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Iranian officials indicated Wednesday they have received an official U.S. response to Tehran’s latest proposal to end the seven-month war, which U.S. President Donald Trump had publicly rejected just days earlier.

The officials did not say what the response contained and whether it was a rejection.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi presented the U.S. response to President Masoud Pezeshkian at a Cabinet meeting, government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani told the state-run IRNA news agency.

“We will make every effort to bring the agreement to fruition and will firmly stand up for the rights of the Iranian people,” Pezeshkian said. “The agreement must now be based on a win-win strategy.”

The Cabinet meeting followed Araghchi’s return to Iran after travelling to New York for last week’s U.N. General Assembly, where officials held indirect talks with U.S. officials and also met with Qatari and Pakistani mediators on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders.

Araghchi briefed the Cabinet on his trip to New York and the meetings he held there, including Iran’s conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which Mohajerani said had been conveyed through mediators.

Araghchi last week said he floated the proposal to reopen the strait in a week if the U.S. agreed to lift its blockade of Iranian ports, release frozen Iranian assets and waive sanctions on Iranian oil sales, among other conditions.

Trump swiftly rejected the proposal, saying Iran wanted to make a deal because it was “losing so badly” but that its offer “would not be acceptable.” Despite Trump’s public rebuffing, mediators continued working with Iran and the U.S. to try to broker a deal to end the fighting and open the strait, according to officials who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Department unveiled new sanctions on Tuesday targeting people and companies around the globe that it accuses of being financial facilitators or enablers of Iran’s military supply chain.

The latest action is part of the Trump administration’s “Operation Economic Outcast” campaign aimed at severing “critical financial lifelines” for the already heavily sanctioned Iranian government.

Ten people and entities based in Iran, Hong Kong and Pakistan now face sanctions over accusations of procuring weapons and weapon components for Iran’s defense ministry as it fights its now seven-month war against the U.S.

Iran’s economy is spiraling further

Iran’s economy, under heavy strain before the war started, has been in a freefall since the conflict began in late February.

The country’s currency fell to a new record low on Tuesday, with traders in Tehran exchanging more than 2.5 million rials to the U.S. dollar in a stark reflection of how the war in the Middle East has steadily eroded the Iranian economy.

The latest decline came just 27 days after the rial hit its previous record low of 2.2 million to the dollar on Sept. 2. The currency has repeatedly reached new lows since the war began in February.

Trump on Tuesday said that Iran is “failing very badly, very badly” and predicted anew that the war will be “over with very, very soon.”

At the onset of the conflict, he predicted that the war would last just weeks. More recently, Trump said he expects it won’t end until after the Nov. 3 midterm elections in the U.S.

Iranians face soaring prices for medicine amid U.S. blockade, sanctions

Medication prices are soaring in Iran and some treatments have become hard to find, leaving patients and their families scrambling as a U.S. blockade and stepped-up sanctions squeeze the country’s pharmaceuticals industry.

Some medicines have more than tripled in price, further straining Iranians’ finances seven months into the country’s war with the United States and Israel. Prices for food and other goods have skyrocketed even as unemployment has risen and the currency, which hit a record low this week, has lost half its value.

The war has become an economic endurance test. Iran has tried to push world energy prices higher with attacks on the region’s oil shipping routes; the United States, in turn, has aimed to wreck Iran’s economy by blockading its ports since June and slapping it with increasingly tough sanctions.

Iran executes 2 men on charges of violence during January protests

Also on Wednesday, two men were executed in Iran over their role in violence during nationwide anti-government protests in January, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.

Citing the country’s judiciary, IRNA said the men took part in unrest in the northeastern city of Mashhad that left four members of the security forces dead earlier this year. Their death sentences were upheld by Iran’s Supreme Court before being carried out Wednesday morning.

The unrest began Dec. 28 amid anger over Iran’s collapsing currency and worsening economy and quickly spread across the country, with demonstrators increasingly calling for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. Iranian authorities responded with a deadly crackdown.

Rights groups say thousands were killed and tens of thousands arrested, while Iranian authorities have reported a substantially lower death toll.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering reducing the scope of a planned border project through Big Bend National Park in Texas, a contentious undertaking that has drawn bipartisan opposition over concerns it will irrevocably mar the remote, majestic area.

