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President Trump says the U.S. military began a blockade of Iranian ports on Monday, drawing threats of retaliation from Iran, after talks between the U.S. and Iran failed to reach an agreement over the weekend.

"Right now we have a blockade," Trump said Monday. "They're doing no business."

In a social media post earlier, he reiterated his threat to Iranian ships that tried to interfere. "Warning: If any of these ships come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED," he wrote.
https://www.npr.org/2026/04/13/nx-s1-5783445/iran-war-updates
It was the latest tactic to pressure Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz — by blockading the strait outright.

Trump says Iran has charged tolls for some ships to pass and laid mines in the strait, amounting to "WORLD EXTORTION." He said Sunday that he had instructed the Navy "to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran."

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Two immigration judges who ruled against the Trump administration in the deportation cases of pro-Palestinian university students have been fired by the Department of Justice.

The New York Times reported over the weekend that the justice department had terminated six judges, including Roopal Patel and Nina Froes, who oversaw deportation proceedings against Rümeysa Öztürk and Mohsen Mahdawi, two students who were arrested last year as part of Trump’s campaign against the Gaza protest movement.

In an interview with the Guardian, Patel said she did not view her dismissal as “directly retaliatory” for any one case. She said it fit within a broader pattern of the administration dismissing judges near the end of their probationary term, particularly those who have experience representing immigrants in court.

“I think there’s a broader agenda of trying to reshape the immigration bench to be more reflective of the political agenda of the administration,” Patel said.

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Representative Tony Gonzales, a Republican from Texas, announced on Monday he was stepping down from Congress after acknowledging an extramarital affair with a staffer.

Gonzales, who was facing a growing threat of expulsion by his colleagues, admitted last month that he had an affair with an aide who later died by suicide.

“There is a season for everything and God has a plan for us all. When Congress returns tomorrow, I will file my retirement from office. It has been my privilege to serve the great people of Texas,” Gonzales wrote on X.

His announcement came hours after Eric Swalwell, a Democratic representative, said he was resigning from Congress following multiple allegations of sexual assault and misconduct.

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The Trump administration will allow an LGBTQ pride flag to fly at the Stonewall national monument after the removal of a flag sparked uproar and a lawsuit.

According to court documents, the administration agreed to hang a rainbow pride flag at the New York City monument, which commemorates the struggle for LGBTQ rights.

The agreement ends a lawsuit filed by nonprofits over the flag’s February removal. It had argued that the Trump administration, through the National Park Service (NPS), was targeting the LGBTQ community and that the flag’s removal “is the latest example in a long line of efforts by the Trump administration to target the LGBTQ+ community for discrimination.”

“The NPS does not prohibit sales of Confederate flag merchandise at gift shops located on its premises; instead, it has merely requested that its vendors voluntarily withdraw such items from the shops,” the lawsuit said. “In contrast, the NPS has ordered the removal of all products recognizing the identities of LGBTQ+ people from its gift shops.”

“The NPS does not prohibit sales of Confederate flag merchandise at gift shops located on its premises; instead, it has merely requested that its vendors voluntarily withdraw such items from the shops,” the lawsuit said. “In contrast, the NPS has ordered the removal of all products recognizing the identities of LGBTQ+ people from its gift shops.”

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On September 25, 2025, David McIntosh filed a report to his bosses at Safe Reach Solutions (SRS) detailing an account of Israeli soldiers gunning down a young Palestinian boy as he was getting food at a site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). “There’s no way he survived,” McIntosh told Drop Site News and Middle East Eye in his first interview since returning from Gaza five months ago. “He was murdered. He was straight up murdered.”

At the time, McIntosh was one month into a three month stint working as a contractor with GHF’s logistics partner SRS. Between August and October 2025, he mostly managed Site 4, the only aid site in central Gaza, near the Netzarim corridor. According to McIntosh, Site 4 was more dangerous for aid seekers than its other sites in southern Gaza.

Like thousands of other Palestinians trying to survive an Israeli-imposed starvation campaign on Gaza, the boy—who looked about 12 years old—had come to the site that day looking for food. After he managed to get his hands on an aid parcel, he continued playing atop a sand berm at the site, according to McIntosh.

Members of GHF’s security firm UG Solutions threw a flash bang grenade to warn the boy to leave the area. r later, Israeli snipers shot the boy in the shoulder near his chest. Severely wounded, he struggled to carry himself to a nearby bridge before collapsing.

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An AI-generated image President Donald Trump posted online depicting himself as a Christ-like figure sparked an uproar among some religious conservatives, including criticism that the image was blasphemous.

Less than a day later, the image of a man wearing a white caftan draped with a red shawl was removed from Trump's social media feed in what appeared to be a rare concession to critics. Trump later said the i“This is gross blasphemy,” Brilyn Hollyhand, the former chair of the Republican National Committee’s Youth Advisory Council and a self-described “full time Christian” said of the image in a social media post. “Faith is not a prop. You dhttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/HFwaOZhW0AAX2Dl?format=png&name=900x900on’t need to portray yourself as a savior when your record should speak for itself.”doctor not Jesus.

“This is gross blasphemy,” Brilyn Hollyhand, the former chair of the Republican National Committee’s Youth Advisory Council and a self-described “full time Christian” said of the image in a social media post. “Faith is not a prop. You don’t need to portray yourself as a savior when your record should speak for itself.”

The president posted the image on his Truth Social account on April 12. It depicted Trump laying his hand on the forehead of a man who appears to be in a sick bed. A light glows in Trump’s other hand and light shines around the sick man’s head. An American flag waves in the background as a bald eagle flies nearby.

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Wrapped in bloodied bandages, Aline ⁠Saeed, ⁠seven, barely survived the Israeli strike on her ⁠home in south Lebanon last week. She was there to bury her father as hopes of a truce ​spread across the region, but a new strike killed her infant sister and other relatives.

The strike on the Saeed family home in the village of Srifa took ‌place on Wednesday, the first day of a ‌U.S.-Iran ceasefire https://www.reuters.com/world/iran/ that many in Lebanon hoped would apply to their country, too. Instead, Israeli strikes killed more than 350 across Lebanon and left ⁠the Saeed family with ⁠four more relatives to bury.

"They said it was a ceasefire. Like all these people, we ​went up to the village. We went to the casket to read the prayers and walk home... suddenly we felt like a storm was landing right on us," said Nasser Saeed, Aline's 64-year-old grandfather, who also survived.

On Sunday, he joined other relatives in the southern port city of Tyre to pick up the bodies wrapped in green cloth. ​One of them, a fraction the size of the rest, contained his granddaughter Taleen, Aline's sister.

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The report, seen exclusively by Middle East Eye, is based on testimonies from Palestinian former prisoners gathered by the rights watchdog Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.

It reveals how the scope of sexual violence of Palestinian prisoners, including rape using objects and trained military dogs, constitutes an "organised state policy", aided and abetted by Israeli institutions and leadership.

One former detainee, a 42-year-old woman from north Gaza who was held in the notorious Sde Teiman detention centre, said she was bound naked to a metal table and repeatedly raped by two masked soldiers over the course of two days.

She recalled that she was left shackled, naked and bleeding throughout the night before the soldiers returned the next day to continue raping her.

She said she wished for death and likened her experience to "another genocide behind walls".

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