Hello and thank you for joining us on the US politics live blog. The US military conducted another deadly strike on a boat suspected of carrying illegal narcotics on Thursday, the Pentagon said, killing four men in the eastern Pacific as questions continue to mount over the legality such attacks. US navy admiral Frank Bradley and the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Dan Caine, had appeared on Thursday before the House and Senate’s armed services and intelligence committees for a closed briefing about a particular attack on 2 September that has come under scrutiny over whether the military had been ordered to issue a second strike upon survivors after an earlier attack. While both Democratic and Republican lawmakers in Congress said that the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, had not ordered the military to kill surviving members of the 2 September attack, they clashed over whether the double strike was appropriate – particularly after video of the incident was played during Thursday’s closed briefing.“What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service,” Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House armed services committee, said after exiting the meeting. However, he said that Bradley had “confirmed that there had not been a ‘kill them all’ order, and there was not an order to grant no quarter”. Hegseth, who is also in hot water after a report by the Pentagon’s inspector general concluded that he had violated departmental policies when he shared secret information in a Signal messaging chat in March, has sought to downplay his own involvement in the 2 September attack. But the US southern command in Florida was clear in its social media post announcing the latest overnight strike that it had come “at the direction” of Hegseth. In other developments: The supreme court ruled on Thursday to allow Texas to use a redrawn that adds as many as five Republican-friendly congressional districts.
