Starmer confident Trump will back Aukus pact after US launches review
Asked what his message to the US president would be on the importance of the pact, Sir Keir, who is due to meet Mr Trump in Kananaskis next week, said: 'Aukus is really important. We're fully committed to it.'
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NBC News
8 minutes ago
- NBC News
Live updates: Israel claims aerial superiority over Iran's capital, Tehran
What we know CONFLICT ENTERS FOURTH DAY: Israel and Iran have begun a new round of attacks, as the conflict between the two heavily armed rivals enters its fourth day. MOUNTING DEATH TOLL: At least 224 people have been killed since Israel began bombing Iran on Friday, Iranian state media reported, while Iranian retaliatory strikes have killed at least 24 people in Israel. SENIOR IRANIANS KILLED: Israeli airstrikes have wiped out much of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's inner circle. ISRAELI WARNING: Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz accused Tehran of targeting Israeli civilians and said 'residents of Iran will pay the price.' IRANIAN EXECUTION: Iran has executed a man convicted of spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency reported. Israeli strikes devastate Iran's military and scientific leadership While President Donald Trump may have vetoed a proposal from Israel to assassinate Iran's supreme leader, according to a U.S. official, Israeli strikes over the past four days have effectively decapitated Tehran's military leadership and devastated its community of nuclear scientists. Iran's top military official, Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, was among the first to be killed in Israeli strikes, with both Iranian state media and the Israeli military reporting his death last week. Gen. Hossein Salami, commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, and Maj. Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid, a top official in the Guard, were also among those killed, along with with a string of other military and intelligence leaders, according to state media, including Gen. Mohammad Kazemi, the force's head of intelligence. Iran's scientific community has also been hit by Israel's strikes. The Israeli military said it has killed at least nine scientists in Iran, including top nuclear scientist Mohammad-Mehdi Tehranchi, whose death was separately confirmed by the Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran. IDF says it has aerial superiority over Tehran The Israeli military says it has achieved "full aerial superiority" over Tehran, with a spokesperson comparing its capabilities to those seen in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and the occupied West Bank. Israeli forces yesterday completed a fresh wave of strikes in Tehran, targeting more than 20 military "command centers" and the Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, IDF spokesman Effie Defrin said in a briefing today. Israel also says it has destroyed a third of Israel's missile launchers, about 50 military aircraft and more than 20 surface-to-surface missiles. Senator introduces bill to prevent Trump from attacking Iran without congressional approval Mithil Aggarwal Sen. Tim Kaine has introduced legislation to stop Trump from using military force against Iran without congressional approval. 'It is not in our national security interest to get into a war with Iran unless that war is absolutely necessary to defend the United States," the senior Democrat from Virginia said in a statement today. The resolution will ensure that "if we decide to place our nation's men and women in uniform into harm's way, we will have a debate and vote on it in Congress,' said Kaine, a member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees. Kaine has previously tried to claw back from the White House Congress' authority to declare war. He introduced a similar legislation in 2020 during Trump's first term, also seeking to prevent U.S. from attacking Iran. Israel does not want to harm civilians, defense minister says Matt Bradley Israel's defense minister is now walking back his previous comment, saying it was 'obvious' when he wrote that 'the residents of Tehran would pay the price and soon ' he didn't mean Israel would 'physically harm' them. He meant they would be 'forced to pay the price of the dictatorship.' Katz earlier accused Iran of targeting Israeli civilians in its overnight attacks, and then appeared to threaten civilians, saying 'residents of Iran will pay the price.' Death toll in Israel rises to 24 Reporting from Tel Aviv At least 24 people have been killed in Israel since Iran launched its retaliatory strikes, Netanyahu's office said today in a statement. Almost 600 people have been injured in the attacks, including 10 who were seriously wounded, it said. Iran's strikes kill three people in Israel as tensions rise Peter Guo At least three people have been killed in central Israel, according to Magen David Adom, Israel's national emergency service. Two women and one man in their 70s were killed, and 74 people were injured, it said today in a post on X. Photos and videos published by MDA in its earlier posts showed damaged buildings and rescuers holding infants. At least 224 people have been killed since Israel began striking Iran on Friday, Iranian state media reported, with civilians making up the vast majority of the casualties. Share Iran does not seek nuclear weapons, president says Mithil Aggarwal Iran has no intention of developing nuclear weapons, the president of Iran said, state media reported, reiterating the country's long-standing claim about its nuclear program. President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran, however, "has the right to use nuclear energy and research and no one has the right to take it away from us." Israel says the aim of its military campaign is to eliminate Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs and the "existential threat" it would face if Iran were to successfully develop an atomic bomb. Iran says its programs are for peaceful purposes only. IDF says it struck Quds