Latest from Trump:
“World news
Trump warns Tehran ‘more to follow’ after strike destroys Iran’s largest bridge
Two people reported killed in attack on newly completed suspension bridge after strike splits structure in half
Middle East crisis – live updates
15:23 EDT Thursday, 02 April 2026
Donald Trump claimed responsibility for destroying Iran’s largest bridge, a day after he threatened to bomb the country “back to the stone ages” if a deal to end the five-week-long war he started was not reached.
The US president shared footage of part of the newly built 136 metre-high $400m B1 suspension bridge between Tehran and Karaj collapsing dramatically on to the causeway below amid a rising plume of black smoke.
Two people were reported killed in the incident on Thursday, in which the middle of the bridge was struck twice. Later imagery showed a clear gap at the heart of what had been one of Iran’s premier infrastructure projects.
“The biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down, never to be used again,” the US president posted on the Truth Social website, and he warned there would be “much more to follow” if a settlement was not reached.
How have Trump’s Iran war aims changed and has he achieved any of them?
Read more
It was not clear if the bridge was being used by civilians at the time, though there appeared to be a lorry on one side of the bridge. One video appeared to show a projectile hitting the span where there was already damage.
A day earlier, in a primetime speech Trump had declared the war the US and Israel launched on Iran on 28 February was a success “nearing completion”, and that the US would “very shortly” achieve nearly all its strategic objectives.
But in his White House address, the president also repeated a threat to destroy Iran’s power plants, potentially cutting off electricity to millions of people. “We are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously,” he said.
The attack on the bridge was one of several confirmed attacks in Iran this week, despite the difficulty of getting unsanctioned information out of the country, where the internet has been shut down by the authorities.
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Footage of a major strike earlier this week on a missile base in the city of Isfahan was confirmed on Thursday as genuine, with fiery plumes and secondary explosions filmed from a nearby car, whose driver expresses surprise at the scale of the attack.
Isfahan is also where Iran is thought to have moved some or all of its 440kg stockpile of 60% enriched uranium, which in theory could be used to make 10 nuclear bombs if it could be enriched to 90% if Tehran still had the technology available.
There has been speculation in the US that Trump has considered a high-risk airborne raid to seize the radioactive material from its underground storage – though the president said late on Wednesday that it was buried so deeply that “I don’t care”.
Rationale for Iran war questioned after Trump says ‘I don’t care’ about regime’s uranium stockpiles
Read more
Though most observers took Trump at his word, the US president has in the past engaged in misdirection. On 28 February, the US and Israel attacked and killed Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and several associates at a point when negotiations over a new nuclear deal were thought to bear fruit.
Iran also said the Pasteur medical institute in Tehran was hit on Thursday. Israel said it had struck a headquarters used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to finance armed proxies across the Middle East the day before.
Iran said it would conduct “more crushing, broader and more destructive” attacks in the future. The war would continue until the “permanent regret and surrender” of Iran’s enemies, said Ebrahim Zolfaqari, spokesperson for the Iranian military’s Khatam al-Anbiya central headquarters.
Iran, however, has suffered far more than the US and Israel, in more than 15,000 bombing raids since the start of the war. At least 1,900 people have been killed and 20,000 injured in Iran since the start of the war, according to a rough estimate by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
Oil prices jumped by 7% a barrel to $108 as there appeared to be no immediate sign of the conflict ending. António Guterres, the UN secretary general, warned that the world is “on the edge of a wider war” with catastrophic global implications as he called for an end to the fighting.
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Excerpt From
“Trump warns Tehran ‘more to follow’ after strike destroys Iran’s largest bridge”
Dan Sabbagh
The Guardian
This material may be protected by copyright.
And more disturbing news:
“ASIA PACIFIC
April 2, 2026 4:23 AM UTC
World anxious to open Hormuz Strait while Trump and Iran trade threats
Summary
Trump vows to hit Iran back to the ‘Stone Ages’
Oil benchmark jumps after Trump speech, stocks slide
Iran says it is discussing with Oman a protocol for Hormuz
Ships would need licences and permits, Iran deputy minister says
Iran warns of ‘broader and more destructive’ attacks
Dozens of countries sought ways to restart vital energy shipments through the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump vowed more aggressive attacks on Iran, sending oil prices higher again and deepening strain on consumers.
