News from Multiple Perspectives

Trump contradicts Rubio by saying US attacked Iran because 'he had a feeling' Tehran would attack Washington first.

Trump faces challenges as Iran resists negotiations after military escalation and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's killing.

Iran has been striking more than military targets across the Gulf region, hitting oil and gas facilities.

U.S. President Donald Trump, left, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer look at each other as they shake hands during a press conference at Chequers near Aylesbury, England, Thursday Sept. 18, 2025. Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP, File) 2026-03-03T13:47:41Z LONDON (AP) — Keir Starmer has never had a bad word to say in public about Donald Trump . That is not being reciprocated now as the American president lambasts the British prime minister over his reluctance to join the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran . “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” Trump said Tuesday at the White House, blasting Britain’s reluctance to let U.S. warplanes use its bases. The dispute is roiling a relationship that Starmer worked hard to forge, and further straining trans-Atlantic ties frayed by Trump’s “America first” foreign policy and transactional approach to international relations. President Donald Trump speaks about Iran before a Medal of Honor ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Monday, March 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) President Donald Trump speaks about Iran before a Medal of Honor ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Monday, March 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) --> Add AP News on Google Add AP News as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. --> Share Share Facebook Copy Link copied Print Email X LinkedIn Bluesky Flipboard Pinterest Reddit Read More freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Britain is in Trump’s bad books “This was the most solid relationship of all. And now we have very strong relationships with other countries in Europe,” Trump told British tabloid The Sun in an interview published Tuesday. “I mean, France has been great. They’ve all been great,” Trump said. “The U.K. has been much different from others.” “It’s very sad to see that the relationship is obviously not what it was,” he said. Starmer initially blocked American planes from using British bases for the attacks on Iran that started on Saturday. He later agreed to let the United States use bases in England and on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to strike Iran’s ballistic missiles and their storage sites, but not to hit other targets. Even after the British base at Akrotiri in Cyprus was hit by an Iran-made drone over the weekend, Starmer said that the United Kingdom “will not join offensive action.” He said Tuesday that a Royal Navy destroyer, HMS Dragon, and Wildcat helicopters with counter-drone capabilities were being sent to the region as part of “defensive operations.” British forces have also shot down drones in Jordanian and Iraqi airspace, the government said. Starmer has offered a rare, though implicit, rebuke of the U.S. president, saying Monday that the U.K. government doesn’t believe in “regime change from the skies.” freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); “Any U.K. actions must always have a lawful basis and a viable, thought-through plan,” Starmer told lawmakers in the House of Commons on Monday. “President Trump has expressed his disagreement with our decision not to get involved in the initial strikes, but it is my duty to judge what is in Britain’s national interest,” Starmer added. The Financial Times called it Starmer’s “Love Actually moment” — a reference to the 2003 movie scene in which a British prime minister played by Hugh Grant stands up to a bullying U.S. president played by Billy Bob Thornton. Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer issues a statement at 10 Downing Street, London, on the latest developments in the Middle East, Saturday Feb. 28, 2026. (Jonathan Brady/Pool via AP) Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer issues a statement at 10 Downing Street, London, on the latest developments in the Middle East, Saturday Feb. 28, 2026. (Jonathan Brady/Pool via AP) --> Add AP News on Google Add AP News as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. --> Share Share Facebook Copy Link copied Print Email X LinkedIn Bluesky Flipboard Pinterest Reddit Read More freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Friction has grown over Greenland and Diego Garcia Friction between the two leaders has been building for months. Trump’s threat to take over Greenland was denounced by Starmer and other European leaders earlier this year. Recently, Trump has condemned Britain’s agreement to hand over the Chagos Islands , home to the Diego Garcia base, to Mauritius, despite his administration earlier backing the deal. Peter Ricketts, a former head of the U.K. Foreign Office, told The Observer newspaper that under Trump, “the Americans have effectively given up on any effort to be consistent with international law.” That is a red line for the law-abiding Starmer, a barrister and former chief prosecutor for England and Wales. The spat is a setback for Starmer’s efforts to woo Trump since the president’s return to office in 2025. The British government rolled out the red carpet to the president for a state visit as the guest of King Charles III, and Starmer consistently has praised Trump’s efforts — so far unsuccessful — to broker an end to the Russia-Ukraine war. The Iran war has also divided European leaders, who fall along a spectrum from condemnation to support. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said that he unreservedly approves of Trump’s decision to attack Iran and kill its supreme leader, and called the war crucial for Europe’s security. The U.K., France and Germany jointly said that they weren’t involved in the strikes, but were prepared to enable “necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran’s capability to fire missiles and drones at their source.” freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez condemned the strikes as “unjustifiable” and “dangerous.” Polling suggests many Britons are skeptical of the U.S. justification for war. But politicians to the right of Starmer’s Labour Party slammed the prime minister for not joining the offensive. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said that her party “stands behind America taking this necessary action against state-sponsored terror.” Foreign Office Minister Stephen Doughty denied the U.S.-U.K. “special relationship” was on the ropes. “Our relationship with the United States is strong,” he said Tuesday in the House of Commons. “It has endured, it continues to endure, and it will endure into the future on both the economic and the security fronts.” JILL LAWLESS Lawless is based in London, covering British politics, diplomacy and culture and top stories from the UK and beyond. She has reported for the AP from two dozen countries on four continents. twitter mailto

