U.S. stocks are hanging near their all-time high on Wednesday as financial markets catch a breath following two big days bolstered by hopes that the Israel-Iran war will not disrupt the global flow of crude oil.
The S&P 500 was mostly unchanged in afternoon trading and sitting just 0.9% below its all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 121 points, or 0.3%, as of 12:52 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher.
In the oil market, which has been the center of much of this weeks action, crude prices stabilized after plunging by roughly $10 per barrel in the last two days. Benchmark U.S. crude rose 2.2% to $65.79 per barrel, though it still remains below where it was before the fighting between Israel and Iran broke out nearly two weeks ago.
A fragile ceasefire between the two countries appears to be holding, at least for the moment.
On Wall Street, companies involved in the cryptocurrency industry rose as the price of bitcoin continued to steam ahead with investors willing to take on more risk. Coinbase Global, the crypto exchange, climbed 1.2%, and Robinhood Markets gained 0.4% as bitcoin topped $107,000.
QuantumScape jumped 31.5% after announcing a breakthrough in its process for making solid-state batteries. Solid state battery technology promises to improve electric vehicle range, decrease charging times and minimize the risk of battery fires. But they are expensive to research and difficult to manufacture at a large scale, giving them a reputation for being a Holy Grail for battery engineers all over the world.
They helped offset a 2% drop for FedEx. It reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, but it gave a forecast for profit in the current quarter that fell short of expectations.
General Mills, the company behind Pillsbury and Progresso soups, fell 4.1% after reporting weaker revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, though its profit topped forecasts. It also said an underlying measure of profits could fall by 10% to 15% this upcoming fiscal year.
In the bond market, Treasury yields were holding relatively steady, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.31% from 4.30% late Tuesday.
Yields had dropped a day before after the chair of the Federal Reserve said it is waiting for the right moment to resume cutting interest rates. By lowering rates, the Fed could help give the economy a boost, but it could also offer additional fuel for inflation.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell told a House of Representatives committee on Tuesday that he wants to wait and see how President Donald Trumps tariffs affect the economy and inflation before committing to its next move.
Powell echoed many of the same statements in testimony before a Senate committee on Wednesday and said, For the time being, we are well positioned to wait to learn more about the likely course of the economy before considering any adjustments to our policy stance.
In stock markets abroad, indexes fell modestly in Europe after rising across much of Asia.
Stocks jumped 1.2% in Hong Kong and 1% in Shanghai for two of the larger moves.
The world can now move on to face other difficult choices like tariffs and things like that, said Frances Lun, CEO of GEO Securities in Hong Kong. So I think the market is well on its way to rebound and could again reach new levels.
Stan Choe, AP business writer
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
Bumble is cutting a third of its workforce, the latest sign that all is not well in the business of online dating.
The company informed its staff of the layoffs in a letter from founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd on Wednesday, describing the company and the dating industry as reaching an inflection point. In recent months, weve been rebuildingreturning to what makes us trusted, unique, and deeply human, Wolfe Herd wrote. But intentional rebuilding requires hard decisions.
Bumbles workforce reduction will affect 240 positions, reducing the companys head count by 30%. In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Bumble said that it expects the layoffs to save $40 million annuallycash that it plans to reinvest into product and technology development.
The company expects to pay between $13 and $18 million in costs related to the layoffs in the third and fourth quarters of the year. On Wednesday, Bumbles shares rose more than 20% on news of the layoffs and were trading around $6.26 at the time of writing.
The reality is, we need to take decisive action to restructure to build a company thats resilient, intentional, and ready for the next decade, Wolfe Herd wrote. We have reset our strategy and are going back to a startup mentalityrooted in an ownership mindset and team structures designed for faster, more meaningful execution.
Wolfe Herd left her role as Bumbles CEO at the beginning of 2024, with former Slack CEO Lidiane Jones stepping in to lead the company. In March of this year, Jones resigned for personal reasons, and Wolfe Herd again took the helm of the company she founded in 2014 after cofounding Tindernow Bumbles main rival.
Dating app decline
Bumble, which has historically put women in the drivers seat of the online dating experience, has struggled to find its footing in a post-pandemic online dating world where many former users feel burned out by the churn of dating apps. The company isnt alone in that struggledating giant Match Group announced its own major layoffs last monthbut Bumble has resorted to altering its own DNA to adapt to a changing landscape for users looking for love.
Last year, Bumble announced that men on its app would be allowed to message women first, a huge change for a dating system thats prided itself on letting women make the initial move. The feature, called Opening Moves, let women set prompts on their profiles that men could choose to respond to.
The gamble doesnt appear to have made a lasting impact on Bumbles bottom line, and the companys stock continued to slide into 2025. Bumble first went public in 2021 with its buzzy stock debuting at more than $70 a sharea distant memory from the stocks recent single digit values.
Bumbles woes are shared by Match Group, its biggest rival, which owns Tinder, OkCupid, Hinge, and a deep roster of other niche and general interest dating apps. The two competitors, which together account for nearly all of the online dating market share, lost more than $40 billion combined between 2021 and 2024.
Online dating is a strange business in some ways. While hookup apps like Grindr might beg to differ, a successful dating app interaction could result in both users leaving the app for a long stretch, or even forever.
That intrinsic paradox is a tricky business to begin with, but the more dire existential threat might be that neither Match Group nor Bumble can seem to crack the code of Gen Zs dating habits. So far, that emerging cohort of eligible singles isnt very interested in paying for a subscription on a dating app and, worse yet, might be looking for love IRL, of all places.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers on Wednesday vowed to keep Chinese artificial intelligence systems out of federal agencies while pledging to ensure the U.S. will prevail against China in the global AI competition.
We are in a new Cold War, and AI is the strategic technology at the center, said Rep. John Moolenaar, the Republican chair of the House Select Committee on China, as he opened a hearing on the matter. The future balance of power may very well be determined by who leads in AI.
The hearing on Capitol Hill comes about five months after a Chinese technology startup called DeepSeek introduced an AI model that rivaled platforms from OpenAI and Google in performance, but cost only a fraction to build. This raised concerns that China was catching up to the U.S. despite restrictions on chips and other key technologies used to develop AI.
The ever-tighter race is now a central part of the U.S.-China rivalry. And so much is at stake that the U.S. must win, witnesses told the congressional panel.
The two countries are in a long-term techno-security competition that will determine the shape of the global political order for the coming years, said Thomas Mahnken, president and CEO of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
Jack Clark, cofounder and head of policy at Anthropic, told the committee that AI has built-in values.
I know that AI systems are a reflection of the societies they are built from. AI built in democracies will lead to better technology for all of humanity. AI built in authoritarian nations will . . . be inescapably intertwined and imbued with authoritarianism, Clark said. We must take decisive action to ensure America prevails.
Earlier this year, Chris Lehane, OpenAIs head of global affairs, told reporters in Paris that the U.S. and China were the only two countries in the world that could build AI at scale. The competition, which he described as one between democratic AI and autocratic AI, is very real and very serious, and the stakes are enormous, he said, for the global rails of AI will be built by one of those two countries.
The 2025 AI Index Report by Stanford Universitys Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence center has the U.S. in the lead in producing top AI models. But the report notes China is rapidly closing the performance gap, reaching near parity in 2024 on several major benchmarks. It also shows that China leads in AI publications and patents.
At the hearing, Clark urged the lawmakers to maintain and strengthen export controls of advanced chips to China. This competition fundamentally runs on compute, he said. The U.S. must control the flow of powerful chips to China, Clark said, or else you’re giving them the tools they will need to build powerful AI to harm American interests.
