For more than 50 years, the United States military has operated as an all-volunteer force, a structural shift that came after widespread public backlash against the forced conscription that pulled 1.8 million Americans into service during the Vietnam War. Now, a decades-old manual self-registration system for potential military conscription is on track to be replaced by an automatic enrollment process, a change that could take effect as soon as this December. If implemented, the policy shift would transfer the responsibility of signing up 18- to 25-year-old men from the individuals themselves to the Selective Service System (SSS), the independent government agency that oversees potential draft eligibility.
作者： admin
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China successfully launches 23rd space mission of 2026
In another landmark step for China’s expanding space program, the country successfully placed a new batch of internet satellites into planned orbit early Thursday, marking its 23rd space launch mission of 2026. The launch was carried out by a Long March 6A carrier rocket, lifting off at 3:38 a.m. local time from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center located in northern China’s Shanxi Province, according to mission contractor China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp.
This latest group of spacecraft represents the 21st batch of low-orbit satellites built for China’s state-operated global space-based internet network. Developed by the Innovation Academy for Microsatellites, a Shanghai-based subsidiary of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, all satellites were successfully delivered to their preassigned orbital positions shortly after liftoff.
With this latest deployment, the Chinese mega-constellation — frequently compared to SpaceX’s Starlink network in global aerospace circles — now operates nearly 170 low-Earth orbit satellites. When fully completed, the large-scale network is planned to include approximately 13,000 low-orbit satellites that will deliver continuous global internet coverage across the world.
The Long March 6A rocket, which carried out this mission, was developed by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology as a medium-lift launch vehicle tailored for modern satellite deployment missions. Standing 50 meters tall, the rocket features a liquid-fueled core booster paired with four solid-propellant side boosters, with a total liftoff weight of 530 metric tons. It is capable of delivering payloads to a range of orbital regimes, including low-Earth orbit, sun-synchronous orbit and intermediate circular orbit. This mission marked the sixth flight of the Long March 6A that has been dedicated to deploying satellites for the low-orbit internet constellation.
Nationwide, this successful launch also pushed the total number of flights for China’s entire Long March rocket family to 637, underscoring the reliability and consistent progress of the country’s commercial and governmental launch programs. The steady cadence of missions in 2026 — already 23 completed before the end of the second quarter — reflects China’s ongoing push to advance its space infrastructure and expand its capabilities in satellite-based communications.
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Former Anhui official investigated for suspected discipline, law violations
China’s top anti-corruption watchdog announced on Thursday that a retired former senior political advisor from east China’s Anhui province has been put under formal disciplinary review and supervisory investigation over suspected violations of Party rules and national law.
Yao Yuzhou, 66, who once served as vice-chairman of the Anhui Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), is suspected of committing serious breaches of Party discipline and legal regulations, according to an official statement released by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and the National Commission of Supervision (NCS), the country’s top anti-graft bodies.
A native of Anhui, Yao built his decades-long public service career entirely within the province. He entered the workforce in 1979 and became a member of the Communist Party of China in 1987. Over his decades of service, he held a series of key provincial and municipal leadership posts: he assumed the role of mayor of Ma’anshan city in 2003, before moving to the position of Party chief of Tongling city in 2008, later taking the top Party post in Xuancheng in 2013 and then Chuzhou in 2016.
Towards the end of his career, Yao was appointed secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China Anhui Provincial Committee. He was named vice-chairman of the Anhui Provincial CPPCC Committee in 2020 and officially stepped down from public office for retirement in 2023.
The investigation marks another step forward in China’s ongoing nationwide anti-corruption campaign, which has targeted both high-ranking officials and lower-level public servants across all regions and sectors of government since it was launched, demonstrating the country’s consistent commitment to rooting out graft and enforcing disciplinary and legal accountability for all public officials, regardless of their position or retirement status.
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BTS battle torrential rain to kick off $1bn world tour
After four years apart for mandatory military service, the world’s biggest K-pop act BTS made their long-awaited return to the global concert circuit on Thursday, launching their Arirang World Tour at Goyang Stadium outside Seoul against a torrential downpour that failed to stop 40,000 in-person fans and millions more online from celebrating their iconic comeback.
The open-air venue turned into a waterlogged performance space as nonstop heavy rain drenched every member of the septet and their audience from the first note to the last. Band member V joked about the extreme conditions as he splashed across the stage’s 360-degree rotating platform, noting “It’s raining like crazy,” while Suga quipped that the stadium felt more like a water park than a concert venue. Jimin admitted the messy, wet conditions left him “frustrated and stressed” early on, but quickly reframed the moment for the crowd: “But that’s not what’s important. What’s important is that you’re here with us.”
