united states

World number two Sabalenka’s campaign at the WTA Finals came to a disappointing end after she failed to the reach the semifinals of the season-ending championships.

Elina Svitolina overwhelmed Aryna Sabalenka in the deciding set to seal a ⁠6-3, 3-6, 6-1 upset on Friday and reach the semifinals of the season-ending WTA Finals in Indian Wells, where she will face Linda Noskova.

Svitolina absorbed and redirected Sabalenka’s power effectively, breaking the ⁠Belarusian six times before sealing her first victory over her opponent in more than six years with a forehand winner on her fourth match point.

With the win, Svitolina improved to 2-6 against Sabalenka in their career meetings.

“It was a bit of a roller-coaster match,” Svitolina told reporters.

“I played well in ‌the first set but lost a little bit of rhythm. She played well in the second and served much better. I was really happy with the way I could come back in the third after losing the first game.”

No handshake

The Ukrainian again did not shake hands with Sabalenka after the match, maintaining her policy of not doing so with Russian and Belarusian players following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Svitolina, the 2018 WTA Finals champion, will face Noskova on ⁠Saturday for a place in the final.

The defeat ended Sabalenka’s season ⁠on a disappointing note.

The second seed won Brisbane International in January and then Indian Wells and the Miami Open in March to complete the “Sunshine Double” but did not claim another title after that.

Sabalenka also surrendered the world number one ⁠ranking to Elena Rybakina at the US Open.

She had entered the season finale among the favourites after Rybakina withdrew on the eve of ⁠the tournament because of illness.

Sabalenka declined to speak to the ⁠media following Friday’s loss.

Andreeva rolls

Earlier in the day, tournament debutant Andreeva continued her impressive run with a 6-2, 6-1 win over fellow Russian Diana Shnaider, her third straight-sets victory of the week.

Shnaider, Andreeva’s friend and doubles partner, replaced Karolina Muchova, who ‌withdrew before the final day of round-robin matches with a gastrointestinal illness.

Andreeva had already secured her place in the semifinals before facing Shnaider and will meet American Jessica Pegula on Saturday.

The eight-day, $10m ‌tournament was moved from Riyadh to Indian Wells Tennis Garden due to the United States-Israeli war on Iran. The event will be played in Charlotte starting next year.

The New York Knicks look unlikely to advance to the NBA Cup knockout rounds after falling to the Indiana Pacers.

The shorthanded Indiana Pacers held off New York 106-104 on Friday to leave the Knicks’ bid for an NBA Cup repeat in tatters.

The Knicks won last year’s in-season tournament in what proved a curtain-raiser to their run to a first NBA championship since 1973.

But after coming up short in their bid to erase a 14-point third-quarter deficit, the Knicks fell to 0-2 in Cup play.

They are not mathematically eliminated, but in three prior editions of the Cup, no team with two group-stage defeats has reached the knockout rounds.

Pascal Siakam scored 19 points to lead a balanced Pacers attack. Aaron Nesmith scored 18 points, Kelly Oubre Jr added 16, and Ivica Zubac and Andrew Nembhard chipped in 12 apiece to lead Indiana, who were again without injured star Tyrese Haliburton.

Jalen Brunson scored 33 points and handed out 11 assists for the Knicks, who tied it at 87-87 early in the fourth quarter, only for the Pacers to pull away again with a 15-2 scoring run.

The Knicks made one last push, cutting the deficit to two, but Karl-Anthony Towns – who scored 23 points and pulled down 15 rebounds – missed a potential game-tying basket with nine-tenths of a second remaining.

“Very proud of our team. We were pretty big underdogs coming into this game,” said Pacers coach Rick Carlisle, whose team outscored the Knicks 50-30 in the paint.

“Second half, it got difficult. New York is a championship team. They know how to make comebacks,” Carlisle said. “Our guys stuck together and kept fighting together.”

The Knicks are last in East Group B and will host the Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat in their last two Cup group games.

In Miami, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo scored 37 points each to lead the Heat to a 133-121 victory over the Cavaliers.

Adebayo added 14 rebounds, and Davion Mitchell chipped in 22 points and 17 assists to help the Heat improve to 2-0 in Cup play – top of the group – and 6-6 on the season.

Spurs thrash Warriors

The San Antonio Spurs, who fell to the Knicks in last year’s NBA Cup final before losing to them in the NBA Finals, crushed the Golden State Warriors 123-85, their 11th straight victory pushing them to 2-0 in Cup play.

Stephon Castle scored 32 points and Victor Wembanyama added 12 points and 12 rebounds for the Spurs, who opened the game on an 18-0 run and led by as many as 43 against a Warriors team playing without injured superstar Stephen Curry.

LJ Cryer scored 20 points to lead the Warriors as none of the Golden State starters scored in double figures.

Veteran Draymond Green finished with four points and was assessed a flagrant foul for a shove from behind that sent Wembanyama crashing out of bounds midway through the second quarter.

