Category: ESTA News

Although the United States claims that the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities was a legitimate measure for international security, some are pointing out that this would not have happened if President Donald Trump had not unilaterally withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) in 2018.

On the 28th, the New York Times (NYT) reported the opinions of nuclear experts that the US military’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities on the 22nd was a measure by President Trump to offset the threats he had brought upon himself in the past.

Robert Einhorn, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who dealt with the Iranian nuclear issue at the US State Department during the Barack Obama administration, said, “If the first Trump administration had not withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal, we would not have needed to bomb uranium metal production facilities today.”

Michael Rubell, a physics professor at the City University of New York who has federal access to government secrets related to nuclear weapons, had a similar opinion, saying, “President Trump has created this mess.” “There is no doubt that the Iran nuclear deal was working,” he said. “He tore up the deal, created chaos, and now he’s saying, ‘I’m the savior.’

” They believe that if President Trump had not torn up the Iran nuclear deal, which was led by the Obama administration in 2015, in 2018, the “uranium metal conversion facility,” which was the main target of the recent US bombing, would not have been built.

The Iran nuclear deal was basically about Iran freezing or reducing some of its nuclear program in exchange for the West easing economic sanctions on Iran. It also included a ban on converting enriched uranium gas into high-density metal that can be used as nuclear fuel for a nuclear bomb.

The metallization process is one of the final steps in creating the explosive core of a nuclear weapon. But President Trump has called the deal a “giant fiction,” and has reimposed severe sanctions on Iran after pulling out of the nuclear deal.

With the deal gone, Iran has begun construction of a uranium metallization facility, formalizing plans to start the process by the end of 2020.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported in February 2021 that Iran had begun producing uranium metal at its Isfahan nuclear facility. The amount was only 3.6 grams, but nuclear experts saw this as a dramatic escalation in Iran’s weapons threat.

Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran’s nuclear facility on the 13th, focusing on the uranium metallization facility in Isfahan, and the United States, which then participated in the war, launched Tomahawk cruise missiles at Isfahan to expand the scale of the destruction.

Nuclear experts believe that these Israeli and US attacks have temporarily destroyed Iran’s ability to make a nuclear bomb, especially its ability to handle the explosive core.

The White House responded to the claim that the Iran problem was brought upon by President Trump, saying, “President Trump was right on every count,” and “The United States should never have participated in Obama’s horrible Iran nuclear deal.”

He emphasized, “President Trump has put into practice what past presidents have only talked about. The Iranian nuclear program has been eliminated, a historic ceasefire agreement has been brokered, and the world has become safer.”

Republican Senator Thom Tillis (North Carolina), who has been attacked by President Donald Trump for opposing his key bills, has decided not to run for reelection.

According to the Associated Press and other sources, Tillis released a statement on the 29th, saying he would not seek a third term in the midterm elections scheduled for next November.

Tillis said, “Over the past few years, it has become increasingly clear that leaders who embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and independent thinking are becoming an endangered species in Washington.”

Tillis said he was proud of his track record of public service, but that the political environment has become difficult for those who act independently of the party line.

“I look forward to having the full freedom to make the decisions I think are right” he said.

Tillis was one of two Republicans who voted against President Trump’s key tax reform bill, a necessary hurdle before the Senate floor debated it the previous day.

The tax reform bill includes a major cut in Medicaid spending to fulfill President Trump’s tax cut pledge. Tillis opposed the bill because it would be a huge blow to North Carolinians if it were to pass as is.

North Carolina, which Tillis represents, is one of the most competitive swing states for Democrats and is also a place where Republicans cannot be sure of a victory in next year’s midterm elections .Republicans hold 53 of the 100 seats in the Senate, so they won the vote the day before by a vote of 51 to 49 despite objections from Rep. Tillis and others. However, President Trump fiercely criticized Rep. Tillis for not voting as he had requested.