A truck removes snow for them street a day after a winter storm on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez) 2026-03-03T17:19:46Z Residents of Syracuse, New York — America’s snowiest city — once barraged a service hotline with street neglect complaints during blizzards, even if plows had passed two hours earlier but the work was hidden by fresh snow. Now public trust seems to be rising as Syracuse and other cities across the U.S. integrate upgrades such as video monitoring, GPS mapping and artificial intelligence into snow operations that once relied almost entirely on manual planning. Syracuse was one of the first to revamp the way it deploys its snowplows, and complaint calls have dropped by 30% under the new system, said Conor Muldoon, the city’s chief innovation officer. “People will look out their window and say, ‘Hey, you guys are doing a terrible job,’” Muldoon said. “And we can point to a public map and say, ‘Here’s all the breadcrumbs for when that plow was there.’” freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Snowier than usual in the US snow capital Each winter, Syracuse averages 126 inches (3.2 meters) of snow, more than any other U.S. city of at least 100,000 people. Even before the blizzard that pounded the Northeast last week, the city had already surpassed its typical average due to a record 2-foot (60-centimeter) accumulation on one day in late December. With a goal of clearing every street within 24 hours after a storm, Syracuse partnered in 2021 with San Francisco-based Samsara to put live GPS tracking and dashcams on city fleet vehicles including snowplows. Integrated with GIS mapping software, the system allows officials to monitor live video and plow locations in real time. While residents can’t access live feeds, they can view a public map that updates every 5 minutes to show which roads have been cleared. Samsara started incorporating AI into its products in 2019. This winter, for the first time, it has provided customers with footage from other cameras within its large network, helping officials better understand conditions on a street even when no worker is there. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Kiren Sekar, the company’s chief product officer, cited an example of needing to dispatch the closest plow for a snow emergency in Plainwell, Michigan. “Rather than having to sift through a list of vehicles, it can actually figure this out: ‘We’ve got Trevor in vehicle 203, 15 minutes away,’” Sekar said. New York City’s approach Samsara partners with communities of various sizes to upgrade their snowplow systems, but the nation’s largest city — New York City — developed its own. Its tracking program known as BladeRunner monitors snow removal equipment (including garbage trucks with plows attached) while a human in a command center — not AI — analyzes the GPS data. The city is exploring AI in the future to process the thousands of 311 calls and online service requests it can get in a single day. The other way the big city’s approach differs from its upstate neighbor of Syracuse is that every block gets the same treatment, with each plow assigned a specific route during a storm. Typically 99% of the city’s roads will be plowed within the first four hours after a moderate snowfall under ideal conditions, but it didn’t quite meet that mark during last week’s historic storm, said Joshua Goodman, deputy commissioner at the city’s Department of Sanitation. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Goodman said all streets in New York City get the same treatment, regardless of whether they are main or side streets. “So what it does is allow equity,” he said. Cutting costs and insurance claims With U.S. cities and states spending upward of $4 billion each year on snow operations, the new technology also helps assure roads aren’t overplowed or oversalted, which can cause environmental damage. Fayetteville, Arkansas, launched a public-facing snow removal map for the first time this winter. It reported improvements in plowing time, labor costs and fuel savings, despite enduring about double the snow from a year ago. “This is the first year some roads have ever been treated or plowed, and that goes right back to being able to see where we need to go and if we’ve been there,” said Ross Jackson Jr., the city’s fleet operations manager. The township of Edison, New Jersey, reduced its spending on salt and brine by 35% and its insurance payouts by 60%, thanks to video that helped prove plow drivers usually weren’t at fault when the vehicles collided with another motorist’s car. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Video installed on snowplows in Iowa helped demonstrate that all but one of 12 snowplow accidents in a single day were the other driver’s fault, said Craig Bargfrede, the state’s winter operations administrator. “How can you not see this big orange truck with flashing lights ahead of you?” he said. “Boom, they just drive right into us.” Kalamazoo County was the first county in Michigan to employ turn-by-turn navigation to dispatch snowplows during a storm. Rusty McClain, assistant general superintendent of its Road Commission, called it a huge improvement in efficiency. “The old-school way of doing it, that bird’s eye view of where everyone needs to go to plow, was just in a large book with paper maps,” McClain said. “You’d have to pull over, find the page you’re looking for, call somebody on the phone and ask if they have plowed that area.”

Colin Gray, the father of Apalachee High School shooting suspect Colt Gray, listens during closing arguments in his trial at Barrow County Courthouse in Winder, Ga., on Monday, March 2, 2026. (Abbey Cutrer/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) 2026-03-03T14:38:25Z WINDER, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia man whose teenage son is accused of killing two students and two teachers at a high school was convicted of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter Tuesday. Jurors took less than two hours to find Colin Gray guilty of all charges in the September 2024 shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, northeast of Atlanta. Gray is one of a number of parents across the country who have been charged after their children were accused in fatal shootings. He showed little emotion as the verdict was read and then as he watched each juror being polled by the judge. Deputies then handcuffed him behind his back as he stood at the defense table, consulting with his lawyer. He will be sentenced at a later date. Colin Gray was found guilty of second-degree murder in the deaths of two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo. Georgia law defines second-degree murder as causing the death of a child by committing the crime of cruelty to children. Gray was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the killings of teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Another teacher and eight other students were wounded. Gray was also convicted of multiple counts of reckless conduct and cruelty to children. Prosecutors said Gray gave his son, Colt, access to a gun and ammunition “after receiving sufficient warning that Colt Gray would harm and endanger the bodily safety of another.” Colt Gray, who was 14 at the time of the shooting, was indicted on a total of 55 counts, including murder. He has pleaded not guilty and the judge in his case has set a status hearing for mid-March. Investigators said Colt Gray carefully planned the Sept. 4, 2024, shooting at the school attended by 1,900 students. He boarded the school bus with a semiautomatic, assault-style rifle in his book bag, the barrel sticking out and wrapped in poster board, investigators said. He left his second-period class and emerged from a bathroom with the gun and then shot people in a classroom and hallways, investigators said. freestar.queue.push(function () { window.fsAdCount = window.fsAdCount + 1 || 0; let customChannel = '/dynamic_' + fsAdCount; let adList = document.querySelectorAll(".fs-feed-ad") let thisAd = adList[fsAdCount]; let randId = Math.random().toString(36).slice(2); thisAd.id = randId; let thisPlacement = fsAdCount == 0 ? "apnews_story_feed" : "apnews_story_feed_dynamic"; freestar.newAdSlots({ placementName: thisPlacement, slotId: randId }, customChannel); }); Colin Gray had given his son the gun as a gift the Christmas before the shooting and allowed him to have access to the gun and ammunition, despite his awareness that his son’s mental health had deteriorated, a prosecutor said. Colin Gray knew his son was obsessed with school shooters, even having a shrine in his bedroom to Nikolas Cruz , the shooter in the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, prosecutors said. JEFF MARTIN Martin covers a variety of topics including crime, hurricanes, and civil rights across the southeastern U.S. He was a member of the AP team named a finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting for the Lethal Restraint project. mailto

Marius Borg Høiby now faces a total of 40 charges at his trial and denies the most serious allegations.

Money is reportedly being raised by them for the armed struggle, prosecutors say.

