Top Stories — Tuesday, April 21, 2026
What is trending in the USA today? Here is Breaking News:
- In Lebanon, residents of the south make their way home over signs of war. — nyt News
- $150K over asking isn't enough: NJ real estate agent warns ‘average person’ is being priced out — Fox Business
In Lebanon, residents of the south make their way home over signs of war.
Source: nyt News • Published: 4/20/2026, 11:55:53 PM
Beirut9:42 p.m. April 20
Despite sending mixed signals in recent days, both the United States and Iran gave clearer indications on Monday that they were planning to send negotiators to peace talks in Pakistan this week.
Vice President JD Vance is expected to leave Washington for Islamabad on Tuesday, according to two U.S. officials, and two Iranian officials said that Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the influential political and military figure who attended the last round of talks, would attend if Mr. Vance also did. The new round of talks had been in doubt as the countries traded threats over the weekend, and as their two-week cease-fire neared its expiration.
Both countries’ presidents have reiterated their hardened stances. President Trump said Monday on social media that “if Iran’s new leaders (Regime Change!) are smart, Iran can have a great and prosperous future!” And Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran’s president, said that continuing the war “benefits no one,” but followed up with a post saying that there was “deep historical mistrust” looming over the upcoming talks.
The conflicting signals echoed those Iran sent before the first round of talks, which ended without an agreement to end the war. Iran had cast doubt on those negotiations even taking place, only for its delegation to arrive hours later.
The two-week truce, which went into effect April 8, is being tested in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for oil and gas that Tehran has sought to control, prompting the United States to blockade Iranian ports. A U.S. Navy destroyer fired on an Iranian cargo ship on Sunday after it defied that blockade, Mr. Trump said, and ultimately U.S. forces seized it. Iran’s armed forces called it “piracy,” warning that they would soon retaliate, according to Tasnim, a semiofficial Iranian news agency.
Here’s what else we are covering:
Pakistan: Preparations were underway for new U.S.-Iran peace talks in Pakistan. Officials said they would deploy 10,000 extra security personnel in Islamabad, the capital.
Lebanon: The State Department will host another round of ambassador-level talks between Israel and Lebanon on Thursday, the department said. Israel wants the disarmament of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group, and Lebanon wants a complete Israeli withdrawal from its south.
Energy prices: The energy secretary, Chris Wright, acknowledged on Sunday that gasoline prices in the United States could remain elevated for months. Oil prices are up by about 33 percent since the war began on Feb. 28.
Reporting from the Litani River, southern Lebanon.
Among the throngs of displaced people making their way home to southern Lebanon on Monday was one family trying to cross what remained of a bridge over the Litani River, the informal boundary between northern and southern Lebanon.
A bomb appeared to have taken out a large chunk of the bridge, which lay near the village of Tayr Felsay. Still, people were making their way across by climbing over cracked concrete.
Since the cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon began Friday, roads to the south were packed with displaced people trying to return to their homes. Israel has said it plans to occupy all of southern Lebanon below this river.
More than a million people in Lebanon were displaced during the current conflict, the second full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah in recent years. Nearly 2,300 people were killed, according to the Lebanese health ministry, a tally including civilians and Hezbollah fighters.
President Trump is working to broker a permanent cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon. The administration said Israel would accept a 10-day truce last week in an effort to secure a durable deal. Hezbollah also said it agreed to abide by the truce.
The cease-fire is mostly holding, though it is far from clear that either party is can meet the other’s demands. The Lebanese government wants a full withdrawal of Israeli forces. But those forces continue to occupy large swathes of southern Lebanon, and are razing buildings in Lebanese towns close to the border.
Israel has conditioned its departure on the disarmament of Hezbollah, whose forces are generally seen as more powerful than the Lebanese army. Analysts say Lebanese leaders may struggle to disarm the group, fearing the rupture could kick off domestic unrest or even civil war.
For now, many displaced Lebanese are still waiting to see what happens next.
Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.
Reporting from Washington
A group of senators has called on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to answer questions about his execution of military operations against Iran, saying several of his actions violated federal and international laws and weakened norms for protecting civilians.
The 11 senators, all from the Democratic caucus, sent a letter to Mr. Hegseth on Sunday evening. Led by Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the group demanded that Mr. Hegseth explain his actions by May 4.
