Today in One Sentence. Tulsi Gabbard refused to say whether U.S. intelligence assessed that Iran posed an “imminent” threat oil prices jumped after an Israel airstrike on Iran’s South Pars gas field and Iran later attacked Qatar’s Ras Laffan liquefied natural gas facility Trump waived the Jones Act for 60 days in an effort to contain rising fuel prices caused by the war in Iran the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady at 3.5% to 3.75%, acknowledging increased uncertainty due to the Iran war the FBI is buying Americans’ data and location histories – again and the United States was downgraded from a liberal democracy to an electoral democracy due to Trump’s “rapid and aggressive concentration of powers in the presidency.”.

1/ Tulsi Gabbard refused to say whether U.S. intelligence assessed that Iran posed an “imminent” threat during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. Instead, she told senators that “the only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat is the president.” Gabbard, however, confirmed the intelligence community’s view that Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was “obliterated” in last year’s strikes and that there had been “no efforts” to rebuild it, undercutting Trump’s claim that Tehran was “starting it all over.” She also said Iran’s regime appears “intact but largely degraded” and acknowledged it had “long been an assessment” that Tehran could use the Strait of Hormuz as leverage, while declining to say what warnings Trump received before the war. (Bloomberg / CBS News / ABC News / Washington Post / Axios / NBC News / Associated Press / New York Times)

2/ Oil prices jumped after an Israel airstrike on Iran’s South Pars gas field and Iran later attacked Qatar’s Ras Laffan liquefied natural gas facility, two of the region’s most important gas sites. Brent crude settling above $107 a barrel, up from about $103 a day earlier and roughly 40% to 50% above prewar levels. Prices later topped $111 in after-hours trading as traders priced in greater risks to regional oil and gas supply. QatarEnergy said Ras Laffan suffered “extensive damage.” (CNN / Bloomberg / Axios / New York Times / Associated Press / Wall Street Journal)

3/ Trump waived the Jones Act for 60 days in an effort to contain rising fuel prices caused by the war in Iran. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the move, which lets foreign-flagged ships carry fuel and other energy products between U.S. ports, was meant to ease “short-term disruptions” in the oil market. But analysts and shipping executives said the effect on pump prices would likely be modest because crude prices, not domestic shipping costs, remain the main driver. (Politico / New York Times / Axios / CNBC / Reuters / Bloomberg / CBS News)

4/ The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady at 3.5% to 3.75%, acknowledging increased uncertainty due to the Iran war. “It is too soon to know the scope and duration of the potential effects on the economy,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said. “The thing I really want to emphasize is that nobody knows.” He said “higher energy prices will push up overall inflation” and that the Fed was “balancing these two goals in a situation where the risks to the labor market are to the downside, which would call for lower rates, and the risks to inflation are to the upside, which would call for higher rates, or not cutting anyway.” Fed officials raised their 2026 inflation forecast to 2.7%, kept unemployment at 4.4%, slightly lifted their growth outlook, and still project one quarter-point cut this year. (ABC News / New York Times / Washington Post / NBC News / NPR / CNN / CNBC / Associated Press / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal / Axios)

5/ The FBI is buying Americans’ data and location histories – again. For the first time since 2023, the FBI publicly confirmed it’s actively purchasing commercially available information, giving agents a way to obtain location data from brokers without going to phone companies for records that would ordinarily require a warrant. Director Kash Patel said the purchases are lawful and have yielded “valuable intelligence,” but he did not say how often the FBI buys the data, what exactly it acquires, which brokers sell it or what limits govern its use. (Politico / TechCrunch)

6/ The United States was downgraded from a liberal democracy to an electoral democracy due to Trump’s “rapid and aggressive concentration of powers in the presidency.” The Varieties of Democracy Institute report said the U.S. suffered a “derailment of democracy” driven by “suppression and intimidation of media and dissenting voices,” while freedom of expression fell to “its lowest level since the end of WWII.” It also cited Trump’s “attacks on the press, academia, civil liberties, and dissenting voices” and said a Republican-controlled Congress had weakened the legislative checks that might have slowed him. (CNN)

The 2026 midterms are in 230 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 965 days.