Even with the weather throwing off plans, the seven members delivered a relentless, high-energy 23-song set that leaned into their new artistic direction and highlighted the unshakable chemistry they’ve built over more than a decade together. When the rain dragged into the second hour, Jimin even paused to towel dry V’s soaked hair mid-performance, a small, warm moment that went viral with fans watching online. V leaned into the chaos, turning the persistent rain into a spontaneous bit of performance: he laid flat on the waterlogged stage to mimic doing the breast stroke while delivering an impromptu rendition of their new comeback single, *Swim*.
The show also marked a triumphant return to full performance for band leader RM, who tore a ligament in his ankle during rehearsal three weeks prior to the opening night. Though he performed from a stool during a promotional concert in Seoul last month, RM was back on his feet for the opening of the tour, which took place in his hometown. Still, to avoid straining his injury, he was carried around the stadium’s extended catwalks on a makeshift throne during a fan meet segment. Addressing the crowd’s concerns, he downplayed the injury: “It’s been three weeks [since the injury] so the doctor said I can perform. It’s not that big of a deal. We just wanted to give it our all today.”
The extreme weather didn’t dim fan enthusiasm in the slightest. Eager attendees began lining up outside the stadium as early as 6:30 a.m. to claim the best viewing spots, huddling under umbrellas and sharing snacks and stories as lines snaked for blocks around the venue. Hundreds of fans without tickets even braved the downpour to gather outside the stadium gates just to listen to the performance and feel part of the moment.
Musically, the opening night centered heavily on BTS’s new studio album *Arirang*, which weaves traditional Korean folk melody and mythology into the group’s signature experimental, high-energy pop sound. Almost every new track from the record made the setlist, opening with a dramatic entrance: a lone hooded figure ran onto the stage holding a red flare as 40,000 fans chanted “BTS” in unison, before the full band strode out to launch into *Hooligan*, an incendiary rap track that includes an ironic on-the-nose line from RM calling for “a bigger mop.”
The night leaned into the grittier, rap-focused side of BTS’s discography, prioritizing hard-hitting tracks like *Mic Drop*, *Run BTS* and *FYA* over the softer melodic pop hits that first catapulted them to global fame. This shift gave the show an unrelenting, propulsive energy, with the septet running up and down the four compass-point catwalks extending from the central stage, backed by explosive pyrotechnics, flame walls and thousands of coordinated LED lights. After an opening sequence of rap-forward tracks, *Swim* brought a moody, sultrier energy, with choreography that underscored its core message of pushing through adversity in uncertain, choppy waters.
A standout moment of the night was an unexpected performance of *Not Today*, the band’s anthemic track dedicated to “all the underdogs in the world.” As the group sang about fighting injustice and corruption, they were surrounded by dancers in hockey masks holding glowing fluorescent lights, creating an urgent, powerful tone that marked a clear shift from the carefree, high-production fun of their last world tour. Another noticeable change from previous tours was a reduction in tightly scripted, large-scale group choreography, with the band focusing more on interacting and energizing the crowd. While the wet stage likely played a role in this shift, it also gave the concert an raw, immediate intimacy that over-rehearsed, scripted shows often lack. The unplanned vibe culminated in an spontaneous moment toward the end of the night, when V and Jimin broke into an impromptu performance of the dance routine for their early hit *I Need U*, surprising and delighting their bandmates and capturing the easy, longstanding chemistry the group shares after all their years together.
The main set closed with an extended version of *Idol*, the 2018 hit from *Love Yourself: Answer*, which saw the band walk along the edge of the stadium to interact with fans in the upper tiers as the entire crowd chanted the chorus in unison. The encore leaned into joy and nostalgia, pairing the upbeat English-language hits *Dynamite* and *Butter* with the fan-favorite 2019 track *Mikrokosmos*. Each member took a moment to share their reflections on the long-awaited comeback, with Jin calling the night an “unforgettable moment” and Jungkook saying he’d “made a good memory today.” Jimin laughed as he told the crowd, “I’m soaked down to my underwear, but the most important thing was getting to see you all. For four years, I couldn’t see you and it was tough, but it’s an honour that I got to see again.” RM summed up the night’s core feeling: “More than anything, having all seven of us together is what matters most.”
The show wrapped with *Into The Sun*, a new track whose lyrical mantra “I’ll follow you into the sun” was written as a dedication to the band’s loyal global fanbase. The love between the group and their fans was fully mutual, with viewers of the official live stream sharing glowing reactions online. One viewer wrote, “Their voices are so strong now and they looked amazing, wet hair and all,” while others joked they should have bought a three-day pass to the stream, with one quipping “My wallet is crying” in reference to the pay-per-view fee.
BTS is scheduled to play two more sold-out nights at Goyang Stadium, with 40,000 in-person tickets sold for each show. All tour dates are being streamed live on WeVerse, the social media platform owned by the group’s label Hybe (formerly Big Hit). Opening night alone drew more than four million paying live stream viewers worldwide, generating an estimated $168 million in stream revenue on just the first night.
Industry analysts predict the Arirang World Tour will go down as one of the highest-grossing concert tours of all time, with some projections suggesting it could even surpass the $2 billion haul of Taylor Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour. Even before that milestone, it is already set to be the largest world tour ever mounted by a South Korean band, with 85 shows scheduled across 34 cities worldwide. The tour will hit London in July for two shows at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, marking BTS’s first UK concerts since 2019, when they made history as the first K-pop act to headline Wembley Stadium.
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Four people die trying to board boat in Channel crossing attempt
A deadly incident on the northern coast of France has left four migrants dead after dangerous currents swept them away as they attempted to board a smuggling vessel bound for the United Kingdom across the English Channel, local authorities confirmed Thursday. The fatal event unfolded off the shore of Saint-Etienne-au-Mont, located south of Boulogne-sur-Mer in the Pas-de-Calais region, between the Ecault and Équihen-Plage beaches, an area increasingly used by people smuggling gangs to avoid law enforcement patrols.
Officials from the Pas-de-Calais prefecture told reporters that the four deceased—two men and two women—had already ventured a significant distance into the water when the strong local currents pulled them under. The death toll remains classified as provisional as of Thursday’s update. In the aftermath of the incident, rescue teams launched a large-scale response operation that got underway at approximately 7:30 a.m. local time, right after dawn, and included specialist diving firefighter units deployed to the scene. A total of 38 people were pulled from the water, three of whom required emergency medical care. Two children were transported to a local hospital as a safety precaution, while the smuggling vessel that was meant to carry the group continued its journey toward the UK with roughly 30 passengers still on board.
This tragedy pushes the total number of confirmed migrant deaths linked to Channel crossing attempts this year to six, according to data from the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration, which recorded two earlier fatalities in 2026. Recent weeks have seen a sharp uptick in attempted crossings, driven by unusually calm sea conditions that smuggling gangs exploit to launch their perilous voyages. The incident comes on the heels of reports that French authorities rejected a new proposal from UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood that would have allowed British Border Force vessels to operate in French territorial waters to intercept and turn back small migrant boats.
Political reactions to the tragedy have highlighted deep divides over how to address the ongoing Channel crossing crisis. Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp blamed the ruling Labour government’s approach for the loss of life, arguing that weak border enforcement has created incentives for smugglers to continue operating. “Crossing the Channel on often faulty and defective dinghies is immensely dangerous and puts lives at risk,” Philp said. “Labour’s weak approach which allows these crossings to continue is causing lives to be lost, and their unwillingness to take decisive action on illegal immigration is fuelling this crisis. Stopping the crossings requires more than disruption on the beaches. It requires the swift removal of those who enter illegally so the incentive to make these dangerous journeys disappears.”
By contrast, refugee advocacy groups have framed the tragedy as a consequence of insufficient safe and legal pathways for migration to the UK. Imran Hussain, director of external affairs at the UK’s Refugee Council, argued that policing alone cannot stop dangerous crossings. “A lack of safe routes to the UK has left people feeling they have no other choice to rebuild their lives,” Hussain said. “Policing the Channel alone is not enough to prevent dangerous crossings. The government should work closely with our European neighbours to share responsibility and create more safe pathways for people to come to the UK without taking dangerous journeys.”
Officially, a UK government spokesperson said officials were “deeply saddened” by the deaths, noting that every fatality in the Channel is a preventable tragedy. “Every death in the Channel is a tragedy and a stark reminder of the dangers posed by criminal gangs exploiting vulnerable people for profit,” the spokesperson said. “We will continue working relentlessly with the French and our partners overseas to prevent these perilous journeys.” The UK Home Office has been approached for additional comment on the incident and the rejected interception proposal.
Long-term data shows that overall small boat arrivals have fallen slightly year-over-year in 2026, even as smuggling gangs have adapted their tactics to evade patrols. Over the full year of 2025, more than 41,000 people arrived in the UK via small boat crossings, marking a three-year trend of growing activity. Between January 1 and April 8 this year, 5,062 people completed the crossing, a 30% drop from the 7,228 recorded during the same period in 2025.
To avoid detection by coastal patrols, smuggling networks have recently shifted to a new “water taxi” tactic, where larger smuggling vessels are launched from hidden locations dozens of kilometers from traditional departure points. These vessels then cruise along the coast to pick up groups of migrants who wait for them in shallow water out of sight of land-based police, rather than assembling and inflating boats on public beaches near patrol routes.
