By United Press International, Inc. | | 3/17/2026 9:36 PM
S. Korea's Shinsegae Group has partnered with U.S. AI firm Reflection AI to build the country's largest AI data center, marking a major step in Korea. ... Read full Story
Canada's privacy commissioner said the agency agreed to measures to ensure international sports bodies only use highly sensitive personal information for anti-doping purposes. ... Read full Story
Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Ukraine's allies not to forget about his country, and suggested the U.S. and others should make use of Ukraine's anti-drone technology during the war. ... Read full Story
Bank of America tentatively settled a lawsuit claiming it ignored suspicious financial transactions involving Jeffrey Epstein while he sexually abused hundreds of girls and women. ... Read full Story
Defence Minister David McGuinty said the Canadian Armed Forces 'are not involved in the prosecution of this war' while underscoring that position is not going to change. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 3/17/2026 2:57 PM
Diplomatic tensions between Argentina and Iran escalated after Iranian reacted to President Javier Milei calling the Islamic Republic an enemy. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 3/17/2026 1:21 PM
Suspected suicide bombings in Nigeria have killed at least 23 and injured 108 in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state. Boko Haram is suspected. ... Read full Story
Trump’s visit to China is seen as an opportunity to build on a fragile trade truce, but it has become tangled in his effort to find an endgame to the war in Iran. ... Read full Story
Electricity was slowly being restored to hospitals and some of the island's 11 million residents, but officials warned that its crumbling power network could fail again. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 3/17/2026 12:05 PM
Ecuador's armed forces destroyed 129 illegal mining camps inside Podocarpus National Park to ferret out groups engaged in illegal gold extraction. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 3/17/2026 11:15 AM
A magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck eastern Cuba early Tuesday, hours after the island's national power grid collapsed. No deaths were reported. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 3/17/2026 11:11 AM
Two people have died out of 15 cases of bacterial meningitis at the University of Kent in England, and students are being offered a vaccine. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 3/17/2026 10:27 AM
Colombian President Gustavo Petro said authorities found an active explosive device near the border with Ecuador, possibly from an aircraft. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 3/17/2026 9:23 AM
The Korea SMEs and Startups Agency has established a demonstration hub in Boston to support Korean firms developing AI-powered robotics technologies. ... Read full Story
White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said oil tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz starting to move is "a sign of how little Iran has left." ... Read full Story
The office of Israel's president down to its ambassador in Ottawa, the message is the same: Canada must do more to curb threats against Jews. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 3/17/2026 8:19 AM
A Russian airborne assault targeting eastern and southern Ukraine with attack drones, bombs and artillery left 11 people dead and more than 50 injured ... Read full Story
The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s all-volunteer Basij force, were “eliminated last night," Israel said. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 3/17/2026 5:55 AM
Israel said it killed Iranian security chief Ali Larijani and Basij paramilitary force commander Gholamreza Soleimani in airstrikes overnight. ... Read full Story
By United Press International, Inc. | | 3/17/2026 5:43 AM
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected a memorial museum under construction to honor troops dispatched to fight for Russia in Ukraine, state media reported Tuesday. ... Read full Story
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 19, 2026 is:
nadir \NAY-deer\ noun
Nadir refers to the lowest or worst point of something. When used in astronomy, nadir describes the point of the celestial sphere that is directly opposite the zenith and vertically downward from the observer.
// Only once the novel’s protagonist reaches her nadir does she arouse the reader’s empathy, and we root for her to climb back to respectability.
“Sacrament dives right into the nadir of the 2020 health crisis, following a group of nurses who have moved into makeshift housing near a California hospital, to isolate from their families during the height of the case surge.” — James Folta, LitHub.com, 1 July 2025
Did you know?
Nadir is part of the galaxy of scientific words that have come to us from Arabic, a language that has made important contributions to the English lexicon especially in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and chemistry. The source of nadir is naḍhīr, meaning “opposite”—the opposite, that is, of the zenith, the highest point of the celestial sphere which is positioned vertically above the observer. (The word zenith itself is a modification of another Arabic word that means “the way over one’s head.”) Though born of the heavens, both words are called upon to refer to earthy things too, especially a significant point or period of time, be it a high point or low one.