Flipboard News Desk

Dozens killed in Lebanon as Israel searches for signs of navigator missing for 40 years Israel carried out a commando raid in eastern Lebanon to search for clues about a navigator who went missing 40 years ago.

Dozens of people were killed in Lebanon during an overnight raid by Israeli forces searching for a missing navigator. @AssociatedPress has more:

https://flip.it/f1IO1f

#News #WorldNews #Israel #Lebanon #MiddleEast

The 2026 Winter Paralympic Games opened today in Milan. A Russian team is present for the first time since 2022 and was greeted by boos as they entered the arena. Teams from seven nations including Ukraine boycotted the ceremony in protest against Russia's participation. Here's more from […]

Evidence suggests the deadly blast at an Iranian school was likely a US airstrike Satellite images and videos of an Iranian girls school damaged by large explosions at the start of a U.S.

Evidence from the deadly blast at an elementary school in Iran likely points to a U.S. airstrike. @AssociatedPress reports:

https://flip.it/WcAJ4-

#News #Iran #USA #Israel #War #WorldNews

It's estimated that it would take roughly 700 years to de-mine Ukraine, and while landmines and explosive remnants remain in the ground, they pollute the environment and place immense psychological tolls on communities. For @thexylom, Kang-Chun Cheng 鄭康君 writes about the long and complex process […]

Iranian authorities have once again shut off internet access. People within the country are struggling to access information; Iranians abroad are cut off from their loved ones back home. DW explains what's going on, and the attempts to bypass the digital blackout.

https://flip.it/gngEgB

#Iran […]

In the U.S., gas prices are up, and the stock market is down. How Iran war affects Trump's economic promises.

From @WSJ (gift link): https://flip.it/NmFH.E

#Iran #Trump #Economy #USPolitics #News

The DHS shooting of a
third U.S. citizen went
unnoticed for months
No state or federal agency disclosed that a Homeland Security Investigations agent had
killed Ruben Ray Martinez
until it was revealed in a
public records request […]

How long can Iran continue the war? In the war with the US and Israel, Iran is largely on its own. The regime is relying primarily on its missile and drone systems and has no intention of surrendering.

How long can Iran continue the war?

From @dw: "In the war with the U.S. and Israel, Iran is largely on its own. The regime is relying primarily on its missile and drone systems and has no intention of surrendering."

https://flip.it/v_OHE3

#Iran #War #News #USIranWar #Israel #MiddleEast

House fails to adopt Iran war powers resolution Reps. Thomas Massie and Warren Davidson bucked GOP leaders and voted in favor.

House fails to adopt war powers resolution that tried to curtail President Trump’s war actions in Iran. @news-abc reports:

https://flip.it/EBEqem

#News #Politics #USNews #Iran #Trump #War

Trump fires Homeland Security Secretary Noem after building criticism over immigration enforcement President Donald Trump has fired his embattled Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and says he'll nominate in her place Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin.

Kristi Noem out as Homeland Security Secretary. President Trump to nominate Sen. Markwayne Mullin as replacement. @AssociatedPress reports:

https://flip.it/Izla4r

#News #USNews #Politics #Trump #Noem #DHS

Russia is big winner as Iran war drains supplies needed by Ukraine and sends oil prices higher.

From @WSJ: "The U.S. military confrontation with Iran is depleting Patriot interceptor stocks, which Ukraine needs to defend against Russia."

