Whats

The Galaxy continued to stumble through their terrible, horrible, no good, very bad season last week, taking just a point from two games against teams on the fringe of the playoff race.

That left the reigning MLS champions with just one win and nine points from 20 games. If they continue at this pace, they’ll set modern-era league records for most losses and fewest points while shattering virtually every team record for futility.

The team has done little to help itself off the pitch either. While LAFC and Angel City, Southern California’s two other pro soccer teams, were quick to issue statements standing with fans during last month’s heavy-handed immigration raids, the Galaxy’s silence was deafening.

That timidity angered two of the team’s main supporters groups, who canceled viewing parties, travel to road matches and other game-related events. The average attendance of 21,594, according to worldfootball.net, is off more than 17% from last year and is the Galaxy’s lowest for a non-COVID season since 2014.

Then there’s the coach, Greg Vanney, who took the team to a title after one of the worst seasons in franchise history in 2023, but is digging well below those depths this season.

It’s a plunge from grace with just one precedent in the history of U.S. pro sports: the 1998 Florida Marlins, who won just a third of their games and finished a distant last a year after winning their first World Series. Yet in many ways the Galaxy’s demise is much worse.

In 1998, the Marlins surrendered before the season started, returning just two starters from their championship team. The Galaxy still have 10 of the 14 players they used in December’s MLS Cup final.

The Galaxy have offered various excuses…er, explanations…for their humiliating demise, none of which hold much water.

Before the season had ever started, the team was saying bonuses and other costs associated with the championship had made the price of victory too high under the stingy MLS salary cap. To get under the cap, the Galaxy had to trade MLS Cup MVP Gastón Brugman, midfielder Mark Delgado, defender Jalen Neal and forward Dejan Joveljic, the leading scorer in the playoffs.

But every MLS Cup winner has had to make similar changes and three of the previous eight champions returned to the title game the following year. All but one of the eight posted a winning record.

Next the Galaxy blamed injuries, especially the torn anterior cruciate ligament that has kept midfielder Riqui Puig, the team’s best player, out all season. But Puig was injured in last November’s Western Conference final and the team won the MLS Cup without him. The Galaxy also had the whole offseason to replace him.

It’s true that a rash of injuries early in the season sidelined more than half a dozen starters at one time or another. But other teams had injuries too and even when the Galaxy have been at full strength, as they have been for most of the schedule, they haven’t won.

So when went wrong and how can it be fixed? The first question is easier to answer than the second.

The Galaxy had a magical year in 2024, going unbeaten at Dignity Health Sports Park and matching a modern-era franchise records for wins with 19. Every key player had arguably the best season of his career. Four of them — Joveljic, Puig, Gabriel Pec and Joseph Paintsil — finished in double digits for goals. That had never happened in MLS.

Nor had it ever happened for two of the four players. Before last season, only Paintsil and Joveljic had scored more than eight goals in a season. In fact, Pec’s 16 goals in 2024 was double his previous best and his 12 assists were three times better.

This season Pec and Paintsil have combined for four scores and three assists, as many goals as they scored together in one playoff game last fall.

And they weren’t the only ones far exceeding expectations.

Captain Maya Yoshida started all 39 MLS matches, including playoffs, last year and led the league in minutes played. Both figures were career highs; he’s missed five starts already this season.

Goalkeeper John McCarthy started a career-high 37 games, stopped nearly 74% of the shots he faced — his best mark in a season with more than 11 MLS starts — and had a 1.41 goals-against average.

He’s lost his starting job this season.

It’s not unusual for a championship team to see multiple players have breakout seasons at the same time. What is unusual is the Galaxy have seen multiple important players have career-worst seasons at the same time.

McCarthy’s save percentage is under 60% for the first time in a decade and his goals-against average of 2.36 is a career worst. Pec and Paintsil are on pace for their fewest goal contributions since 2021-22. And Colombian center back Emiro Garcés has become more a liability than an asset.

As a result, the team has the fewest wins, has given up the most goals and has the worst goal differential in the league.

Then there’s Vanney. A defender on the Galaxy’s original team in 1996, Vanney coached Toronto FC to the only treble in MLS history in 2017, then returned to L.A. in 2021 charged with reviving a team that had made one playoff appearance in five seasons. Instead he has a losing record in four-plus seasons and in 2023 he had the worst full season for a Galaxy coach, winning just eight games, a record he figures to shatter this season.

Yet the team rewarded him with a multiyear contract extension in mid-May, when the Galaxy were 0-10-3. It’s hard to imagine another team in a first-tier league anywhere in the world giving a coach with a winless record a three-year contract extension.

In many ways this season is reminiscent of 2023, when the supporters organized boycotts and paid to have banners flown over the stadium calling for the sacking of president Chris Klein and technical director Jovan Kirovski. Amid the turmoil, the Galaxy matched a full-season franchise low in wins but they also replaced Klein and Kirovski with general manager Will Kuntz, who won an MLS Cup in his first full season with the club. It was the biggest one-season turnaround in MLS history.

So what can be done to fix that this time? Apparently very little because Kuntz has much less room to maneuver now than he did then.

The Galaxy payroll of $22.9 million is fifth-highest in MLS and all three of his designated players — Puig, Pec and Paintsil — are signed through the 2027 season, as is Julian Aude, an under-22 initiative signing.

The Galaxy are hoping Puig’s expected return late this summer sparks at least a modest revival but that won’t be enough since Paintsil increasingly seems lost, his confidence shattered, and newcomers Matheus Nascimento and Lucas Sanabria have so far failed to live up to their promise.

If the Galaxy had a magic season in 2024, this one has been cursed. And it’s a spell that shows no sign of lifting.

The United States Senate narrowly passed President Donald Trump’s massive tax and spending bill on Tuesday, following intense negotiations and a marathon voting session on amendments.

The bill, which still faces a challenging path to final approval in the House of Representatives, would impose deep cuts to popular health and nutrition programmes, among other measures, while offering $4.5 trillion in tax reductions.

The measure was approved after almost 48 hours of debate and amendment battles.

Here is what you need to know:

What is Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’?

The bill is a piece of legislation that combines tax cuts, spending hikes on defence and border security, and cuts to social safety nets into one giant package.

The main goal of the bill is to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of 2025. It would make most of these tax breaks permanent, while also boosting spending on border security, the military and energy projects.

The bill is partly funded by cutting healthcare and food programmes.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates Trump’s measure will increase the US debt by $3.3 trillion over the next 10 years. The US government currently owes its lenders $36.2 trillion.

The key aspects of the bill include:

Tax cuts

In 2017, Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which lowered taxes and increased the standard deduction for all taxpayers, but it primarily benefitted higher-income earners.

Those tax breaks are set to expire this year, but the new bill would make them permanent. It also adds some more cuts he promised during his campaign.

There is a change to the US tax code called the SALT deduction (State and Local Taxes). This lets taxpayers deduct certain state and local taxes (like income or property taxes) on their federal tax return.

Currently, people can only deduct up to $10,000 of these taxes. The new bill would raise that cap from $10,000 to $40,000 for five years.

Taxpayers would also be allowed to deduct income earned from tips and overtime, as well as interest paid on loans for buying cars made in the US.

The legislation contains about $4.5 trillion in tax cuts.

Children

If the bill does not become law, the child tax credit – which is now $2,000 per child each year – will fall to $1,000, starting in 2026.

But if the Senate’s current version of the bill is approved, the credit would rise to $2,200.

Border wall and security

The bill sets aside about $350bn for Trump’s border and national security plans. This includes:

• $46bn for the US-Mexico border wall
• $45bn to fund 100,000 beds in migrant detention centres
• Billions more to hire an extra 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents by 2029 as part of Trump’s plan to carry out the largest mass deportation effort in US history.

Cuts to Medicaid and other programmes

To help offset the cost of the tax cuts and new spending, Republicans plan to scale back Medicaid and food assistance programmes for low-income families.

They say their goal is to refocus these safety net programmes on the groups they were originally meant to help, primarily pregnant women, people with disabilities and children – while also reducing what they call waste and abuse.

Medicaid helps Americans who are poor and those with disabilities, while the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) helps people afford groceries.

Currently, more than 71 million people depend on Medicaid, and 40 million receive benefits through SNAP. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill would leave an additional 11.8 million Americans without health insurance by 2034 if it becomes law.

Clean energy tax cuts

Republicans are pushing to significantly scale back tax incentives that support clean energy projects powered by renewables like solar and wind. These tax breaks were a key part of former President Joe Biden’s landmark 2022 law, the Inflation Reduction Act, which aimed to tackle climate change and reduce healthcare costs.

A tax break for people who buy new or used electric vehicles would expire on September 30 this year if the bill passes in its current form, instead of at the end of 2032 under current law.

Debt limit

The legislation would raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, going beyond the $4 trillion outlined in the version passed by the House in May.

Who benefits most?

According to Yale University’s Budget Lab, wealthier taxpayers are likely to gain more from this bill than lower-income Americans.

They estimate that people in the lowest income bracket will see their incomes drop by 2.5 percent, mainly because of cuts to SNAP and Medicaid, while the highest earners will see their incomes rise by 2.2 percent.

Which senators voted against the bill?

Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine opposed due to deep Medicaid cuts affecting low-income families and rural healthcare.

I strongly support extending the tax relief for families and small businesses. My vote against this bill stems primarily from the harmful impact it will have on Medicaid, affecting low-income families and rural health care providers like our hospitals and nursing homes.

— Sen. Susan Collins (@SenatorCollins) July 1, 2025

Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina cited concerns over Medicaid reductions to his constituents. Tillis has announced that he will not seek re-election, amid threats from Trump that he would back a Republican challenger to Tillis.

The facts matter. The people matter. The Senate’s Medicaid approach breaks promises and will kick people off of Medicaid who truly need it. The Senate can make one simple fix to make sure that won’t happen. pic.twitter.com/zvW1AgCxBF

— Senator Thom Tillis (@SenThomTillis) June 30, 2025

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky voted “no” on fiscal grounds, warning that the bill would significantly worsen the national deficit.

Throughout the Vote-a-rama, I was working all night to stop Congress from adding to our debt.

I met with @VP and I reiterated my offer to vote for the bill—if it included a 90% reduction in the debt ceiling.

