Greetings! Happy World Water Day to those celebrating.

Let’s get into today’s top stories.

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🌏 Diego Garcia goes from remote outpost to missile-era headline. Iran launched missiles at Diego Garcia. The target was a remote United Kingdom-United States base in the Indian Ocean. Britain called the attempt reckless. Officials have not said how close the missiles came. The island sits about 2,500 miles from Iran. That is well beyond Tehran’s usual self-imposed missile range. Analysts said the strike may have relied on an adapted space-launch rocket. Diego Garcia matters because Britain now lets American bombers use it against Iranian missile sites. The island also carries an older wound, because Britain expelled as many as 2,000 residents to build the base. The base is strategic, but the sovereignty dispute never left with the runway.

🇮🇷 The war edges closer to Israel’s nuclear nerve center. Iran struck two communities near Israel’s main nuclear research center late Saturday. At least seven people were seriously injured. One direct hit in Arad damaged at least 10 apartment buildings. Three of those buildings were left in danger of collapse. Rescue workers said at least 64 people were taken to hospitals. The strikes came hours after Iran’s main enrichment site was hit. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said trouble intercepting missiles near Dimona marked a new phase. Dimona sits about 12 miles from the research center. Arad is about 22 miles north. Donald Trump then gave Iran 48 hours to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face attacks on power plants.

🛄 Travelers have a simple shutdown fix and it starts with a paycheck. American airline travelers gave a remarkably simple answer to the shutdown. Pay the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The vast majority of TSA staff are deemed essential. About 50,000 are still working without pay. On Thursday, roughly 10% of officers missed work nationwide. In some places, absentee rates were two or three times higher. Travelers at Reagan National Airport and Harry Reid International Airport said the unpaid officers deserve gratitude. Many also said gratitude is not compensation. Long lines have turned a budget standoff into a literal queue. At the checkpoint, Washington’s dysfunction now rolls through the scanner one bag at a time.

🔥 March is acting like July, and the Southwest is paying attention. March is behaving like July across parts of the Southwest. Two Arizona communities hit 112 degrees Fahrenheit on Friday. That broke the highest March temperature ever recorded in the United States. Two Southern California locations hit the same mark. Scientists said the heat would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change. World Weather Attribution reached that conclusion in a flash analysis. Researchers said warming added about 4.7 to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit to what people felt. Experts say dangerous extremes are now arriving earlier and in stranger places. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data also show the area hit by extreme weather has doubled from 20 years ago. The calendar still says spring, but the atmosphere has clearly skipped ahead.

🤧 Allergy season is back, and climate makes it meaner. Allergy season is miserable for tens of millions of Americans. Experts say climate change is making it longer and more intense. Last year was one of the worst seasons on record, especially in the Southeast. Tree pollen dominates early spring. Grass follows after that. Weeds get their turn later in summer and fall. Boise, San Diego, Tulsa, Provo, and Rochester top this year’s allergy-capital list. Doctors say the first defense is avoidance. Shut the windows, shower after going outside, and use saline, masks, nasal sprays, or allergy pills. When pollen starts running your schedule, an allergist is no longer an overreaction.

📉 March Madness keeps doing what probability says it should do to hope. Perfect brackets are down to the single digits. Texas did most of the damage. The Longhorns beat Gonzaga 74-68 on Saturday night. Nebraska then beat Vanderbilt 74-72. Texas knocked the remaining perfect entries into double-digit territory. After that upset, ESPN still had 22 flawless brackets. The NCAA contest still had 27. Nebraska’s win and Arkansas beating High Point kept the demolition going. By night’s end, ESPN was down to two perfect cards and the NCAA had four. March Madness still markets possibility, but its other business is crushing certainty at industrial scale.

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That’s all for today!

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