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In our news wrap Friday, it has been six months since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran, a conflict that President Trump said would last weeks. Half-a-year on, the scars of the war's earliest days remain, with buildings across the country still in ruins. In the southern city of Minab, parents are still grieving more than 100 children killed when their school was bombed on the war's first day. One mother reflected on the loss of her son.
Khadijeh Ahmadizadeh, Bereaved Mother (through interpreter): "They have left a pain in the heart of Minab that will never go away. They think that now six months have passed that our hearts have grown cold, but they haven't at all. It's getting worse. This pain is so heavy. The children left with so many dreams."
Also in the region today, Israel says it carried out a rare airstrike in the occupied West Bank, killing a Hamas operative and two of his accomplices. The militant group confirmed that the target was a member and condemned the attack. President Trump honored the crew of the Artemis II lunar mission today with the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. The three Americans and one Canadian received the nation's highest space honor in recognition of their flight around the moon earlier this year. They were the first astronauts to do so in more than half-a-century. A.I. giant Anthropic says it remains focused on working productively with the Trump administration after a judge ruled that the Pentagon's measures against the company were illegal and baseless.