SciTechDaily.

A newly identified cellular system monitors subtle variations in genetic coding, hinting at a hidden level of control over how genes are expressed.

Human DNA stores instructions for life in sequences built from just four nucleotides. Those instructions are read in three-letter groups called codons, and each codon tells the cell which amino acid to add when building a protein. Since several codons can specify the same amino acid, these alternative spellings were once thought to be mostly interchangeable.

That view has changed. Scientists now know that some of these synonymous codons help messenger RNA, or mRNA, remain stable and get translated efficiently, while others do not. In effect, two genetic sequences can encode the same protein but still behave differently inside a cell. mRNAs rich in non-optimal codons are translated less efficiently and are often broken down more quickly, but the mechanism human cells use to detect this difference has been unclear.

Researchers at Kyoto University and RIKEN, led by Osamu Takeuchi and Takuhiro Ito, set out to solve that puzzle. Their work points to a protein called DHX29 as a key part of the system cells use to read this hidden layer of genetic information.

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Prepper Disk is a plug-and-play offline survival computer that gives you instant access to thousands of critical resources – without internet, subscriptions, or technical setup.

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Researchers from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) along with international collaborators have brought us one step closer to harnessing the sun’s energy to convert carbon dioxide into liquid fuel and other valuable chemicals. In a recent publication in Nature Catalysis, the researchers debut a self-contained carbon-carbon (C2) producing system that combines the catalytic power of copper with perovskite, a material used in photovoltaic solar panels. This advance builds on over 20 years of research and brings the scientific community one step closer to replicating the productivity of a green leaf in nature.

This work is part of a larger initiative, the Liquid Sunlight Alliance (LiSA), which is a Fuels from Sunlight Energy Innovation Hub funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. Led by Caltech in close partnership with Berkeley Lab, LiSA brings together more than 100 scientists from national lab partners at SLAC and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and university partners at UC Irvine, UC San Diego, and the University of Oregon. Researchers involved in this multi-institutional collaboration have made advances in developing our understanding of and the tools needed to develop liquid fuels generated from sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water. (Learn more about the LiSA collaboration in this roundup, “Five Ways LiSA is Advancing Solar Fuels.”)

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California’s top-two primary system allows the two highest vote-getters to advance, regardless of party, and Republicans Steve Hilton and Sheriff Chad Bianco have emerged as the top contenders in the race. Unless one of the Democrat candidates break out, the two Republicans could face each other in the final runoff in November.

Hilton, 56, is a conservative commentator who formerly served as a political advisor in Great Britain. Bianco, 58, is a “law and order” sheriff and coroner of Riverside County.

Polls have consistently showed the two Republicans leading the pack.

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In 2022, while filming a search for lost World War II aircraft, a dive team working on History Channel’s The Bermuda Triangle: Into Cursed Waters found a large object partly buried in sand. It was clearly engineered, but not in the way they expected. The surface was covered with 20 centimeter square tiles, a detail that immediately separated it from wartime airplane wreckage. Because the find lay near Florida’s launch corridor, the team asked NASA to examine the evidence. The agency confirmed it was debris from space shuttle Challenger, which broke apart 73 seconds after liftoff in 1986.

The identification gave the discovery a very different weight. Challenger was not an unsolved disappearance but one of the most studied failures in aerospace history, a disaster that killed all seven astronauts aboard and exposed how a flawed seal in a solid rocket booster joint could become catastrophic under launch conditions. What the divers found was a reminder that even after an enormous recovery effort, the ocean does not easily surrender everything it keeps. NASA’s post-accident salvage operation recovered 167 pieces weighing 118 tons, yet fragments still remained on the seafloor decades later.

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The case for life’s raw ingredients arriving from space just became harder to dismiss. In samples returned from the asteroid Ryugu, researchers identified all five nucleobases that make up DNA and RNA’s chemical alphabet: adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, and uracil. The finding does not show that life existed on the asteroid. It does show that some of biology’s most important molecular parts can form and persist in ancient space rock.

Well, this incel wasn’t ever going to get laid anyway, so why not Embrace the Dork?

The military applications are of course obvious.

Science News.

The sperm whale is an endangered species. A major reason is that the whale oil is heat-resistant and chemically and physically stable. This makes it useful for lubricating delicate machinery. The only substitute is expensive carnauba wax from the leaves of palm trees that grow only in Brazil … [but] wax from the seeds of the jojoba, an evergreen desert shrub, is nearly as good.

After sperm whale oil was banned in the early 1970s, the United States sought to replenish its reserves with eco-friendly oil from jojoba seeds (SN: 5/17/75, p. 335). Jojoba oil’s chemical structure is nearly identical to that of sperm whale oil, and the shrub is native to some North American desert ecosystems, making the plant an appealing replacement. Today, jojoba shrubs are cultivated around the world on almost every continent. Jojoba oil is used in hundreds of products, including cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, adhesives and lubricants. Meanwhile, sperm whale populations have started to recover under international anti-whaling agreements (SN: 2/27/21, p. 4).

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Between 5,000 and 14,000 years ago, the Sahara Desert looked nothing like it does today. It was lush and green, with lakes and rivers supporting a variety of animals—including humans.

But who were these ancient ancestors? And where do they fit on the human family tree?

Researchers think they finally have some answers to these questions. They’ve successfully analyzed the DNA of two naturally mummified livestock herders who died roughly 7,000 years ago in present-day Libya, which was part of what’s known as the “green Sahara.”

Their analyses revealed a previously unknown—and largely genetically distinct—population of ancient humans, according to a new paper published this month in the journal Nature.

The individuals who lived in the green Sahara showed “no significant genetic influence from sub-Saharan populations to the south or Near Eastern and prehistoric European groups to the north,” says study co-author Johannes Krause, a geneticist at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, to Reuters’ Will Dunham.

“This suggests they remained genetically isolated despite practicing animal husbandry—a cultural innovation that originated outside Africa,” Krause adds.

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The democratization and subsequent ubiquity of 3D printers have enabled almost any home enthusiast to produce utilities and products previously only attainable to large factories with big equipment. “You can 3D print those nowadays” has become a common utterance. Even still, it’s safe to say that our bingo cards did not predict a techie making a shoulder-mounted, 3D printed guided missile system for all of $96.

In a five-minute YouTube video, Alisher Khojayev goes over the basics of this Stinger-like creation, comprising the launcher, the actual missile, and even an optional camera node tracking system for added tracking capabilities. Most of the missile’s major parts are 3D printed, while the electronics bits are cheap, widely available microprocessors and sensors. All the gear is tied down and wired with off-the-shelf hardware store parts, too.

The War Zone.

Few people know the Middle East as well as Joseph Votel. From March 2016 to March 2019, the retired Army general served as the commander of U.S. Central Command, overseeing American military operations in the region. A big part of that job was planning for contingencies like what would become Operation Epic Fury, and especially how they would affect the massively strategic waterway that joins the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman — the tumultuous Strait of Hormuz. This waterway, in which about 20% of the world’s oil passes, is currently shut down by Iran.

In the first part of our wide-ranging exclusive interview with Votel, we focus on what is happening in the Strait. The author transited the Strait with Votel, now a Distinguished Military Fellow at the Middle East Institute, in 2016 and got a first-hand look as Iranian ships shadowed the USS New Orleans.

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Human tissue is inherently hierarchical with cells, tissues and organs organised into intricate structures at many levels.

The Human Organ Atlas bridges cellular and whole organ scales with images of whole intact organs at 8-20 ?m resolution and region of interest zooms at 1 ?m.

These images are released openly to allow exploration and reuse, with the hope that they will provide new insights into our biological makeup in health and disease.

The Atlas is powered by an advanced imaging technique called Hierarchical Phase-Contrast Tomography (HiP-CT), developed thanks to the capabilities of the ESRF’s Extremely Brilliant Source, a major Upgrade Programme funded by the ESRF Member and Scientific Associate Countries.

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Don’t ever say we don’t have useful stuff here.

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A new force in British politics is making waves with an uncompromising vision for national restoration. Just weeks after its launch as a full political party in February, Restore Britain has already overtaken the Conservative Party in membership numbers, reaching over 114,000 supporters and becoming the fourth largest party in the country.

The growth has been entirely organic through social media and grassroots efforts, with almost no mainstream coverage.

Campaigns director and spokesman Charlie Downes laid out the bold agenda clearly: “We will not lie to the British people. Restoring Britain will require decisions that are controversial and unpleasant.”

The War Zone.

The U.S. Air Force is now reportedly dropping its newest bunker-buster bomb, the 5,000-pound class GBU-72/B, on targets in Iran. The bombs are said to have been used in strikes on hardened Iranian anti-ship cruise missile sites along the highly strategic Strait of Hormuz overnight.

There are also reports that this is the first time GBU-72/Bs have been used in combat, but it is not clear if this is the case.

“Hours ago, U.S. forces successfully employed multiple 5,000-pound deep penetrator munitions on hardened Iranian missile sites along Iran’s coastline near the Strait of Hormuz,” U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) wrote in a post on X, which did not name the munitions in question, last night. “The Iranian anti-ship cruise missiles in these sites posed a risk to international shipping in the strait.”

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Can a people be free when the right to anonymously buy and sell is taken away? The Swiss think not. On Sunday, March 8th, the people of Switzerland voted in a binding referendum to enshrine the right to cold, harsh, physical cash in the nation’s constitution. The proposal enjoyed overwhelming support, with it earning a “yes” vote from 73.4% of the citizens who participated. It also won in every single one of the country’s 23 cantons. The Swiss move is likely to fuel like-minded movements across the West and the world—a painful blow for digital currency advocates everywhere.

Switzerland is not the first country to enshrine the right to the usage of physical cash in its constitution. Slovakia, in 2023, inaugurated the movement. Hungary, a conservative bastion, followed suit in 2025. Slovenia followed later that year. There are good reasons these countries are making the protection of physical currency a political and constitutional priority.

For years, governments, establishment politicos, and central banks have been methodically preparing the groundwork for a world in which physical cash disappears altogether. Under the useful excuses of ‘modernisation’ and ‘the war against financial crime,’ the public is being led—and, increasingly, pushed—towards entirely digital systems of payment. Credit cards, payment applications, and online transfers are progressively becoming the default means of economic life. Cash, meanwhile, is being deliberately marginalised. Part of this process is, of course, organic. But it is also being incentivised.

Naval News.

A low-profile handover ceremony for ROCS Tan Chiang (PGG-627) was held at Lungteh Shipbuilding’s yard in Yilan. So far, neither the Ministry of National Defense, the ROC Navy, nor the shipbuilder has issued an official statement or press release regarding the delivery.

The Tuo Chiang-class corvette is designed to employ hit-and-run tactics to counter Chinese naval vessels and has been dubbed a “carrier killer” by some Taiwanese media outlets. It can reach a top speed of 44–45 knots and has an operational range of 1,800–2,000 nautical miles. The class is armed with Hsiung Feng II and Hsiung Feng III anti-ship missiles, an OTO Melara 76 mm main gun, and a Phalanx Close-In Weapon System.

The follow-on ships of the class incorporate a number of upgrades and modifications, including the addition of TC-2N surface-to-air missiles, which are not fitted on the prototype. These improved vessels have a displacement of 685 tons, slightly higher than the 600-ton prototype, and are the first small combatants in the Taiwanese Navy equipped with an air-defense capability.

And I’ll bet it doesn’t have the problems of the U.S. LCS class.

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An appeals court ruled on Mar. 16 that the Trump administration could continue deporting illegal immigrants to places other than their native countries, without giving them a chance to protest against their destination.

“There is more work ahead on this important issue, but this is a key win for [President Donald Trump’s] immigration agenda,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said on X.

The 2–1 ruling by the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit paused a previous decision by Judge Brian Murphy of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, who ruled in February that the government’s policy was illegal.

Thank God not all of our judges are proglodyte idiots.

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Research points to a key bone-strengthening mechanism at work in the body, which could be targeted to treat the bone-weakening disease, osteoporosis.

Led by scientists from the University of Leipzig in Germany and Shandong University in China, the 2025 study identified the cell receptor GPR133 (also known as ADGRD1) as being crucial to bone density, via bone-building cells called osteoblasts.

Variations in the GPR133 gene had previously been linked to bone density, leading researchers to turn their attention to the protein it encoded.

The team ran tests on mice in which the gene was either absent or could be activated using a chemical called AP503.

In the absence of the GPR133 gene, the mice grew up with weak bones, resembling the symptoms of osteoporosis. However, when the receptor was present and activated by AP503, bone production and strength improved.

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You don’t need to sell.

You pay the tax annually on your home equity.

Example in their proposal:

Homes over $2M ? ~$14,700 per year.

Your home becomes a taxable asset.

In Texas we pay such a tax, nominated “property tax”, and that’s a major component of support for local government, especially schools, municipal services, and other infrastructure.

That’s not what’s happening in Canada. What’s happening in Canada is more akin to the Sanders/Warren ‘wealth tax’.

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The Trump administration on Friday invoked the Defense Production Act to boost oil production off Southern California’s coast as it looks to contain oil prices sent soaring by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

Global prices have surged above $100 a barrel, the highest since 2022, driven by significant supply disruption fears following the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran and threats to the Strait of Hormuz.

The Defense Production Act, a Korean War–era law enacted in 1950, gives the president broad authority to direct private industry to prioritize and produce materials deemed essential for national defense and emergency preparedness.

The Telegraph (UK).

Second refuelling aircraft lands safely after suspected mid-air collision near Jordanian border.

The downing of the aircraft at around 7pm GMT on Thursday near Turaibil along the Iraqi-Jordanian border is “under investigation”, the US Central Command (Centcom) said. It insisted the loss was “not due to hostile fire or friendly fire”.

I like the fact that The Telegraph adheres to traditional journalistic practice of putting the facts first in order of importance rather than the feminist version that starts with a tear-jerking ‘human interest’ anecdote before going on to not-so-subtly pushing a Narrative.

The War Zone.

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Yesterday we pointed out that contrary to conventional wisdom of a full Gulf blockade, more ships are now transiting the Strait of Hormuz…

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In recent weeks, Tokyo confirmed plans to deploy advanced surface-to-air missile systems on Yonaguni Island, Japan’s westernmost inhabited territory and only about 70 miles from Taiwan. The deployment is part of a broader effort to strengthen defenses along Japan’s southwestern island chain, territory that sits directly along the fault line of the emerging Indo-Pacific balance of power.

Watch it.

Most people don’t appreciate that calcium is a metal.

Truly, we live in miraculous times.

Unfortunately, our current regulatory state may prevent our using this knowledge to our benefit.

Government, once again, is why we can’t have good things.

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A 2024 Newsweek report analyzing this map found that these 8 places would be the most affected by radiation exposure risk, and are therefore the most dangerous states to live in, which were:
Montana
Wyoming
Colorado
Nebraska
South Dakota
North Dakota
Iowa
Minnesota

Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

ScienceAlert.

Say hello to ionocaloric cooling. It’s a new way to lower temperatures, with the potential to replace existing chilling methods with a safer, better-for-the-planet process.

Typical refrigeration systems transport heat away from a space via a fluid that absorbs heat as it evaporates into a gas, which is then transported through a closed tube and condensed back into a liquid.

As effective as this process is, some of the choice materials we use as refrigerants are particularly unfriendly to the environment.

There is, however, more than one way a substance can be forced to absorb and shed heat energy.

A method unveiled in 2023, developed by researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley, takes advantage of how energy is stored or released when a material changes phase, as when solid ice turns to liquid water, for example.

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Have you ever wondered if bed bugs are afraid of anything? These tiny blood-sucking insects cause stress in homes around the world. Once bed bugs enter a room, getting rid of them can feel almost impossible.

But new research from the University of California Riverside has revealed something surprising. Bed bugs fear water.

A recent study shows that moisture and wet surfaces make bed bugs quickly turn away. This discovery could help scientists and pest control companies better understand how to deal with infestations.

If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

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Rupert Lowe is fond of reminding everyone that his favourite historical figure is Oliver Cromwell. One can see the resemblance: a farmer, faithfully married for four decades, who sets down his plough to reluctantly take up an office of state in the years preceding imminent civil unrest. Lowe collects commemorative coins and books about Cromwell. A portrait of the Lord Protector hangs in his office. He named his faithful farm dog after him. While I’m more a Guy Fawkes man myself, it is obvious that Lowe is the Old Noll that Britain needs.

