NickB79
NickB79's JournalIran begins laying mines in Strait of Hormuz, sources say
Source: CNN
Iran has begun laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important energy chokepoint that carries about one-fifth of all crude oil, according to two people familiar with US intelligence reporting on the issue.
The mining is not extensive yet, with a few dozen having been laid in recent days, the sources said. But Iran still retains upward of 80% to 90% of its small boats and mine layers, one of the sources said, so its forces could feasibly lay hundreds of mines in the waterway.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which now effectively controls the strait along with Iran’s traditional navy, has the capability to deploy a “gauntlet” of dispersed mine-laying craft, explosive-laden boats and shore-based missile batteries, CNN has reported.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/10/politics/iran-begins-laying-mines-in-strait-of-hormuz
Looks like Iran is serious about closing Hormuz.
Diesel at $4.50/gal and rising fast, just as planting season is about to start
RIP, American farmers.
Sea levels already 'much higher' than many scientists had estimated
https://www.ft.com/content/eb581941-9ebe-4b1e-afed-1170c9fb4e71The study at Wageningen University in the Netherlands found that actual sea levels are on average about 30cm higher globally than estimates produced by the usual scientific models. The discrepancy between modelling and reality varies markedly around the world and is greatest in south-east Asia and Oceania, where the ocean is one to 1.5 metres higher on some coastlines than most impact assessments have assumed.
Brace for Trump's brave new world of 1.7C global warming
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/brace-trump-brave-world-1-155338098.htmlA paper by Columbia University predicts that we will have our first taste of a 1.7C world as soon as next year – a shock big enough to intrude on everybody’s consciousness.
One cause is the reversion from the current cooling weather pattern of La Niña in the South Pacific to the opposite El Niño pattern of cyclical warmth.
A less understood cause is that aerosol pollution has masked the latent heat effect of past CO2 emissions by around 0.5C and possibly more. Carbon lingers in the atmosphere for several hundred years. This aerosol effect is going into rapid reverse as the world cuts toxic particulates from coal plants, industry, cars and shipping.
Chinese automakers want to come to US. They could be here fairly soon
Source: CNN
Chinese cars could be at an American dealership sooner than you think, and that’s good news for US consumers.
Chinese car companies make more vehicles than anyone else on Earth and export more as well. But high tariffs and hostile US-China trade relations have kept them out of the American market.
That’s likely to change, according to experts, with Chinese autos hitting US showrooms in the next five to ten years.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/15/business/chinese-automakers-eye-us-move
If China started marketing some of their cutting edge EV's here, it would decimate US automakers.
His name was Alex Pretti
A young man working as an ICU nurse in Minneapolis, and had worked for the VA, serving our veterans.
He devoted his life to saving others. He wasn't a deranged leftist lunatic.
He was executed today.
RiP.
Update: a good friend of mine from college posted on Facebook that he was friends with him at the U of MN when he was doing grad work in the labs. Other friends of his also started chiming in. Confirmed what everyone is saying: he was a wonderful, kind man.
Military Police Troops Put on Alert for Possible Deployment to Minnesota
Source: New York Times
The Pentagon has ordered several hundred active-duty military police troops from Fort Bragg, N.C., to prepare for a possible deployment to Minnesota in the event that President Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, according to a senior U.S. official.
The alert, which was described as precautionary, comes on top of a similar order issued recently to 1,500 infantry soldiers from the Army’s 11th Airborne Division in Alaska and as many as 200 Texas National Guard troops.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/21/us/politics/military-police-alert-minneapolis.html
China's population falls again as birthrate drops 17% to record low
Source: Guardian
China’s population fell for a fourth consecutive year in 2025 as the birthrate plunged to another record low despite the introduction of polices aimed at encouraging people to have children.
Registered births dropped to 7.92 million in 2025 – or 5.63 for every 1,000 members of the population – down 17% from 9.54 million in 2024, and the lowest since records began in 1949.
The population dropped by 3.39 million to 1.405 billion, a faster fall than 2024, while deaths rose to 11.31 million from 10.93 million in 2024, figures from China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed.
Yi Fuxian, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said births in 2025 were “roughly the same level as in 1738, when China’s population was only about 150 million”.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/19/china-population-falls-again-birthrate-record-low
ICE dragged an old Asian man out of his home, almost naked, in below zero temps
https://www.reddit.com/r/minnesota/comments/1qh5e6m/ice_just_being_pure_evil/Twist: he's a US citizen and they eventually released him.
Unless you're white, you've got a target on your back.
ICE is now going door to door asking about Asian people in Minnesota
Minneapolis/St. Paul has the largest Hmong population in the US.
Hispanics. Somalis. Now Hmongs. Who's next?
https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/ice-in-minnesota/st-paul-mayor-kaohly-her-reports-ice-agents-asking-where-the-asian-people-live/89-10880612-bb5f-4bd2-978b-786ae8760afb
Her said St. Paul residents have reported ICE agents using racial profiling tactics to make arrests.
"We've received reports of federal law enforcement officers going door-to-door asking people where the Asian people live right in our very own city," Her said. "I myself have received advice to carry my passport with me because they may try to target me based on what I look like as well."
The St. Paul mayor was born in Laos and is the first woman, Asian American and Hmong American to serve in the role.
As for living and working in St. Paul, Her said residents are scared. Business owners in the city have reportedly reached out for help after sales have dropped up to 60%, according to Her.
Profile Information
Member since: 2002Number of posts: 20,307