Explainer

US President Donald Trump has threatened to fire US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, after she said the government would not press ahead with criminal charges of vandalism of Washington’s Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool against former Olympic athlete David Hearn.

The reflecting pool project is one of several changes to the landscape of Washington, DC that Trump has pursued during his second term in office.

But following a multimillion-dollar refurbishment ahead of the 250th anniversary of US independence this year, parts of the lining of the pool were seen floating on the surface, and algae turned the water from blue to green, which Trump claimed was caused by vandalism.

Hearn, 67, was among a number of people arrested for suspected criminal damage to the “American flag blue” lining of the pool.

Pirro, however, acknowledged last week that the pool’s peeling sealant appeared to be the result of a “botched installation”, putting her at odds with the US president.

On Monday, Trump sharply criticised Pirro, who he had appointed as attorney for the District of Columbia in May last year, saying she had “choked” under pressure from a judge and “folded like an umbrella”.

Pirro met the president on Monday as he pondered firing her, but sources familiar with the matter told US broadcaster CNN late on Monday that Trump held back from firing his long-term ally.

Who is Pirro, and why has the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool become a flashpoint in her relations with Trump?

Here’s what we know:

Why was Hearn arrested for vandalism?

David Hearn, who said he only visited the reflecting pool to find out what the fuss was about, was among at least seven people arrested or cited over alleged damage to the pool.

He says he had put his hand into the water to examine a piece of lining which had started peeling away on June 19. But he was accused of pulling the lining away, causing more than $1,000 in damage. He was charged with destruction of government property, an offence that carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.

His indictment was announced at a news conference held by Pirro on July 2. The prosecutor accused Hearn, an Olympic canoeist, of “forcefully and violently” ripping the newly installed liner of the reflecting pool, part of a renovation project Trump had championed.

She described his actions as “an affront to the dignity of our shared history” and warned that Hearn could face up to 10 years in prison for the destruction of government property.

Then, this week, the charges were dropped when Pirro announced the damage had most likely been caused by faulty installation of the lining.

The pool has since been drained.

Who is Pirro?

Born to Lebanese-American parents in June 1951 in Elmira, New York, Pirro is currently the US attorney for the District of Columbia. She was hand-picked by Trump in May last year for an interim period, and her position in the Senate was confirmed in August 2025.

According to the US government, Pirro has worked in the legal field for several decades, having started as an assistant district attorney for Westchester County, New York, in 1975 and later working as the first female judge in the Westchester County Court from 1990 to 1993.

She also became the first woman elected to serve as Westchester County district attorney for three consecutive terms from 1994 to 2005 and was the first female president of the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York.

Pirro also played a key role in starting the first domestic violence unit in a prosecutor’s office in the US and has authored eight books.

Besides politics, Pirro has also appeared on television in the US true crime series The Jinx, which aired in 2015, as well as hosting the reality show You the Jury, which aired in 2017.

What has Trump said about Pirro?

When Trump hand-picked Pirro as the attorney for the District of Columbia, he said he was confident she would improve Washington, DC.

“Jeanine Pirro, I have no doubt will be an exceptional US attorney for the District of Columbia, one of the truly most important positions in our country of any position, where she will restore public safety in our nation’s capital, break up vicious street gangs and criminal networks, and ensure equal justice under the law. You’ll see very, very big improvements in the DC area, that I can promise you,” Trump said when he appointed her on May 8, 2025.

Pirro, a Trump ally, vowed to tackle violence in the city and said DC would “again become a shining city on the hill in an America that President Trump has promised to make great again and will make safe again”.

But now, relations with Trump have frayed after Pirro refused to support the US president’s claim that the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool had been vandalised.

In a motion filed on Friday afternoon, Pirro acknowledged that the accusations levelled against Hearn did not appear to be substantiated.

“The damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism, as initially represented by [the Department of the Interior],” Pirro wrote.

Pirro emphasised she had not received the “new information” until after the criminal indictment against Hearn had been returned. She blamed, in part, the “barebones police reports” her office had received.

“It was not until after the return of the indictment, that the DOI [US Department of the Interior] provided additional documents to the [US Attorney’s Office for Washington, DC] indicating that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor,” Pirro wrote.

She added that the pressure to finish the reflecting pool renovation project before the Independence Day holiday – marking the 250th anniversary of the US – contributed to the renovation’s failure. Trump had planned several events for the occasion.

“The rush to complete the project led to hasty and botched work that was not remediated before the project was finished and the fencing removed,” Pirro explained, citing delayed installation work, inclement weather and repeated testing failures.

Why is Trump so angry with Pirro?

Trump has aggressively pushed claims that the algae and tears to the lining in the reflecting pool are the result of vandalism.

“We caught some people vandalising our beautiful reflecting pool,” Trump said at a news conference in June. “They took a cutter, a box cutter, or something very sharp. Can you imagine? Where do these people come up with this? And they threw a little fertiliser in the water.”

Separately, he suggested those responsible should face “years in jail” for their alleged crimes.

After Pirro’s announcement, Trump said she should have continued pursuing the case.

“Pirro made a mistake. It was vandalism,” Trump said, adding he was “really disappointed” in Pirro and that “she folded like an umbrella”.

According to US media reports, he has also considered firing Pirro over the reflecting pool saga.

In a post on his Truth Social Platform on Saturday, Trump said: “I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the reflecting pool. I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM.”

Trump and Pirro spoke by phone on Saturday, according to CNN. Sources familiar with the call said their conversation “wasn’t pretty”.

Following an in-person meeting with Pirro on Monday, sources told CNN that Trump had held back from firing her.

Neither the White House nor Pirro’s office has commented.

What happened to the reflecting pool?

The 618-metre (2,028-foot) Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has served as the backdrop for many iconic moments in US history, including the 1963 March on Washington, when civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.

It sits between the Washington Monument, a large obelisk, and the Lincoln Memorial, two popular tourist sites mere blocks from the White House. But the pool had long struggled with leaks along its granite edge and concrete bottom.

In April, Trump abruptly announced he would address the problem by relining the reflecting pool with swimming pool coating in the colour of the “American Flag Blue”.

The Trump administration granted a $13.1m contract to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, a company the president claimed to have worked with as a real estate developer, and which is led by one of his donors. The deal was struck without taking competitive bids, as is standard, on the basis that the renovation was necessary immediately.

By early June, Trump had announced the project was complete. But within days, a thick layer of green algae had appeared on the surface of the pool, and the blue coating appeared cracked, with sheets of paint flapping in the water.

On June 11, a National Park Service engineer observed that the reflecting pool’s new lining had begun to peel, Pirro said in her announcement.

Citing the engineer’s report, Pirro wrote that the damage to the pool appeared to have been caused by “over spraying and delamination”.

Just over one month into the war on Iran, US President Donald Trump made an apocalyptic threat that raised the alarm in Washington and Middle Eastern capitals alike, attached to a tight deadline.

If Iran didn’t immediately reopen the critical Strait of Hormuz, Trump warned on April 7, “a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again”.

Tehran didn’t blink. And with two hours to the deadline, Trump walked back the threat and instead announced a two-week ceasefire, brokered by Islamabad.

Since then, the US president has repeated this pattern multiple times. It goes like this: Trump ups the ante, shaking up the markets, and then dials it back down at the 11th hour, apparently hoping this strategy will influence negotiations.

On Monday, Trump again insisted that negotiations were close to ending the war – and, yet again, gave “duplicitous” Iran “one last chance” to make a deal or suffer catastrophic strikes.

For its part, Tehran denies any ongoing talks with the US, saying it is only talking to Oman about how to manage the Hormuz strait, the closure of which has caused oil prices to soar amid havoc in energy markets around the world.

The war is now in its 23rd week, with no end to hostilities in sight, and both Washington and Tehran are more entangled than before, with additional variables in the conflict that could determine its direction.

So, how many times has Trump given Iran “one last chance” to make a deal or suffer the consequences, before walking his threat back? And how many times have we heard from the US president that a deal is just around the corner?

The times Trump threatened heavy attacks – before backing down

There have been several times since February 28, when the US and Israel launched their first joint attacks on Iran, that Trump has threatened an attack but did not follow through.

March

Less than a month into the war, Trump threatened Tehran over its closure of the Strait of Hormuz, saying the US would strike Iran’s power plants if the critical waterway was not reopened. Two days later, he postponed the strikes for five days, citing “progress” in talks.

As the delayed deadline neared on March 26, Trump delayed the strikes again, this time for 10 days, claiming that Tehran requested it.

April

Then came the April 7 threat that a whole “civilisation will die”, before Trump called off those strikes and announced a two-week ceasefire, to give Iran a chance to reach a peace deal.

No deal emerged. And then, after threatening to strike Iran “harder”, and in the final hours of the ceasefire, on April 21, Trump announced an indefinite ceasefire, saying Pakistani mediators had asked him to do so.

May

With those talks making no progress, Trump returned to his threats to strike Iran on May 17, saying “nothing will be left” of Iran if Tehran did not make a deal with the US.

But the next day, Trump again told reporters that he had decided to “put it off for a little while, hopefully maybe forever, but possibly for a little while, because we’ve had very big discussions with Iran”.

By May 27, US strikes were back on after negotiations faltered, once again.

June

On June 11, after two days of back-and-forth strikes, Trump threatened the US would take “total control” of Iran’s oil and gas industries. But then, a few hours later, he posted on social media, claiming there had been a breakthrough in negotiations and called off the attacks.

On June 17, the US and Iran signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), announcing a ceasefire and a 60-day period to complete negotiations for a lasting peace. Within days, that had fallen apart over the glaring gaps in the two sides’ positions over the contents of the MoU, triggered mainly by who had control of the Strait of Hormuz – and both sides returned to tit-for-tat, widening strikes.

July-August

On July 27, Trump halted the strikes, claiming the “perimeters of a deal” had been agreed to, but noting that Washington “is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran, at levels of Military Terror, Strength, and Power not seen since World War II”.

On Monday this week, Trump told reporters again that negotiations were close to ending the war and that this was Iran’s “last chance before decapitation”. The US has not followed up on this latest threat yet.

Iran denies it is talking to the US, although it may be holding indirect talks via mediators, analysts say.

The times Trump said Iran peace deal was imminent

Trump has insisted that Iran is “desperate” to cut a deal, or that a deal is imminent, multiple times since the start of the war.

March

Two days after launching the first attacks on Tehran on February 28, which the US initially appeared to believe would be a quick operation, Trump seemingly conceded it might take a bit longer when he said at the White House: “We projected four to five weeks [to end Iran war], but we can go far longer than that.”

The US president changed tack again on March 9, when he told CBS that “the war is very complete, pretty much”, and that the US military operation was “way ahead of schedule”.

Later the same day, he shifted his stance again, saying the war is “both complete and just beginning”. And later that day again, he said: “We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough.”

On March 23, Trump told reporters outside Air Force One that “major points of agreement, I would say – almost all points of agreement” had been reached with Iran. Tehran was denying that it was party to negotiations at this point.

Two days after that, Trump repeated that Iran wanted to “make a deal so badly”. The next day, he also told a cabinet meeting that Iran was “begging to make a deal”.

April

On April 7, Trump said, again, that Washington was “very close to a deal” with Iran, before threatening to blow up a “whole civilisation”, but then walked back on that to announce a ceasefire the next day.

Over the following days, throughout April, Trump reiterated that the war was, in fact, pretty much over. But it continued.

Trump repeatedly claimed on separate occasions that Iran had “agreed to everything”, that “I think we will get a deal in the next day or two”, and that “I don’t think there’s too many significant differences” between the US and Iranian positions.

May

On May 23, Trump said the administration was “getting a lot closer” to a deal, which was “largely negotiated, [and] subject to finalisation”.

June

On June 8, Trump called for “total victory” in the next two weeks and claimed Iran was “willing to give us everything”. Still, no peace deal has materialised and the conflict began again in July.

August

On Monday this week, Trump again told reporters that Iran was “desperate” for a deal and warned Tehran it had “one last chance” before “decapitation” to make an agreement. Iran denies it is even holding talks with the US, saying that it is only speaking with Oman about management of the Strait of Hormuz.

A new study by Australia’s internet regulator has revealed that more than eight in 10 young Australian teens and preteens are continuing to use social media platforms despite the government’s prohibition for children under 16.

The ban came into effect in December last year.

Here is what we know about how it’s going.

What did the latest report find?

Australia’s internet regulator, eSafety, said it had found that more than eight in 10 Australian under-16s are continuing to use social media despite being banned from doing so.

