plan

A report on how Olympic organizers will tackle civil rights, homeless and human trafficking ahead and during the 2028 Games has not been made public by the city more than two months after it was filed and no date for its release has been set, leaving human rights advocates fearing the issues will not get the attention and funding they deserve.

Council president Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who chairs the ad-hoc committee on the LA28 Games, has not included the human rights report on the committee’s agenda. His office did not respond to requests for comment and Sharon Tso, the city’s chief legislative analyst, and Matthew Szabo, the city’s administrative officer, both said they have not seen the report and “nothing appears on the council file,” according to Tso.

The delay is limiting discussion on an important topic, said Stephanie Richard, a clinical professor who leads the Sunita Jain Anti-Trafficking Initiative at Loyola Law School, which released its own comprehensive report on human trafficking and the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Olympics in December.

“From an anti-trafficking perspective, this is a historic moment” she said. “Yet the public has no access to the draft.

“Without transparency, Los Angeles cannot responsibly prepare, and advocates cannot provide informed guidance. LA28 is setting a global precedent — one that currently lacks public accountability.”

LA28, the private nonprofit organizing committee for the 2028 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles, was responsible for developing a human rights strategy around the Games. Its report was due Dec. 31, a deadline it met, according to a spokesperson for the group. LA28 is not allowed to release the report publicly until the city does.

“As per our Games Agreement with the City, LA28 completed the Human Rights Strategy at the end of 2025,” said Jacie Prieto Lopez, the group’s vice-president of communications and public affairs, in LA28’s first public statement on the report. “We are now working closely with city leaders on next steps.”

What those next steps are and when they’ll be taken, no one seems to know.

FIFA is producing its own report on human rights and human trafficking around this summer’s World Cup, which will feature eight games at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.

“In each host city, human rights teams are working towards tailored FIFA World Cup Human Rights Action Plans in consultation with local human rights stakeholders and in line with FIFA guidance,” a FIFA spokesperson said in a written statement. “Plans will be published ahead of the tournament. This work reflects a sustained and consistent commitment by FIFA to embed human rights considerations throughout the planning and delivery of the tournament.”

The FIFA report for Los Angeles isn’t expected to be released until May, according to sources close to the process not authorized to speak publicly, about a month before the tournament kicks off. Some of the other 11 U.S. host cities, among them Seattle and Houston, have already rolled out their own initiatives addressing the issue.

Richard, who was invited by the city to consult with LA28 on its study, said the release of both the Olympic and World Cup reports is important for Los Angeles because it allows for public comment and oversight.

Richard’s group has called on LA28 and FIFA to allocate between $2.75 and $3.1 million specifically for anti-trafficking implementation; to fund a public-awareness campaign and independent audits to ensure accountability and transparency; and to invest in long-term programs that extend beyond the two sporting events.

“One of the things our report starts from is the only evidence-based data connected to major sporting events is that labor trafficking increases,” Richard said. “Major sporting events requires an influx, a large influx, of workers, a lot of time immigrant workers who are highly vulnerable in the construction industry..

“Presumably a lot of these workers are brought in months ahead of time to do some of this work.”

Richard said the continued presence of federal immigration officers in Los Angeles adds another layer of complexity to the human trafficking mix.

In mid-February, nine state legislators signed a letter calling for LA28, FIFA and local officials to incorporate the recommendations made by Richards’ group into their own plans and to release the report publicly as “a critical step toward accountability.”

But when asked about the letter this month, the signatories contacted refused to comment. A spokesperson for assemblywoman Celeste Rodriguez, who represents the eastern San Fernando Valley, said Rodriguez was “unavailable to talk on this issue.”

Attacks on multiple commercial ships in the waters around Iran on Wednesday increased global energy concerns, pushed nations to unleash strategic oil reserves and sparked fresh critiques of the Trump administration’s readiness for a war it started.

As Trump administration and U.S. military officials continued to claim increasing success and advantage in the conflict — and authorities downplayed a reported threat of drone attacks on California — leaders around the world scrambled to respond to the latest attacks and the International Energy Agency’s call for the largest ever release of strategic oil reserves by its members to help stem energy price spikes.

President Trump also faced renewed questions about a deadly strike on an Iranian elementary school at the start of the war, after the New York Times reported Wednesday that a military investigation had determined the U.S. was responsible.

“I don’t know about it,” Trump said when asked about the report.

In an address Wednesday morning, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said energy shipments through the Strait of Hormuz had “all but stopped” amid the conflict, driving massive global competition for oil and gas in wealthier countries and fuel rationing in poorer nations.

He said the IEA’s 32 member nations have brought a “sense of urgency and solidarity” to recent discussions on the matter, and had unanimously agreed to “launch the largest ever release of emergency oil stocks in our agency’s history,” making 400 million barrels of oil available.

However, he said the most needed change is the “resumption of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.”

A vendor pumps petrol from Iranian fuel oil tankers for resale near the Bashmakh border crossing between Iraq and Iran.

(Ozan Kose / AFP/Getty Images)

Several countries, including Germany, Austria and Japan, had already confirmed their plans to release reserves.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on any U.S. plans to release its strategic reserves, or how much would be released. The U.S. is an IEA member.

Trump told reporters Wednesday that the U.S. has hit Iran “harder than virtually any country in history has been hit,” including by wiping out its naval fleet and eliminating other vessels capable of laying mines, and that he believes oil companies should resume shipments through the strait despite the recent attacks.

U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum backed the idea of releasing oil reserves in a Fox News interview.

“Certainly these are the kinds of moments that these reserves are used for, because what we have here is not a shortage of energy in the world; we’ve got a transit problem, which is temporary,” Burgum said. “When you have a temporary transit problem that we’re resolving militarily and diplomatically — which we can resolve and will resolve — this is the perfect time to think about releasing some of those, to take some pressure off of the global price.”

Burgum said that while Iran is “holding the entire world hostage economically by threatening to close the strait,” Trump has made the consequences of such actions “very clear,” and “there’s a lot of options between ourselves and our allies in the region, including our Arab friends in the region, to make sure that those straits keep open and that energy keeps flowing for the global economy.”

The IEA did not provide details as to the release of the 400 million barrels, part of a broader reserve of some 1.2 billion barrels held by its members. It said the reserves “will be made available to the market over a time frame that is appropriate to the national circumstances of each Member country and will be supplemented by additional emergency measures by some countries.”

The agency said an average of 20 million barrels of crude oil and oil products transited the strait per day in 2025, and that options for bypassing the strait are “limited.”

While some tankers believed linked to Iran were still getting through the Strait of Hormuz, which under normal circumstances carries about 20% of the world’s oil and natural gas, Iranian officials threatened attacks on other vessels — saying they would not allow “even a single liter of oil” tied to the U.S., Israel or their allies through the channel, which connects to the Persian Gulf.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. and its powerful Navy would support commercial vessels and ensure the strait remains open to oil shipments, but that has not been the case.

Tankers wait off the Mediterranean coast of southern France on Wednesday.

(Thibaud Moritz / AFP/Getty Images)

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, run by the British military, reported at least three ships struck in the region Wednesday — including ships off the United Arab Emirates and a cargo ship that was struck by a projectile in the strait just north of Oman, setting it ablaze.

The Trump administration and the U.S. military, meanwhile, have been pushing out messaging about wiping out Iran’s ability to plant mines in the strait — posting dramatic videos of major strikes on tiny boats on small docks.

Adm. Brad Cooper, the leader of U.S. Central Command, said in a video posted to X on Wednesday morning that “in short, U.S. forces continue delivering devastating combat power against the Iranian regime.”

