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President Donald Trump points to a bust of Winston Churchill as he speaks during a meeting with Irish Prime Minister Michel Martin in the Oval Office of the White House, on St. Patrick's Day, Tuesday, March 17, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)2026-03-17T16:21:14Z WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump is delaying a diplomatic trip to China that had been planned for months but began to unravel as he pressured Beijing and other world powers to use military might to protect the Strait of Hormuz.Trump said Tuesday while meeting with Irish Prime Minister Michel Martin in the Oval Office that he would be going to China in five or six weeks time instead of at the end of the month. He said he would be resetting his visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, without elaborating.Trumps visit to China is seen as an opportunity to build on a fragile trade truce between the two superpowers, but it has become tangled in his effort to find an endgame to the war in Iran. Soon after pressing China and other nations to send warships to secure access to Middle Eastern oil over the weekend, Trump indicated his travel plans were up in the air, though he also indicated Tuesday that the U.S. didnt need any help after being rebuffed by other allies. In a Sunday interview with the Financial Times, Trump said he wanted to know whether Beijing would help secure the strait before he departed for the late-March summit. On Monday, he told reporters that he had requested to delay the trip about a month because of the demands of the war. I think its important that I be here, Trump said. And so it could be that we delay a little bit. Not much. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who met with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Paris this week for a new round of talks meant to pave the way for Trumps trip, said any changes to the schedule would be because of logistics, not because Trump was trying to pressure Beijing.Trump is urging other nations that rely on Middle Eastern oil to help police the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which about one-fifth of the worlds traded oil usually flows. He has singled out China, noting that it gets about 90% of its oil from the strait while the U.S. gets a minimal amount. He also made appeals to Japan, South Korea, Britain and France. There have been no takers so far, and China has been noncommittal. We strongly encourage other nations whose economies depend on the strait far more than ours, Trump said at the White House on Monday. We want them to come and help us with the strait.Trump is framing the war as a favor to the world being carried out by the U.S. and Israel, saying its now time for others to do their share to protect the strait. Some world leaders have directly rebuffed the notion and objected to the U.S. military approach.Trumps trip to China carries major geopolitical consequences as the two nations seek stability in the wake of a trade war that led to soaring tariffs before both sides eased off. Trump and Xi agreed to a one-year trade truce last fall, and Trump later agreed to a state visit to Beijing. He also went to China in 2017, during his first term.Chinas foreign minister said last week that the country looks forward to a landmark year in its relationship with the U.S. He added that Chinas attitude has always been positive and open, and the key is for the U.S. side to meet us halfway. Trumps priorities have shifted as the war sends oil prices skyrocketing during a tough midterm year in which affordability was already a chief concern for American voters. In addition to postponing his China trip, he has also given Russia a boost by lifting sanctions on its oil, and he tapped into the nations oil reserves, something he previously objected to. COLLIN BINKLEY Binkley covers the U.S. Education Department and federal education policy for The Associated Press, along with a wide range of issues from K-12 through higher education. twitter mailto

Miami Dolphins wide receiver Jaylen Waddle (17) runs during the first half of an NFL football game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Dec. 28, 2025, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)2026-03-17T15:55:37Z The Denver Broncos have acquired standout wide receiver Jaylen Waddle in a blockbuster deal that sends three draft picks to the Miami Dolphins, including a first-rounder, a person with knowledge of the deal told The Associated Press on Tuesday.The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the deal hasnt been announced. The Dolphins will receive the 30th overall pick in next months NFL draft along with picks in the third and fourth rounds. Denver will get Miamis fourth-rounder along with Waddle.Waddle gives Bo Nix another main target along with Courtland Sutton, boosting a passing offense that finished 11th in the NFL last season.The Broncos were the AFCs No. 1 seed last season but lost to New England in the AFC championship game without Nix, who broke his ankle in a game against Buffalo in the divisional round. Waddle, a first-round pick in 2021, had three straight 1,000-yard receiving seasons to begin his career but hasnt reached that total since 2023.The 27-year-old Waddle has averaged 81 receptions, 1,098 yards receiving and six touchdowns over his five-year career.___AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL ROB MAADDI Maaddi is senior NFL writer for The Associated Press. Hes covered the league for 24 years, including the first two decades as the Eagles beat writer. mailto

Nature, Published online: 17 March 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10385-yTriple-junction solar cells with improved carrier and photon management

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Nature, Published online: 17 March 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10360-7Molecular basis of oocyte cytoplasmic lattice assembly