Mark Beall Jr., president of government affairs at The AI Policy Network, said there are a number of very glaring gaps in the U.S. export controls that have allowed China to obtain controlled chips. Lawmakers earlier this year introduced a bill to track such chips to ensure they would not be diverted to the wrong hands.
In another legislative step, Republican and Democratic lawmakers in both the House and the Senate on Wednesday introduced a bill to ban Chinese AI systems in the federal government.
The U.S. must draw a hard line: Hostile AI systems have no business operating inside our government, Moolenaar said.
The No Adversarial AI Act, as proposed, seeks to identify AI systems developed by foreign adversaries and ban their use in the U.S. government, with exceptions for use in research and counter-terrorism.
By Didi Tang, Associated Press
Zohran Mamdani, 33, a New York City assemblymember who was practically a political unknown prior to his campaign, is the presumptive winner of the New York mayoral primary.
On Tuesday evening, Mamdani led the first-choice vote count with 44% of the vote. Former Governor Andrew Cuomo, trailing at 36%, conceded the race in a major upset.
On Wednesday morning, Mamdani spoke to supporters in an emotional speech in which he quoted Nelson Mandela, saying, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
New Yorkers have a city where they can do more than just struggle, one where those who toil in the night can enjoy the fruits of their labor in the day, where hard work is repaid with a stable life, he continued. The mayor will use their power to reject Donald Trumps fascism, to stop masked ice agents from deporting our mayor, and to govern our city as a model for the Democratic Party, a party where we fight for working people with no apology.”
When will all the votes be counted?
Due to New York City’s ranked voting system, which allows voters to cast five votes on their ballot, the final tally will take some time. Since none of the candidates received more than 50% of the vote on Tuesday night, ranked choice voting will determine the true winner (though Mamdani is the clear presumptive winner) until a candidate reaches that threshold.According to the Associated Press, ranked-choice tabulations won’t start until July 1, so the city has time to receive mail-in ballots. New Yorkers and other interested parties can stay up-to-date with the latest counts on the New York Times‘ live election result page. Find it here.
What to know about Zohran Mamdani
Tuesday night’s historic win makes Mandani the first Muslim candidate to ever win the mayoral primary in the state of New York. He did so by running his campaign on issues including making New York City an affordable place for residents, by freezing rent, making childcare free, and making public transportation accessible to everyone. He also wants to increase taxes on big corporations, as well as the wealthiest New Yorkers.Mamdani positioned himself as a candidate who will fight for the people to make their lives better and easiersomething many don’t feel their leaders are all that concerned with at present. He also proved during his campaign that he would not back down in the face of name-calling and propaganda.
The young candidate managed to captivate New York voters, a population that’s heavily Jewish, while speaking up for Palestinian rights. In this contentious political climate, that’s not a small task. As the war between Israel and Hamas wages on in Gaza, pro-Palestine speech has been heavily politicized, and even deemed “hate speech” or anti-semetic in some cases. But Mamdani has repeatedly pushed back on the narrative that speaking out against the war is anti-semetic.
What has the reaction to Zohran Mamdani’s win been?
Mamdani’s presumptive win Tuesday has set off a massive reaction across the country and on social media. There seems to be a strong feeling that the candidate’s win could set off a firestorm of candidates with similar, socialist views being elected elsewhere in the nation.“Congratulations to @zohrankmamdani on an historic victory tonight,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who endorsed Mamdani, posted on Instagram. “Its time we acknowledge that not all Democrats are the same. Weve got people, theyve got money.”
While those who wanted to see the young candidate take the race are thrilled with the presumed victory, not everyone is so pleased. The historic results have sparked outrage among MAGA supporters.
Conservative commentator Laura Loomer posted a series of tweets on X in which she floated the idea that a Muslim mayor could lead to attacks on NYC. “There will be another 9/11 in NYC and @ZohranKMamdani will be to blame,” she wrote.New Yorkers forgot all about the victims of 9/11 killed by Muslims,” Loomer continued. “Now a Muslim Communist will be the mayor of New York City. Get out while you can, Loomer wrote, adding the unfounded view that Mamdani is “literally supported by terrorists.”
