Defying Senate, House GOP passes DHS funding stopgap

Acutely sensitive to noise because of childhood trauma, Nili stresses when air raid sirens send her into a crowded shelter where her own "internal war" overlaps with the one raging outside.

The experience of Nili, whose name has been changed for this article, highlights the particular vulnerability of people with mental health conditions when dealing with the Middle East war, triggered on February 28 by US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

With every siren warning, the same anguish returns for the 21-year-old, who has spent nine months at the Shalvata Mental Health Centre in the central town of Hod HaSharon, run by Israel's largest healthcare provider, Clalit Health Services.

"It's unpleasant and unfamiliar to be in a relatively small room with many people you don't know, men and women together, usually quite crowded," she told AFP during a visit to the centre.

"We're in Israel, and there's a war outside. But there are also people who have been dealing with their own internal war for many years," she added.

The anxiety of war is also something felt acutely by Israelis living with disabilities, who number about 1.32 million people, or around 13 percent of the population, according to a 2025 report by the Central Bureau of Statistics.

For 16-year-old Rhea Azmanov, who has a cognitive disability, the uncertainty creates layers of additional challenges.

"All kids with disabilities really need routine" to give them a sense of stability and certainty, her father, Ziv Azmanov, told AFP.

"So when there is no normal routine, as in the current circumstances, it creates with her a lot of stress and anxiety."

The Azmanov family does not have a "mamad" or reinforced room in their apartment in the central city of Raanana, and must use their building's shelter each time a siren sounds the warning of incoming missiles.

"She's very uncomfortable. She hates crowded places. So sometimes instead of going down, we have to stand outside," said her mother, Veena Azmanov, who noted that the noise inside the shelter, combined with the wail of sirens and boom of missile interceptions, can elevate stress.

And for people with reduced mobility, accessibility challenges become more extreme during wartime "because everything is more accelerated", said Yoav Braver, who heads training at Beit Issie Shapiro, one of Israel's leading centres for people with disabilities.

Braver said that public information mapping accessible shelters was hard to come by, and even people with mamads in their homes could struggle to get there in the 90-second window afforded by the longest air raid warnings.

Caregivers often shoulder a particularly heavy burden during wartime, Braver said, adding that Beit Issie Shapiro had set up a hotline offering advice for professionals or family members.  

"Burnout is a main issue that we deal with in times of war," he said.

- 'Ethical dilemmas' -

For medical staff caring for psychiatric patients such as Nili, and those with more severe conditions like schizophrenia and personality disorders, seemingly impossible choices can surface between ensuring their own safety or staying with the most vulnerable.

Merav Agsham, head nurse of the psychiatric unit at Shalvata, described these as daily "ethical dilemmas" when the sirens sound.

"Come out, please," she recently begged a patient having a psychotic episode, as he was taking a shower and refused to head for the shelter.

"Eventually I went down without him," the 38-year-old mother told AFP, but recalled she had a lump in her throat.

"If something will happen, how can I live with that? They're my responsibility," she said.

Agsham said that sometimes patients refused to take shelter by insisting that there was no danger and nothing would happen to them.

Other times, patients would argue "I don't mind if the missile will come down on me, and I will die. I want to die."

At night everything becomes more complicated, said the centre's director Shlomo Mendlovic. 

Medicated patients sleep deeply and are hard to wake, while others are restrained to prevent violence.

Mendlovic said staff must find their own balance between respecting the patients' autonomy, choosing to stay with those under their care, or ensuring their own safety. 

"I would prefer that everyone will go to the shelter," he said, but added he was proud to see the dedication of staff who chose to stay with patients.

Uri Nitzan, director of the depression and crisis intervention ward at Shalvata, said the centre prioritised dialogue, encouragement and support. 

"In moments of crisis, you can feel that... there is a good relationship," he said.

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(The Center Square) – Only 10 U.S. senators voted against the bipartisan housing bill that restricts large institutional investors from buying up single family homes and requires investors to sell build-to-rent homes within seven years.

Those lawmakers also each received tens or sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2024 election-cycle campaign donations from groups whose profits could drop if the bill becomes law.

Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Mike Lee, R-Utah; Ted Cruz, R-Texas;  Rick Scott, R-Fla.; Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii; Rand Paul, R-Ky.; Ted Budd, R-N.C.; Ron Johnson, R-Wis.; and Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.; all opposed the 21st Century Road to Housing Act. 

