The race started on a wet track after a soaking wet morning, but with the sun out and more rain heading towards Silverstone.
Verstappen held the lead through a brief challenge from Piastri off the line but he could not shake the McLarens, and Piastri was soon challenging him hard for the lead.
Before he could try a move, though, a virtual safety car was deployed after Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto crashed at Turn Two on lap four.
The race was restarted on lap seven, and Piastri was past Verstappen on the Hangar Straight before two laps were over, building a 2.9-second lead after just one lap.
It was then Norris’ turn to challenge the Red Bull, but Verstappen gifted him the position when he slid off at Becketts on lap 11, just as heavy rain started.
That brought the drivers into the pits for fresh intermediates. By then, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll had gained time by an earlier change to soft tyres when the track was drying and emerged in fourth place, with Hulkenberg in fifth after stopping for inters on lap 10, so benefiting when others had to drive on a wet track on slick tyres and then pit.
The rain became heavier and a safety car was deployed on lap 14. The race restarted on lap 18, but a second safety car was sent out within a lap after Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar ran into the back of Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes at Copse because he could not see him in the spray.
When the race restarted for the last time on lap 22, with Verstappen spinning from second down to 10th, Piastri started to try to build a lead but he was not able to get more than four seconds ahead before Norris came back at him – he was less than two seconds back by the time Piastri pitted to serve his penalty with nine laps to go.
Stroll was unable to hold on to his third place, soon being passed by Hulkenberg and then Hamilton and eventually dropping down to seventh place.
Behind Verstappen, Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, who was fifth at the restart, lost places to Hamilton and the Dutchman but was able to secure sixth place.
Williams’ Alex Albon was eighth, ahead of Fernando Alonso, who was frustrated by his team’s strategy costing him places in the topsy-turvy early part of the race, and then pitted a couple of laps too early for slick tyres as the track dried in the closing stages.
That dropped him to last, but he recovered to take ninth, ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell, who also stopped early for slicks for the final time.
WASHINGTON — As Americans mark the Fourth of July holiday this weekend, the Trump administration is planning ahead for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence next year, a moment of reflection for a nation beset by record-low patriotism and divided by heated culture wars over the country’s identity.
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‘A grand celebration’
Fireworks burst over Washington, D.C., landmarks on July 4, 1976, at the nation’s bicentennial celebration.
(Charles Tasnadi / Associated Press)
White House officials are actively involved in state and local planning for the semiquincentennial after the president, in one of his first acts in office, established “Task Force 250” to organize “a grand celebration worthy of the momentous occasion.”
The administration has launched a website offering its telling of the nation’s founding, and Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” — which he had hoped to pass by this Independence Day — includes a provision allocating $40 million to commission 250 statues for a “National Garden of American Heroes,” to be built at an undetermined location.
Trump has been thinking about the 250th anniversary for years. He invoked the occasion in his first joint session to Congress in 2017, stating it would be “one of the great milestones in the history of the world.” And in 2023, campaigning for a second term, he proposed a “Great American State Fair” to take place around the country throughout the year.
But that milestone year comes amid fierce debate over Trump’s attempts to exert government control over the teaching of American history.
In March, Trump signed an executive order aimed at “restoring truth and sanity to American history,” directing public institutions to limit their presentation of the nation’s history without nuance or criticism. “This is not a return to sanity,” the Organization of American Historians responded at the time. “Rather, it sanitizes to destroy truth.”
On the “America 250” website created by the White House, the account of the nation’s founding is outsourced to Hillsdale College, a far-right institution that was a member of the advisory board for Project 2025.
“A question over this coming year is whether the celebrations around the 250th will be used as yet another cudgel in the culture wars where the goal is to divide rather than unite,” said David Ekbladh, a history professor at Tufts University.
