by Brett Wilkins | Mar 3, 2026 | Article, Gaza, Iran, Israel, Politics and Movements: International, Politics and Movements: US, Reprint
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Mar. 02, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
US and Israeli forces were accused Monday of “seemingly indiscriminate” bombing of Iran as the country’s Red Crescent said that at least 555 people have been killed amid reports of fresh mass casualty attacks across the country.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society said at least 555 people have been killed so far during three days of a US and Israeli war of choice aimed at toppling Iran’s long-ruling Islamist government. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday continued to insist that the war is not about regime change, but rather enduring yet bogus claims that Iran is close to developing nuclear weapons.
Those killed include many civilians as well as former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei and dozens of senior government and military officials. Iranian counterattacks have killed half a dozen US troops, 9 Israelis, and a handful of people in Gulf nations allied with the United States.
An attack on the Abbasabad Police Station—where anti-government protesters were allegedly tortured during the recent deadly crackdown—in Niloofar Square in central Tehran killed at least 20 people, local media reported.
“This is carpet-bombing, which has struck everything from playgrounds, to an emergency services HQ, schools, media buildings, and medical facilities,” documentary filmmaker Robert Inlakesh said in a social media post showing the aftermath of the strike.
Local residents said that the site was attacked for the second time in three days. This was part of broader US-Israeli strikes on Tehran, including attacks on the Revolutionary Court, Defense Ministry, other government sites, and civilian infrastructure including at least eight medical facilities and state media outlets.
Carpet bombing in Iran is stark reminder of how air superiority shapes modern
by Brett Wilkins | Mar 2, 2026 | Article, cuba, Iran, Politics and Movements: International, Politics and Movements: US, Reprint, Trump
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Mar. 02, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
As American and Israeli bombs kill hundreds of Iranians—reportedly including at least 180 students and others at a girl’s school in Minab—Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that President Donald Trump is “on a roll” and that Cuba is the next nation in the US regime change crosshairs.
In an interview on Fox News, Graham (R-SC) said prematurely that “Trump finished the job” that former President Ronald Reagan “failed to do,” namely, destroy Iran’s Islamist government after the overthrow of a brutal US-backed monarchy in 1979. “I am a big admirer of Ronald Reagan but I’m here to tell you that Donald Trump, in my opinion, is the gold standard for Republicans, maybe any president, when it comes to foreign policy.”
“Maduro—everybody talked about him, well, Donald Trump’s got him in jail,” Graham said of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who was abducted along with his wife two months by invading US forces.
“Cuba’s next. They’re gonna fall,” Graham said of the revolutionary government in Havana that’s outlasted a dozen American presidents, despite decades of US-led assassination attempts, sabotage, and subversion. “This communist dictatorship in Cuba, their days are numbered.”
Lindsey Graham: Cuba is next. They are going to fall. Their days are numbered. pic.twitter.com/XZd1PyIqDP— Acyn (@Acyn) March 2, 2026
The remarks by Graham—who previously berated Trump as a “jackass,” “nut job,” and “loser” unfit to be commander-in-chief—come amid reporting that Trump is feeling buoyed by what he views as successful attacks on Iran and Venezuela.
“The president is feeling like, ‘I’m on a roll,’ like, ‘This is working,’” one unnamed Trump administration official told the Atlantic‘s Vivian Salama over the weekend.
This, from a president who said he deplored regime
by Jaclynn Ashly | Mar 2, 2026 | Article, Economy and Inequality, Kenya, labor, Politics and Movements: International, Saudi Arabia
At 18, Boniface Murigi never imagined he would be recounting his mother’s life and death to the world.
Yet he sits on a couch in his family’s living room in Gilgil, a small town about two hours northwest of Nairobi, struggling to describe who Sylvia Waithera Karuri was to him. “She was a great mother and a hard worker,” he says.
A Sunday school teacher and mother of four, 38-year-old Sylvia owned a hardware store and was building rental houses to support her family. “I remember her carrying big bags of cement on a motorbike to the construction site herself,” Boniface recalls, a faint smile crossing his solemn face. Her church and mission work earned her the local nickname “The Preacher.”
After a divorce made it harder to provide for her children, Sylvia accepted a domestic work job in Saudi Arabia in 2021, hoping to invest the earnings into expanding her businesses. Her mother, 68-year-old Masengena, opposed the idea.
“I heard so many stories of young women ending up dead there or unspeakable things happening,” she tells TRNN. Sylvia eventually persuaded her it was necessary for the family.
For about a year, the plan seemed to work. Sylvia called home regularly and sent money to renovate her mother’s house and support the rental business. The family started to believe their fears about Saudi Arabia may have been exaggerated.
But in 2023, after a few months with a new employer, everything changed. The family received a frantic message: her employer accused her of stealing a gold chain on the way to a wedding—and he was carrying a pistol. Sylvia said she feared for her life. Then
by Maximillian Alvarez | Feb 27, 2026 | big tech, Gaza, ICE, Israel, Palestine, Podcast, Politics and Movements: International, Politics and Movements: US, Working People
In just six months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) more than tripled the amount of data stored on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, The Guardian reports, “at the same time that its arsenal of surveillance technology ballooned.” This week, tech workers with the No Azure for Apartheid (NOAA) campaign staged a protest and informational picket at Microsoft’s global headquarters in Redmond, Washington, demanding that Microsoft cancel all contracts that provide technological support for Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and ICE’s campaign of terror in the US. We speak with Ibtihal, a former software engineer at Microsoft and an organizer with the NOAA campaign.
Additional links/info:
No Azure for Apartheid Instagram and Linktree
Harry Davies & Yuval Abraham, The Guardian, “ICE reliance on Microsoft technology surged amid immigration crackdown, documents show”
Maximillian Alvarez, TRNN, “‘Microsoft workers refuse to be complicit in the genocide’”
Maximillian Alvarez, TRNN, “Microsoft cancels Israeli spy unit access after tech worker revolt”
Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / TRNN, “The biggest labor story in the US right now is happening at Microsoft”
Featured Music:
Jules Taylor, Working People Theme Song
Credits:
Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Maximillian Alvarez:
I got work to do. All right. Welcome everyone to Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and is brought to you in partnership within these Times Magazine and the Real News Network. This show is produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like you. My name is
by Jake Johnson | Feb 27, 2026 | Article, cuba, Politics and Movements: International, Politics and Movements: US, Reprint
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Feb. 26, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
The Cuban government said Wednesday that the men on a Florida-registered boat who opened fire on Cuban soldiers in the island’s territorial waters were bent on carrying out “an infiltration for terrorist purposes.”
In a statement following news that Cuban forces had killed four people on the boat, the besieged Caribbean nation’s Interior Ministry said the vessel was carrying 10 men, all “Cuban nationals residing in the United States.”
The ministry said it seized assault rifles, explosives, body armor, and other items from the boat and identified seven of its passengers, six of whom were detained. Four men on the boat—which, according to reports, was last purchased in 2022—were killed in the gunfight with Cuban soldiers, who had reportedly “approached the vessel for identification.”
Cuban authorities also said another individual, Duniel Hernández Santos, was arrested “within national territory.” The Interior Ministry said Santos “had allegedly been sent from the United States to facilitate the landing and reception of the armed group and has confessed to his role.”
“The investigation remains ongoing until all facts have been fully established,” the ministry said.
Participants in Foiled Armed Infiltration in Villa Clara IdentifiedAs part of the ongoing investigation into the armed attack against a patrol vessel of the Border Guard Troops of the Ministry of the Interior, in the northeastern area of the El Pino channel, at Cayo Falcones,… pic.twitter.com/s9IFmUkqvk— Cuban Embassy in US (@EmbaCubaUS) February 26, 2026
The deadly incident came as Cuba continued to reel from the Trump administration’s recent intensification of decades-long economic warfare against the island. The administration is “actively seeking regime change in Cuba,” according to Wall
by Marc Steiner | Feb 27, 2026 | Iran, Israel, Middle East, Podcast, Politics and Movements: International, Politics and Movements: US, The Marc Steiner Show, Trump
Urged on by Israel and neocon war hawks, President Trump has brought the US to the verge of a war with Iran, amassing more American military forces in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Trita Parsi, co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, about the disastrous ramifications such a war would have—and what options still remain to avoid it.
Guests:
Trita Parsi is an Iranian-born Swedish writer and policy analyst and the co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He is an award-winning author and the 2010 recipient of the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. He is an expert on US-Iranian relations, Iranian foreign policy, and the geopolitics of the Middle East. He has authored four books on US foreign policy in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Iran and Israel.
Additional links/info:
Trita Parsi, Common Dreams, “How does this end? Even a ‘small’ US strike on Iran by Trump would be disastrous”
Maximillian Alvarez, TRNN, “Jeremy Scahill: Prospects for avoiding US-Iran war ‘remain fragile’”
Credits:
Producer: Rosette Sewali
Studio Production: David Hebden
Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Marc Steiner:
Welcome to the Marc Steiner Show here on The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. It’s great to have you all with us. We are on the verge of a war with Iran, a war that could unleash a conflict that can lead to a wider war in the region and have devastating effects on
