Live updates: Top Iranian security official and head of country's Basij force killed, Israel says  —  EDITED BY BRIDGET BROWN, LORIAN BELANGER, BRIAN P. D. HANNON AND MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS  —  Tanker hit by debris off coast of UAE  —  A tanker anchored off the eastern coat of the United Arab Emirates …

Trump said he spoke to a former president about bombing Iran.  Four denials suggest otherwise.  —  Trump said twice Monday that he spoke to one of his predecessors about the Iran war and that the former president said he wished he had taken the action Trump did.

Making Russia strong again  —  PN is supported by paid subscribers.  Become one ⬇️  —  🌍 Subscribe to PN 🌍  —  The Putin regime may be sharing intelligence that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is using to target US troops, but President Trump is more mad at NATO.

Trump Administration Seeks to Remove Cuba's President From Power During Negotiations  —  The United States has told Cuba that for meaningful progress to be made in negotiations, President Miguel Díaz-Canel must step down, said people familiar with the talks.

Top counterterrorism official Kent resigns over Trump's Iran war, says Iran posed no imminent threat  —  Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, announced his resignation on Tuesday, saying he “cannot in good conscience” back the Trump administration's war in Iran.

Families search for loved ones after deadly Pakistan strike on Kabul rehab  —  Families have gathered outside a drug treatment centre in the Afghan capital, Kabul, looking for their loved ones after it was hit in a Pakistani air strike, which Taliban authorities said killed 408 people.

3/17/26☀️ AM: … And happy St. Patrick's Day. … AIPAC faces a reckoning in Democratic primaries on Tuesday.  The nation's largest pro-Israel organization is scrambling to regain its footing with a bloc of voters that has grown wary of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel's actions in Gaza.

DOJ to Allow Hiring of US Prosecutors Straight Out of Law School  —  The Justice Department has waived a policy requiring newly hired federal prosecutors to possess at least one year of experience practicing law, as US attorneys' offices struggle to find qualified replacements following mass departures.

Trump Officials Weigh New $1 Billion Deal to Stop Offshore Wind Farms  —  Proposed settlements would block wind farms off New York State and North Carolina, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.  —  The Trump administration is considering a new strategy for throttling …

Fire on U.S. Aircraft Carrier Raged for Hours, Sailors Say  —  The Ford is now entering its 10th month of deployment after arriving in the Middle East from the Caribbean.  —  It took more than 30 hours for sailors to put out the fire aboard the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford last week …

Capitol agenda: House hard-liner headaches ahead  —  House Republicans are heading into a chaotic two-week sprint to try and make real legislative headway before a subsequent two-week recess — and prove that their narrow and deeply fractious majority can still get something done.

Man charged with planting bombs near the Capitol claims he's covered by Trump pardon … While the wording of the proclamation Trump issued on his first day in office last year is extremely broad, it refers to cases that are pending and to people already convicted.  It's not clear from its face if it fends off future charges.

Judge Strikes Down Kennedy's Vaccine Policies  —  Ruling on a lawsuit brought by several prominent medical organizations, a district court said the federal government did not base its decisions on science in limiting Covid shots and changing the childhood immunization schedule.

IDF kills Ali Larijani, biggest targeted killing since former supreme leader Khamenei  —  The IDF also confirmed it had assassinated the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Basij paramilitary militia, Gholamreza Soleimani, and his deputy, Seyyed Karishi.

Richard Grenell: From Trump Cabinet Hopeful to Ex-Kennedy Center Manager  —  Richard Grenell once hoped to be President Trump's secretary of state.  Instead, Mr. Trump just replaced him as Kennedy Center president.  —  Richard Grenell worked hard during the 2024 election to be considered …

Jesse Jackson's family grapples with Illinois Senate endorsement controversy … But on Monday, Yusef Jackson, who is the organization's head, said the draft sample ballot was “released without authorization” and that the Jackson family and Rainbow PUSH Coalition are not making political endorsements this cycle.

The fight over transgender rights in America has entered a new phase  —  The policy fight is moving well beyond sports and youth medicine.  The political response hasn't caught up. … For much of the past eight years, the political fight over transgender rights in America has centered …

Trump's DOGE Cuts Slashed Staff That Handled Middle Eastern Oil and Gas Crises  —  Six months before the Trump administration started bombing Iran, the Department of State fired its oil and gas experts.  —  As the war in Iran stretches into its third week, and the Strait of Hormuz …

ICE Releases Columbia Protester Who Was Held for One Year  —  Leqaa Kordia, 33, had been held in a Texas facility, where she said her health had declined.  She was arrested during a 2024 protest and then detained by ICE in March 2025.  —  A New Jersey woman who took part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations …

‘Trump is aiming for dictatorship’.  That's the verdict of the world's most credible democracy watchdog  —  Sweden's V-Dem Institute warns that the US is no longer a liberal democracy.  And autocracy is creeping across Europe too  —  The US is no longer a democracy.

It's great that the NYT is thriving.  But I have a worry.  —  A New York Times journalist posted on social media over the weekend that she was happy to be covering the Academy Awards for the sixth time.  She noted that she was part of a 60-person Times team assigned to that coverage.  —  Sixty.

Time to Give Up the Jerome Powell Case  —  What matters is getting Kevin Warsh confirmed, not appealing a legal loss.  —  President Trump's lawfare efforts aren't faring well in court, and the latest example is a federal judge's decision last week to quash subpoenas in a probe of the Federal Reserve and Chairman Jerome Powell.

Teens allege Musk's Grok chatbot made sexual images of them as minors  —  Three plaintiffs, two of whom are minors, accuse xAI of distributing, possessing and producing with intent to distribute child pornography.  —  When a mother from eastern Tennessee asked local police how someone …