united states

Last week, President BidenJoe BidenHaitian Prime Minister warns inequality will drive further Pelosi migration: House to pass 3 major spending laws this week Erdoğan says Turkey plans to buy another Russian defense system MORE delivered his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly. He continues to assert that “America is back” and that the United States intends to “lead all the greatest challenges of our time.” President Biden was right. But, unfortunately, the current reality looks very different.

In 1776, the birth of our nation was the result of American victory. Since then, from defeating the Axis of Evil to innovating COVID-19 vaccines, America has consistently ruled the world through its darkest times. President Biden not only fails to do this, but also makes the world more dangerous.

The Taliban and ISIS-K are needlessly emboldened, enriched and energized. Right now, they are arresting, torturing and killing Afghans who have fought alongside American troops for years. The Biden administration responded by calling these terrorists a “strategic partner.”

Unfortunately, the consequences of this continued humiliation do not stop at the borders of Afghanistan. The world watches as we leave Americans behind enemy lines, despite the greatest military force in world history. And our adversaries will benefit from President Biden’s undeniable weakness.

In the immediate wake of the catastrophic withdrawal, China has started assault drills near Taiwan. Everything indicates that China will only accelerate its efforts to reclaim the country. Unless President Biden made a fundamental change in his constitution, we can’t assume he would do anything to defend them.

Russia stepped up its cyber attacks against America as President Biden took office, presumably to test his resolve. And how did President Biden respond? He paved the way for a Russian pipeline which will stimulate our rival’s economy and increase its ability to manipulate our partners in Western Europe. This is the type of decision making that hinders our own interests, both abroad and here at home.

Despite his generosity to Russia, President Biden began his tenure by going to war with American energy. When President Biden took office, for the first time in 35 years, America was energy independent. We did not import a single barrel of oil from Saudi Arabia in 2020. President Biden is changing that. He sabotaged the Keystone pipeline, terminated domestic oil and gas leases, lifted restrictions on Iranian oil sales, and more. Then when the price of energy started to rise, which would be inevitable, he even went to our foreign competitors and asked them to increase their production to help cover up mistakes. These decisions destroyed American jobs and strengthened our enemies.

Meanwhile, Americans have watched helplessly as our already sky-high spending escalates to even more absurd levels. In the past 18 months, Democrats have approved or proposed $ 16-18 trillion in expenses. And what does President Biden finance with your tax money? Ever-growing government, subsidies for politically-favored industries, programs that keep people out of work, and rights programs.

In essence, President Biden is committed to ensuring that government is in your life from cradle to grave, no matter what taxes and spending it entails.

As might be expected, this resulted in levels of inflation that we haven’t seen in decades. The costs of housing, fuel, food, and just about every other essential in your life are all on the rise. This is actually an additional tax for each American.

The only place President Biden was sure to be successful was in the pandemic response, at least you would think so. He inherited a ready-to-go vaccination program and an economy ready to take off. Yet he lost the trust of the American people with arbitrary, baseless and inconsistent advice.

Shortly before taking office, President Biden made the vaccination declaration that he did not “require it to be mandatory. “Now he blames his fellow Americans and political opponents for the wave of COVID-19 this summer, and orders them to get vaccinated or risk losing their jobs. President Biden has come a long way since his promises to unify the country and defeat COVID-19.

And where does all this take us? Unfortunately, in a more dangerous world, both at home and abroad.

Among America’s most important allies, there is no longer any confidence that President Biden can be considered a serious partner. Among America’s most competitive rivals, there is no longer any belief that President Biden can protect our interests. And among the American people, there is no longer any faith that President Biden can stand up for our most basic ideals.

Stewart represents Utah’s 2nd District.

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NEW YORK (WWTI) – Although many states are experiencing declining unemployment rates, New York is having a harder time recovering from the effects of the pandemic on jobs.

According to personal finance website WalletHub, the unemployment rate in the United States currently stands at 5.4%, a marked improvement from the near-all-time high of 14.8% in April 2020. New York currently has a rate employment rate of 7.6%.

WalletHub’s July Jobs Report showed much better job growth than the month before, with the economy gaining 943,000 non-farm jobs, with notable gains in sectors such as recreation and hospitality. , education of local communities and professional and commercial services. The website claimed that the overall drop can be attributed in large part to a combination of vaccinations and the relaxation of restrictions by states.

