#UN votes overwhelmingly to demand Gaza ceasefire, hostage release and aid access. UN member nations 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 desperately needed food to 2 million Palestinians.

The vote in the 193-member General Assembly was 149-12 with 19 abstentions. It was adopted with a burst of applause.

The resolution, drafted by Spain, “strongly condemns any use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.”

Speaking before the vote, Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon vehemently opposed the resolution. He denied that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war, calling the accusation “blood libel,” and insisted that aid is being delivered.

Experts and human rights workers say hunger is widespread in Gaza and some 2 million Palestinians are at risk of famine if Israel does not fully lift its blockade and halt its military campaign, which it renewed in March after ending a ceasefire with Hamas.

At the start of Thursday’s meeting, Spain’s UN Ambassador Héctor José Gómez Hernández urged members to vote in favor of the resolution in light of “the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza.”

The Palestinian UN ambassador, Riyad Mansour, also pleaded with UN members to vote in favor.

“The actions you take today to stop the killing, displacement and the famine will determine how many more Palestinian children die a horrible death,” he said.

Last week, the UN Security Council failed to pass a resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and calling on Israel to lift all restrictions on the delivery of aid. The United States vetoed the resolution because it was not linked to the release of the hostages, while all 14 other members of the council voted in favor.

There are no vetoes in the 193-member General Assembly. But unlike in the Security Council, assembly resolutions are not legally binding, though they are seen as a barometer of world opinion.

After a 10-week blockade that barred all aid to Gaza, Israel is allowing the United Nations to deliver a trickle of food assistance and is backing a newly created U.S. aid group, which has opened several sites in the center and south of the territory to deliver food parcels.

But the aid system rolled out last month by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been troubled by near-daily shootings as crowds make their way to aid sites, while the longstanding UN-run system has struggled to deliver food because of Israeli restrictions and a breakdown of law and order.

Like the failed Security Council resolution, the resolution passed on Thursday does not condemn Hamas’ deadly attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which ignited the war, or say the militant group must disarm and withdraw from Gaza. Both are U.S. demands.

Acting U.S. Ambassador Dorothy Shea told the assembly before the vote that the resolution “sends an unacceptable message to Hamas and other Iran-backed terrorist proxies, and that message is, you will be rewarded for taking hostages, diverting aid and launching attacks from civilian areas.”

The resolution references a March 28 legally binding order by the top United Nations court for Israel to open more land crossings into Gaza for food, water, fuel and other supplies. The International Court of Justice issued the order in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of acts of genocide in its war in Gaza, charges Israel strongly denies.

The resolution stresses that Israel, as an occupying power, has an obligation under international law to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches those in need.

It reiterates the assembly’s commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with the Gaza Strip as part of a Palestinian state. The assembly is holding a high-level meeting next week to push for a two-state solution, which Israel has rejected.

Russia is prepared to help Iran with the transfer of excess nuclear fuel if such a need arises, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.

"We maintain regular contact with Iran," Peskov said at a news briefing in response to a question whether the US and Iran discussed during their talks on the Iranian nuclear program Russia’s possible assistance regarding the disposal of excess nuclear fuel.

"You know, this issue was discussed with precisely such formulations during the most recent telephone call between [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and [US President Donald] Trump," he continued.

"Russia will be ready to assist with such operations if it is necessary and the involved parties consider it to be required," Peskov added.

On June 4, the presidents of Russia and the US held their fourth phone call since Trump had taken office.
Washington-Tehran negotiations on Iranian nuclear program

The US and Iran held the fifth round of nuclear talks in Rome on May 23. Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Al Busaidi, who acts as a mediator between the parties, said at that time "certain but not final progress" had been achieved.

The first round of talks took place in Muscat on April 12; the second one was held in Rome on April 19; the parties returned to Oman’s capital for the third round of consultations on April 26 and for the fourth round on May 11.

