U.S.

March 11 (UPI) — The British Cabinet Office has released files from its investigation into former ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson on Wednesday as it digs into his ties to deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

The first batch of documents revealed that Mandelson may have been briefed on classified information before being given security clearance when he was appointed as ambassador. They also show that he requested a large government payout when he was terminated last year.

Mandelson was arrested and then released last month in London over suspicion of misconduct in public office. The allegation stems from emails released in the Epstein files in which Mandelson appears to be sharing market-sensitive confidential information with Epstein.

Documents released by the Cabinet Office share some details after his appointment as ambassador in December 2024. Within days of his being appointed, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office offered to brief Mandelson on highly classified information while he was still being vetted.

Emails about the briefing were shared Dec. 23, 2024, about three days after the announcement of Mandelson’s appointment. It was not until Jan. 30, 2025, that Mandelson received an email confirming that he had cleared the vetting process.

It was in this email that he received a formal offer of employment.

When Mandelson was terminated from his position in September, he requested to be paid the full amount on his contract — more than 500,000 euros or $578,625. Instead, he was paid 75,000 euros or $86,793.75 to terminate the contract.

“As the documents show regarding his severance payment, Peter Mandelson initially requested a sum that was substantially larger than the final payment, not just two or even three times, but more than six times the final amount,” said Darren Jones, chief secretary to the prime minister at the Cabinet office.

“Despite the fact that he was withdrawn from Washington because he had lost the confidence of the prime minister, the government obviously found that to be inappropriate and unacceptable.”

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.

March 11 (UPI) — A bipartisan group of senators penned a letter to the Government Accountability Office on Wednesday calling for an investigation into the Justice Department over its handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files release.

The letter accuses the Justice Department of noncompliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the bipartisan law overwhelmingly passed by both chambers of Congress last year. The lawmakers shared concern that the department has still not released all of the files it is required to by the law, despite a December deadline.

Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, signed the letter. They also shared concerns about the files that have been released, including victims’ names not being redacted and alleged coconspirators’ names being redacted.

The Government Accountability Office is an independent and nonpartisan agency in the legislative branch. Its purpose is to operate as a watchdog over the federal government, with the authority to investigate and perform audits.

“Contrary to Congress’s explicit directive to protect victims, these records included email addresses and nude photos in which the names and faces of publicly-identified and non-public victims could be identified,” the letter said. “But when it came to information identifying powerful business and political figures who are alleged coconspirators or material witnesses, DOJ appears to have heavily redacted those.”

The senators are requesting that Comptroller General Orice Williams Brown reviews the department’s process it used to review, redact and release the files. They specify that they want the Government Accountability Office to investigate whether the release of the files “has serve to cover up child sexual abuse.”

The Epstein files have continued to be a source of contention between lawmakers and the Trump administration more than two months after the Justice Department was required by law to release the files.

Lawmakers have pushed for answers about the delayed and mistake-filled release from Attorney General Pam Bondi, leading to fiery exchanges in a House Judiciary Committee hearing last month.

The House Oversight Committee issued a subpoena for Bondi’s testimony last week. Five Republicans joined all of the Democrats in the committee in voting for the subpoena.

“This horrific scandal is one where powerful, wealthy men groomed, abused, and raped young women, men, and children,” the letter from the senators reads. “It is critical to understand what led to DOJ’s failure to redact the victims; information and re-victimize those individuals while violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act in its redactions of information related to their alleged abusers.”

When Brazilian journalist Tatiana Merlino watched “The Secret Agent” — one of this year’s Oscar nominees for best picture — it felt like seeing scattered scenes from her own life.

As the movie follows Marcelo (played by Wagner Moura) — a professor fleeing from a vindictive businessman during Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964-1985), the story skims through old audio tapes and newspapers, reviewed by a researcher looking into how he died. Like her, Merlino also dug into the past to piece together how her uncle, Luiz Eduardo Merlino, a communist activist, was killed by the right-wing regime in 1971. Though it was initially reported as a suicide, the family soon found his corpse with torture marks in a morgue.

“It became necessary to fight for memory, truth, and justice, because these crimes committed by dictatorship agents weren’t punished at that time, and have not been to this day,” says the 49-year-old journalist, who first saw “The Secret Agent” in São Paulo, and made a career from investigating human rights abuses.

“When a country does not come to terms with its past,” she adds, “its ghosts resurface.”

Recent dictatorship-themed movies like “The Secret Agent” and “I’m Still Here,” which won the Oscar for best international film in 2025, were instant blockbusters back home in Brazil. While both films honor those who, like Merlino, still seek justice for the regime victims, their popularity also got boosted by the country’s zeitgeist.

To many Brazilians, these movies served as reminders of what could have been had former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, himself a retired Army captain and a dictatorship nostalgic, succeeded in his 2022 attempt at a coup d’etat.

On Jan. 8, 2023, encouraged by Bolsonaro, hundreds of vandals stormed into the Three Powers Plaza, a square in the country’s capital, Brasília, that gathers the congress, the supreme court and the presidential palace. Neither he nor the vandals accepted the 2022 election — won by the veteran leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, better known as “Lula.”

The uprising followed the same blueprint as the pro-Trump rioters behind the Jan. 6 insurrection in the United States. Although President Trump himself was federally prosecuted for election obstruction, the case was dismissed after his reelection in 2024.

Unlike the U.S., however, Brazil has charged, judged and arrested the conspirators — including Bolsonaro and members of his staff who participated in the coup plot.

“Bolsonaro doesn’t come from Mars,” said “The Secret Agent” star Wagner Moura to the L.A. Times in February. “He’s deeply grounded in the history of the country.”

In 1964, a U.S.-backed coup enacted a violent, 21-year autocracy run by the military, whose effects still resonate today, says Alessandra Gasparotto, a professor at the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPEL).

“It was a dictatorship that worked from a perspective of building certain legitimacy, keeping the congress functioning, but of course, after purging dissent,” explains the Brazilian historian.

“I’m Still Here,” for example, dramatizes the real-life quest of Eunice Paiva, a housewife whose husband Rubens Paiva, a former leftist congressman who had his tenure revoked after the coup, then disappeared in the hands of the military in 1971. To this day, his body still hasn’t been recovered.

In 2014, Bolsonaro, then just a congressman, spit on a bust of Paiva erected to honor his memory during the coup’s 50th anniversary in Congress.

“The cinema of all countries has the role of preserving memory, so if you take a look at the Holocaust, the American Civil War, or World War II movies, it has this role of almost an ally of history,” says writer Marcelo Rubens Paiva, son of Rubens Paiva and author of the book from which “I’m Still Here” is based. “There’s an old saying: History is the narrative of winners, while art is of the defeated.”

In the case of Brazil, the militaries who led the repressive apparatus of the dictatorship got away with torture and murder through a 1979 amnesty law. It was initially enacted to pardon alleged “political crimes” committed by the regime opposition and allow a transition to democracy — but it was also used to pardon the dictatorship’s human rights violations. Then, in the late 1980s, the military oversaw a slow, gradual shift to democracy, stepping down from power only in 1985.

“This new republic had more continuity than novelty, since many politicians who were central to the dictatorship moved to central roles in the democratic government,” explains Gasparotto. “That’s why they built this pact [to forgive the regime’s crimes].”

For that reason, these movies still feel contemporary. “The Secret Agent,” for example, blends past and future through the records analyzed by a researcher, while “I’m Still Here” highlights Eunice Paiva’s post-regime fight for the recognition of Rubens Paiva’s death; without any corpse to officialize his death, he was just deemed disappeared.

When Merlino watched the movie, for example, Eunice reminded her of her grandmother, Iracema Merlino.

“I’m the third generation of my family fighting for memory, truth and justice,” says Merlino. “It started with my grandmother, who passed away, then it was handed to my mother, who’s now very ill, then to me.”

Nowadays, she awaits trial for the third lawsuit attempt of the family to hold her uncle’s torturer, Col. Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, accountable — the two other cases against the accused were dismissed over the years.

Since Ustra’s death in 2015, the Merlino family is now suing his estate for reparations. Yet he still remains a hero to some; in 2016, while Bolsonaro was still a congressman, he shouted a dedication to the memory of the torturer during the voting of the impeachment of Brazil’s former President Dilma Rousseff — herself one of the victims of Ustra in the 1970s, but among the few who survived.

“These films make connections with the present because understanding the past is important for understanding today’s contradictions,” says Marcelo Rubens Paiva. “What happened before interferes in the conflicts a country lives in today.”

So if authoritarians like Bolsonaro don’t come out of the blue, the same goes for other autocratic leaders, like President Trump.

Although founded on democratic principles, the U.S. itself has a long, muddled history with the concept. The authoritarian turn the country is reckoning with is part of a long legacy of inequality that stemmed from the 246-year institution of slavery. Following its abolishment in 1865 came a near-centurylong period of tension marked by racial segregation that we now refer to as “Jim Crow.”

“With some exceptions, the South was governed by a then-segregationist Democrat party — with [rampant] electoral fraud, authoritarianism, use of local police for political repression, and no chance for opposition, even [by] moderates,” says Arthur Avila, a history professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in Brazil.

Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ended segregation and granted voting rights to people of all races — signed by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson, a Southern Democrat who broke away from the party’s history to spearhead progressive domestic policy — the decades that followed were ridden with manipulations of the electoral system. For example gerrymandering, or the practice of manipulating electoral district boundaries to favor one political party, is an ongoing, albeit controversial tactic among both Democrats and Republicans.

President Trump himself was federally prosecuted for election obstruction. The indictment alleged that, upon losing the 2020 election, Trump conspired to overturn the results and manipulate the public by spreading false claims of election fraud on social media. It argued that this, in turn, stoked a mob of his supporters into leading the deadly Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol; but the case was dismissed upon his reelection in 2024.

In the lead-up to the midterm elections in November, Trump has pushed for federal control over elections, restrictions on mail-in voting and the addition of citizenship documents to vote, despite an existing federal law that already prohibits noncitizens from voting in U.S. elections. (He tried implementing the latter through an executive order in 2025, but it was permanently blocked by a federal court; a voter ID bill called the “SAVE America Act” is currently stalling in the Senate.)

“There’s a strong local authoritarian tradition in the U.S. that Trump himself feeds from,” says Avila.

Besides that, according to Avila, the country faces a growing “de-democratization” process from within. This shows in the rising control and dismantling of institutions by reactionary sectors — including efforts to block professional, educational and athletic programs promoting DEI, or diversity, equity and inclusion — from what many critics and scholars have cited as lingering resentment from desegregation, he says.

“We may see it as a slow authoritarian turn in North American politics that didn’t overturn the democratic regime yet,” Arthur considers. “But if this process goes on, and that’s a conjecture, in the next decade the U.S. may become a state of exception that keeps democratic appearances but has been stripped of any democracy’s substance whatsoever.”

As movies such as “The Secret Agent and “I’m Still Here” remind us, a great deal of maintaining a democracy has to do with keeping a good memory.

March 11 (UPI) — The United States resumed Global Entry, a program that allows trusted travelers to quickly get through U.S. customs, on Wednesday after a short break.

The service began again at 5 a.m. EDT Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security said.

“We are working hard to alleviate the disruptions to travelers caused by the Democrats’ shutdown,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement.

The program was suspended to preserve staff and resources during the partial government shutdown that began Jan. 31. When it was announced, the department said it would also suspend TSA PreCheck, which allows low-risk travelers to speed through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints, but quickly reversed course on that decision.

Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, said the organization was pleased with the decision.

“Over the last two weeks, the travel industry has been clear about the role programs like Global Entry and TSA PreCheck play in both security and efficiency,” Freeman said in a statement. “Through outreach to members of Congress and administration officials, collaboration across the travel sector and strong public engagement, we highlighted a simple reality: Trusted Traveler Programs enhance security while keeping travel moving.”

