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 {"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/india-bridge-collapse-maharashtra-5d5565c2e660a77a094f8f9349be31cc", "title": "2 killed and 32 injured after a bridge collapses at a tourist destination in western India", "publishing_date": "2025-06-15 12:22:04+00:00", "text": "# 2 killed and 32 injured after a bridge collapses at a tourist destination in western India\n\nJune 15th, 2025, 12:22 PM\n\n---\n\nNEW DELHI (AP) \u2014 At least two people died and 32 others were injured after an iron bridge over a river collapsed on Sunday at a popular tourist destination in India's western Maharashtra state, the state's top elected official said.\n\nAt least six people were hospitalized in critical condition, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis wrote on the social media platform X. Local media reported that scores of tourists were on the bridge when it collapsed, plunging many into the swollen river.\n\nFadnavis said six people were rescued and that an intense search operation was ongoing as some people were swept away.\n\nThe incident occurred in Kundamala area in Pune district, which has witnessed heavy rains over the past few days, giving the river a steady flow, Press Trust of India reported.\n\nIt was not raining when the bridge collapsed in an area frequented by picnickers, the news agency reported.\n\nPolice said teams of the National Disaster Response Force and other search and recovery units have undertaken rescue operations, Press Trust said.\n\nIndia's infrastructure has long been marred by safety concerns, sometimes leading to major disasters on its highways and bridges.\n\nIn 2022, a century-old cable suspension bridge collapsed into a river in the western state of Gujarat, sending hundreds plunging into the water and killing at least 132 in one of the worst accidents in the country in the past decade."}
 {"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/air-india-plane-crash-boeing-dna-test-b44556b7c0e9e04adcece615262e439e", "title": "Remains of Air India crash victims are handed over to relatives", "publishing_date": "2025-06-15 10:23:05+00:00", "text": "# Remains of Air India crash victims are handed over to relatives\n\nBy Aijaz Hussain, Shonal Ganguly, and Piyush Nagpal  \nJune 15th, 2025, 10:23 AM\n\n---\n\nAHMEDABAD, India (AP) \u2014 Authorities have started handing over remains of the victims of one of India's worst aviation disasters, days after the Air India flight crashed and killed at least 270 people, officials said Sunday.\n\nThe London-bound Boeing 787 struck a medical college hostel in a residential area of the northwestern city of Ahmedabad minutes after takeoff Thursday, killing 241 people on board and at least 29 on the ground. One passenger survived.\n\nHundreds of relatives of the crash victims provided DNA samples at the hospital. Most of the bodies were charred or mutilated, making them unrecognizable.\n\nRajneesh Patel, an official at the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad, said authorities have so far identified 32 victims through DNA mapping and their families were informed. He said the remains of 14 victims were handed over to relatives.\n\nThe victims' families waited outside the hospital mortuary as authorities worked to complete formalities and transfer the bodies in coffins into ambulances. Most of them have expressed frustration at a slow pace of the identification process. Authorities say it normally takes up to 72 hours to complete DNA matching and they are expediting the process.\n\nAmong the passengers, 169 were Indians, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian.\n\nQasim Rashid Ahmed, a British national of Indian origin whose charity provided food and accommodation to the victims' relatives, said most of the British victims had relatives in Gujarat state and had given their DNA samples.\n\nAlongside the formal investigation, the Indian government has set up a high-level committee to examine the causes leading to the crash. The committee will focus on formulating procedures to prevent and handle aircraft emergencies in the future, the Ministry of Civil Aviation said in a statement Saturday.\n\nAuthorities have also begun inspecting Air India's entire fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners, Minister of Civil Aviation Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said Saturday in New Delhi at his first news briefing since Thursday's crash.\n\nEight of the 34 Dreamliners in India have already undergone inspection, Kinjarapu said, adding that the remaining aircraft will be examined with \"immediate urgency.\"\n\nInvestigators on Friday recovered the plane's digital flight data recorder, or the black box, from a rooftop near the crash site.\n\nThe device is expected to reveal information about the engine and control settings, while the voice recorder will provide cockpit conversations, said Paul Fromme, a mechanical engineer with the U.K.-based Institution of Mechanical Engineers.\n\nThe plane that crashed was 12 years old. Boeing planes have been plagued by safety issues on other types of aircraft. There are currently around 1,200 of the 787 Dreamliner aircraft worldwide and this was the first deadly crash in 16 years of operation, according to experts."}
 {"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/air-india-plane-crash-ahmedabad-survivor-boeing-4bb6243d0240956538ddcd253d92f5ce", "title": "Air India crash: Death toll climbs to 270", "publishing_date": "2025-06-14 06:44:16+00:00", "text": "# Air India crash: Death toll climbs to 270\n\nBy Aijaz Hussain, Piyush Nagpal, and Shonal Ganguly  \nJune 14th, 2025, 06:44 AM\n\n---\n\nAHMEDABAD, India (AP) \u2014 Search and recovery teams continued scouring the site of one of India's worst aviation disasters for a third day after the Air India flight fell from the sky and killed at least 270 people in Gujarat state, officials said Saturday.\n\nThe London-bound Boeing 787 struck a medical college hostel in a residential area of the northwestern city of Ahmedabad minutes after takeoff Thursday, killing 241 people on board and at least 29 on the ground. One passenger survived.\n\nRecovery teams working until late Friday found at least 25 more bodies in the debris, officials said.\n\nDr. Dhaval Gameti at the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad told The Associated Press the facility had received 270 bodies, adding that the lone surviving passenger was still under observation for some of his wounds.\n\n\"He is doing very well and will be ready to be discharged anytime soon,\" Gameti said Saturday.\n\nHundreds of relatives of the crash victims have provided DNA samples at the hospital. Most bodies were charred or mutilated, making them unrecognizable.\n\nSome relatives expressed frustration Saturday that the process was taking too long. Authorities say it normally takes up to 72 hours to complete DNA matching and they are expediting the process.\n\n\"Where are my children? Did you recover them?\" asked Rafiq Abdullah, whose nephew, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren were on the flight. \"I will have to ask questions. Government is not answering these questions.\"\n\nAnother relative persistently asked hospital staff when his relative's body would be handed over to the family for last rites.\n\n\"Give us the body,\" the relative insisted.\n\nAlongside the formal investigation, the Indian government says it has formed a high-level, multi-disciplinary committee to examine the causes leading to the crash.\n\nThe committee will focus on formulating procedures to prevent and handle aircraft emergencies in the future and \"will not be a substitute to other enquiries being conducted by relevant organisations,\" the Ministry of Civil Aviation said in a statement.\n\nAuthorities have begun inspecting Air India's entire fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, Indian Minister of Civil Aviation Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said Saturday in New Delhi at his first news briefing since Thursday's crash.\n\nEight of the 34 Dreamliner aircraft in India have already undergone inspection, Kinjarapu said, adding that the remaining aircraft will be examined with \"immediate urgency.\"\n\nThe government is eagerly awaiting results of the crash investigation by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau and all necessary steps will be taken without hesitation, Kinjarapu said.\n\nInvestigators on Friday recovered the plane's digital flight data recorder, or the black box, which was recovered from a rooftop near the crash site and likely will lead to clues about the cause of the accident.\n\nIndia's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau said it had started working with \"full force\" to extract the data.\n\nThe device is expected to reveal information about the engine and control settings, while the voice recorder will provide cockpit conversations, said Paul Fromme, a mechanical engineer with the U.K.-based Institution of Mechanical Engineers.\n\nAviation safety consultant Jeff Guzzetti, a former crash investigator for both the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration, said investigators should be able to answer some important questions about what caused the crash as soon as next week as long as the flight data recorder is in good shape.\n\nInvestigators likely are looking at whether wing flaps were set correctly, the engine lost power, alarms were going off inside the cockpit and if the plane's crew correctly logged information about the hot temperature outside and the weight of the fuel and passengers, Guzzetti said.\n\nMistakes in the data could result in the wing flaps being set incorrectly, he said.\n\nThursday's Air India crash involved a 12-year-old Boeing 787. Boeing planes have been plagued by safety issues on other types of aircraft.\n\nThere are currently around 1,200 of the 787 Dreamliner aircraft worldwide and this was the first deadly crash in 16 years of operation, according to experts."}
+{"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/iran-israel-missile-drone-attacks-nuclear-a8b23f58b502ed77a20a9d843bf30f76", "title": "US-Iran talks over Tehran's nuclear program won't happen after Israel strikes", "publishing_date": "2025-06-14 04:14:40+00:00", "text": "# US-Iran talks over Tehran's nuclear program won't happen after Israel strikes\n\nBy Jon Gambrell, Melanie Lidman, and Julia Frankel  \nJune 14th, 2025, 04:14 AM\n\n---\n\nDUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 Israel launched an expanded assault on Iran on Sunday, targeting its energy industry and Defense Ministry headquarters, while Tehran unleashed a fresh barrage of deadly strikes.\n\nThe simultaneous attacks represented the latest burst of violence since a surprise offensive by Israel two days earlier aimed at decimating Tehran's rapidly advancing nuclear program.\n\nNew explosions boomed across Tehran as Iranian missiles entered Israel's skies in attacks that Israeli emergency officials said caused deaths around the country, including four in an apartment building in the Galilee region. A strike in central Israel killed an 80-year-old woman, a 69-year-old woman and a 10-year-old boy, officials said.\n\nCasualty figures weren't immediately available in Iran, where Israel targeted its Defense Ministry headquarters in Tehran as well as sites that it alleged were associated with the country's nuclear program. Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard claimed that Iranian missiles targeted fuel production facilities for Israeli fighter jets, something not acknowledged by Israel.\n\nAmid the continued conflict, planned negotiations between Iran and the United States over Tehran's nuclear program were cancelled, throwing into question when and how an end to the fighting could come.\n\n\"Tehran is burning,\" Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on social media.\n\nBoth Israel's military and Iran state television announced the latest round of Iranian missiles as explosions were heard near midnight, while the Israeli security cabinet met.\n\nIsrael's ongoing strikes across Iran have left the country's surviving leadership with the difficult decision of whether to plunge deeper into conflict with Israel's more powerful forces or seek a diplomatic route.\n\n## Urgent calls to deescalate\n\nWorld leaders made urgent calls to deescalate and avoid all-out war. The attack on nuclear sites set a \"dangerous precedent,\" China's foreign minister said. The region is already on edge as Israel makes a new push to eliminate the Iranian-backed militant group Hamas in Gaza after 20 months of fighting.\n\nIsrael \u2014 widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East \u2014 said its hundreds of strikes on Iran over the past two days have killed a number of top generals, nine senior scientists and experts involved in Iran's nuclear program. Iran's U.N. ambassador has said 78 people were killed and more than 320 wounded.\n\nU.S. intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency have repeatedly said Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapon before Israel unleashed its campaign of airstrikes targeting Iran beginning Friday. But Iran's uranium enrichment has reached near weapons-grade levels, and on Thursday the U.N.'s atomic watchdog censured Iran for not complying with obligations meant to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.\n\nPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made the destruction of Iran's nuclear program his top priority, said Israel's strikes so far are \"nothing compared to what they will feel under the sway of our forces in the coming days.\"\n\nIn what could be another escalation if confirmed, semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported an Israeli drone struck and caused a \"strong explosion\" at an Iranian natural-gas processing plant. It would be the first Israeli attack on Iran's oil and natural gas industry. Israel's military did not immediately comment.\n\nThe extent of damage at the South Pars natural gas field was not immediately clear. Such sites have air defense systems around them, which Israel has been targeting.\n\n## Iran calls nuclear talks 'unjustifiable'\n\nThe sixth round of U.S.-Iran indirect talks on Sunday over Iran 's nuclear program will not take place, mediator Oman said. \"We remain committed to talks and hope the Iranians will come to the table soon,\" said a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss diplomacy.\n\nIran's top diplomat said Saturday the nuclear talks were \"unjustifiable\" after Israel's strikes. Abbas Araghchi's comments came during a call with Kaja Kallas, the European Union's top diplomat.\n\nThe Israeli airstrikes were the \"result of the direct support by Washington,\" Araghchi said in a statement carried by the state-run IRNA news agency. The U.S. has said it isn't part of the strikes.\n\nOn Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump urged Iran to reach a deal with the U.S. on its nuclear program, adding that \"Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left.\"\n\n## US helps to shoot down Iranian missiles\n\nIran launched its first waves of missiles at Israel late Friday and early Saturday. The attacks killed at least three people and wounded 174, two of them seriously, Israel said. The military said seven soldiers were lightly wounded when a missile hit central Israel, without specifying where.\n\nU.S. ground-based air defense systems in the region were helping to shoot down Iranian missiles, said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the measures.\n\nIsrael's main international airport said it will remain closed until further notice.\n\nFirst responders were looking for survivors and clearing the remnants of a missile that fell on a neighborhood outside of Tel Aviv early Sunday morning.\n\nAn Associated Press reporter saw streets lined with damaged and destroyed buildings, bombed out cars and shards of glass.\n\nResponders used a drone at points to look for survivors in some of the areas that were too hard to access. Some people were fleeing the area with their belongings in suitcases.\n\n## 'More than a few weeks' to repair nuclear facilities\n\nIsrael attacked Iran's main nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz. Satellite photos analyzed by AP show extensive damage there. The images shot Saturday by Planet Labs PBC show multiple buildings damaged or destroyed. The structures hit include buildings identified by experts as supplying power to the facility.\n\nU.N. nuclear chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that the above-ground section of the Natanz facility was destroyed. The main centrifuge facility underground did not appear to have been hit, but the loss of power could have damaged infrastructure there, he said.\n\nIsrael said it also struck a nuclear research facility in Isfahan, including \"infrastructure for enriched uranium conversion,\" and said it destroyed dozens of radar installations and surface-to-air missile launchers in western Iran. Iran confirmed the strike at Isfahan.\n\nThe International Atomic Energy Agency said four \"critical buildings\" at the Isfahan site were damaged, including its uranium conversion facility. \"As in Natanz, no increase in off-site radiation expected,\" it added.\n\nAn Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with official procedures, said that according to the army's initial assessment \"it will take much more than a few weeks\" for Iran to repair the damage to the Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites. The official said the army had \"concrete intelligence that production in Isfahan was for military purposes.\"\n\nIsrael denied it had struck the nuclear enrichment facility in Fordo, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of Tehran.\n\nAmong those killed were three of Iran's top military leaders: one who oversaw the entire armed forces, Gen. Mohammad Bagheri; one who led the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Hossein Salami; and the head of the Guard's aerospace division, which oversees its arsenal of ballistic missile program, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh. On Saturday, Khamenei named a new leader for the Revolutionary Guard's aerospace division: Gen. Majid Mousavi."}
