Mamdani-backed Israel critics sweep NYC; Texas anti-ICE protesters get 30-100 years; Peru’s Sánchez rejects runoff results

The Block the Bombs Act is gaining momentum as a bipartisan bill with 75 members of Congress now sponsoring it. But we need to do more: Israel is still killing Palestinians in Gaza and Lebanon with US taxpayer-funded weapons — more than 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since Trump's Gaza plan went into effect, and Israel has killed thousands of Lebanese people. Urge your member of Congress to co-sponsor H.R.3565, the Block the Bombs Act . Congress must stop sending the bombs Israel uses to kill Palestinians, flatten hospitals, schools, mosques, and churches, and drive more than 90% of Palestinians in Gaza from their homes. Keep the pressure on and generate a letter to Congress now. Generate Letter to Congress New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s endorsees dominate in Tuesday’s primaries. U.S. Senate passes War Powers Resolution on Iran. Texas ICE protesters get 30- to 100-year sentences. Supreme Court sides with Trump administration in green card immigration parole case. President Donald Trump orders Department of Justice probe into oil companies over gas prices, accuses them of “gouging” consumers. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif says Iran’s ballistic missile program “was never on the agenda.” Iran and Oman signal future Strait of Hormuz service fees. Oman announces temporary Hormuz corridor. Trump disputes Iranian denial of scheduled IAEA inspection. Hamas leadership speaks with Iran. Qatar says LNG output could return to normal “within a few weeks.” Israeli drone strike kills two in southern Lebanon. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz: No withdrawal from Lebanon “even if there is an American demand.” Israel kills Palestinian child in Gaza displacement camp strike on Wednesday. Israeli attacks on Gaza kill two on Tuesday. Israel’s National Security Council revives Gaza “voluntary migration” plans. Israeli settlers attack Palestinian homes south of Hebron, wound four. Elderly Palestinian man found in Gaza with signs of torture. After 18 months and 98 hearings, Netanyahu concludes testimony in corruption trial. Peru’s Roberto Sánchez refuses to recognize runoff results, alleges vote manipulation. Polish activist investigating Ecuador’s Noboa family murdered, postmortem finds. U.S. official says he urged RSF to halt actions endangering civilians in El Obeid. Senior RSF political adviser defects . Supreme Court clears way for Exxon to sue Cuba over 1960 nationalization, 6-3. Kenya halts U.S.-funded Ebola facility construction after contempt of court ruling. From Drop Site: Exclusive: Internal Documents Show Trump’s “Board of Peace“ Moving to Crush Palestinian Self-Determination Drop Site is now live on WhatsApp. Get our latest reporting, podcasts, and breaking news, delivered directly. Join the channel here. This is Drop Site Daily, our free daily news recap. We send it Monday through Friday. Today’s edition is being sent to more than 750,000 subscribers. Help us grow that number by forwarding and recommending this newsletter. Subscribe 🛒 Get your “ Drop [Site] News/Not Bombs ” Hoodie here: Get Your Hoodie Congressional candidates Claire Valdez, Brad Lander, and Darializa Avila Chevalier appear with Mayor Zohran Mamdani at a Get Out the Vote rally at King's Theater on June 18, 2026 in New York City. Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images. Subscribe U.S. News By Julian Andreone, with Ryan Grim. Have a tip on Capitol Hill? Email Andreone at [email protected] . Primary results: Candidates endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani swept Tuesday’s New York Democratic primaries, unseating two incumbent members of Congress in a major victory for the new mayor’s political program. All three winning candidates ran campaigns criticizing AIPAC . In New York’s 10th district, former city comptroller and Mamdani ally Brad Lander defeated the incumbent, AIPAC-backed Dan Goldman , in a landslide, winning 65 percent of the vote. In the contentious race to represent the state’s 13th district, progressive challenger Darializa Avila Chevalier prevailed over incumbent Adriano Espaillat , edging out a five-point victory over the five-term congressman. Espaillat had received a last-minute surge of funding from pro-Israel groups, Drop Site reported last week, and his supporters had resorted to racist attacks on Chevalier during the final stretch of the campaign, but it was not enough to beat the DSA- and Mamdani-backed activist. In the race to represent the state’s 7th district, which covers large parts of Brooklyn and Queens, State Rep. Claire Valdez , whom Mamdani endorsed to replace outgoing Rep. Nydia Velasquez , handily defeated Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso , Velasquez’s preferred successor. In an encounter on Tuesday, Drop Site’s Ryan Grim told Rep. Adriano Espaillat there would have been no primary challenge if he had simply “called out the genocide and told AIPAC to F off.” Espaillat did not respond beyond a shrug. State Assemblyman Micah Lasher won the crowded primary to replace Rep. Jerry Nadler in New York’s 12th district, which covers much of Upper Manhattan, defeating fellow assemblyman Alex Bores (who ran as an AI critic) and influencer and Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg . The race drew in more than $39 million in spending, mostly from artificial intelligence companies. Lasher, a former aide to former mayor Michael Bloomberg , received $10 million from his former boss. Mamdani, who is a resident of the district, declined to endorse a candidate in the race. Democratic Socialist Aber Kawas won the primary to represent the 12th district in New York’s State Senate. She will be the first Palestinian to be elected to the New York State Legislature. Kawas worked alongside Mamdani on the “Not on Our Dime” campaign, which would prohibit organizations that promote West Bank settlement from receiving the benefits attendant to their status as “charities.” Adrian Boafo , the Israel lobby-backed Oracle lobbyist, won his primary in Maryland’s 5th district, defeating Quincy Bareebe , who had consolidated support in the final stretch as Boafo’s strongest opponent. Boafo is likely to succeed longtime Rep. Steny Hoyer , his former boss. He received $12 million from pro-crypto and pro-Israel groups during his primary campaign. Despite the massive funding, he won just over 21,000 votes, a mere 32 percent of the total, but with 23 other candidates running, it was enough to win. (Drop Site’s report on Boafo is available here ). Former Democratic Rep. Ben McAdams , with under-the-radar support from the pro-Israel lobby, won his Utah primary against two challengers, Nate Blouin and Liban Mohamed . McAdams will head back to Congress, as the seat is safe for Democrats. Senate passes War Powers Resolution on Iran: The U.S. Senate voted 50-48 to approve Representative Gregory Meeks’s War Powers Resolution directing President Donald Trump to end U.S. hostilities against Iran, with four Republicans— Rand Paul (Ky.), Susan Collins (Me.), Lisa Murkowski (Ala.), and Bill Cassidy (La.)