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MIDDLE EAST WAR
Quote:The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has announced plans to leave the group of the world's leading oil exporters, OPEC and OPEC+, on May 1.
The abrupt decision by the UAE, which has been a member of OPEC for six decades, reflects intensified rivalry with Saudi Arabia and current pressures from the Iran war on Gulf countries exporting oil.
The move could deliver a boost for U.S. President Donald Trump, who has accused the group of "ripping off the rest of the world" by inflating oil prices.
"This decision reflects the UAE's long-term strategic and economic vision and evolving energy profile, including accelerated investment in domestic energy production, and reinforces its commitment to a responsible, reliable, and forward-looking role in global energy markets," the UAE's government said on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.
Why It Matters
The UAE's announcement comes at a time of crisis for the global energy market, as the war in Iran has hampered the flow of tankers through the critical Strait of Hormuz, through which around a fifth of the world's oil passes. The UAE has accused its Gulf state neighbors of not doing enough to protect it from Tehran's attacks during the Iran war.
The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, topped $111 on Tuesday, up nearly 4 percent as talks over reopening the strait remain at an impasse.
The exit from OPEC of such a longstanding member is likely to create instability within the group, which has usually sought to present a united front despite internal disagreements.
What To Know
The UAE joined OPEC in 1967, and its departure will mean that the bloc will lose around 15 percent of its capacity.
Nikos Tzabouras, a senior market analyst at Tradu.com, told Newsweek that as one of the top OPEC producers, the UAE's exit threatens to weaken the group and its tight grip on the oil market at a crucial juncture.
"While the exact strategic calculations behind the move remain fluid, the UAE likely seeks greater flexibility to ramp up output in response to the energy shock from the Middle East conflict - a shift that bears bearish implications for oil prices," he said Thursday.
"However, the near-term market impact is likely to be limited. Supply will require significant time and effort to be restored, even if the Strait of Hormuz were to fully reopen."
Quote:A superyacht owned by one of Vladimir Putin’s key allies passed through the Strait of Hormuz as the critical waterway remains effectively closed to commercial ships.
“Nord,” a 465-foot multi-deck luxury vessel valued at more than $500 million linked to Russia’s richest man, Alexei Mordashov, was able to navigate the Strait after undergoing maintenance in Dubai, after neither Iran nor the US objected, a source close to the billionaire said Tuesday.
Sailing under a Russian flag, the yacht left Dubai on Friday and passed through the Strait on Saturday, one of the few private vessels to successfully do so since the start of the war in Iran.
It arrived at Oman’s capital Muscat on Sunday morning according to data on the Marine Traffic platform.
“Iran did not interfere with the movement of the yacht, as it is a civilian vessel of a friendly country conducting a peaceful transit. The American side also raised no questions regarding the yacht’s movement, as it did not call at Iranian ports and has no connection to Iran,” the source told Reuters.
Iran has choked off traffic to the Strait and the US has an ongoing naval blockade of the passage.
Just a handful of ships, mostly merchant vessels, have been able to pass through the Strait, the crucial waterway in the Persian Gulf through which normally passes a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas shipping.
This is a fraction of the 125 to 140 average journeys made through the Strait before the start of the war on Feb. 28.
Mordashov, 60, the CEO of Russia’s largest steel and mining company, Severstal, has an estimated net worth of around $37 billion, according to Forbes.
Quote:The Kremlin on Wednesday warned of “dire consequences” if fighting against Iran resumes amid a ceasefire, after Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the issue in a phone call with President Donald Trump.
Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said Putin told Trump that renewed hostilities would be “dangerous and unacceptable,” especially any ground operation on Iranian territory. Putin stressed, according to the Kremlin, that such a move would carry serious risks not only for Iran but for the broader international community, Ushakov said.
The concerns came after Trump said earlier Wednesday that he was rejecting Iran's latest proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, meaning the blockade remains in place and the stalemate over the conflict continues.
Putin-Trump Phone Call: What To Know
Ushakov told Russian state news agency TASS that Putin felt the decision to extend the ceasefire in Iran was "the right one" because it would give negotiations a chance and "help stabilize the situation in general." Trump also laid out his assessment of the military action to this point.
Speaking in the Oval Office Wednesday afternoon, Trump told reporters that Putin had also offered assistance with the enrichment of uranium, "if he can help us get it," he said, adding that he told Putin, "I'd much rather you be involved in ending the war with Ukraine."
Russia, longtime Iran ally, in February surpassed the four-year mark in its war on Ukraine, despite a promise by Trump when he returned to office a year ago that the U.S. president would end the conflict.
Trump said Wednesday he had "a very good conversation" with the Russian leader and that he was under the impression Putin wanted a solution in Ukraine.
Quote:A dangerous dissident republican group, the New IRA, which is allegedly linked to Iran and Hezbollah, claimed responsibility Tuesday for a car bomb outside a Belfast police station before warning of further attacks, according to reports.
The blast targeted a Police Service of Northern Ireland station in Dunmurry, and police increased patrols after the group threatened to target officers at their homes.
A 66-year-old man was also arrested Tuesday under terrorism laws after the explosion, Reuters reported.
In a statement attributed to the “leadership of the IRA,” the group said the bomb was meant to kill officers leaving the station.
It warned that anyone cooperating with police “will be severely dealt with.”
A 2020 report by The Times, citing information from an MI5 informant, alleged connections among the New IRA, Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The report said individuals linked to the group signed a book of condolences after the 2020 killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Baghdad, raising concerns about possible external support, including weapons and funding.
“The New IRA–Hezbollah link is a useful data point in a much larger pattern: the operationalization of the so-called axis of resistance,” former Defense Department intelligence officer Andrew Badger told Fox News Digital.
“This joins Russia, Iran, China, North Korea and an expanding bench of aligned non-state actors into a working logistical and tradecraft network across the globe,” Badger said.
“What we are watching is the maturing of a hybrid warfare model, pioneered and led by Russia and Iran, in which adversaries of the Western-led order increasingly share tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) across geographies and ideologies,” said Badger, the co-author of “The Great Heist.”
The New IRA’s latest bombing also follows a similar attempted car bomb attack on another police station outside Belfast just weeks ago.
It is one of several militant groups that oppose the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and want to end British rule in Northern Ireland and establish a united Ireland.
Quote:President Trump has instructed his aides to prepare for an extension of America’s naval blockade of Iran to squeeze Tehran’s already struggling economy, officials said.
To force Iran to get serious about negotiating and giving up its nuclear material, Trump is committed to a longer halt of Iran’s oil exports, the lifeblood of the Islamic regime, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The move comes as experts estimate that Iran has at most 12 to 22 days of oil storage left, as Tehran has nowhere to send its crude under the blockade.
Trump believes that an extension of the blockade, one of the key topics of his meeting Monday in the Situation Room, carries the least risk compared to resuming the war or simply walking away from it, officials told the outlet.
The move comes as the Islamic Republic’s economy is in a death spiral.
At least one million people have lost their jobs since the start of the war, according to early estimates cited by Gholamhossein Mohammadi, an official at Iran’s Labor and Social-Affairs ministry, and reported by the WSJ.
The cost of living has also soared, with the annual inflation rate reaching an eye-watering 67% in the month through mid-April, compared to the same period last year, according to Iran’s central bank.
“Living is not affordable anymore,” Mahdi Ghodsi of the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies told the outlet.
