The replacement crew for the International Space Station was launched late Friday, paving the way for the return home of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, two NASA astronauts stuck on the space station for nine months.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 7:03 p.m. from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying Crew-10 members: NASA’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi and Russia’s Kirill Peskov. The crew is part of a routine six-month rotation.
Crew-10 and the Dragon spacecraft are expected to reach the space station around 11:30 p.m. Saturday.
Returning to Earth alongside Wilmore and Williams will be NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. Their return is scheduled for Wednesday, to allow for an overlap of the two crews to brief the new team.
Wilmore and Williams arrived aboard the International Space Station in June 2024 and expected to stay in space for about 10 days. But their return was delayed after mechanical issues with their spacecraft, which, after weeks of troubleshooting was subsequently sent back to Earth without them. Their return was continually pushed back due to other technical delays.
…
Category: Entertainment
Arts and entertainment news. Entertainment is any activity that provides pleasure, amusement, or enjoyment to people. It covers a wide range of activities and forms, catering to diverse interests and tastes. Here are some common types of entertainment:
Movies and TV Shows: Watching films, series, or documentaries.
Music: Listening to music, attending concerts, or playing instruments.
Sports: Playing or watching sports events, both live and on TV.
Theater and Performing Arts: Enjoying plays, musicals, dance performances, and other live shows.
Games: Playing video games, board games, or participating in puzzles and challenges.
Books and Literature: Reading novels, short stories, poetry, and other literary works.
Events and Festivals: Attending fairs, cultural festivals, parades, and other public celebrations.
Art and Museums: Visiting art galleries, museums, and exhibitions to appreciate visual arts
Pi Day counts on never-ending numerical sequence for March 14 celebrations
March 14 is Pi Day, an annual celebration of the mathematical constant of pi, representing the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.
The holiday is observed on March 14 or 3/14 because 3.14 are the first three digits of the infinite number pi — 3.14159 … and on and on.
The celebration of Pi Day was the brainchild of physicist Larry Shaw and was first observed in 1988 at San Francisco’s Exploratorium, a science museum, and has since grown into an international event.
At that first simple salute to pi in 1988, Shaw and his wife, Catherine, took — guess what? — pies — and tea to the museum for the celebration of the infinite number. Shaw became known as the Prince of Pi and reigned over the museum’s annual honoring of the never-ending number for years, until his death in 2017.
Pi Day festivities grew to include the honoring of mathematical genius Albert Einstein because he was born on March 14.
The U.S. House of Representatives officially designated March 14 as National Pi Day in 2009.
The Exploratorium posted on its website that this year’s observance of pi would include the annual Pi Procession, which the museum described as being executed by “a high spirited crowd” through the museum and would circle the museum’s Pi Shrine 3.14 times, while “waving the digits of pi and dancing along” to a brass band.
And, of course, all participants in the revelry would be rewarded with a free slice of pie.
Pi Day is now celebrated around the world by pi lovers and is viewed as a way to arouse interest in the sciences among young people.
Pi lovers had a special treat in 2015, History.com reports. That year Pi Day was celebrated on 3/14/15 at 9:26:53 a.m. The combined numbers of the date and time represent the first 10 digits of pi — 3.141592653.
…
Trump intent on imposing global tariffs
The on-again, off-again tariffs between the United States and other countries are again under scrutiny, with the U.S. president not budging. VOA White House Correspondent Carolyn Presutti reports.
…
Africa faces diabetes crisis, study finds
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA — Researchers warn that type 2 diabetes could affect millions more people in the coming decades after a study published this month revealed the disease is rising far faster among people in sub-Saharan Africa than previously thought.
Take 51-year-old security guard Sibusiso Sithole, for example. Being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes came as a shock, he said, because he walked six miles to and from work every day and never thought his weight was a problem.
Then his wife noticed changes in his health.
Since his diagnosis 13 years ago, Sithole has been on a rigorous treatment for diabetes and high blood pressure.
“I have to take six … medications every day,” he said.
Diabetes is a condition in which the body struggles to turn food into energy due to insufficient insulin. Without insulin, sugar stays in the blood instead of entering cells, leading to high blood-sugar levels. Long-term complications include heart disease, kidney failure, blindness and amputations.
The International Diabetes Federation estimated in 2021 that 24 million adults in sub-Saharan Africa were living with the condition. Researchers had projected that by 2045, about 6% of sub-Saharan Africans — over 50 million — would have diabetes.
The new study, published this month in the medical journal The Lancet, suggested the actual percentage could be nearly double that.
By tracking more than 10,000 participants in South Africa, Kenya, Ghana and Burkina Faso over seven years, researchers found that poor eating habits, lack of health care access, obesity and physical inactivity are key drivers of diabetes in Africa.
Dr. Raylton Chikwati, a study co-author from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, said another risk factor is living in or moving to the outskirts of cities, or “peri-urban areas.”
“Access to health care, you know, in the rural areas is a bit less than in the urban areas,” Chikwati said, adding that increased use of processed foods in the peri-urban areas was a problem.
Palwende Boua, a research associate at the Clinical Research Unit of Nanoro in Burkina Faso, said long-term studies are rare in Africa but essential to understanding diseases.
“Being able to have a repeated measure and following up [with] the same people … is providing much more information and much valuable information,” Boua said, “rather than having to see people once and trying to understand a phenomenon.”
Boua is preparing a policy brief for Burkina Faso’s government to assist in the fight against diabetes.
