Mediators try to save crumbling Iran deal as Trump, Khamenei trade threats

U.S. and Iranian leaders traded threats on Saturday as the interim deal to end the war buckled under crossfire in the Middle East and efforts continued to keep talks goin

President Donald Trump overnight made threats on social media of further missile attacks against Iran, after the funeral of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saw open calls for the U.S. leader’s killing. Senior U.S. officials demanded that Iran make a public statement saying the Strait of Hormuz is open and ships won’t be attacked.

Later, Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei vowed that Iranians would continue to avenge his father’s death. Such revenge “is the will of our nation and must certainly be carried out,” he said in remarks carried by state television. He still has not been seen publicly since the war began on Feb. 28 with strikes that killed his father.

Tehran has insisted that the strait remain under its control and that it be allowed to charge ships moving through it, a stance it took after the war began.

The exchange of threats followed days of U.S. airstrikes targeting Iran, sparked by Iran’s attacks on three ships in the strait, and Iranian retaliatory fire targeting Arab nations in the region. Trump has declared the ceasefire over but said the U.S. would continue negotiations.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Saturday said he met with his counterpart in Oman, located on the other side of the strait, to discuss the waterway and “appropriate mechanisms for ensuring the safe passage of ships.”

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Trump says he responded to threats to kill him

A thousand “missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat,” Trump wrote on his website.

He said he was responding to threats “to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate” him. During Khamenei’s funeral, mourners held posters or banners calling for Trump to be killed along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Iran buried Khamenei, 86, this week.

Trump added that the U.S. military would “completely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran — PRAISE BE TO ALLAH!”
Trump has repeatedly invoked the name of God in Arabic, and threatened to destroy Iran’s very civilization. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group, has criticized Trump’s “deranged mocking of Islam.”

Iran accuses Washington of violating the interim deal

Iran’s foreign minister accused the U.S. of violating the interim deal by ending waivers allowing Iran to sell crude oil on the open market in U.S. dollars. Washington ended them in response to the attacks on ships in the strait.

“Reality check: There can only be mutual compliance,” Araghchi wrote on X.

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He was scheduled to meet with his counterpart in Oman. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told his country’s state broadcaster, TRT, that he believed “a solution can be reached” this weekend between Iran and Oman.

The U.S. urges mariners to travel through the strait on a southern route, through Oman’s territorial waters. Iran has said the strait must be under its sole control and that vessels should begin paying fees to Tehran. The world for decades has considered it an international waterway.

About a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed through it before the war began. Iran’s grip on the strait during the war led to a global energy crisis, though oil prices have sharply dropped since wartime highs of $120 a barrel.

Tehran’s diplomat at the United Nations said on Friday that any activity in the strait, including its opening or demining operations, “rests exclusively with Iran.”

US officials accuse hard-liners of trying to sabotage the deal

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity about the current situation with Iran, said the resumption of strikes this week came after what they described as a rogue faction of Iranian hard-liners tried to sabotage the ceasefire.

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However, Iran has insisted its theocracy is unified under the new supreme leader.

After the U.S. wrapped up its latest strikes on Thursday, more attacks reportedly hit Iran, raising questions about who else may be targeting the Islamic Republic.

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Israel didn’t claim them, meaning the Gulf Arab states may have launched them, likely as a means to deter Iran from attacking them again. Iran on Thursday retaliated for U.S. strikes by targeting Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar.

The strikes in Iran over two days killed at least 17 people and wounded 115 others, Iranian Health Ministry spokesperson Hossein Kermanpour said.
___
Price and Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Sam Metz in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.

Côte d’Ivoire’s youth chase employment – despite the odds

It’s dusk on a Wednesday, and in an unassuming office building in a working-class neighborhood of Abidjan, Junior Konaté’s elocution class is in session.

“Clarity, tempo, and expression. These are the things we look for!” Mr. Konaté calls out to his adult students, who are sitting with their shoulders bent over their papers, hoping not to make eye contact with their teacher.

