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  • Israel, stunned by Trump’s Iran deal, sees it as a ‘catastrophic capitulation’

    Israel, stunned by Trump’s Iran deal, sees it as a ‘catastrophic capitulation’

    JERUSALEM — Israel awoke to a frightening new reality Thursday as it absorbed, with disbelief and largely in silence, the terms of President Donald Trump’s preliminary agreement to end the war with Iran.

    It accomplishes none of Israel’s war aims, analysts and officials said, and arguably leaves the country in worse shape on each of them.

    Regime change? The government in Tehran is emerging from the war even more hard-line and emboldened, despite being decapitated at the outset of the conflict in late February. The deal’s requirement that U.S. forces retreat from the “proximity” of Iran within 30 days means that Iran can boast that it has chased the U.S. military out of the region.

    Ballistic missiles and proxy militias? The agreement does nothing to address Iran’s missile arsenal or its support of Israel’s enemies, like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

    Worse still for Israel, by constraining its military in Lebanon — indeed, by requiring that Israel withdraw its forces from that country — the agreement seeks to handcuff Israel in a way that it was not limited before the war.

    The hundreds of billions of dollars that Iran may receive in sanctions relief, unfrozen assets, or reconstruction aid could wind up funding more missiles in Iran and aiding Iran’s militia allies around the Middle East.

    And Iran’s nuclear program? The existential threat to Israel that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has tried to eliminate throughout his career, and which was Trump’s primary reason for joining the wars on Iran, was left for a later stage of U.S.-Iran negotiations.

    “It’s a bad agreement in which the Americans are paying with cash, and got, at the maximum, a letter of intent,” Yaakov Amidror, a hawkish former national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, said in an interview.

    David Horovitz, the editor of the Times of Israel, called it “a catastrophic capitulation,” in the headline of a fiery opinion column.

    And Nir Dvori, an analyst for Israel’s Channel 12 News, likened the deal to a “diplomatic Oct. 7” — a cataclysmic disaster for which Israel was wholly unprepared.

    Netanyahu and top officials in his government offered no public comment on the agreement overnight, leaving minor ministers and backbench lawmakers to put the best possible face on it.

    Amichai Chikli, the diaspora affairs minister, speculated in a radio interview that Netanyahu would know how to say no to Trump about pulling out of Lebanon just as he knew how “to bring the United States into this war.”

    But others more soberly grappled with the degree to which Netanyahu’s triumphalist rhetoric from early in the war had proved fantastical. He had repeatedly and confidently assured Israelis that the country and its alliance with the United States were “changing the face of the Middle East” to Israel’s advantage.

    “We are remaking the region,” Chuck Freilich, a former Israeli deputy national security adviser, said on Thursday.

    “Iran came out stronger, and I believe is now the regional hegemon,” he added. “They stood up to the U.S., the global superpower. They can have missiles, and there’s nothing in the agreement about the nuclear issue except we’ll talk about it. This is an Iranian victory over the U.S. and Israel.”

    Even as they reeled from the terms of the agreement, Israelis across the political spectrum seemed also to be reckoning with Trump, the nature of his support for Israel, and the degree to which Netanyahu has tied Israel’s fortunes to the American leader’s goodwill.

    On Wednesday at the Group of 7 summit in France, the president had again spoken of Netanyahu with disdain, suggesting he was excitable and prone to overreacting to Hezbollah’s attacks. He belittled him publicly as the “very small partner” in the relationship and saying that Israel would have been annihilated if it had not been for him.

    Trump suggested that Syria could do a better job than Israel of cracking down on Hezbollah in Lebanon without killing as many civilians. And he minimized the ballistic-missile threat from Iran — which forced millions of Israelis to run in and out of shelters throughout the war. He said it was only fair for Iran to have missiles because other countries in the region did as well.

    The reactions in Israel evoked a bad divorce.

    Hanoch Milwidsky, a lawmaker from Netanyahu’s Likud party, posted a video on social media of himself removing a red MAGA hat and replacing it with a blue one with the Hebrew words for “total victory.”

    Ben-Dror Yemini, a columnist at Yediot Ahronot, Israel’s largest newspaper, wrote that Netanyahu had led Israel into “the most severe collapse in its history.”

    “Trump reneged on every promise, turned Iran into a power, strengthened Hezbollah, and as a final flourish, gave Israel a kick and humiliation,” he wrote.

    Dahlia Scheindlin, an American-born Israeli pollster, said it was “slowly sinking in” for Israelis that Netanyahu had staked the entire U.S.-Israeli relationship on his personal bond with a president prone to “temper tantrums” over “simple slights.”

    “I think he was hoping that he could employ the tools that he has always employed with American presidents,” she said. “You know, tread carefully and strategically, but push the boundaries, and try to run circles around them if you can,” she added.

    “I think that with a bit of a back-and-forth dance, it was largely working for him with Trump,” she said. “But he hit his limit.”

    This article originally appeared in the New York Times.

  • U.S. lifts blockade of Iran and Iranian supreme leader endorses direct talks with American officials

    WASHINGTON — The U.S. on Thursday lifted its blockade of Iran, and oil tankers began freely moving through the Strait of Hormuz after months of being unable to use the critical channel, as the tentative agreement to end the war took effect.

    Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance announced that he may postpone a trip to Switzerland that had been planned for Friday and included a ceremonial signing of the deal. The visit might have helped start talks on the next, potentially even more critical, round of negotiations between the two sides.

    Hours later, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei endorsed direct negotiations with the U.S. in a statement read by state media.

    “It is obvious that the face-to-face negotiations that will be held in the future will not mean accepting the enemy’s opinion,” he said.

    It was Khamenei’s first reaction to the agreement, and it indicated a shift in Iran’s approach. Hard-liners, especially Khamenei’s father, the previous supreme leader, have long opposed direct talks, especially after the U.S. pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

    The supreme leader has not been seen in public since he was wounded in a strike at the start of the war.

    Trump envoy tells lawmakers Iran will invite U.N. inspectors to nuclear sites

    In other developments, Trump envoy Steve Witkoff told U.S. lawmakers Thursday in a private briefing that Iran will invite the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency to inspect its nuclear sites and begin work on identifying and uncovering the locations of Tehran’s enriched material.

    The briefing was described by two people familiar with the conversation who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity to share the closed-door details.

    Witkoff told congressional leadership and members of national security-related committees that the agreement that the U.S. struck with Iran did not include any side deals, but a side letter was drafted between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency extending the invitation.

    Witkoff disclosed the existence of the letter and invitation in the briefing, according to the people.

    Witkoff said the letter to IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi would enable him to bring U.S. nuclear inspectors to Tehran.

    Uncertain timeline could make it more difficult to promote deal

    Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also postponed a planned visit to Switzerland, where Islamabad officials were to host the ceremony, because the agreement had already been signed, said two senior officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

    The now uncertain timeline could raise new questions and make it even more difficult for the Trump administration to promote a deal that many in the U.S. — including some congressional Republicans — have criticized as too favorable to Tehran.

    “Our plan is to go to Switzerland. I don’t know exactly when,” Vance said during a briefing with reporters at the White House when asked about not flying, as planned, to the signing ceremony.

    “I suspect this weekend, but I’m not sure,” he added.

    That injected new doubt into an agreement that President Donald Trump said he signed to avoid “economic catastrophe” in the U.S.

    Vance’s announcement came a day after Trump signed the pact with Iran while dining with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles. The deal is slated to take immediate effect and extends a ceasefire while giving each side 60 days to hammer out broader agreements on larger issues.

    Trump said the deal would avoid continued stress on the U.S. economy after the war caused oil prices to skyrocket, made financial markets skittish, and fueled inflation. He repeatedly said he did not want to be compared to Herbert Hoover, whose policies helped exacerbate the Great Depression of the 1930s.

    Vance defends U.S.-Iran deal

    The vice president, who was initially personally skeptical of the U.S. going to war with Iran, has increasingly become the administration’s face of the conflict and has been outspoken in defending the deal. Asked about concerns it concedes too much, the vice president said repeatedly that the accord would force Iran to “change their behavior.”

    Vance defended the agreement and shrugged off accusations that its rollout has been piecemeal and sometimes contradictory, saying, “I don’t think our public messaging has been chaotic.”

    He also offered a surprisingly blunt warning to Israel, which has pushed the U.S. to take a harder stance against Iran and launched attacks on the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon throughout the war, including just before the deal extending the ceasefire was reached. Those attacks complicated the peace efforts with Iran.

    Trump “is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time,” Vance said. “And he happens to be the head of state of the world’s superpower.”

    The vice president said more than 12.5 million barrels of oil went through the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday night. That could further soothe oil prices that spiked during the war but have been falling since the U.S. and Iran announced a tentative deal to end the conflict.

    He said the U.S. easing its blockade of Iran means “honoring our end of the early part of the agreement on the military side.”

    U.S. Central Command said American warships “will remain in the general area to make sure that all aspects of the agreement are adhered to, obeyed, and in full force and effect.”

    Shipping starts to pick up

    At least two oil tankers left Iran and crossed the U.S. military blockade without being stopped. A merchant shipping tracking website said the ships were carrying a combined total of 3.8 million barrels of Iranian crude oil.

    Iranian state media said shipping had “normalized” at Iran’s southern ports but added that the strait remains supervised and under the control of the Iranian military, and transiting through the vital waterway still requires coordination.

    Major shipowners began moving vessels through the strait after the agreement was signed, according to maritime data company Lloyd’s List Intelligence, though Lloyd’s did not give data on how many ships have passed through the strait as of Thursday.

    In a media briefing, Richard Meade, editor-in-chief of Lloyd’s List, said for the first time in 110 days, ships owned by major companies are transiting the strait after effectively being marooned there since February.

    Tankers controlled by major ship owners Grimaldi Group, Cosco, Knutsen, and NYK have passed through the strait. And two Iranian-flagged, sanctioned crude oil tankers owned by the National Iranian Tanker Company have entered the strait, according to Lloyd’s List.

    Phillip Belcher, marine director of Intertanko, a trade group for global independent tanker owners, said the main central route of the strait is still closed and has an estimated 80 mines that need to be cleared.

    But ships have been passing through the smaller northern route, which goes through Iranian waters, and the southern route, which goes through Omani waters.

    Lloyd’s List estimated that 550 merchant ships will need to exit the Persian Gulf. It could take weeks or months to fully reopen the strait, and the two alternative routes do not have as much capacity as the strait’s central passage.

    Agreement calls for a lasting end to hostilities

    The U.S.-Iran deal calls for a permanent end to hostilities and starts a 60-day negotiating clock to reach a final deal on the future of Iran’s nuclear program, though Trump has left the door open to resume attacks. The agreement appears to offer Iran several benefits up front while extracting little in return.

    It states that Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which is believed to be buried under rubble, must at minimum be diluted under international supervision. It also says that Iran shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons — a commitment it has made previously. But beyond stating that the U.S. and Iran will negotiate over Iran’s nuclear program, other commitments still need to be worked out.

    The deal also waives U.S.-backed sanctions on the country, immediately allowing Iran to sell its oil freely in a major concession from Washington.

    Still, Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said Thursday that the 27-nation bloc would leave its sanctions on Iran in place for now. The bloc had slapped a series of separate sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, human rights violations and the closing of the strait.

  • Hegseth attacks NATO allies and announces a review of U.S. forces in Europe

    BRUSSELS — U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lashed out at NATO allies on Thursday as he announced a six-month Pentagon review of American forces in Europe whose outcome will depend on how fast the Europeans take responsibility for their own security.

    The review was yet another surprise for European allies and Canada as they learn to deal with an increasingly unpredictable ally. U.S. officials and senior military officers had promised to coordinate closely with the Europeans as America draws down.

    In recent months, U.S. President Donald Trump and the Pentagon have sent conflicting signals about whether America is reducing or increasing its military footprint in Europe, as well as threatening to annex Greenland, a semiautonomous island that is part of ally Denmark. Just weeks ago, the Trump administration said that it would no longer provide as much military support should any NATO member come under attack.

    “This will be a real review. It will be designed to ensure that NATO is moving fast and irreversibly toward Europe leading, stepping up to take primary responsibility for the defense of Europe,” Hegseth told his NATO counterparts. “It’s a review that some countries will fail and others will pass with flying colors.”

    German Chancellor Friedrich Merz later said the allies have long been aware of U.S. plans to pull troops from Europe at some point and that they must take care of their own security.

    “We know that we must do more and we are doing it,” Merz said.

    Public dressing down over bases, gender, and migration

    In a fiery speech at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Hegseth lambasted European allies for failing to provide U.S. forces access to bases in Europe to launch attacks on Iran, calling it “shameful.”

    “These allies, they put America’s sons and daughters, our sons and daughters, at risk by denying them the predictable access, basing, and overflight that never should have been in question at all,” he said. The review would also assess whether the U.S. has full access and overflight “when we need it.”

    While defense ministers and military officers sat in silence, Hegseth railed against migration and gender equality policies in Europe, in remarks reminiscent to those of Vice President JD Vance in February last year that angered many Europeans.

    “Instead of tanks and fighters and air defenses, the focus has been on gender equity and climate change and defense austerity. Europe’s borders flew wide open, welfare states expanded, defense budgets cratered, along with Europe’s belief in itself and its civilization,” Hegseth said.

    Hegseth’s comments largely mischaracterized European policies today. On defense, European allies and Canada have launched an unprecedented effort to boost defense spending and expand their armed forces. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte noted on Thursday that they spent $90 billion more on defense last year, a 20% increase over 2024. And while Europe accepted large numbers of migrants and asylum seekers more than a decade ago, most countries have tightened their borders since.

    It does not augur well for a summit of NATO leaders in Turkey on July 7-8.

    A rare and short visit to NATO

    It was a rare visit to NATO by Hegseth, his first this year after skipping a meeting in February. The Pentagon chief did not stay long, leaving well before the gathering was over and hours before Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky was due to press allies for more weapons for his country.

    Speaking to reporters at Brussels airport before flying home, Hegseth said, “It was great to hear country after country say, ‘We’re going to meet our target. We’re going to meet our target.’ There are still a few outliers, and we will be clear with them as we do this review.”

    NATO’s supreme allied commander, an American, is working on backup plans to defend Europe after the U.S. signaled on June 3 that it would no longer supply an aircraft carrier and support ships, aerial refueling planes, and dozens of fighter jets, among other military assets, in a crisis.

    The Trump administration insists that it needs to be able to plan for two simultaneous conflicts and wants more military resources at hand should it clash with China in the Indo-Pacific region.

    Under NATO’s collective security guarantee — Article 5 of its founding treaty — the 32 allies pledge that an attack on one of them will be considered an attack on all. It does not oblige them to provide military support, although many likely would.

    In essence, the United States is scaling back how it might help should an ally trigger Article 5.

    U.S. nuclear weapons will stay

    The U.S. has by far NATO’s biggest armed forces. It does not intend to withdraw its nuclear weapons in Europe, which are key to NATO’s deterrence. To underscore that point, NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group issued its first statement in 19 years after Thursday’s meeting.

    In the statement, it “recalled that the strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance remain the supreme guarantee of Allied security and underpin NATO’s extended deterrence architecture.”

    The ministers “agreed to continue enhancing NATO’s nuclear deterrence mission by modernizing NATO’s nuclear capabilities, strengthening its nuclear planning capacity, and adapting to achieve its security interests.”

    Rutte played down the impact of the U.S. decision, saying that the NATO Force Model — the system for organizing what forces member countries will provide commanders in times of peace, crisis, or conflict — is just “a planning tool,” and not a reflection of what would actually happen.

    “If war breaks out, we will all max out what we need to do to make sure we can fight the war,” Rutte told reporters. “In the planning phase, it is important to know what we can count on. What is in theory there.”

  • Federal regulators back Trump’s plan to speed power to energy-hungry AI data centers

    WASHINGTON — Federal regulators on Thursday agreed to let large energy users connect more quickly to the nation’s inefficient and aging electric transmission system to accommodate surging demand from power-hungry artificial intelligence data centers.

    Energy Secretary Chris Wright had urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to act in an effort to help the United States better compete with China for superiority in the fast-growing AI sector.

    Tech companies and data center developers have welcomed the chances for faster connections to the country’s power supply.

    But utilities, states, and regional grid operators worried that the Trump administration’s plan would remove their authority to manage the process. Clean energy advocates want the agency to advance, rather than undermine, state-level efforts to require the use of renewable energies.

    The commission’s actions come as a backlash grows against data centers over fears about rising electricity prices and concerns about the massive amounts of energy and water they use, polluting communities across the country, and straining water resources and the electric grid.

    The five FERC members voted unanimously to direct six regional grid operators to ensure that AI data centers and other large power users are “able to connect to the transmission system in a timely and orderly manner.”

    Laura Swett, an appointee of President Donald Trump who chairs the commission, called the vote historic and said it would push the country’s electricity market into the future while also protecting ratepayers from shouldering the costs of connecting big power users to the grid.

    “I know that Americans across the country are concerned about affordability, and so are we,” Swett said.

    Data centers would pay the full cost of any grid upgrades needed for their connection, under the commission order. But that order can do little to address the tightening energy supplies that are driving up electricity bills in some areas and raising warnings of blackouts as the construction of data centers outpaces the speed of new power plants coming online to serve them.

    The six regional grid operators under the order serve 200 million Americans, or two-thirds of FERC’s jurisdiction. FERC also invited utilities that handle their regional transmission systems to also participate.

    More than 4,000 data centers now operate in the U.S., according to one estimate, with an additional 3,000 planned or under construction, including some that consume more energy than a small city. Such facilities have ballooned in size to accommodate the demands of AI.

    Trump has tried to deflect public concerns about AI, seeing the fast-evolving technology as crucial for the U.S. to attract foreign investment and maintain its economic and military prowess. Trump signed an executive order this month that establishes a framework for the federal government to vet the national security risks of the most advanced AI systems for up to a month before their public release.

    In December, FERC took an earlier step to help data center operators get electricity quickly, voting to allow tech companies to effectively plug a data center directly into a power plant.

    Companies such as xAI, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, OpenAI, and Amazon have signed Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge, in which they agreed to build or buy new sources of power generation for their data centers and cover the expense of infrastructure upgrades.

    They also committed to making backup generation available to prevent blackouts in times of emergency and to hire locally for their data center build out.

    Rob Gramlich, a Washington-based energy consultant, said the order leaves states in control of retail electric rates, terms, and conditions. But, he said, they should quickly develop rules to accommodate large power users and prevent cost shifts to residential and business customers.

    FERC could assert broader jurisdiction over interconnection of large power users if states do not act quickly, Gramlich said.

    Data from the Electric Power Research Institute shows that data centers now account for about 5% of U.S. electricity demand, but could triple by 2035. In Virginia, data centers account more than 25% of overall demand and could rise to more than 40% by 2030.

  • Ebola cases increase almost 40% in a week as death toll passes 200

    DAKAR, Senegal — The Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda has claimed more than 200 lives in its first month and is the worst known outbreak at this stage, with up to 35,000 suspected potential contacts, Africa’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.

    With 894 confirmed cases so far, the current outbreak is three times worse than a previous outbreak in Uganda in 2000, which had 281 cases at the same point, said Wessam Mankoula, a medical epidemiologist at Africa CDC.

    The latest number of cases is believed to be higher because the outbreak was confirmed on May 15, weeks after it was suspected to have begun. The number of cases has increased 38% since last week and is now in 32 health zones across eastern Congo, said Mankoula.

    The outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus, which has no approved vaccines or treatments and was not tested for in the early days. The more common Zaire virus, for which there is a vaccine, was responsible for most of Congo’s past 16 outbreaks of the disease.

    So far 74 patients have recovered from the disease across eastern Congo and Uganda. Experimental treatments like monoclonal antibodies are being developed for Bundibugyo.

    The outbreak is concentrated in Congo’s eastern province of Ituri, which accounts for more than 90% of the cases. Cases have also been recorded in the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces and have spread across the border to Uganda, where 19 confirmed cases have been reported and two people have died.

    Contact tracing remains an issue due to the area’s remoteness and ongoing insecurity in Ituri province, Mankoula said.

    “For those 800 confirmed cases, we should have between 17,000 to 35,000 contacts that should be in our contact list,” said Mankoula. Currently only around 4,000 contacts have been tracked and are being evaluated, less than 15%.

    “We are still far from controlling the situation of this outbreak,” said Mankoula.

