Abas Aslani of the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies argues that the US and Israel are playing “Russian roulette” with the Gulf’s environmental security following strikes near Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant.
Published On 7 Apr 20267 Apr 2026
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Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg and David Zahniser, giving you the latest on city and county government.
Los Angeles City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto and challenger Marissa Roy have sharply different views on how the office should be run.
Literally, the office.
Feldstein Soto said it’s important for attorneys to be in the office, and adopted a policy last year requiring most staff attorneys to be there at least three days a week, with supervisors required to be in four days weekly. Previously, the rule was up to three days of remote work per week.
“It builds teamwork. It ensures cohesion. It ensures that you have the opportunity to review and evaluate the work of new employees while they are still on probation,” she said in an interview.
That policy, however, has put Feldstein Soto at odds with the Los Angeles City Attorneys Assn., which endorsed Feldstein Soto in 2022 but has yet to weigh in this year.
Roy, the deputy state attorney general and the most well-funded of three challengers in the June 2 city primary election, recently told the city attorney’s union that the city’s lawyers should only have to show up at the office two days a month, not counting court appearances. That’s the policy at the state attorney general’s office, where Roy works for Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta.
“There’s no reason why the city attorney’s office can’t have that same policy,” Roy told The Times.
Many companies and public agencies adopted liberal work-from-home policies during the COVID-19 pandemic, although those policies have been largely rescinded to one degree or another. Still, Roy contends that the two days a month is reasonable given the sacrifices lawyers make to work for the government.
“You’re taking a pay cut from the private sector. You’re doing it because you care. You’re doing it for work-life balance and we have to respect that,” said Roy, who has been endorsed by the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America as well as the county Democratic Party.
Feldstein Soto said Roy’s two-days-per-month proposal creates logistical issues since the city’s lawyers are required to appear in court and be present for legal questions that arise at city meetings. She also said liberal work-from-home policies make it too easy for lawyers to take on outside work.
Roy is Feldstein Soto’s most significant opponent, racking up endorsements and more than $450,000 in campaign contributions through the end of December. Feldstein Soto raised more than $685,000 through the end of last year.
Challenger Aida Ashouri, a lawyer and activist, said she supports the current policy, saying it provides flexibility to employees while also ensuring they confer in person.
“We want to continue to make sure that people see their co-workers, that we have meetings in person,” Ashouri said. “I think meetings in person can be very effective and better for communication purposes.”
The fourth candidate, Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. John McKinney, said remote work is a “valuable tool for work-life balance.”
He said he would build on Feldstein Soto’s existing remote work rules, though he did not outline exactly what his policy would be.
The Los Angeles City Attorneys Assn. filed an unfair employee relations claim against the city last year when Feldstein Soto toughened the rules. The attorneys claim that the changes should have been bargained with the union.
The Los Angeles City Attorneys Assn. endorsed Feldstein Soto when she first ran four years ago, but hasn’t yet made an endorsement in the city’s June 2 election. The endorsement is expected to be discussed by union officials next week, said union president Ann Rosenthal, who said the city policy makes it hard to recruit new attorneys.
Citywide, departments make their own determinations on RTO, said Matt Szabo, the city administrative officer.
Szabo said the city is discussing a draft citywide policy on remote work with city employee unions.
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— DOCUMENT DROP: The Charter Reform Commission sent the City Council its written recommendations for changing the city’s government. Among the ideas: a larger City Council, a two-year budgeting cycle and greater authority for the council over policing policies. The council will decide how many of the proposals should appear on the Nov. 3 city ballot.
— A NEW FRONT-RUNNER? City Councilmember Nithya Raman came out ahead of incumbent Karen Bass in a new poll on the Los Angeles mayor’s race, though the poll’s director cautioned that it did not give the whole picture. Raman had a commanding lead, with 33% of voters supporting her, while Bass trailed at 17%, according to the poll by Loyola Marymount University’s Center for the Study of Los Angeles.
— OR MAYBE NOT: Meanwhile, a survey released by UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs found Bass in the lead, with reality TV star Spencer Pratt coming in second and Raman a close third. With 40% undecided, the race remains “wide open,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin, a former L.A. council member and county supervisor. The poll’s margin for error is 4%.
— NEED FOR SPEED (CAMERAS): By the end of the summer, 125 speed cameras will be installed on dozens of streets throughout Los Angeles, specifically on roads that are in school zones, are known street-racing corridors or where speeding has resulted in a high rate of traffic accidents.
— EATON FIRE RECOVERY: At the end of March, just under 3,400 applications to rebuild residences destroyed in the January 2025 Eaton fire had been filed. That’s about 56% of the roughly 6,000 residential structures in Altadena that CalFire designated as destroyed, a Times review found.
— CAL-EXODUS: A new UC Berkeley study found that people who moved out of California dramatically improved their financial conditions. A surprising finding from the California Policy Lab: Those leaving the state are increasingly moving out of its wealthiest areas.
— PACK YOUR TRUNK: Nearly a year after the Los Angeles Zoo shipped Billy and Tina the elephants off to a zoo in Tulsa, Okla., animal rights activists have kept up the call to relocate them to a sanctuary. Actor Samuel L. Jackson is among those weighing in.
QUICK HITS
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Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg, with an assist from David Zahniser and Rebecca Ellis, giving you the latest on city and county government.
Adam Miller is running for mayor.
You might not know that, and you might not even know who he is — and his campaign team wouldn’t blame you.
In fact, the Miller team’s own internal poll of 800 likely voters shows the tech entrepreneur with just 6% support, behind incumbent Mayor Karen Bass, City Councilmember Nithya Raman, conservative reality TV star Spencer Pratt and leftist Rae Huang. Only 13% of Angelenos even have an opinion of Miller, with 7% coming down on the positive side and 6% negative.
Miller’s pollster, Jefrey Pollock, admits it’s not often that a campaign brags about a humble 6% backing their candidate.
But during a video conference with reporters, Pollock argued that Miller’s support rises along with his name recognition. When likely voters were given more information about the candidates, he shot up to 20%, according to the poll. When provided with additional positive information about the candidates, Miller finished first, with 27%.
“Adam is the one who jumps up,” said Pollock, who runs Global Strategy Group.
After voters got the first dose of information, 22% supported Bass, down from 26%; 21% went with Pratt, up from 14%; 14% backed Raman, up from 12%; and 8% chose Huang, down from 9%.
In a poll earlier this month by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times, Miller also came out with 6% support. Bass was supported by 25% of voters, while Raman drew 17% and conservative reality TV star Spencer Pratt came in third at 14%. About a quarter of voters were undecided.
Paul Mitchell, vice president of the bipartisan voter data firm Political Data Inc., said the Miller campaign poll was compelling.
“What I see is a good argument that he can make the runoff,” Mitchell said. “This is a real deal.”
