First up: Trump increases pressure on European allies to help protect the Strait of Hormuz | united states news


Good day.

Donald Trump has increased pressure on European allies to help protect the Strait of Hormuz, warning that NATO faces a “very bad” future if its members do not come to Washington’s aid.

Tehran’s de facto closure of the vital waterway in retaliation for US and Israeli airstrikes has proven catastrophic for global energy and trade flows, causing the largest oil supply disruption in history and skyrocketing global oil prices.

The US president’s call for allies to enter the war by sending ships into the strait to protect commercial vessels and unlock global oil supplies has received a muted response. Australia, France, Japan and the United Kingdom are among the countries that have said they have no plans to send ships.

  • What did Trump say? The US president told the Financial Times in an interview: “It is appropriate that the people who are the beneficiaries of the Strait help ensure that nothing bad happens there. If there is no response or if it is a negative response, I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO.”

Battle after battle sweeps the Oscars as Michael B. Jordan and Jessie Buckley win big

One Battle After Another cast members and Paul Thomas Anderson celebrate winning best picture. Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters

Paul Thomas Anderson’s countercultural caper, Battle After Battle, won the Oscar wars, taking home six awards after a hotly contested season.

The big-budget thriller comedy, inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, was named best picture and also won best director, best supporting actor for Sean Penn, adapted screenplay, editing and the first Oscar for supporting cast, a highly sought-after category within the industry.

“I wrote this movie to make my children apologize for the mess we left in this world that we are handing them,” Anderson said in his first acceptance speech of the night. He also said he hoped a younger generation would help bring “common sense and decency” back to society.

  • Who else won? Here are all the winners of the 98th Academy Awards.

  • Who was remembered this year? This year’s Academy Awards included an expanded in memoriam section to honor the considerable number of Hollywood legends who died over the past year. Diane Keaton, Robert Redford and Rob Reiner were remembered in separate speeches, while Claudia Cardinale and Catherine O’Hara also had extended moments. James Van Der Beek and Brigitte Bardot were among the stars who were snubbed from the tribute.

Trump claims he has “absolute right” to impose new tariffs after Supreme Court coup

Donald Trump speaks at a press conference at the White House following the Supreme Court’s ruling that he exceeded his authority by imposing tariffs. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Donald Trump has claimed he has “the absolute right” to impose new tariffs after the US Supreme Court ruled that many of the import duties he imposed last year were illegal.

The president attacked the court in a late-night broadside on Sunday, accusing it of having “unnecessarily LOOTED” the United States and not showing it enough loyalty.

In February, the Supreme Court determined that a 1977 law designed to address national emergencies did not provide legal justification for many of the tariffs the Trump administration had imposed on countries around the world.

  • What did Trump say? “Our Supreme Court has made these countries very happy, but as the Court pointed out, I have the absolute right to charge TARIFFS in other ways, and I have already started doing so,” Trump wrote on social media yesterday. The Supreme Court decision did not say that the president had the absolute right to collect fees in other ways.

In other news…

Tommy Thompson commands the Arctic Explorer in 1991. Photography: Doral Chenoweth III/AP
  • An American treasure hunter who was jailed for 10 years after refusing to reveal the location of missing gold coins has been released from prison.without officials apparently knowing where that gold is.

  • Israeli police have killed two young Palestinian brothers and their parents in the occupied West Bankshooting all four of them in the head and face as the family returned from a shopping trip during Ramadan.

  • Google has launched a new AI search feature that provides users with health tips from amateurs around the world. The company had said its launch of “What People Suggest,” which provided advice from strangers, showed “the potential for AI to transform health outcomes around the world.”

Stat of the day: A powerful chain of storms will affect 200 meters in the US

People drive on a snow-covered highway during a snowstorm in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Sunday. Photograph: Richard Tsong-Taatarii/AP

AccuWeather called the approaching weather a “triple-threat March megastorm” that will affect nearly 200 million people across the United States and warned that travel disruptions were likely as wind, snow, rain and cold components became a bomb cyclone and would rank among the most impactful weather events of the year in the United States so far.

Building power: Meet the Americans who are withholding their federal income tax to protest Trump

A protester holds a sign during an anti-ICE demonstration in front of City Hall in Houston, Texas, in January. Photograph: Reginald Mathalone/NurPhoto via Getty Images

“I will not be paying my federal income taxes this year,” Rachel Cohen declared in a recent Instagram video that received more than 140,000 likes. Cohen is part of a new generation of Americans who are refusing to pay some or all of their federal income taxes in protest of how their tax money is spent under Trump.

Sleep medicine has been gaining popularity for 30 years. Photograph: Mongkolchon Akesin/Getty Images

Cpap machines were once used only for severe sleep apnea, but sleep medicine doctors say there has been an increase in prescriptions for milder cases. Although the popularity of sleep medicine has been slowly increasing for 30 years, there has been a “rapid” rise, says Peter Cistulli, professor of sleep medicine at the University of Sydney, driven in part by wearable consumer technology products that track sleep.

…or this: ‘I saw society burn a woman at the stake’: Melissa Auf der Maur on her bandmate Courtney Love and the ’90s farce

Melissa Auf der Maur and Courtney Love during a Hole concert in 1999 at The Palace in Los Angeles. Photography: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

Afraid to work with Hole’s “impossible, drug-addicted” lead singer Courtney Love, the bassist soon found herself fascinated. So why did she jump ship to join the Smashing Pumpkins and start a relationship with Love’s nemesis Dave Grohl?

The Latest: ‘A molten, soft state’: Scientists may have found a new type of liquid planet

An artist’s impression of the lava planet L98-59d. Photography: Mark A Garlick/MarkGarlick.com

Astronomers have identified a planet composed of molten lava, suggesting the existence of an entirely new category of liquid planet. Astronomers initially thought the planet could host a deep ocean of liquid water, but the latest analysis suggests it could be fundamentally different from anything seen before.

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