Today In Issues:
FDD Research & Analysis
The Must-Reads
Israel attacks Iranian nuclear sites, missile damages Israeli hospital Israel launches airlift to bring home stranded citizens after Iran strikes Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo: Israel is doing the world a favor – now the US must give any help necessary to end Iran’s nuclear threat Why Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’ is missing in action Israeli strikes shake foundation of Iran’s theocratic rule Iran rejects Trump’s call for ‘surrender’ in war with Israel NYT’s Bret Stephens: An Iran strategy for Trump CSIS’s Heather Williams: Options for targeting Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility Ukraine says it held talks with US on supporting defence projects under joint fund Iranian delegation arrives in Oman Exclusive: European ministers to hold nuclear talks with Iran on Friday in Geneva, source says MAGA brawls over prospect of Trump joining strikes on IranIn The News
Israel
Israel repeatedly struck Iran’s largest enrichment site at Natanz and at its Isfahan nuclear complex. But the full extent of the damage to the country’s nuclear program—or Iran’s ability to race secretly toward a nuclear weapon—remains unclear. – Wall Street Journal
Iran is firing fewer missiles at Israel each day after Israel secured dominance over Iranian skies, enabling it to destroy launchers and take out missiles before they even leave the ground. – Wall Street Journal
The United States Embassy in Jerusalem is working on arranging flights and cruise ships for American citizens looking to leave Israel, the American ambassador, Mike Huckabee, announced on Wednesday, after days in which Americans trying to depart the country could not get evacuation assistance from the embassy. – New York Times
Iran and Israel traded further air attacks on Thursday as President Donald Trump kept the world guessing about whether the United States would join Israel’s bombardment of Iranian nuclear and missile facilities. – Reuters
Israel on Wednesday launched a phased airlift operation to bring home its citizens, after the country’s military strike on Iran closed air space across the Middle East, leaving tens of thousands of Israelis stuck overseas. – Reuters
Flights took off for Israel on Wednesday from Cyprus, airport sources and web flight tracking sites showed, ferrying home Israelis stranded abroad during the conflict with Iran. – Reuters
Israel’s military assault on Iran has united much of the nation after a period of bitter divisions over the war in Gaza, transforming the political landscape overnight as even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s foes close ranks behind him. – Reuters
Israeli gunfire and strikes killed at least 140 people across Gaza in the past 24 hours, local health officials said, as some Palestinians in the Strip said their plight was being forgotten as attention has shifted to the air war between Israel and Iran. – Reuters
Israel will resume its natural gas exports when the country’s military believes it would be safe to do so, Israel’s Energy Ministry Eli Cohen said on Wednesday, as an air battle between Israel and Iran entered its sixth day. – Reuters
Israel’s unique version of the F-35 stealth fighter is showing the jet’s readiness for a higher level of combat in its fights with Iran, a difficult adversary that until recently fielded a challenging arsenal of air defense weapons. – Business Insider
Editorial: If Israel fails to act, the world may very well face a far more volatile region in which nuclear weapons are normalized and deterrence collapses. Preventing this outcome is vital for global stability. The clock is ticking. Iran advances in uranium enrichment and nuclear infrastructure every day. Its proxies may be weakened, but its ambitions are strengthened. Israel can strike decisively – but not forever. This is a moment of existential choice: Act now to forestall catastrophe, or risk living in a world where deterrence has failed, and the region is barred from safety. – Jerusalem Post
Jason Willick writes: From Israel’s perspective, the prospect of a comprehensive defeat of Iran — its regional archrival — might seem so tantalizing that it’s worth leaning harder on American help than it has in the past. But no victories are permanent in the Middle East (or anywhere else), and American backing will be a crucial asset to the Jewish state long after this war. Jerusalem should want to maintain its extraordinary record of military self-sufficiency unless it has no other choice. – Washington Post
Mike Pompeo writes: To critics who argue that America is on the verge of being dragged into yet another Middle Eastern entanglement, it’s worth remembering that wars generally start when bad actors perceive weakness — not the other way around. Policies that impose costs for aggression and bad behavior are crucial to preventing wars. It’s what kept us from having to send large numbers of servicemen into combat during the first Trump administration, and it’s what will ultimately make us safer and keep us off the battlefield — provided we do what is necessary to stand with our ally Israel. – New York Post
Paul Salem writes: Israel has redrawn the regional map. The Islamic Republic, once a formidable and ambitious regional actor, is rapidly becoming a besieged and degraded power. It is likely to survive in the short term — but in what form, and with what purpose, remains unclear. The pathways ahead range from slow-motion regime change to asymmetric entrenchment. What is already certain is that the Iran of late 2025 will look very different from the Iran of early 2023. The question is not only whether the Islamic Republic survives — but whether it evolves, collapses, or retreats into a long twilight of strategic irrelevance and subversive resistance. – Middle East Institute
Michael Hirsh writes: Israel is nearing the end of a remarkable, half-century-long arc of history in which it first established military dominance over its Arab neighbors and is now asserting the same degree of superiority over Iran, its one remaining regional threat. Yet despite that astonishing record of martial success, Israel still needs the United States, its chief geopolitical ally, more than ever. Indeed, it’s fair to say that only U.S. President Donald Trump can end this latest war and deliver the strategic stability the region so badly needs. – Foreign Policy
Jay Solomon writes: Absent American intervention, Israel could be forced to conduct weeks of additional strikes on Iran and potentially insert commando units to try and destroy Fordow and other Iranian nuclear sites. But American officials who’ve studied the facility said its defenses are formidable and involve units from Iran’s elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and is likely mined and booby-trapped. “I would not want to have to send forces down there,” a Trump administration official working on Iran told The Free Press. “It could be a medieval battle.” – Free Press
Iran
For decades, Iran’s leaders built up a network of allied militias in the Middle East that shared a hatred of Israel and America to gain regional influence and protect the regime. But as the theocracy is now fighting for its own survival, its allies are missing in action. – Wall Street Journal
President Trump told senior aides late Tuesday that he approved of attack plans for Iran, but was holding off on giving the final order to see if Tehran would abandon its nuclear program, three people familiar with the deliberations said. – Wall Street Journal
Iran’s embattled leaders have found themselves in an existential struggle domestically to protect nearly a half-century of rule, as Israel pounds the military, government and population. – Wall Street Journal
Iran’s supreme leader on Wednesday defiantly rejected President Trump’s demand for an “unconditional surrender,” and warned against any American military intervention in Israel’s escalating war with Iran, now in its sixth day. – New York Times
Commercial ships are sailing close to Oman and are being advised by maritime agencies to avoid Iran’s waters around the Strait of Hormuz, with the risk of the conflict between Israel and Iran escalating, shipping sources said on Wednesday. – Reuters
Iran has conveyed to Washington that it will respond firmly to the United States if it becomes directly involved in Israel’s military campaign, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva said on Wednesday. – Reuters
Iran and Israel accused each other of endangering commercial activity in sea lanes around the Gulf and the Red Sea at the UN’s shipping agency on Wednesday, as their military conflict escalated. – Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered Wednesday to help mediate an end to the conflict between Israel and Iran, suggesting Moscow could help negotiate a settlement that could allow Tehran to pursue a peaceful atomic program while assuaging Israeli security concerns. – Associated Press
The head of an Iranian opposition group outlawed by Tehran said Wednesday that it was for the Iranian people to overthrow her country’s Islamic regime, as Israel conducts an unprecedented air campaign to destroy its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. – Agence-France Presse
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has given an unusual level of authority to a single general in the latest Middle East crisis — an Iran hawk who is pushing for a strong military response against the country. – Politico
As Iran continues to launch missiles at Israel, a question looms large in the minds of defense analysts and civilians alike: If Iran’s nuclear program is able to advance, could those same missiles one day carry nuclear warheads? – Times of Israel
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that a deal to end the fighting between Israel and Iran was possible, and claimed that Israel’s strikes on Iran had led to a “consolidation” of Iranian society around its leadership. – Times of Israel
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claimed Tehran’s actions are purely in self-defense, but his country “remains committed to diplomacy,” according to a post he shared on X/Twitter. – Jerusalem Post
Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday summoned Germany’s ambassador in protest over remarks made by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz about the Israel-Iran conflict. – Arutz Sheva
Karl Rove writes: While many issues are demanding the president’s attention, the conflict in Iran matters most. If Mr. Trump actively involves America through military action, his presidency changes. Whether it strengthens or weakens his position depends on whether he succeeds in ending the Iranian nuclear threat. He’s been clear that he intends to do so. Now he must decide how, then act. Americans will support him if he does. – Wall Street Journal
