May. 10, 2026, 4:54 PM EDT

President Donald Trump on Sunday appeared to reject Iran’s response to a U.S. proposal to end the war, calling it “totally unacceptable.”

It was not immediately clear what Iran’s response entailed. But it came one day after top Trump officials met in Miami with Qatar’s prime minister as the war entered its tenth week and more than a month after the Pakistani-brokered ceasefire agreement between Washington and Tehran.

“I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘Representatives.’ I don’t like it — TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” Trump announced.

A diplomatic source in Tehran told MS NOW earlier in the day that the Iranian proposal was a “positive step but any ending is still a long way down the road. Mistrust needs to be seriously reduced and atmospherics need to be substantially improved.”

Trump issued a statement on Truth Social earlier Sunday in which he said Iran “has been playing games with the United States, and the rest of the World, for 47 years.” The president did not address an Iranian response at that time but warned, “They will be laughing no longer!”

Trump has repeatedly insisted the ceasefire remains intact despite the continued exchange of hostilities and mirroring naval blockades. The U.S. launched strikes against Iran last week in retaliation for an attack on U.S. Navy destroyers, with Trump initially dismissing it as just “a love tap.”

Trump, in a wide-ranging interview that aired Sunday on “Full Measure,” said the U.S. has hit “probably 70 percent” of its targets and that Iran has “no leaders” and “no military.” But he added that combat operations have not ended.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in an”https://x.com/drpezeshkian/status/2053465838422819089″ target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>X post Sunday“We will never bow our heads before the enemy, and if talk of dialogue or negotiation arises, it does not mean surrender or retreat.” And Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, Kazem Gharibabadi, warned that “any deployment and stationing of extra-regional destroyers around the Strait of Hormuz, under the pretext of ‘protecting shipping,’ is nothing but an escalation of the crisis, the militarization of a vital waterway, and an attempt to cover up the true root of insecurity in the region.”

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said in a Sunday interview on ABC’s “This Week” that Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei “has been severely injured” and is “difficult to get a hold of.” He acknowledged that negotiations are taking “longer and slower, I think, than anyone would like” but said “those negotiations and that diplomacy is ongoing.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House envoy Steve Witkoff met on Saturday with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott stopped short of describing the meeting as peace talks, but said they discussed the “importance of continued close coordination to deter threats and promote stability and security across the Middle East.”

The war continues to jolt the global economy, and Americans are feeling the pain at the pump. Energy Secretary Chris Wright declined to answer whether Americans should expect gas to rise even higher to $5 a gallon. In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, he said, “I can’t predict the price of energy in the short term or even the medium term.”

The average gas price per gallon is $4.52 and climbing, according to motorist group AAA. Last year’s average was $3.14. The Strait of Hormuz – the key trade route through which 20% of the world’s oil flows – remains closed by Iran, despite international calls to allow for the safe passage of cargo ships.

Akayla Gardner and Peggy Helman contributed to this report.

May. 10, 2026, 1:03 PM EDT

Jack Smith has been speaking out. His words are welcome — even if they may be coming a little too late.

From the time he was appointed special counsel in 2022 until his resignation in January of 2025Smith conducted himself with the kind of stoic silence we expected of the Justice Department at the time. He spoke only at formal press conferences — during which he announced criminal charges against Donald Trump — and even then, scrupulously followed DOJ’s guidance to discuss only facts contained within the four corners of the indictments.

His conduct mirrored that of Robert Mueller, who was similarly silent when serving as the special counsel investigating Russian election interference just a few years prior. In stark contrast, Trump’s current acting Attorney General Todd Blanche routinely uses television news interviews to discuss pending cases, such as the recent indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

As Smith recently told an audience in Washington, D.C., “I grew up as a prosecutor in sort of the Robert Mueller mode of prosecutor. I speak in courtrooms. I do not speak on the courthouse steps. I don’t do media.”

