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  • Trump’s school voucher program could become a public school cash machine

    Trump’s school voucher program could become a public school cash machine

    Forget student fun runs, PTA bake sales, and Saturday morning car washes.

    The future of public-school fundraising may soon look more like a payroll deduction. Or perhaps door-to-door campaigns each tax season asking filers to earmark donations to support nearby public schools.

    When President Donald Trump’s tax overhaul known as the One Big Beautiful Bill last year created the first national school-voucher-style program to help families pay for private schools or homeschool costs, it allowed public schools to benefit as well. According to U.S. Treasury guidelines released in June, the program allows specific nonprofits to collect donations that people direct from their federal taxes for a vast array of public school costs, such as transportation or tutoring.

    Sara Hazel, president of the Denver Public Schools Foundation, the fundraising arm for Colorado’s largest school district, is among a small but growing number of district leaders who have said they plan to take advantage of the financial opportunity. She said she plans to tell potential donors, “Do you want that money going to the IRS or going to local kids?”

    The program doesn’t officially start until the new year, but its resemblance to private-school vouchers has inspired opponents of school choice to line up against it. Still, supporters and even cautious critics say the Republican-backed initiative could mean a financial boon for public schools.

    The program works like this: Taxpayers can contribute up to $1,700 to what’s known as a scholarship-granting organization and receive a credit on their federal income taxes. It’s a dollar-for-dollar credit, meaning every pledged dollar reduces what an individual owes to the Internal Revenue Service by the same amount.

    These new intermediaries could be formed by an array of nonprofits, including public-school foundations, with approval from their state. The scholarship-granting organization would then pass on the money to private school and homeschool applicants in the form of scholarships — or to school districts so they could cover certain services for student applicants.

    Marguerite Roza, a school finance expert, has advised school districts — many of which have bandaged their slashed budgets by shuttering campuses or issuing pink slips — that they can’t afford to ignore this new source of funding. “Any time there’s an available revenue source, generally we don’t see districts saying, ‘No thank you,’” said Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University.

    States must opt into the program, and so far, 30 states have done so. Now it’s up to individual school district leaders in those states to decide if they want to try to tap into the money.

    School finance experts suggest the scholarships could help districts access funding comparable to 3% of their entire budget. But tapping into this unexpected revenue risks political backlash and logistical headaches. Governors and superintendents may face fierce resistance from teachers unions, which in many states have portrayed the new program as a Trojan horse for the expansion of vouchers in education because it also allows money to be funneled to families to pay for private school.

    Some opponents also raise concerns about creating a new funding system that could favor school districts with a ready pool of wealthy donors over those in low-income communities where few residents may owe enough in federal taxes to contribute to the scholarships.

    “In low-income areas, you’re going to find it’s not easy for school districts to raise this money,” said Thomas Toch, director of the think tank FutureEd at Georgetown University.

    He said he worried that the inclusion of public school districts in the legislation was little more than a ploy, a shrewd political strategy to further school choice in states otherwise unlikely to support it.

    “It was designed to make the case that this program can support the public sector in order to win support in blue states,” Toch said.

    The mechanics of the tax credit scholarships represent a dramatic departure from how the federal government supports schools.

    The money for the scholarships never flows through federal Department of Education coffers, entirely bypassing Congress and its spending decisions.

    Treasury regulators will soon issue formal rules to set additional guardrails for the program. But the law suggests the scholarships could be used to cover an expansive list of expenses that public schools often struggle to fund including costs such as field trips, textbooks, or support services.

    The inclusion of public schools now places some governors, superintendents, and school boards in a new dilemma: Do they choose to tap into a Trump-backed program that could boost their bottom line, or leave the tax-credit cash on the table for others to claim?

    “The reality is this program exists, and if there are dollars on the table that can go to our children and families, I don’t understand the purpose of not trying to do everything we possibly can,” said Justin Dayhoff, chief financial officer for Nevada’s Clark County School District, which includes Las Vegas.

    His district, like many around the country, is strapped for cash as health insurance and other costs increase and fewer students enroll in public school due to population decline. Enrollment in Clark County — the nation’s fifth-largest district — has dwindled by more than 35,000 students, or 11%, since before the pandemic, and it laid off five dozen staff ahead of this new school year.

    How big a financial difference the voucher-style program would make for school districts remains to be seen.

    Some school finance experts expect soliciting donations could be as simple as districts partnering with employers to enroll their workers in the tax credit program, perhaps as another form in their regular HR paperwork. (Many employers already partner with nonprofits like United Way to collect pretax donations from paychecks.)

    Roza, of Georgetown, estimated a district could bring in about $200 per student by enrolling its own employees into the program. Convincing major companies to do the same — directing proceeds to nonprofits supporting students who attend local public schools — could push that figure higher. City and county governments might participate as well.

    “Local employers are an absolutely critical piece of this puzzle,” said Hazel, with the Denver Public Schools Foundation.

    Her organization hasn’t officially approached any of its corporate partners yet about enrolling their employees in the tax credit program. (Past donors to the foundation have included Chevron, the Colorado Rockies, and United Airlines.) But Hazel’s already thinking about whether Denver Public Schools will have to compete with other Colorado districts attempting to woo the same business leaders.

    “We’re the largest school district in Colorado, so we already have an advantage,” Hazel said. “But how can we go to a company and say, ‘Your employees must choose between all these great school districts?’”

    But her new fundraising plans will come with steep operational hurdles.

    Under the new law, at least 90% of all donations to scholarship-granting organizations like Hazel’s must go directly to student scholarships, leaving relatively little to cover marketing, staff, annual independent audits, and payment processing. Fees already take 4% of each credit card transaction, Hazel said.

    Yet even as she awaits further clarity from Treasury on how organizations can collect donations, she’s imagining what the money could mean for Denver schools.

    “My dream is I can give every second grader a tutor and we get everyone to grade-level reading and math,” Hazel said. “There are things like that are so scalable and would support every student.”

  • Farmers struggle to get basic services from depleted Agriculture Department

    Farmers struggle to get basic services from depleted Agriculture Department

    WASHINGTON — Mary and Zachariah Ben, farmers in New Mexico, believed they were on the verge of buying the property of their dreams last fall: 47 acres, with enough cropland to grow heirloom corn and a processing facility to expand their organic baby food business.

    But the low-interest loan they secured from the Agriculture Department to make the purchase in Aztec, N.M., was on hold for months, first during the government shutdown that lasted until mid-November and then as federal workers left the agency in droves. Only half a dozen loan specialists who could help process their claims remained in the entire state, the couple learned, leaving them in limbo indefinitely and the seller impatient to know whether the agreement would ever go through.

    Zachariah Ben, who along with his children is a member of the Navajo Nation, ultimately turned to private lenders instead, and the family absorbed more than $200,000 in interest as a result. “At least we got the land because we could have also lost that, and we would have if we had to wait” on the Agriculture Department, Mary Ben said.

