March 28, 2026 - Short News

The head of the FBI was hacked by Iran - and the password was the smallest problem!

Kash Patel leads the FBI. An agency that for years has explained to companies, schools, parents and government institutions how digital security works. A billion dollar budget, endless training programs, public campaigns about the dangers of weak passwords. And then Iran hacks his personal email account. The Handala hack team - possibly Iranian intelligence under another name - published a series of emails and photos allegedly from Patel’s private inbox. The FBI confirmed that his account was attacked. Spokesman Ben Williamson said all necessary steps had been taken to limit potential risks. What that specifically means remains unclear.

You sit with that for a while. The top law enforcement official in the United States, responsible for national security, cyber defense and everything in between, apparently protects his private email worse than an average office worker after mandatory training. The same training his own agency promotes. Cybersecurity, it seems, is meant for everyone - except those who preach it. Meanwhile, the FBI has offered a reward of 10 million dollars for information leading to the arrest of the Handala hackers. American taxpayer money is now working to fix the consequences of Patel’s own mistake. Who pays is clear. Who bears responsibility is also clear.

“I always like to surround myself with losers because it makes me feel better”

Trump has had few honest moments in his career. This is one of them. A man who has spent his life putting his name on buildings, humiliating competitors and calling anyone who stood in his way a loser - casually admits that he needs losers. Not to help them. But to feel better about himself.

It is one of the most compressed self portraits Trump has ever delivered. No ghostwriter, no press release, no spin. Just a sentence that explains why this man does what he does. The tariffs that ruin farmers. The wars others fight. The losers he produces - they are not collateral damage. They are the purpose. And somewhere in a bombed out apartment block in Tehran, at a supermarket checkout in Ohio, on a dried out field in Iowa, someone is sitting there asking how it got this far. Trump just gave the answer himself.

Perino asks about water - Trump responds with a compliment

Dana Perino is no stranger in the Trump universe. She was press secretary under George W. Bush, has worked for years as a host at Fox News and is considered one of the more moderate voices there - conservative, but professional. Not a hostile reporter, not a CNN microphone. His own home field. And there she asks a question that makes you pause as a journalist. Do people in Iran have drinking water? Do they have food? You imagine how that question sits in the room. What it means. For whom it is asked.

Trump remembers a lunch at Trump Tower. Many years ago. Perino has not changed. Maybe she even looks better than back then. You hear it and think you misheard. But you did not mishear. Somewhere in Tehran, someone is sitting in the dark waiting for the water to run again. And the man leading this war is thinking about a lunch at Trump Tower. This is not a communication error. It is simply the truth about what goes on in that mind - and what does not.

Trump calls himself a peacemaker - while soldiers are being wounded

Donald Trump was asked how he wants to be remembered, and he answers without hesitation that he wants to be seen as a great peacemaker, even if it does not feel that way at the moment. He says he truly believes he is a peacemaker, even though the situation shows something else. While these words are spoken, new casualties are being reported from the region. At least ten American soldiers were wounded in an attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, two of them seriously. These are not abstract numbers, but concrete consequences of a conflict that continues to spread. The statements from Washington thus stand in direct contrast to what is happening on the ground. This is not about interpretation, but about a simple comparison between claim and reality. Anyone who describes himself as a peacemaker will be measured by what is happening at the same time. And in this very moment, two levels collide that do not align. The words remain. So do the wounded.

2026, and nothing learned from the past - Hegseth removes Black and female officers from the promotion list - and calls it merit

Pete Hegseth has removed four officers from the promotion list for brigadier general. Two are Black, two are women. The list includes around three dozen officers, most of them white men. Hegseth calls this meritocracy (performance determining position). You can read that twice. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll had refused for months to remove the names. He pointed to decades of impeccable service by the affected officers. Hegseth ultimately removed the names unilaterally - whether he even has the legal authority to do so remains unclear to this day. Military regulations provide exactly two options for the Secretary of Defense: accept the entire list or reject it. Removing individual names lies in a legal gray area that Hegseth appears willing to enter.

