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Canadian Robbed of Crypto via ATM Kiosk, Recovery Efforts Lead to Another Scam Attempt

Canadian police warned Wednesday that fraudsters are using the Royal Canadian Mounted Police logo in crypto recovery schemes targeting victims who already lost funds in earlier fraud.

The warning follows a case in Nanaimo, British Columbia, where a resident who had already lost money in a crypto job scam was later contacted by someone claiming they could help recover the funds.

The victim first lost about $5,000 CAD ($US3,600) late last year after receiving an unsolicited text message promoting a remote stock-trading job that required depositing crypto via an ATM. Communication with the supposed employer stopped soon after the payment, according to a report from CHEK.

Earlier this year, the same person encountered an online message styled as an RCMP public notice encouraging fraud victims to report similar cases.

After submitting the form, the victim received a call from a man claiming to be a lawyer who said they had identified two crypto accounts linked to the victim and could help retrieve roughly $60,000 in supposed earnings.

Police said the promotion falsely implied RCMP involvement.

“The RCMP does not contact individuals about discovered cryptocurrency accounts, partner with private firms to recover lost funds, or request any form of payment to investigate fraud. Any communication suggesting otherwise is fraudulent,” Reserve Constable Gary O’Brien, media relations officer at the Nanaimo RCMP, said in a statement.

Police said law enforcement does not advertise recovery services or ask for payment to retrieve lost funds. Officers also urged residents to be cautious of unsolicited job offers or online messages involving crypto and to verify the credentials of anyone claiming to be a lawyer or investigator.

The tactic is “increasingly systematic rather than random,” with the pattern known commonly known as a “fake recovery service scam,” Andy Zhou, co-founder and CEO of blockchain security firm BlockSec, told Decrypt.

“These schemes work largely because scammers often have access to information from the original scam,” Zhou said, citing how the FBI has previously warned how “fraud groups deliberately re-target individuals” by “posing as lawyers, recovery agents, or government partners who claim they can retrieve stolen assets.

Using branding from law enforcement is effective “because it exploits a powerful psychological mechanism known as authority bias,” he said. “When victims believe a message comes from police or a regulator, they are far more likely to cooperate or pay so-called “administrative fees” to unlock recovered funds.”

Fraud networks often reuse information gathered during earlier schemes, which can make previous victims easy targets for follow-up scams, Zhou explained. In some cases, organized groups circulate lists of individuals who have already sent money, making those victims “extremely valuable” targets for further fraud.

Attackers also exploit the fact that victims often search online for ways to recover lost funds, Zhou said. Criminals may set up fake recovery services or advertisements claiming victims appear on a government-affiliated list of scam victims whose funds can supposedly be retrieved, with the methods “designed to create urgency and credibility.”

“This tactic can be especially convincing because victims often assume that specialized law-enforcement expertise is required to trace blockchain transactions, making the story appear plausible,” he added.

Canadian police have been training in crypto investigations since 2022, as fraud cases involving digital assets have grown. The training program was introduced to help officers better understand how cryptocurrencies work and how they are used in criminal activity.

Decrypt has reached out to the RCMP for comment.

March 5, 2026
Anthropic chief seeks last-minute Pentagon deal to keep AI in military supply chain

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is pushing a compromise with the Pentagon after a heated dispute that left the AI company at risk of being blacklisted by the US government.

According to the Financial Times, Amodei has engaged in urgent negotiations with officials, including Emil Michael, under-secretary of defense for research and engineering, to reach an agreement governing military access to Anthropic’s AI models.

A successful outcome would allow the Pentagon to continue deploying the company’s technology and would avert a threatened designation as a supply chain risk that would effectively sever Anthropic from defense contracts and force military contractors to cut ties with the San Francisco-based AI firm.

Following a US operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January, reports surfaced that Anthropic employees discovered through Palantir logs that Claude was used during the operation.

The application raises questions about compliance with Anthropic’s Acceptable Use Policy.

Combined with the company’s reluctance to allow its AI to be used for fully autonomous weapons and mass surveillance, this led to a dramatic breakdown in negotiations with the Pentagon.

The department is seeking broader permission for the AI to be used for any “lawful” purpose, which Anthropic fears could enable surveillance uses it opposes.

After Amodei rejected the government’s ultimatum, President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s technology, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated the firm a national security supply chain risk.

Amodei accused the Pentagon and OpenAI of misrepresenting the issue. He also suggested that Anthropic was being sidelined partly because it has not praised Trump as enthusiastically as its rivals.

Anthropic, alongside OpenAI, Google, and xAI, landed a Pentagon deal worth up to $200 million to advance agentic AI for military use. Losing that foothold would represent a major setback for a company that has positioned itself as a leader in AI safety.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

March 5, 2026
‘The Beauty’ Stars Anthony Ramos and Jeremy Pope React to Finale Cliffhanger: “We Didn’t Know Until the End”

[This story contains MAJOR spoilers from The Beauty season one finale, “Beautiful Betrayal”]

For Anthony Ramos and Jeremy Pope, portraying their characters’ growing bond wasn’t much of a stretch. The two have been friends in real life for years, even attending college together at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy.

Their dynamic in the FX series, however, takes an unexpected turn. The Assassin (Ramos) is initially ordered by Byron — aka The Corporation (Ashton Kutcher) — to kill Jeremy (Pope). But as the season progresses, the pair begin to connect over their shared loneliness. The Assassin opens up about taking “The Beauty” after being severely injured, a decision that forced him to leave his family behind. Jeremy, meanwhile, is a “damaged incel desperate to feel seen and loved,” Pope explains below.

“What’s wild about watching [their relationship] is that, you know how you meet those people in your life where you feel like you’ve known them your whole life — you have that instant thing, right?” Kutcher tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Them having that and the influence it had on your character decisions — the way they masked it and then unveiled it — was a really pretty thing to watch.”

In the season’s later episodes, Dr. Diana (Ari Graynor) reveals her plan to stop Byron from expanding access to “The Beauty.” After realizing Byron doesn’t truly have his back, The Assassin joins her effort. Cooper (Evan Peters) then contracts the drug and transforms into a young boy. And in the finale that released Wednesday night, Diana and Byron’s sons reveal there is a reverse drug, and Cooper agrees to try it. But whether it worked is still to be known, since the episode and the season ends after Jeremy, The Assassin and Jordan (Jessica Alexander) stare in shock at whatever is the result.

Below, Ramos and Pope discuss the season finale cliffhanger and the biggest questions facing their characters in a potential season two.

***

I’m aware that you two went to college together and have been friends for more than a decade. Did your friendship offscreen influence your unexpected friendship in the show?

ANTHONY RAMOS Yes. It made it tough in the beginning, because we’re supposed to act like we don’t know each other. It was very hard to do that at the top, but it made it really easy once when we get deeper into the season, especially in episode seven. We have that scene in the hotel where we both have these moments opening up about our backstories, and you get to know our characters on a deeper level with the monologue that Jeremy gives when he’s sitting down and talking about his dad, and then I give him the monologue when I talk about my son.

We get to unlock a new level of vulnerability between these two guys. Those scenes felt seamless, going from these guys who don’t know each other to getting vulnerable with one another because of how long we’ve known each other. And then there are the scenes where I’m singing to him in the car and we get to mess around. Then, the scene where we got the guy tied up and I’m hitting them and Jeremy’s there jamming out and we get to have that rapport while we’re also interrogating this guy — all of our relationship before made it a lot easier.

Jeremy Pope as Jeremy, Anthony Ramos as The Assassin in The Beauty.

Eric Liebowitz/FX

JEREMY POPE It’s a dream to work with family in anything. The things that came up towards the end for me, because there was a foundation and nuance of knowing each other, as artists, as friends, as boys — we were able to shatter a little bit of toxic masculinity. There’s a dynamic at play. [Anthony’s] playing a 60-plus-year-old man. I’m playing this incel, insecure, damaged person that’s needing to be seen and loved. We can be hardened when it comes to men on men, and how much we’re willing to open up and share. But I think we were able to really excavate and bring a layer of transparency and comfortability, and we have that in real life because we’ve seen each other through different seasons of our life and actually showing up for each other in real moments off camera.

So to have this moment where it is a lot of laughter and improv and singing and jokes, but then to lock into scenes that were about excavating the truth and the vulnerability of what’s at stake in this wild world that Ryan has created… I really pray and hope that people will be able to see themselves through these complex characters and find a moment of connection and truth. It made it a lot easier to look across the room at someone I really respect and love and care for, and open up myself.

Jeremy, you’ve worked with Ryan Murphy several times before, and many of the actors he works with tend to stick around in his work. What about you two make a great collaboration?

POPE Ryan is a friend first, and a collaborator and creative second. Ryan really champions artists; our nuance as artists and as humans. He sees us for what other collaborators maybe can’t see yet, whether it’s the type of character we want to play or world we’d love to explore. I remember he texted me, “You want to do something weird?” I was like, “Well, Ryan, everything you do is kind of weird, so how weird are we talking?” I meant that with love, and he knew it. When he sent this show, it was a bit darker than anything I’ve been asked to play. I thought that was interesting to bring the juxtaposition of how people perceive me and what this energy that I can possess or bring into this character. I have so much respect for someone who is willing to bet. He gave me my first TV show. He bet on me when I didn’t have any TV credits. Hollywood was my first Emmy nomination.

You both also executive-produced, so I wanted to know if it was always the plan to end the season on a cliffhanger with young Cooper trying to reverse “The Beauty” but not revealing if it worked. Did you ever shoot alternative versions of that final scene?

POPE We didn’t shoot an alternative. With Ryan, it’s really about the collaboration; he has a vision. As you’ve seen in a lot of his work, you can almost identify a Ryan show just based on the way it’s shot and looks. So there are always open conversations about where we want the story to go, where we hope the story will go. But with Ryan, it’s about trusting and soaring. You have to trust the visionary and the vision at hand, and know that he’s going to take you to the promised land. A lot of these scripts we were getting in real time as we were shooting and things were being revealed to us. I remember at one point we got episode 10, and we were like, “Is that the end?” Because we didn’t know, or we hadn’t heard about episode 11.

RAMOS Yeah, we didn’t know until the end.

Pope, Evan Peters as Cooper and Ramos in The Beauty.

FX

POPE So we were on the journey of trusting and knowing that he has a vision: he’s going to take this series to the place he wants to take it, ultimately, at the care of what these characters need and what makes the most sense. So that is collaborating with Ryan on The Beauty. He’s going to allow you to imbue all that you can into these complex characters. But at the end of the day, you’re going to read the script and be on the edge of the page, just like, hopefully, the audience is when they’re watching the series.

In a potential season two, do you think your characters would take the reserve “Beauty” shot? Or do you think they’re too comfortable enjoying the benefits it’s given them?

RAMOS That’s a good question. I don’t know if he’d go back. I think he’s too far down the road.

POPE We might have lost my man, Jeremy, on this one. I think he is feeling it in new ways. So I don’t know if he would want to reverse it. I want to believe there’s a turn in him, but my man is loving the highlights, the private jets, the double-breasted blazers. It’s hard to come back from that.

The Beauty.

Philippe Antonello/FX

Since many of Ryan Murphy’s shows are anthologies or limited series, but this one seems ongoing, were there early conversations about how many seasons this show might have? And was there an overall arc planned for your characters?

POPE When Ryan called me, he just told me scale. He’s like, “This is a very big show — we’re going international.” He hadn’t done anything this expensive or big in a minute and he hadn’t been international since Eat Pray Love. So he was just talking about the scale and the world-building of it all, that there would be all these side characters and main characters coming together. Ashton and I didn’t really even work together in this season, so it leads you to, well, that surely has to happen. I think, if anything, it was less about the number of seasons, but how large this vision was. I think he knows when it’s a limited series and it’s a beginning, middle and end, but this one wasn’t a period, it was a comma.

***

All episodes of The Beauty are currently streaming on Hulu. Check out all of The Hollywood Reporter‘s The Beauty coverage here, including our premiere interviews with Ashton Kutcher, Bella Hadid, Rebecca Hall and finale interview with Evan Peters and a full cast and characters list.

March 5, 2026
Box Office Preview: Pixar’s ‘Hoppers’ to Bound Past Maggie Gyllenhaal’s ‘The Bride!’

In a much-needed win for Pixar’s core mission to provide original storytelling, Hoppers is positioned to deliver the iconic animated studio its biggest opening in nearly a decade for a non-franchise title. Conversely, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s new film, inspired by the 1935 film The Bride of Frankenstein, is in danger of being jilted at the altar.

Disney is forecasting a global debut of $88 million for Hoppers. The last time a Pixar original did so well was Coco in 2017. In North America, tracking suggests it could open anywhere from $36 million to $40 million, with room for upside. It’s also expected to come in leaps and bounds ahead of Gyllenhaal’s The Bride!, which Warner Bros. believes will open in the $16 million to $18 million range domestically and roughly $38 million-plus globally, although decidedly mixed reviews could ding the $80 million film. (It goes without saying that the two movies couldn’t be more different.)

Hoppers has the advantage of hitting theaters in the wake of Disney Animation’s mega-blockbuster Zootopia 2, which provided further evidence that there’s still a huge appetite for family fare in the post-pandemic era if a film resonates with moviegoers. Pixar’s movies were also once famous for attracting adults without kids; Hoppers is earning the kind of rave reviews from critics that could see those fans return (Zootopia 2, which has earned north of $1.86 billion globally to rank as the top-grossing Hollywood animated pic of all time, also attracted general audiences).

As of late Wednesday, Hoppers‘ critics score on Rotten Tomatoes was 97 percent, one of the highest in years for Pixar. Audience reactions from early access screenings have been similar, with moviegoers also applauding the film’s creativity and humor.

In the comedy-adventure, animal lover Mabel (Piper Curda) seizes an opportunity to use a new technology to “hop” her consciousness into a life-like robotic beaver and communicate directly with animals. As she uncovers mysteries beyond anything she could have imagined, Mabel befriends a charismatic beaver named King George (Bobby Moynihan), and must rally the entire animal kingdom to face a major, imminent human-threat: smooth-talking local mayor Jerry Generazzo (Hamm). The ensemble voice cast also features Kathy Najimy, Dave Franco, Meryl Streep, Eduardo Franco, Aparna Nancherla, Tom Law, Sam Richardson, Melissa Villaseñor, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Steve Purcell, Ego Nwodim, Nichole Sakura, Karen Huie and Vanessa Bayer.

Hoppers is directed by Daniel Chong, with Nicole Paradis Grindle producing and Mark Mothersbaugh providing the original score. The pic will play across 4,000 theaters in North America, including 400-plus Imax screens, 1,000 premium large-format screens and more than 2,200 3D screens. Overseas, it opens in 81 percent of markets, with staggered releases planned for Japan (March 13), China (March 20) and Australia (March 26).

While Pixar has good reason to be hopeful, no one is envying the position Warner Bros. and Gyllenhaal are in as The Bride! prepares to walk down the aisle. The R-rated, gothic romance made headlines on Wednesday, both for earning tepid reviews and for comments Gylleenhal made on a podcast saying she was asked by Warners movie studio chiefs Pamela Abdy and Michael De Luca to remove some of the film’s more violent scenes (she also gave a shout out to Abdy for “understanding me”).

The Bride!, starring Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale, draws inspiration from the 1935 film The Bride of Frankenstein. The cast also includes Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, Penélope Cruz and Annette Bening.

“In James Whale’s 1935 gothic horror masterpiece The Bride of Frankenstein, the title character played so indelibly by Elsa Lanchester screams and hisses but otherwise has no dialogue, and yet she has endured as an iconic movie-lore figure for almost a century,” writes THR‘s David Rooney in his review. “In Maggie Gyllenhaal’s aggressively punky reconsideration of the reanimated monster spouse, she becomes a laborious study guide for a Feminism 101 class, emphatically indicating points on sexual violence, consent, bodily autonomy and female power. She even yells ‘Me too!’ late in the film.”

The Bride! marks Gyllenhaal’s second directorial outing after the acclaimed, award-winning indie drama The Lost Daughter, starring Olivia Colman and Buckley. All three women were nominated for a slew of awards by various orgs, including Oscars noms for best adapted screenplay (Gyllenhaal), best actress (Colman) and best supporting actress (Buckley). This year, Buckley is nominated for an Oscar for best actress for her performance in Hamnet.

Abdy and De Luca are coming off a remarkable winning streak that has earned them major points and goodwill, culminating with two of their movies, Sinners and One Battle After Another, being front-runners in the Oscar race for best picture (Hamnet is another).

The Bride! will play in more than 3,200 theaters in North America, and will also have a footprint in Imax and other premium formats.

March 5, 2026
Yahoo Sports: Jayson Tatum’s return now would be ahead of the norm. Is that a good thing?

Editor’s Note: Read more NBA coverage from Yahoo Sports here. The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA or its teams.

***

It was early December in 2013 when the Los Angeles Lakers’ Facebook page posted a two-minute video of a jersey floating in the wind. Tens of thousands of captivated fans couldn’t wait to reshare and comment as dramatic music played over the social media post.

The No. 24 jersey hung in the sky as sunshine pierced through some clouds. Then, over the course of the next 120 seconds, a thunderous storm battered the jersey until it tore in half.

Finally, after a beam of light, the jersey was made whole.

The symbolism relayed the message: Kobe Bryant was back. “Seasons of Legend. The Lakers announce Kobe’s return,” the post’s caption read. The then 35-year-old Bryant, who had torn his Achilles less than eight months prior, was returning in near-record time, missing just 21 Lakers regular-season games with an injury that infamously had ended NBA careers.

Unfortunately, Bryant’s comeback season lasted only six games. Just nine days after his return, Bryant suffered a serious knee injury in the same leg of his torn Achilles, quickly dimming all the excitement over his fast return. His season was over and Bryant’s playing abilities were never the same.

Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum has idolized Bryant and his Mamba Mentality ever since Tatum was a child. The 28-year-old has said Bryant’s story has driven him to become the NBA player he is today. As Tatum nears his own return from an Achilles tear, he should continue to take lessons from Bryant’s career. The Lakers star’s historic 2013 return offers a cautionary tale about what could happen in a highly anticipated and quick midseason return.

Tatum should also take heed of the rehab schedule of another NBA legend, one that tells the greatest Achilles tear story of all time: Kevin Durant.

Kobe vs. KD: A contrast in Achilles recoveries

Watching Kevin Durant dominate in the year 2026, an uninformed observer would never guess the Houston Rockets All-Star tore his Achilles tendon just as he entered his thirties. Durant’s injury occurred in the 2019 NBA Finals while playing for the Golden State Warriors and he took the next season off as he joined his new team, the Brooklyn Nets.

While Bryant struggled to return to his pre-Achilles form, Durant’s superstar status hasn’t wavered. The 37-year-old is averaging an unthinkable 27.6 points with white-hot efficiency in the six seasons since the longest tendon in the human body snapped in his leg. His post-Achilles-tear résumé, consisting of six All-Star appearances and two All-NBA nominations, shines brighter than most players’ entire careers.

Kevin Durant’s recovery from his Achilles tear has been remarkable.

To be clear, no two Achilles tears are the same. Different mechanisms of injury, different bodies and all that. Beyond the difference in age between Bryant and Durant at the time of their injuries — Bryant was 34, Durant was 30 — the most interesting dynamic is a contrast of time in another dimension: recovery time.

Durant’s absence from NBA games lasted 18 months, more than twice that of Bryant’s eight months.

We will never know if Durant would have fared as well in the back nine of his career if he returned midseason in 2019-20. Complicating matters was the COVID-19 pandemic that disrupted everything in March of that season, including Durant’s injury rehab process with the Nets. Durant decided not to pursue a comeback in The Bubble when the Nets resumed the season in late July. Instead, he took extra time to get himself ready for the following season, which would begin in December 2020.

In an interview with Andscape’s Marc J. Spears, Durant said the decision to not play in the 2019-20 season was made well before the pandemic hit.

“My season is over,” Durant said in June 2020. “I don’t plan on playing at all. We decided last summer when it first happened that I was just going to wait until the following season. I had no plans of playing at all this season. It’s just best for me to wait. I don’t think I’m ready to play that type of intensity right now in the next month. It gives me more time to get ready for next season and the rest of my career.”

Though Durant missed some time in 2020-21 dealing with various injuries, his play on the floor didn’t seem to suffer at all. Leading the Nets in the postseason, the long layoff may have paid dividends. He scored a scorching 34.3 points per game in the playoffs, the most of any player who suited up at least 10 games during that postseason.

Plenty of speculation has surrounded Tatum about when he may return this season, if at all. If Tatum decides to sit out the season, he would give himself about 17 and a half months of a layoff before next season kicks off in mid-October — basically the Durant timeline.

Should Tatum suit up for the Celtics this week, though, he’d be returning about 10 months after he went down in the closing minutes of Game 4 of last year’s Eastern Conference semifinals against the New York Knicks. In this sense, he’s given himself two months of a buffer behind Bryant’s timeline when the Laker legend got back on the floor in December following his April injury. But it still would be a remarkably quick timetable in the modern era. A 10-month return would mark the shortest post-Achilles absence for a starting player since the 2015-16 season when Rudy Gay came back in under nine months with the Sacramento Kings.

For another comparison, Tatum can look at fellow former All-Star Dejounte Murray.

Achilles recovery timelines are getting longer lately

Last Tuesday, the New Orleans Pelicans guard scored 13 points in a home win over the Warriors, making his return from his Achilles tear suffered in January of the 2024-25 season. Thirteen is also a notable number because it represents the number of months that it took for the former All-Star to get back on the floor.

Murray’s timeline is increasingly becoming the norm. According to Yahoo Sports research supported by injury expert Jeff Stotts of Instreetclothes.com, Murray marks the 30th player since 2005-06 to return to playing NBA games after suffering an Achilles tear in the league. The Pelicans guard headlines a growing number of players who are taking longer than a year to return from the major tendon rupture.

In the decade between the 2005-06 and 2014-15 seasons, there were 12 instances of an NBA player returning from an Achilles injury and, on average, those players spent 10.4 months away from the game. Bryant took only eight months. Same went for Elton Brand and Mehmet Okur, who barely took eight months to hit the hardwood again following their Achilles tears. In 2015, Wes Matthews took 7.7 months to return from his Achilles tear and still enjoyed an impactful nine-year post-Achilles run in the NBA while playing for several playoff teams until he was 37 years old.

At the time of Brandon Jennings’ Achilles tear, he was averaging 15.4 points as a 25-year-old with the Detroit Pistons. As one of the more talented young players in the game, Jennings took a little over 11 months to return, getting back on the floor in December. The Pistons moved him later that season and, after bouncing around the league for three years, he never averaged double-digit points again.

Lately, the timelines have gotten longer. In the Achilles ruptures from 2015-16 to 2024-25, the timeline stretched from 10.4 months on average to 13.6 months. In that sample, only two of the 18 players (Rudy Gay and Dru Smith) returned well ahead of the 10-month mark, something that happened with regularity in the previous decade.

Klay Thompson spent nearly 14 months away from the NBA floor after he tore his Achilles in November 2020, perhaps delayed because of his earlier ACL injury. More recently, Brandon Clarke and Thanasis Antetokounmpo also saw more than 12 months pass before they took the floor again.

It’s not as simple as to say that longer is always better. DeMarcus Cousins, who was a four-time All-Star before he tore his Achilles in January 2018 with the Pelicans, came back the following January with the Warriors. He needed 12 months to get back onto the court, but never regained his All-Star status and was out of the league by 2022.

Recovery timelines don’t always lend themselves to perfect apples-to-apples comparisons. Nothing about injury data is squeaky clean. A return to play could be artificially delayed because the player is waiting for the start of the season. COVID and lockout-shortened seasons could also affect an NBA player’s recovery time in ways out of his control. But in general, as we await Tatum’s return, it does seem that players are taking longer to get back onto the court.

Tatum and Boston’s ticking clock

For Tatum, there are positive signs that he’s on track to a full recovery. Because his surgeon, Dr. Martin O’Malley, was in New York at the time of the injury in a game that happened to be at Madison Square Garden, Tatum was able to have his Achilles stitched in quick order. According to Tatum’s documentary series aired on NBC, O’Malley had an opening in his calendar at 3 p.m. the next day and made time for Tatum.

“There’s pretty strong data,” O’Malley said, “that if you do [Achilles surgery] within 24 hours [of injury], patients have better outcomes.”

***

Ben Rohrbach, Contributing writer for yahoo sports.

March 4, 2026
The Athletic: Aaron Gordon could return this week. The Nuggets’ season depends on him
Aaron Gordon has missed 39 of Denver’s 62 games this season with a right hamstring injury.

Editor’s Note: Read more NBA coverage from The Athletic here. The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA or its teams.

***

These aren’t the Denver Nuggets.

Not the real Denver Nuggets, anyway.

For all of Nikola Jokić’s greatness and Jamal Murray’s splendor, history tells us that this group can’t typically reach true title-contending status unless Aaron Gordon — a fully healthy Aaron Gordon, more importantly — is on the floor. To that end, the Nuggets appear to be on the verge of a crucial upgrade.

Again.

Per a league source close to Gordon, the veteran forward — who re-aggravated his right hamstring injury on Jan. 23 — is targeting a return in Friday’s home game against the New York Knicks. It remains to be seen if he’ll get the necessary clearance from the Nuggets, who are being understandably cautious here in light of the setback he suffered six weeks ago

Gordon missed 19 games earlier this season with the hamstring injury, then pulled up lame on a routine rebound against the Milwaukee Bucks in his 10th game back and has been sidelined ever since. As such, there is clearly a high level of concern and care being exercised about his return. With the postseason still more than a month away, and the Nuggets (38-24; fifth in the Western Conference) having lost 11 of their last 20 games while also enduring the extended absence of another pivotal player in Peyton Watson (hamstring), the stakes of this choice are incredibly high.

Gordon is merely one of the many Nuggets’ core players to miss significant time this season, with three-time MVP Jokić topping that long list. It should come as no surprise, then, that Gordon has been eager to return for quite some time. The 30-year-old has already missed 39 of Denver’s 62 games after first straining the hamstring on Nov. 21.

During that time, meanwhile, Gordon and the Nuggets were reminded of two harsh realities that have been in direct conflict with one another for months:
1. Hamstrings can be brutal to recover from in the middle of an 82-game regular season.
2. Gordon might be the most important role player in the NBA.
While that “role player” label is often considered a pejorative to a talent of Gordon’s ilk, he has long embraced this crucial role of augmenting the Jokić-Murray dynamic duo and taking the Nuggets to the next level. That was the genius of the trade with the Orlando Magic made by then-Nuggets president of basketball operations Tim Connelly at the deadline in 2021. Connelly was looking for a replacement for the departed Jerami Grant (who left in free agency the summer before) and targeted Gordon as a perfect fit.

After six-plus seasons in Orlando, where Gordon took part in just one playoff series and had mixed results as a primary option in those later years, he asked for a trade before landing in the Mile High City. The Magic had talks with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Portland Trail Blazers and Boston Celtics at that time, with the Celtics known to be Gordon’s top preference. But the Nuggets, who were confident he’d accept this crucial role, won the Gordon sweepstakes by sending Gary Harris, R.J. Hampton and a protected 2025 first-round pick to the Magic (that pick became shooting guard Jase Richardson, who was drafted 25th out of Michigan State and is playing limited minutes in his rookie season).

As I wrote the day before that deal went down, Gordon’s ability to guard so many positions on the floor — and to guard elite wing scorers, specifically — was the driving force behind Denver’s interest. The Nuggets pored over that data at the time, taking notice of how well he’d defended stars like Luka Dončić, LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kevin Durant. Gordon topped the list of available players who had a chance to slow those kinds of future Hall of Famers. What’s more, Denver was just 13th in defensive rating at the time and in desperate need of a solution on that end.

Sound familiar? The Nuggets now find themselves in a similar spot, with a defense that has fallen to 21st in the league and the harsh reality that champions don’t often have that defensive profile. Even if, as is the case, they currently boast the league’s top offense.

When Denver won the franchise’s only title in 2023, the Nuggets were fifth in offensive rating and 15th in defensive rating. Yet since the 1996-97 campaign, only one other team has won a title with a defensive rating outside of the top 11 (the Los Angeles Lakers, in the 2000-01 season, were 22nd). Of the 26 other champions in that stretch, 18 had top-five defensive ratings, and eight were between No. 6 and No. 11. This is why it’s imperative that the Nuggets have their most versatile defender available when the games matter most.

Just like last season.

The Nuggets are no strangers to this revelation about Gordon and his incredible impact, as they lost Game 7 of last year’s second-round series against the eventual champion Oklahoma City Thunder, in part, because Gordon was hobbled by a hamstring injury (that was his left one). It was a minor miracle that he played at all in that game, as he was diagnosed with a Grade 2 strain after suffering the injury in Game 6. But Gordon was hardly his aggressive, agile self in the finale (a 125-93 Thunder win), finishing with eight points (on four shots), 11 rebounds, no assists, four turnovers and a minus-9 mark in 25 minutes as a starter.

Fast forward to the present day, and the numbers have continued to confirm the eye test when it comes to Gordon’s value. Denver’s defensive rating with him this season (108.9 points allowed per 100 possessions) would qualify as the league’s second-best. That mark is also 8.2 points better than when Gordon is off the floor (117.1 allowed). Ditto for Denver’s overall effectiveness (14.0 net rating with him, and just 1.9 without).

Gordon was playing some of his best offensive basketball before getting hurt (twice) too. He opened the season with the first 50-point game of his career, burying the Golden State Warriors on the road in the process. Gordon was on pace to set a new career high in scoring (currently 17.7 points per game, with his previous high 17.6 in the 2017-18 season with the Magic). He was shooting 3s better than ever, too, with a 40 percent clip from beyond the arc (on 4.6 attempts per) that would qualify as the second-best of his career if he maintained that pace (he’s at 33.4 percent for his career).

All of which is to say that Gordon’s presence might make or break the Nuggets’ entire season.

If he’s able to stay healthy until the end, and if Watson and Cam Johnson (ankle) return soon as well, then it’s easy to see them getting back to their once-dominant ways en route to real title contention. But if not, then it won’t be a mystery why they fell short.

***

Sam Amick is a senior NBA writer for The Athletic. He has covered the Association for the better part of two decades while at USA Today, Sports Illustrated, AOL FanHouse and the Sacramento Bee. Follow Sam on Twiiter @sam_amick
March 4, 2026
Kraken Secures Access to Fed’s Core Payment Systems: WSJ
In brief

Crypto exchange Kraken has secured approval for a Federal Reserve “master account,” giving it access to the Fed’s core payment systems.

A “master account” enables regulated depository institutions to maintain account balances at the central bank.

Kraken Financial’s account comes with some limitations, akin to the “skinny” master account proposed by the Fed’s board of governors last year.
The banking unit of crypto exchange Kraken has secured approval for a Federal Reserve “master account,” giving it access to the Fed’s core payment systems.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Kraken Financial’s application is expected to be announced today by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, which oversaw its application, and Kraken’s parent company Payward.

The approval “improves reliability and efficiency for moving fiat deposits in and out of digital-asset markets,” Arjun Sethi, co-chief executive of Kraken, told the WSJ.

A Federal Reserve master account is an account at one of the twelve regional Federal Reserve banks that enables regulated depository institutions to maintain account balances at the central bank.

Crypto bank Custodia, which has been engaged in its own long-running bid to secure a Fed master account, took to social media to congratulate Kraken on its success. In a tweet, the firm said that it is “continuing down a dual path of pursuing a Fed master account while expanding our collaborations with traditional banks in the tokenized deposit and stablecoin markets.”

Kraken’s “skinny” master account

According to the WSJ, Kraken Financial’s master account access has some limitations in its services, such as not offering payment of interest on reserves held at the central bank. This is similar to the “skinny” master account concept mooted by the Fed’s board of governors in October last year.

At the time, Fed Governor Christopher J. Waller said that such an account “could be beneficial for those focused primarily on payments innovations,” noting that it could be tailored to the needs of “firms engaged in substantial payments activities that may not want or need all the bells and whistles of a master account, or access to the full suite of Federal Reserve financial services, to successfully innovate and provide services to their customers.”

The move comes as crypto firms are increasingly making inroads on the traditional financial system. To date, companies including Circle, Ripple, Paxos, the Stripe-owned Bridge and Crypto.com have received conditional approval for national trust bank charters from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, enabling them to offer some bank-like services including federally regulated digital asset custody, staking, and trade settlement.

Crypto exchange Coinbase and stablecoin issuer World Liberty Financial have also filed applications—the latter of which has raised the ire of House Democrats, who have warned of potential national security concerns over the firm’s links to the family of U.S. President Donald Trump.

The wave of applications has also faced pushback from traditional banking lobbying groups, with the American Bankers Association writing to the OCC, urging it to slow the pace of crypto charter applications until Congress finalizes the rules they would operate under.

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March 4, 2026
Morning Minute: CFTC Chair Says U.S. Perpetual Futures Are Coming
Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:
- Crypto majors surge 4-6% overnight; BTC at $71k
- CFTC chair says perps are coming to the US within the next month
- Trump accused the banks of undermining the Genius Act and stalling the Clarity Act
- Trump’s American Bitcoin leans into BTC mining while major miners pivot to AI
- Saylor’s STRC sets new daily record, trades enough to buy 1,016 BTC
🏛️ CFTC Chair Says U.S. Perpetual Futures Are Coming

The regulator who exiled perps from America just handed the keys back.

But who stands to benefit the most?

📌 What Happened

CFTC Chairman Mike Selig, alongside SEC Chair Paul Atkins, said his agency is “working towards getting perpetual futures, true perpetual futures here in the U.S. within the next month or so.”

Guidance is expected imminently along with a more formal rulemaking process.

For those unfamiliar, perpetual futures are contracts with no expiration date that let traders hold leveraged crypto exposure indefinitely. And they have become the dominant instrument in global crypto derivatives.

They represent over 90% of global crypto derivatives volume, despite being functionally banned for U.S. users since the prior administration.

Selig said plainly: “The prior administration drove a lot of these firms and the liquidity offshore.” He’s trying to bring it back.

🗣️ What They’re Saying

Selig: “As regulators, we don’t want to be enforcing firms to rely on old tech and be stuck in the past. Many firms want to move onchain.”

“Question: if the main purpose of hyperliquid is for US users to trade perpetual swaps without kyc and the US legalizes perpetual swaps is that good or bad?” – Goodalexander, on X

🧠 Why It Matters

So what does this mean for the onchain perps leader Hyperliquid?

The bull case for HYPE: Regulatory legitimacy for perps is a rising tide.

If the CFTC formally blesses perpetual futures as a product category, it validates the entire market. Institutional capital that has been sitting on the sidelines, unwilling to touch offshore or decentralized venues, now has a potential on-ramp.

That demand doesn’t all flow to Coinbase or Kraken. Hyperliquid is the most liquid onchain perps venue on the planet, with all the open interest ($11b+) and all of the onchain action. And it’s getting major attention already for its 24/7 markets (especially useful in weekend war scenarios).

For traders who want onchain, self-custodial, non-KYC’d access to perps, Hyperliquid is the primary option. And the CFTC can’t regulate Hyperliquid directly.

The bear case for HYPE: Everything that made Hyperliquid valuable was the absence of legitimate U.S. alternatives.

The moment Coinbase Advanced, Kraken, or a CME-affiliated venue lists BTC and ETH perps for U.S. institutional users with CFTC clearing, the narrative shifts and their advantage goes away.

Institutional allocators don’t want to self-custody on a DeFi protocol. They want prime brokerage relationships, regulated counterparties, and audited infrastructure.

Hyperliquid offers none of that.

What the CFTC is likely to prescribe: conservative leverage caps, KYC/AML requirements, transparent funding rate methodology, and real-time surveillance. That’s not Hyperliquid’s product.

Regulated U.S. perps could also tighten spreads on the most liquid pairs, potentially compressing Hyperliquid’s fee revenue on BTC and ETH, its highest-volume markets.

So where does this leave us?

Perps volume is likely to go up and to the right. Many believe it is truly a better product than the options product in TradFi.

The question is who captures the majority of that increase and does it go onchain, offchain or both.

My gut is both, and Hyperliquid continues to dominate onchain and other centralized providers like Coinbase likely win some as well.

But Hyperliquid wins the most…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets
- Crypto majors are big green after huge overnight gains; BTC +4% at $71k; ETH +3% at $2,050; SOL +5% at $89.60; HYPE +1% at $32.60
- KITE (+21%), SPX (+11%) and Aero (+11%) led top movers
- Trump posted on Truth Social that banks are “threatening and undermining” the GENIUS Act and holding the CLARITY Act “hostage”
- Iranian crypto exchanges logged $10.3M in outflows between February 28 and March 2 following the US-Israeli airstrikes
- Saylor’s STRC closed above $100 with 1.82M shares sold, raising enough capital for Saylor to buy 1,016 Bitcoin (a new daily record)
- Vitalik shared thoughts on Ethereum’s place in the world and what good is has caused, promising to focus future efforts into building a “sanctuary tech ecosystem”
- Tether committed $6.4M to Swiss city Lugano continuing its bitcoin adoption partnership with the municipality that’s become a test case for city-level BTC integration
- Bridge and Visa are expanding stablecoin-linked Visa card issuance globally, building on the Latin America pilot launched last April
Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

Meme Coin Tracker
- Meme majors were mostly green; DOGE +3%, SHIB +4%, PEPE +4%, TRUMP -1%, PENGU +3%, SPX +11%, FARTCOIN +5%
- memecoin (+69%) and USELESS (+17%) led notable movers
- The Venice AI model was removed from OpenClaw’s highlighted provider list (VVV -8%)
💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?
- NFT leaders were slightly green; Punks even at 29.9 ETH, Pudgy +1% at 4.5 ETH, BAYC +2% at 6 ETH; Hypurr’s even at 455 HYPE
- New project The Nibbles saw 234 ETH in volume and opened at a 0.0364 ETH floor
- The CryptoPunks app was updated to allow USDC purchases for the first time
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March 4, 2026
Iran’s place in World Cup 2026 in doubt amid conflict, Trump’s dismissal

Among the wide-ranging ramifications of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, Iran’s participation in the FIFA World Cup 2026 has become a key talking point, with the tournament less than 100 days away.

The global sporting event will be co-hosted by Canada, Mexico and the United States from June 11 to July 19, with Iran among the 48 nations expected to travel to North America at least a week prior to the opening game.

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US President Donald Trump says he doesn’t care if Iran participates in the World Cup or not.

“I think Iran is a very badly defeated country. They’re running on fumes,” Trump told the American news site Politico on Tuesday.

The US and Israel launched attacks on Iran on Saturday that have killed at least 1,045 people, including its Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and sparked a regional conflict that has spread to 12 countries.

Tehran responded by launching waves of missiles and drones at Israel and towards several military bases in the Middle East where US forces operate.

Following the escalations, Iran’s spot at the World Cup has come under question, and officials from the Iranian football federation and FIFA have been noncommittal on the world’s 20th-ranked football nation’s participation.

“After this attack, we cannot be expected to look forward to the World Cup with hope,” Mehdi Taj, president of the Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran (FFIRI), told local sports portal Varzesh3 on Sunday.

Iran were the first team to qualify for the FIFA World Cup 2026, but their position in the tournament has been thrown into question amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East [File: Rula Rouhana/Reuters]

Uncharted territory

A leading expert on sports and geopolitics believes that Iran’s participation in the tournament is in serious doubt amid an armed conflict between one of the host nations and a participant.

“Ultimately, the diplomatic solution [will be] that Iran itself just steps aside and withdraws from the tournament,” Simon Chadwick, a professor of Afro-Eurasian sport at the Emlyon Business School in Shanghai, told Al Jazeera.

Chadwick said it’s “very difficult” to see the US allowing players, backroom staff and officials to enter the country.

“The US will not be keen to admit [Iranian] players, officials or medics – who normally travel alongside teams to tournaments.

“Given that they [Iran] are going to have to play their games in the US, I find it unlikely that they will be there.”

Despite the logistical quagmire and its unlikely resolution in a timely manner, Chadwick said withdrawal will not be an easy option for Iran, who will think “very long and hard before walking away”.

The last time a team pulled out of a FIFA World Cup due to political reasons was in 1950, when Argentina withdrew, citing disagreements with the Brazilian Football Confederation.

“We are in uncharted territory here,” Chadwick explained.

“We tend to associate boycotts and countries not participating in sport mega-events with the Olympic Games, where mass boycotts were seen in 1980 and 1984 during the Cold War.

“Typically, that doesn’t tend to happen in World Cups.”

Chadwick, who has written several books on the economy and politics of sport, believes the impact of withdrawal will not just be political, but also financial.

“On the one hand, we are living in very complex and sensitive times, and arguably there are reasons for a country either to withdraw or be banned,” he said.

“But we’re [also] living in highly commercial times, and the financial consequences of unilaterally walking away from what is arguably the world’s biggest sport mega event is an act of self-harm. We also don’t know how FIFA might react if a nation were to unilaterally walk away from its qualifying spot.”

Can sport diplomacy save the World Cup?

Despite the tournament being spread across three host nations, all of Iran’s matches are allocated to venues on the US West Coast.

This could largely be due to the presence of a sizeable Iranian community, especially in Los Angeles, where Team Melli will play two of their three Group G games.

According to Chadwick, had Iran been playing games in Canada or Mexico, the team could have swayed their decision to participate. But the organisers are unlikely to move the games out of the US now.

“It would be extremely unusual to take games to another country to accommodate one particular country, particularly when the president of FIFA and the president of the US seem to be very close,” he said, adding, “the relationship between the US and Canada, and the US and Mexico is somewhat complicated, too.”

While FIFA hasn’t made a clear statement on the issue, its Secretary-General Mattias Grafstrom has said the world football governing body is monitoring the conflict and the situation emerging from it.

“We had a meeting today, and it is premature to comment in detail, but we will monitor developments around all issues around the world,” he said last week.

With the tournament a little more than three months away, FIFA said it will “continue to communicate with the host governments”.

Chadwick believes that FIFA will try to avoid an outcome where Iran is excluded, as it would cause a logistical headache and set the wrong precedent.

“What we’re more likely to see is sport diplomacy really kicking in,” he predicted.

“The last thing that FIFA will want is for a country to be excluded or simply not turn up because that does set precedent and puts pressure on FIFA.”

‘Sport’s cold war’

With the conflict raging on for the fifth day and spreading further across the Middle East, it is unclear when the Iranian football officials will take a call on sending their team to the US.

However, if Iran does opt to withdraw from the World Cup, it could lead to a sporting crisis.

Chadwick thinks the consequences could be wide-ranging and long-term.

“Politically, it would perhaps take us towards a new sports cold war, and what I find very interesting is that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia have been toying with the idea of creating a sports world championship called the Peace Games, that looks like the Olympic Games and sounds like the Olympic Games but it’s not the Olympic Games.

“And Russia managed to recruit over 70 countries to participate in that sports event.”

Such an event could find support from Iran, should it be left with no choice but to withdraw from the World Cup. It may even lead to the creation of a tournament similar to it, according to Chadwick.

“It’s not inconceivable that at some stage in the future, countries could create their own equivalent of a football World Cup, especially with FIFA being an organisation established by Europeans, having its headquarters in Europe, and its presidents typically being European.”

“Some countries may take this as an opportunity to think about alternative ways of staging global football competitions – almost like a football cold war.”

Despite the current scenario and the conflict’s expansion in the past few days, Chadwick believes organisers and leaders could still find a way to include Iran in the World Cup.

“If, at the end of the conflict, a new Iran emerges – in which big apparel companies can sell their products without sanctions or broadcasters can win big contracts – then the World Cup could play a role in building that diplomacy between the US and Iran, as well as reintegrating Iran into the international community.”

March 4, 2026
Trump’s endgame in Iran: Regime change without US ‘boots on the ground’

Washington, DC – Hours after the United States and Israel unleashed their bombing campaign against Iran on Saturday, President Donald Trump said that all he wants from the war is “freedom for the people”.

Analysts say that despite this claim and other objectives articulated by US officials, Trump appears to be seeking to collapse the ruling system in Tehran.

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Kelly Grieco, senior fellow at the Stimson Center think tank, told Al Jazeera that achieving such a sweeping political shift will be difficult – if not impossible – without troops on the ground.

“It seems like they’re not willing to pay certain costs to achieve regime change, so there’s sort of a set of secondary goals that perhaps will be enough if they can’t achieve that through air power alone,” Grieco said.

After the opening US-Israeli strikes, Trump told the Iranian people that their “moment of freedom” is at hand.

“When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take,” he said, suggesting that the US will take down the Iranian regime.

Matthew Duss, the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, stressed that air strikes alone cannot collapse the Iranian ruling system.

“You can damage buildings; you can damage the regime, but we don’t have examples of when air power alone has achieved regime change,” Duss said.

A NATO-led air campaign in Libya in 2011 managed to dislodge Muammar Gaddafi from power, but Libyan rebels led the offensive on the ground that removed the regime.

While Trump and other US officials have called on Iranians to rise up against their government, as of now, there does not appear to be any meaningful force on the ground capable of taking on the Islamic Republic system.

Boots on the ground?

While the US has kept the door open for the involvement of ground troops in the war, the move would pose an increased risk to American forces and mark a stark departure from Trump’s stated preference for swift military campaigns.

“The war is already unpopular, even without any American boots on the ground in Iran,” said Duss.

A recent Reuters survey suggested that only about one-quarter of Americans support the war.

Duss drew a contrast between the ongoing conflict and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which had more than 55 percent support from the US public, according to various polls.

“I would imagine that as this war continues, especially if US troops are put on the ground, that support will drop even more,” Duss told Al Jazeera.

On Tuesday, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal told reporters after a classified hearing with administration officials that he fears that the US may be heading towards a ground operation in Iran.

“I am more fearful than ever after this briefing that we may be putting boots on the ground and that troops from the United States may be necessary to accomplish objectives that the administration seems to have,” Blumenthal said.

Other objectives

Over the past few days, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth have articulated more modest goals than regime change in Iran: destroying the Iranian nuclear and drone programmes as well as the country’s navy.

Rubio has argued that Iran was building a large missile and drone arsenal to “achieve immunity” and deterrence against foreign attacks that would allow it to build a nuclear weapon.

For his part, Hegseth has emphasised that the bombing campaign in Iran will not turn into a “forever war”.

“We’re ensuring the mission gets accomplished, but we are very clear-eyed – as the president had been, unlike other presidents, about the foolish policies of the past that recklessly pulled us into things that were not tethered to actual, clear objectives,” he said.

Grieco, however, noted that Trump’s own objectives have been unclear.

“What is this all for? What are we trying to achieve? The administration certainly has not done itself any favours in the fact that they don’t seem to have a consistent narrative or message on this,” she told Al Jazeera.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, emerged from a briefing with Trump officials on Tuesday with a similar assessment.

“It is so much worse than you thought. You are right to be worried,” Warren said in a video message.

“The Trump administration has no plan in Iran. This illegal war is based on lies, and it was launched without any imminent threat to our nation. Donald Trump still hasn’t given a single clear reason for this war, and he seems to have no plan for how to end it.”

The US and Israel launched the bombing campaign against Iran early on Saturday, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, several top officials and hundreds of civilians.

The conflict quickly spread across the Middle East, with Iran lashing out against Gulf countries, launching drone and missile attacks at US assets as well as energy and civilian targets.

Tehran has also been targeting Israel with missile volleys.

Iran-allied groups in Iraq joined the war as well, claiming drone attacks against US-affiliated targets. Hezbollah in Lebanon also entered the fray amid reports that Israel was planning an invasion of the south of the country.

Weeks or ‘far longer’

Despite Hegseth’s insistence that the war is not open-ended, the Trump administration’s timeline for the conflict has been elastic.

Trump has said that the US is ahead of schedule in completing its mission as the conflict expands. At the same time, he said the war could last four to five weeks and “far longer”.

The US president’s allies have also been hailing the war as a success, predicting that the Iranian system will soon fold.

“We are not there yet but, in my view, it’s not if this terrorist regime falls in Iran — it is only a matter of when,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham wrote on X after a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Graham said the “gateway to peace that would be opened” after the Iranian regime falls and ties between Israel and Arab states would take the region to a “new level of prosperity and security”.

However, Duss said it is hard to assess US progress in the war because Trump “has not been clear yet what the objectives really are”.

“You really can’t judge whether we’re ahead of time or behind time on those objectives. That’s the problem here,” he said.

“They didn’t bother to build any case for why this war was necessary. They certainly did not bother to explain what they hope to achieve and how and when. So all we have is just this killing.”

With the war still in its first week, it is starting to appear like a longer conflict than the decisive strikes Trump prides himself on, such as the abduction of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro in January and the strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities in June.

“I think the problem here is that he seems to have become enamoured with air power and what he thinks it can achieve,” Grieco said of Trump.

March 4, 2026