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      Iran’s nuclear enrichment ‘will never stop’, nation’s UN ambassador says

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      Amir-Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, said on Sunday that the Islamic republic’s nuclear enrichment “will never stop” because it is permitted for “peaceful energy” purposes under the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.“The enrichment is our right, an inalienable right, and we want to implement this right,” Iravani told CBS News, adding that Iran was ready for negotiations but “unconditional surrender is not negotiation. It is dictating the policy toward us.”But Iravani said Tehran is “ready for the negotiation, but after this aggression, it is not proper condition for a new round of the negotiation, and there is no request for negotiation and meeting with the president”.The Iranian UN envoy also denied that there are any threats from his government to the safety of Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or against the agency’s inspectors, who are accused by some Iranian officials of helping Israel justify its attacks. IAEA inspectors are currently in Iran but do not have access to Iran’s nuclear facilities.Pressed by the CBS News anchor Margaret Brennan on whether he would condemn calls for the arrest and execution of the IAEA head, which Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state said a newspaper close to Iran’s leader had made, Iravani said that he would.“There is no any threat,” Irvani said, but acknowledged that Iran’s parliament had suspended cooperation with IAEA. The inspectors, he said, “are in Iran, they are in safe conditions, but the activity has been suspended. They cannot have access to our site … our assessment is that they have not done their jobs.”Iravani also responded to questions on why Tehran has not accepted proposals for a diplomatic solution. Referring to Trump’s “unconditional surrender” demand, Irvani said that the US “is dictating the policy towards us. If they are ready for negotiation, they will find us ready for that. But if they want to dictate us, it is impossible for any negotiation with them.”Iravani said on Saturday that Iran could transfer its stocks of enriched uranium to another country in the event of an agreement with the United States on Tehran’s nuclear program, according to news site Al-Monitor.The transfer of 20% and 60% enriched uranium would not be a red line for Tehran, Iravani said, adding that the material could alternatively remain in Iran under IAEA supervision.But as he said again on Sunday, Iravani stressed that Iran would not renounce its right to domestic uranium production, a condition the US rejects.Irvani’s comments comes as western nations, including the US, are pushing for Iran to resume negotiations over its nuclear program a week after the US launched strikes on three facilities, setting off days of heated dispute over whether the facilities has been “totally obliterated”, as Donald Trump initially claimed, or if they had delayed but not destroyed the program.Grossi told CBS that there is “agreement in describing this as a very serious level of damage” but went on to say that Iran will likely will be able to begin to produce enriched uranium within months.“The capacities they have are there,” he said. “They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that. But as I said, frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there.”On Sunday, President Trump again dismissed reports that Iran had moved 400kg (880lb) on 60% enriched uranium ahead of the strikes on Fordow, regarded as the center of Iran’s enrichment program.“It’s very hard to do, dangerous to do, it’s very heavy, plus we didn’t give them much notice because they didn’t know they we were coming,” Trump told the Fox News host Maria Bartiromo.Trump speculated that vehicles seen near the entrances to Fordow before the strikes were likely masons brought in to seal up the facility. “There are thousands of tons of rock in that room right now,” Trump said. “They whole place was just destroyed.”However, the Washington Post reported on Sunday that the US obtained intercepted Iranian communications in which senior Iran officials remarked that damage from the attack was not as destructive and extensive as they anticipated.The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, scoffed at the Iranian claims in a comment to the Post in which she did not dispute that such communications had been intercepted.“The notion that unnamed Iranian officials know what happened under hundreds of feet of rubble is nonsense,” Leavitt said.Separately on Sunday, Abdolrahim Mousavi, Iran’s armed forces chief of staff, reportedly told the Saudi defense minister during a call that Tehran is not convinced Israel will honour the ceasefire that ended their 12-day war announced by Trump.“Since we are completely doubtful about the enemy honoring its commitments, including the ceasefire, we are prepared to give it a tough response in case of recurrence of an act of aggression”, Mousavi said, according to Turkey’s state-run news agency Anadolu.Israel and the US, “have shown that they do not adhere to any international rules and norms” the Iranian general added. “We did not initiate war, but we responded with all our power to the aggressor.” More

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      Trump threatens to cut off New York City funds if Mamdani ‘doesn’t behave’

