News from Multiple Perspectives

Israel has struck facilities belonging to the world's largest natural gas field in Iran, marking a sharp escalation.

Gabbard's testimony contradicts one of several justifications Trump has given for launching war with Iran.

Qatar's Foreign Ministry strongly condemns attack that caused "extensive damage" at the Ras Laffan complex.

UConn forward Sarah Strong (21) is guarded by Villanova forward Brynn McCurry (13) in the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Storrs, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File) 2026-03-18T15:54:37Z Sarah Strong and Azzi Fudd helped UConn to an undefeated season heading into March Madness . The pair became the first teammates in six years to make The Associated Press All-America team. It’s the 10th time that teammates have made the first team, seven of those involving UConn players. The last pair to achieve the feat was Oregon’s Sabrina Ionescu and Ruthy Hebard in 2020. Strong and Fudd were joined by Vanderbilt’s Mikayla Blakes , UCLA’s Lauren Betts and Texas’ Madison Booker. Strong was a unanimous choice from the 31-member national media panel that chooses the AP Top 25 each week. Blakes and Betts received all but two first-place votes. Strong, who set numerous records as a freshmen for the Huskies, raised her game in her sophomore season, helping the No. 1 Huskies to a perfect record heading into the NCAA Tournament . She averaged 18.5 points and 7.6 rebounds a game and shot 60.1% from the field. Fudd was right behind her, with 17.7 points and 4.2 rebounds while shooting 43.6% from the 3-point line. 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); }); “I’m thrilled for Azzi and Sarah. They worked really hard this season and they’re great teammates,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. “It’s been a long time coming for Azzi. She’s worked through so many hardships in her time at UConn, and it’s great to see all her perseverance pay off. “Sarah picked up where she left off last season and has been so consistently good and reliable for us. I’m happy for them individually, but I know it means a lot for them to get this accomplishment together as well. Blakes has had a sensational sophomore season, leading the country in scoring with 27 points a game. She also averaged 4.4 assists and shot 45.8% from the field. “Mikayla has cemented herself as one of the best players in the country as she continues to bring our team and program to new heights while staying laser-focused on winning,” Vanderbilt coach Shea Ralph said. “She continues to do everything our team needs to put us in position to be successful and has elevated her play all season long against the toughest competition in the country.” ▶ View and download the women’s NCAA tournament bracket Vanderbilt had one of the best seasons in school history behind Blakes, who became only the second first-team All-American ever for the Commodores, joining Chantelle Anderson in 2002. 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); }); “Mikayla has changed the trajectory of our program by making everyone around her better and by betting on herself to create a legacy here at Vanderbilt,” Ralph said. “She is both deserving and has earned being named first-team All-American, and we are so proud to be on this journey with her and so happy for her recognition!” Betts averaged 18.5 points and 7.6 rebounds and shot 60.1% from the field for UCLA. It’s the second straight season the senior post player has earned first-team All-America honors. Last year she became the first Bruins player ever to receive that accolade. “Lauren Betts is a generational player; she’s had incredible impact on the game. I’m not surprised for this honor, but I’m also thrilled for her and so excited for what she’s earned,” UCLA coach Cori Close said. “She’s been not only impactful on a on-court and individual level, but also on a team and program level. This is well deserved for Lauren.” 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); }); Booker earned first-team All-America honors for the second consecutive season. She averaged 18.9 points and 6.5 rebounds and shot 51.6% from the field. The junior wing helped the Longhorns win the SEC Tournament with a victory over South Carolina in the title game. “She has the vision and passing skills of a point guard. She enjoys the pass and the assist as much as the bucket,” Texas coach Vic Schaefer said. “She can score at all three levels, but her ability to rise above the defense, create space and get her shot off is what sets her apart from everyone else. Her work ethic and investment in her game is elite. She sees the game and understands the game like a 15-year pro.” Strong, Betts, Booker, Hannah Hidalgo and Ta’Niya Latson were all on the preseason All-America team. Second team The AP second team was headlined by Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo, a member of the first team in her first two seasons. She was joined by South Carolina’s Joyce Edwards, TCU’s Olivia Miles, Iowa State’s Audi Crooks and Ohio State’s Jaloni Cambridge. 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); }); Third team The AP third team was LSU’s Flau’Jae Johnson, Michigan’s Olivia Olson, UCLA’s Kiki Rice, Duke’s Toby Fournier and South Carolina’s Raven Johnson. Honorable mention Clara Strack of Kentucky, Rori Harmon of Texas and Cotie McMahon of Mississippi were the leading vote getters among players who didn’t make the three All-America teams. Players earned honorable-mention status if they appeared on one of the ballots. ___ AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness 获取更多RSS： https://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Cesar Chavez, a farm worker, labor organizer and leader of the California grape strike, is seen in a California works office in 1965. (AP Photo, George Brich, File) 2026-03-18T18:28:13Z Labor rights leader Dolores Huerta says she was sexually abused by César Chavez amid reported allegations of abuse by others during his tenure as president of The United Farm Workers union. On Wednesday, an investigation by the New York Times found that Chavez, groomed and sexually abused young girls who worked in the movement, including the co-founder of the union Dolores Huerta. In a statement released Wednesday, Huerta said she stayed silent for 60 years out of concern that her words would hurt the farmworker movement. Huerta described two sexual encounters with Chavez, one where she was “manipulated and pressured” and another where she was “forced against my will.” “I carried this secret for as long as I did because building the movement and securing farmworker rights was life’s work. The formation of a union was the only vehicle to accomplish and secure those rights and I wasn’t going to let César or anyone else get in the way.” 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); }); Huerta said she did not know that Chavez hurt other women and condemned his actions but reminded readers that the farmworker movement is bigger than one person. “César’s actions do not reflect the values of our community and our movement,” Huerta said in her statement. “The farmworker movement has always been bigger and far more important than any one individual. César’s actions do not diminish the permanent improvements achieved for farmworkers with the help of thousands of people. We must continue to engage and support our community, which needs advocacy and activism now more than ever. Latino leaders and community groups are now weighing the impact of his actions on the labor rights movement. In their reactions to the news, Latino civil rights advocates emphasized that the farmworker movement was not just Chavez but thousands of other individuals who came together to fight for justice. Voto Latino leaders said in a statement that no matter his legacy or historical framing Chavez’ actions are inexcusable. Similarly, LULAC released a statement condemning any form of sexual violence stating that “no individual, regardless of statue or legacy is above accountability.” 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); }); While the news of these allegations are devastating to the Latino community, Voto Latino said it does not erase the work done by the thousands women and men who built the farmworker movement. “The women who organized, marched, and sacrificed alongside farmworkers carried this movement on their backs,” Voto Latino said. “Dolores Huerta — a fighter, a giant of the labor movement, and someone who is among the survivors of this abuse — helped build everything this movement stands for.” U.S. Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernández, chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, issued a statement Wednesday saying she was heartbroken and deeply disturbed by the stories of women who say they were abused as girls by Chavez and what she described as a painful account of what Huerta endured. Leger Fernández said the farmworker and civil rights movement was built by countless people, including women and families who sacrificed for a better future. 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); }); “Honoring that legacy means facing painful truths and continuing the work for justice with honesty and humanity,” the New Mexico congresswoman said. “A movement rooted in justice must address all injustice.” Leger Fernández said the women’s caucus will stand with survivors and continue fighting for “a future where all women and girls are safe in their communities, homes, and at work.” The United Farm Workers union has already distanced itself from annual celebrations of its founder , calling the allegations troubling. In a statement Tuesday, the union said allegations of “abuse of young women or minors” were concerning enough to urge people around the country to participate in immigration justice events or acts of service instead of the typical events in March to commemorate Chavez’s legacy. FERNANDA FIGUEROA Figueroa reports on Latino/Hispanic affairs as a member of the AP’s Race & Ethnicity team. twitter mailto