After speculation proved untrue that Trump might discuss ending the war in a speech on Wednesday, the president persisted with threats on Thursday, saying in a social media post: “IT IS TIME FOR IRAN TO MAKE A DEAL BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE”.
He also posted video of the U.S. bombing a newly constructed bridge on Thursday between Tehran and the major northwest suburb of Karaj. The B1 bridge was scheduled to open to traffic this year. According to Iran’s state media, eight people were killed and 95 others were wounded in the U.S. attack.
“Striking civilian structures, including unfinished bridges, will not compel Iranians to surrender,” Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in a statement.
In the speech on Wednesday night, Trump repeated his threats against Iran’s civilian power plants and gave no clear timeline for ending hostilities, drawing vows of retaliation from Iran and depressing share prices.
“We’re going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks,” Trump said amid mounting domestic pressure to end the conflict. “We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong.”
Nearly five weeks after it started with a joint U.S.-Israeli aerial assault, the war in Iran continues to spread chaos across the region and roil financial markets, raising the pressure on Trump to find a quick resolution to the conflict.
Britain chaired a virtual meeting on Thursday of some 40 countries to explore ways to restore freedom of navigation that did not produce any specific agreement, although participants agreed that all nations should be able to use the waterway freely, one official said.
Iran has effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries about a fifth of the world’s total oil trade, in retaliation for U.S.-Israeli attacks that began on February 28. The war has caused an increase in oil prices, inflation concerns, supply-chain problems and worries about the impact on the global economy.
Tehran offered a competing vision for future control of the strait, and said it was drafting a protocol with neighboring Oman that would require ships to obtain permits and licenses.
“These requirements will not mean restrictions, but rather to facilitate and ensure safe passage and provide better services to ships that pass through this route,” Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said, according to the official IRNA news agency.
An Iranian military spokesperson said the strait would remain closed “long term” to the U.S. and Israel.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas pushed back against Tehran’s plan, saying Iran cannot be allowed to charge countries a bounty to let ships pass. “International law doesn’t recognise pay-to-pass schemes,” wrote Kallas on social media.
OIL HITS $108
Benchmark Brent crude prices jumped by about 7% to around $108 per barrel, U.S. bond yields spiked and global equity markets gave back gains.
“The key question in all investors’ minds is ‘When is this going to be over?’” said Russel Chesler, head of investments and capital markets at VanEck Australia.
Trump in Wednesday’s speech told countries that rely on fuel shipments through the Strait of Hormuz to “just grab it”.
However, European and other states have said they will only help secure the strait if there is a ceasefire.
“It can only be done in consultation with Iran,” French President Emmanuel Macron said.
IRAN THREATENS MORE ATTACKS
Iran’s armed forces responded to Trump with a warning of “more crushing, broader and more destructive” attacks in store.
The war will continue until the “permanent regret and surrender” of Iran’s enemies, said Ebrahim Zolfaqari, spokesperson for the Iranian military’s Khatam al-Anbiya central headquarters, in a statement carried by Iranian media.
Iran’s Fars news agency later listed several bridges in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Jordan, which host U.S. military bases, as potential targets for Iran’s military in response to the U.S. attack on the B1 bridge. The Revolutionary Guards said they had targeted an Amazon cloud computing centre in Bahrain.
There are fears the conflict may leave Iran with a stranglehold over Middle East energy supplies now that it has shown that it can block the Strait of Hormuz by targeting oil tankers and attacking Gulf countries hosting U.S. troops.
Gulf states say they reserve the right to self-defence but have refrained from responding militarily to repeated Iranian attacks over the past month, seeking to avoid escalation into a far more devastating all-out Middle East war.
Iran’s parliament was reviewing a bill that would formalise the blocking of vessels from hostile countries passing through the strait and the charging of tolls for others wishing to pass, spokesperson Abbas Goodarzi said.
STRIKE ON IRAN BRIDGE KILLS 8
Thousands of people have been killed and tens of thousands injured across the Middle East since the war began, with the head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies delegation saying on Thursday that medical needs were rising exponentially and supplies could run low.