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      Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to cut New York City off from federal funds if favored mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, “doesn’t behave himself” should he be elected.Mamdani, meanwhile, denied that he was – as the president said – a communist. But he reaffirmed his commitment to raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers while saying: “I don’t think that we should have billionaires.”In an interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, Trump argued that a Mamdani victory was “inconceivable” because he perceived the candidate to be “a pure communist”.He added: “Let’s say this – if he does get in, I’m going to be president, and he’s going to have to do the right thing, or they’re not getting any money. He’s got to do the right thing or they’re not getting any money.”More than $100bn flows to the city from the federal government through different entities and programs, according to the city’s comptroller last year.Speaking Sunday with NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Mamdani said, “no, I am not” a communist.He also said that he had “already had to start to get used to the fact that the president will talk about how I look, how I sound, where I’m from, who I am – ultimately because he wants to distract from what I’m fighting for”.Mamdani said he was inspired by the US civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr, who once remarked: “Call it democracy or call it democratic socialism. There has to be a better distribution of wealth for all of God’s children in this country.”He then reiterated his intent to raise taxes on New York’s wealthiest as part of a campaign pledge “to shift the tax burden from overtaxed homeowners in the outer boroughs to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods”.“I don’t think that we should have billionaires because, frankly, it is so much money in a moment of such inequality – and ultimately what we need more of is equality across our city and across our state and across our country,” Mamdani said. “And I look forward to work with everyone, including billionaires, to make a city that is fairer for all of them.”Mamdani said the proposal reflected “a description of what we see right now”.“It’s not driven by race,” he said. “It’s more of an assessment of what neighborhoods are being undertaxed versus overtaxed.“It is not to work backwards from a racial assessment of neighborhoods or our city. Rather, it’s to ensure that we actually have an equal playing field.”Many New Yorkers and moderate Democratic politicians have expressed concern over Mamdani’s win over former governor Andrew Cuomo in the 24 June primary for the Democratic nomination.Among those to endorse him was progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But he has not been endorsed by many other prominent Democratic party figures, including the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, who said coolly after his win: “Obviously, there’s areas of difference in our positions, but I also think we need to have those conversations.”Mamdani said on Sunday that he was looking forward to discussions with Hochul, saying: “Ultimately, my policies, my vision, it’s driven by an assessment of what’s actually happening.”Asked if he thought moderate Democrats were afraid of him, Mamdani said: “I think that people are catching up to this election.“Ultimately what we’re showing is that by putting working people first, by returning to the roots of the Democratic party, we actually have a path out of this moment where we’re facing authoritarianism in Washington DC” under the Trump administration.In his comments on Mamdani’s having secured the Democrats’ nomination in the heavily Democratic city, Trump said: “It’s shocking.”“I used to say we will never have a socialist in this country,” the president said, in part.Asked about Mamdani’s proposals to oppose his administration’s immigration crackdown and to arrest Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he sets foot in New York, Trump said the mayoral candidate would “be very unsuccessful” on both counts.“He’s a radical left lunatic,” Trump said.Mamdani, for his part, said Democrats “need to be a party that’s not just against Donald Trump – but also for something”.“And our campaign was for working people, bringing dignity back into those lives,” Mamdani said. More

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      Trump considers forcing journalists to reveal sources who leaked Iran report

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      Donald Trump said he is weighing forcing journalists who published leaked details from a US intelligence report assessing the impact of the recent American military strikes on Iran to reveal their sources – and the president also claimed his administration may prosecute those reporters and sources if they don’t comply.In an interview Sunday with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, Trump doubled down on his claim that the 21 June airstrikes aimed at certain Iranian facilities successfully crippled Iran’s nuclear program. He insisted the attacks destroyed key enriched uranium stockpiles, despite Iranian assertions that the material had been relocated before the strikes.Trump dismissed the leaked intelligence assessment in question – which suggested the strikes only temporarily disrupted Iran’s nuclear development – as incomplete and biased. The report, circulated among US lawmakers and intelligence officials, concluded that the damage inflicted was significantly less than what Trump’s administration had publicly claimed.The president has attacked both Democratic lawmakers and members of the media for sharing portions of the classified analysis. He then threatened legal consequences for those responsible.During the interview, Bartiromo referenced a post Trump had shared on social media days earlier, in which he wrote: “The Democrats are the ones who leaked the information on the PERFECT FLIGHT to the Nuclear Sites in Iran. They should be prosecuted!”Trump then reiterated on-air that “they should be prosecuted”.“Who specifically?” Bartiromo asked.Trump replied: “You can find out – if they wanted, they could find out easily.”In recent days, Trump has targeted CNN and The New York Times for their reporting on the strikes. He has condemned the coverage as “unpatriotic” and even floated the possibility of legal action.The two outlets, along with several others, reported that preliminary findings from the US’s Defense Intelligence Agency indicated the strikes had only limited success. The bombings delayed Iran’s nuclear ambitions by several months but stopped short of destroying the program outright, according to the assessment.On Sunday, a social media account belonging to the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, accused Trump of needing to “exaggerate to cover up the truth and keep it secret” after the recent US military strikes “could not do anything”.Trump, in contrast, has repeatedly insisted that three nuclear facilities were “obliterated”.He elaborated on how his administration might pursue the sources of the leak.“You go up and tell the reporter, ‘national security – who gave it?’” Trump said. “You have to do that. And I suspect we’ll be doing things like that.”In the US, the constitution generally protects journalists from being compelled to reveal their sources – but there are limits to that reporter’s privilege, as it is colloquially known.The president had threatened to sue CNN and the New York Times for publishing articles about the preliminary intelligence report ahead of his comments to Bartiromo.In a letter to the Times, a lawyer for Trump said the article had damaged the president’s reputation and demanded that the outlet “retract and apologize for” the piece, which the letter described as “false,” “defamatory” and “unpatriotic”. More

