Sign up 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
The United States is sending its aircraft carrier, the USS George Washington, to the Middle East to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been on an extended deployment due to the war against Iran. There are growing concerns about the sailors’ morale and the living conditions on board the USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been deployed for more than 250 days and has not made a port call in 200 days. Shelby Holliday and Yoko Kubota report for the Wall Street Journal.
Senate Democrats are pushing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for answers after the Military Times reported that conditions on board the USS Abraham Lincoln are so abysmal that at least two sailors have attempted to jump overboard. On Thursday, Hegseth said the situation has been “completely misrepresented.” Democratic Senator Mark Kelly wrote on X, “Long deployments are hard. They are a lot harder when the mission isn’t well defined and there is no end in sight.” Sammy Westfall for the Washington Post.
After months of war with Iran, the U.S. military has lost at least 45 MQ-9 Reaper drones, roughly 25 percent of its fleet. “The potential taxpayer cost of recent losses is over $1.3 billion for that weapon system alone,” Tara Copp and Noah Robertson report for the Washington Post.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels said they attacked an Aramco refinery in Saudi Arabia’s Jazan with two drones on Thursday. The group claimed the attack was in response to Saudi violations of Yemeni airspace and sovereignty. Reuters reports.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested the United States would soon be pressuring Iran with economic measures. “It will be a combination of economic isolation like the world has never seen before,” Bessent told Newsmax without providing any additional details. Lim Hui Jie for CNBC.
WEST BANK VIOLENCE
The Israel Defense Forces failed to permanently evict the settlers who were besieging two Palestinian families in the West Bank on Thursday. In the morning, the Israeli military managed to remove the settlers attacking the families trapped in their houses, but several hours later, they were back. One of the homeowners is an American citizen. On Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee condemned the attacks. Natan Odenheimer and Fatima Abdul Karim report for the New York Times.
U.S. CARIBBEAN AND PACIFIC OPERATIONS
The Washington Post has learned that the mysterious strikes targeting Ecuadorian fishing boats near the Galápagos Islands earlier this year were carried out as part of a covert CIA program. In January, one vessel, the Fiorella, along with its eight crew members, disappeared and has not been seen or heard from since. But men on board two other fishing boats that were struck in March survived and have shared with journalists what happened to them. Imogen Piper, Ellen Nakashima, Samantha Schmidt, Samuel Oakford, Warren P. Strobel, Alex Horton, and Aaron Schaffer report for the Washington Post.
RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR
Poland thwarted a Russian plot to kill a Ukrainian-American citizen in Warsaw before the crime could be carried out, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Thursday. “This is the first situation of its kind in which someone, acting on Russian orders, decided to carry out an attack against an American citizen on the territory of another NATO country,” Tusk said. CBS News reports.
A NATO jet shot down a drone that entered Latvian airspace, the Latvian defense ministry said Friday. Latvia shares a border with Russia, and it, along with other nearby countries, have experienced drone incursions before. France 24 reports.
OTHER GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS
As of Friday morning, voters in Zambia were still waiting for presidential election results to be tallied. To win in the first round a candidate needs more than half the votes cast, otherwise a run-off election is triggered. President Hakainde Hichilema is seeking a second five-year term. Dingindaba Buyoya for the BBC.
TECH DEVELOPMENTS
Trump signed a national security memorandum late Wednesday that encourages American companies to conduct their own cyberattacks against criminal hackers. The move marks a “sharp pivot from decades of cybersecurity policy across Republican and Democratic administrations” that “confined offensive cyberoperations to the U.S. military and intelligence agencies,” Dustin Volz reports for the New York Times.
In Congress, AI chatbots are beginning to do the work traditionally done by staffers, everything from writing speeches for lawmakers to drafting amendments. “Even as politicians are debating how to govern AI for the rest of America, Congress has already settled how it will use the technology: quickly, broadly and with little oversight,” Anna Liss-Roy reports for the Washington Post.
U.S. IMMIGRATION DEVELOPMENTS
New documents obtained by Wired show that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) employees and contractors misused law enforcement databases to look up romantic interests and track colleagues’ cell phones. The internal records were obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests to CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility and they show “alleged database abuse by CBP employees spanning more than a decade,” Yulia Almazova reports.
Ten used airplanes that the Department of Homeland Security bought for $464 million in 2025 are barely being used. The planes, including three luxury business jets, were purchased using a no-bid contract from a company in Northern Virginia whose chairman “donated to a political committee supporting the previous Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem,” David A. Fahrenthold, Andrea Fuller, Julie Tate, Nicholas Nehamas, and Hamed Aleaziz for the New York Times.
U.S. DOMESTIC DEVELOPMENTS
Luigi Mangione, who was arrested in connection with the killing of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, is expected to plead guilty to federal charges today. The specifics of any potential plea deal are unknown and Mangione could change his mind at the last minute. Mack Liederman and Max Bearak for the New York Times.
An American Christian missionary who was kidnapped in Niger in 2025 is now in U.S. custody and returning to the United States. It’s unclear which group was holding Kevin Rideout at the end of his captivity. Eric Schmitt and Maggie Haberman for the New York Times.
A judge in Nevada has thrown out criminal charges against six Republicans who falsely claimed to be presidential electors for Donald Trump in 2020. “The State failed to present sufficient evidence from which a reasonable grand jury could infer the requisite intent to defraud,” Clark County Judge Mary Kay Holthus wrote in her opinion. Nevada’s attorney general indicated he would appeal the ruling. Kyle Cheney for POLITICO.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ACTIONS
As people took to the streets in Minnesota this winter to protest the Trump administration’s violent immigration crackdown, the Department of Homeland Security opened investigations into several left-leaning political organizations. Documents show DHS used invasive tactics to investigate groups and individuals who were never accused of a crime, “crossing the line that has traditionally stood between investigating criminal activity and political dissent,” report Alan Feuer and Ernesto Londoño for the New York Times.
President Donald Trump, for reasons that are not entirely clear, is ordering the Navy to restore an old technology – steam catapults – on its aircraft carriers, a move that is expected to cost billions in taxpayers dollars. “U.S. officials say Trump signed a national security memorandum Thursday directing the change, which would involve removing the electromagnetic catapult system used by the ships in the Gerald R. Ford class of carriers,” Marcus Weisgerber reports for the Wall Street Journal.
Trump said Thursday the United States will start imposing tariffs on drone imports, including from some key U.S. allies. Kanishka Singh and Ismail Shakil for Reuters.
The Department of Energy is denying the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, the country’s independent safety agency, access to information that the watchdog says it needs to properly oversee the country’s nuclear operations. In a letter to Congress the safety board laid out its concerns, saying the access challenges it faces are “the most significant in its history.” Patrick Malone reports for the Seattle Times.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION LITIGATION
A federal judge in Boston dismissed the Trump administration’s antisemitism lawsuit against Harvard University on Thursday. The Trump administration had been using the lawsuit to pressure the university to capitulate on a number of its demands. Mark Arsenault for the New York Times.
On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit dismissed a case whose central question was: Can President Trump use the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century wartime law, to deport people accused of belonging to a Venezuelan street gang? In September, a three-judge panel ruled no, the president cannot. Since then, the case was being considered by the full court. Rather than addressing the central question, however, the court dismissed the case on a legal technicality. Alan Feuer 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
For Women and Girls in Afghanistan, Now Is the Moment to Make CEDAW’s Promise Meaningful
By Natasha Arnpriester
Congress Needs a Select Committee That Focuses on Trump Family Corruption
By Casey Michel
Iran’s Conditions for Reopening Hormuz: What International Law Requires, Permits, and Forbids
By Michael Schmitt
