Donald Trump says America knows where Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is hiding but won’t target him “for now”. The US president also called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender” and says his patience is “wearing thin”, fuelling speculation that America is poised to join the Israeli military action. MPs voted yesterday to decriminalise abortion at any point up to birth in England and Wales. Women who terminate a pregnancy after the current 24-week limit – either self-administered or through a backstreet provider – can now no longer be charged, sentenced or imprisoned. A sparkling wine from Sussex has become the first ever magnum of fizz to be crowned one of the top 50 wines in the world. At this year’s Decanter World Wine Awards, The Trouble with Dreams 2009, produced by the Sugrue South Downs vineyard, took home a Best in Show medal – a feat champagne has never achieved in the magnum format.

The Arab world wants both sides to lose

The “social-media trend du jour” in Lebanon is clips of ballistic missiles streaking across the night sky towards Israel, says The Economist. These air strikes have been the dramatic backdrop for house parties, dinners “and even a few weddings”. In Lebanon, and across the Arab world, there is little sympathy for Israel: its brutal tactics in Gaza since October 7 have turned even some of its Arab admirers into fierce critics; many see the scenes of ballistic missiles crashing into Tel Aviv, Haifa and other cities as “a small bit of karma”. Perhaps more surprising, though, is “the lack of sympathy for Iran as well”.

The Islamic Republic has spent decades arming and funding militias in Arab territories: Hezbollah in Lebanon; the Houthis in Yemen; Hamas in Gaza. These groups grew into “uncontrollable forces”. They assassinated critics (including a former Lebanese prime minister), extorted billions from governments, and attacked neighbouring countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE. All this has made Iran a “powerful and hated hegemon” in the region. Across much of the Arab world, the ease with which Israel has decimated Iran’s top brass has been a source of “both confusion and glee”. The schadenfreude is strongest in Syria, where Tehran long propped up the murderous Assad regime. Outside the shuttered Iranian embassy in Damascus, one man joked that it was “probably the only safe bit of Iranian territory – because it was empty”. Social media is full of similar gallows humour, with people joking about preparing snacks and drinks to watch “the match” – ie Israel and Iran trading fire – each evening. It brings to mind Israeli PM Menachem Begin’s famous remark when the Iran-Iraq war broke out in the 1980s: “I wish both sides good luck.”

🇮🇷🌱 We Iranians certainly aren’t enjoying this, says Esfandyar Batmanghelidj in The Guardian. After decades of oppression, we were just starting to win our battle for “liberty and prosperity”. Masoud Pezeshkian, who last year became the first reformist president in almost two decades, publicly pushed back against the Ayatollah’s reluctance to negotiate with the US, and described a mandatory veiling law passed by the parliament as “unjust”. He has appointed a Stanford-educated number-cruncher as economy minister, and hosted officials from Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia in a bid to repair regional ties. Israel’s onslaught threatens to tear up these “green shoots of progress”.

In July 1940, says Andrew Roberts in The Free Press, Winston Churchill faced a difficult choice. France had fallen, and if the Vichy French fleet stationed off Algeria fell into German hands, the combined force of the French, German and Italian navies would pose an existential threat. The French admiral refused to hand his ships to the Royal Navy or to sail them to an unoccupied French territory such as Martinique. So the “lifelong Francophile” Churchill ordered the fleet to be sunk, “which it was with the loss of 1,299 French sailors”. It’s a grim reminder of a hard truth: “There are some moments in history when a sudden act of opportune ruthlessness readjusts the world toward a safer path.”

Developers in Shanghai who wanted to build a three-storey underground structure beneath a large block of flats came up with an innovative way to do it, says Christopher McFadden in Interesting Engineering: they moved the entire 13,222 sq ft apartment complex out of the way. The brainy builders used special drilling equipment to reinforce the 7,382-ton shikumen-style buildings, wrapped them in a steel frame, and then used 432 walking robots to gently lift the structure and crawl – at a pace of 10 metres a day – to one side. Once the underground development is complete, they’ll move it all back.

The original “deporter in chief”

In times of chaos, says Karen Attiah in The Washington Post, humans are hardwired to yearn for “authority figures”. So you can see why US liberals responded to Donald Trump’s renewed push to deport illegal immigrants – sparking those ugly scenes in Los Angeles – by seeking out their “emotional support figure”, Barack Obama. Some have called on the 44th president to deliver a “fiery, inspirational” speech; others want him to stop “hanging out with celebrities” and start helping. As the headline of a recent essay in The Atlantic put it: “Where is Barack Obama?”

Look, I get it. Obama is a genuine cultural icon and perhaps the only politician with the star power to take on Trump. But people seem to have forgotten that the Democratic president used to be known as the “deporter in chief”. His administration removed nearly three million people from the US, a total Trump is still a long way off reaching. And no, not all of those deportees had been convicted of crimes. Between 2014 and 2016, nearly 40,000 cases involving families with children were closed under the so-called “rocket docket” fast track system, with 70% of them processed without legal representation. In some cases, children were forced to represent themselves in court. Also, it was Obama who first appointed Tom Homan, Trump’s much-reviled border czar – he was so impressed with Homan’s deportation efforts that in 2015 he awarded him a presidential medal. Criticise Trump’s “cruel, abusive” policies all you want. But remember it was “bipartisan bricklaying” that led us here.

The new “Trump Card” visa scheme, which offers foreigners legal residency in the US for a one-off $5m fee, appears to be a hit, says Alex Rogers in the FT. Within a week of the scheme’s website going live, nearly 70,000 people have registered their interest – if that many people follow through, it would add a whopping $350bn to America’s coffers. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is pressing for the scheme to replace the EB-5 visa programme, under which foreigners can secure permanent residency with an investment of only $1.8m. “The card will be made of gold,” he says. “It will be beautiful.”

To The Times:

Regarding your report “Book holidays with bad wi-fi to make teens read, says head” (14 June), for many years when we had our summer holiday in our chalet in the south of France I would tell my children to stay in the car while I went in to check that the place was safe. I would then disconnect all internet and television links. They were well prepared with books, games and swimming trunks. Ten days to detox. My children will not have been aware of this ruse until now.

Nigel Webb
Appledore, Kent

It’s a ring of bubbles blown by a whale, says Pesala Bandara in PetaPixel, which scientists believe may be an attempt to communicate with humans. Researchers from California recorded 11 whales producing 39 rings across 12 separate instances around the world, generally after approaching swimmers or boats. The boffins say these rings, blown in a similar way to how a human blows smoke rings, seem to have a purely friendly, social purpose, unlike other kinds of whale-blown bubbles used in hunting or to display dominance during mating displays.