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The U.S. blockade on ships will continue until Trump ends it, says Central Command chief.
Source: nyt News • Published: 4/18/2026, 5:08:04 AM
Trump has made numerous exaggerated and unverified claims over the course of the war since it began on Feb. 28. He has long called for zero uranium enrichment in Iran, and asserted at a Turning Point USA event on Friday that Iran would “never have a nuclear weapon.” Iran has previously offered to temporarily suspend uranium enrichment but has said it could never accept Trump’s zero-enrichment position. Experts have also said that retrieving Iran’s 970 pounds of enriched uranium would be a complex, lengthy process that would likely take longer than the reported 60-day window for American and Iranian negotiators to strike a deal.
Ghalibaf also said in his social media post that President Trump made seven false claims in a single hour. It was not clear which of the presidents’ claims he was refuting. Trump has been on a media tear all day, including saying that Iran had agreed to never close the Strait of Hormuz again and that the country would coordinate with the United States to send its enriched nuclear stockpile abroad. Both of those claims were denied in statements from Iranian officials. Ghalibaf said that Iranians would not be affected by what he referred to as media warfare and attempts to engineer public opinion.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s top negotiator and the speaker of its Parliament, warned in a social media post that if the United States continued its blockade, the Strait of Hormuz would not remain open, and that passage would be based on “Iranian authorization.” U.S. Central Command had said on Friday that the blockade would remain in effect until President Trump ordered it removed, something Trump said he would not do until Iran signed a peace agreement.
Trump has begun speaking to a crowd of hundreds at a Turning Point USA event in Phoenix. He promoted what described as his success at negotiating with Iran. He claimed that Iran was removing all mines from the Strait of Hormuz and reopening it for business. He also said that Iran was turning over its “nuclear dust” to the United States.
The strait was open for business before the United States and Israel launched military strikes on Iran.
The war against Iran and resulting gasoline prices have been a major political problem for Republicans heading into the midterms.
Arriving in Phoenix, Ariz. for a Turning Point USA event, President Trump told reporters that the American blockade of Iranian ships in the Strait of Hormuz will end when the United States reaches a peace deal with Iran. “Soon as the agreement gets signed, that’s when the blockade ends,” he said.
Shipping experts said on Friday that several vessels approached the Strait of Hormuz from the Persian Gulf but then turned around. Alexis Ellender, an analyst at Kpler, a ship tracking firm, said at least 10 vessels acted in this way, adding that it was “unclear if they were instructed to retreat or if something else changed their minds.” He said the ships included bulk carriers carrying fertilizer.
Reporting from Washington and New York
President Trump’s announcement that Iran had agreed to “completely open” the Strait of Hormuz bolstered hopes that the two governments were keeping alive a cease-fire agreement reached last week and nearing a framework for further negotiations to reach a lasting peace deal.
The announcement came a day after Mr. Trump said U.S. and Iranian teams would probably meet this weekend for a second round of talks, as Iranian officials said the sides were nearing agreement on a document that sets a formal framework and a 60-day clock for negotiations.
It also followed Israel’s agreement on Thursday to pause its military campaign in Lebanon, which Iran had called a violation of its cease-fire deal with the United States.
Shadowing the optimism was a warning from Tehran that ships could again be denied passage through the strait if Mr. Trump does not lift the U.S. naval blockade he placed on Iranian ports this week. Writing on his Truth Social account on Friday, Mr. Trump said the blockade will remain in place until any deal with Iran is “100% complete.” The U.S. military affirmed that the blockade would last until Mr. Trump ended it.
“With the continuation of the blockade, the Strait of Hormuz will not remain open,” Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, posted on X. Mr. Ghalibaf, a lead Iranian negotiator in Islamabad last weekend, said that Mr. Trump had made several “false” claims and “lies” on Friday.
Earlier on Friday, Mr. Trump had said that with the Strait of Hormuz reopened, the process of clinching a final peace deal with Iran would “go very quickly.” But analysts called that unlikely.
“We’re still miles away from a comprehensive agreement,” said Ali Vaez, an Iran expert with Crisis Group, a global conflict resolution organization.