“Iran is at its weakest point.”
Trump allegedly made the decision to extend the blockade after Iran proposed a three-step offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil choke point that Tehran has kept shut since the war began on Feb. 28.
Iran’s offer, however, called for the nuclear talks to be postponed, which Trump believed was proof that Tehran was not negotiating in good faith and was trying to string the US along, according to the WSJ.
Trump has maintained that Iran cannot be allowed to keep its enriched uranium, but the administration has kept the fragile cease-fire intact after Iran’s retaliatory strikes threatened vital energy infrastructure in the Gulf.
Quote:WASHINGTON — President Trump is reviewing options, including renewed strikes on Iran, as negotiating progress stalls.
Trump has doubled down on his 16-day blockade of Iran’s oil exports — after rejecting an Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping and set aside nuclear talks for later.
“The blockade is genius, okay? The blockade has been 100% foolproof,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday.
“Now, they have to cry uncle, that’s all they have to do,” Trump said of his time frame. “Just say, ‘We give up.'”
The US and Iran have had a cease-fire since April 8, and Trump has repeatedly threatened renewed military action without a breakthrough.
The military’s Central Command has drafted plans for “short and powerful” strikes to break through the negotiating deadlock, Axios reported Wednesday, citing three sources.
The president told the publication that for now, the blockade is “somewhat more effective than the bombing.”
The hypothetical strikes could make good on Trump’s longstanding threat to target Iran’s electricity plants and bridges.
It’s unclear when such an attack could happen. Trump has repeatedly floated the possibility of strikes to gain negotiating leverage.
Trump said his team — led by Vice President JD Vance, envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner– would no longer be traveling 18 hours to Pakistan for in-person talks with Iran. Rather, negotiations would take place “telephonically.”
Quote:The US military is reportedly considering sending its long-range hypersonic missile to the Middle East — to possibly strike ballistic missile launchers embedded in Iran.
The request, which was made by US Central Command, justified the deployment of a hypersonic missile, arguing that the Iranian regime has moved its launchers out of range of the Precision Strike missile, which can hit targets more than 300 miles away, a person with direct knowledge told Bloomberg.
If given the green light, the move would mark the first time the US has deployed a hypersonic missile, which has not yet been declared fully operational.
The request has not been made public, and the US and Iran have had a tenuous cease-fire in place since April 8. President Trump, however, has repeatedly threatened to reignite the Iran war with renewed military action as talks toward a peace deal remain at an impasse
The Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon, known as Dark Eagle, has a reported range of 1,725 miles and is specifically made for “long range conventional precision strike capability” against “time-sensitive and heavily defended targets,” according to the Library of Congress.
Each missile costs roughly $15 million, and there are no more than eight, the source told Bloomberg. Each battery will also cost roughly $2.7 billion, the outlet reported.
Adversaries like Russia and China have already deployed the weapons, the outlet reported.
CENTCOM did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Trump, meanwhile, doubled down on his 16-day blockade of Iran’s oil exports Wednesday — after rejecting an Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping, while setting aside the nuclear issue for a later date.
“The blockade is genius, okay? The blockade has been 100% foolproof,” Trump told reporters.
“Now, they have to cry uncle, that’s all they have to do. Just say, ‘We give up.’”
Quote:President Trump on Wednesday leveled a new threat against NATO ally Germany, suggesting he could soon reduce the US military presence there as he continues to feud with Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the US-Israel war against Iran.
Trump made the threat after Merz earlier this week said that the US was being “humiliated” by the Iranian leadership and criticized Washington’s lack of strategy in the war.
Trump has also repeatedly railed against NATO for the alliance’s refusal to assist the US in its two-month-old war.
“The United States is studying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time,” Trump said in a social media post.
Merz had said earlier Wednesday that his personal relationship with Trump remained “as good as ever,” but he had “had doubts from the very beginning about what was started there with the war in Iran.”
During his first term in the White House, Trump also moved to cut US troops in Germany because he said the country spent too little on defense.
In June 2020, Trump announced he was going to pull out about 9,500 of the roughly 34,500 US troops who were then stationed in Germany, but the process never actually started.
Democratic President Joe Biden formally stopped the planned withdrawal soon after taking office in 2021.
The US has several major military facilities in the country, including the headquarters for US European Command and US Africa Command, Ramstein Air Base and Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the largest American hospital outside the United States.
Merz met with Trump at the White House in March, just days after the US and Israel began their bombardment of Iran.
At the time, Merz told Trump that Germany was eager to work with the US on a strategy for when the current Iranian government no longer exists. Merz also expressed concern that an extended conflict could do great damage to the global economy.
UPDATE
Quote:Pentagon officials revealed Friday that 5,000 US troops will be pulled out of Germany amid the rift between Berlin and President Trump over the Iran war.
“The Secretary of War has ordered the withdrawal of approximately 5,000 troops from Germany,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.
“This decision follows a thorough review of the Department’s force posture in Europe and is in recognition of theater requirements and conditions on the ground,” he added.
Describing recent German rhetoric about the war as “inappropriate and unhelpful,” a senior Pentagon official told Reuters “the president is rightly reacting to these counterproductive remarks.”
The withdrawal is expected to be completed over the next 6-12 months.
About 35,000 active duty US military personnel are stationed in Germany, which is home to Ramstein Air Base, the largest US military outpost in Europe.
On Monday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz argued the US had been “humiliated by the Iranian leadership.”
“The Iranians are clearly stronger than expected and the Americans clearly have no truly convincing strategy in the negotiations either,” Merz said.
Meanwhile, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has described the Iran war as a “disastrous mistake,” accusing the US of violating international law.
In response to Merz’s criticism, Trump fumed on Truth Social that the chancellor “should spend more time on ending the war with Russia/Ukraine (Where he has been totally ineffective!), and fixing his broken Country, especially Immigration and Energy, and less time on interfering with those that are getting rid of the Iran Nuclear threat, thereby making the World, including Germany, a safer place!”
In 2020, Trump ordered the withdrawal of about 12,000 troops from the country but congressional lawmakers resisted funding the exit and the plan was scrapped when former President Joe Biden took office.
Trump teased the potential for the latest troop reduction earlier this week.
“The United States is studying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday.
Quote:Iran’s severely injured supreme leader remained defiant Thursday as he vowed to protect the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and missile capabilities — warning that America’s only place in the Gulf was “at the bottom of its waters.”
Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who has yet to be seen since becoming the supreme leader following his father’s death, issued another statement via state media rejecting President Trump’s peace terms and the American naval blockade on Iran’s ports.
“Ninety million proud and honorable Iranians inside and outside the country regard all of Iran’s identity-based, spiritual, human, scientific, industrial and technological capacities — from nanotechnology and biotechnology to nuclear and missile capabilities — as national assets, and will protect them just as they protect the country’s waters, land and airspace,” Khamenei’s message read.
“Foreigners who come from thousands of kilometers away to act with greed and malice there have no place in it — except at the bottom of its waters,” he added, slamming America as the “Great Satan.”
Trump has made it clear that one of his top goals of the war is to deny Iran the ability to develop nuclear weapons, with nearly 1,000 pounds of enriched uranium still located inside the country.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this week that under no circumstances could Iran be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons or else the entire Middle East and American allies would be in danger.
“They seek to dominate the region. And imagine that with a nuclear weapon,” Rubio told Fox News.
