Mediators gather in Pakistan for talks on ending the monthlong Iran war. #ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Top diplomats from key regional powers gathered in Pakistan on Sunday to discuss how to end the fighting in the Middle East, but there were few signs of progress as Israel and the U.S. kept up strikes on Iran, and Tehran responded by firing missiles and drones across the region.

Pakistan said foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt were participating in the talks in Islamabad. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian held “extensive discussions” on regional hostilities.

More than 3,000 people have been killed throughout the monthlong war that began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, triggering Iran’s attacks on Israel and neighbouring Gulf Arab states.

The U.S. and Israel were not participating in the Islamabad talks. Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, dismissed the talks as a cover while the U.S. dispatches additional troops to the Middle East. He warned against any ground invasion and said Iran was ready to set American troops “on fire” and punish U.S. regional allies, according to Iranian state media.

Israel announced waves of incoming strikes from Iran on Sunday and explosions could be heard throughout Tehran.

Mideast leaders try to break impasse at weekend talks

Egypt’s Badr Abdelatty, Turkey’s Hakan Fidan and Saudi Arabia’s Prince Faisal Bin Farhan were in Islamabad as part of talks scheduled days after the U.S. offered Iran a 15-point “action list” as a framework for a possible peace deal. Abdelatty said the meetings were aimed at opening a “direct dialogue” between the U.S. and Iran, which have largely communicated through mediators during the war.

Yet during the talks, Iran has eased some restrictions on commercial ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. It agreed late Saturday to allow 20 more Pakistani-flagged vessels to transit the critical passageway, Pakistani officials said, adding to the select few it has let through as Iran works to choke but not cut off the strait entirely.

The weekend provided little sign of the talks narrowing the disconnect between the U.S. and Iran. U.S. officials have insisted the war may be nearing an inflection point but Iranian leaders continue to publicly reject negotiations.

U.S. ‘underestimated Iran’: Military analyst says, as Iran war reaches one-month mark.

As the conflict in the Middle East reaches the one-month mark, a retired Canadian military expert says the United States underestimated Iran in this war.

“The U.S. did not expect this,” Maj.-Gen. (Ret’d) David Fraser, who led NATO forces in Afghanistan in 2006, told CTV News Channel on Saturday.

“The fact that they’re talking about adding Marines (and) there’s 10,000 more ground troops getting ready to go over there — this is not part of the original plan. I think the U.S. underestimated Iran.”

Fraser says the U.S. did not anticipate the impact this war would have on the Strait of Hormuz — one of the most important oil check-points in the world that has closed as a result of the war, impacting global oil prices.

Over 3,000 people have been killed in the war in the Middle East.

On Saturday, around 2,500 U.S. Marines arrived in the Middle East in addition to two aircraft carriers, numerous warships and nearly 50,000 troops that are already in the region.

The same day, Yemen’s Houthis claimed a missile launch on Israel. Fraser says this is a significant development in the Middle East conflict.

“That’s more air defence that the U.S. and Israel have to defend against, including regional countries,” he said.

“It’s yet another complexity of this war that just seems to be getting messier and messier by the day.”

Although the attack targeted Israel, Fraser says the missiles could have gone to any neighbouring countries, which could add pressure to the U.S. military, who have already seen over 300 U.S. service members wounded since the start of the war.

“The (U.S.) is going to divert assets down into Yemen to go find the Houthis missiles and start striking them, and that takes away from what the (U.S.) is doing in Iran and elsewhere,” Fraser said.

“It’s another stretching of the American resources, and they’re pulling in still more patriot batteries from elsewhere to try to bolster up the air defence.”

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday at an investment forum in Miami that he was disappointed with NATO’s lack of support in the war, calling it a “tremendous mistake.”

Trump stated that the U.S. has spent billions of dollars protecting NATO countries, and that due to their lack of support for the U.S. in the war, the U.S. may not protect NATO countries moving forward.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Mark Carney said there are talks that some NATO members could be part of a joint effort to ensure movement through the Strait of Hormuz if there is a ceasefire, following earlier remarks that Canada will not participate in the war.

#Yemeni #Houthis say "our fingers are on the trigger to intervene" if war against Iran escalates.

Remaining in position for Patriot air defense crews in the Middle East is effectively suicide, Scott Ritter, a former US Marine Corps intelligence analyst and former United Nations arms inspector in Iraq, told TASS in an interview.

He explained that many people did not believe Iran "would be capable of doing what it's doing," but it is now becoming clear that there is no defense against Iran's attacks, and the Iranians themselves "are pressing home their attack in a very aggressive manner."

"It's suicide to stay in place. But the irony is, by putting it on automatic, you expend far more missiles than you would through manual operation. So we’re burning through the inventory even faster. This just proves that we didn’t really think this war out when we started it," Ritter emphasized.

He added that the intensity of the Iranian attack on US air defense is higher than the intensity of Russian strikes on Ukrainian air defense. "The Russians are very selective in their application of violence, the Iranians are more broad spectrum, they're hitting more targets," he added.

The United States and Israel launched a military operation against Iran on February 28. Major Iranian cities, including Tehran, were struck. The White House justified the attack by citing alleged missile and nuclear threats from Iran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced a retaliatory operation, targeting sites in Israel. US military bases in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were also hit. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and some other key Iranian leaders were killed in the joint US-Israeli attack.

#Israel hits #Tehran with wave of strikes and warns attacks on Iran ‘will escalate and expand’.

With stock markets reeling and economic fallout from the war extending far beyond the Middle East, Trump is under growing pressure to end Iran’s chokehold on the strait, a strategic waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil is usually shipped.

The United States has offered Iran a 15-point proposal for a ceasefire that includes it relinquishing control of the strait, but at the same time has ordered thousands more troops to the region -- possibly in preparation for a military attempt to wrest the waterway from Iran.

Trump has said if Iran doesn’t reopen the strait to all traffic by April 6, he will order the destruction of Iran’s energy plants. He said Thursday that talks on ending the conflict were going “very well.” Iran maintains it is not engaged in any negotiations.

Israel targets Iran’s weapons production and Lebanese capital

Air raid sirens sounded in Israel and the military said it has been intercepting Iranian missiles on a daily basis. Defense Minister Israel Katz said Iran “will pay heavy, increasing prices for this war crime.”

“Despite the warnings, the firing continues,” Katz said. “And therefore attacks in Iran will escalate and expand to additional targets and areas that assist the regime in building and operating weapons against Israeli citizens.”

Israel’s military said its attacks Friday targeted sites “in the heart of Tehran” where ballistic missiles and other weapons are produced. It said it also hit missile launchers and storage sites in Western Iran.

Smoke rose over Beirut after a pre-dawn strike, and Lebanon’s Health Ministry later reported two people were killed.
Iran launches missiles and drones at its Gulf Arab neighbours

Saudi Arabia’s Defence Ministry said it shot down missiles and drones targeting the capital, Riyadh.

Kuwait said its Shuwaikh Port in Kuwait City and the Mubarak Al Kabeer Port to the north, which is under construction as part of China’s “Belt and Road” initiative, sustained “material damage” in attacks. It appeared to be one of the first times a Chinese-affiliated project in the Gulf Arab states has come under assault in the war. China has continued to purchase Iranian crude.

U.S. stocks fell on opening Friday, in a fifth straight losing week -- Wall Street’s longest such streak in nearly four years. The S&P 500 dropped 0.4 per cent in early trading Friday. The Dow lost 0.6 per cent, and the Nasdaq fell 0.6 per cent, breaking the week’s pattern of flip‑flopping gains and losses as hopes for an end to the war vacillated.

Asian shares also fell Friday over growing doubts about the chances of de-escalation. Oil prices rose again, the Brent crude, the international standard, at US$107 a barrel in morning trading, up more than 45 per cent since Israel and the U.S. attacked Iran on Feb. 28 to start the war.

#Brazil's Bolsonaro leaves hospital and heads home to serve the rest of his 27-year sentence.

The Supreme Court earlier in the week granted him the right of house imprisonment due to failing health. The measure could be revised within 90 days.

Bolsonaro left the hospital DF Star in Brasilia at around 10 a.m. local time and headed to the Jardim Botanico neighbourhood, where he lived prior to his conviction with his wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, and his 15-year-old daughter, Laura.

The 71-year-old was hospitalized on March 13 for pneumonia, one of several health issues he has faced since he was stabbed by a man in 2018 before being elected president. He was put in intensive care for days due to kidney and inflammatory problems.

Bolsonaro governed between 2019 and 2022 and narrowly lost his re-election bid to current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The former right-wing leader was accused of plotting with top aides to stay in office by decree despite the election loss, and was convicted of charges including attempted coup and attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law. He has denied wrongdoing and called the case a political witch hunt.
Both sides of the political divide criticize the decision

The former president started serving his sentence in November in a 12-square-metre room at the federal police headquarters, which included a bed, a private bathroom, air conditioning, a TV set and a desk. In January, he was transferred to a 54-square-metre room with a 10-square-metre outside area that he could access at will at the Papuda penitentiary.

