作者： root

How social media is driving teens toward steroids and extreme body transformations

April 6, 2026 / 12:39 PM EDT / CBS News

A growing number of teenage boys are chasing dramatic body transformations online — building massive muscles, shedding fat and documenting it all for millions to see.

But behind some of the viral physiques lies a troubling trend: the use of a powerful drug never approved for humans.

A rapid transformation — and a risky choice

At 16 years old, Zaid Laila says he didn’t want to spend years working out to build a body like those he saw online.

“Why wait 10 years … when I could do it in less than a year,” he said.

The high school student from suburban Dallas began documenting his journey on social media, where his transformation quickly drew attention. His videos show a leaner, more muscular physique — the kind often celebrated across social media platforms.

But Laila is open about how he got there: “A lot of steroids and a lot of working out.”

He told CBS News he’s been using anabolic steroids for about 10 months, including trenbolone, a powerful drug developed for livestock and never approved for human use.

A drug not meant for people

Trenbolone, often referred to as “tren,” is designed to increase muscle growth in cattle. It is classified as a Schedule III controlled substance in the United States, making it illegal to possess or distribute without a prescription.

Dr. Jason Nagata, a pediatrician specializing in adolescent health at the University of California, San Francisco, says anabolic steroids can damage the heart, liver and kidneys — and trenbolone may be even more dangerous.

“Trenbolone, because it’s so powerful, it has even more significant side effects,” Nagata said. “There is no safe [human] indication for this animal drug.”

Steroid use, from sports to social media

For decades, steroid use was largely associated with competitive sports, but the motivation has shifted.

“There are many people now who aren’t actually participating in any type of sports who are using these drugs only for the purpose of looking better,” Nagata said.

A 2023 study by the nonprofit Countering Digital Hate found TikTok videos under certain hashtags promoting steroid-like drugs have been seen at least 587 million times in the U.S. between 2020 and 2023, with 72% of those views from users between the ages of 18 and 24 years old.

Scroll through social media and the trend is hard to miss: transformation videos, gym influencers and before-and-after photos appear to showcase rapid results.

“With more social media, there have been really extreme pressures for boys to build muscle,” said Nagata.

Laila says those images played a direct role in his decision.

“Seeing people do it is what makes you want to do it,” he said, adding that the drugs are also easy to obtain.

“It’s not hard at all,” he said. “Anyone can get their hands on it if they try.”

A warning shaped by tragedy

More than two decades after losing his younger brother to steroid use, Don Hooton Jr. says the problem has only grown. His brother, Taylor, began using anabolic steroids in high school after being encouraged to get bigger and stronger for sports. After stopping the drugs, he experienced severe depression and died by suicide in 2003.

Hooton now leads the Taylor Hooton Foundation, which educates young people about the dangers of performance-enhancing drugs.

“We’re seeing kids today asking if trenbolone is safe,” Hooton said. “That’s a major problem.”

He says social media has fundamentally changed how young people are exposed to these substances. “[The] drug dealer has gone from a dark alley … to the safe four walls of our home,” he said.

“Everybody is filming themselves. They wanna be the next social media star, and they’re doing whatever it takes to change that physique, even if it’s using illegal drugs,” said Hooton.

Despite the risks, some teens remain focused on the short-term rewards.

“If I have a heart attack at 30, I have a heart attack,” Laila said.

What parents should watch for

The warning signs aren’t always obvious. Nagata told CBS News parents should look out for obsessive workout routines, teens avoiding meals with family and friends, or other changes that impact socializing.

In some cases, parents may even unintentionally reinforce the behavior by praising physical changes without understanding how they were achieved.

For Laila’s family, conversations are underway. His father, Haitham Laila, told CBS News he is deeply concerned about his son’s health and overwhelmed by the misinformation his son has cited to justify steroid use.

Zaid Laila says he understands the risks — but continues to make his own choices.

“I’m still going to do [steroids] ” he said. “I know what can come with it.”

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/teen-says-social-media-trend-convinced-him-to-take-dangerous-steroids/

‘God is good’: Inside the high-risk US mission to save a wounded airman shot down in Iran

April 6, 2026 1:26pm EDT / Fox News

Trump said officials feared the colonel’s radio message was a trap, but those who knew him cited his deep faith

By Morgan Phillips, Jennifer Griffin, Fox News

In a scene that unfolded like a Hollywood script, hundreds of American troops descended into the rugged mountains of southwestern Iran Saturday to rescue a wounded airman who spent nearly two days hiding from Iranian forces.

What followed was a high-stakes combat search-and-rescue mission deep inside Iran, with U.S. forces racing to locate and extract the wounded officer before Iranian troops could reach him, deploying a large contingent of special operations forces and aircraft into hostile territory.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe compared the mission to find the downed airmen to finding “a grain of sand in the desert” in a news briefing Monday.

