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Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz again Wednesday in response to Israeli attacks against the Hezbollah terrorist group in Lebanon, casting doubt over whether an already precarious ceasefire to end more than a month of war will hold. The United States and Iran both claimed victory after reaching the agreement, and world leaders expressed relief, even as more drones and missiles hit Iran and Gulf Arab countries. Israel also intensified its attacks in Lebanon, hitting several commercial and residential areas in Beirut without warning. At least 112 people were killed and hundreds were wounded in one of the deadliest days...

Explanation: And to all of you down there on Earth and around Earth, we love you, from the Moon. We will see you on the other side, said Artemis II pilot Victor Glover on April 6th at 6:44pm ET as 8.3 billion minus four people and one Earth set below the Moon's horizon. The Orion spacecraft, Integrity, then traveled behind the Moon as part of its seven-hour lunar flyby. The crew characterized never-before-seen regions of the far side of the Moon, which is puzzlingly less volcanically active than the near side. New observations of crater peaks, floors, terraces, and rings...

President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are set to meet with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the White House Wednesday, following the announcement of a two-week ceasefire with Iran. The Trump administration has expressed strong frustration with the alliance for refusing to support U.S. objectives, including securing the Strait of Hormuz, on which many European nations depend. Alleged “allies” offered little more than calls to resume negotiations, questioned President Trump’s plan, and in some cases even closed their airspace to U.S. military aircraft, moves widely viewed as a betrayal by European partners. This comes after Secretary of State...

When history books are written about Operation Epic Fury, analysts will spend chapters debating whether it was wise, justified, or legally sound. But one consequence may stand above all others in terms of shaping the next century of American foreign policy: the Iran conflict may have finally given the United States the political and moral clarity to walk away from NATO.That may not have been the intention. But sometimes the most important outcomes are the unintended ones. (snip) The Iran conflict has been enormously clarifying. When the United States launched military operations against Iran — alongside Israel, without consulting European...

Full Grok question: "If the United States must be blamed for slavery before the U.S. did not even exist in the year 1776, don't Americans get the privilege of taking the credit for abolitionism that existed prior to 1776 since Britain did not do that?" --- Yes, by that exact same logic of retroactive national attribution, Americans (specifically, the colonists who formed the United States) get full credit for the early abolitionist movements that predated 1776—movements Britain itself did not pursue or enact at the time, and which Britain actively hindered in the colonies. The premise is straightforward and consistent:...

Kuwait's interior ministry reported "severe material damage" at several vital facilities of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and the energy and water resources ministry after an Iranian drone attack on Wednesday. The ministry said fires broke out in some of the attacked sites, which it said include oil facilities and three power stations and water desalination plants.

The US and Iran have apparently agreed to a two-week ceasefire. President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that, based on conversations with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir, he will delay the "bombing and attack of Iran" for two weeks.Trump said the decision came after the leaders requested the U.S. "hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran," which the president previously threatened would start at 8 p.m. eastern time if a deal was not reached. The president said the postponement is subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to "the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE,...

The dark side of the moon has long been the subject of myth and speculation. What mysteries lie beyond the known lunar surface in that dark realm beyond our telescopes? Now, The Babylon Bee can reveal what the crew of the Artemis II mission discovered on the other side of the moon: Rocks: Lots and lots of rocks. A Starbucks: Man, they really are everywhere. 1,000,000,000 Mylar birthday balloons: So that's where they all end up. A Somali daycare: The owner says it has a huge client base and is totally legit. A Shohei Ohtani home run ball: Not...

Iran “begged” for a ceasefire agreement, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced during a press conference Wednesday morning, claiming total victory for the United States and noting that President Donald Trump “forged this moment.”Speaking of the eleventh-hour ceasefire following Trump’s threat to end an entire civilization, Hegseth pointed to the broader picture, reminding Americans that Iran has a history of “targeting our people, killing Americans, [and] lying and blackmailing their way toward a nuclear weapon.”“So they thought. No longer. Not on our watch,” Hegseth said, explaining that other presidents have kicked the can down the road. However, he said, Trump...

SAMARITAN’S PURSE TRANSPORTED MORE THAN 51 TONS OF URGENTLY NEEDED RELIEF SUPPLIES TO BEIRUT THIS WEEK TO SERVE DISLODGED FAMILIES. The Samaritan’s Purse 767 aircraft made its third trip to Lebanon in the last two weeks to deliver another 50-plus tons of relief supplies, including medical resources for hospitals and clinics. This most recent load also brought more solar lights, hygiene and kitchen supplies, tents, blankets, and jerry cans. In total, we’ve flown in over 150 tons of aid, which we are providing to church partners to distribute to some of the nearly 1 million people who have had to...

