The US-Iran war reaches Gulf soil for the first time as Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign sets another of Russia’s biggest refineries alight — all under a heat dome breaking national records from Berlin to Copenhagen.

US and Iran trade strikes for a second day as Gulf states are hit for the first time

Boats anchored off Oman’s Musandam peninsula near the Strait of Hormuz, June 27. Photo: AFP / Al Jazeera

On day 121 of the conflict, American forces struck Sirik and Qeshm Island near the Strait of Hormuz for a second consecutive day after an alleged Iranian drone hit a commercial vessel there. Iran retaliated with drone attacks on US infrastructure in Kuwait and Bahrain — the first time Gulf states have been directly targeted — as a second ship was struck in the strait. Bahrain sounded air-raid sirens and condemned a ‘flagrant threat’; Kuwait activated its air defences. Trump threatened to ‘militarily complete the job,’ and both capitals accused the other of violating the ceasefire as talks toward a memorandum of understanding stalled. JD Vance said the US wins ‘either way.’ Gulf leaders meeting Marco Rubio warned that Iran will likely deepen support for regional proxies regardless of any deal. The strait carries roughly 20% of globally traded oil.

Al Jazeera: day 121 live · Al Jazeera: Gulf hit · BBC · Guardian: Bahrain · Guardian: Gulf proxies · Reuters · AP · Axios

Venezuela quake toll reaches 1,430 as the military bars civilians from the rubble

A firefighter calls through a tube into a collapsed building in La Guaira, searching for survivors. Photo: Reuters / Al Jazeera

Three days after twin 7.2 and 7.5 quakes, the confirmed death toll has climbed to 1,430, with relatives reporting some 51,000 still unaccounted for. Rescuers race the 72-hour window — a newborn and 11-year-old Moises Calzadilla were among rare pulls from the rubble — as aftershocks complicate work and French civil-security teams join the effort in La Guaira and Catia La Mar. But Venezuela’s military has blocked civilian volunteers from the worst-hit zones, sparking fury from families keeping vigil outside collapsed buildings with little information. The BBC called it ‘the hardest moment in Venezuela’s modern history,’ with anger at the Maduro government’s response compounding the grief.

Guardian · Al Jazeera: in pictures · Al Jazeera: citizens blocked · BBC: Caracas · BBC: La Guaira vigil · DW

Ukraine sets another of Russia’s biggest refineries ablaze deep behind the lines

Fire at the Slavyansk-on-Kuban refinery after a Ukrainian drone strike, June 28. Photo: Militarnyi

Ukrainian drones struck the Slavyansk-EKO refinery in Krasnodar Krai, setting storage tanks alight at one of Russia’s largest plants (5.2 million tons/year) and a primary fuel source for southern Russia and occupied Crimea. It caps a record June for strikes on Russian energy and military production: NPR gained rare access to a long-range strike team operating up to 1,200 miles inside Russia, hitting refineries, depots and a Volgograd defence plant. The pressure is biting on the peninsula, where Sevastopol’s transport is failing and the grid is buckling. (Full coverage in Ukraine.)

Militarnyi · NPR: inside the drone teams · Kyiv Independent · NBC · RBC: June record

Europe’s heatwave marches east — 150 million people above 35°C

A major heatwave continues spreading eastward, with an estimated 150 million people enduring temperatures above 35°C. Germany set all-time national heat records for a second straight day; Denmark logged its highest temperature ever observed; records also fell in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Italy’s Po — its longest river — is running dangerously low as seawater seeps inland, threatening agriculture. Dozens of deaths have been linked to the heat across Western Europe, with scientists again warning that the continent’s infrastructure is poorly adapted to the new normal.

Guardian: live · Guardian: records · BBC

Washington tightens its grip on who may use frontier AI

The Trump administration has turned frontier AI into controlled infrastructure. Two weeks after barring Anthropic from offering global access to its cybersecurity model Mythos and to Fable 5 on national-security grounds, it has partially lifted the ban while asserting new authority to screen which companies and users may access the models; OpenAI similarly agreed to let the government vet users of its latest model. The export controls are already accelerating rivals abroad: Tokyo’s Sakana launched Fugu — ‘frontier capability without the risk of export controls’ — and China’s 360 released vulnerability-detection and cyber-defence models to fill the gap. (More in Tech & Geopolitics.)

