Next targets
President Donald Trump warned the Iranian regime Tuesday that the United States will target its bridges and power plants soon “unless they get to the table and negotiate.” The Middle Eastern conflict resumed last week after Iran struck three commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, and the United States has since launched its own strikes on Iran in response.
Iran’s blockade?
Iran threatens to block all oil and gas exports from the Middle East as the U.S. escalates its airstrikes against the country and reinstitutes a naval blockade. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard threatened Wednesday to halt all energy exports from the Middle East over the blockade. “The export of oil and gas from the region will be either for everyone or for no one,” it said.
Death toll
The American strikes hit an Iranian army barracks, killed at least seven troops and wounded more than 260 people across the country, Iranian officials said.
Islands
Iran took control of three islands — Abu Musa, Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb — from what would become the United Arab Emirates in 1971. The UAE has sought to reclaim them. Some analysts have suggested that if the U.S. seized the islands, they could allow it to control the strait.
US Energy
- The U.S. Energy Department finalizes a $3.26 billion loan for the Texas arm of American Electric Power to finance about 100 transmission projects and upgrades across the state.
- Wisconsin transmission owners and other state utilities keep up their efforts to block competitive bidding for new projects as grid demand is expected to rise in the coming years.
- Nuclear giant Holtec International is betting big that its 300-megawatt small modular reactors are the future of atomic energy. On Friday, the Florida-headquartered firm filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission in order to sell shares in the company on the Nasdaq.
- President Donald Trump issues proclamations reducing two national monuments in southern Utah by about 90%, reopening nearly 3 million acres of federal land to mining claims and to oil and gas and coal leasing.
- A new law in Pennsylvania will require data centers to submit detailed reports on their energy and water use to the state.