The letter referred to four separate attacks that killed civilians, including a Tomahawk missile strike on an elementary school in Minab that killed 175 people and a Precision Strike Missile attack in Lamerd that killed 21. Both attacks occurred in February, at the beginning of the war.
The senators said they were “concerned that these were all preventable tragedies.”
“The high human toll of this war reflects the administration’s broader disregard for the strategic legal, and moral imperative to minimize civilian harm,” the senators added.
The senators took note of Mr. Hegseth’s declaration on March 13 that he would offer “no quarter” and “no mercy for our enemies,” which they said was an explicit violation of international law, as well as the Defense Department’s own “Law of War Manual.” A no-quarter order means U.S. forces would continue to attack an enemy who is wounded and no longer capable of fighting back.
Such orders also endanger U.S. service members, the senators said, as they “erode good order and discipline” and could invite Iranian forces to reciprocate in kind against American troops.
The lawmakers noted that Mr. Hegseth had gutted Pentagon offices created to reduce civilian harm, shortly after taking office as defense secretary.
Protecting civilians in combat, they said, “is essential for the U.S. military’s operational effectiveness and central to U.S. interests."
Mr. Hegseth’s bellicose statements deriding legal concerns in war in order to celebrate and focus on killing harms the credibility of the armed forces, the senators said, and exacerbates “threats to civilians and U.S. service members alike.”
The Pentagon’s efforts to formalize processes for limiting civilian casualties in war, the senators noted, began during the first Trump administration. The secretary’s actions, they said, contradict “more than a decade of bipartisan consensus” to “systematically prevent and address civilian harm” in military operations.
“Thousands of innocent people are dead after the Trump administration gutted programs meant to prevent civilian harm,” Ms. Warren said in a statement. “Hegseth’s chaos and incompetence are a danger to both civilians and our troops. We need answers and accountability now.”
Mr. Hegseth’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Pakistani officials said they are proceeding with preparations for a second round of talks they expect to host later this week between U.S. and Iranian officials. Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said in a readout from his office that “foolproof security arrangements have been made for foreign delegations.” That is a key concern for Tehran, because many of its officials have been killed in U.S. and Israeli strikes in Iran. The Serena hotel in Islamabad, which hosted the first round of talks earlier this month, has been cleared of clients. and Pakistan has deployed thousands of additional security personnel in the city.
The Israeli military said Monday that it was investigating one of its soldiers after he was photographed in southern Lebanon swinging a sledgehammer at the head of a statue of a crucified Jesus that had fallen off a cross.
The military said it had confirmed that the photograph was authentic and that the statue had indeed been damaged, but said it had not yet determined when the vandalism had occurred. It took place in Debl, a Christian village a few miles north of the Israeli border.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the soldier’s actions and said he was “stunned and saddened” by this. He expressed regret for any hurt caused “to believers in Lebanon and around the world.”
He vowed that the military would “take appropriately harsh disciplinary action against the offender.”
The military declared the soldier’s conduct “wholly inconsistent with the values expected of its troops” and said it was working to assist the community in Lebanon to restore the statue to its place.
Late Monday afternoon, the military said it had identified the soldier who wielded the sledgehammer and that an investigation by the army’s Northern Command was ongoing.
Akl Naddaf, the mayor of Debl, said the statue was in the garden of a private home in an area where residents have been barred since they were forced to flee about a month ago by Israel’s offensive.
“We also hope that the Israeli army will open an investigation into the homes they are destroying in Debl and into the breaking of statues of saints inside them,” he said.
Lebanon is home to the largest proportion of Christians of any country in the region. Christians are one of the country’s three dominant demographic groups, along with Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
Christians in Israel said they were shocked by the photograph, which went viral on Sunday night.
“I wanted to believe it wasn’t real,” said Farid Jubran, a spokesman for the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which oversees Latin Catholics in Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan and Cyprus.
“It’s heartbreaking to see such an act of aggression against such an important symbol — the symbol for Christians around the world,” Mr. Jubran added. He called for a firm enough punishment to ensure some measure of deterrence.
Mr. Netanyahu said in a social-media post that “Israel cherishes and upholds the Jewish values of tolerance and mutual respect between Jews and worshipers of all faiths.”
