Democracy Dies with Dictatorship
NY Times
Jul 23, 2026
Iran War Live Updates: Attacks in Red Sea Send Oil Prices Over $100 a Barrel
The price of Brent crude soared after Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen claimed strikes on two Saudi tankers. The House cast a second vote to rein in President Trump’s war powers, with four Republicans joining Democrats to rebuke the president.
by Max Bearak and Leo Sands
Here’s the latest.
The price of oil hit $100 a barrel on Thursday for the first time since May after Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen claimed to hit two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea, stoking fears that another crucial shipping route would be choked off by the widening conflict.
The Houthis’ strikes were the first since the group announced a blockade on Saudi ships this week. After the United States and Iran traded strikes across the Middle East for a 12th consecutive night, President Trump said on social media on Thursday that he would hold Iran responsible for any further Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and threatened to expand the conflict to include the Yemeni group.
Iran has already largely closed the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, throttling the world’s oil and gas supplies. The price of Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, dipped after the two sides agreed to a preliminary truce last month, but has inched up again since the fighting resumed. Oil prices are now 40 percent higher than they were before the war started in February.
The Saudi authorities said there had been an attack on one ship, the Encelia, adding that the crew were safe, without specifying the origin of the attack. The Saudi government has not commented on the Houthi claim regarding the second ship.
The steady escalation of the conflict over the past two weeks provided the backdrop for a vote in the House of Representatives on Thursday that for a second time asked Mr. Trump to seek Congress’ authorization to keep U.S. troops engaged in the war. Mr. Trump effectively ignored a similar rebuke last month, and later on Thursday Republicans in the Senate blocked the measure from passing.
Neither the United States nor Iran has signaled much appetite for a return to negotiations. In recent days, Iranian and American officials have promised to respond to each other’s attacks with fresh ones of their own, with each trying to outlast the other.
U.S. Central Command, which coordinates military operations in the Middle East, said it had launched a wave of strikes overnight to degrade Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping, targeting Iranian drone and missile storage sites and air defenses.
That language, which the U.S. military has employed on a daily basis, does not explicitly acknowledge U.S. strikes on infrastructure that can be used for civilian purposes, like roads and ports. Such attacks could be considered war crimes under international law.
Mr. Trump has threatened to attack a bridge or power plant “any time the Islamic republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz.”
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said overnight that it had launched attacks on U.S. military targets in Jordan and Kuwait, including a communications tower, accusing U.S. forces of attacking equivalent infrastructure in Iran.
Here’s what else we’re covering:
The return of dead soldiers: Before Mr. Trump attended the return of four Army soldiers killed in Iranian strikes, he told reporters that they supported the war before they died. He did not say how he knew their views. Most Americans, including Republicans, have become increasingly critical of the war.
Saudi nuclear deal: Mr. Trump said on Thursday that a broad nuclear deal the United States agreed with Saudi Arabia would hinge on the kingdom’s willingness to join the Abraham Accords, appearing to condition the agreement on Riyadh’s willingness to open diplomatic relations with Israel. Read more ›
July 23, 2026, 1:42 p.m. ET12 minutes ago
Shirin Hakim
Iran’s state broadcaster reported today that the sound of an explosion was heard near Larak Island, in the Strait of Hormuz. It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion or whether there was any damage.
Larak has been used by Iran to direct vessels through a route near the island that stays in Iranian territorial waters closer to its coast. The island was hit on July 18, when a missile struck a maritime traffic-control tower there, according to Iranian media.
July 23, 2026, 12:48 p.m. ET1 hour ago
Congressional reporter
Senators voted against taking up another war powers resolution seeking to challenge the president’s authority to continue the conflict in Iran. Senators voted 49 to 47 to block the measure from coming to the floor for a final vote, with one Republican, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, voting in favor, and one Democrat, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, voting against.
Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, who had supported past resolutions, changed his vote, saying he had received adequate information from senior administration officials to oppose the measure. Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, two Republicans who had backed similar efforts, did not vote.
July 23, 2026, 12:35 p.m. ET1 hour ago
James McManagan and Sanjana Varghese
Chaos breaks out at border crossings in Iraq.
Two of Iraq’s border crossings were attacked on Thursday during the latest round of hostilities overnight in the Middle East, according to officials and videos on social media verified by The New York Times. It was not immediately clear who launched the attacks.
The first attack occurred in the early morning hours of Thursday near the Iranian side of the Shalamcheh border crossing with Iraq in Iran’s Khuzestan province. Iranian and Iraqi media outlets reported that a rest station for police officers at the crossing had been struck by U.S. airstrikes.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the region, did not immediately respond to questions about the attack.
In a video, crowds can be seen fleeing as explosions ring out near the Iranian side of the crossing.
The footage, which circulated online early Thursday morning, shows people carrying suitcases and rucksacks running away from a blaze. The attacks killed two people, according to Iranian officials.
Additional footage of the aftermath, also verified by The Times, shows a damaged telecommunications tower inside a small compound within the border crossing facility.