+{"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/sean-combs-diddy-trial-cassie-jane-0c1af5d7d6cc64c098e7465140836bc5", "title": "Ye attends 'Diddy' sex trafficking trial in New York", "publishing_date": "2025-06-13 15:56:49+00:00", "text": "# Ye attends 'Diddy' sex trafficking trial in New York\n\nBy Michael R. Sisak and Larry Neumeister  \nJune 13th, 2025, 03:56 PM\n\n---\n\nNEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, briefly showed up to the New York sex trafficking trial of Sean \"Diddy\" Combs on Friday to support the hip-hop mogul, a longtime friend. But he wasn't allowed into the courtroom and left after briefly watching the trial on a video monitor in another room.\n\nYe, dressed in white, arrived at Manhattan federal court before noon while the trial was on a break and spent about 40 minutes in the building.\n\nAfter emerging from an airport-style security screening, Ye was asked if he was at the courthouse to support Combs.\n\n\"Yes,\" he responded with a nod. He then hustled to an elevator and did not respond when asked if he might testify on Combs' behalf when the defense begins its presentation as early as next week.\n\nCourthouse security did not take him to the 26th floor where the trial occurs in one of the building's largest courtrooms. Admittance there is strictly controlled, with seats reserved for Combs' family and legal team, the media and spectators who wait in line for hours to get a coveted seat.\n\nThe rapper was taken instead to a courtroom three floors below the trial floor. There, he briefly observed testimony on a large closed-circuit monitor in an overflow room that was one floor below the usual overflow room, which was packed with media representatives and courthouse employees who heard erroneously that he might be there.\n\nAs word of his actual location spread and spectators trickled into the room where Ye sat in the front row with Combs' son, Christian, a bodyguard and another Combs' supporter on a side of the room that was otherwise kept vacant by a court officer, Ye looked around the room before abruptly getting up and leaving, along with the others with him.\n\nYe didn't answer further questions as he left the courthouse, walking past reporters and TV cameras and ducking into a waiting black Mercedes sedan.\n\nIn the courtroom where the trial occurred, Combs, 55, seemed elated and aware his friend had visited as family members including his mother watched the proceedings. He has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges alleging that he used his fame, fortune and violence to commit crimes over a 20-year period.\n\nYe's appearance at the courthouse came a day after a woman identified in court only by the pseudonym \"Jane\" finished six days of testimony.\n\nShe testified that during a relationship with Combs that stretched from 2021 until his arrest last September at a Manhattan hotel, she felt coerced into frequent dayslong sexual marathons with male sex workers while Combs watched and sometimes filmed the drug-fueled encounters.\n\nDefense attorneys have argued that Combs committed no crimes and that federal prosecutors were trying to police consensual sex that occurred between adults.\n\nOn Thursday, Jane testified that during a three-month break in her relationship with Combs, she flew to Las Vegas in January 2023 with a famous rapper who was close friends with Combs.\n\nPrior to Jane's testimony on the subject, lawyers and the judge conducted a lengthy hearing out of public view to discuss what could be divulged about the January trip.\n\nJane was asked if the rapper she accompanied along with the rapper's girlfriend was \"an individual at the top of the music industry as well ... an icon in the music industry.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Jane replied.\n\nOnce in Las Vegas, Jane testified, she went with a group including the rapper to dinner, a strip club and a hotel room party, where a sex worker had sex with a woman while a half-dozen others watched.\n\nShe said there was dancing and the rapper said, \"hey beautiful,\" and told her, in crude language, that he had always wanted to have sex with her. Jane said she didn't recall exactly when, but she flashed her breasts while dancing.\n\nAlso Friday, the judge said he was leaning toward removing a juror and replacing him with an alternate after prosecutors found inconsistencies in his answers about where he lives.\n\nDuring jury selection, the juror said he lived in the Bronx. But, prosecutors said, he told a court employee that he recently moved to New Jersey.\n\nUnder questioning by Judge Arun Subramanian, the juror acknowledged moving, but said he retains a New York driver's license and stays there during the week. Only New York residents can serve as Manhattan federal court jurors.\n\nCombs' lawyers called it a \"thinly veiled effort to dismiss a Black juror\" and suggested Subramanian was \"conflating inconsistencies with lying.\"\n\nThe judge noted that even if the juror is ousted, the jury would be diverse."}
+{"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/nicaragua-former-president-violeta-chamorro-death-bd448ac8c3664b13f92ab2012a0d2a7f", "title": "Nicaragua's former President Violeta Chamorro dies at 95, family says", "publishing_date": "2025-06-14 17:33:26+00:00", "text": "# Nicaragua's former President Violeta Chamorro dies at 95, family says\n\nJune 14th, 2025, 05:33 PM\n\n---\n\nSAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) \u2014 Violeta Chamorro, an unassuming homemaker who was thrust into politics by her husband's assassination and stunned the world by ousting the ruling Sandinista party in presidential elections and ending Nicaragua 's civil war, has died, her family said in a statement on Saturday. She was 95.\n\nThe country's first female president, known as Do\u00f1a Violeta to both supporters and detractors, she presided over the Central American nation's uneasy transition to peace after nearly a decade of conflict between the Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega and U.S.-backed Contra rebels.\n\nAt nearly seven years, Chamorro's was the longest single term ever served by a democratically elected Nicaraguan leader, and when it was over she handed over the presidential sash to an elected civilian successor \u2014 a relative rarity for a country with a long history of strongman rule, revolution and deep political polarization.\n\nChamorro died in San Jose, Costa Rica, according to the family's statement shared by her son, Carlos Fernando Chamorro, on X.\n\n\"Do\u00f1a Violeta died peacefully, surrounded by the affection and love of her children and those who had provided her with extraordinary care, and now she finds herself in the peace of the Lord,\" the statement said.\n\nA religious ceremony was being planned in San Jose. Her remains will be held in Costa Rica \"until Nicaragua returns to being a Republic,\" the statement said.\n\nIn more recent years, the family had been driven into exile in Costa Rica like hundreds of thousands of other Nicaraguans fleeing the repression of Ortega.\n\nVioleta Chamorro's daughter, Cristiana Chamorro, was held under house arrest for months in Nicaragua and then convicted of money laundering and other charges as Ortega moved to clear the field of challengers as he sought reelection.\n\nThe Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation closed its operations in Nicaragua in January 2021, as thousands of nongovernmental organizations have been forced to do because Ortega has worked to silence any critical voices. It had provided training for journalists, helped finance journalistic outlets and defended freedom of expression.\n\n## Husband's assassination\n\nBorn Violeta Barrios Torres on Oct. 18, 1929, in the southwestern city of Rivas, Chamorro had little by way of preparation for the public eye. The eldest daughter of a landowning family, she was sent to U.S. finishing schools.\n\nAfter her father's death in 1948, she returned to the family home and married Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, who soon became editor and publisher of the family newspaper, La Prensa, following his own father's death.\n\nHe penned editorials denouncing the abuses of the regime of Gen. Anastasio Somoza, whose family had ruled Nicaragua for four decades, and was gunned down on a Managua street in January 1978. The killing, widely believed to have been ordered by Somoza, galvanized the opposition and fueled the popular revolt led by Ortega's Sandinista National Liberation Front that toppled the dictator in July 1979.\n\nChamorro herself acknowledged that she had little ambition beyond raising her four children before her husband's assassination. She said she was in Miami shopping for a wedding dress for one of her daughters when she heard the news.\n\nStill, Chamorro took over publishing La Prensa and also became a member of the junta that replaced Somoza. She quit just nine months later as the Sandinistas exerted their dominance and built a socialist government aligned with Cuba and the Soviet Union and at odds with the United States amid the Cold War.\n\nLa Prensa became a leading voice of opposition to the Sandinistas and the focus of regular harassment by government supporters who accused the paper of being part of Washington's efforts \u2014 along with U.S.-financed rebels, dubbed \"Contras\" by the Sandinistas for their counterrevolutionary fight \u2014 to undermine the leftist regime.\n\nChamorro later recounted bitter memories of what she considered the Sandinistas' betrayal of her husband's democratic goals and her own faith in the anti-Somoza revolution.\n\n\"I'm not praising Somoza's government. It was horrible. But the threats that I've had from the Sandinistas \u2014 I never thought they would repay me in that way,\" she said.\n\n## 'Peace and progress'\n\nChamorro saw her own family divided by the country's politics. Son Pedro Joaquin became a leader of the Contras, and daughter Cristiana worked as an editor at La Prensa. But another son, Carlos Fernando, and Chamorro's eldest daughter, Claudia, were militant Sandinistas.\n\nBy 1990 Nicaragua was in tatters. The economy was in shambles thanks to a U.S. trade embargo, Sandinista mismanagement and war. Some 30,000 people had died in the fighting between the Contras and Sandinistas.\n\nWhen a coalition of 14 opposition parties nominated an initially reluctant Chamorro as their candidate in the presidential election called for February that year, few gave her much chance against the Sandinista incumbent, Ortega. Even after months of campaigning, she stumbled over speeches and made baffling blunders. Suffering from osteoporosis, a disease that weakens the bones, she broke her knee in a household fall and spent much of the campaign in a wheelchair.\n\nBut elegant, silver-haired and dressed almost exclusively in white, she connected with many Nicaraguans tired of war and hardship. Her maternal image, coupled with promises of reconciliation and an end to the military draft, contrasted with Ortega's swagger and revolutionary rhetoric.\n\n\"I bring the flag of love,\" she told a rally shortly before the vote. \"Hatred has only brought us war and hunger. With love will come peace and progress.\"\n\nShe shocked the Sandinistas and the world by handily winning the election, hailing her victory as the fulfillment of her late husband's vision.\n\n\"We knew that in a free election we would achieve a democratic republic of the kind Pedro Joaquin always dreamed,\" Chamorro said.\n\nWashington lifted trade sanctions and promised aid to rebuild the nation's ravaged economy, and by June the 19,000-strong Contra army had been disbanded, formally ending an eight-year war.\n\n## Forced into negotiations\n\nChamorro had little else to celebrate during her first months in office.\n\nIn the two months between the election and her inauguration, the Sandinistas looted the government, signing over government vehicles and houses to militants in a giveaway that became popularly known as \"the pinata.\"\n\nHer plans to stabilize the hyperinflation-wracked economy with free-market reforms were met with stiff opposition from the Sandinistas, who had the loyalty of most of the country's organized labor.\n\nChamorro's first 100 days in power were marred by two general strikes, the second of which led to street battles between protesters and government supporters. To restore order Chamorro called on the Sandinista-dominated army, testing the loyalty of the force led by Gen. Humberto Ortega, Daniel Ortega's older brother. The army took to the streets but did not act against the strikers.\n\nChamorro was forced into negotiations, broadening the growing rift between moderates and hardliners in her government. Eventually her vice president, Virgilio Godoy, became one over her most vocal critics.\n\nNicaraguans hoping that Chamorro's election would quickly bring stability and economic progress were disappointed. Within a year some former Contras had taken up arms again, saying they were being persecuted by security forces still largely controlled by the Sandinistas. Few investors were willing to gamble on a destitute country with a volatile workforce, while foreign volunteers who had been willing to pick coffee and cotton in support of the Sandinistas had long departed.\n\n\"What more do you want than to have the war ended?\" Chamorro said after a year in office.\n\n## Vision of forgiveness\n\nChamorro was unable to undo Nicaragua's dire poverty. By the end of her administration in early 1997, unemployment was measured at over 50 percent, while crime, drug abuse and prostitution \u2014 practically unheard of during the Sandinista years \u2014 soared.\n\nThat year she handed the presidential sash to another elected civilian: conservative Arnoldo Aleman, who also defeated Ortega at the ballot.\n\nIn her final months in office, Chamorro published an autobiography, \"Dreams of the Heart,\" in which she emphasized her vision of forgiveness and reconciliation.\n\n\"After six years as president, she has broadened her definition of 'my children' to include all Nicaraguans,\" wrote a reviewer for the Los Angeles Times. \"So even political opponents like Ortega are briefly criticized in one sentence, only to be generously forgiven in the next.\"\n\nAfter leaving office, Chamorro retired to her Managua home and her grandchildren. She generally steered clear of politics and created the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation.\n\nIn 2011 it was revealed that she suffered from a brain tumor. In October 2018, she was hospitalized and said by family members to be in \"delicate condition\" after suffering a cerebral embolism, a kind of stroke."}
+{"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/officers-death-benefits-claims-backlog-psob-a4ca99b3e3ca6afc7baded3e94bf00ac", "title": "Families of deceased US officers wait years for death benefits", "publishing_date": "2025-06-14 04:03:15+00:00", "text": "# Families of deceased US officers wait years for death benefits\n\nBy Ryan J. Foley  \nJune 14th, 2025, 04:03 AM\n\n---\n\nWhen her husband died after a grueling U.S. Border Patrol training program for new agents, Lisa Afolayan applied for the federal benefits promised to families of first responders whose lives are cut short in the line of duty.\n\nSixteen years later, Afolayan and her two daughters haven't seen a penny, and program officials are defending their decisions to deny them compensation. She calls it a nightmare that too many grieving families experience.\n\n\"It just makes me so mad that we are having to fight this so hard,\" said Afolayan, whose husband, Nate, had been hired to guard the U.S. border with Mexico in southern California. \"It takes a toll emotionally, and I don't think they care. To them, it's just a business. They're just pushing paper.\"\n\nAfolayan's case is part of a backlog of claims plaguing the fast-growing Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program. Hundreds of families of deceased and disabled officers are waiting years to learn whether they qualify for the life-changing payments, and more are ultimately being denied, an Associated Press analysis of program data found.\n\nThe program is falling far short of its goal of deciding claims within one year. Nearly 900 have been pending for longer than that, triple the number from five years earlier, in a backlog that includes cases from nearly every state, according to AP's review, which was based on program data through late April.\n\nMore than 120 of those claims have been in limbo for at least five years, and roughly a dozen have languished for a decade.\n\n\"That is just outrageous that the person has to wait that long,\" said Charlie Lauer, the program's general counsel in the 1980s. \"Those poor families.\"\n\nJustice Department officials, who oversee the program, acknowledge the backlog. They say they're managing a surge in claims \u2014 which have more than doubled in the last five years \u2014 while making complicated decisions about whether cases meet legal criteria.\n\nIn a statement, they said \"claims involving complex medical and causation issues, voluminous evidence and conflicting medical opinions take longer to determine, as do claims in various stages of appeal.\" It acknowledged a few cases \"continue through the process over ten years.\"\n\nProgram officials wouldn't comment on Afolayan's case. Federal lawyers are asking an appeals court for a second time to uphold their denials, which blame Nate's heat- and exertion-related death on a genetic condition shared by millions of mostly Black U.S. citizens.\n\nSupporters say Lisa Afolayan's resilience in pursuing the claim has been remarkable, and grown in significance as training-related deaths like Nate's have risen.\n\n\"Your death must fit in their box, or your family's not going to be taken care of,\" said Afolayan, of suburban Dallas.\n\nTheir daughter, Natalee, was 3 when her father died. She recently completed her first year at the University of Texas, without the help of the higher education benefits the program provides.