Iran has denied allegations that it is using its uranium to develop weapons, claiming it’s only meant for a civilian nuclear program.
Along with rejecting America’s demands, Khamenei signaled that Iran would keep the Strait of Hormuz shut, warning that a “new chapter” was coming for the Persian Gulf.
Quote:WASHINGTON — Top congressional lawmakers shrugged off the supposed Friday deadline to reauthorize the war in Iran, given that it’ll be 60 days since Operation Epic Fury began.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) openly questioned whether reauthorization was even necessary, and Senate GOP lawmakers similarly brushed aside the supposed deadline.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth claimed the 60-day clock stopped running after President Trump announced the military cease-fire on April 7.
“We are in a cease-fire right now,” Hegseth said Thursday during Senate testimony. “The 60-day clock pauses or stops in a cease-fire … that’s our understanding, just so you know.”
Under the War Powers Act of 1973, presidents get 60 days to carry out military action abroad and then must terminate the use of force unless Congress has declared war or authorized the use of lethal force.
Presidents can extend military action for 30 days to safely withdraw US forces from hostilities, but they cannot continue an offensive campaign.
“I would defer to the White House and White House counsel on that,” Hegseth told Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) during a Senate hearing when asked if Trump would ask Congress for reauthorization.
The White House has been coy about whether the president would declare an extension or formally ask for more authority to continue the fighting.
“President Trump has been transparent with the Hill since before Operation Epic Fury began, and administration officials provided over 30 bipartisan briefings for members of Congress to keep them apprised of military updates,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told The Post.
“The president’s preference is always diplomacy, and Iran wants to make a deal.”
Since Trump announced the cease-fire April 7, the administration has been in active talks with Iran on a more permanent end to the war.
For the time being, he’s imposed a blockade on Iranian ships traversing the Strait of Hormuz, through which over a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil supplies flow annually.
Quote:FIFA President Gianni Infantino opened his address at Thursday’s FIFA Congress by affirming that Iran will participate in the World Cup and that the team will play in the United States despite the conflict between the two nations.
“And the reason for that is very simple, dear friends, is because we have to unite. We have to bring people together. It is my responsibility. It is our responsibility,” Infantino said.
“Football unites the world. FIFA unites the world. You unite the world. We unite the world.”
In an indication of how fraught the situation is with Iran’s participation in the World Cup, representatives from the Iranian soccer federation were denied entry into Canada this week.
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said it was her “understanding” that the Iranian officials were turned away, following a report by Tasnim, an Iranian news agency associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The report said Iranian soccer federation president Mehdi Taj and two other officials were denied entry at Toronto’s airport.
Earlier in the week at the Asian soccer federation’s congress in Vancouver, Iran’s participation in the World Cup or whether the team’s matches should be moved out of the United States was not addressed.
At the roll call for the FIFA Congress where all nations were named, Iran was announced as absent.
Outside the event at the Vancouver Convention Center there was a small group of protestors holding Iranian flags.
Infantino has not wavered on Iran’s participation in the World Cup or in its matches in the United States.
Quote:WASHINGTON – President Trump is tightening the noose on Iran and summoned his top military commander to signal to Tehran that it’s time to make a deal.
CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper is reportedly briefing Trump Thursday about military strategy, but experts tell The Post there was a bigger message at play.
“It was a signal to Iran and a political trial balloon to the US,” a former administration official said.
That signal: Tehran should come to the table and make a peace deal or face more US military might.
An economic pressure campaign has been in full force against Iran. The blockade on the Strait of Hormuz is in its third week and without its main waterway, Iran has had to store its crude oil instead of selling it.
And it’s running out of places to keep the 1.5 million to 2 million barrels of oil its wells produce daily. Shutting down production – and then starting it back up – would be an expensive proposition.
Huddling with Cooper – who also briefed Trump two days before the strikes on Iran originally began on Feb. 28 – sends a powerful signal to Tehran.
“The economic pressure is the US main effort but if Iranians don’t agree to his terms as a result of that pressure he has Admiral Cooper on deck,” Joel Rayburn, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute who served as special envoy for Syria during Trump’s first term, said of the president’s strategy.
Trump gave a hint at his strategy when he spoke to reporters in the Oval Office ahead of his briefing with the admiral, as reported by Fox News.
“Their economy is crashing,” he said of Iran. “The blockade is incredible. The power of the blockade is incredible. They’re not getting any money from oil, and hopefully it can be worked out very soon.”
Quote:The Trump administration is calling on allied nations to join a new international coalition to help reopen and control the Strait of Hormuz, officials said.
The Maritime Freedom Construct (MFC) is meant to be a diplomatic and military push to work with allied countries and shipping companies to help reopen the vital waterway, and allow tanker ships to pass through without being molested by Iran.
The pitch for the MFC was sent out in an internal State Department cable to US embassies on Tuesday, urging diplomats to push for countries to sign on, the Wall Street Journal first reported.
“The MFC will take steps to ensure safe passage, including providing real-time information, safety guidance, and coordination to ensure vessels can transit these waters securely,” a State Department official told The Post.
The proposal comes as the Strait of Hormuz, which oversaw the transport of 20% of the world’s oil, remains all but closed due to the war in Iran, with Tehran aiming to create a toll system.
Iran has attacked or threatened any ship that attempts to pass through the strait without its permission.
At the other end of the strait, the US Navy is enforcing a blockade that intercepts Iranian-linked ships.
Despite Trump’s previous insistence that the US does not need help reopening or managing the strait, the State Department memo suggests the administration is looking for foreign countries to manage the future of the waterway.
Quote:Iran is reportedly considering using dolphins armed with mines to launch kamikaze attacks on US warships in the Strait of Hormuz, which has been under a financially crippling military blockade for weeks.
While the tense extended cease-fire with the US holds, a growing number of Iranian hardliners believe that the financial crisis sparked by the US blocking Iran’s oil exports amounts to an act of war and have called for resuming military action.
That military action could include unleashing previously unused weapons to attack US warships deployed in the region — including mine-carrying dolphins, according to Iranian officials, the Wall Street Journal reported.
It wouldn’t be the first time the regime has considered deploying kamikaze dolphins.
Iran bought dolphins trained to kill for the Soviet navy in 2000, the BBC reported at the time.
The animals were trained to attack the Islamic Republic’s enemies with harpoons attached to their backs, the outlet reported.
They were also trained to undertake kamikaze strikes against enemy ships by carrying mines.
Tehran could also send submarines into the waterway, according to the WSJ, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard has already threatened to cut key phone cables running through the strait, which could wreak havoc on global internet communications to escalate tensions further.
“The blockade is increasingly viewed in Tehran not as a substitute for war, but as a different manifestation of it,” Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow specializing in the Middle East at SWP, a Berlin-based research institute, told WSJ.
Quote:President Trump on Friday said Iran’s latest proposal to end the ongoing war with the US is a non-starter — and that all options, including further military strikes, are on the table as he claimed the 60-day War Powers Act limit on military engagement without Congressional approval “unconstitutional.”
“We just had a conversation with Iran, let’s see what happens. But I would say that I am not happy,” he told reporters at the White House. “… They’re asking for things that I can’t agree to.”
Tehran passed its latest proposal to end its war with the US to Washington through mediators on Thursday as diplomacy continues at a snail’s pace, Iranian sources and state media said Friday.
“They want to make a deal so badly, but they’re not there yet. They’re not there,” Trump said. “In my opinion, they’re not there.”
The Trump administration has insisted that Iran give up its pursuit of a nuclear weapon, while Tehran has said issues related to reopening the Strait of Hormuz to shipping must be dealt with first.
Details of the proposal are unclear, as Trump skirted a question on what specific measures in the draft were nonnegotiable and Iranian and Pakistani sources were mum.
As negotiations continue to falter, the president said the option to launch a new wave of strikes on Iran remains on the table — which he said Chief of the Joint Staff Gen. Dan Caine laid out for him in a briefing Thursday.
“There are the options: Do you want to go blast the hell out of ’em and finish them forever, or do we want to try and make a deal? I mean, those are the options,” he told reporters at the White House.
Asked whether he would move forward with additional strikes, Trump said: “I’d prefer not. On a human basis, I’d prefer not, but that’s the option.”
Trump blamed internal fractures within the Iranian regime for the lack of progress, describing them as “very argumentative with each other” and “very confused.”
Quote:The US Treasury Department imposed sweeping sanctions Friday on three major Iranian currency exchange houses and more than a dozen front companies, The Post has learned, accusing them of laundering billions of dollars in foreign currency to bankroll Tehran’s military and proxy network.
This crackdown, a cornerstone of the Trump administration’s “Economic Fury” maximum-pressure campaign, targets the shadow banking systems that help Iran convert illicit oil revenue.
Because these revenues are largely paid in Chinese yuan, these networks are vital for converting funds into US dollars, euros, and other usable currencies for the regime.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated the designations strike directly at the financial arteries keeping Iran’s war machine alive.
“Iran is the head of the snake for global terrorism, and under President Trump’s leadership, Treasury is moving aggressively, through Economic Fury, to sever the Iranian military’s financial lifelines,” Bessent said in a statement. “We will relentlessly target the regime’s ability to generate, move, and repatriate funds.”
The targeted exchange houses — Opal Exchange, Radin Exchange, and Arz Iran Exchange (also known as Tahayyori Guarantee Society) — along with their owners, allegedly orchestrate sophisticated networks of front companies.
These networks handle tens of billions of dollars in annual trade for Iran’s sanctioned entities, including its central bank and the National Iranian Oil Co.
Treasury issued the designations under an executive order aimed at Iran’s financial sector.
Key operators and owners — Iranian nationals Pedram Pirouzan, Hossein Mohammad Rezaei, Masoud Mohammad Rezaei, Nasser Ghasemi Rad, and Ehsan Tahayyori — were also personally hit with Friday’s blocking sanctions.
To operate seamlessly, these exchanges rely on shell companies registered to their owners, who frequently list citizenship from Dominica or St. Kitts and Nevis.
This tactic masks their Iranian ties, allowing them to open foreign bank accounts and move money for Iranian importers, exporters, and military-linked entities, Treasury officials noted.
Friday’s actions sweep up 15 specific front companies scattered across multiple jurisdictions.
Collectively, these illicit networks have processed hundreds of millions of dollars in cross-border transactions, the department said.
Friday’s move compounds more than 1,000 Iran-related designations issued since a February 2025 national security diktat signed by President Trump.
It directly follows earlier actions targeting Iranian “rahbar” companies tied to specific banks and digital asset platforms used to dodge sanctions.
Under these penalties, any assets the designated individuals or companies hold within the United States or under US jurisdiction are immediately frozen, and Americans are barred from doing business with them.
Quote:ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON/DUBAI — Tehran has submitted its latest proposal for negotiations with the United States, Iranian state media and a Pakistani official said Friday, a move that could offer hope for breaking a deadlock in efforts to end the Iran war.
The official, involved in Pakistani mediation over the war, said Pakistan had received the proposal late Thursday and had forwarded it to the US.
Neither the official nor Iranian state news agency IRNA gave details, and the White House declined to comment, while saying negotiations continued.
Global oil prices, which remain well above $100 a barrel, eased following news of the proposal.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused unprecedented disruption to energy markets, choking off 20% of the world’s oil and gas supplies and causing a record rally in oil prices.
The blockade of the vital sea channel has also increased concerns that there will be an economic downturn.
The US Navy is blocking exports of Iranian crude oil, and on Friday the US Treasury warned shippers that they risked sanctions if they paid tolls to Iran to pass through the strait.
A cease-fire has been in place since April 8, but reports that President Trump was to be briefed on plans for new military strikes to compel Iran to negotiate had pushed global oil prices up to a four-year high at one point Thursday.
Iran has activated air defenses and plans a wide response if attacked, having assessed that there will be a short, intensive US strike, possibly followed by an Israeli attack, two senior Iranian sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
‘Treacherous aggression’
Washington has not said what its next steps are. Trump said Tuesday he was unhappy with the previous proposal from Iran, and Pakistan has not set a date for new talks on ending a war that has killed thousands, mainly in Iran and Lebanon.
After US and Israeli airstrikes on February 28, Iran fired at US bases, infrastructure and US-linked companies in Gulf states, while the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah launched missiles at Israel, which responded with strikes on Lebanon.
Underlining the concerns of the Gulf states, UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash said the “collective international will and provisions of international law” were the primary guarantors of freedom of navigation through the strait.
“And, of course, no unilateral Iranian arrangements can be trusted or relied upon following its treacherous aggression against all its neighbors,” Gargash wrote.
Quote:A retired top US general Friday said Iran’s leaders “certainly don’t care” what happens to their people — so President Trump should stop trying to negotiate and resume bombing the Middle Eastern country.
Retired Gen. Jack Keane — acting Army Chief of Staff at the start of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — told Fox News that Iran’s merciless and violent crackdown on its own citizens show the leadership’s true colors and proves any negotiation is fruitless.
“They certainly don’t care about their people suffering,” Keane said, likely alluding to reports that Iran murdered nearly 40,000 of its own people while putting down protests in January alone, among other well-documented acts of mass violence.
“The people that think this is gonna cause a collapse and they’re gonna make a deal, I think they’re underestimating who these guys really are,” Keane said, referring to the freefall of Iran’s economy caused by the ongoing US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz — which some have hoped would bring Iran to heel at the negotiating table.
Keane said that’s wishful thinking.
“We spent three weeks here trying to work something out with these guys,” he said. “What else are our options? I think option one Is return and finish what we started.”
Keane served in the US Army from 1966 to 2003, rising to vice chief of staff as a four-star general in 1999 and then acting chief of staff before he retired. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Trump in 2020, and helped coordinate US actions in the Middle East after 9/11.
His comments come as the US-Iran ceasefire dragged through its fourth week, with zero progress made in negotiations to end the war that started Feb. 28.
Iran has repeatedly refused to disavow its nuclear program — Trump’s no. 1 non-negotiable — and even no-showed and walked out of negotiation meetings during the ceasefire.
Keane said all that proves the “reality” that Iran can only be made to listen if Trump unleashes the might of the US military on Iran again.
“We can go through a list of targets — there’s leadership targets out there, there’s ballistic missiles out there, there’s the remnants of the nuclear weapons program that’s out there,” he said. “There’s drone storage, there’s energy infrastructure, etcetera.
“There’s plenty of targets that we have assigned that we want to finish.”
USA
Quote:A record 76-day government shutdown ended on Thursday when the House voted to restart funding for much of the Department of Homeland Security, ending weeks of disruption for workers and averting looming airport delays—while leaving a fierce fight over immigration enforcement unresolved.
