U.S.

April 7 (UPI) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed legislation authorizing state officials to designate certain groups as domestic or foreign terrorist organizations, creating a mechanism to punish those blacklisted in the Sunshine State.

The legislation, House Bill 1471, was signed by the Republican governor on Monday during a press conference in Tampa.

The legislation creates a mechanism for Florida to sever funding, contracting and other ties to blacklisted groups. If a corporation is named, the state may pursue proceedings to dissolve it.

“We must defend our institutions from those who would harm us — especially terrorist organizations that seek to infiltrate and subvert our education system,” DeSantis said in a statement.

The bill specifically authorizes Florida’s chief of domestic security to designate groups as domestic or foreign terrorist organizations, subject to approval from the governor and Cabinet, if certain conditions are met.

Once designated, state agencies, political subdivisions and public school districts are barred from working with, supporting or taking money from them.

If the designated entity is a corporation, then the state may begin proceedings to dissolve it. It also creates criminal consequences for actions involving designated domestic terrorist organizations, including receiving military-type training from them, providing them with material support or resources and willfully becoming a member.

It also imposes consequences for schools, including secondary education, for promoting designated organizations and requires the immediate expulsion of students determined to have promoted them.

The bill also prohibits Florida courts or other adjudicatory bodies from enforcing any provision of what it calls “religious or foreign law” if it is inconsistent with federal or state law. The legislation specifically states Sharia law, the religious legal system of Islam.

“This legislation reinforces that the U.S. Constitution and Florida law remain the supreme authority in our court systems, preventing any foreign or religious legal code from overriding fundamental rights,” State Rep. Hillary Cassel, the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement after her legislation was signed into law.

The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations issued a statement of concern on Monday over the potential misuse of the designation power, highlighting DeSantis’ previous attempt to designate it as a terrorist organization via executive order. before a judge blocked the blacklisting.

“This is not just about CAIR. This expanded and deeply flawed framework can attack any organization that dares to dissent,” CAIR-Florida Executive Director Hiba Rahim said in a statement.

“As Floridians, together, we’ll watch how this unprecedented law is enforced, and whether it is used or abused.”

April 6 (UPI) — Two Democratic lawmakers concluded a trip to Cuba on Monday by calling for the United States and Cuba to begin “real negotiations” and denouncing the Trump administration’s “economic bombing” of Havana.

Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal, of Washington, and Jonathan Jackson, of Illinois, returned to the United States following a five-day visit to Cuba. They said they spoke with officials and witnessed the effects of President Donald Trump‘s monthslong de facto oil blockade of the island nation.

The lawmakers said they saw premature babies in incubators put at risk due to Cuba’s energy crisis, children out of school because teachers have no fuel to travel to school and cancer patients being denied treatment because of a lack of medicine.

“This is cruel collective punishment — effectively an economic bombing of the infrastructure of the country — that has produced permanent damage,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement.

“It must stop immediately.”

The Trump administration has been enforcing a monthslong policy of choking off oil supplies to Cuba, plunging the socialist nation into a worsening energy and humanitarian crisis. On Jan. 29, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency with respect to Cuba and created a process to penalize countries that provide it with oil. According to a recent U.N. system action plan, citing Cuban authorities, no fuel imports have been recorded since Dec. 13.

“This disruption has triggered a severe energy shock, characterized by a critical fuel shortage affecting electricity generation, transportation and essential logistics across the country,” the U.N. report published last week said.

Widespread blackouts, fuel rationing and electricity shortages have been reported, it said.

The two Democratic lawmakers said they met with Cuba leaders in religion, civi society and the government, as well as dissidents, and all agreed that the blockade — which they called illegal — must end.

“We do not believe that the majority of Americans would want this kind of cruelty and inhumanity to continue in our name,” they said.

The pair met with President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, who said in a statement that he denounced to them the “energy siege decreed by the current U.S. government” and reiterated “the willingness of our Government to sustain a serious and responsible dialogue and to find solutions to the existing differences.”

Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez of Cuba said in a statement that he also told the lawmakers about the situation facing his country and their “willingness for serious and responsible dialogue to try to find solutions to bilateral problems.”

The Democrats said the Cuba government has sent signals that the country is ready for reform, pointing to its pardoning last week of more than 2,000 prisoners and efforts to liberalize its economy, while arguing the remaining obstacles to its progress is U.S. policy, which they called “outdated” from the Cold War-era.

“True reform will only come from charting a new course,” they said.

Trump has turned his attention to Cuba after detaining Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolas Maduro, in early January in a clandestine military operation.

He has said it is “a failing nation” and described it as on the precipice of collapse.

“As we achieve a historic transformation in Venezuela, we’re also looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba,” he said on March 7 during the Shield of the Americas Summit.

“Cuba’s at the end of the line.”

WASHINGTON — The United States relied on dozens of aircraft, hundreds of personnel, secret CIA technology and a dose of subterfuge to rescue a two-man F-15E fighter jet crew downed deep inside Iran, a risky mission that President Trump and his top defense aides detailed Monday.

U.S. forces rescued the pilot within hours of the jet going down late Thursday, surging helicopters, midair refuelers and fighter aircraft deep into Iran after confirming his location, Trump said in a valedictory news conference at the White House, describing the military operation in an unusual level of detail.

The second aviator aboard the aircraft — the weapons systems officer — was rescued nearly two days later.

An A-10 Warthog, which was the attack aircraft primarily responsible for keeping in contact with the downed pilot on the ground, was hit by enemy fire while engaging Iranian forces, said Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The A-10 was “not landable,” Caine told reporters, but the pilot continued fighting before flying to a friendly country and ejecting. He was quickly rescued and is doing fine, Caine said.

The rescue of the F-15 pilot occurred before the Iranians could marshal a comprehensive search of their own, but finding and bringing home the weapon systems officer was an even more complicated endeavor.

The officer, who rode in the backseat of the F-15 flying under the call sign Dude-44 Bravo, was injured but followed his training to get as far from the crash site as possible. He managed to climb mountainous terrain and hide inside a cave or crevice. He contacted U.S. forces Saturday.

When a plane crashes in hostile territory, “they all head right to that site, you want to be as far away as you can,” Trump said.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the spy agency used “exquisite technologies that no other intelligence service” possesses to locate the aviator. At the same time, the CIA mounted a deception operation to mislead Iranians who also were trying to find him.

Ratcliffe said the search and rescue operation was “comparable to hunting for a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert.”

The CIA declined to respond to questions Monday about the kind of technology used to locate the airman.

Protected by an “air armada” of drones, strike aircraft and more, rescuers moved in on Sunday to pick up the weapons officer and bring him home.

Many of the dozens of aircraft that were part of the operation were there for deception, Trump said.

“We were bringing them all over, and a lot of it was subterfuge,” Trump said. “We wanted to have them think he was in a different location.”

