Axios

The U.S. and Israel have discussed sending special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium at a later stage of the war, according to four sources with knowledge of the discussions.

Why it matters: Preventing Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon is one of President Trump's stated war objectives. The regime's 450 kilograms of 60%-enriched uranium — convertible to weapons grade within weeks — is one key to that goal.

The United States has an extensive history of interventionism, but President Trump has grown especially frank about his intentions abroad in recent months.

The big picture: Trump told Axios this week that he must be involved in picking Iran's next leader, which — alongside his recent moves in Cuba and Venezuela — demonstrate that aggressive military force has become part and parcel of his foreign policy.

• It wouldn't be the first time, however, that the U.S. has pushed for specific leaders to fill the vacancies it helped create.

President Trump said Saturday "we've knocked out 42 navy ships" in three days, adding that the US is doing "very well" in Iran.

Why it matters: Trump bragged about dominance in Iran and hinted at possible action in Cuba at the first Shield of the Americas Summit, which has outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at the helm.

President Trump threatened early Saturday morning to step up the bombing campaign in Iran, saying it may expand to people and regions that hadn't been targeted previously.

Why it matters: The war is entering its second week, with no let-up in sight.

President Trump is mired in risk:

• Risk his Iran war of choice goes bad.
• Risk the February job losses are a trend, not a blip.
• Risk the stock market keeps dropping.
• Risk his tariffs, and now soaring oil costs, are pushing prices higher.
• Risk that deregulated AI accelerates job losses.
• Risk that Democratic enthusiasm leads to a midterm wipeout.

Why it matters: Trump fancies himself a high-risk, high-reward president, a confidence cheered by the vast majority of Republican officials and voters. But risk is risk — and by most measures, it's rising everywhere.

Iraq's Kurds are caught in a three-way vise as the Iran war spills across their border:

• They're uncertain, based on President Trump's messaging, whether the U.S. actually wants regime change next door.
• They're under pressure to open the border from Iranian Kurds who want to fight the regime.
• And they're facing a public threat — backed by a private warning — that Iran will retaliate if those militants attack from Iraqi Kurdish soil.

Why it matters: The Kurds of northern Iraq have carved out a stable, semi-autonomous region in one of the world's most volatile neighborhoods. Now, the war next door is threatening to make their neutrality impossible to hold.

President Trump is positioning himself as a central architect of Iran's post-war future, demanding "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER" on Friday.

The big picture: Trump is signaling ambitions that extend beyond military action into reshaping Iran's political and economic order just as he did in Venezuela. But experts warn it's not that simple.

A new civil rights report argues that lynchings of Black men didn't end in America — they evolved — and that some deaths today may still be misclassified as suicides or accidents.

The big picture: If killings are misclassified, families can lose their paths to justice, and possible patterns of racial violence can remain hidden in plain sight.

President Trump told Axios Friday that his demand for Iran's "unconditional surrender" could mean the complete destruction of the regime's military capabilities — not necessarily a formal surrender.

• "Unconditional surrender could be that [the Iranians] announce it. But it could also be when they can't fight any longer because they don't have anyone or anything to fight with," he said in a phone interview.

Why it matters: Trump's explanation came hours after he appeared to leave no visible off-ramp for Iran, ruling out any kind of "deal" as he demanded "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER" in a post on Truth Social.

Here's a question the Torah doesn't specifically answer: "Can a Jew let his AI agent run over Shabbat if the last prompt was Friday afternoon?"

Why it matters: It's a post that went viral on X, and is one of many new queries that rabbis debate when it comes to reconciling how modern technology fits within millennia-old tradition.