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    An Iran Cease-Fire, and Why N.Y.C.’s Mayoral Race Matters for Democrats Everywhere

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    Listen to and follow ‘The Daily’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadioOvernight, Iran and Israel said they had agreed to a cease-fire — after an Iranian attack on a U.S. air base in Qatar that appeared to be a largely symbolic act of revenge.But the main topic on “The Daily” is the mayor’s race in New York City, where Tuesday is Democratic Primary Day. The race has quickly become an excruciatingly close contest between two candidates who are offering themselves as the solution to what’s wrong with their party in the age of President Trump.Nicholas Fandos, who covers New York politics for The Times, discusses the competing visions competing for the mayoralty and who is most likely to win.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.On today’s episodeNicholas Fandos, a reporter covering New York politics and government for The New York Times.The primary has taken on national implications, with the top two candidates tapping into Democratic voters’ hunger for a fight.Angelina Katsanis and Anna Watts for The New York TimesBackground readingIn the N.Y.C. mayor’s race, top democrats take on President Trump and their own party.Here’s the latest on Israel and Iran.There are a lot of ways to listen to ‘The Daily.’ Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Michael Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, Nina Feldman, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Sophia Lanman, Shannon M. Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez, Brendan Klinkenberg, Chris Haxel, Maria Byrne, Anna Foley and Caitlin O’Keefe.Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson, Nina Lassam, Nick Pitman and Kathleen O’Brien. More

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      Iran’s Fordo Nuclear Site Said to Look Severely Damaged, Not Destroyed

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      Initial military assessments of the buried nuclear site contrast with the statement on the strike there made by President Trump.After overnight strikes on Iran, President Trump on Sunday declared the operation a “success,” and said that Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities were “completely and totally obliterated.” But his early public pronouncements contrast with more cautious assessments by the U.S. and Israeli militaries.The Israeli military, in an initial analysis, believes the heavily fortified nuclear site at Fordo has sustained serious damage from the American strike on Sunday, but has not been completely destroyed, according to two Israeli officials with knowledge of the matter. The officials also said it appeared Iran had moved equipment, including uranium, from the site.A senior U.S. official similarly acknowledged that the American strike on the Fordo site did not destroy the heavily fortified facility but said the strike had severely damaged it, taking it “off the table.” The person noted that even 12 bunker-busting bombs could not destroy the site.The damage assessments by Israel and the United States are ongoing, and they have not made any final conclusions. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.In its overnight strikes, the United States took aim at three nuclear site, including dropping 30,000 pound, bunker-busting bombs on Fordo, Iran’s most critical site.In a briefing Sunday morning, top Pentagon officials echoed President Trump’s claims of success, while also saying the final assessment would take time. Gen. Dan Caine, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the initial assessment indicated that all three sites sustained “severe damage and destruction,” but added that it was too soon to say whether Iran retained some nuclear capability.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Pentagon Details Multipronged Attack on Iranian Nuclear Sites

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      B-2 stealth bombers, fighter aircraft and submarine-launched cruise missiles struck Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan during “Operation Midnight Hammer.”Senior Pentagon officials on Sunday described an extraordinary coordinated military operation targeting Iran that took place under utmost secrecy and showcased what the American military was capable of when it put in place its doctrine of using air and naval forces to strike an adversary.But neither Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth nor Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, could immediately say whether Iran still retained the ability to make a nuclear weapon. Mr. Hegseth repeated President Trump’s assertion from the previous night that the nuclear sites had been “obliterated.” General Caine did not.The final battle damage assessment for the military operation against Iran, General Caine said, was still to come. He said the initial assessment showed that all three of the Iranian nuclear sites that were struck “sustained severe damage and destruction.”Mr. Hegseth and General Caine, appearing before reporters in the Pentagon’s briefing room for the first time since they took office, described an intricate operation that began at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, home to the B-2 stealth bombers used in the strikes, and hit three nuclear sites in a span of less than a half-hour — 6:40 p.m. to 7:05 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday.The bombers took off in secrecy on Friday night from Missouri for the more than 7,000-mile trip, which involved multiple refuelings. They crossed the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea to reach the skies above Iran, where they struck the heavily fortified nuclear site at Fordo, as well as facilities at Natanz.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel Recovers Bodies of Three Hostages Held by Hamas in Gaza

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      The retrieval of the bodies of three Israelis taken hostage by Hamas jolted Israelis’ focus back to a conflict that had been overshadowed by the escalating crisis with Iran.The bodies of three Israelis taken hostage by Hamas have been recovered, the Israeli government said on Sunday. The announcement jolted Israelis’ focus back to the war in Gaza, which had been overshadowed by the escalating crisis with Iran.Israeli officials identified the three people as Yonatan Samerano; Ofra Keidar; and Shay Levinson, an Israeli soldier. All three were killed during the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, and their bodies were taken back to Gaza as bargaining chips.Approximately 50 out of the roughly 250 hostages captured during Hamas’s attack on southern Israel are believed to still be in Gaza. About 20 of those are believed to still be alive, while the rest are presumed dead, according to the Israeli authorities.Israel’s war in Gaza has continued apace over the past week, even as most Israelis — along with much of the rest of the international community — have turned their attention to the war with Iran. More than 500 people have been killed in Gaza since the war with Iran began over a week ago, according to the Gaza health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.Gazans are still living through a seemingly endless humanitarian crisis in which finding enough food and water has become a daily struggle. Desperate scenes of looting of aid trucks have become a near-daily occurrence amid widespread hunger and lawlessness.Israel and Hamas observed a two-month cease-fire earlier this year that saw 30 hostages freed and the bodies of eight more returned in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. A renewed Israeli assault ended the truce in March.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump’s Strike on Iran Cements Netanyahu’s Political Comeback

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      The United States’ overnight attack could cause further escalation. To Israelis, it is already seen as a victory for Israel, and for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Twenty months ago, in the aftermath of Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023, Benjamin Netanyahu’s political career teetered on a precipice. As Israel’s prime minister, he had overseen the deadliest military lapse in the country’s history, wrecking his security credentials and collapsing support for his government.The United States’ overnight attack on Iran on Sunday, coupled with Israel’s own recent strikes, has taken Mr. Netanyahu to the brink of political redemption. For decades, he dreamed of thwarting Iran’s nuclear program, defining it as the greatest threat to Israel’s future, and its destruction as his highest military priority.Now, he is as close to reaching that goal as he may ever get. To many Israelis, it is a success that helps to revive his reputation as a guardian of their security, raises his chances of re-election and, depending on how the next weeks develop, could cement his historical legacy.“This night marks Netanyahu’s greatest achievement since he first came to power in 1996,” said Mazal Mualem, a biographer of Mr. Netanyahu. “From the perspective of the public, he has achieved a victory against what is considered the greatest threat to Israel since its founding.”In Iran, the short-term consequences of the U.S. strikes have yet to play out. It is not yet clear if they completely destroyed their targets. Even if they did, Israel could continue to attack Iran, seeking to further destabilize the Iranian government.Iran fired another barrage of missiles at Israel on Sunday, and many fear it will retaliate against U.S. military bases, embassies and interests. That could prompt more American and Israeli strikes on Iran, lengthening the war.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      No U.S. Decision on Joining War Yet, Though It Could Come in Days, Israeli Officials Say

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      Israel on Saturday struck sites in southwestern Iran that would most likely be on any potential flight path used by U.S. warplanes on the way to attack a key Iranian nuclear facility.The Trump administration has not told the Israeli military whether the United States plans to join the war on Iran, two Israeli defense officials said on Saturday.But the two officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss security matters, said they believed that Washington was likely to enter the war and that it was already making preparations to do so.Based on Israeli conversations with their American counterparts over the past two days, the officials said, a U.S. strike on Iran could take place in the coming days.President Trump was scheduled to meet with his national security team at the White House on Saturday evening to discuss the possibility of joining Israel’s attacks on Iranian nuclear sites. While the White House has said Mr. Trump has not made a final decision on an attack, the United States has dispatched several Air Force B-2 bombers from an American base and across the Pacific.The bombers can carry the 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs Mr. Trump is considering dropping on Fordo, the heavily fortified underground nuclear facility in Iran that is critical to its nuclear program.The planes could provide options to the president, even if they are not ultimately deployed. In moving the B-2 bombers — and allowing the public to know about it — the White House may also be seeking to pressure Iran to come to the negotiating table.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Crisis With Iran, U.S. Military Officials Focus on Strait of Hormuz

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      Pentagon officials are trying to prepare for all of the ways Iran could retaliate, as President Trump hints at what he might do.Iran retains the naval assets and other capabilities it would need to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, a move that could pin any U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf, American military officials say.In meetings at the White House, senior military officials have raised the need to prepare for that possibility, after Iranian officials threatened to mine the strait if the United States joined Israel’s attacks on the country.Pentagon officials are considering all of the ways Iran could retaliate, as President Trump cryptically hints at what he might do, saying on Wednesday that he had not made a final decision.In several days of attacks, Israel has targeted Iranian military sites and state-sponsored entities, as well as high-ranking generals. It has taken out many of Iran’s ballistic missiles, though Iran still has hundreds of them, U.S. defense officials said.But Israel has steered clear of Iranian naval assets. So while Iran’s ability to respond has been severely damaged, it has robust a navy and maintains operatives across the region, where the United States has more than 40,000 troops. Iran also has an array of mines that its navy could lay in the Strait of Hormuz.The narrow 90-mile waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the open ocean is a key shipping route. A quarter of the world’s oil passes through it, so mining the choke-point would cause gas prices to soar.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      An Iran Strategy for Trump

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      Nobody, perhaps even President Trump himself, knows for sure whether the United States will wind up joining Israel in launching military strikes on Iran. “I may do it, I may not do it,” he said on Wednesday. But with a third U.S. aircraft carrier on its way to the region and the president calling for Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” the chance of war seems higher than ever — particularly now that Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has gruffly rebuffed Trump’s demand.If the U.S. does attack, the most obvious target will be the Fordo nuclear site, a deeply buried facility where Iran enriches uranium and which, by most reports, can be knocked out only by a 15-ton bomb known as a Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP. Less well known but surely on the U.S. target list is a new, still unfinished subterranean facility south of Iran’s main (and now largely destroyed) enrichment plant at Natanz. American pilots would also almost certainly join their Israeli counterparts in attacking Iranian ballistic missile launchers and bases.And then what? Nobody doubts the U.S. can do a lot of damage to Iran’s nuclear capabilities, at least in the short term. What comes afterward is harder to predict.Proponents of an American strike believe that we have no realistic choice other than to help Israel do as thorough a job as possible in setting back Iran’s nuclear ambitions not just for months but years — more than enough time to allow benign forces to shape events, including the possibility of Iranians overthrowing their widely detested rulers.By contrast, skeptics fear that the lessons Iran’s leaders will draw from an American attack is that they should have gotten a bomb much sooner — and that the appropriate response to such an attack is to be more repressive at home and less receptive to diplomatic overtures from abroad. Skeptics also expect that Iran will respond to an attack by ramping up its malign regional activities, not least to embroil the U.S. in another Middle East war the Trump administration desperately wants to avoid.I’m with the proponents. A nuclear-armed Iran, fielding missiles of ever-growing reach, is both an unacceptable threat to U.S. security and a consequential failure of U.S. deterrence. After years of Iran’s prevarications, which led even the Biden administration to give up on diplomacy, to say nothing of Iran’s cheating on its legal commitments — detailed last month in a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency — the world had run out of plausible nonmilitary options to prevent the regime from going nuclear.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Walls Are Put Up Walls Around Israeli Displays at French Weapons Show

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      Israel called the move “outrageous.” A French official said Israeli companies were defying an agreement not to display so-called offensive weapons.Last year, Israeli weapons producers were initially barred from attending a prestigious arms industry show in Paris over objections to the war in Gaza. This year, the Israelis were allowed in — but then walled off from other global competitors.Israel’s Ministry of Defense said on Monday that the French government built a black wall overnight around some weapons systems displayed by Israeli companies, blocking them from view at the Paris Air Show, one of the world’s largest arms exhibitions.It marked the second time in as many years that French authorities have sought to stop Israel from marketing its tools of military might amid its massive bombing campaigns in Gaza. And it comes at a fraught moment between the two countries as President Emmanuel Macron of France considers whether to recognize a Palestinian state, a move that Israel strenuously opposes.The decision did not appear to be linked to Israel’s new military offensive in Iran, which aims in part to destroy Tehran’s nuclear program. France also has long worried about Iran’s nuclear ambitions.The wall was built “in the middle of the night, after Israeli defense officials and companies had already finished setting up their displays,” the ministry said in a statement on Monday.The wall was put up after Israeli officials objected to what they described as an earlier order by the French government to remove offensive weapons — a category that typically includes missile and rocket launchers, tanks, drones, cannons and a range of ammunition — from Israeli displays. The air show is expected to draw as many as 300,000 visitors, and feature defense displays from more than 2,400 companies in 48 countries.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More