Majestic great white shark glides through the ocean waters. Credit: Elias Levy / OpenVerse / CC BY-2.0
Volunteer divers have recorded what researchers believe is the first footage of a great white shark filmed underwater in the Mediterranean, captured during a ghost net removal dive near a shipwreck in the Strait of Sicily.
Derk Remmers, a technical diver with Ghost Diving, was about 40 meters (131 feet) below the surface between Sicily and Tunisia when the shark appeared. He filmed the encounter. The footage and photographs were released on June 8 to mark World Oceans Day.
Remmers said that the odds of meeting such an animal underwater are far lower than winning the lottery, and that his hands were shaking as he filmed.
The shark circled the group, then turned and moved back toward the divers. Remmers said that its behavior appeared calm and curious, not aggressive. When the team released air from their regulators, the shark picked up speed and disappeared from view.
First great white shark sighting in the Mediterranean stuns researchers
Marine biologists who reviewed the footage called the sighting rare and scientifically significant.
Dr. Carlo Cattano, a researcher at the Sicily Marine Centre of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, said that most knowledge of great white sharks in the region has come from dead animals caught accidentally in fishing nets, and that direct observations help researchers better understand the species.
A great white shark circled divers in the Mediterranean as they worked to pull deadly ghost nets from a shipwreck in the Strait of Sicily. pic.twitter.com/tdJKJ37TMY
— Tom Marvolo Riddle (@tom_riddle2025) June 9, 2026
He said that prior research had already identified the area as a key location for threatened species and that this sighting reinforces its conservation value. Researchers cautioned that broader conclusions would require further study.
The mission was organized by the Healthy Seas Foundation, along with Ghost Diving and the Society for the Documentation of Submerged Sites. The wreck’s location is being kept confidential.
Ghost nets, fishing gear lost or abandoned at sea, continue killing marine life long after leaving a vessel. Previous dives at the site documented loggerhead sea turtles and large fish species caught in the gear.
Shipwrecks attract marine life, and when ghost nets settle on them, those structures become underwater traps.
Ghost nets turn shipwreck ecosystems into ongoing ocean traps
Veronika Mikos, director of Healthy Seas, said that the sighting is a reminder of how much marine life still exists in offshore Mediterranean waters and how much is at risk from discarded gear and overfishing.
Remmers said that between 1% and 10% of all fishing gear worldwide is lost each year, possibly adding more than 500,000 metric tons of abandoned nets to the ocean annually.
He said that the shark’s presence near the wreck signals an abundance of prey, and that those same animals face entanglement risk. Volunteer cleanups alone cannot resolve the problem, he said, and stronger action against industrial and illegal fishing is needed.
The mission also included environmental DNA sampling and underwater monitoring. Healthy Seas said that it plans to release additional footage and scientific material in the coming weeks.
Iranians on Tuesday held a funeral in Tehran for two Iranian military air defense personnel who were killed by Israeli strikes earlier this week as the region remains on the brink of full-scale war. Iran’s PressTV identified the slain Iranian soldiers as Bahman Hosseini and Alireza Abiri and said that the funeral ceremony was held […]
While Hunter Biden is busy scrubbing his image on social media… Justin Bieber just dropped a nuke that changes everything. In a raw Instagram confession last night, Bieber revealed he’s been living with HIV — [...]
The European Union is calling for financial sanctions on the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Russian head of the world chess federation, a historian who is a close adviser to President Vladimir Putin, and other top officials.
Erika Frantzve-Kirk thought she could pull it off. Fresh widow, pockets stuffed with Turning Point USA millions, eyes locked on lawless Chicago like a hawk circling the playground. She was fixated on building a mega-orphanage. State-of-the-art, [...]
Footage released by the Israeli rights group B’Tselem shows the moment an Israeli soldier opened fire on a vehicle in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and killed a seven-month-old baby, Sam Abu Haikal. The killing occurred on Friday when Sam’s father, Fahd Abu Haikal, was driving home in the city of Hebron, when IDF soldiers appeared […]
Kash Patel’s tenure as FBI director has been a national embarrassment in a great many ways, but among the most jarring developments this year is the sheer volume of bureau personnel who have been purged for political reasons, leaving the agency destabilized.