\n\n## The officers' benefits program is decades old and has paid billions\n\nCongress created the Public Safety Officers' Benefits program in 1976, providing a one-time $50,000 payout as a guarantee for those whose loved ones die in the line of duty.\n\nThe benefit was later set to adjust with inflation; today it pays $448,575. The program has awarded more than $2.4 billion.\n\nEarly on, claims were often adjudicated within weeks. But the complexity increased in 1990, when Congress extended the program to some disabled officers. A 1998 law added educational benefits for spouses and children.\n\nSince 2020, Congress has passed three laws expanding eligibility \u2014 to officers who died after contracting COVID-19, first responders who died or were disabled in rescue and cleanup operations from the September 2001 attacks, and some who die by suicide.\n\nToday, the program sees 1,200 claims annually, up from 500 in 2019.\n\nThe wait time for decisions and rate of denials have risen alongside the caseload. Roughly one of every three death and disability claims were rejected over the last year.\n\nU.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and other Republicans recently introduced legislation to require the program to make determinations within 270 days, expressing outrage over the case of an officer disabled in a mass shooting who's waited years for a ruling. Similar legislation died last year.\n\nOne group representing families, Concerns of Police Survivors, has expressed no such concerns about the program's management. The Missouri-based nonprofit recently received a $6 million grant to continue its longstanding partnership with the Justice Department to serve deceased officers' relatives \u2014 including providing counseling, hosting memorial events and assisting with claims.\n\n\"We are very appreciative of the PSOB and their work with survivor benefits,\" spokesperson Sara Slone said. \"Not all line-of-duty deaths are the same and therefore processing times will differ.\"\n\n## Nate Afolayan dreamed of serving his adopted country\n\nBorn in Nigeria, Nate Afolayan moved to California with relatives at age 11. He became a U.S. citizen and graduated from California State University a decade later.\n\nLisa met Nate while they worked together at a juvenile probation office. They talked, went out for lunch and felt sparks.\n\n\"The next thing you know, we were married with two kids,\" she said.\n\nHe decided to pursue a career in law enforcement once their second daughter was born. Lisa supported him, though she understood the danger.\n\nHe spent a year working out while applying for jobs and was thrilled when the Border Patrol declared him medically fit; sent him to Artesia, New Mexico, for training; and swore him in.\n\nNate loved his 10 weeks at the academy, Lisa said, despite needing medical treatment several times \u2014 he was shot with pepper spray in the face and became dizzy during a water-based drill.\n\nHis classmates found him to be a natural leader in elite shape and chose him to speak at graduation, they recalled in interviews with investigators.\n\nHe prepared a speech with the line, \"We are all warriors that stand up and fight for what's right, just and lawful.\"\n\nBut on April 30, 2009 \u2014 days before the ceremony \u2014 a Border Patrol official called Lisa. Nate, 29, had fainted after his final training run and was hospitalized.\n\nIt was dusty and 88 degrees in the high desert that afternoon. Agents had to complete the 1.5-mile run in 13 minutes, at an altitude of 3,400 feet. Nate had warned classmates it was too hot to wear their black academy shirts, but they voted to do so anyway, records show.\n\nNate, 29, finished in just over 11 minutes but then struggled to breathe and collapsed.\n\nNow Nate was being airlifted to a Lubbock, Texas, hospital for advanced treatment. Lisa booked a last-minute flight, arriving the next day.\n\nA doctor told her Nate's organs had shut down and they couldn't save his life. The hospital needed permission to end life-saving efforts. One nurse delivered chest compressions; another held Lisa tightly as she yelled: \"That's it! I can't take it anymore!\"\n\nLisa became a single mother. The girls were 3 and 1.\n\nHer only comfort, she said, was knowing Nate died living his dream \u2014 serving his adopted country.\n\n## Sickle cell trait was cited in this benefit denial\n\nWhen she first applied for benefits, Lisa included the death certificate that listed heat illness as the cause of Nate's death.\n\nThe aid could help her family. She'd been studying to become a nurse but had to abandon that plan. She relied on Social Security survivors' benefits and workers' compensation while working at gyms as a trainer or receptionist and dabbling in real estate.\n\nThe program had paid benefits for a handful of similar training deaths, dating to a Massachusetts officer who suffered heat stroke and dehydration in 1988. But program staff wanted another opinion on Nate's death. They turned to outside forensic pathologist Dr. Stephen Cina.\n\nCina concluded the autopsy overlooked the \"most significant factor\": Nate carried sickle cell trait, a condition that's usually benign but has been linked to rare exertion-related deaths in military, sports and law enforcement training.\n\nCina opined that exercising in a hot climate at high altitude triggered a crisis in which Nate's red blood cells became misshapen, depriving his body of oxygen. Cina, who stopped consulting for the benefits program in 2020 after hundreds of case reviews, declined to comment.\n\nNate learned he had the condition, carried by up to 3 million U.S. Black citizens, after a blood test following his second daughter's birth. The former high school basketball player had never experienced any problems.\n\nA Border Patrol spokesperson declined to say whether academy leaders knew of the condition, which experts say can be managed with precautions such as staying hydrated, avoiding workouts in extreme temperatures and altitudes, and taking rest breaks.\n\nUnder the benefit program's rules, Afolayan's death would need to be \"the direct and proximate result\" of an injury he suffered on duty to qualify. It couldn't be the result of ordinary physical strain.\n\nThe program in 2012 rejected the claim, saying the hot, dry, high climate was one factor, but not the most important.\n\nIt had been more than two years since Lisa Afolayan applied and three since Nate's death.\n\n## Lisa Afolayan's appeal was not common\n\nMost rejected applicants don't exercise their option to appeal to an independent hearing officer, saying they can't afford attorneys or want to get on with their lives.\n\nBut Lisa Afolayan appealed with help from a border patrol union. A one-day hearing was held in late 2012. The hearing officer denied her claim more than a year later, saying the \"perfect storm\" of factors causing the death didn't include a qualifying injury.\n\nLisa and her daughters moved from California to Texas. They visited the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, where they saw Nate's name.\n\nFour years passed without an update on the claim. Lisa learned the union had failed to exercise its final appeal, to the program director, due to an oversight. The union didn't respond to AP emails seeking comment.\n\nThen she met Suzie Sawyer, founder and retired executive director of Concerns of Police Survivors. Sawyer had recently helped win a long battle to obtain benefits in the death of another federal agent who'd collapsed during training.\n\n\"I said, 'Lisa, this could be the fight of your life, and it could take forever,'\" Sawyer recalled. \"'Are you willing to do it?' She goes, 'hell yes.'\"\n\nThe two persuaded the program to hear the appeal even though the deadline had passed. They introduced a list of similar claims that had been granted and new evidence: A Tennessee medical examiner concluded the hot, dry environment and altitude were key factors causing Nate's organ-system failure.\n\nBut the program was unmoved. The acting Bureau of Justice Assistance director upheld the denial in 2020.\n\nSuch rulings usually aren't public, but Lisa fumed as she learned through contacts about some whose deaths qualified, including a trooper who had an allergic reaction to a bee sting, an intoxicated FBI agent who crashed his car, and another officer with sickle cell trait who died after a training run on a hot day.\n\n## Today, an appeal is still pending\n\nIn 2022, Lisa thought she might have finally prevailed when a federal appeals court ordered the program to take another look at her application.\n\nA three-judge panel said the program erred by failing to consider whether the heat, humidity and altitude during the run were \"the type of unusual or out-of-the-ordinary climatic conditions that would qualify.\"\n\nThe judges also said it may have been illegal to rely on sickle cell trait for the denial under a federal law prohibiting employers from discrimination on the basis of genetic information.\n\nIt was great timing: The girls were in high school and could use the monthly benefit of $1,530 to help pay for college. The family's Social Security and workers' compensation benefits would end soon.\n\nBut the program was in no hurry. Nearly two years passed without a ruling despite inquiries from Afolayan and her lawyer.\n\nThe Bureau of Justice Assistance director upheld the denial in February 2024, ruling that the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act didn't apply since the program wasn't Afolayan's employer.\n\nArnold & Porter, a Washington law firm now representing Afolayan pro bono, has appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.\n\nHer attorney John Elwood said the program has gotten bogged down in minutiae while losing sight of the bigger picture: that an officer died during mandatory training. He said government lawyers are fighting him just as hard, \"if not harder,\" than on any other case he's handled.\n\nMonths after filing their briefs, oral arguments haven't been set.\n\n\"This has been my life for 16 years,\" Lisa Afolayan said. \"Sometimes I just chuckle and keep moving because what else am I going to do?\""}
+{"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/israel-iran-netanyahu-nuclear-trump-13d04138deb51e3f6315fa4ab5973cc0", "title": "Netanyahu faces moment of truth with attack on Iran", "publishing_date": "2025-06-14 19:39:22+00:00", "text": "# Netanyahu faces moment of truth with attack on Iran\n\nBy Josef Federman  \nJune 14th, 2025, 07:39 PM\n\n---\n\nJERUSALEM (AP) \u2014 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on the mission of his lifetime.\n\nFor years, the veteran leader has made the destruction of Iran's nuclear program his top priority, raising the issue in speech after speech in apocalyptic terms. Now Netanyahu's moment of truth has arrived.\n\nAfter battling Iran's allies across the region following Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack, Netanyahu has turned his attention to what he describes as the \"head of the octopus,\" with an unprecedented and open-ended military offensive against Iran and its nuclear program.\n\nIt is an aggressive gamble made possible by a confluence of factors, including the weakening of Iranian-backed militant groups in Gaza and Lebanon, and the reelection and support of U.S. President Donald Trump.\n\nBut success is not guaranteed, and the outcome of the escalating conflict could determine the fate of Netanyahu's government and shape his legacy.\n\nHere's a closer look:\n\n## Netanyahu's history of warnings on Iran\n\nNetanyahu began warning about the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran in the 1990s \u2014 even before his first term as prime minister at the end of the decade. He returned to office in 2009 and has served as prime minister almost continuously since then, rarely missing an opportunity to portray the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran as a threat to Israel's existence and menace to the world.\n\nIn 2012, he famously displayed a crude cartoon illustrating what he said was Iran's march toward the bomb during a speech to the U.N. assembly.\n\nThree years later, he delivered a controversial speech to the U.S. Congress arguing against then-President Barack Obama's emerging nuclear deal with Iran. The speech infuriated the White House and failed to block the deal. But it delighted Republicans and laid the groundwork for Trump to pull out of the agreement three years later.\n\nNetanyahu has frequently compared Iran's theocratic leadership to the Nazis, at times drawing the ire of Holocaust scholars and survivor groups. He turned to that familiar playbook this week as he announced the latest attacks on Iran.\n\n\"Eighty years ago, the Jewish people were the victims of a Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazi regime,\" he said. \"Today, the Jewish state refuses to be a victim of a nuclear Holocaust perpetrated by the Iranian regime.\"\n\nIran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. But its enrichment of uranium to near-weapons grade levels and failure to cooperate with international inspectors have raised doubts about those claims.\n\nThe head of the U.N. nuclear agency has warned that Iran has enough enriched uranium to make several bombs. The agency censured Iran this week for failing to comply with nonproliferation obligations, one day before the Israeli strikes began.\n\n## Why attack Iran now?\n\nNetanyahu for years has threatened to strike Iran, repeatedly saying that all options were \"on the table.\"\n\nBut never before has he pulled the trigger due to opposition by domestic rivals and security chiefs, questions about the feasibility of such a risky operation and the opposition of a string of U.S. presidents.\n\nBut things have changed over the past two years, and Netanyahu now believes he has a chance to shape the region in his own image.\n\nSince Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack triggered the ongoing war in Gaza, Israel has systematically degraded a network of Iranian allies across the region.\n\nThe war in Gaza has decimated the Palestinian militant group Hamas, but at a devastating price for the territory's civilian population. Last year, Israel also inflicted heavy damage on Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, severely weakening the group and contributing to the downfall of Syrian President Bashar Assad, another key Iranian ally. And during a brief round of fighting with Iran last year, Israel knocked out much of its enemies' air-defense systems.\n\nWith Iran's \"Axis of Resistance\" in tatters and Iran unable to defend itself against Israel's air force, there was little to deter Israel from taking action this week.\n\nTrump provided the final piece of the puzzle. After surprising Israel earlier this year with his resumption of nuclear talks with Iran, Trump grew frustrated with the lack of progress in those talks.\n\nNotified about the Israeli plans, the U.S. president appears to have put up little resistance, creating a rare window of opportunity for Israel.\n\n## Will Netanyahu succeed?\n\nIt is too early to say.\n\nThe Israeli operation appears to have gotten off to a smooth start \u2013 with Israel striking dozens of targets and killing senior Iranian military figures. But it remains unclear how much damage Israel has inflicted on Iran's nuclear program.\n\nFor now, the divisive and embattled Netanyahu appears to be riding a wave of support at home. Even the political opposition, which tried to topple Netanyahu in a parliamentary vote earlier in the week, has come out in support of the Iran operation.\n\nBut things could change quickly. After an initial wave of support for Israel's war against Hamas, the country is now deeply divided. With the fighting now over 20 months old, many believe Netanyahu has unnecessarily dragged out the conflict in a self-serving campaign to remain in office.\n\nLikewise, public support for the Iranian operation could quickly turn if Iran's missile attacks on Israel cause heavy casualties or continue to disrupt life in Israel for an extended period. A debacle on the battlefield \u2013 such as the capture of an Israeli fighter pilot by Iran \u2013 could also reverse Netanyahu's fortunes. Netanyahu's hints that he is seeking regime change in Iran \u2014 a difficult and complicated task \u2014 could further hurt his standing.\n\n## Why is success so important for Netanyahu?\n\nAfter a record-setting tenure in office, Netanyahu has a complicated legacy. He is the object of affection and adoration among his supporters who see him as a wily politician and distinguished statesman. But he is intensely disdained by his many detractors, who see him as a divisive and populist cynic.\n\nFew on either side would disagree that his legacy has been permanently tarnished by the Oct. 7 attacks, the deadliest day in Israel's history.\n\nNetanyahu now sees an opportunity to reshape that legacy once again and go down in history as the man who saved his country from nuclear annihilation, not the prime minister who presided over its darkest moment."}
