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Signal fallout, Palestinian Oscar winner's arrest and spreading measles

 
Today's NATIONAL SeCURITY story

Waltz takes blame for texts amid calls for Hegseth ouster

What happened
President Donald Trump downplayed the seriousness of his top national security officials discussing operational details of an imminent military strike on Yemen in a Signal group text chat, calling it a "glitch" that "turned out not to be a serious one." Democrats disagreed and called for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Michael Waltz to step down.

Who said what
"I take full responsibility" for building the unsecured group chat that inadvertently included The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, Waltz said on Fox News last night. "It's embarrassing. We're going to get to the bottom of it." Trump said he would not fire Waltz, calling him "a good man" who "has learned a lesson," and told reporters "there was no classified information, as I understand it."

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe similarly said in a Senate hearing yesterday that no classified information was shared in the group chat, "bewildering Democrats and former U.S. officials, who regard that kind of targeting information as some of the most closely-held material ahead of a U.S. military campaign," Reuters said. But the intelligence chiefs also "shifted the spotlight back" to Hegseth, who shared the Yemen attack details, saying he "would be the one to determine what defense information is classified."

It's "total amateur hour," Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) told podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen. "This is what happens when you have basically Fox News personalities cosplaying as government officials."

What next?
At least four Senate Democrats called for Hegseth to resign and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) urged Trump to fire him. Some GOP lawmakers "called for an investigation," The New York Times said, but "most have shied away from criticizing" Trump's team or "calling on any officials to step down."

 
 
Today's INTERNATIONAL story

Israel detains director after West Bank clash

What happened
Israeli authorities arrested Hamdan Ballal, the Palestinian co-director of this year's Oscar-winning documentary "No Other Land," in his West Bank village of Susya on Monday evening and released him yesterday afternoon, beaten and bruised from what he and witnesses described as an attack by Israeli settlers aided by Israeli soldiers. Ballal was "handcuffed all night and beaten in a military base," said Yuval Abraham, the film's Israeli co-director.

Who said what
Israeli and Palestinian witnesses "provided conflicting accounts" of events, The New York Times said, with the settlers and villagers both claiming they were defending themselves and Israeli police saying Ballal and two other Palestinians were detained on "suspicion of hurling stones, property damage and 'endangering regional security,'" charges all three deny.

Ballal told The Associated Press that a known settler attacked him as he was guarding his home, kicking his head "like a football" while two Israeli soldiers watched or joined in. Ballal said he was blindfolded for 20 hours in a frigid cell and overheard Hebrew-speaking soldiers saying "Oscar" and his name, so "I realized they were attacking me specifically."

What next?
The "episode drew attention to rising attacks by hard-line Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank," the Times said. According to Basel Adra, another co-director of "No Other Land," there has been a "massive upswing in attacks by settlers and Israeli forces since the Oscar win," the AP said.

 
 
Today's PUBLIC HEALTH Story

Measles outbreak spreads, as does RFK Jr.'s influence

What happened
The measles outbreak centered in Gaines County, Texas, has grown to more than 370 cases in at least three states, health officials said yesterday, already topping the 285 cases recorded across the U.S. all last year. Along with Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma, 16 other states have recorded measles this year, including at least 10 recent cases in Kansas. Two unvaccinated people have died.

Who said what
The CDC "hasn't held a public briefing" since President Donald Trump's inauguration, and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has "promoted unproven treatments for measles," ignoring virologists and "listening to fringe voices who reinforce his personal beliefs," Kevin Griffis, who resigned as CDC communications director last Friday, said in an op-ed at The Washington Post.

After Kennedy endorsed vitamin A cod-liver-oil supplements "as a near miraculous cure for measles" on Fox News, doctors in West Texas "say they've now treated a handful of unvaccinated children who were given so much vitamin A that they had signs of liver damage," The New York Times said.

What next?
HHS has hired David Geier, a "vaccine skeptic who has long promoted false claims about the connection between immunizations and autism," to lead a "critical study of possible links between the two," the Post said yesterday. "Public health and autism experts fear" that Geier's analysis "will produce a flawed study with far-reaching consequences."

 
 

It's not all bad

In South Africa, fishing restrictions will soon be in place near the breeding grounds of endangered African penguins to guard them from extinction. Under an agreement between conservationists and fishing industry groups, no fishing will be allowed within 12 miles of Robben Island and Bird Island, with "more limited closures" by four other colonies, said The Guardian. This is a "significant step" toward saving the African penguin, said conservationist Nicky Stander, but the "journey is far from over."

 
 
Under the radar

Could our galaxy actually be inside a black hole? New research seems to suggest this possibility.

Data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey found that the majority of galaxies rotate clockwise, according to an article in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The Milky Way rotates counterclockwise, putting it in the minority. These findings are surprising because if the universe is random, as previously thought, there should be an "approximately equal amount of galaxies rotating" in either direction, said Popular Mechanics.

One explanation for this phenomenon is that the "universe was born rotating," Lior Shamir, a computer science professor at Kansas State University and the author of the study, said in a statement. This explanation "agrees with theories such as black hole cosmology, which postulates that the entire universe is the interior of a black hole."

Black hole cosmology "suggests that the Milky Way and every other observable galaxy in our universe is contained within a black hole that formed in another, much larger, universe," said The Independent. The theory "challenges many fundamental models of the cosmos, including the idea that the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe." The study's data also open the door to the idea that each black hole is a door to another universe and that we exist in a multiverse.

 
 
On this day

March 26, 2011

Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to be nominated for vice president of the U.S., died at age 75. She served as a Democratic congresswoman from New York and was nominated for vice president alongside Walter Mondale in the 1984 election. It was not until 2020 that a woman, Kamala Harris, was elected vice president.

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

"Trump family venture deepens crypto push" as President Donald Trump officially boosts cryptocurrencies, The Wall Street Journal says on Wednesday's front page. "President tries to divert blame in war plan leak," The New York Times says. "Eagerness for secrecy is boosting Signal chat app," sparking "fears for transparency," The Washington Post says. Meanwhile, "Russia, Ukraine expand truce" to Black Sea. But Sen. John Cornyn's (R-Texas) "warnings on Putin may cause rift" with Trump, the Houston Chronicle says.

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

Breakfast of Tiffany's

A suspected thief swallowed evidence after making off with $770,000 worth of diamonds from a Tiffany & Co. store, said the Orlando Police Department. The man allegedly posed as a representative for an Orlando Magic player, and after being taken to a VIP room and presented with four diamond earrings, he ran away with the jewelry. Officers caught up to the suspect 340 miles away and recovered three earrings, then "waited to collect the remaining evidence," said Sky News.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Demetrius Freeman / The Washington Post via Getty Images; Angela Weiss / AFP via Getty Images; Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP via Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images