Israel’s main international gateway, Ben Gurion Airport, is returning to full operations after the Home Front Command lifted all wartime travel restrictions, the Israel Airports Authority announced Tuesday. Effective immediately, limitations on the number of incoming and outgoing flights, as well as passenger capacity per flight, have been removed. In addition, entry restrictions for travelers and accompanying individuals at airport terminals have been fully lifted. “The restrictions on the number of incoming and outgoing flights, as well as the number of passengers on each flight, have been lifted,” the Airports Authority said in a statement. “In addition, restrictions on the arrival of passengers and accompanying persons at the airports have been lifted.” Duty-free shops at Ben Gurion and other airports are set to reopen beginning Wednesday morning, operating under updated security and regulatory protocols. The Airports Authority urged travelers to stay informed by checking with their airlines for the latest flight schedule updates. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
In a test case for the artificial intelligence industry, a federal judge has ruled that AI company Anthropic didn’t break the law by training its chatbot Claude on millions of copyrighted books. But the company is still on the hook and must now go to trial over how it acquired those books by downloading them from online “shadow libraries” of pirated copies. U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco said in a ruling filed late Monday that the AI system’s distilling from thousands of written works to be able to produce its own passages of text qualified as “fair use” under U.S. copyright law because it was “quintessentially transformative.” “Like any reader aspiring to be a writer, Anthropic’s (AI large language models) trained upon works not to race ahead and replicate or supplant them — but to turn a hard corner and create something different,” Alsup wrote. But while dismissing a key claim made by the group of authors who sued the company for copyright infringement last year, Alsup also said Anthropic must still go to trial in December over its alleged theft of their works. “Anthropic had no entitlement to use pirated copies for its central library,” Alsup wrote. A trio of writers — Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson — alleged in their lawsuit last summer that Anthropic’s practices amounted to “large-scale theft,” and that the company “seeks to profit from strip-mining the human expression and ingenuity behind each one of those works.” As the case proceeded over the past year in San Francisco’s federal court, documents disclosed in court showed Anthropic’s internal concerns about the legality of their use of online repositories of pirated works. So the company later shifted its approach and attempted to purchase copies of digitized books. “That Anthropic later bought a copy of a book it earlier stole off the internet will not absolve it of liability for the theft but it may affect the extent of statutory damages,” Alsup wrote. The ruling could set a precedent for similar lawsuits that have piled up against Anthropic competitor OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, as well as against Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. Anthropic — founded by ex-OpenAI leaders in 2021 — has marketed itself as the more responsible and safety-focused developer of generative AI models that can compose emails, summarize documents and interact with people in a natural way. But the lawsuit filed last year alleged that Anthropic’s actions “have made a mockery of its lofty goals” by tapping into repositories of pirated writings to build its AI product. Anthropic said Tuesday it was pleased that the judge recognized that AI training was transformative and consistent with “copyright’s purpose in enabling creativity and fostering scientific progress.” Its statement didn’t address the piracy claims. The authors’ attorneys declined comment. (AP)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Tuesday, 24 June 2025) [translated from Hebrew]: “Dear citizens of Israel, In the 12 days of Operation Rising Lion, we achieved a historic victory, which will stand for generations. We removed two existential threats: The threat of annihilation by nuclear weapons and the threat of annihilation by 20,000 ballistic missiles. Had we not acted now, the State of Israel would have soon faced the danger of annihilation. But this did not happen because at the decisive moment, we rose up and stood like lions, and our roar shook Tehran and echoed around the world. In the scriptures, it is said: ‘By stratagems shall you make war.’ The surprise opening blow of Rising Lion will go down in the annals of Israel’s wars and will be studied by every military in the world. In one strike, in one blow, we eliminated Iran’s senior command, including three chiefs-of-staff and many other senior officers. And in those same moments, we eliminated Iran’s leading nuclear scientists – those who held the knowledge, led the nuclear program and sought to bring upon us destruction and death. We destroyed the main enrichment facility in Natanz, the uranium conversion plant in Isfahan and the heavy water installation in Arak. Our friend, President Trump, stood alongside us in an unprecedented manner. On his order, the US military destroyed the enrichment facility deep underground at Fordo. We attacked dozens of installations of the Iranian nuclear program, including laboratories and factories for producing centrifuges. You certainly remember seven years ago, how in a brilliant Mossad operation, we brought to Israel the heart of Iran’s secret nuclear archive. We revealed Iran’s secret nuclear program for the annihilation of the State of Israel to President Trump, to the entire world and to you, citizens of Israel. Indeed, today, now, in this operation, we completed the work and struck the entire archive. This archive concentrated within it Iran’s overall knowledge for producing atomic bombs. We also did this. For decades, I have promised you that Iran would not have nuclear weapons. And indeed, in all of the swift actions that our soldiers carried out, we sent Iran’s nuclear project to oblivion. And if anyone in Iran tries to rebuild this project – we will act with the same determination and the same force to cut off any such attempt. I reiterate: Iran will not have nuclear weapons. With the same force and determination, we destroyed Iran’s industry for producing ballistic missiles. We destroyed dozens of missile production factories. We struck hard at their stock of missiles. We destroyed most of their launchers. In many cases, we destroyed them minutes before they could launch their missiles of death at Israel. Iran’s malicious intention, to threaten – within a few years – the existence of Israel with tens of thousands of ballistic missiles – this threat has also been removed. Regarding the Iranian regime, we struck crushing blows at this wicked regime. We eliminated many senior commanders. We destroyed command centers. We attacked Revolutionary Guards bases. We attacked Basij bases. We struck the symbols of the regime. Today, this morning, a few hours before the ceasefire, we struck the ayatollahs’ regime with the hardest blow of all since the start of the war, with the hardest blow in its history. […]
The IDF Chief of the General Staff LTG Eyal Zamir conducted a situational assessment with members of the General Staff Forum, following the beginning of the ceasefire with Iran, and made the following remarks: “We have concluded a significant phase, but the campaign against Iran is not over. We are entering a new phase based on the achievements of the current one. We’ve set Iran’s nuclear project back by years, and the same applies to its missile program. The IDF performed at its best — the Intelligence Directorate delivered unprecedented intelligence achievements. IAF pilots operated with courage, while putting their lives at risk, thousands of kilometers from Israeli territory and struck and destroyed military targets. The Aerial Defense Array and communication units operated with their unique operational capabilities to protect the home front. Home Front Command personnel acted with ingenuity to save lives — all coordinated under the Operations Directorate. Every command, directorate, and branch contributed to the success of the operation — whether through direct participation in the Iran operation or through robust defense in their respective arenas. Despite the phenomenal achievement — we must keep our feet on the ground. Many challenges still lie ahead. We must stay focused, there’s no time to rest on our laurels. Now the focus shifts back to Gaza — to bring the hostages home and to dismantle the Hamas regime. I am proud to have the privilege to command the organization through this period. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
President Donald Trump was formally nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday in recognition of his role in brokering the ceasefire between Israel and Iran. The nomination was submitted by Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), who praised Trump’s “extraordinary and historic” efforts in ending what he described as a rapidly escalating armed conflict. “President Trump’s influence was instrumental in forging a swift agreement that many believed to be impossible,” Carter wrote in a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee. He also cited Trump’s actions to halt Iran’s nuclear program, saying the president worked to ensure that “the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism remains incapable of acquiring a nuclear weapon.” The ceasefire, announced by Trump earlier this week, followed nearly two weeks of intense military exchanges between Israel and Iran, including U.S.-supported strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. If awarded – though unlikely, considering the leftist tilt of the Nobel Committee – it would mark Trump’s first Nobel Peace Prize win following multiple past nominations during his first term as president. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
