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Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) became the first Republican lawmaker to call for President Donald Trump to replace Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.The retiring North Carolina Republican voted to confirm the former Fox News host to lead the Pentagon, but he said Hegseth's purge of the military's top ranks – including the resignation this week of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll – has created a leadership void during a time of war and showed he's not up to the job."I thank @SecArmy Dan Driscoll for his leadership to our Army and service to our country," Tillis posted on X. "Dan was the right man at the right moment to lead our Soldiers and Army, civilians."Driscoll is among at least 20 generals, admirals and civilian defense leaders who have been fired or pushed out since Hegseth became defense secretary, according to a CBS News review, including the Army, Navy and Air Force's top uniformed officers."Our understanding and assumptions of warfare are being challenged in places like Ukraine and Iran, and Dan understands the old way of doing business no longer applies," Tillis added. "He and [former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy] George began a transformative period of innovation in how we array our forces and equip our Soldiers. He challenged our legacy approach to manning and procurement. Most of all, he cared deeply about the men and women in our Army formations and quickly earned their respect."Before his nomination, Hegseth criticized officers he viewed as too focused on diversity initiatives, and as secretary he abruptly dismissed Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Charles Q. Brown and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti in February 2025, along with other senior leaders, often without public explanation. A source told CBS News that Black and female officers have been disproportionately removed from promotion lists, and no active-duty four-star women currently serve."If we had a @SecWar who maintained the same priorities and forward-thinking, he would be fighting to retain talented leaders like Dan and the many flag officers he has forced into retirement," Tillis wrote. "Instead, he is creating a leadership void at the top of our military ranks.""I served on Senate Armed Services for 8 years and as chair or ranking member of the Personnel and Readiness subcommittee," Tillis added. "I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country. He is intimidated by competence and retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well-being of our fighting force. I urge the President to find a new leader at the Pentagon who will retain and empower our military talent rather than diminish it."

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) drew laughs from a CNN political panel on Wednesday after insisting she would not discuss a personal detail about her Democratic opponent — before blurting it out anyway. The moment came during Collins’ interview with Politico’s Jonathan Martin, who asked whether the personal life of Maine Democratic candidate Troy Jackson should be considered fair game in their Senate race.“Well, I’m not going to bring up the fact that the mother of his two children is his second cousin," Collins replied. “I don’t know whether people know that or not.”“I think you just mentioned it,” Martin quickly pointed out.“Well, in Aroostook County, you know,” Collins said.The clip drew immediate laughter on the CNN set of “Inside Politics with Dana Bash.”“But I’m not going to bring that up,” Bash joked Wednesday. “The thing that I’m going to say — something I’m not going to bring up.”“That was so well crafted,” CNN political director David Chalian added, chuckling.Chalian said that Collins “clearly didn’t mind talking about it,” even as she tried to suggest it would not become “a centerpiece of her campaign.”But he doubted that Jackson’s relationship would decide the race, instead suggesting that Collins's relationship with President Donald Trump would likely matter more to Maine voters.“And how she navigates being a Republican running for reelection in this environment from a state that was not hospitable to Donald Trump in any of the times he ran for office,” he said.“She’s using what she can,” Bash concluded, “given the fact that Troy Jackson is a local politician and elected official.”

President Donald Trump's administration has been accused of a war crime after a missile strike hit a wedding and, according to an Iranian humanitarian group, killed a child and three others, reports show.The Iranian Red Crescent Society said four people were killed and more than 50 injured after shrapnel from a U.S. missile struck a home in Sirik, on Iran's Strait of Hormuz coastline, where a wedding was underway, according to the report, reported the BBC.Iran has launched missile and drone strikes against U.S. targets across the Persian Gulf region after American forces resumed attacks on Iran this week, escalating a conflict that reignited after the strike that hit a wedding ceremony, according to the report.The U.S. military said it was aware of the reports but denied targeting noncombatants. "The U.S. military never targets civilians," Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins said on behalf of U.S. Central Command.Centcom said the strikes followed "recent attempted attacks" by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and on American forces. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps vowed retaliation, and by early Wednesday had fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at a U.S. Marine base in Jordan's Aqaba. Jordanian forces said they intercepted 13 missiles, destroying 10, with three landing in remote areas and no casualties reported. Kuwait's military said its air defenses responded to Iranian fire, explosions were reported in Bahrain, and a U.S. base in Iraq's Kurdistan region was hit, damaging a maintenance center and warehouses.The exchange follows a monthlong pause after the U.S. and Israel launched wide strikes on Iran in late February, prompting Iranian retaliation against Israel, U.S. bases and Gulf allies, and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.A ceasefire extension known as the Memorandum of Understanding, signed in June, has since expired.Washington has paired its renewed strikes with a fresh sanctions campaign announced in August, targeting Iran and its trading partners.Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said allies have pledged support for the effort. Iranian officials have dismissed the sanctions as a continuation of prior pressure they said was tied to Washington's military failure in the earlier conflict.