Their donors include private equity firms, large institutional investors in single family homes, organizations that develop build-to-rent communities, and companies that secure financing for those organizations. 

Some senators also received funds from rental housing advocates who publicly opposed the housing bill due to its proposed restrictions.

Due to campaign financing rules, organizations themselves do not donate to the politicians. Instead, their political action committees and employees make the contributions. 

Receiving campaign donations from a PAC does not prove that a lawmaker votes or acts according to donor interests. All data is pulled from political donation tracker OpenSecrets. 

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.: 

Tillis’ donor profile shows he received at least $468,916 in campaign contributions from large institutional investors and other interested parties.

His top donor was Blackstone Group, one of the most prominent players in the single-family home rental market. Capital Group Companies, Koch Inc., Rock Holdings, and other organizations donated as well.

Tillis did not respond to The Center Square’s request for comment.

Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind.:

Young received at least $291,755 including from large institutional investors Capital Group Companies and KKR &Co. Multiple advocacy groups that oppose the housing bill’s build-to-rent restrictions, such as the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (Nareit), also made donations.

A spokesperson for Young told The Center Square that Young’s vote was not influenced by those donations, but rather “was based on additional changes he hopes can be made to the package to address the clear barriers to building more housing, including encouraging localities to look critically at burdensome zoning regulations.” 

The spokesperson also referred to a bipartisan bill Young introduced, the Identifying Regulatory Barriers to Housing Supply Act, that addresses those issues.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah:

Lee received at least $159,459 from potentially impacted organizations, including Blackstone, KKR &Co., and Koch Inc.

A spokesperson for Lee said that the senator “votes according to his own convictions – in this case, because the bill expanded HUD programs eliminated in previous budget requests by President Trump, directed taxpayer dollars to progressive advocacy networks, pushed the federal government further into local zoning and land-use decisions, and failed to deliver the extensive reforms federal public housing programs require.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas:

Cruz received at least $145,752 from large institutional investors and other potentially impacted parties, including Maury L Carter & Associates, KKR &Co., Blackstone.

In a statement to The Center Square, Cruz laid out multiple reasons why he voted against the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, including zoning changes in the bill and the impact he thinks the build-to-rent restrictions could have on housing supply.

“Lowering housing costs for all Americans is a priority for this Republican Congress, but this bill fell far short of that goal. Although this legislation prevents the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC), it only pauses the development until December 31, 2030. My Anti-CBDC Act takes the correct approach by permanently prohibiting the Federal Reserve from ever issuing a CBDC, directly or indirectly. I agree with President Trump that large banks should not be buying single-family homes. Unfortunately, this legislation goes beyond that principle and restricts those hoping to build new rental housing for Americans by requiring build-to-rent homes to be sold within seven years. Restricting the supply of newly built rental units should not be enshrined in law,” Cruz said. 

“Additionally, giving the Department of Housing and Urban Development authority to develop zoning and land-use frameworks raises serious concerns. Washington bureaucrats should not dictate zoning decisions for local communities like my hometown of Houston,” Cruz added. “The bill also risked giving a future Democratic administration the ability to impose policies like a rent moratorium by granting the Treasury Secretary broad authority to rewrite key provisions through the regulatory state. I remain optimistic that House Financial Services Chairman French Hill can address these significant concerns through the conference process. I look forward to working toward a final product that actually makes housing more affordable for all Americans instead of expanding the government’s authority to regulate who buys homes.”

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla.:

Scott received at least $135,795 from organizations involved in the build-to-rent sector, including Koch Inc. and Blackstone. 

Scott did not respond to The Center Square’s request for comment. 

In early March, he introduced a bill that would create untaxed savings accounts for Americans saving up for a down payment on their first home.

Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii:

Schatz received at least $131,500 from organizations that oppose the bill due to its build-to-rent provisions, including the Mortgage Bankers Association, as well as Rock Holdings.

Schatz did not respond to The Center Square’s request for comment.

Schatz had previously told lawmakers that the institutional investor provisions would “demonize people who want to build rental housing for folks.”

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.:

Paul received at least $89,028 from organizations that could suffer adverse impacts from the bill’s build-to-rent restrictions. 

Paul did not respond to The Center Square’s request for comment.

In a March social media article, Paul said the bill was equivalent to “the surrender of property and contract rights.”

Sen. Ted Budd, R-N.C.:

Budd received at least $83,525 from interested or potentially impacted groups, including Blackstone, Koch Inc., and the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Budd did not respond to The Center Square’s request for comment.

He introduced a bill in February that would widen eligibility requirements for the federal Home Investment Partnerships (HOME) Program. 

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.:

Johnson received at least $81,662 from institutional investors, including Rock Holdings and Koch Inc. 

A spokeswoman for Johnson told The Center Square that “Neither the Senator nor anyone in his office was contacted by those donors.”

“His vote was not influenced by those donations or donors. He voted against the bill for several reasons – many of them laid out in the WSJ column cited below,” she added. “The Senator does not like the government imposing itself into the marketplace and artificially reducing the demand, the number of buyers, and the price homeowners can obtain when they sell their homes.”

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.:

Tuberville received at least $48,650 in contributions from real estate investment groups that might be adversely impacted by the legislation, including Jim Wilson & Associates. 

He did not respond to The Center Square’s request for comment.

Tuberville had previously explained that his ‘no’ vote on the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act was not because he opposed the bill, but because he believed the Senate should focus on passing the SAVE America Act – an unrelated Republican voter ID bill – before addressing issues like housing.

What about House lawmakers?

The U.S. House has yet to take up the Senate-passed legislation, but cautionary comments from lawmakers like Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., and Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., indicate the bill will face a tough crowd in the lower chamber.

Police have arrested two more people over an apparent bid to explode a homemade device outside the Paris branch of the Bank of America, the French domestic security service said on Sunday.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on Saturday he thought the war in the Middle East might have motivated the attempted attack.

Police detained a first suspect, possibly a minor, in the early hours of Saturday just after he placed a device outside the bank building, near the Champs-Elysees. 

The suspect was accompanied by a second person, who appeared to be taking photos and videos with a mobile phone but who fled when police arrived.

The device contained five litres of liquid believed to be fuel and an ignition system, a source close to the investigation said.

The two further arrests were made on Saturday night.

According to a police source, the first suspect said he had been recruited through the Snapchat app to carry out a bombing in exchange for 600 euros ($692).

- France 'extra-vigilant' -

Nunez said he did not know who was behind the incident but speculated that it might have been "proxies" linked to Iran.

Police said the suspect arrested early Saturday outside the bank had told them he was a minor and from Senegal. They were working to verify his identity.

The incident came after more than a month of US and Israeli bombardment of Iran and as talks between key regional players began late Sunday.

The war has escalated into a regional conflagration, with Iran retaliating by attacks on Gulf states, sending energy markets into a tailspin and threatening the world economy.

The French government and security services have said that while they do not believe France itself is a target, US and Israeli interests on its soil might potentially be singled out.

Nunez urged the security forces to be "extra-vigilant" and increase their presence in railway stations and other crowded places. 

France's counter-terrorism prosecutor's office told AFP on Saturday it had launched a probe into "attempted damage by fire or other dangerous means".

Both the Paris judicial police and France's domestic intelligence service, the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI), were involved in the probe, the office told AFP.

The Bank of America, whose global headquarters are in North Carolina, is a multinational investment bank and financial services holding company. 

bur-jvi/bfa/gil/rmb

Nepal's former energy minister was arrested Sunday in a money laundering investigation, police said, the latest in a series of high-profile detentions that has included the ex-prime minister since the new government took power.

The announcement came two days after Prime Minister Balendra Shah was sworn into office, following a landslide victory for his party in the first elections since a deadly 2025 anti-corruption uprising ousted ex-premier KP Sharma Oli.

In pre-dawn raids on Saturday, Oli and former home minister Ramesh Lekhak were arrested for their alleged roles in a crackdown on the protests that killed at least 76 people.

Ex-energy minister Deepak Khadka was detained on Sunday "in a case relating to money laundering", Central Investigation Bureau spokesman Shiva Kumar Shrestha said.

Home Affairs Minister Sudan Gurung, a key figure in the protests, said Khadka had been detained "in connection with the investigation of the money recovered from his residence" during last year's unrest.

