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US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday the crash involving a US Apache helicopter was not a “major incident” and that the pilot was safe, while affirming that sanctions and restrictions targeting Iranian ports would remain in place for as long as necessary. [ snip ] Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi denied Iranian involvement in the incident over the Strait of Hormuz, stating that “Iran was not behind the attack” and that there had been no deliberate action targeting the aircraft.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s latest strikes on Lebanon and Iran have made clear that U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who started the war in lockstep, want different things.Trump had publicly warned Israel not to strike Beirut in its war with Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. When it did, on Sunday, Iran responded by firing ballistic missiles at Israel for the first time since the April ceasefire. Israel then struck Iran, with which Trump has been engaged in weeks of high-stakes negotiations.The fighting has since died down, but the differences between the two leaders are likely to persist.That’s...

Israel conducted airstrikes Tuesday across southern Lebanon, despite a warning from Iran that further attacks could lead to a devastating reciprocal response. The Israeli military issued evacuation orders for the city of Tyre, on Lebanon’s southwestern coast, before launching a wave of airstrikes in the surrounding area. Tyre is one of southern Lebanon’s largest cities, with nearly 175,000 people in the city and its metropolitan area. Notably, Israel’s latest evacuation order for the city included Tyre’s Christian sector, which had previously been excluded from airstrikes. Israel asserts that Iran-backed Hezbollah militants are hiding within the city but has not provided...

One hundred days after they went to war together to thwart Iran’s rogue nuclear weapons program, radically degrade its ballistic missile industry, end its support for the Hezbollah and Hamas terror armies, and create the conditions for the fall of the regime, the US-Israel alliance against the Islamic Republic on Sunday reached its nadir. With its north battered relentlessly by Hezbollah in recent weeks, Israel resorted to a largely symbolic strike on the terror group’s Dahiyeh stronghold in Beirut, reportedly without telling the disapproving Trump administration ahead of time that it was doing so. And, as it had warned it...

Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has claimed it has launched a missile attack on a petrochemical plant in Haifa, northern Israel, according to a statement reported by Iranian Tasnim news agency. Tasnim quotes the IRGC as saying the attacks were in response to an earlier attack by Israel on an Iranian petrochemical facility in Mahshahr, in the south-west of the country. It warned Israel has started a "dangerous game" and further attacks on non-military and energy targets in the region would have consequences for the global economy.

US President Donald Trump reportedly fumed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a Monday call, calling the premier “fucking crazy” and telling him that everyone “hates Israel” as he demanded Israel agree to a ceasefire with the Hezbollah terror group. Axios’s Barak Ravid cited a US official who summarized Trump’s message to Netanyahu as follows: “You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.” A second source briefed on the call told the outlet that the US president was “pissed” at the prime...

The Israeli Air Force has begun striking targets throughout Iran, according to Channel 14.

WATCH LIVE UPDATES: Netanyahu and Trump Hold Phone Call After Iran Ballistic Missile Barrage Iran launched a ballistic missile attack targeting northern Israel following Israeli airstrikes in Beirut. The attack prompted widespread security measures across Israel, including the cancellation of classes nationwide, as officials prepared for the possibility of additional strikes. So far, missile alerts have sounded hundreds of times across Israel as Iran has launched at least five separate rounds of missile fire. Approximately six waves of ballistic missiles from Iran have been detected. The latest escalation began after Israel carried out airstrikes against targets in southern Beirut, a...

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar appointed veteran diplomat George Deek to a newly created role as special envoy to the Christian world, in a move “intended to deepen Israel’s ties with Christian communities around the world,” amid a series of damaging scandals... Deek, who most recently served as Israel’s ambassador to Azerbaijan, was the country’s first Christian ambassador and is a member of the Arab Christian community in Jaffa... Despite Israel’s protestations that it values relations with the Christian world, recent months have seen a string of embarrassing scandals and attacks on Christians that have strained Israel’s relations with the Christian...

