Apollo to fund UK's Hinkley Point nuclear project with $6 billion loan

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson visits Hinkley Point C Nuclear Power Station construction site, at Bridgwater · Reuters

Reuters
Fri, June 20, 2025

Corrects paragraph 1 to clarify that Apollo Global is a private capital group, not just a private equity firm. 

(Reuters) -Apollo Global will provide 4.5 billion pounds ($6.08 billion) in financing to support Britain's long-delayed Hinkley Point nuclear project, the U.S. private capital group said on Friday.


The nuclear project will be funded by proceeds from Apollo-managed affiliates, funds and strategic accounts' agreement to invest up to the same amount in fixed-rate callable notes issued by French power giant EDF.

The investment was first reported by the Financial Times earlier in the day.

The project, controlled and financed by EDF, is Britain's first new nuclear plant in more than two decades as London seeks to replace its ageing fleet to boost energy security, reach climate targets and create new jobs.


The Hinkley project has had several delays and cost overruns, especially after China General Nuclear Power Group pulled out in 2023. It is currently expected to start operations in 2029, with an estimated cost of between 31 billion and 34 billion pounds at 2015 prices.

Apollo's funding is expected to be provided as unsecured debt at an interest rate of just under 7%, the FT report said.

The British government last week said it would invest a further 14.2 billion pounds to build the Sizewell C nuclear plant in southeast England, a second major new nuclear project for the country.

($1 = 0.7407 pounds)

(Reporting by Unnamalai L, DhanushVignesh Babu and Prerna bedi in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

• Panama cuts internet, cell phones in restive province

• Panama declares state of emergency over deadly pension protests

• Panama declares emergency in western province after deadly pension protests

• Panama declares emergency over banana region unrest

Panama cuts internet, cell phones in restive province

AFP
Sat, June 21, 2025 

Anti-government protests have impacted the major banana-producing region of Bocas del Toro

ASBEL LLORENT/AFP/AFP


Panamanian authorities on Saturday partially suspended internet and mobile phone service in a western province where a state of emergency was in effect after two months of anti-government unrest.

Right-wing President Jose Raul Mulino declared the emergency on Friday, suspending freedom of assembly and movement in Bocas del Toro province, where protesters have set up roadblocks and damaged the airport, businesses and offices.

The National Authority for Public Services said on X that based on the emergency decree, "the temporary suspension of mobile phone and residential internet service has been coordinated in the province of Bocas del Toro until June 25."

Internet service would remain available for health care, businesses and government entities, the agency said.

Anti-government protests began almost two months ago in the major banana-producing region of Bocas del Toro.

They turned violent Thursday in the city of Changuinola when groups of hooded individuals looted businesses and partially set fire to a baseball stadium with police officers inside, authorities said.

The unrest has seen one dead, more than 100 arrested, and dozens injured, including 13 police officers, according to authorities.

Mulino has been facing protests on several fronts in recent months.

Workers with US banana giant Chiquita in Bocas del Toro went on strike in late April over pension reforms adopted by Congress, which critics say will force them to work longer.

Chiquita sacked thousands of workers over the strike.

The banana growers' unions called off their protest last week in a bid to reverse the layoffs but other groups have remained at the barricades.

Besides the pension reforms, Panamanians have also been in the streets over a deal Mulino struck with US President Donald Trump in April allowing US troops to deploy to Panamanian bases along the Panama Canal.

The US Embassy in Panama issued a security alert Friday prohibiting American government staffers from traveling to Bocas del Toro "until further notice."

cmm/mis/dg/cls/dth/acb/bjt


Panama declares state of emergency over deadly pension protests

AFP
Fri, June 20, 2025 

Anti-government protesters clashed with police and vandalized businesses in Bocas del Toro province in a two-month-long dispute over pension reforms (ASBEL LLORENT)ASBEL LLORENT/AFP/AFPMore


Panama on Friday declared a state of emergency in western Bocas del Toro province, where anti-government protesters are accused of setting fire to a baseball stadium and of looting businesses, including a provincial airport.

The protests that erupted two months ago in Bocas del Toro, a major banana-producing region, intensified this week, culminating in clashes with police that left one person dead and around 30 people, including several officers, the police said.

Over 50 people were arrested over the unrest.

The clashes came after a huge police contingent was deployed to try clear roads that the protesters had blocked with tree trunks for weeks.

The violence peaked in the city of Changuinola on Thursday, where groups of hooded individuals looted businesses and partially set fire to a baseball stadium with police officers inside, the authorities said.

The police said that "vandals" also "took over" the airport, stole vehicles belonging to car rental companies and looted an office and a warehouse containing supplies belonging to US banana giant Chiquita Brands.

The minister of the presidency, Juan Carlos Orillac, said that the government had decided to declare a state of emergency and suspend constitutional guarantees" in all of Bocas del Toro, "in order to restore peace and order."

He said the ban on public gatherings aimed to prevent "radical and criminal groups gathering to organize acts of violence and vandalism which endanger property and people."

Right-wing President Jose Raul Mulino has been facing protests on several fronts in recent months.

Chiquita workers in Bocas del Toro went on strike in late April over pension reforms adopted by Congress in April, which workers say will force them to work longer.

Chiquita sacked thousands of workers over the strike.

The banana growers' unions called off their protest last week in a bid to reverse the layoffs but other groups have remained at the barricades.

Besides the pension reforms, Panamanians have also been in the streets over a deal Mulino struck with US President Donald Trump in April allowing US troops to deploy to Panamanian bases along the Panama Canal.

Mulino made the concession to Trump after the US leader repeatedly threatened to "take back" the US-built waterway.

Mulino has also angered environmentalists by threatening to reopen one of Central America's biggest copper mines.

jjr/fj/cb/bgs


Panama declares emergency in western province after deadly pension protests

Al Jazeera
Sat, June 21, 2025


Demonstrators attend an antigovernment rally in Panama City on June 20, 2025 [Martin Bernetti/AFP]

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways

Panama has declared a state of emergency in western Bocas del Toro province, where antigovernment protesters opposing a pension reform law are accused of setting fire to a baseball stadium and of looting businesses, including a provincial airport.

The protests that erupted two months ago in Bocas del Toro, a major banana-producing region, intensified this week, culminating in clashes with police that left one person dead and injured about 30 people, including several officers, police said on Friday.

Presidential Minister Juan Carlos Orillac said in a news conference on Friday that the move to suspend some constitutional rights and ban public gatherings would allow the government to reestablish order and “rescue” the province from “radical groups”, adding that the damage caused to public properties was “unacceptable and did not represent a legitimate protest”.

“In the face of the disruption of order and acts of systematic violence, the state will enforce its constitutional mandate to guarantee peace,” he said.

The measure will be in place for five days, he said.

The protesters, backed by unions and Indigenous groups across the country, have faced off with authorities over a pension reform law passed in March.

Confrontations have been particularly intense in Bocas del Toro, largely led by workers at a local Chiquita banana plantation. The multinational banana giant Chiquita called the workers’ strike an “unjustified abandonment of work” and sacked thousands of employees.

Those workers ultimately withdrew from the protests after they were able to negotiate the restoration of some benefits that had been removed under the March pension reform.

Still, the government has said roadblocks in Bocas del Toro have yet to be lifted, though it did not directly attribute them to the Chiquita workers.