President Trump said on social media the previous day, “A lot of people have come forward saying they want to run against Senator Thom Tillis in the primary. I will be meeting with them in the coming weeks to find someone who can properly represent the great people of North Carolina.”

This is essentially threatening to support another candidate in the Republican primary to be held ahead of the midterm elections next year and to defeat Senator Tillis.

President Trump also criticized Thom Tillis on social media that day, saying, “Thom Tillis is a man who talks and complains, but does not act.”

With incumbent Senator Tillis declaring that he will not run, the Republican Party will have to nominate a new candidate for the midterm elections next year.

According to NBC News, a source close to the Trump family said that President Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, is “strongly considering” running. NBC News also reported that incumbent U.S. House of Representatives members Richard Hudson and Patrick Harrigan, who represent North Carolina, are also likely to run.

Amazon, the world’s largest e-commerce company headquartered in Seattle, will host ‘Prime Day’ for four days from the 8th to the 11th of next month.

This year’s event period has been expanded from two days to four days and 96 hours, twice as long as the previous two days. Amazon explained on the 17th, “As the summer shopping event is held for the first four days, Prime members will be able to shop millions of items in twice as much time.”

The Prime Day event, which began in 2015 and is now in its 11th year, is for members who pay an annual fee of $139. This year’s event will introduce the ‘Today’s Big Deals’ event, which provides the most interesting deals by theme each day.

This year’s Prime Day event is being held amidst President Donald Trump imposing tariffs on imports to the United States on major trading partners, including China.

After announcing a unilaterally set reciprocal tariff rate in addition to the basic tariff, President Trump postponed the imposition until the 8th of next month and is currently negotiating with each country. This year, Prime Day begins on the 8th, when the U.S. government concludes negotiations with countries.

Amazon considered displaying the number of tariffs added to the price of some products in April, but immediately scrapped the idea after the White House publicly criticized it. Prime Day is one of Amazon’s biggest sales events of the year.

Last year’s two-day event is estimated to have generated $14.2 billion in sales, up 11% from $12.7 billion in 2023.

Apple is expanding its movie division to strengthen its streaming service Apple TV+. Bloomberg reported on the 22nd that Apple signed a distribution deal for new movies with North Road, an entertainment studio run by media mogul Peter Chernin.

With this deal, Apple will have the first distribution rights to new movies produced by North Road. The studio has been working with Netflix for the past five years.

“We’ve had a great experience working with Apple on series, and they’ve been bold and supportive,” Chernin said. “We’re thrilled to build on that success and now collaborate on a film.”

Chernin’s production company has been producing shows for Apple TV+, and another series, “Chip of War,” is due out in August.

Apple, still a young company in Hollywood, has been expanding its film division to bolster its streaming service, Apple TV+. Apple has had some successful original TV series, including “Ted Lasso,” but has yet to make a splash in feature films. The company is set to expand into the film business with the release of “F1,” starring Brad Pitt, on July 27.

Chernin, an investor and producer, is one of the most influential figures in the media industry. After a long career as an executive at News Corp. and Fox, alongside Rupert Murdoch, he founded his own company in 2010. Netflix, one of the most prolific movie producers in Hollywood, has been cutting back on the number of movies it produces recently, while Apple is aggressively increasing its movie production, Bloomberg reported.

President Donald Trump will be leaving for Canada to attend the G7 summit, which opens on the 15th.This will be his first multilateral summit since returning to the White House in January.

This will be his third trip abroad. Previously, President Trump visited the Vatican for the first time since his second term in office in April to attend the funeral mass for former Pope Francis, and last month he visited three Middle Eastern countries.

The Hill, a U.S. political media outlet, has selected five things to watch out for in connection with President Trump’s actions at the G7 summit, which will be held in Kananaskis, a resort town in Alberta, Canada, until the 17th.First, with the Middle East crisis reaching its peak after Israel launched a preemptive strike targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities and military bases and Iran immediately retaliating, attention is focused on what President Trump will say about this situation and what discussions he will have with leaders of allied nations.

