, and Trump has threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status.

Finally, last month, the Trump administration formally issued a finding that the school tolerated anti-Semitism – a step that eventually could jeopardise all of Harvard’s federal funding, including federal student loans or grants. The penalty is typically referred to as a “death sentence”.

United States inflation rose last month to its highest level since February as President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs push up the cost of a range of goods, including furniture, clothing, and large appliances.

Consumer prices rose 2.7 percent in June from a year earlier, the Labor Department said on Tuesday, up from an annual increase of 2.4 percent in May. On a monthly basis, prices climbed 0.3 percent from May to June, after rising just 0.1 percent the previous month.

Worsening inflation poses a political challenge for Trump, who promised during last year’s presidential campaign to immediately lower costs. The sharp inflation spike after the pandemic was the worst in four decades and soured most Americans on former President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy. Higher inflation will also likely heighten the US Federal Reserve’s reluctance to cut its short-term interest rate, as Trump is loudly demanding.

The central bank is expected to leave its benchmark overnight interest rate in the 4.25 percent to 4.5 percent range at a policy meeting later this month.

Trump has insisted repeatedly that there is “no inflation”, and because of that, the central bank should swiftly reduce its key interest rate from its current level. Yet Fed Chair Jerome Powell has said that he wants to see how the economy reacts to Trump’s duties before reducing borrowing costs. Minutes of the central bank’s June 17-18 meeting, which were published last week, showed only “a couple” of officials said they felt rates could fall as soon as the July 29-30 meeting.

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core inflation increased 2.9 percent in June from a year earlier, up from 2.8 percent in May. On a monthly basis, it picked up 0.2 percent from May to June. Economists closely watch core prices because they typically provide a better sense of where inflation is headed.

The uptick in inflation was driven by a range of higher prices. The cost of gasoline rose 1 percent just from May to June, while grocery prices increased 0.3 percent. Appliance prices jumped for the third straight month. Toys, clothes, audio equipment, shoes, and sporting goods all got more expensive, and are all heavily imported.

“You are starting to see scattered bits of the tariff inflation regime filter in,” said Eric Winograd, chief economist at asset management firm AllianceBernstein, who added that the cost of long-lasting goods rose last month, compared with a year ago, for the first time in about three years.

Winograd also noted that housing costs, one of the biggest drivers of inflation since the pandemic, have continued to cool, which is holding down broader inflation. The cost of rent rose 3.8 percent in June compared with a year ago, the smallest yearly increase since late 2021.

“Were it not for the tariff uncertainty, the Fed would already be cutting rates,” Winograd said. “The question is whether there is more to come, and the Fed clearly thinks there is,” along with most economists.

Trump has imposed sweeping duties of 10 percent on all imports, plus 50-percent levies on steel and aluminium, 30 percent on goods from China, and 25 percent on imported cars. Just last week, the president threatened to hit the European Union with a new 30 percent tariff starting August 1.

He has also threatened to slap 50 percent duties on Brazil, which would push up the cost of orange juice and coffee. Orange prices leapt 3.5 percent just from May to June, and are 3.4 percent higher than a year ago.

Overall, grocery prices rose 0.3 percent last month and are up 2.4 percent from a year earlier. While that is a much smaller annual increase than before the pandemic, it is slightly bigger than the pre-pandemic pace of food price increases. The Trump administration has also placed a 17-percent duty on Mexican tomatoes.

Powell under fire

The acceleration in inflation could provide a respite of sorts for Powell, who has come under increasingly heavy fire from the White House for not cutting the benchmark interest rate.

The Fed chair has said that the duties could both push up prices and slow the economy, a tricky combination for the central bank since higher costs would typically lead the Fed to hike rates while a weaker economy often spurs it to reduce them.

Trump on Monday said that Powell has been “terrible” and “doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.” The president added that the economy was doing well despite Powell’s refusal to reduce rates, but it would be “nice” if there were rate cuts, because people would be able to buy housing a lot easier.”

Last week, White House officials also attacked Powell for cost overruns on the years-long renovation of two Fed buildings, which are now slated to cost $2.5bn, roughly one-third more than originally budgeted. While Trump legally cannot fire Powell just because he disagrees with his interest rate decisions, the Supreme Court has signalled, he may be able to do so “for cause,” such as misconduct or mismanagement.