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Hawaii doctor found guilty of trying to kill wife on hike
On Wednesday, a Hawaii jury delivered a guilty verdict for a Maui physician in a high-profile domestic violence case that unfolded on a popular hiking trail one year prior. Following more than eight hours of closed-door deliberation, the 12-member panel found 47-year-old anesthesiologist Gerhardt Konig guilty of attempted manslaughter, rejecting the more severe charge of attempted murder that prosecutors had pushed for throughout the trial.
The violent incident dates back to March 2025, when Konig and his wife Arielle traveled from Maui to Oahu to celebrate Arielle’s birthday. The couple had been navigating ongoing marital strain after Konig discovered flirtatious text messages exchanged between Arielle and a male coworker, a detail that became central to the case’s narrative.
According to Arielle Konig’s testimony, the confrontation escalated suddenly on the Pali Puka Trail, a rugged hiking route known for its steep cliffside overlooks. She told the court her husband first shoved her toward the edge of a cliff, then attempted to stab her with a syringe, before bludgeoning her in the head with a large rock. Arielle testified she believed Konig intended to knock her unconscious to complete the fatal push over the cliff, leaving her body to be discovered days later as an accidental hiking death. She ultimately suffered what medical records describe as “severe complex scalp lacerations” from the attack.
Two passing hikers who stumbled on the mid-confrontation corroborated key parts of Arielle’s account during the trial, telling jurors they clearly saw Konig striking Arielle with the rock while her face was covered in blood. Prosecutors also introduced damning testimony from Konig’s 20-year-old son, who told the court his father admitted to him during a post-incident FaceTime call that “my stepmom had been cheating on him, and that he tried to kill her,” according to CBS News, the U.S. partner to the BBC.
When law enforcement officers arrived at the scene, Konig fled into the surrounding rugged terrain, triggering a multi-hour manhunt before he was taken into police custody.
Throughout the trial, Konig maintained his innocence, arguing that Arielle had attacked him first and that all his actions were in self-defense. But the jury ultimately sided with the prosecution’s narrative, opting for the lesser conviction of attempted manslaughter rather than attempted murder.
Speaking to NBC News after the verdict was issued, the jury foreperson explained the panel’s decision: jurors agreed Konig had acted out of extreme mental and emotional disturbance sparked by the revelation of his wife’s affair, and “we didn’t feel the evidence would uphold the fact that he intended on murdering her.”
As the court clerk read the guilty verdict, reporters observed Konig closing his eyes, bowing his head, and eventually covering his face with his hand. Konig now faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in state prison, with his formal sentencing scheduled for August 13. His defense team has already confirmed they plan to appeal the jury’s verdict to a higher court. -
The winner of Trump’s Iran war? Iran
Thirty-nine days into the 2026 joint military campaign waged by the United States and Israel against Iran, US President Donald Trump announced a two-week ceasefire on April 7. The truce was negotiated through Pakistani mediation, built on a 10-point peace framework initially proposed by Iran itself. When assessing the outcome of the conflict, analysts frame Iran’s success not as a decisive knockout blow, but as a remarkable demonstration of resilience: emerging standing after 12 grueling rounds against a far heavier opponent, a result that qualifies as victory by any reasonable measure.
The core strategic goal of the US-Israeli campaign was to decapitate Iran’s ruling government, a mission that ended in complete failure. Though top Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was assassinated alongside members of his family, Iran’s 88-member clerical Assembly of Experts swiftly installed his son Mojtaba Khamenei as his successor, maintaining unbroken institutional continuity. Other high-profile assassinations, including that of Iran’s civilian defense minister and pragmatic centrist National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani, are widely categorized as war crimes. Following these losses, President Masoud Pezeshkian appointed IRGC General Majid Ebnelreza as acting defense minister, and hardline former IRGC commander Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr stepped into Larijani’s national security role. In a stark unintended consequence, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu effectively executed an accidental internal coup that removed Iran’s moderate pragmatic leadership and replaced them with uncompromising far-right hardliners.
When the conflict began, Iran was already diplomatically isolated, facing international backlash following a violent crackdown on mass anti-government protests that left thousands dead. But the extreme brutality and widespread war crimes committed by US and Israeli forces shifted global public and official sentiment, leaving many countries at minimum rhetorically supportive of Iran, and uniformly opposed to the unprovoked invasion. In the conflict’s aftermath, Israel has been left a global pariah. While the United States’ sheer economic and military power insulates it from full pariah status, its global standing has plummeted dramatically, and it can expect far less international cooperation in the coming years.
Iran inflicted staggering damage on 13 US military bases spread across the Middle East, most of which are now largely destroyed, with total estimated damages reaching roughly $1 billion. Using low-cost, readily available drones, Iranian forces took out hundreds of millions of dollars worth of advanced radar installations in Kuwait and neighboring states, blinding US air defenses and clearing the way for deadly missile barrages, including a high-impact strike on Israel’s Dimona nuclear facility. The conflict delivered a clear, global lesson: hosting US military bases no longer provides security for host nations—it instead exposes them to catastrophic military risk.
