trump

President Trump’s $1.4-billion crypto windfall has become the biggest obstacle to passing his sweeping digital-asset legislation as Democrats demand tougher language to prevent the president from profiting off an industry his administration regulates.

Senate Republicans released a proposal this week intended to break a months-long impasse over the bill, known as the Clarity Act. But Democrats and consumer watchdog groups dismissed the terms almost immediately, complaining the bill would not stop Trump or his family from continuing to profit from his meme coin and other crypto ventures.

Trump needs the support of at least seven Senate Democrats to pass the legislation, which would set rules for digital assets. Ethics has emerged as the biggest, though not the only, sticking point.

“It’s the linchpin,” said Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a Maryland Democrat and key negotiator who has been supportive of the crypto industry.

A spokesperson for the White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House has consistently asserted Trump is not involved in managing the family’s crypto ventures and has denied conflicts of interest.

Democrats have specifically taken issue with a provision that would leave Trump’s Justice Department as the primary enforcer of the new ethics regulations, preventing state attorneys general from acting as an independent check.

Another Democratic negotiator, Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, and Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said they’re working on a compromise ethics proposal to send to the White House but didn’t provide details.

Senators in both parties said they see the negotiations in the coming week as key to whether a bill reaches Trump’s desk this year. But after the chilly initial reception to the latest White House offer, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.C.) said he didn’t think the Clarity Act would pass the chamber before the month-long August recess.

“We’ll see where the votes are,” Thune said.

Alsobrooks, Gallego and other crypto-friendly Democrats are demanding changes to other pieces of the massive bill, including consumer protection and illicit finance measures.

The bill has other issues, including opposition from banks intent on tightening restrictions on stablecoin rewards. Tillis and several other Republicans said they are considering backing changes to reflect banks’ concerns that their deposits could shift to stablecoin accounts, crimping their profits and customers’ access to credit.

Tillis has floated adding “circuit-breaker” language empowering the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. or other regulators to step in if bank deposits drop — an idea opposed by GOP Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, the crypto industry’s biggest backer in the chamber.

Porous provisions

Critics said the draft’s ethics protections are porous. It would let Trump divest a large stake in his crypto venture or move it into a blind trust for the rest of his term, but stops short of requiring him to sell.

“It’s going to allow him to keep making money the way he has in the past,” said Scott Greytak, deputy executive director of Transparency International US, an anti-corruption advocacy group.

The restrictions also hinge on whether an official has a “direct interest” in a crypto asset — a threshold that may not apply to Trump.

The president is a significant owner of World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto venture, through an entity called DT Marks DEFI LLC, which holds about a 38% stake. Whether that counts as a direct interest “isn’t clear,” said Zach Everson, research director for Public Citizen’s Trump Accountability Project. “Does direct interest describe how he holds the crypto?”

Because the bill wouldn’t apply to the children of government officials, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump could continue their own crypto business interests. And much of the family’s fortune has already been made: Trump and his affiliates have earned a huge windfall from meme coin and token ventures, income the legislation would not claw back.

Critics also decried a provision that would sunset the ethics requirements on Jan. 20, 2029, the day Trump’s successor would be inaugurated. That could prevent the next administration from holding Trump accountable.

The White House and Republicans argued that Trump had gone further in backing ethics restrictions in law than any previous president.

“History will remember this as the moment a president chose a higher standard of ethics than the law required of him,” Lummis, a key architect of the bill, said on X.

Democrats were skeptical even before the language was released. “Any meaningful ethics provision would be shot down by the White House,” Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said.

The politics of crypto have long divided Democrats, and a bipartisan deal on the legislation risks provoking a backlash from progressives. Failure to reach a deal, however, could make the party the target of a torrent of crypto campaign cash.

Crypto group Fairshake and its two affiliated super PACs have raised $164 million for the midterm elections, Federal Election Commission filings show, and have spent $66.6 million so far.

It’s the kind of political arsenal that Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York can ill afford to have aimed at his candidates as the party seeks to regain Senate control.

But others, like Murphy, have warned that blessing Trump’s big crypto bill would undermine Democrats’ midterm message.

A potential presidential candidate, Murphy said Wednesday while addressing the left-leaning Center for American Progress that the bill is before the Senate “because the industry paid for it” and urged Democrats to instead turn fighting crypto corruption into a potent campaign issue this fall.

Markets have grown less convinced a deal gets done. On Polymarket, the odds of the Clarity Act passing this year fell to about 1 chance in 3 earlier this week after Republicans released the new draft.

That’s about half the odds the prediction market gave passage after the Senate Banking Committee backed an earlier version of the bill on May 14.

Dennis and Patterson write for Bloomberg. Bloomberg writers Yash Roy, Lydia Beyoud, Aidan Williams, Bill Allison and Olga Kharif contributed to this report.

July 25 (UPI) — President Donald Trump said Friday that he’s ready to continue talks with Iran or escalate fighting, but an Iranian general said it’s ready to fight.

Trump met with top advisors and cabinet members on Friday to make a decision on whether to escalate attacks on Iran, The New York Times reported. Friday night, no attacks on Iran from the United States or on U.S. military sites were reported after 13 straight nights of fighting.

The White House hasn’t said if the president decided what to do, but Trump said the military is ready for a heavier attack if Iran doesn’t want to resume talks.”Look, we’re locked and loaded,” Trump told reporters on Friday. “We’re ready to go, but we’re talking to them, so maybe there will be, maybe there won’t be a tipping point. Maybe they will cry uncle, or maybe they’ll just give up, or maybe they’ll just go into a cave and hide.”

He told reporters that Iran is getting more serious about talks to end the fighting.

“We are talking to them. I think they’re getting more and more serious as the days go by, for maybe the obvious reason, but we are talking to them right now,” Trump said Friday.

He said that Iran would “love to make a deal” but he didn’t “think they’re ready to.”

But an Iranian general pushed back Saturday, even suggesting that Tehran welcomed a ground invasion by American troops.

“Our war with the enemy is a war of attrition, one that will not end,” the official whom Iranian media named General Asadi said Saturday, CNN reported. “We ask God that the ground forces of the aggressor American army find themselves in a position where we can engage them on the ground.”

In an interview with Axios on Thursday, Trump said he was considering a “massive attack” on Iran.

“Bigger than ever before. I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it,” he said. But he said that decision would have consequences, and he hadn’t decided on it yet.

He told Axios that the Iranians “want to negotiate” but aren’t ready to make a deal.

“They haven’t received enough pain yet,” he said.

Two regional sources with knowledge of mediation efforts told Axios that Iranian leadership hasn’t accepted the latest proposal.

One of the sources said, “We are trying, but the Iranians are not being helpful.”

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg giving you the latest on city and county government.

There’s no exact way to measure the effectiveness of Los Angeles City Council members.

But we analyzed three basic elements — meeting attendance, committee assignments and amount of legislation drafted — to give readers a sense of what their local electeds are up to.

Meeting attendance

As part of charter reform efforts, the City Council considered reducing the number of council meetings from three per week to just one.

The proposal failed earlier this month after receiving stiff pushback from at least one councilmember, Monica Rodriguez.

“Meeting less for a city of 4 million people I think sends the wrong message. Particularly when you have the best-paid council in the country,” said Rodriguez in an interview on Fox 11 earlier this year (each councilmember makes an annual salary of more than $244,000). “This idea that we would be meeting less I believe runs contrary to what the public is demanding form their council.”

Yet Rodriguez isn’t a stickler for showing up to meetings herself, ranking near the bottom of her colleagues for attendance. Since the start of 2025, Rodriguez has attended about 86% of meetings, missing 25 out of 177 meetings, according to a Times analysis.

Gabriel Avalos, a spokesperson for Rodriguez, implied that other work-related matters kept her from the meetings.

“There’s no distinction for absences related to city business, but she certainly wasn’t absent due to dishes and laundry,” Avalos said.

Only two other councilmembers missed more meetings than Rodriguez — mayoral candidate Nithya Raman, who missed 30 meetings, and Curren Price, who missed 34 while dealing with illnesses.

On the other end of the spectrum, Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who runs the meetings, missed the fewest — just four of the 177 meetings from January 2025 until this month.

Eunisses Hernandez and Ysabel Jurado each attended 169 meetings, or about 96%.

Stella Stahl, a spokesperson for Raman, said that most of the councilmember’s absences were due to her position as the city’s representative on the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

The remaining absences, Stahl said in a statement, “were tied to a small number of previously scheduled conferences and speaking engagements relevant to her committee work and district priorities, along with occasional sick days and travel for a funeral.”

Committee assignments

Council members are appointed to committees by the council president. They can sit on additional committees if the president lets them.

These small groups of council members are responsible for reviewing the first drafts of legislation. Committee chairs have the power to move legislation forward — or stall it — by either putting it on the agenda, or not.

The busiest councilmembers are Hugo Soto-Martínez and Adrin Nazarian, who each sit on nine committees, including some temporary “ad-hoc” ones. Councilmember Tim McOsker follows with seven committee assignments.

But the number of committee assignments isn’t necessarily the clearest indication of power. Katy Yaroslavsky serves on only five committees, but she chairs the Budget and Finance Committee, which edits and approves the mayor’s proposed budget before sending it to the full council for one of its most important annual votes.

At the bottom of the list is Price again, who sits on four committees, including as chair of the Committee on Economic Development.

Legislation

Another easy marker is the amount of legislation a council member authors.

At each meeting, dozens of pieces of legislation go before the council — some high-profile, others just to keep the lights on at City Hall (literally).

Rodriguez, despite her relatively low attendance, was at the top of the legislative list over the last year and a half, drafting 199 motions.

A good chunk were motions on whether to support or oppose bills at the state and federal level. Rodriguez also had the most ceremonial street namings of any council member, with 13.

Rodriguez pointed to more significant legislation, like an ordinance banning city workers from taking on additional gigs for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as her proudest achievements.

After Rodriguez, McOsker was the second-most prolific author, with 178 pieces of legislation, followed by Traci Park with 163.

At the bottom were Price with 84 and Harris-Dawson with 90.

State of play

— HOMELESSNESS RISING: Homelessness, including those living in shelters and other temporary facilities, went up by 3.4% across the city compared with 2025. Unsheltered homelessness — those living outdoors or in their vehicles — was up 7.9% after two consecutive years of decreases, dealing a fresh blow to Mayor Karen Bass as she runs for reelection.

— DISAPPEARING ACT: Bass’ press relations office communicates through WhatsApp messages that auto-delete every 24 hours, potentially shielding the messages from public records requests, according to three sources familiar with the office.

— PLAY BALL: In 1936, Los Angeles made it a misdemeanor to play baseball, basketball, soccer or any other ball game on a street or sidewalk. Nearly a century later, when kids spend half as much time outside as their parents did, City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield wants to cut the obscure law from the books.

— THE ICE EFFECT: A new study from the UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Institute found that businesses within half a mile of nine ICE enforcement sites had 46,000 fewer customer visits and an estimated $3.16 million in accumulated revenue losses during the two weeks after enforcement activity.

— NEW HONCHO: Los Angeles schools Supt. Andrés E. Chait made a calm official entry into his new job Tuesday, emphasizing rising test scores and “a sense of belonging” that binds school communities.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program was at San Pedro Street Elementary School in Ysabel Jurado’s district, bringing 34 people indoors.
• On the docket next week: The Los Angeles City Council remains on recess next week.

Stay in touch

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.

During the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, US President Donald Trump joked about running for a fourth term, despite the Constitution barring it. The event, which celebrates press freedom and honours journalism, came three months after the first was cancelled by a shooting.

United States President Donald Trump returned to the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, three months after a gunman upended the event.

“As I said three months ago, the show must go on,” Trump said at the start of his speech on Friday, after a lengthy awards ceremony, during which several journalists, including CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, spoke.

The annual – and perennially controversial – event had originally been held in April, but it was swiftly derailed after a gunman attempted to storm the proceedings in an alleged effort to assassinate Trump.

“Just like my presidency, the second time is always better and the third time will be better yet,” Trump quipped, before raising his hands at the crowd and saying, “I’m only kidding.”

The US president is limited to two terms by the Constitution, but Trump has been facetiously floating the idea of running for a third time.

The rescheduled dinner took place in the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria hotel, with a guest list of 700 people, much smaller compared with April’s botched gathering.

“It was an assault on our democracy itself; it was a very serious situation,” Trump said of the alleged assassination attempt.

He lauded some of his aides, including Pete Hegseth, Steve Miller and Tom Holman, for showing “bravery” during the incident.

“They were standing on tables, when most of you were under the tables,” he said.

Alleged gunman Cole Tomas Allen had stormed a security gate at the gala venue, the Washington Hilton, armed with guns and knives. He was accused by prosecutors of shooting and injuring a Secret Service officer before he was stopped.

Allen is facing federal charges of attempting to assassinate the president.

“Many people yelled, ‘Get down. Get down,’ which caused Nicki Minaj to start twerking,” Trump said on Friday.

As journalists in attendance forced a muted laugh, Trump added: “She’s the only one who knew what that meant.”

Trump later used the event to rebuke political opponents, presenting his attacks as jokes. He called Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom “newscum”, questioned Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s intelligence, and pretended that someone in the audience was calling Illinois Governor JB Pritzker a “fat pig” to appear that he was not uttering the insult himself.

The US president also called top Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer “Palestinian” as an insult.

Earlier in the evening, Trump entered the ballroom to polite applause.

“This is the largest gathering of people with Trump derangement syndrome,” he said, referring to journalists.

The US president has had a historically caustic relationship with the dinner, but this year, he touted the celebration this year, calling it a “very good thing” and a “HOT ticket”.

White House Correspondents’ Association president Weijia Jiang of CBS News, which was acquired by pro-Israel investor David Ellison last year, thanked Trump for his support, and for showing up for the second time in three months.

“Tonight our message is this: We are back,” she said. “We will not be intimidated. We refuse to let an act of violence have the final word.”

Trump’s enthused attendance represented a sea change from his first term, beginning in 2017, when the newly elected president declared the soiree “dead” and declined to attend over the next four years.

Beyond Trump, the White House Correspondents’ Dinner has long been a lightning rod for criticism among media professionals, with some journalists arguing that reporters should not be chummy with the politicians they cover. Calls for the dinner to be abandoned entirely only grew after the April incident.

President Donald Trump has ordered signs to be placed outside the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, to caution visitors about exhibits his administration views as “inaccurate”.

