A terror scare erupted in America’s tourist hotspot when homemade bombs packed with nuts, bolts, and screws were hurled toward a crowd. The devices were tossed during dueling protests late Saturday morning near Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s residence on Manhattan’s Upper East Side in New York City. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said investigators are still working to determine whether the devices were functional explosives or hoaxes, adding the information released so far is early and could change as the investigation develops. Police say the first protest began around 11 a.m. near Gracie Mansion. The demonstration — titled “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City, Stop New York City Public Muslim Prayer” — drew about 20 participants and was organized by individuals associated with January 6 defendant Jake Lang. A counter-protest nearby called “Run the Nazis out of New York City, Stand Against Hate” drew roughly 125 people at its peak. Officers separated the two groups into designated protest areas, but tensions escalated shortly before noon. At 12:15 p.m., police say a protester associated with the Lang demonstration used pepper spray against counter-protesters and was arrested. Fast forward 20 minutes. The situation intensified. Police say an 18-year-old counter-protester identified as Amir Balat lit and hurled an ignited device toward the protest area. Witnesses reported seeing flames and smoke trailing the device as it flew through the air before striking a barrier and extinguishing just feet from police officers. Balat then ran from the scene, where investigators say he obtained a second device from a 19-year-old man tentatively identified as Ibrahim Nick. Police say Balat lit that device while running before dropping it nearby. Officers quickly moved in, secured the area and took both men into custody. The incident was captured on NYPD surveillance cameras. WATCH: NYPD tackle man who allegedly set off a “homemade smoke bomb.” Police are now ordering everyone to clear the area.@Bodittle | @TPUSA pic.twitter.com/lUnciJLJ25 — FRONTLINES TPUSA (@FrontlinesTPUSA) March 7, 2026 Bomb squad technicians responded to examine the devices. Tisch said early inspections suggest the objects appeared to be jars wrapped in black tape, slightly smaller than a football, packed with nuts, bolts, and screws and fitted with a hobby fuse that could be ignited. Investigators are still working to determine whether the devices were functional improvised explosive devices or hoaxes, as it remains unclear whether they contained explosive material. Both devices were transported by the bomb squad to the department’s Rodman’s Neck facility for further testing and analysis. Police established a safety perimeter and searched the surrounding area for additional hazards, using canine units and manually inspecting garbage cans, vehicles, and nearby locations. In total, six arrests were made in connection with the events. Those arrests include the two men accused of handling and deploying the devices, the protester who used pepper spray earlier in the demonstration, and additional individuals charged with disorderly conduct and obstructing traffic. Some on social media are claiming Balat or Nick yelled “Allahu Akbar,” though that has not been confirmed by authorities. Tisch praised officers who rushed toward the danger as the situation unfolded. “I always speak about the police running toward the danger when everyone else runs away,” the commissioner said. “Let me be clear — that happened today.” “I am grateful that there were no injuries associated with the incident,” she added. Tisch said she has remained in contact with Mayor Zohran Mamdani throughout the day. Authorities say there is currently no indication the incident is connected to ongoing hostilities involving Iran, though the investigation remains active. Watch as @NYPDPC and NYPD executives brief the media on an ongoing investigation. https://t.co/FgTRZHumPV pic.twitter.com/MKsui1817S — NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) March 7, 2026 Frontlines TPUSA reporter Bronson Alford told The Daily Wire that the counter-protesters from “Drive the Nazis out of New York” were not your average demonstrators. “The protesters weren’t normal protesters; they were ANTIFA and their goal was to hurt as many conservative journalists as they could,” Alford told The Daily Wire. Alford said things escalated when protesters started screaming “Bomb, bomb, bomb.” His surroundings began to fill with smoke saying it smelled like something had been ignited.

President Trump used the past tense on Saturday to describe the U.K. as America’s “once great ally” when he rejected the country’s offer to send aircraft carriers to the Middle East. “The United Kingdom, our once great ally, made the greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the middle east,” said Trump. “That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer. But we will remember. We don’t need people that join wars after we’ve already won.”  Before changing his stance, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer had criticized the strikes, saying, “Donald Trump has plunged the Middle East into chaos. We will stand by ethics, no matter the pressure.” At a press conference on Friday, Starmer explained the policy shift came when Iran started attacking countries around the Gulf and the surrounding region. “When Iran started attacking countries around the Gulf and the wider region, the situation changed. Iran has now fired drones and missiles at ten countries that did not attack them,” Starmer said. “These are allies of the U.K. where we have hundreds of thousands of British people as well as British military personnel. Our number one priority is protecting our people.” Before Iran’s attacks, Starmer explained he only wanted a negotiated settlement with Iran where they would give up their nuclear ambitions. “That’s why I took the decision that the U.K. would not join the initial strikes on Iran by the U.S. and Israel. That decision was deliberate. It was in the national interest and I stand by it.” Trump criticized Starmer on his initial decision, saying, “This is not Winston Churchill we are dealing with.” Initially, Starmer blocked the United States from using British military bases for strikes against Iran during Operation Epic Fury. However, the U.K. later gave Trump permission for “defensive strikes.” The president wanted to use British territories in the Indian Ocean. Days later, the U.K. agreed, but for the intervening time, American air forces had to make other arrangements.

After touting the destruction of 42 Iranian naval vessels in three days and the disruption of the country’s communications systems and air force, President Trump credited the success to policies from his first term. “I built the military and rebuilt it and made it very strong in my first administration along with many other things,” the president said. “And now we are using it, unfortunately we have to.” During Trump’s first four years in office, more than $2.2 trillion was directed toward defense spending. That funding went to modernizing nuclear forces and missile defenses, upgrading cyber defenses, and advanced missile defense capabilities and regional alliances. Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller declared the United States military had been “unleashed” after ditching political correctness. “One of the reasons I fear that some people in this country lost faith in the military and the capacity to use that military to defend us is because we had a Woke Pentagon — because we had a military who, at the very highest levels—not the warfighters—was forced to fight a less than full fight,” stated Miller on Thursday. “What you’re seeing now is a military that is unleashed in all of its lethal prowess to go out and seek, destroy, and kill the enemy.” President Trump’s U.S. Space Force, established in 2019, helps feed intelligence across the military. Space Force develops and defends communication satellites, engineers global cybersecurity networks, supports rocket launches, and uses space systems to connect operations on land, sea, air, cyber, and space. Space Force provides the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines with GPS/navigation, missile warning systems, and intelligence from space. The strength of the United States military is known worldwide, with world leaders praising it as well. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told EU lawmakers, “If anyone thinks here … that the European Union or Europe as a whole can defend itself without the U.S., keep on dreaming.” President Trump said he did the world a favor by targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities. “They were very close to a nuclear weapon. They would have had one if we didn’t do our B2 hit, Midnight Hammer. They would have had it eight months ago. They would have had a nuclear weapon and they’re crazy and they would have used it.” When asked to rate the success of Operation Midnight Hammer on a scale from 1-10, the president responded, “About a fifteen, I would say—with ten being the best.” He added, “There’s no military on earth like it, not even close. We are doing very well in Iran. You see the result. It’s been amazing.” The U.S. Central Command revealed on Friday that U.S. forces struck over 3,000 targets in the first week of Operation Epic Fury. The military is targeting Iranian command and control centers, ballistic missile sites, Navy ships and submarines, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) joint headquarters. “They’re just bad people. When you look at October 7 and beyond October 7, look at all the killing that they’ve done. Over the years, for 47 years. And this had to be done,” the president said. Thousands of people have been killed while protesting in Iran, with the total number of protester deaths believed to be in the tens of thousands.

U.S. President Donald Trump welcomed Latin American leaders to Florida on Saturday to launch a new coalition against drug cartels, telling officials their countries had allowed gangs to seize territory and joking that he had no time to learn their languages. Trump framed the effort as an aggressive campaign to confront drug cartels, citing them as a primary reason for ramping up U.S. involvement in Latin America, including a pressure campaign against Venezuela that culminated in the January capture of President Nicolas Maduro. At one point, Trump suggested the United States could use missiles against cartel leaders if partners requested it. He also singled out Mexico as the center of cartel activity and predicted major political change in Cuba, saying the country was “very much at the end of the line” and repeating previous statements that Cuban officials are negotiating with him and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. At least a dozen leaders from Central America, South America and the Caribbean joined the “Shield of the Americas” summit, where Trump signed a proclamation launching the coalition. “Leaders in this region have allowed large swaths of territory in the Western Hemisphere to come under the direct control of transnational gangs, and they’ve run areas of your country,” Trump said. “We’re not gonna let that happen.” In an opening speech that ran more than 30 minutes, Trump also touched on topics far beyond drug cartels, including Iran, Ukraine, Pakistan and India, political endorsements, Dominican sugar, building battleships, and the importance of interpreters. Trump joked about language differences between himself and the mostly Spanish-speaking group of leaders. “I’m not learning your damn language,” he said. “I don’t have time.” Rubio, a son of Cuban immigrants, later delivered brief remarks in English and Spanish, while Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth echoed Trump’s stance. “I only speak American,” Hegseth joked. Trump has pushed to build a coalition of regional partners around a more forceful approach to combating drug cartels and organized crime. Saturday’s event also gave him an opportunity to project strength closer to home as the war with Iran escalates and threatens to push up global oil and gas prices. Earlier in the day, Trump said Iran would be “hit very hard” on Saturday and that he was considering widening the areas and groups of people targeted, without providing details. Among those who attended the summit were Argentine President Javier Milei, Chile’s President-elect Jose Antonio Kast and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, whose gang crackdown, criticized by human rights groups, has become a model for parts of Latin America’s right. Politicians from across the region have toured Bukele’s sprawling “mega-prison”, where the United States last year deported more than 200 Venezuelans without trial. Also in attendance was Honduran President Nasry Asfura, who narrowly won a disputed election with Trump’s backing, and Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa, who has echoed parts of Trump’s economic agenda and recently announced joint operations with the U.S. in a military crackdown on drug trafficking. Many of the leaders share Trump’s hardline view of crime and migration, favoring crackdowns over deeper social fixes and private business over the state. Their rise reflects a broader rightward turn in parts of Latin America at a time when the region is being pulled between Washington and Beijing. Trump did not mention China specifically but warned that the United States would not allow “hostile foreign influence” to gain a foothold in the Western Hemisphere, including in the Panama Canal, a key global freight route. The comments, while not explicit, come as Washington increasingly views Latin America through the lens of strategic competition with Beijing. China’s trade with the region reached about $518 billion in 2024 and Beijing has extended more than $120 billion in loans to governments across the Western Hemisphere, according to Ryan Berg of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. China’s growing footprint — from satellite tracking facilities in Argentina to a Chinese-backed port in Peru and economic support for Venezuela — has long troubled U.S. officials. In response, the Trump administration has pressed governments across the region to curb Beijing’s role in ports, energy projects and other strategic infrastructure. (Reporting by Nandita Bose in Miami, Florida, David Brunnstrom in Washington and Sarah Morland in Mexico City; Additional reporting by Simon Lewis in Washington and Natalia Siniawski in Mexico City, Editing by Sergio Non, Himani Sarkar, Alex Richardson and Alistair Bell)

Defense officials were pushing for unrestricted lawful use of Anthropic’s AI models. Anthropic agreed—with two caveats. The leading AI company did not want its technology deployed for autonomous weapons systems or for mass domestic surveillance. The Biden administration previously agreed to these terms under a contract in 2024, but Trump administration Undersecretary of War Michael Emil is pushing back. “I looked at the contracts and was like, holy cow. You can’t use them to plan a kinetic strike. You can’t use their AI model to move a satellite,” Emil said, arguing that the terms are incompatible with the Pentagon’s mission. “I need to have terms of service be rational relative to our mission set,” he added. Negotiations reached a climax when the Department of War designated Anthropic as a “supply-chain risk.” Historically, that label has only been used for foreign companies.  During talks, Anthropic agreed to make exceptions to their rules for certain scenarios, such as planning for a drone swarm or responding to a Chinese hypersonic missile—but those carve-outs were not enough for the Pentagon. “The exceptions [don’t] work,” said the undersecretary of War. “I cannot predict for the next twenty years all the things we might use AI for, so all lawful use seems like a good thing. If Congress wants to act, great. We have our own internal policies; we’ll follow them. It’s our province to decide how we fight and win wars.” Emil also raised concerns about operational risk. “If they’re willing to impose red lines that limit lawful military use, what’s to stop them from enforcing a shutdown if they disagree with how we’re applying it?” He added, “If in the middle of an operation they decide it violates something and shut it down, that’s not just unreliable—it’s dangerous to the troops depending on it.” Senior employees at Anthropic have publicly acknowledged the company restricts model access when it believes usage violates its policies. “We know what Russia and China and North Korea and others are trying to do with these models right now. We catch them. We turn it off,” said Tarun Chhabra, a senior member of Anthropic’s national security team, a team involved in negotiations with the Pentagon. Chhabra previously served as a member of Biden’s National Security Council. Trump administration AI Czar David Sacks has stated that Biden-era policies would cause America to lose the global artificial intelligence race and highlighted that many Biden AI staffers have joined Anthropic. “Guess where those Biden AI staffers went to work as soon as the admin was over? Anthropic.” Biden alum Elizabeth Kelly currently leads Anthropic’s Beneficial Deployments team and Biden’s special assistant Benjamin Merkel serves as a legislative analyst. Anthropic told The Daily Wire that while the company has employed staff from the Biden administration, they recently appointed Trump alum Chris Liddell to the company’s board of directors. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei added that despite the Trump administration’s unprecedented decision to deem his company a supply-chain risk, the company will allow the Pentagon to continue using its technology.  “We have offered continuity. We’re actually deeply concerned about this. We’re deeply concerned about the kind of interruption of service, which is exactly what’s happening when we’re designated a supply chain risk,” Amodei said. Secretary of War Pete Hegeseth confirmed the continued usage, saying, “Anthropic will continue to provide the Department of War its services for a period of no more than six months to allow for a seamless transition to a better and more patriotic service.” ​​Emil explained the unprecedented designation is needed because he didn’t want the risk of Anthropic’s policy bias to enter into any part of the defense enterprise. “If their model has this policy bias based on their constitution, their culture, their people, I don’t want Lockheed Martin using their model to design weapons for me.” Dean Ball, a former Trump administration official who left his AI advisory position six months ago, said he sympathizes with Anthropic’s stance. “I’m very sympathetic to—if I built something that was powerful and dangerous and uncertain, and the government was excitedly buying it for uses that could be very profound in how they affect people’s lives—wanting to be very careful that I didn’t sell them something that went horribly [expletive] wrong. And then I am blamed for it by the public and by the government,” said Ball. Anthropic’s position differs from other AI companies. Elon Musk’s Grok and Google’s Gemini agreed the Pentagon could use their software for all lawful use cases. Anthropic CEO Amodei told CBS his hesitation to give the Pentagon full lawful use of Anthropic’s technology is because the “technology is not ready.” He added, “We don’t want to sell something that we don’t think is reliable, and we don’t want to sell something that could get our own people killed or that could get innocent people killed.” Secretary of War Hegseth argues that unelected tech executives such as Amodei should not make that call and should leave operational risk decisions to the United States military, and ultimately, President Trump. “The Commander-in-Chief and the American people alone will determine the destiny of our armed forces, not unelected tech executives,” he stated.