Important Takeaways:
- Mount Spurr, which sits about 75 miles west of Anchorage, has seen “volcanic unrest” for the last 10 months, including an increasing number of earthquakes, according to a Feb. 6 statement from the Alaska Volcano Observatory.
- The unrest suggests “that an eruption is possible,” officials said.
- Since April, the number of earthquakes under the volcano has increased from 30 a week on average to 125 a week, officials said. The observatory “has located over 2,700 earthquakes during the unrest episode thus far,” according to officials, who said the largest of them was a magnitude 2.9 quake on Jan. 2.
- “Based on all available monitoring data,” the observatory views the chance of no eruption versus one similar to those in 1953 and 1992 as equal, officials said.
- Officials said they’d “expect to see additional seismic activity, gas emissions, and surface heating, as well as changes to surface deformation prior to an eruption, if one were to occur. Such stronger unrest may provide days to a few weeks of additional warning, but that is not certain.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Megacap technology companies funneled billions of dollars into artificial intelligence last year to try and keep up with unfettered demand. The hype isn’t dying down in 2025.
- Meta, Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft intend to spend as much as $320 billion combined on AI technologies and datacenter buildouts in 2025, based on comments from their CEOs early this year and throughout earnings calls in the past two weeks.
- That’s up from $230 billion in total capital expenditures in 2024.
- The recent rise of China’s DeepSeek sent a shockwave through the sector, with estimates suggesting the open-source tool cost a fraction of some U.S.-based competitors to create.
- Those fears spurred a market selloff last week, pushing shares of AI chipmakers Nvidia and Broadcom down by a combined $800 billion in a single day. That development forced U.S. tech CEOs to field questions over their hefty spending plans and whether it’s all necessary.
- The answer, so far, is that they’re not slowing down.
- Amazon offered the most ambitious spending initiative among the four, aiming to shell out over $100 billion, up from $83 billion in 2024…
- Last month, Microsoft said it would allocate $80 billion in the 2025 fiscal year to create AI workloads data centers.
- Alphabet is targeting $75 billion in capital expenditures this year, with $16 billion to $18 billion expected in the first quarter…the majority of spending would go toward “technical infrastructure, primarily for servers, followed by data centers and networking.”
- Meanwhile, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg set his company’s AI capex budget at $60 billion to $65 billion in January, calling 2025 a “defining year for AI.”… he said the move would help “unlock historic innovation and extend American technology leadership.”
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Important Takeaways:
- The United States is rapidly becoming a “post-industrial” nation. All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers left them, but the pace at which America is doing this is absolutely breathtaking…
- Throughout history, every great nation has been great at making things. So if the United States continues to allow its manufacturing base to erode at a staggering pace, how in the world can the U.S. continue to consider itself to be a great nation?
- #1 According to Google AI, our nation has lost almost 70,000 factories since the year 2000…
- The United States has lost nearly 70,000 factories since 2000. This is part of a larger decline in the US manufacturing sector that has also resulted in the loss of over 5 million jobs.
- #2 In July 1979, 19.5 million Americans had manufacturing jobs. Today, only 12.8 million Americans have manufacturing jobs even though our population is much larger than it was in 1979.
- #3 According to a survey that was recently conducted by the Pew Research Center, 59 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. has lot more than it has gained from free trade.
- #4 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of all U.S. economic output. At the beginning of the Great Recession in 2008, manufacturing represented only 11.5 percent of all U.S. economic output. Today, manufacturing represents just 10.3 percent of all U.S. economic output.
- #5 More than a billion cellphones are sold worldwide each year. Only a few thousand of them are actually manufactured in the United States.
- #6 The size of our trade deficit with China in 2024 was $295,000,000,000.
- #7 At this point, China produces approximately 4 times as many vehicles each year than the United States does.
- #8 In the early days of the industry, 100 percent of all semiconductors were manufactured in the United States. Today, that number is down to just 8 percent.
- #9 Russia is producing three times as many artillery shells as the U.S. and Europe combined.
- #10 The United States spends approximately $3.00 on Chinese goods for every $1 that the Chinese spend on goods from the United States.
