DOD Changes Number of Iran War Casualties to Make Trump Look Better

The Department of Defense has changed the official number of U.S. military service members killed in the war with Iran from 18 to 14—and couldn’t explain why.

Three military officials told The New York Times Thursday that one reason the death toll had been altered was because four of the deaths occurred last week, after President Donald Trump’s ceasefire fell apart. The Trump administration has previously tried to insist that there are two separate phases in the war effort.

Meanwhile, Joel Valdez, the acting press secretary for the Pentagon, told the outlet that the change resulted from “temporary data disruptions” and would soon be fixed.

The DOD has argued that it is bound by law to report on deaths, but not injuries. But here, the Pentagon’s shady actions highlight the startling lack of transparency as Trump continues to prosecute his wildly unpopular war with Iran.

The Pentagon has been slow to release information about U.S. service members’ conditions, and has downplayed the extent of their injuries.

The DOD also withheld information about three Iranian strikes last week that injured dozens of U.S. service members and damaged several helicopters, U.S. officials told the Times.

Earlier this year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth referred to an Iranian drone strike on a makeshift tactical operations center in Kuwait as a “squirter.” But dozens of U.S. service members suffered from injuries including burns, shrapnel wounds, and brain trauma. The Pentagon, however, did not release information about how many were hurt in the strike, and U.S. Central Command initially claimed that just five were seriously wounded.

The Trump administration is taking over the Penn Station renaming process, with the Transportation Department revealing that a new name for New York City’s iconic transportation hub is a top priority.

The New York Daily News reported Thursday that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent a letter to multiple Senate committees outlining his department’s decision to “direct Amtrak to rename New York Penn Station.”

While the new name has not been confirmed, Duffy suggested last August that “Trump Station” had “a nice ring to it.” And three months before that, Gothamist obtained redesign renderings of the station with Trump’s name on it, and gold flourishes everywhere.

It’s no secret that Trump wants to see his name on as many stations and landmarks as possible before he goes. In February, he held infrastructure funding in New York hostage unless Democrats agreed to rename Penn Station and Washington, D.C.’s Dulles International Airport after him. Then there was the “Trump-Kennedy Center” saga, which ended in his name being removed from the cultural institution. And just this month, he got Florida’s Palm Beach International Airport named after him, as well.

Americans now have to deal with a salmonella outbreak affecting eggs, on top of everything else. 

Midwest Poultry Services is recalling close to 1.6 million white shell eggs and brown cage-free shell eggs produced in Texas, the Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday. The eggs in question have the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella enteritidis, and were being sold at Kroger stores in Texas and Louisiana, as well as Brookshire Grocery stores in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, and New Mexico. 

The company has stopped distributing eggs produced on its Texas farms, according to the FDA. Salmonella enteritidis is a bacterium that can survive on the shell of an egg or inside it, and could cause symptoms including cramps, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, chills, ⁠fever, and headaches. 

The salmonella scare comes after an explosive diarrhea outbreak hit the country from tainted lettuce produced by Taylor Farms. That produce contained cyclospora, a one-celled parasite, and has affected at least 41 states with over 12,000 possible cases. On top of that, the New World screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite, has infested cattle in Texas and spread to other states, causing an estimated $1 billion in damages.  

The Trump administration has cut a lot of the programs that prevented these types of outbreaks in the past, and now the country seems to be dealing with one food crisis after another. Elon Musk’s DOGE cut a monitoring program for the screwworm and gutted the team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention responsible for responding to cyclospora outbreaks. Hopefully, the salmonella issue remains isolated, although the administration hasn’t inspired much confidence thus far. 

The man who assassinated former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, has been sentenced to life in prison.

In addition to killing the Hortmans (and their dog Gilbert), Vance Boelter also shot state Democratic Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette.

In court Thursday, Boelter didn’t once look at his victims or their families, remaining remarkably still as the judge read out the extraordinarily long prison sentence for the crimes he committed on June 14, 2025, reported The Guardian.

Boelter pleaded guilty in June to the double homicide, recounting to the court how the previous year, he had spent months stalking his targets. He then disguised himself as a police officer in a tactical vest and hyperrealistic silicon mask, and killed the Hortmans in their home in the middle of the night.

He was found guilty on six counts related to the killing of the Hortmans, as well as for the shooting of the Hoffmans.

Boelter was committed to two consecutive life sentences, with an additional 40 years in prison tacked on. He confessed to the crimes to avoid the death penalty, though the decision was ill received by Mark Hortman’s family, who voiced their anger that Boelter would not face capital punishment.

“It will not offer me peace of mind that he will have room and board provided for the rest of his life, paid for by my tax dollars,” said Mark Hortman’s sister, Lisa Hortman Bean.

The shootings ripped the Hortmans away from their two children, Sophie and Colin, and tortured the Hoffmans’ daughter Hope, who witnessed her parents bleed out as she attempted to call for help.

Hoffman and his wife shared with the court their own experiences with Boelter, emphasizing the lasting emotional, mental, and physical damage that the politically motivated assassination attempt had on their lives.

“The defendant looked me in the eyes and pulled the trigger. The defendant looked at my wife and chose to do the same,” Hoffman told the court Thursday. “My wife and I now live with injuries. We live with our bodies remembering the gunfire.”

The couple said they have been haunted by the memory of the attack, even within the minutiae of their day-to-day lives: The doors to their home have been replaced by solid steel, they no longer receive mail at the house, and everyday tasks have been altered to accommodate their lingering injuries.

Yvette Hoffman said that the trauma was so great it has prevented her from returning to work entirely.

“I fought him, your Honor, with everything I had. And I finally got him out of our home. I will never forget looking down and watching my blood slowly stream down that white washing machine as I felt myself sinking to the floor,” she said, choking back her emotion.

Shortly after the crimes were committed, former acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota Joseph Thompson likened Boelter’s activity to “the stuff of nightmares.”

President Trump is banning students majoring in degrees that don’t make enough money from taking out college loans. 

The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that the Education Department has finalized a rule that will force schools to prove that the loans students are taking out are paying off. 

Degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aides, and music, and cosmetic certification programs will be hit the hardest. For-profit programs will also be hit particularly hard.

While the Trump administration is framing the policy as “accountability” for higher education, and some are welcoming the move, others see it as an attack on those whose work is important regardless of salary. 

The Education Department intends to use IRS data to determine students’ salaries four years after they graduate and compare them to those of people similar in age who just have high school diplomas. If they’re below that baseline, that degree will be ineligible for loans.  

“We need social workers,” Mitchell said. “Whether it’s the fentanyl epidemic or homelessness in L.A., we need people who can work on the street with people who need it the most,” American Council on Education Ted Mitchell told the Times. 

Even some on the right are concerned. 

“The government shouldn’t punish people who pursue socially valuable callings just because in its judgment they don’t earn enough money,” said Gregory Baylor, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian nonprofit that the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as a designated hate group.

“In certain fields of study, especially in the humanities, whether or not that program has been successful and has done a really good job in its educational mission might not be all that directly tied to immediate earnings potential,” added Stanford professor Jonathan Gienapp.

The policy will be implemented in 2027.