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Trump Says Biden Left Him ‘Inspirational-Type’ Letter 

US President Donald Trump delivers remarks on AI infrastructure at the Roosevelt room at White House in Washington, US, January 21, 2025. (Reuters)
US President Donald Trump delivers remarks on AI infrastructure at the Roosevelt room at White House in Washington, US, January 21, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump Says Biden Left Him ‘Inspirational-Type’ Letter 

US President Donald Trump delivers remarks on AI infrastructure at the Roosevelt room at White House in Washington, US, January 21, 2025. (Reuters)
US President Donald Trump delivers remarks on AI infrastructure at the Roosevelt room at White House in Washington, US, January 21, 2025. (Reuters)

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said former President Joe Biden left him a "nice" letter inside the Resolute Desk at the White House, continuing an inauguration day tradition.

Trump told reporters he opened the letter on Monday evening and was thinking of making it publicly available. He said Biden advised him to enjoy his term and emphasized the importance of the role.

"It said, 'To Number 47,'" Trump said. "It was a very nice one .... just basically a little bit of an inspirational-type letter. Enjoy it. Do a good job. Important, very important how important the job is."

Trump, who was inaugurated to his second term in the White House on Monday, said he felt he should let people see the letter because it was "a positive" for Biden.

Trump found the handwritten letter in the desk on Monday during a ceremony in the Oval Office after a journalist asked if he had received a message from Biden. He held it up for the cameras, showing a handwritten "47," saying he would read it privately before deciding whether to release its contents.

Trump, the first president since Grover Cleveland in the late 1800s to serve nonconsecutive terms, left a letter for Biden when he took office in January 2021. Biden said it was a "very generous" letter but never released it publicly.

Former President Ronald Reagan started the modern letter-writing tradition in 1989, leaving one for his vice president and successor, George H.W. Bush, on stationery marked "Don't let the turkeys get you down."

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World

Eight Dead as Tornadoes Surge Across Central US

A tree is left uprooted following a tornado that hit several cities in rural southwest Michigan on March 7, 2026 in Union City, Michigan. (Getty Images/AFP)
A tree is left uprooted following a tornado that hit several cities in rural southwest Michigan on March 7, 2026 in Union City, Michigan. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Eight Dead as Tornadoes Surge Across Central US

A tree is left uprooted following a tornado that hit several cities in rural southwest Michigan on March 7, 2026 in Union City, Michigan. (Getty Images/AFP)
A tree is left uprooted following a tornado that hit several cities in rural southwest Michigan on March 7, 2026 in Union City, Michigan. (Getty Images/AFP)

Tornadoes tore through the central United States in a series of storms that continued into Saturday, leaving eight people dead and at least a dozen others injured, authorities said.

Four people were reported killed in Oklahoma, where the twisters gained strength, and four others died further north in the Midwestern state of Michigan.

The Branch County Sheriff's Office said a tornado touched down near Union City in southern Michigan on Friday, killing three people and injuring 12.

About 50 miles (80 kilometers) west, officials in Cass County said one person was killed and "several injuries" were reported after a tornado hit the area.

"Our thoughts are with those who have lost family, friends, and property during this incident," the Branch County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

Authorities in Cass County said a number of trees had fallen onto roads and buildings, and more than 500 people were reported to be without power.

"Emergency Management personnel will be conducting damage assessments in the affected area as required by the State of Michigan," the local sheriff's office said.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said Friday evening she was activating a state emergency operations center "to coordinate an all-hands-on-deck response to severe weather in southwestern Michigan."

In Oklahoma, the extreme weather led to fourth deaths late Thursday and Friday, and people were waking up Saturday to scenes of destruction and loss in several towns across the state.

"Severe weather struck Major County last night and tragically claimed the lives of a mother and daughter," Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt posted on X.

Okmulgee County Sheriff Eddy Rice said in a statement that two people died in a tornado that hit the town of Beggs on Friday night.

World

US Starts Using UK Bases for ‘Defensive’ Iran Operations

A US Air Force C-5 Galaxy lands at RAF Fairford in south west England on March 6, 2026. (AFP)
A US Air Force C-5 Galaxy lands at RAF Fairford in south west England on March 6, 2026. (AFP)
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US Starts Using UK Bases for ‘Defensive’ Iran Operations

A US Air Force C-5 Galaxy lands at RAF Fairford in south west England on March 6, 2026. (AFP)
A US Air Force C-5 Galaxy lands at RAF Fairford in south west England on March 6, 2026. (AFP)

The United States has started using British bases for certain operations against Iran during the Middle East war, the UK government announced on Saturday.

Britain's defense ministry said the US had begun using the military sites for "specific defensive operations to prevent Iran firing missiles into the region".

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer annoyed US President Donald Trump for initially refusing to have any role in the US-Israeli war with Iran, which started a week ago, on February 28.

He later agree to a US request to use two British military bases for a "specific and limited defensive purpose".

Those bases are Fairford in Gloucestershire, western England, and the UK-US Diego Garcia base on the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean.

A US Air Force B-1 Lancer bomber landed at Fairford on Saturday, an AFP photographer saw.

An American C-5 Galaxy plane could also be seen on the runway of the base, as anti-war protesters demonstrated outside.

Trump had said he was "not happy with the UK" and mocked Starmer by saying "this is not Winston Churchill that we're dealing with".

Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, has defended his initial decision by saying any UK "must always have a lawful basis and a viable thought-through plan".

He has also insisted that he was right to change his position because Iran's retaliation with missiles and drones to the US-Israeli strikes have threatened British interests and allies in the region.

Lawmakers in Starmer's ruling Labour party remain haunted by former prime minister Tony Blair's disastrous support for the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

A Survation poll of 1,045 Britons published on Friday found that 56 percent of respondents believed Starmer was right not to involve Britain in the initial strikes. Only 27 percent said he was wrong.

World

Israel Says Targeted Tehran Airport in Wave of Overnight Strikes

Smoke rises from the site of airstrikes at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran on March 7, 2026. (AFP)
Smoke rises from the site of airstrikes at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran on March 7, 2026. (AFP)
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Israel Says Targeted Tehran Airport in Wave of Overnight Strikes

Smoke rises from the site of airstrikes at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran on March 7, 2026. (AFP)
Smoke rises from the site of airstrikes at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran on March 7, 2026. (AFP)

Israel's military said on Saturday it had struck aircraft belonging to Iran's Revolutionary Guards at Tehran's Mehrabad airport, as part of a wave of strikes overnight on the city.

"The Israeli Air Force... completed a broad wave of strikes across Tehran and on military infrastructure located at the 'Merabad Airport' in Tehran", it said in a statement.

"16 aircraft of the 'Quds Force' unit of the IRGC were precisely dismantled", it said, referring to the branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guards that oversees its foreign operations.

The military accused the Guards of using Mehrabad International Airport, one of two that serve the capital, to send cash and weapons to its proxies in the Middle East, including Lebanon's Hezbollah.

"Also targeted were several Iranian fighter jets that posed a threat to Israeli Air Force aircraft operating in Iranian airspace", the statement added.

The army also said strikes overnight hit a key command center for the Iranian air force, as well as a site used to manufacture ballistic missiles.

Earlier on Saturday, Israel's military said more than 80 fighter jets completed a wave of strikes on Iranian military sites, missile launchers and other targets in Tehran and central Iran.

"Over 80 Israeli Air Force fighter jets... completed an additional wave of strikes targeting infrastructure belonging to the Iranian terror regime," the military said in a statement.

The statement said that jets hit a military academy belonging to the Revolutionary Guards which "was being used as an emergency asset".

It said the facility was being used for military operations, making it "a lawful military objective".

Other targets included an underground command center and missile storage facility as well as launch sites, "in order to reduce the scope of fire directed at the territory of the State of Israel", the statement said.

Israeli media reported that the commander of Israel's air force General Tomer Bar had personally taken part in an overnight sortie to hit Tehran.

When Israel joined the United States in a massive wave of strikes on Iran at the start of the war, the Israeli military said 200 fighter jets took part in the raids, calling it the largest in the air force's history.