Top Stories — Thursday, April 16, 2026
What is trending in the USA today? Here is Breaking News:
- 3 Killed in Boat Strike in the Pacific, Pentagon Says — nyt News
- At Least 4 Dead in Second School Shooting in Turkey in 2 Days — nyt News
- Iran war 'very close to over,' Trump says — and the stock market 'is going to boom' — CNBC
3 Killed in Boat Strike in the Pacific, Pentagon Says
Source: nyt News • Published: 4/16/2026, 9:45:06 AM
The United States military said it had struck a boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Wednesday, killing three people that it accused of smuggling drugs.
The U.S. Southern Command, which oversees military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced the strike on social media. It shared a 20-second video showing a boat engulfed with bright light as it moves through water. Seconds later, the boat appears to continue floating while aflame.
It was the third such strike in three days, and the 51st attack against boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific that the United States said were engaged in the narcotics trade. The attacks slowed in March but continued at an increased pace in the past week.
At least 177 people have been killed in the attacks, including the three men who died on Wednesday. Many legal specialists have said that the attacks are illegal extrajudicial killings because the military is not permitted to target civilians who do not pose an imminent threat of violence.
The Trump administration has killed scores of people it accused of smuggling drugs aboard boats. Here are the acknowledged strikes so far.
The White House has said the killings are lawful. In a notice to Congress, the Trump administration said the president had determined that the United States is in a formal armed conflict with drug cartels and that crews of drug-running boats are combatants.
Francesca Regalado is a Times reporter covering breaking news.
Read the full story at nyt News.
At Least 4 Dead in Second School Shooting in Turkey in 2 Days
Source: nyt News • Published: 4/16/2026, 9:43:06 AM
An armed eighth-grader opened fire inside a middle school in southern Turkey on Wednesday, killing at least nine people and wounding 13 others, officials said.
The student, who was 14 years old, entered the school with five guns and seven magazines and managed to reach two fifth-grade classrooms, officials said. One of the dead was a teacher; the rest were students. The assailant was also killed.
It was the second school shooting in Turkey in two days, deeply alarming a country where mass shootings are rare but where educators have expressed concern about stabbings and other kinds of violence in schools.
“When a parent sends his child to school, he trusts only in the school,” said Kadem Ozbay, the chairman of Egitim Is, an educators’ union. “But people don’t have safety anymore in schools.”
When asked whether the authorities would increase safety measures after this week’s violence, the interior minister, Mustafa Ciftci, told reporters, “We will take necessary precautions,” without providing details.
The attacker used guns that the authorities believe belonged to his father, a former police officer, said Mukerrem Unluer, the governor of Kahramanmaras Province, where the shooting took place.
The parents of the assailant were both detained, according to TRT, the public broadcaster.
Officials said the shooter killed himself, although it was not clear whether he shot himself on purpose or by accident, said Mr. Ciftci, the minister. Of those wounded, six were in intensive care. Three of them were in critical condition.
Mr. Ciftci said the government did not consider the shooting a terrorist attack, but an “individual incident.”
The attack came as Turks were still trying to make sense of a similar attack on Tuesday, when a former student opened fire with a pump-action shotgun at a vocational school in the country’s southeast, wounding 16 people, officials said. That attacker killed himself after he was cornered by the police.
There were no immediate indications that the two shootings were connected.
Prosecutors opened an investigation into Wednesday’s shooting, which took place in the district of Onikisubat.
Education unions have said violence in Turkish schools is on the rise and have called on the government to increase precautions and provide more counseling for troubled children.
“There is a mentality, an order feeding violence in schools,” said Mr. Ozbay, the union chairman. He attributed the sense of insecurity in schools to factors including poverty, high rates of gun ownership and government policies that he said undervalue teachers and education.
Mr. Ozbay spoke from the Turkish capital, Ankara, where he and other educators planned to protest what they called insufficient measures to prevent school violence.
To improve conditions in schools, he said, the government needed more security guards, nurses and school counselors who can assist troubled kids.
Kemal Irmak, the chairman of Egitim Sen, another union, said one of its members had taught the student who carried out Wednesday’s attack.
“He was a very reserved child, speaking to no one, asocial,” he said the teacher had said of the student.
Last month a former student stabbed a teacher in a classroom at a vocational high school in Istanbul. The teacher later died in the hospital. Another teacher and a student were injured as well.
Ben Hubbard is the Istanbul bureau chief for The Times, covering Turkey and the surrounding region.
Şafak Timur covers Turkey and is based in Istanbul.
Read the full story at nyt News.
Iran war 'very close to over,' Trump says — and the stock market 'is going to boom'
Source: CNBC • Published: 4/16/2026, 9:39:19 AM
The Iran war is "very close to over" with authorities in Tehran eager to agree a peace deal, U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview broadcast Wednesday.
"We've beaten them militarily, totally," Trump told Fox Business Network's "Mornings with Maria" in a prerecorded interview. "I think it's close to over, I view it as very close to over. ... If I pulled up stakes right now it would take them 20 years to rebuild that country, and we're not finished."
"We'll see what happens, I think they want to make a deal very badly," he added.
The president's latest comments come amid growing market optimism that a diplomatic solution to the U.S.-Iran war can be found, despite the failure of peace talks last weekend.
The Associated Press, citing regional officials, reported Wednesday morning that the U.S. and Iran have an "in principle agreement" to extend their fragile two-week ceasefire in order to allow for more diplomacy.
But a senior U.S. official told CNBC that the U.S. "has not formally agreed to an extension of the ceasefire."
"There is continued engagement between the U.S. and Iran to reach a deal," added the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the administration's internal plans.
Multiple news outlets have reported that negotiations could restart before the ceasefire is set to expire next week. A White House official told CNBC on Tuesday morning that a second round of negotiations between Washington and Tehran was under discussion, though nothing had been officially scheduled as of that time.
Trump later Tuesday told the New York Post that fresh U.S.-Iran talks in Islamabad "could be happening over the next two days."
In the Fox Business interview that aired Wednesday, Trump downplayed global market turbulence sparked by the war and said oil prices, which have soared due to supply disruptions, would soon fall.
He again defended U.S. military operations against Iran, saying, "We have to stop them from ever having a nuclear weapon."
Trump predicted that when the war was over, the "stock market is going to boom, it's already booming."
As the Trump administration mulls further talks with Tehran, Washington has forged ahead with its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the vital maritime passage largely controlled by Iran.
U.S. Central Command said late Tuesday that the blockade, which is not allowing ships to enter or exit Iranian ports, has been fully implemented, "completely" cutting off Tehran's international sea trade.
Correction April 15, 2026: This article was updated to reflect the fact that the Fox interview was prerecorded.
For complete details, visit the original sources linked above.
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