The stalled diplomacy and recent exchanges of fire could tip the Middle East back into open warfare and prolong the worldwide energy crisis sparked by the conflict, with Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz and America’s blockade of Iranian ports still in place.

There are usually 80,000 to 100,000 troops on the continent, with more than 36,000 in Germany. The Pentagon announced that it would remove 5,000 troops, and Trump said the next day that he would go “a lot further” than that.

The hearing before the House Armed Services Committee was focused on the administration’s 2027 military budget proposal, which would boost defense spending to a historic $1.5 trillion.

A federal judge has tossed out a lawsuit brought by Illinois and Chicago officials that sought to bar the Trump administration’s plans to deploy National Guard troops into the state.

Eight months after President Donald Trump declared a crime emergency in the nation’s capital and called up the National Guard, more than 2,500 troops remain, in a deployment that has grown increasingly routine, with no clear end in sight.

U.S. President Donald Trump said late Tuesday he’s pulling back on his threats to attack Iranian bridges, power plants and other civilian targets, subject to Iran agreeing to a two-week ceasefire and reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran on Monday rejected the latest ceasefire proposal and instead said it wants a permanent end to the war, even as U.S. President Donald Trump’s ultimatum loomed for progress to avoid a major escalation in attacks against power plants and bridges.

Inside the Department of Behavioral Sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago, a dedicated team of researchers is working to solve decades-old mysteries by locating and identifying the remains of missing American service members who never made it home from war.

Iranian authorities say more than 200 people have been killed since the start of the strikes that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior leaders. The U.S. military said three service members have been killed, the first known American casualties from the conflict.

In all, President Donald Trump’s decision to send federalized National Guard troops to six American cities cost approximately $496 million through the end of December, according to the report.

Seemingly contradictory statements from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have suggested at once that the U.S. now controls the levers of Venezuelan power or that the U.S. has no intention of assuming day-to-day governance and will allow Maduro’s subordinates to remain in leadership positions for now.

Administration officials say Maduro’s capture was a law enforcement action that merely used military resources and therefore did not require congressional approval, referencing a drug trafficking indictment issued by the Department of Justice in March.

The United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and flew him out of the country in an extraordinary nighttime operation that was accompanied by a flurry of strikes.

Trump said in a social media post Wednesday that he’s removing the Guard troops for now. “We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again - Only a question of time!” he wrote.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to allow the Trump administration to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area to support its immigration crackdown.

Top military officials faced questioning over the deployments for the first time at the hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. They were pressed by Democrats over the legality of sending in troops, which in some places were done over the objections of mayors and governors.