The order directs the Department of Interior to issue the warnings, and also to direct people about where they can find “accurate information regarding America’s history”.

The Trump administration has often accused the Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest research museum, as well as other academic organisations of harbouring an anti-American bias.

The Smithsonian did not immediately respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

The order on Friday – titled Restoring Trust in the Smithsonian Institution – accuses museum leadership of not doing enough to celebrate America’s founders on the country’s 250th anniversary of independence, which took place on 4 July.

It says the museum’s leadership team “views American history as a ‘prime tool’ to advance ideas of social justice and the radical transformation of our society”.

An accompanying White House statement, external also accused the museum of veering “toward extreme political activism, rooted in Marxism, to divide, dispirit, and discourage Americans”.

Democrats who oversee the Smithsonian condemned the order.

“This EO is a clear political overreach, driven by an ideological agenda to rewrite American history,” congresswoman Melanie Stansbury, ranking member of the House Administration Committee, wrote on X.

“Our Smithsonian institutions do not belong to the President, but to the American people and so does our nation’s history.”

The executive order comes just days after Smithsonian director Anthea Hartig was grilled by Republican lawmakers in two congressional hearings, where the museum was accused of being “infected by a woke ideology that seeped into public displays, educational materials and planning documents”.

Earlier this month, the White House Domestic Policy Council released a scathing report, claiming that the museum “erases our heritage”.

Trump has set out to radically reshape American culture, which he says has been contaminated by “woke” left-wing ideology.

He has signed several orders that are intended to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programmes from the federal government – some of which led to legal challenges.

In March, he issued a separate order against the Smithsonian, directing it to “eliminate improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology”.

The Smithsonian is largely funded by the federal government. Its museums offer free entry to some 15 to 30 million visitors each year. It operates 21 museums in Washington, Virginia and New York.

They include the National Museum of American History, the National Portrait Gallery, the American Art Museum, the National Zoo and more than a dozen others.

July 24 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Friday ordered the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to add signage warning visitors about “ideological” views in some of its displays.

Trump issued an executive order to add the signs based on a review of the Smithsonian’s American History museum that he directed to search for ideological views related to social justice and “radical” changes to society.

The report, issued on July 4, ripped the museum for what the Trump administration claimed is practicing “extreme political activism” in its exhibits and the language it uses in them.

The report was the subject of a contentious House subcommittee meeting on Thursday, which followed Republican members of the House alleging the Smithsonian of misusing federal funds and promoting a “divisive, politically [biased] revisions of American history.”

Trump’s order directs the Department of the Interior to bear the cost of signs and changes to exhibits throughout the museum.

“The report demonstrates that the Smithsonian leadership does not present American history as a shared national inheritance to be taught and celebrated, but instead views American history as a ‘prime tool’ to advance the ideas of social justice and the radical transformation of society,” Trump said in the executive order.

EU accuses US tech giant of favouring its own services in search results, as Trump lashes out against bloc.

United States President Donald Trump has threatened the European Union with steep tariffs and a new trade investigation, saying that the bloc “will pay a very big price” after Brussels fined Google $1bn over antitrust violations.

Trump called penalties against Google and other US tech firms “highly unethical”, saying on Friday that the US “is not a ‘PIGGYBANK’ for Europe”.

“This illegal and highly discriminatory practice started at these high levels during the first year of the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration, but it’s not going to continue during the Trump Administration,” he wrote in a social media post.

The European Commission had imposed the fine on Thursday, ruling that Google had breached the bloc’s Digital Markets Act by favouring its own services in search results and restricting app developers from directing users elsewhere.

The penalty adds renewed strain to US-EU relations at a moment when trade tensions between Washington and Brussels had appeared to ease.

Regulators said Google gave preferential placement to its own shopping, travel and other services over rival offerings, and blocked app developers from steering customers towards deals outside its Play Store.

The EU Commission split the penalty roughly in half between the two breaches, giving Google 60 days to change its practices or face periodic fines of up to 5 percent of its average daily turnover.

Teresa Ribera, the commission’s executive vice president overseeing competition policy, on Thursday called the action “decisive yet balanced”, arguing that products should succeed on merit rather than ownership.

Kent Walker, a Google executive, described the ruling as “product degradation” driven by a small number of complainants, insisting that regulation should improve products rather than weaken them.

The EU has fined Google repeatedly since 2017, including a $4.5bn penalty over its Android operating system, upheld on appeal this month, and a $3.4bn fine last year targeting its advertising business.

The latest penalty also reignites friction with Washington.

Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, warned this week that Brussels’s approach towards American tech firms risks unravelling a trade deal struck in Turnberry, Scotland, last year that capped US tariffs on European goods.

EU officials have pushed back, insisting they answer to their own laws rather than outside pressure.

Trump threatened to launch a probe under Section 301, a US tool for probing unfair trade practices, but the move could take months to produce results, though tariffs could follow far sooner.

Trump says the US remains ‘locked and loaded’ while pursuing talks with Iran, as Tehran reports strikes on US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan.

WASHINGTON — For the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner on Friday at Washington’s Waldorf Astoria hotel, security will be much tighter, the guest list smaller, the partying pared down, and the dress code more relaxed.

That much, the correspondents’ association can control.

What remains out of its control — and perhaps the biggest question — is what the dinner’s most prominent guest, President Trump, will bring to the table.

Call it White House Dinner 2.0, or Take Two, or, in Trump’s own words, a “HOT ticket.” The big unknown is whether Trump will bring the fighting words (“rather nasty,” he said) against the press that he’d planned to deliver in April — before the event descended into chaos when a gunman stormed a security checkpoint, forcing an evacuation of the room.

“The president looks forward to finishing what he started,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday, confirming Trump’s attendance. “I encourage everyone watching tomorrow night to tune in for what promises to be a very entertaining and memorable evening.”

Trump has been coy about what he might say

As for Trump himself, he indicated last month he wasn’t sure. “I don’t know whether or not I will give the same rather nasty statements, at least as it concerns certain people, but we will soon find out,” the Republican president wrote on his Truth Social platform. “In any event, it will be a ‘HOT’ ticket!”

Besides the pared-down approach, there is another change at Friday’s dinner: two additional awards. One will be presented to Victor Gonzales, the Secret Service agent who was staffing a security checkpoint in April and was struck in his protective vest.

“Officer Gonzales … ran toward danger so that thousands of others could make it home safely,” WHCA President Weijia Jiang said in a statement. “His courage stemmed from a dedication to service, which we are looking forward to honoring this week.”

A second award will be presented to the staff of the Washington Hilton hotel, site of the first dinner.

Other changes: With security in mind, there will be only one entrance at the much smaller venue, with airport-style metal detectors. Guests received individual QR entry codes in advance, and nobody can get in unless recognized. “There is NO red carpet at this dinner,” said a memo Jiang sent to some guests last month, seen by The Associated Press. “There are NO onsite pre-dinner receptions.”

The dress code this time is a looser “black tie optional,” and dinner includes grilled peach and burrata salad, lobster, and beef Wellington. The evening, as at the last dinner, has entertainment by mentalist Oz Pearlman, along with the awards presentations and Trump’s remarks.

