Israel launched a series of strikes against Iran on Friday morning, targeting nuclear sites, missile facilities and other military infrastructure. The strikes were also a major blow to Iran’s chain of command, killing top generals.

Iran vowed a harsh response, and launched at least 100 drones in an initial wave. There were no immediate indications of significant damage caused by the drones, and it was not clear if they succeeded in penetrating Israel’s airspace.

Tehran

Residents of the Iranian capital reported hearing huge explosions and seeing Israeli fighter jets. Iranian state television broadcast images of smoke and fire billowing from buildings.

Israel attacked military bases around Tehran, including Parchin. Multiple residential buildings were also attacked, including highly secure complexes for military commanders, in what appears to be targeted assassinations, according to four senior Iranian officials.

Natanz nuclear enrichment complex

Social media footage verified by The Times, as well as an Iranian news report, show flames and thick black smoke billowing from the Natanz nuclear enrichment complex.

Natanz is Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility. It is where Iran has produced the vast majority of its nuclear fuel — and, in the past three years, much of the near-bomb-grade fuel that has put the country on the threshold of building nuclear weapons.

Tabriz

Tabriz, a city located in northern western Iran, was under multiple rounds of attacks on Friday.

Social media footage verified by The Times shows that an airport in the city was hit by Israeli strikes.

Large plumes of thick black smoke were seen over Tabriz as several apparent strikes continued to hit the area.

Fears grew that the long-simmering tensions between the heavily armed rivals could explode into a full-blown regional war.

Basketball star Brittney Griner pleaded guilty to drug charges in a Russian courtroom on Thursday, but not before she was handed a note from President Joe Biden.

With the hope that a guilty plea might be her best shot at a lenient sentence in what experts fear is a sham trial, the WBNA player admitted to taking hashish oil into Russia by accident because she had been in a hurry when she packed.

“Brittney sets an example of being brave. She decided to take full responsibility for her actions as she knows that she is a role model for many people,” read a statement from Griner’s Russian legal team, Maria Blagovolina from the firm Rybalkin Gortsunyan Dyakin and Alexander Boykov from the Moscow Legal Center.

“Considering the nature of her case, the insignificant amount of the substance and BG’s personality and history of positive contributions to global and Russian sport, the defense hopes that the plea will be considered by the court as a mitigating factor and there will be no severe sentence,” the lawyers said.

The attorneys said they expected Griner’s trial to conclude around the start of August.

Griner has been detained in Russia for more than four months after authorities said they found small amounts of hash oil in vape pens in her luggage.

“Brittney has admitted to making a mistake, and I hope the Russian authorities recognize that humbling act and respond with compassion,” Rev. Al Sharpton said in a statement passed on by Griner’s team.

Sharpton, Britney’s wife Cherelle, and WNBA players will rally on Friday in Chicago to call for her release.

They fear that Griner, who faces a maximum sentence of 10 years, is being used as a bargaining chip by Moscow against Washington amid the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“She is in the fight of her life right now, which is why we’ll be in Chicago to show our support for Brittney and for the Administration and their efforts to bring her home as soon as possible,” Sharpton said. “We must all continue to pray she finds strength through this challenging time.”

Griner’s guilty plea came a day after Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris called Cherelle Griner to offer assurances that his administration is working to free the basketball star.

That call came after Cherelle Griner criticized Biden for not meeting with her to discuss the case.

As she arrived in court on Thursday, Brittney Griner was given a note from Biden which he had earlier read to her wife over the phone.

The message was in response to one the basketball player had written to the president on July 4, begging for freedom.

“As I sit here in a Russian prison, alone with my thoughts and without the protection of my wife, family, friends, Olympic jersey, or any accomplishments, I’m terrified I might be here forever,” Griner wrote.

Scottie Scheffler has kept coming back to the same answer when asked in different ways about how a day that began with optimism at the United States Open turned into a five-and-a-half-hour slog that left him well off the front page of the leaderboard.

