Important Takeaways:
- Iran has put its defense systems around its nuclear sites on high alert amid fears of an attack by Israel and the US, The Telegraph has learnt.
- According to two high-level government sources, the Islamic Republic has also been bolstering defenses around key nuclear and missile sites, which include the deployment of additional air defense system launchers.
- Officials say the measures are in response to growing concerns of potential joint military action by Israel and the United States.
- It follows warnings from US intelligence to both the Biden and Trump administrations that Israel would likely target key Iranian nuclear sites this year.
- “They [Iranian authorities] are just waiting for the attack and are anticipating it every night and everything has been on high alert – even in sites that no one knows about,” one source told The Telegraph.
- “Work to fortify nuclear sites has been ongoing for years but it has intensified over the past year, particularly since Israel launched the first attack,” he added.
- “Recent developments, including Donald Trump’s comments and reports about potential plans from his administration to strike Iran, have further intensified activities.”
- Israel’s victories over Iran’s proxy networks such as Hamas and Hezbollah, the fall of Bashar al-Assad the Syrian president who was Tehran’s main ally, and regional setbacks have severely weakened the Iranian regime.
- The losses have fueled dissent at home and raised hopes for change.
- It has left Iran vulnerable to Mr. Trump’s hawkish stance on the country. Since he came to power he has resumed his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, including efforts to stop it from obtaining nuclear weapons by driving its oil exports down to zero.
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Important Takeaways:
- NATO was forced to scramble its warplanes in Poland today as Vladimir Putin used strategic bombers and missiles to attack neighboring Ukraine – even as Vladimir Putin insists he wants peace ‘as soon as possible’.
- Putin’s air force deployed Tu-95MS nuclear-capable strategic bombers to pound targets across Ukraine, causing panic in Kyiv as residents rushed for the metro underground shelters.
- Explosions were heard in Kyiv, Zhytomyr, and Sumy, as well as in several towns across the regions of Zaporizhzhia and Chernihiv. Drones were also used by Russia, with several people reportedly suffering injuries.
- Warsaw’s armed forces operation command headquarters ordered NATO jets to patrol Polish airspace as Russian bombers and missiles soared over Ukraine amid fears they could approach the Polish border.
- ‘Attention, due to the activity of long-range aviation of the Russian Federation, striking targets located, in particular, in the west of Ukraine, military aviation has begun to operate in the airspace of Poland,’ the command headquarters said.
- Ground-based air defenses and radar reconnaissance systems were also ‘put on alert’.
- It comes just one day after a US B-52 bomber flew a sortie less than 50 miles from the Russian border in a show of strength on the third anniversary of its invasion of Ukraine.
- The B-52 jet, which is described as providing the US with ‘immediate nuclear and conventional global strike capability’, flew from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire to the frontline NATO state and was flanked by F35s and F-A18 fighters.
- The planes jetted in formation over soldiers and tanks as a military parade of over 1,000 troops from NATO and the Estonia’s Defense Forces took place in the Estonian capital of Tallinn.
- February 24 marked three years since Russian troops invaded Ukraine, and is also Estonian Independence Day.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Space Force will play an important role in the Department of Defense’s efforts to build a missile defense shield over the U.S., Space Force’s chief of space operations announced recently.
- On Monday, Gen. Chance Saltzman said Space Force would jump into action to help accomplish the goals in President Trump’s space-oriented executive orders, including one from January focused on building an “Iron Dome for America.”
- Saltzman added that Space Force had already established an integrated planning team to investigate options related to the Iron Dome executive order.
- Trump signed the executive order in January, ordering the Pentagon to develop a newer and more advanced version of Israel’s Iron Dome missile shield. The order would build upon preexisting missile defense technology such as the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor program, developed by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.
- “Over the past 40 years, rather than lessening, the threat from next-generation strategic weapons has become more intense and complex with the development by peer and near peer adversaries of next-generation delivery systems and their own homeland integrated air and missile defense capabilities,” Mr. Trump’s more executive order reads.
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Important Takeaways:
- Israel performed a very unconventional high-profile trolling today when it executed a gameday-like flyover of Hezbollah’s deceased leader Hassan Nasrallah’s funeral in Lebanon. The operation, which utilized two F-35Is and two F-15Is, was dramatic and clearly meant to send an intimidating reminder to the Iranian-backed group and its tens of thousands of supporters down below.
- Hassan Nasrallah was killed in a mass strike executed by the Israeli Air Force on a Hezbollah underground bunker and command center located beneath a residential area in suburban Southern Beirut. The strike happened nearly five months ago, but the war with Israel kept a full public funeral from happening. Israel also released footage of the bombardment of the bunker for the first time today. It is known that dozens of JDAMs with BLU-109/B warheads were used to devastate the subterranean facility.
- The large-scale gathering in Beirut also mourned the loss of Hashem Safieddine, who commanded Hezbollah for a very short period following Nasrallah’s death, before Israel killed him too.
- Hezbollah has been deeply degraded by Israel’s campaign against it, with much of its leadership being killed, thousands of its operatives wounded by sabotaged communications devices, and many of its fighters killed and its higher-end weapons destroyed during a protracted ground and air operation. The fall of Syria’s strongman Bashar al-Assad also has had a major impact on the group’s ability to rebuild its capabilities, both logistically and operationally. The loss of Assad also impacted Iran heavily, who used Syria to supply and support Hezbollah.
- A ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah was signed in November.
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Important Takeaways:
- By all accounts the hold-up in the US and Ukraine potentially agreeing to a final mineral deal has been President Zelensky’s refusal to sign – seeing in it selling off Ukraine’s economic sovereignty; however, sources on both sides strongly suggest a deal is very close.
- “I will not sign what ten generations of Ukrainians will have to pay back,” said President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a press conference Sunday. President Trump is seeking access to some $500 billion in the country’s minerals, including rare earths, to repay Washington for its wartime aid.
- Kiev as well as many of its European partners have complained that the deal offers no clear security guarantees or even the promise of future aid in return. Instead, it appears set up to repay the US billions in past aid, and Ukrainian officials and the media have described it as punitive.
- Still, there appears to have been some weekend progress, and the Zelensky government knows it’s in no position to fiercely push back, also given that the Trump administration is essentially calling for a near-future change in leadership at this point, having blasted Zelensky as a ‘dictator’.
- A fresh description from US officials involved say the deal will commit to a “free, sovereign and secure” Ukraine and achieving a “lasting peace” as part of it. This will include the US agreeing to “durable partnership” between Washington and Kiev, the texts show as reported by Bloomberg.
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Important Takeaways:
- Consumers nationwide are facing egg shortages at retail stores, leading to purchasing restrictions and sky-high prices when they are in stock.
- The cost of eggs surged by 15.2% in January, according to the Labor Department’s consumer price index. This marked the largest increase in egg prices since June 2015 and accounted for nearly two-thirds of the total monthly rise in food prices, the Labor Department reported.
- Whitney Bissonnette, an Arkansas-based chicken breeder, is fielding 50 to 100 messages every day from people asking to buy her chickens.
- Jen Tompkins, co-founder of Rent The Chicken, a company that helps people rent chickens and provides all the necessary supplies, from feed to coops, has been flooded with inquiries, which have surged by 500% as of last week.
- Stephanie Hall, who has a farm stand in South Carolina, told FOX Business she can’t keep up with the requests she has been getting from people seeking to buy her eggs.
- Gina Bare, director of program and partnership development at the National Environmental Health Association, recognizes that the “rise in backyard chicken coops reflects an exciting trend in local food production, with families increasingly interested in raising their own flocks for fresh eggs and educational opportunities.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Southern California is getting ready for another weather extreme this week, after already dealing with devastating winds and several storms this year.
- “Later this week, we’re looking at temperatures 10 to 15, even 20 degrees above normal,” KTLA’s Kirk Hawkins said Monday.
- Afternoon highs will be above normal on Monday but the hottest temperatures will arrive midweek.
- Coast and valley areas, except for the beaches, will see highs top out in the 80s and lower 90s, according to the Weather Service.
- Gusty winds, possibly reaching advisory levels, are also expected late Tuesday into Wednesday.
- The ridge will push to the east on Thursday allowing a cooling trend to return and accelerate into the weekend.
- Forecasters are even calling for a chance of light rain to develop across the weekend. There is a 30% to 40% of rain arriving on Sunday, according to the Weather Service.
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Important Takeaways:
- Scientists have warned that a massive volcano in Alaska has a 50-50 chance of erupting in the near future.
- The 11,000-foot-tall Mount Spurr sits 77 miles from Anchorage— the state’s largest city which is home to nearly 300,000 people.
- Over the last 10 months, it has been experiencing an unusually high amount of small earthquakes.
- Since the seismic activity first began in April 2024, the rate of earthquakes has increased from an average of 30 per week to an average of 125 per week, ramping up in early October.
- Experts at the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) believe this seismic activity is being driven by new magma churning beneath the volcano, which could be a sign that it is getting ready to erupt.
- If Mount Spurr does erupt, it could produce explosive plumes of ash, destructive mudslides called lahars and avalanches of hot gas, ash and rock called pyroclastic flows, which would race down the volcano’s side at over 200 mph.
- Fortunately, there are not any communities within the potential path of pyroclastic flows or lahars from Mount Spurr.
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Important Takeaways:
- Professor Efthymios Lekkas, head of the state-run Earthquake Planning and Protection Organization, warned on Sunday that seismic activity on Santorini is expected to continue for an extended period.
- “It will be a prolonged sequence lasting several weeks, possibly even a few months. This type of seismic activity does not subside easily,” he stated in an interview with public broadcaster ERTNews.
- Lekkas further explained that the total number of tremors has already exceeded 20,000 earthquakes. “We are dealing with a unique phenomenon in a unique region. The risk has not been eliminated, just as the risk is never zero anywhere in Greece,” he added.
- While the possibility of a 6.0-magnitude earthquake remains on the table, he said that the likelihood is significantly lower.
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Important Takeaways:
- Seismologists, volcanologists, and officials from Naples are racing against the clock as they implement school closures, set up emergency shelters, and plan evacuation routes for residents living within the region’s Campi Flegiri area, also known as the Phlegraean Fields, after over 600 earthquakes have been recorded since Saturday, with magnitudes ranging from M2.0 to M3.9; the most and the strongest the region has seen in 40 years.
- According to INGV, “the ongoing earthquake swarm is linked to bradyseism, a geological phenomenon in which ground levels rise or fall because of underground magma or hydrothermal activity.”
- CCTV footage located within residential homes and along city streets showed the intense shaking caused by the mega earthquake swarm; the strong tremors felt in Naples city center. According to reports, structural damage and power outages have been reported throughout the area affected by the earthquake swarm since its conception, prompting officials to monitor the seismic swarm with a watchful eye.
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