spokesperson

An analyst’s missed remarks and U.S. intelligence systems that weren’t connected to one another are among the missteps that investigators have surfaced while probing the cause of a missile strike on an Iranian school that killed an estimated 120 children, people familiar with the matter said.

Years before the U.S. attacked Iran at the end of February, an intelligence analyst examining information about potential future strike targets in Iran noticed changes at a site the U.S. had previously characterized as a naval facility belonging to the elite wing of the Iranian military in Minab city in the southeast of the country. It was, in fact, now an elementary school.

The analyst remarked on changes at the site in a digital intelligence tool, but that tool wasn’t linked up to the official intelligence database that the U.S. uses to develop strike targets and the information was never conveyed to military commanders, according to people familiar with the matter who declined to be named discussing sensitive topics.

On Feb. 28, when President Trump announced the start of major combat operations against Iran, a missile struck the school. The attack killed an estimated 120 children, and nearly 200 people in all, representing the worst incident of civilian harm resulting from U.S. operations in decades.

The analyst’s remarks, which one of the people familiar with the matter said were submitted in 2019, were never heeded, and the same building was reviewed several more times over the following years without anyone updating the targeting database. These discoveries are among the issues explored in a Pentagon investigation into the school strike, the people said. The results of the probe have not been publicly released.

A Pentagon official said the incident remains under investigation and that the agency has no updates to provide. On Wednesday, Trump said it may not ever be possible to determine fault and that he doesn’t think the U.S. was to blame.

The details unearthed as part of the Pentagon investigation underscore long-standing weaknesses in the U.S. military’s targeting system, one that was supposed to be improved years ago. Upgrades have instead been beset by delays, and yet they’ve grown all the more urgent with the spread of AI. Some tout the technology as a possible solution to targeting woes while others worry it could scale and accelerate the harms of war.

The investigation into the school strike was submitted in April but remains under review at U.S. Central Command, the military theater and combatant command known as Centcom that is responsible for carrying out combat operations against Iran, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.

Centcom commander Brad Cooper, a four-star Navy admiral, ordered the investigation and appointed an Air Force general from outside the command with the intention of ensuring a thorough, independent review, the person said.

The analyst’s written remarks about the school, the fact that they were entered into a digital system in 2019 that wasn’t connected to the official intelligence database and the current status of the investigation into the strike have not been previously reported. The New York Times had previously reported that an analyst noticed the building appeared to be a school several years ago and informed one other person. Targeting officials were using imagery that hadn’t been updated in seven years, according to the Times.

There are significant and long-standing gaps in how the Pentagon analyzes potential strike targets, according to former senior intelligence officials and others familiar with the matter. They declined to be named to discuss sensitive matters.

At least two intelligence database systems used for inputting remarks based on imagery, for example, have historically not been connected to the official and authoritative targeting database, people familiar with the platforms said, creating a coordination challenge that continues today.

In some cases during the mid-2010s, targeting data for historically low-priority locations where the U.S. had little historical battle experience, such as Syria, proved to be 10 or 20 years old, according to one of the former senior intelligence officials. Some intelligence staff worked double shifts and weekends at that time to manually update the system.

Starting in 2017, the intelligence enterprise undertook a similar effort to update several thousands of outdated targets in North Korea after relations between Washington and Pyongyang rapidly deteriorated, people familiar with the matter said, calling in satellites and other efforts to capture new, clear imagery as well as other types of intelligence. It took more than a year to update critical targeting information.

A legacy database known as MIDB was created in the 1980s and often relies on manual input. The Pentagon plans to replace MIDB with a machine-assisted version known as MARS that will introduce more automation.

A recently revised Pentagon doctrine outlined the challenges of integrating the many systems used to identify military targets: “The process of targeting occurs on many levels and in many locations simultaneously, yet no single interoperable solution has emerged or been established,” according to the non-public targeting document revised in April and reviewed by Bloomberg. “The entire joint targeting enterprise should seamlessly share well-understood, standardized representations of target intelligence and data and not rely on local databases.”

The MIDB and MARS systems are now both in use, but the effort to shift entirely to MARS is years behind schedule, and authoritative targeting data still relies on MIDB, according to the targeting doctrine.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office in 2020, during Trump’s first term, described MIDB as having “long-standing deficiencies” and said it’s “unable to meet current needs.” And yet six years later, the Pentagon’s targeting doctrine still describes the system as the authoritative, all-source repository of worldwide general military and target intelligence, serving as the national database for all target lists and no-strike lists and a baseline source of intelligence on installations, facilities, military forces and population concentrations.

