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Syria has begun its first public trial of former Assad-era officials, with ex-security chief Atef Najib appearing in a courtroom cage over his role in the 2011 Deraa crackdown.

Cole Tomas Allen, the suspected gunman who rattled the nation’s top leaders by exchanging gunfire with federal authorities after racing through the secure perimeter of a press gala in Washington late Saturday, had made a long journey from Southern California and written a “manifesto” threatening Trump administration officials before the short-lived attack, officials said.

Allen, a 31-year-old Caltech graduate and high school tutor from Torrance, is believed to have taken a train first to Chicago and then on to D.C. before checking into the Washington Hilton with two guns he had previously purchased, authorities said.

The attacker managed to bypass several layers of security at the White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner before being taken down by armed agents outside the ballroom where President Trump and an array of other top federal officials were seated.

Allen could not be reached for comment, nor could an attorney for him be identified as of Sunday.

According to Trump, Allen had also authored a “manifesto” prior to the attack, which he had shared with family and which his brother had flagged to local law enforcement in Connecticut. The New York Post reported that Allen described himself in the document as the “Friendly Federal Assassin” and revealed he intended to kill Trump administration officials.

New London (Conn.) Police Deputy Chief John Perry said that around 10:30 p.m. a man came into the lobby of the agency’s headquarters to report that he’d received a troubling email from Allen. The relative initially thought it was spam, but then saw the news of what unfolded in D.C. and felt he needed to report it.

Perry would not say what was in the email, and did not know exactly what time it was sent. But the relative said he only saw and opened it around 10 p.m. “I think he was watching what was going on and kind of put two and two together and said I need to go to my local PD,” Perry said.

Police officials provided the email to the Secret Service and FBI, he said. Trump said the document would be released, but it had not been as of Sunday. Officials said criminal charges against the suspect were pending, with an initial court appearance likely Monday.

Late Saturday, both local and federal law enforcement, including from the FBI, swarmed the Torrance neighborhood where Allen is believed to have lived in a home with his family, with Torrance police clearing the road and putting up police tape along part of the street. A man who responded to a knock on the front door said, “Not right now,” and declined to comment further.

The thwarted attack marked the latest in a string of incidents in which gunmen have gotten dangerously close to Trump, renewing questions about the safety and security of the nation’s commander in chief at a time of intense political division at home and roiling conflicts abroad.

Trump was grazed on the ear by a bullet at one of his presidential campaign events in Butler, Pa., in 2024 — the first of two attempts on his life during that campaign cycle. The other involved a gunman targeting the president as he golfed in Florida, before federal agents intervened. Earlier this year, a gunman was killed at the president’s Mar-a-Lago club, after breaching a security perimeter.

On Sunday, questions swirled as to how such a security lapse could have happened again — and whether large, high-profile events are safe for top officials in a nation where firearms are easy to obtain and ubiquitous.

Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche, in an interview on “Meet the Press” Sunday morning, said federal authorities believe the suspect had set out alone “to target folks that work in the administration, likely including the president,” but that a motive was still being determined and evidence still being gathered — including from devices taken from Allen and in interviews with people who know him.

“As of now, we don’t have any connection to any particular policy directive of President Trump or Iran or anything else that we’re doing in this country, but we are looking into it,” he said.

Blanche also downplayed the threat posed to Trump, other officials in the room such as Vice President JD Vance and First Lady Melania Trump, and the hundreds of other attendees to the annual event — suggesting Allen had essentially been stopped in his tracks shortly after making his break through a checkpoint of metal detectors and federal agents, dramatic video of which Trump posted online.

“Let’s not forget that the suspect didn’t get very far. He barely broke the perimeter,” Blanche said. “And so while this was extraordinarily dangerous and put a lot of lives at risk and there’s no doubt that that’s something that we’re going to have to learn from over the next couple weeks, the system worked. We were safe, President Trump was safe. His Secret Service agents kept him safe. All of us were safe.”

Blanche’s assessment of the attacker’s breach past security — which he said was only “by a few feet” — was disputed by some.

According to other attendees, including Times journalists, event staff were checking tickets, though not very thoroughly, at multiple points prior to escalators that descended to the metal detectors where Allen allegedly dashed past armed security.

The detectors were right outside the event hall and where the bathrooms for the event were located, and the assailant was taken to the ground about 10 to 15 feet beyond them, attendees said. The shots — including two from the gunman, according to Blanche — were heard in the ballroom.

Allen, who graduated from Caltech in 2017 with a degree in mechanical engineering and is registered to vote with no party preference, made a $25 political contribution earmarked for then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign challenging Trump for the presidency in 2024.

While at Caltech, he was a teaching assistant and a member of the school’s Christian fellowship and the Nerf club, according to his LinkedIn profile. He later studied computer science as a post-graduate student at CSU-Dominguez Hills.

Allen was named teacher of the month in December 2024 at C2 Education, which specializes in college test preparation, tutoring and academic advising. A representative for C2 Education was not immediately available for comment.

According to the New York Post, Allen himself had derided the event security in his writings beforehand, describing finding far less security at the hotel than he had expected when he arrived, armed, to check in.

“I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo. What I got (who knows, maybe they’re pranking me!) is nothing. No damn security. Not in transport. Not in the hotel. Not in the event,” he wrote, according to the Post. “I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat.”

Authorities did not detail Allen’s alleged travel route to D.C., other than to say it was by train. In response to questions about whether Allen had taken Amtrak to get to Washington and whether his luggage would have undergone any security screening, Amtrak said only that it is cooperating with federal authorities.

Trump also zeroed in on security at the hotel being inadequate, in addition to posting the video of the suspect rushing past security and multiple pictures of him detained on the floor of the hotel.

While praising the federal agents who took the attacker down, Trump suggested that events with top U.S. officials should be held in more secure facilities — such as the giant ballroom he is trying to build on the White House grounds after demolishing the former East Wing.

“What happened last night is exactly the reason that our great Military, Secret Service, Law Enforcement and, for different reasons, every President for the last 150 years, have been DEMANDING that a large, safe, and secure Ballroom be built ON THE GROUNDS OF THE WHITE HOUSE,” Trump wrote on social media Sunday. “This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast enough!”

Weijia Jiang, president of the correspondents’ association, said in a statement Sunday that the group’s board “will be meeting to assess what happened and determine how to proceed.” She also thanked the U.S. Secret Service and other law enforcement for keeping people safe, and praised journalists in the room for leaping to work to inform the public of what had occurred.

Times staff writers Richard Winton, Ben Wieder and Justine McDaniel contributed to this report.

Atef Najib, former head of political security in the Deraa province, is charged with ‘crimes against the Syrian people’.

Syria has begun its first public trial of officials who served under longtime leader Bashar al-Assad, 15 years after the start of the civil war.

Trial proceedings opened in Damascus on Sunday for Atef Najib, the former head of political security in southern Syria’s Deraa province.

He is accused of overseeing a violent crackdown on protesters there during the 2011 uprising, and faces charges related to “crimes against the Syrian people”, according to Syria’s state-run news agency, SANA.

