Good day.
Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of the late Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been chosen as his successor, as the war enters its tenth day and new missile and drone attacks reverberate across the Middle East.
After members of the clerical body responsible for selecting Iran’s top authority announced the decision on Sunday, Iranian institutions and politicians, from the Foreign Ministry to lawmakers, issued statements expressing their loyalty.
The move could lead to a further escalation of the war, given that Donald Trump had already acknowledged that Mojtaba Khamenei was the most likely successor and made clear that he considered him an “unacceptable” choice.
-
Why the war with Iran? Did it spark fears of stagflation in the global economy? Oil prices surpassed $100 a barrel for the first time since 2022, triggering a sharp sell-off in some of the world’s major stock markets amid growing concerns that the US-Israel war against Iran could set the stage for a global economic shock.
-
What else is happening? British Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke to the American president on Sunday afternoon after a barrage of criticism from Trump, who told his British ally on Saturday that his help was not needed, even as the United States continued to use British bases for attacks against Iran.
At a trailhead not far from the sprawling red cliffs and canyons of Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park, two men went to pick up their wives who were due to return from a hike Wednesday afternoon.
They encountered a gruesome scene. Natalie Graves, 34, and her aunt, Linda Dewey, 65, were murdered and abandoned in a parched creek bed, according to court documents. A Bureau of Land Management ranger who responded to the area noticed spent bullet casings near their bodies.
The horrifying discovery sparked a police search in three states, closed schools in Wayne County, Utah, and left a community in shock. In nearby Lyman, another woman, Margaret Oldroyd, 86, was also found murdered.
Fox News uses old clip of Trump after wearing a hat while saluting slain US soldiers
Fox News used old videos of Donald Trump in multiple reports on Saturday and Sunday, hiding from viewers that the commander in chief wore a golf cap during a ceremony Saturday where he greeted six flag-draped transfer cases carrying the remains of the first American troops to die in their war against Iran.
The president had sparked outrage online by failing to remove his Trump-branded white hat during the homecoming ritual at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Saturday for six Army reserve soldiers killed in Kuwait.
On Saturday afternoon, Fox News initially aired the correct video of Trump at the ceremony. Less than an hour later, viewers were shown an old video of Trump at a ceremony in December, when he had not worn a hat to salute troops who had died in Syria.
-
What did Fox News say? More than three hours later, the same announcer acknowledged on air “an error made earlier on our program: during our coverage of yesterday’s dignified transfer, we inadvertently aired a video of a previous dignified transfer instead of the ceremony that took place yesterday. We deeply regret the error.”
In other news…
-
The NYPD has confirmed that an improvised explosive device was thrown outside Zohran Mamdani’s official residence on Saturday. when anti-Islam protesters, led by right-wing influencer Jake Lang, clashed with counterprotesters.
-
International drug crime represents a danger to social stability in Belgium, a senior judge said: after his colleague warned that the country was evolving towards “a narco-state” where mafia groups were forming “a parallel force” in society.
-
The US military said it killed six men. Sunday in an attack on a suspected drug trafficking ship in the eastern Pacific as part of the Trump administration’s campaign against suspected traffickers.
-
Israeli settlers and soldiers killed three Palestinians in their village near Ramallah on Saturday night.the third deadly attack in a week of escalating Israeli violence in the occupied West Bank.
Stat of the day: Recreational drugs may more than double stroke risk, study suggests
Recreational drugs can more than double the risk of stroke, with some of the most worrying impacts seen among younger people, a major review suggests after scientists analyzed medical data from more than 100 million people.
As Trump’s agitation is driving more people to the therapist’s office: ‘This is all backwards’
As “political depression” enters public discourse, therapists encourage people to get involved with their communities. While political depression may look like traditional depression (the same hopelessness, despair, and closure), its origins are different. It doesn’t come from within, at least not primarily. It comes from violence, collapse or injustice in the world around us.
Don’t miss this: ‘The cover-up is shameless’: A journalist’s tenacious, traumatic fight to expose Ghislaine Maxwell
Journalist Lucia Osborne-Crowley has endured threats and sexual harassment to report on Jeffrey Epstein’s main enabler. In an interview, she describes the process of writing her book The Lasting Harm as a steep learning curve and how Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction was just the beginning of the quest for justice.
By reversing a key climate legal determination, the Trump administration has undermined its own attacks on a groundbreaking state climate liability law, environmental groups have argued in court.
The latest: Stormy space weather may be confusing messages from aliens, research suggests
Earth’s top alien hunters believe aliens could be out there, but they’re having a hard time getting to us because there’s a storm in space. Reminiscent of ET’s struggles to “call home” in Steven Spielberg’s hit 1982 film, the research suggests that tempestuous space “weather” (stellar activity like solar storms and plasma turbulence) makes radio signals from the distant cosmos harder to detect.
Register
Register for the US Morning Briefing
First Thing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If you are not registered yet, subscribe now.
Get in touch
If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters, please email newsletters@theguardian.com
