Quick one tonight. Went and caught an early viewing of The Hail Mary Project. Definitely recommend. Okay, onto the three things that we\u2019re covering tonight.<\/p>\n
On the first day of this war \u2014 February 28 \u2014 a missile struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls\u2019 Elementary School in Minab, a small city in southern Iran. The children were in class. Most of them were between 7 and 12 years old.<\/p>\n
The building had pink flowers painted on the walls.<\/p>\n
165 people died. Most of them were girls.<\/strong><\/p>\n For nearly two weeks, the US said it wasn\u2019t responsible. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that it was \u201cdone by Iran\u201d and called Tomahawk missiles \u201cvery generic.\u201d Defense Secretary Hegseth said the US \u201cnever targets civilians.\u201d The White House said anyone claiming otherwise was being \u201cirresponsible and false.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, that story collapsed.<\/p>\n Reuters, NPR, CNN, PBS NewsHour, and the New York Times all independently confirmed the same preliminary finding from an internal US military investigation: a US Tomahawk struck the school, likely because the Pentagon was using outdated targeting data.<\/strong> The school had been separated from the adjacent IRGC naval base for at least a decade \u2014 visible in satellite imagery going back to 2013. The targeting package apparently didn\u2019t know that.<\/p>\n There\u2019s more. PBS NewsHour reported that Hegseth and DOGE budget cuts had reduced the Pentagon\u2019s civilian casualty prevention office by 90%<\/strong> \u2014 and its Middle East counterpart by two-thirds \u2014 before the war began. Hegseth himself, at a press conference just days after the strike, praised the end of \u201cstupid rules of engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n Al Jazeera\u2019s digital investigation unit went further. Analyzing the strike pattern \u2014 which hit the school and the base but bypassed a medical clinic located between them \u2014 they concluded the executing party was \u201coperating with coordinates and maps that distinguished between the complex\u2019s different facilities.\u201d In other words, someone had a list. The school was on it.<\/p>\n The UN Human Rights office called for an independent investigation. UNESCO called it \u201ca grave violation of humanitarian law.\u201d A panel of 18 UN experts on children\u2019s rights said they were \u201calarmed.\u201d The UN Secretary-General condemned it.<\/p>\n Trump said Wednesday he was \u201cunaware\u201d of the New York Times report. \u201cI don\u2019t know about that,\u201d he told CNN\u2019s Kristen Holmes.<\/p>\n \ud83c\udf0d TRANSLATOR\u2019S NOTE:<\/strong> Outside the US, this story has been front-page since March 1. The name \u201cMinab\u201d is known across the Middle East, South Asia, and Europe the way \u201cMy Lai\u201d is known to Americans of a certain age. The debate internationally is not whether it happened \u2014 that was settled by Bellingcat, BBC Verify, and multiple independent weapons analysts within days. The debate is whether it was negligence or something worse.<\/p>\n \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW:<\/strong> The investigation is ongoing and no final conclusions have been reached. But \u201congoing investigation\u201d is now the third version of this story from the US government. Version one was silence. Version two was \u201cIran did it.\u201d Version three is \u201cwe\u2019re looking into it.\u201d Meanwhile, the office responsible for preventing exactly this kind of mistake was gutted before the first bomb fell.<\/p>\n In this morning\u2019s edition, we reported the International Energy Agency was considering releasing 100 million barrels<\/strong> from strategic reserves.<\/p>\n That number has been superseded. By a lot.<\/p>\n The IEA announced today a record release of 400 million barrels<\/strong> \u2014 four times the figure reported this morning, and the largest strategic reserve release in the agency\u2019s history. Nothing like this has ever been done.<\/p>\n \ud83c\udf0d TRANSLATOR\u2019S NOTE:<\/strong> The IEA doesn\u2019t do this lightly. The previous record was the 60-million-barrel release after Russia\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Quadrupling that figure tells you everything about how the agency views the severity of the Hormuz closure.<\/p>\n \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW:<\/strong> Strategic reserves exist for exactly this scenario. But 400 million barrels is also a finite number. The IEA is essentially betting the release will either end the war or buy enough time for alternative supply routes to come online. If neither happens, there is no second lever to pull.<\/p>\n The Gulf Cooperation Council\u2019s resolution \u2014 Resolution 2817 (2026)<\/strong> \u2014 passed today, with 135 co-sponsoring nations. It demands Iran stop attacking Gulf Arab neighbors.<\/p>\n The Russia-backed counter-resolution failed. It received only 4 votes in favor<\/strong> \u2014 falling well short of the 9 required for adoption.<\/p>\n \ud83c\udf0d TRANSLATOR\u2019S NOTE:<\/strong> 135 co-sponsors is a near-universal international consensus. Russia couldn\u2019t muster a majority even among Security Council members for its own counter-text. That\u2019s a significant diplomatic defeat for Moscow, and it signals that even nations that opposed the US-Israeli strikes are drawing a line at Iran\u2019s attacks on civilian infrastructure in Gulf states.<\/p>\n \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW:<\/strong> The resolution that passed doesn\u2019t address the US-Israeli bombing campaign \u2014 it specifically targets Iran\u2019s strikes on its Arab neighbors. It\u2019s not exoneration. But it does reflect a world that is simultaneously critical of how this war started and unwilling to back Iran\u2019s regional escalation.<\/p>\n Day 13 Morning Edition resumes tomorrow. Stay with us.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2014 The Rest of the World Report<\/em><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" March 11, 2026 Quick one tonight. Went and caught an early viewing of The Hail Mary Project. Definitely recommend. Okay, onto the three things that we\u2019re covering tonight. 1. THE SCHOOL On the first day of this war \u2014 February 28 \u2014 a missile struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls\u2019 Elementary School in Minab, a small […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oxygen_hide_in_design_set":false,"_oxygen_tags":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-patreon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}2. THE IEA NUMBER JUST CHANGED \u2014 DRAMATICALLY<\/h3>\n
3. THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL VOTED<\/h3>\n