US hits Iran for 12th consecutive night, IRGC declares Strait 'completely closed'

CENTCOM completes its 12th consecutive night of strikes on Iranian military sites, while the IRGC declares the Strait of Hormuz closed and warns uncoordinated ships against transit.

Israel National News

Netanyahu's insistence offers a clear hint of what lies ahead

For now, events in the Gulf are being treated as "foreign news," with Israelis chiefly concerned about the impact on flights, but that appears likely to change soon. And there is no denying it: Something is amiss in relations with the White House.

by Amit Segal

Men convicted of burning Christian couple alive in brick kiln acquitted in Pakistan

By Christian Daily International/Morning Star NewsThursday, July 16, 2026

LAHORE, Pakistan — Pakistan’s Supreme Court last week overturned the death sentences of the remaining three men convicted in the 2014 lynching of a Christian couple burned alive after being falsely accused of blasphemy, sources said.

Christian attorney Basharat Masih, who attended the hearing at the Supreme Court’s principal seat in Islamabad on July 9, said a three-member bench headed by Justice Malik Shahzad Ahmad Khan acquitted the three men after concluding that the prosecution had failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt due to inconsistencies in witness testimony and weaknesses in the evidence. Also on the bench were Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail and Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi.

The court also dismissed the Punjab Province government’s appeal against the Lahore High Court’s earlier acquittal of 102 other defendants. The Supreme Court has yet to issue its detailed judgment, Masih said.

On Nov. 4, 2014, Shahzad Masih and his pregnant wife, Shama Bibi, parents of three young children, were brutally beaten by a Muslim mob before being thrown into a brick kiln and burned alive in Kot Radha Kishan, in Punjab Province’s Kasur District, following allegations that they had desecrated pages of the Quran.

Police initially registered a case against 660 named and unidentified suspects. In November 2016, an anti-terrorism court sentenced five men to death and eight others to two years in prison. On appeal, the Lahore High Court acquitted two of the five death-row inmates while upholding the death sentences of Muhammad Irfan, Mehdi Khan and Muhammad Riaz Kumbh.

Masih said the Supreme Court bench began the proceedings by expressing sympathy to the victims’ family.

“The judges told the victims’ heirs that they deeply regretted the tragedy and stood in solidarity with them, but emphasized that the court was bound to decide the case strictly on its legal merits,” he said.

The bench identified several critical deficiencies in the prosecution’s case, Masih said.

“The court noted that police records, witness statements and the testimony of the victims’ relatives contained significant inconsistencies,” he told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “Although the heirs had identified the three accused, they had not clearly described each defendant’s alleged role in the attack.”

Masih said Muhammad Irfan’s name did not appear in the First Information Report (FIR) and surfaced only later in the testimony of a police officer. During trial proceedings, the victims’ relatives denied having named Irfan in the FIR.

“The prosecution alleged that Irfan was the person who pushed Shahzad and Shama into the kiln,” Masih said. “However, his name was absent not only from the FIR but also from the supplementary statements recorded by the victims’ heirs, creating a major weakness in the prosecution’s case.”

He said similar contradictions emerged regarding Riaz Kumbh, whom prosecutors alleged had incited the mob through inflammatory speeches and participated in assaulting the couple alongside Mehdi Khan.

“The court found inconsistencies between the police account and the testimony of the victims’ heirs regarding these allegations as well,” Masih said.

The bench also highlighted contradictions involving brick kiln owner Yousaf Gujjar. Although the victims’ family named him in the FIR, they later acknowledged during cross-examination that he was not present when the attack occurred.

“These admissions during cross-examination significantly undermined the prosecution’s case,” Masih said.

A law officer representing the Attorney General’s Office argued that the fact the couple had been burned alive was undisputed and urged the court to uphold the convictions despite conflicting witness statements because the case involved terrorism-related offenses, he said.

“The bench responded by asking how convictions could be sustained in the absence of reliable and concrete evidence linking the accused to the crime,” Masih said.

While describing the acquittals as painful for the victims’ family as well as Pakistan’s Christian community, Masih said the outcome reflected shortcomings in the prosecution’s handling of the case.

“It is heartbreaking to see the remaining accused acquitted,” he said. “At the same time, the prosecution failed to present a legally sustainable case, and those deficiencies ultimately benefited the accused.”

Senior Christian criminal lawyer Lazar Allah Rakha said the ruling underscored longstanding weaknesses in Pakistan’s criminal justice system.

“This verdict should prompt serious reflection on how the prosecution was conducted,” Rakha told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “In a case involving such an egregious crime, meticulous trial preparation, effective examination and cross-examination of witnesses, and a comprehensive legal strategy were essential. Deficiencies in these areas inevitably weakened the prosecution and contributed to the acquittals.”

In a joint statement issued on July 14, Bishop Samson Shukardin, president of the Pakistan Catholic Bishops’ Conference and chairperson of the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), and the Bernard Emmanuel, the NCJP’s national director, said the ruling reflected a recurring pattern of impunity in cases involving violence against religious minorities.

The church leaders cited several previous incidents in which suspects were ultimately acquitted, including the 2009 Gojra attacks, in which at least 10 Christians were killed, and the 2013 Joseph Colony attack in Lahore, where all 115 accused were acquitted due to insufficient evidence. They also referred to the June 2024 mob killing of Nazir Masih Gill in Sargodha following blasphemy allegations, noting that many of those initially arrested were later released after being declared innocent.

The NCJP urged the government to strengthen protections for religious minorities and called for accountability for police officials responsible for weak investigations and prosecutions in cases involving mob violence and attacks on minority communities.

Pakistan’s blasphemy laws have long drawn criticism from human rights organizations and legal experts, who say they are frequently misused to settle personal disputes, seize property and target religious minorities. Although no one has been executed by the state under the country’s blasphemy statutes, accusations have repeatedly sparked mob violence, extrajudicial killings and prolonged pretrial detention for those accused.

International advocacy organizations continue to raise concerns about the treatment of religious minorities in Pakistan. In its 2026 World Watch List, Open Doors ranked Pakistan eighth among the 50 countries where Christians face the most severe persecution and discrimination.

This article was originally published at Christian Daily International–Morning Star News.

Declassified documents show ‘shadow government’ in action to suppress China threat to elections

Newly released records detail how intelligence officials allegedly worked to conceal the extent of Chinese interference in the 2020 election.

“I’m basically running a shadow government across the FBI at this point,” said Nikki Floris, then-deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, in a text message declassified by Trump and reviewed by Just the News.

