The State Department has ordered non-emergency government personnel and their families to evacuate Saudi Arabia following a surge in missile and drone strikes targeting civilian airports and critical infrastructure across the kingdom.
In a security alert issued Tuesday, the U.S. warned that ongoing hostilities by Iran-backed Houthi forces have caused severe travel disruptions and civilian casualties, prompting strict travel restrictions for American personnel and warnings of wider regional spillover.
"Iranian-supported Houthis have engaged in hostilities against Saudi Arabia, including attacks on civilian airports and other critical infrastructure resulting in civilian casualties and severe travel disruptions," according to the alert.
"The hostilities have the potential to escalate rapidly beyond that immediate area."
Flight operations remain severely disrupted across major transit hubs, including Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport, where only limited routes are running, alongside significant delays at facilities in Jeddah and Dammam.
U.S. officials urged private citizens to exercise extreme caution, consider overland transit alternatives via operational borders like the King Fahd Causeway, and strictly abide by local regulations barring the filming or sharing of attack sites and counter-missile activity.
President Donald Trump highlighted incoming shipments of Venezuelan crude Tuesday as a direct economic cushion against rising fuel prices spurred by the 9-month-old conflict with Iran, pointing to alternative energy imports during a campaign departure for Texas.
Speaking to reporters ahead of rallies alongside Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Trump praised recent surges in consumer confidence before confirming plans to showcase an arriving oil tanker carrying Venezuelan crude destined for processing at Gulf Coast facilities.
"We took over Venezuela very successfully, and they've sent me as a gift, a boatload of a million barrels of oil, and I'm giving that to the United States of America," Trump told reporters on the tarmac from Joint Base Andrews, framing the imports as a tangible benefit of his administration's pressure campaign.
"We're going to accept a million barrels of oil , and I'm going to give it to you people to use it the way you want. And we're going to have oil prices are going to be dropping very sharply."
The administration has increasingly relied on Western Hemisphere energy flows to offset global supply contractions caused by maritime blockades in the Strait of Hormuz and repeated strikes by Iran-aligned proxies on regional Gulf infrastructure.
With domestic pump prices edging above previous-term averages just a week before the November midterms, the White House has maintained that foreign oil seizures, increased Caribbean imports, and record domestic production will neutralize temporary spikes until the Middle East war is resolved.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is warning about voter turnout in the elections underway Tuesday.
"We're at war for our home 🚨," Netanyahu added in a second post. "Muslim Brotherhood supporters are raiding the polling stations and stealing the elections.
"Go out and vote, recover it!!"
Cars flying Netanyahu's Likud party flags drove through Jerusalem blaring the Islamic call to prayer and urging supporters to cast their ballots because "Arabs are voting," witnesses said.
"If we don't wake up now, we'll find ourselves with a government of Mansour Abbas and Ahmed Tibi," Netanyahu wrote in a post, referring to two leading Palestinian Arab politicians in Israel.
Turnout reached 55.7% in the first nine hours of voting, the elections committee said, the fastest pace on record.
Arabs, mostly of Palestinian heritage, make up about 21% of Israel's population of 10 million and have traditionally voted at lower rates than Jewish Israelis.
Tibi, a candidate from an Arab party, said strong turnout among Israel's Arab minority would "pave the way for an alternative government and change the grave reality."
Sami Abu Shehadeh, leader of the Arab Balad party, wrote on X that long lines outside polling stations should bring "pride and joy to anyone who believed in democracy."
"We are receiving all these inciting messages from the petty racists, Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu, and their partners," he added. "What are they afraid of? This is actually an excellent sight, it is good for democracy."
In a statement, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir described the level of Arab voter turnout as "crazy," urging supporters to vote for his Jewish Power party if they wanted the country to be Jewish and Zionist.
Smotrich's Religious Zionism party said the finance minister had suspended his election day campaigning to convene an emergency meeting to discuss what it described as unusually high turnout among Arab voters.
Reuters contributed to this report.
{{#rendered}}House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, strongly defended President Donald Trump's military confrontation with Tehran on Tuesday.
Arrington argued that decades of bipartisan caution had allowed Iran’s regional aggression to metastasize unchecked, insisting that Trump prioritized long-term American safety over near-term political risks.
