Israel orders 300,000 people in Tehran to evacuate while Trump issues ominous warning

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel warned hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate the middle of Iran's capital as Israel’s air campaign on Tehran appeared to broaden on the fourth day of an intensifying conflict.

An Iranian television anchor fled her studio during a live broadcast as bombs fell on the headquarters of the country's state-run TV station.

U.S. President Donald Trump posted an ominous message on his social media site later Monday calling for the immediate evacuation of Tehran.

“IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON,” Trump wrote, adding that “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on social media shortly after Trump’s post that he was returning from the G7 summit in Canada a day early due to the intensifying conflict between.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Israeli strikes have set Iran’s nuclear program back a “very, very long time," and told reporters he is in daily touch with Trump.

“The regime is very weak,” he added.

Israel says its sweeping assault on Iran’s top military leaders, uranium enrichment sites and nuclear scientists, is necessary to prevent its longtime adversary from getting any closer to building an atomic weapon. The strikes have killed at least 224 people since Friday.

Iran maintains that its nuclear program is peaceful, and the U.S. and others have assessed that Tehran has not had an organized effort to pursue a nuclear weapon since 2003. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly warned that the country has enough enriched uranium to make several nuclear bombs should it choose to do so.

Iran has retaliated by launching more than 370 missiles and hundreds of drones at Israel. So far, 24 people have been killed in Israel and more than 500 injured.

The back-and-forth has raised concerns about all-out war between the countries and propelled the region, already on edge, into even greater upheaval.

Earlier Monday, Israel’s military issued an evacuation warning to 330,000 people in a part of central Tehran that houses the country’s state TV and police headquarters, as well as three large hospitals, including one owned by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. The city, one of the region's largest, is home to around 9.5 million people.

Israel's military has issued similar evacuation warnings for civilians in parts of Gaza and Lebanon ahead of strikes.

State-run television abruptly stopped a live broadcast after the station was hit, according to Iran’s state-run news agency. While on the air, an Iranian state television reporter said the studio was filling with dust after “the sound of aggression against the homeland.” Suddenly, an explosion occurred, cutting the screen behind her as she hurried off camera.

The broadcast quickly switched to prerecorded programs. The station later said its building was hit by four bombs.

An anchor said on air that a few colleagues had been hurt, but their families should not be worried. The network said its live programs were transferred to another studio.

Israeli military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said Monday that his country's forces had "achieved full aerial superiority over Tehran’s skies.”

The military said it destroyed more than 120 surface-to-surface missile launchers in central Iran, a third of Iran’s total, as well as two F-14 planes that Iran used to target Israeli aircraft and multiple launchers just before they launched ballistic missiles towards Israel.

Israeli military officials also said fighter jets had struck 10 command centers in Tehran belonging to Iran’s Quds Force, an elite arm of its Revolutionary Guard that conducts military and intelligence operations outside Iran.

The Israeli strikes “amount to a deep and comprehensive blow to the Iranian threat,” Defrin said.

One missile fell near the American consulate in Tel Aviv, with its blast waves causing minor damage, U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee said on X. He added that no American personnel were injured.

Powerful explosions rocked Tel Aviv shortly before dawn Monday, sending plumes of black smoke into the sky over the coastal city.

Authorities in the central Israeli city of Petah Tikva said Iranian missiles hit a residential building there, charring concrete walls, shattering windows and ripping the walls off multiple apartments.

Iranian missiles also hit an oil refinery in the northern city of Haifa for the second night in a row. The early morning strike killed three workers, ignited a significant fire and damaged a building, Israel’s fire and rescue services said. The workers were sheltering in the building’s safe room when the impact caused a stairwell to collapse, trapping them inside.

Firefighters rushed to extinguish the fire and rescue them, but the three died before rescuers could reach them.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, appeared to make a veiled outreach Monday for the U.S. to step in and negotiate an end to hostilities between Israel and Iran.

In a post on X, Araghchi wrote that if Trump is "genuine about diplomacy and interested in stopping this war, next steps are consequential.”

“It takes one phone call from Washington to muzzle someone like Netanyahu,” Iran’s top diplomat wrote. “That may pave the way for a return to diplomacy.”

The message to Washington was sent as the latest talks between the U.S. and Iran were canceled over the weekend after Israel targeted key military and political officials in Tehran.

On Sunday, Araghchi said that Iran will stop its strikes if Israel does the same.

The conflict has also forced most countries in the Middle East to close their airspace. Dozens of airports have stopped all flights or severely reduced operations, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded and others unable to flee the conflict or travel home.

Health authorities reported that 1,277 people were wounded in Iran. Iranians also reported fuel rationing.

Rights groups such as the Washington-based Iranian advocacy group Human Rights Activists have suggested that the Iranian government’s death toll is a significant undercount. The group says it has documented more than 400 people killed, among them 197 civilians.

Ahead of Israel's initial attack, its Mossad spy agency positioned explosive drones and precision weapons inside Iran. Since then, Iran has reportedly detained several people and hanged one on suspicion of espionage.

Associated Press writers Amir Vahdat and Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran; Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv; Isaac Scharf and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem; Isabel DeBre in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Farnoush Amiri in New York; Darlene Superville in Washington and David Rising in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Rescue team work at the site where a missile launched from Iran struck Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)

Residents look at the site where an Iranian missile struck in, Haifa, Israel, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Smoke billows after an Iranian missile struck an oil refinery in Haifa, northern Israel, early Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

A damaged apartment is seen near the site where an Iranian missile struck in Haifa, Israel, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

An injured man is helped to leave the scene after an explosion in downtown Tehran, amid Israel's three-day campaign of strikes against Iran, Sunday, June 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Amir Kholousi/ISNA)

Women mourn over the body of Mohammadi Javad Naseri, who was reportedly killed in Israeli strikes in the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Matin Hashemi)

Rescue team work at the site where a missile launched from Iran struck Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)

Smoke rises from an oil storage facility after it appeared to have been struck by an Israeli strike on Saturday, in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

People evacuate after a missile launched from Iran struck Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday June 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)

Rescue team work at the site where a missile launched from Iran struck Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)

Firefighters work to extinguish a blaze after a missile launched from Iran struck Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)

An explosion is seen during a missile attack in Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, June 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

The Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept missiles during an Iranian attack over Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, June 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

People evacuate after a missile launched from Iran struck Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday June 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)