The question for Miller and his team then becomes, how can he introduce himself to more voters before the June 2 primary?
Miller is the former CEO of Cornerstone OnDemand, a global training and development company he built over the course of more than 20 years. The publicly traded company was eventually sold to a private equity firm for $5.2 billion. He is also a co-founder of Better Angels, a nonprofit focused on preventing homelessness and building affordable housing.
Among everyday Angelenos, he’s a no-name.
A television, social media and outdoor billboard advertising campaign launched this week should help change that, Miller’s team said. They said the “omnichannel” blitz cost seven figures but did not provide an exact amount.
The first billboard went up this week at Bundy Drive and Wilshire Boulevard, not far from Miller’s Brentwood home. More are expected next week in the San Fernando Valley.
Miller said he personally loaned his campaign a “majority” of the money for the ad blitz.
How much Miller is willing to spend on his mayoral ambitions?
In 2022, billionaire developer Rick Caruso threw more than $100 million of his own money into his campaign against Bass during the primary and runoff elections. He still lost by more than 10 percentage points.
“Obviously, we have the benefit of hindsight that that strategy did not work,” Miller said of the Caruso campaign. “There’s reasons my candidacy is different.”
For one thing, as opposed to Caruso, who was a Republican before registering as a Democrat to run for mayor, Miller is a lifelong Democrat. (That said, Miller voted for Caruso in 2022, said his spokesperson, Jaime Sarachit).
Miller is a moderate who sees himself as leader who gets things done. He believes the LAPD needs a minimum of 10,000 officers, up from about 8,700. He thinks the city should use anti-encampment laws to move homeless people away from sensitive areas like schools and day cares.
Miller would not directly answer a question about how much of his own money he will spend on his campaign. He has so far loaned it $2 million, “to get it up and running,” Sarachit said.
“That’s a significant sum, obviously,” said longtime L.A. political consultant Bill Carrick. “It’s a lot more efficient to write a check from your personal account than it is to go raise $2 million.”
But Miller said his campaign will largely be “traditionally financed,” meaning he plans to fundraise.
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— AO-K’ed: Metro’s board on Thursday unanimously approved a new route for a rail line that would extend from South L.A. into West Hollywood — a milestone deal struck after last-minute negotiations between Bass and local leaders. The K Line northern extension would link with four major rail lines and increase the number of riders to 100,000 a day.
— SOCIALIST SNUB: The Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America will not endorse a candidate for mayor. Last weekend, the group voted on whether to reopen its endorsement process and consider backing Huang or Raman but ultimately decided to stay out of the fray for the June primary.
— GUNNING FOR COUNCIL: Leftist City Council candidate Estuardo Mazariegos was convicted of misdemeanor gun possession in 2009. He thinks the conviction is a strength, not a weakness.
— SMALLER BIGGER: On Tuesday, the City Council adopted a strategy that would delay the effects of SB 79 citywide by upzoning 55 single-family and low-density areas, allowing for buildings of four to 16 units that are up to four stories tall. Under SB 79, buildings adjacent to certain transit stops can be up to nine stories.
— NOT UP FOR DEBATE: USC canceled its Tuesday gubernatorial debate, a stunning about-face after days of fiery criticism that every prominent candidate of color was excluded. Although the university defended the methodology used to determine who was invited, it ended up calling off the event with less than 24 hours’ notice.
— PHANTOM SUIT: A man said he has no idea how he became a plaintiff in the county’s $4-billion payout for sex abuse in juvenile halls and foster homes. His lawsuit, which he says was filed without his consent by Downtown LA Law Group, deepens questions around possible fraud in the nation’s largest sex abuse settlement.
— TAX TAKEAWAY: The proposal from a group of business leaders to repeal the city’s business tax has qualified for the November ballot. Organizers said their success — gathering twice as many signatures as needed — shows that voters “want affordability and fairness to be addressed immediately.” Labor unions have vowed to fight the proposal, which would rip an $800-million hole in the city budget.
— HOUSING HUDDLE: Three of the mayoral candidates — Miller, Huang and Raman — took the stage Monday for a downtown forum. The trio went back and forth on housing, transportation and other issues, particularly the future of Measure ULA, the so-called mansion tax. Bass did not attend, citing a previous engagement in New Orleans, where she held a campaign fundraiser with U.S. Rep. Troy Carter (D-La.) and the city’s mayor, Helena Moreno. Pratt also did not show.
That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has offered Iran a 15-point ceasefire plan aimed at temporarily halting the war in the Middle East, as the Pentagon simultaneously orders thousands of Marines, paratroopers and a warship to the region.
The plan presented to Iranian leadership Tuesday broadly included a 30-day ceasefire and sanctions relief for Iran in exchange for a laundry list of U.S. demands, according to the Associated Press and other outlets.
But Iran dismissed the proposal Wednesday, criticizing the White House’s terms as “excessive” and out of step with reality, according to Iranian state-run media.
Those terms included limitations on Tehran’s missile stockpiles, and the permanent end to its nuclear program, its support for regional militias including Hezbollah, and of its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, various outlets reported, citing Pakistani officials mediating the negotiations.
Several of those provisions have long been considered nonstarters for Iran, which sees its missile stockade and regional alliances as central to national security.
Iranian officials responded with defiance and skepticism.
“Iran will end the war when it decides to do so and when its own conditions are met,” an Iranian official told state media. “Not when Trump envisions its conclusion.”
The official outlined the Islamic Republic’s terms for ending the conflict, which included a halt to “aggression and assassinations,” an end to fighting on all fronts, enforceable guarantees that hostilities will not resume, compensation for war damages and a formal recognition of Iran’s sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has stated that Iran is not interested in a ceasefire but rather a comprehensive “end of war” on all fronts, including the lifting of sanctions and guarantees to allow Iran to pursue peaceful nuclear enrichment for energy and medical applications.
Iranian officials told state media that they believed the Trump administration’s diplomatic efforts were deceptive.
“You have reached a stage where you are negotiating with yourselves,” Iranian military spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaqari said in a televised address Wednesday. “Do not call your defeat an agreement.
Since the start of the conflict, Iranian leaders have voiced suspicion of any diplomatic talks with the Trump administration, pointing to prewar diplomatic efforts as evidence they were “tricked.” The Islamic Republic says it made clear in those talks that it had no interest in developing nuclear weapons, but Trump launched his military campaign nonetheless.
There have been conflicting media reports over Tehran’s exact position. Statements from Iranian officials and state-linked outlets have left open the possibility that elements of the proposal are still under review, while some reports frame the response as an outright refusal.
The Iranian response also conflicts with President Trump’s insistence that negotiations were progressing.
“We have had very, very strong talks,” he said Sunday in Florida. “We have points, major points of agreement. I would say almost all points of agreement will at some point very, very soon meet.”
