\n
1. THE GULF BREAKS RANKS \u2014 AND THEN MEETS TO PRETEND IT HASN\u2019T<\/h3>\n
The United Arab Emirates announced Tuesday morning that it was quitting OPEC. By Tuesday afternoon, its foreign minister was seated at a table in Jeddah with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman for the first extraordinary Gulf Cooperation Council summit since the war began on February 28. The timing was not coincidental. It was a portrait of the Gulf\u2019s central contradiction: a bloc projecting unity while one of its most powerful members has just broken from the cartel that gave the bloc its collective economic leverage.<\/p>\n
The Jeddah summit was significant in its own right. It was the first in-person meeting of GCC leaders since Iranian missiles and drones struck energy infrastructure across all six member states during the war\u2019s opening weeks. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman chaired the session. Qatar\u2019s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Bahrain\u2019s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, and Kuwait\u2019s Crown Prince Sheikh Sabah Khaled attended in person. The UAE sent Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed \u2014 not its president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed \u2014 a protocol signal worth noting given the OPEC announcement hours earlier. The communiqu\u00e9 was direct. The GCC secretary-general read a statement expressing the bloc\u2019s \u201ccategorical rejection\u201d of Iran\u2019s Hormuz tolling regime, calling for the strait to return to its pre-February 28 status, and demanding \u201curgent and unimpeded reopening\u201d of the waterway. MBS stressed \u201cunified Gulf action.\u201d Qatar\u2019s Emir called it a demonstration of \u201cunified Gulf stance toward the war.\u201d<\/p>\n
The OPEC exit announced the same morning complicates that framing considerably. The UAE\u2019s decision \u2014 effective May 1, ending nearly six decades of membership \u2014 was made, Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei confirmed in a CNBC interview Tuesday afternoon, without consulting Saudi Arabia or any other country. \u201cThis is a policy decision,\u201d he said. \u201cIt has been done after a careful look at current and future policies related to level of production.\u201d When asked directly whether Saudi Arabia had been informed, he was unambiguous: \u201cThis is a sovereign national decision.\u201d Saudi Arabia, OPEC\u2019s dominant force and the UAE\u2019s nominal ally, has not responded publicly.<\/p>\n
The subtext of the OPEC exit extends well beyond quota arithmetic. NPR\u2019s analysis Tuesday, confirmed this session, placed the exit in the context of a Saudi-UAE relationship that had already deteriorated sharply before the war \u2014 over Yemen, over economic competition, over Saudi Vision 2030 encroaching on territory Abu Dhabi had treated as its own. The UAE has positioned itself as Washington\u2019s most dependable Gulf military partner throughout the conflict, hosting US bases, providing logistical support, deploying an Israeli-supplied Iron Dome battery, and deepening Abraham Accords ties with Israel. Its decision to quit OPEC on the eve of a GCC summit it still attended is a message to Riyadh delivered in the language Riyadh understands best: energy policy.<\/p>\n
Rystad Energy\u2019s Jorge Leon put the structural consequence plainly: \u201cSaudi Arabia is now left doing more of the heavy lifting on price stability, and the market loses one of the few shock absorbers it had left.\u201d With the UAE free of OPEC quotas from Friday, the cartel loses a member with 4.8 million barrels per day of capacity and the ambition to produce considerably more. The near-term impact on oil supply is muted \u2014 the UAE cannot pump what it cannot ship, and the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed, with just six ships attempting to cross Tuesday morning per MarineTraffic data, down from 130 per day before the war. But the longer-term implication is structural: a weaker OPEC, a wider Saudi-UAE rift, and a Gulf bloc whose public unity statements are increasingly at odds with its members\u2019 individual calculations.<\/p>\n
The Bahrain dimension adds a sharper edge to the day\u2019s Gulf picture. A Bahraini court sentenced five people \u2014 two Afghans and three Bahrainis \u2014 to life in prison Tuesday for conspiring with Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards to monitor vital facilities. Twenty-five others received sentences of up to ten years for sharing images of Iranian attacks and expressing support. This comes one day after Bahrain revoked the citizenship of 69 people for \u201csupporting hostile Iranian acts.\u201d The Gulf states are not merely projecting unity against Iran at summits. They are prosecuting it at home.<\/p>\n