“The view Trump’s ‘Task Force 250’ seems to be laying out is comfortable, but doesn’t give us a full view of that historical moment,” Ekbladh said. “And a full view doesn’t reduce things to a story of tragedy or oppression — although there was plenty of both — but can show us the full set of experiences that were the foundations of a dynamic country.”
Dueling celebrations in a divided nation
In 1976, when the United States marked its 200th birthday, the festivities were prolific. Federal government letterhead was decorated for over a year to mark the anniversary. State-sponsored celebrations were designed to revive a national sense of patriotism that had been challenged by a stagflating economy, lingering trauma from the political convulsions of the late 1960s and the Vietnam War.
A full schedule of events has yet to be made public. But scholars expect echoes of 1976, when government efforts to instill pride in a weary nation met with mixed success.
“In 1976, there were dueling celebrations: official, government-sponsored ones, and ‘people’s’ observances organized by progressive groups,” said Michael Kazin, a history professor at Georgetown University. “I expect something of that kind will occur next year too.”
There are significant differences. This time, the nation will celebrate a constitutional system of checks and balances under historic pressure from a president testing the bounds of executive power.
“Two hundred and fifty years of constitutional democracy is well worth honoring,” said Andrew Rudalevige, a history professor at Bowdoin College, “but this particular anniversary is symbolic in ways that resonate exactly opposite to Trump’s vision of governance and history.”
Most of the Declaration of Independence, Rudalevige noted, is dedicated to laying out “how centralized executive authority leads to tyranny, and must be opposed.” And the document’s promise of inalienable rights and the pursuit of happiness have been a beacon of hope and inspiration to immigrants since the founding.
“So the next year will mark a hugely important tension between the version of American history that Mr. Trump and his allies want taught — and actual American history,” Rudalevige said. “We will have a sort of polarized patriotism.”
Patriotism hits new lows
That polarization has already become evident in recent polling.
A survey published by Gallup this week found that a historically low number of Americans feel patriotic, with 58% of U.S. adults identifying as “extremely” or “very” proud to be an American. That is nine points lower than last year, and the lowest figure registered by Gallup since they began polling on the matter in 2001.
Pride among Republicans has stayed relatively consistent, with 92% registering as patriotic. But it has plummeted among Democrats and independents. And pride decreased across parties by age group, with more Democrats in Gen Z — those born between the mid-1990s and mid-2010s — telling Gallup they have “little” or “no” pride in being an American than saying they are extremely or very proud.
If nothing else, historians said, the anniversary is an opportunity for everyday Americans to reflect on the country they want to live in.
“To be sure, for many people the day is just a day off and maybe a chance to go to a parade and see some fireworks,” said Ekbladh, of Tufts. “But the day can and should be a moment to think about what the country is.”
Though many voters were undecided, Harris was the choice of 41% of survey respondents, compared to 29% who opted for an unnamed Republican candidate, according to a poll by the University of California Irvine. She also had the greatest favorability ratings and is most well known compared to all of the candidates who have announced.
“The path to governor seems well-paved for Vice President Harris if she decides to run,” said Jon Gould, dean of UCI’s School of Social Ecology, in a statement. “Although she lacks majority support at the moment, people know her better than the other candidates and generally view her favorably.”
Only 5% of Californians had never heard of Harris, while every other announced candidate was unknown by a far larger number of respondents, including those who had run for statewide office previously. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who ran for governor in 2018, was unknown by 47% of survey respondents; 48% were unfamiliar with former Rep. Katie Porter of Irvine, who ran for U.S. Senate in 2024.
When tested against candidates who have announced, Harris was the choice of 24% of voters, the only candidate to crack double digits, according to the poll. However, 40% of respondents were undecided, according to the poll.
Among Democrats, who account for 47% of the state’s voters as of February, Harris had the support of nearly half, while every announced candidate had single-digit support. Harris led among Californians in every region and in every racial group, according to the poll.
Billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso, a Democrat who unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Los Angeles in 2022 and is reportedly debating whether to run for mayor again or governor, was the favored choice of GOP voters, with the backing of 27% of survey respondents.
Harris, whose representatives did not respond to a request for comment, is expected to decide whether she enters the race by the end of the summer, a delay that has prompted criticism from several candidates in the crowded field of candidates who have already announced their bids.
The statewide poll of 4,143 Californians was conducted online in two separate polls, one between May 27 and June 2, and another between May 29 and June 4. The margin of error in either direction varies between 2.9% and 3.6%, according to UCI.
Darrell Wayne Lukas, known to the general public as D. Wayne and to friends simply as Wayne or as “The Coach” if you were in the business, died on Saturday after a brief illness. He was 89.
Lukas’ career, which started in Southern California in 1968, not only built a recognizable brand but helped shape horse racing for more than 50 years. He won 15 Triple Crown races among his lifetime win total of 4,953, having run horses in 30,436 races. His horses earned more than $300 million.
He died at his home in Louisville, Ky., after being diagnosed with a severe MRSA blood infection that affected his heart, digestive system and worsened preexisting chronic conditions. Lukas decided against an aggressive treatment plan that involved surgeries and round-the-clock assistance. Instead, he returned home and entered hospice care.
“It is with heavy hearts that we share the passing of our beloved husband, grandfather and great-grandfather D. Wayne Lukas. who left this world peacefully [Saturday] evening at the age of 89 surrounded by family,” the Lukas family said in a statement released by Churchill Downs.
“His final days were spent at home in Kentucky, where he chose peace, family and faith. As we grieve at his passing, we find peace knowing he is now reunited with his beloved son, Jeff, whose memory he carried in his heart always.
“We are deeply grateful for the outpouring of love, prayers and support from all corners of the racing community — from ractetracks across the country to lifelong friends and respected rivals, and from fans who never missed a post parade when ‘Lukas’ was listed in the program.”
His illness was announced on June 22 along with the decision that he would not return to training. All of his horses were transferred to his longtime assistant Sebastian “Bas” Nicholl.
“Wayne built a legacy that will never be matched.” said Nicholl upon learning Lukas was not returning to racing. “Every decision I make, every horse I saddle, I’ll hear his voice in the back of my mind. This isn’t about filling his shoes — no one can — it’s about honoring everything he’s built.”
Lukas was so good that he was in not one but two halls of fame. He was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2007 and the U.S. Racing Hall of Fame in 1999.
“Wayne is one of the greatest competitors and most important figures in thoroughbred racing history,” said Mike Anderson, president of Churchill Downs racetrack in Kentucky, after the Lukas family announced the severity of his illness. “He transcended the sport of horse racing and took the industry to new levels. The lasting impact of his character and wisdom — from his acute horsemanship to his unmatched attention to detail — will be truly missed.”
Lukas’ story started on a small farm in Wisconsin.
Bill Dwyre, who previously was the sports editor of L.A. Times and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, recently chronicled Lukas’ roots.
“Lukas did not grow up on some farm in Kentucky, mucking stables as a teenager and rubbing elbows all day, every day, with grizzled horsemen,” Dwyre wrote last year after Lukas won the Preakness with Seize the Grey. “Lukas did grow up on a farm, all right, but in the state of Wisconsin, where there is no parimutuel betting, and where horse racing is pretty much confined to county fairs. His birthplace, Antigo, Wis., an hour and a half northwest of Green Bay, had a fair and D. Wayne … liked the horses.
Trainer D. Wayne Lukas looks on as Preakness Stakes winner Seize the Grey cools down after a workout ahead of the 156th running of the Belmont Stakes in 2024.
(Julia Nikhinson / Associated Press)
“But that sort of career was not foremost in his mind. He went to the University of Wisconsin, got his master’s degree in education, started teaching and soon was a high school head basketball coach. For a while, he was an assistant coach in the Big Ten for UW’s John Erickson. He stayed close to the game of basketball, even as his days were dominated by barns and backstretches. Along the way, one of his best friends became Bob Knight. D. Wayne liked the toughness and drive to win of the legendary Indiana University coach.”
Lukas decided to try his hand at training and started at Los Alamitos in 1968 working with quarter horses. It took him 10 years to realize that the real stars — and the money — was in thoroughbred racing. Before leaving the quarter horse ranks, he won 739 races and saddled 24 world champions.
He won his first thoroughbred race on Oct. 20, 1977, at Santa Anita. He won his last race at Churchill Downs on June 12 with 4-year-old colt Tour Player.
In between, he won the Kentucky Derby four times, the Preakness seven times and the Belmont Stakes four times. He has won 20 Breeders’ Cup races. He won the Eclipse Award for top trainer four times and was the leading trainer by wins four straight years from 1987 to 1990. In 1995, he won all three Triple Crown races but with two different horses; Thunder Gulch won the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes and Timber Country won the Preakness. It was the first time a trainer accomplished that feat.
“The most enduring and essential sports legacies can also be the most complicated,” wrote NBC’s Tim Layden, a multiple Eclipse Award-winning journalist, upon learning of Lukas’ illness. “The very best are not just driven, but obsessive. Not just creative, but ingenious. Not just hungry, but voracious. Jordan. Woods. Ali. Armstrong. Rose. One of Lukas’ favorites, and a close friend: Bob Knight. To name a few. … Transcendence demands a selfish eccentricity; because greatness and normalcy are often mutually exclusive. Lukas has lived long enough to earn a warm embrace that he would not have received as a younger man, but that embrace alone doesn’t tell enough of his outsized story and his place in racing history, where he stands very much alone.”
Lukas first made his thoroughbred mark in 1980 when he won the Preakness with Codex. It was not a popular win as Codex beat Derby-winning filly Genuine Risk and then had to withstand an inquiry to officially give Lukas his first Triple Crown win.
Bookending that win was his last Triple Crown race victory, when he won the Preakness last year with Seize the Grey.
“One of the things that was very significant to me [that day] — and maybe it’s because I’m getting a little bit older — but as I came out of the grandstand and out across the racetrack, every one of the guys that were in that race stopped and hugged me and gave me a handshake,” Lukas told The Times after the race.
“That meant more to me than any single thing. [Bob] Baffert, Kenny McPeek, right down the line.”
Lukas did not get the nickname Coach because of his days as a basketball coach but because of the coaching tree he established during his tenure.
Among those that were his assistants were Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher, future Hall of Famer Brad Cox, Kiaran McLaughlin, Dallas Stewart, Mike Maker, Mark Hennig, Randy Bradshaw, George Weaver and Bobby Barnett.
Among those Lukas was closest to, but never worked for, is Baffert.
“I asked him for a job one time out of high school, and he turned me down,” Baffert told The Times in 2018, while he was on his Triple Crown run with Justify. “I tell him, ‘I’m sure glad you turned me down because you’d be taking all the credit for this.’ But he probably would have fired me after two weeks because he works way too hard.”
Lukas later introduced Baffert at his U.S. Racing Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
“He told me everybody was laughing and kidding [when they heard I was inducting him,]” Lukas told The Times in 2018. “They were saying he’s not going to have Wayne do it because they thought we were rivals. Yet he came to me, and I said, ‘Bob, I’ll be honored to present you.’ And I did.”
“The media portrayed us as rivals and everything, so we would go along with you guys and then we’d go to dinner later,” Lukas said of Baffert.
“We’ve been friends for a long time. I have great respect for his ability. He’s got an excellent eye for a horse. He’s one of the few guys in the sale that when I pick one out that I like, I know sure as hell he’ll be bidding too.”
Seize the Grey’s trainer, D. Wayne Lukas, left, shakes hands with Bob Baffert, Imagination’s trainer, after Lukas’ horse won the Preakness Stakes in 2024.