    The experience of the Bens, whose aim of providing organic and shelf-stable options for young children appears to align with some of the Trump administration’s stated goals, is not unique. Across the country, farmers and rural residents describe struggling to obtain the basic services the Agriculture Department is meant to offer, including loans and grants, technical assistance, and financing for housing and utilities. Sharp attrition under the Trump administration, largely through voluntary resignations and dismissals by the Department of Government Efficiency, have left many of the Agriculture Department’s local offices with skeletal staffing — and, in some counties, with no one at all.

    The ripple effects of the Agriculture Department’s depleted workforce illustrate how the Trump administration’s mission of shrinking the federal bureaucracy has undercut a competing priority: delivering for farmers, a core political constituency. Strained government resources also risk posing additional challenges for a farm economy that administration officials have described as “dire,” increasing barriers to entry for new farmers who need more assistance, impeding assistance to producers already facing tough economic conditions, and hampering basic services and government aid in the most remote and poorest places.

    “All these practical things that make the wheels go around in a community were facilitated by USDA, and it was with staff who knew how to navigate and had the trust of the local community,” Sen. Pete Welch of Vermont, the top Democrat on the Senate subcommittee on rural development, said in an interview. “It’s something that was working, was working well, and was very cost-efficient. And now it is being demolished.”

    Trump administration officials have defended the staffing cuts as voluntary and necessary to trim a bloated agency.

    “We don’t have the money in our budget to pay for all of the employees that were hired in the prior administration,” Stephen Vaden, the deputy secretary of agriculture, said in a congressional hearing in July. He emphasized that the reductions were “voluntary decisions made by individual employees who chose, with the information that the agency provided to them, to seek a new career elsewhere.”

    Overall, more than 20,000 workers out of more than 110,000 left the Agriculture Department through the first half of 2025, according to an inspector general report. Recently obtained data showed that the Farm Service Agency, a division whose approval the Bens sought in applying for a low-interest loan, has no staff left in dozens of counties across the country, forcing farmers to travel long distances for assistance or to simply give up. Among divisions that directly work with farmers and aid rural residents, the percentage of departures is even higher.

    The Agriculture Department said that it currently had about 93,000 employees after hiring more workers this year, and that it believed staffing levels were adequate as “services and supports have become more targeted and efficient” through planned technological improvements.

    Still, its plans to fundamentally overhaul the agency, as well as funding cuts proposed by President Donald Trump’s latest budget, are likely to deepen difficulties for farmers and rural communities.

    Already, the agency is moving more than half of its staff in the Washington region out of the nation’s capital, a move that is all but certain to further thin the ranks of the agency. Such losses will affect the department’s ability to finance home loans, carry out agricultural research, and service farmers, according to federal workers, farm groups, and rural lenders. (Unions and farm organizations have mounted a legal challenge to that plan.)

    Likewise, Trump’s budget for the next fiscal year proposes a nearly $5 billion cut to the Agriculture Department, essentially eliminating programs for beginning farmers, conservation, and rural aid.

    Some of the steepest cuts have fallen on a part of the Agriculture Department responsible for improving the economy and infrastructure in rural communities, leading to long delays in aid for residents and charities alike.

    The subagency, known as Rural Development, has lost about 1,700 workers, or more than a third of its staff, since the Trump administration took office.

    In New Mexico, questions directed at the agency often languish for weeks, as do approvals of key documents, with emails and queries bouncing among staff members scattered across the state and in Washington, said Lorenzo Alba Jr., the executive director of Casa de Peregrinos, an anti-hunger charity in the area.

    After receiving a grant from the Rural Development section at the end of the Biden administration to build a food pantry in Hatch, N.M., the charity is still waiting for $300,000 in federal funding. For now, Casa de Peregrinos has cobbled together other sources of financing to set up and operate a makeshift pantry with limited hours and food varieties, despite no refrigeration or air-conditioning.

    “Our pantry should have been up and running, fully renovated by now,” Alba said. He added that the delays had led costs to balloon to $600,000 from $475,000, money the charity could have used to buy more food and serve more families.

    “I quit blaming the USDA on this because I didn’t know what they were going through,” he said. “Now I do.”

    It is unclear whether staffing cuts have been a factor, but in the last year the subagency has also financed far fewer loans and grants. As of mid-August, with a little more than a month left in the 2026 fiscal year, the agency has approved nearly 52,000 investments worth $15.8 billion. In comparison, in the past three fiscal years, the agency made between 63,000 and 74,000 investments totaling $24 billion to $40 billion annually.

    Another crucial service the department offers — helping producers carry out sustainable farming practices through its Natural Resources Conservation Service — has lost more than 2,700 workers, or nearly one-fourth of its staff, forcing farmers to miss contract deadlines and turn to expensive private consultants for advice.

    In central Nebraska, Clay Govier, who farms corn and soybeans on 3,500 acres in Broken Bow, described the cascading effect of 50% staffing cuts at his local conservation agency. The technician he had worked with took a buyout at the start of the Trump administration. Now, Govier and his family coordinate with someone who travels between two counties to survey different farms.

    Though the technician is knowledgeable, “he’s stretched very thin because if he needs a signature, he has to drive to our farm and then he drives back or we have to drive to him, and it just burns up an entire morning to get some basic paperwork done,” Govier said.

    As a result, the office is missing more details and overlooking crucial steps to verifying the farmers’ practices these days, leading to delays in the contract cycle and payments.

    “Farming is an art and a science,” he said. “It’s so different for every operation, every state, every region, so you need local NRCS staff that understand their region and how to implement these programs.”

    In southwestern Pennsylvania, Amanda Butterfield worked with the conservation service for nearly a decade, first to restore roughly 180 acres of strip-mined land in Meyersdale into pasture for a herd of beef cattle. After her technician shared anecdotes about burnout and long working hours, Butterfield turned instead to private consultants who work for agribusinesses. But that advice often comes at a steeper cost, like the expectation of buying certain products.

    Butterfield also added that staffing turnover at her local Farm Service Agency had led to errors and inefficiencies: A new worker hired to replace an employee who had left asked her husband to report crop acreage, unaware that the ranch did not grow crops at all.

    “We’ve completely lost a whole group of experts within our communities across the United States that can no longer help and support us,” she said.

    This article originally appeared in the New York Times.

  • European leaders mark Ukraine’s 35th Independence Day as Russian invasion pushes on

    European leaders mark Ukraine’s 35th Independence Day as Russian invasion pushes on

    KYIV, Ukraine — European leaders joined President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Monday to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence and boost its long-range missile program as Russia pressed on with its 4-year-old invasion of the country.

    One of President Vladimir Putin’s key goals in starting a war with Russia’s neighbor in February 2022 was to return Kyiv to Moscow’s orbit. Ukrainian lawmakers voted on Aug. 24, 1991, to proclaim the country’s independence, and a nationwide referendum later that year overwhelmingly approved it.