The characterizations of MIDB in the Pentagon’s latest targeting doctrine haven’t been previously reported.

The hope of some targeting experts is that linking digital systems and more AI will bring down targeting errors in future. An automated check against public sites such as Google Maps, for example, may help flag an anomaly for human review. The Pentagon introduced an agentic AI effort along these lines Thursday.

The Defense Intelligence Agency, an agency responsible for both MIDB and MARS didn’t directly address a request from Bloomberg for comment on MIDB’s deficiencies, delays in the MARS transition or the mislabeled school site. An agency spokesperson said its foundational military intelligence analysts conduct comprehensive analysis of infrastructure and the operational environment, drawing on all intelligence sources to produce expert intelligence analysis and produce and maintain foundational military intelligence.

Such sources can span not only satellite pictures and other imagery analysis, but also signals intelligence, human intelligence and more, the spokesperson said. Combatant commands rely on expert analytic support from these all-source analysts for operational planning and execution, including intelligence for targeting, the spokesperson said.

“DIA works in close coordination with combatant commands and Intelligence Community partners to ensure decisionmakers have the best available intelligence for our national security,” the spokesperson said in a written comment.

Under the latest U.S. targeting doctrine, military commanders are responsible for the decision to prioritize and strike a target. Along with planners, commanders are also required to distinguish between military objectives and civilian ones that are not lawful military objectives for lethal targeting.

A combatant command should establish guidance to mitigate civilian injuries and consider criteria for positive identification of a target, according to an updated section of the Pentagon’s targeting doctrine. A spokesperson for the Joint Staff, the Pentagon’s senior military staff, described that section as a “key update.”

Once a combatant command such as Centcom has assembled a target list, the joint-force commander may also initiate an additional “optional process” called target vetting to assess the accuracy of the intelligence behind the targeting, according to joint targeting doctrine reviewed by Bloomberg. As part of this process, officials would review any potential disagreements about the characterization of a target and any new imagery, the former senior intelligence officials familiar with the process said.

It would be “unthinkable” for a commander not to undertake this target vetting process for attacks planned on the opening day of a new military campaign, one of the former senior intelligence officials said. Centcom vetted targets leading up to the operations against Iran, according to the person familiar with the matter. It wasn’t clear, however, whether Centcom initiated the optional vetting process that would’ve required coordination across intelligence community agencies and a recheck of the underlying information and possibly any new imagery.

Centcom didn’t respond to Bloomberg’s request for comment on the target vetting. A spokesperson for the Joint Staff declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.

Jack Shanahan, a former Pentagon director for defense intelligence and retired three-star Air Force general, said there is no excuse for a combatant command to not review and validate the accuracy of information provided for every targeting package. Combatant commanders have the ultimate responsibility for validating the accuracy of targets, he said.

Shanahan described targeting in an interview as a “moribund career field” that had atrophied over two decades while the U.S. military focused on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks instead of traditional combat operations. In 2017, he said, he struggled to recruit and fill targeting roles. “We knew there was a dangerous shortage in the number of trained and experienced targeting personnel and weapons effects experts,” he said. “We also knew this would become a major problem in future conventional operations.”

In the days following the Iran school strike, Trump accused Iran of conducting the attack, though he has offered no evidence. Last week, Trump said “mistakes are made and war is nasty” when asked about the strike, committed to releasing the findings of the investigation and added that he’ll accept the results.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in mid-March that the investigation “will take as long as necessary to address all the matters surrounding the incident” and that his department would “share it when we have it, absolutely.”

Dozens of members of Congress have since demanded answers about what happened. The group Human Rights Activists in Iran said it’s documented the killings of more than 1,700 civilians in the first month of the war.

Emily Tripp, director of the nonprofit group Airwars, a watchdog that logs civilian harm in conflict zones, said that her group had tracked 300 incidents of civilian harm in Iran but that it was difficult to untangle whether the U.S. or Israel was responsible for them. Trump’s own claims on social media about the U.S. being behind some attacks has made it easier for Airwars to pursue accountability, she said.

Tripp said her group refers each incident to Centcom for review. The Defense Department is behind on “every single one of their commitments when it comes to civilian protection,” she said. The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on this specific allegation.