+{"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/military-parade-army-trump-f56795c86d802e1c4d40c4de5b001db5", "title": "Here\u2019s what to expect at the Army\u2019s 250th anniversary parade on Trump\u2019s birthday", "publishing_date": "2025-06-13 16:57:23+00:00", "text": "# Here's what to expect at the Army's 250th anniversary parade on Trump's birthday\n\nBy Tara Copp  \nJune 13th, 2025, 04:57 PM\n\n---\n\nWASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The tanks are staged and ready to roll. Fencing and barriers are up. Protective metal plating has been laid out on Washington's streets.\n\nAnd more than 6,000 troops are poised to march near the National Mall to honor the Army's 250th anniversary on Saturday, which happens to be President Donald Trump's 79th birthday.\n\nWith preparations well in hand, one big unknown is the weather. Rain is in the forecast, so there is a chance the parade could be interrupted by thunderstorms.\n\nWhite House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Thursday that rain or shine the parade will go on. But it could be delayed if there is lightning.\n\n\"No matter what, a historic celebration of our military service members will take place!\" Kelly said in a statement.\n\nDaylong festivities celebrating the Army are planned on the National Mall \u2014 featuring NFL players, fitness competitions and displays \u2014 culminating in the parade, which is estimated to cost $25 million to $45 million. The Army expects as many as 200,000 people to attend.\n\nA special reviewing area is being set up for the president, where he will be watching as each formation passes the White House.\n\nHere's what to expect at the parade Saturday:\n\n## The troops\n\nA total of 6,169 soldiers as well as 128 Army tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery will parade before the president and viewers, while 62 aircraft will pass overhead.\n\nThe parade will tell the Army's story, starting with the Battle of Lexington \u2014 the first battle of the Revolutionary War \u2014 and move all the way to present day.\n\nEach conflict will have 150 troops in period costume, followed by a section of hundreds of troops in modern-day dress. For the past several weeks, Army planners have been working out how to get it timed to exactly 90 minutes, Army spokesman Steve Warren said.\n\nPlanners first tried marching troops five across and 12 deep \u2014 but the parade ran long. To get it down to the exact time, each section will have soldiers marching seven across and 10 deep, Warren said. That means, for example, the Civil War gets exactly three minutes and 39 seconds and World War II gets 6 minutes and 22 seconds.\n\n## The tanks and aircraft\n\nThen there are the tanks. For fans, 8 minutes and 23 seconds into the procession, the first World War I Renault tank will make its appearance.\n\nCompared with today's tanks, the Renaults are tiny and almost look like a robotic weapon out of \"The Terminator.\" But they were groundbreaking for their time, lightweight and enabling movement in that conflict's deadly trench warfare.\n\nThe first aircraft will fly over starting 13 minutes and 37 seconds into the parade, including two B-25 Mitchell bombers, four P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft and one C-47 Skytrain. The latter was made famous by the three stripes painted on the wings and body to mark it friendly over U.S. battleships on June 6, 1944, as thousands of Skytrain aircraft dropped more than 13,000 paratroopers into France on D-Day.\n\nThe procession will move along into the Gulf War, the war on terror and the modern day, showcasing the Army's M1A2 Abrams tanks and other troop carriers, like the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle and Stryker combat vehicle.\n\nThere will even be six High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS \u2014 the mobile rocket launchers that have been highly valued by Ukraine as it has defended itself against Russia's invasion.\n\nA massive show of Army airpower will begin 48 minutes in, when a long air parade of UH-60 Black Hawk, AH-64 Apache and CH-47 Chinook helicopters fly overhead as the Army's story swings toward its future warfare.\n\n## The parade finale\n\nThe final sections of marching troops represent the Army's future. The band at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point will lead hundreds of future troops, including members of the Texas A&M Army Corps of Cadets, new enlistees just going through Army initial entry training, and cadets from the Virginia Military Institute and The Citadel in South Carolina.\n\nThe last section includes 250 new recruits or soldiers who are reenlisting. As they reach the president, they will turn toward him and raise their right hand, and Trump will swear them into service.\n\nThe parade will end with a celebratory jump by the Army's Golden Knights parachute team, which will present Trump with an American flag.\n\nAfter the parade, a 19-minute fireworks show and concert will round out the celebration.\n\n## Watching the parade\n\nOrganizers have estimated that hundreds of thousands of people could be in Washington to see the parade live, but there will be plenty of ways to see it from afar as well.\n\nThe Army has said it will be streaming the parade on its social media channels, and some news outlets, including C-SPAN and Fox News Channel, have announced plans to air the entire event live, as well as other special related programming. Others, including NBC News Now, will air the parade via streaming services.\n\nThe parade is expected to begin at 6:30 p.m., and organizers have said it will last 90 minutes."}
+{"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-trump-transgender-immigration-0b233218cae0f76b00ecb5933445e69f", "title": "What\u2019s left for the Supreme Court to decide? 21 cases, including state bans on transgender care", "publishing_date": "2025-06-14 12:32:13+00:00", "text": "# What's left for the Supreme Court to decide? 21 cases, including state bans on transgender care\n\nBy Mark Sherman and Lindsay Whitehurst  \nJune 14th, 2025, 12:32 PM\n\n---\n\nWASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Supreme Court is in the homestretch of a term that has lately been dominated by the Trump administration's emergency appeals of lower court orders seeking to slow President Donald Trump's efforts to remake the federal government.\n\nBut the justices also have 21 cases to resolve that were argued between December and mid-May, including a push by Republican-led states to ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors. One of the argued cases was an emergency appeal, the administration's bid to be allowed to enforce Trump's executive order denying birthright citizenship to U.S.-born children of parents who are in the country illegally.\n\nThe court typically aims to finish its work by the end of June.\n\nHere are some of the biggest remaining cases:\n\n## Tennessee and 26 other states have enacted bans on certain treatment for transgender youth\n\nThe oldest unresolved case, and arguably the term's biggest, stems from a challenge to Tennessee's law from transgender minors and their parents who argue that it is unconstitutional sex discrimination aimed at a vulnerable population.\n\nAt arguments in December, the court's conservative majority seemed inclined to uphold the law, voicing skepticism of claims that it violates the 14th amendment's equal protection clause. The post-Civil War provision requires the government to treat similarly situated people the same.\n\nThe court is weighing the case amid a range of other federal and state efforts to regulate the lives of transgender people, including which sports competitions they can join and which bathrooms they can use. In April, Trump's administration sued Maine for not complying with the government's push to ban transgender athletes in girls sports.\n\nTrump also has sought to block federal spending on gender-affirming care for those under 19 and a conservative majority of justices allowed him to move forward with plans to oust transgender people from the U.S. military.\n\n## Trump's birthright citizenship order has been blocked by lower courts\n\nThe court rarely hears arguments over emergency appeals, but it took up the administration's plea to narrow orders that have prevented the citizenship changes from taking effect anywhere in the U.S.\n\nThe issue before the justices is whether to limit the authority of judges to issue nationwide injunctions, which have plagued both Republican and Democratic administrations in the past 10 years.\n\nThese nationwide court orders have emerged as an important check on Trump's efforts and a source of mounting frustration to the Republican president and his allies.\n\nAt arguments last month, the court seemed intent on keeping a block on the citizenship restrictions while still looking for a way to scale back nationwide court orders. It was not clear what such a decision might look like, but a majority of the court expressed concerns about what would happen if the administration were allowed, even temporarily, to deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the country illegally.\n\nDemocratic-led states, immigrants and rights groups who sued over Trump's executive order argued that it would upset the settled understanding of birthright citizenship that has existed for more than 125 years.\n\n## The court seems likely to side with Maryland parents in a religious rights case over LGBTQ storybooks in public schools\n\nParents in the Montgomery County school system, in suburban Washington, want to be able to pull their children out of lessons that use the storybooks, which the county added to the curriculum to better reflect the district's diversity.\n\nThe school system at one point allowed parents to remove their children from those lessons, but then reversed course because it found the opt-out policy to be disruptive. Sex education is the only area of instruction with an opt-out provision in the county's schools.\n\nThe school district introduced the storybooks in 2022, with such titles as \"Prince and Knight\" and \"Uncle Bobby's Wedding.\"\n\nThe case is one of several religious rights cases at the court this term. The justices have repeatedly endorsed claims of religious discrimination in recent years. The decision also comes amid increases in recent years in books being banned from public school and public libraries.\n\n## A three-year battle over congressional districts in Louisiana is making its second trip to the Supreme Court\n\nLower courts have struck down two Louisiana congressional maps since 2022 and the justices are weighing whether to send state lawmakers back to the map-drawing board for a third time.\n\nThe case involves the interplay between race and politics in drawing political boundaries in front of a conservative-led court that has been skeptical of considerations of race in public life.\n\nAt arguments in March, several of the court's conservative justices suggested they could vote to throw out the map and make it harder, if not impossible, to bring redistricting lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act.\n\nBefore the court now is a map that created a second Black majority congressional district among Louisiana's six seats in the House of Representatives. The district elected a Black Democrat in 2024.\n\nA three-judge court found that the state relied too heavily on race in drawing the district, rejecting Louisiana's arguments that politics predominated, specifically the preservation of the seats of influential members of Congress, including Speaker Mike Johnson. The Supreme Court ordered the challenged map to be used last year while the case went on.\n\nLawmakers only drew that map after civil rights advocates won a court ruling that a map with one Black majority district likely violated the landmark voting rights law.\n\n## The justices are weighing a Texas law aimed at blocking kids from seeing online pornography\n\nTexas is among more than a dozen states with age verification laws. The states argue the laws are necessary as smartphones have made access to online porn, including hardcore obscene material, almost instantaneous.\n\nThe question for the court is whether the measure infringes on the constitutional rights of adults as well. The Free Speech Coalition, an adult-entertainment industry trade group, agrees that children shouldn't be seeing pornography. But it says the Texas law is written too broadly and wrongly affects adults by requiring them to submit personal identifying information online that is vulnerable to hacking or tracking.\n\nThe justices appeared open to upholding the law, though they also could return it to a lower court for additional work. Some justices worried the lower court hadn't applied a strict enough legal standard in determining whether the Texas law and others like that could run afoul of the First Amendment."}
+{"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/pope-leo-xiv-american-catholics-e070cbc48bd415384b7d7302ceeff3fb", "title": "AP-NORC poll: What Americans think about Pope Leo XIV", "publishing_date": "2025-06-15 04:01:14+00:00", "text": "# AP-NORC poll: What Americans think about Pope Leo XIV\n\nBy Luis Andres Henao and Amelia Thomson-Deveaux  \nJune 15th, 2025, 04:01 AM\n\n---\n\nWASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Just over a month after Pope Leo XIV became the first U.S.-born pontiff in the history of the Catholic Church, a new poll shows that American Catholics are feeling excited about their new religious leader.\n\nAbout two-thirds of American Catholics have a \"very\" or \"somewhat\" favorable view of Pope Leo, according to the new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, while about 3 in 10 don't know enough to have an opinion. Very few Catholics \u2014 less than 1 in 10 \u2014 view him unfavorably.\n\nAmong Americans overall, plenty of people are still making up their minds about Pope Leo. But among those who do have an opinion, feelings about the first U.S.-born pope are overwhelmingly positive. The survey found that 44% of U.S. adults have a \"somewhat\" or \"very\" favorable view of Pope Leo XIV. A similar percentage say they don't know enough to have an opinion, and only about 1 in 10 see him unfavorably.\n\nAs he promises to work for unity in a polarized church, Americans with very different views about the future of the church are feeling optimistic about his pontificate. Terry Barber, a 50-year-old Catholic from Sacramento, California, hopes Leo will seek a \"more progressive and modern church\" that is more accepting of all.\n\n\"I'm optimistic. Certainly, the first pope from the United States is significant,\" said Barber, who identifies as a Democrat. \"Since he worked under the previous pope, I'm sure he has similar ideas, but certainly some that are original, of his own. I'm looking forward to seeing what, if any changes, come about under his leadership.\"\n\n## Bipartisan appeal\n\nAbout half of Democrats have a favorable view of the new pope, as do about 4 in 10 Republicans and independents. Republicans are a little more likely than Democrats to be reserving judgment. About half of Republicans say they don't know enough to have an opinion about the pope, compared to about 4 in 10 Democrats.\n\nRepublicans, notably, are no more likely than Democrats to have an unfavorable opinion of the pope. About 1 in 10 in each group view Pope Leo unfavorably.\n\nVictoria Becude, 38, a Catholic and Republican from Florida, said she's excited about the first U.S.-born pope and hopes he can steer the country back to Catholic doctrine and make Americans proud.\n\n\"I'm rooting for him,\" she said. \"I hope that America can get back to faith, and I hope he can do that\"\n\nBeing a political liberal or conservative, of course, isn't the same thing as identifying as a liberal or conservative Catholic. But the poll found no discernible partisan gap among Catholics on Pope Leo, and Catholics across the ideological spectrum have expressed hope that Leo will be able to heal some of the divisions that emerged during the pontificate of his predecessor, Pope Francis.\n\nPope Leo recently criticized the surge of nationalist political movements in the world as he prayed for reconciliation and dialogue \u2014 a message in line with his pledges to make the Catholic Church a symbol of peace.\n\nBefore becoming pope, Cardinal Robert Prevost presided over one of the most revolutionary reforms of Pope Francis' pontificate by having women serve on the Vatican board that vets nominations for bishops. He also has said decisively that women cannot be ordained as priests.\n\nDonald Hallstone, 72, a Catholic who lives in Oregon, said he expects that Leo will continue to promote women in governance positions \"at a time when there's a shortage of priests\" and other leaders in the church.\n\n\"It'd be great to see women in those roles,\" he said. \"Women were not excluded in the first centuries.\"\n\nOn the other hand, some right-wing U.S. Catholics hope Leo will focus on Catholic doctrinal opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion.\n\nBecude, the Republican, said she's against same-sex relationships because she believes that unions should be between a man and a woman, something that Pope Leo has reiterated. Even though she describes herself as \"very conservative,\" though, she's in favor of reproductive rights even when church teaching opposes abortion.\n\n\"I don't believe that they should stop women from having abortions,\" she said. \"We should have our own rights because you don't know the circumstances behind the reason why a woman would want the abortion in the first place.\"\n\n## Few have negative views \u2014 yet\n\nThere's plenty of room for views to shift as Leo's agenda as pope becomes clear.\n\nNot all Americans have formed an opinion of the new pope yet; particularly, members of other religious groups are more likely to be still making up their minds. About half of born-again Protestants, mainline Protestants, and adults with no religious affiliation don't know enough to have an opinion about the pope, although relatively few \u2014 about 1 in 10 \u2014 in each group have an unfavorable view of him.\n\nOlder Americans \u2014 who are more likely to identify as Catholics \u2014 are also more likely than younger Americans to be fans of Leo's. About half of Americans ages 60 and older have a favorable view of Pope Leo, compared to about 4 in 10 Americans under 30.\n\nBut even so, only about 1 in 10 U.S. adults under 30 have an unfavorable view of the pope right now.\n\nMercedes Drink, 31, is from the pope's hometown of Chicago. She still hopes that women will become ordained under his pontificate.\n\n\"It's cool; I like him because he brings something different,\" said Drink, who lives in Minnesota and identifies as being part of the \"religious nones\" \u2014 atheists, agnostics, or nothing in particular.\n\n\"As a young woman, I hope that he can bring change \u2026 considering who he is, he brings something new to the table. I hope he opens the world's eyes to modernizing the church, bringing more people in, having more diversity.\""}