One potential coalition, which would be healthy for both the party and the country, would be between social conservatives and antiwar voters. In the time since the election, both of these groups have been repeatedly disappointed, especially by the [Trump] administration’s war with Iran and its approval, through the FDA, of a new form of mifepristone, a dangerous abortion pill... These two disappointed factions are naturally complementary coalition partners, particularly on the pro-life issue. There is a natural connection between the defense of innocent human life at home through pro-life policies and protecting it abroad by avoiding unjust wars. There’s...

Summary Missiles were launched from Iran toward Israel a short time ago and defense systems are operating to intercept the threat, the Israeli military said in a statement. US bases and and Israeli assets in the region have become "legitimate targets," Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a post on X on Sunday. US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he did not plan to withdraw US troops from the region, telling NBC News that “I think we’ll keep them there until such time as we have a completion.” A US-drafted resolution sent to countries on the...

Iran has launched a salvo of ballistic missiles toward Israel, triggering sirens across the northern region with no immediate reports of impacts or casualties

Amid ongoing scrutiny over the U.S. war with Iran, President Donald Trump on Sunday defended his foreign policy stance — and denied that he ever campaigned on the promise of “no new wars.” In a wide-ranging interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker that aired on Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” Trump said he built a “tremendous military.” “First of all, I didn’t guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?” Trump said. “I built our military. I inherited a terrible military. We had no equipment. We had nothing. I built a tremendous military. When you say...

President Trump denied Friday that he campaigned on avoiding “endless” wars, as he seeks to reach a deal to end hostilities with Iran. “I didn’t promise anything. I don’t like these endless wars. This is not an endless war,” he told host Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” in an interview that aired Sunday. “We’ve been doing this for three months,” Trump added, referring to the Iran conflict that began on Feb. 28. “Much of it has been under… a pretty good form of ceasefire.” The president later said that he would “not have built the strongest military in...

The Defense Department has increased the counterintelligence threat assessment to its highest level, and Israel is believed to have eavesdropped on American negotiations with Iran.

Thomas Massie isn’t acting like a defeated man. After losing the most expensive primary race in American history last month, largely thanks to pro-Israel figures and groups spending millions to defeat him (according to the Federal Election Commission, Massie received donations from 1,119 individuals actually living in Kentucky, compared to only 98 for his opponent Ed Gallrein), Massie announced just days later, “I filed with FEC for the 2028 House race.” He explained, “This allows me to raise funds to continue my political operations supporting my position as a current office holder and as a potential candidate for federal office.”...

Thousands of people attended the 24th Jerusalem Pride Parade on Thursday, in honor of Pride Month. As part of the opening to the event, former prime minister Yair Lapid announced that in the first 100 days of the next government, they would pass a law ensuring that all couples in Israel would be equal. "Mother and father, father and father, mother and mother, all will have the same rights, all will be equal before the law," he said. "We stand here with the entire gay community today to say: The situation is not a given, reality is not a decree...

Mehek Cooke@MehekCookeTrump just turned the Abraham Accords into an accountability trap for the Gulf states and Iran walked right into it.Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey have never held Iran accountable is due to exposure. They share a neighborhood. They can't sanction, shame, or confront Iran while having zero security architecture binding them to the West or to each other.The Abraham Accords change that math entirely. Once Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey are signatories, they aren't just recognizing Israel they are locking themselves into a collective security posture.A breach of the Iran deal becomes their problem...

A House committee summarily struck down an amendment to strip a measure from the massive annual defense policy bill that would provide Israel “a higher level of military-industrial integration" with the U.S. than Washington has "with any other country in the world.” Pro-Israel voices on the House Armed Services Committee argued that reports about Section 224 — that Congress was trying to integrate U.S. and Israeli military systems as a way to entrench aid without proper oversight — were disingenuous and wrong. In fact, members claimed that these were “existing initiatives” and that Section 224 “actually improves oversight and accountability...

Since 2013, Rubenstein, 72, who co-founded the private equity giant the Carlyle Group, has given millions to entities that repair and upgrade historical monuments and landmarks like the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument as well as Monticello and Montpelier, the homes of US presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. But some say the restoration at the presidential homes has recast the presidents as sinister racists while downplaying their accomplishments... But a quick dive into Rubenstein’s backstory shows he’s not so pure himself. He made his initial fortune in the 1980s by exploiting a tax loophole in Alaska allowing him...