In a rare CNN interview, President Joseph Aoun delivered the sharpest public rebuke of Iran by a Lebanese head of state in years—accusing Tehran of using Lebanon as a bargaining chip while its own people pay the price in blood.

• Aoun told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that since Mar⁠ch 2, more than 3,500 Lebanese have been killed, over 10,000 injured, and nearly 1 million people—roughly 20% of Lebanon's population—displaced from their homes.
• He addressed Iran's IRGC directly: "This is not your country, it is our country… you are using Lebanon as a bargaining chip in your negotiation with the US," adding that Lebanese people across all sects, including Shiites, have told him they are "fed up" with the war.
• Aoun said he consults Speaker Nabih Berri—who he described as also wanting the war to end—as an indirect channel to Hezbollah, and emphasized that the only path forward is through negotiations, not before reaching an agreement."
• On Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem's threat to reject the ceasefire: "They are the Lebanese people—they are not Naim Qassem's people," Aoun said, in one of his most pointed public breaks with the group's leadership.

What to watch: Whether Iran's IRGC and Hezbollah respond to Aoun's direct challenge with renewed field escalation or a recalculated posture as US-brokered talks remain on the table.

The fourth round of Lebanon-Israel negotiations in Washington produced the most detailed ceasefire framework yet—calling for Hezbollah's withdrawal south of the Litani and state-monopoly on arms—but within hours, both Iran and Hezbollah moved to publicly reject it.

• The US-announced framework calls for a comprehensive ceasefire tied to Hezbollah withdrawing from south of the Litani River, the deployment of the Lebanese army in "pilot areas," and the disarmament of all armed groups—conditions that align with Lebanon's own Taif Agreement commitments.
• Iran's Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani demanded Israeli withdrawal as a precondition, while Hezbollah's Naim Qassem called the negotiations "futile and humiliating" and rejected any ceasefire agreement "in full and in detail."
• P⁠M Nawaf Salam pushed back, telling cabinet that clearing south of the Litani of armed men "is not a condition imposed on us by anyone"—it's what Lebanon committed to when it approved UN Resolution 1701.
• Axios reported that if Hezbollah rejects the agreement and continues rocket fire into northern Israel, it could prompt Trump to give Netanyahu a "green light" to escalate the military campaign in Lebanon.

Why it matters: This is the first framework agreement of its kind to emerge from direct Lebanon-Israel talks, and Hezbollah's rejection now places the Lebanese state and the Iran-backed group on an increasingly open collision course.

Barak Ravid became the first Israeli journalist to appear on Lebanese television when he spoke to LBCI on Fri⁠day—a moment that would have been unthinkable months ago, and that remains technically illegal under Lebanese law to⁠day.

• Ravid, a correspondent for Israel's Channel 12 and Axios, spoke with LBCI anchor Toni Mrad about the Israel-Hezbollah conflict and ceasefire efforts, calling his appearance a "meaningful step" toward Israelis and Lebanese understanding each other better.
• Lebanon's 1955 Israel Boycott Law prohibits any dealing "of any nature whatsoever" with Israeli entities, and the penal code forbids "contact with the enemy state"—laws that have landed Lebanese journalists and filmmakers in legal trouble before.
• President Trump said in Apr⁠il he "never heard of" Lebanon's anti-normalization laws and expected them to be "ended very quickly"—a comment that now lands differently as these first media contacts begin to materialize.

Zooming out: A single TV interview doesn't change a law, but it does signal how fast the ground is shifting—and how much legal and social architecture built around permanent enmity is now in quiet, live-fire negotiation.

In al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, seven university students — four in medicine, two in dentistry, one in software engineering — opened an ice cream parlour called Flora in Mar⁠ch to fund tuition fees they refuse to stop paying.

• Flora cost more than $25,000 to build; one co-founder's mother sold a gold wedding bracelet worth $1,000 to help fund it, while the team retrieved tiles and timber from their own destroyed homes near al-Qarara for construction.
• Gaza's higher education system has been largely nonoperational since Oct⁠ober 2023, with roughly 88,000 university students forced to suspend their studies and 95% of all campuses damaged or destroyed.
• Prices at Flora range from $1 to $7; the shop sells ice cream, fresh juices, cake, and knafeh — competitive by al-Mawasi standards — while the entire startup cost was borrowed and remains outstanding debt.

The bigger picture: Flora's founders are among the few students in Gaza still enrolled anywhere, and their shop has become a rare symbol of civilian life and institutional persistence inside the enclave.

European leaders gathered at the Adriatic port of Tivat for the annual EU-Western Balkans summit, with Germany and France jointly pushing for faster accession — and Montenegro eyeing full membership as early as 2028.

• Montenegro, a nation of 623,000 people that has been pursuing EU membership for 22 years, leads the pack of six candidate countries; public support for accession stands at around 80%, according to reports.
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz proposed letting candidate states attend EU body meetings as observers, with additional incentives including integration into the Euro payment area and single-rate cross-border data roaming.
• Merz warned Serbia directly that "there can't be a policy of swinging between Russia, China and Europe," as EU enlargement commissioner Marta Kos recently flagged Serbia for democratic "backsliding" under President Aleksandar Vučić.

Zooming out: EU leaders are framing Western Balkans expansion explicitly as a geopolitical necessity — a buffer against Russian and Chinese influence in a region that has twice in a century ignited wider European conflict.

Google's Debug program plans to release 16 million sterile male mosquitoes in each of Florida and California to suppress populations of Aedes aegypti — an invasive species that spreads dengue, Zika, yellow fever, and chikungunya.

• The male mosquitoes will be infected with Wolbachia bacteria, which renders them sterile; when a wild female mates with one, her eggs won't hatch — and since males don't bite, the releases pose no additional risk to humans, according to scientists.
• According to the Debug program, 40% of the world's population is at risk from diseases spread by Aedes aegypti, which is not native to Florida or California, meaning its suppression carries no ecological risk to local food chains.
• Google has filed for a permit with the US Environmental Protection Agency; a decision is still pending before any release can proceed.

What to watch: Whether the EPA grants the permit — and whether the Wolbachia method, already deployed in 15 countries by the World Mosquito Program, proves as effective at scale in US urban environments as it has elsewhere.