On 28 February, US missiles struck the Shajareh Tayyiba girls’ school in Minab, southern Iran, killing at least 168 children and 14 teachers, according to Iranian media — what may be the worst single atrocity in US military history since the Vietnam War. The Pentagon says it is investigating, but US military sources told CNN the school was hit based on 13-year-old satellite imagery that had been overridden despite more recent pictures from 2025 showing people playing in the courtyard. “The Pentagon is pressing everyone to move faster,” a source said. “A lot of former hedge-fund people and made-for-TV personalities in the mix. But leadership at Centcom did not push back either.” The “made-for-TV” personality is Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, former Fox News co-host, who had cut 90% of the Pentagon’s Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response programme, reducing Centcom specialists from 10 to one. He had called for “maximum lethality, not tepid legality”.
Days earlier, on July 4, Donald Trump’s new child investment accounts went live, offering a $1,000 Treasury bonus for every baby born during his second term. Some 6 million children have been enrolled so far. “I’m really opposed to Trump, vehemently, but it’s a free $1,000,” said Hannah, a 31-year-old freelance arts professional and mother of a 9-month-old in Brooklyn, who opened an account for her daughter. She said she liked that the programme tries “to incentivize births because the birth rate is dropping”. Her partner criticised her: “Trump’s name is on it, you never know who they’re tracking with that.” Tax attorney Adam Bergman claimed his children will “be tax-free millionaires”.
“US bombs kill 168 schoolgirls in Iran as Trump launches child savings accounts with $1,000 bonuses.”
Trump promised to give children “ownership of America’s future”. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the accounts would “render socialist notions moot by making every citizen a shareholder” and called it “the largest merger in history between Main Street and Wall Street”. The funds are invested in S&P 500 index funds at Bank of New York Mellon until age 18, then converted into an IRA. The app, designed with Robinhood, projects $6,000 by 18 and $243,000 by 55 with no further deposits.
But as parents celebrate the free $1,000, Trump boasts of assassinating the 86-year-old Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, making no mention of the killing of his daughter, daughter-in-law and 14-month-old granddaughter Zahra Mohammadi Golpayegani. US Southern Command has also carried out 196 extrajudicial killings of people in boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. For the US government, casual butchery of the innocent has become the norm.