The Case for De-Escalation as Israel and Iran exchanges deadly fire: A newsletter for the Up First podcast and what you need to start your day
The U.N. and world leaders are calling for de-escalation as Israel and Iran exchange deadly fire for a fourth day. Iran’s Health Ministry says more than 200 people have been killed and over 1,000 have been injured, many of them women and children. Israeli officials say more than 20 people have been killed.
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At a news conference Saturday, state police said they found a list of individuals inside what they say is Boelter’s vehicle. Hortman and Hoffman were on that list along with other lawmakers, including U.S. Senator Tina Smith and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who are also both Democrats.
2025: Celebrity Commencement Speakers from the U.S. Army and G7 Summit – A Photon from Washington, DC,
President Trump and leaders of some of the world’s biggest economic powers are in the Canadian Rockies this week for the annual G7 summit. The gathering comes at a very tense time for the world as the Israel-Iran conflict escalate, the Ukraine-Russia war continues and Trump imposes tariffs on all of his fellow G7 countries.
There was a military parade in Washington, D.C. on Saturday to celebrate the 250th birthday of the U.S. Army. The event coincided with Trump’s 79th birthday. Critics thought the parade was a ploy to garner support for the armed forces. Protesters joined No Kings protests all over the world. See photos of what the protests looked like from Texas to France, and read three takeaways from the parade.
As university graduation season comes to a close, Morning Edition takes a look at some of the most memorable celebrity commencement speakers of 2025. The speakers gave advice through humor, heart and hard truths. From Kermit the Frog to LeVar Burton, listen to some commencement speech highlights. The featured speeches can be seen in full here.
The Minnesota Shootings of 2 Minnesota Lawmakers: The “Suspect-Vance-Boelter” Evan Evan and Josh Shapiro
In a post on social media, Trump condemned the shootings in Minnesota, saying that “such horrific violence will not be tolerated in the United States of America.”
President Trump survived an assassination attempt that left him bloodied and killed a person in the crowd last summer but he has been criticized for stoking the intense emotions that can lead to political violence.
Evans said Sunday that if officers hadn’t encountered Boelter at Hortman’s house, forcing him to abandon his vehicle, “I have every confidence that this would have continued throughout the day.”
The “No Kings” flyers in the car were references to the anti-Trump protests that took place over the weekend. Minnesota state officials urged residents to avoid the gatherings, though many still attended and the protests remained largely peaceful.
Other protests across the U.S. also remained largely peaceful, though not without incident: Police in Virginia arrested a man for recklessly driving his car through a crowd gathered to protest, hitting one person. Another man has been arrested for threatening to kill legislators in Texas.
And on Sunday, Salt Lake City police announced the death of an “innocent bystander” who had been shot at a downtown protest, allegedly by a member of the event’s peacekeeping team who had been aiming at a different target: a person brandishing a rifle at demonstrators.
The shootings in Minnesota are part of a string of high-profile political violence across the country in recent years. A man is alleged to have set fire to Penn. The residence of the Gov. Josh Shapiro is charged with terrorism and attempted murder.
The Brennan Center for Justice released a report last year claiming that almost half of the state lawmakers it surveyed have experienced some kind of threat or attack in the last decade. At the federal level, the U.S. Capitol Police has documented a spike in threats against members of Congress.
State Senator John Boelter: A State Senator and a Black Hole, and the Man Who Shoots a Lawmaker in Minnesota
Police say they initially responded to the shooting at Hoffman’s house, and then went to Hortman’s home. There, they saw a car with emergency lights out front, and a man at the door dressed in all blue with black body armor. That man shot at the police, but was able to escape.
A state senator and his wife were shot at their home earlier in the day. “John is close to being out of the woods and is enduring many surgeries right now and is close every hour to being out of the woods,” said her statement.
At a press conference on Sunday night, Bruley said that Boelter was seen running into the woods in the area of his property where officers had been searching. After about an hour and a half, with the help of multiple SWAT teams and a State Patrol helicopter, authorities closed in on him and were “able to call him out to us.”
The man who killed one state lawmaker and wounded another was arrested by law enforcement in Minnesota.