Photo: Science Photo Library RF
1 Iran Conflict: Strait of Hormuz Not Seeing More Traffic During Ceasefire
Despite a ceasefire agreement between the U.S. and Iran that was supposed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, ship traffic through the critical waterway remained a tiny fraction of pre-war levels through the first two days following the deal. Marine tracking data showed that only about a dozen vessels crossed the strait on Wednesday and Thursday combined, compared to a daily average of 129 ships in the final weeks before the war began on Feb. 28th. Of those few ships, only three were oil or chemical tankers, all passing through the Strait yesterday, and all were under U.S. sanctions for previously transporting Iranian crude. As of last night, some ships were getting through, but the passage remained far from normal.
2 Artemis II Still Faces Risks As It Returns To Earth Tonight
With the Artemis II astronauts on track to splash down around 7:07 pm tonight off the coast of San Diego, NASA faces its most nerve-wracking moment of the entire mission. The final danger is a 13-minute, 25,000-mile-per-hour plunge through Earth's atmosphere using a heat shield that has known design flaws. The Orion capsule's heat shield, made of a material called Avcoat, is essentially the same one used on the uncrewed Artemis I mission in 2022. On that mission, the heat shield suffered unexpected cracking and shedding during reentry. Rather than replace the already-built Artemis II heat shield, which would have caused lengthy delays, NASA changed the reentry flight path. Instead of a “skip” reentry, Artemis II will go straight in at a steeper angle and descend faster, reducing how long the shield is exposed to extreme heat. NASA officials say testing and modeling show the new path keeps the crew safe. The USS John P. Murtha is already in the Pacific waiting to recover the crew, with military planes and helicopters on standby.
3 First Lady Melania Trump Denies Relationship With Epstein, Urges Congress To Hold Hearing With Survivors
First Lady Melania Trump delivered a six-minute on-camera statement yesterday denying any friendship or relationship with Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell and calling on Congress to hold a public hearing with Epstein survivors. She said she first crossed paths with Epstein in the year 2000 at an event she and Donald Trump attended together, that she was never on his plane, never visited his island, and had no knowledge of his abuse. She also denied that Epstein introduced her to Trump, and dismissed the brief email exchange between her and Maxwell that appeared in DOJ records as a "polite" and "casual" reply. She called on Congress to let survivors testify under oath publicly and have their testimony entered permanently into the congressional record. The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Robert Garcia, welcomed her call for a survivor hearing, saying Democrats had been pushing for exactly that and had repeatedly been told it wasn't possible.