On June 1, the White House said that US Special Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff had sent a "detailed and acceptable" proposal to the Iranian authorities. According to previous reports from the US-based Axios news website, the proposal "would allow limited low-level uranium enrichment on Iranian soil for a to-be-determined period of time."

US President Donald Trump, however, stated on June 7 that Iran should not enrich uranium or it would face consequences from Washington.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry pointed out that the country’s authorities were ready to discuss limiting the volume and level of uranium enrichment with the United States if sanctions were lifted, but they would never halt the nuclear program because the right to peaceful nuclear energy was guaranteed to all signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Iran had been one of the first countries to sign the document.

#Putin, Mirziyoyev discussed economic, energy projects of two countries — #Kremlin .

Presidents of Russia and Uzbekistan Vladimir Putin and Shavkat Mirziyoyev discussed joint economic and energy projects of the two countries in a telephone conversation, the Kremlin’s press service said.

"Issues of practical implementation of a number of bilateral economic and energy projects were also discussed," the Kremlin said.

"The successful performance of the 4th Tashkent International Investment Forum, where the Russian delegation also took part, was noted from both sides," the Kremlin’s press service added.

Scientists have identified a previously unknown 86 million-year-old dinosaur species that fills an early gap in the fossil record of tyrannosaurs, revealing how they evolved to become massive apex predators.

Researchers analyzing the species’ remains have named it Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, which translates to “dragon prince of Mongolia,” because it was small compared with its much larger relatives such as Tyrannosaurus rex, whose name means “the tyrant lizard king.” The newly identified dinosaur was the closest known ancestor of tyrannosaurs and likely served as a transitional species from earlier tyrannosauroid species, according to the findings published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Based on a reexamination of two partial skeletons uncovered in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert in 1972 and 1973, the new study suggests that three big migrations between Asia and North America led tyrannosauroids to diversify and eventually reach a gargantuan size in the late Cretaceous Period before going extinct 66 million years ago.

“This discovery of Khankhuuluu forced us to look at the tyrannosaur family tree in a very different light,” said study coauthor Darla Zelenitsky, associate professor within the department of Earth, energy, and environment at the University of Calgary, in an email. “Before this, there was a lot of confusion about who was related to who when it came to tyrannosaur species. What started as the discovery of a new species ended up with us rewriting the family history of tyrannosaurs.”
Multiple migrations over millions of years

Tyrannosaurs, known scientifically as Eutyrannosaurians, bring to mind hulking dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex and Tarbosaurus, which weighed multiple metric tons and could take down equally large prey.

With short arms and massive heads, they walked on two legs and boasted sharp teeth, Zelenitsky said.

But tyrannosaurs didn’t start out that way. They evolved from smaller dinosaurs before dominating the landscapes of North America and Asia between 85 million and 66 million years ago, the researchers said.

While Tarbosaurus, an ancestor of T. rex, clocked in at between 3,000 and 6,000 kilograms (6,613 pounds and 13,227 pounds), the fleet-footed Khankhuuluu mongoliensis likely weighed only around 750 kilograms (1,653 pounds), spanned just 2 metres (6.5 feet) at the hips and 4 metres (13 feet) in length, according to the study authors.

Comparing the two dinosaurs would be like putting a horse next to an elephant —Khankhuuluu would have reached T. rex’s thigh in height, Zelenitsky said.

“Khankhuuluu was almost a tyrannosaur, but not quite,” Zelenitsky said. “The snout bone was hollow rather than solid, and the bones around the eye didn’t have all the horns and bumps seen in T. rex or other tyrannosaurs.”

Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, or a closely related ancestor species, likely migrated from Asia to North America across a land bridge between Alaska and Siberia that connected the continents 85 million years ago, Zelenitsky said.

Because of this migrant species, we now know that tyrannosaurs actually evolved first on the North American continent and remained there exclusively over the next several million years, she said. “As the many tyrannosaur species evolved on the continent, they became larger and larger.”

Due to the poor fossil record, it’s unclear what transpired in Asia between 80 million to 85 million years ago, she added. While some Khankhuuluu may have remained in Asia, they were likely replaced later on by larger tyrannosaurs 79 million years ago.

U.S. National Guard troops have temporarily detained civilians in L.A. protests, commander says.

About 500 of the National Guard troops deployed to the Los Angeles protests have been trained to accompany agents on immigration operations, the commander in charge said Wednesday. And while some troops have already gone on such missions, he said it’s too early to say if that will continue even after the protests die down.

Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, speaking in an interview with The Associated Press and ABC, also warned that he expects the protest situation will escalate. “We are expecting a ramp up,” he said, noting that protests across the nation are being planned and discussed now. “I’m focused right here in LA, what’s going on right here. But you know, I think we’re, we’re very concerned.”

Sherman, commander of Task Force 51 that is overseeing the more than 4,000 Guard troops and 700 Marines deployed, initially said that National Guard troops had already temporarily detained some civilians. He later said he was incorrect, and that he had based his comments on photos and footage he had seen that turned out to not be a representation of Guard members in Los Angeles.

He said that as of Wednesday, none of the troops has detained a protester. But he said they have gone through days of training and are prepared to do so if needed. Close to 2,000 of the Guard members have either been out protecting federal facilities or personnel already or are ready to move out, and the Marines will wrap up their training and are expected to be on the streets of Los Angeles as early as Thursday evening, Sherman said.

The decision to have the soldiers provide security on the raids moves troops closer than ever before to carrying out law enforcement actions such as deportations, as President Donald Trump has promised as part of his immigration crackdown.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has called the troop deployment a “serious breach of state sovereignty” and a power grab by Trump, and has gone to court to stop it. The president has cited a legal provision that allows him to mobilize federal service members when there is “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”

Under the Posse Comitatus Act, active-duty forces are prohibited by law from conducting law enforcement. Sherman said all of the Guard troops and Marines are going through several days of training on civil unrest and crowd control so they know exactly what they can and can’t do.

As an example, Sherman said if Guard members see someone trying to assault a civilian or a law enforcement officer, they are allowed to grab them and hold onto them. Then they would quickly turn them over to law enforcement, who would handcuff the person or arrest them.

The roughly 500 being used to provide security on the raids undergo expanded instruction, legal training and rehearsals with the agents doing the enforcement before they go on those missions. Photos of Guard soldiers providing security for the agents have been circulated by immigration officials.

“We are doing rehearsals with these groups of agents that are doing these missions,” Sherman said. “A crawl, walk, run rehearsal, if you will, so that we fully understand their operations.”

He said he has explained to the agents that “we are not law enforcement. This is not how we train.” And he’s made it clear the agents have to be very deliberate in how they explain to the troops exactly what they need them to do. At this point, he said, none of the Marines has been trained to go on the immigration raids.

Not all the 500 Guard members have been on missions yet. Sherman said it’s not clear yet if Marines will eventually also go on the raid missions, but added that he has full confidence in their ability.

While much of the first 2,000 Guard soldiers are already trained and many have gone out to do the protest security duty, the public will only see several hundred on the ground at a time. The troops work in shifts.

The other 2,000 Guard members that were notified of deployment earlier this week have not yet begun to train. It will be several days before they are ready to participate in the mission.

Under routine self-defense guidelines, troops can do whatever is needed to protect themselves or the lives of others.

Overall, Sherman said, this is a difficult assignment for the troops.

#Iran says to target U.S. bases if conflict breaks out. — Iran threatened Wednesday to target U.S. #military bases in the region if conflict breaks out, while President Donald Trump said he was “less confident” about reaching a nuclear deal.

Amid escalating tensions, a U.S. official said staff levels at the embassy in Iraq were being reduced over security concerns, while the UK Maritime Trade Operations, run by the British navy, advised ships to transit the Gulf with caution.

Tehran and Washington have held five rounds of talks since April to thrash out a new nuclear deal to replace the 2015 accord that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.

Since returning to office in January, Trump has revived his “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran, backing nuclear diplomacy but warning of military action if it fails.