At the time, Khadka's home was torched, and videos on social media showed protesters throwing cash, found inside, into the air.

- 'Beginning of justice' -

The arrests of Oli and Lekhak came after an inquiry commission recommended that the four-time premier and other officials be prosecuted for failing to stop security forces from firing on demonstrators.

The unrest in early September began over a brief social media ban, but tapped into longstanding fury over economic hardship.

It spread nationwide the following day as parliament and government offices were set ablaze, resulting in the collapse of Oli's government.

Police barricaded roads on Sunday to hold back Oli's supporters near a court in the capital Kathmandu where he and Lekhak had been expected to appear for a hearing.

Neither man has been charged, and both deny responsibility for the violence.

Oli's CPN-UML Marxist party has called the arrests "a revengeful act" and has called for protests.

Gurung, the home minister, said Oli's and Lekhak's arrests were "not revenge against anyone, just the beginning of justice".

- 'Negligent conduct' -

Before the March 5 polls, Oli, who was seeking re-election, told AFP that he blamed "infiltrators" for the violence.

The inquiry commission's report said it was "not established that there was an order to shoot", but added that "no effort was made to stop or control the firing and, due to their negligent conduct, even minors lost their lives".

Police say Oli, 74, who has had two kidney transplants, has heart and kidney issues. AFP reporters saw him being taken to hospital on Saturday after his arrest, surrounded by a heavy police guard.

Prime Minister Shah, a 35-year-old rapper-turned-politician, and his Rastriya Swatantra Party swept to power on a platform of youth-driven political change.

He challenged and defeated Oli in his own constituency.

Shah's government has unveiled an ambitious 100-point reform agenda including investigations into the assets of politicians and high-ranking state employees.

Before the uprising, Nepal ranked 107th out of 180 countries on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index.

The World Bank says a "staggering" 82 percent of Nepal's workforce is in informal employment, with GDP per capita at just $1,447 in 2024.

aoj-pm/pjm/mjw

Now retired, Wang Meili wants to see the world -- including North Korea, the reclusive nation that lies across the river from her lifelong home in northeastern China.

North Korea has long kept tight control over foreign visitors, and effectively sealed its borders at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic six years ago.

It has since partly reopened and restored daily passenger train services with China this month, but has not yet resumed issuing tourism visas to Chinese citizens, who once made up the bulk of its overseas visitors .

"We'd like to get visas to go. I've already got my passport," said 68-year-old Wang, who grew up in the border city of Dandong.

In another apparent sign of North Korea's reopening, Air China is set to resume flights to Pyongyang on Monday.

But for now, only those with work or study visas can go.

AFP journalists in Dandong, the main gateway for cross-border travel and trade, saw a mostly empty passenger train rattle over a bridge into North Korea this week.

Nearby, tourists on another bridge, partly destroyed by US bombs during the Korean War, posed for photographs and peered through binoculars at the North Korean city of Sinuiju on the opposite shore.

Tour boats took curious sightseers to gaze at North Koreans cycling along the Yalu river separating the two countries or cleaning boats on the bank. Uniformed guards stood at regular points along the boundary.

Li Shuo, the manager of a Dandong-based travel agency, said the resumption of passenger train services had had "no impact" on his business.

Unable to run tours into North Korea, he has been offering trips through border areas so customers can catch glimpses into the secretive state from a distance.

"We can only wait for news" on tourism visas, Li said, adding that they "would be a good thing for domestic tourists".

"Many people want to go," he said.

- 'The people are brainwashed' -

Others were less keen.

One Chinese tourist from the northeastern city of Shenyang told AFP that a peek at North Korea from Dandong was close enough for him.

"It's totalitarian over there, the people are brainwashed," he said, declining to provide his name given the sensitivity of the topic and his public-sector job.

"Actually, there's brainwashing here in China too, but it's not as severe," he said.

AFP also spoke to tourists from outside mainland China -- including Hong Kong, Japan and Australia -- all drawn to Dandong for a rare view of the country it borders.

Louis Lamb, a 22-year-old nurse from Brisbane, told AFP that travelling into North Korea was "a bucket-list item".

"You can see (North Korea) from a certain perspective in what we see from our media," said Lamb, adding that he would like to experience the country for himself.

