Iranian media is reporting several explosions rang out early this morning in coastal areas of southern Iran. The apparent U.S. attacks came after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned it would target oil tankers docked in Kuwait and Bahrain in retaliation for U.S. attacks earlier in the week that disabled or destroyed several Iranian-linked vessels. Meanwhile, CBS reports several U.S. fighter jets at a Jordanian military base were damaged in Iranian strikes on Wednesday. The escalating violence came as President Trump predicted the war would end in November.

President Donald Trump: “I think the war will end immediately after the election.” 

Reporter: “Because?” 

President Donald Trump: “Because they can’t hold out any longer. They’re desperate to try and affect the election so that we can get a nice weak group of people in there and leave them alone and let them have their nuclear weapon.”

Trump also said that oil prices — which have surged past $100 a barrel — likely won’t come down until after the midterm elections. This comes as a Brown University research project finds higher fuel costs triggered by the war on Iran have cost the average U.S. household more than $780 in extra spending. Meanwhile, an analysis published by CNBC finds President Trump’s investments in oil stocks have made him up to $4.4 million richer since the start of the war.

In Yemen, fighters with the Iran-backed Houthi movement have seized a strategic port city on the Red Sea after routing government forces in a lightning offensive. The city of Mokha is less than 50 miles from the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a critical chokepoint that typically sees about 12% of global maritime trade pass through it. The U.N. warns renewed fighting in Yemen has displaced nearly 20,000 families in less than four days. 

Yields on long-term U.S. Treasuries have surged to their highest levels since 2007 despite extraordinary efforts by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to intervene in bond markets. On Wednesday, Bessent announced the Treasury would triple a planned buyback of certain U.S. bonds to $6 billion. That wasn’t enough to calm investors, who continued a broad sell-off on Wednesday as crude oil prices topped $100 a barrel amid renewed fighting between the U.S. and Iran. Meanwhile, Norway’s vast sovereign wealth fund has proposed cutting its investments in U.S. Treasury holdings by nearly $80 billion. 

The Pentagon has released video showing what it says is another strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean. According to U.S. Southern Command, Wednesday’s attack killed three “narco-terrorists.” As in previous strikes, the Trump administration provided no evidence the boat was carrying drugs. 
A day earlier, SOUTHCOM announced that U.S. forces raided an alleged floating refueling station for narcotraffickers in the eastern Pacific, abducting the crew and turning them over to Ecuadorian authorities before blowing up the vessel. Over the past year, the Pentagon has claimed attacks on boats that killed at least 230 people. Human rights groups have condemned the strikes as extrajudicial killings and murder. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the attacks during a visit to Ecuador.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio: “We still blow up ships, if need be.”

Matt Lee: “Oh, I know, but they’re empty now.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio: “Well, again, it depends. Every target is selected. Obviously, it goes through all the lawyers at the Department of War. But it’s also — these are joint operations, so you’re operating in conjunction with another nation-state.”

The Republican Party kicked off its first-ever midterm political convention on Wednesday in Dallas, Texas. At least 33 House Republicans and several others locked in tight Senate races opted to skip the two-day event, which comes with President Trump’s approval ratings at historically low levels. Trump delivered the keynote address on Wednesday evening and will appear again tonight for closing remarks. In his one-hour-and-44-minute speech, Trump pledged to send every adult in the U.S. a cash dividend — but only if Republicans maintain control of the House and Senate in November’s elections.

President Donald Trump: “I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.”

Trump did not say how he would fund the estimated $1.3 trillion cost of his proposal — or whether it would break federal laws against vote-buying or bribery. 

Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman made a surprise appearance at the RNC. In a pre-recorded video, Fetterman introduced Pennsylvania’s Republican Senator Dave McCormick as his “great friend,” pledged to work with President Trump and took a swipe at the surging popularity of Democrats aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America.

Sen. John Fetterman: “Well, I’m a commonsense Democrat. I’m always going to stand with America. I’m always going to reject the extremes in socialism and that anti-American way of life. … Right back over my shoulder, that’s the iconic U.S. Steel mill, and that’s exactly the kind of thing that we’ll work together and we’ll work with President Trump to fight and defend the steel way of life right here in the Steel Valley.”

Fetterman ran a successful Senate campaign in 2022 as a progressive Democrat, but his politics shifted after he suffered a stroke and was later hospitalized for clinical depression. Former staffers, who’ve left en masse, say he’s shown deep indifference to his constituents and is mostly interested in appearing on conservative TV programs and advocating for Israel.

The Trump administration on Wednesday announced a sweeping overhaul of the 2030 census, proposing to no longer count immigrants without green cards or ask about race and ethnicity. The proposed regulation would also bar the census from asking about sexual orientation. Previously, the census had asked Americans about their race and ethnicity and counted all U.S. residents regardless of their immigration status. If implemented, the changes would cause regions with larger immigrant populations to lose federal funding and congressional seats. Those areas are much more likely to vote for Democrats. Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James has vowed to challenge the proposed regulation in court, saying, “The Constitution is clear. Every person living in the United States, regardless of immigration status, must be counted in the census.”

In immigration news, an estimated 200,000 Salvadorans living in the U.S. face an uncertain future, after a program providing them temporary protected status expired on Wednesday. In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said it would announce the fate of TPS for Salvadoran immigrants and asylum seekers “at the appropriate time,” and until then, Salvadorans would retain protected status. This comes after the Trump administration allowed TPS to lapse for more than 1 million people from 13 countries.

The Guardian reports federal immigration authorities secretly obtained a judge’s approval to force-feed a Cuban detainee on hunger strike through an uncommon surgical procedure performed without his consent. He is the 19th person on hunger strike in ICE custody and is currently detained at the Montgomery ICE Processing Center, a privately run detention facility near Houston. Human rights groups have denounced the practice of force-feeding in detention facilities as a form of torture.

In the Gaza Strip, an Israeli airstrike flattened a home in Beit Lahia on Thursday, killing a Palestinian couple and their two daughters, while leaving others wounded or missing under the rubble. Palestinian sources identified the victims as Momen Abdul-Rahman Ahmad, his wife, Haneen Mousa Fares Saleh, and their daughters, 12-year-old Lana and 8-year-old Bana. Israel’s latest attacks come despite a U.S.-brokered so-called ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

In the occupied West Bank, two Palestinians were injured in an Israeli raid on the town of Awarta south of Nablus as soldiers fired live ammunition, tear gas and sound grenades. Separately, Israeli forces detained 15 Palestinians during a raid early Thursday on the town of Burqa. Soldiers reportedly stormed the town for six hours, raiding homes and arresting their owners before withdrawing. 

In Lebanon, Israeli strikes have killed at least 28 people and wounded 79 others in recent days — that’s despite a ceasefire in place since June.

Meanwhile, the U.N. is warning against Israel’s military activity inside Syrian territory, saying that some actions, including the detention of civilians, could amount to war crimes. The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria found that Israel had detained 49 Syrians, including two children, and had transferred them against their will to Israel. Some of the detainees have been held incommunicado, raising fears of torture or maltreatment. 

Here in New York City, students and faculty held a press conference on Wednesday announcing the disclosure of the City University of New York’s investment portfolio. This came after a two-year-long legal battle that began when two student organizations, CUNY for Palestine and CUNY Law Students for Justice in Palestine, filed a Freedom of Information Law request, which New York City’s public university system denied.

According to CUNY’s 2025 holdings report, the university system invested in military and defense contractors such as Caterpillar, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Palantir; Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, Elbit Systems; and private prison companies GEO Group and CoreCivic. CUNY also had holdings in Israeli banks that provide financial support for illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

This is Hadeeqa Malik, a CUNY student, speaking to Democracy Now! Wednesday. 

Hadeeqa Malik: “So, CUNY is funded by New York state tax dollars and CUNY tuition, as well, in general, that students are paying to the university. And so, that makes it not only a student issue, but an issue for all New Yorkers, anyone who lives in New York state, to know that instead of being used on education for New Yorkers, your tax dollars are being used to further the genocide in Gaza.”

President Trump falsely claimed at a 9/11 memorial event Tuesday that two firefighters lifted him up and carried him away when he visited ground zero after the attacks. In fact, according to footage, Trump was watching television the morning of the attack. Trump also repeated claims that he took a construction crew with him to Lower Manhattan and was involved in cleaning up the site. A former fire official involved in the recovery effort disputes that claim.