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

regenerative-farmers-fertiliser-crisis

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

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

cpac-2026-trump-iran

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

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

bluetti-sora-500-compact-fold

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

New Cholesterol Guidelines Simplify Targets and Start Prevention Sooner

cholesterol-guidelines-2026

Lead: On March 13, 2026, the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association published updated cholesterol guidelines that aim to simplify targets and move prevention earlier in adult life. The new recommendations expand routine risk assessment to people aged 30–79 and reintroduce specific LDL cholesterol goals while spotlighting lipoprotein(a), or Lp(a), as a … Read more

Minnesota named national flagship for ‘No Kings’ protests against Trump

minnesota-no-kings-flagship

Organizers have designated the St. Paul rally on Saturday as the national flagship of a coordinated, nationwide series of “No Kings” protests aimed at President Donald Trump and his administration. More than 3,100 events are registered across all 50 states and organizers are projecting roughly 9 million participants, with Minnesota expecting up to 100,000 people … Read more

Pittsburgh astronaut Mike Fincke says sudden speech loss in space remains unexplained

fincke-space-speech-mystery

Lead: On Jan. 7, while five and a half months into a mission aboard the International Space Station, 59-year-old retired Air Force Col. Mike Fincke suddenly lost the ability to speak for about 20 minutes. His crewmates quickly alerted ground flight surgeons and used the station’s ultrasound equipment; the episode prompted NASA’s first medical evacuation … Read more

“Now We Have the Proof”: Advocates Hope Jury Rulings Spur Social Media Change

social-media-jury-verdict-change

Online safety advocates in New York and across the United States said a pair of jury verdicts in late March 2026 offer the first concrete legal validation of long-running concerns about social platforms and young people’s wellbeing. Juries in New Mexico and California found Meta—and in the California case, YouTube—responsible for harms to minors, including … Read more

At CPAC, the ‘America First’ Crowd Ponders Giving War a Chance

cpac-america-first-iran-war

Lead At the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas on March 27–28, 2026, Republican activists and officials debated support for the military campaign in Iran that began roughly a month earlier. Organizers aligned with the America First movement pushed attendees toward backing the administration, but informal signals of opinion ranged from wary to willing. An … Read more

Ukrainian drones reportedly strike Yaroslavl oil refinery

ukrainian-drones-yaroslavl-refinery

March 28, 2026 — Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles were reported to have struck the Slavneft‑YANOS oil refinery in the central Russian city of Yaroslavl overnight, according to Telegram channel Exilenova Plus and regional statements. The attack is said to have occurred in the early hours of March 28, part of a wider series of strikes … Read more