"Look, we had a precipitous decline in the cost of energy leading up to the Iranian conflict," Arrington told FOX Business' "Big Money in the Morning" on Tuesday.
"I think the American people understand that for almost 50 years, we gave that terrorist regime a pass. I think this president recognized that he was going to be the last commander in chief to address this situation before we had a Kim Jong Un in the Middle East, essentially.
"And so he was willing to take the risk, quite frankly. Thank God we have a commander in chief that's willing to do things that aren't in his political interest on account of the security interest of the American people."
Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., who stands to reclaim the chairmanship of the House Armed Services Committee if Democrats win the House majority in the upcoming midterm elections, signaled Tuesday that impeachment proceedings against War Secretary Pete Hegseth are firmly on the table.
"Well, I think we need to thoroughly investigate all of them to be sure, because there's been a lack of transparency at the Pentagon," Smith told CNN on Tuesday. "I think, we need the shine a brighter light on it and organize it, say, OK, these are the issues that are most concerning."
Smith pointed to the Republican-led push initiated before the pre-election recess by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who introduced eight articles of impeachment targeting Hegseth's execution of the Iran campaign under the War Powers Resolution.
With Massie preparing to reintroduce the privileged measure during the upcoming post-election session, a floor vote could occur within the next two weeks.
Because impeachment actions can carry over to a new Congress, approval during a lame-duck session could send the articles to the Senate for trial early next year.
"But then, as you know, right before we left, there was a Republican-led effort to impeach Pete Hegseth that, and I think that is definitely on the table," Smith added. "I think the way he has run the Pentagon has been shocking, not just to Democrats, but to a number of Republicans as well.
"So I've said a long, long time ago that he's not qualified for the job and he should be removed, and I think we're going to pursue that."
When asked directly whether he would vote to impeach the defense secretary, Smith replied:"I'd have to – in all likelihood, yes, but I have to look at the particular articles and the particular arguments before I make that commitment."
Addressing whether Hegseth can survive growing congressional scrutiny through a potential Democratic takeover and a subsequent committee gavel, Smith pointed to the political dynamics facing the administration.
"At the end of the day, Hegseth, you know, as they say, serves at the pleasure of the president," Smith concluded. "Would Trump get rid of him? Would Hegseth leave? Would we have, you now, 67 senators willing to impeach him? You know, if he's willing to dig his fingernails into the desk and not leave, it's hard to pull him out of there, but I will say I think there's going to be enormous bipartisan pressure to remove him."
Fox News' Gillian Turner, Liz Friden and Chad Pergram contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump delivered a scathing rebuke of Iranian aggression during a Monday campaign rally in Mississippi, rejecting Tehran's public overtures of regional stability while its armed forces actively deploy naval mines to choke the Strait of Hormuz.
The confrontation comes as Iran wages a coordinated diplomatic push to frame the United States as the sole architect of Middle East instability.
Earlier Tuesday, Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei publicly claimed that decades of American military involvement have failed to provide security guarantees, demanding that Gulf neighbors like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan cut security ties with Washington and build an internal, "regional-only" defense framework.
Yet Tehran's diplomatic messaging clashes directly with its ongoing tactical escalation. Hours after Rezaei’s statements, the Iranian Navy confirmed that a commercial oil tanker caught fire after striking naval mines in the eastern Strait of Hormuz , declaring the vital international passage "closed" to uncoordinated traffic.
Compounding the threat, Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis claimed an attack against Saudi Arabia's premier Ras Tanura export refinery.Speaking to supporters, Trump dismantled Tehran’s narrative that the United States initiated the conflict, citing decades of state-sponsored terror and asymmetric warfare.
"We didn't start the war with Iran. Iran started the war with us," Trump told his rally crowd, adding "it's true in 1979, and they were killing our people for years. The USS Cole was an example. A lot of people died, but a lot of people died individually with the roadside bombs."
Reflecting on his visits to wounded service members at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Trump recalled meeting a severely wounded minesweeper injured in an improvised explosive device blast designed and proliferated by late IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani.
"I looked in the bed and I saw a young man whose legs were gone, whose one arm, his right arm was gone, and his left arm was gone up to here," Trump continued.
"And the amazing thing, he was a minesweeper. He would go around checking for mines, you know, the roadside bombs and stuff."