Back in Washington, national security officials coordinated on a call, keeping the phone line open for nearly two days straight.

“From the moment our pilots went down, our mission was unblinking,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said. “The call never dropped. The meeting never stopped, the planning never ceased.”

Cooper, Toropin and Amiri write for the Associated Press. Cooper reported from Phoenix and Amiri from New York. AP writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.

April 6 (UPI) — Samsung said on Monday that it will discontinue its messages app and told users to upgrade to Google Messages as their default method for sending texts.

The move is being billed as an upgrade, as Google Messages includes spam and scam filters, RCS-enabled messaging, artificial intelligence features because the app is integrated with Google’s Gemini, and the ability to continue chats across multiple devices without interruption.

The Samsung Messages app will not be available to download and will stop functioning in July, Samsung said in an end-of-service announcement.

Samsung Messages was the pre-installed, default texting app on all the company’s smartphones until 2021, CNET reported.

In 2024, it stopped pre-installing it and gradually started to motivate users to switch to the Google service with the release of its Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Z Fold 6 phones, and the Galaxy S26 — the newest version of its flagship smartphone — is not able to download the app.

“Once the Samsung Messages app is discontinued, sending messages via Samsung Messages on your phone will no longer be possible, except for emergency service numbers or emergency contacts defined on your device,” Samsung said in the announcement.

In the announcement, Samsung said that depending on the operating system on the device, some users may receive a notification in Samsung Messages about migrating to Google Messages, if the user opts for it.

For some users, the company said, Google Messages will not instantly be set as the default texting app and may not appear in the home screen doc, with Samsung providing instructions for accomplishing both.

It also noted in the announcement that watches launched before the Galaxy Watch4 do not support Google’s texting app, and that Samsung devices released before 2022 will require users on both ends of a text conversation to switch to Google Messages for full RCS conversations to be available.

RCS, or Rich Communication Services, is a SMS/MMS standard that has been adopted by most messaging apps, including the iMessage app on iPhones, that provides end-to-end encryption, ensuring a “more dynamic and secure conversation,” according to Google.

The rescue of the F-15E weapon systems officer (WSO) missing in Iran after his fighter was shot down was one of the most complex and dangerous missions the U.S. military can undertake. These kinds of operations can come in many forms. In this case, before the WSO was finally recovered from the mountain crevice where he was hiding, a forward arming and refueling point (FARP) deep inside enemy territory had to be rapidly set up and secured so that it could act as a staging area for the aircraft, equipment and troops taking part in the mission. This is an exact mission set U.S. special operations forces train for extensively.

To get more insights about how such a FARP would be set up and operated, we reached out to Kyle Rempfer, a former Special Tactics Squadron (STS) airman who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. STS units are an elite cadre of operators who work to control aircraft in the air, including from airfields they establish deep inside contested territory, and direct airpower onto the enemy, among other duties, including rescuing personnel trapped behind enemy lines. They are often paired with special operations units, such as SEALs, Delta Force and Rangers, to bring their unique skills to their missions.

Air Force Special Tactics – the Air Force’s ONLY Special Operations Ground Force

Rempfer, a journalist and former colleague of the author at Military Times, offered unique insights into the process as someone who trained for these missions.

Some of the questions and answers have been lightly edited for clarity.

Q: What happens in the Special Tactics Squadron level when the word comes out that there’s an aircraft down deep into enemy territory? 

A: By this point in the campaign, Air Force Special Tactics teams – which are made up of combat controllers (CCTs) and pararescue jumpers (PJs) – would have surveyed or identified scores of Iranian runways and austere airfields that can be used for landing zones or drop zones down the line. Even if CCTs hadn’t set foot on these sites, they’d have pulled imagery of the locations and started using tools like AutoCAD, a surveying and mapping software, to sketch out the dimensions of an airfield and identify what type of aircraft could land there. Is this a site that could only work for a light short take off and landing (STOL) aircraft, or could we land something bigger like a C-17? Those types of questions are on their minds. And since this event appears to have happened near the Isfahan nuclear facility, it can be assumed that Special Tactics has been scoping out landing zones in that area since at least this war started, maybe far earlier. 

For this mission, the Special Tactics team just needed someplace to land a couple of MC-130J Commando IIs. Those are designed to infiltrate and exfiltrate special operations troops into and out of the hinterlands, so an agricultural runway intended for crop-spraying planes would fit the bill in terms of dimensions. But on the ground, the soil strength might not hold up for repeat landings, or perhaps the recent weather has eroded the area or left it muddy. That can have an impact, and there are tools like dynamic cone penetrometers that Special Tactics teams use to assess soil strength. They’ve used those and a host of other tools to scout airfields all around potential conflict zones in Africa, northern Iraq, Syria, etc., but given the tight security in Iran, that probably was not feasible to do in advance here. So the soil strength might have been a known-unknown going in. 

Q: What would happen once the FARP is set up?

A: They can do these fast. Everything is prestaged, even inside the MC-130. AH-6 Little Bird helicopters were probably offloaded and taking off within minutes, not hours, and beaming toward the WSO’s beacon. At that point, the team at the FARP site is pulling security and talking to all the aircraft overhead. Those pilots and aircrews are using sensors to monitor all the roadways that plausibly lead to the site, and potentially even putting warheads on those roadways to make them unusable. We know there were some diversionary bomb drops as part of the rescue, so they could also take that time to put big potholes in the roads.

Q: Can you talk about what systems, personnel and equipment would have secured the site?

A: The people who are surveying and setting up the landing zone and FARP are probably CCTs [Combat Control Teams] from the 24th Special Tactics Squadron. They would have had imagery to look at ahead of the mission, but you might not know what level of stress the ground can take until you physically get there. CCTs are trained to inspect that, blow up obstacles on the runway if needed, scan enemy activity around the landing site, etc., and then set up the austere airfield to start accepting planes and helos. They might not have had time to do a full-on reconnaissance mission, of course. 

CCTs have dirt bikes, something like a Kawasaki KLR 250, that they can drive up and down the airstrip for quickly setting up lights and visually inspecting the terrain. The lights they’d use to create the airstrip would be set up to infrared mode so only people with night vision devices can see them. This isn’t the early days of Afghanistan, though, and night vision devices have proliferated to such a degree that infrared lights are no longer the game changer they once were. However, it still prevents civilians from seeing the operation at night, and that is important given reports that Iranian state media was mobilizing the population to look for the downed airman. 

Q: Who would be brought in for force protection?

A: The CCTs of course are not alone at the landing zone. They had DEVGRU (SEAL Team 6) for security and dozens of aircraft backing them up with an absolutely jarring amount of aerial firepower. CCTs are usually also certified JTACs so they can manage the aircraft stacks not just for landing the MC-130s and AH-6s returning from the WSO rescue, but also the dozens of aircraft overhead that can fire at targets as necessary.

Q: Reports indicate that the WSO climbed up a 7,000 foot crevice and hid out there with intermittent communications while the Iranians were looking for him. How does that complicate things? And what would the team on the ground be doing?

A: I imagine that all the communications would have been encrypted – not anything that the Iranians could listen in on. For the guys on the ground, the biggest situation is monitoring to make sure that other forces aren’t approaching the area and protecting that forward arming and refueling site, because while it’s not a base, for all intensive purposes it is the center of mass of the most U.S. forces, the safest zone you have. So basically probably just protected that site. 

Q: What would be happening in the air?

A: You would have ISR assets that would be scanning the area, and not just the immediate area, but probably any roads and highways leading up to where that FARP site was set up. They would be watching anyone who could possibly be approaching. 

That whole area would just be soaked with ISR assets, and I know the Iranians knocked out two Reaper drones during the operation. So presumably, there was plenty of ISR. 

There would be a mix of attack and surveillance aircraft. There would be dozens of aircraft available for this mission. That is great for the team on the ground, but just like an air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan Airport in DC can be overburdened, so will the JTAC who’s on the ground controlling all these different pilots and aircrews calling in to report threats they’ve spotted, relay their fuel or munitions status, report radio chatter they’re picking up from the ground, etc. This could require multiple JTACs on the ground, and probably also pilots in A-10s or F-35s who can act as an extra layer of forward air control in the sky, handling aircraft check-ins and keeping track of specific assets so the JTACs on the ground aren’t losing their minds mind handling a massive air stack behind enemy lines. 

Most CCTs also have a JTAC certification, so they can help call in airstrikes as needed to protect the FARP site. And attack aircraft, like A-10s, or multi-role fighters, like F-35s, also have pilots who are certified as Forward Air Controller (Airborne) — or FAC(A). The E-3 can also provide a command and control function to help manage this complex battlespace. 

Q: How difficult is a mission like this? What are the dangers?

A: This would have been a hot refueling site, with engines running refueling, and you’re doing all that blacked out, and you have to probably keep the amount of radio chatter on the ground to a minimum because you don’t know if maybe Iran does have something where they can break through the encryption. 

So I would imagine that the danger is even more than just the IRGC coming in and shooting at you. The danger is  the technicalities that you’re dealing with, with the forward  arming and refueling sites and all these aircraft moving around under night vision in blacked out conditions in a tight area. It’s a small airfield, you have to keep your signature low.

Thankfully, they were able to get more aircraft in to usher everyone out. But that just shows how even what they were dealing with, the runway probably wasn’t built to handle these kinds of aircraft, or not maintained. 

Clearly this kind of operation – where you’re coming in, setting up an airfield, whether it’s for a follow-on parachute jump or even just air landing more troops and supplies – would be repeated in most of the other scenarios people are talking about. For instance, going in and digging out Iran’s enriched uranium. I think it would have to be pretty similar. You would send in a special tactics team with some Ranger recce guys, and the Ranger reconnaissance company would maybe parachute in, and check out the airfield, and they would start bringing in the MC-130s. It’s going to be a remote, austere airfield. It’s not going to be easy to land aircraft there, it’s not going to be well maintained, and you’re going to run into a lot of problems on the ground with aircraft. 

In addition to the fixed-wing planes, the U.S. also destroyed a reported four Little Birds on the way out. Imagine if you’re trying to do sustained operations bringing aircraft in, that all those aircraft are wearing down that obscure runway as you’re coming in, and you’re having more and more troops flow in. Your signature is going to be bigger and it’s going to be there for a longer time. 

So this is how you create a window into a country to conduct follow-on operations. In this case, it was just to look for one guy and pick him up. But, they’re obviously looking at runways and airfields all across the country, whether they’re actual runways that are in use by the Iranian government or municipal governments, or if they’re just like roads that they can use or dirt fields that they think they can land on. So this rescue mission was probably a snapshot into larger operational planning.

Q: After the rescue of the pilot, the search for the WSO seemed to turn fairly quickly from a traditional PJ mission to a Tier One rescue operation. Can you talk about that transition and how those two fit together?

A: That’s right. From my understanding, there were two missions. The first was a traditional CSAR mission that was launched in daylight immediately after the F-15E went down. This likely involved the PJs from a rescue squadron that was on standby. They were aboard HH-60W Jolly Greens and had refueling support from an HC-130J. That mission is obviously very risky and time sensitive. They’re flying low and slow, in daylight, and vulnerable to ground fire. We saw people shooting at them with small arms, which probably won’t do much barring really lucky shots, but the crews are still exposed to man portable air defense systems (MANPADS).

You can see Iranians firing small arms at the CSAR aircraft in the following video.

This initial CSAR package successfully recovered the F-15E pilot, who would have had a beacon and survival radio. But obviously the WSO was still at large. Perhaps they knew his location but couldn’t get to him before the region came alive like a bees’ nest – with everyone from locals to actual security forces scouring the scene. At that point, it appears the mission shifted from a more traditional CSAR operation conducted by a rescue squadron to something we’re actually more familiar with from Afghanistan and Iraq – Tier One raids into denied territory. This makes sense to me because this was the single most important mission going on, and it makes sense to flood this with assets to successfully pull off a second pick up. In a bigger war, I doubt downed aircrew can expect JSOC rescue parties every time one of them goes down. 

A lot of people were surprised that MC-130s and AH-6s were used for this, but it actually reminds me a lot of the early Afghanistan missions Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted in fall 2001, before the Taliban fell. At least one of these involved Air Force Special Tactics CCTs parachuting into a remote part of Afghanistan, setting up a dirt airstrip, landing two MC-130s, off-loading a couple of Little Birds and then flying those around all night striking Taliban targets.

This rescue raid isn’t too different. It sounds like Air Force Special Tactics CCTs surveyed the airfield in advance – maybe in person, maybe just using satellite imagery – and then brought in the MC-130s that held the AH-6s to actually conduct the rescue that grabbed the WSO. This sort of scheme makes sense given the distance inside Iran. The MC-130s can bring extra fuel and ammunition to set up a mini-special ops refueling and re-arming site.

One thing to note here is why the commandos reportedly blew up the MC-130s on the way out. If the government’s version of events is accurate, this might have been because the runway was not suitable for the MC-130s and those planes got stuck or damaged landing there. The CCTs may have known this was a possibility but determined it was the least bad option. There’s also the possibility the aircraft were more damaged by enemy fire than we’ve been told. We may never know. 

Q: What would be the biggest danger from the Iranians? Indirect fire like artillery? Drones?

A: Hard for me to say. If the team had the element of surprise, which it seemed to, then the Iranians would have been caught off guard enough that they didn’t have time to stage artillery or have drones already scanning the area. In that case, I could see the biggest threat being local police or civilians stumbling upon the site early in the mission. As the operation gets underway, the noise signature would probably attract more and more attention. And then you have IRGC teams speeding to the scene. If they’re moving fast, they might only have small arms, maybe some belt-fed machine guns, small caliber mortars, and potentially MANPADs. The longer the U.S. team was on the ground, the more time Iran had to rush forces to the scene and that’s when things appeared to get dicey, the Army’s Delta Force reportedly had to blow in place the MC-130s and call in a quick reaction force (QRF) for pickup. 

Because people keep asking, the WSO was extracted on little birds flying STS and DEVGRU. Smoke checked 9 EKIA on tgt. The QRF that got called in for the FARP was from Delta. https://t.co/mmCbzrRjys

— Jack Murphy (@JackMurphyRGR) April 5, 2026

This is also why having so many aircraft overhead would be useful. Not only are those planes there to strike targets, they can listen to enemy communications and local civilian radio chatter, they can use their sensors to scan all the routes leading up to the airfield, and they can use jamming and spoofing to befuddle the Iranian response. All that helps buy time. 

Q: What kinds of geospatial tools would have been used to find and prep the site and carry out the mission?

A: I imagine in advance of this mission the airfields and runways in this area were pre-scouted using satellite imagery. I’m probably too out of date to go into specifics even if I wanted to, but we have very high resolution satellite imagery that’s available in the commercial space and is very impressive. Additionally, aircraft can fly over sites and scan the terrain using LIDAR to build 3D maps of the environment. Suffice to say, the CCTs would have a great picture of the environment before going in, but being physically on the ground shows new problems — can the soil hold up to landing an MC-130? How fine is the sand? When the AH-6s take off, are they creating a brown-out environment? 

In an ideal scenario, the CCTs could parachute in before the main mission, conducting a high-altitude, high-opening (HAHO) jump and then confirming on the ground that the site will work to land an MC-130. We don’t know if that’s what happened, but if the reporting is accurate that an MC-130 got stuck and had to be blown up in place, then perhaps they made a mistake or – my bet – they knew the runway was rough and accepted the risk.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

April 6 (UPI) — The Department of the Treasury announced Monday that The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation will handle the Trump Accounts program and that Robinhood will be the brokerage and initial trustee.

BNY will manage the initial accounts and develop the Trump Accounts app.

“Together, these partners will support Treasury’s goal of ensuring every eligible child can access a Trump Account quickly and easily,” a press release from the Treasury said.

The accounts are tax-deferred investing accounts for children born between 2025 and 2028. They are scheduled to launch on July 4 with a $1,000 deposit from the Treasury.

BNY and other large employers have pledged to match the government’s deposits for children of their U.S. employees.

“We are honored to be selected as financial agent for Trump Accounts,” BNY CEO Robin Vince said in a statement. “In collaboration with Robinhood, a leading financial technology platform committed to democratizing the markets for investors, we are helping to expand access to financial opportunity for all Americans.”

The Treasury press release said the app is being developed as a custom, white-label product. The National Design Studio, along with Robinhood, is creating an intuitive user interface and user experience that allows “families to explore their Trump Accounts with confidence and ease.”

Vlad Tenev, chair and CEO of Robinhood Markets, said in a statement that the company is “proud to power Trump Accounts with Robinhood’s technology and to work alongside a historic and trusted institution like BNY.”

“Our task is clear: to provide the next generation of Americans with a world-class, intuitive platform to jumpstart their financial future,” Tenev said.

The IRS said that as of March 31, more than 4 million children were signed up for Trump accounts, and more than 1 million were eligible for the $1,000 pilot program.

“The IRS has been working closely with the Treasury Department to make the election process as simple and easy as possible by permitting taxpayers to fill out a one-page form when they file their tax return,” IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank J. Bisignano said in a statement. “Families with eligible children born between 2025 and 2028 just need to check the box on a form to stake their claim for the $1,000 contribution. It’s that simple.”

Parents can sign up for the funds by filing IRS Form 4547 with their tax returns or via TrumpAccounts.gov. There will be an authentication process in May, and the money will be in accounts on July 4, the IRS said.

Parents and others can contribute up to $5,000 a year. Companies can deposit up to $2,500 pre-tax per year for kids of employees, within the $5,000 limit.

“It’s good to see BNY and Robinhood being named, it gives us more clarity,” Madeline Brown, senior policy associate at the Urban Institute, told CNBC.

“There are certainly still questions that remain about what the interface and product will look like for account holders … and how financial planning and coaching may be integrated. Given that at least some participants will be new to long-term savings, there is this need for advisor-type guidance.”

HAVANA — Two U.S lawmakers called for a permanent solution to Cuba’s crises after witnessing the effects of a U.S. energy blockade during an official visit to the island.

Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Jonathan Jackson of Illinois met with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez and members of Parliament during a five-day trip that ended Sunday.

Díaz-Canel wrote on X Monday that upon meeting with Jayapal and Jackson, he “denounced the criminal damage caused by the #blockade, particularly the consequences of the energy embargo imposed by the current US administration and its threats of even more aggressive actions.”

Díaz-Canel added: “I reiterated our government’s willingness to engage in serious and responsible bilateral dialogue and find solutions to our existing differences.”

Both the U.S. and Cuba have acknowledged recently that talks are ongoing at the highest level, but no details have been disclosed.

Jayapal told reporters she believes that recent steps taken by Cuba, such as opening the economy to certain investments by Cuban Americans living abroad; the recent announcement that more than 2,000 prisoners would be pardoned; and the arrival of an FBI team to collaborate in the investigation of a fatal shooting involving a U.S.-flagged boat, “indicate that the moment is here for us to have a real negotiation between the two countries and to reverse the failed U.S. policy of decades, a Cold War remnant that no longer serves the American people or the Cuban people.”

Cuba’s government has released the pardoned prisoners who were accused of a variety of crimes, although none so far appear to be political prisoners.

In late January, President Trump threatened to impose tariffs on any country that would sell or provide oil to Cuba, although he made an exception for a Russian ship that reached the island last week with 730,000 barrels of crude oil. It was the first petroleum shipment in three months to dock in Cuba, which produces only 40% of the oil it needs.

“This is cruel collective punishment — effectively an economic bombing of the infrastructure of the country — that has produced permanent damage. It must stop immediately,” Jayapal and Jackson said in a statement released Sunday.

Critical oil shipments from Venezuela were halted after the U.S. attacked the South American country in early January and arrested its leader, Nicolas Maduro.

Cubans already suffering from five years of economic crisis have acutely felt the impact of the fuel shortage: national blackouts, gasoline shortages and rationing, lack of public transport, cuts in working hours, paralyzed hospitals and surgeries, and suspension of flights, among other things.

Russia has promised a second delivery of petroleum, although it’s not clear when it might arrive. Experts have said that the first shipment could produce about 180,000 barrels of diesel, enough to feed Cuba’s daily demand for nine or 10 days.

Jayapal said that while such shipments are critical, they are only temporary solutions: “We need a longer, permanent solution for the Cuban people and the American people.”

Meanwhile, Jackson compared the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz off Iran’s coast to the oil blockade in Cuba, adding that the island “is the most sanctioned part of Earth.”

“Our government is fighting to keep the Strait of Hormuz open so there is a free flow of oil around the world. We want, for humanitarian reasons, a free flow of oil, fuel, and energy in our own hemisphere,” he said.

Jackson and Jayapal said they would prepare a report and continue to work on initiatives proposed by fellow members of the U.S. House of Representatives to lift sanctions against Cuba to alleviate the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

Mesquita and Rodríguez write for the Associated Press.

April 6 (UPI) — The four crew members of the Artemis II mission entered the moon’s sphere of influence early Monday, marking the start of their lunar flyby.

The Orion spacecraft reached what is called the lunar sphere of influence at about 12:41 a.m. ET Monday, meaning the moon’s gravitational forces on the capsule were greater than those of Earth.

The mission launched Wednesday from Florida, and it took the spacecraft four days, six hours, two minutes and 54 seconds to cross the important gravitational milestone, the first crewed mission to enter the moon’s sphere of influence since Apollo 17 in 1972.

About 13 hours later, at 1:56 p.m., the four-person crew of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Cristina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen will have surpassed the record for the farthest humans have traveled from Earth, which was previously set by Apollo 13 in 1970.

The spacecraft is expected to start its flyby of the moon at about 2:45 p.m. Monday, when a seven-hour lunar observation period will begin.

NASA said the crew will see both the near and far sides of the moon during this period. As window space is limited, the crew will be divided into pairs that will conduct between 55- and 85-minute observation shifts, it said.

Mission control sent the crew the final list of lunar surface features to be observed and photographed during the flyby early Sunday, according to NASA.

The astronauts will be tasked with observing about 30 targets, including the Orientale basin, a nearly 600-mile-wide crater that spans the boundary between the moon’s near and far sides, NASA said.

“The crew will study Orientale’s features up close and from multiple angles as they pass by,” the space agency said in a Sunday evening blog post.

Orion is expected to reach its closest approach to the moon at 4,070 miles at 7:02 p.m. only to reach its maximum distance from Earth during the mission minutes later.

The lunar observation period is expected to come to an end at 9:20 p.m.

At about 1:25 p.m. Tuesday, Orion will have exited the lunar sphere of influence en route home.

The 10-day moon flyby mission is to conclude with a splashdown off the coast of San Diego at about 8:07 p.m. Friday.

April 6 (UPI) — The United States and South Korea began a joint investigation Monday to locate the wreckage of at least three U.S. aircraft that crashed off South Korea’s northeastern coast during the Korean War, officials said.

The four-week survey of the Gangneung and Yangyang areas of northeastern Gangwon Province seeks to trace the wreckage of a fighter plane and two transport aircraft, ahead of underwater investigations scheduled for August, South Korea’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

The joint survey is being conducted by the Pentagon’s POW/MIA Accounting Agency and South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense Agency for KIA Recovery and Identification, which will collect materials, including information from local residents, as well as confirm the availability of medical decompression chamber facilities essential for underwater operations.

“Since 2024, I have been coming to Korea for three years to work with MAKRI to find traces of the heroes who fought in the war,” U.S. Marine Staff Sgt. Jordyn King, deputy team leader of the Pentagon’s DPAA investigation team in South Korea, said in a statement.

“During the one month given to us, we will carefully gather materials so that we can achieve good results in the future underwater investigation.”

Seoul said the survey covers three aircraft crash sites, including that of a transport plane that crashed on Nov. 15, 1952, after departing Gangneung Air Base for Pohang with nine people, including a South Korean service member, on board.

The plane suffered engine trouble mid-flight and crashed into the sea.

A second site is waters near Yangyang County, where a U.S. aircraft crashed on Feb. 21, 1952. The third is in waters near Gangneung, where a transport plane with 17 people on board crashed on Oct. 16 of that same year after suffering a mechanical problem.

“Just as we recover the remains of South Korean troops killed in action, we will spare no support in helping to find the war dead and missing of the U.S. military who helped us,” Lt. Col. Kim Seong-hwan, acting head of MAKRI, said in a statement.

The announcement comes months after the two agencies signed a memorandum of understanding in Arlington, Va., committing to the recovery and identification of remains of soldiers who were classified as missing during the Korean War of 1950-1953, which ended with an armistice.

According to a DPAA release announcing the signing in August, the agreement enhances cooperation and collaboration between the two agencies, while streamlining efforts to locate, excavate and identify the remains of fallen service members.

More than 1.8 million Americans served in the Korean War of 1950-1953, about 37,000 of whom were killed, more than 92,000 wounded and roughly 8,000 were listed as missing, according to Pentagon statistics.

April 5 (UPI) — Medical rescue teams airlifted a hiker from an Arizona mountain over the weekend after he sustained more than 100 bee stings and was unable to descend.

The Phoenix Fire Department said in a statement that rescue teams responded at about 10 a.m. Saturday to reports of a hiker being stung multiple times near the summit of Lookout Mountain in northern Phoenix.

The hiker, only identified as an adult man, was located by rescue crews. A Firebird 10 helicopter hoisted the man from the mountain, authorities said.

The patient was transferred to an ambulance waiting at the trailhead and taken to a nearby hospital in critical condition, according to the fire department.

The man’s condition on Sunday was unknown.

Lookout Mountain is smaller and less frequented by hikers than the more popular and taller North Mountain, but it provides views of the region without crowds, according to its website.

The medical emergency occurred amid recent concern in the area over swarms of bees and potential stinging incidents.

Late last month, at least five people were stung, including one person who was hospitalized, during a lacrosse game at Arizona State University.

The City of Tempe, located just east of Phoenix, issued a warning to residents early last month about bees following what it called “a small number of bee-related emergency calls.”

Following the rescue on Saturday, the Phoenix Fire Department warned the public about the stinging insects.

“Avoid disturbing hives, skip scented products when outdoors, wear light-colored clothing and if you encounter a swarm — run away quickly and protect your head and face,” it said in a statement.

April 5 (UPI) — The four astronauts of the Artemis II mission were woken on Sunday by the sounds “Working Class Heroes (Work)” by CeeLo Green, and they will go to sleep as their spacecraft enters its sphere of gravitational influence.

Day 5 of NASA’s first journey to the moon in more than 50 years remained on course Sunday morning after maneuvering the Orion space capsule in its precise course to ricochet around the far side of the moon before heading back to Earth.

The crew is roughly half-way through its ten-day mission to test the abilities of the Orion space capsule and make direct observations of the far side of the moon, all of which will take them farther from Earth than any human has previously traveled.

The crew’s work for Sunday includes a full sequence of space suit operations and preparations for their approach to the moon, as well as their responsibilities during the five-hour trip around its back side, NASA said.

“We’re going to work!” NASA said in a post on X around 12:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday that the astronauts were hearing the day’s wake-up song, which the agency has been announcing each day of the mission.

In addition to the wake-up song, the astronauts were greeted this “morning” with an audio message from Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke, who in 1972 became the 10th person to walk on the moon at age 36.

“Below you, on the moon, is a photo of my family,” Duke said in the 46-second recording, which the crew posted to X. “I pray it reminds you that we, in America, and all of the world, are cheering you on. Thanks for building on our Apollo legacy with Artemis.”

The suits are designed to protect astronauts during “dynamic” phases of space flight, can keep them alive should the Orion’s cabin depressurize and are designed to provide life support after splashing down in the ocean when they return to Earth.

The demonstration, like many of the other tasks the Artemis II crew is conducting, are meant to inform later Artemis missions to land on the moon and eventually build a human base there.

Although the crew was able to skip two other planned correctional burns on the way to entering the moon’s gravitational influence, an outbound trajectory correction burn is still planned for later today.

The final lunar science targets that the astronauts will be inspecting, photographing and analyzing will be sent from mission control and the crew will prepare to actually enter the moon’s gravity.

April 5 (UPI) — A 57-year-old man stands charged with driving his car into a crowd of parade-goers in southern Louisiana while drunk and causing multiple injuries, authorities say.

Todd Landry, of Jeanerette, La., was arrested Saturday after “striking multiple pedestrians” during the Lao New Year Parade in Broussard, La., located about seven miles south of Lafayette, La., in Iberia Parish, according to Louisiana State Police.

The exact number of people injured in the 2:30 p.m. incident remained unconfirmed on Sunday but Acadian Ambulance reported it transported a total of 11 patients by ground and two patients by air to nearby hospitals.

State troopers said they arrested Landry and booked him into the Iberia Parish jail on 18 counts of first-degree negligent injuring, one count of first-offense driving while impaired, careless operation of a vehicle and having an open container of alcohol in his car.

“Based on the preliminary investigation, this does not appear to be an intentional act,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

Iberia Parish Sheriff Tommy Romero on Sunday extended “heartfelt thoughts and prayers to the victims, their families, and the entire Laos community during this difficult time.

“We stand with those affected and ask our community to keep them in your prayers.”

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry also expressed concern, writing on X, “Sharon and I are praying for all those affected, and are grateful for the first responders who have responded to the scene.”

State Attorney General Liz Murrill said her office “will be following up with responding law enforcement agencies to offer support.”

April 4 (UPI) — A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to collect data on students on public universities in their attempt to stop them from considering race as part of the admissions process.

Seventeen states had sued to stop the administration from forcing several universities from submitting seven years of data on applicants and admitted students to prove that they have not factored race into admission decisions, Politico and The Los Angeles Times reported.

U.S. District Court Judge Dennis Saylor on Friday night issued a preliminary injunction that will allow universities in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin to retain their records until the trial is over.

The injunction said that the administration’s efforts to gather the information are “rushed” and “chaotic,” and moves to shut down the federal Department of Education would not only make collecting and analyzing the data difficult, but it may also become illegal.

“This is not a merely technical issue,” Saylor said in the ruling, explaining that if the department no longer exists, the work “cannot be turned over to States and local communities; they have no authority … to conduct such surveys.”

He added that that only federal agency with that authority is the DOE and its National Center for Education Services, meaning that if the department is shut down, the federal government’s authority to collect and analyze university data “vanishes.”

The Supreme Court in 2023 ruled against using affirmative action — the consideration of race to increase the diversity of university populations — in the admissions process.

The Trump administration has worked to enforce the ruling as part of its antagonistic view of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. Gathering and analyzing public university data, as well as lawsuits, are among the ways they are doing so.

The federal DOE was created by Congress under President Jimmy Carter in 1979 with the aim of improving coordination and management of federal education programs, but Trump ordered the department to be dismantled in a March 2025 executive order.

Twenty states have sued the administration to prevent that effort, as well.

April 4 (UPI) — NASA announced Saturday that the four astronauts of the Artemis II mission were closer to moon than to the Earth.

NASA shared photos from the mission on X, declaring that the astronauts were officially “moonbound.”

“Artemis II astronauts are more than halfway to their destination, and preparations for lunar flyby are underway,” NASA said. “During the trip around the far side of the moon, they will capture imagery to share with scientists (and you, too!).

The photos included two images of the moon and one of the interior of the Orion capsule as the astronauts worked and looked out at space.

“We can see the moon out of the docking hatch right now. It’s a beautiful sight,” an earlier NASA post quoting the astronauts said.

On Sunday, Artemis II is expected to reach the lunar sphere of influence, meaning the moon’s gravity will be stronger than Earth’s on the spacecraft.

The astronauts are expected to make their flyby of the moon on Monday, coming to within 6,000 miles of the lunar surface. They’ll fly around the far side of the moon for about 6 hours, taking photos and making observations. During this time, the astronauts will lose communication with Earth for about 30 to 50 minutes.

Tuesday marks the start of Artemis II’s four-day return to Earth, and splashdown is scheduled for Friday.

April 4 (UPI) — Israel’s military suspended attacks in an area of Iran where a U.S. airman is believed to be lost as U.S. forces carried out a second day of search-and-rescue operations Saturday.

The service member was one of two pilots on board an F-15E fighter jet that Iran shot down over its airspace on Friday. U.S. officials were able to safely rescue one of the pilots, but the second was missing.

An unnamed Israeli official told The New York Times that the Israeli military halted its operations in the area — the mountainous regions of Kohgiluyeh, Boyer-Ahmad and Khuzestan provinces — amid the search. The official said it was also sharing information with U.S. officials to aid in the rescue mission.

Meanwhile, state-run media in Iran encouraged civilians in the region to also look for the missing U.S. airman, The Guardian reported.

Speaking Friday with NBC News, President Donald Trump said the downed U.S. fighter jet won’t affect the United States’ negotiations with Iran more than a month after U.S. and Israeli forces began strikes on the country.

“No, not at all,” Trump said of the possibility. “No, it’s war. We’re in war.”

A U.S. official told NBC News that it’s believed that the downed F-14E fighter jet was originally based out of Royal Air Force Lakenheath in Britain.

Elsewhere, Iraq closed its border crossing with Iran at Shalamja on Saturday after an Iranian missile strike at the site killed one person and injured five others. Lt. Gen. Omar al-Waeli, who heads the Border Ports Authority, said the injured were injured were taken to a hospital in Iran.

All trade and passenger traffic were halted, the Iraqi News Agency reported.

“There are alternatives to Shalamja crossing, regarding the entry of goods, such as the Safwan border crossing, in addition to the existence of other land crossings operating in the rest of the govern orates in order to secure the entry of goods and commodities,” al-Waeli said.

