Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. (DDG 121) sails in the Arabian Sea during Operation Epic Fury, on March 18, 2026. (U.S. Navy photo)
U.S. Central Command announced Saturday that its forces began setting conditions for clearing mines in the Strait of Hormuz as negotiations are ongoing between the U.S. and Iran in Pakistan.
“USS Frank E. Peterson (DDG 121) and USS Michael Murphy (DDG 112) transited the Strait of Hormuz and operated in the Arabian Gulf as part of a broader mission to ensure the strait is fully clear of sea mines previously laid by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps,” CENTCOM said in a statement.
“Today, we began the process of establishing a new passage and we will share this safe pathway with the maritime industry soon to encourage the free flow of commerce,” added Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of CENTCOM.
This is the first time U.S. guided-missile destroyers have crossed the Strait of Hormuz since the war with Iran began.
The USS Frank E. Peterson and the USS Michael Murphy were previously in the Arabian Sea before crossing the Strait.
CENTCOM described the Strait of Hormuz Saturday as “ an international sea passage and an essential trade corridor that supports regional and global economic prosperity.”
“Additional U.S. forces, including underwater drones, will join the clearance effort in the coming days,” it said.
For the third time in a century, Germany is destroying Europe
The suicidal Energiewende (energy transition) that Berlin forced on the entire European continent is now threatening to shatter the EU itself. If Germany refuses to abandon its wind-and-solar fantasy at home and in Brussels, France, Poland, the Nordics, Benelux and Central Europe are ready to form a new energy alliance. One that puts cheap, abundant power first and could link arms with energy-dominant America.
BRUSSELS – While the globalist elite in Europe continue to worship at the altar of the “Green Transition,” a quiet rebellion is brewing that could finally rip the EU apart. A radical new proposal circulating in Brussels cuts through all the climate cult nonsense with brutal clarity. One single article declaring cheap, abundant energy the absolute top priority of the European Union – and automatically nullifying any existing EU regulation that gets in the way.
The text is short, savage, and long overdue: “European Regulation – Single Article. Cheap, abundant energy is now the #1 priority of the European Union. From this day forward, any existing European regulation that contradicts this imperative is hereby declared null and void.”
Translation for the Brussels bureaucrats: Stop destroying your own continent with ideology. The villain of the story is Germany’s infamous Energiewende – the green energy “transition” launched in 2011 that has become the textbook definition of economic self-immolation.
Berlin decreed: close perfectly safe nuclear plants, flood profitable coal mines, bet everything on unreliable wind and solar. Then ram the same madness down the throat of every EU member through the unelected European Commission.
Europe followed Berlin like lemmings
Result? Germany now has the most expensive electricity in the world. Contracts for German power were trading at up to five times the price of French nuclear power as recently as March 2026. German industry is being gutted. Hundreds of billions of euros have been burned on grid overhauls, subsidies, backup power plants, and energy imports. All while households and factories get crushed by prices four times higher than in the United States.
And Europe followed Berlin like lemmings. The continent blew tens of billions more on emergency gas imports in 2025 alone, making itself hostage to geopolitics while its industrial base crumbled. The very foundation of modern civilization – reliable, affordable energy – was sacrificed on the altar of intermittent “renewables” and German green virtue-signaling.
Meanwhile, France looks like the adult in the room. Its nuclear fleet delivers stable, dispatchable, competitive power. France exports electricity to its neighbors and keeps its industry alive. The contrast could not be starker.
Now the bill is coming due. If Germany refuses to abandon the Energiewende – both inside its own borders and at the EU level – the countries that still possess an “instinct for industrial survival” have no choice but to act.
France, Poland, the Nordic nations, Benelux, and several Central and Eastern European states share a vital national interest that overrides everything else: realistic energy policy based on physics, not fantasy.
Toward a privileged strategic partnership with the United States?
The writing is on the wall. A new European energy union could emerge – one founded on abundant, cheap, reliable power instead of German-imposed green dogma. And in a world where America under President Trump is once again embracing “Drill Baby Drill,” opening up domestic production and driving energy prices down, why wouldn’t the saner European nations seek a privileged strategic partnership with the United States?
