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President Donald Trump said the US has destroyed military targets on Kharg Island.
The island, located off the coast of Iran, is central to the country’s oil empire.
Trump said the strikes did not damage the island’s oil infrastructure.
President Donald Trump said late Friday that the US had “totally obliterated” military targets on Kharg Island, an island off the coast of Iran that is central to its oil empire.
“Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran’s crown jewel, Kharg Island,” Trump wrote.
“Our Weapons are the most powerful and sophisticated that the World has ever known but, for reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island,” he added.
“However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision,” Trump continued. “Iran has NO ability to defend anything that we want to attack — There is nothing they can do about it!”
Representatives for CENTCOM and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
What is Kharg Island?
Kharg Island is a small island in the Persian Gulf, located roughly 300 miles from the Strait of Hormuz, which is known for its significance to Iran’s oil production.
Refineries on the island process nearly all of the nation’s oil exports. Disruption to the facilities there could have a significant impact on the global oil shortage, further driving up costs.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Saturday morning was cold, rainy, and gray in northern New Jersey. The only place I wanted to be was curled up and cozy with my cat.
Instead, I dragged myself out of bed, drove to Target, and got in line at 7:30 a.m. to shop the retailer’s latest designer collaboration.
Target recently partnered with Roller Rabbit, a lifestyle brand known for its $128 pajamas. If you’re unfamiliar, ask your teen relatives. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are obsessed with its vibrant aesthetic and limited-edition prints.
As a 30-year-old millennial, I only learned about the brand in December when I saw young people flaunting their Roller Rabbit pajamas in holiday gift hauls.
In the name of journalism, though, I embraced the trend and joined fans to shop its Target pieces, which retail between $2 and $250 each, in-store.
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The experience was a little chaotic, but also enlightening. I think I finally understand the Roller Rabbit fascination.
Shoppers wait outside a Target store in New Jersey to shop the Roller Rabbit collaboration line.
Amanda Krause/Business Insider
The calm before the storm
Despite the cold drizzle, 12 people were waiting in line when I arrived at Target around 7:30 a.m. Within 20 minutes, nearly 30 shoppers (myself included) had gathered.
The crowd mostly included moms shopping for their tweens, a few couples, and a handful of children.
As they talked, it became clear that pajamas would be the hot-ticket item from the collection, which also included swimwear, suitcases, sweatshirts, and more.
“I’m here because I have the real ones, and these are $100 less,” I heard one shopper say.
A Target employee came outside a few minutes before the store opened at 8 a.m. and handed out paper tickets. Each could be used to redeem a free Roller Rabbit shopping bag. I didn’t know there were any freebies available, so this was a nice surprise.
My ticket to redeem a free Roller Rabbit shopping bag.
Amanda Krause/Business Insider
Slight chaos erupted as Target’s doors opened
When the store opened, some people went straight to the employee handing out free shopping bags, while others rushed to grab the merchandise on their wish lists.
As I approached the small Roller Rabbit section, I heard one mom whisper to her tween: “Run. Go get the pajamas you want.”
There were definitely fewer items available in-store than online. I saw a few racks of clothing, tables covered with accessories, and one cart with extra merchandise.
I was able to snap a single photo before the section was swarmed.
The Roller Rabbit x Target collection.
Amanda Krause/Business Insider
As expected, pajamas flew off the shelves almost instantly. I saw many people grabbing handfuls and then choosing their sizes.
Their approach seemed to work better than mine. I eyed the rack for a medium and watched sets get snatched up in front of me. In the end, I was only able to grab one pair.
After the pajamas were picked through, customers turned to the line’s other offerings. I saw people grabbing sweatsets, beach towels, and water bottles.
In many cases, I heard people say they were stocking up for friends and family just in case they wanted anything. People seemed to have a “buy now, decide later” mindset.
The Roller Rabbit section was busy and packed with shoppers.
Amanda Krause/Business Insider
Eventually, I left the crowd and went to Target’s dressing room to try on a few pieces of clothing.
My first impression of the line was positive. I really liked the shape and feel of the $25 terry-cloth pullover, which I could see myself wearing year-round. The $15 boxer shorts were also fun, comfortable, and multi-functional in terms of wear.
I was less impressed by the $45 drop waist midi dress, which I tried on in pink. Numerous stitches were coming apart, the fabric felt cheap, and the sizing was inconsistent. The medium was far too big, and the small didn’t fit either.
Target didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the quality.
I liked the brand’s pullover top and boxer shorts, but I wasn’t a fan of its midi dresses.
Amanda Krause/Business Insider
Then it was time to finally try Roller Rabbit’s famous pajamas.
