Despite the U.S. campaign, Iran retains enough military capabilities to inflict considerable damage to U.S. service members and America’s allies and assets in the Middle East.

Less than 48 hours after Donald Trump told Americans the U.S. military had “beaten and completely decimated Iran,” Tehran shot down an F-15E fighter jet, setting off a high-risk scramble by U.S. forces to rescue two service members from deep inside Iranian territory. Iran also struck two Blackhawk helicopters and an attack jet that were assisting in the search and rescue effort.

The harrowing incidents have put in stark relief a growing challenge facing the president as the war enters its second month: Despite a daily bombing campaign and his triumphant wartime narrative, Iran retains enough military capabilities to inflict considerable damage to U.S. service members and America’s allies and assets in the Middle East.

Ripple effects of oil and fertiliser shortage felt by farmers in India and Sri Lanka despite governments saying there is enough stock to go round

Experts say South Asian countries such as India and Sri Lanka are particularly vulnerable, due to their heavy reliance on imported fertilisers and imported gas and fuel for farming. India is the world’s second-largest fertiliser consumer after China, using more than 60m tonnes annually, and most of its exports – including both finished products and raw materials – usually come from Gulf countries, shipped through the strait of Hormuz.

In countries such as India, the ripple effects of a gas and fertiliser shortage could be felt for months to come, affecting what crops farmers are able to plant and how much they yield, which could ultimately translate into stockpiles of essential produce such as rice falling short.

The ability for farmers to water, harvest, process, store and transport crops will also be drastically hit by oil and diesel shortages and surging electricity prices, triggering further worries over shortages.

Veteran justice, 76, was treated for dehydration in March; a retirement would give Trump new chance to shape court

US supreme court justice Samuel Alito was reportedly taken to a hospital after becoming sick at a Federalist Society dinner in Philadelphia in March, further fueling speculation that Donald Trump could have more chances to shape the land’s highest court through new appointments.

A CNN report said Alito was checked by medical staff and given fluids due to dehydration. He later returned to his home in Virginia that same night with his security detail. In the weeks since, Alito has resumed his duties, including participating in oral arguments.

The supreme court’s public information officer, Patricia McCabe, confirmed the incident and shared a statement with the Guardian that said, “On the evening of Friday, [20 March], Justice Alito felt ill during an event in Philadelphia. Out of an abundance of caution, he agreed with his security detail’s recommendation to see a physician before the three-hour drive home.”

Ibrahim Traoré, who took power in 2022 coup, tells state broadcaster ‘we must tell the truth, democracy isn’t for us’

People in Burkina Faso should forget about democracy as it is “not for us”, the military president, Ibrahim Traoré, told the country’s state broadcaster.

Traoré took power in a coup in September 2022, toppling another junta that had taken power just nine months earlier. He has since stifled opposition and in January banned political parties outright.

A transition to democracy had originally been planned for 2024, but that year the junta extended Traoré’s rule until 2029.

“We’re not even talking about elections, first of all … People need to forget about the question of democracy … We must tell the truth, democracy isn’t for us,” Traoré said in an interview on Thursday with the state broadcaster Radiodiffusion Télévision du Burkina (RTB).

The four Artemis astronauts have fired up their spacecraft’s engine to break away from Earth’s orbit and zoomed towards the moon, a milestone that commits Nasa to the first crewed lunar flyby in more than half a century.

With enough thrust to accelerate a stationary car to highway-driving speed in less than three seconds, the Orion capsule engine blasted on Thursday the astronauts on their trajectory towards the moon, which they now will loop as part of the 10-day Artemis 2 mission.

The burn lasting just under six minutes propelled them on their three-day voyage towards Earth’s natural satellite, the first since 1972.

Pam Bondi’s swift dismissal on Thursday underscores a reality that has met Trump loyalists from Jeff Sessions to Kristi Noem – no amount of loyalty is enough to save oneself from being dumped by Donald Trump.

Since the president assumed office last year, there have been few people more important to his effort to remake government than Bondi, his longtime friend.

Trump pledged that retribution would be the hallmark of his second term, and Bondi was the chief enforcer from her first day in office. As attorney general, she obliterated the longstanding norm that the justice department be apolitical and keep the White House at arm’s length. She oversaw purges of career employees who had been assigned to work on the criminal cases against Trump as well as scores of career lawyers with irreplaceable expertise. She also oversaw politically motivated prosecutions against Trump’s political enemies, including the former FBI director James Comey and New York attorney general, Letitia James.

Richard Blumenthal says company acts like it has ‘get-out-of-jail-free card’ as records show it upping fees to cut losses

Senators slammed Ticketmaster for raising ticket fees following a regulatory crackdown on hidden charges as revealed in a report by the Guardian last week.

The Federal Trade Commission last May began requiring Ticketmaster to disclose concert ticket fees upfront – a practice known as all-in pricing. The company eliminated the order processing fee it charged at the the end of a transaction to comply with the rule.

But documents obtained by the Guardian in public records requests show how Ticketmaster simply raised other fees so it wouldn’t lose money.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who Donald Trump tapped Thursday to serve as the interim head of the Justice Department, managed the day-to-day operations of the department over the past year, often taking a more public-facing role when Pam Bondi was in hot water with White House officials.

Early in the administration, in fact, the White House told the now-former attorney general she could not appear on Fox News for a time amid fallout over the Justice Department’s handling of making parts of the documents related to Jeffrey Epstein public. Blanche appeared in her absence, helming the administration’s defense over the drawn-out Epstein debacle.

Senior Army leadership was caught off guard by Thursday’s abrupt announcement, a US official told CNN — learning of George’s forced departure along with the rest of the Defense Department, when it was announced publicly.

George found out in a phone call from Hegseth on Thursday while he was in a meeting, a second US official said. He later spoke to his staff in-person about the announcement and his staff was “very stoic” when receiving the news, the official said.

Hegseth’s move comes a day after Donald Trump’s address to the nation on the Iran war. In the speech, Trump signaled the US will intensify strikes on Iran, after earlier suggesting the US could be done with the war within two to three weeks.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has been fired, a senior administration official and a source familiar with the matter told NBC News. 

Donald Trump had grown “more and more frustrated”  with Bondi in recent days, a person familiar with White House deliberations said, adding that while he likes her as a person, he doesn’t think she has “executed on his vision” in the way that he wants. 

According to a source familiar with the decision, Todd Blanche will be the acting attorney general, effective immediately.

Democrats sued Wednesday to block Donald Trump’s latest executive order restricting mail voting, arguing that the U.S. Constitution empowers states and Congress, not the president, to determine who is eligible to vote by mail.

The lawsuit marks the second round of battles over the president’s power to control elections. Trump’s opponents handily won the first round last year, blocking his initial executive order intended to reshape election procedures by convincing multiple federal judges that it was likely unconstitutional.

Trump on Tuesday announced that his administration would compile lists of who is eligible to vote in states and that the U.S. Postal Service would only mail ballots to those who met that criteria. Critics note that there’s little time to comb through voter rolls before ballots start going out for this fall’s elections, in some places as soon as September, and question whether the administration’s list would be reliable.