Four of six crew members died after a U.S. military KC-135 refueling aircraft that was part of the American war against Iran crashed in neighboring Iraq, United States Central Command said on Friday.
In a statement, it said that rescue efforts were continuing and that the circumstances of the crash were under investigation, but added that “the loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire.”
The deaths brought the number of U.S. service members killed in operations related to the Iran conflict to at least 11.
The United States is responsible for killing at least 175 people, many of them children, in a Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian elementary school on the last day of February, according to US officials and others familiar with the ongoing military investigation who spoke with the New York Times. The death toll was reported by Iranian officials.
The deadly strike on the girls’ school, Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary, followed incorrect targeting intelligence about the area. The school is nearby buildings used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Navy—which the US also targeted on the same day it decimated Shajarah Tayyebeh. Before it was a school, the site was connected to the base. But, according to a visual analysis for the Times, the school area has been sectioned off from the base for at least a decade. US military intelligence, the preliminary report findings indicate, might have been operating off of old data.
The investigation isn’t over and more information is poised to come out about how the school became designated as a target. While there have reportedly been instances of the US using Claude, the AI model created by Anthropic, in their offensive against Iran, it is unclear if the AI was used in the strike against the school. Government officials told the Times that it may have been the result of human error.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has made contempt for what he calls “stupid rules of engagement” — limits meant to reduce risks to civilians — central to his political identity, and has boasted that he unleashed the military to use “maximum authorities on the battlefield” in the Iran war.
“Our warfighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly,” Mr. Hegseth said at a briefing four days after the war started. “Our rules of engagement are bold, precise and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it.”
This and similar statements are now the backdrop to a body of evidence that the destruction of an Iranian elementary school during the opening hours of the war was likely caused by an American missile strike. The preliminary finding of an ongoing military investigation has determined that the United States was responsible, The New York Times has reported.
The destruction of the school, which coincided with an attack on an adjacent Iranian naval base, killed about 175 civilians, most of them children, according to Iranian officials.
Long before this war, Mr. Hegseth’s opposition to stricter versions of limits on what U.S. forces need to see and know about a potential target before they may open fire drew criticism. Retired commanders argue that the point of such constraints is not just law, morality and honor, but strategic self-interest. Mistakes that kill civilians stoke anti-Americanism — alienating allies, creating new enemies and making wars harder to win.
“You don’t want to turn the entire population against the United States,” said Mark Hertling, a retired three-star Army general. “If you are bombing indiscriminately — like may have happened on several occasions, to include the girls’ school — that would negate any opportunity to have a positive regime change.”
The black rain that fell across Tehran in the hours after the bombings was a mixture of soot and fine particulate matter from the explosions with rain from a storm that was already moving across the region, according to Dr Akshay Deoras, a research scientist at the University of Reading.
“The airstrikes on oil depots released soot, smoke, oil particles, sulfur compounds, and likely heavy metals and inorganic materials from the buildings, whilst a low‑pressure weather system, which typically sweeps across Iran and west Asia around this time of year, created conditions favorable for rainfall,” Deoras said.
“In terms of atmospheric chemistry, the oil fires produce sulphur and nitrogen compounds that could form acids if they dissolve in rainwater,” he said. “The risks to human health come from inhaling or touching the smoke and particles. Immediate impacts can include headaches, irritation of the eyes and skin, and difficulty breathing—particularly for people with asthma, lung disease, older adults, young children, and those with disabilities.”
Brenda is confounded that while so many people are struggling to eat and staring down major cuts to federal nutrition assistance, the U.S. government is spending billions of dollars on a war with Iran. “What I see every day in my community is there are hard-working, single-parent households out here,” says Brenda, who is going by a pseudonym to protect against retaliation. “They’re struggling to afford basics, just like I am. Groceries are costing more. Rent costs more. A lot of people are having to choose between paying their electric bill or buying medication or keeping a roof over their head … Our own people are dying because of a lack of necessities.”
“The government could end all of the suffering in our country,” she continued. “We could have health care and access to food, healthy foods, fresh food, we could have good doctors. We should be asking, ‘Why are we investing billions of dollars into another war across the seas?’”
