The Brief

California’s Office of Health Care Affordability faces a herculean task in its plan to slow runaway health care spending.

The goal of the agency, established in 2022, is to make care more affordable and accessible while improving health outcomes, especially for the most disadvantaged state residents. That will require a sustained wrestling match with a sprawling, often dysfunctional health system and powerful industry players who have lots of experience fighting one another and the state.

Can the new agency get insurers, hospitals, and medical groups to collaborate on containing costs even as they jockey for position in the state’s $405 billion health care economy? Can the system be transformed so that financial rewards are tied more to providing quality care than to charging, often exorbitantly, for a seemingly limitless number of services and procedures?

The jury is out, and it could be for many years.

California is the ninth state — after Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington — to set annual health spending targets.

Massachusetts, which started annual spending targets in 2013, was the first state to do so. It’s the only one old enough to have a substantial pre-pandemic track record, and its results are mixed: The annual health spending increases were below the target in three of the first five years and dropped beneath the national average. But more recently, health spending has greatly increased.

In 2022, growth in health care expenditures exceeded Massachusetts’ target by a wide margin. The Health Policy Commission, the state agency established to oversee the spending control efforts, warned that “there are many alarming trends which, if unaddressed, will result in a health care system that is unaffordable.”

Neighboring Rhode Island, despite a preexisting policy of limiting hospital price increases, exceeded its overall health care spending growth target in 2019, the year it took effect. In 2020 and 2021, spending was largely skewed by the pandemic. In 2022, the spending increase came in at half the state’s target rate. Connecticut and Delaware, by contrast, both overshot their 2022 targets.

It’s all a work in progress, and California’s agency will, to some extent, be playing it by ear in the face of state policies and demographic realities that require more spending on health care.

And it will inevitably face pushback from the industry as it confronts unreasonably high prices, unnecessary medical treatments, overuse of high-cost care, administrative waste, and the inflationary concentration of a growing number of hospitals in a small number of hands.

“If you’re telling an industry we need to slow down spending growth, you’re telling them we need to slow down your revenue growth,” says Michael Bailit, president of Bailit Health, a Massachusetts-based consulting group, who has consulted for various states, including California. “And maybe that’s going to be heard as ‘we have to restrain your margins.’ These are very difficult conversations.”

Some of California’s most significant health care sectors have voiced disagreement with the fledgling affordability agency, even as they avoid overtly opposing its goals.

In April, when the affordability office was considering an annual per capita spending growth target of 3%, the California Hospital Association sent it a letter saying hospitals “stand ready to work with” the agency. But the proposed number was far too low, the association argued, because it failed to account for California’s aging population, new investments in Medi-Cal, and other cost pressures.

The hospital group suggested a spending increase target averaging 5.3% over five years, 2025-29. That’s slightly higher than the 5.2% average annual increase in per capita health spending over the five years from 2015 to 2020.

Five days after the hospital association sent its letter, the affordability board approved a slightly less aggressive target that starts at 3.5% in 2025 and drops to 3% by 2029. Carmela Coyle, the association’s chief executive, said in a statement that the board’s decision still failed to account for an aging population, the growing need for mental health and addiction treatment, and a labor shortage.

The California Medical Association, which represents the state’s doctors, expressed similar concerns. The new phased-in target, it said, was “less unreasonable” than the original plan, but the group would “continue to advocate against an artificially low spending target that will have real-life negative impacts on patient access and quality of care.”

But let’s give the state some credit here. The mission on which it is embarking is very ambitious, and it’s hard to argue with the motivation behind it: to interject some financial reason and provide relief for millions of Californians who forgo needed medical care or nix other important household expenses to afford it.

Sushmita Morris, a 38-year-old Pasadena resident, was shocked by a bill she received for an outpatient procedure last July at the University of Southern California’s Keck Hospital, following a miscarriage. The procedure lasted all of 30 minutes, Morris says, and when she received a bill from the doctor for slightly over $700, she paid it. But then a bill from the hospital arrived, totaling nearly $9,000, and her share was over $4,600.