Although stretches of the opposite riverbank appeared "desolate", he said, "it's a lot more developed than I thought".

China is a major backer for diplomatically isolated North Korea, though Pyongyang has notably drawn closer to Russia since the start of the Ukraine war.

But trade with China, much of it through Dandong, is a key lifeline for North Korea's moribund economy, under UN sanctions because of its nuclear weapons programme. 

Cross-border shipments swelled to $2.7 billion last year and have nearly rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, according to Chinese customs data.

AFP journalists saw a steady stream of trains and freight trucks hauling cargo from Dandong to Sinuiju.

- 'Going home soon' -

For some in Dandong, North Korea's tentative reopening kindled hope of returning home.

Thousands of North Koreans are thought to reside in the city of two million people, despite sanctions banning them from working overseas.

North Korea's abrupt border closure in 2020 stranded many of them abroad for years, and Pyongyang later beefed up defences along the frontier to dissuade illegal crossings.

Staff at a North Korean restaurant in Dandong forbade AFP journalists from filming or taking photos of a large screen showing a patriotic music and dance performance.

One waitress from Pyongyang told AFP she had been in China for over six years without returning home.

Western experts say such workers endure miserable living and working conditions, have their movements restricted and see most of their wages commandeered by the North Korean state.

But after a long wait, travel between the two nations now seemed to be getting easier, the waitress said, declining to give her name.

"I'll be going home soon."

pfc/dhw/mjw

Below the waves off Germany's northern tourist beaches, a toxic time bomb lurks on the Baltic Sea floor -- enormous quantities of World War II munitions that are slowly rusting away.

Scientists warn that as salt water corrodes the metal casings on rockets, artillery shells and bombs, they will release contaminants such as the explosive TNT into the marine environment.

To better map the dangers, a research vessel set sail this month from the port city of Kiel, whose bay is among the most polluted with unexploded ordnance.

A dozen scientists from Germany, Poland and Lithuania, backed by an 11-strong crew, are to spend three weeks on the Alkor, operated by the Kiel-based GEOMAR oceanographic research centre.

The voyage will take them past a sunken torpedo boat, a destroyer, a minesweeper and a submarine, all identified from naval logbooks and other records in the German military archives.

"One of the goals of the project is to develop some new tools for cleaning it up," Aaron Beck, a scientist leading the expedition, told AFP aboard the ship. 

"The idea is, what can we do to prevent this before the pollution comes out?"

Along the German coast, about 1.6 million tonnes of munitions litter the seafloor, especially near the ports of Kiel and Luebeck, making it one of the world's most contaminated areas.

Most munitions were hastily dumped there by the victorious Allied powers after Germany's 1945 surrender, to quickly eliminate what remained of the Nazi war machine.

- Traces found in shellfish -

Almost 80 years on, traces of carcinogenic explosives have been detected in shellfish and other sea life throughout the area.

The Baltic is shallow, with only a narrow passage between Sweden and Denmark leading to the open ocean, meaning pollution tends to linger.

A modern-day boom in undersea construction of pipelines, telecom cables and offshore wind farms has cast a new spotlight on the issue.

The scientists on the ship are using an underwater robot to film the seabed, as well as probes to collect sediment and water samples.

They are also dispersing packets of mussels, which they will later retrieve to study the levels of contamination ingested.

Beck, however, reassured that the pollution does not pose an immediate danger to humans.

"For a human being to ingest, at current concentrations, a concerning amount of explosive compounds, they would have to consume seven kilos (15 pounds) of fish a day for more than a year," he said.

Ammunition on the sunken warships is not the only environmental danger.

"On some of these ships, you have 10 tonnes of ammunition, but 200 tonnes of fuel. That's undoubtedly the biggest problem," Beck said.

One wreck still holding fuel is the Franken, a German navy tanker torpedoed by Soviet forces on April 8, 1945. It sank off what is now the Polish city of Gdansk, at the time still the German city of Danzig.

Uwe Wiechert, 70, a former German naval officer and part of the research team, called it a "time bomb".

The Franken also poses a legal conundrum, he said: who will pay to pump this fuel from a German ship, sunk by the Soviets, that now rests in Polish waters?

- Slow disposal efforts -

Seafloor munitions dumps are a global problem, with other major sites located along the coasts of the United States, Britain, Japan and Australia and even in Swiss lakes.

