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The War Is "Very Complete," Says Trump

Corpus Christi's Water Crisis & A Sweep In Nepal

Author

Marcus Gee-Lim
March 10, 2026

Hi readers, happy Tuesday! Today we’re covering the end of the Iran war (maybe), the impact of the war on Lebanon, Nepal’s big elections, a crisis in Corpus Christi, a bombing in NYC, and Elon Musk’s jury problems.

Thank you for reading and please feel free to send any comments or feedback to [email protected]!

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” – Maya Angelou 

Who Decides When The War Is Over?

“Tehran oil fire” by @sentdefender via X.

It’s been a wild few days in the U.S.-Iran war. The biggest news came yesterday afternoon, when Trump suddenly declared that the conflict was nearing its end. “I think the war is very complete, pretty much,” the president told reporters. “[Iran has] no navy, no communications, they've got no air force. Their missiles are down to a scatter. Their drones are being blown up all over the place, including their manufacturing of drones.” After stock prices plummeted and oil prices skyrocketed earlier in the day, they quickly recovered after his statement (despite the fact that he offered little evidence to back up his claims).

He then went on to warn Iran that any move to block shipping traffic through the local Strait of Hormuz would be met with extreme violence. “If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far,” he wrote on social media. “Additionally, we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back, as a Nation, again — Death, Fire, and Fury will reign upon them”

The thing is that the U.S. and Israel have already rained a good amount of “Death, Fire, and Fury” upon Iran. On Sunday, Israel launched airstrikes targeting Iran’s soil infrastructure in and around Tehran. The strikes found their targets, destroying four oil depots and a petroleum storage site in and near the Iranian capital. The damage sent plumes of toxic fumes into the air, turning the sky black and red and forcing residents to stay indoors. 

“The situation is so frightening it’s hard to describe. Smoke has covered the entire city. I have severe shortness of breath and burning in my eyes and throat, and many others feel the same,” said one woman in Tehran. “We are so scared to even clean the windows and balconies. There’s soot everywhere and we don’t even want to touch it with gloves. My eyes are burning and I look outside and see people without masks are going on with their daily lives. I am not so brave. There’s this smell in the air I can’t explain,” said another man.

While the skies over Tehran filled with ash and acid rain, the media seems to have determined that the U.S. was, in fact, responsible for the deadly airstrike that killed 165 people at a girls’ school on February 28. Bellingcat, a Western open-source intelligence group, reviewed footage of the strike and came to the conclusion that the missile that struck the school was a Tomahawk cruise missile – a weapon that only the U.S. uses.

Hezbollah Fires, Lebanon Packs

  • As the U.S.-Israel-Iran war continues on, hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon are being displaced. According to the U.N., almost 700,000 ​people have been displaced due to Israeli bombardment so far; the death toll in Lebanon is roughly 500 right now, but is rising by roughly 100 per day.

  • “Mass displacement across Lebanon has forced nearly 700,000 people – including around 200,000 children – from their homes, adding to the tens of thousands already uprooted from previous escalations,” said a spokesperson for UNICEF. “Children are being killed and injured at a horrifying rate, families are fleeing their homes in fear, and thousands of children are now sleeping in cold ​and overcrowded shelters.”

  • The Lebanese people were pulled into the war after Lebanon’s Hezbollah paramilitary group fired rockets into Israel as revenge for the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. On Monday, Israel targeted a financial institution run by Hezbollah with multiple strikes; at least five of the bank’s buildings were struck. Israeli forces are also on the ground in Lebanon – they pushed into the country right when the war began in order to set up "forward defensive positions” against further attacks by Hezbollah.

Mr. Shah Seizes His Moment

  • Last Thursday, Nepal held elections for the first time after Gen-Z protests ousted the country’s government last September. Heading into the election, analysts predicted that no party would emerge with a clear majority, sending the newly-elected parliament into coalition talks that would dilute the agendas of reformist politicians. 

  • Luckily for the protest movement, those analysts were wrong. Preliminary data released on Sunday shows that the protest-aligned Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) secured 100 out of 165 seats available for direct election on Thursday, and the party also shows a strong lead in contests for the country’s 110 proportionally-elected parliamentary seats. “A lot of people wanted change, but no one expected such a landslide,” said one RSP official. Balendra Shah, a former rapper and head of the RSP, is expected to become the country’s next prime minister.

Additional World News

Corpus Christi Running On Empty

“Downtown Corpus Christi, Texas” by Phil Slattery. CC BY-SA 3.0.

  • Corpus Christi, Texas is running out of water. According to the city itself, Corpus Christi is projected to experience a “water emergency” within just a few months, before totally running out of water sometime next year (unless the area gets significant amounts of rainfall this year). 

  • Besides spelling a massive disaster for a city of 500,000 people, Corpus Christi’s water debacle could also have nationwide consequences. The Port of Corpus Christi is America’s biggest port for crude oil exports, and if the city’s water runs out, keeping that port operational will become prohibitively expensive – both in terms of keeping workers within the city and bringing in enough water to keep plants and refineries running.

  • To solve its water problems, the city has been working on setting up desalination plants for years. Unfortunately, though, those plans were derailed by incompetence and conflicting interests, meaning there’s still no such plant in the city. According to the Corpus Christi City Council, one desalination plant is expected to be online in two years – way too late for the current crisis, and outputting just a fraction of the potable water that the city needs.

A Bottle Bomb Plot Fizzles Out

  • On Saturday in New York City, a group of right-wing protestors held an anti-Islam demonstration outside of Gracie Mansion, the residence of Mayor Zohran Mamdani. A larger group of counterprotestors eventually gathered in response, clashing with the anti-Islam group. The tensions peaked when two men threw explosive devices at the anti-Islam protestors – luckily, the explosives quickly extinguished themselves before anyone was injured, and the police stepped in to arrest the would-be bombers.

  • The two suspects – 18-year-old Emir Balat and 19-year-old Ibrahim Kayumi – were officially charged with terror offences yesterday. The devices they’d attempted to use were essentially glass bottles filled with explosive material; they were also stuffed with nuts and bolts to make the explosion more deadly, and included a fuse which was supposed to ignite the explosives inside. “We were fortunate that the devices used this weekend did not cause the kind of harm that they were certainly capable of causing,” said NYC’s police commissioner. But luck is never a strategy. Devices like these have the potential to cause devastating harm.”

Additional USA News

 

Money Can’t Buy You Happiness (Or Friends)

  • On Saturday, Elon Musk’s lawyers asked the judge in a class action lawsuit against the Tesla billionaire to declare the case a mistrial. Their complaint alleges that the plaintiffs’ lawyers broke certain procedures when addressing the jury, and that the judge was a bit too friendly with a few witnesses brought into the courtroom. But the meat of the motion for a mistrial was this bit alleging that Musk is so hated in San Francisco (where the trial is being held) that he’s basically been denied a fair jury trial:

  • “The Court has an obligation to protect Mr. Musk’s right to a fair trial,” Musk’s lawyers wrote. “The duty is all the more important given the animosity in the community toward Mr. Musk apparent during jury selection.” In a separate statement made during jury selection in the case, his lawyer said, “We have so many people in the venire who hate him so much that we’re becoming desensitized.”

  • The class-action suit was brought about by people who sold their Twitter stock as Musk was preparing to buy out the social media platform. At one point, Musk had alleged that much of the platform’s traffic came from bots in an attempt to drive down the platform’s share price, costing the class-action suit investors a significant amount of money.

Additional Reads

Peanut For Your Thoughts

I wonder how Musk’s lawyers broke the news to him. Or maybe he’s just used to being hated at this point.

Editor + Writer: Marcus Gee-Lim

Designer: Joe Stella