Iran struck the world-famous Fairmont hotel in Dubai, setting the hotel alight, as the war launched by the US and Israel on Iran quickly spread to the rest of the Middle East on Saturday.
Residents watched in shock as an Iranian missile hit the five-star hotel in Dubai’s luxurious Palm Jumeirah area. Social media videos showed fires breaking out near the entrance of the hotel, which led to four people being injured.
Later Dubai authorities said debris from an intercepted drone caused a fire at the city’s famous luxury hotel the Burj Al Arab.
“Civil Defence teams responded immediately and brought the incident under control. No injuries have been reported,” the Dubai media office wrote on its X account.
The media office also said that part of Dubai’s international airport “sustained minor damage in an incident,” without giving further details.
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Explosions rock Dubai, Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait as war spreads across Middle East
Iranian state media: 85 killed after missile blew up all-girls school
Shajareh Tayyebeh is an all-girls' school located in the southern Iranian town of Minab. Minab is in Hormozgan Province, which is along the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic international shipping lane, according to the New York Times.
Hossein Kermanpour, a spokesman for Iran’s health ministry, shared an X post on Feb. 28, calling the majority of those killed at the school "young child martyrs."
“God knows how many more children will be pulled out of the rubble,” he wrote in the social media post. “May God give their families strength and patience.”
When the strike hit, Shajareh Tayyebeh, described as an elementary school, was holding its first of multiple rotating school shifts, according to Hengaw, a Norway-based organization focusing on human rights violations in Iran. The group added that around 170 students are enrolled in the school’s morning shift; however, it is unclear how many were in the building during the strike
US, Israel launch attacks on Iran: Live updates
The United Stated launched military strikes and "major combat operations" against Iran on Feb. 28, President Donald Trump said, targeting the country's missile capabilities.
"Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard terrible people," Trump said.
"The lives of courage American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties, that often happens in war, but we're doing this not for now, we're doing this for the future, and it's a noble mission," the president said.
Israeli forces also struck Iranian sites overnight. Explosions were heard in Tehran on Saturday.
NASA lost a lunar spacecraft one day after launch. A new report details what went wrong
On February 26, 2025, a NASA probe called Lunar Trailblazer lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Its mission was to map the water on the moon. But a day after launch, mission managers lost contact with the spacecraft, and it was never heard from again.
One year later, NPR has learned exactly why the $72 million dollar mission failed.
A report by a review panel convened by NASA to explore what went wrong contains the explanation. Software that was supposed to point the spacecraft solar panels toward the sun instead pointed them 180 degrees away from the sun.
In addition, the panel found "many erroneous on-board fault management actions" that, taken together with the solar panel pointing error, "caused the Lunar Trailblazer failure."
NASA provided the report in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
Kansas revokes driver’s licenses from trans residents in latest assault on rights
Transgender Kansas residents have begun receiving letters from the state’s department of motor vehicles notifying them that their driver’s licenses will be invalid beginning Thursday, as a new law goes into effect that demands that forms of identification must now reflect the credential holder’s “sex at birth”.
The bill, known as SB 244, also bans transgender people from using bathrooms in public buildings that match their gender identity, and creates a sort of bounty hunter system, in which citizens can sue transgender people they encounter in restrooms for $1,000 in damages.
The state law was rushed through the state legislature using an expedited procedure known as “gut and go”. This means the text of one bill can be taken out and substituted for entirely new language or provisions, bypassing standard committee vetting and speeding through the voting process, which is legal in Kansas.
Governor Laura Kelly, a Democrat, vetoed the bill, arguing that SB 244 was “poorly drafted legislation”, but her veto was overridden by the state legislature’s Republican supermajority.
Sanctioned UN human rights investigator’s family sues Trump administration
The family of a sanctioned United Nations human rights investigator on Wednesday sued the Trump administration for sanctioning her over her criticism of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, arguing that the sanctions violate her First Amendment rights.
U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s husband, Massimiliano Cali, filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Washington. They argued that Albanese’s work surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, along with her work with the International Criminal Court (ICC), “is core First Amendment activity.”
“At its heart, this case concerns whether Defendants can sanction a person — ruining their life and the lives of their loved ones, including their citizen daughter — because Defendants disagree with their recommendations or fear their persuasiveness,” according to the filing.
Cali, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of himself, Albanese and their child, also argued that the sanctions have negatively impacted their ability to access their home in Washington, D.C. Cali said his wife also lost access to her bank account and the ability to travel to the U.S.
Man sentenced in crash that killed Dixie Chicks founder Laura Lynch
A man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in a head-on collision in western Texas that killed Laura Lynch, a founding member of a country music band now known as The Chicks, prosecutors said.
As part of a plea agreement, Domenick Chavez, 33, admitted that he was driving recklessly and caused the head-on crash that killed Lynch on Dec. 22, 2023, the El Paso District Attorney's Office said in a news release on Tuesday, Feb. 24. Lynch, 65, was killed instantly after Chavez attempted to pass four vehicles and collided into Lynch's truck.
The incident occurred on an undivided highway in Hudspeth County, about 50 miles east of El Paso. The El Paso District Attorney's Office also covers neighboring Hudspeth and Culberson counties.
"The death of Ms. Lynch caused profound sadness for her family, the Dell City community, and all those who appreciated her music. It is a loss made more acute by the fact that it happened just days before Christmas," El Paso District Attorney James Montoya said in a statement. "Our office will continue to hold accountable those defendants who choose to drive in an extremely dangerous manner."
Count of Russian Soldiers, Officers Confirmed Killed in Ukraine Passes 200,000
The confirmed count of Russian soldiers, officers, sailors and airmen confirmed killed in action or dead of combat injuries in Ukraine has passed 200,000, the research group Mediazona announced on Tuesday, citing new survey findings.
The group, working alongside BBC Russian Service and volunteers in and outside Russia, confirmed all of the Russian military losses, by name, using cross-referenced data from individual obituaries, civil death certificates, geo-located graves, unit rosters, social media updates, funeral announcements, cemetery records and obituaries.
A leak of confidential government data on some 23,000 security checks of individuals found to have been dead by police investigators was a key “breakthrough” for the group’s tracking work, a Mediazona statement said.
As of midday Wednesday, the total count of verified Russian dead in Ukraine stood at 200,186 men. The figure “remains a conservative floor, not a ceiling,” the statement said in part.
Mapping by the group identified 26,600 cities, towns or villages across all thirteen of Russia’s time zones as the homes of men losing their lives in Ukraine. All Russian cities, without exception, have received remains of soldiers sent to Ukraine who then died there, the report said.
Bill Gates admits to affairs, apologizes for Epstein relationship, WSJ reports
Bill Gates "took responsibility for his actions" over ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in a town hall meeting with employees of the Gates Foundation, the group said in a statement.
Gates answered questions at the twice-a-year meeting Feb. 24 on a range of issues, "including the release of the Epstein files," the foundation said. "In the townhall, Bill spoke candidly, addressing several questions in detail, and took responsibility for his actions," the foundation said.
Documents released by the Justice Department have indicated Gates and Epstein met repeatedly to discuss expanding the Microsoft founder's philanthropic efforts. The meetings came after Epstein was imprisoned for 13 months, ending in 2009, for a conviction on state charges in Florida of soliciting the prostitution involving a minor. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while in custody on federal charges that he had sex-trafficked underage girls.
According to the Journal report, Gates told staff it was a huge mistake to spend time with Epstein and bring Gates Foundation executives into meetings with the sex offender. The report cited a recording of Gates' comments in the town hall.
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