British MP Exposes Secret Society Behind UK’s Lurch Toward Socialism

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British MP Exposes Secret Society Behind UK’s Lurch Toward Socialism

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) The stunning transformation of Great Britain in recent years — from a beacon of decorum and stiff upper lips to a cautionary tale of wokeness run amok — has been blamed on everything from socialism to satanism.

However, Rupert Lowe, a member of the British Parliament and founder of the organization Restore Britain, said the reality may be even more sinister.

In a recent appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, he said a shadowy group of elites known as the Fabian Society was deliberately trying to wreck the country.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the Fabian Society, but if you go and have a look at it, it was basically most of the Labour Party for many, many years,” Lowe said, referring to England’s leading left-wing party, the equivalent of U.S. Democrats.

America’s Left may be facing a similar identity crisis as it tries to shake off the subversive influence of the Justice Democrats, Democrat Socialists of America and other fringe elements that are pushing neo-Marxist ideas.

But the British version has been around for nearly 150 years. The club, founded in 1884, was a direct reaction to the philosophy of Karl Marx (who died a year earlier in London).

Rather than forcing a collectivist government as Marx suggested, through class struggle — which generally led to uncomfortable outcomes for aristocrats — the group advocated for a socialist society to take root slowly and incrementally.

It was the brainchild of intellectuals including the man who first created “My Fair Lady” heroine Eliza Doolittle — playwright George Bernard Shaw. Science-fiction visionary H.G. Wells also counted himself a member.

“It’s the most extraordinary organization,” Lowe told Rogan. “Their emblem is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, as if that doesn’t tell you what they’re doing.”

Among the beliefs it endorsed was eugenics, the idea of breeding out unwanted attributes through various means, scientific and otherwise.

While the Nazis would go on to run with the idea — and ultimately help to effect its demise — the Fabian Society also was rumored to have inspired author George Orwell, whose dystopian 1984 (written in the late 1940s) was set exactly 100 years after the society’s founding.

According to Lowe, not all of the society’s ideas have vanished entirely. Rather, some of them simply evolved into a modern political framework.

“Everyone should look at the Fabian Society, because that runs deep through the veins of Labour,” he said.

Writing for The Telegraph, former Fabian research director Stephen Pollard sought to dismantle the claims by attacking Lowe as a conspiracy theorist. However, his argument may have only helped to make the case for some that “basically what it wants to do is destroy all good and create a dependency culture.”

After defending ideas like eugenics as having been widely accepted in their time, Pollard insisted that the current society was more concerned with selling magazine subscriptions than world domination.

Many of its policy papers now deal with addressing the nation’s housing crisis.

“To take that and conclude that they are in fact part of a secret cabal dedicated to destroying Britain is not so much misguided as a sign that someone is truly away with the fairies,” he claimed.

Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.

Fort Worth Police Threaten Preachers’ ‘Offensive’ Speech

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Fort Worth Police Threaten Preachers’ ‘Offensive’ Speech

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) The Fort Worth Police Department was under heavy fire from online critics after a viral video showed officers brazenly infringing on the First Amendment rights of a pair of Christian preachers protesting a “Pride” event.

In one viral video amplified by Libs of TikTok, Sgt. Sarah Stogner threatened to issue a citation to sidewalk evangelists Rich Penkoski and David Grisham.

According to social-media posts, the two preachers were using a bullhorn to share Bible verses but carried a decibel meter to ensure they did not violate local noise ordinances.

Nonetheless, Stogner said if the substance of their commentary crossed any lines, they would face punishment.

“If someone is offended by your talking, then we have a problem,” she said.

Grisham, a retired police officer himself, then pointed out that what she was threatening would violate the U.S. Constitution.

After Stogner persisted, he said, “I don’t CARE if they’re offended.”

Fort Worth police later acknowledged that Stogner had overstepped her bounds, as Harmeet Dhillon, the deputy attorney general overseeing the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, signaled that she was on the case.

“FWPD remains committed to protecting the constitutional rights of all individuals, regardless of the content or viewpoint of their speech,” the department said in a statement to Fox News.

“A video that has circulated online captures only a portion of the interactions between the officer and the individuals involved,” they added. “FWPD acknowledges that an officer involved in the incident made certain statements that were not accurate.”

They pledged to provide “refresher training” to current officers and additional First Amendment training to incoming officers

But other troubling videos surfaced that appeared to show a pattern of police harassment in the Texas city.

In one, officers threatened the same evangelists with a trespassing citation.

Another video posted by Libs of TikTok showed a third FWPD officer admitting that he would consider writing them a ticket for misgendering a transgender demonstrator, even while ignoring potentially indecent exposure from the parade participants.

Libs of TikTok also pointed out new information showing that the original officer, Sgt. Stogner, had similarly harassed Christian counter-demonstrators during a 2025 event, even threatening to arrest them for their “offensive” speech.

Penkoski confirmed that it was a recurring theme in the city’s policing.

“Police officers have been violating preachers’ 1st amendment rights for years,” he wrote. “This isn’t new, we just got it on video and they can’t walk it back or deny it.”

Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.

Did Dems Push Platner as a Decoy to Claim High-Ground over MAGA?

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Did Dems Push Platner as a Decoy to Claim High-Ground over MAGA?

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) The long-expected implosion of Maine Democrat Graham Platner’s senatorial campaign has led to plenty of head-scratching and finger-pointing, with the perplexed punditry seeking to assign blame after weeks spent vouching for the alleged Nazi rapist.

Not surprisingly, some were eager to deflect from the underlying dearth of principles that led them first to let Platner become the party nominee, warts and all, and then to deny his voters access to democracy — yet again — through another bait-and-switch nominating process.

On the Republican side, critics pointed out a long continuum of Democrats turning a blind eye to the likes of Teddy Kennedy and Bill Clinton, often brushing off criminal conduct in the interest of political expediency.

The blame-shifting excuse deployed by many Democrats, meanwhile, was just as foreseeable as Platner’s downfall: Trump did it.

“I want to underscore that Republicans don’t get to take a moral victory lap here,” groused Fox News’s resident left-wing malcontent, Jessica Tarlov. “They’re still the party of Trump.”

The New York Times, Politico and ABC’s “The View” all echoed similar talking points.

“Democrats are unlikely to ever play by Trump Rules,” complained Politico co-founder John Harris. “When they have tried, as Graham Platner did, it typically just doesn’t work.”

The impunity enjoyed by every top Democrat in the modern era notwithstanding, Harris’s hot take was illustrative of why the party may have pushed Platner in the first place, believing that unapologetically bad behavior was the secret sauce to Trump’s populist appeal.

The formula failed, of course, precisely because Trump’s success in breaking the GOP mold of milquetoast Mitt Romneys and Mike Pences did not translate to a party in which moral and ethical principles are as fluid and mutable as its 72+ genders.

But its premise had some raising a valid question: If the Left loathes Trump so much, why try so hard to imitate him?

Federalist writer Margot Cleveland was among those floating the possibility that Platner’s campaign was a deliberate act of self-sabotage, which not only would allow Democrats to bypass those pesky primary fights but also give them some semblance moral sanctimony through their eventual acts of performative disavowal.

“To be forever known among Democrats as ‘The Platner Maneuver,’” Cleveland wrote, suggesting that Platner was a “parody” of everything Democrats accused Republicans of being — although, in reality, it was a false comparison.

The demented strategy may have failed to take into account that a similar effort to run President Joe Biden as the primary-season patsy in 2024 wound up getting away from them when he refused to exit gracefully.

But amid rumors that Platner was being threatened with a state-level criminal investigation, it was clear that Democrats intended to rein in the rogue candidate as quickly as possible.

“[T]here was a call placed from the attorney general’s — Aaron Frey’s — office here in Maine to Platner that if he did not drop out, that they would bring charges against him for this sexual assault allegation,” said Maine Wire reporter Jon Fetherston during an interview with Salem News host Scott Jennings.

Despite all the intra-party turmoil that Democrats wrought on themselves, some conservatives said leftists still failed to understand that the secret to running authentic candidates started with having common-sense policies that they could actually stand behind.

“[T]he left can run out all the Nazi-tatted ‘oystermen’ it likes,” wrote conservative blogger Alex Berenson, “but until it recognizes that its anti-growth, anti-carbon pro-government policies are a lot more attractive to New York City socialists than guys driving F150s, it will go nowhere.”

Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.

Muslim Countries Deny Access to ‘Gay’ Cruise Ship

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Muslim Countries Deny Access to ‘Gay’ Cruise Ship

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Organizers of a so-called gay cruise were left fuming after their ship was denied entry to ports in both Egypt and Turkey, according to numerous reports.

The ship, Virgin Voyages’ Scarlet Lady, was scheduled to dock in Turkey earlier this week but was turned away by local authorities. On Thursday, the vessel headed to a substitute port in Egypt, where it was also denied entry.

Both Egypt and Turkey are Muslim-majority countries with laws and cultural norms that have restricted homosexuality.

“We were incredibly disappointed to learn that Scarlet Lady was denied entry hours before our planned call,” Virgin Voyages said in a statement to news outlets.

The company claimed that it operated a similar itinerary last year “without issue” but announced the ship would instead head to Kotor, Montenegro, a third alternative destination.

Passengers were informed that their stop in Alexandria, Egypt, had been canceled after Egyptian authorities denied entry, according to The Washington Post. Just three days earlier, the authorities in Istanbul and Kusadasi blocked the ship from docking in their cities, the outlet added.

In a post on X, the government of Kusadasi said the groups aboard the ship were “known for behaviors that do not align with the structure of our society and our moral values.”

The cruise’s decision to dock in Muslim-majority countries drew mockery online.

“I’m sorry, but this is objectively hilarious,” commentator Brad Polumbo, who is gay, wrote on X.

Writer Mark Hemingway added: “And yet, this will probably not stop any of the New Yorkers on this boat from voting for Mamdani.”

One user wrote, “This should be a genuine learning experience.”

CNN Duped into Running Fake X Post Mocking Its Own Analyst

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CNN Duped into Running Fake X Post Mocking Its Own Analyst

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Since last month’s approval for a corporate takeover of CNN’s parent company, Warner Brothers, by Paramount Skydance and its Trump-friendly CEO, David Ellison, the notoriously left-slanted network has been braced for the inevitable fallout.

A humiliating on-air mistake that involved quoting a fake member of Congress may be just the catalyst needed for some heavy-handed house-cleaning.

On Wednesday, “CNN This Morning” anchor Audie Cornish shared a series of social-media statements from GOP insiders who claimed to have been in contact with AWOL Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

The roundup included statements from spokespeople for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. and John Barrasso, R-Wyo., as well as former McConnell campaign adviser Scott Jennings, himself a regular CNN panelist.

“He’s still recovering in the hospital. We talked for just shy of 20 minutes,” Jennings wrote Tuesday in an X post.

Many found the “trust me” posts to be unconvincing amid mounting speculation that McConnell may be braindead, if not altogether deceased, following a June 14 medical emergency, and a growing clamor for proof-of-life evidence.

Jennings’s post spawned several imitators, also claiming to have spoken to McConnell on a disparate array of unlikely topics.

Among the dubious claims was one from the spoof account of fake lawmaker Rep. Jack Kimble, representing California’s 54th district (it currently has only 52).

“We talked for just shy of 45 minutes,” the post said, following a familiar template.

“He’s so sharp,” it continued. “Just like always he let me do all of the talking. He’s a great listener. After that we prayed silently for awhile and had a staring contest. Just like always, he beat me.”

Kimble’s prank drew positive responses from both sides of the aisle.

Professional Trump hater George Conway, who recently lost his bid to be a Democrat congressman from New York, wrote, “You are my favorite Congressman.”

Meanwhile, Brendan Carr, a Trump ally and current chair of the Federal Communications Commission, seemed to take particular note of the allegations that CNN was exposing its left-wing biases once again, writing “oof” on a post that was commenting on the subject.

Cornish corrected the record on Thursday’s broadcast, stating “Obviously we should not have done that, and we regret the error.”

According to the New York Post, the parody Kimble account claims to be “the brainchild of a Chicago school teacher.” The account, launched in 2009, has previously fooled the Washington Post and the Huffington Post website.

Kimble also has a book for sale on Amazon, titled Detective Jesus No. 1: Thou Shalt Not Kill.

Kimble claims in his X biography to be the co-sponsor of Poe’s Law, which the Post described as “a reference to the internet adage that parodies of extreme political views are often mistaken for genuine statements unless clearly marked as satire.” 

Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.

BREAKING: US Senator Lindsey Graham has Died After a Brief and Unexpected Illness, His Office Says

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BREAKING: US Senator Lindsey Graham has Died After a Brief and Unexpected Illness, His Office Says

(Headline USA) U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham died Saturday after a brief and unexpected illness, his office said in statement posted on social media.

The statement said the Republican from South Carolina passed away Saturday evening “from a brief and sudden illness.” No additional details were provided.

The Republican was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002. He has been a close ally of President Donald Trump and a longtime hawk on Iran.

As a member of the U.S. House in the 1990s, he backed policies aimed at isolating the country and limiting its missile and nuclear programs.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

Men’s World Cup Team Required to Split $12.8M Payout w/ Women’s Team

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Men’s World Cup Team Required to Split $12.8M Payout w/ Women’s Team

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) America’s fleeting interest in soccer may once again have abated following a humiliating World Cup defeat to Belgium last Monday, in a game that saw President Donald Trump become personally involved over a red-card dispute.

But the high-profile flop in the first elimination round was not the only indignity that the U.S. athletes must endure.

A collective bargaining agreement means that the team will have to share its $16 million prize pot (minus a 20% cut for the U.S. Men’s Soccer organization) with the U.S. women’s team.

“The remaining 80 percent is split evenly between the men’s and women’s player pools, meaning each team is set to receive $6.4 million from the USMNT’s run,” the New York Post reported.

That puts the estimated takeaway for each player on the two teams’ 26-man -person rosters at $246,153. However, since there is no finalized roster for the women’s team, which will vie for its fifth World Cup championship next year in Brazil, those payouts will remain in escrow for now.

The women’s success in the quadrennial tournament gave them extra leverage to demand the pay gap be closed after their 2019 championship title. By contrast, the men’s team has never won the tournament and last made it to the round of 16 in 2002.

But the men’s matches historically have drawn greater viewership. The loss to Belgium saw a U.S. television audience exceeding 45 million viewers, while the highest-rated women’s game, the 2015 World Cup final, saw the audience peak at just 26.7 million.

For winning the entire tournament in 2019, the women’s team received a total of $4 million from the $30 million overall that the league took in.

Despite the attempt at pay parity, critics such as The Spectator’s Melissa Chen noted that the agreement flies in the face of one of capitalism’s central tenets — the importance of market value.

“It disincentivizes excellence on the men’s side (why push harder if your windfall gets redistributed?) and removes pressure on the women’s side to grow their own commercial appeal,” Chen wrote. “Like divorce settlements that trap high-earners in perpetual support roles, this policy treats men’s soccer as a piggy bank for ‘fairness,’ not a business rewarding what fans and sponsors actually value.

Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.

Dems Roll Out Project 2029 After Years of Attacking Project 2025

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Dems Roll Out Project 2029 After Years of Attacking Project 2025

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) A group of Democratic officials has taken a page from conservative Project 2025, launching their own “Project 2029” initiative.

The project, led by former Biden administration official Chad Maisel, seeks to prepare a potential Democratic administration from “day one” after the 2028 presidential election, though it remains relatively vague on specific policy proposals.

Project 2029 has already received praise from some left-leaning media outlets, which have promoted the initiative as a Democratic counterpart to Project 2025.

Its mission, according to the group’s website, is to “identify the most promising ideas and thinkers from across the country and build a coherent governing framework for real change and progress.”

“I think the lesson from Project 2025 is just the importance of preparation,” Maisel said in an interview with left-wing NPR.

“Our mission for whoever’s running for president in 2028 is to have a shelf of big ideas they can draw from as they’re putting forward their vision,” a Project 2029 spokesperson said in an interview with the New York Post.

The project’s website also states that it will begin unveiling ideas throughout 2026 and 2027, targeting issues including health care, housing, artificial intelligence, education and immigration.

Thus far, Project 2029 has rolled out a policy proposal targeting social media companies, calling for a “comprehensive online safety agenda that puts kids over clicks.” The proposal includes a potential social media ban for children up to age 16.

It also recommends a “crack down on the annoyance economy,” referring to scams and spans, as well as a child care choice “guarantee.”

According to the New York Post, Project 2029 officials have spoken with lawmakers, think tanks, potential presidential candidates and individuals in the private sector to prepare the plan.

The launch of Project 2029 comes after Democrats associated Project 2025 to President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, even though it was not created by Trump or his campaign.

Senate Rules Require McConnell to Seek Formal Leave of Absence (or Resign)

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Senate Rules Require McConnell to Seek Formal Leave of Absence (or Resign)

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) After nearly a monthlong absence, the mysteries surrounding the health status of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., are just as opaque as when he was found unresponsive on June 14.

Video released Friday by CNN showed McConnell, the longtime Senate majority leader and frequent Trump obstructionist, being carted to an ambulance on a stretcher with no oxygen mask, fueling speculation that he may have been dead on arrival.

The surprising departure of his wife, former Trump Transportation Sec. Elaine Chao, for a trip to China raised even more concerns.

Establishment Republicans — including a spokesperson for current Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. — sought to tamp down on rumors by insisting that the two RINOs recently had a “lengthy and substantive conversation that covered a variety of topics,” but made no mention of McConnell’s expected return.

CNN analyst Scott Jennings, who was McConnell’s former campaign manager, also claimed to have been in contact with the 84-year-old senator during his convalescence.

“I spoke to my old friend Mitch McConnell this morning, the senior Senator from Kentucky. He’s still recovering in the hospital. We talked for just shy of 20 minutes,” Jennings wrote on Tuesday via X.

But without actual proof of life, few skeptics were assuaged.

Indeed, the matter was made worse after Jennings’s own network ran a post from a fake lawmaker whose spoof account appeared to be mocking the original post.

Meanwhile, McConnell critics, including Federalist CEO Sean Davis, have pointed out that there are specific protocols in the Senate for an extended leave of absence, and that Thune did not appear to be enforcing them.

“Rather than communicating through secret phone calls or anonymous sources, McConnell has an obligation to disclose to the Senate the reason(s) for his extended absence and to request permission of the Senate to grant him the privilege of continued absence,” Davis wrote in a Thursday X post after anonymous sources insisted McConnell wasn’t clinically braindead.

Many Trump supporters would prefer that McConnell, who is serving out his final term, simply make a graceful exit — if indeed he is still alive.

The lame-duck lawmaker, often seen being carted around by staffers in a wheelchair and appearing to have stroke-like symptoms when speaking publicly, has nonetheless proven to be a roadblock in efforts to pass the pro-election-integrity SAVE America Act, which would mandate voter ID and clean voter rolls.

Although Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, signaled a willingness to supply the 50th vote to give the GOP a simple majority needed to pass the measure through a reconciliation bill, Collins was unwilling to support all of the elements sought by the Trump administration, including restrictions on transgender students in girls’ sports.

She likewise has been a steadfast opponent to modifying the Senate rules to end the filibuster.

Unlike other states in which the governor is tasked with filling a vacancy, Kentucky’s Democrat Gov. Andy Beshear has no such power after its GOP legislature — anticipating a McConnell health crisis — stripped him of that power in 2024. Thus, the seat would remain empty until a special election was held.

Nonetheless, Beshear also urged McConnell and his handlers to be more forthcoming about his health status.

“Over the last several weeks, Kentuckians have grown increasingly concerned about the current state of your health and wellbeing, and ability to hold office in the United States Senate,” Beshear wrote in a letter to McConnell on Wednesday.

“As Governor, I request that you fully update Kentuckians regarding the current status of your health,” he continued. “As public officeholders, we have made a commitment to our constituents to do our best to represent them and to always be transparent. I believe this requires clear communication about one’s ability to serve.”

McConnell’s situation mirrors several other recent health crisis that brought attention to what some have called a geruntocracy of octogenarian leaders, many having clung to power for decades.

Former Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., was frequently criticized for refusing to give up her seat despite a clear cognitive decline, and the same was true of President Joe Biden, whose insistence on running in 2024 contributed to his party’s defeat that year.

Republicans might hope, however, for a situation more like that of Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa. Although elected in 2022 despite recovering from a severe stroke and suffering a cripping depression (that spurred rumors he was braindead), Fetterman not only made a full recovery but has since become the lone voice of reason within the Senate’s Democratic caucus.

Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.

Trump and Iran’s Supreme Leader Trade Threats as Mediators Try to Save Their Crumbling Deal

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Trump and Iran’s Supreme Leader Trade Threats as Mediators Try to Save Their Crumbling Deal

(Headline USA) U.S. and Iranian leaders traded threats on Saturday as the interim deal to end the war buckled under crossfire in the Middle East and efforts continued to keep talks going.

President Donald Trump overnight made threats on social media of further missile attacks against Iran, after the funeral of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saw open calls for the U.S. leader’s killing. Senior U.S. officials demanded that Iran make a public statement saying the Strait of Hormuz is open and ships won’t be attacked.

Later, Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei vowed that Iranians would continue to avenge his father’s death. Such revenge “is the will of our nation and must certainly be carried out,” he said in remarks carried by state television. He still has not been seen publicly since the war began on Feb. 28 with strikes that killed his father.

Tehran has insisted that the strait remain under its control and that it be allowed to charge ships moving through it, a stance it took after the war began.

The exchange of threats followed days of U.S. airstrikes targeting Iran, sparked by Iran’s attacks on three ships in the strait, and Iranian retaliatory fire targeting Arab nations in the region.

Trump has declared the ceasefire over but said the U.S. would continue negotiations. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Saturday traveled to Oman, located on the other side of the strait, for more talks, a day after Qatari mediators met with officials in Tehran.

A thousand “missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat,” Trump wrote on his website.

He said he was responding to threats “to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate” him. 

During Khamenei’s funeral, mourners held posters or banners calling for Trump to be killed along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Iran buried Khamenei, 86, this week.

Trump added that the U.S. military would “completely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran — PRAISE BE TO ALLAH!”

Trump has repeatedly invoked the name of God in Arabic, and threatened to destroy Iran’s very civilization. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group, has criticized Trump’s “deranged mocking of Islam.”

Iran’s foreign minister accused the U.S. of violating the interim deal by ending waivers allowing Iran to sell crude oil on the open market in U.S. dollars. Washington ended them in response to the attacks on ships in the strait.

“Reality check: There can only be mutual compliance,” Araghchi wrote on X.

He was scheduled to meet with his counterpart in Oman. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told his country’s state broadcaster, TRT, that he believed “a solution can be reached” this weekend between Iran and Oman.

The U.S. urges mariners to travel through the strait on a southern route, through Oman’s territorial waters. Iran has said the strait must be under its sole control and that vessels should begin paying fees to Tehran. The world for decades has considered it an international waterway.

About a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed through it before the war began. Iran’s grip on the strait during the war led to a global energy crisis, though oil prices have sharply dropped since wartime highs of $120 a barrel.

Tehran’s diplomat at the United Nations said on Friday that any activity in the strait, including its opening or demining operations, “rests exclusively with Iran.”

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity about the current situation with Iran, said the resumption of strikes this week came after what they described as a rogue faction of Iranian hard-liners tried to sabotage the ceasefire.

However, Iran has insisted its theocracy is unified under the new supreme leader.

After the U.S. wrapped up its latest strikes on Thursday, more attacks reportedly hit Iran, raising questions about who else may be targeting the Islamic Republic.

Israel didn’t claim them, meaning the Gulf Arab states may have launched them, likely as a means to deter Iran from attacking them again. Iran on Thursday retaliated for U.S. strikes by targeting Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar.

The strikes in Iran over two days killed at least 17 people and wounded 115 others, Iranian Health Ministry spokesperson Hossein Kermanpour said.

The U.S. officials told journalists the U.S. would never reach a nuclear deal with Iran if it does not first stop its attacks on ships in the strait.

They also said any deal on Iran’s nuclear program would require Tehran to turn over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. That’s something Iran has repeatedly refused.

If the U.S. doesn’t reach a deal with Iran to turn over the material, it has military options to ensure that it remains buried underground forever, the officials said. They did not detail them.

The uranium, enriched to near weapons-grade levels, is believed to be at nuclear sites the U.S. bombed in 2025. Iran has long insisted its nuclear program is peaceful, though the International Atomic Energy Agency has said the Islamic Republic is the world’s only country to enrich uranium so highly without a weapons program.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

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