In total, the U.S. sent in more than 150 aircraft, President Donald Trump said Monday, which took on “very, very heavy enemy fire” during the rescue operation. Several different teams also took part: Navy SEALs, Air Force Special Operations, Army Special Operations Aviation, search and rescue and combat medics.

US PILOT RESCUED FROM DOWNED F-15E FIGHTER JET IN IRAN, SEARCH FOR SECOND CREW MEMBER ONGOING

“This was an incredibly dangerous mission, an incredibly dangerous undertaking,” Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said Monday at the White House press briefing.

One of the two crew members was flown to Landstuhl regional medical center in Germany, typically the first stop for U.S. soldiers wounded in combat zones, and the other is being flown there Monday, a senior U.S. defense official told Fox News.

As the rescue unfolded Easter Sunday, the pilot radioed a brief message to help U.S. forces identify him: “God is good,” officials said.

Here’s a look at how the scene unfolded.

A view of wreckage and remains of the downed F-15 fighter jet is seen in Iran April 5, 2026.(Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Friday — The shoot down and the first rescue

A U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet was shot down over Iran Friday, according to U.S. officials. Both the pilot and the weapon systems officer ejected from the aircraft.

The aircraft was operating as part of ongoing U.S. combat operations over Iran when it was shot down.

While details of the incident were not immediately clear, Iranian state media released images of an ejection seat and debris that appeared consistent with an F-15E. Iran initially claimed it had downed a more advanced F-35 stealth fighter, but U.S. officials later confirmed the aircraft was an F-15 Strike Eagle.

The F-15E Strike Eagle is a two-seat fighter jet flown by a pilot and a weapon systems officer, who manages targeting, sensors and weapons. The aircraft is designed for both air-to-air combat and deep strike missions against ground targets, allowing it to operate far inside enemy territory.

After the crew ejected and aircraft went down, rescue beacons went off, which send out a radio or GPS signal, officials said Monday at the press briefing, and U.S. forces quickly launched a combat search-and-rescue mission, deploying rescue helicopters into Iranian territory to recover the downed pilot.

“We flew for seven hours in daylight over Iran to get the first pilot, and we flew seven hours in the middle of the night to get the second,” War Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday.

The pilot was rescued later that day, within hours of the shoot-down, in what Trump described as a daylight operation.

Rescue helicopters, including HH-60W Jolly Green II aircraft, came under Iranian small-arms fire as they moved in to extract the pilot, according to U.S. officials. Crew members aboard the helicopter carrying the pilot were injured, but the aircraft was able to fly safely out of Iranian territory.

An A-10 Thunderbolt II providing close air support for the rescue effort was also hit by enemy fire, according to U.S. officials. The aircraft was damaged, and the pilot later ejected over Kuwaiti airspace and was recovered.

Caine said the A-10s were flying in the “Sandy” role — a mission focused on protecting downed airmen and guiding rescue forces into hostile territory.

“A Sandy has one mission: get to the survivor, bring the rescue force forward and put themselves between that survivor on the ground and the enemy,” Caine said Monday.

“While this was ongoing and out in front of them, the Sandy flight of A-10s and other remotely piloted aircraft, drones and other tactical aircraft were violently suppressing and engaging the enemy in a close-in gunfight to keep the objective area,” he said.

Saturday — The hunt for the weapon systems officer

While the Pentagon remained tight-lipped about the mission, Iranian state media blasted images from the crash and called on civilians to join in the search for the second crew member, an Air Force colonel, according to Trump.

The Pentagon has not publicly released the names of the crew members, a standard practice while operations are ongoing. Both airmen have been recovered and are receiving medical care at a U.S. military facility, according to officials.

Iranian state media urged civilians to help locate the missing crew member and offered a reward for his capture, while Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces launched a search in the region.

The weapon systems officer, a colonel with SERE training, was using his survival and evasion training to stay one step ahead of Iranian forces. He reportedly climbed 7,000 feet up a ridge and remained hidden there for nearly 48 hours, a senior defense official told Fox News.

“He was injured quite badly,” Trump said during a news briefing Monday. “He scaled cliff faces, bleeding rather profusely, treated his own wounds.”

The colonel hid in a mountain crevice while the CIA launched a deception campaign to convince the Iranian regime they had already located him and were moving him to the ground for exfiltration. While the Iranians were confused and uncertain of what was happening, the agency used its specialized capabilities to locate the American airman, a senior administration official told Fox News.

Hegseth said Monday, ” In that moment of isolation and danger, his faith and fighting spirit shone through. You see, shot down on a Friday, Good Friday, hidden in a cave, a crevice all of Saturday and rescued on Sunday. Flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday.”

