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“Based on the fuel industry’s rule of thumb of a 10 to 14-day lag between wholesale cost movements and those at the pump, drivers should expect prices on forecourts to level by next weekend and then fall – providing the ceasefire holds,” said Luke Bosdet, the AA’s spokesman on pump prices.
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The Iranian regime’s ultimate goal is the destruction of Israel and America. Reza Safa is very acquainted with the radical Islamic belief, which views Israel as the little Satan, America as the great Satan, and all other non-Muslims as infidels.
Growing up as a Shi’ite Muslim in Iran, he also believed this until experiencing an encounter with Jesus Christ. Recently, he talked to CBN about his transformation.
As a devout Shi’ite, he initially came from Iran to America as a college student in 1978. A year later, he went back home to participate in the Iranian Revolution, led by radical cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who overthrew Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Safa recalls how he saw great confusion and chaos in his country then. It caused him to make a life-changing decision.
“So one day I said to my mother, I said, ‘I’m leaving Iran, and I don’t think ever again I will come back.’ And so I left and went to Sweden. And in Sweden, I met two Swedish missionaries that loved on me and took me to their homes and fed me, gave me a Bible in Persian. And I start reading the Bible,” he recalled.
***Sign up for CBN Newsletters and download the CBN News app to ensure you receive the latest updates from a Christian perspective.***
As he deeply studied the scripture, Safa experienced a divine encounter with God.
“I heard the voice of God for the first time in my life. And it, it wasn’t audible, but it was as though it was audible. I could hear it as well as I’m hearing you. And the voice called me in Farsi, Persian, perfect Persian accent like my mom used to call me. The voice said, ‘Reza, you don’t need to pray like this anymore, pray to me.'”
As grew in faith, Safa ultimately became a Christian pastor and began TBN Nejat-TV, a Christian channel in Farsi that airs in Iran and throughout the Middle East.
As a supporter of the current military action against Iran, he believes President Trump must stay focused on ending the regime and paving the way to freedom for the Iranian people.
“This is a very critical time for America, for our President, for our future, to finish this task and topple this regime,” he said.
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the release of American journalist Shelly Kittleson, who was recently kidnapped by members of the foreign terrorist organization Kata’ib Hizballah near Baghdad, Iraq.
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The struggle for democracy persists as we come into the second half of 2023. As the year progresses, we face lies, corruption, and violence. And so the fight for America will continue as Senate Republicans strive to prevent Democrats from passing even the most popular measures under Biden’s presidency.
While prices skyrocket across the country and our rights are put in jeopardy, Americans like you continue to fight for representation and push back against the rise of fascism. Despite the challenges facing the journalism industry these days, we’ve been fortunate to have a loyal reader base and to be able to navigate the landscape until now. If you’re one of our over 5,000 subscribers, we cannot thank you enough.
We can’t even begin to express our gratitude to you — our readers, donors, and subscribers — for your commitment to Raw Story. If you cannot contribute, your readership is more than enough. If you can, however, it would mean the world to us. Subscriptions and donations are crucial to the sustainability of the news industry. We want to be able maintain the sanctitude of our newsroom when we’re needed the most, and we cannot fight without you.
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A new study reports that sharks in the Bahamas have tested positive for consuming cocaine, caffeine and other substances.
According to the findings, published in the journal Environmental Pollution, pharmaceuticals such as acetaminophen and sertraline, as well as caffeine, cocaine and other chemicals were present in the systems of three shark species.
Known as CEC, or contaminants of emerging concern, these substances were found to be particularly prevalent in tourist areas.
Of the 85 sharks analyzed in the study, Caribbean reef sharks, Atlantic nurse sharks and lemon sharks were found to have varying levels of the painkillers diclofenac and acetaminophen in their bodies, as well as cocaine and caffeine.
Photo by Lawson Wood / SplashdownDirect / Rex Features
Stimulants such as cocaine and caffeine are linked to hyperglycemia, which can interfere with the sharks’ capacity to manage blood sugar and can also disrupt the ability to metabolize fats.
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Research also found that sharks that had consumed CECs “showed altered triglycerides, urea, and lactate levels,” which may cause “physiological responses” in species that test positive for contaminants.
The study is the first to detect caffeine and acetaminophen in any shark species worldwide.
Five species of sharks were captured for research purposes, including lemon, Atlantic nurse, blacktip, Caribbean reef and tiger sharks.
This is not the first time cocaine has been detected in sharks — more than 10 sharks off the coast of Brazil tested positive for cocaine in 2024 — but it is the “first report concerning CECs and potentially associated physiological responses in sharks from The Bahamas,” the study says. It also notes that the archipelago is often referred to as “pristine,” meaning it is considered an unspoiled environment with a thriving, well-preserved ecosystem.