Personally, I love a matching pajama set, but I’ve never felt the need to spend more than $30 on them. It’s safe to say I wouldn’t likely splurge on regular Roller Rabbit designs, made from 100% pima cotton.
Target’s version of the brand’s PJs cost $25 and are made from 95% cotton and 5% spandex. They fit me perfectly, and I found them to be soft, cozy, and, of course, cute. I loved the little cartoon animals printed across the blue-and-white design.
I purchased these pajamas and plan on keeping them.
Amanda Krause/Business Insider
Sure enough, I left with three out of the four pieces I tried on — everything except the dress. Admittedly, it was mostly FOMO (the fear of missing out) that led to my purchase.
I knew that if I didn’t buy the items I’d found in my size right then and there, my only option would be to buy them on the resale market for double the price. (Many sets are now listed on eBay for prices of $80 or more.) What if I didn’t buy them and regretted it?
Now that a few days have passed, I know that I’ll likely return the long-sleeve top. It was an impulse purchase that I like, but don’t love.
I will, however, keep the shorts and pajamas. They add fun pops of color to my wardrobe and are pretty high-quality considering the low prices.
So, have I been converted into a Roller Rabbit fan? Sort of.
I can’t say I’d buy any $128 pairs from Roller Rabbit’s website. No matter how soft they are, or how exclusive a print is, I can’t justify the price.
A Target collaboration, though, just makes sense. It’s a more accessible version of the Roller Rabbit brand that appeals to both young shoppers and curious minds like mine.
Nostalgically, the line also brought me back to a millennial version of this fad: Bobby Jack and Paul Frank pajamas at slumber parties.
In our modern world of Sephora tweens and kid influencers, it was refreshing to see young people excited about something as simple as pajamas decorated with cartoon monkeys. We’ve all been there.
Generative AI couldn’t have come along at a better time for Target.
That’s the assessment Target’s tech chief, Prat Vemana, told Business Insider after newly minted CEO Michael Fiddelke spent the morning laying out an ambitious turnaround strategy at the retailer’s Minneapolis headquarters.
The company had just reported its 13th consecutive quarter of weak sales — a stretch that saw big box competitors like Walmart and Costco gain market share — and leaders from across the organization were assembled to make the case that it was a new day at Target.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better time for AI to show up, because now we have a need. We have a bold agenda ahead of us,” Vemana said.
Target CEO Michael Fiddelke, who officially started in his new role in February, speaks at the retailer’s 2026 financial community meeting.
Dominick Reuter/Business Insider
By the numbers for the coming year alone, Target’s agenda is indeed bold: $1 billion in additional capital investments, $1 billion more in new operational commitments, 30 new stores, 130 remodels, overhauls to as much as 75% of the assortment in certain categories, and blisteringly fast product releases.
Fiddelke said the work is already paying off with an acceleration in February sales, and the company expects to report sales growth in every quarter of 2026.
Underpinning the success or failure of nearly every aspect of that strategy are a host of AI-powered tools developed by Vemana’s teams.
“Tech is a through-line in everything that we do,” Vemana said.
Target has a long tech legacy, but the competition is as fierce as ever
Target has long based marketing and operational decisions on vast troves of data, and it was an early mover in applying machine learning to its business.
The company’s predictive analytics department even became the subject of controversy in 2012 when it was revealed that buyer behavior could be used to infer something about a shopper so intimate as a pregnancy. (Whether or not it actually did is unclear.)
A decade-plus later, that almost seems quaint in the age of Meta AI glasses, Ring doorbells, and hackable robot vacuums. Indeed, an entire industry now generates astronomical revenues by anticipating users’ tiniest impulses.
Target has long used machine learning in its business, but now its rival are too.
Dominick Reuter/Business Insider
And in just the last few years, generative AI technologies started running laps around what their ML predecessors could do. Meanwhile giants like Amazon and Walmart are reaping the advantages that come with scale.
In other words, the competition caught up, and machine learning that was once such an advantage for Target is arguably less of a leg up in the hyper-paced world of AI.
But as companies around the world cite AI in trimming their tech workforces, Vemana said he needs his teams in the US and India to match the output of an even larger company.
“Generative AI actually opened up a completely other dimension of growth,” he said.
Target is investing in tools to help teams save time — and predict trends
For Target’s apparel teams, a new Trend Brain platform combines visual analysis of fashion photos with social media sentiment analysis in an effort to predict what styles will take off in the next season.
That lets designers pull a new designs together in a matter of weeks rather than months, positioning Target to rotate through collections nearly twice as fast as before, said Gena Fox, Target’s head of apparel.
It also gives the company an early alert for products that might not sell as strongly.
“We saw really early that polka dots were trending,” she added, referring to a line of swimsuits. “So we were actually able to go back and buy into that more and then move out of styles that weren’t performing as well.”
Target’s “Western Edit” series was designed using the Trend Brain platform.
Dominick Reuter/Business Insider
Trend Brain offers another advantage when it comes to handling the endless details of designing a fashion campaign.
“After a few hours of this, you’re going to skip a few things, right?” Vemana said. “AI doesn’t get tired.”
And as that product arrives in stores, managers and associates now have a new suite of Target-designed tools on their handheld Zebra scanners that simplify everything from planning displays, to prioritizing restocking tasks, to getting immediate support without having to go find a desktop computer and fill out forms.
“We really care about human touch — that’s what matters,” Vemana said. “Anything that gives time back to the team, they give back to the guest, and guest is happy.”
Meeting customers where and how they shop
Agentic shopping grabbed headlines last fall, and Target is among the first retailers to offer multi-item baskets through ChatGPT. It’s also one of Google’s partners in developing the open commerce protocol on Gemini.
But beyond those more obvious applications, Vemana said AI is helping the Target team deliver improvements to how customers shop with its app.
For starters, the executive said the way generative AI handles information required a complete overhaul of the app’s code base — a task that AI coding companions made much faster.
Target’s app is increasingly packed with AI features.
Dominick Reuter/Business Insider
“We’ve rewritten the entire app already — what would have taken years and years — in, like, 18 months,” he said.
And with a third of in-store shoppers using the app during their visits, the changes aren’t just for chatbots.
The app itself now has several customer-friendly features, like shopping list scanner tool that converts handwritten notes into a shoppable list, to a store mode that pins list items on a map of an actual location.
Target didn’t break out the full size of its AI investment, and a big question for companies implementing AI is whether the capital required to deploy it will generate a positive return on investment.
Vemana emphasized that Target views the tech as essential for its growth plan.
“It’s not just doing AI for the sake of doing AI,” he said. “We are foundationally strengthening so that we have the right kind of AI applied in the right places.”
New US video footage shows elements of its strikes on Iran, including the launching of missiles and fighters and the destruction of multiple targets.
The footage shared by US Central Command on Saturday shows destroyers firing missiles at sea and carriers launching combat aircraft. It also shows repeated strikes on Iranian military targets. It said its forces are “delivering an overwhelming and unrelenting blow.”
As the President stated, our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.
The President ordered bold action. CENTCOM forces are delivering an overwhelming and unrelenting blow. pic.twitter.com/B0k5gV4YnU
It did not specify exactly what was hit, or attribute each attack to the US or Israel, which jointly took part in the operation, dubbed Operation Epic Fury on the American side and Roaring Lion on the Israeli side.
It said the operation, which started Saturday morning, involved precision munitions launched from the air, land, and sea, and said it “involves the largest regional concentration of American military firepower in a generation.”
A US official also told Business Insider that the US launched Tomahawk cruise missiles from warships and that ground forces used the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS. Other weapons were also employed.
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The Israel Defense Forces said that it used around 200 fighters in what it described as “the largest military flyover in the history of the Israeli Air Force,” adding that the jets dropped hundreds of munitions “targeting approximately 500 objectives, including aerial defense systems and missile launchers, in a number of locations in Iran, simultaneously.”
Israel has also released footage showing an attack on missile launchers at a remote site in Iran.
US Central Command said attacks were intended to “dismantle the Iranian regime’s security apparatus, prioritizing locations that posed an imminent threat.” President Trump vowed to destroy Iran’s missile program and other military capabilities and said that the aim was for Iran to “never” have a nuclear weapon. He called on Iranian forces to surrender or face “certain death.”
: Smoke rises after Iran launched a missile attack in Bahrain.
Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images
CENTCOM said targets included “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command and control facilities, Iranian air defense capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and military airfields.”
Strikes have been reported across Iran, including at military sites and the residence of Iran’s supreme leader. Satellite imagery showed a burning Iranian warship in the aftermath of the initial strikes.
Iranian officials said that at least 85 people were killed at a girls’ elementary school, and the Iranian Red Crescent humanitarian group told the BBC that 201 people had been killed in the country.
After the start of the US and Israeli strikes, Iran launched counterattacks against Israel and against multiple nearby nations, many of which have bases that host US forces and are US allies. Those nations reported many successful interceptions, but also some damage. Details about Iran’s attacks are still emerging, and attacks may continue.
CENTCOM said that its forces had successfully defended against hundreds of Iranian missile and drone attacks. It said there was damage to US military facilities, but that it was minimal and did not impact operations.
Bahrain said the headquarters of the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, located in the country, was hit by an Iranian missile attack, without giving details on the extent of any damage.
Iran’s strikes also targeted Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Jordan. Some countries reported injuries from falling debris, including Kuwait, which said that three armed forces members had minor injuries from shrapnel from the interception of drones and ballistic missiles. The United Arab Emirates said one person was killed by falling debris in its capital, and four people were injured and taken to the hospital after an incident in a part of the city of Dubai that is known for luxury hotels.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the US and Israeli strikes “wholly unprovoked, illegal, and illegitimate.” Iran has vowed further action, and Israel has hinted that its actions so far only represent the beginning of its operation. The US has indicated the same.
Flights have been cancelled across the region, and multiple countries have closed their airspaces, resulting in major disruption for what is one of the world’s busiest flight routes.
Target is putting its style revamp on full display.
The big-box chain is on a mission to rebuild its reputation for style, and its SoHo location in New York City appears to be the centerpiece of that effort. The store has been reimagined with immersive and interactive displays.
The new look comes as operating chief and incoming CEO Michael Fiddelke has set his action plan to improve sales. It involvesredirecting Target toward a “style and design North Star” and enhancing the shopping experience to encourage people to spend more time browsing the aisles.
“To see this Target SoHo store is a punctuation point on that style of design and cultural leadership,” Fiddelke, who’s set to step into the CEO role in February, said at an exclusive preview of the revamped store. “It could not be more of a point of pride for me and, I know, the whole team.”
Members of the press got a preview of the remodel in December, and I returned a week later to see what it looked like on a typical day during the hectic holiday shopping season.
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Target introduced apparel at the SoHo store for the first time. Although the location is on the corner of a block that also houses brands like The North Face and Abercrombie & Fitch, Cara Sylvester, chief guest experience officer, told Business Insider that the location was previously tailored for locals and tourists to drop in for essentials like snacks or makeup. It didn’t carry Target’s clothing lines, such as Wild Fable, until now.
The retailer hopes clothes, showcased amid towering red displays, will help it make a bigger splash in the fashion-forward New York City neighborhood.
I browsed the bustling location to see the glow-up firsthand.
It was like walking into a literal bull’s-eye
The entrance of the SoHo Target was a wash of red.
Jordan Hart/Business Insider
The immersion started as soon as I walked into the store. I stepped into what looked like an actual bull’s-eye, mirroring Target’s logo. Red arches towered overhead with built-in racks lining the walls. Since I visited the store in December, it had a holiday theme with gift boxes and Christmas knickknacks in the center of the floor.
“We have a new look! There’s more where that came from,” a sign at the door read.
Gifts and apparel were on display
There were clearly trendy items on display at the front.
Jordan Hart/Business Insider
In the center of the store, Target advertised potential holiday gifts, including ever-popular Stanley tumblers for $50. The clothing racks featured on-trend styles, including glittering dresses in time for New Year’s and a deer-print fur coat.
The beauty section reminded me of a spaceship
The beauty section was unique, in my opinion.
Jordan Hart/Business Insider
Finally, it was time to visit my favorite section in every Target: the beauty department. This beauty section, however, looked totally new. It reminded me of a spaceship, with its gray tone and the circular displays, on which the products were arranged.
I appreciated the design of the layout, but it was a bit closed off, making it a tight fit to truly shop for whatever products you’re looking for.
There was a small photo booth
There were a few photo opportunities throughout the store.
Jordan Hart/Business Insider
Tucked into the corner of the beauty section was an interactive feature that I hadn’t seen at Target before. It was a place to take and download a selfie. First, you snap a picture, then it prints a digital receipt for you to scan with your phone to download the image.
When I tried it during my visit, however, the machine was out of paper.
The lower level looked like any other Target store
The lower level looked more familiar.
Jordan Hart/Business Insider
I took the escalator downstairs, and it was business as usual. It looked like the aisles of your neighborhood Target, with snacks, produce, and a small home goods section.
Target’s Alpine holiday theme was present throughout the 2-story store
I came across a gondola that reminded me of another Target location.
Jordan Hart/Business Insider
Target’s holiday branding this year features an Alpine theme, designed to make the stores more welcoming and inviting.
I noticed a display not unlike a gondola I came across in another Target location this holiday season. Several people, including myself, stopped to snap photos of the gondola overflowing with silver globes and lined with plush toys.
I appreciated this thread connecting the different locations, and it felt like the right touch for this Target store, which also had unique touches.Sylvester told me the red arches wouldn’t be replicated the same way elsewhere.
Overall, I loved the immersive experience this store offered, and I think it gave Target a refreshed vibe that reminded me more of a niche apparel store than a big-box retailer.