AIRMAN RESCUE SHOWS U.S. CAN PENETRATE ENEMY TERRITORY ‘ANYWHERE’ IN IRAN, FORMER PENTAGON OFFICIAL WARNS

HH-60W Jolly Green II helicopters, like the one pictured above in a different scenario, were involved in rescue efforts for the downed airman in Iran.(Airman 1st Class Deanna Muir/Air Force)

Trump said the American aviator was being “hunted down” by enemies who were “getting closer and closer by the hour.”

The U.S. used MQ-9 Reaper drones to protect the area around where the U.S. believed the airman was hiding and fired on anything that came close to that area and any area where U.S. forces were operating, an administration official told Fox News.

“At the president’s direction, we deployed both human assets and exquisite technologies,” Ratcliffe said, calling it “a daunting challenge, comparable to hunting for a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert.”

Trump revealed the CIA had a camera that spotted the weapon systems officer from 40 miles away.

“They kept the camera on him for 45 minutes. He wasn’t moving. And they said, you know, probably wrong, but we’re seeing something moving,” Trump said. “This is a vast mountain, vast, thick with bushes, trees, he said. We see something moving 40 miles away. It was, the head of a human being. I’m telling you, it’s moving. And then all of a sudden, 45 minutes later, he moved a lot, stood up, and they said, we have him.”

At the same time, the U.S. launched strikes on nearby areas to keep Iranian forces away.

“We executed multiple large-scale strikes in the surrounding area using every tactical jet in the U.S. inventory plus B-1 Bombers to keep him safe,” a senior U.S. official said.

In between the rescue of the pilot and the rescue of the weapon officer, U.S. forces flying B-2 bombers from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri dropped “bunker buster” massive ordnance penetration bombs on an IRGC headquarters, a senior defense official told Fox News.

The U.S. offensive campaign in Iran began Feb. 28.(Sasan / Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Images)

Sunday — The final rescue

At the right moment, Trump said, he directed the military to send dozens of heavily armed aircraft to rescue the crew member, who the president said is “seriously wounded” but will recover.

When the colonel finally made radio contact to coordinate the pickup, he sent the message: “God is good.”

U.S. officials were not sure if it was him at first. Trump told Axios they feared it was a trap.

But those who knew the colonel said he was a man of deep faith.

Rescue helicopters, including HH-60 Pave Hawk aircraft, came under Iranian small-arms fire during the extraction, sources told Air and Space Forces magazine.

U.S. forces established a remote airstrip inside Iran to support the rescue.

“This was not much of a runway,” Trump said. “This was a farm, not a runway.”

Problems with two other transport planes prompted U.S. forces to blow them up rather than leave them behind in Iran, according to The Associated Press.

“The fact that we were able to pull off both of these operations, without a SINGLE American killed, or even wounded, just proves once again, that we have achieved overwhelming Air Dominance and Superiority over the Iranian skies,” Trump said on social media.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Ex-CIA director David Petraeus says U.S. needs to learn “whole new concept of warfare” from Ukraine

April 6, 2026 / 12:05 PM EDT / CBS News

Former CIA director David Petraeus has traveled to Ukraine 10 times since Russia’s invasion in 2022. During his most recent trip last week, he told CBS News that Russia “no longer has the upper hand.”

“Over the last two months, the Ukrainians have actually made greater incremental gains than have the Russians,” Petraeus, a retired U.S. Army general, said in an interview in Kyiv after visiting units near the frontlines.

Petraeus said that assessment might have seemed unlikely given Russia’s advantages in manpower, firepower, and economic scale. But he argues that Ukraine has offset those disadvantages through its innovation in its unmanned systems.

Ukraine’s edge, he said, is not just the drones themselves, but the system built around them.

“What’s the real genius is how they’re pulling it all together,” Petraeus said, pointing to an “overall command and control ecosystem” that integrates surveillance, targeting, and strike capabilities. At the center is Ukraine’s Delta battle management platform, which serves as a sort of “military Google maps”, displaying a digital map of positions, targets, and other relevant information, an engineer familiar with the technology told CBS News.

That integration allows Ukrainian forces to possess nearly absolute surveillance and strike capabilities, within roughly 20 miles of the frontline. Petraeus described watching a frontline engagement in which a Russian soldier was tracked continuously by rotating surveillance drones before attack drones were deployed.

“Once you’re observed on this battlefield and you can’t get into a deeply buried position really quickly, it’s not going to end well,” he said.

Ukraine is also scaling production of low-cost first-person-view drones at a pace far beyond Western militaries. One Ukrainian manufacturer that Petraeus visited last week told him that it “is going to make 3 million drones this year alone,” compared to roughly 300,000 produced by the United States last year.