Jiang and her fellow board members worked hard to bring about this WHCA dinner 2.0, not wanting to let a violent act — or the image of colleagues hiding under tables — remain the final thought. Announcing the rescheduling, she emphasized the dinner’s stated purpose: “a celebration of a free press and the vital role of journalism in our democracy for over a century.”

“We will not allow an act of violence to have the last word, especially during a year when we are reflecting on the 250th anniversary of America and everything we stand for,” Jiang said.

There’s still lots of criticism of the event

But it’s also clear that some people felt the dinner should not be rescheduled at all.

Many never thought it was much of a good look in the first place, with the sight of journalists in formal wear cozying up to their sources, or the objects of their reporting.

“It undermines the public faith in how the press does its work, and it makes it look like we are pals with the people we cover,” Kelly McBride, an ethics expert at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank, said when the deliberations were taking place.

The new dinner comes during a time of fast-increasing tension between the media and a president who, in his second term, has tried to exert pressure on media outlets he is unhappy with in a variety of ways. That pressure has ranged from sanctions against members of the White House press corps to regulatory actions through the Federal Communications Commission to outright lawsuits.

Those tensions have only escalated since April, with the latest example reaching a New York courtroom on Thursday. There, criticized by a federal judge for sloppy legal work, the government withdrew subpoenas that would have compelled three New York Times reporters to testify about their sources for articles about Trump’s Qatari-gifted Air Force One jet.

That escalation was the impetus behind a letter from a coalition of press freedom groups and hundreds of former journalists, urging the WHCA to stand up to Trump forcefully at the dinner.

“We believe it is hypocritical to celebrate the First Amendment in front of the man who relentlessly attacks it,” the letter says. “We urge the WHCA to condemn the administration’s actions from the podium and pledge to fight all attempts by his administration to undermine this core pillar of a functioning democracy.”

Noveck writes for the Associated Press.

For more than a quarter-century, a lawsuit settlement from a case brought in Los Angeles federal court has dictated conditions for children held in immigration detention.

But now, the long-standing settlement — which set minimum standards for housing, education and medical care for migrant kids in federal custody, while strictly limiting how long they can remain there — hangs in the balance in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals after a challenge by the Trump administration.

At the same time, the federal judge in L.A. who presides over the agreement appears poised to appoint a powerful new enforcer to uphold it.

President Trump has long sought to scrap the Flores settlement, which dates back to the Clinton era. In recent months, the Trump administration has waged a legal battle to cancel the agreement, while also pleading with the district court not to order an independent monitor to boost its compliance.

“[Flores] is the only thing standing between them and indefinite detention of families,” said Leecia Welch, chief legal director at Children’s Rights, a plaintiff in the case.

Last month, Assistant Atty. Gen. Brett A. Shumate pressed the 9th Circuit court to give the administration “the thumbs-up or thumbs-down” on its bid to tear up the settlement and end what he called “judicial micromanagement” of federal immigration policy.

“The Flores consent decree is an agreement which goes well above the constitutional floor,” Shumate told the court during oral arguments in June. “We’re asking that [the Department of Homeland Security’s] compliance with the law be assessed based on the law, not a 30-year-old settlement agreement.”

The three-judge panel sharply questioned the Justice Department’s legal claims, saying little had changed since the government last petitioned the court to have the agreement dissolved in 2020 — a request that was rejected.

The judges also pressed Trump administration lawyers to respond to evidence from scores of declarations filed in district court since last summer, in which detainees describe struggling to sleep in freezing, brightly lit rooms, vomiting from eating spoiled food, and begging for diapers, baby formula and asthma inhalers.

“You’ve said a lot of the reason you’re doing this is to discourage families from coming in the first place, so you’re basically punishing children because their parents brought them here,” Judge Marsha S. Berzon said.

Berzon, a Clinton appointee who issued a fiery dissent last year in a case that challenged the administration’s use of armed troops in immigration enforcement operations, asked: “You’re saying there’s no constitutional problem there?”

“I understand the detention of children at the border is a controversial policy issue, but that’s a policy decision,” Shumate said.

Just a day earlier, Chief U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee scolded a pair of government attorneys from her bench in Los Angeles, signaling she would probably appoint a new special master to force compliance with the settlement agreement.

“We’re talking about 11 years of this,” Gee said during the June 1 status conference. “None of these issues are new to me. These are all issues on which I have issued orders. I am very displeased about the fact that my orders are being disregarded and are not being complied with, not in good faith.”

“Both sides seem to be operating in different planes of reality,” Gee said.

The disputed settlement emerged from a 1985 lawsuit over the fate of 15-year-old Jenny Flores, a Salvadoran refugee who was picked up by federal immigration enforcement and left to languish in detention in Pasadena. At the time, there was little awareness that children were among the tens of thousands of migrants fleeing civil war and state collapse in Central America — with virtually no U.S. government infrastructure to protect them.

“It was a surprise,” said Benjamin Roth, a professor at the University of South Carolina College of Social Work and an expert on the agreement. “There was no thought then that there were kids in this mix.”

The current court fight centers on an immigration detention center in Dilley, Texas, run by the private prison company CoreCivic, where the vast majority of children and families in immigration custody are held.

In court filings earlier this month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it has “maintained core Flores-related services” at Dilley and argued its length-of-stay numbers were skewed by a small number of families it was forced to keep because they are considered “national security risks.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection likewise boasted its July 1 report “shows our highest level of compliance to date.”

Immigrant rights advocates called those claims “a fiction.”

“We see the same sorts of problems and concerns and misery that we’ve been seeing for the last 15 months,” said Welch, the Children’s Rights attorney.

In dozens of declarations collected as part of the court record, detainees recounted broccoli full of worms, diapers doled out one at a time, and staff tearing up children’s drawings.

One mother said medical staff laughed off her 8-year-old’s broken arm. Another said she was denied treatment for hepatitis B, even after doctors told her she could develop liver cancer and pass the infection on to her unborn daughter.

Still others described unexplained rashes, outbreaks of diarrhea and infestations of lice, among a host of other maladies for which many said they were offered only Tylenol or allergy medication. Even Christmas brought misery in the form of an ICE agent dressed up as Santa, who shoved away children trying to hug him, according to the detainee declarations submitted to the court.

“What happened on Christmas Day can only be described as an atrocity,” one mother recalled. Children “dropped everything, ran up to him, begged for candy and wanted to take pictures. Some children even cried and begged him for their freedom. Santa himself acted very indifferent.”

The Department of Justice argued that immigrant kids could still sue over poor conditions if the Flores settlement is unwound. But experts say existing protections would collapse without the legal architecture of the consent decree to support them.

“[Under the settlement], the federal government has built out a very efficient system to provide temporary care for kids,” Roth said. “If Flores is dissolved, it’s not going to be easy to stand up this same set of programs.”

If the Trump administration loses before the 9th Circuit, the fight over Flores could soon escalate to the Supreme Court.

“I’d be shocked if the 9th Circuit rules for the government, and I’d be shocked if the Trump administration doesn’t appeal,” said Eric J. Segall, a law professor at Georgia State University and an expert on the high court.

But consent decrees are legally and politically complicated, and the treatment of migrant children further tangles the situation. Given the legal and political complexity, the Supreme Court could rule to keep the settlement in place, or decline to take the case at all, experts said.

