Episode Details

For review:

1. Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is “wounded and likely disfigured,” US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a briefing Friday.

2. US President Donald Trump announces that American forces “totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran’s crown jewel, Kharg Island.

3. Five US Air Force refueling planes were struck and damaged on the ground at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing two US officials.

The planes, which were hit during an Iranian missile strike on the Saudi base in recent days, were damaged but not fully destroyed and are being repaired, the Journal says, adding that no one was killed in the strikes.

4. All six crew members of a KC-135 refueling aircraft that crashed while supporting operations against Iran are dead, the U.S. military said Friday.

CENTCOM said the crash in Western Iraq on Thursday followed an unspecified incident involving two aircraft in “friendly airspace” and that the other plane landed safely.

5. After several statements over the past months and weeks urging Iranians to prepare to take to the streets and seize power from the government once the bombing stops, US President Donald Trump on Friday acknowledged that it will be very difficult for them to overthrow the regime.

6. Defense Minister Israel Katz on Friday threatened the Lebanese government that Israel would destroy the country’s national infrastructure used by Hezbollah if the terror group isn’t disarmed, after the Israel Defense Forces struck a bridge that it described as a “key crossing” for the group.

7. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tapped former minister and longtime aide Ron Dermer to handle the Lebanon file for the duration of the ongoing Mideast war, Channel 12 news reported Friday, citing senior Israeli and US officials.

Dermer, who served as strategic affairs minister from 2022 until his resignation late last year, will lead talks with the US government regarding Lebanon, the report said.

8. The Pentagon’s supplemental funding request to replace weapons expended in Iran is expected to involve buying new types of equipment, not just legacy systems, the department’s chief financial officer said today.

9. On March 4, when a U.S. Navy submarine sunk an enemy combatant ship for the first time since World War II, three Australian submariners were aboard.

Two days later, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed the presence of Royal Australian Navy (RAN) sailors aboard the U.S. submarine when the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena was sunk.

10. A fire broke out aboard aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) on Thursday, multiple sources confirmed to USNI News.

The initial fire has been extinguished, but the crew is still doing damage control, according to a U.S. official. 

“On March 12, USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) experienced a fire that originated in the ship’s main laundry spaces,” reads a U.S. Central Command statement posted to social media website X. “The cause of the fire was not combat-related and is contained.