“I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: U.S. combat power is building, Iranian combat power is declining,” he said.

The U.S. has struck more than 60 Iranian ships, and just “took out the last of four Soleimani-class warships,” he said. “That’s an entire class of Iranian ships now out of the fight.”

Cooper said Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks have “dropped drastically” since the start of the war, though “it’s worth pointing out that Iranian forces continue to target innocent civilians in gulf countries, while hiding behind their own people as they launch attacks from highly populated cities in Iran.”

He also addressed the attacks on commercial shipping in the region directly, saying that “for years, the Iranian regime has threatened commercial shipping and U.S. forces in international waters,” and that the U.S. military’s “mission is to end their ability to project power and harass shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.”

Other U.S. leaders called the U.S. war plan — and specifically its approach to protecting the Strait of Hormuz — into question.

In a series of posts to X late Tuesday, which he said followed a two-hour classified briefing on the war, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) slammed the administration’s plans as “incoherent and incomplete.”

Murphy wrote that the administration’s goals for the war seemed to be focused primarily on “destroying lots of missiles and boats and drone factories,” and without a clear plan for what to do when Iran — still led by “a hardline regime” — begins rebuilding that infrastructure, other than to continue bombing them. “Which is, of course, endless war,” he wrote.

Murphy also specifically criticized the administration’s plan for the Strait of Hormuz — which he said simply doesn’t exist.

“And on the Strait of Hormuz, they had NO PLAN,” he wrote. “I can’t go into more detail about how Iran gums up the Strait, but suffice it [to] say, right now, they don’t know how to get it safely back open. Which is unforgiveable, because this part of the disaster was 100% foreseeable.”

Ships in the strait remained under threat of various forms of attack Wednesday, as did much of the region as the war raged on.

There was an attack on a U.S. Embassy operations center at Baghdad’s airport, which officials attributed to a drone launched by Iranian proxies based in Iraq. No casualties were reported.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported the death toll there — from fighting between Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters — had risen to 634 since last week, including 91 children. Another 1,500 people had been wounded, the ministry said.

Iranian authorities have said U.S. and Israeli attacks have killed 1,255 people since Feb. 28. That includes many Iranian leaders, including then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. U.S. officials have said Iranian attacks in the region have killed seven U.S. service members, with another 140 wounded.

CBS News reported Wednesday that dozens of those injuries were sustained by service members in the March 1 Iranian drone attack on a tactical operations center in Kuwait — which is also where six of the seven deaths occurred.

The outlet reported that the attack was more severe than the Trump administration has revealed, with more than 30 military members still in hospitals Tuesday with a range of battle injuries including “brain trauma, shrapnel wounds and burns.”

Threats extended beyond the Middle East, too — including to California, where law enforcement agencies were warned by federal authorities that Iran “allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack” on California using drones launched from a vessel off the U.S. coast.

However, sources told The Times that advisory was cautionary and not backed by credible intelligence.

Times staff writer Gavin J. Quinton, in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

The reported idea of a special operation to seize Iran’s uranium should alarm anyone who still thinks there is a line between pressure and recklessness. Sending foreign forces into Iranian territory to capture nuclear material would be far beyond coercion. It would be war in plain sight. That risk looks even sharper when it is paired with talk of unconditional surrender and a revived maximum pressure campaign. Officials call that flexibility. In practice, it often creates confusion and a dangerous illusion of control.

Strategic Ambiguity Has Limits

Trump has long preferred threat inflation as a negotiating tool, and his administration’s National Security Presidential Memorandum on Iran makes clear that Washington wants to deny Tehran every path to a bomb. But there is a difference between pressure meant to shape diplomacy and rhetoric that drifts toward occupation logic. A raid assumes the United States can enter a sovereign state, take possession of fissile material, and leave without igniting a larger conflict. That is not strategy. It is a gamble.

A Raid Would Not Stay Small

Iran is not an isolated militia camp. It is a large state with layered security organs, missile capacity, regional partners, and a long memory of external intervention. Any attempt to seize uranium by force would expose American troops, bases, shipping lanes, diplomats, and partners to retaliation across several fronts. Even before talk of a raid, Washington and Tehran had been engaged in indirect nuclear talks in Oman. Replacing diplomacy with a ground mission would not create leverage. It would destroy what remains of a controlled bargaining space.

The Nuclear Picture Is Already Murky

The hardest fact in this debate is that the nuclear picture is already uncertain. In its February 2026 safeguards report, the IAEA said it could not verify the current status of facilities hit in June 2025. Reuters later highlighted that same report’s estimate that Iran had 440.9 kilograms enriched up to 60 percent before the strikes, while the Associated Press noted the wider stockpile had reached 9,874.9 kilograms of enriched uranium in total. Reuters also reported a cat-and-mouse hunt for missing material and confirmed that tunnel entrances at Isfahan were hit. Those facts do not make a commando operation look cleaner. They make it look less knowable.

Force Has Already Damaged Oversight

This is the contradiction hawks avoid. Military action may damage buildings, but it can also damage the inspection system needed to track what survives. The IAEA chief said that returning to Iranian sites was the top priority after the attacks because the agency had lost visibility. Reuters warned even before the war that any new Iran deal would have to address serious watchdog blind spots. Rafael Grossi had already reminded the Security Council that nuclear facilities must never be attacked and later stressed that inspectors must be allowed to do their job. Once oversight is broken, claims about perfect control become less credible.

Pressure Without Diplomacy Can Harden Iran

Advocates of seizure argue that urgency changes the rules. Their point is easy to grasp. If material has been moved, hidden, or split across sites, then delay is dangerous. But urgency cuts both ways. The less certainty there is, the more any raid grows in scope. A supposedly limited mission can quickly expand into repeated searches, broader strikes, and pressure for a longer presence. That trajectory sits uneasily with both the basic ban on the use of force in the UN Charter and the logic of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which depends on verification and compliance, not theatrical confiscation. Reuters has also shown that the damage from earlier strikes was difficult to measure and that U.S. officials later said there was no known intelligence that Iran had moved the uranium. That uncertainty is exactly why fantasies of a clean raid should be treated with suspicion.

Containment Is Less Dramatic, but Safer

There is another reason to reject this path. Public overstatement can create policy traps. Trump has already brushed aside internal caution, including when Reuters reported that he said his own intelligence chief was wrong about Iran’s program. Tehran, for its part, has insisted through officials speaking to Reuters that it will not give up enrichment under pressure. That is not a recipe for surrender. It is a recipe for concealment and hardening. Serious policy should focus on intelligence work, restored IAEA access, sustained diplomatic pressure backed by credible penalties, and a clear effort to prevent a regional war that would leave the uranium question even murkier.

The appeal of seizure is obvious. It sounds decisive and final. But nuclear crises rarely yield to cinematic solutions. They are managed through verification, containment, bargaining, and steady pressure, not through fantasies of absolute control. If this idea is truly being weighed in Washington, it should be rejected before rhetoric turns into mission planning. A ground effort to capture uranium inside Iran would not settle the problem. It could widen the war, shatter what diplomacy still exists, and leave the world with the same material, less oversight, and far more bloodshed.

The Chargers bolstered their efforts to protect quarterback Justin Herbert all while diversifying their offense by agreeing to terms with veteran fullback Alec Ingold on Sunday, according to multiple reports.

Ingold’s deal with the Chargers reportedly is for two years and $7.5 million.

Ingold will be no stranger to the Chargers’ plans on offense. He played the last four seasons in Miami under coach Mike McDaniel, the Chargers’ new offensive coordinator. Last year he caught eight passes for 52 yards and ran the ball twice in 17 games.

Ingold caught 47 passes for 372 yards and rushed for 34 yards in 20 carries in four seasons with the Dolphins. He also had two rushing touchdowns and a receiving touchdown.

Before his time in Miami, Ingold played three seasons with the Raiders.

The deal comes two days after the Chargers signed veteran center Tyler Biadasz to take over over for the retiring Bradley Bozeman. They agreed to terms on a one-year deal with edge rusher Khalil Mack on Saturday.

With the free agency negotiation period set to begin Monday at 9 a.m. PDT, the Chargers remain in strong position to be significant players in the free-agent market. They rank among the top-five teams in salary cap space, per Overthecap.com.

Published on
07/03/2026 – 8:00 GMT+1

France will push back against a European Commission plan to fast-track ratification of trade agreements by circulating only English-language versions during talks with EU governments and lawmakers, skipping translation into the bloc’s 24 official languages, according to several sources.

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The slow ratification of the contentious EU–Mercosur trade deal has frustrated the Commission, which wants to accelerate negotiations and bring deals into force more quickly as it seeks new markets amid rising geopolitical tensions.

Translating the agreements into every official EU language can take months due to the legal scrubbing required before the ratification process begins. The EU executive has confirmed to Euronews that trade chief Maroš Šefčovič told EU trade ministers in February that the trade deal with India concluded on 27 January could serve as a test case for using English as the main language during ratification.

“We lost almost €300 billion by not having the Mercosur agreement in place since 2021, if it comes to the GDP, and more than €200 billion in export opportunities,” Šefčovič told journalists after meeting ministers on 20 February, adding that once negotiations end it can take up to 2.5 years before businesses can operate in partner countries.

“In today’s world, we cannot simply lose the time,” he said.

Šefčovič said the Commission would ensure the agreements are translated into all 24 official EU languages once published in the Official Journal, i.e. after ratification. He added the proposal was backed by at least seven member states at the meeting, though not all countries had time to speak.

French sources who spoke to Euronews were insistent that Paris would vigorously oppose the move to English-only agreements if necessary.

“As a matter of principle, we defend the use of all the languages of the Union, and in particular French, which is one of the EU’s working languages,” one official told Euronews.

‘Transparency, precision and understanding’

Language policy in the bloc’s institutions remains politically sensitive for countries such as France, whose language has declined sharply over the past decades as English massively dominates daily work in the European Union institutions – despite French, German and English being the three working languages.

“Switching entirely to English raises a legal and democratic issue, and the Commission is well aware of it,” an EU diplomat told Euronews.

On its website, the European Commission says linguistic diversity is essential and that the EU promotes multilingualism in its institutional work.

The bloc once even had a commissioner dedicated to multilingualism, though the portfolio was gradually merged with others and eventually disappeared.

“I have the impression that in some cases the Commission seizes the opportunity to push the idea that English has a superior status, and that the other official languages are translation languages that can come later,” Michele Gazzola, expert in language policy, said.

He added that relying only on English during ratification could pose problems for members of the European Parliament, and even more so if national parliaments are involved.

“It’s a matter of transparency, precision and understanding.”

As the deadline approaches to file to run for office, veteran Republican Rep. Darrell Issa has decided not to run for reelection in his newly-configured congressional district in San Diego and Riverside counties, according to two GOP strategists familiar with his plans.

An Issa spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment, but the congressman’s decision was confirmed by two veteran Republican strategists who requested not to be named because they were not authorized to speak about Issa’s plans.

Issa, among the wealthiest members of Congress, began telling people earlier this week that he would retire from Congress, those sources said. The Republican congressman is backing San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond to replace him, they said.

Desmond has been running in a neighboring congressional district that straddles Orange and San Diego counties that is currently represented by Rep. Mike Levin (D-San Juan Capistrano). Desmond withdrew from that race and filed to run in Issa’s district on Thursday, according to the San Diego County registrar of voters.

Desmond’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Issa, 72, has represented various San Diego-area districts in Congress for more than 23 years. Issa’s once solidly Republican district had been trending more moderate in recent years. Then, his district was redrawn to favor Democrats in the Proposition 50 redistricting plan voters passed in November to counter President Trump’s efforts to push GOP-led states to redraw their congressional lines to favor Republicans.

Democratic registered voters outnumber Republicans by more than four percentage points in the new district, which spans San Diego and Riverside counties and was reshaped to include liberal communities such as Palm Springs, according to the nonpartisan California Target Book. Issa’s current congressional district had a 12-percentage-point GOP edge in voter registration in 2024.

As soon as the new districts were approved, speculation began swirling about Issa‘s reelection plans. Some of his supporters in Texas urged him to move there to run in a GOP-friendly Dallas-area district, but he said in December that he declined and would instead seek reelection in California.

“I believe that the people of San Diego County, who have elected me so many times, will, in fact, regardless of registration, vote for me,” Issa told the Fox affiliate in San Diego in December. “This is my home, and I’m going to fight for it.”

Several Democrats had already announced plans to challenge Issa.

The high school dropout and Army veteran made his fortune by purchasing a struggling electronics business in 1980 and transforming it into the Viper car alarm system, with Issa’s voice warning potential thieves to “stand back.”

WASHINGTON — A federal panel reviewing President Trump’s plans to build a ballroom at the White House has set April 2 for a final vote on the project, the chairman said as the agency prepared to give additional consideration to the construction plans.

Will Scharf, chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission and a top aide to the Republican president, made the announcement Thursday at the start of the panel’s March meeting.

The panel will hear additional details about the project from the White House as well as its own staff, and had been expected to vote on Thursday.

But Scharf announced that the vote was switched to April to give every member of the public who wants to comment a chance to do so. More than 100 people had signed up to comment at Thursday’s meeting, which was being conducted online as a result.

The panel has also been flooded with scores of written comments about Trump’s plans to build a 90,000-square-foot addition where the East Wing of the White House once stood. Trump has said it will cost about $400 million and be paid for with private money. Trump had the East Wing demolished in October.

Scharf said the meeting was being conducted online to ease the public testimony portion, which he said was likely to extend into Friday given the number of people who had signed up to speak.

“They are taking time out of what I presume are busy schedules to join us,” he said. “One way or the other, we are going to make sure that members of the public have the opportunity to be heard on this project.”

Critics of the project have argued that Trump should not have demolished the East Wing until the National Capital Planning Commission and a separate panel, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, had reviewed and voted on his plans. The fine arts panel approved the project last month.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a private, nonprofit group, asked a federal judge to temporarily halt construction until the White House submitted the plans both to federal panels and to Congress for approval, and allowed the public to comment.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon rejected the request last week, and the trust has said it plans to file an amended lawsuit.

Superville writes for the Associated Press.

U.S. Navy could soon be escorting commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, where maritime traffic has effectively stopped due to the current conflict with Iran, according to President Donald Trump. Doing so would demand that American naval vessels transit through the Strait, shifting them away from other duties. More importantly, it would also mean putting them right in a super weapons engagement zone full of Iranian threats that could include cruise and ballistic missiles, one-way-attack drones, explosive-laden kamikaze boats, and naval mines.

“If necessary, the United States Navy will begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, as soon as possible,” President Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social social media network.

“Effective IMMEDIATELY, I have ordered the United States Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to provide, at a very reasonable price, political risk insurance and guarantees for the Financial Security of ALL Maritime Trade, especially Energy, traveling through the Gulf,” he also wrote. “This will be available to all Shipping Lines.”

“No matter what, the United States will ensure the FREE FLOW of ENERGY to the WORLD. The United States’ ECONOMIC and MILITARY MIGHT is the GREATEST ON EARTH,” he added. “More actions to come.”

