Experts alarmed by Pete Hegseth's latest 'dangerous' decision: 'Will feel it immediately'

Planet Labs sent an email to journalists who have regularly used the company’s satellite images to report on the US-Israeli bombing of Iran and Iran’s retaliatory actions on Saturday, saying that after receiving a request from the US government, it was “moving to a managed access model... and releasing imagery on a case-by-case basis and for urgent, mission-critical requirements or in the public interest.”

Washington Post reporter Evan Hill suggested the announcement would limit reporters’ access to information from “one of the most important US-based commercial satellite imagery providers on whom most media outlets rely.”

The announcement comes as Iran’s military capabilities have reportedly exceeded US expectations, with US intelligence reporting Iran has retained many of its missile and mobile launchers and casting doubt on the Pentagon’s claims that the US is severely diminishing Iran’s missile stockpile.

The White House’s request for a suspension of satellite imagery was the latest sign that “Trump’s war is going swimmingly,” said podcast host Mark Ames sardonically.

It also coincided with multiple threats over the weekend from President Donald Trump, who said this coming Tuesday would be “Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one”—with increased attacks on Iran’s civilian infrastructure unless Iran agrees to a deal on Monday.

A major bridge was destroyed by the US on Saturday, while Israeli forces bombed a significant petrochemical complex, reportedly sending pollution into the surrounding city. At least 13 people were killed in the two attacks combined. A projectile that struck the vicinity of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant also killed at least one person and raised concerns about a larger attack, which “could trigger a nuclear accident, with health impacts that would devastate generations,” as World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said the Trump administration’s demand for satellite images to be withheld “will make it much more difficult to monitor US-Israeli bombing there, which seems to be the point.”

Data and imagery collected starting on March 9 will be withheld by Planet Labs. The company previously instituted a 14-day delay on the release of satellite images to ensure they would not be “leveraged” by “adversarial actors.”

Also on Saturday, Al Jazeera reported that Israeli soldiers had “destroyed all of the CCTV cameras” around the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, a mission in the southern part of the country where three peacekeepers were wounded in a blast on Friday and several others have been killed since early March, including some by Israeli fire.

Increasingly, experts have forecast that national average gas prices could rise as high as $6 a gallon this year. Online prediction markets such as Kalshi are also now showing gas prices reaching $6 this year as more likely than not.

Should the gas price forecasts be proven accurate, Kurt Bardella, a NewsNation contributor and political strategist, predicted a bloodbath for Republicans this November.

“If this holds, it won’t be a ‘blue wave’ in November, it’ll be an extinction-level event that wipes out the GOP,” Bardella wrote in a social media post on X.

“The 79-year-old president spent Easter Sunday taking a ‘ceremoniously slow’ presidential motorcade tour around Memorial Circle – close to the Arlington Memorial Bridge, where he hopes to build an arch honoring himself, according to pool reports,” the Beast’s report reads. “During his travels, he also stopped at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia.”

Trump did find time Easter Sunday, however, to issue a major threat against Iran in a profanity-laced social media post, while also lavishing praise on “Allah,” the Arabic word for God.