Prosecutors say Colin Gray, 55, could have prevented his son from killing four people at a high school in Georgia in 2024.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced Tuesday that the United Kingdom is sending a warship and two Royal Navy Wildcat helicopters to Cyprus after an Iranian drone hit the British Royal Air Force (RAF) base of Akrotiri Monday morning on the east Mediterranean island. In a social media post , Starmer said he spoke with the president of Cyprus, and the U.K. is deploying helicopters with counter-drone capabilities and the air-defense destroyer HMS Dragon to the region. "The UK is fully committed to the security of Cyprus and British military personnel based there," he wrote in the post. "We’re continuing our defensive operations… We will always act in the interest of the UK and our allies." The strike, which came days after Starmer reaffirmed his country was not involved in the conflict, hit a runway at the air base just after midnight Monday morning. TOMAHAWKS, B-2 STEALTH BOMBERS AND ATTACK DRONES POUND OVER 1,000 IRANIAN TARGETS IN 24-HOUR BLITZ While there were no injuries, minor damage was reported. British Defense Secretary John Healey said the country is "moving quickly" to further reinforce its defensive presence in the Eastern Mediterranean. "HMS Dragon brings world-class air defence capability, and our Wildcat helicopters are armed with Martlet missiles to counter the growing drone threat," Healey wrote in a statement. "I am deeply proud of the professionalism and bravery of our Armed Forces personnel who have, in recent days, successfully taken action across the region to protect our allies and defend British interests." The HMS Dragon, a type 45 destroyer, will strengthen the U.K.’s ability to detect, track and destroy aerial threats — including drones. The ship is fitted with the world-leading Sea Viper missile system, which can launch eight missiles in under ten seconds and guide up to 16 missiles simultaneously. The deployment comes as the British armed forces successfully shot down multiple drones across the region over the last 24 hours. RAF F-35B jets shot down drones over Jordan — the first time an RAF F-35 has destroyed a target on operations — supported by Typhoon jets and a Voyager tanker aircraft. A British counter-drone unit neutralized drones in Iraqi airspace heading towards Coalition forces, while an RAF Typhoon operating with the joint UK-Qatar 12 Squadron shot down an Iranian one-way attack drone directed at Qatar using an air-to-air missile on Monday. Prior to the strike in Cyprus, Starmer released a video explaining that Iran launched sustained attacks across the region, on countries that did not attack them. "They've hit airports and hotels where British citizens are staying. This is clearly a dangerous situation," Starmer said. "We have at least 200,000 British citizens in the region. Residents, families on holiday and those in transit. I ask all our people in the region to please register your presence. And follow foreign office travel advice. I know this is a deeply worrying time, and we will continue to do all we can to support you." GULF STATES CONDEMN IRANIAN RETALIATORY STRIKES ON THEIR TERRITORIES FOLLOWING US-ISRAELI OPERATION He added that the British Armed Forces are also "at risk," noting Iran hit a military base Saturday in Bahrain, "narrowly missing British personnel." "The death of the supreme leader will not stop Iran from launching these strikes," Starmer said. "Their approach is becoming even more reckless and more dangerous to civilians. Our decision that the UK would not be involved with the strikes on Iran was deliberate. Not least because we believe that the best way forward for the region and for the world is a negotiated settlement — one in which Iran agrees to give up any aspirations to develop a nuclear weapon — but Iran is striking British interests nonetheless, and putting British people at huge risk, along with our allies across the region. That is the situation we face today." He said partners in the Gulf asked them to "do more" to defend them, prompting a decision to allow the U.S. to use British air bases for targeted strikes against Iranian missile launchers and storage depots. "We have British jets in the air as part of coordinated defensive operations, which have already successfully intercepted Iranian strikes. But the only way to stop the threat is to destroy the missiles at source — in their storage depots or the launchers which are used to fire the missiles," Starmer said. "The basis of our decision is the collective self-defense of long-standing friends and allies, and protecting British lives… We are not joining these strikes, but we will continue with our defensive actions in the region." "I want to be very clear: We all remember the mistakes of Iraq , and we have learned those lessons," he continued. "We were not involved in the initial strikes on Iran, and we will not join offensive action now. But Iran is pursuing a scorched earth strategy. So we are supporting the collective self-defense of our allies and our people in the region because that is our duty to the British people. It is the best way to eliminate the urgent threat and prevent the situation spiraling further. This is the British government protecting British interests and British lives." The Associated Press contributed to this report.

FIRST ON FOX: As Israel wages what it describes as an existential campaign against Iran, IDF spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said the war has reinforced a fundamental strategic shift in how Israel sees itself and its alliances, particularly with the United States and regional partners. "Israel was never part of this region. We thought we were part of Europe," he said. "Since the Abraham Accords started, we are having good relations with our neighbors. We are part of this region now." He described the 2020 agreements as transformative, building on the peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. "The military cooperation is great. Some of the things are overt and some covert," Defrin said in his first English-language media interview since the beginning of the conflict. "Iran is a regional threat, and that is clear to everyone now." But he stressed the campaign against Tehran is not only regional. "It’s a worldwide problem, it’s a global problem, it’s a regional problem and it’s also an Israeli problem," he said. "They are not hitting only Israel." ISRAEL STRIKES IRANIAN LEADERSHIP MEETING CHOOSING KHAMENEI SUCCESSOR The spokesperson revealed that the operation was preceded by months of strategic deception. "It was a strategic and operational deception ," he said. On the eve of the strike, senior officials deliberately maintained routine appearances. "Friday night we went to dinner at home. The chief of staff and I returned late in cars that were not our official vehicles. The official cars stayed at home, and we made sure that from satellite imagery it would not look like the Kirya (ministry of defense) was full while all the planes were armed and ready." He said Iran was caught off guard. "For many long months there was deception, so they were surprised. They fired what they had pre-planned in their preset response." The spokesperson said the strike that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader , Ali Khamenei , was carried out in coordination with the Trump administration. "It was a mutual operation," he said. "The cooperation between us and the American military is amazing. We have mutual planning and mutual executing for the plans in Iran and beyond." HEGSETH LAYS OUT 'CLEAR' 3-PART MISSION AGAINST IRAN, SAYS WAR ‘IS NOT ENDLESS' He framed the operation as part of unprecedented U.S.-Israeli military coordination. The entire operation in Iran is a mutual and coordinated campaign ," he said. He also described a broader international dimension. "It’s a problem with the United States of America as well," he said, citing attacks by Iranian-backed groups that have killed American service members and threatened shipping lanes. "They are posing a threat to the Red Sea… the movement of naval ships in the Suez Canal dropped by 90% since the Houthis started shooting at ships in the Bab al-Mandab Strait," he said. "It’s a global problem. It’s a terror regime. They are acting all over the world. And again, we had to act." He added that regional states increasingly understand the threat. "Israel is here to stay. You see the countries of the region placing their trust in Israel." Addressing reports that dozens of senior Iranian figures were eliminated in a strike on Tuesday, including claims that 88 members of Iran’s Assembly of Experts were killed, he dismissed the figures. "We struck a few targets involved in terrorism. We still don’t have any battle damage assessment. Once we have it, we will publish it. It’s too early." He emphasized that the targets were military. "We struck military targets ," he said. "They are attacking population centers." According to the spokesperson, Israeli intelligence shows Iran is deliberately aiming at civilians "to exact a price," including launches toward civilian infrastructure. EX-CIA CHIEF WARNS NOT TO UNDERESTIMATE IRAN’S RESPONSE AFTER OPERATION EPIC FURY EXPOSED REGIME ‘ARROGANCE’ Explaining the decision to launch the campaign, the spokesperson described Iran as an imminent existential threat. "We didn’t have another choice, unfortunately. It’s an existential imminent threat. This is a terror regime," he said. "They declared it. Whatever they declared, they did." Asked whether regime change is an objective, he drew a distinction between military aims and political outcomes. TRUMP ADMIN WARNED LAWMAKERS ISRAEL WAS 'DETERMINED TO ACT WITH OR WITHOUT US' BEFORE MASSIVE IRAN STRIKES "As a member of the military, I cannot say we have an aim to remove the regime," he said. "But definitely, we want to weaken it and create the conditions that one day this regime will be removed by its own people." As fighting expands to Lebanon following renewed Hezbollah fire, he reiterated Israel’s view of Iran as the head of a regional network. "Hezbollah is an octopus. The head of the octopus is in Iran." For Israel, he said, the campaign has clarified a strategic reality shaped by the Abraham Accords and deepened U.S. cooperation. "We are part of this region now."