The announcement on plans for the national park, made in two court filings late Tuesday, gave no details on what the government may do. In August, the Republican administration initiated a pause on construction-related activity in the park as it engaged in outreach efforts to opponents of the project. The pause ends Wednesday.

Customs and Border Protection is “actively considering adjustments” to the work ”that would reduce its scope and avoid or minimize potential impacts, based on input received from the National Park Service and other stakeholders,” the government said in the court filing.

The agency said it will make a final decision the first week in October and will take “several weeks” after that announcement before any “ground-disturbing work” starts.

After intense opposition from environmentalists and local residents and business owners, CBP backed off plans this year to build a 30-foot-tall bollard wall through the park. But its intention to move forward with other measures such as a new road, lights, vehicle barriers and technology did not quell local resistance.

After bulldozers were spotted in August clearing land in Big Bend, CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott announced a pause on all activity there and it was later expanded to the area upstream of the park. The agency has said it was only carrying out design and planning work, not full-scale construction activities.

Opponents of the border project called on the administration Wednesday to continue the pause while coming up with a new plan.

Bob Krumenaker, head of Keep Big Bend Wild and a former NPS superintendent at the park, said in a statement that the Border Patrol already works with the park service and local sheriffs to operate an “effective surveillance system” in Big Bend that includes ground sensors and patrols. The Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks said building in the park would be “mutilating an extraordinary landscape.”

The project is part of a $46 billion plan by the administration to line the U.S.-Mexico border with steel bollard walls, vehicle barriers and surveillance technology to deter migrants and smugglers.

The government has also paused work on a 61-mile piece of land stretching north of the national park along the Rio Grande River, most of which is owned by private landowners. In that area, the government plans to build a 30-foot-tall steel bollard wall designed to prevent people on foot from crossing, roads and various types of surveillance technology where appropriate, according to the court filing.

CBP has started building the wall in a West Texas part of the broader Big Bend region, but has run into intense opposition there, including from landowners challenging the project in court.

Also in the court filing Tuesday, the government suggested it was facing resistance in getting permission from landowners to survey and build on their property and would be referring some cases to the Department of Justice to pursue condemnation.

The government also detailed efforts it had made to meet with people potentially affected by Big Bend projects and shared with them incidents of cartel-related violence that concerned the Border Patrol.

The administration has been pushing forward with the border wall projects that have long been a key part of President Donald Trump’s vision for border security. The agency said it is building 12 miles of wall per week.

But lining up against the work are private landowners, Native American tribes, environmental groups and others who question the necessity and cost of the project at a time when illegal immigration has fallen dramatically. Opponents also have accused the government of damaging Native American sites and sensitive ecology locations in its rush to finish construction.

RIO DE JANEIRO — Clutching an oversized knife onstage during a recent campaign stop, Brazilian presidential candidate Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro vowed to inflict chemical castration on “rapists and child abusers,” drawing thunderous applause.

The tough-on-crime message comes as Bolsonaro seeks to appeal to women, who account for 53% of the electorate and played a decisive role in handing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva a narrow 2022 victory over Bolsonaro’s father, former President Jair Bolsonaro.

“Women are starting to have a perception of their role in elections,” said Rachel Ripani, co-founder of the movement Levante Mulheres Vivas, or Rise Alive Women. “They’re seeing their vote as something that they don’t want to be manipulated.”

Polls show Lula with a narrow lead over Sen. Bolsonaro in the Oct. 4 vote, but neither candidate is expected to win outright, making a runoff likely. Both have been courting swing voters, including women, with proposals to combat gender-based violence, a major campaign issue as violence against women reaches record levels and several high-profile cases draw attention.

“We’re building a Brazil (…) free of femicide, where no woman, inside or outside the home, lives under the threat of violence,” Lula told heads of state at last week’s United Nations General Assembly in New York. “This is a cause that the entire world needs to embrace.”

More than one in three women in Brazil was a victim of sexual or gender-based violence over the course of a year, the highest number since tracking began in 2017, according to a 2025 report by the think tank Brazilian Forum on Public Safety. In 2025, 1,571 women were victims of femicide, the highest annual total since Brazil defined the crime in law in 2015, the forum said. Femicide is defined as the killing of a woman in a domestic setting or out of contempt for women.

Cases over the past year have drawn widespread public condemnation, including the alleged gang rape of a 17-year-old girl in Copacabana; the death of a woman after her ex-boyfriend ran her over, trapped her beneath his car and dragged her over concrete for one kilometer, and the alleged killing of a military police officer by her husband, a member of the same institution.

