Investigators work to determine exact reason for attack at Michigan synagogue. Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Lebanon, was killed by security after ramming into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township near Detroit and driving down a hallway in a vehicle that then caught fire, according to authorities.

The FBI, which is leading the investigation, described the attack on one of the nation’s largest Reform synagogues as an act of violence targeting the Jewish community.

About 140 people -- 106 children and more than 30 staff -- were at the synagogue at the time of the attack, said Cassi Cohen, Temple Israel’s director of strategic development. None of them were injured, according to Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin during a news conference Friday praised Temple Israel’s private security for swiftly stopping the attack.

“If they had not all done their jobs almost perfectly, we would be talking about an immense tragedy here with children gone,” Slotkin said.

Whitmer urged Americans to “lower the rhetoric” amid what she called a rising wave of antisemitism. She said the children attending school at the synagogue were 5 and younger.

“This is targeting babies who are Jewish,” Whitmer said. “That is antisemitism at its absolute worst.”

Ghazali came to the U.S. in 2011 on an immediate relative visa as the spouse of a U.S. citizen and was granted U.S. citizenship in 2016, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

An Israeli airstrike killed four people in the eastern Lebanon town of Mashgharah on March 5, Lebanon’s state agency and the Lebanese Health Ministry reported. A woman was also wounded.

The ripple effects of the Iran war have spread across the Middle East. Israel has stepped up its attacks on Lebanon following renewed strikes with the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah.

A local official in Mashgharah told The Associated Press that Ghazali’s two brothers and a niece and nephew were killed at their home in the airstrike just after sunset as they were having their fast-breaking meal during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The official, who requested anonymity because he could not publicly discuss details of the airstrike, told the AP that Kassim and Ibrahim Ghazali were killed, along with Ibrahim Ghazali’s children, Ali and Fatima. Ibrahim Ghazali’s wife was seriously wounded and remains in the hospital, the official said.

The official said that Kassim Ghazali was a well-known soccer coach and personal trainer while Ibrahim was a school bus driver in the village.

The official said that Ayman Ghazali’s father was in the U.S. and returned to Lebanon recently.

In the minutes after the attack, smoke billowed from the synagogue. One security officer was hit by the vehicle and knocked unconscious but did not suffer life-threatening injuries, Bouchard said. And 30 law enforcement officers were treated for smoke inhalation.

Cohen was in the hallway where the crash happened. She described hearing a loud bang and said she grabbed a few staff members, ran into her office and locked the door.

“When I heard the crash, I knew it was bad,” Cohen said.

She said the crash happened near a classroom and, in addition to the children, there were also more than 30 staff members in the synagogue.

Rabbi Arianna Gordon, from Temple Israel, thanked the security team, law enforcement and early childhood teachers for getting the children out safely and reunited with their parents.

Big names on the street:

Ali Larijani, Secretary of the National Security Council, and Mohammad Eslami, Head of the Atomic Energy Agency of Iran and the Police Chief

BREAKING: A U.S. military plane has crashed in Iraq. The status of the crew is unknown, officials said.

A U.S. KC-135 fuel tanker crashed in western Iraq. Rescue operations are under way and the U.S. military didn’t say whether airmen were killed or wounded.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the U.S. is planning for the Navy to escort commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz when conditions allow, possibly with international partners. Iran’s new supreme leader earlier said his country would keep the vital oil route closed. A number of ships have been attacked in and near the strait.

In his first official message since taking over from his slain father, Mojtaba Khamenei also raised the possibility of opening new fronts in a war the International Energy Agency said is causing the biggest-ever disruption to oil supply. The U.S. said it has ramped up its attacks on Iranian minelayers and mine facilities.

#Canada promises $37M in humanitarian aid for civilians in #Lebanon, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand announced the aid today alongside Randeep Sarai, secretary of state for international development.

The funding will go through United Nations agencies and the Red Cross to provide food, medical services, shelter and clean water.

The UN says nearly 700,000 people in Lebanon have been displaced by the hostilities that started in late February when the U.S. launched its war against Iran, which Israel joined.

Israel and Hezbollah blame each other for the renewed hostilities and Ottawa says both sides must de-escalate while respecting Lebanon’s territorial integrity.

Before the recent surge in violence and the Israeli airstrikes on Beirut, Lebanon was already grappling with an economic crisis and waves of missile exchanges between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 12, 2026.

Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press

French #UN aid worker killed in DR #Congo’s rebel-held city of Goma, says France President #Emmanuel #Macron

#Iran’s new supreme leader ‘lightly injured’ but active, Iranian official says.

Khamenei has not been seen by Iranians, or issued any public statement or message, since his selection on Sunday by a clerical assembly and is widely rumored to have been wounded in the Israeli and U.S. strikes.

