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.