JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan is running for reelection in Alaska and faces a field of 15 competitors. One of them is Dan Sullivan.
The senator told reporters in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday that he thinks the appearance on the state's primary ballot of another Republican with the same name is a dirty political trick coordinated by Democrats and the campaign of his chief rival for the seat, former Democratic U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola. He threatened a lawsuit to get to the bottom of it.
“Everybody in Alaska knows I’m Dan Sullivan-R. So he’s trying to do that. Why?" the senator said of the other Dan Sullivan. “He’s not an R. He’s purposely trying to trick my constituents to rig the election for Peltola.”
A spokesman for the Peltola campaign, Harry Child, said it “has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign." Jenny-Marie Stryker, executive director of the Alaska Democratic Party, said her organization “is in no way affiliated with either Dan Sullivan.”
The kerfuffle over the dueling Dan Sullivans on Alaska's August primary ballot has drawn the attention of state and national Republicans. They claim that adding a second Dan Sullivan to the ballot will sow confusion among voters who support the incumbent and help Peltola.
In Alaska's primary, the top four vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the ranked-choice general election.
Blake Murphy, an attorney for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, sent a letter dated Monday to Alaska election officials outlining concerns about the potential for voter confusion. Murphy also raised questions about the party affiliation of the challenger, calling the other Dan Sullivan a “sham” candidate.
Murphy wrote the NRSC could consider legal action “to ensure that the Alaska electoral process remains fair.”
Carmela Warfield, the state Republican Party chair, said in a statement accompanying Murphy’s letter that until recently, the challenger was registered as undeclared. In previous years, ballots have not identified which candidates were incumbents.
A spokesperson for the Alaska Division of Elections, Steve Kirch, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter and said a records request would be required to get details of the challenger Sullivan’s voter registration history.
Sullivan, the incumbent senator, is an ally of President Donald Trump and is seeking a third term. He and Peltola are the highest-profile candidates in a race that’s being closely watched nationally as Democrats try to retake the Senate majority in this year’s midterm elections.
State election officials certified a Republican Dan J. Sullivan, from the southeast Alaska fishing community of Petersburg, as one of the candidates in the U.S. Senate race. Efforts to reach him were not immediately successful on Tuesday, and he did not appear to be registered with the Federal Election Commission.
His campaign website says he is a Midwesterner who moved to Alaska to work for the U.S. Forest Service and has been in Petersburg for nearly 50 years. After becoming disillusioned with what he saw as government inefficiency and “lack of long-term thinking,” he switched careers and became an elementary school teacher, the site says.
The challenger Sullivan said on his campaign website that the state deserves a senator who “puts Alaska first every single day. That’s the commitment I’m making to the people of this state, and together, we’re going to elect a Sullivan that actually stands up for Alaska.”
Sen. Sullivan, emphasizing his words with an expletive, told reporters in Washington that having the second Sullivan on the ballot was a scandalous attempt to trick Alaskans: “That's an insult."
Freking reported from Washington.
FILE - Alaska U.S. Senate candidate Mary Peltola, a Democrat, speaks during a campaign rally on May 14, 2026, in Juneau, Alaska. (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer, file)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. military said Tuesday that Iranian missiles fired at Kuwait and Bahrain failed or were shot down, and that the U.S. launched strikes on an Iran facility in response.
U.S. Central Command said the strikes were on an Iranian military ground control station on Qeshm Island, near the Strait of Hormuz, that is home to a desalination plant.
Iran had fired missiles toward Kuwait and Bahrain, but failed to hit their targets, the U.S. said. The two fired at Kuwait fell apart en route, while U.S. and Bahrain forces intercepted the missiles aimed at Bahrain.
The activity happened after Iran stopped communicating with mediators about extending a ceasefire in the war with the U.S. and Israel, according to reports Tuesday from two semiofficial Iranian news agencies. President Donald Trump disputed the claim and said talks were continuing.
The reports by the Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both believed to be close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, came as tensions flared in Israel’s separate-but-related fight against the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah in Lebanon.
A regional official involved in the mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the talks, told The Associated Press that Iran had not communicated at all on Tuesday after saying that a ceasefire needed to be enforced in Lebanon for negotiations to continue.
In other developments, the U.S. military said it fired a missile to halt another oil tanker trying to reach an Iranian port in violation of the American blockade. It was the seventh ship stopped by the military while trying to run the blockade, U.S. Central Command said in a social media post.