FILE -Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks during a news conference, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, at the Federal Reserve Board Building in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) 2026-03-18T04:01:38Z WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve officials expect the Iran war will worsen inflation this year while having little impact on economic growth, but they still expect to cut their key rate once in 2026. For now, Fed policymakers left short-term interest rates unchanged Wednesday for the second straight meeting at about 3.6%. In a statement, the central bank said that the “implications of developments in the Middle East for the U.S. economy are uncertain.” Still, by keeping their forecast for a rate cut this year and next — the same projections that they made in December — central bank policymakers appear to expect the gas price spike from the Iran war to have a largely temporary effect on inflation and the economy. Policymakers also foresee unemployment remaining unchanged by the end of this year, a more optimistic outlook than most outside economists. 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); }); Whether that turns out to be true will largely depend on the length of the conflict in the Middle East. The officials expect inflation to fall back to 2.2% in 2027 and hit the Fed’s 2% target in 2028. Fed officials now expect that inflation will be 2.7% at the end of this year, up from their December forecast but slightly below the 2.8% it reached in January. They expect core inflation, which excludes the volatile food and energy categories, to also finish the year at 2.7%, up from a previous forecast of 2.5%. The Fed considers core prices a better measure of longer-run inflation. Consumer prices will spike higher in the coming months as gas prices have soared, but those increases could unwind by the end of the year, particularly if the conflict ends soon. The Fed also expects that the war will have no sustained impact on growth or unemployment. Officials still see the unemployment rate at 4.4% at the end of this year, the same as it is now. And they project the economy will grow 2.4% this year, up slightly from a 2.3% forecast in December. One Fed official, governor Stephen Miran, dissented in favor of a quarter-point cut. Miran was appointed by President Donald Trump last September. 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); }); Gas prices jumped Wednesday to a nationwide average of $3.84 a gallon, according to AAA, up 92 cents from a month ago. The increase will push inflation much higher in March, but core inflation, since it excludes gas, could be much less affected. Typically, the Fed would look past a supply shock like the disruption in oil supplies from the Middle East and its impact on inflation. Once it ends, any inflation it produces may fall back, without the Fed having to raise rates. As a result, the Fed could leave rates unchanged — or even cut them to boost weak hiring. Yet as the economy emerged from the pandemic in 2021, inflation jumped as Americans sharply raised their spending, aided by stimulus checks and pandemic-era savings. Powell initially said that inflation would be “transitory” and would fade as the economy returned to normal. Instead it spiked to a four-decade high in June 2022. With inflation still elevated, many Fed officials are wary of repeating the mistake. 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); }); This week’s meeting will be among the last with Powell as chair. His term ends May 15 and President Donald Trump has nominated a former top Fed official, Kevin Warsh , to replace him. Yet Warsh’s nomination has been delayed in the Senate because key Republican senators have objected to a Justice Department investigation of Powell over his testimony about a building renovation. Last Friday, a judge threw out a pair of subpoenas that the Justice Department had issued to the Fed, dealing a blow to the investigation. But U.S. Attorney Jeannine Pirro has said she will appeal the ruling. This week’s meeting will be Powell’s second-to-last, unless Warsh isn’t confirmed by May 15, at which point Powell could remain chair of the Fed’s rate-setting committee until a replacement is named. Even before the Iran war, problems had cropped up in both the inflation and jobs data, putting the Fed in a tight spot. Prices rose more quickly in January than in recent months, according to the Fed’s preferred measure, with inflation excluding food and energy reaching 3.1% compared with a year earlier. That is little changed from where it was two years ago, a sign that prices are still rising at a stubbornly elevated pace. Yet hiring has also stumbled. Businesses and other employers shed 92,000 jobs in February, the government reported earlier this month, an unexpectedly weak showing that followed an encouraging gain of 130,000 in January. The unemployment rate ticked higher to a still-low 4.4% from 4.3%. CHRISTOPHER RUGABER Rugaber has covered the Federal Reserve and the U.S. economy for the AP for 16 years. He is a two-time finalist for the Gerald Loeb award for business reporting. twitter mailto 获取更多RSS： https://feedx.net https://feedx.site

The health ministry says that 968 people, including more than 100 children, have been killed since 2 March.

The agency Mullin is vying to run entered its fifth week without funding, and concerns surrounding the budget loomed over questions.

The US Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was questioned over what Democrats perceive as a discrepancy between White House and intelligence community claims.

One person died Wednesday when a cable car cabin at a Swiss ski resort fell and crashed on a snowy mountainside. The fatal incident happened at the ski resort of Engelberg in central Switzerland around 11 a.m. local time, authorities said. 2 SKIERS KILLED IN AVALANCHE ON POPULAR MONT BLANC SKIING ROUTE NEAR FRENCH-SWISS BORDER "A cabin of the ‘Titlis Xpress’ gondola lift between Trübsee and Stand detached from the cable and plunged down the snow-covered slope in rugged terrain," a press release states. "A person who was in the cabin at the time of the accident sustained fatal injuries." The person was identified as a 61-year-old woman. Her exact cause of death has not been disclosed. Investigators from several agencies were looking into how the accident happened. AMERICAN SKIERS RESCUED AFTER GETTING LOST NEAR OLYMPIC VENUE IN THE ITALIAN ALPS "It's also important for us that the incident is investigated down to the second. We will provide all the data without gaps," said Norbert Patt, CEO of Titlis cable cars, during a news conference, the Blick newspaper reported. "It's an extraordinary event. Gondolas shouldn't crash," he added. Patt said there was a breeze at the time the gondola fell, but could not say how strong the winds were. Several schoolchildren attending a ski camp witnessed the accident. "I was really shocked. We were then afraid to go back down in the gondola," a 14-year-old girl told the news outlet.

A former Syrian prison official was convicted by a U.S. federal jury in Los Angeles Monday on torture and immigration fraud charges after prosecutors said he oversaw and at times personally carried out brutal abuses against detainees under the now-ousted regime of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Samir Ousman Alsheikh, a former brigadier general who once headed Damascus Central Prison, also known as Adra Prison, was found guilty after a nine-day trial of conspiracy to commit torture, immigration-related fraud offenses and three counts of torture, according to the Justice Department. The case marks a historic step toward accountability, with Alsheikh becoming the first Assad-era official to be tried and convicted in a U.S. federal court. Prosecutors said the 73-year-old ordered and oversaw the torture of political prisoners between 2005 and 2008, including beatings, suspension from ceilings and the use of devices such as the so-called "Magic Carpet," which folded victims’ bodies to inflict extreme pain. TEXAS FAMILY SUES SYRIA FOR DEATH OF LOVED ONE: ‘PLAN TO HOLD THE REGIME FULLY ACCOUNTABLE FOR ITS CRIMES' He entered the United States in 2020 after lying about his past on his visa application and later attempted to become a U.S. citizen, authorities said. Alsheikh, who was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport in 2024 as he attempted to board a one-way flight to Beirut, faces up to 20 years in prison for each torture-related count when he is sentenced at a later date. "Samir Ousman Alsheikh ordered, directed, and directly participated in heinous acts of torture designed to inflict excruciating mental and physical pain with the goal of punishing and silencing political dissent," said Tysen Duva, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s criminal division in a statement. "For many years, he evaded responsibility for his crimes in Syria, including by lying to U.S. immigration authorities in order to reside in the U.S. with the hope of obtaining citizenship. Thanks to the courage and perseverance of the victims and the dedication of Department of Justice prosecutors, along with their law enforcement partners, justice has prevailed, and Alsheikh can no longer run from his past." ‘HIGH STAKES DIPLOMACY’: NEW BOOK GIVES AN INSIDE LOOK AT EFFORTS TO BRING HOME AN AMERICAN DETAINED IN SYRIA According to a federal criminal complaint filed in July 2024, Alsheikh was an associate of Maher al-Assad, the younger brother of Bashar al-Assad, who led the Syrian military's elite Fourth Division. He was appointed by Assad in 2011 as governor of Deir ez-Zor after anti-government protests that spread across the country during the Arab Spring. The Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), a Washington-based advocacy group , assisted investigators in bringing the former regime official to justice. The organization first identified Alsheikh in Los Angeles through a tip and conducted its own verification using open-source material and leaked Syrian government data. It then alerted U.S. authorities and worked with the FBI and Justice Department to help build the case, including connecting investigators with key witnesses who testified about abuses at Adra Prison. According to SETF, it pushed for torture charges rather than solely immigration violations to ensure broader accountability. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO…SYRIA'S CIVIL WAR? Mamoun al-Homsi, a former independent member of the Syrian Parliament, was arrested in 2001 for demanding democratic reforms and spent five years in Adra Prison. He told Fox News Digital in an interview, through a translator, that Alsheikh stood out from other prison directors for his brutality. Al-Homsi said that while previous prison heads largely adhered to prison rules and did not target detainees for their political views, Alsheikh's arrival in 2005 marked a shift. "The toughest torture for me wasn't anything done to me physically as much as it was what was done to others on my behalf," said al-Homsi. SETF Executive Director Mouaz Moustafa, who attended the trial, told Fox News Digital that testimony revealed Alsheikh ordered another prisoner, Khaled Abdul Malek, to poison al-Homsi. "Khaled Abdul Malek had come so close to Mamoun al-Homsi, so he told him about this plan and told him don't eat anything from anyone to the point where Mamoun al-Homsi would go to the trash if there was any and wash whatever is left," Moustafa said. Malek refused Alsheikh’s demand to poison the prominent political figure, leading to him being placed in Wing 13, a notorious part of the prison where people were tortured. "Khaled Malik then had his back broken," Moustafa said, adding that he arrived in court with a cane and could barely walk. Al-Homsi said he survived on olive pits and lost more than 60 pounds. He was released in 2006 and later fled to Canada . WHY SYRIA PLAYS A KEY ROLE IN TRUMP'S PLANS FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE The former parliament member told Fox News Digital the verdict sends a message that former regime officials cannot evade accountability, even if they leave Syria and attempt to rebuild their lives abroad. Al-Homsi called the verdict a signal that justice, though long delayed, is finally taking hold, an outcome he described as essential for the future of a free Syria.