    With no significant changes on the front line for months and no apparent progress after more than a year of U.S.-led peace efforts, both countries are locked in a spiral of escalating aerial attacks that are killing civilians and smashing infrastructure.

    Europe rallies around Ukraine

    U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham, on his first overseas trip since taking office last month, joined almost a dozen other European leaders, as well as other dignitaries, in Kyiv on Monday.

    “For Ukraine, independence is not an abstract idea. We defended it against all odds,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on social media. “In times like these, nations learn how important it is to have allies by your side.”

    Burnham co-chaired a meeting of what’s been dubbed the Coalition of the Willing — a group of over two dozen countries helping Ukraine resist Russia’s onslaught.

    Burnham said he is pushing British industry to help a Ukrainian project that is working on a low-cost alternative to the U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems that are desperately needed but are in short supply. He urged other countries to encourage Washington to adopt stiffer sanctions on Russia and press Moscow to accept U.S. attempts to secure an unconditional ceasefire.

    Zelensky said in a speech at Kyiv’s St. Sophia Square that the presence of European leaders reflected continental fears about Russia’s wider ambitions.

    “We all understand that in this Russian war against us — against Ukraine — far more is being decided than the future of Ukraine and Eastern Europe,” he said.

    “No nation in a war like this could rely solely on its own weapons,” Zelensky said. ”No nation could withstand attacks of such intensity without the world’s help.”

    Ukraine eyes local production of Anglo-French missile

    The leaders brought pledges of further military and financial support. Burnham announced his government has agreed to allow defense company MBDA to release classified information relating to British components used in the SCALP long-range missile. That paves the way for France and Ukraine to advance plans for the weapon’s production in Ukraine.

    SCALP is the French version of the U.K.’s Storm Shadow missile, with both systems incorporating shared technology.

    “Ukraine has been Europe’s protector, not a drain on our security, but the front line of keeping Europe safe,” Burnham said, adding that Kyiv and its partners “must keep up the pressure on Moscow.”

    Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin views the plan “extremely negatively.” He accused the U.K. of “taking part in this war” on Kyiv’s side.

    Ukraine has leaned heavily on NATO countries for help fighting Russia’s bigger army, although relations with the United States have been cooler under President Donald Trump.

    Russia, meanwhile, is getting help from North Korea and China.

    Ukraine displays its drones in a parade

    Ukraine’s swift development of innovative drone technology has enabled it to blunt Moscow’s battlefield progress as well as hit targets deep inside Russia, as far as 1,200 miles from their border. The speeches in St. Sophia Square were accompanied by a parade of domestically produced weapons.

    Both Russia and Ukraine are trying through long-range strikes to inflict economic pain, disrupt military supplies, and erode public morale.

    Ukraine’s long-range drones have repeatedly hit facilities in Russia’s vital oil industry, causing fuel shortages, and have also engaged in a campaign against Russia’s largest online retailer, Wildberries.

    But foreign suppliers also have to take into account their own needs, weapon production levels, and the depth of stockpiles.

    As the air war has intensified, Ukraine’s stocks of Patriot interceptors to counter Russia’s ballistic missiles have dwindled. Kyiv urgently needs more interceptors before winter, when Russia routinely bombards its power grid, but the demands of the Iran war and slow output of the sophisticated interceptors have left Ukraine short and vulnerable.

    Finnish President Alexander Stubb said he believed that striking Russian targets like Wildberries was a “sensible military strategy” that would hasten peace negotiations.

    Ukrainian strikes kill 3 teenagers

    Three teenagers were killed and six children were wounded in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar, Russia’s children’s rights ombudsperson Maria Lvova-Belova said, as Ukraine attacked several warehouses of Ozon, another online retailer, for the third straight day, according to officials and the company.

    Ozon said a large fire raged at its logistics facility in the suburbs of Krasnodar following the overnight attack.

    A drone also hit the grounds of an Ozon logistics center in the southern Russian region of Adygeya, said regional Gov. Murat Kumpilov, although the company said its warehouse wasn’t damaged.

    In all, four Ozon premises appeared to have been targeted.

    Meanwhile, Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces struck the Russian state-owned Kamenetsky Combine defense company in the Rostov region overnight, starting a fire. The plant produces rocket and missile fuel, it said.

    Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses overnight intercepted and destroyed 351 Ukrainian drones over eight Russian regions, the Crimean Peninsula, and the Azov and Black seas. Moscow illegally annexed Crimea in 2014.

    The ministry also said its forces overnight struck Ukrainian ports and vessels delivering military cargo.

    Russia has also turned its sights on Ukrainian shopping malls, supermarkets, and gas stations in recent months. Russian drones struck a shopping center in central Ukraine in a daytime attack Friday, killing 16 people and wounding 130, Ukrainian officials said.

    Ukraine’s southern Odesa region came under a large-scale Russian missile and drone attack Monday, with food storage facilities and energy infrastructure among the targets, regional authorities reported.

    Eighteen people, including two children, were injured in a Russian drone strike on Chernihiv in northern Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s Emergency Service.

    It was not possible to independently verify each side’s reports.

  • Secret White House bunker undercuts Trump’s ballroom lawsuit, ex-officials say

    Secret White House bunker undercuts Trump’s ballroom lawsuit, ex-officials say

    President Donald Trump has claimed that the White House needs a massive new ballroom because it would provide him and future presidents with a secure, hardened facility. But former officials say the argument fails to acknowledge that the presidential complex already has one.

    More than a decade ago, federal officials built a highly protected bunker, embedded deep underground, that can shelter the president and his top aides in a national security emergency, according to three former officials.

    The facility, which was secretly completed during the Obama administration, can house dozens of people for up to multiple weeks, two former officials said. It’s buried more than 60 feet underneath the White House complex and built to withstand a nuclear blast, two of the officials said, ensuring the president and his team have a secure command center to run the country in times of extreme duress.

    The bunker’s existence, the former officials said, undercuts the Trump administration’s emerging legal argument in the ongoing lawsuit over the $600 million ballroom complex’s construction: that the facility must be completed due to its significance for U.S. national security.

    The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss elements of the secretive facility, some of which have not been previously reported.

    The Washington Post is withholding some details of the bunker and its construction in order to not compromise sensitive White House security protocols.

    Asked about Trump’s assertions about the need for a new military complex, the White House defended the project and criticized past officials for discussing existing security structures.

    “The East Wing Modernization Project is inextricably tied to the security of the President, the White House grounds and the certain security infrastructure assets,” said White House spokesperson Davis Ingle in a statement.

    “Recent events such as the foiled attack on the historic UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House proves exactly why the East Wing Modernization Project is severely needed for large scale events, which include drone proof structures and drone ports among other critical security enhancements,” Ingle added.

    Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. issued an order Friday allowing the Trump administration to continue ballroom work in the short term as the Supreme Court weighs an emergency appeal in a lawsuit challenging whether the construction requires the approval of Congress.

    A U.S. district judge and a federal appeals panel have both ordered the administration to stop building the ballroom until lawmakers authorize the project. But the judges carved out an exception: Construction on national security needs, such as a planned military complex underneath the ballroom, can continue.

