DUBAI/WASHINGTON, June 10 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday Iran had taken too long to negotiate a deal and would now “have to pay the price,” while Tehran said it would reassess diplomatic engagement with Washington after overnight tit-for-tat strikes. Iran launched missile and drone attacks on U.S. bases in Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain in what it called retaliation for American strikes on Iranian targets around the Strait of Hormuz. The exchange of fire, which came after Trump said Iran had downed a U.S. Apache helicopter near the strait, marks one of the most significant escalations since Washington and Tehran agreed to a ceasefire in April. “Iran is all talk and no action,” Trump said in a social media post on Wednesday morning. “They’ve taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price!!!” pic.twitter.com/3wfggfeEo2— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) June 10, 2026 The U.S. military said it had targeted Iranian air defenses, ground control stations and surveillance radar sites in what it described as a “proportional response” to the downing of the helicopter, whose two crew members were rescued. Iran’s Gulf neighbors and Jordan activated air defenses to intercept incoming missiles and there were no immediate reports of damage to U.S. bases. The escalation—just days after Iran exchanged strikes with Israel for the first time since the ceasefire—casts fresh doubt on prospects for a deal to end the war, which began on February 28 with joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Tehran would reassess diplomatic engagement with Washington after what it called repeated ceasefire violations. “Any diplomatic process requires a minimum stable environment,” Esmaeil Baghaei said. Oil prices jumped by around 2% and stock markets fell after Trump’s remarks. Fox News, citing a phone interview, reported that Trump said he may order new strikes on Iran’s power plants and bridges because Tehran was taking too long to make a deal. Still, there were signs diplomatic efforts were continuing. An official with knowledge of the matter told Reuters that Qatari negotiators traveled to Tehran on Wednesday after consultations with the U.S., in an effort to finalize an agreement. There was no immediate comment from Washington or Tehran. Strikes Around Hormuz The U.S. strikes overnight lasted about four hours, with Central Command saying shortly before 9 p.m. ET (0100 GMT Wednesday) that operations had ended. A U.S. official said nearly 20 Iranian targets were hit. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said Qeshm Island and the port of Sirik were attacked. Iranian media also reported explosions in Bandar Abbas, another port city, and later near Jask at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC said it had responded by attacking U.S. bases in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan with drones and missiles, and was ready to deliver a “crushing and decisive” response to any further U.S. action. It said it had fired long-range missiles at four sites at the U.S. al-Azraq base in Jordan, including F-35 fighter jet hangars and a command-and-control center. A U.S. official said initial assessments showed nearly all Iranian missiles and drones were intercepted, with no immediate reports of casualties or damage. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Reuters could not immediately verify the battlefield reports. Jordan’s military said it had intercepted five missiles launched toward al-Azraq, and that falling debris caused no injuries or damage. Kuwait’s defence ministry said it had intercepted “hostile aerial targets”, while Bahrain’s air defences repelled Iranian attacks, a media adviser to the king said on X. Kuwait houses U.S. military facilities including a major airbase, while Bahrain hosts the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s regional fleet. Helicopter Downed The U.S. attack helicopter whose crash prompted the exchange was brought down by a one-way Iranian attack drone, according to a U.S. official. Two U.S. crew members were uninjured, Trump said. The helicopter went down in waters off Oman’s coast while on patrol at around 3 a.m. on Tuesday (2300 GMT Monday), the U.S. military said, adding that a Navy surface drone had located and rescued the crew. Iran’s state media, citing a military source, said no offensive air operations had been conducted in the Strait of Hormuz in the preceding 24 hours. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi did not directly address the incident but warned in a post on X that foreign forces in the region risk accidents or crossfire. “To reduce risk, best solution is for them to leave,” he wrote. Peace Deal Seems Remote The ceasefire in early April was announced alongside plans for peace talks. Diplomats have since sought to reopen Hormuz, end a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports and create a pathway for negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. Trump has repeatedly said a deal is close, but despite several rounds of indirect talks mediated by Pakistan and Qatar, the two sides still appear far apart. Fighting in a parallel war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon has continued, and Tehran has maintained restrictions on most shipping through the strait, which before the war carried a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas. Washington has kept its own blockade of Iranian ports in place. Trump has said any peace deal must ensure Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon. Iran denies any such ambitions. Iran’s demands include the lifting of sanctions, the release of billions of dollars in frozen assets, recognition of its control of the strait and an end to fighting in Lebanon. (Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Lincoln Feast and Ros Russell; Editing by Neil Fullick, Shri Navaratnam and Peter Graff)

Since 1909, through two world wars, the Great Depression, and every period of political turmoil our country has faced in modern times, Congress has played baseball. That is not an accident. There is something about the game that has always outlasted the moment, that pulls people back to the field no matter what else is happening around them. Every June at Nationals Park, members of Congress put on uniforms, walk out onto a diamond, and play seven innings in front of thousands of people. Not as a stunt, not as a photo opportunity, but as a genuine continuation of a tradition that has survived every period of dysfunction and division our country has faced. Baseball holds a special place in American life that no other sport replicates. It is the game soldiers carried overseas, that cities rebuilt themselves around after hard times, that generations of Americans used to mark the passage of summer. It is a shared inheritance that belongs to everyone who grew up with the smell of a leather glove or the crack of a bat on a summer evening, regardless of party or how they vote. Nobody understood that better than Coach Roger Williams, a former Atlanta Braves player and Texas Christian University baseball coach who has run the Republican team’s predawn practices for years. He is the reason this team shows up ready to play, dragging members of Congress out of bed before committee hearings to take ground balls at 6 a.m. He has been doing it for years because he believes the tradition is worth protecting, and he is right. I played throughout my high school years at Central High School in San Angelo, Texas, and into my days at the Air Force Academy. Baseball has been an integral part of my life for as long as I can remember. But what I have learned from the Congressional Baseball Game goes beyond the game itself. The relationships built in that dugout, the handshakes after a close play, the shared bus rides and early morning practices—we carry those moments back with us to Capitol Hill. In a town where trust is hard to come by, this game quietly builds some, and that matters more than most people in this city are willing to admit. It’s a game that George H.W. Bush played: one that honors a hard-fought battle—but with civility. It has been reported that Republicans are on a winning streak of five games, but the tradition only works because both sides keep showing up to give it their all. Last year, the moment that stuck with me was not the final score. It was a diving catch at third base with the bases loaded in the first inning, the kind of small play that shifts momentum and reminds everyone in the dugout why each one came. Baseball does something that nothing else in Washington can. Nearly 40,000 people were there to see it, and they were not rooting for dysfunction. They were rooting for the game. Together, they helped raise a record $2.81 million for 45 local charities and four college scholarships, proof that this tradition delivers well beyond the box score. The cynics will say one baseball game a year does not change anything. They are right that it does not pass legislation or fix the broken appropriations process, but that is the wrong standard. The question is whether it reflects something true about the country Congress is supposed to represent. Americans have always understood that competition and respect are not mutually exclusive. You play hard, you play by the rules, and when it is over, you acknowledge what the other side brought to the field. That ethic is older than this republic, and it is worth preserving in the people who run it. There is a version of Washington that gets buried under the daily dysfunction, where political opponents are still Americans first, and showing up in good faith is itself a form of patriotism. The Congressional Baseball Game is one of the few places left in this city where that version is still visible. Wednesday night at Nationals Park, both sides will take the field. Nearly 40,000 Americans will be watching, not because this institution has earned every ounce of their faith, but because they have not given up on it. That is worth honoring. And for seven innings, we intend to. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

The House of Representatives passed the $70 billion party-line budget bill Republicans refer to as the Secure America Act. The Department of Homeland Security funding bill will now be sent to President Donald Trump’s desk, where he is expected to sign it immediately Wednesday morning. House Republicans passed the bill Tuesday night, 214-212, with all Democrats voting “no,” including Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., who conferences with Republicans. Immigration funding has been a monthslong debate in Congress. Democrats have continuously refused to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection since February. This was the longest shutdown of any department in U.S. history. Sanctuary cities built a system where criminal illegal aliens walk out of jail instead of into ICE custody.The House just passed my $350M ICE provision. It now heads to President Trump’s desk.Arrest them. Detain them. Deport them. https://t.co/knlSmXH7Kr— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) June 9, 2026 “The Democrats chose open borders, so Republicans are using reconciliation, the most powerful tool available to circumvent obstruction, to finish the job without them,” Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, told the Daily Signal after the vote. This is Reconciliation 2.0 delivered. Next comes 3.0. Three Republicans were absent for the vote: Reps. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman, both of South Carolina, who both have primary elections tonight, and Rep. Tom Kean Jr., R-N.J., who has been mysteriously absent from votes for months. With three Republican absences and a slim majority, this required every member to fall in line. Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., held up the vote for roughly three minutes but eventually folded after getting a talking-to from House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and other members of leadership. “Through the Secure America Act, Republicans are Schumer-proofing the border to keep American communities safe through the remainder of President Trump’s term. This bill invests $70 billion in the Border Patrol agents and ICE officers taking down cartels, stopping human traffickers, and keeping violent criminal aliens off America’s streets,” Pfluger said. Republicans just gave ICE a blank check to continue brutalizing American communities.Their Budget Bill does NOTHING to make life more affordable for the American people.House Democrats voted NO. https://t.co/FJrGaAs6oQ— House Democrats (@HouseDemocrats) June 9, 2026 The specifics of the bill provide $38 billion for ICE, $26 billion for CBP, and $5 billion for a newly created fund to be controlled by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. The $70 billion includes a provision sponsored by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., to allocate $108.5 million to hire and train nearly 200 forensic analysts and investigators to combat child trafficking and online child exploitation. This is the largest investment from Congress to combat child trafficking in history. “My legislation with Tim Tebow to rescue thousands of children trapped in sex trafficking just passed the House and is headed to the President’s desk. That’s two hundred new law enforcement officers to find and rescue kids trafficked by predators and a new initiative to coordinate local, state, and federal enforcement. This is the biggest surge against online child exploitation ever by the federal government. It’s time to rescue these kids,” Hawley said in a press release after the vote. The Senate just passed the largest EVER provision to fight child exploitation through the Secure America Act. @HawleyMO @TimTebow pic.twitter.com/ELnd6tx3rw— The Daily Signal (@DailySignal) June 6, 2026

Just this year, at least seven states identified noncitizens on their voter registration lists. This comes as Congress continues to debate the SAVE America Act, a bill which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. Several states obtained the names of noncitizens by cross-referencing the voter registration list with the federal database known as the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE. SAVE is maintained by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. 1. New Jersey This week, the Republican National Committee and the New Jersey Republican Party announced that hundreds of noncitizens were discovered on voter rolls after they requested voter lists across 21 New Jersey counties. Though few noncitizens had voted, the GOP found a noncitizen removed from voter rolls in 2015 who voted in elections in 2000, 2001, and 2005. Another noncitizen voted in a primary election in 2005 and in a municipal election in 2000, Fox News reported. Most did not vote, and there was evidence that several noncitizens sought to be removed from voter lists, saying they were unknowingly registered to vote. Last month, the Justice Department announced four separate criminal complaints against noncitizens for allegedly illegally voting in federal elections in New Jersey. The four allegedly falsely certified that they were U.S. citizens on their voter registration forms. The agency’s criminal complaint alleged that the defendants cast at least one vote in federal elections from 2020 to 2024 before applying to become U.S. citizens. 2. North Carolina Last week, a Canadian citizen was sentenced to two months in prison for making false claims about U.S. citizenship to vote in the 2022 and 2024 elections in North Carolina. The case, brought in the Eastern District of North Carolina, involved the 70-year-old Denis Bouchard, who has lived in the United States since the 1960s but never became a citizen. Bouchard initially made the false claim of citizenship on a voter registration form in 2004 and has voted in nine federal elections, according to the Justice Department. However, he was only charged for voting in 2022 and 2024. 3. Michigan Macomb County, Michigan, County Clerk Anthony Forlini, a Republican, in January identified 15 apparent noncitizens on voter rolls. The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly conducting an active investigation into the suburban Detroit county and issued a subpoena requesting “all available information” on noncitizen voters, including “types of voting conducted” and “any signed documents.” The records were sent to the office of the state’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, who criticized Forlini. Her office noted the state elections bureau determined that three of the 15 had voting histories. But of those three, one was an American citizen. The Michigan Bureau of Elections concluded that of the 15 individuals, four were apparent noncitizens who will receive letters asking them to confirm their eligibility to vote. If they do not respond, the bureau will cancel their registration. Another four were previously removed from the voter rolls. Still, four remained under review by the elections bureau, according to Benson’s office. The bureau found that three of the 15 were citizens. 4. Nevada In January, the FBI concluded that 38 noncitizens may have voted in Nevada during the 2020 election but then closed the inquiry, CBS News reported. An FBI review of the Nevada voter rolls was compared with Department of Homeland Security citizenship data and found 38 likely noncitizens. In July 2025, First Assistant U.S. Attorney in Nevada Sigal Chattah ordered a probe of the state’s 2020 presidential election. The FBI reportedly informed Chattah that it would be difficult to bring a case because of the statute of limitations. 5. Utah In Utah, 27 noncitizens were on the voter rolls, and about half—13—had cast ballots, according to an audit released in late May by Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson’s office. The review began in April 2025. In addition to the 27 confirmed noncitizens, the report identified another 25 likely noncitizens. The state gave the 25 individuals a month to provide proof of citizenship or be removed from the voter rolls. 6. Montana In March, the Montana secretary of state’s office announced that, using federal data, it had identified 23 voter records associated with noncitizens. Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen said that of those noncitizens, a total of about 150 ballots were cast, while several participated in signature gathering for ballot initiatives. In announcing the findings, Jacobsen’s office noted that Montana local elections are often closely decided, including a city council race that resulted in a tie vote. 7. Kansas Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach’s office has prosecuted three noncitizens who cast ballots, including one incumbent mayor who was also not legally allowed to run for office. Last month, Jose Ceballos-Armendariz, the former mayor of Coldwater, Kansas, turned himself in to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Wichita area, Fox 4 Kansas City reported. Ceballos-Armendariz is a Mexican national with a green card and resides legally in the United States. He was prosecuted by Kobach’s office and pleaded guilty last month to illegally voting in several elections.

A Republican appears set to make the November ballot for the first time in years, but California’s Democrat supermajority isn’t going anywhere. Experts predict a Democrat will ultimately win the governor’s race and keep the state under one-party control. “It’s a Democratic state. … I think Steve Hilton will put up a noble effort and will probably help some down-ballot Republicans, but unless [Xavier] Becerra has a massive scandal or something really unusual happens, [he will] beat Hilton,” Christian Grose, a political science professor at the University of Southern California, told the Daily Signal. With 84% of ballots counted as of Tuesday evening, Becerra leads with an estimated 27.7% of the vote, while Hilton trails close behind at 25.1%. Decision Desk HQ on Monday night predicted the current leaders will advance to the top-two primary. The Associated Press has yet to call the second-place challenger. California’s gubernatorial primary election produced few surprises. Last Thursday, Hilton led the race. But over the weekend, Becerra, the expected front-runner, regained the lead and secured his spot in the general election. Billionaire Tom Steyer remains in third place, with 22.4% of the vote. Klink Campaigns President Matt Klink told the Daily Signal before Election Day that if Becerra and Hilton faced off, the Democrat would win. However, he warned that Becerra’s campaign could face issues. “If it’s Becerra versus Hilton, the Becerra campaign would probably be a shell of a campaign and people would go to work for the California Democratic Party to try to pull up other Democrats throughout the state. There’s no way Steve Hilton can win,” he said. Other elections experts agree that, while a Hilton candidacy is exciting for California Republicans, any early celebrations could prove premature. “At some point you’ve got to put on your big boy pants and realize this is a very deep blue state; Republicans aren’t competitive statewide in California,” political strategist Jon Fleischman told the Daily Signal. “The only way that Steve Hilton becomes the governor of California is if there’s an implosion of Swalwell proportions that takes out the Democratic nominee.” In April, former U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, considered to be the Democrat front-runner in the race for governor, abruptly dropped out amid multiple sexual assault allegations. Unless a similar meltdown occurs within the Becerra camp, experts say, Hilton’s chances at victory remain slim. Fleischman further predicted that Hilton’s ties to Trump would become a major talking point for Democrats and make the GOP’s race “very tough.” “Hilton’s got to do everything right,” he said. “Imagine you’re running a track race, and he’s the turtle and Becerra is the hare. The rabbit has got to trip so that the turtle who keeps plodding along can just kind of go past him and win the race. But if the rabbit never trips, the rabbit wins the race,” Fleischman added.  Early on in the campaign, Republican voters were split between Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. Despite President Donald Trump’s support for Hilton, the Republican Party failed to endorse a candidate during its April convention. Before Election Day, Hilton urgently called for Bianco to drop out, warning that the split could lead to a double-Democrat ticket. But Bianco stayed in the race, garnering 10.2% of the vote as of Tuesday. Democrats also struggled to rally behind a single candidate. More than 10 party members ran for California’s top office, and Swalwell’s departure caused temporary confusion among the party faithful. And while Becerra emerged as the top Democratic contender, Steyer poured hundreds of millions into his own campaign and kept the race close. California has lived under a Democratic supermajority in the state Legislature for more than a decade, giving one party veto-proof control over the budget and most major policy. The state’s registered voters stand at roughly 45% Democrat, 25% Republican, 23% no party preference, and 7% minor parties or other designations, according to a May 18 report from the California Secretary of State’s office. Notably, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approval ratings have hovered near or below 50% in recent polling, with many voters expressing frustration over the state’s direction on key issues. For this election cycle, Californians consistently rank the economy, cost of living, and housing affordability as their top concerns. While Fleischman says Hilton is unlikely to win in November, having a Republican at the top of the ticket still matters for down-ballot races. “A vibrant Hilton at the top of the ticket matters for passing voter ID. It matters for passing the Prop 13 ballot measure. It matters … for winning [outgoing state Rep. Darrell] Issa’s seat, and the [Rep. David] Valadao seat,” he said. “[If] you don’t have a Republican on the top of the ticket, you’re going to see a fall-off in Republican turnout.”