No earmarks. No handouts. Just real fiscal reform.

I wasn’t looking…

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 1, 2025

Every member of the Democratic caucus, a total of 47 senators, also voted against the bill.

Who supported the bill in the Senate?

The remaining Republicans voted in favour, allowing the bill to pass 51–50, with the deciding vote cast by Vice President JD Vance.

Trump has set a July 4 deadline to pass the bill through Congress, but conceded on Tuesday that it would be “very hard to do” by that date, since the House now needs to vote on it. The House had passed an earlier version of the bill in May, but needs to look at it again due to the amendments brought by the Senate.

Notable Senator supporters include:

Senator Lisa Murkowski (representative of Alaska): Her backing was secured after Republicans agreed to Alaska-specific provisions, including delayed nutrition cuts and a new rural health fund, making her vote pivotal.

“I have an obligation to the people of the state of Alaska, and I live up to that every single day,” she told a reporter for NBC News.

Senators Rick Scott of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming: These fiscally conservative senators shifted from hesitation to support following amendments to the bill.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune led the push to pass the legislation.

How have lawmakers and the public reacted?

Most Republican lawmakers celebrated it as a historic achievement.

Trump also expressed delight.

“Wow, music to my ears,” Trump said after a reporter told him the news. “I was also wondering how we’re doing, because I know this is primetime, it shows that I care about you,” he added.

Thune said after the vote: “In the end, we got the job done, and we’re delighted to be able to be partners with President Trump and his agenda.”

Democrats opposed it, calling it a giveaway to the wealthy at the expense of healthcare, food aid and climate policy.

“Today’s vote will haunt our Republican colleagues for years to come,” Democrat Chuck Schumer said in a floor speech after the vote.

“Republicans covered this chamber in shame,” he added.

Today’s vote will haunt Senate Republicans for years to come.

Americans will see the damage done as hospitals close, as people are laid off, as costs go up, and as the debt increases.

Democrats will make sure Americans remember the betrayal that took place today. pic.twitter.com/WmwnZa5n9k

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) July 1, 2025

The US Chamber of Commerce led a coalition of more than 145 organisations supporting the bill, emphasising it would “foster capital investment, job creation, and higher wages”.

They praised the permanent tax cuts and border security funding.

However, healthcare and hospital associations have warned that millions could lose coverage, driving up emergency and unpaid care costs. Environmental groups have also voiced strong opposition.

Public opinion on the bill is in decline, too.

“Initially, [Trump] had more than 50 percent of the support. Now, it is under 50 percent, and politicians know that,” Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher said, reporting from Washington, DC.

“They are aware that this could lead to a cut in Medicaid. They are aware, even though Donald Trump had promised to protect it, that this could cut nutritional programmes, particularly for poorer families in the United States.

“And although they will get tax cuts, they have managed a lot of the time to be convinced by the Democratic argument that, yes, there are tax cuts, but billionaires will do much better out of this than the ordinary American people, and that is what’s changed the opinion polls,” he added.

What happens next?

The process begins with the House Rules Committee, which will meet to mark up the bill and decide how debate and consideration will proceed on the House floor.

After the bill passes through the Rules Committee, it will move to the House floor for debate and a vote on the rule, potentially as soon as Wednesday morning.

If the House of Representatives does not accept the Senate’s version of the bill, it could make changes and send it back to the Senate for another vote.

Alternatively, both chambers could appoint members to a conference committee to work out a compromise.

Once both the House and Senate agree on the final text, and it is passed in both chambers of Congress, the bill would go to Trump to be signed into law.

The US Supreme Court has reshaped birthright citizenship – and the judiciary itself. US President Donald Trump is claiming victory after last week’s Supreme Court ruling that federal judges cannot issue nationwide injunctions. Has the ruling reshaped the power of the presidency?

The $145-million global opening of Apple’s “F1 The Movie” came as a relief — both for the iPhone maker itself and theater operators hoping for an original hit during this sequel-dominated summer of blockbusters.

The expensive Brad Pitt action sports drama, directed by Joseph Kosinski (“Top Gun: Maverick”) and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, was a high-stakes gamble by the Cupertino-based tech giant, which until now has enjoyed little success at cinemas.

In the U.S. and Canada, the film did better than expected, generating $57 million in ticket sales through Sunday, according to studio estimates. Analysts were projecting $40 million to $50 million, based on prerelease tracking. Warner Bros. Pictures, which is on a much-needed hot streak, distributed “F1” in partnership with Apple.

Because the movie cost at least $200 million to make (and perhaps far more, according to some reports) after tax breaks and before significant marketing costs, the picture is still far from profitable. But with strong reviews from audiences and critics — an “A” CinemaScore, 83% “fresh” on the Tomatometer and 97% approval from moviegoers on Rotten Tomatoes — the film should continue to perform well in the coming weeks.

It’ll face some serious competition, with Universal Pictures’ “Jurassic World: Rebirth” arriving in theaters Wednesday for the Fourth of July holiday weekend and Warner Bros.’ “Superman” from James Gunn coming shortly afterward.

Nonetheless, “F1” has the all-important Imax screens locked down until “Superman,” and that should be an advantage, given that the movie plays like both an old-school blockbuster and a thrill ride.

The question now: What does this mean for Apple’s film business and how the company approaches theatrical releases in the future?

Since Apple got into Hollywood six years ago with the launch of Apple TV+, the movie slate has struggled to come up with a big-screen success, despite huge spending on prestigious projects and big-name talent.

Its Sundance acquisition “CODA” won the 2022 best picture Oscar, albeit in a weird year, in a first for a streaming company.

But Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” and Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” weren’t commercial hits. “Argylle” and “Fly Me to the Moon” flopped, and “Wolfs” was scaled back from its planned theatrical release. The Miles Teller–Anya Taylor-Joy feature “The Gorge” went straight to streaming.

Analysts and movie industry insiders have speculated that the performance of “F1” would heavily influence whether Apple dove further into blockbuster filmmaking or abandoned theaters altogether. Apple certainly treated it like a high-stakes release, having Chief Executive Tim Cook give an interview with Variety and promoting the film through various parts of the company, including its retail stores and its music, fitness, maps and podcast apps.

Apple lacks an in-house theatrical distribution arm and instead enlists traditional studios for those duties. Burbank-based Warner Bros. worked with Apple on the marketing side while also contributing financially to the campaign, according to people close to the studios.

As of now, it’s unclear what Apple’s ambitions are for the multiplex.

Spike Lee’s Denzel Washington-starring thriller “Highest 2 Lowest,” a reimagining of the 1963 Akira Kurosawa classic “High and Low,” is getting a miniature theatrical window from A24 ahead of its September streaming release on Apple TV+. Apple has already inked a deal for another upcoming Kosinski-Bruckheimer collaboration, about UFOs.

An Apple spokeswoman did not respond to a question about future movie plans.

Theater owners want to see more from Apple at a time when they’re often struggling with a lack of compelling material, especially for grown-ups. With “F1,” they saw a glimpse of hope.

“F1” is a racing movie with throwback vibes, which is no guarantee of success. But the F1 brand is strong, especially internationally, where the movie is doing particularly well ($88.4 million so far). The companies sold the movie as a sort of “Top Gun: Maverick” on wheels, an approach that resonated with audiences. People familiar with the data say the film is drawing in audiences who don’t typically go to theaters, which the theaters desperately need.

The box office performance bodes well for the title’s eventual streaming release on Apple TV+.

With the exception of Netflix, which remains set against doing a true traditional theatrical business, film studios say movies that open in theaters do better on streaming than if they’re simply dumped onto a crowded service. Amazon has again committed to theaters since acquiring MGM Studios after slinking away from the business model years ago.

On the other hand, theatrical releases are risky, especially for a company that cares about its reputation the way Apple does. Flops are embarrassing, even for a company that’s worth $3 trillion and can afford to subsidize a filmmaker’s vision.

In both movies and TV, Apple has been selective with its programming strategy.

It doesn’t have a vast library or a deluge of new releases to keep people interested the way Netflix does. Thus, its subscriber counts have lagged the bigger rivals with more voluminous offerings, according to analysts. (Apple doesn’t disclose subscriber numbers.)

Ask anyone in Hollywood why, exactly, Apple is in the movie business at all and you’ll get varied answers.

Of course, the company wants to grow Apple TV+, which Apple views as part of a larger play to boost its services business. Having a hit movie, in theory, should help with that. People who work with Apple will often argue that the company is more interested in the branding glow that comes with a great movie than whether any particular title makes money.

The company has developed a reputation for quality, especially with buzzy TV projects including Jon Hamm’s “Your Friends & Neighbors,” Seth Rogen’s “The Studio” and, more recently, “Stick” starring Owen Wilson.

“We studied it for years before we decided to do [Apple TV+],” Cook told Variety. “I know there’s a lot of different views out there about why we’re into it. We’re into it to tell great stories, and we want it to be a great business as well. That’s why we’re into it, just plain and simple.”

For Apple, the question of whether to commit to the blockbuster business is a billion-dollar component of a $3-trillion car.

Stuff we wrote

Number of the week

California legislators voted Friday to more than double the amount allocated each year to the state’s film and television tax credit program, raising that cap to $750 million from $330 million.

The increase is a win for the studios, producers, unions and industry workers who have lobbied state legislators for months on the issue, Samantha Masunaga reported.

Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed the increase to help lure productions back to the state at a time when local film and TV employment is sparse.

But other states have not given up the arms race.

New York recently upped its film tax credit cap to $800 million. Texas is also ramping up its incentive program to compete with regional rivals.

Finally …

Watch: “Becoming Led Zeppelin.”

Listen: Dream Theater, “Night Terror.”

WASHINGTON — The legal battle over President Trump’s move to end birthright citizenship is far from over despite his major Supreme Court victory Friday limiting nationwide injunctions.

Immigrant advocates are vowing to fight to ensure birthright citizenship remains the law as the Republican president tries to do away with a more than century-old constitutional precedent.

The high court’s ruling sends cases challenging the president’s birthright citizenship executive order back to the lower courts. But the ultimate fate of Trump’s policy remains uncertain.

Here’s what to know about birthright citizenship, the Supreme Court’s ruling and what happens next.

What does birthright citizenship mean?

Birthright citizenship makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers in the country illegally.

The practice goes back to soon after the Civil War, when Congress ratified the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, in part to ensure that Black people, including formerly enslaved Americans, had citizenship.

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States,” the amendment states.

Thirty years later, Wong Kim Ark, a man born in the U.S. to Chinese parents, was refused reentry into the U.S. after traveling overseas. His suit led to the Supreme Court explicitly ruling that the amendment gives citizenship to anyone born in the United States, no matter their parents’ legal status.

It has been seen since then as an intrinsic part of U.S. law, with only a few exceptions, such as for children born in the U.S. to foreign diplomats.

Trump’s longtime goal

Trump signed an executive order upon assuming office in January that seeks to deny citizenship to children born to parents who are living in the U.S. illegally or temporarily. The order is part of the president’s hard-line anti-immigration agenda, and he has called birthright citizenship a “magnet for illegal immigration.”

Trump and his supporters focus on one phrase in the amendment — “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” — which they contend means the U.S. can deny citizenship to babies born to women in the country illegally.

A series of federal judges have said that’s not true and issued nationwide injunctions stopping his order from taking effect.

“I’ve been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one is. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” U.S. District Judge John Coughenour said at a hearing this year in his Seattle courtroom.

In Greenbelt, Md., a Washington suburb, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman wrote that “the Supreme Court has resoundingly rejected and no court in the country has ever endorsed” Trump’s interpretation of birthright citizenship.

Is Trump’s order constitutional?

The high court’s ruling was a major victory for the Trump administration in that it limited an individual judge’s authority in granting nationwide injunctions. The administration hailed the ruling as a monumental check on the powers of individual district court judges, whom Trump supporters have argued are usurping the president’s authority with rulings blocking his priorities on immigration and other matters.

But the Supreme Court did not address the merits of Trump’s bid to enforce his birthright citizenship executive order.

“The Trump administration made a strategic decision, which I think quite clearly paid off, that they were going to challenge not the judges’ decisions on the merits, but on the scope of relief,” said Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor.

Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi told reporters at the White House that the administration is “very confident” that the high court will ultimately side with the administration on the merits of the case.

Uncertainty ahead

The justices kicked the cases challenging the birthright citizenship policy back down to the lower courts, where judges will have to decide how to tailor their orders to comply with the new ruling. The executive order remains blocked for at least 30 days, giving lower courts and the parties time to sort out the next steps.

The Supreme Court’s ruling leaves open the possibility that groups challenging the policy could still get nationwide relief through class-action lawsuits and seek certification as a nationwide class. Within hours after the ruling, two class-action suits had been filed in Maryland and New Hampshire seeking to block Trump’s order.

But obtaining nationwide relief through a class action is difficult as courts have put up hurdles to doing so over the years, said Suzette Malveaux, a Washington and Lee University law school professor.

“It’s not the case that a class action is a sort of easy, breezy way of getting around this problem of not having nationwide relief,” said Malveaux, who had urged the high court not to eliminate the nationwide injunctions.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who penned the court’s dissenting opinion, urged the lower courts to “act swiftly on such requests for relief and to adjudicate the cases as quickly as they can so as to enable this Court’s prompt review” in cases “challenging policies as blatantly unlawful and harmful as the Citizenship Order.”

Opponents of Trump’s order warned there would be a patchwork of policies across the states, leading to chaos and confusion without nationwide relief.

“Birthright citizenship has been settled constitutional law for more than a century,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and chief executive of Global Refuge, a nonprofit that supports refugees and migrants. “By denying lower courts the ability to enforce that right uniformly, the Court has invited chaos, inequality, and fear.”

Sullivan and Richer write for the Associated Press. AP writers Mark Sherman and Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington and Mike Catalini in Trenton, N.J., contributed to this report.

Wilder has now stopped 43 opponents in 44 wins, many in dramatic fashion.

But since his trilogy with Briton Fury – a brutal, history-making rivalry that saw him floored five times and stopped twice – Wilder has never quite looked the same.

Those defeats appeared to drain not just his record but his aura, confidence, and perhaps his trust in the sport.

In the aftermath, Wilder made unsubstantiated claims of loaded gloves, spiked water and betrayal from within his team, drawing ridicule and alienating some fans.

A long-rumoured bout with Anthony Joshua seemed close in late 2023, but Wilder was soundly beaten on points by New Zealand’s Joseph Parker in Saudi Arabia. It was a flat, uninspired display that derailed the Joshua fight and raised fresh doubts about Wilder’s future.

Then came the crushing fifth-round defeat to Zhang last year – a loss that, to many, looked like the end.

Wilder vanished from the spotlight. He went quiet on social media and drifted off the radar.

He insists he never planned to walk away and says he had been working with a sports psychologist to help him heal and rekindle his love for boxing.

This comeback, he says, was always part of the plan.

A European Union (EU) summit in Brussels called for a ceasefire in Gaza, but not for sanctions against Israel.

Germany has led member states in blocking action throughout the war, as others express anger.

So what’s behind the EU’s position on Israel and Gaza?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests: 

Claudio Francavilla – Associate EU director at Human Rights Watch in Brussels

Lynn Boylan – Sinn Fein member of the European Parliament and chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation for relations with Palestine

Giorgia Gusciglio – Europe coordinator of campaigns for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement promoting economic pressure against Israel

Barely 72 hours after United States President Donald Trump’s air strikes against Iran, a controversy erupted over the extent of the damage they had done to the country’s uranium enrichment facilities in Fordow and Natanz.

The New York Times and CNN leaked a preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment that the damage may have been “from moderate to severe”, noting it had “low confidence” in the findings because they were an early assessment.

Trump had claimed the sites were “obliterated”.

The difference in opinion mattered because it goes to the heart of whether the US and Israel had eliminated Iran’s ability to enrich uranium to levels that would allow it to make nuclear weapons, at least for years.

Israel has long claimed – without evidence – that Iran plans to build nuclear bombs. Iran has consistently insisted that its nuclear programme is purely of a civilian nature. And the US has been divided on the question – its intelligence community concluding as recently as March that Tehran was not building a nuclear bomb, but Trump claiming earlier in June that Iran was close to building such a weapon.

Yet amid the conflicting claims and assessments on the damage from the US strikes to Iranian nuclear facilities and whether the country wants atomic weapons, one thing is clear: Tehran says it has no intentions of giving up on its nuclear programme.

So what is the future of that programme? How much damage has it suffered? Will the US and Israel allow Iran to revive its nuclear programme? And can a 2015 diplomatic deal with Iran – that was working well until Trump walked out of it – be brought back to life?

What Iran wants

In his first public comments since the US bombing, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the attack “did nothing significant” to Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar said Khamenei spoke of how “most of the [nuclear] sites are still in place and that Iran is going to continue its nuclear programme”.

Mohammad Eslami, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, on Tuesday said that “preparations for recovery had already been anticipated, and our plan is to prevent any interruption in production or services”.

To be sure, even if they haven’t been destroyed, Natanz and Fordow – Iran’s only known enrichment sites – have suffered significant damage, according to satellite images. Israel has also assassinated several of Iran’s top nuclear scientists in its wave of strikes that began on June 13.

However, the DIA said in the initial assessment that the Trump administration has tried to dismiss, that the attacks had only set Iran’s nuclear programme back by months. It also said that Iran had moved uranium enriched at these facilities away from these sites prior to the strikes. Iranian officials have also made the same claim.

The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), had accused Iran of enriching up to 400kg of uranium to 60 percent – not far below the 90 percent enrichment that is needed to make weapons.

Asked on Wednesday whether he thought the enriched uranium had been smuggled out from the nuclear facilities before the strikes, Trump said, “We think everything nuclear is down there, they didn’t take it out.” Asked again later, he said, “We think we hit them so hard and so fast they didn’t get to move.”

What was the extent of damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities?

Without on-site inspections, nobody can be sure.

Central Intelligence Agency director John Ratcliffe on Wednesday posted a statement saying, “several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years”. That’s a very different timeline from what the DIA suggested in its early assessment.

But it’s important to remember that the DIA and CIA also disagreed on whether Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in 2003.

The DIA sided with the UN’s view that inspections had proven Hussein didn’t have such weapons. The CIA, on the other hand, provided intelligence that backed the position of then-president George W Bush in favour of an invasion – intelligence that was later debunked. In that instance, the CIA proved politically more malleable than the DIA.

Amid the current debate over whether Iranian nuclear sites were destroyed, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has also weighed in favour of the president’s view.

“Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed. If the Iranians chose to rebuild, they would have to rebuild all three facilities (Natanz, Fordow, Esfahan) entirely, which would likely take years to do,” she posted on Twitter/X.

But Gabbard has already demonstrably changed her public statements to suit Trump.

In March, she testified before a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorised the nuclear weapons programme that he suspended in 2003”.

On June 20, Trump was asked for his reaction to that assessment. “She’s wrong,” he said.

Gabbard later that day posted that her testimony had been misquoted by “the dishonest media” and that “America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalise the assembly”.

Gabbard’s clarification did not contradict her earlier view, that Iran was not actively trying to build a weapon.

Asked in an interview with a French radio network whether Iran’s nuclear programme had been destroyed, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi replied, “I think ‘destroyed’ is too much. But it suffered enormous damage.”

On Wednesday, Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission concurred with the CIA, saying Iran’s nuclear facilities had been rendered “totally inoperable” and had “set back Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons for many years to come”.

Also on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the destruction of Iran’s surface facilities at Isfahan was proof enough of Iran’s inability to make a bomb.

“The conversion facility, which you can’t do a nuclear weapon without a conversion facility, we can’t even find where it is, where it used to be on the map,” he told reporters.

Can a 2015 diplomatic deal be resuscitated?

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), negotiated with Iran by France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the US, China, Russia and the European Union in 2015, was the only agreement ever reached governing Iran’s nuclear programme.

The JCPOA allowed Iran to enrich its own uranium, but limited it to the 3.7 percent enrichment levels required for a nuclear reactor to generate electricity. At Israel’s behest, Trump abandoned the agreement in 2018 and Iran walked away from it a year later – but before that, it was working.

Even though Trump has said he will never return to the JCPOA, which was negotiated by his predecessor, Barack Obama, he could return to an agreement of his own making that strongly resembles it. The crucial question is, whether Israel will this time back it, and whether Iran will be allowed to have even a peaceful nuclear programme, which it is legally entitled to.