When is the NYC mayor general election?
While Mamdani’s presumed win is a huge victory for Democratic socialists, he still has to win the general election. Mamdani will take on Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, the lone Republican who entered the race. Sliwa is the founder of The Guardian Angels, a nonprofit known for its volunteer crime-fighting patrols.
It’s possible Andrew Cuomo will run again in the general election, too, facing off with Mamdani a second time. Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and attorney Jim Walden will run as Independents.
The general election will take place this November.
A federal judge Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to release billions of dollars in funding for the build out of electric vehicle chargers in more than a dozen states.U.S. District Judge Tana Lin in Washington state partially granted a preliminary injunction that sought to free up the money approved under then-President Joe Biden that the Trump administration withheld earlier this year. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia sued over the move, arguing that the administration did not have the authority to block the congressionally approved funds. The program was set to allocate $5 billion over five years to various states, of which an estimated $3.3 billion had already been made available.Lin ordered that funding be released in 14 of the states, including in Arizona, California and New York. But she denied granting the preliminary injunction for D.C., Minnesota and Vermont, saying that they did not provide enough evidence that they would face “irreparable harm” if the money wasn’t immediately freed up.Lin said the Trump administration overstepped its constitutional authority when it froze the funding previously approved by Congress in 2021 as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.“When the Executive Branch treads upon the will of the Legislative Branch, and when an administrative agency acts contrary to law, it is the Court’s responsibility to remediate the situation and restore the balance of power,” she wrote.The order will go into effect July 2 unless the Trump administration appeals. The Federal Highway Administration did not immediately respond to an email request for comment on the decision.The Trump administration in February directed states to stop spending money for electric vehicle charging under the program. The move was part of a broader push by the Republican president to roll back environmental policies advanced by his Democratic predecessor.States suing the Trump administration said the decision to freeze funding halted projects midstream, requiring immediate court intervention.California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, said after the ruling that the Trump administration could not “dismiss programs illegally.”“We are pleased with today’s order blocking the Administration’s unconstitutional attempt to do so, and California looks forward to continuing to vigorously defend itself from this executive branch overreach,” he said in a statement.The Trump administration argued that it was working on new guidance for the program and was only pausing future funding in the meantime.The program was meant to assuage concerns about electric vehicles and build infrastructure along highway corridors first, then address gaps elsewhere once the state highway obligations were met.Some states with projects running under the program have already been reimbursed by the Biden-era federal funds. Others are still contracting for their sites. Still more had halted their plans by the time the Trump administration ordered states to stop their spending. Regardless, getting the chargers installed and operating has been a slow process with contracting challenges, permitting delays and complex electrical upgrades.It was expected that states would fight against the federal government’s efforts to slow the nation’s electric vehicle charger build out. New York, for example, which is part of the lawsuit, has been awarded over $175 million in federal funds from the program, and state officials say $120 million is currently being withheld by the Trump administration.
Sudhin Thanawala and Sophie Austin, Associated Press
Hackers backing Tehran have targeted U.S. banks, defense contractors and oil industry companies following American strikes on Iranian nuclear facilitiesbut so far have not caused widespread disruptions to critical infrastructure or the economy.But that could change if the ceasefire between Iran and Israel collapses or if independent hacking groups supporting Iran make good on promises to wage their own digital conflict against the U.S., analysts and cyber experts say.The U.S. strikes could even prompt Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea to double down on investments in cyberwarfare, according to Arnie Bellini, a tech entrepreneur and investor.Bellini noted that hacking operations are much cheaper than bullets, planes or nuclear armswhat defense analysts call kinetic warfare. America may be militarily dominant, he said, but its reliance on digital technology poses a vulnerability.“We just showed the world: You don’t want to mess with us kinetically,” said Bellini, CEO of Bellini Capital. “But we are wide open digitally. We are like Swiss cheese.”