“It’s more likely than not the court would stay away from this,” Segall said.

For now, both the district judge and the 9th Circuit panel appear fed up.

“I think my patience has come to an end,” Gee said during the recent hearing in her Los Angeles courtroom.

July 24 (UPI) — The United States and Iran traded attacks Thursday night and Friday morning, as President Donald Trump announced that damage inflicted by Iran on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz would be paid with U.S.-held Iranian assets.

U.S. Central Command said its latest wave of attacks, which were completed at 9 p.m. EDT Thursday, lasted for about two hours, 15 minutes, during which its forces hit Iranian military command centers, drone storage facilities, communications networks, coastal surveillance sites and maritime capabilities.

State-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting reported explosions early Friday local time across the country, with strikes in Ahvaz, Bandar Abbas, Omidiyeh, Qeshm and Andimeshk. Officials in Bandar Abbas reported that two people were injured.

Explosions were also reported by the IRIB in southern Khorramabad.

The Iranian Army announced retaliatory drone strikes on U.S. bases in Jordan and Bahrain.

Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior said sirens were sounding. It urged residents to remain calm and seek shelter.

The United States has been hitting Iran for nearly a fortnight as it seeks to regain freedom of navigation of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital energy route that Iranian forces have tried to seize amid the war by attacking commercial tankers that try to transit it.

Maritime traffic freely flowed through the Hormuz until the United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February. Iran responded with its maritime blockade of the chokepoint, causing gas prices to spike and threatening nations with an energy crisis.

Mid-June, the United States and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding to lay foundations to end the war, but fighting resumed earlier this month over a dispute over what the agreement meant for control of the strait. Iran says the agreement recognizes its authority over Hormuz transit. Washington says Tehran committed to freedom of navigation.

CENTCOM said Thursday, as it has after the completion of each new wave of attacks, that it was seeking to further degrade Iran’s ability to attack vessels transiting the Hormuz.

“The international waterway remains open for transit despite recent attacks from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” the statement said.

“Commercial vessels continue to free navigate the strait with U.S. military support.”

Late Thursday, President Donald Trump announced online that damage ships incur while traveling the Strait of Hormuz would be paid by for with the hundreds of millions of dollars in Iranian assets that the United States has frozen via sanctions.

“These damages may be very substantial but, nevertheless, this is the fair and equitable thing to do,” he said in a statement.

Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi lashed out in response online, warning the international community that “Seizing another nation’s assets to pay for unrelated future claims is an incendiary precedent.”

“Those who celebrate or profit from such funds should remember: once governments normalize confiscation, no one’s assets are safe,” he said in a statement.

“Ensuing chaos will not be pretty or peaceful.”

The White House has formally registered its opposition to a move by Congress to block work on the nuclear-powered Trump class battleship unless the U.S. Navy provides assurances that key weapon systems are “sufficiently mature.” The House Armed Services Committee has already demanded a report from the Secretary of the Navy outlining the steps the service is taking to ensure the battleship program won’t exacerbate existing construction delays on aircraft carriers and submarines.

Earlier this week, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a Statement of Administration Policy regarding the latest draft of the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for Fiscal Year 2027 that is now making its way through the House of Representatives. The document offers support for and opposition to various sections of the proposed legislation, which is also known as H.R. 8800.

“The Administration appreciates that H.R. 8800 would provide authorization of the 18 ships requested in the Budget. These ships are a direct commitment to restoring America’s maritime dominance and maritime industrial base,” OMB’s statement, which was published on July 21, declares. “In addition, the Administration appreciates the bill’s support of the Battleship program by fully authorizing the $1 billion in advance procurement necessary to accelerate the delivery to the Fleet.”

“However, the Administration opposes the bill’s excessive reporting requirements in section 131 regarding the Administration’s priority Battleship program,” it continues. “The Administration strongly opposes any reporting requirements that delay the Battleship program without supporting national security requirements.”

On July 21, USNI News also reported that OMB was pressing members of Congress to include funding to start work on the first Trump class battleship in a proposed temporary spending bill, or Continuing Resolution. A temporary funding package could be needed if legislators cannot pass a more formal budget by September 30, when the current fiscal year ends.

When it comes to Section 131 of H.R. 8800, the provision is brief, but pointed. At the time of writing, it reads, in full:

“The Secretary of the Navy may not enter into a contract or other agreement that includes a scope of work for the construction of the lead ship of the Battleship program until the date on which the Secretary certifies to the congressional defense committees that the weapon systems planned for inclusion in such lead ship are at a sufficiently mature technology readiness level.”

The section does not name any particular weapon systems or define what level of technological readiness would be deemed sufficient. To date, the Navy has described the planned Trump class battleship as a 35,000-ton-displacement warship with a diverse array of weapons. The ship is set to be able to fire nuclear and conventional missiles, including hypersonic types, from several very large Vertical Launch System (VLS) arrays. It will also have an electromagnetic railgun, a pair of traditional 5-inch naval guns, various laser directed energy weapons, and additional weapon systems for close-in defense.

TWZ previously reported on this provision, which has been in the proposed legislation since at least May. As we wrote in the past:

“In terms of technological maturity, the railgun presents particular questions. Between 2005 and 2021, the Navy had an active railgun program. Despite promising developments, plans for an at-sea test were repeatedly pushed back before the entire effort was shelved. Major technical hurdles were cited as a key factor in that decision. The railgun itself was effectively placed in storage at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico.“

“However, it emerged earlier this year that the Navy had conducted a new round of testing of the railgun at WSMR in February 2025. Whether the Navy has any plans to pick up where it left off with this prototype design, which was developed by BAE Systems, or pursue a new one remains unclear. General Atomics, which previously supported U.S. Army railgun efforts, has publicly expressed interest in being involved in arming the Trump class.”

“While the Navy has been very active in developing and fielding laser directed energy weapons, this is another area where the service has faced continued challenges in expanding their operational use. The plans for the Trump class specifically call for a 300-kilowatt-class laser, which is far more powerful than any of the designs the Navy has integrated on its warships to date. The service currently has eight Arleigh Burke class destroyers with the Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy (ODIN), as well as another one of those warships with the High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS). HELIOS is a 60-kilowatt-class design, though there has been talk about scaling up its power rating to 150 kilowatts. ODIN’s power rating does not appear to be officially confirmed, but it is understood to be significantly lower than that of HELIOS. You can read more about all of this here.”

“The Intermediate Range Conventional Prompt Strike (IRCPS) hypersonic missile, another key component of the future Trump class arsenal, is also still in development. The first test launch from a warship, the stealth destroyer USS Zumwalt, is expected to come next year. IRCPS is the Navy half of a joint program with the U.S. Army, which is working to field a land-based version of the same missile. The Army refers to its complete weapon system as the Dark Eagle. The Army had suffered significant setbacks in the past with the Dark Eagle, but the service had blamed those issues on the launcher rather than the missile.”

For its part, OMB’s July 21 statement does not respond to any particular concerns that might be raised by Section 131, either.

Section 131 represents just one small portion of the questions, concerns, and criticism that members of Congress have leveled at the Trump class battleship program. The first one of these ships, currently set to be named the USS Defiant, has an estimated price tag of $17 billion. This would make the vessel more expensive than each of the next three Ford class aircraft carriers. The future USS Defiant is also not currently expected to enter service until 2036. The Navy has already outlined plans to order 14 more of these battleships between Fiscal Years 2029 and 2055, as well.

With this in mind, as noted, the House Armed Services Committee has separately asked for a report from the Secretary of the Navy, to be delivered no later than March 1, 2027, on the potential industrial impacts. A particular issue is the strain that work on the Trump class could have on America’s limited nuclear shipbuilding enterprise. Currently, there are only two U.S. shipyards qualified to build nuclear-powered vessels and only one supplier of naval reactors. Currently, the only nuclear-powered ships in the Navy are aircraft carriers and submarines. The service has not operated a nuclear-powered surface combatant in decades, and it has been even longer since one was built in the United States.

TWZ has repeatedly raised questions about the basic industrial capacity to support the battleship program since it was first rolled out to the public in December 2025. It is worth noting here that third, fourth, and fifth Ford class carriers now under construction – the future USS Enterprise (CVN-80), USS Doris Miller (CVN-81), and USS William J. Clinton (CVN-82) – have all suffered delays. Concerns are also regularly voiced about potential setbacks in the construction of new Virginia class and Columbia class submarines. Navy officials have been saying for years now that there is little, if any, margin left in the Columbia class delivery timeline, which is a critical matter of national security. It is essential for those boats to be delivered on a tight schedule to ensure there is no gap in the ability of the leg of America’s nuclear triad to meet operational requirements.

The battleship effort is of particular significance to President Donald Trump and has been presented as a signature program for his administration. At the same time, the schedule that has been laid out so far means that major decisions about how to proceed in acquiring these ships, if at all, will run into the next administration. Any delays will only push that timeline further to the right at a time when there are already major competing priorities for defense spending. Some members of Congress have openly questioned whether the battleship effort is the best use of available resources already.

The annual NDAA is still far from being finalized. The House’s version will need to be reconciled with the one being advanced in the Senate before the bill can be put to a vote, let alone sent to Trump’s desk to be signed into law (or vetoed). This is a process typically marked by lengthy negotiations, and Section 131, as well as other provisions, could change in the future or be removed entirely.

Whether or not a larger political fight around the Trump class battleship emerges remains to be seen. However, OMB has now made clear publicly that the administration is against the inclusion of the guardrails around the program that the current version of H.R. 8800 proposes to establish.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

With existing 10 percent levies set to expire, Trump issues new tariffs on 60 countries under forced labour provision.

President Donald Trump is going ahead with new double-digit tariffs on dozens of trading partners of the United States just as the clock runs out on Friday on stopgap levies he announced after a stinging defeat at the Supreme Court.

The US will slap levies of 10 to 12.5 percent on imports from 60 countries accounting for 99 percent of US imports, charging that they have inadequately enforced bans on goods produced by forced labour.

“The United States has had a forced labor import ban for nearly a century, and rigorously enforces it; it’s well past time for our trading partners to do the same,” US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement on Thursday.

“Today’s action will begin to correct what is both a human rights abuse and distortive trade practice to improve the welfare of workers everywhere.”

The new tariffs will take effect just as the temporary 10 percent worldwide tariffs expire at 12:01am on Friday in Washington, DC (04:01 GMT). Trump had turned to the temporary levies after the Supreme Court struck down his biggest and boldest tariffs in February.

Now he is tapping more durable tariffs under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which permits the president to impose import taxes and other sanctions against countries found to engage in “unjustifiable”, “unreasonable”, or “discriminatory” trade practices.

Trump used Section 301 to impose big tariffs on China in his first term, and they survived court challenges.

More Section 301 tariffs are likely coming: Greer’s office has launched a probe into whether 16 countries — accounting for 70 percent of US imports — have overproduced goods, pushing down prices and putting US companies at a disadvantage in global markets.

The administration has yet to complete that investigation.

Trump, who argues that high tariffs will revive US manufacturing, last year overturned decades of US policy that favoured lower tariffs and freer trade.

Invoking the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), he imposed double-digit tariffs on imports from almost every country, saying that the US’s longstanding trade deficit amounted to a national emergency.

But the Supreme Court ruled that IEEPA did not authorise tariffs. The decision forced the Trump administration to pay refunds to importers that had paid the levies.

In response, Trump announced 10 percent worldwide tariffs under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. But he can only use Section 122 levies for 150 days, and the time runs out on Friday.

A US Democratic Congressman challenges UN Ambassador Mike Waltz during a congressional hearing, playing an Al Jazeera video to question troop safety in Jordan. Some lawmakers do not trust the Trump administration to be open about the danger posed by Iranian strikes on US bases.

White House hails pledge that seeks to shield consumers from the cost of energy for data centres as ‘historic’.

US President Donald Trump’s administration has said it will expand a voluntary pledge seeking to shield consumers from the energy costs of the rapid expansion of data centres, mostly used by artificial intelligence companies.

The White House announced on Thursday that it would add state governors and electricity companies to the agreement, first announced with tech and AI firms in March. But the US administration stopped short of any enforceable protections.

The White House called the expansion of the pledge “historic”, saying 200 additional utilities, data centre developers and states would join it.

The pledge is a “public commitment that hyperscalers, AI companies, and the utilities and data-center developers behind them will build, bring, or buy every kilowatt their facilities need — and cover every dollar of the infrastructure that delivers it”.

It says consumers would not foot the bill for AI’s energy needs.

In remarks about the pledge at the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday, Trump called on the gathered executives and governors to sell the public on data centres, stressing that the cities and towns that have them will be “rich.”

“You have to convince your community. You can’t fight it. You have to go with it,” Trump said.

“If you don’t take all that money, somebody else is going to take it. You might as well do it yourselves.”

The US president has been a strong advocate for AI, which has become an enormous source of investment and a key priority for the country’s powerful tech sector. Trump has approached the sector, which includes some of his close allies, with a light regulatory touch during his second term.

But increased electricity demand from AI data centres could spur an increase in monthly utility bills between 15 and 40 percent by the year 2030, according to an analysis by the consulting and technology services company ICF.

A May Gallup poll suggested that seven out of 10 people in the US oppose the construction of AI data centres in their area, with about 48 percent saying they were strongly opposed. Slightly more than 25 percent said they favoured such efforts, with only 7 percent saying they strongly favoured them.

Concerns over the impact of such centres on the cost of utilities, such as electricity and water, are commonly cited as reasons for opposition, along with quality of life concerns and scepticism about the benefits of AI.

Some elections across the country have seen AI data centre construction emerge as a prominent issue, but the industry has pushed forward with plans to rapidly scale up infrastructure for the technology.

A poll from Johns Hopkins University in June suggested that Americans strongly favour greater regulation of AI, and about 60 percent of respondents said they expected AI to increase inequality over the next decade.

Four in 10 respondents said that AI companies stand to increase their power the most from the expansion of the technology, while just one in 10 said that individuals would gain the most.

Trump says he is considering a ‘massive attack’, as Iran’s Araghchi says ‘mindless aggression’ won’t help a deal.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and other Democratic attorneys general are suing the Trump administration over imposing what they contend are “unlawful” conditions on federal grants intended to help states prepare and respond to disasters.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Rhode Island on Thursday, argues that the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency have been using their control over billions of dollars in federal grants to operate what the attorneys general see as an aggressive “campaign of coercion” to adopt the Trump administration’s preferred voting and immigration policies, according to the complaint.

“Congress never gave DHS or FEMA authority to rewrite state election law, require cooperation with federal immigration agents, or terminate federal funding streams at any time and for any reason,” the lawsuit stated. The legal action was filed by a coalition of 24 attorneys general and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, both Democrats.

A spokesperson for the White House did not respond to a request for comment.

At the crux of their legal complaint are two federal programs: the Homeland Security Grant Program, which was established by Congress as a response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and the Emergency Management Performance Grant Program, which helps states pay for emergency management staff who plan for and respond to natural disasters and mass casualty events, as well as software programs used by state emergency operations centers.

For the homeland security grant, the Trump administration has attached “radical” new terms based on Trump’s preferred policies, the states contend.

These terms include verifying the citizenship of all individuals in state voter databases, transitioning their voting systems to equipment that reads hand-marked paper ballots and conducting post-election audits “according to nonexistent guidelines to be set by the Secretary of Homeland Security,” according to the complaint.

And the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA have threatened to make states “promise to devote their scarce resources to the federal government’s own task of civil immigration enforcement” in order to receive both the homeland security and the emergency management grants, according to the complaint.

At a news conference Thursday, Bonta laid out the stakes.

“These grants help communities prepare for emergencies before disaster strikes,” he said. “They support emergency management personnel, strengthen disaster response capabilities, improve coordination among first responders, and help protect our residents when they need government the most.”

The Trump administration restrictions would mean “our communities would have fewer resources to prepare for wildfires, earthquakes, floods, terrorist threats, and other emergencies,” Bonta stated.

“Time after time, courts have told Trump’s corrupt administration that it can’t coerce California into doing its bidding by threatening to withhold public safety funding,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “Yet, they’re coming back for more. This time they’re demanding states rewrite their own election laws to access money that pays for public safety readiness and response, and that Congress already approved. We simply won’t allow it.”

The U.S. war with Iran escalated again Thursday as Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen attacked two Saudi Araian oil tankers in the Red Sea, causing global oil prices to surge amid fears of yet another vital energy corridor being choked off by the conflict.

The attacks came after the Trump administration threatened additional strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure while pushing a new deal to help Saudi Arabia develop a nuclear energy program of its own. Also Thursday, four Republicans in the U.S. House joined Democrats in a vote to halt the American military campaign absent congressional approval. Senate Republicans blocked a similar measure.

The price of oil hit $100 a barrel for the first time since May, increasing the financial pressure on Americans at the gas pump and the political pressure on President Trump to end a war he promised would last weeks but has persisted for months. At least 18 U.S. service members have died in the war.

The Houthis, who control the populous northwest of Yemen, receive arms and training from Tehran but had remained largely on the sidelines since the U.S. and Israel launched the war. Their latest strikes complicate already fraught negotiations between the U.S. and Iran after the collapse of a ceasefire this month amid renewed hostilities in the Strait of Hormuz, the other major energy passageway choked by the conflict.

The Houthis had this week announced a naval blockade of Saudi ships in the Red Sea, which stretches along Saudi Arabia’s western flank. That blockade centered on the Bab al Mandeb strait, the only southbound route for Saudi tankers headed to Asian markets.

Tanker traffic has already been heavily diminished in the Persian Gulf along Saudi Arabia’s northeast flank and between it and Iran, because of Iran’s threats to vessels traveling through the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia had diverted its oil exports to its Red Sea ports and out the Bab al Mandeb, dispatching some 4.5 million barrels via that route per day.

In a social media post Thursday, Trump said that if the Houthis continue attacking ships in the Red Sea, the U.S. “will hold Iran responsible” because the Houthis are an Iranian proxy, and inflict “major military punishment” on the Houthis and Iran.

He said he was “very disappointed” in the Houthis, “in that they have, until now, acted very professionally and smart” amid the Iran war.

At a later event Thursday, Trump said the U.S. is “doing extremely well” against Iran, which he accused of having “evil intentions.”

Democrats in the House and Senate cited the war’s spread to the Red Sea as yet another reason that Congress should act to pass a war powers measure to halt the president’s military campaign. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who led the unsuccessful effort in the Senate, cited the expansion while recalling how Trump had claimed victory in Iran as far back as March.

“If we won back in March, why are more Americans getting killed in July? If we won back in March, why is the Strait of Hormuz closed? If we won back in March, why is the war expanding as Houthis attack ships transiting the Bab al Mandeb strait in the Red Sea? If we won back in March, why are oil and gas prices and diesel prices shooting through the roof again, imposing costs on every American family?” Van Hollen said. “Is that their definition of winning?”

The Houthis’ military spokesman, Yahya al-Sarea, said the group’s forces conducted “a qualitative military operation” targeting two Saudi oil tankers with missiles and drones for what he said were violations of the Houthis’ blockade on the Red Sea.

The Houthis have accused Saudi Arabia of imposing a blockade on airports and seaports in northwestern Yemen, where most of the country’s population lives and which the Houthis otherwise control. They also blamed Saudi Arabia for an attack this month on Sanaa’s airport to prevent the landing of a plane carrying a Houthi delegation returning from the funeral of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed at the start of the war.

Al-Sarea said that in addition to striking the two tankers, the Houthis forced 10 other ships to turn back from their passage, will “continue their naval operations against the Saudi enemy” and will “continue imposing the equation of blockade against blockade.”

The escalation of the war — and the shock wave it sent through global energy markets — added to regional uncertainty already being stoked by the Trump administration’s announcement Wednesday that it had agreed to work with Saudi Arabia to develop a civilian nuclear program.

That announcement, after years of U.S. attempts to block nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, sparked widespread concern in Washington, where lawmakers will vote on the deal, and in Israel, which has long feared a nuclear arms race in the region.

Trump administration officials said the deal would “uphold the highest standards of nuclear safety and nonproliferation,” with American firms developing the program. But they provided few details, and questions immediately arose about the absence of clear inspection protocols or any requirement that Saudi Arabia first normalize diplomatic relations with Israel.

On Thursday, Trump said the deal would be conditioned on Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords and establishing diplomatic ties with Israel. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later said that Trump had not talked to Saudi leaders since making that condition public, but that they would have to agree to it or “the deal is off.”

Leavitt said that Trump had raised the matter with Saudi leaders in the past, and that it is something Trump “feels very strongly about.”

Asked whether Israel pressured the president to impose the condition, Leavitt said, “Not to my knowledge.”

Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Congress that the Iran war has already cost the U.S. $37.5 billion. House Republicans on Wednesday pushed through a $1.15-trillion defense policy bill to fund the war moving forward. Most Democrats voted against the measure in protest of the war, and it faces stiff opposition in the Senate.

Trump in recent days has tried to deny polls showing plummeting support for the war among Americans. On Wednesday, before attending the dignified transfer of the bodies of U.S. service members killed in the war to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Trump claimed Americans don’t want high gas prices but “aren’t against the war.”

On Tuesday, Trump posted statistics showing that more U.S. service members died in past wars, which Democrats denounced as disrespectful to those killed in the current conflict.

The Houthis seized control of the Yemeni capital in 2014, along with much of Yemen’s populous northwest. Their advance triggered a devastating Saudi-led campaign to dislodge them. Since 2022, the two sides have been in a stalemate, though tensions have been rising again in recent months.