The violence peaked in the city of Changuinola, Bocas del Toro’s main city, on Thursday when groups of hooded individuals looted businesses and partially set fire to a baseball stadium with police officers inside, authorities said.

Police said “vandals took over” the local airport, stole vehicles belonging to car rental companies, and looted an office and a warehouse containing supplies belonging to Chiquita. Flights at the airport were still suspended on Friday.

Panama’s right-wing President Jose Raul Mulino has been facing protests on several fronts in recent months.

Besides the pension reforms, Panamanians have also been in the streets over a deal Mulino struck with US President Donald Trump in April allowing US troops to deploy to Panamanian bases along the Panama Canal.

Mulino made the concession to Trump after the US leader repeatedly threatened to “take back” the US-built waterway.

Mulino has also angered environmentalists by threatening to reopen Cobre Panama, one of Central America’s biggest copper mines.

Panama declares emergency over banana region unrest

Leonardo Rocha - BBC World Service Latin America editor 

and Jaroslav Lukiv - BBC News
Fri, June 20, 2025 


Masked protesters clash with law enforcement officers in Valle de Agua Abajo, Bocas del Toro [EPA]


Panama has declared an emergency in its main banana-producing region, after shops were looted and buildings vandalised in ongoing protests over a pension reform.

The government says constitutional rights will be suspended for the next five days in the north-western Bocas del Toro province.

The measure restricts freedom of movement and allows the police to make arrests without a warrant.

Troubles in the region began a month ago, when the local banana workers union joined a nationwide protest against proposed pension cuts and declared a strike.

"In the face of the disruption of order and acts of systematic violence, the state will enforce its constitutional mandate to guarantee peace," said Juan Carlos Orillac, minister of the presidency.

The measure, he added, would allow to "rescue the province" from radicals.

Protests across the Latin American nation erupted back in March over the pension reform.

In Bocas del Toro, the unrest has been largely led by workers at a Chiquita Brands banana plantation.

The confrontation escalated last month after the company sacked thousands of striking employees.

Protesters have been setting up roadblocks in the province, often clashing with police.

Earlier this week, crowds damaged one of Chiquita Brands' facilities as well as a local airport.

Panama country profile

Harvard hired a researcher to uncover its ties to slavery. He says the results cost him his job: ‘We found too many slaves’

Michela Moscufo
Sat, June 21, 2025 
THE GUARDIAN


Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1913.Photograph: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

LONG READ

Jordan Lloyd had been praying for something big to happen. The 35-year-old screenwriter was quarantining in her apartment in North Hollywood in June 2020. Without any work projects to fill her days, she picked up the novel Roots, by Alex Haley, to reread.

The novel tells the story of Kunta Kinte, Haley’s ancestor, who is captured and sold into slavery in the Gambia and then brought to Virginia, where he is forced to labor on a plantation. It was adapted into an Emmy-award winning television series in the 1970s, and while reading it again, Lloyd thought to herself, “Wouldn’t it be nice if they could make another Roots?”

A few days later, out of the blue, she received an email from an undergraduate student at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The email was short. The woman introduced herself as Carissa Chen, a junior at the college studying history. She was working on an independent research project to find descendants of enslaved people connected to the university. By using historical records and modern genealogy tools, she had found Lloyd.

Related: Harriet Tubman’s church in Canada was a crucial force in the abolitionist movement. It’s still standing today

“I have reason to believe through archival research that you could be the descendant of Tony and Cuba Vassall, two slaves taken from Antigua by a founding member connected to Harvard University,” the email read. “Are you available anytime for a call?”

The note linked to a website containing a family tree that Chen had created, tracing the lineage of people enslaved by Isaac Royall Jr, an Antiguan planter and businessman whose endowment would eventually create Harvard Law School.

Chen hadn’t expected to find any living descendants, she told the Guardian, but through dogged research, she managed to uncover 50 names and found Lloyd through an old website she had made when she had first moved to Los Angeles.

“It all felt too specific to be a scam,” Lloyd recounted, so she agreed to a call that would eventually blow open everything she thought she knew about her family history, linking her with one of the nation’s most prestigious institutions and launching a phase in her life that would be colored with equal parts joy and pain.
US universities and the legacy of slavery

Though it contradicts a common perception of colonial New England, enslaved people were brought to work in northern cities in North America as well. In her book New England Bound, the historian Wendy Warren records the remarks of one European traveler who noted in 1687 that “there is not a house in Boston, however small may be its means, that has not one or two [enslaved people]”.

As the country’s oldest and wealthiest university, Harvard’s history is inextricable from the history of transatlantic slavery. The enslaved labored in campus buildings, university presidents and professors owned people forced into bondage, and the school’s wealth grew through a circle of donors intimately connected to the plantation system in the Caribbean, the American south and the trafficking of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic.

Harvard began, informally, to research its relationship to slavery as early as 2007, when the history professor Sven Beckert started leading undergraduate research seminars such as the one Chen took. In 2016, then Harvard president Drew Faust acknowledged the university was “directly complicit” in slavery and, in 2022, the university released an official report, Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery, which detailed its history over more than a hundred pages.

Harvard is not the only academic institution with this burden. Currently more than 100 universities across the world are investigating their ties to slavery, the vast majority of which are in the US. A small subset of the universities researching their ties to slavery – approximately five – have committed to conducting genealogical research and identifying living descendants. Religious denominations such as the Episcopal church and the Evangelical Lutheran church and more than a dozen cities and four states have also begun researching their legacies of slavery. The California state reparations taskforce published a 1,000-page report two years ago, and state legislators have been developing – and passing – reparations-related initiatives.


The Guardian, founded in 1821 in Manchester, England, began its own process in 2020, when its sole owner, the Scott Trust, commissioned independent academic researchers to uncover its links to transatlantic slavery. It revealed that the newspaper’s founder, John Edward Taylor, and nine out of 11 of his financial backers had direct ties, mainly through Manchester’s cotton industry. In 2023, the Scott Trust apologized for its role in transatlantic slavery and committed to a 10-year restorative justice program, with millions earmarked for descendant communities. That year, the Guardian also launched an ongoing series called Cotton Capital, which explores the legacies of slavery globally.

The 2022 Harvard report included a list of recommendations by the presidential committee: develop educational partnerships with historically Black colleges and universities, create a public memorial, and – perhaps most contentiously – identify living descendants of people enslaved by university staff, leaders and faculty. The announcement was accompanied by a $100m endowment for “implementation”.

The person the university tapped to lead the descendant research is a man named Richard Cellini, who has a kind of mythological status in the world of institutional accountability and slavery research. By his own admission, his skill lies primarily in selecting talented researchers, and “keeping them happy”. The university, it seemed, was fully committed to beginning a process of discovery and atonement, putting resources and brainpower behind a project that could set the tone for institutions around the country, and the world. If successful, Harvard could demonstrate that truth-telling and reconciliation are possible on a large scale, that an institutional culture around silence and historical revisionism can be overturned, and that light can shine into even the deepest cracks. But that would ultimately not be the case. Not yet, at least.
‘A source of guilt and shame for Harvard’

When I visited Cellini in the archives of the Harvard Business School in mid-February, he was bent over a 19th-century ledger book, trained on a set of records with a magnifying glass. He is a trained attorney and tech entrepreneur, and though jovial and quick to joke, he becomes stoic when speaking about his research.

