Iran closes Strait of Hormuz over Israeli attacks in Lebanon | AP News

US-Iran talks to begin Sunday in Switzerland as Tehran closes the strait over Lebanon fighting

Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli military strike in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Friday, June 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

"TYRE, Lebanon (AP) — Iran dealt two quick blows to the interim agreement with the United States on Saturday, angered by Israel’s continued attacks in Lebanon, saying it had closed the Strait of Hormuz and announcing that while its negotiators were going to Switzerland for talks, not much is likely to happen there.

Key mediator Pakistan, meanwhile, said the technical-level talks will begin on Sunday in Bürgenstock, Switzerland, with Qatari mediators also participating.

In Tehran’s first salvo, Iran’s joint military command said the strait had been closed, citing the Israeli attacks and U.S. “bad faith” and “clear breach of its commitments” by failing to end the war. Its statement on state television warned that “if the aggression continues, subsequent steps have been planned.”

Shortly after that, the state broadcaster announced that Iran’s negotiating team was going to Switzerland, a trip that had been originally planned for Friday. State media said the team includes parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and central bank and oil officials, among others.

There was no immediate U.S. comment.

Iran’s team departs for talks as uncertainty grows

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Bagahei, however, signaled that little might happen until Iran feels the U.S. is living up to the deal.

“This trip is therefore about demanding that the other side fulfill its obligations,” he said, adding that negotiations toward a final agreement will begin only once key commitments are upheld. If they are not, he said, “then the memorandum of understanding as a whole will be jeopardized.”

In Washington, Vice President JD Vance confirmed that the top U.S. negotiators — Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff — were already in Switzerland and have been working through technical details of the anticipated negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program.

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Vance told Fox News that he expects to leave for Switzerland “sometime the next couple of days” but acknowledged that “it’s always a delicate coordination dance.”

As part of efforts to revive the direct talks, Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi met Araghchi in Tehran earlier Saturday, according to officials in Islamabad who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Meanwhile, the global economy braced for more uncertainty.

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Shortly after Iran’s announcement, which it did not address, the U.S. military said commercial ship traffic continued through the strait on Saturday, with 55 merchant ships transiting, “moving large amounts of cargo and more than 17 million barrels of oil to global markets.”

It was not clear when in the day they had transited.

Ships began transiting after the interim U.S.-Iran agreement was signed earlier in the week, a milestone that has left plenty of questions unanswered.

Israeli attacks in Lebanon kill at least 16

In Lebanon, an official with Hezbollah told The Associated Press that Iran has informed the militant group that Tehran will not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until Israel announces publicly that it will comply with a “comprehensive ceasefire” in Lebanon and an end to military operations there. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

There was no immediate Israeli comment.

Earlier Saturday, Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon killed at least 16 people, including two children, hours after reports emerged of a ceasefire agreement there. Seven people remained trapped under the rubble after the strikes hit the southern city of Nabatiyeh and nearby villages, Lebanon’s National News Agency said.

The death toll in the latest war between Israel and Hezbollah has now surpassed 4,000, Lebanon’s health ministry later announced.

Mediators were scrambling to halt the fighting after a heavy exchange on Friday killed at least 47 people in Lebanon and four Israeli soldiers.

An Israeli military official, speaking anonymously in line with regulations, said Hezbollah had fired more than 50 projectiles at Israeli forces in southern Lebanon overnight. Israel’s army said it struck dozens of Hezbollah targets and militants in southern Lebanon, including Hezbollah command centers. 

On Friday, the Israeli ambassador to Washington, Yechiel Leiter, said Israel “remains firmly committed to an immediate ceasefire” if Hezbollah honors the agreement and ceases hostilities.

On Saturday, Hezbollah said it had committed to the ceasefire but blamed Israel for violating it several times Friday night. A statement by the group’s military wing said it would abide by the ceasefire but would also repel attacks by Israeli troops. 

The conflict could sink the US-Iran deal

A new round of U.S.-backed talks between the Lebanese government and Israel is expected to take place in Washington next week. 

Buildings damaged by Israeli strikes are seen through shattered glass from the Jabal Amel Hospital in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Thursday, June 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Hezbollah and Israel went to war two days after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, with Hezbollah firing rockets and drones at northern Israel and Israel seizing large swaths of southern Lebanon.

Neither Israel nor Hezbollah are signatories to the deal, which calls for a halt to military operations in Lebanon and for the country’s sovereignty to be respected.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to keep Israeli forces in southern Lebanon until any threat to Israel is eliminated. Hezbollah has refused to halt its attacks unless Israel commits to withdrawing from Lebanon, which Iran says is also a condition of the deal.

Fighting continues near the Israel-Lebanon border

A strike on Barish village killed four members of a family: parents and two children. In Arab Salim village, a body was pulled from a destroyed house, and in Doueir and Kfar Rumman villages, drone strikes killed a person on a motorcycle and a Lebanese soldier. Nine people were killed in strikes in Qannarit, Sohmor and Shehour villages.

Smoke rose into the sky over southern Lebanon and Israeli jets flew low over the coastal city of Tyre. Residents told The Associated Press they were relieved that Tyre had been spared in recent days, but now they were reminded that the war is not over. 

“Our entire lives would change if there’s a ceasefire,” said one resident, Hussein Khoshman.

Netanyahu’s office did not immediately comment on ceasefire efforts.

Military spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said Israeli forces were operating in a “forward defense zone” and would continue doing so.

___

Mroue reported from Beirut and Munir from Islamabad. Associated Press writers Abby Sewell in Beirut, Samy Magdy in Cairo, Seung Min Kim in Washington and Jamey Keaten in Zurich, Switzerland, contributed to this report."

Iran closes Strait of Hormuz over Israeli attacks in Lebanon | AP News

‘It’s not science, it’s coercion’: health experts decry RFK Jr order on hantavirus quarantine

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“Health experts criticize the Trump administration’s quarantine measures for an American who came into contact with hantavirus, arguing they are unconstitutional and lack scientific justification. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services, overruled the CDC’s recommendation for self-quarantine, citing no scientific rationale. This decision sets a concerning precedent for handling future infectious disease cases in the US.

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Kennedy overrides CDC order saying an American who came into contact with hantavirus can self-quarantine

Melody Schreiber

Robert F Kennedy Jr in Washington DC on 16 April 2025. Photograph: Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

The Trump administration is employing “authoritarian” and “unconstitutional” quarantine measures for at least one person who came into contact with a hantavirus patient, health law experts say.

The mandatory quarantine, reimposed without an offering scientific evidence, reveals how the US might approach future cases of Ebola and other pathogens in the US – and sets a precedent for detaining Americans with no scientific rationale.

“Cavalierly detaining somebody for no good reason, no crime and no significant public risk” is “arbitrary, it’s capricious and it’s unjust”, said Lawrence Gostin, health law professor at the Georgetown University law center.

James Hodge, a professor and director of the Center for Public Health Law and Policy at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, said that health officials should never “use unconstitutional, ill-advised, unproven techniques to control infectious diseases”.

This incident could become “really damaging” for public health, particularly as the Ebola outbreak rages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and cases could arise in the US, said Hodge.

“Wait and watch for it, because we’re probably going to see that later this summer. CDC set a terrible precedent right now with the specific hantavirus cases, and I only hope that we’ll see improvements for that to come,” he said.

Angela Perryman, an American passenger on the MV Hondius cruise ship, came into contact with another passenger who was sickened by Andes virus, a type of hantavirus. She has attempted to appeal a federal order to quarantine in a North Dakota facility, asking instead to self-quarantine in Florida.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has asked states to provide in-person symptom checks and round-the-clock guards for the passengers, an unusual move – especially for a pathogen like the Andes virus that is typically only transmitted between people in rare cases.

“It just isn’t the type of thing that you tend to have to quarantine for as tightly as what we’re seeing here,” Hodge said.

Some states acquiesced to the requirement and 10 other passengers have returned home to self-quarantine. Florida refused these conditions.

Michael Bell,deputy director of the division of healthcare quality promotion (DHQP) at the CDC, recently concluded that Perryman could effectively quarantine at home with daily remote symptom monitoring and access to public health support, according to a copy of his analysis obtained by Inside Medicine.

But on 15 June, Robert F Kennedy Jr, secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), overrode that conclusion and continued the mandatory quarantine. He cited no scientific rationale for the decision in his order, which was also shared by Inside Medicine.

Kennedy’s decision to overrule the medical advice of the CDC is “unprecedented”, Hodge said, adding that it acts as “a very bad precedent for just how Americans might expect to be treated if they’re coming back to the United States with highly infectious or even semi-infectious conditions”.

Kennedy “specifically considered the medical recommendation before deciding to continue the current order”, said HHS spokesperson Courtney Spencer.

“In the absence of proper home monitoring by state authorities, the administration’s quarantine order is necessary to ensure both Ms Perryman’s and her community’s wellbeing,” she added.

The agency did not answer the Guardian’s questions about why Kennedy overruled the CDC and whether this sets an unconstitutional precedent for responding to other pathogens.

Officials are meant to use the least restrictive option available to contain health threats in public health. That means that when there are multiple options that are effective in limiting spread, “you take the one that’s less restrictive on civil liberties violations or infringements”, Hodge said.

The situation is “highly atypical” for the CDC, Hodge said. Usually, state and local officials set quarantine and isolation measures; the CDC may offer guidance on doing so. But now, “even when state and local governments have been willing to take over the mantle” of managing some of these cases, “CDC has been reluctant to let them out”, Hodge said.

Both Gostin and Hodge were closely involved in drafting the CDC’s updated quarantine rules in 2017, and they opposed allowing the HHS secretary to overturn the agency’s medical review. While the rules allow the secretary to take this step, “it’s just unconstitutional”, Gostin said.

“I was assured that this would be very rare, and this was not supposed to happen. This wasn’t supposed to work like this. There is a flagrant violation of her constitutional rights,” Gostin added.

Part of his objection is over the lack of accountability. “Secretary Kennedy issued the order, and he’s reviewing his own order, which is outrageous,” Gostin said. “You’ve got a political appointee reviewing his own order, providing no evidence or reasons – a person’s liberty should not hinge on a political calculation, and that’s exactly what this is.”

Officials are required to provide scientific justification for quarantine orders, Hodge said: “That’s a constitutional requirement. This is exactly what Congress expects.”

Heavy-handed requirements – such as institutional quarantine for hantavirus or banning travelers from the DRC, Uganda and South Sudan, for instance – will likely lead to people evading the rules or not providing sufficient information about their activities, making it harder for public health officials to follow up on possible cases or contain outbreaks at the source, Hodge pointed out.

“The threat is not knowing cases that are actually out there, because we created a climate to which people would not self-report for this. That would be the biggest threat,” Hodge said.

It also signals a dangerous “authoritarian” approach from top health officials, Hodge said – despite previous opposition from those leaders to unspecified “lockdowns” from the Covid pandemic.

“The hypocrisy is almost unreal,” Gostin said. “The whole raison d’etre of Secretary Kennedy’s tenure has been based upon medical freedom, ‘the patient gets to choose’, and yet here they’re issuing immediately a compulsory deprivation of liberty.”

Officials in the Trump administration, like Kennedy and Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, have castigated the Biden administration and blue states for their handling of Covid, a much more transmissible and novel virus, Gostin said: “Yet their first response is not public health, it’s not science, it’s coercion.” 

 

Scores Fall Ill at Air Force Base After Hegseth Makes Flu Vaccine Optional

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“A flu outbreak at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas sickened nearly 160 troops, including a trainee who died, shortly after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made the flu vaccine optional. The outbreak, affecting a training wing, led to a temporary reversal of the policy, requiring flu shots for all recruits at the base. Hegseth’s decision to make the flu vaccine optional was based on religious freedom and medical autonomy, despite concerns from lawmakers about its impact on military readiness.

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The defense secretary described the vaccine requirement, which he lifted in April, as an “absurd, overreaching” mandate.

June 18, 2026

Airmen at Lackland Air Force Base last year. A flu outbreak at the base has raced through a training wing among new recruits.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

A major flu outbreak has sickened nearly 160 troops at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas less than two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that U.S. troops would no longer be required to be vaccinated for the flu, defense officials said.

The outbreak at the base in San Antonio raced through an Air Force Basic Military Training wing, where new recruits sleep on bunk beds in open bays and share meals at large communal tables.

A trainee in his sixth week of basic training died after falling ill on Friday and being taken to Brooke Army Medical Center, the Air Force said in a news release. It was not immediately clear whether the death of the trainee, Keon McDaniel, was related to the flu outbreak.

A comprehensive medical review into his death is underway to determine the cause, according to the Air Force.

In the weeks since Mr. Hegseth’s vaccine policy took effect on April 21, only about 40 percent of Air Force trainees have opted to take the vaccine, which had long been mandatory, an Air Force official said.

In the aftermath of the outbreak, the Air Force issued an exception to the voluntary vaccine policy, requiring that all recruits at Lackland get flu shots — part of a broader effort to stem the virus’s spread.

Mr. Hegseth cast his decision to make the flu vaccine optional as a matter of religious freedom and medical autonomy.

“Under the disastrous Biden administration, this Pentagon waged an unrelenting war on our warriors on many fronts, including when it came to denying them simple medical autonomy and the freedom to express their religious convictions,” he said in a video announcing his decision in April.

He described the longstanding flu vaccine requirement as an “absurd, overreaching” mandate that had served to “weaken our warfighting capabilities.”

At the time, many lawmakers, including some prominent Republicans, expressed puzzlement and dismay at Mr. Hegseth’s decision.

“The reason it was mandatory was to enhance readiness,” Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said shortly after the new policy was announced.

“You know, you do give up certain rights when you take the oath,” said Mr. Wicker, who is an Air Force veteran. “It’s just part of it.”

Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said the previous flu vaccine requirement was meant “to enhance readiness.”Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times

Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, on Thursday defended Mr. Hegseth’s handling of the vaccine policy, saying the changes were “based upon thorough risk assessments” designed to maximize the readiness and lethality of the force.

Air Force officials described the recent flu outbreak as “localized” to the basic training wing and said that medical personnel were monitoring and offering antiviral medication to trainees who were in contact with those who were ill.

“Once they are cleared by medical professionals, they will return to training,” an Air Force statement said.

When asked about the matter, a White House spokeswoman referred The New York Times to the Pentagon.

The flu outbreak highlights the risks of Mr. Hegseth’s and the Trump administration’s broader approach to vaccines and public health.

Some members of the administration, particularly those involved in public health agencies, have been critical of vaccinations broadly. While he has changed his tone since the spring, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a history of loudly questioning the safety and effectiveness of many standard vaccines.

Last summer he rescinded federal recommendations for all flu vaccines containing thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that the anti-vaccine movement has falsely linked to autism.

President Trump once championed the Covid vaccine, during the initial months of the pandemic while he was still president in 2020. But he soon grew resistant to the mandates related to that vaccine, particularly as his base of supporters questioned its safety.

Despite his administration’s actions on both the Covid and flu vaccines, Mr. Trump received the two shots in October 2025 at Walter Reed Military Medical Center.

Since taking office, Mr. Hegseth has fought to ensure that troops who were forced to leave the military for refusing to take the Covid vaccine are able to return to service at their former rank with back pay and benefits.

Roughly 8,700 active duty and reserve troops voluntarily or involuntarily left the military after refusing to get vaccinated before that mandate was rescinded in 2023. As of last summer, 13 had been reinstated.

In March, Mr. Hegseth extended the deadline to apply for reinstatement to April 1, 2027.

U.S. military personnel are still required to get vaccinations for diseases including measles, mumps and polio. Others, such as the anthrax vaccine, may be required depending on risk and military occupation.

In April Mr. Hegseth encouraged troops to get the flu vaccine even as he was announcing the policy change to make it optional. “We will not force you because your body, your faith and your convictions are not negotiable,” he said.

Greg Jaffe covers the Pentagon and the U.S. military for The Times.

Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent for The Times, reporting on President Trump.“

 

Boycott Trump’s Ridiculous July 4 Party

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“President Trump’s July 4th celebration, the Great American State Fair, has been met with resistance from several states, including Connecticut, Hawaii, and Massachusetts. These states, citing cost concerns and the event’s partisan nature, are opting out of the festivities. The event, organized by Freedom 250, a Trump-led alternative to the bipartisan America250, has been criticized for its lack of transparency and use of taxpayer funds.

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June 19, 2026

Jamie Lee Taete for The New York Times

You know what American democracy really needs for its 250th? More party poopers.

As Washington braces for the multiweek birthday bash that President Trump has arranged to honor the nation and — mostly — himself this summer, severalstates have RSVP’d “no” to one of the premier events. Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington are bowing out of the Great American State Fair, a 16-day festival starting June 25 on the National Mall. These states, all but Vermont led by Democratic governors, will neither send official delegations nor spend their taxpayers’ money outfitting and operating the pavilions being erected for the event. (Some will be represented by private entities instead.)

Good for them. And here’s hoping they are joined by more states. (At last check, Pennsylvania was still a maybe.) A semiquincentennial is a big deal meriting much celebration. But, like a spoiled monarch, Mr. Trump has hijacked America’s milestone moment, turning what was meant to be a grand, unifying tribute to the entire nation into another chest-thumping, militarized, politicized spectacle all about him — this one built around a literal cage match on the White House lawn and a July 4 rally that the president is pitching as “the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all.” How ominous.

Plus, thanks to the incompetence and dishonesty of Mr. Trump’s planning team, there won’t even be any good bands playing. Talk about a lame party. Better that states stay home and invest in less divisive local festivities.

Several states declining to participate cited cost concerns. North Carolina crunched the numbers and estimated that it would need to spend $100,000 on its pavilion, not including staffing costs, reported NOTUS. Massachusetts’s governor, Maura Healey, expressed her dismay to Boston Public Radio. “He invited all the states to participate and wants to charge us — charge us! — to go down and put something on his exhibit,” she said.

There are also “growing concerns that the event in Washington, D.C., is shaping up to be a more partisan affair than originally presented,” a spokesman for Oregon told The Times.

Of course it is. Like everything Mr. Trump touches.

Note that the Great American State Fair was not organized by America250, the bipartisan foundation tasked by Congress a decade ago with planning this year’s events. The White House shoved aside that group, along with many of its early plans, to make way for Freedom 250, the Trump-headed alternative announced last December.

Affiliated with the National Park Foundation, Freedom 250 has already received tens of millions in taxpayer funding, which it is supplementing with private donations, solicitations for which have promised big-money contributors posh perks and presidential schmoozing. The group’s lack of transparency about its use of public money has prompted congressional inquiries and a lawsuit. The presidential vanity projects it is championing include the 250-foot-high triumphal arch Mr. Trump wants built near Arlington National Cemetery.

“President Trump’s bold vision will be imprinted upon the fabric of America and be felt by generations to come,” a White House spokesman said in February of the 250th-themed plans. The threats just keep coming.

The administration, meanwhile, has refused to hand over $25 million of the funds pledged to America250, which has continued to plod along, taking abuse from Trumpworld. “America250 can’t get over the fact that Trump won,” Chris LaCivita, a top Trump apparatchik who worked with America250 before shifting to Freedom 250, told The Atlantic. “They want to apologize for America’s 250th. We don’t.”

The president’s pugilistic, not-so-inclusive approach to this anniversary was on display at the U.F.C. Freedom 250 fight at the White House last weekend. Funded largely by the U.F.C.’s parent company, this exercise in branding overflowed with Mr. Trump’s supplicants and superrich pals. The members of the military in attendance had been screened for the proper waist-to-height ratio to create a no-fatties zone. During the event, one fighter used the White House stage to make a nasty crack about the former first lady Michelle Obama.

Mr. Trump had plugged the brawl, scheduled on his 80th birthday, as part of his gift to America. But with a recent Reuters poll showing that only 16 percentof Americans approved of turning the people’s yard into a “Thunderdome” reboot, the bloody spectacle sure seems like a trash present — reminiscent of that old episode of “The Simpsons” where Homer gives Marge a new bowling ball for her birthday. Engraved with his name.

For the upcoming fair, Mr. Trump had hoped to host a kicking concert series. But shortly after the musical acts were announced, most of them — including Martina McBride, Milli Vanilli and Young MC — canceled. Some said they had been misled about the political nature of the event. The president promptly threw a tantrum, trashed the offending performers, canceled the entire series and announced that, instead, he would headline “the Greatest Rally, EVER!” on June 24.

Imagine some state leaders not wanting to be a part of all this.

The question now is how many more governors will refuse to pay for the privilege of fluffing up the president’s politicized show. Yes, there is a risk Mr. Trump will attack nonparticipants as unpatriotic. He may even accuse them of hating America. But if Milli Vanilli has the chutzpah to say “no” to the president, surely more governors can manage the same.

Michelle Cottle writes about national politics for Opinion. She has covered Washington and politics since the Clinton administration. @mcottle“