By Zachary Cohen, Haley Britzky, CNN

(CNN) — The US struck multiple targets in Syria on Friday that the US military tied to ISIS as retaliation for the recent attack against American troops there that killed two service members, according to two US officials.

Dubbed “Operation Hawkeye,” a reference to the fact that the two US soldiers killed were from the “Hawkeye State” of Iowa, the strikes hit dozens of targets the military connected to ISIS — including infrastructure and weapons storage sites across Syria, one of the officials said.

After the attack on December 13 that killed the two soldiers and a civilian interpreter, US and partner forces conducted 10 operations resulting in the death or detention of around 23 people, that official added. Those operations also yielded intelligence from electronics gathered during the operations that provided information contributing to targeting for the strikes, according to the same US official.

Hundreds of American troops continue to be deployed to Syria as part of the US’ longstanding mission to combat ISIS, a mission that began when ISIS rapidly took control of a large chunk of Syria and Iraq in the mid 2010s. Subsequently, US and partner operations, paired with a change in regime in Syria, largely eliminated that territorial control.

The goal of Operation Hawkeye is to deliver a big blow to ISIS remnants in Syria and their ability to pose a threat to US forces in the region, the same official told CNN.

Partner nations, including Jordan, joined the US in the strikes, the official said.

While the Trump administration vowed retaliation against ISIS in the wake of the December 13 attack, CNN has reported that Syria’s Ministry of Interior Affairs said the attacker had been a part of Syria’s Internal Security service. US and Syrian officials acknowledged to CNN that the gunman’s ties to ISIS are not entirely clear-cut; ISIS has not claimed responsibility for the attack.

The two US service members killed in Syria were identified this week as Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, Iowa, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, Iowa. They were killed while engaging hostile forces in Palmyra, Syria, the US Army said. Both soldiers were assigned to the Iowa National Guard’s 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division.

Three additional Iowa National Guard members were wounded in the attack and evacuated for further medical treatment.

“Our priority right now is supporting the families of our fallen and wounded soldiers,” Maj. Gen. Stephen Osborne, adjutant general of the Iowa National Guard, previously said in a statement. “The entire Iowa National Guard grieves for this terrible loss, and we stand together to support the soldiers and their families.”

Roughly 1,800 Iowa National Guard soldiers began deploying to the Middle East earlier this year as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, a release from Gov. Kim Reynold’s office said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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By Chris Isidore, CNN

(CNN) — The Delaware Supreme Court has restored a massive pay package awarded to Tesla CEO Elon Musk in 2018 that had twice been voided by a lower court judge.

The package awarded Musk the option to purchase 303 million split-adjusted shares, a package worth $139 billion at Friday’s closing share price. Delaware Chancery Court Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, who oversaw the bench, had found that even though Tesla shareholders twice approved the compensation plan, the size of the package was unfair to shareholders.

She wrote that the Tesla board “bore the burden of proving that the compensation plan was fair, and they failed to meet their burden.”

But the Supreme Court ruled Friday that the lower court erred in its opinion and that tossing out the 2018 pay package was “inequitable” and that doing so “leaves Musk uncompensated for his time and efforts over a period of six years.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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By Taylor Nicioli, CNN

(CNN) — Along with its many other innovations, the Roman Empire revolutionized architecture with never-before-seen features, such as large-scale arches and dome roofs. And many of these structures still stand today despite being more than 2,000 years old.

None of it would have been possible without the Romans’ infallible building material: self-healing concrete. Now, an ancient construction site has revealed the recipe for creating this sturdy foundation.

At the time Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, covering Pompeii in as much as 6 meters (19.7 feet) of volcanic ash, construction workers were in the process of repairing and renovating a house. International researchers excavated the site in 2023, revealing some completed walls and others that were half-built, as well as raw materials and tools.

“When I entered this archaeological site in Pompeii, everything was so vivid and also kind of perfectly preserved, to be able to just reconstruct clearly what was going on there,” said Admir Masic, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and lead author of a new study documenting the discovery. “They’re frozen in time. It’s literally a time capsule.”

The findings, which were published December 9 in the journal Nature Communications, are the clearest evidence of mixing processes that the ancient Romans used to create concrete, according to a release from MIT — and they allow researchers to “make conclusions that we were not able to make, or at least not with this certainty about the Roman technology,” Masic told CNN.

Uncovering an active construction site

About one-third of Pompeii remains to be excavated, enabling scientists to continue making new discoveries about the ancient Roman way of life. The active construction site described in the new study was first investigated in the late 1880s, but excavations were halted and did not begin again until 2023. It was then that Masic’s team realized the magnitude of its discovery.

“This is typical for Pompeii. Archaeologists are just slowly but surely, you know, uncovering parts,” Masic said. “I think there is this kind of standard, very cautious way of excavating, because once excavated, you actually break that time capsule and things start to degrade. … You basically remove that protection that ensures that everything is perfectly preserved.”

After excavations, the study authors performed analysis on evidence found at the site, including piles of mixed dry materials that builders had been using to create the concrete, a wall that was in the process of being built and other structural walls that were already completed.

But this discovery was not the first that Masic made on the recipe for Roman concrete. A paper he authored in 2023 had analyzed samples from a 2,000-year-old city wall in the archaeological site of Privernum in central Italy. In that article, he identified lime clasts in the wall — small, white mineral chunks that give the concrete a self-healing ability. When cracks formed, water or rainfall could be added, which would dissolve the lime, allowing the mineral to fill and seal the fractures as it dried and recrystallized.

Differing recipes

Masic and his team determined that these minerals were added through a process known as “hot-mixing” in which the lime fragments were combined with dry ingredients such as volcanic ash. Water was then

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NIPOMO, Calif. (KEYT) – Victor Manuel VillaMedina, 67, of Nipomo was arrested Wednesday of this week for the alleged multi-year abuse of at least two children.

On Dec. 15, a report of child sexual abuse was received and detectives started an investigation into the allegations stated a press release from the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office.

During the investigation, two children under the age of 14 were identified and the alleged abuse started several years ago detailed the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office.

Also identified during the investigation was the alleged perpetrator, 67-year-old Victor Manuel VillaMedina of Nipomo, and, "[i]t was determined VillaMedina committed various sexual acts with both victims over the course of the past few years" added the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office.

VillaMedina was arrested on Dec. 17, 2025, and booked on multiple counts of lewd acts on a child under the age of 14, sexual penetration with force with a victim ten years or younger, sexual penetration of a victim ten years or younger, and aggravated sexual assault of a minor by force noted the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office.

The investigation into VillaMedina is ongoing and anyone with additional information or know more survivors is asked to contact the Sheriff's Detective Division at 805-781-4500.

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