Sirens and the booms from interceptors rang out over Jerusalem after the Israeli military said it had identified the launch of a missile from Yemen toward Israel.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis first claimed an attack on Israel at the end of March, as the conflict with Iran has expanded across the region.
Fuel shortages have already caused economic strains across Asia and are expected to bite in Europe soon, while a report by two U.N. agencies warned a sharp economic slowdown could spark a cost-of-living crisis in Africa.
Reporting by Reuters Bureaux; Writing by Nathan Layne, Martin Petty, Philippa Fletcher, Matthias Williams and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Ros Russell, Andrew Cawthorne and Cynthia Osterman
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles
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Excerpt From
“World anxious to open Hormuz Strait while Trump and Iran trade threats”
Reuters
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A solid response at the cost of cutting other costs.
April 3, 2026 1:07 PM UTC
Trump proposes “historic” defense spending budget, eyes 10% cut to other federal programs
Summary
Defense increase of $500 billion includes Golden Dome, ships
Request includes potential pay raise for troops
Cuts green energy spending, slashes NASA budget
President Donald Trump on Friday requested a 10% cut in non-defense spending for the 2027 fiscal year and a massive $500 billion increase in the military budget, as the U.S. continues its war against Iran.
The 2027 budget request comes as the president faces risky choices abroad, with the administration sending U.S. service members to the Middle East, and a weary public at home feeling the economic crunch of skyrocketing gas prices due to the conflict.
The request ultimately requires approval by Congress, where disagreement over Trump’s spending decisions recently led to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
The huge proposed surge in defense spending to $1.5 trillion, up from about $1 trillion in 2026, includes a 5% to 7% pay raise for military personnel at a time when thousands of servicemembers are actively deployed.
The White House boasted that this defense funding approaches the “historic increases just prior to World War”
Excerpt From
“Trump proposes “historic” defense spending budget, eyes 10% cut to other federal programs”
Reuters
This material may be protected by copyright.
Next up just out
“MIDDLE EAST
April 3, 2026 4:27 AM UTC
Downed planes raise new perils for Trump as Tehran hunts for missing US pilot
Summary
Two-seat F-15E jet was shot down over Iran
A-10 combat plane shot down near Strait of Hormuz
Two crew members rescued, one being hunted by Iranian forces
US embassy in Lebanon warns US citizens to leave
Trump threatens to hit bridges and power plants
Two U.S. warplanes were downed over Iran and the Gulf, Iranian and U.S. officials said on Friday, with two pilots rescued and a third still missing and being hunted by Tehran’s forces.
The incidents show the risks still faced by U.S. and Israeli aircraft over Iran despite assertions from U.S. President Donald Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that their forces had total control of the skies.
The first plane, a two-seat U.S. F-15E jet, was shot down by Iranian fire, officials in both countries said.
The second plane, an A-10 Warthog fighter aircraft, was hit by Iranian fire and crashed over Kuwait, with the pilot ejecting, two U.S. officials said.
Two Blackhawk helicopters involved in the search effort for the missing pilot were hit by Iranian fire but made it out of Iranian airspace, the two U.S. officials told Reuters.
The degree of injuries among the crew of the aircraft remained unclear. The status and whereabouts of the missing F-15E crew member was not publicly known.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said it was combing an area near where the pilot’s plane came down in southwestern Iran and the regional governor promised a commendation for anyone who captured or killed “forces of the hostile enemy.”
Iranians, who have been pummeled by American air power for weeks, posted gleeful messages celebrating the plane downings. Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on X that the U.S. and Israel’s war had been “downgraded from regime change" to a hunt for their pilots.
Trump has been in the White House receiving updates on the search-and-rescue operation, a senior administration official told Reuters. The Pentagon and U.S. Central Command did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
NO SIGN OF END TO WAR
The prospect of a U.S. service person being alive and on the run inside Iran raises the stakes for Washington in a conflict with low public support and no sign of an imminent end.
Iran has officially told mediators it is not prepared to meet with U.S. officials in Islamabad in coming days and that efforts to produce a ceasefire, led by Pakistan, have reached a dead end, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
The U.S. and Israel opened the campaign with a wave of strikes that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28. The war has killed thousands and threatened lasting damage to the global economy.
