Critics say brash, bombastic Fox News host out of his depth to guide US military through murky new Middle East conflict

Brash and bellicose, he sounded more like a cartoon bully than a sombre statesman. “Death and destruction from the sky all day long,” Pete Hegseth, wearing a red, white and and blue tie and pocket square, bragged to reporters at the Pentagon near Washington. “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”

Hegseth, 45, a former Fox News TV host who now commands the world’s most powerful military, has this week become the face of Donald Trump’s war in Iran. That has set off for alarm bells for critics who warn that the Secretary of Defense – pointedly rebranded “Secretary of War” – has rapidly transformed the Pentagon into the staging ground for an ideological and religious crusade.

With machismo, Christian nationalism and callousness toward the lives of US troops, they say, Hegseth’s puerile displays on TV are aimed at sating Trump’s desire for a warmonger worthy of the manosphere. This was reinforced by a lurid social media video that intersperses clips from Hollywood blockbusters such as Braveheart, Gladiator, Superman and Top Gun with Hegseth and real kill-shot footage of the attacks in Iran.

Musk can’t convince judge public doesn’t care about where AI training data comes from.

Elon Musk’s xAI has lost its bid for a preliminary injunction that would have temporarily blocked California from enforcing a law that requires AI firms to publicly share information about their training data.

xAI had tried to argue that California’s Assembly Bill 2013 (AB 2013) forced AI firms to disclose carefully guarded trade secrets.

The law requires AI developers whose models are accessible in the state to clearly explain which dataset sources were used to train models, when the data was collected, if the collection is ongoing, and whether the datasets include any data protected by copyrights, trademarks, or patents. Disclosures would also clarify whether companies licensed or purchased training data and whether the training data included any personal information. It would also help consumers assess how much synthetic data was used to train the model, which could serve as a measure of quality.

OpenAI claims it has accomplished what Anthropic couldn’t: securing a Pentagon contract that won’t cross professed red lines against dragnet domestic spying and the use of artificial intelligence to order lethal military strikes. Just don’t expect any proof.

Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, announced the company’s big win with the Defense Department in a post on X on February 27.

“Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems,” he wrote. The Pentagon “agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.”

But if the government booted Anthropic for refusing mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, how could OpenAI take over the contract without having the same problem?

The company and the government, however, are not releasing the only proof that matters: the contract itself.

The price of oil surged higher and showed no signs of halting its rapid climb a week after the U.S. and Israel launched major attacks on Iran that escalated into a war in the Middle East.

The conflict, in which nearly every country in the Middle East has sustained damage from missiles or drone strikes, has left ships that carry roughly 20 million barrels of oil a day stranded in the Persian Gulf, unable to safely pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Gulf that is bordered on its north side by Iran.

The shipping disruption and damage to key Middle East oil and gas facilities has interrupted supplies from some of the world’s largest oil producers. Kuwait, for example, said on Saturday that it would reduce its oil production as a “precautionary” measure due to the war, which could jolt global energy markets even further.

President Trump on Saturday told reporters, without citing evidence, that he believes a deadly strike on a girls' primary school in southern Iran last weekend was "done by Iran."

"In my opinion, based on what I've seen, that was done by Iran…We think it was done by Iran, because they're very inaccurate with their munitions, they have no accuracy whatsoever, it was done by Iran," Mr. Trump said aboard Air Force One after attending the dignified transfer of six U.S. soldiers who were killed in an Iranian strike in Kuwait on March 1.

When pressed by a reporter if Mr. Trump's assessment was accurate, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth responded that the Pentagon was "investigating," adding that "the only side that targets civilians is Iran." Continue reading here - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-says-he-believes-bombing-of-iranian-girls-school-was-done-by-iran/

Caitlin Kalinowski, head of robotics and consumer hardware at OpenAI, announced her resignation on Saturday, citing ​concerns about the company's agreement with the Department ‌of Defense.

In a social media post on X, Kalinowski wrote that OpenAI did not take enough time before agreeing to deploy its AI models ​on the Pentagon's classified cloud networks.

"AI has an ​important role in national security," Kalinowski posted. "But surveillance of ⁠Americans without judicial oversight and lethal autonomy without human ​authorization are lines that deserved more deliberation than they got.”

Once the site of an internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II, Camp East Montana is made up of six long tents at the Fort Bliss Army base outside of El Paso. On an average day, the facility holds around 3,000 detainees who are living in harsh conditions: They lack sufficient food and often go without proper medical care, according to AP’s review of 130 calls made to 911. Those calls took place in just about five months—from when the tents were quickly constructed in mid-August to January 20.

“Every day felt like a week. Every week felt like a month. Every month felt like a year,”Ramsingh said. He lived in Columbia, Missouri before being stopped at the airport by DHS and sent to Camp East Montana last year. Despite holding a green card and being married to a US citizen, he was deported to the Netherlands in February over a drug conviction from when he was a teenager (which he served prison time for). “Camp East Montana was 1,000% worse than a prison,” Ramsingh added.

Ramsingh said that the alledged bets on who would die by suicide were especially difficult because he had contemplated suicide himself.

https://archive.is/C2b73

begins with their graves being dug

The strike killed at least 175 people, according to health officials and Iranian state media.

A federal judge in Oregon on Friday limited federal officers’ use of tear gas during protests at a Portland federal immigration building, as part of a lawsuit filed by an adjacent affordable housing complex following months of repeated exposure.

U.S. District Judge Amy Baggio issued the preliminary injunction after a hearing last month in which the complex’s residents described physical and psychological symptoms ranging from difficulty breathing, coughing, burning eyes and hives to anxiety and panic attacks. Some also testified about wearing gas masks in their own homes.

The case comes amid growing concern over federal officers using aggressive crowd-control tactics, as cities across the country have seen demonstrations against the immigration enforcement surge spearheaded by Donald Trump’s administration.

https://archive.is/arVUC

Temporary Protected Status is a humanitarian program that shields eligible migrants from deportation and allows them to work.

A divided U.S. appeals court has refused to let the Trump administration revoke legal protections that allow more than 350,000 Haitians to live and work in the U.S. and avoid being returned to their gang-violence-stricken country.

A 2-1 panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit late on Friday rejected the administration’s bid to pause a February 2 ruling that blocked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from ending Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status.

Under outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the department has moved to end TPS for a dozen countries as part of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, arguing the program was never intended to serve as a “de facto amnesty.”

According to sources familiar with the matter, the White House is preventing major U.S. intelligence agencies from warning law enforcement across the country about the growing threats to the nation linked to the war with Iran.

The FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Counterterrorism Center were preparing to release a joint statement to state and local authorities on Friday, warning them about potential dangers stemming from the conflict in the Middle East.

The 35-year-old inmate ‘freely” admitted to having sex with the woman, saying ‘look at the video,’ police said

The 35-year-old inmate ‘freely” admitted to having sex with the woman, saying ‘look at the video,’ police said

When he was supposed to be slinging hash at a sheriff’s barbecue, a Florida prisoner instead slinked off to have sex with a woman in a portable toilet, according to police.

Hartley Elliot Sanchez, 35, is now facing a felony prisoner escape charge after police said he wandered away from his duties for a secret dalliance, according to an arrest report from the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office obtained by The Smoking Gun.

House lawmaker and UN experts are calling for an “immediate” investigation into the strike on an elementary school in Minab, Iran, that massacred 175 people, mostly children, as a growing body of evidence suggests that U.S. forces were responsible for the strike.

“There needs to be an immediate and transparent investigation into this strike. I’m demanding answers on what is being done to protect innocent civilians in Iran,” said Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Arizona) in a post on X on Thursday.

A group of seven UN human rights experts also signed a statement on Friday saying that the strike must be investigated as a war crime.

“A strike on a school represents a grave assault on children, on education, and on the future of an entire community,” the experts said. “An attack on a functioning school during class hours raises the most serious concerns under international law and must be urgently, independently, and effectively investigated, with accountability for any violations.”

Iranian health officials and state media have reported that 175 people were killed in the strike on the school on February 28, as the U.S. and Israel unleashed their first bombardment of their war on Iran. The vast majority of them were children aged between 7 and 12, UN officials have said. One of the victims was reportedly a 2-month-old baby.

The detention of Estefany Maria Rodriguez Florez, who had sought asylum and is married to an American citizen, raised fears that she had been targeted for her reporting.

California state superintendent says mother and sons arrested during ICE check-in and deported to Colombia

California’s superintendent is calling for the return of a hearing-impaired six-year-old after he, his mother and his five-year-old sibling were detained on Tuesday while reporting for their check-in at an ICE office in San Francisco and deported to Colombia.

Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez and her sons were arrested during their visit to ICE’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (Isap), said Alameda County Immigration Legal and Education Partnership (ACILEP). A relative who was waiting outside for Gutierrez and her sons was unable to hand off the assistive devices necessary for the six-year-old, who is deaf and has a cochlear implant.

“No child should be ripped from their home community and hidden in a detention center, especially not a Deaf child who is being deprived of the ability to communicate and understand what is happening to him,” Tony Thurmond, the California superintendent of public instruction, said in a statement on Friday. “I am calling on the federal government to return our student to his school community now. These inhumane and illegal attacks on our families must end.”

As some elected leaders choose to play nice with the president, Democratic AGs have done the opposite – to impressive effect

Four Democratic attorneys general, sitting in their offices from New York to California with state flags and books behind them, announced a new lawsuit on Thursday, alleging the president, yet again, had broken the law by attempting to create new tariffs without congressional approval.

It’s a now familiar scene for the group of top law-enforcement officials who have collectively filed more than 50 lawsuits against the Trump administration, serving as a counterweight to the president’s quest to expand his power and circumvent the constitution.

They’ve protected billions of dollars for their states. They’ve stopped or stalled policies that would have cut food benefits during a government shutdown, closed health programs and job training, curtailed funds for crime victims, ended birthright citizenship, cut off funds for schools, and kept illegal tariffs in place.

Moscow is rushing to the support of its ally amid a joint US-Israeli bombing campaign

Russia is providing Iran with intelligence to help target US forces in the Middle East, according to a report, in a development likely to cause a rift between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

Since the beginning of the war last Saturday, Moscow has been supplying Iran with the locations of US military assets, including warships and aircraft, three officials told The Washington Post.

The conflict has already spread far beyond the Middle East as Iran retaliates against US bases in the region, with attacks reported as far as Azerbaijan and Sri Lanka.

A reporter for a Spanish-language news outlet in Tennessee who has been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was not shown any warrant when she was arrested this week, according to court documents filed by her attorney.

Estefany Rodriguez Florez, a reporter for Nashville Noticias who has done stories critical of ICE, was arrested Wednesday during a traffic stop, according to documents filed in federal court in Nashville. Her lawyer called for her immediate release, but ICE has asked a judge to deny the request.

Rodriguez, a Colombian citizen, entered the U.S lawfully and has been living in the country for the past five years, court records filed by her lawyer show. She has a valid work permit, and she has applied for political asylum and legal status through her husband, who is a U.S. citizen.

Google is seeking to bypass data center zoning rules recently adopted by Linn County, Iowa, by annexing the land for its proposed campus into a city two miles away.

If approved by city officials in Palo, the move would free Google from the water-use and economic agreements that Linn County developed for unincorporated areas with input from the company’s representatives. Though Palo is part of the county, the data center would be subject to the city’s rules, not the county’s.

The workaround is “fundamentally wrong,” said Sami Scheetz, supervisor for Linn County’s 2nd District, in a statement issued by the county on Wednesday. “Let’s be clear about what is happening here. We negotiated in good faith. And Google’s response was to go find a local government that will ask for less.”

On Friday, the Buffalo-based Investigative Post reported that New York Attorney General Letitia James is investigating the death of Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a Blind Rohingya refugee who died in the cold streets of Buffalo days after Border Patrol dumped him without coordinating with his family or lawyers.

In a letter to Rep. Tim Kennedy (D-N.Y.), James wrote that her “office is continuing to gather and review facts as to any state or local involvement in this tragedy” and is prepared to coordinate with federal authorities as necessary. James also said her office is coordinating with the Buffalo Police Department to “canvass for additional witnesses and surveillance footage” that may help her office understand what happened to Shah Alam.

“The loss of life under these circumstances demands a searching and independent assessment of what occurred,” James wrote. “I also agree that a close examination of release and transfer protocols of vulnerable individuals from law enforcement custody is warranted.”

Since his death was initially reported, more information has also come out about Buffalo police officers’ initial arrest of Shah Alam, who did not speak English. Shah Alam had wandered to a woman’s home and seemed confused about his location. Viewing body cam footage, the Washington Post reported that Shah Alam apologized while slowly approaching police officers, who responded by tasing him.