Anti-Elon Musk protesters have demonstrated outside hundreds of Tesla dealerships across the US to condemn its CEO’s slashing of federal spending through his role as head of DOGE under President Donald Trump.
The head of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has acknowledged the paramilitary has retreated from the capital Khartoum as it warned the fighting against the Sudanese army was not over.
Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, on Sunday conceded in an audio message on the Telegram app that his forces had left the capital last week as the army consolidated its gains.
“It’s true that in the past few days there was a withdrawal by forces]from Khartoum] to reposition in Omdurman. This was a tactical decision made by the leadership. It was a collective decision”, said Dagalo.
However, he pledged to return to Khartoum “stronger, more powerful and victorious”.
“All those who think that there are negotiations or agreements in process with this diabolical movement are mistaken”, he continued, in reference to the army. “We have neither agreement nor discussion with them – only the language of arms”.
Hemedti’s comments came as the Sudanese army continued to consolidate its gains, taking control on Saturday of a major market in Omdurman, Khartoum’s twin city, which had previously been used by the RSF to launch attacks.
The army already controlled most of Omdurman, home to two large military bases. It appears intent on securing the entire capital area, which is made up of the three cities of Khartoum, Omdurman and Khartoum North, divided by branches of the River Nile.
The RSF still hold some territory in Omdurman.
Meanwhile, Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan on Saturday also pledged not to back down, after a decisive blitz over the past few weeks in which the army reclaimed the presidential palace, the war-damaged airport and other key sites in the city centre.
“We will neither forgive, nor compromise, nor negotiate”, al-Burhan said, adding that victory would only be complete when “the last rebel has been eradicated from the last corner of Sudan”.
The two-year civil war is the result of a power struggle between the army and the RSF before a planned transition to civilian rule.
The war has created what the United Nations describes as the world’s worst hunger and displacement crises. More than 12 million people have been uprooted, tens of thousands killed, and a UN-backed assessment declared famine in parts of the country.
Tehran, Iran – In a first, Iranian authorities have dispersed a demonstration calling for stricter implementation of the country’s dress code rules.
On Friday evening, after state-organised Quds Day rallies in support of the Palestinian cause ended, police dispersed dozens who had been camping out in front of the parliament for weeks.
The demonstrators, mostly women clad in full-body black chadors, had been there for nearly 50 days to decry what they view as loose enforcement of mandatory hijab, which signifies the abandonment of “Islamic values” to them.
Women and men in Iran are bound by a law passed shortly after the country’s 1979 revolution to adhere to strict dress codes – including a veil covering hair for women – on pain of prison, flogging, or financial penalties.
For decades, Iranian authorities have enforced the mandatory hijab through patrols by police and security forces.
The country’s so-called “morality police”, known as “Gasht-e Ershad” or Islamic guidance patrol, would round up people on the streets for “undermining public decency” and put them in vans to be “re-educated” at designated centres or be punished through the courts.
That is what happened to 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in September 2022, who was arrested in Tehran for alleged non-compliance with hijab laws while out with her family.
She died in police custody, her death triggering nationwide protests for months. Hundreds of protesters and dozens of security forces were killed in the unrest, with authorities saying the United States, Israel, and other rivals were behind the “riots”.
The hijab has since become an increasingly hot-button topic.
Iranian authorities announced they would suspend the morality police in late 2022, but the force’s white vans soon made a comeback to the streets of Tehran and other major cities.
Many more women and men have been arrested or had cases opened against them for dress code-related offences. This has ranged from average Iranians on the streets to journalists and veteran actresses who appeared unveiled in public, and businesses or even taxi drivers whose customers were deemed to be violating the law.
Faced with increasing hijab-related “crimes”, especially in Tehran, where many women go out without a headscarf, Iranian authorities have been trying to implement new legislation that would boost their authority to crack down on offenders.