Travelers at airports have seen long lines for TSA checkpoints, some lasting several hours with lines stretching out onto sidewalks.

The DHS, which includes TSA, is shut down because Congress couldn’t agree on a funding bill for the department. Democrats don’t want to fund it until guardrails are put on the agency, and Republicans haven’t agreed to Democrats’ demands.

Because of this, TSA workers got a partial paycheck on Feb. 28 and will miss their first full check Saturday. There have been more work absences while staff are not getting paid, which slows the TSA lines at major airports.

South Korea said it remains capable of deterring threats from North Korea even if the United States redeploys some weapons stationed on the Korean peninsula to the Middle East amid the war involving Iran.

The comments by South Korean President Lee Jae Myung come after reports that key U.S. missile defence systems and military assets could be moved from Asia to support operations linked to the Iran conflict.

The potential redeployment has sparked concern among Asian allies that shifting military resources could weaken regional deterrence against China and North Korea at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions.

Seoul Says Deterrence Remains Strong

Speaking at a cabinet meeting, Lee acknowledged that reports about the relocation of U.S. military equipment had triggered controversy in South Korea.

He said that while Seoul had expressed opposition to the removal of certain weapons, it could not dictate U.S. military decisions.

However, Lee emphasised that South Korea’s own defence capabilities are strong enough to maintain deterrence against North Korea even if some American systems are temporarily relocated. He noted that South Korea’s defence spending and conventional military strength significantly exceed those of the North.

South Korea hosts about 28,500 U.S. troops as part of the long-standing alliance designed to deter aggression from nuclear-armed North Korea.

Missile Defence Systems May Be Redeployed

Officials have indicated that the U.S. and South Korean militaries are discussing the possible redeployment of Patriot missile defense system batteries to the Middle East.

South Korean media reported that some missile batteries may have already been shipped from Osan Air Base and could be redeployed to U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

There were also reports that parts of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system could be moved from South Korea to the Middle East.

While Patriot systems provide lower-tier defence against shorter-range missiles, THAAD systems are designed to intercept ballistic missiles at high altitude.

United States Forces Korea declined to comment on the possible relocation of equipment, citing operational security.

Analysts Warn of Miscalculation Risks

Military analysts say that although South Korea possesses strong military capabilities, the presence of U.S. forces and weapons in the country serves as a crucial signal of Washington’s commitment to the region.

According to Choi Gi-il, a military studies professor at Sangji University, the removal of some systems could carry strategic risks.

He warned that North Korea might interpret the redeployment as a weakening of allied defences and could attempt limited provocations to test the alliance’s response.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has recently signalled a more aggressive posture, pledging to expand the country’s nuclear arsenal and describing South Korea as its “most hostile enemy.”

Wider Regional Impact

The redeployment of U.S. assets reflects the broader strategic impact of the Iran conflict on global military posture.

Japan, which also hosts major U.S. bases, has seen two U.S. guided-missile destroyers stationed in Yokosuka deployed to the Arabian Sea to support operations linked to the Iran campaign.

The movements have raised concerns in Tokyo as well, with opposition politicians questioning whether U.S. forces stationed in Japan should be used for operations outside the region.

The developments highlight how the conflict in the Middle East is beginning to reshape global military deployments, drawing resources away from Asia and prompting questions about the balance of security commitments across different regions.

With information from Reuters.

WASHINGTON — Attorneys for a Sacramento DACA recipient who was deported to Mexico last month have filed a lawsuit against the federal government seeking her immediate return to the U.S.

Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez, 42, was detained Feb. 18 during a scheduled interview for her green card application. She was deported to Mexico the next day, despite having active deportation protection through the Obama-era program Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

According to the lawsuit, Estrada Juarez, who worked as a regional manager for Motel 6, was deported without being provided notice of a lawful removal order and without the opportunity to fight her case before an immigration judge.

“Maria’s deportation was unlawful and violated basic principles of due process,” said her attorney Stacy Tolchin. “She had a valid DACA status, she appeared for her immigration appointment as instructed, and she should never have been removed from the country.”

Estrada Juarez’s case garnered public attention and outrage from members of Congress, including Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), after being published in the Sacramento Bee.

According to her lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday,it’s unclear whether an order for her removal was ever issued. And even if one was issued, the complaint says, “Petitioner could not legally be removed from the United States while in DACA status.”

The complaint states that the one document Estrada Juarez received was a verification of her physical removal from the U.S. — not a removal order. The document states that she is barred from returning to the U.S. for 10 years because she had been ordered removed by an immigration judge.

The lawsuit calls that contention untrue — Estrada Juarez has never been in removal proceedings and has never seen an immigration judge. Her arrest at her immigration interview was the first time she learned she had been ordered removed in 1998.

The Department of Homeland Security told The Times that a judge had ordered Estrada Juarez’s deportation in 1998 “and she was removed from the United States shortly after.”

“She illegally re-entered the U.S. — a felony,” Homeland Security said. “She was arrested and her final order re-instated. ICE removed her from the U.S. on February 19, 2026.”

In 2014, Estrada Juarez went to Mexico using a travel permission for DACA recipients known as advance parole. She reentered the U.S. legally on Dec. 28, 2014.

According to the lawsuit, “reinstatement of removal requires an illegal reentry, and Petitioner’s last entry was on advance parole so would not fall under that ground.”

The lawsuit includes an emergency request for the federal government to facilitate Estrada Juarez’s return while the case is pending.

Estrada Juarez applied for legal permanent residency, or a green card, through her daughter, Damaris Bello, 22, a U.S. citizen. Her DACA status is valid until April 23, according to the lawsuit, and she has a pending renewal application.

Estrada Juarez said the U.S., where she lived for 27 years since her arrival at age 15, is the only home she has ever known.

“I followed the rules and showed up to my immigration appointment believing I was taking the next step toward stability,” she said. “Instead, I was taken away from my daughter and forced out of the country overnight.”

