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A leaked Defense Intelligence Agency report is casting doubt on President Donald Trump’s claim that recent U.S. airstrikes ‘completely and totally obliterated’ three Iranian nuclear facilities, instead concluding the mission only set back Iran’s program by several months.

The report, published by CNN and The New York Times, comes just days after Trump approved the strikes amid escalating tensions between Israel and Iran. In a national address immediately following the operation, Trump declared the sites ‘completely and totally obliterated.’ 

While members of the Trump administration have waged a new war to discredit the initial report from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, multiple experts told Fox News Digital that there is too little information available right now to accurately determine how much damage the strikes did. 

Piecing together a thorough intelligence assessment is complex and time-consuming, they said. 

Dan Shapiro, who previously served as the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for the Middle East and the U.S. ambassador to Israel, said he didn’t put a lot of stock in both overly pessimistic or overly optimistic assessments that emerged quickly, and said that the initial assessment from DIA was likely only based on satellite imagery. 

‘That’s one piece of the puzzle of how you would really make this assessment,’ Shapiro, now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told Fox News Digital. ‘You’d really want to have to test all the other streams of intelligence, from signals intelligence, human intelligence, other forms of monitoring the site, potentially visits by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, potentially visits by other people. So that’s going to take days to weeks to get a real assessment.’ 

‘But I think it’s likely that if the munitions performed as expected, that significant damage was done, and would set back the program significantly,’ Shapiro said. 

Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday that initial battle damage assessments suggested ‘all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction,’ but he acknowledged that a final assessment would ‘take some time.’ 

Still, media reports based on the DIA report painted a different picture, and CNN’s reporting on the initial report said that Iran’s stash of enriched uranium was not destroyed in the strikes, citing seven people who had been briefed on the report. The findings were based on a battle damage assessment from U.S. Central Command, according to CNN. 

Other members of the Trump administration, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, have subsequently pushed back on the DIA report’s conclusions, claiming that the report was labeled ‘low confidence.’ 

The term is commonly used when labeling initial assessments, and means that conclusions are based on limited data, according to experts. 

Retired Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, who previously served as the director for transnational threats at the National Security Council for former President Bill Clinton, said the low confidence description is commonly used in early assessments. 

‘Low confidence means the analyst is not sure of the accuracy of their assessment,’ said Montgomery, now a senior fellow at the Washington think tank the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. ‘This is frequent when with a Quick Look 24-hour assessment like this one.’

Montgomery’s colleague, Craig Singleton, also a senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that the low confidence label is used in cases with thin evidence and serves as a warning to policy-makers to seek additional information. 

‘Most importantly, low confidence assessments are usually issued when key facts have yet to be verified, which certainly applies in this case,’ Singleton said.

Rob Greenway, former deputy assistant to the president on Trump’s National Security Council, told Fox News Digital that it will take one or two months to get a more thorough assessment with higher confidence. 

Greenway also said that the strikes were designed to create damage underground, which will complicate the assessment of damage, because it is not immediately available and will require multiple sources of intelligence, such as signals or human intelligence, to draw conclusions. 

Israel had also previously conducted strikes targeting the sites, adding to the web of analysis that must be evaluated, Greenway said. 

‘Each of these are one piece of a much larger puzzle, and you’re trying to gauge the ultimate effect of the entirety of the puzzle, not just one particular strike,’ said Greenway, now the director of the Allison Center for National Security at The Heritage Foundation. ‘All of that means it’s going to take time in order to do it.’ 

Even so, Greenway said that the amount of ordnance dropped on the sites – including more than 14 30,000-lb. bombs – means that the targeted facilities have been so heavily compromised they are no longer serviceable. 

‘We were putting twice the amount of ordnance required to achieve the desired effect, just to make sure that we didn’t have to go back,’ Greenway said. 

‘There’s virtually no mathematical probability in which either facility can be used again by Iran for the intended purpose, if at all, which again means that everything now is within Israel’s capability to strike if that’s required,’ Greenway said. 

