WTF Just Happened This Week

Curated by Matt Kiser, WTF Just Happened Today

4.28.26/ U.S. gas prices rose to their highest level in nearly four years, reaching $4.18 a gallon as the Iran war has left the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed. Prices are up $1.19 since late February. While Iran has offered to reopen the strait if the U.S. lifts its blockade, Trump was reportedly dissatisfied because the proposal delays talks over Tehran’s nuclear program. Trump also claimed, without evidence, that Iran said it was in a “State of Collapse” and wanted Hormuz opened “as soon as possible.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Iran cannot decide “who gets to use an international waterway.” Analysts, meanwhile, warned that supplies remain strained and the summer demand could bring “a day of reckoning” the stock market is “ignoring.” (Reuters / New York Times / ABC News / Politico / CNBC / CBS News / Axios / Bloomberg / Reuters / ABC News)

• U.S. intelligence is studying how Iran would respond if Trump declared unilateral victory. The review comes as the two-month war has killed thousands, closed much of the Strait of Hormuz, and become a political liability for Trump. (Reuters)

4.29.26/ The Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act, striking down Louisiana’s second majority-Black congressional district and limiting the law’s main tool against racial vote dilution. Louisiana created the district after Black voters sued over a post-2020 map that gave them one of the state’s six House seats, despite Black residents making up about one-third of the population. While the ruling doesn’t erase Section 2, it narrows the provision Congress updated in 1982 to stop maps that diluted minority voting power. Justice Samuel Alito wrote that Louisiana’s map was an “unconstitutional gerrymander,” while Justice Elena Kagan said the court had rendered Section 2 “all but a dead letter” and left states free to “systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power.” Republicans, meanwhile, in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana immediately called for special sessions to draw new maps, saying “There is no time to waste” and “LET’S GO!” (Associated Press / Politico / Reuters / New York Times / Axios / Washington Post / NPR / CBS News / NBC News / CNN / Wall Street Journal / Politico / ABC News)

4.30.26/ Trump signed legislation funding most of the Department of Homeland Security, ending a record-long shutdown after House Republicans dropped weeks of resistance to a Senate-passed bill. The measure restores money for TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, and the Secret Service, but leaves ICE and Border Patrol unfunded while Republicans pursue a separate $70 billion party-line bill for immigration enforcement. Democrats had demanded new limits on immigration agents after federal agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens in Minnesota, including restrictions on raids and agents wearing masks. The final deal included none of those demands. Speaker Mike Johnson claimed House Republicans held up the Senate bill because “we had to” keep ICE and Border Patrol from being left out of the funding package, adding: “We threw a fit.” (NBC News / CNBC / New York Times / Washington Post / Associated Press / Wall Street Journal / Reuters / Axios / NPR)

5.4.26/ U.S. forces shot down Iranian missiles and drones and destroyed six Iranian small boats after Trump began moving commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz as part of “Project Freedom.” CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper said two U.S.-flagged merchant vessels crossed under U.S. military protection and that U.S. forces had “opened a passage through the Strait of Hormuz to allow for the free flow of commerce to proceed.” Iran had warned that ships crossing without its permission faced “serious risks.” The United Arab Emirates said it intercepted Iranian cruise missiles and blamed an Iranian drone strike for a large fire at its Fujairah oil port, while Oman reported an attack near Emirati territory, and Seoul said a South Korean-operated ship caught fire after an explosion in the same area. Trump, meanwhile, said Iran had taken “some shots at unrelated Nations,” and warned Iranian forces that they’d be “blown off the face of the Earth” if they targeted U.S. ships. (New York Times / Washington Post / NBC News / Bloomberg / CNN / The Guardian / ABC News / Wall Street Journal / Axios)

5.5.26/ Trump paused Project Freedom after one day, citing “Great Progress” toward a “Complete and Final Agreement” with Iran while keeping the U.S. blockade “in full force and effect.” Earlier in the day, Trump declined to define whether Iranian attacks on U.S. forces, commercial vessels, and the UAE had breached the ceasefire, saying: “You’ll find out, because I’ll let you know.” However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio later said Operation Epic Fury “is concluded” and that the U.S. had shifted to a defensive Strait of Hormuz mission, saying “There’s no shooting unless we’re shot at first.” Rubio also urged Iran to negotiate, saying “the time’s come for Iran to make a sensible choice,” but added that its leaders are “insane in the brain.” Separately, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissed reports about Iranian “kamikaze dolphins,” saying: “I cannot confirm or deny whether we have kamikaze dolphins, but I can confirm they don’t.” (New York Times / ABC News / NBC News / Reuters / CBS News / Wall Street Journal / Associated Press / CNBC / CNN / Bloomberg / Washington Post / Politico)