IRAN
Filmmakers arrested
Authorities arrested award-winning filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof and his colleague Mostafa Aleahmad for “inciting unrest” following protests related to the deadly collapse of a building in May, state media reported on Friday. “In the midst of the heart-breaking incident in Abadan’s Metropol, [the filmmakers] were involved in inciting unrest and disrupting the psychological security of society,” IRNA said. The 10-story Metropol building, which was under construction in southwestern Khuzestan Province, collapsed on May 23, killing 43 people and sparking angry protests in solidarity with victims’ families. A group of filmmakers led by Rasoulof published an open letter calling on the security forces to “lay down their arms” in the face of outrage over the “corruption, theft, inefficiency and repression” surrounding the Abadan collapse.
FRANCE
Blaze burns 600 hectares
More than 900 firefighters backed by aircraft were on Friday deployed to battle a massive blaze in the southern Gard region that burned 600 hectares overnight. “This fire is far from being done. There are fronts in hard-to-reach areas that we haven’t tackled and that are advancing freely,” said Eric Agrinier, a member of the fire service. “It’s going to be a feat of endurance,” he added later, warning that the blaze might not be brought under control until today due to unfavorable weather. Working into the night after the blaze began late Thursday, firefighters set backfires to protect inhabited areas. “We burn some parts [of the forest] so when the fire spreads it reaches an already burned zone and slows down,” another firefighter said.
UNITED STATES
California gun law challenged
The publisher of a youth shooting magazine and several gun-rights groups on Friday filed a lawsuit challenging a newly enacted California law banning the marketing of guns to minors by manufacturers and others in the firearms industry. In the lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles, the publisher of Junior Shooters and groups including the Second Amendment Foundation argued that the law contravened their freedom of speech guaranteed in the US constitution’s First Amendment. California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said in a statement that it would “take any and all action under the law to defend California’s commonsense gun laws.” California Governor Gavin Newsom last week signed the measure into law, citing the need for new laws “as the [US] Supreme Court rolls back important gun safety protections.”
SPAIN
Two injured in bull run
The third bull run of Pamplona’s San Fermin Festival ended yesterday with the event’s first gorings of the year. Two men were injured in the leg by bull horns, said Estrella Petrina, a local hospital spokeswoman. Seven people needed to be treated at the hospital following yesterday’s running of the bulls. Thousands of runners, most wearing traditional white shirts, scampered to avoid the charging animals. Many ended up piled on top of each other in the narrow cobblestone streets of the course. The increasingly criticized yet popular festival, which was made known to the English-speaking world through Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, draws tens of thousands of visitors from around the world each year. Yesterday’s bull run was the third of eight scheduled this year. The six bulls that run each morning are killed in bullfights by professional bullfighters later in the day.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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