U.S. Central Command declined to comment when reached for more details. TWZ has also reached out to the White House.

The Strait of Hormuz, which links the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, is just 20 nautical miles across at its narrowest point. A significant portion of the waterway falls within Iran’s national waters, which also overlap with those of Oman to the south. Under normal conditions, maritime traffic flows in and out through a pair of established two-mile-wide shipping lanes. Each year, roughly one-fifth of all global oil shipments, and an even higher percentage of seaborne shipments, pass through this one waterway. It is also a major conduit for liquid natural gas exports. Some 3,000 ships, including tankers and container ships, pass through each month.

Politico had earlier reported that President Trump’s administration was considering both of these courses of action, citing unnamed sources.

“It’s becoming a growing concern that the energy markets could face pressures in the coming days as the military campaign intensifies and expands in geographic scope,” one individual said to be familiar with the discussions told that outlet. “Access to the Straits [sic] of Hormuz is obviously vital for both natural gas and crude oil shipments, especially from Qatar and Saudi [Arabia].”

Lloyd’s List has also reported that Trump’s announcement came “less than 24 hours after Navy officials told shipping industry representatives that there was ‘no chance’ of escorts happening any time soon.”

Several civilian vessels have already suffered attacks in and around the Strait since the United States and Israel launched their joint operation against Iran this past weekend. Though American officials insist that Iranian forces have been unable to seal off the highly strategic waterway, maritime traffic through it has now come to a near halt amid the ongoing fighting. Some ships appear to be making the transit with the transporters turned off to reduce the chance of being targeted. The real danger of attack has been compounded by insurers cancelling war risk policies ahead of what are expected to be major rate hikes.

Iranian retaliatory attacks have also been hitting port facilities, as well as energy infrastructure, in multiple Gulf Arab states. As noted, if this situation persists, the potential knock-on effects on global oil and natural gas markets could quickly become severe. Since Iranian authorities have repeatedly threatened to blockade the Strait of Hormuz in the event of a major crisis that threatens the regime, TWZ has explored all of this in detail in the past.

Iranian attack drones struck oil storage infrastructure in Fujairah, UAE, this morning, causing a large fire.

Notably, Fujairah is the only major oil export terminal in the UAE that avoids the now-closed Strait of Hormuz. pic.twitter.com/DdAbVOyRoc

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) March 3, 2026

This is not the first time that the United States has been faced with this predicament or decided to start escorting commercial vessels through the region as a result. The U.S. Navy did just this in the late 1980s during the Tanker War sideshow to the Iran-Iraq War. At the same time, that experience underscores the immense amount of resources such a campaign could require, as well as the risks.

At the peak of those operations, there were some 30 American warships escorting commercial vessels to and from the Persian Gulf. Aircraft, special operations forces, and other assets were also deployed in support. The risks to American service members, as well as the ships they were tasked to safeguard, were very real.

Shortly before the escort mission began in 1987, the Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate USS Stark was struck by two French-made Exocet anti-ship cruise missiles fired from an Iraqi aircraft as it sailed in the Persian Gulf. The government of Iraq, then led by Saddam Hussein, apologized, claiming they had mistaken the Americans for an Iranian tanker. In the end, 37 U.S. Navy personnel died, and 21 more were wounded.

In 1988, the USS Samuel B. Roberts, another Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate, was severely damaged after hitting an Iranian naval mine in the Persian Gulf while supporting the escort mission. 10 sailors were injured, but there were thankfully no fatalities.

In the course of the Tanker War, 450 commercial ships also came under attack, and many were damaged or even sunk by missiles, mines, and other threats.

More recently, the U.S. military, as well as the European Union, have established naval task forces to help ensure the free flow of maritime commerce through the Strait of Hormuz, as well as elsewhere in the Middle East. When it comes to Iran, those forces have primarily been called on to respond to attempts to seize ships or otherwise harass them. In the past decade or so, outright Iranian attacks on ships in and around the Persian Gulf have generally been covert and sporadic.

U.S. fires warning shots at Iranian fast boats.

The U.S. Navy released the video below in 2019 in relation to an Iranian covert limpet mine attack on a commercial ship in the Gulf of Oman.

Limpet Mine Attack in the Gulf of Oman: JUNE 13, 2019

Escorting commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz now would involve U.S. Navy warships sailing right into an extremely high-threat zone in the midst of a conflict that has already taken on a regional character.

In general, the U.S. Navy, as well as commercial shipping companies, have loathed convoy operations despite the benefits they offer. As already noted, these missions can be very resource-intensive, as well as risky. Ships tasked with these missions are then also not available for other duties, including striking targets ashore or helping defend other assets. It can also be very time-consuming to assemble maritime convoys and then escort them to their destination. You can read more about all this in a past TWZ feature here.

For all the lessons the U.S. military learned during the Tanker War, Iran has also significantly expanded the scale and scope of anti-ship capabilities since then, as we regularly highlight. Iran’s missile, drone, and naval forces have been degraded just in the past few days of intensive U.S.-Israeli strikes. How much Iran was able to reconstitute missile and other capabilities in the aftermath of losses during the 12 Day War with Israel last year is also unclear.

Two days ago, the Iranian regime had 11 ships in the Gulf of Oman, today they have ZERO. The Iranian regime has harassed and attacked international shipping in the Gulf of Oman for decades. Those days are over. Freedom of maritime navigation has underpinned American and global… pic.twitter.com/nzdkMVMqZC

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 2, 2026

The Iranian regime’s killer drones have been a menace in the Middle East for years. These drones are no longer a tolerable risk. pic.twitter.com/76yhDKI6OW

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 3, 2026

At the same time, much of Iran’s shorter-range missile and drone arsenal is understood to be untouched, as well as dispersed, making interdiction now more challenging. Yesterday, U.S. Secretary of State and acting National Security Advisor Marco Rubio highlighted these threats and the dangers they pose.

SECRETARY RUBIO: The United States is conducting an operation to eliminate the threat of Iran’s short range ballistic missiles and the threat posed by their navy, particularly to naval assets.

That is what the U.S. is focused on right now and is doing quite successfully. pic.twitter.com/zWKBOLVstH

— Department of State (@StateDept) March 2, 2026

Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen were able to cause massive disruptions in maritime traffic in and around the Red Sea between late 2023 and early 2025 using just a portion of what Iran itself could still potentially bring to bear. The U.S. response to Houthi attacks, which included naval deployments to help safeguard commercial shipping, did provide additional valuable lessons learned. It also underscored very real risks to naval assets in environments full of missile and drone threats, as well as to aircraft, including stealth types, flying overhead.

The narrowness of the Strait of Hormuz, as well as the insular nature of the Persian Gulf, creates additional challenges and risks compared to operations in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden because there is simply less space to maneuver. Iranian anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as one-way-attack drones, can be fired from road-mobile launchers, including ones disguised as civilian trucks, making it even more difficult to find and fix threats in advance. Proximity in the littoral zone to these threats only further reduces the time available to react.

The Iranian regime is using mobile launchers to indiscriminately fire missiles in an attempt to inflict maximum harm across the region. U.S. forces are hunting these threats down and without apology or hesitation, we are taking them out. pic.twitter.com/gv1SfKCrk4

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 3, 2026

Escort operations mean that American warships would need to transit through the highest threat areas repeatedly, as well, which would only give Iranian forces more engagement opportunities. There is a reason why U.S. naval vessels are currently operating well away from the Persian Gulf in the Arabian Sea, as well as the Eastern Mediterranean.

U.S. naval facilities, as well as civilian ports, on the opposite side of the Persian Gulf have also come under Iranian attack in the past few days, and would not be guaranteed sanctuaries to shelter in. Iranian retaliatory attacks across the Middle East are already showing the limits of some of the most modern air defense capabilities on Earth, especially when faced with large volumes and/or complex mixtures of disparate incoming threats.

An Iranian one-way attack drone, likely a Shahed-136, filmed scoring a direct hit earlier Saturday on the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet Headquarters at Naval Support Activity Bahrain in Juffair, located in Manama, the capital of Bahrain. pic.twitter.com/O9AVD7DmzC

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) February 28, 2026

It is possible that U.S. allies and partners could help bolster an operation to protect regional shipping that is sufficiently separate from U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran. The United Kingdom and France are already conducting defense missions to intercept incoming Iranian threats around the Persian Gulf, as well as in the Eastern Mediterranean. Both of those countries, among others, are also sending more forces to bolster defenses around the region. As already made clear, a protracted upending of oil and natural gas exports from the Arabian Peninsula, as well as Iran itself, will reverberate globally.

TWZ has pointed to this reality in the past as raising key questions about whether the Iranian regime would have the political will, let alone the materiel capacity, to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. For now, though, as we wrote just this morning:

“Increased targeting of Gulf Arab States’ oil and natural gas production is part of a clear Iranian strategy to put pressure on those countries to, in turn, create complications for the United States. As the economic pressure builds, the idea is that these countries will seek to end the conflict, and/or that relations with the U.S. will sour. The prospect of major, long-term disruptions in energy exports from the region has global ramifications, as well, which could bring immense external pressure to end the conflict. There is also the aspect of drawing Arab countries into the conflict, which would complicate it politically and militarily. In addition, some energy targets are not as well defended as U.S. bases in the region, for instance, and scoring hits with the now finite weapons Iran has on hand becomes easier.”

How this will continue to play out, especially if more countries begin to take ostensibly defensive action against Iranian threats, is unknown. There is a very real potential for Iran’s strategy to backfire if the crisis begins to take a toll economically well beyond the Middle East.

U.S. Navy warships escorting commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz could help soften those impacts, but not without major risks, as well as the expenditure of significant resources. Risks would remain for shipping companies too, who could still be reluctant to make the transit, especially with uncertain insurance guarantees.

Overall, it remains to be seen how a U.S. mission to get oil and gas flowing again through the Strait of Hormuz might materialize.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Energy affordability was in the spotlight during President Trump’s lengthy and at times rambling State of the Union address Tuesday evening as the president promised to bring down electricity prices in an effort to assuage voter concerns about rising costs.

The president announced a new “ratepayer protection pledge” to shield residents from higher electricity costs in areas where energy-thirsty artificial intelligence data centers are being built. Trump said major tech companies will “have the obligation to provide for their own power needs” under the plan, though the details of what the pledge actually entails remain vague.

“We have an old grid — it could never handle the kind of numbers, the amount of electricity that’s needed, so I am telling them they can build their own plant,” the president said. “They’re going to produce their own electricity … while at the same time, lowering prices of electricity for you.”

The announcement comes as polling shows Americans are dissatisfied with the economy and concerned about the cost of living. Experts on both sides of the political spectrum have said the energy affordability issue could translate to poor outcomes for Republicans in the midterm elections this November, as it did in a few key races in New Jersey, Virginia and Georgia last year.

While Trump has focused on ramping up domestic production of oil, gas and coal, residential electric bills have been soaring — jumping from 15.9 cents per kilowatt-hour in January 2025 on average to 17.2 cents at the end of December, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Through one year into his second term as president, Trump has vastly changed the federal landscape when it comes to energy and the environment, reversing many of the efforts made by the Biden administration to prioritize electrification initiatives and investments in renewable energy via the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Among several changes, Trump’s administration has slashed funding for solar programs, ended federal tax credits for electric vehicles and canceled grants for offshore wind power — even going so far as to try to halt some such projects that were nearing completion along the East Coast.

Trump has also championed fossil fuel production and on Tuesday doubled down on his “drill baby drill” agenda, touting lower gasoline prices, increased production of American oil and new imports of oil from Venezuela.

Many of the president’s efforts are designed to loosen Biden-era regulations that he has said were burdensome, ideologically motivated and expensive for taxpayers.

Trump has taken direct aim at California, which has long been a leader on the environment. Last year, the president moved to block California’s long-held authority to set stricter tailpipe emission standards than the federal government — an ability that helped the state address historical air quality issues and also underpinned its ambitious ban on the sale of new gas-powered cars in 2035.

Trump also slashed $1.2 billion in federal funding for California’s effort to develop clean hydrogen energy while leaving intact funding for similar projects in states that voted for him. In November, his administration announced that it will open the Pacific Coast to oil drilling for the first time in nearly four decades, a move the state vowed to fight.

But perhaps no issue has come across voters’ kitchen tables more than energy affordability.

So far this term, Trump has canceled or delayed enough projects to power more than 14 million homes, according to a tracker from the nonprofit Climate Power. The group’s senior advisor, Jesse Lee, described the president’s data center announcement as a “toothless, empty promise based on backroom deals with his own billionaire donors.”

“Making it worse, Trump is continuing to block clean-energy production across the board — the only sources that can keep up with demand, ensure utility bills don’t keep skyrocketing, and prevent massive new amounts of pollution,” Lee said in a statement.

Earlier this month, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency repealed the endangerment finding, the U.S. government’s 2009 affirmation that greenhouse gases are harmful to human health and the environment, in what officials described as the single largest act of deregulation in U.S. history. The finding formed the foundation for much of U.S. climate policy. The EPA also loosened guidelines around emissions from coal power plants, including mercury and other dangerous pollutants.

The president’s environmental record so far is “written in rollbacks that put the interests of some corporate polluters above the health of everyday Americans,” read a statement from Marc Boom, senior director of the Environmental Protection Network, a group composed of more than 750 former EPA staff members and appointees.

Further, Trump has worked to undermine climate science in general, often describing global warming as a “hoax” or a “scam.” During his first year in office, he fired hundreds of scientists working to prepare the National Climate Assessment, laid off staffers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and dismantled the National Center for Atmospheric Research, one of the world’s leading climate and weather research institutions, among many other efforts.

In all, the administration has taken or proposed more than 430 actions that threaten the environment, public health and the ability to confront climate change, according to a tracker from the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.

The opposition’s choice for a rebuttal speaker is indicative of how seriously it is taking the issue of energy affordability: Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger focused heavily on energy affordability during her campaign against Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears last year, including vows to expand solar energy projects and technologies such as fusion, geothermal and hydrogen. Virginia is home to more than a third of all data centers worldwide.

Boycotts. Prebuttals. Rebuttals. Historic guests.

California members of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives’ approach to President Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night are as varied as their politics and their districts.

Before the speech, Sen. Adam Schiff described Trump as an out-of-control and corrupt president who has ignored pressing issues such as climate change in order to enrich himself and punish his political enemies, including by turning the U.S. Department of Justice and the rest of the federal government into a “personal fiefdom,” unbound by the law.

“From the birth of our nation, our founders were obsessed with preventing tyranny and the emergence of another king, another despot. They created checks and balances, separation of powers, an independent judiciary. They understood that the greatest threat to liberty wasn’t foreign invasion, it was the concentration of power in the hands of one person or faction,” Schiff said on the floor of the U.S. Senate. “This president has systematically dismantled these safeguards in his second term.”

