The New York Times: The Evening
"The Evening: The hardest hits are yet to come."
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Content and Source: "The New York Times: The Evening."
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Russ Roberts (https://trendsingeopolitics.blogspot.com).
 March 2, 2026 |
Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Monday.
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| The Gandhi Hospital in Tehran today. Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times |
Trump foresees an extended war as the U.S. sends more troops
As American and Israeli forces pounded Iran for the third straight day, President Trump said that the U.S. would continue its attacks there until Iran was incapable of posing a threat.
“Whatever it takes,” Trump said today, in his first public comments on the war since the U.S. and Israel struck Iran on Saturday. “Right from the beginning we projected four to five weeks, but we have the capability to go far longer than that,” Trump added. Follow here for the latest updates, and check out these maps of the strikes.
Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, suggested today that the U.S. attacks in Iran were still ramping up. “The hardest hits are yet to come,” Rubio said. His comments echoed Trump, who said, “We haven’t even started hitting them hard,” and declined to rule out sending in ground troops.
Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced at a news conference that the U.S. would send more troops and fighter jets to the Middle East, adding that “this work is just beginning.” However, standing next to Caine, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insisted that the fighting would not spiral into another protracted war. “This is not Iraq,” Hegseth said. “This is not endless.”
Six American service members have been killed, and Caine said he expected “to take additional losses.” Separately, three U.S. fighter jets were shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses, in what U.S. officials described as a friendly fire incident. All six crew members “ejected safely,” officials said. See video of one of the jets being downed.
The war’s effects are rippling across the world:
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| Ali Larijani in 2024. Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times |
Iran’s leaders remain defiant
The U.S.-Israeli airstrikes have dealt a serious blow to Iran’s government. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed, and so were several military leaders and senior officials. Many military and government sites have been damaged or destroyed, and at least four of Iran’s military ships were photographed burning.
Still, Iran’s leaders are not backing down. The country’s top security official, Ali Larijani, said that Iran was not seeking to negotiate and that Iran was prepared “for a long war.”
Experts say that Iran’s clerical rulers may be too deeply entrenched for Iranians to topple them with the help of an air assault alone. Our bureau chief in the region contemplated what’s next.
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| Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times |
How the U.S. decided to go to war
In public, Trump occasionally voiced optimism for a diplomatic outcome with Iran and did little to convince Americans of the need for a conflict. In private, the president’s embrace of military action was fueled by Israel’s push to land a decisive blow, and by his own confidence after toppling Venezuela’s leader. My colleagues detailed the internal discussions.
Few of the president’s advisers voiced opposition. Even Vice President JD Vance, a longtime skeptic of American military interventions, said the U.S. should “go big and go fast” if it was going to hit Iran.
What does Trump want? The administration has offered mixed messages. Today, Trump described four objectives: destroying Iran’s missile capabilities, “annihilating” its navy, preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and ensuring it cannot continue to fund regional proxies. There was no mention of regime change, which he had called for over the weekend.
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| Outside of a polling place in Bryan, Tex. last month. Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times |
Back in the U.S., midterm elections are getting underway
Texas, North Carolina and Arkansas will hold the first primaries of the year tomorrow. The most attention will be on Texas.
There, the most expensive Senate primary race on record has featured bitter attacks and high early turnout. On the Republican side, Senator John Cornyn faces a tough primary challenge, while Democrats are weighing whether to court swing voters or energize their base with fiery appeals.
More top news
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TIME TO UNWIND |
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| Stellan Skarsgard, Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas. Heather Sten |
Scandinavian cinema is resonating with global audiences
Every few years, a new region seems to become the arbiter of art house cinema: the French New Wave in the 1960s, the American mumblecore of the aughts, the recent critiques of economic inequality from South Korea. Scandinavian films, known for their intimate and darkly comic morality tales, may be next, my colleague Nick Haramis writes.
“Sentimental Value,” a film about grief and redemption from a Danish-Norwegian director, has received widespread acclaim and Oscar nods for its stars. Watch that director, Joachim Trier, narrate a scene.
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| A blood moon behind the Tokyo Skytree last year. Jiji Press/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
Set your alarm early to witness a lunar spectacle
If you wake up tomorrow before sunrise, look up at the sky. For those in an area that’s sufficiently dark and cloudless, the moon will appear to become scarlet, a phenomenon often referred to as a blood moon, around 6 a.m. Eastern.
The reason: There will be a total lunar eclipse tomorrow, the last one until 2028. It occurs when the moon falls into the Earth’s shadow, blocking most of the sunlight. But some spills over the edges of Earth and through our atmosphere, scattering blue light as red light passes through.
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| A model at Bottega Veneta’s show. Simbarashe Cha/The New York Times |
Dinner table topics
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WHAT TO DO TONIGHT |
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| Armando Rafael for The New York Times |
Cook: These Ritzy Cheddar chicken breasts taste as good as they look.
Listen: Look back at essential songs by Neil Sedaka, who died last week at 86.
Clear out: We have tips for repurposing your old clothes.
Focus: Spend 10 minutes with this Klimt portrait and tell us what it makes you think of.
Test yourself: Take the latest Flashback history quiz.
Play: Here are today’s Wordle, Mini Crossword and Sports Connections. Find all our games here.
ONE LAST THING |
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| The New York Times |
Immortalizing moments of accidental humor
We all flub movie titles on occasion. Box-office workers hear mixed-up titles so often that staffers at one Upper West Side theater started writing down every one: Instead of “Wallace and Gromit,” there’s “Wallace and Hermit,” and instead of “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” there is, somehow, “Upside Down, Anyways.”
After three years, their list is 27 pages long, and we made a series of not-quite-right movie posters to celebrate these pearls of accidental comedy.
Have a comic evening.
Thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow — Matthew.
Reach me at evening@nytimes.com. We welcome your feedback.
Eli Cohen was our photo editor.
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Writer: Matthew Cullen Editor: Whet Moser |
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