MicroWave

Trump administration officials told congressional staff in private briefings Sunday that U.S. intelligence did not suggest Iran was preparing to launch a preemptive strike against the U.S., three people familiar with the briefings said.

The administration officials instead acknowledged there was a more general threat in the region from Iran’s missiles and proxy forces, two of the people said. The third person, however, said the administration emphasized that Iran’s missiles and proxy forces posed an imminent threat to U.S. personnel and allies in the region.

The officials did not provide any clarity about what would happen next in Iran after the joint U.S.-Israeli operation, the two people said. All three people insisted on anonymity to discuss details that have not been made public.

Violent clashes between protesters and security forces in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi and in the country’s north left at least 22 people dead and more than 120 others injured as demonstrators supportive of the Iranian government attempted to storm a U.S. Consulate on Sunday, authorities said.

In the north of the country, demonstrators attacked U.N. and government offices.

The violence came after the United States and Israel attacked Iran, killing its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Police and officials at a hospital in Karachi said that at least 50 people were also wounded in the clashes and some of them were in critical condition.

Oil prices rose sharply when market trading began Sunday, as U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran and retaliatory strikes against Israel and U.S. military installations around the Gulf sent disruptions through the global energy supply chain.

Traders were betting the supply of oil from Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East would slow or grind to a halt. Attacks throughout the region, including on two vessels traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, have restricted countries’ ability to export oil to the rest of the world. Prolonged attacks would likely result in higher prices for crude oil and gasoline, according to energy experts.

Attack on Iran has widespread support, with little questioning of whether it is best option for lasting security

In June, Benjamin Netanyahu declared “a historic victory, which will stand for generations” after the 12-day war on Iran.

His decision to attack Iran again, less than a year later, was greeted with broad and enthusiastic support from Israeli politicians, including the prime minister’s bitter rivals, and a public willing to endure death and massive disruption to their lives.

Few prominent Israelis have asked questions about why the legacy of one historic victory is another war – or whether the stated goal of regime change from the air is realistic.

After Iran acknowledged the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, had been killed, backing for the war deepened even as deaths and damage from Iranian attacks mounted inside Israel.

Donald Trump has taken the United States into war with Iran despite decades of self-professed aversion to foreign entanglements, particularly in the Middle East, and repeated pledges to focus primarily on the Western Hemisphere with an “America first” agenda.

Trump’s predicate for joining Israel in attacks on Iran’s leadership, military and critical infrastructure this weekend was that Iran posed unacceptable and imminent risks to U.S. and allied interests.

Similar arguments were made in the aftermath of Trump’s action last month to remove former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power in a military strike.

The gunman who killed two people at a bar in Texas early Sunday in a mass shooting that left 14 others wounded was wearing a sweatshirt that said “Property of Allah,” and another shirt with an Iranian flag design, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.

The shooter has been identified as 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne, the law enforcement official and another person familiar with the matter said. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation.

The shooting erupted a day after Israel and the United States launched an attack on Iran that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The FBI said it was investigating the shooting as a potential act of terrorism.

One of the world's leading medical journals has issued a scathing rebuke of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to mark his first year leading the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The editorial — titled "Robert F. Kennedy Jr: 1 year of failure" — appears in the latest issue of the Lancet.

A quote from the piece marks an otherwise blank front cover: "The destruction that Kennedy has wrought in 1 year might take generations to repair, and there is little hope for US health and science while he remains at the helm."

Top Capitol Hill Democrats, and a small number of Republicans, watched in alarm Saturday as the US launched a major assault on Iran, decrying Donald Trump’s call for the overthrow of another foreign government without their expressed approval.

Trump ordered the strikes on Tehran just days before the GOP-led House and Senate are each set to formally debate and vote on US military action in Iran. Democrats, along with at least three Republicans, say the president’s decision, with lawmakers scattered across the nation and not planning to return to Washington for days, raises serious questions about the legality of the attack.

“It’s a slap in the face of the United States Congress. The president has launched an illegal war when there is no imminent threat. He did not consult with Congress or allow for a debate in Congress, which even George W. Bush did,” Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California told CNN on Saturday morning.

Trump says in social media post that Iran tried to ‘stop Trump’ and now ‘faces renewed war with United States’

Donald Trump on Saturday appeared to link the massive attack he ordered against Iran to his persistent claims about his 2020 election loss to former president Joe Biden, in a social media post about allegations that Tehran’s government interfered in the US president elections.

“Iran tried to interfere in 2020, 2024 elections to stop Trump,” his Truth Social post said, “and now faces renewed war with United States”.

Those words, written in the first hours of the bombardment of Iran, repeated the headline of an article to which he linked from Just the News, a Trump-friendly news site. “Iranian intelligence sought to undermine Trump’s re-election bid in 2020 through a variety of election influence efforts,” the article said. It also said Iran worked against him in 2024, when he beat Kamala Harris at the polls.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made multiple private phone calls to Donald Trump last month, urging him to launch military action against Iran, even as he publicly favoured diplomacy, according to a report by The Washington Post.

The report said the crown prince pressed for a strike despite earlier public statements in January in which he insisted Saudi Arabia would not allow its airspace or territory to be used for attacks on Iran. At the time, he called for dialogue between Washington and Tehran and said Riyadh respected Iran’s sovereignty.

The US and Israel went on to carry out joint strikes targeting Iranian military and government sites after nuclear talks stalled and amid claims that Tehran had resumed aspects of its nuclear programme. President Trump said the “heavy and pinpoint bombing” would continue for as long as necessary.

Three people died and 14 people have been hospitalized in a shooting on West Sixth Street in Austin early Sunday morning. The shooting is being investigated by the FBI as a potential act of terrorism, according to Acting Special Agent in Charge Alex Doran.

The suspect, who's included in the number of dead, was killed by Austin police officers responding to the shooting.

The shooting happened at Buford's, a bar at the intersection of West Sixth and Rio Grande streets. In a 9:30 a.m. news conference, Austin Police Department Chief Lisa Davis said the suspect drove around the block several times in an SUV before he rolled down his windows and shot bar customers on the patio and in front of the bar.

Three U.S. troops were killed and five more “seriously wounded” as part of the joint U.S.-Israel operation targeting Iranian military sites and government officials, according to U.S. Central Command, marking the first American deaths in the conflict.

Several other troops “sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions,” the command said Sunday, without giving a location. Iranian missiles have targeted some American bases in Bahrain, Iraq and Kuwait as part of the conflict, which the Pentagon has dubbed Operation Epic Fury.

These are the first confirmed U.S. fatalities since Donald Trump announced Saturday that the U.S. had begun “major combat operations” in Iran. And they dramatically raise the stakes. The fatalities are likely to intensify pressure on the White House and the Pentagon to respond forcefully, potentially widening the conflict beyond limited strikes into a more sustained military campaign.