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Just one year after Iran unveiled its first drone carrier, the Shahid Bagheri — designed to carry multiple squadrons of drones and operate helicopters — the U.S. military said it struck the vessel, which is now burning. In a statement issued overnight between Wednesday and Thursday, the commander of U.S. Central Command, Adm. Brad Cooper, said American forces had sunk or destroyed more than 30 vessels during the campaign. He added that in the past several hours, U.S. forces had also struck an Iranian drone carrier roughly comparable in size to a World War II–era aircraft carrier. The Shahid Bagheri features a runway allowing drones to take off and land.

In the aftermath of the Israeli-U.S. strikes on Iran, American allies in the Persian Gulf are hearing a sound that Ukrainian soldiers have long come to dread: the foreboding hum of the Shahed-136 ‘kamikaze’ drone. First designed in Iran, the Shahed has already become a fixture of modern warfare, with Tehran’s strategic partner, Russia, utilizing the technology in its years-long invasion of Ukraine. Now, the drones — the most advanced of which is the long-ranged Shahed-136 — have become central to Iran’s retaliation strategy against the U.S. and its regional allies, with thousands unleashed so far.

The US has delivered “overwhelming and unprecedented” strikes into Iran in the first 100 hours of "Operation Epic Fury", the US commander in charge of combat operations in the region said. To put things in perspective, Admiral Brad Cooper said the initial 24 hours of the February 28 Iran strikes were double the scale of “Shock-and-Awe” strikes on 2003 in Iraq. “We continue with 24/7 strikes into Iran from seabed to space and cyberspace,” Cooper said. "In simple terms, we're focused on shooting all the things that can shoot at us... We're also sinking the Iranian Navy, the entire navy."

Spain has denied the US permission to use their shared bases to launch attacks against Iran. The country's socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez condemned Israel and the US for striking Iran and killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said Spain wanted 'democracy, freedom and fundamental rights for the Iranian people', but it would not allow its bases to be used in the ongoing military action. The decision puts Spain at odds with its European partners including the UK, France and Germany, who on Sunday said they would defend their interests in the region through defensive action to destroy Iran's capability to fire missiles and drones.

The UK has agreed to a US request to use British military bases for "defensive" strikes on Iranian missile sites, Sir Keir Starmer has said. But the prime minister said the UK had learned lessons from the "mistakes of Iraq", and was not involved in the initial strikes on Iran and "will not join offensive action now". Sir Keir said the basis of the decision to accept the US request was the "collective self-defence" of allies and protecting British lives, accusing Iran of pursuing a "scorched-earth strategy". The BBC understands the US is likely to use RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean for strikes on Iranian missile sites.

A site in Iraq that is associated with the Iranian-backed militias has reportedly been struck amid the clashes that have broken out between the US, Israel, and Iran. Shafaq News in Iraq “reported that a security source and another in the Popular Mobilization Forces reported on Saturday that an Israeli missile strike targeted the headquarters of the Popular Mobilization Forces in the Jurf al-Sakhr area, specifically targeting the headquarters of Kataib Hezbollah.” This apparently happened on Saturday morning in the context of US and Israeli strikes on Iran. Iran has retaliated with attacks across the region. Kataib Hezbollah is an Iraqi militia closely linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Most people know Stephen Miller as the steely face of Donald Trump’s deportation push. But Miller has other jobs inside the West Wing; lots of other jobs. A given day might find Miller pressing to fix the dry, malfunctioning fountains in Washington, D.C., or to replace broken security cameras on the city’s streets, a senior administration official said. He is helping drive the president’s effort to force changes on college campuses meant to uproot what Trump believes is an embedded liberal culture. “He [Miller] wants to focus on it,” said Sen. Graham about Trump’s education agenda. “We need to do something about these universities, they’re just out of hand here.”

Iraq expects the US transfer of ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq to end on February 12, Iraq’s Justice Minister Khaled Shwani told Kurdish channel Rudaw. This is an important accomplishment. In two weeks, around 7,000 ISIS detainees were expected to be moved from Syria to Iraq in a mission that US Central Command undertook in January. The move was due to changes on the ground in Syria. The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces gave up control of most of eastern Syria, including around 30 ISIS detention facilities, to the Syrian government in January. Iraq says it will investigate the detainees and charge those who are criminals, and try to repatriate

Shortly after Nancy Guthrie disappeared, Pima County, Arizona, Sheriff Chris Nanos said that a camera affixed to her door had been disconnected, that she did not have a subscription that would have saved video and that investigators were trying to work with a tech company on the difficult forensic task of recovering any video. Against those odds, they were successful. More than a week after her reported disappearance, that video was revealed, marking the most significant public development in a case that has captured the nation.

How Chinese is your car? Automakers are racing to work it out. Modern cars are packed with internet-connected widgets, many of them containing Chinese technology. Now, the car industry is scrambling to root out that tech ahead of a looming deadline, a test case for America’s ability to decouple from Chinese supply chains. New U.S. rules will soon ban Chinese software in vehicle systems that connect to the cloud, part of an effort to prevent cameras, microphones and GPS tracking in cars from being exploited by foreign adversaries. The move is “one of the most consequential and complex auto regulations in decades,”

The Brandeis Center lawsuit against the organizations that conspired to engineer the pro-Hamas UCLA encampments that terrorized Jewish students scored a big victory recently when a federal judge allowed claims against two of the groups to proceed. United States District Court Judge Mark Scarsi that “Plaintiffs have pleaded sufficient facts to raise an inference that [National Students for Justice in Palestine] and [People’s City Council] acted with the requisite discriminatory animus” to establish plausible claims of discrimination and conspiracy. “Plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that NSJP and PCC acted at least in part to deprive Plaintiffs of their Thirteenth Amendment rights to be free from race-based violence and exclusion. “

San Francisco could be in hot water over a plan to pay reparations to black residents. Two San Francisco taxpayers, activist Richie Greenberg and resident Arthur Ritchie, have sued the city over the controversial plan to hand out benefits to “individuals who are black and/or descendants of a chattel enslaved person and have experienced a proven harm in San Francisco,” according to a bill quietly signed by Mayor Daniel Lurie in December. The plaintiffs, including the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, slammed the reparations plan as a “sordid and unconstitutional enterprise” amounting to a “racial spoils system” in a fiery complaint filed Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court.