HOUSTON — Kyle Teel, Sam Antonacci and Jac Caglianone homered as Italy built a big lead and held on to stun the United States 8-6 Tuesday night in the World Baseball Classic.

The U.S. is done with pool play at Houston’s Daikin Park and needs the Italians to beat Mexico Wednesday night to be guaranteed a spot in the quarterfinals. If Mexico beats Italy, the three teams will be knotted at 3-1 and the winners will be determined by a tiebreaker, with the team that allowed the most runs eliminated.

Italy starter Michael Lorenzen allowed two hits in 4 2/3 scoreless innings to keep the Americans off balance.

Pete Crow-Armstrong homered twice and drove in four runs, and Gunnar Henderson added a solo shot for the U.S., but the rally came up short when Greg Weissert struck out Aaron Judge with a runner on to end it.

Crow-Armstrong’s second homer, a shot to the second deck in right field, cut the lead to 8-6 with one out in the ninth. Bobby Witt Jr. singled and Henderson struck out before Judge whiffed to start the Italian celebration.

The U.S. was down by 8-1 with two out in the seventh when Crow-Armstrong hit a majestic three-run homer to right field.

Kyle Schwarber and Will Smith hit back-to-back singles with two out in the eighth before Roman Anthony’s RBI single on a line drive to left field. But Ron Marinaccio retired pinch-hitter Bryce Harper on a fly ball to end the inning.

Teel’s home run to the Crawford boxes in left field gave Italy an early lead with two out in the third. McLean then plunked Caglianone before Antonacci’s homer to the bullpen in right-center made it 3-0.

Caglianone’s two-run shot off Ryan Yarbrough pushed the lead to 5-0 with no outs in the fourth.

The Italians added a run on an error, another on a sacrifice fly and a third on a wild pitch by Brad Keller to push the lead to 8-0 in a sloppy sixth by the U.S.

The U.S. finally got on the board with Henderson’s homer in the sixth.

March 10 (UPI) — President Donald Trump posted on social media that the United States has destroyed 10 inactive mine-laying vessels on the Strait of Hormuz while the White House cleared up a claim by another administration official.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that the U.S. Navy did not escort an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz after Energy Secretary Chris Wright claimed it did on social media.

Leavitt said President Donald Trump may consider using Navy escorts for oil tankers on the strait but that has not happened yet.

“The U.S. Navy has not escorted a tanker or vessel at this time,” Leavitt told reporters during a press briefing Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, Wright posted that the U.S. Navy “successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz to ensure oil remains flowing to global markets.”

Leavitt said she was “made aware of this post,” but had not spoken with Wright about it.

The post was later taken down.

The price of crude oil fell below $80 per barrel briefly following Wright’s post. It climbed again after the post was deleted.

Iran has taken measures to close the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil trade route, since the United States and Israel launched strikes on Feb. 28.

To combat the impact the military conflict with Iran will have on the global oil market, the United States has discussed plans to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. However, retaliatory strikes by Iran have demanded more military resources, Wright previously said.

March 10 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of Defense estimates that about 140 U.S. troops have been wounded since the United States began its military operation against Iran last month.

The injuries are in addition to seven U.S. service members who have been killed in retaliatory strikes by Iran. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement that a “vast majority” of those wounded have suffered “minor” injuries.

Of about 140 injured, 108 returned to duty.

“Eight service members remain listed as severely injured and are receiving the highest level of medical care,” Parnell said.

White House Press Secretary said earlier Tuesday that about 150 troops have been injured in combat.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he expects the war to end “very soon” but added that he seeks to “end this long-running danger once and for all.”

“We’re achieving major strides toward completing our military objective,” Trump said Monday.

In the two days after the United States launched its first strike on Iran, the Pentagon spent $5.6 billion worth of resources. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Tuesday morning that “Today will be, yet again, our most intense day of strikes inside Iran.”

United States Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has said that today will be “the most intense day of strikes,” as the U.S. and Israeli militaries increase their attacks on Iran. Meanwhile, Hegseth said that, in the last 24 hours, Iran has launched its lowest number of weapons since the conflict began, suggesting that these strikes are starting to more significantly erode Tehran’s ability to hit back at Israel, U.S. interests in the Middle East, and the wider region.

Hegseth said that the aftermath of the conflict is “going to be in America’s interests” and says it “will not live under a nuclear blackmail” from Iran.

Among the U.S. assets involved in the recent strikes is the Arleigh Burke class destroyer USS Frank E. Petersen Jr., seen firing a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile at Iran yesterday.

The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford is reportedly on the move. Based on open-source flight tracking data, the supercarrier is apparently now operating in the central Red Sea, off the coast of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. This suggests that the carrier strike group is heading closer to the theater of combat. Whether it will pass the Bab El Mandeb Strait, which the Iranian proxies in Yemen can put under threat, is yet to be seen.

According to The Washington Post, citing U.S. officials, the U.S. military expended munitions to the value of $5.6 billion in only the first two days of its attack on Iran. Statistics like these have raised questions about how fast some of the Pentagon’s most valuable stockpiles of weapons — including Tomahawk cruise missiles — have been eroded, and the capacity of the defense industry to make good the deficit.

Further U.S. long-range strike firepower has arrived at RAF Fairford in England, where another three B-1B bombers touched down today. These join three more B-1s that arrived on Friday and Saturday, as well as three B-52Hs that landed at the airbase yesterday, as you can read about here. As we have discussed repeatedly in recent weeks, having the bombers forward deployed to England and/or Diego Garcia will drastically increase sortie rates and decrease wear-and-tear on the bomber fleet compared to flying from U.S. airbases and back. This will become even more relevant if the bomber force shifts from making standoff strikes to direct attacks on Iranian targets, even if just over limited parts of the country where air supremacy is more guaranteed.

March 10 (UPI) — The average price of a gallon of unleaded gas in the United States hit $3.54 on Tuesday as the Trump administration continues military action against Iran.

AAA reports the current average price for fuel is higher across all grades than it was a year ago. Diesel fuel is up more than 10 cents over Monday’s average, reaching $4.78 per gallon.