Morris called the Keck billing office multiple times asking for an itemization of the charges but got nowhere. “I got a robotic answer, ‘You have a high-deductible plan,’” she says. “But I should still receive a bill within reason for what was done.” She has refused to pay that bill and expects to hear soon from a collection agency.

The road to more affordable health care will be long and chock-full of big challenges and unforeseen events that could alter the landscape and require considerable flexibility.

Some flexibility is built in. For one thing, the state cap on spending increases may not apply to health care institutions, industry segments, or geographic regions that can show their circumstances justify higher spending — for example, older, sicker patients or sharp increases in the cost of labor.

For those that exceed the limit without such justification, the first step will be a performance improvement plan. If that doesn’t work, at some point — yet to be determined — the affordability office can levy financial penalties up to the full amount by which an organization exceeds the target. But that is unlikely to happen until at least 2030, given the time lag of data collection, followed by conversations with those who exceed the target, and potential improvement plans.

In California, officials, consumer advocates, and health care experts say engagement among all the players, informed by robust and institution-specific data on cost trends, will yield greater transparency and, ultimately, accountability.

Richard Kronick, a public health professor at the University of California-San Diego and a member of the affordability board, notes there is scant public data about cost trends at specific health care institutions. However, “we will know that in the future,” he says, “and I think that knowing it and having that information in the public will put some pressure on those organizations.”

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

For single Angelenos, dating in L.A. can feel a little like going to a Dodgers game by yourself. Despite being surrounded by people in every direction, somehow, you’re still completely alone.

Enter Drafted, a three-year-old singles event series built around a simple truth: plenty of Angelenos who love sports are also looking for love. Drafted brings them together for a low-stakes, enjoyable experience where you can have a few drinks among fellow singles, take in a Dodgers game and potentially meet your soulmate — all in the span of a few hours.

While each Drafted event looks slightly different — including yacht and Halloween parties, as well as events around LAFC and Galaxy games — they all involve the same basic principles: single men and women (as close to a 50/50 ratio as possible) buy tickets to share space while enjoying a sporting event, with icebreaker games and drinks flowing. 

For Dodgers home games, Drafted events include three connected parts: a pregame party at a bar, the Dodgers game itself, and Drafted After Dark, a postgame party at a bar or club open to anyone, regardless of attendance at earlier events. 

The name Drafted is a play on professional sports drafts, in which teams select newcomers for their rosters, and its tongue-in-cheek marketing features sports-inspired copy. Its website urges Angelenos that “it’s time to get drafted,” and encourages them to “stop being a free agent” by getting off the apps “and into the singles section.” For those tired of striking out online, it offers a fun way to potentially meet the love of their life.

Part one: Meet-cute

Singles from a Drafted Dodgers event, pose for a selfie at Dodger Stadium.

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Any fan of baseball movies is familiar with the sport’s ability to generate life metaphors, and they can easily be adapted to the pursuit of romance: You can’t meet somebody if you don’t step up to the plate; you gotta see a lot of bad pitches to know which to swing at; and sometimes you’re going to strike out no matter how hard you swing. To paraphrase A League of Their Own, while there’s no crying in baseball, there is sometimes crying in dating.

Drafted’s creation in 2024 was personal for founder Jillian Pfeiffer, an avid Dodgers fan who had spent more than a decade unsuccessfully searching for a partner via dating apps. Pfeiffer told The LA Local that apps make dating, “feel very superficial, very shallow” because hopefuls are “judging based off of a few pictures and a few key facts.” 

Then she had an epiphany while attending a game: she was surrounded by thousands of men, but she had no way of knowing which ones were actually single. What if she could fix that?

Pfeiffer leveraged her experience as a business consultant and created Drafted in April 2024.

“[Drafted clients] are looking for real relationships,” Pfeiffer explained. “This isn’t just casual dating.”