Members of Iran’s Jewish community are trying to project a sense of calm from their shuttered homes in Shiraz and Tehran, but fear lurks under the surface, Ynet reported. The report quoted Zahava, an Israeli from Iran who received what may be the last WhatsApp message from a childhood friend in Shiraz. “In Persian, she wrote that the police had taken the chazanim and Rabbanim in for questioning. They were suspected of collaborating with Israel. To this day, we don’t know if they’ve been released,” Zahava said from her home in Haifa, “She told us it’s best not to contact the Jews there right now—the situation is extremely fragile. We used to be in touch daily. There’s a very active WhatsApp group that keeps everyone updated, but since the war started, there’s been complete silence.” “The Jews are staying inside, too afraid to go out for fear it could cost them their lives. They’ve disconnected from the internet so that no messages or information can leak out. During times like these, we’re careful not to reach out, to avoid giving the regime any excuse to harm them,” Zahava explained. Lydia left her parents’ home in Tehran almost 30 years ago. Speaking to Ynet from her home in Holon, she revealed details of an unusual phone call she had last week with her brother and his wife. Her brother, a resident of northern Tehran, told her they were warned that Jews with ties to Israel would be arrested and sent to prison. His wife added, “We had nowhere to go, so we went to an aunt’s house in the western part of the city. It’s safer there. It’s a big house where all the children and grandchildren are staying together.” Her brother also told her that from his balcony, he saw Israeli planes bombing targets nearby. “We waved to the pilots and loved seeing the Israeli army in action,” he said. “Redemption has arrived. We thank the Creator. Now that Israel has come to help us, there will finally be peace in Iran.” Lydia added that even before the October 7 massacre, some of her relatives tried to flee to America, about five years ago. She said that they sold their belongings and packed one suitcase each, “as if they were going on vacation.” But then, everything fell apart: “Four members of the family were killed,” Lydia said. “When I spoke to them, they sounded fine. Family members who visited said they just had a mild flu—and the next day they were gone.” “Now everyone there is living in fear, not understanding how all of this suddenly fell upon them. The Iran-Iraq War was 40 years ago—most of them don’t even know what air raid sirens sound like. They’re living under existential chaos. And yet, all of that doesn’t scare them as much as the regime itself does. I’m talking about the leadership that, over the years, slaughtered, murdered, raped, cut women’s lips for wearing lipstick, issued massive fines for nothing, and turned people’s lives into hell.” Noga, a New Yorker who left Shiraz after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, said that there are still about 7,000 Jews in the city. “When there’s a conflict in Israel, the government forces the Jews to publicly declare that they’re against Zionism,” she explains. “It’s […]
Extensive triple digit heat, broken temperature records and oppressive humidity piled up into a steaming mess as the heat dome crushing the Eastern half of the nation sizzled to what should be its worst Tuesday. New York City’s John F. Kennedy Airport hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) a little after noon, the first time since 2013. More than 150 million people woke up to heat warnings and forecasters at the National Weather Service expected dozens of places to tie or set new daily high temperature records Tuesday. “Every East Coast state today from Maine to Florida has a chance of 100 degree actual temperature,” said private meteorologist Ryan Maue, a former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief scientist. “Getting Maine to 100 degrees is infrequent.” Tuesday’s heat came on top of 39 new or tied heat records Monday. But just as dangerous as triple digit heat is the lack of cooling at night, driven by the humidity. “You get the combination of the extreme heat and humidity but no relief,” said Jacob Asherman, a meteorologist at the weather’s service’s Weather Prediction Center. “It’s kind of been just everything stacked on top of itself…. It just speaks to how strong this heat wave is. This is a pretty, pretty extreme event.” Asherman and Maue said Tuesday is the peak of the high pressure system that sits on top of the Mid-Atlantic and keeps the heat and humidity turned up several notches. “It’s oppressing,” Maue said, adding that the dome is pushing the heat down. The heat hit New York City as residents headed to the polls to vote in the city’s primary election. In the Queens neighborhood of Jackson Heights, Rekha Malhotra was handing out flyers in support of Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani while wearing a pink electric fan around their neck. “It’s 90 bazillian degrees and here I am,” said Malhotra, an event DJ. “I could have been phone banking.” “I have all the things — hat, ice and this,” Malhotra added, pulling out a commercial-grade spray bottle from their bag. The heat and humidity during the day was compounded by humid nights where the temperatures don’t drop much and the human body and the electric bill don’t get a break to recover from the worst of the day, said Bernadette Woods Placky, chief meteorologist at Climate Central. “The longer the heat lasts, the more it wears on the body, the more it wears on the health, the more it where’s under the energy bill,” Woods Placky said. “So one day is going to take a hit, but then when that combines with another day and night, and then another day at night, it just continues to add up.” Amtrak reported delays Tuesday due to speed restrictions caused by the heat on routes that went through Washington, Philadelphia and New York. And in New Hampshire, two 16-year-old hikers were rescued from a mountain in Jaffrey late Monday afternoon, overcome by the heat, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department said. They were described as being in and out of consciousness and taken to a hospital. (AP)
A classified U.S. military intelligence assessment has concluded that last weekend’s airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure failed to cripple the country’s atomic ambitions, undercutting public claims by President Donald Trump and his defense officials that the mission delivered total destruction, according to a CNN report. According to four sources briefed on the findings, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessed that the strikes dealt heavy damage to aboveground structures but left Iran’s core nuclear capabilities—including its stockpile of enriched uranium and much of its centrifuge systems—largely intact. The analysis suggests Iran’s nuclear program has been set back by mere months, not years, and could resume at pace. “The centrifuges are largely intact,” one source told CNN. “The U.S. set them back maybe a few months, tops.” The DIA’s early findings, based on battlefield damage reports from U.S. Central Command, starkly contrast with the White House narrative. Trump claimed the mission had “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s enrichment sites, while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth boasted the strikes had “obliterated” Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons. But the Pentagon’s own analysis tells a different story. Strikes on the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, Natanz, and Isfahan damaged power stations and aboveground infrastructure but failed to reach the deeply buried centrifuge halls protected by reinforced concrete and layers of bedrock. The White House has acknowledged the existence of the assessment but dismissed it as inaccurate and politically motivated. “This alleged assessment is flat-out wrong,” said press secretary Karoline Leavitt, accusing a “low-level loser” in the intelligence community of leaking top-secret information in an attempt to “demean President Trump” and discredit the military operation. Trump doubled down Tuesday morning, insisting, “Those pilots hit their targets. Those targets were obliterated… that place is demolished.” Defense Secretary Hegseth echoed that message, saying, “Everything we’ve seen indicates Iran’s nuclear weapons capability is now buried under rubble.” But top military leaders struck a more cautious tone. Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said it was “way too early” to make a definitive call on whether Iran’s nuclear capabilities had been neutralized. Meanwhile, classified briefings for members of Congress were abruptly postponed on Tuesday without explanation. A scheduled House-wide briefing was canceled, while a Senate session was pushed to Thursday. The unexplained delays fueled speculation on Capitol Hill. Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) posted on X, “Trump just canceled a classified House briefing on the Iran strikes with zero explanation. The real reason? He claims he destroyed ‘all nuclear facilities and capability’; his team knows they can’t back up his bluster and BS.” U.S. officials have long questioned whether the Pentagon’s Massive Ordnance Penetrators—30,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs—could effectively destroy Iran’s most fortified sites, especially the underground facilities at Fordow and Isfahan. Isfahan, believed to be Iran’s deepest and most secure nuclear site, was struck with Tomahawk missiles from a U.S. submarine, not bunker busters—a sign the U.S. military may have doubted their effectiveness. Adding to the concern: intelligence indicates Iran may be operating undisclosed nuclear facilities that were untouched by the strikes and remain functional. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
The Department of Homeland Security is warning of a “heightened threat environment” following U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites and the deputy FBI director says the bureau’s “assets are fully engaged” to prevent retaliatory violence, while local law enforcement agencies in major cities like New York say they’re on high alert. No credible threats to the homeland have surfaced publicly in the days since the stealth American attack. It’s also unclear what bearing a potential ceasefire announced Monday by the U.S. between Israel and Iran might have on potential threats or how lasting such an arrangement might be. But the potential for reprisal is no idle concern given the steps Iran is accused of having taken in recent years to target political figures on U.S. soil. Iranian-backed hackers have also launched cyberattacks against U.S. targets in recent years. The U.S. has alleged that Iran’s most common tactic over the past decade, rather than planning mass violence, has been murder-for-hire plots in which government officials recruit operatives — including reputed Russian mobsters and other non-Iranians — to kill public officials and dissidents. The plots, which Tehran has repeatedly denied engineering, have been consistently stymied and exposed by the FBI and Justice Department. “You run into this problem that it’s not like there’s this one sleeper cell that’s connected directly to command central in Iran. There’s a lot of cut-outs and middlemen,” said Ilan Berman, a senior vice president of the Washington-based American Foreign Policy Council. “The competence erodes three layers down.” Whether Iran intends to resort to that familiar method or has the capacity or ambition to successfully carry off a large-scale attack is unclear, but the government may feel a need to demonstrate to its people that it has not surrendered, said Jon Alterman, a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The capability to execute successfully is different from the capability to try,” he said. “Showing you’re not afraid to do this may be 90% part of the goal.” Hours after the attack on Saturday evening U.S. time, FBI and DHS officials convened a call with local law enforcement to update them on the threat landscape, said Michael Masters, who participated in it as founding director of Secure Community Network, a Jewish security organization that tracks Iranian threats. The DHS bulletin released over the weekend warned that several foreign terror organizations have called for violence against U.S. assets and personnel in the Middle East. It also warned of an increased likelihood that a “supporter of the Iranian regime is inspired to commit an act of violence in the Homeland.” “The amount of material that we’re tracking online is at such a fever pitch at the moment,” Masters said. A plot against President Donald Trump The Justice Department in November disclosed that it had disrupted a plot to kill Donald Trump before the 2024 election, a reflection of the regime’s long-running outrage over a 2020 strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani. The scheme was revealed to law enforcement by an accused Iranian government asset who spent time in American prisons for robbery and who is alleged to maintain a network of criminal associates enlisted by Tehran for surveillance and murder-for-hire plots. The man, Farhad Shakeri, told the FBI that a contact in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary […]
Early US intel suggests American strikes did not destroy Iran’s nuclear sites and likely only set the program back by months, according to CNN. The White House has flat-out denied the report.
Iran’s nuclear chief acknowledged Tuesday that the country’s nuclear infrastructure sustained major damage in the wake of a punishing 12-day Israeli-led military campaign, with U.S. forces joining in the final stage of the strikes. Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said Tehran had anticipated damage to its nuclear sites and is already taking steps to restore operations. “The plan is to prevent interruptions in the process of production and services,” Eslami told the state-run Mehr News Agency. American and Israeli officials believe the bombardment set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions by years. However, it remains unclear how the international community intends to prevent Iran from rebuilding and reactivating its nuclear sites in the wake of Tuesday’s ceasefire announcement by President Trump. Trump urged both sides to observe the truce, declaring that “now is the time to stand down.” Iran and Israel each confirmed the ceasefire shortly afterward—but within hours, Iran violated it by launching two missiles at northern Israel. Iran’s ISNA news agency denied the missile launches took place, calling such reports “fabricated.” Meanwhile, Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said he reached out to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to propose talks and restore cooperation. “This is the time for diplomacy,” Grossi posted on X, urging Iran to reengage with inspectors and allow renewed oversight of its nuclear activities. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent on Capitol Hill: “I had a very successful lunch meeting with the Senators…President Trump is doing peace deals, tax deals, trade deals. He’s done a peace deal, I think we’ll have the tax deal done by July 4th, and then we can finish with the trade deals.”
