Trump Fires His Homeland Security Secretary

Also, child care costs are rising fast. Here’s the latest at the end of Thursday.

President Trump fired Kristi Noem, his homeland security secretary, making her the first cabinet member to be ousted in Trump’s second term. She had been a key figure in the president’s mass deportation effort.

Noem’s tenure was filled with controversy, and Trump’s allies had speculated for weeks about her potential removal. The catalyst for Noem’s ouster appeared to be her testimony this week that Trump had approved a $220 million ad campaign she was featured in. “I never knew anything about it,” the president said today.

Republicans had also questioned Noem’s response to the killing of U.S. citizens by immigration agents in Minneapolis and criticized her handling of disaster aid.

Trump said he hopes to replace Noem with Markwayne Mullin, a Republican senator from Oklahoma who is well-liked in Congress. Mullin, who speaks regularly with Trump, said Noem had “done the best that she could do under the circumstances,” but that he hoped to learn from her tenure and “build off things that didn’t quite go as planned.”

The president also said he would give Noem a previously nonexistent role in his administration: special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, which he said would be a new security initiative for the Western Hemisphere.

The president demands a role in picking Iran’s next leader

Trump said today that he should be involved in deciding who should next lead Iran, after the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign killed the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The president also said that Khamenei’s son, who appeared to be the leading candidate to succeed his father, was an “unacceptable” choice.

His comments came as the six-day-old war continued to widen. Iranian drones landed in Azerbaijan. European governments deployed more military assets to the Middle East. And Israel ordered an evacuation for parts of Lebanon, causing panic in and around Beirut. (Watch a video from our reporter on the ground there.)

Tensions were also high along the Iran-Iraq border, where pro-American, Iranian Kurdish forces are preparing armed units that could enter Iran. The C.I.A. previously gave small arms to the Kurds, and Trump said today that he would be “all for” them launching an offensive.

In related news:

• The House, in a mostly party-line vote, blocked an effort to limit Trump’s war powers.
• A Times analysis indicated that the bombing of an elementary school in Iran, which local officials said had killed at least 175 people, occurred at the same time as U.S. attacks on an adjacent naval base. Here’s what we know.

Ecuador invited the U.S. military to take on its gangs

The U.S. and Ecuador launched a joint military operation this week aimed at fighting the drug gangs that have turned Ecuador from one of the safest countries in Latin America into one of the deadliest. As much as 70 percent of the world’s cocaine now travels through its deepwater ports.

U.S. Special Forces have been helping Ecuadorean commandos plan for raids on drug facilities that are expected in the coming weeks. The partnership emerged after Ecuador’s young president, Daniel Noboa, spent more than a year courting Trump.

Child care costs hikes are significantly outpacing inflation

Child care has always been a large expense for parents. Recently, it’s gotten worse, as government financing has shrunk and wages for child care providers have gone up. In most states, the average price for child care is higher than in-state college tuition.

Look at the cost estimates for your state.

More top news

• Trade: Two dozen states sued Trump to stop his 10 percent tariffs on most imports.
• Utah: A day after three women were found dead in a rural part of the state, authorities detained a suspect.
• China: Beijing set its economic growth target for this year at 4.5 percent to 5 percent, the first time in 30 years its benchmark fell below 5 percent.
• Health: The F.D.A. has increasingly issued drug rejections or refusals, upsetting patients with rare diseases.
• Savannah Guthrie: The “Today” host visited the show’s offices for the first time since her mother disappeared, and NBC said she planned to return to the air.
• Cars: The average monthly vehicle payment in the last quarter of 2025 was $774.
• South Africa: President Cyril Ramaphosa sat down with The Times for an interview and talked about life as an ongoing target of Trump.
• Books: A former classmate sued Amy Griffin, a best-selling memoirist, saying that Griffin’s accounts of abuse in “The Tell” were taken from her own experiences.
• California: Britney Spears was arrested on suspicion of D.U.I.

TIME TO UNWIND

Tom Ford thrills in Paris

It’s the season for fashion weeks, so my colleague Jacob Gallagher has been bouncing around from New York to Milan to Paris, attending the biggest shows. Last night, he witnessed what is likely the best collection of the season.

It was Haider Ackermann’s third runway show as the designer of Tom Ford. The clothes, which included power suits and faded jeans, were exquisite, mature and sexy. They also felt real and sellable in a way that looks from other fashion houses have not.

Check out photos from the runway.

You’ve never seen ants like this before

There are at least 20 quadrillion ants on Earth. That’s 20 with 15 zeros following it, or roughly 2.5 million ants for every human. Most of us don’t spend much time closely looking at them, but a team of researchers has made it much easier.

They used a synchrotron particle accelerator in southwest Germany to scan thousands of ants and turn them into high-resolution 3-D images. The results allow scientists to peer inside tiny ant bodies and learn more about our abundant neighbors, and the entomological catwalk is free for everyone online.

Dinner table topics

• A Times Critic’s Pick: At this year’s Whitney Biennial, dozens of artists present an inspired discourse shaped by crisis, craft and community.
• Be safe: This parenting expert thinks your kids need more fire and knives.
• Cover up: Denmark’s statues tend to be of men — or nude women. So these knitters got to work.
• Should New York burn its parks? This scientist thinks so.

WHAT TO DO TONIGHT

Cook: Balance a crispy chicken schnitzel with a fresh cucumber salad.

Watch: “André Is an Idiot” follows a goofball in his 50s who approached dying with a laugh.

Listen to these 12 incredible Ray Barretto tracks.

Avoid: A.I. is good at many things. Taxes is not one of them.

Use these tips to get your steel pans shining again.

Hunt: Which Seattle home would you buy with a budget just over $600,000?

Play: Here are today’s Connections, Wordle and Mini Crossword. Find all our games here.

ONE LAST THING

They’re like the Partridge Family with iPhones

The members of the band Trueblood call one another “bro.” It may be because they’re teenagers from Southern California, but they’re also actual brothers. There is Cameron, an 18-year-old drummer; Dylan, a 16-year-old guitarist; Ethan, a 13-year-old bassist; and Mason, a 15-year-old frontman.

They built a huge following online by posting clips of themselves jamming in their garage to early 2000s rock like Linkin Park and the Killers — leading to a contract with Mercury Records. The videos, which are filmed by the boys’ father, feel like reassurance that kids still know how to have fun the way older generations once did.

Have a rocking evening.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow — Matthew

Eli Cohen was our photo editor.

We welcome your feedback. Reach us at evening@nytimes.com.

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