—joining Democrats in support of the measure. Two Republicans, Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Sen. Dave McCormick (Pa.) missed the vote. As with previous such resolutions, John Fetterman (Pa.) was the sole Democrat to vote against the bill. The vote marks the first time since the original 1973 War Powers Resolution that both chambers of Congress have passed such a measure, and the concurrent resolution does not require Trump’s signature. War powers are clearly delineated to be in the jurisdiction of the congressional branch, meaning the resolution is binding, per the argument made by Bruce Ackerman in the American Prospect. Before its passage, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen had argued for the bill on the Senate floor, warning the ceasefire remains “tenuous” despite the recently signed U.S.-Iran memorandum. Van Hollen also denounced “military adventurism” and “fantasies of regime change” in his Senate floor speech. President Donald Trump attacked the Senate in a Truth Social post on Tuesday night after it adopted a resolution directing him to pull U.S. forces from hostilities with Iran, calling the vote “poorly timed and meaningless.” Trump claimed in the post that he had Iran “on the ‘ropes,’ willing to give us practically anything,” and that the resolution had “provided aid and comfort to the Enemy. The vote comes as the Pentagon is seeking an additional $80 billion from Congress mostly for the Iran war as it replenishes munitions and stockpiles. Texas ICE protesters get 30- to 100-year sentences: Nine activists convicted in March on terrorism-related charges stemming from a July 4 protest at an immigrant detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, received sentences ranging from 30 to 100 years on Tuesday. Former U.S. Marine Corps reservist Benjamin Song , who shot and wounded a police officer was sentenced to 100 years, while five others received 50 years. Maricela Rueda received 70 years, and Daniel Sanchez-Estrada , who was not present at the protest, was charged with concealing antifascist magazines at the request of his wife and received 30 years. Prosecutors charged the group with participating in a conspiracy—though many of the protesters did not know each other—and were characterized as part of “antifa,” a loosely affiliated movement the Trump administration has attempted to criminalize as a terrorist organization. “Antifa terrorists who attack law enforcement and federal facilities will face swift and uncompromising justice,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement . Former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade said she had expected sentences closer to 15 to 25 years, calling the stacking of consecutive sentences unusual. The punishments exceed the longest sentences given for the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Supreme Court sides with Trump administration in green card immigration parole case: The Supreme Court expanded the government’s power to remove green card holders accused of crimes in a Tuesday ruling. In a 6-3 split, the court found immigration officers had the authority to put lawful permanent resident Muk Choi Lau on immigration parole in 2012 after he was accused of a counterfeiting crime upon returning from a trip to China, without needing to first prove the crime by clear and convincing evidence. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion, while Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson , in a dissent joined by the court’s two other liberal justices, warned the ruling effectively placed Lau in “immigration limbo” before any conviction and gave the government “a massive blank check.” The court is expected to decide on several other immigration disputes this term, including birthright citizenship and asylum policy. Supreme Court clears way for Exxon to sue Cuba over 1960 nationalization, 6-3: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Exxon Mobil can sue Cuban state-owned companies in American courts for more than $1 billion over assets Cuba nationalized after its 1959 revolution. In the 6-3 decision written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh , the court held that the 1996 Helms-Burton Act strips Cuban state enterprises of the sovereign immunity that normally shields foreign governments, while the three liberal justices dissented, with Justice Elena Kagan writing that the law contains no such provision. The ruling, combined with last month’s Havana Docks Corp. v. Royal Caribbean Cruises decision, opens the door for those with existing claims, nearly 6,000 of which have been certified and which are collectively worth almost $2 billion, to pursue legal action against the Cuban government. Trump orders DOJ probe into oil companies over gas prices, accuses them of “gouging” consumers: President Donald Trump said Wednesday he had instructed the Justice Department to immediately investigate oil companies for not lowering gas prices in line with falling crude costs, accusing them of “gouging” consumers in a late-night Truth Social post that named no specific companies. Gas prices fell below $4 per gallon last week for the first time since March, well above the $3.22 average a year ago, as oil prices eased amid an interim U.S.-Iran deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Drop Site’s Julian Andreone asks Senators about Lebanon: Drop Site’s Julian Andreone asked senators on Capitol Hill on Tuesday whether Israel is deliberately prolonging the war by continuing to attack Lebanon. Republican senators defended Israel’s ongoing violations of the memorandum of understanding agreed upon last week, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren argued there must be “constraints” on how Israel is using American weapons. His latest dispatch from Capitol Hill is available here . Iran and Ceasefire Pakistan’s Sharif says Iran’s ballistic missile program “was never on the agenda”: While hosting Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on