- #11 Our stores are absolutely overflowing with products that are made in China. Meanwhile, soybeans are the number one export from the U.S. to China.
- #12 More than 36 million Americans are now living in poverty, homelessness in the U.S. is at an all-time record high, and demand at food banks in the U.S. is at record levels all over the nation.
- How many more trillions of dollars are going to leave this country before we realize that we are losing wealth at a pace that is killing our economy?
- How many once great manufacturing cities like Gary, Indiana and Youngstown, Ohio are going to become rotting, decaying hellholes before we understand that we are committing national economic suicide?
- The deindustrialization of America is a national crisis. It needs to be treated like one.
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Important Takeaways:
- The former Democrat Hawaii congresswoman received a 52-48 vote, with Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell (KY) joining Democrats against her.
- Shortly before the final vote, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said he was “proud” to say that every single Democrat would vote against her, claiming she “echoes Russian propaganda.”
- In a February 3 opinion piece in Newsweek, Gabbard listed her four day-one priorities:
- First, to assess the global threat environment and identify where gaps in our intelligence exist, integrating intelligence elements, increasing information-sharing, and ensuring unbiased, apolitical, objective collection and analysis is provided to support President Trump and policymakers’ decision-making.
- Second, I will deliver on President Trump’s commitment to the American people to end the politicization of the IC and provide focus to the IC’s essential mission, which is securing our nation.
- Third, I will rebuild trust in the intelligence community through transparency and accountability.
- Finally, I will assess and address efficiency, redundancy, and effectiveness across ODNI.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Senate on Thursday confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, sweeping aside concerns about his past vaccine skepticism to let him “go wild” on health under President Trump.
- The 52-48 vote capped a run of success for Mr. Trump’s most polarizing nominees and placed the heir of a Democratic political family in a vital job within a Republican administration.
- Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican who had polio as a child, voted no alongside all Democrats.
- HHS is a sprawling agency with a $1.7 trillion budget and oversight of food and drugs, disease-fighting efforts and major insurance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
- Kennedy built his career as an environmental lawyer, activist and chairman of the anti-vaccine Children’s Health Defense, making him an unusual pick after a run of HHS secretaries who included former congressmen and a pharmaceutical executive.
- He has vowed to end the cozy relationship between drug companies and U.S. officials who regulate them while he combats additives in the food supply and finds the root causes of disease.
- Based on his pledges, one of Mr. Kennedy’s first moves could be to fire legions of workers from HHS agencies or to eliminate entire offices from the Food and Drug Administration. He also proposes shifting resources away from infectious disease-fighting and toward research that promotes general health.
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Important Takeaways:
- The 24-year-old suspect, who had only recently had his asylum application rejected, was taken into custody moments after he drove a Mini Cooper into the crowd of people just after 10:30 a.m., officials said.
- “It is suspected that this was an attack – a lot points to that,” Bavarian governor Markus Söder said at the scene.
- At least 28 people, including some children, were injured in the ordeal — some of them seriously, authorities said.
- The suspect, who hasn’t been identified, was known to local cops over theft and drug offenses, according to Bavaria’s state interior minister, Joachim Herrmann.
- Authorities are still probing a motive but officials said early indications suggest the protest was likely targeted at random.
- The incident happened in the area of the roads Dachauer Straße and Seidlstraße where roughly 1,000 city trade union workers were rallying for pay increases, higher bonuses and three additional days off.
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Important Takeaways:
- Defense officials report that DOGE members will arrive at the Defense Department as early as Friday, with the Pentagon already receiving a list of assigned DOGE officials. Anticipating DOGE’s scrutiny, some military branches are proactively proposing cuts.
- The Army has identified outdated drones and surplus vehicles for elimination, potentially saving billions. Col. Dave Butler, an Army spokesman, emphasized, “We’re taking a proactive approach to making our spending more efficient. There are several systems that we know won’t survive on the modern battlefield.”
- Meanwhile, according to sources familiar with the plans, the Navy is also considering cuts to frigates and littoral combat ships. The Air Force, however, declined to comment, though Musk has previously criticized the F-35 program, calling it a “flop” and its builders “idiots,” with lifetime costs projected to exceed $2 trillion.