Hackers have hit banks and defense contractors
Two pro-Palestinian hacking groups claimed they targeted more than a dozen aviation firms, banks and oil companies following the U.S. strikes over the weekend.The hackers detailed their work in a post on the Telegram messaging service and urged other hackers to follow their lead, according to researchers at the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks the groups’ activity.The attacks were denial-of-service attacks, in which a hacker tries to disrupt a website or online network.“We increase attacks from today,” one of the hacker groups, known as Mysterious Team, posted Monday.Federal authorities say they are on guard for additional attempts by hackers to penetrate U.S. networks.The Department of Homeland Security issued a public bulletin Sunday warning of increased Iranian cyber threats. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a statement Tuesday urging organizations that operate critical infrastructure like water systems, pipelines or power plants to stay vigilant.While it lacks the technical abilities of China or Russia, Iran has long been known as a “chaos agent” when it comes to using cyberattacks to steal secrets, score political points or frighten opponents.Cyberattacks mounted by Iran’s government may end if the ceasefire holds and Tehran looks to avoid another confrontation with the U.S. But hacker groups could still retaliate on Iran’s behalf.In some cases, these groups have ties to military or intelligence agencies. In other cases, they act entirely independently. More than 60 such groups have been identified by researchers at the security firm Trustwave.These hackers can inflict significant economic and psychological blows. Following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, for instance, hackers penetrated an emergency alert app used by some Israelis and directed it to inform users that a nuclear missile was incoming.“It causes an immediate psychological impact,” said Ziv Mador, vice president of security research at Trustwave’s SpiderLabs, which tracks cyberthreats.Economic disruption, confusion and fear are all the goals of such operations, said Mador, who is based in Israel. “We saw the same thing in Russia-Ukraine.”
Collecting intelligence is another aim for hackers
While Iran lacks the cyberwarfare capabilities of China or Russia, it has repeatedly tried to use its more modest operations to try to spy on foreign leaderssomething national security experts predict Tehran is almost certain to try again as it seeks to suss out President Donald Trump’s next moves.Last year, federal authorities charged three Iranian operatives with trying to hack Trump’s presidential campaign. It would be wrong to assume Iran has given up those efforts, according to Jake Williams, a former National Security Agency cybersecurity expert who is now vice president of research and development at Hunter Strategy, a Washington-based cybersecurity firm.“It’s fairly certain that these limited resources are being used for intelligence collection to understand what Israel or the U.S. might be planning next, rather than performing destructive attacks against U.S. commercial organizations,” Williams said.
The Trump administration has cut cybersecurity programs and staff
Calls to bolster America’s digital defense come as the Trump administration has moved to slash some cybersecurity programs as part of its effort to shrink the size of government.CISA has placed staffers who worked on election security on leave and cut millions of dollars in funding for cybersecurity programs for local and state elections.The CIA, NSA and other intelligence agencies also have seen reductions in staffing. Trump abruptly fired Gen. Timothy Haugh, who oversaw the NSA and the Pentagon’s Cyber Command.The Israel-Iran conflict shows the value of investments in cybersecurity and cyber offense, Mador said. He said Israel’s strikes on Iran, which included attacks on nuclear scientists, required sophisticated cyberespionage that allowed Israel to track its targets.Expanding America’s cyber defenses will require investments in education as well as technical fixes to ensure connected devices or networks aren’t vulnerable, said Bellini, who recently contributed $40 million toward a new cybersecurity center at the University of South Florida.There is a new arms race when it comes to cyberwar, Bellini said, and it’s a contest America can’t afford to lose.“It’s Wile E. Coyote vs. the Road Runner,” Bellini said. “It will go back and forth, and it will never end.”
David Klepper, Associated Press
Whos monitoring the situation right now?
As headlines continue to be dominated by news of missile attacks, retaliations, and calls for ceasefire, there are no shortage of situations to monitor. And X users are responding to the call to arms.
Me monitoring the situation with the boys, one X post reads. I bet hes texting other women, reads another. She doesnt know Im monitoring the situation. A third wrote: I never see you at the club. I never see you monitoring the situation.
me monitoring the situation with the boys pic.twitter.com/eiLA7lrOUF— Memelord Technologies (@memelordtech) June 14, 2025
The meme speaks to the compulsion to continually refresh social media during times of political turmoilpulling down at the top of the scroll for the next update. Its not doomscrolling; its monitoring the situation.
This isnt the first time the meme has surfaced on social media. The idea of monitoring the situation has been used in memes throughout the 2010s, making it hard to pin down exactly when the first known meme to use the phrase was uploaded online, Phillip Hamilton wrote on the website Know Your Meme.
Now, its experiencing a resurgence on X following Israels military strikes against Iran, which were followed by U.S. strikes and, most recently, Irans missile attack on a U.S. base in Qatar. In the aftermath, Google searches for is the US going to war spiked nearly 5,000%, while World War III searches surged almost 2,000%, according to Google Trends.
Reddit threads like Is WW3 slowly happening? and Do you think World War 3 is a real possibility? have been flooded with anxious users. Over on TikTok, users took a predictably unserious approach to the collective anxiety over global events. First war, whats the dress code, one post reads over footage of missiles flying overhead. When I get drafted into WW3 but they let me bring my AirPods, another viral post reads, soundtracked to Taylor Swift.
@mikaelarellano RATATATATATA #taylorswift #swiftie #ww3 I Did Something Bad – Taylor Swift
While the fears felt by people around the world as the situation continues to unfold are genuine and warrantedas those who grew up witnessing U.S. invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan can attestusing memes as a coping mechanism is nothing new.
As one X user put it: Men will literally monitor the situation instead of going to therapy.”
After experimenting with AI judges at the Winter X Games six months ago, Jeremy Bloom, CEO of the X Games, is launching an entirely new company based around the technology, and has pulled in some top-tier talent to lead it.
Owl AI, an AI platform designed to judge and referee sporting events, is officially launching following an $11 million seed funding round, led by S32, with additional participation from Menlo Ventures and Susa Ventures. Josh Gwyther, the former Head of AI at Google Cloud, will be the new companys CEO, leaving Google after nearly a decade.
Bloom, who is Owl AIs executive chairman and a former Olympic skier and NFL player, says that the companys creation was, in a word, accidental, as it was originally a sort of experiment between the X Games and Google cofounder Sergey Brin, who tasked Google AI engineers with developing AI judges for snowboarding competitions. That was enough to garner a whole lot of attention from athletes and sports leagues alike, and now that the technology has proven itself, the potential applications are far-reaching.
When I initially reached out to Sergey, Bloom says, this idea had been on my mind since I was a competitor a couple of decades ago. Sergey was excited about it, too, and introduced me to Josh. They created the initial model in six weeks and deployed it at the Winter X Games in January. Now, with five more months to marinate, itll be used again at the Summer X Games in Salt Lake City this weekend.
Ive been focused on generative AI for the last four and a half years, says Gwyther, and Owl AI blends two things that I love: sports and AI. So, making the move was a no-brainer. It was an easy decision to make.
Owl AIs initial purpose was to judge athletes and assign them scores, removing the potential for bias or corruption that may exist with human judges. But theres more to it than that, as it can be used as a referee or judge, it can also score and coach individual athletes, and can also be used as a color commentator in nearly any language.
Our macro goal is to make sure human error never decides the outcome of a game, competition, or sporting event ever again, says Bloom. These moments are hard for fans, devastating for athletes, and have monumental impacts for leagues. He notes some examples from the NFL, such as the notorious Fail Mary, or an instance in which a blown call cost the New Orleans Saints a potential berth in the Super Bowl.
