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Early intel assessment says Iran's nuclear program was only set back 'a few months'

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Early intel assessment says Iran's nuclear program was only set back 'a few months'

A satellite image of Iran’s Fordo nuclear site shows clusters of new craters likely caused by U.S. bunker buster bombs dropped over the weekend following orders by President Trump.

Satellite image ©2025 Maxar Technologies


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A U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly has confirmed early intelligence assessments by the Defense Intelligence Agency saying that the massive U.S. air campaign against three Iran nuclear sites on Saturday night did not “obliterate” Iran’s nuclear enrichment program as President Trump claimed but instead set it back “a few months.”

CNN first published news of the DIA assessment.

The official told NPR that military officials provided an early assessment of the intel to select senators — including Virginia’s Mark Warner, the leading Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. 

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“I have a whole lot of questions for this administration,” Warner told All Things Considered. “What are the next steps? How do we make sure that there’s not Iran racing now to a dirty bomb? These are questions that we and frankly, the American people, deserve answers to.”

The full Senate was slated to get a classified briefing from the administration Tuesday afternoon, but it was cancelled and moved later in the week.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt slammed the CNN report, saying on social media that it was “flat-out wrong,” and maintaining that a key nuclear facility had been destroyed. She said the leak was a “clear attempt to demean President Trump.”

The White House did not immediately respond to NPR’s request for further comment.

The assessment comes less than a day after a ceasefire declared by Trump between Israel and Iran went into effect, with both sides agreeing to end the fighting. Israel has said repeatedly that its goal in the war had been to stop Iran’s nuclear program, and prevent it from the ability to make a nuclear weapon — a goal long-shared by the U.S.

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Speaking on Air Force One earlier Tuesday, Trump maintained that goal had been met.

“They’re not going to have enrichment and they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon,” he said, speaking about Iran. “And I’ll tell you, the last thing on their minds is nuclear weapons. They don’t even want to think about nuclear.”

But officials within Iran directly contradicted that.

In a statement on X in Farsi, Iran’s Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said that Iran would “completely disregard” Israel’s demands to stop enriching uranium, a key component to a nuclear weapon. He said Iran will continue to proceed in their own self interests.

The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency Hamad Eslami also seemed to confirm that, telling a semi-official Iranian news agency that they were still assessing the damage from Saturday night’s attacks, but had prepared in advance. “Our plan is to not allow any interruption in the production and service process,” he said.

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The U.S. used massive bunker-buster bombs on Saturday to target three of Iran’s key nuclear facilities, including one called Fordo, built deep inside a mountain.

Speaking at the White House after those strikes, Trump called the strikes a “spectacular military success.”

“Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,” he said.

But the U.S. official NPR spoke to said that the intelligence assessment concluded there had been “limited” damage to the critical infrastructure at the Fordo facility in particular.

Independent experts NPR talked to in the day after the U.S. strikes came to similar conclusions, after analyzing commercial satellite imagery, saying that Iran’s nuclear enterprise is far from destroyed.

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“At the end of the day there are some really important things that haven’t been hit,” says Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, who tracks Iran’s nuclear facilities. “If this ends here, it’s a really incomplete strike.”

Experts have long warned that Iran’s nuclear ability doesn’t just lie in its facilities, but also in its deep knowledge – something much more difficult to attack.

“The simple fact is that Israel was never going to be able to eliminate Iran’s capacity to build nuclear weapons entirely if Iranians choose to do so,” says Kenneth Pollack, Vice President for policy at the Middle East Institute. “The knowledge is just too widespread within the Iranian system.”

NPR’s Tom Bowman contributed to this report from Washington, D.C. 

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Trump says he’s been assured Tehran has stopped killing protesters as Iran reopens its airspace – live

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Trump says he’s been assured Tehran has stopped killing protesters as Iran reopens its airspace – live

Opening summary

Welcome to our continuing live coverage of the crisis in Iran.

Donald Trump says he has been assured that the killing of Iranian protesters has been halted, adding when asked about whether the threatened US military action was now off the table that he will “watch it and see”.

The president said at the White House that “very important sources on the other side” had now assured him that Iranian executions would not go ahead. “They’ve said the killing has stopped and the executions won’t take place,” Trump said. “There were supposed to be a lot of executions today and that the executions won’t take place – and we’re going to find out.”

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Earlier, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi told Fox News that executions executions were not taking place and there would be “no hanging today or tomorrow”. “I’m confident that there is no plan for hanging.”

The family of Erfan Soltani, the first Iranian protester sentenced to death since the current unrest began, has been told his execution has been postponed.

Here are some of the other latest developments:

  • Trump said Iranian opposition figure Reza Pahlavi “seems very nice” but expressed uncertainty about whether Pahlavi would be able to muster support within Iran to eventually take over. “I don’t know how he’d play within his own country,” Trump told Reuters in the Oval Office. “And we really aren’t up to that point yet. I don’t know whether or not his country would accept his leadership, and certainly if they would, that would be fine with me.”

  • Iran has reopened its airspace after a near-five-hour closure that forced airlines to cancel, reroute or delay some flights.

  • The United Nations security council is scheduled to meet on Thursday afternoon for “a briefing on the situation in Iran”, according to a spokesperson for the Somali presidency. The scheduling note said the briefing was requested by the US.

Iranian women wearing chadors walk near a mural depicting Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (top left) in Tehran. Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA
  • Some US and UK personnel have been evacuated as a precaution from sites in the Middle East. The British embassy in Tehran has also been temporarily closed.

  • Spain, Italy and Poland advised their citizens to leave Iran. It followed a call by the US urging its citizens to leave Iran, suggesting land routes to Turkey or Armenia.

  • Araghchi insisted the situation was “under control” and urged the US to engage in diplomacy. “Now there’s calm,” the Iranian foreign minister said. “We have everything under control, and let’s hope that wisdom prevails and we don’t end up in a situation of high tension that would be catastrophic for everyone.”

  • The death toll in Iran from the regime’s crackdown stands at 2,571 people, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists news agency. More than 18,100 have been arrested, it said.

  • Foreign ministers from the G7 group said they were “prepared to impose additional restrictive measures” on Iran over its handling of the protests, and the “deliberate use of violence, the killing of protesters, arbitrary detention and intimidation tactics”.

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Key events

AI-generated videos purportedly depicting protests in Iran have flooded the web, researchers say, as social media users push hyper-realistic deepfakes to fill an information void amid the country’s internet restrictions.

US disinformation watchdog NewsGuard said it identified seven AI-generated videos depicting the Iranian protests – created by both pro- and anti-government actors – that had collectively amassed about 3.5m views across online platforms.

Among them was a video shared on Elon Musk’s X showing women protesters smashing a vehicle belonging to the Basij, the Iranian paramilitary force deployed to suppress the protests, reports Agence France-Presse.

One X post featuring the AI clip – shared by what NewsGuard described as anti-regime users – garnered nearly 720,000 views.

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Anti-regime X and TikTok users in the US also posted AI videos depicting Iranian protesters symbolically renaming local streets after Donald Trump.

The AI creations highlight the growing prevalence of what experts call “hallucinated” visual content on social media during major news events, often overshadowing authentic images and videos.

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Trump administration sends letter wiping out addiction, mental health grants

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Trump administration sends letter wiping out addiction, mental health grants

A demonstrator holds a sign during International Overdose Awareness Day on Aug. 28, 2024 in New York City.

Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images


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The Trump administration sent shockwaves through the U.S. mental health and drug addiction system late Tuesday, sending hundreds of termination letters, effective immediately, for federal grants supporting health services.

Three sources said they believe total cuts to nonprofit groups, many providing street-level care to people experiencing addiction, homelessness and mental illness, could reach roughly $2 billion. NPR wasn’t able to independently confirm the scale of the grant cancellation. The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) didn’t respond to a request for clarification.

“We are definitely looking at severe loss of front-line capacity,” said Andrew Kessler, head of Slingshot Solutions, a consultancy firm that works with mental health and addiction groups nationwide. “[Programs] may have to shut their doors tomorrow.”

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Kessler said he has reviewed numerous grant termination letters from “Salt Lake City to El Paso to Detroit, all over the country.”

Ryan Hampton, the founder of Mobilize Recovery, a national advocacy nonprofit for people in and seeking recovery, told NPR his group lost roughly $500,000 “overnight.”

“Waking up to nearly $2 billion in grant cancellations means front-line providers are forced to cease overdose prevention, naloxone distribution, and peer recovery services immediately, leaving our communities defenseless against a raging crisis,” Hampton said. “This cruelty will be measured in lives lost, as recovery centers shutter and the safety net we built is slashed overnight. We are witnessing the dismantling of our recovery infrastructure in real-time, and the administration will have blood on its hands for every preventable death that follows.”

Copies of the letter sent to two different organizations and reviewed by NPR signal that SAMHSA officials no longer believe the defunded programs align with the Trump administration’s priorities.

The letter points to efforts to reshape the national health system in part by restructuring SAMHSA’s grant program, which “includes terminating some of its … awards.”

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According to the letter, grants are terminated as of Jan.13, adding that “costs resulting from financial obligations incurred after termination are not allowable.”

The National Association of County Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Directors sent a letter to members saying it believes “over 2,000 grants [nationwide] with a total of more than $2 billion” are affected. The group said it’s still working to understand the “full scope” of the cuts.

This move comes on top of deep Medicaid cuts, passed last year by the Republican-controlled Congress, which affect numerous mental health and addiction care providers.

Kessler told NPR he’s hearing alarm from care providers nationwide that the safety net for people experiencing an addiction or mental health crisis could unravel.

“In the short term, there’s going to be severe damage. We’re going to have to scramble,” he said.

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Regina LaBelle, a Georgetown University professor who served as acting head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy during the Biden administration, said the SAMHSA grants pay for lifesaving services.

“From first responders to drug courts, continued federal funding quite literally save lives,” LaBelle said. “The overdose epidemic has been declared a public health emergency and overdose deaths are decreasing. This is no time to pull critical funding.”

Requests for comment from SAMHSA and the Department of Health and Human Services were not immediately returned.

This is a developing story.

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Video: Clashes With Federal Agents in Minneapolis Escalate

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Video: Clashes With Federal Agents in Minneapolis Escalate

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Clashes With Federal Agents in Minneapolis Escalate

Fear and frustration among residents in Minneapolis have mounted as ICE and Border Patrol agents have deployed aggressive tactics and conducted arrests after the killing of Renee Good by an immigration officer last week.

“Open it. Last warning.” “Do you have an ID on you, ma’am?” “I don’t need an ID to walk around in — In my city. This is my city.” “OK. Do you have some ID then, please?” “I don’t need it.” “If not, we’re going to put you in the vehicle and we’re going to ID you.” “I am a U.S. citizen.” “All right. Can we see an ID, please?” “I am a U.S. citizen.”

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Fear and frustration among residents in Minneapolis have mounted as ICE and Border Patrol agents have deployed aggressive tactics and conducted arrests after the killing of Renee Good by an immigration officer last week.

By Jamie Leventhal and Jiawei Wang

January 13, 2026

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