Germany has been at the forefront of European efforts to deal with unexploded underwater ordnance, says the European Commission.

Beyond mapping the problem, Germany has taken first steps toward munitions disposal.

In Luebeck Bay, a pilot project to destroy WWII munitions on a specially built floating disposal platform has begun.

Some contractors working on the project have experience of clearing munitions for large offshore wind farms along the Baltic and North Sea coasts.

Divers and underwater robots have sorted through tonnes of dumped munitions at four sites in the bay as part of the project, funded with an initial 100 million euros ($115 million).

But it remains unclear whether the pilot project could become a model for cleanups elsewhere.

So far, at least, no government has committed the long-term funding needed to tackle the problem.

When a similar project might start in waters off Kiel, said Beck, "is anybody's guess".

clp/bst/fz/sbk

Iran claimed on Sunday attacks on two major aluminium plants in the Gulf, further raising the economic stakes of the Middle East war after Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis joined the conflict.

The war that began on February 28 with US-Israeli attacks on Iran has mushroomed throughout the region, sending world energy markets into a tailspin and threatening to torpedo the global economy.

With the official status of talks between Washington and Tehran uncertain, daily salvoes of strikes across the region have continued unabated.

In Iranian capital Tehran, two blasts shook northern areas of the city early Sunday, according to an AFP journalist, although it was not clear what was targeted.

Iran for its part fired a volley of missiles and drones at plants belonging to two of the world's largest aluminium producers in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, the country's Revolutionary Guards said Sunday, targeting what they described as industries linked to the US military.

Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) said an Iranian attack wounded six and caused significant damage to its plant, while Bahraini state media said two Aluminium Bahrain (ALBA) employees were injured in a second Iranian attack, without providing more details.

As the spectre of a widening conflict grew, Yemen's Houthis on Saturday claimed their first attack of the war, before the rebels said they fired "a barrage of cruise missiles and drones" at strategic sites in Israel.

The attacks raised concern about the war spreading to the Red Sea, with Saudi Arabia rerouting much of its oil exports there to avoid the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran says it has closed to shipping from hostile powers.

During Israel's recent war in Gaza, the Houthis, claiming solidarity with Palestinians, attacked shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, forcing companies to take costly detours. 

- 'Complete attacks' -

The Tehran blasts came a day after the Israeli military said it struck the headquarters of Iran's Marine Industries Organisation in the capital, saying the facility developed "a wide range of naval weaponry".

An Israeli military spokesman said attacks on Iranian military industry had intensified and "within a few days, we will complete attacks on all critical components."

"I miss a peaceful night's sleep," an artist in Tehran told AFP, saying the previous night's strikes were "so intense it felt like all of Tehran was shaking".

On the other side, Israel said a new wave of missiles was fired from Iran at its territory on Sunday, as Gulf nations Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates reported fresh missile and drone attacks.

For the US' part, Vice President JD Vance said in an interview with podcaster Benny Johnson published Saturday that the US has "accomplished all its military objectives" in Iran but the war must carry on "a little while longer".

His comments came as The Washington Post reported the Pentagon was preparing plans for weeks of ground operations in Iran -- potentially including raids on Kharg Island and sites near the Strait of Hormuz -- though President Donald Trump has yet to approve any deployment.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards meanwhile threatened Sunday to strike US university campuses in the Middle East unless Washington officially condemned US-Israeli attacks on two Iranian universities. 

Several American institutions operate campuses across the Gulf region, including Texas A&M in Qatar and New York University in the UAE.

- Pakistan mediation -

Pakistan, acting as a go-between for Washington and Tehran, will host foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt in Islamabad on Monday for talks on the crisis.

Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian thanked Islamabad "for its mediation efforts to stop the aggression", while Germany's Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Friday he expected a direct US-Iran meeting in Pakistan "very soon."

Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff said such a meeting could take place soon, and promoted a 15-point plan that Washington says "could solve it all".

Still, the USS Tripoli, an amphibious assault ship carrying around 3,500 Marines and sailors, arrived in the Middle East on Friday amid speculation over a possible US ground deployment in Iran. 

- Three journalists killed  -

On another front, Israeli attacks have continued in Lebanon, which was drawn into the conflict when Tehran-backed Hezbollah fired rockets at Israeli territory on March 2. 

