Category: World

Donald Trump's plans for Iran are “incoherent”, “incomplete”, and are on course to drag his administration into a state of “endless war”, a senior Democrat has warned.
The comments from Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy came after he attended a two-hour briefing on the White House's current aims for the conflict.
In a thread on X, Murphy said that while he was unable to share classified information, the private briefings indicate that Trump is unable to “defend this war in public”, and revealed that the administration is not seeking to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons programme, nor force regime change in the country.
“The war goals DO NOT involve destroying Iran's nuclear weapons program,” Murphy wrote, adding that this was surprising “since Trump says over and over this is a key goal”.
open image in galleryBlack smoke and flames billow over Iranian capital Tehran following strikes on an oil depot in the city (Middle East Images)”But then of course we already know a..

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon apparently isn’t feeling the same affordability struggles as many average Americans, as he approved spending more than $93 billion in September, including on luxury food items and iPads.
A new analysis published by government watchdog Open the Books found that in September — the end of the 2025 fiscal year — Hegseth reportedly burned through cash, including spending $9 million on crab and lobster dinners.
According to Military.com, an increase in military officials eating pricey meals has traditionally been viewed as a sign that something may be brewing — such as President Donald Trump’s war in Iran — though it appears Hegseth has been dining well at the Pentagon since at least last spring.
The spending review found that in the month of September alone, the Defense Department spent $6.9 million in total on lobster tail and $2 million on Alaskan king crab, according to the government watchdog. In 2025, the department also spent more than $7.4..

AI is being increasingly used by the US military – and Project Maven is at its heart.
An investigation by The Independent and conflict monitoring group Airwars has found that Abdul-Rahman al-Rawi, a 20-year-old student, is the first civilian killed in a series of airstrikes that were acknowledged to have been carried out with the assistance of AI.
Weeks after the strikes in Iraq in early February 2024, a senior US official boasted about the use of AI to help identify the targets in these strikes – but US Central Command later said it “did not know” whether AI had been involved.
AI in warfare has become an increasingly pressing issue.
Deadly US attacks across Iran, which have killed hundreds in the past week, are reported to have used Palantir’s Maven Smart System (MSS) to identify targets, a broader AI-enabled warfighting decision support system into which Project Maven is typically integrated.
open image in galleryUS military officials last week said American forces are likely respon..

Abdul-Rahman al-Rawi, a student working towards his diploma in construction, stepped out of his home in a quiet street in al-Qaim, north east Iraq, having heard a volley of noise overhead.
Within seconds, the 20-year-old was dead, killed instantly by the impact of a US missile destroying the stationary car he was standing next to in the early hours of that February morning in 2024.
His brother Anmar describes in grisly detail how his brother died in the attack, telling a joint investigation by conflict monitoring group Airwars and The Independent: “It took us two days to gather all of my brother’s remains.”
Abdul-Rahman was caught up in one of 85 co-ordinated attacks carried out by the US that night against Iraqi-government aligned forces and Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria.
open image in gallery20-year-old Abdul-Rahman was killed in February 2024 by a US airstrike on Al-Qaim, Iraq (Anmar al-Rawi)The operation was deemed a success, with a senior American official subsequently..

Reports are emerging of black rain falling over parts of Iran in the hours after US-Israeli airstrikes on oil depots on the weekend, with some outlets describing it as “acid rain”.
Iranian residents have reported headaches, difficulty breathing, and oil-contaminated rain settling on buildings and cars. Iran’s Red Crescent Society warned rainfall following the strikes could be “highly dangerous and acidic.”
As an atmospheric chemist and chemical engineer who researches air pollution, these reports are very worrying, and indicate much more than just acid rain.
This rain would include acids, but also likely a host of other pollutants that are harmful to humans and the environment in the short and long term. It may even be worse than the term “acid rain” conveys.
More broadly, the thick clouds of toxic smoke over densely populated areas in Iran are also a major problem for anyone breathing this air right now.
What could this ‘acid rain’ be?One of the primary ways air pollutants are removed..