NPR · TechCrunch · HN

Indicator	Value	Change
S&P 500	7,354	-0.05%
Dow 30	51,876	-0.09%
Nasdaq	25,298	-0.24%
Russell 2000	3,010	+0.07%
VIX	18.41	-2.54%
Gold	4,096	+1.20%
BTC	$60,041	-0.68%
EUR/USD	1.1390	0.00%
USD/NOK	9.9283	-0.05%

Gold +1.20% — US-Iran strikes escalate around the Strait of Hormuz for a second day; Gulf states hit by Iranian drones for the first time (see World).
Equities flat, VIX -2.54% — a muted reaction despite fresh Gulf escalation and Trump’s tariff threat against EU digital-tax countries.

World News

Lebanon-Israel framework signed — but strikes continue and the ICC path may close

Lebanon and Israel signed a framework agreement ending their conflict, hailed by Netanyahu as a blow to Hezbollah and Iran. Yet the day after signing, Israeli strikes killed at least one person in southern Lebanon and the defence minister ordered troops to prepare for an ‘extended stay.’ Legal experts warn the deal could block ICC jurisdiction over alleged Israeli war crimes in Lebanon — cutting off an accountability mechanism rights advocates had pushed to build. Both the agreement’s durability and its legal implications are under scrutiny.

BBC · Guardian: ICC · Al Jazeera: extended stay · Jerusalem Post

Israeli strikes hit Gaza tents; West Bank seizures caught on video

An Israeli airstrike on displacement tents in Gaza killed two and injured dozens. Separately, footage emerged of Israeli settlers attempting to forcibly seize a home under construction in the occupied West Bank. In US politics, Democratic candidates who explicitly called Israel’s actions genocide won decisive New York primary victories — signalling a leftward shift on the issue that could reshape the party’s congressional caucus next year.

Al Jazeera: Gaza · Al Jazeera: West Bank · Guardian: Democrats

Australia doubled penalties for breaching its under-16 social media ban to $99 million, with PM Albanese conceding tech giants are ‘not cooperating as much as we’d like’ — though experts warn higher fines mean little without enforcement against the platforms. A parallel Guardian investigation found several of the country’s largest pro-One Nation Facebook groups, with thousands of members, appear to be run by Southeast Asian ‘engagement farms’ monetising political content — raising serious disinformation concerns ahead of future elections.

Guardian: penalties · Guardian: meme factories · Reddit

Supreme Court expands Trump’s deportation powers; new ICE director nominated

The US Supreme Court confirmed the administration’s authority to terminate Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of migrants, clearing a path for large-scale deportations. Demographers warn that — layered atop other restrictions — this could accelerate a US population decline already running below replacement. Trump separately nominated former Oklahoma state trooper Lance Schroyer to lead ICE, which has lacked a Senate-confirmed director since the Obama administration.

NPR · Al Jazeera · Guardian

Trump threatens 100% tariff on EU countries that impose digital taxes

Trump posted on Truth Social that the US would immediately levy a 100% import tariff on any European country taxing US digital-services firms, overriding existing trade agreements. The threat targets primarily France and the UK, which have enacted or planned digital levies on the likes of Google, Meta and Amazon — a sharp escalation atop existing transatlantic tariff disputes.

Guardian

A ‘Board of Peace’ plans to grant itself sweeping legal immunity

An organisation calling itself the Board of Peace has drafted plans to shield itself from international law with broad legal immunity, according to documents obtained by the Guardian. Legal experts warn the proposed protections would leave the body effectively unaccountable. Its identity and remit remain opaque, but the immunity push has drawn comparisons to concerns about self-insulating international institutions.