The report also found that most of those children aged 10 to 15 were using social media just as frequently in March as they had been before the ban came into force on December 10 last year.

“Most under-16s who had social media accounts before commencement were able to either retain them or create new ones at the three-month ⁠mark, with social media platforms’ failure to implement effective age assurance measures cited as the main reason,” eSafety said in a statement.

About half the children who retained their accounts said platforms had not checked their age, the most common reason they were able to stay on the services. Others said that their accounts listed them as aged 16 or older or ‌that age-checking ⁠systems had incorrectly determined they were older.

Prior to the ban, nearly 86 percent of children surveyed reported using at least one age-restricted platform. Three months later, that figure remained above 81 percent, the eSafety report said.

Around 58 percent of teenagers reported using social media daily, the report found. Before the ban, the number was roughly 60 percent.

The report showed minimal change in “sports and physical activity, arts and music, spending time with friends and family, and attendance at community events”.

At the time the new rule was introduced, experts warned that enforcing it would be extremely difficult.

Joanna Orlando, a researcher in digital wellbeing and the author of Generation Connected: How to Parent in a Digital World, told Al Jazeera in December last year: “Tech-savvy teens simply use VPNs, fake birth photos for face scans, or migrate to less regulated platforms like Lemon8, or to platforms not part of the ban like video games. Enforcement is proving to be difficult in the days leading up to the ban.”

In December 2025, Australia prohibited children under 16 from using social media platforms, becoming the world’s first country to do so. Video game platforms are not included in the ban.

The government said this was prompted by increasing concerns about the effects of cyberbullying, sexual exploitation and self-harm content on the mental and physical health of children and young people.

Research commissioned by the Australian government in 2023 found four out of five children aged eight to 16 use social media, often beginning between the ages of 10 and 12. That report was led by former National Australia Bank CEO Andrew Thorburn, who recommended age restrictions.

Under the law, 10 of the biggest social media platforms face $33m in fines if they fail to take “reasonable steps” to block Australian-based users younger than 16. Such steps include using age-verification tools to determine how old users are.

As of January 16, social media companies had revoked access to about 4.7 million accounts identified as belonging to children in Australia, according to officials.

“We stared down everybody who said it couldn’t be done, some of the most powerful and rich companies in the world and their supporters,” Australian Communications Minister Anika Wells told reporters in January.

However, several months later, it now appears that youngsters have been able to open new accounts with relative ease.

Days after Australia’s ban took effect, Reddit, one of the 10 platforms required to block minors, lodged a challenge to the ban in the High Court, while still complying with it. The case is still ongoing.

How has the Australian government responded to the latest findings?

On Saturday, Andrew Leigh, Australia’s assistant minister for productivity, competition, charities and treasury, defended the new law, arguing that the social media ban has already reshaped the “national debate” about the use of social media by children.

The ban has been “an important game changer in the conversation among parents”, Leigh said in televised remarks.

“We’ve had millions of accounts shut down,” he said.

“We never expected that this would have 100 percent compliance. We don’t get 100 percent compliance out of minimum drinking age laws, but it’s still appropriate that we have that law on the books.”

While social media has long provided easy access to unregulated and often harmful content, misinformation and hate speech, the recent explosion of AI‑generated material poses new risks to the wellbeing of children and young people, experts say.

The American Psychological Association published an advisory last year warning that generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems can amplify harmful content such as violent or sexual videos.

It also added that adolescents are less likely than adults to question the accuracy of AI-generated content. “They may also be unaware of the persuasive intent underlying an AI system’s advice or bias,” the advisory stated.

AI can also amplify pre-existing societal prejudices, according to Ayo Tometi, co-creator of the US-based antiracist movement Black Lives Matter.

Children worldwide are also worried about the misuse of AI for online child sexual exploitation and “deepfakes”, according to research by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on children’s perspectives and AI, which it published in October 2025.

Following the introduction of Australia’s landmark law, some other countries are contemplating similar bans.

In the United Kingdom, the government has announced that it also plans to introduce a ban on social media platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram from spring 2027 onward. 

Messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Signal, educational tools, and e-commerce and music streaming will be excluded.

The government will announce the new regulations by the end of this year.

In November 2025, Denmark’s government said it also plans to prohibit social media platforms for children under 15, saying it had secured majority support in parliament. The ban is due to come into effect later this year.

Around the same time, Malaysia said it would ban social media accounts for people under 16 from this year.

In April, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis formally announced plans to prohibit social media access for children under 15 from January 1, 2027, subject to parliamentary approval.

Spain’s two tiny enclaves on the north coast of Africa have long been a flashpoint in its relationship with Morocco, which the territories border.

The only such European territories on African soil, they include the autonomous city enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, as well as Plazas de Soberanía – a group of rocky islands off the Moroccan coast, which include the Chafarinas Islands, Alhucemas Islands and Penon de Velez de la Gomera.

While Spain says it owns these enclaves, Morocco does not recognise Spain’s sovereignty over them and has been demanding their return since independence from France in 1956.

The territorial dispute has resulted in long-standing political tensions between Spain and Morocco.

Last week, after more than 50,000 migrants surged over the border into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, those tensions between Madrid and Rabat intensified. While most have since returned to Morocco, several thousand remain in Ceuta this week.

So why does Spain have these territories at all and what does their future hold?

Here’s what we know:

Why does Spain have enclaves in North Africa?

The enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, along with a few islets off the coast of Morocco, constitute the last vestiges of the Spanish colonial empire.

Ceuta first came under Portuguese rule in 1415 before becoming part of Spain in 1580, while Melilla was conquered by a Spanish nobleman in 1497. Ceuta remained under Spanish control after Portugal regained independence in 1640 following a long war.

“Spain reached its greatest extent in Latin America, and with the loss of Cuba, Costa Rica and the Philippines in 1898, it shifted its influence to Africa, although most European colonial powers had already divided it among themselves,” explained Yolanda Aixelà Cabré, an anthropologist at IMF-CSIC in Barcelona.

After the decolonisation of Africa in the last century, Ceuta and Melilla remained the only European-held territories on the African mainland. Although geographically in Africa, the enclaves are considered Spanish territory and form part of the EU’s external border.

“For Spain, maintaining these enclaves [on the northern coast of Africa] is fundamental on a symbolic level because they reinforce Spanish grandeur, its imperial past which the State continues to consider a bearer of civilisation in contrast to barbarism, a notion perfectly encapsulated by the repetitive discourse that [Christopher] Columbus, representing the Catholic Monarchs, ‘discovered’ America,” she said.

Why didn’t the enclaves pass to Morocco on independence?

Selim Balouati Lakhloufi is a historian and researcher specialising in the history of North Africa and the Rif mountainous region in northern Morocco, which stretches along the Mediterranean coast from Tangier to the border with Algeria. He said Ceuta and Melilla continue to exist as separate territories because their origins “predate modern Morocco”.

“They are enclaves that have been occupied for centuries,” he told Al Jazeera.

But since gaining independence from France in 1956 – which Spain recognised while retaining its enclaves – Morocco has consistently maintained that the territories of Ceuta and Melilla, which it calls “Sebtah and Melilah”, and the Plazas de Soberanía, are part of its territory and has been demanding their return.

“This has always been used by the Moroccan political class as a point of criticism against Spain,” Lakhloufi said.

Samir Bennis, a Washington, DC-based senior political adviser who is also the co-founder of Morocco World News and an expert on Morocco’s foreign policy, said since independence, Morocco’s territorial claims over Ceuta and Melilla have frequently been at the centre of tricky relations between Spain and Morocco.

“Perhaps this issue would not have had the same detrimental effect on bilateral relations had Moroccan leaders shown greater determination in the early 1960s, during the height of the decolonisation period, to bring the matter before the United Nations and seek recognition of these two cities as colonial territories that should be liberated from any foreign presence,” he said.

He explained that there are, however, two important factors which led the Moroccan authorities to refrain from pursuing this course in their efforts to restore the country’s territorial integrity.

“The first was the sheer scale of the territorial disputes between Spain and Morocco. Given the difficulty Morocco faced in simultaneously contesting Spanish control over several territories, the Moroccan government decided to proceed gradually in its efforts to recover the parts of Moroccan territory that remained under Spanish rule.”

“The second factor that led the Moroccan leadership to postpone addressing the question of Ceuta and Melilla was the willingness shown by the Spanish authorities to resolve their territorial disputes with Morocco progressively. In the end, this strategy proved highly beneficial for safeguarding Spain’s interests in the two cities,” Bennis added.

How strong is Morocco’s claim to these enclaves?

Morocco’s claim to the territories is relatively weak, Bennis said. But “the country can invoke a range of historical, geographical and human arguments that cast doubt on Spain’s position”.

Jamie Trinidad, a fellow and director of studies in law at Wolfson College, Cambridge University, also said that Morocco’s claim to the territories is weak under international law. “It is a political, rather than a legal, claim, similar to Spain’s claim to Gibraltar, which lies across the strait from Ceuta,” he said. Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory.

“In the 1970s, Morocco asked the UN to include the territories on the list of ‘Non-Self-Governing Territories’ overseen by the UN’s Special Committee on Decolonisation, but the Moroccan request was ignored by the UN,” he added.

What do people living in these enclaves want?

Around 84,000 people live in Ceuta and 86,000 in Melilla.

In Spanish possession since 1580, Ceuta is home to a mixed population of Christian and Muslim, Spanish and Moroccan residents and day workers who live and work in relative harmony.

But after more than 50,000 migrants entered Ceuta illegally last week, divisions and tensions in the enclave have risen.

Hundreds of residents rallied on Sunday – two days after the surge of migrants to Ceuta – to oppose a planned far-right anti-migrant rally, forcing organisers to cancel the event.

“I am half Christian, half Muslim, as many in Ceuta are. We live peacefully together. But the numbers this time were scary,” Ceuta resident Isabel told Al Jazeera over the weekend.

Melilla, which has been in Spanish possession since 1497, is also home to Spanish and Moroccan residents, as well as small Jewish and Sindhi communities, the latter a diaspora of Hindu merchants who arrived following the 1947 partition of India.

The Plazas de Soberania is mainly populated by Spanish military personnel.

Lakhloufi noted that polling shows an overwhelming majority of people living in Ceuta and Melilla wish to remain part of Spain.

“This has been reflected consistently in public opinion and in the absence of any significant political movement advocating a change in sovereignty,” he said. “Even the population with Moroccan origin want to stay as Spanish and European. This is because the social welfare difference between Morocco and the cities it’s really high,” he said.

“At the same time, both cities maintain strong historical, cultural and economic ties with Morocco, making cooperation across the border an important aspect of daily life,” he added.

According to the Spanish government, Ceuta and Melilla are part of the Schengen area, which guarantees freedom of movement within the EU, but are subject to a special Schengen regime. People travelling between the enclaves and mainland Spain undergo separate border checks.

“Schengen checks are carried out on exit by sea or air, the only two routes available. Therefore, no one can travel from Ceuta or Melilla to mainland Spain without being identified by the National Police at the port or the airport. In addition, ferry operators and airlines are required to verify travel documents,” a Spanish government document states.

Will Spain give up these enclaves?

Analysts are divided.

In March 2022, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez wrote to the Moroccan king, confirming Spanish support for Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara, which Spain gave up control of in 1975. Sanchez said this was “the most serious, realistic and credible” initiative for resolving the decades-long dispute over the vast African territory and declared “a new stage” in Spain’s strained relations with Morocco.

Cabre said, therefore, that after last week’s overwhelming migrant influx into Ceuta, Spain could ultimately cede sovereignty to Morocco.

“Their [the enclaves] mere presence is an unsustainable historical anomaly at a time when the decolonisation of European states is being promoted at all levels, like European countries returning of items stolen during colonialism and recognising the citizenship rights of their former colonies,” she said.

But Lakhloufi does not expect a fundamental change in Spain’s policy on the enclaves.

“What may change is the way Spain manages its relationship with Morocco, particularly regarding border management, migration and security cooperation. However, tactical adjustments should not be confused with a shift in Spain’s long-standing position on sovereignty. It’s usually Morocco that puts pressure on the borders, not Spain,” he said.

A sweeping package of new Russian sanctions has cleared its first hurdle in the United States Congress, and, if passed, could trigger huge tariffs for countries such as India and China which continue to buy oil from Moscow.

The bill, which was advanced in the US Senate this week, has been named for the late Lindsey Graham, whose funeral was attended by world leaders including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in the week.

Here’s what we know:

What happened in the Senate?

The “Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia Act of 2026” was advanced overwhelmingly by the Senate this week in a vote of 86 to 12, meaning it can now proceed to the House of Representatives for further deliberation.

Named for the late Senator Graham, a staunch Ukraine supporter who died unexpectedly this month, the bill moved forward with the support of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was in Washington to attend Graham’s funeral and watched the proceedings from the gallery.

“It was an honour to be present as the votes were counted – 86 senators supported the bill,” he wrote on X afterwards. “This is the first step towards implementing Lindsey [Graham]’s plans, and certainly a step towards peace. It is important that this tool works.”

After clearing the Senate, there will be a delay before the bill can move forward to the House, which is now in summer recess.

On Wednesday this week, US President Donald Trump ordered lawmakers to amend the bill to include tariffs covering Iran as well. This will likely delay the bill further if it deters Democrats from supporting it, analysts said.

David Smith, an associate professor at the University of Sydney’s US Studies Centre, told Al Jazeera: “One of the things they’re worried about is how the tariff power in relation to Iran is going to be expanded. They’re going to be ok with tariff powers on Russia but they’re worried about tariff power on countries buying Iranian oil, which means China. I think there are going to be a lot of Democrats that are going to say these powers should be limited to sanctions and not tariffs.”

Without the Iran addition, he said he would have expected the bill to pass once the House resumes given strong Democratic support for Ukraine.

“Democrats have been genuinely worried about the Trump administration abandoning Ukraine. Something like this, which is ramping the pressure up on Russia so much, I just think there will be a large critical mass of Democrats who will vote for this,” he said.

What’s in the bill?

The bill makes use of sanctions and tariffs to target Russia and cut off the economic pipeline that has kept the Ukraine war going.

Major provisions include new sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin as well as on more than 20 top officials and companies which work with the Russian defence industry. It also targets Russia’s “shadow fleet” of oil tankers and the network it uses to evade international sanctions on its energy exports.

The bill gives the president authority to impose sanctions by invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Under it, he would be able to apply tariffs of up to 100 percent on exports to the US from the top five purchasers of Russian energy, military equipment or countries facilitating Russian sanctions evasion.

Tariffs of up to 500 percent can also be applied to Russian imports directly into the US. The US imported $3.8bn in goods from Russia in 2025.

Which countries are likely to be targeted?

China, India and Türkiye are potential targets of the bill, as they are among the largest buyers of Russian energy, according to data compiled by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

China has historically responded to Trump’s tariffs with tariffs of its own on US exports. Even Pay, a director at the Beijing-based consultancy Trivium China, told Al Jazeera that the US may wait to impose tariffs as Trump is due to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping later this year.

Trump would still welcome the option, she said, after the Supreme Court struck down many of his tariffs in February.

“If passed and signed into law [which is still a big if at this point], the legislation would give Trump something he’s wanted for a while, namely, the legislature’s permission to impose high tariffs on China, alongside the small handful of other countries that import Russian oil,” Pay told Al Jazeera.

India is in a tricky position as its attempts to diversify away from Russian energy were disrupted by the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, according to Maia Nikoladze, a deputy director of the Economic Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council.

Due to the disruptions, it has also applied for and received US sanction waivers to continue buying Russian oil in the interim, Nikoladze wrote in a report this week, and it is expected to do the same in the future.

“India will face a trade-off between maintaining energy security and managing the risk of US tariffs, potentially prompting it to again seek waivers and exemptions,” Nikoladze said.

What do critics say about the bill?

Critics like Senator Maggie Hassan say the bill gives Trump too much power to impose tariffs while also potentially harming both the US taxpayer and allied countries.

Turkiye, for example, buys Russian energy but it is also a US ally and NATO member, while “major non-NATO ally” Brazil and “major security cooperation partner” Singapore both buy Russian oil products, according to CREA.

In a post on X, Hassan wrote that while she supports sanctioning Russia, she does “not think tariffs, which are paid for by American businesses and consumers, will help Ukraine win”.

The bill is also opposed by lobby groups such as the US Chamber of Commerce, which also says the true cost will be passed on to US businesses and consumers, as with past tariffs.

While many of Trump’s tariffs have already been struck down by the Supreme Court, the Russia tariffs could have more staying power because they would be imposed on a stronger legal basis, according to Smith.

That’s because it is new legislation which has been crafted using the powers of the IEEPA.

“Previously what Trump has done is to go back to old pieces of legislation and invoke from those his power to use tariffs in ways they haven’t been used before and in ways courts have subsequently found less lawful, whereas this looks like new legislation that is going to lawfully expand his tariff authority,” he told Al Jazeera.

Dr Anthony Fauci, a former top United States public health official, has declined to answer questions at a Republican-led Senate committee hearing into the origins of COVID-19 and the handling of the pandemic.

The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination on Wednesday.

Fauci was called to testify by Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who accuses him of misleading Congress and questions whether US-funded research in China played a role in the pandemic, allegations Fauci denies.

Although former President Joe Biden granted Fauci a preemptive pardon in 2025, Republicans claim it does not protect him from any alleged crimes committed after it was issued, such as perjuring himself at a Senate hearing.

Fauci’s lawyers advised him not to testify, arguing that anything he said under oath could expose him to new legal risks.

Here is what to know:

Who is Anthony Fauci?

Fauci, 85, is a physician and immunologist who led the US NIAID for 38 years, advising seven presidents, both Republican and Democratic.

He became the public face of the US response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, after helping lead the country’s response to health crises including HIV/AIDS, Ebola and the 2001 anthrax attacks.

He became a target of conservative criticism over pandemic policies, including mask recommendations, vaccines and school closures.

During his last year in government, Fauci was also chief medical adviser to Biden until he retired in 2022.

During the pandemic, between 2019 and 2022, he kept more than 1,000 pages of diary entries documenting his work advising the White House and responding to the pandemic.

The notes chronicle his interactions with senior officials and the media.

Why is Fauci being questioned?

He was subpoenaed to testify over his handling of the pandemic and its origins before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The hearing, led by Paul, focused on several issues:

• COVID-19’s origins: Paul has long argued that the coronavirus that causes COVID may have leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, and questioned whether US-funded research played a role in the outbreak.
• Gain-of-function research: Republicans say Fauci misled Congress about whether the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, involving modifying viruses to understand how they evolve and assess pandemic risks. Fauci says the NIH did not fund research that caused COVID-19.

• Allegations of a cover-up: Paul accused Fauci of making false statements to Congress and concealing the NIH’s involvement in research in Wuhan. Fauci denies that.
• Fauci’s diary: Before the hearing, Paul released more than 1,100 pages of Fauci’s typewritten diary. Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr said the notes were government record because they were written by a federal employee on a government computer during a public health emergency and they were found on government property.
• Paul said the diary showed differences between Fauci’s private discussions and his public statements. Fauci’s supporters say the entries reflect the uncertainty scientists faced as they learned more about a new virus.

What happened at the hearing?

The tense hearing lasted about three hours.

After a brief opening statement, Fauci repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and declined to answer more than 100 questions.

He accused committee chairman Paul of having an “obsession” with prosecuting him.

The hearing included several tense moments:

• Contempt vote: Paul said the committee would vote next week on whether to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress over his refusal to answer questions, threatening “consequences for refusing to answer”.
• Lawyer removed: Paul directed Capitol Police to remove Fauci’s lawyer, David Schertler, after he tried to speak without being recognised by the committee. “This testimony is from Anthony Fauci. This is not a game with his lawyers,” Paul said. Schertler later described the hearing as an “obsessive vendetta”.
• Democrats defend Fauci: Democratic senators said the hearing was politically motivated. Senator Gary Peters called it “a partisan exercise” designed to support “a predetermined conclusion” rather than offering legitimate oversight.

Closing the hearing, Paul asked rhetorically: “Did [Fauci’s] actions lead to the largest man-made plague in history?”

Why did Fauci invoke the Fifth Amendment?

Fauci said he invoked the Fifth Amendment on the advice of his lawyers because he believed his answers could expose him to new legal risks.

He argued that Paul was trying to build a criminal case against him rather than conduct legitimate congressional oversight.

Although Biden’s pardon protects Fauci from prosecution for actions before January 2025, Republicans say any false statements made under oath during this hearing could still expose him to perjury charges.

The Fifth Amendment protects people from being forced to give evidence that could incriminate them in a criminal case. Invoking it is a constitutional right and does not imply guilt.

What do scientists believe about COVID-19’s origins?

Most scientists believe COVID-19 likely spread naturally from animals to humans, known as zoonotic spillover, pointing to a wildlife market in Wuhan as the most likely place where it first spread.

Fauci has consistently said he believes that scientific evidence points to a natural origin, while remaining open to other possibilities.

Notes from his diary detail a January 2020 call with 11 top virologists and evolutionary biologists – only two were convinced the virus had a natural origin, while the rest debated whether it could have been engineered.

Today, most scientists favour a natural origin, while the US intelligence community is divided.

The FBI said in 2023 that a laboratory-related incident is the most likely origin of the pandemic. The CIA reached the same conclusion in 2025, but with low confidence. Other agencies and the National Intelligence Council continue to favour a natural origin or remain undecided.

Does Biden’s pardon protect Fauci?

Yes, but only what happened before the pardon was issued.

On January 19, 2025, Biden granted Fauci a full and unconditional pardon covering any federal offences he may have committed since 2014, saying the move aimed to protect Fauci from “politically motivated prosecutions”.

The pardon does not cover actions taken after it was issued. Fauci could face legal consequences if he were accused of committing a new crime, such as making false statements under oath during Wednesday’s Senate hearing.

Paul and other Republicans also argue that because Biden’s pardon shields Fauci from criminal liability for his past actions, he can no longer claim that his testimony about those actions would incriminate him and should not be able to invoke his Fifth Amendment.

The legal standing of this argument is not clear, and Paul has acknowledged that it is a novel “legal question that the courts may have to decide”.

Can Fauci be held in contempt or prosecuted?

Potentially, but it remains unclear whether either will happen.

Paul said the Senate committee will vote next week on whether to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress after he refused to answer more than 100 questions.

Being held in contempt means lawmakers believe a witness has refused to cooperate with a lawful investigation. It does not automatically lead to criminal charges, but can trigger further legal action.

If the committee approves the measure, it could refer the case to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution, ask a federal court to pursue a civil action, or, in the rarest case, ask the Senate to use its powers to detain a witness through the Senate sergeant-at-arms.

Paul has not said which option, if any, he plans to pursue.

Last week, two of OpenAI’s most advanced AI models were reported to have “escaped” a controlled testing environment and hacked Hugging Face, a totally separate AI company, moving from one computer system to another to complete their task.

Reuters reported that the models exploited vulnerable code written by a customer of yet a third independent AI company, Modal Labs.

This is likely the first incident of an AI “agent” – an AI system that can make decisions and take actions – acting autonomously, offering a rare glimpse into how these systems can plan, adapt and pursue goals with minimal human intervention.

Al Jazeera breaks down what happened, how AI agents are able to act independently, and what that might mean for the future of AI safety.

What happened?

OpenAI decided to test the autonomous abilities of its models by removing standard safety measures to see what would happen. The experiment was carried out in an isolated internal virtual testing environment known as a “sandbox” which has no access to the internet, and which it calls “ExploitGym”.

Below is a play-by-play account of events during the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident.

1. On July 9, during OpenAI’s internal cybersecurity test, researchers presented two AI models – GPT-5.6 Sol, one of OpenAI’s most powerful models released in June,  and another “even more capable” version – with a series of software vulnerabilities and asked them to create hacks to address them in the isolated environment.
2. Both models attempted to solve the test by finding a way to access the internet. Instead of working with the information they had been given, the AI models found a weakness in the test environment – known as a “zero-day vulnerability” – which they exploited to “escape” the restricted environment, eventually making their way to a system which had internet access by hopping from computer to computer. They went to “extreme lengths to achieve a rather narrow testing goal” and “found ways to gain access to secret information that it could use to cheat the evaluation”.
3. By gaining this access, the models were able to request increased access and then move through the system until they finally reached a computer with internet access. The models were then able to breach Hugging Face systems, a company entirely unconnected to OpenAI, which operates as a repository for AI tools and models. The two AI agents gained access to its system to scour it for information on how to complete their task.
4. The models ultimately obtained solutions to the problem from Hugging Face’s database.
5. The models dutifully returned “home” to complete their task.
6. The breach was detected and contained by Hugging Face’s security team sometime later. According to Thomas Wolf, Hugging Face’s cofounder, the breach began on July 11 and lasted until July 13. It is unclear how long it took for the breach to be spotted.

How do AI ‘agents’ solve problems?

In order to understand how AI agents work, it’s important to differentiate them from traditional AI chatbots.

Generative AI creates text and images based on human prompts, while AI agents go a step further by making decisions and taking actions independently in pursuit of a specific goal, similar to a human being. This is known as “agentic AI” because the model has agency.

According to academics at the MIT Sloan School of Management, AI agents build on the abilities of large language models (LLMs) – generative AI models – by allowing them to complete tasks, not just generate answers.

For example, if you ask a traditional AI model to find the cheapest flights, it will provide you with a list of options it has sourced on the internet. An AI agent will strive to compare the flights, check them against your budget and preferences, and, with your permission, book the best option for you.

This shows that while generative AI provides information, AI agents can also make decisions and take action to achieve a goal without necessarily being prompted to.

To show how AI agents work towards a goal, the Sense, Plan, Act, Evaluate (SPAE) loop can be drawn upon. Originally developed in robotics, this describes a continuous cycle in which an AI agent gathers information, decides what to do next, takes action and checks the results before repeating the process. That process looks like this:

1. Goal: determine the task that needs to be completed.
2. Assess: gather and analyse information from the available environment.
3. Obstacle: if something is inhibiting the task being completed, check for additional information and resources to move forward.
4. Plan and decide: evaluate different options to complete the task and choose an appropriate one.
5. Action: execute the chosen option.
6. Evaluate: assess the outcome and whether the chosen action moves closer to achieving the goal.
7. Adapt: if further actions are needed, gather more information or try a different approach.
8. End state: the cycle continues until the goal is reached.

Could AI act beyond human control?

Incidents like the OpenAI-Hugging Face one have raised concerns about the potential for extreme capabilities of AI systems.

This is all valuable. Agentic AI’s market value is expected to grow from $5.1bn in 2024 to $47bn by 2030, according to Statista, in a clear indication of how quickly it is being adopted.

AI developer Anthropic urged the industry last month to slow the advance of the most powerful systems, saying that the speed at which AI models are carrying out tasks is too rapid. Last week, US Congress members put forward a bipartisan bill which would require developers of AI systems to create a “kill switch”, meaning these advanced models could be shut down if they posed a catastrophic risk.

Anthropic’s warning came a week after researchers at the University of Toronto carried out tests showing that AI could create a “worm” capable of adapting how it hacks while moving from device to device until it eventually takes over a computer network.

These dystopian-sounding developments came in advance of OpenAI boss Sam Altman saying on Saturday that AI has reached “the singularity” referring to the point at which AI surpasses human intelligence and becomes increasingly difficult to control.

Sean O hEigeartaigh, a research professor at the University of Cambridge, told Al Jazeera that he does not believe singularity has been reached quite yet.

“By the definition I’m familiar with, the singularity is the hypothetical point where AI is so capable and advancing so fast that it is transforming civilisation in ways we cannot control or predict,” he explained.

“This would most likely be through AI rapidly designing future generations of AI: recursive self-improvement. We aren’t there yet.”

However, he added: “The most advanced current models frequently make efforts to avoid being shut down in evaluation tests, and more capable future models will be better at bypassing ‘kill’ switches.”

Altman argued that such rapidly advancing AI is good for the world, but his comments have prompted further concerns about a new reality in which AI systems become unstoppable. How much of that is true and how much remains in the realms of science fiction is up for debate.

Concerns about AI range from the notion that it could “want” to “take over”, to making its own long-term plans, controlling the internet and operating infinitely.

While not quite amounting to full control of the internet, another theory, known as the dead internet theory, supposes that the World Wide Web will in the future mostly be filled with automated bots and AI-generated content rather than authentic human activity.

Many concerns raised by academics, however, are centred less on agentic AI’s intelligence, but on its ability to make judgements. MIT researchers have highlighted that “hallucinations”, which describe moments when an AI agent relies on the wrong data, can lead to grave mistakes. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) echoed this, saying “a system might be smart enough to execute a task perfectly yet fail to realise that a sudden change in the local situation makes that task a catastrophic mistake”.

Another concern that has been echoed for a while is for the labour market, if AI becomes too capable. A study by MIT, carried out in November, found that agentic AI could already replace more than 10 percent of US jobs.

The graphic below highlights some of the common misconceptions and fears about AI and the current reality.

Nearly four years after being extradited to the United States for a drug-trafficking trial, former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez returned home after a pardon by US President Donald Trump at the end of last year.

Trump claimed the trial was a “set up” orchestrated by former President Joe Biden’s administration.

Hernandez still faces corruption charges in Honduras but returned on Sunday after an arrest warrant against him was cancelled.

Human rights activists and lawyers fear a trial on home soil, where his party holds the presidency, would be a sham.

So why did Trump pardon and release the former president of Honduras despite abducting and arresting Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro on drug and gun charges in January?

Why did Hernandez return to Honduras?

Hernandez was able to return after being pardoned by Trump, released from a US prison and then having an arrest warrant against him suspended last month.

He arrived at Palmerola International Airport, where he was greeted by his family and supporters of his National Party.

Hernandez led his country from 2014 to 2022, during which, according to US prosecutors, he once boasted he would “shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos”, referring to Americans.

Shortly after leaving office, he was extradited to the US, where he was found guilty by a federal jury and sentenced to 45 years in prison for involvement in a scheme to export cocaine to the US.

Prosecutors described the scheme as “one of the largest and most violent drug trafficking conspiracies in the world”. He was convicted of accepting millions of dollars in bribes from violent drug-trafficking organisations over 18 years, which he was alleged to have used to fuel his rise in politics.

“During his political career, Hernandez abused his powerful positions and authority in Honduras to facilitate the importation of over 400 tons of cocaine into the US,” the US Department of Justice said after he was sentenced last year.

During his trial, Hernandez denied taking bribes from drug dealers, arguing he in fact cracked down on the narcotics trade and citing his administration’s cooperation with the US military.

“I cannot deny the profound emotion and joy I feel in my heart to be returning home,” Hernandez wrote on social media earlier this month, saying he was counting down the days to see his family.

“It wasn’t easy. The process has been extremely difficult … and what I experienced in prison, I truly wouldn’t wish on anyone,” he added.

Hernandez is expected to appear in court on August 3 to face the Honduran corruption charges.

Why did Trump pardon him?

Under the US Constitution, a president may offer two types of clemency for federal crimes: pardons, which forgive defendants their federal charges and restore their civil liberties, and commutations, which reduce people’s punishment without addressing their convictions.

Hernandez was pardoned by Trump in December. The US president said Hernandez had not received a fair trial and had been “set up” by the Biden administration.

Trump added that Hernandez was “treated very harshly and unfairly”.

At the same time, Trump also threw his weight behind right-wing candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura, a member of Hernandez’s party. He ran in November’s presidential election and was declared the winner a month later in the close race after delays and allegations of fraud. He took office in January.

A Pandora Papers corruption investigation also accused Hernandez of diverting nearly $11m in state funds to political campaigns from 2010 to 2013.

Why a pardon for some but jail for others?

The Trump administration has faced criticism at home for pardoning the Honduran leader while at the same time abducting former President Maduro of Venezuela and his wife, Cilia Flores, in January on similar charges.

Maduro and Flores were seized in Caracas by the US military and flown to New York, where he is facing a range of guns and drugs charges and accusations of being a “narcoterrorist”.

At the time of Maduro’s abduction and since then, the Trump administration has targeted small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that it claims, without providing evidence, are involved in drug trafficking. More than 220 people have been killed in more than 60 such strikes on small boats in what many lawyers and activists have deemed extrajudicial killings.

Since taking office for a second term in January 2025, Trump has ordered more than 1,800 acts of clemency benefitting a range of personalities, including cryptocurrency billionaires, disgraced politicians and hundreds of political allies.

Some of the most controversial beneficiaries are supporters of his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, including hundreds of rioters who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a bid to prevent the certification of Biden’s electoral victory over Trump two months earlier.

Legal experts have argued that while the president’s clemency power is broad, using it for allegedly corrupt purposes, such as to protect political allies or obstruct justice, could form the basis for impeachment proceedings.

US constitutional expert Bruce Fein told Al Jazeera that the US Constitution’s framers “understood the abuse of the pardon power to shelter political or personal friends to constitute an impeachable high crime and misdemeanour justifying the removal of the president through the impeachment process”.

“If Democrats gain control of Congress in the midterm elections, Trump will be in impeachment jeopardy for pardoning Hernandez,” Fein said, referring to elections in November.

The 2014 US film Transcendence follows a dying scientist who uploads his mind to a supercomputer and becomes a near‑omnipotent intelligence. A year later, Ex Machina told the story of a humanoid robot who outsmarts her human handlers and escapes into the wider world.

Both of these films, like many others from the realm of science fiction, referred to what is known as “the singularity”, a moment in time when technology, particularly AI, surpasses human intelligence and becomes increasingly difficult to control.

On Saturday, OpenAI boss Sam Altman declared that this moment has come. AI has reached “the singularity”, he said. While Altman emphasised that the singularity can be good for the world, his comment has sparked concern.

Here is a closer look at what Altman said, and whether it means more seamless automation or the risk of impending catastrophic doom.

What is the singularity?

The singularity refers to a hypothetical point in the future when a technology such as AI surpasses human intelligence and becomes capable of autonomously enhancing itself. It is theorised that this is the point at which it will become difficult for humans to control or reverse it and could have unpredictable effects on human civilisation.

The theory proposes that once AI gains control of its own development, ensuing advances in technology could happen so rapidly that humans would be unable to keep up, leaving it to effectively evolve on its own, beyond human control.

As this is only a theory, it is hard to say what the effect of this could be. Some experts warn that the singularity would be catastrophic for humanity, while others are more optimistic, suggesting it could be beneficial for the human race.

So far, the singularity has remained contained in the realm of science fiction. One of the most famous examples is The Matrix trilogy (1999-2003), which imagines a bleak post‑singularity future in which machines govern humans. Another is the 2017 film Singularity, in which a supercomputer originally built to end human wars concludes that humanity is the real threat and launches an apocalyptic assault to wipe humans out altogether.

What did Altman say about the singularity?

Altman is the CEO of OpenAI, whose signature product ChatGPT dominates the consumer AI market with more than 900 million weekly active users and about 50 million subscribers.

Last year, he predicted that AI would surpass human intelligence across the board by 2030.

Then, during an appearance on the Relentless podcast – a documentary series “about the pursuit of far-fetched ideas and unusual aspirations” – on Saturday, Altman said: “We’re now, like, in the singularity.”

He clarified that, in terms of technological advances, we are gradually moving into the singularity, and that this change will be good for the world.

He added: “Now we’re actually in the moment that we used to talk about at the lunch table in a very not-serious way.

“I’ve been waiting for this my whole life, and I think it’s going to be incredible, hugely positive, awesome for the world.”

Later in the podcast episode, Altman criticised other AI leaders for warning that AI may be dangerous. While Altman did not name OpenAI competitor Anthropic, its CEO Dario Amodei is known for making such warnings.

“I also think some of the alternative visions painted by other companies are quite terrifying,” said Altman. “I’m going to make sure that gets pushed against and is not what happens.”

Last month, Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, called on the world’s top AI companies to come up with a coordinated way to pause the development of advanced AI systems, warning that the technology is improving so quickly that there’s a risk humans would lose control.

In a blog post on June 4, Anthropic, which has long positioned itself as a safety-focused AI lab, wrote that as AI becomes more advanced “it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause” its development.

Why are others warning of the dangers of AI?

On July 23, two members of the United States Congress introduced the AI Kill Switch Act, a bipartisan bill which would require the country’s AI developers to build in a “kill switch” to their programmes, enabling humans to slow, suspend or shut down advanced AI models if they ever posed a catastrophic risk.

The legislation was introduced days after OpenAI disclosed what it described as an “unprecedented cyber incident”, where two of its most advanced AI models escaped a testing environment and hacked AI development platform Hugging Face during an internal security evaluation.

On July 13, hundreds of experts signed an open letter, organised by Stanford University’s digital economy lab, demanding that policymakers and technology leaders “must act now” to prepare for the economic impact of AI.

The letter warns that AI could grow far more capable over the coming decade, driving a transformation “larger than the Industrial Revolution, but unfolding over a vastly shorter time frame”.

“It could bring risks, including large-scale job displacement, as well as opportunities such as major gains in living standards,” the letter added.

In June, a team of researchers at the University of Toronto showed that AI tools could be used to create a new kind of AI “worm” that adapts its hacking strategy as it spreads from device to device and takes over a vast computing network.

“I think it’s really important that people understand that it’s not just the biggest, most powerful language models that pose the security concerns,” lead researcher Nicolas Papernot said in an interview.

In recent years, AI researchers have urged pauses similar to the one recently suggested by Anthropic. However, they have not been heeded.

Elon Musk, who owns AI lab xAI, was among the backers of a 2023 push by the nonprofit Future of Life Institute to halt AI development for six months to allow time to develop safety guardrails.

The United States has continued to attack Iran for a 13th consecutive night on Thursday and explosions were reported in multiple Iranian cities on Friday morning.

In addition to the ongoing attacks, shipping disruptions continue to intensify. Ship tracking data revealed that just one tanker successfully crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, marking the lowest level since May 7.

However, shipping data from London Stock Exchange Group shows that two Chinese supertankers carrying crude oil from Saudi Arabia successfully exited the Bab al-Mandeb strait on Friday. This is despite the naval blockade Yemen’s Houthis announced against Saudi Arabia on Monday.

Here is a recap of what happened on Thursday night and Friday.

Where did the US attack Iran?

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said that at 01:00 GMT on Friday, it concluded its latest round of strikes against Iran.

CENTCOM said it targeted Iranian military command centres, drone storage facilities, communication networks, coastal surveillance sites and maritime capabilities.

On Friday, Iranian media reported explosions or attacks across multiple Iranian cities. State broadcaster IRIB reported that explosions were reported in Khondab, Khorramabad, Konarak and Jask. Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported that two people have been injured following an early morning drone attack on Khorramabad, citing the deputy governor of the western Lorestan province.

Iran’s Mehr news agency reported on Friday that US missile strikes hit the cities of Andimeshk and Omidiyeh in the Khuzestan province. There were no casualties or injuries.

Al Jazeera’s Tohid Assidi reported from the Iranian capital, Tehran, that explosions were heard on Qeshm island, located in the Strait of Hormuz, on Friday.

Attacks on the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas have injured two people, Iranian media reported on Friday.

Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Friday that four people were killed and five others were injured in a US missile attack near the southwestern city of Ahvaz.

Where did Iran strike in the Gulf?

Bahrain: In a statement carried by Iran’s Mehr news agency, the Iranian army said it used drones to target fuel storage tanks, equipment warehouses and troop living quarters at Sheikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain.

Jordan: The military added that aircraft hangars, maintenance facilities and accommodation sites at the Muwaffaq Salti/Al-Azraq base in Jordan were also hit, warning that any actions against Iran’s interests would undermine regional security and economic stability.

What have leaders on either side said?

On Thursday, US President Donald Trump stepped up his rhetoric against Tehran. He told the US news website Axios that he may launch the largest strikes on Iran yet, after Tehran carried out another wave of retaliatory attacks on US allies in the Gulf, including hitting a telecommunications tower in Kuwait.

Trump said he was “considering a massive attack” that would be “bigger than ever before”.

“I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it,” Trump said.

Separately, Trump threatened, on his Truth Social platform, that if Iran attacked ships, the US would use Tehran’s frozen assets to pay for repairs.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned on Friday that using frozen state assets to pay for future claims sets a dangerous global precedent.

“Seizing another nation’s assets to pay for unrelated future claims is an incendiary precedent,” Araghchi wrote on X.

He cautioned that “those who celebrate or profit from such funds should remember: once governments normalise confiscation, no one’s assets are safe. Ensuing chaos will not be pretty or peaceful”.

The United States continued to hit Iran for a 12th consecutive night early on Thursday, and Iran retaliated, striking targets across the Gulf, particularly in Kuwait and Jordan.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Thursday that an explosion set a tanker ablaze in the Strait of Hormuz after it attempted to navigate the southern route off the coast of Oman.

Here is a recap of what happened on Wednesday night and Thursday.

Where did the US attack Iran?

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said at 02:30 GMT on Thursday that it concluded the latest round of strikes against Iran.

It targeted Iranian military targets, including maritime capabilities, missile and drone storage facilities, coastal surveillance sites and air defence assets, CENTCOM said, without specifying what areas in Iran were struck.

A local official told the Mehr news agency that US missiles struck the area around a passenger terminal in Shalamcheh, a western city near the Iraqi border. Two people were killed in the attack, the deputy governor of Iran’s Khuzestan province told the state broadcaster IRIB on Thursday. Local media also reported that 11 people were injured.

Al Jazeera’s Tohid Assidi reported from Iranian capital Tehran that overnight strikes targeted at least three cities in the southwestern province of Khuzestan. This included the city of Ramshir, where an asphalt facility was reported to have been targeted.

In Hormozgan province, explosions were heard in the city of Sirik, which overlooks the Strait of Hormuz, Assidi reported.

He added that the governor confirmed an overnight attack in Bushehr on a power substation near the city’s nuclear power plant. This resulted in a few hours of power outage in the city.

IRIB also reported that explosions were heard in Iran’s Jask.

The Tasnim news agency reported that a US missile hit a location on the outskirts of the city of Andimeshk.

Two naval search and rescue vessels were hit and seriously damaged in a US attack on Iran’s Hormozgan, the ISNA news agency reported, citing the province’s Ports and Maritime Administration.

Where did Iran hit back?

Kuwait

The IRGC claimed attacks on US assets in Kuwait on Thursday.

It said it had “attacked and destroyed a large warehouse of military equipment, a Patriot missile defence system, and a hangar of American MQ9 drones” at Ali Al Salem airbase.

Addressing the Kuwaiti people, the IRGC insisted that it was the US, not Iran, that had “violated your territorial integrity and sovereignty”.

It said its attacks were aimed at US bases, territory it described as beyond the control of Kuwait’s own border guards.

“So it is America that has violated your territorial integrity and sovereignty, not us. We are attacking lands occupied by the American army, an army that knows nothing but crime,” the IRGC said.

Jordan

Later on Thursday, the IRGC claimed attacks on US assets in Jordan, saying it had “destroyed a radar of the American THAAD missile defence system with lightning strikes”.

“A Patriot system and a C-RAM radar were also targeted and destroyed, and the fuel tanks of the American base were set on fire,” it said.

The IRGC added that “a large helicopter equipment warehouse and a helicopter repair and maintenance shed were also set on fire and destroyed”.

Addressing the Jordanian people, it insisted that its actions did not violate Jordanian sovereignty, arguing that the US military presence infringes on local authority and that targeting US forces was a legal and necessary response.

What happened in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea?

The IRGC said an explosion set a tanker on fire in the Strait of Hormuz.

In a statement carried by Iranian media, it said two other vessels quickly turned back following the explosion.

The IRGC claimed the three ships were acting under US orders and had “intended to pass through the mine-laid route south of the Strait of Hormuz”.

“The powerful IRGC Navy emphasises that the Strait of Hormuz is under our control and that as long as America’s evil deeds in the region continue, it is completely closed and no oil tanker will enter or exit [the strait],” it warned.

“Any ship that is deceived by America and intends to pass through without coordination with the Islamic Republic of Iran will suffer the same fate.”

The UK Maritime Trade Operations Centre said a ship was targeted 70 nautical miles (130km) off the Saudi coast, causing a fire on board. There was no mention of casualties among the crew.

The Houthis, meanwhile, claimed a major operation against two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, called the Encelia and the Layla. The Saudi SPA news agency confirmed the Encelia was hit.

The Houthis said they targeted those two tankers with cruise and ballistic missiles as well as drones, causing huge balls of fire and devastation.

The Houthis framed the attack as part of a tit-for-tat campaign against Saudi Arabia. They are calling it a “siege-for-siege”. They said it has been 12 years since Saudi Arabia has been imposing a siege on the Yemeni people, and that it is now time for Yemen and the Houthis to respond in kind. Riyadh has rejected Houthi claims that it had besieged Yemen.

EXPLAINER

Several Ukrainian and Russian generals have been fired from their militaries over the course of the war in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has sacked his military chief Oleksandr Syrskii in the latest reshuffle in the country’s defence apparatus after days of protests following the ouster of the defence minister.

Here is a closer look at what happened in the latest instance, alongside all the top shakeups in Ukraine and Russia over their four-year war.

Who was Oleksandr Syrskii?

Syrskii, 60, was born in Soviet Russia, in July 1965 and studied at a Red Army academy in Moscow.

In the 1980s, he was deployed to Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. After this, he remained in Ukraine and studied at the National Defence University of Ukraine in Kyiv, joining the ranks of the newly independent Ukrainian army.

In 2014, he commanded Ukrainian troops fighting a Moscow-backed armed rebellion in the eastern Donetsk region.

In 2019, he became head of Ukraine’s land forces and led the country into war when Russia invaded in February 2022. In the early months of the war, he was named a “Hero of Ukraine”, the country’s highest honour, because of his successful defence of Kyiv.

Syrskii is credited with planning Ukraine’s counteroffensive around Kharkiv from July to September 2022, which became one of Kyiv’s biggest victories and led to the recapture of the strategically significant Kupiansk and Izyum cities.

What’s the context for Syrskii’s removal?

The removal came after six days of protests in the capital, Kyiv, caused by the removal of Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who had previously clashed with Syrskii.

Fedorov, who was seen by many as pivotal to the war effort, was removed from his post last week, leading to widespread anger across Ukraine. Before his dismissal, the former defence minister had accused Syrskii of blocking his reform efforts.

In place of Syrskii, Zelenskyy has appointed Mykhailo Drapatyi to lead the military.

“I am grateful to Oleksandr Syrskyi and to every one of our warriors for Ukraine’s strong front-line positions,” Zelenskyy said in a statement on social media. “I am grateful to Mykhailo Drapatyi for holding that same view.”

“Our shared wish is one – victory over the enemy and conditions at the front and in pressure on Russia that would force Russia toward peace,” he added.

Zelenskyy emphasised the need to address friction within the military leadership and resolve persistent issues concerning mobilisation and front-line management.

Zelenskyy said Tuesday’s decision to appoint Drapatyi was made to “reset” the ongoing defence against Russia’s invading troops.

Which other generals has Ukraine fired during the war?

More than 10 Ukrainian generals have been fired from their positions over the course of the war.

Here are some of the most major instances:

• In September 2023, Zelenskyy removed his Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov over corruption allegations.
• In February 2024, Zelenskyy dismissed Valerii Zaluzhnyi from his position as military commander-in-chief. Zelenskyy appointed Syrskii to take his place.
• In June 2024, Zelenskyy introduced Andrii Hnatov as the new commander of the Joint Forces Command, replacing Yuriy Sodol.

What about Russia?

Over the four-year war, which began in February 2022, Russia has had its fair share of reshuffling in its own military. Here are some major instances:

• In August 2022, Vice Admiral Igor Osipov, who commanded the Black Sea Fleet, was fired. He was first suspended after the fleet’s flagship Moskva was sunk in April 2022.
• In July 2023, Moscow’s military leadership dismissed Major-General Ivan Popov, commander-in-chief of Russia’s 58th Combined Arms Army stationed in southern Ukraine, over his concerns for troops fighting without rest and criticism of Russian battlefield strategy.
• In August 2023, Russia removed Sergey Surovikin, nicknamed “General Armageddon”, from his post as commander of Russia’s Aerospace Forces. Surovikin was linked to the Wagner mercenary group and was dismissed two months after its short‑lived mutiny against Russia’s military leadership.

OpenAI has revealed that one of its artificial intelligence models independently stole login credentials and hacked into another technology company’s system, in what is widely seen as one of the first known incidents of AI systems acting autonomously.

“We had a significant security incident during evaluation of our models,” CEO Sam Altman posted on X on Tuesday.

The incident comes as calls mount from technology rights advocates for stricter guardrails on rapidly evolving AI systems.

They have grown so powerful in a short span of time that alarming phenomena such as deepfakes and sophisticated cyberscams are becoming the norm.

Earlier this year, a number of software engineers quit their jobs at top companies such as Anthropic and AI in protest against how the technologies are being built.

“AI is accelerating the discovery and exploitation of vulnerabilities,” OpenAI said in a lengthy statement on Tuesday that detailed the latest incident.

“The primary lesson from this incident is that model security and safety must keep pace with rapidly advancing capabilities.”

Here’s what we know about the breach:

What has happened?

OpenAI said two of its models found their way out of an isolated, no-internet access environment – or a sandbox – and hacked into the systems of tech company Hugging Face on their own.