MS NOW’s Ken Dilanian noted the ongoing purge “is without precedent in the modern history of the bureau. It raises questions about whether the Trump administration is trying to turn the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency into an instrument of presidential whim — exactly the thing he baselessly accused his opponent of doing.”
FBI Director Kash Patel fired a group of bureau intelligence analysts Friday over a rescinded 2023 memo about “radical traditionalist Catholic ideology” that has long been a focus of Republicans despite an investigation that found no anti-Catholic bias, three people familiar with the matter told MS NOW.
The analysts worked in the FBI’s Richmond office, where the memo originated, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to sensitive personnel issues. They said at least five analysts were included in the firings.
That these firings were tough to defend is notable in its own right — there’s little to suggest the FBI analysts did anything wrong — though I’m also struck by the degree to which they tie into a broader pattern.
One week earlier, Dilanian reported that Patel also fired a senior intelligence analyst, Deputy Assistant Director Emily Morales, who played a role in the FBI’s 2017 assessment of the motives of the gunman who attacked a House Republican baseball practice.
That came on the heels of Patel firing a dozen FBI agents and staff for their role in investigating Trump’s classified documents scandal. In the process, the bureau director gutted the global espionage unit, known as CI-12, shortly before the start of the war in Iran.
A month earlier, Paul Brown, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta field office, was also forced out, not because he’d done anything wrong, but because he questioned the value in re-investigating Georgia’s election results from six years earlier.
Around the same time, the FBI also purged the acting assistant director in charge of the New York field office, a former special agent in charge in New Orleans, as many as six agents in Miami, as well as agents who were pushed out for their involvement in the baseless “Arctic Frost” investigation in 2020.
A month before that, we learned about a lawsuit filed by 12 FBI agents who were fired for having taken a knee during racial justice protests in 2020 as part of an effort to de-escalate a situation that threatened to intensify.
Last August, Patel and his team ousted three experienced bureau leaders, including Brian Driscoll, a widely respected figure among rank-and-file agents who was removed after he helped prevent a mass firing of thousands of FBI officials who worked on Jan. 6 cases.
During his confirmation hearing early last year, Patel, a former podcast personality, assured senators that the bureau under his leadership “will not go backwards. There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken by any FBI should I be confirmed as FBI director.”
As things stand, that testimony appears increasingly ridiculous.
Work on cases related to the criminal investigations into Trump? Fired. Work on Jan. 6 cases? Fired. Refuse to needlessly humiliate a former director? Fired.
It reached the point last fall when the FBI Agents Association said Patel was not only imposing “chaos” on the bureau, but that he’d also “disregarded the law and launched a campaign of erratic and arbitrary retribution.”
The FBI Agents Association added at the time that the director’s antics had created conditions that make “the American public less safe.”
Months later, as the number of those caught up in Patel’s personnel purge continues to grow, it’s tough to feel any better about the state of federal law enforcement.
Since the Trump administration entered the White House last year, at least 500 babies and toddlers have spent some of that pivotal time in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
ICE has dramatically increased detentions of children aged 3 and under, holding 25 of them in custody on an average day between January 2025 and March of this year, according to a new analysis by The Marshall Project and MS NOW of records obtained by the Deportation Data Project, a group of academics and lawyers who collect and share federal immigration data. That number is 10 times higher than it was in the previous 12 months under former President Joe Biden. Back then, on an average day, fewer than three babies and toddlers were held at facilities across the country.
Babies and toddlers in ICE custody Jan. 20, 2024 through March 11, 2026
Parents in ICE detention have complained of substandard conditions that frequently left their young children sick, isolated and regressing in their physical and intellectual development.
ICE did not respond to a request for comment about the increase in detained young children. But in an emailed statement, an agency spokesperson said families with children receive appropriate food, water and medical care. In a separate statement, CoreCivic — the private company that operates the primary ICE facility used to detain families — echoed that its facilities were safe for infants and toddlers.
“Our immigration system is breaking children,” she said.
* * *
In March, Joani, her husband and their 2-year-old son, Kaleth, showed up to a check-in appointment with immigration officials in California. Since the family immigrated and sought asylum in 2024, they had never missed a required appointment with immigration officials, according to the family’s lawyer. Nevertheless, that day, ICE took them all into custody.
