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Trump threatens to bomb Iran unless they end nuclear weapons program and begin talks on new deal

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Trump threatens to bomb Iran unless they end nuclear weapons program and begin talks on new deal

JERUSALEM—President Donald Trump’s overtures via a letter to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to jump-start talks on dismantling Tehran’s illicit nuclear weapons program, were met with rejection by the theocratic state on Sunday, following Trump’s latest threat to the regime.

Trump told NBC on Saturday that “If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing,” he said. “But there’s a chance that if they don’t make a deal, that I will do secondary tariffs on them like I did four years ago.”

Trump added the U.S. and officials from the Islamic Republic are “talking.”

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Sunday “We don’t avoid talks; it’s the breach of promises that has caused issues for us so far,” according to the Associated Press. He added, “They must prove that they can build trust.” The White House did not immediately respond to Iran’s rejection of the talks, the AP reported. 

Pezeshkian still noted that in Iran’s response to the letter that indirect negotiations with the Trump administration were still possible.

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WALTZ TELLS IRAN TO GIVE UP NUCLEAR PROGRAM OR ‘THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES’

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei addresses the media during elections in Tehran, Iran, on May 10, 2024. (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The apparent return of Iran’s regime to its standard playbook of opaque indirect talks between the U.S. and Tehran’s rulers raises questions about whether Trump would greenlight military strikes to eradicate Iran’s vast nuclear weapons program. 

After Iran launched two massive missile and drone attacks on Israel last year, Trump could also aid the Jewish state in knocking out Iran’s nuclear weapons apparatus. 

Indirect talks between the U.S. and the world’s worst state-sponsor of terrorism, according to Democratic and Republican administrations, have not compelled Iran to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

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Jason Brodsky, the policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), told Fox News Digital that the Iranians “do not want to provide President Trump with a casus belli to strike Iran’s nuclear program. There may be indirect and non-public responses through various intermediaries. I think some Iranian officials perceive a fissure among President Trump’s national security team on Iran. This explains Iran’s foreign minister’s comment in recent days that President Trump’s letter to the supreme leader poses challenges as well as opportunities.”

TRUMP VINDICATED AS EXPLOSIVE REPORT CONFIRMS IRAN SUPERVISES HOUTHI ‘POLITICAL AND MILITARY AFFAIRS’

Iran’s first functioning nuclear power plant in Bushehr, Iran, on April 28, 2024. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Brodsky said, “These Iranian officials seek to bypass experienced hands like President Trump’s national security advisor and secretary of state, who have been demanding the dismantlement of Iran’s entire nuclear program in keeping with President Trump’s long-standing and rightful position on this issue, and cultivate individuals around President Trump who do not have experience with Iran or are considered non-traditional conservatives who would be more receptive to their entrees.”

Trump promised that “bad things” would happen to Iran if the regime does not come to the table for nuclear negotiations.  “My big preference is that we work it out with Iran, but if we don’t work it out, bad things are gonna happen to Iran,” he said on Friday. 

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Iran is enriching uranium to 60%, just shy of the 90% weapons-grade. Experts say it could have a nuclear weapon within weeks if it were to take the final steps to building one. Fox News Digital reported in late March that Iran’s regime has enriched enough uranium to manufacture six nuclear weapons, according to a U.N. atomic agency report.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian at U.N. headquarters in New York, Sept. 24, 2024. (Reuters/Caitlin Ochs)

Alireza Nader, an Iranian-American expert on Iran, told Fox News Digital, “Khamenei may be signaling that he’s not interested in negotiations, but his regime desperately needs economic relief. Otherwise, another popular uprising against him could start. Khamenei doesn’t have the cards.”

There is widespread discontent among Iranians against the rule of 85-year-old Khamenei.

TRUMP REINSTATES ‘MAXIMUM PRESSURE’ CAMPAIGN AGAINST IRAN 

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President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet at the White House, Feb. 4, 2025. (Reuters/Elizabeth Frantz)

Iran’s has upped the ante ever since Trump told FOX Business he sent a letter to Khamenei. Iran has disclosed video footage of its underground “missile city.”

Trump also told FOX Business, “I would rather negotiate a deal.”

