Feed aggregator

The rodent-borne hantavirus is suspected in an outbreak aboard a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean in which three passengers have died within three weeks.

The World Health Organization said two cases of hantavirus had been confirmed and that there are five suspected cases. Oceanwide Expeditions, the operator of the Hondius expedition ship, said one passenger is in intensive care in Johannesburg and two crew members aboard the vessel have respiratory symptoms.

There are 87 surviving passengers and 61 crew members aboard the vessel, representing almost two dozen countries.

Although hantavirus is normally linked to exposure to infected rodents’ urine or feces, in rare cases it can spread between people, as WHO officials believe may have happened in the case of the Hondius. Here’s what to know about the disease.

What happened aboard the ship?
The Hondius, a polar-rated expedition ship, set off from Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 for a journey across the South Atlantic, with an itinerary including such remote and ecologically diverse locales as Antarctica, South Georgia, Nightingale Island, Tristan da Cunha, St. Helena and Ascension Island.

Details released by Oceanwide Expeditions and the WHO show an alarming timeline of events beginning about a week later.

The illnesses began April 6, when a Dutch man developed fever, headache and mild diarrhea. He died April 11 after developing respiratory symptoms, but no microbiological tests were performed, the WHO said. His wife, who was experiencing gastrointestinal symptoms, accompanied his body as it was brought off the ship on St. Helena, a remote island territory in the South Atlantic Ocean. She was flown to a hospital in Johannesburg, where she died April 26. Her case was confirmed as a hantavirus infection on May 4, the WHO said.

Aboard the ship, a British man reported shortness of breath and signs of pneumonia on April 24, and on April 27 he was medically evacuated from the South Atlantic island of Ascension to South Africa, where hantavirus was identified. That man is in the intensive care unit in critical but stable condition, Oceanwide Expeditions said Monday.

On Saturday, a third passenger died, a German national with pneumonia-like symptoms that began April 28. The cause has not been identified.

Of the passengers, 19 are British, 17 are American, 13 are Spanish and eight are Dutch. More than half of the crew members are Filipino nationals.

What is hantavirus?
Hantaviruses are a family of viruses that can cause serious illness and death. They are spread mainly by rodents and can cause hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS), which is more common in the Western Hemisphere, and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS), which is found mostly in Europe and Asia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both are severe and potentially deadly.

It can be contracted by contact with droppings from infected rodents, commonly through inhalation when entering or cleaning unventilated areas. Person-to-person transmission is rare but has occurred in a species of the virus called the Andes virus that has been found in Argentina, where the cruise began.

In a briefing Tuesday, WHO infectious-disease epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said authorities believe that the hantavirus aboard the Hondius is the Andes virus and was spread by human-to-human transmission among close contacts. She said WHO’s “working assumption” is that the initial patient and his wife came into contact with the virus before joining the ship in Argentina, noting that “we don’t have a full picture yet.”

What are the symptoms?
Symptoms typically start to show between one and eight weeks after first contact with the virus.

HPS affects the lungs and can cause fatigue, fever and muscle aches initially, followed by coughing and shortness of breath. Once inhaled, the virus can reach the lungs and infect cells that line tiny blood vessels in the lungs, allowing fluid to enter and making it difficult to breathe, according to the American Lung Association.

Thirty-eight percent of people who develop respiratory symptoms die of the disease, according to the CDC.

HFRS is less deadly but still serious. It affects the kidneys and causes headaches, back and abdominal pain, fever, nausea and blurred vision. Later symptoms include low blood pleasure, internal bleeding and kidney failure. Fatality rates vary between less than 1 percent and up to 15 percent.

How common is it?
Hantaviruses are found all around the world, but outbreaks are rare. In 1993, a mysterious outbreak of severe respiratory illness originating in the Southwest killed about 30 people. The deaths were the first documented cases in the Americas of hantavirus disease in humans and triggered a public health response that has helped prevent other similarly sized outbreaks to date, The Washington Post reported.

Hantavirus was named as the cause of death for Betsy Arakawa, pianist and wife of actor Gene Hackman, last year.

There were 890 laboratory-confirmed hantavirus cases in the United States between 1993, when the CDC began tracking the illness, and the end of 2023. More than 90 percent of those occurred west of the Mississippi River. It is commonly linked to people with occupational exposure, such as those working in construction, pest control, janitorial and agricultural work, the American Lung Association said.

Globally, there may be as many as 150,000 cases of HFRS each year, according to a review by the American Society for Microbiology.

