Author: Reporter

Autopsies indicate an intentional system of brutality as Ukrainian POWs die in Russian prisons

“Everything will be all right.” Ukrainian soldier Serhii Hryhoriev said this so often during brief phone calls from the front that his wife and two daughters took it to heart. His younger daughter, Oksana, tattooed the phrase on her wrist as a talisman. Even after Hryhoriev was captured by the Russian army in 2022, his anxious family clung to the belief that he would ultimately be OK. After all, Russia is bound by international law to protect prisoners of war. When Hryhoriev finally came home, though, it was in a body bag. A Russian death certificate said the 59-year-old...

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U2’s Bono questions if the world still values mercy as peace retreats in an age overshadowed by war

Cannes is a short trip from Bono’s seaside villa in Eze-sur-Mer. He bought it with The Edge in 1993, and considers himself grateful to a coastline that, he said, gave him a “delayed adolescence.” “I can tell you I’ve slept on beaches close to here,” Bono said with a grin. “I’ve woken up in the sun.” But that does not mean the Cannes Film Festival is a particularly familiar experience for the U2 frontman. He was there to premiere the Apple TV+ documentary “Bono: Stories of Surrender,” which captured his one-man stage show. Before coming, Bono’s daughter, the actor...

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Burden of history: Okinawa solemnly marks 80 years since the end of one of the harshest battles of WWII

Okinawa marked the 80th anniversary of the end of one of the harshest battles of World War II fought on the southern island. With global tensions escalating, its governor said on June 23 it is the Okinawan “mission” to keep telling the tragic history and its impact today. The Battle of Okinawa killed a quarter of the island’s population, leading to a 27-year U.S. occupation and a heavy American troop presence to date. The June 23 memorial came one day after U.S. attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, adding to a sense of uncertainty on the island about the heavy...

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Trump abandons promise to avoid war by inserting U.S. into Netanyahu’s undeclared war with Iran

Donald Trump expressed certainty that his big gamble to directly assist the Israelis delivered a knockout blow to Iran’s nuclear program, even as many supporters and detractors alike were warning that U.S. military action could draw the United States into an expansive regional conflict. Trump, in brief remarks to the nation on June 21 from the White House, said the U.S. strikes “obliterated” three critical Iranian enrichment facilities and “the bully of the Middle East must now make peace.” But it is a risky moment for Trump, who has belittled his predecessors for tying up America in “stupid wars”...

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Trump ignites Congressional debate on presidential authority to unilaterally march America into war

After nearly two years of stark divisions over the war in Gaza and support for Israel, Democrats seemed at odds over policy toward Iran. Progressives demanded unified opposition before Donald Trump announced U.S. strikes against Tehran’s nuclear program, but party leaders were treading more cautiously. U.S. leaders of all stripes have found common ground for two decades on the position that Iran could not be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. The longtime U.S. foe has supported groups that have killed Americans across the Mideast and threatened to destroy Israel. But Trump’s announcement on June 21 that the U.S....

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The man who cried bomb: Netanyahu spent 30 years warning Iran’s nuclear weapons were “imminent”

His public statements have repeatedly framed Tehran’s atomic ambitions as an urgent and growing threat, a view that has shaped both Israel’s national security posture and its dealings with the United States. Netanyahu began issuing such alerts in the early 1990s, during his time as a member of Israel’s parliament. In a 1992 speech to the Knesset, he suggested that Iran was within three to five years of achieving independent nuclear weapons production. He would go on to reaffirm that assessment in his 1995 book, Fighting Terrorism, arguing that Iran’s nuclear intentions posed a dire challenge to global security....

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