In a CBS phone interview Monday, Trump said he wants to drop the federal gas tax — a 18.4-cent levy per gallon of petrol and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel collected by Washington. The plan would require Congress, which has refused similar suspensions in the past. Pump prices hit $4.52/gallon Sunday, up over 50% since the war started on February 28.

A Brown University tracker comparing real prices to a “no-war” scenario calculates American consumers have absorbed $37 billion in extra fuel costs since February 28 — about $284 per household. Diesel, used by farmers, truckers and railroads, sits 18 cents below its 2022 all-time high.

The Treasury Department sanctioned 12 companies and individuals Monday for moving Iranian crude to China on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran’s elite military branch. The action lands days before Trump meets Xi Jinping in Beijing. US intelligence reported last month that China was preparing to ship new air defense systems to Iran.

The Strait of Hormuz — a sea passage between Iran and Oman just 34 kilometres wide at its narrowest — normally carries 20 million barrels of oil a day, roughly 20% of global seaborne crude. Iran shut it on February 28 in retaliation for US-Israeli airstrikes. According to one report, Iran has lost track of mines it planted there and is therefore unable to fully reopen the strait even if it wanted to.

An Iranian official says the country has suffered $270 billion in direct and indirect damage from US-Israeli strikes. Iran has raised the issue of compensation with mediators, including from Gulf states. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian says reparations are “the only way” to end the conflict. The US has not responded.

The Defense Department put the US military toll at 13 dead and 415 wounded since February 28. On CBS’s “60 Minutes,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the war “isn’t over” because enriched uranium, enrichment sites and ballistic-missile production capacity remain intact in Iran.

Iranian rights activist Narges Mohammadi, 53, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 while in prison, has been moved to a Tehran hospital after collapsing twice at Zanjan prison. She had a heart attack in March and has a blood clot in her lung. Her foundation says 18 years remain on her sentence. She has been arrested 13 times across her career.

Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed the bill late Monday by a vote of 93 to 0, with 27 lawmakers absent or abstaining. The law creates a special military tribunal in Jerusalem to try Palestinians accused of involvement in the October 7, 2023 attacks. Key moments — opening hearings, verdict and sentencing — will be filmed and streamed on a dedicated website.

Under the new law, judges may admit testimony obtained through coercive interrogation and may deviate from standard rules on evidence, detention and procedure. Rights groups call the framework a “show trial” risk. Co-sponsored by Simcha Rothman (far-right Religious Zionism) and Yulia Malinovsky (Yisrael Beytenu), backed by Justice Minister Yariv Levin. A March 2026 companion law already makes hanging the default sentence for Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis.

Israeli strikes on Lebanon killed dozens, including an infant and two medics, in violation of the existing ceasefire deal. Israeli forces also killed three Palestinians in fresh breaches of the Gaza ceasefire. Two activists abducted from a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla were deported by Israel.

Péter Magyar, 45, leader of the centre-right Tisza party, was sworn in as Hungary’s prime minister on Saturday May 9 — Europe Day. Tisza won 141 of 199 seats in last month’s election, the largest post-Communist victory in Hungarian history. The parliamentary session was held a Saturday — a first in Hungarian history. Magyar was largely unknown until early 2024.

The new parliamentary speaker, Agnes Forsthoffer, ordered the European Union flag raised on the Hungarian parliament building Saturday afternoon — the first time it has flown there since Orbán’s government removed it in 2014. Magyar’s first goal is unlocking €17 billion ($20 billion) in EU funds frozen during Orbán’s tenure over rule-of-law concerns.

Reform UK, the far-right party led by Nigel Farage, made historic gains in last week’s local elections, picking up councils Labour had held for decades. Calls are now growing for Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer to resign. Reform’s surge marks the strongest right-wing breakthrough in British local politics in a generation.

German defense startup Helsing closed a $1.2 billion strategic round to scale up production of autonomous military drones — aircraft that fly missions without a human pilot. The deal lands as European militaries race to rebuild stockpiles. Same day: MatX raised $500 million Series B to build AI accelerator chips, and Cowboy Space raised $275 million for orbital solar power infrastructure.