Treatment options are limited, so the best protection against the illness is to avoid contact with rodents and to take care when cleaning their droppings, wearing a well-fitted N95 mask. Health officials also warn against vacuuming or sweeping contaminated areas to avoid releasing particles into the air.

What happens now?
The two symptomatic crew members are being prepared for medical evacuation to the Netherlands for treatment, Van Kerkhove said. Afterward, the ship will continue to the Canary Islands for a full investigation, including an assessment of the risk to the passengers on board. In the meantime, passengers are being told to stay in their cabins, with hygiene protocols in place.

Contact tracing is also being carried out for the passengers of the plane that carried the woman who died in Johannesburg. But Van Kerkhove said WHO assesses the overall risk to the public as low.

(c) 2026, The Washington Post · Sammy Westfall, Kendra Nichols 

Twenty percent of the world’s oil and gas production remains bottled up behind the Strait of Hormuz. In Asia, schools are closing. In Europe, flights are being canceled. In the United States, the pain is mainly felt at the gas pump.

As of Monday, the national average price hit $4.46, according to AAA, up from less than $3 before the war. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas projects that the cost of a barrel of crude oil could top $167, equivalent to at least $5 per gallon based on historical trends, if the Strait remains closed through September.

That might be conservative. Major banks, including Macquarie, warn that spot prices for crude may peak at $200 per barrel by early summer. Based on past energy shocks, that implies U.S. gas prices could crack $7 a gallon, potentially high enough to trigger a global recession.

“The market is saying that this will solve itself within a month,” said Lars Lysdahl, a partner at the Oslo-based consulting and research firm Rystad Energy, “which I don’t believe.” Even if the Strait reopens tomorrow, oil prices are likely to stay high until next year, perhaps longer. Damaged refineries and other infrastructure will take years to repair.

The middle of a global energy crisis is a good time to ask yourself: Should I break up with the gas pump for good? The surge in oil prices is shifting the math for EVs in ways that may change the next car you buy.

This wouldn’t be the first oil shock to transform personal energy decisions and reorder the global economy. The 1970s oil crisis created an enormous market for more-efficient cars that transformed the auto industry. Between 1975 and 1985, the average fuel economy of a new U.S. vehicle surged from roughly 13 to 21 miles per gallon, according to Environmental Protection Agency data, fueling the rise of Asian automakers that dominate global vehicle sales today.

Could rising gas prices spark a 1970s-era renaissance for ultraefficient vehicles like EVs? If you know where to look. The savings are real, just not evenly distributed.

Here’s how to never think about the Strait of Hormuz at the pump again.

Transition of power
Electric vehicles seem perfectly positioned to seize this moment. EVs have historically saved drivers around 60 percent per mile in fuel costs over gas-powered vehicles, based on U.S. government data from before the Iran war.

If prices reach $5.50 per gallon this summer, the premium is likely to jump to about 74 percent. That’s based on the calculation that every $10 increase in crude oil prices tends to be associated with a 25‑cent-per-gallon hike in U.S. gasoline prices, according to James Hamilton, a professor of economics at the University of California at San Diego. The current crisis could drive even higher increases, since disruptions can increase the premium for finished products such as gasoline.

For the average EV owner, that would be about $1,600 in annual fuel savings compared with a gasoline vehicle, up from about $550 at prices seen early this year, before the start of the war. Those figures are based on the average mileage of a U.S. driver from Kelley Blue Book, national average home electricity prices and fuel-efficiency estimates from the Department of Transportation.

Despite their higher sticker prices, EVs have generally been the smarter financial bet when you factor in fuel and maintenance savings. Federal incentives often closed the purchase price gap entirely. But Congress and the Trump administration eliminated those incentives in September – including the $7,500 new EV tax credit and $4,000 used EV credit – and rolled back the fuel-economy standards and California emissions rules that pushed automakers to expand their EV lineups.

After policy support collapsed, automakers pulled electric models from the market: At least 18 automakers in the U.S. canceled, delayed or scaled back EV plans over the past year. A 100 percent tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles has kept cheaper options off American roads.

The upshot is that the sticker price of a new EV is now 13 percent more in the U.S. than for a comparable gasoline vehicle. (New owners may still save modestly over the life of a vehicle.) Unsurprisingly, Cox Automotive reported a 25 percent drop in sales of new EVs in March compared with the same month the year before.

Yet things look very different over on the used-car lot.