Most US military personnel were forced to evacuate their destroyed bases and relocate to local civilian hotels. Thanks to Iran’s extensive and effective intelligence network across the Gulf, many of these hotels were subsequently targeted by drone strikes. Multiple US personnel arrived back in Washington D.C. with nothing but the clothes on their backs, receiving little to no support from US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The future of US military basing across the Gulf is now an open question, with regional leaders re-evaluating the costs of hosting American forces. Even the continued presence of US troops in Iraq is uncertain, as Iraqi Shiite factions openly aligned with Iran supported Tehran throughout the conflict.
Strict Israeli military censorship has obscured the full scale of damage sustained by the country, but confirmed strikes have hit the Haifa oil refinery, as well as key military and intelligence research facilities. Netanyahu drastically overestimated the effectiveness of Israel’s air defense interceptor systems. Thousands of Israeli civilians have been displaced from their homes and forced to sleep in bomb shelters, and Israel is burning through its interceptor stockpiles far faster than Iran is exhausting its ballistic missile arsenal. If the conflict resumes, Israel would quickly face a situation where it is completely exposed to Iranian strikes. Already, stocks of Israel’s advanced Arrow interceptors are so depleted that the military has been forced to allow missiles targeting low-population areas to hit their targets, rather than waste limited interceptors. For these reasons, it is Israel that pushed for the current ceasefire, making it clear that Israel lost the conflict on points.
Beyond military resilience, Iran emerges from the war with stronger economic prospects than it had entering it. Before the conflict, Iran’s oil revenue was limited by US sanctions. Now, Trump has been forced to lift sanctions on Iranian petroleum exports, and there is little chance they can be reimposed in the tight 2026 global energy market. The conflict has also given Iran the leverage to impose new tolls on commercial shipping passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran has proven it can use cheap drone strikes to disable oil and LNG tankers that refuse to pay, and building a 100% effective anti-drone defense system is prohibitively expensive for shipping companies and regional powers. Insurers also require full protection, which no existing defense system can guarantee. Threatening to strike Iranian oil infrastructure to force Iran to abandon the tolls is no deterrent: any attack on Iranian rigs would be met with retaliatory strikes on Saudi, UAE, Bahraini, and Kuwaiti oil facilities, which would cripple global energy supplies entirely. Iran already demonstrated this capability during the conflict, damaging Kuwaiti oil fields, striking a major Saudi petrochemical complex in Jubail, and knocking out 17% of Qatar’s total LNG production capacity at Ras Laffan. Combined, Iran’s new oil export access and Hormuz tolls are projected to deliver annual revenue multiple times higher than pre-war export earnings to China alone.
The conflict has, of course, inflicted devastating human and infrastructural damage on Iran. The 39-day campaign killed an estimated 3,600 Iranians, including at least 1,665 civilians – among them at least 200 children and 200 women – and wounded roughly 20,000 more. Israel has claimed the death toll is as high as 6,000, but that is widely dismissed as exaggerated wartime boasting from Netanyahu and Hegseth. Key Iranian research institutions, university programs, steel mills, petrochemical complexes, and other critical infrastructure have been destroyed, but analysts widely expect these can be rebuilt with covert support from Russia and China, both of which have a clear strategic interest in maintaining a strong Iran capable of countering US and Israeli power in the region.
The US Department of Defense claims it deployed 26 aircraft types, four land-based missile systems, and six sea-based weapons systems to strike roughly 13,000 targets inside Iran. Human rights observers note that many of these targets were civilian infrastructure, marking strikes that would qualify as war crimes of the same kind that led to the prosecution of German and Japanese military leaders after World War II. Independent analysts have not been able to separate US strikes from Israeli strikes, leading to questions about whether the 13,000 target figure counts joint US-Israeli strikes. US military outlet *The Stars and Stripes* reported that CENTCOM stated strikes targeted Iranian command and control centers, IRGC headquarters, intelligence sites, missile launchers, drone batteries, and anti-ship and anti-air installations, in addition to a major bridge near Tehran, and weapons manufacturing warehouses and bunkers.
Despite the extensive bombing campaign, Iran never lost command and control over its military and government. While roughly 1,200 IRGC personnel and officers were killed, the force has between 125,000 and 190,000 active personnel, and there was no shortage of qualified leaders to step into vacant roles. Iran also maintains a 400,000-strong conventional army, plus an additional 400,000 to 800,000 Basij militia members. The chain of command remained unbroken, with lower-ranking officers promoted to fill senior vacancies without any collapse of military order. Strikes on IRGC, police, and Basij facilities have not weakened the Islamic Republic government in any measurable way; in fact, these institutions gained greater domestic legitimacy by successfully resisting foreign invasion.
