While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, June 17, 2025
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A screengrab from a video broadcast by Iran's Irinn news showing a news reporter gesturing as she presents the news seconds before a loud explosion.
PHOTO: AFP
Iranian state broadcaster hit as Iran urges Trump to make Israel halt war
An Israeli strike hit Iran’s state broadcaster on June 16 while the head of the UN nuclear watchdog indicated extensive damage to Iran’s biggest uranium enrichment plant and Iran called on the US to force a ceasefire in the four-day-old aerial war.
Late on June 16, Israel said it hit Iran’s broadcasting authority, and footage showed a newsreader hurrying from her seat as a blast struck. Iran’s state news agency also reported the strike. Israel’s military said the building also served as a communications centre used by Iran’s armed forces.
Even as Iran called for the US to force a ceasefire, it pierced Israeli air defences with a damaging volley of missile strikes and Israel persisted in its bombing campaign.
Sources told Reuters that Tehran had asked Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to press US President Donald Trump to use his influence on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to push for an immediate ceasefire.
G-7 leaders struggle for unity as Trump says removing Russia from group was a mistake
Group of Seven leaders faced early challenges during meetings in Canada on June 16 as US President Donald Trump said removing Russia from the former Group of Eight over a decade ago had been a mistake.
The once tight-knit group has struggled to find unity over conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East as Mr Trump overtly expresses support for Russian President Vladimir Putin and has imposed tariffs on many of the allies present.
G-7 leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the US, along with the European Union, are convening in the resort area of Kananaskis in the Canadian Rockies until June 17.
Suspect in Minnesota lawmaker killing visited other legislators’ homes, prosecutors say
The suspect accused of assassinating a Minnesota lawmaker and shooting another this weekend drove to the homes of at least four state politicians as part of a carefully planned attack, federal authorities said on June 16.
Vance Boelter, 57, faces state and federal charges of murder after he was arrested on the night of June 15 following a massive two-day manhunt that was the largest in state history.
He is accused of fatally shooting Ms Melissa Hortman, the top Democrat in the Minnesota House, and her husband, Mark, in their home on June 14. Boelter is also charged with shooting and wounding another Democratic lawmaker, state Senator John Hoffman, and his wife Yvette, in their home a few kilometres away.
Harvard secures extension of court order blocking Trump’s international student ban
A federal judge said on June 16 that she would issue a brief extension of an order temporarily blocking President Donald Trump’s plan to bar foreign nationals from entering the US to study at Harvard University while she decides whether to issue a longer-term injunction.
US District Judge Allison Burroughs, at the end of a hearing in Boston in Harvard’s legal challenge to the restrictions, extended to June 23 a temporary restraining order that had been set to expire on June 19. She said she wanted to give herself more time to prepare a ruling.
“We’ll kick out an opinion as soon as we can,” she said.
Zelensky says to discuss buying US weapons with Trump
Mr Volodymyr Zelensky on June 16 said that he will discuss buying US weapons with Donald Trump at the G-7 summit, but added that US military aid was not on the agenda.
“We are not talking to America today about new assistance. Indeed, one of the issues I will discuss with President Trump at the meeting is the defence package that Ukraine is ready to buy,” Mr Zelensky said during a visit to Vienna, from where he was to travel to Canada for this week’s G-7 summit.
The Ukrainian president, who has overseen his country’s fightback against Russian forces for more than three years, said that “I can’t imagine and I don’t want to imagine... how to live without and fight without the help of the United States”.
