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A curated weekday guide to major news and developments over the last 24 hours. Here’s today’s news:
IRAN WAR – CEASEFIRE
President Trump said yesterday that he was extending the ceasefire with Iran until Iran’s “leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal.” Trump said he had acted after receiving a request from Pakistan. The announcement came after Vice President JD Vance’s trip to Pakistan for a second round of peace negotiations was postponed indefinitely because Tehran had failed to respond to U.S. positions, a U.S. official said. Mahdi Mohammadi, an adviser to Iranian parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, responded to Trump’s announcement today, saying “the extension of the ceasefire by Donald Trump had no meaning.” Luke Broadwater, Jonathan Swan, Farnaz Fassihi, and Somini Sengupta report for the New York Times; Barak Ravid reports for Axios.
One reason for Trump’s decision to extend the ceasefire is that U.S. and Pakistani mediators have been waiting for Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei to respond to the latest proposal and give a clear directive to his negotiators, a regional source and an Israeli source said. Khamenei is expected to respond today, according to the Israeli source. Sources added that Iran’s leadership has been engaged in an intense internal debate over whether to proceed with talks as long as the U.S. blockade continues. Barak Ravid reports for Axios.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired at a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz today, while a second vessel also came under fire, the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations Center said. BBC News reports.
IRAN WAR – LEBANON OPERATIONS
Two Israeli soldiers have been pulled from combat and given 30-day jail sentences after one photographed the other swinging a sledgehammer at the head of a statue of Jesus in southern Lebanon, the Israeli military said yesterday. The military replaced the damaged statue with a new sculpture of the crucifixion of Christ and released a photo of it on social media. David M. Halbfinger reports for the New York Times.
Hezbollah yesterday said it fired rockets and drones into northern Israel, accusing the Israeli military of violating a 10-day ceasefire by attacking civilians and destroying homes. The Israeli military earlier said Hezbollah had fired several rockets towards its troops operating in southern Lebanon, in what it described as a “blatant violation” of the ceasefire agreement. Reuters reports.
IRAN WAR – OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
Military planners from more than 30 countries will hold two-day talks in London from today, focused on drawing up detailed plans to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the U.K. government said. “The task, today and tomorrow, is to translate the diplomatic consensus into a joint plan to safeguard freedom of navigation in the Strait and support a lasting ceasefire,” said U.K. Defence Minister John Healey. Reuters reports.
The Trump administration suspended a nearly $500 million shipment to Iraq, citing concerns about Iranian-backed militias, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. The blocked dollar shipment was the second such delay since the Iran war began. The United States has also informed Baghdad that it is suspending funding for some counterterrorism and armed forces training programs until the militia attacks stop and Iraqi officials take steps to dismantle the armed groups. David S. Cloud and Robbie grammar reports for the Wall Street Journal.
The U.S. military yesterday stopped and boarded a sanctioned tanker, the Tifani, in the Indian Ocean carrying oil from Iran, the Pentagon said in a statement. Eric Schmitt reports for the New York Times.
WEST BANK VIOLENCE
Israeli settlers and soldiers yesterday opened fire and killed two Palestinians, including a 14-year-old boy, in the occupied West Bank, according to witnesses and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Ali Sawafta report for Reuters.
RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR
In recent months, Ukrainian negotiators floated the informal idea of naming a contested part of the Donbas region “Donnyland” during peace talks as a way to appeal to Donald Trump and encourage stronger U.S. support against Russia, according to four sources. Anton Troianovski and Andrew E. Kramer report for the New York Times.
Ukraine will resume pumping oil through the Durzhba pipeline today, an industry source said. A lengthy suspension of oil flows through the pipeline following a Russian attack in January had sparked an angry backlash from Hungary and Slovakia, which remain reliant on it. They accused Kyiv of dragging its feet over the repairs. Yuliia Dysa and Pavel Polityuk report for Reuters.
Ukraine has asked Turkey to host a meeting between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said yesterday. “We asked the Turks about it, we asked some other capitals,” Sybiha added. Reuters reports.
OTHER GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS
Satellite imagery going back to November 2025 shows Chinese dredgers building a crescent-shaped island on Antelope Reef in the Paracels, a cluster of islands where China, Taiwan, and Vietnam have competing claims. By April, the edges of the island had been shaped, and jetties, a helipad, and unpaved roads were visible. Analysts say that given its size and the ongoing expansion, Antelope Reef is likely to become one of China’s largest military outposts in the region. Lily Kuo and Agnes Chang report for the New York Times.
Spain, Ireland, and some other European countries yesterday pushed to suspend the EU’s cooperation agreement with Israel but failed to garner enough support from the bloc’s other members. Key members, such as Germany, favor continued dialogue with Israel. Lily Bayer and Charlotte Van Campenhout report for Reuters.
TECH DEVELOPMENTS
Meta is installing tracking software on U.S.-based employees’ computers to capture mouse movements, clicks, and keystrokes for using in training its AI models. This is part of a broader initiative to build AI agents to perform work tasks autonomously, Meta told its staff in internal memos seen by Reuters. Katie Paul and Jeff Horwitz report.