Pfeiffer herself is living proof that it works. She met her fiancé, Alex Martinez at one of the first Drafted events. 

“One night changed everything for me,” Martinez told The LA Local. He is Pfeiffer’s right-hand man in more ways than one. In addition to being her fiancé, he helps with the events, playing affable host, introducing nervous singles to one another and keeping the good times moving. 

Pfeiffer rattled off other Drafted successes with ease: “We have a couple who had a baby. They’re the sweetest family. We have another engaged couple, and several couples who have moved in together, live together and are planning a future together.” 

Pfeiffer said they have a waitlist of more than 200 women for every stadium game. She also joked that since she started Drafted two baseball seasons ago, the Dodgers have won the World Series twice.

To get an inside look at a Drafted event, The LA Local went to Opening Day weekend at Dodger Stadium, for a matchup between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks — and a bit of matchmaking for 100 L.A. singles. 

Part two: The prospects

Fans in the unofficial singles section during a Drafted Dodgers event at Dodger Stadium.

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The event began with a three-hour pregame party at Audio Graph Beer Co. in downtown Los Angeles.

By the time the DJ was blasting reggaeton and hip-hop and the icebreaker games were underway, the room had the unique energy of a place where everyone wants something — and nobody quite wants to admit it.

Everyone’s headshot is mounted on a board for participants to check out their prospects. There is bass thumping from speakers and there’s a scavenger hunt energy underway. 

Several attendees walked around wielding Drafted bingo cards, which nudged singles to start conversations with prompts and dares, such as finding someone wearing a specific Dodgers jersey or offering fries to a stranger.

As Drafted founder Pfeiffer explained, the games exist “just to force people to make conversation with one another so it doesn’t feel like a sixth-grade dance where men are on one side and women on the other.”

Between the $30 pre-party, the $100-plus Dodgers ticket, parking and other drinks and meals, attendees spent around $200 for the whole experience.

Many at the March event told The LA Local it was the first singles event they had ever attended, and all expressed similar dismay with the state of dating in 2026. 

For 26-year-old Javier Muñoz, one of the younger attendees who had been single for over two years, the appeal was simple: He would “love to be cuffed up.” 

A couple of hours into the pregame festivities, he believed he’d made the right call. “So far, I give it a 10 out of 10,” he said. “The host, everyone’s been pretty nice, pretty cool. It’s outdoors, they got food, got drinks, got games. Overall, I recommend it.”

Katie, 35, another Drafted first-timer, decided to come out because “the apps are boring and kind of outdated. I miss meeting people at bars.” 

“It’s rough in these streets,” she joked. 

Katie must have been especially motivated considering she’s a lifelong Phillies fan — not that she’d let someone’s love of the Dodgers get in the way of a genuine connection. “I mean, I love a little conflict,” she explained. “We can duke it out (in) the playoffs.”

Itzel, 30, said she was seeking “a genuine connection” above all. She added that the vibe of the night really stood out to her. “The community here, the people are just, like, so inviting.”

She described online dating as “a big negative” and said most people on the apps seemed to be there “to kill time.”

Raquel, who describes herself as “30-ish” and looking for a long-term commitment — including a husband — blamed the apps for creating too many options and too little seriousness. 

“Nobody really wants to commit,” she said.

Katie, Itzel and Raquel declined to give a full name for privacy reasons. 

Raquel said she’s tried to meet men through hobbies like walking clubs, running clubs and ceramics classes but hadn’t had much luck. What was she hoping to find at the Drafted event? “Shared values, honesty, loyalty and humor — the old-fashioned stuff.”

Once everyone’s courage was suitably liquefied, the group of 100-plus headed to Dodger Stadium. 

Part Three: Game time

Singles from a Drafted Dodgers event, pose for a selfie at Dodger Stadium.