Early this morning, President Trump posted on his TruthSocial that the U.S. was not involved in Israel’s preemptive strike at all, and that “if we are attacked by Iran in any way, shape, or form, the full might and force of the U.S. military will be unleashed at a level we have never seen before.”

In another post that morning, he cited past cases of mediation and peacemaking in some conflicts and said that Israel and Iran should negotiate and reach an agreement (for a ceasefire). Meanwhile, he expressed confidence in a solution, saying, “There are many calls and meetings going on right now” for mediation, and “Peace will come soon.”

In an interview with ABC, President Trump also hinted that the US will actively mediate, saying, “There is a possibility that we will intervene in the ongoing dispute between Israel and Iran.”

Another issue that the world is watching President Trump on is the reciprocal tariffs initiated by Trump and the individual trade negotiations that the US is currently underway.

Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, who is leading the individual trade negotiations, appeared at a congressional hearing on the 11th and hinted at the possibility of an extension of the deadline, but when Trump visited the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. on the same day and asked if he was willing to extend the deadline, he said, “Yes,” but “I don’t think we need to,” essentially reversing Secretary Besant’s statement.

President Trump reaffirmed his intention to notify each country of the reciprocal tariff rates that the US unilaterally set, saying, “At a certain point, we will just send out letters (without negotiating with each country).”Excluding the UK, which has already reached a trade agreement among the G7 member countries, the US’s negotiation partners are Japan, Germany, France, Italy, and Canada, which are the remaining five countries.

With less than a month left until the deadline for the grace period (July 8) for the reciprocal tariffs imposed on each country by President Trump, attention is focused on whether he will extend the grace period and negotiation period.

Since South Korea has been invited to this G7 summit and President Lee Jae-myung is scheduled to attend the meeting, attention is focused on whether he will be able to find a clue to the difficult issues in the Korea-US trade negotiations during his first meeting with President Trump.

Also, regarding the issue of the ceasefire negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, which are still at an impasse, attention is also focused on what position President Trump will take and whether he will hold a bilateral meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is expected to attend this G7 summit.

In addition, President Trump’s attendance at the G7 summit comes ten days before the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit, which will be held in The Hague, Netherlands, on the 24th and 25th of this month. The Hill pointed out that “President Trump is also scheduled to attend the NATO summit, so June will be a month full of meetings with allies.”

Just like during his first term, President Trump has been strongly pressuring Western allies to increase defense spending, and this is noteworthy in that it could directly and indirectly affect South Korea, where U.S. troops are stationed.

In addition, anti-Trump sentiment in Canada has grown since President Trump referred to Canada as the “51st state” before and after his second term, which was also a notable factor.

In relation to this, The Hill pointed out that “Canadian politicians and citizens have sent signals that they are opposed to becoming part of the United States, and there is a possibility that some protests or rallies will occur during Trump’s stay.”

Millions of people participated in the “anti-Trump protests” held across the United States on the 14th, and in some areas, there were several incidents and accidents, including shootings and vehicle attacks on protesters, the American media reported on the 15th.The organizers of the “No Kings” rally, a progressive group, announced that millions of people participated in marches in 2,000 places across all 50 states of the United States the day before in resistance protests against the Trump administration.

In major cities such as Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago, tens of thousands of people gathered for the downtown marches, and local police reported that most of the protests were peaceful. However, in some areas, riots broke out, injuring several people, and the police had difficulty suppressing them.

In Salt Lake City, Utah, at around 7:56 p.m. the previous day, a shooting occurred at a downtown rally with about 10,000 people, and one person was taken to the hospital with a gunshot wound.

Police announced on the same day that the victim was identified as a 39-year-old Utah resident named Arthur Polasa A Ru, and that he died while receiving treatment at the hospital. Police arrested and investigated two members of the organizers’ security team who were involved in the shooting, including 24-year-old Arturo Gamboa, who was found lying on the ground with a gunshot wound and an AR-15 rifle, and confirmed that Gamboa was the cause of the incident.

