The Daily Moth 3-18-2025
Hello it is Tuesday, March 18, 2025. I’m back here and here are today’s top stories.
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Trump and Putin speak on phone
President Trump and Russian President Putin had a phone call today to discuss a ceasefire proposal with Ukraine.
The White House said Putin agreed to a “energy infrastructure ceasefire,” which is an halt on airstrikes on energy infrastructure for 30 days.
The Russian government said Putin said he wants to see the US stop providing military aid and intelligence assistance to Ukraine before he agrees to a broader ceasefire that could lead to the end the conflict.
Trump told Fox News after the call that they didn’t talk about aid at all.
The Russian government also said they want Ukraine to pull back their troops from regions in Eastern Ukraine that Russia has annexed and for Ukraine to renounce any prospect of joining the NATO. So Russia is making a lot of demans.
Ukrainian President Zelenskyy said there needs to be transparency in what Putin and Trump talked about he hopes to get full information.
It’s a small step towards peace, we can suppose.
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Israeli military pounds Gaza with bombs
Overnight, the Israeli military carried out multiple airstrikes in Gaza, saying they were targeting Hamas. This is an end to a ceasefire that has lasted for almost two months and comes after deadlocks during the negotiations process for the second part of the ceasefire. Israeli PM Netanyahu said the airstrikes are just the “beginning” and it’s because Hamas refused to return the remaining hostages.
Officials in Gaza said over 400 people were killed, including over 130 children and many women, and that hundreds of people were wounded. News images showed Palestinians weeping over bodies of victims that were wrapped in blankets with blood stains. News reports said at least five Hamas senior officials were killed.
There are between 20 to 30 living hostages still in Gaza and the resumption in fighting has brought new fears about their future. A Hamas official said the new airstrikes is a “death sentence” for them.
There were rallies and protests in Israel by those who are expressing deep concern for the living hostages still in Gaza as the Israeli military resumes its bombardment. Some families of hostages urged the Israeli government to stop the airstrikes.
The Trump administration has expressed full support and backing for Israel. Separately, the US has carried out military strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, who has been carrying out attacks against commercial ships in the Red Sea and firing at Israel.
So, the war is heating up in this region.
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Missing college student’s family believes she drowned
The family of Sudiksha Konanki, the 20-year-old University of Pittsburgh student who went missing after going to the beach with a group of people during the early morning hours on March 6 in the Dominican Republic, believe she drowned.
Authorities have searched for a body in the waters off the country, but hasn’t found her.
The last person who saw Konanki was identified as Joshua Riibe, a student at a Minnesota university, who was among the group of people that went to the beach. Riibe told investigators that he went into the ocean with Konanki and a large wave dragged them away from shore. He said he managed to carry Konanki back to shallow water and saw her walking inXZ knee-high water before he vomited and later passed out on the beach. He said he never saw her again after he woke up.
The Konanki family, who reside in Virginia, have asked Dominican Republic authorities to formally declare her dead to bring them closure and enable them to honor her memory.
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Starliner astronauts return home after 9-month delay
NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore finally returned to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon capsule today that splashed down off the coast of Florida. They went up to space last June for what was supposed to be an eight-day-long trip to the International Space Station but due to problems with their Boeing Starliner spacecraft, they had to stay on the ISS for over nine months.
The astronauts finally came back home after two separate SpaceX crews went up to the ISS, one of them with two empty seats, to make it possible for Suni and Butch to come back.
Suni and Butch said they enjoyed their time up in ISS and that they were prepared to stay up long as a part of their training.
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Chief Justice Roberts issues statement on impeaching judges
President Trump complained about the federal judge that temporarily blocked his administration’s deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members by calling the judge to be “crooked” and saying he should be “impeached!”
A short time later, Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts issued a brief statement that said, “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
It takes a majority vote in the House of Representatives to impeach a judge, but it takes a two-thirds vote in the Senate to convict, which is unlikely in the closely divided Senate chamber.
Roberts is basically saying, if you don’t like the judge’s decision, you can appeal, but it’s not appropriate for the president or anyone to call on the judge to be impeached.
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Chinese citizen sentenced 2 years for smuggling 2,000 turtles
Federal prosecutors said a Chinese citizen has been sentenced to about 2 1/2 years in prison for smuggling more than 2,000 turtles from the US to Hong Kong over about five years. He would ship the turtles in packages using fake names. Some of the turtles were put in socks.
The man, who is 54, transported eastern box turtles, which is a protected species, for the global pet trade black market. The turtles are valued at about $2,000 per turtle so the total value of all the turtles is about $4.2 million. An expert said turtles with colorful markings are highly prized pets in China and Hong Kong.
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That is all the top stories for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light.