"Soleimani was the father of the roadside bomb. And our guys were getting really good at detecting them, so they started making them more powerful and all out of plastic, no more metal."
{{#rendered}}U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) directly refuted claims by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Tuesday, rejecting assertions that American naval assets have retreated from the Strait of Hormuz amid the escalating maritime standoff.
The pushback follows statements from the IRGC Navy commander alleging that U.S. forces had abandoned the vital corridor and repositioned hundreds of kilometers away from the Persian Gulf.
In a statement posted to X, CENTCOM labeled the Iranian claim "false," emphasizing that the U.S. military footprint across the waterway remains fully intact and operational.
"U.S. forces deployed to the Middle East remain present and vigilant in the Strait of Hormuz and surrounding waters, as demonstrated by the CENTCOM commander this weekend," the X post read. "U.S. forces and regional partners control the international waterway — clearly not Iran."
The public rebuttal highlights the intensifying information war surrounding the world’s most critical energy artery.
While Tehran has attempted to assert physical control through naval mine deployment, proxy strikes, and warnings against commercial shipping, Washington is signaling that its naval escort posture and maritime enforcement operations remain actively positioned inside the corridor to safeguard international navigation.
An oil tanker sailing without operational tracking systems caught fire after striking naval mines in the eastern Strait of Hormuz , the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy announced Tuesday via local Iranian media channels.
According to a statement issued by Navy Public Relations, the vessel – described by Iranian authorities as an "illegal oil tanker" had deactivated its Automatic Identification System (AIS) in an attempt to transit an unauthorized zone before detonating underwater ordnance.
The Iranian military asserted that the strategic waterway remains "unsafe and closed to offending vessels" and warned that any commercial or naval traffic attempting passage without prior clearance from Iran’s armed forces faces severe navigational hazards.
The development represents a sharp physical escalation in the maritime blockade surrounding the choke point.
By acknowledging active minefields and enforcing mandatory coordination under threat of destruction, Tehran is asserting direct operational control over traffic moving through the strait, challenging Western naval escorts and compounding supply disruptions across global crude markets.
President Donald Trump is facing midterm headwinds, but he remains undaunted on oil prices from his maximum pressure campaign on Iran, vowing to retain resolve against Iran's terror in the Strait of Hormuz and their nuclear weapons ambitions.
Average pump prices during Trump’s second term have eclipsed those recorded under former President Joe Biden, according to AAA data, presenting a sharp economic vulnerability for Republicans seeking to maintain narrow congressional majorities ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
The price of regular gasoline has averaged $3.472 per gallon under Trump, edging past the $3.471 average of Biden’s presidency.
“Once this conflict comes to an end, gas prices will drop drastically," White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement. "Thanks to the exceptional work of the U.S. military, more oil is now flowing out of the Persian Gulf than before the Iran conflict began."
The sustained cost pressures follow widespread disruptions across international energy markets driven by the prolonged war in Ukraine and the nine-month-old joint U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran.
Hostilities centered on the Strait of Hormuz – the vital corridor that historically handled roughly 20 percent of world petroleum trade – have tightened global crude flows and triggered emergency oil reserve drawdowns in the United States and Europe.
Reuters contributed to this report.
{{#rendered}}A U.S. intelligence memo has warned that Iran is ramping up efforts to target Americans abroad, retired Navy Capt. Brent Sadler and Israeli special ops veteran Aaron Cohen tell "Fox News @ Night."
Iran's Persian Gulf Strait Authority said all Strait of Hormuz ships belonging to South Korean shipping company Sinokor would face "legal action" starting Nov. 1.
Tehran has sought to tighten its grip on the strategic waterway by attacking shipping there since US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran on Feb. 28. It has restricted transit to try to gain leverage over Washington, while disrupting oil flows from Arab Gulf oil producers, especially to their customers in Asia.
The authority wrote on X that Sinokor vessels had committed the highest number of crossing violations in the strait over the past three months, and "appropriate actions" had been taken against at least seven of them.
In response to Iranian attacks, the United States also imposed a naval blockade against ships linked to the Islamic Republic in the strait.
While the blockade has all but choked off Iranian exports, Gulf producers have adapted to attacks on shipping by relying on so-called dark transits – switching off tankers' tracking systems to evade detection – to protect the oil flows that underpin their economies.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Israel is showing the world, and Ukraine, how to conduct wartime elections.