In 2015, he started an independent project at Georgetown University in Washington DC to locate the descendants of 272 enslaved people sold by Jesuit leaders in the mid-1800s to raise money for the university. Cellini said he was driven by a sense of moral outrage upon learning about the sale, as well as a curiosity to see what he could find. Along with 10 other researchers, they would eventually locate more than 10,000 direct descendants. Cellini’s effort, called the Georgetown Memory Project, remains independent although the university has given preferential consideration during the admissions process to descendants and created a “reconciliation fund’ for their benefit.

In the winter of 2022, before the Harvard report was made public, Cellini said he was approached by the former president of the school, Larry Bacow, and a dean, Tomiko Brown-Nagin, who asked him if he could do the same thing for Harvard.

When he started the research, Harvard had already identified the names of 70 people that had been enslaved with ties to the university. Over the course of the past three years, working alongside American Ancestors, the country’s pre-eminent genealogical institute, Cellini and his researchers have identified more than 900 people that had been enslaved by university affiliates (faculty, staff and people in leadership positions) and nearly 500 of their direct living descendants.

It wasn’t long after the work began to pick up steam that Cellini started running into trouble.

In March 2023, he said he was asked to meet with the project’s executive director, Roeshana Moore-Evans, and the Harvard staff member overseeing the initiative, the public health professor and vice-provost for special projects, Sara Bleich.

These informal meetings were held in a boardroom in the student center, a tall glass building overlooking the gates of Harvard Yard. It was here and during extended phone calls that Cellini claims he was told repeatedly by Bleich “not to find too many descendants”.

“At one point the fear was expressed that if we found too many descendants, it would bankrupt the university,” he said.

Cellini told Bleich that was “ludicrous”, he said. Was he supposed to falsify the evidence, to destroy it, to ignore it? “I asked for guidance, and the answer was that she didn’t know,” he said, “but we shouldn’t report too many descendants.”

Bleich denies this. “The university never issued a directive to him to limit the number of direct descendants that could be identified through the work,” she told the Guardian during a phone interview. Moore-Evans declined to comment on the meetings.

In the process of trying to get additional funding for the project, arguing that the amount of work had increased tenfold because of all the additional names that were being uncovered, Cellini met with the finance director for the president’s office, Patricia Harrington, this past fall.

Harrington wouldn’t give him a clear answer about his funding request, telling him, “Unfortunately you keep finding more slaves,” he said, and that “every new person is a source of guilt and shame for Harvard”. A spokesperson for the university said: “Any assertion that Patricia Harrington disparaged the work of the Legacy of Slavery Initiative, including descendant research, is false.” Even though Cellini was eventually given a budget for 2025, albeit a fraction of what he had asked for, the university would soon halt his work entirely.

A family’s rich history tied to the founding of the US

The early days of discovery were a golden time for Lloyd and her immediate family. Together with Lloyd’s father, Dennis, and Chen, they would meet over Zoom and swap stories. Her dad was sharing parts of family history that Lloyd had never heard before: about his soft-spoken mother and his dad, who owned a flower shop in a neighborhood of Boston called Charlestown.

“People will open up to a stranger in a way that’s more honest and unfiltered, wanting to be thorough in a way that you would never with your family,” Lloyd said. Chen, in turn, detailed the findings of her research to the Lloyds and they began to fill in their histories, tracing connections to the colonial period and height of the “triangular trade”.

Lloyd’s ancestor seven generations back, Cuba Vassall, was three years old when she was forcibly moved from Antigua to a suburb of Boston along with her family by Isaac Royall Jr, in 1737. The Royalls were the largest slave-owning family in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, owning nearly 70 enslaved people who labored on a 500-acre plantation just north of Boston, as well as controlling more than 100 people on their plantation in Antigua.

Before long, Lloyd’s ancestors were transferred to another wealthy Cambridge family, the Vassalls, for whom they labored in an elaborate Georgian mansion currently known as the Longfellow House, near the campus of the then growing Harvard University.

The Vassalls owned plantations in Jamaica where more than a thousand people were enslaved. John Vassall was a Harvard graduate, along with his brother Lewis, who once paid for a portion of his tuition with a large barrel of sugar, one of the most lucrative commodities produced by enslaved people. Cuba’s original enslaver, Isaac Royall Jr, didn’t have any direct ties to Harvard while he was living, but he endowed a professorship in his will, likely to ensure his legacy would live on as a member of the colonial elite. The seal of Harvard Law School was the Royall family crest until 2016, when students protested to demand its replacement. The Royall professorship was retired in 2022.

At the Longfellow House, Cuba met and married a man named Tony, originally from Jamaica, who was also enslaved by the Vassalls. They had six children, including Lloyd’s ancestor Darby. During the American revolutionary war, the royalist Vassalls fled and the house was occupied by George Washington, who used it as his headquarters during the siege of Boston. According to one anecdote, Washington asked then six-year-old Darby to work for him, who replied he wouldn’t work without wages.

After the war, Tony and Cuba petitioned the state to stay in a small dwelling on the property, where they cultivated a piece of land for farming. They had both spent 60 years of their life in slavery, Tony wrote in the 1781 letter, and “though deprived of what makes them now happy beyond expression yet they have ever lived a life of honesty and have been faithful in their master’s service”.

He appealed to the court’s sense of morality, writing: “They shall not be denied the sweets of freedom the remainder of their days by being reduced to the painful necessity of begging for bread.” His petition to stay in the house was refused, but Tony was given an annual pension, one of the earliest examples of a formerly enslaved person receiving compensation.

Tony’s son Darby went on to become an important figure in the burgeoning free Black community of Boston. He was an activist throughout his life, supporting the abolitionist movement, becoming a founding member of the African Society of Boston and adding his name to a state petition to protect Black people against the Fugitive Slave Act, along with his daughter and son-in-law.

At the end of his life, Darby chose to be buried in the Vassall family tomb underneath Christ Church in Cambridge, which Lloyd and her family went to visit last June. The tomb is in the basement, in a low-ceilinged crypt locked behind heavy black metal doors, and a couple inches of a curved brick structure, peeking above the granite dust floor, is the only indication. A dried flower arrangement that Lloyd left is still there, a tidy pile of lavender, white chrysanthemum and clover.

Making these connections and being able to visit her ancestor’s grave brought Lloyd a deep sense of “internal certainty and peace and comfort and groundedness”, she said. “I would want that for everyone whose family is somehow affiliated.” Yet the joy and excitement comes with a “deep sadness”.

“Why hasn’t this been resolved?” she wondered aloud during an interview phone call. “Why did no one in my family know?”

Lloyd’s only contact from the administration, she said, was an “icy” interaction with Brown-Nagin during a group call, and she has heard nothing since. “Naively, I was expecting them to be very welcoming and excited to facilitate discussion,” she said. “I was hoping they would be warmer, more open to reconcile the long history.” The university says it has not begun the outreach process.

Since the initiative was announced, the university has given out more than $4m in grants to local organizations and built out partnerships with historically Black colleges and universities, such as the Du Bois Scholars Program.

“This is by far the hardest job that I’ve had,” Bleich, who oversees the Harvard Legacy of Slavery initiative, said. “We are very serious about this, and we are very sincere.”
Firings, resignations and attempts to ‘dilute and delay’ research

In late January, as he was pulling his car into the parking lot of Harvard Business School, prepared to begin another day of research in the university archives, Cellini received a call from an HR person who said he and his team were fired, effective immediately.

