Tracy Mumford

Today's Thursday, March 26th.

Here's what we're covering.

In a landmark case yesterday, Meta and YouTube were found to be negligent in how they've built the platforms that have become a huge part of modern life.

The case was brought by a young woman who said that she started using social media almost constantly around age six, and that it led to anxiety, depression, and thoughts of self-harm.

She testified that features like infinite scroll and constant new recommendations from algorithms kept her hooked, saying, quote, I just felt like I wanted to be on it all the time.

If I wasn't on it, I was going to miss out on something.

The jury agreed.

And Ryan says while the damages she was ultimately awarded of $6 million are obviously just a drop in the bucket for the trillion-dollar companies involved, the moment is bigger than that.

This is just one of thousands of lawsuits filed by teenagers, school districts, and states against social media platforms.

And it could pave the way for more, potentially exposing the internet giants to bigger financial penalties and even forcing them to change their products.

The verdict has essentially validated a novel legal theory that social media can be addictive and as harmful as products like cigarettes.

That's led to this being called social media's big tobacco moment, a callback to when companies like Philip Morris were accused of hiding information about the harms of smoking.

Those companies ultimately reached a $200-plus billion settlement.

After that, many tobacco regulations went into place and smoking declined.

In Iran, the Israeli military is in an all-out race to strike as many targets as it possibly can as part of a 48-hour blitz ordered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

According to senior Israeli officials, Netanyahu ordered the strikes after the

The idea of the U.S.

potentially moving to wrap up the conflict alarmed Netanyahu and other top advisers who feel they haven't fully accomplished their goals yet.

That includes making sure Iran can't build a nuclear weapon and stopping it from being able to fire ballistic missiles.

Some Israeli security officials told The Times the country still has an extensive list of sites it could go after in Iran.