Gift link: https://flip.it/V56nsw

#Ukraine #Russia […]

* * * * * * * Many Democrats have claimed that President Donald Trump didn’t have the legal authority to unilaterally order the Feb. 28 joint military airstrikes with Israel that resulted in the death of the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Experts have told us that, according to an originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, congressional approval for the use of military force against another country is required. Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution gives the power “To declare War” to Congress. However, in practice, several presidents have unilaterally ordered military action abroad without authorization from Congress. In this story, we’ll look at what Democrats have said about Trump’s latest military order and review what experts already told us in similar past cases. ## Claims of Illegality Not long after the attack on Saturday, several Democrats were quick to criticize Trump’s military operation in official statements or media appearances. Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona said in a Feb. 28 statement on his congressional website, “President Trump promised no more forever wars. Instead, he has illegally dragged us into another one without congressional authorization and no long term strategy.” Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia called it an “illegal war” on “Fox News Sunday” on March 1. “The Constitution says no declaration of war without Congress,” he said. “The president has called this war against Iran. The president can act to imminently defend the United States against imminent attack, if that happens, without congressional approval, needing later ratification by Congress. But if you’re going to initiate war, you need Congress. The president not only did not come to Congress to seek a debate or vote, he acted without even notification to the vast majority of us.” That same day, on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut also called Trump’s actions “illegal” without authorization. “Congress wouldn’t vote to give him the permission to do it, but he’s obligated to come to Congress,” Murphy said. But Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that members of Congress were informed consistent with current law. “We notified Congress,” Rubio told reporters in a March 2 press gaggle. “I mean, we notified the Gang of Eight. We notified congressional leadership. There’s no law that requires us to do that. The law says we have to notify them 48 hours after beginning hostilities. We’ve done that.” The Gang of Eight refers to a special group of eight members of Congress, including the four top Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate, as well as the chairperson and ranking member of the House and Senate Select Committees on Intelligence. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X that, prior to the attacks, Rubio “called all members of the gang of eight to provide congressional notification, and he was able to reach and brief seven of the eight members.” Rubio said there was no legal requirement to notify all members of Congress at that time. ## Expert Opinion We previously examined the legality of unilateral uses of military force by presidents when the U.S. bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities in June, and again when the U.S. carried out the military operation in Venezuela that led to the capture of that country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, in January. One of the experts we quoted in our January story, Oona Hathaway, a professor of international law at Yale Law School, was definitive in her assessment of the latest use of military force abroad. “The strikes on Iran are blatantly illegal,” she wrote in an X post on Feb. 28. “I explained in June why the strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities were unlawful under US and international law. Everything I wrote then is true today, but this is a far larger assault with far graver consequences.” In her guest essay for the New York Times last year, Hathaway wrote, “It has become almost quaint to observe that the Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to declare war. Yes, the president is commander in chief of the military, but he is obligated to seek authorization from Congress before he initiates a war.” An Iranian flag is planted in the rubble of a police station, damaged in airstrikes on March 3 in Tehran. Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images. Hathaway said the only time that a president does not need advance congressional approval “is when the United States has been attacked and he must act quickly to protect the country.” She said the president is also “required to seek authorization from the United Nations Security Council,” since the U.S. long ago signed on to a U.N. Charter that prohibits unjustified uses of military force by one country against another. But other legal experts have told us that the issue of legality isn’t so clear. Peter Shane, a constitutional law scholar and adjunct professor at New York University School of Law, told us in June that it is “difficult to give a definitive answer” on the constitutionality of such military actions “because there is so much disagreement about how the Constitution should be interpreted with regard to the unilateral presidential deployment of military force.” In an email, he said, “Under the most persuasive reading of the Founding era, the Constitution does not authorize Presidents to deploy military force abroad without advance congressional authorization.” But he added that it has “long been the position” of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel “that history has ratified unilateral presidential deployments of military force as long as (1) the deployment serves ‘sufficiently important national interests,’ as judged by the President, and (2) the deployment does not portend a ‘prolonged and substantial military engagement, typically involving exposure of U.S. military personnel to significant risk over a substantial period.’” Kermit Roosevelt, a constitutional expert and professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, made similar points to us for our June story. “The Constitution says that Congress has the power to declare war, and the records of the Constitutional Convention are pretty clear that the drafters did not want to give one person the power to take the United States into war,” Roosevelt told us in an email. “However, presidents have done things that count as acts of war under international law without congressional authorization, like the Libya bombings [under then-President Barack Obama], and no one has stopped them, so our practice has departed from the text and original understanding.” As for when Congress has to be notified of military action, the Congressional Research Service has explained that the 1973 War Powers Resolution passed by Congress requires presidents within 48 hours “to report to Congress any introduction of U.S. forces into hostilities or imminent hostilities.” After the military action is reported, the resolution “requires that the use of forces must be terminated within 60 to 90 days unless Congress authorizes such use or extends the time period.” It also “requires that the ‘President in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing’ U.S. Armed Forces into hostilities or imminent hostilities.” Roosevelt told us that the resolution should not be interpreted to mean the president “can do what he wants for 48 hours before notifying Congress, or for 60 days even if Congress doesn’t” grant its approval. He said, “That’s not consistent with the Constitution and it’s not consistent with the purpose and policy section of the WPA, which says that the intent is to make sure that the President’s power to engage in military action is exercised ‘only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.’” The “48 hour and 60 day windows are supposed to be relevant to presidential _responses_ to attacks, and the President is not supposed to be able to _initiat_ e wars at all,” he explained, with emphasis. On March 2, Trump sent a report informing Congress that the strikes he authorized against Iran “were undertaken to protect United States forces in the region, protect the United States homeland, advance vital United States national interests, including ensuring the free flow of maritime commerce through the Strait of Hormuz, and in collective self-defense of our regional allies, including Israel.” The president said he “acted pursuant to my constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive to conduct United States foreign relations.” ## An ‘Empty’ Debate Since earlier this year, Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, has been saying that the debate among experts about the legality of unilateral presidential uses of force is largely meaningless. “Immediately after these operations happen, every time this happens – Libya, Kosovo, Iran, all of these unilateral uses of force without congressional authorization – we immediately jump to the law and commentators immediately say this is illegal, depending on whether they like the war or not, or they defend it as being lawful, and we have this debate about whether it’s lawful or not, and I frankly think it’s kind of a meaningless debate in almost every circumstance,” he said in a Jan. 5 online discussion with another legal scholar, Bob Bauer, a New York University School of Law professor of practice. Goldsmith said the question is why has Congress ceded the power to use military force to the president without restrictions. He made the same points in a Feb. 28 analysis after the U.S-Israel attack on Iran. “As I’ve been saying for a while, there are no effective legal limitations within the executive branch. And courts have never gotten involved in articulating constraints in this context. That leaves Congress and the American people,” he wrote. “They have occasionally risen up to constrain the president’s deployment of troops and uses of force—for example, in Vietnam, and in Lebanon in 1983, and in Somalia in 1993. But those actions are rare and tend only to happen once there is disaster.” He said “rhetoric of legal constraint, and debates about the legality of presidential uses of force, are empty,” and “deflect attention from Congress’s constitutional responsibility to exercise its political judgment and the political powers that the framers undoubtedly gave it to question, to hold to account, and (should it so choose) to constrain presidential uses of force.” Congress may vote this week on war powers resolutions drafted by members of the House and Senate, including Republican Rep. Thomas Massie and Republican Sen. Rand Paul, both of Kentucky. The resolutions would require congressional approval before any further military action in Iran is taken. Trump could veto a passed resolution, and if that happens, there may not be enough support in Congress to override the veto. Few Republicans have indicated support for a war powers resolution. Last June, the Senate failed to pass a war powers resolution that was introduced after the bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities. Then in January, the House and Senate failed to pass a resolution after the military raid in Venezuela. Trump told the New York Times that the U.S-Israel attacks on Iran could go on for “four to five weeks.” * * * _Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made throughour “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, P.O. Box 58100, Philadelphia, PA 19102. _