“All its bases are within our reach, we have access to them, and without hesitation we will target all of them in the host countries,” Iran’s Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh said in response to U.S. threats of military action if the talks fail.

“God willing, things won’t reach that point, and the talks will succeed,” the minister said, adding that the U.S. side “will suffer more losses” if it came to conflict.

The United States has multiple bases in the Middle East, with the largest located in Qatar.

Iran and the United States have recently been locked in a diplomatic standoff over Iran’s uranium enrichment, with Tehran defending it as a “non-negotiable” right and Washington calling it as a “red line”.

Trump had previously expressed optimism about the talks, saying during a Gulf tour last month Washington was “getting close” to securing a deal.

But in an interview published Wednesday, Trump said he was “less confident” the United States and Iran could reach a deal, in response to a question on whether he believed he could stop Tehran from enriching uranium.
‘A shame’

Iran currently enriches uranium to 60 percent, far above the 3.67-per cent limit set in the 2015 deal and close though still short of the 90 per cent needed for a nuclear warhead.

Western countries, including the United States and its ally Israel, have long accused Iran of seeking to acquire atomic weapons, while Tehran insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes.

Last week, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said enrichment is “key” to Iran’s nuclear programme and that Washington “cannot have a say” on the issue.

During the interview with the New York Post’s podcast “Pod Force One”, which was recorded on Monday, Trump said he was losing hope a deal could be reached.

“I don’t know. I did think so, and I’m getting more and more -- less confident about it. They seem to be delaying and I think that’s a shame. I am less confident now than I would have been a couple of months ago,” he said.

“Something happened to them but I am much less confident of a deal being made... Maybe they don’t wanna make a deal, what can I say? And maybe they do. There is nothing final.”

Trump maintained that Washington would not allow Tehran to obtain nuclear weapons, saying “it would be nicer to do it without warfare, without people dying”.

On May 31, after the fifth round of talks, Iran said it had received “elements” of a U.S. proposal for a nuclear deal, with Araghchi later saying the text contained “ambiguities”.

Iran has said it will present a counter-proposal to the latest draft from Washington, which it had criticised for failing to offer relief from sanctions -- a key demand for Tehran, which has been reeling under their weight for years.

On Monday, the United Nations nuclear watchdog began a Board of Governors meeting in Vienna that will last until Friday to discuss Iran’s atomic activities and other issues.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting followed a report issued by it criticising “less than satisfactory” cooperation from Tehran, particularly in explaining past cases of nuclear material found at undeclared sites.

Iran has criticised the IAEA report as unbalanced, saying it relied on “forged documents” provided by its arch-foe Israel.

In January 2020, Iran fired missiles at bases in Iraq housing American troops in retaliation for the U.S. strike that killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani days before at Baghdad airport.

Dozens of U.S. soldiers suffered traumatic brain injuries.

#Israel MPs to vote on opposition bid to dissolve parliament. JERUSALEM — Israel’s parliament rejected early on Thursday a preliminary vote to dissolve itself, the Knesset said in a statement, after an agreement was reached regarding a dispute over conscription.

The vote, which could have been a first step leading to an early election that polls show Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would lose, was rejected with 61 lawmakers opposing it to 53 supporting it.

The Knesset consists of 120 seats, and the majority needed to pass the vote was 61 lawmakers.

This gives Netanyahu’s ruling coalition further time to resolve its worst political crisis yet and avoid a ballot, which would be Israel’s first since the eruption of the war with Hamas in Gaza.

Netanyahu has been pushing hard to resolve a deadlock in his coalition over a new military conscription bill, which has led to the present crisis.

“I am pleased to announce that after long discussions we have reached agreements on the principles on which the draft law will be based,” Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee Yuli Edelstein said in a statement.

Some religious parties in Netanyahu’s coalition are seeking exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students from military service that is mandatory in Israel, while other lawmakers want to scrap any such exemptions altogether.

