The Daily Brief - Mar. 12, 2026
The latest on the DHS shutdown, the Michigan synagogue attack, and more
These are today’s top stories, delivered straight to your inbox. Read below to catch up on all the news you might’ve missed.
Synagogue Attack
A man drove his truck into a Michigan synagogue today, making it through the doors and down a hallway before being shot at by security officers.
Nobody inside Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan was hurt, but one security guard was struck by the truck, and is expected to recover.
The attacker was found dead in his truck, though it’s unclear if he was killed by the officers. The sheriff said “something ignited in the vehicle” and black smoke was seen coming from the building.
A school is attached to the temple, along with a museum with Jewish artifacts, and it has robust security, according to The New York Times. It’s one of the largest Reform synagogues in the country.
Iran War
Pentagon officials briefing senators on the Iran war reportedly said that the conflict cost the United States more than $11.6 billion in its first six days (February 28 through March 5). The Department of Defense has not provided public figures.
After the briefing, Senator Chris Coons said that he thought the true price was higher and estimated that the cost of replacing spent US munitions alone would be “well beyond $10 billion.”
The economic consequences also continued to mount. Oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, which lies between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula, have almost entirely ceased, causing what the International Energy Agency called “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.” Earlier this week, Iran attacked ships near the strait as well as two oil tankers off the coast of Iraq. As of Wednesday, the average cost of a gallon of gasoline had risen 60 cents in the US, from $2.98 to $3.58. The price of Brent crude oil, often used as a benchmark, was hovering around $100 per barrel, up from around $70 before the war began.
In a statement read on Iranian state media, Mojtaba Khamenei — the new supreme leader of Iran and the son of the former leader, who was slain in an airstrike the first day of the war — said that “the leverage of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must definitely continue to be used.”
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that the US Navy would escort tankers through the strait “relatively soon” but that it cannot do so yet, because “all of our military assets right now are focused on destroying Iran’s offensive capabilities and the manufacturing industry that supplies their offensive capabilities.”
Khamenei Threats
The new Supreme Leader of Iran also made several additional threats.
He said that Iran would continue attacking American bases throughout the region and claimed falsely that its attacks on neighboring states had been limited to those bases. In fact, Iran has also targeted civilian infrastructure such as hotels and oil refineries.
On Monday, the office of Iran’s prosecutor general warned that Iranians could face penalties ranging from confiscation of assets to the death penalty for “cooperation with the enemy.”
That category may extend to anti-government protests; on March 9, Iran’s police chief said, “If someone comes to the streets at the enemy’s behest, we do not see them as a protester — we see them as an enemy, and we will deal with them accordingly. All our forces have their fingers on the trigger and are ready.” In January, the Iranian government cracked down on anti-government protesters, killing at least 7,000 people, with some reports saying the number is closer to 30,000.
DHS Funding
The Senate voted 51-46 against moving forward with a House-passed bill that would have funded the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ended the 27-day partial government shutdown. Democrats had proposed an alternative measure that would have used multiple smaller bills to fund every DHS agency except CBP and ICE, including TSA and FEMA, but Republicans objected.
Democrats refuse to provide the votes to fund DHS until Republicans agree to restrictions on immigration enforcement agents, whose crackdowns have attracted widespread negative attention in recent months. Negotiations haven’t seen much movement.
“Why won’t they budge to give an inch on ICE, which is highly unpopular and even the president has said hasn’t done things right?” asked Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer during a floor speech.
UN Discrimination Report
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) accused President Trump and other American officials of using “racist hate speech… targeting migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers” in a report released Wednesday. The report calls out President Trump specifically, saying that his rhetoric “fosters intolerance and may incite racial discrimination, hate crimes, and hate speech.” It’s unusual for a UN body to single out a US leader.
Both before and during his second term, President Trump has made a number of inflammatory remarks about migrants in the US. During the presidential debate in 2024, he repeated a rumor about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating people’s pets, and during his State of the Union address last month he singled out Somali immigrants in Minnesota.
“The Somali pirates who ransack Minnesota remind us that there are large parts of the world where bribery, corruption and lawlessness are the norm, not the exception,” he said. “Importing these cultures through unrestricted immigration and open borders brings those problems right here to the USA.”
The UN CERD is a watchdog group of 18 independent experts who are tasked with monitoring whether nations are complying with a key UN treaty adopted in 1965 that centers on eliminating all forms of racial discrimination. The US signed onto the treaty and ratified it in 1994.
The report also expresses serious concern about the Trump administration’s enforcement tactics, which it described as sparking “grave human rights violations.”
A White House spokesperson pushed back against the report, telling Axios in an emailed statement, “No one cares what the biased United Nations’ so-called ‘experts’ think, because Americans are living in a safer, stronger country than ever before.”
Tariffs
The Trump administration is planning a new approach to impose tariffs on imports from foreign countries. On Wednesday, the president’s chief trade negotiator announced planned investigations into the manufacturing sectors of China, the EU, India, Japan, and several other nations. The investigations, conducted under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, will look at capacity, whether global trade is unfair to American producers, as well as the use of forced labor in other countries.
The Trade Act provision gives the president the authority to impose tariffs on any country that violates trade agreements or otherwise “burdens or restricts” US commerce. President Trump relied on the same provision to impose tariffs on China during his first term.
Student Loans
Education Secretary Linda McMahon published an op-ed in The Washington Post touting the Trump administration’s approach to student loan policy. “Across the board, the Trump administration is executing a hard reset of the nation’s broken federal student loan system — focusing not only on repayment after graduation but on restoring transparency and accountability to the borrowing decision itself,” she writes.
McMahon describes how the administration will impose an earnings test that would make bachelor’s degree programs ineligible for federal loan dollars if the “typical graduate does not earn at least as much as a high school graduate.” The test could potentially impact student loan eligibility for lower-paying but essential professions that require a degree, such as teaching and social work. McMahon argues that the changes are intended to ensure students receive a return on their investment in their education.
The op-ed also announces a new Repayment Assistance Plan, where “every on‑time, monthly student loan payment triggers up to a $50 principal payment match from the federal government and families receive an additional $50 reduction in their monthly payment amount per dependent.” The average monthly student loan payment in the US is more than $500.
Jeremy Carl
Trump’s pick for assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs has dropped out of consideration, acknowledging he doesn’t have the support needed to be confirmed.
Jeremy Carl is a political commentator who has said that white people need to protect their “identity” and wrote a book about racism against white people. The book’s description on Amazon says that media elites have created an imaginary epidemic of white supremacy, but that white Americans are actually “often openly discriminated against.”
A CNN investigation found Carl had deleted thousands of social media posts at some point before his nomination, including “incendiary posts about race, claims that “peaceful coexistence” with Democrats is impossible, and even a call for a political opponent to face the death penalty.”
CNN unearthed the posts, including one calling Jan 6 rioters “political prisoners” and calling for Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, to face the death penalty for crimes against American children.
Senator John Curtis, a Republican, said he would oppose Carl’s nomination, pointing to other comments he made against Jewish people. In a podcast, Carl agreed with a host who said Jews claimed “special victim status” after the Holocaust. Curtis said he found Carl’s “anti-Israel views and insensitive remarks about the Jewish people unbecoming of the position for which he has been nominated.
Pentagon Photographers
Press photographers have been banned from covering Iran briefings at the Pentagon because recent photos of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were deemed “unflattering” by his staff, according to sources.
Last year, the Pentagon tried to force journalists to sign documents that put restrictions on what they could report. Instead of agreeing to the rules, many reporters turned in their credentials, leaving only a smattering of right-leaning outlets with the ability to cover events at the Pentagon.
But on March 2, photographers from many news outlets — including Reuters, the Associated Press, Getty and others — were allowed in for Hegseth’s first briefing about the war in Iran.
Their photographs are used by news outlets around the world, and members of Hegseth’s staff told others that they did not like the way he looked in the photos. His aides then banned press photographers from the March 4 and 10 briefings.
Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said it was because of the space in the room, and the press and public could use the photos released by Pentagon photographers.
A TV pool camera has still been allowed into all of the briefings. A press pool is an arrangement that’s made between several news organizations to send in one person to represent a larger group of outlets. This allows one camera or reporter to cover an event rather than dozens from every news organization, and the pool representative rotates (one day it might be someone from ABC, the next Fox News, and so on).
The approach of limiting federal loan funds to majors that are deemed acceptable by some ill defined criteria is so short sighted. How many people leverage their education to lead successful careers in a different field?
Regarding Jeremy Carl’s opinions: in my 64 years as an American, I cannot recall ever feeling discriminated against for being white. 😒