A reported airstrike on a hospital in Afghanistan that allegedly left hundreds dead is drawing growing scrutiny, not only over the strike itself but over what critics describe as a muted international response. Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government said more than 400 people were killed and hundreds were wounded after a strike hit the Omid Hospital, a major drug rehabilitation facility in Kabul, according to Reuters. Civilians, including children, also have been killed in escalating cross-border strikes in Pakistan, The Associated Press reported. The casualty figures have not been independently verified. The strike comes amid a rapidly escalating military campaign between Pakistan and Afghanistan that has intensified over the past three weeks. INDIA STEPS UP DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH THE TALIBAN AS RIVAL PAKISTAN LOSES INFLUENCE IN AFGHANISTAN Cross-border airstrikes and clashes have expanded across multiple provinces, with Pakistan targeting what it says are bases of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant group responsible for attacks inside Pakistan and designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. The Taliban government has accused Islamabad of violating Afghanistan’s sovereignty. At a United Nations briefing Wednesday, a U.N. spokesperson said the conflict has now entered its third week, with widespread civilian impact. More than 115,000 people have been displaced, more than 300 shelters damaged or destroyed, and at least 25 health facilities closed or disrupted due to the fighting, according to U.N. humanitarian agencies. Pakistan has denied targeting a hospital, saying the operation struck militant infrastructure. "Since the beginning of this counterterrorism campaign, Pakistan has sought to defend and protect the people of Pakistan … by targeting terrorists and terrorist infrastructure that are incubated and nurtured by the Afghan Taliban," Prime Minister’s spokesperson Mosharraf Zaidi told Fox News Digital. PAKISTAN DECLARES 'OPEN WAR' ON AFGHANISTAN IN RESPONSE TO TALIBAN'S RETALIATORY STRIKES Zaidi said the strike targeted weapons and ammunition at Camp Phoenix in Kabul and insisted, "There are no civilian hospitals in Camp Phoenix," adding that reports of a rehabilitation facility being hit may be due to "secondary explosions" from stored weapons. The United Nations on Wednesday, two days after the attack, condemned the reported strike, with Secretary-General António Guterres, through a spokesperson, "strongly condemning" an airstrike that "reportedly resulted in the death (and) injury of civilians at a hospital," and calling for an independent investigation. Still, some analysts say the response does not match the scale of the incident . "U.N. officials swiftly condemned U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran’s regime as unlawful ‘aggression’ … Yet Pakistan’s airstrike on Kabul’s Omid Hospital — killing over 400 civilians — has drawn only a belated ‘strong condemnation’ … and standard pleas for ‘de-escalation’," Executive Director of UN Watch Hillel Neuer told Fox News Digital. "This restrained response — no personal outrage from Guterres, no emergency session naming Pakistan, and no equivalent chorus from U.N. rapporteurs, or agencies like WHO, U.N. Women, and UNICEF — reveals rank hypocrisy," he said. "When hundreds of vulnerable Afghans die in a hospital, the U.N. offers measured words. Yet when the U.S. or Israel can be blamed — justifiably or not — the condemnation is immediate and overwhelming. When some victims matter far more than others, the U.N. reveals its cynical political agenda. This double standard doesn’t uphold human rights , it erodes them." Australian human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky echoed that criticism in a post on X, calling the strike "an absolute massacre," while noting what he described as a lack of global outrage: "World outrage? Zero. Could barely muster p17 in the newspaper here."

Montserrat treats the holiday as both a national celebration and a more somber milestone: a commemoration of a failed slave rebellion.

On Wednesday, the director of national intelligence and C.I.A. director contradicted one of the justifications the Trump administration had given for its attacks on Iran.

Iran’s military retaliation, along with the political defiance of its new leaders, evokes a decades-old pattern of unrealized goals for American interventions in the region.

