The U.S. launched new airstrikes against Iran early Thursday, hours after President Donald Trump said recent Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz signaled the end of the ceasefire and threatened to escalate the conflict if they didn’t stop.
Iran responded by targeting U.S.-allied Kuwait and Qatar and accused the U.S. of striking near its sole nuclear power plant.
Back-and-forth attacks, including on Wednesday, have repeatedly threatened the ceasefire, but Thursday’s appeared bigger all around. And Trump’s mixed messaging — approving back-to-back military strikes while insisting they don’t mean a return to full-scale war — is fueling uncertainty about what comes next.
Here's the latest:
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the agreement on the long-range cruise missiles, which are used to strike targets deep inside enemy territory, was reached this week on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Turkey’s capital, Ankara.
“This will close an important strategic gap in our defense, and at the same time, we will work to develop our own European systems and station them in Europe,” Merz told parliament after returning from the two-day summit.
The deal struck with the Trump administration amounts to broader export of American know-how to some of its major allies in Europe, whose security posture has been upended by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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The former Olympic canoe racer pleaded not guilty Thursday to deliberately damaging the recently renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a politically charged case that his defense attorneys and other Trump administration critics have derided as an abuse of prosecutorial power.
David Hearn, who competed in three Summer Olympics, entered the plea during his initial appearance in D.C. Superior Court. Hearn, 67, of Bethesda, Maryland, was indicted last Thursday on a single felony count of property destruction.
Trump ordered a multimillion-dollar renovation of the Reflecting Pool ahead of the nation’s 250th anniversary this month, but the project has been plagued with problems. Workers have used chemicals to curtail an algae bloom. Trump has said the pool likely would need to be drained again for liner repairs after chunks of blue coating were seen floating at the surface.
Trump has claimed without substantiation that vandals dumped fertilizer into the pool and slashed the coating with a box cutter.
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During Wednesday’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Turkey, Trump said the U.S. will meet a longstanding request from Ukraine and give it a license to make the Patriot air defense systems. He also praised Zelenskyy for doing “an amazing job” — a sharp change in tone from past criticisms of the Ukrainian leader.
But setting up domestic production of the mobile, surface-to-air systems will take many months, said Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukraine’s defense minister.
A production license would typically come with technical process documentation, training for specialists, supplier contacts and foreign consultants to help launch manufacturing, Beskrestnov wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
The main obstacle would be time, rather than Ukraine’s technical or organizational capacity, he added.
The southern African kingdom of Eswatini has accepted a fourth group of people deported from the United States under a bilateral agreement to host third-country nationals, with 11 people arriving this week, the government said Thursday.
Acting government spokesperson Thabile Mdluli said the group, predominantly from African countries, would remain in the kingdom temporarily while their rights were protected.
“The government reaffirms that, during their temporary stay in the Kingdom, the fundamental rights of the third-country nationals will be respected and protected in accordance with the laws of the Kingdom of Eswatini and the Kingdom’s international obligations,” Mdluli said in a statement.
Under a series of often-secret agreements that are part of a broad U.S. crackdown on immigration, the Trump administration has deported thousands of people to nearly two dozen countries that are not their own, advocates say.
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Futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.1% before the opening bell Thursday, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.1%. Nasdaq futures were up 0.5%.
Oil prices inched up again Thursday, with Brent crude, the international standard, rising 64 cents to to $78.66 per barrel. It briefly topped $80 on Wednesday. Before the Iran war began, Brent oil was trading at around $72 a barrel. Earlier optimism over an interim peace deal recently brought it back to prewar levels.
Benchmark U.S. crude rose 54 cents to $74.06 a barrel.
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President Donald Trump says he believes the ceasefire with Iran is over. He says he’s not sure he wants a deal anymore and says the U.S. should “finish the job.” But he also insists continued attacks don’t mean a return to war or long-term action.
The confusion and uncertainty in Trump’s mixed messaging and his approval of back-to-back military strikes leave major questions about what comes next in the conflict, just weeks after difficult diplomacy to reach even an initial deal between the longtime adversaries.
The whipsawing rhetoric could be a strategy to increase the pressure on Tehran to stop attacking ships transporting oil and natural gas in the Strait of Hormuz and bend to U.S. demands on its nuclear program — something Trump has tried before.
Whether it’s a negotiation tactic or a signal of an escalation in fighting, mediators are scrambling to save the interim deal and the actions risk further inflaming tensions.
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President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in flight on Air Force One after landing at U.S. Air Force Base at RAF Mildenhall, in Suffolk, Eastern England, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump waves as he arrives on Air Force One, Thursday, July 9, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One, Thursday, July 9, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
