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For the fourth time since the war began, G.O.P. senators successfully fended off an effort to constrain the president. But there were signs of growing unease among Republicans.
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Schwartz would be Trump's third nominee to lead the agency. The administration is also said to be looking at three other people to serve in senior roles supporting her.
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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted the first direct talks between Israel and Lebanon in decades on Tuesday in Washington. Hezbollah, which was not a party to the talks, made clear it will not abide by any agreement that results from their negotiations.
Israel's demand that Hezbollah be disarmed is "anything but reasonable," says Daniel Levy, former Israeli peace negotiator under Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin. "What [Israel] is doing here is trying to put something that sounds reasonable on the table, but with the intention of embarrassing and humiliating the Lebanese government," which Levy says does not have the capacity to disarm Hezbollah.
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It follows a warning from the US president that America's trade deal with the UK "can always be changed".
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The gathering ended with encouraging words, even as Israel continued to refuse to halt its military campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
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After the first round of ceasefire negotiations in Pakistan collapsed over the weekend, we speak to two former nuclear negotiators about prospects for ending the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, including what another nuclear deal might look like. Robert Malley, a U.S. negotiator for the 2015 nuclear deal (which President Trump withdrew from in his first term), says Trump's "mercurial" behavior makes it difficult to predict his objectives and the course of any future talks. "Iran was in full compliance with the JCPOA" and was blindsided by the U.S.'s decision to pull out of the deal, says Seyed Hossein Mousavian, who served as spokesperson for Iran's nuclear negotiation team from 2003 to 2005. Now its leaders "don't know whether the U.S. is really for diplomacy or not."
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(Top headline, 2nd story, link)
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Vice President JD Vance appeared to express sympathy with critics of the war with Iran: "I recognize that young voters do not love the policy we have in the Middle East, OK. I understand."
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In a thinly veiled critique of the war in Iran, China's leader said the world could not risk reverting "to the law of the jungle."
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A survey from Ipsos and Reuters, released on Tuesday, found few Americans — 24 percent — think the war in Iran has been worth the costs and benefits.
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Ship traffic has been halted again in the Strait of Hormuz after President Trump ordered the U.S. military to begin a naval blockade of all Iranian ports and coastal areas starting Monday at 10 a.m. ET. Iran denounced Trump's move as an illegal act amounting to "piracy" and has threatened to strike Gulf ports in retaliation. Trump ordered the blockade after the U.S. and Iran failed to reach a deal to end the war following 21 hours of talks in Islamabad, Pakistan. Global oil prices jumped after Trump announced the blockade.
Ervand Abrahamian, professor emeritus of history at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, predicts "the U.S. will start bombing Iranian oil installations. Iran will retaliate by bombing the Gulf oil installations, gas installations. The oil prices then could really zoom up. Some people expect it to reach $200 a barrel." Abrahamian warns that soaring energy prices will have long-term implications for the world economy.
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The PM condemns the US president's threat that a "whole civilisation" would die unless Iran agreed to end the war.
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