Important Takeaways:
- China staged military drills off Taiwan’s north, south and east coasts on Tuesday as a “stern warning” against separatism and called Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te a “parasite,” as Taiwan sent warships to respond to China’s navy approaching its shores.
- The exercises, which China has not formally named unlike war games last year, are happening after a rise in Chinese rhetoric against Lai and follow on the heels of U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Asia visit, during which he repeatedly criticized Beijing.
- Taiwan’s government condemned the drills, with the presidential office saying China was “widely recognized by the international community as a troublemaker” and that the government has the confidence and ability to defend itself
- Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying only the island’s people can decide their future.
- Two senior Taiwan officials told Reuters that more than 10 Chinese military ships had approached close to Taiwan’s 24 nautical mile (44 km) contiguous zone and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond.
- China’s foreign ministry said the drills “are legitimate and necessary actions to defend national sovereignty and safeguard national unity”.
- “China’s reunification is an unstoppable trend — it will happen, and it must happen” Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson, said at a regular news conference on Tuesday.
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Important Takeaways:
- Magma erupted from craters around Iceland’s Blue Lagoon resort on Tuesday morning, forcing its evacuation and those of settlements nearby, after the volcanic island’s seismologists recorded an “earthquake swarm” earlier in the day.
- The community, located on the Reykjanes Peninsula, was largely evacuated a year ago when the volcano came to life after lying dormant for 800 years.
- “The fissure is now about 500 meters (547 yards) long and has reached through the protective barrier north of Grindavík,” Iceland’s Met Office said in a statement. “The fissure continues to grow, and it cannot be ruled out that it may continue to open further south.”
- The earthquake swarm began at 6:30 a.m. local time on the Sundhnúks Crater Row, Iceland’s Meteorological Office said.
- “The swarm is between Sýlingarfell and Stóra-Skógfell, in a similar area seen prior to previous eruptions,” the office said, adding that it was “followed by a clear change in deformation and pressure changes in boreholes.”
- “Both independent measurements were a clear sign of the onset of a magma intrusion,” the office said.
- Jóhanna Malen Skúladóttir, a natural hazards specialist at Iceland’s Meteorological Office, told Visir they were monitoring the situation and it “looks like an eruption is starting.”
- “A lot of magma has accumulated in the magma chamber and there is, for example, more seismic activity now than before the last eruption. It could be that she is trying to find a new place to come up,” Skúladóttir told the publication.
- Iceland’s Meteorological Office had warned in the morning: “No magma has reached the surface as of now, but an eruption is likely to occur.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Iran has toughened its already belligerent rhetoric and is threatening U.S. forces in the region.
- The aerospace division commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, Gen. Amir Hajizadeh, declared Monday, “The Americans have at least 10 bases and 50,000 forces near Iran. This means they are sitting in a glass room. Someone sitting in a glass room would not throw rocks at others.”
- President Donald Trump threatened to bomb Iran if the regime didn’t agree to a deal to give up their nuclear weapons program.
- Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded, warning, “If they do (bomb), they will definitely receive a firm reciprocal blow.”
- He also called for the destruction of Israel.
- “It’s a religious, moral and human duty for everyone to work toward removing this wicked, criminal entity (Israel) from the region,” he said.
- Despite all the tough talk, the White House is hoping that Iran will come around.
- Ben Cohen, a senior analyst and rapid response director at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, explained that Iran has so much uranium ready for use in nuclear bombs that Israel and the U.S. can’t just sit by.
- “You’ve got a situation now where Iran has got about 275 kilograms of weapons-grade enriched uranium,” Cohen told CBN News. “That is very risky. And so, yes, of course, every day that goes by without some kind of diplomatic resolution whereby Iran effectively surrenders its nuclear facilities and its nuclear program – every day that doesn’t happen, we get closer to a military strike.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Rescue workers saved a 63-year-old woman from the rubble of a building in Myanmar’s capital on Tuesday, but hope was fading of finding many more survivors of the violent earthquake that killed more than 2,700 people, compounding a humanitarian crisis caused by a civil war.
- The fire department in Naypyitaw said the woman was successfully pulled from the rubble 91 hours after being buried when the building collapsed in the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that hit midday Friday. Experts say the likelihood of finding survivors drops dramatically after 72 hours.
- The head of Myanmar’s military government, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, told a forum in Naypyitaw, that 2,719 people have now been found dead, with 4,521 others injured and 441 missing, Myanmar’s Western News online portal reported.