Force command centers The Israeli military said it had struck command centers in Tehran belonging to the Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Operatives in the command centers "advanced terrorist attacks against the State of Israel using the proxies of the Iranian Regime in the Middle East," the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. The Quds Force oversees ties with Iran-backed militias in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories. Iran has not commented on the strikes. While Quds Force positions in Syria had been targeted multiple times, this would mark the first time their command centers and bases have been struck inside Tehran. Israeli defense minister says Iran residents 'will pay the price' Matt Bradley Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz accused Iran of targeting Israeli civilians in its overnight attacks. He then appeared to threaten Iranian civilians, saying 'residents of Iran will pay the price.' Iran executes man accused of spying for Israel Iran has executed a man convicted of spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, Reuters reported, citing Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency. The man, identified as Esmail Fekri, is the third person Iran has executed in recent weeks in connection with accusations of espionage on behalf of Israel. Iranian police in Alborz province said earlier that they had arrested two Mossad operatives, Iranian state media reported. U.S. closes missions as Israel and Iran strike each other The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and the embassy branch in Tel Aviv will be officially closed today as military tensions continue to escalate between Israel and Iran. No U.S. staffers have been injured, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said in a post on X, though there has been "some minor damage from concussions of Iranian missile hits" near the Tel Aviv branch. The U.S. Embassy has directed all U.S. government employees and their family members to shelter in place in and near their residences until further notice, it said in a statement. Trump says it's 'time for a deal' between Israel and Iran Jennifer Jett Trump said he hoped for a deal between Israel and Iran as he headed to Canada for a meeting of world leaders where the conflict is high on the agenda. "I hope there's going to be a deal. I think it's time for a deal, and we'll see what happens. But sometimes they have to fight it out," Trump told reporters before he left the White House for a summit of the Group of Seven major economies in Canada. Iranian state media say 224 people have been killed since start of Israeli strikes At least 224 people have been killed in Iran since the Israeli strikes started Friday, Iranian state media reported. More than 90% of the casualties are civilians, according to Iran's semiofficial Mehr News Agency, which cited a spokesperson for the Health Ministry. Israel and Iran begin new round of attacks The Israeli military said it had begun a series of strikes on dozens of surface-to-surface missile targets in western Iran. It later said missiles had been launched from Iran, instructing the public to seek shelter. Sirens sounded in several places across Israel. The Israeli military said it was "operating to intercept and strike where necessary to eliminate the threat." A day of strikes across both countries included a rare daytime attack on the Iranian capital, Tehran, where streets were jammed with traffic as residents tried to flee.
Telegraph
13 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Why did Trump veto the killing of Iran's supreme leader?
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is not just Iran's supreme leader, he is also Israel's arch nemesis. Hawks within the Israeli establishment – and many ordinary Israelis besides – would love to see him dead, arguing that he is a legitimate target whose removal would eliminate one of the gravest threats to the Jewish state. To bolster their case, they note the limited blowback following the assassination last year of Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah chief in Lebanon, and Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader behind the October 7 massacre. Yet, according to American officials, Donald Trump vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Khamenei, refusing to entertain the idea of 'going after the political leadership' on the grounds that Iran had not killed any Americans. Whatever the rationale, many analysts believe assassinating Khamenei would be a perilous gamble – one that could easily misfire by paving the way for an even more hardline successor. Khamenei's mixed legacy on nuclear weapons Khamenei may be no peacemaker, but he did place a fatwa effectively banning Iran from developing nuclear weapons. It is unclear whether the ruling has survived in its original form – and many in Israel set little store by it. The assassination of 10 senior Iranian generals may already have strengthened the regime's fundamentalist wing, even as it has dealt a serious blow to its military command structure. None of those killed in Israel's decapitation strikes was a cuddly liberal. In fact, all are believed to have been aligned with the regime's uncompromising 'Principlist' faction. The Principlists – so named for their dogged adherence to the founding tenets of the Islamic Revolution of 1979 – have long held sway within Khameneni's inner circle, marginalising more pragmatist and reformist voices. With extensive political, military and clerical networks, they champion confrontation with the West and advocate a stricter reading of Islam's moral codes. Yet even among the Principlists, sub-factions vie for dominance. Some of the slain generals were thought to have been more pragmatic than the Shia supremacists of the so-called Paydari Front, regarded as the most extreme wing of the fundamentalist camp.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Takeaways from AP's reporting on shuttered prisons, mass deportation push and no-bid contracts
