extends

EXPLAINER

President Trump said the US would extend the ceasefire until Iran presents a proposal and talks are concluded, but a naval blockade of its ports continues.

President Donald Trump said the United States is extending the ceasefire until Tehran submits its latest proposal with conditions for ending the war, and until negotiations conclude, keeping diplomacy open while maintaining pressure on Iran.

However, Trump said the US naval blockade on Iran would remain. Iran has insisted that the blockade represents a violation of the ceasefire, and has said it will not negotiate under the “shadow of threats” or while the blockade remains in place, underscoring the fragile and uncertain path to talks.

Meanwhile, violence continues across the region, with Israeli settlers killing two people, including a child, in the occupied West Bank, and Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon wounding civilians and damaging homes despite a 10-day ceasefire.

In Iran

• The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said oil production across the Middle East could be targeted if attacks were launched from Gulf neighbours’ territory.
• The US is continuing its naval blockade of Iranian ports despite the truce, a move Iran says undermines the ceasefire.
• An adviser to Iran’s parliamentary speaker said the ceasefire extension could be a “ploy to buy time” for potential military escalation.
• Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described the US naval blockade as an “act of war” and a violation of the truce.

War diplomacy

• Tehran open to diplomacy: Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Almigdad Alruhaid said there was no official response to Trump’s ceasefire extension, but officials signalled openness to talks. The US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is seen as a violation of the truce, with commanders saying forces are fully prepared to respond to any escalation.
• US sanctions widened: The US imposed new sanctions linked to Iran’s weapons programmes, while the European Union is moving to expand its own measures.
• Talks planned in Washington, DC: The US is set to host ambassador-level negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, as Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam pushes for a full Israeli withdrawal from the country’s territory as Beirut’s main objective.

In the Gulf

• Trump said a potential currency swap with the United Arab Emirates is “under consideration”, adding Washington would support the Gulf ally if needed, after reports the idea was raised with US officials amid concerns the war could strain the UAE’s economy.

In the US

• The US president said he was extending a ceasefire with Iran to give more time for negotiations, but would maintain the naval blockade of Iranian ports.
• Reporting from the White House, Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher said Trump has shifted between conciliatory and hardline rhetoric, linking the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz to forcing Iran to negotiate, while warning of military action if negotiations fail.
• The mixed messaging has unsettled markets, but some analysts argue the strategy shows calculated pressure and a willingness to wait for Iran’s response.

In Israel

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country has been strengthened by its campaigns against Iran and its allies, claiming joint efforts with the US weakened Tehran’s capabilities and boosted Israel’s regional position, opening the door to new alliances.

In Lebanon

• Prime Minister Salam said on Tuesday that Lebanon needed $587m to address the conflict’s ongoing humanitarian fallout amid a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
• Tensions remain high as Israel and Hezbollah accuse each other of breaching the truce. Israel said rockets were fired at its troops in southern Lebanon and that it responded with strikes, while Hezbollah said its attacks were retaliation for Israeli shelling and ongoing strikes on Lebanese areas.

Oil and global economy

• Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains severely limited, raising concerns over global oil flows.

In a social media post, President Trump announced an extension of the ceasefire in the war on Iran, but with the US blockade still in place. Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher says there are signs of movement as Trump shifts towards discussing a ‘unified proposal’.

The measure has long been criticised for allowing US intelligence agencies to collect citizen data without a warrant.

The United States Congress has temporarily extended a controversial surveillance law which allows federal intelligence agencies to collect the data of foreigners, including their contacts with US citizens.

The move allows a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to continue until April 30. The short-term extension was passed by the House of Representatives and approved by the Senate on Friday.

The patch comes after President Donald Trump’s efforts to secure a more lasting extension broke down.

Section 702 of FISA allows the National Security Agency (NSA) and other intelligence services to collect data from foreigners outside of the country.

That could include their interactions with US citizens, a prospect that has alarmed rights advocates.

Collecting such data, which can include correspondence on email and telecommunications platforms, typically requires a warrant approved by a court.

The process has been described by critics as a “backdoor search” that circumvents existing privacy laws.

Speaking after Friday’s vote, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said there was still some openness to reforming the law.

“We’ve got to pivot and figure out what can pass, and we’re in the process ⁠of figuring out how to do that here,” he told reporters.

Supporters of reform, who stretch across party lines, have long sought to repeal or amend Section 702.

While FISA was initially passed in 1978, Section 702 was added as an amendment in 2008.

The addition came amid the US’s “global war on terror”. But during its approval, revelations emerged that the administration of former US President George W Bush had already used the tactics Section 702 legalised.

Supporters, including Trump, maintain that reforming the provision would lead to a lapse in national security.

“I have spoken with many in our Military who say FISA is necessary in order to protect our Troops overseas, as well as our people here at home, from the threat of Foreign Terror Attacks,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Wednesday.

He has pushed for the law to be extended for 18 months without changes. That effort initially appeared on track in the House but was ultimately scuttled by pushback from within Trump’s own Republican Party.

Among the detractors was Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, who has been a regular critic of Trump.

“I will be voting NO on final passage of the FISA 702 Reauthorization Bill if it does not include a warrant provision and other reforms to protect US citizens’ right to privacy,” he wrote ahead of the House vote.

WASHINGTON — The Senate approved a short-term renewal until April 30 of a controversial surveillance program used by U.S. spy agencies, following a chaotic, post-midnight scramble in the House to keep the authority from expiring.

The measure cleared the Senate by voice vote, without a formal roll call, as Congress raced to meet a Monday deadline. It now heads to President Trump, who had pushed for a clean 18-month extension, for his signature.

GOP leaders in the House rushed lawmakers back into session late Thursday with a series of back-to-back votes that collapsed in dramatic failure, before they quickly pushed ahead the stopgap measure as they race to keep the surveillance program running past Monday’s expiration date.

First they unveiled a new plan that would have extended the program for five years, with revisions. Then they tried to salvage a shorter 18-month renewal that Trump had demanded and Speaker Mike Johnson had previously backed. Some 20 Republicans joined most Democrats in blocking its advance.

Shortly after 2 a.m. they quickly agreed to the 10-day extension, which was agreed to on a voice vote without a formal roll call. It next goes to the Senate, which is gaveling for a rare Friday session, as Congress races to keep the surveillance program running.

“We were very close tonight,” said Johnson after the late-night action.

But Democrats blasted the middle-of-the-night voting as amateur hour. “Are you kidding me? Who the hell is running this place?” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., during a fiery floor debate.

At the center of the standoff that has stretched throughout the week is Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which permits the CIA, National Security Agency, FBI and other agencies to collect and analyze vast amounts of overseas communications without a warrant. In doing so, they can incidentally sweep up communications involving Americans who interact with foreign targets.

U.S. officials say the authority is critical to disrupting terrorist plots, cyber intrusions and foreign espionage.

Surveillance program fight is a debate over privacy and security

Its path to passage has teetered all week in a familiar fight, as lawmakers weigh civil liberties concerns against intelligence officials’ warnings about national security risks.

Opponents of the surveillance tool point to past misuses. FBI officials repeatedly violated their own standards when searching intelligence related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and racial justice protests in 2020, according to a 2024 court order.

Trump and his allies had lobbied aggressively all week for a clean renewal of the program, without changes.

A group of Republicans traveled to the White House on Tuesday, and on Wednesday CIA Director John Ratcliffe spoke directly with GOP lawmakers. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Thursday there had “been negotiations late into the night with the White House and some of our members.”

“I am asking Republicans to UNIFY, and vote together on the test vote to bring a clean Bill to the floor,” Trump wrote on Truth Social this week. “We need to stick together.”

The result of days of negotiations

Thursday’s proceedings came to a standstill as lawmakers retreated behind closed doors and Johnson reached for an agreement to resolve the standoff.

Shortly before midnight GOP leaders announced a new proposal, a five-year extension, with revisions. The changes were designed to win over skeptics of the surveillance program who have demanded greater oversight to protect Americans’ privacy.

Among the changes are new provisions to ensure that only FBI attorneys can authorize queries on U.S. persons, and to require the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to review such cases, said Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., during the debate.

But the final product, a 14-page amendment, did not go far enough for some holdouts in either party.

With Johnson controlling a slim majority, he has little room for dissent. As the Republicans fell short on both efforts before the short extension, a handful of Democrats stepped in to try to help them advance the longer extensions, but most Democrats were opposed.

“We just defeated Johnson’s efforts to sneak through a 5-year FISA authorization tonight,” said Democratic Rep, Ro Khanna of California. “Now, they will have to fight in daylight.”

Cappelletti and Mascaro write for the Associated Press.