Writing on his Truth Social account on Friday, Mr. Trump also said that the naval blockade he placed on Iranian ports this week would remain in place until his negotiations with Tehan are “100% complete.” It is unclear how that ultimatum might change Iran’s negotiating posture. The U.S. military affirmed that the blockade would last until Mr. Trump ended it.
The path to a deal continues to run through Pakistan, whose army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, has been encamped in Tehran since Wednesday. Mr. Munir has been facilitating talks over a three-page memorandum of understanding that establishes a general framework for a deal, according to three senior Iranian officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about sensitive diplomacy.
Pakistan hosted a first round of direct talks between U.S. and Iranian officials last weekend, and the sides nearly reached agreement on the document, according to Iran’s foreign minister, before the session ended in public acrimony. The White House has not confirmed that claim and did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
But U.S. officials said the White House was optimistic that a deal was relatively close, even if key issues remain unresolved. In several brief interviews with reporters on Friday, Mr. Trump suggested that Washington and Tehran had reached agreements on Iran’s nuclear program and the release of billions of dollars of frozen Iranian funds. But those matters remain unresolved and are the trickiest part of the negotiations, the U.S. officials said.
American officials briefed on the talks said that Mr. Trump’s remarks were intended to press Iran toward agreement. All the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about sensitive diplomacy.
The Iranian and Pakistani officials said the memo would set a 60-day window for further talks to resolve matters including Iran’s nuclear program, which Mr. Trump wants halted, and Iran’s demands for relief from U.S. economic sanctions.
But even two months is most likely an unrealistic time frame, experts said, if only given the technical complexity of matters like retrieving Iran’s 970 pounds of highly enriched uranium — at least some of which is believed to be buried under the rubble of U.S. airstrikes last summer.
“Making these deals durable requires rigor and clarity, which takes expertise and time,” said Jon Finer, who spent countless hours negotiating a 2015 nuclear agreement with Tehran as chief of staff to Secretary of State John Kerry. “The risk of rushing is that you don’t sweat the details and miss something important or you don’t actually have a meeting of the minds at all, and it unravels.”
Mr. Vaez added that the Trump administration’s diplomatic track record shows little skill at nailing down the fine points of complicated negotiations. In Gaza, Ukraine and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Trump administration’s efforts to settle conflicts faltered over misunderstandings and ambiguities.
“They need to pin down every single detail. And that requires the kind of diplomacy that this administration has demonstrated again and again it is not adept at,” Mr. Vaez said.
Israel also remains a wild card in the Iran talks, a day after Mr. Trump appeared to force a reluctant Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a cease-fire in Lebanon in order to secure Iran’s agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. officials deny any connection between the Iran talks and Israel’s war against Lebanon-based Hezbollah, Iran’s most important proxy force. But analysts called that implausible, saying that Mr. Trump clearly decided his needs in Iran outweighed Mr. Netanyahu’s determination to smash Hezbollah.
Mr. Trump only bolstered that view when he wrote on social media on Friday of Israel’s attacks on Lebanon: “They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the USA. Enough is enough.”
Mr. Netanyahu “had no choice,” said Aaron David Miller, a veteran Middle East negotiator now with the Carnegie Institute for International Peace. Mr. Miller noted that Mr. Netanyahu was counting on Mr. Trump’s support ahead of Israeli elections expected this fall. “He couldn’t say no, let alone cross Trump.”
But other analysts said that Iranian leaders remain suspicious of Mr. Netanyahu, who supports continuing the joint U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, ordered strikes killing much of Iran’s political leadership, and, they fear, might try to scuttle Mr. Trump’s peace efforts.
Mr. Trump made several heady claims of diplomatic progress on Friday, saying in an interview with Axios that he believed he could achieve a deal with Iran “in a day or two” and telling a NewsNation reporter that Iran had agreed to stop enriching uranium. But Mr. Trump has made numerous exaggerated claims over the course of the war about the state of his negotiations with Tehran.