Private prison operators are marketing their shuttered lockups to federal immigration officials as President Donald Trump pushes for mass deportations, with some facilities nabbing lucrative no-bid contracts. When Trump, a Republican, took office, politically connected private-prison giants CoreCivic Inc. and The Geo Group Inc. had around 20 idle facilities, partially the result of sentencing reforms that reduced prison populations. But the push to reopen them has been met with resistance in unexpected places like Leavenworth, Kansas, a town whose name alone evokes a short hand for serving hard time. The Leavenworth facility was mothballed in late 2021 after then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat, called on the U.S. Department of Justice to curb the use of private prisons. Here's a look at some of the takeaways from an Associated Press report about private prisons in the era of mass deportations. Demand for bed spurs interest in private prisons The Trump administration wants to increase its budgeted capacity of about 41,000 beds for detaining migrants to at least 100,000 beds and maybe — if private prison executives' predictions are accurate — more than 150,000. That has a gallery of shuttered facilities — some with a history of issues — coming online near major immigrant population centers, from New York to Los Angeles, where Trump hopes to detain and deport millions of people. With Congress weighing massive spending increases for deportations, the companies' stock and profit estimates have soared. Deals inked as contract modifications or without bids Just last week, Geo Group announced that ICE modified a contract for an existing detention center in southeastern Georgia so that the company could reopen an idle prison on adjacent land to hold 1,868 migrants. 'Never in our 42-year company history have we had so much activity and demand for our services as we are seeing right now,' said CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger during an earnings call last month with shareholders. Leavenworth inspired the term 'the big house' But skeptical city officials in Leavenworth, a town of around 37,000 residents on the northwest fringe of the Kansas City metropolitan area, argue that CoreCivic needs a special use permit to reopen its facility. CoreCivic disagrees, saying that it doesn't because it never abandoned the facility and that the permitting process would take too long. Leavenworth sued the company to force it to get one, and a state-court judge last week issued an order requiring it. The area's politics and roots as a prison town might have been expected to help CoreCivic. Trump carried its county by more than 20 percentage points in each of his three campaigns for president. And in years past, the federal penitentiary housed gangsters Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly — in a building so storied that it inspired the term 'the big house.' CoreCivic 'caused the city all kinds of heartburn,' attorney says An attorney for the city, Joe Hatley, said the legal fight indicates how much ill will CoreCivic generated when it held criminal suspects there for trials in federal court for the U.S. Marshals Service. 'They just mismanaged it, and it caused the city all kinds of heartburn,' Hatley said. Vacancies among correctional officers were as high as 23%, according to a Department of Justice report in 2017. 'It was just mayhem,' recalled William Rogers, who worked as a guard at the CoreCivic facility in Leavenworth from 2016 through 2020. And the American Civil Liberties Union and federal public defenders detailed stabbings, suicides, a homicide and inmate rights violations in a 2021 letter to the White House. CoreCivic responded at the time that the claims were 'false and defamatory.' Critics have included a federal judge When Leavenworth sued CoreCivic, it opened its lawsuit with a quote from U.S. District Court Judge Julie Robinson — an appointee of President George W. Bush, a Republican — who said of the prison: 'The only way I could describe it frankly, what's going on at CoreCivic right now is it's an absolute hell hole.' The city's lawsuit described detainees locked in showers as punishment. It said that sheets and towels from the facility clogged up the wastewater system and that CoreCivic impeded the city police force's ability to investigate sexual assaults and other violent crimes. The facility had no inmates when CoreCivic gave reporters a tour earlier this year, and it looked scrubbed top to bottom and the smell of disinfectant hung in the air. When asked about the allegations of past problems, Misty Mackey, a longtime CoreCivic employee who was tapped to serve as warden there, apologized for past employees' experiences and said the company officials 'do our best to make sure that we learn from different situations.' From idle prisons to a 'gold rush' ICE declared a national emergency on the U.S. border with Mexico as part of its justification for authorizing nine five-year contracts for a combined 10,312 beds without 'Full and Open Competition.' Only three of the nine potential facilities were listed in ICE's document: Leavenworth, a 2,560-bed CoreCivic-owned facility in California City, California, and an 1,800-bed Geo-owned prison in Baldwin, Michigan. The agreement for the Leavenworth facility hasn't been released, nor have documents for the other two sites. CoreCivic and Geo Group officials said last month on earnings calls that ICE used what are known as letter contracts, meant to speed things up when time is critical. CoreCivic officials said ICE's letter contracts provide initial funding to begin reopening facilities while the company negotiates a longer-term deal. The Leavenworth deal is worth $4.2 million a month to the company, it disclosed in a court filing. Financial analysts on company earnings calls have been delighted. When CoreCivic announced its letter contracts, Joe Gomes, of the financial services firm Noble Capital Markets, responded with, 'Great news.' 'Are you hiding any more of them on us?' he asked. ___ Hanna reported from Topeka, Kan. Associated Press writers Joshua Goodman in Miami and Morgan Lee, in Santa Fe, N.M., contributed reporting.