Bret Stephens writes: As for Hezbollah and Hamas, they are now spent forces, yielding dwindling strategic benefits for Iran at an unaffordable financial and political cost. And if the regime still thinks it can still do anything in secret, it should ask itself how Israel was able to track down and assassinate so many of its top military commanders and intelligence officials as they slept in their beds. Donald Trump wants to go down in history both as a peacemaker and as the man who stopped Iran from getting a bomb. And Khamenei does not want to go down in history as his regime’s last ruler. There’s a big, beautiful deal to be struck here. For all sides. – New York Times
Marc A. Thiessen writes: The Iranian nuclear program and dispersed and compartmentalized, designed to survive an Israeli-U.S. effort to destroy it. But the die is cast, and we can and must finish what we started. Like his predecessors, Trump has repeatedly declared that “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.” Striking Fordow would cement his legacy as the only president who had the will and fortitude to act on that promise. Israel started this operation, but only Trump can finish it. – Washington Post
Catherine Perez-Shakdam writes: From the Basij in Tehran to the mountains of Balochistan, from the streets of Baghdad to the alleyways of Beirut, Iran’s long game continues. It is not Israel that lies at the center of this web. It is the Arab world. And unless that world wakes up to the nature of the threat, it will one day find itself surrounded – not by armies, but by shadows too long ignored. This is not a time for dialogue with ghosts. It is a time for strategic clarity, regional coordination, and the rejection of illusions, because Iran’s revolution does not want neighbors. It wants vassals. – Jerusalem Post
Heather Williams writes: To summarize, most options for destroying Fordow entail a tradeoff between nonproliferation benefits and escalation risks. While decisive strikes could seriously set back the Iranian program and create incentives for dialogue, military options risk horizontal and vertical escalation, U.S. involvement in a Middle East war, and failure to completely destroy the program, allowing (and potentially incentivizing) Iran to sprint to a nuclear weapon. The only short-term solution that might avoid this tradeoff is Israeli sabotage. It’s also worth noting that these options are not necessarily either-or choices. If Trump calls for strikes on Fordow, which would deliver a decisive blow, additional means might be required to destroy the facility and ultimately achieve the long-term dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program. – Center for Strategic and International Studies
Russia and Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia will hold joint military exercises with China in 2025. – Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday cautioned Germany that Moscow would consider it to be directly involved in the war in Ukraine if Berlin supplied Kyiv with Taurus cruise missiles, but said he was ready to speak to Chancellor Friedrich Merz. – Reuters
Flags across Kyiv were lowered to half-mast on Wednesday, as Ukrainians mourned more than two dozen people killed a day earlier in Russia’s deadliest strike on the capital this year. – Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin made the following comments to senior news agency editors on the conflict between Iran and Israel, NATO and the war in Ukraine. – Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that he was ready to talk with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, but he doubted that Germany could be an intermediary in talks with Ukraine. – Reuters
Senior Ukrainian officials spoke with their U.S. counterparts about the possibility of supporting defence projects in Ukraine under a joint investment fund set up last month, Kyiv’s first deputy prime minister said on Wednesday. – Reuters
Ukrainians will be able to hold dual or multiple citizenship under a law approved by the parliament on Wednesday that aims to ease a demographic crisis exacerbated by the four-year war with Russia and to improve ties with the country’s large diaspora. – Reuters
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday refused to discuss the possibility that Israel and the United States would kill Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and said the Iranian people were consolidating around the leadership in Tehran. – Reuters
Russia is telling the United States not to strike Iran because it would radically destabilise the Middle East, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Wednesday, and Moscow said Israeli strikes risked triggering a nuclear catastrophe. – Reuters
Vladimir Putin has failed to attract western companies to an economic conference in St Petersburg this week. Even Russia’s allies sent lower-ranking officials and businessmen, with the exception of Indonesia, whose president is in attendance. – Financial Times
