
Scientists are trying to control lightning with a massive laser
CNN
A team of researchers from the University of Geneva has hauled a huge laser atop a mountain to shoot it at the sky and act as a high-tech lightning rod.
The team is led by Jean-Pierre Wolf, a Swiss physicist who's been working with laser for more than 20 years and has been particularly fascinated with attempting to control the weather with it. Laser creates very narrow, high-energy beams of light. Its applications range from cutting diamonds to surgery to reading barcodes, and Wolf believes he can add another to the list: protecting us from lightning.
The US military’s strikes in Iran over the weekend prompted a swift response from across the federal government to react to any fallout, but current and former officials say the administration’s DOGE-driven cuts to a host of agencies have made it harder to grapple with the conflict and prepare for potential retaliation.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe on Wednesday said in a statement that the agency had obtained “a body of credible evidence [that] indicates Iran’s Nuclear Program has been severely damaged” by recent strikes, underscoring a broad intelligence community effort is ongoing to determine the impact of the US strikes on three of the country’s nuclear sites on Saturday.

White House’s DOGE spending cuts request runs into criticism, questions from some Senate Republicans
The head of the White House budget office on Wednesday defended the Trump administration’s push to enact sweeping cuts to federal funding, even as some Republican senators voiced concerns and raised questions about the breadth of them.