sexta-feira, 10 de abril de 2026
Israel Strikes Hezbollah as Lebanon Impasse Threatens Cease-Fire Israel said it would continue striking the Iran-backed militia. Iran said it would not attend peace talks with the United States in Pakistan if the truce was not extended to Lebanon.
Iran War
Live Updates: Israel Strikes Hezbollah as Lebanon Impasse Threatens Cease-Fire
Israel
said it would continue striking the Iran-backed militia. Iran said it would not
attend peace talks with the United States in Pakistan if the truce was not
extended to Lebanon.
Updated
April 10,
2026, 3:55 a.m. ET29 minutes ago
Francesca
Regalado Michael Crowley Anton Troianovski and Pranav Baskar
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/04/10/world/iran-war-trump-israel-lebanon
Here’s
the latest.
The
Israeli military said early Friday that it was striking Hezbollah targets in
Lebanon, the latest attacks in a campaign that is straining diplomacy three
days into a shaky cease-fire between the United States and Iran.
The
Israeli strikes against the Iran-backed militia have exposed divergences
between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump, who appears
eager to strike a deal with Iran to end the war. The Iranian foreign ministry
spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, said delegates from the country would not attend
peace talks in Pakistan scheduled to begin on Saturday if the cease-fire was
not extended to Lebanon.
On
Thursday, Mr. Trump said he had asked Mr. Netanyahu to scale back Israel’s
operations in Lebanon. The Israeli leader later said his country would start
talks with the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah. But, hours later, he
vowed to continue strikes on the group.
“There is
no cease-fire in Lebanon,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
Israeli
airstrikes have killed hundreds of people in Lebanon since the cease-fire took
effect, according to the Lebanese authorities. European leaders have urged
Israel to stop the attacks, warning that they threaten to derail efforts to end
the war. They have also demanded that Lebanon be included in the cease-fire.
But any
talks between Israel and Lebanon would face enormous hurdles, in part because
the Lebanese government has no direct control over Hezbollah, which has
resisted disarming. Mr. Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israeli operations will
not stop until Hezbollah is disarmed. A senior Hezbollah official dismissed the
possibility of talks between Israel and Lebanon, saying that the Lebanese
government did not speak for the group.
The
uncertainty over Lebanon cast a shadow over preparations for U.S.-Iran talks
that are scheduled to begin in Islamabad on Saturday. Vice President JD Vance
is expected to arrive in the Pakistani capital on Friday to lead the U.S.
delegation.
A key
priority for Mr. Vance will be ensuring the full reopening of the Strait of
Hormuz, a vital shipping passage for oil and gas that Iran has in effect
blockaded since the war started. While the cease-fire announcement led to a
drop in global oil prices, tankers have not restarted journeys through the
strait over fears of attacks.
Saeed
Khatibzadeh, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, said on Thursday that the strait
was open to everyone but that ships must coordinate with the Iranian military
because of “technical restrictions,” including mines.
Mr. Trump
expressed displeasure with the situation in the strait in a social media post
late Thursday.
“Iran is
doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go
through the Strait of Hormuz,” he wrote. “That is not the agreement we have!”
Here’s
what else we’re covering:
Global
economic outlook: The International Monetary Fund will downgrade its global
growth outlook because of the war, its managing director, Kristalina Georgieva,
said on Thursday. Even under the most optimistic outcome, she said, where the
temporary truce holds, there will be economic fallout because of
“infrastructure damage, supply disruptions, losses of confidence, and other
scarring effects.”
Death
tolls: The Human Rights Activists News Agency said at least 1,701 civilians,
including 254 children, had been killed in Iran as of Wednesday. Lebanon’s
health ministry on Monday said that more than 1,500 people had been killed in
the latest fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. In attacks blamed on Iran, at
least 32 people have been killed in Gulf nations. In Israel, at least 20 people
had been killed as of Monday. The American death toll stands at 13 service
members.
Melania says her piece about Epstein – doth the lady protest too much?
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Melania
says her piece about Epstein – doth the lady protest too much?
The first
lady unleashed a barrage of denials – and put one of her husband’s biggest
political liabilities back on the agenda
David
Smith
David
Smith in Washington
Thu 9 Apr
2026 23.17 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/09/melania-trump-epstein-lies
When
Donald Trump launched a seemingly random war against Iran, there was a whiff of
suspicion of a Wag the Dog ploy to divert attention from how badly the Jeffrey
Epstein scandal was going.
So when
Trump’s wife Melania made a mysterious appearance at the White House on
Thursday to put Epstein front and centre again, was it an elaborate ruse to
divert attention from how badly the Iran war is going?
Wearing a
grey pantsuit, the first lady emerged from the Blue Room and walked to a
lectern flanked by US flags in the grand foyer, surrounded by chandeliers,
marble pillars and shiny chequered floor.
As
cameras clicked away, Melania, full of cold fury, said in her now familiar
Slovenian accent: “The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein
need to end today.”
To which
America responded: “What lies? Maybe we read something somewhere a few months
ago but we have more pressing concerns right now.”
But
Melania had come to say her piece. “The individuals lying about me are devoid
of ethical standards, humility and respect. I do not object to their ignorance,
but rather I reject their mean-spirited attempts to defame my reputation.”
There was
then a small, nervy linguistic slip: “I never been friends with Epstein.”
Staring
down at her prepared remarks, the first lady acknowledged that she and Trump
went to the same parties as Epstein and moved in the same social circles but
she “never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice, [Ghislaine]
Maxwell”.
In an
apparent reference to a 2002 email to Maxwell, in which a woman called
“Melania” praised a profile of Epstein in New York magazine and signed off
“Love”, Melania insisted there had only been casual correspondence and that her
response was trivial.
“I am not
Epstein’s victim,” she went on. “Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump.
I met my husband by chance at a New York City party in 1998.”
But the
longer Melania went on, the more this sounded like a “the lady doth protest too
much” prebuttal of allegations that may be about to break in the media.
“Be
cautious about what you believe,” she urged, providing a long list of all
things she was not and all the things she had never done, from witnessing
Epstein’s crimes to being named in court documents to flying on his plane.
It was a
barrage of denials that one might have expected from former first lady Hillary
Clinton facing an ambush by Republican conspiracy theorists. But no one has
been storming the White House demanding that Melania own up to her secret role
in the Epstein class.
However,
somebody, somewhere, is stirring up trouble, she claimed. “The false smears
about me from mean-spirited and politically motivated individuals and entities
looking to cause damage to my good name to gain financially and climb
politically, must stop.”
Then came
a final twist as Melania urged Congress to give Epstein survivors a public
hearing to help uncover the truth. “Give these victims their opportunity to
testify under oath in front of Congress with the power of sworn testimony.”
Her plea
was immediately endorsed by Democrat Ro Khanna and Republicans Marjorie Taylor
Greene and Nancy Mace. A high-profile Capitol Hill hearing with Epstein
survivors reminding everyone how the Trump administration botched the release
of the files is the last thing that Trump or Republicans need.
Melania
turned on her heel and walked back to the Blue Room, ignoring shouted
questions, and the doors closed after her. What did it all mean? Jon Favreau, a
former speechwriter for Barack Obama, speculated on X: “Ok so who’s about to
break the Melania/Epstein story she just tried to get ahead of?”
But the
plot may be even thicker. Jacqueline Alemany, a reporter for the MS Now
network, tweeted that she called Trump who said he did not “know anything
about” Melania’s statement prior to her appearance. He may be less than pleased
that his wife just put one of his biggest political liabilities back on the
agenda a week after he fired Pam Bondi as attorney general.
What is
Melania’s game? Is she a secret member of the resistance after all, driven to
act now by Trump’s threat to wipe out Iranian civilisation and growing fears
that he is descending into madness? Is there a smoking gun in the Epstein files
that could yet bring him down? It would all make a great Amazon documentary.