The Justice Department's first-ever prosecution of protesters of the Trump administration under a church-protection law now faces dismissal, with defendants arguing President Donald Trump ordered it out of spite.Most of the more than 30 people charged over a January ICE protest inside a St. Paul church asked a federal judge on Aug. 31 to throw out the case, according to a joint motion filed in U.S. District Court in Minnesota.A large slate of lawyers argued the government charged their clients as political payback at the behest of the president as part of a selective and vindictive prosecution, the motion states.The defendants were reacting to Trump's directives, which "caused terror, violence, and murder in Minnesota" when they entered Cities Church in St. Paul on Jan. 18, prompted by the knowledge that its pastor David Easterwood also worked for the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office, their attorneys argued. Federal charges followed within days. Federal agents arrested Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights attorney and activist, on Jan. 22, and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the arrest on social media, claiming that NAACP leader Levy Armstrong "allegedly played a key role in organizing the coordinated attack on Cities Church." A grand jury indicted nine defendants a week later, and a superseding indictment in February added 30 more people.Days earlier, Renee Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother of three, was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis.The Trump administration's crackdown on protesters continued following the church arrests. Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse at the VA hospital, was shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol officer on Jan. 24 while protesting peacefully in Minneapolis, the motion says. The shootings occurred during Operation Metro Surge, which sent as many as 2,000 federal agents and officers into the Minneapolis area for what the motion describes as one of the largest single-city Homeland Security mobilizations in years.Those arrested at the Minnesota church, including Armstrong and others, pleaded not guilty in February to conspiracy against rights."They have altered the facts, just as they altered my image as a way of trying to criminalize nonviolent, peaceful protests and lawful dissent against their unlawful and unjust actions," Armstrong told Democracy Now!, referring to an administration photo that appeared digitally altered to show her crying.The activist's protests were based on the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a law Congress passed to stop violence against abortion providers. The law covers places of worship. No one had ever been criminally charged under the law's place-of-worship provision in its 30-year history, according to the motion.The vindictive prosecution motion notes that the charges are "unequal, oppressive" and have "a clear and dangerous chilling effect on the Defendants and anyone else who wants to voice their opposition to U.S. Government policies"The motion argues that the Justice Department brought the case "at the direction and behest of President Donald J. Trump" and to fulfill a "mission to satisfy the personal animosities of its chief client, Donald Trump." "Sadly, this is not at all hyperbole, but the cold hard facts behind this prosecution," the motion says of the department's approach.While these defendants face felonies, people convicted of blocking abortion clinics went free. Trump pardoned 24 people convicted of FACE Act violations within days of taking office in 2025, some of whom had been convicted in multiple jurisdictions, according to the motion.One pardoned defendant had live-streamed her intent to "terrorize this place" the day before she barricaded a Manhattan clinic door, crushing a worker's hand with such force that three people were needed to pry the door open, the motion says."The record shows that individuals who engaged in the same or much more serious and violent conduct, whether at a progressive liberal church or an abortion clinic, were treated differently," the motion says.Anti-abortion activist Mark Houck was charged with shoving an elderly clinic escort to the ground twice and was acquitted at trial, the motion says. He then sued the government, and a district judge dismissed every claim as not plausible.The administration reportedly agreed to pay Houck more than $1 million to settle the case on appeal without ever filing a brief in defense of the government, according to the motion."Not only were such similarly situated individuals not prosecuted, they were in many instances rewarded with large monetary payouts from the Justice Department," the motion says.Two other church disruptions drew no federal charges at all, the motion says. Protesters in Orlando, Florida, rose during a children's sermon at an LGBTQ-affirming church in March 2025 and shouted "Synagogue of Sin!" at the congregation, according to the motion.Republican congressional candidate Valentina Gomez stood up during a service at a Texas church in November 2025 and said that "homosexuality is a sin and whoever supports that is worthy of death," the motion says.Neither incident produced a federal investigation or a FACE Act charge, according to the filing.The dismissal motion is not the only trouble facing prosecutors. U.S. Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko ordered the Justice Department in July to hand over grand jury testimony and evidence so he could determine whether the government misled jurors while seeking the indictment.Journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort filed their own motions to dismiss in August, with Fort arguing that she was covering the protest as a reporter."The invasion of Cities Church was a planned, coordinated effort to disrupt a worship service and interfere with religious exercise that placed congregants, including children, in fear for their lives," Doug Wardlow, litigation director at True North Legal, said in February on behalf of the church.Defendants asked the court to dismiss the case outright, or to grant them access to internal Justice Department communications and hold a hearing where they could present evidence, according to the motion.

