White House chief of staff Susie Wiles says she has been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer

(NEW YORK) — The sinking of an Iranian warship Tuesday by a U.S. submarine thousands of miles from the war zone in international waters raises questions about whether the attack was legal under the rules of war.

Military law experts said the Iranian ship, which was in the Indian Ocean in international waters off Sri Lanka, would have been a lawful target had the U.S. declared war. The fact that it hasn’t done so makes the issue a murky one.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the attack an “atrocity.”

“The U.S. will come to bitterly regret precedent it has set,” he said.

Experts say the incident highlights the reason that a declaration of war by Congress is needed for the growing conflict, which has involved more than 12 countries, as Iran continues launching drones and missiles at countries beyond the Persian Gulf region.

The House of Representatives on Thursday voted against a war powers resolution. Similar legislation failed Wednesday in the Senate. Both votes largely followed party lines.

The submarine strike in international waters “underscores why Congress should have approved this in the first place,” said Retired Lt. Col. Rachel VanLandingham, a former judge advocate general in the U.S. Air Force, “because this is a war [in which they’re] going to go after the Iranian Navy,” even when naval assets are outside the Middle East.

“The Iranian Navy is not small, right? It could be in places like outside of Sri Lanka and international water.”

Under the laws of armed conflict, were the U.S. and Iran in a declared war, the warship would represent a lawful target, former U.S. government lawyers told ABC News.

The issue with the submarine’s attacking the warship in international waters, VanLandingham said, was “political” in nature and not legal.

“When you’re going to have such global implications — that’s one of the reasons the founding fathers said Congress gets to decide wars of choice,” she said.

Brian Finucane, who was attorney-adviser at the State Department from 2011 to 2021, also said the submarine attack would have been lawful if the conflict was authorized.

According to Finucane, the U.S. would have an obligation under the Geneva Conventions to conduct search and rescue operations for survivors of the sinking.

A source familiar with Tuesday’s operation said the submarine took measures to support life-saving efforts before and after the ship sank in line with international law.

The military’s compliance with that international law was called into question when a second strike on an alleged drug boat killed survivors in international waters in the Caribbean Sea in September.

“The fundamental legal problems under both U.S. and international law” of the submarine engagement, Finucane said, “relate to the underlying use of force in this war against Iran.”

Authorization by Congress for the war is required by law because the U.S. offensive against Iran is not a response to an imminent threat, experts said. 

President Donald Trump and his administration have said Iran posed such a threat. Secretary Marco Rubio said the threat became more imminent because Israel planned to strike Iran and Iran would retailiate against Israel and the U.S.

While the president has called the conflict a “war,” senior officials in his administration — and top leadership in Congress — have refrained from using the word.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said Wednesday the U.S. “is not at war now.”

The Pentagon’s top policy official, asked whether the U.S. was at war with Iran in a congressional hearing Thursday, would not use the term.

“I think we’re in a military action at this point,” said Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby. “I will leave to Congress and lawyers from the administration, et cetera, to determine.”

Ambiguity about the conflict’s label from across the government comes as Pentagon officials say the conflict will only “accelerate” in intensity — and potentially grow in scope.

The U.S. military mission is in a “throttle-up” posture, said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who would not confine the campaign to a time limit.

“The only limits we have in this is President Trump’s desire to achieve specific effects on behalf of the American people,” Hegseth said.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Senate is poised to vote on Thursday on two separate plans aimed at addressing a spike in health care costs that are expected for tens of millions of Americans who receive enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits unless Congress acts.

Both plans, one put forward by Democrats and the other championed by Republicans, are almost certain to fail.

After they do, lawmakers will have only a matter of days remaining to address the expiration of the enhanced tax credits, and there’s little indication that any sort of breakthrough is on the horizon.

Democratic plan: 3-year extension of expiring enhanced tax credits

The Democratic plan that will receive a vote on Thursday proposes a three-year extension of the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that are otherwise set to expire on Jan. 1. The enhanced subsidies were originally put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During remarks on the floor Wednesday, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the Democratic plan the “only realistic path left” to address the looming premium spike. 

“We have 21 days until Jan. 1. After that, people’s health care bills will start going through the roof. Double, triple, even more,” Schumer said. “There is only one way to avoid all of this. The only realistic path left is what Democrats are proposing — a clean direct extension of this urgent tax credit.”

Even though Democrats are in the minority, they are getting a vote on their proposal, as part of a deal struck by a small group of Senate moderates to re-open the federal government after a 43-day shutdown, which centered around Democrats’ efforts to address the expiring tax credits.

“What we need to do is prevent premiums from skyrocketing and only our bill does it is the last train out of the station,” Schumer said.

But any health care proposal in the Senate will require 60 votes to pass, which means members of both parties would need to lend votes to approve a plan.

Majority Leader John Thune made clear Wednesday that Republicans will not support the Democratic plan. 

Thune called the Democratic proposal a “partisan messaging exercise” and said that Democrats’ claim that their plan would lower health care costs represented a “tour of fantasy land.”