“I’ve probably got to give myself a few more looks,” the world’s top-ranked player said Thursday after a 3-over 73 left him seven shots behind frontrunner JJ Spaun.

Scheffler was talking about looks for reasonable birdie putts. Those didn’t happen nearly enough during those often arduous hours at the Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, Pennsylvania. As for plain old “looks”, however, well, the three-time major winner had those in abundance.

Looks of frustration, like when his drive on the par-5 12th landed in the middle of a fairway that slopes massively from left to right and kept rolling, and rolling, and rolling until it was in the first cut of the course’s signature ankle-deep rough.

Looks of bafflement, like when his 1.8-metre (6ft) par putt at the par-3 13th slid by, causing him to put his hand over his mouth and turn to caddie Ted Scott as if to say, “What just happened?”

Looks of anger, like when his wedge from 76 metres (83 yards) on the easy (by Oakmont standards) par-4 14th landed 12 metres (40ft) past the hole. Scheffler slammed the club into the ground before collecting himself to two-putt.

Looks of annoyance, when his 3.7-metre (12ft) birdie attempt at the par-4 17th lipped out. Scheffler bent over, pressed his hands on his knees and appeared to sigh before standing back up.

That doesn’t even include what he described as “sloppy” bogeys on the par-4 third and par-5 fourth when he found the sand off the tee.

It added up to tying his worst opening round in a major ever. He did that at the 2021 Masters, a year before he began a run of dominance not seen since Tiger Woods’s prime two decades ago. Heck, he even managed a 1-under 69 at Oakmont as a 19-year-old amateur in 2016.

Nine years later, Scheffler’s life is very different. When he walked out of the scoring area in the late spring twilight, his toddler son, Bennett, and wife, Meredith, and other members of his family were waiting.

The course, however, remains the same physically and mentally draining task it has always been.

There’s a reason Scheffler teed off at 1:25pm and didn’t tap in for par on 18 until 6:52pm even though there wasn’t a hint of rain or wind or any other external factors to gum up the works. There was only Oakmont being Oakmont.

The fairways that Spaun navigated to a 4-under 66 in the morning dried up throughout the kind of muggy, sun-baked day that’s been uncommon during Western Pennsylvania’s cool, wet spring.

Scheffler made only two putts over 3 metres (10ft), none over the final seven holes and three-putted the par-3 13th. How? He has no idea. Yet he also knows one middling round doesn’t necessarily ruin his chances of winning the third leg of the grand slam.

Play a little “sharper” in the second round, and he thinks he might be in a better position come the weekend.

“When you’re playing these types of tests that are this challenging, there’s usually still a way to score,” he said.

He might find them sooner rather than later. In each of Scheffler’s 16 PGA Tour victories, he found himself inside the top 30 after 18 holes. He’ll be outside that number when he puts his tee in the ground at No 10 on Friday morning to start his second round.

“I’ll clean up some of those mistakes, a couple three putts and stuff like that,” he said on Thursday. “And I think tomorrow will be a better day.”

Rory McIlroy, still looking to regain the form that helped him complete a career Grand Slam at the Masters in April, started on the back nine and made two early birdies to reach the turn just two shots back of Spaun before a wayward second nine.

World number two McIlroy made four bogeys over a seven-hole stretch out of the turn, followed by a double bogey at the par-3 eighth, where he left his tee shot in the thick rough and failed to get out on his first attempt. He signed for a 74.

Defending champion Bryson DeChambeau, one of 14 LIV Golf players in the field and looking to become the first repeat US Open winner since Brooks Koepka in 2018, spent too much time in Oakmont’s penal rough and opened with a 73.

“It was a brutal test of golf. But one that I’m excited for tomorrow,” DeChambeau said.

Israel says it has carried out strikes on Iran’s nuclear programme, with explosions seen in the capital city of Tehran.

Security cameras captured the moment a large, bright blast hit the city.

Iran’s state media also showed footage of fires burning in buildings and plumes of smoke rising from the city’s skyline.

People can be seen gathering on streets littered with debris.

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