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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth helped "set the stage" for a U.S. strike that killed at least 123 children by slashing former President Joe Biden's civilian protection teams, officials said.The officials, who are involved in the Pentagon's internal investigation of the Feb. 28 strike on an elementary school in Minab, Iran, described their findings in a Bloomberg report published Friday. They said the investigation's report has been "all-but-complete for several months" but has not been released. The United States has not publicly accepted responsibility for the strike, Bloomberg reported.Two Tomahawk missiles struck the Shajarah Tayyebeh Elementary School on the first day of the U.S. attack on Iran, killing more than 150 people, including at least 123 children, according to the report.Bloomberg called it the deadliest U.S. military targeting error of the 21st century in terms of child deaths.Teachers had moved children from the playground into a prayer room for cover after the first missile hit, according to an account Bloomberg drew from rights advocates and the watchdog group Airwars. Within minutes, a second missile struck, and part of the roof collapsed, and only a few children in the prayer room survived, the account said.President Donald Trump's administration demanded an overwhelming air assault in the final days of February, and the officials said that order squeezed the time available to finalize targets.That urgency, combined with gaps in information about the site, "cuts in civilian-protection personnel" and an overreliance on artificial intelligence, "set the stage for the deadly error," they told Bloomberg.Officials involved in the probe pointed to "gaps … left after Hegseth dismantled" most of the Pentagon's civilian harm mitigation units, Bloomberg reported.Staffing across those teams fell roughly 90% to fewer than 20 people, and the team at U.S. Central Command, which carried out the strike, shrank from 10 people to one, people with direct knowledge told Bloomberg. No member of those teams reviewed the Minab site before the strike, the officials said, partly because of the staffing cuts and partly because of a decision to leave the group out of planning. Those reviews map civilians near a target and look for lower-risk ways to strike it, according to the report, though Bloomberg said it is unclear whether one would have raised questions about the school.The Biden administration had built up the civilian protection efforts after an August 2021 drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, killed 10 civilians when U.S. forces mistook an aid worker for a threat, the outlet reported.Hegseth announced a shift in Pentagon spending in a February 2025 video on X, saying $50 billion would be redirected toward new priorities, Agence France-Presse reported."We will move away from woke, Biden-era, non-lethal programs, and instead spend that money on President Trump's America First, peace through strength, priorities," Hegseth said.The Pentagon's civilian harm mitigation plan and its Civilian Protection Center of Excellence were tagged for elimination under that push, the national security publication War on the Rocks reported the following month. Bloomberg reported that Hegseth has described his cuts to those efforts in the same terms.In past conflicts, preparing lists of proposed targets "had taken hours for staffers to complete," according to the report.Before the Iran attack, much of that work was "condensed into several minutes" using Maven Smart System, an artificial intelligence tool made by Palantir Technologies, people involved in the review told Bloomberg.A Palantir spokesperson told Bloomberg there is no evidence the company's software was at fault in the Minab strike."America, regardless of what so-called international institutions say, is unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history," Hegseth told reporters on March 2, two days after the strike. "All on our terms with maximum authorities. No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars."On Thursday, United Nations investigators said there were reasonable grounds to conclude that the Minab strike and another U.S. attack that day amounted to war crimes, Bloomberg reported.The Pentagon declined to comment beyond saying the incident remains under investigation, and a senior administration official also cited the probe, according to the report."The United States does not target civilians," the official added.Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, cited the Minab strike on Tuesday when he filed eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth, accusing him of "ignoring laws that minimize civilian casualties," Truthout reported."By directing the Department of Defense in a manner that foreseeably dismantled the safeguards necessary to distinguish civilian objects from military objectives, Secretary Hegseth thereby effected the murder of civilians," one article says.House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) sent members home early on Wednesday for a seven-week campaign recess before the midterm elections, CNN reported. Massie's resolution had started a clock requiring a vote within days, but the early exit pushes that vote to November.Johnson said the early exit had nothing to do with Hegseth, according to CNN."It is a publicity stunt by someone who wants attention. It will immediately be tabled of course," the speaker said, referring to a procedural vote that would set the articles aside without debate. "But we probably won't do that today, we will do it when we come back.""We should not be playing games with national security," Johnson added.

Group trapped at Hotel Bamy after US removal as rights groups sound alarm over poor conditions and violenceTwo men that the Trump administration expelled to Equatorial Guinea were bound, fitted with bags over their heads, beaten and pushed down a flight of stairs, all in plain view of other US deportees, according to witnesses and human rights lawyers.The men – one from Egypt and one from Eritrea – were then taken to a prison. About 30 detainees from the US remain trapped at a hotel in the outskirts of the coastal city of Malabo after being deported from the US. Detainees have said they believe the men were beaten for telling the press and human rights advocates about the poor conditions and violence inside the hotel, and that they are haunted by flashbacks and terrified they will be retaliated against next. Continue reading...

