Category: Nation World News Wires

WASHINGTON — The U.S. struck Iran on Friday to respond to a drone attack a day earlier on a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz, a provocation that U.S. President Donald Trump said violated the ceasefire.

U.S. Central Command said the military struck missile and drone locations and coastal radar sites in Iran.

The strikes came shortly after Trump told reporters, “You’ll find out” whether the U.S. would response to the drone attack.

“I don’t like the fact that they took a shot yesterday, actually four of them,” Trump said at the White House shortly before the U.S. struck back. When asked why there would be strikes when Trump has insisted talks with Tehran are going well, Trump said of Iran: “They’re a little bit different.”

He then abruptly cut off questions and reporters were ushered out of his office.

The British military said on Thursday that a container ship was hit by a projectile off the coast of Oman, coming hours after Iran threatened vessels to stop using the route. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said no injuries were reported.

The development came during a fragile time for the U.S. and Iran as they work to negotiate a permanent end to the war. Iran has increasingly challenged the region and the U.S. over its control of the Strait of Hormuz, even with the current interim deal it reached with the U.S. last week.

The attack on the cargo ship happened while a United Nations maritime agency was beginning an operation to move stranded ships out of the strait this week, using an alternative route, hugging the shores of Oman rather than sailing through the central part of the strait.

The International Maritime Organization halted the evacuations after the attack and said on Friday they won’t resume until there are guarantees that the other ships won’t be attacked.

About 115 ships were able to move out of the strait in recent days, leaving about 500 still in the area, said Arsenio Dominguez, the agency’s secretary-general.

The opening of the alternative passage through the strait was expected to relieve pressure on the world economy and remove Iran’s main source of leverage in ongoing peace talks with the U.S.

The U.S. and Iran are still negotiating terms of the deal, including issues such as getting ships through the key strait and addressing the future of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Under the interim deal, the two sides have 60 days to work out the details.

Shipping analysts said the drone strike cast a shadow over what had been a growing stream of trapped vessels finally leaving the Gulf and an increasing flow of tankers carrying crude oil.

“A week of widening commercial confidence in the Strait of Hormuz has hit its first significant test,” said marine data company Windward on X. It said that while the strait remains operationally open with 43 transits recorded after the incident, “the pace of normalization has slowed.”

On Wednesday before Thursday’s drone strike, 78 vessels transited the strait, the highest number since the war began, although below the prewar averages of 130 or more per day.

At least two tankers reversed course while attempting to transit the strait on the U.N.-backed route near Oman after Iran insisted vessels use only the Teheran-approved routes, according to marine data and analytic firm Lloyd’s List Intelligence.

More than two dozen ships were still transiting the strait’s southern route after the attack, Lloyd’s said Friday.

The Florida Everglades immigration detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz” has served its purpose, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday, closing the makeshift facility heralded by the Trump administration and denounced as inhumane by civil rights groups.

DeSantis said the center, which opened in July 2025, was always meant to be only temporary until more permanent detention centers could be secured and federal officials now have that capacity.

“We stepped up because there was a gap, but my hope is that they’ll be able to handle that,” the Republican governor said at a news conference at the facility.

Officials announced a temporary closure of the facility earlier in June and sent all of the detainees to other facilities, saying hurricane season made it unsafe to keep them in the Everglades.

Immigration advocates said the center’s tents were never safe or humane for holding people. Detainees at the facility have talked about their difficulty accessing lawyers and described poor physical conditions, including worms in the food, toilets that didn’t flush, floors flooded with fecal waste, and mosquitoes and other insects everywhere.

They described large white tents with rows of and rows of bunk beds surrounded by chain-link cages. The air-conditioning could shut off abruptly in the sweltering Florida heat. Detainees could go days without showering or getting prescription medicine.

Advocates for immigrants said the closure of “Alligator Alcatraz” does nothing to stop the harm to people who spend months in custody as their families suffer. The Florida Immigrant Coalition said the only winners were corporations and contractors who profited millions of dollars as Republicans pushed an immigration emergency that does not exist.

The detention center of tents and trailers was built by DeSantis’ administration in a matter of days. The governor and President Donald Trump said the center was critical to Republican efforts to return people in the country illegally back to their home countries.

“There is no question this mission has made the state of Florida safer,” said DeSantis, noting that 21,000 people were deported through the facility.

Even with the closure of the facility, Florida continues to play a key role with other detention centers and an increased role in helping with immigration enforcement, White House border czar Tom Homan said at Thursday’s news conference.

“Gov. DeSantis did a good job, and he’s going to continue doing what he’s doing to help us make this country safe again,” Homan said. “This isn’t the end of relationship. This is a continuation.”

Lawyers for the immigrants at the facility said their clients suddenly started leaving for other facilities in South Florida, California, Arizona, Louisiana, and Texas earlier this month, disappearing for about a week before their attorneys and families were told where they were sent.

DeSantis said the Everglades airstrip the facility was built around will continue to be used.

Environmental groups sued over the detention center, saying Florida officials never got the proper permits or did required reviews on its impact.

The state and federal governments built the site with no oversight and closed it with no input, but they will still be held responsible even with the site is closed, said Paul J. Schwiep, an attorney for Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity.

“The administration believes it can quietly walk away and leave its mess for others to clean up. The law will not allow them to escape accountability. We will ask the courts to ensure that the environmental damage is fully addressed,” Schwiep said in a statement Thursday.

SAN FRANCISCO — A rural area of Northern California experienced its strongest earthquake since 1940 on Wednesday morning, causing some injuries but no immediate reports of major damage, officials said.

The epicenter of the quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 5.6, was about 7 miles northwest of the agricultural town of Willits, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was widely felt, including in the coastal city of Fort Bragg. The initial quake was centered inland about 50 miles east of Fort Bragg at 8:10 a.m. Pacific Time, and the USGS said it was about 5 miles deep.

The area in Mendocino County dotted with small, agricultural towns is 140 miles northeast of San Francisco.

Heather Rose, a Mendocino County spokesperson, said that hospitals had reported some injuries but that she had no details on their nature or extent. She said officials plan to meet later Wednesday when more information could be released.

Power outages are affecting more than 6,000 residents of six towns near the epicenter, the Mendocino County Executive Office said in a statement. The office encouraged people to stay off the highways and roads to allow work crews to inspect for damage and make repairs.

Brie Leon and her colleagues had just opened Club Calpella Restaurant when the building started shaking, rattling plates and liquor bottles.

“I had just turned the open sign on and went back into the kitchen, and that’s when it happened,” she said. “It almost felt like something hit the building.”

The restaurant is in Calpella, Calif., a town about 10 miles south of the epicenter and in a region of Mendocino County that has been struck by smaller quakes this year.

This was the biggest earthquake in nearly nine decades in the region, which is not on a major fault, said Lucy Jones, a veteran California seismologist.

“The area is not without earthquakes, but they’re usually smaller than this,” Jones said. She added that aftershocks are likely, but they’ll “probably stay on the low side.”

Three other quakes under a 2.7 magnitude struck near the epicenter within an hour.

Leon said the quake knocked frames off the walls and bottles off the shelves in the restaurant and the stockroom next door. She and other servers were cleaning up not long after to welcome customers for breakfast.

“It wasn’t a big, big quake, but things went everywhere,” she said.

Alan Harris and his family were at home in Kelseyville, about 40 miles southeast of the epicenter, when he received an earthquake alert on his cell phone. Soon after, the house began shaking.

“I yelled downstairs immediately to my wife and daughter to make sure they were hanging on,” Harris said. “It was scary. You could hear things crashing, mostly on the third floor of the house.”

A security camera inside Harris’ home shook vigorously as the quake struck. A few loud, crashing sounds can be heard on the video footage before Harris calls out: “Is everyone OK?”

It lasted only about 30 seconds. Framed photos fell off the walls and a computer monitor was knocked over, Harris said. Nothing appeared badly damaged, he added, noting he found no structural damage to the house.

Nearly 657,000 earthquake early warning alerts were sent by the MyShake App throughout Northern California, the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services said. Cal OES had not received any reports of damage or injuries, but it was coordinating with authorities to evaluate impacts, the office said in a statement.

Hundreds of thousands more people received alerts through other public safety alert systems, but those numbers have not been finalized, said Robert de Groot, a scientist with the ShakeAlert operations team.

“The alert deliveries for this are going to be well over a million,” Groot said.

BOGOTA, Colombia — Conservative outsider Abelardo de la Espriella, a millionaire political neophyte, will be Colombia’s next president after electoral authorities on Wednesday declared him the winner of Sunday’s runoff election.

The businessman and lawyer, whose ventures include a clothing line, wine and rum brands, and a restaurant, earned President Donald Trump’s endorsement despite never having run for office. He defeated progressive lawmaker Iván Cepeda by 1 percentage point, or more than 251,000 votes.

The result effectively was an indictment of outgoing President Gustavo Petro’s government, whose policies Cepeda had promised to continue, including a largely failed effort to establish dialogue with multiple armed groups.

Electoral authorities published all but a fraction of the vote count hours after polls closed Sunday. Petro and Cepeda did not accept those results, with the latter saying he would wait for a recount to do so. Authorities finished the recount before declaring de la Espriella’s victory.

De la Espriella’s victory adds Colombia to a growing list of countries that have turned to political outsiders in search for solutions to complex social, security, and economic challenges.

The self-proclaimed representative of “the never-before-seen” promised voters fearful of renewed internal conflict to take a heavy-handed approach to combating violent crime with strategies borrowed from Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s playbook, including building mega-prisons. Those tactics have lowered homicide rates in the Central American country but have fueled accusations of human rights abuses.

Earlier Wednesday, Cepeda conceded Colombia’s presidential election to de la Espriella and accepted a Senate seat reserved for the runner-up in the presidential election.

“We assume with serenity, responsibility, and absolute resolve — and let there be no doubt about it — the role that circumstances demand of us,” Cepeda said in an address to the nation. “We will exercise a democratic, vigilant and constructive opposition.”

De la Espriella, 47, will begin a 4-year term Aug. 7.

In a statement on Wednesday, de la Espriella’s campaign said de la Espriella’s “purpose is to work for national unity, with the people and for the people.” The campaign also stated his government will be committed to guaranteeing “the right to political opposition and peaceful protest, within the framework of the Constitution, the law, and respect for democratic institutions.”

A day earlier, de la Espriella announced he is putting together his cabinet. He also said he plans to add Colombia to the Trump-dubbed “Shield of the Americas,” a coalition of countries purportedly aimed at cracking down on criminal groups in Latin America.

More than 26 million people voted in the polarizing runoff, setting a historic record. Of those, over 426,000 people chose a third, no-name option on the ballot that allows voters to express dislike of both candidates. About 29,000 people cast blank ballots.