In the last game of the night, the Los Angeles Clippers improved to 1-1 in Cup play – just 3-8 overall – with a battling 113-112 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Darius Garland sealed the victory with a three-point play with less than a minute remaining, driving for a layup that tied it at 112-112, drawing a foul and converting the free throw.

LA’s Brook Lopez scored 11 of his 26 points in the fourth quarter, and the Clippers withstood a 40-point performance from Oklahoma City’s two-time reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander – who came up empty on two attempts in the waning seconds.

More than 1.5 million passengers face travel disruption as domestic and international airlines warn of knock-on delays.

More than 1.5 million air passengers, including sports teams in the NBA, NHL and college football, have faced travel disruption after the United States halted departing flights nationwide for more than four hours, with airlines warning they would take days to recover.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted the ground stop at 8:15pm Eastern time on Friday (01:15 GMT on Saturday), after a telecommunications outage affected the country’s 22 regional air traffic control centres.

Cirium, an aviation analytics firm, said about 11,000 flights carrying more than 1.5 million passengers were scheduled to depart US airports after 4pm Eastern time (21:00 GMT), and that at least 827 flights had been diverted by 7:05pm on Friday (00:05 am on Saturday).

FlightRadar24 counted more than 4,700 cancellations and 10,000 delays on Friday, with 700 flights already cancelled for Saturday.

Only 336 flights worldwide were in the air bound for the US at the lowest point during the ground stop, FlightRadar24 reported on X.

Passengers stranded

At Los Angeles airport, Nicholas Erdodi, who had travelled from New Zealand to attend a conference in Chicago, told Al Jazeera’s John Hendren he had spent six hours at the airport after being forced off his plane.

“The challenge is you cannot ask anyone here what to do,” he said. “Lack of information is what bothers me.” He had been rebooked, but was unsure whether his next flight would go.

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said it would “take us some time” to restore capacity and that “we’re going to have some makeup to do.”

He acknowledged that tens of thousands of travellers had been stranded, saying he expected operations to be back to normal for the Thanksgiving rush, which begins in less than two weeks.

Sports weekend in chaos

The Associated Press news agency reported that the shutdown left NBA, NHL and college teams stranded, with NFL teams wondering whether they could travel in time for their games.

The Nets were among five NBA teams scheduled to fly on Friday for Saturday games.

There are 14 NHL games set to play Saturday.

The San Jose Sharks were left waiting to fly to Utah, while the Florida Panthers reached St Louis before the stoppage.

The Texas Longhorns had boarded their plane before it was grounded. “We are grounded and waiting to see when we can leave,” a team spokesman said.

If they have to take a bus to Baton Rouge, the trip for Saturday’s 6:30pm kickoff would take about seven hours.

The Washington Huskies’ buses, carrying almost 200 people, had just reached the airport when the order came, The Washington Post reported.

College football teams due for matches had not yet reached their destinations.

The Big 12 conference said it was evaluating possible changes to Saturday’s schedule, and the Southeastern Conference said it was “aware” of the impact on team travel.

Airlines and airports

Delta Air Lines said it was “safely resuming operations”, offering flexible rebooking, and warned that repositioning aircraft and crews would take time.

United Airlines said it was resuming a number of Friday night flights.

JetBlue plans to resume on Saturday morning.

Air Canada said operations would return gradually, with disruption likely on Saturday, and Aeromexico was working to resume operations.

In Mexico City, the Benito Juarez International Airport said about 70 flights scheduled for Friday could be affected.

In Canada, Toronto Pearson said flights that did not need to cross US airspace were operating as normal and that it had increased staffing to support affected passengers.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has lifted a nationwide ground stop imposed on Friday that halted departing flights, an order it issued citing “extraordinary circumstances and reasons for safety”.

The halt, which grounded thousands of flights across the country, was lifted on Friday evening.

This was the third nationwide ground stop of all departures since the September 11, 2001, attacks.

“Everybody’s safe,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said, adding that this was not “another 9/11”.

Here is what we know:

What happened?

The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop at 3:54pm Eastern Time (20:54 GMT) on Friday due to a telecommunications outage affecting air route traffic control centres, which handle flights travelling across the country.

The FAA confirmed that the nationwide ground stop had been lifted.

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said airspace reopened at 8:15pm ET (01:15 GMT on Saturday), after more than four hours of disruption.

“We’ve opened up the airspace,” Duffy said, warning that flights would not resume immediately.

“It’s going to be slow,” he added, urging passengers to check with their airlines.

Duffy said flights would resume depending on the availability of pilots and flight attendants, with authorities trying to get as many flights moving as possible on Friday night.

Aviation analytics firm Cirium said that after 4pm ET (21:00 GMT) on Friday, about 11,000 flights carrying more than 1.5 million passengers were still scheduled to depart from US airports.

By 7:05pm ET (00:05 GMT on Saturday), at least 827 flights had been diverted, according to Cirium. Of those, 670 returned to their departure airports, while 157 were diverted elsewhere.

Aircraft already in the air were allowed to continue to their destinations and land during the ground stop.

During the ground stop, international flights were handled on a case-by-case basis, with some allowed to depart despite the restrictions.

How many flights were affected?

More than 4,700 flights were cancelled and 10,000 delayed on Friday, while another 700 had already been cancelled for Saturday, according to FlightRadar24.

Aviation analysts said it could take days for airlines to restore their schedules.

Reporting from Los Angeles international airport, Al Jazeera’s John Hendren spoke to passenger Nicholas Erdodi, who travelled from New Zealand and was trying to reach Chicago for a conference.

Erdodi said he had been travelling for 16 to 18 hours before spending another six hours at the airport, where passengers had been forced to leave their plane.

“The challenge is you cannot ask anyone here what to do,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Lack of information is what bothers me, I mean, and not to mention find the hotel for the night, not to mention all the cost.”

Erdodi said he had been rebooked but remained uncertain whether his next flight would depart.

“I work in tech, I understand what could be going on, but someone needs to tell us,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter if someone tells us that we don’t know what’s happening, but please just let us know what’s going on,” he added.

What does a nationwide ground stop mean?

A nationwide ground stop temporarily requires departing aircraft to remain on the ground until cleared to take off.

Flights in the air are generally allowed to continue to their destination, but new departures are on strict orders to stay grounded.

The measure is intended to stop any further aircraft from entering the airspace as the authorities deal with the safety issues.

What caused the FAA nationwide ground stop?

The FAA said the ground stop was caused by a telecommunications outage affecting air traffic control systems.

Duffy said the outage was caused by switches and routers that became overloaded with data and went down, adding that the incident did not involve a total loss of communications or radar capabilities.

Todd Curtis, an aviation safety expert and chief executive of AirSafe.com, told Al Jazeera that the failures appeared to be concentrated in the country’s air route traffic control centres.

“There are 21 across the United States, one in Alaska and the other 20 in the lower 48,” he said.

“These are the folks who handle the aircraft that are transiting from one part of the country to the other, and they rely on multiple handoffs between controllers.”

Speaking before Duffy provided further details, Ron Bartsch, a professor of international aviation law at the University of the South Pacific, raised questions about the apparent failure of backup systems.

“The whole aviation community is based on redundancy,” he told Al Jazeera.

“So the fact that a redundant system hasn’t kicked in immediately just raises more questions than what we’ve seen answers to at this stage.”

Mullin said that there was no cyberattack linked to the nationwide ground stop and that the public was never in danger.

Duffy acknowledged that tens of thousands of travellers had been stranded and called for $50bn in upgrades to the nation’s air traffic control system.

When will US flights return to normal?

Duffy said it will “take us some time to get back to capacity”, but he expected operations to be “back up and operational as we come into the heat of travel during Thanksgiving”.

The Thanksgiving travel period, which begins in less than two weeks, is usually one of the busiest times of the year for air travel in the US.

Aviation safety expert Curtis also warned that the disruption could continue affecting passengers even after the technical problems were resolved.

“If it’s fully resolved, it would take more than a day to get back to normal, to reschedule aircraft,” he told Al Jazeera.

He explained that many airlines operate interconnected networks, meaning passengers often have to change planes at major hubs.

“So there could be a bit of a hassle on the part of the airlines trying to figure out how to get everyone to where they have to go,” he said.

Passengers have been advised to check their flight status directly with their airlines, as delays and cancellations might continue.

WASHINGTON — Democrats are demanding answers about Friday’s temporary ground stoppage on all flights in the United States and the apparent communications issue that affected air traffic control centers.

The ground stop crippled air travel and raised a variety of questions about the nation’s aging air traffic control systems.

In an interview on Friday, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) said the FAA telecommunications outage was completely unacceptable and that the agency needs to create systems that do not have a single point of failure.

“I urge the FAA and the Trump administration to make sure this never happens again,” he said.

The California congressman said there need to be congressional hearings on the cause of the technical issue and what improvements should be enacted to avoid similar future outages.

“What just happened is enormously damaging to trust in our air system,” he said, “and our air system is a vital component of our national economy.”

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), the ranking Democrat on the Aviation, Space and Innovation Subcommittee, said she will be demanding answers from the FAA about the ground stop.

“The safety of our skies is built on redundancies,” she said in a statement. “Whatever led to the nationwide ground stop will warrant a thorough and complete investigation.”

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont)—who was stranded at Denver International Airport because of the outage—told CNN that lawmakers were waiting to be briefed by the Trump administration Friday afternoon.

Earlier in the day, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said that it was a telecommunications outage and that the ground stop did not constitute a national security threat.

“There is no indication that we’ve had, no reason to believe, that as of right now this was a threat to the United States,” Mullin told reporters at the White House, later repeating there was “no indication as of yet that this was a nefarious attack against us.”

While the outage has not been linked to a specific cause yet, federal officials are not yet ruling out the possibility that it could be tied to the use of an AI tool that advises air traffic controllers to assist in managing air traffic across the nation’s airspace.

The FAA expanded the use of the tool to all of its 22 control centers on Tuesday, according to the agency. The tool—called Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories, or SMART—combines about 200 data streams, including flight paths, schedules and weather, on one cloud-based system, according to a fact sheet posted on the FAA’s website.

Congressional Democrats raised concerns after the platform’s initial roll-out in the Washington area, calling for a 90-day pause until they better understand how it is being used. In a letter to Secretary Duffy, lawmakers said there was an “egregious lack of transparency” about the tool.”

“The air traffic control systems and processes currently in place are complex, and we don’t know what impact AI-enabled tools might have on these systems and resulting safety,” they wrote in October.

But in a post on social media Friday afternoon, the AI company that created SMART, Air Space Intelligence, said that “current ground stop is not based on or a result of the SMART system, any product of ASI or our integration with FAA and ATC.”

Officials have not said if anyone was hurt after American Heritage was partially submerged with 129 passengers on board.

A tanker has struck a river cruise boat carrying 129 passengers on the Mississippi River in New Orleans, partially submerging the vessel and prompting a major rescue operation.

The Atlantic Asphalt tanker hit the American Heritage paddleboat on Friday at about 12:30pm local time (18:30 GMT), the Port of New Orleans said. The cruise boat had docked about two hours earlier to begin letting passengers off. The authorities have not released any information on injuries or deaths.

“Multiple individuals have been rescued, and search-and-rescue operations remain ongoing,” a city spokesperson said.

Video from the scene showed the much larger tanker hitting the paddlewheel cruise boat as metal and glass crashed and crunched, according to The Associated Press news agency.

More than a dozen people in life jackets were dragged from the river, where the water temperature was 19 degrees Celsius (66 degrees Fahrenheit), onto nearby ships, while others stood near the railing as the boat listed further into the water.

“Surreal, that’s what that was,” one witness, Jamie Holford, told local television. “Fifteen minutes from impact to where it rolled over.”

Port police, the fire department, the coastguard and emergency medical staff are on the scene, and a triage area was set up inside the port’s administration building. The river was closed to vessel traffic.

American Cruise Lines, which operates the boat, said guests and crew had been evacuated and that it was “deeply concerned for everyone involved”.

The five-deck American Heritage, built in 2015, holds up to 150 passengers and was finishing an eight-day cruise to destinations in Louisiana and Mississippi.

The 160-metre (520-foot) tanker was flying the flag of the Marshall Islands and was bound for New Orleans, according to the MarineTraffic tracker. It specialises in carrying asphalt and bitumen, according to the maritime periodical Marine Insights.

The cause of the collision, as well as whether the ship was carrying cargo, remains unknown.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the US aviation agency was investigating.

The United States has grounded flights across the country after a “communication issue” impacted traffic control centers, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said.

“FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them,” Duffy wrote on social media.

Around 7,000 flights have been either delayed or canceled due to the stop, according to FlightAware.

The disruption is the latest sign of strain on the US air traffic control system, which has ⁠been beset by equipment failures, communications problems and ⁠shortages of controllers while the FAA tries to replace aging infrastructure. Congress approved $12.5bn for the overhaul last year, and the FAA and White House asked lawmakers on Friday for ⁠another $30.1bn.

This is the first nationwide US ground stop since January 2023, when a key FAA computer system malfunctioned. Before that, the last time had been after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

This story is developing…

The Federal Aviation Administration has issued a temporary ground stoppage on all flights in the United States.

The stoppage was announced Friday afternoon and impacted flights nationwide, including at Los Angeles International Airport.

“Due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety,” the FAA advisory read, “all departing traffic should remain ground stopped until further notice.”

Inbound international flights would be handled “on a case by case basis,” the advisory said.

Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation said on X that “FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them.”

It marks the second full ground stop since 9/11 and it’s unclear how long it will last. The one was in 2023 and caused by technical issues.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Jensen Huang, tech superstar, and now former chief executive of Nvidia, is due to appear before the United States Congress.

He has admitted to having an affair with a woman accused of having links to Chinese intelligence.

Nvidia says no company data has been compromised and there were no breaches of national security. But the FBI and the Department of Justice have launched investigations.

Could this damage the US chip-manufacturing industry?

And how will the US deal with potential spying at the highest levels of one of the world’s most valuable companies?

Presenter: Per Nyberg

Guests:

Paulo Carvao – Research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, specialising in AI and technology policy

Aya Ibrahim – Senior fellow for economic and national security at the AI Now Institute

Einar Tangen – Senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and a specialist in China-US relations

Washington, DC – After a commanding performance in the United States midterm elections, advocates say Democrats are uniquely positioned to strip a controversial measure from a Pentagon funding bill that would codify integration of the US and Israeli military industries.

Earlier this year, Democratic leadership had already opposed the Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a sprawling $1.15 trillion package that, along with supplemental bills, includes funding for much of President Donald Trump’s military wishlist, including the “Golden Dome” missile shield and his so-called “Trump-class” battleship plan.

