Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, led Friday prayers at a mosque in Tehran on Friday for the first time since 2012, trying to rally support among intertwined crises facing his government. On the foreign front, punishing U.S. sanctions have harmed Iran's economy and the Trump administration's killing of Iran's top general brought the U.S. and Tehran to the brink of war. Domestically, Iranians already angry over a hike in fuel prices took to the streets this week to demand justice and accountability for the Revolutionary Guard's downing of a Ukrainian jetliner, killing 176 people, most of them Iranian.
In nationally broadcast comments from inside the Mosalla mosque, Khamenei, 80, said the missiles fired on the Ukrainian jet were a "bitter accident" and defended the Revolutionary Guard, which reports directly to him. "Our enemies were as happy about the plane crash as we were sad," he said. "Happy that they had found something to question the Guard and the armed forces." He called President Trump, who has been encouraging the antigovernment protests, a "clown" who is only pretending to support Iran's people and would just as soon "push a poisonous dagger" into their backs.
Khamenei also addressed the missile strikes on two Iraqi bases hosting U.S. forces, calling the a "slap on the face" to the U.S. "The fact that Iran has the power to give such a slap to a world power shows the hand of God," he said, but pushing the U.S. military out of the Middle East would be the "real punishment" for America's "cowardly" killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, highlighting Soleimani's efficacy in battling the Islamic State. He added that the killing showed America's "terrorist nature."
"Leading Friday prayers in the capital is a symbolically significant act usually reserved for times when Iran's highest authority wishes to deliver an important message," BBC News reports, citing Mehdi Khalaji at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Peter Weber
Marty Golingan, a producer at One America News Network, a right-wing cable news channel often noted for its affinity for former President Donald Trump, told The New York Times he was worried his work may have helped inspire the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
At one point during the incident, Golingan said he caught sight of someone in the mob holding a flag with OAN's logo. "I was like, OK, that's not good. That's what happens when people listen to us," he told the Times, referring to OAN's coverage of the 2020 presidential election, which often gave credence to Trump's unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud and Democratic conspiracies.
Golingan said that many of his colleagues, including himself, disagreed with the coverage. "The majority of people did not believe the voter fraud claims being run on the air," he told the Times.
Indeed, the Times interviewed 18 current and former OAN employees, 16 of whom said the channel has "broadcast reports that they considered misleading, inaccurate, or untrue." But Allysia Britton, a former producer and one of more than a dozen employees to leave OAN in the wake of the riot, explained that while "many people have raised concerns ... when people speak up about anything, you will get in trouble." Read more at The New York Times. Tim O'Donnell
Speculation continues to swirl about renowned actor and proud Texan Matthew McConaughey entering politics in his home state. There's no telling if that will actually happen, but that didn't stop The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler from teaming up to get a sense of how voters feel about the possibility of McConaughey challenging Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) for his job next year.
The poll, released Sunday, is a bit of mixed bag for McConaughey. Among all voters, he actually held a 12-point advantage over Abbott, so in a head-to-head race, it seems like the idea is at least viable. Where the actor runs into some trouble is in the primaries. It's not entirely clear under what banner McConaughey, who has suggested he's "more of a moderate," would run, the Morning News writes. Only 30 percent of Republicans said they'd vote for him, compared to 56 percent who would back Abbott. Those numbers might help in the general election, but he'd be toast if he challenged Abbott within in his own party.
The more likely scenario is that McConaughey would run as a Democrat — 66 percent of Democratic voters said they'd back him over Abbott, who received just 8 percent support from the opposing party. Still, McConaughey wouldn't be a shoe-in. The poll also revealed that 51 percent of Texas Democratic primary voters prefer a progressive candidate, while just 25 percent are hoping for a centrist, which is seemingly the mold McConaughey fits.
The poll was conducted between April 6-13 among 1,126 registered Texas voters. The margin of error is 2.92 percentage points. Read the full results here and read more about a potential McConaughey run at The Week. Tim O'Donnell
It's rare that China and the United States are on the same page these days, but it appears the two powers made some progress when it comes to addressing climate change this past week.
In a joint statement on Sunday, Washington and Beijing announced they have agreed to cooperate with each other and other countries to "tackle the climate crisis." They will keep discussing "concrete actions in the 2020s to reduce emissions aimed at keeping the Paris Agreement-aligned temperature limits within reach."
Prior to the release of the statement, John Kerry, the Biden administration's climate envoy, traveled to Shanghai last week to meet with his Beijing counterpart, Xie Zhenhua. Kerry said Sunday that his discussions were productive, noting that "this is the first time China has joined in" calling climate change a "crisis." He also expressed optimism about the Chinese delegation saying the issue must be met with "urgency" and the fact that they talked about "enhancing" their emissions reduction goals. The language, at least, is "strong," Kerry said.
Li Shuo, the senior climate adviser for Greenpeace, said the joint statement "is as positive as the politics would allow," given that before its release the message of cooperation between the two countries was not one "we could assume."
President Biden will host a virtual climate change summit this week, with many world leaders expected to attend. Chinese President Xi Jinping has not formally confirmed his participation, but people familiar with the matter said he'll be there, The Wall Street Journal reports. Read more at The Wall Street Journal and Reuters. Tim O'Donnell
Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny could die "in a matter of days," his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on Facebook on Saturday, NPR reports.
Navalny, who nearly died after a poisoning he has blamed on Russian President Vladimir Putin last August, is currently being held in a notorious penal colony outside of Moscow, where he is three weeks into a hunger strike. His physician Yaroslav Ashikhmin said test results Navalny's family shared with him showed he was at increased risk of cardiac arrest because of elevated potassium levels, and that his kidneys were deteriorating. "Our patient could die at any moment," Ashikhmin said in a translated Facebook post, per NPR.
The Kremlin has prevented Navalny's personal doctors from seeing him and insists he's receiving adequate care. Andrei Kelin, Russia's ambassador to the United Kingdom, told BBC on Sunday that Navalny "will not be allowed to die in prison" and suggested the Kremlin critic was merely trying to "attract attention."
Meanwhile, on Sunday, Navalny's allies put out an urgent call for his supporters to take to the streets en masse across Russia on Wednesday. Before the reports of Navalny's worsening condition, his team was determined to wait until 500,000 people had signed up to join the demonstration before announcing a date, but they've decided they can no longer wait for what they're calling "the final battle between good and neutrality." A "massive police crackdown" is expected in response, CNN's Bianna Golodryga reports. Read more at NPR. Tim O'Donnell