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Pregnant Chinese women have turned a tropical paradise into a maternity ward — pumping out babies who automatically become US citizens daily. The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), a US territory northeast of Guam in the Pacific Ocean, has been flooded with so-called “birth tourists” since 2009 when then-president Barack Obama introduced a visa-waiver program for Chinese nationals. China-watchers estimate about 1,000 companies offer birth tourism to the Northern Mariana Islands, other US overseas territories and even the US mainland. They claim a gob-smacking 1.5 million American babies are being raised in China by Chinese parents who’ve participated...

Uncover the sunken remains of a 4th-century basilica in Turkey. Submerged beneath the waters of Lake Iznik for hundreds of years, the church could reveal crucial insights into the early days of Christianity. Join a team of international researchers as they travel back through time—and grapple with Turkey’s many earthquakes, which could sink the structure deeper at any moment. Sunken Basilica Reveals Glimpse of Early Christianity | Full Episode Secrets of the Dead | 55:35 PBS | 1.69M subscribers | 23,809 views | March 18, 2026

Explanation: Even if you live with your head in the clouds, you won’t find a jellyfish like this one very often. The featured image shows a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida on March 4. The launch happened 52 minutes before sunrise, and the second stage rocket exhaust plume was high enough in the sky to catch the light of the rising sun, while the photographer was still in the dark. This combination of light and shadow, possible at dawn or dusk, makes the exhaust, mostly water vapor and carbon dioxide, appear as a glowing cloud....

Curators at the Fitzwilliam Museum noticed that an image of a jackal on a 3,300-year-old Egyptian papyrus had been modified with white fluid, according to an ArtNet News report. The modified picture was found in a copy of the Book of the Dead made for a royal scribe named Ramose, whose tomb was discovered by William Flinders Petrie in 1922. The image shows Ramose placing his hands on the body of a jackal, identified as Wepwawet, a god of war and hunting. Bold, white lines had been applied to either side of the jackal's body and the upper halves of...

Whoopi Goldberg cheerfully confessed she bar hops as a way to fulfill her sexual needs. On Wednesday’s episode of “The View,” Goldberg noted, “A woman wrote an article in Cosmopolitan, admitting that she fantasizes about being single even though she’s in a very happy longterm relationship.” “She writes that sometimes, she finds herself missing the days of casual flings and bar-hopping,” Goldberg continued as the audience giggled. The “Ghost” actress then turned to her co-hosts for a reaction, to which Joy Behar responded, “Do you miss those days?” Goldberg quipped, “I am single,” adding, “Yeah, I bar hop, I go...

ZME Science reports that Shlomi Katzin of the University of Haifa discovered a three-foot-long Crusader-era sword encrusted with shells and sand while swimming in the Mediterranean Sea off Israel’s Dor Beach. The Israel Antiquities Authority soon granted permission to recover the object from the seabed and transfer it to the University of Haifa. A CT scan at a nearby hospital revealed that the sword’s iron blade is severely corroded, yet enough of it survives to indicate that it was likely forged in Europe and belonged to a Frankish knight. “Swords were precious objects, and therefore were carefully cared for and...

The world spent fifty years and hundreds of billions of dollars building Strategic Petroleum Reserves so that no geopolitical rupture could fully sever modern civilization from energy. The United States alone holds just over 400 million barrels of crude oil in salt caverns beneath the Gulf Coast. On March 11, 2026, the International Energy Agency authorized a record 400-million-barrel emergency release from member-country reserves, the largest coordinated drawdown in the Agency’s history. Energy insecurity has institutions, stockpiles, and doctrine. Fertilizer insecurity does not. No country appears to maintain a fertilizer reserve system remotely comparable in scale, doctrine, or strategic importance...

The possible arrival time for the incoming solar storms is still evolving, and depends on which of the multiple CMEs strike Earth and what effect they have. According to NOAA's latest forecast, the first impacts could begin as early as 11 p.m. EDT March 18 (0300 GMT March 19), with moderate (G2) geomagnetic storm conditions most likely between 2:00 a.m. and 8 a.m. EDT (0600-1200 GMT). However, other models, including those cited by the U.K. Met Office, suggest the main CME could arrive later on March 19 or even early March 20, prolonging auroral activity through the weekend. Because multiple...

Live Science reports that analysis of feathers discovered in a 1,000-year-old Yschma tomb in coastal Peru near the temple of Pachacamac indicates that they came from scarlet macaws (Ara macao), red-and-green macaws (Ara chloropterus), blue-and-yellow macaws (Ara ararauna), and mealy Amazons (Amazona farinosa), all of which live in lowland tropical forests to the east, more than 300 miles away across the Andes Mountains. No evidence for keeping birds, such as parrot skeletons, eggshells, or bird shelters, have been uncovered at Pachacamac, said George Olah of the Australian National University. The chemical makeup of the feathers showed, however, that the parrots...

According to a statement released by the University of Tübingen, an international team of researchers who evaluated a fossil femur unearthed at the site of Azmaka in southern Bulgaria suggests that it could belong to a human ancestor. “At 7.2 million years old, this ancestor, which we classify as belonging to the genus Graecopithecus, could be the oldest known human,” said paleoanthropologist David Begun of the University of Toronto. Graecopithecus was first identified by a fragment of a lower jaw unearthed near Athens. The researchers examined the shape of the tooth roots from the jaw and concluded that Graecopithecus could...

