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The Winter Olympics are heating up.

While Norway and Italy are duking it out for the most medals, Team USA has slid into fourth. On the snow, Americans medaled in men’s cross-country, men’s freestyle skiing, and women’s team skiing. On the ice, the Stars and Stripes won its first-ever silver in curling mixed doubles and picked up bronze in women’s luge. 

Ice-dance duo Evan Bates and Madison Chock—currently in second—are hoping to skate past France in tonight’s final (see their first-round, bullfighting-inspired routine), and women’s hockey is advancing to the quarterfinals after besting rival Canada 5-0 yesterday in prelims. 

Meanwhile, podium-hopefuls are being cautioned of falling ice and snow hardware after several Olympians’ medals fell off their ribbons. Officials say they’re giving “maximum attention” to the delicate decorations and working on a stronger solution. 

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Verse to consider whether you feel like you’re skating through life or like you’re trying to waddle across the ice without slipping… “I will bless the LORD at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. I will boast in the LORD; the humble will hear and be glad. Proclaim the LORD’s greatness with me; let us exalt his name together.”
Psalm 34:1-3 (CSB) (read full passage)

Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi just won a landslide victory.

The Land of the Rising Sun’s first female PM called for snap elections Sunday (learn what snap elections are here). The risk paid off… 90% of her party’s Liberal Democratic candidates won, securing 316 out of 465 seats for the actually-quite-conservative Liberals. With her two-thirds supermajority, Takaichi aims to tackle the world’s fourth-largest economy’s massive debt and sluggish growth, an aging population, and tensions with neighboring China. 

The “Iron Lady” made waves in the Pacific by promising to check Chinese threats to Japan’s islands, including those near Taiwan. Central to Takaichi’s plan for a “strong and prosperous” Japan is major defense spending; President Trump praised her "conservative, peace through strength agenda,” while Beijing said Tokyo is on the “wrong path” toward “militarism.”

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ETERNAL PERSPECTIVE
Just as many Americans view the outcomes of foreign elections with a certain level of detachment, Christians view earthly political outcomes as secondary to the campaign of our eternal home, where we hold our truest citizenship. 

“From now on, then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective… In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us.” 
2 Corinthians 5:16, 19-20 (CSB) (read full passage)

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Mars has been eclipsed by the Moon on SpaceX’s intragalactic to-do list.

CEO Elon Musk said Sunday that SpaceX is pausing its long-held Martian ambitions in favor of building a “self-growing city” on the Moon within a decade, claiming Earth’s plus-one offers a “faster” path to securing humanity’s future. This is a departure from Musk’s 2025 insistence that the Moon was a “distraction” from its Red Planet plans.   

The lunar shift orbits the company’s recent xAI merger, fueling talk of using the Moon’s cheese resources to build space-based data centers, and it aligns the company with NASA in its race with China to get more footprints on the Moon by 2028.

In more terrestrial business, YouTuber MrBeast took one small Step for Gen Z, buying the teen-focused banking app to boost young people’s financial literacy.

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PRAY WITH US
When space is in the news, it’s a good time to ponder the beauty of God’s mind-blowing transcendence and tender nearness. In light of that, join us in praying Psalm 8:

“LORD, our Lord, how magnificent is your name throughout the earth! You have covered the heavens with your majesty… When I observe your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place, what is a human being that you remember him, a son of man that you look after him? You made him little less than God and crowned him with glory and honor.”
Psalm 8:1-5 (CSB) (read full passage)

Israel’s PM Netanyahu is visiting Pennsylvania Ave today to talk about “principles” for U.S.-Iran nuclear talks. Meetings were moved forward a week after President Trump’s delegates opened negotiations with Iran on Friday. In Wednesday’s “strategy-shaping session,” Israel reportedly plans to share intelligence, prepare contingencies for failed talks, and push for “limits on ballistic missiles” (in addition to nuclear weapons).

The Super Halftime Bowl scoreboard is official. According to Nielsen, Bad Bunny’s much-discussed halftime fiesta (or wedding singer gig) was the fourth-most watched halftime show ever, averaging 128.2M viewers (3.3M more than the game itself). Meanwhile, TPUSA’s counter-programming option “All-American Halftime Show” drew 6.1M concurrent viewers on YouTube. The group called it a “massive success,” vowing to repeat in 2027.

Yesterday, the FBI released footage of a subject in the investigation into Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance. Images show a masked, gloved, and armed person tampering with the 84-year-old’s doorbell camera on February 1, the morning she went missing. The FBI uncovered the images from “residual data located in backend systems” and is seeking the public’s help to identify the person.

Cuba is running on fumes. On Sunday, Cuban officials announced that aircraft wouldn’t be able to refuel on the island amid a jet fuel shortage, forcing airlines to reroute or suspend Cuba-bound flights. The diesel deficit has worsened following the U.S.’s capture of former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, which severed Cuba’s access to Venezuelan oil.

Ghislaine Maxwell is pleading the Fifth. The former Epstein associate declined to answer questions during a closed-door congressional deposition Monday. Maxwell’s lawyers said she’d talk if granted clemency by President Trump, and that both Trump and former President Clinton “are innocent.” The House first subpoenaed Maxwell last July as part of its ongoing probe into federal handling of the Epstein case.

How to keep an Olympic ski jump dry...

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Xan Sibley | Writer