Feminists are seeking guarantees

Along with chemical castration, Sen. Bolsonaro proposes expanding spaces that provide shelter for victims of violence and the creation of an AI assistant that would allow victims to file reports, request a protective order, and receive guidance and support.

Meanwhile, Lula pledged to expand protections introduced during his administration, particularly at the end of last year after a series of cases sparked demonstrations. Those measures include real-time monitoring of perpetrators of violence wearing electronic ankle bracelets.

Both Lula and Sen. Bolsonaro have advocated for tougher penalties for those who commit the crimes of violence against women, measures that would require parliamentary approval.

Aware of women’s electoral weight, activists are seeking to leverage that power to seek guarantees that such promises will not later be shelved.

Feminist groups are asking that candidates sign a letter committing to tackling gender-based violence as a priority and voting for a bill that seeks to criminalize misogyny, conducting surveys to define priorities, spotlighting female candidacies on websites and putting forward a shared legislative agenda.

Carmen Silva, a 61-year-old feminist who lives in the northeastern city of Recife, said this year her group Forum of Women of Pernambuco has two priorities: defending the limited right to abortion and a pledge to tackle the problem of gender-based violence through a multipronged approach including the introduction of education programs.

“Of course it’s easier to get commitments during the electoral period, but when women candidates are elected, we will cash in on those demands,” she said. “It’s not only about guaranteeing that women aren’t assassinated, but about giving them the possibilities of living a dignified life.”

Experts say part of the problem is a lack of funds to deploy protective measures and enact laws that already exist, an argument put forward by feminist candidates such as Luciana Boiteux, who is running for Rio’s state legislature.

“We have enough laws. As lawmakers, we will be vigilant with regards to the execution of these public policies,” said Boiteux at a recent campaign event in front of Rio de Janeiro State University.

Unequal representation by women

As with efforts to combat violence against women, calls for increased political representation cross party lines.

Despite Brazilian women’s electoral weight, only around 19% of lawmakers and senators are women. Brazil also has Latin America’s lowest level of female representation in politics, according to a study by Esfera Institute.

“Women have a long history of social mobilization in Brazil, but lately it became clear to these movements that the state matters and that they need to dispute that power,” said Marlise Miriam de Matos Almeida, a political scientist at the Federal University of Minas Gerais.

“Feminist movements have understood that it’s necessary to organize the female vote and mobilize forces to transform this quantitative power into something that allows more women to be elected,” she said.

The assassination of local councilwoman Marielle Franco inspired some Black women to run for office, Matos Almeida said, but political violence and insufficient resources continue to hinder the participation of women in politics.

The number of female candidates for Brazil’s lower house dropped by 24% in 2026 compared to 2022, according to the Chamber of Deputies.

Ripani said her movement is willing to work across party lines as long as candidates and those elected declare support for their policies.

“The priority for this election is voting for more women who fight for women,” she said. “We need to vote for people who understand our experience.”

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Light streamed through stained-glass windows in a former church, illuminating long white tables where weary men gathered. Johnny Henderson was glad for the rest. The 71-year-old — who has one arm, heart disease, and vision problems — slept on the street the night before.

Henderson is a regular at the St. John Center men’s day shelter. So are a great-grandfather in a wheelchair who has prostate cancer, a 54-year-old with four psychiatric disorders, and a 66-year-old with a walker who wears a hospital bracelet warning “fall risk.”

All are potential candidates for permanent, government-subsidized apartments under a “Housing First” approach, a model rooted in the belief that people need a stable place to live before addressing other problems. But the approach that’s been central to federal government policy for more than a decade is disappearing under President Donald Trump’s administration. The upheaval, providers and advocates say, threatens the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the nation.

“Housing is healthcare,” said St. John executive director Ra’Shann Martin, whose organization provides housing and outreach in addition to the shelter. “The longer people stay unhoused, the more fragile they become.”

Housing organizations across the U.S. that depend on federal funds are now reluctantly making changes to comply with new government policies that favor a “Treatment First” approach and short-term “transitional” housing — changes they fear will push people with extreme health risks back on the street or keep others, like Henderson, there.

