National and international media news & headlines compiled by CLG

FBI alerted California law enforcement to brace for potential Iranian drone strikes in retaliation for U.S. war | 11 March 2026 | The FBI alerted California law enforcement to potential Iranian drone strikes on the West Coast in retaliation for the U.S. war against the Islamic Republic. “Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using unmanned aerial vehicles from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United State Homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event that the U.S. conducted strikes against Iran,” the alert obtained by ABC News said. “We have no additional information on the timing, method, target, or perpetrators of this alleged attack,” the FBI update continued. The alert surfaced as the Trump administration continued its sustained offensive against Iran. This move follows a pattern of escalation in the Middle East.

Blast outside U.S. Embassy in Oslo investigated as possible terrorist attack | 9 March 2026 | Norwegian police are investigating an explosion outside the U.S. Embassy in Oslo as a possible act of terrorism. The incident occurred amid heightened security for American diplomatic missions and the U.S.-Israel war with Iran. The blast happened at around 1:00 AM on Sunday and caused minor damage to the entrance of the diplomatic compound. An explosive device appears to have been thrown at the building, Grete Metlid, the head of operational services at Oslo police, said at a press conference. Photographs from the scene show broken glass and fallen lamps near the entrance. Shortly after the explosion, a video appeared on the embassy’s Google Maps page showing Iran’s slain supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, accompanied by a message in Arabic: “God is great. We are the victors.”

140 U.S. troops wounded in Iran war, Pentagon confirms | 10 March 2026 | More than 140 U.S. troops have been wounded in the Iran war, the Pentagon has confirmed. “The vast majority of these injuries have been minor, and 108 service members have already returned to duty,” spokesman Sean Parnell said Tuesday. Parnell said that eight of the injuries were considered severe. U.S. Central Command defines “seriously wounded” as troops facing imminent death or who may die from their injuries. Seven U.S. service members have been killed after Donald Trump launched strikes against Iran on February 28. The human toll comes amid mounting concerns over the cost, the Pentagon having burned through 5.6 billion worth of munitions in the first two days of the war.

France’s Macron Orders Major Naval Deployment to Middle East | 9 March 2026 | France is deploying about a dozen naval vessels, including its aircraft carrier strike group, to the Mediterranean, Red Sea and potentially the Strait of Hormuz as part of defensive support to allies threatened by the conflict in the Middle East. Speaking in Cyprus before visiting the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, which arrived this weekend in the eastern Mediterranean, President Emmanuel Macron sought to reassure his Cypriot counterpart after drones were intercepted heading towards the island last week… Macron, whose navy already provides one warship to that mission, said there would be two in total, but that in all France would deploy eight warships, the aircraft carrier group and two helicopter carriers to the region.

U.S. to Reinsure Maritime Losses in Gulf Up to $20B | 8 March 2026 | The U.S. will provide reinsurance for losses up to 20 billion in the Gulf region, to help provide confidence for oil and gas shippers during the war on Iran, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation said on Friday. President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered the DFC to provide political risk insurance and fin-ncial guarantees for maritime trade in the Gulf after oil and liquefied natural gas tanker transit had ground to a halt in the Strait of Hormuz waterway off Iran, where ordinarily 20% of global oil moves daily. Trump also said the U.S. Navy could escort ships in the Gulf. But the ability to do that is unclear with some Navy vessels carrying out strikes against Iran and shooting down its missiles. Escorting ships also could be risky for naval escorts.

Iran claims massive cyberattack on U.S. as retaliation for ‘brutal attack’ on elementary school | 11 March 2026 | An Iranian-linked hacking group has claimed responsibility for the global disruption of one of the world’s leading medical technology companies. Michigan-based Stryker experienced a global outage on Wednesday, saying thousands of employees have lost access to work systems. It employees approximately 53,000 people globally. The company is a leading provider in advanced medical technologies that improve healthcare outcomes, including joint replacements, robotic-assisted surgical systems, trauma and neurotechnology products. The Handala group issued a statement on Telegram, saying it wiped more than 200,000 systems and extracted 50 terabytes of data in retaliation for military strikes on Iran.

U.S. responsible for deadly missile strike on Iran school, preliminary inquiry says | 11 March 2026 | A preliminary U.S. military investigation has reportedly determined that Washington was responsible for a deadly Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian elementary school in February that killed scores of children. According to the New York Times, quoting unnamed U.S. officials and others familiar with the initial findings, the investigation has concluded that the strike on 28 February on the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school building was the result of a targeting mistake by the U.S. military planners. Iranian officials had put put death toll from the attack as at least 175 people, the majority of them children, in one of the worst and most shocking American strikes producing civilian fatalities in recent memory.