And Michael Allen, a former National Security Council senior director in the George W. Bush administration, said that even though a final judgment from the intelligence community won’t be ready soon, the intelligence portrait will become ‘richer’ in the coming days. 

‘Stuff is pouring in, and we’re out there collecting it, and they’re trying to hustle it to the White House as soon as possible,’ Allen, now the managing director of advisory firm Beacon Global Strategies, told Fox News Digital. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that very few people had access to this report, and those who leaked it to the media will be held accountable as the FBI investigates who shared the document with the press. 

‘That person was irresponsible with it,’ Leavitt told reporters Thursday. ‘And we need to get to the bottom of it. And we need to strengthen that process to protect our national security and protect the American public.’

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The top Democrat in the Senate plans to inflict maximum pain on Senate Republicans in their march to pass President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ before lawmakers even get a chance to debate the legislative behemoth.

Indeed, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he’ll force clerks on the Senate floor to read the entirety of the GOP’s 940-page megabill. His move to drain as much time as possible came after Republicans vote on a key procedural test to open debate on the legislation.

‘I will object to Republicans moving forward on their Big, Ugly Bill without reading it on the Senate floor,’ Schumer said on X. ‘Republicans won’t tell America what’s in the bill

‘So Democrats are forcing it to be read start to finish on the floor,’ he said. ‘We will be here all night if that’s what it takes to read it.’

Indeed, staffers were seen carting the bill onto the Senate floor in preparation for the all-night read-a-thon.

Schumer’s move is expected to take up to 15 hours and is designed to allow Senate Democrats more time to parse through the myriad provisions within the massive legislative text. Ultimately, it will prove a smokescreen as Senate Republicans will continue to march toward a final vote.

Once the bill reading is done, 20 hours of debate evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans will begin, likely early Sunday morning. Democrats are expected to use their entire 10-hour chunk, while Republicans will go far under their allotted time.

Then comes the ‘vote-a-rama’ process, where lawmakers can offer an unlimited number of amendments to the bill.

Democrats will again look to extract as much pain as possible during that process, while Republicans, particularly senators that have lingering issues with key Medicaid and land sale provisions, will continue to try and shape and mold the bill.

The last time clerks were forced to read the entirety of a bill during the budget reconciliation process was in 2021, when Senate Democrats held the majority in the upper chamber.

At the time, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., demanded that the entire, over-600-page American Rescue Act be read aloud. Schumer, who was the Senate Majority Leader attempting to ram then-President Joe Biden’s agenda through the upper chamber, objected to the reading. 

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It was a week of downward momentum for the gold price.

The yellow metal neared the US$3,400 per ounce level on Monday (June 23) as investors reacted to the weekend’s escalation in tensions in the Middle East, but sank to just above US$3,300 the next day.

The decline came as US President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Iran had agreed to a ceasefire. While the ceasefire has not gone entirely smoothly, with Trump expressing displeasure about violations, the news appeared to calm investors.

Gold’s safe-haven appeal took another hit toward the end of the week, when Trump said late on Thursday (June 26) that the US had signed a trade deal with China. Although details remain scarce — China’s commerce ministry confirmed the arrangement, but said little else — the gold price dropped on the news, closing Friday (June 27) at about US$3,274.

It was a different story for other precious metals this week.

Silver enjoyed an uptick, rising as high as US$36.79 per ounce before pulling back to the US$36 level. Whether it can continue breaking higher remains to be seen, but many experts are optimistic.

In fact, Randy Smallwood of Wheaton Precious Metals (TSX:WPM,NYSE:WPM) said that right now he’s perhaps more excited about silver than he is about gold. Here’s how he explained it:

There’s not a lot of new production coming on stream, just because most silver comes as a by-product from lead, zinc and copper mines — more than half of silver. And we’re just not seeing the investment into the base metals space that we need to sustain that production and grow that production.

As excited as I am about gold, I think silver’s got a few more fundamentals behind it that make it a pretty exciting time to be watching silver … silver’s got some catching up to do with respect to what gold’s done over the last few years.’

Watch the full interview with Smallwood for more on silver, as well as gold and platinum.

Speaking of platinum, it was also on the move this week, rising above US$1,400 per ounce.

The move has turned heads — despite a persistent supply deficit, platinum has spent years trading in a fairly tight range, and it hasn’t crossed US$1,400 since 2014.

Recent trends supporting platinum’s move include a shift toward platinum jewelry due to the high cost of gold, as well as larger platinum imports to the US earlier this year when tariff uncertainty was heating up. At the same time, miners have faced challenges.

‘This has led to tight forward market conditions,’ said Jonathan Butler of Mitsubishi (TSE:8058), ‘with a deep backwardation across the curve.’ In his view, these conditions will continue providing support for the precious metal in the coming weeks.

Bullet briefing — Gold repatriation, Rule Symposium

Germany, Italy to repatriate gold?

Germany and Italy are facing calls to bring home gold stored in the US.

According to the Financial Times, politicians and economists in the two countries are pushing for repatriation as a result of global geopolitical uncertainty, as well as concerns about Trump’s potential influence on the Federal Reserve as he continues to criticize Chair Jerome Powell.

‘We are very concerned about Trump tampering with the Federal Reserve Bank’s independence. Our recommendation is to bring the (German and Italian) gold home to ensure European central banks have unlimited control over it at any given point in time’ — Michael Jäger, Taxpayers Association of Europe

The news outlet calculates that German and Italian gold held in the US has a total value of about US$245 billion. Market participants agree that it would be a blow to relations with America if the countries were to bring their gold home at this time.

At least for now they seem unlikely to do so — although Italy’s central bank hasn’t commented, Germany’s Bundesbank said it sees the New York Fed as ‘trustworthy and reliable.’

Send your questions for the Rule Symposium

The Rule Symposium runs in Boca Raton, Florida, from July 7 to 11, and I’ll be heading there to interview Rick Rule, as well as Adrian Day, Lobo Tiggre, Andy Schectman, Dr. Nomi Prins and more.

Securities Disclosure: I, Charlotte McLeod, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

This post appeared first on investingnews.com

Russia has amassed 110,000 troops in the vicinity of Pokrovsk as part of its efforts to take over the strategic eastern Ukrainian city, the Ukrainian military chief said Friday.

Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Friday that the area around Pokrovsk was the “hottest spot”along the 1,200-kilometre (745 miles) front line which runs across the east.

Russian forces have been trying to capture Pokrovsk for almost a year, staging one grinding offensive after another. But despite having a clear advantage in terms of the number of troops and weapons available, Moscow has failed to take over the city.

Pokrovsk is a strategic target for Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear that his goal is to seize all of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk his forces partially occupy.

Kyiv and its allies accuse Russia’s President Vladimir Putin of stalling on peace efforts so that his forces can seize more Ukrainian territory.

Although not a major city, Pokrovsk sits on a key supply road and railroad that connect it with other military hubs in the area. Together with Kostiantynivka, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, it forms the backbone of Ukrainian defenses in the part of Donetsk region that are still under Kyiv’s control.

Some 60,000 lived in Pokrovsk before the war, but the majority have left in the three years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Ukraine’s last operating coking coal mine was in Pokrovsk and many of its employees were staying in the area to keep it going. Once it was forced to shut down early this year, they too began to leave.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US-based conflict monitor, said late last year that Ukrainian defensive operations in Pokrovsk have forced Russia to abandon its original plan to take over Pokrovsk in a frontal assault.

The ISW said this was because Ukrainian troops began using drones as integral part of their defensive strategy, successfully integrating drone operators with their ground forces.

At the same time, Russia was unable to increase the number of troops in the area by much, because it was trying to contain the surprise incursion of Ukrainian troops into its own territory in the southern Kursk region.

