U.S.-Iran talks are expected to be held in Oman on Friday, sources told CBS News, after the U.S. military said it shot down an Iranian drone and Iranian forces threatened to seize a U.S.-flagged vessel. 

Iran had objected to holding the talks in Turkey, which was the initial proposed location.

Iran is seeking direct talks with the U.S. without the usual third party intermediary, according to two sources — an Arab diplomat and a source familiar with the matter. The direct format has long been sought by the Trump administration.

White House spokespeople didn’t immediately comment.

The United States does not have formal diplomatic relations with Tehran and Iran is still designated as a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. government.

Ahead of the talks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff on Tuesday in Israel. Netanyahu told Witkoff that Iran has proven its promises cannot be relied upon, according to a readout from the meeting.

Israel remains skeptical of the diplomacy that Arab and Turkish allies of the U.S. have scrambled to put together to avoid U.S. strikes against Iran.

Drone and tanker incidents 

The U.S. military said a Shahed-139 drone “aggressively” approached the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier as it was moving through the Arabian Sea roughly 500 miles from the southern coast of Iran on Tuesday. The drone flew toward the carrier “despite de-escalatory measures taken by U.S. forces operating in international waters,” U.S. Central Command spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins said in a statement. 

“An F-35C fighter jet from Abraham Lincoln shot down the Iranian drone in self-defense and to protect the aircraft carrier and personnel on board,” Hawkins said. “No American service members were harmed during the incident, and no U.S. equipment was damaged.”

Hours later, in the Strait of Hormuz, an Iranian drone and two Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps boats “threatened to board and seize” a U.S.-flagged tanker, Hawkins said.

The U.S.-crewed merchant vessel, the M/V Stena Imperative, was “lawfully transiting the international sea passage,” he said. The situation de-escalated after the USS McCaul responded to the scene and escorted the tanker with air support.

U.S. military buildup near Iran

The U.S. has built up military presence near Iran in recent days. The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and three destroyers were in the Arabian Sea as of Tuesday, according to a Navy official. Other destroyers were positioned in the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, while three littoral combat ships were in the Persian Gulf. 

Mr. Trump told reporters last month that the military was sending ships to the Middle East “just in case,” as his administration watched Iran’s response to massive protests that broke out in December. Thousands of protesters are believed to have been killed in a crackdown on the demonstrations.

The president told reporters last week he has had conversations with Iranian officials and planned to hold more discussions.

“I told them two things: No. 1, no nuclear. And No. 2, stop killing protesters,” the president said. “They’re going to have to do something.”

Iran’s supreme leader has warned that any attack by the U.S. would spark a “regional war” in the Middle East.

The U.S. struck nuclear sites in Iran last summer.

LONDON — The former Prince Andrew has moved out of his long-time home on crown-owned land near Windsor Castle earlier than expected after the latest release of documents from the U.S. investigation of Jeffrey Epstein revived questions about his friendship with the convicted sex offender.

The 65-year-old brother of King Charles III, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, left the Royal Lodge in Windsor on Monday and is now living on the king’s Sandringham estate in eastern England, a person familiar with the matter said. British media reported that Mountbatten-Windsor will live temporarily at Wood Farm Cottage while his permanent home on the estate undergoes repairs.

Mountbatten-Windsor’s move to Sandringham was announced in October when Charles stripped him of his royal titles amid continuing revelations about his links to Epstein. But the former prince was expected to remain at Royal Lodge, where he has lived for more than 20 years, until the spring.

The expedited departure came as Thames Valley Police announced that they were investigating allegations that Epstein flew a second woman to Britain to have sex with Mountbatten-Windsor. A lawyer for the alleged victim told the BBC that the encounter took place in 2010 at Royal Lodge.

The allegations are separate from those made by Virginia Giuffre, who claimed she had been trafficked to Britain to have sex with Andrew in 2001, when she was just 17. Giuffre died by suicide last year.

Mountbatten-Windsor has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in his relationship with Epstein. He hasn’t responded publicly to the new trafficking allegation.

Mountbatten-Windsor features a number of times in the 3 million pages of documents the U.S. Department of Justice released on Friday.

Correspondence between Epstein and someone believed to be Mountbatten-Windsor show Epstein offering to arrange a date between the man and a 26-year-old Russian woman. The man, who signs off simply as “A,” later suggests that he and Epstein have dinner in London, either at a restaurant or Buckingham Palace.

The former prince’s residence at Royal Lodge has long been a point of contention between the king and his brother.

After Charles became king in 2022, he tried to force his brother to move into a smaller house on the Windsor Castle estate. Mountbatten-Windsor refused, citing a lease on the property that ran through 2078.

But the pressure for him to leave became irresistible in October as lawmakers and the public raised questions about the favorable terms of Mountbatten-Windsor’s lease on the 30-room house and surrounding estate, which is managed by the Crown Estate.

The Crown Estate controls properties throughout the country that are technically owned by the monarchy but are managed for the benefit of British taxpayers.

By contrast, the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk is the personal property of the king.

London — Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the younger brother of King Charles II who was previously known as Prince Andrew, has moved out of his sprawling Royal Lodge home in Windsor as further details emerge about his relationship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Mountbatten-Windsor’s move to Sandringham, King Charles’ massive private estate in Norfolk, eastern England, was announced by Buckingham Palace in October and had been expected in early 2026. 

No formal announcement was made by the royal family about the move, but CBS News understands that, as of Wednesday morning, Mountbatten-Windsor was living in Sandringham.

The quiet move came days after the U.S. Department of Justice released 3 million more documents and photos relating to Epstein, several of which reveal previously-unknown contacts between the former prince and the disgraced pedophile financier.

The documents published by the U.S. government include a 2011 letter from a lawyer claiming then-Prince Andrew and Epstein asked an unidentified “exotic dancer” to “engage in various sex acts” during a party with “other young women dressed provocatively,” some of whom “appeared to be as young as 14 years old.”

“Mr. Epstein and Prince Andrew then told my client they wanted to have a threesome,” the lawyer for the woman — who died in 2020 — writes in the letter. 

“After the men had satisfied themselves,” the letter continues, “they invited my client to take a trip with them to the Virgin Islands. She declined their invitation. She was then chauffeured back to the strip club.”

The lawyer goes on to allege that the woman was not paid what she was promised, and that she later agreed to keep her “interactions” with Epstein and Mountbatten-Windsor private in return for $250,000.

The files also include an alleged exchange in 2010 between Mountbatten-Windsor and Epstein in which the royal invites Epstein to have dinner at Buckingham Palace. In his reply, Epstein mentions that he is with several women, whose names are redacted, and he offers to “bring them all. So as to add some life.” 

“Yes, plenty of space here for chat,” Mountbatten-Windsor replies in the apparent exchange. “Bring them.”

In another email from a month before, Mountbatten-Windsor allegedly wrote to Epstein: “God it’s cold and dank here! Wish I was still a pet in your family!”

There were also photos released by the Justice Department, including an image in which Mountbatten-Windsor appears to be on all fours over a woman, whose face is obscured, lying on the floor. In another, he is shown touching a woman of the same appearance on the waist, looking down at her, and in a third his hand is seen on her stomach.

The woman’s identity, along with the location and date of the image, are unknown, but the revelations have piled more pressure on the king’s brother to explain himself. 

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor under pressure to testify

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Saturday that Mountbatten-Windsor should cooperate with investigators.

“In terms of testifying, I’ve always said anybody who’s got information should be prepared to share that information in whatever form they’re asked to do that, because you can’t be victim-centered if you’re not prepared to do that,” Starmer said.

Speaking to CBS News’ partner network BBC News on Wednesday, Epstein survivor Lisa Phillips said Andrew testifying, “would be everything.”

Mountbatten-Windsor has not replied to a request from U.S. House Oversight Committee members to hold a “transcribed interview” about his “long-standing friendship” with Epstein.

CBS News has reached out to Mountbatten-Windsor’s representatives for comment. He has not responded so far, and in the past has always denied any wrongdoing.

King Charles stripped his brother of his royal titles last year, after intense scrutiny over his friendship with Epstein and accusations made by Virginia Giuffre that she was trafficked to engage in sex with Mountbatten-Windsor when she was underage. 

Mountbatten-Windsor denied those allegations, but reached a settlement with Giuffre in 2022, paying her around  $16 million, according to British media reports. Giuffre died by suicide last year.

A sexual encounter at a royal residence?

On Tuesday, Thames Valley Police, which covers several counties in the south of England, said it was assessing allegations reported by the BBC that Epstein had sent a second woman to the U.K. for a sexual encounter with Mountbatten-Windsor.

The alleged encounter occurred at Royal Lodge in Windsor, Andrew’s former home, in 2010, according to the BBC.

“We’re talking about at least one woman” apart from Giuffre, “who was sent by Jeffrey Epstein over to Prince Andrew,” the unidentified second woman’s lawyer, Brad Edwards, told the British public broadcaster.

The woman, in her 20s at the time, was given tea and a tour of Buckingham Palace after spending the night at the Royal Lodge, according to Edwards. According to the BBC, it is the first time an alleged Epstein survivor has claimed to have had a sexual encounter at a royal residence.

Mountbatten-Windsor moved to Sandringham — a 31-square mile estate with a number of separate houses — Monday night, but sources familiar with the matter said he could revisit Windsor over the coming weeks as he completes his move.

The former prince was last seen in Windsor on Monday, riding a horse near his former home.  

Justifying the decision last October to remove his royal titles and end his lease of the Royal Lodge in Windsor, Buckingham Palace said in a statement that the measures were “deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that [Mountbatten-Windsor] continues to deny the allegations against him.”

The palace statement added that King Charles and Queen Camilla “wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”

BELGRADE, Serbia — A Serbian government minister and three others went on trial on Wednesday on charges of abuse of office and falsifying of documents to help pave the way for a real estate project that was to be financed by a company of Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

Kushner has since withdrawn from the planned multi-million investment that envisaged building a high-rise hotel, a luxury apartment complex, office spaces and shops to replace a sprawling bombed-out military complex in central Belgrade.

The plan was backed by the government of Serbia’s autocratic President Aleksandar Vucic who had said it would help improve ties with the U.S. But the Serbian public and international heritage groups opposed the idea to turn a protected cultural heritage zone into a commercial compound.

Built by a prominent 20th century Yugoslav architect, Nikola Dobrović, the building was damaged in the 1999 U.S.-led NATO bombing of Serbia over Kosovo. The building is considered a masterpiece of modernist architecture, and heritage groups have called for it to be preserved and revitalized.

Many Serbs are still angry over the air war, launched to stop Belgrade’s crackdown against separatist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

Culture Minister Nikola Selakovic, who is a close ally of Vucic, and three other officials are accused of illegally lifting the protection status in 2024 for the site by forging documentation. If convicted they could face up to three years in prison. They pleaded not guilty as the trial opened.

Dozens of anti-government protesters chanting “thieves!” had gathered outside the organized crime court building as the defendants arrived.

The trial comes days after the Serbian parliament passed a set of legal changes seen as an attempt to curb the independence of Serbia’s judiciary, particularly of the organized crime prosecutors who have been handling high-profile cases.

The European Union’s Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos urged Serbia to retract the amendments, describing them as “a serious step back on Serbia’s EU path.”

Prosecutors on Wednesday held a 10-minute silent protest outside their offices against the changes.

Vucic, who has faced more than a year of street protests over a Nov. 2024 train station disaster, has launched a crackdown on protesters and moved to strengthen control over the police and other state institutions to tighten his grip on power. Many in Serbia blamed the collapse of a concrete canopy at the train station in the northern city of Novi Sad on sloppy renovation work fueled by corruption. Sixteen people died in the crash, triggering massive demonstrations.

Almost daily youth-led protests have shaken Vucic’s tough rule in the Balkan country for the first time since his right-wing populist party came to power over a decade ago.

Vucic formally has promised to take Serbia into the EU but he has forged close ties with Russia and China while clamping down on democratic freedoms. He has labeled organized crime prosecutors as a “corrupt gang” and “criminals.”

The Washington Post announced sweeping layoffs Wednesday, with cuts expected to greatly reduce some coverage areas at the storied 150-year-old newspaper.

The wide-ranging job losses primarily affected the sports, books and podcast units, according to a source familiar with the situation. Foreign desks were also heavily impacted, along with cuts to business and national teams.

Roughly one-third of the company was affected by the layoffs, a Washington Post spokesperson said.

“The Washington Post is taking a number of difficult but decisive actions today for our future, in what amounts to a significant restructuring across the company,” the spokesperson told NBC News.

The Post, which has won dozens of Pulitzer prizes — most famously for its Watergate coverage that led to then-President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974 — has been owned since 2013 by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Though many American newspapers have struggled financially in recent years, Bezos is the fourth-richest person in the world, with a net worth of about $260 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index. That hasn’t spared the paper from layoffs. The latest round of layoffs follows a 4% staff cut roughly a year ago, though those cuts did not affect the newsroom.

In response to the announcement, the Washington Post Guild, which represents hundreds of newsroom employees, said the staff has been reduced by 400 people over the last three years. “These layoffs are not inevitable. A newsroom cannot be hollowed out without consequences of its credibility, its reach and its future,” the union said.

The announcement follows recent scrutiny over newsroom budget decisions, including the paper’s shifting plans around Winter Olympics coverage.

As first reported by The New York Times, the paper initially told more than a dozen journalists it would no longer send them to cover the Winter Olympics in Italy, less than three weeks before the Games were set to begin. After public criticism, including from prominent sports journalists, the paper reversed course again and now expects to send four reporters, NBC News confirmed.

In a statement, former Executive Editor Marty Baron said Wednesday’s announcement “ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations.”

Reaction also came in from former Post journalists. Ashley Parker, now at The Atlantic, wrote in an op-ed that “we’re witnessing a murder,” and accused Post management of trying to, “kill what makes the paper special.”

Parker left in late 2024, after the Post abruptly killed its planned presidential endorsement of Democrat Kamala Harris.

“The Post wasn’t the same paper that had recruited me,” wrote Parker, and she did not want to work for “an owner and publisher who couldn’t articulate a vision and confused contempt for the newsroom with a business plan.”

And ahead of the layoffs, members from the Post’s local desk wrote in an open letter dated Jan. 27 to Bezos that they had been warned their section would be “decimated” and left “unrecognizable,” urging leadership to preserve the paper’s local coverage.

Similarly, the guild had also warned in the days leading up to Wednesday’s announcement that the cuts could “potentially leave our newsroom even smaller than the one [Bezos] purchased — and losing twice as much money.”

Several journalists confirmed in posts on X that they were among those laid off. They include: Caroline O’Donovan, who covers Amazon at the Post; Nicole Asbury, an education reporter covering Maryland; and Emmanuel Felton, a race and ethnicity reporter, who wrote, “this wasn’t a financial decision, it was an ideological one.”

Meanwhile, the cuts were so extensive that at least one manager sought to leave ahead of the announcement, rather than stay and oversee the loss of so many colleagues. Peter Finn, the Post’s international editor, asked to be laid off after he learned about the planned cuts to his section.

The media industry has entered a broader period of reckoning, with both legacy players — from broadcast giants to newspapers — and digital outlets grappling with rising costs and debt-ridden balance sheets as audiences shift how they consume news.

Declining advertising revenue and intensifying competition have pushed companies to accelerate cost-cutting moves and restructure plans across the industry.

As a result, recent years have been marked by repeated rounds of layoffs and consolidation as media companies attempt to realign their businesses with a rapidly evolving landscape.

Most recently, Netflix has moved to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery as consolidation pressures intensify, while rival Paramount Global continues to pursue its own bid after merging with Skydance Media last year. CBS, under the new leadership of Bari Weiss, is also seeking to reinvent itself and has reportedly been considering additional layoffs. Weiss, the founder of the heterodox opinion publication The Free Press, joined CBS News as editor-in-chief last year.

But signs of strain across the industry have been building for years. Disney underwent a major restructuring in 2023, cutting roughly 7,000 jobs and reorganizing the business ahead of a planned CEO transition later this year.

Legacy newspapers have also been hit hard. The Los Angeles Times has carried out multiple rounds of layoffs in recent years, most recently enacting another 6% reduction to its newsroom in mid-2025.

The shift to digital-first platforms has not insulated news organizations from cuts, either. BuzzFeed shuttered its news division in 2023, while Vice Media filed for bankruptcy the same year. Business Insider also recently cut more than 20% of its workforce as it scaled back in some areas, while simultaneously accelerating its adoption of artificial intelligence — another area of investment permanently reshaping the industry.

And last year, as its corporate parent, Comcast, prepared to spin off its cable channels as Versant, NBC News Group laid off about 150 employees, representing about 2% of its workforce.

Kyiv — Ukraine’s top negotiator Rustem Umerov confirmed Wednesday that a new round of trilateral peace talks involving Ukraine, Russia and the U.S. had begun in Abu Dhabi. The parties first met in the Emirati capital at the end of January, kicking off the first three-way negotiations since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost four years ago.

U.S. officials labeled the first round “the most constructive of the war,” and they do appear to have led to the recent “energy truce,” with both sides halting attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure for four days. 

But whatever momentum might have been generated by the first round of talks in January appeared to have dissipated by the start of the second gathering.

Russia broke the brief truce in thundering fashion between Monday night and Tuesday morning, launching 450 drones and more than 60 missiles at Ukraine, according to Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, who said the strikes had left 1,170 apartment buildings in Kyiv without heating.

Representatives from DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, told CBS News the strikes were “one of the worst attacks” on the country’s energy infrastructure of the entire war.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the strikes evidence that Russia’s leaders, “do not take diplomacy seriously.”

“These attacks did not come as a surprise to anyone. This is what Russia does,” Yuriy Sak, an advisor to Ukraine’s Ministry of Strategic Industries, told CBS News. “On the one side, they continue to say they are interested in peace. On the other side, they destroy our infrastructure, bomb our people, and people are left without heat during these freezing months.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said ahead of the negotiations in Abu Dhabi that Russian forces were “striking targets they believe are associated with the Kyiv regime’s military complex, and the operation continues.”

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who visited Kyiv shortly after the attacks this week, said in a social media post that he had visited “a civilian heating plant” hit by Russian missiles on Tuesday. “No military value whatsoever — attacks meant only to make people suffer.”

What to expect from the trilateral talks today

Two major sticking points have long hampered President Trump’s efforts to get Russia and Ukraine to agree on a peace deal: Russian demands for Ukraine to formally cede territory Russia has occupied in the eastern Donbas region, and Ukrainian demands for credible guarantees from Western powers for protection if Russia tries to attack again after a ceasefire is reached.

Zelenksyy made it clear late last year that the question of territorial concessions remained the biggest hurdle in the talks. It is unlikely to be resolved during this round of negotiations, according to Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson Georgiy Tykhyi, who told reporters as the talks began that, “the most sensitive and complex issues, such as territorial issues,” will be left for the countries’ heads of state to discuss. 

But progress could be made on other issues, including how security guarantees for Ukraine would work once a hypothetical ceasefire does take effect. 

Ukraine and Russia have again sent delegations led by key military figures. Ukraine’s team includes Kyrylo Budanov, the former head of military intelligence who now serves as Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, while the Russian delegation is led by Igor Kostyukov, the head of the GRU military intelligence service.

These are the same negotiators who met in Abu Dhabi at the end of January, which Sak, the Ukrainian advisor, said could help keep things moving, at least on the technical aspects of a peace deal. 

“When military guys meet military guys, they can make progress, they speak the same language,” he said. “The concrete measures and steps within security guarantees — the military guys on both sides are well placed to discuss.”

“I personally remain slightly skeptical of some solid outcome, but at the same time, I am surrounded by people here in Ukraine who believe that some real outcome might be possible soon,” Sak said. “When the moment comes and the leaders meet, the nuances and details will be worked out and hopefully we can reach a compromise that is just for Ukraine and just for the world.”

LONDON — The British government has agreed to release emails and other documents casting light on the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States despite his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

The move came after the opposition Conservative Party said it would force a vote in Parliament on Wednesday calling for the release of emails and other messages related to Mandelson’s appointment in 2024. Critics say he should never have been given the job because his relationship with Epstein – though not its extent – was known at the time.

The government has agreed to release the requested information unless it is ”prejudicial to U.K. national security or international relations.” It’s unclear how much material will be released, or when.

Mandelson, 72, was fired in September from his job as envoy in Washington after emails were published showing he maintained a friendship with Epstein after the late financier’s conviction for sex offenses involving a minor.

This week he resigned from the House of Lords and faces a police investigation for alleged misconduct in public office, after a trove of documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice suggested Mandelson may have shared sensitive information with Epstein when he was government minister a decade and a half ago.

In 2009 he appears to have told Epstein he would lobby other members of the government to reduce a tax on bankers’ bonuses, and passed on an internal government report discussing a potential sale of U.K. government assets. The following year he appears to have tipped off Epstein about an imminent bailout of the European single currency.

The newly released files also suggest that in 2003-2004, Epstein sent three payments totaling $75,000 to accounts linked to Mandelson or his partner Reinaldo Avila da Silva.

Misconduct in public office carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. Opening an investigation does not mean Mandelson will be arrested, charged or convicted.

An email requesting comment on the documents was sent to Mandelson through the House of Lords.

Epstein died by suicide in a jail cell in 2019, while awaiting trial on U.S. federal charges accusing him of sexually abusing dozens of girls.