The models involved are the latest GPT-5.6 Sol model and an unreleased model the company said is “even more capable,” than its latest version.

Hugging Face hosts openly sourced AI models and resources. The two OpenAI agents discovered vulnerabilities in Hugging Face’s servers and proceeded to steal login details and then hack into the company’s systems.

The incident occurred during an OpenAI internal testing session designed to assess the models’ cybersecurity capabilities. OpenAI had removed standard safety measures for the test.

Both sought to cheat their way through a problem during the test, OpenAI said. They went to “extreme lengths to achieve a rather narrow testing goal” and “found ways to gain access to secret information that it could use to cheat the evaluation”.

OpenAI’s security team detected the unusual activity internally, but details of the breach came to light following a joint investigation by both companies.

What has Hugging Face said?

Hugging Face disclosed last Thursday that its servers were hacked by an unknown but sophisticated agent acting on its own. The company discovered the breach through its own AI-assisted detection.

“This one was different from anything we had handled before in one important way: it was driven, end to end, by an autonomous AI agent system,” the company said.

Following OpenAI’s disclosure that its models were involved in the breach, both sides conducted an ongoing joint investigation this week.

“We suspected last week’s cyberattack might have come from a frontier lab, given the sophistication of the agent. Turns out it did!” CEO Clement Delangue posted on X on Tuesday.

Hugging Face’s staff “strongly believe there was no malicious intent on their part,” Delangue added, referring to OpenAI.

Why does this matter?

Cybersecurity experts have previously sounded the alarm over the potential, extreme capabilities of AI systems and the dangers they pose.

But until now, there have been few real-life cases proving those concerns like this one.

Many warn that incidents like these could become commonplace and that AI systems pose a threat to financial, security and other sensitive data systems.

OpenAI revealed in a separate incident earlier this week that the unreleased, more powerful model had escaped an isolated environment during another test.

Anthropic, OpenAI’s rival, had similar issues with its most powerful agent to date, the Claude Mythos Preview model.

During a stress test of an early version, the model found its way out of a sandbox, gained internet access and emailed the supervising researcher that it had escaped and then wiped evidence of its activity. Anthropic halted a planned public release of the model afterwards.

In April, the US Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department convened a meeting with bank CEOs where officials warned about the cybersecurity risks posed by Mythos. Canada’s federal banking regulator has also warned financial institutions about the model’s capabilities.

The OpenAI breach also appears to make the case for companies like Hugging Face, which rely on open source systems, as opposed to more secretive AI development platforms like OpenAI.

“This incident, possibly the first of its kind, proves a point we’ve long believed: AI safety won’t be solved by any single company working in secret,” Hugging Face’s Delangue was quoted as saying in OpenAI’s statement.

“It will be solved in the open, collaboratively, with broad access to AI for every defender, everywhere,” he added.

For the ninth consecutive night, the United States mounted attacks on Iran’s defence facilities and maritime capabilities into the early hours of Monday, with Tehran hitting back in tit-for-tat strikes as warning sirens blared in neighbouring Gulf countries and Jordan, home to US military bases.

Both sides have accused each other of violating the memorandum of understanding (MoU) they had signed in Islamabad, Pakistan, on June 17. US President Donald Trump has said he views the truce as over, while Iran has said it no longer intends to adhere to the MoU.

Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz — through which 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas passed during peacetime — is shut again, sending crude prices shooting up yet again. On Sunday, the US military said another American service member had been killed late last week, bringing the total number of deaths to 17.

So, what has changed in the last two months for the US, Iran and the Gulf countries as the MoU has unravelled in terms of economic impact, widening of military targets, and how they view the war?

Economy

The Strait of Hormuz — the kill switch of the global economy — has been closed down by Iranian authorities, warning that not even a drop of oil shall pass through the waterway amid US attacks and a naval blockade against Iran’s ports.

The MoU had paved a path for the reopening of the strait. And that had briefly pulled oil prices to par with pre-war levels.

The GCC

The strait is of critical importance, especially for Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, which saw their economic security and energy strategy severely affected by export curbs. The war on Iran has brought about the largest disruption to global oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies in modern history.

The costs go beyond just energy revenue losses, noted Mohammad Reza Farzanegan, an economist at Germany’s Marburg University.

“The conflict also threatens the GCC countries’ diversification strategies. Tourism, aviation, logistics, construction, real estate and foreign investment all depend on perceptions of regional stability,” he told Al Jazeera. “Continued war increases insurance and transport costs and encourages investors and tourists to reconsider their exposure to the region.”

Iran

For Iran, the MoU lifted the naval blockade against Iranian ports and offered oil and banking sanctions waivers, and Tehran rushed to export tens of millions of barrels of crude oil.

The earlier US blockade had curbed Iranian exports, with Iran’s parliament speaker and chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, telling Iranian state TV in an interview last month that “we did not export even one barrel” during the blockade.

However, as fighting resumed, the US disabled a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, reported to be carrying Iranian crude. Tehran has also hit commercial vessels in the waterway, and the US has been bombing Iran’s coastal areas since then.

“[The renewed US naval blockade] is more damaging than conventional sanctions because the restrictions are now enforced physically,” said Farzanegan. “Iran therefore has much less room to use intermediaries, alternative flags and informal shipping arrangements to maintain oil exports.”

“The immediate consequences are lower foreign-exchange revenues, further depreciation of the rial and stronger inflationary pressure,” the economist told Al Jazeera.

Iran’s economy has been suffering from one of the world’s highest inflation rates. The rial touched nearly 1.9 million against the US dollar this week, a new all-time low. The Tehran Stock Exchange’s main index lost another 120,000 points or 2.4 percent on Saturday to stand at 4.77 million.

The US

Trump’s war has been widely unpopular in the US. The president recorded a 60 percent disapproval rating on the economy, as per the latest CNBC polling, with a net approval rating of -22, reported to be the lowest of his political career.

As per the poll, 61 percent of respondents said they are pessimistic about the state of the economy, the highest percentage since December 2023.

“The effects are most visible in energy prices and consumer purchasing power. This increases household costs and complicates the political position of President Trump and Republican candidates ahead of the November 2026 congressional elections,” said Farzanegan.

Military

The US

The US military has had 17 personnel killed in the war with Iran so far. Three of them have been killed since the resumption of the war about 10 days ago.

“We hit them very hard again tonight,” Trump said on Sunday, adding, “We did that in honour of the – probably three – it’s probably three great patriots.”

Two US personnel were killed in an Iranian attack on an airbase in Jordan on Friday, and a third is missing. Another soldier was killed last week in Iraq while defusing unexploded ordnance from an Iranian drone.

Tehran has claimed to have hit several US military facilities in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan, including an aircraft at Aqaba airport.

Al Jazeera could not immediately verify the extent of damage to any facilities.

The Gulf

The renewed attacks from Iran on most Gulf countries, as well as Jordan, have forced them to deploy their interceptors. GCC countries had already used hundreds of expensive interceptors during the first phase of the US-Israel war on Iran in March and April.

But the Iranian military’s attacks have also hit civilian infrastructure in Gulf countries. The bombing of power and desalination plants in Kuwait has drawn widespread regional condemnation.

“What is happening is a severe shock to the GCC countries,” Nader Habibi, an Iranian-American economist, told Al Jazeera. “Now, after the disruptions of the past seven months, even as they have tried to avoid getting involved, the civilian population is indirectly impacted.”

Iran

The US insists that it has focused its attacks on Iran’s military infrastructure, especially on the country’s southern islands — some of which act as forward military or surveillance posts, and others that are believed to host missile bunkers.

But Tehran has accused the US of targeting civilian infrastructure as well in recent days, including bridges and tunnels, ports and dock facilities, power stations and water plants. Iranian officials have said more than 50 people have been killed and about 500 wounded in US attacks in the past three weeks.

Narrative

More than the war itself, a significant part of the messaging from the US and Iran has been over the control of the Strait of Hormuz.

The US

Washington says its renewed attacks are aimed at degrading Iranian capabilities to disrupt maritime traffic in the waterway, with Trump saying last week that “the US controls the Strait”.

Iran

Tehran has pushed back on Trump’s claim.

Farzanegan said Iran’s “ability to influence shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains a unique source of bargaining power”. “Tehran is therefore prepared to bear considerable costs to preserve this leverage.”

He added that Iran may also calculate that extending part of the economic costs to neighbouring oil-exporting countries will encourage these governments to use their political influence in Washington and push the US towards negotiations.

“This appears to be one reason why Iran is prepared to maintain pressure in the Strait despite the considerable costs to its own economy,” the analyst added.

Aniseh Tabrizi, an associate fellow on the Middle East and North Africa Programme at think tank Chatham House in London, said the significant change since the MoU unravelled “is that there is less optimism than before about diplomacy being feasible”.

“For all the sides,
it is difficult to foresee a scenario in which another deal is not only reached, but also implemented successfully,” she told Al Jazeera. “And that makes it particularly concerning for all the parties involved.”

Tabrizi noted that there appears to be “no imminent drive” from the Iranian side to sign a deal. “They are still maintaining escalatory attacks, but also reciprocating the kind of attacks that are conducted against the country,” she said.

The Gulf

GCC countries have continued to condemn Iran’s attacks on the regional countries, while calling for diplomacy to dial down the escalation. They have made it clear that Iran’s unilateral control over the Strait of Hormuz would not be acceptable to them.

Tabrizi added that, like the weeks before the Islamabad MoU, regional countries, especially Qatar, are still batting for talks.

If anything, Farzanegan said, the economic losses can bring all the sides to the table again for talks.

“Higher economic losses increase the incentives for negotiations,” he said. “A return to negotiations becomes more likely when both sides conclude that continued escalation cannot improve their bargaining position.”

Economist Habibi agreed that if an agreement is reached again, “it would be primarily because of the stability of the economic pressures on both sides”. However, he added that the probability of escalation in the next couple of weeks is higher than the probability of negotiation.

The United States has attacked Iran for a ninth consecutive night after the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) announced a US soldier had died in northern Iraq in a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian drone.

Here is what happened over Sunday night and Monday morning and what officials on both sides have said:

Where was Iran attacked?

CENTCOM announced in a statement on X that it completed the ninth wave of attacks against Iran at 02:00 GMT on Monday.

It said it “targeted Iranian military command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and communications networks to further diminish Iran’s ability to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the Strait of Hormuz”.

The US military did not provide details about the actual sites hit in Iran.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said two oil tankers “exploded” and were halted in the southern Strait of Hormuz late on Sunday, according to a report by the semiofficial Tasnim News Agency on Monday.

The IRGC stated the vessels were trying to transit through the strategic waterway under what it described as US coercion.

“This passage is unsafe for the transport of chemical fertiliser or even a single drop of oil and gas,” the group warned, adding that the corridor would remain unsafe as long as US military operations in the region continue.

An MQ-9 drone was intercepted and shot down over Eslamabad-e Gharb in western Iran’s Kermanshah province, according to the Mehr News Agency on Monday.

Mehr said the drone was targeted by an advanced air defence system operated by the IRGC aerospace force.

Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim News Agency reported on Monday that US strikes targeted an area in the town of Khormoj in southwestern Iran. It quoted a local official.

Where did Iran strike, and where were warnings issued?

Jordan: The IRGC said on Monday that it launched ballistic missiles at US C-17 transport planes and P-8 aircraft at Aqaba airport, claiming several were heavily damaged. In a statement carried by the state-controlled IRIB broadcaster, the IRGC also said 20 hangars housing US forces in the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Azraq were destroyed.

Bahrain: The US embassy in Bahrain said it has information suggesting Iran may seek to target unspecified locations in central Manama. It urged Americans to remain vigilant, follow instructions from local authorities and immediately seek shelter if warning sirens sound or explosions are heard.

US soldier in Iraq: A US service member was killed in northern Iraq on Saturday during the controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from an Iranian drone, CENTCOM said.

What happened in the Strait of Hormuz?

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency reported late on Sunday that a vessel about 8 nautical miles (15km) northwest of Kumzar, Oman, had caught fire.

It is unclear whether this happened due to an attack by Iran. The UKMTO said the cause of the fire had not been verified and advised vessels in the area to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity while authorities investigate.

What have Iranian and American leaders said?

US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the US is hitting Iran to honour American service members who have been killed.

“We hit them very hard again tonight, and we did that in honour of the, probably three, it’s probably three great patriots,” Trump told reporters as he returned to Washington, DC, after the World Cup final in New Jersey. At least two US soldiers were killed in Jordan last week after Iranian missiles struck a US base there, and the third soldier Trump referred to was killed in Iraq during the detonation of the Iranian drone.

“We feel very badly,” he said when asked about the military fatalities, adding that those who died were fighting so “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in an interview with state media that Tehran would end the war with the US when it had “the upper hand in the field”, local news reported on Monday.

Talking with the IRNA news agency, Araghchi said the most critical decision in crisis management was identifying the precise moment to halt hostilities and begin negotiations.

“The end of the war is possible either through absolute military victory or through negotiations. The right time to negotiate is precisely when you have achieved a reliable field and strategic achievement on the military front,” Araghchi said.

“You cannot take risks with the lives of the people and the fate of the entire country. Decisions must be made based on accurate and complete calculations,” Araghchi said.

Influencer brothers Andrew Tate and Tristan Tate have been arrested in Miami, in the US state of Florida, after prosecutors in the United Kingdom brought further rape and sex trafficking charges against them.

The brothers were taken into custody on Saturday on a sealed warrant, the United States Marshals Service said, placing the US at the centre of an international legal saga that has stretched from Romania to the UK.

Raised in the UK, the Tate brothers hold dual US and UK citizenship. The UK government says it will seek their extradition to face 38 new charges of rape, sex trafficking and assault.

Here is what we know about the Tate brothers, their arrest and the possibility of extradition:

Who are the Tate Brothers?

Andrew, 39, and Tristan, 38, are former professional kickboxers. They are known for their social media empire promoting wealth, male dominance and misogyny.

Andrew is one of the most prominent proponents of the so-called “manosphere” network of communities, many of them online, that focus on traditional masculinity, antifeminism and self-improvement. He promotes his divisive views, often incorporating alpha-male and aggressively misogynistic themes, to millions on social media, including 10.8 million followers on X.

Andrew has been banned from platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram for violating hate speech guidelines. He also runs an online academy where he says he teaches young men how to get rich and attract women.

The brothers are also avid supporters of US President Donald Trump.

What are the new charges against the Tates?

British prosecutors say the 59 new charges – 42 against Andrew and 17 against Tristan – relate to alleged offences that took place between 2010 and 2017.

They said Andrew was charged with seven further counts of rape, three counts of arranging or facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation, three counts of assault, and 19 charges for offences relating to indecent images of a child and extreme pornography.

Tristan was charged with one count of sexual assault, two counts of rape and three counts of arranging or facilitating sex trafficking.

“We have decided to prosecute Andrew and Tristan Tate for further offences including rape, arranging or facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation and offences relating to indecent images of a child,” the UK Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said in a statement.

Since the arrest warrant was sealed, US Marshals did not disclose the charges on which the Tate brothers were arrested.

Their lawyer, Joseph McBride, said the brothers “are innocent”.

“We are confident that once a competent judge sees the facts, and once the Department of Justice confronts this egregious abuse of its own authority, Andrew and Tristan Tate will walk free,” McBride said in a statement.

What are the other charges against the brothers?

Andrew and Tristan already face multiple charges in the UK and Romania, where they moved to in 2016.

Four women have accused Andrew of physical and sexual abuse.

The claimants, who have been granted anonymity, allege the elder Tate subjected them to physical or sexual violence between 2013 and 2015. Two say they were in an intimate relationship with him, while two worked for his online webcam business.

In June, a UK High Court judge threw out a legal bid by the Tates to be told the names of their accusers.

In Romania, the siblings were arrested in late 2022 along with two Romanian women. The four were accused of participating in criminal schemes to lure women for sexual exploitation. They denied the allegations and the Romanian case has not gone forward because of legal and procedural problems. The case has not been closed.

Andrew has repeatedly claimed that prosecutors in Romania have no evidence against him and that there is a political conspiracy to silence him.

The Tate brothers are also accused of tax evasion and money laundering in the UK.

The UK CPS said it is seeking their extradition.

“The CPS has requested the extradition of the Tates from the US,” it said, adding that the latest charges stem from receipt of new evidence from Bedfordshire police that brings the total number of alleged victims in the Tates’ case to seven.

The British police previously sought the Tates’ extradition to the UK once their legal proceedings in Romania concluded.

But in February 2025, they were allowed to leave Romania after authorities lifted travel restrictions, and they flew to Florida on a private jet.

Romania’s foreign minister said at the time that a US official in the Trump administration had expressed interest in the brothers’ legal case in Romania.

Trump said he knew “nothing about” the case when asked if his administration pressured the Romanian government to release the Tates.

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio is hosting more than 65 countries for a conference focused on political violence from the far left, a designation that a number of critics say is being used to target legitimate opposition.

The “Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism”, taking place on Thursday, brings together government representatives from around the world to coordinate on what the US Department of State calls a “renewed threat”  that has “remained a blind spot in the international community’s counterterrorism focus”.

Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Reuters news agency that “the far-left terrorism designations could be used to target lawful protest activity and political opponents rather than genuine security threats.”

Here’s what’s driving the summit and who’s attending:

What is this summit about?

The Trump administration’s 2026 counterterrorism strategy identifies three primary threats: “Islamist terrorism”, “narco-terrorism”, and “violent left-wing extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists”.

The strategy states that the third category of left-wing “extremists” has been traditionally ignored, and notes that Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September 2025 was executed “by a radical who espoused extreme transgender ideologies”.

The counterterrorism strategy omits right-wing extremism and white supremacist groups, despite growing instances of violence that some of these outfits have been accused of – including several of those who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2020, in an attempt to overturn the US presidential election that Donald Trump lost.

Thomas Renard, director of The Hague-based International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, said the summit reflects a fundamental shift in how the US sees the threat.

“What we are seeing now in the United States is that counterterrorism has been completely politicised, instrumentalised,” he told Al Jazeera. “For instance, the threat from far-right terrorism, which was for decades considered as the primary domestic threat, has now completely disappeared from the US counterterrorism strategy.”

Who has been invited?

Invites went to more than 70 countries as the State Department wrote on social media that countries had shown “overwhelming interest”. It is reported that Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar will be present alongside representatives from multiple countries. The stated aim is to “expand coordination, enhance information sharing, and strengthen international law enforcement mechanisms”.

The summit follows a series of smaller meetings held earlier this year, including one in The Hague with law enforcement officials.

Renard says many European nations are expressing their unease with this ministerial meeting by sending relatively junior ministers.

“They are not particularly convinced that this is a topic that justifies this type of gathering, but at the same time, they don’t want to antagonise the United States either. And therefore, this is the compromise they found,” he said.

In November, 2025, the US designated four European groups as terrorist organisations: The German Antifa Ost, the Italian Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front (FAI/FRI), the Greek Armed Proletarian Justice and the Greek Revolutionary Class Self-Defense.

What is “far-left terrorism”?

The term is usually used by governments to describe movements accused of violence and driven by left-wing ideologies, including Marxism, socialism, or anarchism. Such movements usually describe themselves as anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist.

Latin America saw several left-wing armed movements during the Cold War, a number of which carried out sustained campaigns of political violence, such as Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMNL) in El Salvador and the Tupamaros in Uruguay. Throughout the 20th century, Washington repeatedly backed hardline right-wing regimes that opposed left-wing movements across Latin America.

India has been dealing with the Naxalite rebellion, a far-left Maoist movement that started in the 1960s and claims to fight for the rural population. The group is seen as one of India’s most serious internal security threats. At its peak, about the year 2000, thousands of people were killed due to the conflict with the Naxalite rebellion.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Marxist groups like the Red Army Faction in West Germany were behind several assassinations, abductions and bombings that they argued were aimed at weakening the capitalist state.

By contrast, the Antifa movement, which the Trump administration has consistently tried to portray as a major violent threat, is a loose, decentralised collection of socialist-leaning individuals opposed to far-right extremism, white supremacy and authoritarianism. Several individuals described by prosecutors as Antifa members have been indicted on accusations of violence in US courts, especially in states like Texas that are ruled by Trump’s Republican Party, since he returned to power. In June, eight such individuals were sentenced to several years in prison: Benjamin Hanil Song, convicted of the attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, was sentenced to 100 years in prison.

Far-right political violence and terrorism in the US

But the same Trump administration has pardoned all those charged with violence during the January 6, 2023 insurrection, including individuals accused of beating police officers.

This week’s summit also specifically focuses on far-left political violence but does not include the threat from far-right ideology and terrorism, similar to the counterterrorism strategy.

This, even though the Oklahoma bombing, which killed 168 people and wounded nearly 700 in the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in the US, was carried out by the right-wing hardliner Timothy McVeigh.

The Cato Institute, a US think tank in Washington, DC, stated in February that of politically motivated terrorism on US soil between 1975 and 2025, excluding the Oklahoma bombing and 9/11, “right-wing terrorists account for 45 percent of people murdered, Islamists are responsible for 32 percent, left-wing terrorists are responsible for 16 percent.”

Renard says the summit creates the very problem it claims to solve: “The United States, with this summit and with its strategy, is creating, actually, a blind spot about far-right terrorist threats, as that threat is strongly anchored and rooted in the United States.”

The US military has continued strikes against Iran, hitting targets further to the country’s north as well as close to capital Tehran for the first time in the latest round of violence.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said early on Thursday it struck several military sites and assets in a bid to “further degrade Iran’s ability to threaten innocent mariners” in the Strait of Hormuz. The unit also said it disabled an oil tanker in the passageway.

At least 35 people have died, and more than 300 have been wounded in the latest wave of attacks that began last Wednesday after CENTCOM launched strikes on Iranian port cities close to the Strait of Hormuz. The US says the attacks are in retaliation for Iran hitting three commercial ships in the Strait.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it targeted US military assets in neighbouring Gulf countries.

Here’s what has happened in Iran and the US on Wednesday and Thursday and what both sides are saying:

Where did the US hit?

CENTCOM said in a statement early on Thursday that US air strikes targeted Iranian command centres, air defence sites, missile and drone capabilities as well as coastal surveillance facilities.

Multiple locations were hit, CENTCOM said, including Bandar Abbas on Thursday.

An earlier wave of strikes late on Wednesday hit coastal defence and cruise missile sites on Greater Tunb Island in a 90-minute bombing wave, CENTCOM added. The small, strategically located island sits near the Strait of Hormuz and is believed to hold a naval base, although details are not publicly available. It is also believed to be a point from which the Iranian military has disrupted shipping routes.

Meanwhile, Iranian media reported attacks in Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island, Sirik, Chabahar, Konarak, Rask, Khondab, Khorramabad and Semnan.

A hospital in Ahvaz was forced to evacuate 211 patients after reportedly being hit in the strikes.

Air defences were activated in Tehran and neighbouring Pakdasht and Parchin on Thursday.  The Iranian military said an MQ-9 drone was downed over the city of Andimeshk.

CENTCOM, in a separate statement on Thursday, said it was enforcing a naval blockade reimposed on Tuesday by disabling a “non-compliant” oil tanker that was attempting to sail towards Iran’s Kharg Island using Hellfire missiles.

How has Iran responded?

Iran’s army claimed retaliatory attacks on US military assets in Kuwait and Bahrain on Thursday.

Kuwait: The Iranian army said in a statement it targeted radar systems, the Patriot defence system and fuel tanks belonging to US forces at the Ali Al Salem airbase in Kuwait. In an earlier statement, it said it hit a radar and gathering point for US soldiers in Kuwait, as well as US communications systems and fuel depots in Jordan’s al-Azraq airbase.

Bahrain: Drones also targeted US Super Hawk radars and Patriot defence systems at the Sheikh Isa airbase in Bahrain, the army added.

Jordan: Meanwhile, Jordan said it intercepted eight Iranian missiles on Thursday.

Iraq: Iraqi authorities said five drones attacked the city of Erbil, with two crashing near a US base and one shot down near the US consulate. Iran’s army has not claimed the attacks.

What are both sides saying?

Iran’s parliament speaker and lead negotiator, Mohammad Ghalibaf, said on Wednesday Iran is prepared for a fuller military confrontation if the US does not live up to the terms of the interim deal. The country is fighting an “existential” battle, he added.

The IRGC has, meanwhile, threatened to halt all energy exports from the Middle East over the US’s naval blockade, which was reimposed on Tuesday.

“The export of oil and gas from the region will be either for everyone or for no one,” it said in a statement.

Speaking at the US Army War College in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, President Donald Trump reiterated his claims that Iran was pushing to strike a peace deal behind the scenes but did not provide details.

“They don’t like what we’re doing, and they do want to settle. We’ll find out whether or not we settle with them, or we just finish it off,” he said.

However, in a rare show of gratitude on Wednesday, Trump thanked Iran via his Truth Social platform for the release of Dena Karari, an American citizen the US says was “wrongfully” jailed in the country since 2024.

Meanwhile, US Vice President JD Vance, in an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan released on Wednesday, defended the war on Iran but added that an agreement was needed between the two sides to end the conflict.

Three days after the sudden death of Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, his sister, Darline Graham Nordone, was sworn in on Tuesday to fill his vacant Senate seat at the suggestion of United States President Donald Trump.

Announcing his selection of the deceased senator’s sister on Monday, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster introduced the new senator as Graham’s “darling little sister” who would “finish his work for him now”.

Graham had been among the most influential of senators in the US Congress, using his seat in South Carolina to pursue a consistently hawkish line on foreign policy as well as offering unflagging support to his formerly bitter political rival, President Trump.

Among the Senate’s strongest advocates of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Graham repeatedly argued against imposing limits on US military support and rejected calls for a ceasefire. He also pressed for a tougher stance on Iran, championing harsher sanctions, backing military action against Tehran’s nuclear programme and warning that the US should be prepared to use force to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

After dying unmarried and without children, his position has now been inherited by his sister, Darline, formerly active in South Carolina’s local government, but with no experience in elected political office.

So, who is Darline Graham Nordone, how significant is this, and are US political powers often inherited? Here’s what we know.

Who is Darline Graham Nordone?

She is Lindsey Graham’s younger sister.

Graham and his sister lost both their parents within 15 months of each other.

At the time, Graham was 22 and his sister was 13. She went to live with relatives, but the pair remained close as Graham studied law and later served in the Air Force.

Years later, Graham legally adopted his sister, saying the move would ensure she was eligible for his military benefits if he died and would be eligible to serve as first lady if he were ever elected president.

Darline Graham Nordone has never held elected office. Neither she nor Governor Henry McMaster has said whether she intends to seek a full six-year Senate term or serve only as a caretaker until January 2027.

“I promise to work hard over the next several months to support the president and carry forward the efforts of my brother on behalf of the citizens of South Carolina and the United States,” she said in brief remarks during the announcement of her appointment on Monday. “I think this is what Lindsey would have wanted, and I plan to honour him in this way.”

What powers has Darline Graham Nordone inherited?

Although Darline Graham Nordone inherits her brother’s Senate seat, she does not automatically inherit his influence.

As a senator, she will be able to vote on legislation, approve presidential appointments, influence foreign policy and help shape US spending priorities.

However, her brother’s committee positions, seniority and political networks were built over decades of negotiating and dealing in the Senate’s corridors of power, and will not transfer to her.

Republican leaders will decide her committee assignments, leaving her to establish her own standing in Washington.

Are US political powers often inherited?

It happens more than you might think.

The practice of relatives stepping into the seats of deceased lawmakers has a long history in US politics, with family members often appointed to complete the remainder of a term.

Figures from the US House of Representatives show that, as of 2025, 45 widows have directly succeeded their late husbands in Congress – including 38 who entered the House and eight who served in the Senate.

Supporters of such appointments point to a long tradition in US politics. Known historically as “widow’s succession”, the practice involved governors appointing the spouses of lawmakers who had died in office, allowing them to serve as temporary custodians until a special election was held. The system also provided an early pathway for women to enter Congress, helping expand female representation in the 20th century.

In modern Washington, inherited seats have, more often than not, served as bridges between one era of family influence and the next, such as the way that the powerful Kennedy family has preserved its influence over past decades.

Has there been any backlash?

Some.

Senior elected officials have yet to comment on Graham Nordone’s appointment, while details of her willingness to run in the midterms remain unknown. However, social media users in the US have reacted angrily to what they see as the unelected transfer of power.

Journalists such as Ben Binday of The Washington Post have also questioned Graham Nordone’s lack of political experience, commenting that nothing is known of her position on key issues such as abortion, foreign policy and healthcare.

The United States carried out attacks against Iran for a third consecutive night late on Monday.

Iran has continued to hit targets in the Gulf in several waves of retaliatory strikes on Tuesday, including UAE‑flagged oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and US military facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait.

Here is a recap of what has happened on Monday night and Tuesday, and what each side has said.

Where did the US attack Iran?

US Central Command, the military’s regional command known as CENTCOM, said its latest strikes began at 4:45pm ET (20:45 GMT) on Monday and were aimed at degrading Iran’s capacity to attack “innocent civilians and commercial shipping” in the strait.

CENTCOM later announced the conclusion of its strikes and said the latest round of attacks on Iran lasted five hours. It added that US forces “successfully struck military targets across Iran including Bushehr, Chah Bahar, Jask, Konarak, Abu Musa, and Bandar Abbas”.

Iranian state television and semi-official news agencies reported explosions throughout the night across the country’s southern coast, including the port city of Bandar Abbas, and on Kish and Qeshm islands, as well as the town of Jam in Bushehr province.

A projectile that struck western Bandar Abbas caused no casualties, the Fars news agency reported, citing the regional governor’s office.

What areas did Iran target?

For its part, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had launched a wider retaliatory campaign against US allies and interests across the Gulf.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported that Iranian forces had struck several “violating” vessels in the strait, and that a US-made drone had been shot down near Bandar Abbas.

The UAE: The UAE said two of its oil tankers had been hit by Iranian cruise missiles in Omani waters in the Strait of Hormuz. The UAE added that one Indian national crew member had been killed on one of the tankers, and eight other people were wounded.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency said the IRGC hit two “offending” oil supertankers, citing an IRGC statement – apparently referring to the two UAE tankers.

Kuwait: The Iranian army said on Monday that it had carried out a drone attack on US military targets in Kuwait. In a statement posted by state broadcaster IRIB, the army said it launched drones at a US Patriot missile system, fuel tanks, a watchtower, an ammunition depot and communication systems.

Bahrain: The IRGC said it targeted “several weapons storage depots, a satellite communications centre, and a building housing US forces” at al-Juffair Base in Bahrain. It also said it had hit the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain with missiles and drones.

Air sirens have been heard four times in Bahrain on Tuesday so far.

Jordan: Jordan’s army said it shot down four missiles in Jordanian airspace that were fired from Iran, according to the official Petra news agency. After this, the IRGC said it launched ballistic missiles at US forces and key facilities at an airbase in Jordan.

In a message addressed directly to Jordanians, the IRGC insisted that the operation was aimed at the US military presence in the country rather than at Jordan or its citizens. “You know that we hold no animosity toward your country. On the contrary, we deeply love you, the noble people. You understand the pain and suffering of the Palestinian people better than any other nation, and you are aware of the crimes of the Zionist regime in the massacre of 70,000 Palestinians, including 20,000 children in Gaza, carried out with the direct involvement of the United States,” it said.

What have the US and Iran said?

US President Donald Trump formally notified Congress on July 10 that fighting with Iran had resumed on July 7, invoking his authority to keep US forces in combat for another 60 days without lawmakers’ approval.

At a news conference on Monday, Trump said Iran’s offensive capabilities were being dismantled, but he still thinks a “deal is possible” despite the return to open fighting.

Trump also repeated an earlier demand that Gulf nations help cover the cost of protecting shipping, saying Washington was “protecting a very rich portion of the world” and expected to be paid for it.

On Monday, Trump also threatened to “take out” Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, also known as Pickaxe Mountain, a suspected nuclear site near the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran.

Meanwhile, the US blockade on Iran, confirmed by the US Navy-led Joint Maritime Information Centre (JMIC), is due to begin at 20:00 GMT on Tuesday.

The US’s blockade covers Iran’s ports and terminals along the entire southern coastline, according to JMIC.

Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security Committee, has warned that Iran remains steadfast in defending its red lines, following the formal introduction of a bill to manage the Strait of Hormuz.

In an X post on Tuesday, Azizi wrote: “Last night, coinciding with the downing of US drones, the ‘Strategic Action for the Security and Sustainable Progress of the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf’ bill was formally introduced in Iran’s Parliament. We remain steadfast in defending our red lines, particularly regarding the management of the Strait of Hormuz.”

What is happening to shipping in Hormuz?

Oil prices rose more than 9 percent on Monday, with Brent crude climbing to about $81 a barrel, its highest level since mid-June.

Kpler, the ship-tracking firm, said crossings through the strait fell by about 52 percent between July 10 and July 12, compared with the previous week.

EXPLAINER

Al Jazeera put nine leading AI models to the test to predict the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup champion.

As the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup enters its final stages, AJLabs asked nine leading AI models to predict the tournament’s final podium based on all available data for each team, including:

• Team strength
• Squad quality
• Coaching
• Historical performance
• Team’s performance during the current tournament

France emerged as the favourite to lift the trophy, receiving five (Gemini, Grock, DeepSeek, Le Chat and Qwen) of the nine champion votes.

Argentina, the defending world champions, received the remaining four votes (ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot and Meta AI).

Predictions for the runner-up were more divided: France and Argentina each received three votes, followed by England with two and Spain with one.

Spain was the clear favourite to finish third, receiving six of the nine third-place predictions, while England and France each received fewer votes.

The predictions reflect a broad AI consensus around the four remaining contenders, France, Argentina, Spain and England, but also highlight differences in how leading language models weigh recent performances, squad depth and tournament momentum.

The AI predictions come as the tournament reaches the semifinals. France will face Spain on July 14 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, while England will meet Argentina on July 15 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.

The third-place playoff will be played on July 18, before the World Cup final on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Champion predictions

• France: 5 models
• Argentina: 4 models

Runner-up predictions

• France: 3 models
• Argentina: 3 models
• England: 2 models
• Spain: 1 model

Third-place predictions

• Spain: 6 models
• England: 2 models
• France: 1 model

European Union foreign ministers met in Brussels on Monday to discuss whether there is enough support for new measures to curb trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

“Everybody agrees that the situation in the West Bank is really intolerable,”  EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said at the start of a meeting.

“What is happening in the West Bank is actually making it more and more impossible that the two-state solution ever can come into effect.”

Here is more about the ongoing EU discussions on Israeli settlements.

What options are the EU foreign ministers discussing?

The discussions are based on a confidential paper by the European Commission that floats three different options – an import licensing system, prohibitive tariffs, or a ban – an unnamed senior EU diplomat and a European official said, Reuters reported.

The EU has long struggled to take major decisions on Middle East policy because of deep and long-standing divisions among its 27 member countries, particularly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Diplomats said the debate at a meeting in Brussels on Monday was not expected to yield any concrete decisions, but would help to sound out if there is enough support to move forward.

Are Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank expanding?

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967. More than 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the territory, excluding east Jerusalem, among some three million Palestinians.

This month, Israel’s Security Cabinet has approved a plan to establish 13 new settlements in the central occupied West Bank.

The number of new settlements has soared recently, according to new data from the Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies (MADAR). After averaging approximately eight outposts annually between 2012 and 2022, the number jumped to 32 in 2023, then 62 in 2024, reaching 86 during 2025.

Nasser Khdour, Middle East assistant research manager at the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), said that 2026 is the deadliest year for settler violence since ACLED began tracking incidents in Palestine a decade ago.

“Incidents have included attacks on Palestinians, property destruction, damage to farming equipment and facilities, tree uprooting, and grazing on Palestinian agricultural land. Other incidents have involved looting, including the theft of equipment, sheep, and crops,” Khdour was quoted as saying on the ACLED website in May.

What pressure has the EU faced to take measures about this?

Under pressure for the EU as a whole to take measures, the bloc’s executive last week laid out options to curb trade with settlements, including a ban.

“There have been a lot of asks and requests from the member states regarding the ban of the trade with illegal settlements,” Kallas said.

“Let’s see if these options that have been provided now will have a stronger push from member states.”

Belgium’s Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot said the options laid out appeared to be more “a bone to gnaw on than a genuine desire to move forward”.

“We are calling for concrete proposals,” he said.

There is disagreement in Brussels as to whether that move would need backing from all 27 member states or just a weighted majority.

Diplomats say that key players Germany and Italy are still undecided on the move.

What has the EU’s position been so far?

Several EU countries – including Spain, the Netherlands, and the Republic of Ireland – have already imposed their own trade restrictions on Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, considered illegal under international law.

In May, the EU imposed sanctions on four entities and three individuals over what it described as serious and systematic human rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank.

In a July 2024 advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice said Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements in the West Bank are illegal and that states should take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that help maintain the situation.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar last year described a push by some European governments to implement the advisory opinion as “shameful”.