Syrskyi told reporters last week that at one point, the Kursk operation pulled back nearly 63,000 Russian troops and some 7,000 North Korean troops.

“This allowed us to weaken the enemy’s pressure on the main fronts and regroup our troops. And the enemy’s capture of Pokrovsk, announced back in September 2024, has not yet taken place, thanks in part to our Kursk operation,” he said.

Instead of continuing to attacking the city directly, Russian troops then began encircling the city from south and northeast.

The ISW said in its most recent assessment on Friday that Russian forces were continuing assaults with small fireteams of one to two soldiers, sometimes on motorcycles, in all-terrain vehicles and buggies.

In a statement issued on Friday, Syrksky said Russia continued to try to break through to the administrative border of the Donetsk region.

“They want to do this not only to achieve some operational results, but primarily for demonstrative purposes. To achieve a psychological effect: to put the infamous ‘foot of the Russian soldier’ there, plant a flag and trumpet another pseudo-‘victory’,” he said.

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The Israeli military has denied a new report that soldiers were ordered to fire at unarmed Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid in Gaza, after hundreds of people were reported killed while approaching food distribution sites in recent weeks.

On Friday, the daily Haaretz newspaper published an article alleging that Israeli soldiers in Gaza were instructed by their commanders to shoot at the crowds of Palestinians approaching aid sites, even as it was evident that the crowds posed no threat.

One soldier who spoke anonymously with Haaretz described the approach routes to the aid sites as a “killing field” where Israeli forces open fire even if there is no immediate threat. According to the article, Israeli forces recently began dispersing crowds with artillery shells, which resulted in a sharp rise in casualties.

“We strongly reject the accusation raised in the article — the IDF did not instruct the forces to deliberately shoot at civilians, including those approaching the distribution centers,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in response to the article. “To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz have also rejected the report as “vicious lies designed to discredit the IDF – the most moral army in the world.”

More than 500 Palestinians have been killed as they approached aid sites or trucks carrying aid since May 27, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Palestinians have come under fire on a near daily basis as they approach the sites, health officials and emergency responders have said.

On multiple occasions, the IDF has acknowledged firing what it called “warning shots” at Palestinians approaching military positions near aid distribution sites. It has also said that it is examining reports of casualties, but it has not publicly released any findings to date.

According to Haaretz, the Military Advocate General has instructed the IDF General Staff’s Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism – which reviews incidents involving the potential violations of the laws of war – to investigate suspected war crimes near the aid sites.

“Any allegation of a deviation from the law or IDF directives will be thoroughly examined, and further action will be taken as necessary,” the IDF said on Friday.

Shots fired at controversial aid sites

The Gaza aid sites where the deaths have occurred are run by the controversial Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which hands out pre-packaged boxes of food at a handful of locations in southern and central Gaza. The group’s distribution was chaotic from the start one month ago, with crowds of desperate Palestinians rushing the sites the moment they open to take the available aid before it runs out, often within less than an hour.

GHF was set up to replace the United Nations aid distribution mechanism, which Israel and the US have accused Hamas of looting. Hamas has rejected those claims, and humanitarian groups say most of the UN-distributed food aid reaches civilians.

GHF coordinates with the Israeli military to designate specific routes for Palestinians traveling to their aid sites and has come under sharp criticism from aid experts. It has acknowledged some episodes of violence occurring outside of its immediate aid sites, but repeatedly described food distribution operations as having “proceeded without incident.”

In response to the Haaretz reporting, the organization said it was “not aware” of the specific incidents described. Nevertheless, it added, “these allegations are too grave to ignore and we therefore call on Israel to investigate them and transparently publish the results in a timely manner.”

On Thursday, the US State Department announced that it is awarding $30 million to the organization, a sign of continued US support for GHF, which says it distributed 46 million meals in four weeks of operations.

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Ecuadorian forces have revealed how they captured the country’s most-wanted man, drug lord Adolfo “Fito” Macías, more than a year after his brazen prison escape prompted the president to declare an internal armed conflict to crack down on the country’s most violent gangs.