Schiff is among the Democrats boycotting the speech. Other Californians include Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), Sara Jacobs (D-San Diego), Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles) and Julia Brownley (D-Westlake Village).

Sen. Alex Padilla, the son of immigrants who was tackled in Los Angeles last year when he attempted to ask Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a question during the immigration raids, will deliver a Spanish-language response after Trump’s address on television and online.

California has the largest congressional delegation in the nation, so its elected officials frequently have an outsized presence in the nation’s capital. An especially memorable moment was when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) ripped up a copy of Trump’s speech after the 2020 State of the Union address.

It’s unclear whether California elected officials plan anything as dramatic tonight. But their guests are notable.

Though Garcia is not attending the speech, his guest at the event is Annie Farmer, a woman who was abused at the age of 16 by sexual predators Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin), who is attending, is bringing Teresa J. Helm — another Epstein abuse survivor.

Others plan to bring constituents from their districts — Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) is bringing Ben Benoit, the Riverside County auditor-controller who is a longtime friend.

Pelosi’s guest is the Rev. Devon Jerome Crawford, senior pastor of historic Third Baptist Church of San Francisco. And some have surprise guests who will be unveiled later tonight.

In a typical election year, the interest in the down-ballot race for California insurance commissioner musters modest interest at best.

That all changed on Jan. 7, 2025, when wildfires swept through L.A. County, damaging or destroying more than 18,000 homes and killing at least 31 people.

The resulting anger directed at the insurance industry over how it has handled claims has helped draw four Democrats into the race, who will be vying this weekend for a critical endorsement at the party’s annual convention in San Francisco ahead of the June 2 primary election.

“We haven’t seen this level of competition and, frankly, choice on the Democratic side since it first became an elected office in 1990,” said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, a Los Angeles insurance advocacy group. “They represent wide-ranging views and a broad diversity of candidates.”

Up for endorsement are state Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica), whose district includes the Palisades fire zone; former San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim; former state Sen. Steven Bradford; and San Francisco businessman Patrick Wolff, who has not held elective office.

Three Republicans have declared their candidacies, but that party’s convention isn’t until April. The filing deadline to file for the race is March 6.

The GOP field includes businessman Robert Howell, who lost by 20 points in the 2022 general election to current Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara. Also running are insurance agent Stacy Korsgaden from Grover Beach, and attorney Merritt Farren, whose Pacific Palisades home burned down.

Peace and Freedom Party candidate Eduardo Vargas, a Los Angeles school teacher, is on the ballot too.

The race also follows Lara’s two troubled terms in office, during which he has been accused of cozying up to and receiving money from the insurance industry for his first campaign and conferences abroad.

Lara has denied any wrongdoing, and all the Democratic candidates have vowed not to accept insurance industry donations.

“For me and maybe for many survivors, it’s not a position that we ever thought much about, but now with many of our lives devastated by our dealings with insurers I think many survivors will be watching much more closely this time around,” said Joy Chen, executive director of the Eaton Fire Survivors Network, a community group that has accused Lara of being soft on insurers and has called for his resignation.

Allen was perceived by some as the leading candidate for the party’s nomination when he announced his candidacy in September. He has held his seat for more than a decade and is the only sitting legislator in the race. He said he would not be running if not for the wildfire that struck his district.

“The fire certainly was a searing experience, helping hundreds of people get their claims paid right, but it kind of begs the question of why should you have to call your state senator to get treated right,” he said.

Allen’s platform includes a number of ideas to ensure policyholders are treated better, including requiring insurers to clearly explain claim denials. But also key to his campaign is stabilizing an insurance market that over the last several years has seen insurers drop policyholders by the hundreds of thousands, especially in fire-prone neighborhoods.

That forced them onto the California FAIR Plan, the insurer of last resort. It’s rolls grew even more since the January fires and the insurer has been sued by fire victims over its claims practices. Allen wants to build insurer confidence in the market by having insurer requests for rate hikes reviewed in months, rather than the year or more they can drag out now.

He also points to his legislative record, especially his authorship of Proposition 4, which was approved by voters in 2024 and set aside $10 billion in general obligation bonds to fund climate resiliency and environmental protection projects — an important part, he said, of lowering insurance risks.

Allen has drawn a key endorsement from California Sen. Adam Schiff and as of Dec. 31 had about $1 million in the bank, more than any other candidate. But the race was shook up last month when progressive politician Kim declared her candidacy. She boasted an endorsement from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), for whom she worked as his California political director during the 2020 presidential campaign.

She also has drawn attention for a plan to create a state-run disaster insurance policy for Californians.

Residents would continue to buy regular home insurance from the commercial market but would buy coverage for wildfires and other disasters from the state, similar to plans in some other countries.

The idea has come under sharp criticism from Court, who said it will shift the risk of costly disasters to taxpayers while allowing insurers to make profits from more predictable perils such as water and roof damage.

“We have to explore some different models, because the current system is not working. It’s too expensive and a market failure,” said Kim, adding that the plan could evolve.

Bradford, who represented communities in south L.A County and the South Bay in the Legislature, has been endorsed by L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. He said he’s running as a pragmatist and unifier.

“What we’ve been doing for far too long has been a whole lot of finger pointing and doing the blame game,” he said.

Bradford wants insurers to open their pricing books and give homeowners “real, guaranteed” premium discounts for upgrading their property.

He also is proposing a public–private partnership that shares the risk for insurers who write policies in fire-prone neighborhoods.

Wolff, a political newcomer, is a Chartered Financial Analyst, real estate investor and former hedge manager who cites his experience building a home and auto insurance brokerage for financial services firm Capital One.

“I spent the first half of 2025 really deeply studying the commissioner’s role and the history, and the race — the politics of everything. And after really doing that deep dive, I decided to step forward,” said Wolff, who wrote his campaign a $500,000 check and loaned it another $100,000.

He also thinks rate hikes sought by insurers need to be reviewed more quickly but wants the insurance department to publish annual reports on how specific companies handled claims.

“The insurance industry has basically lobbied to keep that data anonymous at the company level, and I think it’s really important to make that information public,” Wolff said.

Under California’s open primary system, the top two candidates will move on to the Nov. 3 general election, which means two Democrats could run up against each other if a Republican isn’t able to consolidate the GOP vote.

Steve Maviglio, a longtime political consultant currently working for State Treasure Fiona Ma, who is seeking the office of lieutenant governor, said that the race is wide open.

“This is a statewide election with millions of people with candidates they’ve never heard of,” he said.

With multiple candidates seeking the endorsement, it may be hard for any single one to reach the 60% threshold of delegate votes needed.

“If no one is endorsed, somebody is going to have to be the breakout candidate, and the way you do that is with money or organization,” Maviglio said. “Until I see that happen, it’s totally up in the air.”

The Israeli government has approved a plan to claim large areas of the occupied West Bank as “state property” if Palestinians cannot prove ownership, prompting regional outcry and accusations of “de facto annexation.” The move forces Palestinians to navigate complex legal hurdles after decades of occupation and displacement, amid continued Jewish settlement expansion. What could this mean for the future of Palestinian land?

In this episode: 

Episode credits:

This episode was produced by Noor Wazwaz and Melanie Marich, with Tamara Khandaker, Marcos Bartolomé, Maya Hamadeh, Tuleen Barakat, and our guest host, Kevin Hirten. It was edited by Sarí el-Khalili. 

Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad al-Melhemm. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio. 

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WASHINGTON — Immigrant advocates fear a Trump administration proposal released Friday amounts to an indefinite pause on new work permits for asylum seekers.

The draft regulation from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would halt the acceptance of work permit applications when average processing times at the agency exceed 180 days.

The regulation also would extend the time asylum seekers must wait before becoming eligible to apply for a work permit, lengthening the period from 150 days to 365 days.

The proposal says USCIS expects that new work permit applications for asylum seekers “would be paused for an extended period, possibly many years.”

Conchita Cruz, co-executive director of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, said the regulation would be catastrophic for asylum seekers, their families and U.S. communities.

“Forcing individuals who are working and living in the United States legally out of their jobs is not only cruel, but it is bad policy,” she said. “If this regulation goes into effect, it will hurt U.S. families, businesses and the U.S. economy.”

The proposed regulation change comes amid broad efforts by the Trump administration to end humanitarian benefits and restrict legal immigration.

For example, Homeland Security has sought to terminate Temporary Protected Status benefits that provided work permits and deportation protection to hundreds of thousands of immigrants. And in a memo released this week, the agency said agents are authorized to detain refugees who have not yet filed applications for lawful permanent residence after their first year in the U.S.

Under the first Trump administration, agency officials in 2020 similarly proposed increasing the employment eligibility waiting period to one year.

Kazakhstan and Kosovo have also pledged to participate, while Egypt and Jordan will provide training for police officers.

Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Albania have pledged to send troops to Gaza, the commander of a newly created International Stabilization Force (ISF) has said during a meeting of United States President Donald Trump’s so-called Board of Peace.

US Army General Jasper Jeffers, who has been appointed as the head of a future Gaza stabilisation force by Trump’s board, said on Thursday that the Indonesian contingent to the mission has “accepted the position of deputy commander”.

“With these first steps, we will help bring the security that Gaza needs,” Jeffers said during a meeting of the board in Washington, DC.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, who was among several world leaders participating in the meeting, said his country would contribute up to 8,000 personnel to the planned force “to make this peace work” in the war-torn Palestinian territory, where Israel’s genocide has killed at least 72,000 people.

Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said his country will also send an unspecified number of troops, including medical units, to Gaza, while Morocco’s Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said that his country is ready to deploy police officers to Gaza.

Albania, whose prime minister recently made a two-day official visit to Israel, has also said it will contribute troops, while neighbouring countries Egypt and Jordan have said they will participate by training police officers.

Indonesia, which was one of the first countries to commit to sending troops, has sought to reassure potential critics that its participation is intended to ensure international law is upheld in Gaza, amid Israel’s genocidal onslaught.

‘Indonesian troops will not be involved in combat operations’

Indonesia’s foreign minister met with both United Nations chief Antonio Guterres and Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour in New York on Wednesday, in advance of President Subianto’s participation in the Board of Peace meeting.

“Indonesia’s mandate [on troop deployment] is humanitarian in nature with a focus on protecting civilians, humanitarian and health assistance, reconstruction as well as training and strengthening the capacity of the Palestinian Police,” Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a recent statement, according to the Jakarta Post newspaper.

“Indonesian troops will not be involved in combat operations or any action leading to direct confrontation with any armed group,” the ministry said, responding to questions raised over its future role in Gaza by Amnesty International.

The head of Amnesty International Indonesia, Usman Hamid, has voiced concerns that Indonesia risked violating international law through its participation in the Board of Peace and the planned stabilisation force for Gaza.

Hamid warned that Indonesia’s deployment of troops to Gaza “means putting Indonesia at risk of participating in a mechanism that will strengthen violations of International Humanitarian Law”.

“The Peace Council does not include members from the most disadvantaged Palestinians, but instead includes members from Israel, which has for nearly eight decades carried out an illegal occupation and apartheid against the Palestinian people, even committing genocide in Gaza,” Hamid wrote last week in an open letter to the speaker of the People’s Representative Council of the Republic of Indonesia.

Palestinians have also voiced concerns that Trump’s Board of Peace will only further entrench Israel’s illegal occupation of the Gaza Strip, as Israeli forces continue to carve out more “buffer zones” and restrict the entry of food and other aid, months into a so-called “ceasefire” with Hamas, during which almost 600 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks.

The Gaza stabilisation force differs from other peacekeeping forces deployed by multilateral organisations such as the UN or the African Union.

In neighbouring Lebanon, more than 10,000 peacekeepers from 47 countries continue to participate in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which was created in 1978.

Indonesia, along with Italy, is one of the largest contributors of troops to UNIFIL, which has repeatedly come under fire from Israeli forces, despite a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

Feb. 19 (UPI) — The Commission of Fine Arts has unanimously approved plans for President Donald Trump‘s almost 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom plans, the first hurdle in starting the building project.

The commission, whose members were all appointed by Trump, including his executive assistant, Chamberlain Harris, 26. The original architect of the ballroom recused himself from the vote. Trump fired all the previous members in October.

But now, the project must win approval from the National Capital Planning Commission, which could vote on March 5.

“This is a facility that is desperately needed for over 150 years, and it’s beautiful,” The Washington Post reported Commission Chair Rodney Mims Cook Jr. said.

But the CFA’s secretary said comments have been negative.

“In two decades of casework here, I’ve never seen as much public engagement on this. We’ve literally gotten, in the past week or so, more than 2,000 various messages,” said Thomas Luebke, CFA secretary, CBS News reported. “The vast, vast majority is negative, in general.”

Trump initially said the construction would cost $200 million and would be funded by private donations. He later said the project could cost twice that amount, but donors would pay for it. Officials from the National Trust for Historic Preservation challenged the construction in federal court and sought an injunction to stop the build. The judge refused the injunction but ordered the administration to undergo a review process.

The Capital Planning Commission is led by Will Scharf, a White House staff secretary appointed by Trump. Two other White House officials — James Blair and Stuart Levenbach — are also on the commission.

Luebke read a summary of the comments to commissioners, CBS reported. He cited demolition without permits or oversight, a scale that will “dwarf the White House,” lack of transparency in funding and contracts and a “fundamental miscarriage of democratic principles.”

“The ballroom seems to shout power,” one commenter wrote, Luebke said.

Harris responded, “This is sort of like the greatest country in the world. It’s the greatest house in the world and we want it to be the greatest ballroom in the world.”

The public comments, Luebke said, were “overwhelmingly in opposition — over 99%.”

Published on
19/02/2026 – 17:39 GMT+1

The European Commission’s push to embed a so-called European preference in public procurement is triggering heavy lobbying from EU capitals and foreign partners, Euronews has learned.

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The proposal, designed to counter Chinese and US competition, would see products made in Europe officially favoured in public contracts and support schemes. Critics have branded it protectionist, and several member states have sought to water down the definition of “made in Europe” to ensure access for like-minded countries.

According to EU officials, the Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA), which is set to define what made in Europe means, is likely to face another delay despite appearing on the Commission’s agenda for presentation on 26 February. The strategy was first delayed in November 2025.

A leaked draft of the IAA text seen by Euronews lists strategic sectors targeted for a European preference, including chemicals, automotive, AI and space. It also proposes EU-origin thresholds of 70% for EVs, 25% for aluminium and 30% for plastics used in windows and doors.

The draft has drawn intense pushback. Nordic and Baltic states warn that a strict made in Europe regime could deter investment and limit EU companies’ access to cutting-edge technologies from non-EU countries.

In a separate leak reported by Euronews last week, the Commission appeared to lean toward the German position: a European preference open to like-minded partners with reciprocal procurement commitments and those contributing to “the Union’s competitiveness, resilience and economic security objectives”.

Britain concerned about protectionism

The UK is among the partners wary of a protectionist turn, with British officials stressing that the EU and UK economies are highly intertwined.

“It’s not the moment to mess with what is already working,” one official told Euronews.