Fortunately, Lowe’s new political party, Restore Britain, isn’t planning on bringing back blasphemy laws or banning music, maypole dancing, and Christmas. (Though Britain’s growing number of Muslim candidates might.) After he announced his plan to stand candidates at the next election on Friday the 13th, Rupert’s former home turned rivals, Reform UK, simultaneously said he would split the vote and that nobody has heard of him. But even John Cleese can see this isn’t a squabble between Judean People’s Fronts. Restore Britain is not a heretical sect, formed from splitting hair-shirts over apostolic succession. As Nigel Farage revealed during his shadow cabinet announcement, Lowe was expelled from Reform because he called for deportations of Pakistani Muslim rape gang collaborators. The “bullying” investigation, police raid of his farmhouse, and confiscation of Lowe’s shotguns were all, in Farage’s eyes, a “brutal” but necessary way of “getting rid of him.”

If such tactics are permissible to prevent people who conspired to cover up the gang rape of children being banished back to Pakistan, then we shouldn’t be shocked that Reform’s surrogates spent the week following Lowe’s announcement comparing Restore supporters to the Nazis. What prompted such insults? Restore’s campaigns director, Charlie Downes’ definition of Britishness, being based on “ancestry” and Christian faith. Downes was guilty of stating what was obvious to everybody until the Cool Britannia messianism of Tony Blair reduced our history and heritage to a liberal pluralist Scout’s pledge of “British Values”.

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Don’t call them ‘conspiracy theories’; instead, call them ‘spoiler alerts’.

ATQUE: Inmate Account Revives Epstein Death Questions

ATQUE: The Epstein Files Have Become Another #MeToo

The War Zone.

As expected, Iran has repeatedly targeted prized missile defense radars across the Middle East in retaliation for the joint U.S.-Israeli air campaign that is ongoing. Iran’s attacks on high-value radars that enable the region’s missile defense capabilities appear to have succeeded on multiple occasions. The irony that lower-end long-range kamikaze drones are perhaps the biggest threat to extremely advanced radars capable of providing telemetry for intercepting targets traveling at hypersonic speeds, sometimes in space, is glaring. The losses of the radars and/or damage to their facilities should finally serve as a stark wake-up call regarding the vulnerability of these critical but largely static assets.

Based on the information at hand, it appears that Iran has been able to destroy one U.S. AN/TPY-2 radar in Jordan and damage the massive American-made AN/FPS-132 phased array radar in Qatar, prompting immediate concerns about available radar coverage to help respond to further barrages. There are strong indications that a number of other similar systems have been destroyed or damaged, as well.

The advent of phased-array radars has been a gane-changer in naval and coastal defense combat information networks.

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Colorado’s Medicaid program made an estimated $77.8 million in improper payments and another $207.4 million in potentially improper payments for autism therapy, according to a February report from the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services.

Naval News.

At a media briefing, information on the situation was provided by the President of Sri Lanka Anura Kumara Dissanayake. He stated that Sri Lanka intends to safeguard its neutrality while demonstrating humanitarian values.

On February 26 the replenishment vessel IRINS Bushehr, along with the frigate IRIS Dena and another Iranian vessel, had requested permission to enter port from March 9 to 13. Dena was sunk off the coast of Galle, by a U.S. Navy SSN using a Mark 48 torpedo, in the early hours of March 4. Bushehr then requested permission on March 4 to enter the port of Colombo on March 4 and 5, following which the Sri Lankan foreign ministry negotiated with its Iranian counterpart. One of Bushehr’s engines was reported to be damaged. After further negotiations with Iran it was decided to relocate the vessel.

The War Zone.

We are seeing the total destruction of Iran’s naval capabilities unfold day by day. Earlier this morning, the Pentagon announced that a U.S. Navy submarine had made the first torpedo kill since World War II against an Iranian frigate in the Indian Ocean. Now we are seeing footage of one of Iran’s strangest and most advanced warships, the Shahid Soleimani class IRIS Shahid Sayyad Shirazi (FS313-03), being struck and set ablaze. The ship would later sink, according to the Department of War.

These look similar to ‘stealth’ ships that the U.S. Navy is looking at , Sea Shadow and Ghost.

Read it. And watch the video.

I have got update from inside Iran for those who are genuinely worried.

Mainstream media is spreading nonsense to exploit your worry and save the regime.

My mom called this morning, she had to call cause internet’s cut again (it is a war crime). Explosions are louder than the 12-day war, but everyone is calm: strikes are precise, mostly away from homes. For nearby targets (mosques, IRGC/Basij bases in neighborhoods), people get phone warnings to evacuate first,consistent with 12 day war.

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“Republicans love Donald Trump more than any president’s own party supporters loved them at this particular point,” CNN’s Harry Enten reported Thursday, citing results of his network’s latest poll.

No other president has had this high a percentage of overall approval by supporters of his own party at this point in his presidency, Enten said while explaining why almost all of the primary candidates endorsed by Trump win.

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he U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday approved its first construction permit for a commercial nuclear reactor in eight years, one that will allow a Bill Gates-backed company to build a sodium-cooled reactor in western Wyoming.

TerraPower filed for the permit in 2024 and construction is now set to begin within weeks. Completion of the up to $4 billion plant is targeted for 2030, according to TerraPower.

Microsoft co-founder Gates, who is eyeing nuclear generation as a power source for the electricity-hungry data centers behind artificial intelligence, is a founder of TerraPower and its primary investor.

CNN, a Voice of the Crust.

This Is CNN—so check another source before you believe it.

Iranian bombers came within minutes of striking the largest military base housing US troops in the Middle East before Qatari planes shot them down in their first aerial combat mission, two sources briefed on the operation told CNN.

On Monday morning, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard dispatched two Soviet-era Su-24 tactical bombers toward al-Udeid Air Base, which typically houses 10,000 US service members, and Ras Laffan, a key natural gas processing facility and a bedrock of the Qatari economy.

The Iranian jets were “two minutes” away from their targets, one of the sources said. A second source told CNN that the planes were visually identified and photographed “carrying bombs and guided munitions.”

The Qataris issued a warning over radio but received no response from the jets, which had switched to a flying altitude of 80 feet to evade radar detection, the second source said.

Due to “time constraints” and “based on the available evidence,” the aircraft were “classified as hostile,” the second source added. Qatar then dispatched its warplanes, and a Qatari F-15 fighter engaged the Iranian jets in “aerial combat” before downing them, the second source added.

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While Sacramento legislators debate how to extract more money from residents who are already leaving, Tallahassee legislators are moving in the opposite direction. The fiscal philosophies now playing out in California and Florida represent the starkest tax policy divergence in modern American history—and the numbers tell the story.

In California, there is a $12 billion budget deficit, the product of spending commitments that expanded faster than the revenue base meant to fund them. The legislative response, rather than spending restraint, has been a parade of wealth tax proposals. The latest—Initiative 25-0024, the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act—would impose a one-time 5 percent excise tax on the net worth of California residents exceeding $1 billion as of Jan. 1, 2026. Applied to the state’s approximately 200 billionaires, the measure is projected to raise roughly $100 billion, with 90 percent directed to Medi-Cal.

…

Now consider Florida, in which the policy signals are vastly different. The state already has no income tax—a structural advantage that has driven a decade of net migration from high-tax states. Governor Ron DeSantis is now pushing further: a constitutional amendment on the November 2026 ballot that would eliminate property taxes on homesteaded primary residences. The Florida House passed HJR 203 on Feb. 19, 2025, by an 80–30 party-line vote. If the Senate concurs and 60 percent of voters approve, Florida would become the first state in American history with neither an income tax nor property taxes on primary residences.

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A 59-year field experiment in northern China suggests that seeding desert dunes with cyanobacteria can reduce soil recovery time from 15 years to as little as one or two.

The method, based on induced biological soil crusts, offers a new way to slow desertification without relying only on trees.

For years, the response to advancing deserts has been straightforward: plant more vegetation. China has done exactly that along the edge of the Taklamakan Desert, building green belts to anchor shifting sand. The results are visible, though the approach demands time and resources.

Cornyn, Paxton in ugly runoff: 5 takeaways from Texas, North Carolina primaries (KRON4)

Texas warning signs: 4 takeaways from the first primaries of 2026 (Axios)

Big Senate race takes shape in North Carolina, and other primary night takeaways (Washingtoon Poop)

Just call this the Takeaway Election. (You want fries with that?)

The Telegraph (UK).

An Iranian warship has been sunk by a submarine off the coast of Sri Lanka.

At least 101 people are missing, with one dead and 78 injured, Sri Lanka’s navy and defence ministry said.

It was not immediately clear who had attacked the ship, which the Sri Lankan authorities identified as the IRIS Dena.

The vessel was armed with heavy guns, surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship missiles and torpedoes and could carry a helicopter.

