DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – Iran’s new supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei issued his first statement on the war Thursday, though he did not appear on camera and the speech was read by a news anchor.

BEIJING (AP) – China adopted a sweeping law Thursday to promote what it calls “ethnic unity,” a measure that critics say would further erode the rights of some minority groups as authorities cement a push toward assimilation.

LONDON (AP) – Centuries of British political tradition will end after Parliament voted to remove hereditary aristocrats from the unelected House of Lords. On Tuesday night members of the upper chamber dropped objections to legislation ousting dozens of dukes, earls and viscounts who inherited seats in Parliament along with their aristocratic titles.

Peaceful and violent, in video game screenshots and movie clips and on professional playing fields, the icons come fast and furious in quick-cut footage – some of the most renowned slivers of 21st-century American popular culture, harnessed by the Trump administration to promote the freshly launched war with Iran.

Israel has struck southern Lebanon, Beirut and an oil storage facility in Tehran as the war in the Middle East keeps escalating, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised “many surprises” for the next phase of the conflict. Iran also hit a desalination plant in Bahrain.  A U.S. airstrike damaged an Iranian desalination plant on Qeshm Island.

DORAL, Fla. (AP) – President Donald Trump said his vice president, JD Vance, was “philosophically a little bit different than me” on Iran even as he dismissed the notion of a disagreement between the two. The president said Vance was “maybe less enthusiastic about going” but insisted that his decision to launch airstrikes in was necessary.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Americans are divided along party lines on U.S. military action against Iran, according to polls conducted since the war began, with most polls showing opposition is higher than support. Polls suggest that many Americans are worried the military action is making the U.S. “less safe,” even as they see Iran as a threat to U.S. security.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that the war with Iran began because that country was starting work on a new site for developing material for nuclear weapons. Trump  told reporters that Iran was “going to take over the Middle East” if he hadn’t acted and that he was disappointed with the selection of Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father.