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Firefighters work on the site of an aircraft crash in Butler, Missouri, US, June 14, 2026, in this still image taken from a video. REUTERS Wreckage lies in a field next to Butler Memorial Airport
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SpaceX launched 29 new satellites for its Starlink constellation into low Earth orbit as part of its global network expansion.In a statement, the company announced that a Falcon 9 rocket launched from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, carrying satellites for the "Group 10-54" mission.SpaceX successfully deployed the satellites into orbit as planned, while the rocket continued its successful operational record. The "B1080" booster returned safely to its designated landing pad in the Atlantic Ocean after completing its 27th flight.This launch marks the 68th Falcon 9 mission since the beginning of 2026, reflecting SpaceX's accelerated launch pace this year.The Starlink system continues to expand its global network, currently comprising more than 10,600 active satellites, and providing internet services to users around the world, including in-flight connectivity and direct mobile phone connectivity from some telecommunications providers.
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An Indian pollution regulator has alleged wastewater discharged from a Tata components factory for Apple’s iPhone has contaminated the groundwater for nearby farms and warned of a forced shutdown unless Tata gives a satisfactory explanation. India’s Tata Electronics is central to Apple’s push to diversify iPhone production beyond China and is the second-biggest supplier to Apple in South Asia after Taiwan’s Foxconn.The Tata plant under investigation is in Hosur in southern Tamil Nadu state and makes back panels and other components for iPhones. Farmland owners near the plant had complained for months to the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board that wastewater from the factory was contaminating their land and open wells. The complaints led to five state inspections between December 2025 and May 2026, according to details from a previously unreported regulatory notice dated May 25 and reviewed by Reuters. The inspections found that Tata discharged wastewater into a rainwater harvesting pond inside its facility and that the pond overflowed to contaminate “groundwater in the open wells located in the adjacent agricultural lands”, the pollution board’s warning notice to Tata said. Tata had not taken any corrective actions on instructions issued by the pollution board in a previous letter dated December 23, 2025, it said in the three-page notice. Tata Electronics told Reuters in a statement it had commissioned an independent analysis through an accredited laboratory and that the study determined the company was “in full compliance with all regulatory norms”. Tata said it was “committed to responsible business practices and protection of the environment and local communities”, and that it had responded to pollution authorities, although giving no further details. The pollution board in its May notice asked Tata to explain why power to the unit should not be cut and the unit closed for its alleged breach of the rules. Apple, which has strict rules on how its suppliers handle wastewater, and the Tamil Nadu government did not respond to requests for comment from Reuters. Companies have often faced disciplinary action from pollution authorities in India. In 2024, Mercedes-Benz improved wastewater and air pollution management at its only car factory in India after officials detected lapses in compliance with environmental law. India’s environment ministry told parliament in February that 4.4% of 544,364 industries were found non-compliant with environmental standards in the last five years, and 3,600 were shut down by pollution control departments. The Tata notice adds to a series of issues that have dogged Apple’s India supply chain. A fire at Tata’s Hosur plant in September 2024 halted iPhone component production briefly, while a fire in September 2023 at former supplier Pegatron’s iPhone plant shut production for days. In 2024, a Reuters investigation found that major Apple supplier Foxconn systematically excluded married women from iPhone assembly jobs at one of its plants in India, although the company said at the time that it complied with all laws. India is projected to make 26% of all iPhones globally in 2026, from just 6% four years ago, according to research firm Counterpoint.