Artificial intelligence, Petraeus said, will accelerate these innovations. Currently, drone warfare is limited by electronic warfare. In the roughly 20 miles around the frontlines saturated with remotely piloted first-person-view drones, combatants jam connections between drones and operators, decreasing their effectiveness. One solution has been fiber-optic drones, which connect to their operators through long cables spooling out of their tails. But fiber-optic drones have limitations on how far they can fly and how much cable is available.

Using algorithms, rather than GPS connections, to fly drones will ease these constraints. “What’s coming is going to be algorithmically piloted drones that you can’t jam,” Petraeus said. These systems will be able to operate even in heavily contested electronic warfare environments by reducing reliance on GPS, he added. The technology will also allow human operators to control more than one drone at a time.

Petraeus said fully autonomous systems, where humans still define the missions but machines execute them, may also emerge soon.

“I think that will be possible within a couple of years, and we may well see it first here,” he said, noting that advances in technologies like object identification and facial recognition are already enabling greater autonomy.

For Petraeus, the lessons for the U.S. extend far beyond buying more drones or better incorporating them into military structures.

“In some Western countries right now, they think that innovativeness is giving 50 drones to an armored battalion,” he said. “No. What we should do is scrap the armored battalions and replace them with a drone battalion.”

That shift, he argued, requires more than procurement reform. It demands what he called a “whole new concept of warfare,” including changes to doctrine, training, and force structure. Ukraine, he noted, has created the standard for this by creating an Unmanned Systems Force, rather than simply implementing drones into different forces.

The risks of failing to adapt, particularly in counterdrone capabilities, go beyond the battlefield. Petraeus warned that advances in drone technology could pose a heightened risk of terrorism, as “drone swarm” technology allows operators to control more drones at one time and commercial drone use expands.

“A real swarm will be enabled when you have autonomous systems,” he said, adding that such capabilities are “very, very worrisome.” At the same time, companies like Amazon and Walmart are “beginning delivery by drone,” increasing the number of aerial systems in civilian airspace.

Together, those trends could make it harder to detect and defend against coordinated drone attacks.

“We don’t have systems yet,” that could effectively “defend against drone swarms,” Petraeus said. “We need to learn a lot more, much more rapidly than we are.”

Petraeus lauds Ukraine’s “extraordinary innovation”

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/former-cia-director-david-petraeus-lauds-ukraine-extraordinary-innovation-war-russia/

Trump ratchets up threats to Iran, but experts tell CNN don’t expect them ‘to fold anytime soon.’

2026-04-06 / CNN

By Dana Bash, CNN

Published 1:25 PM EDT, Mon April 6, 2026

Trump ratchets up threats to Iran, but experts tell CNN don’t expect them ‘to fold anytime soon.’

Inside Politics

CNN’s Dana Bash and the “Inside Politics” panel react to President Trump’s new Tuesday deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait or Hormuz or they’ll be “living in Hell.” Special Correspondent Jamie Gangel tells Bash, “Iran is known to like to come to the table to talk, but there is a difference between talking and reaching substantive negotiations.”

2:41 • Source: CNN

Trump proposes to cut 9,400 TSA workers, $1.5 billion from budget

2026-04-06T17:54:17.061Z / Reuters

By David Shepardson

April 6, 2026 5:54 PM UTC Updated 7 mins ago

节点运行失败

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers walk through the domestic terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. March 27, 2026. REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer Purchase Licensing Rights

WASHINGTON, April 6 (Reuters) – The White House is proposing to cut more than 9,400 workers and just over $1.5 billion from the ​60,000-employee Transportation Security Administration that handles airport security operations, according to budget ​documents.

The details were part of a budget document for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees TSA, that is part of the White House budget proposal for the next fiscal year.

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Congress ​will hold hearings on the White House budget request later this month ​as lawmakers aim to reach a new budget deal before the ⁠fiscal year ends on September 30. Some Republican lawmakers have pushed to privatize ​TSA completely.

The budget details were unrelated to the funding impasse in Congress over DHS ​for the current year, which has caused airport delays as TSA workers went without paychecks.

President Donald Trump on Friday proposed requiring smaller airports to use private security in place of TSA as a first ​step toward privatizing the agency created after the September 11, 2001, attacks. The ​White House said this change would cut the TSA payroll by more than 4,500 jobs. The ‌TSA ⁠proposes to cut another 4,800 jobs by improving efficiency, ending staffing at exit lanes and eliminating redundancies.

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The employee cuts would save more than $500 million in agency costs.

The proposal would cut the agency’s $7.8 billion budget by about 20% and comes after TSA has lost ​more than 1,600 workers ​during government funding ⁠disruptions last fall and this spring. About 50,000 security screeners at U.S. airports are TSA employees.

Trump has been critical of the TSA. He fired its ​head, David Pekoske, on his first day in office in 2025 ​and has never ⁠nominated a replacement.

Last year, the White House said it wanted funding cut for the TSA by $247 million, saying the “TSA has consistently failed audits while implementing intrusive screening measures ⁠that ​violate Americans’ privacy and dignity”.

The Biden administration had increased ​the size of the TSA. The TSA screened 904 million passengers in 2024, which was a record ​high and a 5% increase over 2023.

Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Cynthia Osterman

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Mauro compares Iran rescue of missing colonel to Maduro capture, credits intelligence preparation

April 6, 2026 2:01pm EDT / Fox News

Mauro credits long-term intelligence collection and human sources on the ground for the successful rescue

By Taylor Penley Fox News

Paul Mauro, Fox News contributor, explains the intricate Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) deception operation that rescued a U.S. airman missing for over 36 hours in Iran. The CIA used fabricated information to mislead Iranian searchers while precisely locating and extracting the airman. Mauro emphasizes the crucial role of human intelligence (HUMINT) and synchronized efforts, underscoring that intelligence, despite technological advances, fundamentally relies on people.

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U.S. intelligence agencies had already done the groundwork needed to locate a missing colonel inside Iran, Paul Mauro said Monday, arguing the operation relied on intelligence gathered well before the mission began.

“You’ve got to collect, you collect, you collect and a lot of it sometimes you’re never going to use,” Mauro told “Fox & Friends.”

“The key is when you need it, it has to be there.”

Mauro pointed to the Maduro case, which unfolded at the behest of the Trump administration in January, noting U.S. forces’ ability to pinpoint where the Venezuelan dictator and his wife were going to be at the time in order to make an effective capture.

RESCUE EXPERT SAYS MOST DANGEROUS MOMENT COMES AFTER ‘JACKPOT’ CALL IN RECOVERY BEHIND ENEMY LINES

War Secretary Pete Hegseth shakes the hand of an American airman on a covert CENTCOM visit with troops in theater.(War Secretary/X)

“They got him as they were running to a safe room without a scratch. Everybody comes out without a scratch,” he said.

“They got them as they were fleeing. That’s how detailed the messaging was, and that’s how synchronized the operation was.”

Mauro said that same level of preparation and coordination was on display in the Iran mission, where U.S. forces rescued a missing U.S. weapons systems officer from a downed F-15E following a multi-day search inside enemy territory.

TRUMP CALLS RESCUE OF DOWNED AIR FORCE PILOT AN ‘EASTER MIRACLE’

Artificial intelligence is a big factor in the Iran war and Iran realizes it.(iStock)

U.S. intelligence was able to act quickly to retrieve the missing colonel once his location was confirmed.

“[This]was one of those situations where the bell rang. ‘Guys, what [have] you got?’ President turns around, [War Secretary] Hegseth turns around, [and] they all talk to [CIA Director John] Ratcliffe and they say, ‘What [have] you got, director?’ and fortunately it was there.”

Mauro said the operation highlights a broader fact about intelligence work that is apparent to those working within its community: its success comes down to the people running the sources.

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“At the end of the day…it comes down to people,” he said.

Video

“If you think that you can sit in a cubicle someplace and get everything you need to be done, that’s not how it’s going to go. You need people in country, in dangerous areas, Americans working on our behalf that you’ll never hear about… they’re running the sources so that, again, when you need it, they say, ‘My source is good.’”

Taylor Penley is an associate editor with Fox News.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6392643765112

Inside the daring mission to rescue a U.S. airman downed in Iran

2026-04-06T11:00:00-0500 / CBS News

The United States scrambled a massive clandestine and fighting force to rescue a weapons systems operator who had to eject from his fighter jet over central Iran last week, eventually sending more than 150 aircraft to beat Iranian forces in the race to find the Air Force colonel, as the search stretched from hours into days, sources familiar with the situation told CBS News.

And more than 200 munitions were used.

The weapons airman survived nearly two days behind enemy lines, sheltering in a rocky mountain crevice, multiple officials familiar with the rescue said.

The recovery of the downed airman unfolded against the backdrop of escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran over the Strait of Hormuz, a critical channel for global oil trade. President Trump halted other planned U.S. military operations against Iran, redirecting attention and resources in a herculean U.S. government effort toward locating and extracting the stranded American service member, sources told CBS News.

In this image provided by Sepahnews, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s official website, black smoke rises into the air at what Iran’s state TV claimed was the site where an American transport plane and two helicopters involved in a rescue operation were shot down, in Isfahan province, Iran, April, 2026.Sepahnews via AP

The search zeroed in on the stranded crew member’s beacon and eventually brought him to safety Sunday morning local time.

Here’s the timeline leading up to the crash and the rescue. The following reporting is based on conversations with multiple officials familiar with the search and rescue mission.

