“A rebel group in eastern Congo has detained civilians, including two journalists, in metal shipping containers without light or ventilation, an advocacy group said Tuesday. Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, said the Rwanda-backed M23, which controls parts of eastern Congo, used the containers in the city of Goma as makeshift detention cells under ‘inhumane’ and ‘degrading’conditions. … As many as 80 detainees at a time were placed inside a container, without light or ventilation and allowed out only once a day. Witnesses said they received minimal food, while some reported routine beatings. According to the testimonies, conditions were extreme — suffocating heat by day and cold at night — with deaths reported. Survivors were often held for weeks before being transferred to other locations.” (03/24/26)
“NASA is cancelling plans to deploy a space station in lunar orbit and will instead use its components to construct a $20 billion US base on the moon’s surface over the next seven years, its new chief Jared Isaacman said on Tuesday. Isaacman, who was sworn in at the agency in December, made the announcement at the opening of a day-long event at NASA’s Washington headquarters at which he outlined a raft of changes he is making to the agency’s flagship moon program Artemis. … The Lunar Gateway station, largely already built with contractors Northrop Grumman and Vantor, formerly Maxar, was meant to be a space station in a lunar orbit. Repurposing the craft for a lunar surface base is not simple.” (03/24/26)
“Chile on Tuesday said it was withdrawing its backing for the candidacy of former President Michelle Bachelet as Secretary-General of the United Nations, ahead of an election that will decide its leader for a five-year term starting in 2027. The withdrawal of Chile’s support comes weeks after the swearing in of President Jose Antonio Kast, marking the South American country’s sharpest shift to the right in decades. Kast has repeatedly criticized Bachelet’s presidency and said his leftist predecessor Gabriel Boric ‘made a mistake’ when he supported her nomination, alongside Brazil and Mexico, for the leadership of the U.N. Bachelet was considered a frontrunner for the race.” (03/24/26)
“Ahead of a Tuesday hearing where Minnesota lawmakers will discuss food stamp fraud, Fox News Digital spoke to a millionaire who says he was able to qualify for food stamps through a loophole — one that he hopes will soon be closed as the state grapples with a massive fraud scandal. Rob Undersander, a retired engineer who volunteers to help seniors navigate the government benefits system, said he learned during training that eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in Minnesota was based on income only, not assets. Because his retirement income was low, he realized he could qualify even though he had significant savings and property. To test the system, Undersander applied for benefits in Stearns County in 2016 and was approved within weeks. He later said he collected thousands of dollars in SNAP benefits over more than a year, which he donated to charity, in an effort to draw attention to the issue.” (03/24/26)
“The European Union and Australia agreed to a sweeping trade deal on Tuesday, the latest move by U.S. allies to rethink their economic ties amid deepening global geopolitical uncertainty. The agreement, which resulted from almost eight years of talks, would remove most of the tariffs the two sides had imposed on each other’s goods and allow the EU greater access to critical mineral supplies from Australia. … The European Union has pushed to clinch new agreements with trade partners over the past year in an effort to diversify its economic relations, defense and military security partnerships that have come under threat as the U.S. appears to be increasingly unreliable.” (03/24/26)
“The University of Southern California decided to cancel its Tuesday night gubernatorial debate after accusations that it excluded four of the only candidates of color, the Los Angeles Times reported. The private university came under fire when Xavier Becerra, a Mexican American candidate for governor, sent a scathing letter to the university’s president last week accusing it of the blatant exclusion of four candidates from the debate. He called it ‘a chilling and dangerous move.’ The university decided to cancel the event on Monday, less than a day before it was scheduled to take place. Becerra celebrated the news, which was first reported by the Times. ‘We fought. We won! We stood up against an unfair candidate debate set-up that prematurely chose winners and losers,’ he wrote on X on Monday night.” [editor’s note: This should be no surprise to Libertarians, who have seen Ed Clark, Harry Browne, Gary Johnson and others similarly excluded from Presidential debates for low polling and fundraising numbers – SAT] (03/24/26)
“A coalition of leading cultural and architectural preservation organizations has asked the court to stop the Trump administration from carrying through with its quarter-billion-dollar Kennedy Center reconstruction project. The National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States, along with seven other organizations, filed a lawsuit Monday in a Washington, D.C., federal court seeking injunctive relief prohibiting the Trump administration from starting any construction work at the iconic Potomac River center without completing the required public review and consultation process.” (03/24/26)
“Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) has appointed energy executive Alan Armstrong to represent the state in the Senate, replacing outgoing Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R), who was confirmed Monday to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). … Armstrong will be asked to pledge not to run for a full term after temporarily filling the vacancy — a unique element of Oklahoma law that quickly sparked chatter around potential candidates for this fall, when Mullin was set to seek reelection.” (03/24/26)
“The Taliban has freed an American citizen after more than a year in captivity, amid pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration. Dennis Walter Coyle, 64, who was living in Afghanistan working as a language researcher, according to his family, was arrested in January 2025. In a statement posted online, the Taliban-run Afghan foreign ministry said Coyle’s imprisonment was deemed ‘sufficient’ and that he had been pardoned to mark Eid al-Fitr, the holiday at the end of Ramadan. The US government — which declared Afghanistan a ‘state sponsor of wrongful detention’ just weeks ago — welcomed the release, but called for other US citizens being ‘unjustly’ held to be freed, too. According to a family website, Coyle arrived in Afghanistan in the early 2000s to study Afghan linguistics and help communities develop resources in their native languages.” (03/24/26)
“Hong Kong police are now empowered to require anyone suspected of violating the semi-autonomous city’s national security [sic] law to hand over passwords to their mobile phones or computers. Officials will brief lawmakers on the new provisions on Tuesday, a government statement said. The measure, which took effect on Monday, is part of the national security [sic] law imposed by Beijing in 2020 following large, sometimes violent, pro-democracy protests in this Chinese territory. … Refusing to comply could lead to up to one year’s imprisonment and a fine of up to 100,000 Hong Kong dollars ($12,768), while providing false or misleading information could bring up to three years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to 500,000 Hong Kong dollars ($63,840).” (03/24/26)