Some companies have said they have or plan to raise prices as a result of the tariffs, including Walmart, the world’s largest retailer. Carmaker Mitsubishi said last month that it was lifting prices by an average of 2.1 percent in response to the duties, and Nike has said it would implement “surgical” price hikes to offset tariff costs.

But many companies have been able to postpone or avoid price increases, after building up their stockpiles of goods this spring to get ahead of the duties. Other companies may have refrained from lifting prices while they wait to see whether the US is able to reach trade deals with other countries that lower the duties.

Team of forensic archaeologists and crime scene experts begins excavating to identify the remains of about 800 children.

Excavation has begun in Ireland at an unmarked mass burial site to identify the remains of about 800 infants and toddlers who died at a church-run home for unmarried mothers.

The digging of the site on Monday marked the beginning of a two-year investigation planned by Irish and foreign forensic archaeologists and crime scene experts in the western city of Tuam.

The probe comes more than a decade after Catherine Corless, an amateur historian, first uncovered evidence of a mass grave there, forcing the government to form a commission to investigate the matter.

The commission found that the remains of 802 children from newborns to three-year-olds were buried in Tuam from 1925 to 1961 as it discovered an “appalling” mortality rate of about 15 percent among children born at all of the so-called Mother and Baby Homes, which operated across Ireland.

Subsequent test excavations from 2016 and 2017 found significant quantities of baby remains in a disused septic tank at the location, which now sits within a housing complex.

Ireland’s Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention (ODAIT) will undertake the excavation with experts from Colombia, Spain, Britain, Canada and the United States.

It will involve exhumation, analysis, identification if possible and reinterment of the remains found, Director Daniel MacSweeney said at a recent news conference in Tuam.

‘Denied dignity and respect’

“These children were denied every human right in their lifetime as were their mothers,” Anna Corrigan, whose two siblings may have been buried at the Tuam site, told reporters this month, the AFP news agency reported.

“And they were denied dignity and respect in death.”

The Tuam home, run by nuns from the Bon Secours Order, was demolished in the 1970s and replaced by a housing estate.

Significant quantities of human skeletal remains were found in chambers along with babies’ shoes and nappy pins underneath a patch of grass near a playground during the test excavations.

Corless found records that show as many as 796 babies and children died at the Tuam home over the decades that it operated. State-issued death certificates compiled show that various ailments, from tuberculosis and convulsions to measles and whooping cough, were listed as the causes of death.

“It’s been a fierce battle. When I started this, nobody wanted to listen. At last we are righting the wrongs,” Corless, 71, told AFP in May. “I was just begging: Take the babies out of this sewage system and give them the decent Christian burial that they were denied.”

A six-year inquiry sparked by the initial discoveries in Tuam found 56,000 unmarried women and 57,000 children passed through 18 such homes over a 76-year period. It also concluded that 9,000 children had died in the various state- and Catholic Church-run homes nationwide.

Catholic nuns ran the so-called mother and baby institution from 1925 to 1961, housing women who had become pregnant outside of marriage and were shunned by their families. After giving birth, some children lived in the homes too, but many more were given up for adoption under a system that often saw church and state work in tandem.

Mass layoff came days after the Supreme Court cleared the way for US president to gut entire government positions.

More than 1,350 US State Department employees have been fired in a major diplomatic shake-up ordered by President Donald Trump, in a move critics predict would curb the United States’ influence around the world.

Friday’s mass layoff, which affect 1,107 civil service and 246 foreign service officers based in the United States, come at a time when Washington is grappling with multiple crises on the world stage: Russia’s war in Ukraine, the almost two-year-long Gaza conflict, and the Middle East on edge due to high tension between Israel and Iran.

Diplomats and other staff clapped out departing colleagues in emotional scenes at the Washington headquarters of the department, which runs US foreign policy and the global network of embassies.

Some were crying as they walked out with boxes of belongings.

“It’s just heartbreaking to stand outside these doors right now and see people coming out in tears, because all they wanted to do was serve this country,” said US Senator Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat who worked as a civilian adviser for the State Department in Afghanistan during the administration of former President Barack Obama.

