Federal officials described President Donald Trump's July 4 celebration as "safe" and "well-prepared" just hours after a record heat wave forced organizers to shut down the Great American State Fair and paramedics rushed to aid attendees, several of whom were reportedly hospitalized.In a joint statement Friday, Freedom 250, the U.S. Park Police, the National Park Service, the Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency said they had coordinated to expand cooling resources, water stations and medical support for the "Salute to America" event."We are proud to welcome the public to a safe, well-prepared, and truly memorable celebration of America's 250th birthday," the statement read.The reassurance arrived alongside a quiet concession. Organizers pushed back public entry to the Washington Monument grounds from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. "to reduce prolonged exposure to heat," cutting four hours off the window guests can spend on-site.Trump's slot was left untouched, however. The president is still scheduled to deliver remarks at 9:45 p.m., followed by a 10:30 p.m. fireworks display his task force has billed as the largest in history.The statement capped a troubled stretch for the 16-day event. The fair was forced to close for hours Friday as the capital baked under an extreme heat warning, with the heat index projected as high as 113 degrees. One attendee earlier dunked herself in a baptismal pool to escape the heat, and reporters described a largely deserted fairground throughout the week.Washington was forecast to be hotter than 99 percent of the planet on Friday, according to a Washington Post meteorologist.
Despite efforts by U.S. negotiators, Iran says it wants to charge a toll for ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. It's yet another unresolved issue of the U.S.-Iran war.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) on Friday criticized President Trump’s decision to hold a July Fourth rally on the National Mall during a heat wave in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. “I think that we should never ask our people to sacrifice in order to hear a speech,” he told The Hill’s Judy Kurtz and Hillary…
Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf has warned of an Iranian response if the U.S. and Israel breach the interim peace deal, as Tehran prepares to bury its former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “We strongly demand full implementation of the agreements, and if the U.S. and the Zionist regime fail to fulfill their commitments, Iran…
Iran's entire regime made a red carpet entrance to the first of three funeral ceremonies for late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — except the dead ayatollah's own son and successor.
Trump administration officials reportedly believed that the Israeli government intended to assassinate Iran’s top negotiators—including the country’s foreign minister—during peace talks with the US in an effort to sabotage diplomatic progress.The New York Times reported Thursday that “American concerns about the targeting of two particular Iranian officials—Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Parliament—spiked during delicate ceasefire negotiations that began in April.” In response, the US “went so far as to ask other countries in the region to warn Iran about the possibility Israel could target the two officials,” according to the Times, which cited unnamed current and former American officials.The US and Israel have killed dozens of top Iranian officials since launching their illegal joint war in late February. But the allied countries reportedly removed Araghchi and Ghalibaf from their target list in late March, opening the possibility of high-level negotiations to end the war.But Israel remained bent on targeting the negotiators, according to the Times, whose reporting was later corroborated by The Washington Post.The Times detailed one dramatic incident in April, when Ghalibaf was planning to travel to Pakistan’s capital to meet with US Vice President JD Vance:Pakistani fighter jets escorted the Iranian airplanes carrying a delegation of more than 70 Iranians from the border of Iran to Islamabad and back again when the session was over.But on the way back to Tehran, an Israeli security threat emerged.Iran’s security forces notified the plane carrying Mr. Ghalibaf back to Tehran that they had picked up intelligence that Israel planned to attack the plane and that two Israeli fighter jets had entered Iran’s airspace from its western border near Iraq, the two officials said.Mahdi Mohammadi, a senior adviser for Mr. Ghalibaf, who accompanied him to Islamabad, confirmed this account on his social media page. The plane made an emergency landing in the city of Mashhad, Iran’s closest airport to the Pakistani border, and the Iranian delegation traveled some eight hours by land back to Tehran, Mr. Mohammadi and the two officials said.The Post reported that “cracks emerged” between the US and Israeli approaches to the war following Israel’s assassination of top Iranian national security official Ali Larijani in March.“They’ve wiped out everybody,” Trump told reporters in late March, suggesting Israel’s assassination campaign was making it difficult to find potential negotiating partners.Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote in response to the new reporting that “Israel is a state that, on paper, is a US partner, but in reality is so extreme in its obsession to undermine US diplomacy that it even tries to assassinate those the US engages with in crucial negotiations.”“I can’t recall a government as terrified of peace as the one running Israel,” Parsi added.At present, the Israeli government—led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—is endangering tenuous US-Iran peace talks with its continued occupation of and assault on Lebanon, which Iran has highlighted as a key factor in the negotiations.Visiting occupied southern Lebanon earlier this week, Netanyahu declared to Israeli troops that “our insistence is that we will not leave... until the threat is removed.”Parsi wrote earlier this week that “beyond his long-standing desire to use American force to subjugate Iran to Israeli domination and achieve a regional balance favorable to Israel,” Netanyahu “now also has stark political and personal reasons to restart the war” with Iran.“The [US and Iran’s memorandum of understanding] has come at a steep political cost for Netanyahu,” wrote Parsi. “His prospects for reelection in October are weaker than they have been in months. Once seen as the Israeli leader uniquely capable of delivering President Trump, he now confronts the prospect that both the war and the ensuing diplomacy will leave Israel in a strategically weaker position—undermining the very case he has made for his leadership.”“And of course,” Parsi added, “if he loses the elections, he will likely spend the next few years in jail, as he will lose his immunity as prime minister and face trial over corruption charges.”The story was published in partnership with Common Dreams, read the original here.
