President Trump has warned that Iran will be “blown off the face of the earth” if U.S. warships are targeted in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump’s renewed threat to destroy Iran came as the Pentagon rebranded its war from “Operation Epic Fury” to “Project Freedom,” turning its focus to reopening the Strait of Hormuz to commercial traffic.

On Monday, Iranian state media said that the U.S. had fired on small cargo boats carrying goods and passengers, killing five civilians. U.S. Central Command confirmed it had attacked several boats, but insisted they were threatening commercial vessels.

Separately, the United Arab Emirates said it had come under attack from drones and missiles that caused a fire at an oil facility at the port of Fujairah. The port is outside the Strait of Hormuz and is one of few export routes that doesn’t require transiting through the strait. Three Indian nationals were injured in the attack. Iran claimed it was not responsible.

In Washington, D.C., a man who scaled the Frederick Douglass Bridge to protest the war in Iran remained on the bridge overnight and into a fifth consecutive day. Guido Reichstadter, a veteran and father of two from Florida, said in a statement, “I’m calling on the people of the United States to bring an immediate end to the Trump regime’s illegal war on Iran and the removal of the regime’s power through mass nonviolent direct action and non-cooperation.”

Iran executed three men on Sunday in connection with anti-government protests earlier this year. Mehdi Rasouli, Mohammad Reza Miri and Ebrahim Dolatabadi were all hanged in Mashhad. According to Iran Human Rights Monitor, Iran carried out 656 executions in the first three months of this year. Since March, during the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, there have been 24 political executions.

Meanwhile, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi has been hospitalized in critical condition after collapsing in Zanjan Prison. She suffered a heart attack in March and has since experienced chest pain, severe headaches and double vision, but authorities continue to deny her transfer to specialist care in Tehran. Mohammadi has been arrested 13 times and sentenced to a cumulative 31 years in prison. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 for her advocacy against torture and the death penalty in Iran.

In Gaza, Israeli strikes killed at least three Palestinians in separate attacks on Monday. And earlier today, an Israeli drone attack killed a Palestinian in Gaza City, leaving several others badly injured. On Sunday, an Israeli military broadcaster reported its forces had expanded control of the Gaza Strip to nearly 60% of the territory and were prepared to resume a full-scale assault, if ordered.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces shot and killed a 26-year-old Palestinian man on Monday as they raided a busy commercial area of Nablus. Nayef Samaro died after he was shot in the head. He had reportedly just dropped his wife at a nearby hospital to give birth to their first child. At least four others, including two children, were struck and wounded by live ammunition.

The U.S. military says it launched another strike on a vessel in the Caribbean, killing two people Monday. The Trump administration once again claimed the vessel was carrying drugs without providing any evidence. Since September, the Pentagon says it has killed at least 188 people in strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. The attacks have been widely condemned as illegal.

Ukraine’s interior minister says Russian attacks on Monday killed 14 people and wounded at least 60 others across multiple regions of Ukraine, with reports of heavy shelling and damage to residential areas. Russia’s latest assault came as President Vladimir Putin said he would declare a unilateral ceasefire in Ukraine for Friday and Saturday as Russia marks Victory Day, commemorating the 81st anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

Meanwhile, Russia faces a growing environmental disaster along its Black Sea coast after Ukraine struck the oil-refining port of Tuapse for the fourth time in less than three weeks. The attacks created large oil spills, huge clouds of acrid smoke and toxic black rain that fell on residents and contaminated more than 30 miles of coastline.

In New Orleans, a federal appeals court blocked criminal court clerk Calvin Duncan from taking office on Monday, which was scheduled to be his first day on the job. Duncan won election to the post in November, just five years after his release from prison after serving 28 years for a murder he did not commit. He was exonerated in 2021 and earned his law degree a year later at age 60. His position was eliminated last Friday, when Republican Governor Jeff Landry signed legislation abolishing it. Governor Landry also canceled upcoming primary elections, following Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling which struck down the last remaining major provision of the Voting Rights Act. On Monday, protesters marched through the streets of New Orleans demanding an end to racist gerrymandering of Louisiana’s congressional maps and the reinstatement of Calvin Duncan to his elected position.

Lionel Roberts: “Calvin Duncan won a race with 68% of the vote, you know, so that’s the citizens of New Orleans. I think that should be honored and respected. And the fact that it’s not, I think anybody who has a sense of right and wrong should stand up against that, because that’s a direct strike against democracy. And if we don’t stand against this, then, you know, America is just dissolving, as far as I’m concerned.”

Alabama’s state Legislature adjourned a special session on Monday after demonstrators entered the State House in Montgomery to protest Republican plans to adopt a gerrymandered map that dilutes the power of Black voters. Currently, an injunction bars Alabama from redrawing its congressional maps before 2030, but following the Supreme Court’s ruling last week gutting the Voting Rights Act, Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall filed an emergency motion asking a court to lift the prohibition. This is Dee Reed, an organizer with Black Voters Matter.

Dee Reed: “It is a strategic attempt to erase the Voting Rights Act, which we know is our strongest protection against disenfranchisement — protections that were not given, protections that were fought for right here in Alabama by the people from Selma, by the people from Greenville, by the people from Birmingham and by the people from Montgomery.”

A new investigation by The Washington Post looks at the increasing use of force by guards against immigrants detained in ICE jails nationwide. The Post found nearly 800 cases in which ICE guards used physical violence or deployed chemical agents on jailed immigrants during Trump’s first year back in office — a 37% increase compared to the previous year. The skyrocketing use of force comes as the Trump administration packs ICE jails beyond their capacities as part of his mass deportation campaign. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has shuttered its internal watchdog offices that tracked the abuse of immigrants in custody.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday stepped in to block a lower court ruling that would have cut off access to the abortion pill mifepristone for millions of people nationwide. The order was signed by Justice Samuel Alito, who put a one-week hold on major changes to how the pill can be prescribed, temporarily restoring nationwide telehealth and mail access through May 11. The temporary pause gives the Supreme Court time to consider next steps in the case as it weighs emergency requests filed by the manufacturers of mifepristone.

In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party, BJP, is tightening its political grip after winning a key legislative election in one of India’s most populous states, West Bengal. The victory brought an end to 15 years of rule by Mamata Banerjee, who is one of Modi’s most outspoken opponents. In the run-up to the election, an estimated 9 million people were stripped of their right to vote, removed from the voter registration, in a move that disproportionately targeted Muslims in West Bengal.

The 2026 Pulitzer Prize winners were announced Monday. Palestinian photographer Saher Alghorra, a New York Times contributor, won the Prize for Breaking News Photography for his “haunting, sensitive series showing the devastation and starvation in Gaza.” M. Gessen of The New York Times won the Pulitzer Prize for Opinion Writing. Meanwhile, a special citation was awarded to Miami Herald investigative journalist Julie K. Brown for her groundbreaking reporting in 2017 and 2018 that exposed Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking network.

In Wisconsin, animal rights advocates reached a deal with Ridglan Farms to secure the release of 1,500 beagles bred for medical experimentation. Their victory came after hundreds of activists attempted to enter a property owned by Ridglan Farms where beagles are held in brutal conditions, subjected to surgeries without anesthesia and other abuses. The protest earlier this month led to the arrest of at least 25 people, with police injuring scores of activists at the action.

Here in New York, this year’s Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art faced protests on Monday. The event was sponsored by Amazon’s billionaire founder Jeff Bezos and his wife Lauren Sánchez. Ahead of the gala, the activism group Everyone Hates Elon projected video interviews with Amazon workers onto the Bezoses’ Manhattan penthouse, alongside slogans including “If You Can Buy the Met Gala, You Can Pay More Taxes” and “No Red Carpet for Trump’s Billionaires.” On Friday, the group placed hundreds of bottles of fake urine inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, referring to complaints by Amazon workers of having to skip bathroom breaks and urinate in bottles. The group also plastered ads across the city reading “The Bezos Met Gala: Brought to You by the Company that Powers ICE,” a reference to Amazon’s cloud computing contract with ICE. Amazon’s labor union founder Chris Smalls was arrested outside the Met Gala after allegedly jumping a barricade. Meanwhile, labor unions staged a “Ball Without Billionaires” in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District as an alternative fashion show to the Met Gala. Amazon, Whole Foods, Washington Post, Starbucks and Uber workers walked the runway in looks by immigrant designers. This is SEIU President April Verrett.

April Verrett: “They can try to take our rights. They can try to redraw the lines. They can try to control the systems. But they will never, ever be able to replicate the brilliance, the creativity, the resilience of the people they are trying to hold down. So this ball without billionaires is not just about fashion. It is about power. It’s about telling the truth that people who sew and care and drive and cook and clean and secure and those that create are the ones who make everything possible. Labor is art.”