Top World News

Mar 4, 2026 - World

Frigate goes down off Sri Lanka as Washington and Israel step up their offensive and promise to hit ‘deeper’ targets in IranMiddle East crisis – live updatesA torpedo fired by a US submarine sank an Iranian warship off the south coast of Sri Lanka as the Trump administration followed through on its threats to destroy Tehran’s military and political leadership.At least 87 Iranian sailors were killed in the attack on the Iris Dena. The frigate was sailing in international waters as it returned from a naval exercise organised by India in the Bay of Bengal. The torpedo strike prompted questions from former US officials about whether Washington’s aim of eliminating all of Iran’s military breached international law. Continue reading...

Mar 4, 2026 - World

Latest outage darkens island facing dwindling oil reserves and increasing pressure from WashingtonA blackout hit the western half of Cuba on Wednesday, leaving millions of people in Havana and beyond without power in the latest outage to affect an island struggling with dwindling oil reserves and a crumbling electricity grid.The government’s Electric Union confirmed the outage on social platform X, saying it affected people from the western city of Pinar del Rio to the central town of Camaguey. Continue reading...

Mar 4, 2026 - World

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt delivered an attack on the media on Wednesday during the first press briefing since the U.S. launched its military operation against Iran five days ago. NBC News senior White House correspondent Garrett Haake asked Leavitt why President Donald Trump, just days after his State of the Union address, had not laid out the case for why the U.S. had planned with its ally Israel to launch military strikes on Iran. Leavitt blamed the press for conflicting reports over the Trump administration's objectives in the military action, and what prompted the attacks. "Does the president believe the country supports the actions that he's taken so far in Iran?" Haake asked.Leavitt responded to the question with a swipe at the media, including the reporters at the briefing. "I think he does. And I think the president knows the country is smart enough to read past many of the fake news headlines produced by people in this room, that this action was unjustifiable," Leavitt said. "Again, this is a rogue terrorist regime that has been threatening the United States, our allies and our people for 47 years," Leavitt argued. "And the American people are smart enough to know that. And they've also been smart enough to listen to the president himself, not just over the past year in this second term, but during his first term as president and also for the past 40 years of his life. This is a president who has been remarkably consistent on this issue, that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon. And the president tried peace through diplomacy exhaustively and extensively. He and his team gave it their best go."

Mar 4, 2026 - World

Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones sought to distance himself from President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement over the ongoing military operation against Iran.During his Wednesday broadcast, Jones criticized Trump for suggesting ground troops could be deployed in Operation Epic Fury."I have no doubt the Marines and the Army are going to kick their ass, but we're going to have a lot of dead people. And I mean a lot," he warned. "And their answer is continue to kill whoever the new leader is, just keep killing the generals, killing the leadership, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill.""You can say what you want about the Iranian cult, Islamic cult, but at least they stand for something," he continued, noting that Trump was "starting to give in and bend and do things that aren't what he said he would do, that aren't America first."Jones claimed that he had been offered millions to "sell out" his principles."I won't sell out against America First. And if I start seeing Trump sell out to whatever, I'm not going along with it. But I love the idiot, neocon, Johnny-Come-Lately Trump supporters that, like, if you don't support whatever [White House Chief of Staff] Susie Wiles wants or whatever the new war is, you're not a patriot. You're the fake MAGA," he remarked. "Dude, I'm not MAGA!" Jones exclaimed. "I'm 1776 worldwide. I'm a populist American. Make America great again; how about make America free again? So, MAGA's great, but I'm not MAGA, and I've told you that for, you know, seven, eight, nine years. I am 1776."The right-wing conspiracy theorist went on to compare Trump to a used lawnmower."I'm proud I supported Trump for 10 years and got persecuted," he said. "If Trump at the end starts going sideways, it's like you got a lawnmower, you mow the yard with it for 10 years, and then one day the engine blows, and it's cheaper just to get a new one than to replace the motor.""You're like sad about the lawnmower that the engine blew up, but you just put it out at the curb, you know, when they do the trash pickup once a year for, you know, appliances and stuff, and you put the old refrigerator out there and the old lawnmower, and oh, you were a good lawnmower, bye, bye," he added. "It's like I'm not mad that I had the lawnmower and cut the grass and did all this, and now the lawnmower's broken. Right now, black smoke's coming out of the lawnmower, and it's sputtering, and it's on fire. So I think this lawnmower is probably done.""We can't kick illegal alien Somalis out of the country, but we can go fight a million-man army. It's insane."

