- Monday, 2 March 2026
AP
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Israel threatens Iran’s top leader after missiles damage hospital and wound more than 200
Israel’s defence minister overtly threatened Iran’s supreme leader on Thursday after the latest missile barrage from Iran damaged the main hospital in southern Israel and hit several other residential buildings near Tel Aviv. Israel, meanwhile, struck a heavy water reactor that is part of Iran’s nuclear program. At least 240 people were wounded by the Iranian missiles, four of them seriously, according to Israel’s Health Ministry. The vast majority were lightly wounded, including more than 70 people from the Soroka Medical Centre in the southern city of Beersheba, where smoke rose as emergency teams evacuated patients. In the aftermath of the strikes, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz blamed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and said the military “has been instructed and knows that in order to achieve all of its goals, this man absolutely should not continue to exist.”
Intense Israeli strikes hit Tehran after Trump demands ‘unconditional surrender’
Intense Israeli airstrikes targeted Iran’s capital early Wednesday, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump demanded “unconditional surrender.” As the U.S. sent warplanes to the Middle East, Trump made a series of statements about the conflict, including warning Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that the U.S. knows where he is hiding but that there were no plans to kill him “at least not for now.” His statements fueled confusion about the U.S.'s role in the conflict as Tehran residents flee their homes on the sixth day of Israel’s air campaign aimed at Iran’s military and nuclear program.
SpaceX launches another Starship rocket after back-to-back explosions, but it tumbles out of control
After back-to-back explosions, SpaceX launched its mega rocket Starship again on Tuesday evening, but fell short of the main objectives when the spacecraft tumbled out of control and broke apart. The 403-foot (123-meter) rocket blasted off on its ninth demo from Starbase, SpaceX’s launch site at the southern tip of Texas. Residents voted this month to organise as an official city. CEO Elon Musk‘s SpaceX hoped to release a series of mock satellites following liftoff, but that got nixed because the door failed to open all the way. Then the spacecraft began spinning as it skimmed space toward an uncontrolled landing in the Indian Ocean.
Asian scam operations spreading worldwide: UN
Transnational organised crime groups in East and Southeast Asia are spreading their lucrative scam operations across the globe in response to increased crackdowns by authorities, according to a U.N. report. For several years, scam compounds have proliferated in Southeast Asia, especially in border areas of Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, as well as in the Philippines, shifting operations from site to site to stay a step ahead of the police. More recently, scam centres that have bilked victims out of billions of dollars through false romantic ploys, bogus investment pitches and illegal gambling schemes are now being reported operating as far afield as Africa and Latin America.
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Anti-Trump protesters rally in New York, Washington and elsewhere across the U.S.
Opponents of President Donald Trump’s administration took to the streets of communities large and small across the U.S. on Saturday, decrying what they see as threats to the nation’s democratic ideals. The disparate events ranged from a march through midtown Manhattan and a rally in front of the White House to a demonstration at a Massachusetts commemoration of “the shot heard ’round the world” on April 19, 1775, marking the start of the Revolutionary War 250 years ago.
U.S. President Trump limits tariffs on most nations for 90 days
Facing a global market meltdown, President Donald Trump abruptly backed off his tariffs on most nations for 90 days even as he further jacked up the tax rate on Chinese imports to 125 per cent. It was seemingly an attempt to narrow what had been an unprecedented trade war between the U.S. and most of the world to a showdown between the U.S. and China. The S&P 500 stock index jumped 9.5% after the announcement, but the drama over Trump’s tariffs is far from over as the administration prepares to engage in country-by-country negotiations. In the meantime, countries subject to the pause will now be tariffed at 10 per cent.
Trump places 25% tariff on imported autos, expecting to raise $100 billion in tax revenues
President Donald Trump said Wednesday he was placing 25% tariffs on auto imports, a move the White House claims would foster domestic manufacturing but could also put a financial squeeze on automakers that depend on global supply chains. “This will continue to spur growth,” Trump told reporters. “We’ll effectively be charging a 25% tariff.”
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Trump administration deports hundreds of immigrants, despite court order
The Trump administration has transferred hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador even as a federal judge issued an order temporarily barring the deportations under an 18th-century wartime declaration targeting Venezuelan gang members, officials said Sunday. Flights were in the air at the time of the ruling. U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg issued an order Saturday temporarily blocking the deportations, but lawyers told him there were already two planes with immigrants in the air — one headed for El Salvador, the other for Honduras. Boasberg verbally ordered the planes be turned around, but they apparently were not and he did not include the directive in his written order. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, in a statement Sunday, responded to speculation about whether the administration was flouting court orders: “The administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order. The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA aliens had already been removed from U.S. territory.”
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Trump pauses US military aid to Ukraine
President Donald Trump on Monday directed a “pause” to U.S. assistance to Ukraine as he seeks to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to engage in negotiations to end the war with Russia. The move comes just days after a disastrous Oval Office meeting in which Trump and Vice President JD Vance tore into Zelenskyy for what they perceived as insufficient gratitude for the more than $180 billion in military aid the U.S. has sent to Kyiv since Russia invaded three years ago.
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Trump administration cutting 90% of USAID foreign aid contracts
The Trump administration said it is eliminating more than 90% of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall U.S. assistance around the world, putting numbers on its plans to eliminate the majority of U.S. development and humanitarian help abroad. The cuts detailed by the administration would leave few surviving USAID projects for advocates to try to save in what are ongoing court battles with the administration. The Trump administration outlined its plans in both an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press and filings in one of those federal lawsuits.
Trump signs executive orders for steel, aluminum tariffs to start March 12
US President Donald Trump signed executive orders to impose 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from March 12, ramping up a long-promised trade war despite warnings from Europe and China.
More than 100 Indian migrants deported by the US arrive home
A U.S. military plane carrying 104 deported Indian migrants arrived in a northern Indian city on Wednesday, the first such flight to the country as part of a crackdown ordered by the Trump administration, airport officials said. The Indians who returned home had illegally entered the United States over the years and came from various Indian states.
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Data from U.S. air accident show conflicting altitude readings
Preliminary data from the deadliest U.S. aviation accident in nearly 25 years showed conflicting readings about the altitudes of an airliner and Army helicopter when they collided near Reagan National Airport in Washington, killing everyone aboard both aircraft, investigators said Saturday. Investigators also said that about a second before impact, the jet’s flight recorder showed a change in its pitch. But they did not say whether that change in angle meant that pilots were trying to perform an evasive manoeuvre to avoid the crash.
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Hamas releases 3 male hostages as part of ceasefire deal with Israel
Hamas released three male hostages Saturday and Israel was to release 183 Palestinian prisoners as part of a ceasefire agreement that has paused fighting in the Gaza Strip after more than 15 months of the war. Militants handed Yarden Bibas and French-Israeli Ofer Kalderon to Red Cross officials in the southern city of Khan Younis, while American-Israeli hostage Keith Siegel, looking pale and thin, was released to the Red Cross later Saturday morning in Gaza City to the north. All three were abducted during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war. Their release brings to 18 the number of hostages released since the ceasefire began on Jan. 19.
Peace prospects look bleak in Myanmar as a civil war rages
Peace prospects look bleak in Myanmar as a civil war rages despite international pressure on the military four years after it seized power from an elected civilian government. The political situation remains tense with no negotiation space in sight between the military government and the major opposition groups fighting against it. The four years after the army’s takeover on Feb. 1, 2021, have created a profound situation of multiple, overlapping crises with nearly half the population in poverty and the economy in disarray, the U.N. Development Program said.
