May 7, 2026 - Daily News Digest
On this day in 1915, during World War I, a torpedo fired by a German submarine struck the Lusitania off the coast of Ireland, sinking the luxury liner and killing some 1,200 people on board.
QotD: "This is shared (NATO) airspace, and it is necessary to have (military) units here”, Latvia's Defence Minister, Andris Spruds, told reporters.
US/IRAN/MIL – Iran reviewing US proposal as Trump pressures Tehran for agreement on deal to end war.
https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-israel-war-may-7-2026-fdc6d2ae9396377919c967746fa9996b
Iran said it was reviewing the latest American proposals to end the war after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened the country with a new wave of bombing unless a deal is reached that includes reopening the crucial Strait of Hormuz to international shipping.
Hope that the two-month conflict could soon be over buoyed international markets Thursday, a day after the U.S. military fired on an Iranian oil tanker attempting to breach the American blockade of Iran’s ports. The developments followed days of mixed messages from the Trump administration over its strategy to end the war.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed peace efforts in the Middle East at the Vatican. Rubio met with Pope Leo XIV, whose opposition to the Iran war has led to open sparring with Trump.
Trump posted on social media Wednesday that ending the war and resuming oil and natural gas shipments disrupted by the conflict depends on Iran accepting an agreement, which he did not detail.
“If they don’t agree, the bombing starts,” Trump wrote.
A fragile ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran has largely held since April 8. But in-person talks between the two countries hosted by Pakistan last month failed to reach an agreement. The war began Feb. 28, when the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran.
MORE/IRAQ – US to sanction Iraqi official over allegedly aiding Iranian oil sales.
The Treasury Department plans to sanction Iraq’s deputy oil minister on Thursday, alleging that he was involved in a scheme to help Iran sell its oil in violation of an international embargo by blending it with Iraqi crude.
Deputy Minister of Oil Ali Maarij Al-Bahadly authorized trucking several million dollars’ worth of Iraqi oil per day to a smuggler who combined it with Iranian crude, Treasury plans to announce. Maarij helped falsify documents, enabling the blended product to be smuggled to market disguised as purely Iraqi oil, the department will say.
The move signals the administration is raising pressure on Baghdad to sever its economic ties to Tehran, which has long used its neighbor to evade international sanctions and as a source of hard currency. It is unusual for Treasury to sanction a high-level official who is in office, especially from Iraq, which the U.S has longstanding relations with.
VATICAN/US/STATE – ‘Friendly and constructive’: Rubio meets Pope Leo XIV in bid to ease tensions.
The US State Department underlined its "strong relationship" with the Vatican on Thursday after talks between top diplomat Marco Rubio and Pope Leo, weeks after US President Donald Trump's astonishing attack on the first American pontiff.
"The conversations today were friendly and constructive," a State Department official told AFP following the US secretary of state's private audience at the Vatican.
Rubio's visit comes after Trump accused Leo, the head of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics, of being "weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy" following critical comments the pope made about the Middle East war.
After the talks, US State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said Leo and Rubio discussed the Middle East as well as their mutual interests in the Western Hemisphere – a phrase used by the US to refer to Latin America.
"The meeting underscored the strong relationship between the United States and the Holy See and their shared commitment to promoting peace and human dignity," Pigott said.
A US official confirmed that the Catholic Church's work in Cuba was discussed.
ISRAEL/GAZA/HAMAS – Israeli attack kills son of Hamas leader negotiating with Trump-led board.
An Israeli airstrike has killed the son of Hamas' chief negotiator in U.S.-mediated talks over Gaza's future, a senior Hamas official said on Thursday, as leaders of the militant group held talks in Cairo aimed at safeguarding their truce with Israel.
Azzam Al-Hayya, son of Khalil Al-Hayya, succumbed to his wounds on Thursday after being struck in an Israeli attack on Wednesday night, senior Hamas official Basim Naim said. He is the fourth son of Hamas' exiled Gaza chief to have been killed in Israeli attacks.
The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment.
Later on Thursday, health officials and the Hamas-run interior ministry said at least three police officers were killed, and other people, including one policeman, were wounded when an Israeli airstrike targeted a police post in western Gaza City.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Reuters has reported that Israel has intensified its attacks on Gaza's Hamas-run police force, which the militant group has used to reinforce its hold in the areas it controls in the strip.
UKR/RUS/MIL – Russia warns foreign diplomats to leave Kyiv in case of strike.
Russia sent an evacuation warning to foreign diplomats in Kyiv on Wednesday, saying it would attack the city if Ukraine disrupted World War II commemorations in Moscow this weekend. Russia did not elaborate on its threat, and Ukraine did not immediately respond.
Russia marks World War II Victory Day each year on May 9 with a massive military parade through Red Square.
The country earlier this week declared a unilateral ceasefire with Ukraine between May 8 and 9 to coincide with the commemorations.
In a note to foreign diplomatic missions and international organisations, Russia warned it would launch a "retaliatory strike" on the Ukrainian capital, "including against decision-making centres", if Ukraine disrupted the commemorations this Saturday.
It urged them to "ensure the timely evacuation of personnel from diplomatic and other missions, as well as citizens, from the city of Kyiv". There was no immediate reaction from Ukraine.
