Government Reopens, Iran War Hits 60 Days, Gas at $4.30

The structural backdrop was an Iran war that refused to end. Two months after the February 28 opening of Operation Epic Fury, an analytical piece argued the US-Israeli campaign has settled into "indefinite impasse": neither US economic warfare nor Iran's Hormuz closure has produced a battlefield or negotiating outcome, and the administration has rejected Tehran's offer to reopen the strait in exchange for ending the US blockade without naming an alternative. The piece laid out five "politically inconvenient realities" — the impasse may be the new normal, no "good deal" with the Islamic Republic exists, Washington has lost the initiative to the Hormuz card, Epic Fury was a setback rather than a defeat (regime intact, nuclear programme reconstitutable, Hezbollah and Hamas weakened but not dismantled, Houthis still active), and the JCPOA-style "buy time and constrain" approach Trump exited in 2018 now looks even less achievable. Iran on the same day delivered a fresh response to US amendments to the draft peace plan, carried by White House envoy Steve Witkoff, which seek to reintroduce nuclear issues into the text. Oleksandr Kraiev of the Foreign Policy Council "Ukrainian Prism" called the Gulf war a "trap of easy solutions" for the President: rising fuel and food prices have eroded the rapid-victory premise on which the operation was launched.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth carried that bill to Congress. Before the Senate Armed Services Committee he argued the April 7 ceasefire has paused the 60-day War Powers Resolution clock — buying time before any congressional authorisation is required to continue operations. Pentagon officials in the same hearing priced the war to date at roughly $25 billion. The logistical tempo cuts the other way: in the prior 24 hours the United States moved approximately 6,500 tons of munitions, military trucks and other equipment to Israel by sea and air, in operations coordinated with the Israeli Defense Ministry. Trump's transatlantic move went the other way again on alliance commitment. Asked in the Oval Office about NATO partners, the President said he would "probably" remove US troops from Italy and Spain, accusing both of failing to support the war on Iran — "Italy has not been of any help to us and Spain has been horrible, absolutely horrible." Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said he did "not understand" the President's motives and noted Italy had made itself available for a Hormuz shipping-protection mission. The threat extends an earlier review of US troop levels in Germany, where Vice-Chancellor Lars Klingbeil — speaking at a Labor Day rally in Bergkamen — defended Chancellor Merz and called Trump's Iran strategy a strategic error.

The economic readout came in three parts. The Federal Reserve held rates steady in an 8-4 vote, the narrowest split in decades, with three officials opposing a tilt toward easing; the Bank of England, ECB and Bank of Japan all held in parallel and signalled tightening intent if the energy shock spreads. The US national average gasoline price hit a four-year high of $4.30 a gallon. New Pew Research polling, also released on May 1, showed confidence in the President to make good decisions on economic policy at 42 percent — still among his best-rated issues — even as he lost ground on several personal traits.

Two domestic decisions ran in parallel to the war. The Justice Department released nearly six minutes of video showing 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen storming the Terrace Level checkpoint at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner on April 25 with a long gun. US Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro posted the footage to counter speculation the Secret Service agent shot during the incident had been hit by friendly fire; Director Sean Curran said the agent was shot "point-blank" by Allen. The release follows the same week's filing of Allen's mirror selfie taken in his hotel room minutes before the attack and his prescheduled "Apology and Explanation" emails naming officials as targets "from highest-ranking to lowest". And the Supreme Court, ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, struck down a Louisiana congressional map that had created a second majority-Black district, finding it an unconstitutional racial gerrymander — a ruling commentators on both sides read as a substantial weakening of the Voting Rights Act and a green light for GOP redistricting before the midterms.

Congress closed two open files in a single day. A voice vote ended the 76-day partial government shutdown — the longest on record — after Speaker Mike Johnson announced agreement on Department of Homeland Security funding, though White House stopgap funds are set to run out within the week. Hours before its authorisation expired, the Senate and House passed a six-week extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, giving lawmakers until June 12 to debate its long-term fate. The President separately signed an executive order imposing new sanctions on Cuban regime officials cited for repression and threats to US national security.

Across the country, May Day was its own readout on the war's domestic cost. Roughly 500 labour groups organised an economic blackout under the "May Day Strong" banner — about 3,500 events calling for "no school, no work, no shopping" — explicitly tying the action to rising energy costs and shrinking purchasing power from the Iran war.

The longer-horizon strategic picture filled in around the day. A US assessment said China has nearly tripled its nuclear warhead stockpile since 2019 and is rapidly expanding delivery systems and production infrastructure, with Beijing rejecting arms-control talks on the calculation that a stronger deterrent forces Washington to treat it as a peer. A Bloomberg analysis warned that North Korea's programme — capable of producing up to 20 warheads a year, with the Hwasong-15/-17/-18/-19 ICBM family already arguably outpacing the US ground-based midcourse defence system — could overwhelm homeland defences within a decade. Yara International CEO Svein Tore Holsether warned Hormuz-driven fertiliser disruption could put 10 billion meals per week at risk globally; UNHCR's Carlotta Wolf, citing the same shipping disruption, said agency carrier capacity has fallen from 97 to 77 percent.