As the whole family cried, Kaleth’s father was handcuffed and driven away to an adult detention facility in California. Joani and her toddler were taken to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, the primary U.S. immigration facility that holds families with children.
Kaleth is seen in an undated handout photoCourtesy Kaleth’s family
At the family’s request, we are identifying Kaleth and Joani by their first names only.
Separated from his father, Kaleth was despondent in the Dilley facility, Joani said in an interview. He repeatedly scooted a tiny table over to a phone that was mounted on the wall, so he could climb up high enough to try to use it. Each time, Joani moved the table away so he wouldn’t fall. Even if he could have reached the phone, contacting his father in another detention center would have been impossible.
Kaleth stopped eating for 12 days. Joani said facility doctors attributed it to depression. When Joani tried to force him to eat, Kaleth vomited. He eventually stopped having bowel movements. Joani watched her son’s face grow gaunt, and his eyes sink into their sockets.
Lori Goodman, the CEO of LEAP, a nonprofit group that supports families with young children in California and has worked with Kaleth’s family, said children his age may express trauma physically since they have fewer verbal skills.
“He was so distressed that it manifested in his body in not being able to eat or digest.” Goodman said. “The longer a child is in that setting, the more the long-term damage.”
The most recent data available shows many very young children have spent prolonged periods of time in custody. Between Trump’s second inauguration and March of this year, ICE held at least 175 babies and toddlers for longer than a court-mandated time limit of 20 days. A federal judge interpreted 20 days to be the limit for detaining children in a 2015 opinion on the 1997 settlement in Flores v. Reno, which governs the treatment of children in immigration detention.
During the last year of the Biden administration, no children aged 3 or younger were held beyond the settlement’s 20-day limit. Biden had ended the practice of family detention in 2021, and the Dilley facility, which had mostly housed families, eventually closed. Trump restarted the practice and reopened Dilley shortly after retaking office.
In a May court filing submitted by ICE as required by the Flores settlement, the agency said it “works to assess cases and discharge minors from custody as promptly as possible.”
* * *
Alsu and Azat fled Russia last year, fearing that their opposition to the war in Ukraine would land them in prison and their 1-year-old, Amir, in an orphanage.
The family had braced themselves to spend a few weeks in immigration confinement upon arriving in the United States after crossing the southern border without visas, and presented themselves to authorities at a legal port of entry. But, as their incarceration stretched on, first in California and then at Dilley, they watched their once-lively son withdraw and begin hitting himself in the face.
“We came here to escape prison. We wanted to be free,” Azat said through a translator. “But once we arrived in America, we spent four months in detention.”
Dilley didn’t have many toys for toddlers, Amir’s parents said, and some desperate children resorted to playing with rocks. Even though Alsu and Azat knew it was important to read with him, they couldn’t find books in their native language of Russian. Amir’s speech development slowed. Eventually, he stopped saying anything other than two words: “mom” and “dad.”
Amir on September 17, 2025Courtesy Amir’s family
Griffin, the pediatrics professor, said it’s imperative for parents to talk to their children to help them develop vocabulary. But the fear and stress of incarceration can cause both parents and children to become quiet.
“They don’t want to talk, and no one’s talking to them, not in a normal way,” Griffin said. She noted that the experience can also damage the parent-child bond, as a child witnesses their parent’s loss of control.
Rahil Briggs, a psychologist at the early-childhood advocacy organization Zero to Three, said these types of developmental setbacks can have a domino effect.
“If we miss this foundational time in early childhood when we see all these wonderful things going on in brain development with memory and learning and executive functioning, then it’s just harder than ever to catch up,” Briggs said. “I can’t learn my ABCs because I’ve got to make sure that I’m safe in this scary situation. And because I haven’t learned my ABCs, now I’m not sure how to do this, and I’m not reading.”
Keeping Amir properly fed was another challenge.
