US & Canada

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.

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…

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

Hamilton, Ontario, Canada – Chelsey Masteij had heard layoffs might be coming at Stelco, so she decided to use up some of her vacation days. She was making the most of the time off with her new dog when she got a call telling her not to come back to work.

The 34-year-old had spent years trying to break into the male-dominated steel industry before finally landing a job at the company’s Hamilton plant about three years ago.

She started as a general labourer in the cold-rolling department, later training to operate cranes and taking on shifts in the coke ovens.

The work was gruelling and physically demanding, but Masteij grew to love the routine and the close-knit community of coworkers she came to consider family. When she shared photos of herself with Al Jazeera, all in protective gear at the plant, she joked that she hardly had any pictures outside of work.

Masteij thought she might stay at Stelco until retirement. Instead, she was laid off on October 9.

The news hit hard, and she spent much of the next two weeks sleeping.

“I was in a complete mess,” she told Al Jazeera, her voice cracking as she recalled the experience. “I was kind of depressed.”

Now, instead of working 12-hour shifts, Masteij spends much of her time at home, cutting back on expenses while she collects employment insurance.

Masteij is among hundreds of Canadian steelworkers facing layoffs after Stelco’s American owner, Cleveland-Cliffs, announced in late September that it would temporarily shut down parts of its operations in Hamilton and Nanticoke, Ontario.

Stelco blames the move on United States President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which it says have made it harder to sell Canadian steel to US customers, and on competition from cheaper foreign steel entering Canada.

But government officials and plant workers, including Masteij, are not convinced that is the whole story.

“Right now, there are a lot of lies going on with what’s happened,” Masteij said.

While US tariffs have hurt the Canadian steel industry, the union representing Stelco workers questions whether Cleveland-Cliffs is using difficult market conditions to serve its own business interests, with Canadian workers paying the price.

“Everyone knows we’re being used as pawns, that these layoffs weren’t necessary,” said Ron Wells, president of United Steelworkers Local 1005, speaking to Al Jazeera at his Hamilton office.

The pressures facing Stelco

In June 2025, Trump doubled tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, including from Canada, to 50 percent, making them more expensive for US buyers.

According to Stelco, Canada’s exports of cold-rolled and coated steel to the US – used to make everything from cars to building materials – fell by 58 percent in the second quarter of 2026 compared with the quarterly average before the trade war.

But demand has also fallen in Canada, where the auto industry, a major buyer of the cold-rolled steel produced at the Hamilton plant, has also been hit hard by Trump’s tariffs, said Colin Mang, an assistant professor of economics at McMaster University in Hamilton.

“When they say that there is less demand for the product coming out of the Hamilton mill, that is correct,” Mang told Al Jazeera.

But it is not just Trump’s tariffs that Cleveland-Cliffs blames for Stelco’s problems.

During a July earnings call, CEO Lourenco Goncalves warned that the company might scale back production in Canada unless Ottawa did more to protect its steel industry from imports.

“And that will have consequences for employment in Canada, but will have a positive financial impact on Stelco and on Cleveland-Cliffs,” he said.

That was the first time Wells had heard jobs might be at risk. The union later offered to help Cleveland-Cliffs lobby Ottawa for stronger protections against foreign steel imports, believing Canadian workers might have more sway with the government.

“They never took us up on our offer,” Wells said.

Instead, the next call brought news of the layoffs.

As of Saturday, 175 workers at Stelco’s Hamilton plant had received layoff notices, with the announced cuts expected to affect up to 500 workers there and in Nanticoke.

Late last month, about 30 attended an information session the union organised in Hamilton, where they could learn about employment insurance and retraining opportunities.

Many were frustrated by the lack of clarity about how long the shutdown would last.

Some asked how their benefits would compare to their wages, while others wondered whether they would qualify for the full amount.

For workers who had spent decades at Stelco, another daunting prospect loomed: having to look for work for the first time in the digital era, competing for jobs with younger applicants as they neared retirement.

Some are already considering heading out west to find work.

“It’s hard for them to make those decisions,” Wells said, describing what he had been hearing from members. “Do I leave my family, go out west, make some money? Because they don’t know how long this is going to be.”

Masteij worries about what that could mean for Hamilton, a city where generations of families have worked in steelmaking, an industry that has shaped its identity for more than a century.

“I’m a steel city girl, and I can’t imagine the city without steel manufacturing,” she said. “We are losing tradesmen.”

Were the layoffs necessary?

But as workers grapple with what the layoffs mean for their families and their city, the union has been asking another question: whether these layoffs needed to happen at all – and it is not alone.

The US company has come under fire from the Canadian government, which is threatening legal action, accusing it of breaking promises it made when it bought Stelco in 2024.

Those included keeping at least the same number of unionised jobs and most non-unionised jobs in Canada, and pushing for trade policies that would benefit the steel industries in both Canada and the US.

Cleveland-Cliffs denies violating the agreement, saying it expects to meet its employment commitments for the year. It also maintains the layoffs are needed to “ensure the survival of Stelco” amid US tariffs, weaker demand and competition from cheaper foreign steel.

But the union and the government point to Stelco’s recent financial performance. Earlier this month, Goncalves reported the company’s strongest quarter since the acquisition.

“Mr Goncalves is not a victim,” Canadian Industry Minister Melanie Joly told Canada’s public broadcaster CBC, pointing to the company’s earnings. “He’s never made so much money.”

Experts have also challenged Goncalves’s claim that Canadian steelmakers are struggling because of “an avalanche of imports”.

Mang points out that nearly 80 percent of Canada’s cold-rolled steel imports come from the US, as does about half of the galvanised and painted steel coming into the country.

“What he’s trying to sell people on is the idea that there’s all this European or Asian steel coming into Canada,” he said. “This stuff is coming from his own country.”

The union and the government have also asked why, as Goncalves pushes for stronger protections in Canada against foreign steel, he has also been a vocal supporter of Trump’s tariffs on Canadian steel.

In testimony to US lawmakers in January, Goncalves argued that no country, including Canada, should be exempted from the steel tariffs. In an interview with Politico last year, he said he was “very happy” with the 50 percent tariffs on steel imports, adding, “I have my fingerprints on that 50 percent.”

Two countries, one company

For Wells, the irony is that Goncalves helped create the same conditions Cleveland-Cliffs now blames for the layoffs. He believes the company is using Canadian workers to pressure Ottawa to impose more restrictions on foreign steel, while also helping Trump argue that his tariffs are working.

Mang explained why Goncalves’ seemingly contradictory position might make sense for Cleveland-Cliffs.

“He wants trade barriers in both countries to seal off their domestic markets from each other and also from the rest of the world,” Mang said, “so that his companies in each country can benefit in their own domestic markets.”

Cleveland-Cliffs has been under growing pressure from Ottawa, which gave the company 15 days from October 22 to honour its commitments to Canadian workers or face legal action.

Amid that pressure, comments Goncalves made to CBC late last month appeared to support the union’s suspicions that the layoffs have less to do with tough market conditions and more to do with Cleveland-Cliffs’ broader business interests.

Asked why he supported tariffs on Canadian steel despite promises to protect workers and advocate for the Canadian steel industry when Cleveland-Cliffs bought Stelco, he said: “I bought Stelco because I could not afford anymore having Stelco flooding the market here in the United States to the detriment of my own company.”

The admission caught the attention of Joly, who said the comments could strengthen the government’s case against Cleveland-Cliffs if Goncalves meant that he had bought Stelco to keep its Canadian operations idle. She added that Ottawa could force the company to sell its Canadian assets.

On November 6, as Ottawa’s 15-day deadline expired, Joly asked Canada’s Competition Bureau to investigate the 2024 acquisition and whether the company’s conduct violated Canadian competition law.

“If negotiations and acquisition were conducted in bad faith, Canadians deserve to know. The company needs to face the consequences,” she said in a statement.

Cleveland-Cliffs maintains that it has complied with its obligations under the Investment Canada Act.

