Hard Numbers: Iran’s candidates, Stronach’s sex crime charges, Bulgarians vote again, US border crossings drop

June 09, 2024

Mehrdad Bazrpash, an Iranian politician and the Minister of Roads and Urban Development, is speaking to the media at a media center in the Iranian Interior Ministry building after registering as a Presidential elections candidate during the last day of candidates' registration for Iran's early Presidential elections, in Tehran, Iran, on June 3, 2024.

Morteza Nikoubazl via Reuters Connect

6: Iran’s Guardian Council — an unelected body of religious clerics — has approved six candidates to run in elections scheduled for June 28, after President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash last month. Five of the candidates come from the hardline conservative camp, one is a reformer, and former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was barred from running again.

5: Austrian-Canadian billionaire and politician Frank Stronach has been charged with five sexual assault crimes dating between the 1980s and 2023. The 91-year-old’s lawyers denied any impropriety, and police are withholding details about the charges, which include rape, indecent assault on a female, sexual assault, and forcible confinement.

6: Bulgarians went to the polls for the sixth time in just three years on Sunday as the European Union’s poorest member struggles to form a stable government in the wake of anti-corruption protests. No single party is expected to gain a majority, which will continue to inhibit Bulgaria’s development and block access to funds from Brussels.

3,100: US Customs and Border Patrol apprehended roughly 3,100 migrants crossing the border with Mexico on Friday, reflecting a drop of about 20% from just days before. It may be an early indication that Biden’s new border crackdown, which went into effect last week, is working.

Walmart’s commitment to US manufacturing helps small businesses grow

Walmart

Proud Source became a Walmart supplier in 2021. Today, its team has grown by 50%, and it's the largest employer in Mackay, ID. Walmart supports small businesses across the country, and nearly two-thirds of Walmart's product spend is on products made, grown, or assembled in America. It’s all a part of Walmart’s $350 billion investment in US manufacturing, which helps small businesses grow and supports US jobs. Learn more about Walmart’s commitment to US manufacturing.

Tools and Weapons – In Conversation with Bill Gates

Microsoft

As Microsoft celebrates its 50th anniversary, Vice Chair and President Brad Smith sits down with company cofounder Bill Gates for a special episode of Tools and Weapons. They discuss Gates’ new memoir, "Source Code: My Beginnings," reflect on Microsoft’s impact over the past five decades, and explore why the next phase of the digital revolution is shaping up to be the most exciting yet. Subscribe and find new episodes monthly, wherever you listen to podcasts.

What we learned from a week of AI-generated cartoons

Courtesy of ChatGPT

OpenAI recently released its GPT-4o image-generation model, which is billed as more responsive to prompts, more capable of accurately rendering text, and better at producing higher-fidelity images than previous AI image generators. Within hours, ChatGPT users flooded social media with cartoons they made using the model in the style of the Japanese film house Studio Ghibli. The ordeal became an internet spectacle, but as the memes flowed, they also raised important technological, copyright, and even political questions, which Scott Nover explores this week in GZERO AI.

North Korea preps new kamikaze drones

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervises the test of suicide drones with artificial intelligence at an unknown location, in this photo released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on March 27, 2025.

KCNA via REUTERS

Hermit Kingdom leader Kim Jong Un has reportedly supervised AI-powered kamikaze drone tests. He told KCNA, the state news agency, that developing unmanned aircraft and AI should be a top priority to modernize North Korea’s armed forces.

Hard Numbers: Missing Palestinian medics found in mass grave, Renowned Japanese species dies off, Romania’s far right keeps rolling, Trump’s latest approval ratings come in

Palestinians mourn medics, who came under Israeli fire while on a rescue mission, after their bodies were recovered, according to the Red Crescent, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip March 31, 2025.

REUTERS/Hatem Khaled

15: Fifteen Palestinian medics who went missing last week were apparently killed by Israeli forces and buried in an impromptu mass grave along with their ambulances, according to the UN.

Hard Numbers: Iran’s candidates, Stronach’s sex crime charges, Bulgarians vote again, US border crossings drop

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Hard Numbers: Missing Palestinian medics found in mass grave, Renowned Japanese species dies off, Romania’s far right keeps rolling, Trump’s latest approval ratings come in

15: Fifteen Palestinian medics who went missing last week were apparently killed by Israeli forces and buried in an impromptu mass grave along with their ambulances, according to the UN.

Hard Numbers: Iran’s candidates, Stronach’s sex crime charges, Bulgarians vote again, US border crossings drop

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More from GZERO Media

H3C, one of China’s biggest server makers, has warned about running out of Nvidia H20 chips, the most powerful AI chips Chinese companies can legally purchase under US export controls.

Hermit Kingdom leader Kim Jong Un has reportedly supervised AI-powered kamikaze drone tests. He told KCNA, the state news agency, that developing unmanned aircraft and AI should be a top priority to modernize North Korea’s armed forces.

GZEROMEDIA

Subscribe to GZERO Media's newsletter: Signal

Isomorphic Labs, which broke off from Google's DeepMind in 2021, raised $600 million from investors in a new funding round led by Thrive Capital on Monday.

15: Fifteen Palestinian medics who went missing last week were apparently killed by Israeli forces and buried in an impromptu mass grave along with their ambulances, according to the UN.