Important Takeaways:
- A total lunar moon eclipse is set to dazzle skywatchers across North America, transforming the moon into a stunning Blood Moon. This rare celestial event will unfold overnight, offering a breathtaking view as Earth’s shadow casts a deep red hue across the lunar surface. The eclipse will be visible without special equipment, though binoculars or a telescope can enhance the experience.
- The upcoming event marks the first total lunar eclipse visible globally since November 2022, and it’s set to grace the skies over North and South America on the night of March 13-14.
- A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth passes directly between the Sun and the Moon, casting its shadow over the lunar surface. During the totality phase, the moon will be completely immersed in the Earth’s shadow, taking on a deep red-orange hue — a phenomenon that gives the eclipse its nickname, the Blood Moon.
- Here are the key times to look out for:
- Eastern Time (ET): 2:26 a.m. – 3:31 a.m. (March 14)
- Central Time (CT): 1:26 a.m. – 2:31 a.m. (March 14)
- Mountain Time (MT): 12:26 a.m. – 1:31 a.m. (March 14)
- Pacific Time (PT): 11:26 p.m. (March 13) – 12:31 a.m. (March 14)
- Alaska Time (AKDT): 10:26 p.m. – 11:31 p.m. (March 13)
- Hawaii Time (HST): 8:26 p.m. – 9:31 p.m. (March 13)
- A dark sky location will allow the moon’s red color to appear more vividly. While no special equipment is necessary, using binoculars or a telescope can enhance your view, especially if you want to see details on the surface of the moon during the event.
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Important Takeaways:
- Is it possible that the Yellowstone supervolcano is gearing up for a major eruption? When most people think of Yellowstone, they tend to conjure up images of “Old Faithful”, Yogi Bear and a television show starring Kevin Costner. But the reality of the matter is that Yellowstone poses a very serious threat to all of us. Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming is actually sitting directly above a massive supervolcano.
- So when Yellowstone shakes, that should definitely get our attention.
- In late January, a magnitude 3.9 earthquake was keenly felt throughout Yellowstone National Park…
- Subsequently, there were two very alarming earthquake swarms in the area during the month of February…
- February seismicity in Yellowstone was marked by two swarms.
- A swarm of 18 earthquakes was located approximately 13 miles south-southwest of Mammoth, in Yellowstone National Park, during February 1–8. The largest earthquake in the sequence was a magnitude 1.6 on February 3 at 1:24 AM MST.
- A swarm of 11 earthquakes took place approximately 5 miles south-southeast of West Thumb, in Yellowstone National Park, on February 11. The largest earthquake in the sequence was a magnitude 2.4 on February 11 at 1:44 AM MST.
- I want to be very clear about something.
- There is absolutely no reason to panic at this stage.
- But I do believe that we should be watching.
- So exactly what would a full-blown eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano mean for the United States and for the rest of the world?
- The magma “hotspot” underneath Yellowstone is approximately 300 miles wide.
- A full-blown eruption of Yellowstone could be up to 1,000 times more powerful than the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980.
- According to Google AI, a full-blown eruption of Yellowstone could send volcanic ash “up to 30-50 miles high”.
- According to Wikipedia, the Yellowstone Caldera has been “rising as quickly as 150 millimeters (5.9 in) per year”.
- There are more than a thousand earthquakes in the Yellowstone area every single year.
- In the event of a full-blown eruption of Yellowstone, virtually the entire northwest United States will be completely destroyed
- A full-blown eruption of Yellowstone would mean that just about everything within a 100-mile radius of Yellowstone would be immediately killed.
- A full-blown eruption of Yellowstone could potentially dump a layer of volcanic ash that is at least 10 feet deep up to 1,000 miles away.
- The “volcanic winter” that a massive Yellowstone eruption would cause would radically cool the planet. Some scientists believe that global temperatures would decline by up to 20 degrees. This would result in a horrific global famine.
- America would never be the same again after a massive Yellowstone eruption. Some scientists believe that a full eruption by Yellowstone would render two-thirds of the United States completely uninhabitable.