Israelis voted at the fastest pace in 45 years Tuesday in a high-stakes national election serving as a public referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wartime leadership, including the joint campaign against Iran.
According to the Central Elections Committee, 16.7% of eligible voters cast ballots within the first three hours, marking the highest early participation rate since 1981.
The vote pits Netanyahu – backed by conservative and ultra-Orthodox allies and endorsed by President Donald Trump to "finish the job" – against former military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, who leads an opposition bloc aiming to unseat the prime minister over security failures surrounding the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks.
The electoral outcome holds major consequences for the broader confrontation with Tehran.
While both Netanyahu and Eisenkot take hawkish lines on regional defense, a leadership change could reshape Israel's coalition politics, West Bank policies, and strategic coordination with Washington as hostilities with Iran and its regional network continue.
{{#rendered}}Iran is urging regional security and peace, but its terrorist proxy Houthis are claiming an attack on Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura oil refinery, targeting the kingdom's largest refining facility located along the Persian Gulf coast.
The claim, reported by Reuters, marks a sharp escalation in regional energy threats as Tehran and its allied regional network push back against Western and Gulf pressure.
Ras Tanura is not only Saudi Aramco's largest domestic refinery, processing roughly 550,000 barrels of crude per day, but also serves as the world's premier offshore crude loading terminal, handling the bulk of Saudi oil exports.
The targeted strike directly challenges regional stability efforts and intensifies pressure on global energy supplies already unsettled by maritime tensions in the nearby Strait of Hormuz .
After Iran urged Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan to stop relying in U.S. military support, a Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson issued a call for Iran to come to peace.
Iran needs to show good intentions, stop threats against Arab Gulf states and open the Strait of Hormuz for mediation efforts to succeed, the spokesperson said during a press briefing on Tuesday.
Qatar, along with Pakistan, has been mediating between Washington and Tehran in an effort to end the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Iran’s top security official Mohsen Rezaei met with Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei on Tuesday for high-level consultations on the nation’s defense posture and foreign policy, Iranian state media reported.
The meeting between the head of the Supreme National Security Council and Iran’s leader comes during heightened regional friction involving the Western military posture, terrorized Persian Gulf shipping corridors, and diplomatic talks with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan.
The direct engagement highlights strategic coordination between Iran's civilian and military leadership as Tehran weighs its posture against President Donald Trump's Strait of Hormuz blockade and threats to take out Iran's nuclear weapons aspirations.
Reuters contributed to this report.
{{#rendered}}The U.K.'s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has formally charged two men under the National Security Act 2023 following a major counter-terrorism investigation into a security incident at RAF Fairford – a key strategic staging base used by the U.S. military for operations and strikes connected to the Iran conflict.
"The Crown Prosecution Service has decided to prosecute two individuals with National Security Act offenses following a Counter Terrorism Policing investigation into a high-profile incident involving RAF Fairford," Frank Ferguson, Chief Crown Prosecutor for the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said in a statement.
"We will continue to work closely with our partners as this complex investigation continues."
Mohmed Abdulkarim, 24, and Nouman Essghir, 24, both of London, are scheduled to make their first appearance at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Tuesday.
Abdulkarim faces charges of assisting a foreign intelligence service – identified by U.K. counter-terrorism officials as Iran – while Essghir has been charged with entering a prohibited place for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the U.K.
Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei has issued a sharp rebuke of Washington's regional posture, asserting that decades of American military presence have failed to establish stability in the Middle East.
In a statement published on X, the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council argued that the vulnerability of Western defense commitments is now undeniable.
"America has not brought security to any country in the region, and Washington’s inability to provide security guarantees has become evident," Rezaei wrote on X in a post translated to English.
"Security in West Asia must originate from within the region itself, and any foreign intervention must be prevented."
Rezaei’s remarks directly target Gulf and regional neighbors relying on U.S. security pacts, contending that external military deployments create instability rather than deterrence.
Tehran is actively advocating for a localized security architecture, urging neighboring capitals – including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan – to handle regional disputes internally and phase out reliance on Western forces.
The comments come as Iran and its terrorist proxies like the Houthis in Yemen continue to threaten ships in the maritime corridors like the Strait of Hormuz.
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