“Hackers disrupted Iranian state television satellite transmissions to air footage supporting the country’s exiled crown prince and calling on security forces to not ‘point your weapons at the people,’ online video showed early Monday, the latest disruption to follow nationwide protests in the country. … The footage aired Sunday night across multiple channels broadcast by satellite from Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, the country’s state broadcaster which has a monopoly on television and radio broadcasting. The video aired two clips of exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, then included footage of security forces and others in what appeared to be Iranian police uniforms. It claimed without offering evidence others had ‘laid down their weapons and swore an oath of allegiance to the people.'” (01/19/26)
“On the 2023 campaign trail, Vice President Kamala Harris’s first major economic speech included proposing a ban on so-called ‘price gouging.’ Jason Furman, a top economist in the Obama administration, said it was ‘not sensible policy.’ As economists across the political spectrum will tell you, capping prices would discourage new companies from ramping up supply, invariably creating shortages. Donald Trump called the plan ‘SOVIET Style price controls.’ He was right, if overly dramatic. Harris’s proposal ended with her campaign. President Trump’s flirtation with controlling markets is just getting started.” (01/19/26)
“When I sat down to interview Sir Niall Ferguson about his 2006 book The War of the World, I had twenty years’ worth of questions. I discovered the book just after graduating from college and before I joined the Marine Corps. The book did three things for me: it rectified four years’ worth of an undergraduate education woefully devoid of history; it prepared me for the complex interplay of ethnic hatred and economic impoverishment I would encounter as an intelligence officer in the Middle East; and it solidified my view of human nature’s tragic propensity for conflict under even the most abundant of material conditions. I’ve re-read the book multiple times since that first encounter, and twenty years after its initial publication, I continue to gain a deeper appreciation of its historical insight and contemporary relevance.” (01/19/26)
“The Northern Lights may be seen from as many as 24 U.S. states down to mid-latitudes — such as Oregon, Illinois and Pennsylvania — overnight on Monday, Jan. 19, through Tuesday, Jan. 20, according to a forecast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center. … The forecast is for a ‘strong’ G3 or possibly a ‘severe’ G4 geomagnetic storm on NOAA’s five-level Space Weather Scale, as a ‘full halo CME’ — an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection — interacts with Earth’s magnetic field. … The CME, a cloud of charged particles ejected from the sun, left the sun on Sunday, Jan. 18, in the wake of a massive X1.9-class solar flare.” (01/19/26)
“Bulgarian President Rumen Radev said Monday he would resign ahead of snap parliamentary elections, paving the way for him to participate in the upcoming legislative vote. ‘Today is the last time I address you as president,’ Radev said in a televised address to the nation, adding he would formally resign on Tuesday. Although he did not explicitly say he would run in the parliamentary elections, expected to be held in the coming months, his speech strongly hinted he would do so. … Speculation has swirled for weeks that Radev, who was elected president in 2016 and again in 2021, could resign his post to throw his hat in the ring. For many Bulgarians he has been the sole political constant amid a constant churn of governments.” (01/19/26)