As the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and Lebanon stretches into its second week, it is bringing death and destruction across the region. On the first day of the war, the United States bombed an elementary school in Minab, in southern Iran, killing 168 people, 110 of them children. The U.S.-Israel coalition went on to heavily bomb residential areas in Iran and Lebanon, and strike oil depots around Tehran, filling the air with thick, black smoke that blots out the sun and unleashes oily, toxic rain. Trump administration officials are openly boasting about the death toll. When asked whether Russia’s involvement endangers American personnel, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told CBS that “the only ones that need to be worried right now are Iranians that think they’re gonna live.”
The Pentagon estimates that the war costs $1 billion a day, according to Atlantic journalist Nancy Youssef, who cites “a congressional official.” For that amount, the United States instead could be paying the daily cost of food stamps for the 41 million people who need them, or the daily costs of Medicaid for the 16 million people who are expected to lose their coverage due to recent cuts, according to Alliyah Lusuegro and Lindsay Koshgarian of the National Priorities Project, an organization that researches federal budgets.
“The primary concern is the death in Iran,” says Koshgarian, who is NPP’s program director. “Having a foreign government come and invade your country and bomb it is not giving you self-determination. And then it’s not protecting Americans, but it is preventing Americans from having enough resources.”
STEPHEN FOWLER, BYLINE: Hello.
KEITH: There were a number of developments in the long-running Epstein files story this week. And Stephen, I want to start with your latest reporting on files that were missing or redacted from the original public release. Some of those files have now been posted by the Justice Department. What do they have in them?
FOWLER: Just to recap, we found that there were 53 pages that appeared to be missing from that public Epstein files database. They all related to an allegation that President Trump sexually abused a minor in the early 1980s. There was a mention of this explicit allegation found in a Justice Department PowerPoint from last year that was in the files and also an FBI email kind of recapping all of the claims made about Trump, but we couldn't find it anywhere else in these files. Looking at some of the other documents, we were able to find that the FBI interviewed this woman as an adult in 2019 four separate times. Only one of those interviews was initially published in the Epstein files, and it didn't mention Trump at all.
Now, we do have some of those files, 16 pages covering three other interviews, plus a two-page sheet detailing the initial tip that was called in. These interviews do go into more explicit detail about what Trump was alleged to have done to her when she was a teenager, forcing her head down onto his penis. She allegedly bit it. He said foul words and hit her head. There's also an interview, which was the final one in 2019, and this woman was asked whether she, quote, "felt comfortable" detailing her contacts with Trump, and she reportedly asked, quote, "what the point would be of providing this information at this point in her life when there was a strong possibility nothing could be done about it." And remember, these interviews took place during Trump's first term in office.
KEITH: Stephen, how is the White House responding to this?
FOWLER: We should also note here that Trump denies any wrongdoing related to Epstein and has not been charged with a crime. The White House has repeatedly said that Trump is, quote, "totally exonerated" by the Epstein files. The latest statement from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says that these are completely baseless accusations, backed by zero credible evidence. They also point on background to two different articles that claim to discredit the woman's accusations, but we haven't verified those things. In fact, Tam, looking at the release of these documents, it doesn't actually shine any more light on how credible federal investigators viewed these claims or how they were resolved, or why these allegations were included in the Justice Department slide presentation summarizing the cases against Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
KEITH: But there are still records that haven't been released. What has the government said about the delays in the release?
FOWLER: It's been a shifting story. I mean, back when the Epstein files were released on January 30, the Justice Department said they were all done in accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act law Congress passed. When we asked specifically about these documents, the Justice Department would not comment on them directly and said anything that might've been withheld was because of privilege, or they were duplicates, or they were part of an ongoing federal investigation. After more people reported on the documents and there was more of a public backlash, the story changed again. The Justice Department said they were reviewing to see if anything was accidentally mistakenly tagged as duplicate, and if they found something, of course, they would publish it.
So fast-forward to Thursday night, where there were a thousand new pages uploaded, including some documents that it discovered were, quote, "incorrectly coded as duplicative" and a few more documents related to prosecution memos that the Southern District of Florida determined could be published while protecting privileged materials. That said, we still know based on looking at the serial numbers stamped onto these documents and the logs of files turned over to Ghislaine Maxwell's attorney in her case, that there are still 37 pages, at least, that still haven't been published.
KEITH: Domenico, this is a story that is just not going away for the administration, and it comes when they have all kinds of other issues related to their base and possible disillusionment with respect to the war with Iran. You know, it's one thing to be fighting a messaging battle on one front, but this is now two fronts that they're on. Where do you see this going?
MONTANARO: Well, certainly, this isn't going to go away anytime soon. You know, it's going to continue to be a thorn in the Trump administration's side. I mean, Trump would very much like this to go away, but there are a lot of people on both sides of the aisle who don't want that to be the case, and it's not necessarily because they're targeting Trump. You know, there are lots of men with power and influence who are named in these files, many of whom have not faced any consequences whatsoever. You have lots of victims who are continuing to speak out and are trying to make sure this story doesn't go away.
That official is Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, a position he was nominated for by President Donald Trump last November.
“Jay Clayton has a very personal interest in seeing the Epstein story as a cabined-off story involving a mysterious ‘who could have ever known it’ villain, rather than the story of interconnected immoral elites it appears to be to impartial people,” said Jeff Hauser, the executive director of Revolving Door Project, a government watchdog group, speaking with The Lever.
“That’s a really paralyzing bias to bring to the role of prosecutor. We should want professional skeptics to serve our prosecutors, not the credulous.”
Accusations of Clayton harboring a “personal interest” in narrowing the scope of the probe into Epstein stem from a series of newly released emails from the DOJ that revealed communications between Epstein and leadership at the asset management firm Apollo Global Management, communications that took place as recently as 2016, nearly a decade after Epstein was convicted of soliciting a minor.
And, according to financial disclosures, Clayton continues to hold somewhere between $1.5 million and $6 million in Apollo holdings, as well as tens of thousands of dollars in stocks from banks currently being investigated for potentially facilitating “suspicious financial transactions tied to sex trafficking crimes committed by Epstein.”
The Fair Wages for Home Care Workers Act would codify rights to minimum wage and overtime pay for home care workers and domestic workers
As Trump and Republicans strip home care workers of their right to minimum wage and overtime pay, Murray and Democrats fight to protect fair wages
***WATCH PRESS CONFERENCE HERE***
Washington, D.C. – Today,U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, introduced the bicameral Fair Wages for Home Care Workers Act, alongside Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ), in response to Trump ripping away home care workers’ right to minimum wage and overtime pay. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY-14) introduced companion legislation in the House. The Fair Wages for Home Care Workers Act addresses a longstanding injustice in our country—home care workers have been unfairly excluded from the Fair Labor Standards Act. This legislation would codify minimum wage and overtime protections for home care workers in federal labor law, and expand overtime protections to domestic workers as well. Senator Murray and Senator Kim were also joined by Miranda Bridges, a caregiver from Moses Lake, Washington, and SEIU 775 member, and Jenn Stowe, Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance.
In the U.S., there are more than 3 million home care workers who support almost 10 million people with disabilities and older adults with everyday tasks like eating, dressing, and bathing. In July 2025, the Trump administration took action to roll back a 2013 rule – seeking to strip home care workers’ rights to minimum wage and overtime pay. If the Trump administration’s proposal is finalized, home care workers who reside in states with no additional wage protections will lose their right to minimum wage and overtime protections. If passed, the Fair Wages for Home Care Workers Act would codify home care workers’ rights to minimum wage and overtime pay in statute and expand overtime protections to domestic workers as well.
“In Washington state and across our country, home care workers ensure that seniors and people with disabilities can live in their homes with dignity and respect. They play a vital role in our communities and too many of them are struggling to make ends meet on the low wages they’re receiving,” said Senator Murray. “Instead of supporting these workers, Donald Trump wants to overturn a rule that ensures that home care workers receive the same basic minimum wage and overtime protections as everyone else. That’s why today we are Introducing the Fair Wages for Home Care Workers Act. This bill makes sure that home care workers and domestic workers at least have the basic wage protections they deserve and can continue to earn a fair day’s pay for a hard day’s work. No loopholes, exceptions, or sabotage from a billionaire President without a clue.”
“No one should get less than a fair wage for their work in our country,” said Senator Kim. “As the need for caregivers only grows, we cannot allow the Trump administration to abandon home care and domestic workers to live in poverty. Care workers go above and beyond to look after our loved ones. Congress needs to step up to codify the fair pay they deserve and support their essential service at the heart of addressing our country’s care crisis.”
“Congress has a moral obligation to protect those who care for our most vulnerable communities and home care workers are the backbone of our long-term care system,” said Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “I am proud to introduce the Fair Wages for Home Care Workers Act with Senator Patty Murray to finally codify the minimum wage and overtime protections our home care workers deserve and prevent future attacks on their livelihoods.”
In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) created a right to minimum wage and overtime pay for most workers in the U.S., but the FLSA continued to exclude some categories of workers, such as home care workers. In 1974, Congress amended the FLSA to cover home care workers; unfortunately, that amendment included a loophole that was interpreted to allow for the continued exclusion of most home care workers. In 2013, The U.S. Department of Labor finalized regulations, interpreting these amendments and expanding labor protections for most home care workers.
In July 2025, the Trump administration took action to roll back the 2013 rule—seeking to strip home care workers’ rights to minimum wage and overtime pay—and revert to a previous interpretation of the 1974 amendments. If the Trump administration’s proposal is finalized, home care workers who reside in states with no additional wage protections—more than one-quarter of all home care workers in the country—will lose their right to minimum wage and overtime protections.
“Ask any care worker about their hours and compensation, you’ll hear about recurring stories, you’ll hear how our voices go unheard, our needs often go overlooked, especially if we don’t have a union. We work unpaid hours because we refuse to leave our clients, our neighbors, and our loved ones without the dignity of care. We perform essential work that holds the economy together, yet we are often the ones struggling to make ends meet. Care givers deserve respect, and the people we care for deserve respect. The work we do is essential, that’s why we need a strong care workforce, and that’s why SEIU stands in strong support of the Fair Wages for Home Care Workers Act. This legislation is a vital step towards ensuring home care workers receive fair compensation for every hour worked. We are done waiting for someday—we cannot wait. Congress must act now, it is time to pass the Fair Wages for Home Care Workers Act, and finally invest in and support the people who are at the heart of our health care system,” said Miranda Bridges, a caregiver from Moses Lake, Washington, and SEIU 775 member.
“We are at a crossroads in this country. Our need for care is growing every single day, yet we continue to treat the home care workforce as disposable. We cannot allow the fundamental right to a minimum wage and overtime to be at the whim and mercy of this administration. Rolling back these protections would hurt an already struggling workforce and the millions of families who rely on their care. The Fair Wages for Home Care Workers Act is our chance to finally enshrine these protections in federal law and help ensure that the workers who enable the dignity of our older and disabled loved ones are able to work with dignity too,” said Ai-Jen Poo, President of National Domestic Workers Alliance.
“Home care workers represent a lifeline for millions of families—yet too many are denied even a minimum wage and often go unpaid for hours spent off the clock keeping their clients safe. Poverty wages are driving caregivers out of this lifesaving field, leaving families without support, hospitals and nursing homes overwhelmed, and seniors and people with disabilities at risk of losing the freedom to live with dignity in their own homes. Congress must act now to protect these essential workers and the families who depend on them. On behalf of the thousands of AFSCME members in home care, we thank Senator Murray and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez for introducing this critical legislation, and urge Congress to pass it now,” said Lee Saunders, President of President of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
In addition to Senators Murray and Kim, the Senate bill is co-sponsored by: Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Maizie Hirono (D-HI), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Ed Markey (D-MA), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
In addition to Representative Ocasio-Cortez, the House bill is co-sponsored by: Alma Adams (NC-12), Yassamin Ansari (AZ-03), Becca Balint (VT-AL), Nanette Barragán (CA-44), Wesley Bell (MO-01), Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01), Nikki Budzinski (IL-13), André Carson (IN-07), Judy Chu (CA-28), Emanuel Cleaver (MO-05), Danny K. Davis (IL-07), Suzan DelBene (WA-01), Maxine Dexter (OR-03), Debbie Dingell (MI-06), Dwight Evans (PA-03), Lois Frankel (FL-22), Maxwell Frost (FL-10), Jesús “Chuy” García (IL-04), Daniel Goldman (NY-10), Jimmy Gomez (CA-34), Raúl Grijalva (AZ-07), Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC-AL), Val Hoyle (OR-04), Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), Julie Johnson (TX-32), Tim Kennedy (NY-26), Ro Khanna (CA-17), Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL-08), George Latimer (NY-16), Ted Lieu (CA-36), Stephen Lynch (MA-08), John Mannion (NY-22), Lucy McBath (GA-06), Sarah McBride (DE-AL), Jennifer McClellan (VA-04), Jim McGovern (MA-02), LaMonica McIver (NJ-10), Seth Moulton (MA-06), Jerry Nadler (NY-12), Donald Norcross (NJ-01), Ilhan Omar (MN-05), Brittany Pettersen (CO-07), Chellie Pingree (ME-01), Mark Pocan (WI-02), Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), Andrea Salinas (OR-06), Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), Lateefah Simon (CA-12), Summer Lee (PA-12), Marilyn Strickland (WA-10), Eric Swalwell (CA-14), Shri Thanedar (MI-13), Rashida Tlaib (MI-12), Paul Tonko (NY-20), Ritchie Torres (NY-15), Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12), and Frederica Wilson (FL-24).
The legislation has been endorsed by: 1199SEIU; A Better Balance; ACLU; ADAPT Montana; ADAPT National; Adhikaar for Human Rights and Social Justice; The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD); American Friends Service Committee; AFSCME; Alliance for Retired Americans; ANCOR; The ARC of Illinois; The ARC of the United States; Autistic People of Color Fund; Autistic Self Advocacy Network; Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network; Blue Future; Business for a Fair Minimum Wage; Care in Action; Caring Across Generations; Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP); Coalition on Human Needs; Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition; Colorado Fiscal Institute; CommunicationFIRST; Community Catalyst; Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care; Democratic Women’s Caucus; Detroit Disability Power; Disciples Center for Public Witness; Diverse Elders Coalition; Economic Policy Institute; Equal Rights Advocates; eQuality HomeCare Co-op; Family Voices National; Family Values @ Work; Family Values @ Work Action; Fe y Justicia Worker Center; Filipino Advocates for Justice; Food Research & Action Center; Hand in Hand: The Domestic Employers Network; Institute for Women’s Policy Research; Justice in Aging; Justice for Migrant Women; Lazos America Unida; LeadingAge; Liberty Resources Inc.; Matahari Women Workers Center; MomsRising; National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd; National Coalition for the Homeless; National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare; National Council of Jewish Women; National Council on Independent Living (NCIL); National Disability Institute; National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA); National Employment Law Project (NELP); National Health Law Program; National Immigration Law Center; National Indian Council on Aging; National Nurses United; National Partnership for Women & Families; National Respite Coalition; National Women’s Law Center; National Women’s Political Caucus; NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice; New Disabled South; New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty; North Carolina Justice Center; Nuevo Sol Day Labor and Domestic Workers; Oxfam America; Paid Leave for All Action; The Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies; PEAK Parent Center; People’s Action Institute; PHI; Public Justice Center; SCIboston; SEIU; SEIU 775; Serving At Risk Families Everywhere Inc.; Sur Legal Collaborative; UNITE HERE!; United Church of Christ; United Domestic Workers of America (UDW); Voices for Progress; Women Employed; Women Working Together USA; WorkLife Law.
As the top Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee from 2015-2022 and a champion of workers’ rights, Senator Murray has been a longtime leader pushing to raise the minimum wage, establish a national paid leave program, and expand workers’ rights. Among many other pieces of pro-worker legislation, Murray also leads the Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act, to fight wage theft and protect workers’ hard earned wages, and the Paycheck Fairness Act, to combat wage discrimination and help close the gender pay gap. Senator Murray has helped lead the fight for paid family and medical leave since she first joined Congress. Murray continues to push for the Family and Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act, which would guarantee up to 12 weeks of partial income for workers who have to take leave for serious medical and family events. Murray also helped reintroduce the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act to protect workers’ right to join and form a union in order to demand better pay, benefits, and working conditions—legislation she first introduced in the 116th Congress. Senator Murray also leads the Bringing an End to Harassment by Enhancing Accountability and Rejecting Discrimination (BE HEARD) in the Workplace Act, comprehensive legislation to prevent workplace harassment, strengthen and expand key protections for workers, and support workers in seeking accountability and justice. Earlier this month, Senator Murray slammed the Trump administration’s moves to roll back worker protections—forcefully calling out the Administration’s extreme anti-worker policies.
A fact sheet on the legislation is available HERE.
Text of the legislation is available HERE.
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