He continued, “I’m not sure that everybody agrees with me, but we can make a deal that would be just as good as if you won militarily. But the time is happening now, the time is coming up.

“Something is going to happen one way or the other. I hope that Iran, and I’ve written them a letter, saying I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing for them.”

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Brodsky said, “That means the Islamic Republic may dangle a JCPOA-like deal, with minor modifications from the previous 2015 agreement. Iranian media has been hyping such an arrangement.”

In 2018, Trump withdrew from the Obama-negotiated Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action deal because, he argued, that the agreement failed to ensure Iran would not build nuclear weapons and did not codify restrictions against Tehran’s missile program and sponsorship of Islamist terrorism.

IRAN’S LEADER WARNS US COULD RECEIVE ‘SEVERE SLAPS’ FOLLOWING TRUMP’S THREATS TO HOUTHIS

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies has analyzed where Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is located. (Image provided by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) )

Brodsky said, “These Iranian officials believe they can lure the Trump administration into this arrangement and then President Trump will wave a magic wand and bring the entire Republican Party along with Democrats to support the deal and make it more politically durable than the 2015 JCPOA. This is all despite President Trump’s consistent and strong record in rejecting the JCPOA framework. It reflects desperation in Tehran and a desire to buy time with another failed diplomatic gambit. But it’s important to have eyes wide open here as to the games the Iranians will (and are already) playing.”

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While Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified on Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee that the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamanei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003,” she did note that Iran increased its enriched uranium stockpile.

In sharp contrast to U.S. intelligence since 2003, Fox News Digital has previously reported that European intelligence agencies believe Iran is working toward testing an atomic weapon, and sought illicit technology for its nuclear weapons program. 

Counter-proliferation experts, like the prominent physicist and nuclear specialist David Albright, have told Fox News that European intelligence institutions use an updated definition of construction of weapons of mass destruction to assess Iran’s progress in contrast to America’s alleged obsolete definition.

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Fox News Digital sent press queries to the U.S. State Department and the National Security Council.

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Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips and the Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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US professors sue university over arrest during pro-Palestine protest

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US professors sue university over arrest during pro-Palestine protest

Three professors at Atlanta’s Emory University in the United States have filed a lawsuit over their arrests during a 2024 campus protest over Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Their lawsuit on Thursday argued that the university broke its own free-speech policies when it called in police and state troopers to aggressively disband the protest, making 28 arrests.

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“The judicial system would find that Emory failed to protect its students, to protect its staff, to protect the educational mission of the university,” said philosophy professor Noelle McAfee, one of the plaintiffs.

“So this isn’t just about people’s individual rights. It’s our educational mission to train people in free and critical inquiry, to be able to learn how to engage with others, to be fearless.”

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Laura Diamond, a spokesperson for Emory, responded that the university believes “this lawsuit is without merit”.

“Emory acts appropriately and responsibly to keep our community safe from threats of harm,” Diamond said in a statement. “We regret this issue is being litigated, but we have confidence in the legal process.”

The suit is just one example of how the nationwide wave of protests from 2023 and 2024 continues to reverberate on elite campuses.

There have been multiple instances where students and faculty have filed lawsuits against universities, arguing they were discriminated against because of the protests.

But the Emory suit is unusual. McAfee and her fellow plaintiffs — English and Indigenous studies professor Emilio Del Valle-Escalante and economics professor Caroline Fohlin — all remain tenured faculty members. None were convicted of any charges.

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The civil lawsuit in DeKalb County State Court demands that the private university repay money the three spent defending themselves against misdemeanour charges that were later dismissed, along with punitive damages.

McAfee said she’s suing her employer “to try to get them to be accountable and to change”.

All three say they were observers on April 25, 2024, when some students and others set up tents on the university’s main quad to protest the war. They say Emory broke its own policies by calling in Atlanta police and Georgia state troopers without seeking alternatives.

McAfee was charged with disorderly conduct after she said she yelled “Stop!” at an officer roughly arresting a protester. Del Valle-Escalante said he was trying to help an older woman when he was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.

Fohlin said that, when she protested against officers pinning a protester to the ground, she herself was thrown face-first to the ground and arrested, suffering a concussion and a spine injury. Fohlin was charged with misdemeanour battery of an officer.

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Emory claimed that those arrested that day were outsiders who trespassed on school property. But 20 of the 28 people arrested were affiliated with the university.

The professors said that, after their arrests, they were targeted by threats and harassment, part of a pushback by conservatives who said universities were failing to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitism and allowing lawlessness.

Nationwide, however, advocates say there is a “Palestine exception” in which universities are willing to curb pro-Palestine speech and protest. Palestine Legal, a legal aid group supporting such speech, said Tuesday that it received 300 percent more legal requests in 2025 than its annual average before 2023, mostly from college students and faculty.

McAfee served as president of the Emory University Senate after her arrest. The body makes policy recommendations and has helped draft the university’s open expression policy.

She said she asked then-President Gregory Fenves in fall 2024 why Emory police weren’t dropping the charges against her and others. McAfee said Fenves told her that he wanted “to see justice”.

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The open expression policy was revised after 2024 to clearly prohibit tents, camping, the occupation of university buildings and demonstrations between midnight and 7am.

Whatever the policy, McAfee said students are afraid to protest at Emory, saying the university has turned its back on what Atlanta civil rights icon John Lewis called “good trouble”.

“Students know right now that any trouble is not going to be good trouble at Emory, that they could get arrested,” she said. “So students are afraid.”

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Google puts AI agents at heart of its enterprise money-making push

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Google puts AI agents at heart of its enterprise money-making push
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai is deepening a push into enterprise software, signaling to investors at Google’s annual ​cloud conference that AI agents — human-like digital assistants — are a lynchpin of its strategy to monetize artificial intelligence.
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Landlords allegedly posting ‘Muslim-only’ apartment ads in violation of country’s equality act: report

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Landlords allegedly posting ‘Muslim-only’ apartment ads in violation of country’s equality act: report

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Some landlords in England are apparently advertising “Muslim-only” apartments online, according to a local media report.

An investigation by The Telegraph found that alleged listings posted in London on Facebook, Gumtree and Telegram feature phrases such as “only for Muslims,” “for 2 Muslim boys or 2 Muslim girls,” and “Muslims preferred.”

Other ads appeal to Punjabi and Gujarati speakers, while some job vacancies on the platforms are advertised for men only.

Some listings specify “Hindu only,” in addition to posts that likely use religious subtext by stating: “The house should be alcohol and smoke-free.”

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IS MAMDANI’S SOCIALIST PUSH FOR RENT CONTROLS ABOUT TO WRECK THE NEW YORK CITY HOUSING MARKET?

On Facebook, a company called Roshan Properties posted dozens of listings stating “prefer Muslim boy,” “one double room is available for Muslims,” and “suitable for Punjabi boy.” A Meta spokesman told Fox News Digital that Facebook then removed the company’s page “for violating the platform’s policies on discriminatory practices.”

Apartment buildings in Westminster, London, U.K. (John Keeble/Getty Images)

The ads run afoul of Britain’s Equality Act 2010, which prohibits discrimination based on religion or belief, race and other protected characteristics.

“These adverts are disgusting and anti-British. It goes without saying that there would be a national outrage if the tables were turned,” Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s economic spokesman, told The Telegraph. “All forms of racism are unacceptable, and no religious group should get a special exemption to discriminate in this way.”

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Houses and properties line Cheyne Walk in Chelsea, London, U.K. Some landlords in the city are illegally advertising for “Muslim only” tenants across the city, an investigation by The Telegraph has found. (Richard Baker/In Pictures via Getty Images)

One landlord told The Telegraph to “go away” when asked about an ad for a “Muslims only” room for $1,150, and whether it was available to renters of other faiths.

A spokesperson for Gumtree told the newspaper that the company has clear policies in place that prohibit unlawful discrimination.

On Facebook, a company called Roshan Properties posted dozens of listings stating “prefer Muslim boy,” (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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“We take reports of inappropriate listings very seriously,” the spokesperson said. “The ads referenced appear to relate to private rooms within shared homes, where existing occupants may express preferences about who they live with. This is different from renting out an entire property, which is subject to stricter rules under the Equality Act.”

Telegram did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

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