Najib, who is a cousin of al-Assad, was the sole defendant in court for Sunday’s preparatory session of the trial set to continue next month.

Charged in their absence are Al-Assad and his brother, Maher, former commander of the Syrian military’s 4th Armoured Division. Along with other former high-ranking security officials also charged in absentia, they are accused of killings, torture, extortion and drug trafficking.

Crowds gathered outside the court on Sunday in celebration, as families of victims, including some from Deraa, attended the session.

Speaking to Al Jazeera Mubasher, a spokesman for Syria’s Justice Ministry said holding the trial in public was important to ensure transparency and judicial independence as part of the transitional justice process.

Najib oversaw political security in Deraa when teenagers who scrawled antigovernment graffiti on a school wall in Deraa were arrested and tortured, in a case that became a catalyst for the broader uprising.

Further protests were met by a brutal government crackdown and spiralled into a 14-year civil war that ended with al-Assad’s overthrow in December 2024 in a lightning rebel offensive. Al-Assad then fled to Russia, and most members of his inner circle have also escaped Syria.

The government of interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa has faced criticism over delays in launching a promised transitional justice process following the civil war, in which an estimated half a million people were killed. But authorities now appear to be moving more aggressively to prosecute officials linked to al-Assad.

On Friday, Syrian authorities arrested former intelligence officer Amjad Yousef, the main suspect accused of the 2013 Tadamon massacre in Damascus, when at least 41 people were killed.

In 2022, a leaked video appeared to show Youssef shooting civilians who had been detained and blindfolded, with their hands bound.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Nearly a year after the assassination of a Minnesota legislative leader, lawmakers across the U.S. have worked to fortify security in state capitols and improve safeguards when officials are in their communities.

The changes have followed a rise in political violence nationwide that included the stunning assassination last June of Rep. Melissa Hortman, the top Democratic leader in the Minnesota House, and the September killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was speaking at a college in Utah.

In Minnesota, most doors at the state Capitol are now locked, and people entering must go through weapons detectors. People entering the visitors’ galleries to watch floor debates must go through a second set of detectors.

“It’s important for us to be able to not have our government fall apart if our legislators are under threat,” said Minnesota Rep. Julie Green, a Democrat who sits directly across the aisle from Hortman’s old desk, which remains empty except for fresh roses, her portrait and a speaker’s gavel. “It’s a complicated, complex, very emotional issue, as you can imagine.”

High-profile attacks have stoked lawmakers’ fears

In addition to the killings of Hortman and Kirk, violence targeting political figures in the U.S. in the last few years has included an arson attack last year at the home of Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro; an assassination attempt on then-candidate Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally in 2024; and a hammer attack on the husband of Democratic then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at their California home in 2022.

Twenty-five states, including Minnesota, now formally allow candidates to use campaign funds for personal security. Most made the change after the killings of Kirk and Hortman. Eleven states have laws permitting it, while others have approved it through rules or other mechanisms, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures and the VoteMama Foundation.

This year alone, Alabama, Oregon, Nebraska and Utah enacted laws allowing campaign funds for security. Bills to legalize it are pending in about a dozen other states.

It’s not just happening at the state level. Security spending for congressional and presidential campaigns has jumped fivefold over the past decade. Federal political committees spent more than $40 million on expenses labeled as security during the 2023-24 campaign cycle, according to an April report from the nonpartisan Public Service Alliance.

Weapons detectors are just one response

Metal detectors — one of the most visible signs of concerns about political violence — were installed at Alaska’s Capitol last year. Democratic Rep. Sara Hannan said the change was due to “increased risk of violence in our public institutions.” Lawmakers approved them before Hortman was killed.

But some states have balked at making it harder to access the halls of power. Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, a Republican who knew Hortman, resisted efforts to install metal detectors in his state, saying he didn’t want to “fortify” the Capitol. Wisconsin’s is one of 11 state capitols that don’t have metal detectors, a state audit found.

Minnesota lawmakers are also considering creating a special unit within the State Patrol, which oversees Capitol security, that would provide protection for legislators, the state attorney general, secretary of state, state auditor, and Supreme Court justices.

One lead author is Democratic Sen. John Hoffman, who survived being shot nine times the night Hortman was killed. Prosecutors say the gunman, disguised as a police officer, began his rampage by shooting Hoffman and his wife, then stopped at the residences of two other lawmakers who weren’t home. He then went to Hortman’s home, where he killed the representative and her husband, and wounded their dog so severely that he had to be euthanized.

At a hearing Tuesday, Hoffman called his measure “a necessary response” that would “keep elected officials and Supreme Court justices safe and dedicate the resources necessary and hopefully stop future tragedies from happening.”

Numerous states have also taken action to protect lawmakers’ personal information. North Dakota lawmakers on Wednesday discussed a bill draft for next year that would make confidential the home addresses of candidates and public officials upon request.

The NCSL in February created a $1.5-million fund to reimburse legislatures for expenses related to lawmakers’ personal safety and security while they’re away from their statehouses. More than 30 states have applied or are preparing to, NCSL spokesperson Katie Ziegler said.

Karnowski and Bauer write for the Associated Press. Bauer reported from Madison, Wis. AP writers Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, and Jack Dura in Bismarck, N.D., contributed to this report.

ATLANTA — A man charged in a string of shootings near Atlanta that left three people dead, including a Department of Homeland Security employee who was walking her dog, died in jail Tuesday night, authorities said.

Olaolukitan Adon Abel, 26, was found unresponsive in his cell, according to a statement from the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office. Officials provided medical treatment to the U.S. Navy veteran, but he was later pronounced dead.

The official cause of death has not been determined, but officials don’t suspect foul play, according to the office. Officials are conducting an internal review.

Adon Abel was accused of killing Prianna Weathers, 31, and Homeland Security auditor Lauren Bullis, 40, in last week’s attack. Authorities also had been seeking an additional murder charge for Tony Mathews, 49, who was injured in the attack and died Sunday.

Authorities haven’t offered a potential motive for the shootings. It’s unclear if Adon Abel knew any of the victims. Police have said they believe at least one was targeted at random.

Adon Abel was represented by a public defender, and the state council overseeing defenders’ work said Wednesday in a statement that his death denies him “the opportunity to contest the charges in court.”

“We also regret that the families, friends, and colleagues of the victims may now be left without the fuller answers a public legal process might have provided about how these deaths occurred,” the statement said. “That is a painful and sobering reality for everyone affected.”

Adon Abel faced state malice murder, aggravated assault and gun charges over last week’s attacks, court records show. He also faced a federal charge of illegally possessing the gun as a person previously convicted of a felony, which was filed Friday.

His roommates told the Associated Press that shortly before the shootings, he got in an intense argument over the air conditioning in their home and stormed out. He lived with six others in separate units of the home.

The United Kingdom native was granted U.S. citizenship in 2022 while serving in the U.S. Navy and stationed in the San Diego area.

The attacks in Georgia quickly drew the Trump administration’s attention, with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin raising concern that Adon Abel was granted U.S. citizenship when Democrat Joe Biden was president. Mullin cataloged a litany of Adon Abel’s previous alleged crimes, but it is unclear whether any of them occurred before he became a citizen.