According to Amir’s mother, Alsu, employees at Dilley forced her to wean him off formula, claiming he was too old. The solid food options, Alsu insisted, were not appropriate for a 1-year-old. She described being so desperate to get Amir to eat that she sucked a spicy pasta sauce off noodles so she could feed them to her son. She and Azat resorted to hiding cereal from the dining hall at breakfast in their socks and hoods for later, so their child wouldn’t go to sleep hungry.
“Every single day, I would break down, hysterical, because my child had gone without proper food,” Alsu said.
After they argued with staff members to get Amir better food, Azat alleges that employees in CoreCivic uniforms woke him up in the middle of the night, threatening to send the parents to separate immigrant confinement centers and Amir to foster care if they didn’t stop complaining.
“As a husband, as a father, I can see the sufferings of my child, I can see how much my wife suffers,” Azat said. “It was horrific for me, because I could do nothing to help them.”
* * *
Both Amir’s and Kaleth’s parents said their children suffered fevers and stomach problems during their incarceration at Dilley and that they struggled to get them adequate treatment. Many other parents have reported similar challenges accessing care inside facilities, including waiting for hours in line to get basic, over-the-counter medication.
Elora Mukherjee, a Columbia Law School professor who has represented more than 80 children and parents incarcerated at Dilley over the past year, said nearly all of her clients in recent months complained about poor medical care.
“Kids at this age also get sick more easily because their immune systems haven’t developed,” Mukherjee said. “Having such young children in a prison setting with hundreds of other kids and parents, it just makes them repeatedly, constantly sick. So they have fevers, they’re coughing, they’re vomiting, they have diarrhea. They are just miserable.”
Amalia and her parents were incarcerated at Dilley when the 1-year-old developed a fever and grew lethargic. Speaking through a translator, her parents said they returned to Dilley’s medical clinic again and again, but were only given Tylenol for her and warned not to complain. When Amalia’s mother, Kheilin Valero Marcano, went back to the clinic after her daughter lost consciousness, she recalled asking clinic employees, “How long are you going to leave her like this? Are you going to let her die?“
According to the family, Amalia eventually spent more than a week in an outside hospital, after her oxygen levels dropped to dangerously low levels. There, she was diagnosed with COVID-19, an ear infection, pneumonia, bronchitis and RSV, a common, but potentially serious, childhood illness that affects the lungs.
Amalia is seen in an undated handout photoCourtesy Amalia’s family
According to ICE’s standards, facilities should transfer sick people to an outside hospital if they cannot provide adequate care onsite.
Leecia Welch, a lawyer with Children’s Rights who has visited Dilley more than 10 times, said babies and toddlers, many too young to receive certain vaccinations, had some of the most troubling medical cases she’d seen, calling the situation “the most gut-wrenching.”
Welch recalled mothers in detention describing how stress and lack of nutritious food made breastfeeding difficult. Marcano said Amalia would cry throughout the night, because she’d tried to nurse and nothing would come out.
Other parents, whose babies drank formula, have stated in court documents that the facility did not provide enough bottled water to hydrate powdered formula, and purchasing additional water at the commissary was, for many, prohibitively expensive. Tap water at the facility, families said, smelled foul and made children sick.
Parents also described difficulties getting children to sleep. The lights in the Dilley facility were kept on all night, and toys that can help kids sleep were prohibited in living areas.
“They can’t go to sleep with a stuffed animal,” Welch said. “They can’t go to sleep with a security blanket, that’s just not allowed.”
***
Representatives for ICE and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, did not answer specific questions about the conditions experienced by Kaleth, Amir, or Amalia. In a past social media post, DHS disputed claims lodged by Amalia’s family and insisted she “immediately received proper medical care.”
Brian Todd, a CoreCivic spokesman, said in an email that the Dilley facility provides toddlers and babies necessary supplies, including formula, healthy food and clean drinking water.
An ICE spokesperson made similar claims in an emailed statement and noted that the agency “is working rapidly and overtime to remove these aliens from detention centers to their final destination — home.” In a May court filing, ICE representatives stated that people are provided with an eye mask when they arrive at Dilley and, following complaints, the facility switched to lower-intensity lighting, though they remain on all night for security purposes. Agency officials also stated that water quality is monitored, babies under 12 months of age receive bottled water to make formula, and children have access to outdoor play structures, toys, multilingual books, and age-appropriate meals and snacks.