A further major blow to US and Israeli claims of success is the widespread use of Iranian decoys. Many strikes that the coalition counted as destroyed missile launchers, drones, and weapons facilities actually hit nothing more than cleverly disguised decoys made of cheap materials that inflicted no real harm to Iran’s military capacity. When the war began, Iran held roughly 2,500 ballistic missiles. After 39 days of fighting, an estimated 1,000 missiles remain intact – a figure that already accounts for the thousand or more missiles Iran fired at Israel and Gulf targets during the conflict. Since eliminating Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal was a core war goal for the coalition, this outcome marks another clear failure; only half of Iran’s launchers were destroyed, leaving the country with a robust second-strike deterrent capability. Iran also still retains tens of thousands of Shahed drones, its low-cost weapon of choice for asymmetric strikes.
While the war is a pyrrhic victory for Iran in some respects – it has suffered extensive human and industrial losses, and gained new hostile neighbors among Gulf states – it still qualifies as a clear victory. The government remains standing, the coalition’s core strategic goals all ended in failure, and Iran leaves the conflict with greater economic and strategic leverage than it held before the first strike.
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Amazon to end support for older Kindles, prompting user outcry
Starting May 20, 2026, Amazon will permanently cease software and connectivity support for all Kindle and Kindle Fire devices released in 2012 or earlier, a policy change that has left thousands of long-time device owners angry and concerned over planned obsolescence and unnecessary electronic waste.
In direct email notifications sent to affected customers recently, the e-commerce and tech giant thanked users for their loyalty over decades, but confirmed that older models would no longer receive any future updates, nor would they retain access to the Kindle Store. This means owners of affected devices — which include iconic early models such as the 2007 first-generation Kindle, 2011’s Kindle Touch, and the first line of Kindle Fire tablets, as well as the 2012 first-generation Kindle Paperwhite — will no longer be able to purchase, borrow, or download new e-books to their devices.
Already downloaded e-books will remain accessible for offline reading on the outdated hardware, and users will still be able to access their full Kindle Library via Amazon’s mobile and desktop reading apps. Amazon has also issued a critical warning: completing a factory reset on any affected device will render it completely unusable, as the device will be unable to reconnected to Amazon servers to restore content or core functionality.
To ease the transition, Amazon says it has offered exclusive discounts on newer Kindle models to active users of the affected devices. Still, the announcement has drawn sharp criticism from long-time customers who argue their older devices still work perfectly well for their core purpose of displaying e-books. Many took to social media platform X to voice their frustration, with one user noting their 2013 Kindle Touch functioned flawlessly and had only recently been used to purchase a new book before the announcement. Others pointed out that basic e-readers require minimal updates, questioning why Amazon needed to cut off support entirely for devices that serve their core function with no performance issues. Kay Aaronricks, a 46-year-old Kindle owner from the UK, told reporters she felt unexpected grief at the thought of losing full use of her 14-year-old device, which has become a staple of her work and travel routine.
“I love paper books like anyone does, but the Kindle is more practical,” Aaronricks said, adding she is also concerned about the embedded advertising that comes standard on many of Amazon’s lower-priced newer Kindles. For her, the ad-free reading experience of her older device is a key part of the enjoyment, allowing her to disconnect from marketing and digital distractions that dominate daily life.
Industry analysts have offered mixed perspectives on Amazon’s decision. Paolo Pescatore, a veteran tech industry analyst, noted that the move is understandable from security and operational support standpoints. These devices were designed more than 14 years ago, he explained, for a different era of digital services, and their aging hardware cannot support modern, more resource-intensive connectivity and security features. Maintaining ongoing support for such a small, declining user base would require disproportionate time and resources that Amazon cannot justify long-term. Still, Pescatore acknowledged that cutting off access to the Kindle Store will turn fully functional devices into limited offline-only tools, a disappointing outcome for attached users.
Critics of the policy frame it as a clear example of planned obsolescence that will generate unnecessary electronic waste. Ugo Vallauri, co-director of the Restart Project, a non-profit that advocates for electronic device repair and extended product lifecycles, said manufacturers have a long history of framing the phase-out of older devices as a push toward better performance, but that argument does not hold water for devices that still work as intended.
“However, that’s hardly a good reason for soft-bricking millions of still functioning devices,” Vallauri said. While Amazon notes that the change only impacts around 3% of its active Kindle user base, independent estimates suggest that this could add up to 2 million devices being rendered prematurely obsolete. Vallauri calculated that this would generate more than 624 tons of additional e-waste, as many users will discard their still-functional devices rather than keep them as limited offline readers.
A full list of affected devices includes: 1st Generation Kindle (2007), Kindle DX and DX Graphite (2009, 2010), Kindle Keyboard (2010), Kindle 4 (2011), Kindle Touch (2011), Kindle 5 (2012), 1st Generation Kindle Paperwhite (2012), 1st Generation Kindle Fire (2011), 2nd Generation Kindle Fire (2012), Kindle Fire HD 7 (2012), and Kindle Fire HD 8.9 (2012).
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Has US achieved its war objectives in Iran?
In the weeks following joint US-Israeli military strikes on Iran, a fierce battle over how the war’s trajectory is framed has unfolded inside the very heart of US military command: the Pentagon. As a reporter embedded in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s press briefings since the conflict’s first days, one pattern has been impossible to miss: the former Army National Guard Major and ex-Fox News pundit has brought a distinctly televised, theatrical style to the podium, from his initial laying out of US war aims through the most recent briefing announcing a fragile two-week ceasefire.
Hegseth’s briefings have been unapologetically boastful affairs, centered on celebrating overt displays of American military dominance. Just this Wednesday, he declared the US had secured a “capital V military victory”, and in an earlier briefing, he characterized the campaign as delivering unrelenting “death and destruction from the sky all day long”. But peeling back this public messaging to uncover the real progress of the war, its human and financial toll, and its long-term strategic consequences demands far deeper scrutiny. With the already fragile ceasefire facing repeated tests, critical questions remain: what tangible gains has the US actually secured, and what costs have already been incurred to reach this point?
US President Donald Trump’s core stated war objective has long been stripping Iran of any capacity to develop a nuclear weapon – a goal Iran has repeatedly denied ever pursuing. For years prior to the current conflict, this objective was pursued through US-led diplomatic negotiations, but Trump ultimately rejected the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Obama-brokered nuclear deal with Iran, arguing it was too lenient on Tehran.
In his first term, Trump withdrew the US from the agreement and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran, which had been in full compliance with the deal’s terms at the time. That move marked a clear choice to abandon diplomacy in favor of coercive force, a pattern that continued with the US assassination of top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps General Qasem Soleimani. For years, this pattern of alternating between tentative diplomatic outreach and sudden military action with Tehran ultimately culminated in the outbreak of the current war.
Today, even with the tentative ceasefire holding for the moment, there is little concrete evidence that Trump has achieved meaningful progress on his core nuclear goal. Last June, Trump claimed Iran’s nuclear infrastructure had already been “obliterated” by bombing raids on key sites at Isfahan, Fordow, and Natanz. But five additional weeks of open conflict later, Iran still retains its stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium, which is reported to be stored in gas cylinders hidden under rubble at targeted sites.
Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the global nuclear watchdog, warned in the third week of the war that military action would never resolve the international community’s concerns over Iran’s nuclear program. While Trump has stated the US will now work with Iran to extract and remove all hidden nuclear material, Tehran has remained defiant on the issue. The question will now take center stage at upcoming US-Iran negotiations set to be held in Islamabad, and analysts warn that the attack has left Iran’s leadership even more distrustful of the US – and potentially more determined than ever to pursue a nuclear deterrent to fend off future American attacks.
When Trump first announced the war in a pre-recorded social media video from his Mar-a-Lago estate, a second stated objective was regime change in Tehran: he called on the Iranian people to overthrow their government once US-Israeli bombing concluded. Within days, he doubled down, demanding the regime’s “unconditional surrender” – a demand that has not been met. While Israeli strikes have killed senior Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Khamenei’s son Mojtaba has already been named as his successor, leaving the regime structure intact.
Trump has claimed the new Iranian leadership is less “radicalised and far more intelligent” than its predecessor, and has expressed hope he can replicate the outcome of his 2020s intervention in Venezuela, where US forces captured President Nicholas Maduro and installed a US-aligned government in Caracas. So far, there is no indication that any such shift in power is imminent in Tehran.
On the topic of Iran’s conventional military arsenal, senior Trump administration officials have claimed the US has “obliterated” Iran’s missiles, drone fleets, launch facilities, arms factories, and naval forces. But leaked US intelligence assessments have disputed that claim, suggesting Iran still retains roughly half of its pre-war missile and drone stockpiles. The BBC has not been able to independently verify either side’s claims.
Regardless of the status of Iran’s arsenal, it is clear the Trump administration’s stated war goals have shifted dramatically since the conflict began, and the core objective of regime change has yet to materialize. The human cost for the US has already been steep: 13 American service members have been killed in action, and hundreds more have been wounded. The war has also drained US military stockpiles at an unprecedented rate, with thousands of precision munitions including large numbers of Tomahawk cruise missiles expended, putting the daily cost of the operation at more than $1 billion.