April 3 (UPI) — A federal judge on Friday refused a Department of Justice request for him to reconsider his earlier ruling to block grand jury subpoenas it issued to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Friday said he would not lift his block on subpoenas that the Justice Department issued to board of the Federal Reserve regarding the $2.5 billion renovation of the Fed’s complex in Washington, D.C.

The judge had previously blocked the subpoenas because, he said, they had nothing to do with a Justice Department probe about the renovations, but rather were intended to pressure Powell into adjusting interest rates, as President Donald Trump had been chiding him to do for months.

“On March 11, 2026, this Court issued a Memorandum Opinion and Order that quashed the Government’s subpoenas directed to the Board of Governors of the Federal Research System,” Boasberg wrote in a response to the Justice Department request that was filed on Friday.

“The Government promptly moved for reconsideration of that decision,” he wrote. “As its cursory brief neither offers new evidence nor points to any material error, the Court will deny the Motion.”

The DOJ launched its criminal investigation into the Fed’s renovation budget, which Powell at the time called “pretexts” to punish him for not setting interest rates based on Trump demands.

Boasberg, in his response to the Justice when he blocked the subpoenas said that the government “has produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime.”

The Justice Department later acknowledged when appealing Boasberg’s quashing of the subpoenas that it did not have evidence that a crime had been committed, instead saying that there were “1.2 billion reasons for us to look into it.”

April 3 (UPI) — The U.S. forces rescued at least one crew member after Iran shot down a U.S. F-15E fighter jet Friday, unnamed U.S. military sources told multiple media outlets.

Officials confirmed the rescue to CBS News but said search-and-rescue operations were still taking place. CNN reported they were looking for one other pilot before Iranian forces could reach them. The F-15E has a standard crew of two pilots, The New York Times reported.

Iran’s state-run Tasnim news agency reported that Iranian officials’ efforts to locate the two U.S. pilot had “so far been unsuccessful.” Another Iranian news outlet, Fars News, said the government was offering a reward to anyone who captured an “enemy pilot or pilots.”

The New York Times reported that amid the search-and-rescue efforts, Iranian ground fire also hit a U.S. Air Force UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. Officials told the news outlet that the crew was able to fly the aircraft back to safety in Iraq.

The Times also reported that another aircraft, an A-10 Thunderbolt, or Warthog, crashed near the Strait of Hormuz around the same time as the F-15E fighter jet. Two U.S. officials told the outlet that the only pilot on board the aircraft was rescued.

Iranian media outlets published photos of what appears to be a shot-down F-15 fighter jet.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN that President Donald Trump had been briefed on the incident.

This is the first U.S. aircraft to be shot down by Iran since the start of U.S. and Israeli bombing on Feb. 28. Three other F-15 jets were shot down by mistake in Kuwait.

April 3 (UPI) — More than three million bottles of eye drops sold at stores across the United States have been recalled by their manufacturer because they may not be sterile.

K.C. Pharmaceuticals earlier this month issued a nationwide U.S. recall of roughly 3.1 million bottles of eight different eye drop products because of a “lack of assurance of sterility,” an FDA notice about the recall said.

The drops have been sold at some of the nation’s largest drug and grocery retailers, including CVS, H-E-B, Publix, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Kroger, Good Neighbor and several pharmaceutical supply companies.

K.C. Pharmaceuticals bills itself as the largest private label eye care supplier in North America, servicing 26 of the top 30 U.S. retailers and more than 90,000 stores across the country.

The voluntary recall, issued on March 3, has been categorized as a Class II recall, which the Federal Drug Administration told USA Today indicates that “the probability of a serious health issue is remote.”

People who have the drops also can continue to use them unless otherwise directed by K.C. Pharmaceuticals or the FDA, the agency said.

NBC News also reported that the FDA has not received reports of injuries linked to the recalled drops.

The eight types of drops included in the recall are Sterile EYE DROPS AC, EYE DROPS Advanced Relief, Dry Eye Relief Eye Drops, Ultra Lubricating Eye Drops, Sterile Eye Drops ORIGINAL FORMULA, Sterile EYE DROPS REDNESS LUBRICANT, STERILE EYE DROPS SOOTHING TEARS, and Artificial Tears Sterile Lubricant Eye Drops.

A complete list of the products, lot numbers and expiration dates, and what company or retailer sold the recalled drops can be found at the FDA’s website.

April 3 (UPI) — An official in the Federal Emergency Management Agency reiterated on Friday that he has experienced teleportation multiple times, including to a Waffle House miles away from where he had been.

Gregg Phillips, associate administrator for FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery, posted on social media and repeated statements that he has teleported, that it really happened and that it is connected his religious beliefs, CNN and The New York Times reported.

Phillips had mentioned his history of teleportation on several podcasts, including one called “Onward,” in which he said that “teleporting is no fun.”

“God will not be mocked,” Phillips posted on Truth Social. “People can debate me. Question me. Even ridicule what they don’t understand.”

“But here’s the real question,” he wrote. “What’s harder to believe? That God could move in a moment during a spiritual battle, or Jesus Christ rose from the dead and is coming again? I know what I’ve experienced. I know Who I serve.”

The social media post comes after a previous CNN report about Phillips’ comment on a podcast that he had experienced teleportation multiple times.

The examples included that his car was once flown through the air to a church and that he was teleported to a location of Waffle House in Rome, Ga., People Magazine reported.

“I was with my boys one time and I was telling them I was gonna go to Waffle House and get Waffle House,” Phillips said on a podcast in 2025.

“I ended up at a Waffle House — this was in Georgia — and I end at a Waffle House like 50 miles away,” he said.

The Times reported that employees at three Waffle House locations within 50 miles of where Phillips was remember seeing him.

Phillips said this week that the comments were taken out of context.

Earlier this week, in another post on Truth Social, he said that “the word ‘teleportation’ was not mine” and that his comments had been taken out of context while he while discussing treatment for metastatic bone cancer that had spread from his prostate.

The podcast episode, he said, was conducted during the “opening days of intensive treatment, heavily medicated, not thinking about future headlines.”

“The word ‘teleportation’ was not mine. It was used by someone else in the conversation reaching for language to describe something with no easy name,” he wrote. “The more accurate biblical terms are ‘translated’ or ‘transported’ — not new ideas for people of faith.”

The Times, CNN and MSNOW also reported that Phillips has a history of spreading baseless conspiracy theories — including election fraud and the discredited “2000 mules” project — and has employed violent rhetoric about politicians and public officials with whom he disagrees.

April 3 (UPI) — The Trump Administration has requested $152 million in its fiscal year 2027 federal budget proposal to refurbish and reopen Alcatraz as a prison.

President Donald Trump first broached the idea of reopening the prison on Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay in May 2025, but with the administration’s release of its budget proposal to Congress he is looking to put his plan in motion.

Alcatraz was closed in 1963 after 30 years as an active prison that has become famous for its former inmates and stories of attempted escapes, but has long been a popular tourist attraction that sees more than one million people per year visit the island, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

In the budget proposal, the administration argued that restoring Alcatraz is an appropriate response to the federal Bureau of Prisons housing “violent criminals in crumbling detention centers.”

“The Budget affirms the President’s commitment to rebuild Alcatraz as a state-of-the-art secure prison facility, providing $152 million to cover the first year of project costs,” the budget proposal said.

The request is part of the administration’s $5 billion request for the BOP, and its larger intent is to improve working conditions and pay to stem shortages of correctional officers.

While the $152 million is projected to over the first year of refurbishing the prison, there are no details of the project or longer-term details included in the proposal.

In 2025, however, when Trump said he’d directed his administration to start looking into reopening Alcatraz as a prison, his administration suggested that the multi-year project to make it usable could cost around $2 billion.

The prison originally was closed because it was so expensive to run — every supply needed for the facility has to be brought there by boat because it is in the middle of the San Francisco Bay — and had at least 36 inmates attempt a total of 14 separate escapes in its 30 years as a prison.

“Alcatraz is a historic museum that belongs to the public, and San Franciscans will not stand for Washington turning one of our most iconic landmarks into a political prop,” U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told The Los Angeles Times.

WASHINGTON — A crew member was rescued after an American aircraft went down Friday in Iran, the Associated Press reported, citing U.S. and Israeli officials.

U.S. forces launched a rescue mission in southwestern Iran after at least one American crew member ejected from a fighter jet downed by Iranian defenses, according to a U.S. official and news outlets.

The downing of the jet, an F-15E, was confirmed to The Times by a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly. That type of jet reportedly carries a standard crew of two, but it was not clear if more than one crew member ejected.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has maintained for weeks that the U.S. has “complete, uncontested control of Iranian airspace” after destroying the country’s air defenses.

“Iran has no air defenses, Iran has no air force,” he said at a March 13 Pentagon news conference. “Today, as we speak, we fly over the top of Iran and Tehran, fighters and bombers all day, picking targets as they choose, as our intelligence gets better and better and more refined.”

But the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed that a new type of Iranian air defense system deployed for the first time in recent days had shot down a warplane on Friday.

The statements stirred a flurry of conflicting instructions from Iranian state-affiliated broadcasters. One local television channel initially encouraged viewers to search for the downed pilot and “shoot them as soon as you see them.”

It then changed the instructions, according to the Associated Press, after local police issued a statement asking the public to capture and turn in American pilots alive to security agencies to “receive a precious prize.”

On social media, Iranian accounts posted videos purporting to show helicopters searching for downed pilots in Iran’s western and southern provinces, according to a report from Fars News.

Fars also reported officials in Iran’s southwest were offering a “valuable reward” to anyone “who captures the American pilot alive.”

Images of a tail section posted on social media had markings indicating it was from the 48th Fighter Wing, which is based at RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom, according to Peter Layton, a visiting fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute in Australia, in an interview with NBC News.

U.S. and Israel escalate attacks on infrastructure

The development came as U.S. and Israeli forces escalated attacks on civilian sites and key infrastructure across Iran Friday, including strikes on residential buildings, health centers and Iran’s largest bridge, with President Trump warning that the U.S. “hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran.”

On his social media, the president posted dramatic images of the smoldering B1 bridge, a towering cable-suspended viaduct that was severed in U.S.-Israel strikes late Thursday.

“The biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down, never to be used again — Much more to follow!” Trump wrote.

Connecting Tehran to the city of Karaj, the $400-million bridge was Iran’s largest, and was often regarded as one of the most prominent, expensive and complex engineering endeavors in the Middle East.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei labeled the attack a “war crime in the style of ISIS terrorism.” Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi called the act a sign of moral collapse by “an enemy in disarray,” stating that such actions will not compel Iranians to surrender.

“Every bridge and building will be built back stronger. What will never recover: damage to America’s standing.”

The attacks come after Trump announced what he described as a two- to three-day “off-ramp” from hostilities, while simultaneously warning he would bring Iran “back to the Stone Ages” if it didn’t cede to U.S. demands.

Reports from Iranian state media and international monitoring groups indicate strikes have also hit homes, religious centers, universities and municipal infrastructure across multiple provinces, raising concerns among humanitarian organizations about the widening scope of targets.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday that the U.S. and Israel have carried out routine attacks on Iranian healthcare facilities since March 1.

“WHO has verified over 20 attacks on health care in Iran, resulting in at least nine deaths, including that of an infectious diseases health worker and a member of the Iranian Red Crescent Society,” Tedros wrote on X.

Iran’s health ministry estimated about 2,076 people have been killed and 26,500 wounded by U.S.-Israeli attacks since fighting broke out Feb. 28. An estimated 1,300 have been killed in Lebanon, according to its health ministry, while more than two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank.

Thirteen U.S. service members have been killed, and 19 Israeli service members have been reported dead in a five-week-old war that has triggered growing unease stateside.

A recent Pew Research Center survey conducted in late March found that most Americans opposed direct U.S. military involvement in a war with Iran. A separate Gallup poll reported declining approval for the administration’s handling of foreign policy.

Lawmakers in both parties have raised concerns about Israel’s influence in the Trump administration’s decision to enter a lengthy conflict, stoking debates over military aid and executive war powers.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that she plans to oppose future military aid to Israel, including for its Iron Dome defense systems. She argued that the Israeli government recently funded a $45-billion defense budget and is “well able” to bankroll its war without U.S. help.

“I will not support Congress sending more taxpayer dollars and military aid to a government that consistently ignores international law and U.S. law,” she said on X.

Iran hit desalination plant and oil refinery

Iran returned fire, again aiming at infrastructure targets operated by its Gulf neighbors. A series of airstrikes set Kuwait’s Mina al-Ahmadi oil refinery on fire, the Associated Press reported, as Kuwaiti firefighters were working to knock down several blazes there.

Kuwait also reported that an Iranian attack significantly damaged a desalination plant, which supplies drinking water to the region.

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Israel all scrambled to intercept incoming Iranian missiles Friday, according to reports, despite the Pentagon’s assurances that Iran’s military facilities and missile capacity have been largely wiped out.

Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates shut down a gas field after a missile interception reportedly rained debris on it and started a fire, the Associated Press reported.

The war has pushed Iran to tighten its grip over the Strait of Hormuz, sending oil prices soaring 50%, upending stock markets, and stirring supply chain disruptions that threaten to destabilize global food markets.

Americans felt the oil rally again this week, after Trump’s Wednesday address dashed investors’ hopes of a swift end to the conflict, sending U.S. crude prices up 11% Thursday and another half point on Friday.