Goncalves has rejected the prospect of a forced sale but suggested he might sell Stelco himself in a year.

“I will sell the company after we operate the company for a while, and now that I know that I’m persona non grata in Canada, I will do that,” he told CBC.

In a statement to The Canadian Press news agency late last month, he said he hoped to bring laid-off workers back before Christmas.

“It will depend on Canadian customers buying Canadian steel, made by Stelco,” he said.

Al Jazeera contacted Cleveland-Cliffs for comment on the union’s allegations and Goncalves’s remarks.

What comes next for workers?

For Masteij, even as she waits to hear whether she will be recalled, she is preparing for the possibility that her time at Stelco is done. Her low seniority means she would be one of the last to be called back.

Masteij plans to use the time she is eligible for employment insurance to take a heavy equipment training programme, hoping it will open the door to other opportunities and give her something to focus on. The training could also help her if she returns to Stelco, which is still what she is hoping for.

For Wells, what is especially frustrating is how the company is treating workers, given the years of hard work and sacrifices many have made in their jobs.

“It’s not glamorous. You work shifts, nights, days, in the hot and the cold,” he said. “Our members miss Christmas meals with their families or their kids’ hockey games because they’re expected to work.”

“And that’s why this is particularly tough because that loyalty isn’t being repaid,” Wells added. “It’s actually being exploited, if anything.”

He worries about what a drawn-out legal battle could mean for those workers.

“Our members don’t have a lot of time,” he said. “We’re hoping things get settled as soon as possible.”

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.

Saying it’s ‘a failed nation’, the US president considers military intervention in Cuba before he leaves office.

US President Donald Trump has said he would “certainly consider” using military force against Cuba, adding that he wants to “get Cuba done” before he leaves office in 2029.

In a phone interview on Thursday with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, of Salem News Channel, Trump was asked whether he was considering “freeing Cuba” through a military intervention.

“I want to get Cuba done before I leave,” he said, adding that the administration was “watching it very closely”.

Trump called the island “essentially a failed … place, nation, whatever you wanna call it”.

Politico reported that it was the first time Trump had put a timeline on a possible operation.

Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose parents are from Cuba, “would love to do it”.

“I’d love to be able to do it for the people, for the Cubans that came and were treated really badly, and they came to America,” Trump said. He added that he won the Cuban vote in Florida by a wide margin.

Pressure campaign

Trump has repeatedly threatened to topple authorities in Cuba.

On Monday, he said Cuba “will fall fairly soon” and that the US would help it “on a humanitarian basis”.

In March, he said he believed he would have “the honour of taking Cuba”, making the remarks as the island’s power grid collapsed.

Trump put Cuba under a de facto oil blockade in January, after the US seized Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, and cut off Venezuelan oil to the island.

He signed an executive order declaring Cuba an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the US and threatened tariffs on any country that supplied it with fuel.

The blockade has caused repeated nationwide blackouts, fuel and food shortages, and a humanitarian crisis.

Cuban officials have called it “collective punishment”.

Washington has added sanctions, including on Cuba’s state oil company, President Miguel Diaz-Canel and relatives of former President Raul Castro, and announced a new round this month targeting 10 people and entities tied to the government, military and oil industry.

The US has also issued an arrest warrant for Castro. Officials from both sides have held talks on the blockade, but Cuba’s foreign minister said in June there had been “no progress”.

In March, the head of US Southern Command told senators that US troops were not rehearsing for an invasion of Cuba.

Cuban officials said the island was ready for any attack.

United States President Donald Trump travels to the Chinese city of Shenzhen next week for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, where he is due to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The trip comes as Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s outgoing chief executive and one of Trump’s closest allies in Silicon Valley, faces mounting scrutiny over his relationship with Alice Huang, a former Megaspeed executive whom US officials suspect of working for Chinese intelligence. China has denied the allegations.

On Thursday, Nvidia announced that Huang would step down as chief executive.

Huang accompanied Trump on his May visit to Beijing.

His presence mattered for Nvidia, which has struggled to secure approval to sell its H200 AI chips in China. Now, his place in the next delegation is in doubt.

So could Trump’s closeness to Huang push his administration towards a tougher line on China? Here’s what you need to know:

How did Huang shape the US-China chip thaw?

As founder and CEO of Nvidia, Huang pushed Washington to ease restrictions on the sale of advanced chips to China, arguing that wider use of US technology would help Washington hold onto its lead in AI development.

In December 2025, Trump did approve sales of the H200, Nvidia’s second-most powerful chip, to China, with 25 percent of proceeds to be paid to the US government.

He did so despite opposition from China hawks in both parties.

Huang was a surprise late addition to Trump’s delegation to Beijing in May, in hopes of unlocking stalled H200 sales. Despite Trump’s decision to allow the sales, shipments were low because of slow import approvals from the Chinese government in a bid to support domestic chipmakers.

No breakthrough was announced.

Trump has stood by Huang throughout his recent personal scandal, calling him an “honourable guy”.

Will the Nvidia scandal prompt Trump to take a tougher stance with China?

Not immediately.

Huang’s removal from Nvidia’s board and the scandal leading up to that are unlikely to significantly affect relations between Washington and Beijing, which Steve Okun, a Singapore-based geopolitical analyst, told Al Jazeera is “a stalemate at best”.

Instead, if the US continues to impose restrictions on AI product sales to China, AI diversion and diffusion – how products are traded around the world both formally and informally – would be much more likely to cause tension between the two nations.

Gabriel Wildau, managing director at the advisory firm Teneo, told Al Jazeera earlier this week that Trump “shows no sign that he intends to disrupt the current US-China rapprochement”.

But he warned that the president “may face new pressure from Congress and hawkish voices inside his administration”.

Carsten Holz, an expert on the Chinese economy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said Trump “would not seem to have a coherent China policy and therefore his position in the upcoming talks in Shenzhen is hard to predict”.

Huang’s personal affairs “will be of little relevance” to China-US relations, he told Al Jazeera.

Where is the pressure to be tougher with China coming from?

Mostly from Congress, where control of both houses will pass to the Democrats in January.

Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at the technology research group Omdia, said a tough US line on AI and China was not Trump’s alone, calling it “one of the rare political consensuses domestically across the aisle”.

Trump, he said, “will do whatever he can to protect his contribution and legacy on this matter”.

On Wednesday, Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chris Coons asked Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House chief of staff Stephen Miller to preserve all records on Nvidia’s chip exports to China.

“This incident raises significant concerns about the federal government’s ability to effectively enforce our export controls and protect our national security,” the senators wrote.

The news website Axios reported that Lutnick had held up a planned crackdown on firms suspected of funnelling Nvidia chips to China.

Meanwhile, procurement notices seen by the AFP news agency show that a Chinese university linked to the country’s defence establishment bought Nvidia H200 chips through a third party in September and October.

How has China responded?

Beijing has rejected the spy claims and accused Washington of using them as cover to impose stronger restrictions and semiconductor export controls on China.

“The US side should stop fabricating such ‘spy’ narratives as a pretext for imposing a technological blockade,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning said on Thursday.

But Mao also said China is willing to work with the US to implement the consensus reached by the two leaders.

Omdia’s Su said China “has no interest in not engaging with Trump, given substantial interest in Nvidia graphics processing units”.

Chinese chipmakers may also gain from better access to US technology.

Shares in Moore Threads, MetaX and Cambricon, China’s leading makers of graphics processors, jumped nearly 10 percent on Thursday.

What happens after Shenzhen?

Holz, the Chinese economy expert, noted that the use of advanced Nvidia chips in Singapore data centres to serve customers in mainland China was “not new information”.

Still, Okun expects the pressure to build next year.

He said Congress could pass the Remote Access Security Act, aimed at stopping Chinese firms from reaching advanced chips through the cloud.

The Department of Commerce, he added, could put export controls on Megaspeed or require licences for advanced chips sent to countries such as Singapore and Malaysia.

If that happens, it will strain the US-China relationship in 2027, he said, adding “but that’s not going to happen next week”.