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  President Donald Trump on Thursday suggested he will order that all Department of Homeland Security employees be paid, as Congress again took steps toward ending the longest-ever partial government shutdown. The move  would expand Trump’s earlier directive  for DHS to unilaterally pay Transportation and Security Administration workers in a bid to alleviate travel backlogs at understaffed airports. It was not immediately clear how the president would fund pay for the tens of thousands of other DHS staffers — including Federal Emergency Management Agency workers, civilians in the US Coast Guard, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency employees — who have been reporting for work without compensation. “Thank you to all of our Great Congressional Republicans, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and Senate Leader John Thune, for their work this week. Republicans are UNIFIED, and moving forward on a plan that will reload funding for our FANTASTIC Border Patrol and Immigr...

  The comments come after a prime-time address at the White House in which US President Donald Trump threatened to bomb Iran "back to the Stone Ages, where they belong." Iran has threatened "crushing" attacks on the United States and Israel, after US President Donald Trump vowed to bomb the Islamic Republic "back to the Stone Ages." Tehran will continue fighting until the US and Israel face "permanent regret and surrender," Ebrahim Zolfaqari, spokesperson of the Khatam al-Anbiya central headquarters, said in comments carried by the semi-official Tasnim news agency. He said Iran would step up military operations and launch "more crushing, broader and more destructive" attacks on its enemies. Those comments come after a prime-time address at the White House in which Trump said the US was "very close" to achieving its objectives but warned attacks would intensify if Iran did not reach a negotiated settlement. "Over the next ...

  President  Donald Trump  revealed during Wednesday night's Iran address that one of his top achievements against Iran, which he described as spanning across both his terms, was shredding former President Barack Obama's 2015 nuclear deal. Trump described the efforts in the Middle East as making "tremendous progress" and called Operation Epic Fury "necessary for the safety of America and the security of the free world."  Meanwhile, he slammed Iran as "fanatical," "murderous" and "thuggish," arguing that letting them have a nuclear weapon "would be an intolerable threat." While slamming Obama's 2015 deal, the president cited the $400 million cash payment the former president's administration flew to Iran in an effort to "buy their respect and loyalty." "The most violent and thuggish regime on Earth would be free to carry out their campaigns of terror, coercion, conquest and mass murder from behind...

  "U.S. citizens should leave Iraq now," the U.S. Embassy warned, citing threats from militias aligned with Iran to carry out attacks in Baghdad. The U.S. Embassy in  Iraq  has warned Americans to leave the country as soon as possible over threats from militias aligned with Iran to carry out imminent attacks in  Baghdad  over the next two days. "U.S. citizens should leave Iraq now," the embassy warned in an alert  published  Thursday. Anyone who chooses to remain in the country will do so "at significant risk," it added. The warning came just days after reports emerged of the  kidnapping of American journalist Shelly Kittleson , who was feared to have been abducted in Baghdad on Tuesday by suspected Iranian-backed militants. Dylan Johnson, the assistant secretary of state for global affairs, said a person believed to have been involved in the kidnapping had been captured and was in Iraqi custody. He said the person had ties to the Iranian-aligned ...

  President Donald Trump hailed the U.S. military’s “unstoppable” prowess in  the war with Iran , telling Americans in a prime-time address Wednesday night that the conflict, now entering its second month, will end “shortly” without offering a definite timeline. Delivered on Day 32 and framed as an operational update, Trump’s speech offered the clearest public case yet for the conflict, arguing it is necessary for the security of the free world and laying out a framework that he said would measure American success. “Thanks to the progress we’ve made, I can say tonight that we are on track and the country has been eviscerated and essentially is really no longer a threat,” Trump said. “This is a true investment in your children and your grandchildren’s future. The whole world is watching." Still, he said the conflict would continue until the military objectives were "fully achieved." “We’re going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks,” he said. “We’re...

  The United States has lifted sanctions on Venezuela's interim president, Delcy Rodríguez. The move comes less than three months after US forces seized the country's previous leader, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife in a military raid in Caracas and took them to New York  to face drug trafficking charges . Rodríguez, a close ally of Maduro who served as his vice-president, had been placed on the sanctions list in 2018, with the US accusing her of undermining democracy. She was sworn in as interim president by Venezuela's National Assembly, which is dominated by Maduro loyalists, days after the US raid and has been described by Trump as "a terrific person". Rodríguez welcomed her removal from the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List. Those named on the list have their assets in the United States blocked and US nationals are barred from doing business from them. In a post on X, Rodríguez called it "a significant step in the right direction to normalise and s...