The Israel Defense Forces released a video Tuesday showing the Israeli Air Force destroying the " Iranian regime’s missile launchers , defense systems, and live-fire arrays." The IDF said more than 60 strikes recently were carried out in waves across western Iran, hitting targets including vehicles carrying ballistic missiles, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and loaded missile launchers. The development comes as Iran "once again" fired missiles containing cluster sub-munitions toward Israeli civilians on Tuesday in central Israel, according to IDF international spokesperson Lt. Nadav Shoshani. "The Iranian regime’s war crimes continue," he wrote on X. NEW SATELLITE IMAGES SHOW FIRES, NAVAL BASE DAMAGE ACROSS IRAN AFTER US-ISRAELI STRIKES Shoshani also said in a video that, "Our forces, along with the U.S. armed forces, continue degrading the Iranian regime's military capabilities." "Yesterday, Iran’s main terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, launched dozens of rockets and UAVs from southern Lebanon at Israeli civilians in northern Israel," he continued. "Our forces have been prepared to strengthen and protect all borders as part of this operation and are more than ready." ISRAELI MINISTER OUTLINES IRAN MISSION GOALS, SAYS IRANIAN PEOPLE NOW HAVE CHANCE TO ‘REGAIN THEIR FREEDOM' "We are preparing for the possibility of Hezbollah expanding their attacks against Israeli civilians," Shoshani warned. "This includes reinforcing aerial defense systems and troops presence." "Overnight, IDF troops were positioned in southern Lebanon at several points near the border area as part of an enhanced forward defense posture. Let me be clear: this is not a ground maneuver into Lebanon. It is a tactical step to create an additional level of security for the residents of northern Israel," Shoshani added. "Let me remind you, on Oct. 8th, the day after the Oct. 7 massacre, Hezbollah took control of vantage points near the northern border and fired RPGs and missiles indiscriminately towards Israeli civilians in the northern border. As a result, Israel had to evacuate around 60,000 civilians from their homes for many months. We will not let that happen again," he said. "Overnight, we carried out a series of preventative strikes on Hezbollah military infrastructure across Lebanon in order to neutralize the continuous fire towards our civilians."

The Isfahan facility, suspected of storing a cache of enriched uranium, was smashed during the 12-day campaign last June.

The Islamic Republic is aiming to draw out the conflict and broaden the fighting. That would drive up the jeopardy for President Trump in terms of casualties and political capital.

Their attacks have targeted police stations and intelligence bases in what may be part of a plan to encourage Iranians to rise up against the government, experts say.

If you’re among the more than 1 million people who make Nike’s sneakers and apparel around the world, the company says you should be able to support your family. You should earn enough to pay your living expenses and have some discretionary money left over. If your factory wages don’t cut it, your employer should have a plan to get you there. But Nike’s expansion in Indonesia over the last decade has directly undermined these goals, an analysis by ProPublica and The Oregonian/OregonLive found. Over the last decade, employment at factories supplying the world’s largest athletic apparel brand expanded dramatically in regions of Indonesia where, according to one leading estimate, the minimum wage is less than the amount workers need to live on. Meanwhile, Nike’s supply chain shrank overall in places that pay this estimated living wage, our analysis found. The trend shows how the movement of multinational corporations to countries with ever-lower labor costs is being replaced, in some cases, by movements within a country that can achieve major savings and improve the bottom line. Nike’s suppliers employ 280,000 people in Indonesia, the company’s second-largest production center. From 2015 through last year, these suppliers shed around 36,000 jobs in places where the monthly minimum wage exceeds or comes close to a living wage. In these high-wage areas, which include the capital of Jakarta, the minimum typically equates to about $300 a month. By contrast, the company’s supplier workforce grew by nearly 112,000 in parts of Central and West Java with local minimum wages that are typically about $165 a month — far from what’s considered enough to live on. Dozens of workers employed by Nike suppliers in Indonesia told the news organizations the minimum is about all they make . “If it’s very labor intensive, then you go where labor is cheapest,” said Nurina Merdikawati, a lecturer in the Indonesia Project at Australian National University. In Indonesia, she said, “that’s going to be Central Java.” Other brands have also moved to Central Java and other low-wage regions of Indonesia in recent years and continue expanding there, local news organizations have reported. For Nike, the trend threatens the jobs of the existing factory workforce elsewhere in the country. Last October, more than 2,000 workers were laid off by Victory Chingluh, one of Nike’s longtime suppliers near Jakarta. In 2024, another 1,500 workers were cut by a Nike shoe supplier nearby, Adis Dimension, according to local news reports. Labor advocates say the geographic shift is concerning because the Jakarta area has a stronger union presence that ensures working conditions and wages get closer attention than in less-developed places like Central Java. At Victory Chingluh, three employees told the news organizations that the fear of more job cuts hangs over their work. They said the company is building a new factory in Cirebon, in West Java, where the minimum wage is 45% lower. Over the Past Decade, Nike’s Workforce Ballooned in Areas Where Workers Do Not Make a Living Wage Factory employment shrank in the areas near Jakarta where the minimum wage is considered enough to meet basic needs. Lucas Waldron/ProPublica Employees said when they were offered a choice between keeping their jobs and accepting severance packages during layoffs last year, workers were willing to take the buyout, fearing that they wouldn’t get anything if the factory closed altogether. That happened in 2018 when one Nike supplier near Jakarta, Kahoindah Citragarment, shut down without paying workers their full severance after Nike pulled its orders, an investigation by the Worker Rights Consortium found. The factory’s South Korean parent company, Hojeon, eventually agreed to pay workers $4.5 million after labor advocates argued they were legally owed separation pay. Hojeon did not respond to requests for comment. At Victory Chingluh, two union leaders said in December that they anticipated another 5,000 layoffs at a company that once employed about 15,000. “Almost all employees here are worried about that,” one of them said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they feared repercussions from talking to reporters. The leaders said they’ve been told the factory being built in Cirebon could be ready by 2027. They said they’ve been told it’s for an expansion — even though their factory recently lost thousands of jobs. Victory Chingluh did not respond to questions. Nike said in a statement that it works closely with suppliers during layoffs to minimize disruptions. “We mandate that suppliers pay all statutory severance, social security, and other separation benefits required by local law and often assemble working groups — which may include civil society, unions, and local governments — to aid in proper execution,” the company said. Business leaders near Jakarta have voiced concern about the wage disparity between their region and Central Java, more than 150 miles away, saying that mandated pay increases around Jakarta could lead to mass layoffs and cause manufacturers to shift production. “There is a real possibility that many labor-intensive industries will move to other regions,” Herry Rumawatine, the head of a local employers association, told the Jakarta Globe in January. Asked whether the geographic shifts in Nike’s Indonesian supply chain were aimed at improving the bottom line, the company said that creating “operational efficiencies” is part of doing business in a competitive environment. However, the company said treating Nike’s geographic shift primarily as a move to save money “creates an incomplete picture” and cited “other plausible drivers” such as automation or changing production needs. Less-developed regions shouldn’t be excluded from opportunities for economic growth, Nike said, and it expects its suppliers everywhere to meet its code of conduct. “Growth and progress go hand in hand,” Nike wrote, “and we remain committed to investing in ways that expand opportunity while strengthening labor standards and worker protections where we operate worldwide.” Nike suggests that people who work for its foreign suppliers are well paid. In particular, the company says most workers for which it has data earn nearly double the local minimum wage. As The Oregonian/OregonLive reported in partnership with ProPublica in January, Nike does not pay workers anywhere close to this amount in Indonesia. In interviews across three regions of the country, roughly 100 workers said they made the minimum wage or a little bit more. Nike told the news organizations that its figure is a global average and variations naturally exist. But the company also told the news organizations that it’s important not just to compare what its suppliers pay relative to the minimum wage. Nike’s focus, one company official said, is on whether workers make a living wage and, if not, whether their employers are trying to get there. Although Nike does not explicitly require its suppliers to pay this amount, it says every worker “has a right to compensation for a regular work week that is sufficient to meet workers’ basic needs and provide some discretionary income.” The company reported that two-thirds of its key suppliers — it did not say which ones — paid above living wage benchmarks in 2022. Jason Judd, executive director of the Global Labor Institute at Cornell University, said living wage pledges from companies like Nike are so flexible that they’re almost meaningless. Only asking factories to be working toward living wages, as Nike does, “could go on for 20 years,” Judd said, “until you’ve found yet another lower-wage province.” Nike’s recent move to Central Java is notable because while wages are far lower there than in urban Jakarta, food and housing are not dramatically cheaper, according to estimates from the WageIndicator Foundation, a Dutch nonprofit. The foundation says a living wage in Central Java starts around $245 a month; in the parts of the province that are home to Nike suppliers, the local minimum wage ranges from only $136 to $215. Workers in Central Java said second jobs are common, including selling fish and gasoline. One said workers covertly sold snacks inside the factory, out of sight of managers who might fire them if caught. “At its core, this is about cost reduction and power,” Wiranta Ginting, deputy international coordinator for the Asia Floor Wage Alliance, a labor group, said in an email. It isn’t clear exactly how much Nike may have saved on labor by growing aggressively in low-wage regions. But some rough calculations are possible, based on addresses Nike has published for its suppliers, the numbers it says they employ and the minimum wage they must pay in each municipality. If each factory worker made exactly the minimum wage and worked only on Nike products, then the company’s shift into lower-cost areas would have saved about $200 million on labor in 2025 alone. The estimate is based on what Nike’s suppliers paid last year versus what they would have paid in labor costs had the company expanded uniformly across regions where it had factories in 2015. It’s only a broad indicator of potential savings. Nike said the analysis “rests on a series of oversimplified assumptions that limit the reliability of its conclusions.” For example, the company said that to assume the workforce could have grown where suppliers were located in 2015 “does not reflect the realities of manufacturing operations, which are constrained by factors such as facility capacity, workforce availability, skills, technology, and changes in product mix.” The geographic shift into lower-wage regions of Indonesia shows one way Nike can try to wring more profit from its vast supply chain. The company, which reported $46.3 billion in revenue last year, is struggling with declining annual sales and profits, problems compounded by uncertainty around President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which Nike had estimated would cost $1.5 billion a year before a recent Supreme Court decision struck them down. Its stock has dropped more than 60% from a 2021 peak. “Margin expansion is a top priority for me and my leadership team,” CEO Elliott Hill told Wall Street analysts in a December earnings call. Nike CEO Elliott Hill in February Francesca Volpi/Bloomberg via Getty Images Officials in low-wage Central Java have welcomed the industrial expansion. The province’s then-governor said in 2022 that 97 factories had opened there. Another 10 garment and footwear factories were under construction last year, according to local news reports, with 17 more expected to be built this year. Nike’s explanation of its move into the region was in keeping with assertions decades ago by its co-founder, Phil Knight, that Nike’s arrival was a positive force for local economies and workers in developing countries. “Increased manufacturing in Central Java is not an accident and, in many ways, is something to be celebrated,” Nike told The Oregonian/OregonLive and ProPublica. “The Indonesian government has taken meaningful, intentional steps to transform Central Java into an industrial hub, with an eye toward extending the economic growth that has benefited other regions of the country for more than 30 years.” The company added that “manufacturing growth in regions with lower prevailing wages can lead to raised standards, increased worker skills, and positive contributions to local communities.” Nike’s move has ripple effects around relatively high-wage Jakarta, Indonesia’s biggest city, where the company has sourced sneakers since 1988. Factory workers and union officials there said they’re reluctant to demand wage increases. They said they fear better pay will mean fewer jobs. “It’s clear that every company will expand where it’s cheaper,” a union official at a Nike supplier near Jakarta said. The differences between Indonesia’s well-established urban production centers and the less-developed areas where Nike has expanded employment go beyond wages. “Greater Jakarta is an older industrial region with a long history of unionization and collective bargaining, reflected in higher minimum wages won through years of worker organizing and mass mobilization,” Ginting, the Asia Floor Wage Alliance representative, said in his email. By contrast, he said, factories in the new apparel hot spots of Central Java often recruit younger workers, have less union representation and face less scrutiny from labor inspectors. Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, said problems on the factory floor are more prevalent in this region. Nova’s international watchdog group has conducted investigations at the region’s apparel factories for the past five years. Despite some recent progress, Nova said by email, workers at many factories “suffer gender-based violence and other abuses at higher rates than in the country’s older production centers.” “Because unions have a tenuous foothold in the region and face harsh employer resistance,” he added, “workers often cannot fight back.” An investigation by Nova’s group found that women at a Central Javanese factory producing Nike-licensed goods for Fanatics, a privately owned brand, had been sexually harassed for years. The labor rights group told Fanatics in 2022 it had heard from women who said they had to endure unwanted touching and verbal harassment by supervisors. After the factory owner pledged to fix the problems, the consortium found even more egregious abuse in 2023 at another Central Java factory owned by the same company, South Korea-based Ontide. The company struck a binding deal with labor unions in 2024 called the Central Java Agreement for Gender Justice, which mandates harassment training and monitoring. Ontide did not respond to a request for comment. However, Ontide sustainability director John Yoon said in a press release announcing the gender justice agreement that it would protect workers. “As part of our commitment to our workers’ safety and well-being, we are pleased to be seeing initial results,” the release said. Fanatics said in a statement to The Oregonian/OregonLive and ProPublica that there has been “excellent progress” in implementing the agreement. “We are proud of this work, which has been recognized by the Agreement signatories, and which will continue into 2026,” the company said. Nova, of the Worker Rights Consortium, called the outcome at Ontide “a ray of hope.” But workers told the news organizations that problems have persisted at other factories in Central Java. Ten workers at one supplier said many women’s toilets hadn’t been working for months. Two workers at other factories said they received written reprimands after they told their employers they were injured on the job. Asked about these workers’ accounts, Nike said that a “safe and healthy work environment is a fundamental human right” and that it audits factories annually for compliance with its code of conduct. It said it has not found more problems at suppliers in Central Java than in other parts of Indonesia. The company added that it works quickly with its suppliers when needed to put improvement plans in place. At Selalu Cinta, a Central Java factory that employs 18,000 people and has made Nike Burrow slippers, Blazer Mid ’77 sneakers and other shoes, hundreds of workers signed petitions asking the factory to remove a manager they said repeatedly screamed at and intimidated workers. Leaders at the factory have failed to remove him, 10 workers told the news organizations. Nike said it required Selalu Cinta to engage in an independent third-party investigation and is overseeing corrective actions in consultation with unions. Nike said it plans follow-up verification. Selalu Cinta officials did not respond to requests for comment. A woman who worked for the manager said in an interview last summer that her parents depended on her wages, forcing her to keep her job despite what she described as her boss’ frequent tantrums. “Working like that,” she said, “feels like you’re in hell.” How We Tracked Nike’s Factories Overall employment at Nike suppliers in Indonesia grew by 39% from 2015 to 2025. To see where in Indonesia that growth occurred, we used factory-level data self-reported by Nike in November 2015 and November 2025. Because Nike said it began working to increase its disclosure of materials and components factories in 2021, we excluded any factories of this kind that appeared on Nike’s list in 2025 but not in 2015, to avoid counting Nike’s expanded disclosure as employment growth. This eliminated 12 materials factories from 2025, removing about 3,500 workers from the analysis. ProPublica and The Oregonian/OregonLive assigned minimum and living wages to each factory based on their locations. Wage and location data was manually reviewed, and when information was incomplete or inconsistent, classification was based on the data that appeared to be the most reliable. The city or regency of each factory was identified using factory addresses and verified against Google Maps, factory websites, shipping records and other public disclosures. We assigned minimum wages at the municipal level based on 2025 government decrees. Some municipalities specify a single minimum wage across all sectors. Others specify wages by sector (in which case we used the sectoral wage that best matched what each factory produces) and/or by nature of the work and employer (in which case we used the rate for labor-intensive multinational companies). Unlike minimum wages, which are defined by law, living wage estimates can vary. We used estimates from the WageIndicator Foundation, an independent Dutch nonprofit. While the group calculates living wages as a range, we used the group’s lowest estimate for 2025 of what a worker would need to provide a decent standard of living for a typical family. Factories were classified as “at or above living wage” if the applicable minimum wage was at least 95% of WageIndicator Foundation’s lowest living wage estimate for the province. Wages were converted from Indonesian rupiah to U.S. dollars using the mean of monthly average daily USD/IDR exchange rates for 2025 from the Federal Reserve . For the graphic, factory coordinates were manually reviewed, then grouped when multiple factories were close to one another. Factories were grouped when located within 15 kilometers of at least one other factory, forming density-based clusters that were represented on the map as the geometric center of those points. We verified that factories in different wage classifications were not lumped together. For municipalities without a Nike factory, we assigned the highest 2025 minimum wage that could apply if a Nike factory was located there. To estimate potential savings based on where Nike expanded production between 2015 and 2025, we compared actual 2025 supplier payroll (based on reported number of factory workers and municipal minimum wages) to a counterfactual scenario in which employment grew proportionally across the same municipalities where Nike had factories in 2015. The calculation reflects what Nike’s suppliers would have paid in labor costs under each scenario if all workers earned the applicable minimum wage and factory employment were dedicated to Nike production. Because suppliers can produce for multiple brands and some workers earn above minimum wage, the estimate merely provides a broad sense of potential savings rather than a precise measure of how much the company and its suppliers actually saved in labor costs. The post Nike Wants Factory Workers to Earn a Decent Living. In Indonesia, It’s Moved Into Areas Where Workers Don’t. appeared first on ProPublica .

ProPublica has sued the U.S. Department of Education in federal court in New York, accusing it of withholding public records about how it’s enforcing civil rights protections for millions of American students. The Education Department has failed to provide public records related to its investigations, communications and other work that ProPublica sought through four Freedom of Information Act requests filed last year. The Education Department’s civil rights arm for decades has investigated allegations of discrimination in schools. It historically has kept an online list of its open investigations and posted the findings of completed inquiries. But under Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, the Office for Civil Rights has been decimated and the work of its remaining investigators is largely cloaked in secrecy. ProPublica submitted three FOIA requests — the first of them more than a year ago — seeking records about civil rights investigations that have been opened or closed, notices sent to institutions being investigated and previous findings of discrimination that have been reversed under the Trump administration. A fourth request sought communication between top Education Department officials and conservative groups that have criticized public schools. Some of the groups have urged the OCR to investigate specific school districts and have met often with McMahon. The department has not responded to the requests other than to acknowledge that it received them. “Actions by the Department of Education have real consequences for millions of students and families,” said Alexandra Perloff-Giles of the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine, which is representing ProPublica. “The public deserves to understand how executive authority is being exercised so that it can hold government accountable,” she said. “Congress enacted FOIA to offer the public that necessary transparency, and we’re asking the court to enforce it.” Spokespeople for the department did not respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit. The department has not yet responded to the complaint in court. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, argues that since Trump took office, the work of the OCR — once one of the federal government’s largest enforcers of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — has become significantly more opaque. Though each presidential administration has its priorities, OCR has consistently worked to uphold constitutional rights against discrimination based on disability, race and gender. But the focus of the OCR under Trump has shifted to investigations relating to curbing antisemitism, ending participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports and combating alleged discrimination against white students. Complaints about transgender students playing sports and using girls’ bathrooms at school have been fast-tracked while cases of racial harassment of Black students last year were ignored. And although some documents that detail how cases were resolved are being posted online, some older resolution agreements have been terminated . Those terminations have not been disclosed to the public. “The public interest in this information is substantial and ongoing. Since there are approximately 49.6 million students in the U.S., changes to the ED and its policies affect millions of families,” the lawsuit says. Trump has been working to shutter the department. Hundreds of department workers have been laid off and official employee counts at the OCR went from 568 in 2024 to 403 as of December 2025. McMahon closed seven of the 12 regional OCR offices that handled discrimination complaints across the country. Amid the staffing difficulties and the shift in priorities at the OCR, families’ discrimination complaints have piled up. When President Joe Biden left office, about 12,000 investigations were open; by December 2025, there were nearly 24,000. ProPublica reporting has found that new complaints as well as older ones included in the backlog often are dismissed without investigation. OCR workers have said they feel as if they’re working in a “dismissal factory.” In the past year, ProPublica has filed several other lawsuits seeking to force transparency in courts and the federal government. That includes a lawsuit filed in May against the State Department. ProPublica also has joined other media organizations in lawsuits. Help Us Report on How the Department of Education Is Handling Civil Rights Cases Have you recently filed a civil rights complaint or do you have a pending case? We need your help to get a full picture of how the dismantling of the Office for Civil Rights is affecting students, parents, school employees and their communities. Share Your Experience The post ProPublica Sues Education Department for Withholding Records About Discrimination in Schools appeared first on ProPublica .