Military records show the Adon Abel enlisted in the Navy in 2020, last serving in the Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron in Coronado, Calif., and as a petty officer received a Navy “E” Ribbon for superior performance for battle readiness.

Adon Abel pleaded guilty in October 2024 to assaulting two police officers with a deadly weapon and attacking another person when he was stationed in Coronado, near San Diego, according to California court records.

The attorney who represented him in that case, Brandon Naidu, has described him as polite, calm and soft-spoken in their interactions. He said Wednesday that his obligation to protect the confidentiality of their conversations limits what he can say publicly but, “Mental health was absolutely at the center of his San Diego case.” ““t was fueled by suicidal ideation as a result of mental health that he was self-treating with substances,” he said.

He added: “Nobody wins in this. We’ll never know the motives, what could have been done beforehand or even afterward. Nobody gets proper closure on this.”

Hanna and Golden write for the Associated Press. Hanna reported from Topeka, Kan., and Golden, from Seattle.

WASHINGTON — Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger met privately with President Trump and administration officials Wednesday to press for federal support and yet-unpaid wildfire recovery funding as the region continues to rebuild from the 2025 fires.

“This afternoon we met with President Trump and Administration officials to advocate for families who lost everything,” Bass and Barger said in a statement. “We had a very positive discussion about FEMA and other rebuilding funds as well as the support of the President to continue joining us in pressuring the insurance companies to pay what they owe — and for the big banks to step up to ease the financial pressure on L.A. families.”

Barger said the two leaders had a “high-level discussion” with the president in the Oval Office, sharing stories about what fire survivors are experiencing day to day. She added that “we left details behind with the President,” but did not specify whether Trump made any funding or policy promises during the meeting.

“First and foremost, today’s meeting was to thank the President for his initial support of infusing federal resources to expedite debris removal, as well as his recent tweet about insurance companies, which have already proven fruitful,” she said in a statement provided to The Times.

Bass was similarly reserved about the discussions, telling reporters that “we will follow up with the details,” but signaled progress is being made on federal support.

“I think what’s important is that we certainly got the president’s support in terms of, you know, what is needed, and then the appropriate people were in the room for us to follow up. And that was Russ Vought, who is the head of the Office of Management and budget,” Bass told KNX on Wednesday.

The meeting comes on the heels of a yearlong standoff between California leaders and the Trump administration over wildfire recovery funding, disaster response and whether the federal government should have a say in local rebuilding permitting.

California leaders, led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, have accused the Trump administration of withholding billions in critical wildfire aid, prompting a lawsuit over stalled recovery funds. Officials allege political bias in the delay of billions of dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Newsom visited Washington in December. When he made his rounds on Capitol Hill, he met with five lawmakers, including three who serve on the Senate and House appropriations committees, to renew calls for $33.9 billion in federal aid for Los Angeles County fire recovery.

But the governor said he was denied a meeting with FEMA and would not say whether he had attempted to meet with Trump to discuss the issue.

Bass, meanwhile, appears to have found a path to the president on a subject that has been paramount for her community.

The fruitful meeting comes after Trump lobbed insults at the mayor at a news conference earlier this year, where he called her “incompetent” for how she handled last year’s wildfire recovery efforts. He alleged that under Bass’ leadership, the city’s delay in issuing local building permits will take years when it should have taken “two or three days.”

California officials, including Newsom, have urged the Trump administration to send Congress a formal request for the $33.9 billion in recovery aid needed to rebuild homes, schools, utilities and other critical infrastructure destroyed or damaged when the fires tore through neighborhoods more than 15 months ago.

What Bass and Barger’s meeting with the president ultimately produces remains to be seen.

The billions in recovery aid have not yet materialized, but the meeting could potentially give those discussions new momentum.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment about the meeting.

Earlier this month, Trump criticized insurance provider State Farm on Truth Social for its handling of the devastating Los Angeles County wildfires. He accused the insurance giant of abandoning its policyholders when tragedy struck.

“It was brought to my attention that the Insurance Companies, in particular, State Farm, have been absolutely horrible to people that have been paying them large Premiums for years, only to find that when tragedy struck, these horrendous Companies were not there to help!” Trump wrote.

But the rebuke didn’t come out of the blue. It stemmed from a controversial February visit to Los Angeles by Trump administration officials.

Trump tapped Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin in an effort to strip California state and local governments of their authority to permit the rebuilding of homes destroyed in the Eaton and Palisades fires.

Within the week, Zeldin was in Los Angeles, bashing Newsom and Los Angeles officials at a roundtable with fire victims and reporters, saying that residents were suffering from “bureaucratic, red tape delays and incompetency” and that leadership was “denying them … the ability to rebuild their lives”.

During the trip, officials heard direct complaints from local leaders and fire victims about insurers being slow, restrictive and insufficient with their claim payouts.

After these meetings, Trump directed Zeldin to investigate the insurers’ responses. State Farm, facing roughly $7 billion in fire-related claims, is also under formal investigation by California’s insurance commissioner over its handling of the crisis.

Despite tensions with the administration, Bass and Barger appeared confident that progress was being made on the insurance and funding issues.

“Our job is to fight for our communities,” their joint statement concluded. “When it comes to this recovery, our federal partners are essential, and we are grateful for the support of the President.”

April 17 (UPI) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer fired the most senior civil servant in the Foreign Office for failing to disclose that former ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson failed his security check.

Starmer called the official, Olly Robbins, on Thursday and informed him that he had lost confidence in him, as did Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper. Starmer said Friday that he was “absolutely furious.”

“I was not told that he failed security vetting,” Starmer said Friday in Paris. “No minister was told that he failed security vetting. Number 10 wasn’t told that he failed security vetting.”

Mandelson was named ambassador to the United States in December 2024 and assumed the role in February 2025.

He was fired in September after the U.S. House Oversight Committee released a batch of files from the investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein which included correspondence between Epstein and Mandelson.

The British government said Thursday that Starmer was unaware Mandelson had failed the security vetting process and the Foreign Office defied the recommendation of the Cabinet Office to allow him to assume the ambassador role.

Foreign Affairs select committee chairwoman Emily Thornberry has requested that Robbins speak before the committee on Tuesday about Mandelson. Robbins has been questioned by members of parliament about the Mandelson security clearance incident once before.

Thornberry said members of parliament have only been told “half the story.”

“Perhaps he can tell us — was it his own idea or was he being leant on elsewhere,” Thornberry said of Robbins not alerting of Mandelson’s vetting failure. “Or was he, being a civil servant, was he getting direction from elsewhere, and if so, by whom?”

PHOENIX — The top election official in Arizona’s most populous county will get more authority in running elections after a judge sided with his office in a prolonged legal fight with the local board that shares responsibility for overseeing the vote.

The decision could have broad implications in one of the nation’s most prominent battleground states, which will have several high-profile races this fall. Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, has been roiled by election conspiracy theorists ever since President Trump lost the state to Democrat Joe Biden during his bid for reelection in 2020.