It is possible that Iran has offered to suspend uranium enrichment — the process that refines the fissile material needed for a nuclear bomb — for a finite period of time. Iran has previously offered to stop enrichment for 5 years. But Mr. Trump has demanded that Iran permanently agree to “zero enrichment” on its own soil, a position Iran has rejected for decades.
The Iranian officials said that Iran has agreed to suspend its enrichment activity for only 10 years, followed by another 10 years of minimal enrichment for laboratory research.
Iran has also agreed to dilute the stockpile and either keep it on its own soil under the watch of international inspectors, or ship it to Russia. Dilution would also take place in phases sequenced to the release of Iranian funds and lifting of American sanctions, the Iranian officials said.
Iran is also seeking access to an estimated $27 billion in assets frozen by the United States, mostly in the form of oil revenues held in Iraq, Qatar, Japan, Germany and China.
Even if the sides can reach an agreement in theory, it remains unclear how they can overcome the extreme mistrust and commit to action. Mr. Trump has depicted Iran’s leaders as “crazy” and “lunatics.” Iranian officials say that Mr. Trump has repeatedly burned them, and some say it would be folly to trust his word.
They note that in his first term, Mr. Trump unilaterally exited the 2015 nuclear deal even though Tehran was complying with its terms and imposed heavy economic sanctions on Iran.
In June and then again in February he began diplomatic talks with Tehran over its nuclear program only to launch military strikes without first declaring those negotiations dead.
While many analysts argue that Iran gained an upper hand over Mr. Trump by demonstrating its ability to close the Strait of Hormuz and choke global energy and chemical supplies, there were new signs of Iran’s own dire economic position, which Trump officials have insisted will force Iran to accept an agreement.
On Wednesday the Iranian government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said that Iran may have sustained at least $270 billion in damages from the war, according to initial assessments.
And Iran’s main business newspaper, Donyaye Eghtesad, reported on Friday that reconstruction would take at least 12 years. Each month of fighting amounted to a five-year economic setback, the paper said, adding that total losses were triple the government’s annual budget.
Tyler Pager and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
President Trump went on a media tear on Friday, granting interviews and unleashing a flurry of social media posts that framed peace talks with Iran as all but complete.
After an announcement by Iran’s foreign minister that the Strait of Hormuz had been reopened, Mr. Trump made a series of optimistic posts on his social media platform, Truth Social. He also spoke to several news outlets, asserting that Tehran had agreed to many demands and predicting a quick resolution to the conflict.
Iranian officials did not confirm most of Mr. Trump’s claims and disputed several of them. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s top negotiator and the speaker of its Parliament, said on social media Friday evening that Mr. Trump made seven claims in one hour, all of which were false.
It was not immediately clear which claims he was referring to, but Mr. Ghalibaf said the United States would not make progress in negotiations with what he described as lies.
Mr. Trump has made exaggerated and outlandish claims related to the war since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. He has threatened to wipe out Iranian civilization, attacked the pope for criticizing the violence and offered seemingly contradictory visions of how the war might unfold. The president’s remarks could shape the narrative around the peace talks in a conflict that has jolted the world economy and damaged his popularity at home.
Mr. Trump said on Friday that Iran, with the help of the United States, was removing all of the mines it laid in the Strait of Hormuz last month. He also claimed that the “Hormuz Strait situation is over” and “Iran has agreed to never close the Strait of Hormuz again.”
Iran has made no such commitment, and its foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, had only gone so far as to announce that the vital oil route would be open “for the remaining period of cease-fire” for ships that adhered to a route “coordinated” by Iran. Later, the ministry’s spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, said the strait remained under Iran’s supervision.
Mr. Ghalibaf, Iran’s top negotiator, also chimed in on social media, saying that the strait would not remain open if the U.S. military continued its blockade of Iranian ports. Earlier, Mr. Trump said that the U.S. blockade would only end when the United States reached a peace deal with Iran.
Mr. Trump also claimed in a phone interview with CBS that Iran had “agreed to everything,” including working with the United States to remove its enriched uranium. But in comments made to Iranian state media later that day, Mr. Baghaei said that Tehran had rejected the option of transferring its enriched uranium stockpile abroad.