For Sithole, managing his diabetes has been a long journey. But with treatment and lifestyle changes, he has regained control over his health.
“What I can tell people is that they must go and check — check the way they eat — because that time I was having too much weight in my body,” he said. “I was wearing size 40 that time. Now I’m wearing size 34.”
Experts stressed that Africans should get their blood-sugar level tested and seek treatment when diabetes is diagnosed.
…
Report: US bird population is declining
The U.S. bird population is declining at an alarming rate, according to a report published Thursday by an alliance of science and conservation groups.
Habitat loss and climate change are among the key contributing factors to the bird population losses, according to the 2025 U.S. State of the Birds report.
More than 100 of the species studied, have reached a “tipping point,” losing more than half their populations in the last 50 years. The report revealed that the avian population in all habitats is declining, including the duck population, previously considered a triumph of conservation. “The only bright spot is water birds such as herons and egrets that show some increases,” Michael Parr, president of the American Bird Conservancy, told Reuters.
The decline in the duck population fell by approximately 30% from 2017, but duck population numbers still remain higher, however, than their 1970 numbers, according to an Associated Press account on the report.
“Roughly one in three bird species (229 species) in the U.S. requires urgent conservation attention, and these species represent the major habitats and systems in the U.S. and include species that we’ve long considered to be common and abundant,” Amanda Rodewald, faculty director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Center for Avian Population Studies told Reuters.
Included among the birds with highest losses, Reuters reported, are the mottled duck, Allen’s hummingbird, yellow-billed loon, red-faced cormorant, greater sage-grouse, Florida scrub jay, Baird’s sparrow, saltmarsh sparrow, mountain plover, Hawaiian petrel, Bicknell’s thrush, Cassia crossbill, pink-footed shearwater, tricolored blackbird and golden-cheeked warbler. Some of the birds in this “red alert” group are already protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, the news agency said.
“For each species that we’re in danger of losing, it’s like pulling an individual thread out of the complex tapestry of life,” Georgetown University biologist Peter Marra. who was not involved in the new report, told AP. While the outlook may seem dire, it is not without hope, said Marra, who noted the resurgence of the majestic bald eagle.
…
Wall Street tumbles 10% below its record after Trump escalates trade war
NEW YORK — Wall Street’s sell-off hit a new low Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war dragged the S&P 500 more than 10% below its record, which was set just last month.
A 10% drop is deemed a correction by professional investors, and the S&P 500’s 1.4% slide on Thursday sent the index to its first since 2023. The losses came after Trump upped the stakes in his trade war by threatening huge taxes on European wines and alcohol. Not even a double-shot of good news on the U.S. economy could stop the bleeding.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 537 points, or 1.3% Thursday, and the Nasdaq composite fell 2%.
The dizzying, battering swings for stocks have been coming not just day to day but also hour to hour, and the Dow hurtled between a slight gain and a drop of 689 points through Thursday’s trading.
The turbulence is a result of uncertainty about how much pain Trump will let the economy endure through tariffs and other policies to reshape the country and world as he wants. The president has said he wants manufacturing jobs back in the United States, along with a smaller U.S. government workforce and other fundamental changes.
Trump’s latest escalation came Thursday when he threatened 200% tariffs on Champagne and other European wines, unless the European Union rolls back a tariff it announced on U.S. whiskey. The European Union unveiled that move on Wednesday, in response to U.S. tariffs on European steel and aluminum.
U.S. households and businesses have reported drops in confidence because of all the uncertainty about which tariffs will stick from Trump’s barrage of on-again, off-again announcements. That’s raised fears about a pullback in spending that could sap energy from the economy. Some U.S. businesses say they’ve begun to see a change in their customers’ behavior because of the uncertainty.
A particularly feared scenario for the economy is one where its growth stagnates but inflation stays high because of tariffs. Few tools are available in Washington to fix what’s called stagflation.
There was good news Thursday, and it came on both those economic fronts.
One report showed inflation at the wholesale level last month was milder than economists expected. It followed a similarly encouraging report from the prior day on inflation that U.S. consumers are feeling.
A separate report, meanwhile, said fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than economists expected. It’s the latest signal that the job market remains relatively solid overall. If that can continue, it could allow U.S. consumers to keep spending, and that’s the main engine of the economy.
…
Asteroid probe snaps rare images of Martian moon
PARIS — On the way to investigate the scene of a historic asteroid collision, a European spacecraft swung by Mars and captured rare images of the red planet’s mysterious small moon Deimos, the European Space Agency said Thursday.
Europe’s HERA mission is aiming to find out how much of an impact a NASA spacecraft made when it deliberately smashed into an asteroid in 2022 in the first test of our planetary defenses.
But HERA will not reach the asteroid — which is 11 million kilometers from Earth in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter — until late 2026.
On the long voyage there, the spacecraft swung around Mars on Wednesday.
The spacecraft used the planet’s gravity to get a “kick” that also changed its direction and saved fuel, mission analyst Pablo Munoz told a press conference.
For an hour, HERA flew as close as 5,600 kilometers from the Martian surface, at a speed of 33,480 kilometers an hour.
It used the opportunity to test some of its scientific instruments, snapping around 600 pictures, including rare ones of Deimos.
The lumpy, 12.5-kilometer-wide moon is the smaller and less well-known of the two moons of Mars.
Exactly how Deimos and the bigger Phobos were formed remains a matter of debate.
Some scientists believe they were once asteroids that were captured in the gravity of Mars, while others think they could have been shot from a massive impact on the surface.
