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US Vice President JD Vance said on Sunday that President Donald Trump had asked him to turn over "a new leaf" in American ties with the Iranian people.

But at the same time as the talks were occurring, Trump threatened to continue bombing Iran if it did not contain Hezbollah.

Vance arrived at the Burgenstock mountain resort in Switzerland on Sunday morning to join Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, for technical thttps://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-hopes-turn-over-new-leaf-iran-trump-threatens-resume-bombingalks with Iranian officials following last week's signing of a memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran.

"This is a historic meeting," Vance said, adding that the goal was to "turn over a new leaf to transform our relationship with the people of Iran, and to extend an outstretched hand".

"The question before us now is how much more can we accomplish together? Can we turn over a new leaf? Can we change relations in the Middle East permanently?

"Or do we go back to doing things the old way, which is not our preference, but it's certainly very much something that can happen."

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Authorities in France have placed more than a third of the country under a red heat alert, cancelled some outdoor sports events and restricted alcohol consumption at the nationwide Fête de la Musique event amid a brutal heatwave forecast to push temperatures above 40C.

Level 1 or 2 heat alerts were issued on Sunday for about 53 million people, just over 75% of the population. A record 35 of the country’s 96 mainland departments were put on danger-to-life red alert, with another 45 under an orange warning.

France’s ecology minister, Mathieu Lefèvre, said on Sunday that 14 more departments would be on red alert on Monday. “We do not see temperatures falling before the end of the week,” he said, demanding “great prudence and a great many precautions”.

The national meteorological service Météo-France said: “Very high temperatures are setting in for the long term,” with a heatwave of “exceptional severity and duration” likely to break monthly and possibly all-time records.

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One morning early last July, Micha Bitsinnie arrived at work to an onslaught of messages from confused families.

New Mexico’s governor Michelle Lujan Grisham had just issued a directive mandating the state’s child welfare department seek custody of all newborns who had been exposed to drugs and alcohol in utero. Some parents wondered whether medications that they were taking for addiction recovery, such as methadone, would flag their cases. Healthcare providers wondered whether the fentanyl in an epidural counted as a drug exposure.

Bitsinnie supports families as a policy manager at the non-profit organization Bold Futures, which advocates for policies that keep families together. Research shows that children prenatally exposed to substances do best when they can remain in their families and receive supportive services to treat any withdrawal symptoms they experience.

Bitsinnie is also a member of the Navajo nation, and she immediately noticed that the new directive appeared to be in tension with laws protecting the sovereignty of New Mexico’s Native tribes. Those laws stipulate that tribes must be immediately notified about a child welfare case involving a Native child so that they can take jurisdiction of cases involving their citizens.

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At least 12 people in a crowd on a Chicago street suffered gunshot wounds after an SUV pulled up and two people inside the vehicle started shooting, police said.

The SUV drove away from the South Side neighborhood, leaving two people, both male, in critical condition following the shooting late on Friday, police said in a news release. One suffered a gunshot wound to the thigh.

The eight men and four women in the group ranged in age from 17 to 47. They were being treated at four hospitals.

Police said another man suffered unknown injuries and refused medical treatment.

Police initially responded to a call of one person shot, and found a woman with two gunshot wounds to her back and a man with four graze wounds to his back. Both were listed in fair condition.

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Iran’s top joint military command said on Saturday morning that it will close the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil trading corridor, due to ongoing Israeli strikes in Lebanon during a ceasefire agreement.

Khatam al-Anbiya Central ‌Headquarters said the attacks violated the ceasefire agreement between the U.S. and Iran. Israel targeted Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah hours after the two sides agreed to halt fighting.

“In view of the United States’ bad faith and its clear breach of its commitments by failing to implement the first article of the memorandum ending the war, and in response to the continuous and ongoing violation of the ceasefire by the Zionist regime in southern Lebanon… It hereby announces that the Strait of Hormuz will be closed to the passage of vessels,” the military command said in a statement reported by state broadcaster IRIB.

“In view of the United States’ bad faith and its clear breach of its commitments by failing to implement the first article of the memorandum ending the war, and in response to the continuous and ongoing violation of the ceasefire by the Zionist regime in southern Lebanon… It hereby announces that the Strait of Hormuz will be closed to the passage of vessels,” the military command said in a statement reported by state broadcaster IRIB.

The announcement comes just days after President Trump signed a framework agreement with Iran that authorized the reopening of the critical waterway. The strait’s closure during the Iran war has sent energy prices skyrocketing and strained global fuel supplies.

Trump said in a speech at Joint Base Andrews on Friday that “ships are flying out of the Hormuz Strait like nobody’s ever seen before.”

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Norway's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has proposed a bill to ban trade with Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine, declaring them an impediment to peace.

The Norwegian government said on Friday that it had submitted a bill with legally binding stipulations for consultation. The proposal recommends prohibiting Norwegian citizens and companies from profiting from or supporting Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise.

“The Israeli settlements in Palestine are in violation of international law. They contribute to displacement, extreme violence and a development that makes a peaceful solution impossible. We will prohibit trade with the illegal settlements,” Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said in a press release.

The Israeli government has built illegal settlements at a rapid pace, undermining the prospects of a Palestinian state.

The proposal follows a parliamentary resolution and would ban Norwegian exports to, and importation of goods from, Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

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President Trump unveiled the new Qatari-gifted Air Force One plane on Friday, saying it will fly “further and faster” than any other model of presidential plane.

Trump toured the renovated Boeing jet at Joint Base Andrews in  Maryland.

“There will never be one like this. This is very unique. This is considered the world’s most luxurious plane,” the president said. “When it was built, it was built at a level that will probably never be seen again.”

The plane features a new color scheme — red, white, gold and navy blue, a change from the two-toned lighter blues. It features the presidential seal on the left side and has a massive waving American flag on its tail.

The aircraft, designated by the Air Force as VC-25B, is expected to be a “bridge” aircraft in use between the aging Boeing 747-200s that have been used for more than two decades and the two new Boeing planes that were expected in 2024 but won’t be ready until 2028.

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Imperial Germany famously signed a treaty under humiliating terms to end WWI at Versailles, codifying a surrender despite the fact that the war was overwhelmingly fought beyond its borders.

Likewise, Iran never got close to US shores during the war, and did not need to. 

Its missile and drone attacks depleted the US’s stockpile of air defence interceptors to dangerous levels, while its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz drained Washington’s strategic oil reserve to a forty-year low and starved the global economy of fossil fuels.

The world was facing an “economic catastrophe”, US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday. The US president ended up signing a deal with Iran, at the same French palace where Germany and its foes ended WWI.

The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the US and Iran ushers in 60 days of negotiations to reach a permanent end to the war started by the US and Israel. In Washington, both supporters and opponents have called the deal a debacle - even if they agree with ending the war on the MoU’s terms.

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