On Wednesday, Trump didn’t sound as though he was moving in this direction. “We may sign an agreement. I don’t know. I don’t think it’s that necessary,” he told reporters at The Hague.

Any JCPOA-like agreement would also require Iran to allow IAEA inspectors to get back to ensuring that Tehran meets its nuclear safeguard commitments.

“IAEA inspectors have remained in Iran throughout the conflict and are ready to start working as soon as possible, going back to the country’s nuclear sites and verifying the inventories of nuclear material,” the IAEA said on Tuesday.

But Iran’s powerful Guardian Council on Thursday approved a parliamentary bill to suspend cooperation with the IAEA, suggesting that Tehran is at the moment not in the mood to entertain any UN oversight of its nuclear facilities.

What happens if Iran returns to enriching uranium?

“If Iran wants a civil nuclear programme, they can have one, just like many other countries in the world have one, and [the way for] that is, they import enriched material,” Rubio told journalist Bari Weiss on the Podcast, Honestly, in April.

“But if they insist on enriching [themselves], then they will be the only country in the world that doesn’t have a weapons programme, quote unquote, but is enriching. And so I think that’s problematic,” he said.

Ali Ansari, an Iran historian at St. Andrews University in the UK, told Al Jazeera that “there have already been calls to cease uranium enrichment from activists within the country”.

But the defiant statements from Iranian officials since the US strikes – including from Khamenei on Thursday – suggest that Tehran is not ready to give up on enrichment.

Trump has, in recent days, suggested that he wants Iran to give up its nuclear programme altogether.

On Tuesday, Trump posted on TruthSocial, “IRAN WILL NEVER REBUILD THEIR NUCLEAR FACILITIES!”

He doubled down on that view on Wednesday.

“Iran has a huge advantage. They have great oil, and they can do things. I don’t see them getting back involved in the nuclear business any more, I think they’ve had it,” he told reporters at the end of the NATO summit in The Hague.

And then he suggested the US would again strike Iran’s facilities, even if it weren’t building a bomb. “If [Iran] does [get involved], we’re always there, we’ll have to do something about it.” If he didn’t, “someone else” would hit Iran’s nuclear facilities, he suggested.

That “someone” would be Israel – which has long tried to kill any diplomatic effort over Iran’s nuclear programme.

At the NATO summit, Trump was asked whether Israel and Iran might start a war again soon.

“I guess some day it can. It could maybe start soon,” he said.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors is leaving transgender children and their parents uncertain and anxious about the future.

The court on Wednesday handed President Trump’s administration and Republican-led states a significant victory by effectively protecting them from at least some of the legal challenges against many efforts to repeal safeguards for transgender people.

The case stems from a Tennessee law banning puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender minors. Opponents of gender-affirming care say people who transition when they’re young could later regret it.

Families of transgender children argue the ban amounts to unlawful sex discrimination and violates the constitutional rights of vulnerable Americans.

Student says ruling creates an unwelcome world

Eli Givens, who is transgender and testified against Tennessee’s gender-affirming care bill in 2023, said it’s devastating that lawmakers “who have called us degenerates, have told us that we’re living in fiction” are celebrating the court’s ruling.

The nonbinary college student from Spring Hill received mastectomy surgery in 2022 at age 17. They said the legislation inspired their advocacy, and they attended the Supreme Court arguments in the case last December, on their 20th birthday.

“We’re not making a world that trans youth are welcomed or allowed to be a part of,” Givens said. “And so, it’s just a really scary kind of future we might have.”

Jennifer Solomon, who supports parents and families at the LGBTQ+ rights group Equality Florida, called the ruling a decision “that one day will embarrass the courts.”

“This is a decision that every parent should be concerned about,” she said. “When politicians are able to make a decision that overrides your ability to medically make decisions for your children, every family should worry.”

Conservative activists take credit

Chloe Cole, a conservative activist known for speaking about her gender-transition reversal, posted on social media after the court’s decision that “every child in America is now safer.”

Cole was cited as an example by Tennessee Republicans as one of the reasons the law was needed.

Matt Walsh, an activist who was one of the early backers of Tennessee’s law, applauded the high court. Three years ago, Walsh shared videos on social media of a doctor saying gender-affirming procedures are “huge moneymakers” for hospitals and a staffer saying anyone with a religious objection should quit.

“This is a truly historic victory and I’m grateful to be a part of it, along with so many others who have fought relentlessly for years,” Walsh posted on social media.

Fears of what’s next after Supreme Court decision

Rosie Emrich is worried the court decision will embolden legislators in New Hampshire, where legislation banning hormone treatments and puberty blockers for children is expected to reach the governor’s desk.

Lawmakers are weighing whether to block the treatments from minors already receiving them, like Emrich’s 9-year-old child.

“It’s definitely disappointing, and I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to talk to my kid about it,” Emrich said.

Emrich said she and her husband have considered moving from New Hampshire and are waiting to see what will happen.

“The hard part is, like, I’ve grown up here, my husband has grown up here, we very much want to raise our family here,” she said. “And we don’t want to leave if we don t have to.”

A move across the country and other hurdles

Erica Barker and her family moved from Jackson, Mississippi, to North Las Vegas, Nevada, a little over two years ago so one of her children could start receiving gender-affirming care.

Barker’s transgender daughter, then 12, had been in therapy for three years, and the family agreed it was time for medical treatments.

Mississippi passed a ban on gender-affirming care for minors the next year, which Barker said she saw coming.

Barker said the move was complicated, involving a new job for her husband and two mortgages when their Mississippi home was slow to sell, but it also brought access to care for her daughter, now 14.

“Our hearts are hurting for folks who are not having the same experience,” Barker said.

In another state with a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, Oklahoma resident Erika Dubose said finding care for her 17-year-old nonbinary child, Sydney Gebhardt, involves a four-hour drive to Kansas and getting prescriptions filled in Oregon and mailed to their home.

“I just wish the younger folks wouldn’t have to go through this,” Gebhardt said. “These folks deserve to be focusing on their academics and hanging out with their friends and making memories with their families and planning out a safe and happy future.”

Mother says gender-affirming care saves lives

Sarah Moskanos, who lives near Milwaukee, said her 14-year-old transgender daughter went through nearly a decade of counseling before she started medical gender-affirming care but has been sure since the age of 4 that she identified as a girl.

“I would say that there is decades of research on this very thing,” she said. “And we know what works and we know what will save trans kids’ lives is gender-affirming care.”

Wisconsin doesn’t have a gender-affirming care ban, but Moskanos said getting her daughter that care has not been easy. She now worries about what the future holds.

“We are but one election cycle away from disaster for my kid,” she said.

Vowing not to disappear

Mo Jenkins, a 26-year-old transgender Texas native and legislative staffer at the state Capitol, said she began taking hormone therapy at 16 years old and has been on and off treatment since then.

“My transition was out of survival,” Jenkins said.

Texas outlawed gender-affirming care for minors two years ago, and in May, the Legislature passed a bill tightly defining a man and a woman by their sex characteristics.

“I’m not surprised at the ruling. I am disheartened,” Jenkins said. “Trans people are not going to disappear.”

Mattise, Mulvihill and Seewer write for the Associated Press. Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, N.J., and Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. AP journalists Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn.; Kenya Hunter in Atlanta; Laura Bargfeld in Chicago; Nadia Lathan in Austin, Texas; and Daniel Kozin in Pinecrest, Fla., contributed to this report.

Washington, DC – Over the past week, United States President Donald Trump has been issuing statements on Iran that appear to be contradictory.

He has called for ending the war and hinted at peace coming “soon”, only to then suggest that assassinating Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei could be an option for the US along with joining Israel’s bombing campaign.

In the latest turn, the White House said on Thursday that Trump will make a decision on whether to join the war within two weeks.

These changes in the president’s stance have some observers thinking that Trump may not have a clear strategy or endgame; rather he is being dragged to war by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been seeking US attacks on Iran for decades.

Alternatively, could Trump be using his increasingly bellicose rhetoric against Iran to compel Tehran to agree to entirely give up its nuclear programme?

If so, experts warn that brinkmanship could turn into an all-out war between the US and Iran.

Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council, said Trump could be attempting to build leverage with threats to strongarm Iran into accepting his demands of “total surrender”.

“I think he’s trying to present himself as this madman who is unpredictable, and in so doing, he can then insist on this very hard line that Iran has refused to accept for decades of full dismantlement of its enrichment programme,” Abdi told Al Jazeera.

Another possible explanation of Trump’s latest statements, Abdi added, is that he is “being taken for a ride by Bibi Netanyahu to commit the United States to a full-on war with Iran”.

‘He says one thing. He does another’

Iranian American analyst Negar Mortazavi also said that Trump is being “outmaneuvered” by Netanyahu.

“I don’t even know if President Trump knows what he wants,” Mortazavi told Al Jazeera.

“He campaigned as the president of peace … he promised he’s going to end conflicts. Russia-Ukraine hasn’t ended. Gaza has escalated, and he just let the third big Middle East war – which looks like a regime-change war – start under his watch. So, he says one thing. He does another.”

Israel launched its bombing campaign against Iran last week, two days before US and Iranian officials were set to meet for a sixth round of talks in Oman.

Hours before the Israeli assault began, Trump renewed his commitment to diplomacy. And the initial US response to the Israeli strikes was to stress that Washington is not involved in the attacks.

In subsequent days, however, Trump appeared to take credit for the Israeli bombing campaign.

“We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran,” he wrote in a social media post on Tuesday, without elaborating on who the “we” was.

“Iran had good sky trackers and other defensive equipment, and plenty of it, but it doesn’t compare to American made, conceived, and manufactured ‘stuff.’ Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA.”

Israel’s strikes have targeted Iran’s air defences, military and nuclear facilities, oil infrastructure and residential buildings, killing hundreds of people, including top military and political officials as well as many civilians. Iran has responded with hundreds of ballistic missiles that have killed at least 24 Israelis and left widespread destruction across the country.

Israeli officials claim they are trying to destroy Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes, but also note that their military campaign could lead to the collapse of the Iranian governing system, which they say would be a welcome development.

However, it is widely believed that Israel would need US help to destroy Iran’s main uranium enrichment facility, Fordow, which is buried inside a mountain.