This wasn’t what he imagined for himself when he set off for his first university degree. But despite having two undergraduate degrees, he has not been able to find a full-time job. Teaching elocution lessons twice a week is just one way he pays his bills. He’s also worked at a call center, conducted market surveys, and been an emcee for events.

Recently, he’s also been trying to build his social media following as a comedian in hopes that he will eventually make money off the platforms or be hired as a voice actor.

For now, he is resigned to having his students take turns around the table, reciting a complicated text in French. They hope perhaps the course will give them an edge so that when they complete it, they too aren’t making ends meet with part-time gigs.

Mr. Konaté flashes a warm smile and winks. “Who wants to go first?” he asks.

More than 70% of Ivorians are under age 35, making Côte d’Ivoire one of the youngest countries in the world. Mr. Konaté’s pupils – a mix of government workers and university students – are among them.

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But the country has struggled to harness their energy. According to government officials, 400,000 young people enter the labor market each year, but a majority end up in informal jobs. Meanwhile, nearly half the population lives below the poverty line.

Côte d’Ivoire is not alone with these challenges. Of the 420 million Africans between the ages of 15 and 35, one-third are unemployed and only 1 in 6 holds a steady job.

The stakes are paramount. If young Africans are given opportunities, they have the potential to become engines of the continent’s economic development. But if left jobless and frustrated, they can instead be the drivers of social unrest or mass migration.

“Young people are so creative here,” says Francis Akindès, a sociologist at the University of Alassane Ouattara de Bouaké, who studies youth and democracy. “Imagine if we gave them the means? They could conquer the world.”

Chasing dreams

When Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara – one of the world’s oldest heads of state – secured his fourth term last October, the octogenarian vowed to make young people and their futures a government priority.

However, despite pumping 831 billion CFA francs ($1.4 billion) into its Youth Plan between 2023 and 2025, the government has had trouble making good on its promise. President Ouattara claims youth unemployment is only 4%, but experts say the actual numbers are many multiples of that amount. The figures also hide the many underemployed young Ivorians who are working part time or in fields not related to what they studied.

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That is what has brought Mr. Konaté’s students here. After a full day’s work or study, they battle fatigue and Abidjan’s brutal traffic to spend two hours learning how to speak clearly and precisely. They hope the government-recognized certificate they will earn from this class will make a difference on their next job application.

“I want to work,” says Carla Gnakala, a recent graduate of Félix Houphouët-Boigny University in Abidjan. “But there are no opportunities.”

Her teacher, who is younger than many of the students in his classroom, says he refuses to give up. He has enrolled in another degree program, this time a master’s at the university where Ms. Gnakala studies. He also has a plan B up his sleeve. On a recent morning, he sits facing a watermelon-sized selfie ring light in the corner of his small dorm room. Just out of the shot, dishes are piled high on a rickety desk. A miniature fridge and single bed are pushed up against a wall spotted with black mold.

“I’d like to do something like Ms. Rachel, but in French,” he explains, referring to the American YouTuber who makes videos for toddlers. Then he turns to face the phone camera.

“Hi! Hello! Can you say Mama? Mama!” Mr. Konaté says in a Ms. Rachel-esque squeak.

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“There are lots of people who give up on their dreams,” he explains later. “But I won’t.”

Informal and precarious

Most young people are working on contingency plans instead.

When Joel Kouakou graduated with a master’s degree in information technology and telecommunications, he imagined a nine-to-five job in an air-conditioned office. But after years of job hunting that only landed him short-term contracts, he got tired of waiting.

“It was always so hard to keep anything for very long,” says Mr. Kouakou. A silver cross necklace dangling over his black T-shirt, he sits on the edge of a desk inside a shop the size of a child’s bedroom. This serves as headquarters for the small e-commerce business he founded seven years ago.

Around him, several young men frantically sort plastic bags filled with everything from clothes and shoes to blenders. Throughout the day, they’ll drive their motorcycles throughout sprawling Abidjan to drop off the packages.