While US officials maintain that unmatched American military skill and cutting-edge technology allowed the air campaign to finish ahead of schedule, forcing Iran into the ceasefire, the political cost at home has already started to mount. Consistent public polling shows only a minority of American voters approve of the conflict, and support in Congress has broken down almost entirely along partisan lines, with most Republicans backing Trump. But in recent days, a growing number of GOP lawmakers have publicly denounced Trump’s unfiltered social media threat to “destroy a whole civilization”, breaking with the president’s position.
The rift has extended deep into Trump’s own MAGA base: high-profile movement figures including popular podcaster and journalist Tucker Carlson have openly split with Trump over the war. Marjorie Taylor Greene, once one of Trump’s most vocal supporters and a prominent MAGA leader who has since broken with the president, issued a scathing rebuke over the weekend as Trump escalated threats to destroy additional Iranian civilian infrastructure. “This is not making America great again, this is evil,” she said. So far, there is little sign these intra-Republican fractures will heal ahead of the November midterm elections.
Democrats, meanwhile, have uniformly condemned Trump’s increasingly inflammatory threats and his repeated insults of longstanding US allies. They have also demanded answers about an alleged US missile strike on a school in the Iranian town of Minab on the first day of the war, which local reports say killed at least 168 people, 110 of them children. If confirmed, the strike would rank among the deadliest incidents of civilian casualties from a US attack in the Middle East in a generation. The Pentagon says it is investigating the incident, but nearly six weeks after the attack, no findings have been released to the public.
This week, a bipartisan group of lawmakers went so far as to call on Trump’s cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president from power over his handling of the conflict. The White House has pushed back against all criticism, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt arguing that Trump’s hardline rhetoric forced Iran to agree to the ceasefire, and that “Never underestimate President Trump’s ability to successfully advance America’s interests and broker peace.”
A definitive public verdict on the war may come from American voters in November. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, triggered by Iran’s response to the war, has already driven up gasoline and diesel prices across the US, and analysts predict those higher energy costs will soon push up grocery prices, stoking voter anger over inflation that is already expected to make this year’s midterm elections a tough fight for Trump’s Republican Party. If voter discontent over the war and its economic fallout continues to grow, Republicans could lose control of the House of Representatives and even the Senate – a heavy political price for the conflict.
Trump has already been forced to shift priorities to address the growing economic crisis: when the war began, the Strait of Hormuz was fully open, but now his top war goal has become reopening the key global oil chokepoint after Iran seized control of it. Trump has flip-flopped repeatedly on his strategy for reopening the strait: he first called on US allies to contribute to military action to reopen it, then claimed the US did not need any allied support, then reversed course again to ask for help, before dismissing longstanding allies as “cowards” for declining to join the campaign.
The conflict has also exacerbated already deep rifts within the NATO alliance, which had already been strained by Trump’s prior territorial claims on Greenland. Trump has stepped up his public attacks on the alliance, which declined to formally join the war effort. After a recent White House meeting with Trump, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte acknowledged only that the conversation had been “very frank”, a sign of continuing tension. European allies have already started taking steps to reduce their strategic and economic dependence on what they now view as an unpredictable and unreliable US security guarantor, a shift that analysts say creates major strategic and economic opportunities for China – a development that has sparked deep alarm among Trump’s critics in Washington.
Today, the full human, political, economic, and strategic costs of the five-week war remain uncounted. If the current fragile ceasefire collapses or upcoming negotiations fail to produce a durable settlement, those costs could grow far steeper in the months ahead.
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Russian tourists flock to Heihe’s bustling morning market
As early spring temperatures climb across Northeast China, one of the region’s most unique cross-border public spaces — the famous international outdoor morning market in Heihe’s Aihui District, Heilongjiang Province — has roared back to life, drawing crowds of both local residents and visitors from across the Sino-Russian border.
Nestled along the Chinese side of the China-Russia border, this open-air morning market has long been a beloved community hub for local people, who gather here daily to catch up with neighbors, stock up on groceries, and grab casual early-morning meals. In recent years, however, it has also emerged as an unexpected top attraction for Russian tourists, who now arrive in organized tour groups to browse stalls, hunt for bargains, and experience authentic local Chinese daily life.
Wandering the tree-lined market lanes, visitors are greeted by the rich, savory aroma of freshly cooked local street food, alongside neatly stacked piles of seasonal fresh produce and neatly displayed rows of affordable daily necessities. For the local community, the market remains the go-to “vegetable basket” that meets most residents’ daily household needs. For cross-border exchange, it also serves as a dynamic, on-the-ground showcase of the deepening integration of Sino-Russian trade, people-to-people bonds and cultural tourism.
The resurgence of visitor foot traffic, especially the growing number of Russian tourists, underscores the steady recovery of cross-border tourism and small-scale trade between the two neighboring countries, turning an ordinary neighborhood market into a living symbol of bilateral friendly exchange.