Energy is not a “nice-to-have.” It is the prerequisite for industry, jobs, prosperity, and genuine sovereignty. An EU that continues to let Germany’s ideological fever dream dictate policy is an EU marching toward decadence and eventual breakup.
The proposed one-article regulation is not just a policy tweak. It is a declaration of economic survival. The Gateway Pundit has warned for years that the climate cult and globalist green agenda would destroy Western industry. Germany proved us right. Now even the Europeans are starting to wake up.
If Berlin won’t drop the Energiewende, the rest of Europe should drop the EU. And build something better with the energy superpower across the Atlantic.
Drill baby drill isn’t just an American slogan anymore. It’s the future Europe desperately needs – whether Berlin likes it or not.
“Friday’s splashdown is unlikely to be as dazzling a sight here on Earth as the April 1 launch was — but the astronauts will have a show from within their capsule as they soar through the atmosphere at nearly 25,000 mph on a tail of fire and the capsule heats to upward of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
NASA said they’ll feel 3.9 Gs on the way back to terra firma — and hit a maximum velocity of 23,864 mph.
Parachutes will then deploy to slow the capsule, until it hits the water at around 17 mph, and the crew is snatched up by a waiting recovery ship.”
Crew portrait for Artemis II: NASA Astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, Canadian Space Agency Astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
“A Navy transport dock ship, the USS John P. Murtha, will be in position with a crew of divers and helicopters to make sure Artemis II’s brave astronauts — Cmdr. Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and specialists Jeremy Hensen and Christina Koch — are recovered safely from the capsule.”
About one month ago, a convicted ISIS supporter named Mohamed Jalloh carried out a shooting at Old Dominion University.
He targeted an ROTC classroom and tragically killed the instructor, Lt. Col. Brandon Shah.
But, it could have been much worse if not for the brave actions taken by Lt. Col. Shah and several of the cadets that day.
As you may recall, the terrorist was taken down by ROTC students who essentially stabbed and beat him to death.
Now, those heroic cadets are sharing their own, personal accounts of what happened.
Several of the students credited the bravery of their teacher for saving them.
You have to watch this:
For those who prefer to read, Fox News summed up the cadets’ stories:
Students involved in the incident reflected on that day, saying it was a day like any other.
During the class period, a student said a man they didn’t recognize, later identified as Jalloh, walked into the classroom and repeatedly and nervously asked if this class was ROTC.
“I wasn’t thinking about what that question really meant,” said Cadet Louis Ancheta.
As Shah confirmed the class was ROTC, Cadet Wesley Myers, who was in class that day, said Jalloh shouted “Allahu Akbar” and began shooting at Shah.
Instincts immediately kicked in and Shah lunged toward the gunman, according to the students.
As Shah wrestled with the gunman, Ancheta leaped into action, taking a pocket-knife and repeatedly stabbing Jalloh.
“If he didn’t lunge at him, I wouldn’t be here right now,” said Cadet Jah-Ira Utarte, who was sitting in the front row of the classroom at the time, said in an interview released by the Department of War. “There’s a possibility he could’ve turned his gun and I could’ve been next.”
Ancheta said during the fighting between his professor and the gunman, he was shot by a stray bullet.
“It really didn’t feel like it hit me,” Ancheta said. He continued to attempt to subdue the gunman alongside Shah and other cadets jumped in.
Once the gun was away from Jalloh, Cadet Jeremy Rawlinson said they immediately switched to combat care.
“It just was what I felt I had to do in that moment, to get there and do what I could,” Myers said. “It’s different when it’s not a mannequin and it’s your friend.”
Cadet Samuel Reineberg said he was “like a laser beam” to Shah, who had been shot in the chest.
It wasn’t until later that day, the students found out about Shah’s death
“There was definitely a sense of, ‘could we have done more?’” Cadet Oshea Bego said.
Shah is regarded as a hero among his students.
“[Shah] used the last of his strength to tackle that guy and it gave us just enough time that we needed to be able to get on [the gunman],” Rawlinson said.
“One of the last things he told my mom when they met this summer was that he would take care of me. He followed through on that word,” Bego said.
Wow.
Lt. Col. Shah is the very picture of heroism. He sacrificed himself for his students.
It also speaks volumes about how good of a teacher he was that his students were able to quickly apply their training and stop a terrorist — without the use of firearms, no less!