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Flags of Somalia's breakaway region of Somaliland fly along a street in western Jerusalem on June 14, 2026. Somaliland's President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi met his Israeli counterpart on June 14 in Jerusalem in his first-ever
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Donald Trump hosts a card of seven mixed martial arts fights to be held Sunday inside a specially built arena on the White House's South Lawn on his 80th birthday, a spectacle spotlighting his norm-defying style at a tense moment in his presidency.Seventeen months into his second term in office, Trump has repeatedly pushed the boundaries of the US presidency to command attention and project strength. His latest stage is the Ultimate Fighting Championship's Octagon, the eight-sided cage erected within eyeshot of his White House bedroom for the event titled "UFC Freedom 250." That is a reference to the 250th anniversary of the nation's founding next month. The event comes as Trump grapples with the four-month-old Iran war that has pushed consumer prices to a three-year high and, as shown in public opinion polls, unnerved many voters. It also coincides with his birthday and his efforts to counter perceptions that he is becoming a lame duck president.Tickets were not sold publicly. UFC offered some to guests paying more than $1 mn, according to a person familiar with the matter. A quarter of the audience will be military service members, according to the Trump administration.Trump asserted broad executive authority to stage a private company's event on federal grounds, a break with norms that drew a legal challenge and raised concerns about the cost of the event and the potential for ethical conflicts. The UFC's parent company is publicly traded TKO Group Holdings. In a Reuters/Ipsos online poll of 4,531 US adults conducted June 3-8, just 16% said it was appropriate for Trump to hold the event. A judge declined on Friday to block the event in a legal challenge by plaintiffs who had argued that his administration exceeded its authority in staging it by, among other things, failing to get congressional authorisation.Trump has long been close with UFC Chief Executive Dana White and the Ellison family, whose Paramount has a $7.7 bn deal to air UFC fights until 2033.White has used the sport's popularity, particularly with younger men, to support Trump's campaigns dating back to his first run for the presidency in 2016.UFC has said it spent more than $60mn on the event and will not make a profit.In the run-up, Trump's trust purchased stock in TKO Group Holdings while a company that licenses the president's likeness marketed commemorative coins for as much as $12,000. One of the event's sponsors, Crypto.com, previously partnered with Trump Media & Technology Group.The White House has denied that any conflict of interest exists and said the Trump family manages the president's business affairs."The vast majority of Americans are not celebrating 250 years of America by watching a UFC fight," said Dan Rayburn, an independent streaming analyst. "This is really a private event."Trump has made sports a recurring feature of his presidency, weighing in on issues including transgender athletes and pay for college football players, and has attended a range of major sporting events.France delayed the Group of Seven summit, which starts on Monday, to accommodate Trump's attendance at the UFC event.About a fifth of Americans call themselves MMA fans. According to the findings of the Reuters/Ipsos poll, they do not have a particularly high opinion overall of Trump's job performance, with 45% approving and 55% disapproving. That exceeds his 35% approval rating among all Americans but is well below his 79% approval rating among Republicans.MMA fans skew male and tend to identify as more politically independent, with nearly half of those polled saying they do not identify with either party. About a third identified as Republicans and one in five as Democrats.The arena will provide an intimate setting for the bouts. Some fighters are expected to begin their walkout to the Octagon from the Oval Office and then pass through the Rose Garden or the West Wing colonnade. The arena is 20 rows deep on all sides. Noise from the sound system caroms off the facade of the White House's Truman Balcony, shaking the executive mansion's walls.Tens of thousands of people will be able to watch the fights on a big screen from a nearby park. Daytime temperatures exceeding 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) are expected to cool by the evening, but the US National Weather Service forecasts rain and thunderstorms. The arena was not built with a roof. Related Story
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People are seen on a street decorated with flags of Mexico and Cuba in Havana on June 11, 2026, during the World Cup opening match between Mexico and South Africa. (AFP) "You need to be happy," reads graffiti spray-painted on a ruined building swamped in trash in Cuba's capital Havana.And for 100 minutes, as Morocco held local favorites Brazil to a draw, Cubans complied and put their troubles aside as football's World Cup came to state television on Saturday — two days late.In a small cafe in the densely populated Centro Habana district of pastel-colored townhouses with peeling facades and washing lines strung from the balconies, men perched on stools were watching the action on a small screen.Baseball-mad Cuba has never taken part in a World Cup tournament.But on the communist island, reeling from the worst economic crisis in over a generation, intensified by a US-imposed oil blockade, football is king among the kids particularly.So when state television announced, a day after kick-off in nearby Mexico, that it would broadcast 16 games from the opening stages, the national mood lightened.Now, if only the energy gods would also play ball by keeping the lights on for the matches.There was no such luck for Ismael Veranes, the round-faced human resources director of Cuba's national theater.Sipping a juice out of a carton — his one indulgence for the game — he came to the cafe after spending 20 hours without power at home.Speaking in fluent French, this man of mixed Les Bleus and Selecao loyalties said the tournament provided a welcome respite amid chronic fuel shortages which have grounded most cars and public buses.His commute to work now is an eight-kilometer (five-mile) roundtrip by