The $16 billion Hudson Tunnel Project, under construction between Manhattan and New Jersey, will improve passenger rail service, an important issue for New York City commuters. It would seem to have nothing to do with what’s happening in northern Wisconsin.  But after the White House froze federal grant funding for the project in the fall, citing concerns about diversity and equity measures, lobbyists with an interest in the tunnel donated $2,500 to a political novice running in the Republican primary in Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District.  The young candidate, Michael Alfonso, has no sway over the matter. However, his father-in-law does: Sean Duffy is secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation. The contributions are among dozens to Alfonso’s campaign from lobbyists, business executives and political action committees tied to industries — from rails and highways to shipping and air travel — that Duffy’s department funds and regulates. His department also oversees the Federal Aviation Administration. Duffy held the 7th Congressional District seat for nearly a decade before resigning in 2019. He was succeeded by Tom Tiffany, who is now running for Wisconsin governor, leaving the seat open again. Alfonso, 26, who has worked in construction and podcasting, has been endorsed by  President Donald Trump.  A ProPublica analysis found that many of the Alfonso donors with transportation interests had never given to Duffy or Tiffany. While legal, such donations set up the appearance that helping Alfonso might assist the donors with issues influenced by Duffy. (Politico has reported on some of these contributions.) “The law, as it stands, provides very little constraint,” said Daniel Weiner, director of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a law and policy institute based in New York. “There’s a very large gulf between what is legal and what is ethical. Obviously, this raises numerous ethical questions.” This is not the first time a Cabinet secretary’s relative has created thorny ethical issues. During the first Trump administration, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao made headlines for appearing to give preferential treatment to Kentucky officials for millions of dollars in infrastructure grants. Kentucky is the home state of her husband, Mitch McConnell, then Senate majority leader. At the time, Chao’s office denied showing any favoritism, saying that Kentucky’s share was not out of the ordinary. And in 2012, under President Barack Obama, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, an Iowa Democrat, fielded questions about the separation between U.S. Department of Agriculture business and the campaign of his wife, Christie, who was running for Congress. Christie Vilsack told ProPublica in an interview that the couple was careful about making sure her husband was not involved in the campaign, other than to support her at some debates and on election night. He “never did any fundraising at all,” she said. An influential member of Trump’s Cabinet, Duffy has been openly assisting his son-in-law’s campaign. The notice for a November “meet and greet” with Alfonso in Wausau, Wisconsin, mentioned that Duffy would be a special guest, as did an invitation for another December fundraiser.  Among the sponsors for the December event was the political action committee for Delta Air Lines. The invitation included a caveat: “Sean Duffy is not soliciting funds in connection with this event.”  Alfonso’s campaign did not respond to requests from ProPublica for an interview or for comment. A spokesperson for Duffy, Nathaniel Sizemore, provided a written statement saying: “The Secretary attends fundraising events in his personal capacity. Regulatory decisions are guided by career safety professionals, the law, and the facts.” Nothing in law bars Duffy from campaigning for his son-in-law, so long as he goes about it on his personal time, does not use government resources and does not promise to take some official action in exchange for a contribution.  Alfonso is using the same fundraising consultant, Kirstin Hopkins, that Duffy employed, Federal Election Commission records show. In addition, Alfonso has received help with ads and mailers from a super PAC, the Northwoods Future PAC, that is funded with $1 million from Duffy’s former campaign committee. Alfonso’s familial advantage has irked some Wisconsin Republicans who don’t want the newcomer to glide into such an important position. Through his own campaign committee, Alfonso had raised a little over $305,000 as of the end of 2025, the latest filing available. By law, contributions for each election are limited to $3,500 from individuals and $5,000 from political action committees. Donors can contribute to more than one election at the same time, such as a primary race and a general. Alfonso’s donors include lobbyist Jeffrey Miller, a finance chair of Trump’s most recent inaugural committee. In December, Miller and his company’s chief operating officer donated separately to Alfonso, for a combined $8,500. No one listing their firm, Miller Strategies, as an employer had donated to either Duffy or Tiffany in the past, according to FEC records.  Lobbyist disclosure reports show that Miller lobbied the Transportation Department in 2025 on behalf of at least nine companies, one New York county and one Native American tribe. The issues included airport signage regulation, aviation permitting for the developer of a supersonic airliner and advancements in GPS technology. Miller reported advocating for Archer Aviation regarding electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft technology, known as eVTOL — the basis for future flying cars. Earlier this month, Duffy announced a first-of-its-kind FAA pilot program to test eVTOL technology in eight demonstration projects across 26 states. Archer was among the companies selected to participate, according to the Transportation Department. In a video accompanying the announcement, Duffy spoke enthusiastically about the technology, envisioning “Ubers in the air” taking people from one airport to the next and beyond. He said, “eVTOLs are going to make the airspace far more interesting and far more fun, and we have to be prepared for that.”  Miller did not return calls or emails seeking comment.  Alfonso graduated in 2022 from the University of Wisconsin with a math degree. He moved to Florida for a time to help produce a popular podcast hosted by Dan Bongino, a Trump supporter who later served a brief stint as deputy director of the FBI. (Bongino is back podcasting again.)  By Alfonso’s account, he and Trump first met in 2022 at Alfonso’s wedding to Duffy’s daughter, Evita. The reception took place at one of Trump’s New Jersey golf courses. Alfonso has said that in an Oval Office meeting after he decided to run for Congress, he pledged loyalty to the president. “I promised him that I would always be America first, I would always fight for his agenda and that nobody would ever outwork me,” Alfonso told Mark Halperin, another podcaster. On social media in November, Alfonso thanked Duffy for coming to his first campaign event in Wausau, the city where the candidate met his future wife while they were in middle school. In a post on X, Alfonso thanked his father-in-law for joining him on the campaign trail in Wisconsin last November. X The following month, the transportation secretary appeared at a campaign fundraiser for Alfonso at a hotel in Green Bay, near the storied Lambeau Field. The donors in attendance included Sharad Tak of Bethesda, Maryland, the CEO of ST LNG, a company seeking a DOT-issued license to construct and operate a deep-water port offshore of Matagorda, Texas, to load liquefied natural gas onto carriers.  Tak gave $500 to the campaign, and his wife, Mahinder, who did not attend the function, gave $7,000. Neither had donated to Duffy or Tiffany.  Tak did not reply to ProPublica’s request for an interview but asked a longtime friend of his, Ann Murphy of Green Bay, who works as a consultant for him, to respond. Tak owns a paper mill in Oconto Falls, north of Green Bay. It is not in the 7th Congressional District. But Murphy said Tak was visiting the state and agreed, at her request, to attend the fundraiser for Alfonso.  She said in an interview that the Texas liquefied natural gas project had no bearing on Tak’s campaign contribution. “Absolutely not.”  It’s typical, she said, for Tak and his wife to support causes, both political and philanthropic, that Murphy and her husband find worthwhile — and vice versa. “We were very excited about Michael,” Murphy said of Alfonso, likening him to Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA who inspired many young people before being killed last year. “And he does have the endorsement of President Trump.” Others donating to Alfonso’s candidacy include political action committees for employees of the military jetmaker Lockheed Martin, which is subject to FAA safety regulations and has lucrative government contracts, and for T-Mobile, which is working on a DOT project to enhance the resilience of critical 5G infrastructure. PACs for unions and trade associations for heavy equipment operators, engineers, aeronautical services and the travel industry have also pitched in.  The PAC for Brightline, a high-speed train service in Florida, also donated, giving $2,500 in December. Brightline trains have struck and killed more than 180 pedestrians or drivers at crossings since 2017, according to an investigation by the Miami Herald and WLRN . Duffy promised at a congressional committee hearing in July to work to “drive down the number of deaths.” In September, he announced t hat his department would distribute $42 million to improve safety along the line. In a statement to the Florida news organizations, Brightline officials blamed the deaths on suicides and the “reckless” behavior of people who put themselves in harm’s way.  Brightline, T-Mobile and Lockheed Martin did not respond to ProPublica’s requests for comment. On its website, Lockheed notes that it complies with all applicable laws and regulations with regard to its political and public policy activities.  Alfonso’s campaign has drawn donations from others in the heavily regulated railroad sector. They include Peter Bartek, founder of FTS Rail, which manufactures battery-powered railroad repair tools and sensors that detect rail breaks caused by extreme heat or cold. He gave $3,644  in November. Duffy appointed Bartek last July to serve on a DOT advisory committee.  Bartek had never given to a candidate in the district before. In an interview, he said he read a news article about Alfonso’s campaign and decided to donate. “I like Secretary Duffy very much,” he said, “and I thought very simply, boy, if he’s anything like his father-in-law, it would be nice to support him as well.” He said in a text that he didn’t know Duffy personally and was not involved in Alfonso’s campaign or fundraising. In New York, construction on the Hudson Tunnel Project to improve commuter rail service came to a screeching halt in early February after the federal government cut off funds . A court intervened, ordering the money released, and work resumed. A bistate commission overseeing the project warned this month that it could face disruptions again in upcoming months if federal disbursements do not continue. In response to outreach from ProPublica, an executive at Venture Government Strategies, whose lobbyists for the tunnel project gave a combined $2,500 to Alfonso, said in an email the company had no comment.  On his campaign website, Alfonso lists a dozen issues “that matter to us” — ranging from education and health care to immigration. He wants to “make farms and families strong,” “give Gen Z a voice” and work against access to abortion.  Transportation issues are not among those priorities, but he still is getting support from General Motors, which regularly lobbies DOT on various issues, including fuel economy, vehicle safety and emissions standards, and other mandates. The giant car manufacturer also gave to Duffy when he was running for the congressional seat, and the transportation secretary has become a booster. (GM did not respond to ProPublica’s request for comment.) In mid-December, viewers of social media saw Duffy slide behind the wheel of a sleek, black, limited-edition Corvette, imbued with patriotic insignia to celebrate the nation’s upcoming 250th birthday.  “Over 1,000 horsepower,” Duffy said in a promotional video , emphasizing the dynamic features of the $200,000 supercar. “We’re going to take this bad boy on a little test drive to the Army-Navy game.” Off he went.  The video, uploaded to the social media platform X, highlighted a travel app the carmaker made in partnership with the Department of Transportation, while also showcasing Chevrolet’s automotive series dubbed Stars and Steel.  The post received over 130,000 views: valuable advertisement for the storied carmaker, General Motors. A couple of weeks later, GM’s political action committee donated $1,000 to Alfonso. The post Transportation Lobbyists Have Donated Thousands to Sean Duffy’s Son-in-Law as He Runs for Congress appeared first on ProPublica .