- Scientists tell us that it is not a matter of “if” Yellowstone will erupt again but rather “when” the next inevitable eruption will take place.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has arrested two current U.S. Army soldiers and a former soldier on charges related to the alleged sale of national defense information to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Jian Zhao and Li Tian—both active-duty soldiers stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord—were taken into custody alongside Ruoyu Duan, a former soldier. Federal grand juries in the District of Oregon and the Western District of Washington handed down indictments, leading to their arrests on Thursday.
- Tian and Duan face charges of bribery and theft of government property. Zhao faces similar charges, in addition to conspiracy to transmit national defense information to unauthorized individuals.
- U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi says the defendants are accused of compromising national security. “The defendants arrested today are accused of betraying our country, actively working to weaken America’s defense capabilities and empowering our adversaries in China,” Bondi said in a statement. “They will face swift, severe, and comprehensive justice.”
- FBI Director Kash Patel also commented on the charges. Writing on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Patel noted, “These individuals have been charged with stealing America’s defense intelligence capabilities and empowering adversaries like China in betrayal of our country.”
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Important Takeaways:
- The Hamas terror group on Thursday dismissed President Donald Trump’s latest threat and refused to release more Israeli hostages without a permanent ceasefire deal in the Gaza Strip.
- Hamas spokesman Abdel-Latif al-Qanoua said the “best path to free the remaining Israeli hostages” is through negotiations on a second phase of the ceasefire agreement.
- Hamas’ response comes after Trump met with eight former hostages in Washington and posted what he called a “last warning” to Hamas on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday.
- “‘Shalom Hamas’ means Hello and Goodbye – You can choose,” the president’s post began. “Release all of the Hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you.”
- Trump added that he is “sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job,” and that “not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don’t do as I say.
- “Also, to the People of Gaza: A beautiful Future awaits, but not if you hold Hostages,” the president wrote. “If you do, you are DEAD! Make a SMART decision. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW, OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY LATER!”
- Hamas is believed to still have 24 living hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that led to the ongoing war. It is also holding the bodies of 34 others who were either killed in the initial attack or in captivity, as well as the remains of a soldier killed in the 2014 war.
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Important Takeaways:
- Members of the so-called Five Eyes spy alliance, as well as Israeli and Saudi officials, fear the identities of foreign assets could inadvertently be shared with Moscow.
- The allies, including Israel, Saudi Arabia and members of the so-called Five Eyes spy alliance of English-speaking democracies, are examining how to possibly revise current protocols for sharing intelligence to take the Trump administration’s warming relations with Russia into account, the sources said
- “Those discussions are already happening,” said a source with direct knowledge of the discussions.
- No decision or action has been taken, however, the sources said.
- Asked about allies’ possibly limiting what they share with the United States, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council said President Donald Trump is “clear-eyed” about America’s adversaries.
- “The U.S. has unrivaled intelligence capabilities which is exactly why intelligence sharing initiatives such as the Five Eyes exist,” spokesman Brian Hughes said in an email.
- “President Trump is clear-eyed on all threats our adversaries pose to our national security and he will work with any ally or partner who understands the dangerous world inherited after the disastrous Biden years,” he added. “On Biden’s watch, we had the war in Ukraine, the surrender in Afghanistan, and the slaughter of the innocents on October 7th.”
- Publicly, longtime U.S. allies downplayed the issue. The United Kingdom, the most important U.S. intelligence partner, said it had no plans to reduce intelligence cooperation with the United States.
- The Canada Security Intelligence Service said in a statement that it has strong relationships with numerous U.S. agencies that are “long-standing and resilient.
- An Israeli official also praised its alliance with the U.S., saying “Cooperation between Israel and the United States on every level, including the sharing of crucial intelligence data, is as strong and solid as ever.”
- Officials from New Zealand, Australia and Saudi Arabia did not respond to requests for comment.
- Some officials in allied countries, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters, played down the idea that Trump’s policies on Russia would disrupt information sharing that dates back decades
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Important Takeaways:
- On a dynamic planet like Earth, it can be easy for drivers of change to go unnoticed – but scientists have now established and investigated an unexpected link between the Sun and our home world.
- Sunspots, and therefore solar activity, cause seismic activity, according to a team led by computer scientist Matheus Henrique Junqueira Saldanha of the University of Tsukuba in Japan. Their new research reveals how.
- “Solar heat drives atmospheric temperature changes, which in turn can affect things like rock properties and underground water movement,” Junquiera Saldanha says.
- “Such fluctuations can make rocks more brittle and prone to fracturing, for example – and changes in rainfall and snowmelt can alter the pressure on tectonic plate boundaries. While these factors may not be the main drivers of earthquakes, they could still be playing a role that can help to predict seismic activity.”
- There’s a lot going on here on Earth. Our planet has a squishy interior covered by a crust that is divided into discrete sections and an active weather system. There are a lot of potential triggers for monumental shifts in the planet’s crust that could result in an earthquake.
- We’re not very good at predicting seismic activity. There are simply too many variables, and the process that leads up to a tremor or quake is long and complicated.
- However, knowing the triggers means we could better assess the probability of earthquake activity, and keep a keener eye on potential early warning signs.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Anti-Defamation League reports more than 10,000 antisemitic incidents have been recorded in America since the terrorist group Hamas executed a murderous rampage in Israel on October 7, 2023.
- In an effort to reduce that number, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Wednesday called “Never To Be Silent: Stemming the Tide of Antisemitism in America.”
- While citing antisemitic acts that have occurred at synagogues, community centers, and public places, the hearing focused on how especially bad it is on college campuses. While pointing to an image from a CBN News report, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) described the problem.
- “Here is a picture taken on the campus of Columbia,” he said. “In the back are Jewish students waving American flags and Israeli flags. In the front is a Columbia student wearing a mask, because these cowards are oh so brave they cover their faces, holding a hand-written sign saying ‘AL QASSAM’S NEXT TARGETS’ – Al Qassam is the military branch of Hamas. Understand what this student is saying. She is calling for the murder of her Jewish classmates.”
- Anti-Israel protests continue, like the ones that have been held for more than a week at New York’s Barnard College. Elisha Baker, a Barnard College student and witness, told CBN News, “It’s not only anti-Israel, but it’s anti-American, and it goes against everything that a university should be tolerating.”
- President Trump posted a message on Truth Social placing college campuses on high alert. “All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests,” he wrote.
- A recent poll conducted by the Israel on Campus Coalition shows as many as 74% of Jewish college students believe that antisemitism is a serious problem on campus. A total of 30% reported experiencing it, 29% reported witnessing antisemitism, and 22% reported hearing about it. Furthermore, the study revealed 87% of Jewish college students are concerned that anti-Israel protests and petitions to boycott the State of Israel lead to hate crimes and violence against Jewish students.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Trump administration has published a list of more than 440 federal properties to be closed or sold after deeming them ‘not core to government operations.’
- Hours later, however, the administration issued a revised list with only 320 entries – none in Washington, D.C.
- The initial list had included some of the country’s most recognizable buildings, along with courthouses, offices and even parking garage and spanned nearly every state.
- The potential sell-off appears to be part of Trump’s effort to slash the size of the federal government, led by tech billionaire Elon Musk. The downsizing drive has already led to 100,000 workers taking buyouts or being fired.
- In Washington, D.C., the list includes the Old Post Office, which formerly housed the Trump International Hotel and is newly renovated.
- Others, such as the FBI’s crumbling J. Edgar Hoover Building, are widely seen as outdated. The GSA said in 2023 it would build a new FBI headquarters in Maryland.
- The Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building and the American Red Cross HQ are also on the list.
- The list includes the headquarters for several major government agencies, including the Veterans Administration, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy, the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Federal Aviation Administration.
- GSA’s own headquarters were also on the list.
- Elsewhere in the country, the administration targeted the enormous Major General Emmett J. Bean Federal Center in Indiana, the Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center, the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building in San Francisco and the U.S. mission’s United Nation headquarters in New York.
- The list includes skyscrapers in Chicago, Atlanta and Cleveland, as well as several Internal Revenue Service hubs that process tax returns.
- The IRS said in an internal memo last week that it would sell those buildings starting in June, after the April tax filing season is complete.
- It was not clear how many of the buildings on GSA’s list will eventually be put up for sale, or what sort of price they might bring.
- ‘We are identifying buildings and facilities that are not core to government operations, or non-core properties for disposal,’ the GSA said of the list of 443 properties.
- Selling the properties ‘ensures that taxpayer dollars are no longer spent on vacant or underutilized federal space,’ it said, and ‘helps eliminate costly maintenance and allows us to reinvest in high-quality work environments that support agency missions.’
- Eliminating federal office space has been a top priority of the new administration.
- Last month, GSA regional managers received a message from the agency’s Washington headquarters ordering them to begin terminating leases on all of the roughly 7,500 federal offices nationwide.
- In a follow-up meeting, GSA regional managers were told that their goal is to terminate as many as 300 leases per day
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Important Takeaways:
- North Korea’s KCNA news agency said Friday the test was intended to “warn enemies, who are seriously violating the security environment of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and fostering and escalating the confrontation environment,” that Pyongyang’s “various nuke operation means” are ready for war.
- Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is the Kim regime’s preferred name for itself.
- KCNA claimed both missiles “precisely hit their targets” after covering 986 miles in about 130 minutes.
- “Expressing satisfaction over the result of the launching drill, Kim Jong-un said it is a responsible exercise of the DPRK’s war deterrence to continuously test the reliability and operation of the components of its nuclear deterrence and demonstrate their might,” KCNA said.
- According to his state media, Kim said the missile test demonstrated North Korea has “the most perfect deterrence and defense capacity.”
- South Korean defense officials confirmed the missile launch took place, but made no comment about the accuracy of the weapons or if they were truly capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
- South Korea’s Yonhap News speculated North Korea’s missile launch, and Kim’s rhetoric about preparing for nuclear war, were irritable gestures ahead of Operation Freedom Shield, the annual U.S.-South Korean training exercise. North Korea furiously denounces all such exercises as rehearsals for an invasion, or possibly even cloaked attempts to launch an actual invasion.
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Important Takeaways:
- The European Union will free up $840 billion in funding to funnel into defense across the bloc, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen announced on Tuesday.
- Dubbed “Rearm Europe,” the remarks from the European Commission’s president came hours after President Donald Trump suspended all U.S. military aid to Ukraine, widening the gulf between Washington and Kyiv and going against the fresh commitments of support from Europe for Ukraine in recent days.
- “I do not need to describe the grave nature of the threats that we face, or the devastating consequences that we will have to endure if those threats would come to pass,” von der Leyen told reporters.
- The European Commission head said she had written a letter to the leaders of the European governments to outline a “set of proposals” to “rearm Europe.”
- It details “how to use all the financial levers at our disposal in order to help member states to quickly and significantly increase expenditures in defense capabilities, urgently now, but also over [a] longer period of time, over this decade,” von der Leyen said.
- As part of the proposal, countries in the bloc will have access to loans of up to €150 billion, or just shy of $158 billion, for defense investment. The plan will also mean activating what is known as an “escape clause” for EU countries in a set of rules that currently govern how member states manage their public finances.
- …European nations are scrambling to work out how to plug huge gaps in its military capabilities that the U.S. has traditionally filled.
- Efforts to rearm will focus on air defense missiles, artillery ammunition and the systems to fire them, as well as drones and counter-drone warfare and other areas of the military, von der Leyen said.
- NATO states have less than 5 percent of the necessary air defense capabilities to protect central and Eastern Europe from large-scale attack, the Financial Times reported in May 2024.
- European officials have previously told Newsweek that air defense capacity is currently a fraction of what it should be, and a major worry.
- As Washington rewrites its relationship with the continent, there are deep and pressing concerns about whether the various leaders across the continent can come up with a coherent strategy to protect NATO’s continental countries, without U.S. involvement. European officials publicly and privately agree that defense spending must dramatically increase, but are split on how quickly this can happen, and by just how much.
- The new plan will mean member states can “massively step up their support to Ukraine,” von der Leyen remarked on Tuesday, which she translated to “immediate military equipment for Ukraine.”
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