Top party officials, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, had attached their opposition to the Trump administration’s war with Iran and wider affordability issues facing US citizens. Advocates say the leadership must also send the message that the US-Israeli defence production integration is a non-starter.

The current Senate version of the bill, under Section 219, calls for the creation of a so-called “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative” that would “expand and accelerate bilateral defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, coordination, and industrial cooperation”.

Cavan Kharrazian, senior policy adviser at Demand Progress, told Al Jazeera that “Democrats need to make it clear right now that their votes for the NDAA depend on substantial changes, including US-Israeli military integration and Iran war prohibition”.

Opposition to Pentagon funding has historically been politically fraught, with lawmakers wary of appearing to not support the US military. But while a version of the funding package passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives in May, Democrats delayed the Senate version via a procedural vote in July.

They now face a December 11 deadline when current stopgap funding ends, meaning they would need to pass another stopgap measure or the full NDAA to maintain Pentagon funding.

Because the NDAA requires 60 votes to pass, Democrats can exercise outsized leverage in the remaining days of this congressional session, Kharrazian explained. Republicans, meanwhile, face a ticking clock before Democrats take control of both chambers of Congress in January.

“[Democrats] have the leverage to filibuster the NDAA until these provisions are stripped out and they need to commit to blocking NDAA consideration until those changes are secured,” Kharrazian said.

“An amendment vote alone is insufficient if Democrats then let the bill advance with the provisions intact.”

‘Assert full leverage’

To be sure, Democrats, eager to show they are delivering on voter affordability concerns, have signalled they will seek some overhaul to the current NDAA and related supplemental bills. Defence industry analysts have predicted a major constriction in Pentagon funding, which also includes a stalled $360bn supplemental package.

However, it has been unclear if that would extend to the US-Israeli military development initiative.

“We must push for the development of a more realistic and sustainable approach to our national security – one that does not require a defense budget in excess of $1 trillion or one paid for with draconian cuts to critical domestic programs,” Representative Adam Smith, currently the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement shortly after the November 3 election results rolled in.

He echoed Schumer, who wrote in a July “dear colleague” letter that Republicans were seeking a Pentagon funding bill “that would dump billions more into the defense industry while long overdue investments in American communities wait”.

Smith had initially supported, but later opposed, the provision to integrate US-Israeli military development. But Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who are both seeking to retain their leadership positions in their respective chambers, have not publicly stated their positions.

Critics have long warned that the initiative would establish an opaque new avenue for the Pentagon to provide US tax-funded support to Israel via joint development ventures, while dodging congressional oversight. It would also make future policy pivots more difficult, entrenching Israeli-developed technology into US military programmes.

Some have characterised the initiative as the next phase of Washington’s decades-long military support for Israel, with both US and Israeli officials acknowledging direct military aid has become increasingly politically fraught.

“The whole point of Section 219, let’s understand, is to move the US-Israel aid relationship … further outside the purview of Congress, which is to say to sort of inoculate it from democracy,” said Matthew Duss, the executive vice president at the progressive Center for International Policy think tank. “I think Democrats and others who are opposing this measure in the NDAA are on firm ground to hold a hard line.”

“But I think it’ll be tough, especially with this leadership that remains very strongly pro-Israel,” he told Al Jazeera. “I think both Schumer and Jeffries have shown signs they recognise that their respective caucuses are in a very different place ideologically than they are on this issue.”

Growing opposition

A growing number of senators have publicly opposed the measure. In July, Senator Chris Van Hollen joined six colleagues in rejecting the provision.

A total of 12 senators have since signed on (PDF) to a new letter released earlier this week, including progressive stalwarts like Bernie Sanders and more centrist figures like Ron Wyden and Tammy Duckworth.

Hamid Bendaas, the communications director for the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project, said the senators represent “a broader range of the Democratic Caucus”.

“So I think that’s a good sign that a good amount of Democrats are ready to really stand against those provisions in the NDAA,” he told Al Jazeera.

Bendaas also pointed to public opinion polls suggesting widespread opposition to US military support for Israel, fuelled by the genocide in Gaza. Both President Trump and Vice President JD Vance have acknowledged that the current state of the US-Israel relationship has become politically fraught.

“I wouldn’t want to be a Democrat or a Republican who votes yes on the text that we’ve seen,” Bendaas said. “For one of the first major bills to pass post-midterms to be a bill that directs the Pentagon to send taxpayer funds to Israel, or, I should say, Israeli companies, some of which are government-owned companies … I think that’s about the worst thing that they could possibly do right now.”

In their letter, the senators wrote the provision would “expand and accelerate the US-Israel defense relationship, including technology sharing, co-production of weapons systems, and bilateral research and development across multiple domains of warfare such as biotechnology, quantum, autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, cyberwarfare, and others”, surpassing integration even with some US NATO allies.

That could, in turn, “threaten US national security interests by handing Israel leverage over American weapons systems and military technology” and “create long-term dependencies by embedding Israeli technology into the US defense industrial base that could make future policy changes costly or difficult to implement”.

“To do so in this instance would be unwise,” the lawmakers wrote. “Especially as the Government of Israel continues to pursue policies in Gaza, the West Bank and other parts of the region that are inconsistent with US interests and values.”

As disruption affects users worldwide, Microsoft admits fixes are not going ‘as expected’.

Just hours before Iran claimed it hit the United States military’s early warning radar system in Bahrain early on Friday, US President Donald Trump said he had told his country’s lead negotiator, Vice President JD Vance, that, “We don’t need a deal with Iran.”

Instead, Trump said, he has told Vance to focus on unearthing what the president says is corruption and crime in Democratic-controlled cities and states – after Democrats stunningly took over Congress in the midterm elections.

Vance is a known critic of the US-Israeli war on Iran. He has blamed Trump’s military strikes on Iran and the subsequent energy crisis and inflation in the US for the Republicans’ losses in Congress.

Meanwhile, several commercial vessels trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz have hit naval mines, or were struck by the Iranian military, over the past week – but Trump continues to claim that Washington controls the critical waterway nonetheless.

So, where is the war headed – and is Vance being sidelined by Trump?

What did Trump tell Vance?

Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that he had asked Vice President Vance “to focus his complete and total attention on the Massive Corruption and Crime taking place in Democrat run Cities and States throughout the U.S.”

“We don’t need a deal with Iran,” he added. “Those days have long since passed. We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait!”

The Trump administration has appeared increasingly divided on the foregoing arc of war on Iran since the midterm losses.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that Washington’s economic pressure campaign against Iran is proving effective, so a resumption of large-scale military operations is unnecessary.

“The economic pressure on Iran is going to get even worse,” he added.

Trump has given mixed messages about his plans for the war. Despite threatening that he might “destroy” Iran last week, this week Trump has said that further strikes against Iran are “quite unlikely”.

What role has Vance played in talks with Iran?

Vance favours a deal with Iran, which Trump believes is not possible currently.

Vance led the US negotiations in April in Islamabad, where he helped secure the June memorandum of understanding with Iran. That quickly collapsed over glaring gaps in each side’s understanding of what had been agreed, however – particularly in reference to control of the Strait of Hormuz.

The US vice president also led direct talks with Iran in Switzerland and is part of renewed diplomatic efforts, engaging Qatari and Pakistani mediators and seeking continued negotiations with Iranian officials.

On November 4, following sweeping Republican losses in the midterm elections, Vance publicly questioned whether the war had been worth the political and economic costs. In a post on X, he wrote: “The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night,” endorsing diplomatic resolution as sound advice.

He added: “If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so.”

Political analysts say Vance’s rather blunt assessment is also an effort to distance himself from Trump’s war on Iran, when the president is facing his all-time low career approval ratings.

On June 17, speaking at the G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains, France – when both parties had just signed the Islamabad MoU – Trump told reporters: “This way, if it works out, I’m going to take the credit. If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming JD. You better be careful, JD.”

The next day, Vance told reporters he believed the president was “joking”.

Where does the US-Iran war go from here?

It remains unclear.

On Friday morning, Tehran said it had attacked and destroyed an early-warning radar system belonging to the US military in Bahrain, in what it said was retaliation for an air attack on a telecommunications tower in southern Iran’s port city of Sirik.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, Trump said Washington’s allies in the Middle East had asked him to hold off on renewed large-scale attacks against Iran. He added that the US could destroy Iran’s energy infrastructure, bridges and manufacturing facilities within three days, if it wanted to.

“Saudi Arabia has asked me to please just let it be the way it is now for a while,” he said at White House, adding that Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain preferred the current approach.

Asked whether he would have launched further attacks without those requests, Trump replied: “Yes, I would.”

Though Trump acknowledged that rising fuel prices caused by the war contributed to the Republicans’ defeat in the midterm elections, he defended his decision to attack Iran.

Meanwhile, Brigadier General Ali Reza Belaili, an adviser to the aerospace force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said an order by Iran’s supreme leader to strike “enemies” without geographical limits will be implemented “at the appropriate time”.

Iran’s Mehr news agency quoted him saying that “the more Americans persist, the more they will sink into this swamp they created themselves”.

What’s the latest on diplomatic efforts?

This week, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker and top negotiator, told Al Jazeera that the Strait of Hormuz will “never return” to its status before the US-Israel war on Iran. That was when all commercial shipping was able to pass through the strait freely without having to pay tolls.

Iran in effect closed the strait, through which one-fifth of global oil supplies were shipped in peacetime, in early March following the start of US-Israeli strikes. That sent global energy markets into turmoil.

Ghalibaf said Tehran has sent a clear proposal for a ceasefire and for the reopening of the strait to Washington via Qatari mediators, laying out seven conditions, and added that Iran is now waiting for an official response from the US.

“The ball is now in the American court,” he said.

