Donald Trump went off on a rant about his bombing campaign in Iran during his interview to discuss his visit to China.

“The Iran nuclear deal was the worst deal, one of the worst deals ever made. If I didn’t go in and terminate that deal, Iran would have a nuclear weapon, and they would have used it,” he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in the interview which aired Thursday night from Beijing.

“We wouldn’t even, maybe, sitting here right now, they would have used it.”

He added: “If I didn’t go in with B2 bombers that day, that week they would right now have a nuclear bomb.”

Remote-controlled guns will soon become a part of the British army’s artillery as part of a £1bn investment in defence.

British soldiers will have access to 72 Remote-Controlled Howitzers 155mm (RCH-155), capable of firing eight rounds per minute at targets up to 70km (43.5 miles) away.

The remote-controlled gun will be mounted on a Boxer chassis that can redeploy at speeds of up to 100kmph (62mph), making it harder for adversaries to target, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said. The platform can be operated at the push of a button from a crew compartment by just two soldiers.

Pope Leo XIV on Thursday denounced how investments in artificial intelligence and high-tech weaponry were leading the world into a “spiral of annihilation,” as he called for peace in the Middle East and Ukraine during a visit to Europe’s largest university.

Leo’s speech at Rome’s La Sapienza University marked the first time a pope has visited the campus since Pope Benedict XVI called off a planned speech there in 2008 in the face of protests from faculty and students.

The American pope was warmly welcomed on Thursday, including by some of Sapienza’s newest students: Young Palestinians who arrived in Italy this week on a “humanitarian corridor” from Gaza to continue their studies at the university.

Iraqi officials have approached the International Monetary Fund about securing financial assistance as a result of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, a source close to the IMF and an Iraqi government official told Reuters on Thursday.

Initial conversations took place during last month’s spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, and discussions are ongoing about how much funding Iraq would need and how any loan would be structured, the source close to the IMF said.

An Iraqi official advising on financial policy said Iraq is in preliminary discussions with the IMF and World Bank over a loan to finance the country’s budget, given a sharp revenue shortfall caused by halted oil exports following the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The official said the talks were expected to be finalised once a new government is in place.

The US House of Representatives has narrowly defeated a Democratic-led resolution aiming to stop the Iran war until hostilities are authorized by Congress.

However, the effort to rein in President Donald Trump’s military campaign failed by the closest possible margin.

The House voted 212 to 212 on the war powers resolution, meaning it failed because it needed a simple majority to pass.

It was the third House vote this year on an Iran war powers resolution, and the first since the conflict hit a 60-day deadline on May 1 for Trump to come to Congress about the war. At that time Trump had declared that the conflict had been “terminated”.

Secretary of state Marco Rubio has said that the US will not allow Iran to use America’s domestic politics to “pressure” President Donald Trump into making a “bad deal”.

“What [President Trump] is making clear is if the Iranians think that they are going to use our domestic politics to pressure him into a bad deal, that’s not going to happen,” Rubio told NBC News on Thursday.

The Department of Defense is not investigating U.S. bombings that reportedly destroyed 22 Iranian schools and 17 healthcare facilities, according to the commander leading U.S. forces in Iran.

U.S. Central Command Admiral Brad Cooper told members of Congress that there is “no way” and “no indication” that the military can corroborate reports in The New York Times that detailed the alleged destruction using satellite imagery and verified video and social media footage.

“There is no indication that we have that has been corroborated,” Cooper told Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand during Thursday’s Senate Armed Forces Committee hearing. “There is no way we can corroborate that. No indication of that whatsoever, senator.”

Secretary of state Marco Rubio has said that China is against a militarisation of the Strait of Hormuz.

Rubio travelled with president Donald Trump on his two-day visit to Beijing and told NBC News: “The Chinese side said they are not in favor of militarizing the Straits of Hormuz, and they’re not in favor of a tolling system, and that’s our position.”

He added: “We will never support an Iranian tolling system in the Straits of Hormuz, nor do we think they have a right to put mines in international waters.”

Panetta was speaking Thursday as Trump and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping ⁠agreed at their summit in Beijing that the Strait must ⁠be reopened ​for ⁠the free flow of energy.

“My sense is that it’s very likely this war, which was supposed to end after six to eight weeks, is probably going to continue for a number of months,” the ex-official told The Times.