The Latest: Trump says Iran 'will have to pay the price’
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5:28 AM on Wednesday, June 10
By The Associated Press
U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Iran is taking “too long to negotiate a deal” and that “now they will have to pay the price.” What that means for Tehran wasn't clear. His latest statement came after the U.S. launched airstrikes early Wednesday against Iran after Trump blamed Tehran for the crash of an American attack helicopter. Iran fired back at countries in the region.
A bill to provide nearly $70 billion for immigration enforcement narrowly passed the House on Tuesday and now goes to President Donald Trump for his signature, bolstering the administration’s deportation agenda for the remainder of his time in the White House.
Graham Platner has secured Maine’s Democratic Senate nomination, setting up a high-stakes battle against longtime incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins in a race that could determine party control of the U.S. Senate. In South Carolina and Nevada, where Trump endorsed his favored candidates, his clout within his party was tested.
The Latest:
Solar power has hit a new milestone even as Trump boosts coal over clean energy: In May, for the first time, solar supplied more electricity to the United States than coal — 12.8% compared to 12.2% for coal, its fourth-lowest monthly share ever.
Solar also became the third-largest source of electricity in the U.S. in May, behind natural gas and nuclear, according to data released Wednesday by global energy think tank Ember, along with a report by the Solar Energy Industries Association and analytics firm Wood Mackenzie.
Solar remains the leading source of new power in the United States even as the Trump administration has canceled solar and wind projects, implemented policies that slowed clean energy permitting and development and terminated $7 billion in funding for affordable solar energy projects. “Coal’s a great business,” Trump said last week as he announced nearly $700 million to support coal-fired power plants and coal exports.
“I hope my testimony is helpful to the work, the important work of the committee, to find justice for the victims,” Gates said, noting that he came voluntarily.
The Jeffrey Epstein files read like a who’s who of powerful men across tech, finance, politics and other industries, some of whom maintained or formed friendships even after Epstein’s history of sexual abuse came to light.
The files include calendar entries for meetings between the billionaire Microsoft co-founder and Epstein, email correspondence about philanthropic projects and photos of Gates at Epstein events. The Gates Foundation chairman has denied any knowledge of Epstein’s abuse of girls. Both he and his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, have said his association with Epstein created tension in their marriage.
House Oversight Committee Democrats want Trump to testify. Republicans have said they haven’t seen evidence Trump did anything wrong.
This election year is déjà vu for Sen. Susan Collins — the Maine Republican is running for reelection as Democrats pin their hopes on a new candidate, this time combat veteran and oyster farmer Graham Platner, to defeat her.
But Collins has proven to be a hard target even for candidates without the baggage of Platner, who has faced criticism for his relationships with women, inflammatory online posts and a previous tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol. Collins is seeking her sixth term with sky-high name recognition, a record-breaking run of consecutive Senate votes and a long history of delivering federal funding.
She is also the rare Republican who sometimes can boost her own popularity back home by keeping her distance from Trump, a delicate dance she’s perfected even as Trump’s tightening grip on the party has cost two other Senate Republicans their seats.
It took a full week for California’s general election matchup for governor to become clear — Republican Steve Hilton has now joined Democrat Xavier Becerra in qualifying for the November ballot. The final results for Maine could take even longer. And key primary contests in South Carolina are headed to a June 23 runoff.
Despite what you may be reading on the internet, this is how U.S. democracy works. These differences in how votes are counted — and how long it takes — exist because the Constitution sets out broad principles for electing a national government and leaves the details to the states.
Tallying votes collected by local officials in individual precincts can take a long time — especially in states like Maine that offer ranked-choice voting, or South Carolina, which requires a runoff if none of the candidates earn more than 50% of the vote.
Consumer prices rose 4.2% in May from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Wednesday, up from 3.8% in April and the third straight increase. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.5% last month, after big gains of 0.6% in April and 0.9% in March.
The numbers are a headache for the Federal Reserve and a political challenge for the Trump administration as midterm elections near.
Inflation had been cooling before Trump’s sweeping tariffs in April 2025 made many goods more costly. Prices surged again after the Iran war made oil and gas more expensive, potentially spreading price hikes across the economy.
Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 2.9% in March from a year earlier, up from 2.8% in April. On a monthly basis, core prices increased a modest 0.2%, down from a 0.4% gain in April.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on X around the same time as Trump, again insisting that Iran could never have a nuclear weapon and defending Israel’s decisions to attack the Islamic Republic in the past.
