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President Volodymyr Zelensky has ordered government authorities to prepare a new sanctions operation against Russia’s military industry, saying delays allow Moscow to adapt to existing restrictions.

According to Zelensky’s statement on Thursday, Aug. 6, he held a coordination meeting on sanctions against Russia, covering all categories of restrictions as the war approaches its fifth year. Denying Russia time to adjust to restrictions already in place remains the top priority, he said.

“We also discussed Russia’s use of machine tools and technologies that Moscow is a generation behind on and definitely could not have created on its own,” Zelensky said, adding that “more pressure is needed to limit such ties between the aggressor state and the world.”

According to Zelensky, every participant in the meeting was assigned concrete tasks that are expected to be fully carried out.

The announcement builds on the EU’s finalized 21st sanctions package against Russia in mid-July, which targeted specific companies, entities and individuals tied to Moscow’s war effort.

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Iran's parliament is reviewing a plan to ban ships linked to the U.S., Israel and other "hostile countries" from transiting the Strait of Hormuz until Tehran is compensated for war damage, according to Iranian state media.

The plan would impose fees of up to 7% of cargo value on commercial vessels that pass through the strait. It would also fine ships 20% of cargo if they violate Iran's conditions.

Iran on Wednesday said it was finalizing an agreement on shipping routes with Oman, a U.S. ally that sits on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian state media quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying that ships would enter through the strait's northern corridor near the Iranian coast and exit through the southern corridor near the Omani coast.

Oman has not commented.

The Trump administration has disputed Iran's characterization of the agreement.

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Tennessee primary voters picked a pair of Memphis-area lawmakers to square off in a dramatically reconfigured US House seat central to Donald Trump’s plan to try to hold on to a slim Republican majority in the midterm congressional elections.

Republicans chose state senator Brent Taylor, who was endorsed by Trump, to be their nominee in the revamped 9th congressional district. Democrats picked state representative Justin Pearson, who gained national prominence three years ago when he was expelled from the Tennessee House for protesting in support of gun control measures.

The previously compact Memphis-based district had a majority Black population, but it was cracked apart by Republican officials this year following a US supreme court ruling that weakened federal Voting Rights Act protection for minorities. Republicans hope the redistricting, which is part of a broader national plan pushed by Trump, could give them a clean sweep of all nine of Tennessee’s seats

The new ninth district stretches about 200 miles (320km) east from Memphis across rural areas before reaching north toward Nashville. It previously favored Democrats but now tilts Republican, with 71% of voters new to the district, according to an Associated Press estimate. Some Memphis voters have raised concerns that their representation has been diminished.

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The US is tracking nearly 54,000 immigrants through GPS-enabled ankle monitors as part of a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) electronic surveillance program, according to private prison corporation The Geo Group. Early last year, just 17,000 immigrants were wearing the devices..

The Geo Group owns BI Inc, the company that runs ICE’s intensive supervision appearance program (ISAP), and reported the numbers in its earnings call on Thursday.

The overall number of immigrants enrolled in the surveillance program remained flat at about 184,000. Geo Group executives said that a large number of participants were shifted from less intensive forms of surveillance, such as phone check-ins, to ankle monitors.

The shift to ankle monitors, which the company pitches as a “high-security level of monitoring”, has increased revenues for Geo Group . Ankle monitors cost ICE more than most of the other surveillance technologies administered by BI Inc. The company charges ICE a little more than $2 a day per monitor, while the SmartLink app – a facial recognition and location tracking smart phone app – costs about $0.96 for each immigrant enrolled, according to publicly available ICE statistics. At last count, more than 127,000 immigrants are required to check in using SmartLink.

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A dramatic increase in immigration enforcement at US airports has reportedly placed the airline industry at odds with the Trump administration as workers decline to help federal officials arrest their targets – many of whom have pending applications for visas, asylum or green cards.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) – both part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – have expanded their collaboration to make as many as three dozen daily arrests at US airports last month, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Some of the people who have been taken into federal immigration custody include a former au pair, an asylum seeker with sickle cell anemia who uses a wheelchair, and women who are married to US citizens and in the process of applying for lawful permanent residency, according to the New York Times.

“It’s not people with criminal records,” said Ghassan Shamieh, a San Francisco-based immigration lawyer who had four clients detained at airports over 10 days. “You are talking about people with legitimate pending applications.”

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Senate Democrats introduced a new bill on Thursday to roll back Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s news media restrictions at the Pentagon, stating that those are suppressing independent reporting at the department.

The legislation, called the Protecting Pentagon Press Access Act, was introduced by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) that would restore journalists’ access within the Pentagon that was available before the new measures imposed by Hegseth, including the “Correspondents’ Corridor,” a decades-old workspace inside the building that national security reporters utilized.

The bill, which will have a hard time getting traction in the GOP-controlled Senate, would also restore unescorted access to reporters to areas of the department that were accessible without an escort before the late 2025 Trump administration restriction went into effect.

“At a time of war, transparency and independent, accurate reporting matter more than ever,” Schatz said in a statement. “Our bill will reverse the Pentagon’s effort to shut out the free press and make sure the public gets the information it deserves.”

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Israeli forces launched a large-scale operation in the Qalandiya refugee camp in occupied East Jerusalem on Wednesday.

The Jerusalem Governorate said dozens of military vehicles stormed the camp before dawn, carrying boxes, equipment and maps.

Soldiers deployed across several neighbourhoods as home raids and searches continued.

Palestinian sources said troops raided the headquarters of the camp's Popular Committee and forcibly removed several residents from their homes.

One family was ordered to evacuate its house completely, while dawn prayers were prevented in all of the camp's mosques.

A Palestinian man was wounded after being struck by a military vehicle near the camp, suffering leg injuries. Soldiers also severely beat journalist Muhammad Sumrin while he was covering the raid and fired stun grenades at other journalists.

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President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Wednesday to press for urgently needed air defense interceptors after a devastating Russian missile and drone attack killed 17 people and wounded more than 40 in Kyiv and the surrounding region.

The high-level call came just hours after Ukrainian air defenses failed to intercept any of the missiles Russia launched overnight – exposing one of the most dangerous gaps in the country’s defenses as Moscow intensifies ballistic attacks against Ukrainian cities.

“Today, I spoke with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte about the overall situation,” Zelensky wrote on social media.

“Mark is well-informed about the threats, and we coordinated our efforts regarding countries that have the necessary missiles and the capacity to help.”

“It is important to cut through all red tape and make the necessary political decisions,” he wrote.

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