A court filing from lawyers for detained children called ICE’s claims “fanciful.”
ICE released Kaleth and his mother in April, two weeks after their incarceration, and they were later reunited with Kaleth’s father. According to Mukherjee, Kaleth had not eaten solid food the entire time. In the car from the airport, he devoured four packets of applesauce.
Kaleth has since recovered remarkably, said Goodman, the LEAP CEO — a testament to the family’s resilience and the strength of their parental bonds. She’s seen how Kaleth’s mother looks into his eyes, and comforts him when he is distressed.
“That is so powerful at counteracting the abuse that our government is perpetrating,” Goodman said.
Amir and his parents were also released, under supervision, in January. The toddler, now 2 years old, is laughing and speaking more. He’s not getting sick as often, and has stopped hitting himself. His parents say he seems closer to the happy child he was before ICE imprisoned him.
Even so, it’s too early to tell what the long-term effects of child incarceration will be on the hundreds of babies and toddlers who have gone through ICE detention since Trump re-entered the White House.
“The long-term damage caused by prolonged toxic stress — by essentially abusing these children — we’re going to see those effects. They’re going to impact every child who was there for many, many years to come,” Goodman said. “It’s incalculable the amount of damage that is being done.”
Graphics by Anna Flagg. Translation by Marina Kopinec and Seeno Merobshoev. Emily Berk contributed production.This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a non-profit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook.
A man in his 40s was hospitalized with serious injuries after a brutal knife attack in Northern Ireland, as police arrested a Sudanese migrant on suspicion of attempted murder.
The attack happened shortly after 10:30 p.m. Monday in north Belfast, according to the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The victim suffered serious injuries to his face, neck, back and eyes, while police said they recovered what they believe was a kitchen knife at the scene.
Video circulating online appeared to show members of the public confronting the attacker, including one person wielding a hurling stick. PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson praised the bystanders as "heroic," saying their intervention helped save the victim’s life, according to the BBC.
Police initially said the suspect was Somali but later corrected that he is believed to be Sudanese, describing the change as part of a "fast-time investigation." Henderson said police understand the suspect came into Northern Ireland from Dublin, Ireland and had been granted leave to remain, though he said the Home Office would provide further clarity on his status.
On Monday evening, protesters burned down a bus as tensions rose in Belfast following the gruesome stabbing, despite earlier calls from authorities for calm.
"At this stage, we have no information to suggest that this was a terrorist-related incident," Henderson said, while stressing that the investigation remains in its early stages. "However, I must stress, we are still at the early stages of our investigation," he said, according to The Sun.
Alan Mendoza, executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital that the attack exposed what he described as failures in Britain’s immigration system.
"Britain’s broken border and migration system has been put into stark relief once more with this tragic — and entirely avoidable — case," Mendoza said. "This man should never ever have been in the U.K., let alone been granted ‘leave to remain.’ The Irish border is the soft underbelly for a process the British public has long since lost confidence in, as well as in those administering it politically. Nothing short of a revolution in who we allow into the U.K. and how will satisfy a people fed up with false promises about immigration change."
The swift response from Prime Minister Keir Starmer marked a notable contrast with the case of Henry Nowak, an 18-year-old who was stabbed and then handcuffed by police after his attacker accused him of making racist remarks. Starmer faced criticism from some conservatives over his response to that case.
Starmer quickly posted on X that the attack was "sickening," adding: "I have absolutely no tolerance for abhorrent scenes of violence like this on our streets." He said his thoughts were with the victim and thanked first responders, including members of the public who intervened.
The attack prompted political reaction across the U.K. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage called on authorities to reveal the suspect’s identity and immigration status.
"What happened in Belfast last night is horrific. The authorities must reveal the identity and status of the attacker immediately. The public are entitled to the truth," Farage wrote on X.
Robert Jenrick also wrote on X: "We’ve woken up to truly barbaric footage on a street in Belfast. Of a kind you’d think you’d never see in this country. For years now I’ve urged the police to spell out the basic, sober facts, as they have them, when there are horrors like this."
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said people would ask whether there had been "failings around our borders," according to GB News.