(Julia Nikhinson / Associated Press)
In fact, this year at the Preakness Alibi Breakfast, an annual affair at Pimlico where trainers, owners and others tell stories and trade barbs about their career and horses, Lukas and Baffert hijacked the event with witty repartee and joking much to the delight of those in attendance. Their friendship was borne out as genuine.
“The horses were everything to Wayne,” Baffert posted on X after learning of Lukas’ death. “They were his life. From the way he worked them, how he cared for them, and how he maintained his shedrow as meticulously as he did his horses. No detail was too small. Many of us got our graduate degrees in training by studying how Wayne did it. Behind his famous shades, he was a tremendous horseman, probably the greatest who ever lived.”
Lukas’ life on the racetrack had one significant downside, when his son and assistant, Jeff, was run over and permanently injured by a loose horse at Santa Anita in 1993.
“I have a phone with one of those long cords,” Lukas told The Times’ Dwyre in 1999, “and so, I was up and walking around and right near the door when it happened. I was the first one to get to him.”
“One of Lukas’ Triple Crown prospects, Tabasco Cat, had bolted and was loose,” Dwyre wrote. “Jeff Lukas, a veteran horseman well schooled in the procedures for such situations, had stepped in Tabasco Cat’s path and was waving his arms. Horses always stop, or veer away. But this time…
“It’s like when you meet somebody in a narrow hallway,” Lukas said. “You go right and he goes right, and then you both go the other way. But eventually, one goes right and one left. Well, Jeff and the horse both went the same way.”
“Witnesses say that the sound of Jeff Lukas’ head hitting hard, compact ground after the collision could be heard several barns away. There was no blood, just an unconscious, badly injured 36-year-old man.”
The next year, Jeff Lukas had recovered enough to return to the racetrack but it proved too difficult for him to work around horses safely. Jeff eventually moved to Oklahoma and lived in a home his father bought him until Jeff’s death in 2016 at age 58.
Santa Anita issued this statement on Sunday after learning of Lukas’ death.
“Santa Anita joins the racing community in mourning the passing of D. Wayne Lukas. … His on-track success was such that it was easy to overlook his outstanding horsemanship that we were lucky to often witness back at the barn, away from the spotlight.”
Funeral arrangements for Wayne Lukas were not immediately announced.
Lukas is survived by his fifth wife, Laurie; grandchildren Brady Wayne Lukas and Kelly Roy; and great-grandchildren Johnny Roy, Thomas Roy, Walker Wayne Lukas and Quinn Palmer Lukas.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday put off ruling on a second Black majority congressional district in Louisiana, instead ordering new arguments in the fall.
The case is being closely watched because at arguments in March several of the court’s conservative justices suggested they could vote to throw out the map and make it harder, if not impossible, to bring redistricting lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act.
The case involves the interplay between race and politics in drawing political boundaries in front of a conservative-led court that has been skeptical of considerations of race in public life.
Justice Clarence Thomas noted in a brief dissent from Friday’s order that he would have decided the case now and imposed limits on “race-based redistricting.”
The order keeps alive a fight over political power stemming from the 2020 census halfway to the next one. Two maps were blocked by lower courts, and the Supreme Court intervened twice. Last year, the justices ordered the new map to be used in the 2024 elections, while the legal case proceeded.
The call for new arguments probably means that the district currently represented by Democratic Rep. Cleo Fields probably will remain intact for the 2026 elections because the high court has separately been reluctant to upend districts as elections draw near.
The state has changed its election process to replace its so-called jungle primary with partisan primary elections in the spring, followed by a November showdown between the party nominees.
The change means candidates can start gathering signatures in September to get on the primary ballot for 2026.
The state’s Republican-dominated legislature drew a new congressional map in 2022 to account for population shifts reflected in the 2020 census. But the changes effectively maintained the status quo of five Republican-leaning majority white districts and one Democratic-leaning majority Black district in a state in which Black people make up a third of the population.