In particular, the EU remains the largest export market for British cars, while several European manufacturers produce vehicles in the UK, which in 2024 was the EU’s second-largest export destination after the US.

“Almost half of our trade is with the European Union. We trade almost as much with the EU as the whole of the rest of the world combined,” UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves said last week.

British sources also argue that London’s deep capital markets could help the EU secure investment to revive its industry – unless the bloc closes its market.

The Commission is weighing its next move, aiming to table a proposal ahead of March’s EU summit focused on competitiveness. But pressure is also mounting from within, with pushback from the Trade Directorate-General – traditionally a staunch defender of an open EU market.

Paris, a long-time champion of a made in Europe strategy, says the concept has gained sufficient traction in Brussels to become reality and that the debate has now shifted to its implementation.

EU industry chief Stéphane Séjourné, who is overseeing the file, said on Tuesday that the European preference “entails quite a change of Europe’s economic doctrine”.

“It is therefore no surprises that it takes time and efforts to get to a common and smart version,” he added.

Mike Trout says he would prefer to return to center field for the Angels, and the star slugger says he will skip the World Baseball Classic because of insurance issues.

The 11-time All-Star who been plagued by injuries since 2021 says his familiar position isn’t as physically demanding as the corner outfield spots, contrary to traditional thinking.

Trout played his most games since 2019 last season, finishing at 130. The three-time American League MVP started 22 of his first 29 games in right field before a knee injury sidelined him for a month. The 34-year-old was exclusively a designated hitter when he returned in late May.

Trout had 26 home runs but hit just .232, by far the worst average of his career when he had at least 400 at-bats.

He spent time in left field early in his career but was a center fielder for 11 consecutive seasons before the switch to right. Injuries limited Trout to 111 games the previous two years.

Trout said conversations with first-year manager Kurt Suzuki have included the idea of a return to center.

“I feel like I’m at my best when I’m in center,” Trout told reporters at the club’s spring training facility Monday. “If I have to go to the corner, I’ll go to the corner.”

Trout said a return to center will be good for his health.

“When I was in center, it was less on my body than the corners,” Trout said. “To be honest, in right field I felt I was running a lot. Talking to some other outfielders and they’re saying that they feel the same way sometimes, center is less on your legs. I just feel … confident in center.”

Trout, who played in his only WBC three years ago, had said he was interested in playing again before insurance issues arose.

“It’s disappointing,” Trout said. “I wanted to run it back with all the guys.”

Promising young Boston outfielder Roman Anthony has been named as a Team USA injury replacement for Arizona’s Corbin Carroll, who has a broken bone in his right hand.

KATIE Price and her new husband Lee have insisted they’re the “strongest” and most “beautiful” couple they know as they revealed their plans to return to the UK.

The former glamour model, 47, tied the knot with the businessman in a secret ceremony last month and they’re currently on their honeymoon in Dubai, where he lives full time.

Lee Andrews was supposed to come to UK a few weeks ago but he claimed he was forced to delay his flight to look at properties for the pair to live in.

While fans of Katie were convinced it was because he wasn’t allowed to leave the country, we revealed Katie has put a deposit down on a pad in the UAE.

The loved-up pair have now revealed their both returning to the UK and it could be very soon.

Katie said: “So yeah we’re still in Dubai and we are coming to England very soon.

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Lee replied: “Within a day right?”

Katie added: “Watch out England we’re coming for you.”

The star’s Walter Mitty-like husband shared a snap of the couple holding hands with the caption: “The strongest and most beautiful couple we know.”

Katie recently leapt to her man’s defence hitting out at “snakes” and “bitter people” amid rumours of Lee being a con-man.

She took to Instagram to post a furious message in defence of her new husband.

A loved up Katie added text to a clip which read: “@wesleeeandrews has given me more love more security more respect.

“And proven that everything that’s been said about him is absolute BS by bitter people and snakes in all areas.”

The Sun revealed how the self-proclaimed businessman lives a ‘Walter Mitty’ style existence in Dubai.

Lee was accused of using artificial intelligence to fake images of himself with tech billionaire Elon Musk and reality TV star Kim Kardashian.

He also claimed on his LinkedIn profile to have been a Member of the Board of Advisors to the Labour Party since 2015.

But a Labour source said: “We don’t have a board of advisors and he doesn’t work with us.”

Two of Lee’s exes also sent Katie stark warnings to stay away with one, Alana, telling her to “run for the hills.”

Despite Lee’s life seemingly unravelling the pair still seem set on moving into a home together.

Lee posted a mock-up of the lavish property on social media, which included his & her’s cars, rooms their for kids and their parents.

The room labelled “kids” comes amid recent hints that the former glamour model might be pregnant.

Lee and Katie’s dream home plans have emerged despite concern over their quickfire marriage from those closest to Katie.

SACRAMENTO — After a collapse in state budget negotiations late last week over funding for cities and counties, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pushed to revive his plan Saturday to protect their revenues.

One of the last sticking points in reaching agreement on the $103-billion state budget, the local government provisions have rocked the Capitol for several days and sent city officials across California into a frenzy of last-minute opposition.

The governor is pressuring lawmakers to support a plan under which cities and counties would accept $2.6 billion in cuts over the next two years in exchange for an amendment to the state Constitution that would prohibit such cuts in the future.

His latest push for that plan comes days after he walked away from a compromise with Democrats that would give the Legislature more flexibility in how it provides assistance to local government. The governor abandoned the compromise after local leaders rebelled against it, triggering a meltdown in the Legislature. Legislative leaders threw up their hands, and lawmakers headed home for the weekend.

“We are all here today calling on the legislators, and to tell them to go back to Sacramento and to vote for our local government agreement so that the people have their budget,” Schwarzenegger said at a rally before a few dozen police and firefighters Saturday at L.A. City Fire Station 88 in Sherman Oaks, where the governor also filmed scenes for his 2002 movie “Collateral Damage.”

“We were at the home stretch, we were very close to have a deal and a budget, but suddenly the legislators shut down and left Sacramento and went back home.”

The governor demanded an immediate floor vote on the deal he and local leaders had worked out.

Senate President John Burton (D-San Francisco) downplayed Schwarzenegger’s appearances, saying the governor hammering lawmakers at public rallies “doesn’t faze me.”

“Bring it on if you want,” Burton said. “We’ll just let the cards read for themselves. I believe the negotiations with the Legislature and the governor can be done pretty quickly.” He said he had been speaking with the governor and his chief of staff by telephone and believed a budget deal could be reached soon.

The deal the city and county leaders are pushing is simple. It begins with them accepting $1.3 billion in cuts for each of the next two years.

In return, the governor and lawmakers would support a constitutional amendment that would protect their share of the state budget from ever again being cut.

Democrats say that plan is full of problems: It would make it nearly impossible for lawmakers to borrow from cities and counties during a fiscal crisis; it would lock into the Constitution a system that forces local governments to become overly dependent on sales tax, leading too many to become overly reliant on “big box” retail stores, leading to sprawl; and it would give cities and counties priority in the state budget over education, social services and most every government program.

“It gives local government more protection than schools,” Burton said.

Burton called on the local leaders to return to the negotiating table.

He cautioned them not to take their chances on an initiative they have on the November ballot that would prohibit the state from taking any money away from cities and counties ever again.

“The polls show it is going in the dumpster,” Burton said. “If they want to come to the table, good. If they don’t, let them take their chances.”

Standing alongside the governor in Los Angeles on Saturday, however, several big-city mayors said they saw no reason to give in to any Democratic demands.

“We had a deal,” said Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn. “We want that deal to go through.”

Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown said local governments were not the Legislature’s “personal piggy bank.”