“If you keep moving and you’re dynamic, you can succeed,” says Mr. Kouakou.

Mr. Kouakou’s business is considered informal, meaning it isn’t registered on any government ledgers. About 80% of all workers in Côte d’Ivoire are in the informal sector, which spans a wide range of jobs, from street vendors and cleaners to taxi drivers and hairdressers. Together, they generate 40% of the country’s gross domestic product.

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This informal work is often precarious. Despite laws obliging them to pay into the national social security system, many informal workers do not, leaving them without unemployment, retirement, and healthcare benefits.

The government recently pledged 6.75 billion CFA francs ($12 million) to help young people start businesses this year. But this kind of official assistance often doesn’t reach the most vulnerable.

“For those who decide to launch a business in the informal sector, they end up self-financing their project,” says Guy Raoul Konan, a researcher on Ivorian youth migration at Grenoble Alpes University. “They can’t pay their bills and, ultimately, many people give up.”

Who you know

In many ways, the country’s employment woes begin long before young people in Côte d’Ivoire even reach the job market.

Though 95% of children in Côte d’Ivoire are enrolled in primary school, only about two-thirds of them reach secondary school. Children from poor families, who may not be able to pay school fees or who are encouraged to work instead, are especially at risk of dropping out.

In an effort to build up the country’s education system, the Ivorian government has invested heavily in subsidies for private elementary and secondary schools. But experts say their implementation has been chaotic and the quality of education is often not up to standard, furthering educational inequality.

For those who do make it to university, learning remains focused on memorization and theoretical knowledge, instead of the practical, hands-on learning that’s necessary to enter the labor market, says Mr. Akindès, the sociologist.

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Many young Ivorians say that, even with a university degree in hand, job hunting is a struggle. College internships are notoriously hard to find. And nationwide exams for the highly prized public sector jobs have staggering odds. The national teachers exam in May attracted 24,185 candidates for just over 3,000 jobs. Favoritism and cheating are also long-standing issues.

“There are too few spots, so families go through who they know,” says Hyacinthe Digbeugby Bley, a historian at Félix Houphouët-Boigny University. “If you find out that the person who got the job or internship you wanted wasn’t even at the national exam to get it, it reinforces a sense of corruption. And obviously, it creates anger and frustration.”

Ivorians have a particular word for such corruption: réseautage.

“You can’t get a job without work experience, but you can’t get work experience without knowing the right people,” says Ms. Gnakala, the university student. She has been living with her mother to save money and is taking Mr. Konaté’s elocution class to improve her chances of finding an internship. “It really is the chicken or the egg.”

Meanwhile, Landry Yassi Gaye has stopped trying to fight the system.

Instead, his organization, the Léo Lagrange Federation, uses its own professional connections to help young people without networks connect to employers. It then helps them prepare for the hiring process.

“It creates that necessary first link,” he says. “We don’t try to hide the fact that there is réseautage in this country. We work with it, not against it.”

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The consequences of hopelessness

For Côte d’Ivoire, the stakes of creating a more stable future for young people are sky high. Already, many young Ivorians have decided that they would rather risk their lives to reach Europe than continue chasing scarce opportunities at home.

Though Côte d’Ivoire has historically been a destination country for migrants from across West Africa, it is increasingly experiencing emigration as well. Since the early 2000s, migration from Côte d’Ivoire to Europe and North America has more than tripled, and today, Ivorians are among the top five nationalities of migrants who reach Europe’s southern borders.

There is no single reason why people leave, says Mr. Konan, the migration researcher.

But the desire to migrate is particularly high among young people, the unemployed, and those with advanced degrees, according to research by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

“More young people find themselves thinking, ‘Why not risk it on the other side, in Europe?’” says Mr. Konan.

For those who stay and fail to find jobs or financial stability, other countries on the continent offer a kind of caution. In 2024 and 2025, Generation Z-led protests roiled Morocco, Madagascar, and Kenya, leading to violence, arrests, and deaths. In Madagascar, the demonstrations also sparked a military coup that ultimately ousted the country’s president.