Bob Ashley, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency during the first Trump administration, is among those calling on the Pentagon to publish the results of the investigation.

“Americans know that over 100 children were killed in this strike. We need to talk to them about what happened, because their trust and confidence in us, as the Department of Defense, and as an intelligence community, matters,” Ashley said in an interview.

In a military career spanning 36 years, Ashley helped train generals, was a former commander and senior intelligence officer at the Joint Special Operations Command and Central Command and currently sits on several advisory boards for companies focused on national security.

“We have an obligation to explain the targeting process, how we apply the criteria of the laws of armed conflict and review targets to be transparent to sustain that level of trust and understanding with the American people,” Ashley said.

He said the intelligence community needs to look at what happened, scrutinize their process and ask itself: “What can we do better? What did we miss?”

Manson writes for Bloomberg.

The artist who painted a giant mural on a building in downtown Dallas of life-sized swimming whales has filed a $25 million lawsuit against soccer’s international governing body and others, saying they illegally painted over his work to promote the city’s upcoming World Cup matches.

The artist Wyland says he hand-painted the sprawling mural that covered roughly 17,000 square feet across two of the building’s walls.

The mural stood for nearly three decades before workers began painting over it last month, causing an uproar among residents who admired the mural’s grand scale and message of ocean conservation.

The area’s World Cup organizing committee said in a statement that, in place of Wyland’s mural, new artwork is planned “that captures this current historical moment and reflects the energy, unity, and global spirit surrounding the World Cup 2026.” It said a portion of Wyland’s mural would be preserved.

Wyland filed suit Monday in U.S District Court in Dallas saying that World Cup organizers, along with the building’s owner and management company, painted over his mural without his consent or even notifying him. He says their actions violated a 1990 federal law passed to protect visual artists from destruction of publicly displayed works.

Wyland is seeking at least $25 million in damages. His lawsuit says world soccer’s governing body, FIFA, and other defendants “hastily and irrevocably destroyed a civic landmark” to promote the World Cup.

“Though FIFA claims they were working to develop art for the host city, in truth, they defaced an historic fixture of the host city,” the artist’s lawsuit says.

A FIFA spokesperson said Tuesday the federation “has no involvement in this whatsoever” and referred a reporter to the tournament’s local organizing committee.

A spokesperson for the North Texas FWC Organizing Committee declined to comment. The committee isn’t named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

A spokesperson for Slate Asset Management, which manages the building where the mural was painted over, said in a statement that local World Cup organizers asked Slate in March to donate the mural space for “a new public art installation.”

“Slate is not being compensated in any way for the use of the wall space and was told by the local groups that Mr. Wyland had been notified,” the management company’s spokesperson said in an email.

Dallas is hosting more World Cup matches than any of the other sites in the event co-hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico, with nine matches set to be played at AT&T Stadium in suburban Arlington, home of the Dallas Cowboys.

Wyland’s Dallas mural, titled “Whaling Wall 82,” was finished in 1999 and is among more than 100 similar murals known as Whaling Walls the artist painted around the world to promote the conservation of ocean life.

An online petition protesting the mural’s destruction and calling for protecting of public artwork in Dallas has received more than 2,600 signatures.

Wyland’s lawsuit alleges violations of the Visual Artists Rights Act, a 1990 federal law that protects artwork of “recognized stature” even if someone else owns the physical artwork.

A judge cited that law in 2018 when he ordered a property owner to pay a group of New York graffiti artists $6.7 million for whitewashing dozens of their spray-painted murals on buildings that once housed a factory in Queens. The ruling was upheld on appeal.

Bynum writes for the Associated Press. Bynum reported from Savannah, Ga.

Kansas City Chiefs receiver Rashee Rice was taken into custody Tuesday and ordered to serve 30 days in jail after violating the terms of his probation stemming from a 2024 vehicle crash that left multiple people injured.

A spokesperson for the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office said in an email to The Times that Rice had tested positive for THC, the primary psychoactive chemical in marijuana. The fourth-year player out of Southern Methodist will remain in the Dallas County jail until June 16.

Based on that timeline, Rice will miss the Chiefs’ voluntary team workouts May 26-28 and June 1-3 and mandatory minicamp June 9-11.

“We are aware of the reports and have been in touch with the league office,” a Chiefs spokesman told the Associated Press, declining further comment. An NFL spokesperson told The Times that the league is “aware of the report” and also declined further comment.

