Stratospheric balloons are giving astronomers sharper views of the universe
The post Balloon-Borne Telescopes Take Off appeared first on Nautilus.
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Nobody did. But he’s is our new overlord anyway This is incredibly concerning: The highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department is departing after a clash with allies of billionaire Elon Musk over access to sensitive payment systems, according to three people with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private talks. David A. Lebryk, who served in nonpolitical roles at Treasury for several decades, announced his retirement Friday in an email to colleagues obtained by The Washington Post. President Donald Trump named Lebryk as acting secretary upon taking office last week. Lebryk had a dispute with Musk’s surrogates over access to the payment system the U.S. government uses to disburse trillions of dollars every year, the people said. The exact nature of the disagreement was not immediately clear, they said. Officials affiliated with Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” have been asking since after the election for access to the system, the people said — requests that were reiterated more recently, including after Trump’s inauguration.
This Bluesky thread was written by former Obama and Biden administrator, Zealan Hoover: I ran $100 billion in Infrastructure and IRA programs at EPA. We obligated over $70 billion onto signed awards and contracts to protect public health and the environment. All that funding is currently frozen. Here are the facts… On January 20, Trump signed Executive Order 14154 (“Unleashing American Energy”) that directed agencies to “immediately pause the disbursement of funds” from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Infrastructure Law (IIJA/BIL). NOTE: EOs do not give agencies special power to break the law. Not paying grantees with signed grant agreements is illegal. While there are certain activities EPA has discretion to pause, such as designing new competitions and making new awards, once a grant award is signed with a grantee the government is legally obligated to pay them. This obligation to pay is clearly enshrined in 2 CFR § 200.305.
The horrors of the Israeli assault on Gaza and its people are beyond words. Yet, as we watch hundreds of thousands of Palestinians make their way across the ruins of Gaza to return to where their homes once stood, we cannot help but admire their resilience and their refusal to be displaced from their land […]
They’re not even trying to hide it: When Donald J. Trump sued CBS for $10 billion days before the 2024 election, accusing the company of deceptively editing a “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, many legal experts dismissed the litigation as a far-fetched attempt to punish an out-of-favor news outlet. Now Mr. Trump is back in the White House, and many executives at CBS’s parent company, Paramount, believe that settling the lawsuit would increase the odds that the Trump administration does not block or delay their planned multibillion-dollar merger with another company, according to several people with knowledge of the matter. I will not be surprised to hear of corporate executives down at Mar-a-Lago whispering that if Trump were to sue them over… whatever … they would have to talk to their board about “settling it”, if you know what I mean.
Hercules, demigod and hero, in a fit of madness brought on by FOMO and too much HGTV, did consult with the Oracle of Delphi about buying a house. The Oracle, in her wisdom, and in partnership with Redfin, advised Hercules, “You know, there’s really never a bad time to get on the property ladder.” And thus, Hercules did put an offer in on a house, and he did cry out, “Oh shit,” when it was accepted, and subsequently, these Twelve Labors were imposed upon him.
1. The Slaying of the Goodwill Acceptable Donations Policy by Surreptitiously Dropping Off, Among Other Items That Should Have Just Gone in the Trash, the Red Wine-Stained Skin of the Nemean Lion, Which Hercules Only Wore Once
2. The Slaying of the Movers Who Broke Hercules’s Only Box of Plates, Not with Violence, But by Leaving a Scathing Google Review Comparing Them to a Nine-Headed Hydra with a Case of the Dropsies
3. The Capture of the Elusive 2022 W2 Form Required to Finalize Hercule’s Mortgage Application, Which Was Somehow Not in the Bankers Box Marked “Important Documents” Even Though Hercules Definitely Remembers Putting It in There
In the last three years there has been a blizzard of new laws with respect to youth justice across Australia. While some laws have been welcome, a substantial number have been retrograde. In this category, laws with respect to young children have been the most controversial. This fact has attracted critical attention from a number Continue reading »
Australian inflation is almost back in the target range of 2-3%. The Reserve Bank should begin to cut interest rates now. This will help avoid a recession as well as substantially reducing cost-of-living pressures on the one third of households with a mortgage. Inflation outlook The critical economic question is when interest rates will start Continue reading »
The unilateral action of the Israeli government to ban the UN specialised agency UNRWA and its humanitarian work in Palestine is wrong, both morally and legally. Moreover it threatens the substructure of specialised agencies that underlies the UN system generally, on which relief and humanitarian assistance for poverty stricken or famine affected regions and their Continue reading »
`It may be reasonable to ask if there is an intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system, an action known as `scholasticide’ – UN OHCHR. Among the many dimensions of deliberate destruction of Gaza is that of the Palestinian education sector. In its April 2024 expression of concern about the pattern of assaults Continue reading »
Trump’s economic projects involve billions from the Saudi Arabian government — and the committee overseeing the deals is stacked with Saudi-connected officials.
In 2024, the Army recorded more Class A flight mishaps — the most serious type of aircraft accidents — than it has in a decade.
The post Army Helicopter Accidents Are Occurring at Near Record Rates appeared first on The Intercept.
But they can still do a lot of damage The Trump “Rolling Thunder” operation, as former presidential adviser Steve Bannon calls it, hasbeen in full effect in the week and a half since Donald Trump was restored to the presidency. Day after day, one atrocity after another has been perpetrated on the American people as Trump and his henchmen take a wrecking ball to the federal government. Do they know what they’re doing or are they just throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks? Over the course of these 10 tumultuous days Trump has pardoned or commuted the sentences of all the January 6th rioters and his Justice Department has closed any pending cases. Various agencies have fired and demoted personnel, some of which can only be seen as acts of retribution such as the firing of career prosecutors who worked on the Jack Smith Special Counsel cases and the dismissal of almost all the Inspectors General.
There was a flurry of Ofcom complaints after a series of offensive remarks by presenters on the right-wing channel
Updated last part of our five part special investigation into the disappearance of the Rugby star Levis Davis