- Those figures are widely expected to rise, but the earthquake hit a wide swath of the country, leaving many areas without power, telephone or cell connections and damaging roads and bridges, leaving the full extent of the devastation hard to assess.
- Most of the reports so far have come from Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, which was near the epicenter of the earthquake, and Naypyitaw.
- “The window for lifesaving response is closing. Across the affected areas, families are facing acute shortages of clean water, food, and medical supplies.”
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Important Takeaways:
- What To Know
- As of Monday morning, winter weather advisories were in effect in parts of Alaska, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, California, Montana, Wyoming and Maine.
- More serious winter storm warnings were issued for parts of California, Montana, Oregon and Nevada.
- Winter storm watches, indicating severe winter weather was possible in the coming days were also in effect in Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
- The NWS in Reno, Nevada, warned that in the Greater Lake Tahoe Area, “snow accumulations between one to two feet above 6500 feet…with up to three to 3.5 feet possible at the highest elevations” were expected through Tuesday evening. Winds in the Sierra ridgelines could reach 100 mph.
- The NWS office in Sacramento stated that total snow accumulations of 1 to 4 feet were possible, locally up to 5 feet over peaks for areas above 3500 feet in the Sierra Nevada and warned that “very strong winds could cause extensive tree damage.”
- Power Outages
- At the time of writing, significant power outages were noted in two of the states.
- In Michigan, some 324,000 customers were without power, according to PowerOutage.us, a service that tracks disruptions.
- In neighboring Minnesota, more than 62,000 outages were recorded.
- In Indiana, some 50,000 were noted, with a further 10,000 in Kentucky.
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Important Takeaways:
- Employees across the massive U.S. Health and Human Services Department began receiving notices of dismissal on Tuesday in an overhaul ultimately expected to lay off up to 10,000 people.
- Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a plan last week to remake the department, which, through its agencies, is responsible for tracking health trends and disease outbreaks, conducting and funding medical research, and monitoring the safety of food and medicine, as well as for administering health insurance programs for nearly half of the country.
- The department on Thursday provided a breakdown of some of the cuts.
- __ 3,500 jobs at the Food and Drug Administration, which inspects and sets safety standards for medications, medical devices and foods.
- __ 2,400 jobs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which monitors for infectious disease outbreaks and works with public health agencies nationwide.
- __ 1,200 jobs at the NIH.
- __ 300 jobs at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the Affordable Care Act marketplace, Medicare and Medicaid.
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Important Takeaways:
- If you want peace, prepare for war. Germany appears to be embracing this ancient maxim with the country’s top general warning Monday that Berlin is ready to bring back conscription.
- Carsten Breuer, the German Chief of Defense, told BBC’s Radio 4 an additional 100,000 soldiers would be needed to ensure the country’s ability to defend itself as a belligerent Russia continues to roil the continent.
- Defense chiefs have been looking to increase the size of the armed forces since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but have fallen short of even an initial target of 20,000, as Europe looks ahead to further unrest.
- The Daily Mail reports Breuer warned Russia could attack NATO territory in as little as four years and he is calling for a massive troop buildup – achievable, he says, only through compulsory service through conscription.
- “We are threatened by Russia,” Breuer acknowledged in his comments to Radio 4.
- “We are threatened by Putin, and we have to do whatever is needed to do to deter, and by building up a strong defense line then you deter best.”
- Asked how much time and money was needed to achieve Germany’s defense goals, he said it was “more about how much time Putin gives us to be prepared.”
- “The sooner we are prepared, the better it is.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Billionaire entrepreneur and Trump advisor Elon Musk dropped a bombshell this weekend during a fiery 100-minute town hall in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he campaigned for conservative judge Brad Schimel in the state’s upcoming Supreme Court election on Tuesday.
- Joined by Antonio Gracias, a private equity titan and a key member of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team tasked with rooting out waste in the federal government, Musk unveiled a shocking chart: a dramatic spike in Social Security Numbers issued to non-citizens, soaring from 270,000 in 2021 to a mind-blowing 2.1 million in 2024.
- That’s almost 5 million non-citizens now embedded in the system—collecting benefits, draining taxpayer dollars, and, most alarmingly, infiltrating the voter rolls.