But since leaving his post, Smith has begun to let those rigid prosecutorial walls come down a little, blasting Trump’s Department of Justice on multiple occasions. In April at a private event hosted by the Cosmos Club in Washington D.C., Smith stated that DOJ “targets people for criminal prosecution simply because the president doesn’t like them” and “fails to move on cases because they might uncover facts that are inconvenient to narratives the president would like to press.” Last fall, Smith told an audience at George Mason University: “My career has been about the rule of law, and I believe that today it is under attack like in no other period in our lifetimes.” And at an event in London in October of 2025, Smith spoke out specifically against the increasing attacks on public servantswarning that “it has a cost for our country that is incalculable.”

Mueller and Smith scrupulously followed DOJ’s press policyoften to a fault. They provided no updates on their work until charges were filed, consistent with DOJ’s practice to neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation, though everyone in America knew their assignments as special counsels. Even after announcing charges against Trump for election interference and unlawful retention of government documents, Smith did not comment on the evidence or the defendant’s potential guilt, lest he taint Trump’s due process rights to a fair trial. Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland gave an occasional speech about his department’s approach to significant cases, but he, too, largely abided by the traditional view that saying less is more.

The conduct of these men was commendable, but perhaps unnecessary and even counterproductive. While the Blanche model arguably runs afoul of Justice Department policy, future DOJ officials might reconsider whether silence is as golden as was once thought. When a special counsel says nothing, others fill the vacuum with their own narratives. Trump certainly had plenty to say about Mueller and Smith, constantly disparaging them and undermining confidence in their work with labels like “hoax” and “witch hunt.”

The next attorney general might be well served to reconsider the silent treatment. While it remains inappropriate to discuss ongoing investigations, DOJ officials should consider speaking out about their work, their processes and their standards, all of which are designed to treat defendants fairly.

For example, DOJ officials may find utility in making the rounds of the Sunday morning shows when a high-profile case is filed, not to opine on a defendant’s guilt, but to explain how grand juries make a finding of probable cause before returning an indictment. It would surely benefit public confidence to understand that DOJ policy directs prosecutors to provide even more protection than the law requires, such as sharing with grand jurors any evidence that might tend to refute a defendant’s guilt.

In other contexts, officials could discuss the training and policies it uses to ensure compliance with the Principles of Federal Prosecutionwhich forbid prosecutors bring cases unless they believe it probable that the evidence is sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction. Most importantly, these principles prohibit prosecutors from making case decisions on the basis of partisan politics.

Rather than standing by in silence when critics like Trump disparage prosecutions, officials in the next DOJ should speak out, assuring the public that it has complied with legal standards, ethics rules and its own policies. Mueller, Smith and Garland followed the norms they had always known, but new challenges require new rules.

Barbara McQuade is a former Michigan U.S. attorney and legal analyst.

May. 10, 2026, 5:04 PM EDT

TENERIFE, Canary Islands (AP) — Passengers evacuated from the hantavirus-hit cruise shipbegan flying home Sunday aboard military and government planes after the vessel anchored in the Canary Islands, where travelers were escorted to shore by personnel in full-body protective gear and breathing masks.

Spanish passengers were the first to leave the MV Hondius following its arrival in Tenerife, the largest island in the Spanish archipelago off the West African coast. They were then flown to Madrid and taken to a military hospital. Hours later, a plane that evacuated French passengers landed in Paris, where it was met by emergency vehicles.

The planes arriving in Tenerife were to fly out passengers from more than 20 countries in an evacuation effort that was expected to last until Monday.

One of the five French passengers developed symptoms on the flight, French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said in a statement, and all were put into strict isolation with plans to be tested.

Earlier, officials from the Spanish Health Ministry, the World Health Organization and the cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions had said none of the more than 140 people who were then on the Hondius had shown symptomsof the virus.

Three people have died since the outbreak began, and five passengers who left the ship earlier are infected with hantavirus.