Lawrence D. Freedman writes: Ukraine’s Western allies, therefore, must be realistic about the potentially long-term demands entailed in keeping Ukraine in the war. Continuing to deny Russia victory is a form of pressure on Putin, who has so little to show for such a long and calamitous campaign. Although it may be hard to imagine a military defeat for Russia, it is possible to imagine a shift in Ukraine’s favor. If Moscow becomes convinced, contrary to its current expectations, that time is not on its side, perhaps that might yet cause it to wonder whether the moment has come to cut its losses. – Foreign Affairs
Hanna Notte writes: Strategically isolated and acutely vulnerable, Iran will be even more distrustful of the United States than it was before Israel’s attack, and it will want Russia involved for at least the appearance of balance. But Russia has little influence over the outcome of the war, Iran’s next steps, or Washington’s decision as to whether it will engage militarily. When it comes to shaping events far from Russia’s borders, Moscow is only so interested and only so able, particularly given its deep investment in the war in Ukraine. Having anti-Western partners in the Middle East serves its purpose. But no one should hold their breath waiting for Russia to come to the rescue of Iran. – The Atlantic
Mark N. Katz writes: Thus, while there are those in Moscow with great hopes about how an expanded BRICS will serve the Kremlin’s interests, prominent Russians in Putin’s orbit also recognize that its utility for Russia is limited. The implications for Western governments are counterintuitive. As more Global South governments that cooperate with the West join BRICS, it will be harder for Russia to orchestrate an anti-Western consensus within an expanded BRICS. The misgivings prominent Russian foreign policy specialists in Putin’s orbit have expressed about the utility of BRICS support support this conclusion. – National Interest
Turkey
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said he will visit Turkey for talks with President Tayyip Erdogan on Friday, a rare bilateral visit that Armenia hopes will reset fraught ties and reopen their shared land border after decades of enmity. – Reuters
Morocco is planning to review its trade agreement with Turkey and push for more Turkish investment to offset an expanding trade deficit driven largely by Turkish fabric imports, two sources told Reuters. – Reuters
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar condemned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday for once again comparing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler and accusing Israel of committing “state terrorism” in its campaign against Iran. – Algemeiner
Brandon J. Weichert writes: This doesn’t even begin to detail how Turkey’s defense industrial base has been cranking out massive numbers of advanced warships, warplanes, drones, and other weapons—while both the Israeli and the American defense industrial bases are increasingly unable to meet the current demands of the global threat environment. At this rate, once Iran’s regime is done away with, the Turks will be able to assert themselves in the region in ways not experienced since the days of the Ottoman Empire. Once they have a clear field, with their military primed and ready for war, the Israelis and their allies will likely be in for a rude geopolitical awakening. – National Interest
Middle East & North Africa
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani reiterated on Wednesday the need for de-escalation in the Middle East amid the Israel-Iran conflict, a spokesperson for Starmer’s office said. – Reuters
China’s Zhongman Petroleum and Natural Gas Group said it won a tender to explore and develop a natural gas block in Algeria under a production sharing contract, marking the company’s first hydrocarbon exploration in Africa. – Reuters
Oil prices fell on Thursday with investors hesitating to take new positions after President Donald Trump gave mixed signals on potential U.S. involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict, while the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged. – Reuters
At least three planes registered to the Iranian government left the country on Wednesday despite the airspace lockdown imposed by the Iranian Civil Aviation Authority. The identities of those on board are currently not known. The planes were detected flying toward Oman, and according to Reuters, an Iranian delegation disembarked in the country. – Arutz Sheva
New information received by the security establishment Thursday indicates that the leader of the Houthi rebel forces in Yemen survived an Israeli assassination attempt but was seriously injured, Kan News reported. – Arutz Sheva
Korean Peninsula
South Korea‘s nominee for spy agency director said on Thursday he believed the United States would strike North Korea with nuclear weapons if Pyongyang launched a nuclear attack against South Korea. – Reuters
Hundreds of thousands of South Koreans have thronged the Blue House in central Seoul in recent months to get their last glimpse of the historic compound before it is returned to official use as the home and office of the country’s president. – Reuters
Denny Roy writes: Most dramatically, Kim’s government has proclaimed South Korea an enemy state and renounced reunification as a policy objective, seemingly ruling out either reconciliation or economic cooperation. This may be a temporary policy intended to give the DPRK bargaining leverage, but many observers had the same hope about the North’s nuclear weapons program. Unlike previous liberal South Korean presidents, Lee will likely clash relatively little with the US government over policy toward North Korea. However, like his predecessors, he will fail to persuade Kim Jong-un to join him in pulling the Korean Peninsula out of its ongoing cold war. – National Interest
Dylan Motin writes: For Trump, shutting down the North Korean nuclear issue would allow him to refocus America’s finite bandwidth on containing China, his primary goal. Unlike past progressive administrations in South Korea, Lee is not proposing expansive economic integration or large-scale cooperative projects. […] Lee’s initial opening gestures have a chance to reset inter-Korean relations and lay the ground for a new round of active diplomacy. Reconciliation is still far away, but quieter days along the DMZ could be ahead. – National Interest
China
A Chinese military magazine, Naval and Merchant Ships, recently zeroed in on one of Taiwan’s biggest vulnerabilities. The island democracy, which China claims is part of its territory and threatens to overtake, imports more than 96 percent of its energy. – New York Times
The governor of China’s central bank outlined a plan on Wednesday for a global financial system that relies on several major currencies, not just the dollar, as Beijing steps up its campaign to weaken the U.S. dollar’s primacy. – New York Times
China’s embassy in Israel will assist Chinese citizens who want to evacuate to leave in batches beginning on Friday, the embassy said in a notice on Thursday. – Reuters
The first Chinese evacuees from Iran have started sharing on social media their desperate efforts to reach the Islamic Republic’s borders and the safety of Turkmenistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan, as the Israel-Iran air war entered a sixth day. – Reuters
China has attacked the Group of Seven nations for what it called interference in its internal affairs and chastised a top European official for criticizing Beijing’s rare earth and economic policies. – Bloomberg
South Asia
In the brief but pitched military clash between Pakistan and India last month, the skies swarmed with waves of cutting-edge drones, signaling a shift from traditional border skirmishes to high-tech showdowns. – New York Times
India is a perpetrator of foreign interference, Canada’s intelligence agency said in a report published on Wednesday, just after India’s and Canada’s prime ministers vowed to strengthen ties at a global summit hosted by Canada. – Reuters
India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal will visit the United Kingdom on June 18 to discuss the progress on the implementation of the trade deal announced last month. – Bloomberg
Divya Malhotra writes: The more likely course is calibrated solidarity: rhetorical and humanitarian support for Iran, paired with strategic ambiguity and indirect coordination through allies like Turkey and China. This approach allows Islamabad to project ideological consistency while avoiding direct confrontation with Washington. Yet even symbolic nuclear posturing, like the recent claim of Pakistani backing for Iranian reprisal, risks crossing a dangerous Rubicon. This escalatory rhetoric will not go unnoticed in Washington or Jerusalem. – Jerusalem Post
Asia
The government of Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was hanging by a thread on Thursday with coalition partners weighing whether to stay in the alliance following the withdrawal of a major player that could sink her administration. – Reuters
New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said on Thursday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally-linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. – Reuters
Relations between Thailand and Cambodia suffered a major blow on Wednesday after a leak of a telephone conversation between Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and influential former Cambodian premier Hun Sen that could further escalate tensions. – Reuters
Australia has evacuated a small number of citizens from Israel, and New Zealand embassy staff have left Iran, but the two governments warned that closed airspace limited how they can assist thousands of citizens requesting help to leave the conflict zone. – Reuters
Japanese premier Shigeru Ishiba’s bid to get U.S. President Donald Trump to relax tariffs imperiling his country’s economy and his political future fell flat this week, underlining the gulf between the allies as more levies are set to kick in. – Reuters
Europe
The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain plan to hold nuclear talks with their Iranian counterpart on Friday in Geneva, a German diplomatic source told Reuters. – Reuters
Britain called on Wednesday for reform of the European Convention on Human Rights, amid growing domestic criticism that it allows a foreign-based court to meddle in sensitive areas of policy such as immigration and deportation rulings. – Reuters
A minority centre-right government formally took power in Portugal on Wednesday after parliament threw out a motion by the small opposition Communist Party calling for rejection of the new administration’s programme. – Reuters
Britain said on Wednesday it was temporarily withdrawing the family members of staff who work at the country’s embassy and consulate in Israel due to the significant risks posed from the conflict between Iran and Israel. – Reuters
