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The U.S. economy shed 92,000 jobs in February, the  estimated March 6, falling far short of forecasters' expectations, and signaling the labor market is still in low-hire mode as employers navigate tariff-related inflation pressures, AI adoption, and geopolitical uncertainty.

The February estimate comes in much lower than the BLS’ now-revised gain of 126,000 jobs added in January, which was much higher than the agency’s revised figures for 2025, when U.S. employers added only 181,000 jobs throughout the entire year, or about 15,000 a month.

“The weak jobs report challenges the recent stabilization narrative and puts the Fed in a difficult position, especially as the spike in oil prices adds near‑term inflation pressure,” Angelo Kourkafas, Senior Global Strategist at Edward Jones, said in a note to USA TODAY, adding that economists should avoid over-extrapolating the trend given weather and labor disruptions' potential impact on hiring in February.

He added, “however, with global geopolitical uncertainty elevated, it is reasonable to expect that job growth may remain subdued in the months ahead.”

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Heavy waves of U.S.-Israeli airstrikes were reported across several Iranian cities, including Tehran, where explosions were heard near Mehrabad Airport, Azadi Square, Tehransar, and Chitgar in the western part of the capital. Additional strikes were reported in Bandar Abbas, Tabriz, Bushehr, and Qazvin, with officials in East Azerbaijan Province reporting dozens of casualties.

Casualty counts: The death toll in Iran has reached at least 1,230, according to the official Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs.

Iranian Red Crescent: Over 100 civilian sites hit: The Iranian Red Crescent Society said on Thursday it has recorded 1,332 strikes in Iran by the U.S. and Israel since Saturday, with raids documented at 636 locations and at least 174 cities. The Red Crescent said at least 105 civilian sites have been struck, including 14 medical facilities and seven Red Crescent buildings. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei accused the U.S. and Israel of intentionally hitting civilian areas. “Our people are being brutally slaughtered as the aggressors deliberately target civilian areas and any location they believe will inflict the maximum possible suffering and loss of life,” Baghaei said on X.

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Thousands of cruise ship passengers remain stranded in the Gulf as a result of the war on Iran.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO), a UN-run agency, told AFP on Thursday that around 20,000 seafarers and 15,000 cruise ship passengers were trapped as the conflict has frozen travel.

"Beyond the economic impact of these alarming attacks, it is a humanitarian issue. No attack on innocent seafarers is ever justified," Arsenio Dominguez, the IMO’s secretary general, said.

"I reiterate my call for all shipping companies to exercise maximum caution when operating in the affected region," he added.

The freeze on travel is part of the growing number of industries that have been disrupted by the war in the Middle East, with tourism severely affected by the region-wide conflict.

In-bound arrivals have been projected to fall by as much as a quarter year-on-year in 2026, according to Global Forecasting.

As well as tourists, seafarers have been placed at risk. On Thursday, two Indian crew members were reported to have been killed in attacks on a tanker. Ashish Kumar and Dalip Singh were killed in strikes on a Palau-flagged oil tanker called Skylight in the Gulf of Oman.

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A federal judge has decided that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis cannot unilaterally designate the largest Muslim-American civil rights organisation as a "terrorist" group because it infringes on First Amendment rights. 

The temporary injunction on Wednesday blocks DeSantis's executive order signed in December, designating the Council on American Islamic Relations (Cair) as a terrorist organisation, and opening up a potential pathway for state prosecutions of anyone believed to be supporting them.

“The question before this Court is whether the Governor can, in a non-emergency situation, unilaterally designate one of the largest Muslim civil rights groups in America as a ‘terrorist organization’ and withhold government benefits from anyone providing material support or resources to the group,” judge Mark Walker wrote in his order.

“This Court finds he cannot.”

He said his decision is based on DeSantis's "coercion of third parties to cut ties with Plaintiff" because Cair had lost contracts with Florida companies while other advocacy groups severed ties with them.

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US President Donald Trump is meeting top US defense company executives at the White House on Friday as Washington tries to refill stockpiles depleted by strikes on Iran.

Defense conglomerates Lockheed Martin, RTX, and L3Harris were among the companies expected to attend.

The administration is expected to press defense firms to speed up production of missiles and bombs as the Pentagon works to rebuild supplies used in recent operations, including in the Middle East.

The meeting comes at a sensitive time for Ukraine. Reuters reported that Ukrainian F-16 fighter jets ran short of US-made air-to-air missiles for more than three weeks in late 2025, just as Russia was preparing a major winter air campaign. During the gap, Ukrainian pilots had to limit missile use and, in some cases, relied on onboard guns against drones until fresh supplies arrived from partner countries in December.

For Kyiv, the concern is clear: If the US now focuses more heavily on refilling its own arsenal, Ukraine could again face delays in receiving badly needed missiles and air-defense supplies.

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Just months after President Trump's mass pardons for Jan. 6 rioters freed him from prison, a Florida man repeatedly sexually abused two middle-school aged children.

On Thursday, the man, Andrew Paul Johnson, was sentenced to life in prison, after a Florida jury found him guilty of five criminal charges, including molestation, lewd and lascivious exhibition and transmission of material harmful to a minor.

Police reported that Johnson, 45, tried to keep the children quiet by telling them he would share millions of dollars in restitution money he expected to receive from the Trump administration in connection with his Jan. 6 case.

"He said not to tell anybody," one of Johnson's victims testified.

Both children later testified that they were too afraid to tell any adults about what they had endured, according to trial records obtained by NPR.

"We were scared," Johnson's other victim testified. "Like, we didn't realize that this stuff was not okay because we were 12 years old."

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The Justice Department has published additional Epstein files related to allegations that President Trump sexually abused a minor after an NPR investigation found dozens of pages were withheld.

They include 16 new pages that cover three additional FBI interview summaries with a woman who accused Trump of sexual abuse decades ago when she was a minor. Also included are two pages of an intake form documenting the initial call to the FBI from a friend who relayed the claims.

NPR's investigation previously found 53 pages that appeared to be missing from the public database.

Now that these documents are published, there are still 37 pages of records still missing from the public database, including notes from the interviews, a law enforcement report and license records.

The Justice Department has repeatedly told NPR that any documents withheld were "privileged, are duplicates or relate to an ongoing federal investigation."

Last week, after NPR's initial story, the Justice Department said it was determining if records had been mistakenly tagged as duplicates and if any were found, "the Department will of course publish it, consistent with the law."

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Bernard LaFayette, the advance man who did the risky groundwork for the voter registration campaign in Selma, Alabama, that culminated in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, has died.

Bernard LaFayette III said his father died Thursday morning of a heart attack. He was 85.

On 7 March 1965, the beating of future congressman John Lewis and voting rights marchers on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge led the evening news, shocking the nation’s conscience and pushing Congress to act. But two years before “Bloody Sunday”, it was LaFayette who quietly set the stage for Selma and the advances in voting rights that would follow.

LaFayette was one of a delegation of Nashville students who in 1960 helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which organized desegregation and voting rights campaigns across the south. SNCC crossed Selma off its map after some initial scouting determined “the white folks were too mean and the Black folks were too scared”, LaFayette said.

But he insisted on trying anyway. Named director of the Alabama voter registration campaign in 1963, LaFayette moved to the town and, with his former wife, Colia Liddell, gradually built the leadership capacity of the local people, convincing them change was possible and creating momentum that could not be stopped. He described this work in a 2013 memoir, In Peace and Freedom: My Journey in Selma.

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