Explanation: A lone tree stands in a quiet meadow in Guadalajara, Spain, silhouetted against the Cygnus region rising above like flames in the night sky. This deep night skyscape is a composite of exposures that reveals a range of brightness and color human eyes can't quite see on their own. Spanning over a thousand times the angular size of the full moon, Cygnus sets the sky afire with active star formation where clouds of gas and dust collapse under gravity until nuclear fusion ignites and new stars are born. These stars ionize the surrounding hydrogen gas, causing it to glow...

According to the Greek Reporter, an ancient mosaic was discovered in central Athens during construction work on Evripidou Street. Large sections of the floor appear to remain intact. Archaeologists are examining the mosaic in an effort to date it and determine if the floor belonged to a private residence or a public area. To read about lead curse tablets unearthed at Athens' Kerameikos necropolis, go to "The Cursing Well."

A defiant Iranian regime is reeling from U.S. and Israeli military strikes, but one American who fled Iran as a child says some citizens are thanking the U.S. as a liberator.Iranian American Armin Assadi said Iranians are dancing near where American bombs have landed, adding that for the first time in 47 years there is hope Iran may be free."You can literally see people singing and dancing in the streets, mere blocks away from where the first missile struck. That's craziness to have [to] find hope in being bombed," Assadi said on "Fox & Friends Weekend.""That's how desperate these people...

Newly-released sales figures from the United States is starting to reveal just how much electric vehicle demand leaned on the federal EV tax credit that was discarded on September 30 last year. With that incentive now gone, the early numbers suggest the market is already feeling the adjustment, and it has not been a subtle one. Data from S&P Global Mobility shared by Auto News show that 59,802 new EVs were registered in January, a massive 41 percent drop from a year earlier.

The US military dropped 5,000-pound bunker buster bombs on underground Iranian missile sites near the Strait of Hormuz Tuesday, according to authorities. The massive attack announced by US Central Command came as the war with Iran had staunched the flow of shipping through the vital Persian Gulf waterway. “Hours ago, US forces successfully employed multiple 5,000-pound deep penetrator munitions on hardened Iranian missile sites along Iran’s coastline near the Strait of Hormuz,” the regional command said on X around 7 p.m. EST. “The Iranian anti-ship cruise missiles in these sites posed a risk to international shipping in the strait,” CENTCOM...

Explanation: This telescopic close-up shows off the central regions of otherwise faint emission nebula IC 410, captured under backyard skies. Presented in a Hubble color palette, the image combines visible broadband and narrowband data with data from the near-infrared. Below and right of center are two remarkable inhabitants of the interstellar pond of gas and dust. the Tadpoles of IC 410. Partly obscured by foreground dust, the nebula itself surrounds NGC 1893, a young galactic cluster of stars. Formed in the interstellar cloud a mere 4 million years ago, the intensely hot, bright cluster stars energize the glowing gas. But...

After being offline for more than a decade, oil is officially flowing again through the Santa Ynez Pipeline System off the coast of Southern California. The network of pipelines, which pass through Santa Barbara County before ending at Pentland Station in Kern County, restarted Monday following an executive order from President Donald Trump on Friday, which has been seized on by Gavin Newsom. “This is an attempt to illegally restart a pipeline whose operators are facing criminal charges and prohibited by multiple court orders from restarting,” Newsom said in a statement when Trump first announced plans for Sable to resume...

Explanation: If not perfect, then this spiral galaxy is at least one of the most photogenic. An island universe containing billions of stars and situated about 40 million light-years away toward the constellation of the Dolphinfish (Dorado), NGC 1566 presents a gorgeous face-on view. Classified as a grand design spiral, NGC 1566 shows two prominent and graceful spiral arms that are traced by bright blue star clusters, red emission nebulas, and dark cosmic dust lanes. Numerous Hubble Space Telescope images of NGC 1566 have been taken to study star formation, supernovas, and the spiral's unusually active center. NGC 1566's flaring...

La Brújula Verde reports that the excavation of a necropolis in southwestern Italy by researchers from the Superintendence of Archaeology, Fine Arts, and Landscape for the Provinces of Salerno and Avellino has revealed 34 Samnite burials dated to between the fourth and third centuries B.C. The graves were grouped by family, and most of them consisted of a pit covered with tiles arranged like a small roof. Two of the burials had chambers lined with travertine blocks, while another had a tufa chamber. Graves holding the remains of men also contained spearheads or javelin points. Rings and brooches for fastening...

According to a La Brújula Verde report, eight burials at the Childrey Warren site in southeastern England have been analyzed. In all, the rural cemetery contained more than 30 burials. The eight burials in the study, including the remains of newborns and adults who were more than 45 years old at the time of death, have been dated to the fourth century A.D. One of the individuals had been beheaded, with the skull placed beneath the feet. Ancient DNA samples taken from these remains show that six of the eight people were closely related—sisters, paternal first cousins, and paternal and...