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      How do we resist and rise? We have to believe the impossible is possible | V (Formerly Eve Ensler)

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      In this authoritarian and suffocating climate where being an American feels like a curse, where just breathing here feels like complicity with genocide, psychotic imperialism, misogyny and endless racism, it is hard to move, let alone imagine what one can do to transform this horror to good.Every day people are kidnapped by masked men in unmarked cars, taken to hidden sites and left in deplorable conditions; starving people in Gaza are slaughtered as they clamor for a bag of flour; public officials and leaders humiliated and murdered; the T erased from LGBT; brain-dead women forced to give birth; the glib language of hate and cruelty and easy thoughtless threats of world war, assassination, and dehumanization circling like invisible poison. What feels most perilous is the steady evaporation of the boundaries of what seemed impossible only a few weeks ago. Morality, compassion, care – slashed and burned.And yet I think of Beckett, “I can’t go on. I’ll go on”, “The world is essentially over. I will fight for another day”, “I have lost my faith in humans. I commit to love them more.”To live as Jung said – with two existing opposite thoughts at the same time. Survival right now depends on our ability to swim in this duality. To not linger in the pain, but to allow ourselves to be moved by it. To not whitewash reality, but also not to take up lodging in the house of despair. This is the dance of our times.We must become agile and flexible. To feel responsible but not so guilty we are immobilized. To feel rage but to learn how to direct it into action and passion and purpose. To lift ourselves to a more existential absurdist place where the fascists cannot touch us. Not disassociation or numbness, but finding the grace, energy and humor that come when we commit ourselves more deeply to one another.Before “No Kings” Day there was a part of me that frankly was tired of marching, wondering if these demonstrations really add up to anything. But then on 14 June, with an estimated 4 million to 6 million people in the streets of America, I realized something profound. Marches and demonstrations are not merely acts of resistance and refusal, but they are community events in which we meet and strengthen our resolve and bonds with our own tribe of like-minded people.They are public moments to show the rest of the world that we are the majority and we do not want and will not accept a king, or genocide in Gaza or precious immigrants being dragged off and separated from their families. They are places to let off steam and make great art and music and network and ultimately they are what we have, the expression of our collective sorrow and outrage, thereby saving our own souls.So how do we resist and rise? We have to believe the impossible is possible.I think of my sisters at the City of Joy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo who give me inspiration and direction daily. The center is literally in the middle of a war zone. When the M23 militias invaded Bukavu in February, they made a radical decision to keep the center open despite the madness outside – gunfire, bombs and sometimes dead bodies on the road. They refused to stop building the world they dreamed. Instead, they developed strategies – coming to work on scooters, changing cars to avoid being noticed, keeping their hearts tuned to the work of healing survivors. It is now June and the 27th class of City of Joy is about to graduate and a new class is on the way.I think of one of my great inspirations, the former congresswoman Cori Bush who saw that in St Louis, after the recent tornado no local or national Fema had come or were coming. The majority of people had lost their homes or had huge holes in them. So she joined with local groups to provide tarps and food, cleaning products and formula. They formed hubs of care. They went to the senior homes who had lost electricity so there was no refrigeration for food or medicine and gave them both.She told me, “It’s my community. I believe that we take care of us. I learned through the Ferguson uprising that we can’t wait on politicians or leaders. We have to dive in and get to work. We have to talk to one another and know our communities. We need to organize in our living rooms, local businesses backyards – find out who amongst us are doctors, nurses, chefs, teachers. Knowing your community and what skills they can offer.” This is what we need to understand now more than ever.It is so clear something essential is dying. The illusion and seduction of the American dream is over. Neoliberalism is dead. There are huge cracks, openings in the old structures and narratives. These are opportunities to plant the seeds for the new world as we protect those suffering now.What the fascists want more than anything is our fear, exhaustion and despair. Or they want us angry, reactive, cruel and violent like them. In Cherien Dabis’s staggeringly brilliant saga about a family in Palestine, All That’s Left of You, (one of the best films I have ever seen), a married couple comes to a moral crisis and they turn to an iman for advice. This wise and very gentle iman tells them: “Your humanity is also your resistance. Don’t underestimate its power. It’s the only thing they can’t take away from you.” Every action matters now. Every effort small or large counts. And moving – movement is the essential key to dispelling despair. How we care now, how we love, how we come together, how we build and protect each other is in itself the building of the new world.

