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Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy cruised to a decisive win in the Republican primary for Ohio governor, defeating businessman Casey Putsch and advancing to a competitive general election matchup against Democrat Dr. Amy Acton, with early polling suggesting a close contest in November.

Ramaswamy entered the race with significant momentum following his 2024 presidential campaign and quickly established himself as the leading candidate. His campaign was further strengthened by endorsements from President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

Vance traveled to Ohio on Tuesday to cast his vote for Ramaswamy, offering a final show of support as voters headed to the polls.

Ramaswamy ran on a platform aligned with traditional Republican priorities, focusing on reducing regulations, lowering taxes, and taking a tougher stance on crime.

He also highlighted education as a central issue in his campaign, pledging to strengthen academic standards and improve the performance of public schools across the state.

His opponent in the primary, Casey Putsch, is known as an online provocateur as well as a car designer and engineer, and had criticized Ramaswamy in part over his Hindu faith.

Further down the ballot, Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) advanced without opposition in a special Senate primary and will now face former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) in the general election, a race Democrats view as one of their strongest opportunities to gain a seat.

Brown, who led the Democratic field, was challenged in the primary by first-time candidate Ron Kincaid.

Attention now turns to the general election, where both the gubernatorial and Senate races are expected to draw significant financial investment from both parties.

In the governor’s race, recent polling shows Acton mounting a strong challenge against Ramaswamy, with the Republican holding only a narrow advantage—about one percentage point—according to the latest RealClearPolitics average.

Democrats have sought to erode Ramaswamy’s support among Republican voters by highlighting his company’s conduct during the pandemic.

Acton previously served as Ohio’s health director, gaining statewide recognition during the COVID-19 pandemic as she worked alongside outgoing Gov. Mike DeWine (R) in shaping the state’s response.

In the Senate race, surveys indicate a tight contest between Husted and Brown, though Husted currently maintains a modest lead of 2.6 percentage points based on the RealClearPolitics aggregate.

Brown was defeated in his 2024 reelection bid by Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), marking the end of his tenure as the last Democrat holding statewide office in Ohio at the time.

Democrats are hoping Brown’s previous success in statewide races, combined with expectations of stronger turnout this cycle, could position him for a return to the Senate.

Ohio remains one of several key battlegrounds Democrats are targeting as they look to flip control of the Senate, alongside Maine, North Carolina, and Alaska.

The party is also keeping an eye on longer-shot opportunities in Texas, Iowa, Florida, and Mississippi. Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate.

{Matzav.com}

A group of House Democrats is urging the Trump administration to publicly acknowledge Israel’s undeclared nuclear weapons program, a move that would abandon decades of U.S. policy but confirm what has been an open secret among intelligence officials since the late 1960s.

In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio obtained by The Washington Post, more than two dozen lawmakers, led by Rep. Joaquin Castro (Texas), say Washington’s silence on the program is indefensible amid the war in Iran and the acute threat of military escalation.

“The risks of miscalculation, escalation, and nuclear use in this environment are not theoretical,” the lawmakers wrote. “Congress has a constitutional responsibility to be fully informed about the nuclear balance in the Middle East, the risk of escalation by any party to this conflict, and the administration’s planning and contingencies for such scenarios.”

“We do not believe we have received that information,” the lawmakers wrote.

The concerns about nuclear escalation are shared by some inside the Trump administration, who say Israel’s red lines may not be adequately understood, said U.S. administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

Israel does not acknowledge its nuclear weapons program – built in secret beginning in the late 1950s – and has no publicly stated doctrine on how it might use such weapons.

The letter is the latest sign of a shift in the Democratic Party’s approach to Israel amid growing frustration over the country’s killing of civilians in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon and its high-profile lobbying in Washington for the war in Iran.

Avner Cohen, a leading historian on Israel’s nuclear program, said the letter breaks a taboo that has endured for more than half a century.

“This is something that people did not dare do before,” said Cohen, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and author of the book “Israel and the Bomb.”

“Even raising these questions publicly is a departure from a bipartisan norm,” he added.

The origin of U.S.-Israeli silence on the nuclear issue dates back to an informal agreement between President Richard M. Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in 1969, when Washington effectively accepted Israel’s policy of nuclear ambiguity and agreed to shield it from international scrutiny, Cohen said.

“Israel alone could not have maintained this policy over decades without the United States,” he said.

The letter’s authors argue the policy now undermines U.S. credibility, as Washington seeks to limit the nuclear programs of Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates without acknowledging the nuclear weapons program of their neighbor Israel.

“We cannot develop coherent nonproliferation policy for the Middle East … while maintaining a policy of official silence about the nuclear weapons capabilities of one party central to the ongoing conflict,” the lawmakers wrote.

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment on the policy. The Israeli government also did not respond to a request for comment.

Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the nonprofit Arms Control Association, said Israel’s position is “strongly against changing the status quo.”

“Nonrecognition allows the Israeli government to redirect attention at other countries in the region who are pursuing nuclear activities that could lead to nuclear weapons,” he said.