Mar 4, 2026 - World

It should come as no surprise that Donald Trump has piled lie upon lie to justify his attack on Iran in violation of international law, constantly shifting his rationale as one lie collides with another.The following litany of lies reveals how Trump is responsible for fueling a burgeoning war in the Middle East.Lie #1Trump has said consistently that he opposes and would never involve the US in regime change and nation building, calling it a “proven, absolute failure.”Reality: Under Trump in 2025-26, the US has sought regime change in both Venezuela and Iran by attacking both nations and deposing their leaders. Former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro was captured and brought to the US to face criminal charges, Trump stating that the US would “run” the country until a stable government could be formed. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the US’s attack on Iran, with Trump urging the Iranian people to rise up and oust the theocratic regime. Lie #2After the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2025, Trump said that the US had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities and completely destroyed Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.Reality: The bombing of the nuclear facilities did not destroy Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. A US Defense Agency (DIA) report concluded that the strikes set back the program by three to six months. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director Rafael Grossi said that Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile was largely unaccounted for.Had the US bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities destroyed its nuclear enrichment program like Trump said, why in 2026 was the US attempting to negotiate a nuclear agreement with Iran? Wasn’t that what the 2025 bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities already accomplished? Lie #3Trump claimed that Iran was actively building nuclear weapons as a pretext for engaging in bad-faith negotiations, ultimately leading to the US’s attack on Iran.Reality: Iran was never building nuclear weapons. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told Congress in March 2025 that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi stated the agency had “not found any proof” of an effort by Iran to build a nuclear weapon. The false justification for attacking Iran mirrored the justification for the US’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 based on the falsehood that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Lie #4Trump said the massive US military build-up in the Middle East was intended to pressure Iran to negotiate a nuclear agreement, with diplomacy preferred over force.Reality: Trump’s purpose in authorizing the massive US military build-up in the Middle East was obvious: to employ it. Attacking Iran was not a spur-of-the-moment decision but rather a long thought-out plan featuring a large, coordinated military attack on Iran conceived long before it was executed. The US was not going to amass that kind of military power halfway across the globe without intending to use it.Lie #5Trump claimed that he preferred resolving the issue of Iran’s nuclear program through negotiations and diplomacy.Reality: Trump never intended to negotiate in good faith but rather to use the “failed” negotiations as rationale for the attack on Iran. First, Trump gave negotiations a scant two months to reach settlement while in 2015, the US and an international coalition took 20 months to complete a successful nuclear agreement with Iran. Second, Trump knew the US’s “red line” negotiating position — that Iran could enrich no uranium after having enriched it for decades for domestic nuclear power — would never be accepted. Third, the US attacked Iran half way through Trump’s stated two-month negotiating window, a diplomatic solution never meant to be given a chance. Lie #6Trump claimed the US attacked Iran because it was a threat to America and the American people.Reality: Iran poses absolutely no threat to America. First, it has no nuclear weapons’ capability and lacks the long-range missiles to reach the US mainland. Second, if it ever developed such missiles, attacking the country with the most powerful military in the world would ensure Iran’s annihilation. Lie #7Trump claimed US citizens are safer today due to the attack on Iran.Reality: Since Iran posed no threat to the US, the attack on Iran didn’t make US citizens any safer. Instead, it could make them less safe through Iranian retaliatory bombing of US military bases and through potential terrorist activity in the US within Iranian-supportive sleeper cells. Lie #8Trump claimed the timing of the attack on Iran was necessary to eliminate “imminent threats” from a nation on the verge of developing nuclear weapons.Reality: The timing had nothing to do with eliminating “imminent threats” which didn’t exist and everything to do with the looming 2026 mid-term elections. Trump’s purpose was two-fold: to try and score a huge foreign policy victory that he could ride all the way to the Nov. 4 election and to deflect focus on the economic woes he has created for the American people through his failed policies.Trump’s lies that Iran was enriching uranium to build nuclear weapons and that it posed a serious threat to America provided the false justification for the US’s attack on Iran. That perfidious duplicity launched a series of horrific events with no end in sight.Thanks to Trump’s lies, the US attacked Iran, resulting in the heartbreaking killing of more than 100 Iranian children whose elementary school was bombed. American soldiers have been killed by Iranian retaliatory strikes on US bases, and putting American “boots on the ground” in Iran is being contemplated. The outbreak of a region-wide war has already begun as civilian deaths have been reported in countries across the Middle East. Thanks to Trump, a diplomatic settlement between the US and Iran that could have avoided all of the bloodshed and destruction was never given a chance. This is Trump’s war, and he bears responsibility for all of the human suffering that it is bringing. Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor.