5 Big News Stories Overnight - Sunday, March 8, 2026

U.S.: 6 Arrested After Homemade Explosive Devices at Mamdani' Mayoral Mansion

New York Post reports:

Six people are in custody after two homemade explosive devices were tossed outside Gracie Mansion Saturday during competing anti- and pro-Muslim protests, causing a panic.

Dozens of demonstrators and counter-protesters fled as smoke started to billow from a device which appeared to have a lit fuse and was wrapped in duct tape. There were no injuries and no explosion at roughly 12:30 p.m. standoff, police said. 

Lebanon: Israeli Strike on Beirut Hotel Kills Four

Guardian reports:

At least four people have been killed after an Israeli strike hit central Beirut, Lebanon’s health ministry said. Ten people were injured.

The strike – which hit an apartment in the Ramada hotel building early on Sunday – is the first strike to hit the heart of the Lebanese capital since hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah resumed last week.

In a statement, Israel said it conducted a “precise strike” in Beirut, aimed at what it called “key commanders” in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force foreign operations arm.

The Israeli military did not name the commanders, but accused them of planning “terror attacks against the State of Israel and its civilians” in a statement.

Germany: VW Bypassing Dealers

Wall Street Journal reports:

When the German automaker Volkswagen VOW3 -3.04%decrease; red down pointing triangle revealed it would create a brand called Scout Motors—with a lineup of rugged, all-American electric and hybrid trucks and SUVs—Fred Ippolito started making plans.

Ippolito, a Volkswagen dealer, bought a vacant retail lot next door to his dealership in West Islip, N.Y. The perfect place for a Scout store, he thought. The trucks, designed and built in the U.S. for American buyers, are exactly what Volkswagen dealers have spent years clamoring for.

Four years later, Ippolito’s property is still vacant. And he and other dealers are taking Volkswagen and Scout to court. 

Iran:

Times of Israel reports:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday said the US-Israeli bombing campaign in Iran would continue unabated and that the “moment of truth” was nearing for Iranians to overthrow their government.

His comments came as the IDF said it struck Iran’s two “most central” ballistic missile sites, and, in an apparent first, oil infrastructure in Tehran.

Later on Saturday night, US President Donald Trump told reporters that the war “will continue for a while longer” without providing a timeline, and pointed to the October 7, 2023, onslaught led by Iran’s terrorist ally Hamas, as evidence of the regime’s “evil.”

PHOTO: A screengrab of a social media video appearing to show the aftermath of strikes on Iranian oil infrastructure in Tehran, March 7, 2026. (X video screenshot; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

U.S. - U.K.: Trump to Starmer 'No Thanks"

President Trump posted on Saturday:

The United Kingdom, our once Great Ally, maybe the Greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East. That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer — But we will remember. We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won! President DONALD J. TRUMP