The layoffs at the department came three days after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to begin carrying out its plan to gut entire government positions.

The conservative-dominated top court lifted a temporary block imposed by a lower court on Trump’s plans to lay off potentially tens of thousands of employees.

The 79-year-old Republican says he wants to dismantle what he calls the “deep state”. Since taking office in January, he has worked quickly to install fierce personal loyalists and to fire swaths of veteran government workers.

Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the foreign policy department is too cumbersome and requires thinning out of some 15 percent.

“It’s not a consequence of trying to get rid of people. But if you close the bureau, you don’t need those positions,” Rubio told reporters on the sidelines of his ASEAN meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “Understand that some of these are positions that are being eliminated, not people.”

The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) – the union representing State Department employees – condemned the “catastrophic blow to our national interests”.

“We oppose this decision in the strongest terms.”

The State Department employed more than 80,000 people worldwide last year, according to a fact sheet, with about 17,700 in domestic roles.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID), long the primary vehicle to provide US humanitarian assistance around the world, has already been mostly dismantled.

According to The Washington Post, State Department employees were informed of their firings by email.

Foreign Service officers will lose their jobs 120 days after receiving the notice and will be immediately placed on administrative leave, while civil service employees will be separated after 60 days, the newspaper said.

Ned Price, who served as State Department spokesman under former Democratic President Joe Biden, condemned what he called haphazard firings.

“For all the talk about ‘merit-based,’ they’re firing officers based on where they happen to be assigned on this arbitrary day,” Price said on X. “It’s the laziest, most inefficient, and most damaging way to lean the workforce.”

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has begun the first steps towards disarmament, closing a chapter on a four-decade armed campaign against the Turkish state in a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people.

A small ceremony was being held on Friday in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region, where 20 to 30 PKK fighters were destroying their weapons rather than surrendering them to any government or authority. The symbolic process is being conducted under tight security and is expected to unfold throughout the summer.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has welcomed the development, declaring it as “totally ripping off and throwing away the bloody shackles that were put on our country’s legs”. Erdogan also said the move would benefit the entire region.

The move follows an announcement in May by the PKK that it would abandon its armed struggle.

For most of its history, the PKK has been labelled a “terrorist” group by Turkiye, the European Union and the United States.

More than 40,000 people were killed between 1984 and 2024, with thousands of Kurds fleeing the violence in southeastern Turkiye into cities further north.

In a video aired earlier this week but recorded in June by the PKK-linked Firat News Agency, the group’s imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan described the moment as “a voluntary transition from the phase of armed conflict to the phase of democratic politics and law”, calling it a “historic gain”.

Ocalan has been held in solitary confinement on Imrali Island in Turkiye since his capture in 1999. Despite his imprisonment, he remains a symbolic figure for the group and broader PKK offshoots across the region.

The disarmament is being closely monitored by members of Turkiye’s Kurdish DEM party, as well as Turkish media. Further phases will take place at designated locations involving coordination between Turkiye, Iraq and the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq.

The effect of the conflict has been deeply felt not only in Turkiye but across neighbouring countries, particularly Iraq, Syria and Iran, where the PKK and its affiliates have maintained a presence.

‘There’s a long way to go’

Reporting from Sulaimaniyah, Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud Abdelwahed described the event as “highly symbolic”, with senior figures from both the federal Iraqi government and the semi-autonomous Kurdish regional government in attendance.

Abdelwahed noted that while this marks a significant moment, the road ahead remains uncertain. “This is just the beginning and it seems there’s a long way to go,” he explained. “The PKK also have demands, including the release of their leader Abdullah Ocalan. They want him to come here to northern Iraq and lead, as they say, the democratic process.”

Abdelwahed added that the development signals a major shift for Iraq, where the PKK was officially designated a banned organisation in April last year, following a high-level security meeting between Iraqi and Turkish officials.

Speaking from Istanbul, Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu said Ankara views developments in Sulaimaniyah as a major step forward in ending the conflict that has dragged on for decades. “What is happening in Sulaimaniyah is being seen by Ankara as a critical breakthrough in the decade-long conflict that cost tens of thousands of lives, both from the Turkish side and the Kurdish side,” she said.

The move follows months of direct talks between Turkish officials and Ocalan.

Koseoglu highlighted the political significance of this moment within Turkiye. “This is an important step that Turkish President Erdogan approved this process,” she said, noting that even traditionally hardline groups have shifted position.

“The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which once denounced peace efforts as ‘treason’, now supports the process.”

The pro-Kurdish DEM Party is playing a key facilitation role, and the main opposition CHP – once highly critical of earlier peace attempts – now says it supports efforts to achieve peace, noted Koseoglu.

‘If the PKK leaves, there won’t be any shelling’

In northern Iraq, where the fighting has often spilled over, civilians are cautiously hopeful.

Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud Abdelwahed visited communities in the mountainous district of Amedi, near the Turkish border, where villages have been caught in the crossfire.

“Here in northern Iraq, the PKK controls hundreds of villages spread across the semi-autonomous Kurdish region,” said Abdelwahed. “Some have been turned into battlefields, severely limiting access to farmland and making life even more difficult for displaced families who are desperate to return home.”

Shirwan Sirkli, a local farmer, told Al Jazeera that the conflict destroyed his family’s livelihood. “My farm was burned down by shelling as Turkish forces and the PKK brought their conflict to our lands. My brother also lost his $300,000 worth of sheep ranches. Many of our neighbours have left the village – only 35 out of about 100 families remain.”

Turkish military operations in the area have intensified in recent years, with Ankara establishing outposts across the border and frequently attacking PKK positions.

“The presence of PKK fighters in the area has only brought disaster to us,” said Ahmad Saadullah, a local community leader, speaking to Al Jazeera. “If they leave, there won’t be any shelling. We would like to see the peace deal implemented on the ground so we can reclaim our land and live in peace.”

July 10 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 1925, the so-called Monkey Trial, in which John Scopes was accused of teaching evolution in school, a violation of state law, began in Dayton, Tenn., featuring a classic confrontation between William Jennings Bryan, the three-time presidential candidate and fundamentalist hero, and legendary defense attorney Clarence Darrow.

In 1962, the United States launched the first telecommunications satellite, Telstar, into orbit, which relayed TV pictures between the United States and Europe.

In 1985, Coca-Cola, besieged by consumers dissatisfied with the new Coke introduced in April, dusted off the old formula and dubbed it “Coca-Cola Classic.”

File Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI

In 1989, Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and countless other Warner Bros. cartoon characters and radio and TV comic creations, died from complications of heart disease. He was 81.

In 1991, Boris Yeltsin was inaugurated as the first freely elected president of the Russian republic.

In 1992, former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was sentenced to 40 years in prison for cocaine racketeering.

In 2009, General Motors completed its race through bankruptcy with the signing of a contract with the U.S. government, which got 61 percent of the company. The recovery plan included considerable shrinkage, including the closing of factories and layoffs of 21,000 union workers.

Then-General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson attends a press conference in New York City on June 1, 2009. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

In 2011, media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World, Britain’s best-selling weekly newspaper, abruptly ceased publication amid allegations that its reporters and investigators had hacked into telephones of royalty, politicians, celebrities, homicide victims, families of fallen soldiers and others to illegally gain material for stories.

In 2012, an Israeli court acquitted former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of corruption but found him guilty of breach of trust. The charges stemmed from a period before he was PM.

In 2018, divers rescued the last of the 12 boys and their soccer coach from a flooded cave in Thailand, where they’d been trapped for more than two weeks.

In 2022, Serbian Novak Djokovic defeated Australian Nick Kyrgios to win his fourth-straight and record-tying seventh Wimbledon men’s singles title.

File Photo by Hugo Philpott/UPI

French President Emmanuel Macron has called for British support to recognise the state of Palestine and help defend Ukraine as he arrived in the United Kingdom for the first state visit by a European leader since Brexit.

Macron, in a rare address to both houses of the British parliament on Tuesday, celebrated the return of closer ties between France and the UK, and said the two countries must work together to end “excessive dependencies” on the United States and China.