The security team members told the investigative authorities that Gamboa, wearing a black mask and black clothes, had shown suspicious behavior just before the incident and that they saw him take an AR-15 rifle out of his backpack and start operating it.

The agents pulled out their guns and ordered Gamboa to drop his weapon, but witnesses said Gamboa raised his rifle and began running toward the crowd of people on the street, holding the gun in a firing position.

One of the security officers then fired three shots at Gamboa, striking him once and killing another protester, Arthur Polasa a Ru, police said. Police added that they were continuing to investigate the incident, including what prompted Gamboa to charge into the crowd with a rifle.

Video from the scene shared online showed the crowd at the protest scattering and fleeing in panic as gunfire was heard.

After the shooting, police asked the protesters to leave the area “in a safe and orderly manner.”

In Culpeper, Virginia, a person was injured when an SUV plowed into a crowd as protesters were leaving the rally the afternoon of the previous day. Police arrested the 21-year-old male driver.

In San Francisco, a car plowed into a crowd of thousands of protesters downtown just after noon the previous day, injuring at least four people, NBC reported. The suspect, who drove away from the scene, was detained by police and is being questioned.

In Portland, Oregon, some protesters gathered in front of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) headquarters in the evening, and federal agents fired tear gas, flash bangs, and rubber bullets to disperse them. Protesters also resisted by throwing water bottles and other objects, and police declared the scene a “riot” and arrested at least two people.

In Las Vegas, 15 people were arrested by police at two protests, one of whom was charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon.

In Los Angeles (LA), some protesters resisted by throwing rocks, bricks, and water bottles as police attempted to disperse protesters using chemical irritants in the downtown area in the evening. Most protesters left the downtown area in time for the nightly curfew.LA Mayor Karen Bass told CNN that the downtown protest, attended by about 30,000 people, and the rallies held in 15 other areas of the city were “mostly peaceful.”

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) announced that from the previous day to this morning, 35 people were arrested for violating the curfew and three others for resisting and disobeying orders to disperse. Three officers were injured in the process.

The total number of arrests made by the LAPD in relation to the downtown LA protests since the 7th has increased to 561. In Austin, Texas, police temporarily closed the state capitol building, where the rally was taking place, after receiving reports of a material threat to some Democratic state legislators who were scheduled to attend the rally the morning before.

In Minneapolis, Minnesota, a “No Kings” rally was canceled after two state legislators were shot in quick succession the day before. A flyer that read “No Kings” was found inside the suspect’s car.

One in two taxis in New York City is now wheelchair accessible. The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) celebrated on the 5th, saying, “We have finally achieved the ‘50% wheelchair accessibility rate for taxis’ goal that began in 2013 with an agreement with disability rights groups,” and “After 10 years of effort, it has become incomparably easier for wheelchair passengers to use taxis than ever before.”

According to the TLC, out of 13,587 medallion taxis registered with the TLC at the end of 2013, only 213, or 1.6% of the total, were wheelchair accessible vehicles (WAVs) .New York City has been making all-out efforts to expand WAVs, including operating a pilot program that provides a total of $5 million in support to medallion taxi drivers who want to convert to WAVs.

Regarding this, a wheelchair passenger welcomed the improvement, saying, “I am glad that 50% has finally been achieved. However, it should have been achieved a long time ago,” and “It will make transportation much more convenient as other means of transportation have been improved in addition to trains, subways, and buses.”

In New Jersey, starting in June, as part of measures to combat the surge in electric bills, 3.9 million bill payers will receive between $100 and $250, depending on their income.

On the 5th, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy held a press conference and announced, “The state plans to invest $430 million to lower the burden on residents’ bills,” and “Most households paying electric bills in New Jersey will receive $100, and low-income households that are economically vulnerable will receive up to $250.”

