Pentagon Releases Videos Images Of Iranian
The Department of War has released the first images and videos of U.S. military actions against Iran as the campaign against the regime extends into its third day. Operation Epic Fury has so far claimed the lives of four U.S. military personnel and wounded more than a dozen others.
Early on Monday, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth declared that the primary focus of the U.S. military operation in Iran is the use of lasers.
“Destroy Iranian missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure and they will never have nuclear weapons,” said Hesgeth, who was joined by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine.
Hegseth declined to give a timeframe for the operation, but he insisted it would not be “endless.”
“This is not Iraq,” Hegseth said. “This is not endless. I was there for both — our generation knows better, and so does this president. He called the last 20 years of nation-building wars dumb and he’s right. This is the opposite. This operation is a clear, devastating, decisive mission: Destroy the missile threat, destroy the navy, no nukes.”
Hegseth said there are no U.S. military “boots on the ground” in Iran right now, but said he would not “go into the exercise of what we will or will not do” in the future.
Caine said it will “take some time for us to conduct a battle damage assessment, and the targeting that CENTCOM will run will take those things into effect.”
At least 11 people have been killed in Israel. The Iranian Red Crescent says 555 people have been killed in Iran.
Caine said it will “take some time for us to conduct a battle damage assessment, and the targeting that CENTCOM will run will take those things into effect.”
Hegseth on Monday accused Iran of having started the war, saying Iran’s “stubborn and self-evident nuclear pursuit” as well as “targeting global shipping lines.”
“Iran had a conventional gun to our head as they tried to lie their way to a nuclear bomb,” Hegseth said to a room full of reporters on Monday morning with an important update.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a gaggle of reporters on Saturday, following U.S. and Israel strikes on Iran, that “the old world” he grew up in “is gone,” while urging American allies to realize that and help Washington forge a new path forward for the West.
“The world is changing very fast right in front of us,” Rubio said. “The old world is gone, frankly, the world I grew up in, and we live in a new era of geopolitics, and it’s gonna require all of us to sort of reexamine what that looks like and what our role is going to be.”
He added, “We’ve had many of these conversations in private with many of our allies. We need to continue to have those conversations.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Saturday that Rubio notified senior congressional leaders ahead of the joint U.S. Israeli military operation against Iran.
Leavitt’s statement, posted to X, came as critics questioned whether President Donald Trump authorized the strikes without the required approval from Congress.
“President Trump monitored the situation overnight at Mar a Lago alongside members of his national security team. The President spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu by phone,” Leavitt wrote.
“Prior to the attacks, Secretary Rubio called all members of the gang of eight to provide congressional notification, and he was able to reach and brief seven of the eight members,” she added.
“The President and his national security team will continue to closely monitor the situation throughout the day.”
Leavitt did not indicate whether Trump would return to Washington or remain at his Florida residence.
The so-called “Gang of Eight” includes the Senate and House majority and minority leaders, as well as the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Under the 1947 National Security Act, Congress must be kept “fully informed” of significant intelligence activities.
However, according to the Harvard Kennedy School, presidents from both parties have interpreted that language to mean that notifying the “Gang of Eight” satisfies the requirement rather than briefing the full intelligence committees.
She Said I’m Dirty…” the Maid’s Toddler Whispered — The Billionaire Fast Turned Toward His Fiancée
She Said I’m Dirty…” the Maid’s Toddler Whispered — The Billionaire Fast Turned Toward His Fiancée
The little girl did not cry when she tugged on Ethan Mercer’s suit jacket.
That was what made it worse.
She only looked up at him with tired brown eyes, held her one-eyed stuffed rabbit against her chest, and whispered, “I’m dirty.”
For a second, the entire Mercer Tower penthouse seemed to stop breathing.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, Manhattan was waking up in silver morning light. Cars moved far below. Coffee machines hummed behind marble walls. Somewhere down the hall, Rosa Alvarez was preparing breakfast exactly the way Mr. Mercer liked it.
Black coffee.
No sugar.
Gray ceramic cup from Milan.
Everything in Ethan Mercer’s life had a place.
The white marble floors. The private elevator. The indoor garden. The twelve-thousand-square-foot penthouse floating above the city like money had learned how to build heaven.
Even Rosa had a place.
Service corridor.
Back room.
Quiet steps.
Polished smile.
Invisible hands.
She was twenty-eight, a single mother, and the live-in housekeeper who had spent two years making Ethan’s world shine while raising her three-year-old daughter, Lily, in a room barely larger than a storage suite.
Rosa never complained.
Not about the narrow window facing concrete.
Not about the small mattress beside her own bed.
Not about waking before sunrise to scrub floors she could see her reflection in but never truly stand on as an equal.
It was still better than the shelter.
That was what she told herself every time humiliation pressed against her ribs.
Better than metal bunk beds.
Better than fluorescent lights.
Better than holding Lily’s hand in shared bathrooms at two in the morning.
So Rosa worked.
She folded his shirts until they looked sculpted. She replaced towels before anyone asked. She learned which surfaces hated lemon cleaner. She became excellent, quiet, grateful, and nearly invisible.
Ethan Mercer made invisibility easy.
He was not cruel.
That would have been simpler.
He was simply absent, even while standing in the same room. Thirty-four years old, self-made billionaire, tech empire, climate investments, medical AI, magazine covers calling him visionary. Inside his home, he moved like a man always solving a problem no one else could see.
Then there was Veronica Vale.
His fiancée.
Beautiful in the kind of way people forgive before asking questions. Blonde hair smooth as silk. Eight-carat engagement ring. Perfect laugh. Perfect posture. Perfect society smile.
But Rosa had seen the other face.
The pause when Rosa entered a room.
The slight lift of Veronica’s eyebrow at her shoes.
The soft little comments sharp enough to leave marks.
“Rosa, maybe use the side corridor when guests are here.”
“Children carry so many germs.”
“Some people are simply made for practical work.”
Rosa heard all of it.
She swallowed it because the job came with housing.
But Lily was too young to swallow shame correctly.
One week earlier, while Rosa was in the kitchen and Ethan was on a call, Lily had wandered into the living room with Mister under her arm. Designer handbags sat across the couch like treasure from a fairy tale.
Lily reached out one tiny finger toward a pearl strap.
Veronica saw her.
“Don’t touch that.”
Lily froze.
Veronica crossed the room, pulled the bag away, and looked down at the child with a coldness Ethan had never witnessed.
“You’re dirty,” she said.
Lily looked at her hands.
They were clean.
Rosa had washed them after breakfast.
But children believe adults before they believe evidence.
For seven days, Lily washed her hands longer.
Rosa noticed.
“Baby, your hands are clean.”
Lily only nodded.
Then washed them again.
Now, standing in front of Ethan in bare feet, she whispered the wound like it was a fact.
Ethan slowly crouched until his expensive suit folded against the marble.
“Who said that, sweetheart?”
Lily looked toward the master bedroom.
Toward Veronica.
And for the first time in two years, Ethan Mercer finally saw the house he lived in.
Not the glass.
Not the stone.
Not the wealth.
The people.
The silence.
The child carrying shame through his hallway.
He stood up slowly.
Rosa appeared from the kitchen with his breakfast tray, saw his face, and went pale.
“Mr. Mercer? Did Lily do something?”
Ethan did not look away from the bedroom door.
“No,” he said quietly. “She did nothing wrong.”
Then he walked down the hall and opened the door.
Veronica sat against white pillows, phone in hand, smiling like the morning still belonged to her.
“Good morning,” she said. “Come back to bed.”
Ethan stood in the doorway.
“Did you tell Lily she was dirty?”
Veronica’s smile did not fall.
It adjusted.
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