Is the U.S. military campaign against Iran legal? FactCheck.org explores the question.

https://flip.it/T.oqyn

#Iran #FactCheck #News #War

Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, a California/Nevada affiliate of the national sexual and reproductive healthcare provider, is now offering Botox. Stacy Cross, the organization's president and CEO says the goal is to raise money to keep the doors open at their 30 clinics. Fiorella Valdesolo […]

Colossal Biosciences Inc. plans to resurrect extinct species like the woolly mammoth, Tasmanian tiger, and dodo bird. Proponents of the idea say the tools could help save species on the brink of extinction. Critics question whether the plans are ethical or safe, even if the company’s dubious […]

"Tennessee lawmakers are considering a bill that would require every public university in the state to build a memorial plaza honoring conservative commentator Charlie Kirk," reports The Tennessean, which says the proposal could cost taxpayers more than $18 million in its first year […]

"Politicians and even police have learned they can dismiss photos and videos as fake. (…) the pattern is now familiar: deny, invoke AI, move on."

Adam Rose’s opinion piece for Poynter on how the greatest danger posed by AI is the "collapse of trust in real evidence" – and what journalists could […]

How Texas state Rep. James Talarico won over Latino voters and beat Jasmine Crockett in Democratic Senate primary.

@WSJ reports the candidate's "message of religious faith and economic populism resonated with Hispanic voters whom Democrats hope to pull back from Trump."

Gift link […]

Texas State Rep. James Talarico topped Rep. Jasmine Crockett in an expensive and fiercely contested Senate Democratic primary on Tuesday while longtime Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) head to a runoff in May in a race expected to get increasingly nasty […]

In a public hearing today, U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) called on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign, and compared her killing of her 14-month-old dog to her "bad decisions made in the heat of the moment" in Minneapolis. Here's more from NBC News.

https://flip.it/Z9ixGo […]

Anthropic's Claude AI being used in Iran war by U.S. military, sources say Two sources familiar with the U.S. military's use of artificial intelligence confirm that the U.S. used Anthropic's Claude AI model over weekend for the attack on Iran — and is still using it.

Despite a United States government-wide ban on using Anthropic’s Claude artificial intelligence model, The Pentagon was still using the AI during Iran operations over the weekend. @CBSNews has more

