Quote:Iran completely rejected President Trump’s 15-point peace plan on Wednesday — and put forth its own maximalist demands to end the war.
After the president claimed that Iran agreed to major components of his peace plan, including giving up their nuclear weapon ambition, Tehran told mediators that Trump’s plan was unacceptable, according to state media.
Iranian lawmakers have instead presented their own deal that would see the Islamic republic rule over the Strait of Hormuz and ensure its safety, along with that of its terror proxies abroad.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has consolidated power within the remains of Tehran’s regime, vowed to keep the war going until the US closed all American bases in the Gulf and provided reparations for its attacks on Iran.
Along with a full American withdrawal, Iran’s leader insisted they should have full control over the Strait of Hormuz, the key shipping route that has cut off access to 20% of the world’s oil supply.
The change would allow Iran to collect fees from the ships that travel through the passage, similar to what Egypt does with the Suez Canal.
The new source of revenue for Iran would be compounded with an end to all sanctions on the Islamic republic, according to Tehran’s demands.
Iran also demands a permanent end to the war, as well as Israel’s fight with the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group in Lebanon.
While the regime made no mention of its nuclear program in the demands, it said Iran should be allowed to keep its missile program with no negotiations to limit it.
The demands fly in the face of Trump’s 15-point peace plan, with a US official calling it “ridiculous” and “unrealistic,” according to the WSJ.
Iran’s demands directly clash with several of Trump’s proposals, the bulk of which were made public by Israel’s Channel 12.
Quote:Iran said Wednesday it had fired cruise missiles in the direction of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, hours after Tehran’s military dismissed any talk of an agreement to end the war with the US.
The semiofficial Fars News Agency, which has close ties with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), claimed that the missile attack had “forc[ed] the American naval fleet to change position.”
There was no immediate response from US Central Command (CENTCOM), which has taken to social media in the past to refute Iranian claims to have struck the Lincoln and other US assets.
The carrier has been based in the Arabian Sea in support of Operation Epic Fury, which will mark the conclusion of its fourth week Friday.
In the Oval Office on Tuesday, President Trump told reporters that Iran had “shot 100 missiles at one of our aircraft carriers, one of the biggest ships in the world, actually.
“Out of 101 missiles, every single one of them was knocked down.”
The missile launches followed a top spokesman for Iran’s military vowing that Tehran will “never come to terms” with Washington after the US transmitted a 15-point peace plan via Pakistani intermediaries.
“Someone like us will never come to terms with someone like you. Not now, not ever,” Lt. Col. Ebrahim Zolfaghari said in a video shared by Fars.
“The strategic power you used to talk about has turned into a strategic failure,” he added. “The one claiming to be a global superpower would have already gotten out of this mess if it could. Don’t dress up your defeat as an agreement. Your era of empty promises has come to an end.”
The 15 US demands on Iran include, according to the Wall Street Journal, dismantling nuclear facilities and capabilities as well as forgoing the pursuit of atomic weapons; handing over all enriched uranium to international authorities; limiting its missile program to self-defense uses; keeping the Strait of Hormuz open; and cutting off funding for terrorist proxies.
Quote:Iran is reportedly planning to charge ships for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz as its blockade of the waterway has pushed oil above $100 a barrel in a historic global energy supply disruption.
Tehran officials are drafting legislation that would slap tolls on tankers passing through the strait in an attempt to solidify Iranian control over the vital maritime route, which transports 20% of the world’s oil supply, an Iranian lawmaker told Fars, a state-backed news agency.
A draft has been prepared and lawmakers are hoping to finish a proposed bill by next week so it is ready to present to parliament, according to the report.
Investors are hoping that the US-Israeli war with Iran will be short-lived so oil prices can normalize – though analysts have warned that attacks on Middle East energy infrastructure and halts on production from some oil fields could keep prices elevated even if the war ends soon.
President Trump announced during a Cabinet meeting Thursday that Iran has let 10 oil tankers move through the strait this week as a “present” to the US.
But oil futures were sharply up Thursday – with Brent crude soaring more than 5% to roughly $108 a barrel – and stocks moved lower after mixed messaging on peace talks from the US and Iran.
Trump said Thursday that the US has “very substantial talks going on with respect to Iran,” after tweeting earlier in the day that Tehran’s negotiators “better get serious soon, before it is too late.”
Iranian leaders have reportedly rejected a 15-point peace plan from the Trump administration, and they have repeatedly denied having discussions with US officials.
The peace plan was delivered via Pakistan, which has acted as a mediator, US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said during the Thursday Cabinet meeting.
He added that the US has had “multiple reach-outs from the region and others who want to play a role in ending this conflict peacefully.”
Quote:Iran hit Israel with seven missiles, including some equipped with cluster bombs, early Thursday — leaving at least nine people injured in the latest strike to make it through the Jewish state’s air defenses.
Seven salvos of ballistic missiles were detected over Israel and the West Bank Thursday morning, with the second rocket hitting the central city of Kafr Qasim and wounding five people, The Times of Israel reported.
Wild video of the impact shows people and animals fleeing the streets seconds before the bomb hits a parked vehicle, sending the car flying in a violent flip that litters shrapnel and debris everywhere.
Similar images emerged elsewhere in the city, where a bomb landed right in front of a parked vehicle, damaging the car as it sent concrete soaring into the sky.
Another bomb landed in Ganei Tikva, destroying several cars and causing a large fire that covered the road in black smoke.
Two people were wounded in Tel Aviv after a ballistic missile carrying cluster munitions dropped bomblets over a wide area, with images showing a destroyed storefront in the city.
Cluster bomblets were also reported hitting a shopping center in Haifa and elsewhere in northern Israel, where the shrapnel from the explosion left a person injured, officials said.
The bombs additionally hit two homes in the illegal West Bank settlements, with the residents spared after taking shelter in their safe rooms, according to the Samaria Regional Council.
Iran has fired more than 400 ballistic missiles at the Jewish state since the start of the war, with the Israel Defense Forces maintaining that its interception rate is still 92% for attacks on populated areas and key infrastructure.
Despite the interceptions, at least eight missiles have hit highly populated areas during the war, causing extensive damage and killing at least 15 people and leaving hundreds more wounded.
Quote:Yemen’s Houthi rebels said Thursday that they are ready to stand with Iran against the US and Israel, threatening to open a new front along the Red Sea that serves as a key global trade route.
The Iran-backed terror group said that it would be ready to enter the fight at a moment’s notice following Tehran’s warning that the war could spread to the Bab al-Mandab Strait if the US launches a ground invasion.
“We stand fully militarily ready with all options,” a Houthi leader told Reuters, suggesting the rebel group was in direct coordination with Iran.
“Until now Iran is doing well and is defeating the enemy every day and the battle is going in its direction. If anything contrary to this happens then we can assess,” he added.
The Houthis involvement in the war directly threatens the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a 20-mile wide passage located southwest of Yemen, where the rebel group is based.
The Houthis have previously waged war along the passage that connects the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden as a show of solidarity during the Israel-Hamas war.
The rebel attacks sowed chaos and disruptions at the key trade route between Europe and and Asia where $1 trillion worth of goods pass through every year.
Any attacks along the strait would further risk shipments coming out of Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter of oil, which has been redirecting its barrels through the Red Sea following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran issued a direct threat to take the Bab al-Mandab Strait on Wednesday if the US were to escalate the war by invading the Kharg Island.
Quote:Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose country has been fighting a war against Russia for years, said Kyiv has evidence that Moscow is supplying Iran with intelligence support.
"Report by Chief of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine Oleh Ivashchenko. First, we have irrefutable evidence that the Russians continue to provide intelligence to the Iranian regime. Russia is using its own signals intelligence and electronic intelligence capabilities, as well as part of the data obtained through cooperation with partners in the Middle East," part of a post on Zelenskyy's X account notes.
"There is growing evidence that the Russians continue to provide the Iranian regime with intelligence support," Zelenskyy noted in part of another post. "By helping the Iranian regime stay afloat and strike more accurately, Russia is effectively prolonging the war. There must be a response."
The U.S. and Israel launched a war against Iran over three weeks ago.
U.S. President Donald Trump indicated in a Monday Truth Social post that the U.S. is engaging in talks with Iran.
In the all-caps post on Monday morning, the president said in the last two days the U.S. and Iran had engaged in discussions about resolving the conflict. He said the talks would continue during the week and that he had ordered the War Department to postpone attacks against energy infrastructure in Iran for five days.
Iran's Foreign Ministry denied that it is engaging in discussions with America, according to state media, indicating there was "no dialogue" with Tehran and D.C., The Wall Street Journal has reported.
"Yes, there are initiatives from regional countries to reduce tensions, and our response to all of them is clear: we are not the party that started this war, and all these requests should be referred to Washington," the ministry indicated, according to state broadcaster IRIB, the Journal reported.
Quote:President Trump on Thursday vehemently denied reports he is “desperate” to end the war against Iran, insisting he has unfinished business as he extends the timeframe for talks.
“I’m the opposite of desperate. I don’t care,” he said in his cabinet meeting.
Peace negotiations between Washington and Tehran are ongoing, with intermediary countries acting as messengers as the war enters its fourth week.
With the talks “going very well,” Trump extended his original five-day deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz by another five days to Monday, April 6th, to give negotiators more time. The previous deadline was Friday.
“Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others, they are going very well,” the president announced in a post on Truth Social.
Trump was visibly annoyed by a Wall Street Journal article that reported he wants a speedy end to the conflict, blasting it as “fake news.”
He said if he were desperate, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth would be the first to know because he would order US military out of the region.
“I read a story today that I’m desperate to make a deal. I’m not. If I was desperate, he’d be the first to know. Pete, let’s get the hell out of there,” Trump said.
But, the president pointed out, what he really wants to do is to finish the job.
“We have other targets we want to hit before we leave,” he noted.
The president was chatty during Thursday’s cabinet meeting, giving real-time updates on the situation with Iran, blasting NATO for its lack of loyalty, and pointing to work he’s done domestically to make America safer.
He also revealed the answer to a mystery that has plagued Washington the past two days — what was that gift he received from Iran.
It was 10 “big boats” of oil in a show of goodwill from Tehran.
Quote:The US and Israel have removed Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Ghalibaf from their hit list after mediators said that peace talks would be dead without them, according to multiple reports.
Ghalibaf and Araghchi were in Israel’s crosshairs when mediators from Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt warned the US that their deaths would likely sink any hopes of a diplomatic end to the war.
“The Israelis had their coordinates and wanted to take them out, we told the US if they are also eliminated then there is no one else to talk to, hence the U.S. asked the Israelis to back off,” a Pakistani source told Reuters.
Ghalibaf and Araghchi are expected to enjoy only 10 days of reprieve as the US pushes for a peace deal, The Wall Street Journal first reported.
The IDF has declined to comment on whether the Iranians officials have been temporarily removed as targets.
Ghalibaf remains one of the most powerful leaders of the Iranian regime following the deaths of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his long-time rival Ali Larijani, with the parliament speaker believed to be the top official speaking with the Trump administration.
Both Ghalibaf and Araghchi have repeatedly denied being in direct talks with Washington, with Iran recently bashing Trump’s 15-point peace proposal.
Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt are currently working to set up a meeting between Iranian and US negotiators in Islamabad.
Despite the alleged halt on attacks against Ghalibaf and Araghchi, IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin vowed that the Jewish state will continue hunting Iran’s top leaders following the strike that killed IRGC Navy chief Alireza Tangsiri overnight.
Quote:WASHINGTON — President Trump ended two days of guessing Thursday by saying that Iran had gifted him 10 “big boats” of oil in a show of goodwill.
“They said, ‘To show you the fact that we’re real and solid and we’re there, we’re going to let you have eight boats of oil — eight boats, eight big boats of oil.’ … and I didn’t think much about it,” Trump said at a cabinet meeting.
“And then I watched the news, and they said … ‘There are eight boats that are going right up the middle of the Hormuz Strait, eight big tankers are going loaded up with oil right through,'” he went on.
“And I said, ‘Well, I guess they were right, and they were real, and I think they were Pakistani-flagged.’
“And I said, ‘Well, I guess we’re dealing with the right people.’ And actually, they then apologized for something they said,” the president continued. “And they said, ‘We’re going to send two more boats,’ and it ended up being 10 boats.”
Trump set off a frenzy of speculation Tuesday when he told reporters that he had received “a very big present, worth a tremendous amount of money” from Iran, which officials refused to identify, citing the sensitivity of ongoing peace talks.
After his big reveal Thursday, the president jokingly told special envoy Steve Witkoff, who was seated nearby: “I hope I haven’t screwed up your negotiations.”
Pakistan is serving as a mediator in the four-week-old conflict and Trump used the anecdote to bolster his claim that Iran is privately “begging” for peace after 27 days of heavy bombardment — despite public statements from Tehran to the contrary.
“We estimated it would take approximately four to six weeks to achieve our mission. And we’re way ahead of schedule,” Trump claimed separately.
“The reason they want to make a deal is they have been just beat to s–t.”
US officials transmitted a 15-point peace proposal to Iran earlier this week, which included demands that the theocracy shut down its nuclear program.
Quote:U.S. Senator John Fetterman condemned what he described as calls for the deaths of U.S. service members after video circulated online showing a speaker at a Philadelphia protest praising militant groups hostile to the United States and cheering American military casualties. The Pennsylvania Democrat wrote on X:
“Here in Philadelphia. Truly appalling. These a******* chanting for the death of our service members. Where’s the Dem outrage and condemnation?”
The comments came after a video shared on X showed a speaker saying that every attack on a U.S. military base and every American soldier killed should be celebrated, while praising Hamas, Hezbollah and other armed groups described as “resistance forces.”
While demonstrations against U.S. military action are a longstanding feature of American political life, explicit praise for attacks on U.S. troops remains a red line for many lawmakers across the political spectrum. Fetterman, who has a history of siding more with Republicans on issues of defense and security, is no exception.
The post he responded to was shared by the X account End Wokeness, which circulated video footage filmed by Philadelphia‑based activist Frankie Scales. The video showed a masked speaker at a Philadelphia protest praising militant groups opposed to Israel and the United States. In the clip, the speaker said:
“Until we have done everything in our power to bring the United States to its knees, let us not lose sight of the enemy. For every U.S. military base that crumbles, and for every U S. soldier who returns home in the casket, we cheer. Hamas, Hezbollah, Ansar Allah, all of the resistance forces we celebrate, these popular voices on the ground, spend every waking moment in direct confrontation with Zionism, and they rely on a strong Iranian state to maintain their fighting capacity.”
The video circulated widely on social media, drawing condemnation from conservative commentators, whose criticism echoed Fetterman’s remarks.
Quote:A brother and sister have been indicted after authorities say one of them planted a potentially deadly explosive device outside MacDill Air Force Base in Florida — then fled to China, while their mother is now in ICE custody after allegedly telling investigators her son confessed to the plot.
The FBI said Alen Zheng, who is believed to have planted the device, is currently in China. He is facing charges of attempted damage to government property by fire or explosion, unlawful making of a destructive device and possession of an unregistered destructive device, which carry a potential sentence of up to 40 years in prison.
FBI Tampa also arrested his sister, Ann Mary Zheng, who is charged with accessory after the fact and tampering with evidence, facing up to 30 years in prison.
She is accused of hiding or damaging a 2010 Mercedes-Benz to prevent its use in legal proceedings, court documents show.
Prosecutors allege that on March 11, the day after the bomb was planted, the siblings attempted to cover their tracks by selling the vehicle to car dealer CarMax. Despite being vacuumed and cleaned, investigators later discovered trace explosive residue inside the vehicle.
The indictments were unsealed Thursday morning, and U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida Greg Kehoe detailed the timeline of the shocking incident during a news conference Thursday afternoon.
On March 10, Alen Zheng allegedly planted an improvised explosive device (IED) in a secluded location outside the base's visitor center.
Minutes later, officials claim he placed a cryptic 911 call stating a bomb had been planted, but refused to provide the exact location.
The device, which officials noted was potentially "very deadly," failed to detonate.
On March 16, an Air Force airman discovered the device outside the MacDill visitor center, six days after it was planted.
To preserve evidence, the device was secured and flown via a borrowed Pasco County Sheriff's Office helicopter to an FBI explosives lab in Huntsville, Alabama, according to authorities.
"Anytime somebody puts an IED together — and I spent a lot of time in Iraq and I saw a lot of IEDs — there always is a level of professionalism," Kehoe said Thursday. "And quite a bit of professionalism when they end up being deadly. … [The explosive] certainly could have caused significant damage to people that were in the range."
Investigators quickly traced the 911 call's digital footprint to a burner phone Zheng purchased at Best Buy, corroborating the purchase with store security footage, officials said.
A subsequent search of his home uncovered IED components consistent with the bomb found at the base.
The siblings fled to the People's Republic of China on March 12, just two days after the incident, according to authorities. Ann Mary was apprehended after returning to the U.S. via a Detroit airport on March 17.
Quote:The Pentagon is reportedly considering a plan to send an additional 10,000 troops to the Middle East amid the war with Iran.
The potential deployment would likely include infantry and armored vehicles and would be on top of the 5,000 Marines and sailors and roughly 2,000 members of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division who have already been dispatched to the region, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“All announcements regarding troop deployments will come from the Department of War,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told the outlet. “
As we have said, President Trump always has all military options at his disposal.”
The reinforcements would provide President Trump with an even wider range of military operations, including potentially putting troops on the ground, as his administration pushes for a peace deal with Iran.
It’s unclear exactly where the 10,000 troops would be deployed, but they would likely be “within striking distance of Iran and Kharg Island,” according to the Journal.
The White House did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment. The Pentagon declined to comment.
The Trump administration has discussed using ground forces on Iranian shores to secure the Strait of Hormuz and Kharg Island, Reuters reported last week.
The possibility of using US troops to secure Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium has also been discussed, according to the outlet.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt warned Wednesday that Trump is “prepared to unleash hell” on Iran if it won’t “come to a deal.”
“President Trump does not bluff and he is prepared to unleash hell,” Leavitt told reporters. “Iran should not miscalculate again. Their last miscalculation cost them their senior leadership, their navy, their air force and their air defense system.”
The Iranian regime has thus far responded with hostility – at least publicly – to a 15-point peace plan presented by the US through Pakistan.
Quote:Israel is now focused on “dismantling Hezbollah” as part of its wider campaign against Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday, declaring that the military effort remains “in full swing” despite reports to the contrary.
Speaking by videoconference to ministry directors and northern local authority heads, Netanyahu said Israel had removed most of Hezbollah’s rocket threat and neutralized the group’s planned ground invasion force, creating a “security buffer” beyond the Lebanese border.
Israel intends to expand that zone to further distance anti-tank missile threats from northern communities, he said, pledging additional funding for rebuilding and support in the Galilee.
The IDF has “fundamentally changed” the situation in the region, the prime minister said. “Israel is stronger than ever, and Iran is weaker than ever.”
Quote:Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Thursday that the country’s military had eliminated Admiral Alireza Tangsiri of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), identifying him as the top official blocking the Strait of Hormuz.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later issued his own statement, apparently confirming Katz’s claim and suggesting that the targeting and elimination of the IRGC terrorist was the product of “cooperation between us and our ally, the United States.”
Tangsiri was the head of the IRGC’s naval units and had repeatedly threatened a full blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical maritime passageway for commercial shipping. Iran’s threats against random commercial vessels in the strait have enabled a dramatic increase in the global price of petroleum products, particularly endangering supplies in east Asia. The governments of South Korea and China, in particular, have loudly objected to any disruption in commercial traffic in the Strait and discouraged actions that interfere with regular economic activity in their countries.
The IRGC admiral is the latest among dozens of senior Iranian military and civilian officials killed since President Donald Trump announced “Operation Epic Fury,” a military engagement to disable Iran’s ability to fund and execute terrorist activity around the world. On the first day of the operation, February 28, Trump announced the elimination of the country’s longtime “supreme leader,” Ali Khamenei, leaving Iran without clear leadership. Iranian officials announced that they had chosen Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as the next supreme leader, but the younger Khamenei has not made any public appearance or live public statements, fueling speculation that he is either severely wounded or otherwise incapacitated.
“The man who was directly responsible for the terrorist operation of mining and blocking the Strait of Hormuz to shipping was blown up and eliminated,” Israeli Defense Minister Katz announced on Thursday, describing his death as the result of a “precise” operation that also included actions against other senior IRGC leaders. The IRGC is the most powerful arm of the Iranian military and a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.
“The IDF will hunt you down and eliminate you one by one,” Katz warned the Iranian regime leadership. “We will continue to operate in Iran with full force to achieve the objectives of the war.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu separately repeated on Friday that Israeli forces had eliminated Tangsiri, explaining, “this individual has a great deal of blood on his hands, and he was also responsible for leading the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.” He described the strike as “yet another example of the cooperation between us and our ally, the United States, in pursuit of our shared war objectives.”
The Iranian government has not, at press time, confirmed Tangsiri’s elimination. The admiral was a regular official cited in state media for much of the past year, however, particularly on the issue of the Strait of Hormuz. As recently as Wednesday, shortly before Katz announced his purported death, Tangsiri issued belligerent comments announcing that the IRGC had blocked the passage of a container ship and that it would continue to prevent the normal transit of commerce through the maritime byway.
“Any vessel’s passage through this waterway requires full coordination with Iran’s maritime sovereignty,” Tangsiri said on Wednesday, according to Iran’s state-run Mehr News Agency. Tangsiri similarly announced on March 11 that any ship attempting to travel through the Strait of Hormuz must have Iranian permission to do so.
Tangsiri was also the official chosen to announce on March 18 that Iran would be targeting civilian oil facilities “linked to the U.S.” in the Middle East, demanding that “citizens and workers” avoid these locations. The announcement arrived weeks after Iran launched a massive missile and drone campaign in response to “Operation Epic Fury” primarily targeting neighboring Arab Muslim states. Iran has bombed more than a dozen countries since February 28, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Jordan, Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Turkey. Several strikes have targeted fossil fuel facilities, including Qatar’s most valuable liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility, raising global alarm regarding production of these fuels.
The Iranian naval chief had begun threatening ships in the Strait of Hormuz before “Operation Epic Fury” began. On February 17, Tangsiri told state media that the IRGC had imposed “full 24-hour intelligence dominance” in the strait – meaning that Iran was spying on every vessel transiting the body of water.
Quote:Uganda’s military chief tweeted on Wednesday that his country is willing to go to war on Israel’s side.
“We want the war in the Middle East to end now. The world is tired of it. But any talk of destroying or defeating Israel will bring us into the war. On the side of Israel!” wrote Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the chief of the Uganda People’s Defence Force and the son of the country’s President Yoweri Museveni.
The tweet went viral, generating more than 1.3 million engagements on the social media platform as of Thursday morning.
Elaborating on his stance the following day, Kainerugaba tweeted, “We stand with Israel because we are Christians. Saved by the Holy Son of God … Jesus Christ the only One who can forgive sins. The Bible says ‘Blessed are you Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord? He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword.’ (Deuteronomy 33:29).”
In a separate tweet, he said, “Israel stood with us when we were nobodys in the 1980s and 1990s. Why wouldn’t we defend her now that our GDP is $100 billion? One of the largest in Africa.”
Last month, Kainerugaba revealed that his country was planning to erect a statue of IDF Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, the older brother of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was killed in action in Uganda during a counter-terrorism operation that rescued more than 100 hostages on July 4, 1976.
The statue is expected to be erected at Entebbe Airport, where Yonatan Netanyahu fell in battle, according to Kainerugaba.
On Thursday morning, the general posted a “sneak peek” image of the statue “soon” to be unveiled.
Quote:British police arrested two men on Wednesday in connection with an arson attack on four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity, which authorities are investigating as an antisemitic hate crime.
The Metropolitan Police said the two men, aged 45 and 47, were arrested in London on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life and both men have been taken to a police station in the city for questioning.
Commander Helen Flanagan, head of Counter Terrorism Policing London, said the arrests marked “an important breakthrough in the investigation.”
But she noted that surveillance camera footage of the incident suggests three people were involved.
Police have not declared the incident to be a terror attack, but are investigating a claim of responsibility by a group with potential links to Iran.
The blaze early on Monday morning in Golders Green, a London neighborhood with a large Jewish population, consumed four ambulances belonging to the volunteer organization Hatzola Northwest. Oxygen cylinders on the vehicles exploded, breaking windows in an adjacent apartment block.
Also shattered was the community’s shaky sense of security, already strained by wars in the Middle East and what many say is soaring hatred of Jews.
The UK has accused Iran of using criminal proxies to conduct attacks on European soil targeting opposition media outlets and the Jewish community.
Britain’s MI5 domestic intelligence service says more than 20 “potentially lethal” Iran-backed plots were disrupted in the year to October.
Police are probing a claim of responsibility posted on social media by a group calling itself Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, which translates as the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right.
Quote:Iranians on temporarily visas will be restricted from re-entering Australia under controversial new powers.
The Albanese government will from Thursday restrict anyone with a visitor visa (subclass 600) linked to an Iranian passport and who is outside of Australia from re-entering the country, more than four weeks after the United States’ and Israel’s surprise attack on Iran.
Visa-holders are typically allowed to remain in Australia for up to 12 months, usually for tourism, business, or to visit family.
However, under the new rules, which will remain in effect for six months, only spouses, de facto partners, or a dependent child of an Australia citizen or permanent visa holder, or a parent of a child under 18 already in Australia, will be allowed entry.
The government claims the changes will bolster the integrity of Australia’s migration system and in the national interest.
It warned the war against Iran increased the risk temporary visa holders may be unlikely or unable to depart Australia when their visa expired, and that the new measures would afford government time to assess cases, while still allowing “flexibility in limited cases”.
“There are many visitor visas which were issued before the conflict in Iran which may not have been issued if they were applied for now,” Home Affairs Minister Tony burke said.
“Decisions about permanent stays in Australia should be deliberate decisions of the government, not a random consequence of who had booked a holiday.
“The Australian government is closely monitoring global developments and will adjust settings as required to ensure Australia’s migration system remains orderly, fair and sustainable.”
Under the changes, a person issued an active Permitted Travel Certificate – including people who may have already departed for Australia – or holding another time of visa may be allowed entry.
Quote:U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine are being tied to Kyiv ceding the eastern Donbas region to Russia as part of a potential peace deal, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Reuters in an interview published Thursday.
"The Americans are prepared to finalize these guarantees at a high level once Ukraine is ready to withdraw from Donbas," Zelenskyy said, describing a proposal he warned could undermine both Ukraine’s defenses and broader European security.
But a U.S. official, speaking on background, told Fox News Digital the claim is false.
Zelenskyy's comments point to growing pressure from President Donald Trump to reach a swift end to the war, now in its fourth year following Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Zelenskyy suggested the administration’s approach is influenced in part by competing global crises, including the ongoing conflict involving Iran.
"The Middle East definitely has an impact on President Trump," Zelenskyy said. "President Trump, unfortunately, in my opinion, still chooses a strategy of putting more pressure on the Ukrainian side."
Talks between the United States, Russia and Ukraine have taken place in Abu Dhabi and Geneva in 2026, but key issues remain unresolved, including how Ukraine’s future security would be guaranteed and who would fund its long-term defense.
Zelenskyy warned that abandoning Donbas would hand Russia heavily fortified Ukrainian defensive lines, weakening Kyiv’s position and potentially enabling future aggression.
"I would very much like the American side to understand that the eastern part of our country is part of our security guarantees," he said.
Quote:Ukrainian troops are now combat-testing exoskeletons that can fit into a suitcase and help them run up to 12 mph on the battlefield.
The 7th Air Assault Corps of the Armed Forces of Ukraine revealed its soldiers have already started training with the performance technology — which helps with movement — on the front lines in Pokrovsk as its war with Russia rages on.
The military released footage of the soldiers donning the wearable tech machinery to help them heave and load shells into a howitzer artillery weapon.
Wearing the exoskeletons tech will dramatically reduce the physical work of hauling ammunition by roughly 30%, the military claimed.
“Every day, gunners endure a lot of physical work. They carry 15-30 shells of 50kg (110 lbs) each every day,” Colonel Vitaly Serduk, the chief of missile troops and artillery management, said.
Preliminary testing had already found troops using the technology were less tired, could load artillery more speedily and could “retain airability for a longer time.”
The exoskeletons being trialed by the Ukrainian military are apparently equipped with artificial intelligence that adapts to whatever load the soldier is carrying at the time.
They fold down to fit the size of a suitcase.
The 7th Air Assault Corp boasted that the tech was the first of its kind to be tested on Ukrainian troops.
“The implementation of such means is a continuation of the philosophy of the techno-paratrooper component of our corps. We facilitate human overreach with technological solutions,” Serduk said.
Despite a brutal winter and record-breaking Russian drone assaults, Ukraine now has a leg up in the war as it managed to fend off Moscow’s latest “meat assaults,” mowing down more than 6,000 Kremlin troops in just four days thanks to their military innovations.
Ukraine’s technological advancements were made clear last Thursday when a unit of 500 Russian infantrymen, equipped with dozens of armored vehicles, were blown away near the village of Shandryholove, the defending Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps said in a statement.
Without even deploying any soldiers to the frontlines, Ukraine took out the advancing unit with mines, mortars, artillery fire and unmanned aircraft, with First Person View drones deployed to hunt down the retreating survivors, Kyiv said.
The battle, confirmed by the Kyiv Post and the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank, signaled just one of Russia’s latest struggles to try and take the Donetsk fortress belt, which has successfully staved off Moscow’s invasion for years.
Ukraine’s ability to fight back the Russian offensive has been attributed to its rapid, war-time innovations, with its drone and anti-drone technology evolving to be among the best in the world.
“Their level of innovation is out of this world,” Space Force Lieutenant General Steven Whitney told Congress on Tuesday.
Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander in chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, touted that more than 6,000 Russian fighters were killed between March 17 and 20.
“The enemy tried to break through the defensive formations of our troops in several strategic directions at once. Fierce battles unfolded along the entire line of combat engagement,” Syrskyis said in a statement.
“Despite the enormous pressure and the involvement of significant reserves, the Russian command was unable to fulfill the assigned tasks,” he added.
“In total, the enemy conducted 619 assault actions during these four days.”
Quote:Representative Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican and retired Air Force brigadier general, publicly criticized President Donald Trump’s approach to Russia and Ukraine late Wednesday, warning that U.S. efforts to end the war must not come at the cost of rewarding Russian aggression.
Why It Matters
The comments underscore divisions within the Republican Party over Ukraine as the Trump administration presses for a negotiated end to the war. With Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky saying the U.S. is tying future security guarantees to Kyiv giving up territory in eastern Ukraine, Bacon’s remarks highlight concerns that a rapid peace deal could weaken U.S. credibility and embolden Moscow.
Ukraine has relied heavily on Western military and diplomatic support since Russia’s full‑scale invasion in 2022, and any shift in U.S. policy could reshape the balance of the conflict.
What To Know
Moscow has long insisted that full control of Donbas is a core war aim, with President Vladimir Putin demanding that Ukraine withdraw from the remaining parts of the strategically important region still under Kyiv’s control. Russia claimed to annex the region after its 2022 invasion, moves that the West has rejected as illegal under international law.
Zelensky said Wednesday that the U.S. will provide security guarantees for Ukraine only if Kyiv gives up the country's eastern Donbas region to Russia.
"The Americans are prepared to finalize these guarantees at a high level once Ukraine is ready to withdraw from Donbas,” he told Reuters.
A U.S. official denied Zelensky's claims on Thursday, telling Newsweek that the U.S. has not tied security guarantees for Ukraine post-war to Kyiv giving up the Donbas region.
Bacon posted on X late Wednesday: “President Trump wants to appease President Putin. Most Americans reject it. We reject Putin.”
The post came just hours after Bacon reposted a message from Meaghan Mobbs, a national security commentator and former Trump administration official, who warned against territorial concessions in pursuit of peace.
“This is not just terrible for Ukraine, it is bad for America,” Mobbs wrote. “History shows that trading land for promises of peace has a long record of making conflicts worse, not better.”
Mobbs linked to the Reuters interview in which Zelensky warned that such a move would leave Ukraine vulnerable to renewed Russian attacks and undermine Europe’s security.
The Ukrainian president also suggested that Washington was placing greater pressure on Kyiv than on Moscow as it seeks to bring the war to a swift conclusion, noting that the Trump administration is juggling multiple global crises, including conflict in the Middle East.
Bacon, who is not seeking reelection, has been one of the most outspoken Republican critics of Trump’s stance on Ukraine. In a 2025 appearance on CBS’ 60 Minutes, he warned that Trump appeared to be echoing Kremlin talking points by suggesting Ukraine bore responsibility for the war or by downplaying the need for Western security guarantees.
Quote:President Donald Trump said his Cabinet meeting on Thursday that he wants to keep the National Guard in the nation's capital after deeming the deployment a great success that has kept the city clean and mostly crime-free.
"They love doing it," Trump said of the Guard troops, saying they view the deployments "like training," then said: "I never want to take them out of D.C. I mean, maybe someone later on will do it, but I never want to."
Newsweek reached out to the White House by email on Thursday for comment. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser's office said it had no comment.
Why It Matters
Trump deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles in June last year following violent protests, then to Washington in August after alleging the city had fallen into "lawlessness."
Thousands of Guard members were assigned to patrol duties, infrastructure protection and city “beautification,” with Trump repeatedly describing the mission as a success and arguing that it drastically reduced crime and disorder in the city.
Tensions flared after the fatal shooting of West Virginia National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom, 20, which prompted Trump to extend the mission, saying the shooting justified the continued and strengthened presence of the Guard.
By early 2026, the Guard presence had been prolonged through the end of the year, despite legal challenges and opposition from D.C. officials.
What To Know
Trump during his Cabinet meeting extolled on the other deployments around the country, including those in Memphis, Tennessee and New Orleans, which saw drops in crime rates during the National Guard deployments, saying that he could deploy the Guard to other cities.
"You have a safe city," Trump said as he then listed similar successes in other cities where the Guard was deployed, including Memphis and New Orleans, adding: "We could do that for Chicago, we could do that for New York, we could do it for L.A."
"They open the doors for people, they carry bags, they pick up paper when they see paper on the ground," Trump said. "I looked at D.C. last night...I drove through and I said, 'take me this way, take me that way'—the city is clean, the fences are down, you don't have homeless all over your parks. I mean, we had parks, you didn't have room for anything else other than homeless. It's all clean and nice, and it'll be even more beautiful a year from now."
Leadership in cities with Guard deployments have at times disputed Trump's statements, such as when Memphis Mayor Paul Young said Trump's claim that the city supported the deployment was an "overstatement," and he disagreed on how effectively the deployment would "drive down crime."
Bowser initially resisted the D.C. deployment, calling it "un-American" to have "American soldiers and airmen policing American citizens on American soil," but by September had ordered local law enforcement in the city to coordinate with federal law enforcement.
Quote:President Donald Trump said Thursday he would sign an emergency order directing the Homeland Security secretary to immediately pay Transportation Security Administration employees as Congress struggles to resolve a budget impasse that has snarled airports and left workers without pay.
Trump announced the decision in a Truth Social post, saying the move was aimed at quickly ending what he described as “chaos at the airports.”
“It is not an easy thing to do, but I am going to do it!” the president wrote.
Newsweek reached out to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by email on Thursday for comment.
Why It Matters
DHS has remained under a funding freeze that emerged from a prolonged political standoff in Congress, driven primarily by Democratic opposition to continued funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) without reforms. Senate Democrats refused to pass DHS appropriations unless the budget was rewritten to address concerns over immigration enforcement practices, particularly after federal agents fatally shot U.S. citizens during enforcement operations earlier in 2026.
As the funding lapse dragged on, growing operational disruptions have plagued DHS agencies, especially at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). TSA officers—classified as essential workers—were required to continue reporting to work without pay, and by mid‑March, thousands missed their first full paycheck.
Negotiations to end the funding freeze have repeatedly stalled as the Senate failed multiple times to advance DHS funding bills due to the lack of bipartisan agreement. Democrats continued to insist on ICE reforms as a condition for restoring funding, while Republicans and the White House pushed for reopening DHS without those restrictions.
What To Know
Trump used his post to once again criticize and blame the Democrats for the funding shortfall, accusing the party of being "on the side of criminal illegal aliens, and not the American people."
"They are refusing to fund Immigration Enforcement unless the Republicans agree to their Open Border Policies, which will never, ever happen again," Trump wrote, adding, "Because the Democrats have recklessly created a true National Crisis, I am using my authorities under the Law to protect our Great Country, as I always will do!"
The president concluded in his post, "I want to thank our hardworking TSA Agents and also, ICE, for the incredible help they have given us at the Airports. I will not allow the Radical Left Democrats to hold our Country hostage any longer."
Trump made no clarification on the timeline for these payments, or whether they will include payment for the missed paychecks, or where the funding will come from.
Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, a Republican, earlier this week accused Trump of refusing to back a plan to pay TSA agents and end the partial shutdown, saying that the president had ordered "no deals with the Democrats" after Kennedy and Texas Senator Ted Cruz put together a plan to accept Democrat proposals on DHS funding, excluding ICE.
Quote:A blaze near Newark Liberty International Airport on Thursday afternoon prompted heightened concern around one of the nation’s busiest travel hubs.
Officials said the brush fire, which broke out at 635 Delancy St., Newark, New Jersey, was still burning as of mid‑afternoon, a Newark Fire Department spokesperson told Newsweek. While airport operations were not immediately disrupted, the proximity of the flames to the airfield raised alarms, especially in light of recent security scares at the airport. Photos and video footage captured thick plumes of smoke rising near the airport, and authorities continued monitoring conditions as crews worked to prevent the fire from spreading.
A Port Authority of New York and New Jersey spokesperson told Newsweek the fire did not occur on Port Authority property.
"Fire near Newark EWR airport just 15 minutes ago," one social media account posted on X with a video of the thick, black smoke seen from the airport.
"Radar picking up the brush fire in Newark," WABC-TV chief meteorologist Lee Goldberg posted on X.
"@EWRairport @CoryBooker @united I am currently in Terminal C. Is there any word what is happening?" one social media user asked with a video of the smoke.
Brush Fire Spotted Near Newark International Airport
There have been numerous reports of a brush fire reported near the airport. The blaze was not on airport property, but people at the airport and flyers landing there spotted the smoke. Firefighters are still responding, the Newark Fire Department spokesperson told Newsweek, and an update will be shared when available.
"Pretty big fire in sight while landing at #Newark #EWR," one social media user shared with images from the flight.
What Are TSA Wait Times Right Now at Newark International Airport?
The reports of a fire near the airport arrive amid a partial government shutdown that has left tens of thousands of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers working without pay, triggering staffing shortages that have snarled airport security nationwide as spring travel ramps up. As call-outs and resignations mount, some airports have closed screening lanes or consolidated checkpoints, leading to hourslong waits for passengers, missed flights and mounting pressure on airlines.
As of around 3:41 p.m. Eastern time Thursday, TSA wait times at Newark Liberty International Airport were only around 30 minutes, according to a website that tracks wait times around the country.
Quote:The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating after a close call Tuesday night between a United Airlines passenger plane and a Black Hawk helicopter at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, California.
United Airlines flight 589 was on its final approach to John Wayne Airport when a Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopter crossed in front of its flight path at about 8:40 p.m., according to the FAA.
A United Airlines spokesperson told Fox News that the Boeing 737-800's pilots were advised by air traffic control to "watch for a military helicopter flying near the airport."
"They saw the helicopter and also received a traffic alert, which they responded to by leveling the aircraft," the spokesperson said. "The United flight then landed safely."
"Leveling" an aircraft refers to slowing or stopping descent and holding a constant altitude to increase vertical separation.
The airline confirmed 162 passengers and six crew members were on board the plane and did not report any injuries.
Air traffic control audio obtained by the New York Post indicated the United flight got close enough to the Black Hawk to set off an anti-collision warning, or "resolution advisory," from its traffic avoidance system.
The alert suggests a potential crash was only seconds away.
"United 589, just want to clarify here, did you get, uh … just a traffic call reference to the helicopter or did they restrict your altitude or anything," the controller reportedly asked the United flight.
"We had a resolution advisory for United 589, RA," a pilot replied.
"We’re gonna be addressing that because that was not good," the controller said.
The U.S. Army did not immediately respond to additional inquiries about the incident from Fox News Digital.
Quote:In her last act as secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem helped strike a new deal that would allow the Trump administration to deport immigrants from other countries to Costa Rica, the Central American nation confirmed Thursday.
Noem, now in her new role as Shield of the Americas envoy with the U.S. State Department, signed the deal permitting the so-called third-country removal of illegal immigrants who are unable to return to their home country.
Costa Rican Public Security Minister Mario Zamora Cordero said in a video message Thursday that the country was "prepared to see the flow of people." The agreement gives Costa Rica the power to accept or reject proposed transfers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Noem visited Costa Rica on Monday, as she moved to the envoy position following President Donald Trump's firing of her from DHS last month.
What Does the New Deal With Costa Rica Mean?
The new deal allows the United States to send some immigrants awaiting deportation to Costa Rica when their home countries will not accept them or have poor diplomatic relations with the U.S., making repatriation difficult.
According to the Costa Rican government, the agreement is non-binding and allows the U.S. to send non-Costa Rican deportees to the country at its discretion.
Immigrants will then be processed under Costa Rica's immigration laws under a special status. Officials said efforts will be made not to return immigrants to their home country should they face persecution.
“We are very proud to have partners like President (Rodrigo Chaves) and Costa Rica, who are working to ensure that people who are in our country illegally have the opportunity to return to their countries of origin,” Noem said on Monday.
What Are Third-Country Agreements?
Countries including Russia, China, Venezuela, and Afghanistan are just some of those the U.S. has been unable to repatriate immigrants to, meaning they are often stuck in ICE detention.
Over the past 14 months, the Trump administration has struck multiple deals with countries in Eastern Europe, Africa, and Latin America, at times in exchange for other benefits. Some agreements have seen legal challenges over conditions that the roughly 300 immigrants deported under the program have faced.
Last year, Costa Rica received around 200 immigrants from the U.S., and it was criticized for the conditions they faced. Officials have promised better conditions for new arrivals. The United Nations' International Organization for Migration will work with the local government on housing deportees, although it was not made clear where they would be held.
“This will ensure they remain in the best possible conditions while in Costa Rica and guarantee their safe return to their countries of origin,” Zamora said.
Quote:A Honduran national who has been deported four times has been charged with murder after a man was shoved onto subway tracks in New York City and died from his injuries days later.
Richard Williams, an 83-year-old Manhattan resident, died days after the March 8 incident, police said. Police arrested 34-year-old Brooklyn resident Bairon Hernandez two days later.
Why It Matters
Authorities announced that Hernandez's charges had been upgraded on Thursday, following Williams' death. Hernandez was initially facing attempted murder, assault and other charges, but those charges have been upgraded to murder, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said.
Hernandez is a Honduran national who has been deported four times since he first entered the United States illegally in 2008, according to the Department of Homeland Security. He entered the country illegally a fifth time at an unknown date and location, the agency said.
Hernandez's criminal history includes 15 prior charges of simple assault, domestic violence, obstruction of police, possession of a weapon, drug possession and aggravated assault, DHS said.
What To Know
Police said Williams was standing on the Lexington Avenue-63 Street subway platform when a man he did not know shoved him from behind, causing him to fall onto the tracks.
The suspect also pushed a 30-year-old man onto the tracks before fleeing on foot. Both victims were taken to the hospital to receive treatment for their injuries.
Hernandez was arrested after authorities asked for the public’s help in identifying the attacker, who was captured on video after the incident.
Quote:A mystery missile was reportedly launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday, according to local reports.
Newsweek reached out to the Pentagon for comment via email.
What We Know About Cape Canaveral Missile Launch
The launch was reported by Florida Today and The Orlando Sentinel.
The Sentinel reported that the U.S. Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security issued navigational warnings earlier in the week, similar to those issued for earlier hypersonic missile tests launched from Cape Canaveral. But there had been no public announcement of the launch, and more details remained slim Thursday afternoon.
The most recent of those launches was in April 2025, the Sentinel reported.
Photographer Jerry Pike wrote on X that the Department of Defense conducted “what appeared to be another successful test of the Dark Eagle Long Range Hypersonic Weapon from Cape Canaveral this afternoon.”
However, the Pentagon had not confirmed the type of missile launched.
What Is 'Dark Eagle' Missile?
In April 2025, the military test-launched the “Dark Eagle” long-range hypersonic missile, also known as the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW).
The Dark Eagle is a ground-launched missile attached with a maneuverable hypersonic glide body as its warhead, the Congressional Research Service said in its report on Thursday. The missile has a reported range of 1,725 miles with a top speed of over 3,800 miles per hour, Newsweek previously reported.
A Congressional Research Service report on the missile reads, “The LRHW system provides the Army a strategic attack weapon system to defeat Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) capabilities, suppress adversary long-range fires, and engage other high payoff/time critical targets. The Army is working closely with the Navy in the development of the LRHW. LRHW is comprised of the Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB), and the Navy 34.5-inch booster.”
Quote:Former special counsel Jack Smith sought more than two years’ worth of phone records for now-FBI Director Kash Patel while Smith was investigating President Donald Trump, according to a tranche of documents released Tuesday by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
Two subpoenas showed Smith’s team asked Verizon for Patel’s phone records dating from October 2020 through February 2023. Patel first announced the subpoenas' existence in February, calling them "outrageous and deeply alarming" at the time.
Patel worked in the first Trump administration from 2019 through January 2021, before becoming an outspoken pro-Trump firebrand as a private citizen, meaning the subpoenas stretched back into his time as a government official.
The subpoenas were accompanied by one-year, court-authorized gag orders, meaning Verizon was ordered by the court not to alert Patel of their existence. It is common for prosecutors to subpoena phone records, also known as toll records, as part of investigations. The records would not include contents of messages but would show with whom Patel communicated and when.
Grassley released the documents ahead of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing examining Arctic Frost, the FBI investigation that led to Smith prosecuting Trump over the 2020 election. Patel was also a known witness in a separate FBI probe into Trump’s handling of classified documents, and it is unclear which of the investigations the subpoenas pertained to.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, voiced at the start of the hearing what many Republicans have said about the Biden DOJ’s efforts to investigate Trump, noting how the expansive probes targeted hundreds of Republican individuals and entities.
"If Watergate taught us anything, it is that even a single abuse of power carried out by a handful of individuals can shake the foundations of our republic," Cruz said. "But what we confront today, the Biden administration's Arctic Frost scheme is not a single act. It is a modern Watergate, trading a break-in at one office for a digital sweep into approximately 100,000 private communications. More than a dozen senators and thousands of individuals lives."
Smith, who became special counsel in November 2022 and resigned when Trump took office, has since appeared before Congress for public and closed-door testimony and repeatedly defended his work as by-the-book and apolitical.
Quote:Senate Democrats blocked an amendment to Trump-backed voter ID legislation that would have done something they publicly support and require photo identification to vote in federal elections.
Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have shown interest in photo voter ID, which has grown in popularity among voters across the country.
"Democrats support voter ID," Schumer said on a press call earlier this month. "In fact, we included it, and it is included, in our Freedom to Vote legislation several years ago."
Several others have also come out in support of a voter ID bill in recent weeks.
When asked by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins whether he would support a clean voter ID bill, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said, "Yes."
"And New Jersey has voter ID laws," Booker said. "I’ve got to show my driver’s license."
Still, Democrats blocked an amendment to the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act from Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, meant to put them on record for that position.
Schumer said ahead of the vote that "Republicans are once again wasting time on voter suppression."
"Let's let's be very clear what this amendment is," Schumer said. "It's a wolf in sheep's clothing, and it's a giant cover-up to what their bill really does, which is dramatic voter suppression, kicking 20 million or more people off the rolls without their knowledge or consent."
Senate Republicans argued that if Democrats truly support voter ID, they should back the amendment.
"That is one on which the Democrats have said — Sen. Schumer himself — that ‘we are not opposed to photo ID,’" Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said. "Well, let’s test that proposition. Let’s actually have a vote on it and see where the Democrats are."
Republicans have been engaged in a floor push on the SAVE America Act for the past 10 days, debating the legislation in a bid to shift the narrative from the GOP being unable to advance the bill out of the Senate to Democrats being the ones blocking it.
Senate Democrats have argued that while they support identification to vote, the SAVE America Act goes far beyond that requirement. Schumer and others have likened the broader bill to Jim Crow-era segregationist laws in the Deep South, saying it would disenfranchise voters, particularly minority communities and low-income Americans.
However, requiring identification is already the practice in 36 states. Of those, 23 require photo ID, while 13 accept another form of identification, such as a bank statement. Nine of those states have Democratic senators.
According to a widely cited Pew Research poll from last year, 71% of Democratic voters support showing government-issued photo ID to vote.
"I know there are a lot of issues in the SAVE America Act, but this particular one focused on photo ID as something that can be easily implemented, which is already being implemented around the country," Husted said of his amendment.
Quote:A veteran law enforcement expert is raising serious questions about the investigation into the disappearance of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie after her daughter revealed alarming new details about the night she vanished.
The concerns follow an emotional, three-part interview, "Today" show anchor Savannah Guthrie’s first since her mother disappeared, in which she described signs of a possible struggle, early fears of kidnapping and her belief that ransom notes sent to the family were real.
Randy Sutton, a retired Las Vegas police lieutenant who has been on the ground in Tucson since the early days of the investigation, told Fox News Digital those details and how they were handled early on could have had a significant impact on the trajectory of the case.
Guthrie says doors were propped open
Guthrie described a troubling scene inside her mother’s home, pointing to multiple factors she believes indicate foul play.
She said doors were open, including one that had been "propped open," there was blood on the front doorstep and the home’s Ring camera had been yanked off.
Sutton said the "propped open" door is a critical detail.
"That’s an interesting piece of evidence that we had not heard before," he said, noting there has been no public indication of forced entry.
He emphasized that investigators are dealing with multiple areas within the home, including entry points, the bedroom and locations where blood was found, making it a complex case.
At the same time, Sutton pushed back on speculation that the scene itself may have been staged.
"The question is, was the scene staged? … I don’t believe there’s anything that points to the scene being staged," he said.
Quote:WASHINGTON — King Charles III will travel to the US for a state visit late next month, a source familiar with the plans tells The Post.
While details are still being finalized, the British monarch’s itinerary includes a state dinner at the White House as well as a day trip to New York City.
Charles will visit the 9/11 Memorial in Lower Mahattan on his travel to the Big Apple, according to sources, with other stops possible.
The king is also expected to address a joint meeting of Congress, according to Punchbowl News, as part of the three-day trip, which that was first reported by Page Six.
In preparation for the royal occasion, House Republican leadership announced Monday the chamber will be in session the week of April 27 — altering the initial schedule.
Charles’ late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, made the last state visit by a member of the British Royal Family to the US in 2007, during which she marked the 400th anniversary of the settling of Jamestown, Va. and attended the Kentucky Derby.
The late queen also paid a state visit during celebrations of America’s bicentennial in 1976, while King Charles will visit ahead of the 250th birthday of the United States.
President Trump traveled to the UK in September 2025, taking Charles up on his offer of an unprecedented second state visit.
The commander in chief was previously received by Queen Elizabeth II in June 2019.
Trump is a longtime admirer of the royal family and described the current king last week to reporters as a “great guy” who would be “coming in very soon.”
However, the president has been fiercely critical of the British government headed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer over its reluctance to join the American and Israeli war against Iran, leading at least one prominent politician to suggest the royal visit should be postponed.
“If it was to go ahead, it would go ahead against a backdrop of a war, and that, I think, is quite difficult,” Labour Member of Parliament Emily Thornberry told BBC Radio 4 last week, “and the last thing that we want to do is to have Their Majesties embarrassed.”
Quote:BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary’s pro-Russian government has launched criminal charges against a prominent investigative journalist whom it accuses of conducting spying activities in coordination with a foreign country, a minister said on Thursday.
The journalist, Szabolcs Panyi, focuses on national security and intelligence reporting and has published extensive reports detailing Russian influence operations in Hungary as well as the relationship between Moscow and Hungary’s foreign minister.
Panyi denies the allegations, and an outlet he writes for has accused Hungary’s government of “resorting to authoritarian tactics” to discredit the journalist and his findings.
In a secret recording made without Panyi’s knowledge and released in an edited format in Hungary’s government-tied media this week, Panyi can be heard speaking to a source about confirming a phone number used by Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó as part of an investigation into Szijjártó’s communications with his Russian counterpart.
The Washington Post, citing several current and former European security officials, reported on the weekend that Szijjártó regularly conferred with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during breaks in EU council meetings to provide him with “direct reports on what was discussed” and possible solutions
Szijjártó has dismissed the report while acknowledging that he confers with Lavrov before and after EU foreign minister meetings about their agenda and decisions.
In a news conference on Thursday, Gergely Gulyás, the chief of staff to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, said Hungary’s justice minister had filed charges against Panyi on suspicion of espionage. Gulyás said Panyi had “spied against his own country in cooperation with a foreign state,” and that his role as a journalist was a “cover activity.”
Gulyás added it was “legally debatable” whether the journalist’s activities amounted to treason.
Quote:Workers were taken aback after discovering a 1,300-year-old fragment from a Viking ship during a drainage excavation project in the Netherlands.
The employees had been replacing a sewer system in Wijk bij Duurstede when they discovered a wooden beam protruding from the pavement, Jam Press reported.
While it initially appeared to be an ordinary piece of timber, volunteer and amateur archaeologist Danny van Basten recognized the significance of the artifact and flagged the find to experts.
Specialists from maritime foundation Stichting Beheer Vikingschip and Museum Dorestad arrived to inspect the piece, which measured 10 feet in length and sported cut notches, shaping marks and other worked surfaces indicative of shipbuilding methods.
The features suggested it could be part of a ship’s frame, according to shipbuilder Kees Sterrenburg.
Based on its orientation and nearby pottery shards, experts deduced that the beam dated back to the Carolingian period (circa 700 to 800 A.D.) — a watershed epoch defined by fledgling medieval trade routes and the expansion of Northern European power, Arkeonews.net reported.
During this period, Frankish king Charlemagne and his successors exerted their influence over Western and Central Europe, notably conquering Gaul, Germany and Italy.
The era also saw rivers like the Rhine serve as important arteries for commerce with Dorestad — the ancient hub on which Wijk bij Duurstede sits — becoming a riverine trading mecca that linked ancient France with Scandinavian and North Sea trade routes.
According to researchers, the beam could also be linked to the uptick in Viking activity, as during that time, Norse sea raiders traded with and sometimes raided Carolingian communities.
Another possibility is that the framework could be part of a cog ship — a medieval trading vessel — which suggested it could have been from much later, circa 1,300 A.D.
To nail down the timber’s provenance, the beam will need to be cleaned and its rings analyzed so they can gauge its exact age, per municipal archaeologist and investigation leader Anne de Hoop.
Quote:Wild video shows a raging bull knocking out a Peruvian festival goer with a brutal flying headbutt.
The bull was one of many racing through the streets of the San José fair’s annual “Running of the Bulls” event Monday inspired by the traditional stampedes in Pamplona, Spain.
As other onlookers managed to get out of its way, the bull suddenly took flight — slamming headfirst into Cesar del Rio Ganoza, who was knocked out cold, Peruvian broadcaster Latina Noticias reported.
As other onlookers screamed in horror, several men ran out into the street to aid him and carry him to safety out of shot, video shared on X showed.
Luckily, Ganoza, who is thought to be in his 50s, appeared to escape without serious injury, later sharing a picture of his bandaged face and nose as he recovered in a hospital.
Fellow reveler Gianluca Monterosso Encomenderos, 25, was injured during the stampede and needed 20 stitches in his arm.
Bullfighting and bull runs remain popular in Peru – despite animal rights campaigns to ban the sport.
Move over “Cocaine Bear.” Brazilian scientists have discovered traces of nose candy, caffeine and painkillers in sharks swimming in waters around the Bahamas.
These “blow-fish” aren’t getting hooked on purpose — it’s the fallout from an uptick in marine pollutants, per an a-jaw-calyptic study published in the journal Environmental Pollution.
“Pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs are increasingly recognized as contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in marine environments, particularly in areas undergoing rapid urbanization and tourism-driven development,” the researchers wrote while describing the troubling shark-otics trend.
To see whether these marine marauders were under the influence, the team had reportedly analyzed blood samples from 85 specimens around Eleuthera, one of the Bahamas’ most remote islands. The subjects were drug-tested for both legal and illegal substances.
Of the samples, a shocking 28 sharks spanning three species tested positive for drugs, the most common of which was caffeine. This was followed by acetaminophen and diclofenac, the active ingredients in the popular painkillers Tylenol and Voltaren.
Meanwhile, two of the animals tested positive for cocaine, which researchers attributed to them chomping on drug packets that fell into the water.
“They bite things to investigate and end up exposed,” study author Natascha Wosnick of the Federal University of Paraná in Brazil, told Science News.
This reportedly marked the first time cocaine had been detected in sharks in the Bahamas — trace amounts had previously been found in sharks in Brazil — and the first instance of the critters testing positive for caffeine anywhere on Earth.
Researchers noted that the drug-addled predators had been taken from popular tourist and dive spots, suggesting that they’d been exposed to wastewater from boats and urban developments, which may have been polluted with the aforementioned substances.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
Quote:French police said they arrested a suspect early Saturday who allegedly tried to ignite a homemade explosive device outside a Bank of America building in Paris.
The incident has now prompted a counterterrorism investigation and raised questions about recruitment via social media apps after the suspect told police he was recruited on Snapchat, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The arrest occurred around 3:30 a.m. local time on Rue de la Boétie after officers intercepted a person placing a five-liter container believed to contain fuel and an ignition device that included approximately 1.5 pounds of explosive powder, the report said.
Authorities said a second individual fled the scene, while the arrested suspect claimed to be a minor of Senegalese nationality. Officials said they were still verifying the person’s identity.
The Context
Laurent Nuñez, France’s interior minister, on Saturday praised the rapid police response and referenced the broader international context of threats against U.S.- and Israeli-linked assets since the outbreak of the Iran war that began late last month, highlighting the government’s emphasis on vigilance.
Earlier this week, Nuñez said French authorities have increased personal protection of some figures from the Iranian opposition and stepped-up security around sites that could be a target, including sites linked to U.S. interests and to the Jewish community, the Associated Press reported.
What To Know
Police detained the suspect as he allegedly attempted to ignite the device with a lighter in front of a Bank of America building on Rue de la Boétie, near the Champs-Élysées in Paris’ 8th arrondissement, according to police sources cited by AFP.
Initial assessments indicated the ignition component contained about 1.5 pounds of explosive powder and the container held a little over a gallon of liquid believed to be fuel. The device was taken by authorities for further forensic analysis, RFI reported.
The suspect told police he was recruited via Snapchat and offered money to carry out the attack, with reported amounts varying between €300 ($346) and €600 (about $692), according to multiple outlets, citing police sources.
A second person fled the scene, and one account said the accomplice appeared to step back to take a photo or video during the device placement, reports said.
France’s National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said it opened an investigation into attempted damage by fire or dangerous means in connection with a terrorist enterprise, manufacturing incendiary or explosive devices, and terrorist criminal conspiracy, and confirmed the suspect was in custody, according to AFP.
A Bank of America spokesperson said the company was aware of the situation and is in communication with French authorities, the outlet reported.
Quote:Three Chinese ships, including two owned by China’s biggest shipping company, were turned away from the Strait of Hormuz on Friday after attempting to exit the Persian Gulf, ship-tracking data showed.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, said later in a statement that the strait was shut, directly contradicting an earlier claim by President Donald Trump that Tehran had agreed to let some ships through.
The CSCL Indian Ocean and the CSCL Arctic Ocean, two Hong Kong-flagged container ships belonging to a unit of China’s COSCO Shipping, had identified themselves as Chinese-owned and -crewed while sailing toward the waters between Larak and Qeshm islands, where Iran has been running an unofficial “toll booth” for pre-approved ships.
Both ships made abrupt U-turns near the passage at approximately 3:20 a.m. and 3:50 a.m. universal coordinated time, according to the ship-tracking service MarineTraffic, which captured signals transmitted by the vessels’ automatic identification system, or AIS.
It was COSCO’s first attempt to send ships through the strait since the company resumed bookings for Middle East-bound containers this week, “indicating that safe passage could not be guaranteed,” MarineTraffic said.
“This marks the first attempted crossing by a major container carrier since the start of the conflict,” it said. COSCO, the world’s fourth-largest shipping line, handles about 10 percent of the world’s seaborne freight.
A third ship, the Marshall Islands-flagged, Hong Kong-owned bulk carrier Lotus Rising, also turned back from the strait in the early hours of Friday while broadcasting its destination as “China owner,” its AIS data showed.
All three vessels remain in the gulf, west of Hormuz, where COSCO has at least six crude oil tankers stuck in the waters, according to Bloomberg.
Shanghai-based COSCO could not be reached for comment after hours.
Quote:About 1,500 Iranians were intercepted at the border during the Biden Administration, but it’s the unknown number who got through that is alarming officials — who told The Post “sleeper cells” are a grave potential threat to the nation.
“We have no idea how many people got around obviously. The numbers are deeply concerning,” said Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who previously served as US ambassador to Japan during the first Trump administration.
About half of the intercepted Iranians were released into the country, Hagerty said, apparently referencing a Fox News report last year that 1,504 Iranians were arrested at the border between 2021 and 2024, with 700 released into the country pending court cases.
The US has long listed Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism.
The number of Iranians intercepted at the border grew to 1,650 between 2022 and 2025, according to Customs and Border Patrol data cited by the nonpartisan Niskanen Center. Many flew through Sao Paolo, Brazil, a “hub” for passport fraud.
Hagerty’s comments came after the feds sent out a security alert warning of a possible effort by Iran to direct “prepositioned sleeper assets,” even as much of its top leadership has been wiped out through relentless US and Israeli air attacks.
The caution raised fears that Iran, which has continued to hammer its Gulf neighbors and whose retaliation has led to the deaths of at least 13 American service members, could find a way to strike on the home front.
President Trump acknowledged the concerns March 11.
“A lot of people came in through Biden with his stupid open border, but we know where most of them are: We’ve got our eye on all of them, I think,” he said.
Homeland security concerns rose even higher when a deranged Lebanese American man slammed a car packed with explosives into a synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan, and an ISIS-linked gunman opened fire at Old Dominion University in Virginia, killing an ROTC instructor.
FBI Director Kash Patel and CIA Director John Ratcliffe also met with Republican senators in the Capitol this month to discuss expiring federal surveillance authority, as security fears at home intensify.
Quote:Exiled Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi warned a crowd at CPAC Saturday not to leave any faction of Iran’s current regime in power.
“You cannot reform a snake. Venom is in its DNA,” Pahlavi, 65, told cheering supporters at the annual conservative gathering held in Grapevine, Texas this year.
The son of the shah of Iran, who was overthrown during the 1979 revolution that brought the Islamic Republic to power, Pahlavi said the people of Iran “will never agree to swap one tyrant for another.”
He spoke as the joint US-Israeli war on Iran — that launched with a Feb. 28 strike that took out former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of the country’s top leaders — entered its fifth week.
President Trump, who extended a deadline for Tehran to re-open the Strait of Hormuz or risk massive bombing of its power plants, has said negotiations are underway with the Iranians on finding a way to end the conflict.
At the outset of the war, Trump urged Iranians to “take over your government.”
He has also ridiculed Iran’s new hardline supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamanei, who has not been seen in public since coming to power after his father’s killing — with the president labeling him a “lightweight.”
Trump has also said that he wants a hand in picking Tehran’s next leader. The State Department has placed a $10 million bounty on the younger Khamenei and other senior regime officials.
Pahlavi, who lives in the US, told the enthusiastic CPAC crowd that “another anti-American tyrant will not serve American interests either.” He said if such a faction of the repressive regime were to linger it would “buy time” and “pretend to negotiate” before returning to its “jihadist ways of threatening America.”
“Life can never go back to normal,” he said.
There is a sea of blood between the people and the regime. After all the massacres, after all they have sacrificed, they will never agree to swap one tyrant for another.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin is going hat-in-hand to wealthy oligarchs, asking them to donate cold hard cash to boost the country’s depleted economy during its war in Ukraine.
Putin made the embarrassing request before a large group of Russia’s financial elite on Thursday — and promised to keep the war going until victory is reached despite the economic strain it’s caused, sources familiar with the meeting told the Financial Times.
It’s the latest shakedown by Putin to get Russia’s wealthiest to foot the bill for the war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year — but the first time he’s appealed to business magnates directly.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied reports that the donations would be spent on the war, although he told Russian news outlets the idea was discussed and Putin “welcomed the initiative.”
“One of the participants of the meeting indeed said that he finds it necessary to set aside a certain very large sum of money for the state. This was his family decision,” Peskov said, according to Interfax.
The unnamed tycoon “argued that the vast majority of participants in the meeting started their businesses in the 1990s, and got their start with some or other connection to the state. So many consider it their burden to make such contributions,” he added.
Putin asking directly for funds essentially guarantees that the businessmen, who are largely supporters of the military campaign in Ukraine, will fork over money to his government, according to the Financial Times.
At least two businessmen told Putin they would be happy to donate, including billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, who pledged more than $1.2 billion, sources told the outlet.
Russia’s economy defense budget soared 42% last year as the ruble value plummeted.
A wave of Russian drone strikes brought “pure terror” to Ukraine overnight into Saturday, destroying a maternity hospital and leaving four dead and more than a dozen others wounded.
Moscow launched over 270 drones at targets across Ukraine and pounded civilian infrastructure primarily in the city of Odesa, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.
Odesa, a southern port city, was swarmed by over 60 drones, and a child was among those injured in the strikes, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky said.
“There was no military purpose whatsoever – this was pure terror against ordinary civilian life. … Each such strike proves that Russia does not want to end the war,” Zelensky said about the conflict that has now raged for over four years.
The roof of the maternity hospital was blown apart by the blast, along with connecting structures between two floors and multiple wards.
Medics were able to save 22 newborn babies, including twins on ventillator support along with 32 other patients who were evacuated from the Odesa hospital into a shelter, the hospital’s chief doctor Ihor Shpak said.
Two were killed, and at least 13 wounded in the strikes on Odesa, military administration chief Sergiy Lysak said.
Images posted by Zelensky on Telegram show Ukrainian firefighters trying to extinguish blazes in bombed-out residential buildings surrounded by rubble and debris from broken windows.
A Russian strike on Ukrainian gas production facilities killed a 55-year-old energy worker, energy company Naftogaz said.
A 28-year-old man was also killed in a Russian strike on a residential building in the city of Kryvyi Rih.
Quote:The three Baltic NATO nations have issued an "urgent" warning to the alliance following repeated drone incursions into their airspace in recent days.
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia said on Friday the breaches "highlight the urgent need to continue enhancing our preparedness and investing in defense capabilities."
It comes after Latvia and Estonia said earlier this week Ukrainian drones strayed into their airspace from Russia amid the ongoing war.
Latvian officials said the wreckage of a drone had been found near its borders with Russia and Belarus. Separately, Estonian authorities said a drone hit the chimney of a power plant near its border with Moscow. No injuries were reported.
Why It Matters
Repeated incursions by Russian drones and fighter jets into NATO airspace have increased fears of Moscow's war spreading beyond Ukraine's borders.
Under the alliance's founding treaty, its members are collectively obliged to treat attacks on any member state as an assault on the whole alliance. This acts a key part of its deterrence to adversary nations.
What To Know
Following this week's drone incursions, the Baltic defense ministers praised NATO's Air Policing mission, which aims to maintain the security of the alliance's airspace. But they said the incidents highlighted the "importance to further strengthen multi-layered air defense."
"While NATO's mission Eastern Sentry has clearly demonstrated its value, NATO's efforts to strengthen air defense, including countering drones, must be accelerated," the ministers said in a joint statement.
"Allies must urgently reinforce the capabilities required for effective detection and interception. The current presence of NATO aircraft and air defense systems in the Baltic states must be maintained and further strengthened to counter all air threats, including unmanned aerial vehicles."
They added the Baltic nations are investing at least 5 percent of their GDP on defense, prioritizing the procurement of air defense capabilities, and the development of anti-drone systems and acoustic sensors.
On Wednesday, Egils Leščinskis, Latvia's deputy chief of the Joint Staff, said the Ukrainian drone "most likely veered off course or was affected by electromagnetic warfare measures protecting some technically important objects." The defense ministers said an investigation into the incident was ongoing.
Meanwhile on Thursday, debris from a Russian drone used to attack Ukraine landed in NATO nation Romania, the country's ministry of national defense said.
Two F-16 fighter jets took off from the 86th Air Base in Borcea at 00.16 a.m. local time to monitor the situation, it said.
The ministry added one drone was diverted by Ukrainian air defenses and entered Romanian airspace, before crashing about 1.2 miles from the town of Parches in an uninhabited area.
Separately, fellow NATO nation Poland announced on Tuesday it had launched an air operation aimed at preventing Russian drone incursions in its airspace.
Poland's Operational Command of the Armed Forces wrote on X it had "activated the necessary forces and resources" to tackle the Shahed-type drones, including fighter jets and helicopters.
Quote:Multiple drones crossed into NATO member Finland, officials said on Sunday, the latest in a spate of uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) incidents hitting the alliance's eastern flank.
One drone landed north of the southeastern Finnish city of Kouvola, while another landed east of the area, according to Helsinki's Defense Ministry.
The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—all NATO members—said in recent days that several Ukrainian drones had careened into their territory during intensified attacks on Russian oil and gas facilities perched on the Baltic Sea.
Kouvola sits roughly 45 miles west of Russian territory. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted Moscow's fuel export sites in the country's western Leningrad region, which borders Finland, including the major port of Ust-Luga.
Leningrad Governor Alexander Drozdenko said early on Sunday 36 Ukrainian drones had been intercepted over the region and emergency services were putting at a fire at Ust Luga.
Finnish officials have not said where the drones came from, nor who launched the UAVs.
Ukraine's military had not commented at the time of writing on Sunday, but Kyiv has vowed to continue targeting Moscow's oil and gas facilities that provide vital funds for its war effort.
"Drones have strayed into Finnish territory. We are taking the matter very seriously," Finnish Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen said in a statement on Sunday.
Authorities described the drones as small, flying low and traveling slowly. Helsinki said the country would release more information as investigations progress.
Ukrainian drones sparked a blaze at the Ust-Luga port on Wednesday, from which Russia ships out crude oil and liquefied natural gas out to the Baltic. The site also handles general cargo and other exports propping up Russia's economy.
During the Ukrainian drone attack earlier this week, one drone hit the chimney of a power plant in eastern Estonia. Another crashed and exploded in neighboring Latvia.
Kyiv said it had attacked the Ust-Luga port area in August 2025.
Ukraine's military separately said it had struck an oil terminal at Primorsk, about 30 miles from Finnish soil, and another refinery east of Moscow early on March 23. A fire broke at Primorsk, which sees roughly 60 million tons of oil each year, Kyiv said.
Quote:The Tucson Police Department in Arizona has said it arrested former Pima County Sheriff’s deputy Travis Reynolds, 22, on one count of kidnapping tied to alleged on-duty misconduct in the department confirmed to Fox News Digital.
The Context
The arrest of a former deputy on a kidnapping charge comes as Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos faces a no-confidence vote and mounting scrutiny over the department’s handling of a separate case—the search for 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, missing mother of Today show co-host Savannah Guthrie.
What To Know
The Tucson Police Department confirmed to Fox News Digital that Reynolds was taken into custody and charged with kidnapping, adding that the investigation remains active and declining to release more details.
Reynolds was fired by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department—which has been investigating Guthrie’s disappearance—following his arrest, the outlet reported.
The department reportedly declined to comment to Fox News digital on whether Reynolds had any role in Guthrie’s case before he was terminated.
According to an interim complaint reported by Tucson news outlet KOLD, Reynolds allegedly commented on a female detainee’s appearance, shared a vape pen with her while she remained handcuffed, and suggested going to a hotel to have sex.
The complaint alleges that Reynolds showed the detainee sexually explicit videos, and also says he instructed the alleged victim to expose herself before taking her into the jail, according to KOLD. It also reported that jail surveillance video corroborated parts of the incident account.
Reynolds' defense attorney said he has no prior criminal history and is a lifelong Arizona resident, per Fox News Digital.
Newsweek contacted the Pima County Sheriff’s Department and Tucson Police Department for comment via email early on Sunday.
Quote:Nearly two months after Nancy Guthrie vanished from her Tucson, Arizona-area home, a former Pima County sheriff is accusing current Sheriff Chris Nanos of mishandling the crime scene—as Nanos simultaneously faces a no-confidence vote, a recall effort, and scrutiny over his disciplinary past.
Newsweek reached out to Nanos via an email to the sheriff's department on Saturday for comment.
The Context
Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, was last seen at her home outside Tucson, Arizona, on January 31 and reported missing on February 1. Authorities believe the 84-year-old was kidnapped, and that drops of her blood were found on her front porch.
Last month, the FBI released surveillance footage from a doorbell camera, showing a masked man, whom they called a suspect, outside Guthrie's front door on the night she disappeared. But since then, investigators have not identified a suspect or provided the public with information about any significant breakthroughs in the case.
What To Know
In a Friday episode of NewsNation's Brian Entin Investigates, Dr. Richard Carmona—a former U.S. surgeon general and former Pima County sheriff—told senior national correspondent Brian Entin that Nanos made a fundamental error by personally announcing the reopening of the crime scene at Nancy Guthrie's Catalina Foothills home.
"That's not something a sheriff does," Carmona said. "It's the lead detective that's out there that says, we can open this area now because we have made this determination that all of the evidence necessary has been photographed, bagged, tagged, and so on."
Carmona also pointed to a February incident in which a Domino's delivery driver—fulfilling an order placed by a viewer for an independent journalist at the scene—walked across Guthrie's front lawn and up to the front door during an active investigation. Deputies on scene did not intervene.
"If you're going to court and you're making a case, a defense attorney says, 'That crime scene was corrupted—you had people delivering pizzas,'" Carmona said. "'How do we know this is real evidence?'"
He was unsparing on the question of reconstituting the scene after the fact. "Once it has been corrupted, that's the end of it," he said. "You have not maintained the integrity of that space."
Carmona added: "The public has to have trust in its law enforcement agency. You cannot lead without trust. And when you have a sheriff that has to keep correcting himself and changing his story every day, the public loses faith in you."
Separately, the Pima County Deputies Organization (PCDO), which represents more than 300 sheriff's department members, unanimously passed a no-confidence vote against Nanos on March 24, calling for his immediate resignation.
The vote followed reporting by The Arizona Republic that Nanos had resigned from the El Paso Police Department in 1982— two years earlier than listed on his public resume—to avoid termination over disciplinary issues including excessive force, insubordination and off-duty gambling. The sheriff's department attributed the discrepancy to "clerical errors."
On Tuesday, the Pima County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to compel Nanos to answer questions under oath, citing a territorial-era state law that could allow for his removal if he fails to comply.
Quote:The FBI responded to Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport after an American Airlines flight was diverted on Sunday, authorities confirmed to Newsweek.
The diversion was prompted by a "disruptive customer," a spokesperson for the airline said in an emailed statement, adding that customers were deplaned as law enforcement responded to the aircraft.
Personnel from the Michigan FBI were also on the scene, a spokesperson from the agency confirmed, adding there is "no current threat to the public at this time."
More information on the nature of the disturbance was not immediately available and no arrests or charges were announced by authorities.
The Context
The diversion affected passengers traveling on a major corridor between New York and Chicago and prompted a federal law enforcement response at one of the nation’s busiest Midwestern hubs during the peak spring break travel season.
The incident occurred amid heightened scrutiny at U.S. airports following the deadly crash at LaGuardia Airport in New York last week and ongoing issues with security wait times for travelers amid a pay stoppage for Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents amid a partial government shutdown.
What To Know
American Airlines Flight 2819 departed New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport at 8:59 a.m. Eastern and landed at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in Romulus at 11:08 a.m., flight-tracking data showed. It was bound for O'Hare International Airport.
The FBI and Wayne County Airport Authority Police met the aircraft on the tarmac and isolated it per airport procedure.
Once deplaned, passengers waited in the terminal while authorities completed and later cleared a search of the aircraft out of an abundance of caution, officials said.
An American Airlines spokesperson said the diversion was due to a “disruptive customer” but did not immediately release additional details about what occurred on board.
The FBI’s Detroit field office said there was “no current threat to the public,” and local officials indicated airport operations continued while the investigation proceeded.
Quote:Part 1 of a five-part Fox News Digital series investigation follows the money that created the "Revolutionary Base" for a transnational network of organizations allegedly waging cognitive warfare on U.S. citizens on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.
As far-left American activists flood Cuba to support its flailing communist regime, U.S. officials have opened a sprawling investigation into an anti-America, pro-China nonprofit network forged during a wedding celebration in late February 2017, off Runaway Bay on Jamaica’s northern coast.
There, beneath a canopy of palm trees, an elite cadre of activists, intellectuals, celebrities, political organizers and comrades in a global Marxist-Leninist-Maoist movement assembled to celebrate the "Revolutionary Love" of two luminaries, both 62 at the time: Neville Roy Singham, an American-born tech tycoon living in Shanghai, and Jodie Evans, a red-haired veteran activist and co-founder of CodePink Women for Peace.
Like the opening scene of "The Godfather," where powerful families consolidate power, the wedding celebration was about much more than the union of two people.
Over four days of dancing, lectures and late-night conversations in venues from the Flavor Beach Bar to Sharkey’s Seafood, celebrating the bond of "Roy and Jodie," alliances were formed that would shape protests, unrest and political agitation over the next decade, from the fiery 2020 scenes in Minneapolis to demonstrations today supporting the regimes in Cuba and Iran.
That weekend, Vijay Prashad, an academic described in the official wedding itinerary as a "Marxist intellectual," spoke on a panel, "The Future of the Left." Medea Benjamin, Evans’ friend and CodePink co-founder, danced barefoot at the wedding in a bright Indian outfit.
Mao’s Blueprint for the ‘People’s War’
According to sources, the wedding attendees invoked the teachings of Mao Zedong, the 20th century Chinese Communist Party leader who ruled China with an iron fist, inspired by Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, and they discussed how to mobilize the masses to wage a Maoist "People’s War."
"The revolutionary war is a war of the masses," Mao said in 1934.
Many were themselves relics of the Cold War, growing up before the Soviet Union was dismantled in 1989.
A monthslong Fox News Digital investigation pinpoints the Jamaica wedding as a starting point for launching a network of organizations that is today waging a new "People’s War" on America, aligned with the Chinese Communist Party’s geopolitical ambitions to eclipse the U.S. as a superpower through economic programs like the "Belt and Road" initiative, realizing the vision of China’s ideological godfather, Mao, through trade partnerships, economic deals and pro-China propaganda.
National security experts call it cognitive warfare.
Over almost a decade, Fox News Digital has learned, Singham and Evans have activated a global network that now numbers an estimated 2,000 hard-left organizations that parrot anti-U.S. propaganda supporting autocratic regimes leading China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela and Gaza. Within activist circles, far-left critics refer to leftists who align with authoritarian regimes as "tankies." Many groups and leaders from Singham's network, including Evans and Benjamin, are part of the pro-communist convoy now in Cuba.
Fox News Digital has established a documented $278 million that flowed from Singham into organizations that "sow discord" in the U.S., as House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith put it recently at a hearing on foreign malign influence in the nonprofit industry.
According to the data, Singham created a base from which the U.S. is now one of the world’s most prolific exporters of radical pro-China communist ideology. Singham and Evans didn't respond to requests for comment.
Quote:he wealthy Marxist businessman behind a sprawling far-left network is collaborating with the Chinese Communist Party to denigrate the Allied actions in World War II in an effort to upend the U.S.-led international system and to advance Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s “new world order.”
China-based businessman Neville Roy Singham leads and funds a global financial and activist network that operates inside the U.S. and many other countries, and while he rarely grabs the spotlight for himself in public speeches, he did so in November through the release of a report that denigrates U.S. and Allied Power contributions to WWII.
Singham directly admitted during a CCP-backed forum in Shanghai in November that he had written the 174-page report to combat the U.S.-backed “international rules-based order” — which he called a “lie” — and to help the CCP and its longtime strongman Xi achieve a “new world order” more favorable to China.
Singham: “Fascism was defeated not by Anglo-American capital but by socialist leadership and mass heroism”
The wealthy communist activist summed up the crux of his WWII argument thusly: “As we commemorate the 80th anniversary of the victory in the World Anti-Fascist War (WAFW), the Western powers spin their familiar tale: U.S. industrial might and British resolve saved the world from fascism. This is a lie. The truth burns in the numbers: while the Western powers calculated their economic advantage, the Soviet and Chinese peoples paid in blood. Fascism was defeated not by Anglo-American capital but by socialist leadership and mass heroism – a brilliant strategy from Moscow and Yan’an, unbreakable resilience from workers and peasants who refused to surrender, and a sacrifice that saved humanity from slavery.”
To back up Singham’s revisionist historical efforts — which he dubbed “restorationist” — he sought to excuse Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s alliance with Nazi dictator Adolph Hitler which carved up swaths of Eastern Europe, to claim that Hitler and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill were morally equivalent.
Singham ignored the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, signed August 23, 1939, a non-aggression treaty between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that secretly divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. That deal facilitated the German invasion of Poland less than a month later on September 1, 1939, and a subsequent Soviet invasion of Poland on September 17, enabling both powers to seize surrounding territory.
Just the News has previously reported on how numerous far-left radical activist groups have leadership links or financial ties to the funding network backed by Singham, who himself is linked to the CCP and whom some in his network call “Comrade” — and who has also been scrutinized by Republican congressional investigators.
Singham did not respond to a request for comment sent by Just the News through his wife Jodie Evans, the co-founder of Code Pink.
Singham excuses Stalin over “necessary” alliance with Hitler
Singham also sought to excuse Stalin’s non-aggression treaty with Hitler, despite the fact that the Hitler-Stalin Pact allowed the Nazis and the Soviets to divide up large swaths of Eastern Europe between themselves.
History.com noted that “the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact contained a secret protocol specifying the spheres of influence in Eastern Europe both parties would accept after Hitler conquered Poland” and that “the Soviet Union would acquire the eastern half of Poland, along with Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia.”
Singham wrote that “facing isolation, Stalin signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in August 1939 — not from choice but from necessity created by Western collusion with Hitler.” This is a common trope from Soviet apologists.
Historian Roger Moorhouse wrote in his book, The Devils’ Alliance: Hitler’s Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941, that the Hitler-Stalin Pact “was in force for less than two years, ending with Hitler’s attack on Stalin’s Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 — but it was nonetheless one of the salient events of World War II.”
“This aspect of Soviet belligerence is more than just a curiosity. Postwar writing on the Nazi-Soviet Pact such that there is long tended to parrot the Kremlin’s postwar exculpatory line that Stalin was merely buying time by signing the pact, fending Hitler off while he could prepare Soviet defenses to meet an expected attack. This interpretation, still hawked by communist apologists to this day, does not tally with the evidence, however,” the historian wrote. “As this book shows, Stalin was much more proactive and anti-Western in signing the pact than has conventionally been appreciated. His motivations were complex, of course, but on one level at least, he was seeking to exploit Nazi aggression to his own ends, to speed the fall of the West and capitalism’s long-awaited collapse. An unwilling or passive ‘neutral,’ he was not.”
Xi’s “new world order” requires “restorationist” anti-Western view of WWII
Singham made it clear last November when introducing his anti-American report that changing how the world views the history of WWII was key to the CCP’s and Xi’s efforts to change the globe’s power dynamics and to end American dominance, as he labeled the modern West as fascist.
Quote:Far-left “Squad” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) violated federal election and House ethics rules by misusing nearly $19,000 in campaign cash last year on a shrink who specializes in controversial ketamine therapy, a bombshell new complaint claims.
DC-based National Legal and Policy Center filed a joint complaint Friday with the Federal Elections Commission and the Office of Congressional Conduct, demanding both enforcement agencies probe Ocasio-Cortez, her congressional campaign committee and its treasurer, Frank Llewellyn.
The government watchdog group want authorities to determine whether the money paid to Boston-based Dr. Brian Boyle was fraudulently documented in official filings as “leadership training and consulting.”
The complaint was filed in response to an exclusive Post story last week that revealed the suspicious shrink spending.
“There is reason to believe that AOC’s use of campaign funds to pay for a psychiatrist who has no experience in ‘leadership training’ was not for a ‘bona fide campaign or political purpose,’ but rather for personal psychiatric therapy for AOC or her campaign staff,” the group’s counsel Paul Kamenar, wrote in the complaint.
Using congressional campaign funds for personal use is prohibited by law, and violators face fines and up to five years in prison. They could also be forced to reimburse their campaign fund out of pocket for any misspent money.
The NLPC requested the commission “impose appropriate penalties and disciplinary sanctions against AOC.”
The group also asked the Office of Congressional Conduct, or OCC, to refer the matter to the House Ethics Committee, which unlike the OCC, can issue subpoenas to witnesses and impose disciplinary action against the socialist lawmaker.
AOC has previously talked about her own mental health, claiming she was in therapy following the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, when she said lawmakers effectively “served in war.”
Quote:President Donald Trump said “Cuba is next” during a speech at an investment forum in Miami on Friday, raising fresh concerns about potential U.S. action against the island nation.
The remark came as Trump highlighted what he described as successful military operations in Venezuela and Iran, though he offered no clear details on what his statement meant in practice.
Newsweek contacted the White House via an online form and Cuba's defense department by email on Saturday for comment.
Why It Matters
Trump’s comments signal a possible escalation in U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba at a time of heightened global tensions. The administration has already taken aggressive steps in several other countries, and even vague suggestions of military involvement could increase instability in the region and strain diplomatic efforts currently underway.
What to Know
Speaking in Miami, as reported by Reuters and Al Jazeera, Trump praised the strength of the U.S. military and suggested it may need to be used despite earlier hopes it would not. He then added that Cuba could be next, before quickly downplaying the remark. He did not outline any specific plan for the country.
Trump told the audience he had built a powerful military that he hoped would not need to be used, but added that “sometimes you have to use it,” before stating that Cuba is next and then urging listeners to “pretend I didn’t say that.”
Trump has repeatedly argued that Cuba’s government is close to collapse amid a deepening economic crisis. The country has been struggling with severe fuel shortages and economic disruption, in part due to the loss of oil shipments from Venezuela following the removal of former leader Nicolás Maduro.
At the same time, the Trump administration has opened talks with Cuban officials in recent weeks. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has confirmed negotiations are taking place in an effort to avoid a potential confrontation.
Earlier this month, Trump also suggested Cuba could face a “friendly takeover,” before adding that it might not be friendly, underscoring the ambiguity surrounding U.S. intentions.
Díaz-Canel, meanwhile, has acknowledged ongoing discussions with Washington, emphasizing efforts to prevent escalation as Cuba faces mounting economic pressure.
Quote:WASHINGTON — A security scare at Palm Beach International Airport Sunday prompted the Air Force to scramble F-16 fighter jets and deploy flares — hours before Air Force One was slated to fly President Trump back to DC.
Authorities imposed a ground stop at the airport as they rushed to confront the civilian aircraft.
The White House said that the security scare took place after authorities lost communication with a general aviation plane.
“The civilian aircraft violated the Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) at approximately 1:15 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The aircraft was safely escorted out of the area by NORAD aircraft,” the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service explained in a statement shared by the North American Aerospace Defense Command — which controls the airspace over the US and Canada.
“The flares were used to draw attention from or communicate with the pilot. Flares are employed with the highest regard for safety, burn out quickly and completely, and pose no danger to people on the ground.”
The White House and Secret Service said that neither Air Force One nor Trump was in danger.
“A general aviation aircraft was briefly out of communication with the air traffic control tower at Palm Beach International Airport, but contact was ultimately established and the ground stop was lifted,” a White House official told The Post.
“There was no drone incursion or concern regarding Air Force One, which is not slated to take off until this evening.”The president was at Trump International Golf Course during the time of the security incident at Palm Beach International Airport.
Initial reports suggested that some sort of drone incursion at the airport triggered the ground stop, with footage showing a Delta pilot informing passengers of the security scare.
The pilot claimed that “they had to scramble some helicopters to go and investigate” the situation.
A Secret Service spokesperson said that the helicopter seen taking off was likely not related to the security scare.
“While airspace violations are relatively common, particularly outside of Washington, DC, that helicopter referenced in the tweet was actually authorized for that specific area and was not related to a drone or Temporary Flight Restriction, TFR, violation,” the spokesperson said.
When asked for comment about the ordeal, the Federal Aviation Administration told The Post that “Operations are normal after the FAA slowed traffic at Palm Beach International Airport due to volume,” but declined to give an on-the-record explanation about the ground stop.
Quote:Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has submitted her government's resignation after her left-wing coalition fell short of securing enough seats to form a government in Tuesday's election.
Her move will kick off negotiations on Wednesday to determine whether the next government will be formed by Frederiksen or another party leader.
Frederiksen's Social Democrats party won the most votes and secured only 38 seats in the country's 179-seat parliament, marking the party's worst result since 1903. The left-leaning "red bloc" won a total of 84 seats, six short of the 90 needed for a majority. Meanwhile, the right-leaning "blue bloc" won 77 seats.
Frederiksen has been a firm opponent of President Donald Trump following his calls to take control of Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. Approval ratings for Frederiksen's former government surged in response to Trump's actions, and the timing of the snap election was seen as a way for it to capitalize on the swell of support.
Frederiksen is viewed favorably by the EU for her stance on Greenland and efforts to increase Denmark's defence spending considering the security threat posed by Russia. In January, she warned that if President Donald Trump could enact a takeover of Greenland, that would in essence end NATO.
But domestically, some of her left-wing supporters in Denmark were frustrated with her tough immigration policy and others had concerns about his position on economic issues.
Support for the anti-immigration Danish People's Party, led by Morten Messerschmidt, surged to 9.1 percent, up nearly 7 percentage points compared with the last election.
Quote:European Union (EU) lawmakers recently approved measures enabling member states to deport rejected asylum-seekers to offshore “return hubs,” the Associated Press reported on Sunday.
The move aligns closely with tactics praised by right-wing parties and echoing enforcement approaches associated with the Trump's administration's mass deportation efforts of illegal immigrants.
Newsweek reached out to the European Union by email Sunday for comment.
Why It Matters
Countries including Russia, China, Venezuela, and Afghanistan are just some of those the U.S. has been unable to repatriate immigrants to, meaning they are often stuck in ICE detention.
Over the past 14 months, the Trump administration has struck multiple deals with countries in Eastern Europe, Africa, and Latin America, at times in exchange for other benefits. Some agreements have seen legal challenges over conditions that the roughly 300 immigrants deported under the program have faced.
The union's plan marked a significant shift in Europe’s migration enforcement, enabling deportations to facilities outside the EU and expanding detention and entry-ban powers at a time when only about one in five people ordered to leave are actually returned.
Human rights organizations warned the hubs risked becoming “legal black holes” beyond effective EU oversight and compared the package to “ICE-style” enforcement seen in the U.S., intensifying a transatlantic debate over deterrence versus protection in asylum systems.
What To Know
Members of the European Parliament (MEP) voted 389-206, with 32 abstentions, to ease the creation of detention facilities outside EU territory and increase penalties and entry bans for migrants who refuse to leave, while authorizing returns to third countries under bilateral deals, according to AP.
Any EU nation can now negotiate on its own or in small coalitions to deport migrants to facilities yet to be built outside the 27-nation bloc.
The vote came as part of the EU’s broader Pact on Migration and Asylum, with new rules set to take effect June 12, and as far-right and conservative parties pushed for higher return rates and tougher border enforcement.
The European Parliament’s version backed detention for up to 24 months for people awaiting return and endorsed tougher, potentially indefinite entry bans in some cases, while positioning the regulation as a cornerstone of efforts to increase returns, according to Agence France-Presse.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
Quote:A man who crashed his pickup truck into a Detroit‑area synagogue earlier this month carried out the attack after being inspired by Hezbollah, the Iran‑backed militant group, the FBI said Monday.
Ayman Ghazali recorded a video before the attack at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township in which he said he wanted to “kill as many of them as I possibly can,” according to Jennifer Runyan, the FBI’s special agent in charge in Detroit.
It was a “Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism purposely targeting the Jewish community and the largest Jewish temple in Michigan," she said.
Ghazali, 41, of Dearborn Heights, sat in the synagogue parking lot for several hours before driving his pickup through closed doors and into a hallway near an early childhood education area, striking a security guard. He then exchanged gunfire with another guard before fatally shooting himself, the FBI said.
When Did the Synagogue Attack at Temple Israel Take Place?
The attack occurred on March 12.
Ghazali, armed with a rifle, allegedly rammed a vehicle into Temple Israel, one of the nation’s largest Reform Jewish synagogues. At least one security guard exchanged gunfire with him. Ghazali was later found dead inside his vehicle.
No members of the synagogue’s staff, teachers or the roughly 150 children enrolled in its early childhood education center were injured, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said at a news conference at the time. One security officer was struck by the vehicle and briefly knocked unconscious but did not suffer life‑threatening injuries.
Ghazali's vehicle, a Ford F-150, which was loaded with fireworks and jugs of gasoline, caught on fire during the attack. Thirty law enforcement officers were also treated for smoke inhalation.
The attack drew widespread condemnation.
"This is heartbreaking. Michigan's Jewish community should be able to live and practice their faith in peace. Antisemitism and violence have no place in Michigan. I am hoping for everyone's safety. Thank you to law enforcement for their swift action," Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, wrote to X in its aftermath.
Quote:Turkey said on Monday that NATO air and missile defense systems intercepted a ballistic munition launched from Iran that entered or approached Turkish airspace, the latest sign that the widening Iran war is increasingly drawing in countries far from the main theaters of fighting.
The interception follows several similar incidents reported by Ankara since the conflict escalated, highlighting how Iran’s expanding missile operations—and NATO’s defensive response—are testing the alliance’s southern flank even as leaders try to prevent the war from spilling into a direct confrontation between Iran and NATO members.
Why It Matters
Turkey’s geographic position makes it especially vulnerable to spillover from the Iran war. As a NATO member bordering Syria and Iraq and hosting key U.S. and allied military facilities, Turkey sits beneath missile and drone flight paths used by Iran in retaliatory strikes across the region.
Although Turkish officials have stopped short of declaring the incidents deliberate attacks, each interception raises the risk of escalation, whether through miscalculation, technical failure, or misinterpretation of intent. NATO has sought to make clear that defending allied airspace does not automatically mean the alliance is entering the war, but the repeated involvement of NATO assets underscores how narrow that line has become.
For Ankara, the incidents also carry domestic and diplomatic implications. Turkey has tried to maintain a balancing role since the Iran war began, condemning attacks that threaten regional stability while keeping channels open with Tehran. At the same time, the government has emphasized that any violation of Turkish airspace will be met with force, a message aimed at deterrence rather than escalation.
What to Know
Turkey’s Defense Ministry said a ballistic missile determined to have been launched from Iran was detected entering or heading toward Turkish airspace and was neutralized by NATO air and missile defense assets deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean. The ministry said no casualties were reported and stressed that all necessary measures would be taken “decisively and without hesitation” against any threat to Turkey’s territory or airspace.
The statement closely mirrors language Turkey has used repeatedly since the war began, reflecting what officials describe as a heightened but controlled security posture. NATO officials later confirmed that allied defenses had been involved and said the alliance stood firmly with Turkey, while U.S. officials emphasized that the incident did not automatically trigger NATO’s collective defense clause.
The interception was not the first. On March 4, Turkey reported that NATO defenses intercepted a ballistic missile launched from Iran after it passed through Iraqi and Syrian airspace and approached Turkish airspace. Turkish officials said at the time that the intended target was unclear and that debris found in southern Turkey came from the interceptor rather than the incoming missile. No casualties were reported.
A second incident was reported on March 9, when Turkish authorities said another Iranian-launched missile was intercepted over southeastern Turkey. Ankara again issued warnings that it reserved the right to respond to any hostile act, while calling on all parties to avoid steps that could widen the conflict.
Quote:A force of 3,500 US sailors and Marines arrived in the Middle East aboard the USS Tripoli — as Tehran warned that American forces will be killed if President Trump orders a ground invasion of Iran.
The flagship for the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group and 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit arrived over the weekend with troops in tow, US Central Command said Saturday.
Along with the troops, the amphibious warship brought transport and strike fighter aircraft, as well as assault and tactical assets, with the Pentagon allegedly preparing for weeks of boots-on-the-ground operations in Iran.
As the war in Iran continues to escalate, thousands of Marines are being prepped to deploy to the Middle East, sources told The Washington Post.
The troop movement would fall short of a full-scale invasion, with roughly 10,000 American troops being considered for deployment to boost the already significant military presence in the Gulf region.
Trump has not publicly acknowledged the Pentagon’s proposal or whether he would approve any portion of the plans.
The president has repeatedly suggested US troops could be deployed to secure Iran’s nuclear facilities and the Strait of Hormuz, a critical trade route currently under Tehran’s control.
The White House has said Trump has been given “maximum optionality” on how to proceed in Iran, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio maintaining that the US can meet its objectives “without any ground troops.”
Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned that any deployment of ground forces would be a clear escalation of the war and met with widespread retaliation.
Quote:President Trump has said the US could take Iran’s oil – as he mulls over a daring operation to seize one of the Islamic Republic’s energy strongholds.
The commander-in-chief suggested the approach could be similar to when Venezuelan tyrant Nicolás Maduro was deposed, which saw the US take control of oil exports.
“To be honest with you, my favourite thing is to take the oil in Iran, but some stupid people back in the US say: ‘Why are you doing that?’ But they’re stupid people,” he told the Financial Times Sunday.
Oil prices continued to climb Monday – with the price of Brent crude reaching $116 per barrel, the highest since March 19.
President Trump also didn’t rule out an operation which would see US forces seize Kharg Island – a critical terminal where around 90 per cent of Iran’s oil exports are processed.
“Maybe we [will] take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t. We have a lot of options,” he said.
“It would also mean we had to be there [on the island] for a while.”
Trump claimed the US could take Kharg Island “very easily,” claiming: “I don’t think they have any defense.”
Earlier this month, the president boasted how US airstrikes had obliterated every military target on the island, one-third the size of Manhattan.
Iran has beefed up its defenses of Kharg Island by planting anti-armor mines surrounding it and on the shoreline, sources told CNN last week.
The regime has also moved troops as it braces itself for a potential US ground invasion.
An Israeli source previously warned a ground invasion would lead to American casualties.
“The hope is that they won’t take that risk and will instead fire at the oil fields, but there is no way to know,” they told the Jerusalem Post.
Quote:Spain has closed its airspace to US planes involved in attacks on Iran, a step beyond its previous denial of use of jointly-operated military bases, Defence Minister Margarita Robles said on Monday.
“We don’t authorize either the use of military bases or the use of airspace for actions related to the war in Iran,” she told reporters in Madrid.
Spanish newspaper El Pais had first reported the news on Monday, citing military sources.
The closure of the airspace forces military planes to bypass NATO member Spain en route to their targets in the Middle East, but it does not include emergency situations, El Pais added.
“This decision is part of the decision already made by the Spanish government not to participate in or contribute to a war which was initiated unilaterally and against international law,” Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo said during an interview with radio Cadena Ser when asked if the decision to close Spain’s airspace could worsen relations with the United States.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has been one of the most vocal opponents of the US and Israeli attacks on Iran, describing them as reckless and illegal.
President Donald Trump has threatened to cut trade with Madrid for denying the US use of Spain’s bases in the war.
Quote:President Trump said Monday that a deal with Iran was “probably” close to winding down the conflict — but warned the US would obliterate the regime’s power plants, oil wells, and its main export hub, Kharg Island, if negotiations fell through.
Trump noted, however, that a deal was “probably” close.
“The United States of America is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business,’ we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island.”
Kharg Island is Iran’s main export hub.
Trump said the US purposefully hadn’t touched the sites after having previously given an April 6 deadline to Iran.
“This will be in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran has butchered and killed over the old Regime’s 47 year ‘Reign of Terror’,” he said.
The renewed threat came just hours after Trump said late Sunday that the US was negotiating “directly and indirectly” with Iran.
He flagged the possibility, too, of taking Iran’s oil — a move that would require seizing Kharg Island, the terminal through which nearly all of Iran’s oil exports pass.
“Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t,” Trump told the Financial Times, noting that any US presence “would also mean we had to be in there for a while.”
“We have a lot of options,” he said, boasting that the US could “easily” take the island.
Quote:President Trump is considering a military operation to send US soldiers inside Iran to extract nearly 1,000 pounds of uranium from Iran, officials said.
Trump is open to the idea of sending the troops into Iran for days or longer to complete the mission, but the president is considering the risks to American soldiers, US officials familiar with the plan told the Wall Street Journal.
As he weighs the dangers of the operation, Trump has encouraged his advisers to pressure Iran to agree to give up its atomic material as a condition for ending the war, according to the outlet.’
The president and at least some members of his administration believe it would be possible for ground forces to seize Iran’s enriched uranium stockpiles in a way that would not extend the war, which officials hope would be completed by mid-April, the WSJ reported.
Iran’s uranium stockpiles are believed to be housed in Iran’s underground facilities in Isfahan and Natanz, according to International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi.
Isfahan, located 270 miles south of Tehran, is believed to be where the majority of Tehran’s 60% enriched uranium is located, with Natanz likely holding additional caches of uranium in its fortified Pickaxe Mountain facility.
Little is known about that nuclear facility, with Israeli outlets reporting that it could be about 330 feet below the mountain base, more than 30 feet deeper into the ground than Iran’s Fordow fuel enrichment plant.
Quote:WASHINGTON — President Trump on Monday put Iran and the speaker of the Islamic Republic’s parliament on notice after Tehran attacked Israel’s biggest oil refinery and told The Post his response is coming “shortly.”
Iran escalated its attack on infrastructure by striking a water and electrical plant in Kuwait, and an oil refinery was set ablaze in the northern Israeli city of Haifa after the Iranian missile attack. Asked for his response on the strike, he told The Post: “You’ll see shortly.”
As Trump brings more military might to the region that could inflict catastrophic damage on Iran, he encouraged what’s left of Iran’s regime to make a deal before it’s too late and said he would hit them where it really hurt: their energy infrastructure.
He exclusively told The Post that the US will find out whether the speaker is willing to work with Americans –soon.
“We’re gonna find out,” Trump told The Post when asked about Iran’s Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. “I’ll let you know that in about a week.”
Ghalibaf issued his own warning in response, writing on social media that attacking Iran’s infrastructure would be a “big mistake.”
“The enemy promotes its desires as news while threatening our nation at same time. Big Mistake. If they hit one,they’ll take several back. God willing, the people of Iran,under the leadership of the Supreme Leader,will make the enemy regret the aggression and reclaim their rights,” he wrote.
The president described a dramatic shake-up inside Iran, claiming the old guard has effectively been wiped out and replaced by a new group he said has so far been easier to work with.
“There has been total regime change because the regimes of the past are gone and we’re dealing with a whole new set of people,” Trump said. “And thus far, they’ve been much more reasonable.”
Pressed on whether these are new figures compared to past US adversaries in Tehran, Trump didn’t mince words.
Quote:President Trump shared jaw-dropping video footage Monday of a massive explosion in Iran reportedly caused by a US airstrike on a large ammunition depot in Isfahan.
A “high volume” of 2,000-pound bunker buster bombs was used in the strike posted by Trump on Truth Social, a US official told the Wall Street Journal.
The footage that caught the president’s eye is one of several videos of fiery blasts that have taken place in Isfahan, the country’s third-most populous city and the location of the majority of Tehran’s 60% enriched uranium as well as a sprawling “missile city”.
One purported video showed a mushroom cloud forming over the target of one of the airstrikes and the sky turning red-orange from the column of flame.
The explosions were so powerful they could be seen from the Meteosat 12 weather satellite, according to the OSINTtechnical X account.
US Central Command did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will hold a press conference related to Operation Epic Fury on Tuesday morning, the Pentagon announced as the strikes on Isfahan were taking place.
Iran’s uranium stockpiles in Isfahan, located 270 miles south of Tehran, are believed to be housed in facilities deep underground, according to International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi.
The US military bombed a nuclear research center in Isfahan last June during Operation Midnight Hammer.
The city is also home to the Isfahan Missile Complex, Iran’s largest missile assembly and production site, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a global security nonprofit.
One of several so-called “missile cities” in Iran, the Isfahan complex was built with help from North Korea and China in the late 1980s, according to NTI, and handles the assembly and storage of ballistic missiles, as well as the manufacturing of the rocket propellants and components.
US and Israeli aircraft have repeatedly targeted Iran’s underground missile cities throughout the war, waiting for the regime to deploy missile launchers from the sites before striking, the Journal reported earlier this month.
Some experts believe much of Iran’s missile arsenal is now entombed in the subterranean bases as a result of US and Israeli airstrikes.
Quote:President Donald Trump on Monday reposted a clip on Truth Social from a 1987 interview with journalist Barbara Walters in which he argued that the United States should seize Iranian oil installations in response to attacks, resurfacing remarks he made long before entering politics as the U.S.–Israel war with Iran enters a more volatile phase.
The clip, originally aired on ABC’s 20/20, shows a 41‑year‑old Trump criticizing what he described as American weakness and suggesting that if Iran attacked the U.S., Washington should “grab one of their big oil installations” and keep it to recoup losses.
Trump’s decision to amplify the video now comes as oil infrastructure, shipping routes, and the possibility of expanded U.S. involvement are central to the current conflict.
Why It Matters
The timing of Trump’s repost is significant. It arrives amid heightened concern inside Washington and among U.S. allies about whether the conflict could widen beyond air and naval operations, particularly as fighting around the Strait of Hormuz continues to disrupt global energy markets.
By resurfacing an interview in which he openly advocated seizing Iranian oil assets, Trump is reinforcing a message he has repeated in recent days—that economic leverage and control of energy infrastructure are central to how he views pressure on Tehran. The post also risks inflaming tensions at a moment when some Republican lawmakers have publicly expressed unease about escalation and have warned against any move that could draw U.S. ground forces into the war.
What To Know
In the 1987 interview, conducted during the Iran‑Iraq War and years after the Iranian hostage crisis, Trump told Walters the U.S. should respond forcefully to Iranian aggression. When pressed on how such a move would work, including whether it could mean war, Trump argued weakness itself invited conflict and said the U.S. should seize and hold oil installations to offset losses.
Trump reposted the clip on Monday after it had circulated widely on social media, presenting it as evidence that his thinking on Iran has remained consistent over time. The resurfaced remarks dovetail with comments he has made over the past several days, in which he again floated the idea of taking Iranian oil assets as part of a broader strategy to pressure Tehran.
Those more recent comments have centered on Kharg Island, Iran’s primary oil export hub located in the Persian Gulf. In interviews and public remarks over the weekend, Trump suggested seizing or controlling the island was among the options available, while insisting no final decision had been made.
Kharg Island sits at the heart of Iran’s energy infrastructure, handling the vast majority of the country’s crude exports. Any attempt to seize or neutralize the facility would represent a major escalation, likely requiring a sustained military presence to secure and operate the site, and would carry significant economic and geopolitical consequences. Analysts have warned such a move could provoke wider retaliation and further destabilize shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, through which a significant share of the world’s oil supply passes.
Trump’s repost also lands amid visible Republican infighting over the direction of the war. Several GOP lawmakers have said they oppose deploying U.S. ground troops into Iran and have complained the White House has not clearly articulated its endgame. Others have raised constitutional concerns about Congress’s role in authorizing extended military operations. Against that backdrop, reviving language about “taking” oil assets risks deepening skepticism within Trump’s own party.
At the same time, the White House has continued to project confidence, arguing that military pressure and economic leverage can be applied without committing to a full‑scale ground war. Administration officials have emphasized all options remain on the table, while insisting no decision has been made to send American troops into direct ground combat inside Iran.
Quote:WASHINGTON — Shocking leaked audio showed a lefty Democratic hopeful for Michigan Senate telling campaign staffers he wanted to avoid taking a position on the death of late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei because many voters were distraught over it.
Abdul El-Sayed warned staffers that “there are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad” about Khamenei’s death, so he’d pivot straight to the “pedophile president” instead.
“I’m just gonna go straight to pedophilia, frankly,” El-Sayed told staffers about how he’d navigate questions on Khamenei’s death, per leaked audio from a March 1 campaign strategy session obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
“I’ll just be like, ‘Pedophile president decides that he doesn’t like the front page news, so he decides to take us into another war.'”
Khamenei, who had been one of the world’s longest-serving dictators at the time, had been killed by Israeli strikes a day earlier, something Iran later confirmed.
As an ayatollah, Khamenei was also a religious leader under Shia Islam. Iran has the biggest population of Shiite Muslims in the world. Khamenei became an ayatollah overnight in 1989 despite lacking the religious prerequisites after ascending to the role of supreme leader.
Dearborn, Michigan, has the largest per capita concentration of Arab-Americans and Muslims of any city in the US. It is also predominantly Shiite Muslim, despite Sunni Islam being the far larger branch of that religion globally.
Despite typically being a Democratic stronghold, President Trump won a plurality there in 2024, amid a revolt against former Vice President Kamala Harris over the Israel-Hamas war.
“I also want to remind you guys that there are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad today,” El-Sayed explained to his team, per the leaked discussion. “So, like, I just don’t want to comment on Khamenei at all. Like, I don’t think it’s worth even touching that.”
“We have the moral high ground here,” he went on, noting that reporters will “try and bait us into saying, ‘Yeah, but isn’t it justified now that they took [Khamenei] out, right? And I just think, for us, we’ve got to be, like, ‘no.'”
The progressive Senate hopeful also suggested that his campaign could pivot from questions on Khamenei to attack the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Someone on his team was apprehensive about him pivoting to Israel.
Quote:Joe Kent, the former head of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) who resigned from the Trump administration earlier this month over the Iran war, posted a video message on X on Monday urging Americans to contact the White House and their members of Congress to oppose sending U.S. ground troops into the conflict.
In the post, Kent included phone numbers for the White House comment line and the congressional switchboard, calling it a “call to action” and urging people to “respectfully” tell elected officials they do not support American boots on the ground in Iran.
His message comes as the White House faces mounting pressure—from critics and some allies—to clarify whether the escalating conflict could expand beyond air and naval operations.
Why It Matters
Late last month, the United States and Israel targeted key military targets in Iran and killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other government leaders. Iran responded by launching missiles and drones targeting Israel and several Gulf Arab states that host U.S. armed forces.
Kent’s appeal underscores growing unease within the Republican Party about the direction of the war, particularly as discussions turn toward the possibility of deploying ground forces. The Trump administration has repeatedly said no decision has been made to send U.S. troops into Iran, but officials are weighing scenarios that could involve American forces securing critical infrastructure.
As a former senior counterterrorism official and military veteran, Kent’s public break with the administration—and his direct appeal to voters—adds weight to a broader debate inside the GOP about escalation, war powers, and the political risks of another prolonged Middle East conflict.
The call also reflects a tension between President Donald Trump’s “America First” campaign rhetoric and the realities of an expanding war, a gap that critics say could erode support among parts of his conservative base if ground combat becomes part of the mission.
What to Know
In his video, Kent warned that Trump would face “immense pressure” in the coming days to commit U.S. ground troops to Iran. He described such a move as a “catastrophic escalation” that would lead to more bloodshed and further entrench the war.
He urged Americans to make clear they oppose sending troops into Iran by using the numbers he listed. “This is how we the people can have our voices heard,” he said, adding that while prayer was important, citizens also needed to “work towards peace.”
Kent resigned earlier this month as director of the NCTC, saying he could not “in good conscience” support the war. In his resignation letter, he argued Iran posed no imminent threat to the U.S. and said the conflict had been launched under pressure from Israel and its allies. The letter drew sharp rebukes from the White House, with Trump calling Kent “very weak on security” and dismissing his assessment of the threat posed by Iran.
Kent’s departure quickly became a flashpoint inside conservative media, with some praising him for taking a stand and others accusing him of undermining the administration during wartime. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard publicly defended the president’s authority to determine what constitutes an imminent threat, pushing back on Kent’s claims.
Quote:The American University of Beirut said it will shift to remote operations on Monday and Tuesday following Iranian threats against US-affiliated universities in the region.
AUB President Fadlo Khuri said in a statement on Sunday that while there was no evidence of a direct threat to the university or its medical centers, classes and exams would be held online “out of an abundance of caution.” Only essential personnel will be allowed on campus.
Khuri reaffirmed the university’s commitment to “peaceful self-determination and nonviolence,” urging that educational and healthcare institutions be spared from regional conflict.
The American University of Madaba (Jordan) and the American University of Sharjah (UAE) also switched to remote learning.
Quote:The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has called for the U.S. to pull all of its troops from the European country after reports suggested U.S. President Donald Trump is considering withdrawing American soldiers from the country.
AfD co-leader, Tino Chrupalla, told a party gathering in east Germany on Saturday that the country should chase an "independent" foreign policy, starting with the removal of American soldiers.
Just under 40,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Germany, close to half the total number in Europe.
The country hosts the major Ramstein air base, home to NATO's air and space forces, vital for coordinating activities like air defense operations. German bases are also a springboard for U.S. missions in the Middle East.
AfD has long called for foreign soldiers to leave Germany, and the party's manifesto demands the withdrawal of all nuclear weapons from German soil.
The U.S. keeps roughly 100 B-61 nuclear gravity bombs in bases across Europe, including in western Germany. These are tactical nuclear weapons, less destructive than the long-range missiles launched from U.S. silos, submarines and bombers that can level cities.
Trump and his administration have long weighed up whether to dramatically scale back the U.S. military footprint in Europe, originally part of Washington's pivot to the Indo-Pacific and the threat of China.
Europe has at once tried to quickly boost their military spending while keeping the U.S. invested in protecting the continent, including with troops based in countries like Germany.
Trump is still debating whether to transfer troops out of Germany, British newspaper The Telegraph reported Friday, citing sources close to the president.
But despite conflicting messages from the administration, the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act—signed into law back in December—blocked the U.S. government taking U.S. troop numbers in Europe below 76,000 for more than 45 days.
Meanwhile, the Iran war, now in its fifth week, has drawn more than 50,000 U.S. soldiers to the Middle East, with thousands of Marines and elite paratroopers expected to arrive in the region with extra ships, aircraft and weapons in the coming weeks.
Trump's next steps aren't clear, but the White House has kept ground operations on Iranian territory firmly on the table as Iran maintains its chokehold on the vital Strait of Hormuz trade route and wreaked havoc with global fuel prices.
Quote:WASHINGTON — Most Transportation Security Administration employees received back pay on Monday from the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, but it may be a while before airport security lines return to normal.
DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis confirmed Monday that TSA workers have received at least two missed paychecks as the shutdown hit a record-breaking 44th day.
“A small population might see a slight delay due to a variety of reasons, including financial institution processing times or issues with their direct deposit,” Bis added.
“We are working aggressively with USDA’s National Finance Center to complete processing for the half paycheck they are owed from pay period 3 as soon as possible.”
According to DHS, more than 500 TSA agents working without pay during the more than 40-day shutdown ended up quitting. Thousands more called out of work.
A local federal union rep told MS NOW that the pay “will significantly bring down the wait times” at US airports and bring “a majority” of the employees back to the job.
According to multiple TSA agents at LaGuardia Airport on Monday, the backpay has started to come in and more showed up this morning than last week — but numbers aren’t back to 100% yet.
“We’re being told regular paychecks starting next week. I hope so. I really need it to be over soon,” one male TSA agent told the Post.
Another female agent pointed out, though, that she had yet to see a paycheck. “I’m calling about that all day. I haven’t seen anything,” she said.
“It’s the news screwing everything up!” one TSA supervisor claimed. “We got enough people [transportation security officers] here now, but people are watching the news and they’re coming way too early.”
Quote:TALAHASSEE, Fla. (CBS12) — A bill to rename Palm Beach International Airport as “Donald J. Trump International Airport” was signed by Governor Ron DeSantis and will take effect July 1.
The change also includes a new airport identifier, “DJT,” and directs the appropriate federal agencies to update all references to the new name.
The Federal Aviation Administration said it will coordinate with organizations such as the International Air Transport Association to pursue adoption of the new airport code.
The agency emphasized that airport name changes are a local matter and do not require FAA approval, but it must still complete administrative steps, including updating navigational charts and databases. The renaming follows action at both the state and federal levels, where lawmakers advanced similar proposals recognizing President Donald J. Trump’s ties to Palm Beach County.
Hearing the news, President Trump's son, Eric Trump, took to X announcing that PBIA was renamed to "President Donald Trump International Airport."
"Proud to have played a small role in making this happen," Eric Trump said. He gave special thanks to Meg Weinberger, a Republican running for State House District 94, as well as Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida Attorney General James Uthemeier and the Florida House.
See also: Timeline of Tiger Woods' most consequential public moments; from controversy to comebacks
U.S. Representative Brian Mast (FL-21) introduced companion federal legislation to codify the name change at the national level and ensure coordination across aviation agencies. He said the designation reflects Trump’s longstanding connection to the area and his broader legacy.
“President Donald J. Trump’s impact on our nation will transcend our time—a historic legacy of dedication and commitment toward the American people,” Mast said. “He’s called Palm Beach County ‘home’ for many years, and this designation reflects our gratitude for his public service and leadership.”
Palm Beach International Airport, a major economic driver in the region that serves millions of travelers each year, has been the focus of increased legislative attention in Florida. Earlier this year, the Florida House approved the renaming proposal in an 81–30 vote, aligning with similar legislation in the state Senate.
State funding — including $2.75 million outlined in the Senate budget — has been allocated for signage, branding updates, and operational changes needed to implement the new name by the July 1 effective date.
Following the renaming, the Florida Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell stating:
“Life keeps getting more expensive for working families and seniors in Florida, which is why Democrats spent this legislative session fighting for an affordability agenda to lower costs and put more money back in your pocket. Instead of working across the aisle with us to advance those bills, Republican leaders decided to prioritize wasting five million of your taxpayer dollars on renaming an airport after the President. Your money is being misused to celebrate the man who caused gas prices to rise to over four dollars a gallon, grocery costs to shoot up, and health care prices to spike. Republicans are out of touch when it comes to the real issues impacting Floridians. The people of Florida did not ask for this. It’s clear Tallahassee Republicans care more about political stunts than they care about your wallet.”
Quote:Teens across the nation are wreaking havoc by holding “takeovers” — wild and often violent gatherings which are overwhelming local police forces.
People chasing internet notoriety organize the meetups online, which spread like wildfire, prompting mobs of hundreds to turn up unannounced at public spaces like shopping malls, city streets, parking lots and businesses and taking them over.
The planned events have spread across the country from Florida to Virginia to Chicago and Washington DC, with videos posted from one fueling the next, according to law enforcement sources.
On Saturday eight juveniles were arrested in Brandon, Florida, after hundreds of kids “overwhelmed” a trampoline park and refused to get off its equipment, even after it was forced to closed to deal with the takeover. All those arrested were charged with trespassing.
Other takeovers have turned violent. In February five people aged between 15 and 18 were shot shortly after cops broke up a takeover attended by some 130 revelers at Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Cops said they’d determined one of the organizers had also been behind another takeover two weeks earlier, which was largely organized through Instagram.
A teen takeover in Henrico County, Virginia, resulted in a mall closing early and some patrons locked in stores, as well as a “very large fight,” per local police. After that chaos, authorities the next county over took action to thwart a takeover planned at Chesterfield Towne Center mall’s parking lot.
“It’s a national trend in which people use social media to let others know about gathering to occupy an area, with or without cars,” Lt. Col. Frank Carpenter, chief of the Chesterfield County Police Department, told The Post. “They put out fliers on social media.
“It’s almost like they want to have free nights to do whatever they want, like in ‘Grand Theft Auto’ or ‘The Purge,’ ” he said, latterly referencing a dystopian horror movie where all crime is deemed permissible for 12 hours.
Quote:Internal emails from a senior White House official show he suggested federal immigration agents responding to protests in Los Angeles last summer should have used immediate physical force to disperse demonstrators.
Joseph Mazzara, then-acting general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), wrote in a June 11 email discussing the response to the Los Angeles protests that troops and agents deployed in the city should have immediately used physical force to disperse crowds.
“They should have, when they brought the [troops] in, just started hitting the rioters and arresting everyone that couldn’t get away from them,” Mazzara wrote in an email obtained by the nonprofit watchdog group American Oversight through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). “No one likes being hit by a stick, and people tend to run when that starts happening in earnest.”
Newsweek has contacted the DHS and the White House for via email comment.
Why It Matters
Last summer, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) carried out widespread operations in Los Angeles, triggering public backlash and large-scale protests that, in some cases, escalated into unrest. In response, the National Guard and other personnel were deployed to support crowd control and security efforts. California Governor Gavin Newsom criticized the federal response and sued President Donald Trump's administration over the deployment of the National Guard.
What To Know
The email chain shows Homeland Security attorneys discussing a June 9 lawsuit filed by Newsom challenging Trump’s deployment of thousands of California National Guard troops to Los Angeles. Under the subject line “California DOD [Department of Defense] Lawsuit,” officials coordinated legal filings defending the deployment and included a draft declaration from a Los Angeles ICE field office director in support of the action.
In a June 11 message, Mazzara referenced reports of protesters attempting to breach a security line at a federal building, writing that he was “floored” by the “battering ram incident” and described it as “wild.”
Mazzara later became deputy commissioner of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). He is among a group of 10 staff members who accompanied former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to the U.S. Department of State after she was removed from her position at the helm of the DHS and reassigned as a special envoy for the Shield of the Americas initiative, Politico reported.
Mazzara is a married father of six and a Marine combat veteran, according to the DHS website. He graduated from Christendom College and Scalia Law, and clerked for Judges Edith Jones, Brantley Starr, and Stephen Vaden. He previously served as Special Counsel to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
After the U.S. Supreme Court raised concerns about the Trump administration’s legal rationale for using military personnel in domestic law enforcement, Trump moved to begin withdrawing National Guard troops from Los Angeles and other Democrat led-cities.
I think this is something I can't agree with Newsweek. SCOTUS is not the biggest reason why the current administration stopped deploying many ICE and CBP agents in different parts of the country. Instead, I would point at the last few months of Kristi Noem's tenure in DHS to the actual need to change the strategy. Especially after some protesters died after confronting ICE agents, one even tried killing an agent by running over him. Keep in mind that later Trump picked Tim Homan to solve the issues arising in Minnesota.
My posture would be different if we were talking about tariffs controversy. There SCOTUS had a big role in it, that's for sure.
Quote:The mayor of Rhode Island’s capital city is calling for a mural reportedly backed by Elon Musk to honor Iryna Zarutska —the Ukrainian woman whose brutal murder while riding a North Carolina train prompted calls for harsher punishment for career criminals — to be taken down.
The mural, located on the exterior of The Dark Lady, an LGBTQ+ club in downtown Providence, remains incomplete, WJAR-TV reported.
The office of Mayor Brett Smiley told the news outlet that he wants the artwork taken down.
“The murder of the individual depicted in this mural was a devastating tragedy, but the misguided, isolating intent of those funding murals like the one across the county is divisive and does not represent Providence,” Smiley said in a statement.
He said he continues to “encourage our community to support local artists whose work brings us closer together rather than divide us.”
Artist Ian Gaudreau, who began the work last week, told the news outlet that he never intended for the tribute to be political.
Upon learning of a project to memorialize Zarutska, Musk said he would donate $1 million in a September 2025 post on X.
Zarutska, a 23-year-old refugee who fled her country after the Russian invasion, was brutally stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack while riding the Lynx Blue Line light rail in Charlotte, NC, last year.
The suspect, Decarlos Brown Jr., 34, is charged with violence against a railroad carrier and mass transportation system resulting in death, which is a capital offense under federal law.
Has the mayor even asked his constituents if they truly want the mural to be destroyed or replaced?
Is he now saying that, as a Democrat, he doesn't care about immigrants?
Quote:SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The University of Southern California canceled a gubernatorial debate planned for Tuesday after candidates of color who would have been excluded accused the school of discrimination.
Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco, and Democrats Tom Steyer, Katie Porter, Eric Swalwell and Matt Mahan, who are all white, were slated to participate in the debate hosted by the University of Southern California’s Dornsife Center for the Political Future and KABC-TV. But four established Democratic candidates of color, Antonio Villaraigosa, Xavier Becerra, Betty Yee and Tony Thurmond, didn’t meet the criteria to participate.
No clear front-runner has emerged in the crowded race ahead of the June 2 primary. Ballots will go out in early May.
The university has defended a formula used to select the participants and denied allegations of bias. A public policy professor independently developed the criteria based on candidates’ polling and fundraising, the university said in a statement Friday.
A group of 50 public policy and social science scholars from across the country defended the professor in a letter to the university’s president on Monday.
Do Democratic politicians even buy their own propaganda nowadays?
Quote:Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, is facing an ethics complaint filed by a conservative organization alleging her campaign improperly used $19,000 in funds for a psychiatrist.
Newsweek reached out to Ocasio-Cortez’s office for comment via email.
Why It Matters
Ocasio-Cortez is a prominent member of Congress. She’s viewed as one of the most progressive members of the House of Representatives and has been floated as a potential candidate in either the 2028 presidential race or as a challenger to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, also a Democrat.
The complaint has drawn scrutiny from her Republican critics on social media.
What To Know
The complaint was filed by the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) on March 27, with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
It alleges the funds “ostensibly for ‘leadership training and consulting'” were “expended instead for personal psychiatric services provided to AOC or members of her campaign staff.”
“Accordingly, those expenses were also misreported by the campaign committee with the FEC. NLPC requests that the FEC and [Office of Congressional Conduct] immediately investigate the facts and circumstances of these payments and impose appropriate penalties and disciplinary sanctions against AOC,” the complaint reads.
NLPC Counsel Paul Kamenar told the conservative news outlet One America News Network that “is not a legitimate campaign expense.”
“If Representative Ocasio-Cortez needs psychiatric care, she should pay for it with her own money—not with donations from supporters who thought they were contributing to her political campaign,” he said.
The complaint points to disbursements made to Dr. Brian Boyle in Brookline, Massachusetts, for “leadership training and consulting” in March, May and October 2025.
Details about what those trainings consisted of remained unclear.
Boyle specializes in Spravato, ketamine and TMS therapy, according to Psychology Today. However, it's not known whether any of those therapies were used during the training with Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign.
The complaint alleges he does not advertise “leadership training,” and there is reason to believe the services “were for therapeutic treatment of AOC or her campaign staff as his patients,” which would “constitute personal use.”
Ocasio-Cortez has not responded publicly to the complaint.
Quote:Attorneys for U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell sent a cease-and-desist letter to FBI Director Kash Patel on Monday, demanding he immediately halt any effort to release records from a decade-old investigation involving the California Democrat and a suspected Chinese operative. The probe produced no criminal charges.
Newsweek reached out to the FBI via email on Monday for comment.
Why It Matters
The Justice Department has a longstanding policy against publicly disclosing records from investigations that do not result in charges. Swalwell's legal team argues Patel's actions would violate that policy and federal law—and that the effort is politically motivated.
Swalwell is running for governor of California, and his attorneys contend the files' release is designed to damage his campaign rather than serve any legitimate law enforcement purpose.
What To Know
The investigation dates back to Christine Fang's contact with Swalwell's congressional campaign beginning in 2012, when she also participated in fundraising for his 2014 race.
Federal investigators briefed Swalwell and Congress about Fang in 2015, at which point Swalwell says he severed all contact with her. He was never accused of any wrongdoing, and a House Ethics Committee investigation opened in 2021 was closed two years later without any action taken.
The Washington Post first reported that Patel had directed agents to review and redact the files in preparation for release. An FBI spokesperson previously told the Post that the bureau "prepares documents for numerous different reasons" but did not directly address the Swalwell matter.
A Yearslong Target
Monday's cease-and-desist is the latest chapter in a multiyear effort by Republican leaders to use the Fang investigation against Swalwell. In March 2021, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tried to have Swalwell removed from the House Intelligence Committee over his contact with Fang, citing the same interactions now at the center of Patel's file review. McCarthy's resolution was voted down in the then-Democratic-led House. He later said, "If you got the briefing I got from the FBI, you wouldn't have Swalwell on any committee."
Democrats pushed back at the time, with then-Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff noting that Republican leaders—including then-Speaker John Boehner and then-Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes—were briefed on the Fang situation when it arose and "expressed no opposition to his continued service" on the panel.
In January 2023, McCarthy again moved to block Swalwell's reappointment to the Intelligence Committee after Republicans reclaimed the House majority, this time succeeding. Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had formally nominated Swalwell for the seat, arguing there was "no precedent or justification" for rejecting him. Swalwell contended it was not the speaker's place to remove members from committees based on "fabricated stories or political revenge."
Patel, who listed Swalwell among dozens of perceived Trump adversaries in his 2023 book Government Gangsters, now oversees the FBI files at the center of the latest dispute.
Quote:Asked in 1975 whether it bothered her that she was frequently called upon to be “sexy”, the actor Valerie Perrine said: “It’s not something I mind like being bitten by a mosquito.” On the contrary, she often revelled in it, considering herself “the 1970s version of Mae West”.
Perrine, who has died aged 82 after suffering from Parkinson’s disease, was blissfully unselfconscious, entirely untrained and claimed never even to have read a script before making her screen debut as the porn star Montana Wildhack, who is abducted by aliens in the 1972 film of Kurt Vonnegut’s book Slaughterhouse-Five. “There’s nothing so mysterious about acting,” said Perrine. “You’re either good at it or you’re not. I happen to be good at it.”
Despite the emphasis on sexuality and nudity in her early roles, such as the television play Steambath (1973), she was too witty and skilful a performer to be mistaken for eye candy. She received an Oscar nomination, as well as the Cannes film festival’s best actress prize, for her impressively raw work in Lenny (also 1974) as the stripper Honey, wife of the provocative stand-up Lenny Bruce (Dustin Hoffman), who must navigate her husband’s whims and demands while dealing with her own emotional tumult. The film’s director, Bob Fosse, told her she was “the best actress I’ve ever worked with”.
In the blockbuster Superman (1978), Perrine, whose surname rhymed with “divine”, was exactly that as Eve Teschmacher, sparky moll to the arch-villain Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman), who continually patronises and underestimates her. She eventually comes to the rescue of Superman when he is drowning after Luthor has hung a chunk of Kryptonite around his neck. Eve sneaks a kiss on the wilted superhero’s lips before saving him, then asks plaintively: “Why is it I can’t get it on with the good guys?” Not having learned her lesson, she helps Luthor break out of prison in Superman II (1981).
Perrine played the ex-wife of a rodeo rider (Robert Redford) in The Electric Horseman (1979), but considered her prospects ruined after appearing in the notorious flop Can’t Stop the Music (1980), an oddly straitlaced showcase for the gay-coded pop group Village People. She played a retired model who is shown in the opening credits doodling a moustache on one of her own advertising campaigns on the side of a bus.
Quote:Actor James Tolkan, known for his role as the Hill Valley High principal in “Back to the Future” and the no-nonsense commanding officer in “Top Gun” has died. He was 94.
Tolkan died Thursday in Lake Placid, N.Y., where he lived, his booking agent, John Alcantar, told the Associated Press on Saturday.
In “Back to the Future,” Tolkan portrayed Vice Principal Gerald Strickland, who surveyed the school’s halls with a whistle around his neck and a tardy slip burning a hole in his pocket.
“You got a real attitude problem, McFly,” Tolkan’s character snaps at Michael J. Fox’s character, Marty McFly, in the cult classic 1985 film. “You’re a slacker. You remind me of your father when he went here. He was a slacker, too.”
The line became one of Tolkan’s most famous, and mega-fans would flock to Comic-Cons around the country to ask the star to call them a slacker, requests he typically obliged.
The actor had a number of film and television gigs through the 1960s and ’70s, but he was doing David Mement’s Broadway play “Glengarry Glen Ross” when he got the offer to play Strickland in “Back to the Future.”
“I always said, ‘I’m never going to Hollywood until they send for me,’ ” he told T.C. Restani during a 2015 interview. “And I said, OK, this is my chance. And of course, nobody realized that it was going to be such an important picture. But it was. It was one of those marvelous events where all the planets were aligned and ‘Back to the Future’ became this shooting star of a movie.”
Quote:A huge shipment of 12 tonnes of KitKat - over 400,000 chocolate bars - was stolen last week in Europe while being transported by truck between production and distribution facilities.
The Swiss food giant Nestlé reported that 12 tonnes of KitKat chocolate bars were stolen in Europe, warning that this could lead to shortages in stores just before Easter.
“A truck carrying 413,793 units of our new chocolate range was stolen during its transit in Europe,” KitKat, a Nestlé brand, said in a statement to AFP. The load, weighing approximately 12 tonnes, disappeared last week while travelling between production and distribution sites, the company said.
With one week to go until Easter, the brand warned that “this theft could lead to a shortage of KitKat on shelves”.
Before being stolen, the truck had left central Italy and was heading towards Poland, with the intention of distributing the bars in the countries it passed through.
KitKat did not specify exactly where the goods had disappeared but said that “the vehicle and its contents remain untraceable”. “Investigations are continuing in close collaboration with local authorities and supply chain partners,” it said.
It warned that the missing chocolate bars “could enter unofficial sales channels on European markets”. The brand said it was possible to trace the stolen products by scanning the barcodes on each bar.
“In the event of a match, the scanner will receive clear instructions on how to alert KitKat, which will then pass on this evidence appropriately,” it said.
Quote:ROME, March 30 (Reuters) - Three paintings by French masters Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cezanne and Henri Matisse, reportedly worth an estimated $10 million in total, have been stolen from a museum in northern Italy, police said on Monday.
The theft took place at the Fondazione Magnani Rocca, on the outskirts of the city of Parma, during the night of March 22-23, the Carabinieri police said in a statement.
Thieves broke into the building's main entrance and took Cezanne's "Tasse et Plat de Cerises" (Cup and plate of cherries), Renoir's "Les Poissons" (The fish) and Matisse's "Odalisque sur la Terrasse" (Odalisque on the terrace), the police added.
Italian public broadcaster Rai reported the stolen works were worth 9 million euros ($10.34 million), a figure that was not confirmed by the Carabinieri.
THEFT TOOK LESS THAN THREE MINUTES
The museum, home to a private collection compiled by the late music critic and musicologist Luigi Magnani, said separately that the theft took less than three minutes.
The Fondazione Magnani Rocca's collection also includes works by Titian, Francisco Goya, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Claude Monet, Peter Paul Rubens and Giorgio Morandi, according to its website.
($1 = 0.8701 euros)
Quote:Beijing renewed grievances with Washington on Friday over what it described as systemic bias against Chinese scientists, following the reported suicide of a postdoctoral researcher living in the United States.
During the Chinese Foreign Ministry's regular press conference, spokesperson Lin Jian responded to a query about the researcher, who state media said had died one day after being interrogated by U.S. law enforcement.
“We are deeply saddened by this tragedy and have made solemn representations to the United States,” Lin said. He added that Chinese diplomatic missions had been in contact with the family of the deceased and were assisting with follow‑up arrangements.
The official did not disclose further details about the individual or the U.S. agency said to have questioned them.
China's Embassy in the U.S. told Newsweek it was not yet familiar with the case.
"For some time now, the U.S. side has broadened the concept of 'national security' for political purposes, subjecting Chinese students and scholars to unwarranted questioning and harassment," he stated. "Such actions infringe upon the legitimate and lawful rights and interests of Chinese citizens, undermine the normal atmosphere of people‑to‑people exchanges between China and the United States, and have created a serious chilling effect.”
Lin demanded that the U.S. carry out an investigation into the case and stop discriminatory law enforcement targeting Chinese scholars and students.
Newsweek reached out by email to the U.S. Justice and State Departments with requests for comment.
Chinese officials have repeatedly accused Washington of anti-Chinese prejudice since President Donald Trump’s first term, particularly after the Justice Department launched the China Initiative in 2018.
The program aimed to counter economic espionage and intellectual property theft linked to China. However, public court records and subsequent reviews by journalists and advocacy groups found many cases instead centered on alleged failures to disclose foreign affiliations or funding on grant applications rather than spying on behalf of Beijing.
Trump administration officials defended the initiative as necessary to protect U.S. research and national security, arguing that Beijing was exploiting academic openness to access advanced technology. Yet advocacy groups and critics in academia said that the initiative fueled racial profiling and damaged the U.S.'s reputation as a destination for scientific talent.
The initiative was wound down by former President Joe Biden in 2022. An effort by congressional Republicans to revive it stalled after stiff opposition from Asian American advocacy groups and their allies.
Quote:A bipartisan U.S. Senate delegation has drawn a protest from Beijing after it arrived in Taiwan to press lawmakers to boost defense spending amid a widening military gap across the Taiwan Strait.
“Taiwan firmly opposes official interactions between the U.S. and the Taiwan region and has lodged serious representations with the U.S. side,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said during Monday’s regular press briefing.
While the U.S., like most countries, switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing, Washington maintains robust unofficial ties with Taipei and supplies it with arms under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act. A special defense budget requested by President Lai Ching-te, however, has for months been in a state of limbo in Taiwan’s opposition-controlled legislature, which favors closer ties with Beijing and has raised concerns over oversight and spending details.
China considers self-ruled Taiwan part of its territory and a core interest, and routinely condemns U.S. arms sales to the island. The issue is expected to feature in upcoming talks between President Donald Trump and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing.
In December, the Trump administration approved a record $11-billion arms package for Taiwan. Continued delays in passing the special budget could complicate follow-on acquisitions, including additional HIMARS rocket systems and other capabilities that would strengthen the island's defense capabilities.
Newsweek has reached out to Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Washington and to the Taiwanese opposition party Kuomintang for comment.
“The U.S. should adhere to the One China principle and the three China-U.S. joint communiqués, handle the Taiwan question with prudence, stop all forms of official interactions with the Taiwan region, and stop sending any wrong signals to Taiwan independence forces,” Mao said, adding that Beijing would take all necessary measures to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The U.S. has for decades followed a “one China” policy, acknowledging—but not endorsing—Beijing’s claim over Taiwan. The three joint communiqués, issued as Washington and Beijing normalized relations in the late 1970s and early 1980s, include a U.S. commitment to gradually reducing arms sales to Taiwan, without setting a timeline.
On the first day of their two-day visit to Taiwan, the senators stressed “peace through strength” during an event at Taiwan’s Presidential Office, urging the Legislative Yuan to pass the defense budget and reaffirming U.S. support, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency.
“I’d like to personally endorse the special defense budget and tell you that, back in Washington, D.C., my colleagues are watching—this is important,” said Utah Republican John Curtis, who co-led the delegation with New Hampshire's Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat. “We want to make sure that as we invest in this part of the world, you are also investing, and that we’re in this together.”
Joining them were Republican Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Jacky Rosen, a Nevada Democrat.
Quote:The Donald Trump administration announced Monday that it was reopening the United States Embassy in Venezuela, calling it a "key milestone."
After seven years of working through Bogota in neighboring Colombia, the U.S. State Department said the embassy in Caracas would resume its work.
The embassy was closed during the first Trump administration in 2019, amid a decline in relations between the two countries.
"The resumption of operations at U.S. Embassy Caracas is a key milestone in implementing the President’s three‑phase plan for Venezuela and will strengthen our ability to engage directly with Venezuela’s interim government, civil society, and the private sector," the State Department said in a statement.
In January, the U.S. military captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. The interim Venezuelan government led by acting President Delcy Rodríguez signaled interest in restoring ties with the U.S. For several years, the U.S. had also warned Americans against traveling to Venezuela, amid ongoing unrest under Maduro's leadership.
US Embassy in Venezuela Reopens: What To Know
The short announcement Monday marked a significant moment for U.S.-Venezuelan relations, following the resumption of some American flights to the country earlier in March and the two governments saying diplomatic relations were back on.
The U.S. Embassy in Caracas had been closed since March 2019, with the U.S. State Department's work carried out through the Venezuela Affairs Unit (VAU) based out of Colombia.
The building itself is said to be in need of repair, including tackling a mold issue. The department said Ambassador Laura F. Dogu was leading efforts to "restore the chancery building" so that it was ready for staff to get back to work.
On March 19, the U.S. announced that it had lowered its travel warning for Venezuela to a Level 3: reconsider travel. American travelers were still being warned of risks of crime and kidnapping, but the level marked a step down from an outright ban on heading to Venezuela.
It was not immediately clear what impact the embassy reopening would have on immigration to the U.S., with the Trump administration taking a far tougher stance on Venezuelan immigrants than the Joe Biden administration did.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has moved to pull two key policies, including Temporary Protected Status, that was used by Venezuelan immigrants seeking to stay in the U.S., and another known as CHNV, or Humanitarian Parole, that allowed immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to apply for legal status in their home country, then fly to the U.S. The latter was ended shortly after Trump's return to office.
Venezuela also remains on the partial travel ban list, preventing certain visas from being issued.
Quote:A Russian oil tanker carrying approximately 730,000 barrels of crude is on course to reach Cuba by Tuesday, after President Donald Trump said he has "no problem" with the delivery — even as his administration maintains an aggressive blockade of the island and Trump himself warned just days earlier that "Cuba is next."
Newsweek reached out to Cuba's defense department by email on Sunday for comment.
Why It Matters
Trump's oil blockade against Cuba — among the most aggressive economic pressure campaigns by any U.S. administration in recent history — has produced widespread civilian suffering, including island-wide blackouts, crippled hospitals, and gutted public transportation. The tanker's arrival would provide temporary relief, but Trump cast doubt on its long-term impact, calling Cuba "finished" under the leadership of President Miguel Díaz-Canel.
What To Know
Tracking data shows the tanker was positioned off the eastern tip of Cuba on Sunday night, with an expected arrival in the port city of Matanzas by Tuesday. Cuban state media journalists reported the vessel was expected to dock, though Cuban officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump confirmed the tanker would be permitted to proceed during remarks to reporters aboard Air Force One Sunday evening, affirming a New York Times report on the matter. He said he had no objection regardless of the ship's origin and dismissed suggestions the move would benefit Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The tanker's passage marks a notable, if narrow, carve-out within a blockade that has been among the most aggressive economic pressure campaigns by any U.S. administration in recent history. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have framed the blockade as a tool to force regime change in Havana — though the humanitarian toll has drawn widespread criticism.
The delivery also arrives just days after Trump told an investment forum in Miami on Friday that "Cuba is next," referencing it alongside what he described as successful military operations in Venezuela and Iran. He quickly walked back the remark, telling the audience to "pretend I didn't say that" but offered no clarification on what action, if any, he was contemplating. Earlier this month, Trump also suggested Cuba could face a "friendly takeover," before adding it might not be friendly.
At the same time, the Trump administration has opened diplomatic talks with Cuban officials in recent weeks. Díaz-Canel has confirmed negotiations are ongoing in an effort to avoid confrontation.
Cuba has been grappling with severe fuel shortages and economic disruption, compounded by the loss of oil shipments from Venezuela following the removal of former leader Nicolás Maduro in January.
Quote:The grandson of the Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro has said most of the island's residents "want to be capitalist, not communist," and called for a deal between President Donald Trump and officials in Havana.
Cuba has for months been squeezed by an American ban on Venezuelan oil imports to the island, which has quickly spiraled into an energy crisis where blackouts and food shortages are common, and healthcare and transportation judder to a halt.
Sandro Castro, who has shot to fame as a controversial social media star, said life in Cuba was "so hard," adding: "there are many people here who want to do capitalism with sovereignty."
Castro does not hold any official positions in Cuba's government.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
Quote:More key European allies are restricting U.S. military access as the Trump administration presses ahead with its war against Iran, with both France and Spain moving to block U.S.-linked aircraft from using their airspace or bases.
France has refused overflight for planes carrying U.S. military supplies to Israel, according to President Donald Trump, marking a rare disruption to routine military coordination between Washington and key European allies.
Their refusals carry operational weight because U.S. bases in Europe are "essential" for supporting Middle East operations, acting as critical staging and transit hubs for military aircraft.
The move marks the latest sign of growing friction between the United States and European allies as President Donald Trump ramps up pressure on NATO partners to support operations tied to the war with Iran.
According to a Tuesday Reuters report, Italy denied permission for U.S. military aircraft to land at the Sigonella Air Base in Sicily before heading to the Middle East, saying Washington had not sought prior authorization from Rome.
An Italian government statement pushed back on reports of a rupture, saying: "With reference to media reports regarding the use of military bases, the government reiterates that Italy acts in full compliance with existing international agreements and with the policy guidelines set out by the government to parliament."
"Relations with the United States, in particular, are solid and based on full and loyal cooperation," the statement added.
A senior U.S. official reinforced Italy’s claim, telling Fox News Digital, "This is false. Italy is currently supportive in providing access, basing and overflight for U.S. forces."
Spain on Monday said it had closed its airspace to U.S. planes involved in strikes, going further than its earlier refusal to allow the use of jointly operated bases. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has been among the most vocal critics of the U.S. and Israeli campaign.
In remarks before parliament Tuesday, Spain’s defense minister said the government had "prohibited the use of the bases of Rota and Morón" and did not grant flight authorizations "to support operations in Iran."
The minister stressed the decision was limited specifically to operations linked to Iran and did not signal a broader break with NATO or the United States.
John Hemmings, director of the National Security Centre at the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based foreign policy think tank, told Fox News Digital the decision reflects deeper tensions.
"If one looks at Spain’s refusal to allow U.S. overflight over its airspace or U.S. bases," Hemmings said, "one could argue it’s a U.S.-Spanish issue. The prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, a socialist, has no love lost for the MAGA movement. But Italy’s refusal comes after Poland’s refusal to allow a U.S. Patriot anti-missile battery to be redeployed and looks like the U.S. wheels are wobbling — if not coming off."
Quote:Austria has denied the United States permission to use its airspace for military operations related to the war with Iran, citing the country’s long‑standing policy of neutrality.
A spokesperson for Austria's defense ministry told Newsweek on Thursday: "For reasons of neutrality, Austria refuses overflights and the transit of troops if these would serve to provide military support to a party to any conflicts. If it is known that a military aircraft or military vehicle is directly or indirectly involved in a conflict, overflight or transit will be denied in consultation with the ministry of foreign affairs."
The move places Austria among a growing number of European countries restricting U.S. military access as Washington and Israel continue their campaign against Iran.
Why It Matters
Austria’s decision underscores mounting diplomatic friction between the U.S. and several European partners as the Middle East conflict deepens. While Austria is not a NATO member, its central geographic position in Europe makes its airspace strategically significant for military transit between Western Europe and the Middle East.
The refusal follows steps similar to those taken by Spain and Italy, which have also restricted U.S. military access to airspace or bases during the conflict—moves that have drawn criticism from the White House and raised questions about alliance cohesion. Spain’s decision last week to bar U.S. military aircraft from its airspace was seen as a particularly sharp break given its NATO membership.
Austria’s action further expands the list of European states limiting cooperation, reinforcing a broader pattern of hesitation among U.S. allies over involvement—direct or indirect—in the war with Iran.
What To Know
According to ORF Radio, Austria’s Defense Ministry confirmed that it has rejected U.S. requests to use Austrian airspace for military operations connected to the conflict, invoking national neutrality laws enshrined after World War II. A ministry spokesperson said there had been several requests from Washington but did not specify how many. Each request was refused because Austrian law prohibits providing military support to any party engaged in an active armed conflict, the spokesperson said.
Austria’s move comes as tensions have escalated between Washington and other European governments over airspace access. Earlier this week, U.S. President Donald Trump publicly criticized France after it declined to allow aircraft carrying U.S. military supplies to Israel to transit French airspace.
Trump accused Paris of being “very unhelpful” and warned that the United States would “remember” the decision, framing it as part of a broader lack of European support for the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran. French officials later pushed back, saying France had not imposed a blanket closure but was reviewing military overflight requests individually in line with its long‑standing policy and international law.
Austria’s move comes as airspace access across Europe and the Middle East has become increasingly contested amid the escalating conflict, forcing military planners to seek longer, more complex transit routes for flights.
Is Austria in NATO?
Austria is not a member of NATO and has maintained a constitutionally enshrined policy of military neutrality since 1955, a status adopted after the Allied occupation following World War II ended. While Austria cooperates with NATO on limited security matters and participates in some European Union defense initiatives, it is legally barred from joining military alliances or providing direct military support to countries engaged in active conflicts.
That neutrality was central to the government’s decision to deny U.S. military overflight requests linked to the war with Iran. Austrian officials emphasized that the refusal does not amount to a blanket ban on all U.S. military flights through Austrian airspace but applies specifically to operations directly connected to active combat, in line with Austria’s neutrality law.
Quote:China has leveled fresh criticism of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran following a string of strikes on nuclear facilities, saying the attacks breach international legal norms and risk undermining the global nonproliferation regime.
"The attacks deal a heavy blow to the authority of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, undermine the international efforts to uphold the nuclear nonproliferation regime, and could bring serious consequences to regional peace, security and stability," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a regular briefing on Tuesday.
The comments come as U.S. and Israeli forces continue targeting Iranian military and nuclear-linked infrastructure. While the campaign has degraded parts of Iran's capabilities, it has also hit civilian infrastructure and caused significant casualties. Iran says more than 2,000 people have been killed.
Late last week saw attacks on the nuclear power facility in Bushehr, a yellowcake production site in Yazd province, and a heavy water facility in Khondab, according to statements from the International Atomic Energy Agency. The agency said only the Bushehr site involved radioactive material and that no off-site release was detected, but renewed calls for restraint to avoid a nuclear incident.
Newsweek has contacted the White House and the Israeli and Iranian foreign ministries for comment.
"Attacks against peaceful nuclear facilities under the safeguards and monitoring of the International Atomic Energy Agency violate the purpose and principles of the U.N. Charter, international law and the Statute of the IAEA," Mao said, adding, "China firmly opposes such attacks and advocates the peaceful settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue through political and diplomatic means."
Her remarks come weeks ahead of a scheduled meeting on the Non-Proliferation Treaty, where member states are set to review compliance and the broader state of the regime. Mao said China was prepared to work with all parties to pursue a diplomatic resolution to the Iran nuclear issue and safeguard the nonproliferation framework.
The conflict has also fueled debate inside Iran over its continued participation in the treaty. Ebrahim Rezaei, a spokesperson for the parliament's national security commission, wrote on X that remaining in the NPT would be "meaningless" because it hadn't benefited the country.
"The United States has withdrawn from 60 international organizations and conventions, and now if we want to exit the NPT, we will probably face surprise and opposition from the West," he added.
Quote:China and Pakistan have put forward a five-point proposal to end the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, now in its fifth week.
The roadmap was unveiled by China's Foreign Ministry late Tuesday following talks between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Pakistani counterpart Mohammad Ishaq Dar in Beijing.
Pakistan maintains close ties with both Washington and Tehran and has in recent days positioned itself as an intermediary, saying it conveyed to Iran a U.S. peace plan.
China and its Pakistani ally have opposed the U.S.-Israeli strikes since they began on February 28 while also condemning Iran’s retaliatory actions in the Gulf, including attacks affecting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, where traffic has slowed sharply.
Both countries have also engaged Iran on maritime access, with a slight uptick in transits involving vessels linked to China and Pakistan in recent days, according to shipping reports.
Newsweek reached out to the U.S. State Department and Iran’s Foreign Ministry for comment.
The joint statement called for the following steps to bring the war to a close.
1. Immediate Ceasefire
All sides should halt hostilities and make “utmost efforts” to prevent further escalation. Humanitarian assistance should be allowed into affected areas.
2. Launch Negotiations
Dialogue and diplomacy are the only viable path to ending the conflict. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iran and Gulf states should be respected, and parties should refrain from the use or threat of force during talks.
3. Protect Civilian Infrastructure
All sides should cease strikes on civilian targets and critical infrastructure, including energy facilities, desalination plants and safeguarded nuclear sites, in line with international humanitarian law.
4. Ensure Maritime Security
Countries should safeguard vessels and crews in the Strait of Hormuz and restore the safe passage of commercial shipping as soon as possible.
5. Uphold the UN Framework
Any resolution should be pursued through multilateral channels and anchored in the U.N. Charter and international law to support a broader and durable settlement.
Neither the U.S. nor Iran had publicly responded to the proposal as of time of writing.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, and said it must halt support for militant groups and curb missile development that could threaten regional neighbors.
...
Quote:Iran hit a tanker off the coast of Qatar and Kuwait International Airport early Wednesday as Tehran remained unrelenting in its attacks on its Gulf Arab neighbors, while acknowledging for the first time that Washington had been in direct contact about a possible ceasefire.
Israel sounded warnings of incoming fire from both Yemen and Iran, while launching its own attacks in Lebanon that killed at least five people.
An airstrike on Tehran appeared to have hit the former US Embassy compound, which has been controlled by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard since the 1979 hostage crisis. Witnesses said buildings outside the massive compound had their windows blown out and that it appears the strike happened inside the walled facility.
With no sign of the war abating and more than 3,000 lives already lost, US President Donald Trump suggested it could be over within two weeks even as he moved to bring thousands more troops to the region.
No signs of Iran relinquishing grip on Strait of Hormuz shipping
Trump has been under growing pressure to end the war as Iran’s grip on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and its attacks on regional energy infrastructure have sent gas prices skyrocketing to their highest level since 2022 and caused broad stock market fluctuations.
Iran throttled ship traffic through the strait, which leads from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, after it was attacked by the US and Israel on Feb. 28. In peacetime, a fifth of the world’s oil transits the strait and the spot price of Brent crude, the international standard, is up more than 40% since the start of the war, trading at more than $104 a barrel.
The US has presented Iran with a 15-point plan aimed at bringing about a ceasefire, which includes a demand for the strait to be reopened. Iran’s own five-point response includes it retaining sovereignty over the waterway, and Trump on Tuesday suggested that the war could be brought to an end even with Iran still controlling the strait.
The US “will not have anything to do with” what happens in the Strait of Hormuz, instead telling reporters that the responsibility for keeping the vital waterway open would belong with countries that rely on it.
Quote:Ships attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz will need secret codes and to pay up to $2 million in Chinese yuan or cryptocurrencies to avoid being attacked by Iran, according to a new report.
After Iran’s lawmakers approved a bill to impose fees on the safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz this week, new guidelines have been set for tankers and cargo ships to buy their way through with a company linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, sources familiar with the deal told Bloomberg.
Once the IRGC has the ship’s files on hand, the vessel would need to fly the flag of a non-enemy nation and transmit a secret, high frequency code to alert the Iranian navy so that it may guide the ship through the strait.
The rules effectively gives Tehran full control over the Strait of Hormuz, a key trade route that oversees the transport of 20% of the world’s oil supply.
Before ships can make the journey through the critical trade route, they must provide full information of their vessel’s ownership, flag, cargo, destination, crew and data from its Automated Identification System — which records a ship’s transit history.
The information is passed on to the IRGC’s navy for background checks to ensure the ships have no links to the US or Israel, according to Bloomberg.
If the background check is passed, the parties then negotiate the price of passage, with oil tankers seeing the starting price at around $1 per barrel of crude, which must be paid in yuan or stable cryptocurrencies.
Quote:Iran has unleashed several new executions — with many more expected to come — over fears of another citizen-led uprising as the embattled regime fights for survival in its war against the US and Israel.
At least four members from the anti-regime organization, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, were executed in the last 48 hours, according to The National Council of Resistance of Iran.
Mohammad Mohaddessin, NCRI’s Foreign Affairs Committee chair, said the four executions were a message from the theocratic, and highly repressive, regime in an effort to “intimidate” and “exert control,” the Daily Mail reported.
“The execution of four PMOI members, amid an external war is a clear admission by the regime that it views the Iranian people and the organized Resistance as its principal enemy and an existential threat,” Mohaddessin said in a briefing Wednesday.
“Why were they executed now? Because the regime leadership is extremely concerned about the domestic situation and the possibility of another uprising,” he added.
Some of the 2,000 members of the PMOI’s Resistance Unit who were detained as part of a January uprising are also expected to be executed this week, the NCRI confirmed.
“Beyond the four already executed, the death sentences of 15 others have been confirmed by the Supreme Court and await implementation,” the NCRi chair stressed.
“Many other political prisoners are likely to receive death sentences as well.”
The warning of the imminent massacre of activists follows the slaughter of tens of thousands anti-regime protesters who took to the streets of Tehran in January over the country’s faltering economy — a movement that quickly swelled into calls for regime change.
Quote:The fanatical Iranian regime is turning children as young as 12 into cannon fodder as part of a desperate war recruitment drive, human rights groups have warned.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced the campaign, called “Homeland Defending Combatants for Iran,” as the US and Israel pummel the rogue nation, Human Rights Watch reported.
The advertising poster for the push, published by Iran’s Defa Press News Agency, features two fresh-faced children, a boy and a girl, smiling in front of a man in a military uniform.
Rahim Nadali, an official from the IRGC’s 27th Mohammad Rasulullah Division, said in a televised interview on state TV that kids want to stand up against the “global bully,” referring to the US, Agence France-Presse reported.
“For the Basij checkpoints that you see across cities now, we have had many young people and teenagers demanding to be present in them,” he said.
“Given the ages that were making demands, we have set the [minimum] age at 12. Meaning now there are kids of 12 and 13 who want to be present in this space.”
The tasks include staffing checkpoints, gathering security data and operational patrols, the AFP reported. Other tasks include cooking, providing medical care and dealing with damaged homes.
Amnesty International said it had confirmed photos showing children wielding weapons such as AK-pattern assault rifles and standing alongside IRGC and other forces at checkpoints and on patrols.
The recruitment of child soldiers is a grave violation of international law, the rights group said.
“The Iranian authorities are shamelessly encouraging children as young as 12 to join an IRGC-run military campaign, putting them in grave danger and violating international law, which prohibits the recruitment and use of children in the military,” Erika Guevara-Rosas, Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns at Amnesty International, said.
Quote:Iran’s president has sent a propaganda letter to Americans claiming his country harbors no enmity to ordinary US citizens, according to state-owned outlets.
Despite years of conflict and state-sponsored terrorism, President Masoud Pezeshkian insisted that the idea that Iran was an enemy of the American people was “neither consistent with historical reality nor with present-day observable facts.”
“The Iranian people harbor no enmity toward other nations, including the people of America, Europe or neighboring countries,” he said.
“Even in the face of repeated foreign interventions and pressures throughout their proud history, Iranians have consistently drawn a clear distinction between governments and the peoples they govern,” Pezeshkian added.
Pezeshkian’s comments appeared directly at repeated claims that Iran’s enriched uranium was weeks away from reaching weapons-grade levels, which could be used to produce a handful of atomic weapons.
He also called for the US to end its war in Iran, warning that the Islamic republic would outlast any form of American aggression.
“Today, the world stands at a crossroads. Continuing along the path of confrontation is more costly and futile than ever before,” he said.
“The choice between confrontation and engagement is both real and consequential; its outcome will shape the future for generations to come,” he added.
“Throughout its millennia of proud history, Iran has outlasted many aggressors. All that remains of them are tarnished names in history, while Iran endures — resilient, dignified, and proud.”
Pezeshkian did not make mention of President Trump’s claim that Tehran had begged him for a cease-fire on Wednesday, with the Iranian president claiming the US was dragged into the war against its will by its Israeli allies.
“Is it not also the case that America has entered this aggression as a proxy for Israel, influenced and manipulated by that regime?” Pezeshkian asked.
Pezeshkian’s message came with a patronizing tone as he backed the stance of his boss, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who has yet to be seen in public since surviving the airstrikes that killed his father on Feb. 28.
So the Iranian president now wants Americans to forget how many times the regime has called the US the Great Satan for decades and how the US should be destroyed? What about their own ayatollah's words on this matter? (If he is still alive.)
Quote:Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei issued his latest threat vowing to support anti-American and anti-Israel terrorist cells in the Middle East — with the Islamic regime chief still ruling from the shadows.
Khamenei, who has not been since he was injured during the initial strikes of the war, rebuked one of President Trump’s war goals seeking to end Iran’s role as a sponsor of terror groups in the region.
“I firmly declare that the consistent policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in continuing the path of the late Imam and martyred leader, is based on continuing to support the resistance against the Zionist-American enemy,” Khamenei said in a statement read by state television.
The supreme leader has been submitting orders via state media anchors since he ascended to power last month.
Khamenei — the son of the longtime supreme leader, who was killed on the first day of the war — is believed to be “probably gay” and may have been badly injured in the strikes that killed his father and most of his family, according to US intelligence.
The extent of his injuries, however, is unclear.
Reports suggested that he suffered a fractured foot and numerous other minor injuries and lacerations.
But due to his lingering absence from the public, Trump and others have questioned whether he’s even alive.
Ali Bahreini, Iran’s representative to the United Nations office in Geneva, has insisted Khamenei was in “full health” and remained hidden due to security reasons.
Khamenei’s latest statement was directed at Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terror group currently fighting Israel in southern Lebanon.
Quote:ISIS has urged Muslims to set fire to churches and synagogues across the US and Europe this weekend in a sickening Easter threat.
The Islamist terror group issued the callous call, made in response to Israel’s closing of the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, in the latest edition of its weekly propaganda outlet, al-Naba, released on Thursday.
“In the face of the tragedy of the closure of the blessed al-Aqsa Mosque, it is incumbent upon Muslims everywhere—those who yearn to come to the aid of the site of their Prophet’s Night Journey—to rise up and set fire to the Jewish synagogues scattered across America, Europe, Russia, India, and elsewhere,” ISIS declared, in a translation of al-Naba.
“The same applies to the synagogues in Tunisia, Morocco, the UAE, and Syria; their locations are well-known, and their details have been published,” the tirade continued.
It called for similar attacks on churches.
The twisted propaganda paper also called for attacks on “Jewish gatherings” around the world, ordering its supporters to “emulate the actions of the ‘Sydney Heroes,'” a disturbing reference to 2025’s Hannukkah terror attacks in Australia that left 16 dead, including one of the gunmen, and 40 wounded.
ISIS also claimed to have caused 60 casualties in “15 operations” over the past week.
Israeli authorities closed al-Aqsa mosque—the third-holiest site in Islam—in late February, citing the “security situation” amid the Israeli-US warn in Iran.
Authorities have also banned mass gatherings at other religious sites such as the Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.
Muslims call the hilltop that houses al-Aqsa the Noble Sanctuary, while Jewish people refer to it as the Temple Mount.
Palestinian authorities have hit out at the closures to Muslims, as Jewish groups have called for access to the shuttered site to hold Passover rituals in April.
Quote:President Trump warned Iran to make a deal now “before it is too late” on Thursday after US airstrikes took out Iran’s tallest bridge.
Trump shared footage of the newly built span connecting Tehran and Karaj being blown to bits and threatened “much more” destruction if Tehran doesn’t meet the US’ demands for a cease-fire.
The 446-foot tall bridge could be seen in the dramatic video collapsing in a plume of smoke following the strike.
“The biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down, never to be used again — Much more to follow!” the president wrote on Truth Social.
“IT IS TIME FOR IRAN TO MAKE A DEAL BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE, AND THERE IS NOTHING LEFT OF WHAT STILL COULD BECOME A GREAT COUNTRY!” he added.
Quote:A coalition of 40 nations on Thursday huddled on how to meet President Trump’s demand to reclaim the Strait of Hormuz — and opened the door to military escorts if Iran eases off ambushing commercial ships.
“This meeting showed clearly the determination of the international community to secure freedom of navigation and re-open the Strait of Hormuz,” the British government said in a readout of the virtual international gathering. “Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz is a direct threat to global prosperity.”
Trump has asked European and Gulf partners to take a more immediate role in ensuring passage through the strait — even threatening to exit the NATO alliance over their lack of help. Key allies have pushed back, arguing that deeper involvement in Iran must wait until the danger subsides.
“This is not our war. We will not be drawn into the conflict,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Wednesday, stressing that the priority remains “diplomatic and political measures” to restore safe transit.
But the UK signaled a shift on Thursday, announcing it would convene military planners from various nations to hammer out ways to keep the strait secure — once the most intense fighting of the war comes to a close.
“Iran is trying to hold the global economy hostage in the Strait of Hormuz. They must not prevail,” the British government said. “To that effect, partners today called for the immediate and unconditional reopening of the Strait and respect for the fundamental principles of freedom of navigation and the law of the sea.”
The countries also discussed further sanctions on Iran to “bear down on Iran if the Strait remains closed,” as well as unspecified “joint arrangements to support greater market and operational confidence.”
“Today, we looked at diplomatic, economic, and security measures to restore safe passage, alongside working with the shipping industry,” EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas posted to X. “This waterway is a global public good. Iran cannot be allowed to charge countries a bounty to let ships pass.”
Quote:US Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George is retiring “effective immediately,” a Pentagon official announced Thursday amid reports War Secretary Pete Hegseth asked the high-ranking military officer to step down.
“The Department of War is grateful for General George’s decades of service to our nation,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell wrote on X.
“We wish him well in his retirement,” he added.
George, 61, was nominated by former President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate for the Army chief of staff post in 2023. The Army chief of staff typically serves a four-year term.
Hegseth reportedly wanted someone in the role who would implement the vision he and President Trump have for the Army, according to CBS News.
“We are grateful for his service, but it was time for a leadership change in the Army,” a senior War Department official told the outlet.
George’s departure is the latest shakeup at the Pentagon under Hegseth.
Hegseth, a former Fox News host, previously ousted Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff C.Q. Brown, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti and Navy Chief of Staff Jon Harrison.
He also axed three key War Department aides — Pentagon senior adviser Dan Caldwell, former deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and former chief of staff to the deputy secretary of war Colin Carroll – earlier this year after a bureaucratic turf war, The Post previously reported.
George’s ouster also comes after Hegseth overruled the Army and lifted the suspension of two helicopter crews involved in a flyover stunt outside Kid Rock’s Tennessee home.
“No punishment. No Investigation. Carry on, patriots,” Hegseth wrote on X Tuesday, following an earlier report that several crew members had been suspended after Kid Rock’s post about the stunt went viral.
Hegseth’s decision to ask George to retire was not related to the helicopter incident, a source told CBS News.
Quote:The U.S. has deployed a new, cheap attack drone for the first time in combat—and it's a copy of the weapon Iran has used to menace American allies in the Gulf for more than a month.
The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) chief, Admiral Brad Cooper, has hailed the Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System—often referred to by the snappy acronym LUCAS—as "indispensable" to U.S. forces in the Middle East.
Western militaries, including the U.S., have watched on as both Ukrainian and Russian forces in Eastern Europe deploy lots of inexpensive unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), fundamentally changing how modern wars are fought.
Indeed, Ukraine has dispatched experts to the Middle East to help the U.S. and its allies take down Shaheds, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday was already showing results.
It's very difficult for traditional air defenses, which are designed to take out sophisticated threats like fast-traveling missiles with interceptors costing millions of dollars, to knock overwhelming swarms of throwaway drones from the sky.
Russia is infamous for using Iranian-designed Shahed drones, while footage of the triangle-shaped weapons zooming into Ukrainian high-rises has become a familiar sight online. Ukraine's residents quickly came to dread the low buzzing sound that heralds an approaching Shahed drone.
But until now, using lots of disposable drones has been mostly theoretical for U.S. troops. The first combat use of LUCAS, however, is a marked shift to using these new tactics in real-life missions.
What Is LUCAS?
LUCAS, made by Arizona-based SpektreWorks, is a one-way attack drone, sometimes called a loitering munition or "kamikaze" UAV.
CENTCOM has described the drone as having an "extensive range," thought to be about 650 kilometers (400 miles).
It costs in the region of $35,000, a fraction of the cost of precision missiles in the U.S.'s arsenal, such as the Tomahawk cruise missiles. Those come with an eyewatering price tag upward of $2 million apiece.
LUCAS is filled with up to 18 kilograms of explosives that detonate when the drone hits its target. It packs a lighter punch than missiles, and it is more effective against targets like power grids or government buildings, rather than heavily defended military targets. More sophisticated, costly missiles would still be needed to hit these difficult, fortified areas.
Physically, it looks very similar to the various versions Iran has produced of its Shahed drone. Its manufacturer explicitly said the drone was reverse-engineered with a wingspan matching Iran's Shahed-136.
"There are plenty of differences though, but as so often happens in drones, they are hidden under the skin, reflecting the very different environments where they are built and used," U.K.-based drone expert Steve Wright told Newsweek.
While the U.S. has a vast network of defense companies sustained by lots of funding, Iran has mastered working in isolation, cherry-picking technologies it can grab from elsewhere across the world, Wright said.
"Because of this, the LUCAS drone is constructed using mass production techniques similar to building cars and manned aircraft," and it is linked up to the rest of the U.S. military's catalog of systems and equipment, Wright said.
Quote:An American journalist was kidnapped Tuesday in Baghdad, prompting Iraqi security forces to launch a manhunt for her captors, Iraqi officials said.
The journalist was identified as freelance reporter Shelly Kittleson by Al‑Monitor, a Middle East news outlet to which she has contributed. In a statement, the publication said it was “deeply alarmed” by her abduction and called for her “safe and immediate release.”
Iraq’s Interior Ministry said in a statement that a foreign journalist had been kidnapped but did not identify the person. Two Iraqi security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly, confirmed that the victim is a woman with U.S. citizenship.
The officials said the kidnapping involved two vehicles. According to their account, the journalist was abducted from central Baghdad on Saadoun Street, a commercial area near several hotels. After the abduction, the kidnappers transferred her from the first vehicle into a second car.
Security forces pursued the kidnappers as they traveled southwest of Baghdad toward Babil province, the officials said. One of the vehicles used in the kidnapping crashed near the town of Al‑Haswa in Babil province while being chased by authorities. That vehicle was apprehended, but the journalist was no longer inside.
The Interior Ministry said security forces launched an operation to track down the kidnappers, “acting on precise intelligence and through intensive field operations,” after intercepting a vehicle linked to the abduction that overturned during the pursuit.
One suspect was arrested and one of the vehicles used in the kidnapping was seized, the ministry said, but other suspects remain at large.
The two Iraqi security officials said an alert was circulated to checkpoints across the region, enabling security forces to track and pursue the kidnappers as they fled Baghdad.
In its statement, Al‑Monitor said it stands by Kittleson’s reporting and urged Iraqi authorities to ensure her swift release.
“We call for her safe and immediate release,” the outlet said. “We stand by her vital reporting from the region and call for her swift return to continue her important work.”
Quote:The United Arab Emirates is reportedly preparing to help the US fight Iran and open the Strait of Hormuz by force after being repeatedly struck by Iranian drones and missiles since the war began, Arab officials said.
The UAE is lobbying the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution that would authorize a military operation to end Iran’s grip on the critical trade route, officials told the Wall Street Journal.
The operation would see the UAE become the first Persian Gulf country to join the war against Iran, with Abu Dhabi calling on European and Asian military powers to join the coalition to open the strait.
Along with opening the Strait of Hormuz, the UAE is also calling for the US to occupy strategic islands near the oil-critical Strait of Hormuz, including Abu Musa, which Abu Dhabi claims but is currently held by Iran, officials said.
Bahrain, a close US ally in the region that hosts America’s Fifth Fleet, is sponsoring the UN resolutions, with a vote expected on Thursday, according to the WSJ.
Russia and China, allies of Iran who sit on the UN’s Security Council, would veto the resolution.
Nations in the Gulf, Europe and Asia have all called for the Strait of Hormuz to be opened as it serves as a key pipeline for 20% of the world’s oil supply.
Iran effectively closed the Strait to anyone it deems its enemies after the US and Israel waged war on the Islamic Republic.
Quote:French President Emmanuel Macron delivered one of Europe’s sharpest public rebukes of President Donald Trump since the Iran war began, accusing him of shifting objectives, weakening NATO, and fueling global instability. His remarks landed as markets reeled from Trump’s televised address, which offered no clear path to ending the conflict or reopening the Strait of Hormuz, now under a de facto Iranian blockade.
What To Know
Macron said Trump’s changing positions weaken U.S. credibility and strain NATO.
European governments are scrambling to manage the economic fallout of a war they were not consulted on.
Britain held a virtual meeting with dozens of nations, excluding the United States, to discuss reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
The UN Security Council is preparing to vote on a Bahrain‑drafted resolution allowing force to reopen the waterway.
Britain will host military planners from about 30 countries next week to discuss securing the strait.
Trump threatened to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages” but offered no exit strategy.
Stocks recovered from early losses and oil prices eased slightly after reports of talks between Iran and Oman on monitoring marine traffic.
Iranian officials rejected Trump’s remarks and vowed not to accept a cycle of war and temporary cease-fires.
Iran continues launching missiles and drones, with intercepts reported by Israel and UAE forces.
Iranian authorities detained human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, continuing a pattern of arrests.
Death tolls continue to rise across Iran, Lebanon, Gulf nations, Israel, and the United States.
Quote:President Trump mercilessly trolled French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife on Wednesday — as he ramped up his attacks on NATO allies for not joining the war against Iran.
The commander-in-chief mocked his counterpart’s marriage to Brigitte Macron after the French first lady was caught on camera slapping her husband in now viral footage.
“I call up France, Macron – whose wife treats him extremely badly,” Trump joked during a private lunch at the White House on Wednesday as he detailed asking NATO for help.
“Still recovering from the right to the jaw,” he added, referring to the infamous shove.
“And I said, ‘Emmanuel, we’d love to have some help in the Gulf even though we’re setting records on knocking out bad people and knocking out ballistic missiles. We’d love to have some help. If you could, could you please send ships immediately’.”
Trump then mimicked a French accent as he recalled Macron’s answer, saying: “‘No no no, we cannot do that, Donald. We can do that after the war is won’.”
The president’s dig came after he insisted that he was “absolutely” considering withdrawing the US from the NATO military alliance after scores of European leaders barred the United States from using military bases for the monthlong Iran conflict and balked at requests for naval support to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
At one point, he blasted the transatlantic alliance as a “paper tiger.”
Quote:Action led by President Donald Trump has contributed to what "looks like Putin’s dream plan," a key NATO ally's leader has warned.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote in a post on X on Thursday: "The threat of NATO’s break-up, easing sanctions on Russia, a massive energy crisis in Europe, halting aid for Ukraine and blocking the loan for Kyiv by Orbán - it all looks like Putin’s dream plan."
Russian President Vladimir Putin has for years complained about NATO's eastward expansion, and in his explanation for invading Ukraine, named Kyiv possibly nearing membership as a major red line.
President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio both suggested this week that the U.S. will review its role in NATO after the war in Iran ends. Last month the U.S. lifted sanctions on Russian oil in a bid to curb energy price rises as a result of the war. Meanwhile Hungary leader Viktor Orbán, a Trump ally, blocked Europe sending more aid and loans to Ukraine.
Asked about Tusk's remarks and whether the sanctions would be reimposed, a U.S. State Department spokesperson referred Newsweek to Secretary Rubio's comments and said the "United States does not preview sanctions actions."
Quote:Russia views NATO as a hostile alliance, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, after President Donald Trump suggested the U.S. could end its membership.
Peskov, who was responding to questions about Trump's speech on the Iran War as well as the future of the military alliance, also said Russian President Vladimir Putin was talking to regional leaders about trying to end the Middle East conflict.
"The president is continuing these contacts, and if our services are somehow required, we are, of course, ready to make our contribution to ensuring that the military situation transitions to a peaceful course as soon as possible," he told reporters.
Why It Matters
Peskov's comments come a day after Trump suggested to British newspaper The Telegraph that he could potentially try to leave the alliance, saying removing the U.S. from the treaty was “beyond reconsideration”.
He added: "I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way.”
The interview was the latest criticism in a growing rhetoric of dissatisfaction with NATO from the Trump administration during the Iran War. Relations were already strained over the president's push to acquire Greenland at the start of the year, but have grown worse after European leaders pushed back on Trump's calls for help reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
The internationally important waterway for global oil has been effectively under blockade by Tehran during the conflict.
In a statement to Newsweek on Wednesday after Trump's threats to leave the alliance, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said, "President Trump has made his disappointment with NATO and other allies clear, and as the President has emphasized, 'the United States will remember.'"
What To Know
After Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, NATO declared Russia its “most significant and direct threat”. More recently, Russia has been accused by NATO countries of hybrid warfare following unauthorized drone incursions over critical infrastructure, such as airports, nuclear power plants and military bases.
But its standing as a united front has taken a hit in recent months after remarks from Donald Trump, and other members of his administration, over what future role the U.S. would have in NATO.
On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. may "reexamine" its role after several European countries limited U.S. military access to bases and airspace for strikes on Iran.
Spain had closed its airspace to all U.S. military flights during the war, while Italy denied U.S. bombers access to an air base and France drew Trump's criticism for closing its airspace to planes carrying weapons to Israel.
Quote:Secretary of State Marco Rubio questioned the value of NATO Tuesday night after European allies blocked the US military from using their bases and airspace to launch attacks on Iran.
Rubio, who recalled that as a senator he was “one of the strongest defenders” of NATO, told Fox News host Sean Hannity that membership in the transatlantic alliance would be “reexamined” after the Iran war.
“If now we have reached a point where the NATO alliance means we can’t use those bases to defend America’s interests, then NATO is a one way street,” the top US diplomat lamented.
“If NATO is simply about us having troops in Europe to defend Europe, but when we need them to allow us to use their military bases, their answer is no – then why are we in NATO?”
Rubio said the decision over whether the US remains in NATO will ultimately be made by President Trump, a longtime critic of the alliance.
“So I think there’s no doubt, unfortunately, after this conflict is concluded, we are going to have to reexamine that relationship,” Rubio said.
During a cabinet meeting last week, Trump described the war against Tehran as a loyalty “test” and ripped Europeans for failing to step up.
“They weren’t there,” he said of the NATO allies. “So if there’s ever a big one … I don’t think they’re going to be there.”
Trump has also blasted European countries for failing to help the US reopen the Strait of Hormuz amid Iranian attacks on shipping vessels in the critical waterway.
The president has signaled that the responsibility for ensuring the safe passage of ships in the Strait of Hormuz may soon fall solely on Europe.
“You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!”
Quote:WASHINGTON — President Trump said Wednesday that he’s “absolutely” considering withdrawing the United States from the NATO military alliance — and that “I’ll be discussing my disgust with NATO” during a primetime address about the Iran war.
“Oh, absolutely without question. Wouldn’t you do that if you were me?” Trump told Reuters reporter Steve Holland in an interview, when asked if he was weighing leaving the transatlantic alliance.
Trump made the remark after telling The Telegraph that NATO’s future is “beyond reconsideration” after European leaders barred US use of military bases for the monthlong Iran conflict and balked at US requests for naval support to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
“I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin knows that too, by the way,” he said.
NATO for generations has been a cornerstone of US foreign policy, committing the US, Canada and most major nations in Europe to collective defense against external threats.
In both of his terms, Trump pressured fellow NATO members to increase military spending. Last year, he shifted the responsibility of footing the bill for US weapons sent to Ukraine — which is not a NATO member — onto the allies so that Kyiv could continue resisting Russian advances.
Withdrawing the US from NATO would face significant bipartisan blowback, but unilateral presidential withdrawal from treaties has become the norm, and Trump has axed others, including pacts on climate change and arms control.
Former President Joe Biden in 2023 signed legislation coauthored by then-Sen. Marco Rubio — now Trump’s secretary of state — that bars any president from withdrawing from NATO without congressional consent. It’s conceivable Trump would argue the prohibition unconstitutionally restricts his ability to lead the military and conduct diplomacy — a case his team has made against other legislation in the past.
The Senate ratified the treaty establishing NATO in 1949 at the start of the Cold War, and the alliance has endured as a counter to Moscow’s post-Soviet reassertion of influence in Eastern Europe.
Members of NATO include the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Poland and Turkey. The alliance expanded to Russia’s frontier with the addition of Poland in 1999 and the three Baltic nations — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — in 2004.
Quote:Two senators, including Republican Mitch McConnell, issued a warning to President Donald Trump on Wednesday after he suggested the United States could withdraw from NATO.
In a joint statement, McConnell and Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, said the bloc was the most "successful military alliance in history," in an apparent rebuttal to Trump's ongoing disparagement of the organization.
“Alliance disputes are as old as the alliance itself. Americans are safer when NATO is strong and united," the senators wrote. "It is in our interest for all allies to tend this unity with care."
McConnell is the chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, while Coons is the ranking member.
Why It Matters
McConnell and Trump have long had an on-again, off-again relationship, with the senator having helped deliver key wins for the president in his first term while also being openly critical of some of Trump's actions—particularly in the wake of the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. When it comes to NATO and wider world affairs, McConnell has remained a staunch interventionist, which clashes with Trump's overall message of "America first."
What To Know
The message from McConnell and Coons came Wednesday after Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio floated the idea, once more, of the U.S. withdrawing from NATO.
“The only time NATO has gone to war has been in response to an attack on America," the pair said in the bloc's defense. "NATO troops fought and died in Afghanistan and Iraq alongside American forces. The United States must not take this sacrifice–nor our allies’ commitment to make it again–lightly."
The U.S.-Israeli bombardment of Iran, now well into its fifth week, has strained relations between Washington and its European allies in NATO, drawing criticism even from Trump's right-wing political ally, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Trump is a longtime critic of NATO, although European pledges to drastically increase defense spending and lean less on the U.S. in June 2025 appeared to ease concerns that he could pull America from the alliance.
Transatlantic relations dipped again when the U.S. insisted it would take control of Greenland, a semi-autonomous part of NATO member Denmark, despite a horrified reaction from European officials.
NATO leaders have repeatedly said the alliance is not involved in the Iran war, with many of its members distancing themselves from the conflict that began when U.S. and Israeli forces attacked Iran on February 28. Trump has said that the U.S. will remember the lack of involvement from fellow NATO members.
Quote:A senior Trump administration source has denied sensational claims Pam Bondi was fired for tipping off Rep. Eric Swalwell about FBI plans to release files tied to his links to a Chinese spy.
The source told The Post that while President Trump personally likes Bondi, he had grown dissatisfied with her performance and had been weighing her removal for some time.
“The president has been considering this change for a long time,” the source said.
The denial follows a Daily Mail report that Bondi was dismissed after a series of internal clashes, including suspicions she alerted Swalwell to FBI activity involving documents related to his past association with suspected Chinese intelligence operative Christine Fang, also known as “Fang Fang.”
The outlet claimed Bondi ”begged” Trump to reconsider her dismissal.
However, Micah Beasley, a spokesperson for Swalwell’s campaign for California governor, denied that the congressman was given any insight into the release of FBI records.
“We had no heads-up by anyone in the administration. None,” Beasley wrote in an email to The Post.
“These stories would be laughable if not so outrageous. An administration that is now at 33% approval is looking to blame anyone but the right people — themselves.”
Bondi’s ouster follows months of friction within the administration. Her tenure had been under scrutiny over the Justice Department’s handling of records tied to serial pedophile and financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will serve as acting attorney general while Trump considers a permanent replacement.
The firing marks the second cabinet-level departure in recent weeks after Trump dismissed Kristi Noem, who was secretary of Homeland Security.
Last week, Noem’s husband, Byron, outed for living a double life as a cross-dresser with a fetish for grotesquely oversized breasts.
Swalwell’s past ties to Fang have been a source of concern for years, as she assisted the congressman’s 2014 congressional campaign with fundraising and helped place an intern in his office before federal authorities intervened.
Quote:Governors in Florida and Mississippi signed into law measures that require officials to verify the citizenship of voters, just as similar legislation being pushed by President Donald Trump has stalled in Congress.
The law signed Wednesday by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was immediately challenged in court by civil rights organizations that said it will make it harder for Floridians to vote.
The citizenship provision of the law goes into effect Jan. 1. It requires voters to provide a birth certificate, passport or naturalization certificate as proof of citizenship if their eligibility to vote is challenged by government officials through cross-referencing voter registration applications with motor vehicle records.
“Many eligible voters do not have these documents and cannot obtain them for a variety of reasons — including because they were born without a birth certificate in the segregated South, because their documents were destroyed in a hurricane, or because they cannot afford the hundreds of dollars it costs to replace them,” the civil rights groups said in a lawsuit filed in federal court in South Florida.
The voting legislation being pushed aggressively by Trump in Congress would mandate that people provide documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, such as a U.S. passport, citizen naturalization certificate or a combination of a birth certificate and government-issued photo identification. It passed the House but was stalled in the Senate before lawmakers took a spring recess.
Under the Florida law, credit cards, student IDs and retirement community identifications can no longer be used as IDs when voting, and the citizenship status of a driver must be reflected on driver’s licenses starting in July 2027.
DeSantis said the law improves the security and transparency of Florida’s election system.
“In Florida, we will always stand up for election integrity,” the Republican governor said.
Quote:A 13-year-old girl who vanished under suspicious circumstances in Arizona more than 30 years ago has now been found alive, authorities said.
Christina Marie Plante was only recently located after a sudden breakthrough in the case — decades after she disappeared without a trace from the tiny town of Star Valley, north-east of Phoenix, the Gila County Sheriff’s Office revealed Wednesday.
Authorities haven’t released any details on what led to her being found, but noted that advances in technology helped develop new leads.
It also wasn’t clear where she was located or when.
The blue-eyed, blonde vanished after she set off to see her horse in a stable near her home back in May 1994.
Missing person flyers blasted about town noted she was last spotted wearing a white t-shirt, multicolored shorts and black tennis shoes.
The pre-teen’s disappearance was described at the time as “suspicious” and authorities warned she was “endangered.”
“Christina was entered into national missing children databases, and missing person flyers were distributed locally, statewide and in other parts of the country,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
“Over the years, the case remained open and active, with investigators periodically re-examining evidence and pursuing new information as it became available.”
“After 32 years, Christina Marie Plante has been located alive,” the statement added.
Investigators have since confirmed Plante’s identity.
Pop icon Britney Spears, fresh off her DUI arrest, was seen at a gas station Wednesday afternoon smoking a cigarette.
In pictures obtained by The Post, Spears is seen sitting in the passenger seat of a $230K Jeep-style black SUV with her leg propped on the dashboard while smoking a cigarette, as her car is parked right in front of a pump while someone else fills up the tank.
The photos show a window rolled just slightly down, with smoke drifting inside the vehicle.
Smoking is prohibited at California gas stations near fuel pumps or tanks due to fire hazards. The California Code of Regulations prohibits smoking where flammable liquids are dispensed, with local ordinances often enforcing a 25-foot no-smoking zone. Violations are typically treated as infractions resulting in fines.
This is the second appearance for Spears following her infamous DUI arrest in Thousand Oaks last month.
The pop star, was seen in Malibu, Calif. on March 22, according to a photo posted by social media fan page BritneysVault. In the photo, Spears wears a long brown coat as she stands in line to order from Starbucks in the Malibu Country Mart.
The 44-year-old was arrested for driving under the influence in Ventura County in early March, following a series of calls to police describing the singer as a danger on the road. Spears is scheduled to appear at the Ventura County Superior Court on May 4.
Quote:Tiger Woods’ recent DUI arrest has shaken the golf world, and one of the game’s legends is calling on the 15-time major winner to make some serious changes.
Nick Faldo, the golfer-turned-broadcaster, spoke with reporters on a Thursday call, according to the Independent, and said Woods has to now take “responsibility” for the car crash in Florida last week.
“There are two sides to this right now. There’s one side, let’s care for Tiger, and then there’s got to be a responsibility and accountability side as well.,” he said.
“This is a serious thing and issue he’s done. The PGA Tour statement was so predictably weak. And you know how they show that, the Tour will look after him as they always have done.
“There has to be some accountability, forget about golf and everything.”
Woods, 50, was arrested in Jupiter Island last week after his Land Rover flipped over and clipped a Ford F-150 landscaping truck that was parked.
The golf icon, according to police bodycam footage, told officers that he ” ooked down at my phone and boom.” The video also revealed that Woods talked with President Donald Trump after the crash. He also\ told officers he was “hoping to” compete in April’s Masters, which he will not be.
Earlier this week, he pleaded not guilty to charges of driving under the influence with property damage and refusing a lawful test. Woods allegedly told officers during his arrest that he had taken “a few pills” the morning of the crash.
Hours after his plea, Woods revealed he was stepping away from golf to focus on his personal life.
“I know and understand the seriousness of the situation I find myself in today,” he wrote in a statement shared on social media Tuesday. “I am stepping away for a period of time to seek treatment and focus on my health. This is necessary in order for me to prioritize my well-being and work toward lasting recovery.
“I’m committed to taking the time needed to return in a healthier, stronger, and more focused place, both personally and professionally. I appreciate your understanding and support, and ask for privacy for my family, loved ones and myself at this time.”
Quote:A man accused of attacking the car of the duo behind “Gown and Out in Beverly Hills” has been arrested after the reality TV stars described the road-rage incident as one the most frightening of their lives.
The suspect, Kevin Hernandez, was taken into custody Wednesday on the 500 block of Melrose Avenue in connection with the wild confrontation, according to the LAPD. He was booked on felony vandalism charges.
The run-in occurred Sunday morning at the intersection of Melrose Avenue and Vine Street in Hollywood, where Pol Atteu and Patrik Simpson were stopped at a red light when driver abruptly pulled in front of their Mercedes-Benz and blocked their path.
Video they took of the incident shows the suspect exiting his SUV and approaching the couple’s vehicle before repeatedly striking the driver-side door and window.
“We’re grateful to law enforcement for taking swift action in this road-rage attack and for ensuring our safety by granting the order of protection,” Simpson told The Post.
“What happened that morning was extremely threatening and violent, and in the moment I truly feared for my life. No one should have to experience that kind of aggression simply driving through the streets of Hollywood.”
Atteu and Simpson said they were “trapped” and unable to escape as the suspect lashed out. They maintained they had no prior interaction with the driver and did nothing to provoke the incident. It remains unclear what set the suspect off.
Quote:The last-place Wizards can’t even do Aprils Fools’ Day right.
The team played a gag on a fan during its tilt with the 76ers on Wednesday night, and when nobody found the bit funny, Washington officials actually issued an apology on Thursday morning.
“We missed the mark,” the Wizards admitted.
The skit went down during a break in the action at Capital One Arena in D.C.
A man was blindfolded, and told by an in-arena emcee that if he drained a half-court shot, he’d win $10,000.
The guy didn’t even hit the backboard after letting the ball fly from his hands, but everyone on the court — including multiple mascots — raced in to pretend as if he sunk it.
The fan was then presented a check, but it was immediately ripped away when it was revealed he had actually missed.
People were quick to hit social media and criticize the Wizards for it all, and eventually, a mea culpa was released.
Quote:An alleged drug trafficker who amassed enough fentanyl “to kill millions” was indicted on Long Island Thursday, the district attorney announced while revealing the jaw-dropping $360,000 cache.
Phillip Gonzalez, 42, was indicted on charges including operating as a major drug trafficker and sent back to jail Thursday following a 10-day sting in late February sparked by one of his purported clients’ fatal overdoses, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.
Suffolk County police originally responded to reports of two overdoses at a home in East Patchogue on Feb. 17.
One victim who died at the scene had a contact for their dealer on their phone, the district attorney’s office said.
From there, they traced the phone number back to Gonzalez, a resident of Selden. An undercover detective arranged a meet-up where Gonzelez allegedly sold him “a quantity of powder cocaine,” according to the release.
The cops repeated the same process and bought another batch of cocaine from Gonzalez just four days later, prosecutors said.
The police department executed a search warrant at Gonzalez’s rental home in Selden on Feb. 26. There, they allegedly recovered 4.5 kilograms of fentanyl — enough to wipe out more than 2 million people, which is more than all of Suffolk County, the district attorney warned.
Authorities also seized 2.5 kilograms of Xylazine, more commonly known as “Tranq,” which is illegal for sale or purchase when mixed with illicit drugs.
Other parts of the illicit potluck include 1.5 kilograms of crystal meth, 223 grams of the cocktail drug Tusi, 40,820 milligrams of ketamine, 234 grams of cocaine, and five boxes containing hundreds of vials with fentanyl and more Tusi, the release said.
The vials of fentanyl and Tusi matched those recovered at the scene in East Patchogue, according to the district attorney’s office.
The entire cache had a street value of over $360,000, prosecutors estimated.
Gonzalez faces anywhere from 15 years to life in prison on more than 25 drug-related charges. He is set to appear in court on April 6.
Quote:WASHINGTON — President Trump marked the one-year anniversary of his “Liberation Day” reciprocal tariff announcement with new levies on pharmaceuticals and steel.
Trump signed orders imposing tariffs of up to 100% on foreign-made drugs and requiring steel to be tariffed at its US market value, rather than the lower cost of making it abroad, closing what officials called a loophole.
The pharmaceutical order is unlikely to affect most popular medicines because the rate drops to 0% for the 13 large companies that have already pledged to both offer federal health programs “most favored nations” pricing and to onshore production to the US.
Smaller drugmakers can reduce their tariff rate to 20% if they partner with US manufacturers and to 0% if they align pricing with rates in other western countries within 180 days.
“Basically, for smaller companies, what they do is they use contract manufacturers,” an official told reporters.
“The big contract manufacturers are building huge factories here, and so they expect to take care of the smaller companies by saying, ‘Look, we’ll build for you your smaller drug.'”
The metals-focused order seeks to both strengthen and clarify enforcement of Trump’s 50% tariff rate on steel, aluminum and copper.
Assessing steel at US market rates prevents undervaluing based on overseas production costs.
“It’s now going to be proper, and fair, as opposed to… people try to get around our tariffs and sort of short-changing us,” the official said.
“That creates a model [where] we will build blast furnaces and electric arc furnaces in America. 25-30 years ago, we had 40 blast furnaces in America. Now we’re down to 10 and we were becoming subservient to others,” he said.
“China just announced an export license regime, so they are thinking of weaponizing steel. We don’t buy consequential massive steel from China. However, the rest of the world does.”
The metals order also clarifies the tariffs on items partially made of aluminum, copper and steel, eliminating the need for complicated computations.
Products whose weight is comprised more than 15% of the metals will be subject to a 25% tariff. Items with a negligible amount won’t face the tariff.
Trump announced the new actions on the anniversary of his Rose Garden event unveiling a 10% baseline tariff on most countries as well as sky-high proposed tariffs on countries with which the US had trade deficits.
Quote:Top congressional Democrats, party campaign arms and allied groups are suing President Donald Trump and his administration over a sweeping order he signed this week that would increase federal involvement in elections.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) along with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic Governors Association and the Democratic National Committee, filed the lawsuit Thursday.
The lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Washington, DC, seeks to block Trump’s executive order signed Tuesday targeting mail-in voting and voter eligibility, as Senate Republicans continue debating the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act.
“The American people are fed up with Republicans’ price-spiking, health care-gutting agenda and are ready to vote them out,” Schumer, Jeffries and the committee chairs said in a joint statement. “That’s why Donald Trump is desperately trying to rig our elections by making it harder to vote for seniors, Americans with disabilities, members of the military, rural communities and other working families who rely on vote-by-mail. This move is blatantly unconstitutional, and we will fight against it.”
“We are taking action to challenge Trump’s executive order to protect the right to vote and ensure every eligible American can make their voice heard at the ballot box,” they added.
Trump has warned Republicans that if they cannot pass the SAVE America Act — which is unlikely given unified Democratic opposition in the Senate — the GOP could face major losses in the upcoming midterm elections.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson fired back, “Only Democrat politicians and operatives would be upset about lawful efforts to secure American elections and ensure only eligible American citizens are casting ballots.”
“President Trump campaigned on securing our elections and the American people sent him back to the White House to get the job done,” she said.
The executive order, signed earlier this week, reflects Trump taking matters into his own hands amid the political reality in Congress.
The order would create federal “citizenship lists” of US citizens using government databases, require those lists to be shared with states before elections, and give the US Postal Service (USPS) authority over mail-in voting logistics. It would also require voters to be enrolled with USPS to receive mail ballots.
Quote:Nassau’s fiscal watchdog is demanding County Executive Bruce Blakeman replenish nearly $14 million quietly pulled out of opioid settlement funds — and threatening to tank his next budget.
Nassau Interim Finance Authority chairman Richard Kessel blasted Blakeman and his Republican administration in a charged letter for transferring millions in interest earnings from the county’s Opioid Litigation Settlement Fund into its general fund — where it can now be spent on anything.
The intended purpose of the settlement is meant to fund opioid treatment, prevention and education.
“While sitting on the settlement funds in the face of this public health crisis is bad enough, it is unconscionable for your administration to transfer the interest in a backroom maneuver to prop up the County’s budget,” the Friday letter, obtained by The Post, read.
The transfer substantially drains the resources available for opioid treatment and recovery — especially as inflation has eroded the value of the fund, Kessel warned.
Internal finance data provided by county Dems and reviewed by NIFA showed roughly $13.7 million in interest has been transferred from the opioid fund by Blakeman, who is running for governor, to Nassau’s general account since 2024.
“You have been entrusted by the residents of the County to utilize these monies for the sole purpose of assisting efforts to provide interventions, recovery services, education, support and assistance to those who suffer from an opioid addiction and to their families,” Kessel continued.”
Quote:Disgraced San Francisco city boss Sheryl Davis arrived in court Thursday to be arraigned on a slew of bombshell corruption charges.
Pictures show Davis in a black jacket warding off cameras and holding a purse. She was accompanied by her attorney Tony Brass and two other unidentified people.
Davis, former head of the city’s Human Rights Commission, was arrested Monday alongside her boyfriend James Spingola on charges of multiple felony counts of misappropriating public funds and conflicts of interest.
They are accused of diverting millions in funds meant to uplift the black community after the death of George Floyd. She was in charge of the Dream Keeper Initiative — a $120 million plan to assist black residents.
Instead, Davis allegedly engaged in a “pervasive pattern of self-dealing,” according to prosecutors. The funds went to personal projects and parties — including upgraded flights, wine tastings for black college students, concerts and more at VIP events in Beverly Hills, Martha’s Vineyard, and New York City.
She also spent money allegedly on PR firms to promote her book and brand.
About $3 million went toward Spingola’s nonprofit despite netting low scores from city evaluators.
“Ms. Davis was funneling city money to Collective Impact, while also steering how Collective Impact spent its funds, both for HRC use and for her personal benefit,” prosecutors had said, referring to the nonprofit by name.
The relationship between the two was apparently not disclosed.
Davis has been charged with 17 felonies and two misdemeanors, while Spingola faces four felony counts.
Quote:A 66-year-old psychiatrist at the center of a series of federal raids targeting health care fraud flaunted his life of luxury online why allegedly bilking millions of dollars from taxpayers.
Gladwin Gill, and his wife, Amelou, were both arrested during operation “Never Say Die” for allegedly submitting $5.2 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare for hospice services that were not medically necessary or ever provided, according to authorities.
On social media, Gill flaunted his high-end lifestyle — posting photos alongside celebrities like Mario Lopez, George Clooney, President George W. Bush and Salt Bae.
In one post, the psychiatrist can be seen posing next to sports agent and philanthropist Leigh Steinberg during a Super Bowl party in 2022, grinning ear to ear on the red carpet.
Coincidentally, that same year federal authorities were supposedly looking into Gill for alleged health care fraud and even executed a search warrant, according to First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli.
“Nothing happened with these cases,” Essayli said. “Nothing’s happened with fraud under the prior administration, and you’ll have to ask them why, but presumably, it just wasn’t a priority.”
It seems the feds weren’t the only ones suspicious of the Gills.
Multiple comments on social media called out Gill for being a “lowlife,” and even accused the doctor of stealing money.
Quote:The moped-riding goons who shot a 7-month-old Brooklyn girl to death in her stroller were aiming for her dad, law enforcement sources said.
Little Kaori Patterson’s father, Jamari Patterson, 22, was apparently targeted in the brazen Wednesday afternoon hit over a social media beef with a crew from a rival housing project, investigators now believe, the sources said.
The gunmen missed Patterson but struck the helpless tot in the head with the bullet, which then grazed her 2-year-old brother’s back before the thugs sped off and crashed their moped two blocks away.
Alleged shooter Amuri Greene, 21, ended up in the hospital, where he was identified as a person of interest in the baby’s death — with NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch saying Thursday he would face murder charges.
Greene remained hospitalized Thursday and has not been charged.
Tisch said a “massive NYPD manhunt” had been launched to track down the driver of the moped, who fled the scene and is on the lam.
Quote:A Venezuelan migrant stabbed a Queens man and tried to slit his throat on a “remote” Long Island beach made infamous by alleged serial killer Rex Heuermann, prosecutors charged this week.
Ruben Guanipa Ramirez drove an acquaintance to Gilgo Beach and allegedly tried to kill him during a life-or-death struggle after the pair played pool and also stopped by Jones Beach last month, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.
The same beach is where Heuermann, a Manhattan architect and Massapequa Park resident, allegedly dumped the bodies of seven sex workers after viciously murdering them over two decades. He’s expected to plead guilty to the slayings this month, according to law enforcement sources.
Suffolk District Attorney Raymond Tierney said in a statement Tuesday that evidence recovered against Ramirez “raises serious questions about what he intended that night.”
Ramirez, 26, initially picked up the victim from his Queens home in his 2024 Lexus NX250 so the two could drive to Sport Billiard Pool Hall in Baldwin together and then swing by Jones Beach, prosecutors said.
They then went to Gilgo Beach, where Ramirez, a Venezuelan national, allegedly turned violent.
As the pair was walking back to the car, Ramirez came up behind the victim and stuffed his mouth with a black cloth while knifing him on the left side, according to the district attorney’s office.
He then tried to slit his throat and cut him across the neck, but the man fought back, prosecutors alleged.
The victim was able to wrestle the knife away from Ramirez and suffered defensive wounds to his hands in the process.
The injured man then hopped in the Lexus and zoomed off to a pal’s home in Queens, where he called 911, according to prosecutors.
Quote:Real fear is growing that Los Angeles’ once-thriving TV/film industry is taking a “Detroit-style” decline with Hollywood jobs evaporating over the last few years.
A staggering 30% drop in film and TV employment since 2022 has experts warning that the city is following the path of the Motor City where the auto industry used to boom, according to the U.S. Labor Department, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Recent stats show that as of March 2026, jobs in the motion picture and sound recording industries have dropped from where they were at their peak in July 2022 of more than 455 thousand jobs to 344,000.
At a March congressional hearing, California Democrat Sen. Adam Schiff met with others who work in the industry to gain support for a bill that would create a federal film tax incentive for movies to be made in the U.S.
During the hearing, Schiff noted that LA County has lost 42,000 entertainment jobs in the last two years.
“These are great jobs and we want to keep them here at home,” Schiff said. “It’s not rocket science how we do that. It’s largely drafted. It needs to be bipartisan. We are working to gather bipartisan support for this.”
Actor of the hit series “The Pitt,” Noah Wyle talked about the decline in jobs and how hard it has been on those working in the industry, saying the incentives are vital.
“It’s hard on families. It’s hard to fracture your industry that way,” Wyle said. “It’s vital to support these incentives. They are an investment in our city’s most precious commodity — they are an investment in its people.”
The loss of jobs has been particularly bad for crew members who work behind the scenes, according to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE).
“Since 2022, employment for below-the-line workers is down 45 million hours, according to the union. Over the same period, the U.S.’s share of global production dropped from 52 percent to 38 percent. Most major studio tentpoles — the kind that bring bucks — now shoot in the U.K.”
Quote:Alberta separatists have claimed they have enough signatures to trigger a referendum on whether the province should get independence from Canada.
Alberta, home to Canada's oil sands and a longstanding grievance over energy policies, has frequently expressed dissatisfaction with the federal government, especially over issues like carbon taxes, pipeline regulations and equalization payments.
In May 2025, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said she would hold a referendum if a petition calling for one was successful. Activists were given a deadline of early May to collect 177,000 signatures to spark a referendum request under Alberta's Citizen Initiative framework.
Posting on X Tuesday, Alberta independence group Rise of Alberta said: "The 177,000 signature threshold has now been passed, officially clearing the requirement for an Alberta independence referendum on October 19th. This is a historic moment for Alberta and signature collection is still continuing."
Elections Alberta told Newsweek it was unable to confirm the signature count at this time.
Why It Matters
The petition receiving the necessary signatures to move forward is a major step for the separatist movement and indicates some support for the measure. However, overall public support for the measure remains low, according to polling, so it is unlikely to move forward.
What To Know
Smith lowered the threshold for citizens to trigger referendums last year.
"Should Ottawa, for whatever reason, continue to attack our province as they have done over the last decade, ultimately that will be for Albertans to decide," she said during a livestream address in May, adding, "I will accept their judgement."
However, the separatist movement seems unlikely to succeed. An early April 2025 poll carried out by the Angus Reid Institute found that only three in 10 Albertans would vote to leave the Canadian federation. A March poll from Leger had similar findings.
In February, Jeffrey Rath, the leader of separatist group the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP) said in an interview with Canadian Television: "the Trump administration shows Albertans far more respect than is shown to Albertans by the government in Ottawa."
While there are no plans in place to align more with the U.S., if Alberta's separatist movement is successful, some separatist leaders have indicated goodwill towards the Trump administration.
Quote:A former Special Forces commando made millions of dollars carrying out assassinations for the United Arab Emirates, new court documents claim.
Abram Golan, a mercenary allegedly behind a botched plot to kill a member of Yemen’s House of Representatives, has been named a defendant by Anssaf Ali Mayo, who barely escaped death at Golan’s hands, the papers allege.
In August 2015, Golan, along with former Navy SEAL Issac Gilmore, started Spear Operations group in Rancho Santa Fe in San Diego.
The two pitched and reached an agreement with the UAE to carry out “targeted assassinations” on the empire’s behalf, the lawsuit claims.
In return, Spear would allegedly be paid $1.5 million a month plus bonuses for successful killings.
The deal was allegedly brokered over lunch at an Italian restaurant in the officers’ club of a UAE military base in Abu Dubai by Mohammed Dahlan, a former security chief for the Palestinian Authority.
“There was a targeted assassination program in Yemen. I was running it. We did it. It was sanctioned by the UAE within the coalition,” Golan allegedly said, according to the papers.
Once the deal with the UAE was reached, the two recruited former members of the military, a key point in their pitch to the UAE, including Dale Comstock, a former member of US Army Special Forces, who was paid $40,000 a month plus bonuses to run the killing team.
The group was assembled by the December. They allegedly loaded on to a chartered jet at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey and flew to Yemen with body armor and specialized tools to prepare explosives.
They also allegedly packed a few weeks’ worth of military “meals ready to eat,” and three cases of Basil Hayden’s since it would be impossible to get any alcohol in Yemen.
Per the lawsuit, their main target was Mayo, who was at the top of the list to eliminate because he was a member of the al-Islah party, Yemen’s second-largest political group, which is linked to the UAE’s enemy the Muslim Brotherhood.
Quote:A new database of Chinese newspapers tracks the intensity of Communist Party propaganda used to support "ethnic harmony" in what critics say amounts to suppression of minority cultures.
One standout example is "铸牢中华民族共同体意识" ("forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation"), a party slogan championed by President Xi Jinping and now synonymous with assimilation efforts.
The phrase is all too familiar to Soyonbo Borjigin, a journalist from the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, who recently launched a platform that tracks party propaganda efforts by scraping a database of nearly 700,000 articles from 20 provincial papers and two national ones since 2023.
Before leaving China for the United States, Borjigin and his colleagues at the Inner Mongolia Daily were put through a 30-day re-education program.
"During one session, the instructor asked us to reflect on the character 铸 ("to forge" or "to cast") and what it meant. The answer they gave us was that it was a metaphor for ethnic fusion, like molten steel being cast into a single mold," he told Newsweek. "The implication was clear: distinct ethnic identities were to be melted down and recast into one."
Later, when Borjigin traveled to the eastern city of Nanjing, he noticed the slogan was absent from day-to-day life. "That confirmed what PropagandaScope's data now shows at scale: this campaign is disproportionately concentrated in minority regions," Borjigin said.
Compared with the national People's Daily, this slogan was amplified more than 15 times by the Xinjiang Daily, the party newspaper in the far western region of Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uyghurs. The Tibet Daily and Inner Mongolia Daily saw their amplification increase by 9.5 and 8 times, respectively.
China recognizes 56 ethnic groups, including the Han, which comprise more than 90 percent of the country’s population of about 1.4 billion. For decades, many minority groups were accorded a greater degree of cultural autonomy. However, since the 2010s, Beijing has stepped up these Sinicization efforts as Xi sought greater control over ethnic policy.
Resistance has been met with crackdowns, as seen in Inner Mongolia in 2020, when thousands were detained after protesting the rollout of a Mandarin-only education policy.
On March 12, China passed the Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress during the annual session of China’s rubber-stamp parliament. The law aims to “fully promote and popularize” Mandarin, the national language. Children across China are to be instructed in Mandarin from preschool through secondary education, whereas before they were permitted to study in their native tongues, such as Tibetan or Uyghur, a language widely spoken in Xinjiang.
Local governments are called on to build “inter-embedded” communities, encouraging mixed residence among ethnic groups and weaving these goals into urban planning, housing policy, employment, and social services. The law also provides for punishment for parents deemed to instill in their children ideas considered harmful to “ethnic unity,” a broadly worded term rights groups say has frequently been used against minorities who resist Chinese Communist Party policies.
Human Rights Watch Associate Asia Director Maya Wang said the law cemented existing "deeply abusive" practices and mobilized China's bureaucracy toward the goal of cultural assimilation.
Chinese officials dispute that the law is being used to suppress minorities.
Quote:China has converted scores of obsolete fighter jets into drones and positioned many at forward air bases opposite Taiwan, raising concerns they could be used to help overwhelm the island’s defenses in a conflict.
Decades-old Shenyang J-6 aircraft are visible across at least six air bases near the Taiwan Strait—five in Fujian province and one in neighboring Guangdong—according to satellite imagery published by the Washington-based aerospace think tank the Mitchell Institute.
China’s investments in drones, missile forces and fifth-generation aircraft such as the J-20 have widened the air power gap with Taiwan, prompting Taipei to increase spending on layered air defenses and longer-range strike capabilities in recent years.
The People’s Liberation Army has also stepped up pressure on Taipei through large-scale exercises and near-daily sorties across the median line of the Taiwan Strait.
Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Foreign Ministry and Taiwan’s Defense Ministry with requests for comment.
The supersonic, twin-engine J-6—derived from the Soviet MiG-19—entered service in the early 1960s. The last airframes were retired from active service in 2010, though the venerable fighter has continued to be used for training.
China is known to have begun converting these aircraft into unmanned platforms around 2013, and the fighters-turned-drones, dubbed J-6Ws, were on display during last year's Changchun Air Show in Jilin Province. Out of an estimated more than 500 converted airframes, at least 200 are now positioned at bases near the Taiwan Strait, Reuters cited Mitchell Institute analyst Michael Dahm as saying.
Less sophisticated than purpose-built unmanned systems, the J-6 drones could still pose a threat if launched en masse as part of a broader saturation attack, analysts warn.
"Large numbers of these coming across the Strait in conjunction with other strike aircraft or cruise missiles could help in overwhelming Taiwanese—and potentially U.S. and Japanese defenses," Tom Shugart, founder of Archer Strategic Consulting and adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told Newsweek.
Satellite imagery indicates the aircraft are deployed at air bases in Fuzhou, Hui’an, Longtian, Yixu and Liancheng in Fujian province, as well as Xingning in Guangdong.
There is no obvious reason for the J-6s to be forward-deployed alongside more advanced platforms, wrote Moriki Aita, a research fellow at Japan’s National Institute for Defense Studies, in a recent report. "Rather, it suggests that they may be assigned different missions."
"Assuming that an unmanned J-6 is designed for one-way suicide attack operations, it could serve as a means of directly attacking air defense radar sites, surface-to-air missile batteries, airfield facilities, or critical infrastructure," he wrote. "This concept would impose a significant burden on air defense systems, forcing repeated engagements while enabling a portion of these platforms to penetrate even robust defenses."
Quote:The Philippines has reached an agreement with Iran on safe passage for its vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, a move the United States treaty ally says is vital to its energy supply.
In a phone call on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi and Philippine Foreign Secretary Theresa Lazaro reached a "positive understanding on the safety of our seafarers and the security of our energy supply,” Lazaro said on X. "Grateful for the warm spirit of cooperation."
Newsweek reached out to the U.S. State Department and the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs for comment.
Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-quarter of the world’s seaborne oil passes, was down 94 percent compared to peacetime, according to Kpler data, as the conflict and the threat of Iranian strikes deterred commercial shipping. Tehran has pledged safe passage only for ships from countries it deems “non-hostile.”
The disruption has unsettled energy markets and tightened supply for Asian economies heavily reliant on the route. The Philippines is particularly exposed: it sources nearly all of its oil imports via the strait, and officials say reserves cover less than two months of demand. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. last week declared a national energy emergency, with the government rolling out conservation measures, including a four-day workweek for public-sector employees.
Araghchi assured Lazaro that Iran would “allow the safe, unhindered, and expeditious passage through the Strait of Hormuz of Philippine-flagged vessels, energy shipments, and all Filipino seafarers,” the Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. “These assurances will help sustain the steady flow of critical oil and fertilizer supplies to the Philippines.”
Both sides reaffirmed their commitment to maintaining strong bilateral ties and pursuing “lasting peace” through diplomacy, the statement added.
Quote:A powerful 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck offshore in the Molucca Sea near Indonesia late Wednesday, prompting a tsunami warning for parts of the region, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
The quake occurred at a shallow depth and was centered west‑northwest of the city of Ternate, an area along the seismically active Pacific “Ring of Fire,” the USGS said. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said hazardous tsunami waves were possible along coastlines within about 620 miles of the epicenter, including parts of Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia. Authorities urged coastal residents to monitor official alerts as damage assessments continued and warned that tsunami impacts can vary widely depending on local geography.
Several population centers in eastern Indonesia lie close to the epicenter in the Molucca Sea and are monitored for strong shaking and possible tsunami impacts. The nearest major city is Ternate, the largest urban center in North Maluku province, with a population of more than 200,000 on a small island west of Halmahera.
Farther south, Manado, the capital of North Sulawesi and home to more than 400,000 people, has several low‑lying coastal districts identified by local authorities as tsunami‑prone. Regional monitoring agencies also watch coastal areas of the southern Philippines, particularly parts of Mindanao, and sections of eastern Malaysia, where shorelines could be affected by tsunami waves generated by strong offshore earthquakes, depending on their size and direction.
Mount Everest guides have allegedly been secretly lacing tourists’ food to trigger costly helicopter rescues as part of a $20 million insurance scam, according to a new investigation.
Police in Nepal have charged 32 individuals with organized crime and fraud charges related to the plot, which involves trekking company owners, helicopter operators, and hospital executives, the Kathmandu Post reported.
Guides with the trekking agencies allegedly poisoned tourists by putting baking soda in their food to trigger severe gastrointestinal distress that mimicked altitude sickness or food poisoning, investigators said.
Once ill, the visitors were allegedly pressured into agreeing to costly emergency helicopter evacuations, with operators using forged medical and flight documents to bill international travel insurers for the cost, according to authorities in the Himalayan country.
Those ill-gotten gains were then allegedly split among the guides, helicopter companies, trekking agencies, and the hospitals where the tourists were taken for fake treatments.
The investigation began in January when six executives from three prominent mountain rescue firms were arrested.
The groups allegedly fraudulently obtained at least $19.69 million in insurance payouts, according to police.
One company is accused of faking 171 of its 1,248 claimed rescues, leading to more than $10 million in illegitimate payouts.
A second company allegedly fabricated 75 of its 471 claimed rescues, fraudulently claiming $8 million, while a third is accused of making 71 false claims worth more than $1 million.
Prosecutors are seeking total fines of $11.3 million.
“The court is … giving high priority to this high-profile corruption case,” a court spokesperson said.
This is not the first tourism scandal of its kind to hit Nepal’s tourism industry, which supports over 1 million jobs, directly or indirectly, in the country.
In recent years, several major international insurers have halted coverage for trekking tourists in Nepal due to escalating fraud incidents.
In 2018, the Nepalese government claimed to have eliminated all “intermediaries” involved in arranging emergency evacuation for tourists, making operators legally responsible for their clients throughout the trip.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
News of the World
![[Image: SP1-Scripter.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-Scripter.png)
![[Image: SP1-Writer.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-Writer.png)
![[Image: SP1-Poet.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-Poet.png)
![[Image: SP1-PixelArtist.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-PixelArtist.png)
![[Image: SP1-Reporter.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/GmxWbHyL/SP1-Reporter.png)
killing an agent by running over him. Keep in mind that later Trump picked Tim Homan to solve the issues arising in Minnesota.
Has the mayor even asked his constituents if they truly want the mural to be destroyed or replaced?
What about their own ayatollah's words on this matter? (If he is still alive.)