Compounding the issue, Israel — which continues to carry out routine bombing campaigns over Iran — has stayed out of the talks.
Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about the peace deal in a phone call Tuesday. In a televised address, Netanyahu said that Trump “believes there is an opportunity” to realize U.S.-Israeli war objectives in an agreement “that will safeguard our vital interests.”
“At the same time, we continue to strike both in Iran and in Lebanon,” Netanyahu said. “We will safeguard our vital interests in any scenario.”
The negotiations are being facilitated by Pakistan, with support from Egypt and Turkey — countries that have pushed to contain a conflict that has killed more than 2,400 people, further destabilized the embattled region and disrupted global oil markets.
As Washington pursued a diplomatic end to the conflict, the Pentagon deployed an additional 2,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division to the Mideast. An additional 5,000 Marines and thousands of sailors are already en route to the region, where 50,000 more Marines are currently stationed.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters on Wednesday that the deployment “sends a signal to Iran that they need to get their act together,” but denied any coming escalations by the American side. Johnson instead said that he believes “Operation Epic Fury is almost done.”
Now in its fourth week, the operation began with a series of intensive airstrikes that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and dozens of other high-ranking officials. Since then, the U.S. and Israel have carried out over 9,000 strikes targeting Iranian military infrastructure and nuclear program.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters in the Oval Office Tuesday that while the president’s diplomatic envoys seek a peace deal, his department of war will continue to “negotiate with bombs.”
“The president has made it clear that you will not have a nuclear weapon. The War Department agrees,” Hegseth told reporters Tuesday in the Oval Office. “Our job is to ensure that, and so we’re keeping our hand on that throttle.”
Iranian retaliatory strikes have hit Gulf infrastructure and halted energy production and shipping in the region, spurring global fears of an enduring supply crunch. Meanwhile, Israel has expanded operations in Iran and sought to expand its borders into Lebanon.
Oil prices, which had surged above $120 per barrel earlier in the conflict, fell sharply this week on hopes that a ceasefire could ease supply woes.
In a statement Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres demanded an end to the fighting, which he said “has broken past limits even leaders thought imaginable.”
He specifically called on the U.S. and Israel to end the war, as “human suffering deepens, civilian casualties mount, and the global economic impact is increasingly devastating.”
Times staff writers Ana Ceballos, in Washington, D.C., and Nabih Bulos, in Beirut, contributed to this report.
IN 2000 film Chocolat, starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, the fairytale tone is set straight away by the sleepy medieval French village of the opening scenes.
And especially the beautiful, cobbled street leading up from the river.
Now my family and I are walking the same road in Beynac-et-Cazenac, in the dreamy Dordogne region, amazed by the views of the water below and the 13th- century chateau perched proudly on the hill above.
The Dordogne might sound fancy — all turreted castles, foie gras and ancient villages — but it’s actually a great-value family holiday spot.
The choice of child and teen-friendly activities seems endless. Castles, caves and canoeing all got the nod from our 12 and 15-year-olds.
First up we got our bearings with a trip on a gabare — a flat-bottomed river boat which is used to carry timber, wine and other goods.
Now, they carry tourists up and down the Dordogne river (adults £8.50, children £4.50, gabarre-beynac.com). On the glassy-still water, we passed churches and castles, and waved to swimmers taking a dip.
Next stop was Bergerac. The big-nosed, swashbuckling hero Cyrano de Bergerac, played by Gerard Depardieu in the 1990 film based on the real-life novelist, wasn’t from here . . . but the town has embraced him nonetheless.
Check out the Cyrano de Bergerac immersive experience. There, a virtual actor took us backstage of a pretend production, where we tried on a fake nose and had a go on various interactive exhibits (adults £8.50, kids £3, quai-cyrano.com).
Weather isn’t guaranteed in the Dordogne, but on drizzly days you can head for the Maxange Caves, which date back 60million years but were only discovered by accident by a quarry worker in 2000.
He uncovered an incredible cave complex, which is now open to the public (adults £10, kids £8, maxange.com).
Our guide pointed out huge stalactites and stalagmites as well as crystallizations in weird and wonderful shapes, marvellously called “eccentrics”.
Many of the activities and experiences are good value. Driving through pretty villages, we would stumble across markets, free evening concerts and chateau visits that were all good value for money.
The tiny medieval village of Cadouin is centred around its 12th-century abbey, where Richard the Lionheart is said to have once called by.
Pop your head in to check out the fancy Gothic cloisters. We timed our visit to coincide with the Wednesday market in the main square, surrounded by honey-coloured cottages, art galleries, cafes and bars.
Bigger and buzzier is Monpazier, which might be the cutest and best- preserved French village you have never heard of.
Founded by England’s King Edward I, it’s a medieval time capsule. Where knights once walked, tourists now shop, sip beer and create Insta-stories round every corner — no filter needed.
By now, the kids were desperate for some more adrenalin-based adventure so we decided to check out the canoeing.
Gliding down the Vezere River is like floating past a live-action postcard — of ancient cliffs, prehistoric caves and stunning stone villages.
We chose a gentle three-hour route from Thonac to Tursac, in a couple of two-person canoes. It is downstream so the paddling didn’t take much effort — just enough to feel adventurous without breaking into a sweat.
Once we got the hang of it, we even pulled into little river beaches and went swimming. You can stand up most of the way, and the river was sparkling-clean.
Energy fully exerted, we checked in to the converted 17th-century Chateau Les Merles, which has its own tennis court, swimming pools and a great view of the Dordogne valley.
It is also a great base from which to explore.
On the riverbank in the nearby village of Creysse, we then ate like locals in the great-value restaurant D’Aujourd’hui.
It is run by a husband-and-wife team, and the name of the fisherman, who caught the fish we ate that day, was written on a sign on the wall. What a lovely touch.
The vintage plates come from local flea markets, adding to the authentic vibe.
A perfect corner of France — and a bon voyage that won’t break the bank.
GETTING THERE: Ryanair flies from Stansted to Bergerac from £16.99 each way. See ryanair.com.
STAYING THERE: Double rooms at the Chateau Les Merles cost from around £110 per night on a room-only basis. See lesmerles.com/en.
Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser, with an assist from Libor Jany and Howard Blume, giving you the latest on city and county government.
It was a dramatic moment for City Hall: Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, appearing at a meeting about reining in certain traffic stops by police, revealed that he had been pulled over only two days earlier.
Harris-Dawson, who is Black, told his colleagues that police have stopped him four times since he took office in 2015. During the most recent incident, he said, an officer asked him a number of questions, including, “How do you have this vehicle?”
“It was as traumatic on Wednesday as it was when I was 16,” Harris-Dawson said at the March 6 committee meeting.
