B-2 bombers head across the Pacific and Trump is scheduled to return to the White House as he considers strike on Iran.
Multiple U.S. Air Force B-2 bombers appeared to be airborne and heading west from the United States across the Pacific, and President Trump is scheduled to return to the White House late on Saturday afternoon from New Jersey as he deliberates about whether to join Israel's efforts to destroy Iran's nuclear sites.
Air traffic control communications indicated that several B-2 aircraft — the planes that could be equipped to carry the 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs that Mr. Trump is considering deploying against Iran's underground nuclear facilities in Fordo — had taken off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.
Some flight trackers said on social media that the destination of the aircraft is Guam, the U.S. territory, which has several military installations, although that could not be independently confirmed. The bombers appeared to be accompanied by refueling tankers for portions of the journey, the flight tracking data showed.
Moving planes does not mean a final decision has been made about whether to strike.
It is not unusual to shift military assets into position to provide options to the president and military commanders even if they are not ultimately deployed.
The White House schedule for the weekend said that Mr. Trump would return from his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., and would meet with his national security team at 6 p.m. on Saturday and again on Sunday. Mr. Trump typically spends both weekend days out of town at one of his properties.
A White House spokeswoman declined to comment.
Mr. Trump has made clear he is weighing whether to have the U.S. join Israel's effort to curtail Iran's ability to acquire a nuclear weapon, a line he has drawn repeatedly over the years.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Bloomberg
36 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Four Scenarios Facing a Trump-Rattled World Economy
With his decision to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities and join Israel's war on Iran, President Donald Trump has injected new geopolitical risks into an already fragile global economy. It also makes what comes next in his trade and economic conflicts all the more important. It should be causing some recalculations. And perhaps deleting a popular meme.
USA Today
40 minutes ago
- USA Today
Do you think the Supreme Court is partisan? Well you're wrong.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled on a religious liberty case, a firearms case and a DEI case, and most Americans probably didn't hear about any of them. Why? Every decision was unanimous. Recent polling has shown that Americans continue to view the Supreme Court as extremely partisan. Just 20% of those polled view the nation's highest courtas politically neutral, and its favorability is far higher among Republicans than Democrats. These opinions on SCOTUS come from a lack of nuance in conversations around the court, in which Republicans are furious when one of their preferred justices occasionally disagrees with President Donald Trump, and where Democrats ignore the Supreme Court cases that don't get decided along political ideology. The ideological lines on the court shouldn't be chalked up to the party of the president who appointed each justice, and the media narrative suggesting such should be dispelled. Can we finally leave Justice Amy Coney Barrett alone? There is no better example of the lack of nuanced conversation surrounding the Supreme Court than Justice Amy Coney Barrett. She has been villainized by the left for being a Trump sycophant and has been smeared as a liberal in disguise by some of Trump's most ardent supporters. In recent months, Barrett has been under fire from MAGA for not being sufficiently committed to their cause. Glossing over the fact that the job of judges is to determine what the law is, rather than what it ought to be, these individuals have gone from praising Barrett's integrity at her confirmation to demanding she sacrifice it for Trump's causes. Opinion: Liberals owe Justice Barrett an apology. She's clearly not in Trump's pocket. What has Barrett done to deserve any of this? Well, she had the audacity to rule against Trump on a couple of occasions. That's it. Justice Barrett joined the liberal justices in dissent against the majority decision to allow Trump to use the Alien Enemies Act for deportations, as well as voting against the Trump administration's attempts to freeze funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Since arriving on the court in 2020, Barrett has joined majorities to overturn Roe v. Wade, restore the right to carry a handgun, eliminate racist affirmative action practices, rein in executive bureaucracy and even expand presidential immunity. No reasonable person could argue that her jurisprudence in these cases is advancing any liberal causes, but the fact that she has ruled against Trump on occasion somehow overrides all of that evidence. Both parties have a warped view of who Justice Barrett is, and that is a symptom of a much larger problem about Americans' information about the court. The news media has played a role in that overall view. News media needs to do a better job of covering SCOTUS Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled on a religious liberty case, a firearms case and a discrimination case, and most Americans probably didn't hear about any of them. Opinion: There is no 'reverse discrimination,' people. There is only discrimination. The reason for that is the fact that every one of these decisions was unanimous, each written by one of the three liberal justices, so they didn't fit the narrative of the extremely polarized Supreme Court that Americans have been barraged with in recent years. Naturally, the court tends to split on the highest profile cases, which intuitively makes sense. After all, they are divisive. However, the vast majority of cases undermine the partisan tale often told of the court. For the 2022-23 term, the last for which data has been published, conservative justices only agreed with each other on roughly half of their cases, and in some cases, even they were more likely to agree with a certain liberal justice. Some experts have categorized the justices according to their regard for the consequences of the rulings, instead of political leanings. Justices Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts seem to be more concerned with consequences outside of the specific case they are ruling on. The result is that, in some respects, this group of three is closer to the liberal justices than their conservative colleagues. Furthermore, each justice has individual tendencies that differentiate them from even their ideological allies. Neil Gorsuch has a libertarian streak of generally standing up to the government and has a soft spot for the rights of Native Americans. The popular partisan narrative for the Supreme Court gives a very narrow view of how the justices' ideologies actually play out in practice. Americans should look to the justices' own personal tendencies and judicial philosophy to characterize them, rather than simply grouping them by party. Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.
New York Post
41 minutes ago
- New York Post
LA Sheriff's department deletes posts calling US airstrikes on Iran's nuclear sites ‘tragic' following backlash
The LA County Sheriff's Department has deleted a social media post calling the US airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities 'tragic' after being dragged online. 'Our hearts go out to the victims and families impacted by the recent bombings in Iran,' the department wrote on X Sunday in a now-deleted post. 'While this tragic event happened overseas, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is closely monitoring the situation alongside our local, state and federal partners.' 4 The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deleted the X post following backlash. @LASDHQ/X The post sparked immediate outrage and was allegedly updated to exclude the part sending condolences to 'the victims and families' and calling the US military airstrikes 'tragic.' Moments later, it was ultimately deleted from the platform, according to independent journalist Collin Rugg and Libs of TikTok. However, before being yanked for good, the post garnered a massive outcry of responses, bashing the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for the insensitive and inaccurate post. 'We sincerely hope your account was hacked. There were no victims in last night's successful targeting of Iran's nuclear sites,' replied the American advocacy group Stop Antisemitism. 'Please verify this post was not posted by an employee of the LA County Sheriff's HQ.' 'It is shocking that the LA Sheriff Department employs someone who would post such messages when our brave men and women are risking their lives to protect our country,' wrote another outraged X user. 4 Satellite image shows a close-up view of destroyed buildings at Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, after it was hit by US airstrikes, in Isfahan, Iran, on June 22, 2025. via REUTERS 'That individual should be fired immediately and then investigated to find out what drove them to write these messages.' 'This is the CRAZIEST reaction to President Trump delivering MONUMENTAL devastation to Iran's nuclear sites,' another person wrote. While another agreed with the outrage, adding, 'Los Angeles Sheriff Robert Luna should resign in disgrace. Shame on him!' 4 A man who asked not to be identified holds an Iranian and an upside-down American flag while people gather for a 'No War with Iran x Israel and Immigrants' on June 7, 2025, in Los Angeles, California. Getty Images 4 LA County Sheriff's deputies arrest a protester after unlawful assembly was declared following a 'No Kings' national rally against the Trump administration in Los Angeles on June 14, 2025. AFP via Getty Images In response to the backlash over the post, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's office released a statement 'apologizing' for the 'offensive and inappropriate' post late Sunday. 'We are issuing this statement to formally apologize for an offensive and inappropriate social media post recently posted on our Department's social media platforms regarding the ongoing conflict in Iran,' the statement reads. 'This post was unacceptable, made in error, and does not reflect the views of Sheriff Robert G. Luna or the Department. As a law enforcement agency, we do not comment on foreign policy or military matters. Our mission remains solely focused on protecting public safety and serving our diverse communities.' The department acknowledged that it had 'updated' the social media post and has 'launched an internal review to determine how it was created and published.' 'Steps are being taken to strengthen our social media oversight protocols and ensure that any future communications align with our Department's standards of professionalism, respect, and accountability,' the department added. 'We appreciate the continued trust of our community and will work diligently to reaffirm that trust every day.' The Post has reached out to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for comment.