In late 2024, the federal government’s cybersecurity evaluators rendered a troubling verdict on one of Microsoft’s biggest cloud computing offerings. The tech giant’s “lack of proper detailed security documentation” left reviewers with a “lack of confidence in assessing the system’s overall security posture,” according to an internal government report reviewed by ProPublica. Or, as one member of the team put it: “The package is a pile of shit.” For years, reviewers said, Microsoft had tried and failed to fully explain how it protects sensitive information in the cloud as it hops from server to server across the digital terrain. Given that and other unknowns, government experts couldn’t vouch for the technology’s security. Such judgments would be damning for any company seeking to sell its wares to the U.S. government, but it should have been particularly devastating for Microsoft. The tech giant’s products had been at the heart of two major cybersecurity attacks against the U.S. in three years. In one, Russian hackers exploited a weakness to steal sensitive data from a number of federal agencies, including the National Nuclear Security Administration. In the other, Chinese hackers infiltrated the email accounts of a Cabinet member and other senior government officials. The federal government could be further exposed if it couldn’t verify the cybersecurity of Microsoft’s Government Community Cloud High, a suite of cloud-based services intended to safeguard some of the nation’s most sensitive information. Yet, in a highly unusual move that still reverberates across Washington, the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP, authorized the product anyway, bestowing what amounts to the federal government’s cybersecurity seal of approval. FedRAMP’s ruling — which included a kind of “buyer beware” notice to any federal agency considering GCC High — helped Microsoft expand a government business empire worth billions of dollars. “BOOM SHAKA LAKA,” Richard Wakeman, one of the company’s chief security architects, boasted in an online forum, celebrating the milestone with a meme of Leonardo DiCaprio in “The Wolf of Wall Street.” Wakeman did not respond to requests for comment. It was not the type of outcome that federal policymakers envisioned a decade and a half ago when they embraced the cloud revolution and created FedRAMP to help safeguard the government’s cybersecurity. The program’s layers of review, which included an assessment by outside experts, were supposed to ensure that service providers like Microsoft could be entrusted with the government’s secrets. But ProPublica’s investigation — drawn from internal FedRAMP memos, logs, emails, meeting minutes, and interviews with seven former and current government employees and contractors — found breakdowns at every juncture of that process. It also found a remarkable deference to Microsoft, even as the company’s products and practices were central to two of the most damaging cyberattacks ever carried out against the government. This is not security. This is security theater. Tony Sager, former NSA computer scientist FedRAMP first raised questions about GCC High’s security in 2020 and asked Microsoft to provide detailed diagrams explaining its encryption practices. But when the company produced what FedRAMP considered to be only partial information in fits and starts, program officials did not reject Microsoft’s application. Instead, they repeatedly pulled punches and allowed the review to drag out for the better part of five years. And because federal agencies were allowed to deploy the product during the review, GCC High spread across the government as well as the defense industry. By late 2024, FedRAMP reviewers concluded that they had little choice but to authorize the technology — not because their questions had been answered or their review was complete, but largely on the grounds that Microsoft’s product was already being used across Washington. Today, key parts of the federal government, including the Justice and Energy departments, and the defense sector rely on this technology to protect highly sensitive information that, if leaked, “could be expected to have a severe or catastrophic adverse effect” on operations, assets and individuals, the government has said. “This is not a happy story in terms of the security of the U.S.,” said Tony Sager , who spent more than three decades as a computer scientist at the National Security Agency and now is an executive at the nonprofit Center for Internet Security. For years, the FedRAMP process has been equated with actual security, Sager said. ProPublica’s findings, he said, shatter that facade. “This is not security,” he said. “This is security theater.” Despite a “lack of confidence in assessing” the security of Microsoft’s GCC High, FedRAMP authorized the product anyway. Alex Wong/Getty Images ProPublica is exposing the government’s reservations about this popular product for the first time. We are also revealing Microsoft’s yearslong inability to provide the encryption documentation and evidence the federal reviewers sought. The revelations come as the Justice Department ramps up scrutiny of the government’s technology contractors. In December, the department announced the indictment of a former employee of Accenture who allegedly misled federal agencies about the security of the company’s cloud platform and its compliance with FedRAMP’s standards. She has pleaded not guilty. Accenture, which was not charged with wrongdoing, has said that it “proactively brought this matter to the government’s attention” and that it is “dedicated to operating with the highest ethical standards.” Microsoft has also faced questions about its disclosures to the government. As ProPublica reported last year, the company failed to inform the Defense Department about its use of China-based engineers to maintain the government’s cloud systems, despite Pentagon rules stipulating that “No Foreign persons may have” access to its most sensitive data. The department is investigating the practice , which officials say could have compromised national security. Microsoft has defended its program as “tightly monitored and supplemented by layers of security mitigations,” but after ProPublica’s story published last July, the company announced that it would stop using China-based engineers for Defense Department work. In response to written questions for this story and in an interview, Microsoft acknowledged the yearslong confrontation with FedRAMP but also said it provided “comprehensive documentation” throughout the review process and “remediated findings where possible.” “We stand by our products and the comprehensive steps we’ve taken to ensure all FedRAMP-authorized products meet the security and compliance requirements necessary,” a spokesperson said in a statement, adding that the company would “continue to work with FedRAMP to continuously review and evaluate our services for continued compliance.” But these days, ProPublica found, there aren’t many people left at FedRAMP to work with. The program was an early target of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, which slashed its staff and budget. Even FedRAMP acknowledges it is operating “with an absolute minimum of support staff” and “limited customer service.” The roughly two dozen employees who remain are “entirely focused on” delivering authorizations at a record pace, FedRAMP’s director has said . Today, its annual budget is just $10 million, its lowest in a decade, even as it has boasted record numbers of new authorizations for cloud products. The consequence of all this, people who have worked for FedRAMP told ProPublica, is that the program now is little more than a rubber stamp for industry. The implications of such a downsizing for federal cybersecurity are far-reaching, especially as the administration encourages agencies to adopt cloud-based artificial intelligence tools , which draw upon reams of sensitive information. The General Services Administration, which houses FedRAMP, defended the program, saying it has undergone “significant reforms to strengthen governance” since GCC High arrived in 2020. “FedRAMP’s role is to assess if cloud services have provided sufficient information and materials to be adequate for agency use, and the program today operates with strengthened oversight and accountability mechanisms to do exactly that,” a GSA spokesperson said in an emailed statement. The agency did not respond to written questions regarding GCC High. A “Cloud First” World About two decades ago, federal officials predicted that the cloud revolution, providing on-demand access to shared computing via the internet, would usher in an era of cheaper, more secure and more efficient information technology.  Moving to the cloud meant shifting away from on-premises servers owned and operated by the government to those in massive data centers maintained by tech companies. Some agency leaders were reluctant to relinquish control, while others couldn’t wait to. In an effort to accelerate the transition, the Obama administration issued its “Cloud First” policy in 2011, requiring all agencies to implement cloud-based tools “whenever a secure, reliable, cost-effective” option existed. To facilitate adoption, the administration created FedRAMP, whose job was to ensure the security of those tools .  FedRAMP’s “do once, use many times” system was intended to streamline and strengthen the government procurement process. Previously, each agency using a cloud service vetted it separately, sometimes applying different interpretations of federal security requirements. Under the new program, agencies would be able to skip redundant security reviews because FedRAMP authorization indicated that the product had already met standardized requirements. Authorized products would be listed on a government website known as the FedRAMP Marketplace. On paper, the program was an exercise in efficiency. But in practice, the small FedRAMP team could not keep up with the flood of demand from tech companies that wanted their products authorized.  The slow approval process frustrated both the tech industry, eager for a share in the billions of federal dollars up for grabs, and government agencies that were under pressure to migrate to the cloud. These dynamics sometimes pitted the cloud industry and agency officials together against FedRAMP. The backlog also prompted many agencies to take an alternative path: performing their own reviews of the products they wanted to adopt, using FedRAMP’s standards.  It was through this “agency path” that GCC High entered the federal bloodstream, with the Justice Department paving the way. Initially, some Justice officials were nervous about the cloud and who might have access to its information, which includes highly sensitive court and law enforcement records, a Justice Department official involved in the decision told ProPublica. The department’s cybersecurity program required it to ensure that only U.S. citizens “access or assist in the development, operation, management, or maintenance” of its IT systems, unless a waiver was granted. Justice’s IT specialists recommended pursuing GCC High, believing it could meet the elevated security needs, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal matters. Pursuant to FedRAMP’s rules, Microsoft had GCC High evaluated by a so-called third-party assessment organization, which is supposed to provide an independent review of whether the product has met federal standards. The Justice Department then performed its own evaluation of GCC High using those standards and ruled the offering acceptable. Melinda Rogers, former chief information officer for the Department of Justice U.S. Department of Justice archives By early 2020, Melinda Rogers, Justice’s deputy chief information officer, made the decision official and soon deployed GCC High across the department. It was a milestone for all involved. Rogers had ushered the Justice Department into the cloud, and Microsoft had gained a significant foothold in the cutthroat market for the federal government’s cloud computing business.  Moreover, Rogers’ decision placed GCC High on the FedRAMP Marketplace, the government’s influential online clearinghouse of all the cloud providers that are under review or already authorized. Its mere mention as “in process” was a boon for Microsoft, amounting to free advertising on a website used by organizations seeking to purchase cloud services bearing what is widely seen as the government’s cybersecurity seal of approval. That April, GCC High landed at FedRAMP’s office for review, the final stop on its bureaucratic journey to full authorization.  Microsoft’s Missing Information In theory, there shouldn’t have been much for FedRAMP’s team to do after the third-party assessor and Justice reviewed GCC High, because all parties were supposed to be following the same requirements. But it was around this time that the Government Accountability Office, which investigates federal programs, discovered breakdowns in the process , finding that agency reviews sometimes were lacking in quality. Despite missing details, FedRAMP went on to authorize many of these packages. Acknowledging these shortcomings, FedRAMP began to take a harder look at new packages, a former reviewer said. This was the environment in which Microsoft’s GCC High application entered the pipeline. The name GCC High was an umbrella covering many services and features within Office 365 that all needed to be reviewed. FedRAMP reviewers quickly noticed key material was missing. The team homed in on what it viewed as a fundamental document called a “data flow diagram,” former members told ProPublica. The illustration is supposed to show how data travels from Point A to Point B — and, more importantly, how it’s protected as it hops from server to server. FedRAMP requires data to be encrypted while in transit to ensure that sensitive materials are protected even if they’re intercepted by hackers. But when the FedRAMP team asked Microsoft to produce the diagrams showing how such encryption would happen for each service in GCC High, the company balked, saying the request was too challenging. So the reviewers suggested starting with just Exchange Online, the popular email platform. “This was our litmus test to say, ‘This isn’t the only thing that’s required, but if you’re not doing this, we are not even close yet,’” said one reviewer who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal matters. Once they reached the appropriate level of detail, they would move from Exchange to other services within GCC High. It was the kind of detail that other major cloud providers such as Amazon and Google routinely provided, members of the FedRAMP team told ProPublica. Yet Microsoft took months to respond. When it did, the former reviewer said, it submitted a white paper that discussed GCC High’s encryption strategy but left out the details of where on the journey data actually becomes encrypted and decrypted — so FedRAMP couldn’t assess that it was being done properly. A Microsoft spokesperson acknowledged that the company had “articulated a challenge related to illustrating the volume of information being requested in diagram form” but “found alternate ways to share that information.” Rogers, who was hired by Microsoft in 2025, declined to be interviewed. In response to emailed questions, the company provided a statement saying that she “stands by the rigorous evaluation that contributed to” her authorization of GCC High. A spokesperson said there was “absolutely no connection” between her hiring and the decisions in the GCC High process, and that she and the company complied with “all rules, regulations, and ethical standards.” The Justice Department declined to respond to written questions from ProPublica. A Fight Over “Spaghetti Pies” As 2020 came to a close, a national security crisis hit Washington that underscored the consequences of cyber weakness. Russian state-sponsored hackers had been quietly working their way through federal computer systems for much of the year and vacuuming up sensitive data and emails from U.S. agencies — including the Justice Department .  At the time, most of the blame fell on a Texas-based company called SolarWinds, whose software provided hackers their initial opening and whose name became synonymous with the attack. But, as ProPublica has reported , the Russians leveraged that opening to exploit a long-standing weakness in a Microsoft product — one that the company had refused to fix for years, despite repeated warnings from one of its engineers. Microsoft has defended its decision not to address the flaw, saying that it received “multiple reviews” and that the company weighs a variety of factors when making security decisions. In the aftermath, the Biden administration took steps to bolster the nation’s cybersecurity. Among them, the Justice Department announced a cyber-fraud initiative in 2021 to crack down on companies and individuals that “put U.S. information or systems at risk by knowingly providing deficient cybersecurity products or services, knowingly misrepresenting their cybersecurity practices or protocols, or knowingly violating obligations to monitor and report cybersecurity incidents and breaches.” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said the department would use the False Claims Act to pursue government contractors “when they fail to follow required cybersecurity standards — because we know that puts all of us at risk.” Former Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. After Russian state-sponsored hackers stole sensitive data from U.S. agencies, Monaco said the Department of Justice would hold government contractors accountable for failing to uphold cybersecurity standards. Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images But if Microsoft felt any pressure from the SolarWinds attack or from the Justice Department’s announcement, it didn’t manifest in the FedRAMP talks, according to former members of the FedRAMP team. The discourse between FedRAMP and Microsoft fell into a pattern. The parties would meet. Months would go by. Microsoft would return with a response that FedRAMP deemed incomplete or irrelevant. To bolster the chances of getting the information it wanted, the FedRAMP team provided Microsoft with a template, describing the level of detail it expected. But the diagrams Microsoft returned never met those expectations. “We never got past Exchange,” one former reviewer said. “We never got that level of detail. We had no visibility inside.” In an interview with ProPublica, John Bergin, the Microsoft official who became the government’s main contact, acknowledged the prolonged back-and-forth but blamed FedRAMP, equating its requests for diagrams to a “rock fetching exercise.”  “We were maybe incompetent in how we drew drawings because there was no standard to draw them to,” he said. “Did we not do it exactly how they wanted? Absolutely. There was always something missing because there was no standard.” A Microsoft spokesperson said without such a standard, “cloud providers were left to interpret the level of abstraction and representation on their own,” creating “inconsistency and confusion, not an unwillingness to be transparent.”  But even Microsoft’s own engineers had struggled over the years to map the architecture of its products, according to two people involved in building cloud services used by federal customers. At issue, according to people familiar with Microsoft’s technology, was the decades-old code of its legacy software, which the company used in building its cloud services.  