U.S. forces carried out new defensive strikes on Iran after President Donald Trump asserted Iran is “negotiating on fumes” and insisted November’s midterm elections in the United States won’t make him rush into a deal to end the nearly three-month-old conflict.
Also, a federal judge has declined to halt Trump’s executive order, creating a federal voter list and limiting mail voting, clearing the way for potential sweeping changes in how American elections
are run shortly before this year’s midterm elections.
Here's the latest:
A federal judge has declined to halt Trump’s executive order, creating a federal voter list and limiting mail voting, clearing the way for potential sweeping changes in how American elections are run shortly before this year’s midterm elections.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington, D.C., a Trump appointee, late Wednesday rejected the request by Democrats and civil rights groups who had argued that Trump’s order would likely be found unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the power to set election rules. Nichols agreed with the Trump administration’s contention it was too early to issue the order because it has yet to be implemented.
The legal battle against the provision now shifts to Boston, where voting rights groups have a separate lawsuit against the executive order in federal court.
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The U.S. military said that Kuwait had intercepted missiles launched by Iran late Wednesday night, calling the Iranian attack on one of the U.S. top allies in the Persian Gulf an “egregious ceasefire violation.”
The attack on Kuwait was the latest flare-up to shake the fragile ceasefire reached last month between the U.S. and Iran.
Kuwait had earlier announced an attack on its territory, and Iran announced it had retaliated after strikes earlier in the week on a U.S. base in a Gulf state it did not name.
The Iranian strike came after, earlier in the week, the U.S. said it had struck Iranian missile launch sites, minelaying boats and attack drones it said posed threats near the blockaded Strait of Hormuz.
The U.S. military on Wednesday struck another vessel suspected of transporting drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing two men.
U.S. Southern Command posted video on social media showing a boat resting on the water before being struck by an explosion. The last few seconds of the video show smoke and fire rising from the boat.
A day earlier, U.S. forces had launched a strike on an alleged drug vessel in the eastern Pacific, killing one man and leaving two survivors. Southern Command said it “immediately notified the U.S. Coast Guard to activate the Search and Rescue system for the survivors.”
The Trump administration’s campaign of blowing up alleged drug-trafficking vessels in Latin American waters, including the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean Sea, has gone on since early September and killed at least 196 people in total. The military has not provided evidence that any of the vessels were carrying drugs.
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The Trump administration has quietly instructed federal prosecutors in Miami to avoid pursuing criminal investigations into Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez, a longtime target of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, according to current and former U.S. law enforcement officials, in the latest sign of warming relations between the White House and the oil-rich nation.
It’s unclear whether prosecutors had implicated Rodríguez in any crimes or whether investigators were moving toward an indictment. A Justice Department spokesperson said in an email, “There was never an investigation into her to shut down.”
But DEA records obtained by The Associated Press earlier this year show she consistently surfaced on the radar of federal law enforcement dating to at least 2018, though she has never been criminally charged in the U.S. like several other senior Venezuelan officials.
The directive to pause scrutiny into Rodríguez was meant to avoid upsetting the administration’s efforts to stabilize Venezuela after the capture of her predecessor, Nicolás Maduro, among other reasons, the official said. It was not clear whether the White House, which deferred comment to the Justice Department, was involved in the decision.
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World shares declined Thursday following more of what the U.S. military said were defensive strikes against Iran.
Oil prices gained more than $2 a barrel after having dropped sharply a day before.
In early European trading, Germany’s DAX was nearly unchanged at 25,175.63 and the CAC 40 in Paris lost 0.4% to 8,172.84. Britain’s FTSE 100 slumped 0.9% to 10,416.62.
The futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged 0.1% lower.
On Wednesday, U.S. stocks inched to more records after oil prices declined more than 4%, easing pressure on consumers and businesses worldwide.
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U.S. forces carried out new defensive strikes on Iran on Wednesday after Trump asserted that Iran is “negotiating on fumes” and insisted that November’s midterm elections in the United States won’t make him rush into a deal to end the nearly three-month-old conflict.
U.S. Central Command forces shot down four Iranian one-way attack drones that posed a threat around the Strait of Hormuz, according to U.S. officials who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The U.S. military also struck an Iranian ground control station in Bandar Abbas that was about to launch a fifth drone, the officials said.
Details about the strikes emerged after Trump, at a Cabinet meeting earlier Wednesday, expressed confidence that his administration was making headway on settling the war, even though the talks still remain very much in flux.
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