    Nearly a million people have been displaced by years of conflict in Ituri, according to the U.N. humanitarian office, making contact tracing difficult as people flee attacks or move frequently in the vast province with dense forests, poor roads, and remote villages that can take days to reach.

    Tracing is also difficult among the thousands of miners who regularly move among remote sites in the mineral-rich region.

    Of the over $900 million pledged to fight the outbreak, only $90 million has been released, further complicating the ongoing crisis, according to Mankoula.

    Africa CDC estimates it needs 540 personnel to fight the outbreak and so far they only have 84.

    “We’re keeping our fingers crossed those new pledges will be fast tracked, and we’ll be following up with different member states and different partners about their commitment to turn those pledges into actual money released to their affected countries or partners,” said Mankoula.

  • Ukrainian drones set a Moscow refinery ablaze in a major attack on the Russian capital

    Ukraine struck a major Moscow oil refinery Thursday for a second time in a week, sending huge plumes of black smoke over the capital and disrupting hundreds of flights at its airports in one of its biggest drone attacks since Russia’s full-scale invasion over four years ago, officials said.

    Ukraine has repeatedly targeted Russian oil facilities, aiming to cut Moscow’s revenue for the war and make Russians feel the consequences of the invasion. Some areas have reported fuel shortages.

    The attack by dozens of drones came hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had held “an important coordination call” with the presidents of the United States and France and had won key pledges of further support from this week’s G7 summit.

    “If Ukraine is going to burn, your Moscow will burn too,” Zelensky said, adding that the attack was part of Kyiv’s effort to bring Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table. ”It is time to end the aggression, time to end this war.”

    Ukrainian attack embarrasses Putin again

    The Moscow attack was the latest embarrassment for Putin. Ukrainian drones attacked his hometown of St. Petersburg earlier this month as he welcomed foreign VIPs to his showcase economic forum in the city.

    Putin on Thursday was in Kazan, some 430 miles east of Moscow, hosting leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as Russia seeks to bolster business and other ties with the regional bloc.

    Russia’s state-controlled TV channels only briefly mentioned the attack on Moscow. Pro-Kremlin newspapers reported it, with some praising the performance of air defenses while noting that the strike highlighted the need to further strengthen the defensive shield around the capital.

    Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower house of Russia’s parliament, warned that Moscow would respond by ramping up its strikes.

    “Their action will lead to our counteraction and launching harsher blows, with more powerful weapons,” Volodin said in televised remarks.

    Some Russian hawks urged the Kremlin to respond with nuclear weapons. Nationalist Konstantin Malofeyev criticized the military for “fighting at half-strength in a gentlemanlike way.”

    “War means victory at any cost,” Malofeyev wrote on his Telegram channel, suggesting the use of “the nuclear weapons that our ancestors created and stockpiled while mobilizing the entire country’s strength precisely for this purpose — to win.”

    Fires rage at Moscow refinery

    Thick black smoke and occasional flames spewed from the Moscow Oil Refinery amid its red-and-white smokestacks on the southeastern edge of the city, about 9 miles from the Kremlin. Sooty rain fell on cars, according to local video.

    “One of the most popular questions asked by Muscovites this morning is ‘What is going on?’” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X. ”I can answer. Your country started a war of aggression against ours. For years, it has been killing our people. Now that you know what’s going on, ask Putin when he is planning to end it.”

    The refinery is one of Russia’s biggest, according to its website, producing more than a third of the Moscow region’s fuel. It was last attacked by Ukraine on Tuesday, but officials said that fire was swiftly put out.

    Thursday’s fire at the refinery was “largely contained,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said hours afterward, adding that remaining hot spots were being extinguished.

    As Ukraine pressed its strikes on Russia’s energy infrastructure, fuel supplies appeared to be under strain. Gas station chains in multiple regions have introduced restrictions on what drivers could buy. Russian independent news outlet Agentstvo reported that one out of every four gas stations has introduced some kind of restrictions.

    Authorities in the capital said in a statement hours after the attack that “supplies of oil products to Moscow and the work of all gas stations in the city continue as normal.”

    The attack also temporarily halted flights from four Moscow airports, transport and aviation authorities said. The Russian business daily Kommersant counted more than 500 delayed or canceled flights at the airports, based on their online flight information.

    In the greater Moscow region, a drone hit a residential building in the town of Zhukovsky, according to Gov. Andrei Vorobyov. Buildings elsewhere were damaged by drone debris, injuring 17 people, including two children, he added.

    Ukraine seeks more help from NATO, EU

    “Russia is on the back foot: militarily, economically and politically,” ‪EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas‬ said on X after meeting Thursday with Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. “Now is the time to provide Ukraine with even greater support and to exert even more pressure on Russia to end the war.”

    Zelensky held talks Thursday in Brussels with NATO and European Union leaders, and the German and Ukrainian defense ministers signed an agreement to jointly develop an air defense system to counter ballistic missiles. Zelensky described it as the start of an “anti-ballistic missile coalition” and invited others to join.

    Russia has relentlessly struck Ukraine with those types of missiles, which air defenses struggle to counter.

    Russia says it downed over 500 Ukrainian drones

    The Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses overnight shot down 555 Ukrainian drones over multiple regions, with almost 200 intercepted as they approached Moscow. That was roughly double the number of drones that Russia launched at Ukraine overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force.

    “If Putin does not want to end this war and wants to continue it, we will not sit quietly — we will respond,” Zelensky said in a voice message to a group chat with journalists.

    He has accepted an unconditional ceasefire demanded by U.S. President Donald Trump, but Putin has refused, and U.S.-led peace efforts have fizzled.

    Ukraine disrupts Russian supply lines

    Along with pledges of more diplomatic and military help at the G7 summit, Ukraine recently has gained momentum on the battlefield against Russia’s bigger army, thanks to its high-tech drones, Western officials and analysts say. Longer-range drones are choking Russian supply lines in occupied regions of Ukraine, in addition to disrupting oil production.

    French President Emmanuel Macron said the G7 summit was “very important for Ukraine” because its supporters — crucially including the U.S. — vowed to help it, although he provided no details. The U.S. under Trump has cut back assistance to Ukraine, leaving the Europeans as the biggest suppliers of military and financial aid. Trump and Zelensky have had a sometimes strained relationship.

    “America is with us on Ukraine, that is very important,” Macron said as he and Trump left the Palace of Versailles near Paris.

    In other developments Thursday, Russia struck the city of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine with two glide bombs that killed a 64-year-old man who was fishing in a river, said Oleh Hryhorov, head of the regional military administration. A Russian strike on the central city of Dnipro killed one man and wounded nine, said Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration.

  • Janeese Lewis George wins the Democratic primary for mayor of Washington, DC

    WASHINGTON — Janeese Lewis George, who pledged to aggressively stand up to federal intervention into Washington, D.C.’s affairs, won Tuesday’s Democratic primary for mayor, setting up a potential showdown with the Trump administration over its moves to challenge the city’s limited autonomy.

    In an overwhelmingly Democratic city, Lewis George is likely to take the top spot in November’s general election, replacing moderate Muriel Bowser, who decided not to run again after three terms.

    Lewis George joins Robert White Jr., who won the Democratic primary for the district’s delegate to Congress, as the top local officials who likely will contend with the federal government’s intentions for the city. They each campaigned on a promise to take a harder line than their predecessors against the Trump administration’s moves on the district, including its deployment of the National Guard on an ongoing, open-ended mission meant to fight crime.

    “As mayor, I will work with anyone who makes D.C. safer,” Lewis George told a crowd of cheering supporters Tuesday night, “but I will also stand up to Trump.”

    Washington has limited autonomy and federal leaders retain significant control over local affairs, including approval of the budget and laws passed by the D.C. Council.

    President Donald Trump further encroached on that autonomy last year when he briefly federalized the city’s police force and deployed an ongoing law enforcement surge that included the National Guard. Trump’s efforts to downsize the federal government also roiled the capital region, costing thousands of people their jobs. He has also been reshaping the city by renovating storied landmarks and putting his name or image on buildings.

    Lewis George, a self-described democratic socialist and a member of the D.C. Council, has already come under fire from Trump, who last week threatened to place the city under federal control if she won.

    “Maybe we’d take back Washington, run it on the federal basis,” he said.

    Her main opponent, former D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie, conceded the race Thursday and said he had contacted Lewis George to congratulate her.

    “While the final certification process will continue, it is clear that the voters have chosen a different path,” he said in a statement. He wished Lewis George luck in the general election and called on his supporters to continue working.

    “The campaign may be over, but the work of building a safer, more affordable, more prosperous city continues,” he said.

    Lewis George, 38 and a third generation Washingtonian, has vowed to overrule an executive order by the city’s police chief permitting local law enforcement to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Lewis George argued the order “hurt the trust of our community.”

    Lewis George also vowed to use any levers available to her through the city’s home rule compact to resist what she called authoritarian infringements on the district’s local governance.

    “We have legal tools we can use to fight back,” she told the Associated Press in an interview before the vote. “And we know that when we have gone to court, we’ve won.”

    Bowser found herself walking a fine line between staying in Trump’s good graces and responding to the concerns of constituents, many of whom said she didn’t push back hard enough on Trump’s actions. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the 18-term, 89-year-old delegate to Congress, meanwhile faced mounting concern from critics who said she wasn’t forcefully pushing back on the Trump administration’s moves against the city.

    Lewis George has also made affordability a top priority, and her platform has included issues like rent support as well as ending below-minimum-wage pay for tipped employees and controlling high utility rates.

    Tuesday’s primary marked the first time in a generation that D.C. residents voted for a new mayor and delegate in the same election. It was also the city’s first election using ranked choice voting.

  • Reflecting Pool algae bloom is one of biggest recorded in years after $14M renovation

    Days after the completion this month of a $14 million renovation, the shallow water in the Lincoln Memorial’s Reflecting Pool had more algae in it than at any recorded point in the month of June for at least five years, according to a specialized analysis of satellite data.

    President Donald Trump vowed in April to clean up what he called the “filthy” and “disgusting” water in the Reflecting Pool. He promised to resurface the basin to eliminate persistent leaking and to paint it “American flag blue.” Once the pool started to be refilled, on June 4, he praised its “clean, beautiful water.”

