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The consequences will be felt long after the fighting ends.
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The Strait of Hormuz is closed to shipping traffic after Iran once again shut off access to the key waterway over the weekend in retaliation for the ongoing U.S. blockade on Iranian ports. This comes as the U.S. Navy intercepted and seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship in the Sea of Oman on Sunday. Iran said the seizure violated the ceasefire reached earlier this month. Despite the escalation, President Trump announced a U.S. delegation is heading to Pakistan for a new round of peace talks. Iran's Foreign Ministry says Tehran has "no plans" to participate.
There has been a "gradual escalation" in hostilities between the U.S. and Iran since the last round of talks in Islamabad, says Iranian American analyst Vali Nasr, professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Iran's leadership is "suspicious that President Trump was really using the talks in Pakistan as a cover for renewing war on Iran and that he was not serious about diplomacy."
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The Trump administration in late March announced an extensive reorganization of the Forest Service, the federal agency responsible for managing 193 million acres of public lands across 43 states, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. As part of the changes, 57 of 77 research stations across the country will be shuttered, with the headquarters relocating from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City. While the overhaul is billed as an effort to improve efficiency, conservationist Jim Pattiz says it will effectively destroy the agency.
"This is a critically important agency," says Pattiz, co-author of the newsletter More Than Just Parks that tracks threats to public lands across the country. "The intent here is obvious. It's to hollow out this agency and hand it to the resource extraction industry and prepare it for, potentially, the eventual transfer of our public lands to states."
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(Main headline, 5th story, link)
Related stories:
USA BAILOUT FOR ABU DHABI?
IRAN FLEXES CONTROL
HORMUZ STANDSTILL
OIL BACK UP
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