In order to identify which states are rebounding the most unemployment rates, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia based on five key metrics that compare unemployment rate statistics from July to key dates in 2019 and 2020. .

The report found that Nebraska, Utah and South Dakota recovered the most, while New York, California and Nevada fell to the bottom of the list. The study also found the following about the unemployment recovery in New York:

• 96.37% Change in unemployment (July 2021 vs July 2019)
  • 708,641 unemployed in July 2021 vs 360,869 in July 2019;
  • 5th worst recovery in the United States
• 96.89% Change in unemployment (July 2021 vs January 2020)
  • 708,641 unemployed in July 2021 vs 359,918 in January 2020;
  • 5th worst recovery in the United States
• -48.60% Evolution of unemployment (July 2021 vs July 2020)
  • 708,641 unemployed in July 2021 vs 1,378,631 in July 2020;
  • 15th best recovery in the United States
• 117.89% Change in ongoing unadjusted claims (July 2021 vs. July 2019)
  • 292,181 lawsuits in July 2021 compared to 134,096 in July 2019;
  • 15th worst recovery in the United States
• 7.6% Unemployment rate (July 2021)
  • 4th highest unemployment rate in the United States

States whose unemployment rates rebound the most

WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – Biden administration begins planning for possible return of more international travelers to the United States

Non-essential international travelers from certain countries are still not permitted to enter the United States, while travelers from other countries are permitted to enter.

“If we do nothing now, by the end of the year the United States will lose $ 90 billion and 1.5 million jobs,” warned Roger Dow, president and CEO of the US. Travel Association.

Dow has said international travel is crucial to the U.S. economy, but the Biden administration has said now is not the time to open the country up to international travelers.

“We plan to maintain existing travel restrictions at this point,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.

Hospital intensive care beds are filling up in the United States due to the delta variant. The Biden administration said agencies are working to make plans for international travelers to return to the United States safely and consistently, but only when the time is right.

White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said foreign nationals traveling to the United States “may need some type of mandatory vaccine” once the United States opens up to tourists and other non-essential travelers.

“We agree that this is a first step – in the long run, we believe the travel community and countries need to find more than one way to get into a country,” Dow said.

Dow said when travelers return, the money and jobs will come back as well.

The assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse at his home threatens to exacerbate Haiti’s already endemic problems.

“Anything that could go wrong seems to go wrong,” said Robert fatton, an expert on Haitian politics at the University of Virginia, and originally from Haiti itself.

The western part of the island of Hispaniola, Haiti is perched in the Caribbean just 600 miles southeast of Florida. He overthrew French rule with a successful revolt, becoming the first republic ruled by blacks in 1804.

The United States has a long history of intervention there: it occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. The United States sent the Marines twice in the past three decades to restore order under President Bill Clinton , then again under President George W. Bush.

Even before Moïse’s assassination on Wednesday morning, Haiti was in crisis: political instability, the lasting effects of a devastating earthquake and cholera epidemic, foreign political interference and gang violence all pervaded wreaks havoc.

“You have this situation where the institutions are not functioning, where the economy is stagnating (…) politics has been extremely volatile. The current government has been challenged by the population. There have been massive accusations of corruption,” Fatton said. “So you name it, in terms of instability and institutional decay, you have it right now in Haiti.”

The country faces a constitutional crisis

Francois Pierre Louis, an expert on Haitian politics at Queens College at the City University of New York, said he was not very surprised to learn of Moses’ murder.

Moses had stripped rival political parties, businessmen and great families of power. “He made a lot of enemies. [The attack] could come from anywhere. And he has alienated too many people, “Pierre-Louis, from Haiti, told NPR.

Moses took office in 2017 after a protracted and contested election. He had never held political office before; he was a businessman who had enriched himself as a fruit exporter.

The opposition said his term should have ended in February, but Moïse said since it took him a year to officially take office, his term should be extended until 2022.

The 53-year-old president had ruled by decree for over a year when he was assassinated, after dissolving parliament and failing to hold legislative elections.

On July 1, the United Nations Security Council issued a declaration expressing “its deep concern regarding the deterioration of political, security and humanitarian conditions in Haiti”.