April 16 (UPI) — The House on Thursday passed a bill to extend temporary protected status for people from Haiti who are living in the United States through 2029.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., who is co-chair of the House Haiti Caucus, introduced a discharge petition to advance a bill to extend protection for Haitian nationals.

The legislation was initially introduced by Rep. Laura Gillen, D-N.Y., whose Long Island district — as well as the rest of Long Island and New York City — have large Haitian populations, and is the first bill she introduced after her election to the House.

After the discharge petition succeeded, with bipartisan support, the bill passed the full House with 10 Republicans voting in support of it.

“This is a critical step forward in our fight for immigrant justice and delivering our Haitian neighbors the protections they deserve — and it’s a testament to the strength of our broad, diverse and bipartisan coalition,” Pressley said in a statement after the motion to discharge was agreed to.

“I am grateful to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who supported our discharge petition,” she said.

After the vote, Gillen in a statement encouraged the Senate “to take up this measure and show the compassion and good sense to protect our Haitian community members.”

“Not only would this threaten the lives of our neighbors, it would also have a devastating effect on our economy,” Gillen said, noting that the extension protects “law-abiding and tax-paying Haitians who would face horrific condition if forced back to Haiti.”

The bill, however, faces a battle in the Republican-run Senate and, if it does get passed, the White House has indicated that it will veto the legislation, reports have said.

Although former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had attempted to end TPS for at least half a million Haitians last Fall, a judge in February blocked the Trump administration from carrying it out.

As a result of the ruling, TPS for people from Haiti expired on Feb. 3, its original expiration date, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which Pressley said made the discharge petition to force a vote on the bill so crucial.

The Supreme Court also is due to rule on the Trump administrations efforts to end TPS for Haitians, as well as for people from Syria, who have protected status because of the dangerous situation in that country.

THE conflict in the Middle East has resulted in thousands of cancelled holidays and it’s set to continue.

loveholidays has now announced it won’t be selling any of its package holidays to the likes of Qatar and Dubai until June 2026.

loveholidays, which offers affordable breaks all over the globe, is not selling package holidays to the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar or Jordan that leave in March, April or May 2026.

It has also cancelled a number of holidays set to depart in May.

On its website, loveholidays said: “We’ve made the decision to cancel all holidays departing up to and including 10 May 2026 to countries currently on the FCDO ‘all but essential travel’ list (UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and Riyadh).

“This includes holidays with a connecting flight via one of these countries.”

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It continued: “If you are due to travel or transit through these destinations after May 10, please rest assured that we will contact you directly if there is any impact to your holiday.”

In more detail, loveholidays said that flights operating with airline KLM to these destinations between May 11-17 have been cancelled, with refunds being processed.

It added that those flying with Qatar Airways between May 11 and June 15 have the option of cancelling their flights for a full refund.

Customers flying to or via Dubai, Doha, Amman or Bahrain on a British Airways flight between May 11-31 also have the option to cancel for a full refund.

A loveholidays spokesperson told Sun Travel: “We want to give customers with holidays to or transiting through the Middle East in the coming weeks as much certainty as possible and the flexibility to make alternative travel plans.

“Due to ongoing disruption affecting travel to the region, we have now cancelled and refunded all holidays to and transiting through the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain and Riyadh up to and including 10 May.

“We are continuing to monitor the situation closely with the FCDO and our airline partners, who are finalising their operational plans for the coming months.”

Meanwhile, On the Beach has cancelled holidays to the UAE that depart up to April 15 with breaks afterwards being monitored.

It’s not just holiday companies that are cancelling holidays, as flights are also being axed due to the rising cost of fuel caused by the conflict.

United Airlines was the latest to confirm that it would be cutting five per cent of flights in the second and third quarters of 2026.

With up to 5,000 flights a month – working out to around 4,000 domestic and 800 international routes – this means it affects around 250 flights a month.

It’s set to last until the end of summer, meaning thousands of passengers will be affected.

Other airlines cutting back on flights include Air New Zealand and Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS).

Some UK airlines are less affected for now because they have secured some of their fuel at a fixed price for a certain amount of time.

These include Ryanair, easyJet, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic.

For more information on travel insurance and your airline rights during the crisis, Head of Sun Travel Lisa Minot explains what you can do.

And if you still want to travel – here’s where prices for all-inclusive deals are an absolute bargain with some 70 per cent cheaper.

Jannik Sinner extended his remarkable run with a 7-5 7-6 (7-4) win over Alex Michelsen at the Miami Open.

The Italian world number two claimed his 25th and 26th consecutive set wins at ATP Masters 1,000 events during his win over Corentin Moutet on Monday – setting a new record.

Sinner made it 28 sets in a row by beating Michelsen but did not have it all his own way. Having taken the first set, he fell 5-2 down in the second before coming back to win on a tie-break.

The four-time Grand Slam winner has triumphed at the past two Masters 1,000 tournaments – at Indian Wells earlier this month and Paris in November – without losing a set.

In the women’s draw, Coco Gauff takes on Belinda Bencic in a quarter-final later on Tuesday, while Karolina Muchova was the first to power into the semis with a 7-5 7-6 (7-5) win against Canada’s Victoria Mboko.

Third seed Elena Rybakina ended Talia Gibson’s run late on Monday with a comprehensive 6-2 6-2 win to move into the last eight.

The 21-year-old Australian had won 11 of her past 12 matches but was outclassed by two-time Grand Slam champion Rybakina, who will face fifth seed Jessica Pegula on Wednesday.

EU maintains pressure after slamming US for lifting sanctions on Russian oil exports as Middle East war bites.

The European Union has voted to renew sanctions against individuals and entities supporting Russia’s war on Ukraine, as Russian forces continued to target Ukrainian energy infrastructure, killing six people in the Zaporizhia and Kyiv regions.

The EU Council announced that the bloc’s 27 member states had agreed on Saturday to extend sanctions targeting some 2,600 individuals and entities with measures like travel restrictions and asset freezes until September 15, breaking an earlier deadlock caused by Hungary and Slovakia’s opposition to the move.

The extension of sanctions came one day after EU Council chief Antonio Costa slammed the United States for lifting sanctions on Russian oil exports, saying on X that weakening restrictions increased “Russian resources to wage the war of aggression against Ukraine”, with a knock-on impact on European security.

The measure was announced as Russia hammered Ukraine with missiles and drones on Saturday, killing five people and injuring 15 in the Kyiv region surrounding the capital, according to regional military administrator Mykola Kalashnyk.

The city of Zaporizhzhia was also hit by Russian-guided bombs, killing one person and injuring three, said the governor of the southeastern region, Ivan Fedorov. Photos posted online showed parts of buildings reduced to rubble.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia’s main target was energy infrastructure outside the capital Kyiv, but that the Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Mykolaiv regions were also targeted in an attack that included about 430 drones and 68 missiles, most of which were downed by air defences.

Russia’s winter attacks on Ukraine have left swaths of major cities without power or heating, as Moscow’s troops continue their offensive amid demands Kyiv cede more territory in the east. Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said on Saturday that consumers in six regions were without electricity.

Ukraine’s forces have targeted Russian strategic infrastructure such as oil refineries, depots and terminals in long-range strikes. On Saturday, Ukraine’s military said that it had struck the Afipsky oil refinery and Port Kavkaz in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region.

Putin ‘exploiting’ Middle East distraction

Saturday’s fighting came as the Iran conflict has distracted international attention from a US-backed peace push in the four-year war, which Kyiv says Moscow has no interest in ending.

Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever called on Saturday for the EU to be mandated by its member states to negotiate with Russia as it became apparent amid spiking oil prices caused by the Iran war that the US was easing pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Since we are not capable of threatening Putin by sending weapons to Ukraine, and we cannot choke him economically without the support of the United States, there is only one method left: making a deal,” he told the Belgian newspaper L’Echo.

EU chief diplomat Kaja Kallas has said in the past that the bloc must first reach an agreement on what is expected from Russia before directly approaching Putin, formulating its own “maximalist demands”.

However, the bloc’s inability to reach a common position was highlighted during the EU Council’s recent deliberations on extending sanctions.

Hungary and Slovakia, which have been sparring with Ukraine over blocked Russian oil flows through the Druzhba pipeline, had earlier opposed the extension of the restrictions, reportedly calling for some Russian oligarchs to be removed from the list of offenders.

Reacting earlier this week to soaring oil prices caused by the war in Iran, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban urged the EU to suspend sanctions on Russian energy.

Posting on X, Zelenskyy said, “Russia will try to exploit the war in the Middle East to cause even greater destruction here in Europe, in Ukraine.”