It wasn’t the Los Angeles Police Department that pulled over Harris-Dawson’s car, a Tesla Model Y with a government license plate. Instead, it was an officer from the L.A. Unified School District police, who began trailing him while he was heading to work on the freeway, Harris-Dawson said recently.
The district has provided minimal details, and its police union has not commented. But the union that represents nearly 8,700 LAPD officers, known for its bare knuckle politics, is now deeply involved.
Ricky Mendoza, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, urged Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman on Thursday to investigate whether Harris-Dawson attempted to resist, delay or obstruct the officer who carried out the traffic stop, in violation of state law.
Mendoza pointed to a California Post story that accused Harris-Dawson of contacting an unnamed school board member during the incident “in an apparent effort to get out of the citation.”
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Tom Saggau, a police union spokesperson, said Harris-Dawson was caught driving “recklessly” in a school zone — and should have disclosed it during his remarks about the incident.
“Mr. Harris-Dawson’s testimony implied LAPD pulled him over because of his race, not his driving behavior,” Saggau said in an email. “That implication painted our minority-majority membership as racist, and we will always stand up for our membership and correct falsehoods and other tall tales.”
Harris-Dawson, for his part, told The Times he received the citation for attempting to enter a left turn lane too early — before it was actually marked as a turn lane. That maneuver did not pose a threat to anyone, he said.
Harris-Dawson said he did contact other people during the traffic stop, to ensure he had real-time witnesses. He would not provide their names.
“I called several people during that encounter so that there was a record of it besides myself,” he said.
The Times reached out to the school board about the police union’s claims. Four of the seven, either in person or through a representative, said they did not talk to Harris-Dawson about the stop.
The dispute comes as the council is weighing new limits on “pretextual stops,” where officers use a minor violation as justification to pull someone over and then investigate whether a more serious crime has occurred. The stops have disproportionately affected Black and Latino drivers, and the LAPD has scaled back their use over the past decade.
At the meeting where Harris-Dawson revealed he had been pulled over, two council committees were discussing next steps on the issue.
On Thursday, a Harris-Dawson aide hit back at the union, accusing the group of trying to divert the public’s attention away from that work.
“Just like pretextual traffic stops, the call for these pointless investigations violates the public trust, is wholly ineffective, and wastes precious resources that could be used to keep us safe,” said Harris-Dawson spokesperson Cerrina Tayag-Rivera in a statement this week.
Asked about his recent experience with the school police, Harris-Dawson said: “It’s not up to the driver to determine if a stop is pretextual, but it felt pretextual.”
School district officials have offered only minimal information about the incident.
“During our morning school drop-off, a Los Angeles School Police Department officer conducted a traffic stop based on an observed moving traffic violation in the vicinity of one of our high schools and issued the driver a citation,” the statement said.
Harris-Dawson told The Times that the encounter began the morning of March 4, during his drive from his South L.A. home to City Hall, when he noticed a white, unmarked car following him on the northbound 110 Freeway.
He took the Adams Boulevard offramp, turned right on Adams and headed toward Main Street, with the unmarked car following him through multiple intersections. When he turned left on Main, the officer turned on his lights and pulled him over, he said.
The officer walked up to the car with his hand on his gun and told him to roll down the windows, Harris-Dawson said.
“Because it was an unmarked car … I thought I was dealing with Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” he said.
Harris-Dawson said the officer told him that he had illegally crossed the double-yellow line in the center of the street, preparing to turn left before his car was actually in the marked left-turn lane.
The intersection is four blocks from Santee High School.
Harris-Dawson said the officer asked him how he came to possess the car. He informed the officer that it was a city vehicle and that he sits on the council. He handed the officer his driver’s license and, at a certain point, demanded it back.
The officer refused twice, Harris-Dawson said.
“He said, ‘Are you accusing me of taking your property?’” Harris-Dawson said. “I said, ‘That’s absolutely what I’m accusing you of.’”
Harris-Dawson said he was cited for violating the state vehicle code that prohibits motorists from driving the double-yellow lines.
“That stop was not about traffic safety,” he said, adding: “It was an investigative stop where the officer decided to give a citation, frankly, because I failed the attitude test.”
Harris-Dawson said through his spokesperson that he has paid the $238 citation. Asked if he is considering any legal action, he responded: “I’m weighing all my options.”
Meanwhile, Mendoza said he wants not just the D.A. but also City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto to investigate Harris-Dawson’s behavior during the stop, determining who he called, what he said, and whether the officer was contacted by a school board member.
The police union president said it’s “unethical and potentially illegal for a city leader to use their position of power to attempt to avoid accountability for their reckless driving in a school zone.”
The Police Protective League is well known for its heavy involvement in city politics, especially during election season. On the Westside, the union has already put nearly $500,000 into efforts to reelect Councilmember Traci Park.
The union has endorsed Mayor Karen Bass, a close ally of Harris-Dawson, but hasn’t been spending on her behalf.
Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, who sits on the council’s public safety committee, said he believes the union is trying to “bully” Harris-Dawson, to ensure that others remain silent about pretextual stops.
“I think the council president is very courageously bringing up a reform on one of the most racist practices” in the LAPD, he said.
— DROPPING CHAVEZ: The bombshell New York Times report that found that labor organizer Cesar Chavez sexually abused minors left the state’s elected officials scrambling to rename streets, buildings and of course, the holiday itself. In L.A., Bass and several council members said they would rename the March 31 holiday “Farm Workers Day,” a move also backed at the county level by Supervisor Janice Hahn. Meanwhile, Raul Claros, running for an Eastside council seat, said Cesar Chavez Avenue should be renamed Dolores Huerta Avenue.
— DEMS WEIGH IN: The L.A. County Democratic Party threw its endorsement behind Bass and Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez, Katy Yaroslavsky, Monica Rodriguez, Hugo Soto-Martínez and Tim McOsker. The group also backed several newcomers: Marissa Roy for city attorney, Zach Sokoloff for city controller and council candidates Barri Worth Girvan and Jose Ugarte.
— PLUS THE COUNTY: The Dems also threw their support behind four countywide candidates: Sheriff Robert Luna, Assessor Jeffrey Prang, Supervisor Lindsey Horvath and State Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, who is running to replace termed-out Supervisor Hilda Solis.
— SPEAKING OF WHICH: It’s been pretty clear from the past year that Horvath is not a fan of Bass, offering bracing critiques of the city’s approach to homelessness and other issues. But her four colleagues — Hahn, Solis, Kathryn Barger and Holly Mitchell — have all lined up behind the mayor’s reelection, according to a campaign announcement issued Friday.
— POLICE PAYOUT: A jury awarded $5.9 million to a former LAPD commander who claimed she was wrongfully fired over an alcohol-fueled incident in 2018. The commander, Nicole Mehringer, said she was held to a different standard than her male colleagues, losing her job after being arrested on a charge of public intoxication.