The French president’s three-day trip came at the invitation of King Charles III. Macron was earlier greeted by the royal family, including heir-to-the-throne Prince William and his wife, Princess Catherine, before they travelled in horse-drawn carriages to Windsor Castle.

Macron then set out to parliament where he said the two countries needed to come together to strengthen Europe, including on defence, immigration, climate and trade.

“The United Kingdom and France must once again show the world that our alliance can make all the difference,” the French president said in English. “The only way to overcome the challenges we have, the challenges of our times, will be to go together hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder.”

Macron also promised that European countries would “never abandon Ukraine” in its war against invading Russian forces, while demanding an unconditional ceasefire in Gaza.

He then urged the UK to work together with France on recognising a Palestinian state, calling it “the only path to peace”.

“With Gaza in ruin and West Bank being on a daily basis attacked, the perspective of a Palestinian state has never been put at risk as it is,” Macron said. “And this is why this solution of the two states and the recognition of the State of Palestine is… the only way to build peace and stability for all in the whole region.”

He listed the geopolitical threats France and the UK face, and argued they should also be wary of the “excessive dependencies of both the US and China”, saying they needed to “de-risk our economies and our societies from this dual dependency”.

Macron went on to set out the opportunities of a closer union, saying they should make it easier for students, researchers and artists to live in each other’s countries, and seek to work together on artificial intelligence and to protect children online.

The speech symbolised the improvement in relations sought by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s centre-left Labour Party, as part of a broader reset of ties with European allies following the rancour over London’s departure from the European Union.

‘Entente Amicale’

Later on Tuesday evening, King Charles hosted a banquet for the Macrons at Windsor Castle, with 160 guests, including politicians, diplomats and celebrities such as Mick Jagger and Elton John.

Charles used his speech at the opulent state banquet to christen a new era of friendly relations, upgrading the “entente cordiale” – an alliance dating from 1904 that ended centuries of military rivalries – to an “entente amicale”.

“As we dine here in this ancient place, redolent with our shared history, allow me to propose a toast to France and to our new entente. An entente not only past and present, but for the future – and no longer just cordiale, but now amicale,” the king said.

The UK and France marked the three-day visit with an announcement that French nuclear energy utility EDF would invest 1.1 billion pounds ($1.5bn) in a nuclear power project in eastern England.

The two also said France would lend the UK the Bayeux Tapestry, allowing the 11th-century masterpiece to return for the first time in more than 900 years, in exchange for London loaning Paris Anglo-Saxon and Viking treasures.

Politics will take centre stage on Wednesday, when Macron sits down for talks with Starmer on migration, defence and investment.

Despite tensions over post-Brexit ties and how to stop asylum seekers from crossing the English Channel in small boats, the UK and France have been working closely to create a planned military force to support Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire with Russia.

The two leaders will dial in to a meeting of the coalition on Thursday “to discuss stepping up support for Ukraine and further increasing pressure on Russia”, Starmer’s office confirmed on Monday.

They will speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, according to the French presidency.

Starmer is hoping the UK’s support for Ukraine will help persuade Macron to take a different approach to stopping people smuggling, with London wanting to try out an asylum seekers’ returns deal.

This would involve the UK deporting one asylum seeker to France in exchange for another with a legitimate case to be in the country. A record number of asylum seekers have arrived in the UK on small boats in the first six months of this year. Starmer, whose party is trailing Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK party in the polls, is under pressure to find a solution.

France has previously refused to sign such an agreement, saying the UK should negotiate an arrangement with all EU countries.

The United States Senate has begun debating President Donald Trump’s 940-page “Big, Beautiful Bill” of tax breaks and sweeping cuts to healthcare and food programmes.

The all-night session on Sunday came as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said the bill would add an estimated $3.3 trillion to the US debt over a decade.

It also said that 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law.

Republican leaders, who reject the CBO’s estimates, are rushing to meet Trump’s deadline of July 4, the country’s Independence Day.

But they barely secured enough support to muscle the bill past a procedural vote on Saturday night. A handful of Republican holdouts revolted, and it took phone calls from Trump and a visit from Vice President JD Vance to keep the legislation on track.

Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who voted against the bill on Saturday, announced he would not seek re-election after Trump threatened to back a primary challenger in retribution for his “no” vote.

Tillis said he could not vote for the bill with its steep cuts to Medicaid, which provides health cover for low-income people.

Trump welcomed Tillis’s decision not to run again, saying in a post on TruthSocial: “Great News! ‘Senator’ Thom Tillis will not be seeking reelection.”

Other Senate Republicans, along with conservatives in the House of Representatives, are pushing for steeper cuts, particularly to healthcare, drawing their own unexpected warning from Trump.

The US president addressed “all cost cutting Republicans,” and said: “REMEMBER, you still have to get reelected. Don’t go too crazy! We will make it all up, times 10, with GROWTH, more than ever before.”

‘Most dangerous piece of legislation’

All told, the Senate bill includes some $4 trillion in tax cuts, making permanent Trump’s 2017 rates, which would expire at the end of the year if Congress fails to act, while adding the new ones he campaigned on, including no taxes on tips.

The Senate package would roll back billions in green energy tax credits that Democrats warn will wipe out wind and solar investments nationwide, and impose $1.2 trillion in cuts, largely to Medicaid and food stamps, by imposing work requirements and making sign-up eligibility more stringent.

Additionally, the bill would provide a $350bn infusion for border and national security, including for deportations, some of it paid for with new fees charged to immigrants.

Democratic Senators, who are all opposed to the bill, continued efforts to delay its passage, after earlier requesting the entirety of the draft legislation be read on the Senate floor – a process that took some 16 hours.

Minority Senate leader Chuck Schumer said Republicans were trying to rush through the extensive bill before Americans knew what was in it, and said Democrats would continue to “shine a light” on the bill in the coming days.

“Some Republicans are trying to rush through a bill that they released less than two days ago under the cloak of darkness, written behind closed doors,” he said.

The latest version of the bill, Schumer added, includes changes such as “even worse” cuts to clean energy, which would see Americans pay 10 percent more on electricity bills and “kill 900,000 good paying jobs in clean energy”.

Independent Senator Bernie Sanders called it “the most dangerous piece of legislation in the modern history of our country”.

“We don’t have enough money to feed hungry children. We don’t have enough money to make sure that people continue to have the health care that they need,” he said. “But somehow, the military industrial complex is going to get another $150bn, 15 percent increase.”

He added that Tillis’s decision not to seek re-election shows the hold that Trump’s cult of personality has over the Republican Party.

Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” is a gift to the billionaire class while causing massive pain for working families. It is the most dangerous piece of legislation in the modern history of our country.

I’m LIVE on the floor to oppose this disastrous bill. https://t.co/flAfpXmEzM

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) June 29, 2025

Lengthy process ahead

The legislation has been the sole focus of this weekend’s marathon congressional session. After the debate concludes, the Senate will enter an amendment session, known as a “vote-a-rama,” before voting on passage.

Lawmakers said they hoped to complete work on the bill on Monday.

If the Senate can pass the bill, it would need to return to the House.

Speaker Mike Johnson has told legislators there to be on call for a return to Washington, DC, this week.

Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from Washington, DC, said the bill faces a “lengthy process” with “a lot of discussion, debate lying ahead”.

“Trump and his followers insist that it’s going to meet a lot of the promises he made during his campaign,” he said.

“Democrats point out that the massive tax relief is aimed at very wealthy individuals as well as corporations. They also argue very strongly that all of these tax cuts for the wealthy are being funded largely by massive cuts to social welfare programmes like Medicare, like food stamps,” he said.

“The other way it’s going to impact Americans is where the money is going as well. It’s a massive increase in funding for the military. It’s a massive increase in funding for those forces fighting against immigration.”

According to the American Immigration Council, the bill includes as much as “$45 billion for building new immigration detention centres, including family detention facilities”. This comes as the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention centre in the Florida Everglades is expected to open on Tuesday this week, as the Trump administration continues to call for 3,000 daily immigration arrests.

Despite the opposition, Republicans appear undeterred.

“We are going to make sure hardworking people can keep more of their money,” Senator Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican, told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.

Senator Lindsey Graham, who heads the Budget Committee, promised to do everything he can to get the bill to Trump’s desk.

“We’re going to pass the ‘Big, beautiful bill,” he said.

