World
UK’s Sunak promises mandatory national service for 18-year-olds if elected
Ruling Conservative Party says it will bring back national service if it wins the July 4 general election.
Eighteen-year-olds will have to perform a mandatory national service if the Conservative Party is voted back to power in the United Kingdom’s July 4 election, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced.
The UK has “generations of young people who have not had the opportunities they deserve”, and this measure would help unite society in an “increasingly uncertain world”, Sunak said on Saturday.
The prime minister’s plan would entail young people being given a choice between a full-time placement in the armed forces for 12 months or spending one weekend a month for a year volunteering in their community, the party said.
The announcement came as Conservatives gear up for elections, heightening its attacks on the opposition Labour Party.
The UK had national service between 1947 and 1960, with men between the ages of 17 and 21 serving in the armed forces for 18 months. The British Army has reduced in size from 100,000 in 2010 to nearly 73,000 as of January 2024, the BBC reported.
The Conservative Party said the placement with the armed forces would help the teenagers “learn and take part in logistics, cybersecurity, procurement or civil response operations”.
The community service option would entail helping local fire, police and the UK’s National Health Service, as well as charities tackling loneliness in elderly, isolated people. The programme would cost approximately 2.5 billion pounds ($3.2bn) a year, BBC reported.
A royal commission, with experts from military and civil society, would be created to design the national service programme.
The first pilot for the programme would open applications in September 2025. Following that, the Conservatives would introduce a “National Service Act” to make the measures compulsory by the end of the next parliamentary term.
The Conservatives have insisted the scheme does not amount to conscription, the Guardian reported.
“This new, mandatory national service will provide life-changing opportunities for our young people, offering them the chance to learn real-world skills, do new things and contribute to their community and our country,” Sunak said.
“The consequences of uncertainty are clear. No plan means a more dangerous world. You, your family and our country are all at risk if Labour win,” he added.
The Labour Party called the announcement “another desperate unfunded commitment” and said the foreign minister, David Cameron, introduced a similar scheme – the National Citizen Service – when he was prime minister.
A Labour spokesperson said: “This is not a plan – it’s a review which could cost billions and is only needed because the Tories hollowed out the armed forces to their smallest size since Napoleon.”
“Britain has had enough of the Conservatives, who are bankrupt of ideas and have no plans to end 14 years of chaos. It’s time to turn the page and rebuild Britain with Labour.”
Several European countries, including Sweden, Norway and Denmark, already have some form of conscription for their armed forces.
Note: Map shows the area with a shake intensity of 3 or greater, which U.S.G.S. defines as “weak,” though the earthquake may be felt outside the areas shown. The New York Times
A minor, 3.8-magnitude earthquake struck in Nevada on Thursday, according to the United States Geological Survey. The earthquake prompted a flurry of chatter online, but no widespread damage was reported.
The temblor happened at 1:47 p.m. Pacific time about 7 miles northwest of Summerlin South, Nev., data from the agency shows.
On social media, residents across the area described the earthquake jolting their homes and rattling windows and doors. Some said they heard the boom-like sound of an explosion, while others said they didn’t feel anything or described a small disturbance that lacked any significant oomph.
Brian Cohen was at home putting away groceries in Lone Mountain, about a half hour west of the Las Vegas strip, just before 2 p.m. when he felt the entire house rattle intensely for about three seconds.
“The whole house felt like it was lifting up,” said Mr. Cohen, who is in his 60s. He went outside and saw a neighbor, who also reported feeling the jolt.
Mr. Cohen, who has lived in the Las Vegas area since 1994, said this wasn’t his first earthquake. “This one is the strongest one I felt,” he said, adding there was no damage to his home.
As seismologists review available data, they may revise the earthquake’s reported magnitude. Additional information collected about the earthquake may also prompt U.S.G.S. scientists to update the shake-severity map.
Aftershocks forecast
While individual earthquakes can’t be predicted, geologists can calculate the chances that more earthquakes will follow an initial quake using statistical models of past events.
For this earthquake, it is unlikely — about a 4 chance — that a larger quake will strike the area in the next day, according to the U.S.G.S. Here is the forecast for aftershocks of other sizes:
3.0 mag. or stronger
Perhaps
26%
—
4.0 mag. or stronger
Unlikely
5%
—
5.0 mag. or stronger
Unlikely
Source: United States Geological Survey. William B. Davis, Joel Eastwood and John Keefe/The New York Times
The rate of aftershocks typically decreases over time, and forecasts are available for the next week, month and year.
Subsequent quakes have been reported in the same area. Such temblors are typically aftershocks caused by minor adjustments along the portion of a fault that slipped at the time of the initial earthquake.
Aftershocks detected
Quakes and aftershocks within 100 miles
Aftershocks can occur days, weeks or even years after the first earthquake. These events can be of equal or larger magnitude to the initial earthquake, and they can continue to affect already damaged locations.
The New York Times When quakes and aftershocks occurred
Sources: United States Geological Survey (epicenter, aftershocks, shake intensity); LandScan via Oak Ridge National Laboratory (population density) | Notes: Shaking categories are based on the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale. When aftershock data is available, the corresponding maps and charts include earthquakes within 100 miles and seven days of the initial quake. All times above are Pacific time. Shake data is as of Thursday, June 4 at 5:25 p.m. Eastern. Aftershocks data is as of Thursday, June 4 at 8:23 p.m. Eastern.
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Two days after another ceasefire was announced between Israel and U.S. terrorist designated group Hezbollah, Yulia Bar-Dan was standing outside her temporary home in Kibbutz Manara in northern Israel when the familiar sound of an interceptor echoed overhead.
“There will probably be another siren soon,” she told Fox News Digital.