On Saturday, the Israeli military killed three journalists in the south, including Al Manar correspondent Ali Shoeib, one of the network's most prominent war correspondents, who had covered Israeli attacks on Lebanon for decades.

Lebanese authorities, including President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, condemned the killings as war crimes.

Israel also carried out raids in southern Lebanon that killed nine paramedics, according to the health ministry.

On Sunday the Israeli army announced the death in combat of one of its soldiers in south Lebanon, as the fighting persists.

At a vocational institute north of capital Beirut, displaced mother Nasima Ismail signed up her children for services despite a lack of resources as the war interrupts education for hundreds of thousands of students.

"I want them to complete their education, even if we are left with nothing," she said. 

"I wish them days better than ours." 

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the ground test of an upgraded rocket engine, state media reported on Sunday, marking another key step in its weapons programme.

Defence experts believe North Korea is planning to use its solid-fuel rocket engines for launching intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The engines enable faster missile launches as they require little preparation before ignition.  

The latest test was "part of the national defence development plan in the period of the new five-year plan", Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, without elaborating on the date or location of the test.

It was the first officially confirmed high-thrust solid-fuel engine test since September last year, when state media said an engine generated a maximum thrust of 1,971 kilonewtons. 

KCNA reported the recent test had achieved a higher thrust of 2,500 kilonewtons.

The development demonstrates North Korea's "resolve to acquire missiles capable of hitting targets around the globe", Hong Min, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told AFP.

"Given the increased maximum thrust, this indicates its intention to possess ICBMs with global strike range, as well as the ability to overwhelm missile defence systems," he added. 

Photos released by KCNA showed leader Kim Jong Un inspecting what appeared to be part of the engine, flanked by officials.

Another image showed flames erupting from a ground-mounted engine, illuminating the surrounding test site in orange light.

Kim said that North Korea's defence capabilities had entered "a significant phase of change" in building up its strategic forces.

-Multi-warhead ICBMs?- 

The North has already demonstrated it has mastered the engine technology needed to launch a missile capable of reaching the US mainland with a lower-thrust engine, said Lee Ho-ryung of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.

"They have already passed that mark," she said. 

The question is no longer whether a missile could reach the United States, but whether it could carry multiple warheads, she said.

A multi-warhead missile can strike multiple targets with a single launch while overwhelming defence systems through simultaneous, dispersed reentry vehicles.

"A multi-warhead missile needs higher thrust power because of its heavier weight," she said. 

"In order for the North to show it can launch a multi-warhead ICBM, it needs a test launch to prove its mastery of such technology."

Pyongyang last test-fired an ICBM in October 2024.

Kim also visited a special forces training base, according to a separate KCNA report, inspecting drills in which photos showed soldiers wielding weapons, including an axe and a sledgehammer. 

The demonstration "showed the physical and technical ability they have prepared to be a match for a hundred combatants with iron fists", KCNA said. 

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Tens of thousands of protesters rallied in the northern US city of Minneapolis on Saturday as part of the national "No Kings" movement, months after it was wracked with protests due to federal immigration raids. 

The January raids led to the deaths of two US citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both at the hands of federal agents, making the city a flashpoint of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.

Minneapolis hosted the flagship event for the third "No Kings" protest since the grassroots movement kicked off last year, in protest of Trump's strongman political leadership and right-wing agenda. Organizers later said an estimated 200,000 people went to the event.

Famed US musician Bruce Springsteen headlined the rally in neighboring "Twin City" capitol St. Paul, during which he played his song "Streets of Minneapolis," which he wrote in tribute to Good and Pretti shortly after their deaths. 

"Their bravery, their sacrifice and their names will not be forgotten," Springsteen said about the two deceased Americans.

At the rally, thousands chanted the slogan: "no Kings, no ICE, no war!" 

"Your strength and your commitment told us that this is still America, and this reactionary nightmare and the invasions of American cities will not stand," Springsteen told the crowd.

- 'Wannabe dictator' -

Pamela Sinness, 73, told AFP she attended the rally because she believes "in equal rights for all people, including the immigrants who come to our country." 

"It feels wonderful to see all the like-minded people gathered here, because the people of Minnesota were very traumatized by the violence and the disrespect shown to all people, and the murders in our streets of Renee Good and Alex Pretti," she said.