Health officials say risk to public is low

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reiterated that the general public should not be worried about the outbreak.

“We have been repeating the same answer many times,” he said. “This is not another COVID. And the risk to the public is low. So they shouldn’t be scared, and they shouldn’t panic.”

Even so, those disembarking and workers at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife wore protective gear during the evacuation process, including hazardous materials suits, face masks and respirators. Video obtained by The Associated Press showed passengers on the tarmac donning similar suits and being sprayed down with disinfectant.

Passengers were relieved to be on their way home, another WHO official said.

“It’s been great seeing all the buses coming out and people really happy to be on land again and being repatriated,” said Diana Rojas Alvarez, the WHO health operations lead, who is on Tenerife.

Authorities have said the disembarking passengers and crew members will be checked for symptoms and will be forbidden from having any contact with the local population. They are to be taken off the ship only when evacuation flights are ready. Tedros and Spain’s health and interior ministers are supervising the operation in Tenerife.

Hantavirus usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residueof rodent droppings, and the disease not easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virusdetected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.

Passengers and disembarking crew members left behind their luggage and were allowed to take only a small bag with essentials, a cellphone, a charger and documentation.

Some crew, as well as the body of a passenger who died on board, will remain on the ship, which will sail on to Rotterdam, Netherlands, where it will undergo disinfection, Spanish authorities said.

The journey to Rotterdam takes about five days, the cruise company said.

Passengers will be monitored

The WHO is recommending that passengers’ home countries “have active monitoring and follow-up, which means daily health checks, either at home or in a specialized facility,” Van Kerkhove said.

“We are leaving this up to the countries themselves to actually develop their own policies,” she added. “But our recommendations are very clear, and this is really a cautionary approach to make sure that we don’t have any opportunities for this virus to pass from others.”

Numerous countries have said their people would be quarantined or hospitalized for observation. Earlier, for example, the French Foreign Ministry said its passengers would be hospitalized for 72 hours of monitoring, then would quarantine at home for 45 days.

After the passenger came down with symptoms, the prime minister said the five would be kept in the hospital “until further orders.”

Passengers and crew from the U.K. will be hospitalized for observation, British authorities said.

The acting director of the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, said Americans would first be flown to the University of Nebraska, which has a federally funded quarantine facility, to assess whether they have been in close contact with any symptomatic people and their risk levels for spreading the virus.

After that, he told BLN’s “State of the Union,” they will be given the choice of staying in Nebraska or going home, where their conditions would be monitored by state and local health agencies.

He noted that seven Americans who left the cruise have been in the U.S. for roughly two weeks, and they are living across the country.

Australia is sending a plane, expected to arrive Monday, to evacuate its people and those from nearby countries, such as New Zealand, and unspecified Asian countries, said Spanish Health Minister Mónica García, who added that the evacuation flight was expected to be the last to leave Tenerife.

Norway sent an ambulance plane to the island with personnel trained to transport patients with high-risk infections, its Directorate for Civil Protection told public broadcaster NRK.

British medics parachute into remote territory

Elsewhere, British Army medics parachuted onto the remote South Atlantic territory of Tristan da Cunha, where one of the 221 residents has a suspected case of hantavirus.

The patient was a passenger on the MV Hondius and disembarked last month.

The U.K. Defense Ministry said a team of six paratroopers and two medical clinicians jumped Saturday from a Royal Air Force transport plane, which also dropped oxygen and medical equipment.

Tristan da Cunha is Britain’s most remote inhabited overseas territory, about 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) from the nearest inhabited island, St. Helena. The group of volcanic islands has no airstrip and is usually accessible only by a six-day boat voyage from Cape Town, South Africa.

Meanwhile, a Spanish woman in the southeastern province of Alicante suspected of being infected tested negative for hantavirus, Spanish health authorities said Saturday.

The woman was a passenger on the same flight as the Dutch woman who died in Johannesburg after traveling on the cruise ship.