— MINDING MEASURE ULA: Councilmember Ysabel Jurado was named the chair of a new three-member ad hoc committee formed to take a fresh look at the impacts of Measure ULA, the 2022 tax on high-end property sales. She will be joined by Councilmembers John Lee and Imelda Padilla in examining the measure, which has been criticized by real estate leaders.
— HOLLYWOOD’S HOMELESS: Bass and Soto-Martínez celebrated the opening of a new homeless services hub on Hollywood Boulevard to help unhoused residents shower, find new clothes, obtain meals and receive help finding an apartment or a bed in an interim housing facility.
That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.
Qatar, UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia report new blasts, interceptions, with war edging to 3-week mark.
Published On 18 Mar 202618 Mar 2026
Iran has fired missiles and drones at several Gulf Arab nations, which have sought to intercept them, in a now-daily fallout from the United States-Israel war launched on Iran nearly three weeks ago that has engulfed the Middle East with deaths, destruction, assassinations, and an energy crisis spreading far beyond the region.
Early Tuesday, Qatar’s Ministry of Defence said its armed forces intercepted a missile attack against the country.
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The Kuwait National Guard said it shot down an unmanned aircraft at dawn. The statement came hours after the Kuwaiti army said it was intercepting hostile missile and drone attacks.
The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have also reported intercepting missiles and drones in recent hours.
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Defense reported the interception and destruction of a drone in the Eastern Region.
Earlier Tuesday, the UAE Ministry of Defence said the country’s air defences were “currently responding to incoming missile and drone threats from Iran”. The announcement came four hours after another reported attack from Iran. Later, a loud bang was heard in Dubai as authorities said air defences were dealing with a missile threat.
Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, reporting from Dubai, said, “The UAE has been the hardest hit by Iran’s retaliation. For instance, there have been 3000 different projectiles – missiles and drones – fired at GCC countries by Iran in terms of its retaliation. More than half, well over half, have targeted places in the UAE. Overnight was no different … Multiple explosions heard throughout the city.
“That glow of defensive weapons and interceptions in the night skies, something that has become all too familiar, not just in Dubai, but in cities across the GCC. Once again seen over the skies here.
“Dubai’s media office confirming that they were the result of air defence interception operations,” he added.
There have been several deaths in the Gulf nations, where an economic effect is also being acutely felt since the war began.
The economies of the Gulf are suffering some of the worst damage.
Iran has launched continuous attacks on Gulf states since the onset of the conflict on February 28, arguing that it is attacking military bases used by the US for the war. Gulf nations have rejected Tehran’s claims, insisting the attacks on them are unjustified.
The Iranian strikes have upended energy production and inflicted major disruption to tourism and travel, putting the region at risk of some of the most severe economic harm since the 1990-1991 Gulf War.
After nearly three weeks of war, the economic effect on the region has already been substantial.
Middle Eastern oil producers’ daily output declined from 21 million barrels to 14 million barrels after a little more than a week of conflict as they deal with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, according to Rystad Energy.
Ukrainian President Zelenskyy says Moscow and Tehran are ‘brothers in hatred’; claims Iran’s drones ‘contain Russian components’.
More than 200 Ukrainian military experts are in the Gulf region and wider Middle East helping governments in their defence against Iran’s drone attacks, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.
In an address to dozens of members of the United Kingdom Parliament in London on Tuesday, the Ukrainian leader said 201 Ukrainian anti-drone experts are in the region and another 34 “are ready to deploy”.
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“These are military experts, experts who know how to help, how to defend against Shahed drones,” Zelenskyy said in his speech, referring to the Iranian-designed “kamikaze” drones that Russia has been using in its war against Ukraine since 2022.
“Our teams are already in the Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and on the way to Kuwait,” the Ukrainian leader said.
“We are working with several other countries – agreements are already in place. We do not want this terror of the Iranian regime against its neighbours to succeed,” he said.
Last week, the Ukrainian leader said military teams had been sent to several Gulf states and Jordan.
Zelenskyy, who met with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and NATO chief Mark Rutte earlier on Tuesday, said Russia had received the Shahed-136 drones from the Iranians, who had “taught Russia how to launch them and gave it the technology to produce them”.
“Russia then upgraded them. And now we have clear evidence that Iranian Shaheds used in the region contain Russian components,” Zelenskyy said, describing the drones as designed for “low-cost destruction of expensive critical infrastructure”.
“So what is happening around Iran today is not a faraway war for us, because of the cooperation between Russia and Iran,” he said.
“The regimes in Russia and Iran are brothers in hatred, and that is why they are brothers in weapons. And we want regimes built on hatred to never win – in anything,” he added.
The Ukrainian leader then addressed his country’s newly developed prowess in drone warfare and manufacturing, claiming that 90 percent of Russian losses on the front lines in Ukraine are being “caused by our drones”.
Ukraine has moved on from making sea and aerial drones to producing interceptors that target drones, he said, adding that Ukraine is capable of producing at least 2,000 interceptors per day – half of which are required for its own defence and the remainder available for use by Kyiv’s allies.
“If a Shahed needs to be stopped in the Emirates – we can do it. If it needs to be stopped in Europe or the United Kingdom – we can do it. It is a matter of technology, investment, and cooperation,” he said.
While Ukraine has become one of the world’s leading producers of sophisticated, battlefield-proven drone interceptors, US President Donald Trump has said he does not need Ukraine’s help with countering Tehran’s drones targeting military targets in the Middle East.
After meeting with Zelenskyy at 10 Downing Street, Starmer said Russian President Vladimir Putin “can’t be the one who benefits from the conflict in Iran, whether that’s oil prices or the dropping of sanctions”.
During Zelenskyy’s visit on Tuesday, London and Kyiv signed a deal on a “defence partnership”, which is said to combine “Ukraine’s expertise and the UK’s industrial base to manufacture and supply drones and innovative capabilities”.
Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg, with an assist from David Zahniser and Melissa Gomez, giving you the latest on city and county government.
Former Deputy City Atty. Michelle McGinnis wants to know why she was escorted out of City Hall in front of her colleagues, forced to turn in her work computer and placed on administrative leave in April 2024.
In her search for answers, a separate issue has arisen: whether her former boss is withholding or deleting text messages.
In a lawsuit against the city, McGinnis subpoenaed text messages about her between City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto and one of her top deputies, Denise Mills.
But according to a new petition that McGinnis filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Feldstein Soto produced zero text messages between her and Mills, and Mills produced just three with Feldstein Soto. The subpoena also asked for messages on Signal and other apps.
McGinnis’ lawyer, Caleb Mason, said the lack of texts strains credulity and probably means that some were deleted or withheld. McGinnis, who headed the criminal branch of the City Attorney’s Office, was fired in January 2025.