- The Defense Department’s budget, exceeding $800 billion and employing three million troops and civilians, presents DOGE’s most significant challenge yet. Historically, military branches proposed cuts to redirect funding to newer programs, but lawmakers—protecting local spending—have consistently blocked these efforts, leading to a growing Pentagon budget since 9/11. Dan Grazier of the Stimson Center has noted, “It was in the permissive post-9/11 environment that we saw a whole slew of ill-conceived weapons programs. Now we are seeing the results—failed program after failed program.”
- “We welcome DOGE to the Pentagon.” However, opposition to cuts from both parties is expected.
- Ron Johnson (R-WI), a DOGE supporter, predicted, “We have big [defense] spenders in both parties. I’m expecting all kinds of squealing as you’re trying to come back to some kind of prepandemic level spending.”
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Important Takeaways:
- The fifth winter storm in just a week is set to sweep across the US, prompting travel warnings as it spreads snow and ice from California to Maine.
- Winter storm Jett is expected to barrel across a wide swath of the US from Thursday to Sunday.
- The West Coast will receive its first snowfall today, with up to six feet in high-elevation areas, before the storm moves eastward over the weekend.
- The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued various winter weather alerts for snow, ice, wind and extreme cold today in parts of California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Montana.
- Nearly 2,000 flights in and out of US airports were delayed and more than 220 were cancelled as of Thursday morning, according to FlightAware.com.
- The storm will reach the eastern US Friday evening and will begin spreading up to a foot of snow across the Mid-Atlantic, Great Lakes and Northeast through Sunday.
- Areas most likely to receive 12 inches include central Wisconsin and Michigan, along with northern New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
- Enough snow could fall in Detroit, Michigan and Chicago, Illinois to disrupt operations at two major Midwest airports located in these cities, AccuWeather meteorologists warned.
- Winter Storm Jett comes on the heels of two other storms that hit wide swaths of the nation earlier this week.
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Important Takeaways:
- Roads remained closed throughout Southern California on Friday following an atmospheric river that triggered rounds of evacuations and closures as it unleashed damaging mudslides in the fire-ravaged region.
- Multiple mudslides and flash floods were reported through Thursday night. In the Los Angeles area, mud and debris covered several major roads including the Pacific Coast Highway near Pacific Palisades and Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills.
- High winds tore through a mobile home community in Oxnard, about 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles, damaging at least 12 homes, many with entire walls and roofs shredded and torn off. The damage could have been caused by a waterspout that came onshore as a weak tornado, said Joe Sirard, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Oxnard. Winds in the area were recorded at speeds of 50 mph.
- Evacuations warnings and orders were issued in multiple counties, though the majority occurred in the Los Angeles area where the worst of the wildfires broke out last month. By late Thursday, the National Weather Service lifted all rain-related weather advisories in the region, but officials warned that “mud and rockslides can still happen even after the rainfall has stopped.”
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Important Takeaways:
- The years-old contract was discovered by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and reveals that the Pentagon awarded $9.15 million to Thomson Reuters Special Services, LLC (TRSS).
- The contract was filed under the Pentagon’s ‘Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services’ and ‘Research and Development’ programs.
- The connection to the media company is likely what led to the outrage from DOGE, Musk and Trump over the huge contract.
- In a post to his Truth Social account on Thursday, Trump wrote: ‘DOGE: Looks like Radical Left Reuters was paid $9,000,000 by the Department of Defense to study ‘large scale social deception.’ GIVE BACK THE MONEY, NOW!’
- On the government website that tracks and publishes contracts the $9 million award to TRSS is listed on the purchase order as being for ‘Active Social Engineering Defense (ASED) Large Scale Social Deception (LSD).’
- The goal of the ASED programs is to enhance U.S. cybersecurity by creating systems that detect, analyze and mitigate threats that exploit human psychology.
- There is a note on the contract award stating that some funding provided in 2020 and beyond was related to COVID-19 and included Disaster Emergency Fund Code (DEFC) ‘N,’ which means that money was distributed in an emergency capacity.
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