Moïse also proposed a referendum on changes to Haiti’s constitution.

Among others, the UN Explain, the constitutional changes desired by Moses would allow the president to run for two consecutive five-year terms without a currently stipulated break. It would also effectively abolish the Haitian Senate and establish a vice president who would report to the president, instead of a prime minister. He called for free and fair elections in 2021, when they are scheduled.

But not everyone thinks it’s even possible right now. “Many civil society organizations in Haiti – and I think rightly – claim that you cannot have elections in the current climate, which is one of very high instability and insecurity,” he said. said Fatton.

He still struggles to recover from a crippling earthquake

In 2010, Haiti was devastated by an earthquake, the main shock of which shook the ground for nearly 30 seconds. At least 220,000 people are estimated to have died and some 1.5 million people have been displaced. “About 300,000 were injured and much of the country was buried under tons of twisted metal and concrete,” according to NPR. reported.

The earthquake destroyed Haiti’s infrastructure. And this infrastructure has not yet been really rebuilt.

“People are still traumatized by the earthquake. They have lost members of their family, ”says Pierre-Louis. “They couldn’t rebuild because they don’t have an income. And then you have generations of people who are gone.”

A devastating cholera epidemic

This earthquake was followed by another deadly force: cholera.

As Jason Beaubien of NPR reported in 2016, “UN peacekeepers inadvertently brought cholera to Haiti in 2010 just after the devastating earthquake. The epidemic, which is still ongoing, sickened nearly 800,000 people and killed nearly 9,000. Before 2010, cholera had not been reported in Haiti for decades. “

The UN apologized for its role in the cholera epidemic in 2016. Yet, as Pierre-Louis notes: “People were not compensated for the loss of family members who were supporting family.

Gangs are multiplying

Gangs have become a scourge in the capital Port-au-Prince. A recent UN report mentionned 5,000 people had been displaced by gang violence in the first 10 days of June alone.

“The violence has left several people dead or injured, as rival gangs fight to exert control over populated areas like Martissant, Cité-Soleil and Bel Air. Hundreds of homes and small businesses have also been set on fire,” said UN police stations were also attacked by armed assailants.

Some areas of Port-au-Prince are not even accessible because gangs control them, Fatton says, reflecting the government’s inability to govern. “And these areas are very close, in fact, to the seats of power, to the presidential palace, to the Legislative Assembly,” he said.

Haiti has yet to deliver vaccine doses as COVID rises

Haiti is the poorest country in Latin America and the Caribbean, and is one of the poorest countries in the world, according to at the World Bank.

Almost half of the population needs immediate food aid, according to to the United Nations World Food Program.

Hurricane Matthew hit the country in 2016, further damaging the country’s economy. More than 90 percent of the Haitian population is extremely vulnerable to natural disasters, according to the World Bank.

The country has seen a recent resurgence of COVID-19. It is also one of the few countries that has yet to administer a dose of the vaccine, Reuters reports.

“It’s a climate of insecurity,” says Fatton.

There is a power struggle

It is not yet clear who is responsible for the murder of Moses. But Pierre-Louis believes that a possible narrative in his murder is the fight between the incoming elite of Moses and the old elite.

“He was trying to dispossess several people in Haiti who have long been well known as businessmen in Haiti,” he said. “You always have that in Haiti, where when a person becomes president, that’s how the person tries to accumulate wealth: by using the resources of the state, by using other means to dispossess others. who already have wealth and power.

Yet Fatton says an assassination is a new phenomenon in modern Haitian politics. While Haiti’s first independent ruler was assassinated in 1806, such violence has not been typical in the country’s modern era.

“It was a very brutal and shocking event,” says Fatton.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To learn more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Various socio-demographic characteristics fuel the disparities observed in pediatric diabetes care. At the 81st American Diabetes Association Virtual Science Session, Ananta Addala, DO, MPH, Pediatric Endocrinologist and Medical Scientist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., Addressed the role of socioeconomic status in these disparities. .

