May. 27, 2026, 8:52 PM EDT

The U.S. military on Wednesday carried out new strikes in Iran, shooting down four attack drones and targeting a ground control station. The military stated both the drones and ground facility posed a threat to the Strait of Hormuz, a U.S. official said in a statement to MS NOW.

The official said the ceasefire agreement remains in effect and described the U.S. military actions as intended to maintain the ceasefire.

“Today, U.S. Central Command forces shot down four Iranian one-way attack drones that posed a threat around the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. forces also struck an Iranian ground control station in Bandar Abbas that was about to launch a fifth drone. These actions were measured, purely defensive, and intended to maintain the ceasefire,” the official said in the statement.

At least three explosions were heard east of Bandar Abbas, a port city in Iran along the Strait of Hormuz, The New York Times and CNN reported, both citing Iranian state media. The explosions briefly activated Bandar Abbas’ air defense systems, Fars News Agency, a media outlet affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, reported early Thursday local time.

The latest strikes come amid an unstable ceasefire agreement between the U.S. and Iran.

Speaking at a Cabinet meeting at the White House earlier Wednesday, President Donald Trump said Iran wants “very much to make a deal” but “they haven’t gotten there,” adding that Iran was “negotiating on fumes.”

“We’re not satisfied with it, but we will be,” Trump said. “Either that or we’ll have to just finish the job. Their navy is gone … their air force is gone, everything’s gone. And they’re negotiating on fumes. But we’ll see what happens. Maybe we have to go back and finish it, maybe we don’t.”

On MondayU.S. Central Command said in a statement that the U.S. carried out “self-defense” strikes on missile launch sites and boats in southern Iran in order “to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces.” That same day, Trump said in a Truth Social post that negotiations with Iran were “proceeding nicely!”

May. 27, 2026, 7:03 PM EDT

President Donald Trump’s racist policy of welcoming white South Africans while excluding refugees from other countries is back in the spotlight after his administration raised its refugee ceiling — to bring in more white people.

According to Reuters:

Trump increased the refugee admissions ceiling by 10,000 for ‌this year to allow more white South Africans to come into the country, a signed presidential determination reviewed by Reuters showed.

The document, dated May 21, said white South Africans of Afrikaner ethnicity face an emergency situation due to the “incitement of racially motivated violence” by the government and political parties in the majority-Black ​country.

The document, found herecites an “unforeseen emergency refugee situation” that doesn’t actually exist. Trump and his allies have pushed false claims that a “white genocide” is occurring, but South Africa’s government — and even advocacy groups representing the country’s white Afrikaner minority — have rejected the claim.

Reuters reported that the increased refugee limit is now 17,500 — and that only three non-South African refugees have been admitted into the U.S. this fiscal year. Reuters previously reported that the administration wanted to bring in 4,500 white South Africans immigrants per montha number that I noted mirrors the number of white German refugees the Ku Klux Klan wanted to welcome to the United States a century ago — when its members were popularizing xenophobic slogans like “America First” and launching campaigns of racist terror against people of color.

It’s noteworthy here that white supremacists have latched on to racist conspiracy theories, such as the “replacement theory,” saying that there is some kind of plot to replace white Americans with nonwhite people, particularly foreigners. In reality, what’s actually underway is the exact opposite: a government effort to deport nonwhite people in America — including people who have lived in the U.S. for years — while Trump’s regime takes steps to import white people, and as some conservatives fret over white birth rates.

It’s hard to imagine the klan itself wouldn’t approve of this policy.

Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.

May. 27, 2026, 6:30 PM EDT

Amid the Republican Party’s ongoing assault on Black peopleDemocrats are borrowing a tactic from 20th-century civil rights activists and putting corporate America on notice.

On Tuesday, the Congressional Black Caucus said it sent a letter to more than 200 companies and business organizations, urging them to oppose the GOP’s push to eliminate majority-Black districts after the Supreme Court’s Callais v. Louisiana decision, which effectively permitted racist gerrymandering.

In 2021, the companies sent a letter to Congress in support of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, saying the legislation was needed to guard against racial discrimination and voter suppression. Signees on that letter included AppleDell and Googlewhose executives have since aligned themselves with President Donald Trump’s regime.

“Many corporations spoke clearly during that moment about the importance of protecting democratic participation, defending civil rights, and advancing racial equity,” the CBC’s letter reads. “Today, those commitments are being tested.”

The letter presses the companies to issue statements condemning the GOP’s push to dilute Black voters’ power, as well as information on corporate political spending. The pressure campaign follows the CBC’s public call for student-athletes to boycott public universities in states where Republicans have taken action against majority-Black voting districts.

Meanwhile, 16 Democratic state attorneys general sent a letter last week to three donor-advised funds urging them to lift restrictions on donations to the Southern Poverty Law Centeran anti-racist organization known for helping law enforcement officials take down white supremacist extremist groups. The charity-based arms of Fidelity and Vanguard, as well as a company called Donor Advised Charitable Giving, imposed the restrictions after the Trump administration’s baseless indictment of the SPLC. I recently wrote about how Trump allies have used these charges to downplay and outright deny the existence of racist extremismas well as spread lies about liberals being responsible for groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

This scrutiny of corporate America and its acquiescence to the MAGA movement has me thinking of a conversation I had with the Rev. Al Sharpton and the “Morning Joe” crew last week. During our chat, Sharpton warned that companies that align themselves with Trump’s war on diversity do so at their own risk, because Democrats could take steps in the future to hold these companies to account.

These letters show a strong interest among Democrats in pressuring companies that appear to be propping up, or placating, the rise of what many people see as Jim Crow 2.0.

Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.