Houston: Now more than halfway to the moon, the Artemis II astronauts are prepared for their historic lunar fly-around to push deeper into space than even the Apollo astronauts.

On the downside, their toilet is on the blink again.

The three Americans and one Canadian are set to reach their destination on Monday, photographing the mysterious lunar far side as they zoom around. It is the first moon-bound crew in more than 53 years, picking up where NASA’s Apollo program left off.

Oh GOD, you birthed me on the wrong planet

Full of thieves, murderers and dudes with nasty epithet

In bible days you’d ask me to kill them all

For your grand battle of good versus evil

Turning me into another angelic devil

And dangerous creator of horror

You placed thorns on roses

For us to bleed in your honour

Touching the beauty of the flower

Smelling it with our weird noses

But bleeding from roses is vain

Many people die from your nasty bombs

They are yours please explain

Do you boast about digging tombs

like craters peppering the plain

Is this your forever omnipotent plan

Enjoying vicarious battles of sufferance

Years of wars between Germany and France

Now a silly excursion into Teheran Iran

Soon to become a grandiose devilish trance

The Integrity Gap Report has described pervasive climate misinformation, warping and dulling our perceptions of what is an existential threat. How does Big Carbon pull it off? Andrew Gardiner reports.

The Senate Select Committee’s report on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy was published last month. The 294-page report reveals bots deployed with the sole purpose of spreading climate falsehoods, paid influencers, and well-funded astroturf “community groups”, much of it paid for by a right-wing activist cadre propped up in turn by dark money from anonymous sources.

On Friday [03/04/2026], the Trump administration unveiled a budget blueprint centered on a vast escalation of military spending. In its Fiscal Year 2027 budget request, the White House is asking Congress to approve roughly $1.5 trillion for “defense”—that is, for military aggression—which would be the highest level of military spending in modern history. This is a staggering 40 percent increase over already record Pentagon spending.

This is a budget for World War III. It comes as Trump carries out—and escalates—his pledge to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages,” i.e., to destroy the infrastructure of civilized life in a country of more than 90 million people. The FY2027 request calls for $1.1 trillion in base spending, plus hundreds of billions more in mandatory funding for munitions and “defense industrial base” expansion. 

In Canberra, Australia, Federal Minister of Defence Boris Pistorius and Australia's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Richard Marles issued a joint statement on the international security situation. They focused particularly on the conflicts and tensions in Ukraine, the Middle East and the South China Sea. Both sides reaffirmed that conflicts should be resolved peacefully and in accordance with international law. The ministers also agreed on the need to address geostrategic challenges through enhanced defense cooperation between the two countries.

Joint Statement of Boris Pistorius and Richard Marles

Jon Stewart gives updates on the one-month anniversary of the Iran war, including the Strait of Hormuz's continued closure and the global shortages affecting everything from grain to pickleballs.

Desi Lydic weighs in on Kristi Noem's husband cross-dressing, Pete Hegseth waxing poetic about the war in Iran, and Lindsey Graham's trip to Disney World. Plus, Desi comments on Trump's attempt to end birthright citizenship for "billionaires," and a federal judge blocking the construction of the president's ballroom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRt5uVV0KEg

MEANWHILE: 

According to a Friday report from HuffPost, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon held a Protestant-only Good Friday service at its in-house chapel, with no Catholic Mass scheduled for one of Christianity’s holiest days.

The setup, which excludes a Catholic service for the first time, drew frustration from at least one Pentagon employee after an internal email made the arrangement explicit.

“Just a friendly reminder: There will be a Protestant Service (No Catholic Mass) for Good Friday today at the Pentagon Chapel,” read a Friday email sent by Air Force leadership, according to a copy shared with HuffPost’s Jennifer Bendery.

At his March 26 Cabinet meeting, Donald Trump left everyone confused when he rambled about Sharpies and pens in a nonsensical rant. Unsurprisingly, Trump has already gotten plenty of flak online for going off on the perplexing tangent. Now, things are getting even weirder. Not only was it odd that Trump spent so much time telling a story about how he ended up getting personalized Sharpies for $5, but apparently, he may have made the whole story up. 

Donald Trump's Weird Sharpie Story Comes Crashing Down After Embarrassing Update

By Lauren Waters

On the same day the Pentagon declared air superiority over Iran achieved, Iran shot down an F-35, an F-15, and a Black Hawk helicopter. Three American aircraft. One day. Then came the B-52s.

The United States has deployed B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers — nuclear-capable aircraft that have been in service since 1955 — on overflights of Iranian territory. Confirmed by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Reported by Defense Industry Europe, Western outlets, and multiple military sources.

The B-52 carries GBU-72 bunker-busting bombs weighing over two tons each. It also carries — or can carry — nuclear-armed cruise missiles and gravity bombs. The Pentagon will not say what is on board. That ambiguity is the message. This is not a continuation of the same conflict.

The Barnaby Joyce and Angus Taylor water scandal is back in focus, seven years after Michael West Media helped expose the $80 million water buyback linked to a Cayman Islands company. The deal, signed off under Barnaby Joyce, involved water rights sold at a record price through a company connected to Angus Taylor, with questions still unresolved about who ultimately benefited and why taxpayers paid so much for assets critics argued were of little environmental value. 

As the issue makes a brief mention in parliament, so do the unanswered questions about secrecy, political protection, and why no serious investigation has followed.

Happy 7 year anniversary of the story

They Got away with Australia’s own Watergate | The West Report

by Michael West

When Syria’s “interim” leader Ahmed al-Sharaa touched down in London on March 31, he was given a much warmer welcome than many once thought possible. As the longtime leader of Syria’s Al-Qaeda branch, the US had been offering a $10 million bounty for information on his location just 15 months prior. Yet here was Al-Sharaa, proudly posing for photo ops with King Charles and Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

His Majesty’s head-chopper: Syria’s MI6-backed president bows to King Charles

BY KIT KLARENBERG

The administration of US President Donald Trump has requested $152 million from Congress to restore the Alcatraz prison. Democrats have slammed the plans as “lunacy” and vowed to block their implementation.

Originally a fortress sitting on the eponymous island in the San Francisco Bay, the correctional facility housed inmates from 1934 until 1963, when it was closed due to high operating costs. Among those held at Alcatraz were such notorious ​criminals as ⁠mobster Al Capone and George “Machine Gun”Kelly. The prison was considered one of the country’s most secure facilities, with no ⁠successful escapes officially recorded.

Presently, Alcatraz is a major tourist attraction in the region, run by the National Park Service.

From 250 to 700 dollars per article: How Russia influenced West African media content
A leak of confidential documents from a network of Russian agents operating on the African continent reveals how Russia managed to place hundreds of articles in 35 different West African French-language media outlets – sometimes without their knowledge. The FRANCE 24 Observers team worked with an international media consortium coordinated by Forbidden Stories to analyse these leaked documents, which show just how susceptible these media outlets are to foreign interference.

The list of articles included in these confidential documents is nearly 80 pages long. The spreadsheets, written in Russian, catalogue dozens of media outlets based across Africa.

As the United States is clearly lying about the number of the US military casualties in the current war with Iran, the veracity of other claims made by the US is dubious, former US Department of Defense officer David T. Pyne tells Sputnik.

Properly assessing Iran’s losses is also difficult due to the fact that it is unclear whether US claims of destroyed Iranian missile launchers take into account the decoys and dummy targets, he points out.

US Boasts of Destroyed Iranian Launchers Lack Credibility – Ex-DoD Official

“I believe that US estimates of the total number of Iranian ballistic missiles are likely much lower than is actually the case as I believe Iran may have tens of thousands of missiles in its stockpile,” Pyne adds.