June 29 (UPI) — The Senate has started formal debate on the Trump administration’s budget reconciliation bill after lawmakers spent 16 hours reading the entire measure aloud on the Senate floor.

This Senate’s version of the budget measure would make deeper cuts to social service programs and lead to fewer people having insurance than previous versions, the Congressional Budget Office has reported.

According to the Congressional Budget office report, nearly 12 million Americans would lose coverage by 2034. Federal spending on Medicaid, SNAP and marketplace insurance benefits would drop by $1.1 trillion. At least $1 trillion would come from Medicaid alone.

With its changes, he Senate version of the bill would add nearly $3.3 trillion to the national debt over a decade, the CBO report said, while the House version would add $2.4 to the debt. These estimates are based on including the costs of extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.

Republicans in the House and Senate have asked CBO, as well as the Joint Committee on Taxation, to score the bill using a method called “current policy baseline,” which would not include the the cost of extending the cuts.

The fate of the bill in the Senate remains unclear as some high profile lawmakers have expressed skepticism of the measure in its current form.

Majority leader John Thune, R-D., has said the measure could lack key GOP support in a final vote, which could send it back to the House.

“Well find out,” Thune said.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky, and Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., were the only GOP senators who voted Saturday night against brining the bill to the Senate floor for debate.

When the cost of extending the tax cuts is excluded from estimates, both the House and Senate versions of the bill have been estimated to add between $400 billion and $600 billion to the debt over the next decade, according to the New York Times and Politico.

Medicaid cuts have been at the center of a high profile debate as social service agencies and rural hospitals have planned for spending reductions that could come at the expense of the nation’s hungry children and force some hospitals, especially in rural areas, to reduce services or close their doors.

The Senate voted Saturday to open debate on the bill and began a full reading of the measure on the floor.

The Trump administration has said it is reducing waste and fraud in social service programs, and that some of those responsibilities would be shifted to the states.

President Donald Trump has said he wants the budget bill passed by July 4th.

The cuts being considered to Medicaid would be the largest since it was launched in 1965.

June 22 (UPI) — Tesla will begin its launch of robotic taxis in Austin, Texas, on Sunday afternoon, Elon Musk announced.

“The @Tesla_AI robotaxi launch begins in Austin this afternoon with customers paying a $4.20 flat fee!” Musk said in a post on social media.

Earlier this month, Musk had revealed Sunday as the tentative start date while cautioning that the company was “being super paranoid about safety” and that the date might shift.

The electric carmaker has provided few details about the plans for the robotaxi since it was announced last year, but some information on the service can be found on the company’s website.

To get started using the robotaxis, users must download the Robotaxi app and use their Tesla account to log in, where it then functions like most ridesharing apps.

“Our fleet will initially consist of model year 2025 Model Y vehicles,” the service’s FAQ section reads. “Riders are prohibited from sitting in the front-left seat, which is typically a driver’s customary seating position.”

Tesla notes that children are not allowed to ride in the vehicles and only service animals are permitted to accompany disabled riders.

“Riders may not always be delivered to their intended destinations or may experience inconveniences, interruptions, or discomfort related to the Robotaxi,” the company wrote in a disclaimer in its terms of service. “Tesla may modify or cancel rides in its discretion, including for example due to weather conditions.”

The terms of service include a clause that Tesla will not be liable for “any indirect, consequential, incidental, special, exemplary, or punitive damages, including lost profits or revenues, lost data, lost time, the costs of procuring substitute transportation services, or other intangible losses” from the use of the robotaxis.

As reported by The Guardian, Musk previously told reporters that there may be less than a dozen cars available to the public in Austin during the Sunday launch. It was not immediately clear if human drivers would be in the cars during the rollout, which has become a standard practice during launches by rival companies.

Meanwhile, Tesla’s robotaxis have already received some pushback from Democratic lawmakers in Texas, who penned a letter last week asking the company to delay the launch until at least September.

“Next week, Tesla plans to launch robotaxis in Austin — before Texas’ new AV safety law takes effect. We’re urging a delay until those safety standards are in place,” Texas Sen. Sarah Eckhardt said in a post to social media.