Floris was one of the key FBI officials who on September 25, 2020, weeks before the election, was at the forefront of the bureau’s effort to recall and suppress an Intelligence Information Report (IIR) containing information from an FBI confidential source alleging that the Chinese government was producing fake drivers’ licenses for fraudulent mail-in-votes in support of then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

The FBI turned over evidence of the alleged plot to Congress in June of last year. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, subsequently released some of the emails, which revealed Floris’ role in suppressing the intelligence report.

The bureau appeared, based on the emails, afraid it would undercut then-FBI Director Christopher Wray’s assurances to Congress that foreign meddling did not pose a threat to the presidential race, Just the News previously reported.

The intervention to recall the intelligence report does not appear to be an isolated incident. In the sensitive weeks after the November 2020 election, a senior analyst in the Intelligence Community admitted that the Presidential Daily Brief was being tailored to avoid mentioning election-related issues.

“We have deliberately massaged our one pending PDB to avoid any direct links to the election,” a Strategic Intelligence Analyst specializing in China, whose name has been redacted, wrote to colleagues in late November 2020.

This “boggled” the minds of officials at the National Intelligence Council, email communications among the declassified records show.

“Small update from NSA below. Their PDB isn't going to tie to the election? The mind boggles,” wrote the director of Election Threat Analysis at the National Intelligence Council.

“This is a really good example, but far from the only one, of what I've been raising since the summer-that the IC is deliberately avoiding mentioning a connection to elections for non-substantive reasons,” the National Intelligence Officer for Cyber wrote.

These communications were contained in a batch of more than 800 pages of documents Trump declassified and released to the public Thursday night, in a prime time White House speech. In a primetime speech from the White House, Trump laid out evidence that the Intelligence Community had detected China’s massive sweep of voter registration data beginning in 2020.

By 2023, the memos show, Beijing had obtained more than 220 million voter records in the United States.

Just the News previously reported that the Intelligence Community knew that the Chinese had gained access to American voter registration data since 2020, but had kept the scope secret. Not until Thursday did Americans know just how many voter files China had obtained.

An overlooked memo declassified by the Biden administration in 2022—two years after it was written—aluded to the intrusions, though the report was heavily redacted.

“[Redacted] Chinese intelligence officials analyzed multiple U.S. states' [Redacted] election voter registration data, [Redacted] to conduct public opinion analysis on the 2020 US general election,” stated a once highly classified April 2020 National Intelligence Council memo entitled "Cyber Operations Enabling Expansive Authoritarianism."

Just the News also previously reported that some Intelligence Community officials believed analysts had worked to conceal the evidence of the Chinese efforts because they opposed President Trump’s policies.

"We knew by April 2020 that Chinese intelligence had voter registration data from multiple states and was analyzing it with an eye toward the 2020 election," former National Intelligence Council officer Christopher Porter told Just the News in March. "But CIA blocked efforts to inform President Trump and later stopped many of these reports from being made available to Congress."

"During the Biden administration, when I raised concern about the legal requirement to share these and other reports with Congressional oversight, they changed my job to exclude me from elections and then fired me," he said.

Intelligence Community analytic ombudsman Barry Zulauf, who conducted a review of the spy community’s handling of Russian versus Chinese meddling efforts during the 2020 election, concluded that intelligence analysts downplayed China’s actions because they had disdain for the “vulgarian” Trump and did not want to support the policies and priorities of the Trump administration toward China with which they “personally disagree.”

https://justthenews.com/government/security/declassified-documents-show-shadow-government

Americans Are Cutting Back on Groceries – Recession Watch

Posted Jul 17, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |

Politicians can point to a lower inflation report, but they cannot explain why Americans are standing in grocery aisles putting food back on the shelf. CNBC reports that consumers are spending less on groceries, forcing companies like PepsiCo, General Mills, Kraft Heinz, Campbell’s, and Conagra to slash prices and rely on promotions simply to move inventory. Millions have reached the point where every trip to the store has become an exercise in deciding what they can live without.

The numbers tell a much darker story than the headlines. Americans now owe roughly $1.25 trillion in credit card debt, the highest level ever recorded. The average credit card balance has climbed above $6,500, while interest rates on many cards remain above 21%. Families who cannot pay their balances in full are watching interest charges consume more of every paycheck. According to recent surveys, roughly one-third of working-age Americans have used credit cards to purchase groceries, and millions are carrying that grocery debt month after month because they simply do not have another option.

This is no longer simply inflation. It has become a cost-of-living crisis. A family may technically still have a job, but that job no longer buys the same standard of living it did only a few years ago. Housing costs remain near record highs, auto insurance premiums continue climbing, utility bills have increased substantially, healthcare consumes a larger share of household income, and groceries cost far more than they did before inflation exploded. Slower inflation does not undo years of rising prices. It simply means the rate of increase has moderated while families continue living with the cumulative damage.

The Department of Agriculture is hardly forecasting relief. Food prices are expected to continue rising through 2026. Beef prices alone are projected to increase another 7.5% as the U.S. cattle herd has fallen to its smallest size in roughly seventy-five years. Fresh vegetables are forecast to rise 7.7%, sugar and sweets nearly 7%, nonalcoholic beverages about 5.7%, while restaurant prices are expected to continue climbing as labor and operating costs remain elevated.

People continue pointing to overall retail sales as proof that consumers remain healthy. June retail sales rose only 0.2%, exactly as expected. Strip away gasoline prices, which temporarily declined because of the brief ceasefire in the Middle East, and some categories appear stronger. Yet those numbers hide an important shift. Consumers are becoming far more disciplined with necessities while selectively spending on promotions and discount events such as Amazon Prime Day. That is not confidence. That is adaptation.

Food prices Stock Photos, Royalty Free Food prices Images | DepositPhotos

Food prices themselves have hardly disappeared as a problem. The USDA continues forecasting overall food prices to rise another 3.2% this year. Grocery prices are expected to increase roughly 2.8%, while restaurant prices are projected to climb an even faster 3.6%. Several categories remain under significant pressure. Beef prices are expected to rise 7.5% during 2026 as the U.S. cattle herd has fallen to its lowest level in roughly seventy-five years. Fresh vegetables are forecast to increase 7.7%, sugar and sweets nearly 7%, and nonalcoholic beverages about 5.7%. Consumers may find bargains on certain processed foods, but the underlying trend remains one of rising food costs.

Consumers are adapting because they have little choice. Delinquencies on credit cards have risen sharply over the past two years, and Americans are increasingly financing everyday necessities instead of discretionary purchases. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently reported that serious credit card delinquencies continue trending higher, particularly among younger borrowers, while total household debt has climbed above $18 trillion. Those are not the characteristics of a healthy consumer.

Households are sending a message that economists often miss because it never appears in a government report. When people begin treating groceries as a luxury rather than a routine purchase, they are telling you confidence has already deteriorated. The statistics may take months to reflect that change. Consumers make those adjustments immediately.

