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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday defended strikes on Iran’s infrastructure since the U.S. and Israel began their joint war against the country in February, saying “sometimes you have to escalate to de-escalate.”

His comments came just hours after President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that he was giving Iranian leadership 48 hours to open the Strait of Hormuz or risk U.S. military strikes that “will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!”

Bessent defended Trump’s rhetoric, saying it’s “the only language the Iranians understand.”

Nebraska, Indiana and West Virginia Republicans have all rolled back child labor regulations while the number of violations has risen fivefold in the last decade

The number of child labor violations has risen fivefold in the last 10 years, but Republicans across the US are continuing to propose and pass legislation that rolls back protections or regulations for workers under the age of 18.

Republicans in Nebraska, Indiana and West Virginia have successfully passed legislation in 2026 rolling back child labor regulations, with legislation led by Republicans pending in other states, including Florida, Missouri and Virginia.

The efforts to roll back child labor protections at the state level, with the ultimate goal of eroding federal standards, were outlined in Project 2025, the rightwing Heritage Foundation thinktank’s controversial blueprint for more conservative government.

Iran will completely shut the strategic Strait ​of Hormuz if Trump executes threats to target Iranian energy facilities, ​the country's Revolutionary Guards ​said in a statement on ⁠Sunday.

Trump on Saturday threatened ​to "obliterate" Iran's power plants ​if Tehran did not fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz within ​48-hours, suggesting a significant ​escalation barely a day after he ‌talked ⁠about "winding down" the war, now in its fourth week.

In their Sunday statement Iran's ​Revolutionary ​Guards ⁠also said companies with U.S. shares will ​be 'completely destroyed', if Iranian ​energy ⁠facilities were targeted by Washington and energy facilities ⁠in ​countries that host ​U.S. bases will be 'lawful' targets.

Donald Trump ends the third week of the Iran war confronting a crisis that seems to be slipping out of his hands: Global energy prices are surging, the United States stands isolated from allies and more ​troops are preparing to deploy despite his promise the war would be only a "short excursion."

A defensive Trump called other NATO countries "cowards" for refusing to help secure the Strait of Hormuz and insisted the campaign was ‌unfolding according to plan. But his declaration on Friday that the battle "was Militarily WON" clashed with the reality of a defiant Iran that is choking off Gulf oil and gas supplies while launching missile strikes across the region.

Trump, who took office promising to keep the U.S. out of "stupid" military interventions, now appears to control neither the outcome nor the messaging of a conflict he helped to initiate. The lack of a clear exit strategy carries risks both for his presidential legacy and his party's political prospects as Republicans scramble to defend narrow majorities in Congress in the November midterm elections.

The Strait of Hormuz remains open to all shipping ​except vessels linked to "Iran's enemies", Iranian media reports ‌published on Sunday quoted Iran's representative to the U.N. maritime agency as saying.

Ali Mousavi's comments came from an interview ​published on Friday by Chinese news agency Xinhua, ​before U.S. President Donald Trump's threat to target ⁠Iranian power plants if the strait was not "fully ​open" within 48 hours.

The threat of Iranian attacks during ​the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has kept most ships from getting through the narrow strait, the conduit for around a fifth ​of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies, ​threatening a global energy shock.

Steeped in gaming and rightwing culture wars, Musk and his team of teenage coders set out to defeat the enemy of the United States: its people

If the mandate of DOGE was to “[modernise] federal technology and software to maximise governmental efficiency and productivity”, in the words of the executive order that launched the initiative on 20 January 2025, the reality was a strengthening of the state’s surveillance capacities.

Over time, Musk had become convinced that the real bugs in the code were people, especially the non-white illegal immigrants whom he saw as pawns in a liberal scheme to corrupt democracy and beneficiaries of what he called “suicidal empathy”. He understood empathy itself in coding terms. It was an “exploit” or a software vulnerability against which the system architecture needed to be hardened.

There has been rare public resistance to the push to throttle Telegram, Russia's most popular messaging app, with even some pro-Kremlin hawks fearing it could backfire.

The Kremlin’s tightening grip on Russian life has a new target: the country’s most popular messaging app.

Ordinary Russians and even pro-Kremlin hawks have offered rare public pushback against the campaign to throttle Telegram, warning it could backfire, not just at home but for Russia’s military in Ukraine.

The app is woven into the daily existence of those who support and oppose the government alike. But the Kremlin is instead pushing people to its new “national” messenger MAX, which many fear could be used to surveil them as part of a deepening crackdown on freedoms since the invasion of Ukraine. Those fears have been amplified by a wave of mobile internet outages, including recent disruptions in Moscow, which authorities have justified as necessary for security.

Tehran claimed the strike demonstrated capabilities for long-distance attacks, with Diego Garcia the same distance from Iran as much of central Europe.

Iran has fired missiles at the joint U.K.-U.S. Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean, claiming the strike shows it is capable of longer-distance attacks than previously known.

Tehran fired two intermediate-range ballistic missiles at the base in the Chagos Islands, a remote British overseas territory located more than 2,000 miles from Tehran, Iran’s semiofficial Mehr news agency reported on Saturday. Neither missile hit the base, it added, though neither Iran nor the U.K. specified how close the missiles came to Diego Garcia.

The distance of the attempted strike could indicate that Iran has capabilities for long-distance attacks that it has previously denied, with the base the same distance from Iran as much of central Europe. It is unclear, however, if the missiles carried a payload or how far such an attack could truly reach, as neither missile reached its target.

Meanwhile, dozens were injured by Iranian strikes in Israel, as Tehran targeted a nuclear site.

Donald Trump threatened Iran in a Truth Social post Saturday evening, warning that the U.S. would target the nation’s power plants if the Strait of Hormuz remained closed.

“If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!” Trump wrote in the post.

Approximately 20% of the world’s oil passes through the the Strait of Hormuz, a critical trade route. Iranian attacks on ships in the area have seen the area essentially close to maritime traffic, while oil prices have soared globally.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who is a leading Republican candidate for governor, has seized more than 650,000 ballots from last November’s election and is investigating whether they were fraudulently counted.

“This investigation is simple: Physically count the ballots and compare that result with the total votes recorded,” Bianco said at a news conference Friday.

The unusual probe drew a sharp rebuke from California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who said in a statement Friday that it is “unprecedented in both scope and scale” and appears “not to be based on facts or evidence.”

States argue deal would create largest broadcast station group in US, cut jobs and increase consumers’ cable bills

Eight states asked a US judge on Friday to issue a temporary restraining order to stop a $3.5bn merger of Nexstar Media Group and Tegna.

On Thursday, the local broadcast station owners received merger approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the US Department of Justice and said they had closed the transaction two hours after approval, the day after the states filed their lawsuit.

The states argue that the deal, which would create the largest broadcast station group in the US, would “put more broadcast programming in the hands of fewer people, cut local jobs, increase cable bills, and significantly impact the delivery of news and other media content to Americans nationwide”.

Mark Robinson, who ran for North Carolina governor in 2024, tells podcast he had ‘obsession’ with porn and sex

The former Republican North Carolina lieutenant governor Mark Robinson has admitted he misled voters during his unsuccessful 2024 gubernatorial campaign when he denied posting racist and offensive comments on a pornography website – suggesting he did so to protect Donald Trump’s successful presidential run.

Robinson, who worked in furniture manufacturing before entering politics in 2020, told the After the Call podcast on Thursday: “I won’t say that I completely lied. Some of the things about the whole story – some of it — there’s some truth to it.”

The spectacular undoing of Robinson’s political career came after CNN reported in September 2024 that he had been posting under a pseudonym on Nude Africa, an online porn forum.