Hungary and the United States are discussing a business deal that could involve cooperation in the space industry and military capabilities, a Hungarian official said on Wednesday, aiming to offset the impacts of potential U.S. tariffs. – Reuters
Moldova’s pro-Russian separatist Transdniestria region faces a dire economic crisis triggered by this year’s halting of gas supplies from Russia and a collapse in industrial and farm production, a senior minister in the enclave said on Wednesday. – Reuters
The Czech centre-right government on Wednesday survived a vote of no confidence, called after the acceptance of a payment to the state by an ex-convict worth $45 million in bitcoin sparked controversy within the ruling coalition months before an election. – Reuters
Germany will continue to organise special commercial flights out of Jordan for its citizens who are looking to leave Israel as long as there is a need and the situation permits, said a foreign ministry spokesperson in Berlin on Wednesday. – Reuters
Faced with a growing number of Channel migrant crossings, France hopes to stop more small boats from reaching Britain by changing its rules of engagement to intercept vessels, France’s interior ministry has said. – Reuters
France is planning to put forward a proposal with its European partners to resolve the conflict between Israel and Iran amid fears of a regional escalation. – Politico
Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation has finally reported its conclusions into the 25 December 2024 incident when the Cook Island-flagged tanker Eagle S dragged its anchor for 100 km, damaging four telecom and one power cable between Finland and Estonia. – Janes
Africa
Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo technical teams initialed a draft peace agreement that is expected to be signed next week, the two countries and the United States said on Wednesday, aiming for an end to fighting in eastern Congo. – Reuters
West African nations want to strike deals with the U.S. over energy and rare earth minerals, but the Trump administration’s looming expansion of travel bans risks derailing those efforts, Nigeria’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. – Reuters
A 90,000 metric ton cargo of gasoline from Nigeria’s Dangote refinery will be sold out of the region for the first time and bound for Asia, a source familiar with the matter. – Reuters
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday directed security agencies to hunt down the perpetrators of a weekend attack that killed at least 150 people in the country’s northcentral, as he faces growing pressure over a worsening security crisis. – Associated Press
Swooping low over the banks of a Nile River tributary, an aid flight run by retired American military officers released a stream of food-stuffed sacks over a town emptied by fighting in South Sudan, a country wracked by conflict. – Associated Press
South Africa will resume trade talks with the Trump administration on the sidelines of the US-Africa Business Summit next week, with less than a month to go before Washington’s reciprocal tariffs are set to come into effect. – Bloomberg
The Americas
Bank of Canada officials are tracking labor-market conditions to determine whether job cuts in trade-exposed sectors like manufacturing start spreading in other parts of the economy, Gov. Tiff Macklem said Wednesday. – Wall Street Journal
Hurricane Erick strengthened rapidly into a major Category 3 hurricane on Wednesday as it churned toward Mexico’s southern Pacific Coast, where it is expected to make landfall early Thursday, authorities said. – Reuters
The Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said on Wednesday that the prospect of a new Canada-U.S. trade deal offers hope that tariffs will be removed, but cautioned that inflation could rise if tariffs stayed in place. – Reuters
At least 13 people were killed during a shoot-out involving organized crime in the central Mexican state of Zacatecas, the state government’s secretary general said on Wednesday. – Reuters
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will travel to Brussels and The Hague from June 22 to 25 to attend the Canada-European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization summits, the prime minister’s office said in a statement on Wednesday. – Reuters
The United States imposed sanctions on Wednesday against five leaders of a Mexican drug cartel including the prime suspect in the murder of Mexican influencer Valeria Marquez, the Treasury Department said. – Reuters
Several Canadian pro-Palestinian youth organizations are coordinating a “Hands Off Iran” rally this weekend outside the American consulate in Toronto — to protest Israel’s targeted attack against the authoritarian regime’s nuclear and military capabilities. – New York Sun
Latin America
Tens of thousands of Argentines marched in the streets of Buenos Aires on Wednesday, banging drums and chanting in a show of support for ex-president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner as she started a six-year sentence under house arrest for corruption. – Reuters
Former President Jair Bolsonaro’s son and allies have been formally accused by Brazilian federal police after a probe into the alleged surveillance of authorities by spy agency ABIN during Bolsonaro’s time in office, a police source and local media said. – Reuters