The grocery cart has always been one of the best economic indicators because families cannot manipulate it. They either have the purchasing power to buy what they want, or they don’t. Increasingly, Americans are answering that question every time they walk into a supermarket.

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/armstrongeconomics101/inflation/americans-are-cutting

Finnish MEP Warns Britain Is 'Worst Example' Of Free Speech In Europe After Entry Ban

by Tyler Durden

Authored...

Via Remix News,

Finnish MEP Sebastian Tynkkynen has warned that Britain is fast becoming the worst example in Europe when it comes to defending free speech after he became the latest elected European politician to be banned from entering the country ahead of his appearance at the inaugural Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Great Britain.

In a video posted on social media, the conservative politician said, “I was just banned from entering the U.K. I am an elected member of the European Parliament and was invited to speak at the very first conservative CPAC conference in the U.K.

“We had the adverts out, flights and hotel booked, and I was supposed to head to the airport in just two hours.

“Then, only moments ago, I was informed that my presence wouldn’t be conducive to the public good.

“Throughout my political career, I have defended our girls and women from the threats posed by mass migration. For some, like U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, this is hate speech.

“For me, it is simply what all politicians should be doing: addressing the problem, changing the legislation and sending them home.”

Tynkkynen then warned the British people that something is “deeply wrong” with their country, and that it was “becoming the worst example in Europe of the death of freedom of speech.”

"Dear British People, something is deeply wrong with your country. You are becoming the worst example in Europe of the death of free speech."

Finnish conservative @SebastianMEP reveals he is the latest elected politician to be banned from entering Britain on the eve of #CPACUK,… pic.twitter.com/Q73a2dwtGQ

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) July 16, 2026

He urged them to change their leadership if they wanted to change their lives “for the better.”

Tynkkynen is a member of the co-governing Finns Party, a right-wing populist party that is currently the second-largest in the Finnish parliament. The party holds seven of the 19 ministerial positions in Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s coalition government.

He is also a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR), the European parliamentary faction originally founded by the U.K. Conservative Party when Britain was still a member of the European Union.

Tynkkynen is the latest in a growing list of European and US politicians and political commentators to be banned from Britain after the Home Office deemed their conservative views not to be “conducive to the public good.”

This is the phrase used by the U.K. government in notices handed to individuals when they are informed that their Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) has been revoked.

In May, Polish MEP Dominik Tarczyński vowed to sue U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer personally after the Home Office cancelled his permission to travel to Britain ahead of a major patriotic rally in London.

“This is what communism looks like in the 21st century,” Tarczyński said.

“Starmer will be sued by me. Not the government, not the Home Office, but Starmer personally. Once you lose the next election, communist, we’ll meet in court!” the conservative politician added.

Other figures banned ahead of speaking at the London rally back in May included Dutch conservative activist Eva Vlaardingerbroek, US commentator Joey Mannarino, MAGA influencer Valentina Gomez and Spanish political commentator Ada Lluch.

Read more here...

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/finnish-mep-warns-britain-worst-example-free-

China and Russia launch 29-nation AI alliance to rival western control of technology

07/17/2026 // Cassie B. // Views

Twenty-nine countries, led by China and Russia, signed on to create a new AI cooperation body based in Shanghai.

The WAICO initiative is framed as a response to American tech dominance and a rival to Washington's Pax Silica project.

Chinese President Xi Jinping called for AI development to be a symphony of international cooperation rather than a solo act.

China's AI industry is growing fast but faces security concerns, while both the U.S. and China push competing global AI governance models.

Some nations, including India, remain skeptical of the people-centered pitch from China and Russia given their authoritarian governance.

Twenty-nine countries signed on this week to create the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO), a new Shanghai-based body that its founders say will promote a "people-centered" approach to artificial intelligence. Russia and China lead the effort, joined by ten African nations, twelve Asian countries, and Belarus, Serbia, Cuba, Brazil and Venezuela. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attended the signing ceremony. No G7 economy — such as the U.S., UK, Germany, France or Japan — has joined.

Grigorenko frames WAICO as a check on Washington

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko cast the new body as a response to American tech dominance, declaring, "We consistently advocate for the establishment of transparent rules governing extraterritorial technologies." China's Xinhua news agency says WAICO will work to make AI development safe, fair and beneficial while upholding UN principles.

Chinese President Xi Jinping told the World Artificial Intelligence Conference that AI development "should not be a solo performance by a single country, but a symphony of international cooperation," and warned against nations "placing one country's security over that of others."

Washington's own initiative asks for the same kind of control it criticizes

Beijing's pitch is a direct answer to Washington's "Pax Silica" project, unveiled last year to build what U.S. officials called "the global technology supply chain" for AI. In exchange for access to American AI technology, signatories were asked to hand over resources, manufacturing capacity and logistics support, while shielding "sensitive technologies and critical infrastructure from undue access" — language widely read as targeting China.

Pax Silica's backers have dismissed the idea of digital sovereignty as "backward and counterproductive." In other words: both blocs are asking the rest of the world to plug into somebody else's system, just with different branding.

Beijing's AI ambitions come with real security baggage

China has built a formidable AI industry — DeepSeek, Qwen, GLM and Kimi have undercut Western competitors on price, and Huawei is set to debut its Atlas 950 supercomputing cluster, built without top-tier Nvidia chips, at the Shanghai conference. But Beijing has also accused Anthropic's Claude Code tool of containing security backdoors, an allegation Anthropic disputes.

Washington, for its part, isn't exactly a model of restraint: the Pentagon says a Palantir platform running on Claude and Elon Musk's Grok helped the U.S. military fire more than 2,000 missiles at Iran in four days. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has separately warned that AI could eventually pose risks up to and including mass job losses and authoritarian abuse — concerns that apply just as easily to Beijing and Moscow as to Washington.

Not everyone is buying the "people-centered" pitch

Not everyone is buying the "people-centered" pitch. India's former UN ambassador warned in an op-ed that WAICO could end up determining the "new global AI order" and that "India must be vigilant" — a notable warning given that China and Russia, not exactly models of transparency at home, are the ones asking the rest of the world to trust their vision for how AI should be governed.

Beijing markets openness and inclusion, but it's also the same government that spun a routine anti-abuse safeguard in a U.S. company's coding tool into a "backdoor" scare, and whose media apparatus has a long track record of shaping the narrative to its advantage. Moscow's idea of "transparent rules" comes from a government not otherwise known for transparency. Washington's own approach has plenty to answer for too, but at least it isn't asking anyone to take an authoritarian state's word for it that the "cooperation" is what it claims to be.

Sources for this article include:

RT.com

Reuters.com

SimonInstitute.ch

Toxic air invading 17 US states TODAY as massive plume of wildfire smoke crosses nation's border

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By CHRIS MELORE, US DEPUTY SCIENCE EDITOR

Published: 08:19 EDT, 15 July 2026 | Updated: 11:25 EDT, 15 July 2026

A dense mass of smoke containing harmful lung-penetrating particles has begun pouring over the US border from Canada.

The giant plume is sweeping across the Upper Midwest and into the Northeast this week, driven by jet streams carrying smoke from large wildfires burning in northern Ontario.

Weather experts believe Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan will see the densest smoke filling the air on Wednesday, and the plume will quickly move on to Pennsylvania, New York and the entire New England area by Thursday.

Dan DePodwin, AccuWeather's vice president of forecasting, told the Daily Mail that major metropolitan areas such as New York City and Philadelphia could start to see air quality affected on Wednesday and Thursday.

'Northern Michigan, maybe Western New York, those types of spots at this point seem most favorable to experience at least a time of poor air quality. And then places farther east, like Boston, some of the major cities in the northeast,' DePodwin predicted.

Officials have warned that wildfire smoke contains fine particulate matter, also known as PM2.5, which consists of microscopic particles of toxic compounds, small enough to penetrate human tissue and cause breathing issues.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has connected breathing in PM2.5 to multiple health issues, including aggravated asthma, decreased lung function, irregular heartbeat, heart attacks and premature death for those with heart and lung disease.

'If the visibility starts to really be reduced and you can really smell the smoke, that's a situation that becomes unhealthy. You want to be spending indoor time, especially if you're a sensitive group, or even wearing a mask outside is something that can be done in those situations if you have to be outside and avoiding strenuous activity,' DePodwin cautioned.

Other states expected to see the impact of the wildfire smoke include parts of New Jersey, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maryland, Delaware, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois - especially in the Chicago area.

The effects of the Canadian wildfires were already beginning to flow over the border at the start of the week, but the intensity is expected to increase dramatically within hours.

The National Weather Service's (NWS) office in New York posted on Tuesday: 'Smell smoke this morning? It's coming from a wildfire outbreak in Ontario.

'While it should not impact air quality much today, smoke at the surface could increase Wednesday into Thursday, potentially reducing visibilities and air quality.'

More than 800 active wildfires have been burning across Canada this summer, particularly in the Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.

DePodwin noted that two million acres have already burned down in Canada this year, which is more than the total for some entire wildfire seasons in the country.

While he said that climate change may play a role in the increasing number of wildfires throughout Canada in recent years, DePodwin pointed out that the nation's lack of fire and land management efforts was causing plumes of smoke to reach the US.

'Because a lot of Canada is very rural, in many parts of the country, they don't actively fight fires, because there is very little to no population nearby,' the AccuWeather forecaster explained.

'So, the fires burn until they go out themselves, or they do minimal fire suppression. So that is part of it, that is occurring here.'

While US air quality is expected to be impacted this week, DePodwin said the effects will likely be far less visible compared to 2023, when the skies over several states turned orange with smoke-filled pollutants.

That year, 40 million acres of forests burned down across Canada in a historic wildfire season.

'It would be difficult to repeat 2023 again. However, that same poor air quality, where it becomes unhealthy or very unhealthy, that type of air quality, we're seeing that in Canada near the fires where they're burning now,' DePodwin explained.

'You could have that type of poor air quality in at least parts of the northeastern Great Lakes here through the middle of the week, probably through about Thursday, we could see pockets of that,' he continued.

DePodwin added that wildfires go through cycles, pouring out massive amounts of smoke and then stopping for a time, meaning the impact on US air quality can be very unpredictable from hour to hour.

'Some of the tools we use suggest that there could be poor air quality in a lot of places like Buffalo, maybe New York City, Albany, maybe even down to Philadelphia on Wednesday and Thursday,' he said.

'I think a safe bet at this point would be to say that it's probably prudent to plan for a day or two of at least some reduction of air quality, and it's not out of the question that it becomes unhealthy.'

How unhealthy, DePodwin said, will depend on how low the smoke drops in the atmosphere.

Entering Wednesday, most of the smoke was high up, creating hazy or milky-looking sunshine and making sunrises and sunsets more colorful and vivid.

That does not affect air quality much at ground level.

When the smoke mixes down closer to the surface, however, that is when air quality can get worse.

As smoke pours into the Northeast this week, the region has already been dealing with extreme heat and humidity caused by a massive heat dome affecting 25 states.

While the thick air is not expected to directly make the smoky conditions worse for your health, DePodwin noted that any area where the smoke reaches ground level will feel even worse during the summer heatwave.

'A very hot day and a very humid day are already not very comfortable. If you then add near-surface smoke that reduces air quality and visibility and smells not great, that's going to even feel grittier and just not pleasant. It's going to make you feel even more unpleasant, obviously.'

Share or comment on this article: Toxic air invading 17 US states TODAY as massive plume of wildfire smoke crosses nation's border

July 15, 2026: First Daylight Air Strikes Begin Against Iran

Hal Turner World July 15, 2026

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) says U.S. forces have begun another round of strikes against Iran, marking the first daytime strikes we’ve seen since the ceasefire took effect:

This is clearly an indication that strikes are escalating.

President Trump told Fox News to expect a variety of strikes to take place this week, warning they will escalate even further next week. He indicated Iran will face the loss of infrastructure like Power Plants, Bridges, and Oil infrastructure.

Iran's army said on Wednesday it would respond after a US strike on one of its barracks in southeastern Iran that it said killed seven military personnel.

The army's ground forces said the United States fired 13 missiles at a barracks in Bampur, near Iranshahr, before dawn, targeting accommodation buildings and guard posts. It said seven military personnel, including career soldiers and conscripts, were killed and several others were wounded.

"The retaliation for the blood of the martyrs of this crime is certain and imminent," the army said, adding that it would deliver a "decisive response" to the attack.

A former Iranian foreign minister called for a ground assault on a US military base in the region and the capture of 100 Americans. “My proposal is that we launch a ground attack on one of the US bases in the region, capture 100 Americans and bring them to Iran,” said Manouchehr Mottaki, who is now a member of Iran’s parliament.

BAHRAIN ATTACKED TOO

The General Command of the Bahrain Defense Force issued a statement Wednesday: "The General Command of the Bahrain Defense Force announces that Iran continues its systematic aggression through its heinous attacks targeting civilians in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

The Bahrain Defense Force's air defense systems intercepted and destroyed several treacherous Iranian aerial attacks this morning, Wednesday, July 15, 2026.