US/BRAZIL/TRADE – Brazil’s Lula visits Trump in Washington seeking to avert new US trade tariffs.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visits the White House on Thursday, aiming to revive what U.S. President Donald Trump last year called their "excellent chemistry," avoid new tariffs, and show a willingness to negotiate deals on critical minerals and organized crime, three people close to the Brazilian president told Reuters.
“We don’t know if the visit will help,” one Brazilian official involved in arranging the meeting told Reuters. "But it’s more likely to help than doing nothing."
Last year, Trump hit Brazilian products with 50% tariffs, among the highest on any U.S. imports, accusing the country of promoting a witch-hunt against far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was later convicted for attempting to overthrow democracy.
Trump later withdrew most of the levies, including on Brazilian beef and coffee, at least in part to help calm rising U.S. grocery prices. In February, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the global tariffs he imposed under a national emergencies law, eliminating many of the remaining levies.
BALTICS/NATO/SEC – Baltic nations seek more NATO defence as drone hits Latvian oil tanks.
https://www.reuters.com/world/two-drones-russia-crash-latvia-army-says-2026-05-07/
Latvia and Lithuania on Thursday called on NATO to boost air defences in their region after two suspected stray Ukrainian drones came over the Russian border and crashed on Latvian soil, one of them exploding at an oil storage facility.
They were probably launched by Ukraine against Russian targets and fell by accident on the wrong side of the frontier, Latvia's Defence Minister, Andris Spruds, told reporters.
Russia's NATO neighbours have reported a number of such incidents.
"I have raised this with our allied partners, including within the NATO framework in this region, that the defence of our airspace is a shared responsibility", Spruds told a press conference near the crash site in eastern Latvia.
"This is shared (NATO) airspace, and it is necessary to have (military) units here", he said.
The three Baltic region nations of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are strong supporters of Ukraine in the war with Russia.
Four empty oil tanks were damaged on Thursday morning at a storage facility in Rezekne, about 40 km (25 miles) from the Russian border, and possible debris of a crashed drone was found at the site, police and firefighters said.
US/MEXICO/POL/CARTELS – Mexico’s Sheinbaum battles party split over US cartel charges.
A U.S. indictment announced last week accusing several Mexican politicians, including the governor of Sinaloa, of having drug cartel ties is triggering a rift in the ruling Morena party as factions jostle over how to respond, posing a significant challenge for President Claudia Sheinbaum.
Publicly, Sheinbaum has denounced U.S. interference and said the evidence Mexico has seen so far is not sufficient to arrest and extradite the 10 current and former Mexican officials accused by the U.S. Department of Justice of colluding with the Sinaloa Cartel to traffic drugs into the United States.
But behind the scenes, a heated dispute has broken out along pre-existing fault lines within the ruling party, three senior Morena officials told Reuters. The dispute has centered on the future of Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha, an influential Morena politician who said last Friday he would step down temporarily as a local investigation proceeds. He denies any wrongdoing.
Rocha is the first high-profile sitting politician to be accused by the United States of ties to drug trafficking. U.S. prosecutors have accused Mexican officials of corruption before, but only after they have left office.
The powerful faction in Morena that is loyal to former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the movement's founder and de facto leader, has vehemently opposed any action that could be regarded as giving in to U.S. pressure, the sources said.
CHINA/MIL – China sentences former defence ministers to death with reprieve.
Former Chinese defence ministers Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu were both sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve over graft charges, state news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday, underscoring the severity of the purge in the military.
The armed forces have been one of the main targets of a broad corruption crackdown ordered by President Xi Jinping after coming to power in 2012. The purges reached the elite Rocket Force, which oversees nuclear weapons as well as conventional missiles, in 2023.
Earlier this year they escalated further, resulting in the removal of the top general in the People's Liberation Army, Zhang Youxia, who was a Politburo member and was long seen as an ally of Xi.
Past reports in Xinhua said Li had been suspected of receiving "huge sums of money" in bribes as well as bribing others, and an investigation found he "did not fulfil political responsibilities" and "sought personnel benefits for himself and others".
An investigation launched into Wei in 2023 found that he had accepted "a huge amount of money and valuables" in bribes and "helped others gain improper benefits in personnel arrangements", Xinhua reported in 2024, adding that his actions were "extremely serious in nature, with a highly detrimental impact and tremendous harm".
RWANDA/FRANCE/JUSTICE – France reopens probe into Rwanda’s ex-first lady over 1994 genocide.
France’s judiciary on Wednesday ordered the resumption of an investigation into accusations that the widow of Rwanda’s former president Juvenal Habyarimana was involved in the 1994 genocide.
Investigating magistrates last year dismissed the case into alleged complicity in genocide and crimes against humanity against Agathe Habyarimana over “insufficient evidence”.
But the judiciary overturned that decision and ordered that the investigation continue.
Habyarimana, now 83, has been living in France since 1998. Kigali has repeatedly requested her extradition.
The former first lady fled Rwanda with French help just days after her husband’s plane was shot down in April 1994, triggering the genocide which saw around 800,000 people, mainly ethnic Tutsis, slaughtered in one of the 20th century’s worst atrocities.
She has rejected allegations against her, saying she was a stay-at-home mother of eight children with no link to politics.