Local emergency managers, the behind-the-scenes coordinators who mobilize help during disasters, have raised the same point time and again: We need adequate resources to protect people in harm’s way — before the harm arrives.  In some notable cases, resources didn’t come soon enough. It wasn’t until after Hurricane Helene devastated Yancey County, North Carolina, in 2024 that commissioners there hired additional emergency management staff, which the former emergency manager said he’d requested for years. City officials in St. Louis, Missouri, were in the process of upgrading their faulty outdoor warning system when a tornado killed four people and injured dozens of others in May 2025.  We wanted to know more about the cracks in the systems meant to keep communities safe when disasters strike. To do that, we reached out to dozens of emergency management agencies and wound up hearing from more than 40 current and former emergency managers in 11 states. They described common concerns.  Some said their agencies have been saddled with an ever-growing list of responsibilities. In Saluda County, South Carolina, the emergency management director said his team of six is responsible for everything from the county’s IT department to a spay and neuter program. In San Bernardino County, California, the emergency manager said that she has had to help respond to new challenges like a lithium battery fire and, at a previous agency, was tasked with responding to busloads of immigrants arriving from other states. Funding for additional staff was the most pressing issue they cited. One North Carolina emergency management director said an internal study from about three years ago recommended their agency have more than 20 staffers, but they still only have 10. Across the country, more than half of the 1,689 local emergency management agencies that responded to Argonne National Laboratory’s July 2025 emergency management survey have either one or no permanent full-time employees, and a “notable percentage” of local emergency managers who responded are volunteers. Get Involved We know disasters are a matter of where and when, not if. And our reporting team at ProPublica wants to be prepared well in advance. If you are a local or state emergency manager, sign up to be a part of our long-term source network to help fuel ProPublica’s investigative journalism. Get Involved Given the wide-ranging responsibilities and increasing risk due to climate change, part-time or volunteer emergency management positions shouldn’t exist, said Samantha Montano, an emergency management associate professor and researcher at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy.  “To expect somebody to understand how to mitigate cyber risks and also recover from a tornado, I mean, these are different skill sets,” Montano said. “So to think that one person is going to be capable of doing all of those things, especially working part time or as a volunteer, is ludicrous.”  Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s administration has caused delays in emergency management funding to state and local agencies and issued an executive order to shift more of the weight of disaster preparedness to state and local governments.  Kelly McKinney, the vice president of emergency management at NYU Langone Health and a former deputy commissioner at the New York City Emergency Management office, said that over the years states have become “overly dependent” on funding administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But there is no clear plan for alternative funding streams, according to McKinney. “This crisis-management system in the United States is itself in crisis,” he said. “There’s Only So Much You Can Do”  Several emergency managers we heard from said one of the only times they’re able to draw attention to their agency’s needs is in the aftermath of a wide-scale disaster. Wike Graham, the emergency management director for the Charlotte-Mecklenberg area of North Carolina, said the first question the media typically asks following such a disaster is: “Did emergency management do what they were supposed to do?” According to Graham, that’s almost always the wrong question. He instead asks: “Did you properly fund emergency management staff? And did you provide them with the resources that they need? Did you make emergency management a priority for your community?”  Unlike firefighters, EMTs or law enforcement, emergency managers face a “public identity issue” that can result in agencies receiving smaller budgets, Montano said.  Several emergency managers told ProPublica that because people in their field operate mostly behind the scenes or as part of larger departments, they often find themselves competing for funding with better-recognized agencies, and they say elected officials frequently don’t have a clear understanding of their role. Some said it’s simply difficult to get people to care about a disaster that hasn’t happened yet. Several others told ProPublica they are also seeing an uptick in the frequency and intensity of disasters, which makes it difficult to manage recovery (which can take years) while preparing for the next storm or fire. In St. Louis, for example, emergency management commissioner Sarah Russell was still in the midst of managing recovery efforts from 2022 flash flooding when the 2025 tornado hit. Josh Morton, president of the International Association of Emergency Managers USA Council and emergency management director for Saluda County in South Carolina, says local emergency management is “where the rubber meets the road,” but local governments are often “the most limited when it comes to resources.” Donaven Doughty for ProPublica At the Saluda County emergency management office where Morton works, a memorial, first image, honors the two volunteer firefighters who lost their lives while responding to Hurricane Helene. Donaven Doughty for ProPublica During the St. Louis tornado, the sirens — which the city was in the early process of upgrading — weren’t activated, in part due to a miscommunication between Russell and a fire alarm dispatcher, according to an external investigation commissioned by the city. Russell, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, told ProPublica that the fire department was responsible for sounding the sirens.  But even if the activation button had been pressed, more than a third of the sirens weren’t working, and a later test showed that the button at the fire alarm office wasn’t either.  Russell was terminated in August 2025, in part due to their management of the tornado response, according to their termination letter. But Russell, who is appealing the termination, said the incident highlights the need to proactively invest in emergency management.  Russell had made several requests for additional staff who specialize in emergency management to help with core responsibilities, like updating the city’s outdated plan for responding to emergencies. “There’s always things that you would do different with hindsight,” Russell said. “But there’s only so much you can do with so little resources and support.” St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer, who had been in office for a month at the time of the tornado and who was an alderwoman for the decade prior, told ProPublica that she was aware of the agency’s requests for additional funding, but that most city departments make such requests. After the tragedy, the city fully automated the tornado sirens and issued an executive order declaring that the fire department would have primary authority over the sirens, replacing an unclear protocol.  A city spokesperson said the new emergency management commissioner has “implemented several improvements” to the emergency operations plan.  “Recognizing that budget restraints are unfortunately the reality across many aspects of government,” Spencer said via email, “I’m incredibly proud of the improvements this team has been able to implement with almost no additional funding.” “This Isn’t a Quick Fix” Strained budgets for local emergency management agencies aren’t a new issue. But in recent months, federal funding has become uncertain.  In April 2025, the Trump administration cut federal grants that pay for local disaster-preparedness projects — but a judge later halted the administration’s efforts to shutter the grant program. In May 2025, federal officials delayed grants that help fund local and state emergency managers’ salaries .  In December, the FEMA Review Council, which Trump created to advise on ways to reform the agency, was expected to vote on a long-awaited report that would outline the agency’s future. But after a draft was leaked to CNN , the meeting was abruptly canceled. The work of the review council has been extended until late March.  Several emergency managers told ProPublica they would welcome change at FEMA. But many voiced concerns about the federal government shuttering grant programs — which fund salaries, upgrades to equipment and disaster-mitigation efforts — or drastically reducing reimbursement for local agencies responding to large-scale disasters without alternative funding in place. They said such actions would be detrimental, especially in small, rural regions with limited local budgets.  In North Carolina, one emergency manager said that without federal emergency management performance grants, which can be used to pay 50% of an emergency manager’s salary, “we are looking at the loss of preparedness and response capabilities.” Another called the grant “vital” to daily operations.  FEMA did not respond to requests for comment.  Claire Connolly Knox, who directs the University of Central Florida’s master’s program for emergency and crisis management, has been studying what a “decentralized FEMA” could mean for state agencies. She said it could take several legislative cycles before states are prepared to fill in the gaps that changes to FEMA might create. Many states, Knox said, are not closely tracking spending across multiple departments and multiple phases of emergency management, meaning “we don’t know the true cost” of mitigating, preparing for, responding to and recovering from disasters.  “When you start breaking that down,” Knox said. “You start seeing that this isn’t a quick fix.” The post What Emergency Managers Say They Need More Than Ever appeared first on ProPublica .