A new hijab bill that defines heavy punishments, especially ramped-up financial penalties, was passed by Iran’s conservative-dominated parliament in September 2023, under the administration of late President Ebrahim Raisi.
It was then discussed in top state bodies many times, before finally being backed in September 2024 by the Guardian Council, the 12-member constitutional watchdog that has to greenlight legislation before it can be implemented.
But President Masoud Pezeshkian, who has pledged to pursue mandatory hijab through non-confrontational methods like “education”, said his government would be incapable of enforcing the “impractical” bill.
After much speculation, conservative parliament chief and former military commander Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf finally confirmed in March that the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) had ordered the bill’s implementation halted.
The council agreed that the bill “could cause tensions in today’s society” in the aftermath of the 2022-23 protests, Ghalibaf told state media, adding that the government and parliament are working on finding ways of enforcing it in the future.
In the meantime, as authorities battle a budget crunch under sanctions pressure from United States President Donald Trump, they have launched new efforts to crack down on hijab offences.
They have set up cameras in public spaces to identify and punish unveiled women, allowed people to report others – and their vehicles, which could be impounded – for hijab offences without providing evidence, and imposed heavy fines or shuttered violating businesses.
The dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of women demonstrating in front of the parliament have been making headlines for weeks.
Some local media called them “super-revolutionaries” due to their religious zeal, and they have garnered praise and support from ultraconservative factions within the Iranian establishment.
They, along with several hardline legislators in parliament, have been accusing the parliament chief and the president of complacency over the enforcement of the hijab bill.
They have described mandatory hijab as a tenet of Iran’s theocratic establishment that “enemies” wish to trample.
But Tehran Governor Hossein Khosh-Eghbal said on Saturday that the demonstrations were “illegal” and warned that police would disperse any further protests held without permits.
He did not mention why the demonstrations were tolerated for weeks, or comment on claims, including by conservative legislator Javad Nikbin, that the demonstrators were paid to be there and had been bused in.
Police confirmed that many of the women had travelled from the holy Shia city of Qom, some 150km (90 miles) south of Tehran.
They also broadcast a short video via state media that showed their officers trying to reason with the shouting protesters and explain why they must disperse by law before taking action.
In a viral video filmed by one of the protesters and circulated online, the woman behind the camera can be heard screaming and saying 400 male and female officers descended on them, put them in vans and dropped them in different parts of Tehran to disperse them.
The woman showed another chador-clad woman lying on the ground with a bloody face, claiming demonstrators were beaten.
The state-run Fars news agency reported that police used “physical means” to end the protests and left demonstrators on the outskirts of the city in the middle of the night.
Police said the video was “staged” in an attempt to influence public sentiment, and that the wounds were self-inflicted.
Politicians with the Paydari (Steadfastness) Front, the ultraconservative faction whose presidential candidate Saeed Jalili was defeated in elections last year, have been lambasting the decision.
The Israeli military says it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen, as the United States launches intense military operations in the country, primarily targeting sites held by Houthi rebels.
Air raid sirens were activated across multiple areas of Israel on Sunday after the missile was launched from Yemen, which the Israeli military said was intercepted before it could cross into the country.
The Iran-backed group has regularly fired missiles at Israel since the war in Gaza broke out on October 7, 2023. The rebels, who have since targeted shipping vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians.
The Houthis paused their campaign during the weeks-long truce in Gaza, which ended on March 18 when Israel resumed its bombardment of the Palestinian territory.
On Thursday, Israel announced that it had intercepted two missiles from Yemen before they could cross into its territory.
The Houthis, who have not yet responded to the latest Israeli claim of the missile attack, said on Thursday that they had launched two missiles, including one hypersonic projectile, towards Israel’s main air gateway, Ben Gurion airport, and an unspecified military target in the area of Tel Aviv.
On March 15, the US began a campaign of air strikes against Yemen in what Washington said was to protect global shipping routes, killing dozens of people.