Iran’s conditions include an end to the US naval blockade of Iran’s ports, the lifting of economic sanctions, the release of Iranian frozen funds, ending fighting on all fronts, and an explicit announcement of an end to the war.

The US has previously refused to agree to these demands without an agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme in place first. Iran wants to negotiate that separately.

Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, an associate fellow in the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the Chatham House think tank, told Al Jazeera: “We are still in a situation which is ‘no war, no peace’, and it’s unlikely to move for the time being.

“Major strikes are unlikely to happen in the imminent days, but things are likely to shift one way or the other in the next couple of weeks,” she said. “The Gulf countries are not necessarily endorsing this as a new normal, even if they prefer this to the prospect of a renewed war.”

What’s the latest on US strikes and ships hit in Hormuz?

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Ghalibaf said this week that “there are no ‘free waters’ [international waters] there, and the 1982 [UN Convention on the Law of the Sea] does not apply” to the Strait of Hormuz. The strait does, in fact, run solely through the territorial waters of Iran and Oman.

“The regulations within the Strait of Hormuz are governed by the laws of the two littoral states that border it,” he added, reiterating Iran’s position that it is tightly controlling the waterway.

Tehran has said that multiple “offending” vessels – which it says have used an “illegal” route, referring to the southern corridor of the strait – have caught fire during attempts to transit the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has previously told approved ships to use a northern route which passes closer to its own coastline.

At least 12 tankers have been hit in the past 12 days, according to Iran.

The US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) says it has been “working round the clock” to keep the strait open.

On Wednesday, CENTCOM claimed that at least 4,000 ships had crossed the waterway with the US military’s assistance, carrying more than 1.7 billion barrels of crude oil.

However, all maritime agencies continue to advise against travelling through the strait, and insurers have raised prices sharply for such journeys, or are refusing cover at all.

On November 10, Gulf defence ministers approved the establishment of a forward command in Kuwait under the Gulf Cooperation Council’s Unified Military Command, with forces to be allocated to it. The decision marks another step towards Gulf states taking greater collective responsibility for their security.

One day earlier, after meeting Qatar’s prime minister, US President Donald Trump had said: “Iran militarily is effectively over.” He also said the US blockade would continue and left open further military action. His remarks fell short of announcing an agreed end to the war.

Any opening for diplomacy deserves support. But even a lasting agreement would leave the Gulf’s underlying security problems unresolved. The Kuwait command’s value will depend on implementation and on how it connects with the region’s other security partnerships.

The answer requires abandoning the expectation that one grand security arrangement can resolve every threat facing the region. That expectation assumes a degree of agreement about enemies, priorities and acceptable risks that does not exist.

Iran’s attacks on Gulf states during this war, together with Israel’s September 2025 strike on Qatar, demonstrate the breadth of the challenge. A security architecture designed around only one adversary will leave serious gaps. Armed militias and terrorist groups add other risks, alongside cyberattacks, maritime disruption and the consequences of state failure in the neighbourhood. The erosion of international restraints on the use of force makes all of these problems harder to manage.

The most credible response to this complex set of threats is a security architecture that is both layered and networked. Gulf states are already moving in this direction. The task now is to make those arrangements work together and sustain the effort when the immediate pressure of war recedes.

Layering starts with the recognition that different partnerships do different jobs. National capabilities and cooperation within the Gulf Cooperation Council provide the foundation. The relationship with the United States remains central, while additional arrangements address needs that a single partner cannot meet.

Cooperation with US Central Command supplies an operational layer. The air and missile defence coordination cell opened at Al Udeid in January, for example, was designed to improve regional coordination, share threat warnings and prepare for contingencies.

The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, signed in August by Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan, adds a collective defence commitment among its members. The Badr memorandum, signed in October by Qatar, Turkiye, Pakistan and Indonesia, sets out cooperation in defence manufacturing, research and technical training.

These arrangements should be judged by the gaps they fill. Collective defence, operational coordination and industrial capacity reinforce one another, but none can substitute for the others. Buying an interceptor, producing its components and deciding who will use it in a crisis are separate problems.

The next step is to connect these layers so that capabilities developed through one partnership strengthen what countries can do through another. This is what makes the architecture networked.

Qatar offers a useful example. It shares GCC membership with Saudi Arabia and participates in Badr alongside Turkiye and Pakistan. It therefore connects to all three Mecca signatories through other arrangements, despite not being a party to Mecca itself.

Those connections create opportunities. Stronger production capacity or better coordination among shared partners could improve the capabilities available to Qatar through its own relationships. A more effective deterrent against attacks on a neighbour could also improve the wider security environment.

Such benefits depend on deliberate cooperation. Qatar acquires no automatic Mecca guarantee through association. Information, equipment and expertise travel through a network only when governments agree to make that possible. The connections need as much attention as the agreements themselves.

This is also where the Gulf’s interests converge with those of a wider group of countries. European states, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia and Pakistan all have reasons to resist a world in which force routinely overrides sovereignty and access to trade depends on political coercion.

Energy exporters and importers face different consequences when shipping is disrupted, but both need these routes to remain open. Countries need not share a political system or an identical relationship with Washington to recognise the costs of an international order becoming less predictable.

There is already a diplomatic basis for cooperation. The EU and GCC have jointly defended freedom of navigation through Hormuz. ASEAN and GCC ministers have reaffirmed sovereignty, the protection of civilian infrastructure and the need for diplomacy.

These states should become more active defenders of the basic rules on which their prosperity depends. They have an opportunity to shape the emerging international order collectively. Their combined economic, technological and diplomatic resources can give weight to rules that individual states struggle to defend alone. The same networks that help protect infrastructure can support coordinated diplomacy when those rules are violated.

Credibility will require consistency. Sovereignty must matter when the aggressor is a partner as well as an adversary. Civilian protection must apply in Palestine, Ukraine and the Gulf. Mediation must remain possible even when the parties at the table are politically inconvenient.

At the operational level, the immediate task is to connect existing security arrangements. Gulf governments and their partners should agree on how warnings can be shared across arrangements, which capabilities can be made available, and who has authority to request assistance. Joint exercises should test those connections under pressure, including when one partner cannot participate.

The next priority is protecting the systems that allow societies to function. Energy and water facilities, ports and communications networks deserve sustained cooperation on protection and repair. A partnership that can restore an essential service quickly contributes directly to security, even if it has no mutual defence clause.

Diplomacy to prevent escalation must form a layer of its own. Channels with Iran, arrangements to prevent incidents at sea and mechanisms for managing escalation remain necessary alongside stronger defences. Gulf states should use any opening created by the current talks to pursue reciprocal, verifiable restraint.

This wider security architecture would give Gulf, European and Asian partners practical work around which to organise. Some can contribute defence technology, others maritime expertise, industrial production, financing or diplomatic access. Cooperation should allow states to contribute where they have both the capacity and the political willingness to act.

The difficulty is that every participant remains sovereign. Gulf states themselves do not have identical interests. Their external partners face different constitutional requirements, domestic pressures and relationships with other powers. Some constraints are enduring; others reflect political choices that can change.

A government willing to provide intelligence may be unwilling to deploy forces. Another may support maritime protection but oppose an operation on land. Those limits should be understood before a crisis, when there is still time to plan around them.

Overlapping partnerships also carry risks. They can duplicate effort, create false expectations or draw countries into disputes they intended to avoid. Clear responsibilities and consultation procedures are essential. Adding agreements without clarifying what they deliver would produce more complexity without more security.

Nor should we promise that such an architecture will deliver a long peace. The rivalries and political grievances shaping this region will not disappear because its governments cooperate more closely.

A more attainable objective is relative peace and security: fewer opportunities for coercion, crises contained before they widen, and civilian life less exposed to each new confrontation. That means reducing the frequency and consequences of violence while continuing to work towards durable settlements. Permanent emergency cannot become an acceptable destination.

Gulf states should use this moment to connect their partnerships, strengthen their own capabilities and establish clearer limits on escalation. The aim is a region with more partners able to act together, and fewer crises capable of dragging everyone into war.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

IRGC claims Bahrain radar strike is a response to attacks on Iranian telecom tower in southern Hormozgan province.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says it has targeted a US early-warning radar in Bahrain in retaliation for what it described as an air attack on a telecommunications tower in southern Iran.

The claim came hours after Iran’s state news agency IRNA, citing official sources, reported that the port city of Sirik in Hormozgan province was hit by “enemy fire” on Thursday.

In a statement carried by the semi-official Tasnim news agency, the IRGC called the strike a “serious warning” to the “aggressor enemy” to stop what it said was a series of aerial provocations and oil smuggling in the Strait of Hormuz.

“Should these violations and acts of aggression recur, the IRGC Aerospace Force stands in full readiness to engage without limits,” the statement said.

The IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency said the IRGC’s Aerospace Force had “targeted and destroyed” the radar installation.

There was no immediate comment from Washington or Manama.

Bahrain hosts the headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet.

First Bahrain attack since September

According to the Reuters news agency, it is the first time since early September that Iran has claimed an attack on US military assets in a Gulf country.

The claim comes as Israel’s security cabinet has ordered the military to step up preparations for a possible attack on Iran, according to Israeli media, including the public broadcaster KAN.

Iran’s security chief Mohsen Rezaei has warned that if the US launches another war, every military base involved, anywhere from West Asia to Europe, would be a legitimate target for Iranian strikes.

US President Donald Trump has said he is prepared to return to war if the diplomatic track offered by Qatar fails to deliver a deal.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, however, has said economic pressure on Iran is working well enough that resuming large-scale military operations is unnecessary.

In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera on Wednesday, Iran’s parliament speaker and lead negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said the Strait of Hormuz would never go back to how it was before the war, and that “the ball is now in the American court“.

Meanwhile, US Central Command says its forces are still strictly enforcing the naval blockade on Iranian ports.

The war began on February 28 with US and Israeli attacks on Iran.