US House passes stopgap DHS funding bill after Republicans reject Senate deal

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Lead On Friday, March 28, 2026, the US House approved a Republican-authored stopgap measure to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for eight weeks after rejecting a bipartisan Senate compromise. The House vote passed 213 to 203 and keeps funding for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and border patrol … Read more

Iran War: Strike on Saudi Base Injures 12 U.S. Troops

iran-strike-saudi-12-us-troops

Lead: On March 28, 2026, an Iranian missile-and-drone strike on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia injured 12 U.S. service members, two critically, U.S. officials said, as the monthlong war that began on February 28 widened across the region. The attack also damaged at least two KC-135 refueling aircraft and came amid new Houthi … Read more

Mid-Lent on L’Isle-aux-Coudres: Masks, Jigs and a Resilient Tradition

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Lead On the evening of March 28, 2026, residents of L’Isle-aux-Coudres, a small island in Quebec’s St. Lawrence River, held their annual Mid-Lent (Mi-Carême) masked festivities. Participants visited homes, bars and community halls wearing wigs, pillows and elaborate masks, performing jigs and music to avoid recognition. The rite, rooted in medieval French practice, endures here … Read more

Stuck in a Long TSA Line? Strategies to Rebook Your Flight

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Lead On March 28, 2026, travelers at several U.S. airports faced unprecedented TSA screening delays amid a partial federal government shutdown, forcing some passengers to miss flights and rebook. Waits topped four hours in some locations, while other airports reported near-normal processing times. Airlines have announced temporary waivers at affected hubs but are not universally … Read more

Hormuz blockade points to an L-shaped oil price plateau, not a V-shaped recovery

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Lead: On March 23, 2026, Brent crude suffered a sudden, 15%-plus intraday plunge to about $96 a barrel before prices snapped back above $100 after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a five-day pause on an ultimatum to strike Iranian power plants — a pause Tehran immediately denied. The episode exposed how engineering limits in storage, … Read more

Third No Kings protests expected to draw millions across US on March 28

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Organizers say millions of people across the United States and abroad plan to join the third nationwide No Kings day of action on Saturday, March 28, staging more than 3,000 events in all 50 states and in 16 countries. The coalition behind the mobilization — including Indivisible, the 50501 movement, labor unions and local grassroots … Read more

4 weeks in, Trump’s conflicting signals on Iran war frustrate GOP lawmakers and political allies – CNN

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Four weeks into the war with Iran, President Donald Trump’s public mix of conciliatory rhetoric and escalatory actions has deepened unease among Republican lawmakers, administration aides and regional partners. Trump has publicly alternated between pushing for a rapid diplomatic resolution and authorizing thousands more U.S. troops to the region, while declining to define a clear … Read more

Rifts over Iran, but unity for Trump: Takeaways from CPAC 2026

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Conservative activists and politicians gathered in Dallas on the final day of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) as Republicans parsed fractures over U.S. strikes on Iran and rallied around former President Donald Trump’s agenda. The conference, held Saturday, took place one month after the United States began strikes against Iran and marked the first … Read more

Inside Houston’s Mission Control: Running Artemis II from a 1960s Nerve Centre

houston-mission-control-artemis-ii

Lead: NASA’s Christopher C. Kraft, Jr. Mission Control Center in Houston will manage Artemis II, the first crewed lunar mission since 1972, currently targeting an April 2026 launch window. From this decades-old concrete complex, teams will monitor trajectory, life support and propulsion as four astronauts loop beyond the Moon and return roughly 10 days later. … Read more

Why some European farmers are immune to the fertiliser crisis

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Lead As the March 2026 escalation around the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted shipping and pushed fossil-fuel costs higher, European farms face a looming fertiliser shock. Around one-third of global fertiliser trade is stalled and roughly one-fifth of oil flows through the strait, magnifying price spikes for natural gas used in synthetic nitrogen production. Some … Read more

Meta orders 10 gas plants for Hyperion campus in Louisiana

meta-hyperion-gas-plants-louisiana

Meta announced on March 27 that it will fund and finance 10 natural‑gas power plants to supply electricity for its growing Hyperion AI data‑center campus in northeastern Louisiana. The deal with New Orleans–based Entergy adds seven newly contracted plants to three earlier approvals, producing roughly 7.5 gigawatts of generation capacity—enough to power over 5 million … Read more

Bluetti Sora 500: Compact 500W portable panel that outperforms its size

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Lead Bluetti’s Sora 500 is a foldable, 500W portable solar panel that delivered as much as 509W in mid-March testing in southern France at about 600 meters elevation. The panel uses 12 TOPCon N-type cells and a 3S4P half-cut-cell architecture, which the reviewer found produced strong real-world output and better shade tolerance than many older … Read more