Iran accuses US of plotting ground assault while publicly seeking talks | First Thing

A man sifts through rubble at the site of a building hit by a US-Israeli strike. Photograph: Majid Saeedi/Getty Images View image in fullscreen A man sifts through rubble at the site of a building hit by a US-Israeli strike. Photograph: Majid Saeedi/Getty Images First Thing: Iran accuses US of plotting ground assault while publicly seeking talks Tehran says it will confront any land attack, as Trump says regime’s export hub on Kharg Island could be taken ‘very easily’. Plus, how Americans can rebuild their country’s once robust peace movement Iran has warned the US that it is prepared to confront any ground assault, accusing Washington of secretly planning a land attack while publicly seeking talks, as the war that has killed thousands of people and caused the biggest ever disruption to global energy supplies entered its second month. In a message published to mark 30 days since the start of the war, the Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said: “The enemy signals negotiation in public, while in secret it plots a ground attack.” “Our firing continues,” Ghalibaf said. “Our missiles are in place. Our determination and faith have increased.” He said Iranian forces were “waiting for the arrival of American troops on the ground to set them on fire and punish their regional partners for ever”. What has Donald Trump said? In an interview published last night, the president did little to assuage those concerns, telling the Financial Times that his “preference would be to take the oil” in Iran, and saying of Iran’s crucial export hub on Kharg Island: “We could take it very easily.” This is a developing story. Follow the liveblog here. Trump appears to relax de facto oil blockade on Cuba as Russian oil tanker arrives View image in fullscreen A fuel tanker in Matanzas Bay in Cuba in February. Photograph: EPA Donald Trump has signalled a new flexibility in allowing oil into Cuba, hours before a Russian oil tanker under US sanctions arrived at the Caribbean island amid a de facto oil blockade imposed by Washington. Speaking to reporters onboard Air Force One, the president said: “If a country wants to send some oil into Cuba, right now, I have no problem whether it’s Russia or not.” Until now, Trump’s administration had in effect prevented all oil shipments to Cuba in an attempt to put pressure on the government in Havana, while also issuing a series of threatening statements. Why is this important to Cuba? The thousands of barrels of crude would provide significant relief to Cuba, which, according to its president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, has not received any oil imports for three months, leading to strict rationing of gasoline and exacerbating an energy crisis that has resulted in multiple power outages across the country. Cory Booker says Democrats have ‘failed this moment’ and calls for new leaders View image in fullscreen Cory Booker speaking to the press last week. Photograph: Kena Betancur/AFP/Getty Images Cory Booker, the Democratic senator from New Jersey, renewed his calls for new leadership of the Democratic party, saying it had “failed this moment”. “As a whole, our party has failed this moment,” Booker said yesterday. “I’ve called for a generational renewal, because this left-right divide is killing our country and our adversaries know it.” During an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Booker also said the Democratic party had “too small of a coalition”, especially as the party sought to confront “new challenges”. Do other Democrats agree with him? Some Democrats, specifically on the more progressive wing of the party, have discussed replacing Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, as midterm elections approach. Progressive senators reportedly see Schumer as an obstacle to standing up to Trump. In other news … View image in fullscreen Kim Novak in Vertigo. Photograph: Alamy Kim Novak has voiced her disapproval of the casting of Sydney Sweeney as herself in an upcoming biopic, saying she is “totally wrong to play me”. The 93-year-old actor said she would have “never approved” the biopic Scandalous, about her relationship with the musician Sammy Davis Jr. Pope Leo has said God ignores the prayers of leaders who wage war and have “hands full of blood”, in an apparent rebuke to the Trump administration after comments by the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, that he was praying for violence against enemies who deserved “no mercy”. Governments in five EU member states are “consistently and intentionally” eroding the rule of law, Europe’s leading civil liberties group has warned, while democratic standards are deteriorating in six more. Stat of the day: Thieves steal Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse paintings worth more than $10m View image in fullscreen Cup and Plate of Cherries by Paul Cezanne, one of the paintings stolen from the Magnani Rocca Foundation near Parma. Photograph: Magnani Rocca Foundation/Reuters Thieves have stolen paintings worth more than $10m by Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse from a museum in Italy, police have said. Four masked men stole Fish by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Still Life with Cherries by Paul Cézanne and Odalisque on the Terrace by Henri Matisse, according to Italian media reports. Building Power: No Kings protest draws 8m to push back on Trump administration View image in fullscreen People hold signs and flags as they march during the No Kings national day of protest in Chicago on Saturday. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images More than 8 million people protested against the Trump administration at more than 3,300 No Kings events across the US on Saturday, according to organizers. The third of the No Kings protests, it constituted the greatest number of protests in a single day in US history, said Britt Jacovich, one of the organizers. Police arrested dozens of protesters and shot teargas into a crowd on Saturday night at the No Kings protest in Los Angeles. Don’t miss this: US war on Iran is widely opposed – so why isn’t there a movement to stop it? View image in fullscreen People hold candles in remembrance of soldiers killed in Vietnam and other wars on Memorial Day in 1969. Photograph: Owen Franken/Corbis/Getty Images The war on Iran is the most unpopular a US war has ever been at its onset, but this dramatic shift in sentiment has not yet translated into organized anti-war opposition. But there’s no reason to succumb to despair, because opposition can be rebuilt, write Salar Mohandesi, an associate professor of history at Bowdoin College, and Ben Mabie, a member of the editorial collective for the quarterly magazine Long-Haul. … or this: Full network of clitoral nerves mapped out for first time View image in fullscreen A 3D-printed model of the clitoris based on the work of Ju Young Lee. Yellow structures are the nerves, green and purple are erectile tissue, and red and blue are arteries and veins. Photograph: cirp GmbH Almost 30 years after the intricate web of nerves inside the penis was plotted out, the same mapping has finally been completed for the clitoris. As well as revealing the extent of the nerves that are crucial to orgasms, the work could help prevent women who have pelvic operations from ending up with poorer sexual function. Climate check: ‘I’ve never seen anything like it’: Hawaii’s small farmers begin recovery after catastrophic flooding View image in fullscreen Thick mud and debris surround a home after the Kona Low storm flood devastated the Otake Camp community in Waialua, Hawaii, last week. Photograph: Marco Garcia/AFP/Getty Images One week on from two huge storms, in which as much as 50in (127cm) of rain fell and caused some of the state’s worst flooding since 2004, Hawaii is only just beginning to grapple with the aftermath. The damage is immense, with officials estimating costs at $1bn, and farmers have been hit hard. Last Thing: Chesney the kangaroo found three days after hopping away from farm View image in fullscreen Chesney the kangaroo near Sunshine Farm in Necedah, Wisconsin. Photograph: Debbi Marland/AP How does a kangaroo escape a petting zoo? It’s not the opening line to a dad joke. If you’re Chesney the kangaroo, you scale an 8ft (2.5-meter) fence and go on the lam for three days, sending residents of a small Wisconsin town on a search that would end happily on Saturday. If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@theguardian.com Explore more on these topics US news First Thing newsletter news Share Reuse this content