A chatbot's bad guess about a cargo ship nearly dragged the U.S. into a shooting war with China this spring, CNN exclusively reported on Friday.A U.S. Special Operations Command Pacific analyst asked an AI chatbot to analyze a Chinese vessel's manifest in the Middle East amid the war with Iran, four sources familiar with the episode told CNN's Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen, who added the bot "fused together open-source intelligence with secret signals intelligence in government holdings" to wrongly conclude the ship was "hauling components" for a nuclear weapons program. The analyst then used AI again to package the finding into "a standard intelligence report" that was sent up the chain of command.According to the report, "The US military swung into action with plans to intercept the vessel, according to four sources familiar with the episode. According to two of the sources, armed members of the US military were preparing to board the ship. Military planes were in the air, one of those sources and another source familiar with the incident said. It was only just before the planned operation that officials dug deeper into the report put together by a special operations command analyst and found it had been generated with the help of artificial intelligence (AI).""Entirely false," one source called it before admitting to CNN that it "almost started a war," since any U.S. assault on a Chinese ship carried the possibility of retaliation. The scare comes as the Pentagon races to embed AI into everything from targeting to logistics, following Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's January push to "unleash experimentation" and arm three million personnel with AI tools. Critics say the technology remains dangerously unready, with a top Army cyber general recently warning AI has caused a "tenfold" spike in vulnerabilities across the Pentagon's aging networks. Insiders have described a Pentagon under Hegseth already gripped by dysfunction. Special Operations Command Pacific and the Pentagon declined to comment when pressed by CNN.

Police fire teargas as protests break out in city of Minna after deaths of suspected illegal goldminers, many of whom were childrenSurvivors from a prison cell in Nigeria where 37 suspected illegal goldminers died while in the custody of a paramilitary group this week have recounted their panic and struggle for breath, as police on Friday fired teargas at people protesting against the deaths and imposed an overnight curfew in the city of Minna.The victims – many of whom were children – were found dead on Thursday in the cells of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), which had raided suspected illegal goldmines and ⁠locked up dozens of miners in the city, the state capital of the mineral-rich state of Niger. Continue reading...

The Pentagon's thoughts about withdrawing 25,000 troops from Europe are spurring fears of the threat the move would create for U.S. allies.On Thursday, NBC News reported that the Pentagon is considering pulling out 25,000 or more U.S. troops from Europe, which is nearly a third of the American forces stationed there. The withdrawal would include aircraft, ships, and weapons, even though NATO allies have warned about the growing threat from Russia.Online critics pointed to the move as proof that President Donald Trump and his administration are aligned with Russian leader Vladimir Putin."For the umpteenth time: Trump works for Putin," wrote former GOP congressman Joe Walsh in a post on X. "He's a Russian asset. Plain & simple. Putin is smiling again today.""What US national security interest would this decision advance?" wondered former U.S. ambassador to Russia and political science professor Michael McFaul. "I missed the Party of Reagan and Peace Through Strength.""Trump is helping Putin to attack Europe," declared investigative journalist Robert van der Noordaa."As European countries build their defense capabilities, this kind of withdrawal may become possible," former U.S. ambassador Steven Pifer lamented. "It makes no sense now.""UNBELIEVABLE!" exclaimed influencer Brian Krassenstein, who had a theory for why the Trump administration was making the move. "This is happening right after the EU signed a trade deal with Canada and invited Canada to join the EU as an associated member. Trump is mad that two allies are working together after he pissed them both off."This would not be the administration's first drawdown in Europe. The Pentagon ordered about 5,000 U.S. troops out of Germany earlier in 2026 amid tensions with Berlin, Fox News reported.It also echoes Trump's first term, when he ordered roughly 12,000 troops out of Germany in 2020. That plan drew bipartisan pushback and was frozen by President Joe Biden, CBS News reported.What US national security interest would this decision advance? I missed the Party of Reagan and Peace Through Strength. https://t.co/Un0R9eB6GY— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) September 17, 2026

MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace was aghast on Thursday's edition of "Deadline: White House" as Trump escalates his threats against Canada, seeking a closer partnership with the European Union — and Canada going for it anyway."I think ... the way it translates to voters, especially Republican voters, is the stench of weakness," Wallace told guest Cornell Belcher. "We have never looked so weak, being isolated. And I say this with a little bit of experience from my time in government: people care a lot about the national security implications. But the association of standing alone is something that all voters internalize and dislike, and it makes people feel frightened, and it makes America look weak."Belcher emphatically agreed, saying that it doesn't just make America "look" weak, but "it makes us, in fact, weak."The polling, he continued, shows that "Americans are more pessimistic about the current situation, but also more pessimistic about the future. You have majorities of Americans being pessimistic about the future. And it's an anomaly, because one thing you can always count on is for Americans to be optimistic, whether they're on the left or the right." Usually "American exceptionalism" unites everyone, he said, but it seems to have slipped away.""And it's not evaporating just because the price of gas is high," he added. Rather, it's a "deep moral calcification of our moral compass that is happening ... what you're seeing is, really, Trump presiding over the end of the American era."This is also evident in polls abroad, he said. "And you see him tearing apart the global order that has centered America ... they are reordering themselves, the globe. And America is not the centerpiece of that. So in a real way, he's made America less significant, and we're going to be less safe and less prosperous." - YouTube www.youtube.com

A former top White House official has a simple theory as to why a bullying President Donald Trump president blew up America's relationship with its closest ally: "mind-melting incompetence."Miles Taylor, who served as chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security during Trump's first term, tore into the administration's handling of its relationship with Canada in a new Substack post."Canada is demonstrating, for every democracy watching, that the response to Trump’s bullying should be neither submission nor hysteria… but the calm construction of alternatives," he wrote. "Our allies aren’t leaving because they hate America. They’re leaving because they miss us, and they can’t stand the bully who’s holding us hostage."Taylor argued Trump's trade war pushed Ottawa to give up on repairing the relationship. Since retaking office, Trump has hit Canada with 50 percent tariffs, moved to ban imports including dairy, alcohol, lumber and cars, and repeatedly needled the country about becoming America's "51st state."Rather than "cave" the way Taylor says some American law firms did early in Trump's second term, Canada has instead looked elsewhere. Prime Minister Mark Carney has been exploring a closer partnership with the European Union, which has floated an unprecedented "associate member" status for Canada. "Trump spent two years mocking Canada as America's future 51st state," Taylor wrote. "This week, Europe offered to make Canada its first."Taylor praised Carney's calm, businesslike response, writing, "they've walked across the street to build a better future with people who keep their word." This presents a sharp contrast to Trump's blustering and bullying that has only made the situation worse, Taylor argued. "You have to marvel at the mind-melting incompetence required to produce this outcome," Taylor wrote, noting Canada and the U.S. share the "longest peaceful border"on Earth, an integrated defense relationship, and a history of fighting alongside each other, with roughly "70% of Canadian exports" flowing to the U.S.Taylor didn't hold back on Trump personally, calling him "the stupidest man" he believes has held office in Washington. He noted that even John Kelly, Trump's former chief of staff, has said Trump is "the most flawed person" he's ever met.Taylor added that previously overseas ally officials used to quietly ask "whether America was still America" — but that they've "since stopped asking."

While dozens of major companies flee Cuba under President Donald Trump-era sanctions, a select group of insiders with ties to the president are quietly positioning themselves to scoop up the island's assets, according to the Guardian.That includes executives working for the Trump Organization.Spanish hotel giants Meliá and Iberostar, Canadian mining firm Sherritt International, European shipping companies, and even Visa and Mastercard have all pulled out of Cuba this summer, spooked by sweeping new secondary sanctions tied to Trump's pressure campaign following the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Axios last month there are "no escape valves" left for the island.But the Guardian reports a different story is playing out behind the scenes."A growing cast of Washington and Florida insiders – from billionaire Trump cronies and Rubio-linked lobbyists to Cuban exiles – are jockeying for control of the communist-ruled island-nation’s key assets, charging top dollar to help clients navigate the ever-expanding web of sanctions, and positioning themselves for lucrative business opportunities in the case of regime collapse," the Guardian's Lee Schlenker and Ed Augustin reported.The Guardian report added that, "several Trump Organization executives who had previously traveled to the island to explore real estate deals and who even registered the Trump trademark there in 2008 have in recent months returned to Cuba under the aegis of Dominari Holdings for meetings."Meanwhile, ordinary Cubans have endured a fuel blockade since January, after the administration cut off oil shipments from Venezuela and pressured Mexico into halting its own deliveries. Yet Treasury-authorized fuel exports from Florida and Texas to Cuba's private sector have surged past $160 million this year, up from almost nothing in 2025."If I had done during the Biden administration what Trump's friends have done now, I'd have been put in jail," said one longtime Cuba policy expert, granted anonymity to speak candidly.