World, US, Culture, Market, and Sci-Tech News Aggregation from MSM and Independent News
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine are holding a news conference Tuesday morning as the ceasefire in the Iran war faces serious tests. U.S. Navy destroyers on Monday fended off a sustained barrage of Iranian missiles, attack drones and small boats as they helped two commercial vessels transit the Strait of Hormuz.
“Iran cannot be allowed to block innocent countries and their goods from an international waterway,” Hegseth said at the news conference.
Hegseth noted that Project Freedom, the U.S. guiding of commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, is “separate and distinct from Operation Epic Fury.” He called the operation a “temporary solution” for the U.S., saying “the world needs this waterway more than we do.”
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Iran is accusing the U.S. of violating the fragile ceasefire agreement between the two countries after President Trump directed the U.S. Navy to ensure the safe passage of commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz. “The new equation of the Strait of Hormuz is in the process of being solidified,” Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher…
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… A ceasefire by U.S. President Donald Trump appears to be on shaky ground after Iran launched strikes against the United Arab Emirates. The U.S. Central Command said it sank six Iranian small boats in the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump later escalated the rhetoric, telling Fox News that Iran will be “blown off the face of the earth” if it targets U.S. ships that are protecting commercial vessels transiting the strait.
He also called on South Korea to support U.S. efforts after he claimed a South Korean cargo ship had come under fire from Iran. Seoul had not publicly responded as of the time of writing.
These developments have spooked investors. International benchmark Brent crude futures rose nearly 6% to settle at $114.44 per barrel, while all three major U.S. stock indexes dipped.
Some analysts are sounding the alarm, warning that global economies could be “sleepwalking” into a “big recession”, as investors continue to underestimate the impact of the oil price shock, according to Amrita Sen, founder and director, market intelligence at Energy Aspect.
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Tuesday morning, President Trump did a brief telephone interview with Joe Kernen of CNBC’s Squawk Box. The subject was Trump’s prognosis for how the negotiations would proceed.
President Trump doesn’t seem to have high hopes. He points out that even though the Iranian leadership has stated it would not attend the new round of negotiations in Islamabad, it is participating, so long as the U.S. continues to blockade Iranian ports. Trump did not back off (see VIDEO: USS Spruance Lights Up Iranian Blockade Runner in a Formidable Demonstration of FAFO – RedState) and yet here we are. He frames their attendance as being under duress, “[T]hey just got the okay to go forward, which I knew they were going to do anyway. I mean, I don’t think they had a choice. They have to negotiate.”
Trump lays out a stark choice for Iran: “And you know, the one thing I’ll say is this: Iran can get themselves in very good footing. If they make a deal, they can make themselves into a strong nation again, a wonderful nation again. They have incredible people, but they seem to be, you know, bloodthirsty. They’re led by some very, very unfortunately tough people. And I don’t mean tough in a good way. I think it’s very negative for the country because we’re much tougher than they are — like not even close. But they have to use reason and they have to use common sense, and they can get themselves into a great position to make themselves into a great country, but a legitimate country, not a country based on death and horror.”
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Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley: The ship the U.S. seized in the Strait of Hormuz this weekend was headed from China to Iran and is linked to chemical shipments for missiles. It refused repeated orders to stop. Another reminder that China is helping prop up Iran’s regime—a reality that can’t be ignored (Haley).
Wall Street Journal: The Iranian cargo ship seized by U.S. forces in the Gulf of Oman this weekend is part of a fleet that often sails to China, one of Tehran’s most important backers—and includes vessels that have been accused of transporting chemicals for Iran’s ballistic-missile program. The ship, the MV Touska, visited the southern China port of Zhuhai twice in the six weeks before it was intercepted Sunday on its way to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, according to shipping analysts. The Touska ignored six hours of warnings from the USS Spruance, a guided-missile destroyer, according to the Pentagon
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An Iranian tanker called “Silly City” successfully reached the country’s waters despite a naval blockade and threats from a US Navy task force. According to reports from local media, the vessel reached a southern Iranian port overnight after passing through the Arabian Sea with full security and operational support from Iran’s navy.
“Despite numerous warnings and threats from the US Navy Fleet Group, the Iranian oil tanker Silly City, with the operational support of the Iranian Navy and in full safety, entered Iran’s territorial waters last night after crossing the Arabian Sea,” the Iranian military said in a statement on Tuesday.
Shipping industry intelligence site Lloyd’s List reported that more than 20 Iranian so-called “shadow vessels” had transited past the US blockade
The Strait of Hormuz in peacetime sees around 120 daily transits, according to the site.