He was never given an explanation, he said, and a university spokesperson told the Guardian “we cannot comment on personnel matters”. The genealogy research, the university announced after Cellini’s firing, would be continued through an “expanded partnership” with American Ancestors, the genealogy non-profit that had already been working closely with Cellini’s team.

“They’re the world’s best genealogists,” Cellini said. Based on his team’s research in the Harvard archives identifying school leaders, faculty or staff who owned enslaved people and the names of the people they enslaved, American Ancestors would then search “downstream”, as Cellini put it, for living descendants. In this new agreement, the organization has taken over all aspects of the research.

The initiative received its first public blow last spring, when two university professors on the committee to create a memorial stepped down, saying in an open letter the university had attempted to “dilute and delay” their efforts to reach out to descendants. The committee was formed in 2023, based on one of the recommendations of the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery report to “honor enslaved people through memorialization”. In a statement made to the student newspaper, a spokesperson for the university said it “take[s] seriously the co-chairs’ concerns about the importance of community involvement and of taking steps that will enable Harvard to deeply engage with descendant communities”.

A couple weeks later, the executive director of the initiative, Moore-Evans, stepped down, after reporting conflicts with the university administration to HR. She told the Guardian that she left for “personal reasons”.

Cellini suspects the reason he was fired is simple: “We found too many slaves.” The university was afraid that identifying descendants would bankrupt the university and so each name that his team identified was “expensive”, he said. The work that he oversaw is “just the tip of the iceberg”, he added, estimating that the numbers of living descendants could be about 10,000 people.

Cellini had just come back from Antigua a couple days prior, where his team had visited the site of the Royall plantation as well as four other plantations with ties to the university. They also found a hundred additional names of enslaved people with ties to the university in public archives, he said.

Cellini and his team met with the prime minister and governor general of Antigua, who had expressed interest in working with the university to explore this connection. Cellini said he detailed his meetings with the politicians to the university, but those requests were never answered and he was fired shortly after.

The Antiguan ambassador to the US, Sir Ronald Sanders, wrote a letter to the university after learning that Cellini was fired, writing that the decision was made “without consultation or notification”. The country wants “real engagement and meaningful action that befits the benefits that Harvard derived”, he wrote.

“We would not expect a cash payment from Harvard,” a spokesperson added. “However, so well-endowed a university with expertise in a number of areas can be helpful to our country.” The cabinet discussed the possibility of Harvard funding ancestry research to identify descendants of Antiguans that were brought to colonial Massachusetts, and seeking the university’s assistance in public health matters to address the high rates of chronic illness on the islands. A spokesperson for Harvard said a letter had been sent in response, but refused to elaborate. The spokesperson for Antigua said, “I have not seen a response,” and could not confirm if a response had been received.
Lives ‘spent and exhausted’ for the production of sugarcane

The Royall plantation, which likely stretched across 200 acres down to Port Royal Bay, enslaved more than 100 people. Only the ruins of the sugar windmill remain, on private property.

The stone structure stands a hundred feet tall on a grassy field bordering some woods. Here, enslaved people lived and worked on a plantation, feeding sugar cane into metal rollers through a dangerous and physically exhausting process to make syrup.

“It’s pretty visceral,” Cellini said about visiting the site. “This is where lives were spent and exhausted and consumed for the production of sugarcane, for the wealth of the British empire.”

Ever since being contacted by Chen, Lloyd has felt the weight of her family history and a sense of responsibility. Her ancestors repeatedly petitioned for their freedom, for their rights and their humanity. Darby and his sister Flora had both been separated from their family by their enslavers as young children. Tony Vassall bought his daughter’s freedom, and when his enslaver died by injuries sustained at the battle of Bunker Hill, six-year-old Darby walked 10 miles home to his family. The family had been staunch abolitionists and activists, suffered through bondage, and fought for their freedom. Lloyd struggles with where that leaves her.

“I just don’t know where to begin,” Lloyd said. She considers taking to social media, calling the administration and making demands. Should she protest? She doesn’t know. Lloyd’s sister, who declined to be interviewed for this article, went to Antigua and Lloyd said she’s also interested in going. “I would go anywhere to talk to anyone at this point,” she said. “Except Harvard, because there’s no one I really trust there right now.”

“I feel like I’m still close to the explosion,” she said. “My ears are still ringing.”

• This article was amended on 21 June 2025. John Vassall was a Harvard graduate, not John Edward Taylor, as the story originally said.

U.S.-Canada border threat growing, Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem says in Detroit

Paul Egan, Detroit Free Press
Sat, June 21, 2025 

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said in Detroit on Friday, June 20, that more members of international gangs are trying to enter the United States through the northern border with Canada, now that the southern border with Mexico has been made more secure.

Noem did not provide statistics but said more members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang, which President Donald Trump has designated as a terrorist organization and which has ties to El Salvador and other countries in Central America, have been trying to enter the United States from Canada in recent months. Her department did not immediately respond to an emailed request for relevant statistics.

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem smiles and waves at a crowd of people as Republican U.S. Rep. John James claps during a Northern Border Policy Roundtable hosted by America’s Future Tour at The Norwood in Detroit on Friday, June 20, 2025.Less

"We are not letting our guard down at the northern border," because the country is only as secure as its weakest border link, Noem told about 300 people at a lounge and events venue in Detroit's New Center area, at a "Secure Our Northern Border" event hosted by the conservative group America's Future.

"They're finding new ways to get into the country," Noem said in reference to members of international criminal gangs.

Noem, who was the Republican governor of South Dakota from 2019 until early this year, has taken on a high-profile role in the administration's attempt to follow through on Trump's election promise to launch the largest deportation of undocumented immigrants in the nation's history.

Aggressive immigration enforcement actions have prompted protests in cities around the United States, though there were no demonstrators outside The Norwood, on Woodward Avenue, for the June 20 event.

Noem said in a post on X on June 20 that 75% of those arrested in immigration enforcement actions under Trump have been either convicted of, or charged with, a crime.

More: As G7 Summit opens, Michigan-Canada businesses anxiously await outcome

Others dispute that number. Mother Jones reported in February that in order to meet arrest targets of 1,200 per day or more, officials have had to cast a much broader net than those facing or convicted of criminal charges. Of 7.6 million immigrants on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s national docket for potential deportation, only about 8% have a conviction or pending charges, the magazine reported, based on ICE data.

The U.S. Border Patrol said on May 30 it had arrested an MS-13 gang member at the Maine border with Canada, in what it said was the second arrest of a confirmed MS-13 gang member in that district this fiscal year.

U.S. Rep. John James, R-Shelby Township, who participated in the panel discussion with Noem, Livingston County Sheriff Mike Murphy and others, said Michigan is "at the epicenter of the northern border crisis" and fentanyl smuggled from Canada is killing Americans.

From left tor right, James Tignanelli, president of the Police Officers Association of Michigan, David Flute, senior tribal adviser for the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and U.S. Rep. John James, R-Shelby Township, listen to Patty Morin speak during a Northern Border Policy Roundtable hosted by America’s Future Tour at The Norwood in Detroit on Friday, June 20, 2025.More

Though the United States and Canada share many economic and other important ties, the United States needs Canada to take its border security more seriously, James said.

Noem said that former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was "a train wreck" who wouldn't cooperate with the United States on helping to vet those entering the United States from Canada or providing information about their criminal backgrounds.