Prices are highest on the West Coast, as they typically are, with the highest average cost of a gallon of unleaded gas at $5.29 in California.

Tuesday’s average price marks the highest gas prices have been since July 2024.

Gas prices spiked following bombings in Iran by Israel and the United States on Feb. 28. On Feb. 26, the average price per gallon was $2.98 after months of mild fluctuation.

The price of a barrel of crude oil jumped from $91 to $116 on Sunday.

President Donald Trump urged that the increase in oil prices is temporary and a “small price to pay,” in a post on social media.

Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial route in the oil trade, due to the ongoing conflict with the United States and Israel. About 20% of the world’s oil is shipped through the strait.

Trump told CBS News that he “has thought about taking [the Strait of Hormuz] over.”

Rising gas prices have caused concern for Republicans on Capitol Hill. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he hopes to see “things can resume some sense of normalcy in that region in terms of shipping lanes.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has been more skeptical about the president’s strategy with Iran and its impact on oil prices.

“For heaven’s sakes, are you telling me you didn’t game this one out?” Murkowski told Punchbowl News. “I’m starting to think they didn’t game this one out.”

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Patrick Halgren, the self-proclaimed “rock star” of the Milan Cortina Paralympics, said he could feel the presence of his late twin brother in his silver medal-winning Para alpine ski run on Monday.

“He made this happen for real. He is the ski god and he has blessed me with speed today,” Halgren said of his brother Lucas Sven Halgren.

Lucas Sven died in a motorcycle accident in New Zealand in 2016, three years after Patrick nearly died and lost most of his left leg in another motorcycle accident.

Patrick has been plastering blue-and-yellow stickers that read “ SvendIt ” around Cortina d’Ampezzo, a play on “send-it,” which is Patrick’s mantra on life and a reference to his brother who went by Sven.

“He’s the reason I’m here. I’m just a vessel to cram love and combat hate down your throats. He inspired me to live life, but life is fragile. You can die,” Patrick said. “It’s all for him. It’s for my family. It’s for the people that have struggled. He’s dead. I’m here living, talking to you guys. I’m going to have who knows how many women and champagne after this. He liked that, too, but he doesn’t get that, and I do. I recognize that.”

Halgren celebrated in front of his parents, Peter and Kathy, which he said was “pretty cool.”

“But also, it sucks not having Sven here, so ups and downs,” the 33-year-old Halgren said after winning his first medal in his second Paralympics appearance.

“They went to Tijuana, Mexico, for their honeymoon 50 years ago. They picked up their dead kid in New Zealand, and they’ve watched me win the Paralympics at the most beautiful ski valley in the world,” Halgren told the Olympics website. “This is a surreal moment for them. This is an experience that will create a memory lasting a lifetime and such a good moment.”

Halgren said it was Sven who steered him to Para alpine skiing after the 2013 crash that nearly killed him and resulted in the above-the-knee amputation of his left leg.

“I died myself. I was in a coma for a month. I died four times,” he said. “They used a defibrillator to start my heart. Blood transfusion. I get it, and I’m lucky that I have that because I know what it’s like. Not many people do.”

Now it’s hard not to miss Halgren, and not only because of his long braids that are dyed red, white and blue. Always entertaining and joking with those around him, the outspoken American has taken on a showman personality at the Games.

At the podium ceremony, he performed an air guitar solo using his crutch. He said it was just “another Monday” for him.

“I am a rock star,” he added. “I always wanted to be this guy, Jim Brown, he was my idol. He was a professional football player, played lacrosse at Syracuse. I did both those sports, and he retired at the peak of his career and became basically the first Black action movie star. I always wanted to be him, and now I am him.”

Halgren said he “learned to be un-irritable, un-embarrassable.”

“It’s about being vulnerable in this life. It’s about trying things and failing. It’s OK to be embarrassed. It’s OK to look weird.”

As he talked to the media, Halgren was congratulated by nearly every rival that passed by. He was second to Switzerland’s Robin Cuche in the men’s super-G standing.

“Medals don’t mean anything to me. The love from all the people supporting me is what means anything to me,” he said. “I can feel, I can literally feel all the people who have ever given me well wishes and ‘Thanks’ and ‘Good lucks.’ I can feel them loving me and they’re the reason I won.

“You celebrate the victories the same as the defeats. I’ve been blessed to have to develop my character over the last 11 years, losing my leg and could either roll over and die, or I could become the greatest Patrick Halgren on Earth, and that’s what you’re seeing.”

His future plans?

“I would like to dominate the Earth in every category with one leg.”

Anything else? “My horse is thirsty, I’m out.”

March 10 (UPI) — Votes are being cast in the Georgia special election to replace Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., on Tuesday.

Greene’s resignation, announced earlier this year, leaves an open seat in Congress to represent Georgia District 14. More than a dozen Republican candidates are vying for the seat, along with a small handful of Democrats.

The special election is open, meaning there are no party primaries to determine the candidates. A candidate must earn a majority of votes to win the election. If no candidate meets this criteria, a runoff election will be held on April 7.

The seat is in a largely Republican leaning district. Greene won the 14th Congressional District by 29 percent in 2024.

The winner of the election will serve out the remainder of Greene’s term that ends on Jan. 3, 2027.

Greene, long an ardent supporter of President Donald Trump, became at odds with the president over a number of issues in the past year. Notably, she pushed for the release of government files on notorious sex trafficker and former Trump friend Jeffrey Epstein. She also broke with Trump over his support of Israel and military actions abroad, including strikes against Iran.

Trump has weighed in on the race to replace Greene, giving his endorsement to Clay Fuller, a district attorney and Air National Guard officer.

Political pundits are watching Tuesday’s election closely to see how much weight Trump’s endorsement carries with voters.

With Greene’s resignation, Republicans hold a narrower majority in the U.S. House. The majority falls to Republicans by a 218-14 count with three vacancies.

Republican Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., died on Jan 6, the day after Greene announced her resignation. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., resigned on Nov. 20.

