In today’s newsletter: The U.S. and Iran exchange fire near the Strait of Hormuz. Hard-right Reform U.K. routs Labour in nationwide elections in Britain. And health officials are monitoring passengers who were aboard a hantavirus-hit cruise ship but have returned to the U.S.
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Here’s what to know today.
Trump says ceasefire isn’t over after U.S. and Iran exchange fire
The U.S. and Iran exchanged fire near the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, raising questions about the negotiations to end the conflict. President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that the attacks happened as three U.S. military ships were transiting through the strait and claimed that there was “no damage done to the three Destroyers, but great damage done to the Iranian attackers.”
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In an interview with ABC News, Trump said the ceasefire was still in effect. “It’s just a love tap,” he said.
The Iranian military said it fired at the ships only after the U.S. military violated the ceasefire and attacked an Iranian oil tanker.
Trump later told a group of reporters that negotiations with Iran for a peace deal were “going very well, but they have to understand if it doesn’t get signed, they’re going to have a lot of pain.” He also said a deal “might not happen, but it could happen any day.”
The attacks highlighted the fragility of the ceasefire in the area around the Strait of Hormuz, which 20% of the world’s oil used to pass through before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28.
No ship transited the strait yesterday, the second day in a row that the critical airway has had no traffic at all.
Read more about the attack.
Related coverage:
- The Justice Department is investigating a series of oil market trades that came just ahead of major developments in the Iran war, according to a source familiar with the probe.
- The State Department and a senior state official have reported more than 600 attacks against U.S. diplomatic facilities in Iraq since the start of the Iran war.
Job gains predicted despite Iran conflict
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ April jobs report is expected to show a resilient U.S. labor market, with 55,000 positions added in April and a steady unemployment rate of 4.3%. The Dow Jones-surveyed economists also expect to see average hourly earnings tick up from a 3.5% annual rate in March to 3.8% in April.
The report will come as oil prices remain high by more than 50% since the start of the year and average retail gas prices hover above $4.55 per gallon. A slowing job market would be bad news for consumers as higher energy prices add on to monthly expenses.
Why some analysts aren’t feeling optimistic.
U.S. is monitoring hantavirus cruise passengers
Health officials in at least a dozen countries, including the U.S., are tracking passengers who traveled aboard the cruise ship at the center of a deadly hantavirus outbreak. The U.S. passengers are in five states — Arizona, California, Georgia, Texas and Virginia — and none have reported symptoms of the rare virus, authorities said. They’re among 29 passengers who disembarked on April 24 on the remote Atlantic island St. Helena without undergoing strict contact tracing. A person who died on April 11 was also removed from the vessel.
The CDC said yesterday that the “risk to the American public is extremely low,” and the WHO said the outbreak is not the start of a new pandemic or epidemic. However, some experts fear that the U.S.’s departure from the WHO in January could hinder their response to the virus.
The new information about disembarked passengers comes as nearly 150 people, including at least 17 Americans, remain on the ship, confined to their cabins, though none have shown symptoms.
Here’s what else we know.
Hard-right Reform routs Starmer’s Labour in U.K. elections
Early results Friday from nationwide elections in Britain suggested a historic defeat for Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party and sweeping gains for hard-right Reform U.K., led by Trump ally Nigel Farage.
Though many results were still coming in this morning, the overall picture will heap pressure on Starmer, an unpopular leader beset by speculation his colleagues may move against him.
Starmer — who led Labour to power in a 2024 landslide — said the results “hurt” and were “very tough,” but that he would not step aside.
Reform won hundreds of local council seats in working-class areas in England’s north, wiping the ruling party out in places like Hartlepool that were once solid Labour turf. Farage said the results marked a “truly historic shift in British politics”
Though seen as a barometer of public anger, the prime minister’s name itself was not on the ballot.
Instead, Britons voted in more than 5,000 local government elections in England, a handful of mayoral contests around London, and votes for the Welsh and Scottish parliaments — devolved legislatures with powers over transport, health and other areas.
Read more about the U.K. election results.
How the Supreme Court turbocharged partisan gerrymandering
Tennessee’s Republican-led Legislature passed a new congressional map dividing up the state’s lone majority-Black district based in Memphis. The move puts Republicans in a position to gain a seat in the midterm elections and allows the party to secure full control over the state’s congressional delegation.
In California, a Democratic redistricting has forced two Republican representatives into a fight for their political lives. The result is a messy intraparty fight between Ken Calvert and Young Kim, whose Southern California districts merge under the new map.
Redistricting fights nationwide heated up last year after President Donald Trump urged Republican states to redraw their lines. Last week, the Supreme Court’s ruling over congressional maps in Louisiana turbocharged the fight, senior Supreme Court reporter Lawrence Hurley writes in this exclusive analysis for subscribers.
The decision — in which the court found that attempts by Louisiana lawmakers to further entrench their own party’s strength are a legitimate use of government power — marks a significant change in tune from seven years ago, when it tried to rein in partisan gerrymandering. One expert who watches the court closely said the move “seems very concerted and intentional.”
Read the full analysis here.
More politics news:
- A federal court ruled against new global tariffs that Trump imposed after the Supreme Court struck down his broader plan.
- Also, a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration’s cancellation of more than $100 million in humanities grants was unconstitutional.
Read All About It
- A federal judge signed off on the settlement between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, but it appears the legal saga isn’t over just yet.
- Iconic British broadcaster Sir David Attenborough, the excited but hushed voice of award-winning nature programs, is celebrating his 100th birthday today.
- Thirty former Ohio State University football players signed on to the class action lawsuit brought by other ex-OSU students who say they were sexually abused by campus doctor Richard Strauss.
- A Minneapolis man who wielded a syringe and sprayed vinegar at Rep. Ihlan Omar at a town hall earlier this year pleaded guilty to a federal charge stemming from the incident.
- The 2026 WNBA season tips off with more stars, more superteams and more money than ever before. Here are the storylines to watch.
Staff Pick: An immigration story in the name data
Names fascinate me. Data is my job. So when the U.S. Census Bureau announced it would be publishing first and last-name count data for everyone in the U.S., it felt like the Bureau was speaking directly to me. I created a searchable database where anyone can see how their first and last names rank.
While auditing I found an interesting last name, Kaur, which traces back to Sikhs from India, in the Punjabi region. According to my own quick analysis, there weren’t many Kaurs living in the U.S. in 1990. But that changed: the Bureau counted 21,000 Kaurs in 2000, 48,000 in 2010, and more than 75,000 in 2020 — making Kaur one of the 500 most-common last names here. No other last name has rocketed through the country like Kaur has.
Search for your name in the database, and see if it’s among the most-common names in the nation.
— Joe Murphy, data editor
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