While Owl AI is not necessarily designed to replace human judges or referees, it can help them do their jobs, and hopefully, make better decisions on the field, the mountain, or on the baseball diamond.
As such, other leagues are already talking to the company about potential partnerships. We have five or six ongoing conversations with pro leagues, says Bloom. While nothing is official, both Bloom and Gwyther are excited about the future of the company, especially given how far the technology has advanced in a short period of time.
What we did in Aspen was only five months ago. What were doing in Salt Lake City couldnt have been done at that time, Bloom says, regarding how the AI tech has evolved with remarkable speed.
Im excited.
If you missed the northern lights, or aurora borealis, earlier this month, you may have a second chance tonight, Wednesday, June 25, when they may be visible in some 15 U.S. states.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecasts the next possibility for viewing the northern lights is Wednesday night, with best viewing from Alaska to South Dakota. The agencys three-day forecast is predicting G1 to G2 geomagnetic storms (on a scale of G1 to G5), which are considered minor to moderate. A stream of solar wind from a coronal hole on the sun is likely to create auroras, or swaths of blue, green, and purple in the sky, when it reaches Earth.
Where and when will the northern lights be visible?
According to this map from NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, a total of 15 states are in the line of view for the auroras, with Alaska and the northernmost states expected to have the best visibility on Wednesday, June 25.
The states are: Alaska, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Michigan, Maine, New York, Vermont, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Wyoming, South Dakota, northern Idaho, Iowa, and Washington.
However, since we just experienced the summer solstice, which brings the longest days of the year, and therefore, the shortest nights, viewing may be hampered with fewer hours of night sky in some areas.
The aurora borealis is best observed just after sunset or just before sunrise.
Dont worry if you arent able to see the northern lights this weekNOAA predicts activity will remain high through 2025 and 2026. This years increased solar activity is likely the result of an 11-year sun cycle peaking through October.
You can track the aurora on NOAAs page, where the agency is providing updates.
The fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran appeared to be holding on Wednesday after a rocky start, giving rise to cautious hope that it could lead to a long-term peace agreement even as Tehran insists it will not give up its nuclear program.The ceasefire took hold on Tuesday, the 12th day of the war between Israel and Iran, with each side initially accusing the other of violating it until the missiles, drones and bombs finally stopped.On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump, who helped negotiate the ceasefire, told reporters at a NATO summit in the Netherlands that it was going “very well.”“They’re not going to have a bomb and they’re not going to enrich,” Trump said about Iran.Iran has insisted, however, that it will not give up its nuclear program and in a vote underscoring the tough path ahead, Iranian parliament agreed to fast-track a proposal that would effectively stop the country’s cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based U.N. watchdog that has been monitoring the Iranian nuclear program for years.Ahead of the vote, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf criticized the IAEA for having “refused to even pretend to condemn the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities” that were carried out by the United States on Sunday.“For this reason, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran will suspend cooperation with the IAEA until security of nuclear facilities is ensured, and Iran’s peaceful nuclear program will move forward at a faster pace,” Qalibaf told lawmakers.In Vienna, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said he had already written to Iran to discuss resuming inspections of their nuclear facilities.Among other things, Iran claims to have moved its highly enriched uranium ahead of the American strikes and Grossi said his inspectors needed to re-assess the country’s stockpiles.“We need to return,” he said. “We need to engage.”