Bolsonaro remains popular in Brazil and one of his sons, Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, is in a competitive position against Lula in polls ahead of October’s presidential election. The former president is ineligible and will not be allowed to take a public role in any campaign.

In his ruling, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes stressed that Bolsonaro’s transition to house arrest is conditional and that he could return to prison if he violates house imprisonment rules regardless of his medical condition.

Bolsonaro will wear an ankle monitor and is not allowed to communicate with anyone outside his home. He is not allowed to host visitors except for doctors, family members and his lawyers. Police will watch his house and protesters won’t be allowed to gather near it.

Law professor Marcelo Crespo of ESPM university in Sao Paulo said it is unusual for house imprisonment rulings like Bolsonaro’s to include a review after 90 days, but he said de Moraes was seeking “some middle ground by not granting house imprisonment for an undetermined period.” As recently as November, de Moraes deemed the former president to be a flight risk.

The 90-day review has drawn criticism from both sides of the political divide.

Bolsonaro’s family and allies, who consider de Moraes an adversary, have criticized the temporary nature of the house imprisonment. Detractors of the former president are also upset, saying he is receiving lenient treatment despite his long history of advocating for harsh penalties for convicts.
The judge faces a separate scandal

Bolsonaro’s shift to house arrest comes as de Moraes and his wife are entangled in a scandal involving the multibillion-dollar collapse of Banco Master, which was shut down in late 2025 by the Central Bank amid allegations of fraud involving businesspeople and politicians across the ideological spectrum.

De Moraes, who until recently was hailed as a hero by adversaries of the former president, has been under fire since January from both critics and allies of Bolsonaro over the justice’s ties to the bank, which have raised concerns over conflicts of interest. They include his wife’s former multimillion-dollar contract to provide legal services to the bank.

De Moraes has denied wrongdoing.

Political analyst Thomas Traumann, who has written books about Brazil’s political divisions, attributed de Moraes’ decision to grant Bolsonaro house imprisonment to political pressure over his links to the Banco Master scandal.

The United Nations must insist on the need to prosecute aggressor states that violate the UN Charter and undermine the foundations of international law, including humanitarian law, and human rights, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a telephone conversation with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

"The Iranian foreign minister stressed that the UN and its secretary-general have a statutory obligation to condemn the aggression categorically and unequivocally and to hold the aggressors accountable in accordance with Chapter 7 of the UN Charter," Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Araghchi also called on the international community to take into account the root cause of insecurity imposed on the region and the Strait of Hormuz, namely the US-Israeli military aggression, the ministry said.

"As the coastal state of the Strait of Hormuz, the Islamic Republic of Iran, in accordance with established principles and rules of international law, has prevented the transit of vessels belonging to or associated with the aggressor parties and those participating in their acts of aggression," the ministry said.

#ICE is at U.S. airports during the travel chaos: What agents are and aren’t doing.

Across some of the busiest U.S. airports this week, groups of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents surveyed what felt like never-ending security lines, some directing confused travellers or handing out water, while others stood silently with their thumbs tucked into the sides of their tactical vests.

Painful travel delays have resulted from a U.S. Department of Homeland Security shutdown tied to a dispute over immigration enforcement tactics. On Monday, #ICE – an agency whose tactics are at the center of the funding standoff – deployed hundreds of agents to 14 airports as the Trump administration seeks to ease disruptions.

Flyers have faced hourslong waits and lines snaking out of airports as hundreds of TSA employees have quit and thousands more have called out of work after going weeks without pay.

But while the ICE agents – who are being paid – have been spotted in Atlanta, New York, Houston, Chicago and other cities, officials have said they are limited in what duties they can perform: They are not trained, for example, to operate the understaffed security checkpoints that are often the source of delays.

Instead, White House border czar Tom Homan said they will assist with simpler tasks, ideally freeing up more TSA employees to perform critical and specialized security work.

Under TSA protocols, ICE agents are helping operate the credential authentication machine at the travel document checker, acting TSA administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill said Wednesday.

An ICE agent was seen alongside a #TSA officer checking IDs at John F. Kennedy International Airport late Wednesday afternoon.

When #CNN asked the TSA officer if they were training ICE agents, they said yes.

Additionally, ICE agents are now guarding entrances and exits and doing crowd control after receiving standard TSA training, DHS spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement.

“The more support we have available, the more efficiently TSA can focus on their highly specialized screening roles to efficiently get airport security lines moving faster,” she said.

Wait times remain unpredictable as the shutdown continues into its sixth week: Some have dropped dramatically after peak Monday travel fuelled exceptional wait times. After seeing three-hour waits on Monday, passengers at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport made it through Tuesday in less than 45 minutes.

