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Iran and Israel exchanged fire overnight in the most serious escalation since a U.S.-Iranian truce was reached in April. Iran launched a wave of missiles at northern Israel in retaliation for Israeli attacks near Beirut on Sunday. Israel responded with attacks on Iran, with explosions reported in Tehran, Tabriz and Isfahan. This comes as peace talks appear stalled between the United States and Iran, largely over Iran's insistence that any agreement must include Lebanon and halt Israel's attacks on that country. President Donald Trump has also repeatedly expressed frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and reports from NBC News and The New York Times indicate the Pentagon is growing increasingly concerned over Israel spying on U.S. officials.
"I was not surprised by the Iranian attack on Israel," says analyst Trita Parsi, who notes that Iran's leaders want to "extend their deterrence" to Lebanon. "What is perhaps a bit surprising is … that the Israelis defied Trump's expressed wishes."
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The Justice Department has reportedly launched a criminal investigation into the writer E. Jean Carroll, who successfully sued Donald Trump twice, for sexual abuse and defamation. According to CNN, The New York Times and other outlets, the investigation is focused on whether Carroll committed perjury in a deposition, even though a federal appeals court upheld the rulings in 2024.
In 2019, Carroll published a memoir describing an encounter in the 1990s when she says Trump sexually assaulted her in a department store. When Trump denied the account, Carroll sued him and won $5 million in damages, with a unanimous New York jury finding Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation. After Trump made disparaging remarks about Carroll, she sued him again and won a second defamation judgment for over $83 million. (She has yet to collect any money pending appeals by Trump.)
"The use of the Justice Department to go after E. Jean Carroll in this way is completely unprecedented," says law professor Deborah Tuerkheimer, who says the probe is part of an obvious "vendetta" by Trump. "It's frankly galling."
See our interview with director Ivy Meeropol about her documentary Ask E. Jean.
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