Northern Ireland’s main political parties issued a joint statement condemning the violence and urging the public not to share graphic footage of the attack.
"There is no place in our society for this kind of brutality. Our immediate thoughts are with the victim and his family, and we hope he makes a full and complete recovery," the parties said, according to GB News.
Police said they had declared a critical incident and would increase their presence across Northern Ireland amid calls for protests. Officials urged calm and asked the public to allow the investigation to proceed.
Even after the president returned to the Oval Office, those efforts continued with Trump-branded guitars and Trump phones, among other things.
In light of just how much the president, his family and his controversial businesses have profited during his second term, it’s tempting to think there would be no need to pursue yet another merchandising opportunity. After all, as The Atlantic’s David Frum recently explained, Trump has taken self-enrichment “to a scale never seen before in America.”
That assumption, however, would be wrong.
MS NOW’s Jake Traylor and Soorin Kim reported Tuesday that there are Trump-branded “medallions” on sale, tied to this weekend’s UFC event on the White House’s South Lawn.
The souvenir gold and silver coins range in price from $249.99 to $11,999.99. That’s not a typo: A website called RealTrumpCoins.com is actually selling UFC Freedom 250 “medallions” that people can purchase for just under $12,000. (The website boasts that the coins were “designed” by the president himself.)
Donald Trump is selling UFC-branded coins for $12,000 to promote the UFC fight on the White House lawn
The reporting from MS NOW’s Traylor and Kim added that some of the profits are expected to go to the president’s licensing company, DTTM Operations LLC. And while the White House has said the president isn’t personally controlling his family business while he’s in office, his son Donald Trump Jr. is.
To be sure, the scheduled UFC bout, set to coincide with the president’s 80th birthday, was already controversial, and not just because of the bizarre structure that continues to take shape at the White House. There have also been related questions about Trump’s stock purchase in UFC’s parent company before the upcoming match on the South Lawn.
As for tickets to the upcoming event, NBC News recently reported that the tickets are technically free and that the UFC is footing the bill for the event. That said, sponsorship packages, including ringside seats, have been selling for $1 million or more, and no one seems to know where the sponsorship money is going.
The $12,000 gold coins, however, take this mess to a new and unsettling level.
This week, a new lawsuit was filed alleging corruption in connection with the upcoming UFC event, with the hopes of derailing the plans for the gathering, and a judge is expecting a response by Tuesday. Watch this space.
Israeli media reported on Tuesday that Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir suggested at a security cabinet meeting that the Israeli military should kidnap women and children in Lebanon as a way to put pressure on Hezbollah. “Let’s start thinking outside the box about Hezbollah,” Ben Gvir said, according to The Jerusalem Post. “Also, […]
May was the deadliest month for civilians in Ukraine since April 2022, according to the United Nations, which presented updated casualty data to the UN Security Council during an emergency meeting requested by Kyiv, Suspilne reported.
Latvian UN envoy Sanita Pavļuta-Deslandes said preliminary figures show a sharp rise in civilian harm, warning that the final statistics for May are expected to be even higher.
She said attacks during the month included strikes on civilian gatherings, including a funeral in Sumy, which she cited as an example of Russia targeting “so-called legitimate objectives,” according to Suspilne.
She also noted that in the first quarter of 2026 alone, 190 attacks were recorded on medical facilities, including maternity hospitals, while more than 200 educational institutions were damaged or destroyed. The number of injured children increased by 49%, according to UN data cited at the session.
The Security Council meeting came on June 8 following a wave of Russian strikes across Ukraine.
Ukraine accuses Russia of systematic deception at UN
Ukraine’s permanent representative to the UN, Andrii Melnyk, used the session to sharply criticize Russia’s role at the United Nations, arguing that Moscow continues to deny responsibility while undermining international reporting on the war.
“Russia spits in our faces with lies, and we pretend it is just rain,” Melnyk said during the meeting, according to Suspilne.
He suggested that Russia should consider leaving the UN if it rejects its own obligations under international law and dismisses UN investigative findings.
Melnyk also called for Russia to be excluded from UN peacekeeping operations, pointing to its inclusion in UN listings related to sexual violence in conflict and repeated findings on violations involving children and armed conflict.