+{"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/immigration-raids-california-farmworkers-1301639766f55c8d4e8e15ff2fd45687", "title": "Immigration raids disrupt California farms and could leave fields unharvested", "publishing_date": "2025-06-13 16:02:01+00:00", "text": "# Immigration raids disrupt California farms and could leave fields unharvested\n\nBy Amy Taxin and Dorany Pineda  \nJune 13th, 2025, 04:02 PM\n\n---\n\nVENTURA, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Large-scale immigration raids at packinghouses and fields in California are threatening businesses that supply much of the country's food, farm bureaus say.\n\nDozens of farmworkers have been arrested recently after uniformed federal agents fanned out on farms northwest of Los Angeles in Ventura County, which is known for growing strawberries, lemons and avocados.\n\nOthers are skipping work as fear in immigrant communities has deepened as President Donald Trump steps up his immigration crackdown, vowing to dramatically increase arrests and sending federal agents to detain people at Home Depot parking lots and workplaces including car washes and a garment factory. It also comes as Trump sent National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles following protests over his immigration enforcement operations. Demonstrations have since spread to other U.S. cities.\n\nMaureen McGuire, chief executive of Ventura County's farm bureau, said between 25% and 45% of farmworkers have stopped showing up for work since the large-scale raids began this month.\n\n\"When our workforce is afraid, fields go unharvested, packinghouses fall behind, and market supply chains, from local grocery stores to national retailers, are affected,\" she said in a statement on Thursday. \"This impacts every American who eats.\"\n\n## California is a major center of American agriculture\n\nCalifornia's farms produce more than a third of the country's vegetables and more than three-quarters of its fruits and nuts. While the state's government is dominated by Democrats, there are large Republican areas that run through farm country, and many growers throughout the state have been counting on Trump to help with key agricultural issues ranging from water to trade.\n\nPrimitiva Hernandez, executive director of 805 UndocuFund, estimates at least 43 people were detained in farm fields in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties since Monday. The number is from both the Mexican consulate and the group's own estimates from talking with family members of people detained, she said.\n\nElizabeth Strater, the United Farm Workers' director of strategic campaigns, said her group received reports of immigration arrests on farms as far north as California's Central Valley. Lucas Zucker, co-executive director of the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy, said farmworker members reported that agents went to at least nine farms but were turned away by supervisors because they lacked a warrant.\n\n\"This is just a mass assault on a working-class immigrant community and essentially profiling,\" Zucker said. \"They are not going after specific people who are really targeted. They're just fishing.\"\n\nIn response to questions about the farm arrests, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that the agency will follow the president's direction and continue to seek to remove immigrants who have committed crimes.\n\n## Trump recognizes growers' concerns\n\nOn Thursday, Trump acknowledged growers' concerns that his stepped-up immigration enforcement could leave them without workers they rely on to grow the country's food. He said something would be done to address the situation, but he did not provide specifics.\n\n\"Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,\" he said on his social media account, adding: \"We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!\"\n\nThe California Farm Bureau said it has not received reports of a widespread disruption to its workforce, but there are concerns among community members. Bryan Little, the bureau's senior director of policy advocacy, said the group has long pressed for immigration reform to deal with long-running labor shortages.\n\n\"We recognize that some workers may feel uncertain right now, and we want to be very clear: California agriculture depends on and values its workforce,\" Little said in a statement. \"If federal immigration enforcement activities continue in this direction, it will become increasingly difficult to produce food, process it and get it onto grocery store shelves.\"\n\n## Farmworker fears for his children\n\nOne worker, who asked not to be named out of fear, said he was picking strawberries at a Ventura County farm early Tuesday when more than a dozen cars pulled up to the farm next door. He said they arrested at least three people and put them in vans, while women who worked on the farm burst out crying. He said the supervisors on his farm did not allow the agents inside.\n\n\"The first thing that came to my mind is, who will stay with my kids?\" the worker, who is originally from Mexico and has lived in the United States for two decades, said in Spanish. \"It's something so sad and unfortunate because we are not criminals.\"\n\nHe said he didn't go to work Wednesday out of fear, and his bosses told him to stay home at least one more day until things settle down. But that means fruit isn't getting picked, and he isn't getting paid.\n\n\"These are lost days, days that we're missing work. But what else can we do?\" he said."}
+{"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/israel-iran-mideast-war-news-06-15-2025-d7e902fda4933aa1b0a30d901d4ff479", "title": "Israel and Iran trade strikes for a third day and threaten more to come", "publishing_date": "2025-06-15 06:33:06+00:00", "text": "# Israel and Iran trade strikes for a third day and threaten more to come\n\nBy Jon Gambrell, Natalie Melzer, and Tia Goldenberg  \nJune 15th, 2025, 06:33 AM\n\n---\n\nDUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 Israel claimed to operate almost freely in the skies over Iran during a third day of airstrikes Sunday and killed more high-ranking security figures, while some Iranian missiles slipped through Israel's air defenses. Both sides threatened to launch more attacks.\n\nIn an indication of how far Israel was prepared to go amid fears of all-out war, a U.S. official told The Associated Press that President Donald Trump in recent days vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.\n\nThe Iranian Health Ministry said late Sunday that 224 people have been killed since Israel's attack began Friday. Spokesman Hossein Kermanpour said on social media that 1,277 other people were hospitalized. He asserted that more than 90% of the casualties were civilians.\n\nThe paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which controls Iran's arsenal of ballistic missiles, said intelligence chief Gen. Mohammad Kazemi and two other generals were the latest killed, Iran's state TV reported Sunday night. Israel's attacks have killed several top generals and nuclear scientists.\n\nIran also said Israel struck two oil refineries, raising the prospect of a broader assault on Iran's heavily sanctioned energy industry that could affect global markets. Israel's military warned Iranians to evacuate arms factories, signaling a further widening of the campaign. Iran's military, on state TV, warned Israelis to stay away from \"occupied\" areas.\n\nIsrael, the sole though undeclared nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, has said it launched the attack \u2014 its most powerful ever against Iran \u2014 to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. The two countries have been adversaries for decades. The latest U.S.-Iran talks on its nuclear program were canceled.\n\nExplosions shook the Iranian capital of Tehran. Sirens went off in Israel. The Israeli military noted \"several hit sites\" Sunday night, including in Haifa in the north, and the Magen David Adom emergency service said it treated nine injured people.\n\nIsrael said 14 people have been killed there since Friday and 390 wounded. Iran has fired over 270 missiles, 22 of which got through the country's sophisticated multi-tiered air defenses, according to Israeli figures. Israel's main international airport and airspace was closed for a third day.\n\nIranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said if Israel's strikes on Iran stop, then \"our responses will also stop.\" Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, criticized the United States for supporting Israel and said \"the responses will be more decisive and severe\" if Israel keeps attacking, state TV reported.\n\nTrump said the U.S. \"had nothing to do with the attack\" and that Iran can avoid further destruction only by agreeing to a new nuclear deal.\n\n## Mosques as bomb shelters\n\nPhotos shared by Iran's ISNA News Agency showed bloodied people being helped from the scene of Israeli strikes in downtown Tehran. One man carried a blood-spattered girl.\n\nDeputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh said Israel hit a Foreign Ministry building in the north of Tehran, with several civilians injured \"including a number of my colleagues,\" Iran's state-run IRNA news agency reported.\n\nIsraeli strikes also targeted Iran's Defense Ministry after hitting air defenses, military bases and sites associated with its nuclear program. On Sunday night, Israel said it struck \"numerous\" sites across Iran that produce missile and air defense components.\n\nIsrael also claimed it attacked an Iranian refueling aircraft in Mashhad in the northeast, calling it the farthest strike the military had carried out. Iran did not immediately acknowledge any attack. Video obtained and verified by the AP showed smoke rising from the city.\n\nIran's foreign minister said Israel targeted an oil refinery near Tehran and another in a province on the Persian Gulf.\n\nState television reported that metro stations and mosques would be made available as bomb shelters beginning Sunday night.\n\n## Death toll rises in Israel\n\nEarlier Sunday in Israel, at least six people, including a 10-year-old and a 9-year-old, were killed when a missile hit an apartment building in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv. Daniel Hadad, a local police commander, said 180 people were wounded and seven were missing.\n\nAnother four people, including a 13-year-old, were killed and 24 wounded when a missile struck a building in the Arab town of Tamra in northern Israel. A strike on the central city of Rehovot wounded 42. The Weizmann Institute of Science, an important center for military and other research in Rehovot, reported \"a number of hits to buildings on the campus\" and said no one was harmed.\n\nAn oil refinery was damaged in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, according to the firm operating it, which said no one was wounded.\n\n## Netanyahu says regime change in Iran could be a result\n\nIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has brushed off urgent calls by world leaders to deescalate.\n\nIn an interview with Fox News on Sunday, he said regime change in Iran \"could certainly be the result\" of the conflict. He also claimed, without giving evidence, that Israeli intelligence indicated Iran intended to give nuclear weapons to Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.\n\nIran has always said its nuclear program was peaceful, and the U.S. and others have assessed that it has not pursued a weapon since 2003. But Iran has enriched ever larger stockpiles of uranium to near weapons-grade levels in recent years and was believed to have the capacity to develop multiple weapons within months if it chose to do so.\n\nThe U.N.'s atomic watchdog issued a rare censure of Iran last week.\n\nA senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive nuclear talks, said Washington remained committed to them and hoped the Iranians would return to the table.\n\nThe region is already on edge as Israel seeks to annihilate Hamas, an Iranian ally, in the Gaza Strip, where war still rages after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack.\n\nIn a social media post, Trump warned Iran that any retaliation directed against it would bring an American response \"at levels never seen before.\"\n\n## 'More than a few weeks' to repair nuclear facilities\n\nIn Iran, satellite photos analyzed by AP show extensive damage at Iran's main nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz. The images shot Saturday by Planet Labs PBC show multiple buildings damaged or destroyed. The structures hit include buildings identified by experts as supplying power to the facility.\n\nU.N. nuclear chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that the above-ground section of the Natanz facility was destroyed. The main centrifuge facility underground did not appear to be hit, but the loss of power could have damaged infrastructure there, he said.\n\nIsrael also struck a nuclear research facility in Isfahan. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said four \"critical buildings\" were damaged, including Isfahan's uranium-conversion facility. The IAEA said there was no sign of increased radiation at Natanz or Isfahan.\n\nAn Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity Sunday in line with official procedures, said it would take \"many months, maybe more\" to restore the two sites."}
+{"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/border-internet-tv-movie-ban-1d554bda4b59aa89b79f02ad2913acc7", "title": "Cambodia bans Thai movies and TV shows in latest border feud tit-for-tat", "publishing_date": "2025-06-13 14:12:58+00:00", "text": "# Cambodia bans Thai movies and TV shows in latest border feud tit-for-tat\n\nBy Sopheng Cheang  \nJune 13th, 2025, 02:12 PM\n\n---\n\nPHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) \u2014 Cambodia escalated its cold war with Thailand on Friday when it announced a ban on Thai movies and TV shows and a boycott of the neighboring country's international internet links.\n\nTensions between the Southeast Asian countries have soared since an armed confrontation in a border area on May 28 that each side blamed on the other and which left one Cambodian soldier dead.\n\nCambodian officials said the import and screenings of Thai movies would be banned, and that broadcasters would be ordered not to air Thai-produced shows, which include popular soap operas. The government said it would inflict a financial blow on Thailand by rerouting its international internet traffic through other countries instead.\n\nCambodian and Thai authorities engaged in saber-rattling last week, though they have since walked back much of their earlier statements emphasizing their right to take military action.\n\nBut they continue to implement or threaten measures short of armed force, keeping tensions high. Thailand has added restrictions at border crossings. Much of their war of words actually has appeared intended to mollify nationalistic critics on their own sides.\n\nThe confrontation reportedly took place in a relatively small \"no man's land\" constituting territory along their border that both countries claim is theirs.\n\nThe area is closed to journalists, but it appears that both sides withdrew soon after the fatal confrontation to avoid further clashes, without explicitly conceding the fact in order to save face.\n\n\"Neither side wants to use the word 'withdraw'. We say 'adjust troop deployments' as a gesture of mutual respect\u2014this applies to both Cambodia and Thailand.\" Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was quoted telling reporters this past week.\n\nCambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said Friday on the Telegram social network that his government would act preemptively to establish self-reliance in response to exhortations by Thai nationalists to cut off electricity and internet connectivity to Cambodia.\n\nCamboia's Minister of Post and Telecommunication Chea Vandeth announced on his Facebook page that \"all telecommunications operators in Cambodia have now disconnected all cross-border internet links with Thailand,\" and that the move would deprive Thailand of as much as hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, a claim that could not be immediately checked.\n\nThe reported move to use circuits bypassing Thailand temporarily disrupted internet connectivity for users of at least one Cambodian service provider.\n\nThai officials said any plans to cut services to Cambodia were unrelated to the territorial conflict and would actually be targeting the infamous online scam centers in the Cambodian border town of Poipet that have been a problem for several years.\n\nCambodia's Ministry of Fine Arts meanwhile informed all film distributors and cinemas owners that starting Friday, the import and screening of all Thai films must be immediately suspended.\n\nSom Chhaya, deputy director general of a popular Cambodian TV channel, People Nation Network, told The Associated Press that his company will comply with another government order to drop Thai-produced shows, and in their place broadcast Chinese, Korean or Cambodian dramas.\n\nThai films and TV shows have a large audience in Cambodia.\n\nFriday's actions in Cambodia were taken one day ahead of a planned meeting in the capital Phnom Penh of the two countries' Joint Commission on Demarcation for Land Boundary to help resolve the conflicting territorial claims that led to last month's deadly confrontation.\n\nThere is a long history to their territorial disputes, Thailand is still rankled by a 1962 ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands that awarded to Cambodia the disputed territory where the historic Preah Vihear temple stands. There were sporadic though serious clashes there in 2011, and the ruling was reaffirmed in 2023."}
+{"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/russia-us-putin-trump-498642958089922ffc038330041e9987", "title": "Putin and Trump discussed Middle East tensions, Ukraine war in phone call", "publishing_date": "2025-06-14 16:36:13+00:00", "text": "# Putin and Trump discussed Middle East tensions, Ukraine war in phone call\n\nBy The Associated Press  \nJune 14th, 2025, 04:36 PM\n\n---\n\nRussian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump held a lengthy call Saturday to discuss the escalating situation in the Middle East and Russia's war in Ukraine.\n\nTrump in a posting on his Truth Social platform said they spent the bulk of their conversation focused on Israel's ongoing blistering attacks aimed at decapitating Iran's nuclear program and Iran's retaliatory strikes. But Trump said that he also pressed Putin to end Russia's war in Ukraine.\n\n\"He feels, as do I, this war in Israel-Iran should end, to which I explained, his war should also end,\" said Trump, who added the conversation went about an hour.\n\nPutin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said Putin briefed Trump on his recent talks with the leaders of Iran and Israel and reiterated Russia's proposal to seek mutually acceptable solutions on the Iranian nuclear issue.\n\n\"Vladimir Putin, having condemned the military operation against Iran, expressed serious concern about the possible escalation of the conflict,\" Ushakov told reporters. He added that Putin raised concerns that escalating conflict between Israel and Iran threatened \"unpredictable consequences for the entire situation in the Middle East.\"\n\nPutin also emphasized Russia's readiness to carry out possible mediation efforts, and noted that Russia had proposed steps \"aimed at finding mutually acceptable agreements\" during U.S.-Iran negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program.\n\nThe Russia-Iran relationship has deepened since Putin launched a war on Ukraine in February 2022, with Tehran providing Moscow with drones, ballistic missiles, and other support, according to U.S. intelligence findings.\n\n\"Russia's principled approach and interest in the settlement remain unchanged,\" Ushakov said.\n\nTrump described the regional situation as \"very alarming,\" Ushakov said, but acknowledged the \"effectiveness\" of Israel's strikes on targets in Iran.\n\nThe leaders did not rule out a possible return to negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program, according to Ushakov.\n\nTrump's special envoy Steve Witkoff had been set to travel on Sunday to Oman for a sixth round of talks with Iranian officials aimed at curbing Tehran's nuclear program \u2014 a meeting that was set before Israel launched strikes on Friday. But Oman's foreign minister, Badr al-Busaidi, said on Saturday that the meeting would not take place as planned.\n\nPutin and Trump also discussed the ongoing exchange of war prisoners between Russia and Ukraine. The two sides traded more prisoners on Saturday under an arrangement brokered during talks between the two sides in Istanbul earlier this month.\n\n\"Our president noted that an exchange of prisoners of war is taking place, including seriously wounded and prisoners of war under 25 years of age,\" Ushakov said, along with expressing readiness to continue negotiations with the Ukrainians.\n\nTrump said Putin also wished him \"a Happy Birthday.\" The U.S. leader turned 79 on Saturday."}
+{"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-two-state-conference-un-france-50d54d68040ea58dc6f533e33df3d0cd", "title": "UN conference on Palestinian state postponed", "publishing_date": "2025-06-13 18:41:33+00:00", "text": "# UN conference on Palestinian state postponed\n\nJune 13th, 2025, 06:41 PM\n\n---\n\nPARIS (AP) \u2014 A top-level U.N. conference on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians scheduled for next week has been postponed amid surging tensions in the Middle East, French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday.\n\nFrance and Saudi Arabia were due to co-chair the conference hosted by the U.N. General Assembly in New York on June 17-20, and Macron had been among leaders scheduled to attend. The Palestinian Authority hoped the conference would revive the long-defunct peace process.\n\nMacron expressed his \"determination to recognize the state of Palestine\" at some point, despite the postponement. France has pushed for a broader movement toward recognizing a Palestinian state in parallel with recognition of Israel and its right to defend itself.\n\nAfter Israel's strikes on Iran on Friday, Macron said that France's military forces around the Middle East are ready to help protect partners in the region, including Israel, but wouldn't take part in any attacks on Iran.\n\nMacron told reporters that the two-state conference was postponed for logistical and security reasons, and because some Palestinian representatives couldn't come to the event. He insisted that it would be held \"as soon as possible\" and that he was in discussion with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about a new date.\n\nThe U.N. ambassadors from France and Saudi Arabia said in a letter to the 193 U.N. member nations that the delay is \"due to the current circumstances in the Middle East that prevent regional leaders from attending the conference in New York.\"\n\nFrance's Jerome Bonnafont and Saudi Arabia's Abdulaziz Alwasil said the conference will open on June 17 in the General Assembly hall, but only to propose and agree to its suspension. They invited all countries to attend the opening.\n\n\"We are determined to resume the conference at the earliest possible date,\" the two ambassadors said.\n\nMacron said the aim of the conference \"is a demilitarized Palestinian state recognizing the existence and the security of Israel.\" Any such state would exclude any Hamas leaders, he said.\n\nMacron said that the Israel-Iran conflict, the war in Gaza and the situation for Palestinians around the region are all \"interlinked.\"\n\nMacron spoke on Friday with 10 world leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, about the Israeli strikes on Iran and consequences.\n\nOne of the aims at the U.N. conference was to increase the number of countries recognizing Palestinian territories as an independent state. So far, more than 145 of the 193 U.N. member nations have done so. The Palestinians view their state as encompassing Gaza and the West Bank with east Jerusalem as the capital.\n\nNetanyahu has rejected the creation of a Palestinian state, and Israel refused to participate in the conference."}
+{"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/alaska-first-ever-heat-advisory-df913edec183efd7b1b800fab33ff1ad", "title": "Alaska's first ever heat advisory issued for Fairbanks area", "publishing_date": "2025-06-13 23:37:36+00:00", "text": "# Alaska's first ever heat advisory issued for Fairbanks area\n\nBy Mark Thiessen  \nJune 13th, 2025, 11:37 PM\n\n---\n\nANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) \u2014 For the first time ever, parts of Alaska will be under a heat advisory \u2014 but you can put an asterisk at the end of that term.\n\nIt's not the first instance of unusually high temperatures in what many consider the nation's coldest state, but the National Weather Service only recently allowed for heat advisories to be issued there. Information on similarly warm weather conditions previously came in the form of \"special weather statements.\"\n\nUsing the heat advisory label could help people better understand the weather's severity and potential danger, something a nondescript \"special weather statement\" didn't convey.\n\nThe first advisory is for Sunday in Fairbanks, where temperatures are expected to top 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29 degrees Celsius). Fairbanks has has been warmer in the past, but this is unusual for June, officials said.\n\nHere's what to know about Alaska's inaugural heat advisory:\n\n## Why it's the first\n\nThe National Weather Service's switch from special weather statements to advisories was meant to change how the public views the information.\n\n\"This is an important statement, and the public needs to know that there will be increasing temperatures, and they could be dangerous because Alaska is not used to high temperatures like these,\" said Alekya Srinivasan, a Fairbanks-based meteorologist.\n\n\"We want to make sure that we have the correct wording and the correct communication when we're telling people that it will be really hot this weekend,\" she said.\n\n## Not unprecedented and not climate change\n\nThe change doesn't reflect unprecedented temperatures, with Fairbanks having reached 90 degrees twice in 2024, Srinivasan said. It's purely an administrative change by the weather service.\n\n\"It's not that the heat in the interior that prompted Fairbanks to issue this is record heat or anything like that. It's just now there's a product to issue,\" said Rich Thoman, a climate specialist at the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy.\n\nThoman also clarified that the term swap doesn't have anything to do with climate change.\n\n\"I think some of it is related to the recognition that hot weather does have an impact on Alaska, and in the interior especially,\" Thoman said.\n\n## Little air conditioning\n\nWhile the temperatures in the forecast wouldn't be considered extreme in other U.S. states, Thoman noted that most Alaska buildings don't have air conditioning.\n\n\"And just the opposite, most buildings in Alaska are designed to retain heat for most of the year,\" he said.\n\nPeople can open their windows to allow cooler air in during early morning hours \u2014 if wildfires aren't burning in blaze-prone state. But if it's smoky and the windows have to remain shut, buildings can heat up very rapidly.\n\n\"Last year was the third year in a row in Fairbanks with more than a hundred hours of visibility-reducing smoke, the first time we've ever had three consecutive years over a hundred hours,\" he said.\n\nThere's only been two summers in Fairbanks in the 21st century with no hours of smoke that reduced visibility, a situation he said was commonplace from the 1950s to the 1970s.\n\n## What about Anchorage?\n\nThe Juneau and Fairbanks weather service offices have been allowed to issue heat advisories beginning this summer, but not the office in the state's largest city of Anchorage \u2014 at least not yet. And, regardless, temperatures in the area haven't reached the threshold this year at which a heat advisory would be issued.\n\nBrian Brettschneider, a climate scientist with the weather service, said by email that the Anchorage office is working on a plan to issue such advisories in the future."}
+{"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/pride-military-parade-trump-los-angeles-protest-american-908cb1cf74c133ea4f43d33941bf987f", "title": "Protests, parades and Pride: One week in June 2025 is drawing stark American fault lines", "publishing_date": "2025-06-14 11:16:19+00:00", "text": "# Protests, parades and Pride: One week in June 2025 is drawing stark American fault lines\n\nBy Ted Anthony  \nJune 14th, 2025, 11:16 AM\n\n---\n\nWASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 On the first weekend: a vision of the nation built upon inclusivity and the tenets of liberalism \u2014 a conception of country that incorporates generations of fights for equity, for compassion, for expanding what it means to be an American.\n\nOn the second weekend, in the same town: a public show of strength and nationalism constructed on a foundation of military might, law and order, a tour de force of force.\n\nAnd on the days in between: a city 2,000 miles from the capital locked in pitched battles over the use \u2014 abuse, many contend \u2014 of federal power and military authority to root out, detain and oust people who the current administration says do not belong.\n\nToday's United States \u2014 its possibility, its strength, its divisiveness, its polarization and fragmentation \u2014 is encapsulated in a single week in June 2025, its triumphs and frictions on vivid display.\n\nAs events both planned and chaotically spontaneous play out, many Americans are frantically and sometimes furiously pondering assorted iterations of two questions: What is this country right now? And what should it be?\n\n## Pride, protests and parades\n\nConsider two quotes from recent days from two very different Americans.\n\nThe first came last weekend, during World Pride in Washington, when a 58-year-old gay man from Philadelphia named David Begler summed up what many were messaging in the days leading up to it after months of Donald Trump's increasing attempts to target the LGBTQ community: \"I want us to send a message to the White House to focus on uplifting each other instead of dividing.\"\n\nThe second came days ahead of the military parade planned Saturday for the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary, from the mouth of the president on whose 79th birthday it will be held: \"If there's any protester that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force,\" Donald Trump said. \"I haven't even heard about a protest, but you know, this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force.\"\n\nAmong the competing visions of America in 2025: the desire to protest and seek a redress of grievances against the government vs. the desire for control, order \u2014 and a respect for the government and for authority.\n\nThe volatile combination of demonstrations and the U.S. military is a potent one, with its most recent roots in the protest movement of the 1960s against the Vietnam War. A young generation that would later be known as baby boomers regularly squared off against police and sometimes the military over U.S. involvement in what was framed as a war against communism in Southeast Asia. Historians give those protesters a fair bit of the credit for that war ultimately ending in 1975. President Jimmy Carter ultimately pardoned more than 200,000 people who had dodged the draft for that conflict.\n\nThen, as now, many in the establishment criticized protesters bitterly, saying they were undermining a nation to which they should be grateful. Questions of loyalty and betrayal were thrown around. The role of the military in quelling civilian protests was bitterly contested, particularly after Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire and killed four students during antiwar protests in May 1970 at Kent State University.\n\nThere are echoes of that this week, not only in Los Angeles but now in Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the deployment of 5,000 state National Guard troops ahead of the \"No Kings Day of Defiance\" against the Trump administration's ongoing immigration raids. And as protesters in Los Angeles taunt the military and say guardsmen should be \"ashamed\" to face off against what they call a just cause, it's easy to wonder: How can patriotism and protest coexist?\n\n## Washington at the epicenter\n\nDemocracy has always been messy and resistant to consensus. That's part of why the national slogan of the United States is \"e pluribus unum\" \u2014 \"out of many, one.\" And Washington, D.C., as the nation's capital, has long been the place where the many have come to make themselves known as part of the one \u2014 and to be noticed.\n\nIt was where the \"Bonus Army\" of World War I veterans marched in 1932 to demand their promised postwar payments and be heard in a demonstration that ended violently. It was where the first National Boy Scout Jamboree was held on the National Mall in 1937. It was where the \"March on Washington,\" a centerpiece of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, ended with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s renowned \"I Have a Dream\" speech. It was where, in 1995, the \"Million Man March\" was held to address concerns of the American Black community, and where hundreds of thousands of women came to Washington largely in protest of Trump, just a day after his first inauguration.\n\nIt is also the place where Americans remember, where the memorials to World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War sit. It is where the country erected stone shrines in various shapes and sizes to the presidents it most admired \u2014 Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt. It is the site of museums containing some of the most distilled expressions of culture \u2014 from the Holocaust Museum to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum to the National Museum of African American History.\n\nIs it so hard to believe, then, that two events as opposite as World Pride and a military parade unfold here, within blocks of each other, within a week's time? At a politically fractious moment when some families can hardly break bread without political arguments erupting over Trump, Gaza and Israel, immigration and LGBTQ rights, isn't it possible that the weird and downright uncomfortable juxtaposition of these two starkly different events might be the most American thing of all?\n\nWalt Whitman, one of the most famous poets in American history, had this to say about the the diversity of America when he wrote \"I Hear America Singing\" to underscore that its citizens all contribute to the nation's song: \"I am large. I contain multitudes.\"\n\nAnd in one week in June, at a time when the fate of the United States is being discussed in every direction we turn, the capital of Whitman's nation has become a showcase in displaying those messy democratic multitudes to the world. For better or for worse."}
