Iran has offered the United States a new proposal to end its control over the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for the U.S. lifting its blockade of Iranian ports while suspending its threat to resume bombing. Axios reports President Trump is expected to hold a meeting today in the Situation Room with his top national security and foreign policy team to discuss the stalemate in the negotiations and potential next steps. Several news outlets report Trump does not appear open to Iran’s proposal, which would postpone talks over Iran’s nuclear program to a later date. 

At the United Nations, diplomats from dozens of countries on Monday demanded the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, while a resolution calling for reopening the waterway was blocked by China and Russia. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned of a global food emergency after the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran triggered a crisis that sent the cost of fuel, fertilizer and other commodities soaring.

Secretary-General António Guterres: “Economic shock has been immediate, and everyone is paying the price: acute volatility in energy and commodity markets, surging transport and insurance costs and the worst supply chain disruption since COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine. These pressures are cascading into empty fuel tanks, empty shelves and empty plates.”

On Saturday, the Iranian Red Crescent Society said it has submitted evidence to the International Criminal Court documenting U.S.-Israeli war crimes. The IRCS estimates more than 132,000 civilian structures were bombed across Iran, including hospitals, apartment buildings, universities, research facilities and bridges. 

Meanwhile, Iran’s retaliation for U.S. and Israeli attacks caused billions of dollars of damage to U.S. military bases and other assets across the Persian Gulf region, with the damage inflicted far worse than the Trump administration has publicly admitted. That’s according to a report by NBC News, which reports Iran struck runways, high-end radar systems, dozens of aircraft, warehouses, command headquarters, aircraft hangars and satellite communications infrastructure, at a cost of up to $5 billion to repair. 

On Monday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he had become “disillusioned” with the U.S. and Israel over the war on Iran, and said the Trump administration is being outwitted and “humiliated.”

Chancellor Friedrich Merz: “The Americans clearly have no strategy. And the problem with conflicts like this is always that you don’t just have to go in, you also have to get out again. We saw that all too painfully in Afghanistan for 20 years. We saw it in Iraq. … An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian state leadership.”

Israel’s military has launched attacks across southern Lebanon, after it issued new warnings to residents to evacuate more than a dozen villages and towns and travel northward immediately or face death. It’s the latest violation of Israel’s ceasefire agreement with Lebanon, which was officially extended last Thursday. On Monday, Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem issued a statement condemning the Lebanese government’s direct talks with Israel, citing Israel’s occupation of Lebanon’s southern territories and its persistent attacks. In response, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened to “burn Hezbollah and all of Lebanon.”

Palestinian municipal elections were held in Gaza’s Deir al-Balah Saturday, marking the first elections of any kind in the besieged strip since 2006. Meanwhile, in the West Bank, loyalists of the Palestinian Authority’s President Mahmoud Abbas won most races, running unchallenged in many seats. Candidates in Gaza for the Palestinian Authority secured six of 15 contested seats. Hamas boycotted the West Bank race and did not formally nominate candidates in Gaza. Voter turnout in Gaza reached just 23%, while turnout in the West Bank was 56%. This is Mohammed al-Hasanat, a first-time voter in Gaza.

Mohamed al-Hasanat: “I was happy today because I was able to vote and cast my ballot in the elections. I was surprised, though, that the ballot box was made of wood and the pen was a felt-tip pen, not official ink. Despite that, we are still able to vote and elect and face all challenges. We want to vote. We want to rebuild Gaza from scratch, and we want to rebuild it.”

A former top State Department official under President Biden has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of committing genocide in Gaza — with U.S. participation. Wendy Sherman served as deputy secretary of state until her retirement in July 2023. She spoke with Mishal Husain of Bloomberg Podcasts.

Wendy Sherman: “I think that it is critical that Israel remain an ally of the United States and that we protect the right of a Jewish state. But I also believe that the prime minister has led us down a road, and we have been part of it, that has, in essence, created a genocide in Gaza.”

More than a dozen Biden administration officials resigned their posts to protest U.S. policy toward Israel and its treatment of Palestinians. Click here to see our interviews with many of them.

In Sudan, human rights workers say six people were killed Monday when a Sudanese army drone struck a camp for displaced people in the western Darfur region. Dozens more were wounded in the attack, which destroyed several homes and set off panic among displaced families. 

In El Fasher, the last major city in Darfur to fall to the UAE-backed paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, the Sudan Doctors Network reports that over 1,400 civilians, over 900 military personnel and 20 doctors are being held in dire conditions in detention facilities. The RSF is accused of committing ethnically motivated killings and field executions inside the detention centers, which have also seen a cholera outbreak since February.

Meanwhile, in East Darfur’s Labado, a measles outbreak has killed approximately 70 people and infected around 1,000 others since March, as the healthcare system has collapsed. According to the U.N., nearly 34 million people, about 65% of the population, are in urgent need of humanitarian support, and famine has been confirmed in Darfur and the Kordofans. This is Salha Musa, a displaced Sudanese woman.

Salha Musa: “Since we arrived in Tawila a month ago, we’ve been suffering from a severe lack of services, except for water, which we draw from wells. We have no other services here, and we desperately need assistance. Our children aren’t receiving an education. And I’m a nurse, but I can’t find work.” 

Virginia’s Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday on the legality of a redistricting referendum that voters approved last week. The redrawn Democratic map could result in the party holding 10 of Virginia’s 11 congressional seats, up from six. Meanwhile, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis released a new congressional map Monday that seeks to create four additional Republican-leaning seats in the state. It comes as the Supreme Court formally reinstated on Monday a redrawn Texas electoral map, allowing Republicans to flip as many as five House seats currently held by Democrats. 

Justices at the U.S. Supreme Court appeared split on Monday over whether a federal law that regulates the sale and marketing of pesticides preempts state-level lawsuits against manufacturers. The case centers on whether the federal government — or states — should decide what warning labels should be put on herbicides. Its main plaintiff is a Missouri man who sued Monsanto and its parent company Bayer in 2019 over its popular weed killer, glyphosate, marketed as “Roundup.” He alleged two decades of exposure to the chemical caused him to develop blood cancer. A jury found that Bayer had failed to warn him of the risks associated with Roundup, and awarded him $1.25 million in damages. The Trump administration, which has called Roundup safe, is siding with Bayer in its challenge at the Supreme Court. If successful, thousands of lawsuits alleging cancers caused by Roundup could be thrown out. 

More than 600 workers at Google have signed a letter to CEO Sundar Pichai demanding he refuse to allow Google’s AI tools to be used by the Pentagon for classified work. The employees cited concerns about lethal autonomous weapons and mass surveillance, writing that “the only way to guarantee that Google does not become associated with such harms is to reject any classified workloads.” Google is reportedly pursuing a Pentagon deal similar to the one OpenAI struck after the Defense Department’s public clash with Anthropic.

Meanwhile, protesters gathered outside an Oakland courthouse Monday as jury selection wrapped up in the trial pitting Elon Musk against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman. 

A California ballot initiative to impose a one-time 5% tax on billionaires’ assets has gathered more than 1.5 million signatures, well above the 870,000 needed to qualify for the November ballot. The measure, backed by the Service Employees International Union, would use the revenue to backfill federal Medicaid cuts signed by President Trump. Silicon Valley executives have poured $93 million into defeating the ballot initiative. Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin has emerged as the measure’s leading opponent, spending $57 million against it and relocating to Nevada before a December 31 deadline to escape the billionaire tax. The New York Times reports that at a holiday party last December, Brin cornered Governor Gavin Newsom and demanded he oppose the measure. The following month, Governor Newsom publicly pledged to defeat it. 

President Trump and first lady Melania Trump welcomed King Charles and Queen Camilla to Washington, D.C., on Monday. It’s Charles’s first visit to the U.S. since he ascended to the throne in 2022. He’s due to address a joint session of Congress this afternoon. His speech comes after Trump threatened to cancel a U.S.-U.K. trade deal, mocked the Royal Navy and insulted U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer as “weak and cowardly” and a “loser with no future.” During his U.S. visit, King Charles will not meet with survivors of sexual abuse and human trafficking by Jeffrey Epstein, despite a request by California Congressmember Ro Khanna for a private meeting. Charles’s brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was stripped of his royal title of prince and arrested in February amid accusations of misconduct in public office, over his close ties to Epstein.

Thirty-one-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California, was charged Monday with the attempted assassination of President Trump following Saturday’s shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner. Allen allegedly charged a security checkpoint at the Washington Hilton armed with a shotgun and a pistol. A Secret Service officer was shot, but survived due to a bullet-resistant vest. An FBI affidavit revealed Allen had reserved a room at the hotel weeks before the dinner and traveled cross-country by train from California. In an email sent to family just before the attack, he referred to himself as a “Friendly Federal Assassin.” He faces up to life in prison. At the White House, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt blamed “leftists” for the attack.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt: “Those who constantly falsely label and slander the president as a fascist, as a threat to democracy, and compare him to Hitler to score political points are fueling this kind of violence. The left-wing cult of hatred against the president and all of those who support him and work for him has gotten multiple people hurt and killed, and it almost did so again this weekend.”

First lady Melania Trump has joined her husband in calling on ABC to fire late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel, following the gunfire that erupted outside the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday. The first lady objected to Kimmel’s joke last week — before the shooting took place — that she had a “glow like an expectant widow.” On Monday evening, Kimmel pushed back.

Jimmy Kimmel: “I’ve been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence in particular. But I understand that the first lady had a stressful experience over the weekend, and probably every weekend is pretty stressful in that house. And also, I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject. I do. And I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it.”

This comes after CBS last year canceled “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” under pressure from President Trump, and after ABC temporarily suspended Kimmel’s show last September over his comments about the assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk.