Is Iranian supreme leader and cleric Ayatollah Ali Khamenei making a bid to become known in the United States as the “Cool Ayatollah”? Not really, since he’s still one of the U.S.’s most hardline geopolitical enemies—but he did say Tuesday that the famous phrase “death to America” shouldn’t be taken to literally call for the death of American citizens. In other news:
- U.S. officials said a “heat flash” was detected by satellite before the crash of Metrojet Flight 9268 in Egypt, which indicates that the Russian flight could have been downed by a bomb or other onboard explosion.
- Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi exile behind many of the false claims that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.’s 2003 invasion, died at age 71.
- Things are not looking good right now for the Keystone pipeline.
- Jeb Bush’s spokesman said that Jeb’s “comeback” is underway even though his polling might be pretty bad for a while.
- And a watchdog found that the United States spent $43 million building a gas station in Afghanistan, or 96 times as much as a comparable station located by investigators cost to build in neighboring Pakistan.
Have a good day out there!