foot, in crushing summer heat."And when you get home, exhausted, there's no electricity," he complained. "It's hot and there are mosquitoes."'Clear our minds'An hour before the game, on a nearby corner, nine-year-old Lionel Messi fan Michael and his 10-year-old sister Meiliuvis were dribbling with a bottle top, under the benevolent watch of beret-clad Che Guevara on the wall of a gallery across the street.Whereas in the past Cuban children were weaned on baseball — Fidel Castro was known to bat for the crowds — since the arrival of smartphones in 2018, "children lean more towards football," Michael's father Osmany explained.And while the crisis is also etched in the island's "very degraded" football pitches, the World Cup "allows us to clear our minds for a while," he said with a smile.Many Cubans speak nostalgically of World Cups past, when all the games were broadcast by state television, and food and fuel were not as scarce — except in the early 1990s, when Soviet aid dried up.This time round, only bars with cable TV and expensive beer show all the games, leaving many on the outside looking in, literally — from the sidewalk."It's not the same," 36-year-old Alan said mournfully as he stood on the street discussing Brazil's prospects with two friends, a can of beer in hand.In Cuba, however, some football fans are more equal than others.In Havana's leafy middle-class Vedado neighborhood, pints at a dollar a pop were flowing at a watch party in a cultural center festooned with a Brazil flag and World Cup bunting.Outside, a row of SUVs attested to the existence of a small elite that is doing well on dollar salaries from the expanding private sector — even as other Cubans rummage through rubbish bins for food.But even here, the long arm of the crisis is visible, with the TV reception periodically freezing, triggering loud groans from supporters clad in the yellow Brazilian jerseys of stars Vinicius Junior, Neymar and others.Victor Diaz, a 24-year-old biologist, looked grave as he described the need for escapism.Having "something to lighten all the burdens that we're dealing with day by day is incredible," he said. Related Story
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Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty discussed the latest developments in the Palestinian territories in a phone call today with Vice President of the State of Palestine, Hussein Al Sheikh.The call addressed efforts to implement the first phase of US President Donald Trump's peace plan, including ensuring full and sustainable access for humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, deploying an international stabilization force to monitor the ceasefire and secure humanitarian access, and enabling the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza to carry out its duties from within the Strip until the Palestinian Authority resumes its full responsibilities.The two sides also discussed the dangerous developments in the West Bank, where the Egyptian Foreign Minister condemned the escalating pace of settlement activity and the continued Israeli violations in East Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, warning of the repercussions of these actions on the prospects for achieving peace and stability in the region.
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Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Muhammad Ishaq Dar and head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) of Switzerland, Ignazio Cassis discussed, over the phone on Saturday, the latest developments regarding the understandings reached between the United States and Iran.In a statement, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said that the Pakistani and Swiss sides welcomed the encouraging progress toward reaching an understanding between Washington and Tehran.Both ministers expressed hope that the ongoing efforts would soon contribute to peace and stability in the region.On Thursday, US President, Donald Trump had announced that US Vice President, JD Vance will attend the signing ceremony of the US-Iran deal, adding that the ceremony is expected to take place in Europe early this week. Related Story
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Four people were killed and 16 others injured in a series of weather-related incidents caused by heavy rains in the Bannu district of Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, regional authorities said on Saturday.The Provincial Disaster Management Authority said strong winds damaged a number of homes in different areas, resulting in deaths and injuries among residents. The severe weather also led to livestock losses, the authority said.Local authorities and emergency agencies continue to carry out relief operations in the affected areas, while a comprehensive assessment is underway to determine the extent of the damage and losses.The authority urged residents to exercise caution during adverse weather conditions and avoid buildings at risk of collapse.Such incidents are common in Pakistan during the monsoon season, when severe weather fluctuations often result in casualties and property damage.
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The Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine was reconnected to the grid Saturday, nearly three days after a strike cut off its external electricity supply, the UN nuclear watchdog said.Power was restored after repairs to a back-up line, carried out while a local ceasefire was in place, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a post on X.During the loss of external power, Europe's largest atomic power plant had to rely on emergency diesel generators to maintain cooling for its reactors, the agency added.The plant's 19th loss of off-site power during the war between Russia and Ukraine, which began in February 2022, was caused by a strike late Wednesday on a substation.'Lasting almost three days, it was one of the site's longest such loss of power events, underlining the extreme fragility of the electrical grid,' the IAEA said.The agency previously said no release of radioactivity had been detected and radiation levels remained normal.The plant is now preparing to repair its main power line, which has been offline since March 24.Zaporizhzhia lies close to the front line in southern Ukraine, and was captured by Russian troops in the early days of their invasion.Moscow and Kyiv have repeatedly accused each other of risking a nuclear catastrophe with attacks near the plant.