Addala noted that previous research has shown that minority patients often receive poorer quality health care than their peers. The reasons for the differences in care include environmental factors and discrimination. Clinical judgment on the appropriateness of care as well as patient preferences have also been seen as contributing to the difference in the quality of care, but have long been noted as not contributing to the disparities, but Addala believes both do. Along with the management of diabetes, one of the main places where disparities are seen is access to diabetes technologies such as insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors. Diabetes technology has been shown to improve hemoglobin A1c levels, especially in pediatric cases. Children with low family income as well as public or uninsured insurance have higher hemoglobin A1c levels, indicating less access to diabetes technology.

She then discusses the results of a study comparing insulin pump use and continuous glucose monitoring by socioeconomic status in 2 cohorts: 1 in the United States and Germany, at 2 different times, 2010 -2012 and 2016-2018. The German cohort was selected because it represented an economy similar to that of the United States. In both cohorts, the researchers found an increase in the use of insulin pumps between the 2 periods. However, the American cohort showed that significantly fewer patients from the lowest socioeconomic group used pumps than those from the highest economic group, while in the German cohort, negligible differences were noted between socioeconomic groups. economic. Ongoing blood glucose monitoring saw a significant increase in use for both cohorts, but as with insulin pumps, the US cohort showed significant disparities in use by socioeconomic status. In Germany there was very little difference between them. Therefore, hemoglobin A1c levels are significantly higher in the lowest socioeconomic status level in the United States. Children at the lowest socioeconomic level in Germany also had higher hemoglobin A1c levels than their wealthier peers, but the difference was much less significant.

Insurance may be at the root of these disparities, Addala noted. She discussed a recent comment that showed the variability in the requirements for a child in a Medicaid program to get continuous blood sugar monitoring. Some states like Ohio and Wisconsin do not offer specific requirements for the technology. Others, like Utah and New York State, will only cover the technology for patients with type 1 diabetes who also perform self-administered finger-prick blood sugar tests at least 4 times a day. A final factor of disparities is the prejudices that some providers may have towards patients with lower socioeconomic status. A meta-analysis found that providers often had less empathy for patients from lower socioeconomic groups.

Reference

1. Addala A. The state of disparities in the management of pediatric diabetes: the role of socio-economic status. American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions 2021; June 26, 2021; virtual. Accessed June 26, 2021.

Businesses, economists and policymakers are divided over whether the policies of conservative governors on unemployment benefits and Covid-19 restrictions – many of them have chosen not to issue any at all. Stay-at-home orders – are actually helping their savings or so industries in their states simply haven’t fallen as far behind during the pandemic.

Yet the patchy recovery and poor job growth reported in April and May gave Republicans ammunition to repudiate Biden’s costly aid plans. They also stoked Conservative concerns that federal aid, particularly the $ 1.9 trillion American rescue plan which passed without GOP support in March – should have focused more on those most in need.

“Overall, the funds could have been used much better by being more focused,” said Rachel Greszler, economist at the Heritage Foundation. Congress should have tied UI to workers’ incomes or allowed states to use federal aid to distribute their own benefits based on labor market needs “in whatever way they thought best suited them.” , she said.

The seven states that chose not to issue a stay-at-home order last year – Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Utah – were all led by GOP governors.

Republican-led states were also very early to relax trade restrictions in the event of a pandemic and hide mandates: Missouri, Montana, Iowa, and Alaska were among the first states to reduce their trade needs by January and February. Texas, Arizona, Arkansas, New Hampshire and Wyoming followed in March.

Of those states, Montana, New Hampshire, Arkansas, South Dakota, Utah, Missouri and Nebraska returned to pre-pandemic economic activity levels in April and reported lower unemployment. at the national rate of 5.8% in May.

By comparison, states that still have some restrictions on coronaviruses, including California, Connecticut and Hawaii, had the highest unemployment rates in the country in May and were still producing less in April than before the pandemic.

Washington lawmakers sent direct checks to millions of middle- and low-income Americans and supplemented state unemployment benefits with additional weekly payments and coverage for workers traditionally ineligible for unemployment assistance . They also distributed $ 1,000 billion in government guaranteed repayable loans to small businesses under the Paycheck Protection Program, initially on a first come, first served basis.

Other economists wonder if Congress could have maneuvered as precisely as Greszler suggested to save the economy early on, amid a flood of business closures and tens of millions of layoffs caused by health restrictions. pandemic.

“There aren’t a lot of nuances you can use in politics when trying to get the money out as quickly as possible and adapt to local situations for every worker in the state,” said Daniel Zhao. , senior economist. at Glassdoor. “It is very difficult to bring help to all those who need it at the same time, and in a way that is actually targeted at individual situations.

The uneven nature of the recovery partly reflects the diversity of state economies. States like New York, California, Hawaii and Nevada that rely heavily on tourism, as well as food and accommodation, are among the deepest of the economic hole and have the longest way to go, according to the The Federal Reserve’s April State Coincidence Index, which estimates economic conditions based on local employment and wage data corresponding to state GDP trends.

Hawaii’s economic activity in April was 13% lower than it was in January 2020, according to the index. Activity in Nevada and New York is also still down nearly 10% from before the pandemic. Florida, down just 1%, is doing better.

But states like Utah, Idaho, South Dakota, and Nebraska that rely heavily on food processing and manufacturing – industries deemed critical and required to stay open during the pandemic – are falling back to the forefront. normal much faster.

“What we are seeing is the states that were the most down at the start are still the most down, and it’s basically the states that depend the most on travel,” said Michael Ettlinger, founding principal of the Carsey School. of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. “There’s just more destruction, if you will, in these states, and it’s just going to take longer to come back. “

The advantage that GOP-led states such as Georgia, Mississippi, Arizona and Missouri enjoy in rebounding from the pandemic has fueled Republican attacks on Biden’s policies.

More than two dozen GOP governors have decided to end federally-funded extra unemployment benefits, citing labor shortages they say are triggered by generosity. In Congress, Republican lawmakers use a similar argument against Biden’s plans to spend $ 4 trillion to shore up the nation’s infrastructure and expand social programs.

“Our goal should be to rebuild the economy as quickly as possible, not to subsidize it,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (RS.D.), who cited the extension of unemployment benefits. as a reason to vote against an aid plan put in place by the Democrats in March.

Some economists say it is not clear whether generous unemployment benefits are a factor preventing jobs from being filled.

A June analysis of the United States Chamber of Commerce itself has found that the ratio of available workers to job openings is what it was before the pandemic. Before Covid, “companies struggled to fill openings because available workers lacked the skills companies needed,” wrote senior economist Curtis Dubay. “This problem persists now.”

And an analysis of May from the hiring website Indeed’s chief economist, Jed Kolko, found that job search activity in states ending federal benefits saw a brief temporary jump on the platform shortly after. time after the governors announced they would.

Economists, as well as the Biden administration, also say issues such as lingering hardships for parents at daycare, lingering fear of contracting the virus, and an economy that appears to have gone from zero to 60 in a matter of weeks have likely the strongest effect.

“We have this kind of race to the bottom, state after state, with Republican governors… ending the benefits and, frankly, misleading people,” said Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore .). “They tried to make a big deal by saying we were cutting the extra $ 300. This is simply not true. They cut an extra week, they cut the concert workers, if someone has exhausted state benefits.

With about 4 million Americans – disproportionately workers of color and women – faced “virtually zero income … which makes the need for federal reform much more serious,” he said.

“This crazy quilt of state systems that offer different levels of data, unemployment benefits and approaches to reopening highlights to me the need, the urgency for fundamental reform,” Wyden said.

He campaigns for an overhaul of the unemployment system that would unite all states under a single benefit infrastructure and create automatic triggers that tie benefits to economic conditions, among other things.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Wyden proposed last year to extend the unemployment benefits program until a state’s unemployment rate falls below 6%, but Republicans were hesitant to support a long-term extension of unemployment assistance financed by taxpayers.

Had Congress passed the proposal last July, 27 states would currently have unemployment rates low enough to phase out the extra $ 300 in additional benefits under the program.

“Hopefully this will spark a conversation after the pandemic ends on how to improve our safety net,” Zhao said, “not just in terms of expanding it, but also making sure it actually reaches the people it needs and reaches them quickly when help is needed.

The only moderate in the Iranian presidential election conceded defeat on Saturday morning to the country’s head of radical justice. It signaled that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s protégé won a vote he dominated after his stronger competitor was disqualified.