Justin Heap, the Republican recorder in Maricopa County, sued the predominantly Republican county board of supervisors last summer, alleging it had illegally taken control of certain aspects of election administration. Heap claimed the board transferred funding, IT staff and some key functions — including management of ballot drop boxes and establishing early voting sites — away from his office through an agreement negotiated with his predecessor, whom he had recently defeated in a GOP primary.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney mostly sided with Heap’s office in his ruling, which was filed Thursday but appeared on the public docket Friday. The board of supervisors “acted unlawfully and exceeded its statutory authority by seizing the Recorder’s personnel, systems and equipment and refusing to return them” to the recorder, he wrote.

Blaney also ruled that the recorder’s office is responsible for overseeing in-person early voting, among other duties, while the board is responsible for other operations, such as selecting election day voting locations, supplying polling locations and hiring poll workers.

“The Board’s assertion of plenary authority over election administration through its general supervisory powers is inconsistent with Arizona law,” the judge wrote.

Board Chairwoman Kate Brophy McGee said the board will consider an appeal.

“I disagree with other portions of the ruling, and I will explore all options with the Board of Supervisors, including an expeditious appeal,” McGee, a Republican, said in a statement. “From day one, the Board of Supervisors has provided Recorder Heap the resources and staffing needed to fulfill his statutory duties. We will continue to do so because voters always come first.”

In a statement, Heap praised the ruling as a “clear and decisive victory for the rule of law and for the voters of Maricopa County.”

“The court confirmed that the Board cannot override state law, use funding as leverage, or take control of election duties assigned to the Recorder,” Heap said. “This ruling restores both the authority and the resources necessary for my office to do its job.”

Heap, a former Republican state lawmaker, was elected in 2024 after unseating incumbent Stephen Richer in the GOP primary and defeating a Democratic candidate in the general election. In the past, Heap has stopped short of repeating false claims that the 2020 and 2022 elections were stolen but has said voters don’t trust the state’s voting system and that it’s poorly run.

False claims of fraud since the 2020 presidential election led to threats of violence against Richer and others in the Maricopa County elections office. Richer blamed Heap for contributing to an atmosphere of distrust and vitriol directed toward the office.

“He catered to the really ugly stuff that the people in that office had to live through,” Richer said of Heap, in an interview last month. “And he allied with people who were very much in the eye of the storm in terms of creating it.”

Once he took office, Heap terminated a previous agreement that was reached between Richer and the board that had revised how election operations were divided between the two offices. Heap filed his lawsuit with the backing of America First Legal, a conservative public interest group founded by Stephen Miller, now deputy chief of staff in the White House.

Kelety writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Upbeat claims from President Trump over an imminent peace deal to end the war with Iran were met with deep skepticism Friday across the Middle East, where Iranian and Israeli officials questioned the prospects for a lasting agreement that would satisfy all parties.

The outlines of an agreement began to emerge that would provide Iran with a major strategic victory — and a potential financial windfall — allowing the Islamic Republic to leverage its control over the Strait of Hormuz to exact significant concessions from the United States and its ally Israel as Trump presses for a swift end to the conflict.

In a series of social media posts and interviews with reporters, Trump announced that the strait was “fully open,” vowing Tehran would never again attempt to control it. But Iranian officials and state media said that conditions remained on passage through the waterway, including the imposition of tolls and coordination with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iranian diplomats posted threats that its closure could resume at any time of their choosing, and warned that restrictions would return unless the United States agreed to lift a blockade of its ports. Trump had said Friday that the blockade would remain in place.

“The conditional and limited reopening of a portion of the Strait of Hormuz is solely an Iranian initiative, one that creates responsibility and serves to test the firm commitments of the opposing side,” said a top aide to Iran’s president, dismissing Trump’s statements on the contours of a deal as “baseless.”

“If they renege on their promises,” he added, “they will face dire consequences.”

In an overture to Iran, Trump said Israel would be “prohibited” from conducting additional military strikes in Lebanon, where the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to prevent Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy militia, from rearming, a potential threat to communities in the Israeli north.

But in a speech delivered in Hebrew, Netanyahu would say only that Israel had agreed to a temporary ceasefire, while members of his Cabinet warned that Israel Defense Forces operations in southern Lebanon were not yet finished. A top ally of the prime minister at a right-wing Israeli news outlet warned that Trump was “surrendering” to Iran in the talks.

It was a day of public messaging from a president eager to end a war that has proved historically unpopular with the American public, and has driven a rise in gas prices that could weigh on his party entering this year’s midterm elections.

Yet, Republican allies of the president have begun warning him that an agreement skewed heavily in Tehran’s favor could carry political costs of its own.

Trump was forced to deny an Axios report Friday that his negotiating team had offered to release $20 billion in frozen Iranian assets in exchange for Tehran agreeing to hand over its fissile material, buried under rubble from a U.S. bombing raid last year.

That sum would amount to more than 10 times what President Obama released to Iran under a 2015 nuclear deal, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, that was the subject of fierce Republican criticism in the decade since.

“I have every confidence that President Trump will not allow Iran to be enriched by tens of billions of dollars for holding the world hostage and creating mayhem in the region,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a strong supporter of the war. “No JCPOAs on President Trump’s watch.”

Still, Trump said in a round of interviews that a deal could be reached in a matter of days, ending less than two weeks of negotiations.

He claimed that Tehran had agreed to permanently end its enrichment of uranium — a development that, if true, would mark a dramatic reversal for the Islamic Republic from decades developing its nuclear program, and from just 10 days ago, when Iranian diplomats rejected a U.S. proposal of a 20-year pause on domestic enrichment in favor of a five-year moratorium.

He said Iran had agreed never to build nuclear weapons — a pledge Tehran has made repeatedly, including under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, in a religious decree from then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and in the 2015 agreement — while continuing nuclear activities viewed by the international community as exceeding civilian needs.

And he repeatedly stated that Iran had agreed to the removal of its enriched uranium from the country, either to the United States or to a third party. Iranian state media stated Friday afternoon that a proposal to remove the country’s highly enriched uranium had been “rejected.”

Iran’s agreement to allow safe passage for commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz is linked to a ceasefire in Lebanon that the Israeli Cabinet approved for only a 10-day period. Regardless of whether it holds or is extended, Israeli officials said their military would not retreat from its current positions in southern Lebanon — opening up Israeli forces to potential attack by Hezbollah militants unbound by a truce brokered by the Lebanese government.

The Lebanese people, Hezbollah officials said, have “the right to resist” Israeli occupation of their land. Whether the fighting resumes, the group added, “will be determined based on how developments unfold.”

An Iranian official threw cold water on the prospects of reaching a comprehensive peace deal in the coming days, telling Reuters that a temporary extension of the current ceasefire, set to expire Tuesday, would “create space for more talks on lifting sanctions on Iran and securing compensation for war damages.”

“In exchange, Iran will provide assurances to the international community about the peaceful nature of its nuclear program,” the official said, adding that “any other narrative about the ongoing talks is a misrepresentation of the situation.”

Trump told reporters Friday that the talks will continue through the weekend.

While Trump claimed there aren’t “too many significant differences” remaining, he said the United States would continue the blockade until negotiations are finalized and formalized.

“When the agreement is signed, the blockade ends,” the president told reporters in Phoenix.

Times staff writer Ana Ceballos contributed to this report.

Calling for the PM to stand down earlier, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said: “It is either, he knew that Mandelson failed the security vetting and lied to us in Parliament, on TV repeatedly, or he didn’t know, didn’t ask and said he had passed the security vetting – which means he is hopelessly incompetent.”

A former Trump administration official predicted Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump could meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for a summit sometime this fall, citing Trump’s continued indications of interest in resuming dialogue with the reclusive leader.

Fred Fleitz, a former chief of staff of the National Security Council under the previous Trump administration, made the remarks as speculation persists that Trump and Kim may resume dialogue around the time when Trump visits China for summit talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, in May.

“I believe there is a good chance of a Trump-Kim summit this fall,” said the vice chair of the America First Policy Institute at a press event on the sidelines of a forum hosted by the Asan Institute of Policy Studies.

“President Trump has often indicated that he wanted to resume a successful personal diplomacy … It is something that Trump believes in that this was a big success that he has to build upon,” he said.

Fleitz pointed out that although Trump is open to meeting Kim again, he would not back away from the U.S. demand for denuclearization.

“The Trump administration might join talks with North Korea but will be pushing for denuclearization,” he said. “I would strongly advise the Trump administration that another progress should be that North Korea has to stop sending weapons (to Russia for its war) in Ukraine.”

“They are helping a disastrously bloody war and I don’t think it’s a lot to ask for Trump to say that to Kim Jong-un.”

On a similar note, Victor Cha, Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, gave an outlook of a “more than 50 percent chance” that Trump will meet Kim, after he meets Xi in Beijing.

“I don’t think Xi Jinping will want a meeting (between Trump and Kim) before his summit with Trump,” he said. “There is a greater than 50 percent chance that they could meet after their (Trump-Xi) meeting in Beijing.”

Cha also noted that unlike the approach to China, Russia or Iran, Trump shows that he puts North Korea in a “different basket” in terms of his potential engagement with Kim.

“I think he clearly wants to engage with him, which is just fascinating,” he said.

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SIR Lewis Hamilton has taken his relationship with Kim Kardashian up a gear — going Instagram official.

The Formula 1 great took his girlfriend for a spin in a Ferrari in Tokyo and shared a video of it on social media.

It showed the reality star grinning in the passenger seat.

After drifting down a road and spinning, he brought the car to a stop and Kim, said: “That’s insane.”

She flew out to Asia to be with him at the end of last month for the Japanese Grand Prix, but did not attend the race itself.

The Sun first told in February how Brit Lewis, 41, had struck up a romance with The Kardashians star, 45, with the couple spending a weekend at Estelle Manor in the Cotswolds.

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They have since been seen together in Paris and the US, but this is the first time either has publicly posted about the other on social media.

Kim, who was four kids with disgraced rapper Kanye West, 48 — who she was married to from 2014 to 2022 — said last October she could not imagine herself dating another famous man.

She told a podcast that the person “would have to be someone super- special” for her to start another relationship.

Kim explained: “I don’t know if I have the energy or whether I’ve met the right person that I would want to blend my family with.”

On whether she might date another musician or athlete, she added: “Neither. We’re going, like, lawyers and longevity scientists who would give me all their secrets.”

After splitting from Kanye, she dated comedian Pete Davidson and then NFL player Odell Beckham Jr until things fizzled out in April 2024.

Lewis has not had a serious relationship since he split from Pussycat Dolls singer Nicole Scherzinger in 2015 after almost eight years.

The driver is currently fourth in the F1 standings behind his team-mate Charles Leclerc — and hit out at those who criticised his recent performances.

Seven-time champ Lewis said: “When you have difficult years, there are lots of questions.

“It felt great to come into this season and start off strong, to be able to show that I still have what it takes to be able to compete at the front.”

SACRAMENTO — Attempting to force a state budget agreement, California Controller Kathleen Connell said Monday she is considering withholding lawmakers’ salaries, and cannot pay 35,000 state employees if the Legislature and Gov. Pete Wilson fail to approve a budget by Saturday’s constitutional deadline.

Without a budget, Connell said, she also will have no choice but to delay payments of some Medi-Cal bills, such as prescriptions, for elderly people–a step that would add pressure on lawmakers to approve a spending plan.

Under the state Constitution, California must have a new budget by the July 1 start of the 1995-1996 fiscal year. But Wilson and the Legislature remain far apart and seem to be in no rush to approve a budget.

In recent years, it has become common for the deadline to pass without a budget. In 1992, the state went more than 60 days without a budget, leading state government to pay its employees and vendors with IOUs.

Connell, who is in her first year in office and who issues the checks for the state, said California has the cash to pay its bills. However, without agreement on a budget measure authorizing state spending in the new fiscal year, Connell said she will have no choice but to delay paying vendors, some medical bills for the elderly, the blind and the disabled, and as many as 35,000 state employees, including management officials.

“I don’t think any taxpayer is going to be sympathetic to the idea that we have the cash but are not paying our bills,” said Connell, a Democrat.

Connell last week suggested that she would withhold lawmakers’ pay starting July 1 if they had not approved a budget by the deadline. But she softened her position after concluding that there may be a constitutional requirement that she issue their checks. However, Connell said she is still studying the question.

“I’m raising a moral issue here,” Connell said after a speech in Sacramento. “If there are [state] employees who are not going to be paid because we have partisan politics dominating the Legislature, then there has to be a question of who else should accept responsibility.”

In the Legislature, the Senate-Assembly budget conference committee met Monday afternoon. But Wilson and top legislative leaders have not scheduled budget talks to resolve differences.

Wilson has proposed a $56-billion budget that includes deep welfare cuts and requires 10% increases in state college and university tuition. Wilson also is pushing for a 15% income tax cut over three years–an idea opposed by many Democrats.

“We fully expect to have a budget in the month of July,” Wilson spokesman Paul Kranhold said. “We are hopeful that the Legislature will forward us a budget by Saturday, or soon afterward.”

The amount separating Democrats and Republicans is relatively small–$1.8 billion–compared to other years of the Wilson Administration, when the gap between Wilson’s proposals and what the Legislature proposed ranged from $5 billion to $14 billion. But rancor is so dividing the Assembly this year that partisans in the budget fight have yet to take the first steps toward a solution.

“It can happen by Saturday,” said Assembly Republican Leader Jim Brulte. “There is no reason that it couldn’t or shouldn’t happen by Saturday. But I don’t know if it will.”

Past court orders require that, even without a budget, the state pay to keep schools open and issue checks to welfare recipients. The state also will continue to meet its bond debt and pension payments, Connell said.

But starting Saturday, Connell said, the state will not pay vendors who perform various services for the state, or deliver goods to state prisons and state hospitals. Without a budget, she said, state agencies that lease space will be unable to pay rent and cannot pay utility bills. Payments for services such as nursing home care or food deliveries to prisons would be delayed until a budget is approved.

“The effect of having no budget begins immediately. It begins on July 1, and the damage will grow with each day,” Connell said.

If the state goes without a budget through July, the missed payments would total at least $360 million for Medi-Cal and state assistance to counties to operate trial courts. The total for employees was not known.

Unlike 1992, the last time there was a lengthy budget deadlock, the state cannot use IOUs to pay its workers who fall under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

A federal judge, acting on a lawsuit brought by state employees, ruled last year that the state acted illegally in 1992 by issuing the IOUs, and that roughly 120,000 workers covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act must be paid even if there is no budget.

But between 33,000 and 35,000 state workers are not covered by the act, raising the possibility that they will not be paid on time for work done after July 1.

The employees whose pay is in jeopardy include Wilson’s political appointees, and heads of departments and middle-level managers. Professionals such as deputy attorneys general and state physicians and dentists also may have their paychecks delayed. An aide to Connell said the controller’s office is reviewing the law to determine whether judges and other judicial officials can be paid.

The first state employees to miss a paycheck would be in the Department of Transportation, where 50 management employees would miss July 15 paychecks for work done after July 1.

Gov. Pete Wilson has criticized the commission’s findings, and Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Feinstein have urged the President to throw out the panel’s work entirely. Rep. Vic Fazio (D-West Sacramento), whose district includes the threatened Air Force base, wants Clinton to send the report back and ask the commission to redraft it without the McClellan closure recommendation.

South Korea has taken note of remarks by U.S. President Donald Trump that Seoul is not doing enough to support U.S. efforts in its war against Iran, an official at the foreign ministry said Tuesday.

Trump has criticized South Korea, Japan and European allies for not helping the U.S. reopen the Strait of Hormuz, such as by sending warships to escort commercial ships through the waterway, amid the conflict in the Middle East.

“We have been paying close attention to President Trump’s repeated remarks,” Park Il, foreign ministry spokesperson, said in a press briefing.

“The government will carefully review the matter and make a judgment in close coordination with the United States,” he said.

Seoul has reportedly reached out to Washington seeking to clarify Trump’s recent remarks and was told they were not directed specifically at South Korea, but rather reflected broader disappointment over U.S. allies not responding to his calls for assistance.

Both sides share the view that Trump’s comments would have no impact on the bilateral alliance, including efforts to implement trade and security commitments as agreed under the joint summit agreements, sources familiar with the matter said.

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April 3 (UPI) — An official in the Federal Emergency Management Agency reiterated on Friday that he has experienced teleportation multiple times, including to a Waffle House miles away from where he had been.

Gregg Phillips, associate administrator for FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery, posted on social media and repeated statements that he has teleported, that it really happened and that it is connected his religious beliefs, CNN and The New York Times reported.

Phillips had mentioned his history of teleportation on several podcasts, including one called “Onward,” in which he said that “teleporting is no fun.”

“God will not be mocked,” Phillips posted on Truth Social. “People can debate me. Question me. Even ridicule what they don’t understand.”

“But here’s the real question,” he wrote. “What’s harder to believe? That God could move in a moment during a spiritual battle, or Jesus Christ rose from the dead and is coming again? I know what I’ve experienced. I know Who I serve.”

The social media post comes after a previous CNN report about Phillips’ comment on a podcast that he had experienced teleportation multiple times.

The examples included that his car was once flown through the air to a church and that he was teleported to a location of Waffle House in Rome, Ga., People Magazine reported.

“I was with my boys one time and I was telling them I was gonna go to Waffle House and get Waffle House,” Phillips said on a podcast in 2025.

“I ended up at a Waffle House — this was in Georgia — and I end at a Waffle House like 50 miles away,” he said.

The Times reported that employees at three Waffle House locations within 50 miles of where Phillips was remember seeing him.

Phillips said this week that the comments were taken out of context.

Earlier this week, in another post on Truth Social, he said that “the word ‘teleportation’ was not mine” and that his comments had been taken out of context while he while discussing treatment for metastatic bone cancer that had spread from his prostate.

The podcast episode, he said, was conducted during the “opening days of intensive treatment, heavily medicated, not thinking about future headlines.”

“The word ‘teleportation’ was not mine. It was used by someone else in the conversation reaching for language to describe something with no easy name,” he wrote. “The more accurate biblical terms are ‘translated’ or ‘transported’ — not new ideas for people of faith.”

The Times, CNN and MSNOW also reported that Phillips has a history of spreading baseless conspiracy theories — including election fraud and the discredited “2000 mules” project — and has employed violent rhetoric about politicians and public officials with whom he disagrees.

Amanda Batula and West Wilson weren’t being coy — not “purposely” anyway.

The stars of the Bravo reality series “Summer House” — where a group of friends spend their summer weekends in the Hamptons and drama ensues — were just letting the romance percolate. And now they’re making it official.

The pair shared statements on their Instagram stories that they “wanted to provide some clarity” as rumors swirled about their status.

“It was never our intention to purposely hide anything. Given the complicated relationship dynamics involved and the scrutiny that comes with being on a reality show, we need a little space to process things privately before speaking on it,” the couple wrote. “We’ve shown up for each other as friends over the years, through all the highs and lows, and what’s developed recently was the last thing either of us expected.”

Over the course of the series, which debuted in 2017, relationships have become intertwined.

Wilson dated fellow “Summer House” co-star Ciara Miller, a close friend of Batula, in 2023.

And Batula was married to series co-star Kyle Cooke. In January, she announced their split, writing on an Instagram story that the couple had decided to “mutually and amicably” end their relationship. They married in 2021 and documented their struggles on “Summer House,” including when Cooke cheated on Batula in 2019, and spent the night at a fan’s apartment in 2025.

The pair explained that they chose to wait to publicly announce their relationship “to take time to understand” what they felt.

“Our connection grew out of a genuine, long-standing friendship, which made it especially important for us to approach this with care,” they wrote. “We also recognize that this has had an impact beyond just us and never wanted our actions to cause any hurt or be perceived as careless.”

Wilson previously insisted that Batula was just his “home girl” on an episode of “Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen.”

“We were just hanging out in New York. She’s single, I gotta show her the streets a little bit,” Wilson said on Friday. “But if it’s not clear, that’s a very important person to me, and I care about her a lot.”

While on “Watch What Happens” in early March, Cooke said he found the rumors about Batula and Wilson “ outrageous,” and that he didn’t think “there’s any merit to it.” Although he denied the rumors, he still voiced his support for Batula.

“It would certainly catch me by surprise and feel a little reckless. And I think I’d probably be the last person people would be worried about,” Cooke said. “But if it made Amanda happy, I think I just would have to vote ‘yay.’”

There will be no Charlie Kirk highway in his home state of Arizona. The reason: politics.

Exactly whose politics is to blame has become a point of debate.

Kirk, the conservative activist known for his campus debates, was assassinated last year during an event at Utah Valley University. Republicans in Arizona, where Kirk’s Turning Point USA organization is based, passed legislation attempting to add Kirk’s name to Loop 202, a highway circling through the sprawling Phoenix area.

Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed it on Friday.

In a veto message to state lawmakers, Hobbs denounced political violence but suggested that Republicans had inappropriately injected politics into a decision rightly left to a state board that names historic highways.

“I will continue working toward solutions that bring people together, but this bill falls short of that standard by inserting politics into a function of government that should remain nonpartisan,” Hobbs wrote.

Republican state Senate President Warren Petersen, who sponsored the legislation, said it was Hobbs who practiced politics by breaking with “a long-standing Arizona tradition” of recognizing people who made an impact on society.

The veto “tells people that recognition now depends on political alignment, not contribution,” Petersen said in a statement. “That’s not how Arizona has ever approached these decisions, and it’s a disappointing shift for our state.”

Lawmakers in more than 20 states have introduced over five dozen bills seeking to honor Kirk, according to an Associated Press analysis using the bill-tracking software Plural. Many propose naming things after Kirk or creating an official day of remembrance. Others invoke Kirk’s name for measures that would protect free speech rights on college campuses or encourage schools to teach about the role of Judeo-Christian values in American history.

Arizona and Florida were among the first states to give final approval to Kirk-inspired legislation.

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has yet to act on a bill that would designate a road in Miami-Dade County as “Charlie Kirk Memorial Avenue” while also designating a road in Broward County as “President Donald J. Trump Boulevard.”

Lieb writes for the Associated Press.

When he entered the race for California governor, San José Mayor Matt Mahan pitched himself as a pragmatic Democrat who would prioritize improving residents’ quality of life and government efficiency.

He unveiled a key part of that promise on Tuesday with an expansive plan to reform state government, including tying pay raises for elected officials and other top leaders to improvements on key issues, and pledging not to approve any tax increase until the state proves “that we can deliver better outcomes with the dollars we already have.”

Mahan also delivered a blistering rebuke of ballooning state spending — which, as he often points out on the campaign trail, has increased nearly 75% over the last six years. In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying economic uncertainty, California lawmakers approved a no-frills state budget that came in at $202 billion. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest spending proposal is nearly $349 billion.

“We have fallen into this lazy, reflexive mindset of always going back to voters and telling them that the only solution to every problem is a tax increase or a new bond or a new rule coming down from Sacramento,” Mahan said in an interview. “We need to step back and take a really hard look at our existing spending and increase the level of transparency and accountability in government.”

His eight-page plan includes ways to measure and track accountability, some of which are drawn from policies in other states. They include lobbying reforms, following up on audit recommendations and overhauling the state’s digital infrastructure and its procurement process — services Mahan described as “clunky and cumbersome.”

He also proposed a “California Performance Review,” inspired by a similar effort in Texas throughout the 1990s, that would review state agencies and solicit input from employees to eliminate waste and inefficiencies.

But near the top of the list is a proposal to tie pay raises for state officials including the governor, lawmakers and thousands of gubernatorial appointees to “measurable outcomes” in areas such as reducing homelessness and unemployment.

“People in the real world don’t get raises if they don’t do a good job,” Mahan said, “and I think it should be the same for the politicians and senior administrators who are allocating budgets, leading projects, making the big decisions on behalf of the people of California.”

Though the benchmarks would be created with input from the state Legislature, Mahan floated one example: reducing unsheltered homelessness by 5% to 10% within one year, something he said he’s accomplished three years in a row in San José.

It’s a solution one might expect from a former entrepreneur and mayor of a city in the heart of Silicon Valley. Mahan made a similar proposal at the local level last year, but it was rejected by the City Council.

“Tying pay to performance is nothing short of revolutionary in government. It’s a private-sector model that is overdue,” said former state Sen. Steve Glazer (D-Orinda), a Mahan supporter who sponsored several bills aiming to increase transparency in government.

Dozens of tech company executives are backing Mahan in the race for governor and have collectively donated millions to his campaign, as well as two independent expenditure committees supporting him.

That has raised concerns from some voters, and criticism from some of Mahan’s opponents, that he would be beholden to their interests and veto future regulations on tech or artificial intelligence companies.

Mahan has sought to dispel those concerns, arguing that he believes AI and social media platforms should be regulated. Of his plan to overhaul state information technology systems and infrastructure, he said that “whenever we spend public dollars, we have to run open, transparent and competitive procurement processes that ensure best value for the taxpayers.”

Though Mahan did not specify how he would link government outcomes to pay raises, state lawmakers have largely panned his campaign and are unlikely to get on board. The change probably would also require voter approval.

Currently, annual raises for elected officials are determined by a citizen commission that was added to the California Constitution in 1990. Changing how that panel works or imposing limits on when it can approve raises would require a constitutional amendment, which requires voter sign-off.

But Mahan contended it would be one of the fastest ways to fix a system that he says works for special interests at the expense of working people.

“I’m under no illusion that this will be easy, but I think it’s a necessary realignment of incentives,” he said. “We have to make ourselves as accountable to the people as we possibly can be.”

BEIRUT —  Iran’s top security official, Ali Larijani, has been killed in an Israeli airstrike, a move that represents a palpable hit to an Iranian leadership that has shown little interest in compromise after almost three weeks of war with the U.S. and Israel.

Killing Larijani, who led Iran as de facto wartime leader after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei died on the first day of the war, eliminates a veteran official seen as the consummate insider despite not having the religious credentials for the Islamic Republic’s highest offices. Israel, in an announcement Tuesday, said the attack occurred the night before.

For all his bellicose comments since the war began, Larijani was also seen as a pragmatist, and observers say his death might strengthen the resolve of what’s left of Iran’s leadership, rather than induce a willingness to compromise.

His post as secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council gave Larijani control of the country’s top security body, where he tasked government forces with subduing anti-regime protests in January. Thousands of Iranians were killed.

Also killed in the Israeli strikes was Gen. Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of the Basij, the volunteer auxiliary wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and an integral part of the state’s ability to keep order.

“Larijani and the Basij commander were eliminated overnight and joined the head of the annihilation program, Khamenei, and all the eliminated members of the axis of evil, in the depths of hell,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement Tuesday.

Israeli officials have employed “axis of evil” to refer to Iran and its allies, including the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

Larijani had served as parliamentary speaker for 12 years and became the point man on nuclear negotiations as well as relations with allies such as China and Russia. He often acted as the government’s representative in the media.

Iranian officials confirmed that Larijani and Soleimani had been killed. They said Larijani’s son, the head of his office and several guards were also killed in the strikes.

Soon after Katz’s announcement, Iranian authorities released an undated note said to have been written by Larijani in which he honored Iranian sailors killed in a U.S. attack. The image of the note was also posted to Larijani’s account on X.

There was no explanation why the note was released and whether it is signified Larijani was still alive.

“We are undermining this regime in the hope of giving the Iranian people an opportunity to remove it,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu and President Trump have repeatedly called on ordinary Iranians to topple the government.

Though assassinating Larijani counts as yet another intelligence coup for Israel and the U.S., both may come to regret the loss of a figure who, despite his defiant rhetoric since the war began Feb. 28, was considered by some analysts as a realist.