US and Chinese trade negotiators are slated to meet in mid-March, according to people familiar with the matter, signalling that a planned summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping is pushing ahead despite American strikes against Iran. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and China’s Vice-Premier He Lifeng are expected to convene in Paris at the end of next week to discuss business deals that could stem from the leaders’ meeting, said the people who...

Top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi urged his Israeli counterpart to help bring about an immediate end to the war in Iran during a call on Tuesday, reportedly held at Israel’s request. The call came three days after Israel and the United States launched a massive attack on Tehran, killing its Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his wife and senior Iranian officials, prompting largely ineffective Iranian counter-attacks across the Middle East so far. “China opposes any military strikes launched by...

Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s death is “historically significant” but will not “automatically” lead to the fall of the Iranian system, the widow of the country’s last shah said in an interview on Tuesday. “The passing of a man – however central he may be to the architecture of power – does not automatically mean the end of a system,” said Farah Pahlavi, three days after US-Israeli strikes on Iran killed Khamenei. The attacks on Iran have thrown the Middle East into turmoil and raised...

The prime minister has discussed stranded Australians with the Emirati president. Follow today’s news live Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast The right to work from home two days a week will be enshrined in Victoria’s Equal Opportunity Act, the premier, Jacinta Allan , will announce today, with plans for the laws to take effect before the state election. After announcing yesterday that the right to work from home would apply to all businesses , Allan will today confirm the government will introduce legislation to the Victorian government in July. If passed, it would take effect on 1 September. Only Labor has new solutions to make life easier, safer and more affordable. That’s why we will protect work from home in law from 1 September. Continue reading...

Despite rebukes from Donald Trump, many MPs back Keir Starmer’s stance so far, and say lessons from conflict in Iraq must not be forgotten Calvin Bailey keeps his Iraq medal, issued to members of the British armed forces who served as part of Operation Telic, safe in a drawer in his home. It features a clasp, given to personnel who were part of the very first wave of flights to leave British bases to invade Iraq in March 2003. So when the Labour MP for Leyton and Wanstead spoke at a meeting between Labour MPs and the prime minister on Monday evening, people listened. “I was exposed to and aware of all the things that were happening in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, the groupthink, the sense of unstoppable momentum,” he said on Tuesday. “If you look at what is happening right now, it’s materially different to 2003, but I think I can speak with adequate weight and credibility.” Continue reading...

US president claims ‘they want to talk. I said: Too Late!’, while Rubio threatens the ‘hardest hits are yet to come’ US-Israel war on Iran – live updates Israel and the US intensified their attacks on Iran on Tuesday, launching waves of strikes targeting command and control facilities, strategic state offices and missile launch sites, as Donald Trump said he had rejected what he claimed was an attempt by Tehran to restart negotiations. Iran retaliated with hundreds of missile and drone attacks against Israel and across the Gulf region, targeting US military bases, embassies and civilian infrastructure. Continue reading...