+{"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-iran-war-latest-06-14-2025-19c175edc115d99f0d35c24b38ab1773", "title": "The Latest: Iran fires more missiles at Israel after Israeli military continues strikes", "publishing_date": "2025-06-14 04:48:35+00:00", "text": "# The Latest: Iran fires more missiles at Israel after Israeli military continues strikes\n\nBy The Associated Press  \nJune 14th, 2025, 04:48 AM\n\n---\n\nIran launched a second round of missiles against Israel late Saturday as Israel's military kept up attacks in Iran following earlier strikes that targeted nuclear and military sites. They also killed key leaders in the country's governing theocracy.\n\nIsrael said hundreds of airstrikes over the past two days killed nine senior scientists and experts involved in Iran's nuclear program, in addition to several top generals. Iran's U.N. ambassador said 78 people were killed and more than 320 wounded.\n\nThe U.S. and Iran had been scheduled to hold their sixth round of indirect talks over Iran's nuclear program on Sunday in Oman, but Oman's foreign minister said that the meeting was canceled after Israel's strikes on Iran.\n\n___\n\nHere's the latest:\n\n## Trump says US 'had nothing to do' with attack on Iran\n\nPresident Donald Trump said the U.S. had \"nothing to do with the attack on Iran\" and warned Tehran against targeting U.S. interests in retaliation.\n\n\"If we are attacked in any way, shape or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the U.S. Armed Forces will come down on you at levels never seen before. However, we can easily get a deal done between Iran and Israel, and end this bloody conflict!!!\" Trump wrote on Truth Social late Saturday.\n\n## First responders search for survivors after Tel Aviv missile strike\n\nFirst responders were looking for survivors and clearing the remnants of a missile that fell on a neighborhood outside of Tel Aviv early Sunday morning.\n\nAn AP reporter saw streets lined with damaged and destroyed buildings, bombed out cars and shards of glass.\n\nResponders used a drone to look for survivors in areas that were too hard to access. Some people were fleeing the area with their belongings in suitcases.\n\n## Israeli military says it targeted Iran's Defense Ministry headquarters\n\nThe Israeli military said early Sunday it targeted Iran's Defense Ministry headquarters in Tehran.\n\nIsrael's military also said it targeted sites it alleged were associated with Iran's nuclear program around Tehran.\n\nIt alleged the sites were \"related to the Iranian regime's nuclear weapons project.\"\n\nU.S. intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency have repeatedly said Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapon before Israel unleashed its campaign of airstrikes targeting Iran beginning Friday.\n\n## Israel announces more missiles incoming from Iran\n\nIsrael's military says the latest missiles from Iran are incoming, and explosions are heard overhead in parts of Israel, including Tel Aviv.\n\nIran state television has announced the latest missile barrage.\n\nThe countries have been trading blows a day after Israel's blistering attack on Iranian nuclear and military sites.\n\n## Drones launched toward base housing US forces in Iraq shot down\n\nThree drones were launched toward a base housing U.S. forces in Iraq following Israel's strikes on Iran, a U.S. military official and a second U.S. official said Saturday.\n\nBoth spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.\n\nThe drones were shot down, the officials said. No group claimed responsibility for the attack on Ain al-Asad air base in western Iraq.\n\nA network of powerful Iran-backed militias in Iraq has remained mostly quiet amid the escalating Israel-Iran conflict. In the past, the militias had periodically attacked U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for Washington's support for Israel in its war against the Iran-allied Hamas militant group in Gaza.\n\nAlso Saturday, for the second day, supporters of armed factions in Iraq demonstrated in central Baghdad to denounce the Israeli bombing of Iran. The protesters did not attempt to breach the heavily fortified Green Zone where the U.S. Embassy is located.\n\n___\n\nBy Abby Sewell in Beirut and Lolita Baldor in Washington.\n\n## Macron speaks by phone with Iranian president and calls for restraint\n\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron spoke by phone with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Saturday, Macron's office said.\n\nMacron called \"for the utmost restraint to avoid escalation,\" the statement said.\n\nThe French president urged his Iranian counterpart to return to the negotiation table quickly: \"The Iranian nuclear issue \u2026 must be solved through negotiation.\"\n\nMacron also demanded the immediate release of two French nationals, C\u00e9cile Kohler and Jacques Paris, held hostage by the Iranian regime for over three years, Macron's office said.\n\nMacron also spoke on the phone Saturday with U.S. President Donald Trump about the situation in the Middle-East\n\n## Britain sending jets and other military assets to Middle East\n\nBritain is sending Royal Air Force jets and other military reinforcements to the Middle East as the confrontation between Iran and Israel threatens to escalate.\n\nPrime Minister Keir Starmer said: \"We are moving assets to the region, including jets, and that is for contingency support in the region.\"\n\nFast jets and refueling aircraft are being deployed from British bases to the region.\n\nIran has threatened to attack U.S., French and British bases if those countries help Israel fend off Iranian strikes.\n\nSpeaking as he flew to Canada for a summit of leading industrialized nations, Starmer said he had discussed efforts to de-escalate the situation with President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as other world leaders.\n\nHe said \"intense discussions\" would continue at the summit in the Canadian province of Alberta.\n\n## An Iranian provincial governor says 30 troops and 1 rescuer were killed in Israeli strikes\n\nA governor of a province in northwestern Iran said Saturday that 30 troops and one rescuer had been killed there in Israeli strikes, while 55 others had been wounded.\n\nThe remarks by Eastern Azerbaijan provincial Gov. Bahram Sarmast represent one of the first acknowledgments of mass casualties from the ongoing Israeli campaign, which began Friday.\n\nThe casualties figures come from strikes in Tabriz, the provincial capital, as well as towns in the province like Azarshahr, Bostanabad, Maragheh, Shabestar and Torkmanchai.\n\nSo far, Iranian authorities have not offered any overall death toll as the country's theocracy has been reeling from an assault that killed many of its top military commanders. The closet number has been 78 people killed and over 320 wounded, which came from Iran's ambassador to the United Nations.\n\nEarlier Saturday, state TV said strikes Friday killed 60 people in one location in the capital, Tehran.\n\n## China's foreign minister speaks with counterparts in Israel and Iran\n\nChina says Foreign Minister Wang Yi has spoken with counterparts in Israel and Iran and warned that Israel's attack on nuclear facilities sets a \"dangerous precedent.\"\n\nA Foreign Ministry statement on Wang's call with Israel says that \"China clearly opposes Israel's violation of international law by attacking Iran with force, especially when the international community is still seeking a political solution to the Iranian nuclear issue.\"\n\nWang also said diplomacy for the issue of Iran's nuclear program has not been exhausted, and force cannot bring lasting peace.\n\nA separate foreign ministry statement on the call with Iran says that \"China clearly condemns Israel's violation of Iran's sovereignty, security and territorial integrity\" and supports Iran in defending it. The statement adds that \"the attack on Iran's nuclear facilities set a dangerous precedent that could have disastrous consequences.\"\n\n## Putin and Trump discussed Middle East tensions, Ukraine on phone call\n\nRussian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump held a 50-minute phone call Saturday to discuss the escalating situation in the Middle East and Ukraine peace talks, Putin aide Yuri Ushakov said.\n\nDuring the conversation, Putin briefed Trump on his recent talks with the leaders of Iran and Israel and reiterated Russia's proposal to seek mutually acceptable solutions on the Iranian nuclear issue.\n\n## Netanyahu thanks Trump for support in a birthday message\n\nIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sent a birthday message to U.S. President Donald Trump.\n\nNetanyahu thanked Trump for his \"clear support\" and for helping to \"protect Israeli lives\" from Iran. He also repeated his concerns about Tehran's rapidly advancing nuclear program and said that \"our victory will be your victory.\"\n\nNetanyahu added that \"our pilots over the skies of Tehran will deal blows to the Ayatollah regime that they cannot even imagine.\"\n\n## Erdogan expresses condolences to the Iranian president\n\nTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Saturday to condemn Israel's attacks on Iran and pass on his condolences to the Iranian people, Erdogan's office said.\n\n\"Our president stated that Israel's attacks are a clear violation of international law, aiming to draw the entire region into the fire, and that Netanyahu is attempting to sabotage the nuclear negotiation process with the attacks,\" the statement said.\n\n\"Turkey is closely following the developments regarding the possibility of a nuclear leak at the facility in Natanz and that the only solution to the nuclear dispute is diplomatic processes,\" it said.\n\n## Leaders of Egypt and Turkey say Israel risks pushing Mideast into 'full-fledged chaos'\n\nThe leaders of Egypt and Turkey on Saturday warned that Israel's \"escalatory approach\" risks plunging the entire Middle East into a \"full-fledged chaos.\"\n\nA statement from the Egyptian presidency said President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan stressed in a phone call that Israel's attacks on Iran could lead to \"catastrophic repercussions\" in the region.\n\nThey called for an immediate cessation of military operations and a return to the Omani-mediated nuclear talks between the United States and Iran.\n\n## Israeli drone strikes a refinery in Iran's South Pars gas field, semiofficial news agencies say\n\nAn Israeli drone struck a refinery in Iran's South Pars gas field Saturday, semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported.\n\nIf confirmed, it would mark the first Israeli attack on Iran's oil and natural gas industry. Israel did not immediately acknowledge attacking the field, but such sites do have air defense systems around them, which Israel has been targeting since Friday.\n\nThe Fars and Tasnim news agencies both reported the strike, saying it happened in Phase 14 of the field. Iran shares the gas field, which stretches across the Persian Gulf, with Qatar.\n\n## Oman says US-Iran talks over Tehran's nuclear program 'will not now take place'\n\nOman's foreign minister says planned talks between Iran and the United States over Tehran's rapidly advancing nuclear program \"will not now take place\" after Israel's strikes targeting the Islamic Republic.\n\nBadr al-Busaidi made the announcement on social media Saturday. It comes after Iran's foreign minister said any talks would be \"unjustifiable\" amid the ongoing attacks. Oman has been mediating the talks.\n\n\"The Iran-U.S. talks scheduled to be held in Muscat this Sunday will not now take place,\" al-Busaidi wrote. \"But diplomacy and dialogue remain the only pathway to lasting peace.\"\n\nA sixth round was due to happen in Muscat, Oman's capital, before the Israeli strikes began Friday.\n\n## Russia offers to assist in de-escalating tensions\n\nRussian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in a phone call with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi, reaffirmed Moscow's readiness to help resolve issues surrounding Iran's nuclear program and to assist in de-escalating tensions between Iran and Israel.\n\nThe Russian Foreign Ministry said the conversation, initiated by the Iranian side, followed a call Friday between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Masoud Pezeshkian. The ministry said Russia reiterated its condemnation of Israel's military actions against Iran, calling them a violation of the U.N. charter and international law.\n\n## The Israeli military says its strikes on Tehran were deepest ever\n\nIsraeli warplanes hit more than 400 targets across Iran in the past 24 hours as part of Operation \"Rising Lion,\" including dozens of missile sites and air defense systems in Tehran, the military said.\n\nSeparately, it said over 20 senior Iranian commanders were eliminated, including top intelligence and missile officials.\n\nIsraeli army spokesperson Effie Defrin said the road to Tehran was now \"open,\" calling the strikes the deepest ever carried out by the Israeli Air Force.\n\n## Britain's prime minister and Saudi crown prince call for a de-escalation\n\nKeir Starmer and Mohammed bin Salman spoke on Saturday about the \"gravely concerning situation in the Middle East and agreed on the need to de-escalate,'' Downing Street Office said in a statement.\n\nThe United Kingdom is \"poised to work closely with its allies in the coming days to support a diplomatic resolution,\" it said.\n\n## Egypt pushes back the opening of its new museum, blames Israel-Iran conflict\n\nThe Grand Egyptian Museum will open later this year because of the Israeli-Iranian escalation, authorities said Saturday. The megaproject near the famed Giza Pyramids was sent to open on July 3.\n\nThe Tourism and Antiquities Ministry said the opening was moved to the fourth quarter of 2025, without giving a date and citing ongoing regional developments.\n\nThe museum has been under construction for about two decades. Some sections have been open since 2022 for limited tours. However its overall opening has been repeatedly delayed, including because of the coronavirus pandemic.\n\n## Iran's Natanz nuclear facility suffered huge damage, satellite images show\n\nThe images show multiple buildings either damaged or destroyed, including structures experts say supply power to the facility. The images were shot on Saturday by Planet Labs PBC and analyzed by The Associated Press.\n\nNatanz's enrichment plant \u2014 where Iran enriched uranium to 60% purity, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90% \u2014 was also destroyed.\n\nAll the Natanz facilities damaged in Israeli strikes are above ground and it doesn't appear from the images that belowground enrichment halls had any apparent damage, though they likely are without electricity.\n\n## No nuclear talks with US this weekend, signals Iran's foreign minister\n\nAbbas Araghchi says nuclear talks with the United States would be \"unjustifiable\" after Israeli strikes on his country \u2014 an indication there would be no negotiations this weekend. The U.S. and Iran teams were to hold talks in Oman on Sunday.\n\nAraghchi spoke in a phone call with Kaja Kallas, the European Union's top diplomat.\n\nIsraeli airstrikes were the \"result of the direct support by Washington,\" he alleged, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. The U.S. has said it is not part of the strikes.\n\nThe \"continuation of the indirect talks between Iran and the U.S. is unjustifiable in a situation where the wildness by the Zionist regime continues,\" he added.\n\nThere was no immediate reaction from the White House.\n\n## Egypt's top diplomat says Israeli strikes on Iran can push the region into 'chaos'\n\nEgypt's Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty denounced Israel's strikes on Iran as a \"serious escalation\" that could push the region to \"a state of instability and chaos.\"\n\nAbdelatty's comments came in phone calls with his Italian and Spanish counterparts, the Egyptian foreign ministry said in a statement.\n\n## Iranian media report more Israeli strikes\n\nFootage shared by an affiliate of Iran's state TV showed a fire after an Israeli strike at Zagros Khodro, a former car manufacturing plant in Borujerd.\n\nThe state-run IRNA news agency also reported an Israeli strike on Saturday around Abadan in Iran's southwestern Khuzestan province. Other strikes appeared to be happening in Kermanshah near a military barracks.\n\n## Israel gives first report of wounded soldiers\n\nThe Israeli military says seven soldiers were lightly wounded on Friday night in an Iranian missile strike in central Israel.\n\nIt says they were briefly hospitalized and sent home. This is the first report of military casualties in the operation. It gave no further details on where the soldiers were located.\n\n## Iran's supreme leader names new head of the Revolutionary Guard's aerospace division\n\nAyatollah Ali Khamenei has appointed Gen. Majid Mousavi, to replace Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday.\n\nThe Guard's aerospace division oversees Iran's arsenal of ballistic missiles.\n\n## Israel's main international airport will stay closed\n\nThe airport authority says the it will stay closed until further notice. Ben-Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv has been closed to traffic since Israel attacked Iran's military and nuclear facilities on Friday morning and Iran retaliated with missile and drone strikes at Israel.\n\nThe announcement came as Lebanon, Jordan and Syria said they were reopening their airspaces on Saturday after closing them.\n\n## Satellite images confirm damage to Iran's ballistic missile arsenal\n\nSatellite images analyzed Saturday by The Associated Press began to confirm some of the damage sustained by Iran's ballistic missile arsenal by the Israeli assault on the country.\n\nImages from Planet Labs PBC taken Friday showed damage at two missile bases, one in Kermanshah and one in Tabriz, both in western Iran.\n\nAt Kermanshah, where the base is up against a mountainside, burns could be seen across a wide area after the attack. In Tabriz, images showed damage at multiple sites on the base.\n\nIran has not acknowledged the damage, though it reported on Israeli strikes in the area.\n\n## Top Sunni university condemns Israel's attack on Iran\n\nAl-Azhar al-Sharif, the Sunni world's foremost institution of religious learning, has condemned Israel's attack on Iran, describing Israel as a \"rogue entity.\"\n\n\"The arrogance displayed by the Israeli occupation reflects the darkest form of occupation in modern history,\" the Cairo-based university said in a statement early Saturday.\n\nIt called on the international community to take \"urgent actions to halt the repeated violations committed by this rogue entity.\"\n\nIran is a powerhouse of Shiite Muslims in the region and often at odds with Sunni nations.\n\n## Israeli military says it hit dozens of targets in Iran overnight\n\nThe Israeli military said it carried out overnight strikes on dozens of targets, including air defenses, in the area of Iran's capital, Tehran.\n\nMaj. Gen. Tomer Bar, the Israeli air force commander, said the strikes carried \"operational and national significance.\"\n\n## Israel pauses natural gas supplies to Egypt, authorities in Cairo say\n\nIsrael has paused natural gas supplies to Egypt amid its conflict with Iran, authorities in Cairo said.\n\nThe move has forced the Egyptian government to stop supplying gas to some industries, according to a Friday statement from the Ministry of Petroleum.