DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran attacked a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz early Tuesday, forcing its crew to abandon the ship, while the United States conducted yet another round of airstrikes targeting the Islamic Republic as they struggle over control of the key waterway.
The 10 consecutive nights of U.S. airstrikes haven’t compelled Tehran to loosen its grip on the strait, through which about a fifth of all crude oil and natural gas traded once passed in peacetime.
Even as the U.S. and Iran inch closer to all-out war again, Iran’s interior minister traveled to Pakistan, a key mediator in the conflict, for talks. However, it remains unclear just what new deal could be reached to end the fighting.
The interim deal signed last month that was meant to end the fighting has crumbled. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has largely stalled. And as fighting intensifies, both sides have targeted civilian infrastructure relied on by millions of people.
“Iran and groups supportive of Iran may target other U.S. interests overseas or at locations associated with the United States and Americans throughout the world,” the U.S. State Department said in a new warning to Americans.
The escalation has pushed oil prices higher in recent weeks. Benchmark Brent crude traded Tuesday above $88 a barrel and regular gasoline in the U.S. climbed to an average of $4 a gallon, keeping pressure on Americans’ wallets ahead of midterm elections this fall.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military identified two soldiers who were killed in Jordan in attacks that left a third person missing. Separately, the military confirmed another death in Iraq on Saturday during the “controlled detonation” of a downed Iranian drone. President Donald Trump took to social media on Monday to warn that “Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over!”
Trump was planning to attend a ceremony on Tuesday evening at Dover Air Force Base, where at least one service member’s remains were due to arrive.
The U.S. military’s Central Command said Tuesday it targeted “Iranian military command centers, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and air defense systems.” It released more footage of bombings that targeted sites in Iran.
“American forces remain postured and prepared to hold Iran accountable for unwarranted aggression toward civilian mariners seeking to freely and openly transit the strait,” the command said.
Iranian state media reported that explosions were heard in Fars, Hormozgan, Ilam, Kerman and Sistan and Baluchistan provinces.
However, traffic through the strait has slowed to a crawl during the latest violence. Lloyd's List Intelligence said only three ships transited the strait on Sunday.
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said a tanker came under attack early Tuesday in the strait off Oman, forcing the crew to abandon the vessel.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard claimed the attack, as well as two other attacks on ships Monday in the waterway.
The route around Oman has been the one the U.S. military has encouraged ships to travel to avoid Iran’s control. The UKMTO separately reported Tuesday that another previously unknown attack on a ship took place early the previous day.
Tehran also hit U.S.-allied countries throughout the Middle East. Jordan military's said Tuesday that Iran targeted it with five drones and three missiles, all of which were shot down. Bahrain sounded its missile alert sirens Tuesday afternoon as another Iranian barrage targeted the island kingdom, which is home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet.
The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson said nearly 100 U.S. service members have been injured since the U.S. restarted strikes on July 7, and 96% of them have returned to duty.
“The vast majority of injuries experienced were minor concussions,” Sean Parnell posted Monday on X in response to a New York Times report that the Pentagon has withheld information about troop injuries from Iranian strikes. He denied that the Pentagon was hiding data about injuries.
However, the Defense Casualty Analysis System, the military’s clearinghouse for reporting deaths and injuries in conflict, has not been updated as of Monday night with the latest attacks.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels announced a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia on Monday. The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, said they would block shipping between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden by targeting the Bab el-Mandeb, a maritime chokepoint like the Strait of Hormuz, in response to an attack on Sanaa International Airport last week that they blamed on Saudi Arabia.
With the Strait of Hormuz blocked, Saudi Arabia has been relying on a pipeline to the Red Sea to get millions of barrels of oil out to market. The Houthis earlier demonstrated their ability to disrupt shipping there when they targeted ships for months over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, with over 100 vessels attacked.
Saudi Arabia’s military said it would keep the waterway open.
“All Houthi threats against transiting vessels will be dealt with swiftly and firmly, as such threats are a blatant violation of international law and fall under acts of maritime piracy,” said Maj. Gen, Turki al-Malki, a Saudi military spokesman.
Pakistan has intensified diplomatic efforts in recent days to resuscitate the interim deal.
Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni arrived in Islamabad on Monday for two days of talks with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and others.
On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that the U.S. is still open to negotiating with Iran but that “it has to be real.”
“If the door opens to diplomacy — if the guys that want to do something productive for Iran win and take control of that system, or take control of the negotiations — that’ll be a very positive development,” Rubio said. “That’s not where we are tonight, unfortunately.”
Iranian authorities on Sunday said at least 50 people have been killed and 517 wounded in the latest rounds of U.S. strikes. Since the war began on Feb. 28, 17 U.S. service members have been killed.
A woman walks past a mural depicting a portrait of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the U.S. and Israel strike on Feb. 28, in downtown Tehran, Iran, Saturday, July 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People stand on a bridge destroyed after a strike in Hormozgan province, southern Iran, Saturday, July 18, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/Iranian Students' News Agency via AP)
Fireworks burst as Houthi supporters rally against the Saudi-led coalition in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday, July 20, 2026. Placards in Arabic read: "God is great, Death to America, Death to Israel, A curse on the Jews and Victory to Islam" and "boycott American and Israeli goods". (AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)
NEW YORK (AP) — The progressive movement may already have hit its high point in the 2026 midterms. Or this may be the beginning of a much more powerful shift as voters, eager for change, decide to embrace far-left populism on a national scale.
It depends upon who you ask within a Democratic Party that is undeniably locked in a tug-of-war between emboldened progressives demanding radical change and the party's pragmatic establishment.
Progressives expect their newest candidate in Maine, former state lawmaker Troy Jackson, will clinch the Democratic nomination Saturday to replace Graham Platner on the November ballot, giving the party a chance to recover from Platner's downfall earlier this month. Next up will be August Senate primaries in Michigan and Minnesota — contests that put the intraparty divide on clear display less than four months before the midterms are decided. All three states will be important in the fight for Senate control, raising the stakes over who Democrats should nominate.
“We’re seeing the pendulum shift from right to left. That’s ultimately what this midterm election is about,” said Joseph Geevarghese, who leads Our Revolution, the progressive organization founded by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders a decade ago. “We're in a transitional moment in national politics.”
On the other side of the same party, establishment leaders, including the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate, believe that the progressive movement's momentum this summer will ultimately hurt the party's chances in the general election this fall. Democrats are in position to win control of at least one chamber in Congress given President Donald Trump's low approval ratings, the unpopular war in Iran and surging costs.
Count Matt Bennett, co-founder of the centrist Democratic group Third Way, as those fighting to stop his party's ascendant progressive wing from undermining their midterm chances.
“It is an enormous mistake and an enormous risk for them to be engaged in an effort to push the party to the left,” Bennett said. Sanders' brand of far-left politics, he added, “is not what America is asking for.”
Voters will ultimately decide who is right this fall — and the results could shape policy and politics inside the Democratic Party for years to come.
In the meantime, as establishment Democrats worry from Washington, Sanders and his allies like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are barnstorming through key swing states to harness the energy of the party's grassroots.
Republican officials were watching with glee.
“Socialists have gone from a sideshow in the Democrat Party to the main event," said Bernadette Breslin, spokesperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
On Monday night in Minneapolis, Sanders railed against billionaires and corporations as he campaigned for Peggy Flanagan, Minnesota's lieutenant governor who has aligned herself with his populist movement in Minnesota's contentious primary for U.S. Senate.
“When you stand up to these billionaires, as you will, and when you defeat them, you will bring hope and inspiration to people all across our country and in fact, all over the world,” Sanders said.
Flanagan faces U.S. Rep. Angie Craig, who is backed by much of the party's establishment in a race that has brought in millions of dollars from super PACS and other independent groups backing both candidates.
“I want you to know that we have an opportunity to change the way that Washington works,” Flanagan said.
When they were done, Sanders, Flanagan, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar and retiring Sen. Tina Smith locked arms as John Lennon's “Power to the People” thundered from the speakers.
The scene was similar a day earlier in Michigan, where Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives campaigned with Abdul El-Sayed, whom many centrist Democrats worry is too far left for a must-win seat for Democrats in a battleground state.
Dozens of progressive candidates up and down the ballot aligned with Sanders, including more than 30 backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, have won Democratic nomination contests in recent weeks — in some cases defeating sitting members of Congress.
There have been setbacks, however, none more painful for the progressive movement than Platner's implosion in Maine.
Platner, a Sanders acolyte and political newcomer who dominated Maine's sitting governor in the Democratic Senate primary, was forced to drop out barely a week ago after a sexual assault allegation emerged from his former girlfriend. Platner has denied the accusation, which many allies deemed credible.
Geevarghese described the situation as “a bump in the road” that would not cause any lasting damage for the broader progressive movement.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a 2028 presidential prospect aligned with the progressive wing, acknowledged that he made a mistake by supporting Platner when so little was known about his background.
“It’s an important lesson of being more aware of the red flags of candidates,” Khanna said, while insisting that the progressive movement “is so much bigger than any individual.”
“Despite a very flawed candidate, the platform of Medicare for all and no foreign wars and taxing billionaire wealth was so strong that he did well,” Khanna said of Platner. “No one candidate is a test for the progressive movement.”
But the fallout from Platner’s campaign renewed a long-running debate among Democratic establishment figures over whether the party’s progressive wing is hurting its chances of winning competitive general election races.
The divide has been especially apparent in the Senate, where some rank-and-file senators have backed progressive candidates at odds with Schumer and other party leaders. Platner’s collapse sparked behind-the-scenes finger pointing and prompted some establishment figures to more actively step into other competitive primaries.
In Michigan, for example, Sen. Gary Peters endorsed Haley Stevens last week after previously saying he wouldn’t get involved.
“We do want to have candidates who are fully vetted running in these high-profile races,” Peters said.
Bennett, of Third Way, says that it's all about winning in November. That's not to say he thinks it's impossible for Democrats to win with a nominee like El-Sayed on the ballot.
“In this cycle, with the war raging again, anyone might be able to beat a Republican in a place like Michigan,” he said. “But it sure as hell is going to be harder.”
Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti in Washington and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed.
Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., shops at the Decadent Dogs pet store with owner, Roxanne Leder, in South Haven, Mich., on Tuesday, July 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Kristen Norman)
FILE - This photo combination shows Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., left, Jan. 15, 2026, in Washington and Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, Nov. 5, 2024, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert, Abbie Parr, file)
U.S. Senate candidate Troy Jackson takes part in a debate at the WCSH-6 television studio, Thursday, July 16, 2026, in Portland, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, center, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, poses with politicians including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., second from left, during a campaign rally Monday, July 20, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)
From left foreground, Michigan state Rep. Donavan McKinney, D-Detroit, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate primary candidate Abdul El-Sayed, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT., United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, and U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. join hands together following a campaign rally for El-Sayed, Saturday, July 18, 2026, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Jose Juarez)