The exemptions have been a hot-button issue in Israel for years but have become particularly contentious during the war in Gaza, as Israel has suffered its highest battlefield casualties in decades and its stretched military is in need of more troops.

Growing increasingly impatient with the political deadlock, ultra-Orthodox coalition factions have said they will vote with opposition parties in favor of dissolving the Knesset and bringing forward an election that is not due until late 2026.

“It’s more than ever urgent to replace Netanyahu’s government and specifically this toxic and harmful government,” said Labour’s opposition lawmaker Merav Michaeli. “It’s urgent to end the war in Gaza and to bring back all the hostages. It’s urgent to start rebuilding and healing the state of Israel.”

Successive polls have predicted that Netanyahu’s coalition would lose in an election, with Israelis still reeling over the security failure of Palestinian militant group Hamas’ October 7 2023 attack and hostages still held in Gaza.

Hamas’ surprise attack led to Israel’s deadliest single day and shattered Netanyahu’s security credentials, with 1,200 people killed and 251 hostages taken into Gaza.

Israel’s offensive against Hamas in Gaza has since killed almost 55,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Gaza, left much of the territory in ruins, and its more than two million population largely displaced and gripped by a humanitarian crisis.

Twenty months into the fighting, public support for the Gaza war has waned. More than 400 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat there, adding to anger many Israelis feel over the ultra-Orthodox exemption demands even as the war drags on.

Ultra-Orthodox religious leaders, however, see full-time devotion to religious studies as sacrosanct and military service as a threat to the students’ strict religious lifestyle.

Writing by Maayan Lubell; Additional reporting by Enas Alashray; Editing by Crispian Balmer, William Maclean and Michael Perry

WASHINGTON — A former #CIA analyst who pleaded guilty in January over a leak of classified Israeli plans to strike Iran was sentenced to 37 months in prison on Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

In pleading guilty, Asif William Rahman, who had worked at the U.S. intelligence agency since 2016, acknowledged that he illegally downloaded, printed and distributed classified information on multiple occasions, including several in 2024.
Why it’s important

U.S. ally Israel and its regional rival Iran were in the midst of high tensions at the time and exchanged some blows.

Israel at the time was preparing to strike some Iranian sites in retaliation for a ballistic missile attack that the Iranian government said was a response to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination by Israel in Tehran.
Context

Rahman had a “Top Secret” security clearance with access to Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) until his employment was terminated after his arrest in late 2024.

The documents, which entailed plans by Israel to strike Iran, later appeared online after a pro-Iranian Telegram account called “Middle East Spectator” published them.

Rahman, 34, is from Vienna, Virginia, and was arrested in Cambodia, according to court records.
Key Quote

“Asif Rahman violated his position of trust by illegally accessing, removing, and transmitting Top Secret documents vital to the national security of the United States and its allies,” Erik Siebert, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said on Wednesday.

Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler

#Kosovo agrees to host migrants deported from U.S.

Kosovo has agreed to host migrants deported from the United States, the country’s caretaker Prime Minister Albin Kurti said Wednesday following a government session.

“According to this decision, our state will, within a one-year period, accept and shelter up to 50 individuals with the aim of facilitating their safe return to their country of origin,” Kurti wrote on Facebook.

The decision had been made in response to the U.S. request for the temporary acceptance and relocation of third-country nationals, he added.

More details to come.

Dutch Princess Amalia undergoes surgery after breaking arm in horse riding fall.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The heir to the Dutch throne, Princess Amalia, was recovering in a hospital Wednesday after undergoing surgery to one of her arms that she broke a day earlier when she fell off her horse, the Royal House announced.

The 21-year-old, formally known as the Princess of Orange, sustained the injury on Tuesday and underwent surgery the same evening at the University Medical Center Utrecht hospital, according to a Royal House statement.

“The operation went well. She will remain at the UMC Utrecht for monitoring at least until tomorrow,” the statement said.

Amalia revealed in a book written about her by a popular Dutch comedian that she is a keen horseback rider.

The Associated Press