Questions over effectiveness of the US strikes
The American strikes hit three Iranian nuclear sites, which Trump said had “completely and fully obliterated” the country’s nuclear program.From Tehran, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, confirmed Sunday’s strikes by American B-2 bombers using bunker-buster bombs had caused significant damage.“Our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that’s for sure,” he told Al Jazeera on Wednesday, while refusing to go into detail.He seemed to suggest Iran might not shut out IAEA inspectors for good, however, noting the bill before parliament only talks of suspending work with the agency, not ending it. But he also insisted Iran has the right to pursue a nuclear energy program.“Iran is determined to preserve that right under any circumstances,” he said.Trump’s special envoy to the Mideast, Steve Witkoff, said on Fox News late on Tuesday that Israel and the U.S. had now achieved their objective of “the total destruction of the enrichment capacity” in Iran, and Iran’s prerequisite for talks that Israel end its campaign had also been fulfilled.“The proof is in the pudding,” he said. “No one’s shooting at each other. It’s over.”At the NATO summit, when asked about a U.S. intelligence report that found Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months, Trump scoffed and said it would at least take “years” to rebuild.Israeli military spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said Wednesday his country’s assessment was also that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been “significantly damaged” and its nuclear program “set it back by years.”Grossi said he could not speculate on how bad the damage was but that Iran’s nuclear capabilities were well known.“The technical knowledge is there, and the industrial capacity is there,” he said. “That no one can deny, so we need to work together with them.”
Hopes for a long-term agreement
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the ceasefire agreement with Iran amounted to “quiet for quiet,” with no further understandings about Iran’s nuclear program going ahead.In the Fox News interview, Witkoff said Trump is now looking to land “a comprehensive peace agreement that goes beyond even the ceasefire.”“We’re already talking to each other, not just directly, but also through interlocutors,” Witkoff said, adding that the conversations were promising and “we’re hopeful that we can have a long-term peace agreement.”However, Baghaei, the Iranian spokesman, said Washington had “torpedoed diplomacy” with its attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites, and that while Iran in principle was always open to talks, the country’s national security was the priority.“We have to make sure whether the other parties are really serious when they’re talking about diplomacy, or is it again part of their tactics to make more problems for the region and for my country,” he said.China, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and close Iranian partner, also weighed in on Wednesday, saying it hoped a “lasting and effective ceasefire can be achieved so as to promote” peace and stability in the region.China is a major buyer of Iranian oil and has long supported its government politically, blaming Israel for starting the latest conflict and destabilizing the region.Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters in Beijing that in the wake of the conflict, China is willing to “inject positive factors to safeguard peace and stability in the Middle East.”Grossi said Iran and the international community should seize the opportunity of the ceasefire for a long term diplomatic solution.“Out of the bad things that military conflict brings, there’s also now a possibility, an opening,” he said. “We shouldn’t miss that opportunity.”
Iran executes 3 more prisoners on spying allegations
During the war with Israel, Iran executed several prisoners accused of spying for Israel, sparking fears from activists that it could conduct a wave of executions after the conflict ends.It hanged three more prisoners on spying charges on Wednesday, bringing the total number of executions for espionage up to six since June 16.The hangings took place at Urmia Prison in West Azerbaijan, Iran’s most northwestern province. State-run IRNA cited Iran’s judiciary for the news, saying the men had been accused of bringing “assassination equipment” into the country.Iran identified the three as Azad Shojaei, Edris Aali and Iraqi national Rasoul Ahmad Rasoul. Amnesty International had previously raised concerns that the men cold be executed.During the 12-day war, at least 28 people were killed in Israel and more than 1,000 wounded, according to officials.Tehran on Tuesday put the death toll in Iran at 606, with 5,332 people wounded. The Washington-based Human Rights Activists group released figures Wednesday suggesting Israeli strikes on Iran had killed at least 1,054 people and wounded 4,476.The group, which has provided detailed casualty figures from multiple rounds of unrest in Iran, said 417 of those killed were civilians and 318 were security force personnel.During the war, Israeli airstrikes also targeted Iran’s top military leadership and other sites associated with its ruling theocracy.With the ceasefire in place, Iranians are trying to return to their normal lives.State media described heavy traffic around the Caspian Sea and other rural areas outside of the capital, Tehran, as people began returning to the city.
Associated Press writers Josef Federman and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.
Jon Gambrell, David Rising and Farnoush Amiri, Associated Press