One FedRAMP reviewer compared it to a “pile of spaghetti pies.” The data’s path from Point A to Point B, the person said, was like traveling from Washington to New York with detours by bus, ferry and airplane rather than just taking a quick ride on Amtrak. And each one of those detours represents an opportunity for a hijacking if the data isn’t properly encrypted. Other major cloud providers such as Amazon and Google built their systems from the ground up, said Sager, the former NSA computer scientist, who worked with all three companies during his time in government. Microsoft’s system is “not designed for this kind of isolation of ‘secure’ from ‘not secure,’” Sager said. A Microsoft spokesperson acknowledged the company faces a unique challenge but maintained that its cloud products meet federal security requirements. “Unlike providers that started later with a narrower product scope, Microsoft operates one of the broadest enterprise and government platforms in the world, supporting continuity for millions of customers while simultaneously modernizing at scale,” the spokesperson said in emailed responses. “That complexity is not ‘spaghetti,’ but it does mean the work of disentangling, isolating, and hardening systems is continuous.” The spokesperson said that since 2023, Microsoft has made “security‑first architectural redesign, legacy risk reduction, and stronger isolation guarantees a top, company‑wide priority.” Assessors Back-Channel Cyber Concerns The FedRAMP team was not the only party with reservations about GCC High. Microsoft’s third-party assessment organizations also expressed concerns. The firms are supposed to be independent but are hired and paid by the company being assessed. Acknowledging the potential for conflicts of interest , FedRAMP has encouraged the assessment firms to confidentially back-channel to its reviewers any negative feedback that they were unwilling to bring directly to their clients or reflect in official reports. In 2020, two third-party assessors hired by Microsoft, Coalfire and Kratos, did just that. They told FedRAMP that they were unable to get the full picture of GCC High, a former FedRAMP reviewer told ProPublica. “Coalfire and Kratos both readily admitted that it was difficult to impossible to get the information required out of Microsoft to properly do a sufficient assessment,” the reviewer told ProPublica. The back channel helped surface cybersecurity issues that otherwise might never have been known to the government, people who have worked with and for FedRAMP told ProPublica. At the same time, they acknowledged its existence undermined the very spirit and intent of having independent assessors. A spokesperson for Coalfire, the firm that initially handled the GCC High assessment, requested written questions from ProPublica, then declined to respond.  A spokesperson for Kratos, which replaced Coalfire as the GCC High assessor, declined an interview request. In an emailed response to written questions, the spokesperson said the company stands by its official assessment and recommendation of GCC High and “absolutely refutes” that it “ever would sign off on a product we were unable to fully vet.” The company “has open and frank conversations” with all customers, including Microsoft, which “submitted all requisite diagrams to meet FedRAMP-defined requirements,” the spokesperson said. Kratos said it “spent extensive time working collaboratively with FedRAMP in their review” and does not consider such discussions to be “backchanneling.” FedRAMP, however, was dissatisfied with Kratos’ ongoing work and believed the firm “should be pushing back” on Microsoft more, the former reviewer said. It placed Kratos on a “corrective action plan,” which could eventually result in loss of accreditation. The company said it did not agree with FedRAMP’s action but provided “additional trainings for some internal assessors” in response to it.  The Microsoft spokesperson told ProPublica the company has “always been responsive to requests” from Kratos and FedRAMP. “We are not aware of any backchanneling, nor do we believe that backchanneling would have been necessary given our transparency and cooperation with auditor requests,” the spokesperson said. In response to questions from ProPublica about the process, the GSA said in an email that FedRAMP’s system “does not create an inherent conflict of interest for professional auditors who meet ethical and contractual performance expectations.” GSA did not respond to questions about back-channeling but said the “correct process” is for a third-party assessor to “state these problems formally in a finding during the security assessment so that the cloud service provider has an opportunity to fix the issue.” FedRAMP Ends Talks FedRAMP is housed under the General Services Administration within the federal government. Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images The back-and-forth between the FedRAMP reviewers and Microsoft’s team went on for years with little progress. Then, in the summer of 2023, the program’s interim director, Brian Conrad, got a call from the White House that would alter the course of the review. Chinese state-sponsored hackers had infiltrated GCC, the lower-cost version of Microsoft’s government cloud, and stolen data and emails from the commerce secretary, the U.S. ambassador to China and other high-ranking government officials. In the aftermath, Chris DeRusha, the White House’s chief information security officer, wanted a briefing from FedRAMP, which had authorized GCC. The decision predated Conrad’s tenure, but he told ProPublica that he left the conversation with several takeaways. First, FedRAMP must hold all cloud providers — including Microsoft — to the same standards. Second, he had the backing of the White House in standing firm. Finally, FedRAMP would feel the political heat if any cloud service with a FedRAMP authorization were hacked. DeRusha confirmed Conrad’s account of the phone call but declined to comment further. Within months, Conrad informed Microsoft that FedRAMP was ending the engagement on GCC High. We can’t even quantify the unknowns, which makes us very uncomfortable. FedRAMP reviewer of GCC High “After three years of collaboration with the Microsoft team, we still lack visibility into the security gaps because there are unknowns that Microsoft has failed to address,” Conrad wrote in an October 2023 email. This, he added, was not for FedRAMP’s lack of trying. Staffers had spent 480 hours of review time, had conducted 18 “technical deep dive” sessions and had numerous email exchanges with the company over the years. Yet they still lacked the data flow diagrams, crucial information “since visibility into the encryption status of all data flows and stores is so important,” he wrote. If Microsoft still wanted FedRAMP authorization, Conrad wrote, it would need to start over. A FedRAMP reviewer, explaining the decision to the Justice Department, said the team was “not asking for anything above and beyond what we’ve asked from every other” cloud service provider, according to meeting minutes reviewed by ProPublica. But the request was particularly justified in Microsoft’s case, the reviewer told the Justice officials, because “each time we’ve actually been able to get visibility into a black box, we’ve uncovered an issue.” “We can’t even quantify the unknowns, which makes us very uncomfortable,” the reviewer said, according to the minutes. Microsoft and the Justice Department Push Back Microsoft was furious. Failing to obtain authorization and starting the process over would signal to the market that something was wrong with GCC High. Customers were already confused and concerned about the drawn-out review, which had become a hot topic in an online forum used by government and technology insiders. There, Wakeman, the Microsoft cybersecurity architect, deflected blame, saying the government had been “dragging their feet on it for years now.” Meanwhile, to build support for Microsoft’s case, Bergin, the company’s point person for FedRAMP and a former Army official, reached out to government leaders, including one from the Justice Department. The Justice official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter, said Bergin complained that the delay was hampering Microsoft’s ability “to get this out into the market full sail.” Bergin then pushed the Justice Department to “throw around our weight” to help secure FedRAMP authorization, the official said. John Bergin in 2019, while serving as deputy assistant secretary of the Army for financial information management. He was later hired by Microsoft and served as the company’s liaison with FedRAMP during the GCC High debate. Defense Visual Information Distribution Service That December, as the parties gathered to hash things out at GSA’s Washington headquarters, Justice did just that. Rogers, who by then had been promoted to the department’s chief information officer, sat beside Bergin — on the opposite side of the table from Conrad, the FedRAMP director. Rogers and her Justice colleagues had a stake in the outcome. Since authorizing and deploying GCC High, she had received accolades for her work modernizing the department’s IT and cybersecurity. But without FedRAMP’s stamp of approval, she would be the government official left holding the bag if GCC High were involved in a serious hack. At the same time, the Justice Department couldn’t easily back out of using GCC High because once a technology is widely deployed, pulling the plug can be costly and technically challenging . And from its perspective, the cloud was an improvement over the old government-run data centers. Shortly after the meeting kicked off, Bergin interrupted a FedRAMP reviewer who had been presenting PowerPoint slides. He said the Justice Department and third-party assessor had already reviewed GCC High, according to meeting minutes. FedRAMP “should essentially just accept” their findings, he said. Then, in a shock to the FedRAMP team, Rogers backed him up and went on to criticize FedRAMP’s work, according to two attendees. In its statement, Microsoft said Rogers maintains that FedRAMP’s approach “was misguided and improperly dismissed the extensive evaluations performed by DOJ personnel.” Bergin did not dispute the account, telling ProPublica that he had been trying to argue that it is the purview of third-party assessors such as Kratos — not FedRAMP — to evaluate the security of cloud products. And because FedRAMP must approve the third-party assessment firms , the program should have taken its issues up with Kratos. “When you are the regulatory agency who determines who the auditors are and you refuse to accept your auditors’ answers, that’s not a ‘me’ problem,” Bergin told ProPublica. The GSA did not respond to questions about the meeting. The Justice Department declined to comment. Pressure Mounts on FedRAMP If there was any doubt about the role of FedRAMP, the White House issued a memorandum in the summer of 2024 that outlined its views. FedRAMP, it said, “must be capable of conducting rigorous reviews” and requiring cloud providers to “rapidly mitigate weaknesses in their security architecture.” The office should “consistently assess and validate cloud providers’ complex architectures and encryption schemes.” But by that point, GCC High had spread to other federal agencies, with the Justice Department’s authorization serving as a signal that the technology met federal standards. It also spread to the defense sector, since the Pentagon required that cloud products used by its contractors meet FedRAMP standards. While it did not have FedRAMP authorization, Microsoft marketed GCC High as meeting the requirements, selling it to companies such as Boeing that research, develop and maintain military weapons systems. But with the FedRAMP authorization up in the air, some contractors began to worry that by using GCC High, they were out of compliance. That could threaten their contracts, which, in turn, could impact Defense Department operations. Pentagon officials called FedRAMP to inquire about the authorization stalemate. The Defense Department acknowledged but did not respond to written questions from ProPublica. Rogers also kept pressing FedRAMP to “get this thing over the line,” former employees of the GSA and FedRAMP said. It was the “opinion of the staff and the contractors that she simply was not willing to put heat to Microsoft on this” and that the Justice Department “was too sympathetic to Microsoft’s claims,”  Eric Mill, then GSA’s executive director for cloud strategy , told ProPublica. Authorization Despite a “Damning” Assessment  In the summer of 2024, FedRAMP hired a new permanent director, government technology insider Pete Waterman . Within about a month of taking the job, he restarted the office’s review of GCC High with a new team, which put aside the debate over data flow diagrams and instead attempted to examine evidence from Microsoft. But these reviewers soon arrived at the same conclusion, with the team’s leader complaining about “getting stiff-armed” by Microsoft. “He came back and said, ‘Yeah, this thing sucks,’” Mill recalled. Pete Waterman, FedRAMP director hired in 2024 FedRAMP While the team was able to work through only two of the many services included in GCC High, Exchange Online and Teams, that was enough for it to identify “issues that are fundamental” to risk management, including “timely remediation of vulnerabilities and vulnerability scanning,” according to a summary of the team’s findings reviewed by ProPublica. Those issues, as well as a lack of “proper detailed security documentation” from Microsoft, limit “visibility and understanding of the system” and “impair the ability to make informed risk decisions.” The team concluded, “There is a lack of confidence in assessing the system’s overall security posture.”  A Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement that the company “never received this feedback in any of its communications with FedRAMP.” When ProPublica read the findings to Bergin, the Microsoft liaison, he said he was surprised. “That’s pretty damning,” Bergin said, adding that it sounded like language that “would’ve generally been associated with a finding of ‘not worthy.’ If an assessor wrote that, I would be nervous.” Despite the findings, to the FedRAMP team, turning Microsoft down didn’t seem like an option. “Not issuing an authorization would impact multiple agencies that are already using GCC-H,” the summary document said. The team determined that it was a “better value” to issue an authorization with conditions for continued government oversight. While authorizations with oversight conditions weren’t unusual, arriving at one under these circumstances was. GCC High reviewers saw problems everywhere, both in what they were able to evaluate and what they weren’t. To them, most of the package remained a vast wilderness of untold risk. Nevertheless, FedRAMP and Microsoft reached an agreement, and the day after Christmas 2024, GCC High received its FedRAMP authorization. FedRAMP appended a cover report to the package laying out its deficiencies and noting it carried unknown risks, according to people familiar with the report. It emphasized that agencies should carefully review the package and engage directly with Microsoft on any questions. “Unknown Unknowns” Persist Microsoft told ProPublica that it has met the conditions of the agreement and has “stayed within the performance metrics required by FedRAMP” to ensure that “risks are identified, tracked, remediated, and transparently communicated.” But under the Trump administration, there aren’t many people left at FedRAMP to check. While the Biden-era guidance said FedRAMP “must be an expert program that can analyze and validate the security claims” of cloud providers, the GSA told ProPublica that the program’s role is “not to determine if a cloud service is secure enough.” Rather, it is “to ensure agencies have sufficient information to make these risk decisions.” The problem is that agencies often lack the staff and resources to do thorough reviews, which means the whole system is leaning on the claims of the cloud companies and the assessments of the third-party firms they pay to evaluate them. Under the current vision, critics say, FedRAMP has lost the plot. “FedRAMP’s job is to watch the American people’s back when it comes to sharing their data with cloud companies,” said Mill, the former GSA official, who also co-authored the 2024 White House memo. “When there’s a security issue, the public doesn’t expect FedRAMP to say they’re just a paper-pusher.” When there’s a security issue, the public doesn’t expect FedRAMP to say they’re just a paper-pusher. Eric Mill, former GSA executive director for cloud strategy Meanwhile, at the Justice Department, officials are finding out what FedRAMP meant by the “unknown unknowns” in GCC High. Last year, for example, they discovered that Microsoft relied on China-based engineers to service their sensitive cloud systems despite the department’s prohibition against non-U.S. citizens assisting with IT maintenance. Officials learned about this arrangement — which was also used in GCC High — not from FedRAMP or from Microsoft but from a ProPublica investigation into the practice , according to the Justice employee who spoke with us. A Microsoft spokesperson acknowledged that the written security plan for GCC High that the company submitted to the Justice Department did not mention foreign engineers, though he said Microsoft did communicate that information to Justice officials before 2020. Nevertheless, Microsoft has since ended its use of China-based engineers in government systems. Former and current government officials worry about what other risks may be lurking in GCC High and beyond. The GSA told ProPublica that, in general, “if there is credible evidence that a cloud service provider has made materially false representations, that matter is then appropriately referred to investigative authorities.” Ironically, the ultimate arbiter of whether cloud providers or their third-party assessors are living up to their claims is the Justice Department itself. The recent indictment of the former Accenture employee suggests it is willing to use this power. In a court document, the Justice Department alleges that the ex-employee made “false and misleading representations” about the cloud platform’s security to help the company “obtain and maintain lucrative federal contracts.” She is also accused of trying to “influence and obstruct” Accenture’s third-party assessors by hiding the product’s deficiencies and telling others to conceal the “true state of the system” during demonstrations, the department said. She has pleaded not guilty. There is no public indication that such a case has been brought against Microsoft or anyone involved in the GCC High authorization. The Justice Department declined to comment. Monaco, the deputy attorney general who launched the department’s initiative to pursue cybersecurity fraud cases, did not respond to requests for comment. She left her government position in January 2025. Microsoft hired her to become its president of global affairs. A company spokesperson said Monaco’s hiring complied with “all rules, regulations, and ethical standards” and that she “does not work on any federal government contracts or have oversight over or involvement with any of our dealings with the federal government.” The post Federal Cyber Experts Thought Microsoft’s Cloud Was “a Pile of Shit.” They Approved It Anyway. appeared first on ProPublica .