Civil rights advocates won a lower-court ruling that the districts likely discriminated against Black voters.
The Supreme Court put the ruling on hold while it took a similar case from Alabama. The justices allowed both states to use congressional maps in the 2022 elections even though both had been ruled likely discriminatory by federal judges.
The high court eventually affirmed the ruling from Alabama, which led to a new map and a second district that could elect a Black lawmaker. The justices returned the Louisiana case to federal court, with the expectation that new maps would be in place for the 2024 elections.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave lawmakers in Louisiana a deadline of early 2024 to draw a new map or face the possibility of a court-imposed map.
The state complied and drew a new map, with two Black majority districts.
But white Louisiana voters claimed in their separate lawsuit challenging the new districts that race was the predominant factor driving the new map. A three-judge court agreed.
Louisiana appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court.
THE HAGUE — President Trump’s gamble in bombing Iran offers significant rewards if it succeeded in destroying Tehran’s nuclear program — and historic risks if it did not. He will get credit for success only if he acknowledges the consequences of failure.
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‘You were a man of strength’
Rep. Greg Casar, a Democrat from Texas, and other lawmakers hold a news conference outside the Capitol on Wednesday.
(Bloomberg)
There are critics of Trump’s decision to order strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend. A segment of the president’s base is worried about another military entanglement in the Middle East, and a contingent of Democrats are concerned that he operated outside his constitutional authorities to wage war. But majority support exists on a bipartisan basis across Washington and among U.S. allies in Europe and the Middle East for the president’s military actions, which was on display at the NATO summit in The Hague this week.
“You were a man of strength, but you were also a man of peace,” NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, told the president as they met in the Netherlands, “and the fact that you are now also successful in getting the ceasefire done between Israel and Iran, I really want to commend you for it — I think this is important for the whole world.”
At a cocktail reception in the center of the old city, where haunting Ukrainian music played in the nearby town square, Democratic senators emphasized their hope that Trump’s military strikes prove to be an operational success.
“If we have in fact either taken out Iran’s nuclear program,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, sitting alongside Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, “or badly set it back, in ways that mean that they’re not going to get a nuclear weapon anytime soon, I think that is a good thing.”
And former President Biden’s secretary of State, Antony J. Blinken, also expressed hope that the strikes succeeded, despite criticizing the resort to military action in the first place. “Now that the military die has been cast,” he wrote in the New York Times, “I can only hope that we inflicted maximum damage.”
For two decades, Republican and Democratic presidents alike have warned of peril to the region and the world if Iran were to obtain nuclear weapons — but also of Tehran’s ability to rest comfortably at the threshold of that weapons capability, in a Goldilocks position that allows them to enjoy the strategic benefits of nuclear statehood without incurring the costs.
For more than a decade, a consensus of national security and intelligence experts in Washington has assessed that Iran made a strategic decision to park itself there, holding that capability like a sword of Damocles over the international community as it fueled militant organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, undermining U.S. interests and regional stability.
Whether or not Tehran was preparing to “break out” toward a warhead, Trump’s military action was an effort to remove that years-old threat and change the strategic paradigm — a move that has won praise from European leaders and Democrats who have grown weary of decades of diplomacy with Iran that barely moved the needle.
A 2015 nuclear agreement between six world powers and Tehran was designed to oversee Iran’s nuclear capabilities. But the deal allowed Iran to maintain its domestic enrichment program, and had provisions under which caps on its enrichment capacity would expire starting this year.
“There is no reason to criticize what America did at the weekend,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said this week. “Yes, it is not without risk. But leaving things as they were was not an option either.”
‘That hit ended the war’
Yet the risks of failure are significant.
Trump’s predecessors feared that strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, regardless of their tactical success, could give Tehran the political justification to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and openly pursue nuclear arms, driving its program further underground and out of sight. In the worst-case scenario, enough of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure could remain intact for Tehran to race to a bomb within days or weeks.