In March, Castro asked the State Department’s top arms control official, Thomas DiNanno, to describe Israel’s nuclear weapons capability during a public hearing and DiNanno declined. “I can’t comment on that specific question,” he said.

Castro, in an interview with The Post, said the United States “shouldn’t refuse to disclose this information about a foreign nation simply out of courtesy when there’s so much at stake for our own service members, our economy and our country.”

U.S. officials speak candidly about the nuclear weapons programs of Britain, France, India, Pakistan, Russia, North Korea and China, and Israel should be no different, Castro said.

The push for transparency by Democrats reflects a deeper soul-searching on Israel that is happening within the party, said Jeremy Shapiro, a former Obama administration official.

Last month, a record 40 Senate Democrats voted to block weapons transfers to Israel. According to the Pew Research Center, 80 percent of Democrats now view Israel unfavorably up from 53 percent in 2022.

“Many, perhaps most Democrats, at this point want to see fundamental changes in the U.S.-Israeli relationship,” Shapiro said. “The first change that these Democrats want to see is for the U.S. to hold Israel to the same standards as other countries on issues such as nuclear weapons.”

The U.S. executive branch under both political parties has maintained the secrecy policy, but there have been recent discussions among Trump administration officials about what might trigger an Israeli nuclear response and concerns that the threshold may be lower than Washington previously assessed, U.S. officials said.

“There is a low boil of unease about Israel’s nuclear program and what could compel them to use nuclear weapons short of facing a WMD attack,” said an administration official.

A scenario gaining fresh scrutiny among U.S. officials involves Israel’s air defenses becoming overwhelmed by missile or rocket fire from its neighbors. Whether Israel would resort to a nuclear response when faced with an unusually high civilian death toll has been discussed “frequently,” said the administration official.

In March, Iranian missiles hit the cities of Dimona and Arad, near Israel’s main nuclear research facilities, following U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear program. The Iranian counterattack did not cause a radioactive incident but exposed gaps in Israel’s vaunted air defense system.

The Democrats’ letter to Rubio requests detailed information about Israel’s nuclear program, including the level of its enrichment capabilities, where fissile material is produced and whether Israel has relayed to the U.S. its red lines for using nuclear weapons in the current conflict.

Castro said that he plans to make the Trump administration’s response public when he receives it. If certain answers can be revealed only in a classified setting, he could be amenable to that, the congressman said, but he won’t relent on the fundamental question of whether Israel has a nuclear weapons program.

“That’s not something that should be kept secret to the world,” he said.

(c) 2026, The Washington Post · John Hudson 

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that the United States is temporarily halting “Project Freedom” operations in the Strait of Hormuz, citing what he described as meaningful advances toward a potential agreement with Iran, while maintaining the broader naval blockade.

“Based on the request of Pakistan and other Countries, the tremendous Military Success that we have had during the Campaign against the Country of Iran and, additionally, the fact that Great Progress has been made toward a Complete and Final Agreement with Representatives of Iran, we have mutually agreed that, while the Blockade will remain in full force and effect, Project Freedom (The Movement of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz) will be paused for a short period of time to see whether or not the Agreement can be finalized and signed,” the president wrote on Truth Social.

The Pentagon has described Project Freedom as a defensive mission designed to ensure safe passage for commercial vessels navigating the narrow and strategically vital waterway in the Persian Gulf.

Trump’s decision came after a noticeable uptick in maritime traffic through the strait, with at least 11 ships successfully passing through within a 24-hour span under the initiative, a significant increase compared to just two vessels the previous day.

Before the suspension was announced, Secretary of State Marco Rubio characterized the operation as a global service, aimed at assisting sailors who had been stranded due to Iran’s control over the strait.

Rubio said nearly “23,000 civilians from 87 different countries” have been “trapped inside the Gulf, and left for dead in the Persian Gulf by this Iranian regime” since the war broke out on Feb. 28.

He also indicated that the U.S. military campaign against Iran, conducted under Operation Epic Fury, has concluded as attention shifts to maritime security and diplomatic efforts.

“The operation is over,” Rubio said. “We’re done with that stage of it. Okay, we’re now on to this Project Freedom.”

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Rubio described the diplomatic process with Tehran as slow and cumbersome, pointing to the structure of Iran’s leadership as a major obstacle.

“It’s been challenging to deal with them diplomatically because, for example, an offer will be made and then it takes 5 or 6 days to get a response because you have to get it through the whole system,” Rubio said.

“They have to find the supreme leader wherever he hides. They got to get him to sign off. And that’s their system. Their system has always been multilayered in this way,” he added.

Rubio suggested that while Iran may appear capable of absorbing pressure, there are limits to how much strain it can endure.

He said the regime may seem as though it does “have a high pain threshold,” but emphasized that they “don’t have an unlimited pain threshold.”

Trump has consistently maintained that any agreement with Iran must prevent the regime from continuing to enrich or possess uranium that could be used in the development of nuclear weapons.

He has also insisted that the United States must be permitted to remove approximately 1,000 pounds of uranium believed to be stored deep underground, following last summer’s Operation Midnight Hammer airstrikes targeting Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

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