Monday morning news: June 29, 2026

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Iran / Strait of Hormuz » Cracks in the foundation of a fragile U.S. truce with Iran continue to widen.

Iran fired a fresh barrage of drones and missiles at U.S. allies in the Gulf on Sunday—and once again claimed it alone controls the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard claims that it hit a U.S. airbase in Kuwait and the Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. And in Qatar, shrapnel killed a civilian. 

The strikes answered a second day of U.S. bombing inside Iran.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz said Sunday:

WALTZ:  The president's patience isn't going to last forever. They need to understand their leverage is diminishing by the day. Uh, the Gulf Arabs are creating all kinds of alternatives, uh, to the Straits of Hormuz

Peace talks are still ongoing, but Tehran is threatening to quit them.

Republican Senator John Kennedy though, says Tehran is in no position now to be beating its chest:

KENNEDY: Iran right now is like a really old man who can't afford to catch a cold. We have degraded them deeply. That's why we went in. They've got, they've got three wheels down and their axle dragging.

President Trump accused Iran of breaking the deal and warned the U.S. could be, his words, "forced to militarily complete the job.”

With hostilities reignited, Senator Bill Cassidy is one of a handful of Republicans joining Democrats in demanding that Congress get a bigger say in what happens next:

CASSIDY: Congress wants to be read in. And Congress has our rules and procedures that our Founding Fathers set up, and they set it up precisely so that there would not be too powerful of an institution of a presidency.

Democrats continue to blast President Trump over the war, accusing him of creating a crisis, while the White House says it is preventing one—namely, a nuclear-armed Iran.

Venezuela death toll » Five days after Venezuela’s twin earthquakes, hope is fading fast. The death toll has climbed past a staggering 1,400, with thousands hurt and thousands more reported missing.

The coastal state of La Guaira was gutted, with more than a thousand buildings collapsed. Crews from two dozen countries are still clawing through the rubble and still finding some survivors, but rescuers say time is running out.

AUDIO: [Speaking Spanish]

One woman speaking from a hospital near Caracas, said “it was awful—so many people died,” so many relatives went missing. She said she lost her home, but adds that her immediate family is okay, thank God.

The U.S. has sent teams and a Navy ship to airlift survivors.

Sen. Paul presses Fauci probe » Republican Sen. Rand Paul continues to press for answers from Dr. Anthony Fauci, formerly the nation’s top infectious disease doctor, about his actions before and during the pandemic.

Paul chairs the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. He said that unlike the prior administration, Trump officials have cooperated in handing over evidence about the origins of COVID-19.

PAUL: They’ve turned over virtually everything, and what we now know beyond a reasonable doubt is that Anthony Fauci did indeed fund gain-of-function research

Gain of function research involves modifying a virus in a lab, potentially making it more dangerous, in order to study it.

Some lawmakers believe that such research may have played a role in shaping COVID. And many experts believe that virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China—though there is no universal consensus.

 PAUL: We have the evidence that the experiments were gaining in function. The viruses were becoming more lethal, more attachable to human cells, and more infectious. We do know that this was going on, that was funded by the NIH, specifically under the tutelage of Anthony Fauci.

Fauci has denied funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan.

Sen. Paul has subpoenaed him to testify on the matter next month.

Heat wave » A brutal heat dome is baking much of the country, and forecasters say the worst is still ahead.

More than 130 million Americans are already under heat alerts. Add the humidity, and it will feel like 105 to 115 degrees in some spots. The heat could shatter records in some cities.

Bryan Putnam with the National Weather Service:

PUTNAM: It’s really starting to ramp up across the south and into the plains, but it’s gonna spread across the Midwest into the Ohio Valley and all the way to the East Coast over the next couple of days.

And he warns that the furnace-like weather will likely drag into the July Fourth weekend—amid World Cup matches and the nation’s 250th-birthday celebrations.

Out West, the same heat is fueling wildfires—three firefighters were killed near the Colorado-Utah border over the weekend.

A stifling heat wave is also scorching much of Europe.

Box office » At the box office, Supergirl’s opening weekend was...less than super.

CLIP (Supergirl trailer): Here’s the thing, my cousin and I have very different ideas about what it means to be a hero.

Supergirl opened in second place with an estimated $38 million dollars domestically. That was a disappointing haul for the big budget DC Comics flick, which drew plenty of fire from critics over its screenplay, among other things.

Pixar's Toy Story 5 finished atop the box office once again, taking in another $70 million stateside. It’s now sitting at nearly $600 globally in its second week.

I'm Kent Covington.

And straight ahead: A look at multiple major Supreme Court decisions on Legal Docket. And later, David Bahnsen will join us for the Monday Moneybeat.

This is The World and Everything in It.

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