He urged member states to take action on these findings, saying Russia’s participation in UN structures undermines the credibility of the system itself.
The meeting highlighted growing tensions inside the Security Council as Russia continues to face accusations of escalating strikes on civilian infrastructure while maintaining its role as a permanent member of the body.
For the first time since they invaded Lebanon in March, the Israeli military issued an explicit evacuation warning for the Christian quarter of the ancient city of Tyre, claiming there were Hezbollah secretly hiding amongst the Christians. What followed was an attempt by the remaining Christian population to flee northward, an effort that would’ve been […]
The Islamic Republic of Iran has accelerated its executions of dissidents and activists, with the true number of victims likely obscured by the regime’s internet censorship and blackout.
The Iran Human Rights Society has documented 784 executions so far in 2026. A representative from the organization told Fox News Digital that "these figures indicate a rapidly accelerating trend in executions since March," and explained that "in particular, the execution of political prisoners has reached a level not seen in the past 37 years."
A State Department official told Fox News Digital that "we are aware of disturbing reports about the recent surge in executions in Iran." The official noted that "we strongly condemn the Iranian regime’s use of executions to punish people for exercising basic human rights, including Iranians peacefully protesting for a better life."
The official said that "for decades, Iranians have been subjected to torture and sham trials resulting in executions and severe punishments, often with coerced confessions as the only evidence presented against them."
According to information provided to Fox News Digital by the Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) on June 4, the Islamic Republic of Iran executed at least 18 prisoners between May 31 and June 1. These included 12 prisoners hanged on May 31, and an additional six prisoners executed on June 1, one of whom was said to be "hanged in public with utmost brutality."
The NCRI has counted a total of 32 executions between March 19 and June 1. These included eight members of Iranian dissident organization People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOE/MEK) and 24 participants in Iran’s January 2026 protests.
In documents provided to Fox News Digital, the NCRI said on June 7 that there was "an imminent risk of execution" for five political prisoners in the Sheiban Prison in Ahvaz, four of whom were sentenced to death because they were charged with being members of PMOI/MEK.
Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the NCRI, posted on X a call for "urgent action" from the U.N. "to prevent the execution."
Days earlier on June 2, following two other executions against January protesters, Rajavi said on X that the "clerical regime has committed another horrific crime in Iran." She called on the U.N. Security Council and European Union "to decisively condemn these criminal executions and take effective action to stop the killing of political prisoners and protesters in Iran."
The Iran Human Rights Society echoed NCRI’s account of 18 recent executions between May 31 and June 1. Their representative explained that despite the internet blackout, they receive reports from "a network of prison sources, prisoners' families, lawyers, and local contacts" and explained that "all reports are reviewed and cross-checked through multiple independent sources before publication." Though they say "internet restrictions make documentation more difficult," they stated they "continue to receive, verify, and document information."
Alp Toker, the director of NetBlocks, a global internet monitor, told Fox News Digital that "internet connectivity in Iran is largely restored but the service that is available remains limited compared to the state of things before the protests and the war this year. For most users, in practice, that means international access is slow with indications of throttling and there's also increased filtering, particularly targeting messaging apps.
"It's been in this limbo state since the restoration with no significant change for better or worse," he said.
However, the Iran Human Rights Society representative noted that the actual number of executions is "almost certainly" higher than the figure they have captured. "The ruling authorities in Iran frequently carry out executions in secret and do not publicly announce many of them," the representative explained. Additionally, the representative added that "a significant number of executions, particularly in remote areas or locations with limited access to information, may remain undocumented or reach us only after a considerable delay."
The representative also noted that the quantity of executions the Iran Human Rights Society documents "has consistently been lower than the actual number carried out."
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Dr. Mai Sato, did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the increased executions in Iran.
On June 20th, up to 100,000 Iranian expats from both sides of the Atlantic are expected to hold a major rally in Paris to urge an end to the executions. More than 100 lawmakers, officials, former heads of state and ministers are also expected to join, according to the NCRI.
Hollywood director Steven Spielberg has ignited outrage after claiming his upcoming UFO blockbuster Disclosure Day could fundamentally alter how Christians view God and religion itself. During a recent interview promoting the film, Spielberg openly questioned [...]
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