https://flip.it/FJ9ziu

#AI #Tech #Pentagon #US #Iran #ArtificialIntelligence #Anthropic #Claude

Many alleged suicides of Black trans women are in fact modern-day lynchings, report finds A new report is raising questions about how U.S. law enforcement agencies across the South classify the deaths of transgender women, arguing that some cases ruled suicides may warrant deeper scrutiny. **Keep up with the latest in** _**LGBTQ**_**+ news and politics.**_**Sign up for The Advocate's email newsletter.**_ The story, in too many Southern towns, begins with speed. A body is found. Authorities announce no foul play. A ruling is entered. The case, advocates argue, was closed before it was ever truly opened. Jill Collen Jefferson has spent years in the gap between what official records say and what families believe happened. The founder of social justice organization JULIAN, she has reviewed hundreds of deaths across seven Southern states, and her conclusion is unsparing: a pattern of deliberate misclassification is concealing bias-motivated killings of transgender women. These killings, she argues, are, by any honest accounting, modern-day lynchings. JULIAN’s new, “A Crimson Record: Seven State Modern-Day Lynching Report 2000–2025,” catalogs more than 150 deaths across Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee, and Alabama. More than 50, or roughly one-third of the cases, involve transgender women. Modern-day lynchings, hate crimes, and suspicious deaths, compiled by JULIAN. Red: MDLs—Modern Day Lynchings| Blue: NHC&SD—Notable Hate Crimes & Suspicious DeathsJULIAN That proportion stands out when placed against federal hate crime data. According to the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer, there have been 2,726 anti-transgender hate crime incidents nationwide from January 2000 through February 2026, totaling 3,076 offenses. LGBTQ+ victims overall account for roughly 17 percent of reported hate crime victims nationally. Jefferson argues that transgender women’s overrepresentation in her Southern dataset reflects the intersection of racism and transphobia in regions historically shaped by racial terror. Even those federal figures come with caveats. Hate crime reporting is voluntary under the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, and participation varies by agency. The result is a statistical landscape that is both incomplete and periodically paused. Jefferson contends that what cannot be fully counted can be more easily dismissed. **Related** : Fox News and GOP politicians falsely claim Lakewood Church shooter was transgender **Related** : Austin police misgender trans woman killed in Target parking lot shooting **Related** : CNN anchor embarrasses White House counterterrorism chief over false transgender mass shooter stats The mechanisms she describes are bureaucratic as much as they are violent: crime scenes left unsecured, witnesses uninterviewed for days, cause of death determinations entered before investigators have spoken to anyone in the house. In one case, that of Willie Andrew Jones Jr., the first case JULIAN says it helped solve, authorities ruled the death a suicide within 40 minutes of arriving on the scene. “They didn’t interview the people who were in the house that night until four days later,” Jefferson said. “So they had four whole days to get their story together.” During the Reconstruction era documented by journalist Ida B. Wells, lynchings were routinely recorded as suicides, a designation, Jefferson said, that shielded perpetrators and neutralized outrage. Jefferson argues the reflex persists, adapted to contemporary conditions. “Back in the day, a lynching was called a suicide with a wink and a smile,” she said. “In the present day, they’re still called suicides. But now people take that seriously.” What makes these cases particularly resistant to justice, she argues, is structural. “Lynchings are different than other hate crimes in that you have to disprove one thing before you can actually prove what it is,” Jefferson said. She explained that a family cannot argue bias until they have first overturned an existing official classification; a high bar, made higher by the investigative failures that produced the classification in the first place. “It’s like taking a bad photograph,” Jefferson said, recounting what an FBI agent once told her. “If you mess it up in the beginning, there’s really no way to go back and fix it.” The landscape these claims enter is genuinely complicated. A 2025 commentary in Mental Health Science by researchers at George Washington University found that 59 percent of Black transgender and nonbinary youth reported active suicidal ideation in 2023, and 26 percent reported a past-year attempt — rates significantly higher than among their cisgender Black LGBTQ+ peers. The authors link these disparities to compounding stressors like racism, discrimination, anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, violence, and inadequate mental health infrastructure for this population. Jefferson does not dispute any of that. Her argument is narrower: that documented vulnerability should not be used as a substitute for actual investigation. “You still have the situation where there is this deliberate effort to find another reason, other than the obvious reason that’s right in front of you, to name this something else” — gang activity, robbery, in some cases, erotic asphyxiation. The alternative explanation changes; the function, she argues, remains the same. **Related** : With visibility comes violence: Increased awareness of transgender people leads to more hate crimes **Related** : A devastating reality: New report finds violence and erasure ahead of Transgender Day of Remembrance Jefferson describes a spectrum of institutional failure across the cases she has reviewed: incompetence at the scene, indifference at the precinct, and, at the prosecutorial level, what she characterizes as harder to excuse. “I have sat with DAs,” she said, “and I’ve given them evidence that shows this was not a suicide, this was a lynching, and they will still refuse to press charges.” Her policy prescriptions are specific. She wants the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act amended to create a separate federal cause of action for lynching, with life imprisonment as a potential penalty. She wants independent federal prosecutors assigned to these cases, removing them from local authorities, whom she argues are compromised by community relationships and personal bias. And she points to the qualification standards for coroners in states like Mississippi — a high school diploma and a passed test — as a systemic vulnerability that no one has adequately addressed. “I could be a coroner right now,” she said, “and I have absolutely no medical training.” _If you or someone you know needs mental health resources and support, please call, text, or chat with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline or visit_ __988lifeline.org__ _for 24/7 access to free and confidential services.__Trans Lifeline, designed fortransgender or gender-nonconforming people, can be reached at (877) 565-8860. The lifeline also provides resources to help with other crises, such as domestic violence situations. The Trevor Project Lifeline, for LGBTQ+ youth (ages 24 and younger), can be reached at (866) 488-7386. Users can also access chat services at __TheTrevorProject.org/Help_ _or text START to 678678._