For buyers of used EVs, the electric future has arrived: Used EV prices now rival those of comparable used gasoline cars – and in recent months have fallen below the average used gas vehicle, according to data from Cox and iSeeCars. (In many other countries, new EVs have already crossed this threshold.)

Most used EVs are low-mileage vehicles, still under warranty and with minimal battery degradation. Recurrent Auto, a battery analytics firm, reports that EVs retain 95 percent of their original charging capacity after five years, on average. Prices should stay low: There are at least 600,000 more EVs coming off short-term leases over the next two years in the U.S.

Buyers are making the switch. In March, the first full month of the Iran war, used EV sales rose almost 28 percent year over year and by more than 50 percent over February, according to Cox. Interest in EVs and hybrids has ticked up on car-shopping platforms, reports Edmunds.

Gas prices alone, however, won’t be enough to persuade most buyers to go electric.

Sticker shock
Britta Gross, director of transportation at the Electric Power Research Institute, said volatility, not just high gas prices, is most effective at pushing drivers toward more fuel-efficient vehicles. Electricity has remained largely stable compared with the volatile oil market. “When the [gas price] line is going up and no one knows where it goes, there is a lot of interest in EVs,” said Gross, who spent nearly two decades as an executive at General Motors.

For most drivers, though, sticker price is still the biggest barrier to going electric. Forty percent of prospective buyers cite up-front cost as their primary obstacle to going electric, ahead of range anxiety and charging concerns, according to a 2024 YouGov survey. “People tend to severely discount the future savings,” said Robbie Orvis, who directs policy modeling for the energy and climate policy think tank Energy Innovation.

The Iran war price spike hasn’t changed this calculus. Deloitte’s recent survey of global auto markets suggests that EV market share plateaus at around 10 to 15 percent when EVs carry a price premium over comparable gas vehicles.

EV sales have historically surged under two conditions, says Lysdahl of Rystad: the arrival of low-cost Chinese EVs, or government incentives that offset the price premium for EVs.

Once EVs and hybrids reach price parity, new sales begin to overtake conventional vehicles within a matter of years, according to the International Energy Agency. PricewaterhouseCoopers, a consulting firm, predicts that vehicles with internal-combustion engines will fall to just one-third of new sales in the U.S. once EVs reach price parity. In Norway, where the government doubled down on incentives, 96 percent of new car sales are now electric.

The U.S. is choosing a different path, at least for now. While the price of electric passenger vehicles was expected to fall below that of comparable gasoline vehicles in the U.S. before the end of the decade, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, tariffs and political opposition have delayed that milestone. The destination, however, hasn’t changed.

“We are all going to EVs globally,” Ellen Hughes-Cromwick, a former chief global economist at Ford, told The Post last year. “It is just a question of when.”

(c) 2026, The Washington Post · Michael J. Coren 

A California man accused of opening fire near the White House Correspondents’ Dinner has been formally indicted on multiple federal charges, including attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump, according to newly released court documents.

Prosecutors charged Cole Allen with four felony counts: attempt to assassinate the President of the United States, assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon, transporting a firearm, and discharging a firearm during a violent crime. If convicted on the most serious charge, he could face a sentence of life in prison.

Authorities allege that Allen approached a security checkpoint armed with two firearms and several knives on an upper level of the venue, just one floor above where the high-profile dinner was taking place on April 25. President Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and senior members of the administration were attending the event at the time.

Federal officials say Allen began shooting and struck a Secret Service agent, who was protected from serious injury by a bulletproof vest.

Law enforcement officers apprehended Allen at the scene, and the event was immediately evacuated as a precaution.

Allen, a resident of Torrance, California, has not yet entered a plea in the case.

During a court appearance on Monday, the presiding judge expressed regret over the conditions of Allen’s detention, noting he had been held under strict restrictions while on suicide watch. The judge’s remarks came after defense attorneys argued that their client did not pose a physical threat to himself.

{Matzav.com}

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday the U.S. mission to protect commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz would be temporary and other nations would soon have to take responsibility, emphasizing that the fragile ceasefire with Iran remained in place despite attacks on U.S. ships a day earlier.

Speaking at a briefing alongside Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hegseth said the United States had established a powerful “red, white and blue dome” over the strait as a “direct gift” to other nations to allow commercial ships to pass through.

“This operation is separate and distinct from Operation Epic Fury,” he said, using the Trump administration’s name for the war with Iran.

He described the effort to help commercial ships navigate the narrow strait as a “temporary mission” for U.S. forces. “We expect the world to step up at the appropriate time, and soon we will hand responsibility back to you,” he said.

Caine said that more than 22,500 mariners on more than 1,550 commercial ships are waiting to transit the strait and that U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the region, had established an “enhanced security area” on the southern side of the strait protected by U.S. forces.

Since the ceasefire was announced, Iran has fired at commercial vessels nine times, seized two, and attacked U.S. forces more than 10 times, Caine said – “all below the threshold of restarting major combat operations, at this point.”

The general characterized Iranian attacks so far as “below harassing fire right now; it feels like Iran is grasping at straws to try to do something across the southern flank” of the strait.

Hegseth added that the “ceasefire is not over.”

President Donald Trump, speaking later at the White House, declined to say what Iranian actions would constitute a ceasefire violation.

“Well, you’ll find out because I’ll let you know,” Trump said.

Trump, as he has in recent days, sought to downplay the significance of the unresolved conflict.

“You know, we had an all-time-high stock market today, despite that word, a little skirmish military,” Trump said. “I call it a skirmish because Iran has no chance.”

Caine and Hegseth said that the fast boats Iran used to try to attack the vessels were only using small arms, rifles or machine guns, but that Iran also fired small coastal cruise missiles, which did not hit the ships.

The defense secretary and general spoke to reporters just days after a deadline passed that by law required the White House to seek Congress’s authorization to continue to carry out strikes in Iran after 60 days of operations. Hegseth said that 60-day deadline did not apply because of the ceasefire.

“With the ceasefire, the clock stops,” he said. Democrats in Congress have contested the legality of that position.

Iranian officials on Tuesday accused the U.S. of violating the ceasefire and warned of it becoming bogged down in the war, now in its third month. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a post on X that events in the strait “make clear that there’s no military solution to a political crisis,” adding that the U.S. should be “wary of being dragged back into quagmire.”

“Project Freedom is Project Deadlock,” he said, referring to President Donald Trump’s name for the U.S. mission to guide ships through the strait.

Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said a “new equation” in the strait is “in the process of being solidified” in a post on X on Tuesday. “We know full well that the continuation of the status quo is intolerable for America; while we have not even begun yet,” he added.

On Monday, the U.S. said two of its destroyers, closely followed by two merchant vessels, came under attack during successful transits of the strait, which has remained effectively blocked to maritime traffic during the war.

Iran fired cruise missiles and drones at the U.S. naval and commercial vessels and sent fast boats after commercial ships, said Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command. Elsewhere in the region, the United Arab Emirates reported an Iranian assault on an energy hub that caused a fire, while Oman’s state media reported an attack in the country but did not identify a perpetrator.

South Korea said it was also investigating the cause of a fire in a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz, after Trump said Iran was to blame.

Cooper insisted the U.S. had the upper hand and sought to differentiate U.S. actions from those of Iran. “The distinction from my perspective is crystal clear,” he said. “My operational assessment overall is that the U.S. military has the clear advantage.”

Trump also sought to assert U.S. military dominance following Monday’s attacks, saying that “one way or the other, we win” in comments to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. “We either make the right deal, or we win very easily from the military standpoint. We’ve already won that,” he said. The president also said the U.S. had “knocked out” Iran’s leadership teams since the war began. “They talk a lot differently when they’re talking to me than they talk when they’re talking to the media,” he said.

No new attacks were reported early Tuesday as Araghchi traveled to China for diplomatic talks and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned Monday’s attacks. “It is absolutely essential that the ceasefire be upheld and respected, to allow necessary diplomatic space for dialogue leading to enduring peace and stability in the region,” Sharif said in a post on X.

U.S. efforts to help commercial ships transit the strait came after Trump said Project Freedom would begin Monday, while discussions to end the war with Iran remained underway. The critical waterway carried about 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas supplies before the war began.

The president framed the mission as a humanitarian exercise, saying the U.S. had received requests for help from what he called “victims of circumstance” trapped in the area. “If, in any way, this Humanitarian process is interfered with, that interference will, unfortunately, have to be dealt with forcefully,” he said in a social media post.

Iran has repeatedly warned against U.S. intervention in the Strait of Hormuz, and negotiations to open the narrow choke point have formed a central plank of discussions between the U.S. and Iran since they agreed to a ceasefire on April 7, which largely halted the fighting. Despite exchanging proposals and holding face-to-face talks, the two sides still face key sticking points that threaten both the ceasefire and the prospect of a more lasting peace.

(c) 2026, The Washington Post · Victoria Craw, Tara Copp, Dan Lamothe