On Friday, Mr. Trump told AFP that there were “no sticking points” left for a peace deal with Iran. The White House has not confirmed any details of a plan. In a brief phone interview with Axios, Mr. Trump said he expected a deal “in the next day or two.”
Amid the barrage of social media posts, the president painted himself as a peacemaker maligned by traditional news media.
“They are desperately looking for a reason to criticize President Donald J. Trump on the Iran situation, but just can’t find it,” he said. “Why don’t they just say, at the right time, JOB WELL DONE, MR. PRESIDENT.”
For Iran, the economic fallout of the war is a major incentive for reaching a deal with the United States. The government spokeswoman, Fatemeh Mohajerani, announced yesterday that initial assessments suggest Iran has sustained at least $270 billion in damages. Iran’s main business newspaper, Donyaye Eghtesad, assessed on Friday that reconstruction would take at least 12 years and each month of fighting amounted to a five-year economic setback. It said the losses were three times more than the government’s annual budget.
Speaking at the 2026 Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey hosted by its foreign ministry, Pakistan’s foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, said on Friday that the United States and Iran were “very close to stitching a deal” during the first round of in-person talks last weekend in Pakistan. He said the opening of the Strait of Hormuz is a “very good omen” for any upcoming talks, along with the cease-fire in Lebanon.
In comments to Iranian state media, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said Tehran had rejected the option of transferring its enriched uranium stockpile abroad. The statement came after President Trump told CBS News in a phone interview that Iran would cooperate with America to remove enriched uranium from Iran.
Three senior Iranian officials familiar with negotiations said Iran and the United States are finalizing a three-page memorandum of understanding that lays out a broad framework for a lasting peace deal. The memo defines a 60-day period for negotiations to continue and reach a deal, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. They expressed optimism that Tehran and Washington would sign the memorandum when they meet in Pakistan for a second round of talks expected to be scheduled in the next few days.
Sui-Lee Wee reported from Singapore, Javier C. Hernández from Tokyo, Choe Sang-Hun from Seoul, and Alex Travelli from New Delhi.
As recently as last year, America’s allies and strategic partners in Asia steered clear of buying Russian oil in order to comply with Western sanctions. And many had limited interactions with Iran, another major producer.
The U.S. and Israeli war on Iran has upended those dynamics.
For many Asian countries reeling from the oil shock caused by the war, securing a meeting or phone call with officials in Moscow and Tehran is now top of the agenda. On Monday, a special envoy from South Korea began meeting officials in Iran to discuss the fate of South Korean vessels stuck in the Persian Gulf. That same day, President Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia arrived in Moscow to buy oil.
Before the war, about 80 percent of the oil that passed through the Strait of Hormuz was destined for Asia. The sudden shortfall caused by the war has left countries with small oil reserves, like the Philippines, scrambling to figure out how to shore up supplies. Many leaders in the region are turning to America’s adversaries for their needs, as President Trump sends mixed signals about how long the war will last.
That means that for some countries in Asia, oil from Iran and Russia is returning for the first time in years, after Washington suspended some sanctions on its rivals. Last month, the Philippines received its first shipment of Russian crude oil in five years. This week, Iranian crude oil officially returned to India after a seven-year pause.
These transactions do not signal a break from Washington, but they are helping America’s rivals.
“U.S. foreign policy under Trump is to push many away from the U.S. to seek other alternatives,” said Huong Le Thu, the deputy director of the Asia program for the International Crisis Group.
Even so, how much oil can flow from Iran and Russia to Asia is unclear. The U.S. Navy has imposed a blockade of Iranian ports. The Trump administration did not extend the sanctions exemption on Russia and may similarly let a temporary license allowing Iran to sell oil expire on April 19.
The reality for many countries in Asia is there are few sources of oil that don’t sail through the strait. One is Russia.
That has given Russia’s leader, Vladimir V. Putin, a renewed prominence on the global stage. On Monday, Mr. Prabowo praised him for playing “a very positive role in dealing with this uncertain geopolitical situation.”
After Mr. Putin launched the full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, some of America’s allies in the region — including South Korea and the Philippines — stopped importing Russian oil, in solidarity with the United States and Europe. That helped push down the price of Russian oil steeply.
But Russian barrels are now fetching a double-digit premium above the global benchmark price for oil, according to Emma Li, an analyst at Vortexa, a data analytics firm specializing in oil and gas shipments.
“I’m afraid that, given the current situation, no matter how expensive the oil is, there is no choice,” Ms. Li said.
Here is what some countries are doing to shore up their oil stocks:
For countries like South Korea, one option is to wait for the United States or Europe to release some of their strategic petroleum reserves. But shipping oil from those places would be expensive, and shipments would take up to two months to arrive, Ms. Li said.In contrast, shipments sent from ports in the Russian Far East could reach South Korea in just a few days, she added.
On March 30, South Korea allowed some companies to import from Russia 27,900 tons of naphtha — a refined product typically used as a feedstock for petrochemicals.
When President Lee Jae Myung convened his National Economic Advisory Council last week, the group suggested that South Korea import crude oil and natural gas from Russia and Iran, as well as buy “as much naphtha as possible” from China and Russia.
Park Won-joo, a council member, recalled that during the Middle East crisis in 1973, South Korea issued a pro-Arab statement despite being a U.S. ally.
“Even within an alliance, we should secure practical exceptions for energy,” he said at the meeting.
Japan is in the unusual position of having friendly relations with both the United States, its main ally, and Iran, which for decades was a primary supplier of oil to Japan.
In 2015, Japan chose not to participate in the negotiations that led to the deal to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions. That decision created space for Tokyo to pursue an independent policy toward Tehran.
This month, Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, spoke by phone with Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian. She pressed him to work to ensure freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and to release a Japanese citizen detained by the Iranian authorities, according to a statement by the Japanese government.
It is not the first time Japan has directly engaged with Iran. In 2019, Shinzo Abe, the former Japanese prime minister, visited Tehran in an effort to contain the fallout of Mr. Trump’s decision to pull out of the 2015 nuclear accord and impose crippling sanctions. Under American pressure, Japan has in recent years stopped oil imports from Iran.
Some officials and commentators have argued that Ms. Takaichi should follow that example and push Iran to reach a deal with the United States.
In the Philippines, America’s oldest treaty ally in Asia, the oil shortage has led to the declaration of a national emergency. It is looking to Russia as well as the United States, Canada, and India.
The country is asking the U.S. government to extend the sanction waiver to allow it to purchase more Russian oil, said Jose Manuel Romualdez, the Philippines’ ambassador to the United States.
Mr. Romualdez said the Philippines’ ties with the United States and with Russia were “not mutually exclusive” and that his country’s foreign policy would always be “anchored on our national interest.”
“The Philippines does not view developments in the Middle East as necessitating a re-calibration of its relationship with Russia vis-à-vis the United States nor does it view its international relationships in absolute terms,” Mr. Romualdez wrote in an email.
India, while not formally an ally of the United States, has become an indispensable part of American strategy in the region. The relationship, despite some rockiness, is important to both sides..
India had stopped buying Iranian oil in 2019, to comply with American sanctions on Tehran. In recent weeks it was on the verge of replacing Russian crude imports with oil from the Middle East — a move to placate Washington and reach a trade agreement.
But the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran and the ensuing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz made mincemeat of that plan. Instead, India had to resume buying Russian seaborne oil, now at a premium.
And on Tuesday two tankers filled with oil from Iran docked at Indian ports, according to Bloomberg.
Indonesia, which says it pursues an independent foreign policy, is also not a formal treaty ally of the United States.
But it has developed closer ties with America, and the two countries announced a defense partnership on Monday.
At the same time, Indonesia has secured the import of oil, liquefied petroleum gas and fuel from Russia, said Laode Sulaeman, an official at Indonesia’s energy ministry, who said the specifics were still being ironed out.
Rin Hindryati contributed reporting from Jakarta.
Reporting from Washington
The exchange of bombs and missiles in the Middle East between Iran and its foes has been paused for more than a week now. Iran’s hackers, however, have remained active on the digital battlefield.
Iran has continued its cyberspace operations since the cease-fire with the United States began on April 8, according to Western cybersecurity experts and former U.S. intelligence officials. In doing so, Tehran is trying to keep up pressure on the United States and Israel but also positioning itself to mount a bigger retaliation if peace talks do not resume.
Since the war began in late February, Iran has combined real-world attacks, disinformation and a mix of low-level and more advanced cyberattacks to create confusion in Israel. In the United States, it temporarily caused a global, companywide shutdown at a major medical-equipment supplier, Stryker, scoring a major success that surprised some security analysts.
A group affiliated with Iranian intelligence also took responsibility for the release of emails and photographs stolen from a personal account of Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director.
Now in the cease-fire, Iran is tactically shifting from overt demonstrations meant to undermine support for the U.S.-Israel campaign toward quieter efforts to prepare for what might come next. This new phase of cyberspace operations includes a greater focus on espionage.
Iran has continued to target individuals in the United States and Israel who are either government officials or linked to the government. Its hackers have also stepped up its efforts to penetrate critical infrastructure, attempting to get access to water and power systems in the Middle East and the United States as part of an effort to prepare for future operations that would cause societal pain, experts said.
Iran’s cyberoperations have generally been less effective or sophisticated than those from China or Russia, which have for years launched large-scale espionage campaigns against the United States and penetrated some of America’s most sensitive infrastructure.
But Iran’s dispersed network of hackers has long used cyberattacks to project power across the Middle East and to challenge — or at least annoy — the United States. And Iran’s hackers are considered less predictable than their Chinese and Russian counterparts, especially when their government feels threatened.
“This is a time, more than ever, we should worry about Iran,” said Evan Peña, a co-founder of the cybersecurity firm Armadin. “In cyberwarfare there isn’t really a cease-fire.”
Mr. Peña said that if the cease-fire or negotiations collapsed, Iran would want to be in a strong position to retaliate, potentially by attacking critical infrastructure in the United States. Tehran has done so in the past but generally with limited impact. More than a decade ago, Iranian hackers targeted a small dam in upstate New York, but by happenstance the dam’s sluice-gate controls had been taken offline for maintenance, much to the relief of U.S. investigators at the time.
Iran, Mr. Peña said, is going to be more aggressive and devote more resources to trying to get access to American companies as the war rages on.
“I am not saying they have gotten in, but I do believe they are trying to get in,” he said. “The motive is, hold your position in the network. Should you find a way in, if something doesn’t go the way Iran wants it to go, then they are going to make a disruption.”
Josh Zweig, the chief executive of Zip Security, which secures small and midsize enterprises, said Iran was specifically looking for less well-defended targets, like municipal-run water and energy facilities.
He also said small firms that make investment decisions for wealthy individuals and families have been targeted.
With both kinds of attacks, the goal is to gain leverage, Mr. Zweig said.
“They’re going after individuals in and around the government — not through official channels but through their personal networks: service providers, contractors, the kinds of organizations that handle sensitive day-to-day information,” Mr. Zweig said.
Some security experts have said they have observed an overall drop in Iranian cyberoperations in the United States since the cease-fire took hold. Iran-linked hacking groups have been less active in claiming credit for attacks, suggesting a desire to more quietly embed undetected within networks for potential future leverage.
And some cybersecurity experts said the overall number of attempted cyberattacks has fallen, at least in the United States.
Much of the activity against the United States has taken the shape of rudimentary denial of service attacks, which attempt to knock websites offline by spamming them with junk traffic, said Cynthia Kaiser, a senior vice president at the cybersecurity firm Halcyon and a former senior cyber official at the F.B.I.
But in Israel, Handala, a hacking group affiliated with the Iranian government that claimed credit for both the Stryker attack and the breach of Mr. Patel’s emails, has continued its campaign, according to Ms. Kaiser and other experts.
The group masquerades as an independent hacktivist collective but is controlled by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, Iran’s chief spy agency, according to U.S. officials.
It has hacked and leaked accounts tied to the former head of the Israel Defense Forces, Herzi Halevi, and released documents about intelligence analysts who work for an Israeli intelligence agency.
The group also recently claimed responsibility for hacking government entities in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.
“They are basically doxxing a few dozen individuals — the fact they are doing it, they are basically saying they will continue with the cyberwar,” said Gil Messing, the chief of staff at Check Point, an Israeli-American cybersecurity firm. “They want to make sure that everyone is aware that they are continuing and will continue to target Israel.”
Mr. Messing said Iran stepped up hacking activity against Israel after their war last year and is likely to continue that pattern now. Check Point, he said, had observed a 10 percent increase in cyberoperations linked to Iran across the Gulf region since the cease-fire took hold, and a 15 percent increase against Israel.
“After the cease-fire agreement, they are escalating their cyber efforts,” Mr. Messing said. “Often we see that digital-based attacks are more prominent when the physical front is more silent.”
Farah Stockman reported from New York, Neal Boudette from Detroit and John Ismay from Washington.
The Pentagon has met with senior executives of Ford Motor and General Motors to gauge whether the auto industry could help the military acquire vehicles, munitions or other hardware more quickly and at lower costs, according to three people familiar with the talks.
The conversations are in the very early stages, and relate to the possible production of components by the companies, not entire weapons systems. No specific projects are currently being negotiated, the people said.
The discussions with automakers underscore Trump administration efforts to revamp military procurement as the war in Iran and U.S. support for Ukraine in its war with Russia deplete supplies. The idea is reminiscent of World War II, when G.M., Ford and other automakers supplied the military.
“The Department of War is committed to rapidly expanding the defense industrial base by leveraging all available commercial solutions and technologies to ensure our war fighters maintain a decisive advantage,” a Pentagon official said in a statement in response to questions about the meetings with automakers. “The department is aggressively pursuing and integrating the best of American innovation, wherever it resides, to deliver production at scale and drive resiliency across supply chains.”
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier on the talks between the Pentagon and the automakers.
The Trump administration has complained for months that traditional defense contractors take too long to manufacture weapons systems and charge too much for them. In January, President Trump signed an executive order that aimed to punish defense contractors that failed to expand their manufacturing capacity. And in November, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, rolled out a strategy for military procurement that included buying more widely available off-the-shelf components to avoid the high costs and delays associated with the specialized systems that the military typically uses.
The defense industrial base “is stagnant, building the world’s best and most exquisite weapon systems at low volume while relying on obsolescent parts, outdated manufacturing processes and stale innovation,” the strategy read. “In contrast, the commercial industry outpaces the D.I.B. in advancing cutting-edge technology.”
The issue has become more urgent because the war in Iran has depleted U.S. stockpiles of commonly used munitions, such as Patriot missile interceptors. By some estimates, it could take five years or more to replenish the munitions that have been used in the last 40 days.
“We are on borrowed time,” said John Ferrari, a retired Army major general who is now a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a research group in Washington. “The Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, everybody knows that we don’t have enough munitions.”
The Pentagon has turned to auto suppliers because U.S. officials remember how Ford and G.M. revamped production lines during the Covid-19 pandemic to make personal protective equipment and ventilators.
During World War II, the U.S. government asked car companies based in and around Detroit to produce weapons, an industrial mobilization that became famous for building what President Franklin D. Roosevelt called the “arsenal of democracy.” The Willow Run factory that Ford built near Ypsilanti, Mich., churned out thousands of planes, producing about one B-24 Liberator bomber an hour at its peak. But that was possible only because military officials designed the planes to be built using machinery Ford already owned, General Ferrari said.
A big question today is whether the Pentagon will be able adjust its specifications and requirements to fit the machinery that carmakers use.
“Otherwise, it is not going to work,” General Ferrari said. “The commercial factories are not going to go out and buy new machines, and if they did, that would take years.”
While they gave up making bombers long ago, some automakers continue to work with the military. G.M., for example, has a defense unit that makes vehicles for the Army.
Foster Ferguson, vice president of industrial business at Stratasys, a company that manufactures 3-D printers used by Ford and G.M., said machines that mass-produce parts for the auto industry could make components for military systems.
The U.S. military has been exploring the use of 3-D printers to make replacement parts for older systems, he said, but the devices could also be used to mass-produce other components. Last month, Stratasys was selected to participate in a military pilot program to accelerate the qualification and deployment of 3-D-printed parts.
“The Pentagon is bringing a sense of urgency to the modernization and scaling of defense manufacturing,” said Mr. Ferguson, who served as an officer in the Marine Corps specializing in supply chain and maintenance operations. “The automotive industry can make a significant contribution due to their expertise in economies of scale, cost-down engineering and experience in consistently producing high-volume, quality parts that meet strict production requirements.”
But many weapon systems require components that cannot be 3-D printed or need rare-earth metals mined or processed in China.
Read the full story at nyt News.
An Explosion Rattles a Toronto Neighborhood. A Drake Video Was to Blame.
Source: nyt News • Published: 4/18/2026, 5:06:40 AM
Flames erupted into a thick column of smoke that took the shape of a mushroom as it billowed skyward on Thursday night, rattling people who live near a normally quiet Toronto park.
Not to fret: it was for a film shoot, the police said. And there were signs that Drake, who shared images of the explosion on his Instagram account shortly after it happened, had something to do with it.
“You could feel it in your chest,” said Beth McKellar, a registered massage therapist who has lived near Downsview Park for about a decade and reported hearing three distinct “boom” sounds. “It sounded like, I don’t know what else to say, but a bomb.”
Her 12-year-old son was shaken awake and their neighbors peeked out of their town homes, Ms. McKellar said, but they didn’t have a view of the plume of smoke.
“We were traumatized,” said Rosanna Iaboni, a longtime resident of the Downsview neighborhood who was getting ready for bed when the thunderous noise erupted around 10:30 p.m. “The whole house shook. Our bed shook. Everything shook.”
Ms. Iaboni said she ran downstairs to check her front door, which was blown off in an explosion at a nearby propane plant in August 2008. The explosion, at Sunrise Propane Industrial Gasses, killed one plant employee and prompted the evacuation of thousands of residents. A firefighter died of a heart attack while responding to the blast.
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AMD, Oracle, Microsoft and the IGV lead a monster week for tech stocks
Source: CNBC • Published: 4/18/2026, 4:45:41 AM
Big Tech stocks capped a massive week on Friday, with shares of Oracle, Advanced Micro Devices and Microsoft posting historic gains and benchmarks.
Oracle climbed 27% this week, its best week since June 1999. The company expanded an artificial intelligence data center power deal with Bloom Energy on Monday, contracting 1.2 gigawatts of capacity from Bloom. Oracle was issued a warrant to purchase $400 million of Bloom shares last week.
AMD climbed 13% this week and hit an all-time high on Thursday, climbing over 42% during a run of 13-consecutive days of gains, its longest streak in over 20 years.
Microsoft gained 14% this week, its best week since April 2015. Microsoft's rebound comes after the software giant wrapped its worst quarter since 2008 in March, where it lost almost a quarter of its value.
Tesla also had a strong week, up nearly 15% as CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday that the company hit a key milestone on its AI5 chip.
A flurry of announcements from Intel has boosted its stock as well this month. The chipmaker is up 55% in April, after a historic nine-day run driven by partnerships with Google and Elon Musk's companies.
Broadcom, Micron and ON Semiconductor were also up at least 30% so far in April. Marvell is up 41% so far this month.
The iShares Expanded Tech-Software ETF (IGV) climbed nearly 14% week-to-date, its best week since October 2001.
The SPDR Info Tech Fund (XLK) also hit an all-time Friday for the first time since October 2025 and closed at a record level. The fund has posted 13 straight days of gains, and had its best week since April 2025.
The software sector has had a rough year due to AI disruption fears. Hopes for a lasting peace deal between the U.S. and Iran have fueled the sector's recent rebound.
So far this year, the IGV is down about 19%.
For complete details, visit the original sources linked above.
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