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President Donald Trump's controversial Iran deal may already be about to hit a brick wall — and it's all thanks to rules Trump and his own congressional allies put in place.According to Punchbowl News, Trump's State Department "triggered a provision in the 2024 Ukraine-Israel supplemental funding bill that prevents the president from removing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO)."This could be a huge problem for the specific aspect of the memorandum of understanding with Iran that requires the U.S. to give sanctions relief, Andrew Desiderio noted on X.In 2024, he said, senators "slipped a provision into the 2024 Ukraine supplemental that requires State to tell Congress every 180 days" if the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps perpetrated drone attacks against Americans, and if so, "the IRGC can’t be removed from the Foreign Terrorist Organization list for four years." The IRGC being delisted "would almost certainly be required to implement the broad sanctions relief the admin has outlined," he continued.The problem is, "Last April, the State Dept formally told Congress that the IRGC had indeed attacked Americans w/ drones, adding that this is 'sufficient to meet the statutory criteria' to bar removal of IRGC from FTO list for 4 years," said Desiderio.Trump theoretically has the power to waive this rule if it's deemed "vital" to national security, Desiderio added — but that would be a "tough sell" for Republicans, who near-universally backed Trump's original decision to declare the IRGC a foreign terrorist organization in the first place.

Brazil supreme court finds that Eduardo Bolsonaro – who resides in the US - tried to get sanctions put on judges trying ex-president over coup plotBrazil’s supreme court has sentenced Eduardo Bolsonaro to four years and two months in prison after finding him guilty of courting US ⁠interference in his father’s coup plot trial last year.The office of Brazil’s ‌prosecutor general had ‌charged Eduardo Bolsonaro – who lives in the US - courting interference from the Trump administration to help Jair Bolsonaro’s case, by imposing sanctions on the court’s justices and tariffs on Brazilian goods. Continue reading...

President Donald Trump needed a helping hand from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to climb a single step at the G7 family photo.The moment unfolded Tuesday at the 52nd G7 Summit in Évian-les-Bains, France — and the White House's own Rapid Response account posted the clip, describing Trump gathering "with world leaders prior to the start of a cultural showcase and concert."The Daily Beast reported Monday that the 80-year-old president had gingerly descended Air Force One steps upon arriving in France.Trump told military generals in September he walks stairs "very slowly" — "just try not to fall because it doesn't work out well."At a Navy anniversary address in October, he went further: "I have to be careful because one day I'm gonna probably fall.""[Trump] clutches Modi for support as he tries to climb a single small step," political video journalist Aaron Rupar posted on X, alongside a wire photo by Getty photographer Evelyn Hockstein.The Indian press corps took note. WION diplomatic editor Sidhant Sibal noted that Modi "gives a helping hand to US President Trump."NDTV Senior Executive Editor Aditya Raj Kaul called it a "great metaphor of the times we live in.""Pure cinema," Firstpost journalist Shubhangi Sharma wrote.The two men then stepped off the platform together, holding hands, Hindustan Times America correspondent Shashank Mattoo noted.

Young adults and teens are being recruited through apps like Telegram and paid to carry out attacks, officials sayPolice investigators in Toronto have said that dozens of shootings – including one at the US consulate in March – are linked to a “multilayered” gun-for-hire network that is also responsible for attacks on synagogues around Canada’s largest city.Toronto’s police chief, Myron Demkiw, told reporters on Tuesday that young adults and teenagers are being recruited through encrypted messaging apps such as Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp by “bad actors” and paid by the networks to carry out the attacks. Shooters are required to film their attacks in order to get paid. Continue reading...

Country acts amid Iran war inflation pressures, but US Fed and Bank of England expected to hold ratesBusiness live – latest updatesThe Bank of Japan (BoJ) has raised interest rates to a 31-year high as it tries to dampen inflationary pressures created by the Iran war.Policymakers in Tokyo raised the BoJ’s short-term policy rate by a quarter of one percentage point, to 1% from 0.75%, and warned that companies were passing on rising oil costs to each other at a “relatively fast pace”. Continue reading...

Rachel Maddow kicked off her MS NOW segment on Monday with a deep dive into one of the most bizarre and sketchy side sagas of the Trump administration's second term: his refusal to allow the Gordie Howe Bridge between Canada and the United States to open."The big, beautiful new bridge that Trump is not allowing us to use is that bridge that crosses the Detroit River ... to Windsor, Ontario, Canada," said Maddow, showing pictures of the completed but empty bridge and noting it is "fully financed and paid for" and will be "the biggest U.S. border crossing [with] Canada" and "one of the most important routes for trade in the entire world."Unfortunately, she said, "This is why we can't have nice things." Trump has refused to let the bridge open, and is arguing Canada must allow the U.S. to claim joint ownership of the structure.For their part, Maddow continued, "the White House insists that categorically, just because [Trump is] president, he can't have a conflict of interest. It's like dividing by zero. Doesn't make sense!"Nonetheless, she added, there is something in all of this that does look like a glaring conflict of interest."There is a competing bridge a little way down the river. A privately owned, very old, very congested toll bridge that will likely lose some of its traffic because of competition," said Maddow, referring to the Ambassador Bridge owned by the ultra-wealthy Maroun family and their trucking empire. And that family "earlier this year made a $1 million donation to Donald Trump's super PAC," said Maddow, after which they got a meeting with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.Despite the White House and the super PAC both claiming this chain of events was a coincidence, Maddow said, "that night, Trump suddenly discovers new, supposedly trade-related reasons why he is now against this bridge, even though previously he had been for it.""That all happened in February. Now it's June," said Maddow — and the bridge is still closed. - YouTube youtu.be

President Donald Trump was flattered by Middle East leaders into agreeing to a framework to end the war with Iran in a simple and very egotistical way, MS NOW's Chris Hayes agreed in a conversation with Iranian political analyst Trita Parsi.Specifically, Trump was persuaded into believing that he had persuaded Iran to take a deal better than the former Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — the multilateral nuclear deal brokered by former President Barack Obama — even though many aspects of the deal are considerably more conciliatory to Iran."I think the one thing that does seem the north star for him ... when the Omani foreign minister flew to the U.S. to appear on the Sunday shows in a last-ditch effort to stop this war from happening right when there were negotiations going on," said Hayes. "He understood it, too, because it's not a very complicated psychology. He's basically on TV the weekend before the war starts being like, it's better than Obama, it's better than Obama."The bottom line, said Hayes, is that "that benchmark [to end the war] can be whatever it means for the old man's ego," even if it's not a meaningful policy accomplishment.Parsi agreed, saying that Trump "will create his own reality here."Additionally, he said, it's not all a bad thing, as there are genuinely some parts of what Trump is pursuing that are stronger than JCPOA was."For instance, in the Obama deal, the Iranians would only have a stockpile of 300 kilos of low-enriched uranium on their soil. At any point," said Parsi. "You need 1,200 for a bomb. Whenever they reach the 300 level, it would be shipped out. That was a very good deal." By contrast, he said, in the February agreement Trump wants to base the current framework on, "they would have zero stockpile. Whatever they produce, they would immediately turn into fuel [rods]. They would never keep a stockpile at all."That said, he added, "Was it worth all of this? Absolutely not. In fact, that was already achieved before the war." - YouTube youtu.be

Vice President JD Vance took aim at late Pope Francis and the Vatican in his new book, describing the meeting with the Roman Catholic Church's leader who died roughly 24 hours after the conversation, according to The Washington Post.Vance described the meeting as "'unsettling' as the officials uttered what he describes as 'trite platitudes' and 'clichés,' adding that he preferred the direct rebukes offered by Pope Francis," The Post reported.In the new book, "Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith," which is slated to be released on Tuesday, Vance talked about his short conversation with Francis and Vatican diplomats on Easter morning. He wrote about being "unusually nervous" on the drive to the Vatican — and what would later be known as the last day of Francis's life."The vice president’s criticism of Vatican officials in his new book contrasts with his favorable accounts of both Francis and Pope Leo XIV, the first American-born pope. His account follows efforts by U.S. and Vatican officials to downplay tensions between the two sides as they’ve disagreed over the last year and a half on matters of immigration and war," according to The Post.Vance argued that Vatican officials were "too diplomatic" in the talks and "unwilling to talk in specifics about the subjects on which the U.S. and the Holy See disagreed," The Post reported."He acknowledges that the diplomats probably avoided specifics 'out of a desire to be, well, diplomatic,' but writes that their comments were 'too abstract to be helpful,'" according to The Post.The vice president converted to Catholicism in 2019 and in his new book, shares his faith experiences. "Vance adds he was 'struck that one of the few institutions with the moral authority and global perspective to address the migration question seemed so afraid of saying something controversial that it chose, effectively, to say nothing at all,'" The Post reported.In the book, he reflected on the encounter and on other decisions he made during his 2021 Senate campaign."One of the dumbest things I ever said came when I argued that ‘childless cat ladies’ across the Democrat Party were running our country into the ground," Vance wrote in his new book. "It was a boneheaded comment, intentionally (and successfully) provocative rather than illuminating."