A new report is raising questions about how U.S. law enforcement agencies across the South classify the deaths of transgender women, arguing that some cases ruled suicides may warrant deeper scrutiny.

https://www.advocate.com/news/crime/black-trans-women-modern-lynching

Live updates: Texas, North Carolina primary election news | CNN Politics Today’s primaries kick off an eight-month marathon to the midterms, delivering a verdict on President Donald Trump’s second term. Follow here for the latest.

The 2026 election season in the U.S. gets underway with primaries today in Texas, North Carolina and Arkansas.

@CNN has a live blog with the latest news: https://flip.it/y8lVGV

#USPolitics #Elections #Politics #News #Primaries

Iran strikes the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia as war expands yet again.

@AssociatedPress reports: "The U.S. and Israel battered Iran with airstrikes in what President Donald Trump suggested was just the start of a war that has severely disrupted the world’s supply of oil and gas, international […]

March 8 will be the last time most residents of British Columbia have to change their clocks. Premier David Eby says the province is permanently adopting daylight time. Here's more from @cbcnews.

https://flip.it/vwssme

#Canada #BritishColumbia #CanadianNews #DaylightSavingTime

With Iran War, Kalshi and Polymarket Bet That the Depravity Economy Has No Bottom Gambling markets have conveniently found a stance that allows them to continue to profit from death and war.

People have spent millions gambling on politics and geopolitics via sites like Kalshi and Polymarket — so they're essentially profiting from death and war. @jasonkoebler calls this the "depravity economy." Here's his story for @404mediaco.

https://flip.it/.y8Pv6

#Iran #Kalshi #Polymarket #Betting

Explosions across Qatar, UAE, Kuwait as Iran’s retaliatory strikes continue Iran's retaliatory attacks on US assets in the region continue for a third day as fears of a prolonged conflict rise.

Explosions across Qatar, UAE, Kuwait as Iran’s retaliatory strikes continue.

@AlJazeera reports: "Tehran’s retaliatory attacks on U.S. assets in the Gulf region continue for a third day as fears of a prolonged conflict rise."

https://flip.it/MnaO0x

#Iran #MiddleEast #News #Kuwait #War

At least 22 people killed in Pakistan as protesters try to storm US Consulate Authorities say at least 22 people were killed and more than 120 wounded in clashes with police on Sunday after protesters tried to storm the U.S.

At least 22 dead, 120 injured as supporters of Iranian government attempt to storm U.S. Consulate in Pakistan. @AssociatedPress reports:

https://flip.it/PqH1.X

#News #USA #Iran #Pakistan #War

Live Updates: Iran's supreme leader killed in U.S.-Israel strikes, Trump says attacks will continue "as long as necessary" The U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, which responded with retaliatory strikes on U.S. bases in the region.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been killed in Saturday strikes, Donald Trump and Israeli sources say. Read more from @CBSNews:

https://flip.it/rfj7Ur

#News #WorldNews #Iran #USA #MiddleEast #War #Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says there are “growing signs” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been killed. Some in Tehran are celebrating amid the unconfirmed report. @BBCNews has live updates:
https://flip.it/BzHbdX
#News #WorldNews #Iran #AyatollahKhamenei #USA […]

Live updates: Tehran launches retaliatory strikes as Trump calls for regime change The U.S. and Israel struck Iran on Saturday. President Donald Trump said the Iranian public should “take over" their government. The first strikes appeared to target Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Tehran launches retaliatory strikes as President Trump calls for regime change after U.S. and Israel launch major attack on Iran.

Get the latest developments in this live blog from @AssociatedPress: https://flip.it/bQZGEC

#Iran #News #Trump #War #MiddleEast