Planned housing projects have been scrapped in communities such as Corbin, Kentucky. Less housing is available for homeless people in places including Santa Cruz County, California. And in cities such as Louisville, nonprofits are looking at making some permanent housing temporary, including most of St. John’s 200 apartments.

U.S. homelessness numbers have trended upward

Across America, nearly 750,000 people were homeless last year, according to an estimate compiled by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. That number is down slightly from 2024 but up 31% from 2019.

The portion considered chronically homeless — having a disability and long-term or repeated episodes of homelessness of at least a year — has also risen since 2019. It’s now about a quarter of the total.

Overall, research shows, roughly half of homeless adults live with a disability, up to two-thirds have mental illness, and 2 in 5 have substance use disorder. Rates of disability, heart disease, and diabetes are two to three times higher than in the general population.

In Louisville, outreach specialist Angel Sivado said such statistics are reflected in the people she serves, whose living conditions make it extremely difficult to care for themselves, get to doctors, or keep up with medications.

On a recent day, she parked a St. John van near a fast-food restaurant and hiked into the woods to visit a couple living in a tent. Later, she and a colleague walked toward encampments surrounded by trees just off a highway, yelling “outreach” over the low roar of cars.

One of their main jobs is to shepherd clients through the process for getting housing.

“They’re not just homeless people; they’re people,” Sivado said. “They’re somebody’s son. They’re somebody’s mother. They’re someone’s daughter.”

Occasionally, Sivado savors a victory. Before heading home, she stopped under a downtown overpass to see James Myers, 66, who is blind, has congestive heart failure, and is undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. She told him he should be in an apartment soon.

“I’m tired. I mean, the streets will beat you down, and I think they put a few years on me,” he said, standing near his busted guitar. “I can’t wait to get off the street.”

Others are not so lucky. Henderson, the St. John regular, survived a train accident that cost him an arm and led to a yearslong opioid addiction. Recently, he’s been dealing with heart disease, an eye problem, spinal surgery, and auditory hallucinations.

“I’m going to die sleeping outdoors,” he said, choking up. “But I got nowhere to go.”

The Trump administration favors ‘Treatment First’ and short-term housing

Each person’s path to homelessness is unique. Determining the “best” solutions depends on the lens used to judge what’s best. The answer may be different if the goal is reducing overall homelessness, helping people into the job market, spending as little taxpayer money as possible, improving health outcomes — or just keeping people alive.

The Housing First idea was pioneered by a New York nonprofit in the 1990s and has been at the heart of federal homelessness policy since 2013. Today, there are roughly 173,000 “permanent supportive housing” beds for chronically homeless people, and 235,000 for other populations, including veterans. These are long-term apartments paired with voluntary services. Tenants often must contribute 30% of their income, after certain expenses, to rent and utilities.

Studies have consistently shown that Housing First programs keep people stably housed. Some research says they do so better than other models, including “Treatment First,” which favors mandatory services for addiction and serious mental illness. But findings on health outcomes have been mixed.

Last year, Trump signed an executive order calling for an end to federal support for Housing First policies. His proposed budget for fiscal 2027 calls for eliminating the federal initiative that goes mostly to Housing First programs. The administration favors housing lasting up to two years, during which people would be required to get treatment.

“Housing First has failed our most vulnerable and enabled addiction,” HUD said in an email. “HUD’s proposed reforms seek to address the root causes of homelessness and advance recovery, self-sufficiency, and competition that drives accountability.”

Many opponents of Housing First policies don’t think services including addiction and mental health treatment should be optional.

“That is the biggest difference between Housing First and not Housing First,” said Devon Kurtz, the director of public safety policy for the Cicero Institute. Kurtz is also concerned that permanent supportive housing was becoming a “one-size-fits-all approach,” including for populations better served by transitional housing.

Service providers say short-term housing won’t work for some people

Service providers acknowledge that transitional housing is a good option for some people, such as those getting on their feet after evictions. But they say most chronically homeless people can’t pull their lives together within two years and would likely wind up homeless again.

“If you want to gradually work on reducing social services that are funded by the federal government, OK,” said Jennifer Clark, CEO and executive director of St. Vincent de Paul Louisville, which offers permanent and transitional housing. “But you cannot make a huge sweeping change and big cuts and take an ax to everything and think that there aren’t going to be consequences for some people who are really in need.”

John Franklin, 58, said transitional housing wouldn’t work for him. He spent nearly 14 years on the streets dealing with severe alcoholism, and it took a long time to adjust to normal life. He now gets by on disability, as a throat cancer survivor with heart failure, and can’t imagine either having to fully pay for housing or surviving the streets.

“I could not make it,” said Franklin, who shares a permanent supportive apartment in suburban Louisville with his orange tabby, Moe. “This is my safe haven.”

Housing First provides homes and other help

The welcome mat outside Phillip Sieveking’s permanent supportive apartment says “Home Sweet Home,” a sentiment precious to him after a couple of years on the streets.

Sieveking lives at St. John’s Sheehan Landing, a complex with 80 furnished one-bedroom apartments plus a clinic space, food pantry, meeting rooms, and a community garden that he spends much of his free time tending.

The former chef has diabetes but didn’t take care of it while homeless. Doctors had to amputate part of one leg. On a recent morning, he put on his prosthetic, grabbed his crutches, and slowly made his way to the garden to check on the roses, sunflowers and vegetables.

He credits his caseworker with encouraging him to keep up with medical care and navigate systems for getting disability and food benefits. He also attends meetings at the complex, including one where residents discuss wellness and sobriety while working on art projects.

“They have helped me, you know, go from being homeless to being a part of society,” said Sieveking, 47. “I feel blessed to be here.”

In New Jersey, Tatiana Velez has been in permanent supportive housing since 2021, soon after connecting with the Camden Coalition, which serves people with complex health and social needs.

After spending 18 years in prison for robbery, she had lived in abandoned buildings and struggled with opioids for a couple of years. Velez had never signed a lease or opened a bank account when, in her late 30s, she learned she was pregnant and decided she was ready to make changes.

“I didn’t know what it was to have a roof over my head or pay the bills,” said Velez, who receives disability payments for psychological and educational disabilities.

She now shares a first-floor suburban apartment with her daughter, 5, and a formerly homeless cat named Snowball. A preschool graduation certificate hangs on the wall.

Policy changes rock communities

After HUD tried to rework its homelessness grants to fit the administration’s favored policies, a consortium of local governments and advocates for homeless people sued. A federal judge agreed with them. But this month, an appeals court said the administration could move ahead.

Meanwhile, Trump’s proposed budget calls for eliminating the $4 billion Continuum of Care program, which in 2024 awarded money to 6,500 projects. At that time, more than 60% went to permanent supportive housing, mostly to continue existing efforts. Just 1% went to transitional housing.

Trump’s proposed changes have left homelessness organizations scrambling to figure out how to alter their housing strategies so they can keep getting federal money.

“It’s like psychological warfare the last two years, trying to figure out how to navigate these changes that are looming right over us,” Martin, the St. John director, said.

Dr. Robert Ratner, director of housing for health in Santa Cruz County, California, said losing permanent supportive housing funds would exacerbate problems caused by the winding down of another federal program: pandemic-era emergency housing vouchers. People set to lose those vouchers are being prioritized for available housing, meaning the county can’t help as many people who are homeless now.

A similar dynamic is playing out at The Delores Project in Denver, which serves women and transgender and nonbinary people. Program leaders expect people already in the permanent housing on their campus will stay because they won’t have access to vouchers to move out into the community. That will mean fewer spots for new people.

In Louisiana, the state housing agency applied to redirect federal money away from rental assistance and toward the establishment of a 200-bed shelter with strict mandates for participants. That effort was rejected by local coalitions in charge of the money, but local housing advocates worry it’s a harbinger of what’s to come.

Some communities are seeing planned projects nixed. For 18 months, Volunteers of America Mid-States worked with Eastern Kentucky University and others on a permanent supportive housing project in Corbin that would have included childcare and access to college classes. “That project is now dead,” said CEO Jennifer Hancock.

Many nonprofit leaders feel forced to shift toward transitional housing. In Louisville, St. Vincent de Paul and Family Health Centers-Phoenix Health Care for the Homeless are looking at converting some permanent supportive housing apartments into transitional units. St. John would only be left with Sheehan Landing after converting its 120 community apartments to transitional housing.

The result for people like Henderson? More time on the streets as they grow older and sicker.

“The lady in the housing office told me, she said, ‘Mr. Henderson, you got a stent in your heart. You got one eye and one arm. Something’s going to have to happen for you.’”

But with “just a little life left,” he said, it may not happen soon enough.