“It is obviously relevant and critical … to see what Ms. Feldstein [Soto] and Ms. Mills were saying to one another about Ms. McGinnis … that led to the extraordinary and unprecedented action of escorting a Branch Chief out of the building,” Mason wrote in a Feb. 23 brief.
A deputy city attorney representing Feldstein Soto and Mills disputed Mason’s claims in court filings, calling the new petition “uncomprehensible [sic]” and asserting that the two officials complied with the subpoenas. The attorney also sent 2,061 pages of documents to Mason.
Feldstein Soto, in a declaration, said that she “diligently searched for any documents” and shared them with her lawyer.
Mills said she did the same. In an effort to “retrieve any backup text messages,” she performed a factory reset of her phone on Jan. 30. McGinnis said the subpoenas were served on Dec. 15.
McGinnis’ lawyer said that was tantamount to spoliation — or destruction of evidence.
“Every court and every attorney in the country knows that ‘performing a factory reset’ means erasing information from a phone,” he wrote.
“It is reckless or negligent to reset a device when you know the opposing party is seeking that info,” said Laurie Levenson, a professor of law at Loyola Law School.
Still, Levenson said, politicians and lawyers often prefer speaking in person or on the phone to avoid their communications being exposed in a lawsuit. So it’s possible that the two didn’t exchange many text messages.
Feldstein Soto said in a statement that she has turned over all text messages about McGinnis. “There is nothing new here,” she said. “Ms. McGinnis was terminated, for cause. We remain confident in that decision.”
The city has argued that McGinnis “routinely opposed” Feldstein Soto’s policy and prosecutorial decisions.
McGinnis was placed on administrative leave due to a “pattern of insubordination and failure to meet minimal job requirements,” the city wrote in a legal filing in 2024.
The lawsuit that McGinnis filed against the city in 2024 alleged that Feldstein Soto retaliated against McGinnis and made prosecutorial decisions based on “personal relationships” or “perceived political gain.” The lawsuit also accused Feldstein Soto and Mills of “inappropriate alcohol consumption” in the office.
Other local politicians have also coughed up remarkably few text messages in response to public records requests.
Mayor Karen Bass came under scrutiny following the Palisades fire over the fact that her text messages auto-delete after 30 days, destroying potentially critical information about her decisions surrounding the devastating blaze. The Times sued the city after Bass’ counsel argued that her texts were “ephemeral” and not subject to public records requests. L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger also said she auto-deletes messages after 30 days — and sometimes manually deletes them.
City Council President Marqueece Harris Dawson, meanwhile, turned over zero texts, emails, Signal and WhatsApp messages in response to a Times public records request for his communications with Bass from Jan. 6 to Jan. 16, 2025 — before, during and after the Palisades fire.
Harris-Dawson’s office said it had “conducted a search and found no responsive records for this request.”
— IDK, VOTERS SAY: A majority of Angelenos have not made up their minds about the June 2 mayoral primary, according to a poll released this week. Bass had the most support at 20%, while reality TV star Spencer Pratt had 10% and Councilmember Nithya Raman had 9%, the poll found.
— HOMELESS DEATHS DROP: For the first time in the decade that homeless mortality has been tracked in Los Angeles County, fewer people have died on the streets and in shelters than the year before, the Department of Public Health reported Tuesday. A sharp decrease in overdose deaths drove a decline of 10% in the rate of homeless deaths from all causes in 2024, the most recent data analyzed by the county.
— LAST-MINUTE MEMO: The City Council was set to vote on a $177-million contract for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles to continue representing tenants for the next three years, with other groups providing related services. But the night before the March 3 vote, Feldstein Soto sent a confidential memo to council offices recommending that council members “reconsider the award of such a large contract to a frequent litigant against the city.”
The council approved the contract, with changes, a week later.
— CAMPAIGN REVELATION: Community organizer Jordan Rivers, who is running against incumbent Tim McOsker to represent Council District 15, said he will continue his campaign after a report surfaced that he stabbed a neighbor when he was 12. Rivers, now 22, stabbed the 8-year-old boy in the neck and shoulders, inflicting “severe and life threatening physical and emotional injuries,” a lawsuit said. On Monday, Rivers said it was an “accident” that happened a decade ago.
“I do not believe that past situations or indeed past mistakes define or determine who a person is or what they are,” he said.
— LAPD REFORMS: A series of proposed changes to the city’s charter — essentially its constitution — could give elected leaders in Los Angeles more oversight over the Police Department and enable the police chief to fire problem officers. The changes, recommended by the city’s Charter Reform Commission, have long been sought by advocates and are likely to face fierce opposition.
— SUPE SPEAKS: Embattled Los Angeles schools chief Alberto Carvalho made his first public statement since the FBI raided his home and district office on Feb. 25. He denied any wrongdoing and asked to return to his duties.
“While the government’s investigation remains ongoing, no evidence has been presented by prosecutors supporting any allegation that Mr. Carvalho violated federal law,” the statement said.
— A WEEK OF WIPEOUTS: With city officials finalizing the list of candidates for the June 2 election, a number of hopefuls failed to gather enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. They include community leader Eddie Ha, publicist Dory Frank and entrepreneur Jeremy Wineberg on the Westside; residential connectivity specialist Rosa Requeno on the Eastside; neighborhood council member Jon Rawlings in the San Fernando Valley; and neighborhood council president Adriana Cabrera, civil rights attorney Chris Martin and social worker Michelle Washington in South L.A.
— REWORKING ULA (TAKE 3): The City Council voted Wednesday to create an ad hoc committee to look at potential changes to Measure ULA, the tax on high-end property sales passed in 2022. City leaders have made two previous moves to rewrite the measure, neither of which succeeded.
— VOTING OLYMPIC VALUES: The council voted Friday to “express concern” about LA28 Olympics committee chairman Casey Wasserman, saying his appearance in the Epstein files poses a “potential conflict” with the values of the Olympic movement. Several elected officials at City Hall, including Bass, had already called for Wasserman to step down.
— MEETING OF MAYORS: On Friday, about 20 mayors and city council members from across L.A. County, including Bass, came together to discuss the impact that immigration raids have had on their communities. Many raised concerns about the role of local law enforcement in allowing federal agents to act with what they described as impunity.
One mayor suggested that all the cities that contract with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department should get together to demand accountability for deputies in their interactions with immigration agents.
That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.
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.
WASHINGTON — Some 140 American service members have been wounded since start of the Iran war, with eight of them “severely injured” and receiving medical care, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
“The vast majority of these injuries have been minor, and 108 service members have already returned to duty,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement.
The casualty toll adds to the seven American troops killed so far in the war, which entered its 11th day with no clear sign of slowing down as U.S. officials indicated that the military campaign was likely to intensify.