What lies behind this is shown by an incident last summer. Hegseth’s chief of staff Ricky Buria told Driscoll that President Trump did not want to stand next to a Black female officer at military events. The reference was to Major General Antoinette Gant, a combat engineer with deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Driscoll was stunned, turned to the White House, and Hegseth’s office backed down. Gant took her position and was promoted this month to lieutenant general. Buria describes the report as completely fabricated.

One of the removed officers, a Black armored officer and combat veteran, had written an academic paper almost 15 years ago about why Black officers have historically more often chosen support roles rather than frontline positions. That was enough. A female logistics officer was removed because she had served during the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 - an operation Hegseth describes as catastrophic and for which he wants to hold officers accountable, regardless of how they performed their duties.

Since taking office, Hegseth has dismissed or sidelined at least two dozen generals and admirals. Today, the chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all five service chiefs and nine of the ten combatant commanders are white men. There is no need to comment on that. The numbers speak for themselves.

The man who deserved the Nobel Peace Prize - according to himself, and Putin comforts him

Trump did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He says so himself, and he also says he does not care. Norway has massively lost credibility. He says he stopped eight wars. He does it best. Putin personally called and said he could not believe that Trump had ended this and that war. You sit with that and wonder which eight wars those were supposed to be. Bombs are currently falling in Iran. In Ukraine as well. In Lebanon too. But Trump has stopped eight wars, and Putin called to praise him. Putin. The same Putin who has been waging a war of aggression against Ukraine for years calls Trump to tell him how impressive he is.

The Nobel Committee in Oslo is probably sleeping peacefully. Norway will likely survive the loss of credibility. What is harder to process is the thought that this man makes decisions every day that affect millions of people - while publicly talking about how much he deserved a prize he did not receive. In Tehran, the power went out again today.

Blockade instead of solution - Republicans are pushing the Department of Homeland Security into a dead end

The House of Representatives passed a temporary funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security by a vote of 213 to 203 that has no chance in the Senate and will prolong the stalemate. Speaker Mike Johnson rejected the Senate proposal that had previously been passed unanimously and called it a joke, even though it came from his own party and deliberately excluded key agencies. The dispute revolves primarily around funding for immigration authorities such as ICE and Border Patrol, which Democrats are willing to accept only under clear restrictions. In the Senate, there is no prospect of a majority, as 60 votes are required and the fronts are entrenched. Chuck Schumer announced the proposal would fail there, while Hakeem Jeffries is pushing for quick approval of the Senate solution.

At the same time, the situation is worsening in practice: aviation security staff are in some cases working without pay, disruptions are leading to long lines at airports. Donald Trump did order that outstanding wages should be paid, but details remain unclear. Within the Republican Party, a conservative faction is also blocking any compromise, demanding additional conditions. This leaves the Department of Homeland Security in financial limbo, while both sides blame each other and concrete solutions fail to materialize.

Merz calls it by name - massive escalation without a way out

When I heard the German head of government say, “This is not our war” about Iran, I said: Well, Ukraine is not our war either. We helped, but Ukraine is not our war. I thought that was a very inappropriate statement. But he made it. You cannot simply erase it.

Friedrich Merz found clear words at a conference of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. What Trump is doing right now is not de escalation and not an attempt at a peaceful solution, but a massive escalation with an uncertain outcome. A regime change in Iran is hardly achievable - that has mostly not worked in the past. The rhetoric between Berlin and Washington is becoming harsher after Trump criticized Germany for Defense Minister Boris Pistorius saying this was not Germany’s war.

At the same time, it is becoming apparent how this conflict will likely end - not with a grand triumph, but with what most wars end with: negotiations. According to its own statements, the US military has bombed 10,000 targets. The first thousand were probably more valuable than the ten thousandth. Good options are becoming scarce. Iran has lost a supreme leader, its military is weakened, but the regime remains in place. Trump, in turn, can neither guarantee that Iran will never obtain a nuclear weapon nor permanently destroy the Iranian missile program. Israel will not disarm Hezbollah - that has been unattainable for decades and remains so. Both sides need an exit, and neither can afford to be the first to give in.

What remains is a man in the White House who already describes the war in the past tense and prefers to speak of an operation. As soon as the violence subsides, the energy markets calm down and Hormuz opens enough, Trump will declare victory. The reality behind it will not bother him. It never has been his strongest argument.

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