Investors around the globe on Wednesday cheered what appears to be the beginning of the end of the military clash between the U.S. and Iran, sending stocks higher and government bond yields lower. Oil prices plunged on the promise that the Strait of Hormuz may soon be open for shipping.The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up by 1,000 points by midday, a 2.3 percent gain. The S&P 500 rose 2.1 percent. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 2.6 percent. Stocks had been even higher earlier in the morning but pared gains as reports on ongoing missle strikes and a drone attack on...

Goldman Sachs has issued a stark warning to workers caught up in the AI-driven layoff wave – finding a new job could take longer, and it may pay less when they do. The Wall Street giant says tech employees displaced by automation are facing a tougher road back into work than those in more stable industries. To make matters worse, the very technology replacing them also erodes the value of their skills. In March alone, US employers announced 60,620 job cuts - a 25 percent increase from the previous month - with AI linked to roughly one in four of...

Illegal immigrants in California could soon have their lawyers paid for by taxpayers if a new bill proposed by Sacramento politicians goes through. Starting next year, California would begin to fund legal representation for all unauthorized adults to fight their deportations under new legislation set to clear its first hurdle on Tuesday. “Legal representation saves lives, protects civil liberties and keeps families together,” said bill author Assemblymember Mia Bonta (D). “This is a due process issue in California. People can lose their freedom, their family, their job and home through immigration proceedings.” Last year, Bonta helped pass a law that...

It may seem surprising that researchers could study a phenomenon for which we don’t yet have any data—after all, there are no verified accounts of conversations with aliens. But there are good reasons to consider what alien languages might look like. For one... human languages have far more in common than we might think. A universal grammar underlies what turn out to be mostly surface differences. [A]ll languages use a finite number of sounds (or gestures in the case of signed languages) and phrase types (like noun phrases and verb phrases) to build a theoretically limitless number of unique communications,...

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government... Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools...

Iran has once again closed the Strait of Hormuz, blocking oil tankers from transiting the waterway, in retaliation for Israeli strikes on Hezbollah, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-tied outlet Fars News reported on Wednesday. Oil tankers attempting to transit the strait received threatening messages from the Iranian Navy, according to several shipping sources. "Any vessel trying to travel into the sea ... will be targeted and destroyed..." the message, which was received by several vessels, said. This is a developing story.

Soon after the deadly Israeli attack that caused thousands of Hezbollah pagers to explode in September 2024, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government offered its assistance to Iran, the key sponsor of Hezbollah, considered a terrorist organization by the United States. “Our secret service has already contacted your services and we will share all the information we have gathered during the investigation,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, by telephone, according to a copy of a Hungarian government transcript of the Sept. 30 call obtained and authenticated by a Western intelligence service and reviewed by...

What better way for Morning Joe to mark the Iran ceasefire than by once again tying President Trump to the “monsters of history”? On consecutive days, co-host Jonathan Lemire reached for the same loaded line. He first used it yesterday, reacting to Trump’s bellicose Truth Social post warning Iran of severe consequences. He rolled it out again today—clearly deciding it was too good not to reuse. This time, he escalated further, suggesting Trump’s rhetoric would leave a lasting “stain” not just on his presidency, but on the United States itself. On Tuesday’s show, Lemire cited Trump’s threat-laden language—of the sort...

They should have stuck to chicken breasts. Eight Chick-fil-A staffers say they’ve been fired for jiggling their chests for a TikTok video seen by more than 7 million people — including their bosses. The uniformed workers took it in turns to shake their chests to a mashup of “Wanna Mingle x Top of the Cars” in a clip shared last month, including a male staffer who also turned around to twerk. Their cheeky dance moves for the viral trend, under the title “my CFA crew better than yours,” quickly racked up nearly 7.5 million views — but also got the...

European countries, after the Second World War, came to a painful but profound conclusion: if they wanted to stop centuries of bloodletting among themselves, they had to make war materially irrational. The answer they found was not idealism alone, but interdependence. Trade. Shared markets. Shared interests. Over time, that logic helped give birth to what became the European Union. As the EU notes in its official history of postwar integration, the European Coal and Steel Community was created so that no single country could build the weapons of war against the others as in the past. Established by the Treaty...