Iran, too, took new actions that could escalate the conflict, reportedly laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, a potentially devastating development for the global energy market.
President Trump said that if Iran put mines in the strait and did not remove them immediately, the U.S. military would hit Iran “at a level never seen before.”
“If, on the other hand, they remove what may have been placed, it will be a giant step in the right direction!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The warning was yet another escalation that came after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday would bring the “most intense day of strikes” inside Iran, a fighting tempo that is at odds with Trump’s own assessment that the war is “very complete” and could end “very soon.”
At a Pentagon news conference, Hegseth said “the most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes” would be deployed, but declined to say how much longer U.S. forces would be expected to fight in the region. He instead said the president will be the one to “control the throttle.”
“It’s not for me to say whether this is the beginning, the middle, or the end. He will continue to communicate that,” Hegseth told reporters.
That deference places the focus squarely on Trump, who a day earlier delivered mixed signals about the duration of the war, telling reporters at one point that the war is “very much complete” and a later time that it is “the beginning of building a new country.”
At a briefing on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the U.S. military was “way ahead of schedule” on reaching its objectives in Iran, but reiterated that the president alone will decide what victory looks like.
“President Trump will determine when Iran is in a place of unconditional surrender and when they no longer pose a credible and direct threat to the United States of America and our allies,” Leavitt said.
The president’s shifting positions on the war’s conclusion have played out as Trump threatens to hit Iran “twenty times harder” if it attempts to halt the flow of oil in the Strait of Hormuz, a key channel for the world’s oil supply — and as Democrats in Congress says they are growing concerned about the possibility of Trump sending U.S. ground troops inside Iran.
“We seem to be on a path toward deploying American troops on the ground in Iran to accomplish any of the potential objectives here,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told reporters after being briefed on the Iran war.
When asked about Democrats’ concerns, Leavitt said Trump “wisely … does not rule options out as commander-in-chief.”
“I would hesitate to confirm anything that a Democrat says right now about the president’s thinking,” she added.
As Washington plans out its next steps, the war has shown little signs of slowing. U.S. military officials say Iran’s military capabilities are eroding under sustained strikes that have targeted “deeply buried missile launchers” and made “substantial progress toward destroying” Iran’s navy.
Hegseth said “the last 24 hours have seen Iran fire the lowest amount of missiles they have fired yet.”
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that Iran’s ballistic missile attacks “continue to trend downward 90%” since the start of the war, and that drone attacks have decreased by 83%.
U.S. forces are also targeting Iran’s “industrial base in order to prevent the regime from being able attack Americans, our interests and our partners for years to come,” Caine said.
Caine said the Iranian military is adapting to the U.S. strategy, but remains confident in Washington’s ability to overpower Tehran. “They are adapting, as are we, of course. We have very entrepreneurial war fighters out there,” he said. “We are watching what they are doing, and we are adapting faster than they are.”
Asked whether Iran had proved to be a stronger adversary than anticipated, Caine said: “They are fighting, and I respect that, but I don’t think they are more formidable than what we thought.”
Iran, meanwhile, has refused to bow down to Trump’s demands and has issued warnings of its own.
Ali Larijani, Iran’s top national security official, called Trump’s threat against their targets on the Strait of Hormuz “hollow” and told him that he should instead focus on taking care of himself so that he is not “eliminated.”
Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf, however, said Iran was determined to keep fighting and was “definitely not looking for a ceasefire.”
“We believe that the aggressor should be punched in the mouth so that he learns a lesson so that he will never think of attacking our beloved Iran again,” Qalibaf said.
Meanwhile, Iran launched new attacks at Israel and gulf Arab countries. In Bahrain, authorities said an Iranian attack hit a residential building in the capital, Manama, killing a 29-year-old woman and wounding eight people.
Saudi Arabia said it destroyed two drones over its oil-rich eastern region and Kuwait’s National Guard said it shot down six drones. In the United Arab Emirates, firefighters battled a blaze in the industrial city of Ruwais — home to petrochemical plants — after an Iranian drone strike. No injuries were reported.
In Tel Aviv, explosions could be heard as Israel’s defense systems worked to intercept barrages from Iran.
Along with firing missiles and drones at Israel and at American bases in the region, Iran has also targeted energy infrastructure and traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for traded oil, sending oil prices soaring. The attacks appear aimed at generating enough global economic pain to pressure the U.S. and Israel to end their strikes.
Brent crude, the international standard, spiked to nearly $120 on Monday before falling back but was still at around $90 a barrel Tuesday, nearly 24% higher than when the war started on Feb. 28.
“The president and his energy team are closely watching the markets, speaking with industry leaders and the U.S. military is drawing up additional options, following the president’s directive to continue keeping the Strait of Hormuz open,” Leavitt said. “I will not broadcast what those options look like but just know the president is not afraid to use them.”
So far, the president has offered to have the U.S. Navy escort oil tankers.
The White House has insisted that soaring gas prices are temporary, but the shock in the energy markets has already prompted the Trump administration to lift oil-related sanctions on some countries, including Russia.
“We are going to take those sanctions off until this straightens out,” Trump said Monday. “And then who knows, maybe we won’t have to put them on because there will be so much peace.”
The war has created an opportunity for Russia to make gains in Ukraine, as hostilities draw the global spotlight away from Kyiv and its struggle to hold back the bigger Russian army. U.S.-brokered talks between the two adversaries have been sidelined as Washington shifts focus to its war in Iran.
As Russia enjoys economic gains from the war-fueled energy crisis in the Middle East, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been gathering forces for a renewed offensive in eastern Ukraine.
Key air defense systems have already been diverted from Ukraine to the Persian Gulf, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has dispatched drone interceptors to the region and ordered anti-drone experts to pivot from their war with Russia to help Western allies help intercept Iranian attacks.
“At the moment, the partners’ priority and all attention are focused on the situation around Iran,” Zelensky said on X. “We see that the Russians are now trying to manipulate the situation in the Middle East and the gulf region to the benefit of their aggression.”
Times staff writers Gavin J. Quinton and Michael Wilner, in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report, which also includes reporting from the Associated Press.
Dozens of civilians, including children, wounded by an Iranian drone strike in Bahrain. France deploying warships to secure shipping commerce in the Strait of Hormuz. Australia taking heat from President Trump over its handling of the Iranian women’s soccer team. Markets across Asia plunging as the price of oil surged.
Lebanon reporting half a million people displaced by fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. The U.S. State Department telling nonessential staff to get out of Saudi Arabia after attacks there killed workers from India and Bangladesh. Ukrainian anti-drone experts turning their attention from their war with Russia to help intercept Iranian attacks. The defense minister of ever-neutral Switzerland saying his country believes the U.S.-Israeli war violates international law.
In less than two weeks, the Trump administration has instigated a truly global conflict — and with no quick and clear path to resolution, despite Trump insisting to congressional Republicans gathered at his Miami resort Monday that it would be a “short term excursion.”
“Short term! Short term!” Trump said in a bullish speech about the conflict, in which he said “the world respects us right now more than they have ever respected us before.”
“We’re counting down the minutes until they will be gone,” he said of Iran’s remaining leadership, while adding that the U.S. “will not relent” until Iran is “totally and decisively defeated.”
The war is not isolated to Iran, though it has certainly caused devastation there — with more than 1,300 deaths reported and toxic clouds from strikes on fuel depots hovering over Tehran, a city of some 10 million people.
The war’s effects also are not limited to the Middle East, though they are widespread there — as Israel has pushed into Lebanon and Iran has launched a wave of retaliatory strikes on U.S. allies across the Persian Gulf. The fighting has grounded regional air traffic, threatened desalination facilities that provide drinking water to millions and undermined the safe reputation of modern metropolises such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Unlike the recent U.S. incursion into Venezuela to capture and oust President Nicolás Maduro, the U.S. war on Iran has been met with stiff resistance militarily, drawn in a slew of allies, reignited proxy battles, drastically destabilized the oil trade and shifted dynamics between the U.S. and other major powers such as China and Russia.
China, which gets upward of 50% of its crude oil imports through the Strait of Hormuz, has largely stayed out of the conflict, though China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Sunday that the war “should never have happened” and “benefited no one.”
Trump said Monday that the U.S. is less harmed by strait disruptions, and was “really helping China” by securing the strait.
Russia, meanwhile, has emerged the lone winner of energy disruptions in the region, said Robert David English, a UCLA international policy analyst — as the Trump administration considers reducing oil sanctions on Russia to take pressure off of Mideast sources.
Trump said he had a “good talk” with Russian President Vladimir Putin about Iran on Monday. He also said the U.S. was going to suspend sanctions against other countries in order to alleviate strain on oil markets while the Iran conflict persists, but did not provide specifics.
The scope of the war has been dictated in part by Iran, which has historically limited its responses to U.S. strikes but warned after the U.S. bombed its nuclear sites last summer that it would treat any new attacks — large or small — as an act of war, and respond in kind.
Its strikes on U.S. facilities and allies throughout the region reflect that strategy, and are aimed in part at making the war more politically costly for the U.S. by straining global markets and its regional allies, experts said.
However, “you can’t attribute the increasingly global characteristics of the conflict solely to an Iranian strategy, because wars in this region tend to spill over the longer they last, with unintended consequences” including “bringing in all kinds of actors that don’t want to be involved,” said Kevan Harris, an associate professor of sociology who teaches courses on Iran and Middle East politics at the UCLA International Institute.
That can serve as a deterrent to starting wars in the region, he said, but “also makes them more difficult to wind down.”
The surge in oil prices to nearly $120 a barrel Monday — before a remarkable reversal to below $90 by the time U.S. stocks closed — is one of the furthest-reaching effects of the war, and one that clearly had Trump’s attention.
“Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace. ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!” Trump wrote on social media Sunday.
How long prices will remain elevated or volatile is a matter of debate, but Trump’s “short term” projections have been undercut by increasing strikes on oil and gas facilities in the region.
“If you can tolerate oil at more than $200 per barrel, continue this game,” Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesperson for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Sunday.
Prices at the pump have surged for average Americans, some of whom were attracted to Trump’s candidacy because of his promises to avoid foreign wars and focus on driving down the cost of living for U.S. citizens.
Now, Trump and other administration officials are facing questions about their own role in putting the world at war, and offering various different justifications. They’ve asserted without proof that the U.S. faced an imminent threat of attack from Iran. Trump has repeatedly hinted that his goal was removing the government.
President Trump speaks at the Republican Members Issues Conference on Monday at Trump National Doral Miami in Doral, Fla.
(Mark Schiefelbein / Associated Press)
In the meantime, Iran has shown no signs of bowing to Trump, rejecting his calls for “surrender” and for him to have a say in naming their next leader. Iran installed Mojtaba Khamenei after Trump said the hard-liner son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be “unacceptable.”
The choice was hailed by the president of Azerbaijan and the leader of Yemen’s Houthi rebels, among other allies.
To date, seven U.S. service members have been killed in the conflict, according to U.S. officials. Every day, U.S. taxpayers are on the hook for nearly $1 billion in war costs, according to one estimate. Democrats have slammed Trump for both.
“This war is coming from the same President that is building a $400 million ballroom in the White House. The same President that says $100 for a barrel for oil is worth it. The same President that doubled healthcare premiums for millions of Americans. But we have money for another endless war?” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) wrote Monday on X.
Other world leaders focused on the global economic impact.
Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which transports about 20% of the world’s oil, has nearly halted, while producers in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates ceased oil operations without open routes for export.
In response, French President Emmanuel Macron suggested French and other allied naval assets could escort oil tankers in the strait, shifting the security burden there from Washington onto Europe, leaving European vessels vulnerable to hostilities and potentially drawing the European Union deeper into the conflict.
Already, they’ve agreed to allow the U.S. to use bases in their territories, though the U.S. and Spain got into a spat after Spain rejected U.S. use of its bases and Trump threatened U.S. trade with the country.
Macron on Monday also threw additional military support behind Cyprus, following a meeting with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at a Cyprus air base.
France will dispatch an additional 11 warships to operate across the eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, Macron said, after an Iranian drone struck a British military base on Cyprus on Monday.
“When Cyprus is attacked, it is Europe that is attacked,” Macron said.
Located just 150 miles from Israel in the eastern Mediterranean, the island of Cyprus has emerged as a strategic — and exposed — nerve center in the U.S. offensive against Iran. It hosts vital British military bases and acts as an intelligence, surveillance, and logistics hub in countering Iranian influence and proxy attacks.
Britain’s Defense Secretary John Healey said Monday that the United Kingdom was conducting air defense to support the UAE, and that Typhoon jets had taken out two drones — one over Jordan and the other headed to Bahrain.
Trump suggested Monday that the U.S. was on the path toward victory, but acknowledged it had not accomplished all of its goals.
“We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough,” he said — adding the conflict will end “pretty quickly.”
He said Iran had been “very foolish, very stupid” when it attacked its neighbors, hurting its own chances of success in resisting the U.S.
“Their neighbors were largely neutral, or at least weren’t gonna be involved, and they got attacked,” Trump said. “And it had the reverse effect. The neighbors came onto our side, and started attacking them.”
Iran may still attempt to widen the conflict’s economic and geopolitical impact to keep up pressure and push for a ceasefire in its favor, but that could also backfire, said Benjamin Radd, a political scientist and senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations.
“Iran’s becoming increasingly like North Korea in this sense,” he said, “isolating itself further.”