“Public trust comes from safety and transparency. We look forward to working with Tesla to achieve both.”

June 17 (UPI) — Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is an “easy target,” and Iran should surrender unconditionally, President Donald Trump said Tuesday before Iran’s leader countered with his own warning, “the battle begins.”

As Iran fired two hypersonic missile barrages into Israel on Tuesday night, Khamenei wrote in a post on X, “In the name of the noble Haidar, the battle begins,” along with an image of fire raining down on an ancient city.

In a separate X account, he wrote in English, “We must give a strong response to the terrorist Zionist regime. We will show the Zionists no mercy.”

There were no injuries reported in Iran’s attacks, as Israel Defense Forces issued an evacuation order before a new wave of airstrikes in Tehran.

Earlier Tuesday, Trump urged Khamenei to surrender.

“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

“He is an easy target but is safe there — we are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” Trump continued.

“But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians or American soldiers,” he said, adding, “Our patience is wearing thin.”

In a subsequent post, Trump simply stated, “Unconditional surrender!” in all capital letters.

Trump said he hasn’t reached out to Iranian leaders and isn’t “in the mood” to negotiate with them, ABC News reported.

He said Israel has “complete and total control of the skies over Iran” due to “American-made, conceived and manufactured” arms.

Trump posted his comments after Israeli and Iranian forces continued exchanging aerial assaults during the fifth day of the active war between the two nations.

The president met with military advisers shortly after returning early from the G7 conference in Canada on Tuesday due to the situation in the Middle East.

Israeli forces are targeting ballistic missile launch sites and command centers in central Iran.

“We’ve struck deep, hitting Iran’s nuclear ballistic capabilities,” Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.

“We have delivered significant blows to the Iranian regime, and as such, they have been pushed back into central Iran,” the IDF statement says.

“They are now focusing their efforts on conducting missile fire from the area of Isfahan.”

Meanwhile, Iranian officials have issued warnings to civilians in Tel Aviv and Haifa to evacuate because they are targeted for a “punitive operation.”

“The operations carried out so far have merely been warnings for deterrence,” Iran’s commander-in-chief Abdolrahim Mousavi said on Tuesday. “A punitive operation will be executed soon.”

He referred to the Israeli cities as “occupied territories” and said residents should leave them “for their own safety and not to become victims of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s barbaric actions.”

The U.S. embassy in Israel announced it will close Wednesday for three days due to the escalating conflict.

“As a result of the current security situation and ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran, the U.S. Embassy has directed that all U.S. government employees and their family members continue to shelter in place and near their residences until further notice.”

The embassy, located in Jerusalem, said it had no information to assist private U.S. citizens who want to leave the country, adding that Israel’s largest airport, Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, is closed.

City crews are clearing debris in Los Angeles after three nights of anti-ICE protests left burned vehicles, smashed windows, and graffiti across downtown. Cleanup began early Monday as officials assessed structural damage and transit disruptions caused by the unrest.

June 4 (UPI) — A jury is deciding whether former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein likely will spend the rest of his life in prison after beginning deliberations in his rape retrial on Wednesday.

The New York jury of seven women and five men heard closing arguments on Tuesday and Wednesday as the six-week trial concluded in a lower Manhattan courtroom.

Weinstein, 73, is charged with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual act and one count of third-degree rape.

Prosecutors argued Weinstein used his position in the film industry as co-founder and studio boss at Miramax to control three women who accused him of criminal sexual conduct at different times from 2006 to 2013.

Weinstein’s attorneys argued the acts were consensual.

Prosecutors had 24 witnesses testify against Weinstein, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges and did not take the stand.

He was tried and convicted of rape and criminal sexual assault by a New York jury and sentenced to 23 years in prison five years ago.

An appellate court last year ruled 4-3 in favor of Weinstein, whose attorneys argued the judge in his prior trial allowed “irrelevant” and “prejudicial” testimony and evidence that was unrelated to the alleged crimes.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg immediately announced his office would retry the case after the appellate court overturned the prior conviction.

Even if found innocent, Weinstein still would stay imprisoned due to a conviction on similar charges in California. Weinstein has appealed that ruling.

He is being held at Rikers Island until a verdict is entered in his retrial.