Former moderate head of the Central Bank Abdolnasser Hemmati and former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohsen Rezaei congratulated Ebrahim Raisi.

In the first results, Raisi won 17.8 million votes, compared to 3.3 million for Rezaei and 2.4 million for Hemmati, said Jamal Orf, head of the electoral headquarters of Iran’s interior ministry. The fourth candidate in the race, Amirhossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi, got around 1 million votes, Orf said.

The first results announced also appeared to show that the race had the lowest turnout in the country since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. However, the vote did not have international observers to monitor the election as in previous years.

This makes Raisi – who faces US sanctions for his role in the mass executions – the clear winner of the race. It was then that his candidacy sparked widespread apathy among eligible voters in the Islamic Republic, which has long retained participation as a sign of support for the theocracy since its 1979 Islamic revolution.

The swift concessions, while not unusual in previous Iranian elections, signaled what semi-official news agencies in Iran had hinted at for hours: that the carefully controlled vote had been a resounding victory for Raisi amid the calls from some for a boycott.

Hemmati offered his congratulations on Instagram to Raisi early on Saturday.

“I hope that your administration is a source of pride for the Islamic Republic of Iran, improves the economy and life with comfort and well-being for the great Iranian nation,” he wrote.

On Twitter, Rezaei congratulated Khamenei and the Iranian people for participating in the vote.

“God willing, the decisive election of my esteemed brother Ayatollah Dr Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi promises the establishment of a strong and popular government to solve the country’s problems,” Rezaei wrote.

As night fell on Friday, the turnout appeared to be much lower than in the last Iranian presidential election in 2017. At a polling station in a mosque in central Tehran, a Shiite cleric played football with a youth. boy while most of his employees were napping in a yard. In another, officials watched videos on their cellphones as state television screamed alongside them, offering only tight shots of locations across the country – as opposed to long election lines. past.

Voting ended at 2 a.m. on Saturday, after the government extended the vote to accommodate what it called “overcrowding” at several polling stations nationwide. The paper ballots, crammed into large plastic boxes, were to be counted by hand overnight, and authorities said they expected to have the first results and turnout numbers by Saturday morning at the most. early.

“My vote will not change anything in this election, the number of people voting for Raisi is huge and Hemmati does not have the skills to do this,” said Hediyeh, a 25-year-old woman who gave only her first name. . rushing to a taxi in Haft-e Tir Square after avoiding the ballot box. “I don’t have a candidate here.”

Iranian state television has sought to downplay participation, singling out the Arab sheikhs in the Gulf around it, led by hereditary rulers and low participation in Western democracies. After a day of escalating authorities’ attempts to get the vote out, state television overnight aired scenes from crowded voting booths in several provinces, seeking to portray a last-minute rush to the polls.

But since the 1979 revolution toppled the shah, the Iranian theocracy has cited voter turnout as a sign of its legitimacy, starting with its first referendum which won 98.2% support and which simply asked if people wanted or not an Islamic Republic.

The disqualifications affected reformists and supporters of Rouhani, whose administration both struck the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and saw it disintegrate three years later with America’s unilateral withdrawal. of the deal by then-President Donald Trump. Former radical president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also barred from running, said on social media that he would boycott the vote.

Voter apathy has also been fueled by the devastated state of the economy and a moderate campaign amid months of rising coronavirus cases. Poll workers wore gloves and masks, and some wiped the ballot boxes with disinfectants.

If elected, Raisi would be the first sitting Iranian president to be sanctioned by the US government even before taking office for his involvement in the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988, as well as for his tenure as head. of the internationally criticized Iranian justice system – one of the best executioners in the world.

It would also firmly put hard-line supporters in control across the government as negotiations in Vienna continue in an attempt to salvage a tattered deal meant to limit Iran’s nuclear program at a time when Tehran is enriching Iran. uranium at its highest level ever recorded, although it is still short. weapon quality levels. Tensions remain high with the United States and Israel, which reportedly carried out a series of attacks targeting Iranian nuclear sites and assassinated the scientist who created his military atomic program decades earlier.

Whoever wins will likely serve two four-year terms and therefore could lead what could be one of the most pivotal moments for the country in decades – the death of Khamenei, 82. Speculation has already started that Raisi could be a candidate for the post, along with Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba.