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CNN's Abby Phillip delivered a brutal fact-check on Thursday over President Donald Trump's "regime change" ambitions in Iran. Trump gave an exclusive interview to Axios on Thursday, where he claimed that he should play a role in picking Iran's next leader. Those comments seem to follow in line with one of his stated ambitions for striking Iran in the first place, which he said was to create the conditions for the Iranian people to rise up and take over their government. Jason Rantz, host of the conservative radio news show "Seattle Red," argued on CNN's "NewsNight" that Trump was not "directly calling for" regime change in Iran, which caused the panel to erupt. "Let's be honest!" host Abby Phillip said. She read back Trump's quote to Rantz. Rantz said that "The administration has not just said they want regime change, they've actually carried out an operation that has killed the Ayatollah," she argued. On Saturday, U.S. and Israeli forces coordinated bombing strikes across more than 100 sites in Iran, which killed many of the country's top military and political leaders. Even some of the poeple Trump was considering to replace the Ayatollah were killed in the strike, the White House said.

London police say four men have been arrested on suspicion of aiding Iran by spying on the Jewish community

A former GOP speechwriter flagged a "bigger risk" that President Donald Trump just created after he fired Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. On Thursday morning, Trump posted on Truth Social that he was replacing Noem with Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), effective on March 31. Noem was given another position, Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, for an initiative that Trump said he will announce more details on later. The decision happened at a time when the Trump administration had launched direct strikes against Iran, an operation that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several of the country's top military and political leaders. Trump has said there is a chance that Iran may strike the U.S. in retaliation for the strikes. David Frum, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush and a staff writer at The Atlantic, told CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Thursday night that the decision to remove Noem was alarming. "The United States is now engaged in a big global war against the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism," Frum said. "There is, of course, a real risk that a state sponsor of terrorism could commit terrorism inside the United States, and an even bigger risk that the administration could claim that their acts of terrorism are coming." "It has never been more vital to have professional, responsible, competent honest, trustworthy leadership of the Department of Homeland Security that is committed to respecting the freedom of americans and not in any way allowing that department to be used to tamper with the 2020 elections but that's notthe leadership it's had, and that's not the leadership that the president would like it to have," he continued.

Political analysts and observers were outraged on Thursday after an investigation determined that the U.S. was likely responsible for a Feb. 28 strike on a girls' school in Iran that killed 175 civilians, many of whom were children. The New York Times reported on Thursday that the strike on the girls' school in Minab was "severely damaged" around the same time that U.S. forces were conducting an attack against an "adjacent naval base operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps." The Times added that "official statements ... suggest they were most likely to have carried out the strike.""In the several days since the attack, U.S. officials have neither confirmed nor denied responsibility," according to the report. "Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that an investigation was underway. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, told reporters on Sunday that 'as of now,' he was not aware of any Israeli military operation 'in that area' at the time.""U.S. officials in public statements have indicated that on the day in question, U.S. planes were conducting operations in the region where the school was located," it added.Political analysts and observers expressed outrage on social media. "It is unconscionable that there has still been no attempt by either the US or Israel to account, let alone apologise, for the killing last Saturday of more than 150 people at the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' school in Minab, southern Iran," Peter Westmacott, former British Ambassador to Turkey, posted on X. "Simply heartbreaking," activist Amy Siskind posted on X. "It seems like the most obvious thing to say in the world, but people need to be held accountable for the murder of children during an illegal war," Benjamin McKean, associate professor of political science at Ohio State University, posted on Bluesky. "Yet any real accountability for this will clearly require a radical political break." "When Pete Hegseth starts flexing in front of American flags and talking about 'death and destruction from the sky,' this is what he’s talking about: dozens of little girls murdered," Stephen Cohen, managing editor at The Atlantic, posted on Bluesky. "Investigate it, be open about it, hold folks accountable to why it happened, be public what action is taken," writer Andrew Donaldson posted on X. " [The] argument 'we are the good guys' depends on such things when things go horribly wrong, like it appears it did here."

US president is ‘truly uninformed’ for spreading claims of ‘white genocide’ in South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa tells New York TimesSouth Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has called Donald Trump’s policy of allowing white Afrikaners to apply for refugee status in the US “racist”, saying the US president was “truly uninformed” in a rare instance of direct criticism.Ramaphosa told the New York Times that last year’s Oval Office meeting with the US leader, when Trump turned down the lights and played a video that he falsely claimed showed there was a “white genocide” in South Africa, was a “spectacle” and an “ambush”. Continue reading...

Early results may be released from Friday after first election since gen z protests forced Nepal’s then-PM to quitNearly six months after a wave of unprecedented gen Z-led protests forced Nepal’s then prime minister to quit, people have voted in a general election that is shaping up to be a high-stakes showdown between the entrenched old guard and a powerful youth movement.“The voting process has been concluded peacefully and enthusiastically,” said the chief election commissioner, Ram Prasad Bhandari. It appeared the turnout was only about 60%, according to initial estimates, the lowest in more than two decades. Continue reading...

British former champion hits out at former colonial rulers‘I’m hoping countries unite and take Africa back’Lewis Hamilton has called for a movement to “take Africa back”, claiming the continent is being “controlled” by European powers. On the eve of the new Formula One season in Melbourne, the seven-time champion outlined his ambition to compete in a grand prix on African soil.But the 41-year-old, F1’s first black race driver, did not stop there. He suggested former colonial rulers still exerted undue power in the region and called for action to reverse that influence. “I’ve got roots from a few different places there, like Togo and Benin,” he said. “I’m really proud of that part of the world. Continue reading...

Donald Trump's reasoning that he had no choice but to start a war with Iran because Iranian missiles could hit the American mainland “soon” was undercut by a report from MS NOW’s Jackie Alemany on Thursday morning.During a military medal ceremony on Monday at the White House, the president told the audience, “The regime already had missiles capable of hitting Europe and our bases, both local and overseas, and would soon have had missiles capable of reaching our beautiful America.”Alemany, the co-host of MS NOW’s “The Weekend,” broke the news on “Morning Joe” that one of her sources in the White House claimed Trump has been champing at the bit to get the war started for some time.Speaking with the “Morning Joe” co-hosts, she swerved away from a question from Joe Scarborough to state, “I do want to address something that Jonathan [Lemire] said, because I've had this reporting that just came to me. But the personal nature of Trump's position on Iran: I have a source who had lunch with Trump at Mar-a-Lago a month and a half ago, who said essentially that Trump was itching to strike Iran.”"And I think it does really get to this idea that so little of this is based on actual substance and primarily on settling a score against Iran, wanting to legacy build and, again, a lack of a real justification here,” she pointed out. “And there are lots of members of Congress in a bipartisan manner who are taking issue with this, although not enough for this to pass in the Senate and likely to fail in the House today.” - YouTube youtu.be