Washington needs to take further action against Venezuelan leader President Nicolas Maduro, opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said, including enforcing sanctions and fighting criminal networks she says are connected to the government. – Reuters
United States
Sam Yebri doesn’t remember the country his family fled when he was a 1-year-old, exiled from Iran for being in the Jewish minority. But he has followed the politics of the Islamic nation his entire life, wondering if this current moment would ever come. – Wall Street Journal
The State Department will review the social-media accounts of foreign student visa applicants, and applicants will be expected to have all social-media profiles set to “public.” – Wall Street Journal
President Trump’s political base is splintering over the prospect that the U.S. could join Israel’s assault on Iran—and the White House is trying to quell the backlash. – Wall Street Journal
The Trump administration has deployed into duty 2,000 National Guard soldiers in California, even as the state’s governor clashes with the White House over using troops to quell protests over the federal immigration crackdown. – Bloomberg
While the U.S. weighs its future involvement in the conflict between Iran and Israel, many leaders are looking with fresh eyes at Iran’s activities targeting Americans worldwide over four decades. – Fox News
The American Jewish community continues to be battered by antisemitic hate incidents across the US, forcing law enforcement to stay hot on the trails of those who perpetrate them amid a wave of recent outrages. – Algemeiner
Andreas Kluth writes: The power in Trump’s hands at this moment in history is hard to fathom. So are the consequences of his decision. Trump “really does want to see a more peaceful world,” a veteran of his first administration tells me. And yet Trump, a president who thinks of governing as starring in the world’s grandest reality-television franchise, must be tempted to seize this opportunity to project the ultimate semblance of strength. For the first and probably only time in my life, I must agree with Tucker Carlson: “What happens next will define Donald Trump’s presidency.” – Bloomberg
Cybersecurity
Swiss financial groups UBS and Pictet said Wednesday that no client data was involved in the cyberattack, while construction company Implenia said it assumed no sensitive data was affected. – Wall Street Journal
Malaysia said it is looking into media reports that a Chinese company in the country used servers equipped with Nvidia and artificial-intelligence chips to train large language models. – Wall Street Journal
Malaysia’s communications regulator said on Thursday it has obtained a temporary court order against messaging service Telegram and two channels on the platform for allegedly disseminating content that violates the country’s law. – Reuters
Suspected Russian hackers have deployed a new tactic to trick even wary targets into compromising their own accounts, a victim of the spy campaign and researchers said on Wednesday. – Reuters
An anti-Iranian hacking group with possible ties to Israel announced an attack on one of Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges on Wednesday, destroying nearly $90 million and threatening to expose the platform’s source code. – Reuters
The hackers targeting prominent researcher and Russian military expert Keir Giles were different this time. – Cyberscoop
Job applicants in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry are being targeted by North Korean hackers seeking to infect the devices of potential new hires and steal their data. – The Record
Email accounts belonging to a well-known British expert on Russia were targeted with a highly customized and novel social engineering attack that relied on the use of app-specific passwords (ASPs) to get around multi-factor authentication (MFA), new research shows. – The Record
Defense
A series of B-2 bombers lifts off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri or the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Refueled in the air, they head for a remote mountain in north-central Iran, far from civilians, where they get Iran’s most heavily fortified nuclear site, Fordo, in their sights. – New York Times
The US Navy’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier is preparing to head to Europe for its second-ever major deployment, a US official told Business Insider on Wednesday. – Business Insider
U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll promised Congress today the service would show its homework in 10 days on how it decided to consolidate commands, restructure formations and cancel or restructure a slew of weapons programs. – Defense News
The Space Force in contracting with SpaceX for a new government-owned, contractor-operated satellite communication constellation in low Earth orbit (LEO), called MILNET, that eventually will be integrated into the service’s grand plan for a “hybrid mesh network” combining commercial and Defense Department satellites, a senior Space Force official revealed today. – Breaking Defense
The US State Department has approved an Australian Foreign Military Sales request to acquire equipment for its fleet of EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft and F/A-18F Super Hornet multirole fighter jets. – Breaking Defense
President Donald Trump has tapped Adm. Daryl Caudle to be the next chief of naval operations and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. – Defensescoop