    But the algae blooms that have long plagued the pool came roaring back, spawning more than a few conspiracy theories and much debate about the renovation. Some social media users said they suspected “bureaucrats” had seeded the algae bloom in an act of sabotage, while others claimed photos showing the reappearance of the algae were taken during the Biden years. Trump administration officials said the algae was caused by residual material in supply lines that had been dormant for weeks.

    Regardless, there was a lot of it.

    At the Washington Post’s request, Alana Menendez, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Virginia’s Department of Environmental Sciences, analyzed light-reflectance data from a European satellite called Sentinel-2. The satellite captures clear images of the Reflecting Pool several times a month, and the data it produces can be used to estimate the presence of chlorophyll-a, a pigment found in algae.

    A higher value of that metric, known as the normalized difference chlorophyll index (NDCI), points to more algae in the water, Menendez said.

    Menendez’s analysis detected more algae in the reflecting pool in an image taken Saturday — in the week after it reopened — than in any June images going back to 2021. The algae level was among the highest measured in any month in the past two years, according to the analysis.

    Hot and sunny weather — which the Washington area has been experiencing — creates conditions in which the plantlike aquatic organisms thrive. The D.C. area experienced a heat wave just as the pool was being refilled earlier this month.

    Menendez found there was a strong indication of an algal bloom in the Reflecting Pool on March 10, when it was unseasonably hot. Just before construction began, on April 1, the bloom had reduced.

    “We would expect June to have more algae naturally than February, March, or April because there is more light availability and higher temperatures,” Menendez said.

    The Interior Department, which oversees the Park Service and contracted for the work, said in a statement that it is treating the pool with hydrogen peroxide and using “high-tech nanobubble ozone technology” to effectively cut off the algae’s food supply.

    White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said the nanobubble equipment would “keep the Reflecting Pool crystal clear.”

    “Thanks to President Trump, new lining and industrial grade materials will permanently seal the Reflecting Pool, which previously leaked 16 million gallons per year and wasted countless taxpayer dollars,” she said.

    Trump has not publicly commented on the algae problem. On Monday, he posted that he would host a Trump rally on July 4 “with the backdrop of the Lincoln Memorial and surrounding the beautifully new Reflecting Pool.”

    Algae has been an on-and-off problem for the 6.75 million-gallon Reflecting Pool since it was built in the 1920s. It quickly reappeared after a more than $30 million renovation that was completed in 2012, though that project also changed the source of the pool’s water: Previously, it had been fed from the city’s drinking water, but after the renovation the water was drawn from the Tidal Basin, saving the city 32 million gallons of water a year.

    In its statement, the Interior Department said the Obama-era renovation “resulted in massive algae clumps taking over the pool’s surface following years of construction that cost taxpayers millions upon millions only to be broken and disgusting days later.”

    Last month, a local advocacy organization sued to stop Trump’s changes to the Reflecting Pool, alleging that the Interior Department failed to undergo required federal reviews for the project. The Trump administration in response called the work “routine maintenance” that will have “trivial aesthetic and environmental impact” and was not subject to certain environmental reviews.

    Contractors finished the project before a federal judge could rule in the case.

    As the pool was being filled earlier this month, Ed Stierli, an official with a different advocacy group, National Parks Conservation Association, wondered if the dark paint color was increasing the water temperature, exacerbating the algae problem.

    “These are all questions that would normally be answered during that review process that just was not done in this case,” he told the Post.

    By midday on Tuesday, the area was filling up with summer tourists and some locals who came to see how green the pool had become.

    “It’s the biggest tourist attraction now,” called out a biker as he wheeled past.

  • Budget office redirects $352M in Secret Service funds to White House security

    Budget office redirects $352M in Secret Service funds to White House security

    The Trump administration’s budget office has redirected $352 million that was intended in part for Secret Service training and recruitment to what it described as security measures at the White House, a government database shows.

    The White House and the Office of Management and Budget did not specify the purpose of the unusually large shift in response to questions on Wednesday. But a person familiar with the Secret Service budget, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, told the Washington Post the funding was to help pay for a new White House East Wing that includes a large ballroom.

    Asked about the shift and its purpose, a White House spokesperson issued a statement stressing the necessity of security enhancements for the East Wing project. “The East Wing Modernization Project is inextricably tied to the security of the President, the White House grounds and the certain security infrastructure assets,” spokesperson Davis R. Ingle wrote in a statement.

    The Secret Service did not respond to emailed questions.

    The transfer of Secret Service funds — equal to more than 10% of the agency’s annual budget in recent years — comes amid revelations that President Donald Trump’s controversial ballroom project will rely more significantly on taxpayer money than the administration has publicly acknowledged.

    Trump has claimed repeatedly that the project will cost $400 million and has generally said it will be funded entirely by private donors. But this week, the Post reported that the contractor overseeing the work told the White House in March that the expected cost was $600 million, with more than half coming from taxpayers.

    The March budget estimates obtained by the Post show that $155 million for the project was expected to come from the Secret Service. Most of the rest of the public funding was projected to come from the White House Military Office.

    The administration’s budget office on Friday disclosed in a public database that it was redirecting $340.8 million and $10.8 million in Secret Service money for “White House Security Measures.”

    The redirected money, included in the Republican spending package dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that passed last July, was intended to bolster the Secret Service after two attempts on the president’s life — the first at a rally in Butler, Pa., and the second at his West Palm Beach, Fla., golf course.

    The law provided the Secret Service with $1.17 billion and specified that the money was meant to provide for “personnel, training facilities, programming, and technology” as well as “performance, retention, and signing bonuses” for agency personnel.

    Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued a news release at the time celebrating the law’s passage, saying it “provides essential resources for U.S. Secret Service recruitment and training efforts in the wake of two assassination attempts against President Trump.”

    Neither the bill nor Grassley’s office made any mention of the White House’s East Wing. Grassley’s office did not immediately respond on Wednesday to questions about whether he supports use of the funds for the East Wing.

    Key senators from both parties questioned the redirecting of the funds, which was first reported by Roll Call.

    Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine), chairperson of the appropriations committee, directed staff to look into the move, according to a Republican staffer familiar with the matter.

    On Tuesday, after the Post’s report, Collins said she had taken Trump at his word. “I’ve said repeatedly that the President has promised only private donations would be used for the ballroom, and I believe he should keep that promise,” she said in an interview.

    Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, a member of the appropriations committee and the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said the transfer showed Trump was more interested in his “vanity project” than safety and security.

    “This funding was intended to pay Secret Service agents and ensure they have the technology and resources they need to keep individuals under their protection safe,” he said in a statement.

    The administration has been pressing Congress to allocate taxpayer funds for the project since an armed man ran through a security checkpoint at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in April. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Secret Service Director Sean Curran wrote to Republican congressional leaders after the incident to back a proposed $1 billion for the Secret Service in part for “security upgrades at the White House to minimize threats, including the security components to the East Wing Modernization Project.” In a private meeting, Curran pitched GOP senators on spending $220 million of that money on “hardening” the ballroom.

    Several Republican lawmakers in both chambers raised concerns about providing funding for the ballroom project in the lead-up to the midterm elections, especially as Americans express frustration with the cost of living. The funding was stripped out of a larger spending bill because rules prevented it from being included.

    Ingle, the White House spokesperson, said in his statement that an alleged plot to attack the White House during a UFC event last weekend “proves exactly why the East Wing Modernization Project is severely needed for large scale events, which include drone proof structures and drone ports among other critical security enhancements.”

  • College sports bill clears key Senate hurdle despite SEC, Big Ten opposition

    WASHINGTON — A bill that top lawmakers and athletic leaders have described as the best chance to stabilize college sports cleared a key vote in the Senate on Thursday with bipartisan support after weeks of input from schools, conferences and athletes.

    The bipartisan Protect College Sports Act aims to regulate payments to players, limit them to one free transfer over their careers and create a rule to restrict coaches from changing jobs during a season. It advanced out of the Senate Commerce Committee on a 19-9 vote Thursday and now heads to the full Senate for consideration.

    The legislation is the product of months of negotiations between Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, the top lawmakers on the Senate Commerce Committee, and comes as lawmakers in both chambers of Congress are grappling with whether it’s time for them to intervene in college sports.

    “The greatest risk facing college athletics today is not any single controversy, court decision, or headline. The greatest threat to college sports is inaction,” Cruz said in opening remarks.

    Bill moves forward without Big Ten and SEC support

    The committee vote advancing the bill — which included Senate Majority Leader John Thune voting in favor — followed endorsements from several athletic conferences, the NFL and its players union, and the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee. The Olympic committee backed the revised measure after lawmakers added additional protections for women’s and Olympic sports.

    Yet the two most powerful conferences in college sports — the Southeastern Conference and the Big Ten Conference — are not supporting it. In a joint statement released Thursday morning, the two conferences wrote that “revisions are needed to secure our support for the bill.”

    “What we did today was say we’re not going to let the most powerful, richest conferences dictate to the rest of America what’s going to happen to 500,000 athletes,” Cantwell said after the committee vote.

    Earlier this month, the Congressional Black Caucus also urged the Senate to suspend action on the bill in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that effectively disabled a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. Democratic Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, a member of the CBC, voted against the legislation Thursday.

    Support and opposition for the bill does not fall neatly along party lines, reflecting the national reach of SEC and Big Ten schools and broader divisions in Congress.

    While President Donald Trump has backed the bill, multiple Republicans opposed the legislation Thursday, while several Democrat supported it.

    Some of the senators who voted against the bill represent states that are home to prominent SEC and Big Ten programs, including Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, a Democrat, and Republican Sens. Todd Young of Indiana and Roger Wicker of Mississippi.

    “We still are trying to get some changes that the Big Ten would like to see,” Peters told The Associated Press late Wednesday.

    A long road ahead

    Clearing the committee is just the first step in a long process.

    Passage through the Senate is far from guaranteed, as leaders already have a packed schedule and a dwindling number of legislative days left before the November election. The bill would need to clear a 60-vote threshold in the 53-47 Republican-controlled chamber.

    The bill will also still need to clear the House. Earlier this year, House Republican leadership had been working toward a vote on its own college sports bill, known as the SCORE Act, before the Congressional Black Caucus announced its unanimous opposition.

    Still, supporters on Thursday touted the committee action as a massive step forward.

    “Today we are proving that we are resilient in keeping this product moving,” Cantwell said.