Dear current and former members of the inspectors general community, Last year, in a highly unusual move, President Donald Trump fired more than 18 inspectors general without specific justifications, as the law requires, and replaced several of them with political loyalists. Over the past weeks, we have spoken with dozens of people who have experience in this field. They have given us important context on how these offices work. Some have expressed concerns that these new federal government watchdogs may be unable to independently carry out their critical oversight duties.  We recognize the longstanding reluctance of inspectors general and their staffs to speak with the media. But this is an extraordinary moment. As ProPublica journalists , we share a common purpose with inspectors general: to hold our government accountable by identifying any waste, fraud or abuse — and to be thorough, fair and accurate. For these reasons, we are asking for your help understanding and presenting a comprehensive picture of what’s happening, or not happening, in these offices as they face unprecedented change. To do this work, it is critical that we speak to as many people as possible. If you work in or have recently left the office of a federal inspector general, we want to hear about your experience. Have important projects been halted? Have staff been asked to do work that wouldn’t have typically been done by an inspector general’s office in the past? What is working well, or better than it has previously? Are you facing obstacles that impact your ability to do your work?  We welcome general as well as specific tips and take confidentiality seriously. Both of us have extensive experience covering sensitive topics and government agencies. We are happy to answer questions you may have about ourselves and our project. Please reach out to us on Signal or email, and share this letter with anyone who should see it.  Signed, Sharon Lerner Signal: sharLerner.76 Email: sharon.lerner@propublica.org Raquel Rutledge Signal: 202-886-9630 Email: raquel.rutledge@propublica.org The post An Open Letter to the Inspectors General Community appeared first on ProPublica .