Moscow condemns Israeli strike on Russian cultural center | 10 March 2026 | Moscow has accused Israel of an “unprovoked act of aggression” after Israeli forces struck a Russian cultural center in Lebanon. The attack on the facility in the southern city of Nabatieh was reported on Sunday by its director, Asaad Diya, who said the building was empty at the time. Rossotrudnichestvo, Russia’s international humanitarian cooperation agency, which has an official office in Beirut, said its staff remain in contact with Lebanese partners and are actively providing relief to civilians affected by the hostilities. Rossotrudnichestvo stressed that the Nabatieh cultural center “was not involved in any military activity” and that the attack was unjustifiable.

Spain removes ambassador from Israel | 11 March 2026 | Spain has permanently withdrawn its ambassador from Israel, formally downgrading the level of diplomatic relations with the country. The long-strained relations between Madrid and West Jerusalem have deteriorated amid the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. Spain is the only Western nation that has strongly condemned the attacks. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said his nation will not be “complicit in something that is bad for the world simply out of fear of reprisals from someone.” The decision to terminate the position of ambassador to Israel was announced on Tuesday.

IDF threatens to kill Iran’s new leadership | 9 March 2026 | The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has threatened to assassinate anyone who replaces the slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Iran’s supreme leader. Khamenei and several other senior Iranian officials were killed in the first wave of U.S.‑Israeli airstrikes launched on February 28. …The Assembly of Experts announced on Monday that Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, has been chosen to succeed him. In a statement posted to the IDF’s Farsi account hours before the Assembly announced its decision, the Israeli army issued a warning to its members. “The hand of the State of Israel will continue to pursue every successor and every person involved in his appointment,” the IDF said, adding that it “would not hesitate to target” the clerics attending the assembly’s meetings.

Israeli fire kills Maronite priest in south Lebanon | 9 March 2026 | A south Lebanon parish lost its priest on March 9 when Father Pierre al-Rai of Al-Qlayaa died of wounds sustained from Israeli tank fire, according to state media and a medical source. The National News Agency (NNA) reported that a house in the Christian town was “hit twice in succession by artillery shelling from a hostile Merkava tank” on March 9. The first strike wounded the homeowner and his wife, according to NNA. After several neighbours, including Rai, and Red Cross paramedics rushed to the scene, the house was hit a second time, wounding Rai and three others. The priest later died of his wounds, a medical source told AFP.

Ukraine attacking Russian gas pipeline to stop deliveries to Europe – Defense Ministry | 11 March 2026 | Kiev has been deliberately attacking the infrastructure of the TurkStream gas pipeline in an attempt to halt deliveries to European consumers, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday. The statement comes after pipeline operator Gazprom reported on Wednesday that the Russkaya compressor station in southern Krasnodar Region, which serves as the starting point for supplies through the TurkStream, came under attack overnight. The company said the Beregovaya and Kazachya compressor stations were also targeted the day before, adding that its facilities in southern Russia were attacked 12 times in the past two weeks.

Bomb attempt near NYC mayor’s residence was ‘ISIS-inspired terrorism’ – police | 10 March 2026 | An attempted bomb attack during a protest outside New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s residence in Manhattan is being investigated as an “act of ISIS[I-CIA-SIS]-inspired terrorism,” U.S. officials have said. Two teens accused of supporting Islamic State — Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi — have been charged over the alleged attempt to detonate improvised explosive devices, according to federal prosecutors. The alleged attack occurred during a protest on Saturday near Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s official residence in the city, organized by activist Jake Lang in support of the U.S. military operation in Iran. New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the case is being “investigated as an act of ISIS-inspired terrorism.” “These were not hoax devices nor smoke bombs,” she told reporters, describing the explosives as capable of causing “serious injury or death.”

Self-radicalized ISIS protesters used explosive called ‘Mother of Satan’ inside bombs thrown at Gracie Mansion protest – sources | 10 March 2026 | A pair of ISIS[I-CIA-SIS]-trained extremists were charged with hurling an IED at Gracie Mansion duringa rowdy weekend protest — allegedly packing the homemade bomb with “Mother of Satan,” a volatile explosive favored by international terrorists. The two pro-Muslim men — Ibraham Kayumi, 19, and Emir Balat, 18 — both self-radicalized in recent years and traveled to Turkey and other terror-training hot spots, law enforcement sources close to the case told The Post. The pair admitted to cops after getting busted at the violent demonstration outside the mayor’s residence on Saturday afternoon that they also watched ISIS videos and tossed the bomb at right-wing agitators because they felt the agitators insulted their religion, the sources said.