There, young people rose up against corruption and economic instability, as well as a failure by their governments to deliver basic necessities and opportunities for the future. They say they have inherited problems their generation did not create.

Fears of similar unrest were heightened in Côte d’Ivoire in the run-up to the presidential elections last October. Elections are historically fraught here. In 2010, the disputed results of a presidential race touched off a brief civil war.

In 2025, critics of Mr. Ouattara were outraged by his decision to run for a fourth term, as well as the fact that his two leading challengers were barred from the race.

In the end, Mr. Ouattara won by 89%, and though there were no major protests, many young people feel that their aging president has not made good on his promises to their generation. Some worry about this anger bubbling over.

“I don’t see the results of the president’s words,” says Mr. Konaté, the elocution instructor. “He says he’ll fix things for us young people, but in the meantime, we’re losing this generation.”

For now, Mr. Konaté is doing his best to get ahead on his own. In March, he was nominated for a national talent competition in Abidjan. But when he found out he would have to pay for his spot in the finals, he declined.

Instead, he forges on, teaching and going to auditions when he can. His master’s program will cost him upward of 600,000 CFA francs (about $1,000), but it also allows him to hold on to his inexpensive dorm room.

Back in class, Mr. Konaté calls on Ms. Gnakala, the university student. She grabs ahold of her paper and lifts her chin straight ahead. In a clear, solid voice, she begins reciting her elocution assignment – a complicated text filled with tongue twisters.

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Everyone applauds when she finishes, Mr. Konaté writes down a grade in his notebook and then it’s another young woman’s turn. She looks around the table as the gazes of her classmates and teacher bore into her. After a few words, she bursts into nervous giggles and has to stop. Then, Mr. Konaté breaks into song, imitating Mariah Carey. The tension melts away.

“Life here is difficult,” says Mr. Konaté, shrugging as he cracks a smile. “Everyone here is just doing what they can to get ahead.” ■

Trump focuses on proof of citizenship, but other election changes could affect midterms

President Donald Trump has been talking for months about the SAVE America Act, a bill that would impose new proof-of-citizenship requirements on people registering to vote. First, he tried to pass the requirements as an executive order, which was blocked by the courts. Then, he tried to convince Republicans to use an unpopular “talking filibuster” to overcome the 60-vote threshold that’s preventing the act from getting through the Senate.

Most recently, Mr. Trump canceled at the last hour a signing ceremony for a landmark housing bill that his administration helped get through Congress. He has said he won’t sign it unless the SAVE Act is passed. If he doesn’t veto the housing legislation, the bill will become law without his signature on Friday night.

The president has directed public attention to the act, but his administration has taken multiple actions in the last two years that could affect midterm voting – including suing states for access to voter rolls, investigating the 2020 election results, and initiating an aggressive redistricting campaign. The White House says it is trying to improve election integrity, but Democrats counter that the moves are designed to give Republicans an edge in this year’s midterms.

Courts have blocked most of the administration’s priorities, prompting Dan Tokaji, dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School, to quote Shakespeare in characterizing them as “sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

However, some of Mr. Trump’s efforts could affect outcomes in November. Democrats are favored to flip the House, but the odds are not overwhelming. Republicans are narrowly favored to maintain a majority in the Senate.

Other, less tangible effects could include what Professor Tokaji describes as “a loss of confidence on both sides of the ideological spectrum.”

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As the SAVE Act remains sidelined in the Senate, here’s a look at the administration’s major efforts to shape elections and which are most likely to have practical consequences this fall.

Latest projections resulting from redistricting

Redistricting is the “biggest single impact of the administration” on elections, according to Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in California, who previously served as a senior policy adviser for democracy and voting rights under President Joe Biden. Redistricting wars this year have given Republicans 10 additional competitive seats compared with last summer.

An April Supreme Court decision raising the bar for what constituted illegal racial gerrymandering meant that Republicans increased their prospects in 16 congressional districts, while Democrats increased theirs in six.

“The terrain on which the 2026 elections will be fought in terms of the district lines looks significantly different than it did last year,” says Professor Levitt.

However, he stresses that a new red-leaning district doesn’t mean the voters there will vote Republican – just that they voted Republican recently.

Administration questions election integrity

Mr. Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the trustworthiness of U.S. elections. He has often used the word “emergency” to refer to the state of federal elections, and claimed without citing evidence that California primary elections and a Virginia redistricting referendum this year were “rigged” after outcomes favored Democrats.

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He directed the FBI to investigate the results of the 2020 presidential election, including seizing more than 600 boxes containing 2020 ballots and voter rolls from a warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia, in January. The 2020 election was fair, and the results were accurate, according to studies and investigations from multiple sources – including a voter-data expert Mr. Trump hired and a study led by Republicans that examined why postelection lawsuits failed.

Rick Hasen, director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA School of Law, says sowing doubt about election integrity without evidence lays the groundwork for candidates to refuse to consent to their defeat, even if the election was fair.

“The idea that people whose candidates lose the election still accept the election was legitimate, that’s a really basic tenet of democracy,” he says.

Michael Morley, who teaches election law at the Florida State University College of Law, notes that both parties have questioned the legitimacy of upcoming elections – Republicans, by questioning election integrity; Democrats, by saying disenfranchisement makes the system illegitimate – and predicts close races might be challenged by members of either political party. He also says GOP state election officials might try to remove alleged noncitizens from voter rolls as they did ahead of the 2024 election, which could lead to a flurry of emergency litigation before the November vote.

“Challenges to the validity of the election – I think that has become something of a political tool in recent years,” he says.

Trump cut election security funding

The Trump administration has cut election security funding and programs from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which has provided election security support to states since it was founded in 2018.

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In 2025, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency slashed CISA’s workforce from about 3,500 employees to 2,500. The administration also ended or reduced funding for threat-sharing programs and allowed a $1 billion cybersecurity grant program for states to lapse.

The administration said it cut areas in which CISA had overstepped its intended role and that more pressing concerns, such as China, should take priority.

Some experts, including Professor Levitt, say states are equipped to fill in federal gaps, noting that CISA helped them build up solid foundations for responding to threats. Others are concerned that states could lack support for an emergency event such as a cyberattack.

DOJ court battle

The Justice Department has requested voter registration lists – sometimes containing information like partial Social Security numbers – from states since last May. It has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia. The administration has yet to see a legal victory, and courts have dismissed 11 of these lawsuits.

The Trump administration also issued two executive orders that would have restricted mail-in ballots and required states to use federal lists to purge their voter rolls, among other things. Federal judges have blocked the government from implementing the major provisions of both orders.

Jasleen Singh, a senior counsel for the Democracy Program at the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice, believes the strength of the election system means it will be able to withstand challenges. The Trump administration’s actions are “unprecedented,” she says, but states “are ready and have been running elections for decades.”

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Supreme Court decisions could also affect elections

Recent Supreme Court decisions have represented a split outcome for Mr. Trump. The court’s decision in Watson v. Republican National Committee, which held that states can count absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day but received later, was a major setback in the president’s efforts to block mail-in voting. The availability of mail-in voting has not broadly changed since Mr. Trump took office in 2025, though some states have tightened their rules around it.

But another June decision removed spending limits for party committees when coordinating directly with a candidate. Mr. Trump and Republicans celebrated the decision as a victory, given that the RNC currently has more than a $100 million cash-on-hand advantage over its Democratic counterpart.

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Trump says he responded to threats to kill him

Iran accuses Washington of violating the interim deal

US officials accuse hard-liners of trying to sabotage the deal

Chasing dreams

Informal and precarious

Who you know

The consequences of hopelessness

Latest projections resulting from redistricting

Administration questions election integrity

Trump cut election security funding

DOJ court battle

Supreme Court decisions could also affect elections