      V (formerly Eve Ensler) is a playwright and activist and the founder of V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls More

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      Trump news at a glance: president’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ clears first Senate hurdle

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      After a scramble in the Senate, Republicans voted on Saturday to advance Trump’s signature “big, beautiful” bill, with a 51-49 vote.Republicans had been divided over the controversial bill, with some rejecting the proposal to cut welfare programmes in order to cover tax breaks, and others demanding deeper cuts.The key procedural hurdle was cleared hours after the debate opened, with two Republicans, senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky, voting with Democrats to block consideration of the measure.Meanwhile, the tech billionaire Elon Musk again voiced criticism of bill, describing it as “utterly insane and destructive”.Here are the key stories at a glance:Senate Republicans advance Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ billThe Republican-controlled US Senate advanced president Donald Trump’s sweeping tax-cut and spending bill in a key procedural vote on Saturday, raising the odds that lawmakers will be able to pass the legislation in coming days.Read the full storyMusk calls Trump’s big bill ‘utterly insane and destructive’ The billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk on Saturday criticized the latest version of Donald Trump’s sprawling tax and spending bill, calling it “utterly insane and destructive”.“The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!” Musk wrote on Saturday.Read the full storyBiden and Harris attend funeral of slain Minnesota lawmakerThe Democratic former Minnesota state house speaker Melissa Hortman was honored for her legislative accomplishments and her humanity during a funeral on Saturday that was attended by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.The former president and vice-president were joined by more than 1,000 other mourners.Read the full storyEric Trump suggests he could run for US presidentEric Trump has hinted that he or another of the Trump family could run for president when his father’s second term in the White House comes to an end.Eric, who is co-executive vice-president of the Trump Organization, said, the road to the White House “would be an easy one” if he decided to follow in his father’s footsteps.Read the full storySpate of arrests of civilians impersonating Ice officersPolice in southern California arrested a man suspected of posing as a federal immigration officer this week, the latest in a series of such arrests, as masked, plainclothes immigration agents are deployed nationwide to meet the Trump administration’s mass deportation targets.Read the full storyIce arrests of US military veterans and relatives on the riseThe son of an American citizen and military veteran – but who has no citizenship to any country – was deported from the US to Jamaica in late May.Jermaine Thomas’s deportation, recently reported on by the Austin Chronicle, is one of a growing number of immigration cases involving military service members’ relatives or even veterans themselves who have been ensnared in the Trump administration’s mass deportation program.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Two men face spending their lives in prison after a federal judge sentenced them for their roles in the deaths of 53 people found dead in an abandoned tractor-trailer in Texas in 2022.

      The sudden loss of key US satellite data could send hurricane forecasting back “decades”, scientists say.

