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A 15-year-old boy was also hit. The motorcade of Vice President JD Vance had passed through the area shortly before the shooting.
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An exchange of fire threatened to shatter a fragile cease-fire as President Trump seeks to break Iran's effective blockade of the waterway.
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The president left unclear what measures the U.S. would take and whether any forces would be at risk. Iran said it would strike any foreign force approaching the strait.
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The altercation near the Washington Monument occurred shortly after Vice President J.D. Vance passed by in a motorcade, a U.S. Secret Service official said.
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President Trump on Thursday repeated his claim that a deal to end the war on Iran is "very close" and that direct talks with Iran could resume in Pakistan as soon as this weekend. Despite the claims, the Pentagon is surging thousands of additional troops to the Middle East, including an additional 6,000 sailors and aviators joining the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier battle group. Around 4,200 others with the Navy and Marines are expected to arrive near the end of the month. Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, says "we might be, at some point, returning to a hot war" because the Iranians, too, have "preserved a degree of retaliatory capacity." The main question on the negotiating table is whether the Iranians, who "have been saying for years that they don't want nuclear weapons," will curb their nuclear activity, and if so, whether the U.S. would "be willing to provide them with economic incentives and sanctions relief."
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Amid strains in U.S.-European relations, the Trump administration has worked to strengthen ties with Hungary and its far-right leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who is facing his biggest challenge in 16 years. With just days to go before parliamentary elections, Orbán's Fidesz party is trailing the center-right pro-EU Tisza party led by Péter Magyar. U.S. Vice President JD Vance traveled to Budapest this week and appeared alongside Orbán to openly campaign for his reelection.
"This election is really crucial, not just for Hungary, but for the international right wing," says Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University. "There's been a lot of American signaling that the U.S. would really love to have Viktor Orbán be reelected. The problem is the Hungarian people don't seem to agree."
Scheppele also discusses the role of Sebastian Gorka, a top counterterrorism official in the Trump administration, who has longstanding ties to the far right in Hungary and has been instrumental in forging closer ties between the two governments. According to a recent New York Times investigation, Gorka is also leading an effort to target left-wing groups in the United States and abroad as "terrorist organizations."
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