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FILE -Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks during a news conference, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, at the Federal Reserve Board Building in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)2026-03-17T17:09:40Z WASHINGTON (AP) The Iran war has scrambled the Federal Reserves outlook on inflation and unemployment and will likely further delay interest rate cuts this year, putting off any relief for consumers struggling with high borrowing costs for home and car purchases. The spike in oil and gas prices presents already-divided Fed officials with a worst-case scenario as they conclude a key meeting Wednesday: Costlier gas will raise inflation in the short run, which typically causes the central bank to raise borrowing costs or at least leave them unchanged to combat higher prices. Yet if the spike is high enough or lasts long enough, it could hammer the economy and push up unemployment, which the Fed would typically respond to by moving in the opposite direction, and cutting its key rate. For now, the clearest way forward for the 12-member rate-setting committee, led by Chair Jerome Powell, is to stand pat and wait to see which way the economy goes. The Fed is expected to keep rates unchanged Wednesday, and may remain on pause at their meetings in late April and June. Many economists now see the first rate cut this year not taking place until September or later. With Iran and the oil shock, I think the committees room for maneuver here is pretty limited, said Nathan Sheets, chief global economist at Citi and a former senior economist at the Fed. I think theyve got to wait and see how this plays through. Yet the Fed also has to release a set of quarterly economic projections that will create its own set of pitfalls. In December, the committee forecast that inflation would cool to 2.6% by the end of this year, with core inflation excluding food and energy falling to 2.5%. But those figures were already rising before the Iran war, with core prices rising 3.1% in January from a year earlier, the biggest increase in more than two years. The Fed had also forecast in December that it would cut rates once this year, but that will be harder to maintain if the committee also raises its inflation outlook. The Fed cut three times last year before pausing in January. Tim Duy, chief economist at SGH Macro, argues that the Fed should raise its forecast for core inflation, using the metric it prefers, to at least 2.8% by the end of this year. An increase of that amount would argue against any cuts this year. Any reasonable forecast for inflation now should not have a cut in the Feds projections, Duy said. And its almost ludicrous that it might.Whether the Fed will continue to forecast a single rate cut this year, or pull back and project no cuts, is seen as a close call by most economists. Many leading members of the Fed including governors Chris Waller, Stephen Miran, Michelle Bowman, and possibly Powell are reluctant to give up on the idea of reducing rates. Waller, for example, has said in a television interview that inflation is heading back to the Feds 2% target, with the Iran war likely only a temporary disruption. Yet another group of Fed officials including Beth Hammack, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, and Austan Goolsbee, president of the Chicago Fed were already worried about the stubborn persistence of inflation even before the Iran war. The prospect of higher gas prices will likely only intensify their concerns. Mortgage rates have already risen in the wake of the conflict, likely because markets expect higher inflation will prevent the Fed from cutting anytime soon. The average 30-year mortgage rate jumped to 6.1% last week from 6%, though it is still down from nearly 6.7% a year ago. On top of all the economic disruptions, the Fed is nearing a major leadership transition. Powells term as chair ends May 15 and President Donald Trump has nominated a former top Fed official, Kevin Warsh, to replace him. Yet Warshs nomination has been delayed in the Senate because key Republican senators have objected to a Justice Department investigation of Powell over his testimony about a building renovation. Last Friday, a judge threw out a pair of subpoenas that the Justice Department had issued to the Fed, dealing a blow to the investigation, but U.S. Attorney Jeannine Pirro has said she will appeal the ruling. Also hanging over the Fed is the inflation spike from the pandemic. Typically, the Fed would essentially look past a supply shock like the disruption in oil supplies from the Middle East. Once it ends, any inflation it produces will likely fall back, without the Fed having to raise rates. As a result, it could leave rates unchanged or even cut them to boost weak hiring. Yet as the economy emerged from the pandemic in 2021, inflation jumped as Americans sharply raised their spending, aided by stimulus checks and pandemic-era savings. Powell initially said that inflation would be transitory and would fade as the economy returned to normal. Instead it spiked to a four-decade high in June 2022. With inflation still elevated, many Fed officials are wary of repeating the mistake, making any cuts less likely as long as inflation is elevated. I think they are a little scarred from the blowback they got from the word transitory, said Derek Tang, an economist at Macro Policy Analytics, a consulting firm. CHRISTOPHER RUGABER Rugaber has covered the Federal Reserve and the U.S. economy for the AP for 16 years. He is a two-time finalist for the Gerald Loeb award for business reporting. twitter mailto

Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week. Scientists have discovered all five nucleobasesthe fundamental components of DNA and RNAin pristine samples from the asteroid Ryugu, according to a study published on Monday in Nature Astronomy. The finding strengthens the case that the ingredients for life are abundant in the solar system and may have found their way to Earth from space, according to a study published on Monday in Nature Astronomy.Life as we know it runs on DNA and RNA, which are built from five chemical bases: adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, and uracil. A team has now identified this complete set of nucleobases in rocks snatched from the surface of Ryugu in 2019 by the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa-2, which successfully returned them to Earth the following year.This discovery corroborates the results from another mission, NASAs OSIRIS-REx, which returned samples of the asteroid Bennu that also contained all five nucleobases. Both asteroids belong to the same carbonaceous (C-type) family of primitive carbon-rich rocks, though the samples contain different ratios of the five nucleobases.Taken together, the findings shed light on the origin of life on Earth and raise new questions about the odds that it exists elsewhere.These findings suggest that nucleobases may be widespread in carbonaceous asteroids and, by extension, in planetary systems, said Toshiki Koga, a postdoctoral researcher at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), in an email to 404 Media.This means that some of the key molecular ingredients for life could be commonly available, he added. However, this does not imply that life itself is widespread, but rather that the chemical starting materials for life may be more common than previously thought.The emergence of life on Earth, also known as abiogenesis, remains one of the biggest mysteries in science. To untangle this enigma, scientists first need to figure out how our planet was initially enriched with the basic stuff of lifeincluding water, amino acids, and the nucleobases that make up our genetic material.The Ryugu Story illustration depicting the detection of all five canonical nucleobases in samples returned from asteroid Ryugu by the Hayabusa2 mission. Image: JAMSTECOne popular hypothesis suggests that asteroids bearing these biological building blocks pelted Earth as it formed more than four billion years ago. This idea has been supported by the presence of nucleobases in pieces of carbonaceous asteroids that have fallen down to Earth, such as the Murchison meteorite of Australia or the Orgueil meteorite of France.Meteorites, however, are not pristine as they become eroded by exposure to space and can also be contaminated by terrestrial material after landing on Earth. To get cleaner samples, scientists launched several spacecraft to grab samples directly from the source, beginning with Japans Hayabusa mission, which delivered several milligrams of dusty grains from asteroid Itokawa to Earth in 2010.Hayabusa-2 and OSIRIS-REx then obtained even larger samples from their targets, bringing back 5.4 grams from Ryugu and 121.6 grams from Bennu. Previous studies have already identified more than a dozen amino acids associated with life in both samples, as well as evidence that these asteroids were once altered by ice and water.Now, following the discovery of all five nucleobases in the Bennu pebbles, Koga and his colleagues have found the complete set in Ryugu. The findings lend weight to the so-called RNA world model of abiogenesis. In this hypothesis, early life on Earth depended solely on RNA as a self-replicating molecule, laying the biological groundwork for later, more complicated systems that involved DNA and protein-based organisms. The extraterrestrial samples from Ryugu and Bennu provide evidence that at least some of the nucleobases that made up these early lifeforms came from outer space.The results were broadly in line with our expectations, but still very exciting to confirm, Koga said. All five nucleobases had already been detected in the Murchison meteorite and in samples from the asteroid Bennu. Since Ryugu is also a carbonaceous asteroid, we expected that these molecules might be present, and it was very satisfying to confirm that the complete set is indeed present in the Ryugu samples.But while both samples contained the royal flush of nucleobases, they differed in their relative abundances. For example, Bennu is much richer in pyrimidine nucleobases (cytosine, thymine and uracil) than Ryugu, though they both contain roughly similar levels of purine nucleobases (adenine and guanine). These idiosyncrasies point to a variety of formation processes that produced prebiotic materials on these celestial relics.Our results suggest that nucleobases can form under a range of conditions in early Solar System materials, particularly within primitive asteroid parent bodies that experienced aqueous alteration, Koga said. The observed relationship between nucleobase composition and ammonia abundance indicates that local chemical environments, such as the availability of ammonia, may play an important role.At the same time, some precursor molecules may have formed earlier in interstellar environments, so nucleobase formation could involve multiple stages, he continued. Future studies, including analyses of different types of meteorites and laboratory experiments that simulate these conditions, will help to better constrain these formation pathways.In other words, understanding how these molecules form in space could help answer the age-old mystery of whether life is a rare cosmic flukeor a common process in the universe. The research also highlights the remarkable ingenuity behind these sample-return missions, which have delivered tiny time capsules from the birth of our solar system directly into our hands.It is both exciting and humbling to work with these samples, Koga said. They are extremely limited and represent material that has remained largely unchanged since the early Solar System. At the same time, there is a strong sense of responsibility, because each tiny grain may contain important information about how organic molecules formed and evolved before the origin of life.Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week.

Nature, Published online: 17 March 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-00856-7One pill for obesity is already on the market, and more are on the way. But the injected drugs have key advantages.

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LOS ANGELESClaiming it was the only place he wanted to go after receiving one of Hollywoods highest honors, Academy Award winner for Best Live Action Short Film Jack Piatt celebrated Tuesday by taking his Oscar to his In-N-Out shift. When I heard our film get called, there was no question in my mindI was going to hop in my car and go straight to the In-N-Out Burger on Sunset so I could clock in, said Piatt,who after arriving at the popular fast food chain immediately put down his Academy Award, put on an apron, and frantically rushed behind the counter to work the griddle. Sure, some people in my position would rather go to the Governors Ball or the Vanity Fair afterparty, but I just feel more at home here. Plus, my boss says if I miss another day of work, hell fire me. And Im superbehind on rent this month. At press time, Piatt had reportedly been let go after various fans photographed him holding his statuette and eating a burger with 30 minutes still left in his shift.The post Live Action Short Film Winner Celebrates By Taking Oscar To In-N-Out Shift appeared first on The Onion.

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