Tanker hits mine in the Strait of Hormuz as Iran intercepts six vessels

An oil tanker blew up in the Strait of Hormuz after hitting a naval mine on Sunday, Iran's military-linked state media reported, adding that the Islamic republic has intercepted at least six ships in the past 24 hours.

Democrats May Be in Big Trouble in Their Maine Senate Do-Over

Netanyahu vows ‘very, very forceful’ response if Iran attacks Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that if Iran attacks Israel directly or indirectly, it would make for a “terrible mistake.” “I should say it very, very clearly,” Netanyahu told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo in a “Sunday Morning Futures” interview. “If Iran attacks Israel, either directly or through proxies, either with ballistic missiles or…

U.S. pauses attacks on Iran for a second straight day and Tehran does too

The United States paused attacks on Iran for a second straight day Sunday and Tehran said it had done so too, as efforts continued to bring the countries back to negotiations on an interim ceasefire.

Trump paused attacks on Iran to make space for talks, US ambassador says

Neither the US nor Iran have launched attacks in the last two nights, after almost two weeks of tit-for-tat strikes risked derailing talks to permanently end the war.

Mike Lee to Force Roll Call Vote on SAVE Act Before Recess

Trump's becoming 'more erratic' — 'even by Trumpian standards': Aides

President Donald Trump’s own aides say he’s become “more erratic” in recent weeks as he’s forced to confront the “limits on his power,” The New York Times reported Sunday.Those “limits,” according to the Times, were exposed by the president’s inability to achieve his stated objectives in his deeply unpopular war against Iran, despite the overwhelming superiority of the U.S. military.“In recent weeks, he has seemed trapped, his presidency gradually consumed by a war he cannot find his way out of,” the Times’ report reads.“He has discovered limits on his power that he could have scarcely imagined when he began full combat operations on Feb. 28, when he set out goals for a swift end to Iran’s nuclear program and the overthrow of the country’s government. Five months later, those goals remain almost entirely unaccomplished.”Despite his efforts, Trump and his administration have failed to not only achieve their objectives in the war against Iran, but have been unable to combat surging oil prices and inflation. And those failures, according to his own aides, have left him rattled.“Those limits have left him deeply frustrated, his aides say, and have made him more erratic, even by Trumpian standards,” the Times’ report reads.“Not all of Mr. Trump’s frustrations, people close to the president say, are driven by the war, now so unpopular that only 29 percent of Americans polled by the Washington Post and Ipsos approved of his handling of the conflict. But much of it is. And the angst is clear as he promises to stop Iran’s nuclear program at any cost, while his allies at home want out.”As noted by the Times, Trump only has three options at his disposal: escalate his military campaign against Tehran, which has already shown little success, rely on sanctions, which similarly have failed to topple Iran’s government, or “declare victory and go home,” which Trump appeared receptive to last month after agreeing to a tentative peace deal that quickly fell apart.Pulling out of the war entirely, the Times noted, however, would “define his legacy,” and “make clear that there are more constraints on his power than he believed in January, when he declared that his reach was limitless.”

Judge's 'unexpected' Epstein files demand reveals dark truth about Todd Blanche: expert

A federal judge's “unexpected” demand to Attorney General Todd Blanche regarding the Epstein files proves a bedrock judicial principle is “on life support," a legal expert argued Sunday.Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan gave Blanche five days to provide the court with unredacted versions of certain Epstein-related files for private review as it litigates a lawsuit filed by lawyer and media figure Katie Phang. Phang sued Blanche for allegedly violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act by unlawfully redacting certain files.Blanche provided the court with an explanation as to why certain files were redacted, but Sullivan, doubting Blanche’s explanation, demanded he provide proof supporting his claims. Such a demand, as noted by Joyce Vance, former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, demonstrated how the Trump administration had all but gutted the key judicial principle known as the “presumption of regularity.”“It was commonly used to advance the idea that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, courts should presume government employees, including DOJ lawyers, acted properly in the execution of their duties. Now it’s on life support and Judge Sullivan’s order is another nail in its coffin,” Vance wrote in an analysis published Saturday on her Substack.“This most recent order suggests that Judge Sullivan doesn’t believe the government when it says something is the case, even when that ‘something’ is as simple as the identity of the person in a ‘to’ line in an email. But the government has acted like it has something to hide, even after Congress passed the Transparency Act and Trump signed it into law.”Specifically, Phang has raised doubts that redacted names on a handful of Epstein-related files were lawfully withheld. The Justice Department (DOJ) has claimed the redactions in question were permitted under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, but Sullivan is refusing to take the DOJ at their word.“So the Judge isn’t accepting what the government has represented to it as truthful, and is requiring documentation to support its claims,” Vance wrote.“Under any other president, the Attorney General would have been disturbed by the suggestion prosecutors couldn’t be trusted. There would be disciplinary review. But here, the acting Attorney General is the defendant in the case. It’s paradigmatic of how far DOJ has fallen.”