According to Governor Murphy, the subsidy will be paid in the form of electric bill credits, not cash payments. The state-issued bill credits will be applied to electric bills in one or two installments starting in July. Murphy said details on how the subsidy will be paid will be “clear and specific in the coming weeks.” The electric bill relief measure is pending approval from the state Board of Public Utilities (BPU).

Electricity rates in New Jersey are set to increase by up to 20% starting this month, raising concerns that electric bills will skyrocket during the summer. The main cause of the rate hike is the increase in wholesale prices for electricity supplied to the eastern United States.

While Governor Murphy, a Democrat, and the state Democratic leadership have maintained that this is an emergency measure to protect residents from the sharp increase in electric bills, some critics say it is a vote-buying strategy in anticipation of this year’s election. This year, New Jersey will hold a primary election on June 10 and a general election on November 4 to elect a new governor and 120 members of the state assembly, and some are pointing out that this measure was suddenly announced to prevent public opinion from worsening due to the surge in electricity rates.

The Republican Party, which is aiming to reclaim the New Jersey governorship for the first time in eight years, criticized, saying, “The root cause of the surge in electricity rates is the state government’s policies of investing too much in renewable energy plans and shutting down existing thermal power plants,” and “This measure is not a relief, but a cover-up. It is simply delaying the pain to avoid political repercussions during an election year.”

Opposition is also emerging from the progressive camp. They are taking issue with the fact that the funds needed to address the surge in electricity rates come from the state government’s clean energy fund and greenhouse gas countermeasure funds. The progressive think tank New Jersey Policy Perspectives said, “It is positive that the governor and the legislature are taking seriously the burden of high energy costs on households, but it is important to determine how to fund the subsidies,” and “using funds earmarked for clean energy projects to strengthen the future power grid for other purposes will have negative effects in the future.”

Excluding cash-based living expenses, Maryland households pay the fifth-largest bills in the nation for various items such as mortgages, insurance, and electric bills, while Virginia ranked 12th.Online bill management service provider Doxo recently released the 2025 Cost of Bills Index (COBI) report based on various bills such as mortgages, rent, auto loans, electric and heating utilities, insurance, cable TV, phone, and internet.

According to the report, Maryland ranked fifth in the nation with an average monthly bill of $2,505. This is three spots higher than last year’s eighth place. The COBI index recorded 122, which is 22% more than the national average.

Virginia households paid an average of $2,223 per month, ranking 12th in the nation. The state with the largest monthly bill in the country was California, at $2,854, followed by Hawaii ($2,712), New Jersey ($2,621), and Massachusetts ($2,614). The state with the smallest average monthly bill was West Virginia, at $1,149, 44 percent below the national average.

Next came Mississippi ($1,502), Oklahoma ($1,543), and Arkansas ($1,539). Meanwhile, the cities with the largest monthly household bills across the nation were San Jose ($3,523), New York ($3,365), San Francisco ($3,272), San Diego ($3,185), and Boston ($3,162). The Washington area ranked 7th nationwide with $2,856, and Baltimore ranked 21st nationwide with $2,242.

The federal government has begun verifying the online activities of foreign nationals applying for Harvard University student visas, political media outlet Politico reported on the 30th. According to the report, the State Department sent a diplomatic cable to U.S. embassies and consulates around the world, instructing them to “completely review the online activities of all individuals applying for nonimmigrant visas to come to Harvard for any purpose.”

The measure, which went into effect immediately, primarily targets foreign students, but also includes Harvard faculty, researchers, staff, and invited speakers.

Politico explained that this measure is a pilot program that could be expanded to other universities across the United States. The verification will examine the social media (SNS) of the visa applicant for anti-Semitism.

Earlier, on the 27th, the State Department sent a telegram to diplomatic missions around the world to announce that it would temporarily suspend new student and exchange visitor visa interviews and prepare to expand and strengthen social media screening, and this measure is putting this into practice.

In particular, the State Department instructed consular officers to consider that if (the applicant) has no online activity at all and if the social media account is set to private or has limited publicity, this may reflect an attempt to evade (verification) and raise doubts about the applicant’s credibility.