      Mark Zuckerberg’s secret list of top AI talent to poach has the tech world atwitter.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 27 June 2025. More

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      Elon Musk calls Trump’s big bill ‘utterly insane and destructive’ as Senate debates

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      The billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk on Saturday criticized the latest version of Donald Trump’s sprawling tax and spending bill, calling it “utterly insane and destructive.“The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!” Musk wrote on Saturday as the Senate was scheduled to call a vote to open debate on the nearly 1,000-page bill.“Utterly insane and destructive,” Musk added. “It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.”Passing the package, Musk said, would be “political suicide for the Republican Party.”Musk’s comment reopens a recent fiery conflict between the former head of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) and the administration he recently left. They also represent yet another headache for Republican Senate leaders who have spent the weekend working overtime to get the legislation through their chamber so it can pass by Trump’s Fourth of July deadline.Earlier this month, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO also came out against the House version of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, denouncing that proposal as a “disgusting abomination”.“This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it, he wrote at the time.Musk’s forceful denouncement of Trump’s spending plans triggered a deep and public rift between the billionaire and the president, though Musk in recent weeks has been working to mend relations.On Saturday, Musk posted a series of disparaging comments about the senate version of the bill, which argued the legislation would undermine US investments in renewable energy.Musk boosted several comments from Jesse Jenkins, a macro-scale energy systems engineer who teaches at Princeton.After Jenkins wrote, “The energy provisions in the Republicans’ One Big Horrible Bill are truly so bad! Who wants this? The country’s automakers don’t want it. Electric utilities don’t want it. Data center developers don’t want it. Manufacturers in energy intensive industries don’t want it.” Musk replied: “Good question. Who?”Musk’s continued criticism of Trump’s budget proposals comes as the bill faces a rocky path in the senate. Republicans are hoping to use their majorities to overcome Democratic opposition, but several Republican senators are concerned over provisions that would reduce spending on Medicaid and food stamps to help cover the cost of extending Trump’s tax breaks. Meanwhile, fiscal conservatives are worried about the nation’s debt are pushing for steeper cuts. More

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      Senate Republicans scrambling to pass tax-and-spend bill by Trump deadline

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      The Republican-controlled US Senate advanced president Donald Trump’s sweeping tax-cut and spending bill in a key procedural vote late on Saturday, raising the odds that lawmakers will be able to pass his “big, beautiful bill” in the coming days.The measure, Trump’s top legislative goal, passed its first procedural hurdle in a 51 to 49 vote, with two Republican senators voting against it.The result came after several hours of negotiation as Republican leaders and vice president JD Vance sought to persuade last-minute holdouts in a series of closed-door negotiations.The procedural vote, which would start debate on the 940-page megabill to fund Trump’s top immigration, border, tax-cut and military priorities, began after hours of delay.It then remained open for more than three hours of standstill as three Republican senators – Thom Tillis, Ron Johnson and Rand Paul – joined Democrats to oppose the legislation. Three others – Senators Rick Scott, Mike Lee and Cynthia Lummis – negotiated with Republican leaders into the night in hopes of securing bigger spending cuts.In the end, Wisconsin Senator Johnson flipped his no vote to yes, leaving only Paul and Tillis opposed among Republicans.Trump on social media hailed the “great victory” for his “great, big, beautiful bill.”The megabill would extend the 2017 tax cuts that were Trump’s main legislative achievement during his first term as president, cut other taxes and boost spending on the military and border security.But the controversial bill has caused division, with Elon Musk, the billionaire Trump donor again coming out in strong opposition to the House version of the bill, denouncing the Senate draft on his social media platform, X, on Saturday.“The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!” Musk wrote above a comment from a green energy expert who pointed out that the bill raises taxes on new wind and solar projects.“Utterly insane and destructive,” Musk added. “It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.”Nonpartisan analysts estimate that a version of Trump’s tax-cut and spending bill would add trillions to the $36.2-trillion US government debt.Democrats fiercely opposed the bill, saying its tax-cut elements would disproportionately benefit the wealthy at the expense of social programs that lower-income Americans rely upon.Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat, demanded that the bill be read aloud before debate could begin, saying the Senate Republicans were scrambling to pass a “radical bill”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump is pushing Congress to wrap it up, even as he sometimes gives mixed signals, allowing for more time.The legislation is an ambitious but complicated series of GOP priorities. At its core, it would make permanent many of the tax breaks from Trump’s first term that would otherwise expire by year’s end if Congress fails to act, resulting in a potential tax increase on Americans. The bill would add new breaks, including no taxes on tips, and commit $350bn to national security, including for Trump’s mass deportation agenda.Some lawmakers say the cuts go too far, particularly for people receiving healthcare through Medicaid. Meanwhile, conservatives worried about the nation’s debt are pushing for steeper cuts.The final text includes a proposal for cuts to a Medicaid provider tax that had run into parliamentary objections and opposition from several senators worried about the fate of rural hospitals. The new version extends the start date for those cuts and establishes a $25bn fund to aid rural hospitals and providers.Most states impose the provider tax as a way to boost federal Medicaid reimbursements. Some Republicans argue that is a scam and should be abolished.The nonpartisan congressional budget office has said that under the House-passed version of the bill, some 10.9 million more people would go without healthcare and at least 3 million fewer would qualify for food aid. The CBO has not yet publicly assessed the Senate draft, which proposes steeper reductions. Top income-earners would see about a $12,000 tax cut under the House bill, while the package would cost the poorest Americans $1,600, the CBO said. More