His killing adds to the evisceration of Iran’s upper echelons, raising the question of who is left to negotiate an end to the war, or have enough influence to make Iran’s deep state accept compromise.

Some observers say that’s the point.

“Why did the Israelis take out Larijani in this moment? Because Netanyahu is focused on blocking Trump’s pathways for a ceasefire and follow-up negotiations with Iran,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, a senior policy fellow at the European Council for Foreign Relations, adding that “Larijani would have been the man to get that job done.”

Khamenei’s assassination, Geranmayeh said, had already empowered more hard-line figures in government, and Larijani’s death “could act as an accelerator to that path.”

“Israel seems to be turning its attention to targeting those that could push for a political solution to the current crisis,” she said.

Larijani’s death would add to the murkiness surrounding Iran’s leadership. After Khamenei was killed and it remained unclear who would replace him, Trump added to the uncertainty by saying that the country’s new leader would need his approval, but also that the U.S. had killed many of the leaders whom he would have deemed acceptable.

After Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was named the new supreme leader, Trump expressed his displeasure but repeatedly dodged questions about what the transition under the younger Khamenei would mean for the U.S. war effort.

After the elder Khamenei’s death, Larijani emerged as a high-profile voice for Iran, saying that Trump must “pay the price” for the U.S. strikes on the country.

In response, Trump acted as if he didn’t know who Larijani was.

“I have no idea what he’s talking about, who he is. I couldn’t care less,” Trump told CBS News.

Benjamin Radd, a political scientist and senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, said Larijani was perceived to be “the last of the competent bunch” within the Iranian leadership — an intellectual who had a complex understanding of the geopolitical reality on the ground, who had negotiated with the U.S. in the past, and who was “adept at maneuvering” all the various parts of the Iranian power structure.

Radd said Larijani “lost that mantle of being the pragmatist” when he strongly backed the deadly January crackdown on protesters, for which he was “more responsible than anyone else.”

He “absolutely was responsible for a tremendous amount of carnage and death and destruction,” Radd said.

And yet, with his death, “all of that diplomatic, institutional experience” that he did have “is gone” from the Iranian leadership, Radd said.

Those left in power, he said, are “generally not the sharpest people, they’re not the people who understand the subtleties of diplomacy, of what negotiating with the U.S. is like.”

Bulos reported from Beirut and Rector from Colorado.

‘Israelis are not looking for a negotiating partner, they’re looking for decimation.’

Ross Harrison joins an Al Jazeera panel discussion on what the US and Israel are seeking with their killing of senior Iranian leaders.

MEL B dropped a HUGE giveaway clue that the Spice Girls reunion had been cancelled with a “kiss my ass” post – hours before the official announcement was made.

It comes after The Sun exclusively revealed that a 30th anniversary tour had been scrapped, despite numerous hints from the five Spiceys that they were getting back together.

Mel B, AKA Scary Spice, 50, has become increasingly distant lately from bandmates Geri Horner, 53. Emma Bunton, 50, Mel C, 52, and Victoria Beckham, 51,

In her latest Instagram post she hinted that the possibility of a band reunion was off, when she shared a shady message.

It came when Mel posted a video of herself from behind in a bikini, and wrote: “I’m walkinn away from the NOISE… so if that’s what your bringing you can KISS MY (peach emoji).”

The Sun revealed there has been some tension behind-the-scenes, as plans were being put in place for a reunion tour.

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Mel B was notably absent from Emma’s 50th birthday celebrations at Soho Farmhouse in January.

She then was the only Spice Girl who was missing when the girls got together last month for a singalong at Victoria’s London home.

Fans couldn’t contain themselves when a video dropped of the girlband reuniting to sing Viva Forever.

The Sun revealed tonight how the tour, which would have celebrated 30 years of the Spice Girls, had been cancelled after they failed to pull their plans together in time.

All five women had been in talks to reunite for a string of concerts to mark three decades since the release of their debut single Wannabe.

But The Sun understands they failed to reach an agreement and plans for a comeback tour in 2026 have been ditched.

Confirming the news during an interview on Australia’s KIIS Radio, Mel C, 52, said: “No, there is no reunion.

“We are communicating all the time. We want to do something – who knows when.

“But I still feel very optimistic and I keep my fingers crossed that you will see the Spice Girls together at some point in the future.”

The Sun told last April how Geri, 53, was back in touch with the band’s former manager Simon Fuller and had flown out to Miami to try and agree on a deal.

However, in recent weeks, plans have fallen apart, with just a collectible coin from the Royal Mint being announced to mark the anniversary.

A planned Netflix drama based on the group was shelved last month amid tensions in the group.

The Spice Girls first got together in the early 90s before shooting to worldwide fame with their debut single Wannabe in 1996.

The fab five enjoyed a huge amount of success all over the globe with an army of fans following them everywhere.

In 1998, Geri shocked fans when she sensationally quit the band.

The group tried to continue as a foursome but ended up calling it a day in 2001.

All five Spice Girls then reunited in 2007 for a tour, and then again for the London Olympic Games in 2012.

However, Victoria chose not to join the band again when they went on tour in 2019.

Fans will now be hoping that this new video is a HUGE clue that the Spice Girls reunion tour WITH Posh will be now on the cards.

ORLANDO, Fla. — College Republicans have sued the University of Florida’s president on free speech grounds over the school’s decision to deactivate its chapter after being notified that at least one member engaged in an antisemitic act.

The University of Florida College Republicans filed the lawsuit Monday in federal court against interim president Donald Landry, asking a judge to stop the enforcement of the school’s decision and to restore access to facilities on the Gainesville campus.

“The University of Florida punitively deactivated and shut down the UFCR, in response to alleged viewpoints expressed by a member of UFCR, and in an effort to silence the club and chill its future speech,” the group said in its lawsuit.

UF spokeswoman Cynthia Roldan Hernandez said in an email that the university doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

Officials at the University of Florida said over the weekend that they had been informed by the Florida Federation of College Republicans that the federation had disbanded the Gainesville campus’ chapter after determining that some members had “engaged in a pattern of conduct that violated its rules and values, including a recent antisemitic gesture.”

When the Florida Federation of College Republicans is ready, the university will assist with reactivating the campus chapter under new student leadership, UF officials said in a statement.

The deactivation wasn’t based on any university policy or rule, and it was only based on a member’s expression of a viewpoint “which was alleged to be antisemitic,” the lawsuit said.

The university also didn’t provide the College Republicans with adequate notice and didn’t give the chapter an opportunity to explain its side of the story, according to the lawsuit.

The deactivation effort at the University of Florida campus marks the second time this month that a public university in Florida has taken action against a Republican group accused of being involved in racist or antisemitic behavior.

Earlier this month, Florida International University in Miami launched an investigation into a group chat started by an official with the Miami-Dade chapter of the Republican Party that included violently racist slurs, antisemitic comments and misogynistic language. The chat involved students and several top conservative leaders at Florida International University.

Last fall, New York’s Republican State Committee suspended a Young Republican organization following the release of a group chat that included jokes about rape and flippant commentary on gas chambers.

Schneider writes for the Associated Press.