"We are really hopeful that the new leader, Prime Minister Mark Carney, will be a different individual," Noem said.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Kristi Noem: Criminal gangs shifting efforts to U.S.-Canada border

UK PM Starmer says Kneecap should not perform Glastonbury

AFP
Sat, June 21, 2025 

Kneecap is due to perform on Saturday June 28 on the West Holts Stage (HENRY NICHOLLS)HENRY NICHOLLS/AFP/AFP

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Saturday said it was not "appropriate" for Irish group Kneecap to perform at Glastonbury, one of the country's biggest and most famous music festivals.

Asked in an interview by The Sun tabloid whether the Irish rap trio should perform at the iconic festival next week, Starmer responded: "No, I don't, and I think we need to come down really clearly on this.

"This is about the threats that shouldn't be made. I won't say too much because there's a court case on, but I don't think that's appropriate," he added.

Kneecap has made headlines with their outspoken pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel stance, with one of their members charged with a "terror" offence for allegedly supporting Hezbollah.

Last Wednesday, Liam O'Hanna, known by his stage name Mo Chara, appeared in court accused of displaying a Hezbollah flag while saying "Up Hamas, Up Hezbollah" at a concert that took place in London last year.

The Iran-backed Lebanese force Hezbollah and the Palestinian militant group Hamas are banned in the UK, and it is an offence to show support for them.

Glastonbury festival, attracting hundreds of thousands of music fans from around the world, is set to take place in at Worthy Farm in southeast England next week starting June 25.

Kneecap is due to perform on Saturday June 28 on the West Holts Stage.

The government had previously called on the organisers of Glastonbury festival to "think carefully" about the band's planned appearance there.

The group has been pulled from a slew of summer gigs since, including a Scottish festival appearance and various performances in Germany.

During their performances, rapping in Irish and English, Kneecap often lead chants of "Free, free Palestine" and display the Palestinian flag.

The group apologised this year after a 2023 video emerged appearing to show one singer calling for the death of British Conservative MPs.

But they deny the terrorism charge and say the video featuring the flag has been taken out of context.

O'Hanna, Liam Og O Hannaidh in Gaelic, who has been granted unconditional bail, told London's Wide Awake Festival in May the charge was an attempt to "silence us".

The group, which shot to fame with their biting, provocative song lyrics and an award-winning docu-fiction based on them, slammed it as "political policing" and "a carnival of distraction".

aks/jj



Tory leader  Badenoch says BBC would be ‘rewarding extremism’ with Kneecap Glastonbury coverage

Casey Cooper-Fisk
Sat, June 21, 2025 

THE INDEPENDENT

Badenoch says BBC would be ‘rewarding extremism’ with Kneecap Glastonbury coverage


Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Party leader, has publicly stated her belief that the BBC "should not be showing" Irish rap group Kneecap’s performance at Glastonbury Festival next week.

Her intervention follows the recent court appearance of Kneecap member Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who was charged on Wednesday for allegedly displaying a flag in support of the proscribed terrorist organisation Hezbollah and chanting "up Hamas, up Hezbollah" during a gig in November last year.

Ms Badenoch said in the X post, which was accompanied by an article from The Times that claimed the BBC had not banned the group: “The BBC should not be showing Kneecap propaganda.

“One Kneecap band member is currently on bail, charged under the Terrorism Act.

“As a publicly funded platform, the BBC should not be rewarding extremism.”

The Tory leader of the Opposition has previously called for the group to be banned from Glastonbury, and last year Kneecap won a discrimination case against the UK Government in Belfast High Court after she tried to refuse them a £14,250 funding award when she was a minister.

Kneecap took aim at Ms Badenoch in their latest single, The Recap, released just before their headline set at London’s Wide Awake festival in May, with the song mocking the politician’s attempts to block their arts funding and the Conservative Party’s election loss.



On Wednesday, O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, was cheered by hundreds of supporters as he arrived with bandmates Naoise O Caireallain and JJ O Dochartaigh at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in “Free Mo Chara” T-shirts.

During the proceedings, the court heard the 27-year-old is “well within his rights” to voice his opinions on Israel and Palestine, but the alleged incident at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town, north London, is a “wholly different thing”.

O hAnnaidh was released on unconditional bail until his next hearing at the same court on August 20.

Following the hearing, the rapper said: “For anybody going to Glastonbury, you can see us there at 4pm on the Saturday.

“If you can’t be there we’ll be on the BBC, if anybody watches the BBC. We’ll be at Wembley in September.

“But most importantly: free, free Palestine.”

Kemi Badenoch has called for Kneecap’s Glastonbury performance not to be shown on the BBC (Lucy North/PA) (PA Wire)

The charge came after a counter terrorism police investigation after the historical gig footage came to light, which also allegedly shows the group calling for the deaths of MPs.

In April, Kneecap apologised last month to the families of murdered MPs but said footage of the incident had been “exploited and weaponised”.

In an initial post in response to the charge, Kneecap said: “14,000 babies are about to die of starvation in Gaza, with food sent by the world sitting on the other side of a wall, and once again the British establishment is focused on us.

“We deny this ‘offence’ and will vehemently defend ourselves, this is political policing, this is a carnival of distraction.

“We are not the story, genocide is, as they profit from genocide, they use an ‘anti-terror law’ against us for displaying a flag thrown on stage. A charge not serious enough to even warrant their crown court, instead a court that doesn’t have a jury. What’s the objective?

“To restrict our ability to travel. To prevent us speaking to young people across the world. To silence voices of compassion. To prosecute artists who dare speak out.

“Instead of defending innocent people, or the principles of international law they claim to uphold, the powerful in Britain have abetted slaughter and famine in Gaza, just as they did in Ireland for centuries. Then, like now, they claim justification.

“The IDF units they arm and fly spy plane missions for are the real terrorists, the whole world can see it.”

Formed in 2017, the group are known for their provocative lyrics in both Irish and English, and merchandise.

Their best-known tracks include Get Your Brits Out, Better Way To Live, featuring Grian Chatten from Fontaines DC, and 3Cag.

A BBC spokesperson said: “As the broadcast partner, the BBC will be bringing audiences extensive music coverage from Glastonbury, with artists booked by the festival organisers.

Iran Expert Says U.S. News Networks Get the Iranian People All Wrong

Steven Zeitchik
Sat, June 21, 2025 

The Hollywood Reporter



Over a 50-year career in academia and foreign service, Hooshang Amirahmadi has pretty much seen it all on Iran.

The Rutgers professor, 78, founded the transnational American Iranian Council, ran the Center for Iranian Research and Analysis, visited Iran during its war with Iraq to try to bring about a resolution, authored numerous books in English and Persian and even submitted bids to run for president of Iran in 2005, 2013 and 2017. (The mullahs disqualified him, presumably for his American ties and pro-democracy stances.)

Amirahmadi is also deeply ensconced in the U.S., where he’s served as director of Rutgers’ Center for Middle Eastern Studies and is one of the more prominent public figures to hold both American and Iranian passports, allowing him to travel freely between the countries. He’s appeared frequently on CNN, Fox and PBS.

Given how many impressions of Iran — or misimpressions of Iran? — have been permeating the news since the Israel-Iran War began on June 12, it seemed like the right moment to reach out to Amirahmadi, who often finds himself explaining the U.S. to Iran and vice versa. The Hollywood Reporter spoke to him a few days before the U.S. joined the war early Sunday morning by bombing Fordow and other key Iranian nuclear sites, in what President Donald Trump called a “spectacular military success.” Here are excerpts of the conversation.

