DAMAGE to residential buildings in Sanandaj, Iranian Kurdistan, following a military strike (Wikipedia).

President Donald Trump on Friday called for the “unconditional surrender” of Iran.

The New York Times is reporting that such a capitulation would have to be followed by “the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader (s)” as he posted on his Truth Social media platform.

At the same time, the war rages across the Middle East, involving not just the U.S. and Iran, but also Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Israel has “heavily” bombarded Beirut and its suburbs and conducted “intense” strikes on the Iranian capital city of Tehran.

A wave of missiles and drones were launched at the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, but no major damage has been reported.

There are also news reports that Russia has provided intelligence to Iran during this conflict, including satellite views showing the location of U.S. military forces and ships.

More Epstein files are released

New FBI documents that include an interview with a woman who claims President Donald Trump sexually abused her when she was a teenager have been released.

JEFFREY EPSTEIN (Wikipedia).

Before now, those pages of interviews had been withheld from others from the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to United Press International.

The reason for the delay, officials said, was that they were mistakenly believed the documents were “duplicates.”I

n the interview, the unnamed women said she was sexually abused by Epstein and Trump when she was between the ages of 13 and 15 in the 1980s.

The White House stated on Friday that Trump has been “totally exonerated by the release of the Epstein files.”

Unemployment rises as jobs are lost

In a surprising turn, American employers cut their payrolls by a total of 92,000 jobs in February, according to the Associated Press.

JOBS LOST in February are 92,000 (Shutterstock).

The U.S. Department of Labor reported that an increase of about 60,000 new jobs was expected last month – a dip from 126,000 new jobs in January.

Unemployment nationally rose to 4.4 percent; 4 percent is generally considered “full employment.”

Factors influencing the downturn are considered to be economic uncertainty over the war in Iran, which in turn led to a rise in oil prices which added costs to businesses and consumers alike.

“The job market is struggling in the face of so many headwinds,” said Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. “It’s a tense time for the U.S. economy.”

Weather: Warm weekend, and then …

If you like a warm weekend for the beach, it’s coming to our West Orange County area. The forecast for Saturday is for a daytime high of 80 and an overnight low of 57 under sunny skies. Sunday will be even warmer with a daytime high of 88 and an overnight low of 55. But Monday will cool off quite a bit with temps of 73 (54), but still sunny. Tuesday will see partly cloudy conditions and temps of 72 (53).

Great Thoughts (memories)

“Make peace with your past, so it doesn’t destroy your present.”
– Paoli Coelho

“A memory without the emotional charge is called wisdom.”
– Joe Dispenza.

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
– Dr. Seuss.