Happy Wednesday! A recent visitor to the Palazzo Maffei museum in Verona, Italy, saw a photo opportunity and took it, squatting over a chair bedazzled with Swarovski crystals before losing balance, falling backwards, and shattering the work of art.
“It wasn’t such a brilliant thought to sit on an artwork,” the museum’s director, Vanessa Carlon, told the New York Times. True, but then again, it may not have been a brilliant thought to make art that looks like a chair.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continued its precision attacks on Iranian military bases, air defense systems, and missile launchers on Tuesday. The aerial attacks also successfully targeted Islamic Republic personnel, including Ali Shadmani, whom the IDF described as Iran’s senior-most military commander. Iran launched a volley of ballistic missiles at Israeli population centers, causing several minor injuries, but used fewer projectiles than attacks earlier this week, which Israel attributed to its ongoing strikes against the Islamic Republic’s missile launchers. Also on Tuesday, President Donald Trump held a meeting in the White House Situation Room, ahead of which, according to Axios, the president was “seriously considering” a U.S. strike on Iran’s underground nuclear facilities. Earlier in the day, Trump on social media called for Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” and stated that Iranian Supreme Commander Ali Khamenei is an “easy target,” adding, “We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.”
- The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday that Israeli tanks had killed at least 59 Palestinians and injured more than 200 near an aid station in southern Gaza. According to eyewitnesses and first responders, the tanks opened fire on a large crowd early Tuesday. The IDF acknowledged reports of casualties from IDF tanks and said the military “regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals.”
- Russia carried out a massive missile and drone attack on Kyiv overnight Monday, killing at least 10 people—including a 62-year-old U.S. citizen—and injuring 134, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday. The barrages targeted buildings city-wide, including a nine-story apartment complex. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russian forces launched more than 440 drones and 32 missiles in the aerial assault, which he described as one of the “most horrific attacks” of the war. Meanwhile, a separate Russian attack on the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa killed two people, local officials said.
- Less than a week after the Trump administration instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to pause its raids on hotels, farms, restaurants, and aquaculture or meatpacking facilities, the executive branch reversed course, with Homeland Security (DHS) officials telling staff on Monday the exceptions for certain businesses no longer apply. “There will be no safe spaces for industries who harbor violent criminals or purposely try to undermine ICE’s efforts,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said on Monday. While Trump said last week that his administration’s immigration policy is “taking very good, long time workers away” from certain businesses, the president changed his tone on Sunday, saying that he wants to “expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens.”
- The European Commission announced plans on Tuesday to completely ban European imports of Russian gas by the end of 2027. In a statement announcing the decision, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen accused Russia of attempting to use its vast energy supply to “blackmail us.” The proposal would immediately bar European countries from signing any new gas contracts with Russian suppliers, terminate short-term deals by the beginning of 2026, and end all long-term contracts by the beginning of 2028. The only exception is for landlocked countries, including Hungary and Slovakia, which would be allowed to continue short-term contracts until 2027. While sanctions can only be passed with the unanimous support of the 27 EU countries, trade deals—including this proposal—can be passed with a qualified majority of at least 15 countries.
- Bloomberg reported Tuesday that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in March directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to create a memo “on how to abolish itself and create a re-branded, radically smaller disaster response organization.” The seven-page memo, titled “Abolishing FEMA,” outlined several proposed reforms, including cutting the long-term housing assistance for disaster survivors, ending new enrollments in the FEMA-administered National Flood Insurance Program, reducing the size of emergency or disaster-relief benefits, and decreasing the number of emergencies that qualify for FEMA relief. “We want to wean off of FEMA and we want to bring it down to the state level,” Trump said last week when hinting at a FEMA restructuring.
- A federal jury in Colorado on Monday found that MyPillow founder and longtime Trump ally Mike Lindell had defamed Eric Coomer—a former employee of Dominion Voting Systems, which produces voting machine hardware and software—ordering Lindell to pay $2.3 million in damages. Following the 2020 election, Lindell circulated unfounded claims that the election was stolen from Trump, calling Coomer—who was then serving as Dominion’s security and product strategy director—“a traitor to the United States.” Lindell has said he intends to appeal the ruling.
A Quick Trip to Kananaskis
The province of Alberta, Canada, has recently been consumed with political turmoil over its growing independence movement. But this week, as it hosted the Group of Seven (G7) summit, it was the backdrop to an entirely different set of diplomatic fissures: the U.S.’s sharp disagreements with many of its traditional allies on issues like trade, Russia, and the Middle East.
Leaders’ chances to discuss the topics with the American president, however, were cut short, as Donald Trump left the annual meeting of the heads of the world’s largest advanced economies—the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Canada, along with the European Union—a day early on Monday night, amid Israel’s ongoing military strikes on Iran.
But there were still important diplomatic developments over the three days of meetings, as the world leaders tried to find consensus on a number of divisive issues. Trump signaled that he was still hesitant about imposing greater sanctions on Russia in order to force it to the negotiating table, breaking with some of the other attendees. He continued his push to make unilateral trade deals with a number of countries, with mixed results. And the assembled countries showed that, at least for now, they’re willing to give Israel breathing room while it continues its air campaign against Iran.
Today’s Must-Read
No Breathing Room for Iran
Toeing the Company Line
Texas’ App-Store Age Verification Law, Explained
DNC Resignations Highlight Democrats’ Dysfunction
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