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The singles gathered in the Pavilion section in the outfield — what Drafted calls “The Singles Section” — several rows of bleachers that make it easy to swap seats and sidle up to someone you’ve got your eye on. 

As the game wore on and the drinks kept flowing, most attendees seemed to give into the laid-back atmosphere. After all, even the shyest in the group would be hard-pressed to have a bad time watching back-to-back world champions under the night sky.

While none of the people we chatted with appeared to be making specific progress with any fellow prospects, flirtatious vibes and light conversation filled the singles section. Luckily for the romantic hopefuls, the night still had plenty of hours left to come.

In the bottom of the eighth inning, the Dodgers were down 2-1 when catcher Will Smith — who hit a decisive 11th-inning home run in the 2025 World Series — stepped to the plate. 

Over 400 feet away in the outfield section, more than 100 single Angelenos in their 30s and 40s watched with bated breath. Smith rewarded their hope by rocketing a two-run home run to center field, delivering a Dodgers win and a metaphor as clear as the Echo Park night sky: As long as they stepped up to the plate, they were never out of the game.

It was just the shot of confidence the Drafted hopefuls needed as they prepared for the event’s final chapter, Drafted After Dark, set to go down at Los Globos dance club in Echo Park. As they shuffled to the exits, the excitement was palpable. In life, as in baseball, who doesn’t love extra innings? 

At the after-hours party, we did spot some people making connections, by which we mean, of course, making out. We won’t name names — mostly because it was hard to see in the dim lights of the Los Globos dance floor — out of respect for people’s privacy. 

But let’s just say that at Drafted After Dark, anything can happen — including meeting the love of your life in real life, no swiping required.

Singles from a Drafted Dodgers event, dance at an after party in Echo Park.

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After the 2022 midterm election, a gap appeared to be shrinking on U.S. college campuses.

The turnout rate for student voters at community colleges was catching up with the rate at public four-year institutions, data suggested. What was a gap of 9 percentage points for the 2020 election had shrunk to just 3 in 2022.

"This told us that we needed to be doing more to support community colleges in their efforts to engage their students," says Clarissa Unger, executive director of the Students Learn Students Vote Coalition, a nonpartisan network focused on boosting civic engagement on campuses.

"We would love to be able to see the 2024 data to see if those extra efforts to support community colleges did help [fully] close that gap," Unger adds.

But that data is now on ice.

In March, researchers at Tufts University announced that they've halted releasing statistics from the go-to source of school-level data on student voter registration and turnout — the National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement. And the key source of student information needed to produce NSLVE reports, the National Student Clearinghouse, pulled out of working on the study going forward, after a more than decade-long partnership.

It's all part of the fallout from an extraordinary investigation into the study by the Trump administration's Education Department.

In a press release touting it as a move to "protect" the integrity of U.S. elections, Trump officials said they launched the probe in February to look into unspecified "reports" that NSLVE is in violation of a federal student data privacy law.

Many privacy experts, however, are skeptical of the accusations, which echo claims first raised by right-wing election activists.

Both Tufts University and the National Student Clearinghouse maintain they have not violated the privacy law. A Tufts statement emphasizes that NSLVE, which started in 2013, is a nonpartisan study "that seeks to understand whether students vote, not who they vote for."

Still, school administrators and other student voting advocates tell NPR they're already feeling the impact of the Trump administration's investigation in a midterm election year. The loss of data from new NSLVE reports has left the over 1,000 colleges and universities that participate in the study in the dark, as they try to figure out how to increase turnout among the voting-age cohort that is least likely to cast ballots in the United States.

A focus of right-wing election activists became an Education Department probe

So far, the Education Department has not identified the source of what it described as "multiple reports alleging that the process of compiling NSLVE data involves illegally sharing college students' data with third parties to influence elections."

The department's press office declined to comment to NPR.

But Cleta Mitchell — a Republican election lawyer who took part in President Donald Trump's failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election — revealed a backstory during an online meeting of right-wing election activists in March.

In 2023, a fellow activist named Heather Honey, Mitchell explained, posted online a document she wrote about NSLVE. It claims that colleges and universities appear to violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act when they give the National Student Clearinghouse permission to share their student enrollment records for the study. The document also raises suspicion about Catalist, a Democratic-aligned data firm that was once involved with the study. The firm compiles public voter records from states and previously gave them to the clearinghouse to match with student information.

Tufts has maintained that its study is designed to comply with the privacy law.

Last year, Honey was appointed as the deputy assistant secretary for elections integrity at the Department of Homeland Security.

Heather Honey leaves the federal courthouse in Harrisburg, Pa., in 2024. The right-wing election activist wrote a document criticizing the National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement before she was appointed deputy assistant secretary for elections integrity at the Department of Homeland Security.

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"One of the things that she did was send over her report and a proposal to the Department of Education — to Linda McMahon, the secretary of education — to say, 'You've got to stop this,' " Mitchell said in a recording of the meeting uploaded by a group called Pure Integrity Michigan Elections.

Mitchell went on to describe the National Student Clearinghouse's decision to stop its work on NSLVE as "100% the result of the work" of Honey and activists in Michigan.

"And so that's a real victory lap and one that I think we ought to celebrate," Mitchell added.

Mitchell and Catalist did not respond to NPR's inquiries. Honey referred questions to DHS' public affairs office, which said in an unsigned statement to NPR: "Heather Honey has not had involvement with the Department of Education's investigation. Her 2023 report is PUBLIC."

Brendan Fischer, who tracks the far-right election activist movement, sees Mitchell's comments as the latest connection between the activists and the Trump administration.

"This really shows the power and influence that a network of election conspiracy theorists are having over government policy and over the way that elections are run and civic participation is studied," says Fischer, the director of strategic investigations at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan voting rights group.

Since the 2020 election, Mitchell and other activists have built a grassroots network that's often attacked efforts to encourage voting among populations that they perceive support the Democratic Party. During the March meeting of Michigan activists, Mitchell criticized efforts to boost student participation in elections as attempts to "really gin up the Democratic turnout on college campuses."

On the same day as Mitchell's comments, another opponent of NSLVE publicly hailed the end of the National Student Clearinghouse's involvement with the study — the America First Policy Institute, a right-wing think tank set up by former members of the first Trump administration, including McMahon, the current education secretary.

"AFPI is encouraged that students are finally being protected," said Anna Pingel, a campaign director at the think tank, in a statement that called the development "an important step toward ensuring that sensitive student data is not exploited for political purposes." The statement also said that AFPI sent a letter to the Education Department earlier this year with concerns about NSLVE and potential violations of student data privacy protections.

Fischer at the Campaign Legal Center — whose attorneys have filed multiple lawsuits against the Trump administration — points out that Trump officials are investigating NSLVE at the same time the administration faces multiple legal challenges to its murky handling of people's data, including state voter registration, Social Security and IRS records.

"There is a certain irony in the Trump administration repeatedly violating privacy laws and then turning around and shutting down this program studying college student participation in democracy, by arguing that it may have violated federal privacy law," Fischer says.

Colleges face tough decisions about whether and how to promote student voting

The Education Department in February sent a guidance letter to colleges and universities that advises school administrators to hold off on using "any NSLVE report or data this year" until the department's investigation is complete. The letter mentions the "number of enforcement options" the department could use against schools that are found to violate privacy law, including withholding or clawing back federal funding.

Amanda Fuchs Miller, who served as deputy assistant secretary for higher education programs at the Education Department during the Biden administration, sees the move as a "scare tactic."

"It's very unusual to send out a letter like that when there are no findings and nobody is found to have done anything wrong," Miller says. "A lot of these schools are small schools, community colleges, under-resourced institutions that may not have a general counsel's office to figure out what this means. And if they get this letter and they think it's putting them at risk, their Title IV funds at risk, their federal financial aid for students at risk, this [study] would be the first to go, which would be an understandable immediate reaction if you don't know what it really means."

Jackson State University students sign up to vote in Jackson, Miss., on National Voter Registration Day in 2023.

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Before the current Trump administration, the department has historically kept its data privacy investigations off the public's radar to try to encourage schools to more quickly correct any violations, explains Amelia Vance, a student data privacy expert who leads the Public Interest Privacy Center.

"It's really unusual to have these investigations talked about, announced, confirmed across the board," Vance says.

And if there are indeed any violations, the department could try to find ways to allow for the study to continue because, Vance adds, "the way the law was written, it gives a ton of discretion to the Department of Ed in order to allow for flexibility."

But for now, Melissa Michelson — dean of arts and sciences at Menlo College, a Hispanic-serving and Asian American, Native American and Pacific Islander-serving institution in California's Silicon Valley that has participated in NSLVE — says many school administrators are bracing for potential tough decisions.

"I'm a political scientist and I believe strongly that everybody should vote," says Michelson, whose research focuses on voter mobilization. "But if I have to choose between being financially responsible and ensuring that Menlo College can stay open because our students can receive Pell Grants or continuing to participate in NSLVE and getting this data to inform our civic engagement coalition, I'm going to pick financial responsibility every time."

And in the middle of a midterm election year, schools that do decide to carry out their plans to mobilize student voters will be forging ahead with out-of-date data.

"That's troubling because for most schools, this is an iterative learning process," Michelson says. "You do something in one year, you get your data back and you see, 'Hey, what looks different? Did we get better in getting out the vote among our male first-year students? How are we doing with those business majors?' Without feedback from what they did in 2024, it makes it more challenging for schools to decide what to do in 2026."

The NSLVE investigation is not the first time colleges have struggled with Trump administration guidance on student voter registration

Miller, the former Biden official, notes that many college administrators were already having a hard time interpreting earlier guidance from the Trump administration on student voter registration.

Last August, the Education Department issued a letter saying that to avoid "aiding and abetting voter fraud," schools "may limit the list of recipients" when distributing mail voter registration forms so students who schools have reason to believe aren't eligible to vote aren't included. Federal law, however, requires certain higher education institutions participating in federal student aid programs to "make a good faith effort" to distribute forms "to each student enrolled in a degree or certificate program and physically in attendance at the institution, and to make such forms widely available to students at the institution."

The same letter also said schools cannot use federal work-study funding to employ students to help register voters or assist at the polls. But the department's Federal Student Aid Handbook does not include that restriction for students employed by schools for on-campus work.

"This has caused lots of confusion for schools and a chilling effect in doing critical work that promotes voting among college students," Miller says.

A group of Senate Democrats led by Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey has asked the Education Department to reconsider its August guidance, which they say "undermines decades of bipartisan recognition that encouraging voter registration is a core public interest function of institutions of higher education."

Edited by Benjamin Swasey
Copyright 2026 NPR

President Donald Trump said late Wednesday that U.S. forces deployed in the Middle East will "remain in place" until an agreement is reached with Iran, and its implementation takes hold.

His comments followed a shaky start to a two-week ceasefire. Israel continued its strikes in Lebanon, killing hundreds on Wednesday, Gulf Arab countries also reported some drone and missile attacks on oil refineries and power plants, and according to reports Iran had shut down the Strait of Hormuz. The waterway, largely blocked during the war, is a key shipping route for about 20 % of the world's oil and gas.

The uncertainty was also felt by the markets on Thursday, diminishing gains made a day earlier, with oil prices rising and stocks dipping. Brent crude, the international standard, was at $97 per barrel, or up by 2.4%.

Trump warned that strikes on Iran would resume if Iran did not comply with "the REAL AGREEMENT reached."

"If for any reason it is not, which is highly unlikely, then the "Shootin' Starts," bigger, and better, and stronger than anyone has ever seen before," he said.

He also reiterated that the deal would not allow nuclear enrichment in Iran and would keep the Strait of Hormuz open.

"It was agreed, a long time ago, and despite all of the fake rhetoric to the contrary - NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS and, the Strait of Hormuz WILL BE OPEN & SAFE," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The White House denied the reports on Wednesday that Iran closed the strait, saying they are false and that there was an uptick in traffic in the strait on Wednesday.

People enjoy the last day of Passover and the first day of the ceasefire on April 08, 2026 in Tel Aviv, Israel.

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Here are more updates from the region:

Click the links below to jump down to a specific section.

Peace talks |Gulf countries' defense upgrade | Lebanon | Killed Journalists | Strait of Hormuz

Peace talks to resume, while confusion remains over the terms of the current ceasefire

High-level talks between the U.S. and Iran are slated to start on Saturday in Islamabad, with the mediation of the Pakistani prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif. His government acted as an intermediary between Washington and Tehran to secure the two-week ceasefire. The White House announced that Vice President JD Vance will lead the U.S. delegation.

But confusion remains over the basis of the plan for those talks, with Iran insisting on a 10-point plan that includes its full control over the Strait of Hormuz, removal of sanctions, and accepting Iran's right to enrichment. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday that Iran's 10-point proposal was "literally thrown in the garbage by President Trump." Trump initially called a plan from Iran "workable."

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during a news briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on April 8, 2026 in Washington, DC.

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Meanwhile, Israeli attacks in Lebanon, which is observing a national day of mourning on Thursday, drew condemnation from Iran and criticism from Pakistan. The dispute over whether Lebanon is included in the ceasefire terms remains unresolved. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement Wednesday morning that his government supports Trump's decision to suspend strikes against Iran for two weeks, but that the ceasefire doesn't include Lebanon. Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif had announced the Iran-U.S. ceasefire, would also take effect in Lebanon.

Hezbollah said in a statement that it insists the U.S.-Iran ceasefire includes Lebanon. But the militant group said, "if the Israeli enemy does not adhere" to it, then "no party will commit to it, and there will be a response from the region, including Iran."

Iran condemned the continued assault on Lebanon and said it was the U.S. government's responsibility to put an end to it. In a post on social media, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said, "The ball is in the U.S. court, and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments," above a screenshot of the Pakistani statement including Lebanon in the truce.

Trump, meanwhile, echoed Netanyahu's understanding of the deal. Asked by a PBS reporter why Lebanon was not included, he said, "Because of Hezbollah. They were not included in the deal. That'll get taken care of too."

Gulf countries seek to upgrade their defense ties to the U.S.

As the U.S. and Iran prepare to enter negotiations on Saturday, Gulf Arab countries are seeking to enhance defense cooperation with the U.S. military, an official from the region, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to outline these demands publicly, told NPR.

Gulf countries have relied on U.S. defense systems to intercept recent Iranian missile and drone attacks.

The official said Gulf countries want a U.S.-Iran deal to include a framework to protect energy facilities in the region and a way to enforce freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. Much of the oil, gas and fertilizer passing through the strait to markets in Asia comes from the Persian Gulf.

On Thursday, the Saudi and Iranian foreign ministers held their first official phone call since the war started. A statement issued by the Saudi foreign ministry said the two "discussed ways to reduce tensions to restore security and stability in the region."

Lebanon mourns over 250 killed from Israeli attacks

Church bells rang across Lebanon and warplanes tore the skies Thursday morning as the country observed a national day of mourning following the deadliest day of the current Israeli invasion. More than 250 people were killed Wednesday, according to Lebanon's civil defense, in Israeli attacks that hit densely-populated residential areas far from Hezbollah's strongholds, including along Beirut's seaside Corniche promenade.

The Israeli military said it conducted the largest attack so far, with 100 strikes in 10 minutes in Beirut on Wednesday, killing the nephew of a Hezbollah leader. The military issued evacuation orders for the capital's suburbs, but then attacked central Beirut. That city has swelled in recent weeks with people fleeing the Israeli invasion in the country's south, which has displaced more than a million people. More than 1,160 were wounded in Wednesday's strikes, according to the country's civil defense department. Lebanon's army said four soldiers were among those killed.

Rescue workers search for people after an Israeli attack hit a residential building in the Corniche al Mazraa neighborhood on April 8, 2026 in Beirut, Lebanon.

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On Thursday, Israel struck a bridge in Lebanon. Hezbollah, which had held its fire on the first day of the ceasefire, fired rockets into northern Israel on Thursday.

The violence marred the start of a two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran in the wider Middle East war. But Israeli officials justified the assault by asserting that the new deal did not include a pause in its fight against Lebanon's Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

The International Committee of the Red Cross says it's outraged by such attacks in densely populated urban areas. Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani explained why Israel made a surprise attack on Beirut.

"Leading up to this operation, we've seen Hezbollah disperse over different areas, taking advantage of the warnings that we provide for civilians to also hide for themselves among the civilians, moving, trying to scatter their operations in different locations and to hide behind civilian locations," he said.

Watchdog says 3 journalists killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon and Gaza

The Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday Israeli airstrikes killed three journalists in Lebanon, and Gaza.

Al Jazeera said its correspondent Mohammed Wishah is the 11th journalist from the network to be killed in Gaza.

Two years ago, Israel said Wishah was a "key terrorist in Hamas" who posed a threat to its troops.

The Israeli military repeated that allegation in a statement after his killing on Tuesday, but did not say why he was targeted six months into a ceasefire in which hundreds have been killed in Gaza.

Also Tuesday, CPJ said reporters Ghada Dayekh and Suzan Khalil were killed in a blitz of Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon that hit Hezbollah and civilian neighborhoods.

One of the journalists worked for a Hezbollah-affiliated news outlet.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Israel's military has killed more than 260 Palestinian journalists in Gaza in the past two and a half years.

CPJ says Israel's attacks on the press should be independently investigated as war crimes.

As Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, confusion reigns and ships remain idle

Trump has repeatedly said that the deal is dependent on the free movement of ships in the Strait of Hormuz to ease the global energy crisis. The strait is a critical throughway that carries about a fifth of the world's oil and provides the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.

Before the war broke out, Iran allowed an average of 120 to 150 ships per day to sail through unimpeded. But in the last five weeks, that traffic has come to a grinding halt. And despite Tuesday's announcement of ceasefire terms that required Iran to reopen the strait for safe passage, more than a hundred ships remained effectively stalled.

Details about the strait's status remain unclear. While Iran announced it had ceased transit operations in response to Israel's continued attacks on Lebanon, the White House denounced the reports as false and said closing the waterway would be completely unacceptable.

If the strait was open, hundreds of other ships in and around the strait still chose to stay put out of an abundance of caution. Ship owners, insurance companies, and seafarers say they are seeking clarity as Iran threatens to attack any vessel transiting without permission.

Erik Broekhuizen, a U.S.-based ship broker and energy consultant with Poten & Partners, told NPR that another concern for the ships is Iran's decentralized military command.

"You don't really know who to talk to, who is in charge, and whether all the sort of regional commanders have gotten the memo that the strait is open and they should stop attacking vessels," Broekhuizen said.

More than 20 ships have been attacked by Iran since the war began.

Operators are also confused by Iran's new fee system and how payments will be collected as the government rolls out new toll procedures. According to analysts, several oil tanker operators said they have paid at least $1 million to transit the strait.

An English language VHF broadcast was blasted to the hundreds of ships in and around the strait on Wednesday. It warned those aboard idling ships that they need permission before they try to transit.

Lauren Frayer in Beirut, Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv, Aya Batrawy in Dubai and Jackie Northam in Washington, D.C. contributed to this report.
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