The bipartisan measure, approved after stalling for more than two months, keeps agencies like the Transportation Security Administration operating but excludes funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Border Patrol.
The funding approval fails to end the immigration clash between Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill and GOP leaders have already launched a separate effort to bankroll enforcement operations ahead of the key November midterm elections.
"Despite unrelenting predictions from many of you today in the press that we would fail this week, we did exactly the opposite," Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters shortly after the vote while taking a shot at his colleagues across the aisle. "ICE and CBP are funded for 3 years. Democrats got absolutely nothing for their political charade and shenanigans out of that."
Quote:Ex-con former first son Hunter Biden may have to shell out more in child support to his former stripper baby mama, given his alleged lavish lifestyle featuring gourmet food and a mountain home with ocean views.
An Arkansas judge Thursday ordered Biden, a 56-year-old dad of five, to turn over his tax records and other financials and sit for a grilling under oath by lawyers for Lunden Roberts — with whom he shares 7-year-old daughter Navy Joan Roberts.
The ruling came as part of Roberts’ bid to have Biden start coughing up more than the $5,000 a month he currently pays her in support, since his “style of living is higher than it was previously,” Roberts’ lawyer, Clint Lancaster, argued during a video hearing, according to a transcript obtained by The Post.
Neither Roberts, 34, nor Biden were present for the oral arguments.
The fact that Biden lives in a stunning home “on the hill overlooking the ocean” in California was one of several clues showing he has more money than he did when he settled with Roberts in 2023, Lancaster argued.
Hunter’s trips overseas and meals at posh restaurants on Nantucket, a tony playground island for the rich and famous off Massachusetts, with his ex-president dad Joe Biden and stepmom Jill Biden also indicate the child-support payments should be increased, Lancaster claimed.
Navy is at the age where she has started to realize that she is a living a very different lifestyle than her estranged half-siblings, Lancaster previously argued in court papers.
Biden has four other children — three of whom he shares with ex-wife Kathleen Buhle and one he has with current wife Melissa Cohen.
Biden’s lawyer, Brent Langdon, fired back by arguing that his client is living in the same home he did at the time of the agreement and that it’s a rental his landlord renovated after the fires. During that time, Hunter was temporarily forced to move out, Langdon said.
“I just don’t think going out to dinner is a support for modification of child support when you are already paying … at least double the amount, that under child support guidelines, you should be paying,” Langdon said.
Judge Holly Meyer ruled that Roberts is at least entitled to look at Biden’s recent tax records and have her lawyers depose him to find out if he’s making more and whether his payments should increase.
Earlier in the hearing, Biden clinched a win when Meyer agreed to dismiss Roberts’ bid to hold him in contempt — and have him thrown in jail — over paintings he made and promised to give to Navy.
Roberts and Biden have been squabbling over a clause in their settlement agreement that Navy can choose 30 of artworks by Biden by June 2026 and then keep or sell them.
Quote:Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel dared to repeat the “hateful” ill-timed joke he made about first lady Melania Trump looking like an “expectant widow” in a bombed roast he delivered days before the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Kimmel, who narrowly dodged outright cancellation for making similarly distasteful jokes about Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September, took to the air with a vengeance in his Monday night show.
“This was like déjà vu for me today,” he said on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
Kimmel explained that his mock roast featured in last Thursday’s show was intended to mirror those that comedians usually conduct at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which were nixed for this year’s celebration.
One joke during his bit took aim at the first lady.
“Our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow,” Kimmel said.
He repeated the tasteless joke verbatim in his Monday night monologue following a failed assassination attempt on President Trump — and after Melania called Kimmel out for “hateful and violent rhetoric.”
At the dinner Saturday, accused gunman Cole Allen stormed into the Washington Hilton with the alleged intent to kill as many members of the Trump administration as possible.
But Kimmel on Monday swore that his performance was “a pretend roast” far removed from the purported assassination attempt.
Quote:Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr said Thursday that the decision to order an early license review for Disney’s ABC television stations is about the company’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives — not President Trump’s clash with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.
“This was based on DEI conduct and not speech,” Carr said at a press conference following the FCC’s monthly meeting.
The review, which was announced on Tuesday, came a day after Trump demanded Kimmel’s firing on Truth Social for a joke the comedian made at the expense of first lady Melania Trump on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” last week.
The timing of the review has raised eyebrows, leading some critics to believe the review was in connection of the latest escalation of the skirmish between Kimmel and Trump.
The FCC first launched its Disney probe in March 2025 into whether the Mouse House was still engaging in DEI practices that flout the agency’s equal employment opportunity rules.
Carr said the information the FCC has received from Disney has caused him to suspect that the media giant is in violation of the agency’s rules against discrimination based on race and gender.
The chairman added that Disney hasn’t been completely forthcoming in its responses to the FCC’s requests for information.
“It felt like they were playing rope-a-dope,” Carr said of Disney’s response to the agency’s document demands.
Disney did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Carr’s remarks.
A rep for Disney previously said that the company is confident that the “record demonstrates our continued qualifications as licensees under the Communications Act and the First Amendment and are prepared to show that through the appropriate legal channels.”
The Mouse House has until May 28 to comply with the FCC’s order. It owns eight television stations in major markets including New York and Los Angeles.
Quote:WASHINGTON — President Trump has signed an executive order to create retirement accounts for tens of millions of workers who don’t currently have access to a 401(k) or another workplace plan.
“I promised to make the same types of retirement accounts enjoyed by federal employees available to all Americans, and that’s what we’re doing. It only seemed fair,” he said during the signing ceremony in the Oval Office.
Low-income earners without an individual retirement account (IRA) through their employer will receive a yearly federal matching contribution of up to $1,000 each, the president noted.
That designation applies to individuals making less than $35,500 annually, heads of household making $53,250 per year, or couples making $71,000 each year jointly.
“This will be really revolutionary because they’ll be covered,” Trump said in the Oval Office.
“Nobody thought that was possible. For example, if a 25-year-old who is eligible for a Saver’s Match program invests just $165 a month under the matching federal contributions, they will have an estimated $465,000 in their account by the time they’re 65 years old,” he added.
“In other words, they’ll be rich. And there’s something awfully nice about that.”
About 56 million Americans lack access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan at work, according to Pew Research.
Those include gig workers such as Uber drivers, those who are self-employed in the trades as well as freelance and contract workers.
Small-business owners — such as those who run bodegas in the Big Apple — could also benefit.
At least 27 million are already eligible for the retirement plans — but not yet enrolled through a 2022 law that started the Saver’s Match program, allowing for the matching contributions.
A report from the Joint Committee on Taxation in Congress previously projected the Saver’s Match will spend roughly $9.3 billion on those enrolled from 2027 to 2032.
The US Treasury Department will launch the website TrumpIRA.gov on Jan. 1, 2027, to begin fielding applications.
An earlier effort under former President Barack Obama, myRA, was eliminated by the 45th president in 2017.
The initiative comes as Trump touts his administration’s efforts to improve economic outcomes ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Quote:President Trump said Friday he would consider appointing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to a cabinet position next year.
“Well, I like him a lot,” Trump told a reporter in explaining why he might appoint the term-limited governor to a top post.
DeSantis was once among Trump’s 2024 primary rivals for president, but he came in a distant second in the Iowa caucuses, and his campaign fizzled out.
