Category: Music

This article first appeared on our partner site, Independent Persian
“We’re constantly terrified by the sound of explosions. The electricity and water keep being cut off. We are without jobs and have no food. It feels like no one is coming to help the people of southern Iran. We don’t want war.”
These remarks reflect dozens of messages and firsthand accounts received by Independent Persian from residents of the southern provinces of Hormozgan, Bushehr, Khuzestan and Sistan and Baluchestan.
With intermittent US military strikes on southern Iran in recent weeks under a very precarious ceasefire, residents say they are now grappling not only with the threat of explosions but also prolonged power outages, water cuts, internet disruptions, shuttered businesses and a complete lack of meaningful government support.
One resident of Bandar Abbas tells Independent Persian that when the strikes came, the sound of explosions was almost uninterrupted throughout the night, prompting many families t..

Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected Donald Trump’s 15-point peace plan for Gaza, saying Israel will not withdraw from the enclave until Hamas fully disarms.
At a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Israel’s president said it “will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is genuinely disarmed and will continue to thwart threats against our forces and our citizens”.
He insisted that any disarmament by the militant group, which ran Gaza for nearly two decades before ‌carrying out the October ​7, 2023 ‌attack on Israel that ⁠triggered the Gaza ⁠war, must not be a “fictitious” one.
Mr Netanyahu said he was in discussions with US officials about how to proceed. “They have ideas; some of them are acceptable to us and some are not, and we know how to stand our ground on these matters,” he said.
What is Trump’s 15-point plan for peace in Gaza?Last month, Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” in Gaza published a “roadmap” for implementing a “comprehensive peace process” between Israel and Hamas, nearly 10 months..

A plane is on its way to Dubai for the extradition of alleged gangland leader Daniel Kinahan.
Kinahan, aged in his late 40s, was detained on foot after an arrest warrant was issued by the Irish courts in relation to alleged serious organised crime, including drug and firearms offences.
It comes after several months of preparations following the April arrest in Dubai of the Dublin boxing promoter who is an alleged leader of the Kinahan organised crime group.
An Irish government jet took off from Casement aerodrome in Baldonnel on the outskirts of Dublin on Saturday morning. It is expected to touch down in Ireland on Sunday evening.
According to The Times, Kinahan will be brought before a sitting of the special criminal court, a non-jury court, on Sunday.
Kinahan’s arrest was carried out in accordance with a bilateral agreement on extradition between Ireland and the UAE.
The High Court in Dublin previously named Kinahan, who has recently been living in the UAE, as a senior figure in an ..

An Oregon homeowner says her family's $2.4 million beach house is being buried by sand because a state agency won't let her dig out a seawall to protect it from the Pacific Ocean.
Stacy Niedermeyer told The Independent that she's been barredfrom moving windblown sand toward the water since 2023, after decades of routinely hiring a contractor to push back the sand in late spring or early summer.
As a result, the seawall —which Niedemayer says is located four feet inside her property line — is now buried under what she estimates is 10 feet of sand that also covers her deck and slopes up toward the back of her house.
“We've done nothing wrong, and our house is getting buried,” she said. “It is like getting buried alive.”
The sprawling, five-bedroom, four-bathroom house was built in 1941 and sits along the picturesque shoreline of Cannon Beach, a coastal city in northwestern Oregon, about a 90-minute drive from Portland.
open image in gallerySand stretches to the Niede..

President Donald Trump acknowledged that the odds are stacked against him in the upcoming midterm election, saying voters are angry with Republicans – yet still maintained that he was exempt from their growing frustrations.
With roughly three months until the midterms, the president and his allies are stumping for Republican candidates and tearing down Democratic policies in the hopes of maintaining the GOP’s narrow majority in Congress. But it’s an uphill battle for Trump, who can no longer appear on the ballot, as he faces record-low approval ratings and blame for higher costs due to the unpopular war with Iran.
“The question is, will they vote? Because a lot of them are very angry at Republicans, to be honest with you,” Trump told Punchbowl Newsin an interview that aired Friday.
Yet Trump insisted, “I mean they’re angry at Republicans, but they’re not angry at me. They’re not angry at me.”
President Donald Trump acknowledged that midterm voters are often casting ballots against the..