So far, 13 U.S. military service members have been killed in the conflict and more than 300 have been wounded, according to the U.S. Central Command.
Iran has rained drones and missiles down on Israel. It has also taken aim at Gulf countries allied to the U.S., which have so far held back from joining the war directly for fear of further escalation.
In a security alert on Friday, the U.S. embassy in Beirut said Iran and its aligned armed groups may target universities in Lebanon and urged U.S. citizens in the country to leave while commercial flights are still available.
Israel has been waging a parallel campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon after the militant group fired at Israel in support of Iran.
TRUMP THREAT TO STRIKE BRIDGES, POWER PLANTS
On Friday, as Trump threatened to hit its bridges and power plants, Iran struck a power and water plant in Kuwait, underlining the vulnerability of Gulf states that rely heavily on desalination plants for drinking water.
On Thursday, Trump posted footage on social media showing dust and smoke billowing up as U.S. strikes hit the newly constructed B1 bridge between Tehran and nearby Karaj, which was due to open this year, and said more attacks would follow.
“Our Military, the greatest and most powerful (by far!) anywhere in the World, hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran. Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants!” he wrote in a subsequent post.
On Friday, a drone hit a Red Crescent relief warehouse in the Choghadak area of Iran’s southern Bushehr province.
Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said its Mina al-Ahmadi refinery had been hit by drones. Other attacks were also reported to have been intercepted in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi. Missile debris landed near the Israeli port of Haifa, site of a major oil refinery.
Oil markets were closed after benchmark U.S. crude prices gained 11% on Thursday following a speech by Trump that offered no clear sign of an imminent end to the war.
Reporting by Phil Stewart in Washington, Reuters bureaux; Writing by James Mackenzie and Sharon Singleton; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Bill Berkrot and David Gregorio
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles
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Excerpt From
“Downed planes raise new perils for Trump as Tehran hunts for missing U.S. pilot”
Phil Stewart, Enas Alashray
Reuters
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Latest: a rant (gesture) or preformance/performance?
.
‘“US news
‘Unhinged madman’: US politicians react to Trump’s expletive-laden threat to Iran
Marjorie Taylor Greene and Bernie Sanders among those responding with alarm to Trump writing ‘open the fuckin’ strait, you crazy bastards’
**Middle East crisis – live updates
**
13:01 EDT Sunday, 05 April 2026
Some US politicians have reacted with alarm and questioned the US president’s mental state after Donald Trump issued an abusive, expletive-laden threat to Iran in which he called on the regime to “open the fuckin’ strait [of Hormuz], you crazy bastards”, as he threatened to further attack the country’s energy and transport infrastructure.
The US president wrote on his Truth Social platform: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
It comes as the Trump administration hurtles towards another self-imposed deadline – this time, Monday – for Iran to reopen the strait of Hormuz. One of the world’s most critical shipping lanes for oil and gas, the strait has been effectively shut since the US and”
Excerpt From
“‘Unhinged madman’: US politicians react to Trump’s expletive-laden threat to Iran”
Lucy Campbell
The Guardian
This material may be protected by copyright.
The circused ringleaders are wagging their tales.
.
“Trump Warns Iran He Could Strike ‘Every Power Plant,’ in WSJ Interview
‘If they don’t do something by Tuesday evening, they won’t have any power plants and they won’t have any bridges standing’
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WASHINGTON—President Trump threatened to destroy all of Iran’s power plants if the country’s leaders don’t agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday evening, ratcheting up pressure on Tehran.
“If they don’t come through, if they want to keep it closed, they’re going to lose every power plant and every other plant they have in the whole country,” Trump said in an eight-minute interview with The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.
Pressed on when he thinks the war will end, Trump said, “I will let you know pretty soon.”
“But we are in a position that’s very strong, and that country will take 20 years to rebuild, if they’re lucky, if they have a country,” he said. “And if they don’t do something by Tuesday evening, they won’t have any power plants and they won’t have any bridges standing.”
The comments came hours after U.S. forces in a daring early Sunday morning mission rescued an American aviator trapped in Iran for more than 24 hours. They also come as Iran appears determined to carry out a war of attrition and demonstrate its control over Persian Gulf oil shipments.
Asked if he is concerned that the people of Iran, a country of 93 million people, could suffer if civilian infrastructure is hit, Trump said, “No, they want us to do it,” arguing that Iranian people are “living in hell.”
In recent weeks, Tehran has been mobilizing its population in ways that seek to harness the spirit of its 1980s war with Iraq, including drives to recruit millions of Iranians.
In a social-media post on Sunday morning, Trump threatened to destroy Iran’s power plants and bridges on Tuesday if the Strait of Hormuz isn’t reopened. But the post offered few details about how expansive the attacks might be.
Under international law, the military is allowed to strike civilian power plants and other key infrastructure only if it contributes to a military operation and civilian harm is minimized.
The Journal previously reported that aides to Trump have said these types of narrowly focused strikes are allowable because they are meant to hamper Tehran’s ability to build missiles, drones and nuclear weapons. Widespread strikes on power plants and bridges, regardless of military value, raise legal and humanitarian questions.
In the interview, the president also shared new details about the dramatic rescue of two U.S. airmen whose F-15E was shot down over Iran. Trump said the Friday rescue of the first airman was kept quiet so a search could continue for the second pilot, who was wounded but climbed up to a mountain crevice where he was rescued.
The Central Intelligence Agency carried out a deception operation to help protect the U.S. airman, the Journal has reported, spreading word within Iran that American forces had already located him and were preparing to fly him out of the country.
“We didn’t play up the first one, because then they would have found out about the second one,” Trump said. “You know, normally this is not done. When airmen go down, you can’t get them in very tough countries.”
The two pilots were in the same plane but landed a long distance apart because of the speed at which the jet was flying when the airmen evacuated, Trump said.
“Even though they’re only separated by five or six seconds, five or six seconds when you’re going 1,000 miles an hour, so that’s many miles, right?” he said.
“They were out there looking for him, the soldiers were all over the place looking for him because they knew he was somewhere. A lot of great things happened.”
In the interview, Trump declined to answer whether the U.S. believed Iran used Chinese or Russian air defense capabilities to shoot down the American plane. “Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t,” he said.
The president’s self-imposed Tuesday deadline comes as Iran approaches Trump’s earlier 10-day deadline to make a deal and open the Strait of Hormuz—which was slated to end on Monday. On Sunday afternoon, Trump posted “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time!”
Write to Meridith McGraw at Meridith.McGraw@WSJ.com
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Excerpt From
“Trump Warns Iran He Could Strike ‘Every Power Plant,’ in WSJ Interview”
The Wall Street Journal
Latest: Vice President Vance in Hungary today.
.
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — U.S. Vice President JD Vance arrived in Hungary on Tuesday in a bid to turn the tide of an election campaign where long-serving Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a close ally of President Donald Trump, is trailing in the polls.
Vance’s two-day trip, where he is scheduled to hold an official visit with Orbán and later appear at one of his campaign rallies, offered the clearest sign yet that the Trump administration is going all-in for an Orbán victory when Hungarians go to the polls on Sunday.
Orbán is running for his fifth-straight term as prime minister. He and his nationalist-populist Fidesz party are facing their toughest race in two decades against a center-right challenger, the Tisza party led by Péter Magyar, that could bring an end to Orbán’s 16 years in power.
Long accused by critics of taking over Hungary’s institutions, clamping down on press freedom and overseeing entrenched political corruption — charges he denies — Orbán has become an icon in the global far-right movement.
Associated Press
Religious front: just as he spoke from Rome:
‘pope pronounced that the threat to bomb Iran totally, is “Totally Unacceptable”
A noticeable item just cam through 
‘President Donald Trump said Friday the United States is prepared to take military action against Iran if upcoming negotiations in Pakistan fail, noting that American naval forces are being outfitted with advanced weaponry.
In comments to the New York Post, Trump said the outcome of the talks could become clear quickly as U.S. officials travel to Islamabad to pursue a broader agreement following this week’s ceasefire.
“We’re going to find out in about 24 hours. We’re going to know soon,” Trump said’
On the Don Lenon show, concurrently, Christi Noem’s anger at transsexuals doesn’t jive with her dominatrix girlfriend’s telling the world that she ain’t bothered by everybody finding out about her.
Vance in Hungary