Yet Israeli attacks on Christians and Christian places have become increasingly commonplace since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which set off the two-year war in Gaza and prompted a rightward lurch among many Israelis.
An annual report by the Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue, an interreligious group in Jerusalem, documented “a continued and expanding pattern of intimidation and aggression” of harassment or violence directed at Christians in Israel by Israeli Jews in 2025.
It described 155 incidents, including 61 physical attacks on people and 52 attacks on church properties. The most common expression of hostility was spitting at churches and clergy members, often in broad daylight or even in front of police officers, the report found.
Such hostility stems in part from Jewish concerns about Christian proselytizing and from a belief among some that Christianity is idolatry, the center wrote in a separate report.
The center noted a sharp rise in cases of verbal harassment, which it said reinforced the perception among Christians that they are seen as “unwanted guests” in Israel rather than a legitimate and integral part of the Holy Land’s religious and social fabric.
Hana Bendowsky, who leads a Rossing Center project to teach Israeli Jews about Christianity, said that hostility toward non-Jews was being fueled by the rise of Israeli nationalism, and by a growing sense that “the whole world’s an antisemite, that everyone who’s not us should be rejected and should not be here.”
She cited widespread ignorance and an attitude among some Israelis of “Jewish superiority,” and said that many failed to appreciate that, as the majority in their country, Jews had “a responsibility to the minority.”
Ms. Bendowsky lamented that no one around the soldier stopped him.
“There’s not enough education about how inappropriate and damaging this kind of thing is, not just to our image,” she said. “It’s damaging to our souls, to our identity, to our humanity.”
Dayana Iwaza contributed reporting from Beirut.
The U.S. State Department will host a second round of ambassador-level talks between Israel and Lebanon on Thursday, the department said. A first round of talks last week helped produce a 10-day cease-fire agreement between Israel and Lebanon, where Israel has been fighting Hezbollah, Iran’s prominent proxy.
An Iranian delegation is making plans to travel to Islamabad on Tuesday for negotiations with the United States, according to two senior Iranian officials familiar with the plans. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the influential political and military figure leading the talks, will attend if Vice President JD Vance also attends, the two officials said. Vance is scheduled to depart Washington for Pakistan on Tuesday and with the long flight, an Iranian delegation will have ample time to travel from Tehran.
The U.S. Navy has now turned back 27 ships entering or exiting Iranian ports, according to the United States Central Command, as the American blockade enters its second week. That’s up from 25 ships on Sunday. A U.S. military official said on Monday that a boarding team of Marines was searching up to 5,000 containers aboard the Touska, an Iranian cargo ship that was disabled and seized in the Gulf of Oman on Sunday after it tried to evade the blockade.
Vice President Vance is now expected to leave Washington for Pakistan on Tuesday, his second trip there for talks with Iran, according to two U.S. officials. President Trump has issued a number of conflicting statements about the talks, including telling the New York Post on Monday morning that the vice president had already left for the negotiations. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations.
Only three ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Monday as traffic in the crucial waterway slowed to a near halt, according to data from Kpler, a firm that tracks maritime traffic.
On Saturday, 24 ships crossed the strait after Iran had declared the passage open to commercial vessels at the start of a cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon. But within 24 hours, Iran reversed course and said it had returned the strait “to its previous state.”
Only one made it through on Sunday, according to Kpler figures, which refer to ships carrying crude oil and chemicals, but not cruise ships or container ships. Kpler uses satellites and transponders to track the movement of ships.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, which is administered by Britain’s Royal Navy, said that two vessels had been hit, according to a notice published on Saturday. In one instance, gun ships operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps fired at a tanker without radio warning, the British organization said. In the second incident, a container ship was hit by “an unknown projectile” that damaged some of the containers. Those ships, and several others, then reversed course. The attacks over the weekend were the first attacks since the cease-fire began on April 8.
At least 20 vessels have been attacked in recent weeks, according to the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency.
And most shipping companies said the situation was too precarious to try to navigate ships through the strait. The average number of vessels crossing the Strait of Hormuz before the war was more than 120 per day.
On Monday, the three ships that crossed the strait were the Nova Crest, which sailed under a Barbadian flag, the Starway (Liberia) and the Axon 1 (Gambia), according to Kpler.
A two-week cease-fire between the United States and Iran, which is scheduled to expire on Wednesday in the Gulf, remained precarious on Monday. A U.S. Navy destroyer fired on an Iran-flagged vessel that was trying to evade a blockade on Sunday. President Trump said a U.S. delegation would head to Pakistan for more peace talks, but the spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry said there were “no plans” in place for the next round of peace talks there.
Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remained mostly at a standstill on Monday, with just three vessels crossing the vital waterway, according to Kpler, a maritime data firm. Around two dozen ships were reported to have crossed on Saturday after Iran declared that the strait was open to commercial shipping. But traffic once again slowed to a trickle after Iran reversed course and said it would exert “strict control” over the strait in response to the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports.
The State Department issued a stark warning to U.S. citizens and associates in Iraq, saying that “Iraq’s Iran-aligned terrorist militias continue planning additional attacks against U.S. citizens and U.S.-associated targets throughout Iraq, including in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.” It added that missiles, drones and projectiles fired by militias pose a potential threat to commercial airplanes and it warned people against approaching the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and consulates elsewhere because of the continuing threats around those buildings. The department’s warning level for Iraq remains four — “do not travel.” The department said all routine consular services at missions in Iraq remain suspended.
President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran said Monday that while Iran must stand firm “against injustice and excessive demands,” the continuation of the war “benefits no one.”
“The more issues can be managed through reason and in a calm environment, the more it will benefit everyone,” he said in a statement posted on social media.
Joseph Aoun, the Lebanese president, said on Monday that he had appointed Simon Karam, a former ambassador to the United States, to lead bilateral talks with Israel. Writing on social media, he said the negotiations would aim to end the war and achieve a complete Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon. Israel has its own demands, which include the disarming of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group. Aoun’s call for direct talks with Israel drew criticism from Hezbollah, which he has rebuffed. “I have chosen the path of negotiation, and I am hopeful that we can save Lebanon,” Aoun said.
Foreign airlines are permitted to gradually resume operations in Qatar, the country’s civil aviation authority said on Monday, adding that the decision followed “a comprehensive assessment of the situation.” Many flights to and from Qatar, a global aviation hub, have been disrupted since the beginning of the war.
A spokesman for Iran’s military reiterated a threat on Monday to “take the necessary action against the U.S. military” after American forces attacked an Iranian cargo ship near the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s state broadcaster reported. Iran has waited to take action so far in order to protect the ship’s crew and some of their family members, he said, but will act “once it is ensured that the lives of the families and crew of the vessel attacked by the United States are safeguarded.”
Tyler Pager is a White House correspondent and reported from Washington. He traveled with Mr. Vance to Islamabad, Pakistan, for the first round of peace talks with Iran.
JD Vance will try again.
The vice president is scheduled to lead an American delegation back to Islamabad, Pakistan, this week for another round of in-person negotiations with Iran after failing to secure a deal just over a week ago.
Whether the talks even occur seems in dispute. Hours after President Trump announced the trip on Sunday, Iranian state media said that Tehran had not yet agreed to any such meeting. Later, Mr. Trump announced that a Naval destroyer had attacked an Iranian-flagged cargo ship that tried to skirt the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz.
The conditions for a new round of diplomacy were, at best, imperfect, and the stakes for a second failure high, both for ending a war that neither side seems to want to prolong and for Mr. Vance himself.
As a two-week cease-fire nears an end, and as Mr. Vance prepared for another long journey to Pakistan, Mr. Trump again threatened maximalist consequences if Iran failed to agree to his terms.
“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran,” the president wrote on social media on Sunday. “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!”
While Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s special envoy, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, will also be at the talks, Mr. Vance is center stage, tasked with finding a way out of a war that is increasingly unpopular with Americans and that has continued to weaken the global economy and the vastly complex energy supply chain. It is also a conflict that Mr. Vance told Mr. Trump, during deliberations on whether to attack, could be seen as a betrayal to loyal voters who did not want more wars. He has nonetheless defended it publicly.
Mr. Vance spent 21 hours in Pakistan last weekend negotiating with the Iranians, only to walk away with no deal. Allies and adversaries alike say that if he is unable to make any progress this time, it will be the latest political setback, as the world watches, for a man who wants to succeed Mr. Trump.
The vice president traveled to Hungary earlier this month to campaign with Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a hero to the U.S. right wing who went on to lose re-election. Mr. Vance, who announced last month that he was writing a book about his conversion to Catholicism, also found himself defending Mr. Trump in a row with Pope Leo XIV, and took much grief online for suggesting that the head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics should be more “careful” when discussing theology.
Mr. Trump appears to have further complicated the negotiations and, thus, Mr. Vance’s task. The president spent much of the weekend proclaiming that Iran had agreed to all of his demands and expressing optimism that a deal was close.
Iranian leaders have denied his claims. But still, for Iran, reaching a deal with Washington could also be crucial to easing pressure on an economy already in crisis before the war — and the spark that set off nationwide protests earlier this year.
A deal could also potentially unlock billions of dollars in Iranian assets frozen by Washington or at least partially lift punishing sanctions that isolated Iran from the global economy. Such a boost would be critical for Iran to repair this war’s destruction, not just on its military sites, but also on major factories, universities and infrastructure.
On April 12, when Mr. Vance abruptly left Islamabad after a marathon session of negotiations, he said the United States had made its “final and best offer.” U.S. officials say that despite the public bluster, the two sides have made strides toward a deal since that apparent ultimatum.
How far they can get in any new talks remains unclear, given the deeply sensitive unresolved issues, including the specifics of nuclear enrichment. U.S. officials said the Trump administration wanted a ban on nuclear enrichment for 20 years. Iran had countered with five years.
The status of the Strait of Hormuz also remains in dispute.
Iran imposed a blockade on the channel itself, through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil normally travels, and the United States countered by blocking traffic to Iranian ports. On Saturday, Iran attacked two Indian vessels attempting a transit, acts that Mr. Trump described earlier on Sunday as a “total violation of our cease-fire.”
Nonetheless, Pakistan appeared to be readying for a fresh round of talks, an indication that the negotiations were likely to go forward even as the two sides sent conflicting public messages. Islamabad, the capital, went on a security lockdown on Sunday night, and officials said they would deploy 10,000 extra security forces in the city.
Erika Solomon contributed reporting.
Esmail Baghaei, a spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, said Monday that a transfer of Iran’s uranium had not been discussed in negotiations with the United States, according to Iran’s state broadcaster. President Trump said Thursday that Iran had agreed to hand over its “nuclear dust” as part of any peace deal.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said that there are “no plans” in place for the next round of peace talks in Pakistan — an apparent denial of President Trump’s statement that U.S. negotiators would arrive in Islamabad on Monday for a second round of negotiations. The spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, said during a weekly news conference on Monday, that no decision has been made, and accused the U.S. of engaging in actions that in no way “demonstrate seriousness in pursuing a diplomatic process,” state media reported.
Iranian officials have not confirmed their participation in a second round of talks, but U.S. and Pakistani officials are still moving ahead with preparations for negotiations they say will take place later this week in Islamabad. The Serena Hotel, which hosted the first round, has been cleared once again, and with dozens of checkpoints across the city, officials appear focused on “when,” not “if.”
Tensions remained high four days into the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Israeli military said it had struck a loaded rocket launcher outside the zone it occupies in southern Lebanon, calling it an imminent threat. Hezbollah said an Israeli convoy on Sunday triggered explosives that its militants had previously planted in the region.
Israel has said it will continue carrying out what it describes as defensive strikes during the truce and demolishing buildings in the zone it has invaded.
Reporting from Washington
A U.S. Navy destroyer in the Arabian Sea repeatedly warned an Iranian-flagged cargo ship to stop over a six-hour period on Sunday before firing on the ship’s engine room and disabling it, U.S. Central Command said in a statement on social media. Helicopter-borne Marines then swooped down and seized the vessel.
It was the first time a vessel was reported to have tried to evade the U.S.-imposed blockade on any ship entering or exiting Iranian ports since it took effect last week. Previously, 25 other ships intercepted by a Navy flotilla operating outside the Strait of Hormuz had turned around when hailed by Navy crew members, Central Command said.
When the captain of the Iranian vessel, the Touska, ignored multiple radioed American warnings to halt or else, the guided-missile destroyer Spruance, one of more than a dozen Navy warships enforcing the U.S. blockade, ordered the Touska’s crew to evacuate its engine room. The Spruance then fired several rounds from its Mk 45 gun into the ship’s propulsion system as it steamed toward the port of Bandar Abbas in Iran, Central Command said.
The Mk-45 deck gun, located on the Spruance’s bow, can shoot 16 to 20 rounds per minute. The 5-inch-diameter projectiles it fires weigh about 70 pounds each and contain the equivalent of roughly 10 pounds of TNT. The most commonly used fuze can be programmed to detonate the round on impact, or to airburst above its target. The detonation can also follow a slight delay after impact, allowing the shell to penetrate a ship’s hull before exploding.
A boarding party from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit was conducting a search of the vessel and its cargo on Sunday, all of which is now in American custody, a U.S. military official said.
“American forces acted in a deliberate, professional, and proportional manner to ensure compliance,” Central Command’s statement said.
American officials will determine what to do with the disabled vessel once the search is completed, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. One option would be to tow the stricken ship to Oman, independent specialists said on Sunday.
The Touska was one of “several vessels of interest” that U.S. intelligence analysts have been monitoring in recent days, both inside and outside the blockade boundary the U.S. military official said.
“We have eyes on every single one of them,” Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of Central Command, told reporters on Friday.
Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Thursday that U.S. military commanders elsewhere in the world, and especially in the Indo-Pacific region, would “actively pursue any Iranian-flagged vessel or any vessel attempting to provide material support to Iran.”
John Ismay contributed reporting.
In a post on X, U.S. Central Command shared a video it says shows an American warship firing on an Iranian-flagged cargo vessel, the Touska, after it failed to comply with warnings to turn around.
The footage, recorded from the perspective of the warship, focuses on a cargo vessel with features that appear to match the Touska sailing across the open water. A voice is heard telling the crew of the vessel to vacate the engine room, announcing “we’re prepared to subject you to disabling fire.” Some radio chatter is audible as a loud horn blares. Three subsequent clips appear to show the warship firing at the vessel, but each clip cuts before an impact is clearly visible.
The video is composed of several clips and appears to have been recorded at different times throughout the day, based on the lighting and the sun’s position in the sky. The Times was not able to verify when each clip was filmed, or if they were edited together in the order they were recorded.
Oil prices shot higher and stocks wobbled on Monday after a weekend of renewed conflict around the Strait of Hormuz dampened hope that the waterway might soon reopen.
On Sunday, a U.S. Navy destroyer attacked and seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship that President Trump said had tried to evade the U.S. blockade on ships traveling to and from Iranian ports. And on Saturday, a day after Iran’s foreign minister declared the strait open, the country reversed course, reasserting “strict control” over it and attacking two Indian-flagged vessels.
This is set to be a pivotal week in the war, now in its eighth week, with the cease-fire between the United States and Iran set to expire within days. Mr. Trump said the United States was sending a delegation to Pakistan for further negotiations with Iran, though it was not clear that Iran was on board.
The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, climbed more than 4 percent to around $94 a barrel.
West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, experienced a similar jump, rising to around $88 a barrel.
Investors and analysts are focused on the continued disruption to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that is a vital trading route for oil and natural gas and normally carries as much as one-fifth of the world’s oil supply.
The S&P 500 fell 0.2 percent in Monday morning trading. The index has risen sharply in recent weeks and ended trading on Friday 3.6 percent higher than before the war began.
In Europe, the Stoxx 600, a broad index that tracks the region’s largest companies, fell about 1 percent.
But stocks in Asia, where countries import vast quantities of oil and gas, posted gains. South Korea’s benchmark Kospi, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose a bit less than 1 percent.
Gas prices fell on Monday to a national average of $4.04 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club. That is down from a recent high of $4.17 earlier in April. Still, drivers are paying about 36 percent more for gas than they were when the war began.
Diesel prices also stood at $5.53 on Monday, up 47 percent since the start of the war.
Gas prices don’t move in lock step with crude, usually trailing increases or drops by a few days. On Sunday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright acknowledged what analysts widely have been predicting: that Americans are unlikely to see gasoline prices return to prewar levels anytime soon.
Here is a county-level look at where drivers are facing the highest costs.
Around the Strait of Hormuz, “shippers will hold off on attempting passage due to the potent risk of Iranian attack,” analysts at Eurasia Group wrote in a note. They expected shipping volumes to remain low, at up to 30 percent of normal at the high end.
Reopening the waterway would require a breakthrough in peace talks between the United States and Iran. “While the U.S. is projecting confidence that a deal can be reached, signals from the Iranian side are more pessimistic,” the analysts wrote. “Both sides are attempting to maximize leverage ahead of further rounds of negotiations,” they added.
The United States military last week extended its blockade on vessels coming in and out of Iranian ports to the waters of the wider world, declaring that it would pursue any ship aiding Iran, regardless of location on the high seas or flag.
The U.S. “will actively pursue any Iranian-flagged vessel or any vessel attempting to provide material support to Iran,” Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday, noting that the American troops beyond the Middle East will engage in operations to thwart Iranian shipping.
The extension of the blockade comes as the economically vital Strait of Hormuz remains all but closed to commercial traffic and the two-week cease-fire between the United States and Iran nears an end. The move aligns longstanding American economic policies targeting Iran with the current military campaign against it, maritime and military law experts say.
But it raises a host of legal and practical questions.
“War is a messy thing not just on the combat side but under national and international law,” said James R. Holmes, chair of maritime strategy at the Naval War College.
“From a legal standpoint, a blockade is an act of war, so the blockade probably is legal to the extent Operation Epic Fury is,” he said using the name of the U.S. military campaign against Iran.
Since Congress has not declared war against Iran, no formal state of war exists between the United States and the Islamic Republic. But Mr. Holmes noted that “undeclared wars are more the rule than the exception in U.S. history,” with joint resolutions of Congress, United Nations Security Council resolutions and NATO decisions invoked to justify fighting.
“This campaign may be more unilateral than most, but it is not without precedent,” he said.
Under international law, the legality of the blockade is “more ambiguous,” said Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior fellow and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, a foreign policy think tank in Washington.
For a blockade to be legal, Ms. Kavanagh said, it must be “effective,” meaning that it is both enforceable and enforced. Some would argue that a “‘global blockade’ is not permissible in conception” because it is overly broad, she said.
Still, expansive blockades have taken place throughout history, including during World War II, when states enforced naval blockades worldwide other than in neutral territorial seas. Over the centuries before that, the British blockaded France throughout the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and during the War of American Independence, the colonies and their allies raided British shipping as far away as the Indian Ocean.
Enforcing expansive blockades is difficult, however.
“The seven seas are a big place, and the largest navy or coast guard is tiny by comparison,” Mr. Holmes said. Whether the U.S. blockade ultimately is deemed “effective,” legally speaking, will depend on whether the U.S. has enough assets like ships, aircraft, boarding crews and intelligence gathering to enforce it.
The blockade does not have to be “airtight” to meet the legal test, Mr. Holmes said, and assessing its effectiveness will be tough for outside observers in any case.
Enforcement may also have to be somewhat selective, he suggested.
“Now, it is possible our leadership might quietly let a ship proceed when it suits the national interest,” Mr. Holmes said. “For instance, with a summit coming up between President Trump and General Secretary Xi” — Mr. Trump is to meet with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in May — “Washington might not want to ruffle feathers by obstructing China’s oil imports.”
The expanded blockade is part of a longstanding economic campaign against Iran, but it represents something of a tactical change for the Trump administration.
Earlier in the war, the United States temporarily lifted sanctions on Iranian oil at sea to ease the pressure on global energy prices. And before imposing a blockade on Iranian ports last week, the U.S. allowed Iranian tankers to transit the Strait of Hormuz for the same reason.
Now Washington seems to be returning its focus to keeping pressure on Iran.
“The blockade is a wartime extension of existing U.S. economic sanctions against the Iranian regime,” said James Kraska, professor of international maritime law and a visiting professor at Harvard Law School. In peacetime, he said, the sanctions were a “powerful tool to weaken the Iranian economy.” Now, he said, the blockade serves as a “kinetic expansion.”
General Caine’s announcement about the expanded naval blockade came one day after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced “Operation Economic Fury,” an effort he called the “financial equivalent” of a bombing campaign. It includes secondary sanctions on institutions internationally, like banks, that have dealings with Iran.
The expanded blockade “marks a notable escalation by the United States,” said Ms. Kavanagh.
Still, she said, it is unlikely to significantly change Iranian calculations.
“For Iran, this war is existential and it is not going to cave easily or quickly,” she said. “Economic pressure may work over the very long term, but Trump seems too impatient for a deal to wait it out.”
The Touska had departed from Malaysia with cargo and crossed the U.S. blockade line before it was intercepted, according to TankerTrackers.com, a company that monitors global oil shipments.
The Touska, an Iranian-owned container ship that President Trump said was fired on by U.S. forces, last broadcast its position six hours ago from a location in the Gulf of Oman around 30 miles off of Iran’s coast, according to data from MarineTraffic, a website that tracks global shipping. The vessel is currently under U.S. sanctions for its ties to Iran’s shipping industry.
President Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said the U.S. military had attacked an Iranian-flagged cargo ship that tried to maneuver around the American blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which remains heavily contested amid ongoing negotiations between U.S. and Iran.
“The U.S. Navy Guided Missile Destroyer USS SPRUANCE intercepted the TOUSKA in the Gulf of Oman, and gave them fair warning to stop,” he wrote. “The Iranian crew refused to listen, so our Navy ship stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a hole in the engineroom. Right now, U.S. Marines have custody of the vessel.”
Trump said the vessel was under U.S. sanctions “because of their prior history of illegal activity” and that U.S. forces were “seeing what’s on board!”
Read the full story at nyt News.
$150K over asking isn't enough: NJ real estate agent warns ‘average person’ is being priced out
Source: Fox Business • Published: 4/20/2026, 11:49:05 PM
Amanda Cruz thought she was playing it safe, as the New Jersey real estate agent recently placed an offer for a client at $150,000 over the asking price — a figure she feared was "a little bit high for the market."
It turns out she wasn't even close.
"Someone else came in much higher than us. Like, we weren't even in the ballpark," Cruz explained in a now-viral social media post currently gaining hundreds of thousands of views. "My buyers didn't get the house."
"Then I have a listing in Middletown," she continued. "No offers for two and a half weeks. Yesterday, same day, four offers, all over asking, all phenomenal offers. And this is going on in other parts of Monmouth County as I speak to other agents as well."
An aerial view of Asbury Park in Monmouth County, New Jersey. (Getty Images)
Her experience isn't a one-off; it’s the front line of a statewide surge. While the rest of the U.S. housing market recorded 0.5% growth in early 2026, according to recent data from Cotality, New Jersey has seen a nearly 6% surge.
More specifically, Newark recorded a 6.7% year-over-year price jump, marking the steepest hike of the 100 largest metros across America. Housing supply in New Jersey reportedly remains well below pre-pandemic levels, with nearly 40% of homes selling above asking prices.
Cruz explained in her post that a "mass exodus" from New York City and Hoboken is flooding suburban markets like Monmouth County, making it nearly impossible for the "average person" to secure a home.
Mitch Roschelle reveals silver lining to slow spring housing market
M2 Communities CEO Mitch Roschelle discusses the slow spring housing market amid the Iran war and uncertainty and programs from Iowa and Connecticut helping first-time homebuyers on 'Varney & Co.'
"There is definitely [a] mass exodus from New York, people that are worried in Hoboken for that spillover, they're jumping over to Monmouth County with the ease of transportation to the city," Cruz said.
"So if you don't live in this area already, I don't think the average person is going to be able to move into Monmouth County, the eastern Monmouth area, very soon."
Dave Ramsey shares message to Gen Z, millennials who feel boxed out of real estate
‘The Ramsey Show’ host Dave Ramsey discusses how young adults feel isolated from buying homes and entering the real estate market on ‘FOX Business In Depth: Hitting Home: Rebuilding the Dream'
Cotality’s latest findings also linked the New Jersey boom to workers getting priced out of the city who are choosing its stately neighbor to avoid sacrificing their full paychecks while maintaining transit access. Many of these new commuters are in the finance, pharmaceutical or biotechnology sectors.
"These diverse trends indicate an ongoing process of price discovery — one where sales and comparisons remain limited — and underscore a market that is rebalancing locally rather than correcting nationally," Cotality Chief Economist Selma Hepp said.
Read the full story at Fox Business.
For complete details, visit the original sources linked above.
Comments
Post a Comment