Several missing Australians have been found since Tuesday morning, bringing the total citizens unaccounted for to 38Australians missing in the Nepal floods: what we know so farA total of five Australians missing after devastating floods ravaged the Nepal-Tibet border last week have been found.Of the five Australians confirmed safe, one was found in Nepal, one in Tibet, and three outside the crisis-hit area. The total number still missing is 38. Continue reading...

President Donald Trump admitted that he's not trying to bring Iran to the bargaining table in a Truth Social post.On Tuesday night, Trump let the admission slip during an attack on "ABC Fake News." In the post, he wrote, "I'm not trying to force Iran to the bargaining table," and "I couldn't care less if they sign a worthless, to them, agreement." He also signed off with, "When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?"

Inviting a top Russian official onto American soil has drawn fierce criticism and left Western allies fuming, according to The Wall Street Journal.In a Tuesday editorial, The Journal's editorial board slammed the Trump administration's decision to bring Russia's finance minister to this week's G-20 gathering in North Carolina, calling the move "especially unfortunate.""The German finance minister was justifiably angry to see Russia welcomed to such a forum for the first time since the Ukraine invasion in February 2022," the board wrote. The Journal warned that Russian leader Vladimir Putin "will pocket the international legitimacy from the visit and continue his terror bombing of civilians in Kyiv."The Journal's criticism landed the same day Germany blamed Moscow for a drone attack at Leipzig airport last month. The Journal noted that the airport serves as a supply route for Ukraine. German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt cast the incident as part of a wider campaign and said his country does not consider itself "at war" but has become "the daily target of hybrid warfare," according to The Journal.Putin's "hybrid" playbook, which includes cyberattacks and dragging anchors across undersea cables, is a way to deny responsibility while forcing the West to absorb the cost of escalation, according to The Journal. The aim is to splinter NATO without firing a shot, The Journal warned."Mr. Putin is behaving like he thinks he can get away with flagrant provocations," The Journal wrote. "Europe for too long hasn't wanted to risk speaking plainly about the threat, which makes Germany's blunt comments this week all the more welcome."Russia is pegged as the main culprit for 144 drone incidents across 13 countries in less than two years, according to an International Institute for Strategic Studies count cited by The Journal.The Journal suggested that Trump's "time would be better spent trying to move the late Sen. Lindsey Graham's Russian sanctions bill through the House, where its fate this week is uncertain."

Two news anchors reacted with alarm to the global bond selloff and mocked the Trump administration's failed response.On Tuesday, CNN anchor Erin Burnett and Richard Quest, the host of Quest Means Business, explained what's happening in the global bond market and why it spells trouble for major economies.Burnett described how "turmoil" like the war in Iran has led to "meaningful economic impacts, and people experience them every single day." Referring to a global bond selloff, Burnett explained, "something happened today in the market that was sort of a five-alarm fire when it comes to where things are going.""It's very concerning because it's the markets telling governments, not just in the United States but also in Europe and in Japan, that their fiscal path is unsustainable," Quest said.Quest explained that investors known as "bond vigilantes" are behind the global selloff, adding that they only "come out of the woodwork when they see government debt or even corporate debt" that they think is unsustainable."They basically ratchet the price down and the yield up," Quest explained. "That's not fine for a company, but that's only a company. In this case, we're talking about the U.S. government debt."Quest noted that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tried to quell the turbulent bond markets a couple of weeks ago, but that "seems to have failed because rates are back where they were. The market is basically saying they don't believe what this administration is planning to do."Burnett flagged that as "a hugely significant thing to say" because the Treasury Secretary, along with the Federal Reserve chairman, are people who "the markets have taken very seriously."She also played a clip of Bessent saying, "The U.S. bond market has been the best-performing market since the president came in," which was met with laughter by Quest."He was trying to move the price rather than the fundamentals," Quest said, explaining Bessent's failure. "The best analogy that I can give you for that quote from Bessent is that famous line, 'the cleanest dirty white shirt in the laundry,' and that's what the U.S. is."