Today in the news briefs: 40,000 heavy bombs for Israel, while the House of Representatives moves to limit Trump's war powers against Iran. Thomas Massie files 8 articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth. Zuckerberg, of all people, now says the AI industry does not need a common brake.

Iran's intelligence services are using malware to track dissidents all the way into their private devices. Environmental terrorism: And Trump's environmental agency is scrapping key rules for coal- and gas-fired power plants, while warnings grow about additional health risks.

40,000 heavy bombs for Israel - while the House votes against Trump's Iran war

Donald Trump's administration is preparing a $2.8 billion arms sale to Israel. The package is expected to include 40,000 bombs weighing about 2,000 pounds each, including 20,000 Mk84s and 20,000 BLU-117s. According to 2 U.S. officials and a person familiar with the planning, that is exactly what the package is supposed to look like. The sale has not been finalized yet. Congress has so far been informally notified. Most of it is supposed to be paid for through U.S. military financing for Israel. Washington provides U.S. taxpayer money for that, and Israel uses it to buy weapons from the United States. The bombs come in different variants. Some are designed for deeply buried targets, while others cause massive destruction above ground.

These are exactly the weapons that have made Washington nervous before. The Biden administration held back a shipment in 2024 because it feared mass casualties in the densely populated Gaza Strip. Trump lifted the hold after returning to the White House. Last year, his administration also approved a nearly $3 billion arms sale that included more than 35,500 of these bombs, bypassing the usual congressional review process. In January, additional arms sales to Israel worth $6.67 billion followed.

The Israeli military has released few details about which bombs it uses in Gaza. Experts who examined strike footage and debris believe U.S.-made bombs have been used there. Targets reportedly included Hamas tunnel systems. People were also killed in densely populated areas. Despite the fragile ceasefire in October, Israel has continued carrying out strikes. Several people were killed overnight into Tuesday and again on Tuesday. Jared Kushner reportedly pressed Benjamin Netanyahu last month to scale back the attacks. Israel says its strikes are responses to gunfire attacks by militants and other ceasefire violations.

Around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in 2023. Israel's subsequent offensive has now killed more than 73,264 Palestinians, including those killed since the ceasefire began, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. At the same time, Israel is becoming increasingly isolated internationally. Tensions between Trump and Netanyahu have apparently done little to change that. Even before their White House meeting in July, Trump had shown frustration with Netanyahu over the Iran war.

At almost the same time, the U.S. House of Representatives drew a line. By a vote of 220 to 204, it passed a war powers resolution aimed at ending further U.S. military action against Iran without congressional approval. The vote was clear. 7 Republicans joined Democrats: Brian Fitzpatrick and Thomas Massie. Warren Davidson and Tom Barrett followed. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn did too. Nancy Mace made it 7.

Politically, that means a majority in the House is unwilling to go along with Trump's continued war against Iran without congressional approval. Legally, the process is not fully over yet. The resolution concerns the use of U.S. armed forces. The planned arms sale to Israel runs through a separate process. The $2.8 billion package is therefore not automatically blocked by the vote. That is where things get uncomfortable. Washington can put limits on Trump's own military action against Iran while still selling heavy bombs to Israel. An Mk84 does not ask which legal route got it delivered before it drops. Politically, however, the House vote is likely to increase pressure against further escalation. The more Congress limits Trump's own war powers, the harder it becomes to sell an almost unrestricted flow of weapons to an ally as routine business.

So the bomb can still be delivered. Whether it actually ends up flying is not decided yet. In Washington, the difference between formal authority and political responsibility often fits on a few sheets of paper. The impact of a 2,000-pound bomb does not need a paragraph.

Massie files 8 articles of impeachment against Hegseth - the Iran war lands in an impeachment fight

Thomas Massie has dragged the fight over the Iran war into the hardest political arena Congress has. The Republican congressman from Kentucky introduced a 34-page resolution on Tuesday to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. His accusation: Hegseth abused the power of the U.S. Department of Defense by sending American forces into the war against Iran without congressional approval and keeping them there. Massie speaks of "unlawful orders" and "high crimes and misdemeanors."

The resolution contains 8 counts. One concerns the strike on a school in Minab, where more than 100 children were reportedly killed, according to Iranian officials. A preliminary Pentagon report reportedly found the United States responsible. Massie also accuses Hegseth of systematically weakening or removing legally required safeguards for civilians and civilian infrastructure. Hegseth's own words now hang over the case like lead: At the Defense Department, he had promised "maximum lethality, not tepid legality."

Especially serious for Massie is the fact that U.S. forces reportedly remained in the war even after Congress passed the Iran War Powers Resolution. That resolution had directed President Donald Trump to withdraw the troops from Iran. For Massie, the conflict therefore goes far beyond a political disagreement. He accuses Hegseth of deliberately undermining Congress's constitutional authority over war. Massie said he took the step because every other legal avenue had been exhausted. The administration, he said, had done everything possible to get around Congress's authority over war and peace. That kind of normalization, he said, was exactly what he wanted to stop. The resolution was introduced as privileged. That gives the House 2 legislative days to act on it. Republican leadership is likely to try to prevent a direct vote.

A majority for impeaching Hegseth is considered unlikely in the Republican-controlled House. Massie is forcing his colleagues to take a position anyway. He said he had enough Democrats. The question, he said, was whether enough Republicans would come along. He deliberately did not warn leadership or his own caucus ahead of time. He said he feared session days might be canceled once his plan became known.

Massie's accusations go beyond Iran. The resolution also addresses U.S. strikes on boats carrying suspected drug traffickers, which have killed at least 227 people. It also includes the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Massie said Hegseth had done more that could justify impeachment than any other Cabinet official. He said he had not moved to impeach Attorney General Todd Blanche over the handling of the Epstein files because legislative options were still available there. The war against Iran has now been going on for 7 months. Since the first U.S. strikes on February 28, at least 18 U.S. service members have been killed and more than 800 injured. The Congressional Budget Office estimated on Tuesday that the war has cost $38 billion so far. Higher energy costs caused by the war had reportedly pushed inflation from 2.3 percent to 5.3 percent in the 2nd quarter of 2026. Trump continues to claim the war is close to ending. So far, there is no end in sight.

The Pentagon backed Hegseth. Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson called him a "transformative leader." Hegseth, he said, had cut bureaucracy and pushed innovation. Under Trump and Hegseth, the Defense Department was better by every measurable standard, Wilson said. The entire department stood behind Hegseth's direction, he added.

Massie is not buying it. Responding to Republican claims that the war would end after the midterms, he took a shot at Trump's promised $5,000 payments to every American. He said he believed in an Iranian deal and an end to the war after the election about as much as he believed in those checks. The personal break between Massie and Trump's camp has long been out in the open. In May, Massie lost the Republican primary to Ed Gallrein, whom Trump had backed. Trump called Massie "unreliable" and an "obstructionist." He also called him a "fool." One day before the primary, Hegseth himself campaigned for Gallrein. Massie had previously broken with Trump more than once, including by introducing a petition to force a vote on the Epstein files.

Now this defeated Republican is the one putting Hegseth in front of the question of how far a defense secretary can go when Congress has not declared war. The effort is likely to fail. The file still stays on the table. It contains 8 counts. Behind them are 7 months of war and 18 dead American service members. Some bills do not disappear just because the majority refuses to pay them.

Hardly surprising: Zuckerberg says slowing AI is the wrong move - while even the industry is warning about the pace

Mark Zuckerberg has jumped into the suddenly very nervous debate over the speed of artificial intelligence development. The Meta chief did not name Anthropic or its CEO Dario Amodei directly, but he was clearly taking aim at their call for a worldwide slowdown in AI development. Leading developers should focus on safety, Zuckerberg wrote. Everyone has a responsibility to move only as fast as models can be trained safely. Amodei had called on Saturday for a global slowdown because of the technology's rapidly growing capabilities. Before that, a researcher at Anthropic had resigned and warned that AI companies were "gambling with our lives." Sam Altman of OpenAI backed the call. Elon Musk did too, while SpaceX ramps up its spending on AI. Demis Hassabis of Google DeepMind also supported the push.

Zuckerberg says an industry-wide pause is the wrong approach. He explicitly acknowledges the risks. But companies, he says, already have enough incentive to protect their users and can slow their own development when needed. As an example, he pointed to Meta's new AI assistant Muse, which can operate software on its own. Meta delayed its release by several months to make sure it was secure, he said. The company did not first demand that everybody else show the same restraint. David Sacks, a venture capitalist and adviser to President Donald Trump, meanwhile questioned Amodei's motives. He and others in the industry suggested Anthropic was exaggerating the dangers in order to make it harder for competitors to catch up.