The General Command emphasizes that the deliberate use of missiles and drones to target civilians and private property constitutes a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law."

90 Minutes Later, It Was Over

CENTCOM has publicly announced it completed a morning round of strikes against Iran at 7:30 a.m. ET on July 15.

CENTCOM says it launched precision munitions against coastal defense systems and cruise missile storage and launch sites on Greater Tunb Island during the 90-minute wave. The strikes further degraded Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/component/content/article/july-15-2026-first-daylight

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Open Borders Are A Death Sentence To Western Nations: Governments Have Refused To Respect The Wishes Of Their Citizens

Massachusetts Proposes Government Islam Commission

Commission will use “practice of Islam” to pick government appointees.

July 15, 2026 by Daniel Greenfield 24 Comments

Order Daniel Greenfield’s new book, Domestic Enemies: The Founding Fathers’ Fight Against the Left: HERE.

In 1833, Massachusetts became the last state in the country to ‘disestablish’ its church and separate church and state. In 2026, Massachusetts legislators are proposing to ‘reestablish’ Islam as a state religion with the power to propose laws and pick government officials.

13 out of 40 State Senate Democrat members backed a bill calling for a “permanent commission on the status of people who practice Islam”. The title of Bill S.2134 ‘An Act promoting the civil rights and inclusion of American Muslims in the commonwealth’ may appear innocuous, but the bill creates a quasi-government body, not for an ethnic or racial group, but for a religion, that will take government and private funding, propose legislation, recommend Muslims for government positions and “foster unity” and cooperation among Islamist groups.

The government commission will, among other things, use its government access to “identify and recommend qualified American Muslims for appointive positions at all levels of government, including boards and commissions”. This amounts to a government-created body making “the practice of Islam” into a religious test for government office, something that is completely illegal and would never be tolerated from a Christian government commission using the “practice of Christianity” as a test for recommending its members and allies for appointed office.

Under Chapter 3 of its general laws, Massachusetts has permanent commissions on the status of various groups, women, black people, LGBTQ, the disabled, grandparents, and Latinos, but not for any specifically religious group. There was a temporary commission on antisemitism, which was shut down and the legislative rider that created it made no mention of the commission being created specifically for a religious, rather than an ethnic group.

So I reached out to the Massachusetts ACLU, the American Humanist Association and the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), three organizations that had been very involved in lawsuits and campaigns over church and state issues to see whether they objected to a ‘permanent commission’ to advance the ideological and religious aims of a particular religious group.

The ACLU and AHA did not respond, however FFRF Senior Policy Counsel Ryan Jayne warned that “Section (d)(5) of the bill states that the Commission will “identify and recommend qualified American Muslims for appointive positions at all levels of government, including boards and commissions, as the commission considers necessary and appropriate”. This is entirely unacceptable for a taxpayer-funded body because it shows a clear denominational preference for public office, raising serious concerns under the First Amendment and Article VI of the U.S. Constitution.” Certainly the ability of the “practice of Islam” commission to put forward religious appointees for government positions involves an inherent religious test for holding public office.

As Jayne notes, Article VI does state that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” It’s hard to square that with creating a commission limited to one religious group and having it propose appointments.

The Islamic commission will however also propose “legislation to combat Islamophobia”, a unique case of a specifically religious group getting government funding to propose legislation.

Ryan Jayne of FFRF, while arguing that “anti-Muslim bigotry” is a problem, also noted that “the bill uses but does not define the term ‘Islamophobia.’ This creates a risk of the commission conflating genuine animus against Muslims with criticism of Islam, which is protected speech under the First Amendment and would be inappropriate for the government to censor or oppose.” Defining ‘Islamophobia’ also requires defining ‘Islam’.

Bill S.2134 raises all sorts of major problems, beginning with its creation of a government religious commission on the “status of people who practice Islam”. It is not clear how Massachusetts exactly intends to define the “practice” of Islam. There are two branches of Islam and various groups like the Nation of Islam or the Ahmadis who claim to practice Islam, but whose religious beliefs Muslims reject. If Bill S.2134 becomes law, the Massachusetts government will have to determine who is or isn’t actually practicing Islam. It will also have to deal with potential discrimination complaints from groups like the Ahmadis whose “practice” of Islam is rejected by Islamists and would likely be barred from this commission.

Sen. Jamie Eldridge, the leading proponent of the “Practice of Islam” bill lists laudatory quotes about the bill from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), an unindicted co-conspirator in funding Islamic terrorism which endorsed the attacks of Oct 7, and a Boston mosque patronized by a terrorist, implying the Islamist group is a driving force behind the bill.

CAIR’s endorsement is a significant issue because Bill S.2134 also states that members of the ‘permanent commission’ must have “demonstrated a commitment to the Muslim American community.” That suggests backers such as CAIR will be picking members of this commission.

Another item in the legislation makes it clear that the commission is meant to be a government-backed command hub for CAIR and other Islamist groups. The goal of the commission is to “foster unity among the American Muslim community and organizations in the commonwealth by promoting cooperation and sharing of information and encouraging collaboration and joint activities.”

The idea of a government commission to “foster unity” among a particular group is a very strange one and such language doesn’t exist in the black, Latino or LGBTQ commissions.

Islamists want to exploit the resources, finances and prestige of the Massachusetts state government to create and manage an Islamist umbrella network. Not only is Bill S.2134 creating a permanent commission on “the practice of Islam”, but the commission will oversee existing Islamist operations in the state. It’s unclear what these are, but some may well be religious.

And the Islamic commission will be able to accept both private and government funding which “shall be deposited in a separate account with the state secretary’s office” and the organization will be staffed by “a paid executive director” and “employees” as well as volunteers, further crossing the lines between government and private Islamist religious group activism. An Islamist group with private funding and government authority seems like a constitutional nightmare.

Had such an organization been created for Christians or Jews, with the specific mandate that it represent the agendas of those “who practice Christianity” or those “who practice Judaism”, the ACLU and the American Humanist Association would have been all over it, and yet none of these organizations have objected to the Massachusetts bill because the two tier system bans church and state, but welcomes mosque and state.

Bill S.2134 ‘An Act promoting the civil rights and inclusion of American Muslims in the commonwealth’ has not yet become law. After being proposed in 2024, it made it out of committee at the end of last year and the last action on it was a referral to the State Senate Committee on Ways and Means.

Those voting in favor of the bill included Sen. Rebecca Rausch, a Democrat who had fought to remove the state’s old blasphemy code, but now how long will it be until she’s fighting to put it back?

https://www.frontpagemag.com/massachusetts-proposes-government-islam-commission/ 

We Are Sleepwalking into a Global Catastrophe: Why Trump’s War on Iran Threatens the Infrastructure That Keeps Billions Alive

Guest Post by Mike Adams

July 15, 2026

The Future Is Now: War, Famine, Pestilence And Natural Disasters Will Define The Months Ahead

July 13, 2026

[:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::]
Matthew  24:3  Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?"
Matt 24:6  "And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
Matt 24:7   "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.
Matt 24:8   "All these are the beginning of sorrows.
Matt 24:12  "And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. (NKJ)

Zimbabwe Electric Grid Collapses - Complete National Blackout

Hal Turner World July 06, 2026 Hits: 13964

A nationwide power outage occurred in Zimbabwe today, Monday 6 July at 1824 hours due to a technical fault on the ZESA Holdings electrical network.

Technical teams are currently investigating the cause of the outage. Simultaneously, restoration efforts are underway, and engineers are working to restore grid stability and bring back power in the shortest possible time.

Zimbabwe and the island of Cuba have both suffered nationwide electric grid failures today.

CLAIM: SENATOR MITCH McCONNELL IS BRAIN DEAD AFTER HEART ATTACK

Hal Turner Nation July 06, 2026 Hits: 20954

A single, as-yet-unverified report has come out indicating Senator Mitch McConnell, long time Senate Leader, is Brain Dead in hospital after suffering a cardiac arrest at his home weeks ago.

There is also word that McConnel's wife, Elaine Chao, flew to Beijing just days after McConnell was hospitalized, and met with China's Vice President, Han Zheng!

Why would the Chinese wife of a long-time, and very important U.S. Senator, fly to Beijing and meet with China's Vice-President, while her Senator husband is fighting for his life in a hospital?

IS FORMER US TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY ELAINE CHAO AN AGENT OF CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY?

• The core facts are accurate: Mitch McConnell was found unconscious at his D.C. home on June 14, 2026, and hospitalized (reports indicate possible cardiac arrest); three days later on June 17, his wife Elaine Chao, a private citizen and former U.S. Transportation Secretary, met with Chinese Vice President Han Zheng in Beijing, as confirmed by Chinese state media like Xinhua and People’s Daily.

• Family business context exists: The Chao family owns Foremost Group, a shipping company with significant historical ties to China; this has drawn past scrutiny over potential conflicts during Chao’s government service, though she is no longer in office and the meeting was framed around U.S.-China relations and people-to-people exchanges.

• The corruption implication is speculative: No public evidence shows illegal activity in this specific trip, but the timing—while McConnell remains hospitalized—has fueled widespread questions and conspiracy theories online about priorities and influence, amplified by long-standing political debates over China ties.

https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/component/content/article/claim-senator-mitch-

mcconnell-is-brain-dead-after-heart-attack?catid=20&Itemid=101 

Microsoft lays off 4,800 employees, including 600 in Washington

Jul 6, 2026, 7:33 AM | Updated: 7:55 am

BY FRANK SUMRALL

My Northwest Lead Editor

Microsoft laid off 4,800 employees Monday, including 600 in Washington, where the company is headquartered (Redmond).

The cuts impacted roles across sales, consulting, and the Xbox gaming division. The layoffs accounted for approximately 2.1% of its workforce.

Amy Coleman, the executive vice president and chief people officer for Microsoft, said in an internal memo to employees, according to GeekWire, that the layoffs are a consequence of the “changing technology industry” and the “need to adjust resources and roles and shift how we operate” to respond to AI’s impact on the company.

“I also want to be direct that the roles eliminated today are not being replaced by AI,” the memo read, according to GeekWire. “At the same time, what is true is that AI is changing how work gets done.”

Microsoft employs roughly 220,000 people across the globe. The company eliminated approximately 15,000 positions just last year — 6,000 layoffs in May 2025 and another 9,000 layoffs in July 2025.

Roughly 1,600 of the 4,800 job cuts were a part of the company’s Xbox division, with more Xbox layoffs to come in the next few months. According to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, this is a part of the biggest restructuring in the gaming console’s history.

Microsoft’s layoffs came promptly after its fiscal year ended on June 30.

Xbox faces thousands of layoffs this summer as new CEO orders gaming division ‘reset’

Microsoft’s Xbox division is undergoing significant layoffs this summer as the gaming department undergoes a “reset.”

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First reported by Bloomberg, Xbox is expected to lose 3,200 jobs in total — 20% of the department’s workforce — including 1,600 jobs Monday.

The reports of upcoming layoffs come just months after Asha Sharma became the latest CEO of Xbox in February. Xbox executives stated that it has invested more than $20 billion over the past five years, while revenue has declined by approximately half a billion. According to Sharma, Xbox needs to rethink its portfolio in the coming weeks and months.

A significant portion of Xbox’s employees work at the Microsoft campus in Redmond. It is unknown how many Puget Sound-area employees will be affected by the upcoming layoffs, as of this reporting.

https://mynorthwest.com/local/microsofts-layoffs/4254424 

When the Pentagon made Palantir’s Maven Smart System a formal “program of record” in March, it did more than approve software.

It gave long-term status to a platform that analyzes data from satellites, drones, radars, sensors, and intelligence reports to identify potential targets. Maven supported almost all of the 13,500 US strikes in Iran. The designation is meant to secure funding and extend its use across the military.

That decision came while the United States was still investigating the February 28 strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school in Minab, Iran. An initial US military inquiry found that US forces were likely responsible, but the Pentagon has not released a final public conclusion.

Iranian authorities have reported between 155 and more than 175 deaths, most of them students and teachers. The question is why a military system designed to move faster from information to action has no equally clear public requirement to slow down after grave civilian harm.

In software engineering, an “error budget” is meant to protect users. When a service exceeds an agreed level of failure, new releases stop until the problem is understood and fixed. War is obviously not software.

But in Washington’s AI-assisted operations, civilian deaths do not automatically trigger a temporary suspension of the relevant tools, an independent review of the data, or a public account of the decisions that led to the strike.

Advocates of military AI argue that better data and faster analysis can make attacks more precise. That is possible in principle. But precision is not something software simply possesses. It depends on the quality and age of the data, what a system treats as suspicious, and whether people have enough time to challenge its output.

AI does not turn stale or biased information into truth. It can make bad information travel faster.

Human Rights Watch has warned that Israeli digital tools used in Gaza relied on incomplete data and inexact estimates that could raise the risk of civilian harm. The lesson is not that every use of AI is unlawful. It is that speed can magnify the consequences of a bad premise before anyone can catch it.

The familiar assurance that a “human remains in the loop” does not solve this problem. A person who sees only a final recommendation, cannot inspect the data trail, and has seconds rather than hours to decide is not exercising meaningful independent judgment.

AI can shape lethal force without pulling a trigger. It can determine what appears urgent, which people or places rise to the top of a list, and which facts never appear at all.

The Iran campaign makes this concern immediate. Maven and Anthropic’s Claude were used to process classified intelligence, suggest coordinates, rank targets, and turn planning that once took weeks into real-time operations. That does not establish that AI independently chose every target or that every AI-supported strike was unlawful.

Reuters later reported that Palantir faced the task of removing Anthropic technology from Maven. But the larger point remains: the Pentagon is institutionalizing systems built to compress the time for human deliberation before force is used.

The Minab tragedy represents the human cost of treating speed as a virtue in itself. The school had a public website, posted student photographs, and was visible in satellite imagery. It also reported that targeting officials appeared to have used outdated intelligence.

The exact role of AI in the strike has not been disclosed. But information apparently did not distinguish the school clearly enough from the adjacent military compound, and the Pentagon has not publicly explained how that failure traveled through the targeting process. That is an accountability problem, not just a technical one.

Congress should establish a civilian stop rule for AI-assisted targeting. Credible evidence of grave civilian harm should trigger a temporary suspension of the relevant system in comparable missions, an independent review of the data and approval process, and a public explanation of the system’s role.

This would not treat every civilian casualty as proof of a crime or ban every military use of AI. It would mean families do not have to wait through months of secrecy to learn whether a database, a contractor, or a command decision helped turn a civilian site into a target.

Congress has begun to consider broader guardrails. The House Armed Services Committee’s FY2027 defense bill would direct the Pentagon to extend its AI policy to systems that support or materially influence operational planning, target development, weaponeering, and engagement recommendations.

That is a start. But it is not a civilian stop rule. It does not automatically pause a system after a devastating incident or guarantee a public answer.

Such a rule would reinforce the law of war. Customary international humanitarian law requires militaries to take all feasible precautions to verify targets and reduce foreseeable civilian harm. It also requires them to cancel or suspend attacks when it becomes clear that a target is not military or an attack would be unlawful.

The Red Cross has recommended after-action reviews and re-testing or suspending AI systems when reliability, safety, or legal compliance concerns emerge. Recent scholarship points in the same direction.

Renato Wolf emphasizes precaution throughout AI-assisted target verification, while Jessica Dorsey warns that over-reliance on computational systems can weaken the human judgment needed to protect civilians. If an AI-enabled process makes verification harder because it rewards speed, the problem is a failure to meet an existing legal duty.

Palantir can say it supplies the platform. The Pentagon can say software only supports decisions. An operator can say the data arrived already ranked.

But people grieving outside a destroyed school are left with no clear answer about who is accountable. Until Washington creates a publicly disclosed civilian stop rule, “precision warfare” will remain a technical phrase that conceals a political choice: to accelerate force without a meaningful way to stop, inspect and answer for its failures.

Brian Hudson is a political analyst and an independent journalist.

This article first appeared on Foreign Policy in Focus and is republished under a Creative Commons license

https://asiatimes.com/2026/07/americas-ai-war-machine-has-no-human-stop-rule/ 

Deadly Floods Batter China As Super Typhoon Threat Looms

Wednesday, July 8, 2026 |

by Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Chief International Correspondent

BEIJING (Worthy News) – China faced mounting challenges Wednesday after flooding killed at least 17 people and injured hundreds in the country’s south and center, while scientists warned the devastation could spread to other provinces with the approach of Super Typhoon Bavi.

As rescue workers raced to search for survivors, some scientists warned that “extreme weather” is likely to become more frequent this year, while others argued that rapid urbanization in flood-prone areas, inadequate infrastructure, and other factors have also contributed to the scale of the disaster

The expected weather systems are set to test the resilience of densely populated cities and rural communities across the world’s second-largest economy, home to more than 1.4 billion people.

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China’s National Climate Center expects up to six typhoons to form in the Northwest Pacific and South China Sea this month, well above the average of 3.8. Up to three are forecast to make landfall, compared with the usual 1.8, while forecasters warned this year’s storms are likely to be stronger than normal.

The latest disaster began after Typhoon Maysak swept across southern China, triggering widespread flooding, landslides, thunderstorms, and rare inland tornadoes.

THOUSANDS DISPLACED

State media said more than 130,000 people have been evacuated and hundreds of thousands affected. In Guangxi province, floodwaters submerged homes after rivers burst their banks and reservoir dams failed, leaving many residents stranded on rooftops awaiting rescue.

“The floods happened so rapidly, the water just came so fast. The villagers didn’t have time to take food with them when they were running away,” a resident identified only by her surname, Zhou, told reporters.

Another resident, Huang, said floodwaters engulfed her village within minutes. “We simply couldn’t rescue everyone in time. There were too few rescue personnel, and the lifeboats they brought were too small,” she said, adding that many families had also lost electricity and communications.

Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered what state media described as “all-out” rescue and relief operations, urging authorities to treat the injured, relocate displaced residents, and strengthen disaster prevention efforts.

SUPER TYPHOON APPROACHES

Authorities also warned that continued heavy rain could hamper rescue operations as rivers remain swollen and reservoirs stay under pressure.

The warning came as Super Typhoon Bavi, packing sustained winds of more than 290 kilometers (180 miles) per hour, was forecast to approach China’s eastern coast later this week, raising fears of renewed flooding, landslides, and further loss of life.

Benjamin Horton, dean of the School of Energy and Environment at City University of Hong Kong, warned that increasingly destructive weather events leave little time for communities to recover.

“The magnitude of the events is increasing, and there is no time to recover and become resilient,” he said, warning that more powerful cyclones could bring unprecedented rainfall, flooding, and crop damage later this year.

Whether driven primarily by climate change or rapid development in vulnerable areas, the latest disasters underscored China’s growing struggle to cope with increasingly destructive weather as millions brace for another powerful storm.

https://www.worthynews.com/115764-deadly-floods-batter-china-as-super-typhoon-threat-looms 

Iran spurns U.S. offer of frozen assets, insists Strait of Hormuz remains under Tehran's command

By Benjamin Clark, July 6, 2026

The Trump administration offered Iran access to billions of dollars in frozen overseas funds if Tehran would drop its demand to toll ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran said no, and its deputy foreign minister flew home from Doha to declare the waterway "under Iran's command."

The rejection, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, landed after a week of indirect talks in Qatar between U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, White House adviser Jared Kushner, and Iranian representatives communicating through Qatari mediators. The talks were meant to advance a memorandum of understanding Washington and Tehran reached last month. Instead, they exposed just how far apart the two sides remain on the most consequential chokepoint in global energy.

Iran wants to charge vessels for passage through the strait. The U.S. and Gulf Arab nations have flatly refused. And while American negotiators dangled a share of roughly $100 billion in frozen Iranian assets, including $6 billion held in Qatar, Tehran chose leverage over cash.

A waterway in crisis

The numbers tell the story of what Iran's posture has already cost global commerce. Before the conflict began on February 28, more than 100 ships transited the Strait of Hormuz each day, carrying roughly one-fifth of the world's oil supply. By last week, that figure had dropped to 75 ships a day. By Wednesday, it was down to 43.

That collapse in traffic reflects the threat behind Iran's words. The regime's military warned that any vessel traveling outside routes approved by Tehran would face an "immediate and powerful" response. That is not the language of a government interested in compromise. It is the language of a tollbooth enforced at gunpoint.

Iran's proposed fee scheme could generate as much as $40 billion annually, a staggering revenue stream for a regime whose economy has been strangled by sanctions for years. Tehran frames the fees as payment for "maritime security and related services", services the international community never asked for and does not want.

International law says no

Iran's toll gambit has drawn opposition from well beyond Washington. The United Nations' International Maritime Organization stated plainly that no international agreement permits tolls on international straits, warning that any such toll would set "a dangerous precedent." Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, representing the world's leading shipping power, called the proposal "completely unacceptable."

MORE: Hegseth reversed course on planned European troop reductions before Brussels announcement

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been equally direct. "It's an international waterway. No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway. That's existing international law," Rubio stated. The memorandum of understanding itself contains a clause forbidding tolls for 60 days, a provision Iran interprets as permission to impose them once that window closes. The U.S. rejects that reading entirely.

President Trump addressed the dispute on Truth Social: "There will be NO TOLLS in the Hormuz Strait for 60 days during the Cease Fire Period, and there will be NO TOLLS after the 60 day period has expired."

The interpretive gap between Washington and Tehran over a single clause in their own agreement captures the fragility of the broader diplomatic effort, a fragility that has drawn skepticism from within the Republican base about whether any deal with Iran can hold.

The Oman alternative, and why it failed too

Oman, which shares jurisdiction over part of the Strait of Hormuz, floated a compromise: a voluntary fund financed by oil producers and shipping companies that would pay for shipping services without requiring direct toll payments to Iran. On paper, it was a face-saving off-ramp.

Neither side took it. Iran objected because the plan would not require direct toll payments, meaning Tehran would lose the leverage and the revenue stream it covets. U.S. officials, meanwhile, expressed concerns that even a voluntary fund could be viewed as indirectly benefiting the Iranian regime.

Gulf Cooperation Council nations rejected Iran's toll proposal outright. Oman itself turned down Iran's proposal to split control of the strait, leaving Tehran without a single regional partner willing to back its tollbooth scheme. Former Pentagon official Alex Plitsas offered a blunt assessment of why: "Iran's strategy of attacking GCC states as it means to put pressure on the United States absolutely backfired and set relations back with their Gulf neighbors by decades."

MORE: Navy ends search for sailor lost when Sea Hawk helicopter went down in Arabian Sea

Frozen assets and selective 'friendships'

The $100 billion in frozen assets the U.S. put on the table represents a significant economic lifeline for Iran. The $6 billion held in Qatar alone would dwarf many of the regime's accessible revenue sources. Yet Tehran chose to hold out for the toll revenue, a bet that it can sustain control of the strait long enough to force the world to pay up.

That bet looks increasingly reckless. The Treasury Department has already warned American shippers that paying Iran's toll could trigger sanctions. The advisory stated that "U.S. persons and U.S.-owned or -controlled foreign entities are generally prohibited under U.S. sanctions from engaging in transactions with the Government of Iran." Iran reportedly imposed a $1-per-barrel fee on tankers, with some ships paying up to $2 million in tolls, transactions the U.S. government now treats as potential sanctions violations.

Iran has also tried to play favorites. Tehran designated five "friend" nations, India, China, Russia, Iraq, and Pakistan, that supposedly receive free passage while others face threats from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran's ambassador to India denied charging Indian ships any toll at all, telling reporters, "You can ask the Indian government if we have charged anything up to now." That denial sat awkwardly alongside President Trump's accusation of extortion and his order to the U.S. Navy to interdict vessels that have paid tolls to Iran.

The selective "friendship" system reveals the toll scheme for what it is: not a maritime-services arrangement, but a geopolitical sorting mechanism designed to reward allies and punish adversaries.

Leverage Tehran cannot sustain

Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House in London, framed Iran's calculus in terms that should worry anyone counting on a negotiated resolution:

"Iran is trying to open the strait on its own terms and does not want to relinquish what leverage it has gained."

But Vakil also identified the fundamental weakness in Tehran's position: "Tehran can disrupt the strait more easily than it can sustainably administer it." Disruption is cheap. Administration requires legitimacy, infrastructure, and international cooperation, none of which Iran possesses.

MORE: Trump Accounts officially launch, putting investment dollars in the hands of American children

The administration has shown willingness to explore military options when diplomacy stalls. Earlier in the conflict, Trump halted a planned strike on Iran at the request of Gulf allies who wanted to give negotiations more time. That restraint was not open-ended, and Iran's rejection of the asset-release offer narrows the diplomatic runway further.

The broader pattern of Iranian intransigence extends beyond the strait. Tehran has balked at nuclear talks as well, and the memorandum of understanding that was supposed to provide a framework for progress now looks like a document both sides interpret in fundamentally incompatible ways.

The Doha talks produced no announced outcomes beyond Gharibabadi's defiant declaration. Whether additional rounds of negotiations are scheduled remains unclear. The Wall Street Journal report, sourced to people familiar with the negotiations, left open questions about who specifically authorized the asset-release offer and what, if any, conditions Iran might accept short of full toll authority.

What Iran chose, and what it means

Iran had a clear off-ramp in Doha. Billions in frozen funds, a path back toward economic relief, and a framework already agreed to in principle. Tehran rejected all of it in favor of a toll scheme that the United Nations calls unlawful, that Gulf neighbors refuse to support, and that the U.S. Treasury treats as a sanctions violation.

Meanwhile, the tensions have also strained relationships closer to home. Trump has navigated simmering tensions with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu over the Iran deal, and congressional debates over war powers have grown heated as the conflict drags on.

The daily ship count through the Strait of Hormuz, from over 100 before February 28, to 75 last week, to 43 on Wednesday, is not an abstraction. It represents real cargo, real fuel, and real costs passed along to consumers and businesses worldwide. Every day the strait stays throttled, the economic damage compounds.

Iran chose a tollbooth over a lifeline. The question now is how long the world will let Tehran stand in the road.

https://conservativeinstitute.org/defense/iran-spurns-u-s-offer-of-frozen-assets-insists-strait-of-