Strait of Hormuz is 'sort of open' – TrumpA furious Donald Trump has hit out at “leakers” as he condemned “treasonous” reports that the US has almost depleted its stock of precision long-range missiles in its war with Iran.
The president claimed the US still has “massive amounts” of the expensive munitions, adding that “large amounts are being manufactured and shipped to the US as needed”.
“The ‘leakers’ of these treasonous statements are being hunted down. Long term jail sentences will be sought!” he added in the Truth Social tirade.
Trump also denied US media reports that he had reprimanded defence secretary Pete Hegseth during a Cabinet meeting in which low ammunition stockpiles were discussed.
Two sources told Reuters news agency that the military’s surface-to-surface weapons, known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM) had been “virtually all” used in its war against Tehran.
Meanwhile, the US president claimed the Strait of Ho..

Paul Pelosi, husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has been charged with a misdemeanor hit-and-run following a collision with a parked vehicle.
The 86-year-old was driving his brown convertible in Yountville, California, on July 3 when he allegedly struck a legally parked car on the side of the road. According to the Napa County Sheriff’s Office, he briefly stopped before driving away from the scene.
No injuries were reported, and the parked car was unoccupied. Authorities confirmed Pelosi did not have alcohol in his system at the time.
Napa County prosecutors announced Friday that Pelosi faces a misdemeanor charge for violating state law, which mandates drivers involved in property damage accidents to stop and exchange information. Additionally, he was charged with an infraction for making an unlawful turn.
Pelosi was also charged with an infraction for making an unlawful turn (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)The vehicle sustained “significant damage” to the right front area..

A federal appeals court has delivered a significant blow to New Jersey's gun control measures, ruling Friday that the state's prohibitions on assault firearms and magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds are unconstitutional.
This landmark decision marks the first time a federal appeals court has invalidated a state ban on such weapons, arriving as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to review whether similar bans on semi-automatic rifles infringe upon the Second Amendment.
The ruling also stands in contrast to a decision just last week, where a different federal appeals court upheld Illinois' ban on semi-automatic weapons.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' judgment in the New Jersey case goes further than a July 2024 ruling by a federal judge. That earlier decision had only deemed the state's ban on AR-15s unconstitutional, while upholding the provision barring larger magazines.
The ruling also stands in contrast to a decision just last week, where..

A survivor of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation said that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche behaved in a “condescending” manner during his meeting with her and other survivors.
The meeting came as Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) made meeting with Epstein survivors a prerequisite for his vote to confirm Blanche, the deputy attorney general and President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney.
Lara Blume McGee described the meeting to The Independent in a text message on Thursday evening.
“Today, Epstein survivors confronted Todd Blanche — and he treated it like a perfunctory audition for votes, not accountability,” Blume McGee said.
open image in galleryEpstein survivor Lara Blume McGee speaks during a news conference opposing acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche's confirmation to be attorney general, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 15, 2026. REUTERS/Al Drago (Reuters)“Blanche was condescending, repeatedly interrupted and tried to gaslight survivors..

Leavitt asked why Trump can't let go of 2020 election he lost fair and squareIn a highly anticipated Thursday night speech, President Donald Trump accused China of carrying out “the largest compromise of election data in history” beginning with the 2020 election, just one of numerous schemes he claims a “deep state” concealed from him and the American public.
The Chinese effort allegedly netted Beijing 220 million files about U.S. voters.
Trump also claimed China sought to pay journalists to write false and negative articles about him.
The White House will release a trove of documents backing up the president’s claims, Trump said, which will show how U.S. elections are vulnerable to “hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference.”
Meanwhile, the White House is furious that many of the major TV news networks are not carrying the president’s ongoing elections speech live on their main channels.
ABC News, NBC News and CNN will run the speech on their streaming channels. Fox News..