World
Trump says Iran “should wave the white flag of surrender”
When asked what Iran would need to do to violate the ceasefire, Trump said: “Well, you’ll find out, because I’ll let you know … They know what not to do.”
President Donald Trump on Tuesday dismissed Iran’s military capability and said Tehran “should wave the white flag of surrender” but is too proud to do so, Reuters reported.
Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that Iran’s military has been reduced to firing “peashooters” and that Tehran privately wants to make a deal despite its public sabre-rattling.
“They play games, but let me just tell you, they want to make a deal. And who wouldn’t, when your military is totally gone?” he said.
Trump heaped praise on the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports in the region. “It’s like a piece of steel. Nobody’s going to challenge the blockade. And I think it’s working out very well,” he said, read the report.
When asked what Iran would need to do to violate the ceasefire, Trump said: “Well, you’ll find out, because I’ll let you know … They know what not to do.”
Trump said Iran “should save the white flag of surrender.”
“If this were a fight, they’d stop it,” said Trump.
World
Five killed in Michigan shooting; suspect found dead after manhunt
Police did not release the names, ages, or genders of the victims, saying next-of-kin notifications were underway.
A man suspected of shooting and killing five people in northern Michigan on Friday was found dead after a manhunt, Michigan State Police said in a statement on social media.
One victim remained hospitalized in critical condition, the police said.
Troopers were dispatched around 11:40 a.m. local time (6:40 p.m. Israel time) to a home in Missaukee County, Michigan, after a report of a shooting. Officers found three people dead and a fourth person wounded, the state police said.
The suspect, identified by police as 39-year-old Chad Hickman, fled the scene before troopers arrived, prompting a manhunt. During the search for the suspect, investigators discovered another deceased victim at a second residence.
Troopers later located Hickman’s vehicle near a wooded area close to Whitlock Lake, where they found Hickman and another person dead, police said.
“This situation is heartbreaking for the community and challenging for the investigators involved,” said Lieutenant Ashley Miller, cited in the police statement.
Police did not release the names, ages, or genders of the victims, saying next-of-kin notifications were underway.
World
US says it can keep naval blockade on Iran ‘indefinitely,’ vows more economic pressure
Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz fell to eight vessels on Tuesday, compared with a 10-day average of about 12 vessels, and 130 to 140 ships before the war.
The United States on Thursday said that it could maintain a naval blockade of Iran indefinitely and would ratchet up economic pressure on Tehran as ceasefire talks have floundered, global oil supply is dropping and regional tensions are rising, Reuters reported.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters that the U.S. military has the capability to maintain a naval presence in the region to enforce its blockade of Iran, which has inflicted severe economic damage on the country.
“Indefinitely the United States Navy can maintain a blockade like that because we’ll rotate ships in and out, as we have, and we’ll continue to,” Hegseth told reporters during a trip to Panama.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday that the United States planned to inflict more financial damage on Iran.
“Watch this space for more announcements coming next week because we are going to apply measures like have never been seen in the history of economic isolation on a country,” he said in an interview on Newsmax’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight” program.
With a tentative June deal to end the war in tatters, Iran has sought to exert leverage on Washington in return by controlling the Strait of Hormuz.
It has attacked some vessels trying to transit the strategic waterway, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas traveled before the war began in February.
Two vessels from the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company were attacked transiting the strait on Thursday evening, UAE state news agency WAM reported. The United Arab Emirates government condemned it as an Iranian attack.
U.S. President Donald Trump is under pressure at home to end a war that is deeply unpopular, with high fuel prices dragging down his approval ratings and potentially eroding his party’s control of Congress in midterm elections in November, read the report.
Trump has repeatedly asserted that the U.S. has “total control” over the strait, prompting Iranian denials. Tehran has said it will not allow the waterway to reopen until its conditions are met. These include removing economic sanctions and releasing frozen Iranian assets.
Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz fell to eight vessels on Tuesday, compared with a 10-day average of about 12 vessels, and 130 to 140 ships before the war.
The U.S. lifted its blockade of Iran’s shipping and ports for a month in mid-June but has since reimposed it, cutting off Tehran’s primary source of hard currency and compounding earlier losses from wartime strikes on its energy infrastructure.
Washington previously said it would lift the Iranian blockade once Iran and Oman, which sit on either side of the strait, reach an agreement to restore commercial shipping.
Trump has also repeatedly threatened to escalate military strikes and “hit Iran hard,” although he has thus far resisted deploying ground troops or seizing strategic islands and bombing desalination plants. Earlier this week, Trump suggested he would rely on economic means, rather than military action.
The U.S. has tightened economic sanctions against Iran and other individuals and entities that it says are helping it procure weapons, but the pressure campaign has failed to bring Tehran back to the negotiating table.
Stress is mounting on the global economy. The International Energy Agency on Wednesday forecast that global oil supply would fall by 4.3 million barrels per day, or around 4%, this year.
Just a month ago, the agency had forecast a drop of 3.7 million barrels per day.
Oil prices settled down more than 2% on Thursday after a week of gain, as investors focused on signs of weaker global demand and a sharp increase in U.S. crude inventories, Reuters reported.
But reports that Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis had targeted a Saudi Aramco refinery with drones unsettled the market, renewing concerns about a widening regional war.
Global economists have forecast a sharp drop in global growth as a result of the war, and potentially a swing into recession in some areas, warning that the impact will grow if the war is not ended soon.
Hegseth declined to comment on a question about whether, in retrospect, it was a mistake to declare a ceasefire in April, a move that ended high-tempo bombing of Iran in exchange for peace negotiations that have failed to resolve the conflict.
“I’m never going to comment on that. We’re doing exactly what we need to, to ensure that Iran never has a nuclear weapon,” Hegseth said.
World
US military operations killed 153 civilians in 2025, Pentagon assessment shows
A Pentagon report submitted to the U.S. Congress and published by U.S. media said all civilian deaths and injuries recorded in 2025 resulted from three U.S. strikes in Yemen.
U.S. military operations killed 153 civilians and wounded 243 others in 2025, a U.S. official said on Tuesday, citing Pentagon assessments.
According to Reuters, the figures represent a sharp increase from 2024, when Pentagon assessments recorded two civilian deaths and two injuries linked to U.S. military operations.
A Pentagon report submitted to the U.S. Congress and published by U.S. media said all civilian deaths and injuries recorded in 2025 resulted from three U.S. strikes in Yemen.
The report said the U.S. Central Command assessed that the three strikes carried out in April 2025 in Yemen “more likely than not” resulted in civilian harm.
As of February 2026, the report said, 15 other incidents in Yemen were still being assessed by U.S. Central Command following reports received through non-governmental organizations.
The U.S. military says its operations in Yemen aim to degrade the capabilities of Iran-backed Houthi militants.
The Pentagon report did not include casualties from U.S. strikes in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. It said that as of February 1, 2026, the U.S. Southern Command had assessed that no incidents in its area of responsibility in 2025 “more likely than not” resulted in civilian casualties.
The Trump administration has also carried out strikes on vessels it accuses of transporting narcotics in the Eastern Pacific, describing the targets as “narco-terrorists.” According to a Reuters tally based on death tolls published after each strike, more than 200 people have been killed in such operations since September 2025.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have described the strikes as unlawful extrajudicial killings, while the American Civil Liberties Union has called the Trump administration’s claims about those targeted “unsubstantiated, fear-mongering claims.”
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