Iran’s government has been degraded since the war began on February 28, but it ⁠appears to be intact and Tehran and its proxies remain capable of attacking US and allies’ interests in the Middle East, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said on Wednesday. “The regime in Iran appears to be intact but largely degraded by Operation Epic Fury,” Gabbard said, referring to the US-Israel military campaign against Iran, in her opening statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s...

The US Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged on Wednesday as expected, in defiance of President Donald Trump as the world’s largest economy battles stubborn inflation, weak labour demand and an “uncertain” outlook due to the war in Iran. The Fed’s 11-1 vote kept rates steady at a range between 3.50 per cent and 3.75 per cent, with officials flagging one expected rate cut by the end of the year. “The implications of developments in the Middle East for the US economy are uncertain,” the...

China does ⁠not currently plan to attack ⁠Taiwan in 2027 and seeks to ⁠control the island without the use of force, the US intelligence community said on Wednesday, striking a measured tone on one of the world’s biggest potential flashpoints. The assessment in the intelligence agencies’ annual report on global threats comes as Beijing has stepped up ‌pressure on Taiwan with frequent military drills, even as US President Donald Trump has played down the risk of Chinese military action while he is...

PM will consider exempting large numbers from proposed changes, which could see people on 10-year wait for settled status Keir Starmer is hoping to soften the impact of his government’s changes to the immigration system after a backlash from Labour MPs and a dramatic intervention from his former deputy Angela Rayner. The prime minister is considering exempting large numbers of people from the proposed changes , which would make it harder to achieve settled status in the UK, as he attempts to keep his restive party onboard. Continue reading...

Treasurer plans ‘ambitious’ changes to target intergenerational inequity. Follow today’s news live Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Jim Chalmers will today promise to deliver a trio of “ambitious reform packages” in the May budget that will rebuild fiscal buffers, make the tax system fairer, and lift the nation’s lagging productivity performance. In a major speech in Melbourne today, the treasurer will commit to “make hard decisions” in the upcoming budget, amid an ongoing US-Israel war on Iran that “is adding to inflation risks, weighing on growth, and increasing already elevated uncertainty”. We are working on more tax reform in the budget – how much we can do in May depends on fiscal considerations, international developments and cabinet deliberations. We recognise an outdated tax system is weighing on the opportunities faced by younger Australians and future generations. Continue reading...

Glasses use verbal cues and floating text to assist wearers and are expected to be available in early 2027 AI software that can be embedded into smart glasses has won a £1m prize for technology to help people with dementia. Built into chunky, black-rimmed frames that have a camera, microphone and speakers, the tech – known as CrossSense – guides wearers through everyday life by means of a chatty assistant called Wispy. Continue reading...