Trump appoints Erika Kirk to influential Air Force board | 10 March 2026 | Donald Trump has appointed Erika Kirk to serve on an influential board which oversees the U.S. Air Force Academy. Erika fills the seat her husband Charlie Kirk held on the Board of Visitors before he was assassinated in September. The body, which functions like a board of trustees, is charged under federal law with scrutinizing morale, discipline, curriculum, instruction, physical equipment and fiscal affairs at the Colorado Springs academy. Six members are appointed by the President; the remaining nine are designated by Congressional leaders from both parties, including the chairs and ranking members of both Armed Services Committees.

Right-wing AfD makes historic gains in west German election | 9 March 2026 | The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has scored a record result in Baden‑Wurttemberg’s regional elections, doubling its vote share from the previous election and achieving its highest result outside its traditional heartland. The right-wing party finished third in the election held over the weekend, behind the Greens and Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU). It secured nearly 19% of the vote, up from just under 10% in 2021. The result also marks AfD’s highest score outside the former East German states, which are its traditional stronghold. The party’s federal co-chair, Tino Chrupalla, called the result “a huge success.”

Chemical exposure at Illinois nuclear plant leaves 8 people hospitalized, police say | 10 March 2026 | Eight people were hospitalized after being exposed to some sort of chemical at the Byron Nuclear Plant, just southwest of Rockford, on Monday. The Ogle County Sheriff’s Office said affected employees were taken to local hospitals for treatment, and all injuries were believed to be minor. A spokesperson for Constellation, the company that runs the plant, said the workers were exposed to a “small amount of a common non-radiological chemical used in plant systems escaped a holding tank in the turbine building.” The nuclear plant is located about 90 miles west of Chicago.

CIA faces furious backlash after hidden document with potential cure for cancer is declassified after 60 years | 9 March 2026 | A newly surfaced CIA document suggests U.S. intelligence once reviewed research that hinted at a possible cancer treatment more than 60 years ago. The document, produced in February 1951 and declassified in 2014, summarizes a Soviet scientific paper that examined striking similarities between parasitic worms and cancerous tumors. The report describes how researchers believed both organisms thrived under nearly identical metabolic conditions and accumulated large reserves of glycogen, a form of stored energy. The research also highlighted experiments showing that certain chemical compounds were capable of targeting both parasitic infections and malignant tumors. Although the document was declassified more than a decade ago, it has recently resurfaced online, fueling outrage among some Americans who say it raises troubling questions about why Cold War research hinting at possible cancer treatments sat in intelligence archives for decades.

Police swarm Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in hunt for bodies of two strangled girls – as chilling claims emerge of human experiments at remote compound | 10 March 2026 | The sad story of at least two girls killed during rough sex sessions at Jeffrey Epstein’s remote New Mexico ranch is closer to being told, following a massive police swoop on the 7,500 acre property. For years talk of the deaths has swirled around Zorro Ranch in the tiny town of Stanley, 30 miles south of the state capital, Santa Fe — but the identities of the girls have never been known. Now law enforcement is confident it can find the bodies if they exist and put names to the dead girls. Agents from the state Department of Justice along with police and the local sheriff’s office started the search on Monday and continued into Tuesday.

Epstein files were hacked by ‘foreign spy’ three years ago after secret break-in at FBI office | 11 March 2026 | A foreign hacker broke into the FBI’s New York Field Office in 2023 and tampered with files relating to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to a new report. The hacker, whose nationality was not disclosed, reportedly broke into the bureau’s office and gained access to government Epstein files on February 12, 2023, Reuters reports. An investigation into the breach found the hacker had been “combing through certain files pertaining to the Epstein investigation.” A source familiar with the breach told the outlet that the foreign hacker appeared to have been a cybercriminal rather than a foreign government. They also said that the hacker hopped on a video call with FBI agents.

John Cornyn Flip-Flops Again on Filibuster Hours After Promising ‘Whatever it Takes’ to Pass SAVE America Act | 11 March 2026 | Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-TX) abrupt conversion to support eliminating the filibuster if necessary to pass President Donald Trump’s agenda lasted for about a cup of coffee. Within hours of the New York Post publishing an op-ed Wednesday under Cornyn’s name pledging to do whatever it takes to get Trump’s priority legislation passed, Cornyn was recorded in the Capitol backtracking his purported op-ed position. “I support whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary for us to get the SAVE America Act and homeland security funding past the Democrats’ obstruction, through the Senate, and on the president’s desk for his signature,” Cornyn crows in the op-ed, seemingly reversing a fervently held position on the filibuster. Yet by 10:00 a.m., just hours after publication, an agitated Cornyn backtracked before escaping into a Capitol elevator, even raising his hand to block the reporter’s camera.