R. Kelly's prison release request denied as federal prosecutors blast his assassination claims as ‘deeply unserious'
Israel launched targeted strikes on multiple Iranian nuclear and military facilities, causing significant damage to sites like Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, and Natanz. Satellite images reveal extensive destruction, raising international concerns about potential contamination and escalating tensions between the two nations.
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Rhyl Journal
13 minutes ago
- Rhyl Journal
Israel ‘killed top Iranian general' as Trump warns people to flee Iran's capital
Mr Trump left the G7 summit in Canada a day early to deal with the conflict between Israel and Iran, telling reporters on Air Force One during the flight back to Washington DC: 'I'm not looking at a ceasefire. We're looking at better than a ceasefire.' When asked to explain, he said the US wanted to see 'a real end' to the conflict that could involve Iran 'giving up entirely'. He added: 'I'm not too much in the mood to negotiate.' Later, he warned Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that the US knows where he is hiding and called for Iran's 'UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER'. Mr Trump's hard line added to the uncertainty roiling the region on the fifth day of Israel's air campaign aimed at Iran's military and nuclear programme. Residents of Tehran fled their homes in droves, and the UN nuclear watchdog for the first time said Israeli strikes on Iran's main enrichment facility at Natanz had also damaged its main underground section, not just an above-ground facility, as previously acknowledged. Israel says its sweeping assault on Iran's military leaders, nuclear scientists, uranium enrichment sites and ballistic missile programme is necessary to prevent its adversary from getting any closer to building an atomic weapon. The strikes have killed at least 224 people in Iran. Iran has retaliated by launching some 400 missiles and hundreds of drones at Israel. So far, 24 people have been killed in Israel. – Israel targets more Iranian leaders The Israeli military claimed to have killed another top Iranian general in a strike on Tehran. Iran did not immediately comment on the reported killing of General Ali Shadmani, whom Israel described as the most senior military commander in Iran. General Shadmani was little-known in the country before being appointed last week to a chief-of-staff-like role as head of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard's Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters. That appointment followed the killing of his predecessor, General Gholam Ali Rashid, in an Israeli strike. The Israeli military warned the population to stay close to shelters as Iran fired new salvos of missiles, but officials said most were intercepted. Sirens blared in southern Israel, including in the desert town of Dimona, the heart of Israel's never-acknowledged nuclear arms programme. Iran has fired fewer missiles in each of its barrages, with just a handful launched late on Tuesday. It has not explained the drop in missiles fired, but the decline comes after Israel targeted many Iranian launchers. Meanwhile, Iran's state-run IRNA news agency reported Israeli airstrikes around the city of Isfahan, with air defences also firing. A series of explosions and anti-aircraft fire boomed throughout Tehran just before 6.30pm. – Shops closed, lines for gas in Iran's capital Echoing an earlier Israeli military call for some 330,000 residents of a neighbourhood in downtown Tehran to evacuate, Mr Trump warned on social media that 'everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran'. Tehran is one of the largest cities in the Middle East, with around 10 million people, roughly equivalent to the entire population of Israel. People have been fleeing since hostilities began. Asked why he had urged the evacuation of Tehran, Mr Trump said: 'I just want people to be safe.' Downtown Tehran emptied out early on Tuesday, with many shops shuttered, even the ancient Grand Bazaar, which has closed only in times of crisis, such as during the 2022 anti-government protests and the coronavirus pandemic. On the roads out of Tehran to the west, traffic stood bumper to bumper. Many middle- and upper-class Iranians were headed to the Caspian Sea, a popular getaway spot. Long lines snaked from Tehran's gas stations. Across the city, billboards called for a 'severe' response to Israeli strikes. – Signs that Iran is restricting access to outside world Iranian authorities appeared to be curbing the public's access to the outside world. Phone and internet service appeared disrupted, with landline phones unable to receive or dial international calls. NetBlocks, an internet monitoring group, reported that it had detected a significant drop in internet traffic from the country. Iran, which has crippled important communications tools in past nationwide protests and during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, did not acknowledge any restrictions. International websites appeared to be blocked, but local websites were functioning, likely signalling that Iran had turned on the so-called 'halal net', its own locally controlled version of the internet aimed at restricting what the public can see. In another sign of restricted access, Iran's state TV on Tuesday urged the public to remove the messaging app WhatsApp from their mobile phones, alleging without evidence that the app gathered user information to send to Israel. In a statement, WhatsApp said it was concerned that 'these false reports will be an excuse for our services to be blocked at a time when people need them the most'.
CNBC
17 minutes ago
- CNBC
Amazon CEO makes a big prediction on AI — plus, Salesforce hikes prices and a housing market update
Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street. Markets: Stocks were lower across the board Tuesday afternoon, as investors monitor a flurry of headlines around the Israel-Iran conflict. President Donald Trump threatened the Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a series of social media posts, and also he made clear what he wants from Iran : "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!" Oil prices rose throughout the session and were up more than 4% as of 3 p.m. ET. As we wrote on Monday , oil is an important barometer to watch during the Middle East conflict because energy-price shocks have the potential to dent economic growth. Jassy speaks: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on Tuesday provided some of his views on the advancement and adoption of generative AI at Amazon. Jassy's full letter can be read online here — but one specific portion deserves extra attention, carrying ramifications for both Amazon shareholders and the economy overall. "As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done," Jassy wrote. "We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs. It's hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company." While this is just one CEO's prediction, we have no doubt that management teams across the world are looking into how they can leverage this new technology to achieve a leaner workforce. This is something that, as investors, we need to watch closely in the coming months, quarters and years. Home Depot readthrough: Lennar's earnings call Tuesday left us with one big takeaway: The housing market is still hurting, and there's no new indications of a near-term change. The homebuilder's commentary came after reporting mixed quarterly results the prior evening. While revenue topped expectations, profits, new orders and average home prices all missed the mark. The update from Lennar is not the best news for our Club retailer Home Depot, which benefits from a robust housing market. We don't have that right now, as stubbornly high mortgage rates and low inventory put pressure on affordability. That's forced Lennar to dig into its own profit margins, as it offers up incentives and discounts to get buyers to closing day. Also on Tuesday, we learned that homebuilder sentiment fell in June and is nearing pandemic-era lows, according to the latest index from the National Association of Home Builders. To be sure, we're not giving up on Home Depot, and there was actually a longer-term silver lining discussed on Lennar's conference call. Executives discussed the importance of lowering its own structural costs to navigate frostier housing cycles — and that helps them keep supply coming online. Historically, Lennar chose to protect "margin as market conditions stalled," co-CEO Stuart Miller said. "But we learned through those times that once we step backwards, and lose momentum, it becomes increasingly more difficult to restart, and recapture volumes. The machine slows and does not restart easily." He continued, "We have concluded that by maintaining volume, we can create new efficiencies, and new solutions that are durable for the future, and will result in meaningful long-term efficiencies in our cost structure." Part of Lennar's efficiency plan relies in part on technology, and more specifically a portfolio name in Salesforce . In addition to using Salesforce to reduce customer acquisition cost and manage home prices, Miller said the company is working to develop AI-based "agents" that can assist salespeople, even during off-hours. Outside the portfolio, Lennar said it's working with Palantir on tech-driven land management system. Price bumps: Speaking of Salesforce, the software giant said earlier Tuesday that it will raise list prices by an average of 6% on the Enterprise and Unlimited Editions of some of its applications. Specifically, the company called out Service Cloud, Field Service, and select Industries Clouds as being impacted by the change. Salesforce also announced the general availability of Agentforce AI add-on tools that can be added on for certain users starting at $125 a month, along with a higher level offering referred to as Agentforce 1 Editions that starts $550 a month and includes the regular add-on tools along and a few extra goodies for users to maximize their use of the Salesforce platform. Up next: There's not much to speak of on the earnings front. However, on the economic front, we will get a check up on the housing market Wednesday morning with the release of the May housing starts numbers, along with initial jobless claims, which, as a reminder, will be out a day early this week due to markets being closed Thursday for Juneteenth. The big event on Wednesday, of course, is the Fed's interest rate decision at 2 p.m. ET and Chair Jerome Powell's press conference at 2:30 p.m. ET. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
Straits Times
21 minutes ago
- Straits Times
Trump contradicts spy chief Gabbard on Iran's nuclear programme
US President Donald Trump signing a document as Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard looks on, in February 2025. WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump on June 17 repudiated Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard's assessment that Iran has not been building a nuclear weapon, publicly contradicting his spy chief for the first time during his second term. In rejecting his top spy's judgment, Mr Trump appeared to embrace Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's justification for launching airstrikes last week on Iranian nuclear and military targets, saying he believed Tehran was on the verge of having a warhead. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned early to Washington from the G-7 summit in Canada, Mr Trump was asked how close he believed Iran was to having a nuclear weapon. 'Very close,' he responded. When told that Ms Gabbard testified to Congress in March that the US intelligence community continued to judge that Tehran was not working on a nuclear warhead, Mr Trump replied, 'I don't care what she said. I think they were very close to having one.' Mr Trump's comments recalled his clashes with US spy agencies during his first term, including over an assessment that Moscow worked to sway the 2016 presidential vote in his favour and his acceptance of Russian President Vladimir Putin's denials. The office of the Director of National Intelligence did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ms Gabbard also told Congress that US spy agencies did not believe that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had ordered the restarting of a nuclear weapons programme that the US and the International Atomic Energy Agency assessed ended in 2003. Iran denies developing nuclear weapons, saying its uranium enrichment program was only for peaceful purposes. A source with access to US intelligence reports told Reuters that the assessment presented by Ms Gabbard had not changed. They said that US spy services also judged that it would take up to three years for Iran to build a warhead with which it could hit a target of its choice, a finding first reported by CNN. Some experts, however, believe that it could take Iran a much shorter time to build and deliver an untested crude nuclear device, although there would be no guarantee that it would work. Mr Trump has frequently disavowed the findings of US intelligence agencies, which he and his supporters have charged - without providing proof - are part of a 'deep state' cabal of US officials opposed to his presidency. Ms Gabbard, a fierce Trump loyalist, has been among the president's backers who have aired such allegations. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