Also on Tuesday, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that Rice underwent surgery on his right knee last week to remove loose debris that was causing inflammation. Rice is expected to be ready for training camp this summer, according to Schefter.

The Chiefs did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment regarding Rice’s reported surgery.

Rice was sentenced to 30 days in jail last July after pleading guilty to third-degree felony charges of collision involving serious bodily injury and racing on a highway causing bodily injury. He was, however, granted flexibility as to when to serve his jail time and had not served it yet.

After his recent probation violation, the district attorney’s office spokesperson said, Rice was ordered to serve that jail time immediately.

On March 30, 2024, according to prosecutors, Rice was driving a Lamborghini Urus SUV at 119 mph when made “multiple aggressive maneuvers around traffic” and struck other vehicles, then fled the scene on foot without checking on anyone in the other vehicles.

He was suspended for the first six weeks of the 2025 season for violating the NFL’s personal conduct policy.

In 28 games with the Chiefs, Rice has 156 receptions for 1,797 yards and 14 touchdowns. He is entering the final year of his rookie contract.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The bitter divorce between an Ohio congressman and his former wife, the daughter of one of the state’s U.S. senators, has escalated into new legal action.

Republican U.S. Rep. Max Miller filed a defamation lawsuit against Emily Moreno, his one-time spouse, on Wednesday in Cleveland, citing “the considerable reputational and financial harm” caused to him by her accusations that he was “a violent and abusive husband and father.”

Miller, a two-term congressman up for reelection this fall, alleges that Moreno, her attorney Andrew Zashin and his law firm have engaged in a defamatory campaign against him by spreading knowingly false information about him to media outlets including the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, and the New York Post. The action contends that the resulting damage to his reputation undermines his chances of reelection.

Those outlets have “circulation measured in the tens of millions of print and online readership,” the complaint states, and their articles have been read, viewed or discussed by Miller’s constituents, his congressional colleagues, ”his political supporters and donors, the media, and the general public.”

The suit seeks compensatory damages in excess of $25,000, punitive damages sufficient to deter future similar conduct and attorney’s fees.

“Congressman Miller is seeking to hold those responsible accountable and to obtain damages for the significant personal, professional, and political harm that he has suffered,” his spokesman said in a statement.

Zashin declined comment.

The incident brings to mind a similar situation that played out as Miller, a White House aide to President Trump during the Republican’s first term, made his first run for Congress in 2021.

Miller’s former girlfriend, one-time White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, raised allegations in her book and in a Washington Post op-ed at the time that a former White House staffer later identified as Miller had physically abused her while they were dating. Miller responded by filing a defamation lawsuit against her. He voluntarily dismissed the suit with prejudice in August 2023, just before the case was set to go to trial.

Moreno’s spokesperson, Stefan Mychajliw, cited the earlier lawsuit in a statement Thursday.

“Mr. Miller is upset because he’s tried to silence Emily Moreno the same way he silenced Stephanie Grisham — and Emily won’t let him,” he said, suggesting Miller is “running the same playbook against a woman with photographs of her bruises and burns.” He added, “Mr. Miller will not silence Ms. Moreno.”

Miller married Emily Moreno in 2022. They had a daughter in 2023.

He filed for divorce in August 2024, as her father, Bernie, was making a successful run for U.S. Senate backed by Trump. The abuse allegations — most recently, Moreno said Miller threw boiling water at her, an allegation he denies — come amid a messy custody battle that has included Miller seeking a restraining order against his ex-wife and subpoenaing the senator to testify. The divorce was finalized last June.

Miller’s spokesperson provided documentation that several allegations that he had abused his daughter were investigated by the Cuyahoga County Division of Children and Family Services and deemed unsubstantiated.

Amid the drama, Democrat Brian Poindexter, a five-term local councilman and union ironworker, is looking to oust Miller and flip Ohio’s 7th Congressional District in November.

Smyth writes for the Associated Press.

“Mr. Nobody Against Putin” filmmaker Pavel “Pasha” Talankin will soon be reunited with his Oscar statuette after it went missing amid his recent travels.

A spokesperson for European airline Lufthansa confirmed Friday in a statement shared with outlets that the coveted golden statuette has been located and is “safely in our care.” Lufthansa spoke on the missing Oscar after Talankin’s co-director Dave Borenstein raised the flag Thursday on social media. “Mr. Nobody Against Putin” won the documentary feature film category at the 98th Academy Awards in March.