Among the throngs of people, many carried signs and banners with protest slogans, including some as simple as "ICE OUT," in reference to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) which carries out Trump's immigration agenda.

From the rally stage, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a Democrat, thanked the crowd for standing up to Trump, who he dubbed a "wannabe dictator." 

Leftist US politician Bernie Sanders also addressed the Minnesota rally, telling attendees: "We will never accept a president who is a pathological liar, a kleptocrat and a narcissist who is undermining the Constitution of the United States and the rule of law every day." 

Gina Bilotta-Racelis, who attended the fanfare, said Trump is "incompetent" and that "he has no idea what he's doing." Amid the escalating Middle East war spurred by US-Israeli strikes on February 28, the 73-year-old protester said Trump "should follow the rules and the laws like everyone else." 

Between the Iran conflict and its economic fallout, including soaring oil prices, as well as the controversial immigration raids, Bilotta-Racelis said she thinks Republicans and their narrow majority in Congress will not survive the November midterm elections. 

"I think they'll lose," she said. "If you're watching the polls, you can see it happening day by day."

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iPhone maker Apple celebrates its 50th anniversary on April 1 having marked pop culture and the tech industry like few other firms since its beginnings in 1976.

Here are five things you may not know about the history of the California giant.

- Apple logo -

Designer Rob Janoff said that Apple cofounder Steve Jobs gave him one terse instruction when he commissioned a new logo in January 1977: "don't make it cute".

"I just wanted to make the computer easy and fun to be around," Janoff told Forbes in 2018.

He included the bite mark for scale to set the apple apart from similar round fruit like cherries -- learning only later it was a homonym for the computer term "byte".

And belying urban legends, there was no link to the Biblical story of Adam and Eve or the death of computing pioneer Alan Turing.

Janoff added that the Apple job was "the only time in my entire career where I presented only one solution" to a client.

"But it was just so right".

- '1984' ad -

In a totalitarian sci-fi world, a hammer thrown by a young athlete smashes a "Big Brother" figure declaiming to brainwashed citizens from a vast screen.

Tens of millions of Americans saw director Ridley Scott's one-minute Apple advert during the Super Bowl on January 22, 1984.

Broadcast with an announcement of the release of the Apple computer, it was more than a little inspired by George Orwell's dystopian novel named for the year.

The ad's originality lay in the fact it did not directly show off the product, but instead promised a new world of emancipation for consumers thanks to home computers.

- Bold colours -

Apple's devices have over the years played with colour to set themselves apart from more staid competitors.

Its first-generation iMacs, released in 1998, offered transparent shells in candy-like blue, green and more -- combining a pop of visual interest with a glimpse at the high tech workings within.

The iPod music player, at first available in metallic grey, quickly diversified into a whole spectrum of bright colours.

Later, the "rose gold" variant of the iPhone 6S in 2015, spawned many copycats, surfing a years-long trend dubbed "millennial pink".

- 09:41 photos -

Anyone who has watched more than one Apple product announcement or browsed its website will see a remarkable coincidence: almost every screen appears to show the time as 9:41 am.

Australian game developer Jon Manning said he asked Scott Forstall, then-head of Apple's mobile operating system iOS, about the phenomenon when he bumped into him in California in 2010.

Forstall explained that the timing was down to Steve Jobs' preferred structure for announcements.

"We design the keynotes so that the big reveal of the product happens around 40 minutes into the presentation," Forstall said.

"When the big image of the product appears on screen, we want the time shown to be close to the actual time on the audience's watches. But we know we won't hit 40 minutes exactly".

- Apple's third man -

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak have gone down in history as the Apple co-founders.

In fact, a third man also signed the three-page contract that launched the company on April 1, 1976: Ronald Wayne.

According to Walter Isaacson's biography of Jobs, Wayne, an engineer at the Atari video game company, was in charge of hardware engineering and documentation in the fledgling business.

But while his two co-founders were throwing themselves into the business, Wayne feared losing what little savings he had if Apple failed.

Just 11 days later, he gave up his co-founder status, selling his 10 percent stake for two instalments of $800 and $1,500.

That 10-percent share of Apple would have been worth around $370 billion by 2026.

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