    In August court filings supporting the White House’s case, Trump’s top national security team urged the Supreme Court to allow the project to proceed. The construction, they said, comes as the president faces rising threats from foreign adversaries and terrorists, alongside advances in commercial drone technology that could more effectively target White House grounds.

    Trump officials argued the ballroom complex would provide essential security upgrades to the president’s residence and help guarantee the U.S. government could continue functioning during a crisis.

    White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller wrote in his filing that the facility “serves continuity-of-government interests by ensuring that the President and senior national security staff are able to operate from a protected facility during any attack on the nation’s capital.”

    Army Secretary Dan Driscoll has repeatedly asserted the ballroom’s construction would help resolve an “emergency” in the White House’s “defensive posture” posed by the spread of military-grade drones.

    Driscoll told the Supreme Court in an Aug. 13 filing that completing the ballroom complex was necessary so Trump could run the country in a crisis.

    “Securing this reinforced subterranean node guarantees uninterrupted command and control in place,” Driscoll wrote, calling the project “a nondiscretionary prerequisite to ensure the President can maintain continuity of government, uninterrupted operations, and effectively exercise National Command Authority during an attack or global crisis.”

    The arguments echoed the Trump administration’s increasing effort to rely on national security as a way to justify the ballroom’s completion.

    Trump has taken to calling the project a “military complex” in his public comments and social media posts, and has repeatedly posted AI renderings of drones, troops, and even fuel tanker trucks stationed on the future East Wing roof to press his case.

    “The ballroom is so much a military component with the drones and the bomb shelters,” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn on Wednesday.

    The White House has been racing to complete the project before any court-ordered halt takes effect. Officials told the Supreme Court earlier this month that construction was about “65% complete” and that about 250 workers are working 20 hours per day, seven days a week to quickly finish it.

    The structure goes five stories deep into the ground, and much of the underground work has been completed, the administration said. The project is already 70 feet above ground in some places, officials told the Supreme Court.

    After asserting in court last year that the secure portion of the project could be carried out independently of the ballroom, the administration has reversed its argument.

    Maj. Gen. Garrett R. Hoffman, director of the White House Military Office, told the Supreme Court that the aboveground ballroom and belowground military facility are “inextricably intertwined elements” and that the new construction “provides extraordinary protection to these spaces that has not been available in the past.”

    Officials have also stressed that the concrete, steel, and other materials used for both parts of the project are being chosen for national security reasons. In court filings, they detailed how the ballroom’s construction materials are intended to stop bombs, rockets, missiles, and even nuclear blasts.

    “It is, in a very large way, a ‘safe room’ for the Presidency and the continuity of government,” wrote Joshua Fisher, a senior White House official who is managing the project, in his Supreme Court filing.

    The two former officials noted this same argument had been invoked two decades ago to construct the White House’s existing subterranean bunker that is hardened against nuclear blasts and other threats. They questioned why the administration has suggested that the White House lacks such a secure location, including one that could help ensure a functioning government in national security crises.

    They also contrasted secretive efforts to build the existing bunker to the current project. Details about the secure White House facility are among the most closely guarded secrets in the U.S. government, the former officials said, and its construction was concealed from many lawmakers, administration officials, and the public.

    During the new ballroom’s construction, Trump has repeatedly revealed private aspects of the planned East Wing military complex, such as its medical capabilities and “drone port.” And the renovation has occurred in public view, potentially allowing foreign adversaries to spy once-hidden elements of the White House complex — a threat Trump officials invoked in their court filings to urge that construction continue.

    Trump has separately accused the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the organization that sued to halt the ballroom’s construction, of being “treasonists.” He has claimed that the nonprofit group, which Congress charged with helping preserve historic buildings, was asked not to file a lawsuit for national security reasons.

    “I said the problem with the suit — I told them this — is that we have many military things in this ballroom, and ideally, they shouldn’t be revealed,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Aug. 17. “But now they are revealed, so the world knows about it.”

    The National Trust’s filings have not revealed any new information about the ballroom project that Trump or the administration did not previously disclose.

    National Trust officials also told the Post that they were never briefed on the bunker, that they were not asked by Trump or the White House to not file a lawsuit, and that they sued to halt the ballroom because they believe the president does not have the authority to unilaterally make wholesale changes to the historic White House grounds.

    Trump officials did share classified information directly with U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon as he weighed the National Trust’s arguments, beginning last year. Leon ultimately ordered a halt to ballroom construction but said the administration could keep working on the underground military complex.

    The White House’s protections for presidents have evolved as threats have increased.

    For decades, the White House bunker was limited to a small facility located in the basement of the East Wing, built during World War II to help protect President Franklin D. Roosevelt in case of an emergency. That site — known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, or PEOC — is where the Secret Service hurried Vice President Dick Cheney and first lady Laura Bush during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

    The attacks of Sept. 11 prompted the White House to begin work on a much more secure facility, said journalist Ronald Kessler, who referenced construction of the bunker in his 2018 book, The Trump White House: Changing the Rules of the Game. The upgraded facility, he wrote, was completed during the Obama administration, had a monthslong food supply, and was equipped with its own self-contained airflow system.

    “It’s a serious issue. What could be more important than maintaining continuity of government?” said Kessler, who supports the Trump administration’s efforts to expand the White House’s secure facilities through the ballroom project.

    Kessler and the former officials who spoke with the Post acknowledged the necessity of providing the president with a secure facility amid ongoing serious threats. Trump has faced multiple assassination attempts, the latest of which — from Iran earlier in the summer — prompted the Secret Service to stage an elaborate ruse that ended with the president flying back from the NATO summit in Ankara on a separate aircraft, apart from Air Force One.

    Still, the two former officials questioned the White House’s public case that the existing architecture is insufficiently hardened. The existing site, the two people said, is buried deep into the Washington bedrock, accessible by a private elevator and built specifically to protect the president from a vast array of threats, including an attack from a weapon of mass destruction.

    Its specifications, the former officials said, include many of the safety protocols the White House is describing in an attempt to justify the new ballroom complex.

    The former officials also warned that the administration’s abrupt decision to demolish the East Wing, and expose what sat underneath it, could have itself created national security risks. The PEOC, two former officials said, sat only about 20 feet under the East Wing and may have been destroyed or damaged in the construction process.

    Fisher, the White House official managing the project, said that he was worried that halting construction now could unwind nearly a year of work.

    “Pausing work now, as the district court has ordered, will jeopardize everything we have done so far,” Fisher told the Supreme Court. “Depending on how long that freeze persists, it might force us to tear down everything we have done as a degraded mass, to allow for whatever comes next — something that would be disruptive and extremely dangerous.”

    Similar arguments have not swayed lower-court judges.

    Leon, the district judge who first ordered the administration in March to halt its ballroom construction, chastised Trump officials for arguing that they needed to complete the project for safety and security reasons.

    “Here is the bottom line,” Leon wrote in a follow-up ruling in April. “Defendants themselves forged ahead and created this ‘coordinated and managed safety hazard’ on White House grounds.”

  • Iran’s rial currency hits new record low as US prepares to announce more sanctions

    Iran’s rial currency hits new record low as US prepares to announce more sanctions

    TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s currency hit a record low Monday as Washington prepared to announce new sanctions it said would add further pressure on an economy already battered by previous sanctions and a U.S. naval blockade.

    The rial dropped to 2.02 million to the U.S. dollar as trading opened on currency markets. Iran’s official Central Bank rate stood at around 1.5 million rial to the dollar, but the market rate is what most Iranians pay.

    The currency had already been under pressure before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, as Iran faced double-digit inflation and negative growth, but has repeatedly hit new lows as nearly six months of war have taken an even greater toll.

    Iranians find daily staples increasingly unaffordable. Since the war began, rice is up some 60% and prices of beef are more than 150% higher. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that GDP will contract more than 5%.

    Still, economic pressure has not yet translated into political pressure. Iran retains a key strategic advantage: Its attacks and threats on ships in the Strait of Hormuz have brought traffic in the vital waterway to a near halt, damaging the world economy and heaping pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump ahead of congressional elections.

    The war, as a result, has devolved into a fight over who controls the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil transited before the conflict. Iran is now refusing to fully reopen it unless it can charge ships.

    Iran and Oman, which is on the opposite side of the strait, are reportedly in the final stages of agreeing upon a plan for joint management of the waterway. Oman’s foreign minister is set to visit Iran on Tuesday.

    In an attempt to break the impasse, Trump’s administration promised even stronger sanctions than those already in place would be announced Monday, including secondary sanctions on countries that continue to do business with Iran.

    “President Trump decimated Iran’s economy to a point where the rial has never been weaker and inflation has rarely been higher,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote Sunday in an opinion piece in the Financial Times. “The regime’s final refuge now lies in the self-deception of fearful nations that still believe accommodating aggression can secure a durable peace.”

    Already last week, the United Arab Emirates announced that it was suspending all trade with Iran. The UAE has long been one of Iran’s largest trading partners and its biggest source of imports.

    Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told reporters in Tehran on Monday that “any escalation of this situation will undoubtedly bring about consequences.”

    “Our hands are not tied,” he added.

    Pakistan, which played a key role in brokering a 60-day ceasefire in June, sent a high-level delegation to Iran on Monday to discuss ending the war, the military said.

    In downtown Tehran, 73-year-old Sadegh Mahmoudi did not hold out hope for a resolution. He joined a line of about a dozen people to purchase U.S. dollars with his remaining savings to hedge against further declines.

    “There is no hope for a deal and peace,” he said.

  • European leaders join Zelenskyy in Kyiv for Ukraine’s Independence Day as Russian invasion pushes on

    European leaders join Zelenskyy in Kyiv for Ukraine’s Independence Day as Russian invasion pushes on

    KYIV, Ukraine — European leaders joined President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Monday for official celebrations marking Ukraine’s Independence Day as Russia pushes on with its 4-year-old invasion of the country.

    One of President Vladimir Putin’s key goals in starting a war with Russia’s neighbor in February 2022 was to place Kyiv in Moscow’s orbit. Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly for independence in 1991.

    With no significant changes on the front line for months and no apparent progress after more than a year of U.S.-led peace efforts, the warring countries are locked in a spiral of escalating aerial attacks that are killing civilians and smashing infrastructure.

    EU leaders rally around Ukraine

    U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham, on his first overseas trip since taking office last month, on Monday joined almost a dozen other European leaders, as well as other dignitaries including European Council President Antonio Costa, in Kyiv.

    “For Ukraine, independence is not an abstract idea. We defended it against all odds,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on social media. “In times like these, nations learn how important it is to have allies by your side.”

    Burnham was to co-chair a meeting of the so-called Coalition of the Willing group of countries helping Ukraine resist Russia’s onslaught, with the leaders of France and Germany expected to join online.

    The visiting leaders took to Kyiv pledges of further military and financial support. Burnham is expected to announce that the U.K. Government has agreed to allow defense company MBDA to release classified information relating to British components used in the SCALP long-range missile, according to his office. That would pave the way for France and Ukraine to advance plans for local production of the weapon in Ukraine.

    SCALP is the French version of the UK’s Storm Shadow missile, with both systems incorporating shared French and British technology.

    Ukraine has leaned heavily on NATO countries for help fighting Russia’s bigger army, although relations with the United States have been cooler under President Donald Trump.

    Russia, meanwhile, is getting help from North Korea and China.

    Both Russia and Ukraine are trying through long-range strikes to inflict economic pain, disrupt military supplies and erode public morale.

    Ukraine’s long-range drones have repeatedly hit facilities in Russia’s vital oil industry, causing fuel shortages, and have also engaged in a campaign against Russia’s largest online retailer Wildberries.

    Ukrainian strikes kill 3 teenagers

    Three teenagers were killed and six children were wounded in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar, Russia’s children’s rights ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova said Monday, as Ukraine attacked several warehouses of Ozon for the third straight day, according to officials and the company.

    Ozon is one of Russia’s major e-commerce retailers. The company said a large fire raged at an Ozon logistics facility in the suburbs of Krasnodar following the overnight attack.

    A drone also hit the grounds of an Ozon logistics center in the southern Russian region of Adygeya, regional governor Murat Kumpilov said, though the company said its Adygeya warehouse wasn’t damaged.

    In all, four Ozon premises appeared to have been targeted.

    Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses overnight intercepted and destroyed 351 Ukrainian drones over eight Russian regions, as well as occupied Crimea and the waters of the Azov and the Black Seas.

    The ministry also said that its forces overnight continued to strike Ukrainian ports and vessels delivering cargo for the armed forces.

  • Trump’s school voucher program could become a public school cash machine

    Trump’s school voucher program could become a public school cash machine

    Forget student fun runs, PTA bake sales and Saturday morning car washes.

    The future of public-school fundraising may soon look more like a payroll deduction. Or perhaps door-to-door campaigns each tax season asking filers to earmark donations to support nearby public schools.

    When President Donald Trump’s tax overhaul known as the One Big Beautiful Bill last year created the first national school-voucher-style program to help families pay for private schools or home-school costs, it allowed public schools to benefit as well. According to U.S. Treasury guidelines released in June, the program allows specific nonprofits to collect donations that people direct from their federal taxes for a vast array of public school costs, such as transportation or tutoring.

    Sara Hazel, president of the Denver Public Schools Foundation, the fundraising arm for Colorado’s largest school district, is among a small but growing number of district leaders who have said they plan to take advantage of the financial opportunity. She said she plans to tell potential donors, “Do you want that money going to the IRS or going to local kids?”

    The program doesn’t officially start until the new year, but its resemblance to private-school vouchers has inspired opponents of school choice to line up against it. Still, supporters and even cautious critics say the Republican-backed initiative could mean a financial boon for public schools.

    The program works like this: Taxpayers can contribute up to $1,700 to what’s known as a scholarship-granting organization and receive a credit on their federal income taxes. It’s a dollar-for-dollar credit, meaning every pledged dollar reduces what an individual owes to the Internal Revenue Service by the same amount.

    These new intermediaries could be formed by an array of nonprofits, including public-school foundations, with approval from their state. The scholarship-granting organization would then pass on the money to private school and home-school applicants in the form of scholarships — or to school districts so they could cover certain services for student applicants.

    Marguerite Roza, a school finance expert, has advised school districts — many of which have bandaged their slashed budgets by shuttering campuses or issuing pink slips — that they can’t afford to ignore this new source of funding. “Any time there’s an available revenue source, generally we don’t see districts saying, ‘No thank you,’” said Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University.

    States must opt into the program, and so far, 30 states have done so. Now it’s up to individual school district leaders in those states to decide if they want to try to tap into the money.

    School finance experts suggest the scholarships could help districts access funding comparable to 3 percent of their entire budget. But tapping into this unexpected revenue risks political backlash and logistical headaches. Governors and superintendents may face fierce resistance from teachers unions, which in many states have portrayed the new program as a Trojan horse for the expansion of vouchers in education because it also allows money to be funneled to families to pay for private school.

    Some opponents also raise concerns about creating a new funding system that could favor school districts with a ready pool of wealthy donors over those in low-income communities where few residents may owe enough in federal taxes to contribute to the scholarships.

    “In low-income areas, you’re going to find it’s not easy for school districts to raise this money,” said Thomas Toch, director of the think tank FutureEd at Georgetown University.

    He said he worried that the inclusion of public school districts in the legislation was little more than a ploy, a shrewd political strategy to further school choice in states otherwise unlikely to support it.

    “It was designed to make the case that this program can support the public sector in order to win support in blue states,” Toch said.

    The mechanics of the tax credit scholarships represent a dramatic departure from how the federal government supports schools.

    The money for the scholarships never flows through federal Department of Education coffers, entirely bypassing Congress and its spending decisions.

    Treasury regulators will soon issue formal rules to set additional guardrails for the program. But the law suggests the scholarships could be used to cover an expansive list of expenses that public schools often struggle to fund including costs such as field trips, textbooks or support services.

    The inclusion of public schools now places some governors, superintendents and school boards in a new dilemma: Do they choose to tap into a Trump-backed program that could boost their bottom line, or leave the tax-credit cash on the table for others to claim?

    “The reality is this program exists, and if there are dollars on the table that can go to our children and families, I don’t understand the purpose of not trying to do everything we possibly can,” said Justin Dayhoff, chief financial officer for Nevada’s Clark County School District, which includes Las Vegas.

    His district, like many around the country, is strapped for cash as health insurance and other costs increase and fewer students enroll in public school due to population decline. Enrollment in Clark County — the nation’s fifth-largest district — has dwindled by more than 35,000 students, or 11 percent, since before the pandemic and it laid off five dozen staff ahead of this new school year.

    How big a financial difference the voucher-style program would make for school districts remains to be seen.

    Some school finance experts expect soliciting donations could be as simple as districts partnering with employers to enroll their workers in the tax credit program, perhaps as another form in their regular HR paperwork. (Many employers already partner with nonprofits like United Way to collect pretax donations from paychecks.)

    Roza, of Georgetown, estimated a district could bring in about $200 per student by enrolling its own employees into the program. Convincing major companies to do the same — directing proceeds to nonprofits supporting students who attend local public schools — could push that figure higher. City and county governments might participate as well.

    “Local employers are an absolutely critical piece of this puzzle,” said Hazel, with the Denver Public Schools Foundation.

    Her organization hasn’t officially approached any of its corporate partners yet about enrolling their employees in the tax credit program. (Past donors to the foundation have included Chevron, the Colorado Rockies and United Airlines.) But Hazel’s already thinking about whether Denver Public Schools will have to compete with other Colorado districts attempting to woo the same business leaders.

    “We’re the largest school district in Colorado, so we already have an advantage,” Hazel said. “But how can we go to a company and say, ‘Your employees must choose between all these great school districts?’”

    But her new fundraising plans will come with steep operational hurdles.

    Under the new law, at least 90 percent of all donations to scholarship-granting organizations like Hazel’s must go directly to student scholarships, leaving relatively little to cover marketing, staff, annual independent audits and payment processing. Fees already take 4 percent of each credit card transaction, Hazel said.

    Yet even as she awaits further clarity from Treasury on how organizations can collect donations, she’s imagining what the money could mean for Denver schools.

    “My dream is I can give every second grader a tutor and we get everyone to grade-level reading and math,” Hazel said. “There are things like that that are so scalable and would support every student.”

    This story about the One Big Beautiful Bill was produced by the Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.

  • Zelensky details rift with Ukraine’s dismissed defense minister Fedorov

    Zelensky details rift with Ukraine’s dismissed defense minister Fedorov

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he believes actions taken by dismissed Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, including his involvement in mass protests and calls for an election, were misguided, as he publicly detailed their dispute for the first time.

    Zelensky also alluded to problematic decisions over defense spending and said that inaccurate information provided by the Defense Ministry contributed to an awkward encounter with U.S. President Donald Trump over the use of Starlink in Russia.

    Zelensky disclosed figures showing Ukraine’s growing shortage of Patriot air-defense missiles needed to counter Russian ballistic attacks, with deliveries from Western allies declining in the past three years even as Russian missile strikes intensified.

    He highlighted battlefield gains, however, saying Ukrainian forces have almost completely recaptured the Dnipropetrovsk region, with only about 4 square miles remaining under Russian control.

    The Ukrainian president made the remarks during a two-hour off-the-record meeting with reporters on Saturday, with a transcript released publicly on Sunday.

    Zelensky’s first public comments on Fedorov dismissal

    His comments ranged widely, covering the latest battlefield developments, efforts to counter Russian ballistic attacks, the state of peace negotiations, Ukraine’s budgetary challenges, and the political turmoil surrounding Fedorov’s dismissal.

    “I really had and still have a very positive attitude toward Mykhailo. We have been through a lot together. But I believe that he himself goes, or is pushed, into the wrong things,” he said.

    Fedorov, a popular minister credited with modernizing Ukraine’s armed forces and accelerating the military’s embrace of technology and drone warfare, was dismissed last month after reportedly falling out with the country’s top military commander. His removal triggered mass protests that lasted for weeks, but ultimately failed to force a reversal of the decision. Fedorov later called for an election.

    Zelensky said that he had offered Fedorov four different options to continue working in the government. Fedorov, he said, rejected all of them.

    The Ukrainian leader told journalists that he believes holding an election during the war would be a huge risk with the potential to “split Ukraine apart.”

    “I believe elections during a war like this would generally pose enormous risks. Holding elections right now would be a tsunami for the state that would split Ukraine apart,” he said.

    Zelensky said he had previously faced pressure to hold an election during the war, but no partners had come up with a plan for how a poll could be held safely, legitimately, and democratically.

    Inaccurate information led to uncomfortable White House encounter

    Zelensky appeared to link Fedorov to an awkward episode involving Starlink and Elon Musk. Zelensky said that earlier this year, the Defense Ministry had told him that SpaceX had agreed to allow Ukraine to use Starlink over Russian territory to carry out deep strike operations, subject to political approval.

    Acting on that, Zelensky said, he raised the issue directly with U.S. President Donald Trump. He told Trump that Musk had confirmed the proposed use. Zelensky said the two sides subsequently sought Musk’s confirmation and discussed financing for the project.

    But at a later meeting, Zelensky said, Trump told him that Musk had rejected the proposal and accused him of having misled the U.S. president. Musk considered the move a dangerous escalation, according to Zelensky.

    “He said that I had supposedly deceived him, because Musk had denied Ukraine the use of Starlink on Russian territory. I went back to our Ministry of Defense and they said that maybe it was so,” he said.

    Zelensky didn’t explicitly accuse Fedorov of lying. He said that the situation was among the reasons behind “some of the steps.”

    Zelensky also pushed back against protesters’ vilification of former army chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, who he dismissed, and current Defense Minister Maj. Gen. Yevhen Khmara, saying they had gone too far.

    “Maybe someone doesn’t like Syrskyi for one reason or another. But the slogans ‘Syrskyi is the devil, Khmara is the devil,’” he said. “Listen, this is too much. Do you understand? In principle, you can’t treat the military like this and tolerate it, especially when it was the military that made it possible for any peaceful protests to take place in the Ukrainian capital at all.”

    Pressure on defense budget but military successes

    Zelensky also described severe financial pressure on Ukraine’s defense effort. He said that the Defense Ministry faced a $27 billion budget shortfall after spending decisions earlier in the year brought forward funds originally intended for the second half of this year.

    Touching on a corruption inquiry that led Zelensky to fire one of his most senior officials this week, he said that anti-corruption investigators don’t believe that the president was involved. The investigators had named a deputy head of the presidential office among the suspects in a money-laundering case.

    “The heads of anti-corruption agencies have zero questions for me. They understand perfectly well that I am not involved in anything like that. And this is important to me,” he said.

    On the battlefield, Zelensky was optimistic. In addition to Ukraine almost completely regaining control of the Dnipropetrovsk region, he said that another operation was underway elsewhere and that its results were expected by the end of August.

    He also predicted that by the end of the year, Ukraine could reach parity between the territory occupied by Russia since the beginning of the year and the territory retaken by Ukrainian forces. Zelensky said that Russia had occupied about 380 square miles since the start of the year, while Ukraine had restored control over roughly 315 square miles.

    The president said that Russia’s principal objective remained the Konstantynivka-Sloviansk-Kramatorsk axis, and that Moscow was still demanding that Ukraine withdraw from the Donbas region as a condition for a settlement.

    Still struggling for access to Patriot missiles

    Zelensky said that Ukraine was receiving substantially fewer Patriot interceptor missiles even as Russian ballistic attacks are increasing.

    He said that Ukraine received 675 Patriot missiles in 2023, compared with 364 in 2025 and an expected 264 this year. Zelensky said that he wanted to secure 300 additional Patriot missiles for the coming winter, while Ukraine’s air force had requested 360.

    The shortfall is particularly serious, because the United States and European partners are struggling to expand production. Zelensky said that he hoped Ukraine could obtain even 5% or 10% of U.S. reserves and was able to pay for them.

    Zelensky said that Russia could eventually produce up to 1,300 ballistic missiles a year, compared with an estimated current capacity of 600.

    He said that Ukraine was also preparing alternatives to Starlink, including a European communications project, as Russia and China work on their own competing system.

    Other developments

    Debris from a Ukrainian drone hit two industrial facilities including a warehouse belonging to online retailer Ozon, local officials in Russia’s Orenburg region said Sunday.

    As well as shifting the war onto Russian soil through long-range drone strikes on oil facilities that have caused fuel shortages across Russia, Ukraine has unsettled the Russian public by striking warehouses of online retailers, including Russia’s biggest one, Wildberries, and competitors such as Ozon.

    One person was killed and six wounded in Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia’s Belgorod border region, local authorities said Sunday. A woman also died in a drone attack in the Tula region.

    Two women were killed and five other people were wounded when a Russian drone hit an electric train in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, the Ukrainian national police said Sunday.

    Leaders from Nordic and Baltic nations arrived in Kyiv on Sunday, the eve of Ukraine’s Independence Day, in a show of solidarity from some of Ukraine’s closest partners before a larger “coalition of the willing” meeting.

    Leaders from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Norway attended a flag-raising ceremony, as Ukraine marked Ukraine’s National Flag Day.

    “We feel we are not alone. Our allies are with us,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X on Sunday, noting that the leaders would hold bilateral and multilateral talks with Zelensky.

  • He was waiting for his son to return from the USS Lincoln. Then Border Patrol arrested him.

    He was waiting for his son to return from the USS Lincoln. Then Border Patrol arrested him.

    When Luis Manuel Aviles was arrested by immigration authorities, his son was entering his ninth month with the Navy on the USS Abraham Lincoln — a vessel that set a U.S. military record for uninterrupted time at sea, stirring concerns about supply shortages and deteriorating mental health among soldiers.

    Luis Manuel Aviles, 48, was arrested after leaving his house to take his car to the mechanic, according to his wife, Argelia Aviles. She said her husband, a repairperson in Key West, Fla., has a permit to work in the United States. Originally from Nicaragua, he has lived in the U.S. for 19 years.

    “He dedicates himself only to work so he can put food on the table at home. He is a good father. He loves his children with all his soul,” said Argelia, 47.

    Aviles’ arrest comes as the Trump administration rolls back immigration protections for military families to pursue its mass deportation agenda, detaining at least dozens of parents and spouses of active-duty U.S. troops.

    At least six family members have been deported and one self-deported, the AP found in the first accounting of such detentions, which the government does not track. One spouse, the wife of a U.S. soldier who spent more than a month in federal immigration detention, was removed from a deportation flight to Brazil after the AP’s reporting.

    One of the military’s most highly advertised immigration benefits is “military parole-in-place,” which allows the spouses, children, and parents of active-duty service members and veterans to obtain legal immigration status from within the country. Not everyone qualifies: those who overstayed visas or who already applied for legal status at the border, for example.

    The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that Border Patrol agents arrested Luis Aviles on Saturday in Key West and that he will remain in ICE custody while the government seeks to deport him.

    “Having a family member in the military is not a free pass to violate our nation’s laws,” the department said Sunday, adding that the Trump administration “does not pick and choose which laws to enforce.”

    Aviles’ son, Joshua Aviles, said he has been working 12-hour shifts for more than 250 days without a break on the USS Lincoln, which has been deployed in the Middle East. The deployment has raised widespread concerns about the impact on service members who are away from land for long periods and about food shortages, as well as the increasing strain on the ship and its equipment.

    The Pentagon referred all questions to the Navy. The Navy didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on Sunday afternoon. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth previously called conditions aboard the Lincoln “completely misrepresented.”

    Joshua Aviles wrote in a Facebook post Saturday that he was still on the USS Lincoln “fighting for a country that has given me everything” when he got a call about his father’s detention on Saturday morning.

    “This is heartbreaking for me. I don’t know how I can mentally continue working 12+ hour days knowing that my dad is somewhere, possibly treated like a criminal,” Joshua Aviles wrote.

    Katherine Delgado, 28, Joshua Aviles’ sister, said that Joshua joined the military in part because he thought it would improve his father’s chances of getting citizenship and so that he would “no longer be living in fear of being arrested.”

    She said being apart from Joshua, who she calls her “best friend” and her “ride-or-die,” has been devastating.

    “I spent weeks without knowing where he was,” Delgado said. Once she heard from him, and was told that he wasn’t getting enough food, she said, she has spent hundreds of dollars to send him care packages with food and hygiene products — some of which never arrived.

    Joshua is “supposed to come home soon,” Delgado said, referring to news that the ship her brother is on will soon be brought out of service in the Middle East. “And he’s going to come home without his father.”

    The son’s lengthy deployment has been challenging for Luis Aviles, according to his wife. He told her that he was looking forward to the deployment finally coming to an end. When six months passed and his son didn’t come back, Aviles was distraught, she said.

    “He was excited,” she said. “He wanted to hug his son, as he hadn’t seen him for nine months.”

  • Iran official says support for new sanctions would be an ‘act of war’

    Iran official says support for new sanctions would be an ‘act of war’

    The new head of Iran’s top security body warned Sunday that Tehran will see any country’s support for new U.S. economic measures against the Islamic Republic as an “act of war,” while Iran’s president defended a memorandum of understanding with the United States as the best way out of the stalled conflict.

    Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday is expected to announce the new measures after the U.S. vowed to impose an “unprecedented” level of economic warfare and isolation on a country that has lived for decades under sanctions. Also Monday, Pakistan’s army chief is expected to visit Iran as mediators try to revive talks.

    Meanwhile, attacks calmed on the Strait of Hormuz but posturing did not, as a recently created Iranian authority listed dozens of vessels it said will face restrictions on future transits.

    Iran’s security chief sharpens warning to neighbors

    The hard-line leader of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, issued his latest warning on X, with the comments quickly shared by Iranian state media.

    It came a day after Rezaei’s most extensive public comments since being named to the post this month.

    “If (Trump) wants to do something, we will retaliate in a seismic manner,” he had told the state broadcaster in an interview that aired late Saturday. He said Iran would target other oil-shipping routes from the Persian Gulf — alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz.

    Rezaei, a former Revolutionary Guard commander and military adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, was part of senior appointments widely seen as hardening Tehran’s political and military stance.

    Iranian president wants to move past ‘neither war nor peace’

    Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian earlier Sunday said the memorandum of understanding signed in mid-June was the best way to move beyond a situation of “neither war nor peace,” adding that Tehran can’t attract investment nearly six months after the war began.

    “There is not a single provision in this agreement that amounts to capitulation,” Pezeshkian said in a speech published by state-run IRNA. “The supreme leader sets the policies, and we will follow that path.”

    The interim deal opened a 60-day period for talks aimed at ending the war and reaching an accord on Iran’s nuclear program. That period ended last week with no signs of compromise or extension.

    No attacks confirmed on the strait, but new restrictions

    There were no confirmed attacks in the Strait of Hormuz over the past 48 hours, a multinational coalition overseen by the U.S. Navy said Sunday, with shipping traffic still at reduced levels. The U.S. military said its blockade of Iranian ports had redirected 70 commercial ships and disabled three as of Sunday.

    Iran’s recently created Persian Gulf Strait Authority, sanctioned by the U.S., published a list of dozens of ships it said had violated arrangements for transiting the strait and would face future restrictions like fines or seizures. The strait had been considered an international waterway before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28.

    Iran and Oman, on the strait’s other side, are now discussing management of the waterway, which likely will include ships paying fees.

    Pakistan’s army chief will visit Tehran

    Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir will lead a delegation to Tehran on Monday, Iranian state television reported, citing Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei.

    Two regional officials said the visit was part of Islamabad’s efforts to de-escalate tensions between the United States and Iran and urge them to return to the negotiating table. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

    Iran executes man arrested during January protests

    The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency reported the latest execution connected to nationwide protests early this year, saying Majid Adineh was arrested Jan. 9 in Mohammadshahr, west of Tehran.

    The judiciary said forensic examinations indicated the handgun found on him had been fired on Jan. 8 and 9. Mizan said Adineh had joined the unrest following calls by groups opposed to Iran’s government and alleged that he had received training from groups outside the country. He was convicted under Iran’s law imposing harsher penalties for espionage and cooperation with hostile states.

    Israeli settler arrested in beating of Palestinian amputee

    Police arrested a 16-year-old boy from the Israeli settlement of Avigayil in the beating of a 61-year-old Palestinian, Saeed Muhammad Ibrahim Rabah, outside his home in the occupied West Bank, a year after he lost a leg after being shot by a settler.

    Rabah told the Associated Press that the violence at his home in Khirbet al-Rakeez on Saturday was an effort to make families leave, but “we will remain, no matter what happens.”

    Separately, the West Bank Health Ministry said a 14-year-old in the Askar refugee camp in Nablus was shot dead by Israeli forces, who did not immediately comment. The uncle of Islam Maher Ajouri, Nehad Ajouri, called the shooting indiscriminate.

    And Israel’s military said it detained a suspect in a stabbing attack that wounded a 24-year-old Israeli man in the area of al-Auja in the West Bank. Israel’s emergency services said the man was in moderate condition.

    Airstrike in Gaza kills a 4-year-old child

    Four-year-old Mohammed Taha died after an Israeli airstrike hit a central Gaza house on Sunday and wounded at least five others, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the casualties.

    Israel’s military later said it struck and killed a Hamas commander in central Gaza. The hospital confirmed that the man named, Ismail Abu Ful, was killed.

    An Israeli strike in southern Gaza wounded at least seven people, including three children, according to health officials at Nasser Hospital. The military did not immediately comment.

    Defense Minister Israel Katz in a statement said he instructed the military to “act immediately and forcefully” to prevent launches of balloons, kites, or drones from Gaza toward nearby Israeli communities.

    Before the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas-led militants on Israel — when 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage — burning kites and balloons were sent from Gaza into southern Israel, causing fires and other damage.

    Hamas in a statement Sunday accused Israel of “using children’s toys as a pretext” for attacks and further displacement of Gaza residents.