The Botswana-flagged merchant vessel M/T Lexie was stopped by an aircraft firing a Hellfire missile into its engine room after the crew ignored repeated warnings over 24 hours, the post said.
Trump called reports of a cessation in talks “false and erroneous.”
“The conversations between us have been going on continuously, including four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, one day ago and today,” Trump said in a social media post. "Where they lead, one never knows, but as I told Iran, ‘It’s time, one way or another, for you to make a Deal."
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not address the reported cutoff in communications as he testified at a congressional hearing in Washington. Instead, he sounded an optimistic note about the nuclear dimension of the negotiations, while cautioning that there’s no guarantee of reaching “a deal that’s acceptable.”
Iran has been trying to increase pressure on Trump over negotiations on the Iran war ceasefire and loosening the Islamic Republic's chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz and the oil, gas and other commodities that normally pass through it. Trump then could potentially push Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt or slow the advance of his forces, which have moved deeper into Lebanon than at any time in over a quarter of a century.
The conflicts have increasingly become conjoined, as Iran insists that any potential truce in the war there must also quell the fighting in Lebanon.
Israel and the U.S. maintain the fighting in Lebanon is separate from the Iran war talks.
Meanwhile, year-on-year inflation in Iran reached a level in May unseen since World War II, underlining the economic pain average Iranians are facing. While the U.S. is eager to ease the Islamic Republic's grip on the strait — through which a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed in peacetime — Iran faces economic challenges as its oil-backed economy remains under a U.S. naval blockade.
Economic pressure touched off nationwide protests in Iran in 2017 into 2018, when rising food prices sparked demonstrations that killed over 20 people and saw hundreds arrested. The next year, an increase in government-subsidized gasoline prices caused protests that saw over 300 people reportedly killed.
Then came the protests over the collapsing value of Iran's currency, the rial, at the start of this year. They were the most intense demonstrations to shake the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution and the chaotic years that followed. Iran's theocracy met January's protests with a crackdown on demonstrators in January that killed over 7,000 people, according to activists' estimates.
Now, even as hard-liners hold gun-handling workshops and organize marriages under the shadow of a ballistic missile to bolster spirits, experts note there could be new demonstrations if people find themselves priced out of feeding their families.
“I have no doubt that if Trump leaves (Iran without a formal peace deal) ... most probably, we will see something like January by the end of summer because of the economic and social situations," analyst Mohsen Jalilvand said in a video published by Iran's Fararu news website.
Iran's Central Bank said the consumer price index, which measures a basket of goods and services, reached 77.2% in May compared with the year before. The rate is 8.5% higher than in April, the bank added. Inflation in daily and general needs — like medicine, taxi fares, tobacco and communication fees — rose 113.8% from the year before.
A private economic think tank in Iran, the Bamdad Institute of Economic Studies, described the current figures as “an unprecedented rate since World War II.” Iran’s Central Bank did not acknowledge the significance of the figures.
The previous record came in 1942. During the war, the British and Soviets invaded Iran and took over its railway, disrupting food supplies. The lack of food, worsened by a poor harvest, sparked hyperinflation and a famine. Hunger and a typhus outbreak killed many.
Airstrikes this year have greatly damaged Iran's businesses and its oil industry, Meanwhile, the U.S. blockade has been targeting Iranian crude oil shipments trying to reach the international market, a key source of hard revenue. Tax revenues have been depressed by businesses struggling even after the fighting paused.
The rial, which traded at 32,000 to $1 in 2015, now trades at over 1.7 million to $1.
“We will definitely have higher prices," Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned in May. "We are fighting, and we must accept this hardship.”
Tehran-based economist Saeed Leilaz, speaking to the AP, warned that annual inflation in Iran could reach 80%.
"Iran’s society cannot tolerate above 25%” annual inflation, he said.
Karimi reported from Tehran, Iran. Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz in New York and Aamer Madhani and Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed to this report.
Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike that hit Qlaileh village, as it seen from the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A destroyed building that was hit in an Israeli airstrike is seen through a shattered window of the Jabal Amel Hospital, in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo)
A nurse looks through a shattered window of the Jabal Amel Hospital into a destroyed building that was hit Monday in an Israeli airstrike, in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
People gather on paddleboards in shallow water as cargo and service vessels are anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)
People walk at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Pedestrians and vehicles cross an intersection around Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Men sit at the gate of a mosque at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A woman walks at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People carry packages at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