The footage emerged shortly before U.S. Central Command said in a statement that it had completed its 12th consecutive night of strikes against Iranian military sites. The statement did not mention targeting of a border crossing facility.
In what appeared to be a retaliatory strike, the Abdali border crossing between Kuwait and Iraq was also hit on Thursday afternoon.
Gen. Saud Abdulaziz Al-Otaibi, a spokesman for Kuwait’s defense ministry, said in a statement that the crossing had come “under attack by hostile drones,” without specifying their origin, and that there had been no casualties. Since the war began in late February, Iran has launched missile and drone attacks at Kuwait as well as other nations in the Middle East, saying it is targeting U.S. military installations there.
The spokesman said in a second statement that the border crossing was also subjected to “repeated” attacks Thursday evening, but that no injuries were reported.
Videos verified by The Times showed dark clouds of smoke rising on the Kuwaiti side of the border crossing near a radio tower and billowing over several curved metal structures.
Another video verified by The Times shows multiple cars and trucks parked on the side of the road on the Iraqi side of the border, with people filming as clouds of smoke continue to emanate from the area.
Neither Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps nor U.S. Central Command have commented on the attack.
The Iraqi government has not commented on either attack.
July 23, 2026, 12:22 p.m. ET2 hours ago
Business reporter
Stocks in the U.S. are wobbling today, shaken by geopolitical uncertainty. The S&P 500 slid when markets opened for trading today, and is down more than 1 percent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell by more than 2 percent.
Interest rates are also responding to the turmoil in the Middle East. The interest rate for the 10-year treasury bond, a proxy for how investors feel about the economy, jumped past 4.7 percent this morning — the highest rate in roughly 12 months. It was around 4.5 percent at the beginning of this week. Rates go up when investors sell government bonds.
July 23, 2026, 12:00 p.m. ET2 hours ago
Congressional reporter
On the heels of the House rebuking President Trump on the Iran war, the Senate is now voting on whether to take up yet another war powers resolution calling on Trump to end the conflict or seek authorization to continue it.
A similar measure passed the Senate last month, and before the vote began today, Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and minority leader, said his party would continue forcing Republicans to cast votes on the war “again and again and again” until it came to an end.
July 23, 2026, 10:42 a.m. ET3 hours ago
Congressional reporter
The House again rebuked Trump on the Iran war.
The House on Thursday voted a second time to direct President Trump to end the war in Iran or seek explicit authorization to continue it, dealing him another bipartisan rebuke as he again ramps up military operations in the Middle East without approval from Congress.
Four Republicans joined Democrats in backing the measure, which does not have the force of law but is the latest evidence of disapproval on Capitol Hill with Mr. Trump’s handling of the conflict.
The vote came after the United States concluded its 12th consecutive night of strikes in Iran, following the collapse of a cease-fire that many Republicans had hoped would yield a diplomatic breakthrough to wind down the war well before they must face voters in November’s midterm elections.
The measure passed on a vote of 214 to 208, and the Senate was on track to vote later Thursday on whether to take up a similar resolution. The House Republicans who joined Democrats in favor were Representatives Tom Barrett of Michigan, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. That was the same quartet that helped Democrats push through a similar war powers resolution last month.
“My position hasn’t changed,” Mr. Barrett, who is among the most politically vulnerable Republicans in the House, said in a statement after the vote. “Only Congress has the authority to authorize military action in Iran. I remain ready to work with anyone to eliminate hostile threats to our nation without getting us into another endless war.”
The resolution, sponsored by Representative Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington, was among the final matters the House voted on before leaving Washington for a five-week summer recess. Many Democrats predicted that members of Congress would hear from voters during the break about how frustrated they are with the course of the war.
A Washington Post-Ipsos poll released last week found that only 29 percent of Americans support the war in Iran. A POLITICO poll found that Trump supporters who identified as “MAGA” voters said there were conditions to their continued support, with 37 percent saying they would only continue backing the conflict so long as prices for Americans did not rise. Global oil prices hit $100 a barrel on Thursday for the first time since May.
Representative Jason Crow, Democrat of Colorado, said that the waning public support would likely push more Republican lawmakers to speak out more forcefully against the Trump administration’s unilateral approach to the war.
“When we come back in September, I bet we have more people joining with us saying, ‘All right, let’s wrap this up,’ ” he said on Thursday.
The House vote underscored the growing divide between Republicans on Capitol Hill and the White House as the war in Iran has dragged on.
A growing group of Republican lawmakers has become more vocal about questioning the lack of congressional authorization or consultation, and also the administration’s failure to lay out a clear endgame. But Mr. Trump has shown no willingness to involve the legislative branch and little sign of winding down the campaign. Instead, he has escalated his bellicose language and asserted that he has unchecked power to continue the military operation.
Mr. Trump brushed aside Congress’s earlier rebukes last month, when the House and Senate both passed a similar measure, the first time since the conflict began in February that lawmakers voted to disapprove of it.
House Republican leaders are now pressing forward with a budget plan that would pay for the war, putting their members in the politically unappealing position of voting to finance an unpopular conflict that the Republican-led Congress has not authorized, and over which it has exercised little oversight.
In the face of Mr. Trump’s disregard for the congressional action, Representative Gregory W. Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said that he had begun the process to file a lawsuit against the administration for ignoring the resolutions.
“We have a situation where we’ve passed, now twice, war powers resolutions,” Mr. Meeks said in an interview on Thursday. “The president should not be able to get around this.”
July 23, 2026, 9:56 a.m. ET4 hours ago
Economics and business reporter
The “flaring up” of the conflict and rise in energy prices has worsened the outlook for the European economy, the president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, said on Thursday. Lagarde said at a news conference in Frankfurt that the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea were “alarming” and clearly aggravating energy prices.
She was speaking after policymakers chose to hold interest rates steady. Last month, the E.C.B. became the first major central bank to raise rates in response to the war.
July 23, 2026, 9:12 a.m. ET5 hours ago
Global oil prices hit $100 a barrel for the first time since May.
How much the international benchmark costs
Jan.MarchMayJuly020406080$100 per barrel
Iran War Live Updates: Oil Prices Top $100 a Barrel After Houthi Attacks in Red Sea - The New York Times
Notes: Data shows future contract prices for Brent crude oil. Gaps indicate nontrading hours. Data is delayed at least 15 minutes.
Source: FactSet.
Global oil prices hit $100 a barrel on Thursday for the first time since May as the widening war between the United States and Iran stifled the flow of energy in the Middle East.
The price rebound in Brent crude oil over the past few weeks reflects the market’s growing concern about the expanding conflict, which now extends from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. Both arteries are vital to the global energy trade.
The Houthi threat to prevent ships from traveling to and from Saudi Arabian ports on the Red Sea has complicated travel in an area that was serving as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran and the United States are jousting for control.
The Houthis, an Iran-backed group in Yemen, claimed on Wednesday that they had targeted two Saudi oil tankers with missiles and drones. If the Houthis manage to block Saudi Arabia from using the Red Sea, they would be cutting off about 4 percent of the world’s oil supply and leaving Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s biggest producers, with very little access to global markets.
“The conflict has entered a decidedly more dangerous phase,” analysts from RBC Capital Markets wrote on Wednesday. Even though oil prices have risen a lot in recent weeks, “we still see them as a lagging indicator of the extreme pressure building in the region,” they added, forecasting that a “full regional war” could send prices toward $150 a barrel.
Brent oil prices are now nearly 40 percent higher than on the eve of the war. (U.S. oil prices, at around $91 a barrel, are on a similar trajectory.) More expensive oil will push prices at the pump around the world even higher, unwelcome news for drivers already faced with stubbornly high gasoline and diesel prices.
The cost of those transportation fuels remained elevated even as oil prices eased in June, briefly falling below prewar levels. More oil was flowing through the Strait of Hormuz at that time, but fewer refineries were available to turn that crude into the fuels that power cars and airplanes.
That is partly because of the war with Iran, but also because Ukraine has inflicted significant damage on Russian refineries — so much so that Russia banned diesel exports in early July to preserve domestic supplies.
A gallon of regular gasoline in the United States cost 37 percent more on Thursday than it did prewar, at a national average of $4.09 per gallon, according to the AAA motor club. Diesel prices were 39 percent higher than they were when U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran started in February.
The refineries that remain open are reaping huge rewards. In the United States, profit margins on turning oil into gasoline and diesel are near multiyear highs, according to data from commodities research firm Argus Media.
The threats to shipping in the Red Sea, paired with continued fighting between the United States and Iran around the Persian Gulf, are stoking concern about the outlook for oil supply, Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, said this week.
“A resolution to the ongoing conflict that includes a full and unconditional reopening of the Strait of Hormuz will be essential to avoid a further deterioration in global energy security,” Mr. Birol said.
July 23, 2026, 8:36 a.m. ET5 hours ago
Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon
President Trump warned on Thursday that the United States would hold Iran directly responsible for further Houthi attacks on shipping, threatening “major military punishment” against both Tehran and the Houthis if attacks on Saudi tankers in the Red Sea continued. Trump said on social media that the Houthis had “acted very responsibly” since a U.S. offensive against the group last year and throughout the war with Iran this year, but added that he was “very disappointed” by the renewed attacks.
July 23, 2026, 6:01 a.m. ET8 hours ago
Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon
Oman said on Thursday that it was coordinating with Saudi Arabia, Yemeni groups and the U.N. envoy to Yemen to resume diplomacy to de-escalate the growing conflict. Oman has mediated for years between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
The Omani comments were published a day after the Houthis, who declared a naval blockade on Saudi-linked shipping this week, claimed missile and drone strikes on two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea. The escalation has threatened to open a new front in the broader Iran war.