Twelve days ago the U.S., a World Cup host country, launched a full-scale bombing campaign against Iran, a country that has qualified to play in the tournament. That’s never happened before.

Five days later, that same World Cup host began military operations inside the borders of Ecuador, another World Cup qualifier, half a world away. That’s never happened before either.

With the tournament scheduled to kick off in three months, those events have soccer scholar Jonathan Wilson questioning whether it’s wise for the World Cup to go on at all.

“It seems to me, for each passing day, it’s less and less likely that the World Cup can happen,” he said.

That take seems unduly alarmist said David Goldblatt, a British sportswriter and sociologist who is a visiting professor at Pitzer College in Claremont. Anything short of a full-scale war inside the U.S. would not be enough to pull the plug on the tournament now, he said. Especially with FIFA expecting revenues of as much as $11 billion.

“I mean, it’s not a good look,” Goldblatt conceded. “And certainly when set against FIFA’s official pronouncements on its role in encouraging world peace and cosmopolitan celebrations of a universal humanity, none of that sits terribly easily.

“But in terms of actually running the World Cup, I don’t think it’s going to make very much difference at all.”

However, with the Trump administration open to engaging in more international conflicts, there’s little doubt this World Cup, the largest and most complex in history, will also be the most political in history as well.

Complicating things further is the fact the current conflict in the Middle East hasn’t been limited to just the U.S. and Iran. Iranian missiles have hit both Qatar and Saudi Arabia, among other countries, and Jordan has fired on U.S. assets.

Those three countries are World Cup qualifiers as well.

The fate of a soccer tournament pales in importance to the death and destruction the conflagration in the Middle East has produced, of course. But the need for unity is the very reason there’s a World Cup in the first place.

When French soccer administrator Jules Rimet founded the tournament 96 years ago, he believed soccer could be a tool for international peace. And in the early years of the tournament, Rimet, FIFA’s longest-serving president and a talented diplomat, was able to limit the impact of geopolitics on the World Cup, watering down Mussolini’s influence on the 1934 World Cup, for example, and steering the 1938 tournament away from Hitler’s Germany.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has taken a far different approach, courting President Donald Trump’s support despite his growing number of global conflicts.

A week before bombs began falling on Iran, Infantino appeared at the inaugural meeting of Trump’s Board of Peace wearing a red cap with ‘USA’ on the front and the numbers ‘45-47’ — a reference to Trump’s non-consecutive presidencies. That act was so blatantly partisan, IOC president Kirsty Coventry said her organization would investigate whether Infantino, an IOC member, breached the terms of the group’s charter, which requires members to act independent of political interests.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino holds up a USA hat as he attends the inaugural meeting for the Board of Peace at the Institute of Peace in Washington on Feb. 19.

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

“Infantino has absolutely breached every FIFA protocol on neutrality,” said Wilson, author of “The Power and Glory: The History of the World Cup.”

“Absolute neutrality is always impossible and not desirable, but it has clearly gone way, way, way beyond. The peace prize looked grotesque at the time. It looks even worse now. And I can’t see how the future will look kindly on Infantino. I think Infantino has to some extent legitimized Trump.”

This is hardly new behavior from Infantino, who had close relationships with Vladimir Putin ahead of the 2018 tournament played in Russia and Qatar’s leaders ahead of the 2022 tournament despite their well-known human rights violations.

The list of countries Infantino is asking to overlook poor relations with the country hosting the majority of World Cup games this summer is growing.

Consider that Denmark, which administers Greenland, an autonomous territory Trump has also threatened to invade, can qualify for the tournament in a European playoff that will take place later this month. Then there’s World Cup qualifiers Haiti, Ivory Coast and Senegal, who aren’t at war with the U.S. but whose citizens have been banned from entering the country to cheer for their teams. That completely contradicts a promise from Infantino, who said “everybody will be welcome” at the 2026 World Cup.

“If I had a crystal ball I could tell you now what is going to happen,” Heimo Schirgi, the World Cup chief operating officer for FIFA, said Monday. “But obviously the situation is developing. It’s changing day by day and we are monitoring closely. [But] the World Cup will go on right? The World Cup is too big and we hope that everyone can participate that has qualified.”

Goldblatt, the Pitzer professor, said Infantino’s action are understandable since he has few cards to play against Trump.

President Trump speaks as he receives the FIFA Peace Prize as FIFA president Gianni Infantino applauds on Dec. 5 the Kennedy Center in Washington.

(Patrick Smith / Getty Images)

“What’s Infantino going to do? What levers can you pull?” he asked. “You can threaten to take it away. That’s not happening. Moral admonishment? Who’s going to take that from FIFA? It is a farcical idea that anybody thinks that the president of FIFA has any kind of collective moral authority or any role as a spokesperson for the progressive part of the world.

“They may fantasize that this is the case. But it is morally and politically absurd that any of us should expect that of these people. So if you are Infantino and that is the case, you know what works with Trump? What works is flattery. So of course he’s gone down that path.”

The games, Goldblatt said, will go on even if bombs are still falling. And that may not be an entirely bad thing.

“Football’s a great distraction. That’s partly why it’s so popular,” he said. “It will be virtually impossible, if the war continues, for that not to be a central element of like, the meaning and the purpose of what we’re all doing here.

“How we’ll feel and what it will look like, I don’t know. It will be very strange. Football is unpredictable and extraordinary. Something will happen that will warm our souls.”

⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.

Aaron Judge hit a two-run homer and Roman Anthony added a three-run blast in a big third inning to lead the United States to a 5-3 win over Mexico in the World Baseball Classic at Houston’s Daikin Park on Monday night.

The U.S. improved to 3-0 and will meet Italy (2-0) on Tuesday night, seeking to secure a spot in the quarterfinals in Houston this weekend.

Jarren Duran homered twice for Mexico (2-1), which will face Italy Wednesday night in the last game of Group B play.

The game was played in front of a sellout crowd of 41,628 that was decidedly pro-Mexico.

Reigning National League Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes gave up one hit and struck out seven in four innings as the U.S. avenged an 11-5 loss to Mexico in the 2023 WBC.

The U.S. led by three entering the eighth inning before Duran took Matthew Boyd deep for his second homer. Boyd then hit Randy Arozarena on the arm with a pitch before striking out Jonathan Aranda.

Griffin Jax took over and induced a double-play grounder from Alejandro Kirk to end the inning.

Bryce Harper singled on a ball that hit reliever Jesus Cruz on the leg with no outs in the third inning. Judge followed with his drive to right field to put the Americans up 2-0 and give him two home runs in the tournament.

Kyle Schwarber singled and Cal Raleigh was hit by a pitch with one out before Anthony’s homer to right-center pushed the lead to 5-0.

Duran homered for a second straight game with his solo shot off Boyd that cut the lead to 5-1 with one out in the sixth. There were two on and two outs when Joey Meneses singled in a run to make it 5-2.

March 9 (UPI) — The Alexander brothers on Monday were found guilty on all counts regarding their alleged years-long sex trafficking conspiracy, which may send them to prison for life.

At the end of a five-week trial, it took jurors three days to find former real estate superstars Oren and Alon Alexander, 38, who are twins, and their 39-year-old brother, Tal, guilty on ten counts of conspiracy of rape, sex trafficking, sex abuse and sexual exploitation of women and girls.

The brothers, all of whom pleaded not guilty to the charges, were portrayed by their attorneys as obnoxious and inappropriate, but that they “are not mobsters” and that prosecutors had asked jurors to “connect dots that aren’t really there,” ABC News reported.

The allegations included using drugs, money and social influence over two decades — from 2008 to 2021 — to commit their acts of abuse, The New York Times reported.

The brothers worked together, prosecutor Madison Smyser said during the trial, to lure their victims “with promises of parties and trips, and when they got there the defendants raped them,” according to NBC News.

Tal and Oren had since the early 2000s had risen to be among the highest earning real estate agents in the country, and Alon was a security executive — and all three were well-known in the New York and Miami party scenes.

During the course of the trial, which concluded last Thursday in the Southern District of New York before it was given to the jury, 11 accusers testified that one or more of the Alexander brothers had drugged, abducted and raped them.

The brothers were said to have records of some of their acts, either on social media or other types of documents, including a video of Oren Alexander adjusting a laptop camera’s angle before showing him getting into bed with an incapacitated 17-year-old girl and raping her.

In addition to their sentencing in August, Oren and Alon face criminal charges in Florida and all three of the brothers face scores of civil lawsuits connected to allegations of drugging, sexual assault or rape.

March 9 (UPI) — A daily multivitamin may slow biological aging — the rate at which our bodies age on a cellular level — significantly, especially for people biologically older than their actual age.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Mass General Brigham found that daily cocoa extract and multivitamin slowed biological signals that are predictive of mortality, they write in a study published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Epigenetic clocks can estimate biological aging based on changes in DNA by looking at sites that regulate gene expression and change as people age.

By monitoring these signals, it is possible to track mortality and the pace of aging, as well as the predict it.

“There is a lot of interest today in identifying ways to not just live longer, but to live better,” Howard Sesso, lead author of the study,” said in a news release.

“This study opens the door to learning more about accessible, safe interventions that contribute to healthier, higher-quality aging,” said Sesso, preventive medicine specialist at Mass General and epidemiologist at the Harvard Chan School of Medicine.

Using data from the Cocoa Supplement Multivitamins Outcomes Study, the researchers analysed DNA changes in blood samples from 958 randomly selected healthy study participants who had an average actual age of 70.

The participants were randomized to take daily cocoa extract and a multivitamin, cocoa and a placebo, placebo and multivitamin or only placebo for two years, with researchers analyzing five epigenetic clocks in blood samples from the study’s start, at the end of the first year and at the end of the second year.

Overall, compared to the placebo-only group, those taking a multivitamin saw a statistically significant slowing of biological aging by about four months — especially for those who were biologically older than their age when the study started.

The researchers also found that cocoa extract had no effect on biological aging.

While the results are promising, the researchers concluded in the study that additional work is needed to better determine the clinical relevance of multivitamins on biological aging.

“We plan to do follow-up research to determine if the slowing of biological aging — observed through these five epigenetic clocks, and additional or new ones — persists after the trial ends,” Yanbin Dong, study co-author and researcher at the Medical College of Georgia, Agusta University, said in the release.

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.”

The pet did a neat trick: Before a room filled with heads of state from across Latin America, Little Marco spoke Spanish.

His owner — well, his soul’s owner at least— grinned and joked, “I think he’s better in Spanish” than in English. Following President Trump, it was Pentagon Pete’s turn to tease Little Marco.

“I only speak American,” Secretary of Defense Hegseth cracked. The auditorium stayed quiet save for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who meekly protested, “I only speak Cuban.”

Trump gave him a pat on the back. Good boy, Marco.

The exchange, which happened over a weekend dominated by the war with Iran, was brief yet said so much about the times Latinos live in. Rubio, the most powerful Latino politician in U.S. history, might as well have been to Trump and Hegseth the Chihuahua that says “Yo quiero Taco Bell.” The man who has played an oversized role in pushing a president who campaigned against costly foreign wars and chaotic regime changes to do both was brought back down to an undignified size.

Little Marco indeed.

Here’s a reminder that no matter how high and mighty you get in Trump’s White House, a Latino is still an exotic “other.”

Tokenizing someone is always an ugly thing — yet Rubio deserves no tears. He has made a career out of wearing his latinidad like a shiny guayabera when convenient, long casting himself as the boy-faced exception to the corrupt, ineffectual Latino politician archetype. That stance has fueled a 27-year career — Florida speaker of the House, U.S. senator, former presidential candidate, secretary of State and national security advisor. That has made many conservatives and more than a few Latinos feel he’s not just capable of a strong White House run but that he could even win were he to do so.

All it cost Rubio was his morals and backbone. All he had to do was roll over.

We Latinos deserve better — and yet we kind of don’t.

The story liberals and conservatives have always told about America’s largest minority is that we would irrevocably change the United States — the former group maintained it would be for the better, the latter insisted we would cause this country’s downfall. Rubio proves that at our worst, Latinos show that in our rush to assimilate and be embraced, we often become the worst kind of Americans.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks as President Trump during a NATO summit in June in the Hague.

(Brendan Smialowski / Pool Photo)

We’re the ones whom the American psyche sees as perpetual invaders, yet we sign up by the thousands for the Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies in Trump’s deportation Leviathan. Even as Trump slimed Latinos during his first term and his years out of office, an increasing number of us warmed up to him — surely, he was referring to other Latinos — until Trump captured more of our votes in 2024 than any Republican presidential candidate ever.

It takes a certain type of person to go from child of Cuban immigrants — the favorite son of an exile community that transformed Miami from a retiree haven into one of the capitals of Latin America — to tell European leaders last month that they and the United States “opened our doors to an unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies, the continuity of our culture, and the future of our people.”

It takes the worst kind of Latino.

I called Rubio a vendido in a previous columna after he cheered on the extrajudicial capture of Venezuelan despot Nicolás Maduro. He’s definitely still a sellout — what else to call someone who once fiercely opposed Trump but now sidles up to him like a cockapoo? But the most pathetic part about Rubio’s rise is that his followers see him as the culmination of the long-held dreams of Latinos that things would become better for our ancestral Latin American countries and ourselves once one of us was charge.

Alas, no. He’s living up to a realpolitik maxim attributed to various Latin American caudillos: For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.

Strongmen like El Salvador and Argentina presidents Nayib Bukele and Javier Milei get coddled and receive foreign aid; college students on study visas who criticize the Trump administration get nabbed by la migra. Rubio is overseeing a foreign policy that currently has the U.S. dictating how Venezuela will be governed, is bombing Iran like the country was a game of Pachinko and is slowly choking Cuba into collapse. He’s the unholy child of Bush-era neoconservativism and MAGA — and Rubio is just getting started.

That’s how he set himself up to be used as Latino punch line by Trump and Hegseth. The setting: the inaugural meeting at a Trump golf course near Miami of the Shield of the Americas, a coalition of Western Hemisphere countries ostensibly assembled to fight drug cartels. It resembled one of those lesser super-groups in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — you got Costa Rica instead of Mexico, Bolivia instead of Brazil. The group even has a crappy logo. You know how unserious the confab was when Trump’s point person for this is Kristi Noem, whom he literally had just fired as Homeland Security secretary.

After Trump rambled through a short speech, it was Rubio’s time to offer remarks. Here was a chance for the secretary of State, the man the Atlantic recently called “bright and well spoken,” to channel his inner Simón Bolivar or José Martí. The secretary of State thanked everyone present in English, but not before praising Trump for his “bold leadership” and bragging that the president is “one of the most historic figures in American history.”

Then Rubio looked back at his beaming master.

President Trump signs a proclamation committing to countering cartel criminal activity at the Shield of the Americas Summit on Saturday at Trump National Doral Miami in Doral, Fla.

(Rebecca Blackwell / Associated Press)

“You all right if I — “ he began before Trump cut him off with a magnanimous, “Sure. Please.”

That’s when Little Marco spoke in flawless Spanish. Rubio’s comments weren’t much different from what he said in English, save his remark that what they all planned to do by following Trump “will make future generations grateful for the work we are doing today.”

That last statement sums up Rubio. For centuries, Latin America has yearned for prosperity and peace free from American interference. This hope has fueled revolutions, music, film, culture and all the best things the region has produced only to have U.S.-backed tyrants crush those movements.

That’s the torch Rubio now proudly carries.

“All my life I’ve been in a hurry to get to my future,” he wrote in his 2013 memoir, “American Son.” Rubio’s future is now. And our present — not just Latinos, but all Americans — is worse because of it.

Dios mío.

March 9 (UPI) — The U.S. military identified the seventh soldier killed in the fighting against Iran as Army Sgt. Benjamin N. Pennington, 26, of Glendale, Ky.

Pennington was injured during an attack on U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia on March 1 at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia and later died. He was assigned to 1st Space Battalion, 1st Space Brigade, a unit within Army Space and Missile Defense Command.

“Last night, a U.S. service member passed away from injuries received during the Iranian regime’s initial attacks across the Middle East,” U.S. Central Command said in a post on X.

The seven service members have been killed during the first week of Operation Epic Fury, which the United States and Israel launched on Feb. 28.

Since the beginning of the onslaught, Iran has launched retaliatory strikes at its neighbors, some of which host U.S. bases and assets that are being used in the war.

A March 1 retaliatory strike on an Army sustainment unit based in Kuwait killed six service members and injured 18 others, whose remains returned to the United States on Saturday.

Overall, Iran’s retaliatory strikes have killed at least 20 people across the region, The New York Times reported, while between 800 and 1,300 hundred people in Iran have died during the widening conflict.

March 9 (UPI) — Oslo, Norway, police have released images of a person suspected in the bombing outside the U.S. embassy in the city on Sunday.

Two images from surveillance video were released showing a person wearing all black with their face covered and carrying a backpack.

Police said the explosion, which shattered a glass door, was from an improvised device set at the entrance to the building. It caused minor damage and no injuries. Police said there are no developments on the person’s motive.

Police are also looking at a video posted on Google Maps around the time of the explosion. It showed the former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by the U.S. and Israeli military action on Feb. 28.

Police are asking for anyone with information about the suspect or who noticed anything unusual between midnight and 2 a.m. CET to contact them. They said they have used dogs, drones and helicopters to investigate the scene.

On Sunday, police weren’t sure if the explosion was an attack.

Frode Larsen, head of the joint investigation and intelligence unit, told a press conference that it’s “natural to view this in the context of the current security situation, and that it is a targeted attack against the American embassy. But we have not locked ourselves into just that one hypothesis.”

Police searched the surrounding area, but didn’t find any other explosive devices.