In 2011, the country established the Bahamas Shark Sanctuary, protecting its entire ocean territory by banning commercial shark fishing and trade in shark products.
Laurie Chamberlain/Getty Images
The study attributed its findings in part to tourism, which it says is a “major economic driver” that, when coupled with an increase in the number of vacation homes and rental properties, “significantly heightens the volume and chemical complexity of local wastewater.”
Many sharks inhabit shallow coastal areas where tourism traffic is high, which increases their exposure risk, the study added.
This has been a year of firsts for shark-related discoveries.
In Febraury, researchers released footage of a sleeper shark, captured in January 2025, traversing a barren Antarctic seabed, a finding that contradicted a widely held belief that the deep-sea dwellers don’t live in the region.
The shark was large, estimated at between three and four metres long, and was spotted swimming at a depth of 490 metres in temperatures hovering just above 1 degree Celsius.
Data on sharks’ travel patterns and ranges in the region are relatively scarce due to its remoteness, experts said. And while climate change could be a contributing factor in the shark’s sighting, it’s also possible that slow-moving sleeper sharks were already in Antarctica and nobody ever noticed.
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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Asia markets brace for Trump's promised assault on Iranian infrastructure
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Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali
Updated ,first published
Washington: US forces have staged a daring rescue of an airman caught behind enemy lines after Iran shot down his F-15 fighter jet, resolving a crisis for President Donald Trump as he weighs escalating the war, now in its sixth week.
“WE GOT HIM!” Trump said in a Truth Social post early on Sunday. “Over the past several hours, the United States Military pulled off one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in US History.”
The rescue is a bright spot for the United States in a war that has killed thousands, sparked an energy crisis and threatens lasting damage to the world economy after Iran virtually shut the vital Strait of Hormuz.
Trump said the rescue mission in Iran’s mountains involved dozens of US military aircraft. The airman, a weapons system officer who Trump said held the rank of colonel, was injured but would be “just fine”.
He was the second member of a two-person crew of an F-15 that Iran said on Friday had been brought down by its air defences.
Trump said the US didn’t confirm the first rescue to avoid jeopardising the second operation.
Iranian officials had called on citizens to help locate the remaining American, hoping to gain leverage against Washington in the war launched by the US and Israel on February 28. Iranian media reported Tehran had offered a reward of about $US66,000 ($96,000) if the airman was captured alive.
The downing of a US aircraft and the search for the crew member had pierced the aura of invincibility that Trump has sought to project as he tries to stave off the increasing political risks of the war.
Trump has repeatedly claimed dominance over Iranian airspace and used maximalist rhetoric to suggest the US has won and that Iran’s military capability has been eliminated in an effort to calm markets and an American public that is strongly opposed to the war.
Analysts have said the downing of the jet cast doubt on Trump’s claim of air supremacy over Iran.
Trump did not provide details on the rescue but said it was the first time in memory that two US pilots had been rescued, separately, deep in enemy territory.
The high-stakes rescue effort encountered fierce resistance from Iran.
Reuters reported on Friday that two Black Hawk helicopters involved in the search effort were hit by Iranian fire but made it out of Iranian airspace. In a separate incident, a pilot ejected from an A-10 Warthog fighter aircraft after it was hit over Kuwait and crashed, the officials said, though the extent of crew injuries was unclear.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said several “flying objects” were destroyed during the US mission, after the regime’s police command announced an American C-130 aircraft had been downed in the south of Isfahan.
Still, Trump was triumphant.
“The fact that we were able to pull off both of these operations, without a SINGLE American killed, or even wounded, just proves once again, that we have achieved overwhelming Air Dominance and Superiority over the Iranian skies,” he said in his statement.
US air crews are trained in what to do if they go down behind enemy lines, measures known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE), but few are fluent in Persian and face a challenge in staying undetected while seeking rescue. The conflict has killed 13 US military service members to date, with more than 300 wounded, according to the US Central Command.
Earlier this weekend, Trump threatened to unleash “all hell” on Iran as early as Monday (Washington time), saying the 10-day deadline for the country to make a peace deal with the US was running out. Iran has shown little sign of accepting Trump’s demands for peace and has laid out its own conditions – most of them unacceptable to the US and Israel.
The president has warned that if Iran doesn’t agree to his terms and open the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping traffic out of the Persian Gulf, the US would bomb the country’s civilian energy infrastructure – strikes that could constitute a war crime under international law.
Iran announced on Saturday that Iraq, a major oil producer, would be exempt from its shipping restrictions in the strait, allowing through as much as 3 million barrels a day of Iraqi oil. An Iraqi official struck a cautious note, saying the outflow depended on whether shipping companies were willing to risk entering the strait.
Tehran continued its barrage of attacks on its neighbours over the weekend. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said on Sunday that its headquarters caught fire after a strike by unmanned drones. The damaged building also houses the emirate’s oil ministry. There were also drone attacks on two power and distillation plants that resulted in “significant material damage”, Kuwait News Agency reported, citing an electricity ministry spokesperson.
Bahrain’s Interior Ministry reported on Sunday that its civil defence was “taking measures to control a fire in a facility as a result of the Iranian aggression”, without citing the location and type of facility. The United Arab Emirates’ Defence Ministry also said on Sunday that its systems were actively engaging with missiles and drone threats.
The Israeli military said it hit a petrochemical complex in south-western Iran on Saturday, claiming it produced military substances. Iran’s semi-official Mehr News Agency said five people died in the attack and 170 were injured.
Other attacks targeting the perimeter of Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant left one security staff member dead, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. The main sections of the facility, where Russia’s state nuclear company Rosatom has workers, were unaffected, Tasnim said.
More than 1900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began, while more than 1400 people have been killed in Lebanon. In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died. Nineteen people have been reported dead in Israel and 10 Israeli soldiers have died in Lebanon.
Reuters, Bloomberg, AP
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Some 20 French boats set sail from Marseille on Saturday to join up with an international flotilla making a renewed effort to break an Israeli blockade and deliver aid to Gaza, AFP reporters saw.
“Gaza, Marseille is with you” shouted around a thousand people who had come to the docks to support the initiative.
The ships, mostly sailboats, set off to a round of applause and songs shortly after 5:00 pm (1500 GMT) to join the “Global Sumud Flotilla”, named after a Gazan fisherman.
The international flotilla of some 100 boats, mostly setting sail from Barcelona on April 12, will head towards Gaza around April 20, according to the organisers. A week-long stopover is planned in southern Italy for “non-violence training.”
“The goal is to give Palestine more visibility. We’re not talking about it much right now, because of the international context,” said Manon, a crew member who declined to give her full name.
In late 2025, an initial flotilla of about 50 boats, composed of political figures and activists such as Sweden’s Greta Thunberg, was boarded by the Israeli navy — illegally according to the organisers and Amnesty International.
The crew members were arrested and expelled by Israel.
The Gaza Strip, governed by Hamas, has been under an Israeli blockade since 2007. Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement accuse each other of violating a ceasefire that came into effect on October 10, 2025, after two years of war.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
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Our goal was to offer Iran phased and reversible sanctions relief in exchange for far-reaching limits on Iran’s nuclear activities. To maximize leverage, we coordinated with other countries, including not just European allies but also Russia and China. It was difficult, exacting, high-stakes work—for months on end.
The effort paid off. Iran agreed to substantial limits on its nuclear activities, including to export out of the country around 98% of its enriched uranium stockpile. Iran’s commitments were then subject to intrusive and permanent international monitoring. By the end of the Obama Administration, the deal was working, with all sides implementing their commitments.
Trump’s abrupt withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 led to the predictable result: Iran’s nuclear program surged ahead, breaking free of the deal’s constraints.
When Trump returned to office in January, he launched a hasty effort to negotiate a new deal. But it bore a striking resemblance to the deal negotiated by Obama, with one nuclear expert calling the Trump framework a “dollar store JCPOA.”
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The prospects of political reform are bleak. Rodriguez has signed an amnesty law as gesture of reconciliation but, in essence, it shields Chavista officials from accountability. Though hundreds of prisoners have been released, the Rodriguez government simply does not meet the requirements of a democracy: free elections, an independent electoral authority, separation of powers, and guarantees of political rights.
What Trump is testing in Venezuela is a functional authoritarianism: stable, predictable, and strategically aligned with American energy and geopolitical interests. Washington’s business-first approach offers material order in exchange for indefinitely postponing democratic aspirations. Stability without democracy is a replicable model that could normalize the management of useful authoritarian governments worldwide.
Time and again, the Venezuelan opposition has converted popular fury into political momentum, only to watch Chavismo regroup, survive, and consolidate. In the run up to the 2024 election in Venezuela, the opposition leader María Corina Machado, a conservative, built a massive social movement uniting millions and backed Edmundo González, a diplomat, as a presidential candidate. The Biden Administration recognized González as the winner, but Maduro stole the election.
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