The Daily Brief - Mar. 17, 2026
The latest on vaccine policies, Cuba, Iran, 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.
US Troops Wounded in Iran War
The number of US service members injured in the Iran war has now surpassed 200.
The vast majority of those injured — more than 180 — have returned to duty. Ten are seriously wounded, including some with traumatic brain injuries.
The injured troops are spread across seven countries: Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Most of the injuries have come from drone attacks, according to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Seven service members have been killed and six more died when their plane crashed during a refueling mission.
Top Counterterrorism Official Resigns
Joe Kent — who served as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center — has quit, saying he “cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran.”
Kent is a steadfast Trump supporter, who has spread conspiracy theories, especially around the 2020 election. Last year, he was reprimanded by Kash Patel and others after he tried to access FBI files on the Charlie Kirk assassination to investigate conspiracy theories that there was a foreign connection to Kirk’s killing.
He served as a Green Beret, and was deployed into combat 11 times before leaving the military to join the CIA.
He also has links to far-right Nazi sympathizers Nick Fuentes and Greyson Arnold, and paid a member of the Proud Boys for consulting work when Kent was running for office. He twice ran for Congress and lost both times.
He said he resigned because Iran “posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
Larijani Killed
Israel announced on Tuesday that it had killed Iran’s chief security official, Ali Larijani, in an overnight airstrike. It said it had also killed Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Basij militia, an internal force used to crack down on dissenters and anti-government protesters.
After Iran’s former supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed in an airstrike on the first day of the war, Larijani emerged as Iran’s de facto leader. He made combative posts on social media condemning US and Israeli attacks on Iran; in one, he told President Trump to “be careful not to get eliminated.”
In the internal discussions over who would succeed Khamenei, however, Larijani opposed the selection of Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, according to a New York Times report quoting sources within Iran. Larijani was said to favor more moderate candidates who would potentially back negotiations with the United States.
Cuba
President Trump spoke on Monday of the possibility that the United States would take over Cuba. “You know, all my life I’ve been hearing about the United States and Cuba, when will the United States do it? I do believe I’ll be … having the honor of taking Cuba. That’s a big honor,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “Taking Cuba in some form, yeah, taking Cuba — I mean, whether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with it.”
Cuba is currently in the grip of a severe energy shortage, with frequent blackouts. On Tuesday, most of the island was without power. It extracts 40% of its own petroleum, from which it produces electricity, but also relied until recently on oil imports from Venezuela. Those imports were cut off after the United States removed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power and forbade the sale of Venezuelan oil to Cuba. It now costs the equivalent of US $300 to fill a car’s gas tank in the country.
In talks with Cuban officials, US negotiators are reportedly demanding that Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, leave office, along with other leaders loyal to the family and policies of the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. American negotiators are also seeking the release of Cuban political prisoners and an opening of Cuba to American investment and business.
DC Pipe Bomb Suspect
The man who allegedly placed two pipe bombs in DC the night before the Jan 6 riots on the Capitol thinks President Trump’s pardon should cover him too.
The pipe bombs were left outside of the Republican and Democratic national committees’ headquarters on Jan 5, 2021. For years police tried to identify the person who did it, releasing video and images of the suspect, and offering a $500,000 reward.
But it wasn’t until December of last year, nearly five years later, that Brian Cole, Jr. was arrested for the crime.
Now, his lawyers are arguing that Trump’s blanket pardon of Jan 6 rioters should include him too, because his actions are “so inextricably and demonstrably tethered to the events at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
Trump’s pardon covered anyone “convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.” He also directed the Attorney General to dismiss all pending indictments.
But Brian Cole, Jr., had not even been arrested at that point, and placed the bombs on Jan 5. A White House official told Politico, “The pardon pertained to events at or near the Capitol on Jan. 6 and clearly does not cover this scenario.”
Temporary Protected Status
The US Supreme Court has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s plan to deport thousands of immigrants who are present in the US under Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Immigrants granted TPS come from countries experiencing extraordinary temporary conditions like armed conflict or natural disasters, and the status allows them to live and work in the US for 18 months at a time, subject to renewal if conditions in their home country haven’t improved.
President Trump sought to revoke TPS from 6,000 Syrians and 350,000 Haitians and deport them. Haitians have qualified for TPS since the 2010 earthquake in the country’s capital, which led to widespread and ongoing unrest that included the assassination of their president. Syrians have qualified since 2012’s crackdown on Arab Spring protesters by former president Bashar al-Assad.
When lower courts ordered that people would retain their status while their cases were being resolved, the Trump administration filed emergency appeals with the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has taken an unusual step and agreed to hear the case before it finished working its way through the lower courts, and has slated oral arguments for April. In the meantime, the court said in an unsigned order, the affected migrants can’t be deported.
Vaccine Decision
A federal district judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from implementing several of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s vaccine policies, including cuts to the number of vaccines recommended for children.
Kennedy announced in January that under his leadership, the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices would no longer recommend all children to get vaccinated against the flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A and B, RSV, and some types of meningitis. Kennedy is a longtime vaccine skeptic.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical groups have sued the Department of Health and Human Services and Kennedy, arguing that their limitations on access to certain vaccines and their changing recommendations are “arbitrary and capricious,” and out of step with scientific evidence.
In the decision, Judge Brian Murphy wrote that the advisory committee had typically used “a method scientific in nature and codified into law through procedural requirements” when crafting its vaccine recommendations, “unfortunately, the government has disregarded those methods and thereby undermined the integrity of its actions.” The decision prevents the administration from implementing the policies, and also found that Kennedy may have violated federal procedures in making changes to the committee.
The decision will almost certainly be appealed.
Newsbreak
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If a white supremacist, conspiracy theorist Trumper thinks the situation around Iran is bad enough to resign, imagine how bad it must be.
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