The Sunshine State gov eventually endorsed Trump, and DeSantis now works closely on Trump’s priorities, including his crackdown on illegal immigration.
The ruthless personal attacks that Trump leveled against DeSantis during the primary — including referring to the Florida governor as “Ron DeSanctimonious” — have since given way to kinder regards.
The president declared DeSantis a “10 out of 10 — maybe 9.9,” when touring the Republican governor’s “Alligator Alcatraz” detention facility for illegal immigrants in the Everglades in July.
The Sunshine State will also host the president’s eventual library — and the governor has already signed Florida bills to rename roads and even the airport near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate after him.
Earlier this month, DeSantis further praised Trump’s executive action aimed at “restoring order, fairness, and stability” in college athletics by, among other things, only allowing student athletes to transfer to a different school once without the penalty of being forced to sit out a season.
Most recently, DeSantis pushed new congressional maps in Florida that could net Republicans four more House seats in the 2026 midterms as Trump fights to keep Congress under GOP control.
Trump has reshuffled his cabinet in recent months, ousting Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary, Pam Bondi as attorney general and Lori Chavez-DeRemer as labor secretary.
The president has yet to nominate a permanent replacement for the AG and Labor posts.
The Florida governor has previously expressed interest in the position of defense secretary or attorney general, according to reports from the Wall Street Journal and Axios.
DeSantis’s second term as governor ends in January 2027.
Quote:The body of a missing Republican Oklahoma state Senate candidate was found in a truck in a rural area — turning his family’s world “upside down,” his devastated daughter said.
Barry Christian, a 54-year-old Trump-supporting candidate for District 38 in western Oklahoma, was discovered dead Thursday after he mysteriously vanished just two days prior, his campaign said in a news release obtained by KOCO.
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation confirmed to the outlet that Christian’s 2024 charcoal gray Ram truck was found just off Highway 30, south of Erick, with a body inside.
The truck was located by a ravine near the Sandy Sanders Wildlife Management Area. Because of where the vehicle is located, officials are unable to remove his body, delaying identification, the outlet reported.
A large campaign sign for Christian, however, was photographed eerily tossed onto the prairie land as authorities scoured the area.
The circumstances surrounding his death are unclear. The OSBI did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Christian was reported missing Tuesday after he failed to show up to a scheduled meeting. He was last seen driving his Ram truck, according to the Harmon County Sheriff’s Office.
He last posted on Facebook on Saturday, asking his district’s residents to attend a meet-and-greet at the Mangum Oklahoma Rattlesnake Festival to discuss “issues that matter most to our community.”
Quote:The body of a second missing University of South Florida grad student has been identified after a fisherman snagged his line on the corpse in a Tampa waterway, police said Friday.
The remains of chemical engineering student Nahida Bristy, 27, were confirmed through DNA after the angler found them floating in a plastic bag near the Howard Frankland Bridge, Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said at a press conference.
Bristy’s remains were discovered Sunday not far from the body of her 27-year-old boyfriend, Zamil Limon, which was found five days earlier in a black trash bag.
“We have located Nahida Bristy,” Chronister said. “We have contacted her family. We are now actively working to release both bodies for religious reasons back to the families who live in Bangladesh.
“We were able to confirm DNA, some dental work that she had done, and the clothing that she still had on from the video that we saw.”
Hisham Saleh Abugharbieh, Limon’s roommate and a former USF student, has been charged with first-degree murder in the couple’s deaths.
A kayaker was fishing with a friend on Sunday when Chronister said he stumbled upon Bristy’s body.
“He has to go further into the mangroves. He smells something as he describes as undescribable,” the sheriff said.
“When he went and got closer to remove his fishing line, he sees that a plastic bag has been opened, there’s been salt water in there, he can’t tell what it is, but it looks like a human body. He does the right thing and contacts law enforcement.”
Limon appeared to be stabbed several times and was bound by his hands and ankles, Chronister said.
Both doctoral students hail from Bangladesh and were last seen alive on April 16.
Quote:A former JPMorgan staffer whom sources identified as Chirayu Rana has been accused of making fabricated sexual harassment claims against a high-ranking executive at the bank after an internal investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing, The Post has learned.
Multiple sources told The Post that 35-year-old Rana, now a principal at investment firm Bregal Sagemount, is the man who brought the bombshell lawsuit against Lorna Hajdini earlier this week.
Rana’s suit, filed on Monday under the pseudonym John Doe, accused the 37-year-old executive director of turning him into her “sex slave” by drugging him with Rohypnol and Viagra and threatening to slash his bonus if he did not comply.
The Daily Mail broke the story on Wednesday evening, citing lurid details from a now-retracted court document that has been withdrawn for “corrections.”
The British tabloid, quoting the now-deleted court papers, reported that Hajdini, executive director on JPMorgan’s leveraged finance team, even turned up unannounced at Rana’s apartment and forced him to have sex.
Hajdini hit back in a statement issued to The Post via her lawyers: “Lorna categorically denies the allegations. She never engaged in any inappropriate conduct with this individual of any kind and has never even been to the location where the alleged sexual assault supposedly took place.”
Rana, who did not reply to The Post’s multiple requests for comment, claimed that the alleged coercion began shortly after he joined JPMorgan’s leveraged finance team in the spring of 2024.
He filed an internal complaint in May 2025, alleging race- and gender-based harassment and abuse of power, before trying to negotiate a payoff that ran into “millions” to leave the company, sources said.
The suit also named JPMorgan Chase as a defendant, accusing the bank of retaliation and failing to investigate properly.
Daniel J. Kaiser, the attorney listed on the New York County Supreme Court docket as representing “John Doe,” did not return The Post’s calls seeking comment.
Quote:That’s one way to cook the books.
A former Chick-fil-A employee was arrested for stealing $80,000 with a mac & cheese scheme at a Texas restaurant, police say.
Keyshun Jones was fired from the store in Grapevine, outside Dallas, last November, but authorities say he would repeatedly slip back in, enter food orders on the register, and refund them to his personal credit card, Fox 4 reported.
Jones was taken into custody on April 17 after allegedly ringing up 800 orders of mac and cheese, according to the outlet.
Investigators began investigating the fromage fraud after the restaurant reported hundreds of phony refunds.
Security camera footage shows Jones behind the counter carrying out the bogus transactions, prosecutors say.
An arrest warrant was issued on April 6, court records show.
He was finally brought in by the Texas Attorney General’s Fugitive Task Force and the Fort Worth Police Department.
Jones faces charges of property theft, money laundering and evading arrest.
Quote:The University of California-Berkeley is facing heightened backlash after a Palestinian Political Prisoners Day event included a speaker with a terrorism conviction.
Israa Jaabis, a failed car suicide bomber, was released from prison in November 2023 as part of a deal to return Israeli hostages taken during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. Jaabis was convicted of attempting to set off a car bomb in 2015 during a traffic stop. The incident occurred near an area where Israeli soldiers would often gather and attempt to hitchhike. Jaabis and an Israeli officer, Moshe Chen, were severely burned during the attack.
UC Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine, one of the event organizers, posted Jaabis' message to the students on Instagram.
"Firstly, I would like to thank [the students] for their attentiveness, for listening with their hearts. For many reasons, even their attendance is enough to make us feel — as liberated Palestinian prisoners — that there is someone who cares about us," Jaabis said, according to the video's English-translated subtitles.