After an almost 18-month manhunt for the leader of the criminal group Los Choneros, the Ecuadorian Security Bloc made a breakthrough on June 25. They obtained intelligence that alerted them to a luxurious home in the province of Manabí, the gang’s longtime stronghold for drug operations.

Authorities immediately traveled to the area and launched a 10-hour operation to try to find and capture the notorious gangster. To prevent the raid from being thwarted, the military and police shut down access within a 15-block radius so no one could enter or leave the site.

Special teams from the armed forces eventually entered the property to gather more information and take control of the house.

It was a fully equipped villa, featuring a pool, a gym, appliances, a game room, marble-like walls, and features that indicated the property was still under construction.

In one area of the house, there was a perfectly camouflaged hole in the floor, containing a bunker with hidden access and air conditioning.

“Police and armed forces on the scene began conducting a search with instruments to see where alias ‘Fito’ was hiding,” Ecuador’s Interior Minister John Reimberg said.

A surveillance flight had identified an irregular crop field behind the house, so authorities requested the use of excavators to locate the drug lord.

“They started to excavate. As soon as this happened, Fito panicked because if we continued, the roof of his bunker would collapse. At that moment, he opened the hatch, where the military was already located, and climbed out of the hole where he was hiding. That’s how we detained him,” Reimberg said.

Soldiers pinned Macías to the ground, pointed weapons at him and ordered him to say his full name out loud.

“Adolfo Macías Villamar,” he said while lying on the floor with his hands behind his back, footage from the army showed.

After the operation, authorities arrested Macías, along with four other men identified as part of his security detail.

Macías was immediately transferred to the Manta Air Base and then to the Guayaquil Air Base. From there, he was taken to the maximum-security La Roca prison, located in the Guayaquil prison complex, behind La Regional prison, from where he escaped in January 2024.

A photo later released by the interior ministry showed the drug lord locked inside his cell.

President Daniel Noboa said Ecuador is working to extradite him to the United States – where he faces drugs and weapons charges – and is awaiting a response from American officials.

Macías is one of Ecuador’s most notorious gangsters and is the only founding member of Los Choneros believed to still be alive. In 2011 he was sentenced “for a string of crimes, including homicides and narcotics trafficking,” according to think tank Insight Crime, but sprung out of jail in February 2013 before being recaptured months later.

Little is known about his life prior to crime, but he gained a reputation for being the gang’s money laundering expert while incarcerated for over a decade.

Before he fled prison in 2024, the government was planning on moving Macías to a higher-security facility. Noboa’s press secretary told a local channel that the news had likely reached Macías and prompted him to make his escape.

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Min Young-jae has not seen or heard anything about her eldest brother for 75 years. He was 19 and she was only 2 when, during the early days of the Korean War, he was kidnapped to the North.

Their peaceful days were shattered on June 25, 1950, when North Korea invaded the South. The three-year war would kill more than 847,000 troops and about 522,000 civilians from both sides, and tear apart more than 100,000 families, including Min’s.

After the war, the family kept the rusting doors of their tile-roofed house open, in hopes that their eldest would one day return. But over time, barbed wire has been installed between the two Koreas, and a modern apartment complex has replaced the house.

Though 75 years have passed without a single word about or from the brother, Min and her siblings remain hopeful that they will hear about him some day. Or, if not him, then his children or grandchildren.

A happy family

The family lived in Dangnim village, nestled between green mountains on the western side of Chuncheon city, nearly 100 kilometers northeast of Seoul. It was a village of chirping birds, streaming water and chugging tractors.

It was also dangerously close to the 38th parallel, which divided the peninsula after World War II.

Min Young-jae, the youngest of seven, does not remember fighting with any of her siblings growing up; only sharing tofu that her parents made, splashing in the stream and being carried around on her eldest brother’s shoulders.

Handsome, kind and smart, Min Young-sun was studying at the Chuncheon National University of Education, following in the footsteps of his father, the principal of Dangnim Elementary School.