But travellers at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport still languished in four-hour lines Tuesday. And lines at LaGuardia Airport in New York stretched well over an hour. The airport has shouldered a backlog of passengers after shutting down for hours Sunday night following a fatal collision between a plane and a fire truck.

As travellers and CNN crews have observed federal agents roving through several airports, it was at times unclear what tasks they were assigned to carry out. But Homan said more airports could see ICE agents in the coming days. Here’s what we know:

ICE will allow TSA to focus on security screenings, Homan says

Some airports have been forced to dramatically cut down on the number of security checkpoints as an increasing number of TSA employees haven’t shown up to work.

At least 480 TSA officers have quit as of Wednesday and more than 3,000 – amounting to about 11 per cent of the agency’s workforce – had called out of work as of Tuesday, according to DHS.

At Hartsfield-Jackson, the world’s busiest passenger airport, about 37 per cent of TSA workers called out on Tuesday. Similar numbers were reported at George Bush Intercontinental. More than a third also called out at airports in New York and New Orleans on Tuesday.

While ICE agents are not trained to perform security screenings, Homan said they could relieve TSA employees of tasks such as monitoring exits and crowd control, and allow them to be redirected to specialized screening work.

“We’re simply there to help TSA do their job in areas that don’t need their specialized expertise, such as screening through the X-ray machine,” Homan told CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday.

Homan pointed out ICE in airports is not new. They “are assigned at many airports across the country already,” where they perform criminal investigations and immigration enforcement, he said.

John Pistole, a former TSA administrator and former FBI deputy director, said agents may also provide a more conspicuous security presence to deter criminals who may hope to take advantage of the chaos. He noted increased safety concerns amid the war in Iran.

“Hopefully they could be a visible deterrent to a potential terrorist who may want to go in and make a name for themselves” while all eyes are on U.S. airports, Pistole said.

While major airports have their own police forces, these agencies may be “stretched thin” by airport crowds, Pistole added. In Atlanta, city police officers who were working at the airport Monday told CNN their days off had been canceled and they have been working 12-hour shifts.
Agents’ roles aren’t clear to onlookers

As U.S. President Donald Trump announced Saturday afternoon that he wanted ICE in airports, DHS officials raced to formulate a plan for deployment. And as agents arrived at airports Monday morning, their roles sometimes seemed unclear to onlookers.

On Wednesday, Trump said ICE is helping at airports because it’s “rehabbing a fake image.”

“In addition to what they are supposed to be doing, they are helping people with bags, even picking up and cleaning areas. They are so proud to be there!” Trump said on Truth Social about ICE agents.

In the Atlanta airport, ICE had a constantly visible presence but did not appear to be helping with check-ins or directing crowds, CNN’s Ryan Young said. A CNN producer saw one group of ICE agents apparently spend several hours mainly talking among themselves, wandering the floor and getting something to eat.

At George Bush Intercontinental, “They’ve been kind of standing around the edges, clearly not involved in helping process the thousands of passengers trying to make their way through here,” CNN’s Ed Lavandera reported Monday. “It’s not exactly clear how they’re helping, how they’re alleviating the pressure that this airport is under.”

The Houston Airport System has “reassigned hundreds of employees from across our organization – from finance to IT to maintenance – and more to help manage lines and assist travellers,” director of aviation Jim Szczesniak said.

On Tuesday, ICE agents at the Houston airport were passing out water bottles to exhausted travellers in security lines.

Melissa Dunlop, who was heading with her son on a college tour, said she was “happy to see them.”
Immigration enforcement is still on the table

Though ICE agents will be stepping into unfamiliar roles by assisting travellers, they will not be leaving immigration enforcement duties at the door, Homan said.

“We do immigration enforcement at airports all the time,” Homan told CNN Sunday. “Is that going to change? It’s not going to change.”

Trump said Monday that federal immigration officers will conduct arrests of undocumented immigrants, but hedged it is not their priority while deployed.

“They love it, because they’re able to arrest illegals as they come into the country. That’s very fertile territory, but that’s not why they’re there; they’re really there to help,” Trump told reporters.

ICE has previously conducted immigration arrests at airports. Just a day before ICE agents were sent to aid TSA, two people were arrested by federal agents at San Francisco International Airport. DHS said the pair was in the US illegally and had a 2019 order of removal.

At the behest of Trump, agents have been forgoing the masks they often wear to shield their identities when detaining people on the streets. Among the points of dispute over DHS funding is whether immigration agents should be prohibited from wearing masks.

Trump on Monday said he supports agents masking, but believed it was not an “appropriate look” for interacting with people at airports.

“For purposes of the airport, I’ve requested that they take off the mask,” Trump said. “And I believe they are willing to do that.”
TSA union leaders express skepticism, demand pay

Leaders of the TSA workers’ union have been skeptical of ICE’s presence in airports this week, saying their presence does not relieve mounting TSA officer frustrations. TSA officers will miss their second full paycheck this weekend if Congress cannot reach a deal to fund DHS.

Instead of paying TSA agents, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees said, “the administration sent ICE agents to airports as replacement workers.”

“That’s like giving a person dying of pneumonia a teaspoon of cough syrup. It doesn’t address the problem and it’s not gonna work,” Everett Kelly said at a news conference Tuesday.

Hydrick Thomas, a Marine veteran and TSA employee of more than 20 years, said ICE agents may not be suited for the impromptu role.

“If you want to bring a tactical force into an environment where you’re required to have customer service and a skill set – a mindset where you know what you’re doing, how to identify something that might be suspicious – they don’t have that training,” said Thomas, the president of AFGE TSA Council 100.

Some TSA workers who are immigrants are also concerned they may be detained by ICE if they show up to work, AFGE TSA Council 100 Secretary-Treasurer Johnny Jones said.

Many TSA employees live paycheque to paycheque, making an average of US$35,000 a year, according to AFGE. A top TSA administrator has said unpaid employees are confronted with dire circumstances.

“We got folks sleeping in cars,” acting deputy administrator Adam Stahl said. “Folks having to essentially to get blood drawn to afford gas to come to work. So, the situation is dire.”

Many TSA agents feel they have no choice but to call out of work as they lack money for basic necessities, said Angela Grana, regional vice-president of Colorado AFGE TSA Local 1127. She said the fact that ICE agents are getting paid while TSA agents are not adds insult to injury.

“It feels horrible. Our mission is just as important,” Grana told CNN’s Brianna Keilar. “We should never have such a small salary to begin with for such a huge responsibility that we have. And then we’re working side by side with our counterparts that are getting paid. It’s pretty demoralizing.”

In Houston, some TSA agents no longer have the means to get to work.

“Just yesterday, I watched an officer receive a gas card from one of our partners,” Szczesniak said. “They had tears in their eyes knowing that they could fill up their tank to get home and come back to work to help keep these lines moving.”

By Elizabeth Wolfe, CNN

#LaGuardia Airport runway where plane collided with fire truck, killing 2, reopens. The agency which oversees the region’s airports said reopening the second of two runways at LaGuardia, one of the busiest airports in the nation, will help “restore full operational capacity,” though it advised travelers to still check with their airline for flight status.

LaGuardia continues to register the most delays and cancellations among airports in the country with more than 300 cancelled in the last 24 hours, according to Flight Aware, a flight tracking website.

The destroyed Air Canada plane and the fire truck were towed from the crash site late Wednesday as the National Transportation Safety Board continues its investigation.

U.S. Democratic lawmaker asks judge to take #Trump’s name off Kennedy Center.

In a motion filed Wednesday, Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio argues that Congress was clear in its intent that the Kennedy Center is named for the late President John F. Kennedy — and no one else.

“Renaming the Kennedy Center for President Trump — without any authorization from Congress — undermines the Center’s raison d’être, and frustrates its purpose as the only memorial to President Kennedy in Washington, D.C.,” the motion argues.

Trump’s handpicked board of directors voted in December to rename the venue as the Trump-Kennedy Center, arguing the current president deserved the recognition for his efforts to renovate the institution. But the move immediately drew protest from Democrats and some in the Kennedy family along with questions from scholars and historians about whether the move was legally permissible.

Beatty’s motion argues that lawmakers have made clear at various points throughout the Kennedy Center’s history that no other name should appear on the building.

“Congress was particularly sensitive that no other names appear on the Center’s exterior walls, other than the signage designating the institution as a memorial for President Kennedy,” according to the motion.

A day after the board’s December decision, Trump’s name was added to Kennedy Center’s facade, an iconic part of Washington’s cityscape that rests on the banks of the Potomac River. The name change has also been reflected on the Kennedy Center’s website and social media channels.

A central part of the capital’s arts scene since it opened in 1971, Trump is closing the Kennedy Center this summer for a renovation that’s expected to last for about two years. That is the subject of a separate legal effort as a coalition of eight cultural and historic preservation groups is suing to block further physical changes to the Kennedy Center.

Through her position in Congress, Beatty is an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board. A federal judge ruled earlier this month that she could participate in a board meeting but didn’t force the board to allow her to vote on the closure.

Steven Sloan And Darlene Superville, The Associated Press