Thursday

President Trump was not seen in public on Thursday, when the nation’s attention had turned largely to the unfolding drama at the Justice Department, as Mr. Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi. The president also celebrated a planning board’s approval of his plans for a new ballroom at the White House.

Behind the scenes though, Mr. Trump and his core national security team huddled at the White House, preparing for additional U.S. military operations against Iran.

On Truth Social, the president said Iran had not yet seen the full might of the U.S. military and threatened further attacks. “Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants!” he wrote.

So far, the war had been an air campaign. No known American ground forces had entered Iran.

Just before 10 p.m. ET, the F-15E Strike Eagle, referred to by the call sign Dude 44, was shot down by a surface-to-air missile, inadvertently putting two U.S. airmen on the ground in Iran. The fighter jet had been on a strike mission.

Search and rescue operations, authorized by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, began before midnight. Twenty-one aircraft moved deep into Iranian territory. Navy SEALs, Army and Air Force Special Operations Aviation and combat medic teams in the region mobilized.

Friday

American aircraft scoured rugged, mountainous terrain for the missing service members while taking enemy fire.

Initially, a dozen fighter jets were part of the mission. Four other planes were sent to jam enemy communications and conduct intelligence and reconnaissance. Five rescue aircraft also took to the sky.

The downed fighter jet’s pilot, call sign Dude 44A, was saved within hours. An HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter carrying the pilot to safety sustained damage from small arms fire, injuring crew members on board, but it ultimately landed safely in friendly territory. The pilot of another damaged aircraft, an A-10 Thunderbolt II, or Warthog for short, was forced to eject over the Persian Gulf and was rescued.

That left the Air Force weapons systems officer, separated from his crewmate, somewhere deep inside enemy territory, armed with a handgun, an encrypted communication device and a location beacon. He was injured when he ejected from the jet and began treating his own wounds. At the Pentagon, the colonel was designated “DUSTWUN” — military speak for Duty Status — Whereabouts Unknown.

CIA operatives launched a deception campaign, spreading word inside Iran that U.S. forces had already found the colonel and were moving him on the ground, out of the country.

In Washington, Mr. Trump spent the morning huddled in the Situation Room with Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Mr. Trump later received updates in the Oval Office.

The CIA locked on to the downed airman’s exact location in a mountainous area south of Isfahan. At least half of Iran’s nuclear stockpile is believed to be stored at a facility nearby. Other planned operations were halted as U.S. military power — and the president’s attention — pivoted to the combat rescue mission.

When he could, the weapons officer radioed a message: “God is good.”

According to a U.S. official, the wording initially raised concerns that the American had been captured by Iranian forces. Trump administration officials were relieved to learn it wasn’t a hostage rescue situation.

Region of rescue and estimated location of wreckage from rescue mission aircraft

The F-15E was shot down in a mountainous region of southwest Iran, where the airman survived nearly two days behind enemy lines. This map shows the general region of the country where the rescue activity was concentrated as well as the approximate location of photographed wreckage from rescue aircraft.Credit: CBS News research and visual verification

Saturday

A sunny Saturday with highs in the 80s would normally be a golf day for the president. But a Marine sentry was spotted outside the West Wing most of the day Saturday, usually a sign the president is at work. The president’s communications director confirmed “he has been working nonstop in the White House and Oval Office,” an indication of the intense focus on the rescue mission.

Hegseth phoned in regular updates to the president.

Iranian and U.S. forces jockeyed to reach the stranded colonel first. Armed Iranians, including the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Basij militia and local law enforcement combed the terrain in search of the airman. A cash reward was offered for his capture. The U.S. military rapidly expanded the operation to find him.

By Saturday, the Pentagon had surged more than 150 planes to rescue the weapons system officer. That included 64 fighter jets, four bombers, 48 refuelers, 13 rescue aircraft and 26 intelligence and jamming aircraft, sources said.

Warplanes bombed Iranian convoys to block their advance toward the downed officer.

Navy SEALs recovered the airman from the mountain during daylight hours Sunday local time and flew him to safety.

Two C-130 transport planes tasked with flying out rescue crews got bogged down in loose soil and were unable to take off from a remote base in Iran. Those planes were blown up to keep them from being captured by the enemy, standard practice for the military. They were not attacked by Iranian forces.

Three additional aircraft were sent into theater to fetch the commandos. One official said they used a rudimentary airfield in Iran.

U.S. forces exited enemy airspace with planes touching down in Kuwait in succession. The mission was completed just before midnight Eastern Time.

The rescued airman was injured, Mr. Trump said, but safe and sound.

State election officials wonder if massive federal voter database will be used to sow doubts about midterm elections

2026-04-06 1:46 PM EDT / CNN Politics

By Dana Bash, CNN

State election officials wonder if massive federal voter database will be used to sow doubts about midterm elections

Inside Politics

Gabe Cohen joins the Inside Politics panel to share his reporting on the Trump administration’s effort to create a massive federal voter database — and state election officials are scared about what they’ll do with it. Among other reasons, they’re worried the database could “be used to sow doubts about the midterm elections after the fact,” Cohen says.

4:04 • Source: CNN

https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/06/politics/video/inside-politics-voter-database-panel

CENTCOM commander directed strike against an IRGC headquarters in underground facility: sources

April 6, 2026 1:32pm EDT / Fox News

Fox News is told the headquarters was obliterated

By Alex Nitzberg , Trey Yingst , Jennifer Griffin Fox News

CENTCOM directs strike on IRGC headquarters during airman rescue

Sources tell Trey Yingst IRGC headquarters ‘obliterated.’

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High-level sources have informed Fox News that during rescue efforts in Iran after a U.S. fighter jet was shot down, the commander of U.S. Central Command directed an attack against an underground Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps headquarters.

While the airman rescue was going on, CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper directed a strike on an IRGC headquarters in an underground facility near Tehran — it was done with B2 bombers, using Massive Ordnance Penetrators, the same weapon used last year in Operation Midnight Hammer, according to the sources. Fox News is told the headquarters was obliterated.

U.S. military B1 bombers (BONES) dropped a hundred 2,000-pound bombs during the rescue operations to keep Iranians away from the rescue area during the operation, according to a senior U.S. defense official.

A senior military source told Fox News, “we delivered the heat” on the IRGC.

RESCUE EXPERT SAYS MOST DANGEROUS MOMENT COMES AFTER ‘JACKPOT’ CALL IN RECOVERY BEHIND ENEMY LINES

Adm. Brad” Cooper, commander of Central Command, speaks during a joint press conference with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth at CENTCOM headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, on March 5, 2026.(Octavio Jones/AFP via Getty Images)

CENTCOM noted in a press release that U.S. forces had rescued two service members after their F-15E was downed.

Fox News was told that the operation took place between the two rescues: Cooper ordered the B2s to fly round trip from Whiteman Air Force Base in the U.S. because they received time-sensitive intelligence about the location of a large number of IRGC commanders inside this underground bunker in Tehran, and the Massive Ordnance Penetrators, bunker buster bombs, were dropped by the B2 warplanes.

AIRMAN RESCUE SHOWS US CAN PENETRATE ENEMY TERRITORY ‘ANYWHERE’ IN IRAN, FORMER PENTAGON OFFICIAL WARNS

Wreckage is seen from what Iranian authorities say is a U.S. military helicopter that crashed during a mission to rescue the missing American pilot of an F-15E that was downed, in a handout image provided on April 5, 2026, in an unspecified location in Iran.(Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance/Handout via Getty Images)

Following the rescues, President Donald Trump declared in a Truth Social post, “We have rescued the seriously wounded, and really brave, F-15 Crew Member/Officer, from deep inside the mountains of Iran. The Iranian Military was looking hard, in big numbers, and getting close. He is a highly respected Colonel. This type of raid is seldom attempted because of the danger to ‘man and equipment.’ It just doesn’t happen!”

RETIRED F-16 PILOT SAYS RESCUED US AIRMAN’S SURVIVAL IN IRAN HIGHLIGHTS INTENSE EVASION TRAINING

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“The second raid came after the first one, where we rescued the pilot in broad daylight, also unusual, spending seven hours over Iran. An AMAZING show of bravery and talent by all!” he said.

Alex Nitzberg is a writer for Fox News Digital.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6392645116112

New details about Epstein’s lenient plea deal and jail term emerge from DOJ files

April 6, 2026 / 1:56 PM EDT / CBS News

Jeffrey Epstein’s controversial 2008 plea deal for charges including soliciting a minor for prostitution has long drawn scrutiny, and newly released details are raising further questions about the months he spent on work release from a Florida jail.

Epstein pleaded guilty and surrendered to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s office in July 2008. Dozens of accusers from several states, many underage at the time of the alleged crimes, had been prepared to testify against him on federal sex trafficking charges, but the case was shelved in exchange for his agreement to plea to lesser state charges in Florida. Many survivors of Epstein’s crimes and other critics of the plea agreement have called it a “sweetheart deal.”

After serving fewer than four months in jail, Epstein was granted a special arrangement that allowed him to leave custody for up to 16 hours a day, six days a week, as part of a work release program, allegedly to perform work at a charitable organization he had just established called the Florida Science Foundation.

This continued for the next nine months until his release to a year of supervised house arrest in July 2009.

Each day during his work release, Epstein was transported between the jail and an office in downtown West Palm Beach by his bodyguard and driver, Igor Zinoviev. His personal attorney, Darren Indyke, was listed as his official supervisor at the job. Epstein agreed to hire off-duty sheriff’s deputies to monitor his movements, log visitors and provide security at his office and home.

According to documents released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, his SUV used for these trips was outfitted with a bed. An account given to the FBI by one woman included the claim that Epstein engaged in sexual activity with her in the vehicle — while it was parked in the jail lot.

The woman told the FBI she was a former model from Slovakia who Epstein had first met when she was a teenager and still in high school. She told agents she was recruited from Slovakia by Epstein’s friend and business associate Jean-Luc Brunel during her senior year to move to New York City and pursue a career in modeling. She met Epstein at Brunel’s birthday party at the New York City restaurant Cipriani in 2003.

By the time of Epstein’s incarceration, she had been involved sexually with him for several years. She was one of four “assistants” granted immunity in a federal non-prosecution agreement that Epstein received in exchange for his plea. Some Epstein accusers have alleged that those women were involved in recruiting Epstein’s victims; she did not address that in statements to the FBI. The non-prosecution deal was ultimately approved by then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Alexander Acosta.

Survivors and their attorneys say these allegations are just one example of what they describe as unusually lenient treatment, the reasons for which remain unclear.

Spencer Kuvin is a Florida attorney who represented many of Epstein’s accusers and brought several of the first lawsuits against him. Kuvin told CBS News that the woman’s name never appeared on the official prison visitor logs that they obtained as part of that litigation. Kuvin says that he deposed her in 2010 while suing Epstein on behalf of an underage victim. Transcripts of that deposition show her pleading the Fifth and declining to answer questions.

“I think it’s absolutely disgusting the lack of oversight by the local police department,” Kuvin said.

“If all of this is true, they allow a sexual predator to continue his activities even while he was supposed to be in custody and it just highlights the nature of the sweetheart deal that he got and the preferential treatment he received because of his wealth,” he said.

The testimony about the SUV came during a 2020 interview conducted by FBI agents in New York as part of the criminal investigation into Ghislaine Maxwell.

Documents from the U.S. Justice Department’s release of files on Jeffrey Epstein. Photo Illustration by Vladislav Nekrasov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

During the interview, the woman described what she characterized as a friendly relationship between Epstein and members of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Department, along with minimal oversight during his incarceration. She said that when she and Epstein parked in the prison lot she “recalled flashlights in the parking lot, but no one ever came over to the car.”

CBS News is withholding her name because she has recently identified herself as an Epstein victim. In the interview she also told investigators that Epstein had paid her hundreds of thousands of dollars after their relationship had ended because of the challenges she claimed to be having in finding employment due to negative publicity.

CBS News made multiple attempts to contact her through her attorneys but did not receive any response.

Over several interviews with federal investigators, documented in official interview notes known as 302s, she provided extensive details about her relationship with Epstein, including that during his incarceration she engaged in virtual sexual activity using a web-cam with him while he was apparently alone in custody.

“These interviews really show how grooming works,” Adam Horowitz, another Florida attorney who represented many of Epstein’s victims, told CBS News, “You’re hearing the voice of someone who was conditioned to protect Epstein, even while describing the system he used to exploit young women.”

Other details from the woman’s FBI interview include that Epstein was particularly friendly with one prison guard who even visited Epstein’s home to discuss a potential job while Epstein was in home confinement. She described a prank in which Epstein hid in a bathroom during a sheriff’s inspection of his residence. She also said Epstein bragged about having an unfriendly probation officer transferred.

During her visits to the jail, she said she was never required to sign in or complete any paperwork.

In a separate 2019 document released by the DOJ, a man claiming to be a former part-time paramedic at the jail called in an uncorroborated tip to the FBI and stated that Epstein had paid for a closed section of the jail to be reopened for his use, to avoid being housed with the general population. The tipster called it “highly unusual preferential treatment.”

In response to questions from CBS News, the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Department wrote, “We have no evidence to substantiate that these incidents took place.”

A 2021 report by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement into the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Department found no evidence that bribery or undue influence affected Epstein’s treatment.

“A number of survivors have made clear that Epstein’s exploitation did not stop during his incarceration.” Lauren Hersh, director of the anti-trafficking group World Without Exploitation, told CBS News. “At best, Epstein’s highly unusual arrangement demonstrates law enforcement’s negligence. More likely, this is symptomatic of a system that prioritized accommodating a predator over delivering justice for survivors and protecting vulnerable girls and women.”

Apparently some investigators at the DOJ never gave up hope of pursuing the case against Epstein.

“It was a shame. We had a great case,” one employee said in a previously unreleased text included in the Epstein files. “I never gave up on it. I kept everything ready … in case the non prosecution agreement got voided.”

Ten more years passed before Epstein was arrested again and charged in federal court with trafficking of minors in New York. He was found dead in a Manhattan jail cell on Aug. 10, 2019, and his death was ruled a suicide.