“His nickname was ‘Math Whiz.’ He excelled in math, even his classmates called him Math Whiz,” Min Jeong-ja, the fifth child of the family, said.

Some days, students followed him all the way home, as he commuted via train and boat, asking him to teach math, the sisters recalled.

The sisters remember Min Young-sun as a caring brother. They caught fish and splashed in the nearby stream, now widely covered with reeds and weeds and almost out of water.

“We grew up in real happiness,” Min Jeong-ja said.

Torn apart

Living near the frontier between the newly separated Koreas – backed by the rival ideological forces of communism or capitalism – Min’s family was among the first to experience the horrors of the Korean War.

When Kim Il Sung’s North Korean troops invaded, Min Jeong-ja remembers seeing her grandmother running in tears, with a cow in tow, screaming: “We’re in a war!”

“We all spread out and hid in the mountains, because we were scared. One day, we hid the 4-year-old, Young-jae, in the bushes and forgot to bring her back because we had so many siblings. When we returned that night, she was still there, not even crying,” Min Jeong-ja said.

While the family was running in and out of the mountains, taking shelter from the troops coming from the North, Min Young-sun was kidnapped, taken to the North by his teacher.

“The teacher gathered smart students and hauled them (away). He took several students, tens of them. Took them to the North,” Min Jeong-ja said.

It is unknown why the teacher would have kidnapped the students to North Korea, but the South Korean government assumes that Pyongyang had abducted South Koreans to supplement its military.

“People called the teacher a commie,” Min Jeong-ja said.

That heartache was soon followed by another: the death of the second-eldest brother. He died of shock and pain, in deep sorrow from the kidnap of his brother, according to the sisters.

“The grief was huge. Our parents lost two sons… imagine how heartbreaking that would be,” Min Jeong-ja said.

For their father, the pain of losing two sons was overwhelming. He developed a panic disorder, she said, and would struggle to work for the rest of his life.

“He couldn’t go outside; he stayed home all the time. And because he was hugely shocked, he struggled going through day-to-day life. So, our mom went out (to work) and suffered a lot,” Min Young-jae said.

The mother jumped into earning a living for the remaining five children and her husband. Still, every morning she prayed for Min Young-sun, filling a bowl with pure water as part of a Korean folk ritual and leaving the first scoop of the family’s rice serving that day in a bowl for a son whom she believed would return one day.

“She couldn’t move house; in case the brother cannot find his way back home. She wouldn’t let us change anything of the house, not even the doors. That’s how she waited for him… We waited for so long, and time just passed,” Min Jeong-ja said.

The pain continues

Min Jeong-ja was 8 years old when the war started, but witnessed brutality that would overwhelm many adults.

“So many kids died. When I went out to the river to wash clothes, I occasionally saw bodies of children floating,” she recalled.

She remembers witnessing North Korean soldiers lining up people in a barley field, and shooting at them with submachine guns. “Then one by one, they fell on the barley field.”

“I saw too much. At one point – I didn’t even know if the soldier was a South Korean or North Korean – but I saw beheaded remains.”

The Min family is one of many torn apart by the war. More than 134,000 people are still waiting to hear from their loved ones believed to be in North Korea, which is now one of the world’s most reclusive states, with travel between the two countries nigh-on impossible.

Years after the Korean War, the two Koreas discussed organizing reunions for the separated families that have been identified from both sides through the Red Cross and both governments.

The first reunion happened in 1985, more than 30 years after the ceasefire agreement was signed, and the annual reunions kicked off in 2000, when many first-hand war victims were still alive, but occasionally halted when tensions escalated on the peninsula.

Once the two governments agree on a reunion date, one of the two Koreas selects families, prioritizing the elderly and immediate relatives, then shares the list with the other, which would cross check the family on its side to confirm the list of around 100 members.

The selected families would meet at an office specifically built for reunions at the Mount Kumgang resort in North Korea.

The Min siblings applied to the Red Cross at least five times and listed themselves under the South Korean government as a separated family. But there was never any word on their brother’s whereabouts from the other side.

As 75 years passed, the siblings grew up, got married, and formed their own families – but questions about their stolen brother linger.

Even worse, the annual reunions of separated families have been halted since 2018, following failed summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, while first-hand victims of the war age and pass away.

The Kumgang resort was dismantled by the North in 2022, also amid strained tensions.

But the siblings, following their parents’ wishes, still hope to connect with Min Young-sun, who would now be 94 years old.

“It’s been a long time since we were separated, but I would be so grateful if you’re alive. And if you’re not, I still would love to meet your children. I want to share the love of family, remembering the happy days of the past… I love you, thank you.”

She and the siblings remember the kidnapped brother by singing his favorite song, “Thinking of My Brother,” a children’s song about a brother that never returned.

“My brother, you said you would come back from Seoul with silk shoes,” Min Young-jae sang, while her sister wiped away tears.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

The Israeli military detained six settlers in the occupied West Bank overnight after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) say the suspects attacked security forces.

The IDF says they spotted Israeli civilians driving toward a closed military zone near the Palestinian village of Kafr Malik, where days earlier settlers set fire to homes and vehicles in an attack Palestinian officials say killed three people.

When Israeli forces approached the group, the IDF says the soldiers were physically assaulted and verbally abused. In addition, the suspects vandalized and damaged the security forces’ vehicles and attempted to ram the forces.

Six suspects were apprehended and transferred to police, the IDF said.

“The IDF and Israel Police condemn any act of violence against security forces and will act firmly against any attempt to harm security personnel carrying out their duty to protect Israeli citizens,” the IDF said in a statement.

Israeli politicians condemned the settler attacks against Israeli security forces.

Head of the opposition Yair Lapid said in a statement on social media, “The extremists who attack IDF soldiers who are guarding the security of the State of Israel during these difficult days are dangerous criminals who are aiding our enemies.”

Yair Golan, the head of the left-wing Democrats party, who had called earlier settler attacks in the area a “violent Jewish pogrom,” said the violence from “the Kahanist, nationalist, and fantastic Israel is deliberately working to dismantle the Jewish and democratic Israel.” Golan referenced Meir Kahane, an extremist rabbi whose political party was banned outright in Israel under anti-terror laws.

“This is not a marginal occurrence. This is a dangerous current that has taken deep roots. Even around the government table,” Golan said, a reference to the far-right ministers that prop up the coalition government, including Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, both of whom were sanctioned earlier this month by the UK, Canada, and other Western allies. Smotrich has called for formal annexation of West Bank settlements, while Ben-Gvir’s party consists of followers of Kahane’s banned political party.

In a statement, Defense Minister Israel Katz called on law enforcement authorities to act immediately to locate all those who resorted to violence and bring them to justice “as is done everywhere.”

On Friday, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for the Palestinian Authority presidency, said the settler attacks are part of a plan by Israel’s “extremist right-wing government” to drag the West Bank into a larger confrontation, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA. Abu Rudeineh held Israel fully responsible for “the consequences of this bloody aggression,” WAFA said.

Israel has been ramping up military operations in the West Bank alongside the offensive in Gaza and attacks on Iran and its proxies, displacing thousands of Palestinians and razing entire communities as it targets what it says are militants operating in the territory.

Earlier this week, Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian teenager in the West Bank, Palestinian health authorities said. The Israeli military said that “terrorists hurled explosive devices at IDF forces.”

In late-May, Israel approved a massive expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank in a move decried as de facto annexation of large swaths of the territory. Peace Now, an Israeli non-governmental organization that tracks settlements, said it was the largest expansion of settlements since the signing of the Oslo Accords more than 30 years ago.

Israel plans to establish 22 new settlements, including deep within the West Bank and in areas from which the country had previously withdrawn. Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, as well as in East Jerusalem and the occupied Golan Heights, are considered illegal under international law.