Seen as a hardliner close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Khamenei was the leading contender to succeed his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the first wave of strikes on February 28.

The official did not give details about when Khamenei was injured or why he had not made any statement to the public since his appointment.

The first air strikes in the war were aimed at decapitating Iran’s leadership, and besides his father, they killed Khamenei’s mother, sister and wife, state television said.

“His Eminence Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei is today the heir to the blood of his martyred father, his martyred mother, his martyred sister and his martyred wife,” a news anchor read out on state television, using Khamenei’s full titles and honorifics.

“He, who is a janbaz of the Ramadan War, inherits the path of the proud and steadfast martyrs of this land,” the anchor added, using an Iranian term for a wounded veteran, and the name Iranian officials have given the current conflict because it is happening during Islam’s fasting month.

Israel’s intelligence assessment is that Khamenei was lightly wounded and that is why he has not been seen in public, a senior Israeli official told Reuters.

The new supreme leader was pushed through with extensive support from the Revolutionary Guards, sources have told Reuters.

Long the head of his father’s office, known in Persian as the beyt, he has had a direct role in running the Iranian state for years. However, he is not well known to ordinary Iranians having made few public speeches or other appearances in the past.

Reporting by Parisa Hafezi, Additional Reporting by Reuters Jerusalem Newsroom, Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Andrew Cawthorne.

A drone strike has hit a #Sudan school and medical centre, killing 17, mostly schoolgirls.

At least 10 people were wounded in the strike in the village of Shukeiri in the White Nile province, according to Dr. Musa al-Majeri, director of the Douiem Hospital, the nearest major medical facility to the village.

Al-Majeri told The Associated Press that three girls suffered serious injuries; two of them underwent surgeries at the hospital while the third was evacuated to the capital, Khartoum.

The war-tracking Sudan Doctors Network reported the strike first. It said those killed included two teachers and a health care worker. The group said there was no military presence in the village.

“This horrific crime represents a continuation of the violations committed by the RSF in the White Nile,” said Dr. Razan Al-Mahdi, a spokeswoman for the medical group, adding that the paramilitaries attacked several civilian facilities in the past two days, including a student dormitory and a power station.

Both the medical group and al-Majeri blamed the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces for the strike. The RSF didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The strike in the village of Shukeiri in the White Nile province was the latest deadly attack in Sudan’s nearly three-year war.

Sudan slid into chaos in April 2023 when a power struggle between the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.

The devastating war has killed more than 40,000 people, according to U.N. figures, but aid groups say that is an undercount and the true number could be many times higher.

The fighting has centered in the sprawling Kordofan region, where deadly attacks, mostly by drones, were reported daily.

The war was marked by atrocities including mass killings, gang rapes and other crimes, investigated by the International Criminal Court as potential war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The most recent atrocities happened in October when the RSF and its Janjweed allies overran the Darfur city of el-Fasher. The RSF attack there bore “ hallmarks of genocide,” according to United Nations-commissioned experts.

At least 6,000 people were killed in three days in October in el-Fasher, the U.N.’s Human Rights Office said.

#WHO warns of health risks from ‘black rain’ in #Iran, The UN health agency, which has an office in Iran and works with authorities on health emergencies, said it has received multiple reports of oil-laden rain this week. Tehran was choked in black smoke on Monday after an oil refinery was hit, in an escalation in strikes on Iran’s domestic energy supplies as part of the U.S.-Israeli campaign.

“The black rain and the acidic rain coming with it is indeed a danger for the population, respiratory mainly,” WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told a press briefing in Geneva, adding that Iran had advised people to stay indoors.

Asked whether the WHO backed that advice, he said: “Given what is at risk right now, the oil storage facilities, the refineries that have been struck, triggering fires, bringing serious air quality concerns, that is definitely a good idea.”

One video sent to Reuters by a WHO staff member showed what they said was a cleaner mopping up black liquid at its office entrance in Tehran on March 8. Reuters was not able to independently verify the footage.

(Reporting by Emma Farge; Additional reporting by Jennifer Rigby; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

#Lebanon ready to resume talks with Israel to stop escalation — president. He also condemned "those who seek to drag Lebanon into a regional conflict, ignoring the will of the majority of its citizens tired of the war and its consequences."

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has expressed readiness for talks with Israel to end attacks on the republic's territory that have killed more than 400 people since March 2.

"We reaffirm Lebanon’s willingness to resume negotiations [with Israel] and discuss necessary security measures to stop this dangerous escalation," the president was quoted as saying by his press service.

He also condemned "those who seek to drag Lebanon into a regional conflict, ignoring the will of the majority of its citizens tired of the war and its consequences.".

Paris Hilton launches recovery fund for women business owners after disasters