The new images add “another piece of the puzzle” to efforts to determine their origin, Marcel Popescu of the Astronomical Institute of the Romanian Academy said.
There are hopes that data from HERA’s “HyperScout” and thermal infrared imagers — which observe colors beyond the limits of the human eye — will shed light on this mystery by discovering more about the moon’s composition.
Those infrared imagers are why the red planet appears blue in some of the photos.
Next, HERA will turn its focus back to the asteroid Dimorphos.
When NASA’s DART mission smashed into Dimorphos in 2022, it shortened the 160-meter-wide asteroid’s orbit around its big brother Didymos by 33 minutes.
Although Dimorphos itself posed no threat to Earth, HERA intends to discover whether this technique could be an effective way for Earth to defend itself against possibly existence-threatening asteroids in the future.
Space agencies have working to ramp up Earth’s planetary defenses, monitoring for potential threats so they can be dealt with as soon as possible.
Earlier this year, a newly discovered asteroid capable of destroying a city was briefly given a more than 3% chance of hitting Earth in 2032.
However further observations sent the chances of a direct hit back down to nearly zero.
Richard Moissl, head of the ESA’s planetary defense office, said that asteroid, 2024 YR, followed a pattern that will become more common.
As we get better at scanning the skies, “we will discover asteroids at a higher rate,” he said.
The ESA is developing a second planetary defense mission to observe the 350-metre-wide asteroid Apophis, which will fly just 32,000 kilometers from Earth on April 13, 2029.
If approved by the ESA’s ministerial council, the Ramses mission will launch in 2028, reaching the asteroid two months before it approaches Earth.
…
Trump threatens 200% tariffs on European spirits
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened the European Union with 200% tariffs on wine, champagne and other spirits produced in the 27-nation bloc after the EU levied what he said was “a nasty 50% tariff” on American-distilled whiskey.
Trump contended in a post on his Truth Social media platform that the EU is “one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World.” He said it was formed in 1993 “for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States” economically.
Later, asked by a reporter at the White House whether he might back off his heightened tariff threats against America’s geopolitical allies, Trump said, “We’ve been ripped off for years, and we’re not going to be ripped off anymore. No, I’m not going to bend at all — aluminum or steel or cars.”
In the last month, Trump has been waging a tit-for-tat tariff fight with its biggest trading partners — Mexico, Canada, China and the EU — in what he says is an effort to staunch the flow of drugs, especially fentanyl, into the United States from Mexico and Canada, and also convince manufacturers to close their operations overseas and move them to the U.S. to create more American jobs.
On Wednesday, Trump levied 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum exports to the U.S. from 35 countries, including the EU bloc.
Europe quickly retaliated with its own tariffs on $28 billion worth of U.S. exports to countries that have long had close relations with the U.S., while Canada imposed new tariffs on $20.7 billion worth of U.S. exports to its northern neighbor.
The new EU measures will apply not only to steel and aluminum products but also textiles, home appliances and agricultural goods. Motorcycles, bourbon, peanut butter and jeans also will be hit, as they were during Trump’s first term that ran from 2017 to 2021.
The EU duties aimed for political pressure points in the U.S. while minimizing additional damage to Europe. EU officials have said its tariffs, which are paid by importing companies and the cost of which is then mostly passed on to consumers, are targeting products from states dominated by Republicans like Trump, such as beef and poultry from Kansas and Nebraska, wood products from Alabama and Georgia, and liquor from Kentucky and Tennessee.
Spirits producers have become collateral damage in the steel and aluminum dispute.
Chris Swonger, head of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, called the EU move to tax U.S.-produced spirits “deeply disappointing and will severely undercut the successful efforts to rebuild U.S. spirits exports in EU countries.”
The EU is a major destination for U.S. whiskey, with exports surging 60% in the past three years after an earlier set of tariffs was suspended.
On Thursday, Swonger said in a statement, “The U.S.-EU spirits sector is the model for fair and reciprocal trade, having zero-for-zero tariffs since 1997.” He urged the end to a tariff fight over spirits between the U.S. and Europe, saying, “We want toasts not tariffs.”
Trump’s tariff wars have led to a broad Wall Street stock selloff, with the three major U.S. stock indexes plunging in recent days, with stocks falling again on Thursday in midday trading. But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC he was not worried.
“We’re focused on the real economy,” he said. “I’m not concerned about a little bit of volatility over three weeks. I can’t tell you the market is going to go up today, tomorrow, next week.”
He dismissed concerns about Trump’s threat to impose bigger tariffs on European spirits.
“One or two items with one trading bloc — I’m not sure why that’s a big deal for the markets,” he said.
Trump said in his social media post that if Europe follows through on its 50% tariff on U.S.-distilled whiskey, he will impose the 200% tariff on “all wines, champagne & alcoholic products coming out of France and other E.U. represented countries. This will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.”
Trump also attacked The Wall Street Journal newspaper, the country’s leading business publication, for refusing to support his tariff plans. A Journal editorial said this week that “most Americans understand that tariffs are a tax on consumers and businesses.”
The U.S. leader said the newspaper “has no idea what they are doing or saying. They are owned by the polluted thinking of the European Union.” He said the newspaper’s “thinking is antiquated and weak, and very bad for the USA.”
…
White House withdraws nomination for CDC director
WASHINGTON — The White House has withdrawn the nomination of Dr. David Weldon, a former Florida congressman, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Senate health committee announced Thursday morning that it was canceling a planned hearing on Weldon’s nomination because of the withdrawal.
A person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the White House pulled the nomination because it became clear Weldon did not have the votes for confirmation.
Weldon was considered to be closely aligned with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. health secretary who for years has been one of the nation’s leading anti-vaccine activists.
A former Florida congressman, Weldon also has been a prominent critic of vaccines and the CDC, which promotes vaccines and monitors their safety.
Weldon becomes the third Trump administration nominee who didn’t make it to a confirmation hearing. Previously, former congressman Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration for attorney general and Chad Chronister for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
…
US October-February budget deficit hits record $1.147 trillion
WASHINGTON — The U.S. budget deficit for the first five months of fiscal 2025 hit a record $1.147 trillion, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday, including a $307 billion February deficit for President Donald Trump’s first full month in office that was up 4% from a year earlier.
The October-February deficit, which included nearly four months until Jan. 20 under former president Joe Biden, topped the previous record $1.047 trillion from October 2020 to February 2021, a period marked by high COVID-19 relief spending and pandemic-constrained revenues.
The Treasury said February’s deficit rose $11 billion from the same month in 2024, as outlays for debt interest, Social Security and health care benefits swamped growth in revenues.
The results showed little impact from Trump’s initial import tariffs on major trading partners and his administration’s efforts to slash government spending so far.
February receipts totaled $296 billion, a record for that month. That figure was up 9%, or $25 billion, compared with the year-earlier period. But outlays in February totaled $603 billion, also a record for that month, and up 6%, or $36 billion, from a year earlier.
After calendar adjustments for both receipts and outlays, the adjusted deficit would have been $311 billion, matching the record February reported budget deficit in 2021, which was driven by COVID-19.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscal watchdog group, said government borrowings so far this fiscal year work out to about $8 billion a day.
“What needs no confirmation is that we are almost halfway through the fiscal year and yet we have done nothing in the way of making progress toward getting our skyrocketing debt under control,” the group’s president, Maya MacGuineas, said in a statement.
Fiscal year-to-date receipts rose 2%, or $37 billion, to a record $1.893 trillion, but outlays grew 13%, or $355 billion, to a record $3.039 trillion.
Including calendar shifts of benefit payments, the adjusted year-to-date deficit would have been $1.063 trillion – still a record – up 17%, or $157 billion, from the prior-year period.
Effects of tariffs, DOGE
Trump imposed an additional 10% tariff on Chinese imports on Feb. 4, but that increase did not materially impact customs receipts last month and will likely start showing up in March data, a Treasury official said. Trump increased the extra duty on Chinese goods to 20% on March 4.
Net customs receipts totaled $7.25 billion in February, down from $7.34 billion in January but up from $6.21 billion in February 2024.
The budget results for February did not show an appreciable change in overall outlays as a result of Trump’s drive to slash the federal workforce and government spending through the informal Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, led by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.
The Department of Education, a major target of DOGE for cuts, saw its outlays fall to $8 billion last month from $14 billion in the year-earlier period. The Treasury official attributed the decline to reductions in outlays for elementary and secondary education programs.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which the Trump administration is attempting to dismantle, still showed an outlay of $226 million for February, compared to $542 million in the year-earlier period.
Driving the spending growth in February and year-to-date periods were higher spending on Treasury’s interest on the public debt, outlays for Child Tax Credit payments and increased Social Security payments due in part to a 2.5% cost-of-living adjustment for 2025.
For the year-to-date period, Treasury’s interest costs for the public debt came to $478 billion, up about 10%, or $45 billion, from a year earlier and outstripping military outlays of about $380 billion. Social Security outlays grew 8% to about $663 billion.
…
Archaeologists find million-year-old fossil of a human ancestor
WASHINGTON — A fossil of a partial face from a human ancestor is the oldest in western Europe, archaeologists reported Wednesday.
The incomplete skull — a section of the left cheek bone and upper jaw – was found in northern Spain in 2022. The fossil is between 1.1 million and 1.4 million years old, according to research published in the journal Nature.
“The fossil is exciting,” said Eric Delson, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History, who was not involved in the study. “It’s the first time we have significant remains older than 1 million years old in western Europe.”
A collection of older fossils from early human ancestors was previously found in Georgia, near the crossroads of eastern Europe and Asia. Those are estimated to be 1.8 million years old.
The Spanish fossil is the first evidence that clearly shows human ancestors “were taking excursions into Europe” at that time, said Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program.
But there is not yet evidence that the earliest arrivals persisted there long, he said. “They may get to a new location and then die out,” said Potts, who had no role in the study.
The partial skull bears many similarities to Homo erectus, but there are also some anatomical differences, said study co-author Rosa Huguet, an archaeologist at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution in Tarragona, Spain.
Homo erectus arose around 2 million years ago and moved from Africa to regions of Asia and Europe, with the last individuals dying out around 100,000 years ago, said Potts.
It can be challenging to identify which group of early humans a fossil find belongs to if there’s only a single fragment versus many bones that show a range of features, said University of Zurich paleoanthropologist Christoph Zollikofer, who was not involved in the study.
The same cave complex in Spain’s Atapuerca Mountains where the new fossil was found also previously yielded other significant clues to the ancient human past. Researchers working in the region have also found more recent fossils from Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens.
…
Trump, Irish leader meet amid differences on trade, Gaza war
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump met Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin on Wednesday for wide-ranging talks that reflected differences over trade and the conflict in Gaza, although both leaders pledged to expand cooperation between the two countries.