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As the ceasefire between the United States and Iran winds down, heated words filled the air.
“Iran has Violated the Cease Fire numerous times!” President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social.
He did not provide details about the alleged infractions.
Meanwhile, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, rebuked Trump for “imposing a siege and violating the ceasefire,” according to CNBC. He was referring to Trump’s blockade of Iranian ports.
He accused Trump of trying to turn peace talks into “a table of surrender or to justify renewed warmongering.”
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Qatar has urged an end to the Iran war and a return to negotiations on Tuesday, saying it is in contact with all parties as uncertainty surrounds US-Iran talks in Islamabad.
“The crisis is ours, and the crisis of our region. That’s why we have direct contacts,” foreign ministry spokesperson Dr Majed al-Ansari said at a press conference in Doha.
Al-Ansari added that Qatar supports maintaining the ceasefire as uncertainty remains over whether talks are moving forward.
“Our call has only been to end this war and return to the negotiation table,” he said. “Qatar supports the continuation of the ceasefire until there’s a diplomatic resolution. We are hearing contradicting reports and we are quite concerned.”
“We do not want to talk about the failure of the negotiations,” al-Ansari said. “The entire world is supporting these negotiations, including us. And we are supporting our brothers in Pakistan.”
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WASHINGTON/CAIRO/ISLAMABAD, April 21 (Reuters) – The U.S. military said on Tuesday it had seized a tanker linked to Iran in international waters, its latest apparent action to enforce a blockade, with time running out on a ceasefire and the prospect of last-ditch further peace talks still up in the air.
Washington has expressed confidence that talks with Iran will go ahead in Pakistan, and a senior Iranian official said Tehran was considering joining. But with the final hours of a two-week truce ticking by, there was little time left for the talks.
The U.S. military said it had boarded the tanker Tifani “without incident”. The ship, capable of carrying 2 million barrels of crude, last reported its position on Tuesday morning as near Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean, according to MarineTraffic tracking data. It was close to fully loaded and had signaled Singapore as its destination.
“As we have made clear, we will pursue global maritime enforcement efforts to disrupt illicit networks and interdict sanctioned vessels providing material support to Iran — anywhere they operate,” U.S. Central Command said.
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Iran has brutally mocked JD Vance ahead of crunch peace talks on Tuesday. Iranian channels have reporrtedly shared images of JD Vance edited using Mr Bean meme showing him waiting for the conversation.
Vice President JD Vance and other top Trump officials are expected to travel to Pakistan today for a second round of intense negotiations. The US President has previously said it is “highly unlikely” he would extend the ceasefire deadline further than tomorrow evening.
However, Iranian state media said: “None of the Iranian delegation has arrived or even flown to Islamabad for negotiations with the US at the moment”
Meanwhile, the US President shared a new update on extending the US ceasefire with Iran past its new deadline of tomorrow evening.
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Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) celebrated the news that 26 Iranian ships broke through the U.S. naval blockade in the Gulf of Oman.
Democrat Chris Murphy is getting slammed for replying “awesome” to the news that 26 Iranian shadow fleet vessels breached the U.S. naval blockade.
Murphy has been hammering the war effort. He’s argued the U.S. is spending “billions” to keep its navy there “to fecklessly fail,”… pic.twitter.com/ww96ij1SIE
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 21, 2026
I haven’t found many reports about the fleet bypassing the naval blockade. I came across this:
Maritime tracking firm TankerTrackers.com reported that a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) operated by the National Iranian Tanker Company departed Iran in late March 2026. The vessel then sailed towards Southeast Asia, where it reportedly transferred approximately 2 million barrels of crude oil to another supertanker.
Following the transfer, the tanker returned towards Iranian waters and is believed to have crossed what analysts describe as a US “siege line”, a monitored maritime enforcement zone linked to the ongoing blockade efforts.
According to Iran’s Fars News Agency, the vessel successfully re-entered Iranian-controlled waters and is expected to reach Kharg Island shortly. The report stated, “This tanker unloaded its 2 million barrels of crude oil and then returned home through the blockade line,” citing data from TankerTrackers.com.
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Donald Trump may be considering a deal to allow Iran to continue nuclear enrichment in 10 years(Image: Pool/ABACA/Shutterstock)
Donald Trump is reported to be weighing up an option allowing Iran to resume uranium enrichment in a decade.
The US president has offered shifting reasons for the war in Iran but has consistently said a primary objective is ensuring the country will “never have a nuclear weapon”.
Iran has 440.9kg of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency.
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A senior Iranian source has been talking to Reuters news agency about the gaps in negotiating position between Washington and Tehran.
There are still significant differences regarding Iran’s nuclear programme, the source said.
It comes amid hopes that Iran and the US will resume peace talks after they failed in Islamabad earlier this month.
The senior Iranian source said that Tehran’s “defensive capabilities”, including its missile programme, are not open to negotiation with the US
“Continuation of the US blockade on the Strait of Hormuz undermines the peace talks,” they added.
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JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said on Monday (Apr 20) that it had determined an image circulating on social media that shows a soldier in south Lebanon hitting a statue of Jesus Christ is authentic and depicts one of its troops.
The image appears to show an Israeli soldier using a sledgehammer to strike the head of a statue of a crucified Jesus that had fallen off a cross.
Arab media reports indicated that the statue was in the Christian village of Debl in south Lebanon, near the border with Israel.
The Debl municipality told AFP that the statue was located in the village, but could not confirm whether it had been damaged.
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LOS ANGELES — Federal prosecutors said a 44-year-old Los Angeles woman was arrested Saturday night at Los Angeles International Airport on suspicion of helping Iran traffic weapons to Sudan, which is in its fourth year of a bloody civil war.
Shamim Mafi will face charges that she brokered the sale of “drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of rounds of ammunition” between Iran and the Sudanese Armed Forces, First U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said Sunday on social media.
A phone number for Mafi could not be located and it wasn’t known Sunday if she has an attorney who could speak on her behalf.
Essayli posted a photo of someone in an FBI jacket escorting a woman into the back of a sedan outside a terminal at LAX.
Mafi is an Iranian national who became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 2016, Essayli said.
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Iran’s Supreme Leader has issied a chilling threat in a new bombshell message, while also taking a brutal swipe at Donald Trump and US troops.
Mojtaba Khamenei commended his forces for resisting what he called American and Israeli “arrogance”, before threatening to bring about “new defeats”. The Supreme Leader also said his opponents’ “weakness and humiliation” had been exposed for all to see. Khamenei has not been seen since the war began. He replaced his father Ali Khamenei, who was killed in Israeli-US strikes at the start of the conflict.
In a statement issued through an Iranian state news agency, Khamenei said his forces had “stood firm against America’s sinister schemes.”
He continued: “With its strong divine and popular support and in dense, fortified ranks, it (the army) stands shoulder to shoulder with other mujahideen of the armed forces against the two armies at the forefront of the front of kufr (disbelief) and arrogance, clashing with them hand-to-hand and exposing their weakness and humiliation to the eyes of the world.
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President Donald Trump departs after speaking with reporters about the war in Iran during a news conference in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on Monday, April 6, 2026.Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
In a Truth Social tirade on Sunday morning, President Donald Trump claimed that Iran violated their ceasefire agreement with the US by firing shots at ships in the Strait of Hormuz and again threatened to commit war crimes by taking out the country’s energy infrastructure.
“Many of [the bullets] were aimed at a French Ship, and a Freighter from the United Kingdom,” Trump contended about Iran’s targeting of the ships, without evidence. “That wasn’t nice, was it?”
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Trump defended the US blockade and threatened “to start dropping bombs again” unless the countries reached a long-term deal before the ceasefire expires on Wednesday.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said Tehran’s control over the strait included demanding the payment of costs related to security, safety and environmental protection services, state media said.
Concern remained after at least two vessels reported being attacked on Saturday while trying to transit the waterway. India summoned the Iranian ambassador in New Delhi and expressed deep concern that two Indian-flagged ships had come under fire in the strait, the government said.
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Donald Trump posted on social media to reaffirm the US’s support for Israel, calling it a ‘great ally’, just hours after sources told Axios that Benjamin Netanyahu had been left ‘personally stunned and alarmed’ by an earlier post in which Trump said Israel was ‘prohibited’ from bombing Lebanon
President Trump Meets With Visiting Israeli PM Netanyahu At The White House(Image: Getty)
Donald Trump reaffirmed his backing for Israel in a Truth Social message on Saturday evening, merely hours after reports suggested Benjamin Netanyahu had been unsettled by an earlier comment he made.
Writing around 9pm ET, the US president described Israel as a “great ally” of Washington while taking aim at European nations that refused to take part in the Iran conflict.
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The Strait of Hormuz is blocked again by Iran as the IRGC’s hardline position appears to prevail in Tehran, setting the stage for the 3-day countdown towards the end of the ceasefire, with no new talks in sight.