\n\nSome power plants that use natural gas in their operations have also reported fuel oil shortages amid peak summer demand, it said.\n\nEgypt faces a deepening domestic gas shortfall, with a more than 7% shortage in its daily gas needs to operate its power grid.\n\n## Iran's Foreign Ministry calls nuclear talks with US 'meaningless' after Israeli strikes\n\nIran's Foreign Ministry spokesman on Saturday called further nuclear talks with the United States \"meaningless\" after Israeli strikes on the country, state television said.\n\nThe comments by Esmail Baghaei further threw possible talks between the two nations, initially scheduled to take place Sunday in Oman, into doubt.\n\n\"The U.S. did a job that made the talks become meaningless,\" Baghaei was quoted as saying. He added that Israel has passed all Iran's red lines by committing a \"criminal act\" through its strikes.\n\nHowever, he stopped short of saying the talks were canceled. The Mizan news agency, which is run by Iran's judiciary, quoted him as saying: \"It is still not clear what we decide about Sunday talks.\"\n\n## Jordan will reopen its airspace to civilian aircraft\n\nJordan will reopen its airspace to civilian aircraft on Saturday morning, its state-run media reported, signaling the Mideast kingdom believes there is no immediate danger of further attacks.\n\nJordan's state-run Petra news agency said the skies would reopen at 7:30 a.m. local time.\n\nJordan's airspace had seen Iranian drones and missiles cross through it, with Israeli fighter jets likely engaging targets there.\n\nThe crossfire between Israel and Iran disrupted East-West travel through the Mideast, a key global aviation route.\n\n## Woman dies in missile strike in Tel Aviv, hospital says\n\nA spokesperson for Beilinson Hospital in Tel Aviv said a woman was killed in an Iranian missile strike, bringing the total number of fatalities in the barrages from Iran to three.\n\nThe hospital also treated seven people who were wounded in the strike early Saturday. Israel's Fire and Rescue Services said a projectile hit a building in the city.\n\n## Israel's paramedic service says 2 people killed when missile hit central Israel\n\nIsrael's paramedic service Magen David Adom says an Iranian missile struck near homes in central Israel early Saturday morning, killing two people and injuring 19 others. Israel's Fire and Rescue service said four homes were severely damaged.\n\n## U.N. chief calls for escalation to stop, saying 'peace and diplomacy must prevail'\n\nU.N. Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres urged Israel and Iran to halt their attacks on one another, while calling for diplomacy.\n\n\"Israeli bombardment of Iranian nuclear sites. Iranian missile strikes in Tel Aviv. Enough escalation. Time to stop. Peace and diplomacy must prevail,\" Guterres wrote on X on Saturday.\n\n## Iran fires a second wave of missiles at Israel\n\nSirens and the boom of explosions, possibly from Israeli interceptors, could be heard in the sky over Jerusalem and Tel Aviv early Saturday.\n\nAP journalists in Tel Aviv could see what appeared to be at least two Iranian missiles hit the ground, but there was no immediate word of casualties.\n\nThe Israeli military said another long-range Iranian missile attack was taking place and urged civilians, already rattled by the first wave of projectiles, to head to shelter. Around three dozen people were wounded by that first wave.\n\nThe Iranian outlet Nour News, which has close links with the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, said a fresh wave was being launched."}
+{"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/trump-e-jean-carroll-sexual-abuse-appeal-8e2db7bdb881ff0b9353b6fb17750f48", "title": "Court rejects Trump\u2019s appeal in E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse case", "publishing_date": "2025-06-13 23:24:11+00:00", "text": "# Court rejects Trump's appeal in E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse case\n\nBy Michael R. Sisak  \nJune 13th, 2025, 11:24 PM\n\n---\n\nNEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A federal appeals court won't reconsider its ruling upholding a $5 million civil judgment against President Donald Trump in a civil lawsuit alleging he sexually abused a writer in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s.\n\nIn an 8-2 vote Friday, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Trump's petition for the full appellate court to rehear arguments in his challenge to the jury's finding that he sexually abused advice columnist E. Jean Carroll and defamed her with comments he made in October 2022.\n\nCarroll testified at a 2023 trial that Trump turned a friendly encounter in spring 1996 into a violent attack after they playfully entered the store's dressing room.\n\nA three-judge panel of the appeals court upheld the verdict in December, rejecting Trump's claims that trial Judge Lewis A. Kaplan's decisions spoiled the trial, including allowing two other Trump sexual abuse accusers to testify.\n\nThe women said Trump committed similar acts against them in the 1970s and in 2005. Trump denied all three women's allegations.\n\nIn an opinion Friday, four judges voting to reject rehearing wrote: \"Simply re-litigating a case is not an appropriate use\" of the process.\n\n\"In those rare instances in which a case warrants our collective consideration, it is almost always because it involves a question of exceptional importance,\" or a conflict between precedent and the appellate panel's opinion, Judges Myrna P\u00e9rez, Eunice C. Lee, Beth Robinson and Sarah A.L. Merriam wrote.\n\nAll four were appointed by President Joe Biden, Trump's one-time Democratic rival.\n\nThe two dissenting judges, Trump appointees, Steven J. Menashi and Michael H. Park, wrote that the trial \"consisted of a series of indefensible evidentiary rulings.\"\n\n\"The result was a jury verdict based on impermissible character evidence and few reliable facts,\" they wrote. \"No one can have any confidence that the jury would have returned the same verdict if the normal rules of evidence had been applied.\"\n\nCarroll's lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement: \"E. Jean Carroll is very pleased with today's decision.\"\n\n\"Although President Trump continues to try every possible maneuver to challenge the findings of two separate juries, those efforts have failed. He remains liable for sexual assault and defamation,\" said Kaplan, who is not related to the judge.\n\nTrump skipped the trial after repeatedly denying the attack ever happened. He briefly testified at a follow-up defamation trial last year that resulted in an $83.3 million award. The second trial resulted from comments then-President Trump made in 2019 after Carroll first made the accusations publicly in a memoir.\n\nKaplan presided over both trials and instructed the second jury to accept the first jury's finding that Trump had sexually abused Carroll.\n\nArguments in that appeal are set for June 24."}
+{"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/grooming-gangs-elon-musk-721e0e29fb390b41a03b3cd6e8cadb5f", "title": "UK to hold national inquiry into organized child sexual abuse", "publishing_date": "2025-06-14 17:25:07+00:00", "text": "# UK to hold national inquiry into organized child sexual abuse\n\nBy Jill Lawless  \nJune 14th, 2025, 05:25 PM\n\n---\n\nLONDON (AP) \u2014 The British government announced Saturday it will hold a national inquiry into organized child sexual abuse, something it has long been pressured to do by opposition politicians \u2014 and Elon Musk.\n\nPrime Minister Keir Starmer said he would accept a recommendation from an independent reviewer for a judge-led inquiry with the power to summon witnesses.\n\nStarmer said he would \"look again\" and hold a probe into what the press have dubbed \"grooming gangs\" of men who prey on often young and vulnerable women.\n\nIn some of the most high-profile cases to come to trial, the perpetrators were men of Pakistani heritage, and the issue has been taken up by right-of-center politicians including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, and stoked by Musk, who took to his X platform to condemn Starmer over the issue.\n\nMusk criticized Starmer for not backing a national inquiry into the matter following a request from the local authority in the northern English town of Oldham, where police found girls under 18 were sexually exploited by groups of men in the 2000s and 2010s. Musk also alleged that Starmer failed to bring perpetrators to justice when he was England's chief prosecutor between 2008 and 2013, a charge that the prime minister vigorously denied.\n\nBecause the cases in Oldham and similar ones in several other towns involved predominantly white girls abused by men largely from Pakistani backgrounds, the issue has been used to link child sexual abuse to immigration, and to accuse politicians of covering up the crimes out of a fear of appearing racist.\n\nA 2022 report into what happened in the northwest England town of Oldham between 2011 and 2014 found that children were failed by local agencies, but that there was no cover-up despite \"legitimate concerns\" that the far-right would capitalize on \"the high-profile convictions of predominantly Pakistani offenders across the country.\"\n\nIn January the government said it would support several local inquiries into child exploitation in cities where gangs of men were prosecuted. It had previously said there was no need for further investigations following a string of previous inquiries, both local and national.\n\nA seven-year inquiry was held under the previous Conservative government, but many of the 20 recommendations it made in 2022 \u2014 including compensation for abuse victims \u2014 have yet to be implemented.\n\nStarmer's government also asked Louise Casey, an expert on victim's rights and social welfare, to review previous findings. Her review has been submitted to the government but has not yet been published.\n\n\"I have never said we should not look again at any issue,\" Starmer said as he flew to Canada for a Group of Seven summit. \"I have wanted to be assured that on the question of any inquiry. That's why I asked Louise Casey who I hugely respect to do an audit.\n\n\"Her position when she started the audit was that there was not a real need for a national inquiry over and above what was going on. She has looked at the material she has looked at and she has come to the view that there should be a national inquiry on the basis of what she has seen.\n\n\"I have read every single word of her report and I am going to accept her recommendation.\"\n\nThe main opposition Conservative Party offered a swift response.\n\n\"Those in authority deliberately covered up the systematic rape of thousands of girls as young as 10 because the perpetrators were mainly of Pakistani origin. They thought race relations were more important than protecting young girls,'' Conservative law and order spokesman Chris Philp said. \"The truth must now come out and people in positions of authority responsible for the cover up held to account.''"}
+{"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/congo-flood-kinshasa-f6968403a540324a7d1e8f46b9f2e5b5", "title": "Heavy rains flood Congo\u2019s capital, killing at least 19 people", "publishing_date": "2025-06-14 13:49:02+00:00", "text": "# Heavy rains flood Congo's capital, killing at least 19 people\n\nBy Jean-Yves Kamale  \nJune 14th, 2025, 01:49 PM\n\n---\n\nKINSHASA, Congo (AP) \u2014 Major flooding hit several neighborhoods in Congo's capital Kinshasa, killing at least 19 people and causing severe damage, authorities said Saturday.\n\nHeavy rains Friday through Saturday triggered floods and landslides in Kinshasa's western neighborhood of Ngaliema, killing at least 17 people, the local mayor, Fulgence Bolokome, told the radio station Top Congo. Two avenues in the city were also cut off, he added.\n\nTwo other people died when the deluge toppled a wall in the southern neighborhood of Lemba, Mayor Jean-Serge Poba said. A police camp and a bridge were damaged.\n\n\"It was around 3 a.m. when we heard a loud noise. When we went outside, the neighbors' wall had collapsed. The man and his wife both died, leaving behind five children who made it out unharmed,\" resident Clovis Kalenga told The Associated Press.\n\nIn April, floods in Kinshasa killed at least 22 people and cut off access to over half the city and the country's main airport."}
+{"requested_url": "https://apnews.com/article/trump-us-steel-nippon-pennsylvania-japan-7c1bc1a0b4ccf65599f0d7b9eb8282fb", "title": "Trump clears path for Nippon Steel investment in US Steel", "publishing_date": "2025-06-13 23:55:30+00:00", "text": "# Trump clears path for Nippon Steel investment in US Steel\n\nBy Josh Boak and Marc Levy  \nJune 13th, 2025, 11:55 PM\n\n---\n\nWASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order paving the way for a Nippon Steel investment in U.S. Steel, so long as the Japanese company complies with a \"national security agreement\" submitted by the federal government.\n\nTrump's order didn't detail the terms of the national security agreement.\n\nBut the iconic American steelmaker and Nippon Steel said in a joint statement that the agreement stipulates that approximately $11 billion in new investments will be made by 2028 and includes giving the U.S. government a \" golden share \" \u2014 essentially veto power to ensure the country's national security interests are protected against cutbacks in steel production.\n\n\"We thank President Trump and his Administration for their bold leadership and strong support for our historic partnership,\" the two companies said. \"This partnership will bring a massive investment that will support our communities and families for generations to come. We look forward to putting our commitments into action to make American steelmaking and manufacturing great again.\"\n\nThe companies have completed a U.S. Department of Justice review and received all necessary regulatory approvals, the statement said.\n\n\"The partnership is expected to be finalized promptly,\" the statement said.\n\nU.S. Steel rose $2.66, or 5%, to $54.85 in afterhours trading Friday. Nippon Steel's original bid to buy the Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel in late 2023 had been valued at $55 per share.\n\nThe companies offered few details on how the golden share would work, what other provisions are in the national security agreement and how specifically the $11 billion would be spent.\n\nWhite House spokesman Kush Desai said the order \"ensures U.S. Steel will remain in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and be safeguarded as a critical element of America's national and economic security.\"\n\nJames Brower, a Morrison Foerster lawyer who represents clients in national security-related matters, said such agreements with the government typically are not disclosed to the public, particularly by the government.\n\nThey can become public, but it's almost always disclosed by a party in the transaction, such as a company \u2014 like U.S. Steel \u2014 that is publicly held, Brower said.\n\nThe mechanics of how a golden share would work will depend on the national security agreement, but in such agreements it isn't unusual to give the government approval rights over specific activities, Brower said.\n\nU.S. Steel made no filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.\n\nNippon Steel originally offered nearly $15 billion to purchase U.S. Steel in an acquisition that had been delayed on national security concerns starting during Joe Biden's presidency.\n\nAs it sought to win over American officials, Nippon Steel gradually increased the amount of money it was pledging to invest into U.S. Steel. American officials now value the transaction at $28 billion, including the purchase bid and a new electric arc furnace \u2014 a more modern steel mill that melts down scrap \u2014 that they say Nippon Steel will build in the U.S. after 2028.\n\nNippon Steel had pledged to maintain U.S. Steel's headquarters in Pittsburgh, put U.S. Steel under a board with a majority of American citizens and keep plants operating.\n\nIt also said it would protect the interests of U.S. Steel in trade matters and it wouldn't import steel slabs that would compete with U.S. Steel's blast furnaces in Pennsylvania and Indiana.\n\nTrump opposed the purchase while campaigning for the White House, and using his authority Biden blocked the transaction on his way out of the White House. But Trump expressed openness to working out an arrangement once he returned to the White House in January.\n\nTrump said Thursday that he would as president have \"total control\" of what U.S. Steel did as part of the investment.\n\nTrump said then that the deal would preserve \"51% ownership by Americans,\" although Nippon Steel has never backed off its stated intention of buying and controlling U.S. Steel as a wholly owned subsidiary.\n\n\"We have a golden share, which I control,\" Trump said.\n\nTrump added that he was \"a little concerned\" about what presidents other than him would do with their golden share, \"but that gives you total control.\"\n\nThe proposed merger had been under review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, during the Trump and Biden administrations.\n\nThe order signed Friday by Trump said the CFIUS review provided \"credible evidence\" that Nippon Steel \"might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States,\" but such risks might be \"adequately mitigated\" by approving the proposed national security agreement.\n\nThe order doesn't detail the perceived national security risk and only provides a timeline for the national security agreement. The White House declined to provide details on the terms of the agreement.\n\nThe order said the draft agreement was submitted to U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel on Friday. The two companies must successfully execute the agreement as decided by the Treasury Department and other federal agencies that are part CFIUS by the closing date of the transaction.\n\nTrump reserves the authority to issue further actions regarding the investment as part of the order he signed on Friday."}