Guardian · Reddit

Budapest holds first Pride since Orbán’s defeat

Voters in New Caledonia’s first provincial elections since 2019, in Nouméa. Photo: AFP / Al Jazeera

Thousands of Hungarians joined Budapest’s first Pride march since Viktor Orbán’s 16-year government fell to electoral defeat — a celebration of changed circumstances after a regime that had passed some of Europe’s most restrictive anti-LGBTQ laws. The march was widely read as a symbolic marker of Hungary’s realignment. Far to the south, New Caledonia opened polls for its first provincial elections in seven years, with some 2,500 security personnel deployed; the vote sets the assembly’s balance before renewed talks with France over the territory’s future status.

Straits Times: Pride · BBC: Pride video · Guardian: New Caledonia · Al Jazeera: New Caledonia

Also today

Europe: Serbia’s Vučić announces he will resign within ‘weeks,’ bowing to months of mass protests — Al Jazeera
Africa: Burkina Faso severs all diplomatic ties with France, accelerating France’s rupture with the Sahel — BBC; Kenyan rights groups say at least six people were found tortured and dumped after arrests at protest-memorial gatherings — Al Jazeera; Somalia jails a woman for three years over online criticism of the government — Guardian
Science: NASA’s plan to crash the 420-tonne ISS into the South Pacific by 2030 ‘raises serious concerns’ for deep-sea ecosystems, ocean scientists warn — Space.com

Ukraine Situation Report

Crimea and occupied Sevastopol near transport and power collapse

NASA FIRMS heat-anomaly data showing the fire at Crimea’s Saky thermal power plant. Photo: Militarnyi / NASA FIRMS

Public-transport operators in Sevastopol report receiving only 25% of needed fuel; buses and trolleys have stopped en masse, and rolling power outages are now expected across Crimea as the overloaded grid strains under fuel shortages from Ukraine’s strike campaign. The peninsula’s crisis deepened overnight when the Saky combined heat and power plant caught fire. Russia is leaning ever harder on Belarusian refining — jet-fuel exports to Russia surged nearly four-fold year-on-year in May, with June projected higher — while the Baltic states press the EU to accelerate a full Russian oil-import ban.

Ukrainska Pravda: Sevastopol fuel · Militarnyi: Saky fire · NV: Baltic oil ban · Reddit

Russia hits Kyiv with ballistic missiles in a 142-drone overnight salvo

On the night of June 27-28 Russia launched 6 Iskander-M/S-400 ballistic missiles, 2 Zircon/Oniks anti-ship missiles and 142 drones across Ukraine — the largest single salvo in recent days. Kyiv was struck by ballistic missiles (two injured, multiple fires) and 113 drones were downed. Russian forces also destroyed a MiG-29 at Voznesensk airfield in Mykolaiv Oblast with a Geran-4 drone. Beyond the Slavyansk refinery hit (see leader), overnight Ukrainian strikes also reportedly reached the Vtorovo pumping station and an oil refinery in Yaroslavl.

Ukrainska Pravda: overnight attack · Ukrainska Pravda: Kyiv strike · Ukrainska Pravda: Saky CHP · Reddit

Trump signals a break from the Kremlin’s ‘Anchorage understandings’

Putin and Trump. Photo: Ukrainska Pravda

At the G7 in France, Trump signalled he may abandon the so-called ‘Anchorage understandings’ — Russia’s claim that Washington agreed to hand over all of Donbas in exchange for a ceasefire freeze, an agreement his administration insists never existed. Trump voiced skepticism toward Putin and said Ukraine is ‘doing pretty well.’ Poland’s FM Sikorski, meanwhile, called for direct Zelensky-Putin talks without intermediaries and warned that Russia may stage a false-flag incident to justify attacking a NATO member within two years.

Ukrainska Pravda: Anchorage · Ukrainska Pravda: Sikorski · Guardian: NATO eastern flank

Ukraine’s FP-9 ballistic missile — 800 km, Moscow-capable — nears testing

The FP-9’s projected 800 km strike range from Ukrainian territory. Map: United24 Media

Developer Fire Point says its FP-9 ballistic missile is almost ready, with an 800 km range and a terminal velocity above 1,000 m/s — faster than Russia’s Iskander. The speed is designed to defeat Moscow’s dense air defences, which cruise missiles and drones cannot currently penetrate reliably. Testing is scheduled for early summer 2026.

United24 Media · Reddit

Putin and Lukashenko hold a secret two-day summit with no public readout

Putin and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko met for two days with no public statement or disclosed agenda — unusually opaque even by their standards. The meeting comes as Ukraine actively pressures Belarus to stay out of the war, making the secrecy especially worrying. Analysts are watching for any sign that Russia may seek to draw Belarusian forces more directly into the conflict.

National Security Journal · Reddit

Tech & Geopolitics

AI designs RF chips that outperform human engineers at millimeter-wave frequencies

Header art for the IEEE Spectrum piece. Illustration: IEEE Spectrum

Researchers combined reinforcement learning with inverse design to produce silicon RF power amplifiers covering 30–100 GHz, achieving the best then-reported mix of bandwidth, output power and efficiency for silicon at those frequencies. Unlike prior tools that optimise human templates, this starts from scratch — RL picks architecture and topology, then inverse design generates fabrication-ready electromagnetic layouts. The results look like QR codes rather than symmetric human designs, and design time drops from months to minutes. IEEE Spectrum frames it as a threshold crossing: AI isn’t assisting RF design, it’s outperforming it.

IEEE Spectrum · Lobsters

Data access patterns that make CPUs really angry

Cycle counts across memory access stride patterns — an 8-page stride beats even random access at being slow. Chart: blog.weineng.me

A low-level systems post walks through how specific memory access patterns can be worse than random access. The finding: striding across 8 pages (~32 KB) at a time hits ~2.06B cycles versus ~1.57B for true random access — roughly 33% slower. The mechanism is a perfect storm — systematic stride destroys hardware prefetching, causes cache-set conflicts, generates near-universal TLB misses, and triggers DRAM bank/row conflicts. A good mental model for why data layout in hot paths can matter as much as algorithmic complexity.

blog.weineng.me · Lobsters

Prism: a functional language that makes typed algebraic effects practical

Stephen Diehl published Prism, an experimental impure functional language treating effects as first-class typed constructs. The key insight: five paradigms — exceptions, generators, lenses, mutable state and logical failure — all fall out of a single algebraic effect-handler mechanism. Effects compose via row polymorphism (no monad-transformer stacks), local mutation doesn’t leak into outer types, and the implementation uses evidence passing rather than free monads for zero per-operation allocations. It pairs with Perceus reference counting for GC-free deterministic memory — worth reading for where practical typed-effects research is heading.

Stephen Diehl · Lobsters

Ansatz: write Clojure, prove it in Lean4’s Mathlib, run as JVM bytecode

Ansatz brings dependent types and formal verification to Clojure via a Lean4-compatible kernel built on the Calculus of Inductive Constructions. Adoption is gradual — standard Clojure functions can be incrementally converted to verified versions — and proofs have access to all 210,000+ theorems in Lean’s Mathlib. Output is ordinary JVM functions with no runtime overhead: an ambitious bid to make proof-assisted programming practical on the JVM rather than confined to dedicated proof assistants.

replikativ/ansatz · Lobsters

A peek inside Reddit’s anti-spam machine

A detailed post reverse-engineers Reddit’s spam filtering from observed removal metadata. The system layers Lua-based rule matching (Spamurai), Google’s Perspective API scores (trained on NYT moderation data), Hive AI for OCR and image classification across 12+ languages, and heavy fingerprinting: ISP/org data, JA3-style TLS fingerprints, browser RHS hashes, karma ratios and email-domain signals. Most striking — Reddit fetches and analyses linked URLs to extract embedded identifiers like GA codes, correlating evolving spam networks across domains. The author notes simple character substitutions sharply reduced Perspective scores, a now-patched evasion vector.

lyra.horse · Lobsters