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President Donald Trump has secured commitments for a record-shattering $1.4 billion since Election Day 2024, Fox News Digital has learned. 

And advisors say he will be ‘an even more dominant force’ for Republicans in the 2026 midterms. 

The president’s political operation, including the cash on hand at the Republican National Committee, has raised a historic $900 million since November, and other commitments will bring the total to more than $1.4 billion.

Fox News Digital has learned the funds will be used to help Republicans keep their House and Senate majorities.

Republicans control the House with a 220-215 majority and control the Senate with a 53-47 majority. 

Sources say the funds will also be used for whatever the president deems ‘necessary and appropriate.’

‘After securing a historic victory in his re-election campaign in 2024, President Trump has continued to break records, including fundraising numbers that have positioned him to be an even more dominant force going into the midterms and beyond,’ President Trump’s senior advisor and National Finance Director Meredith O’Rourke told Fox News Digital. 

The president headlined a major donor event in Washington, D.C., in April for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which is the House GOP’s campaign arm. That fundraiser hauled in at least $10 million for the NRCC, a source familiar with the event told Fox News.

In March, Vice President JD Vance was tapped to serve as the RNC finance chair, the first time in the history of the GOP a sitting vice president is serving in the role.

Vance pledged to work to ‘fully enact the MAGA mandate’ and expand the Republican majority in Congress in 2026.

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

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A Senate Democrat’s push to put a check on President Donald Trump’s powers and reaffirm the Senate’s war authority was shut down by lawmakers in the upper chamber Thursday.

Sen. Tim Kaine’s war powers resolution, which would have required Congress to debate and vote on whether the president could declare war, or strike Iran, was struck down in the Senate on a largely party-line vote, save for Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., a staunch advocate of Israel who supported Trump’s strike on the Islamic Republic, and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has been vocal in his thoughts about congressional war powers in recent days.

Earlier in the week, the Virginia Democrat vowed to move ahead with the resolution despite a fragile ceasefire brokered between Israel and Iran following weekend strikes on the Islamic Republic’s key nuclear facilities that were not given the green-light by Congress.

Kaine argued that the ceasefire gave his resolution more credence and breathing room to properly debate the role that Congress plays when it comes to authorizing both war and attacks abroad.

He said ahead of the vote on the Senate floor that he came to Washington to ensure that the country does not again get into another ‘unnecessary’ war, and invoked the rush to approve war powers for President George W. Bush over two decades ago to engage with Iraq.

‘I think the events of this week have demonstrated that war is too big to consign to the decisions of any one person,’ Kaine said. 

Indeed, his resolution became a focal point for a debate that has raged on Capitol Hill since Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran: whether the strikes like those carried out during Operation Midnight Hammer constituted an act of war that required congressional approval, or if Trump’s decision was under his constitutional authority as commander in chief.  

Senate Republicans have widely argued that Trump was well within his purview, while most Senate Democrats raised constitutional concerns about the president’s ability to carry out a strike without lawmakers weighing in. 

Experts have argued, too, that Trump was within his executive authority to strike Iran. 

The Constitution divides war powers between Congress and the White House, giving lawmakers the sole power to declare war, while the president acts as the commander in chief directing the military. 

And nearly two centuries later, at the height of the Vietnam War, the War Powers Resolution of 1973 was born, which sought to further define those roles.

But the most impact lawmakers could have is through the power of the purse, and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, who plays a large role in controlling the purse strings as the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, had a sharp message against Kaine’s resolution. 

McConnell used instances where Democratic presidents over the last three decades have used their authority for limited engagements in Kosovo, Libya, Syria and Yemen, and questioned why ‘isolationists’ would consider the strike on Iran to kneecap its nuclear program a mistake. 

‘I have not heard the frequent flyers on War Powers resolutions reckon seriously with these questions,’ he said. ‘Until they do, efforts like this will remain divorced from both strategic and constitutional reality.’

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