Air strikes pounded Yemen overnight into Saturday, reportedly killing at least one person as the US military acknowledged earlier bombing a military site in the heart of the capital, Sanaa, controlled by the Houthis.
On Friday, Yemen’s Al-Masriah TV reported US air strikes south of Sanaa, as well as in the Saada and Jawf provinces in the north. A Ministry of Health spokesperson said seven people, including two children, were wounded.
A day earlier, the Houthis said US strikes had killed two people and wounded two.
In response, the Houthis said they targeted “warships in the Red Sea, including the American aircraft carrier]USS Harry S] Truman”.
Lionel Messi scored his second goal of the season less than two minutes after he entered the game as a second-half substitute, and Inter Miami held on for a 2-1 victory over the visiting Philadelphia Union.
The 37-year-old star had missed Argentina’s World Cup qualifiers in South America during the recent international window after picking up an adductor strain in Miami’s most recent Major League Soccer (MLS) game, a 2-1 win at Atlanta on March 16.
Finnish winger Robert Taylor had put Miami ahead in the 23rd minute of Saturday’s game, slotting home a low pass from Benjamin Cremaschi after Jordi Alba had broken down the left flank.
Messi was brought on by coach Javier Mascherano in the 55th minute and he was immediately on target. Messi’s former Barcelona teammate Luis Suarez picked him out on the right and he jinked to make space and fired a low, right-foot effort into the far corner.
Philadelphia pulled a goal back in the 80th minute when Quinn Sullivan whipped in a cross from the right and Hungarian midfielder Daniel Gazdag brought the ball down before firing home a crisp shot.
Unbeaten Miami sits on top of the Eastern Conference with four wins from their opening five games of the season.
Inter face a busy spell with a trip to Los Angeles to play LAFC in a CONCACAF Champions Cup quarterfinal, first leg on Wednesday. They have a home game against Toronto the following Sunday with the return against LAFC three days later.
Mascherano said it had been a cautious move to start with Messi on the bench.
“We didn’t want to risk him from the start because we thought he might be at risk playing the whole game, but we did want him to get some minutes”, said the Argentine coach.
“The plan is that he can recover and travel to Los Angeles. He played today because he was fine. Maybe he wasn’t ready for the full 90 minutes but it was good for him to play 45 minutes. If nothing unusual happens the plan is for him to travel”, he added.
The president of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has condemned Israel for targeting its paramedics as they “fulfil their humanitarian mission”.
During a news conference in Ramallah, occupied West Bank on Sunday, Younis al-Khatib said the search to find nine missing team members in Gaza is ongoing.
The PRCS lost contact with a crew on March 23, after they came under heavy Israeli fire in Rafah, in southern Gaza.
“Those souls are not mere numbers. If this incident]happened] anywhere else, the whole world would have moved heaven and earth to expose this war crime”, al-Khatib said.
He added that, two days ago, a rescue team was able to reach the scene where the crew members went missing with the help of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and was able to retrieve the body of a crew member, which had been buried.
However, rescue teams were unable to investigate whether the remaining crew members were alive.
“There are a number of scenarios for what happened… After more than one week of losing communication with our crew – either they have been killed or detained by the Israeli occupation forces”, al-Khatib said.
Last week, the Israeli military told the AFP news agency that it had fired on ambulances and fire trucks – calling them “suspicious vehicles” – that arrived at a scene where it was carrying out attacks.
Hamas political bureau member Basem Naim slammed the attack on the ambulance and said the “targeted killing of rescue workers – who are protected under international humanitarian law – constitutes a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime”.
OCHA chief Tom Fletcher said since Israel broke the ceasefire in Gaza on March 18 and resumed its war on the enclave, Israeli air attacks have hit “densely populated areas”, with “patients killed in their hospital beds, ambulances shot at, first responders killed”.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health announced on Saturday that since Israel resumed its attacks, at least 921 people have been killed in the territory, adding to the more than 50, 000 killed since October 7, 2023.