Panthalassa, a Portland-area startup, raised a $140 million Series B led by Peter Thiel to build floating ocean buoys that combine wave-energy generators with onboard AI computing. The platforms — dubbed “ocean data centers” — convert wave energy into electricity that powers AI servers without external grid infrastructure. Doerr, Benioff and Levchin joined the round.

Config, a Korean-US startup, raised a $27 million seed round oversubscribed by Samsung Venture Investment, Hyundai’s ZER01NE Ventures, LG Technology Ventures and SK Telecom’s VC arm. Its pitch: become the neutral data supplier (“the TSMC of robot data”) training the next-generation robot AI models. TSMC is the Taiwanese company that fabricates chips for everyone — neutral by design.

CoreWeave, a cloud company renting out Nvidia GPUs (specialized chips needed to train AI models), now sits on a $99.4 billion order backlog at the end of Q1 2026 — up from $66.8 billion at end-2025 and quadrupled year-on-year. New contracts with OpenAI and Meta are diluting its dependence on Microsoft. Stock has nearly tripled from its $40 IPO price.

The 79th Cannes Film Festival opens tonight on the French Riviera and runs through May 23. Demi Moore, Heidi Klum and the rest of the jury landed in Nice on Monday. Park Chan-wook, the South Korean director of “Oldboy,” serves as jury president. Other jurors: Stellan Skarsgård, Ruth Negga, Isaach De Bankolé. Moore’s “The Substance” premiered here in 2024.

Hannah Harper, a 25-year-old country singer and mother of three from Missouri, won the 24th season of ABC’s “American Idol” Monday night. The three-hour finale featured judges Carrie Underwood, Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan. Harper sang “At The Cross” as her coronation song. Runner-up: Jordan McCullough. Keyla Richardson finished third.

Scott Probst, younger brother of long-time “Survivor” host Jeff Probst, has died at 58. The news was announced Monday by their brother Brent on Instagram. Scott worked behind the camera on “Survivor” from 2006 to 2012 as art and camera assistant. He also produced video games including “Medal of Honor: European Assault” (2005). Cause of death not disclosed. Their mother Barb died in November 2024.

Likit Maekayai, who grows pineapples destined for American pizza toppings, can no longer afford chemical fertilizer. Urea — the white pellets that make plants grow faster — comes from Middle Eastern natural gas, shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. Prices are up 50% since the war started. He’s replaced it with chicken droppings. “They don’t come close,” he says. He’s already abandoned 15 of his 80 acres.

The Strait of Hormuz — a narrow sea passage between Iran and Oman — is how Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran ship most of the world’s traded fertilizer. Since the war began, it’s been heavily restricted. 30% of global urea supplies are now disrupted. If shipping isn’t restored before India and Brazil begin major fertilizer purchases in June, crop losses will ripple across the planet.

In the Philippines, diesel — used to power every tractor, irrigation pump and delivery truck — has hit 123 pesos per liter ($8.73/gallon), more than double the prewar level. One farmer in Lian says equipment rental costs rose 25%, cutting his profits in half. Nitrogen fertilizer is up 40% on top of that.

Máximo Torero, chief economist at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (the international body that monitors global hunger), warns that farmers deciding now whether to plant less will shape food supply a full year from now. “Each response reduces the food supply. The problem is that every one of them makes next year worse.”

The Thai-flagged cargo ship Mayuree Naree was struck by Iranian missiles in the Strait of Hormuz on March 11. After that, shipping companies halted all cargo operations into Gulf markets. The Middle East was buying 17% of Thailand’s rice exports in 2025 — Iraq was the single biggest customer. That market has now effectively closed.

Several cargo ships remain stuck in the Strait of Hormuz — the sailors on board are running low on supplies and cannot leave. The strait is still controlled by Iranian military forces, who are preventing commercial shipping from passing freely.

At 11:19 p.m. Friday, a man scaled the perimeter fence at Denver International Airport — one of the largest airports in the world, with 36 miles of fencing — and walked onto an active runway. Two minutes later, Frontier Airlines Flight 4345, an Airbus A321 carrying 224 passengers and heading to Los Angeles, struck him during takeoff at roughly 146 mph. He was at least partially consumed by the right engine, which then caught fire. Smoke filled the cabin. All 231 people on board were evacuated via emergency slides.

Audio from air traffic control captured the pilot reporting the collision, then declaring: “Smoke in the aircraft. We are going to evacuate on the runway.” The tower responded: “Rolling the trucks now.” 12 passengers reported minor injuries. 5 were taken to hospitals. The man’s identity has not been released. He is not believed to have been an airport employee.

Leo Schilperoord, 70, a Dutch ornithologist (a scientist who studies birds), has been identified as the first person infected in the cruise ship hantavirus outbreak. He and his wife Mirjam, 69, were birdwatchers who had traveled through Argentina, Chile and Uruguay before boarding the MV Hondius on April 1. Investigators believe they were exposed at a landfill near Ushuaia — the southernmost city in the world — where they went looking for a rare bird species called Darwin’s Caracara. The landfill is heavily contaminated with rodents carrying the Andes strain of hantavirus. Both Leo and Mirjam have since died.

The MV Hondius — a Dutch polar expedition cruise ship — docked in Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain) this morning, Sunday May 10, at 5:30 a.m. It had been unable to evacuate for days: the Cape Verde islands couldn’t handle the operation. On board: 147 people and one dead body. The outbreak has spread to 6 countries, including confirmed or suspected cases in South Africa, Switzerland, Netherlands, Spain, France — and potentially the US, UK and Canada.

Most hantavirus strains only pass from rodents to humans — not between people. The Andes virus, the strain in this outbreak, is the single known exception. It can spread through close contact: kissing, sharing utensils, or handling infected bedding. The CDC says 38% of patients who develop respiratory symptoms may die. The virus incubates silently for up to 42 days.

Every year since 2008, Russia’s Victory Day parade — the country’s most important national holiday, marking the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 — has featured columns of tanks, armored vehicles, and nuclear missiles rolling through Red Square in Moscow. On Saturday, for the first time, there were none. Russia’s Defense Ministry cited “the current operational situation.” The real reason: Ukraine’s long-range drones, which have become accurate enough to potentially hit a missile launcher on display in central Moscow. Instead, screens showed pre-recorded footage of weapons. The parade lasted 45 minutes — shorter than usual.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, whose country has been at war with Russia since 2022, said with sarcasm that he would “permit the holding of a parade” — adding that Red Square was “less important to us than the lives of Ukrainian prisoners who can be brought home.” A US-brokered ceasefire, running from May 9 to 11, allowed the event. Russia and Ukraine agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners each as part of the deal.

A Washington think tank called CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies) calculated that Russia’s offensive toward the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk advanced at an average of 70 meters per day between February 2024 and January 2026. For comparison: the Battle of the Somme in WWI — one of history’s bloodiest and most costly offensives — moved faster. Russia has lost an estimated 352,000 soldiers killed since February 2022.

For the first time in history, soldiers from North Korea marched in Russia’s Victory Day parade. North Korea sent troops to fight alongside Russian forces in the Kursk region of Russia — where Ukraine had launched a surprise incursion. Their presence at the parade was a formal acknowledgment of an alliance that Moscow had long denied.

The UK uses a “first past the post” electoral system: whoever gets the most votes in each local district wins, even with 25% of the vote. That works fine when two parties dominate. Right now, five parties are competitive: Labour, Conservatives, Reform UK (a new far-right party), Liberal Democrats, and the Greens. Local elections held last week showed Reform winning councils Labour had held for decades. Constitutional experts warn the system may produce increasingly unrepresentative parliaments.

Greg Brockman, a co-founder of OpenAI (the company that makes ChatGPT), kept a personal diary during the early years of the company. That diary has surfaced as evidence in the lawsuit that Elon Musk filed against OpenAI, claiming the company betrayed its original non-profit mission. The diary apparently contains candid entries about the relationship between Musk and OpenAI’s leadership — entries Brockman never expected to become public.

Trump Media & Technology Group — the company that owns Truth Social, Donald Trump’s social network — has posted a $405 million loss, driven primarily by bad cryptocurrency investments. The company’s stock had already been volatile. Critics note that Truth Social itself generates minimal advertising revenue, making crypto bets its main financial activity.