Mohammed al-Basha, founder of the Basha Report, a U.S. risk advisory firm focused on the Middle East and Africa, said the Houthis’ latest escalation comes as their influence is growing because of the increased importance of Bab al Mandeb while the Strait of Hormuz is choked off by Iran.

“This is their moment, because with everything happening in the Strait of Hormuz, Bab al Mandeb quadrupled in importance. By exerting maximum pressure in this period, they can maximize the effect of any kinetic action they’re trying to do,” Al-Basha said.

“Their narrative is very aggressive. They want war. And they feel that because they want war and sense that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia don’t, that they will submit to their demands.”

The US president’s threat comes after another day of Iranian attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan.

United States President Donald Trump says he may launch the largest strikes on Iran yet after Tehran carried out another wave of retaliatory attacks on US allies in the Gulf, including hitting a telecommunications tower in Kuwait.

In remarks to US news website Axios on Thursday, Trump said he was “considering a massive attack” that would be “bigger than ever before”.

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

The threat raises the stakes yet again in a weeks-long military confrontation in which the US has attacked Iran for 12 straight nights, including hitting bridges and tunnels, according to Iranian media reports.

Iran’s retaliatory attacks have rippled throughout much of the Gulf, sparking fears of a worsening energy crisis.

The spiralling conflict has all but destroyed an interim peace deal signed by the US and Iran last month.

‘Eye for an eye’

Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi warned on Wednesday that Tehran would retaliate “an eye for an eye” against any future attacks, including those on Iran’s infrastructure.

After another night of US attacks on Wednesday, Iran responded with missile and drone attacks on Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait on Thursday.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said the attacks in Jordan and Kuwait targeted and hit US military assets.

The IRGC also acknowledged attacking a telecommunications tower in Kuwait, saying it was in retaliation for US attacks on telecommunications towers in Iran.

In a statement addressing the Kuwaiti people directly, the IRGC insisted that the US, not Iran, had breached the Gulf state’s “territorial integrity and sovereignty”.

Later on Thursday, Kuwait said that its Abdali border crossing with Iraq had also come under attack by “hostile drones”.

“The armed forces’ retaliatory attacks will continue as long as the US attacks on the country’s infrastructure and coastal areas continue,” said the Iranian army’s spokesperson, Mohammad Akraminia.

Houthis attack Saudi tankers

Meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthi rebels further expanded the confrontation on Thursday by firing at two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea, leading to broad international condemnation and a spike in global oil prices.

“The situation is getting out of control. It is teetering on the edge of the unimaginable,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a meeting of the Security Council. “One crisis feeds another. One escalation triggers the next.”

The Houthis have declared a blockade of Saudi Arabian ports, destabilising a second key global shipping route: the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively shut since the US and Israel launched the war on Iran in late February.

Reporting from Sanaa, Yemen, Al Jazeera’s Yousef Mawry cited Houthi sources as saying that the facilities of Saudi Arabia’s national oil company Aramco “could become a future target” of the Houthis if Riyadh does not lift its own blockade on Houthi-controlled ports.

The international oil benchmark Brent crude surged past $100 a barrel on Thursday for the first time in May, in what analysts said could have an even greater impact on the global economy.

“Much of the world’s spare production capacity has already been used, while strategic and commercial oil inventories are lower than when the war began, leaving the market with fewer buffers against a prolonged supply disruption,” said Janiv Shah, vice president of the Rystad Energy consultancy.

WASHINGTON — The Dodgers arrived at the White House on Thursday to celebrate their 2025 World Series championship following an invitation from President Trump.

The ceremony took place in the Rose Garden, with manager Dave Roberts selected to give a speech on behalf of the team.

It was the back-to-back champions’ second visit in as many years, but this trip came with scheduling complications. The timing for a visit didn’t work out when the Dodgers were in town to play the Nationals in April for a day-game laden series. So, they used their single off day on a three-city East Coast trip to make a pit stop in Washington, wedging the visit between games against the Phillies and Mets.

The decision to again visit the White House raised debate among Dodgers fans, who argue Trump’s anti-immigration policies have harmed many of the team’s supporters. But Roberts has continually tried to downplay the political messaging associated with the visit.

Mookie Betts and Kiké Hernández did not join the team for the visit, with Betts telling reporters he preferred to spend the day with his family and Hernandez saying he had a rehab assignment conflict but wouldn’t have joined the team if he was available. Hernández previously offered his support to fans affected by ICE raids in Los Angeles, while Betts said he didn’t want his decision to be viewed as political.

The Dodgers donated more than $1 million to local organizations assisting those affected by the ICE raids.

“This took a long time to get both sides together, and, honestly, like I’ve always said, my company line, my personal line is I hope that we get this invitation every year,” Roberts said when the trip was finalized this month. “Because that’s the goal: to win a championship, to get this invitation to the White House. And I’m not a politician, and I’m doing something that teams have done for decades. And so that’s where I stand, really. I’m a baseball coach. That’s what I do.”

The visit falls days after Bloomberg reported that two insurance companies controlled by Dodgers chairman Mark Walter, as well as Guggenheim Partners, where Walter is chief executive, are being investigated by federal prosecutors for potential financial improprieties.

No charges have been filed. Representatives from the parent company of the insurance firms as well as from TWC Global — the Walter business empire that controls his sporting investments, including the Dodgers and Lakers — have told reporters they are cooperating with the investigation.

Withdrawal is latest instance of government’s efforts to crack down on critical media facing setbacks in court.

Attorneys for the United States government have withdrawn subpoenas seeking to compel three New York Times reporters to testify about their sources for a story about an Air Force One jet gifted to US President Donald Trump by Qatar.

Judge Arun Subramanian slammed the government’s lawyers for what he deemed sloppy legal work in an exchange in court on Thursday.

“Subpoenas are not the first thing you do; they are the last thing you do,” an irritated Subramanian said.

“When you see something like this, if this were a civil proceeding, what I would normally do is ask the parties to show causes why sanctions should not be issued,” he added.

The Trump administration had sought to keep the proceedings secret as it pressured the reporters to reveal their sources for a story, a request that raised alarms for US press freedoms as the president and his allies continue to aggressively target critical media and political opponents.

Such efforts, however, have largely been rejected in court. The US government recently withdrew similar subpoenas that sought to compel testimony from reporters with the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.

Lawyers for the New York Times challenged the legitimacy of the grand jury subpoenas along with subpoenas for the phone records of several journalists and their relatives. The paper’s managing editor and general counsel sat in the gallery during proceedings on Thursday.

The government has said that it is pursuing those who have leaked material to reporters for a story about Trump taking an older model Air Force One jet back from a summit in Turkiye, rather than the one gifted from Qatar.

The Secret Service reportedly advised that the new jet, which the government has spent $400m to retrofit and upgrade, lacks important security features such as antimissile capabilities.

“Reporters are not the targets; those leaking classified information are,” the Department of Justice said of the subpoena requests.

Obtaining information from government sources is a cornerstone of journalism, and national security reporting in particular and is considered essential to press freedom. Efforts by the US government under both Democratic and Republican administrations to compel reporters to disclose their sources have been viewed as an effort to weaken those protections.