Earlier, the US military said it had already destroyed 17 Iranian vessels and that its goal was sinking “the entire navy”.

Sri Lanka’s foreign minister said its navy had responded to a ?distress call from the ship and launched rescue operations at 6am (12.30am UK).

UPDATE: US submarine sank Iran’s warship off Sri Lanka coast, says Hegseth

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That’s “Iron Beam”, not Eyebeam.

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Hundreds of Iranian nationals gathered in the centre of The Hague and on the Dam in Amsterdam over the weekend to celebrate the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in attacks carried out by U.S. and Israeli forces. In Amsterdam, bottles of champagne were opened and sweets were distributed among the crowd.

Many participants carried the Persian flag bearing the ancient Lion and Sun symbol, removed by the Islamic Republic after the 1979 Revolution.

“We’re not happy about war, of course, but this is the only option,” activist Nastaran Beik Pourian said, adding “We need other countries.”

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For the past half century, successive Presidential administrations and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have thwarted the development of advanced reactor designs that might fulfill President Eisenhower’s vision for the “peaceful uses of atomic energy.”

That all changed last May, when President Trump issued four executive orders aimed at reinvigorating the U.S. nuclear energy industry. The Trump orders addressed advance reactor technologies – from microreactors to small modular reactors all the way up to advanced tech versions of the water-cooled reactors that power every active U.S. nuclear power plant.

Trump also pledged to revamp the NRC to cut costs and timeframes for bringing new nuclear energy facilities – of all sizes – into production. This revolutionary move ended decades of bureaucratic overkill that choked off what could have long been a preeminent energy driver.

They just ought to buy the reactors that power U.S. nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers. Proven technology, compact, never had any problems, ever.

The War Zone.

Details remain very limited at this time, but an F-15 went down in the Middle East. Accounts online claim it occurred over Kuwait. Videos show the aircraft in a flat spin while ablaze, with its vertical tails missing and fire coming from its empennage, before crashing into the ground. At least one crewman safely ejected.

…

U.S. Central Command has confirmed that, on March 1, three U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles flying in support of Operation Epic Fury went down over Kuwait due to an apparent friendly fire incident. The CENTCOM statement continued:

“During active combat — that included attacks from Iranian aircraft, ballistic missiles, and drones — the U.S. Air Force fighter jets were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses.”

CENTCOM said that all six aircrew ejected safely, have been safely recovered, and are in a stable condition.

“Kuwait has acknowledged this incident, and we are grateful for the efforts of the Kuwaiti defense forces and their support in this ongoing operation,” the statement added. The cause of the incident is under investigation.

ScienceDaily.

I wonder whether it works on progressives….

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Old friends may remember the farce we experienced last May, when outgoing Marshmallow Interior Minister Nancy Faeser pushed her gaggle of goons in the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) to upgrade their political classification of Alternative für Deutschland.

No longer did the BfV consider the national political party to lurk under mere “suspicion of right-wing extremism,” oh no. They announced suddenly and with much establishment fanfare that they had determined the AfD to be “confirmed right-wing extremists.”

Faeser and her goons hoped this new designation would edge the AfD more firmly into Evil Nazi Fascist Hitler territory in the popular mind, thereby preparing the way for banning the party. According to the dumb Gender Studies-tier retards unassailable and unbiased experts of the BfV, the AfD were more definitely Evil, more definitely Nazi, more definitely Fascist and more definitely Hitler than ever before. They had such clear proofs of all the Evil Nazi Fascist Hitlerism lurking within the AfD that they could not even reveal them. Doing so, Faeser said, would compromise the mysterious sources and methods of her highly sophisticated political spy agency. Instead, the Interior Ministry leaked a classified dossier supporting the upgrade to sympathetic media like Der Spiegel, and these media promptly published earnest articles telling us all how absolutely Fascist and Evil and Nazi and Hitler all the secret evidence showed the AfD to be, because trust us bro.

The War Zone.

The joint U.S.-Israeli operation against Iran has entered its second day. The Iranians, as well as their regional proxies, continue to retaliate in kind against multiple countries in the region.

Readers can catch up first on the events of the first day of the war with our initial rolling coverage here.

The death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, now confirmed by Iranian authorities, has created a new dimension to the conflict. The regime in Tehran has pledged to avenge Khamenei, and has also announced 40 days of public mourning.