\ud83c\udf0d TRANSLATOR\u2019S NOTE:<\/strong> Al Jazeera led its Gulf coverage Tuesday with the Jeddah summit as a milestone \u2014 the first in-person meeting of GCC leaders since the war began \u2014 while simultaneously running a separate analysis on the UAE\u2019s OPEC exit as a structural blow to the cartel and to Saudi regional leadership. The two stories appeared side by side on Al Jazeera\u2019s homepage, and no editorial effort was made to reconcile them. That juxtaposition is the honest framing: the Gulf is simultaneously projecting unity and fragmenting. Arab media, including Al Arabiya and The National, covered the Jeddah communiqu\u00e9 approvingly, emphasizing the collective rejection of Iranian tolling and the call for Hormuz to reopen. What received less attention in Gulf state media \u2014 unsurprisingly \u2014 was the Saudi-UAE rift that the OPEC exit makes explicit. Reuters and NPR provided the most direct accounting of that rift, tracing it through Yemen, Vision 2030 competition, and the divergent security postures the two countries have adopted during the war. The honest read is that the GCC issued a unified statement on Tuesday while one of its most powerful members made a unilateral decision that undermines the Saudi-led framework that has governed Gulf energy policy for six decades.<\/p>\n \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW:<\/strong> The Gulf states are America\u2019s most important regional partners in this war \u2014 they host the bases, absorb the Iranian missile strikes, and hold the energy reserves that determine what Americans pay at the pump. Tuesday\u2019s Jeddah summit projected unity. Tuesday\u2019s OPEC exit revealed fracture. Both things are true simultaneously, and the fracture matters more for the long term. Gas hit $4.176 per gallon Tuesday \u2014 the highest since August 2022 \u2014 and Brent closed at $111.26. The UAE is now free of OPEC quotas, but it cannot ship a barrel of oil until the Strait of Hormuz reopens. The relief American consumers need from the pump is still hostage to a diplomatic process that has produced no deal, no scheduled talks, and no agreed framework.<\/p>\n Sources: <\/em>Al Jazeera<\/a><\/em> (Qatar, state-funded\/editorially independent \u2014 GCC summit confirmed, communiqu\u00e9, Tamim quote, confirmed this session); <\/em>Reuters via US News<\/a><\/em> (wire \u2014 OPEC exit, Saudi-UAE rift, Leon quote, confirmed this session); <\/em>CNBC<\/a><\/em> (markets \u2014 Al Mazrouei interview, confirmed this session); <\/em>NPR<\/a><\/em> (US confirmation \u2014 Saudi-UAE relationship analysis, confirmed this session); <\/em>Al Bawaba<\/a><\/em> (Gulf \u2014 MBS quote, communiqu\u00e9 text, Bahrain sentencing, confirmed this session); <\/em>Middle East Eye<\/a><\/em> (UK-based, pro-Palestinian editorial lean \u2014 summit attendance details, Gargash quote, confirmed this session \u2014 labeled); <\/em>MarineTraffic<\/a><\/em> (shipping data \u2014 six ships attempting Hormuz Tuesday, confirmed this session)<\/em><\/p>\n Tuesday morning, President Trump posted on Truth Social that Iran had \u201cinformed us that they are in a \u2018State of Collapse\u2019\u201d and that Tehran wants the Strait of Hormuz open \u201cas they try to figure out their leadership situation.\u201d He expressed confidence Iran\u2019s leadership situation would resolve itself favorably. The post was characteristically assured. It was also, on every measurable indicator available Tuesday, at significant variance with the facts on the ground.<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s military spokesperson said Tuesday that Iran is \u201cstill in a war situation.\u201d Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the United States is rejecting Iran\u2019s three-phase proposal as currently structured because it defers the nuclear question \u2014 the demand at the center of any deal \u2014 to a later stage Iran controls. Brent crude closed at $111.26 per barrel, having hit an intraday high of $112.70 \u2014 the highest since March 31. MarineTraffic recorded six ships attempting to cross the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday morning, down from 130 per day before the war. The blockade has turned back more than 38 ships. No counter-proposal has been issued by the United States. No talks are scheduled. The war is in its 59th day.<\/p>\n Thursday is May 1. Under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, Trump formally notified Congress of Operation Epic Fury on March 2 \u2014 triggering a 60-day clock that expires on that date. The law is explicit: the president must obtain congressional authorization by May 1 or begin withdrawing forces. The administration has sought neither authorization nor supplemental appropriations. It has not publicly engaged Republican leadership on a path forward. Vice President Vance has called the law \u201cfundamentally a fake and unconstitutional law.\u201d Trump told reporters in late April he would not be pressured by timelines.<\/p>\n The Republican calculus is now shifting in ways that matter. Senator Susan Collins \u2014 who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee and has been one of the most consequential swing votes on Iran war legislation \u2014 told CNN Tuesday she expects Trump to invoke the law\u2019s single 30-day extension provision rather than seek a full Authorization for Use of Military Force. Senator Mike Rounds said he would be \u201csurprised\u201d if Trump doesn\u2019t use it. The 30-day extension is legally available under a specific condition: the president must certify in writing to Congress that additional time is necessary for the \u201csafe and orderly withdrawal\u201d of US troops. It is not, per the Congressional Research Service\u2019s 2025 analysis of the statute, a mechanism for continuing to prosecute an unauthorized war. Using it as such would be a legal argument the administration would need to defend \u2014 and it would restart a 30-day clock at the end of which the same confrontation resumes.<\/p>\n The cost dimension is sharpening the Republican calculus. TIME\u2019s reporting, confirmed this session, estimates the war has already cost nearly $30 billion. The administration is expected to seek $80 to $100 billion in supplemental funding \u2014 a request that would force lawmakers to decide whether to finance a military campaign they have not formally authorized. Republican Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, a member of the Armed Services Committee, was direct: \u201cBy law, we\u2019ve got to either approve continued operations or stop. If it\u2019s not approved, by law, they have to stop their operations.\u201d Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina said the law requires the administration to either \u201carticulate an exit plan that would make an AUMF moot, or you\u2019re planning to be there for an extended period of time\u201d \u2014 in which case authorization is required.<\/p>\n Democrats are not waiting. TIME reported Tuesday afternoon, confirmed this session, that multiple Democratic members of Congress are in early-stage discussions about suing Trump if the war continues past May 1 without congressional authorization. The discussions are described as preliminary but intensifying. Representative Pete Aguilar of California, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said legislative options remain the primary strategy \u2014 but declined to rule out legal action. The fifth War Powers resolution vote failed 46-51 on April 23, with Senator Rand Paul the only Republican in favor and Senator John Fetterman the lone Democrat opposed. Democrats intend to force additional votes before and after the deadline.<\/p>\n The administration\u2019s public narrative \u2014 Iran collapsing, the war effectively won, the strait soon to reopen \u2014 sits against that legal and financial reality in a way that Thursday will make impossible to ignore. No president has ever been forced to end a war by the War Powers Resolution. But no president has previously declared a war essentially won while simultaneously blocking a congressional authorization vote, refusing to seek supplemental appropriations, invoking a law the vice president calls fake, and watching oil trade at $111 a barrel.<\/p>\n \ud83c\udf0d TRANSLATOR\u2019S NOTE:<\/strong> The international press is covering the War Powers deadline as a constitutional crisis in the making \u2014 not as a procedural footnote. Al Jazeera\u2019s explainer, confirmed this session, laid out the law\u2019s history and the administration\u2019s contempt for it with unusual directness. The framing in European and Gulf outlets has been consistent: the United States is conducting a war of uncertain legal basis at home, costing tens of billions of dollars Congress has not authorized, while its president declares victory on social media and its oil price tells a different story. That framing \u2014 a credibility gap between the administration\u2019s narrative and the war\u2019s measurable reality \u2014 is present in Al Jazeera, France 24, and international outlets broadly in a way it has not yet dominated US domestic coverage, where the story is still largely treated as a congressional procedure question rather than a fundamental question about whether the American public is being told the truth about this war.<\/p>\n \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW:<\/strong> Trump says Iran is collapsing. Iran\u2019s military says it\u2019s still at war. Brent is at $111. Gas is at $4.18. No deal is on the table. No talks are scheduled. Thursday the clock runs out on the legal authority to fight this war without Congress. The administration\u2019s plan, per Republican senators, is to invoke a 30-day extension meant for troop withdrawal \u2014 and use it to keep fighting. That is not what the law says the extension is for. The gap between what the president is saying and what the law, the oil price, and the Iranian military spokesperson are saying is the story of this war on Day 59. Thursday will test whether Congress is willing to say so.<\/p>\n Sources: <\/em>CNN<\/a><\/em> (US confirmation \u2014 Trump Truth Social post, Collins statement, Rubio rejection, confirmed this session); <\/em>TIME<\/a><\/em> (US \u2014 Democrats lawsuit discussions, war cost estimates, confirmed this session); <\/em>TIME<\/a><\/em> (US \u2014 Bacon quote, Tillis quote, supplemental funding figure, confirmed this session); <\/em>Al Jazeera<\/a><\/em> (Qatar, state-funded\/editorially independent \u2014 War Powers history, Republican senator positions, confirmed this session); <\/em>CNN analysis<\/a><\/em> (US \u2014 30-day extension mechanics, Collins quote, Reagan precedent, confirmed this session); <\/em>Foreign Policy<\/a><\/em> (US specialist \u2014 Tillis quote, Collins expected vote, confirmed this session); <\/em>Democracy Now via AP<\/a><\/em> (wire \u2014 fifth War Powers vote 46-51, Fetterman\/Paul votes, confirmed this session)<\/em><\/p>\n On May 15, 2025, former FBI Director James Comey posted a photo on Instagram. It showed seashells on a beach, arranged to spell out the numbers \u201c86 47.\u201d He deleted it shortly after. He said he hadn\u2019t realized some people associate those numbers with violence. The number 86 is old American slang meaning to discard or eliminate something. 47 is Trump\u2019s number as the 47th president. Republicans called it a threat. The Department of Homeland Security investigated. The Secret Service questioned Comey. And on Tuesday afternoon, a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina returned a two-count indictment charging Comey with threatening the life of the president of the United States.<\/p>\n It is the second time the Trump administration has indicted James Comey. The first indictment, filed in September 2025, accused him of making false statements and obstructing a congressional investigation related to his 2020 Senate testimony. That case was dismissed by a federal judge who found that the prosecutor who secured the indictment \u2014 Lindsey Halligan, a former Trump lawyer \u2014 had been unlawfully appointed. The same judge dismissed a concurrent indictment against New York Attorney General Letitia James on the same grounds. The administration refiled. This time against Comey, the charge is the beach photo.<\/p>\n Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche held a press conference Tuesday to announce the indictment. He was asked by CNN\u2019s Evan Perez why the Justice Department had sought an arrest warrant in the case. He said grand juries issue warrants, not the DOJ. He was asked by NBC News how federal prosecutors would prove that Comey \u201cknowingly and willfully\u201d made a threat \u2014 the core legal requirement of the statute. He said there had been \u201ca tremendous amount of investigation\u201d and declined to discuss the evidence. \u201cI am not going to talk about the evidence that we have,\u201d Blanche said. \u201cThat\u2019s unfair to him. It\u2019s unfair to the prosecutors.\u201d He also noted it was \u201cvery premature\u201d to discuss whether Comey might testify. Immediately after the press conference, Blanche was photographed arriving at the White House.<\/p>\n The legal standard at issue is not trivial. The statute \u2014 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 871 \u2014 requires proof that the defendant \u201cknowingly and willfully\u201d threatened the president, and that a \u201creasonable recipient familiar with the circumstances\u201d would interpret the communication as a serious expression of intent to do harm. CNN legal analyst Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor, said on air the indictment was \u201cdeeply flawed\u201d and questioned how prosecutors could establish the intent element. Comey has said publicly and repeatedly that the post was not intended as a threat. The grand jury that indicted him was convened in North Carolina \u2014 where Comey has a beach house and where the photo was taken \u2014 not in Washington, where Comey lives and where the alleged harm to the president would presumably be felt. Comey\u2019s attorneys declined to comment Tuesday. If convicted on both counts, he faces a maximum of 10 years in prison.<\/p>\n The context for the international press is straightforward and damning. Comey was the FBI director who oversaw the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump fired him in May 2017 \u2014 while that investigation was ongoing. Comey wrote a book about it. He went on television. He became, in the Trump political universe, a symbol of the \u201cdeep state\u201d institutions that Trump has spent two terms dismantling. The DOJ indicted him in September 2025 on charges a judge threw out within months. It has now indicted him again \u2014 this time for arranging seashells on a beach \u2014 on the same day it is managing a War Powers constitutional deadline, a stalled Iran war, and a second Comey family legal matter: a judge ruled Tuesday that a separate lawsuit brought by Comey\u2019s daughter Maurene \u2014 a former federal prosecutor fired from the DOJ \u2014 can proceed in court.<\/p>\n The pattern matters as much as the charge. The Trump DOJ has now brought criminal charges against James Comey twice. It brought charges against Letitia James \u2014 dismissed. It brought charges against other Trump critics. It fired prosecutors who declined to pursue political targets and replaced them with loyalists. The Comey beach photo indictment arrives on a specific day: two days before the War Powers deadline, amid stalled Iran diplomacy, in a week when the administration is asking Congress to trust its accounting of a war it has refused to document. Blanche went straight from the press conference to the White House.<\/p>\n \ud83c\udf0d TRANSLATOR\u2019S NOTE:<\/strong> The international press has the full context for this story in a way that the American domestic news cycle, moving quickly between developments, can lose. Al Jazeera covered Comey\u2019s firing in 2017, the Russia investigation, and the subsequent years of Trump\u2019s attempts to pursue legal action against perceived enemies \u2014 and has covered Tuesday\u2019s indictment in that context. For international audiences, the beach photo indictment is not a surprising development \u2014 it is a predictable next step in a documented pattern of using the Justice Department as a political instrument. The specific charge \u2014 a photo of seashells \u2014 has received extensive coverage abroad precisely because it appears, to international observers, as a demonstration of what happens to the rule of law when a government decides to prosecute its critics regardless of the legal foundation. NPR noted Tuesday that the first Comey indictment was dismissed on grounds the prosecutor was unlawfully appointed \u2014 the same grounds as the concurrent Letitia James dismissal \u2014 and that the administration has simply refiled a new theory of prosecution. That is the story the international press is telling: not a single indictment, but a methodology.<\/p>\n \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW:<\/strong> The former FBI director who oversaw the Russia investigation has been indicted by the Trump DOJ for the second time. The first indictment was thrown out because the prosecutor was unlawfully appointed. This one is based on a beach photo. The acting attorney general could not explain at his press conference how prosecutors would prove Comey intended a threat. He then went to the White House. If the legal standard for threatening the president is posting a photo of seashells with numbers that can be interpreted as a reference to the 47th president, the question the American public should be asking is not whether James Comey meant it. It is what other speech acts, posts, or images might meet the same standard \u2014 and who decides.<\/p>\n Sources: <\/em>CNN<\/a><\/em> (US \u2014 primary reporting, indictment details, Blanche press conference, Honig reaction, confirmed this session); <\/em>NBC News<\/a><\/em> (US confirmation \u2014 two-count indictment, intent standard, Blanche quote on evidence, confirmed this session); <\/em>Washington Post<\/a><\/em> (US, centre-left \u2014 second indictment framing, Maurene Comey lawsuit detail, confirmed this session \u2014 Tier 2 label); <\/em>NPR<\/a><\/em> (US confirmation \u2014 Blanche quote, first dismissal grounds, pattern framing, confirmed this session); <\/em>DOJ press release<\/a><\/em> (primary source \u2014 indictment text, charges, maximum penalty, confirmed this session)<\/em><\/p>\n WAR DAY 59 | NUMBERS AT PUBLICATION<\/strong><\/p>\n \ud83c\uddee\ud83c\uddf7 Iran:<\/strong> 3,636+ killed (HRANA floor estimate \u2014 1,701 civilians, 1,221 military, 714 unclassified; FROZEN since Day 38\/April 7<\/strong>; no updated HRANA report confirmed this session) Sourcing note: Iran civilian casualties sourced to HRANA (US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency), which relies on a network of activists inside Iran and represents a floor estimate. AP is running a separate figure of 3,375 reflecting a different methodology. ROTWR continues to use the HRANA floor estimate per locked methodology. Methodology differs between all sources; figures should not be treated as directly comparable.<\/em><\/p>\n WATCH LIST<\/strong><\/p>\n \ud83d\udd34 May 1 War Powers deadline \u2014 two days.<\/strong> The administration\u2019s likely move is a 30-day extension. That extension is legally intended for safe troop withdrawal, not continued combat. Watch for any White House written certification to Congress, any AUMF filing, or any Democratic lawsuit filing Thursday.<\/p>\n \ud83d\udd34 Iran counter-proposal.<\/strong> Rubio rejected the three-phase proposal Tuesday. No counter has been issued. Brent at $111 is the market\u2019s verdict on the diplomatic stalemate. Watch for any Pakistani or Omani readout, and any US response before the War Powers deadline forces a different calculation.<\/p>\n \ud83d\udfe1 Comey legal response.<\/strong> His attorneys declined to comment Tuesday. Watch for a response from Comey\u2019s legal team and any early court filings in the Eastern District of North Carolina. The intent element is the case\u2019s central vulnerability \u2014 watch for defense motions challenging the sufficiency of the indictment.<\/p>\n \ud83d\udfe1 GCC-Saudi response to UAE OPEC exit.<\/strong> Saudi Arabia has not responded publicly. The next OPEC+ meeting is Wednesday in Vienna. Watch for any Saudi statement and for whether the cartel\u2019s remaining members signal stability or further fragmentation.<\/p>\n \u201cWhenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government.\u201d \u2014 Thomas Jefferson, 1789<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Iran War & Beyond Weekday morning and evening editions. Saturdays once. Good news on Sundays. All sources labeled. 1. THE GULF BREAKS RANKS \u2014 AND THEN MEETS TO PRETEND IT HASN\u2019T The United Arab Emirates announced Tuesday morning that it was quitting OPEC. By Tuesday afternoon, its foreign minister was seated at a table in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oxygen_hide_in_design_set":false,"_oxygen_tags":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-patreon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n2. TRUMP SAYS IRAN IS COLLAPSING. THE LAW SAYS HE HAS TWO DAYS.<\/h3>\n
\n3. THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT HAS INDICTED JAMES COMEY AGAIN. THIS TIME FOR A BEACH PHOTO.<\/h3>\n
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\ud83c\uddf1\ud83c\udde7 Lebanon:<\/strong> At least 2,509 killed, 7,755 wounded (Lebanon Health Ministry \u2014 last confirmed April 26 via AFP; no updated Ministry figure confirmed this session)
\ud83c\uddee\ud83c\uddf1 Israel:<\/strong> At least 28 killed (last confirmed this session \u2014 not yet updated on Al Jazeera live tracker)
\ud83c\udf0d Gulf states:<\/strong> At least 28 killed in Iran-attributed attacks (Al Jazeera live tracker \u2014 last confirmed Day 44; not updated this session)
\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 US military:<\/strong> 13 deaths confirmed (CENTCOM \u2014 unchanged)
\ud83d\udee2\ufe0f Brent crude:<\/strong> $111.26\/barrel close (CNBC, confirmed this session \u2014 intraday high $112.70, highest since March 31)
\u26fd US gas:<\/strong> $4.176\/gallon regular (AAA via CNBC \u2014 highest since August 2, 2022)
\ud83d\udcc9 US markets:<\/strong> S&P 500 \u22120.49% to 7,138.80; Nasdaq \u22120.9% to 24,663.80; Dow \u22120.05% to 49,141.93 (CNBC, confirmed this session)<\/p>\n
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