The annual White House meeting around the time of St. Patrick’s Day is usually a relatively straightforward affair for both the United States and Ireland.
Trump, sitting next to Martin in the Oval Office, said “of course” he would respond to retaliatory tariffs announced Wednesday by the European Union, of which Ireland is a member, and said April 2 would mark the start of reciprocal tariffs.
“Whatever they charge us, we’re charging them,” Trump said. “If they charge us 25% or 20% or 10% or 2% or 200%, then that’s what we’re charging them.” Trump underscored his belief that higher tariffs will encourage investment and increased manufacturing in the United States.
He said Ireland had lured away U.S. pharmaceutical companies and others with low tax rates, telling Martin that while he respected that decision, he felt U.S. leaders should have acted to prevent the offshoring moves.
He said he expected to work with Ireland, calling it a beautiful country, but said the “massive deficit” in trade had to be addressed.
Martin lauded Trump’s own investment in Ireland, a golf course in Doonbeg, and said he was the only president to have invested there.
Martin also noted that companies like pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, which has extensive operations in Ireland, valued the skilled workforce and good productivity in his country but had also announced plans to invest more heavily in the U.S.
The Indianapolis-based drugmaker announced plans to plow money into four new U.S. production plants, more than doubling its investments announced since 2020 to $50 billion. It has been operating in Ireland since 1978 and currently employs more than 3,500 people across three sites there.
Irish companies were also investing more in the U.S., he said, citing investments by Ryanair and others. “It’s only fair … I think it’s a relationship that can develop.”
Trump said he expected the two countries to work together.
“There’s a massive deficit that we have with Ireland and with other countries, too, and we want to sort of even that out as nicely as we can, and we’ll work together,” he said.
While none of Trump’s trade measures has been aimed directly at Ireland, the nation of 5.4 million has a trade surplus with the United States and U.S.-owned foreign multinationals employ a significant portion of Irish workers. It will be subject to any EU tariffs, given that trade is governed by the bloc.
Trump has also threatened to place tariffs on pharmaceutical products, a major industry in Ireland.
Martin downplayed differences over Gaza, saying that both countries were pressing for the release of hostages held by Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror group, and enactment of a ceasefire.
Trump has resumed his close alliance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since taking office in January, and he has said that all Palestinians should be removed from Gaza, at least temporarily, following a peace deal.
In December, Israel announced it would close its embassy in Ireland, citing the country’s “anti-Israel policies.” Among the moves Ireland has made that have upset Israel was one in May to recognize an independent Palestinian state.
The Irish leader repeated his call for a surge of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian enclave and his support for a two-state solution, but did not directly address a question about Trump’s call for removing Palestinians from Gaza.
“Nobody is expelling any Palestinians from Gaza,” Trump shot back to a question on the issue.
The two leaders later traveled to the U.S. Capitol for a traditional lunch.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who joined Trump and Martin in the Oval Office, also hosted the Irish leader at his vice presidential residence for a breakfast.
…
NASA’s newest space telescope blasts off to map the entire sky and millions of galaxies
NASA’s newest space telescope rocketed into orbit Tuesday to map the entire sky like never before — a sweeping look at hundreds of millions of galaxies and their shared cosmic glow since the beginning of time.
SpaceX launched the Spherex observatory from California, putting it on course to fly over Earth’s poles. Tagging along were four suitcase-size satellites to study the sun. Spherex popped off the rocket’s upper stage first, drifting into the blackness of space with a blue Earth in the background.
The $488 million Spherex mission aims to explain how galaxies formed and evolved over billions of years, and how the universe expanded so fast in its first moments.
Closer to home in our own Milky Way galaxy, Spherex will hunt for water and other ingredients of life in the icy clouds between stars where new solar systems emerge.
The cone-shaped Spherex — at 500 kilograms, or the heft of a grand piano — will take six months to map the entire sky with its infrared eyes and wide field of view. Four full-sky surveys are planned over two years, as the telescope circles the globe from pole to pole, 650 kilometers up.
Spherex won’t see galaxies in exquisite detail like NASA’s larger and more elaborate Hubble and Webb space telescopes, with their narrow fields of view.
Instead of counting galaxies or focusing on them, Spherex will observe the total glow produced by the whole lot, including the earliest ones formed in the wake of the universe-creating Big Bang.
“This cosmological glow captures all light emitted over cosmic history,” said the mission’s chief scientist Jamie Bock of the California Institute of Technology. “It’s a very different way of looking at the universe,” enabling scientists to see what sources of light may have been missed in the past.
By observing the collective glow, scientists hope to tease out the light from the earliest galaxies and learn how they came to be, Bock said.
“We won’t see the Big Bang. But we’ll see the aftermath from it and learn about the beginning of the universe that way,” he said.
The telescope’s infrared detectors will be able to distinguish 102 colors invisible to the human eye, yielding the most colorful, inclusive map ever made of the cosmos.
It’s like “looking at the universe through a set of rainbow-colored glasses,” said deputy project manager Beth Fabinsky of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
To keep the infrared detectors super cold — minus minus 210 degrees Celsius — Spherex has a unique look. It sports three aluminum-honeycomb cones, one inside the other, to protect from the sun and Earth’s heat, resembling a 3-meter shield collar for an ailing dog.
Besides the telescope, SpaceX’s Falcon rocket provided a lift from Vandenberg Space Force Base for a quartet of NASA satellites called Punch. From their own separate polar orbit, the satellites will observe the sun’s corona, or outer atmosphere, and the resulting solar wind.
The evening launch was delayed two weeks because of rocket and other issues.
…
VOA Creole: MSF reports 150 new cholera cases in Haiti
Medecins Sans Frontiere says cholera is on the rise in Haiti. The nongovernmental health organization, also known as Doctors Without Borders, says 150 Haitians were treated for cholera between Feb. 15 and March 6. The Cite Soleil neighborhood reported 19 infections. MSF expressed concern about the trend as Haitians have less access to clean water at a time when gang violence victims are living on the streets in unsanitary conditions.
Click here for the full story in Creole.
…
US stocks drop sharply as Trump hedges on recession
All three major U.S. stock indexes dropped sharply in Monday morning trading, with investors worried about the uncertainty of tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump on key trading partners and then his refusal to rule out the possibility of a U.S. recession in the coming months.
The key Dow Jones average of 30 blue chip stocks dropped more than 1%, with the broader S&P 500 index falling 2 percentage points and the tech-heavy Nasdaq barometer off more than 3 percentage points.
The S&P 500 finished Friday with a 3.1% weekly drop, its biggest such decline in six months, and the index is down 7.4% from its all-time high set on Feb. 19.
Trump imposed new 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian exports to the U.S. last week and then days later paused the duties until April 2, leaving it uncertain what might happen then.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told NBC News over the weekend, “There’s going to be no recession in America,” but Trump hedged.
“I hate to predict things like that,” the U.S. leader told Fox News. “There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing.” He then added, “It takes a little time. It takes a little time.”
On Monday, the sell-off of big-tech stocks continued. The stock of electric carmaker Tesla, whose chief executive is billionaire Elon Musk, a key Trump adviser, slid more than 8%.
Other key technology stocks such as Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia and Meta Platforms all dropped by more than 2%.
The U.S. economy, the world’s largest, has already given some signals of weakening, mostly through surveys showing increased pessimism from consumers, whose purchases account for 70% of the country’s economic output. A widely followed collection of real-time indicators compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta suggests the U.S. economy may already be shrinking.
Analyst David Mericle at the Goldman Sachs investment company cut his 2025 year-over-year estimate for U.S. economic growth from 2.2% to 1.7%, largely because Trump’s tariffs look like they will be bigger than he was previously forecasting. He said he sees a one-in-five chance of a recession over the next year.
…
One-day strike at 13 German airports, including main hubs, brings most flights to halt
Berlin — A one-day strike by workers at 13 German airports, including the Frankfurt and Munich hubs and all the country’s other main destinations, caused the cancelation of most flights on Monday.
The 24-hour walkout, which started at midnight on Sunday, involves public-sector employees at the airports as well as ground and security staff.
At Frankfurt Airport, 1,054 of the day’s 1,116 scheduled takeoffs and landings had been canceled, German news agency dpa reported, citing airport traffic management.
All of Berlin Airport’s regular departures and arrivals were canceled, while Hamburg Airport said no departures would be possible. Cologne/Bonn Airport said there was no regular passenger service and Munich Airport advised travelers to expect a “greatly reduced flight schedule.”
The ver.di service workers union’s strike also targeted the Bremen, Hannover, Duesseldorf, Dortmund, Leipzig/Halle and Stuttgart airports. At the smaller Weeze and Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden airports, only security workers were called out.
The German airports’ association, ADV, estimated that more than 3,500 flights in total would be canceled and about 560,000 passengers affected.
The union announced the strike last Friday. But at Hamburg Airport, it added a short-notice walkout on Sunday to the strike on Monday, arguing that it must ensure the measure was effective.
The so-called “warning strike,” a common tactic in German wage negotiations, relates to two separate pay disputes: negotiations on a new pay and conditions contract for airport security workers, and a wider dispute over pay for employees of federal and municipal governments.
The latter already has led to walkouts at Cologne/Bonn, Duesseldorf, Hamburg and Munich airports. Pay talks in that dispute are due to resume on Friday, while the next round of talks for airport security workers is expected to start on March 26.
…
Trump to keep tariffs to pressure Mexico, Canada, China on fentanyl, aides say
U.S. President Donald Trump is keeping new tariffs in place on Mexico, Canada and China to pressure them to block the flow of the deadly opioid fentanyl into the United States, top White House economic officials said Sunday.
“If fentanyl ends, I think these [tariffs] will come off,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told NBC’s “Meet the Press” show.
“But if fentanyl does not end, or he’s uncertain about it, he will stay this way until he is comfortable,” he said. “This is black and white. You got to save American lives.”
Trump last week issued a string of whip-sawing tariff decisions that plunged the three major U.S. stock market indexes and roiled relations with Canada and Mexico, which are long-time U.S. allies and its closest neighbors, as well as its two biggest trading partners.
Trump at first imposed 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican exports to the U.S., then exempted the duties on Mexican- and Canadian-made vehicles being transported into the U.S. and later by week’s end delayed the tariffs on almost all items for four weeks until April 2.
But Lutnick said 25% U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports will take effect Wednesday as scheduled. Canada and Mexico are both top exporters of the metals to U.S. markets, with Canada accounting for most aluminum imports.
The Commerce chief also rebuffed fears that Trump’s global tariffs would cause a recession in the United States.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “There’s going to be no recession in America.”
But Lutnick acknowledged that the tariffs would lead to higher prices for U.S. consumers on foreign-made goods.
“Some products that are made foreign might be more expensive, but American products will get cheaper, and that’s the point,” Lutnick said. It was not clear how U.S.-produced goods would become cheaper, except in comparison to foreign-manufactured products.
Trump, in a taped interview with Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” show, dodged a question about a possible recession because of his tariff boosts, but said, “There is a period of transition because what we’re doing is very big.”
“There could be a little disruption,” he said about stock market losses last week. “Look, what I have to do is build a strong country. You can’t really watch the stock market. If you look at China, they have a 100-year perspective. We go by quarters. And you can’t go by that.”
Trump has at various times said his new tariffs are aimed at raising government revenue, protecting U.S. jobs and pressuring foreign manufacturers to relocate their operations to the U.S., and to curb the flow of fentanyl.
Like Lutnick, Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, emphasized the fentanyl issue in an interview on ABC News’ “This Week” program. He said Trump’s tariffs targeting Canada and Mexico, along with doubling a previous 10% duty on Chinese exports to 20%, are aimed at cutting the tens thousands of fentanyl deaths that have occurred in recent years.
“We launched a drug war, not a trade war,” he said. “We hope we’ll round up the cartels” while there is a pause in the tariffs on Mexico and Canada.
“It is a big problem,” he said. “Get the drug cartels out of Canada and Mexico.”
Both Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Trump in phone conversations last week they have made strides in curbing the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. Sheinbaum sent 10,000 troops to Mexico’s northern border with the U.S. to try to curb the flow of drugs and undocumented migrants while Trudeau also ramped up border enforcement.
But it is unclear whether Trump will be satisfied enough with the Mexican and Canadian efforts to drop the tariff increases next month.
Even with the White House effort targeting fentanyl, Hassett said Trump’s economic concerns remain as important.
“He’s trying to make it so when we produce something, we produce it at home,” not in another country, Hassett said. “Bring the jobs home, bring the wealth home. If you want to increase the welfare of Americans, then produce the jobs here.”
…
India says it is working to cut tariffs as it eyes US trade deal
NEW DELHI — India said Friday it is working to lower trade barriers with the United States as it tries to reach a bilateral trade deal with Washington this year.
The two countries said after a February White House meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that they will try to reach a deal by fall, aiming to increase bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030.
External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters Friday the objective of the bilateral trade agreement would be “to strengthen and deepen India-U.S. two-way trade in the goods and services sector, increase market access, reduce tariff and nontariff barriers, and deepen supply chain integration between the two countries.”
Trump has accused Delhi of imposing unfair trade barriers through high tariffs and has been putting pressure on India to cut duties on U.S. imports. India, for example, imposes tariffs of up to 110% on all car imports.
“India charges us massive tariffs. Massive. You cannot even sell anything in India,” Trump said Friday at the White House. “They have agreed. By the way, they want to cut their tariffs way down now because somebody is finally exposing them for what they have done.”
There was no immediate comment from Indian officials.
Conciliatory approach
Analysts say India has adopted a conciliatory approach on tariffs, opting to engage the U.S. in talks as it looks to avoid friction. India already has lowered duties on some imports that will benefit American companies, such as high-end motorcycles and bourbon.
“The U.S. is, first of all, India’s largest export market, so we do not want to upset that,” said New Delhi-based trade analyst Biswajit Dhar. “Then there are other considerations at play. There is a sense that the U.S. is a valued strategic partner, so we don’t want trade tensions to upset that equilibrium, also.”
While India has been spared tariffs so far from the Trump administration, reciprocal tariffs that Trump has said he will be announcing early next month could affect Indian exports to the U.S. in areas from pharmaceuticals and drugs to auto components. Two-way trade in goods between the countries was more than $129 billion last year, with Indian exports surpassing $87 billion.
Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal visited Washington this week to discuss trade issues with American officials, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
During remarks to an Indian television network, Lutnick called on India to reconsider its tariffs in light of the “special relationship” with the United States.
“It’s time to do something big, something grand, something that connects India and the United States together, but does it on a broad scale, not product-by-product, but rather the whole thing,” he said speaking Friday from Washington to India Today TV.
Defense purchases
He also said India must shift defense equipment purchases away from Russia and buy more from the U.S.
Analysts say purchasing more military hardware from the U.S. could help bridge India’s trade surplus with the U.S., which stood at more than $40 billion last year.
Lutnick also said he wanted India to open its market to U.S. farm exports, which New Delhi has long resisted for fear it will hurt tens of millions of India’s small farmers.
In New Delhi, trade analysts said there is room for India to lower tariffs in several areas outside of agriculture.
“I think we can lower tariffs to zero level on most industrial goods, but agriculture we don’t want to touch. It is very sensitive,” said Ajay Srivastava, founder of the Global Trade Research Initiative think tank in New Delhi. “For us, that is not a trade issue but a livelihood issue, with more than 700 million farmers depending on it for their incomes.”
Other analysts agree that tariffs on imports of farm products, a key area in which the U.S. wants access, could pose a hurdle for the two countries during negotiations.
“Agricultural products are a strict ‘no’ for India. This will cause unease here and could become a sticking point as they try to clinch a trade deal,” trade analyst Dhar said.
…
US lawmaker backs tariffs, calls for changing China’s trade status
WASHINGTON — Calls to revoke China’s Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status have grown louder in recent months.
In a memo released on the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump asked his Cabinet members to “assess legislative proposals regarding PNTR.” Three days later, Republican Representative John Moolenaar, the chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and Democratic lawmaker Tom Suozzi introduced the first bipartisan bill that would revoke China’s PNTR status.
China has held PNTR status since 2000, when Congress first passed legislation on the matter. Prior to that, Beijing’s trade status was reviewed annually.
VOA recently sat down with Republican Representative Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin, who also proposed legislation, along with Republican lawmaker Chris Smith, to revoke China’s PNTR status. He said China is stealing American technology, setting up police stations in various cities across the U.S. and engaging in unfair trade practices. “One of the most important things we can do is to revoke China’s PNTR and have it renewed on an annual basis,” he said.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
VOA: The relationship between the U.S. and China has gone through dramatic changes since China entered the WTO in 2001. How do you describe the current state of U.S.-China relations? How did we get here?
U.S. Representative Tom Tiffany: I think the goodwill of the American people has been abused. When you look at the theft of intellectual property — I just mentioned the police stations, something that is anathema to American society — I believe this goes back to when most favored nation status was given to Communist China and that’s why I’ve introduced legislation with Representative Chris Smith from New Jersey to revoke that permanent status and have it be renewed annually. I believe we will get much greater accountability by the Communist Chinese government. I think this is one of the most important things that we can do. We have the largest consumer base, and that has led to prosperity for China over the last few decades. I believe they should respect that, and they have not. One way in which we can deal with this is to have an annual renewal for most favored nation status.
VOA: You represent Wisconsin’s 7th congressional district. How have the actions taken by China affected people in your district, especially on the trade front?
Tiffany: I’ll give you one example. We grow almost all the ginseng in my district, in northern Wisconsin, and the Communist Chinese have used this as a weapon in trade negotiations. Because Wisconsin is such an important state, in terms of elections, they’ve tried to turn the ginseng growers against Republicans, against President Trump, by saying we’re not going to take your ginseng anymore. Because China took a lot of America’s ginseng — it’s the best that is produced in the world — they’ve used trade, specifically in regard to ginseng, as a political weapon and that should not be the case. I’m hoping that the Communist Chinese will relent on this now and allow ginseng to be imported into their country once again in the same volumes that they did a decade ago.
VOA: Do you support imposing tariffs on Chinese goods coming to the U.S., and what are the other urgent steps that the U.S. should be taking to deal with China’s unfair trade practices?
Tiffany: I do agree with tariffs, and I like the president’s idea of having reciprocal tariffs. If you’re going to tariff 25% on a particular product, then we’re going to tariff 25% on a particular product. We would prefer to just see free trade, but it has to be fair trade.
I think there’s a couple other things that we watch very closely here in America. We see the abuse of the Uyghur people in Western China. That is unacceptable in a free society. We do not want companies importing goods that are using slave labor. We haven’t had a full accounting of what happened in the Wuhan lab with the coronavirus … it appears almost certain that it came from that lab and caused incredible damage to not just America, but countries around the world. We need a full accounting in regard to those things and China needs to provide that.
VOA: Where do you see U.S.-China relations heading in the next decade?
Tiffany: If we continue with the policies of President Trump, I think we have the potential to have good relations. You know, maybe [Chinese President] Xi Jinping chooses not to give up communism, and that’s how he wants to rule his country, and that would be very unfortunate. But I think we’d end up with better relations when we have a strong America.
…
Monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico rebound this year
MEXICO CITY — The number of monarch butterflies wintering in the mountains west of Mexico City rebounded this year, doubling the area they covered in 2024 despite the stresses of climate change and habitat loss, experts said Thursday.
The annual butterfly count doesn’t calculate the individual number of butterflies, but rather the number of acres they cover as they gather on tree branches in the mountain pine and fir forests.
Monarchs from east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada overwinter there. Mexico’s Commission for National Protected Areas (CONANP) said that this year, butterflies covered 1.79 hectares) compared to only 0.9 hectares the year before.
Last year’s figure represented a 59% drop from 2023, the second lowest level since record keeping began.
After wintering in Mexico, the iconic butterflies with black and orange wings fly north, breeding multiple generations along the way for thousands of miles. The offspring that reach southern Canada begin the trip back to Mexico at the end of summer.
Gloria Tavera Alonso, the Mexican agency’s director general of conservation, said the improved numbers owed to better climatic factors and humidity.
Drought along the butterflies’ migratory route had been listed as a factor in last year’s decline. The impact of changes in weather year after year mean fluctuations are expected.
For that, Jorge Rickards, Mexico director general for the World Wildlife Fund, said “you can’t let down your guard” and must continue to expand conservation efforts.
Tavera Alonso credited ongoing efforts to increase the number of plants the butterflies rely on for sustenance and reproduction along their flyway.
Butterflies have not been faring well north of the border. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation has been counting western overwinter populations of monarch butterflies — a separate population from those that winter in central Mexico — along the California coast, northern Baja California and inland sites in California and Arizona for the last 28 years. The highest number recorded was 1.2 million in 1997.
The organization announced in February that it counted just 9,119 monarchs in 2024, a decrease of 96% from 233,394 in 2023. The total was the second-lowest since the survey began in 1997. And the first countrywide systematic analysis of butterfly abundance in the United States found that the number of butterflies in the Lower 48 states has been falling on average 1.3% a year since the turn of the century, with 114 species showing significant declines and only nine increasing, according to a study in Thursday’s journal Science.
Experts say that monarchs face risks across North America in large part due to the reduction in milkweed where the monarchs lay their eggs. The plant has been disappearing due to drought, wildfires, herbicides and urbanization.
In December, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed that monarch butterflies receive protection as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
…