So much of what we see of Iran on TV shows here is a restless populace eager to help anyone who opposes the regime. The Apple TV hit Tehran can make it seem like half the Iranian security establishment is working for the Mossad. How accurate is that representation?

Well, first you have so many Jewish people who are connected to Iran in some way. There are about 90,000 or 100,000 Jews still living in Iran. And it’s probably a lot more since there are all those who converted after the revolution so they could stay but at heart are still Jews. There are even people in the regime like this. So a lot of people in Iran, I don’t think that they’d all work for the Mossad of course, but they’re certainly open to doing things that are against the regime. So the shows are correct.

And they’re not worried about being seen as supporting the enemy.

A lot of Iranians have good feelings about Israel. The regime doesn’t. But the people don’t necessarily have an issue. In fact sometimes they’re proud of Iranians who have succeeded there — for example Shaul Mofaz [the Tehrani-born Israeli military hero and former Minister of Defense], he is someone even many Muslims are proud of. “An Iranian is a high-ranking member of a foreign government,”[they say]. These ties are stronger than you’d think.

And has that remained consistently true even through recent history?

No unfortunately not. The last 10 or 15 years it has gotten worse. When Israel started stepping up its killing of generals and nuclear scientists, I think that changed things for some Iranians. Not everyone — I’d say it’s still about 50-50. But it used to be a much higher number that were pro-Israel.

Are these attacks are upsetting even to Iranians who don’t like the regime? They don’t see the nuclear scientists as tools of that regime — of what they don’t like?

No because the nuclear scientists are not walled off like they are in some other countries. They’re professors — professors living in their communities. That’s why the killings have done so much to ruin Israel-Iranian relations.

Where do you think the current conflict will leave those relations?

Unfortunately it will increase animosity on both sides. When you have so much infrastructure destroyed on both sides — hospitals, roads, bridges, you name it — that’s going to happen. At the beginning. But. My hope is that it changes and it brings people together. Sometimes war does that. People need it so they can understand each other, can understand their common humanity. Human beings have used war that way. Why couldn’t that happen here?

Postwar Germany and the U.S. would certainly be a good example. OK, so let’s talk about American news organizations. When you watch CNN, do you think it captures how typical Iranians feel?

Iran unfortunately has been presented to Americans as a pariah state made up only of terrorists. It’s actually really a similar situation to what Iranian TV portrays vis-a-vis Israel — “they’re all terrorists.” And unfortunately it doesn’t seem to ever get better. I’ve worked on U.S.-Iran relations for more than 40 years and there’s still animus for Americans toward Iranians because of this.

It’s not necessarily all the networks’ fault, though, when it comes to showing a wider spectrum, is it? Part of the issue is getting direct news coverage from Iran, just getting reporters on the ground.

That’s obviously a challenge. Another big problem is that American universities produce very few Iran specialists. There used to be a lot, and now you have less, and those you do have tend to be American. They’re great but we really need more who aren’t just giving the American view.

We do have in the U.S. all these dissident movies from Iran. Just this past Oscar season we had The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which showed a younger generation opposed to the regime, and of course the Women, Life, Freedom protests of 2022 inspired director Mohammad Rasoulof to make the movie in the first place. Jafar Panahi, one of the most well-known dissident filmmakers in Iran, just won the Palme d’Or for his slyly political film It Wast Just An Accident. The images of dissatisfaction with the regime and interest in democracy that these films platform — how representative are they?

What people don’t remember is that Iran was the most pro-American country in the Middle East before the revolution. Why would that change? People below 50 or 60 may not remember. But people above 50 or 60 do, and they can help the younger people.

You don’t think even the older people have been influenced by the regime and its propaganda?

No, I think the Iran street is actually very pro-American. It’s the regime that isn’t. If you want to see anti-American go to the streets of Saudi Arabia, where 35% of the people live below the poverty line. Not the palace. The palace, the so-called pro-American palace, that’s just billionaires having fun. Trust me, they are not pro-American. In 10 years they’ll have the most anti-American country in the region. The average Iranian is ten times more pro-American than the average Saudi. Many Iranians, even if they’re Muslim in name, they’re secular, and they can be either socialist or capitalist, just like Americans. The Iranian economy is a capitalist economy. But we tend to see things from a political lens and a regime lens and we don’t realize that.

It’s always striking to me when talking about Iran and Israel how despite being mortal enemies they’re actually united by being outliers — two large non Arab-majority countries in the Middle East. That detail can really gets lost, especially when other Muslim countries in the region are held up as bigger American allies.

In Iran the regime is anti-American and the street is pro-American. And in Saudi it’s the reverse. But of course it’s the street that should matter more. The regime changes. The street doesn’t.

These are not nuances that necessarily come through on American television news coverage.

I mean you have Ted Cruz telling Tucker Carlson he doesn’t even know the population of Iran. I think many Americans understand these differences but our leaders on television don’t give me a lot of hope.

Given that a war doesn’t tend to make for the most humanizing effects, what’s going to ensure the most accurate American perceptions of the Iranian people in your view?

We need to see ordinary Iranians on television, not just the regime in the news. Someone needs to make a show [in Hollywood] where the main characters are Iranians in Iran. That’s what will make for a deeper understanding.

Protesters slam war profiteering, Israel at French air fair

AFP
Sat, June 21, 2025 

The air show has been at the centre of a row over the presence of Israeli firms (ROMAIN PERROCHEAU)ROMAIN PERROCHEAU/AFP/AFP

Thousands marched on Saturday outside a French trade fair, calling for an end to war profiteering and Israel's offensive in Gaza in the latest demonstration to hit the event.

The long-planned protest at the Paris Air Show outside the French capital also comes as Israel's war with Iran drags on into a ninth day, with Tehran threatening to hit back in force at Israel's offensive against its arch-rival.

The presence of Israeli defence firms at the show has already become a bone of contention, with the French government on Monday sealing off the booths of five Israeli firms on the grounds that they were displaying offensive weapons that could be used in Gaza.

"Their wars, their profits, our deaths, stop the genocide in Palestine," read the banner at the head of the march, which organisers claimed drew more than 4,000 protesters.

"As we speak, people are dying and our governments are not doing anything to stop it," Nora, 29, told AFP at the protest.

Draped in a Palestinian flag, the project leader in the pharmaceutical industry said that she felt "rage" at the footage coming out of Gaza, including that of "mothers kissing their dead children" in the besieged Palestinian territory.

Police have arrested seven people aiming to disrupt the trade fair, the Paris public prosecutor office said, with officers discovering a helium canister and nearly 200 balloons during the searches.

Six of the arrests were made on Friday and the other on Saturday, the prosecutor's office added.

Drawing some 100,000 visitors a day, the Paris Air Show at the Le Bourget airfield, nine kilometres (five miles) to the north of the capital, is usually dominated by displays of the aerospace industry's latest cutting-edge planes.

But Monday's shuttering of the stands of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Rafael, UVision and Elbit, as well as Aeronautics, which make drones and guided bombs and missiles, sparked a row with Israel.

Israel's President Isaac Herzog branded Paris's closure of the Israeli firms' booths "outrageous", comparing it to "creating an Israeli ghetto"

It came days after Israel, claiming Iran was on the verge of obtaining a nuclear bomb, launched a surprise barrage on June 13 which killed top Iranian commanders and nuclear scientists.

Tehran immediately hit back with a flurry of missiles, with the two countries trading wave after wave of devastating strikes since.

lbx-mk/sha/sbk/

 Pro-Palestinian protest leader released from US custody

Guillaume LAVALLEE
Fri, June 20, 2025 
AFP


Mahmoud Khalil has become a symbol of President Donald Trump's campaign to stifle pro-Palestinian student activism against the Gaza war 

kena betancur/AFP

Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student who was one of the most visible leaders of nationwide pro-Palestinian campus protests, was released Friday from a federal detention center.

Khalil, a legal permanent resident in the United States who is married to a US citizen and has a US-born son, has been in custody since March facing potential deportation.

"This shouldn't have taken three months," Khalil, wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, told US media outside an immigration detention center in Jena, Louisiana hours after a federal judge ordered his release.

"(President Donald) Trump and his administration, they chose the wrong person for this," he said. "There's no right person who should be detained for actually protesting a genocide."

The Department of Homeland Security criticized District Judge Michael Farbiarz's ruling Friday as an example of how "out of control members of the judicial branch are undermining our national security."

Under the terms of his release, Khalil will not be allowed to leave the United States except for "self-deportation," and faces restrictions on where he can travel within the country.

Khalil's wife, Michigan-born dentist Noor Abdalla, said her family could now "finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Maumoud is on his way home."

"We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family and so many others the government is trying to silence for speaking out against Israel's ongoing genocide against Palestinians," added Abdalla, who gave birth to the couple's first child while her husband was in detention.

- Visas revoked -

Since his March 8 arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Khalil has become a symbol of Trump's campaign to stifle pro-Palestinian student activism against the Gaza war, in the name of curbing anti-Semitism.

At the time a graduate student at Columbia University in New York, Khalil was a prominent leader of nationwide campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza.

Following his arrest, US authorities transferred Khalil, who was born in Syria to Palestinian parents, nearly 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles) from his home in New York to the detention center in Louisiana, pending deportation.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invoked a law approved during the 1950s Red Scare that allows the United States to remove foreigners seen as adverse to US foreign policy.

Rubio argues that US constitutional protections of free speech do not apply to foreigners and that he alone can make decisions without judicial review.

Hundreds of students have seen their visas revoked, with some saying they were targeted for everything from writing opinion articles to minor arrest records.

Farbiarz ruled last week that the government could not detain or deport Khalil based on Rubio's assertions that his presence on US soil poses a national security threat.

The government has also alleged as grounds to detain and deport Khalil that there were inaccuracies in his application for permanent residency.

Amol Sinha, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, which is among the groups representing Khalil, welcomed the release order.

"This is an important step in vindicating Mr Khalil's rights as he continues to be unlawfully targeted by the federal government for his advocacy in support of Palestinian rights," Sinha said.

bur-cl/bjt/acb


Factbox-Pro-Palestinian foreigners in US arrested by Trump administration and ordered to be released

Kanishka Singh

Fri, June 20, 2025 

FILE PHOTO: Protesters rally and march for Mahmoud Khalil in New Yor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump's administration has faced judicial roadblocks while attempting to deport foreign pro-Palestinian students and protesters in the U.S., including on Friday when a judge ordered that Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil be released from immigration custody.

Trump has labeled the protesters as antisemitic and extremist sympathizers. Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the government wrongly conflates their criticism of Israel's assault on Gaza with antisemitism and their advocacy for Palestinian rights with support for extremism.

Here are some prominent pro-Palestinian foreigners in the U.S. who were arrested without being charged with a crime, and subsequently ordered to be released by a judge:

MAHMOUD KHALIL

A prominent figure at Columbia University's pro-Palestinian protests against Israel's war on Gaza, Khalil was arrested by immigration agents in the lobby of his Manhattan university residence on March 8.

Khalil, a Palestinian born and raised in a refugee camp in Syria, is a U.S. legal permanent resident and says he was punished for his political speech in violation of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, which protects free speech rights.

Khalil has previously condemned antisemitism and racism. His wife and son, who was born while Khalil was in prison, are U.S. citizens.

In ordering Khalil's release on June 20, U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said the government made no attempt to rebut evidence provided by Khalil's lawyers that he was not a flight risk nor a danger to the public.

MOHSEN MAHDAWI

Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi was released from U.S. immigration custody on April 30. Mahdawi, born and raised in a refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was arrested earlier in April as he arrived for an interview for his U.S. citizenship petition.

U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford said Mahdawi did not pose a danger to the public and was not a flight risk. The judge drew parallels between the current U.S. political climate and the Red Scare and McCarthyism eras of the last century when thousands were targeted for deportation due to political views.

RUMEYSA OZTURK

Turkish Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk was released in early May after being held in an immigration detention center for over six weeks.

Her lawyers said she was punished for co-authoring an opinion piece in a student newspaper that criticized the school's response to calls by students to divest from companies linked to Israel and to "acknowledge the Palestinian genocide."

U.S. District Judge William Sessions said Ozturk, whose arrest video went viral, had raised a substantial claim that the sole reason she was being detained was "simply and purely the expression that she made or shared in the op-ed in violation of her First Amendment rights."

BADAR KHAN SURI

A postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University, Suri was released in mid-May, nearly two months after being taken into custody by federal immigration agents.

Suri, who is from India and was on a U.S. student visa, is married to an American citizen who is from Gaza.

Suri's lawyer denied the government's allegations that he supported Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters march in London

Caroline TAÏX
Sat, June 21, 2025

AFP


There have been monthly protests in the British capital since the start of the 20-month-long war between Israel and Hamas

BENJAMIN CREMEL/AFP


Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters marched in London on Saturday calling for an end to the war in Gaza, amid concerns that the Iran-Israel conflict could spark wider regional devastation.

Protesters waved Palestinian flags, donned keffiyeh scarves and carried signs including "Stop arming Israel" and "No war on Iran" as they marched in the sweltering heat in central London.

"It's important to remember that people are suffering in Gaza. I fear all the focus will be on Iran now," said 34-year-old Harry Baker, attending his third pro-Palestinian protest.

"I don't have great love for the Iranian regime, but we are now in a dangerous situation," he added.

There have been monthly protests in the British capital since the start of the 20-month-long war between Israel and Hamas, which has ravaged Gaza.

Saturday's march comes amid heightened global tensions as the United States mulls joining Israel's strikes against Iran.

Cries of "Palestine will be free" rang out as protesters carried signs saying "Hands off Gaza" or "Stop starving Gaza".

Gaza is suffering from famine-like conditions according to UN agencies in the region following an Israeli aid blockade.

Gaza's civil defence agency has reported that hundreds have been killed by Israeli forces while trying to reach the US- and Israeli-backed aid distribution sites.

"People need to keep their eyes on Gaza. That's where the genocide is happening," said 60-year-old protester Nicky Marcus.

"I feel frustrated, angry because of what's happening in Gaza," said 31-year-old data analyst Jose Diaz.

"It's in everyone's eyes. It's still on after so many months," Diaz added.

- 'Scared' -

The overall death toll in Gaza since the war broke out has reached at least 55,637 people, according to the health ministry.

