Early Edition: March 20, 2026

Signup to receive the Early Edition in your inbox here.

A curated weekday guide to major news and developments over the last 24 hours. Here’s today’s news:

IRAN WAR 

Iranian drones hit a Kuwaiti oil refinery early this morning. The refinery, which can process some 730,000 barrels of oil per day, was already damaged yesterday in an Iranian attack following Israeli air strikes on Iran’s South Pars offshore natural gas field. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that Israel would hold off on any further attacks on the gas field at the request of President Trump. Israeli airstrikes over Tehran are ongoing today. Jon Gambrell and David Rising report for AP News.  

Netanyahu also said yesterday that Iran no longer possessed the ability to enrich uranium or manufacture ballistic missiles as a result of U.S.-Israeli strikes. He did not provide any evidence to support his claims. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, contended yesterday that the United States was hitting all of its targets in Iran. “To date we’ve struck over 7,000 targets across Iran and its military infrastructure,” Hegseth insisted, saying that Thursday would be “the largest strike package yet,” repeating his vow of “death and destruction from above.” Ashley Ahn reports for the New York Times; David. E. Sanger reports for the New York Times.

Iranian strikes have knocked out 17% of Qatar’s liquefied natural gas export capacity, causing an estimated $20 billion in lost annual revenue, QatarEnergy’s CEO and state minister for energy affairs told Reuters yesterday. Maha el Dahan, Andrew Mills, and Yousef Saba report. 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said yesterday that the United States is considering suspending sanctions on Iranian oil already at sea in an effort to free up roughly 140 million barrels and clamp down on energy prices. “In essence, we will be using the Iranian barrels against the Iranians to keep the price down for the next 10 or 14 days, as we continue this campaign,” Bessent added. He also said that the Trump administration is thinking about releasing more from the Strategic Oil Reserve. David. E. Sanger reports for the New York Times; Gregory Svirnovskiy and Ben Lefebvre report for POLITICO.  

Trump and Hegseth confirmed yesterday that the Pentagon would ask Congress for more money to wage war in Iran, though Hegseth said the reported $200 billion figure “could move.” “Obviously it takes money to kill bad guys, so we’re going back to Congress and our folks there to ensure that we’re properly funded for what’s been done,” Hegseth said. $200 billion is more than the annual defense spending of every country in the world except for the United States and China. Dave Lawler reports for Axios.  

Iranian hackers tied to a recent U.S. cyberattack have been running a broader intimidation campaign that involved issuing death threats and suggesting they have ties to a Mexican cartel to “commit acts of violence,” the Justice Department said yesterday. The FBI said yesterday it seized four domains used by actors tied to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security. The FBI alleged the domains were used for “attempted psychological operations,” including claiming cyberattacks, leaking stolen data and calling for the killing of journalists, dissidents and Israelis. Sam Sabin reports for Axios.  

IRAN WAR – POLITICAL RESPONSE 

Seven nations yesterday announced their support for a potential coalition to reopen the Strait of Hormuz for commercial ships and oil tankers in a joint statement. The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, and Canada signed the statement.  U.K. military officers have been sent to CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa, Florida to start working with the U.S. military to draw up options to reopen the strait, according to a British official. Barak Ravid reports for Axios; Stephen Castle reports for the New York Times. 

ISRAEL-GAZA WAR 

Two Israeli airstrikes yesterday killed at least four Palestinians and wounded several others in Gaza City, local health officials said. Reuters reports.  

Israel opened the Rafah crossing with Egypt yesterday to allow some wounded Palestinians to leave for treatment, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. The organization said only eight people, who were injured in Israeli attacks, and 17 of their family members would be allowed into Egypt for treatment. It is unclear how many would be let through from Egypt back into Gaza. Reuters reports.  

RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR 

The Kremlin said yesterday that talks between Washington, Moscow, and Kyiv on ending the war in Ukraine were on a “situational pause” following the start of the Iran war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was time to end the pause and said a Ukrainian team was on its way to the United States for talks this weekend. Guy Faulconbridge and Dmitry Antonov report for Reuters.  

OTHER GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS  

The Israeli military struck infrastructure sites belonging to the Syrian government overnight in response to attacks against Druze civilians in Sweida, the Israeli military said today. Reuters reports.   

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko yesterday freed 250 political prisoners in return for a further easing of U.S. sanctions, the U.S. Embassy in Lithuania said. U.S. presidential envoy John Coale told Reuters he ​expected all remaining political prisoners to be released by the end of this year. If this happened, the United States would remove all sanctions placed on Belarus over the ​suppression of protests in 2020, he said. Andrius Sytas and Mark Trevelyan report.

Officials from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda met in the United States this week and agreed on steps to reduce tensions in eastern DRC, including disengaging forces and respecting each other’s territorial integrity, according to a joint statement released yesterday. AP News reports. 

U.S. FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

During a White House meeting yesterday, Trump joked about the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack while speaking with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, breaking a long-standing diplomatic norm of avoiding such remarks. Trump was responding to a question about why Japan and other allies had received no advance notice of the U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran. “We didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise,” adding, “Who knows better about surprise than Japan, OK? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor, OK?” Javier C. Hernandez reports for the New York Times.  

The Danish military sent explosives and blood supplies to Greenland in January as part of contingency planning for a U.S. attack, two European officials said yesterday. Danish troops dispatched to Greenland at the start of the year took enough explosives to destroy the island’s main runways near the capital Nuuk and at a former fighter base in Kangerlussuaq, Denmark’s public broadcaster reported. Richard Milne, Henry Foy, and Mari Novik report for the Financial Times.  

U.S. CARIBBEAN AND PACIFIC OPERATIONS 

U.S. Southern Command Commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday that U.S. strikes against boats suspected of trafficking drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean “aren’t the answer” to the nation’s drug problem. Donovan said the strikes had forced narco-terrorist groups in the region to change their operational patterns, but were not a long-term solution. Eric Schmitt reports for the New York Times.  

U.S. DOMESTIC DEVELOPMENTS 

The Federal Communications Commission yesterday approved the $6.2 billion merger of Nexstar and Tegna. The combined company will own more than 250 TV stations and reach more than half of American households, breaching a cap passed by Congress in 2004 that limits broadcasters to only reaching 39 percent of viewers. John Hendel reports for POLITICO.  

Former FBI director James Comey has been subpoenaed in the wide-ranging “grand conspiracy” case against the ex-officials who investigated and prosecuted Trump, two sources said. The Comey subpoena, issued last week, relates to his alleged role in the drafting of a January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment concerning Russia’s election interference that favored Trump. Marc Caputo reports for Axios. 

Members of the Commission of Fine Arts yesterday voted to approve a commemorative U.S. gold coin featuring Trump. New coin designs are supposed to receive approval from two panels and the second panel, the bipartisan Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, refused last month to consider the proposed gold coin, Dan Diamond reports for the Washington Post.  

Anthropic’s Jack Clark attended a bipartisan House Homeland Security Committee closed-door briefing on Wednesday, according to sources, and only briefly touched on the company’s fight with the Pentagon. The discussion focused largely on issues like model distillation – shrinking powerful AI systems into smaller versions – and export controls. Maria Curi reports for Axios.  

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ACTIONS 

FBI Director Kash Patel yesterday told lawmakers that agents who had worked on an investigation of Trump were dismissed last month because they were found to have violated the bureau’s ethics rules. Patel declined to specify what the purported violations were, citing pending litigation over the matter. Devlin Barrett reports for the New York Times.  

Trump told reporters yesterday that the Justice Department’s investigation into Jerome Powell over testimony about a costly Federal Reserve renovation should continue, despite a ruling by a federal judge that the administration’s subpoenas were a “mere pretext” to pressure the Fed to lower interest rates. U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro said last week she would appeal the court decision quashing her subpoena requests. Victoria Guida reports for POLITICO.  

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION LITIGATION 

A federal judge yesterday ruled that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr had violated accepted procedures by publishing a document in December 2025 in which he declared that gender-affirming care for minors was neither “safe nor effective” and that those who offer it were threatening “the health and safety of those with gender dysphoria.” Rachel Bluth reports for POLITICO.  

Two former FBI agents filed a lawsuit yesterday accusing the Justice Department of targeting them for “political retribution.” They were fired last year for having worked on an investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn his loss of the 2020 election. Alan Feuer reports for the New York Times.  

Did you miss this? Stay up-to-date with our Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions.

If you enjoy listening, Just Security’s analytic articles are also available in audio form on the justsecurity.org website.

ICYMI: Yesterday on Just Security

Interface Design as a Condition of Remedy in Meta’s Platform Governance

By Tanmay Durani