Israel-Iran Unprecedented Escalation, UN Demands Gaza Ceasefire, Air India Black Box Found

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🗞️ FRONT PAGE​​

“Disgraceful!” Los Angeles-based daily La Opinión lends its front page to the use of force by federal authorities against Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California, who was pushed and handcuffed Thursday when he tried to question Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about ICE raids during a press conference in Los Angeles. Padilla interrupted the conference after Noem said federal authorities planned to increase operations to “liberate” the city from its “socialist” leadership. “If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question… I can only imagine what they are doing to farmworkers, to cooks, to day laborers throughout the Los Angeles community,” Padilla said in an impromptu press conference following the incident.

🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW

• Israel conducts major strikes on Iran, Tehran retaliates with drones. Israel’s military said Iran has fired about 100 drones toward its territory, all of which were intercepted, as a response to Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities early Friday. Multiple sites around the country were hit, including Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility, while Iranian state media confirmed the deaths of Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Iran’s highest-ranking military officer. Six nuclear scientists were also killed. The attack is part of Operation Rising Lion, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said would last several days. The strikes sparked a surge of oil prices amid worries about all-out war and disrupted supplies, while global shares were lower.

• UN votes to demand Gaza ceasefire, Israel deports six more activists. The UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly Thursday to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all hostages held by Hamas, and unrestricted access for the delivery of food to the enclave. The vote was 149-12, as the U.S. and Israel opposed the resolution, along with Argentina, Hungary, Paraguay, Papua New Guinea and six Pacific island nations. Meanwhile, Israel deported on Thursday six more activists who were detained aboard a boat attempting to breach its blockade of Gaza. For more, check this Daraj OpEd translated from Arabic by Worldcrunch: The Simple Reason The Gaza War Keeps Going: Both Israel And Hamas Don’t Want It To End.

• Trump can maintain control of National Guard in LA, appeals court rules. A federal appeals court has paused a ruling that required U.S. President Donald Trump to return control of members of California’s National Guard to the state on Thursday. This allows Trump to maintain the Guard’s deployment in Los Angeles amid protests over stepped-up immigration enforcement. Mayor Karen Bass said the nighttime curfew for part of downtown LA would likely continue for “a few days.” Read more in this analysis translated from French by Worldcrunch: Trump vs. Newsom vs. Truth: Los Angeles As Staging Ground For Our Future Information Wars.

• One Air India black box found, rescuers scour buildings. Investigators have reportedly found one of the two black boxes that will provide more details about the cause of the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad in western India on Thursday. All but one of the 242 people on board the London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner died when it crashed into a residential area after take-off, but it is not yet clear how many people were killed on the ground. Rescuers are still searching for missing people and bodies in the buildings. The sole survivor, a British national, is recovering in hospital.

• China and Hong Kong national security authorities launch joint operation. China’s national security authorities in Hong Kong and the city’s police raided the homes of six people late Thursday in their first publicly known joint operation. Police said the six people were suspected of breaking the 2020 Beijing-imposed national security law between November 2020 and June 2024.

• Police attacked in fourth night of Northern Ireland violence. Rioters attacked police with petrol bombs, rocks and fireworks in the city of Portadown, Northern Ireland, on Thursday, as a fourth night of anti-immigrant violence moved to a different part of the province. The disorder started on Monday in Ballymena, after two 14-year-old boys were arrested and appeared in court, accused of a serious sexual assault on a teenage girl in the town. Fifteen people have been arrested so far.

• News Quiz! Scientists say they have found a clue to solve one of biology’s biggest mysteries in axolotls. What can these aquatic salamanders do?

A. They live for hundreds of years
B. They are the most flexible creatures
C. They can regrow limbs
D. They continuously smile
[Answer below]

#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS

$100.2 billion

Spending on nuclear weapons by the world’s nine nuclear-armed nations rose by 11% in 2024, according to a report released Friday by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a global civil society coalition. The $10 billion annual increase to $100.2 billion went toward modernising and in some cases expanding nuclear arsenals, ICAN said. The U.S. is said to have recorded the largest annual increase in nuclear spending, rising by $5.3 billion. The ongoing war in Ukraine “could be playing a role in the increase in spending in the UK and France,” said an ICAN coordinator, who added that the global increase has been more driven by long-term contracts servicing costs and growing system expenses than by current security concerns.

📰 IN OTHER NEWS

💥 Six centuries after the Arab world’s greatest philologist traced a cultural fault line between Bedouins and urban Arabs, that same divide echoes in today’s Middle East conflicts — from ISIS and al-Nusra to Gaza’s shifting alliances.
— LA STAMPA

🤖 As artificial intelligence begins to mimic pain and emotion, a new moral frontier is emerging — and society is poised to fracture along deep ideological lines over whether machines deserve rights, empathy or even love.
— UNDARK

🍼 Caregiving is still culturally framed as exceptional when done by men, even though true gender equality requires it to be routine — not praised but expected. It is time to redefine care as a shared human responsibility, not a gendered role.
— RECALCULATING

📣 VERBATIM

“Survival is no longer an option.”

— Spanish opposition conservative leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo said Thursday it was time for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to resign. Sánchez, who has been in power for seven years, has apologized to the Spanish people after an escalating corruption scandal brought down Santos Cerdán, the secretary of his Socialist party, who may have acted with former party officials in improperly awarding public contracts in exchange for kickbacks. Cerdán has already stepped down and will be asked to testify in court on June 25, while Sánchez said he knew absolutely nothing about the corruption affair and instead has pledged to restructure the leadership of his party.