Israel has denied it is carrying out a genocide and says it aims to wipe out Hamas after 1,219 people were killed in Israel by the Islamist group's October 7, 2023, attack.

A 31-year-old Iranian student who did not want to share her name, told AFP she had family in Iran and was "scared".

"I'm worried about my country. I know the regime is not good but it's still my country. I'm scared," she said.

Tehran said over 400 people have been killed in Iran since Israel launched strikes last week claiming its arch-foe was close to acquiring a nuclear weapon, which Iran denies.

Some 25 people have been killed in Israel, according to official figures.

Meanwhile, British media reported that the UK government was planning to ban a pro-Palestinian campaign group, which on Friday broke into the UK's largest air force base and vandalised two planes.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper was planning to begin the process on Monday to proscribe Palestine Action -- effectively designating it a terrorist organisation and making it illegal to join, according to UK media.

Britain has announced sanctions against two Israeli cabinet ministers, suspended free-trade negotiations with Israel and summoned its ambassador over the conduct of the war in Gaza.

It has also urged de-escalation in the Iran-Israel war, while expressing concerns about Tehran's nuclear programme.

ctx-aks/djt


Thousands of pro-Palestine demonstrators march on Whitehall

Alexander Butler
Sat, June 21, 2025 

THE INDEPENDENT

Thousands of pro-Palestine protesters marched towards Whitehall from Russell Square in central London calling for an end to growing conflict in the Middle East.

Protesters waved Palestinian flags and chanted “free, free Palestine”, “occupation no more, Israel is a terrorist state” and “stop bombing Iran” on Saturday.

It comes after British foreign secretary David Lammy warned the situation in the Middle East was “perilous” and urged Iran to negotiate with the US.

Protesters waved Palestinian flags and chanted ‘free, free Palestine’, ‘occupation no more, Israel is a terrorist state’ and ‘stop bombing Iran’ on Saturday (Jeff Moore/PA Wire)

Many chanted “shame on you” as they walked past dozens of counter-protesters, organised by pro-Israeli group Stop The Hate, near Waterloo Bridge.

At one point, police officers chased a suspect down the Strand and arrested them after a bottle was thrown at the group of counter-protesters.

Mr Lammy flew from Washington to Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday to meet Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi alongside his French and German counterparts.

Speaking after the meeting, Mr Lammy told reporters: “It is still clear to me, as President Trump indicated yesterday, that there is a window of within two weeks where we can see a diplomatic solution.”

Urging Iran to “take that off ramp” and talk to the Americans, he said: “We have a window of time. This is perilous and deadly serious.”

Many chanted ‘shame on you’ as they walked past dozens of counter-protesters, organised by pro-Israeli group Stop The Hate, near Waterloo Bridge (EPA)

He added that the US and Europe were pushing for Iran to agree to zero enrichment of uranium as a “starting point” for negotiations.

But Mr Araghchi said Iran would not negotiate with the US as long as Israel continued to carry out airstrikes against the country, and insisted his country’s nuclear programme was entirely peaceful.

The talks followed US president Donald Trump’s announcement that he would delay a decision on joining Israeli strikes against Iran for up to two weeks.

Both sides continued to exchange fire on Friday, with Iranian missiles targeting the city of Haifa while Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tel Aviv’s military operation would continue “for as long as it takes”.

The Gaza war was triggered when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 55,600 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry, while displacing almost the entire population of more than two million people and causing a hunger crisis.

People keep being struck by lightning: 4 reports in about 24 hours

Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA TODAY
Sun, June 22, 2025 

At least four people were struck by lightning over a time span of roughly 24 hours on June 19 and 20 as summer thunderstorms pummeled parts of the nation.

A 15-year-old boy survived being struck by lightning in Central Park in New York City on the afternoon of June 19, according to reports by Accuweather and media outlets in the area.

The following day, on June 20, three men experienced jolts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, on the state's east-central coast. A 29-year-old Colorado man standing in the ocean in ankle deep water around 12:30 p.m. was critically injured by a lightning strike, according to Tammy Malphurs, director of Volusia County Beach Safety Ocean Rescue. A bystander and lifeguards immediately started life-saving measures, but the victim was unresponsive when taken from the scene to a local hospital, authorities said

Later that afternoon, about eight miles inland, two men on the Venetian Bay golf course were jolted when lightning struck nearby, but neither of them were taken to the hospital, according to WESH 2, a local television station

The lightning injuries occur just as the 25th annual National Lightning Safety Awareness Week kicks off on June 22.

“It’s a good time to remember the dangers that exist,” said John Jensenius, lightning specialist with the National Lightning Safety Council.

“We are about to enter the peak of the lightning season across the U.S.,” Jensenius said. “With the increased lightning activity and the increase in people enjoying outdoor activities, we typically see an increase in lightning fatalities from late June through August."

On June 8, Spencer Loalbo, a 41-year-old father of three and his father were golfing in Gunter, Texas when they were hit by a single bolt from a single storm cloud, authorities said, according to NBC 5 in Dallas. Loalbo was killed in the "blink of an eye" stated a Go Fund Me fundraiser set up for his wife and daughters. His father was critically injured and taken to a hospital.

Spencer Loalbo’s death was the third lightning fatality in the U.S. this year.

Lightning bolts strike the Phoenix, Arizona skyline during a summer monsoon storm.

The leading cause of lightning deaths is fishing, and it's already responsible for two lightning deaths this year, USA TODAY previously reported.

Lightning strikes on golf courses are tied with yard work for 11th place on the list of activities responsible for the most lightning deaths, Jensenius said.

These activities contributed to the most lightning fatalities in the country between 2006 and 2024.

Forty-two lightning deaths have been reported in Texas since 2006, second only to Florida, where 93 deaths have been attributed to lightning over the same time span.


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Several hundred people are injured by lightning each year. Most survive, but many have lifelong neurological symptoms.

If you're going to be outside, it's important to remain alert for changing weather conditions, according to the Safety Council and National Weather Service. Plan in advance where you would seek shelter, and if you hear thunder, go indoors.

The number of lightning fatalities in the U.S. has declined since 2000.

How do people get struck by lightning?

In one of four ways:

Direct strike: The person becomes a part of the main discharge channel, usually when outside in an open area.


Side flash: Lightning strikes a tall object and part of the current jumps from the object to the victim − for example, when a person is struck while standing under a tree.


Ground current: Lightning enters the body at the point closest to a strike, travels through the body and leaves at the contact point farthest away from the initial strike. This causes most deaths and injuries.


Conduction: This is the cause of most indoor lightning deaths and injuries. Lightning travels through wires and other metal surfaces.
Where can you shelter if caught outside?

Choose the closest large, enclosed space with plumbing and electrical wiring.


Don’t shelter in unprotected open buildings, such as metal sheds, picnic pavilions, baseball dugouts and porches.


If a shelter isn't available, keep moving to search for a safe place. Don’t lie down or crouch on the ground. Avoid trees, light poles, metal fences and bleachers.


A fully enclosed car or truck can be an option of last resort, but don’t touch the steering wheel, radio or ignition.
Learn more about lightning:

Which states get the most lightning?

See lightning from space

See a bolt of lightning strike at the JR Motorsports headquarters in Mooresville, North Carolina.


Contributing: Patricio G. Balona and Sheldon Gardner, Daytona Beach News-Journal, USA TODAY Network, and Doyle Rice, USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Lightening strikes multiple people in about 24 hours