- Musk declared, pointing to the data. “This wasn’t an accident. This was a massive, large-scale program under the Biden administration to import as many illegals as possible—ultimately to change the voting map of the United States, disenfranchise the American people, and lock in a permanent deep-blue, one-party state from which there’d be no escape.”
- The evidence, according to Musk and Gracias, is undeniable. By sampling voter registration records, they uncovered non-citizens who not only registered but voted in American elections.
- “We’ve referred them to prosecution at Homeland Security Investigations,” Gracias revealed. “That’s happening right now.”
- But the scandal goes deeper than voter fraud. Gracias, who traveled from D.C. to Social Security offices and the southern border alongside Musk, painted a grim picture of a system rigged to incentivize illegal entry.
- The human cost, however, is what Gracias called “the darkest thing.”
- He estimates human traffickers and cartels raked in $13 to $15 billion exploiting this broken system, preying on desperate migrants from Africa and Central America.
- “You think someone in Africa or Central America has $10,000 to $20,000 to pay these traffickers? No. What happens is: you come in, then you owe them the money. You’re an indentured servant,” said Gracias.
- “And if you don’t pay? What do they do? They kill your mother. They kill your brother. They kill your family. What happens next? That’s what we discovered. And I have to tell you, it’s tragic to me. The human tragedy this created is the real problem,” he added.
- Even worse, ICE data reveals 30,000 children who never showed up for their hearings and 270,000 more who didn’t even get Notices to Appear.
- “ICE told us that kids are being trafficked back and forth across the border to complete families to make this easier. This is a human tragedy,” Gracias said.
- “And how many of these people died on the way up here that didn’t make it in? What happened to them? We created a system here that created an incentive for people to come and been taking advantage of by these traffickers.”
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Important Takeaways:
- A 7.0 magnitude earthquake near the island nation of Tonga led to a tsunami warning for the Pacific Island country in the early morning hours of Monday local time.
- The U.S. Geological Survey reported that the quake struck about 55 miles southeast of Pangai in the early morning hours of Monday. Pangai is home to the principal port of the Ha’apai Group of islands of Tonga.
- The warning has since been lifted.
- Tsunami waves were later observed but were not extreme and were forecast to be less than three feet above the tide level. The tsunami warning was soon lifted and there were no immediate reports of damage.
- A few hours later, a second quake with a magnitude of 6.1 hit in the same area. Tonga is made up of more than 170 islands in Polynesia, many of them uninhabited. With a population of just over 100,000, most people live on the main island of Tongatapu. Tongatapu is about 2,000 miles off Australia’s east coast.
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Important Takeaways:
- Survivors were pulled out of rubble in Myanmar and signs of life were detected in the ruins of a skyscraper in Bangkok on Monday as efforts intensified to find people trapped three days after a massive earthquake in Southeast Asia that killed at least 2,000.
- Rescuers freed four people, including a pregnant woman and a girl, from collapsed buildings in Mandalay, the city in central Myanmar near the epicenter of Friday’s 7.7-magnitude earthquake, China’s Xinhua news agency reported.
- Civil war in Myanmar, where a military junta seized power in a coup in 2021, was complicating efforts to reach those injured and made homeless by the Southeast Asian nation’s biggest quake in a century.
- “Access to all victims is an issue … given the conflict situation. There are a lot of security issues to access some areas across the front lines in particular,”
- One rebel group said Myanmar’s ruling military was still conducting airstrikes on villages in the aftermath of the quake, and Singapore’s foreign minister called for an immediate ceasefire to help relief efforts.
- In the Thai capital Bangkok, rescuers pulled out another body from the rubble of an under-construction skyscraper that collapsed in the quake, bringing the death toll from the building collapse to 12, with a total of 19 dead across Thailand and 75 still missing at the building site.
- Realistic chances of survival diminish after 72 hours, she said, adding: “We have to speed up. We’re not going to stop even after 72 hours.”
- In Myanmar, state media said the death toll had reached 2,065 with more than 3,900 injured and over 270 missing and that the military government had declared a week-long mourning period from Monday.
- Reuters could not immediately confirm the new death tolls. Media access has been restricted in the country since the junta took power. Junta chief General Min Aung Hlaing warned at the weekend that the number of fatalities could rise.
- Critical infrastructure – including bridges, highways, airports and railways – across the country of 55 million lie damaged, slowing humanitarian efforts while the conflict that has battered the economy, displaced over 3.5 million people and debilitated the health system, rages on.
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