UC Regent Jay Sures told Fox News Digital that the event featuring Jaabis was "disgusting and abhorrent."
"I think when you talk about in the larger context of the University of California, I can tell you, as one of just a couple of the Jewish regents, I'm very satisfied with the steps the administration has taken to try to curb antisemitism on campus. Having said that, there's just going to be circumstances across the campuses, across all college campuses, where there's going to be groups of people that are going to promote and justify and glorify antisemitism," Sures said.
Sures noted that the event was put on by Students for Justice in Palestine, a far-left, rabidly anti-Israel group that has been suspended or banned from multiple universities, including Columbia, American and Duke. He added that the group promotes "anti-Zionistic behavior" and said there was "absolutely no doubt that anti-Zionistic rhetoric leads to antisemitism."
"Under the First Amendment, these groups have the right to free speech. And that's just part of what it's like to live in a country where you have a First Amendment," he said.
UC Berkeley Law recently told Fox News Digital that when it came to the event with Jaabis, its hands were tied.
"As a public university, UC Berkeley has a non-discretionary obligation to abide by and support the First Amendment in a completely content-neutral manner," Alex Shapiro, assistant dean of communications, said. "We do not have the legal ability to sanction or censor constitutionally protected expression.
Quote:WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s congressional map Wednesday, finding the Pelican State unconstitutionally added a second majority-black House district in a major decision that is likely to pave the way for Republicans to make major redistricting gains across southern states.
Louisiana had been forced by a federal judge to create a second majority-black district in 2024 to comply with Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), which restricts states from diluting minority votes.
The Trump administration and state officials challenged the new map, arguing it was a racial gerrymander in violation of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees all citizens equal protection under the law.
The high court agreed, with all six conservative justices voting to get rid of the 2024 boundaries.
However, the majority opinion by Justice Samuel Alito stopped short of finding Section 2 of the VRA unconstitutional, as many activists had feared.
Instead, the Supreme Court for the first time explicitly held that compliance with Section 2 can “provide a compelling reason for race-based districting” — but Louisiana’s situation did not meet that bar.
“In short, [Section 2] imposes liability only when the evidence supports a strong inference that the State intentionally drew its districts to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race,” Alito wrote. “Not only does this interpretation follow from the plain text of [Section 2], but it is consistent with the limited authority that the Fifteenth Amendment confers.”
“Section 2 does not provide a compelling interest [in Louisiana] because the State did not need to create a new majority-minority district to comply with the Act,” he later added.
Alito’s ruling relied heavily on 1986’s Thornburg v. Gingles, which laid out four criteria for courts to determine whether a state needs to redraw its districts due to a Section 2 violation: Geographic distribution of minority voters, whether a district is “reasonably configured,” whether the minority group votes as a bloc, and the “totality of the circumstances.”
Wednesday’s opinion updated each of the four Gingles criteria to make it clear that plaintiffs have to account for partisan interests when alleging that a congressional map was an illegal racial gerrymander.
LATIN AMERICA
Quote:Venezuela has signed agreements with two U.S. energy firms to operate in the country as a growing number of international oil and gas companies are vying to return to the world's biggest crude resource holder.
The Venezuelan government of interim President Delcy Rodríguez has just signed agreements with U.S. firms Hunt Overseas Oil Company and Crossover Energy, which plan to operate in the Orinoco Belt, the South American country's prime oil province of heavy and extra heavy crude. The deals were signed in the presence of Jarrod Agen, President Trump's energy adviser and executive director of the National Energy Dominance Council, who arrived in Venezuela on the first direct Miami-Caracas flight in nearly a decade.
Many international companies have explored the opportunity to return or establish operations in Venezuela following the capture of Nicolas Maduro, the U.S. taking control of Venezuelan oil sales, and the eased sanctions on operations with the Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA.
Before the January blitz in which U.S. forces captured Maduro and flew him to face drug-trafficking charges in the United States, only Chevron was authorized to operate in the country and export Venezuelan oil to the U.S.
Now European majors such as Eni, Repsol, and BP are returning to Venezuela with preliminary deals to boost oil and gas production or explore for resources, while large U.S. firms, including ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, have reportedly sent teams on the ground to evaluate opportunities.
In recent weeks, representatives of Exxon and ConocoPhillips have met with Venezuelan officials and the companies have sent technical teams to the country to evaluate opportunities, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Earlier this week, Italy's Eni and Spain's Repsol, two of the largest European energy companies, said they plan to increase natural gas production from their jointly owned Cardon IV gas field in Venezuela.
Also this week, UK-based BP signed a memorandum of understanding with Venezuela, establishing "potential areas for co-operation in material gas and future exploration," with the supermajor potentially exploring for offshore gas resources.
Quote:The number of people killed in a bombing in a volatile region in southwest Colombia rose to 20, officials said Sunday.
The attack happened Saturday when an explosive device was detonated on a bus traveling along the Pan-American Highway in the municipality of Cajibio. So far, 15 women and five men are among the victims, according to Octavio Guzmán, governor of the region of Cauca.
He wrote on X that the attack injured 36 others, three of whom are in intensive care. Guzmán noted that five of the injured are minors who are expected to recover.
Colombia’s Institute of Legal Medicine said that specialists including dentists, anthropologists and forensic doctors are identifying the victims.
The bombing is the latest attack in the region, with more than two dozen incidents reported in the past three days in southwestern Colombia. The region is home to illegal armed groups who vie for control of coca leaf cultivation areas and for sea and river access routes to run drug trafficking operations to Central America and Europe.
Gen. Hugo López, commander of Colombia’s armed forces, has described the incident as a "terrorist act." He blamed it on the network of a man known as "Iván Mordisco" — one of Colombia’s most wanted figures — and the Jaime Martínez faction. Both are dissidents of the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia that operate in the region.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the attacks against the civilian population and called on authorities to investigate the incidents and "guarantee justice for the victims."
Guzmán declared three days of mourning on Sunday in memory of the victims.
Quote:A Hasidic dad from Brooklyn who mysteriously disappeared in Colombia was found dismembered inside a bloodstained wardrobe — after traveling to the South American nation to meet a potential wife, his friends say.
Nachum Israel Eber’s mutilated remains were discovered inside the abandoned closet after it was dumped on a street in Bogota on Sunday — just days after his family reported him missing, local media reported.
The 51-year-old divorced father, a member of the Belz Hasidic community in Borough Park, was looking for a love connection, a pal told The Post.
“It’s a terrible tragedy,” friend Motti Dresdner said. “A person, a gentleman in his prime. He was always talking about his future, how he was going to get remarried and find a perfect bride and have a beautiful life. And to be cut off like this is very sad,” he said.
He was originally mistaken for a rabbi by Colombian police and media, but his pal said he’s a property developer and plumber.
Authorities started searching for Eber after relatives in the Big Apple reported he had suddenly gone silent and stopped answering their calls.
Surveillance video captured Eber for the last time as he left his Airbnb in Bogota shortly after 9 p.m. on April 21 before he vanished without a trace.
EUROPE
Quote:The son of two senior Norwegian diplomats under investigation over their ties to Jeffrey Epstein has died by suicide — after files revealed his parents took him to the pedophile’s island when he was just 10 years old.
Edward Juul Rød-Larsen, 25, who had been bequeathed $5 million by the disgraced financier, was found dead in Oslo on Wednesday, the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang reported Thursday.
His parents, Mona Juul and Terje Rød-Larsen, are both under investigation by Norwegian authorities after their alleged links to Epstein were uncovered in the files released by the Department of Justice.
In a statement released by the couple’s lawyers, they blamed the speculation about their financial ties to the dead pedophile as a contributing factor in their son’s suicide.
They called out “months of a public spotlight that has long since ceased to be critical, and has instead become suspicious, speculative and at times limitless,” Verdens Gang reported.
“A spotlight that has not only affected two parents, but has also drawn their children involuntarily into the relentless machinery of the public,” their statement continued.
The news comes just two days after Norwegian and French police announced a joint corruption investigation into the couple.
Juul was forced to resign as Norway’s ambassador to Jordan and Iraq in February as a result of the scandal, while her husband, a former president of the International Peace Institute, is also accused of gross corruption.
Rød-Larsen was pictured in the Epstein files holding up his phone, showing a social media page of a woman in a bikini.
The couple appears to have visited Epstein’s private island, Little Saint James, with their children in 2011, when Edward and his twin sister would have been around 10.
Quote:An Austrian man who authorities said pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group pleaded guilty Tuesday to a foiled plot to attack one of Taylor Swift’s concerts in Vienna.
The attempted plot in August 2024 forced the cancellation of three shows that were supposed to take place in the Austrian capital during Swift’s Eras Tour. The defendant, a 21-year-old Austrian citizen known only as Beran A. in line with Austrian privacy rules, faced charges including terrorist offenses and membership in a terrorist organization.
Anna Mair, his defense attorney, said Tuesday that her client pleaded guilty to the charges related to the concert plot.
"Of course, he deeply regrets it all," Mair added outside the court, adding that "he says it was the biggest mistake of his life."
Austrian media reported that Beran A. also pleaded guilty to being a member of a terrorist organization, according to The Associated Press.
He could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison and has been in custody since August 2024.
Beran A. is facing trial alongside Arda K., whose full name also has not been made public. They, along with a third man, planned to carry out simultaneous attacks in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates during Ramadan in 2024 in the name of the Islamic State group. Beran A. and Arda K. never carried out their attacks.
Only Beran A. was charged in connection with the concert plot. He pleaded not guilty to the charges related to the plot for simultaneous attacks.
He allegedly planned to target onlookers gathered outside Ernst Happel Stadium — up to 30,000 each night, with another 65,000 inside the venue — with knives or homemade explosives.
Quote:A trainee French bus driver crashed in Paris early Thursday — sending her and her passengers into the River Seine, where the bus ended up submerged.
The bus, carrying three passengers, had just left a station around 9:30 a.m. in the Juvisy-sur-Orge region of the French capital when it hit a parked car and veered into the water, dragging the vehicle with it.
Astonishing images showed the bus submerged with a blue car floating nearby.
Bystanders rushed to pull the four people from the river as emergency crews responded with 16 fire trucks, 34 firefighters, 60 police officers and river rescue teams.
“I realized something was happening when I heard screams and I looked out the window and saw people in the water, three people who were swimming,” a witness who gave her name as Natasha told local media, according to the Telegraph.
She said she threw a lifebuoy to a young woman.
“The person grabbed it and managed to get on my terrace. She was in shock and wasn’t coherent … it was really remarkable,” she said.
Rowing coach Doriane Ledain said she saw the bus fall into the river and rushed to help.
“Two women clung to my boat. They were in shock and certainly could not swim,” she said. “They were out of strength. They weren’t talking anymore.”
“They were very lucky,” rescuer Merlin Sacotte said, adding that if help had arrived minutes later, “We wouldn’t have seen the accident and wouldn’t have been able to intervene.”
Mayor Lamia Bensarsa Reda said all four people onboard were safe.
Quote:A 13-year-old schoolboy discovered a rusty coin in a field on the outskirts of Berlin that researchers identified as a rare artifact from ancient Greece — but no one knows how it got there.
The abandoned relic was found in a field that was a popular archaeological site between the 1950s and 1970s, according to the Smithsonian Magazine.
The boy wound up becoming the first to ever find a Greek artifact in the German capital, the outlet reported.
Most goods previously excavated from the field were linked to the Iron Age, which spanned from 800 to 450 BCE.
The burgeoning antiquarian pocketed the coin and, in November 2025, innocently showed it off to researchers at a local archaeology lab.
Even the experts struggled to identify the coin.
“Nobody knew exactly what it was because it was so small. That it was something old was clear,” Jens Henker, an archaeologist with the Berlin Heritage Authority, told the magazine.
A numismatist, or a professional coin enthusiast, from the lab later identified it as a Trojan coin minted between 281 and 261 BCE, according to a news release.
The faded bust stamped on it depicts Athena, the Greek goddess of war and wisdom, wearing a Corinthian helmet. The tail features the same deity in a kalathos headdress, armed with a spear in one hand and a spindle in the other, the release said.
Experts originally suspected a well-known collector in Berlin might have misplaced the coin before they learned about the field where the boy found it.
Henker surmised that Germanic-speaking nomads who used to live in what is now Berlin likely used the precious metal in the 12-millimeter coin to make supplies.
Coins that weren’t melted down were commonly left in burial grounds “as a kind of grave gift,” Henker told German outlet Deutsche Welle.
“This appears to be like a souvenir used to remember something—perhaps even an experience in one’s life,” he said.
No one, though, could determine how the coin traveled from ancient Troy to Berlin.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
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Give me a free copy of your completed game if you include at least 3 of my scripts!
Just some scripts I've already published on the board...
KyoGemBoost XP VX & ACE, RandomEnkounters XP, KSkillShop XP, Kolloseum States XP, KEvents XP, KScenario XP & Gosu, KyoPrizeShop XP Mangostan, Kuests XP, KyoDiscounts XP VX, ACE & MV, KChest XP VX & ACE 2016, KTelePort XP, KSkillMax XP & VX & ACE, Gem Roulette XP VX & VX Ace, KRespawnPoint XP, VX & VX Ace, GiveAway XP VX & ACE, Klearance XP VX & ACE, KUnits XP VX, ACE & Gosu 2017, KLevel XP, KRumors XP & ACE, KMonsterPals XP VX & ACE, KStatsRefill XP VX & ACE, KLotto XP VX & ACE, KItemDesc XP & VX, KPocket XP & VX, OpenChest XP VX & ACE
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
My Original Stories (available in English and Spanish)
List of Compiled Binary Executables I have published...
HiddenChest & Roole
Give me a free copy of your completed game if you include at least 3 of my scripts!
Just some scripts I've already published on the board...
KyoGemBoost XP VX & ACE, RandomEnkounters XP, KSkillShop XP, Kolloseum States XP, KEvents XP, KScenario XP & Gosu, KyoPrizeShop XP Mangostan, Kuests XP, KyoDiscounts XP VX, ACE & MV, KChest XP VX & ACE 2016, KTelePort XP, KSkillMax XP & VX & ACE, Gem Roulette XP VX & VX Ace, KRespawnPoint XP, VX & VX Ace, GiveAway XP VX & ACE, Klearance XP VX & ACE, KUnits XP VX, ACE & Gosu 2017, KLevel XP, KRumors XP & ACE, KMonsterPals XP VX & ACE, KStatsRefill XP VX & ACE, KLotto XP VX & ACE, KItemDesc XP & VX, KPocket XP & VX, OpenChest XP VX & ACE