While Iran and the U.S. seem to be looking for a way to end the conflict, Netanyahu appears intent on pursuing much more difficult goals: the collapse of Iran’s theocratic government, the elimination of its nuclear program and the destruction of the Iranian-allied Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon. That will make compromise much harder.
Hours after Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan came under Iranian fire, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that Iran was taking “too long to negotiate a deal” and that “now they will have to pay the price.”
It wasn’t clear what exactly that would mean, but the back-and-forth strikes Wednesday again raised the question of how much pressure the deal can take before it cracks. The exchange of fire was the second time this week that such strikes have tested the ceasefire after Iran and Israel targeted each other on Monday.
Recent U.S. sanctions targeting Cuba’s leadership and the indictment of former President Raúl Castro are a “pretext” for the Trump administration to persuade the American people to support a military intervention, Cuba’s top diplomat to the United States told The Associated Press.
In an interview on Tuesday, Ambassador Lianys Torres Rivera repeated accusations against the Trump administration made by other Cuban officials, including the foreign minister and the president, and complained bitterly that the U.S. is targeting Cuban civilians with its decades-old embargo and new blockade of energy shipments to the island.
“The sanctions against our leaders, we see as a pretext to make the American people think we are a threat,” she said at Cuba’s embassy in Washington. “We are not a threat to the U.S., and we don’t want confrontation.”
Torres Rivera, who holds the formal title of chargé d’affaires, described the situation as “a war without bombs.” She said efforts to change Cuba’s government by coercion or force would be met by fierce resistance.
Mismanagement at a massive Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Texas created unsafe conditions that contributed to detainee deaths and suffering even as millions of wasted tax dollars enriched contractors, according to a federal report released Tuesday.
The Government Accountability Office report documents serious problems at Camp East Montana, a sprawling tent facility at Fort Bliss in El Paso, where three detainees have died in little more than six months. Evidence in one of those deaths, of a 55-year-old Cuban migrant who died in January after being held down by guards, was “missing or destroyed,” the report found.
ICE rushed to open the camp in August before construction was complete and failed to conduct required oversight to ensure detainees were held in sanitary conditions and receiving adequate medical care, according to the report.
DHS noted that ICE has replaced the contractor running the facility. “This new contractor will allow Camp East Montana to continue abiding by the highest detention standards with the ability to provide more medical care on-site,” said spokesperson Lauren Bis.
The United States launched airstrikes early Wednesday against Iran after blaming Tehran for the crash of an American attack helicopter, and Iran fired back at countries in the region — another escalation that threatened to derail efforts to end the war.
Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan — all of which host U.S. troops — came under Iranian fire. It was the second time this week that back-and-forth strikes have tested the ceasefire after Iran and Israel targeted each other on Monday, and it again raised the question of how much pressure the deal can take before it cracks.
While Trump has insisted that negotiations with Iran to end the war are making progress, he has repeatedly vacillated between expressing such optimism and warning that he was ready to return to all-out war. Iran, meanwhile, has proved resilient despite having faced weeks of heavy bombing, betting that its ability to effectively close the Strait of Hormuz — a crucial passageway for the world’s oil and natural gas — gives it a strong bargaining chip.
Graham Platner has secured Maine’s Democratic Senate nomination, setting up a high-stakes battle against longtime incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins in a race that could determine party control of the U.S. Senate.
Nevada, South Carolina and North Dakota hosted primary elections Tuesday, but much of the political world was focused on Maine’s high-stakes U.S. Senate contest.
The results were never in question. Neither Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins nor Democratic challenger Graham Platner faced serious opposition for their party’s nomination. And yet Tuesday marked an especially significant moment for Platner, the embattled veteran and oyster farmer, who is fighting to rebuild his credibility in a campaign rocked by controversy.
Elsewhere, President Donald Trump’s clout within his party was tested anew in states like South Carolina and Nevada, where he endorsed his favored candidates. Democrats hoped to build momentum in Nevada as part of a broader push to reclaim key governor’s seats.
A bill to provide nearly $70 billion for immigration enforcement narrowly passed the House on Tuesday and now goes to President Donald Trump for his signature, bolstering the administration’s deportation agenda for the remainder of his time in the White House.
Republicans used their majority to get the bill over the finish line, funding a pair of Homeland Security agencies through the next three years. The bill passed by a vote of 214-212, over the objections of Democrats. Trump is expected to sign it into law on Wednesday.
The White House says the bill will provide $38 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, $26 billion for the Border Patrol and another $5 billion to cover unforeseen costs. It frontloads routine annual funding, ensuring a virtually uninterrupted flow of money as the Trump administration seeks to deport some 1 million people per year.