Mortazavi said war hawks and Israeli officials appear to be making the case to Trump that bombing Fordow will be an easy task.

“Instead of a regime change war – a devastating, unnecessary war with Iran, which he has been warning everyone and running against in his campaigns, they’re just making this look like, ‘Oh, you just use your bunker busters once and done.’”

But Iran has promised to retaliate harshly against any US attack.

Thousands of US troops in the region could come under Iranian missile strikes. If the war escalates, Iran could also disrupt shipping lanes in the Gulf – a major lifeline for global energy.

Iranian lawmakers have already suggested that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz that connects the Gulf to the Indian Ocean and through which 20 percent of the world’s oil flows.

‘Catastrophic’ war

Mortazavi said escalating the conflict will have “catastrophic” consequences for the region.

“It will look like Iraq and Afghanistan combined, if not worse. Iran is a big country,” she said.

In Iraq, Bush’s regime-change war led to years of sectarian bloodshed and the rise of groups like ISIL (ISIS). In Afghanistan, US forces fought for 20 years after deposing the Taliban from the capital Kabul, only to see the group swiftly return to power as US troops withdrew.

Even if Iran’s governing system is toppled under US and Israeli blows, experts warn that US war hawks should be careful what they wish for.

Iran is a country of more than 90 million people. The fall of the government could lead to internal conflict, displacement crises and regional – if not global – instability, analysts say.

“This is not a colour revolution. This is going to be war and chaos, potentially civil war, and unrest,” Mortazavi said.

Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the rights group DAWN, said that even if Trump is trying to gain leverage with his threats and is not seeking war or regime change in Iran, it’s a risky strategy.

“The possibilities of the assaults on Iran escalating into not just a broader regional war, but potentially a global war, are extremely high,” Whitson told Al Jazeera.

“And so, continued belligerence and hostile rhetoric from President Trump is only throwing fuel on the fire.”

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Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the US – will meet on Sunday in the remote town of Kananaskis, Alberta, nestled in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, for three days of intense discussions.

This will be the 51st G7 summit meeting. The first took place in 1975 in Rambouillet, France. Back then, it was known as the G6 meeting, as Canada did not become a member until the following year.

Russia joined the forum in 1998, making it the G8, but was effectively expelled in 2014, following its annexation of Crimea. Since then, the forum has been known as the G7.

Tensions at this year’s gathering, taking place June 15-17, are likely to be high for many reasons.

Intense discussions are expected about the unfolding crisis in the Middle East after Israel carried out massive strikes on military and nuclear sites in Iran on Friday. This year’s meeting also takes place against the backdrop of aggressive trade tariffs set – and then paused for all countries except China, which has now reached a deal with the US – by US President Donald Trump earlier this year.

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney may also still be reeling from comments by Trump that Canada should become the 51st US state. In May, Carney stated that Canada was “not for sale … ever” during a meeting with Trump at the White House.

The G7 represents 44 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) but only 10 percent of the world’s population. Within the group, the US is by far the largest economy. Having campaigned for the presidency on an “America First” message, Trump has frequently expressed displeasure about how much it contributes to global affairs.

At the last G7 summit attended by Trump in 2018, his national security adviser, John Bolton, posted on social media: “Just another G7 where other countries expect America will always be their bank. The President made it clear today. No more.”

So, who is coming this year and what will they be talking about?

Who is attending the G7 meeting this year?

Canada is hosting this year’s G7 meeting – it’s the seventh time it has assumed the presidency of the group. Besides leaders of the G7 countries and the EU, which is also represented at the summit, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has invited several heads of state from non-G7 countries as guests.

These include Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who confirmed her attendance on Monday after saying in May that she was undecided, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was invited, but it is unclear whether he will attend.

The invitation for Modi has raised eyebrows in Canada. Relations between India and Canada have been strained since former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused India of assassinating a Sikh separatist leader in Canada in 2023. The World Sikh Organisation said Carney’s invitation was a “betrayal of Sikh Canadians”, and the Sikh Federation of Canada called it “a grave insult”.

But Carney, who is trying to diversify Canadian trade away from the US, defended his decision, saying it makes sense for the G7 to invite India, since it is the world’s fifth-largest economy and is at the heart of a number of trading supply chains.

“In addition, bilaterally, we have now agreed, importantly, to continued law enforcement dialogue, so there’s been some progress on that, that recognises issues of accountability. I extended the invitation to Prime Minister Modi in that context,” Carney told reporters in Ottawa.

In March, Carney also invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to this week’s gathering.

Leaders of Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa and South Korea are also expected to attend.

Will they discuss US trade tariffs?

During his current tenure as president, Trump has imposed broad tariffs on every member of the G7, as well as on most other countries around the world, sparking a global trade war in the process. Trump says he wants to reverse large trade deficits between the US and other countries.

However, it is unlikely this issue will be formally addressed during G7 discussions as Carney will primarily be trying to prevent a fallout over trade between the member states, many of whom are still scrambling to secure trade deals with the US.

The UK reached the first trade agreement with the US in May, when it agreed to reduce tariffs on US goods from 5.1 percent to 1.8 percent and provide greater access for US goods. In return, the US dropped higher tariffs, leaving only its universal 10-percent tariff in place.

Both the EU and Japan are hoping to strike their own agreements before the July 9 end of Trump’s 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs.

Trump also had a rocky relationship with the G7 during his first term as US president and left the 2018 summit – also in Canada – in a huff. At the end of what was thought to be a successful gathering, Trump wrote on social media that he had directed his staff not to sign the final communique – the statement G7 countries issue in a show of unity at the end of the summit – and called then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “very dishonest and weak”.

Even though the communique is never usually formally “signed”, the incident pointed to Trump’s unpredictability, experts say.

John Kirton of the G7 Research Group, based at the University of Toronto, said Trump is less likely to cause a scene this year. He told Indian channel NDTV World that Carney is on better terms with Trump and noted that the US is due to host the G7 in 2027. “He doesn’t want to kill the G7 golden goose before he can produce the ‘biggest, best summit ever’ for the whole world stage two years from now,” Kirton said.

So, what will be on the agenda for this G7 meeting?

The G7 2025 summit website lists three core actions on the agenda for this year’s discussions: “Protecting our communities around the world”; “Building energy security and accelerating the digital transition”; and “Securing the partnerships of the future”.

But G7 leaders are likely to focus on the unfolding conflict between Israel and Iran.

If this does not dominate discussions entirely, other items on the agenda at this year’s G7 summit are likely to be global trade issues, the Russia-Ukraine war and China.

Israel-Iran crisis

Julia Kulik, director of strategic initiatives for the G7 Research Group at the University of Toronto’s Trinity College, said conversations on global peace that would have focused on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and Israel’s war on Gaza will now likely pivot to Iran.

“There will be tough questions from other leaders around the table to Donald Trump about what went wrong with the negotiations and about what he’s going to do to get Israel to de-escalate before things get worse,” Kulik told Al Jazeera.

The G7 “was designed to be a crisis response group with the ability to act and adapt quickly to international challenges … so in some ways it’s good they’re meeting this weekend as they’ll have the ability to respond quickly”, she added.

Robert Rogowsky, professor of trade and economic diplomacy at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, said there is no way G7 members can avoid the subject of the latest crisis in the Middle East. “That attack, counterattack, and the US declaration that it was not involved and its warning about staying away from American assets as targets is likely to be the first thing discussed, as it now creates the possibility of a real, all-out war in the Middle East. The major neighbouring parties will have to decide how to align themselves.” Rogowsky said.

Global trade

While Carney is hoping to cover uncontroversial themes, such as building friendlier global supply chains for materials like critical minerals, China may also be a focus of discussions.

Following a meeting of G7 finance ministers in Canada in May, the group issued a joint communique saying they would continue to monitor “nonmarket policies and practices” which contribute to imbalances in global trade. The statement did not mention China, but “nonmarket policies” often refer to export subsidies and currency policies that the Trump administration says provide an advantage in international trade. The statement was seen as a swipe at China’s trade practices, in particular its lending practices, which many see as adding debt for poorer countries.

Leaders of the G7 are also expected to discuss concerns about rising tensions between China and Taiwan in the East and South China Seas, as well as China’s expanding military presence there.

Russia-Ukraine war

A joint statement of G7 foreign ministers following an earlier meeting in Quebec in mid-March expressed strong support for Kyiv. It said finance ministers had “discussed imposing further costs on Russia” if Moscow did not agree to a ceasefire.

The UK and the EU announced a new round of sanctions against Russia in May, but Trump, who has been conducting discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said the US would not follow suit.

Sanctions against Russia and achieving a ceasefire may, therefore, also be a focus of discussions this week.

Global development

This could be a thorny issue.

Global development, particularly in African countries, has long been a primary focus of G7 discussions. However, this year, the US has made clear that it wishes to de-prioritise economic and humanitarian assistance for other countries. It has largely shuttered the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and says it plans large cuts to funding for other health and development initiatives overseas, as well.

What meetings could take place on the sidelines of the G7 summit?

US-EU

Donald Trump is expected to hold meetings with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Japan’s prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba. Both leaders are eager to agree on a trade deal with Trump as soon as possible to avoid reciprocal tariffs, due to come back into place following a pause in early July.

US-Canada-Mexico

Trump, Carney and Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum may also hold a separate meeting of North American leaders on trade and border security. In February, Trump postponed his planned 25-percent import tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods at the last minute. Canada’s then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Sheinbaum both agreed to increase border security to prevent the trafficking of drugs and migrants into the US, averting a trade war. Trump says he has been particularly concerned about the flow of the drug fentanyl into the US from both Canada and Mexico.

US-South Africa

South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has told reporters he will have a second meeting with Trump during the G7 summit, following the two leaders’ meeting in Washington, DC, on May 21, when Trump accused South Africa of “genocide” against white farmers. Earlier in May, 59 white “refugees” were flown from South Africa to the US as part of a relocation plan for white South Africans devised by the Trump administration.

Donald Trump is using the Los Angeles anti-deportation protests as a pretext to use the US military against domestic critics and his threats to invoke the Insurrection Act should be taken seriously, warns the American Civil Liberties Union’s Sarah Mehta.

WASHINGTON — When Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail to unleash the largest deportation campaign in U.S history, he said his second administration would start by going after people with criminal records.

But now, disappointed with the pace of arrests, the Trump administration is following through on his campaign promise: targeting anyone deportable.

Raids in California have taken place at courthouses, during scheduled check-ins with immigration authorities, at clothing factories, Home Depots, car washes, farms and outside churches. But officials say the state is hardly being singled out. Raids are coming for other sanctuary jurisdictions, too, said Tom Homan, President Trump’s chief advisor on border policy.

“This operation is not going to end,” he told The Times.

Across the country, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is stepping up new strategies and tearing down precedent to meet the White House’s demands. Homan acknowledged the pace of deportations had not met expectations and that while the administration still prioritizes removing those who threaten public safety and national security, anyone in the country illegally is fair game.

“I’m not happy with the numbers,” he said. “We need to find these people.”

Arrests are being made in places previously considered off limits, and the administration earlier this year rescinded a policy that prohibited enforcement actions in hospitals, schools or houses of worship. Agents who typically focus on drug and human trafficking are seeing their duties shifted to immigration enforcement.

The government is also now appealing to the public to help find and deport people in the country without authorization. The Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, released a poster on social media this week that depicts Uncle Sam urging people to call a hotline to “report all foreign invaders.”

And in Los Angeles, the National Guard and U.S. Marines were mobilized without the consent of state and local leaders — a tactic that Trump administration officials said could be repeated elsewhere. Trump claimed the deployments have been effective — “Los Angeles would be a crime scene like we haven’t seen in years,” Trump said Thursday — but local leaders have said the protests against ICE raids had not gotten out of control and that Trump’s actions only inflamed tensions.

As protests reached their seventh day in Los Angeles, incidents of violence lessened, though some tensions remained. Even so, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller wrote Wednesday on X that “America voted for mass deportations. Violent insurrectionists, and the politicians who enable them, are trying to overthrow the results of the election.”

California Democrats say the enforcement actions are about retribution against the state for its policies that protect immigrant residents, as well as an attempt to distract the public from congressional Republicans’ attempts to pass the president’s tax-and-spending bill, which would add more than $150 billion for immigration and border enforcement. They say the president is testing the bounds of his authority and wants protests to spiral so that he can crack down further by invoking the Insurrection Act to establish martial law.

Invoking the Insurrection Act would allow military troops to arrest civilians. Further unrest, Trump critics say, would be welcomed by the president.

“This is about if it bleeds, it leads,” said Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles). “So he has created and manufactured violence so that he can have a show on the television. But other people — older people, folks who are disabled, young people — are going to be bleeding when Medicaid gets cut, when people are evicted from their homes.”

While public attention has focused on the arrests of employees, the administration says it’s also looking at employers who hire workers in the country illegally.

“It’s not just about arresting illegal aliens, it’s about holding employers responsible too — but there’s a burden of proof,” Homan said. “If we can prove it, then we’ll take action.”

One former Homeland Security official in the Biden administration said immigration laws could be enforced without escalating public tension. “Why aren’t they doing I-9 audits instead of just going after people?” said the former official, Deborah Fleischaker, of forms used to verify an employee’s identity and eligibility to work in the U.S. “There are ways to do this in ways that are less disruptive and calmer. They are choosing the more aggressive way.”

In many ways, the current immigration crackdown reflects exactly what Trump said during the presidential campaign, when he declared that millions of people would be deported.

The new expansive approach appears to be a response to a late May meeting, first reported by the Washington Examiner, in which Miller lambasted dozens of senior ICE officials, asking them “Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?”

“Well, now they’re all of a sudden at Home Depots,” Fleischaker said.

Homan said the agency has recently arrested around 2,000 people a day, up from a daily average of 657 arrests reported by the agency during Trump’s first 100 days back in office. The increase is reflected in rising detention numbers, which have topped 50,000 for the first time since trump’s first presidency, according to TRAC, a nonpartisan data research organization.

Asked about complaints of overcrowding and substandard conditions in detention facilities, Homan acknowledged some facilities are overcrowded during intake. Some of the immigrants detained in California since Friday have been transferred to other states, he said.

“California has been pretty stringent and they want to shut down immigration detention,” he said. “It doesn’t mean we’re releasing these people. The less detention space we have in California, the more action they take in not helping us with detention beds, then we’ll just simply move them out of state.”

The work of immigration agents — sometimes hours of surveillance for a single target — can be slow. Jason Houser, who was ICE’s chief of staff under the Biden administration, said law enforcement agents, when given quotas, will always find the easiest way to fulfill them.

Miller, he said, knows ICE “doesn’t have enough resources or staff to get them to a million removals” by the end of the year.

Houser said that’s where the military troops come in. Homeland Security officials said military personnel already have the authority to temporarily detain anyone who attacks an immigration agent until law enforcement can arrest them. Houser predicted that soldiers could soon begin handling arrests.

Critics of the administration’s tactics, including former Homeland Security officials, said the White House’s strategy boils down to frightening immigrants into leaving on their own. It costs a few hundred dollars a day to detain an immigrant; deportation can cost thousands, and some countries are reticent to accept the return of their citizens.

“They arrest one, they scare 10,” said one former senior ICE official. “That’s a win.”

The former official, who asked not to be named in order to speak freely, said that’s an about-face from the Biden administration, during which agents answered to lawyers and precedent.

“Everything was vetted and vetted … to the detriment in some ways of the agency,” the former official said. “But to see them just doing whatever they want when they want, it’s a little stunning and it’s like, look at all the things we could’ve done if we had that attitude. But they seem to have so little regard for consequences, lawsuits, media, public opinion — they have no constraints.”

Homan said protests in Los Angeles have made enforcement actions more dangerous but have not prevented agents from making as many arrests as planned.

“If the protesters think they’re going to stop us from doing our job, it’s not true,” he said. “We’re going to probably increase operations in sanctuary cities, because we have to.”

Which team and country has won the most titles? Who is the record goal scorer? Al Jazeera looks back at the tournament.

The 21st edition of the FIFA Club World Cup is set to roll out in the United States on Saturday, June 14, as Lionel Messi-led Inter Miami host Egyptian club Al Ahly in Miami, Florida.

The tournament’s changed-up and expanded format has been subject to debate and criticism, but FIFA and its chief Gianni Infantino remain optimistic about its future as the premier club competition.

Its history, although relatively short, is littered with illustrious champions from across the world.

Here’s a look back at the 25-year history of the tournament:

2000-2006: Brazil rules the first three FIFA Club World Cups

The inaugural edition was an all-Brazilian affair as the country’s top two clubs – Corinthians and Vasco da Gama – contested the final, which was hosted at Rio de Janeiro’s historic cauldron, the Maracana Stadium, on January 14, 2000.

Corinthians emerged victorious as the game ended goalless after extra time and a dramatic penalty shootout saw them win 4-3.

Famous players including Romario (Brazil), Nicolas Anelka (France), Raul (Spain) and Dwight Yorke (Trinidad and Tobago) were part of the tournament.

The tournament was halted for five years due to FIFA’s troubles with finding marketing and broadcast partners.

Upon its resumption in 2005, the Samba Boys once again went on to win the following two editions.

Sao Paulo beat Liverpool 1-0 in the December 2005 final in Yokohama, Japan, and Internacional beat Barcelona a year later with the same scoreline at the same venue.

2007-2011: Beginning of the European reign at Club World Cup

It took the star-studded AC Milan team of the 2000s to break the Brazilian hold on the tournament as Kaka, Filippo Inzaghi, Alessandro Nesta and co beat Argentina’s Boca Juniors 4-2 in Yokohama to take the title to Italy.

The following years saw Manchester United (2008), Barcelona (2009 and 2011) and Inter Milan (2010) keep the title within Europe.

2012: A Brazilian break

Corinthians returned to the fore with their second title in a low-scoring tournament that ended with a 1-0 scoreline in the final between the Brazilian side and the then-European champions Chelsea.

2013-2023: A decade of European dominance

Spain’s two biggest clubs – Barcelona and Real Madrid – reigned supreme in the 2010s and early 2020s as they shared six of the 11 titles won by European teams during that period.

Germany’s Bayern Munich were crowned twice, in 2013 and 2020, and the rest of the three titles were won by three different English clubs.

Who has won the most FIFA Club World Cup titles?

Real Madrid has won five titles.

The Los Blancos won their first Club World Cup trophy in 2014 and then went on a treble-winning spree from 2016 to 2018.

Their most recent win came in 2022, when they beat Saudi club Al Hilal 5-3 in the final in Morocco.

Who are the past winners of the FIFA Club World Cup?

• 2000: Corinthians
• 2005: Sao Paulo
• 2006: Internacional
• 2007: AC Milan
• 2008: Manchester United
• 2009: Barcelona
• 2010: Inter Milan
• 2011: Barcelona
• 2012: Corinthians
• 2013: Bayern Munich
• 2014: Real Madrid
• 2015: Barcelona
• 2016: Real Madrid
• 2017: Real Madrid
• 2018: Real Madrid
• 2019: Liverpool
• 2020: Bayern Munich
• 2021: Chelsea
• 2022: Real Madrid
• 2023: Manchester City

Who has scored the most goals at the FIFA Club World Cup?

Cristiano Ronaldo has represented two teams – Manchester United and Real Madrid – and has scored the most goals, seven, in his eight games at the tournament.

FIFA chief Infantino tempted Ronaldo to add to his tally by switching to a Club World Cup 2025 participant team from Al Nassr, but the Portuguese superstar wouldn’t have it.

Who is the most successful manager at the FIFA Club World Cup?

Pep Guardiola has won the trophy on four occasions with three different clubs. He was the manager of the famous “tiki-taka” Barcelona side of the late 2000s and early 2010s that won the title in 2009 and 2011.

Guardiola then took his golden touch to Germany’s Bayern Munich, with whom he won in 2013. And finally, in 2023, the Spanish manager took his Manchester City team to their first Club World Cup title.

Among the other players on the list, Messi and his Inter Miami teammate Luis Suarez have scored five goals each. Both have the chance to add to their respective tallies and surpass Ronaldo in the 2025 edition.

Which country has the most Club World Cup winners?

Spain. The two La Liga giants have won eight titles between them.

Brazil and England are second on the list with four titles each, while Germany and Italy have two apiece.

Technology will help fans see the action from the refs’ point of view while AI will help detect offsides earlier and goalkeepers will be punished for time-wasting after eight seconds.

The FIFA Club World Cup has undergone a revamp since it was last competed in December 2023 in Saudi Arabia.

The number of participating clubs has increased fourfold to 32, the frequency of the competition has gone from annual to quadrennial and the champion’s prize money – previously $5m – has gone up by a whopping $35m.

It’s not just the numbers that have changed in the tournament. FIFA is also looking to introduce new technology, including artificial intelligence to help the referees, and it is getting stricter on goalkeepers who waste time while holding the ball.

Here’s a look at the three big changes to be implemented at the monthlong tournament, which will get under way on Saturday in the United States:

What is the referee body cam, and how will it work at the Club World Cup?

Small cameras, protruding from the referees’ ears, will capture the live action unfolding in front of them.

The video will be fed to the ongoing match broadcast and will be aired to the viewers but only if the action is not controversial. So any penalty appeals, disputed calls and other potentially game-changing moments of controversy will be cut out.

However, fans will be offered unique views of goals, saves, crosses, player runs and tackles. The feature will only be available in the six NFL stadiums being used during the tournament – Atlanta, Charlotte, Los Angeles, Miami, East Rutherford, Philadelphia and Seattle.

“The objective is to offer the TV viewers a new experience,” Pierluigi Collina, the chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee, said while announcing the move on Wednesday.

He said the technology will be trialled during the tournament and offer football’s rule-making body a chance to review it, along with footage of controversial moments, for long-term implementation.

Collina asked for patience from the fans during this phase and suggested taking things “step by step”.

“At the moment, this is a trial. We need to do something new and the simpler the better. So we fixed some rules within a protocol. Will we offer these images in the future? Maybe when we learn to run, maybe not, maybe we will do.”

Referee body camera in action. We can expect to see more of this at @FIFACWC ⚽️

Footage from Botafogo vs. Pachuca in the FIFA Intercontinental Cup 2024™ where body cameras were trialled. #TakeItToTheWorld | #FIFACWC | #FootballUnitesTheWorld pic.twitter.com/A30PiFDDA1

— FIFA Media (@fifamedia) June 6, 2025

How will FIFA use AI to check for offside during the Club World Cup?

While the assistance of technology in making offside decisions is not new, the Club World Cup will use it slightly differently by employing AI for an “enhanced semiautomatic offside”.

Video feed from 16 cameras will provide footage of the ongoing action to an AI-based programme, which will then alert match officials as soon as an offside player touches the ball.

Officials hope this new mechanism will help curtail the time in decision-making. The system will likely see the flag raised earlier for offside and reduce cases of play continuing after a clear offside, as opposed to a later video assistant referee (VAR) review.

In another first, footage of VAR-based offside reviews will be shown to the spectators inside the stadiums on big screens.

What’s the new timeout rule for goalkeepers?

It’s not entirely new, but time-wasting goalkeepers will also face the heat much earlier than usual as FIFA has asked referees to clamp down on glovemen who take too long on the ball.

The rules stipulate that keepers can’t hold onto the ball for longer than six seconds, but they have not been punished as frequently as the game’s governing body would have liked.

Now referees will issue a warning at five seconds – counted down by the officials on their hands – and the keeper must release the ball before a total of eight seconds are up.

Failing to do so will result in a corner kick for the opposition as opposed to an indirect free kick, which was previously given.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is looking to cancel $9.4 billion in spending already approved by Congress. That’s just a sliver of the $1.7 trillion that lawmakers OK’d for the budget year ending Sept. 30.

The package of 21 budget rescissions will have to be approved by both chambers of Congress for the cuts to take place, beginning with a House vote expected Thursday. Otherwise, the spending remains in place.

The White House is betting that cutting federal investments in public media and some foreign aid programs will prove politically popular. Republicans say if this first effort is successful, they hope more rescission packages will follow as they look to continue work by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency once run by billionaire Elon Musk.

Democrats describe the cuts as inhumane and say they would rip life-saving support from hungry and sick people across the globe. Republicans are describing the cuts as “modest” and say the U.S. will continue to play a critical role in helping the world’s most vulnerable people.

Here’s a look at some of the spending the White House is trying to claw back:

The Republican president has asked lawmakers to rescind nearly $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which represents the full amount it’s slated to receive during the next two budget years. Congress has traditionally provided public media with advanced funds to reduce political pressures.

The corporation distributes the money mostly to public television and radio stations around the country, with some assigned to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System to support national programming.

The White House says the public media system is politically biased and an unnecessary expense.

Much of the conservatives’ ire is focused on NPR and PBS. “We believe that you all can hate us on your own dime,” said Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, during a hearing in March.

But about two-thirds of the money goes to more than 1,500 locally owned public radio and television stations. Nearly half of those stations serve rural areas of the country.

“They want to punish the national guys, that’s fine,” said Rep. Mark Amodei, a Republican who said he was undecided going into this week’s vote. “But I’m trying to get a handle on what it means for my stations in Nevada, because the ability to fundraise at the national level ain’t the same as the ability to fundraise in Reno.”

The association representing local public television stations warns that many of them would be forced to close if the GOP bill passes. Those stations provide emergency alerts, free educational programming and high school sports coverage and highlight hometown heroes.

Meanwhile, local radio stations say their share of the allocation provides funding for 386 stations employing nearly 10,000 people. Dozens of stations rely on the public grants for more than half of their budget. Many others for nearly half.

Some Republicans say they worry about what the cuts would mean for local public stations but tough decisions are necessary.

Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., said South Dakota Public Broadcasting does a “really good job of covering the state Legislature” and other public affairs.

“So these rescissions are not going to be comfortable for South Dakota to deal with,” Johnson said. “That being said, we’re $37 trillion in debt.”

Funding to combat diseases

Trump’s administration is looking to claw back about $900 million from $10 billion that Congress has approved for global health programs.

That includes canceling $500 million for activities related to infectious diseases and child and maternal health and another $400 million to address the global HIV epidemic.

The administration says the $500 million rescission for infectious diseases would not reduce treatment but would “eliminate programs that are antithetical to American interests and worsen the lives of women and children, like ‘family planning’ and ‘reproductive health,’ LGBTQI+ activities, and equity programs.” It makes a similar assurance on the HIV funding, saying it would eliminate “only those programs that neither provide life-saving treatment nor support American interests.”

Scores of humanitarian aid groups have asked lawmakers to oppose the proposed cuts. Catholic Relief Services called on donors to contact their members of Congress to urge them to vote against the bill. Without the U.S. assistance, “countless lives are at risk, and the needs will continue to rise,” said the plea to supporters.

The importance of the United States’ contribution to the global HIV response cannot be overstated, according to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS. It says the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, has saved more than 26 million lives and averted almost 5 million new HIV infections since it was launched in 2003 under President George W. Bush, a Republican.

“Instead of facing a death sentence, people supported by PEPFAR are raising families, building their communities, and helping their communities grow and develop,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.

Refugee assistance

The Trump administration is looking to cancel $800 million, or a quarter of the amount Congress approved, for a program that provides emergency shelter, water and sanitation, and family reunification for those forced to flee their own country. The program also helps vetted refugees who come to the U.S. get started in their new country.

The White House says “these funds support activities that could be more fairly shared with non-U.S. Government donors, providing savings to the U.S. taxpayer.”

Refugees International urged Congress to reject what it described as a reckless proposal.

About 45% of the savings sought by the White House would come from two programs designed to boost the economies, democratic institutions and civil societies in developing countries.

The administration wants to claw back $2.5 billion of the $3.9 billion approved for the Development Assistance program at the U.S. Agency for International Development and about $1.7 billion, or nearly half of the funds, dedicated to the State Department’s Economic Support Fund.

The administration says in its request to Congress that the Development Assistance account is supposed to fund programs that work to end extreme poverty and promote resilient democratic societies, but in practice many of the programs “conflict with American values” and bankroll corrupt leaders’ evasion of responsibilities to their citizens while providing “no clear benefit to Americans.”

U.S. leaders have often argued over the years that helping to eradicate conditions that lead to political upheaval abroad is not just the right thing to do but also the smart thing.

“By helping stem pandemics and war and helping countries become healthy, free-market democracies, we are actually helping our own country,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

Republicans are rejecting the dire warnings. Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., said “ waste, fraud and abuse is what this is all about.”

Freking writes for the Associated Press.

Kyiv, Ukraine – Swarms of Russian kamikaze drones broke through Ukrainian air defence fire early on Tuesday, screeching and shrilling over Kyiv in one of the largest wartime attacks.

Oleksandra Yaremchuk, who lives in the Ukrainian capital, said the hours-long sound of two or perhaps three drones above her house felt new and alarming.

“This horrible buzz is the sound of death, it makes you feel helpless and panicky,” the 38-year-old bank clerk told Al Jazeera, describing her sleepless night in the northern district of Obolon. “This time I heard it in stereo and in Dolby surround,” she quipped.

Back in 2022, she crisscrossed duct tape over her apartment’s windows to avoid being hit by glass shards and spent most of the night in a shaky chair in her hallway.

This week’s Russian attack involved seven missiles and 315 drones – real, explosive-laden ones as well as cheaper decoys that distract and exhaust Ukraine’s air defence, Kyiv’s officials said.

The assault was the third since Ukraine’s June 1 sting to destroy Russia’s fleet of strategic bombers on four airstrips, including those in the Arctic and Siberia.

The wave of attacks also showed Russia’s tactics of overwhelming Ukrainian air defence units with the sheer number of targets that approach from different directions.

“The drones have been evolving for a while, now [the Russians] use massiveness,” Andrey Pronin, one of Ukraine’s drone warfare pioneers who runs a school for drone pilots in Kyiv, told Al Jazeera.

The attack mostly targeted Kyiv, killing one woman, wounding four civilians, damaging buildings in seven districts and causing fires that shrouded predawn Kyiv in rancid smoke.

It damaged the Saint Sophia Cathedral, Ukraine’s oldest, whose construction began a millennium ago after the conversion of Kyivan Rus, a medieval superpower that gave birth to today’s Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.

The onslaught also hit the southern city of Odesa, killing two civilians, wounding nine and striking a maternity ward in the Black Sea port that lies close to annexed Crimea and lacks Kyiv’s Western air defence systems.

‘The Russians learn, every time, after each flight’

The Russia-Ukraine war triggered the evolution of drones that already rewrote the playbook of warfare globally.

While Kyiv focuses on pinpointed strikes on Russian military infrastructure, oil refineries, airstrips and transport hubs, some observers believe Moscow deliberately chooses to strike civilian areas to terrify average Ukrainians – and perfects the strikes’ lethality.

“Of course, [Russians] learn, every time, after each flight. They make conclusions, they review how they flew, where mobile [Ukrainian air defence] groups were,” Pronin said.

To save pricey United States-made anti-drone missiles, Ukraine employs “mobile air defence units” that use truck-mounted machineguns often operated by women and stationed on the outskirts of urban centres.

The Russians “used to fly the drones in twos, now they fly in threes,” Pronin said about the Iranian-made Shahed drones and their modified Russian Geran versions that carry up to 90 kilogrammes of explosives.

Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany’s Bremen University, named three factors that contribute to the harrowing efficiency of recent drone attacks.

Firstly, the number of Russian drones rose dramatically, requiring more air defence power and, most importantly, more ammunition, he told Al Jazeera.

“The latter causes most problems, and after three massive attacks within a week, their number possibly didn’t simply suffice,” he said.

Earlier this week, the White House diverted 20,000 advanced anti-drone missiles intended for Ukraine to Washington’s allies in the Middle East.

Secondly, the Geran (“Geranium”) drones “evolve” and fly more than five kilometres above the ground at a height unreachable to firearms and many surface-to-air missiles, Mitrokhin said.

These days, Gerans have a range of 900km (660 miles) and are linked to their operators via satellite, US-made Starlink terminals smuggled into Russia or even hacked SIM cards of Ukrainian cellphone operators, according to Ukrainian officials and intelligence.

A Russian plant in the Volga River city of Yelabuga started manufacturing Gerans in 2023 and now churns out some 170 of them daily.

Thirdly, Russia uses more decoy drones that waste air defence ammunition, Mitrokhin said.

Therefore, Kyiv “needs massive amounts of drones that could quickly gain the height of five to six kilometres, locate flying Gerans and their analogues and shoot them down”, he said.

Instead, Ukrainian forces have focused on long-distance strike drones such as Lytyi (“Fierce”) that have hit military and naval bases, oil depots, arms factories and metallurgical plants in western Russia, he said.

“Now, Ukraine needs to quickly change its strategy and produce 5,000-10,000 high-flying drone hunters a month. Which is not easy,” he concluded.

‘I felt the return of what we all felt in 2022’

Russia’s attacks underscore Washington’s failure to start the peace settlement of Europe’s largest armed conflict since 1945.

The attacks “drown out the efforts of the United States and others around the world to force Russia into peace,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram, hours after Tuesday’s attack.

US President Donald Trump pledged to end Russia’s war on Ukraine “in 24 hours,” but his administration’s diplomatic efforts yielded no results.

Despite occasional criticism of the Kremlin’s warfare in Ukraine, Trump prefers not to use the White House’s diplomatic and economic arsenal to force Russia to start a peace settlement or even a 30-day ceasefire that Kyiv proposed.

While Washington continued to supply US military aid in accordance with the commitments of President Joe Biden’s administration, Trump’s cabinet did not pledge to provide any additional arms or ammunition shipments.

“This administration takes a very different view of that conflict,” US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a congressional hearing on Tuesday.

“We believe that a negotiated peaceful settlement is in the best interest of both parties and our nation’s interests, especially with all the competing interests around the globe,” he said, without specifying the extent of cuts.

Trump’s policies leave many Ukrainians reeling.

“He single-handedly lost the Cold War to Putin,” Valerii Omelchenko, a retired police officer in central Kyiv told Al Jazeera. “I honestly can’t fathom how one can be so indecisive and cowardly towards Russia.”

The horror of drone attacks, however, helps further unite Ukrainians, he said.

“In the morning, I felt the return of what we all felt in 2022, when we were treating total strangers like family, asking them how they were, trying to help them,” he said.

National Guard soldiers and even the United States Marines are on the streets of Los Angeles.

They were deployed by President Donald Trump after mass protests against his immigration raids.

California’s governor is suing him – while the protests spread to other cities.

Could this crisis worsen?

Presenter:

Folly Bah Thibault

Guests: 

Peter Eliasberg – chief counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California

Claire Finkelstein – professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania

Mark Pfeifle – Republican strategist, founder and president of Off the Record Strategies

The fate of millions of immigrants is at stake as Italians vote in a two-day referendum that proposes to speed up the process of acquiring citizenship for foreigners who legally entered the country.

The referendum also seeks to roll back labour reforms to provide enhanced job protections.

Polling stations opened on Sunday at 7am local time (05:00 GMT), with results expected after polls close on Monday at 3pm (13:00 GMT).

The measures – backed by opposition parties, labour unions and social activists – are aimed at revising citizenship laws to help second-generation Italians born in the country, to non-European Union parents, integrate more easily.

However, the vote may fail to generate sufficient turnout to be deemed valid – a turnout of more than 50 percent is required for a referendum to be legally binding.

Ahead of this weekend’s vote, the citizenship issue has garnered plenty of attention in a nation where concerns over the scale of immigration helped propel right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s anti-migration coalition to power in late 2022. Immigration has emerged as a key issue, particularly in Western Europe as well as the United States under President Donald Trump.

So, what does the referendum propose, and what does it mean for immigrants whose lives are in limbo due to the slow process of naturalisation in the EU member nation?

What are the Italian citizenship requirements, and how many immigrants are waiting for citizenship?

The question on the ballot paper asks Italians if they back reducing the period of residence required to apply for Italian citizenship, by naturalisation, from 10 years to five.

The change proposed by the referendum would allow nearly 1.5 million foreigners to obtain citizenship immediately, according to an estimate by Idos, an Italian research centre. That would include nearly 300,000 minors, who would obtain citizenship if their parents did.

About half of Italy’s 5.4 million foreign residents could be eligible to apply for citizenship if the vote is passed.

The vote comes as Meloni has tightened citizenship laws, making it hard for resident immigrants to obtain nationality.

Currently, immigrants from countries outside the EU can apply for citizenship only after 10 years of uninterrupted residency in Italy.

What is more, the children of lawful immigrants can apply for passports only once they have turned 18 and if they have continuously lived in the country since birth.

On the other hand, generous bloodline laws allowed people of Italian descent, even if remote, to obtain citizenship, helping maintain a link with the diaspora.

Between 2016 and 2023, for instance, Italy granted citizenship to more than 98,300 people, mostly living in Latin America, based on their claims of Italian ancestry.

With Italy’s birthrate in sharp decline, economists say the country needs to attract more foreigners to boost its anaemic economy.

Francesco Galietti, from political risk firm Policy Sonar, told the Reuters news agency that keeping such rules tight was “an identity issue” for Meloni, but she was also being pushed by businesses to open up the borders of an ageing country to foreign workers.

“On the one hand, there is the cultural identity rhetoric, but on the other, there are potential problems paying pensions and an economy that relies on manufacturing, which needs workers,” Galietti said.

For context, Italy’s constitution allows citizens to repeal laws through referendums, part of the system of checks and balances devised after Benito Mussolini’s fascist rule in the 1940s.

What are the other proposals in the referendum?

The referendum seeks to make it harder to fire workers and increase compensation for those laid off by small businesses, reversing a previous law passed by a centre-left government a decade ago.

One of the questions on the ballot also addresses the urgent issue of security at work, restoring joint liability to both contractors and subcontractors for workplace injuries.

Campaigners gathered more than 4.5 million signatures, according to the Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL) union, far more than needed to trigger the referendum, which will comprise five questions – four on the labour market and one on citizenship.

“We want to reverse a culture that has prioritised the interests of business over those of workers,” CGIL general secretary Maurizio Landini told the AFP news agency.

Who backed the referendum and why?

The referendum was promoted by a coalition of relatively small political parties – More Europe, Possibile, the Italian Socialist Party, the Italian Radicals and the Communist Refoundation Party – and numerous civil society associations.

It is also being backed by the centre-left Democratic Party, which is jockeying for Italian citizenship laws to be more aligned with EU-wide standards.

Research shows that access to citizenship has positive causal effects.

Immigrants who naturalise experience lower unemployment rates, earn higher incomes and are less likely to be overqualified for their jobs.

By contrast, protracted waiting periods for naturalisation delay or dampen these effects.

These findings support the claim that naturalisation is not only a reward, but also an important catalyst for integration.

The majority of Italians think that citizenship accelerates the integration process as well.

The last Eurobarometer on the integration of immigrants reports that 87 percent of Italians believe that acquiring citizenship is an important factor for the successful integration of immigrants in Italy.

Even if it passes, however, the reform will not affect the law many consider deeply unfair – that children born in Italy to foreign parents cannot request nationality until they reach 18.

Does PM Meloni back the new citizenship rules?

Opposition left-wing and centrist parties, civil society groups and a leading trade union have latched on to the issues of labour rights and Italy’s demographic woes as a way of challenging Meloni’s right-wing coalition government.

Meloni has said she would show up at the polls but not cast a ballot – a move widely criticised by the left as antidemocratic, since it will not help reach the necessary threshold to make the vote valid.

Activists and opposition parties have denounced the lack of public debate on the measures, accusing the governing centre-right coalition of trying to dampen interest in sensitive issues that directly affect immigrants and workers.

A Demopolis institute poll last month estimated turnout would be in the range of 31-39 percent among Italy’s roughly 50 million electors, well short of the required threshold.

Leaders of two of the governing coalition’s right-wing parties, Antonio Tajani of Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini of the League, have opposed the vote.

The referendum is “dangerous” and would extend access to citizenship “indiscriminately”, Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister, said in May.

How significant is the referendum?

Supporters say this reform would bring Italy’s citizenship law in line with many other European countries, promoting greater social integration for long-term residents.

It would also allow faster access to civil and political rights, such as the right to vote, eligibility for public employment and freedom of movement within the EU.

Italy is also confronting one of Europe’s most acute demographic crises.

Its population is ageing rapidly, with about a quarter of Italians aged above 65 years and just 12 percent aged 14 or younger. The referendum could ease some of these pressures.