Thursday☕️

13 Mar 2025 — 4 min read

Trending:

Yesterday, March 12, 2025, Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, experienced an incident involving a gas leak and an explosion in a manhole near a substation around 7 p.m. The explosion caused power outages and green flames to emerge from manholes across campus, leading to the evacuation of buildings like the Engineering Key and the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center. No injuries were reported, and the university closed its Lubbock campus on March 13 and 14, extending spring break. The cause of the incident is still under investigation by emergency officials.

The green flames likely resulted from burning copper or chemicals in the utility system, a common occurrence when electrical components ignite. Lubbock Fire Rescue contained the fire by late evening, but the exact reason for the blast—whether equipment failure or another issue—remains unclear. The university cut power campus-wide as a precaution while officials assess the situation.

Economics & Markets:

Geopolitics & Military Activity:

After an agreement was signed on March 10, 2025, between Syria’s interim government and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Damascus, some calm returned to northeastern Syria. The interim government, led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, and the SDF, a Kurdish-led group controlling much of the region, agreed to cooperate. This followed heavy fighting, particularly after Bashar al-Assad’s regime fell on December 8, 2024. The deal stated that the SDF would join the Syrian army, hand over control of oil fields and border posts, and cease hostilities with the interim government by the end of 2025. This ended the conflict between the SDF and the interim government, reducing fighting in that specific relationship, but it did not stop all combat in the area, as the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) continues to clash with the SDF. The agreement was a significant attempt to unify parts of Syria.

The agreement halted fighting between the SDF and the interim government, easing tensions in the northeast between those two parties. However, it did not address the SDF’s ongoing conflict with the SNA, backed by Turkey, which remains active in areas like Manbij. Negotiations began in January 2025, supported by U.S. involvement, leading to this deal. It brought stability to the SDF-interim government dynamic, secured oil resources for Damascus, and reduced some violence, but the region still sees fighting due to unresolved issues with groups like the SNA.

Environment & Weather:

Space:

Yesterday, March 12, 2025, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida for the Starlink Group 12-21 mission. The rocket successfully deployed 21 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit, including 13 with Direct to Cell features.

The first-stage booster, B1069, completed its 22nd flight and landed on the droneship "Just Read the Instructions" in the Atlantic Ocean about eight minutes after launch.

Science & Technology:

On March 10, 2025, Reka announced the open-source release of a research preview of Reka Flash 3, a 21-billion-parameter AI model. This model is designed for general-purpose tasks, including chat, coding, following instructions, and function calling. It performs competitively with other leading compact models, such as OpenAI’s o1-mini, making it a strong choice for applications requiring low latency or on-device use. Reka has open-sourced key parts of the model, including its weights and code, allowing developers and researchers to experiment with and integrate it into their own projects. By making Reka Flash 3 accessible, the company aims to encourage collaboration and innovation within the AI community while demonstrating the potential of high-performing, compact AI models.
Reka, founded in 2022, is a research and product-focused AI company specializing in multimodal AI models that process text, images, video, and audio. Their portfolio includes Reka Core (67B parameters), Reka Flash (21B), Reka Edge (7B), and Reka Spark (2B), each tailored for different use cases, from cloud-based applications to efficient on-device AI. By embracing an open-source approach, Reka aims to accelerate AI innovation, empower developers with greater accessibility, and foster a collaborative ecosystem that pushes the boundaries of what compact, high-performance AI models can achieve.

Statistic: