Headlines for May 12, 2026

Please support our independent journalism. Our war coverage isn’t funded by weapons manufacturers, our climate reporting isn’t paid for by oil companies, our stories on economic inequality aren’t sponsored by financial institutions. Instead, our independent journalism is funded by viewers and listeners like you.

Every dollar makes a difference

. Thank you so much!

Democracy Now!

Amy Goodman

President Trump said Monday the U.S. ceasefire with Iran is “on life support” after he rejected Iran’s proposal to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz as “stupid.”

President Donald Trump: “After reading that piece of garbage they sent us — I didn’t even finish reading it. I said, ‘Am I going to waste my time reading it?’ I would say it’s one of the weakest. Right now it’s on life support.”

Iranian officials said they were prepared to retaliate if attacked, warning the U.S. would be “surprised” by Iran’s response. 

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reports the United Arab Emirates secretly carried out military strikes on Iran, including an April attack on a refinery on Lavan Island in the Persian Gulf. The Journal reports the Trump administration quietly welcomed the participation of the UAE and any other Gulf states wanting to join in the fight. 

The head of the Saudi Aramco oil company warned Monday the global oil market will ​lose around 100 million barrels every week if disruptions ​to the Strait ​of Hormuz continue at ⁠the current ​rate. Amin Nasser also warned that global supplies of gasoline and jet fuel could reach “critically low levels” by summer unless Iran allows shipping lanes to reopen.

Here in the United States, Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley said Monday he’s introducing legislation that would suspend federal taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel. Gas is currently taxed at 18.4 cents per gallon, diesel at just over 24 cents. Hawley’s bill would suspend them entirely for 90 days, depriving the Treasury of billions of dollars of tax revenue. This comes after the Trump administration released a record 8.6 million barrels of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve last week in a bid to lower U.S. gas prices, which have soared to an average of more than $4.50 a gallon.

The Israeli military has issued new forced evacuation orders for residents of southern Lebanese towns and villages as it continues daily violations of the U.S.-brokered April ceasefire. On Monday, an Israeli airstrike killed six people in a house in southern Lebanon. Elsewhere, Israeli forces blew up a water pumping station on the Litani River. Meanwhile, the U.N. says Israeli forces are impeding peacekeepers with UNIFIL, blocking their movements with tanks and armored bulldozers. U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq said violent incidents have surged since Friday.

Farhan Haq: “During this period, peacekeepers observed more than 1,296 trajectories of projectiles attributed to the Israeli Defense Forces and 64 trajectories of projectiles attributed to Hezbollah. Incidents involving the denial of freedom of movement to UNIFIL peacekeepers continue to occur daily.”

In Gaza, Israeli forces have once again violated the U.S.-brokered ceasefire with deadly violence. The Palestinian Health Ministry reports Israeli troops stationed in eastern Gaza shot and killed two civilians on Monday. Elsewhere, medics retrieved the bodies of two Palestinians from central Gaza after they were hit by shrapnel from Israeli artillery fire. 

Meanwhile, a member of a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla has returned home after he was abducted by Israeli commandos in international waters and brought to Israel for interrogation. Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila said from São Paolo on Monday he and other prisoners suffered torture in Israeli custody. Ávila blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the abuses.

Thiago Ávila: “Yes, he committed another war crime, but what he did against us is nothing compared to what they do to Palestinians every single day. Once again, we always need to say this: It’s not about us individually; it’s about a people that has been suffering eight decades of genocide and ethnic cleansing.”

After headlines, we’ll speak with Saif Abukeshek, who was also abducted from the Global Sumud Flotilla by Israeli forces.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces fatally shot a 30-year-old Palestinian man Monday as they raided the Qalandiya refugee camp north of Jerusalem. He was shot in the head and later pronounced dead after Israeli forces barred ambulance crews from reaching his body. The killing came as Israeli forces stormed a vocational school opposite the camp and fired a barrage of tear gas, stun grenades and live ammunition. 

Separately, a Palestinian family in a village near Jenin says Israeli settlers forced them to exhume their 80-year-old relative and rebury his body in a different grave. Eighty-year-old Hussein Asasa died of natural causes last Friday. His son says he coordinated a burial with Israel’s military, yet settlers threatened to bulldoze his gravesite unless he agreed to move the body, claiming the cemetery was part of an Israeli settlement. Such settlements are illegal under international law. 

The European Union has agreed to impose sanctions on Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, after Hungary’s new government lifted its long-standing veto of the measures. The move comes shortly after Péter Magyar was sworn in as Hungary’s new prime minister, ending 16 years of Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian rule. Ten Hamas leaders were also sanctioned. The EU and the United Kingdom also announced separate sanctions targeting Russian officials and institutions accused of systematically deporting and indoctrinating Ukrainian children during the war. The sanctions cover Russian individuals responsible for forcibly transferring children from occupied Ukrainian territories.

Here in New York, protests erupted Monday outside a real estate expo that advertises properties for sale in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Intercept reports at least one table at the so-called Great Israeli Real Estate Event advertised land sales in Kfar Eldad, Karnei Shomron and other Israeli settlements considered illegal under international law. This is Shraddha Joshi of the Palestinian solidarity group PAL-Awda.

Shraddha Joshi: “In the buildings near us, they are selling Palestinian land illegally in an event that is in direct violation of New York housing law, New York real estate law and international law. This is Palestinian land that is being sold right here in our neighborhoods. … The properties that are being advertised in this land sale event exist in the occupied West Bank. That is direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which is in violation of international law. And we’re here to say that we have a stake in this as community members and that New Yorkers will be out here, and we will not be silenced.”

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for Alabama to eliminate one of its two majority-Black congressional districts ahead of November’s midterm elections. The move could hand Republicans an additional House seat. Alabama is one of several Republican-led states rushing to redraw maps and disenfranchise Black voters after the Supreme Court gutted a key Voting Rights Act provision last month.

Meanwhile, Virginia Democrats on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to restore a voter-approved congressional map struck down by Virginia’s high court last week. The new Virginia districts could help Democrats secure up to four seats in the House.

President Trump is set to arrive in China to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week for his first visit to the country since 2017. President Trump will be accompanied by corporate executives, including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Elon Musk of Tesla. Forbes reports the billionaires in President Trump’s entourage have a combined net worth of $870 billion. The summit is expected to focus on trade tariffs, the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, artificial intelligence, and U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. 

Senate Democrats have condemned a Republican plan to spend $1 billion in taxpayer funds on Trump’s ballroom in the East Wing of the White House. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Republicans of “asking working families to pay the price while Trump pockets the perks.”

Sen. Chuck Schumer: “At a time when Americans are struggling to put food on the table, Republicans say, ‘Let them eat cake,’ and demand American taxpayers build Trump a palace while they’re at it.”

This comes as soil excavated from the White House as part of the ballroom project and dumped at nearby East Potomac Park has tested positive for lead, chromium and other toxic metals, according to National Park Service data reported by The New York Times. And a lawsuit filed by the Cultural Landscape Foundation seeks to halt Trump’s makeover of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, for which repairs have ballooned from a promised $1.8 million to $13.1 million after the Interior Department added $6.2 million to a no-bid contract last week.

Meanwhile, in Miami, a 15-foot gold-leaf bronze statue of President Trump dubbed “Don Colossus” was installed at Trump’s Doral Miami golf course, commissioned by a cryptocurrency group and dedicated by Trump ally Pastor Mark Burns. On social media, Pastor Burns wrote, “Let me say this plainly: this is not a golden calf.”

Haiti’s prime minister said Monday his country is too unstable to hold presidential elections as scheduled in August, which would be Haiti’s first election in nearly 10 years. Haiti has had no nationally elected officials since January 2023, and its parliament has been inactive since 2019. More than 1.4 million people have been displaced by gang violence, while key roads linking the capital to the provinces remain unsafe or blocked. Doctors Without Borders has suspended hospital operations due to gunfire safety concerns. 

In the Philippines, a senator who once presided over former President Rodrigo Duterte’s violent drug war fled federal agents on Monday as they attempted to serve him an international arrest warrant outside the Philippine Senate. Surveillance cameras caught the dramatic scene as 64-year-old Senator Ronald dela Rosa dashed up stairs and raced along hallways before arriving at the Senate chamber, where the officers have no power to arrest him. He slept at the Senate office overnight and has since refused to leave, vowing to fight extradition to The Hague to face charges at the International Criminal Court. Dela Rosa served as police chief under Duterte between 2016 and 2018, when thousands of alleged drug dealers were shot and killed. A spokesperson for the ICC laid out the charges against him on Monday.

Oriane Maillet: “The judges assessed the material submitted by the prosecution and found reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. dela Rosa is allegedly criminally responsible as an indirect co-perpetrator for the crime against humanity of murder.”

Meanwhile, the Philippine House of Representatives voted Monday to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte over bribery and corruption charges. She’s the daughter of ex-President Rodrigo Duterte, who’s jailed at The Hague awaiting trial at the ICC for alleged crimes against humanity. It’s the second time Sara Duterte has been impeached, but she appears unlikely to be removed from office, after her allies on Monday took control of the Senate.