“In war-gaming the military option during my time in the Biden administration, we were also concerned that Iran had or would spread its stockpile of uranium already enriched to just short of weapons grade to various secure sites and preserve enough centrifuges to further enrich that stockpile in short order,” Blinken wrote. “In that scenario, the Iranian regime could hide its near weapons-grade material, greenlight weaponization and sprint toward a bomb.”
A preliminary report on the U.S. raid, called Operation Midnight Hammer, from the Defense Intelligence Agency lends credence to those concerns. The low-confidence assessment, largely based on satellite imagery of Iran’s bombed sites at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan, indicates that its core nuclear capabilities remain intact after the strikes despite the U.S. deployment of exceptionally powerful “bunker-buster” weapons, according to one official familiar with its findings. The Trump administration has acknowledged the authenticity of the assessment, first reported by CNN.
Satellite imagery captured days before the U.S. strike at Fordo also showed a line of trucks at the site, raising concerns that some of its enriched uranium had been removed at the last minute — a fear that Israeli officials have acknowledged to The Times.
The Defense Intelligence Agency is only one of 18 such federal agencies that will examine the operation’s success, and the Israelis will conduct their own review. But the reaction from Trump and his team to the leaked report suggests they view anything but success as a political liability that must be publicly denied.
“That hit ended the war,” Trump told reporters in The Hague, blasting the reporters who broke the story as “idiots” seeking to “demean” the pilots who conducted the mission. “We had a tremendous victory, a tremendous hit.”
“What they’ve done is they’re trying to make this unbelievable victory into something less,” he said.
The president’s resistance to the possibility of failure, or of only partial success, in the military operation could hamper the response to come. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, on Wednesday described the strikes as a moment that reinforced his government’s determination to pursue “nuclear technologies.”
“The aggression of Israel and the United States will have a positive impact on Iran’s desire to continue developing its nuclear program,” Araghchi said. “It strengthens our will, makes us more determined and persistent.”
Pressed by another reporter on whether the preliminary assessment was correct, Trump replied, “Well, the intelligence was very inconclusive,” indicating he had concluded the operation was a success before the intelligence community had completed its work.
“The intelligence says we don’t know it could have been very severe, that’s what the intelligence says,” he added. “So I guess that’s correct, but I think we can take that we don’t know — it was very significant. It was obliteration.”
‘It was a flawless mission’
It would not be the first time the Trump administration has politicized a U.S. intelligence assessment. But the Israeli government, which sees existential stakes in Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons, may be less likely to exaggerate the impacts of the operation, acutely aware of the consequences of a grave intelligence failure for its security.
An initial Israeli assessment tracks with the president’s view that the nuclear program has been in effect destroyed.
“The devastating U.S. strike on Fordo destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable,” the Israel Atomic Energy Commission said in a statement, pushed by the White House on Wednesday. “We assess that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear program, has set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.”
“This achievement can continue indefinitely,” the statement continued, “if Iran does not get access to nuclear material.”
On Wednesday, an Israeli official told The Times that its initial assessment of the damage would be supplemented by additional intelligence work. “I can’t say it’s a final assessment, because we’re less than a week after,” the official said, “but that’s the indication we have now.”
Still, just like in the United States, multiple organizations within Israel’s national security apparatus are expected to weigh in with assessments. The Mossad, Israel’s main intelligence agency, has yet to complete its review of the operation, an Israeli official said.
A spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry also said Wednesday that its nuclear installations were “badly damaged” by the U.S. strikes. But it remains unclear whether Iran was able to move fissile material and enrichment equipment to another facility before the strikes occurred — or whether it had previously hidden material in reserve, anticipating the possibility of an attack.
All of those pressing questions, to Trump and his aides, are the chatter of critics.
“It was a flawless mission,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in The Hague. “Flawless,” Trump replied, nodding in approval.
NEW YORK — Zohran Mamdani was a state lawmaker unknown even to most New York City residents when he announced his run for mayor back in October.
On Tuesday evening, the 33-year-old marked his stunning political ascension when he declared victory in the Democratic primary from a Queens rooftop bar after former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo conceded.
While the race’s ultimate outcome has yet to be confirmed by a ranked choice count scheduled for July 1, here’s a look at the one-time rapper seeking to become the city’s first Muslim and Indian American mayor, and its youngest mayor in generations.
Mamdani’s mother is a famous filmmaker
Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, to Indian parents and became an American citizen in 2018, shortly after graduating from college.
He lived with his family briefly in Cape Town, South Africa, before moving to New York City when he was 7.
Mamdani’s mother, Mira Nair, is an award-winning filmmaker whose credits include “Monsoon Wedding,” “The Namesake” and “Mississippi Masala.” His father, Mahmood Mamdani, is an anthropology professor at Columbia University.
Mamdani married Rama Duwaji, a Syrian American artist, earlier this year at the City Clerk’s Office. The couple live in the Astoria section of Queens.
Mamdani was once a fledgling rapper
Mamdani graduated in 2014 from Bowdoin College in Maine, where he earned a degree in Africana studies and co-founded his college’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter.
After college, he worked as a foreclosure prevention counselor in Queens helping residents avoid eviction, the job he says inspired him to run for public office.
Mamdani also had a notable side hustle in the local hip-hop scene, rapping under the moniker Young Cardamom and later Mr. Cardamom. During his first run for state lawmaker, Mamdani gave a nod to his brief foray into music, describing himself as a “B-list rapper.”
“Nani,” a song he made in 2019 to honor his grandmother, even found new life — and a vastly wider audience — as his mayoral campaign gained momentum.
Early political career
Mamdani cut his teeth in local politics working on campaigns for Democratic candidates in Queens and Brooklyn.
He was first elected to the New York Assembly in 2020, representing a Queens district covering Astoria and surrounding neighborhoods and has handily won reelection twice.
The Democratic Socialist’s most notable legislative accomplishment has been pushing through a pilot program that made a handful of city buses free for a year. He’s also proposed legislation banning nonprofits from “engaging in unauthorized support of Israeli settlement activity.”
Mamdani’s opponents, particularly Cuomo, have dismissed him as woefully unprepared for managing the complexities of running America’s largest city.
But Mamdani has framed his relative inexperience as a potential asset, saying in a mayoral debate he’s “proud” he doesn’t have Cuomo’s “experience of corruption, scandal and disgrace.”
Pro-Palestinian views
Mamdani’s outspoken support for Palestinian causes was a point of tension in the mayor’s race as Cuomo and other opponents sought to label his defiant criticism of Israel as antisemitic.
The Shia Muslim has called Israel’s military campaign in Gaza a “genocide” and said the country should exist as “a state with equal rights,” rather than a “Jewish state.” That message has resonated among pro-Palestinian residents, including the city’s roughly 800,000 adherents of Islam — the largest Muslim community in the country.
During an interview on CBS’ “The Late Show” on the eve of the election, host Stephen Colbert asked Mamdani if he believed the state of Israel had the right to exist. He responded: “Yes, like all nations, I believe it has a right to exist — and a responsibility also to uphold international law.”
Mamdani’s refusal to condemn calls to “globalize the intifada” on a podcast — a common chant at pro-Palestinian protests — drew recriminations from Jewish groups and fellow candidates in the days leading up to the election.
In his victory speech Tuesday, he pledged to work closely with those who don’t share his views on controversial issues.
“While I will not abandon my beliefs or my commitments, grounded in a demand for equality, for humanity, for all those who walk this earth, you have my word to reach further, to understand the perspectives of those with whom I disagree, and to wrestle deeply with those disagreements,” Mamdani said.
Marcelo writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Jake Offenhartz in New York contributed to this report.