U.S. IMMIGRATION DEVELOPMENTS
The Trump administration is reportedly in talks to send as many as 1,100 Afghans, who supported U.S. forces during the war against the Taliban, to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, an aid worker said yesterday. The group, currently in Qatar, includes interpreters for the U.S. military, former members of the Afghan Special Operations forces, and family members of U.S. service members. Megha Rajagopalan, Eileen Sullivan, and Zolan Kanno-Youngs report for the New York Times.
An immigration officer in southwest Colorado, who was caught on video grabbing a protestor by the hair and throwing her down an embankment last October, was charged with assault and criminal mischief yesterday, the local district attorney said. The case is one of the few instances of local prosecutors bringing charges against federal agents amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Jack Healy reports for the New York Times.
U.S. DOMESTIC DEVELOPMENTS
In a reversal, the Justice Department has rescinded subpoenas it had issued over the weekend in the inquiry into former CIA Director John Brennan, sources said. The DOJ did not explain the reasons for the change of plans when informing lawyers for the witnesses. Charlie Savage reports for the New York Times.
The DOJ yesterday charged the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group that has long tracked hate groups, with financial crimes, accusing it of defrauding donors by using their money to secretly pay informants inside extremist organizations. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said that from 2014 to 2023, the group made payments totalling more than $3 million to people affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan and the Nationalist Socialist Party of America. The law center was “doing the exact opposite of what it told its donors it was doing – not dismantling extremism, but funding it,” Blanche said. The SPLC denies the accusations as politically motivated. Devlin Barrett reports for the New York Times.
Federal Reserve chief nominee Kevin Warsh said yesterday that he had made no promises to Trump about cutting interest rates, adding “the president never asked me to commit to any such thing nor would I do so.” Trump, who nominated Warsh, has repeatedly expressed his confidence that his pick will deliver lower rates if confirmed, and said in a CNBC interview just before the hearing yesterday that he would be disappointed if it didn’t happen. Howard Schneider reports for Reuters.
Mike Reid, chief science officer for PEPFAR, resigned yesterday, criticizing the Trump administration for cutting foreign health aid and using funding as leverage for geopolitical and commercial goals. “When access to treatment or prevention becomes entangled with access to critical minerals or geopolitical positioning, the work is no longer what it claims to be,” Reid wrote. Simon Lewis reports for Reuters.
Virginia voters yesterday approved a new congressional map backed by Democrats, potentially allowing them to flip several Republican-held seats. Erin Doherty reports for POLITICO.
Officials in Florida yesterday announced a criminal investigation into OpenAI, alleging its chatbot ChatGPT provided significant guidance to a suspect in the Florida State University shooting last year. Florida issued subpoenas to the tech firm yesterday. Andrew Atterbury reports for POLITICO.
An elite Wall Street law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, apologized to a federal judge last week for submitting a court filing replete with errors created by AI, including hallucinations that fabricated case citations. The firm provided a ledger of the errors, which spanned three pages and totaled around three dozen. Santul Nerkar reports for the New York Times.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ACTIONS
Trump told CNBC yesterday that “it’s possible” there will be a deal allowing Anthropic’s AI models to be used within the Defense Department. “They came to the White House a few days ago and we had some very good talks with them, and I think they’re shaping up,” Trump said. Ashley Capoot reports.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency does not have access to Anthropic’s new Mythos Preview model, even though some other government agencies are using it, two sources told Axios. Sam Sabin reports.
The Pentagon will no longer require troops to get annual flu vaccines, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said yesterday, calling the policy an “absurd, overreaching” mandate. Greg Jaffe reports for the New York Times.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said yesterday that his department will run out of money to pay employees’ salaries in the first week of May, as lawmakers race to end a two-month shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. “My payroll through DHS is just over $1.6 billion every two weeks, so the money is going extremely fast and once that happens, there is no emergency funds after that,” Mullin said. Eric Bazail-Eimil and Meredith Lee Hil report for POLITICO.
Court filings submitted yesterday in a lawsuit against the Trump administration include messages and depositions suggesting that DHS contractor Kara Voorhies exercised significant authority over FEMA, directing actions and approving decisions despite rules barring contractors from such governmental roles. The evidence supports allegations that she acted as a “shadow administrator.” Hassan Ali Kanu and Eric Bazail-Eimil report for POLITICO.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION LITIGATION
A federal appeals court yesterday ruled that a lower court erred when issuing an injunction that would effectively dismantle the immigration detention center in Florida known as “Alligator Alcatraz.” The court found that environmental advocacy groups and the Miccosukee Tribe failed to prove that Alligator Alcatraz is under federal control and that the detention center needed to go through a federal environmental review. Judge Nancy Abudu sharply dissented on the court’s decision, writing that it was “just plain wrong.” Abudu argued the facility could not have been built without a federal request, adding that the appeals court disregarded the district court’s “well-supported factual findings.” Kylie Williams reports for POLITICO.
Did you miss this? Stay up-to-date with our Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions.
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