First Thing: Ceasefire in peril as Israel assaults Lebanon and Iran blocks oil tankers
Iran and mediator Pakistan say ceasefire includes Lebanon but Israel and US disagree. Plus, how Korean fried chicken took over the world
Good morning.
The fate of the two-week ceasefire in the Iran conflict looked in peril as both sides gave divergent versions of what had been agreed, Israel intensified its bombing campaign in Lebanon and Iran halted the passage of oil tankers because of an alleged Israeli ceasefire breach.
Iran and Pakistan, which brokered the 11th-hour truce, both asserted that the ceasefire included Lebanon.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, disagreed and Israeli forces unleashed their heaviest attack of the war so far on more than 100 targets, killing at least 254 people. Donald Trump, after initially remaining silent, said Lebanon was “a separate skirmish” and not part of the deal.
The UN rights chief Volker Türk condemned the scale of Israel’s attacks yesterday as “horrific”.
What has Iran said? In a sharply worded statement, Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said Israel and the US had violated several clauses of the provisional ceasefire, and he decried Israel’s aggressive bombing of Lebanon and a US demand that Iran should have no right to enrich its own uranium.
This is a developing story. Follow our liveblog here.
Man charged with US firebomb plot is linked to group whose leaders back violence against Palestinians
A man who has been charged with plotting to firebomb a pro-Palestine activist’s home is tied to a group whose leaders support violence against Palestinians and have platformed a convicted terrorist who fundraises for a violent settler movement in the occupied West Bank.
Video recordings by the group, called JDL 613 Brotherhood, also reveal its leaders possess an obsessive antipathy towards New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani.
Alexander Heifler, who law enforcement officials say is a JDL 613 member, was arrested last month after FBI and New York police department agents foiled an alleged plot to attack the home of the activist Nerdeen Kiswani with molotov cocktails.
What was said in the video about Mamdani? The videos feature the organization’s founder, Yisrael Yaacob Ben Avraham, describing Mamdani as a “Muslim terrorist” and a “cancer”, and his election as a “harbinger” of “a creeping Islamic takeover of America”.
Hawaii doctor accused of trying to kill his wife found guilty of attempted manslaughter
A Hawaii anesthesiologist who was accused of trying to murder his wife on a cliffside hike last year has been convicted of attempted manslaughter, a lesser charge.
A Honolulu jury returned the verdict against Gerhardt Konig, 47, on Wednesday after a day of deliberations.
Prosecutors said Konig planned to kill his wife, Arielle Konig, during a weekend trip to Honolulu for her birthday in March 2025. They said he tried to push her off a cliff and stab her with a syringe, and then struck her with a rock, before the attack was interrupted by two hikers who heard her cries for help.
The defendant testified that it was his wife who first hit him with a rock and he hit her back in self-defense.
What else did prosecutors say in court? Konig had a plan and backup plans for killing his wife, the deputy prosecutor Joel Garner told jurors in a closing statement on Tuesday. The doctor’s lawyer told jurors there were no such plans and sought to cast doubt on Arielle’s account.
In other news …
Oil and gas prices rose today and stock markets retreated across Asia and Europe as the two-week ceasefire in Iran looked increasingly shaky. Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose by 3.8% on Thursday but remained below $100 a barrel at $98.31, while New York light crude climbed by 4.8% to $99 a barrel.
The FBI has arrested a former military special operations employee accused of providing classified information to the media, the agency’s director, Kash Patel, announced yesterday.
Rex Heuermann, a Long Island architect accused of seven murders known as the Gilgo Beach killings dating back to 1993, pleaded guilty yesterday – and added an eighth murder to his gruesome tally.
The Filter Recommends: Moka pot coffee: unlock cafe-quality iced lattes at home with this $50 Italian staple
Recommended by the Guardian and now subject of an endless library of TikTok tutorials, people have praised the moka pot for steaming mugs of cafe-quality coffee more cheaply than an espresso machine (or a Nespresso machine). As warmer weather arrives, one overlooked use of this versatile coffee maker is its ability to make a killer cup of iced coffee, writes Lauren Gould.
Don’t miss this: As RFK Jr allies hailed Mississippi’s rollback of strict school vaccine rules, whooping cough surged and a baby died
When a federal judge in Mississippi ordered a sweeping rollback of the state’s strict school vaccine rules in 2023, the ruling hit some doctors like “a gut punch”. The state health director warned of the dire possible consequences, including a comeback of preventable illnesses like measles, diphtheria and pertussis – known as whooping cough. The doctor’s warnings were prescient. Whooping cough surged in Mississippi last year, ultimately claiming the life of a baby – the first whooping cough death in the state in 13 years.
Climate check: Mass drowning of chicks puts emperor penguins at risk of extinction
The mass drowning of emperor penguin chicks as sea ice is melted by the climate crisis has led the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to declare the species officially in danger of extinction. Global heating has led to record lows in Antarctic sea ice since 2016. When sea ice breaks up early, entire colonies can fall into the ocean, leaving the chicks to drown. Even if some penguins escape the water, they are soaked and will freeze to death.
Last Thing: How KFC, AKA Korean fried chicken, took over the world
Korean fried chicken is a humble dish that is relatively simple, and is not even traditional Korean cuisine, but it is part of a national obsession that has gone global as part of the K-food wave. The country has only half-jokingly been dubbed the Republic of Fried Chicken.
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