Zuckerberg also criticized developers racing toward "recursive self-improvement," meaning using AI to advance its own development. The focus, he said, should be on serving people. The irony sits just below the surface. Meta itself is trying to make up ground it lost to Anthropic and OpenAI. In the coming weeks, the company plans to release its most powerful model yet. Internally, it is called "Watermelon." Right in the middle of the race, Zuckerberg is now saying everyone just needs to press the gas responsibly enough. And this is coming from Zuckerberg. Hard to fit more irony into one sentence.

Iran's digital hunt for dissidents - Chosen Brick turns a computer into a bug

Since at least 2025, hackers linked to Iranian intelligence services have been using the Chosen Brick malware against dissidents and journalists. Activists are also being targeted. Attacks have reportedly been recorded in the United Kingdom and the United States. Also in the Netherlands. Britain's National Cyber Security Centre, the FBI and the Dutch intelligence service AIVD jointly point to this. Chosen Brick gives its operators access to contacts and private messages. Emails can also be read. This reportedly makes it possible to track who a person is communicating with and where that person is going. Behind the screen, a second life grows alongside the first, run by people the owner never invited in.

According to the agencies involved, Iran uses attacks like these to persecute people the regime considers a threat. In individual cases, the Iranian leadership reportedly even planned kidnappings or killings abroad. Personal data belonging to some victims later appeared on pro-Iranian publication sites. Digital surveillance no longer ends at the screen there. It can become preparation for physical persecution. The first contact often reportedly comes through WhatsApp or Telegram. The attackers reportedly pose as people the victim knows or disguise themselves as technical support. The victim is then supposed to open an infected file. Chosen Brick hides, for example, behind supposed installation files for Pictory or RunwayML. Other variants disguise themselves as Norton Antivirus or Telegram. Adobe Flash Player and KeePass have also been used as cover. Even supposed files containing MRI results have reportedly been used.

The work device is often targeted first. If that fails, the perpetrators reportedly try to move the conversation to the victim's private phone or home computer. Chosen Brick works exclusively on Windows. After infection, the software reportedly anchors itself through entries in the Windows Registry and disables parts of Microsoft Defender. Each infected machine reportedly gets its own Telegram bot as a connection to the attackers. Through it, the microphone and camera can reportedly be switched on. Screenshots are also possible. Messages from Telegram or WhatsApp can reportedly be copied. Emails can also be stolen. Files can be deleted, and in the most extreme case, all data on the computer can be wiped.

The NCSC recommends checking startup entries in the Windows Registry and not installing programs through links that have been sent to you. Devices should be updated regularly. 2-factor authentication should be enabled everywhere. Back in June 2025, Iranian authorities had sharply intensified their hunt for suspected opponents following Israeli attacks. At the time, dozens of people were arrested on suspicion of working with Mossad. Criticism of the regime could also be enough. Chosen Brick shows just how far that hunt now reaches: onto the private screen, into the camera and into every conversation stored there.

Environmental terrorism: Trump cuts the CO2 leash on power plants - and declares the bill a savings

Donald Trump's administration has repealed key requirements for coal- and gas-fired power plants under which up to 90 percent of greenhouse gas emissions were supposed to be captured. The Environmental Protection Agency puts the expected savings at $310 billion. For the atmosphere, that starts a different calculation. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said Democratic administrations had waged a "war on coal" for more than 15 years. Repealing the requirements would secure reliable and affordable energy, and Americans would now be able to "keep the lights on." America's energy production was cleaner than anywhere else in the world, he claimed.

At the same time, the EPA takes the position that greenhouse gas emissions from power plants do not have a significant impact on global climate change. According to one estimate, the policy change could result in an additional 123 million metric tons of carbon dioxide being emitted over the next 10 years. The United States ranks 2nd in the world in greenhouse gas emissions behind China. Gina McCarthy, former head of the EPA under Barack Obama, warned that the decision would affect every American, especially children and grandchildren. The administration was giving major industrial polluters a free hand and accepting further harm to public health, she said.

Holly Bender of the Sierra Club announced that the decision would be challenged in court. The administration was denying climate change while its consequences were already visible, she said. Nathaniel Keohane of the independent Center for Climate and Energy Solutions accused the EPA of pushing scientific findings aside and abandoning its responsibility for public health. The move continues Trump's rollback of U.S. climate policy. Back in February, the EPA overturned a scientific finding from the Obama era that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health. A duty to protect is being turned piece by piece into a cost item.

Coal keeps burning anyway. Carbon dioxide does not disappear because Washington repeals a rule. $310 billion sounds enormous on paper. A lung does not read a budget statement.