Important Takeaways:
- Ukraine reportedly launched at least 337 drones into Russia on Tuesday in the largest-yet drone attack of the Moscow-Kyiv conflict, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
- It came just before US and Ukrainian delegations were scheduled to meet for negotiation discussions in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday.
- Russia set the previous drone-attack record a little over two weeks ago, when it launched 267 drones at Ukraine in a single night on Feb. 23.
- Ukrainian officials have yet to comment on the Russian report.
- If true, it could represent a show of strength by Kyiv ahead of its talks with the US in Saudi Arabia.
- Ukrainians have been losing significant ground in the region over the past week, losses that experts say were hastened by the US decision to halt intelligence sharing.
- Another 91 were downed in the Moscow region, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said more than 70 drones were taken down en route to the Russian capital.
- It comes after Russia has upped its missile and drone attacks on Ukraine since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s disastrous Oval Office meeting with President Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Feb. 28.
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Important Takeaways:
- The commander-in-chief gave the grim warning as he lamented the dangers of stockpiling nukes amid his push to kickstart arms control talks with Russia and China again.
- “The greatest [threat] is sitting on shelves in various countries called ‘nuclear weapons’ that are big monsters that can blow your heads off for miles and miles and miles,” Trump told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
- “We spend a lot of money of nuclear weapons — the level of destruction is beyond anything you can imagine,” he said in the wide-raging interview.
- “It’s just bad that you have to spend all this money on something that if it’s used, it’s probably the end of the world.”
- “I watched [former President Joe] Biden for years say the existential threat is from the climate,” Trump said. “I said ‘No.’”
- “They talk about the climate and they talk about the dangers of the climate but they don’t talk about the dangers of a nuclear weapon, which could happen tomorrow.”
- “There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons, we already have so many,” Trump said last month. “You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Tens of millions of Americans from the Midwest to the Southeast are going to have another tense week as concerns grow that the U.S. could be rocked by another multiday severe weather outbreak.
- March typically marks the beginning of the active spring severe weather season, and this renewed risk comes after a deadly severe weather outbreak swept across the nation last week.
- This week, forecasters will monitor the potential for strong to severe thunderstorms as we approach the middle of the week and again as we get ready to welcome the weekend.
- Forecasters say that a larger severe weather threat looms for Friday and Saturday as a strong upper-level disturbance is expected to move from the Plains to the eastern U.S.
- “This is an update as of this morning,” FOX Weather Meteorologist Kendall Smith said. “The Storm Prediction Center has gone ahead and upped the ante even more. So, now it’s a level 3 out of 5 risk for Friday, as well as Saturday, for portions of the Southeast as well as the mid-South.”
- A deepening surface low will pull in moisture from the Gulf and send it north into the Mississippi Valley on Friday, and then into the Southeast by Saturday.
- “Severe storms with a risk of tornadoes, swaths of damaging winds and hail are expected Friday from the Ark-La-Tex into the middle and lower Mississippi Valley,” NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center (SPC) said. “The severe risk will shift east toward the Southeast on Saturday.”
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Important Takeaways:
- A new quantum computing breakthrough has sent shockwaves through the tech world. Researchers at USTC unveiled Zuchongzhi-3, a 105-qubit machine that processes calculations at speeds that dwarf even the most powerful supercomputers.
- It marks another leap forward in the quest for quantum supremacy, with the team demonstrating computational power orders of magnitude beyond Google’s latest results.
- Breakthrough in Quantum Computing with Zuchongzhi-3
- A research team from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, along with its partners, has made significant progress in random quantum circuit sampling using Zuchongzhi-3 — a superconducting quantum computing prototype equipped with 105 qubits and 182 couplers.
- Zuchongzhi-3 operates at an astonishing speed, performing computations 1015 times faster than the most powerful supercomputer available today and one million times faster than Google’s latest published quantum computing results. This achievement marks a major breakthrough in quantum computing, building on the success of its predecessor, Zuchongzhi-2.
- Quantum supremacy, the ability of a quantum computer to perform tasks beyond the reach of classical computers, has been a key goal in the field. In 2019, Google’s 53-qubit Sycamore processor completed a random circuit sampling task in 200 seconds, a feat estimated to take 10,000 years on the world’s fastest supercomputer at the time.
- However, in 2023, USTC researchers demonstrated more advanced classical algorithms capable of completing the same task in 14 seconds using over 1,400 A100 GPUs. With the advent of the Frontier supercomputer, equipped with expanded memory, this task can now be performed in just 1.6 seconds, effectively challenging Google’s earlier claim of quantum supremacy.
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Important Takeaways:
- While many already knew about the “thought crime” case against a British Army veteran, Vice President JD Vance brought it to the world’s attention again in a speech to the Munich Security Conference on February 14.
- “A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith-Connor, a 51-year-old physiotherapist and an army veteran with the heinous crime of standing 50 meters from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes, not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own,” Vance said.
- Smith-Connor was convicted last fall of praying within an abortion clinic “buffer zone.” When he was approached by police officers, they asked, “What is the nature of your prayer today?”
- Smith-Connor answered, “What is the nature of my prayer? I’m praying for my son,” making the charge against him what many are calling a “thought crime.” We met Smith-Connor at a church in Southampton, England, where he told us of a dream that led him into the pro-life movement, a dream in which he was butchering a baby.
- He recounted, “I was carving up this baby, as if I was carving up a Sunday roast. I didn’t have any sense of guilt or anything, and it was no feeling of anything as I was doing this. When I woke up, it was like a nightmare in reverse. I was so horrified because I had carved up this child who I knew was my son. And it horrified me that I hadn’t felt anything as I did it. And over the following days, I came to realize it related to an abortion that I’d paid for two decades earlier. That abortion hadn’t even crossed my mind. But God knew that that was sitting on my conscience. He knew that I wasn’t going to figure out for myself and that that needed to be cleansed. So, I feel that he gave me that vision, that dream, to wake me up to what had happened.”
- He began to go to abortion clinics to pray for his son and would eventually be charged with a crime for praying.
- Smith-Connor said police officers “decided from that because they knew that my son had died in an abortion, that therefore, I was in breach of the buffer zone. And they asked me to leave the area. I declined because I don’t think that prayer can ever be considered a criminal act or Illegal. I didn’t approach anyone. I didn’t speak to anyone. Didn’t even look at anyone. And in fact, if you’ve been in the clinic, you wouldn’t have seen me from the clinic because I was behind a tree, out of line of sight of the clinic entrance.”
- Lois McLatchie Miller with Alliance Defending Freedom International says the government’s use of the word “influence” has created a very broad law that can potentially be used against private conversations and even a person’s thoughts and prayers.
- Miller told us, “By using a word like ‘influence,’ it’s very unclear what the law means. What about a mother asking her daughter, ‘Are you sure?’ Is that an ‘influence’? What about a friend who’s offering support to a woman who’s considering continuing her pregnancy? Is that ‘influence’?”
- Livia Tossici-Bolt, a 63-year-old retired medical scientist from Bournemouth, England, was also convicted under the law last week for holding up a sign reading “here to talk, if you want” within an abortion clinic buffer zone and talking to women who approached her.
- In Scotland, citizens living within buffer zones were sent letters warning that they could violate the law while inside their own homes. Some think it could include praying near a window if a woman seeking an abortion walks by.
- Adam Smith-Connor said he’s grateful to Vice President JD Vance for defending him before world leaders.
- Smith-Connor is a British Army vet who risked his life in Afghanistan. This case makes him reflect on the personal price he paid for freedom and a close friend who died to protect the very rights that his government is now taking away.
- “I’ve got a profound sense of sadness for our nation. The fact that we have plummeted to such a depth so quickly is truly shocking to me. I believe in the Bible and what the Bible says, and I live that out in my life. And when the civil laws step outside of the laws of God, then I’m to follow God’s laws. And the absurdity of being put on trial for the contents of your mind, the contents of your prayers. It just has no place in a liberal, free, democratic society.”
- “And yet, here we are.”
- An appeal of Adam’s conviction has been set for July.
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Important Takeaways:
- Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has slammed Europe’s “cowardice” to stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin as his nation looks to arm itself with nuclear weapons to avoid the same fate as Ukraine.
- Tusk said the current situation in Europe, which is scrambling to react to President Trump’s decision to halt military aid and intelligence to Ukraine, would not have happened if the union took harsher actions against Russia.
- “Our deficit has been the lack of the will to act, having no confidence, and sometimes even cowardice,” Tusk told his parliament on Friday, adding that Moscow would have been rendered “helpless against a united Europe.”
- The premier has called on Europe to accept that US aid may not be returning to Ukraine under the Trump administration, and that it’s up to them to act now before it’s too late.
- To that effect, Tusk said his nation must be ready to fight in the event of a Russian invasion, with Poland currently in serious talks to gain some of France’s nuclear arsenal for protection.
- “Poland must pursue the most advanced capabilities, including nuclear and modern unconventional weapons,” Tusk said in a statement. “This is a serious race — a race for security, not for war.”
- Tusk added that Poland will be building an armed force of more than 500,000 soldiers as he called for a plan to make sure every man in the nation undergoes military training.
- Poland’s army currently stands at more than 200,000 fighters, making it the third-largest in NATO after the US and Turkey.
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Important Takeaways:
- Malibu, California, which was burned by the Franklin Fire in December and the Palisades Fire in January, suffered a 4.1-magnitude earthquake on Sunday — and is apparently facing a series of similar small earthquakes in the future.
- The Los Angeles Times reported:
- Sunday’s magnitude 4.1 earthquake near Malibu is part of a larger seismic pattern being seen in Southern California.
- The region has been experiencing a number of moderate earthquakes since 2024. In all of 2024, Southern California experienced 15 seismic sequences with at least one magnitude-4 or higher earthquake, according to a count by seismologist Lucy Jones, a Caltech research associate. That’s the highest annual total in the last 65 years, surpassing the 13 seen in 1988.
- The Malibu area has seen three quakes larger than magnitude 4 in the last 13 months.
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Important Takeaways:
- Kansas is set to witness a confrontation over a satanic “black mass” planned to take place at the State Capitol in Topeka on March 28. The event, organized by The Satanic Grotto, has stirred opposition from local Catholics and the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP), a national Catholic group.
- TFP has launched a nationwide petition urging Kansas Governor Laura Kelly to prevent the event, highlighting that it disrespects the beliefs of millions of Catholics worldwide and other religious groups. The petition, which as of now has gathered over 28,000 signatures, asserts that sacrilege should not be considered free speech. TFP has also planned a “rally of reparation” outside the Capitol for simultaneous prayer and atonement.
- Chuck Weber, executive director of the Kansas Catholic Conference, noted that bishops in the state are evaluating both spiritual and legal responses to the scheduled event. He emphasized that, if it proceeds, it signifies blatant anti-Catholic sentiment and insults people of good will. The group behind the event plans to use the grounds for satanic rites, as stated in a Facebook post.
- TFP’s John Horvat publicly expressed his dismay over the use of the State Capitol Building for what he calls severe blasphemy. Horvat urged Americans to join in peaceful protest, sign the petition, and offer prayers, defending their faith against this occurrence.
- Historical success in opposing similar events gives TFP hope; previous protests have led to the cancellation of a Harvard University “black mass” in 2014 and influenced a satanic conference to avoid Boston in 2024. Weber added that the Catholic Bishops of Kansas are calling for prayers for both the conversion of the event’s participants and for personal introspection during Lent
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Important Takeaways:
- The Kremlin’s fury came hours after Macron, other EU leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met in Brussels for a landmark summit touted by participants as the start of a new era for European security.
- The discussions in the Belgian capital demonstrated Europe’s recognition that its security is no longer guaranteed as leaders agreed measures to free up hundreds of billions of euros for military spending by loosening the bloc’s budget restrictions.
- Following the summit, Macron told reporters he had been approached by several of his European counterparts who were interested in exploring the possibility of France sharing its nuclear deterrent.
- He also confirmed that Paris would host ‘exploratory’ talks with EU defense chiefs starting on Tuesday about the possible deployment of European forces in Ukraine once a peace deal is signed.
- The revelations, which came as French Mirage fighter jets were deployed by Ukraine’s air force for the first time to down Russian missiles and drones, led the Kremlin to deliver a venom-tongued retort to the French President.
- Macron does not act very diplomatically,’ Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a press conference yesterday, echoing similar comments made by Vladimir Putin.
- ‘It was very strange to me to hear that Mr. Macron, in an aggressive manner, continuing the work of Napoleon, who wanted to conquer Russia.’
- Earlier this week, Lavrov had chastised Macron for floating the idea of sharing France’s nuclear weapons with other European nations.
- ‘Of course it is a threat against Russia. If he sees us as a threat… and says that it is necessary to use a nuclear weapon, is preparing to use a nuclear weapon against Russia, of course it is a threat,’ Lavrov declared.
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Important Takeaways:
- Netherlands residents really need to prepare themselves for a calamity. They must be able to survive on their own for 72 hours if war, a disaster, or a cyberattack paralyzes the country, Justice Minister David van Weel told the Telegraaf. The government has identified five key sectors that will get priority in this time of uncertainty, he said. These are logistics, electricity, water and food, healthcare, and the government.
- Until now, the government’s advice has been for Netherlands residents to have enough food and water in-house to survive 48 hours. “The commitment to civil resilience must increase,” Van Weel said to the newspaper after meeting with his EU colleagues in Brussels on Wednesday.
- Van Weel would like to see Dutch people get back to the preparedness levels of the Cold War. “Back then, we knew what to do when the air raid siren went off. Citizens simply had a task to perform in case of an emergency,” Van Weel said. “After the fall of the wall, we dismantled defense and at the same time, the entire civil defense system.”
- Netherlands residents are already taking matters into their own hands. 57 percent have an emergency kit at home or plan to get one soon, EenVandaag found in a survey of its panel members. 67 percent have little or no confidence that the government will step in and help in the event of a calamity. They doubt that this government gives sufficient priority to disaster management and wonder whether the government itself would be able to function under such circumstances. “This government is not very good at making decisions in the short term, I think most people will be left to their own devices,” one respondent said.
- The government has identified five key sectors to give extra protection and support: logistics, electricity, water and food, healthcare, and the government.
- The Dutch government will further elaborate on these five priority sectors and how to support and protect them before the summer.
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