Live Updates: Vance seems to soften Iran nuclear demands, Rubio says Tehran has "lost control" of Strait of Hormuz

Oil prices rose on Wednesday and stocks fell amid fresh concerns about Middle East supplies following a warning that Iran appeared to be stepping up attacks in the Strait of Hormuz.

The retreat came as investors brushed off another record day on Wall Street, where the Nasdaq and S&P 500 were boosted by a rush back into the AI trade.

Confidence has been given a boost as reports said exports from the Middle East – excluding Iran – were pushing back towards pre-war levels. Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, fell below $100 a barrel, and West Texas Intermediate fell below $90, easing inflation concerns and giving central banks some room to hold off hiking interest rates.

However, both contracts rebounded on Tuesday as figures showed Tehran increased strikes on tankers in the crucial Strait of Hormuz. U.K. Maritime Trade Operations, a British navy maritime monitor, said there were nine attacks so far this month, representing half of the September total in the waterway and the Gulf combined.

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Iran has "lost complete control" of the Strait of Hormuz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday, adding that Tehran's economy was "in total and complete freefall."

"The Straits of Hormuz are open. There's almost as much oil flowing out now as there was before this conflict began. So they've lost complete control of the Straits," Rubio told reporters during a visit to Athens.

He argued that as a result of "crippling" sanctions, the Iranian economy was "about to reach a place few countries in the world have been."

Every dollar received by the "radical Shia clerics" is spent on Hezbollah and Hamas, he said.

"Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, simple, period, end of story," Rubio said.

"And anything they agree to that would be acceptable to the United States has to be something that ensures that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon."

He argued that what Iran "was trying to do was build up a conventional capability so massive that they would become untouchable."

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Vice President JD Vance appeared to backtrack on U.S. demands on Iranian nuclear enrichment Tuesday, saying Iran needed to make a "meaningful" reduction of its capacity, but not suggesting it should be required to completely give up enrichment, as President Trump has previously. 

Iranian nuclear enrichment has been a key issue for the White House, with the president and other top officials stressing that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon as a core objective of the war. 

In February, the day before the war began, President Trump said of Iran: "They want to enrich a little bit. You don't have to enrich when you have that much oil … I say, no enrichment. Not 20%, 30%. They always want 20%, 30% … They want it for civil. I think it's uncivil."

In April, he told CBS News that Tehran had agreed to have its enriched uranium removed from the country. 

In an interview with the Reuters news agency published Tuesday, however, Vance said Tehran should not "build highly enriched fuel," and they should "do something meaningful on their enrichment capacity," in what appeared to be a softening of U.S. demands. 

Under the Obama-era nuclear deal, the JCPOA, which President Trump was highly critical of and pulled the U.S. out of unilaterally during his first term, Iran agreed to limit its uranium enrichment to a purity level of 3.75%, with verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency. 

After Mr. Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, the Iranian regime steadily ramped up its program and built a stockpile of uranium enriched to at least 60%, which is a short technological step away from weapons-grade material.

"If you don't want a nuclear weapon, then why ‌do you need 60% enriched fuel? And if you want to show commitment to not building a nuclear weapon, don't build highly enriched fuel. That's a very basic threshold issue," Vance told Reuters. "I think if they want to show a commitment to not building a nuclear weapon, they would do something meaningful on their enrichment capacity."

"The goal here is to prevent the ‌Iranians from having a nuclear weapon," he added.

For Palestinians, the three-year mark since Oct. 7, 2023, brings another day of misery and difficulties amid an Israeli retaliatory campaign against Hamas in Gaza that local health officials say has killed more than 70,000 people.

Most of the Gaza Strip's population, which was about 2.3 million people before the war, lives in vast, squalid tent camps, with large parts of the territory's cities reduced to rubble. More than half of Gaza has now been occupied by Israel's military. 

Despite a ceasefire deal reached nearly a year ago, Israeli strikes are still reported almost daily.

No events were expected Wednesday in the besieged enclave, but Gazans say reminders of how much their lives have changed over the past three years are everywhere.

"We witnessed death, destruction, and bombardment that we had never known before," Walid Akram, a Gaza City resident, told The Associated Press.

Raed Khozeiq's coastal neighborhood in Tel al-Hawa was largely flattened.

"No country in the world has gone through what we have experienced here," he said. "A war of extermination, starvation, the absence of schools and universities – nothing remains."

Around half of those killed during the war were women and children, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry. Their numbers are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. Israel disputes the figures, but has not offered its own estimate of the number of deaths in Gaza.

Since the ceasefire, 1,460 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the health ministry. Seven Israeli soldiers have been killed in that period.  

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Elkana Bohbot, 37, marked Oct. 7 on Wednesday in Israel for the first time, after being released from 738 days of captivity last year. For most of that time, he said, he was held 165 feet underground in a dark, damp tunnel.

In August, his wife, Rivka, gave birth to a daughter, fulfilling a promise that Bohbot made to himself in the tunnels to give his 5-year-old son, Reem, a sibling.

The newborn Michele is "not a symbol for my people, she is more of a symbol for the enemy," Bohbot told The Associated Press. "So this child is the message for you that we were here, and we will always be here forever."

Israelis gathered on Wednesday to commemorate the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack that killed 1,200 people, saw 251 taken hostage and sparked a devastating war in Gaza that has left much of the territory in ruins and its 2 million people living in dire conditions.

In southern Israel, families mourned at intersections, bomb shelters and the site of a music festival that the militants overran three years ago in the deadliest attack against Israel. It is the first anniversary that all the hostages are home, marking a new stage of grief.

Near the town of Reim, where the music festival was underway on the day of the attack, families gathered around photos of their killed relatives. They hugged at 6:29 a.m. – the exact time the first rockets were launched three years ago – as booms from explosions in nearby Gaza were heard.

Anya Davitashili, who lost her 25-year-old son, Sean, said she comes to the site every Saturday because it's where she feels closest to him.

"I feel him here. I'm terribly sorry that I couldn't save him, I couldn't help him get out of this massacre," she told the AFP news agency, tears filling up her eyes.

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Hamas has issued a wide-ranging statement marking three years since its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, portraying the assault as a landmark in the Palestinian struggle and reiterating its commitment to armed resistance against Israel.

Hamas said the attack, which killed at least 1,195 people, was "a historic and honorable milestone in our ongoing struggle," and a response to decades of Israeli occupation, blockade and violence. 

The statement accused Israel of genocide and other war crimes, citing Palestinian casualty figures and accusing Israel of continuing what it called a "silent genocide" even after the ceasefire. Israel has killed more than 70,000 people in Gaza since the attack three years ago. 

On his Telegram, Abu Ubaida, spokesperson for Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades, called the attack a "sacred crossing" and paid tribute to what he called the "heroes and martyrs" involved.  

"O people of great Gaza," he added. "The price has been enormous, but what you have done has been great. Future generations will remember you as makers of glory."

Yemen's Houthis said Wednesday they had targeted King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital with a ballistic missile, the latest in repeated salvos aimed at the site.

"Our armed forces have just targeted King Khalid Airport in Riyadh with a ballistic missile. The strike was accurate, by God's grace, and led to a disruption of air traffic at the airport," said Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree in a statement on X.

In a separate post, the Houthis said they also targeted military supplies at a camp area near the airport in the Yemen government's interim capital of Aden.

The Houthis' latest claims came hours after the Saudi-led coalition backing the Yemen government said its forces had intercepted a ballistic missile north of Riyadh fired by the Iran-backed Houthis.

The flurry of attacks was launched as the Houthis said they were holding their ground amid an onslaught by Yemeni government forces backed by the coalition's air power.

Earlier this week, Yemen's military said its forces had uprooted Houthi fighters from the areas around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a Red Sea shipping chokepoint, and the port city of Mocha.

Claims by both sides have been impossible to independently verify, with the situation on the ground moving fast and access for journalists difficult.

A U.S.-run military air base in England faced Iran-related threats, and the Trump administration believes the intention was to kill as many American troops and destroy as many U.S. planes as possible, a U.S. official told The Associated Press.

The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly on the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity, could not speak to the nature of the potential attack. The United States removed its bombers from RAF Fairford, located 100 miles west of London, which has been used by American planes to strike Iran during this year's war.

President Trump told reporters on Monday he didn't want to tempt "the enemy" by having the bombers there.

The new details come as British police on Tuesday arrested a 22-year-old British man in central London on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts. He is the seventh person arrested in connection with the suspected plot against RAF Fairford, which authorities have linked to Iran. But British police so far have released few details of their investigation.

Six of the men arrested have since been released on bail, which drew criticism from Mr. Trump last week.

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Most families of the six soldiers killed in the deadliest attack of the Iran war will not be attending a major White House event for Gold Star families hosted by President Trump.

Only one family member of those killed in an Iranian drone strike March 1 on Port Shuaiba in Kuwait confirmed to The Associated Press that they planned to attend Tuesday's reception with Mr. Trump and the first lady.

"There are questions about what happened before the attack, what information was available, what decisions were made, and what happened in the moments leading up to six American soldiers losing their lives," Joey Amor — whose 39-year-old wife, Master Sgt. Nicole M. Amor, was among those killed — said in a public Facebook statement Monday. "I am done asking quietly. Today, I am asking the American people to stand with these six families and demand transparency."

Some Gold Star families say they are grateful for how the Trump administration and military have honored their loved one's sacrifice. Other families say the way the White House has handled the reception is the latest indication that the administration does not respect the price they have paid.

The spouse of Maj. Alex Klinner, an airman who was killed in an Iran-related combat operation this summer, said receiving less than two weeks' notice did not give her enough time to arrange for overnight care for her three young children.

In a text message, Libby Klinner said she would not have gone anyway, adding, "I have no interest in supporting an administration that has been so reckless with the lives of our service members."

The war, launched Feb. 28, has claimed the lives of 19 U.S. troops and wounded more than 800 others.