Minutes later, an alert appeared on her phone warning residents in northern Israel to take shelter.
For Bar-Dan, the scene captured the reality of life on Israel’s northern border nearly two years after Hezbollah joined the war against Israel on Oct. 8, 2023.
After Hezbollah entered the recent war in support of Iran, Washington launched a diplomatic effort aimed at turning the ceasefire into a broader arrangement for Lebanon.
ISRAEL OPENS FIRE IN LEBANON AT ‘SUSPECTS’ ALLEGEDLY VIOLATING TRUCE, WHICH HAS ENTERED ITS SECOND DAY
Multiple rounds of talks between Israeli and Lebanese officials have taken place in Washington, and President Donald Trump has repeatedly announced ceasefire understandings aimed at restoring calm along the border. Residents of communities like Manara, Israel, say the rockets, drones and uncertainty never really stopped.
An Israeli soldier stands near military vehicles on the second day of the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah near the Israel-Lebanon border on Nov. 28. (Stoyan Nenov/Reuters)
“A ceasefire is supposed to be on both sides,” she said. “Not that Hezbollah keeps shooting at us and we just keep absorbing it.”
When Fox News Digital first spoke to Bar-Dan in December 2024 during the war, she and her husband had fled Manara, Israel, with their three children and were living out of a single hotel room, unsure whether they would ever return home.
Today, roughly 200 of the kibbutz’s 280 residents have returned, Bar-Dan said. But many, including Bar-Dan’s family, still cannot live in their original homes because of war damage.
Yulia Bar-Dan and her husband are pictured during quieter times at Kibbutz Manara, Israel. (Yulia Bar-Dan)
Despite repeated ceasefire announcements, residents say normal life remains elusive.
“There hasn’t really been a routine or a quiet day since February,” she said.
Schools officially reopened in early June, but Bar-Dan decided not to send her children.
“They take the bus to school,” she said. “What if there’s a siren on the way? I can’t take that chance.”
ISRAEL DESTROYS HEZBOLLAH’S ‘LARGEST PRECISION-GUIDED MISSILES MANUFACTURING SITE’ AS GROUP VOWS TO ‘FIGHT’
Hezbollah terrorists holding rifles are shown in this image. (Fadel Itani/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Her frustration is not directed at Hezbollah alone.
Like many residents interviewed by Fox News Digital, Bar-Dan says there is a growing disconnect between the reality experienced on the border and the reality described by politicians.
“It doesn’t really matter where the decisions are being made,” she said. “The decisions just need to match reality. Right now there is a decision, but the reality is completely different.”
A year and a half after most of Manara’s residents were evacuated amid fears of a Hezbollah invasion, community leader Yochai Wolfin says residents have developed their own name for the current situation.
“We call it ‘the ceasefire war,’” he said.
The phrase has become common in the community.
First came a year and a half of evacuation. Then came the return home. Then came what Wolfin describes as three months of “fire within a ceasefire.”
The uncertainty has become part of daily life.
Children study inside shelters. Parts of the kibbutz still lack protected rooms. Construction projects remain unfinished because contractors are reluctant to work so close to the border.
He said many residents increasingly feel that the decisions determining their future are being made far from the communities that bear the consequences.
ISRAEL WARNS IT WILL GO AFTER LEBANON DIRECTLY IF CEASE-FIRE WITH HEZBOLLAH COLLAPSES
A Lebanese man holds a Hezbollah flag near the border with Israel in the southern Lebanese village of Hula on Dec. 20, 2020. (Jalaa Marey/AFP)
“Who knows what tomorrow will bring?” Wolfin said. “We know who is calling the shots. We saw it a few days ago when Trump announced another ceasefire. But for us, the reality on the ground hasn’t changed.”
The comments come as Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem warned Thursday that northern Israel would remain unsafe as long as Israeli strikes continue in Lebanon, according to Reuters.
In a written statement broadcast on June 4, 2026, Qassem condemned the Washington-mediated framework as “absurd, humiliating, and insulting,” calling it a roadmap for surrender.
For residents of Israel’s northern border communities, the statements reinforced what many say they have been experiencing for months: a ceasefire that exists on paper but not in daily life.
Naor Shamia, who heads Manara’s emergency response team, says residents increasingly worry that temporary emergency measures are becoming permanent.
“The fear isn’t today,” he said. “The fear is that this becomes years. We are in a deadlock.”
Across the border region, similar concerns are heard.
Fire burns at Kibbutz Manara following another attack. (Kibbutz Manara)
In the community of Adamit, resident Yael Cohen-Arazi described the contrast between the beauty surrounding her and the reality of living under constant threat.
“Every morning I wake up and think I’m living in paradise,” she said in footage provided to Fox News Digital by the Israeli news agency TPS-IL. “Then there are the explosions that shake my soul.”
Her children, she said, have spent so much of their lives under fire that they no longer know what normal looks like.
“I tell them there are children who don’t live like this,” she said.
Back in Manara, Israel, another alert interrupted the afternoon.
Bar-Dan says she is not angry anymore. Mostly, she is tired and sad.
“I feel bad for the soldiers,” she said. “Every day there is another casualty, and there is still no solution.”
Yet she insists she is staying.
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Members of the Kibbutz Manara rapid response unit respond to Hezbollah rocket attacks on Kibbutz Manara. (Kibbutz Manara)
“This is our home,” she said. “Someone has to live on the borders of this country.”
Then another explosion sounded in the distance.
A high-stakes EU-Western Balkans summit is underway in Montenegro, with enlargement in the spotlight and France and Germany pushing for a more gradual path to EU integration. Our EU Editor Maria Tadeo is on the ground and speaks exclusively to European Council President António Costa.
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