According to Borenstein, Talankin arrived at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York “to fly home to Europe” and had the Oscar in tow as a carry-on. Airport security allegedly stopped Talankin from bringing the Oscar on board, citing concerns it could be used as a weapon. Borenstein said the film’s executive producer tried to smooth things but ultimately, “TSA put the Oscar in a box and sent it to the bottom of the plane” because Pavel did not have a check-in bag to place it in. He shared a photo of the cardboard box and Deadline published video of airport workers wrapping the statuette in bubble wrap and yellow tape.

Borenstein concluded his post noting the Oscar “never arrived” in Frankfurt, Germany, and speculated whether his co-director was on the receiving end of unfair treatment. “Would Pavel have been treated the same way if he were a famous actor? Or a fluent English speaker?” he wrote, tagging the Instagram account for the Transportation Security Administration. He also tagged Lufthansa and urged them to assist.

In response, Lufthansa commented on Borenstein’s post that it was on the missing Oscar case, and they are taking it “super serious.” Less than a day after their comment, the airline’s spokesperson said in their statement that it is “in direct contact with the guest to arrange its personal return as quickly as possible.”

“We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused and have apologized to the owner,” the spokesperson added.

Borenstein celebrated the development on Instagram, posting a clip of his interview with the BBC about the update and thanking a Lufthansa rep for their help and followers for spreading the word.

“Mr. Nobody Against Putin” features Talankin, a schoolteacher near the Ural Mountains, as he documents Russian propaganda efforts — from chants and songs — to energize young students around the war in Ukraine. During the Oscars in March, Talankin delivered a poignant message in Russian.

“In the name of our future, in the name of all of our children, stop all of these wars now,” he said through a translator.

Actor Ruby Rose’s public allegations of sexual assault against pop star Katy Perry have made their way to Australian officials, days after the former raised her claims on social media.

A spokesperson for the Victoria Police in Australia confirmed in a statement to The Times on Wednesday that its Melbourne Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Investigation Team launched an investigation into a “historical sexual assault that occurred in Melbourne in 2010” but did not confirm the identities of the involved parties. The spokesperson said police were informed that the alleged assault occurred “at a licensed premises” in Melbourne’s central business district, a metropolitan hub that hosts a number of nightclubs among other cultural establishments.

“As the investigation remains ongoing, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage,” the spokesperson said.

Representatives for Rose and for Perry did not immediately respond Wednesday to requests for comment.

Rose, the 40-year-old Australian actor known for “Orange Is the New Black” and the CW series “Batwoman,” accused Perry, 41, of sexual assault in a series of Threads posts over the weekend. In the comments section of a Complex Music post about Perry’s reaction to Justin Bieber’s Coachella set, Rose wrote “Katy Perry sexual assaulted me at spice market nightclub in Melbourne.” In other replies, Rose said the incident occurred when she was in “my early 20s” and alleged the “Teenage Dream” and “I Kissed a Girl” singer “bent down, pulled her underwear to the side and rubbed her disgusting” genitals on the actor’s face “until my eyes snapped open and I projectile vomitted on her.”

Perry — via a representative — denied the allegations in a Monday statement shared with The Times. “The allegations being circulated on social media by Ruby Rose about Katy Perry are not only categorically false, they are dangerous reckless lies,” Perry’s rep said.

“Ms. Rose has a well-documented history of making serious public allegations on social media against various individuals, claims that have repeatedly been denied by those named,” the statement said.

Rose, amid her departure from “Batwoman” in 2021, was accused by Warner Bros. Television of spreading “revisionist history.” When she publicly raised allegations of toxic working conditions against the series’ production team, the studio responded by noting it had parted ways with the actor after “multiple complaints” involving her workplace behavior.

Perry previously faced allegations of sexual assault in 2019 when an actor who starred in her “Teenage Dream” music video accused her of verbally bullying him during the video’s production and exposing his genitals to others without his consent during a party held separately from the shoot. Shortly after those allegations surfaced, a TV host in Georgia also reportedly accused the singer of harassing her that same year at an industry party.

During the weekend, Rose posted on Threads that she went to the police station to file a report about the alleged assault, despite expressing in an earlier post she had no interest bringing her allegations to officials. In another post shared Tuesday, Rose said she had “finalized all of my reports.”

“This means I am no longer able to comment, repost, or talk publicly about any of those cases, or the individuals involved,” she wrote, adding that she “can start the healing process now.”