Trump says US could charge for Strait of Hormuz passage amid Iran war | News
US president says Washington, as the ‘winner’ of the war, has a ‘concept’ for charging a toll in strategic waterway.
Published On 6 Apr 2026
President Donald Trump has suggested the United States may be looking to charge a toll in the Strait of Hormuz after the war, a move that would likely require direct US military control over the strategic waterway.
Asked on Monday whether he would accept a deal that would allow Iran to take fees from ships to traverse the strait, the US president said: “What about us charging tolls? I’d rather do that than let them have them. Why shouldn’t we? We’re the winner. We won.”
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Trump reiterated that Iran has been militarily defeated, a claim that he has been making since the early days of the war, despite Iran’s sustained drone and missile attacks across the region and its continuing blockade of Hormuz.
“The only thing they have is the psychology of, ‘Oh, we’re going to drop a couple of mines in the water.’ All right, no, I mean, we have a concept where we’ll charge tolls,” Trump told reporters.
Hormuz, which connects the Gulf to the Indian Ocean, lies mostly within Omani and Iranian territorial waters. About 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) passed through the strait before the war.
Trump’s latest comments came as he issued what he called a “final” ultimatum to Tehran to reopen the strait and agree to Washington’s terms or face attacks against Iran’s civilian infrastructure, including bridges and power plants.
The US president told reporters on Monday that any deal with Iran must include reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
“We have to have a deal that’s acceptable to me, and part of that deal is going to be, we want free traffic of oil,” he said.
Reports have suggested that Iran is already charging a toll for some of the few ships it is allowing to pass through the strait.
“The Strait of Hormuz situation won’t return to its pre-war status,” Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf wrote on X last month.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has also called for “new arrangements” to manage the waterway after the war, ensuring safe passage for ships and protecting Iran’s interests.
“I believe that after the war, the first step should be drafting a new protocol for the Strait of Hormuz,” he told Al Jazeera in March. “Naturally, this should be done between the countries that lie on both sides of the strait.”
The White House said last week that Trump is considering asking Arab countries to pay for Washington’s expenses in its war on Iran.
Who Speaks for Palestinian Women? Unmasking the Politics of ‘Saving’ in Gaza”
In the midst of the escalation of the Gaza conflict that has been going on since 2023, the world is once again witnessing the heartbreaking reality of women crying among the ruins of their homes and the burning of property, mothers who have lost children, and families separated by military attacks. Global media were quick to point to this event as a symbol of the suffering of civil society. But behind the empathy shown, there is also a question that is rarely asked: how exactly can Palestinian women be represented, and who can shape that narrative?
For decades, women in conflict zones, such as the Middle East, have often been portrayed in the same framework, as passive victims who need to be rescued and protected. In the context of Gaza, this pattern has resurfaced. Global media coverage often only highlights women’s plight without giving enough space for their voices, perspectives, and agency in conflict. This narrative does look humanistic, but it also contains an element of simplification that makes the world unaware of the more complex reality behind it.
This is where postcolonial feminism offers a sharper critique and helps us to look further at this issue as a form of epistemic violence. This perspective emphasizes that in understanding women’s experiences, it cannot be separated from considerations about the history of colonialism and global power relations. In the context of the Gaza conflict, this means that violence is experienced by women. Not only a patriarchal problem but also supported by aspects of colonialism, militarization, and inequality politics (Enloe, 2014).
This phenomenon cannot be separated from the thoughts of Lila Abu-Lughod, who mentioned “politics of saving” in her work entitled Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Abu-Lughod (2013) criticized how the Western world portrays Muslim women as an oppressed group in need of rescue. This narrative is not only a form of simplifying women’s representation but can also be used as a legitimacy for political, cultural, and even military intervention from external actors. Such as the concept of militarization of daily life raised by Enloe (2014), who explains that militarization does not only occur on the battlefield but also enters into the reality of daily life, including in how the media frames conflicts. Where in this context the representation of Palestinian women as passive victims is used to affirm certain narratives about war, security, and the legitimacy of power.
The term “security politics” in the Gaza conflict appears in a more subtle form. Palestinian women are positioned as a universal form of suffering but are rarely seen as political subjects with diverse experiences and aspirations. The suffering they experience in conflict becomes a global consumption, while structural contexts, such as colonialism and power inequality, are often ignored.
An important question then arises: who really has the right to speak on behalf of Palestinian women? This is where Spivak’s (2009) thoughts on the concept of the subaltern become relevant. Spivak himself argues that the subaltern group is a group that is in a marginalized position so that its voice is not heard in the dominant discourse. Even when they are “represented,” their voices are often mediated or even filtered by stronger actors.
In many news narratives about Gaza, Palestinian women rarely appear as the main narrator of their own experiences. Brand awareness is often told by foreign journalists and international organizations. Or humanitarian institutions as “representatives.” As a result, the narrative that is born is not a complete reflection of the reality they face, but rather a form of representation that has been framed according to the logic and direction of global media reporting.
This issue becomes more complex when we look at how the media tends to ignore the agency dimension. Palestinian women not only live in the shadow of conflict but also have active agency in various forms of resistance, both as activists, journalists, medical personnel, and community leaders. They have the capacity to build solidarity and even contribute to political struggles as well as peace. However, aspect II rarely gets the same spotlight as the narrative of suffering.
This disregard of agency can create an imbalance of representation. Palestinian women are only seen as passive victims, which makes them look like they also have no capacity as active actors. This inequality is not only a question of representation but also a question of power regarding who has the right to define reality for a particular purpose.
In the digital era, this is certainly starting to change. Social media provides a space for Palestinian women to be able to speak directly to a global audience. Through various social media platforms, they can share experiences and aspirations that are often not featured in the mainstream media. This ultimately opens up the possibility of a more authentic and diverse counternarrative.
However, the digital space is still full of limitations. Certain narratives can easily go viral, while others sink and disappear without a trace. In other words, while social media can offer opportunities, the space is not completely free from the influence of broader power structures.
Rereading the narrative of Palestinian women in the era of the Gaza conflict is a form of recognition that representation is not neutral. It is always related to interests, ideologies, and power relations. The narrative of “rescue” may seem like a form of concern from the surface, but if you look further, it can also be a form of control over the other party’s representation. Looking at the Gaza conflict through the lens of feminism is to question basic assumptions in global reporting. Do we really see them as individuals? Do we really hear their voices, or just voices about them?
Therefore, it is important to change our perspective. Instead of seeing Palestinian women as victims who need to be saved, we need to recognize them as subjects who have the capacity to speak, form agencies, and share their experiences in the form of real reality. This is not to ignore the real suffering but to place Palestinian women’s experiences in armed conflict in a broader, fairer, and closer context to reality. As Abu-Lughod (2013) reminds us, the more important question that arises is not how to save Muslim women, but how to understand the conditions and realities that shape their life experiences.
Ultimately, the lens of feminism, particularly postcolonial feminism, invites us to not only have empathy but also to be more critical. By looking further at how the narrative is formed, who can benefit, and which voices are ignored.
Perhaps the more relevant question is not whether Palestinian women need protection and rescue, but whether the world is ready to hear and see them as subjects who have the capacity to speak and move. Because what needs to change is not them, but the way we understand them.
Protest by Cinerama Dome grassroots campaign shut down by police on Friday
A five-year grassroots campaign to spur the reopening of one of the crown jewels of moviegoing in Los Angeles is on indefinite pause following an incident at the theater Friday night.
Ben Steinberg, a 26-year-old film student at Cal State Northridge, has long been a vocal and active proponent of reopening Hollywood’s Cinerama Dome, which has been closed since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020. A Change.org petition started by Steinberg has more than 31,000 signatures asking the Decurion Corp., longtime owners of the venue, to reopen or lease the property to someone else who would. Across social media platforms, Steinberg has nearly 12,000 followers.
From across Sunset Boulevard on Friday night, Steinberg — along with a projectionist and a privately-hired security guard — had been projecting images of two members of the Forman family, who own Decurion, onto the front of the Dome along with the slogan “Mr. Forman REOPEN THE DOME!” After about two-and-a-half hours, LAPD officers arrived in response to a radio call received around 9 p.m.
“They came to us and they informed us that the property owner considers it harassment and that it’s an escalation and that we have to shut down,” said Steinberg in an interview with The Times on Sunday afternoon. “So we just shut down immediately. We didn’t contest anything.”
There was no immediate response to a request for comment from Decurion on Monday. The LAPD confirmed details of the incident.
The Cinerama Dome originally opened in 1963 with its white tiled design and distinctive marquee. In April 2021 it was announced by Pacific Theatres that the venue would not be reopening. That brief statement regarding the closure of Pacific Theatres and ArcLight Cinemas, which operated the Dome and were also owned by Decurion, said in part, “This was not the outcome anyone wanted, but despite a huge effort that exhausted all potential options, the company does not have a viable way forward.”
Since then there have been sporadic signs of life regarding the venue, mostly to do with liquor licensing and permit requests, such as last October when a company called Dome Center LLC filed an application for a conditional-use permit.
Particularly since it became part of the larger ArcLight Hollywood multiplex in 2002, the Dome had been a vital part of the community of moviegoers in Los Angeles, home to many notable premieres and events. The front of the theater made a memorable appearance in Quentin Tarantino’s Oscar-winning 2019 film “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.”
For now Steinberg considers his Save the Cinerama Dome campaign, which began in April 2021, paused but he hopes to resume it as soon as possible. The complaint made to the police Friday was the first reaction of any kind Steinberg has received from Decurion.
“I think it definitely tells what their intentions are,” said Steinberg. “This is the only sign that they’ve given us that they don’t want us to continue and it’s definitely a threat.”
For Steinberg, the campaign has grown beyond just wanting to see movies again in a favorite venue and into something about who truly owns the cultural capital of the city.
“I think it’s extremely important to the community of Los Angeles and it represents the city,” said Steinberg of the Cinerama Dome. “And just personally, I have so many good memories of the theater. I would hope that I’d be able to go back in again and watch movies. I think the whole city deserves the movie theater. I don’t think it would be fair for them to keep it abandoned.”
While Decurion may be operating within its rights as owner of the property, its secretive and mysterious business practices have increasingly angered film fans concerned about the future of moviegoing in the city.
“When I first posted about it, I thought people wouldn’t care,” said Steinberg. “But it seems like the whole world cares about the Cinerama Dome. And I think too it’s more than the Cinerama Dome at this point. I think it just kind of represents the overall landscape of L.A. and America and how these large corporations can own historic buildings and keep them abandoned and then sort of push away people who want [them] to reopen.”
Trump administration terminates agreements to protect transgender students in several schools
WASHINGTON — The Education Department said Monday it has terminated agreements that previous administrations reached with five school districts and a college aimed at upholding rights and protections for transgender students.
The decision means the department will no longer play a role in enforcing those agreements, which called for schools to take steps to comply with federal civil rights law. The districts affected are Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware, Fife School District in Washington, Delaware Valley School District in Pennsylvania, and La Mesa-Spring Valley School District, Sacramento City Unified and Taft College in California.
Under the Biden and Obama administrations, the department interpreted Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education, to include protections for transgender and gay students.
The Trump administration has penalized schools that have made efforts to accommodate students based on their gender identity. It has filed lawsuits in California and Minnesota over state policies permitting transgender students to participate in interscholastic sports, and opened civil rights investigations into schools and universities over their policies on transgender students.
But the announcement Monday appeared to involve the first known cases of the administration terminating civil rights settlements that had been negotiated with schools.
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said the action reflects the administration’s efforts to keep transgender students from participating in girls’ and women’s sports teams and accessing shared locker rooms.
“Today, the Trump Administration is removing the unnecessary and unlawful burdens that prior Administrations imposed on schools in its relentless pursuit of a radical transgender agenda,” she said in a written statement.
Ma writes for the Associated Press.
UCLA players crown Cori Close as their champion
UCLA coach Cori Close refused to call the Bruins’ national championship win Sunday personally validating. She said it didn’t matter what people had thought about her as a coach.
Her players, though, were as excited for their coach as they were for themselves after defeating South Carolina 79-51 to claim the first NCAA national title in program history.
“I’m super proud of her as well, the way she responded as a leader last year,” UCLA senior guard Gabriela Jaquez said. “We responded well. Obviously we’re here now. I think it started with Coach Cori and the way she wanted to make a change in our program and get us back here, get this result.”
Close, who has been with the Bruins since 2011, got UCLA close last season, when the Bruins reached the Final Four and were blown out by Connecticut in the semifinal.
But they turned the tables on South Carolina on Sunday, and Close said the best feeling was knowing that her process could work.
“This has been a calling, not a job,” Close said. “I’ve been saying it all day, but I don’t even know how else to say it, it’s immeasurably more than I could ask or imagine. I’m really grateful.”
UCLA coach Cori Close points across the court and talks with guard Kiki Rice during a win over South Carolina in the NCAA national title game Sunday in Phoenix.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
At times during her career, Close was viewed as an excellent recruiter and strong motivational speaker, but her tactical decisions were easy to question every time her team faltered during big moments. During the course of UCLA’s win over South Carolina, Close demonstrated every weakness her team showed during the past four years had been corrected. The result, was a lopsided victory that announced her arrival as one of women’s college basketball’s top coaches.
WNBA star Caitlin Clark on posted on X, “Not many care about the game as much as Coach Close … couldn’t be happier for her!!”
South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said Close and her Bruins deserved all the praise.
“Cori is one of those people who really works at making our game better. Not just UCLA, but our entire game,” Staley said. “She’s always speaking out, uplifting our game in so many areas that it’s hard to continue to do that while maintaining the job that you have to do every day. But she finds the time.
UCLA coach Cori Close hugs South Carolina Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley before their teams faced off for a national title Sunday in Phoenix.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
“Although we didn’t win, I can swallow it because we lost to a really good human being and a good team that represent women’s basketball well.”
Close will have to face a rebuild and likely have to work the transfer portal hard in the coming weeks to replace her six seniors and graduate students. But now, it might be a little bit easier since she’s proven her players bought in and she can win.
“Coach Cori really stayed patient with me,” said senior Lauren Betts, who was named the tournament’s most outstanding player. “She wanted to see me accomplish everything that I’d ever dreamed of. They just continued to remind me, they want me to see myself the way they all see me. I feel like now at this point I can finally truly do that. I think that’s what I’m most proud of.”
Not only win, either, but in such joyous fashion that it kept many of the players committed to the program and each other. Close’s approach ultimately carried them to a national championship.
UCLA forward Gabriela Jaquez dribbles under pressure from South Carolina forward Joyce Edwards Sunday in Phoenix.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
“It’s about their work and their habits yielding,” Close said while tearing up. “We say this, we want to recruit courageous. There were a lot of times we wondered if it could be true. I said I wanted to find uncommon, courageous women that were willing to make uncommon choices that maybe possibly could yield an uncommon result, and today it did.”
More love for the national champions
The UCLA women’s basketball team’s win sparked celebrations throughout the country.
UCLA two-sport star Megan Grant, who spent part of the fall practicing and playing on the Bruins’ basketball team, helped the softball team sweep Indiana before catching a flight to Phoenix. She greeted the basketball team at its hotel and joined the celebration, getting decked in UCLA national championship gear and receiving a piece of the title net from Close.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, a proud UCLA alum, recorded a video congratulating the team on its title win from one champion to another. “You guys made the entire Bruin nation so proud,” he said.
Lakers legend Magic Johnson, former U.S. Soccer star Abby Wambach, former President Obama, former Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Mayor Karen Bass and many others congratulated the Bruins on social media. The state capital was lit in UCLA colors Sunday night in honor of the Bruins’ win. Fans greeted the team when the Bruins’ bus from the airport arrived on campus Sunday night.
UCLA is inviting fans to a national title celebration at Pauley Pavilion on Wednesday night. The official start time has not yet been announced.
Gymnastics advances to NCAA championships
The UCLA gymnastics team was locked in a tight battle Sunday in Corvallis, Ore., for a spot in the national championship meet.
The Bruins, however, were confident their super-power event — the floor exercise, their final rotation — would keep alive their goal of winning a national title.
Ciena Alipio scored a 9.875; Mika Webster-Longin, Sydney Barros and Ashlee Sullivan all scored a 9.900; and Tiana Sumanasekera added a 9.925.
Then it was time for senior Jordan Chiles to close out the meet for the Bruins.
Chiles delivered the same dynamic floor routine that has earned high scores all season, bursting into tears as soon as she stuck the final landing. She was rewarded with her eighth perfect 10 of the season and clinched the regional victory for the Bruins.
It was UCLA’s 25th NCAA regional title and the program’s first since 2019.
UCLA’s final team score was 197.725. Minnesota was next in line with 197.625 and will join the Bruins as the teams advancing to the national title meet.
Longtime UCLA rival Utah placed third with 197.500 and Alabama was fourth with 197.175.
Louisiana State, Stanford, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma and Arkansas are the other six teams that advanced to the national championships, which will be held April 16 and 18 at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth.
No. 1 UCLA baseball sweeps No. 12 USC
The No. 1 UCLA baseball team completed a three-game sweep of No. 12 USC at Jackie Robinson Field, rolling to a 10-4 victory.
With the score tied 3-3 in the fifth inning, Will Gasparino hit a two-run homer. Mulivai Levu added a two-run homer in the sixth, and Roch Cholowsky tacked on a three-run blast in the eighth.
UCLA earned a 12-4 win over USC on Friday, then had to rally for a 9-8 win Saturday.
The Bruins (29-2, 15-0 Big Ten) are riding a 23-game win streak. The Trojans (27-6, 10-5) started the season on a 19-game win streak but have been challenged by Big Ten competition.
The UCLA football team kicked off spring workouts this past week. We’ll get our first chance to talk with players this week and promise to have more football coverage in the newsletters to come.
In case you missed it
Plaschke: Bruising Bruins dominate South Carolina, bring another NCAA national title to Westwood
Swanson: Gabriela Jaquez achieves the UCLA championship she always dreamed of
UCLA crushes South Carolina to win NCAA women’s basketball national championship
UCLA players say Cori Close has evolved from motivator to championship leader
UCLA fans gather in Arizona to proudly cheer on Final Four Bruins they admire
Plaschke: UCLA defies expectations with a TKO of Texas and isn’t backing down from title fight
Swanson: Becoming the next South Carolina was always UCLA’s goal. Now it must beat its inspiration
No. 1 UCLA baseball pulls away from No. 12 USC in highly anticipated showdown
UCLA defeats Texas to set up national title showdown with South Carolina
How viral videos sparked a women’s NCAA tournament revolution
UCLA knocks off Texas, reaches national championship game
It’s ‘all or nothing’ for UCLA seniors chasing NCAA women’s basketball title
UCLA coach Bob Chesney grades Bruins on effort not perfection as spring football opens
UCLA gymnasts say remaining calm, confident key to their push for a national title
UCLA confident it can turn last year’s hard lessons into Final Four success
Five concerns UCLA must address before facing Texas in the Final Four
Angela Dugalic surrendered a starting role and unlocked UCLA’s trip to the Final Four
Prep Rally: Former Southern California high school standouts fueling UCLA and USC baseball
Have something Bruin?
Do you have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future UCLA newsletter? Email newsletters editor Houston Mitchell at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
Cruise ship runs aground on reef at island near Fiji
April 6 (UPI) — A cruise ship in Fiji ran aground at Monuriki Island, a small, uninhabited island off the coast of Fiji where the movie Cast Away was filmed.
The ship is the 180-foot Fiji Princess, part of Blue Lagoon Cruises. It ran aground on a reef while visiting the island. All 30 passengers and 17 of its 31 crew were taken off the boat on the same day, and there were no injuries reported.
“Initial checks confirmed that the vessel has suffered serious damage to its rear left side, including the area where the steering equipment is located. Part of the vessel underneath has also been damaged,” a spokesperson for the Maritime Safety Authority of Fiji said.
“The vessel also experienced engine failure and was reported to be taking in water following the grounding. Due to rough seas and strong waves, officers were unable to safely inspect the vessel underwater at the time,” the MSAF said.
The main priority is protecting the environment, a spokesperson said.
The ship was carrying about 5,300 gallons of diesel fuel. The spokesperson said authorities had taken oil spill equipment to the area “as a precaution” but that the sea was too rough to use it.
“At the time of inspection, there were no signs that the fuel tanks had been damaged,” the spokesperson said.
Salvage teams, with the help of an Australian salvage specialist, were working to remove the fuel and oil from the ship.
”Msaf’s main concern at this time is the safety of all personnel, the protection of Fiji’s marine environment, and ensuring that response efforts continue safely,” a spokesperson said. “Msaf will continue to work closely with the vessel operator and all response teams, and will provide further updates as necessary.”
Monuriki Island is where the 2000 movie “Cast Away,” starring Tom Hanks, was filmed. It is part of the Mamanuca Island chain, on which “Survivor” has been filmed since 2016.
Iran Rejects Ceasefire Deal
Iran has rejected a ceasefire proposal from the United States, but says it sees a need for a permanent end to the war, its official news agency has reported. As of Monday, the United States and Iran were considering a framework aimed at ending their five-week conflict, as Tehran stressed its desire for a durable resolution and resisted pressure to quickly reopen the Strait of Hormuz under a temporary ceasefire.
According to the official IRNA news agency, Iran delivered its response to the U.S. proposal via Pakistan, rejecting the idea of a ceasefire and underscoring the need for a permanent conclusion to the war.
The response outlined 10 provisions, including ending regional hostilities, lifting sanctions, and supporting reconstruction efforts, IRNA reported.
According to a report from Axios that cites “four U.S., Israeli, and regional sources with knowledge of the talks,” the two-tier plan was to start with a 45-day ceasefire, planned to lead into a longer-term peace deal.
A senior Iranian official confirmed to the Reuters news agency that Tehran had received the ceasefire plan from Pakistan.
Pakistan has been playing a leading role in negotiations, with its Army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, reportedly in contact throughout the night with U.S. Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi.
One major sticking point appears to be Iran’s refusal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a “temporary ceasefire.” Around a fifth of the world’s oil supply usually passes through the strait, which Iran has effectively blocked.
The same Iranian official told Reuters that the United States is not ready for a permanent ceasefire. Tehran will not be pressured into accepting deadlines and making a decision, the official added.
Over the weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to obliterate Iranian power plants and bridges if it doesn’t agree to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz by 8:00 p.m. Tuesday (U.S. Eastern Time). “If they don’t come through, if they want to keep it closed, they’re going to lose every power plant and every other plant they have in the whole country,” Trump said in an eight-minute interview with The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.
Today, Trump reiterated that the Tuesday deadline is final.
Trump also issued an expletive-laden warning on his Truth Social website: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
Iran’s parliament speaker responded with a warning that the US president’s “reckless moves” would mean “our whole region is going to burn”.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister said that those threats could amount to war crimes. “The American president, as the highest official of his country, has publicly threatened to commit war crimes,” Kazem Gharibabadi said on X, citing provisions of international law.
“The threat to attack power plants and bridges (civilian infrastructure) is a war crime under Article 8(2)(b) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,” he said, cited by AFP. Gharibabadi also warned that Iran would “deliver a decisive, immediate and regret-inducing response to any aggression or imminent threat.”
Iran has itself attacked civilian infrastructure on the Arabian Peninsula, including desalination plants critical to providing water to people living there.
Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, condemned Trump’s threats and argued that he was being misled by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Your reckless moves are dragging the United States into a living HELL for every single family, and our whole region is going to burn because you insist on following Netanyahu’s commands,” Qalibaf posted on X.
Iran’s central military command also responded to the latest threats, promising “much more devastating” retaliation if the U.S. military starts to hit civilian targets.
According to Barak Ravid, global affairs correspondent for Axios, the 45-day ceasefire is “one of many more ideas” being discussed.
UPDATES:
Author’s note: We will be updating our readers on what we know about the F-15E WSO recovery in a separate piece.
UPDATE: 4:15 PM EDT –
A recent post on X by the U.S. Central Command shows U.S. Marines preparing an example of the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) during Operation Epic Fury.
UPDATE: 4:10 PM EDT –
Reuters reports that four Iranian army ground force officers were killed on Sunday during an operation to counter U.S. aircraft in Isfahan, citing the semi-official Fars news agency. It is unclear if this is connected to the F-15E WSO recovery operation, which was taking place in the same region at that time.
UPDATE: 4:00 PM EDT –
Temporary markings in the form of Easter eggs appeared on the nose of this U.S. Air Force U-2S spy plane, seen departing RAF Fairford, in England, for a mission this morning.
U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth says the United States will step up its strikes on Iran under Trump’s orders.
“Per the president’s direction, today will be the largest volume of strikes since day one of this operation. Tomorrow, even more than today. And then Iran has a choice.”
UPDATE: 3:40 PM EDT –
Trump today repeated his familiar assertions about the success of the war and the performance of the U.S. military (it has performed “unbelievably well,” he said), while also praising the “very historic” rescue of the second crew member from the Air Force F-15E shot down over Iran last week.
Shifting to his latest deadline for Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz (8:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday), he added:
“The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night.”
Trump warned that if Iran failed to meet his deadline, it would be left with “no bridges” and “no power plants,” saying the country would be reduced to “the Stone Ages,” reiterating his previous threat to send Iran “back to the Stone Ages.”
He later reinforced that warning, saying strikes on Iran’s bridges and power plants could begin from 8:00 p.m. ET tomorrow and suggesting the operation could be completed in as little as four hours.
“Every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again … I mean complete demolition by 12 o’clock. And it will happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to. We don’t want that to happen.”
UPDATE: 3:45 PM EDT –
In a surprising disclosure, Trump today suggested that Washington armed (Kurdish) Iranian opposition groups during the January demonstrations.
“President Trump told me the United States sent guns to the Iranian protesters,” Trump told Trey Yingst on the Fox News channel.
“He told me, ‘We sent them a lot of guns. We sent them to the Kurds.’ And the president says he thinks the Kurds kept them. He went on to say. ‘We sent guns to the protesters, a lot of them.’”
As well as lending credence to Iran’s claims that the protests were foreign-inspired, the disclosure would appear to put Kurds in an even more dangerous position. For their part, Kurdish groups have denied the claims.
UPDATE: 3:50 PM EDT –
Trump today implied that the widening rift between the United States and NATO began when he floated the idea of taking over Greenland.
“It all began with, if you want to know the truth, Greenland. We want Greenland. They don’t want to give it to us. And I said, ‘bye, bye.’”
He made the comments ahead of a scheduled visit to the White House later this week by NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte — whom Trump, for what it’s worth, describes as a “wonderful guy” and a “great person.”
“NATO is a paper tiger. We didn’t need them, obviously, because they haven’t helped at all.”
Earlier today, U.S.-Israeli strikes killed the intelligence chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, according to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
“Major General Majid Khademi, the powerful and educated head of the Intelligence Organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was martyred in the criminal terrorist attack by the American-Zionist enemy… at dawn today,” said the Guards in a post on their Telegram channel.
The IDF has continued airstrikes against Iranian targets, including further attacks on Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran, a major hub for commercial flights, which is also used by the government of Iran, and is one of the bases of the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF). A video released by the IDF shows multiple Mi-8/17 Hip-series helicopters being targeted on the ground at Mehrabad. The IDF claims that “dozens” of aircraft were hit.
U.S. forces located on Bubiyan Island, Kuwait, were targeted by Iran, Ebrahim Zolfaghari, the spokesperson of Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said in a video statement shared by state media on Monday. Bubiyan is the largest of Kuwait’s coastal island chain, located in the northwest of the Gulf. Zolfaghari said that Iran targeted satellite equipment and munitions on the island with drones, adding that U.S. forces had relocated there from Arifjan camp in Kuwait after that base was repeatedly struck by Iran.
Israeli rescue teams were searching through debris on Monday for two people still missing after a missile strike in the northern city of Haifa, authorities said. The projectile, reportedly launched from Iran, hit a residential building, killing two people.
Officials said the direct impact on the seven-storey structure caused severe damage, leaving parts of it partially collapsed. Videos showed rescuers combing through the rubble with flashlights, navigating broken concrete and debris as the search continued.
“We have a major destruction site,” said Elad Edri, chief of staff of Israel’s home front command. Israel’s fire and rescue services said later that two of four people trapped under the rubble had been found dead.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has warned that strikes near Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant pose a serious risk to nuclear safety and must cease.
Located in the country’s south, the facility, which is home to a 1,000-megawatt reactor, has reportedly been targeted four times since the start of the latest conflict.
Rafael Grossi, director of the IAEA, said that any strikes around the area “could cause a severe radiological accident with harmful consequences for people and the environment in Iran and beyond.” He added that one strike hit just 250 feet from the plant perimeter. “A nuclear facility and surrounding areas should never be struck,” he said.
Israel has struck a major petrochemical facility at Iran’s massive South Pars natural gas field, according to multiple news agencies.
Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, confirmed what he described as “a powerful strike on the largest petrochemical facility in Iran,” which accounts for roughly half of the country’s petrochemical output. Meanwhile, Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said there would be “no immunity” for Iran as negotiations continue.
Katz’s remarks followed an earlier report from the Fars News Agency stating that “several explosions” were heard at the South Pars petrochemical complex in Asaluyeh.
The development raises doubts about ongoing efforts to secure a ceasefire between the United States and Iran. The field, which Iran shares with Qatar, is the largest natural gas reserve in the world and lies beneath the Persian Gulf. The latest strikes come just weeks after widespread international criticism of Israel’s March 18 attack on the same South Pars gas field.
Iran widened its attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure over the weekend, carrying out drone and missile strikes on petrochemical sites in Kuwait, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates. The Revolutionary Guards also said they had targeted an Israeli-linked vessel at Dubai’s Jebel Ali port.
Authorities in the emirate of Sharjah said on Sunday that they were responding to an incident involving Khor Fakkan Port, one of the United Arab Emirates’ largest container hubs. No injuries were reported, and officials provided no additional details in a statement released by the Sharjah media office.
Earlier, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) reported that the captain of a container ship at the port had observed several splashes from unidentified projectiles landing close to the vessel.
An Indian-flagged, Japan-owned tanker has crossed the Strait of Hormuz. A spokeswoman for Mitsui O.S.K. Lines told AFP that the Green Asha, owned by its subsidiary, had passed through the strait and was en route to India. The vessel, a liquefied petroleum gas tanker, is the third Japan-linked ship to transit the strait. “Both the crew and the cargo are safe,” the spokeswoman said.
North Korea appears to be stepping back from its longstanding ties with Iran and is carefully shaping its public messaging to keep open the possibility of improved relations with the United States after the Iran conflict, South Korean lawmakers told Reuters on Monday, citing intelligence officials.
There are unconfirmed reports, based on publicly available flight-tracking data, that a U.S. Air Force F-35 fighter flying in an area in southern Iraq, close to the Kuwaiti border, has squawked 7700. This is the universal, international transponder code used by aircraft to immediately alert Air Traffic Control (ATC) of a general emergency.
While we had previously seen Iranian satellite imagery that purported to show the extent of the Iranian attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia that occurred on March 27, the destruction of an aircraft maintenance shelter now appears to have been verified by commercially available Sentinel-2L imagery. The attack also destroyed a prized E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) as well as damaging other aircraft and injuring several American service members, as you can read more about here.
An IDF spokesperson disclosed recently that an Iranian underground complex used for storing ballistic missiles had been targeted.
Based on open-source intelligence, this appears to have been a relatively new and sizable missile base, constructed within the past two years along the Tehran–Qazvin road. It features at least five large access points designed for missile transporters and launch systems.
It also seems that the site was put into operation before construction was fully completed.
In recent days, imagery has emerged showing the reported aftermath of an Iranian drone strike on Camp Buehring in Kuwait, which appears to have destroyed at least one U.S. Army CH-47F Chinook helicopter.
Further signs of an attack on Camp Buehring are provided by infrared imagery from the NASA FIRMS portal.
More evidence has emerged of the use of cluster bombs in U.S. airstrikes on Iran. Last week, photos appeared showing Israeli Air Force F-16I Sufa fighters apparently carrying cluster munitions. Now, U.S. Air Force F-16s have also been photographed with cluster bomb units underwing. The kinds of submunitions that might be inside remain unknown. However, Iranian officials previously accused the United States of employing air-dropped BLU-91/B anti-tank mines, which are delivered via cluster bomb. This seems most likely to be part of a limited-use area denial strategy to contain long-range missile launches, as you can read about in our previous reporting here.
Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com
Taylor Frankie Paul is distancing herself from Mormon church
Taylor Frankie Paul is breaking from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The embattled “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” star announced on Easter Sunday that she’s parting ways with the religion she built her brand on.
“Born and raised Mormon (lds) and I’ll always have love and respect towards it,” she wrote Sunday in an Instagram story. “I’ll even continue to go with my family at times, with that being said, it’s time to detach myself from it.”
Paul launched her career as a Mormon mom-fluencer on TikTok before she landed “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” the reality television series that leveraged her #MomTok success.
The series offered a look at Mormon moms in Utah that subverted viewers’ expectations. Paul drank alcohol and scandalized her online following when she admitted that her social circle participated in “soft swinging” in which they swapped partners for hookups but “didn’t go all the way.” The series followed her through the aftermath of a divorce and an on-again, off-again relationship with Dakota Mortensen, all of which is frowned upon by the Mormon church.
“I strongly believe in Christ, God, the bible, the divine,” she continued in her post. “I believe we are loved whether we are praying in [a] church building or from a bathroom floor at home.”
Paul was set to lead Season 22 of ABC’s “The Bachelorette” until a leaked video of a 2023 domestic dispute between Paul and Mortensen made its way across the internet. Though the entire season had been taped, ABC nixed the premiere, and “Secret Lives” also paused production. Her casting was a break from “The Bachelorette” tradition in that she had not been a contestant on a previous season of “The Bachelor.”
Now police are investigating allegations of a second and third domestic violence incident involving Paul and Mortensen, and as a result of the inquiry Paul has temporarily lost custody of the son she shares with Mortensen. A hearing regarding the protective order is set for Tuesday and may determine whether a final protective order is granted by the Utah court.
“The last 40 days felt like hell on earth,” Paul wrote in a separate Instagram post on Sunday. The post stitched together photos of Bible scripture, Paul crying, pain relief patches and personal notes scrawled through notebooks.
“Through every panic attack I prayed for strength as I could feel my body breaking down and out from the distress of it all. … I’ve prayed since I was young and never strayed away because I believe he wants us to ask for help especially during our lowest points.”
Maduro’s Lawyers: To Pay or Not To Pay
As has been widely reported, Nicolás Maduro has moved to dismiss the criminal charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and weapons-related offenses brought against him in the Southern District of New York, because the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has not been able to pay the fees of the high-profile lawyer Maduro has chosen: Barry J. Pollack. At this point, Maduro is not asking the federal court in Manhattan to declare him innocent. What he is asking for right now is something narrower, but still potentially powerful: he wants the court to dismiss the criminal charges against him because, according to his lawyers, the United States is blocking the money he says is needed to pay the lawyer he chose to defend him.
That sounds technical, but not necessarily complicated. In a criminal case in the US, a defendant has a constitutional right to a fair chance to defend himself. Part of that right, in many circumstances, includes the right to be represented by counsel of his own choosing, so long as that lawyer is qualified and there is no conflict. Maduro says the government, through OFAC sanctions, first allowed his lawyer, Pollack, to be paid by the Venezuelan state and then quickly reversed itself, leaving him unable to fund the defense he wants. Maduro’s motion to dismiss the charges says that this kind of interference violates the Sixth Amendment and due process (protected by the Constitution of the United States).
The criminal case itself is serious and very concrete. It alleges that for years senior Venezuelan officials worked with major criminal and armed organizations to move large quantities of cocaine toward the United States. The indictment also names Cilia Flores de Maduro, Diosdado Cabello Rondón, Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, Nicolás Ernesto Maduro Guerra, and Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores (the main leader of Tren de Aragua).
The present legal dispute is over whether the United States can prosecute Maduro while at the same time prevent the funding arrangement on which his chosen defense depends. That is why Maduro’s motion relies so heavily on the case of United States v. Stein, the Second Circuit case decided in 2006, cited as 435 F.Supp.2d 330 (S.D.N.Y. 2006), which affirmed dismissal after government pressure effectively cut off payment of legal fees by a third party. That precedent does not mean Maduro automatically wins, but it is not a frivolous citation either. It is the strongest case he has at this point.
An unusual case
Barry Pollack, Maduro’s lawyer, is not just any lawyer. He is a well-known white collar and national security defense attorney, and he represented Julian Assange and negotiated the plea agreement that secured Assange’s release. Maduro is not complaining about the quality of available appointed counsel (public defenders) in the abstract. He is claiming a right to keep the specific lawyer he retained.
Still, Maduro’s argument has an obvious weakness. The money he wants to use is not his own personal money. It is money that the current Venezuelan authorities, i.e., Delcy Eloina Rodriguez et al., say they are willing to use for his defense, and Maduro’s defense says Venezuelan law and practice require that support.
But that underlying proposition is not something the New York court necessarily has to decide in any definitive way. The judge may conclude that even if there is a dispute under Venezuelan public law about whether the Republic should pay to defend a former ruler accused of running a criminal enterprise, that is not the immediate federal constitutional question before him. The immediate question is narrower: has the United States, by its own OFAC sanctions, interfered with Maduro’s ability to have the lawyer of his choice?
Can the Executive Branch of the United States selectively block a payment source in a way that undermines the fairness of the criminal process?
That distinction is crucial. A Venezuelan lawyer, taxpayer, legislator, or court might frame the issue one way: can public money legally be used to defend a former head of state accused of crimes that, if true, look personal, corrupt, and far outside any legitimate official duty? Things could be different for acts like war crimes or crimes against humanity carried out through the use of state power, such as directing the armed forces. Those types of conduct are often treated as acts performed in an official capacity for purposes of attribution to the State, even though they can also give rise to individual criminal responsibility. Maduro is not currently being prosecuted for those.
A US federal judge, however, may frame the question entirely differently: once the United States has brought this defendant into an American courtroom, can the Executive Branch of the United States selectively block a payment source in a way that undermines the fairness of the criminal process?
Public law systems generally do not treat the treasury as an open-ended insurance policy for any conduct by any officeholder. A serious argument can be made that the state should defend officials for acts tied to the exercise of public office, but not for allegedly private criminal enterprises carried out under cover of office. If the accusation is that an official used the state as a shell for drug trafficking, bribery, or cartel protection, then the argument for mandatory public funding becomes much weaker. That does not make the issue easy. It just means it is not nearly as obvious as Maduro’s motion to dismiss suggests.
There is another layer too. The legitimacy of Maduro’s political authority matters in the background, even if it may not control this problem. The Carter Center said the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election did not meet international standards and could not be verified or corroborated. Reuters reported the same at the time. There are strong public grounds to reject the idea that Maduro’s continued hold on power after the 2024 election reflected a democratic mandate.
But even that does not end the question. US courts often care less about democratic theory than about practical recognition and real-world control. And here the geopolitical situation moved quickly. Washington recognized Delcy Rodríguez’s government in March 2026 and then lifted personal sanctions on her on April 1, 2026. That change is relevant because it undercuts any simplistic claim that all Venezuelan state funds remain equally untouchable in all contexts.
The cleanest way out for the government would be to authorize payment from a clearly identified, untainted funding source subject to tight conditions and reporting.
That is part of why Judge Alvin Hellerstein pressed the government at the March 26 hearing. Public reports show that he did not dismiss the indictment on the spot. In fact, he signaled the opposite. But he also questioned the coherence of the government’s position and wanted more explanation for why a government now being courted for commercial engagement by the Trump afdministration could not fund a criminal defense. The judge was not ready to throw the case out, but was also not fully satisfied with the prosecution’s answer.
OFAC’s public conduct cuts both ways. Sanctions law often does restrict dealings with blocked governments and blocked persons. However, OFAC publicly issued a series of Venezuela related general licenses in February 2026, including General License 47 on diluents, updated General Licenses 30B, 46A, and 48 on port and airport operations, Venezuelan origin oil, and oil and gas support, and then General Licenses 49 and 50 on contingent investments and certain oil and gas sector operations. Maduro’s lawyers use that sequence to say, in essence: if the Treasury Department can authorize business, investment, and energy transactions involving Venezuela, why can it not authorize payment for criminal defense fees that implicate an express constitutional concern?
The prosecutors, of course, have their own answer. Public reporting says they argued Maduro and Flores could use personal funds, but not Venezuelan state funds, because those public funds are tied to the sanctions framework and, in their view, to illicit proceeds or national security concerns. That position is not irrational. If the government believes the Venezuelan state under Maduro was itself part of the alleged criminal machinery, then letting that same state bankroll the defense may look, from the prosecution’s perspective, like forcing the United States to tolerate the use of tainted sovereign resources to resist prosecution in an American court.
Even so, the government’s position has vulnerabilities. The strongest is not political but doctrinal. The U.S. Supreme Court has treated wrongful denial of counsel of choice as a structural problem, not just an ordinary trial error. And Stein remains a serious Second Circuit precedent where government interference with third party fee payments led to dismissal. Maduro’s legal team is therefore not asking for some exotic new rule. It is trying to fit this unusual case into an existing line of Sixth Amendment and Due Process law.
Maduro’s case involves sanctions, foreign policy, blocked sovereign funds, and a defendant accused of using state power as part of the criminal conduct itself. A judge could reasonably decide that the Stein precedent is relevant but not controlling. A judge could also decide that the proper remedy, if there is a constitutional problem, is not dismissal now but some narrower effort to clarify what funding sources are actually available, whether untainted personal or third-party funds exist, and whether appointed counsel would eliminate any immediate prejudice. That appears to be why Judge Hellerstein has so far resisted the defense’s request for instant dismissal.
This is where the “indigent defendant” point needs to be stated carefully. If Maduro truly had no usable money at all, the court could appoint a public defender under the Criminal Justice Act. That would solve one problem, but not necessarily the one Maduro wants to litigate. His claim is not merely that he wants a lawyer. It is that the government unlawfully blocked the lawyer he picked. Those are related but different ideas. In constitutional terms, appointed counsel is not always a complete answer to an alleged denial of retained counsel of choice. At the March 26, 2026 hearing, judge Hellerstein offered Maduro’s lawyer an easy off-ramp: should Pollack quit the case, the judge would simply appoint a public defender and carry on with the proceeding. Pollack, naturally, did not take that off-ramp. And here, again, what Maduro and Delcy are saying is that they (or rather, Venezuelan taxpayers) indeed have the funds, but are being improperly prevented from using such funds.
A process under the American rule of law
So where does that leave matters? In practical terms, somewhere in the middle. Maduro has not shown, at least not yet in public, that dismissal is proper. But the government also has not made the issue disappear by pointing to the possibility of appointed counsel (a public defender). The more OFAC authorizes broad commercial re-engagement with Venezuela while continuing to refuse this narrow defense related authorization, the more uncomfortable the constitutional optics become. I do not believe that Venezuela should pay for Maduro’s legal defense; the problem, however, is that Venezuela wants to pay.
The cleanest way out for the government would be to authorize payment from a clearly identified, untainted funding source subject to tight conditions and reporting. That would preserve the prosecution, avoid turning this pretrial funding dispute into the central drama of the case, and reduce the risk that any eventual conviction is shadowed by a serious Sixth Amendment (Due Process) fight. If the government refuses to do that, it keeps feeding the argument that it wants to control not only the prosecution but also the defense.
The larger irony is hard to miss. Maduro now invokes constitutional protections that his own regime routinely denied to political prisoners, dissidents, and disappeared persons. But American courts are not supposed to ration constitutional rights according to moral sympathy. If the United States has chosen to bring him before a federal court, it must be prepared to give him the process the Constitution requires. The real question is not whether Maduro deserves indulgence.
At least for now, Judge Hellerstein seems unwilling to end the case on that basis alone. But he also seems unwilling to accept a lazy answer. And that may be the most important point of all. This is no longer just a sanctions issue or a Venezuela issue. It is a rule of law issue inside an American courtroom.
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta calls for perspective before crucial Sporting Champions League tie
When Arsenal face Sporting in their Champions League quarter-final first leg on Wednesday, there will be much more riding on the game than just a knockout match in Lisbon.
For many, this is where the Gunners need to show back-to-back defeats, against Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final and the damaging loss to Southampton in the FA Cup quarter-final, will not leak into their European and Premier League campaigns.
Arsenal have been tagged as the ‘nearly men’ under Mikel Arteta with three successive second-placed finishes in the Premier League in the last three seasons.
But the Gunners have played a ruthless style of football this season, which has seen them establish a nine-point lead in the Premier League, reach the final of one cup competition and, depending what happens in two legs against Sporting, at least the quarter-final stage of the two other cup campaigns they began.
Their style of play has been questioned at times but now it is the team’s mentality that is coming under the spotlight.
The Gunners have been so impressive this season that their defeats by City and Saints are the first time they have lost successive matches this campaign, while the loss on the south coast was just the fifth of the season.
But, with the Champions League and Premier League the top prizes for the Gunners, this is where Arteta needs to show the pain of coming so close in precious campaigns is not going to overwhelm his side as they look to win their first major trophy since 2020.
“Have some perspective about how difficult it is what we have done until now,” said Arteta, when asked how he and the team prevent a longer run of defeats.
“Feel the pain, feel the emotion and use it to be better and improve.”
Sheinbaum says TV coverage of oil spill hurting Veracruz tourism
Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, on Monday accused some television networks of harming hotel and restaurant businesses in the state of Veracruz. File Photo by Isaac Esquivel/EPA
April 6 (UPI) — Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, on Monday accused some television networks of harming hotel and restaurant businesses in the state of Veracruz through negative coverage of a hydrocarbon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
During her morning press conference, Sheinbaum called for direct dialogue between media outlets and business owners. She said the way the issue has been reported has had economic impacts on sectors that depend on tourism along the coastal region.
“It would be very good for business owners in Veracruz’s tourism sector to speak directly with the television network. Mexicans have the right to information, we have the right to the truth. There may be disagreements with the government, there may be political differences with the government. But something very different is the permanent attack that harms third parties,” the president said.
Civil organizations, academics and local residents have reported that hydrocarbon contamination is already affecting nearly 900 kilometers of coastline, from Campeche to Tamaulipas, and that the situation remains out of control.
At the same time, the National Action Party said the authorities’ response has been insufficient and warned that the damage is worsening in communities that depend on fishing and tourism, especially during the Holy Week season, as it coincides with the start of sea turtle nesting. According to the party, this context turns the crisis into a growing social emergency.
Sheinbaum added that the coverage affects not only the federal administration but also workers in the service sector.
“Not only the government of Mexico, but also third parties, which are precisely restaurant owners, hotel owners and all the people who work in services in Veracruz and, in general, throughout the Gulf of Mexico,” she said.
The hydrocarbon spill in the Gulf of Mexico has raised concerns about its environmental effects and its impact on tourism in the region. Sheinbaum linked visitor flows to sea conditions and said occupancy levels have remained high.
“Fortunately, fewer and fewer people are watching them, because otherwise we would not have had the level of occupancy that Veracruz had,” she said.
She added that the country’s main tourist destinations are reporting occupancy rates close to 80%.
The president said Tourism Secretary Josefina Rodríguez Zamora will present a report on hotel occupancy after the Holy Week and Easter holiday period.
“We are waiting until next Monday for Josefina, the secretary of Tourism, to inform us about Holy Week and Easter week. She will give us a general report on hotel occupancy in different locations,” she said.
Sheinbaum also announced a meeting for Tuesday with an interdisciplinary group that will analyze the origin of the spill and containment actions. The team will include Petróleos Mexicanos, the state oil company known as Pemex; the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources; and specialists from academic institutions focused on studying the Gulf of Mexico.
“Regarding the spill, tomorrow I have a meeting with the interdisciplinary group we formed, which includes Pemex, the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources, and researchers from different institutes in the country that are specifically dedicated to analyzing the Gulf, so they can give me a comprehensive review of the causes of the spill,” she said.
The meeting aims to establish a permanent environmental monitoring system with participation from universities and research centers to track conditions in the Gulf of Mexico.
How A Dusty Strip Deep In Iran Can Be Turned Into A U.S. Special Operations Base In Hours
The rescue of the F-15E weapon systems officer (WSO) missing in Iran after his fighter was shot down was one of the most complex and dangerous missions the U.S. military can undertake. These kinds of operations can come in many forms. In this case, before the WSO was finally recovered from the mountain crevice where he was hiding, a forward arming and refueling point (FARP) deep inside enemy territory had to be rapidly set up and secured so that it could act as a staging area for the aircraft, equipment and troops taking part in the mission. This is an exact mission set U.S. special operations forces train for extensively.
To get more insights about how such a FARP would be set up and operated, we reached out to Kyle Rempfer, a former Special Tactics Squadron (STS) airman who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. STS units are an elite cadre of operators who work to control aircraft in the air, including from airfields they establish deep inside contested territory, and direct airpower onto the enemy, among other duties, including rescuing personnel trapped behind enemy lines. They are often paired with special operations units, such as SEALs, Delta Force and Rangers, to bring their unique skills to their missions.
Air Force Special Tactics – the Air Force’s ONLY Special Operations Ground Force
Rempfer, a journalist and former colleague of the author at Military Times, offered unique insights into the process as someone who trained for these missions.
Some of the questions and answers have been lightly edited for clarity.
Q: What happens in the Special Tactics Squadron level when the word comes out that there’s an aircraft down deep into enemy territory?
A: By this point in the campaign, Air Force Special Tactics teams – which are made up of combat controllers (CCTs) and pararescue jumpers (PJs) – would have surveyed or identified scores of Iranian runways and austere airfields that can be used for landing zones or drop zones down the line. Even if CCTs hadn’t set foot on these sites, they’d have pulled imagery of the locations and started using tools like AutoCAD, a surveying and mapping software, to sketch out the dimensions of an airfield and identify what type of aircraft could land there. Is this a site that could only work for a light short take off and landing (STOL) aircraft, or could we land something bigger like a C-17? Those types of questions are on their minds. And since this event appears to have happened near the Isfahan nuclear facility, it can be assumed that Special Tactics has been scoping out landing zones in that area since at least this war started, maybe far earlier.
For this mission, the Special Tactics team just needed someplace to land a couple of MC-130J Commando IIs. Those are designed to infiltrate and exfiltrate special operations troops into and out of the hinterlands, so an agricultural runway intended for crop-spraying planes would fit the bill in terms of dimensions. But on the ground, the soil strength might not hold up for repeat landings, or perhaps the recent weather has eroded the area or left it muddy. That can have an impact, and there are tools like dynamic cone penetrometers that Special Tactics teams use to assess soil strength. They’ve used those and a host of other tools to scout airfields all around potential conflict zones in Africa, northern Iraq, Syria, etc., but given the tight security in Iran, that probably was not feasible to do in advance here. So the soil strength might have been a known-unknown going in.
Q: What would happen once the FARP is set up?
A: They can do these fast. Everything is prestaged, even inside the MC-130. AH-6 Little Bird helicopters were probably offloaded and taking off within minutes, not hours, and beaming toward the WSO’s beacon. At that point, the team at the FARP site is pulling security and talking to all the aircraft overhead. Those pilots and aircrews are using sensors to monitor all the roadways that plausibly lead to the site, and potentially even putting warheads on those roadways to make them unusable. We know there were some diversionary bomb drops as part of the rescue, so they could also take that time to put big potholes in the roads.
Q: Can you talk about what systems, personnel and equipment would have secured the site?
A: The people who are surveying and setting up the landing zone and FARP are probably CCTs [Combat Control Teams] from the 24th Special Tactics Squadron. They would have had imagery to look at ahead of the mission, but you might not know what level of stress the ground can take until you physically get there. CCTs are trained to inspect that, blow up obstacles on the runway if needed, scan enemy activity around the landing site, etc., and then set up the austere airfield to start accepting planes and helos. They might not have had time to do a full-on reconnaissance mission, of course.
CCTs have dirt bikes, something like a Kawasaki KLR 250, that they can drive up and down the airstrip for quickly setting up lights and visually inspecting the terrain. The lights they’d use to create the airstrip would be set up to infrared mode so only people with night vision devices can see them. This isn’t the early days of Afghanistan, though, and night vision devices have proliferated to such a degree that infrared lights are no longer the game changer they once were. However, it still prevents civilians from seeing the operation at night, and that is important given reports that Iranian state media was mobilizing the population to look for the downed airman.
Q: Who would be brought in for force protection?
A: The CCTs of course are not alone at the landing zone. They had DEVGRU (SEAL Team 6) for security and dozens of aircraft backing them up with an absolutely jarring amount of aerial firepower. CCTs are usually also certified JTACs so they can manage the aircraft stacks not just for landing the MC-130s and AH-6s returning from the WSO rescue, but also the dozens of aircraft overhead that can fire at targets as necessary.
Q: Reports indicate that the WSO climbed up a 7,000 foot crevice and hid out there with intermittent communications while the Iranians were looking for him. How does that complicate things? And what would the team on the ground be doing?
A: I imagine that all the communications would have been encrypted – not anything that the Iranians could listen in on. For the guys on the ground, the biggest situation is monitoring to make sure that other forces aren’t approaching the area and protecting that forward arming and refueling site, because while it’s not a base, for all intensive purposes it is the center of mass of the most U.S. forces, the safest zone you have. So basically probably just protected that site.
Q: What would be happening in the air?
A: You would have ISR assets that would be scanning the area, and not just the immediate area, but probably any roads and highways leading up to where that FARP site was set up. They would be watching anyone who could possibly be approaching.
That whole area would just be soaked with ISR assets, and I know the Iranians knocked out two Reaper drones during the operation. So presumably, there was plenty of ISR.
There would be a mix of attack and surveillance aircraft. There would be dozens of aircraft available for this mission. That is great for the team on the ground, but just like an air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan Airport in DC can be overburdened, so will the JTAC who’s on the ground controlling all these different pilots and aircrews calling in to report threats they’ve spotted, relay their fuel or munitions status, report radio chatter they’re picking up from the ground, etc. This could require multiple JTACs on the ground, and probably also pilots in A-10s or F-35s who can act as an extra layer of forward air control in the sky, handling aircraft check-ins and keeping track of specific assets so the JTACs on the ground aren’t losing their minds mind handling a massive air stack behind enemy lines.
Most CCTs also have a JTAC certification, so they can help call in airstrikes as needed to protect the FARP site. And attack aircraft, like A-10s, or multi-role fighters, like F-35s, also have pilots who are certified as Forward Air Controller (Airborne) — or FAC(A). The E-3 can also provide a command and control function to help manage this complex battlespace.
Q: How difficult is a mission like this? What are the dangers?
A: This would have been a hot refueling site, with engines running refueling, and you’re doing all that blacked out, and you have to probably keep the amount of radio chatter on the ground to a minimum because you don’t know if maybe Iran does have something where they can break through the encryption.
So I would imagine that the danger is even more than just the IRGC coming in and shooting at you. The danger is the technicalities that you’re dealing with, with the forward arming and refueling sites and all these aircraft moving around under night vision in blacked out conditions in a tight area. It’s a small airfield, you have to keep your signature low.
Thankfully, they were able to get more aircraft in to usher everyone out. But that just shows how even what they were dealing with, the runway probably wasn’t built to handle these kinds of aircraft, or not maintained.
Clearly this kind of operation – where you’re coming in, setting up an airfield, whether it’s for a follow-on parachute jump or even just air landing more troops and supplies – would be repeated in most of the other scenarios people are talking about. For instance, going in and digging out Iran’s enriched uranium. I think it would have to be pretty similar. You would send in a special tactics team with some Ranger recce guys, and the Ranger reconnaissance company would maybe parachute in, and check out the airfield, and they would start bringing in the MC-130s. It’s going to be a remote, austere airfield. It’s not going to be easy to land aircraft there, it’s not going to be well maintained, and you’re going to run into a lot of problems on the ground with aircraft.
In addition to the fixed-wing planes, the U.S. also destroyed a reported four Little Birds on the way out. Imagine if you’re trying to do sustained operations bringing aircraft in, that all those aircraft are wearing down that obscure runway as you’re coming in, and you’re having more and more troops flow in. Your signature is going to be bigger and it’s going to be there for a longer time.
So this is how you create a window into a country to conduct follow-on operations. In this case, it was just to look for one guy and pick him up. But, they’re obviously looking at runways and airfields all across the country, whether they’re actual runways that are in use by the Iranian government or municipal governments, or if they’re just like roads that they can use or dirt fields that they think they can land on. So this rescue mission was probably a snapshot into larger operational planning.
Q: After the rescue of the pilot, the search for the WSO seemed to turn fairly quickly from a traditional PJ mission to a Tier One rescue operation. Can you talk about that transition and how those two fit together?
A: That’s right. From my understanding, there were two missions. The first was a traditional CSAR mission that was launched in daylight immediately after the F-15E went down. This likely involved the PJs from a rescue squadron that was on standby. They were aboard HH-60W Jolly Greens and had refueling support from an HC-130J. That mission is obviously very risky and time sensitive. They’re flying low and slow, in daylight, and vulnerable to ground fire. We saw people shooting at them with small arms, which probably won’t do much barring really lucky shots, but the crews are still exposed to man portable air defense systems (MANPADS).
You can see Iranians firing small arms at the CSAR aircraft in the following video.
This initial CSAR package successfully recovered the F-15E pilot, who would have had a beacon and survival radio. But obviously the WSO was still at large. Perhaps they knew his location but couldn’t get to him before the region came alive like a bees’ nest – with everyone from locals to actual security forces scouring the scene. At that point, it appears the mission shifted from a more traditional CSAR operation conducted by a rescue squadron to something we’re actually more familiar with from Afghanistan and Iraq – Tier One raids into denied territory. This makes sense to me because this was the single most important mission going on, and it makes sense to flood this with assets to successfully pull off a second pick up. In a bigger war, I doubt downed aircrew can expect JSOC rescue parties every time one of them goes down.
A lot of people were surprised that MC-130s and AH-6s were used for this, but it actually reminds me a lot of the early Afghanistan missions Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted in fall 2001, before the Taliban fell. At least one of these involved Air Force Special Tactics CCTs parachuting into a remote part of Afghanistan, setting up a dirt airstrip, landing two MC-130s, off-loading a couple of Little Birds and then flying those around all night striking Taliban targets.
This rescue raid isn’t too different. It sounds like Air Force Special Tactics CCTs surveyed the airfield in advance – maybe in person, maybe just using satellite imagery – and then brought in the MC-130s that held the AH-6s to actually conduct the rescue that grabbed the WSO. This sort of scheme makes sense given the distance inside Iran. The MC-130s can bring extra fuel and ammunition to set up a mini-special ops refueling and re-arming site.
One thing to note here is why the commandos reportedly blew up the MC-130s on the way out. If the government’s version of events is accurate, this might have been because the runway was not suitable for the MC-130s and those planes got stuck or damaged landing there. The CCTs may have known this was a possibility but determined it was the least bad option. There’s also the possibility the aircraft were more damaged by enemy fire than we’ve been told. We may never know.
Q: What would be the biggest danger from the Iranians? Indirect fire like artillery? Drones?
A: Hard for me to say. If the team had the element of surprise, which it seemed to, then the Iranians would have been caught off guard enough that they didn’t have time to stage artillery or have drones already scanning the area. In that case, I could see the biggest threat being local police or civilians stumbling upon the site early in the mission. As the operation gets underway, the noise signature would probably attract more and more attention. And then you have IRGC teams speeding to the scene. If they’re moving fast, they might only have small arms, maybe some belt-fed machine guns, small caliber mortars, and potentially MANPADs. The longer the U.S. team was on the ground, the more time Iran had to rush forces to the scene and that’s when things appeared to get dicey, the Army’s Delta Force reportedly had to blow in place the MC-130s and call in a quick reaction force (QRF) for pickup.
This is also why having so many aircraft overhead would be useful. Not only are those planes there to strike targets, they can listen to enemy communications and local civilian radio chatter, they can use their sensors to scan all the routes leading up to the airfield, and they can use jamming and spoofing to befuddle the Iranian response. All that helps buy time.
Q: What kinds of geospatial tools would have been used to find and prep the site and carry out the mission?
A: I imagine in advance of this mission the airfields and runways in this area were pre-scouted using satellite imagery. I’m probably too out of date to go into specifics even if I wanted to, but we have very high resolution satellite imagery that’s available in the commercial space and is very impressive. Additionally, aircraft can fly over sites and scan the terrain using LIDAR to build 3D maps of the environment. Suffice to say, the CCTs would have a great picture of the environment before going in, but being physically on the ground shows new problems — can the soil hold up to landing an MC-130? How fine is the sand? When the AH-6s take off, are they creating a brown-out environment?
In an ideal scenario, the CCTs could parachute in before the main mission, conducting a high-altitude, high-opening (HAHO) jump and then confirming on the ground that the site will work to land an MC-130. We don’t know if that’s what happened, but if the reporting is accurate that an MC-130 got stuck and had to be blown up in place, then perhaps they made a mistake or – my bet – they knew the runway was rough and accepted the risk.
Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com
Melissa Gilbert defends ‘canceled’ husband Timothy Busfield
“Little House on the Prairie” alumna Melissa Gilbert remains steadfast in her support for husband Timothy Busfield, the Emmy-winning actor who has been embroiled in a child sex abuse scandal since earlier this year.
Gilbert, in her first sit-down interview since Busfield’s indictment in February, told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos she trusts her husband “with my children’s lives, my grandchildren’s lives, my nieces and nephews” and said she expects the “Thirtysomething” star will be exonerated at trial next year.
“Believe me, if I thought for a second that Tim Busfield hurt a child, he’d have a lot more to worry about than prison,” she said in part of the interview that aired Monday on “Good Morning America.”
In February, a New Mexico grand jury indicted 68-year-old Busfield on four counts of criminal sexual contact of a child. A month prior, New Mexico officials accused Busfield of of inappropriately touching two child actors, who are brothers, during his time as an actor, director and producer on the Fox crime drama “The Cleaning Lady.”
One child actor alleged that Busfield had first touched his “private areas” multiple times on set when he was 7, according to the complaint. He said Busfield touched him inappropriately again several times when he was 8. The affidavit also detailed a police interview with Busfield in which he suggested that the boys’ mother might have sought “revenge” on the director for “not bringing her kids back for the final season.”
Busfield turned himself in to law enforcement days after the warrant was issued and denied the accusations. He was jailed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Albuquerque but was released on his own recognizance Jan. 20.
For Gilbert, 61, the allegations and ensuing chain of events have been “hell.” Recent months have brought “the most traumatizing experiences of our lives,” she told Stephanopoulos, adding, “Our life as we knew it is done.”
The couple married in 2013. “The West Wing” actor Busfield has three adult children from two previous marriages and is the stepfather to Gilbert’s two adult sons from her two previous marriages. When the allegations first surfaced, a publicist for Gilbert said the actor would not comment on her husband’s case, denounced “any purported statements” and said that Gilbert was focused on caring for her and Busfield’s family.
During the Monday interview Gilbert said she and her husband are “grieving what we had: all of our plans, all of our dreams, all of our ideas, all of our projects.” She said her husband has become persona non grata — “canceled,” in her words — and that the allegations will continue to cast a shade over his career “even if he’s exonerated.” Busfield’s lawyer Larry Stein and Gilbert both told Stephanopoulos they are confident that will be the case.
When asked what justice for her husband might look like, Gilbert replied: “Exoneration and apology. Free him from this cloud.”
Elsewhere in the interview, attorney Stein doubled down on his belief that the child actors and their parents are “absolutely” making false allegations against Busfield. The actors’ parents did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Gilbert also told Stephanopoulos that before she married Busfield, she was aware he had been accused of sexual harassment twice by different women, once in 1994 and another time in 2012. Those two cases were mentioned in the January complaint against Busfield.
“I didn’t go into my relationship with him blind. I am neither naive nor am I complicit,” she said, adding she and her husband discussed those claims. “I heard his side of the story which no one has ever heard which is the truth. And when the time is right, and that is not now, Tim will tell the truth of all of these past allegations when he needs to.”
Trump holds fast to Tuesday deadline, threatening Iran’s bridges and power plants
WASHINGTON — President Trump said Monday that the United States and Iran are at a “critical point” in negotiating a potential ceasefire agreement, but the chances of reaching a deal by a Trump-imposed deadline on Tuesday evening appeared uncertain.
In a lengthy news briefing at the White House, the president echoed an expletive-laden Easter Sunday warning to strike Iran’s vital infrastructure if Tehran does not agree to open the Strait of Hormuz by 5 p.m. PDT on Tuesday.
“The entire country can be taken out in one night and that night might be tomorrow night,” Trump told reporters.
Mediators from Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey sent the United States and Iran a draft proposal of the 45-day ceasefire on Friday, the Associated Press reported. Its prospects seemed dim amid the president’s threats and a lukewarm response from Iranian leaders, who dismissed the president’s diplomatic overtures as “unrealistic” and denying direct talks with the United States.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei rejected the latest ceasefire proposal, saying Monday that the American demands were “both highly excessive and unusual, as well as illogical.”
Still, Trump continued to assert that Iranian leadership has been negotiating in good faith. He characterized newly installed leaders as an improvement over their predecessors.
“The people that we are negotiating with now on behalf of Iran are much more reasonable,” he said Monday.
Trump declined to comment further on the ceasefire proposal at the news conference, but told reporters that Iran is negotiating ahead of his Tuesday deadline.
“I can tell you they’re negotiating, we think in good faith,” Trump said. “We are going to find out.”
The president did not say whom the United States is negotiating with, but said the most difficult challenge so far has been establishing a reliable channel of communicating with Iranian officials who he said have “no method of communicating.”
Trump also declined to say whether he was prepared to offer Iran assurances to wind down the conflict, or whether he would escalate by following through with his threats to bomb critical Iranian infrastructure, leaving the door open to both diplomacy and military action.
“I can’t tell you — it depends on what they do. This is a critical period,” he said,
Central to the negotiations is Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, a choke point that, if left blockaded, could continue driving oil prices higher and further destabilizing global energy markets.
Trump, in characteristically unorthodox fashion, floated the possibility of the United States seizing operational control of the waterway and charging tolls for passage, a proposal that he provided without much detail.
“Why shouldn’t we?” Trump said. “We have a concept where we’ll charge tolls.”
He also mused openly about seizing Iranian oil, as he has in recent social media posts in which he floated the idea of using the war to claim Iranian energy resources. He acknowledged public pressure was holding him back from that course.
“Unfortunately the American people would like to see us come home,” he said. “If it were up to me, I’d take the oil, keep the oil and make plenty of money.”
In addition to reopening the Strait of Hormuz, Washington is also demanding the permanent decommissioning of Iranian nuclear sites and an end to its uranium enrichment programs. The proposal also requires Iran to halt support for regional proxies and accept strict ballistic missile limits.
In exchange, the United States says it will provide sanctions relief and assistance with civilian energy production, according to media reports.
Speaking at the White House Easter Egg Roll earlier Monday, Trump showed no signs of softening his posture to bring “hell” to Iran if a deal doesn’t materialize.
“We are obliterating their country. And I hate to do it, but we are obliterating. And they just don’t want to say uncle. … And if they don’t, then they’ll have no bridges, they’ll have no power plants, they’ll have nothing,” he said, adding ominously that “there are other things that are worse than those two.”
Iran has warned of “more severe and expansive” retaliations if Trump follows through on the threats.
Also at Monday’s briefing, Trump celebrated the dramatic rescue of the American officer whose fighter jet was downed by Iran last week. He told reporters the operation to retrieve the wounded officer from “one of the toughest areas in Iran” was possible with a mix of “talent” and “luck.”
The president, however, was angered that a news outlet, which he did not name, reported that the weapons system officer had gone missing and was stranded behind enemy lines. Trump vowed to root out the source of that information, including by threatening to jail the journalist who broke the story.
“We have to find that leaker because that is a sick person,” Trump said. “We are going to find out, it is national security. The person who did the story will go to jail if he doesn’t say.”
Also Monday, Israel struck Iran’s largest petrochemical facility in Asaluyeh and killed Gen. Majid Khademi, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ intelligence organization.
The Israeli military also hit three Iranian airports, purportedly targeting dozens of helicopters and aircraft it said belonged to the Iranian air force.
Iran responded with missile strikes targeting Haifa, Israel, and energy infrastructure in Kuwait and Bahrain.
Champions League: Bayern Munich waiting on fitness of ‘very special’ Harry Kane
Bayern Munich are waiting on the fitness of “very special” Harry Kane to see if he can lead their challenge to overcome Real Madrid in the Champions League quarter-final.
The 32-year-old England captain took part in training in Munich on Monday morning, before travelling to Madrid with the rest of Bayern’s squad after the “minor issue” – believed to be an ankle knock – that kept him out of England’s friendly defeat against Japan at Wembley.
Kane was also missing for Bayern’s 3-2 victory against Freiburg, and coach Vincent Kompany was playing his cards close to his chest about his involvement at The Bernabeu.
Kompany said a final decision on whether Kane starts will be made on Tuesday, but speaking on Monday evening, he said: “Harry’s part of the team so that’s positive for us. We have to wait until tomorrow (Tuesday) to get the final information, then we will make our decision.
“It was important that he did a lot of training today (Monday). I don’t think he’s lost his rhythm.”
Kane is a key part of Bayern’s plans for the quarter-final first leg, having scored 10 goals in the Champions League this season. He is also the Bundesliga’s leading scorer with 31 this season.
Bayern team-mate Joshua Kimmich underlined Kane’s importance, as he said: “How many goals has he scored? How many assists does he have? Forty or 50 this season?
“This shows how important he is – apart from all the goals – extremely vital for our game.
“We are glad he is here with us. He is not only a poacher or a selfish goalscorer just trying to score as many goals as he can for us.
“He is an absolute leader who is always trying to have the maximum success for the team. This is a very special mindset for an attacking player. He’s a role model.”
Kimmich added: “It is important to have Harry on the pitch with us with all his qualities of leadership.”
Kompany fielded several questions on Kane’s fitness, saying: “Harry Kane knows how important this game is, but it is important to take a decision with each player.
“You keep asking about Harry Kane and to be honest I like it. I don’t mind but I don’t give you an answer.”
Save thousands on your summer holiday with one big swap
UNSURE where to head for your next getaway?
Why not ditch the plane and head off on a European ferry adventure instead?
Most of these routes tick off multiple destinations and you can save buckets on soaring air fares going by foot, car or train and sea.
Sophie Swietochowski has ideas to inspire you . . .
GOOD FOR: FOODIES
ROUTE: Sail Poole to Guernsey then on to Saint-Malo, Normandy before returning to Portsmouth or Dover.
IT takes just three hours to reach Guernsey via ferry — a big win if you’re travelling with youngsters.
Seafood and dairy are the food heroes here and there are plenty of seafront spots to sample them.
Le Nautique restaurant is renowned for its seafood, especially the oysters — you can pick up half a dozen for £12.50.
Expect even more plates of wonderfully fresh fish in Saint-Malo.
From this port city you can then make your way to some of Normandy’s top foodie hotspots, all within a couple of hours’ drive.
Bayeux, which is most famous for housing the historic Bayeux Tapestry, is crammed full of gorgeous apple orchards, hence why cider is a popular drink in these parts.
Ferme Lecornu is right in the city centre and offers a “Royal tasting” experience.
GOOD FOR: COASTAL VIEWS
ROUTE: Sail Holyhead to Dublin, return from Belfast (Larne) to Liverpool.
THE rail routes of Ireland are among the most beautiful in the world, offering simply stuinning views of the blustery ocean as you trundle along the cliffside tracks.
This ferry and train-hopping route requires no car — so make sure to celebrate your sustainability efforts with a Guinness or two.
You won’t be hard pushed to find a decent pour in Dublin, although Mulligan’s on Poolbeg Street repor-tedly serves the best — and it’s even attracted a few famous faces in its time, including John F Kennedy and Judy Garland.
Head from one Irish capital to another, catching the train to Belfast.
If you do just one thing here, make sure it’s a Black Taxi Tour that unearths the fascinating history of Belfast’s troubled past.
Then catch the train to Larne, where the scenery gets pretty spectacular — about six miles from the centre you’ll find The Gobbins Cliff Path, overlooking the often ferocious sea.
GOOD FOR: WILDLIFE
ROUTE: Sail Penzance to the Scilly isles – St Mary’s, then Bryher and Tresco, returning back via St Mary’s to Penzance.
KEEP your eyes peeled because your chances of spotting dolphins are always high in both Cornwall’s Penzance and the Isles of Scilly.
Once you’ve caught the ferry over to St Mary’s island, head to Peninnis Head which offers panoramic views of the ocean.
From this high perch you can watch bottlenose dolphins hunting in the choppy waters below.
Hop on the small ferry over to Bryher where even more magnificent coastal creatures await.
We’re talking grey seals, hermit crabs and even puffins.
Your best chance of spotting them is from now until July, so if you’re heading out there, it’s a good idea to pack a decent camera.
From here, make your way over to Tresco and catch some well-deserved downtime on the glorious beaches.
Pentle Bay has previously been named one of the best beaches in the UK thanks to its white sands and peaceful turquoise waters.
GOOD FOR: WHISKY CRAWLS
ROUTE: Sail from Ardrossan to Arran then to Kintyre, on to Cowal then to Wemyss Bay via Bute. If short of time, consider a single-destination option – Oban to the Isle of Mull is just 45 minutes each way.
SCOTLAND blends breathtaking scenery with world-famous whisky — what could be better?
Make your way from the mainland to the Isle of Arran, which has all the unspoilt beauty of the Highlands, but comes with ocean views.
The coastal road wraps all the way around the island in 55 miles and is well worth exploring — with the famous distilleries of Lochranza and Lagg.
Or save those tipples for your next stop in Kintyre peninsula and specifically Campbeltown, otherwise known as the Whisky Capital of the World, because it was once home to over 30 distilleries.
Stay sober enough to take in the views at Cowal and then Bute (sometimes known as the Madeira of Scotland), before finishing your adventure in Wemyss Bay where you can wander the gorgeous Inverkip coastal path.
For a different tasting experience, ferry over from Oban to the Isle of Mull, and sample picturesque Tobermory, home to a very fine single malt.
HOW TO BOOK: Direct Ferries has some excellent tools for planning routes.
The travel site has designed an interactive map that identifies the most convenient port for any journey, with links out to each individual ferry operator to book.
Prices vary per journey, but all ferry journeys mentioned above cost from under £100 per car.
See discoverferries.com.
Hegseth says strikes on Iran increasing as Hormuz deadline looms | US-Israel war on Iran
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Monday will be the “largest volume of strikes” on Iran since the US-Israeli war began, adding that tomorrow could be even worse if Iran does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Published On 6 Apr 2026
North Korea keeping Iran at arm’s length, reports Seoul | US-Israel war on Iran News
Seoul says Pyongyang has not been supplying Iran with weapons in the hopes of being able to reopen diplomatic dialogue with the US.
Published On 6 Apr 2026
North Korea appears to be distancing itself from longtime partner Iran in the hopes of forming a new relationship with the United States, South Korean intelligence believes.
Seoul’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) sees no signs that North Korea has sent weapons or supplies to Tehran since the US-Israel war on Iran began at the end of February, lawmaker Park Sun-won, who attended a closed-door briefing held by the NIS, said on Sunday.
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While Iran’s other allies China and Russia have frequently issued statements on the US-Israel war on Iran, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry has only issued two toned-down statements so far, said the NIS.
While Pyongyang did condemn the US and Israeli attacks on Iran as illegal, it did not issue public condolences after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death or send a congratulatory message when Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, succeeded him.
The spy agency said Pyongyang is likely adopting this cautious approach to position it for a new diplomatic chapter with the US once the Middle East conflict subsides, said Park.
The NIS also told lawmakers that it now believes Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un is grooming his teenage daughter as his successor, citing a recent public display of her driving a tank.
The NIS said the imagery was intended to highlight the supposed military aptitude of the youngster, who is believed to be around 13 and named Ju Ae.
Such scenes are intended to pay “homage” to Kim’s own public military appearances during the early 2010s, when he was being prepared to succeed his father, Park said.
Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, was earlier thought to be a leading candidate to succeed her brother.
On Monday, she was in North Korean headlines as she welcomed an apology issued by South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Sunday over a January drone incursion.
“The ROK [Republic of Korea] president personally expressed regret and talked about a measure for preventing recurrence. Our government appreciated it as very fortunate and wise behaviour for its own sake,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
Seoul initially denied any official role in the January drone incursion, with authorities suggesting it was the work of civilians, but Lee said a probe had revealed government officials had been involved.
“We express regret to the North over the unnecessary military tensions caused by the irresponsible and reckless actions of some individuals,” Lee said.
Lee has sought to repair ties with North Korea since taking office last year, criticising his predecessor for allegedly sending drones to scatter propaganda over Pyongyang.
His repeated overtures, however, have gone unanswered by the North until now.
Lee’s expression of regret follows Kim’s labelling of Seoul as the “most hostile state” in a policy address in March in which he vowed to “thoroughly reject and disregard it”.
Pregnant Jess Impiazzi reveals devastating battle with lupus as hair falls out and rashes appear on her body
JESS Impiazzi has revealed her devastating battle with lupus amid her pregnancy.
The Ex on the Beach star has opened up about the reality of having the condition as she loses her hair and suffers with skin rashes all over her body.
Lupus is an autoimmune disease that causes the body to attack its own healthy tissue.
It can lead to inflammation and even organ damage.
Opening up about her ordeal, Jess said: “These rashes were quickly appearing all over my body.
“If my joints swelling and having arthritis wasn’t bad enough, alongside other invisible symptoms, the visible ones were chipping away at my confidence.
Read more on Jess Impiazzi
“Then on top of all that my hair started to fall out. I’d say I lost nearly 50-60% of my hair.
“The daily stress and anxiety of everything kept my lupus active and I’ve honestly never felt so lost and I didn’t know who I was anymore.”
She added: “I was taking steroids to keep my immune system from attacking me and trying different meds to find the ones that worked for me, I’d have the odd day where I felt OK, and pushed myself to try and keep up with commitments.
“But the truth was I was in pain, I was scared and didn’t know how to carry on like this.
“I had to find a new way of living and researched everything I could on lupus, I find some really interesting people online who had got their lupus in remission so I decided to try things out.
“One of those things was getting my nervous system regulated after many years of it not being.”
The star, 36, is expecting her first child with partner Sam Bird, 39, later this year, after a fertility journey.
Jess is due to give birth to her little one in May, after revealing her baby news at the beginning of the year.
The star has been dating her partner Sam since summer of 2024 after splitting from her footballer ex boyfriend, Jermaine Pennant.
Angel Reese is traded to Atlanta Dream after two years with Chicago
Angel Reese has a new WNBA home.
After spending her first two seasons with the Chicago Sky, the two-time All Star has been traded to the Atlanta Dream in exchange for first-round picks in 2027 and 2028, the teams announced Monday morning. Atlanta also receives the option to swap second-round picks with Chicago in 2028.
“An Angel’s DREAM,” Reese posted on X. “ATL WHAT UP?!”
Reese was already a star before coming to the WNBA after helping Louisiana State win the national championship over Caitlin Clark and Iowa in 2023 and leading the Tigers back to the Elite Eight the following year.
Selected by Chicago with the seventh overall pick in the 2024 draft, Reese finished as runner-up to Clark in rookie-of-the-year voting and led the league in rebounds per game in each of her first two seasons. Overall, she has averaged 14.1 points and 12.9 rebounds a game.
The Sky have gone 23-61 and missed the playoffs both seasons since drafting Reese. On Sept. 3, the Chicago Tribune published quotes from the star player that indicated her frustration with the team’s inability to build a winning roster and an inclination to leave if the organization isn’t able to get it right.
“I’d like to be here for my career, but if things don’t pan out, obviously I might have to move in a different direction and do what’s best for me,” Reese told the Tribune.
After the Sky’s 88-64 victory over the Connecticut Sun that night, Reese told reporters she had apologized to her teammates about the article.
“I think the language is taken out of context,” she said, “and I really didn’t intentionally mean to put down my teammates, because they’ve been through this with me throughout the whole year. They’ve busted their ass, just how I bust my ass, they showed up for me through thick and thin, and in the locker room when nobody could see anything.”
Reese did not play for Chicago again. She was suspended half a game for her comments, which were deemed “detrimental to the team,” served a separate mandatory one-game suspension by the WNBA for receiving eight technical fouls during the season and missed the final three games of the season with what was listed as a back injury.
The Sky said in a statement Monday that the “trade is designed to achieve roster balance and represents a great opportunity for all parties.”
“Angel has achieved many record-breaking milestones in her first two years in the WNBA and has been a competitive force for the Sky,” the team wrote. “We are thankful for her many important contributions to this league and this game, and we know she will continue to have a big impact on the court and beyond.”
Reese joins an Atlanta team that went 30-14 and finished first in the Eastern Conference before losing to the Indiana Fever in the first round of the playoffs. The roster includes Allisha Gray, who finished fourth in the MVP voting last season, as well as sixth player of the year Naz Hillmon and All-Star Brionna Jones.
“Angel is a dynamic talent and a perfect fit for what we are building in Atlanta,” Dream general manager Dan Padover said in a statement. “She has already proven herself as one of the most impactful players in the league, and her competitiveness, production and drive to win align seamlessly with our vision. This is an exciting moment for our organization and our fans.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
BNY, Robinhood to manage Trump Accounts
April 6 (UPI) — The Department of the Treasury announced Monday that The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation will handle the Trump Accounts program and that Robinhood will be the brokerage and initial trustee.
BNY will manage the initial accounts and develop the Trump Accounts app.
“Together, these partners will support Treasury’s goal of ensuring every eligible child can access a Trump Account quickly and easily,” a press release from the Treasury said.
The accounts are tax-deferred investing accounts for children born between 2025 and 2028. They are scheduled to launch on July 4 with a $1,000 deposit from the Treasury.
BNY and other large employers have pledged to match the government’s deposits for children of their U.S. employees.
“We are honored to be selected as financial agent for Trump Accounts,” BNY CEO Robin Vince said in a statement. “In collaboration with Robinhood, a leading financial technology platform committed to democratizing the markets for investors, we are helping to expand access to financial opportunity for all Americans.”
The Treasury press release said the app is being developed as a custom, white-label product. The National Design Studio, along with Robinhood, is creating an intuitive user interface and user experience that allows “families to explore their Trump Accounts with confidence and ease.”
Vlad Tenev, chair and CEO of Robinhood Markets, said in a statement that the company is “proud to power Trump Accounts with Robinhood’s technology and to work alongside a historic and trusted institution like BNY.”
“Our task is clear: to provide the next generation of Americans with a world-class, intuitive platform to jumpstart their financial future,” Tenev said.
The IRS said that as of March 31, more than 4 million children were signed up for Trump accounts, and more than 1 million were eligible for the $1,000 pilot program.
“The IRS has been working closely with the Treasury Department to make the election process as simple and easy as possible by permitting taxpayers to fill out a one-page form when they file their tax return,” IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank J. Bisignano said in a statement. “Families with eligible children born between 2025 and 2028 just need to check the box on a form to stake their claim for the $1,000 contribution. It’s that simple.”
Parents can sign up for the funds by filing IRS Form 4547 with their tax returns or via TrumpAccounts.gov. There will be an authentication process in May, and the money will be in accounts on July 4, the IRS said.
Parents and others can contribute up to $5,000 a year. Companies can deposit up to $2,500 pre-tax per year for kids of employees, within the $5,000 limit.
“It’s good to see BNY and Robinhood being named, it gives us more clarity,” Madeline Brown, senior policy associate at the Urban Institute, told CNBC.
“There are certainly still questions that remain about what the interface and product will look like for account holders … and how financial planning and coaching may be integrated. Given that at least some participants will be new to long-term savings, there is this need for advisor-type guidance.”
President Donald Trump delivers a prime-time address to the nation from the Cross Hall in the White House on Wednesday. President Trump used the address to update the public on the month-long war in Iran. Pool photo by Alex Brandon/UPI | License Photo
Amnesty International Defends US Regime-change NGOs in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba
Analysts have long documented Amnesty International’s bias against leftist governments in Latin America. (Archive)
Why are many Latin American countries shutting down nonprofit organizations? Amnesty International claims it has the answer: in every case, it’s part of a drive to restrict human rights and “tear up the social fabric.”
Amnesty’s new 95-page report (in Spanish, with an English summary), criticizes governments across the political spectrum for attacking what it calls “civil society organizations.” But Amnesty ignores the history of many such organizations and therefore why governments might be justified in closing them.
Here we focus on the report’s deficiencies in relation to Nicaragua, Venezuela (two NGOs interviewed in each) and Cuba (none).
Data-light analysis supports preconceived conclusions
Amnesty’s report is strikingly thin. Unlike many other Amnesty investigations, this one provides scarce case studies or incidents, almost no statistics, few named victims or affected organizations, and little discussion of specific crackdowns. In most cases, substantive content about a particular country is assumed to apply to all countries.
Amnesty conducted interviews with only 15 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) across six countries: Nicaragua, Venezuela, Paraguay, Peru, El Salvador and Ecuador. Its analysis extended to two more, Guatemala and Cuba, where no interviews took place. Yet the six countries alone have around 40,000 NGOs between them, making Amnesty’s sample minuscule. In none of the countries did Amnesty do any direct fieldwork.
Amnesty did not consult with any government sources or individuals close to governments, resulting in a one-sided narrative. According to Amnesty, the issues “should not be interpreted as… differentiation between the countries analyzed.” Thus, countries as politically different as Ecuador and Nicaragua are painted with the same brush.
While claiming to expose the real purpose of these laws, Amnesty fails to explain their political context, despite the widespread and documented use made of NGOs by the US to destabilize countries.
The authors emailed Amnesty with our key criticisms. In a lengthy response, Mariana Marques, Amnesty’s South America Researcher & Advisor, claimed that “the report intentionally prioritizes depth and comparability [between the chosen countries].” However, this is difficult to accept given that the report’s sweeping generalizations are mechanically applied to all six.
The authors also asked Amnesty if they had considered evidence that NGOs in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba have indeed engaged in political activities – that would very likely be illegal in Western countries such as the US? Did they consider whether allegations that NGOs provoked political violence or other criminal activities might be true? In response, Ms. Marques wrote: “The report does not adjudicate case‑by‑case allegations about individual organizations.”
Nevertheless, the report apparently identified “selective enforcement” and “sanctions” that were “disproportionate.” But how could they reach an impartial judgment on the fairness of a government’s actions without considering whether the alleged infractions might have actually occurred?
Destabilization claims go unexamined
If governments justify their laws as efforts to halt foreign-funded destabilization, surely Amnesty should ask whether such claims have merit. Here are some examples that Amnesty might have considered:
- In Cuba, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) spent $15.5 million from 2009 through 2012 running “civil society” programs aimed at secretly stirring up anti-government activism. Then in just one year (2020), the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – a reported CIA cutout itself masquerading as an NGO even though it is largely funded by the US government – financed 40 civil-society projects in Cuba with sums up to $650,000. According to the Cuban government, these groups were directly involved in violent demonstrations that affected Cuba in July 2021.
- In Nicaragua, which suffered a major coup attempt in 2018, Global Americans reported that the NED was “laying the groundwork for insurrection” even as the violence was taking place. NED and other bodies bragged to Congress about their regime-change efforts, and the Council on Hemispheric Affairs described in detail how NGOs indoctrinated young Nicaraguans.
- In Venezuela, USAID corroborated the use of NGOs to further US regime-change activities; since 2017 it provided “more than $158 million in humanitarian aid in Venezuela” through questionably “impartial” organizations.
Well-substantiated examples of Washington’s huge investment, extending over many years, to create or infiltrate NGOs in the three countries and use them to provoke anti-government violence, were of no interest to Amnesty researchers.
Rather, the report focuses on restrictions on access to foreign funding, which allegedly have “chilling effects on legitimate human‑rights work.” Amnesty’s refusal to “map individual donors” prevents scrutiny about the purpose of Washington’s funding for NGOs, which are often framed in vague terms such as “promoting democracy” or “strengthening civic society.”
Had the researchers talked to actual NGOs doing humanitarian work, they might have heard testimony such as this one from Rita Di Matiatt with Master Mama, a Venezuelan NGO dedicated to offering support to breastfeeding mothers: “NGOs that conspire against the stability and rights of a nation or its citizens, as well as everything that does not comply with the norms and laws of a country must be held accountable.” Venezuelan National Assembly deputy Julio Chávez expressed concern about such NGO’s working “to generate destabilization.”
And, indeed, the current NED president, Damon Wilson, recently confirmed that Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela are his highest priorities in the region.
Comparison with other countries
Amnesty claims a “global” trend toward laws resembling Russia’s “foreign agents” legislation. However, a more relevant comparison is the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) which is really the model.
The US has some of the world’s strongest and most detailed regulatory powers governing NGOs. Indeed, the US typically closes around 44,000 nonprofits annually that fail to comply. This is not unusual. The Charity Commission in Britain closes around 4,000 nonprofits each year. New regulations have led to large-scale closures in India, Turkey, South Africa and elsewhere.
Washington’s foreign agents act is not unique: The Library of Congress has examples of 13 countries with similar legislation. In Britain, the government has consulted on the introduction of a “Foreign Influence Registration Scheme,” which is similar to FARA, as are regulations which apply in the European Union.
However, it does not suit Amnesty’s narrative to make comparisons with Western countries that might caste the laws in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela in a different light.
Amnesty’s longstanding bias
Amnesty has a long history of bias against countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. Ecuadorian-Canadian journalist Joe Emersberger documents how Amnesty minimizes the impact of US sanctions – illegal under international law – which target all three countries.
While Amnesty refused to recognize Nelson Mandella as a prisoner of conscious, because he failed to renounce violence in self-defense against the South African apartheid regime, Amnesty readily bestowed the honor on Leopoldo López, who fomented a number of violent coup attempts in Venezuela.
María Corina Machado is arguably Amnesty’s most lauded Venezuelan. Her legitimacy is based largely on her victory in an opposition primary. However, the contest was conducted by her personal NGO, Súmate, rather than the official Venezuelan electoral authority as is customary. This is relevant to NGO law, because Súmate received NED funds. Machado won that privately run primary by an incredible 92% landslide in a crowded field of eight candidates. When the runner-up, Carlos Prosperi, cried fraud, the ballots were destroyed to prevent an audit of the vote.
Camilo Mejia, a US military resistor and an Amnesty “prisoner of conscience,” published an open letter expressing his “unequivocal condemnation of Amnesty International with regards to the destabilizing role it has played in Nicaragua, my country of birth.”
Amnesty has long been accused of bias on an international scale. Journalist Alexander Rubinstein documented Amnesty’s collaboration with US and UK intelligence agencies dating back to the 1960s. Francis A. Boyle, human rights law professor and founding Amnesty board member, observed: “You will find a self-perpetuating clique of co-opted Elites who deliberately shape and direct the work of AI and AIUSA so as to either affirmatively support, or else not seriously undercut, the imperial, colonial, and genocidal policies of the United States, Britain, and Israel.”
NGOs and the “human rights industry”
Alfred de Zayas, former UN independent human rights expert, argues in The Human Rights Industry that there are few fields that are “as penetrated and corrupted by intelligence services” as NGOs. “The level of NGO interference in the internal affairs of states and their destabilizing impact on the constitutional order has become so prevalent that more and more countries have adopted… legislation to control this ‘invasion’ of foreign interests, or simply to ban them.”
While de Zayas recognizes Amnesty International when it does good work, he points out that in Latin America it ignores the struggle of sovereign nations “to shake off the yoke of US domination.” In a general comment that might apply specifically to Amnesty’s Tearing Up the Social Fabric, de Zayas condemns “entire reports… compiled from accounts of US-backed opposition groups.”
Nicaragua-based writer John Perry publishes in the London Review of Books, FAIR, CovertAction and elsewhere. Roger D. Harrisis with the Task Force on the Americas and the Venezuela Solidarity Network. Both authors are active with the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition.
The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.