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      Struggling in politics? Consider a war – the media will help | Margaret Sullivan

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      “You furnish the pictures. I’ll furnish the war,” was the storied response of the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst to Frederic Remington after the illustrator was sent to Cuba to cover an insurrection and cabled back to the boss that there was little going on.Much has changed since that famous (if true) exchange of the late 19th century, in the heyday of sensationalism known as yellow journalism.But one thing that hasn’t changed is that there’s nothing like military conflict to capture the attention of the public, with plenty of help from the media. And the media – whether a tabloid newspaper or a cable news network – benefits, too.These days, Donald Trump’s recent strike on Iran has proved the point once again, with the media’s attention intensely focused on Operation Midnight Hammer, as it was dramatically dubbed.First the emphasis was on the threat of attacks to Iran’s budding nuclear arsenal, then on the possibility of all-out global war, then on the strikes themselves and then the announcement of a supposed ceasefire.All to the greater glory of Trump, at least as he tells it.For those who are trying to bring public attention to other important matters – even matters of life and death – that’s a frustrating reality.Jennifer Mascia knows this all too well.She is a founding reporter for the Trace, a non-profit news site dedicated to tracking the epidemic of gun violence in America and trying to do something about it, through exploring solutions.When elected officials in Minnesota were shot earlier this month – the former state House speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed, and the state legislator John Hoffman and his wife were wounded – it was a huge story.Huge, but fleeting.“Pitted against a global conflict, domestic news doesn’t really stand a chance,” said Mascia, who previously contributed to the now-defunct Gun Report at the New York Times, begun by the then columnist Joe Nocera.That’s true for domestic news that, in an earlier era, would have commanded the media’s attention for many days, if not weeks. The Minnesota violence was even more newsworthy because of an early manhunt and disinformation swirling around the apparent assassin’s political leanings.Still, coverage seemed to disappear in the blink of an eye.“The Trump era has all but ensured that important news will get smacked out of the news cycle in favor of the latest development in Trumpworld,” Mascia wrote to me in an email, after we had talked by phone.Mascia is quick to clarify that she’s not suggesting that the media ignore what the chaotic president is doing.“It’s important that we cover Trump’s constitutional breaches. We shouldn’t become numb or complacent in the face of eroding democracy,” she said.But it was remarkable to see how quickly the Minnesota shootings faded from media attention. A CNN contributor herself, Mascia is often called in to provide perspective for “Day Two” of coverage after the initial reporting of gun-related news. But often these days, she notes, there is no Day Two.By then, the media has moved on.“Maybe if the Israel-Iran war wasn’t going on, we’d still be talking about it,” she said. “Anderson Cooper would be broadcasting from Melissa Hortman’s funeral. But instead, he’s in Tel Aviv.”And, of course, this extends to all sorts of other subjects, not just gun violence.Those who try to focus attention on voting rights, the rule of law, crucial supreme court decisions, widespread citizen action such as the vast “No Kings” protests – to mention just a few – may get a modicum of attention.But nothing compares to a show of military force. And Trump, always attuned to how he’s being perceived, is well aware of that.“A spectacular military success,” he crowed after the strikes. “A historic success,” echoed his defense secretary. Pete Hegseth couldn’t countenance being asked actual questions and claimed the press was trying to distort the story “for their own political reasons to try to hurt President Trump or our country”.Was the administration’s bragging accurate? Perhaps not, said intelligence reports that indicated the strikes may have only added months to the time Iran needs to produce the material for a nuclear weapon.But no matter.The strikes – from the lead-up to the aftermath – sucked up all the oxygen in the media universe for many days.Even by Thursday early afternoon, the top four news articles (plus one photo) on the Washington Post mobile app, for example, were Iran-related.And Fox News, of course, remained largely a cheering section.Whatever the effect on world peace, military conflict sure is good for ratings, as William Randolph Hearst knew in his bones.“Historians point to the Spanish-American war as the first press-driven war,” noted a PBS article accompanying the film Crucible of Empire.It wouldn’t be the last.

      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More