Republicans have for months been saying that the premium subsidies require reform. Without changes, Republicans say, the enhanced subsidies create opportunities for waste, fraud and abuse and have driven up the overall cost of premiums.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Senate Democrats’ proposal would add nearly $83 billion to the federal deficit over the next decade. CBO also estimates that enacting the Democrats’ legislation would increase the number of people with health insurance by 8.5 million people by 2029.

Pointing to the cost of extending the subsidies, Thune said, Democrats ought to put forward a program that makes modifications to the program.

“That’s not what they did … No changes,” Thune said. “Just continue to run up the cost. Run up the cost in the individual marketplace like that — but have the American taxpayers pay for it and then go tell people that you’re trying to keep their premiums down,” Thune said. “This does nothing, nothing, to lower the cost of health insurance.” 

Republican plan: Do away with the enhanced tax credits and create HSAs

Republicans will offer an “alternative” plan on the Senate floor on Thursday.

The Republican proposal, championed by Senate Health Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, would do away with the enhanced tax credits and instead take the extra money from those tax credits and put it into health savings accounts for those who purchase bronze-level or “catastrophic” plans on the ACA exchanges. Republicans say this will help Americans pay for out-of-pocket costs.

Under the plan, individuals earning less than 700% of the federal poverty level would receive $1,000 in HSA funding for those between age 18 and 49 and $1,500 for those age 50-64. Republicans say these funds could be used to help cover the higher deductibles on lower cost plans. 

Republicans say that their plan will reduce premiums through cost-sharing reductions and tout that the plan stops payments to insurance companies. Thune called it a “very different business model” than what Democrats are proposing.

“The question is do you want the government deciding this, ordo you want to put this power and these resources in the hands of the American people?” Thune said on the Senate floor on Wednesday. “American taxpayers. Patients. That’ what we’re about.”

This bill is also unlikely to pass the Senate on Thursday. Schumer called it “dead on arrival”.

“I want to be very clear about what this Republican bill represents, junk insurance,” Schumer said. “Let me tell my Republican colleagues: it is dead on arrival. The proposal does nothing to bring down sky-high premiums; it doesn’t extend the ACA premiums by a single day. Instead, Republicans want to send people $80 dollars and pretend that is going to fix everything.” Schumer said.

Cassidy this morning called Schumer’s categorization of his plan as a “junk plan” “so ironic.”

“These are Obamacare plans. These are the plans they put in place, except that when they did the plans, they’ve got $6,000 deductibles, or $7,500 deductibles. We addressed that deductible. We make these plans better,” Cassidy said. “We Republicans are trying to make it better. We want money in your pocket for your out-of-pocket [costs], and they want you to front the whole thing.”

Democrats also take umbrage with provisions in the GOP bill that prevent funds from being used for abortions. Schumer, on the Senate floor, called it a “poison pill.”

Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate appropriations committee, was asked if she saw any way that Democrats could support the bill today.

“Not with the choice issues in it, where they have made it that women cannot get access to an abortion through their plan,” Murray said. “I don’t see any way that this helps the people that are being hurt right now by the tax credits going away.”

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump announced conservative policymaker and former Fed governor Kevin Warsh as his pick to be the new Federal Reserve chairman.

In a post on Truth Social early Friday morning, Trump said that he has “known Kevin for a long period of time, and have no doubt that he will go down as one of the GREAT Fed Chairmen, maybe the best.”

“He will never let you down,” Trump continued.

Warsh previously served on the Fed’s board of governors from 2006 to 2011. He was a top adviser to then-Fed chairman Ben Bernanke during the 2008 financial crisis, serving as a liaison between the central bank and Wall Street. During that time, he was an inflation “hawk” — skeptical of the Fed’s ultra-low interest rate policy. But in more recent interviews, Warsh has heaped praise on Trump and called for “regime change” at the Fed, while also supporting lower interest rates.

On Thursday, Trump said that he had “chosen a very good person” while walking the carpet at the Kennedy Center ahead of the premiere of the documentary about first lady Melania Trump. 

Trump said his pick to replace current Chairman Jerome Powell is an “outstanding person and a person that won’t be too surprising to people.”

 “A lot of people think that this is somebody that could have been there a few years ago,” Trump went on. “It’s going to be somebody that is very respected, somebody that’s known to everybody in the financial world. And I think it’s going to be a very good choice.”

Trump has repeatedly attacked Powell over the past year for his cautious approach to lowering interest rates. 

Powell’s term as chairman expires in May. 

Earlier this month, in an extraordinary escalation of the months-long attack on the independence of the Federal Reserve, Powell announced that federal prosecutors had launched a criminal investigation related to a multi-year renovation of the Fed’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. 

Earlier this week, at its first meeting since news of the investigation surfaced, the Federal Reserve voted to hold interest rates steady. 

Trump said that the Fed governors who voted earlier this week to pause interest rates will change their minds once there is a new chair. 

“If they respect the Fed chairman, they’ll be with us all the way,” Trump said. “They want to see the country be great.”

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