US airport security misses first paycheck as homeland security shutdown nears one month – live

Donald Trump has vowed that he will not sign any other legislation until Republicans’ massive – restrictive – voting bill, the Save America act, is passed. The bill would upend voting for all Americans in the middle of a federal midterm election year and create costly, chaotic changes for elections workers.

My colleague Rachel Leingang has this explainer on what the legislation includes and whether it has a chance of becoming law:

As part of its investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the House oversight committee announced today it is seeking testimony from a prison guard who was on duty the night the disgraced financier died.

In a letter shared on X, the committee’s Republican chair James Comer called Tova Noel for a deposition on 26 March. “Due to public reporting, documents released by the Department of Justice, and documents obtained by the Committee, the Committee believes you have information that will assist in its investigation,” the letter to Noel states.

Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges and died by suicide several weeks later in a Manhattan jail. Noel and another guard who was on duty were allegedly sleeping and browsing the internet instead of monitoring him that night. They have been accused of lying on prison records to make it seem as though they had made required checks on him before he was found in his cell. Noel also allegedly Googled Epstein minutes before his body was found.

The deposition is part of the oversight committee’s sweeping investigation into Epstein, his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell and potential co-conspirators in their sex trafficking ring, as well as the circumstances of his death.

Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei is “wounded and likely disfigured”, Pete Hegseth claimed today, questioning Khamenei’s ability to govern after nearly two weeks of US-Israeli attacks on Iran. At present, there is no proof for the US defense secretary’s claim.

No images have been released of Khamenei since an Israeli strike at the start of the war that killed much of his family, including his father and wife, on 28 February. He was hurt in that attack, Tehran’s ambassador to Cyprus confirmed on Wednesday, and there has been much speculation about the full extent of his injuries and speed of his recovery.

The first comments in his name were read out on state TV rather than delivered live or on video. In the statement, he vowed to keep the strait of Hormuz closed and called on neighboring countries to close US bases on their territory or risk Tehran targeting them.

Hegseth told a briefing this morning:

We know the new so-called not so supreme leader is wounded and likely disfigured. He put out a statement yesterday. A weak one, actually, but there was no voice and there was no video. It was a written statement.

Iran has plenty of cameras and plenty of voice recorders. Why a written statement? I think you know why. His father – dead. He’s scared, he’s injured, he’s on the run and he lacks legitimacy.

Hegseth said that the United States would show no mercy in the war. “We will keep pressing, keep pushing, keep advancing. No quarter, no mercy for our enemy,” he said.

You can follow all the latest developments from the Middle East over on our dedicated live blog here:

Employees at the Transport Security Administration (Tsa) are set to miss their first full paychecks today as the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) nears a month.

On Thursday, the Senate failed again to pass a funding bill to reopen the department. For the fourth time, the upper chamber was unable to clear the 60-vote threshold needed to advance the legislation, as Democratic lawmakers demand stronger guardrails on federal immigration enforcement.

Notably, only some agencies within the DHS, including the Tsa and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), and the Coast Guard are affected by the shutdown. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is able to continue operating thanks to the billions-dollar injection from Donald Trump’s sweeping tax-policy bill, signed into law last year.

For their part, Democrats say they’re willing to separate a bill to keep impacted agencies, like the Tsa, funded, but have been met with resistance from Republicans who demand that Congress pass a full appropriations bill to keep the entire DHS funded through September.

Cuban officials have held talks with the US government to seek solutions to the blockade imposed on the Caribbean nation, Miguel Díaz-Canel has said in a video broadcast on national television.

“These talks have been aimed at finding solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences we have between the two nations,” Díaz-Canel, the Cuban president, said in the video, which aired on Friday, shortly before he was scheduled to address Cuban media in a rare appearance that comes amid a severe economic crisis and as the Communist government has come under increasing pressure from Donald Trump.

Díaz-Canel said that the Cuban negotiators had participated “on the basis of equality and respect for the political systems of both states, and for the sovereignty and self-determination” of the Cuban government. He added that no petroleum shipments have arrived on the island in the past three months, which he blamed on a US energy blockade.

Cuba’s western region was hit by a massive blackout last week, leaving millions without power.

Trump has said repeatedly that the United States was already in high-level talks with Cuban representatives. Until now, the Cuban government had denied that any official encounters are underway but had not explicitly denied media reports of back-channel discussions with Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, the grandson of Raul Castro, who is 94 and still wields great influence.

In recent weeks Trump has made a series of statements, saying Cuba was on the verge of collapse or eager to make a deal with the United States. On Monday he said Cuba may be subject to a “friendly takeover”, then added: “It may not be a friendly takeover.”

During Pete Hegseth’s Penatgon press conference today, the defense secretary noted that the only thing prohibiting transit in the strait of Hormuz right now is “Iran shooting at shipping”. He appeared to suggest that direct attacks were the biggest threat to the vessels in the waterway. “It is open for transit should Iran not do that,” he said.

Earlier this week, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reported that US intelligence sees direct attacks by Iran as the greatest threat to oil tankers going through the strait of Hormuz. While the Trump administration has been spooked by possible preparations by Iran to mine the strait, the more potent threat remains the risk of a direct attack by Iran at scale.

As a result, even if US navy destroyers escorted the tankers, they might not be able to intercept every incoming missile, and even in the event the Trump administration provides risk insurance directly to operators, ships’ crews would still need to be convinced to pilot the vessels through the strait.

All six crew members aboard a US military refueling aircraft that went down in western Iraq are now confirmed dead, according to a statement from US Central Command (Centcom). The aircraft was lost while flying over friendly airspace on Thursday. This is an update, as earlier Centcom said that only four members of the crew had died.

The KC-135 plane crashed in western Iraq, in an incident the military said involved another aircraft but was not the result of hostile or friendly fire.

Centcom added that the circumstances of the incident are under investigation, and the identities of the service members killed are being withheld until 24 hours after next of kin have been notified.

Reporting from Detroit

On a rainy Detroit afternoon at a gas station off Interstate 75, Victor Rodriguez watched the pump tally tick up as he filled up his F-250 diesel pickup truck for $4.19 per gallon. It totaled $110. “Ridiculous,” he said.

The US-Israel war on Iran has crippled major portions of the oil supply chain, sending gas prices soaring as the conflict enters its third week. Rodriguez said he supports “getting rid of this thug”, referring to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by the US, but the cost is too high.

Rodriguez said he jumped off the freeway while returning from an airport drop-off because he saw diesel advertised for $4.19 per gallon. The high price is a deal compared with the $5.00 per gallon he saw in Romeo, an exurb where he lives about a half-hour drive north.

“Nothing is worth higher gas prices, obviously,” Rodriguez said.

Across Michigan, gas prices have spiked by 60 cents per gallon over the most recent week analyzed by insurer AAA. Most have pushed even higher in recent days, topping $4.30 at one station near downtown Detroit, where prices are generally among the highest. Prices are up 27 cents across the US on average, according to AAA’s last figures.

Gas prices matter in Michigan – a critical swing state that Donald Trump narrowly won twice and lost once. His promise to lower prices across the economy helped propel him back to power here in 2024. So far he has dismissed the nation’s pump pain as temporary. “I don’t have any concern about it,” the president told Reuters. “They’ll drop very rapidly when this is over, and if they rise, they rise, but this is far more important than having gasoline price go up a little bit. And they haven’t risen very much.”

Read the full dispatch:

Donald Trump is in Washington today.

He’ll sign executive orders and greet the National Finals Rodeo winners at the White House, but this will be closed to the press. If anything opens up we’ll let you know and bring you the latest lines.

Later the president will travel to Palm Beach, Florida, for a weekend at his Mar-a-Lago club.

Both Pete Hegseth and Dan Caine were asked today about energy secretary Chris Wright’s comments to CNBC on Thursday, where he said that the US Navy cannot escort ships through the strait of Hormuz now but it was “quite likely” that could happen by the end of the month.

Gen Caine appeared to agree with Wright’s assessment, calling the waterway a “tactically complex environment”.

He added that before the US takes anything through the strait at scale, forces want to ensure any transport is in line with military objectives and carried out “safely and smartly”.

Later Hegseth insisted that the US did, in fact, plan for this when questioned by a reporter. “We want to do it sequentially, in a way that makes the most sense for what we want to achieve and ensure that we’re we’re sending the right signals to the world when we do so,” the defense secretary said, before chiding the media for making it seem that the war is “widening and chaos”.

When asked whether Iran has placed new mines in the strait of Hormuz since the war started, Hegseth said that the US military has “heard them talk about it”, but they have “no clear evidence” that they’re doing so.

This comes after numerous reports, citing US officials, indicate that Iran is preparing to lay more under-water explosives to further disrupt the key chokepoint.

Asked about the ongoing investigation into the bombing of an Iranian girls’ school, Hegseth said he would not let reporting “force our hand into indicating what happened in a particular situation”. This comes after the New York Times found a preliminary investigation blamed the US for the strikes on the elementary school that killed at least 175 people.

I can report that Centcom has designated an investigating officer to complete a command investigation. The command investigation will take as long as necessary to address all the matters surrounding this incident.

Hegseth added that the appointed investigator is from outside Centcom and is a is a general officer.

During his press conference on Friday, Pete Hegseth said that disruption to the strait of Hormuz, which Iran closed off, blocking more than 1,000 cargo ships in the process, is being handled by the US military.

“We have been dealing with it, and don’t need to worry about it,” the defense secretary said without offering much detail.

Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also said that the US is continuing to destroy the Iranian navy. “This means going after Iran’s mine-laying capability and destroying their ability to attack commercial vessels,” he said.

This comes after Donald Trump said that American forces struck 28 mine-laying vessels this week along the vital waterway.

Hegseth later remained resolute about the US’ intention to keep the chokepoint clear. “We have a plan for every option here. We’re working with our interagency partners, and that’s that’s not a strait we’re going to allow to remain contested or with a lack of flow of commercial goods,” he said.

Hegseth questioned whether the new supreme leader of Iran, Mojtaba Khamenei, is actually running the country in the wake of US-Israeli forces killing his father and many members of his family.

The defense secretary said that Khamenei is “wounded and likely disfigured”, and noted that his statement on Thursday was not on camera. “He [Khamanei] called for unity. Apparently killing tens of thousands of protesters is his kind of unity,” Hegseth added.

“He’s scared, he’s injured, he’s on the run, and he lacks legitimacy … Who’s in charge? Iran may not even know.”

At his Pentagon press conference, Pete Hegseth said that the US is “decimating” the Iranian regime’s military “in a way the world has never seen before”.

Hegseth added: “We said it would not be a fair fight, and it has not been.”

The defense secretary said that Friday would be the “highest volume of strikes” that the US has launched against Tehran.

You can watch the press conference live here:

The question, asked during a 4 March press briefing with Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, and Gen Dan Caine, was a good one: if the US had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities during an operation last June, “what was the intelligence that suggested that somehow they became a threat once again that required us to get involved with Operation Epic Fury?”

It was asked by Heather Mullins, who works for LindellTV, the television network founded by Mike Lindell, the pillow entrepreneur, Trump cheerleader and 2020 election denier.

On Tuesday, a reporter from the Gateway Pundit, an outlet that “regularly peddles falsehoods and conspiracy theories”, as NPR put it in 2024, asked about reports that the US is unhappy with its chief ally in the operation against Iran, Israel.

“Whether this reporting’s true or not, what’s your message to Americans, those who supported the president and those who aren’t really in favor of this war and who worry that Israel might be taking advantage of the US’s backing?” asked Jordan Conradson.

After the heavy hitters of the Pentagon press corps walked out in October over new restrictions on access and reporting, many worried how the Trump-friendly media who took their place would fill the void – particularly if, say, a war started.

Major fears remain, stoked by questions bordering on sycophancy, but, so far, some longtime skeptics of the pro-Maga press corps say they are doing better than expected at questioning Hegseth and the generals who have been brought out on four occasions to give briefings and take questions from a large group of assembled reporters.

Seven in 10 Americans say Donald Trump’s tariffs have led to them paying higher prices, according to an exclusive new poll for the Guardian.

The Harris Poll survey presents Republicans with a major problem in the battle for the upcoming midterm elections. The majority of all voters (72%) believe Trump’s tariffs have had a negative rather than a positive impact and 67% said tariffs aren’t the right solution for improving the economy.

Yet Trump has made clear he wants to press ahead with more tariffs even after a supreme court ruling curbed many of the levies he introduced last year.

Trump’s signature economic policy gets poor marks across the political spectrum:

• 64% of Republicans agreed that Trump’s tariffs had led to higher prices compared with 77% of Democrats and 67% of independents who believed the same.

• 60% of Republicans also said that tariffs had had more of a negative impact on consumers than a positive one, compared with 81% of Democrats and 75% of independents.

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth is set to give another morning media briefing, updating on the US war on Iran, alongside general Dan Caine.

You can follow along at 8am ET via our Middle East live blog, which will have all the news lines here:

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

Donald Trump threatened a major retaliation after Iran launched multiple attacks early Friday on Gulf Arab states, including dozens of drones at Saudi Arabia.

It came after Iran’s new supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei issued a warning to its neighbours about hosting American bases.

Writing on his Truth Social media platform, the US president said:

Iran’s Navy is gone, their Air Force is no longer, missiles, drones and everything else are being decimated, and their leaders have been wiped from the face of the earth.

Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today.

He added:

They’ve been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them.

What a great honor it is to do so!

Meanwhile, four of the six crew members onboard a US military aircraft that crashed in western Iraq were killed, the US military said as rescue efforts continued for the remaining two.

The KC-135 military refuelling plane crashed in western Iraq on Thursday, in an incident the military said involved another aircraft but was not the result of hostile or friendly fire.

In other developments:

• The US Senate failed to pass a funding bill to reopen the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), amid a partial shutdown that has lasted almost a month.

• In a surprising twist, a White House event in honor of Women’s History Month ended with a medal being presented to… Donald Trump.

• The US temporarily suspended sanctions on the sale of Russian oil issuing a Treasury Department license to allow the sale of Russian crude oil and petroleum products loaded on vessels through April 11. “Looks like we fought Iran and Russia won,” Brian Schatz, a Democratic senator from Hawaii observed.

• Two Democratic senators, Elizabeth Warren and Chris Van Hollen, called for the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, “to be fired immediately” over the killing of dozens of seven to 12-year-old Iranian schoolgirls in a missile attack on the first day of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

• The suspect who killed one person and injured two others at Old Dominion University was identified by authorities as Mohamed Jalloh, a former member of the army national guard who pleaded guilty in 2016 to attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State.

• The FBI said it is investigating the ramming of a car into a Michigan synagogue as “a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community”.